Best of The Program | Guest: Jeremy Dys | 4/14/20

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Welcome to the podcast.

Today, hosted by myself, Stu Bergier, host of Stu Does America, and Pat Gray, host of Pat Gray Unleashed.

Why Glet is out sick with COVID-19?

Well, one of the COVIDs.

We don't know which one.

No, actually, he's saying it's not COVID-19.

But, you know, he's not a doctor.

Well, he is a doctor.

That's true.

Yeah, he is.

He technically is.

So we don't know.

He may have COVID-19.

He may not.

We don't know the answer to that.

But he's not here.

We do know that.

We talked a little bit about the feud between Anthony Fauci and the president.

Is there one or is this a media creation?

Is there a difference between the way the New York Times is covering the Joe Biden accusations and the Brett Kavanaugh accusations?

We noticed a minor difference there.

Yeah.

Just one, though.

Just one little teeny difference.

Yeah.

It was hard to get.

There are one.

There's two.

There's one or two, but you have to really look closely to see the difference.

Real, real slight nuance there.

We'll try to walk you through it.

It's very difficult.

Jeremy Dice joins us.

He is from First Liberty Institute, and he's in the middle of these lawsuits against states and cities who are trying to ban people from even doing drive-in services at church.

Not okay.

And we talk about China and how they're lying to us about COVID-19 and so many other things.

It's all today on the podcast.

Don't forget to pick up Glenn's new book.

It is Arguing with Socialists.

It's available now.

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A lot of people have plenty of time to read right now.

If you're one of those people, pick it up.

Arguing with Socialists by Glenn Beck.

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So, Stu, how hard up are you for sports right now?

I...

It's immeasurable.

I'm almost to the point where I just can't take it anymore.

Which is why,

was it Saturday?

Yeah, I think Saturday was

an old BYU Football Games day.

Watched both BYU USC from last season and then the Mangum Miracle at Memorial, BYU over Nebraska in 2015 on the last second Hail Mary.

Today, my plan is to watch BYU Miami from 1990.

That's how desperate I am for any kind of sports right now.

Just give me a sport.

I spent a very long time watching 1993's World Series game six, the greatest baseball game ever played.

Oh, did you?

Yes, where the

Jays did beat the Phillies

on a

last walk-off home run by Joe Carter.

Obviously, greatest game ever played, walk-off home run in the World Series.

Everyone knows it.

But it's amazing.

You'll dive into anything.

I also watched a good chunk of the Eagles Giants game when

the Miracle of the Metal Lands 2, where Deshaun Jackson.

Which year was this?

This was, oh, God, 2000.

So it wasn't Super Bowl year.

No, it was a game where the Eagles were down 24.

I think it was 31-7.

They came all the way back, tied the game, and then on the last play of the game, the Giants had to punted it stupidly to Deshaun Jackson, who first fumbled, regained control, and then ran back for a touchdown to win the game on the last play, 38-31.

I may have watched some of that too.

You may have.

You can't remember.

I can't remember exactly.

I can't remember remember any of the details of the game.

But it is that thing where we are begging for anything.

Just please.

Sports.

Give us anything.

To the point of, like, I'm not a big golf guy.

I'll watch the Masters maybe in the final round.

I've been to a couple of tournaments, like, in person, which are really fun.

I think it would last year, didn't you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Last couple of years of the PGA championship, which is.

But how old were you last year?

I mean, when people went to live sporting events.

It feels like a third.

I don't know if I was even born last year.

I mean, just think about what you were.

Like, I was standing there with like thousands of people crowded into this little area.

I mean, it doesn't even seem possible it's ever going to happen again.

I know it will, but it doesn't feel like it right now.

It really doesn't.

But that's the one sport that there's no reason they can't be doing right now.

Golf is like...

There's automatic social distancing.

Yep.

Right?

Yeah.

It's social distancing.

You could even put, for a pro tournament, there's no reason you couldn't put one person on the course on one hole at a time.

And just tell fans they can't come.

Yeah, just tell fans.

But it would just be a TV event.

Right.

Right.

Right.

And you pop it on there and you could play all these tournaments.

I'd watch at this point.

I would get into golf golf.

I would get into golf.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, and I think it's a silly thing that cities and states have been trying to take away from people

because of

social distancing and everything, and they're saying it's not an essential activity.

Even Texas did it.

And of course it's not an essential activity.

but that's not the way to look at these things.

You need to look at them as what can we give people to keep them sane that will still remain safe.

And clearly golf is in that package.

You could even say to people, one person on a hole at a time.

No foursomes.

It's going to be one at a time.

It's going to, it's not going to be as fun.

You could easily do two.

Remember, most golfers suck, so they slice the ball into opposite woods every time anyway.

They're nowhere near each other, right?

You know,

standing six feet away at the T and the T only is not a big challenge.

So, but they're taking those things away.

They're taking them with a don't go driving.

Don't go out for a drive, Pat.

Yeah.

Whatever you do.

Don't go out for a drive.

Why?

We're in a car with people we're already living with.

Why can't we go out for a drive?

Does the virus smash through the windshield if you're driving around town?

I don't think so.

I don't think so either.

You know, those are basic.

The drive-in church is a good example of it.

Just letting people go to parks.

Don't do that.

Come on.

California, I think it is, closed down every state park.

Why on earth, with all that territory, with all that room to keep separate, you want to put a police officer or something down there to make sure there's not a huge gathering to break it up on state property?

All right.

I mean, you know, okay.

Well, California essentially shut down the Pacific Ocean because they wouldn't let a guy paddleboard by himself

in it.

That's amazing.

Now, you could see a situation where a big gathering, maybe it gets out of control because everyone's at the beach.

I know, obviously, Florida had an issue with this.

They've now

Pat separately on this, on privacy concerns.

It's amazing how much information they already have and we're releasing.

Like, they released a whole article about how they've tracked all the people

who were at Spring Break and where they went after.

So, you know, of course, people are visiting from all over the country.

And they show.

Now, again, it's aggregated data, and that is different than anonymized data.

These things get conflated a lot where like anonymized data is they take your information and they take your name off of it, but they can still see everywhere you traveled.

And as we've pointed out multiple times, there's only one person on earth that drives from my house to this place over and over again.

So if you follow my cell phone, you're going to know where I went.

Yeah.

Right.

Yes.

Aggregated data is a little bit different in that you're just seeing patterns of travel.

You know, you can see, if you see where, you know, where do people walk on a walk path?

Where do they travel on the weekends?

You can see traffic patterns and things like that.

That's a little, you know, it's not quite as invasive.

And it's something that's been around for a while, but they have a lot of access to it.

And getting aggregated data can be useful.

But in this case, there's like, okay, people were at spring break, and now they all went back to all these places.

And then you see the breakouts start in those areas because people were hanging out, you know, shoulder to shoulder on the beach.

Most people were making out with 19 strangers every day.

Yep.

That's the pattern that I've heard from spring break.

My spring breaks were never like that, but

I'm sure people who aren't losers have those weekends.

And, you know, you look at that and you say,

well, I can understand them not wanting it to be crazy.

You want to take most people are doing this on their own.

You know,

you mentioned golf.

Well, golf, the PGA canceled a bunch of tournaments because the PGA wanted to cancel the tournaments.

They didn't feel like they could guarantee the safety of their players

or their fans.

So they canceled it.

The NBA felt the same way.

They said, if we can't guarantee the safety of our fans or our players, we're not doing it.

You know, Mark Cuban was on CNBC the other day and they said, hey, Mark, when are the Mavs coming back?

When is the NBA coming back into action?

He said, the Mavs will start playing again when I can guarantee their safety.

It wasn't like when the government said it was okay for them to play or the NBA started up again.

When I feel comfortable that my players will be safe, then they can play.

Yeah.

Right?

That's the attitude most Americans have.

And it's a good answer.

I mean,

that's a strong.

But I mean, on the other hand, you can never guarantee

anybody's safety.

He may not have used the word guarantee.

He may have said

believe that they're going to be safe or something like that.

But I think that

that's the kind of false part of the argument that we've been having.

And it's not a very American approach to it.

Not at all.

When we say, oh, well, are we going to open up the economy or are we going to

stay home and protect for the disease?

And it's like, well, the way we keep talking about that is, will the government allow us to come out and work or will the government force us to stay home?

Yeah, we've already ceded that to the government.

Yeah, and we've seen that.

And what they're going to allow.

And the argument, too, and it's like, well, when you look at the data around this,

you see that people weren't going to bars and restaurants before they were closed by the government.

Why?

Because people didn't feel safe.

They didn't feel like going there was a good idea, so they didn't go.

The same thing was happening

with concerts and large gatherings and private events that were being canceled.

People were nervous about getting this, so they were like, like, you know what, I'm going to skip it this time.

And the same thing happens on the other side of this, I think.

We will wind up being

a country with an open economy again when people believe they can go to these places without dying.

If you can make people believe they will not die for the most simple thing, like going to church, like going to a movie, like going to a bar, going to a restaurant, then they'll come out.

That's the thing.

Government tells them yes or no, they're going to come out.

And you can't keep people locked up if they don't believe they're at risk.

It's going to be interesting this fall when

if things are opened up again and you can have fans go back to, say, football games, how many are going to go to football games?

How many are going to feel comfortable enough to go to a stadium with 60,000 other people?

That will be really fascinating to watch because I'm guessing you're going to see a lot of empty seats at first, at least.

Yeah, no.

Until people start to feel comfortable again.

It's true.

It's going to take some time.

That's true.

I know they started, I think it's in Taiwan, started their baseball league the other day.

Oh, they did.

So I would say this.

You have Taiwanese baseball to watch.

If you want to get into that.

Where could I find it?

I don't know.

I think we got to find it.

ESPN 36.

It would be ESPN regular right now.

They got nothing else to air.

But they did it with no fans.

They did have some cardboard cutouts of fans in the stands, which is just kind of like

a little weird, but fun.

So I think that there's a level there that eventually that happens.

I will tell you, decided the other day, I was like, you know what?

I'm going to go look at my Super Bowl flight because I go to the Super Bowl every year.

I don't know if you know this, Pat.

No, I haven't heard.

You never mentioned it.

I never mentioned it.

It's strange.

So I go every year.

It's a tradition.

And I was like, you know what?

What if the flight is like $18?

It's worth the risk to go.

It was not $18.

It was actually pretty much normal price for the flight, which I was surprised at.

Really?

Although, the strangest thing, I've never seen this.

In all my time at travel, going to websites, going to all these sites to try to find out and get a flight, I've never seen this happen before.

The first-class flight was cheaper than coach.

It was cheaper.

I've never really seen it before in my entire life.

I've never seen that.

Bizarre, right?

I must have been some quirk.

I mean, I will say this.

I got a first-class flight to the Super Bowl.

It's the first time that's ever happened.

Did you already book it?

As of right now, I'm the only person on the flight that I could find.

I bet you are.

But I was like, you know what?

Let's lock this thing in now.

And where's the Super Bowl next year?

Is it Tampa this year?

Oh, I think it might be Tampa.

I think it's Tampa this year.

So, yeah, because, yeah, that's right.

Because Brady's going to be playing in Tampa.

Oh, gosh.

And they're saying that they could be the first home team to ever make it to the Super Bowl.

Please don't.

Please, please don't.

I don't think I can handle that.

It would be irritating, wouldn't it?

But at least you got a first-class flight.

That's true.

There are worse problems to have.

Yes, there are.

It's an interesting thing.

And going through this and watching it happen, I mean, a lot of times we should talk about this as well.

One of the things that kind of is dismissed here is people say, well, look, it's really only hitting older, elderly people and people with preexisting conditions or chronic illness.

And, you know, look, you know, that's sad and we got to protect those people, but we need to open up the economy.

But most people just dismiss it because, ah, that's not me.

Right.

That is really what people are doing.

That's not me.

Somebody else is going to get sick and die.

That is not going to.

That is the mechanism behind the claim, isn't it?

Yes.

At some level, that is what we're all throwing out there if you happen to be born of the people without the preexisting preexisting conditions.

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Thanks.

So the New York Times

supposedly looked into Joe Biden's sexual assault of the woman back in 1993 that was on his staff.

And I mean, it was pretty blatant.

When you listen to her story, she sounded,

she sounded really believable, I thought.

I certainly believed her.

Yeah, I mean,

it's tough, right?

Because it's an accusation from 27 years ago.

27 years ago.

That's a problem.

Yeah.

And, you know, again, I don't know how you can litigate those things 27 years later.

It's almost impossible.

Now, I know there is one system to do it, which is the Kavanaugh model, which is you just believe anything the person says, proof or not,

and say that it's unconscionable for anyone to allow a person like Brett Kavanaugh to ever exist in polite society again.

That's one model, and it's the model that the left has adopted for every conservative or Republican.

Until now, at least, because people like, I don't know, Alyssa Milano were saying, oh, yeah, women, and Hillary Clinton, women deserve to be believed.

Okay, well, do men not deserve due process?

Because they're being accused of something pretty serious here.

Should at least go through the process.

And that wasn't the case with Brett Kavanaugh.

But now all of a sudden, oh, yeah, wait, wait, wait, wait.

I mean, you should take him seriously, but you don't believe him automatically.

Yeah, that was the Alyssa Milano line.

I love that because it's what you're arguing for is the conservative standard.

What we're saying is when someone, a woman says she's been abused, you take that claim seriously.

You encourage it, and this is very important.

important part of this you encourage it to come out as soon afterward as possible ideally with authorities not through the media And you go through the evidence and try to understand what happened.

And if someone is guilty after a due process situation, then you're very excited to throw them in prison for as long as possible.

That's what conservatives have always been asking for.

It's what we, the standard we wanted for Brett Kavanaugh, right?

There's no one that I knew of that was like, gosh,

I mean, Brett probably did this, but, you know, look, I hope he gets away with it because he's going to be a good vote of the Supreme Court.

I know no one who thought that way.

No.

There's tons of Supreme Court justices, frankly, others that I would have picked besides Brett Kavanaugh,

just because of his voting record.

Nothing to do with his high school drinking habits.

But like, it was unfair.

He was obviously qualified for the job.

And you can't give in to the left and the media dogpiling on Brett Kavanaugh without any evidence.

Right.

There's much.

Seriously, much, much more evidence that Joe Biden did this than Brett Kavanaugh did what he was accused of.

Oh, yeah.

It's not even remotely close.

She actually told one of her friends at the time in 1993 that this occurred.

She also told

her mom, which we can't quantify because her mom is no longer with us.

But so well, we can even throw that one away.

But told two other people as well, one in 2008 and another back, I think, at the time.

So you have.

And they've all corroborated.

Yeah, they've all corroborated.

Yeah, no one said, unlike, you know, for example, one of the Michael Avenatti accusers who said, You know, who might know is this person,

and then they asked this person, they're like, Actually, I don't know who you're talking about.

Who's this?

I don't know the name you're referring to.

Didn't even not only did she not know about the incident, but didn't know about the actual person who was making the accusation.

It wasn't like that.

This is one where she seemingly is backed, uh, backed up by, as they would call it, contemporaneous

testimony.

Yeah,

and it is a situation where

if this was a Republican, it would be rock-solid 100% proof that they did this.

That is absolutely true.

If Joe Biden was a Republican, the media would be handling this completely differently and assuming guilt at every level.

No doubt about it.

So it's important to note, it's not just some flimsy, wild-eyed accusation.

But that being said, even though I don't want Joe Biden to be president, he deserves due process.

He deserves a presumption of innocence.

And the fact that you come out 27 years later and say something occurred that there is no way to show any evidence of, that is, to me, not enough to destroy a person's life, a person's career, a person's political aspirations.

And it's particularly suspicious when it's against a powerful figure.

You know, this guy's running for president right now.

He's the Democratic nominee for president.

And of course, you have to have some level of suspicion as to whether it's true.

And the media would not allow for that, during Kavanaugh.

Why would Joe Biden would not allow for it?

His quote was like: Any woman who would stand up in the fire of the public eye deserves to be the assumption needs to be that the essence of their story is correct.

Right.

Not now.

Not now.

Not now.

Not according to his campaign.

No, Joe

categorically denies that this happened.

Well, Joe has never, he's not addressed it.

And it's fascinating to me that nobody asks him about it.

Thank you.

Nobody asks him.

Because I was listening to the New York Times did a big story on this.

Finally, it took

20 days, something like that,

from the accusation.

They decided to finally follow up on it and understand it, which is interesting because if it was made against a Republican day one, there's a new story about it.

But the next day, just day.

Outlining the allegations without question.

And at the very end, there'd be like, the Trump administration denied the claims, right?

Like, that's all you'd get from the other side.

It would just be, and it would be a cinematic telling of it.

You know, she walked into the dark room with a fire burning into the corner, the cold steel of the table.

You would have had the whole, it would have felt like a movie.

You would have been able to picture yourself there, and you would have pictured Donald Trump doing this to this woman.

Instead, it's a police blotter of an article.

Yep.

She claims this.

She claims this.

She claims this.

They claim this.

They claim this.

It's like, it's nothing.

It's just, it's not even a story.

It's just like a bunch of claims.

And

the fact that people who currently work for Joe Biden or people who worked for Joe Biden back in the day say they don't remember anything like it.

They can't, of course, disprove it,

but they say they don't remember anything.

But there's no pattern of sexual assault in Joe Biden's past.

I love this.

And then at the very end, they outline the pattern of Joe Biden's sexual assault

with people, with women who have been, you know, uncomfortable and who have made claims that

he did sexually assault them in some way.

Right.

Whether through a kiss that was unwanted or touching that's unwanted.

Here's the initial tweet, and this is also in the story, you should know, initially, and then was changed.

Here's what they said: no other allegation about a sexual assault surfaced in the course of our reporting, nor did any former Biden staff corroborate Reed's allegation.

We found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Biden beyond hugs, kisses, and touching that women previously.

Beyond the pattern that we've found.

Right.

And that's an issue with patterns.

You can't throw out all previous evidence and ever have a pattern, right?

A pattern is something that is repeated.

So if you throw out all the other examples you have of it, nothing can be a pattern.

Yes.

This is, they had, obviously, there is an issue that Joe has with being a little handsy.

Yeah.

It's been joked about for a very long time.

And we've seen the pattern repeat itself over and over and over again.

It is a pattern.

Bike women sitting on his lap in a bar.

I mean, there's all kinds of

the Senate greeting thing that he does with the new senators and congressmen that come in and he's all over their families and stuff.

It's weird.

Yeah.

It's been weird.

And it was a jokey thing for a very long time among conservatives and Republicans who just note it was weird.

Yes.

It changed into something else when seven individual women came out and said, it really made us feel uncomfortable.

Like it wasn't a joke to them.

They really didn't like it.

Yeah.

And especially this one person who was on the and she was one of the seven.

Yeah.

So the New York Times talked to her back when they were doing this initial story, and they seem to claim that she brought up additional things

other than just a little hair sniffing.

And, you know, uncomfortable touching.

But because they couldn't get any corroboration, they didn't put it in the story.

Well, here we are, you know.

Wow, what a difference from Kavanaugh.

Oh, yeah.

They had no corroboration at all.

Remember.

We didn't put it in the stories anyway.

Yeah, remember with Kavanaugh?

Wow.

Not only did we not have the time it happened, we didn't even have the location it happened.

Right.

And if my memory serves me, I don't know that we ever had any information that they ever met.

Do we ever know that Kavanaugh and Blasey Ford met when they were in high school?

I don't think so.

I don't remember.

It's possible I'm forgetting details there, but I don't remember that being the case.

So there's much more information here.

The Times was asked, and actually gives some credit to Ben Smith, who he used to be the guy who ran BuzzFeed.

He's over at the New York Times now.

He did an interview

basically with the Times, asking the Times, his own employer, what the hell happened here exactly?

You know, his first question was, Tara Reid made her

allegation on March 25th.

Why not cover it then as breaking news?

And it's an interesting one because you don't have to have a full investigation investigation done the day she makes the investigation, but you don't even report on it.

Right.

No passing story.

And listen to this answer by, this is

the, what's his actual position here?

The executive editor of the Times.

This is his answer.

Lots of people covered it as breaking news at the time.

First of all, come on, what?

Right-wing blogs?

Right?

Like, there were not a lot of people who covered it that way in the mainstream media.

He says lots of people covered it as breaking news at the time.

Plus, aren't you the paper of record?

Right.

Wouldn't you want to be part of that breaking news?

Of course, right?

You'd think.

Thanks.

Lots of people covered it as breaking news at the time.

And I just thought nobody other than the intercept was actually doing the reporting to help people figure out what to make of it.

My gosh.

So the New York Times is now ceding its authority to the intercept.

Wow.

To say, oh, well, look, the intercept had it, so we didn't need to do anything on it.

Don't you know what the intercept is?

I think it's Glenn Greenwald's thing, which

and like, you you know, again, no knock on the intercept, right?

I mean, it's just not.

But like, would they say, you know what?

Look, we just did, we saw the Blaze was covering it, and we were just like, ah, the Blazes got it.

Just let them have this one.

Like, that's not what you do in the news business.

No, it is not.

Everyone writes about the same stories every day, just like the New York Times does every day.

Then the other admission that they've made

is absolutely staggering.

Stunning.

We'll tell you about that in 60 seconds.

Unbelievable.

This one is incredible, actually.

Because it's just the fact, it's not the fact that it happened.

It's just the fact that they're actually admitting it.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

Amazing.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

And don't forget, rate us on iTunes.

It's Patton Stew in for Glenn, who is out sick today.

He claims not from COVID-19.

That was his claim in the email this morning.

He said, I'm not going to be in, not feeling well.

And then in all capital letters, it's not coronavirus.

Yeah, has he been tested?

How does he know?

I don't know.

How does he know?

This is exactly how it starts.

Someone claims they don't have it, and then it starts spreading all over the place.

He's basically

a horseshoe-battened Wuhan, is how I think of Glenn right now.

He's just, he's patient zero.

So stay at home.

Do not come in for any reason.

Glenn, hopefully, will be back on the air tomorrow from a safe distance from you and his microphone.

Jeremy Dice is with us.

Jeremy is a special counsel at First Liberty Institute

and also a well-known Ernest goes to camp aficionado.

He is on the

program with us now.

That's not the first thing that you mentioned because

that's the bigger issue right there.

It is.

We could spend the whole segment on any variation of Ernest movies if you'd prefer, Jeremy.

No, there's only three to discuss, of course, but I'm glad to be known for

my profound knowledge of pop culture in this regard.

But let's get on to things that I may want to be more respected for.

Yeah, it's possible.

There is some pretty obviously serious stuff going on right now.

Outside of just what we're dealing with with the virus itself, there is an instinct by a lot of people

who have a new grip on power and seemingly

nothing's stopping them from from wielding it.

And what we're seeing now in the world of faith and the restrictions from people worshiping even when it comes to driving their car and doing a car-based service, we're seeing restrictions on that and it's something I know you're following very closely.

We are, and I think you framed this exactly right, that there is, look, I think all Americans understood the need to kind of pump the brakes for a second during this pandemic and begin to figure out okay what's the lie of the land what we got to do here to make sure this stops why because Americans are very tolerant people and not only that they're very loving people they want to make sure their fellow man is safe and their neighbor is well loved and so yes they're willing to slam the brakes in some respects to make sure that everybody is safe but when you give and this is just a lesson of history when you give a little bit of power back to a central form of government that that becomes a little bit more than than a little after a little while here.

And so you've got municipalities around the country, and don't forget there are some 40,000 or more of these municipalities around the country, cities or counties or what have you, that are then imbued with more power to try to be, you know, demonstrating a little bit more authority than the last guy.

And so it comes down to people like the mayor of Greenville, Mississippi, where

he's put in an order there that says that churches cannot meet even with the drive-in service.

And why?

Well, he said yesterday at a press conference, reaffirming his commitment to this unconstitutional order, that, well, people are too friendly.

They get out of the car and they're going to talk to each other.

Specifically, Christians are too friendly, and they can't stay in their cars.

Well, this is a real problem.

If you're parked in your car, number one, I don't think we've known that the virus can actually travel through glass and steel yet.

They've specifically targeted cars parked at church parking lots, not at the Sonic Drive-In, not at the Walmart parking lot, not at the liquor store, but specifically churches.

And on top of all that, last Thursday when our client in Greenville went to have his drive-in services on Thursday evening, the entire shift of the police force for Greenville, Mississippi showed up.

That's concerning to me.

I mean, when all the police officers that are on duty that shift show up to a church to possibly ticket every individual in those cars $500 for daring to drive from their home with the windows up, park in a church parking lot to hear their pastor preach through the open air, $500 per person?

Is this America anymore?

This is the kind of thing that has to be put up with, cannot be put up with.

We're willing to put up with reasonable restrictions for a temporary period of time.

This is not reasonable, nor is it equally applied.

When you can park at a liquor store, but not at the church parking lot, that is clear evidence of discrimination.

It really is crazy.

You know, I think there is an aspect of this where

the American people can understand.

Most churches, I think, are saying, look,

you know, watch us online for a few weeks and, you know, it's okay.

So I think most people are choosing to do this.

They're trying to practice as safely as possible.

To me, it makes me nervous if there's any restriction from government on worship at all.

I know that if they came and they said, look, we're not going to allow you to buy guns during this period, I would have a huge problem with it.

Just because, you know, Christians are sort of, you know, as you point out, nice people and want to do the best things for everybody else, that doesn't necessarily

make it okay for them to be restricting this in any way.

What is the traditional role here in this type of situation

for the state to be able to intercede this way?

Do they have any right to do any of this stuff?

Yeah, certainly the state does have a compelling justification here, right?

And that's what's necessary for the state to enforce or to kind of put on hold our First Amendment rights or any of our constitutional rights for that matter.

And so a worldwide pandemic is going to almost always be upheld in any court there is around the country.

But

that justification has to be met very narrowly and very equally applied.

In other words, if there are lesser ways to be able to control the pandemic, the government has to follow those.

But on top of all that, or much more basically, it can't say, well, look, cars parked at a liquor store are fine, but church parking lots are wrong.

You know, we had the same issue in Louisville, Kentucky last week, and we filed a lawsuit last Friday, and overnight the judge there, Judge Walker, turned out a really fabulous opinion to remind everybody of how overreaching the city of Louisville had become and put a temporary restraining order against them.

In fact, we're going to have a hearing in a few minutes here to turn that and we hope to a preliminary injunction to fully enforce that.

But it's again, it's a demonstration that the city of Louisville, who is going to send out their police officers to take down license plates numbers and then force anyone parked in a church parking lot on Easter Sunday morning into a 14-day quarantine period.

I mean, goodness gracious, that is not the kind of thing that we expect our police officers to be doing in the United States of America in 2020.

That is certainly not the level of freedom that we...

So look, while there may be some reason for a temporary restriction on some large in-person gatherings,

I think you're hearing America wondering, wait a minute, is this temporary anymore?

And how long is this going to last?

And on top of all that, why are they being so targeted at churches and not anywhere else?

That doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense as if the virus somehow targets churches themselves instead of liquor stores.

Well, there are a couple of instances where there have been some other weird restrictions.

Like the Chicago mayor said that if you're found outside, then you can be ticketed.

Or like in Philadelphia the other day, where 10 cops dragged a guy off a bus because he wasn't wearing a mask.

Is it, I mean, can law enforcement really enforce restrictions that are that severe?

I guess we're going to find out.

I mean, I assume it was Stuart, Pat, one of you guys, that were out paddleboarding in the Pacific Ocean and got dragged into the store by the police as well.

I mean, it's incredible where the police are given greater authority somehow right now during the middle of a pandemic.

Maybe what the virus has done for all of us is provided a bit of a cultural truth serum to find out exactly where

what we really believe about freedom and what does that mean for us all.

Look, let me just talk in the area of religious liberty since that's kind of where I spend my life.

You know, we're kind of living out the left's vision for religious freedom or what they call the freedom to worship right now.

Do church at home inside your house.

Maybe you can access it virtually, but don't you dare bring it into your place of worship, in place of work, or take it to school or into the military with you.

Don't get outside the four walls of your home.

Keep it locked down.

And if you appear in public, the police are going to come out and disperse your group and ticket you if you do.

This is not the vision of the Founding Fathers.

This is not what we intended to have as religious liberty in the long haul.

And so I think it's important for us to stop and look around.

This is the vision of the left right now.

This is not the vision that our Founding Fathers had.

This is not the vision that we've been living for 200 plus years in the United States of America.

And this is not the the level of freedom that you and I not only expect, but are due under not only the Constitution, but our Declaration of Independence.

This is not the freedom that we have ordered our lives by.

I think part of this, too, is when they talk about essential businesses.

And by the way, I don't think any governor has been daring enough to not include alcohol, which is really bizarre.

I mean, the liquor store, I think, in every state is protected as an essential business, which I mean, I understand we're stressed out here, but I don't know that that's necessarily as important as other constitutionally guaranteed rights.

But when it comes to church, you know, it not only I think has

an effect as far as constitutionally and what the right thing to do is to allow people to worship if they're taking normal precautions and doing the best that they can.

But in addition, if you want people to voluntarily

do

this large swath of restrictions and life changes, giving them a foundational thing they can still connect to is actually going to help us all kind of, if we're in the middle of a shut-in, it's going to help us because we're going to have some outlet.

We're going to have some way to stay sane.

We're going to have some sort of foundational basis that we can get to.

And making an enemy out of the churches and the pastors around this country strikes me as a terrible idea for the government.

And for the culture at large.

Look, the government is not really very capable at providing care, calm, and comfort.

And that actually is the domain of the church.

And our houses of worship have proven over millennia the ability to provide that level of comfort and care and calm amidst pandemics and epidemics and wars and everything like that.

And so for the government to kind of kick them aside as if they're some sort of needless appendage, as if they're the appendix of the culture around us that is not really needed and we don't know why they're even here.

That strikes me as extremely not only intolerant of religion, but in some respects, really hostile towards religion as a whole.

And so again, I think the virus is revealing here some biases that were deep hidden amongst some politicians and are coming out.

Look, Mayor de Blasio a couple weeks ago, and I really kind of feel badly of kind of pushing against a mayor who has had a lot of stuff going on in their city.

But I mean, he comes out and says, hey, you know, if these synagogues don't abide by my orders, I'm going to send the health department out, and we're going to permanently shut them down.

Permanently shut down synagogues?

Is this America in 2020?

That's never going to fly into the Constitution.

And the worst thing is that, to my knowledge, I don't think the mayor has actually walked those comments back.

No, I don't think he has.

And it's interesting when you think back

to what's been going on in this country for a while from some on the left.

They have been setting the stage for this kind of thing.

I know Tammy Baldwin,

Senator Baldwin from Wisconsin, said a couple of years ago that your rights to freedom of religion don't extend much beyond either the church house or your own house.

And that's pretty much where they stay.

So they've been, and so did Debbie Wasserman-Schultz say virtually the same thing.

So they've been setting up this attack against religion and trying to minimize the First Amendment as much as they possibly can.

Now I think they see their opportunity with this pandemic that they can maybe take some steps to shut it down.

It's a shame.

And what do they shut down the process?

Well, roughly about a trillion and a half in socioeconomic relief that the faith-based organizations, churches, synagogues, and the like provide to this country.

When those charitable dollars and those charitable actions dry up,

then that has to go and fall on something and somewhere.

And that's going to probably go to central planning again

at the governmental level.

And that's going to result in what?

Greater taxes, less opportunity, and less good being done to our community here.

That's why I think it was very critical for the President to include or the Congress to include within the CARES Act some relief for these nonprofit organizations.

And yet, my gracious, you would have thought you would have to move a mountain in order to be able to have pastors the ability to find relief for their churches within the midst of this coronavirus outbreak, or faith-based institutions who feed children around the world to be able to take part in the relief of the CARES Act.

That was an incredible fight within the Congress and within the administration, or at least within the rules, afterwards.

Thank goodness that all resulted in relief that are going to be able to continue those terrible acts.

Otherwise, you and I and our tax dollars are going to be having to pick up that bill.

And Jeremy Dice, Special Counsel of First Liberty Institute, in the middle of fighting all these battles right now, also hosts the First Liberty briefing.

Jeremy, thanks for coming on the show, man.

My pleasure.

It's always good to be here, guys.

All right.

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