July 17, 2025 • 36 mins
On this episode of 'The Kylee Cast,' Federalist Managing Editor Kylee Griswold dives into the latest news on President Joe Biden's autopen scandal. Griswold also breaks down Chip and Joanna Gaines' latest controversy and what it means for Christians with Federalist Staff Writer Jordan Boyd.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, who actually authorized those thousands of Biden autopen pardons?
What's going on with the Fixer Upper, couples, gay new show,
the new Superman movie.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good or Bad?
Speaker 1 (00:10):
All that and more on the Kylie Cast. Hi everybody,
and welcome to the Kylie Cast. I'm Kylie Griswold, Managing
(00:31):
editor at The Federalist. Be sure to like and subscribe
wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're just listening,
be sure to check out the full video version of
the show on my personal YouTube channel or the Federalist
channel on Rumble. I'd also love to hear from you,
so you can email the show at radio at the
Federalist dot com. It has been a busy week of
(00:51):
Biden cover up news, starting with last Wednesday, when Biden's
White House doctor Kevin O'Connor finally appeared to testify before
a House oversy in response to a subpoena. Except he
didn't testify. As Biden's doctor, O'Connor would know more than
anyone else about the ins and outs of Biden's cognitive decline.
(01:11):
He probably tested him after he fell down the stairs
or after that infamous debate performance, and he might have
known about Biden's cancer, way earlier than we did, and
way earlier than Biden pretended he knew. But one thing
he definitely knows is who else knows and who else
was part of the cover up. But rather than cooperating,
he pled the fifth and kept his mouth shut. Ashley Williams,
(01:32):
a Biden aide who still works for him, was even worse.
But when she showed up to testify, instead of pleading
the fifth, she pled amnesia. In the five hour interview,
Williams reportedly couldn't recall so many things, including if Biden
used to tell a prompter in cabinet meetings, if there
were talks of giving Biden a cognitive test or a wheelchair,
(01:53):
if she ever had to wake up the sitting president,
or even easy personal questions like why did she get
involved with his campaign in the first place, or had
she talked to him within the past week. Pretty unbelievable,
But these, somehow aren't even the worst scandals That distinct
honor goes to no surprise the New York Times, which
ran a piece on Sunday about Biden's autopen and that
(02:16):
refers to the machine that replicates his signature on pardons
and other documents rather than Biden actually signing his own
name himself. Now, the autopen issue is important because Biden
signed thousands of acts of clemency on his way out
the door, including for drug offenders and for almost everyone
on federal death row, and all but one all but
(02:38):
one of these pardons, the one for his own crackhead
sun Hunter, was done by autopen, not by Biden's own hand.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So, considering it.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Was obvious to everyone with eyeballs that Biden was severely
cognitively and physically impaired by the time he left office,
and frankly well before he left office, inquiring minds want
to know whether Biden is the one who made the
clemency decisions or if it was actually the syndicate of nameless,
faceless staffers who are running the country. This is especially
(03:06):
important when it comes to Biden's sweeping of preemptive pardons
for people who caused irreparable damage to this country but
were never actually charged with crimes. These people would include
Anthony Fauci, Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinsinger, Mark Milly,
But we'll get back to them for now. Let's take
a look at this New York Times article, which is
(03:27):
of course co authored by Charlie Savage, a notorious Russia
hoaxer and thus the perfect person to run to with
this Democrat cya operation. The piece is clearly supposed to
be a defense of Biden and his use of the autopen,
and the headline announces that it says Biden says he
made the clemency decisions that were recorded with autopen. But
(03:47):
if you actually read the piece, that is not the
takeaway at all. The piece itself provides zero proof that
Biden made the decisions none. In fact, every sentence of
the story seems to end that Democrats just know they're
in serious trouble. What the article actually claims is this
quote Biden did not individually approve each name for the
(04:10):
categorical pardons. Rather than ask Biden to keep signing revised versions,
his staff waited and then ran the final version through
the autopen, which they saw as routine. In other words,
Biden's staff were admitting one that the President did not
actually authorize clemency grants and pardons for most of the
people who received them, and two that they changed documents
(04:32):
that Biden allegedly authorized and then signed them with the
autopen without getting their changes approved. This probably explains why
some big law firms which were nowhere to be found.
Of course, when Democrats were waging lawfare against peaceful twenty
twenty election protesters, mind you are now rushing to give
free legal services to a bunch of Biden's staffers. But
(04:54):
of course there's more. Here's what we learned about the
last minute preemptive pardons for Fauci and his ilk quote.
At the January nineteenth meeting, which took place in the
yellow Oval room of the White House residence, mister Biden
kept his aids until nearly ten PM to talk through
such decisions, according to people familiar with the matter, note
the anonymous source. The emails show then an aid to
(05:16):
mister Siskell, who was counsel for the White House, sent
a draft summary of mister Biden's decisions at that meeting
to an assistant to mister Ziens, the chief of Staff,
copying mister Siskell. At ten oh three pm. The assistant
forwarded it to mister Reid and mister Zion's, asking for
their approval, and then sent a final version to miss Feldman,
copying many meeting participants and aids. At ten twenty eight pm.
(05:40):
Three minutes later, mister Zion's hit reply all and wrote, quote,
I approved the use of the autopen for the execution
of all of the following pardons end quote. Now this
is a really confusing part of the story, so let's
break it down. First of all, we're supposed to believe
that the night before Trump's inauguration, Biden, the guy who
could barely keep his eyes open for a simple interview
(06:03):
and regularly called a lid by lunchtime, kept his staffers
until ten pm to talk through serious decisions.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
I doubt it.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
But even if we suspend disbelief, let's say the meeting
did happen. The New York Times says that after the meeting,
a staffer for one of the White House lawyers, who
likely wasn't even present for the meeting, according to other
parts of the article, emailed a summary of the meeting
to an assistant for Biden's chief of staff, who then
passed it along to the chief of staff and another aid,
and then sent a final version to the White House
(06:33):
staff secretary, who managed the autopen and in response, the
chief of Staff, Jeff Science, replies, I approve the autopen
us notice there is no point in there where Biden
is directly consulted for any of this. It's all a
big hug box of staffers giving each other permission to
use executive power. There is no direct, contemporaneous evidence that
(06:57):
Biden gave the specific okay on anything. It is all
third hand claims that Biden said it was okay. And
it turns out it was Zion's, not Biden.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Who okayed the Fauci pardon.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
As my colleague Beth Brelhy wrote at The Federalist, the
pardon directions had a broken chain of custody, leaving ample
opportunity for the advisors or the aids to change or
add to what Biden said if they met with Biden
at all. There's one other major thing that this New
York Times article tries to hide, and that is the
specifics of the ten minute interview with Biden. Now, if
(07:30):
you read the article, you'll notice that it includes tiny
Biden quotes throughout, usually just short, punchy little phrases that
give the impression that Biden's really with it and definitely
sharp enough to have made all of these clemency decisions.
But the second paragraph of the piece links to Biden's
interview with The New York Times, and what you find
at that link is absolutely wild. Typically, if a news
(07:52):
outlet publishes an interview with the subject, it's pretty close
to a transcript. It's typically formatted as question answer, question answer,
chronological order, and maybe it's trimmed down or lightly edited
for clarity, but that's pretty much it.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Not this interview.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
The Times formats the article as excerpts from the interview,
so there's no indication at all of how much they omitted.
And instead of a Q and A format, the Times
tried to edit the excerpts into nice, little, organized, coherent,
and frankly softball categories such as on who made the
clemency decisions? Really easy stuff. And still Biden's complete inability
(08:31):
to string together a full thought is bad, even with
The Times doing everything in its power to help Biden along.
Here's one excerpt regarding Biden's decision to commute the sentences
of thirty seven of the forty federal death row inmates.
Here it is, and that's that. That's the reason, because
it's sort of like, you know, the guy who you know,
(08:54):
I'm making this up, assassinates Abraham Lincoln. You don't you
know you can't pardon him because there's such a gigantic
implication for things that go well beyond that individual murder.
How the New York Times managed to get such nice
quotes from this word salad is really impressive. But this
is what the corporate media exist to do. Help democrats
(09:16):
accrue power at all costs, and then help them cover
it up when they abuse that power. My colleague John
Daniel Davidson wrote a really great piece about this scandal
at The Federalist, and his conclusion is spot on quote.
The New York Times can cite anonymous sources all at
once to try to contextualize the use of the autopen
at the eleventh hour of Biden's term, But like Biden's
(09:38):
obvious unfitness for office throughout his presidency, the truth is
right in front of us plain for all to see.
His presidency stands as one of the greatest political scandals
perpetrated against the American people in a generation, and eventually
someone needs to answer for that. I could not agree more.
They do need to answer for that. And if Republicans
(09:59):
in Washington and had any spine whatsoever, they would be
employing democrats. January sixth standard to get to the bottom
of this. Rachel Bouvard made an excellent point about this
in The Federalists this week, and that's that the Times
peace and the stonewalling from Kevin O'Connor and Ashley Williams,
they aren't about covering up Biden's mental decline. They are
about covering up the unelected and unaccountable coup allegedly taking
(10:23):
executive action in Biden's stead, because if those allegations are true,
then their actions are not only void, they are criminal.
Bouvart is right. Republicans in Congress should give O'Connor immunity
to make him testify and then build a case against
the Biden syndicate. And if Democrats try to get in
the way, Republicans shouldn't make them do it during televised
(10:43):
primetime hearings. That's the j six standard. Congressional Republicans have
the power, if not the balls, to do this, and
if they don't, they will be part of one of
the biggest political cover ups in American history.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
We're at the worst level we've seen in thirty five years.
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(11:22):
come down. Whether it's happening in DC or down on
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on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
All right, if you've paid any attention to the news
this week or logged onto Facebook, Instagram at all, there is.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
No way you've been able to avoid the news about
Chip and Joanna gains.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
They are all anyone is talking about online and here
to discuss the scandal the latest scandal with Chip and
Joanna Gains is my colleague at The Federalist and friend
Jordan Boyd. So Jordan, can you tell us exactly what
happened with the scandal?
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Sure? Well, Chip and Joanna Gaines first got their fame
on HGTV, a home renovation show, but they really expanded
their empire and part of that has been they started
to produce a new show for HBO called Back to
the Frontier and it's supposed to be this home setting
challenge show where the cast gets dressed up in eighteen
hundreds attire and really you know, works the land and
(12:22):
tries to figure out what it would be like. And
featured on this cast is a gay couple who had
two sons via surrogacy, so they bought the eggs from
a woman and then rented the womb of another woman
to have their children. So this obviously raised a few
red flags with a lot of Chip and Joanna's base
because they are self professing evangelical Christians and have a
(12:44):
long time identity in that. It helps their rise to
fame quite a bit. They built their brand on that
and then all of a sudden, now have this endorsement
in their new show just by wayward of casting someone
in that lifestyle. So obviously there was an uproar on
social media and otherwise, and they didn't take to it
(13:04):
so well. You know, in the Christian faith, you're called
to accountability for your brothers and sisters in Christ. But
Chipgates specifically was not a fan of people questioning why
they had this couple on their show or why they
hadn't made a statement or anything, and he sort of
blashed out it was really interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, and in fact lashed out pretty strongly against his
fellow Christians by smearing them, basically accusing them of judging,
of drawing conclusions without asking questions. It's like, I'm not
really sure what questions you need to ask when you
are putting this front and center on the advertisement for
your new show. That doesn't really seem like the time
when Christians should be asking questions so much as asking
(13:45):
them what is going on?
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Like there's no other question to ask the gains Is
at this point.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Absolutely, it came off really manipulative and in a way
that was I think alarming for a lot of the
people who had seen the Gaines's history marriage. In twenty sixteen,
there was kind of a controversy manufactured by Buzz Speed,
which would published an article, you know, complaining that the
gains Is went to a church that believed in traditional marriage,
(14:12):
which that's laughable. If you're a Christian, you should believe
in the physical definition of marriage between a man and
a warrant. And the games Is it was such a
non issue at the time that they really like brush
it off, didn't make a statement or anything, but they
also didn't let it deter them from continuing forward. And
as we've seen in the last decade, their success has
just mounted. But given that and the contrast with now,
(14:35):
we're seeing a really different picture and it's not looking good.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, I just going back to your previous point. I
did see one clip of these two men who are
in this union together and they were talking to some
I don't know, I think it was like an LGBT
news outlet or some such that was asking about the casting,
and it sounds like the Gains were specifically looking for
a gay couple to cast, like they had a on
(15:02):
the casting call, or however they were advertising that they
were looking for people for the show, they advertised it
with a same sex couple. And so this isn't even
like something that they fell backwards into or they were
worried about getting sued or like like, even those would
not be defenses for this at all. But this seems
like a very very intentional choice and this is not
an accident. It's really it goes so much deeper than that.
(15:26):
But to your point, Jordan, I mean a lot of
conservative Christians are rightly super upset by this and view
it as a betrayal by the gains Is, who you know,
were like cultural Christians, people that you could point to
and you know at least they identified as a part
of the faith. But the twenty sixteen dust up with
their church is not even the last time that Chip
and Joanna have been in the spotlight for this exact
(15:48):
same thing. And the most recent one actually was during
the whole Target fiasco. I think it was in twenty
twenty two, when Target went from just being like a
casual promoter of rainbows and gay pride to being like
actively lets trans the kids and like have children's books
that are about like babies being non binary, or having
(16:10):
swimsuits that are specifically for like adolescents who are trying
to pretend that they don't have breasts, or like tuck
their genitals or whatever.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
And during that time.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Chip and Joanna had obviously, I mean they're essentially business
partners with Target. They have this incredibly successful brand, Magnolia,
that is sold exclusively at Target, and people came came
to ask them, like, hey, are you going to pull
your merchandise from Target? Like everybody else's boycotting Target? Are
you going to boycott Target because they're flouting your religious beliefs.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
To the point that Target had a.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Satanist that was designing some of this trans merchandise, and
that's essentially the Gains is business partner.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
And people ask, you know, are you going to do
anything about this?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
And they did nothing, like nothing, and to the point
that their businesses probably haven't looked at the numbers, but
more successful now. I mean, they've just they plowed right
ahead with partnering with Target. And so it's like Christians
are upset about this, but at a certain point, it's like.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Is this fool me once? Shame on you, fool me twice,
shame on me?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Kind of a thing like didn't think Gains just tell
us exactly who they were a couple of years ago.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Oh yeah, they did more than nothing. Specifically, Joanna turned
off the comments on all of her social media right
around that time that boycott started to get traction, And yeah,
what we saw was an explosion of this heart and
hand home to core line, which I don't know about
your Target, but it's front.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
And center and mine.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
It's definitely the future of targets Home to Course.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So yeah, the second only to the trans merchandise during
Pride mind, yes.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
Yeah, yeah, you would think like Christians would want to
speak up about you know, Satanism and like that whole
part of the world, like not even the LGBT stuff,
like the first thing. The most offensive things should be
like you know, the professed.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Enemy of God.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
But you know whatever. Yeah, I think that is when
we started to see the slippage really publicly.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
But as we've seen with these.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
These cultural Christian influences, they're slippage all the time. And
I called it in my article the Chosen effect, right
like we saw the Chosen had this rise to fame,
so many Christians platformed and encouraged it and funded it
and got it front and center. You know, I think
you can just find it on Netflix nowadays. But what
happened there was Dallas Jinkins, the creator, had some behind
(18:25):
behind the scenes shooting going on, and a producer had
a gay flag attached to his camera on the set
where where you know, the purported cast member for Jesus
is walking around and people obviously questioned that and and
the Chosen's cast response was either to affirm that that
flag and what it stands for, or to kind of
(18:46):
you know, grovel and and say, well, you know, we
were supposed to love your neighbor and love everyone. And
that's all good and fun when we keep it in context.
But the truth is, like I said at the beginning
of the segment here is Christians are called to a
certain level of accountabil for each other and we're just
not seeing that play out. And I think it's such
a tricky balance to strike because you want those Christian
(19:10):
influences in the culture. But at the end of the day,
and I think our editor Hayden had a piece go
up today on The Federalist about it, if the Christians
don't control the culture, the culture will never carve out
a special space and not bring those other worldly influences
and not force them in. So if you're not standing
strong on your faith and not standing strong on those principles,
you're going to fall. And what we've seen with the
(19:31):
Games is a fall from grace, far from where we
thought they were in even twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, speaking of Christian influences on the culture, of course,
there was another super piece, a super sad piece of
news this week, and that was the passing of pastor
and theologian John MacArthur, who died at eighty six years old.
I mean, he was truly a modern hero of the faith.
There's no denying that. And I just think there's an
obvious and huge contrast worth pointing out here. I mean
(20:00):
the price that MacArthur paid for his faith and the
payment that the gains Is received for completely abandoning their faith.
And I mean, look at John MacArthur's life, but when
it cost him something to stand firm on biblical qualifications
for pastors, or against the divisive racial politics that have
been completely tearing apart churches and are an antithesis to
(20:24):
the Gospel, or defying California state orders to basically disregard
the biblical call to not neglect the assembly, and he
defied that to faithfully keep his church open or to
reopen it during COVID. And meanwhile, the Gainses have caved
on what is one of the most basic biblical truths
(20:47):
just because it's culturally in vogue and they can make
a quick buck. And I just want to get your
thoughts on this, Jordan. I saw this tweet regarding that,
and I thought it was really really well put. Half
of my feed is about Christian celebrities compromising to the
world and the grief that caused to see it, and
the other half is about the glory soon to be
had for a saint who was finishing his race. Well,
(21:08):
the contrast is clear, and I know which one I
want to be like. That was from a man named
Troy Fraser on Twitter. But Jordan, what are your thoughts
on that?
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Yeah? Well, one of the things that made John MacArthur
such as standout servant of Christ is his fidelity to
the Bible and the biblical principles and theology that drive Christians.
And he was always pointing people, even if they were
of a denomination that didn't necessarily prioritize that back to
the Word of God. And like you said, marriage is
one of the things that's very clearly outlined in the
(21:39):
Word of God. It's on that roadmap. It's actually central
to the picture that we see of Christ and the
bridegroom and the church and the Gainses have failed to
not only apparently comprehend that, but share that with the world,
and so to see that contrast is striking. And I
think John MacArthur, if he were still alive and well,
(22:01):
would certainly want everyone to go back to that biblical definition,
and it's an important one to adhere to because there's
so many trickle down effects from that. And what we've
seen with the Gains is endorsement not only in this show,
but on their social media and in some of their hiring,
is that they're willing to endorse lifestyles that not only
put that traditional marriage, that perfect gift at risk, but
(22:24):
also the lives of the children that are brought into
those situations. And like the cast members on back to
the Frontier using bought eggs and rented wombs to obtain
their sons, those are our lifetime. There are lifetime consequences
for those children because of those arrangements, and unfortunately in
the United States, there's not a lot of regulation or
(22:46):
pushback even in society on that sort of thing. But
what we've seen over and over is that children lose
in every single situation that they're commissioned that way, and
those boys are forever without the mother whose DNA they have,
and forever without the mother whose DNA they received in
the womb, and that is heartbreaking. That should be a
red flag for anyone. And when you go about endorsing
(23:09):
lifestyles that require assisted reproductive technology or require those those
dysfunctional just at the heart arrangements that go from you know,
tearing a child away from who they were meant to
be with. It has these trickle down effects on society
that don't just affect the people in those arrangements, book
(23:31):
by everyone else, and so signing off on that or
promoting it is just heartbreaking at the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I think there's a it's really easy to see the
business incentives here, like obviously it helps Chip and Joanna
Gains's business and their income and you know the success
of their show potentially to appeal to what is culturally
in vogue. But there's also a real theological component and
(24:00):
a doctrine component, and I think it's something that's it's
this idea that's really crept into I think every denomination.
I don't think any denomination is immune from this, and
that's this idea that you can outlove God, or that
you can be you can be more loving than God,
that you can compromise and then disguise it as compassion,
(24:22):
or that like, you know, if you really want to
look like Jesus, you actually have to be more appealing
to the culture than Jesus would be, and it's like
he is the standard. He defines what is love, he
defines what is justice, he defines what is marriage, he
defines what is compassion, and he you know, he famously
was very like he was friends with sinners, and in
(24:46):
fact he called people to follow him who were sinners,
including us, including modern day Christians, but he never like
the call is to repent and believe it's not to
be who you are. And that's something that we're not
seeing from the gains Is. And there's an aspect that
I really want to get your thoughts on. It's super
disturbing and it goes to some of the familial dynamics
(25:07):
that you just touched on. And that's apparently one of
the Gaines's friends and their employee, I think he's a
cameraman who claims to be a Christian, announced that he
was gay and decided to bring his gay lover. So
he's married. He decided to bring his gay lover into
his home that he shares with his wife and five
children so that he could pursue an open and like
(25:30):
homosexual relationship with this man, even though he's also married
to this woman. And the gains did not just ignore it,
which would have been a problem anyway if this is
you know somebody that would say he's your brother in Christ.
But they actively encouraged it and congratulated it. And here
is a tweet or an Instagram post rather than Megan
Basham tweeted that shows this like support for this friend
(25:56):
and cameraman or friend and employee. I he might not
be a cameraman, but I think is where Joanna Gains
responds to his post about this issue and says, you
are so good, We love you. There are so many
casualties in this. You're talking about five children that you
are bringing a man.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Into the home.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
That is one of the most dangerous things you can
do for children. They are most at risk when they
are living with an unrelated man.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
I mean, this is.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Putting the desires of adults before the rights of kids
in the most blatant way.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Absolutely, And I think I read somewhere that some of
those children are adopted, so they went through this redemptive
situation where they were placed with loving parents, a man
and a woman who are married, which for children is
the best outcome that you can have is living with
your married biological parents. The next best outcome is living
with married or married parents not just biological who are
(26:57):
a man and a woman and bringing in their parties,
like you said, is dangerous. So to go from this
redemptive situation where where they get the next best thing
to what could have been, and have their family fall
apart in front of their eyes is absolutely disheartening and
heartbreaking and there's just no way around it. And to
sit there and say you are good.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
The goal is not.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
For Christians to be good, ever, it's for us to
be christ Like, and like you were saying, to be
christ Like, to be loving.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
The most loving thing.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
That you can do is to adhere to God's design
and that is not God's design in any form or fashion.
You're not going to find that anywhere in a way
that's beneficial or glorifying to the Kingdom of God. And
so to see the Games is put their business and
their image forward in this and make that the priority is.
(27:48):
It's very concerning, and I think Christians do have a
right to speak out, which is why when Chip Games
was lashing out on social media people who were in
good faith trying to engage him on this issue, he
lost a lot of points for it.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
And rightfully so well and basically smearing the people who
are exactly where Chip Gains claim to be a decade ago.
I mean, how far they've fallen in ten years or
nine years or whenever this was that their church was
attacked over this, and the fact that they have solid
and they have compromised on their faith that much in
that many years. And it makes me think of the verse,
(28:22):
What does it profit a man if he gains the
whole world and loses his soul? And I think I
can't judge souls. Only God can do that. But I
think the Gains are really running the risk of that here.
And yeah, it's just it's very sad to see, and
I think Christians are right to be to be upset
about it and to speak up about it, because that's
what we're supposed to do. So anyway, Jordan, thank you
(28:42):
so much. I appreciate all of your insights. Please check
out Jordan's work on all of these topics, but specifically
her piece on Chip and Joanna Gaines, and I'm sure
you'll be seeing her back around here many more times
in the future.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Thanks Jordan. Thanks Kylie.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
All right, let's do a little bit of culture everybody
else is talking about Superman, so I guess I will
talk about Superman.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I did go see the movie.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
I think it was about a week ago, so a
little fuzzy on some of the details because obviously I've
only seen it once.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
It's still in theaters. But I have some thoughts. First
of all, I went into.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
The movie with fairly low expectations, mostly because there was
so much hype leading up to the movie about Oh,
it's so pro immigrant, it's so anti Trump, but so
this and that, it's so woke and so here. I
am going into the movie expecting, well, it's Hollywood, so
it probably is going to be all of those things.
And I got to tell you, I did not see that. Sure,
(29:34):
there are maybe crumbs of that here and there, but
I actually thought it was pretty enjoyable. And I am
as sick of woke Hollywood dribble as the next guy.
But another thing I'm pretty sick of is when conservatives
give radical leftist ammo by freaking out over every little thing,
and especially preemptively freaking out about every little thing when
(29:56):
the movie isn't even out yet. Here's the deal, Hollywood
hates you. You know it, I know it. The entire
industry rejects all that is good and decent and true
and beautiful. They hate Christianity, they reject natural law, which
is one of the reasons, of course, why the content
Hollywood turns out is so consistently garbage. So if you
(30:18):
don't want to give your money to the industry, if
you don't want to go see these movies, then don't
don't go see these movies. That's perfectly fine. You can
boycott them, take a stand against it, you know, use
your dollars to signal that. But the takeaway from culture
just it's woke, it's icky, it's depraved is such a
tired and lazy critique, And especially when you're talking about
(30:39):
a movie like Superman, where the vast, vast majority of
the film was perfectly non woke and not political. Just stop,
just take a deep breath and enjoy it. One of
the things about the radical left is that they are
miserable people. They exist to be offended no matter what
Conservatives do. They hate it. They take umbrage, they take offense,
(31:00):
and it's just constant outrage, constant whatever. Cue the video
of the woman screaming into the abyss. That is the
posture of radical feminism. That is the posture of miserable,
woke leftists. That is not the posture that I want
to have as a conservative. So that was actually my
main issue with the movie was the way that conservatives
(31:20):
preemptively freaked out about it, and in my view, freaked
out about nothing. If you want to take issue with
the style of the movie or the genre of movie,
you know, there's plenty of things that you could critique,
but that was just, in my opinion, a pretty dumb critique,
especially when there is so much other garbage, woke Hollywood
(31:40):
content like this was a really stupid one to take
issue with.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Now.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
I am not into sci fi at all, which is
why I'm not a natural fan of much of the
superhero genre in general, but there was actually a lot
that I liked about this movie. First of all, I
just really liked the general esthetic of the movie. It
was bright and bold and optimistic. It really matched the
super Man character in a way that I thought was
very cohesive and lovely. I also thought the character dynamics
(32:08):
were really good and really believable, especially against the backdrop
of the recent Marvel movie. I know this was DC,
but whatever, the most recent Captain America was It was horrific.
I saw it in theaters and it was like I
almost walked out part way through because the dialogue was
so strained and so canned and so fake. It was
actually painful to watch, whereas in this film, I thought
(32:30):
the character dynamics were actually generally across the board pretty good.
One place that we saw this was with Clark's parents.
They were super endearing and very believable, just the conversations
that they had, the way that they were portrayed. It
was like poking fun at the boomerisms of them a
little bit, but in a very endearing way. It wasn't
like nasty to them. Also, this was dumb. But Crypto
(32:52):
the dog, which I know is CGI. It's not even
a real dog, but they really nailed the dynamics between
the dog and his owner scene.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
There also might be spoilers in this, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
There's this scene where Clark wakes up and Crypto the
dog is lying on his chest and the dog is
just like staring at him waiting for him to wake up,
and just like perfectly still, except his tail is just wagging.
And that happens with my dog all the time, and
there were many moments like that in the film where
it was like, oh, yeah, this is really believable. They
really captured like the companionship of a person and a dog,
(33:24):
and then a very obvious one, but Clark and Lewis
had really really believable chemistry. They developed those characters in
a way that was believable. The ten minute interview scene
was some of the best dialogue I've seen in a
movie of this genre, which can often be just so bad.
Their disagreements felt less like James Gunn was trying to
(33:45):
lecture audiences through one character who was right and one
character who was wrong. That's such a classic Hollywood thing
to do, but more through two people who have the
same values but just come at things from different perspectives,
which I think is so often how healthy relationships work.
One other thing worth pointing out. Mark Hemingway recently wrote
a great piece at The Federalist. It was last week.
(34:06):
The headline was Hollywood's inability to create masculine stars is
officially a problem, and he was particularly taking aim at
Pedro Pascal and how Hollywood keeps trying to make Pedro
Pascal happen as like a masculine dude, and it's super
gay because he is not.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
He does not fit that bill at all.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
And as evidence of this, Mark just talked about the
fact that there's really no big male stars right now.
Two of the biggest movies that came out recently were
Mission the Latest Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise and that
Formula One movie with Brad Pitt. I mean, these two
guys are like sixty Hollywood really has had trouble creating
new masculine stars. And he talks about how Timothy Shallomey
(34:50):
is like one of the biggest stars right now, but
he's not like super masculine. He's not the type of
guy that can carry the Brad Pitt Tom Cruise torch.
He's not the kind of guy that follows the old
adage of male leads, which is that women want to
be with him and men want to be him. Nobody
wants to be Timothy Shallamane, nobody wants to be with
Timothy Shalman, and of course that also applies to people
(35:11):
like Paedro Pascal. He does not embody that. But I
think Superman may have finally broken this mold and given
us an actual masculine star. David corn Sweat is just
like a typical, traditionally conventionally attractive man, tall, dark and handsome,
exactly what Superman is supposed to be. Hollywood didn't try
(35:31):
to change that by giving us this little torp that
we were supposed to like think is amazing, and a
believable female counterpart who has her own opinions and is
very strong willed, but does not have this like in
your face feminist message. It's just this complimentary couple where
she steps up to serve him and he steps in
(35:54):
to serve her, and they compliment each other well, and
he doesn't need to step out of the way so
she can shine. It was lovely, and I thought that
there were actually a lot of things in the film
in that regard that were pretty conservative coded. So if
you haven't seen Superman yet, it might be worth your time.
If you're not into superhero movies, I don't know what
to tell you, but don't take the scolds word for
it that it's super woke and super anti Trump and
(36:15):
super pro immigrant or whatever they're saying. Tune it out,
don't be so easily offended, and actually engage with the
culture and try to find something that's enjoyable about it,
because I think there's plenty that fits that bill in Superman. Anyway,
that's all for me, Thanks so much for tuning into
the Kylie Cast. I'm Kylie Griswold and I'll be right
back here with a new episode next Thursday.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Until then, just
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Remember the truth hurts, but it won't kill you.
All right, who actually authorized those thousands of Biden autopen pardons?
What's going on with the Fixer Upper, couples, gay new show,
the new Superman movie.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good or Bad?
Speaker 1 (00:10):
All that and more on the Kylie Cast. Hi everybody,
and welcome to the Kylie Cast. I'm Kylie Griswold, Managing
(00:31):
editor at The Federalist. Be sure to like and subscribe
wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're just listening,
be sure to check out the full video version of
the show on my personal YouTube channel or the Federalist
channel on Rumble. I'd also love to hear from you,
so you can email the show at radio at the
Federalist dot com. It has been a busy week of
(00:51):
Biden cover up news, starting with last Wednesday, when Biden's
White House doctor Kevin O'Connor finally appeared to testify before
a House oversy in response to a subpoena. Except he
didn't testify. As Biden's doctor, O'Connor would know more than
anyone else about the ins and outs of Biden's cognitive decline.
(01:11):
He probably tested him after he fell down the stairs
or after that infamous debate performance, and he might have
known about Biden's cancer, way earlier than we did, and
way earlier than Biden pretended he knew. But one thing
he definitely knows is who else knows and who else
was part of the cover up. But rather than cooperating,
he pled the fifth and kept his mouth shut. Ashley Williams,
(01:32):
a Biden aide who still works for him, was even worse.
But when she showed up to testify, instead of pleading
the fifth, she pled amnesia. In the five hour interview,
Williams reportedly couldn't recall so many things, including if Biden
used to tell a prompter in cabinet meetings, if there
were talks of giving Biden a cognitive test or a wheelchair,
(01:53):
if she ever had to wake up the sitting president,
or even easy personal questions like why did she get
involved with his campaign in the first place, or had
she talked to him within the past week. Pretty unbelievable,
But these, somehow aren't even the worst scandals That distinct
honor goes to no surprise the New York Times, which
ran a piece on Sunday about Biden's autopen and that
(02:16):
refers to the machine that replicates his signature on pardons
and other documents rather than Biden actually signing his own
name himself. Now, the autopen issue is important because Biden
signed thousands of acts of clemency on his way out
the door, including for drug offenders and for almost everyone
on federal death row, and all but one all but
(02:38):
one of these pardons, the one for his own crackhead
sun Hunter, was done by autopen, not by Biden's own hand.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So, considering it.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Was obvious to everyone with eyeballs that Biden was severely
cognitively and physically impaired by the time he left office,
and frankly well before he left office, inquiring minds want
to know whether Biden is the one who made the
clemency decisions or if it was actually the syndicate of nameless,
faceless staffers who are running the country. This is especially
(03:06):
important when it comes to Biden's sweeping of preemptive pardons
for people who caused irreparable damage to this country but
were never actually charged with crimes. These people would include
Anthony Fauci, Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinsinger, Mark Milly,
But we'll get back to them for now. Let's take
a look at this New York Times article, which is
(03:27):
of course co authored by Charlie Savage, a notorious Russia
hoaxer and thus the perfect person to run to with
this Democrat cya operation. The piece is clearly supposed to
be a defense of Biden and his use of the autopen,
and the headline announces that it says Biden says he
made the clemency decisions that were recorded with autopen. But
(03:47):
if you actually read the piece, that is not the
takeaway at all. The piece itself provides zero proof that
Biden made the decisions none. In fact, every sentence of
the story seems to end that Democrats just know they're
in serious trouble. What the article actually claims is this
quote Biden did not individually approve each name for the
(04:10):
categorical pardons. Rather than ask Biden to keep signing revised versions,
his staff waited and then ran the final version through
the autopen, which they saw as routine. In other words,
Biden's staff were admitting one that the President did not
actually authorize clemency grants and pardons for most of the
people who received them, and two that they changed documents
(04:32):
that Biden allegedly authorized and then signed them with the
autopen without getting their changes approved. This probably explains why
some big law firms which were nowhere to be found.
Of course, when Democrats were waging lawfare against peaceful twenty
twenty election protesters, mind you are now rushing to give
free legal services to a bunch of Biden's staffers. But
(04:54):
of course there's more. Here's what we learned about the
last minute preemptive pardons for Fauci and his ilk quote.
At the January nineteenth meeting, which took place in the
yellow Oval room of the White House residence, mister Biden
kept his aids until nearly ten PM to talk through
such decisions, according to people familiar with the matter, note
the anonymous source. The emails show then an aid to
(05:16):
mister Siskell, who was counsel for the White House, sent
a draft summary of mister Biden's decisions at that meeting
to an assistant to mister Ziens, the chief of Staff,
copying mister Siskell. At ten oh three pm. The assistant
forwarded it to mister Reid and mister Zion's, asking for
their approval, and then sent a final version to miss Feldman,
copying many meeting participants and aids. At ten twenty eight pm.
(05:40):
Three minutes later, mister Zion's hit reply all and wrote, quote,
I approved the use of the autopen for the execution
of all of the following pardons end quote. Now this
is a really confusing part of the story, so let's
break it down. First of all, we're supposed to believe
that the night before Trump's inauguration, Biden, the guy who
could barely keep his eyes open for a simple interview
(06:03):
and regularly called a lid by lunchtime, kept his staffers
until ten pm to talk through serious decisions.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
I doubt it.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
But even if we suspend disbelief, let's say the meeting
did happen. The New York Times says that after the meeting,
a staffer for one of the White House lawyers, who
likely wasn't even present for the meeting, according to other
parts of the article, emailed a summary of the meeting
to an assistant for Biden's chief of staff, who then
passed it along to the chief of staff and another aid,
and then sent a final version to the White House
(06:33):
staff secretary, who managed the autopen and in response, the
chief of Staff, Jeff Science, replies, I approve the autopen
us notice there is no point in there where Biden
is directly consulted for any of this. It's all a
big hug box of staffers giving each other permission to
use executive power. There is no direct, contemporaneous evidence that
(06:57):
Biden gave the specific okay on anything. It is all
third hand claims that Biden said it was okay. And
it turns out it was Zion's, not Biden.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Who okayed the Fauci pardon.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
As my colleague Beth Brelhy wrote at The Federalist, the
pardon directions had a broken chain of custody, leaving ample
opportunity for the advisors or the aids to change or
add to what Biden said if they met with Biden
at all. There's one other major thing that this New
York Times article tries to hide, and that is the
specifics of the ten minute interview with Biden. Now, if
(07:30):
you read the article, you'll notice that it includes tiny
Biden quotes throughout, usually just short, punchy little phrases that
give the impression that Biden's really with it and definitely
sharp enough to have made all of these clemency decisions.
But the second paragraph of the piece links to Biden's
interview with The New York Times, and what you find
at that link is absolutely wild. Typically, if a news
(07:52):
outlet publishes an interview with the subject, it's pretty close
to a transcript. It's typically formatted as question answer, question answer,
chronological order, and maybe it's trimmed down or lightly edited
for clarity, but that's pretty much it.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Not this interview.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
The Times formats the article as excerpts from the interview,
so there's no indication at all of how much they omitted.
And instead of a Q and A format, the Times
tried to edit the excerpts into nice, little, organized, coherent,
and frankly softball categories such as on who made the
clemency decisions? Really easy stuff. And still Biden's complete inability
(08:31):
to string together a full thought is bad, even with
The Times doing everything in its power to help Biden along.
Here's one excerpt regarding Biden's decision to commute the sentences
of thirty seven of the forty federal death row inmates.
Here it is, and that's that. That's the reason, because
it's sort of like, you know, the guy who you know,
(08:54):
I'm making this up, assassinates Abraham Lincoln. You don't you
know you can't pardon him because there's such a gigantic
implication for things that go well beyond that individual murder.
How the New York Times managed to get such nice
quotes from this word salad is really impressive. But this
is what the corporate media exist to do. Help democrats
(09:16):
accrue power at all costs, and then help them cover
it up when they abuse that power. My colleague John
Daniel Davidson wrote a really great piece about this scandal
at The Federalist, and his conclusion is spot on quote.
The New York Times can cite anonymous sources all at
once to try to contextualize the use of the autopen
at the eleventh hour of Biden's term, But like Biden's
(09:38):
obvious unfitness for office throughout his presidency, the truth is
right in front of us plain for all to see.
His presidency stands as one of the greatest political scandals
perpetrated against the American people in a generation, and eventually
someone needs to answer for that. I could not agree more.
They do need to answer for that. And if Republicans
(09:59):
in Washington and had any spine whatsoever, they would be
employing democrats. January sixth standard to get to the bottom
of this. Rachel Bouvard made an excellent point about this
in The Federalists this week, and that's that the Times
peace and the stonewalling from Kevin O'Connor and Ashley Williams,
they aren't about covering up Biden's mental decline. They are
about covering up the unelected and unaccountable coup allegedly taking
(10:23):
executive action in Biden's stead, because if those allegations are true,
then their actions are not only void, they are criminal.
Bouvart is right. Republicans in Congress should give O'Connor immunity
to make him testify and then build a case against
the Biden syndicate. And if Democrats try to get in
the way, Republicans shouldn't make them do it during televised
(10:43):
primetime hearings. That's the j six standard. Congressional Republicans have
the power, if not the balls, to do this, and
if they don't, they will be part of one of
the biggest political cover ups in American history.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
We're at the worst level we've seen in thirty five years.
The watch Dout on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski
every day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and
the economy and how it affects your wild. Americans making
median income need to spend forty percent of the money
they make on their monthly mortgage interest rates. Coming down
makes the prices just go back up. Prices need to
(11:22):
come down. Whether it's happening in DC or down on
Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out
the Watch Dot on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski
on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
All right, if you've paid any attention to the news
this week or logged onto Facebook, Instagram at all, there is.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
No way you've been able to avoid the news about
Chip and Joanna gains.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
They are all anyone is talking about online and here
to discuss the scandal the latest scandal with Chip and
Joanna Gains is my colleague at The Federalist and friend
Jordan Boyd. So Jordan, can you tell us exactly what
happened with the scandal?
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Sure? Well, Chip and Joanna Gaines first got their fame
on HGTV, a home renovation show, but they really expanded
their empire and part of that has been they started
to produce a new show for HBO called Back to
the Frontier and it's supposed to be this home setting
challenge show where the cast gets dressed up in eighteen
hundreds attire and really you know, works the land and
(12:22):
tries to figure out what it would be like. And
featured on this cast is a gay couple who had
two sons via surrogacy, so they bought the eggs from
a woman and then rented the womb of another woman
to have their children. So this obviously raised a few
red flags with a lot of Chip and Joanna's base
because they are self professing evangelical Christians and have a
(12:44):
long time identity in that. It helps their rise to
fame quite a bit. They built their brand on that
and then all of a sudden, now have this endorsement
in their new show just by wayward of casting someone
in that lifestyle. So obviously there was an uproar on
social media and otherwise, and they didn't take to it
(13:04):
so well. You know, in the Christian faith, you're called
to accountability for your brothers and sisters in Christ. But
Chipgates specifically was not a fan of people questioning why
they had this couple on their show or why they
hadn't made a statement or anything, and he sort of
blashed out it was really interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, and in fact lashed out pretty strongly against his
fellow Christians by smearing them, basically accusing them of judging,
of drawing conclusions without asking questions. It's like, I'm not
really sure what questions you need to ask when you
are putting this front and center on the advertisement for
your new show. That doesn't really seem like the time
when Christians should be asking questions so much as asking
(13:45):
them what is going on?
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Like there's no other question to ask the gains Is
at this point.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Absolutely, it came off really manipulative and in a way
that was I think alarming for a lot of the
people who had seen the Gaines's history marriage. In twenty sixteen,
there was kind of a controversy manufactured by Buzz Speed,
which would published an article, you know, complaining that the
gains Is went to a church that believed in traditional marriage,
(14:12):
which that's laughable. If you're a Christian, you should believe
in the physical definition of marriage between a man and
a warrant. And the games Is it was such a
non issue at the time that they really like brush
it off, didn't make a statement or anything, but they
also didn't let it deter them from continuing forward. And
as we've seen in the last decade, their success has
just mounted. But given that and the contrast with now,
(14:35):
we're seeing a really different picture and it's not looking good.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, I just going back to your previous point. I
did see one clip of these two men who are
in this union together and they were talking to some
I don't know, I think it was like an LGBT
news outlet or some such that was asking about the casting,
and it sounds like the Gains were specifically looking for
a gay couple to cast, like they had a on
(15:02):
the casting call, or however they were advertising that they
were looking for people for the show, they advertised it
with a same sex couple. And so this isn't even
like something that they fell backwards into or they were
worried about getting sued or like like, even those would
not be defenses for this at all. But this seems
like a very very intentional choice and this is not
an accident. It's really it goes so much deeper than that.
(15:26):
But to your point, Jordan, I mean a lot of
conservative Christians are rightly super upset by this and view
it as a betrayal by the gains Is, who you know,
were like cultural Christians, people that you could point to
and you know at least they identified as a part
of the faith. But the twenty sixteen dust up with
their church is not even the last time that Chip
and Joanna have been in the spotlight for this exact
(15:48):
same thing. And the most recent one actually was during
the whole Target fiasco. I think it was in twenty
twenty two, when Target went from just being like a
casual promoter of rainbows and gay pride to being like
actively lets trans the kids and like have children's books
that are about like babies being non binary, or having
(16:10):
swimsuits that are specifically for like adolescents who are trying
to pretend that they don't have breasts, or like tuck
their genitals or whatever.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
And during that time.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Chip and Joanna had obviously, I mean they're essentially business
partners with Target. They have this incredibly successful brand, Magnolia,
that is sold exclusively at Target, and people came came
to ask them, like, hey, are you going to pull
your merchandise from Target? Like everybody else's boycotting Target? Are
you going to boycott Target because they're flouting your religious beliefs.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
To the point that Target had a.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Satanist that was designing some of this trans merchandise, and
that's essentially the Gains is business partner.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
And people ask, you know, are you going to do
anything about this?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
And they did nothing, like nothing, and to the point
that their businesses probably haven't looked at the numbers, but
more successful now. I mean, they've just they plowed right
ahead with partnering with Target. And so it's like Christians
are upset about this, but at a certain point, it's like.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Is this fool me once? Shame on you, fool me twice,
shame on me?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Kind of a thing like didn't think Gains just tell
us exactly who they were a couple of years ago.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Oh yeah, they did more than nothing. Specifically, Joanna turned
off the comments on all of her social media right
around that time that boycott started to get traction, And yeah,
what we saw was an explosion of this heart and
hand home to core line, which I don't know about
your Target, but it's front.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
And center and mine.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
It's definitely the future of targets Home to Course.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So yeah, the second only to the trans merchandise during
Pride mind, yes.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
Yeah, yeah, you would think like Christians would want to
speak up about you know, Satanism and like that whole
part of the world, like not even the LGBT stuff,
like the first thing. The most offensive things should be
like you know, the professed.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Enemy of God.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
But you know whatever. Yeah, I think that is when
we started to see the slippage really publicly.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
But as we've seen with these.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
These cultural Christian influences, they're slippage all the time. And
I called it in my article the Chosen effect, right
like we saw the Chosen had this rise to fame,
so many Christians platformed and encouraged it and funded it
and got it front and center. You know, I think
you can just find it on Netflix nowadays. But what
happened there was Dallas Jinkins, the creator, had some behind
(18:25):
behind the scenes shooting going on, and a producer had
a gay flag attached to his camera on the set
where where you know, the purported cast member for Jesus
is walking around and people obviously questioned that and and
the Chosen's cast response was either to affirm that that
flag and what it stands for, or to kind of
(18:46):
you know, grovel and and say, well, you know, we
were supposed to love your neighbor and love everyone. And
that's all good and fun when we keep it in context.
But the truth is, like I said at the beginning
of the segment here is Christians are called to a
certain level of accountabil for each other and we're just
not seeing that play out. And I think it's such
a tricky balance to strike because you want those Christian
(19:10):
influences in the culture. But at the end of the day,
and I think our editor Hayden had a piece go
up today on The Federalist about it, if the Christians
don't control the culture, the culture will never carve out
a special space and not bring those other worldly influences
and not force them in. So if you're not standing
strong on your faith and not standing strong on those principles,
you're going to fall. And what we've seen with the
(19:31):
Games is a fall from grace, far from where we
thought they were in even twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, speaking of Christian influences on the culture, of course,
there was another super piece, a super sad piece of
news this week, and that was the passing of pastor
and theologian John MacArthur, who died at eighty six years old.
I mean, he was truly a modern hero of the faith.
There's no denying that. And I just think there's an
obvious and huge contrast worth pointing out here. I mean
(20:00):
the price that MacArthur paid for his faith and the
payment that the gains Is received for completely abandoning their faith.
And I mean, look at John MacArthur's life, but when
it cost him something to stand firm on biblical qualifications
for pastors, or against the divisive racial politics that have
been completely tearing apart churches and are an antithesis to
(20:24):
the Gospel, or defying California state orders to basically disregard
the biblical call to not neglect the assembly, and he
defied that to faithfully keep his church open or to
reopen it during COVID. And meanwhile, the Gainses have caved
on what is one of the most basic biblical truths
(20:47):
just because it's culturally in vogue and they can make
a quick buck. And I just want to get your
thoughts on this, Jordan. I saw this tweet regarding that,
and I thought it was really really well put. Half
of my feed is about Christian celebrities compromising to the
world and the grief that caused to see it, and
the other half is about the glory soon to be
had for a saint who was finishing his race. Well,
(21:08):
the contrast is clear, and I know which one I
want to be like. That was from a man named
Troy Fraser on Twitter. But Jordan, what are your thoughts
on that?
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Yeah? Well, one of the things that made John MacArthur
such as standout servant of Christ is his fidelity to
the Bible and the biblical principles and theology that drive Christians.
And he was always pointing people, even if they were
of a denomination that didn't necessarily prioritize that back to
the Word of God. And like you said, marriage is
one of the things that's very clearly outlined in the
(21:39):
Word of God. It's on that roadmap. It's actually central
to the picture that we see of Christ and the
bridegroom and the church and the Gainses have failed to
not only apparently comprehend that, but share that with the world,
and so to see that contrast is striking. And I
think John MacArthur, if he were still alive and well,
(22:01):
would certainly want everyone to go back to that biblical definition,
and it's an important one to adhere to because there's
so many trickle down effects from that. And what we've
seen with the Gains is endorsement not only in this show,
but on their social media and in some of their hiring,
is that they're willing to endorse lifestyles that not only
put that traditional marriage, that perfect gift at risk, but
(22:24):
also the lives of the children that are brought into
those situations. And like the cast members on back to
the Frontier using bought eggs and rented wombs to obtain
their sons, those are our lifetime. There are lifetime consequences
for those children because of those arrangements, and unfortunately in
the United States, there's not a lot of regulation or
(22:46):
pushback even in society on that sort of thing. But
what we've seen over and over is that children lose
in every single situation that they're commissioned that way, and
those boys are forever without the mother whose DNA they have,
and forever without the mother whose DNA they received in
the womb, and that is heartbreaking. That should be a
red flag for anyone. And when you go about endorsing
(23:09):
lifestyles that require assisted reproductive technology or require those those
dysfunctional just at the heart arrangements that go from you know,
tearing a child away from who they were meant to
be with. It has these trickle down effects on society
that don't just affect the people in those arrangements, book
(23:31):
by everyone else, and so signing off on that or
promoting it is just heartbreaking at the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I think there's a it's really easy to see the
business incentives here, like obviously it helps Chip and Joanna
Gains's business and their income and you know the success
of their show potentially to appeal to what is culturally
in vogue. But there's also a real theological component and
(24:00):
a doctrine component, and I think it's something that's it's
this idea that's really crept into I think every denomination.
I don't think any denomination is immune from this, and
that's this idea that you can outlove God, or that
you can be you can be more loving than God,
that you can compromise and then disguise it as compassion,
(24:22):
or that like, you know, if you really want to
look like Jesus, you actually have to be more appealing
to the culture than Jesus would be, and it's like
he is the standard. He defines what is love, he
defines what is justice, he defines what is marriage, he
defines what is compassion, and he you know, he famously
was very like he was friends with sinners, and in
(24:46):
fact he called people to follow him who were sinners,
including us, including modern day Christians, but he never like
the call is to repent and believe it's not to
be who you are. And that's something that we're not
seeing from the gains Is. And there's an aspect that
I really want to get your thoughts on. It's super
disturbing and it goes to some of the familial dynamics
(25:07):
that you just touched on. And that's apparently one of
the Gaines's friends and their employee, I think he's a
cameraman who claims to be a Christian, announced that he
was gay and decided to bring his gay lover. So
he's married. He decided to bring his gay lover into
his home that he shares with his wife and five
children so that he could pursue an open and like
(25:30):
homosexual relationship with this man, even though he's also married
to this woman. And the gains did not just ignore it,
which would have been a problem anyway if this is
you know somebody that would say he's your brother in Christ.
But they actively encouraged it and congratulated it. And here
is a tweet or an Instagram post rather than Megan
Basham tweeted that shows this like support for this friend
(25:56):
and cameraman or friend and employee. I he might not
be a cameraman, but I think is where Joanna Gains
responds to his post about this issue and says, you
are so good, We love you. There are so many
casualties in this. You're talking about five children that you
are bringing a man.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Into the home.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
That is one of the most dangerous things you can
do for children. They are most at risk when they
are living with an unrelated man.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
I mean, this is.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Putting the desires of adults before the rights of kids
in the most blatant way.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Absolutely, And I think I read somewhere that some of
those children are adopted, so they went through this redemptive
situation where they were placed with loving parents, a man
and a woman who are married, which for children is
the best outcome that you can have is living with
your married biological parents. The next best outcome is living
with married or married parents not just biological who are
(26:57):
a man and a woman and bringing in their parties,
like you said, is dangerous. So to go from this
redemptive situation where where they get the next best thing
to what could have been, and have their family fall
apart in front of their eyes is absolutely disheartening and
heartbreaking and there's just no way around it. And to
sit there and say you are good.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
The goal is not.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
For Christians to be good, ever, it's for us to
be christ Like, and like you were saying, to be
christ Like, to be loving.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
The most loving thing.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
That you can do is to adhere to God's design
and that is not God's design in any form or fashion.
You're not going to find that anywhere in a way
that's beneficial or glorifying to the Kingdom of God. And
so to see the Games is put their business and
their image forward in this and make that the priority is.
(27:48):
It's very concerning, and I think Christians do have a
right to speak out, which is why when Chip Games
was lashing out on social media people who were in
good faith trying to engage him on this issue, he
lost a lot of points for it.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
And rightfully so well and basically smearing the people who
are exactly where Chip Gains claim to be a decade ago.
I mean, how far they've fallen in ten years or
nine years or whenever this was that their church was
attacked over this, and the fact that they have solid
and they have compromised on their faith that much in
that many years. And it makes me think of the verse,
(28:22):
What does it profit a man if he gains the
whole world and loses his soul? And I think I
can't judge souls. Only God can do that. But I
think the Gains are really running the risk of that here.
And yeah, it's just it's very sad to see, and
I think Christians are right to be to be upset
about it and to speak up about it, because that's
what we're supposed to do. So anyway, Jordan, thank you
(28:42):
so much. I appreciate all of your insights. Please check
out Jordan's work on all of these topics, but specifically
her piece on Chip and Joanna Gaines, and I'm sure
you'll be seeing her back around here many more times
in the future.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Thanks Jordan. Thanks Kylie.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
All right, let's do a little bit of culture everybody
else is talking about Superman, so I guess I will
talk about Superman.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I did go see the movie.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
I think it was about a week ago, so a
little fuzzy on some of the details because obviously I've
only seen it once.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
It's still in theaters. But I have some thoughts. First
of all, I went into.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
The movie with fairly low expectations, mostly because there was
so much hype leading up to the movie about Oh,
it's so pro immigrant, it's so anti Trump, but so
this and that, it's so woke and so here. I
am going into the movie expecting, well, it's Hollywood, so
it probably is going to be all of those things.
And I got to tell you, I did not see that. Sure,
(29:34):
there are maybe crumbs of that here and there, but
I actually thought it was pretty enjoyable. And I am
as sick of woke Hollywood dribble as the next guy.
But another thing I'm pretty sick of is when conservatives
give radical leftist ammo by freaking out over every little thing,
and especially preemptively freaking out about every little thing when
(29:56):
the movie isn't even out yet. Here's the deal, Hollywood
hates you. You know it, I know it. The entire
industry rejects all that is good and decent and true
and beautiful. They hate Christianity, they reject natural law, which
is one of the reasons, of course, why the content
Hollywood turns out is so consistently garbage. So if you
(30:18):
don't want to give your money to the industry, if
you don't want to go see these movies, then don't
don't go see these movies. That's perfectly fine. You can
boycott them, take a stand against it, you know, use
your dollars to signal that. But the takeaway from culture
just it's woke, it's icky, it's depraved is such a
tired and lazy critique, And especially when you're talking about
(30:39):
a movie like Superman, where the vast, vast majority of
the film was perfectly non woke and not political. Just stop,
just take a deep breath and enjoy it. One of
the things about the radical left is that they are
miserable people. They exist to be offended no matter what
Conservatives do. They hate it. They take umbrage, they take offense,
(31:00):
and it's just constant outrage, constant whatever. Cue the video
of the woman screaming into the abyss. That is the
posture of radical feminism. That is the posture of miserable,
woke leftists. That is not the posture that I want
to have as a conservative. So that was actually my
main issue with the movie was the way that conservatives
(31:20):
preemptively freaked out about it, and in my view, freaked
out about nothing. If you want to take issue with
the style of the movie or the genre of movie,
you know, there's plenty of things that you could critique,
but that was just, in my opinion, a pretty dumb critique,
especially when there is so much other garbage, woke Hollywood
(31:40):
content like this was a really stupid one to take
issue with.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Now.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
I am not into sci fi at all, which is
why I'm not a natural fan of much of the
superhero genre in general, but there was actually a lot
that I liked about this movie. First of all, I
just really liked the general esthetic of the movie. It
was bright and bold and optimistic. It really matched the
super Man character in a way that I thought was
very cohesive and lovely. I also thought the character dynamics
(32:08):
were really good and really believable, especially against the backdrop
of the recent Marvel movie. I know this was DC,
but whatever, the most recent Captain America was It was horrific.
I saw it in theaters and it was like I
almost walked out part way through because the dialogue was
so strained and so canned and so fake. It was
actually painful to watch, whereas in this film, I thought
(32:30):
the character dynamics were actually generally across the board pretty good.
One place that we saw this was with Clark's parents.
They were super endearing and very believable, just the conversations
that they had, the way that they were portrayed. It
was like poking fun at the boomerisms of them a
little bit, but in a very endearing way. It wasn't
like nasty to them. Also, this was dumb. But Crypto
(32:52):
the dog, which I know is CGI. It's not even
a real dog, but they really nailed the dynamics between
the dog and his owner scene.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
There also might be spoilers in this, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
There's this scene where Clark wakes up and Crypto the
dog is lying on his chest and the dog is
just like staring at him waiting for him to wake up,
and just like perfectly still, except his tail is just wagging.
And that happens with my dog all the time, and
there were many moments like that in the film where
it was like, oh, yeah, this is really believable. They
really captured like the companionship of a person and a dog,
(33:24):
and then a very obvious one, but Clark and Lewis
had really really believable chemistry. They developed those characters in
a way that was believable. The ten minute interview scene
was some of the best dialogue I've seen in a
movie of this genre, which can often be just so bad.
Their disagreements felt less like James Gunn was trying to
(33:45):
lecture audiences through one character who was right and one
character who was wrong. That's such a classic Hollywood thing
to do, but more through two people who have the
same values but just come at things from different perspectives,
which I think is so often how healthy relationships work.
One other thing worth pointing out. Mark Hemingway recently wrote
a great piece at The Federalist. It was last week.
(34:06):
The headline was Hollywood's inability to create masculine stars is
officially a problem, and he was particularly taking aim at
Pedro Pascal and how Hollywood keeps trying to make Pedro
Pascal happen as like a masculine dude, and it's super
gay because he is not.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
He does not fit that bill at all.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
And as evidence of this, Mark just talked about the
fact that there's really no big male stars right now.
Two of the biggest movies that came out recently were
Mission the Latest Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise and that
Formula One movie with Brad Pitt. I mean, these two
guys are like sixty Hollywood really has had trouble creating
new masculine stars. And he talks about how Timothy Shallomey
(34:50):
is like one of the biggest stars right now, but
he's not like super masculine. He's not the type of
guy that can carry the Brad Pitt Tom Cruise torch.
He's not the kind of guy that follows the old
adage of male leads, which is that women want to
be with him and men want to be him. Nobody
wants to be Timothy Shallamane, nobody wants to be with
Timothy Shalman, and of course that also applies to people
(35:11):
like Paedro Pascal. He does not embody that. But I
think Superman may have finally broken this mold and given
us an actual masculine star. David corn Sweat is just
like a typical, traditionally conventionally attractive man, tall, dark and handsome,
exactly what Superman is supposed to be. Hollywood didn't try
(35:31):
to change that by giving us this little torp that
we were supposed to like think is amazing, and a
believable female counterpart who has her own opinions and is
very strong willed, but does not have this like in
your face feminist message. It's just this complimentary couple where
she steps up to serve him and he steps in
(35:54):
to serve her, and they compliment each other well, and
he doesn't need to step out of the way so
she can shine. It was lovely, and I thought that
there were actually a lot of things in the film
in that regard that were pretty conservative coded. So if
you haven't seen Superman yet, it might be worth your time.
If you're not into superhero movies, I don't know what
to tell you, but don't take the scolds word for
it that it's super woke and super anti Trump and
(36:15):
super pro immigrant or whatever they're saying. Tune it out,
don't be so easily offended, and actually engage with the
culture and try to find something that's enjoyable about it,
because I think there's plenty that fits that bill in Superman. Anyway,
that's all for me, Thanks so much for tuning into
the Kylie Cast. I'm Kylie Griswold and I'll be right
back here with a new episode next Thursday.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Until then, just
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Remember the truth hurts, but it won't kill you.
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