| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| And recognize, wow, the benefits of this far outweigh anything that I don't like about it. | ||
| And that's why we're excited about it. | ||
| And I hope our mood is not dampened next time we're together because we're going to celebrate this thing, getting over the line by July 4th. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you all. | |
| Appreciate it. | ||
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| On Thursday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is on Capitol Hill to testify on his department's 2026 budget request before a House Appropriations Subcommittee. | ||
| Live coverage starts at 11 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3. | ||
| C-SPAN now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
| Joining us now is Tony Perkins. | ||
| He's the president of the Family Research Council. | ||
| Tony, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mimi, good morning. | |
| So let's start with those anti-Semitic attacks. | ||
| There's been two major ones, shall we say? | ||
| This is the one in Boulder, Colorado, and the murder of the Israeli embassy workers here in Washington, D.C. What do you think is prompting these attacks? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think we go back to October the 7th and the narrative that has come forth from that. | |
| And I've been in Israel four times since October the 7th. | ||
| I was just there about four weeks ago. | ||
| Met with the new U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, met with Israeli officials. | ||
| You know, I think part of it is the narrative that's coming out of Gaza that is not completely accurate, that is fueling this anti-Semitism in part, a lack of understanding. | ||
| And I think it's metastasized into this violence. | ||
| I mean, we had two, and I had met these young people, one of them, the young girl, Sarah, at the embassy here in the United States, the Israeli embassy. | ||
| They gunned down on the streets of Washington, D.C. Not a random act in terms of, you know, unfortunately we have too much crime here in this city, but they were targeted because they were coming out of the Jewish museum. | ||
| They were targeted for who they were. | ||
| And this is troubling. | ||
| Anti-Semitism is not new in the United States, and Jews have been attacked and murdered in this country before October 7th. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But we need to look at the trends. | |
| I served in the previous Trump administration as the chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. | ||
| And we were tracking the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. | ||
| Now, our mission on the commission was to focus internationally, not in the United States. | ||
| But I chaired a hearing on the rise of anti-Semitism. | ||
| And there's a lot of things that echo what we saw in the 1930s. | ||
| And there are warning signs that we should see. | ||
| And it's not just isolated with the Jewish community. | ||
| We need to realize that they're kind of the anti-Semitism is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to a rising intolerance to religious identity and participation. | ||
| We saw it, as I said, in the 30s, and it's something we need to pay close attention to and address. | ||
| And there's one thing this administration is doing. | ||
| It's addressing the issue. | ||
| States are addressing the issue. | ||
| It is not something we can ignore. | ||
| You posted on X, you said this. | ||
| Is the legacy media facilitating terrorist attacks on U.S. soil by their false reporting? | ||
| Hamas claimed IDF forces shot Palestinians in cold blood during the U.S. aid distribution last weekend, and the media reported it as fact. | ||
| Do you have facts that would back up the claim that those Palestinians were not shot? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, number one, the ambassadors from the U.S. to Israel clarify that it didn't happen. | |
| I talked to someone in the Carolyn Galek, who is an advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu, that the narrative is not correct in what happened. | ||
| It is as if the IDF opened up on civilians who were coming to get aid, when in reality, the stories we're hearing are that the Gazans are amazed that they're actually able to get this humanitarian support without paying for it. | ||
| What Hamas has been doing is selling the aid to fund their war machine to the civilians, and this now is breaking up their activity and is threatening their money supply. | ||
| And so they're doing everything they can to discredit the Israel and U.S. humanitarian. | ||
| So is your issue that those Palestinians were not actually killed or who did it? | ||
| Do you just believe that it was not the IDF that shot those people? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What the information that I have and that Ambassador Huckabee has also articulated is that the IDF did not open fire on civilians who were coming to get aid. | |
| In fact, it wasn't even, it was a distance away from the aid station, and these were not just random civilians. | ||
| They were in areas that were controlled and secured that they were not supposed to be in, and they were approaching the IDF soldiers. | ||
| And with, you know, when we just had three IDF soldiers just recently killed in Gaza, the idea to do harm to them. | ||
| I want to ask you about a new Religious Liberty Commission. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can I go back to that for just a second? | |
| The Hamas Health Agency, which has repeatedly stated, I think the last number is 54,000 Gazans have been killed. | ||
| And that number has been refuted because they don't separate between combatants and civilians. | ||
| And so there have been independent studies that have done that have questioned the accuracy of their reporting and what they're trying to do with that. | ||
| But yet the number of people or who is in the 55,000 people, who's a civilian? | ||
| There's both. | ||
| Both is the over-reporting or the inflation of the numbers, but also who is in that number. | ||
| How many of those are actually combatants? | ||
| We often hear the Gazan Health Administration say that they're women and children. | ||
| Certainly there are some in that number, but they're over-inflating that number. | ||
| Again, there's independent studies. | ||
| Even if it was over-inflated by half, I mean, 25,000 people killed is still a huge number. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is a huge number, but we have to realize this is a terrorist organization that's basically holding these people hostage. | |
| They're the ones that prompted this war on October the 7th when they invaded Israel. | ||
| And they are using, and again, these are reports that are very clear out there, they're using these people as human shields. | ||
| Let's talk about the Religious Liberty Commission and also an office of a White House faith office. | ||
| So this is Politico with the headline, Trump brushing aside separation of church and state, establishes Religious Liberty Commission. | ||
| The president is quoted as saying, we're bringing religion back to our country. | ||
| Do you consider this a setting aside of the separation of church and state? | ||
|
unidentified
|
How would it be setting aside separation of church and state? | |
| You disagree with that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I do. | |
| How is it setting it aside? | ||
| Well, here's what the group, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said about it, and I'll have you respond to them. | ||
| This is part of their statement. | ||
| We'll put it on the screen when we can. | ||
| It says, this commission is not about religious liberty, but about advancing Christian nationalism. | ||
| True religious freedom requires equality among religions and between equality among religions and between religion and non-religion in the eyes of the law and at every level of our government. | ||
| Trump clearly designed this commission to favor conservative Christians, especially those who want to use the power of our government to impose their religion on others. | ||
| Do you consider this imposing of religion on others? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's interesting. | |
| No, I don't. | ||
| It's interesting that this effort has been criticized by conservative Christians because of the makeup of some on the commission. | ||
| It's not just Christians. | ||
| You have Muslims that are involved in this. | ||
| And so there's been some criticism that it is not conservative enough. | ||
| So is this imposing Christianity? | ||
| No. | ||
| I think what it is doing is it is recognizing America's history, its Christian heritage, its Judeo-Christian heritage. | ||
| And I think as the president has articulated, as he did in his previous administration, he's making sure that there is not anti-Christian discrimination taking place in this country. | ||
| Explain anti-Christian discrimination. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you see it happening when people, because of their faith, and I guess we should go back, Mimi, and let's define what's religious freedom. | |
| Religious freedom is not the ability to choose what church you're going to attend on a Sunday. | ||
| I mean, that's never really been in question in this country. | ||
| Religious freedom, going back to the founders, is the ability to live your life according to your faith. | ||
| And increasingly, we've seen a conflict between Orthodox biblical beliefs and policies of governments, whether it comes down to the use of pronouns or most of it does center around human sexuality or the issue of abortion. | ||
| And the ability to adhere to your beliefs and be able to operate according to those, that's religious freedom. | ||
| And that's what the administration is working to rectify within the ranks of the federal government and use the bully pulpit, if you will, of government to ensure that people can live out their faith in the private sector as well. | ||
| Are you going to be involved in that Religious Liberty Commission? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not formally, not formally, but I am talking to those that are involved in it. | |
| And as I said, previous administration I served as chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. | ||
| My bigger focus is making sure in our foreign policy that we are articulating religious freedom in many of the countries we're working with because religious freedom, study after study, shows that a country that has vibrant religious freedom also has greater economic opportunity and security stability. | ||
| And so it minimizes our need to get involved in other countries when we're promoting this first principle, which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a top priority in that first administration. | ||
| And I think Marco Rubio is continuing with that. | ||
| If you'd like to join our conversation with Tony Perkins, he's the president of the Family Research Council. | ||
| We're talking about faith and the Trump administration. | ||
| You can also discuss those anti-Semitic attacks that have been happening recently. |