June 21, 2021 • 35 mins
People who don’t read Scripture often assume women play little to no role in the Bible. For this podcast, Gianno shows just how important the women of the Bible are in a truly inspiring and informative conversation with Fox News anchor Shannon Bream, author of the No. 1 New York Times bestseller, The Women of the Bible Speak: The Wisdom of 16 Women and Their Lessons for Today. Shannon is also Fox News Channel’s chief legal correspondent, and Gianno asks her about the big questions facing the Supreme Court. Plus, they discuss family, and Shannon shares some personal stories and lessons she's learned through adversity.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Up next out Woud with Gianno called part of the gig,
which switch six people who don't read scripture, often insuing
women play little to no role in the Bible. In fact,
some critics even claimed the Bible's outright sexist. Today we
learned the truth with the one and only Shannon Breen.
(00:23):
Welcome back to Allow with Gianno Calledwell. I'm Gianno calledwell,
and I'm so excited for this week's show. My guest
is someone who I'm a big fan of and I'm
sure you've seen on TV Fox News Channel, Shannon Breen.
Shannon has been a pillar at Fox News for years,
and she currently works as an anchor in the network's
chief legal correspondent. Shannon is also a New York Times
(00:44):
bestselling author, number one in that slot multiple times over.
For her latest book, The Women of the Bible Speak
The Wisdom of Sixteen Women and their Lessons for Today,
it rose to the New York Times bestseller list number
one over and over again. Such a good read. Today,
I want to discuss Shannon's latest book and examine faith
(01:06):
more broadly. I also asked her about the Supreme Court,
reliant on her former legal career and years of reporting
on the nation's highest court. Plus we discussed family and
get a bit into Shannon's personal life. With that, I
want to welcome Shannon bringing to the show. Thank you
so much for coming on Allow with Gianno Caldwell. You
know it is my honor. I've been just so blown
(01:26):
away watching you over the years and just um all
the amazing things that you're doing, and I'm always cheering
for you and so interesting to know. You were the
first person I've ever met who worked at Fox News Channel.
I think it was the Hills Most Beautiful event and
you you received the honor of that year and I
was able to say hello, I'm I'm interested in doing television.
(01:48):
I think I was doing TV at that point. I
think it was more on CNN as a as a guest.
But it was so nice of you to give me
your your email address and correspond with me, and here
we are now colleagues at the same network. I love it.
And that's such a cheeseball Washington thing that we would
be at a party for the Hills most people, but
I love it. I'm glad that that was an opportunity
(02:09):
to meet you, if nothing else, exactly exactly so I
want to get into something that I think Um has
certainly woken people up to women in the Bible today.
I think especially in our day and age with the
culture that we see the cultural wars, and you see
a lot of folks that have been moving towards darkness.
(02:29):
If I'm being honest with you, they're not necessarily utilizing
the Bible as a tool to get through those very
difficult times. In some cases, they're shunning the Bible in
any religious teachings. And you came out with a bomb
selling a book called Women of the Bible Speak, which
New York Times best Selling Author, number one best selling
(02:50):
author week after week, and that was earlier this year.
And the book is titled The Women of the Bible Speak,
The Wisdom of the Sixteen Women in Lessons for Today.
So what made you decide to write this book? It's
just it's it's such an interesting term for it. Yeah,
it it actually Fox came to me because you know,
they were putting out their own book label book series,
(03:11):
three different books, and they said, listen, we're thinking about
doing something in this space with women and religion. We
know you're very open about your faith. Is this something
you'd be interested in and I was like, man, what
an opportunity. I was so excited, and we dove in
and decided to put together these women in pairs. We
kind of look at the parallels in their lives and
the lessons we learned through them, and the more that
I studied because I grew up in the church and
(03:33):
in faith, and knowing these stories, I learned so so
much about these women. And I was writing this during
last year, which was probably the worst year for just
about anybody that they can remember, with fear and anxiety
and loss and pain and worry and financial trouble and
just such a stew of terrible things. And it really
was such a blessing to me, this book of being
(03:55):
inspired remembering these stories, reading the Bible in a deeper way,
and thinking, you know, that's working through things all the time,
whether we can see it or not. And I saw
that in these women's stories, and I'm just amazed that
it's really connected with people. And I love that that.
I think for some people, um, you know, the toughest
times like the year of the pandemic and of social
(04:16):
unrest and a and of open wounds and of things
that we've got to have tough conversations. I think all
of those things made a lot of people more open
to talking about faith, into finding something bigger than ourselves
that we can root in. And you know, the book
they came to me, but it turned out to be
such a blessing to me and writing it. Now, were
you surprise how popular and successful it's been? Oh? Absolutely.
(04:39):
I mean, you know, when you write a book, you
don't ever want to get expectations about what it's gonna do.
And for this, because it was this message that's so
faith based. You know, I just prayed over the book
when it was being written and getting ready. Um, you know,
God just helped this to be a encouragement to people,
help them to find you if they're looking for you,
if they know you, may they be encouraged and just
(05:00):
inspired by these women to see that you have purpose
in everything and that people great and small. And you
know in this book I joke about it, but it's true.
We've got a queen, we've got a murderer, we've got
a prostitute. I mean, all of these different people, some
women who made really bad decisions. But God redeemed it
and he can use our messes. Uh, he can reach
to us wherever we are. We don't have to be
(05:22):
Queen Esther. We can be somebody who you know is
no name, is just living our lives, is just trying
to be faithful, and he can work through all different circumstances.
So I just came at the book from such a
spiritual place that I wasn't thinking about how it would
do or trying to tell myself, don't look at those
worldly measures of this. So to see it do so well, Yeah,
(05:44):
very surprising. Yeah. Absolutely. Let me ask you this for
our listeners, especially for those who may not be familiar
with the work, can you explain for those who may
not even be familiar with the Bible in and of itself,
can you really give us the crooks of the book
book and why it was so so important today. I
know you talked about the pandemic. I agree with that,
(06:06):
but even beyond that, because the country is opening and up.
L A just opened up. I think it was yesterday,
June June. It just opened up. So you're seeing all
across the country and now people are kind of out
of the pandemic in some respects, and now we need
to really get those folks who might have said you know,
I'm out of this now. I don't need to think
about faith. I don't need to think about God. I
(06:27):
don't need to think about the Bible because my life
is going back to how it used to be. This
book is going to be important for years to come.
Can you can you just dig right in and and
talk to us, talk us through the book. Yeah. So,
what I love about the book is that the more
I looked at these stories, I thought, gosh, they're timeless,
because these are women who deal with family squabbles and
(06:48):
jealousy and fighting, and infertility and widowhood and longing for
something and praying for years and hoping for something to
come true, chronic illnesses, financial ruin. I mean, these are
all things that over time we're all going to experience
in one way or another, or the people that we
love or our families are gonna walk through these valleys.
So I was just struck by the fact that these
(07:11):
stories across time translate to today. I mean, there's still
very problems and beyond um. But like I said, to
see how God worked and sometimes these women we did
years or decades a lifetime to see His promises come
true for them. I think we've all been in seasons
of uncertainty or of waiting, or of struggle, whether it's
(07:31):
you know, relational, financial, physical, spiritual, whatever it is. Those
stories just give us encouragement. They challenge us, and they
give us tools, I think, and point us in the
right direction to say, you know, have faith, continue to
seek God. He hears you, he hears your prayers. They
don't have to be fancy. You don't have to be
a theologian or have gone to seminary. I mean sometimes
(07:53):
it's the simplest things. There have been times in my
life where I've been in a really dark place and
all I could say was God, please help me, God,
Please help me. I mean, not not anything fancier than that,
or knowing every in and out of my faith or
of doctrine, but just knowing that God is there and
he's listening. A man now, you know, I think, uh,
(08:13):
one of the first woman of the Bible that everyone,
uh it seemingly talks about is the story of Adam
and Eve and the eating of the apple from the tree.
Did you dig in there? You know what's so funny
is we had to cull it down at some point
because there were so many stories. Eve did not make
the cuts, sadly, but maybe there'll be women of the
(08:34):
Bible speak too, and then we'll get even there. I mean,
she is the mother of all humanity and all that
we know, and God's earliest, you know, human creation, She
and Adam. But we had this process of going through
and saying, gosh, what do we include? What do we
cut out? Because all of these stories are important and fascinating.
We don't have to add anything to them, by the way,
I mean, there's so many twists and turns and drama
(08:54):
um with each of these stories that they're all kind
of you know, Hollywood movies in their own right. So
we don't talk too much about Eve in in this
um study. She's not one of our deep dive studies
in this particular book. But we do include a lot
of the Old Testament, a lot of the New Testament.
And honestly, there were so many women after we did
the nine chapters pairing them together that I said, listen,
(09:16):
excuse me, eight chapters. I said, there are all these
other women that we don't some of them we don't
even know their names, but their stories are important. They're
included in the Bible, and they show the interaction with
Christ and how he didn't judge, he accepted and loved them.
He would and whatever their circumstances, you know, say to them,
go and send no more. But he didn't ever be
raped or belittle them. I mean he went to these
(09:39):
women who were outcasts from society, who were not accepted
by the religious elites or the elites of the day.
And so he went to people where they were modest,
humble people that needed his help. And so we did
a whole other chapter that we added on the end
about Christ's interaction with another eight women. So it was
really hard to cut. In the end, I ended up
(10:00):
adding instead of cutting. But I think there are plenty
more women there for hopefully more books down the line.
We're talking to Fox News anchor Shannon Bring. We've got
much more with her right after a quick break. You
did your study and your research, and for some people
the Bible can be confusing to them. You talk about
the distinctions between the Greek and the Hebrew and how
(10:21):
it was transliterated. As an example at second Timothy one
and seven. For God have not given us a speed
of fear, but of power of love in the sour mind,
but yet it says you have to fear God. And
you know, I know from my study that that that
fear is reverence respect versus be afraid of How did
you deal with those different translations to really pull out
(10:42):
the true contextual meaning behind the words in the Bible?
As you you did your study and research here. You
know what helped me so much is that, UM, I
had a basic familiarity with these stories and with these scriptures.
But I had a couple of world class theologians who
actually have been to seminary and know the Greek and
the he run all those things. A couple of folks
who work at a First Baptist Dallas, and Pastor Jeffers
(11:05):
is a Fox News contributor, UM, and our viewers and
listeners will know him well. And I reached out to
these folks in his church. He connected me with them
because I would have these really deep questions, like you said,
trying to get to the meanings behind the words, or
what were the customs of the day, what were women
allowed to do not to do? Why was this woman's
circumstance unusual or was it common? UM, so honestly, being
(11:27):
able to lean on these super educated UM seminarians and
to say to them, give me a fuller understanding here.
Even though I knew these stories, they brought them to
life in such a different way for me. And we
talked through different translations, and sometimes we would say, even
the scholars don't agree on a particular point, so let's
flash out what we know. Let's not add or speculate,
(11:49):
but but let's say what experts have told us here
about these women. And I think it leaves a lot
of room for additional study. You know, every chapter we
end with study questions, and I love that because when
I read a book, I love study questions that then,
you know, give you the task of, you know, digging
into the scriptures more praying that they will personally be
(12:11):
more understandable, more enlightened for you. Um. And I like
when people do it as a group, to have a
number of women who have said to me, we're doing
this as a church Bible study, because I always feel
like in conversation with other people studying the same scriptures,
you're going to get different perspectives and different ideas. So
I was very blessed to have those experts to lean on.
And I hope it's just sort of a jumping off
(12:32):
point for people that they'll be encouraged to do their
own study as well. Mmm. No, I love that. Now,
out of all the women in the Bible you wrote about,
from Queen Esther to Mary Magdalene, is there anyone you
really identify with or found especially inspiring? You know, I've
always loved this story about the woman, and she's in
several gospels, but we don't ever know her name. Um
(12:54):
when we meet her, she'd been suffering with an issue
of bleeding, is what we're talking the woman with the
issue Jesus. I love her story. It is so comforting
and inspiring. Um. I just she'd suffer for twelve years
and we meet her. She has no money left, because
we're told she spent everything she had seeing worse exactly
(13:18):
what exactly? So think about how despondent she must have
been at that point. She's she's penniless. Now she has
no cure, she's only getting physically worse. But she hears
about Jesus, this guy who's going around performing miracles, and
some people say as the son of God. And so
she's like, I believe that this guy is who he
says he is, and I am just gonna go touch
the hem of his garment. That's going to be enough
to heal me. So what I found out in writing
(13:40):
the book and studying is that she would have probably
been considered unclean in those days because of this illness
and this bleeding, meaning shouldn't have been around crowds, not
been in the temple, not been in the marketplace, I mean,
very isolated in her home. Probably is a lot of
folks felt this last year over the pandemic um, you know,
very lonely at times. But she goes and finds jesus
Us and she does that. She touches the garment, the
(14:02):
hem of his garment, and all the gospels tell us
she was immediately healed. She knew it, and Jesus knew
because he's got that something had happened. And he turns
around and one of the gospel says, who touched me?
And I almost can hear the disciples laughing, sort of
like the responses, everyone's touching you. You're in a crowd
all the time. Everybody wants a piece of you right now.
So he clearly knows who it is, and we're told
(14:23):
she was. She fell down in front of him, trembling,
and afraid to confess the whole thing. And he says
to her, and all the accounts, the very first thing
he says is daughter. He doesn't say, how dare you?
You're unclean, you shouldn't even be in this crowd. How
dare you touch me? This esteemed rabbi, the son of God,
he didn't see any of that. So he telegraphs his
(14:44):
acceptance directly to her, but also to everybody who's watching,
that she did the right thing. And he says to her,
your faith made you whole, and he sends her on
her way. And I think, what joy for not only
this one woman, but for her to then be able
to go tell her story all these pople who have
known her for twelve years with this illness, every doctor
that she's seen, everyone in her community, to say, oh,
(15:05):
my goodness, this person healed her. I mean, that was
the purpose of a lot of the miracles, was to
show that Christ was divine, and so um. I love
that he was so kind to her and just telegraphed
complete acceptance of her, even though what she did would
have broken the norms of the day. Absolutely, And I
really appreciate the part where it says, as she went
(15:28):
she was healed. So just to hear that compliment from
Jesus to say, your faith has made you healed, because
it was literally the touching of his garment following instruction
that she believed to touch him. Her faith activated when
she touched his role and I thought that was so
so cool, and I think something that people can learn
from today. And when you just believe God and you
just follow his instructions, you'll get what you're requesting. And
(15:53):
the thing is, his timing may not be ours, his
answer may not be ours, but he's listening and he
is going to answer ours us and a lot of
times it's better than anything we could have dreamed up. Um.
I've seen that in my own life, and I saw
that in so many of these stories of these women
that we include in the book. And you know, my
hope is that people who maybe are intimidated by the
Bible aren't people of faith, they'll still be inspired by
(16:13):
these women and what they went through and to see
their resilience and um, how they stood up with real
courage in times of challenge and at the threat of
their own lives in some of these cases. Um. But
the fact is that some of them prayed and waited
for years and decades, like I said, to see the answers,
and they came about in a different way than these
women would have thought, but an even better way. And
(16:36):
we can trust that God is going to be always
working for our good. Absolutely. Now, you know, men are
usually the ones that are referenced in the Bibles of
the scripture, mostly outside of Mary the Mother of Jesus
or Eve as A as another example. And you think
about the women of the Bible, is this something that
men sometimes would think? Maybe I shouldn't get it. It's
(16:58):
talking about the women of the Bibe. What what can
I get from this? Have you had any experiences with
that from either men or people from other faiths beyond
jud Joe des Um and Christianity or atheists or you know, nonbelievers,
and say, why would I want to read this book? This?
This won't apply to me? Right? And let me start
(17:20):
with the men, because the thing is they'll have familiarity
with a lot of these stories because in many of
these stories you've heard before, but probably primarily from the
male point of view, like Abraham and Sarah, the foundation
of all the world's you know, most prominent, biggest faiths
out there come through this family. But we've heard about
Abraham a lot, and we do hear about Sarah. But
(17:40):
in my book, I tell the story from Sarah's perspective.
So you're getting, um, just another angle on the same
story you've probably heard or studied if you are a
person of faith. I've had men say to me, I'm
buying this from my daughter's we're going to read it together,
or I bought it from my wife, um, and she's
sharing it with me and now we're going through it together.
So I don't think it's john or specific at all.
(18:01):
And like I said, I do think even if you're
not a person of faith, um, you know, I think
there's so much there. The principles are the same, about
perseverance and about community and about finding strength in really
difficult circumstances. So I've had a couple of Jewish people
reach out to me to say, you know, I thought
maybe this would only be from the perspective of the
(18:21):
New Testament, because you're a Christian, you're very open about
your faith. But to me, as a Christian, the Old
Testament is the foundation of my faith. And so I've
had Jewish believers say to me. I love that you
included our stories and that Queen Nest and others that
are so important to us from our faith traditions, from
the Old Testament, or at least half of your book.
So I think there's something for everybody if you're just
looking for something positive and encouraging. We need to pause
(18:45):
here for a quick break, but we'll be back straightly.
Let me ask you this question in your in your life,
because you've had many examples of how your faith has
worked for you. You're clearly one of the most sought
after individuals, and news media and the network has been
(19:05):
promoting you. You've done a great job. You you're the
chief legal correspondent if I'm correct, and I believe that
you are. You work on Supreme Court issues regularly and
consistently when the court is open. Have you noticed any
shift in terms of legally of people's rights is in
terms of their religious faiths being usurped and they have
(19:27):
to take cases to the Supreme Court. I'm sure that
happens all the time, but do you see more of
that occurring now in this day and age. Yeah, we
certainly did a lot during the toughest lockdowns during the pandemic.
There were several churches and you know, synagogues and different
faiths that actually joined together to go to the Supreme
Court and say, um, you know, why can people fly
(19:48):
around in planes or go to Costco or go to
liquor stores or pet stores, but they can't go to church.
And so I mean, we saw cases out of New
York and California, all over the country that ended up
at the Supreme Court with the justices basically saying, listen,
there can be times of enormous distress and emergency in
our country, but you can't suspend the Constitution forever. And
(20:08):
you can't treat churches differently than you do non religious
organizations if you can say, you know, there was a
case out of California where these churches are saying, listen,
if you're gonna say strip clubs can be open during
the pandemic, we are not going to close our doors.
So you know, the Supreme Court came down in favor
of a number of these religious groups saying you've got
to work out the accommodations. If casinos and other places
(20:30):
are open, you have to find a way that you're
not discriminating against worship places, houses, of faith UH in
the same way. So we saw a lot of that
during the pandemic. And we you know, there's a case
pending that we're waiting right now for at the Supreme
Court too, which sets up something that's a very modern
conversation about how you balance religious faith and freedom in
(20:51):
this country UM against the rights of lgbt Q and
their community and anti discrimination statutes. And in this one
case deals with Catholic Charities groups and Piladelphia who who
UM work as a foster care placement system for children
in need, and UM, because they are a Catholic church
(21:12):
based group, they don't actively place children with same sex couples.
So there's a lawsuit over that now pending UM and
I know that for the case, and the record shows
there's never been a same sex couple who's gone to
Catholic Charities to try to be part of the foster
program and been turned away. So the case is based
on something that hasn't actually happened yet. But I think
(21:32):
that's going to be one of those very tricky places
where the Court's going to try to find this balance
of respecting the rights of everyone involved. Can you find
that balance? UM, And we'll get that case in a
number of days, and so, um, yeah, I think there
are a lot of important conversations on that space that
are happening in the legal world. Now. We've seen in
recent years that each nominee, each new nominee to the
(21:55):
Supreme Court, becomes a political circus. We saw that with
Brett common all Amy Coney Barrett, which they tried to
really really derail her nomination as well as Brett. Why
does the Supreme Court become such a politically expulsive, explosive
point of contention. Is it healthy for the republic I
(22:17):
think it's tricky because the justices themselves don't want to
be viewed as partisan. They know that either Republican or
a Democrat president nominated them, but they very much want
to be seen be seen as untethered from that. They
have no obligations, they make no promises to any president
who interviews them or considers them for nomination, and so
(22:37):
you see them across the ideological spectrum. I think it's
healthy to have Justices, all nine of them across the board,
different ones now speaking up and saying, um, you know,
Justice Prior, who's viewed as a part of the liberal wing,
he comes from a Democratic nomination President Clinton to say,
this court is not political. We do not want to
be viewed that way. We for the Chief Justice John Roberts,
obviously a Republican nominee, say the same thing. We as
(23:00):
the court or above that separate from that and we
don't operate that way. They've, you know, many of them
have said things that have indicated they're not happy about
this talk of packing the court by Democrats and progressives
who are really pushing that. So when you have even
Stephen Bryer coming out as a Democratic, democratically nominated nominee
who votes primarily with the liberal wing, to say, stop
(23:21):
talking about packing the court. You're undermining the institution and
making it look political, where we make every effort to
not be political. And I think they genuinely do that,
but I think because they're the highest court in the land,
there's so much at stake for every seat that changes,
and so right now they're just like we saw with
Justice Ginsburg, we're seeing a number of people step up
(23:42):
on the left and right these articles and give these
interviews saying it's time for Justice Prior to go. And
my experience has been that the more that happens with
the Justice, the more likely they dig their heels in
and they don't want to leave. So it's really tricky.
And you know, one of the things we watched for
is I'm now coming to the end of the term
for the Supreme Court, which ends the end of June.
We always watch for those retirement announcements, and there are
(24:04):
always rumors, but we haven't heard anything concrete from Justice Bryan,
and I suspect the more of the left calls for
him to go, the longer he's going to stay. Yeah, unlikely. Now,
what do you think about Mitch McConnell's latest statement saying
that if Republicans take over the Senate and he becomes
the majority leader again, he's not going to allow any
Joe Biden nominees to get a hearing. And that's clearly
(24:27):
if someone were to retire at this point. Yeah, he
says in election year four, if that happens. Now, he'll
say to you that that is consistent with what he
did with the open seat of Justice Scalia when there
was an election coming and the Senate was in a
different political party's hands than the White House. He says,
what's consistent is to wait for the election and let
the voters tell you who they want to fill that seat.
(24:49):
So it's really wonky, is very nuanced, but he says
that's been his consistent argument the whole time. And listen,
he and President Trump. There lasting legacy, I think will
be the enormous number of federal judges they got seated
to the bench during President Trump's year or his term
that he absolutely so. Um, that is what Mitch McConnell
(25:11):
is about. That's what President drump was about, was getting
those seats filled. So listen, I think it's tricky Democrats
are looking ahead to next year and knowing that you know,
historically it's not a good year for the party whose
president holds the White House. So I think that the
House is very much in play. I think the Senate
less so. But again, um, you know, looking ahead too,
(25:34):
who knows what the political landscape is gonna be. But
Mitch McConnell says this statement he made this week is
consistent with what he did. I wanna I want to
close out our interview by asking a couple of questions
about you beyond Fox News and your best selling book.
You've spoken before about your eye condition that you may
you had to endure extremely dry eye and how painful
(25:57):
it was for you. You described waking up in the
middle of the night and feeling like someone was literally
stabbing your eyes. For our listeners who may not know,
what was that experience like and what lessons, if any,
that you learned from it, it was clearly the darkest
part of my life. I'm very open in my first
book talking about that and how when you live with
(26:18):
chronic pain. And I'm sure a number of people listening
to this know what that's like, or they have someone
they love who knows what knows what's that's like. Every
day you're questioning how do I get through this day?
And what is the purpose? I mean, if my whole
life is going to be nothing but trying to survive
excruciating pain every day of my life, why should I
(26:39):
go on living? And I was really asking myself those questions,
and I went from doctor to doctor with this excruciating
I pain. Finally and I had gotten to a really
dark place and just kind of had a breakdown with
my husband, like I can't go on like this, I
can't do this anymore. And when I you know, log
onto message boards for people who are suffering the way
that I am with the same eye conditions. People are
(27:00):
talking about suicide, and that doesn't sound crazy to me.
It sounds like it would be a relief in some ways.
And I knew in my head, even though I was
exhausted and going through constant pain and emotionally exhausted, that
that wasn't clear thinking. I knew that, and so leveling
with my husband, having this conversation and deciding that I
(27:22):
was going to start the hunt again for another doctor,
and praying that God would lead me to somebody. Listen,
if you're not gonna heal me, may not be your plan.
Please just lead me to somebody that can get me
through this. And the very next day I found the
doctor who finally diagnosed me. And I always embarrassed him
when see him. I'm like, you know, you're an answer
to prayer any sort of like he laughs a little
bit uncomfortably, like, okay, thanks um, But he really is um.
(27:46):
And what he diagnosed me with was not only the
dry eye that I was struggling with. And I hate
this because I know millions of people around the world
struggle with this, but on top of that, I had
a genetic condition to my corneas that is not curable.
It's manageable, but there is no cure for it. So
that was a blow when he told me that. It
was such a high to hear that he knew what
I had finally, but you know, really difficult to hear
(28:07):
that you're never going to be free of this. You're
going to manage this the rest of your life. And
with his help and God's grace, I have been able
to get out of that chronic pain situation and found
such relief and help were the time. I'm doing amazing
and I'm so grateful. So you ask about lessons, and
that's such a great question because a couple of things
made me way more empathetic to other people. Because I
(28:30):
would think sometimes at the gym, when I'm on the
treadmill or something and just can barely hang on, I'm like,
I don't you know the person next to me has
no idea what I'm struggling with. How do I know
what they're struggling with. Maybe they are in depression, maybe
they are have lost someone they love, maybe they're unemployed
and terrified. I mean, you don't know what people are
going through. It doesn't have to be physical it can
(28:50):
be mental and emotional. We're all struggling with those things
of the last year. So it's made me much more
empathetic um to other people's pain, which is a good
place to be, to be humble and to care about
other people. But it also gave me great hope and
deep in my faith because there came a point where
after I found out that there was no cure for this,
that I was in my car just sobbing, having left
(29:11):
the doctor's office and saying, God, how can this be?
You know, I feel like this guy is my answer
to prayer. But what do you mean there's no cure?
And as I'm thinking, I just can't do it, um,
I felt him say to me, not out loud. I
don't feel like I've ever heard God's voice out loud,
although I believe, you know, people can. For me, my
experience was sort of feeling him say in my spirit,
but it was very clear saying I will be with you.
(29:34):
Those words, not I'm gonna take you out of this,
or I'm gonna heal it, or it's all going to
be rainbows and sunshine, but I'm going to be with you.
And I think that's a truth that we can all
claim whatever we're walking through that he promises us to
be with us in the best and worst of it.
So I would never want to relive those years, but
I learned a lot and I'm thankful for what I
(29:55):
learned through them. Wow, thank you for sharing that story.
And is so and thing you mentioned your your husband Sheldon,
and I see you all's marriage. You will be married.
I guess it will be thirty years in a few
years from now, like maybe three years now. We just
we celebrated our so five years from now. Yeah, yeah,
(30:17):
And you know what we always say, we are non perfect,
but we're perfect for each other. And our faith is
the foundation of what keeps us together. Like everyone has
been married for longer than five minutes, you've had an argument,
you've had ups and downs, real world struggles and real crises,
um in your marriage. And so we don't ever want
to act like we've got it totally together and um
(30:38):
it's perfect to bliss for twenty five years, but we
know that you can make it through tough things. And
I am his number one fan and I think he's
mine too. And I think if you come from a
place of where you're cheering for your spouse and you
want the best for them, because listen, we're all born
selfish beings. I think we come out of the womb
that way. And marriage really makes you fight that you
have to want the other person since, um, you know,
(31:01):
benefit before your own. And if you're constantly trying to
serve and care for each other, it's going to be
a beautiful circle where you're taking care of each other.
And it feels like a really nice place to kind
of have shelter in your own home against the rest
of the world because you know you have someone who
has your back and you have theirs, and that's and
I appreciate that. Thank you for sharing that. And as
(31:25):
someone who's certainly looking to get married at some point
in the in the future, maybe even the near future,
who knows the near future, Yeah, I would love that.
But for me, it's it's you've got to really beyond
everything looking okay, if a person has, you know, all
the things in which you desire and a mate. It's
(31:45):
also this this instinct, this it factor that comes into
play in my mind. And of course I've never been married,
so I don't really really know. But my question to
you is, is there do you believe that there's that
one person or is it maybe one peron sin or
the one person in a particular time, or is it
just a one person God has created for you and
(32:06):
there can't be any others. Yeah, that's such a good question,
and I've wrestled with that because I can't imagine my
life with anyone other than Sheldon. And I see how
perfectly his strengths fit together with my weaknesses, and I think, Gosh,
God sent him to me, for sure. But I do
believe we have free will and God has all kinds
of wonderful people out there created. You know, some people
(32:29):
it's a gift of singleness in marriage is not for them,
but I think for a lot of us it is.
And I think, you know, God can work through all
of our decisions, and hopefully we seek him and really,
you know, try to get good counsel when you're looking
at whether this is the one for you. So, I mean,
I personally believe, because of the path of my life
and because of what a good fit and a wonderful,
(32:50):
amazing person shallness to me, I feel like he's my person.
But I don't want people later, But I don't I
don't want people to feel like, oh gosh, there's only
one person to miss him, I'm never getting married, or
if i'm you know, miss him, I'm going to marry
the wrong person. Like, I don't know that that's the case.
I just think in my case, I'm really grateful for
the one person God did send into my path that
(33:12):
I'm married. But I think there are a lot of
amazing people out there. So I don't know if it's like, oh,
if you don't get this one, then you've done everything wrong,
you know. And I've been wrestling with that question myself,
and I think to your point, and I love what
you said because it's what I've I've believed as well.
As you have free will and it can be something
that's intended to be. But for that person, maybe they're
(33:32):
not right there at that right moment, and they have
the free will, let's say no or not move on
and God will place somebody else in your life. So
I think that. I think that's amazing and I really
appreciate you sharing that. And before we go, do you
have any big projects coming up that the folks at
home should know about? And where can they find you
on social media and elsewhere? Well, you can find me
(33:53):
at Shannon Bream on Facebook and Twitter and instaff. I
drew the line at like TikTok, I'm like, I'm tool
for that. That is not true if I'm doing that. Um,
Although I have an amazing assistant, Tessa, who is young
and hip and knows how to work everything. Um, but
I stick to those three pretty much. I'm pretty prolific
on Twitter with news. Um. We I've got something out
(34:13):
on Fox Nation now which is called Hero Dogs, which
is a lot of fun. It's amazing stories about dogs
that go into battle or their police dogs or you know,
the dogs that went on the raid for Bin Laden.
I mean, we've got amazing stories where you see them
with their handlers and the military men and women that
they work with, or the police officers they work with,
or the d e A Drug officers, and that's just
kind of a feel good um story. Those are on
(34:35):
Fox Nation. They've just been released now this you know,
the next couple of weeks are going to be crazy
covering the Supreme Court, and I'm feeling it for Bret
and Martha and a lot of other people the summer
as it gets busy, and of course at midnight we're
there for Fox News at nights on the East Coast
nine o'clock Pacific and hopefully we'll see you there with
us soon. I hope so too. Thank you, Shannon Brain
for sharing with us today. We really appreciate your valuable
(34:57):
insight my pleasure. Thanks for having me. I want to
thank Shannon Bring again for a great interview. If you're
enjoying the show, please leave us a review and rate
us with five stars on Apple Podcast. If you have
any questions for me, please email me at out loud
at Ginger Street sixt dot com and I'll try to
(35:19):
answer them in our future episodes. And please sign up
for my monthly newsletter at Ginger Street sixtees dot com
slash out loud. You can also follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and parlor at Gianto Caldwell. And if you're interested in
learning more about my story, please pick up a copy
of my best selling book title Taken for Granted, How
Conservatism Can Win Back to the the Americans The Liberalism Failed
(35:40):
Special Thanks to our producer John Cassio, Researcher and Klingman,
and executive producers Debbie Myers and Speaker New ging Wig,
part of the Ginglish three sixty network
Up next out Woud with Gianno called part of the gig,
which switch six people who don't read scripture, often insuing
women play little to no role in the Bible. In fact,
some critics even claimed the Bible's outright sexist. Today we
learned the truth with the one and only Shannon Breen.
(00:23):
Welcome back to Allow with Gianno Calledwell. I'm Gianno calledwell,
and I'm so excited for this week's show. My guest
is someone who I'm a big fan of and I'm
sure you've seen on TV Fox News Channel, Shannon Breen.
Shannon has been a pillar at Fox News for years,
and she currently works as an anchor in the network's
chief legal correspondent. Shannon is also a New York Times
(00:44):
bestselling author, number one in that slot multiple times over.
For her latest book, The Women of the Bible Speak
The Wisdom of Sixteen Women and their Lessons for Today,
it rose to the New York Times bestseller list number
one over and over again. Such a good read. Today,
I want to discuss Shannon's latest book and examine faith
(01:06):
more broadly. I also asked her about the Supreme Court,
reliant on her former legal career and years of reporting
on the nation's highest court. Plus we discussed family and
get a bit into Shannon's personal life. With that, I
want to welcome Shannon bringing to the show. Thank you
so much for coming on Allow with Gianno Caldwell. You
know it is my honor. I've been just so blown
(01:26):
away watching you over the years and just um all
the amazing things that you're doing, and I'm always cheering
for you and so interesting to know. You were the
first person I've ever met who worked at Fox News Channel.
I think it was the Hills Most Beautiful event and
you you received the honor of that year and I
was able to say hello, I'm I'm interested in doing television.
(01:48):
I think I was doing TV at that point. I
think it was more on CNN as a as a guest.
But it was so nice of you to give me
your your email address and correspond with me, and here
we are now colleagues at the same network. I love it.
And that's such a cheeseball Washington thing that we would
be at a party for the Hills most people, but
I love it. I'm glad that that was an opportunity
(02:09):
to meet you, if nothing else, exactly exactly so I
want to get into something that I think Um has
certainly woken people up to women in the Bible today.
I think especially in our day and age with the
culture that we see the cultural wars, and you see
a lot of folks that have been moving towards darkness.
(02:29):
If I'm being honest with you, they're not necessarily utilizing
the Bible as a tool to get through those very
difficult times. In some cases, they're shunning the Bible in
any religious teachings. And you came out with a bomb
selling a book called Women of the Bible Speak, which
New York Times best Selling Author, number one best selling
(02:50):
author week after week, and that was earlier this year.
And the book is titled The Women of the Bible Speak,
The Wisdom of the Sixteen Women in Lessons for Today.
So what made you decide to write this book? It's
just it's it's such an interesting term for it. Yeah,
it it actually Fox came to me because you know,
they were putting out their own book label book series,
(03:11):
three different books, and they said, listen, we're thinking about
doing something in this space with women and religion. We
know you're very open about your faith. Is this something
you'd be interested in and I was like, man, what
an opportunity. I was so excited, and we dove in
and decided to put together these women in pairs. We
kind of look at the parallels in their lives and
the lessons we learned through them, and the more that
I studied because I grew up in the church and
(03:33):
in faith, and knowing these stories, I learned so so
much about these women. And I was writing this during
last year, which was probably the worst year for just
about anybody that they can remember, with fear and anxiety
and loss and pain and worry and financial trouble and
just such a stew of terrible things. And it really
was such a blessing to me, this book of being
(03:55):
inspired remembering these stories, reading the Bible in a deeper way,
and thinking, you know, that's working through things all the time,
whether we can see it or not. And I saw
that in these women's stories, and I'm just amazed that
it's really connected with people. And I love that that.
I think for some people, um, you know, the toughest
times like the year of the pandemic and of social
(04:16):
unrest and a and of open wounds and of things
that we've got to have tough conversations. I think all
of those things made a lot of people more open
to talking about faith, into finding something bigger than ourselves
that we can root in. And you know, the book
they came to me, but it turned out to be
such a blessing to me and writing it. Now, were
you surprise how popular and successful it's been? Oh? Absolutely.
(04:39):
I mean, you know, when you write a book, you
don't ever want to get expectations about what it's gonna do.
And for this, because it was this message that's so
faith based. You know, I just prayed over the book
when it was being written and getting ready. Um, you know,
God just helped this to be a encouragement to people,
help them to find you if they're looking for you,
if they know you, may they be encouraged and just
(05:00):
inspired by these women to see that you have purpose
in everything and that people great and small. And you
know in this book I joke about it, but it's true.
We've got a queen, we've got a murderer, we've got
a prostitute. I mean, all of these different people, some
women who made really bad decisions. But God redeemed it
and he can use our messes. Uh, he can reach
to us wherever we are. We don't have to be
(05:22):
Queen Esther. We can be somebody who you know is
no name, is just living our lives, is just trying
to be faithful, and he can work through all different circumstances.
So I just came at the book from such a
spiritual place that I wasn't thinking about how it would
do or trying to tell myself, don't look at those
worldly measures of this. So to see it do so well, Yeah,
(05:44):
very surprising. Yeah. Absolutely. Let me ask you this for
our listeners, especially for those who may not be familiar
with the work, can you explain for those who may
not even be familiar with the Bible in and of itself,
can you really give us the crooks of the book
book and why it was so so important today. I
know you talked about the pandemic. I agree with that,
(06:06):
but even beyond that, because the country is opening and up.
L A just opened up. I think it was yesterday,
June June. It just opened up. So you're seeing all
across the country and now people are kind of out
of the pandemic in some respects, and now we need
to really get those folks who might have said you know,
I'm out of this now. I don't need to think
about faith. I don't need to think about God. I
(06:27):
don't need to think about the Bible because my life
is going back to how it used to be. This
book is going to be important for years to come.
Can you can you just dig right in and and
talk to us, talk us through the book. Yeah. So,
what I love about the book is that the more
I looked at these stories, I thought, gosh, they're timeless,
because these are women who deal with family squabbles and
(06:48):
jealousy and fighting, and infertility and widowhood and longing for
something and praying for years and hoping for something to
come true, chronic illnesses, financial ruin. I mean, these are
all things that over time we're all going to experience
in one way or another, or the people that we
love or our families are gonna walk through these valleys.
So I was just struck by the fact that these
(07:11):
stories across time translate to today. I mean, there's still
very problems and beyond um. But like I said, to
see how God worked and sometimes these women we did
years or decades a lifetime to see His promises come
true for them. I think we've all been in seasons
of uncertainty or of waiting, or of struggle, whether it's
(07:31):
you know, relational, financial, physical, spiritual, whatever it is. Those
stories just give us encouragement. They challenge us, and they
give us tools, I think, and point us in the
right direction to say, you know, have faith, continue to
seek God. He hears you, he hears your prayers. They
don't have to be fancy. You don't have to be
a theologian or have gone to seminary. I mean sometimes
(07:53):
it's the simplest things. There have been times in my
life where I've been in a really dark place and
all I could say was God, please help me, God,
Please help me. I mean, not not anything fancier than that,
or knowing every in and out of my faith or
of doctrine, but just knowing that God is there and
he's listening. A man now, you know, I think, uh,
(08:13):
one of the first woman of the Bible that everyone,
uh it seemingly talks about is the story of Adam
and Eve and the eating of the apple from the tree.
Did you dig in there? You know what's so funny
is we had to cull it down at some point
because there were so many stories. Eve did not make
the cuts, sadly, but maybe there'll be women of the
(08:34):
Bible speak too, and then we'll get even there. I mean,
she is the mother of all humanity and all that
we know, and God's earliest, you know, human creation, She
and Adam. But we had this process of going through
and saying, gosh, what do we include? What do we
cut out? Because all of these stories are important and fascinating.
We don't have to add anything to them, by the way,
I mean, there's so many twists and turns and drama
(08:54):
um with each of these stories that they're all kind
of you know, Hollywood movies in their own right. So
we don't talk too much about Eve in in this
um study. She's not one of our deep dive studies
in this particular book. But we do include a lot
of the Old Testament, a lot of the New Testament.
And honestly, there were so many women after we did
the nine chapters pairing them together that I said, listen,
(09:16):
excuse me, eight chapters. I said, there are all these
other women that we don't some of them we don't
even know their names, but their stories are important. They're
included in the Bible, and they show the interaction with
Christ and how he didn't judge, he accepted and loved them.
He would and whatever their circumstances, you know, say to them,
go and send no more. But he didn't ever be
raped or belittle them. I mean he went to these
(09:39):
women who were outcasts from society, who were not accepted
by the religious elites or the elites of the day.
And so he went to people where they were modest,
humble people that needed his help. And so we did
a whole other chapter that we added on the end
about Christ's interaction with another eight women. So it was
really hard to cut. In the end, I ended up
(10:00):
adding instead of cutting. But I think there are plenty
more women there for hopefully more books down the line.
We're talking to Fox News anchor Shannon Bring. We've got
much more with her right after a quick break. You
did your study and your research, and for some people
the Bible can be confusing to them. You talk about
the distinctions between the Greek and the Hebrew and how
(10:21):
it was transliterated. As an example at second Timothy one
and seven. For God have not given us a speed
of fear, but of power of love in the sour mind,
but yet it says you have to fear God. And
you know, I know from my study that that that
fear is reverence respect versus be afraid of How did
you deal with those different translations to really pull out
(10:42):
the true contextual meaning behind the words in the Bible?
As you you did your study and research here. You
know what helped me so much is that, UM, I
had a basic familiarity with these stories and with these scriptures.
But I had a couple of world class theologians who
actually have been to seminary and know the Greek and
the he run all those things. A couple of folks
who work at a First Baptist Dallas, and Pastor Jeffers
(11:05):
is a Fox News contributor, UM, and our viewers and
listeners will know him well. And I reached out to
these folks in his church. He connected me with them
because I would have these really deep questions, like you said,
trying to get to the meanings behind the words, or
what were the customs of the day, what were women
allowed to do not to do? Why was this woman's
circumstance unusual or was it common? UM, so honestly, being
(11:27):
able to lean on these super educated UM seminarians and
to say to them, give me a fuller understanding here.
Even though I knew these stories, they brought them to
life in such a different way for me. And we
talked through different translations, and sometimes we would say, even
the scholars don't agree on a particular point, so let's
flash out what we know. Let's not add or speculate,
(11:49):
but but let's say what experts have told us here
about these women. And I think it leaves a lot
of room for additional study. You know, every chapter we
end with study questions, and I love that because when
I read a book, I love study questions that then,
you know, give you the task of, you know, digging
into the scriptures more praying that they will personally be
(12:11):
more understandable, more enlightened for you. Um. And I like
when people do it as a group, to have a
number of women who have said to me, we're doing
this as a church Bible study, because I always feel
like in conversation with other people studying the same scriptures,
you're going to get different perspectives and different ideas. So
I was very blessed to have those experts to lean on.
And I hope it's just sort of a jumping off
(12:32):
point for people that they'll be encouraged to do their
own study as well. Mmm. No, I love that. Now,
out of all the women in the Bible you wrote about,
from Queen Esther to Mary Magdalene, is there anyone you
really identify with or found especially inspiring? You know, I've
always loved this story about the woman, and she's in
several gospels, but we don't ever know her name. Um
(12:54):
when we meet her, she'd been suffering with an issue
of bleeding, is what we're talking the woman with the
issue Jesus. I love her story. It is so comforting
and inspiring. Um. I just she'd suffer for twelve years
and we meet her. She has no money left, because
we're told she spent everything she had seeing worse exactly
(13:18):
what exactly? So think about how despondent she must have
been at that point. She's she's penniless. Now she has
no cure, she's only getting physically worse. But she hears
about Jesus, this guy who's going around performing miracles, and
some people say as the son of God. And so
she's like, I believe that this guy is who he
says he is, and I am just gonna go touch
the hem of his garment. That's going to be enough
to heal me. So what I found out in writing
(13:40):
the book and studying is that she would have probably
been considered unclean in those days because of this illness
and this bleeding, meaning shouldn't have been around crowds, not
been in the temple, not been in the marketplace, I mean,
very isolated in her home. Probably is a lot of
folks felt this last year over the pandemic um, you know,
very lonely at times. But she goes and finds jesus
Us and she does that. She touches the garment, the
(14:02):
hem of his garment, and all the gospels tell us
she was immediately healed. She knew it, and Jesus knew
because he's got that something had happened. And he turns
around and one of the gospel says, who touched me?
And I almost can hear the disciples laughing, sort of
like the responses, everyone's touching you. You're in a crowd
all the time. Everybody wants a piece of you right now.
So he clearly knows who it is, and we're told
(14:23):
she was. She fell down in front of him, trembling,
and afraid to confess the whole thing. And he says
to her, and all the accounts, the very first thing
he says is daughter. He doesn't say, how dare you?
You're unclean, you shouldn't even be in this crowd. How
dare you touch me? This esteemed rabbi, the son of God,
he didn't see any of that. So he telegraphs his
(14:44):
acceptance directly to her, but also to everybody who's watching,
that she did the right thing. And he says to her,
your faith made you whole, and he sends her on
her way. And I think, what joy for not only
this one woman, but for her to then be able
to go tell her story all these pople who have
known her for twelve years with this illness, every doctor
that she's seen, everyone in her community, to say, oh,
(15:05):
my goodness, this person healed her. I mean, that was
the purpose of a lot of the miracles, was to
show that Christ was divine, and so um. I love
that he was so kind to her and just telegraphed
complete acceptance of her, even though what she did would
have broken the norms of the day. Absolutely, And I
really appreciate the part where it says, as she went
(15:28):
she was healed. So just to hear that compliment from
Jesus to say, your faith has made you healed, because
it was literally the touching of his garment following instruction
that she believed to touch him. Her faith activated when
she touched his role and I thought that was so
so cool, and I think something that people can learn
from today. And when you just believe God and you
just follow his instructions, you'll get what you're requesting. And
(15:53):
the thing is, his timing may not be ours, his
answer may not be ours, but he's listening and he
is going to answer ours us and a lot of
times it's better than anything we could have dreamed up. Um.
I've seen that in my own life, and I saw
that in so many of these stories of these women
that we include in the book. And you know, my
hope is that people who maybe are intimidated by the
Bible aren't people of faith, they'll still be inspired by
(16:13):
these women and what they went through and to see
their resilience and um, how they stood up with real
courage in times of challenge and at the threat of
their own lives in some of these cases. Um. But
the fact is that some of them prayed and waited
for years and decades, like I said, to see the answers,
and they came about in a different way than these
women would have thought, but an even better way. And
(16:36):
we can trust that God is going to be always
working for our good. Absolutely. Now, you know, men are
usually the ones that are referenced in the Bibles of
the scripture, mostly outside of Mary the Mother of Jesus
or Eve as A as another example. And you think
about the women of the Bible, is this something that
men sometimes would think? Maybe I shouldn't get it. It's
(16:58):
talking about the women of the Bibe. What what can
I get from this? Have you had any experiences with
that from either men or people from other faiths beyond
jud Joe des Um and Christianity or atheists or you know, nonbelievers,
and say, why would I want to read this book? This?
This won't apply to me? Right? And let me start
(17:20):
with the men, because the thing is they'll have familiarity
with a lot of these stories because in many of
these stories you've heard before, but probably primarily from the
male point of view, like Abraham and Sarah, the foundation
of all the world's you know, most prominent, biggest faiths
out there come through this family. But we've heard about
Abraham a lot, and we do hear about Sarah. But
(17:40):
in my book, I tell the story from Sarah's perspective.
So you're getting, um, just another angle on the same
story you've probably heard or studied if you are a
person of faith. I've had men say to me, I'm
buying this from my daughter's we're going to read it together,
or I bought it from my wife, um, and she's
sharing it with me and now we're going through it together.
So I don't think it's john or specific at all.
(18:01):
And like I said, I do think even if you're
not a person of faith, um, you know, I think
there's so much there. The principles are the same, about
perseverance and about community and about finding strength in really
difficult circumstances. So I've had a couple of Jewish people
reach out to me to say, you know, I thought
maybe this would only be from the perspective of the
(18:21):
New Testament, because you're a Christian, you're very open about
your faith. But to me, as a Christian, the Old
Testament is the foundation of my faith. And so I've
had Jewish believers say to me. I love that you
included our stories and that Queen Nest and others that
are so important to us from our faith traditions, from
the Old Testament, or at least half of your book.
So I think there's something for everybody if you're just
looking for something positive and encouraging. We need to pause
(18:45):
here for a quick break, but we'll be back straightly.
Let me ask you this question in your in your life,
because you've had many examples of how your faith has
worked for you. You're clearly one of the most sought
after individuals, and news media and the network has been
(19:05):
promoting you. You've done a great job. You you're the
chief legal correspondent if I'm correct, and I believe that
you are. You work on Supreme Court issues regularly and
consistently when the court is open. Have you noticed any
shift in terms of legally of people's rights is in
terms of their religious faiths being usurped and they have
(19:27):
to take cases to the Supreme Court. I'm sure that
happens all the time, but do you see more of
that occurring now in this day and age. Yeah, we
certainly did a lot during the toughest lockdowns during the pandemic.
There were several churches and you know, synagogues and different
faiths that actually joined together to go to the Supreme
Court and say, um, you know, why can people fly
(19:48):
around in planes or go to Costco or go to
liquor stores or pet stores, but they can't go to church.
And so I mean, we saw cases out of New
York and California, all over the country that ended up
at the Supreme Court with the justices basically saying, listen,
there can be times of enormous distress and emergency in
our country, but you can't suspend the Constitution forever. And
(20:08):
you can't treat churches differently than you do non religious
organizations if you can say, you know, there was a
case out of California where these churches are saying, listen,
if you're gonna say strip clubs can be open during
the pandemic, we are not going to close our doors.
So you know, the Supreme Court came down in favor
of a number of these religious groups saying you've got
to work out the accommodations. If casinos and other places
(20:30):
are open, you have to find a way that you're
not discriminating against worship places, houses, of faith UH in
the same way. So we saw a lot of that
during the pandemic. And we you know, there's a case
pending that we're waiting right now for at the Supreme
Court too, which sets up something that's a very modern
conversation about how you balance religious faith and freedom in
(20:51):
this country UM against the rights of lgbt Q and
their community and anti discrimination statutes. And in this one
case deals with Catholic Charities groups and Piladelphia who who
UM work as a foster care placement system for children
in need, and UM, because they are a Catholic church
(21:12):
based group, they don't actively place children with same sex couples.
So there's a lawsuit over that now pending UM and
I know that for the case, and the record shows
there's never been a same sex couple who's gone to
Catholic Charities to try to be part of the foster
program and been turned away. So the case is based
on something that hasn't actually happened yet. But I think
(21:32):
that's going to be one of those very tricky places
where the Court's going to try to find this balance
of respecting the rights of everyone involved. Can you find
that balance? UM, And we'll get that case in a
number of days, and so, um, yeah, I think there
are a lot of important conversations on that space that
are happening in the legal world. Now. We've seen in
recent years that each nominee, each new nominee to the
(21:55):
Supreme Court, becomes a political circus. We saw that with
Brett common all Amy Coney Barrett, which they tried to
really really derail her nomination as well as Brett. Why
does the Supreme Court become such a politically expulsive, explosive
point of contention. Is it healthy for the republic I
(22:17):
think it's tricky because the justices themselves don't want to
be viewed as partisan. They know that either Republican or
a Democrat president nominated them, but they very much want
to be seen be seen as untethered from that. They
have no obligations, they make no promises to any president
who interviews them or considers them for nomination, and so
(22:37):
you see them across the ideological spectrum. I think it's
healthy to have Justices, all nine of them across the board,
different ones now speaking up and saying, um, you know,
Justice Prior, who's viewed as a part of the liberal wing,
he comes from a Democratic nomination President Clinton to say,
this court is not political. We do not want to
be viewed that way. We for the Chief Justice John Roberts,
obviously a Republican nominee, say the same thing. We as
(23:00):
the court or above that separate from that and we
don't operate that way. They've, you know, many of them
have said things that have indicated they're not happy about
this talk of packing the court by Democrats and progressives
who are really pushing that. So when you have even
Stephen Bryer coming out as a Democratic, democratically nominated nominee
who votes primarily with the liberal wing, to say, stop
(23:21):
talking about packing the court. You're undermining the institution and
making it look political, where we make every effort to
not be political. And I think they genuinely do that,
but I think because they're the highest court in the land,
there's so much at stake for every seat that changes,
and so right now they're just like we saw with
Justice Ginsburg, we're seeing a number of people step up
(23:42):
on the left and right these articles and give these
interviews saying it's time for Justice Prior to go. And
my experience has been that the more that happens with
the Justice, the more likely they dig their heels in
and they don't want to leave. So it's really tricky.
And you know, one of the things we watched for
is I'm now coming to the end of the term
for the Supreme Court, which ends the end of June.
We always watch for those retirement announcements, and there are
(24:04):
always rumors, but we haven't heard anything concrete from Justice Bryan,
and I suspect the more of the left calls for
him to go, the longer he's going to stay. Yeah, unlikely. Now,
what do you think about Mitch McConnell's latest statement saying
that if Republicans take over the Senate and he becomes
the majority leader again, he's not going to allow any
Joe Biden nominees to get a hearing. And that's clearly
(24:27):
if someone were to retire at this point. Yeah, he
says in election year four, if that happens. Now, he'll
say to you that that is consistent with what he
did with the open seat of Justice Scalia when there
was an election coming and the Senate was in a
different political party's hands than the White House. He says,
what's consistent is to wait for the election and let
the voters tell you who they want to fill that seat.
(24:49):
So it's really wonky, is very nuanced, but he says
that's been his consistent argument the whole time. And listen,
he and President Trump. There lasting legacy, I think will
be the enormous number of federal judges they got seated
to the bench during President Trump's year or his term
that he absolutely so. Um, that is what Mitch McConnell
(25:11):
is about. That's what President drump was about, was getting
those seats filled. So listen, I think it's tricky Democrats
are looking ahead to next year and knowing that you know,
historically it's not a good year for the party whose
president holds the White House. So I think that the
House is very much in play. I think the Senate
less so. But again, um, you know, looking ahead too,
(25:34):
who knows what the political landscape is gonna be. But
Mitch McConnell says this statement he made this week is
consistent with what he did. I wanna I want to
close out our interview by asking a couple of questions
about you beyond Fox News and your best selling book.
You've spoken before about your eye condition that you may
you had to endure extremely dry eye and how painful
(25:57):
it was for you. You described waking up in the
middle of the night and feeling like someone was literally
stabbing your eyes. For our listeners who may not know,
what was that experience like and what lessons, if any,
that you learned from it, it was clearly the darkest
part of my life. I'm very open in my first
book talking about that and how when you live with
(26:18):
chronic pain. And I'm sure a number of people listening
to this know what that's like, or they have someone
they love who knows what knows what's that's like. Every
day you're questioning how do I get through this day?
And what is the purpose? I mean, if my whole
life is going to be nothing but trying to survive
excruciating pain every day of my life, why should I
(26:39):
go on living? And I was really asking myself those questions,
and I went from doctor to doctor with this excruciating
I pain. Finally and I had gotten to a really
dark place and just kind of had a breakdown with
my husband, like I can't go on like this, I
can't do this anymore. And when I you know, log
onto message boards for people who are suffering the way
that I am with the same eye conditions. People are
(27:00):
talking about suicide, and that doesn't sound crazy to me.
It sounds like it would be a relief in some ways.
And I knew in my head, even though I was
exhausted and going through constant pain and emotionally exhausted, that
that wasn't clear thinking. I knew that, and so leveling
with my husband, having this conversation and deciding that I
(27:22):
was going to start the hunt again for another doctor,
and praying that God would lead me to somebody. Listen,
if you're not gonna heal me, may not be your plan.
Please just lead me to somebody that can get me
through this. And the very next day I found the
doctor who finally diagnosed me. And I always embarrassed him
when see him. I'm like, you know, you're an answer
to prayer any sort of like he laughs a little
bit uncomfortably, like, okay, thanks um, But he really is um.
(27:46):
And what he diagnosed me with was not only the
dry eye that I was struggling with. And I hate
this because I know millions of people around the world
struggle with this, but on top of that, I had
a genetic condition to my corneas that is not curable.
It's manageable, but there is no cure for it. So
that was a blow when he told me that. It
was such a high to hear that he knew what
I had finally, but you know, really difficult to hear
(28:07):
that you're never going to be free of this. You're
going to manage this the rest of your life. And
with his help and God's grace, I have been able
to get out of that chronic pain situation and found
such relief and help were the time. I'm doing amazing
and I'm so grateful. So you ask about lessons, and
that's such a great question because a couple of things
made me way more empathetic to other people. Because I
(28:30):
would think sometimes at the gym, when I'm on the
treadmill or something and just can barely hang on, I'm like,
I don't you know the person next to me has
no idea what I'm struggling with. How do I know
what they're struggling with. Maybe they are in depression, maybe
they are have lost someone they love, maybe they're unemployed
and terrified. I mean, you don't know what people are
going through. It doesn't have to be physical it can
(28:50):
be mental and emotional. We're all struggling with those things
of the last year. So it's made me much more
empathetic um to other people's pain, which is a good
place to be, to be humble and to care about
other people. But it also gave me great hope and
deep in my faith because there came a point where
after I found out that there was no cure for this,
that I was in my car just sobbing, having left
(29:11):
the doctor's office and saying, God, how can this be?
You know, I feel like this guy is my answer
to prayer. But what do you mean there's no cure?
And as I'm thinking, I just can't do it, um,
I felt him say to me, not out loud. I
don't feel like I've ever heard God's voice out loud,
although I believe, you know, people can. For me, my
experience was sort of feeling him say in my spirit,
but it was very clear saying I will be with you.
(29:34):
Those words, not I'm gonna take you out of this,
or I'm gonna heal it, or it's all going to
be rainbows and sunshine, but I'm going to be with you.
And I think that's a truth that we can all
claim whatever we're walking through that he promises us to
be with us in the best and worst of it.
So I would never want to relive those years, but
I learned a lot and I'm thankful for what I
(29:55):
learned through them. Wow, thank you for sharing that story.
And is so and thing you mentioned your your husband Sheldon,
and I see you all's marriage. You will be married.
I guess it will be thirty years in a few
years from now, like maybe three years now. We just
we celebrated our so five years from now. Yeah, yeah,
(30:17):
And you know what we always say, we are non perfect,
but we're perfect for each other. And our faith is
the foundation of what keeps us together. Like everyone has
been married for longer than five minutes, you've had an argument,
you've had ups and downs, real world struggles and real crises,
um in your marriage. And so we don't ever want
to act like we've got it totally together and um
(30:38):
it's perfect to bliss for twenty five years, but we
know that you can make it through tough things. And
I am his number one fan and I think he's
mine too. And I think if you come from a
place of where you're cheering for your spouse and you
want the best for them, because listen, we're all born
selfish beings. I think we come out of the womb
that way. And marriage really makes you fight that you
have to want the other person since, um, you know,
(31:01):
benefit before your own. And if you're constantly trying to
serve and care for each other, it's going to be
a beautiful circle where you're taking care of each other.
And it feels like a really nice place to kind
of have shelter in your own home against the rest
of the world because you know you have someone who
has your back and you have theirs, and that's and
I appreciate that. Thank you for sharing that. And as
(31:25):
someone who's certainly looking to get married at some point
in the in the future, maybe even the near future,
who knows the near future, Yeah, I would love that.
But for me, it's it's you've got to really beyond
everything looking okay, if a person has, you know, all
the things in which you desire and a mate. It's
(31:45):
also this this instinct, this it factor that comes into
play in my mind. And of course I've never been married,
so I don't really really know. But my question to
you is, is there do you believe that there's that
one person or is it maybe one peron sin or
the one person in a particular time, or is it
just a one person God has created for you and
(32:06):
there can't be any others. Yeah, that's such a good question,
and I've wrestled with that because I can't imagine my
life with anyone other than Sheldon. And I see how
perfectly his strengths fit together with my weaknesses, and I think, Gosh,
God sent him to me, for sure. But I do
believe we have free will and God has all kinds
of wonderful people out there created. You know, some people
(32:29):
it's a gift of singleness in marriage is not for them,
but I think for a lot of us it is.
And I think, you know, God can work through all
of our decisions, and hopefully we seek him and really,
you know, try to get good counsel when you're looking
at whether this is the one for you. So, I mean,
I personally believe, because of the path of my life
and because of what a good fit and a wonderful,
(32:50):
amazing person shallness to me, I feel like he's my person.
But I don't want people later, But I don't I
don't want people to feel like, oh gosh, there's only
one person to miss him, I'm never getting married, or
if i'm you know, miss him, I'm going to marry
the wrong person. Like, I don't know that that's the case.
I just think in my case, I'm really grateful for
the one person God did send into my path that
(33:12):
I'm married. But I think there are a lot of
amazing people out there. So I don't know if it's like, oh,
if you don't get this one, then you've done everything wrong,
you know. And I've been wrestling with that question myself,
and I think to your point, and I love what
you said because it's what I've I've believed as well.
As you have free will and it can be something
that's intended to be. But for that person, maybe they're
(33:32):
not right there at that right moment, and they have
the free will, let's say no or not move on
and God will place somebody else in your life. So
I think that. I think that's amazing and I really
appreciate you sharing that. And before we go, do you
have any big projects coming up that the folks at
home should know about? And where can they find you
on social media and elsewhere? Well, you can find me
(33:53):
at Shannon Bream on Facebook and Twitter and instaff. I
drew the line at like TikTok, I'm like, I'm tool
for that. That is not true if I'm doing that. Um,
Although I have an amazing assistant, Tessa, who is young
and hip and knows how to work everything. Um, but
I stick to those three pretty much. I'm pretty prolific
on Twitter with news. Um. We I've got something out
(34:13):
on Fox Nation now which is called Hero Dogs, which
is a lot of fun. It's amazing stories about dogs
that go into battle or their police dogs or you know,
the dogs that went on the raid for Bin Laden.
I mean, we've got amazing stories where you see them
with their handlers and the military men and women that
they work with, or the police officers they work with,
or the d e A Drug officers, and that's just
kind of a feel good um story. Those are on
(34:35):
Fox Nation. They've just been released now this you know,
the next couple of weeks are going to be crazy
covering the Supreme Court, and I'm feeling it for Bret
and Martha and a lot of other people the summer
as it gets busy, and of course at midnight we're
there for Fox News at nights on the East Coast
nine o'clock Pacific and hopefully we'll see you there with
us soon. I hope so too. Thank you, Shannon Brain
for sharing with us today. We really appreciate your valuable
(34:57):
insight my pleasure. Thanks for having me. I want to
thank Shannon Bring again for a great interview. If you're
enjoying the show, please leave us a review and rate
us with five stars on Apple Podcast. If you have
any questions for me, please email me at out loud
at Ginger Street sixt dot com and I'll try to
(35:19):
answer them in our future episodes. And please sign up
for my monthly newsletter at Ginger Street sixtees dot com
slash out loud. You can also follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and parlor at Gianto Caldwell. And if you're interested in
learning more about my story, please pick up a copy
of my best selling book title Taken for Granted, How
Conservatism Can Win Back to the the Americans The Liberalism Failed
(35:40):
Special Thanks to our producer John Cassio, Researcher and Klingman,
and executive producers Debbie Myers and Speaker New ging Wig,
part of the Ginglish three sixty network
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