Assassination attempt, why we're becoming numb, Kimmel-Disney-Melania feud & King Charles in DC | Ep. 67

Conner Jones: [00:00:02] Hi, I'm Connor Jones.

Micah Tomasella: [00:00:04] I'm Micah Tomasella.

Conner Jones: [00:00:05] And this is Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast where we are navigating the constant stream of top stories in news, politics, sports, pop culture, tech, and so much more. And we do it all from a Christian perspective. And Micah, I got two things this week. One, the Cowboys did get Caleb Downs, just like we predicted last week, kind of predicted or really just hoped for.

Micah Tomasella: [00:00:24] They did.

Conner Jones: [00:00:25] The great, faithful player. He loves Jesus and he loves football and catching and intercepting footballs. And now he's on our Dallas Cowboys. Love that. Two, dude, the British are coming. It's a statement they said in the Revolutionary War and now they're here. The royals are here on our land, speaking in our institutions. Things have come a long way in the last 250 years, haven't they?

Micah Tomasella: [00:00:45] Yeah, I mean, you could argue the relationship between America and Britain has become a little frayed as of recent. However, it seems like Prince Charles's trip down or King Charles's trip down, not Prince.

Conner Jones: [00:00:57] Yeah, he's king now, dude.

Micah Tomasella: [00:00:58] He was prince for a while, right?

Conner Jones: [01:01:00] I mean, his whole life for for like 75 years.

Micah Tomasella: [01:04:00] Yeah, he's just now King Charles and dude is, I mean, how old is he? Anyway.

Conner Jones: [01:08:00] He's he's up there with Joe Biden. He's up there with Trump. He's up there in, yeah, up there in the years.

Micah Tomasella: [01:13:00] Anyway, we're going to talk about that. We're also going to talk about what happened at the White House correspondence dinner, another attempt on Donald Trump's life. That's the third assassination attempt on his life in the last two years. And I think we can get really numb to all of it. So we're just going to break down what happened and just talk about what's leading to this type of political violence and what's the spiritual application from it? What's the spiritual implication from it? So let's jump into the brief.

Conner Jones: [01:39:00] The brief. Yeah, as you said, Micah, this was the third attempt on Trump's life. This wasn't potentially just a Trump assassination attempt. It sounds like this guy, and we're going to talk a little bit more about it, was going for any Trump administration official he could get, except for whatever reason in his manifesto, he left out or he noted that he did not want to kill Kash Patel, the director of the FBI. But everyone else in Trump's cabinet was apparently a target. So this was, and I think he would have gotten to the president if he could have, vice president, any cabinet members, and who knows, man. Thankfully, no one was killed. The man is in custody. But yeah, as you all know, there was an attack on Saturday night at the White House Correspondence dinner at the infamous Washington Hilton, which is a popular hotel ballroom in DC anyways, but it's also the same hotel where Ronald Reagan was shot as he was exiting the building in 1981. So kind of has a history here. Well, you've probably seen the videos of Trump, Vance and the other cabinet members getting rushed out of the ballroom, off the stage, security coming in, fully armed secret service, secret service in their suits running and dashing over all the ballroom tables, journalists and people in their ball gowns, celebrities in their ball gowns and tuxes, all having to duck and cover. I'm sure you guys have seen the footage out of that, kind of the scariness of the situation, but also the what is going on question mark, because the gunshots were happening outside the ballroom where most people were at. It was happening in the lobby. So most people, it just seemed like they were stunned. They were like, something seems off. We heard something loud. I don't even think anybody on the stage, Trump and Vance and the other people on stage heard the gunshots before Secret Service came in and rushed them off the stage. One Secret Service agent out in the lobby as he was working to take down the the assailant was shot in his bulletproof vest, but he is apparently going to be okay. It was not seriously wounded. We're not going to share the name of the shooter. That's one of the policies we have here at Denison Forum is not really sharing the names of shooters. But what we can say is he has since been charged with using a firearm during a crime of violence, transportation of firearm in interstate commerce with the intent to commit a felony, and attempt to assassinate the President of the United States. A fairly rare charge.

Micah Tomasella: [03:48:00] Wow. Like that in and of itself is the charge.

Conner Jones: [03:50:00] That is a rare charge. has been charged before. I mean, John Hinkley was the is now free actually, 40 years later from when he shot Ronald Reagan. The guy who Trump's golf course in 2020, was that 25 last year that the guy outside the golf course attempted to set up a station to shoot Trump. I think he was charged with the same charge. So yeah, it's rare, but it's powerful. It's a it's a big one. It is a charge in our justice system. All of this, Micah, happened in a room full of journalists and other top media people. I mean, you had the likes of like Stephen A. Smith was there. You had all these celebrities there. You had every CNN, Fox News correspondent, CBS, even modern media, some of the internet media companies, they had people there. All these celebrities, all these big media executives, big wigs. It was kind of a circle of like Washington DC elite plus Trump actually came this year for the first time in his presidency. He had not been before as president. He went once, 2011, and he was a celebrity guest that night. And Barack Obama and host Seth Myers gave him some roasting jokes in 2011 and he did apparently not like that and so that gave him a bad taste in his mouth of this whole dinner even before he was president. And then they were kind of making fun of him at the time for potentially, you know, running for president, 2011. And now here we are years later, he's actually in power and he's attending this dinner as president for the first time. And that actually shocked a lot of people. Nobody really expected him to come ever because he talks really bad about the media. He does not have a good relationship with legacy media or anyone in the White House Correspondence Association. This dinner is a big celebration of journalism. That's what it's supposed to be. And then the the president is typically the guest of honor. It's been going on since 1921. The first president to go was Calvin Coolidge and every president since then has attended over the last 100 or so years. So it's a big deal. And as Trump was finally there, it did not really go through the night. It obviously got cut short and it's lost a lot of zest. They say that they want to reschedule within 30 days. We'll see if that happens. I don't know if security is going to be all about that. Micah, what are your first thoughts on this whole situation? What were you thinking Saturday night as the news started to roll in?

Micah Tomasella: [06:00:00] I mean, I just got the alerts like everybody else did. And that's what's frustrating is like shots heard near President Trump, near administration officials at White House correspondence dinner. And then everybody just kind of waits. I mean, everybody just had to kind of wait for like 45 minutes to an hour to get a real update after that. I remember vividly, I mean, this is such a different situation, but I remember getting the alert about shots fired at Charlie Kirk rally, right? And then we didn't really know for a while. And then it was, hey, he was shot, right? So then your mind goes to like, what on earth is going on? My goodness, this is the last thing we all need to actually see some healing in our country. Like political violence only exacerbates the problem. I think sometimes these shooters are trying to solve the problem in their own demented twisted way, but it only does, it only serves evil's purposes when these things happen. And so, you know, for me, I was just like, I don't know if I was super surprised, and I'm going to be honest with you. I think it bothered me some, but it's definitely bothering me less as time goes on because it just keeps happening. I mean, if I'm just being transparent with my emotions, I'm just like, it's just hard to be shocked anymore, man. It's just hard to be shocked.

Conner Jones: [07:12:00] I think that's that's so true. I think that's true for so much of the nation. I know we're going to dive into this a little bit more of the cultural aspect of all of this, but yeah, man, it was like, whoa, I got the alert, shots fired at White House correspondence dinner, which I knew was going on. I was actually about to sit down to try to turn it on because I was curious. This year's host is Oz Pearlman, the guy that goes by the mentalist. He like, you know, says he reads people's minds. It's all a big trick and he was apparently going to read Trump's mind. I was like, I got to I kind of want to tune into that.

Micah Tomasella: [07:37:00] He's pretty good at his job.

Conner Jones: [07:38:00] He's really good and then now he's getting the opportunity to do it with the president. He does it with all the athletes and celebrities all the time. I was curious to see how that was going to go and what even Trump's speech was going to be like. He was apparently working with a bunch of comedians to roast everybody in the room. I was curious what was going to happen there. I was about to sit down to watch it when I got the alerts as I was doing the dishes that yeah, hey, something's going on. There's shots being fired and yeah, you're right. I felt the same way. I was like, I'm not surprised by that. I better turn on the TV, figure out what's actually happening. Has anybody been hit? Was this some sort of coordinated attack? And it turns out it was like these other attacks, man, just a single male who I think your words were good, demented and twisted mentality thought he was doing something good and he was not. He was not doing anything good.

Micah Tomasella: [08:18:00] Friendly federal assassins, what he called himself, right?

Conner Jones: [08:21:00] Yeah, he called himself the friendly federal assassin. That is, yeah, man, it's it's not okay. It's dark. And then you start hearing the stories. Wolf Blitzer goes on CNN. He apparently was, you know, he's the guy at CNN. Everybody's like, I want to know what Wolf is saying. Wolf was there. All the everybody was there. If you turned on any of the news, it was like all the

Micah Tomasella: [08:38:00] Everybody was there. Everybody who's somebody was there. Yeah.

Conner Jones: [08:41:00] Everybody who's somebody was there and they're all on their cell phones trying to call into their networks because it's like the C and D team on the desk because everybody else is, you know, in the ballroom trying to figure out what just happened. But Wolf Blitzer went to the bathroom. He's on TV holding a cell phone up to his ear to tell his own network, hey, I just watched this whole thing go down. I got pushed back into the bathroom by a secret service with a bunch of other men to keep us held in here. Basically, a guy just darted through the security. And that's something else to talk about. Dude, the security apparatus here was so relaxed. Where where were they? I mean, they were there, but apparently it was just so tame. All these journalists were posting about how they got in so easily. All they had to do was show their little paper ticket and then they go through a magnetometer, magnet meter, I can't ever say it. And you know, that's the thing like when you're at a sports arena or something, you just walk through real fast and you're you're in. They were like, that is so relaxed for the fact that every administration official was in there including the president and vice president themselves. This was really just not up to par with what you would expect in a big hotel room. And then this guy was able to just sprint right through the meters and try to get to the ballroom. Thankfully, there was plenty of security out there that was able to subdue him, apprehend him. He actually got away without being shot, which is interesting.

Micah Tomasella: [09:51:00] Yeah, not a not a it doesn't really feel like his plan, you know, the shooter's plan was like well thought through and thank God it wasn't. You know, I was reading, this is all what if, right? But I mean, they've they've got to tighten up security to where somebody can't even get that close running towards the building because think about like what if he had had a bomb on him instead? Yep. Instead of guns. This could be a totally different story, right? I mean, I'm not I don't claim to be a security expert at all, but I'm just saying like the most sophisticated security systems, apparatuses, technology, minds behind security keeping the most important people in the world safe. I feel like there should be a way to stop this type of thing because if the shooter was more prepared or had different types of weapons or bombs, I mean, it could have just ended up a lot different. I'm just really thankful that it didn't.

Conner Jones: [10:41:00] Yeah, or or had he done it earlier in the night when everybody was still in the lobby filing into the ballroom.

Micah Tomasella: [10:46:00] Entering. Yeah.

Conner Jones: [10:47:00] Like he went when the lobby was pretty much empty, everybody was already in the ballroom. Yeah, thankfully it was a poorly planned situation, but he got really close. I mean, that that's the idea here is how in the world did this happen? And then the most shocking part is the fact that he was staying in the hotel. He had a room on the 10th floor, got in there and was able all weekend to just bring his weapons in and go up to the room. Even in the manifesto, he wrote about how lax he thought the security was. He's like, what are they doing? I'm going to actually be able to pull something off here, which is really frightening. So, a lot of questions there.

Micah Tomasella: [11:16:00] Well, hopefully they learn from it. Hopefully they learn from it and can get better at their jobs. And I think that there should be some accountability.

Conner Jones: [11:23:00] Yeah, there should be. And there was after Butler, several of the top Secret Service officials were fired after that failure as well. But here's another one, you know. So Trump then after the whole thing goes back to the White House, Secret Service makes him go back. He wanted the night to continue on. That was never going to happen. All the journalists who are in there are the White House correspondents. They sit in the press briefings every day with Caroline Levit and any other, you know, communications office officer or official out of the White House. They had to rush back to the White House for this press conference that Trump said he was going to host on Truth Social. He goes, I'm going to host a press conference in 30 minutes. And then you see all these officials including Trump and Vance, Kash Patel, Mark Wayne Mullen, the new DHS secretary. They're all up there in their tuxedos. All the journalists are in their tuxes and ballroom gowns in the seats out in the audience. Just kind of a bizarre scenario. They all had a wild, wild night and then they have to go cover this press conference. And in that, that's when Trump kind of, you know, he provided some more details that we didn't know yet. They posted the video of the the guy running through security. And then he used the moment to also just go for his political points, which is he says Congress needs to fund the Department of Homeland Security ASAP. Something you and I have talked about on here as we continue to have a war rage on with Iran and TSA had issues and they may have issues again if they don't get another paycheck here.

Micah Tomasella: [12:36:00] Well, I don't disagree with that.

Conner Jones: [12:37:00] I don't either. It's like this does seem like another instance where yeah, maybe we should fund our homeland security department. And then he also said this is another reason why the White House needs this $400 million ballroom that he is having constructed. So, you know, take what you want with that one. A lot of people were not happy with him saying that. But nonetheless, the shooter is a 31-year-old man from Torrance, California. He has a mechanical engineering degree and a master's degree in computer science. He was not a complete dummy. I mean, this guy apparently was really smart and intelligent at the top of his classes. And he somehow just got radicalized, man. I don't know what happened here. Something happened. He was from California. He spent the last two weeks going from California to DC for this event. He planned it over the last few weeks. This was not just incidental. This was a full-fledged planned attack. According to the AP, his manifesto, and we're not going to read any of the manifesto directly here, but the AP kind of summarized it really well. They said the document veered between political anger, religious justifications and rebuttals to imagined critics. At times reading as if he were arguing with detractors in real time. He also wrote about how lax the security appeared at the hotel as I mentioned earlier and that he was going to be able to easily gain access. So Micah, this is now the third assassination attempt on Donald Trump as you mentioned. It comes on the heels of last year, Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania had his governor mansion arsoned and firebombed. Charlie Kirk, as you mentioned, was assassinated. A United Healthcare CEO was assassinated. and a Democratic lawmaker in Minnesota was also assassinated and another one injured by an assassin. What is going on here with this violence and hatred that we're seeing in all of these attacks? And why do we think the nation continues to just feel like this is normal and move on so quickly? What is all this saying about our culture?

Micah Tomasella: [14:20:00] Yeah, I mean, I think there's a few layers to this. I mean, we didn't get here overnight. So first, this was not random violence like you noticed in the sense that there was no motive. I mean, according to the charges and reporting, the suspect allegedly traveled across the country, brought weapons, studied the security situation, left behind writings that made clear he was targeting the the president and members of the administration, except Kash Patel. Curious, I'm increasingly curious about this. Anyway, so federal prosecutors have charged him with attempting to assassinate the president along with two firearms related charges that you said at the beginning, Connor. But the bigger issue is not just, oh, hey, this is a one-off disturbed person, you know, the bigger issue is the culture that we live in that I think is forming people to believe violence is a legitimate response to like politics, that violence somehow some way, if you if you feel like words or even certain policies are hurtful to you and your community or, you know, like whatever it might be, there's the flip is switched where, um, or the switch is flipped. The switch is flipped. Yeah. That for some reason, more and more people are believing that violence is the answer when they're met with disagreement or policies that they don't agree with, which kind of flies in the face of our Democratic Republic of our union that we've established of having our elected officials. I mean, and there's so many different ways that we could take this. I mean, there is legitimate reasons why people should be disenfranchised. Like the system and the government that's in place right now, although it's a beautiful system and in my opinion, the most beautiful governmental system ever created, at the same time, you look at the people elected, you look across both aisles and Connor, you and I've talked about this a lot. It doesn't really seem like they're really serving their constituents' interests. But that's not really the point that I want to make overall. I just think that there is a sense that we're all frustrated with the way that things are going. I mean, everyone can relate to that. But to then take it up to the next level, and this guy seemed to have a full life ahead of him to somehow get to the point to where you want to assassinate those in the administration. It's just such a big leap for me, you know, and so everybody's just curious. All of these assassination attempts, what happened to get them radicalized? You know, a lot of these shooters get killed or they stay quiet or like whatever it might be. But, you know, I'm hoping, you know, because they have him in custody, we can learn more from what exactly happened here. But I just think we need to be careful. This is not a left versus right issue. Political violence has come from different directions and I want to make sure that that's noted. We've seen attacks on Republicans, attacks on Democrats, attacks on judges, executives, churches, schools, public officials. But what does seem to be growing is the normalization of dehumanizing language. I think we should discuss that for a minute. That people are no longer just wrong, Connor. They're evil. They are Nazis. They are traitors. They are threats. They must be stopped. We got there at some point. And I think we've been there. You and I have discussed personally in our friendship, but also just even on this podcast, at some point, pick your issue. Hey, you don't agree with me, you don't love me. You must hate me. You must hate my way of life, who I associate myself with, who I am. If you don't agree with me, you hate who I am. And that's a slippery slope because then what's the next degree there? What's the next step? It's violence. It's, oh, I must defend myself. I must protect myself. I must, you know, there's just all of these justifications that you jump to. And when you tell people long enough that someone is not merely your opponent, but a monster, eventually, unstable people start to believe violence is moral courage. And so like, I do believe this, right? The people that are already kind of teetering, you know, like I doubt this shooter was a super normal part of society. He probably had some issues. He was teetering, but this culture is pinpointing those people specifically and they're getting radicalized. What do you think?

Conner Jones: [18:18:00] Yeah, a lot of these shooters when you look into their like where they are on social media and everything, they're they're ending up in these echo chambers that are just pushing them further into the beliefs that you're talking about. Like they're being told, hey, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, keeps building up, building up, building up. Somebody needs to do something about this. And then they think that they're this they're somebody, even though it's just a bunch of internet trolls. Half the time, it's probably bots. This is probably how some of our enemies get into our system, you know, if it's China or Russia or any other country, they're on these social media platforms as well, just trying to find the person. They're trying to push people to the extremes and hoping that someone else will do their dirty work for them.

Micah Tomasella: [18:52:00] And the rise of these AI chatbots, like people are finding it's easier to develop a relationship with them, you know.

Conner Jones: [18:58:00] Other countries know how hard it is to take out a leader or a important person, but they might be able to convince somebody online through bots or whatever or even a human is sitting at a screen, hey, you can do our dirty work for us. There's a lot that happens online that we don't fully understand and these echo chambers that people get caught up in. And everybody can get caught up in an echo chamber. That's part of what algorithms are. They feed you what you want to see or think you want to see or you keep engaging with. So yeah, this guy was probably online being fed radical ideas and then he thought, well, I'm going to be the martyr in his mind, which is wrong.

Micah Tomasella: [19:35:00] Yeah. And I want to clarify that that this does not mean strong criticism is wrong or we should keep our mouths shut when we disagree with somebody in charge or the other side of the aisle. It's not. Free speech matters and it's it's a core tenant that our country is founded on. Protest matters, calling out injustice, what you feel is injustice matters. But there's a difference between moral clarity and moral permission. And what I mean by that is there's a difference between saying this policy is dangerous and then saying this person is evil, so anyone or anything done to stop them is justified. It's just a big leap there. But I can see how the culture that we're living in, those who are already on the fringes, if they're convinced to believe the other side is so evil, it probably isn't super far-fetched to understand how people are starting to get radicalized. I'm not saying I can wrap my mind around it, but what I'm saying is is like there's all the ingredients in our culture right now for this type of thing to be happening. And so that's where culture is drifting and that's what we need to pay attention to. The scary part to me is how quickly we've moved on. Like, you know, a man allegedly tried to assassinate the sitting president. No matter who that person is, it's an attack on our democracy and the American way of life when that thing happens at a dinner full of journalists, cabinet officials, national leaders. Within a day or two, it already felt like another headline was at the top of the feed. And so Connor and I made the conscious point to really talk about this because I just don't think we should, even though it's tempting to move on, we shouldn't accept this as normal. That might be the most revealing part. We're becoming numb. I'm becoming numb. I'm going to speak for myself.

Conner Jones: [21:14:00] Just to your point, some of the journalists that were there and in the room, yeah, they're reporting on it that night. They're tweeting about it or posting about it. They're maybe on TV that night. A lot of them by Sunday were already on to their next stories because it's the way it moves. That's the way the news cycle goes. Even Stephen A. Smith, I mentioned him earlier, he went on his first take show on Monday morning. First thing he talks about is not the fact that he was at this dinner during this big traumatic event. No, he goes right into LeBron James and the playoffs and everything. I don't even think he mentioned it on his ESPN show. He probably will later on in the week on one of his political shows. But the idea that like, man, even some of the people that were there, that that's just the way it goes. The news cycle moves on. These these journalists have to keep moving with the cycle. And it is a little more just passing, a little more normal for even the people that are there.

Micah Tomasella: [21:58:00] Well, it's sad too, right? Like in the sense that, you know, you laid this out that Trump hadn't been and this is supposed to kind of be like a healing time. I'm not saying if the event would have gone on as scheduled that Trump and the media would be getting along. They both have some responsibility to take there. But what I would say is is I also hate that that event was disrupted and some things that Trump said afterwards that I actually did like was just this concept of like, we're not going to let this crazy person stop our way of life. We're not going to let it stop this event. He was trying to keep the event going in a room full of who he would call his enemies, you know, they were going to try to have a good night together. And I think there's a biblical principle of breaking bread together. I mean, anyway, we don't have to get into all that. But I'm just saying, I really do hope they can reschedule it quickly and the event does go on and that in turn, those who are crazy or struggling and might be tempted to do something like this can see that, hey, the American way of life is much stronger, has a much deeper foundation than any one attack, right? Than any one person can try to change or throw off. And so I do hope they have the event. You know, when society becomes numb to political violence, it usually means something deeper has gone wrong, right? And that's what I want to get into, the spiritual part of this. We're losing the ability to see people as image bearers, Connor, specifically, I'm going to talk to Christians because we are imago dei, created in God's image before we see them as political enemies. We're jumping to conclusions, right? And so that's where the Christian response just has to be different because that's what I can speak to and that's what this podcast seeks to do is equip believers. So what we're doing is we're saying, okay, here's what I can encourage, here's what I can affect as a believer in my spheres of influence in this platform that God has given us. Let's challenge believers to react differently in moments like this. So let's let's go to scripture. James 3:6 says, the tongue is a fire. Proverbs 18:21 says, death and life are in the power of the tongue, both death and life. Matthew 5:21 and 22, Jesus makes it clear in those verses that anger and contempt are not small things in the heart of God. So Christians can't or shouldn't just ask, did I technically avoid violence? We also have to ask, am I participating in the kind of speech, thought patterns that makes hatred feel normal? How am I speaking about a fellow image bearer who I disagree with when they're with me, specifically when they're not with me? How am I speaking about them? I'm not trying to jump to conclusions that when you speak ill of someone, then that means that you're perpetuating a culture of violence. I don't necessarily believe that either. However, we should hold ourselves accountable as Christians that there is so much power in words and so much power in the tongue. And I do believe words and the power of the tongue is a big part of why we're in the situation that we're in and why we're heading into a celebration here, celebrating 250 years of America, but it feels it feels shrouded a little bit with with some uncertainty, feeling like we're divided. I think we've felt divided for a long time, but there's power in our words and Christians have a very biblical and deep understanding of that. We should be the first ones to remind ourselves of that. Romans 12:17 through 18 says, repay no one evil for evil. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. That doesn't mean we go passive. It means that we refuse to fight the way the world fights. We're not going to fight the world's way. We tell the truth, we do it in love, we don't do it with hatred. We confront evil, but we don't become evil in the process. So the question is for us, it's not just what's happening in our country right now. The question is, what kind of people are we becoming while we watch it happen? As we watch our country fray a little bit, as we as we seem like we're in some difficult times, what are we doing? Who are we becoming in the process? Are we becoming more like the world or are we becoming more like Jesus? Because if we let the culture train us to hate, mock, to excuse, even celebrate violence against people we disagree with, then we're not being formed by Christ. We're being formed by the same spirit of the age we're supposed to resist. That's what we're being formed by. Now, I know no one in my own sphere who is celebrating violence on either side of the aisle. There is a few crazy people on social media that jump up and like to make justifications. I truly believe that this country is full of good, hard-working, free-spirited people in a good way, right? Who want to chart their own path. It's the American way. They want to innovate, they want to raise their families, they want to do good in their community. I believe our country is full of those people and I believe that's the vast majority of people in our country. But we've got to be careful because there are people on the fringes, there are people on the edge and I think if there's anything that we can be taught from this is how are we speaking about other image bearers and how can we contribute in our own sphere of influence? You've been placed where you've been placed on purpose. I've been placed where I've been placed on purpose. What difference can we make? And I would say it would be faithful obedience now where you've been placed and just be more careful about your words, about how you're speaking about other people. And so this is my last point. In a moment like this, Christians should be the clearest in the room. We should be the most clear-eyed. We should have the most conviction in the room in moments like this. Political violence is evil. Dehumanizing language is dangerous. It is. We shouldn't dehumanize people. People are still made in the image of God. And the way of Jesus is still better than the way of outrage. And just look at your own life. When you've given yourself to that sin, you've given yourself to that spirit of anger, and then you get out of it and you're you're riddled with conviction and shame and, you know, all those things. And there is freedom in Christ, but obedience and walking with Jesus, living more like Jesus, walking more like Jesus, talking more like Jesus, just even as simple as just the way that you feel when you know, look, I'm not doing this perfectly, but I'm doing this faithfully. I'm becoming more like Jesus intentionally. Man, that's just the best way to live. Just practically speaking, it's just it's just the best way to live. I digress.

Conner Jones: [27:52:00] No, that was really good. I can't help but think more on James 3, you read that the tongue is a fire, but I think it also mentions the tongue being like a rudder of a big ship. The idea that it's the small member of the body, yet it has so much power to steer our lives, to steer what we're doing, the way we're making ourselves feel, the way we're making other people feel. And so if you've got two options, you can go on a ship, you go left or right for our tongue, if we can go towards hate or towards love, man, I hope we're choosing love, right? And this is true for me, this is true for everybody in every situation we're in with those people that are in our lives every day, with those that we don't know. I think one of the interesting things about the White House correspondence dinner, and this has been true as it's been going on for 100 years, is you get people from all these different media outlets that, you know, you would think they hate each other. You're seeing Fox News anchors talk to CNN anchors and buddy buddy up. They're all laughing together.

Micah Tomasella: [28:42:00] Connor, I hate to burst your bubble, but it's all a big show.

Conner Jones: [28:45:00] What do you mean?

Micah Tomasella: [28:46:00] It's all theater. It's all like just it's political theater. It is.

Conner Jones: [28:51:00] You are right.

Micah Tomasella: [28:52:00] These guys get off of work, these men and women get off of work and they meet at local bars and they hang out. Democrats, Republicans, they act like they hate each other when the cameras are on, but they're actually just buddy buddy. They're just playing the game. I don't think I'm being conspiratorial when I say that. It's theater to get votes and it's theater to curry favor all the while the American people suffer in the process.

Conner Jones: [29:17:00] Yes, you're right. I think my broader point is though, sorry.

Micah Tomasella: [29:22:00] I'm fired up. I'm sorry.

Conner Jones: [29:23:00] Yeah, you got fired up about that one. You're not wrong. Where I was going though is that these people who technically they disagree, you're right, they all hang out afterwards when they're not on camera, politicians or or news anchors or whoever. My point is they may disagree politically, but they usually come together and they're like, hey, at the end of the day, we're all friends, we're all Americans. I would say the same thing about your neighbors across the street or across the hall. They may have completely different beliefs than you or political ideologies, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be friends with them. That doesn't mean we shouldn't reach out to them. No, our job is we're all in this together in this American experiment.

Micah Tomasella: [29:54:00] We're all in this together. Yeah.

Conner Jones: [29:56:00] As Americans, but more importantly, as Christians, we're called to love those people even when we don't see eye to eye on everything. And that is okay. Everybody is made uniquely and has different perspectives, different backgrounds. So it's on us to go and reach out to those. We are just called to share the love of Jesus. You want to debate politics? Well, okay, that's fine, but that might actually just cause more division. Think about how you can approach people and bridge gaps and and find ways to show love, right?

Micah Tomasella: [30:19:00] Yeah. Yeah, totally, man. I don't want to go off of this too quick. Sorry, let me just say one more thing. Like since Connor and I have started this podcast, like we have become people with current events knowledge and political knowledge that people in our lives and our spheres want to talk to us about certain things, right? And that's great. You know, like I enjoy it. But at the end of the day, like my political affiliation, my beliefs on one decision Trump makes or something he does or something he doesn't do, some of the farthest things that have to do with what's really important about who I am, what's really important about who you are, Connor. Like we don't want to be known for our political beliefs or be known for having all this knowledge. Like I I want to be known as a Christ follower and someone who seeks to love and serve those around him and someone who encourages and builds up those around him and someone who's a a good and faithful father and and a good and faithful husband who loves even when it's not easy. Those are all the things and many more things that I want to be known for. It's going to be a while if I start, you know, rattling things off that I'm going to start talking about, oh, I'm a Democrat, I'm a Republican, I believe in this policy, I believe in this policy. No. No. I'm thankful to have that perspective. I'm not saying it's a perfect perspective, but I do think if some of us did have more of that perspective, we could see some change. You know, I mean, I just think we have some misaligned identity going on.

Conner Jones: [31:35:00] It's what it is. Your identity as Christians is in Christ, not in a party, a political party or a political leader. But, you know, that's where our country needs healing, man. We need more Christ identity, less political identity. I feel it so deeply right now, man. Just in this discussion, I just feel it so deeply.

Micah Tomasella: [31:48:00] You know, we just we just really need what only God can do right now.

Conner Jones: [31:55:00] It's so true. And I'm thinking about, you know, in the 1960s, that's considered like the most one of the the 1860s and the 1960s were both very terrible times for our nation. One resulted in a full on civil war. One was a lot of what we're seeing in this decade. JFK, MLK, RFK were all assassinated. Just unrest in the American people, protesting and all of that. You know, you could almost compare this decade to that a little bit. They're different. But a few years later, things started to heal after the Vietnam war, really. The 1980s was kind of a healing time. Part of that was political leadership. Ronald Reagan was seen as a person who unified much of the nation. But there was also a movement. Billy Graham's crusades were at the height of what they were doing in the 1980s, right? There was there was a revival in churches happening across the nation in the 1980s. So my hope and prayer would be we come out of this season of just complete division and unrest and find some unity in the coming years and ultimately, ultimately, praying that people would find their identity in Christ and that we would see revival in this nation.

Micah Tomasella: [32:56:00] We need you, Jesus. We need you. We need you. Heal our land.

Conner Jones: [32:59:00] And he's here, man. And that's part of us. We're the hands and feet of Jesus. We got to go spread that. All right, this has been a great discussion. Uh, a lot to take in there, a lot to consider, a lot to process through. The biggest thing I would say is we're grateful that everybody is okay and alive. You know, hopefully we learn a lot more about what can be improved from this situation. But let's move on to our check-in section here, Micah. Because there is other stuff going on, including Jimmy Kimmel is back in the news in a fight with Trump. Does this sound familiar? It should because this just happened last September with Jimmy Kimmel and the Trump administration after he made a joke about Charlie Kirk that was, you know, ended up getting him suspended essentially and off the air for a few days by Disney as they tried to sort out how to move forward. Ultimately, Disney ended up backing him. He's been back on the air since then. But he made a joke last week. This is prior to the dinner the other night in which he said that Melania Trump had a glow like an expectant widow. Now, he claims that that was a joke about how she's just way younger than Trump. Trump is almost 80 and she's like, I want to say in her 50s, right? And so that's what he was saying the joke is about. It's all about context I presume.

Micah Tomasella: [34:08:00] Well, he said it, the only defense I can give him is that he said it before the assassination attempt, right? He said it the night before. So he said it Friday night, right? Correct. And then the assassination attempt happened on Saturday. Now, he came out and didn't really apologize, kind of doubled down. So it's kind of hard to read the situation.

Conner Jones: [34:25:00] It is. Now, I think that joke, if that was scheduled for Monday night, that joke gets scratched out, right? He doesn't make that comment. But because it was beforehand, yeah, you're right. They didn't know what was going to happen on Saturday night. But it's more of the idea, the concept of like, are you really joking about her being a widow to a man who's already been potentially, you know, had several assassination attempts and then now a third one. It got Melania riled up. Melania pretty much stays out of the limelight for the most part.

Micah Tomasella: [34:48:00] She rarely posts. That was crazy.

Conner Jones: [34:49:00] She doesn't post. She tweeted on Monday, enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC's leadership enable Kimmel's atrocious behavior at the expense of our community? And then Trump also called for Kimmel to be fired on a post. The White House Communications Director, Stephen Chong, says ABC needs to fire him immediately. And so now, the FCC is preparing to order an early review of Disney's eight ABC station licenses. They are going to come and see if they can essentially take away ABC's ability to, I guess, be on air. Now, this will not probably happen. It's more so like pressure on Disney, like, hey, stop. They're trying to use whatever political power they have, the White House is, to force Disney to fire Jimmy Kimmel. So now Disney has to gear up and decide, this is really on on the new CEO, Josh Demaro. He's got to decide, do we go into this fight, this long legal battle, this whole review process, or do we just fire Kimmel? From what I've read from people who are talking to sources within the Disney world, he's not going to fire Kimmel. They are gearing up for a fight and they believe that this is kind of more, it's going to protect Disney, but it's also a geared up fight against government's overreach essentially. They're going to take the hit on this and then they're going to fight for basically the freedom to be on air.

Micah Tomasella: [36:03:00] I mean, you and I've talked about this before. I don't like the government overreach part of this, even with jokes like that. Like the first amendment, I think protects some of those things, especially because the joke that Jimmy made was ambiguous. I'm not saying I agree with it. I don't think he should have made the joke. I'm more for the market and the viewers turning him off and then they fire him because he's losing the station money. You know what I mean? Just let the cycle play out because again, like we've talked about, the shoe's going to be on the other foot one day and somebody who doesn't agree with Trump politically is going to be on the complete other side is going to be president and very well might be tempted to pressure with the FCC when those on the other side of the aisle are disagreeing, right? I just I just think it sets a dangerous precedent.

Conner Jones: [36:43:00] I tend to agree with you. So we'll see how this plays out. Again, Josh Demaro, good luck, man. You've had a rough two months at the beginning of your time. The Bachelor, now this and so many other things, some stock hits and all of that. But all right, Micah, what else we got going on?

Micah Tomasella: [36:56:00] Well, you know, let's talk about the royals here for a minute. King Charles III and Queen Camilla arrived in DC this past Monday and visited the Trumps at the White House. The king addressed both houses of Congress, only the second royal ever to do that since 1991. So they will then trot around the East Coast to various events recognizing 9/11, America's 250th birthday. Though the royals generally stay out of politics, Charles is arriving as an ambassador of his nation when there's some frayed relationship there with the US and NATO and stuff like that. It's dicey. So the two governments are not on the same page on Iran and Trump continually threatening to leave NATO. Charles is hoping Trump's long-time obsession with the royal family will open up an avenue to warm Trump back up to a positive relationship with Britain and Europe. I mean, and you can see the way Charles is speaking, the way they're interacting. Trump is loving every minute of it. And it seems like Charles is enjoying himself too. It just seems like two dudes with a lot of skin on the wall who've lived a lot of life, who've led in various capacities. And so, you know, the trip so far seems to be doing the trick. You know, we'll just have to see.

Conner Jones: [37:59:00] It's kind of interesting. Trump has always had this weird obsession with the royal family and the UK. I think he likes the idea of the pomp and the circumstance and the status that they hold in society while not being politicians. They're almost celebrities, reality TV celebrities in a way, the same way Trump was. Yeah, totally. But they stay out of politics. The royals are constitutionally bound to not dabble in politics, but they are really kind of ambassadors of their nation. And so, yeah, Europe is like hoping that this is a healing moment, not just for the UK, but for NATO and Europe as a whole. And Charles speaking to Congress yesterday was like, hey, we need to stand together on security and and supporting our friends. It was kind of a interesting situation. But yeah, Trump likes Charles. I'm sure there's a lot more there psychologically about being sons who somewhat were disappointing to their parents and then they still made it to these points of power. I mean, there's a lot to that. Charles is an interesting character himself, but they do seem to be having a good time together, grand jolly time with our former foes, the royal family. And Connor, you've got you've got a couple of things to tune into. What are those? We've got the Kentucky Derby on Saturday at 6:57, 6:57 specifically p.m. on NBC. What's the phrase for the Kentucky Derby, Micah? The the most exciting two minutes in sports, something like that?

Micah Tomasella: [39:13:00] I don't know.

Conner Jones: [39:14:00] Just I think that's it. And you get those horses going, man. It gets exciting. So tune into the Kentucky Derby if you are a horse racing fan one time a year like I am. The Met Gala is also on Monday night. Now, we talked about the Met Gala last year on the podcast and dove into like what the event is, why it's a big deal for so many people, why every celebrity and their mom shows up in these outrageous costumes. I would encourage you to go listen to that. That's episode 18 from last year if you want to learn more about this event, what it's even fundraising for, why everybody shows up to this thing. But this year's event is going to be the first time Beyonce arrives in 10 years. That's because she is one of the co-chairs alongside Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and of course, Anna Wintour, the chief of Conde Nast. That's who Meryl Streep is kind of mimicking in the Devil Wears Prada movie. By the way, there's a second one of those coming out soon. The theme this year is costume art. So we'll see what happens there. I'm just bringing it up because it will take over your timelines if you're on social media on Monday night essentially as we see kind of this, I don't even know how to explain it, this situation where everybody is very focused on again, pomp and circumstance and and and going to the fullest extreme and bringing attention to this red carpet. It's it's an interesting cultural moment. So I just want to bring attention to that. But guys, that's going to be all we're talking about today, but we do want to hear from y'all. As always, we love to hear from you guys. You can email us your questions, thoughts, topic ideas to [email protected] or follow us on Instagram @culturebriefpodcast. And thank you for joining us on this week's episode of Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast. All articles and videos that we mentioned will be linked in the show notes. If you want to help us reach more believers with truth in today's chaotic culture, please share this podcast around and leave a five-star rating and review and we will see you next Thursday.

Micah Tomasella: [40:52:00] Hey, peace.