This week, Micah navigates the latest tariff, hostage, and ceasefire agreements made between the US and nations around the globe alongside Trump’s Middle East tour. Then it’s “Aviation Corner with Conner” – understanding the chaos unfolding at Newark airport and the “free” Air Force One replacement. Plus quick hits on the first American Pope, Pete Rose’s Baseball Hall of Fame eligibility, and a wild theory about a deeper conspiracy in the NBA. As always, we offer spiritual reflections and a look at what’s coming up in culture. We’re here to help you discern the news differently—and seek God’s wisdom along the way!
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Topics
- (01:00): Global deals and ceasefires
- (04:20): China-US tariff reductions
- (05:47): Russia-Ukraine talks
- (09:18): Trump’s Middle East tour
- (16:28): “Aviation Corner with Conner”
- (25:09): Qatar’s $400 million gift to America
- (30:04): Spiritual reflections on trust and sin
- (32:43): Check-in section: New pope and Disney’s new theme park
- (35:21): Sports updates: NBA, NFL, and MLB
- (38:07): Tune-in section: New tax bill, explosive book, and PGA championship
Resources
- Mailbag: [email protected]
- DenisonForum.org/subscribe
- Culture Brief on Instagram
- Iran and US conclude a fourth round of negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program in Oman
- Iran says recent negotiations with U.S. useful, sanctions not compatible with talks | Reuters
- Sa’ar backs newly announced ‘US aid plan’ to bypass Hamas in Gaza | The Times of Israel
- India and Pakistan Agree to Full, Immediate Ceasefire: Trump | TIME
- China celebrates hard-line stance after trade deal with U.S.
- US agrees ceasefire with Houthis in Yemen after dozens killed in airstrikes
- Trump to Lift Sanctions on Syria, Touts Deals in Middle East Tour – WSJ
- Trump must realise Putin is obstacle to peace, Zelenskyy says
- Zelenskyy says he will be waiting for Putin in Ankara for talks | AP News
- Flying cars, flight delays, and the path to “life and peace”
- 5 things to know for May 12: Trade war, PKK disarms, Habeas corpus, Newark airport, Air Force One | CNN
- Airport Chaos – The New York Times
- See How a Communications Outage Affected Flights at Newark Airport
- Transportation Secretary Unveils Plan to Overhaul Aging Air-Traffic Systems – The New York Times
- How Lost Radar and Silent Radios Have Upended Newark Air Travel – The New York Times
- The FAA relocated 24 air traffic controllers. It caused 800 delays within 2 weeks at Newark Airport. – CBS New York
- Another Newark airport disruption as Trump’s transportation secretary talks of reducing flights
- Ben Shapiro, Laura Loomer lead rare MAGA backlash to Trump’s Qatari jet
- Trump set to receive $400 million ‘flying palace’ from Qatar to use as Air Force One: report
- Trump’s Disgraceful ‘Palace in the Sky’ – by The Editors
- Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again eBook
About Micah Tomasella
Micah Tomasella is the Advancement Officer at Denison Ministries and co-hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. A graduate of Dallas Baptist University, Micah is married to Emily, and together they are the proud parents of two daughters. With an extensive background in nonprofit work, finance, and real estate, Micah also brings experience from his years in pastoral church ministry.
About Conner Jones
Conner Jones is the Director of Performance Marketing at Denison Ministries and Co-Hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. He graduated from Dallas Baptist University in 2019 with a degree in Business Management. Conner passionately follows politics, sports, pop-culture, entertainment, and current events. He enjoys fishing, movie-going, and traveling the world with his wife and son.
About Denison Forum
Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, The Denison Forum Podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited.
Conner Jones: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Conner Jones. I’m Micah Tomasella, and this is Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast where we navigate the constant stream of top stories and news, politics, sports, pop culture, and technology. We’re doing it all from a Christian perspective. Hey, Micah, you wanna just tell us what we’re gonna be hitting on today?
Micah Tomasella: Yeah, absolutely. Conner, once again, it’s a joy. It’s a pleasure. It’s an honor to do this with you, even with you. Every single week. Here’s what we’re gonna talk about today. We’re gonna talk about global deals and ceasefires. We’re gonna have an aviation corner section with Conner, so Aviation Corner with Conner.
I’m assuming you named that yourself. That’s cute, bud. Is there a larger conspiracy at play in the NBA? Mm, Pete Rose to the Hall of Fame, finally. Ooh, maybe, and so much more. Those are just sound bites. Those are just little snippets. You gotta keep listening to hear us dive into it. So let’s jump into the brief.
The brief. [00:01:00] All right, so let’s talk about global deals and ceasefires. So the White House. Conner, the White House, Donald Trump, all the people he has working for him is betting that diplomacy and economic leverage will accomplish what military pressure and isolation have it. So different strategies from different presidents over maybe the last 15, 20 years.
Conner Jones: Is this what Donald Trump would call the art of the deal.
Micah Tomasella: Potentially, I think a lot of the things that we talk about is probably what he would call the art of the deal. It really kind of plays into every facet of his presidency, literally. Yeah. So in this segment, we’re gonna dive into what’s happening around the world and the role that America is playing in all of it, and I think that’s a really interesting concept to think about America’s role in each and everything that we’re about to talk about.
So Conner, you and I were just talking recently about how it seemed like there was a brokered ceasefire. A sanction or two or three [00:02:00] that were lifted. There were some trade deals cut, and then even there was pulling back of military engagements all from this past weekend. What, what, what were your thoughts when all of that was happening?
It was like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. All at the same time.
Conner Jones: Dude, it was like a 72 hour blitz. Yeah. That’s why I, it made me think of the art of the deal, if that’s Trump’s whole mantra is like just negotiations. Everything is a negotiation tactic. Everything is about trying to find some sort of deal landing in a middle ground, finding peace in a conflict with ceasefires.
Yeah, I mean it was, it seemed every few hours I was getting some breaking news alert on my phone saying. A ceasefire’s been reached here, a tariff deal’s been reached here. Yep. Whatever it is. It was kind of crazy.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah. So that’s exactly what I want to cover in this section with the global deals and Ceasefires.
But before we even jump into this, let me ask everyone who’s listening, and Conner, let me ask you this rhetorical question here. How [00:03:00] can we discern the news differently? We all need to think about that as we’re consuming news, especially with this administration, things are coming at us so quickly. How can we discern the news differently?
What does that practically look like? That’s our mission. That’s our goal here within Denison Forum. What does that practically look like? I think one of the best ways that we can start doing that is we can start by asking God, when, when we read the news, what can I learn from this? God, what are you?
Teaching me through this, God speak to me through this. There’s a concept of asking God to redeem the time that you spend when you’re reading the news. There’s nothing wrong with reading the news, nothing wrong with staying up on everything that’s happening in the world, but it can weigh you down. So one way to discern the news differently is invite God into that space as you’re consuming the news, which is something that Conner and I really seek to do, and that’s why we’re able to give these spiritual applications because we really are.
Seeking God to teach us something through this. And so as we’re going through this and we’re [00:04:00] going through these deals and ceasefires, I want everybody to be thinking about that too. So all of this came quickly, so let’s make sense of it together. I’m gonna run through each of these with a few bullet points for each.
And so this was a labor of love to put all this together, to compile all of this of what happened. So bear with us and buckle up. Let’s take a trip around the globe. So first of all, let’s talk about China and the United States and the tear reductions that took place. The tariff reduction was this, China agreed to reduce its blanket tariff on US goods from 125% to 10%.
And so this was obviously, you know, signaling a big deescalation in this, right? It was mm-hmm. A reduction way more than people were even thinking Trump put on truth social, that maybe if the meeting went well with China, that he would reduce it to 80. That meeting ends with Scott Besant and they’re reducing it.
China’s reducing it down from 1 25 to 10%, and then the US goes from 1 35 to 30%. So what this does is this gives a 90 day framework to hammer [00:05:00] out a longer term trade deal between the two biggest economies in the world. When that happened, you saw the stock market shoot up, you saw con, you know, all of the confidence of the investors shot up, and you saw it not play out only here in US markets, but in the international markets as well.
Conner Jones: Yeah. And I, you know, it feels like our Amazon packages aren’t, are not gonna go up in price as much anymore. You know everything from China, right? We were, everybody, they ev all these economists are warning it’s all gonna be twice as expensive. And we’ve talked about that in the past weeks as these tariffs have come into play.
So
Micah Tomasella: it seems like a good deal. We just have to see what deal comes from this, right? Like what, what is something that’s mutually beneficial? Whenever everybody’s coming to the table to negotiate for these 90 days. I mean, that’s, that’s a big concept of the art of the deal is you do have to give something to get something.
Okay, so let’s, let’s talk about this Russia and Ukraine and talks restarting. So these direct talks. Seemingly might be resuming. So for the first time since 2022, Russia and [00:06:00] Ukraine are set to meet in Istanbul, Turkey. The US helped broker the logistics behind the scenes and Trump may personally attend.
We’re not really sure. Zelensky is demanding a face to face meeting with Putin, which is really interesting. He doesn’t wanna negotiate with these lower tier envoys anymore. On the day of the release of this episode, when it releases on Thursday, that’s when they’re set to meet. And so the day that this episode releases, we’re gonna see if Putin actually joins and negotiates with Zelensky in person.
As of this recording, they are set to meet. I mean, it can fall apart at any second. Yes. So yes.
Conner Jones: Yes. It’s very, it’s
Micah Tomasella: very shaky. Yeah. So there is some international pressure on this more than before. So China. Not just in back channels anymore, is more directly pressuring Russia pressuring. Putin to end this.
So they’re pushing for some sort of diplomatic resolution [00:07:00] in the eu. The European union’s calling for a 30 day ceasefire. They’ve been calling for that for a while, and the US and allies are warning of more sanctions on Russia if they don’t start to negotiate in good faith because here’s what’s happening.
All these negotiations are taking place, but then fighting is still ongoing. So despite talks being scheduled, Russia launched even more drone attacks this past week into Ukrainian cities. And so it’s continued to be an issue of Putin saying he’s gonna do something, but then the fight continues. And so Conner, this concept of China, Russia, but specifically, I wanna hone in on China here for a second.
With China seemingly wanting the war to end into now, do you see this as a positive sign?
Conner Jones: I do. I don’t think Russia has any powerful allies, to be completely honest. Yeah. They’re relying literally on Chinese and North Korean soldiers to help shore up their front lines. Yeah. If they’re depleting in soldiers, they need Chinese just investment, and they need their economy to buy their oil by their [00:08:00] minerals.
Anything that is being produced by Russia has to go to other countries. They have to have exports, and because Europe and the US have basically ostracized Russia. They need China. So if China’s telling them to end the war, then Putin’s having that pressure placed upon him. That being said, Putin’s gonna come to the table with Zelensky, I’m assuming, with more leverage than Zelensky has.
Yeah, and that’s kind of what Trump alluded to in the Oval Office a few months ago, is that Zelensky didn’t have the cards going into this negotiation. So I’m very, very curious to see how this goes, and I think it’ll be a super intense meeting. Obviously the tensions will be extremely high in that meeting room Zelensky.
Putin hate each other. Mm-hmm. So much mm-hmm. I, I, I don’t know how this is gonna go. It’ll be interesting to see if any US diplomats are there to help mediate that, if it, even if it’s Trump or if it’s Rubio or Witkoff, whoever it is. I don’t know, man. There’s a lot hinging on this potential meeting.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah. The stakes could not be higher, but at the same time, negotiations are happening. Rapidly and it’s [00:09:00] actually bringing about some material change and now these two leaders might actually be meeting in person and now a country that Russia really depends on, like China is more directly pushing Russia to come to the table and end this conflict.
I. So let’s see what comes from that. Let’s continue to pray for that conflict and how all of that continues to work out. So let’s jump into Trump’s Middle East tour and the objectives of that and everything that kind of came from that. I’m just gonna hit these really quick. So Trump started his Middle East tour here.
His destinations, president Trump, visited Saudi Arabia and then he is gonna head to Qatar and then the UAE, the United Arab Emirates during his four day Middle East tour economic deals. So he did secure, Trump did. Negotiations. The White House secured a $600 billion investment commitment from Saudi Arabia to the United States.
You know, Trump sat down and he signed certain things, and then I even saw that they had, like in Saudi Arabia, they had rolled out like a, like a big rolling McDonald’s. It was like this big bus, like this big [00:10:00] trailer that was a McDonald’s so that Trump could go up and get his Big Mac and his Coke. Dude, these countries
Conner Jones: know how to.
They know how to please him and get they butter him. How they know
Micah Tomasella: exactly what he likes. They escorted, they know exactly what he likes. They escort force one
Conner Jones: plane in with F fifteens by his side, Saudi Arabia and F fifteens, like they, they, they bring out all the show for for the
Micah Tomasella: president. Yep. And so there is some diplomatic efforts with this.
So encouraging Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords, which is something that Trump did in his first term, which really kind of helps secure peace for Israel in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia still. Not scoffing at that, but not agreeing to that at this point. But that is, but they want
Conner Jones: something with Palestine to be
Micah Tomasella: done.
Yeah, but there’s, yes, because they specifically, yes, that’s a good point. They want an established Palestinian state in order for that to happen. And so obviously that’s kind of a big bugaboo there. And so Trump is hoping that something comes out of that. And then you had the US and Iran nuclear talks, the US and Iran have concluded the fourth round of nuclear [00:11:00] negotiations.
And both sides are expressing, you know, cautious optimism, but ultimately the US doesn’t want Iran to have nuclear capabilities. That’s really what it comes down to. And Iran kind of is saying we. We get it, but we still want it. And so on and so forth. And so we’ll see what pans out with that.
Israel and Hamas. So there was a hostage release. The last American hostage was released. His name was Eden Alexander, and so he’s the last known living American hostage, and they held him for 584 days. You saw the video of him reuniting with his family. It was a beautiful touching moment. I mean, there’s just.
That definitely gets you emotional if you watch that video. I mean, being held for 584 days in captivity is unfathomable. Can’t imagine. Yep. And then India, Pakistan, so this was a US brokerage ceasefire. So you had India and Pakistan going at it. Trading shots. We’ve talked about this before. Oddly enough, Indian Pakistan neighboring countries, two [00:12:00] of the nine countries on the planet that have nuclear capabilities.
Whoa. I mean that’s, I mean, that’s crazy. And they’re neighbors. And so the US stepped in. They played a key role in brokering this ceasefire, and then they emphasized the importance of peace in this region. And then you had Syria, the US lifted sanctions on Syria. So he announced all these sanctions being lifted, marking a significant change in American foreign policy.
Following the recent collapse of the Assad regime, the, the goal of this aims to give Syria a chance at peace now that they do have a new regime. And then you had Yemen. This is the last one. You had the ceasefire with the Houthis. So the US agreed to halt its bombing campaign against Yemen’s Houthis after they agreed to stop attacking ships in the Red Sea.
Again, we have talked about this before. It was disrupting trade. And so for now that stopping now, the Houthis did not say they would stop attacking Israel, but they did say that they would stop attacking. [00:13:00] US ships or attacking, you know, anything to do or drones just shot
Conner Jones: down multiple drones. Drones too, and, and the ships lost two F eighteens to the sea just from trying to avoid missiles.
There’s a lot of embarrassing things that happened with the US military over there in Yemen, so I know the administration was eager to get a deal done there, a ceasefire deal and say, stop shooting at us and we’ll stop bombing you.
Micah Tomasella: Yep. Yep. And you know Conner, in all this, because we just kind of blew through all that, it just seems like across nearly every continent, the US is repositioning itself right now is kind of my impression as a negotiator, maybe sometimes as a broker for peace, maybe sometimes as a stabilizer from afar.
The US is positioning in a, you know, itself, in a unique place. This week’s headlines, I believe, reveal something bigger and it’s a return to diplomacy as a strategy and. It’s interesting because the jury’s still out on if these moves are gonna work or not, right? It’s gonna take some time to see what sticks, but one thing is clear.
America’s hand was involved in [00:14:00] every single thing. Like America’s Hand was heavily involved in every single thing I just mentioned all over the world, all of these different conflicts, right? And so I wonder if these moves will pan out and I wonder how they’ll be viewed heading into 2026 and midterms, right?
That’s really, really important too. And so we’ll see how that happens. But here’s, here’s how God is hitting me. On this story and how I’m processing this with God in this moment. A lot of stories we talk through, like ceasefires negotiations, shifting alliances are about people trying to take control of the chaos.
Right? And that’s understandable. We do the same thing in our own lives. I know, I know I do. We want clear outcomes. We want clear solutions, clean solutions in the sense that we’re the ones holding everything together, and I know that that’s what I want. I so frequently try to control every single outcome.
Well, a lot of outcomes, and it leads me to anxiousness and it leads me to fear. But scripture reminds us that [00:15:00] while planning and executing and working hard has its place, control doesn’t belong to us. No matter how hard I work, control doesn’t belong to me. So Proverbs 1921 says, many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it’s the purpose of the Lord that will stand.
The hard part is accepting that we can do our part, Conner, take the next step and still not be in charge of the result. So I can do this, I can do this in order to get here, but I’m still not ultimately in charge of how it works out and what that result is. So here’s the challenge. Think about what you’re trying to control right now.
Have you done what you can? Have you done your best and trusted God through the process? If so, maybe it’s time to let go of the outcome and trust the one who actually holds it. Hmm.
Conner Jones: Good stuff. That’s actually gonna probably tie into an application I’m gonna make here in just a minute. I, oh, look at that.
You know, that is God,
Micah Tomasella: just, I love it when a plane comes together.
Conner Jones: You know how it works. Yeah. I will say the, [00:16:00] the one deal that I’m also just curious to see if it pans out, is, I know Trump was over there in Saudi Arabia today talking about. The live golf and PGA golf merger. ’cause that’s super important in the state.
He, he’s involved in college
Micah Tomasella: football now too. I mean, I mean, Trump’s, Trump’s doing all this stuff in college football. Got, yeah,
Conner Jones: right. He’s, he’s trying to solve a lot of things. So the deals aren’t just, are not just these big global conflicts and tariffs. It’s, it’s coming down into sports, so you know,
Micah Tomasella: everywhere.
The deal’s, everywhere. Anyways,
Conner Jones: Micah, I just wanna talk about some aviation stuff and this is what we call, we’re calling aviation. Corner with Conner. Yes, I did name it that aviation my head, head with Conner. In my head it sounded a lot cooler. I had the theme song of Top Gun going on in the background. It doesn’t sound as cool right now anyways.
Yeah, the idea Micah of flying right now is honestly just, it’s kind of scary. There’s a lot happening in the just airline world, the industry of aviation, and it’s been a really brutal year for the American just. Air travel world, and that started off in [00:17:00] January with the collision over the Potomac outside of DC at Reagan International Airport between the American Eagle plane and the helicopter that ended up killing 67 people, obviously.
That’s so tragic. That’s the biggest thing that happened so far this year, and honestly, and about. 20 years in US air travel, it’s the biggest crash to happen. So starting the year off with that was already bad enough. But then ever since then, we’ve had even more flights coming into Reagan airport have to abort landing.
’cause there were helicopters, military helicopters on path to crash with them, collide with them. I don’t know how that is still happening, even after such a horrible accident.
Micah Tomasella: Yes, you do.
Conner Jones: You’re
Micah Tomasella: about to
Conner Jones: tell
Micah Tomasella: us why it’s
Conner Jones: still happening. I am about to tell, I, let me clarify. I, I do have an idea as to why, but I’m like, how do we not have a Yeah.
Complete, right? Yeah. You know, fix for that
Micah Tomasella: situation. How, how did we end up here? More of like, how did we end up here? As an expression as opposed to, you actually do have a good idea of how we ended up here. Yeah. And I’m about to tell y’all because it’s crazy. Tell us.
Conner Jones: Aside from that, there’s even more things [00:18:00] happening.
Commercial airliners on the ground are catching on fire. They’re bumping wings with each other on the ground. Obviously that’s not anything as serious, but it’s like what is happening in this industry? Yeah. And then right now, here’s the big thing. There is just an outdated and understaffed air traffic control system, and it is at the forefront of the news this week because of Newark Airport, where there has been several outages.
There’s been a lack of staff. There is a lot of scary things that have happened in recent weeks, so I definitely wanna hit on some of that. But, you know, Micah, even before I get to that Newark airport, infamous, well known as the, you know, one of the big three airports in New York City and international, just I.
Bastion of flights where people come in and out all across the world, specifically to Europe and even the Middle East. You and I have flown there together, and I gotta say I hate that airport and I feel bad that they’re having these air traffic control problems, but I do remember spending like $12 on a bottle of water in that airport.
So I’ve just got beef there. I was like. [00:19:00] When did we fly to Newark
Micah Tomasella: together? When we went to Israel. Okay. Yeah. Yes. Okay.
Conner Jones: It was not our destination, but it was we, we stayed there for several, we were in there for several hours. Wait, why
Micah Tomasella: did we go there? What? Together? We did. Okay. Yes, I remember that. Yes.
Conner Jones: Anyways, Newark’s been in an air traffic nightmare, specifically with thousands of flights in recent weeks, delayed or canceled due to, like I said, the lack of adequate air traffic control. And honestly these frightening tech glitches that left pilots and controllers completely in the dark. Micah, not once, not twice, but now three times in the last three weeks have communications gone.
Black first instance was actually the worst one. This is gonna be on Monday morning of April 28th. So that Monday morning, just business travel, big travel time, right in the heat of that morning rush hour out and into that airport. The controllers in Philadelphia who are in charge of the Newark airspace completely lost radio communications and some of them lost radar.[00:20:00]
When you lose radio communications, you literally cannot talk to pilots in the air, right? Going in and outta that airport, right? New York Times has been doing a deep dive into this, trying to figure out what’s going on. This is just a quote from their article. It said, for 30 harrowing seconds until the radios came back, there was nothing more to do but hope.
As they had no means of telling pilots how to avoid crashing their planes into one another. Dude, that is terrifying. Yeah. That these air traffic controllers have to just sit there and pray, cross their fingers, whatever it is, and just hope that planes are gonna be okay. I mean, that’s an
Micah Tomasella: essential tool to their job.
It’s like it, it’s like a preacher not having their Bible.
Conner Jones: Literally. Yeah.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah.
Conner Jones: They have to be able to talk to these pilots. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter. Anyways, when that happens, though. They literally have to sit and wait until the system comes back on. There’s nothing else they can do. So just scary.
Five of the controllers that day got so stressed out and have so much extreme anxiety from that, that they have stepped away for 45 days for mental respite, which of course is [00:21:00] already, it’s an understaffed place, so losing five controllers, it’s about say 45
Micah Tomasella: days. Yeah.
Conner Jones: Wow. Four, five days, which I guess it’s some government rule that they’re allowed to do that.
Anyways, this past Friday, May 9th, controllers lost radar for another 92nd period. Thankfully this time it was at 3 55 in the morning, so this was a very slow hour for traffic, but it’s still, the idea of being able to have that even happen is scary. And then on Sunday morning, this past Sunday, telecommunications went down and that led to a 45 minute ground stop at Newark, which of course just adds to many, many delays.
There was at one point 30 planes sitting in line to take off. That is insane. Just a bad, bad situation in Newark. This has a ripple effect across the entire country as flights. You know, just can’t get in and out of this extremely critical and busy airport. And this is all happening before the busy summer flying season.
So if it’s a headache now, I can’t even imagine how it’s gonna be in June if they can’t start getting some of this cleaned up. But Micah, I mean, with all these incidents and air traffic [00:22:00] control scares, I mean, how does this make you feel about flying?
Micah Tomasella: I think I’d be okay with still flying if I needed to.
These issues still seem to be like. Pretty localized. And you know, oftentimes these issues don’t seem to be coming down to Hey, there’s something wrong with air traffic controllers, or maybe like their lack of training or something. This really kind of comes down to the technology and maybe I’m just hoping, believing and praying that whenever I fly it’s not gonna happen to me, but, but you’re right, this is becoming more widespread and something needs to be done about it.
Conner Jones: Yeah, definitely. I, to be completely honest, I’m over here dang, I don’t really think I want to get on an airplane right now, and I don’t have any plans to fly anytime soon. So I’m like, maybe they’ll, they’ll fix this. But if you’re flying sometime soon as a, as a listener, I will assure you that flying is still by far the safest mode of transportation.
I just hope, you know, it’s, it’s a clear day and everybody can take off and land without any problems.
Micah Tomasella: Flying is safer than walking well, okay. I, because walking’s a mode of transportation,
Conner Jones: I guess, but I, I guess I was thinking [00:23:00] of some sort of vehicle is flying safer than using a scooter. I don’t know, but I’m talking about like driving in trains.
And I don’t know about walking, although I would imagine more people die through pedestrians being hit by vehicles than, yeah, probably
Micah Tomasella: each, probably. So probably walk safe out there people.
Conner Jones: Anyways, Micah, there is a 3000. Personnel shortage at the FAA for air traffic controllers, 3000 across the nation.
They cannot get anybody to come in and be an air traffic controller. This is all happening while airlines are also just trying to grow and expand their routes. So just a bad timing as airlines try to grow? Yeah, the air traffic control shortage is getting worse. That’s mostly because of a lot of retirements and basically a positive training that happened during the pandemic.
So there was just. Bunch of people who retired and then not any new people coming in for a span of a few years there. And then for people who are joining the air traffic control rinks, it’s really hard to recruit because it’s a big commitment. It takes a year plus to actually get certified to do it, you have to move to Oklahoma City for three to five months to go to the [00:24:00] academy to get certified.
Yeah. And most people know it’s one of the most stressful jobs in the entire world being an air traffic controller. Yeah. Because there’s just so much pressure on it. God bless them. Yeah. Literally in the New York Times reports that current controllers have been fatigued and even sickened by intense stress and long hours.
Some have avoided seeking medical attention because doing so could jeopardize the health clearances they need to do the work and turnover is. Frequent. Yeah. I would say it’s not exactly a glamorous job and it’s a hard sell, but the FAA is trying to bring people in with bonuses and recruiting incentives and retention incentives.
Yeah. They’re signing bonuses. They have even offered to move people across the country with a hundred thousand dollars bonuses to go to airports that need extra people. All this to say Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, whose first day on the job was the DC plane. Crasher. Yeah, he’s just had a rough start.
Had a lot going on his tenure, a lot going on. He did lay out a plan this week to overhaul the entire outdated control system, and he’s working on taking like some sort of immediate action to get [00:25:00] the systems back up in Newark and a higher bandwidth of data there with backup systems and everything so that Newark can get back on track and not be in such a dire situation.
That’s just one piece of Aviation Corner. I also wanna mention something else that kind of goes hand in hand with everything you just talked about with these Middle East travels that Trump’s been doing. I don’t know if y’all have seen, but the country of Qatar, the royal family from Qatar. Qatar Cutter, I’m not really sure.
I’m gonna call it Qatar. How about Kaar? That doesn’t sound right at all. Qatar, you think? No, there’s a two. Anyways. Royal family from Qatar. Is Gifting America, maybe America, maybe Donald Trump. She like that. Maybe Trump, I’m not sure saying gifting. You know, I, it’s kind of an interesting gift. I say gift.
Yes. ’cause it’s, that’s what we’re gonna dive into here. It is. They’re giving, it is giving America a $400 million, Boeing 7 47. That can be used as. A temporary Air Force one until the actual new Air Force one is completed in the year 2027. This is [00:26:00] because Boeing has been extremely late on delivering the new 7 47 Air Force one to the government, to the Air Force that was actually supposed to be here.
I think. About this time, and Trump was expecting to use it honestly during his first presidency, which he thought was gonna be eight years, but he did not win in 2020, so it, you know, had a four year gap, but the plane is still not here, and so he’s been hounding Boeing. Wow. That’s quite the delay. It’s Boeing’s had problems.
This is just one of them. Yeah. Yeah. They’ve left some astronauts up in space for nine months. They’ve had plane crashes. They’ve had doors fly off their aircraft. They’re not in a good situation, so this just compounds and it’s just embarrassing when the president is just hounding your company all the time saying, you haven’t delivered my plane yet.
Yeah. And when the Qatari government is coming to. Gift a plane worth $400 million, and this would potentially be the largest gift ever to America, and it is going to be transferred afterwards after being used as Air Force One until the Boeing plane arrives to the Trump Presidential Library [00:27:00] Foundation for ownership.
In other words, it may be a literal personal gift to Donald J. Trump. That he can continue to use after he’s president. Mm. This is where it gets murky, right? Mm-hmm. It’s honestly, the whole thing’s actually really murky, and that’s because Qatar is technically a US ally, but they’re accused and well known for potentially financing terrorist groups, housing Hamas leaders in their nation, not doing anything about that even after the October 7th attack, and then national security.
Are we really gonna put the president on a plane that’s from another country? This is gonna be a big haul for the Air Force to retrofit the plane, sweep it for any bugs or anything, and make it secure with weapons and defense capabilities. And then of course, there’s a lot of critics saying this is entering corruption territory, not too distant from what Trump himself accused Joe and Hunter Biden of doing with their name in power with back end sort of business dealings.
And honestly, when we think about it, like what it even is. Q [00:28:00] guitar is incentive to do this. I think a lot of people would say it’s likely to buy influence, not just with the government, but. Yeah. With Trump himself as a businessman. Yeah. Who is currently working on deals to build hotels and golf courses in the nation.
You know, it’s kind of shady to be completely honest. Even right-wing personalities such as Laura Loomer and Ben Shapiro have railed against this. Laura Loomer, who is. Really far right and a big fan of Trump. She said, I love President Trump. I would take a bullet for him, but I have to call a spade a spade.
We cannot accept a $400 million gift from Jihadists in Suits. Ben Shapiro, right wing commentator, taking sacks of goodies from people who support Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, Al Jazeera, all the rest. That’s not America first. And Senator Rand Paul spoke out saying Trump’s acceptance of the gift could be unconstitutional.
Arguing that it’s not worth the appearance of impropriety Trump himself. Of course, it would be stupid to turn down a free airplane, which, you know, I personally feel like I would take a free airplane, but [00:29:00] either he’s just ignoring the big picture here and the potential scandal that this is. Yeah. Or he’s just yeah, it’s free airplane.
I’ll take it. I’m not sure which. Lemme just say
Micah Tomasella: this real quick before you move on here. It. Think about it like this, no matter who you support, whether if it’s Trump or you, or big Biden person, Obama person, you know, whatever it might be. Think about how you would react to this if it was the president that maybe you didn’t prefer that was in the office.
If you find yourself looking at this situation and saying, this isn’t a big deal, would you say the same thing if. The shoe was on the other foot and the person you didn’t want in office was currently in office. So just try to take a step back and look at the whole situation and then come to your own conclusions.
Conner Jones: Totally fair. That’s a great point. And honestly, Micah, going back to everything you mentioned a, a second ago, with all of these deals being made in the Middle East, this is just a piece of it. This is just like a, the checker or chess piece on a bigger board and. [00:30:00] Influence in different parts of the country.
From America’s point of view, from the Middle East point of view, everything there. I just want to point back to some scripture here and specifically what Dr. Jim Denison, the founder of Denison Forum, said in his article on Tuesday morning. He was talking more so about the Newark stuff and everything happening with air traffic control.
I. And I, I just love some of the analogies he dropped here. He said, when we step onto a plane, we abandon all personal agency. This is true, right? We are in the hands of pilots who fly the plane, the controllers who direct them, and those who maintain the equipment upon which we risk our lives. This is something we do quite easily, to be completely honest.
I mean, we trust the technology and a stoplight to make sure that cars aren’t gonna crash into each other when we’re driving. Totally, totally. We trust that engineers knew how to design the bridge and that it’s not gonna collapse underneath us as we’re driving across it, all that trust. Micah, it, it, it causes us to question why do we so readily trust people we don’t even know with our lives?
And yet, at times we struggle to trust the God who we know so deeply and personally. Mm-hmm. And who knows us better than [00:31:00] anybody. Yeah. Good
Micah Tomasella: point.
Conner Jones: Numbers 1539 says not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. When we follow Micah, our own heart and eyes, more than God’s loving heart and omniscient knowledge.
He considers our decisions to be spiritual adultery. So that’s a harsh language, but it’s true. Yeah. Many times I, I think we’re inclined to sin and chase our desires rather than the Lord’s perfect will Imagine this. Imagine the FAA tells you before you board a plane, hey, this plane is going to crash. Are you sure you wanna board and you decide to do it anyways?
That’s how we treat sin. A lot of times it’s we know it’s destructive, we know. It’s going to crash, yet we still decide to get on that plane rather than the flight that God has intended for us to be at. Yeah, we go to the wrong gate. Thankfully, Romans eight does say, the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the [00:32:00] mind on the spirit is life and peace. So I would just say let God lead you to the right airport gate and get on the flight that leads to life and freedom as Jesus. Brought that opportunity to us. Don’t board the flight that leads and lands in destruction.
God has a plan for us. Follow that plan. Don’t let sin tempt you into going the wrong way into a path of destruction and trust in him. He knows us way better than we know anybody who we’re trusting with our lives each and every day. So I, I would say trust in him.
Micah Tomasella: Amen. And all aboard, that’s what I have to say on the matter.
Conner, thank you for that. That that was a great summation of that topic. Really good spiritual application there. So let’s jump into our check-in section. But before I jump into that, I just wanna mention the mail bag one more time. We mention it every single week. We would love for you to continue to send us, and we’re so thankful for the people who faithfully do and all of our readers who send stuff in, but we, we want to continue to hear from you.
[00:33:00] Please send us your questions, your thoughts, your topic, ideas to culture [email protected]. That’s through email, or you can follow us on Instagram at Culture Brief Podcast. You can send us a dm, whatever’s most convenient for you. We frequently post polls, please engage with that. That helps grow the show, but also it helps us shape the show to understand what you guys want to hear and what you guys are thinking and feeling and seeing as you’re consuming the content.
So our first topic on the check-in section is. A new Pope was elected Conner, I think a lot of us have heard that his name is Robert Francis. Prevost, and he was elected as the first American Pope from Chicago. There was a big controversy because the Chicago Cubs, the Major League baseball team, claimed that he was a fan of their team.
Come to find out, I. He’s from the south side of Chicago, and he’s actually a well-known Chicago White Sox fan. For those of you who don’t know, there are two teams, two major League baseball teams in Chicago, one on the north side, one on the south side, and the [00:34:00] new Pope is a Chicago White Sox fan.
And so they get to lay claim. I. To that
Conner Jones: dude. They found an old clip of him at the 2005 World Series, like the camera just zoomed in on him and his family. They were there at the man. That’s crazy game. And it’s that’s crazy.
Micah Tomasella: It’s crazy, man. Yeah,
Conner Jones: that’s funny. We were talking about it last week. We were like, the conclave is starting and a few hours after our episode released, we had a new Pope.
So yeah. Good for the Catholic church. Hopefully he’s a great pope. Yep. Also, check this out. Disney is going to build a new theme park. Guess where? The Middle East. Oh, and the United Arab Emirates in Abu Dhabi. Here’s why I think this is interesting. It’s gonna be probably another decade before this park opens, but they made the announcement this week.
I think it’s interesting because the United Arab Emirates is relatively. Restrictive on a lot of things, including homosexuality, which has obviously been a big, just cultural talking point between Disney and even some of the US governments. Ron DeSantis specifically led a charge against some of the things that Disney World was doing in Florida with what they called the don’t say gay build.
That’s not really what it was about, but that was just the [00:35:00] name that caught on. Anyways, Disney stands really strong on that ground of, of pride in everything, so I thought it was very interesting that they almost. In my opinion, hypocritically are going against that and going to this country that won’t even allow homosexuality on their doorstep.
So just something to watch there. We’ll see what happens over the next decade.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s see how that plays out. Okay, so the Dallas Mavericks got the number one pick in the NBA draft. Shocking the world, the. I wouldn’t call them a doomed franchise, but a franchise significantly ailing and hurting after their star.
Luca Doni was traded.
Conner Jones: Worst deal in sports history. Absolutely. Worst trade deal in sports history. Absolutely. They deserved everything bad
Micah Tomasella: that happens to them so the Dallas Mavericks. Had a 1.8% chance to get the number one pick. I won’t get into how all of it works, but it’s literally a draft lottery that’s overseen by Ernst and Young, like by ey, which is this large accountant [00:36:00] company, one of the major ones.
So this. Big surprise takes place the Mavericks swoop in and get the number one pick. And people are talking about conspiracy theories. I mentioned that at the beginning of the show. This concept of, okay, the Dallas Mavericks trade away Luca Donit to the Los Angeles Lakers, and then the NBA steps in and lets them get the number one pick and.
Most likely they’ll be drafting Cooper Flagg, who seems to be the most sure thing coming outta the draft in several years, which would then revive the Dallas Mavericks franchise, which is in a top five market for the NBA. So there are a lot of people with their 10 hats on. Yeah. Saying that this is all rigged.
Conner Jones: The Mavericks trade away a generational player just to get another generational player. It just doesn’t add up. That’s what a lot of people would say. And. Everyone knows the Lakers are the NBA’s favorite team. They are the most watched team. They are like the Dallas Cowboys of the basketball. And so they needed a new star to come in once LeBron retires.
And yeah, the theory is they had the Maverick send away Luca to the Lakers and they were like, you guys send them away and we’ll, we’ll make sure we take care of [00:37:00] you. You’re gonna get, you’re gonna get the number one pick in the draft. Yeah,
Micah Tomasella: against all lots, right? So I dunno. So there’s your conspiracy theory right there.
Conner Jones: More sports real fast. The NFL schedule is slowly releasing, but the big game that has been announced so far is the season opener will be hosted by Super Bowl champions, Philadelphia Eagles. Ugh. They will be hosting our very own Dallas Cowboys, which, you know, kind of stinks. I feel like we’re gonna just start the season off with a big L, but it is what it is.
So that’s on September 4th. We are just a few months out from the NFL season, baby. Let’s go. Let’s go baseball.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah.
Conner Jones: Pete Rose, dude, he is no longer banned from baseball. Not that he can play anymore. First off, because. He was old and second off because he did die last year, last September, but he is now eligible to go into the Hall of Fame, be elected to the Hall of Fame.
We’ll see if he gets elected. Obviously. I think he’s like the greatest hitter in MLB history. So Deserve. Yeah. He’s first in a lot of stats,
Micah Tomasella: right? Yeah. Yeah.
Conner Jones: And he was banned because of gambling. Yep. He gambled
Micah Tomasella: on games. He will definitely be elected. He will definitely be elected into the Hall of [00:38:00] Fame.
He will definitely get in. ’cause I mean statistically there’s, there’s very few people that can touch Pete Rose. Okay, let’s jump into the tune in section. Alright, so here’s a few things to keep up with. That’s kind the point of this section. Hey, here’s some things through this week to look out for.
The Republicans just introduced a new sweeping tax bill in the house, so house Republicans just introduced the sweeping tax bill that would make the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent and add new breaks for things like tips, auto loan interest, and overtime. The bill is facing major pushback, Conner, from both.
Sides of people in the Republican party because you’re sitting there and you’re saying, okay, the Republicans have majority. It might be just by a few seats, but why is it difficult to get this passed? You’ve got fiscal conservatives worried about the cost of it specifically because spending is actually gonna go up.
They’re cutting a lot of things, but they’re gonna be putting a lot into defense spending, which is actually mean. The spending is gonna go up just a little bit. But then also you’ve got Blue State Republicans. So [00:39:00] Republicans who are elected in more Democratic states worried about the potential reduction in funding to their states and to their constituents due to the tax cuts.
So that’s something to look out for, but this is something that Trump needs. This is. A win that he needs because all of these executive orders, they could just be signed away by the next president if they’re not codified into law, if they’re not actually passed by Congress. So this is a big deal and so we’ll see what, what happens with this one.
Conner Jones: Yeah, very interested to see that. Also, DC there is a big book coming out that all of the District of Columbia is just waiting on pins and needles for, it’s called Original Sin. It is by CNN. Anchors Jake Tapper and Axios Reporter Alex Thompson. Lemme just tell you the subheader of this to give you a gist of what this book is gonna be.
Yeah. The book is titled Original Sin. President Biden’s decline its coverup and his disastrous choice to run. Again, it’s gonna include details from over 200 interviews, and it is already being said to be [00:40:00] explosive and detailing possibly the like largest White House scandal and coverup since Watergate.
The idea that. There were people in the White House who knowingly knew Joe Biden’s mental and cognitive abilities were not there anymore, and they covered it up. They basically just made Gaslighted, America made them think something that was not true and that we had a capable person leading the country, not only covering
Micah Tomasella: it up but he chose to run again, at least for a short period of time.
So it’s like not only covering it up right towards the end of his presidency, that’s one thing, but there was a push. Within the White House from those people covering it up for him to run again,
Conner Jones: to stay in power. Yeah. And while, and that he would win, and everybody knows that that was probably not gonna happen.
And a lot of Democrats blame him not dropping out for Donald Trump being president now.
Micah Tomasella: White. Yeah, white Kawell lost. Yeah.
Conner Jones: Mm-hmm. This is gonna be a very interesting book. It comes out on Tuesday. I’m not even a book reader, but I’ll be reading this, most likely. I, I plan to get it on Tuesday on my Kindle and read it from there.
And then we’ll just see what comes outta [00:41:00] that. Micah. Mm-hmm. Last but not least, thing to tune into if you’re a golf fan, you know, we are, we love golf. Yeah. PGA championship this week starts on Thursday, ends on Sunday Quail Hollow Golf course in Charlotte, North Carolina. And hopefully this year, Micah, I would say, I really hope no pro golfers get arrested, just trying to drive into the course.
A year ago, Scotty Scheffler was just trying to get into the course and he, he ended up in jail that morning, so there you go.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah. I don’t think Scotty Scheffer’s gonna get arrested again. So it’s gonna have to be somebody else, I’m assuming after how it went down last year. And if you’re not sure what we’re talking about, just look it up.
It’s a very interesting story. It’ll just have to be somebody else because I think Scotty’s gonna be pretty careful.
Conner Jones: I feel like it has to be the the Master’s winner. It’s gotta be Rory this year. Wouldn’t that be just,
Micah Tomasella: that would just be crazy. That’d be crazy. Alright guys, thanks for joining us for this week’s episode of The Culture Brief at Denison Forum Podcast.
All articles, all videos mentioned. We’ll be linked in the show notes. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please please subscribe and please rate and [00:42:00] review the show Again, follow us on social media, email us all that stuff and share it with a friend. We’ll see you next Thursday.
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