Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Eric Schmitt & Douglas Murray | 1/19/24

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We have a great show today.

Yesterday on the podcast, we had the president of Heritage who gave us a preview of the speech he was going to give at Davos.

He gave it.

We have that speech.

It's incredible.

Also, we have

one sexy, sexy man, Senator Eric Schmidt.

You'll understand when you hear the interview.

But he's talking about how to dismantle the administrative state and something that happened in the Supreme Court this week that, fingers crossed, will change everything.

Also, Douglas Murray joins us.

Earlier this week, I spoke to a woman who used to be in the home office, Anna Stanley, in London.

She went to King's College, something that was a course, a three-day course that was made for anybody that was into Homeland Security over in England.

And in that, she found that

Muslim terrorists are not the problem.

The biggest problem that England is concerned about is those dangerous, dangerous extremists like Joe Rogan and Douglas Murray.

It is a fascinating conversation.

You don't want to miss.

Then, if you remember that

woman from Finland, she's in the Finnish parliament.

She is a pastor's wife.

She's been in parliament since 1995, and she has now gone to court twice.

They have charged her under crimes against humanity.

They have charged her because she quoted the Bible.

She's gone to court now two times, been dismissed.

They've charged her a third time.

They're just not going to let this go.

It's at the Supreme Court now in Finland, and she has to win.

Otherwise, it will be a deeply, deeply chilling

standard for freedom of speech and being able to say what you believe is true in the Bible.

And, you know, you can disagree with me or not.

It's an amazing

conversation.

Great show today.

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You're listening to

the best of the Blendbeck program.

It's like we've got a broken copy machine

and just ordered pizza.

Ding dong.

We're gonna talk some sexy, sexy things right now.

It's gonna get kind of steamy in here

because we are gonna talk about ooh

that supreme court case that's so supreme

chevron

difference

oh yeah

and we have the super hot super sexy senator eric schmidt who must appreciate

this

This intro.

Hello, Eric.

How are you?

Senator Lynn.

That's why you're a Hall of Famer.

Only you.

I'm thinking about having you on and I'm like, nobody wants to talk about Chevron deference because it's not sexy at all.

Oh, man.

That's good.

So anyway,

Chevron deference is so important.

What is happening this week, and we'll find out in June,

could be, it's not the silver bullet, but it is one of the silver bullets to put our country back onto a constitutional balance of power.

Can you explain Chevron deference?

Yeah, that's exactly right.

And so this is not getting a lot of play.

So I appreciate you making this as interesting as possible because it's one of these things that has happened and really one of the building blocks, this Chevron deference of the administrative state that is really antithetical to the vision of the founders.

He does accountability, dispersing power.

So back in the 1980s.

Sarah, can you help him out a little bit, just a little bit there?

Go ahead and hit that again.

And then, Garrett, go ahead.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

So

I'm going to have to tune that out.

I'm going to have to act like I'm shooting free throws and people are yelling at me.

But

so basically, Woodrow Wilson, who I would argue is maybe the worst president in our country's history.

Well, if you're brought in here again.

Just made the Woodrow.

I'm going to whisper Woodrow Wilson.

But anyway, so

you see the growth of these agencies over time and these alphabet agencies that take on enormous power over people's lives.

They can destroy businesses and livelihoods and take away liberty.

How did we get here?

One of the reasons we got here is there's this case called Chevron.

that was decided in the 1980s that basically said, look,

if Congress hasn't specifically spelled something out, if there's some ambiguity, we're going to defer to an agency's interpretation of that as long as it's quote unquote reasonable.

So, what that has led to over time is

the courts just saying things are ambiguous and then agreeing and going along with an agency's interpretation.

This case that's in front of the Supreme Court right now, this was called Looperbright or Relentless, which I think is a better name.

There's a second plaintiff.

Essentially, there was a 1970s law that said for for

a fishery management plan that

would allow observers to be on the vessel.

Okay, so that's kind of how it worked.

There were observers on the vessel.

The government was paying for the observers.

Then all of a sudden, more recently, the agency said, well, now you've got to pay for the observers.

And they said, well, wait a minute.

That's never how it's been done before.

And where does that say it in the statute?

And of course, it doesn't say in the statute.

The agency just wanted it that way.

So they lost at the lower court level.

This issue is now in front of the Supreme Court.

It's on that particular issue, but it's about this broader Chevron deference issue.

If my hope is that the conservative justices would overturn Chevron, this is sort of a holy grail for people who want to get back to how our founders viewed the role of government, which is...

Correct me if I'm wrong, Eric.

I mean, wasn't this written by Scalia?

Yeah, no, it's actually one of the great paradoxes.

Later on, so he was an advocate for it.

And then later on, as it played out, he soured on the idea.

And so, yeah, it's one of the great, it's one of the great ironies.

I mean, Justice Scalia, maybe the greatest, if not one of the greatest justices of all time.

And the climate, I think, was different.

They viewed it a little bit differently then, but certainly how it's played out.

This has been a total disaster.

So as you know, when I was AG and now in the Senate, my maiden speech was about two great threats to the Republic.

the narrowing of the bandwidth of free speech and then the growth of the administrative state.

And there's a few things we can do, like Senator Lee and I are taking on the Reigns Act, which would say Congress should have to vote on any new regulation before it goes into effect.

That would slow this thing down.

You should make them pull back three regs before they issue one reg.

There are some things you can do that's deep structural reform.

But this court case that was argued in front of the Supreme Court yesterday, that'll probably be handed down in June, would go a long way in the legal process of defanging these agencies because no longer would the courts just say, well, well, the agency's in charge of this.

This is what they've said.

We're going to go with that.

Instead, they'll look to the statute and say, what does the statute actually say?

And if it doesn't allow it, the tie doesn't go to the runner or the agency.

The tie actually goes to the individual.

And so

you would empower Congress.

They would have to take their power back.

They'd have to pass the laws and the regulations, which is the way it's supposed to work.

Give me a real-life, big example on how this could change the average person's life if

they get rid of this.

Well, in the broadest sense, you're right.

The Article I branch or Congress, they're no saints in this either.

They have willingly ceded this authority to the agencies because here's the game that gets played in Washington is they say, they go back home and say, I voted for the greatest bill in the world.

And then they say, somebody asks a question, they say, but I can't believe what the EPA EPA just did, right?

So they get to have it both ways.

And what I want to see, and I think what you want to see, and what others want to see, is make us accountable for this.

So if you're going to pass a law that deals with

greenhouse emissions, right?

Well, part of the problem now is Congress hasn't done that.

Congress hasn't signed on to the Green New Deal, right?

So all of this effort and the money that's going to China now, all of this is being done by these agencies because the president wants their agencies to go do this.

So this would say basically, listen, if Congress hasn't weighed in on this, you don't get to do it.

We're not just going to defer to you because you claim there's some ambiguity in the statute from the 1950s.

So this would put the onus back on Congress.

And that's where it should be.

Because ultimately, if you think about the system we have, it's meant to spread out power vertically, horizontally through separation of powers and federalism, right?

That's one piece of it.

But it's also based on accountability because every six years in the Senate and every two years in the House, you have to go before the voters and they can actually now say, were you in favor of this?

Did you support this?

Did you vote yes or did you vote no on this?

As opposed to blaming it on some agency that nobody has any idea who the deputy undersecretary of, you know, some agency never heard of is.

Well, already, you know, we're reading reports that the Biden administration is looking for, looking to the administrative officials.

on ways that they can block anything that Trump might do if he comes in.

And that's the problem.

The president can come in, but if the structure is there, it's so deep and so

intertwined with everything,

it will take massive time and shears to start cutting those things back.

And meanwhile, they just keep adding more and more and more.

That's right.

And we had, when I was Attorney General, we had the student loan debt forgiveness case, for example.

Yes.

We took that all the way to Supreme Court and won.

Glenn,

that was a half a trillion dollars that the president thought, relying on some statute that didn't apply, that he could wipe away a half a trillion dollars worth of student loan debt to fulfill a campaign promise.

That is not what this country is supposed to be about.

What's supposed to happen is the question should be put before Congress, do you want to do this or not?

And then we vote on it.

And so I do think this case will go a long way.

in putting that accountability back in our system.

And,

you know, people, well, I think an important point here is beyond just the specifics of how it's going to help individuals or businesses, you know, reign in government, there is also a real important kernel of truth in all this.

If you want to understand why people are so frustrated, I think, with what goes on in Washington is they feel like they send people there and things don't really ever change.

And part of that is there's this sort of fourth branch of government that's untouchable, which is the administrative state.

So if we can do our job, rein that in, this court case is a big part of it, I think over time it's good for the Republic because people will, you know, again, feel like their government or people they send there are accountable to them, not, you know, again, some amorphous agency that no one's ever heard of.

Let me ask you a final question.

I read a lot of reports that say the justices were asking the questions that make one believe that they might actually go deep, not narrow, but deep on this.

Do you feel that way?

I do.

I think that probably the justice to watch here is Justice Roberts, who's just sort of well-known as kind of an incrementalist.

And whether they kind of, they've been chipping away at this

a little bit, you know, over the last, I would say, five to seven years.

They've been chipping away at some of this deference.

But I think they've got the kill shot here if they want to take it.

I think they will, if I had to bet on it right now, I think they will, but it's not a foregone conclusion.

But this is the best shot.

The people in these legal circles, I will tell you, there's been a desire to find the case that you can put before the court to test this again.

And this is the case.

So this is really one to watch.

And again, it's really under the radar because it's not about guns or abortion or some of the things that typically are on the front page, but it would have a really significant impact ultimately on the role of government in people's lives.

The other thing you mentioned quickly, because I'm out of time, but the other thing you mentioned was freedom of speech.

And we have been watching the World Economic Forum and what they're doing, and mis and disinformation is now their number one priority because there's going to be more people in the world voting this year than ever before in human history.

And they know.

And so they've got to control the spin and the media.

And we are already seeing this happening through NBC News,

NBC News, what was the other one this week, and then the Independent that are actually naming me and the Blaze as critical disinformation outlets.

And we take this very seriously, obviously.

Can I give you a shout?

And I'd like to make sure that your staff has all, we look for it specifically, and I'm sure your staff does, but we'd like to make sure you're seeing all of the things that are coming out on this because it's becoming very, very dangerous.

Definitely.

And it's terrifying, Glenn.

As you know, our rights come from God, and government's job is supposed to protect those rights.

Principle is the idea of self-expression, your ability to speak your mind.

And that's why the First Amendment is so important.

And it's terrifying the degree to which these so-called leaders want to control the speech.

I guess it's not that surprising.

It's been the way of the world for a long time, but not in this country.

The Missouri versus Biden lawsuit that I filed, that's in front of the Supreme Court, by the way, is a big part of that.

I've also filed legislation, Glenn, you'll appreciate this, to empower every individual that's censored by the government to sue that government official responsible for it directly.

So instead of one attorney general doing this, an army of citizens whose rights have been violated to go out, I think that will have a deterrent effect.

We've got to look for more solutions to stop this because there's nowhere else to go.

You look at that World Economic Forum, you've got a bunch of people who are hell-bent on power and control.

That's all it is.

It's meant to quell dissent.

It's meant to intimidate, and they cannot win.

Well, as sexy as ever, ever eric

uh senator eric smith thank you so much sir appreciate it all right my friend take care bye-bye you bet

uh

well good sport on that one

this is the best of the glenbeck program

Douglas Murray joins us now.

Douglas, how are you, sir?

Very good, thank you.

Good to be with you.

Yeah, I have to tell you, I can't thank you enough for your voice and your logic and your reason.

You are just, you are one of the more powerful people out there, and I think that's why you're being targeted.

Did you happen to see the article that I was talking about with

Anna Stanley?

Yes, I did.

I read it with considerable alarm.

This is a young woman who worked for the Foreign Office.

She was

an open intelligence analyst, sent on a government training program to learn more about counter-terrorism, counter-extremism.

And, of course, she revealed in the piece that,

first of all, many of the, or several of the participants, the lecturers, completely downplayed Islamic extremism when terrorism, which the British government does regard and the intelligence services do regard as the primary threat to security in the UK.

And no mention of immigration playing a role in that.

None.

No, of course not.

Of course not.

Why would they talk about anything that was truthful?

And but yes, but more alarming to me was even than that was the fact that one of the lecturers, a man called Peter Newman,

who's a very sinister figure in my view,

said that the main threat, or one of the main threats, was from so-called far-right people.

And he named me and Joe Rogan.

Joe Rogan.

Let me quote the two paragraphs that says this.

The lecturer further

argued that Douglas Murray and Joe Rogan are both examples of the far right.

To what extent, I'm quoting, should Joe Rogan and Douglas Murray be suppressed?

He asked.

They have millions of followers.

To deplatform them would cause issues.

Concluding his talk, the lecturer told a room full of government professionals, so society needs to find other ways to suppress them.

Is Douglas with us?

You getting him back?

The easiest way to suppress him is to hang up on him in the middle of the interview.

Exactly right.

That's the private sector suppressing him, I'll tell you that right now.

There you go.

We see what side you're on.

Yeah.

Well, no, it was just

a coincidence.

And I've deleted all my files about hanging up on Douglas Murray.

Oh, this accident.

Yeah, it was crazy.

That's sad.

That's sad.

Yeah, it's amazing to be the people who are actually targeted in the middle of this, too.

It's like, it's one thing to talk about it as an issue.

You know, it's one thing to say, okay, well, these things may happen or they are happening, but like when it's happening to you, obviously, Glenn, you were named in that article.

I was not.

Just to keep the record clear.

But it's got to be hard to go through it, right?

When you're the one actually named.

Yeah, he's back.

You know, I think, Douglas, you're back.

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

We resist just suppressing your voice there for a minute.

But,

you know,

what's really frightening here is I've been talking about this stuff coming for a long time.

And we've been hearing reports that they're doing this or that.

They are so outspoken on this and so bold, and they are so far down the line.

What do you think's coming for you?

I don't know, other than that there's no way anyone on earth is going to suppress or silence me.

But I do think it's extraordinary the confidence that certain people have that they can suppress those of us who say things which I think are not only popular but prove.

But I thought it was fascinating that this man who has almost no following or recognition himself and who's an expert in a non-expertise,

you know, that he should think that he could or other people should

suppress me.

And since it wasn't just about suppressing my voice, I've got my lawyers writing to his employers to find out what he has in mind for me.

Yeah.

Well, they were in that very thing.

They were talking about using banks and everything.

And we know they're doing this.

You know,

and,

you know, I said about four or five years ago that there's going to come a time where they are going to build a digital ghetto.

And I know all the implications of using those words.

And I was called an anti-Semite and everything else.

But that is what they're building.

You know, the Jews can talk all they want.

They can do whatever they want just behind this wall.

So nobody sees them or hears them.

And that's exactly the direction we're going.

And there's very particular moves that they're doing to make that.

One is this use of the term far-right, which alarms me enormously, because, of course, there are some people, particularly in Europe, who are what we would call far-right.

They're nowhere near the centers of power, but in bits of Germany and elsewhere, you know, there are very nasty things in the woodshed.

And unfortunately, what people have done in recent years, as you well know, is that in the name of really nothing other than political opportunism, certain people have decided to extend the parameters of what is allegedly far-right.

And what they've done is they've extended it not just to people, as on this occasion, it's absurd to call me or Go Rogan far-right, palpably, demonstrably absurd.

Yes.

But what they're really doing is they're trying to make public opinion be deemed far-right.

And not just some public opinion, but majority public opinion.

Most people in the United States and the United Kingdom are deeply concerned about illegal migration.

But once you say concerned about illegal migration is far-right, therefore the majority of the public are called far right.

And that has a lot of implications these people don't think about.

First of all, is that, of course, it makes actual far-right become completely normal because you're just saying, oh, well, everything's far-right now.

And the second thing it does is that it dissames and libels.

majority public concerns, which are legitimate concerns.

You know, Americans are right to be fearful about the implications of having an entirely porous southern border.

And the Europeans and British people and others are completely right to be concerned about having a totally porous southern border.

And to call these concerns extreme or to try to chuck them out of the mainstream is something so anti-democratic and anti-the populace that I'm just very alarmed that the way in which this was caught on.

Well, I don't know if you've been following Davos.

I'm sure you have this this week.

Of course.

But yeah, but they're making mis and disinformation the number one priority.

And here in America, we've already had the Wall Street Journal.

We've had two stories now from NBC News this week on disinformation.

Listen to this paragraph in the story from NBC News.

An increasing number of voters have proven susceptible to disinformation from former President Donald Trump and his allies.

Artificial intelligence technology is ubiquitous.

Social media companies have slashed efforts to rein in misinformation on their platforms.

And attacks on the work and reputation of academics tracking disinformation have chilled the research.

So they're making the case that, you know, anybody who is even considering voting for Donald Trump, you are you've been captured by disinformation, which leads you to where Jordan Peterson is today.

You've got to go to a re-education camp.

Right.

Well, th that's the thing, you know, is that

this whole concept that there are experts and then there's us plebs

part of this problem.

And the problem is not just how rude it is about us the people, we the people, to coin a phrase, it's the fact that these sel self-appointed experts are not expert in many occasions.

Like I mean, the BBC the BBC has a disinformation expert now, and she keeps on pumping out disinformation.

She keeps on getting things wrong.

Well, normally, that's the ebb and flow of journalism.

You know, one paper publishes one story, another paper says they're wrong.

That's fine.

But this idea that we have this sort of new priesthood class of academics.

Academics, experts in disinformation.

Sorry, as the person we were just mentioning earlier from King's College London has shown, academics are perfectly capable of pumping out lies and disinformation.

Well, I would

cite the famous Bill Buckley quote, you know, I'd rather go to the first hundred people in the phone book to find out what's true than

say

the board of Harvard University.

Yes.

You know, there's a story in the Washington Examiner that just came out.

Listen to this.

While the Department of Homeland Security has allowed as many as 10 million immigrants into flood our southern border, domestic surveillance state has prioritized something more important.

According to documents now unearthed by the Media Research Center, DHS paid $700,000 from a counterterrorism program to a self-described propaganda network.

The source of the funding was targeted violence and terrorism prevention grant program, which was created by Barack Obama to target al-Qaeda.

That was put on hold and then clandestinely revived by the then acting DHS head Kevin McLean and Miles Taylor.

The infamous and insufferable anonymous resistance within the Trump administration, the funding circumvented the White House budgeting process, the beneficiary of the Grand Under President Joe Biden is the University of Rhode Island's Media Education Lab.

In their application for the money, it said propaganda can also be used for socially beneficial purposes.

Indeed, because the public has long recognized as being suggestible, the United States

has long made use of the beneficial propaganda during World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.

So, what they did is they were the source coming after MAGA supporters and saying that they're far-right, anti-Semites.

This is funded by our government.

And they're the ones telling us about disinformation?

Well, that's the other thing.

If I were somebody in the situation of

government in the last 15 years, I think I would want to try at least to take a look at myself and wonder where I'd gone wrong.

And you don't see that humility at all.

I would wonder, you know, instead of saying the public don't trust scientists anymore, I would say, what have the scientists done in recent years?

And scientific experts like Dr.

Fauci, what might they they have done that slightly led

the country into doubting scientists?

If I was a

political pundit or a political expert within government in Washington, I would wonder, you know, not what it is that the public have got wrong, but what it is we have done in recent years that has undermined trust in the democratic process and much more.

And it never, I never see it, you know, as a writer and as a thinker, I try to do self, um, I try to be self-critical.

I try to think about whether I've got something wrong, and these people just don't.

They're never wrong.

It's always us, the public, that are wrong and need to be corrected.

Douglas Murray, what do you, what should the average person do?

Because this is with

more people voting for their officials more than any time in U.S.

or world history.

This year, more people will be voting in free and fair elections, hopefully, than ever before.

What do we do?

How do we solve this?

Because they are going to start putting us one by one behind a wall that will not be easy to spot at first.

I think it's increasingly easy to spot, if I can say so.

I think that the public today are so much more informed.

We are so much more informed than we were 10 years ago or 20 years ago or 30 years ago.

And one of the things is that a lot of things, tricks that could have been pulled on us 30 years ago are now very, very transparent.

We have media that can address the problems when you know parts of the mainstream media get things wrong.

We are no longer able to be simply lectured to to or sermonized to from a pulpit at the New York Times.

We no longer

have a sort of innocence that we had as a public in the past.

And I think that's a good thing.

And it means that

we're all beholden to sort of know more, admittedly, and to see through more.

And to recognize that just as it's true that sometimes we are told things that are completely true and we should trust some authority some of the time, we also shouldn't be completely trusting and we can be skeptical and we can, you know, do our own research to use a phrase that is now poo-pooed by the so-called experts who say that it's dangerous for the public to do their own research.

You know, we shouldn't be endlessly cynical, but nor should we be endlessly supine.

We shouldn't be endlessly trusting.

And we don't need to be.

You know, if somebody simply told you gave you one opinion on something incredibly important in your life, you probably wouldn't follow it you probably want to check like you know when i get motor insurance i don't go to one place for my for my my you know yeah insurance going for it i look around well if we can do that with our cars we can do it with our lives and we can do it with our political future and and and that's what we're all doing and anyone who says i'm the only font of news i'm the only font of correct opinion don't trust anyone other than me is somebody you should distrust.

And that's, you know, frankly, you know, the Washington Post tagline, democracy dies in darkness.

You know, well, yeah, sure it does.

And media can die in darkness as well.

And sometimes the people who say we're the only ones you can trust, like the Washington Post, might just be the ones who end up flipping in some fibs along the way.

That's what they've done.

And I think that we, the public, are in a much better position now than we ever have been before to see through it.

Douglas, always great to talk to you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for everything.

Such a pleasure.

Great pleasure.

Thank you.

So, by the way, talking about the Washington Post, here's the headline from the story that he was referring to.

Doing your own, this is Washington Post, doing your own research is a good way to end up being wrong.

Well, yeah, you could be wrong, but just listening to the Washington Post and the New York Times and CNN and even Fox News,

you got an equal chance of being wrong there.

Do your own research.

Never close your mind, never stop asking questions, humble yourself so you're not arrogant.

I know what the truth is.

Always be open to hearing a different opinion, and you will find the truth.

Prayerfully, you will find the truth.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

I'm going to say something here that has been said for thousands of years, and in America, currently,

I am not going to go to jail or prison for it.

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanliness through the lusts of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves.

I love that, to dishonor their own bodies.

Who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever.

Amen.

For this cause, God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women did change their natural use into that which is against nature.

And likewise, also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error, which was meat.

Now,

should you go to prison for that?

Should you be charged with a crime against humanity for tweeting that?

Welcome back to the program, our old friend Kristen Wagoner.

She is Alliance Defending Freedom CEO and President, and also general counsel.

And Dr.

Pavy Ra

Sonen.

Did I say that right?

Pavi Ra.

Yes.

Yes.

Ra Sanen.

Yes.

Okay.

Well, welcome to the program.

I've been watching your case, and it's an honor to have you on the program.

I think you are so brave.

Believe it or not, I can't believe I'm saying this, for quoting the Bible.

Can you tell us how this whole thing started?

Yes.

So thank you for having me.

It is so happy to be.

I'm happy to be here.

Yes, this started

over four years ago when I was shocked when I heard that the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church, which is the main church of Finland,

its leadership decided officially to support and also financially to support the Helfinki Pride event.

So, hang on just a second.

You are a proud member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.

Yes, I am.

And in 2019, they decided to have a Pride 2019 event.

And as a member of the congregation, you tweeted about it, right?

Yes, I tweeted about it, and

I made a question to the leadership of my church: that how does

this fit to the foundation of the church and these Bible verses that you just read?

And after that,

then it was a surprise to me that police started to investigate the case when some citizen had made a criminal complaint about this.

And after that, there became more criminal complaints about an old pamphlet that I had written already in 2004.

And then there was also a radio show.

And because.

Okay, hang on just a second.

Hang on.

Just the name of.

I want to find this here because the name of that pamphlet is so

gentle, it kills me.

I can't find it.

What was the name of the pamphlet?

Male and female, he created thing.

Male and female, he created.

Colon.

What's the rest of it?

Homosexual relationships challenge

society.

Homosexual relationships challenge

Christianity.

Challenge.

Yes.

You couldn't be more academic about it.

Yes.

Yes.

In fact, what I speak there in that pamphlet, what I write, it is about,

I would say, classical Christianity, what churches have taught for hundreds of years, that the marriage is between man and woman, one man and one woman, and that also the sexual relationships belongs to that

relationship.

And I also

spoke about

that

the other relationships are against God's will.

So very simple simple and classical Christian beliefs.

And I also belong, for example, that all human beings are valuable, all are created as the image of God.

Correct.

So now you were charged.

No hate speech.

No hate speech.

Right.

I know.

You were challenging your church.

What do we believe?

You were charged with agitation against a minority group, which comes under the section of the criminal code titled War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.

This is amazing to me.

I wanted to get Kristen in for this.

I mean,

that sounds really bad to be charged with that.

Really bad.

Yes, it does sound really bad.

It does sound really bad.

In Finland,

we have the law about aggregation against minorities.

Quite similar laws are in other European countries.

And yes,

this is under protection.

So, Christian, what does it mean?

What penalties is that?

What does this mean?

Well, it can carry a potential penalty of two years in prison.

Thankfully, the prosecution hasn't asked for time in prison, but they were demanding very high fines

and again

convicting her of of the the hate crimes of initially charging her with three hate crimes.

What I would also bring out Glenn that that Pive didn't state is the timing of these statements.

So you know in terms of the timing of the different statements the the pamphlet was written in 2004, many, many years before this all began, and actually even before this particular law was put in place.

And then the, you know, in terms of the the other radio program, that was 2019.

So really what happened was the tweet went out.

A Finnish prosecutor decided to launch with the police a full-born investigation into every public statement that Pive had made during the course of a nearly 30-year political career.

This Pive

is so well known in Finland as serving her country in a variety of areas.

Again, serving in as a part of Parliament for 30 years.

She's a doctor and she's a pastor's wife.

So it would be only appropriate that she would speak out on this issue.

And whether you agree with her or not, she has the right to be able to express her beliefs.

So, Paivi,

what has happened to your reputation?

Have you faced a new election since all of this has been going on?

And what's happening?

Yes, in fact, last

April, we had two parliamentary elections in Finland, and I'm happy that I was re-elected, and I got even more votes than

four years ago.

So

I'm so happy that people trust on me still.

So let me ask you again, back to Christian.

This is a, again, the elites, the government, going against

obviously what people are feeling

that are voting for her.

She doesn't have any hate.

Now, this is the third time she's been charged, or is this just, are they just kicking it up finally to the Supreme Court?

Is this like an American system, or does she have to be recharged each time?

There are some similarities to the American system, but then some things that are very different that make this even worse than what someone would experience here in the U.S.

She was charged with three crimes, three hate crimes, and that went to the trial court level, like we would have here.

She was fully exonerated.

There was a finding of not guilty in the trial court level, and we were privileged to support that legal defense.

But unlike the U.S.

system, when you are found not guilty in Finland of a crime, the prosecutor can choose to appeal that to the next level.

And so, again, with just a vicious prosecution designed to have, I think, a chilling effect, to send a message

to Finnish citizens.

If we can get Pive, we can get any one of you.

Then they appealed it.

And we won again in a unanimous decision with multiple judges.

Pive was found not guilty.

And now the prosecution has again asked the Finnish Supreme Court to hear the case one more time.

And that would be the equivalent of asking our U.S.

Supreme Court to hear a case.

So,

A, if she wins again, that's no guarantee they'll stop.

I mean, you know, here in the United States, we're seeing it.

Show me the person, I'll show you the crime.

And they're going to take you out if they want to take you out, or they're going to try.

With the Supreme Court, because they don't have the First Amendment, which we have, and really nobody's listening to it right now, but at least we have it.

They don't have First Amendment right.

So

how is she winning?

Why is she winning?

Well, the freedom of expression and speech is a fundamental right that is guaranteed by every major human rights treaty.

And there are also guarantees in Finnish law to free expression.

And I think it's important for Americans to understand there are not any magic words in our First Amendment.

Many Western democracies have language in their constitutions and in international treaties that protect these rights because we know they're fundamental rights.

They're not American rights.

They're pre-political.

And so she does have protections under the law, and that's what the lower courts have recognized in the past.

If she wins at the Finnish Supreme Court, it will set the precedent for all of Finland and protect others and send a message to the world.

If she loses, it will be a very ominous

decision, not only just for Finland, but for all Western democracies.

Because when we lose free speech, we blur the line between democracy and dictatorship.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: So, Pavi,

when

I don't know anything really about Finland.

The only thing I can say in Finnish is kexy, which I think is cookie, right?

But of course, I would loan that one.

But

I understand that Finland is not a real deeply religious

country.

What do the non-religious people feel about all of this?

I think that in Finland

the general atmosphere towards this case is quite divided.

The LGBT advocates are quite active in Finnish society and also in our main church.

And they have hoped that this process would continue and

it would end to

my uh conviction but uh of course i have also a lot of supporters uh in in in finland and also those people uh who who are

not uh christians or or are other faiths uh they many of them have have supported me even though that they disagree with with me but they support the freedom of speech yes free speech and freedom of faith.

So I think that

my calling and my privilege has been to defend and to fight for these important freedoms in our society and also to testify about the biblical teachings and testify about Jesus in the same time.

You are you're amazing.

I mean, heroes are are being created every day all around the world because in you know know in other times we didn't have to stand up for anything it was just accepted now you actually have to risk something for your faith or your point of view and i have so much admiration for you i want to print up uh i want to print up you know t-shirts with uh romans just saying romans 1 25 through 27 uh just because we can um

if i do that i'd like to raise money for you are you how are your legal fees christian how how is this working for her how is she paying for all of this?

Well, Alliance Defending Freedom International is able to provide our services pro bono, and we have a Finnish attorney that has also joined this battle, who's an allied attorney as well.

And Pyvey might want to answer that more fully, but all of our services are funded by those who want to just give to the ministry and support people like Pive.

Pivy?

How are you holding up?

Yes,

I'm very thankful for ADF.

The support of ADF has been very valuable, and also the expertise that they have,

it has been very important

for me during this case.

Yeah.

Well, I so appreciate it.

Kristen,

I urge everybody in my listening audience,

this is a cause you can get behind that will make a difference because it's making a difference all around the world.

ADF makes, I mean, they're involved in so much, and it's all about freedom of speech and religion.

ADFlegal.org, adflegal.org, please donate if you have anything extra.

Even see if you can make it monthly.

And Kristen, if you want, you print up the teacher.

I can get them at a great discount.

I'll even print them up.

And then you just, you can sell them and I'll drive people to your site so they can sell it.

I mean, I can't believe somebody is being charged with a crime under crimes against humanity for quoting the Bible.

We really need to appreciate how free we are here.

Thank you both.

God bless.

Anything I could do, please let us know.

And I, please, as an audience member,

I think this is so critical.

Please go to adflegal.org right now and make a donation.

ADFlegal.org.

This has to be stopped.

One country at a time.

ADFlegal.org.

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