Oh, the gospel will overcome in a world full of sorrow, by evil over all. Where darkness has veiled the light of the sun, And we know that the gospel overcomes. You're listening to The Dean's List, an analysis of news, culture, and theological trends from a biblical worldview. This is your place for intelligent conversation on the relevant issues of our day, each Friday and Saturday at 1130 and each Sunday at noon. And now, here's the host of The Dean's List, Dr. Paul Dean. Trump wins again! And he wasn't even there! What do you think? That's how it sounds to me. That's what it looked like. That's who everybody was talking about. Yeah, you had seven candidates up there on the main debate stage. The seven dwarfed. Now, I didn't come up with that. I saw that on Drudge, so I'll give credit where credit's due. It was the Trump-less debate, but yet somehow, some way, he wins again. Now, we'll get- Why are we not surprised? Well, we're not surprised. That's what Trump's all about. Now, we'll get to the debate. And by the way, I'm not supporting Trump. I'm going to say a little bit more about that as we go along. I don't want to give our listeners the wrong impression. but trump was the story and you know he he played this thing brilliantly a lot of people said not gonna work some are even trying to say didn't work it did work it was as trump would say genius yeah now How do I describe all of my rhetoric with reference to Trump? I'm gonna play a little clip here, audio clip. It's from Star Trek, the original Star Trek. A show entitled Space Seed was about Khan. Khan Noonien Singh, the original. And I want you to listen to this dialogue. It's just, I don't know, it's like less than a minute. So be patient, but listen to this. Listen to them talking about Khan. Name? Khan Noonien Singh. From 1992 through 1996, absolute ruler of more than a quarter of your world. From Asia through the Middle East. The last of the tyrants to be overthrown. I must confess, gentlemen, I've always held a sneaking admiration for this one. He was the best of the tyrants. And the most dangerous. They were supermen in a sense. Stronger, braver, certainly more ambitious, more daring. Gentlemen, this... Romanticism about a ruthless dictator is... Mr. Spock, we humans have a streak of barbarism in us. Appalling, but there, nevertheless. There were no massacres under his rule. And as little freedom. No wars until he was attacked. Gentlemen. Mr. Spock, you misunderstand us. We can be against him and admire him all at the same time. Illogical. Totally. Totally, totally illogical, right? As Spock would say. That's right. But you caught the gist of that. You know, they're admiring this ruthless tyrant. Now, we hate tyrants. Right. Now, we love everyone we want to be saved, but we hate what they do and what they stand for. But they're admiring him because of what? Because of his ability, because of his power, because of his genius, as it were. And Spock is incredulous, and at one level, rightly so. But they make the point, we can admire him and be against him all at the same time. Yep, and it's the same thing with Donald Trump. That's exactly right. And of course, you know what they did to Khan, ultimately, if you've seen Star Trek at all? I don't remember. Well, they eventually had to maroon him on this abandoned planet. And then they come back with the Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan, and all that. So eventually, as a Christian, we're going to have to figure out how to maroon Trump on some abandoned planet, politically speaking. But right now, I mean, you just have to sit back. Maybe you don't, but I just have to sit back in awe and think, wow, this guy, he knows what he's doing. And that's, of course, that's why he's got a lot of supporters. And everything he does, I mean, it turns to gold. He dwarfed Fox News. That's what he did. Yeah. And he had this alternate event. Now, even that event, I mean, like I said, Trump was the story. And they showed the pictures of all the folks standing in line to get into this event. And I watched the event itself. Now, the event itself was a little bit of a letdown. I mean, basically it was a roll call of all of those who had contributed or made donations to the Wounded Warriors. He was raising money for veterans. I think they've raised $6 million, something like that. But it was sort of a roll call. And then, you know, CNN, who was covering it, They kept cutting away, you know, and getting other commentary because they didn't feel like it was that interesting, but Huckabee was there, Santorum was there, these two evangelicals, you know, show up on the stage with Trump. I mean, there's no way you can interpret that other than, I mean, they're saying they're not there to support Trump, they're there to support the veterans, but it's gonna be seen as an endorsement in some sense of Trump, right? But we didn't even get to hear what they said. because cnn cut away at least uh... at least when i was watching so anyway the event uh... i don't know it wasn't it wasn't great but just the fact that it was an event just the fact that he wasn't on the debate stage and he talked it up uh... he even that interview that he had with uh... the reporter from cnn i can't remember her name but he was saying that, oh, we're going to have a bigger event than the debate. Look at the lines that we have. We have more people. This is a better event. Yeah, well, they did. Right. You know, and in a very real sense, it was. And, you know, from a political perspective, it was a pretty good interview. I mean, you thought that, right? Yeah, it was a pretty good interview. But, you know, why did he hold the alternate event? I mean, you got to understand the background. I mean, you know, he got into this little thing with Megyn Kelly. It goes all the way back to August 6 when she hit him with this question in that debate and he felt it was unfair. And so they've been having this little feud. And quite frankly, I think Trump's been getting the best of her. Now, I don't I don't agree with, you know, the crassness of the way he speaks toward her and about her and about women. I'm not agreeing with any of that. I'm just talking about the political prowess here. And so he'd come back and essentially he makes a big deal about her being on the panel. And of course a lot of folk are saying he's scared of Megyn Kelly. You think he's scared of Megyn Kelly? I don't think so. I don't think so either. I think it's a media thing. It's a move and it's just interesting to watch. And it wasn't the fact that Fox was going to stand by Megyn Kelly that even caused Trump to walk away. It was when Fox taunted him. Something I've, you know, all commentators have said, well, not all, but a lot. I've never seen a news organization do this. I mean, they put out this little statement. Here it is. It says, we learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president. A nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings. Hmm. And so Trump's like, you know what? They're going to play this game. They're going to be that childish. Bye bye. I'm walking away. That's what did it. That's what did it. Well, it's interesting about that interview. And we're going to move on. We're going to move on to the debate. Actually, debates plural. OK. Not too long on the undercard, though. But what's interesting about that interview, you know, someone from CNN said it. He sounded almost wistful. You know, Fox called me and they apologized. And you know what? I would have gone. I would have loved to have been there. But we already had this other event planned. I couldn't let the veterans down. I couldn't let these people down. It's too late. He's almost like, yeah, I would have gone back because they apologized. I mean, Who could say Trump is not the winner on this one? Right. I think one of the CNN reporters said he wants to have his cake and eat it too. Yeah. Yeah. And he did. Yeah. It was a big bite of cake too. Big, big cake. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here. I'm no political analyst or prognosticator. I usually don't get into these things. It's been easy to predict certain things based on polls, but I think Trump wins Iowa on Monday. The Iowa caucuses, they start Monday. I think he wins. Now, I know a lot of folk are saying, no, he's not going to win, especially folk in Iowa. Now, folk that I appreciate, folk that I respect. And you know what? If I want to throw a little caveat in here, I'll say this. Obviously, folk in Iowa ought to know their own state better than I. I'm way down here in South Carolina. And there's a different process in Iowa. It's the caucuses. We have a primary. It's a totally different thing. And they say in Iowa, of course, you've got to have a big organization on the ground and you've got to meet the people and press the flesh and on and on and on. And Trump has not been that organized. And so a lot of folk are saying Cruz is going to win Iowa. Even though he's down a little bit in the poll right now, there are a lot of folks saying Cruz is going to win. And even after the debate, they're saying he's going to win because he didn't really harm himself. Some of them are saying he did pretty well. In fact, someone said they think Trump is going to fall to third. Interesting. Interesting. So, I'm going to go ahead and say, you know what, because they're there, they're Iowans, they may be right. But, you know, aside from that, I don't see it. I think Trump's going to win Iowa. I think he's going to win New Hampshire. I think he's going to win South Carolina. Now, that would be bad. That would be bad. But remember, South Carolina voted for Newt Gingrich last time. I was flabbergasted at the time. Wow. So, this one will not flabbergast me if South Carolina goes with Trump. It will disappoint me, but not flabbergast me. You know what I'm saying? Yep. We'll see what happens on Monday. It's going to be interesting. Now, let's get to the debates. Now, probably we'll take the second half of the broadcast to deal with the main debate, okay? Okay. But we've got to say something about the undercard. Huckabee Santorum were at the Trump event, but before that, they were in the undercard debate, along with, and by the way, I should say, Governor Huckabee, Senator Santorum, I'm not trying to be disrespectful, I just used their last names, it's for the sake of brevity. Convenience. Convenience. But we also had Carly Fiorina. We had Jim Gilmore. Is his name Jim? I'm not even sure. I didn't even know who that was. I'm sorry. You walked in the room. And I said, who's that guy? And then my little sister walked in the room a few minutes later and said, who's that? She knows the rest of them. She's 12. She knows them all. You've never seen him before. Yeah, it was Gilmore. Now Gilmore was around in the beginning and he faded. I'd forgotten about him. And again, no disrespect, but why do you show up in the undercard now? Why are you in the debate now? We haven't even heard from you. Well, he wants to get his points in. It's fine. I guess. He's not making any, you know, different points than the other folk on the stage. Well, unless you compare him to, like, Rand Paul or maybe Donald Trump, but he's no different than the other neocons. I guess. I don't know. Like I said. Yeah. So that, of course, it brings us to the main debate. And we'll just sort of say one or two things. Then we'll go to break. OK. There's a very real sense. And this is something you said last night. You didn't say it in this way, but it was the night of the pivot. Oh, right, the pivot speeches. It seems like anytime somebody asks a question, all they do is just jump at the chance to deflect the question and then go on with their speech that they already planned. That really doesn't answer the question at all. Right. A lot of pivoting last night, wasn't there? I mean, there's more pivoting than LeBron James going down the lane. Right. I mean, they made him look like an amateur. Of course, you know, a lot of times these NBA players, speaking of NBA, LeBron James, whoever, you know, they go down the lane, they're pivoting. I mean, we can see it. They walk, they travel, they take like three, four, five steps. And that's an exaggeration, but they take three steps, they don't get called for it. You know, and they keep on playing. And so here are these candidates on the stage last night. Get a question. They do the pivot. They're traveling. They're walking all over the place. They ought to be called on it. And the moderators, you know, just let them go. Why don't we press them on the issue? Why don't we say, answer the question, sir? But they don't do it. You know why? Because they're politicians. You know why else? They're in a street fight. They're in a street fight with a street fighting man named Donald Trump. All the bets are off when you're in that kind of street fight. We'll talk more about it after the break. We're talking about, what is it, the seventh debate? We've had so many, I know exactly what they're gonna say before they say it. It was the night of the pivot. It was the night of the predictable. It was the night of Trump. We'll talk about it again, other side of the break. Stay tuned. Parenting is a team effort. Parenting expert, Darla Noble. Both mom and dad have the same role to make memories, to discipline, to invest yourself in your children's lives, and most of all, love them unconditionally. I'm Rich Rozell. Join Trace Embry and me for our conversation with Darla, better known as Mama D, on the next edition of Licensed to Parent. Licensed to Parent, every Monday at 11 on Christian Talks 660 and 92.9. Did you know there are more cell phones in the United States than our entire population? That means chances are you have a cell phone. But what do you do when it doesn't work properly? Maybe the face is cracked or the camera stopped working or the speakers don't sound right or it won't charge. Well, you can fight your way through traffic to a repair shop and sit there for an hour or more while they fix it or you can call a trusted expert to come to you. Chris Larson is a certified tech with Mobile Cell Repairs and he'll come to your location and fix your cell phone in less than an hour at a price you can afford. Go to mobilecellrepairs.com and check him out or call Chris now for an appointment. at 864-420-4563. Have your device repaired where you are, when you want. And remember, quality is always the top priority. Mobile Cell Repairs It was my choice, his choice, their choice, our choice. I felt I had no other choice. Afterward, there was only sorrow and regret. I felt there was no hope. Where could I turn? Who would understand? Then I heard there was a safe place where I could share my grief, guilt, pain, and find recovery. Call Abortion Recovery Assistance of Piedmont Women's Center at 864-244-1434. It is confidential, loving, and supportive. We're Christian Talk 660. Yeah, it was a street fight. kind of an interesting street fight because the main street fighting man was a five minutes you know across town or whatever but it was still that it was the night of the pivot the main debate that's what we're talking about right the night of the pivot just hey give me a question i'll talk about what i want to yeah Oh, me. It was also the night of the pandering. What we're doing is just, look, there's no way in this, you know, half hour broadcast that we can touch on everything we want to in the debate. That's where I've gotten in trouble on the previous broadcast trying to do that. So we're just hitting some highlights here. Just impressions. Okay. And, you know, the two frontrunners, of course, now that Trump was elsewhere, I'm talking about on the debate stage. were Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Yeah, they were the frontrunners. And they got into it a couple of times. You know, we'll talk about that in just a moment. But it seems like they talked more than everybody else, too. Well, they did. I don't understand how that's fair when you're supposed to be having a debate with moderators. Well, part of the reason is they give more time to the frontrunners. I don't understand that. That's because you want to hear from everybody and make an informed decision, but that's not what this is about. That's so dumb. This is about entertainment. Haven't you figured that out yet? Apparently. I guess I'm still just flabbergasted by it. I know. Some people think these debates, especially in the libertarian movement, for example, these are boring. Others just get so mad. I used to, you know, years ago. You know, I was right there. You know, I would have been all for Ted Cruz and all that, but my understanding of government and public policy has been, you know, well, I don't want to sound arrogant toward my other brothers who would disagree with me, but I have a different position now. I think I'm looking through the lens of the New Testament. I have a different position, but anyway, they would probably say the same thing. But I guess what I'm saying is for me, I'm not for any of these guys up there except for Rand Paul. And so for me, I have to laugh at it. I have to have fun with it. It's just, it's entertainment. Otherwise, I'd just be totally disinterested. Well, maybe that's what I feel. I thought it was frustrating. In fact, I got up in the middle of it and said, I'm tired of all this. I'm going to bed. Because yes, talk about pandering. It seems to me like, and I'm just gonna be honest. And I know that most of the viewers will probably disagree. But it seems to me like all our massive viewers. Oh, listeners. It seems to me that Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, even him too, whenever they would get a question, like we talked about before the break, they'd kind of start with maybe a phrase that the moderator mentioned, but then they'd pivot and go on to what they actually wanted to talk about. And then when they gave their answer, For example, one moderator asked, how are you going to implement this policy plan? I can't remember what it was. And then I think it was to Marco Rubio, or maybe it was to Chris Christie. I can't remember. They're all the same in my mind. And then they just talk in these generalities. Oh, we're going to build up the military. Oh, we're going to make America a force to be reckoned with again. But they're not answering how. They're just throwing out all of these phrases and things that get the viewers excited. make them wanna say, oh yeah, you're right, I'm with you, but to me it just seems more like acting and putting on, telling the people what they wanna hear than actually answering the questions in a logical, rational way. Well, their answers are very similar to Trump's, you know, what they accused Trump of doing, you know, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that, he never tells us how, but they do the same thing, yeah. And people love it. Sure. And then of course you got Ted Cruz, Yeah, you know, he's talking in evangelical speak. Right. You know, it's a code show for all the evangelicals, you know, make sure you vote for me. Right. But you know what, Rubio, he's worse. In fact, Rubio, it's just so out of, I don't know, maybe he's done that forever. But you know, he's raised Roman Catholic, then became, you know, went to the Mormon church, then back to the Roman Catholics. And then of course, he somehow wound up attending a Southern Baptist church. I don't know where he's at. Maybe he's a wonderful Christian. He's one, I'll say. I don't know. I mean, I haven't listened to him enough or checked it out. But it was interesting, I guess they asked him about, was it the cover of Time, where they said he's the savior of the Republican Party? And he said, wait a minute, there's only one savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's the most important thing in my life. you know because I want to I'm gonna live forever you know this is temporary whatever he said you know what he's absolutely right that's absolutely there's only one savior and too many people look to the government to be their savior but I just felt like it was contrived you know I don't maybe he really feels that so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt But, you know, to talk that way is certainly pandering. I just think the candidates ought to kind of leave that stuff out. Now, I'm unique, I'm weird in that way, but I don't want to hear it. I want to hear what you're going to do with public policy. Right. And after the end of their questions that they get, they always put on their pastorly smile just to kind of clinch it for the viewers. I'm going to do this for America and let me flash this smile at you so you believe me. Yeah, yeah. Well, we don't want to run out of time before we talk about a couple of the exchanges either, right? It's interesting. I'm not sure Cruz helped himself a whole lot last night. Now, if you're a Cruz fan, you know, say I were, say Cruz, we're like Rand Paul. I'm a Rand Paul guy. And sadly, Rand Paul, you know, he will say some things, not last night, but maybe, you know, over the course of the campaign he'll say some things that I thought he shouldn't have said that maybe they're ugly maybe they're dumb maybe you know he's just not coming across and and I will lament that but I'm still voting for Rand Paul because I know what he believes okay so I'm going to put what I'm about to say in that context go ahead. Oh, I was just going to go side issue. I didn't say this earlier, but speaking of Rand Paul, to me, he was maybe beside Kasich. To me, he was the only person who actually answered the questions when he was given questions. That's true. He did. And he was respectful. When the buzzer went on, he didn't keep talking for two extra minutes. He stopped. And he answered questions and gave valuable information, in my opinion. That's right. And I appreciate that about Rand Paul. Of course, what I know about him is his view of government public policy. You know, it's limited government freedom. And he's genuine. It's not just it's not just rhetoric. You know, a lot of people that say things like that, but then they don't do anything. Right. Excuse me, but you made a good point. This is what I was going to say about Ted Cruz. I don't think he helped himself a whole lot last night. He, along with others, I'll say that, but he went over time. He was ugly sometimes. He was rude. He just didn't come across very well. Now, again, if I were voting for Cruz, it wouldn't keep me from voting for him. That's why I said what I said about Rand. Rand does dumb things as well. But if you were undecided, he didn't help himself, is all I'm saying. He got into this exchange with Chris Wallace. I don't know, Wallace wanted to go to Bush for a question and Cruz thought that he had been mentioned before and so he wanted an opportunity to respond. And it was Wallace, the moderator, who had mentioned Cruz. Cruz is trying to push Wallace into a corner. He's trying to say, you need to let me speak. And they go back and forth, back and forth. And it really just, to me, didn't come across very well at all. And Wallace ended up going on to Bush. And so I thought Cruz lost on that one. A little bit later, Cruz accused the moderators of attacking him like four times in a row. He even got booed on that one. Anyway, I just think he needs to Do a little better job, you know the next time and again I don't say that because I'm supporting him per se but I say that just by way of analysis. Mm-hmm Yeah, let's let's talk about a couple of Rubio got painted as a flip-flopper And of course he is Cruz. Well Cruz did too. I thought Cruz handled that one better than Rubio I think he deflected it a little better You know, I could see him wriggling cuz you mean the video they showed video, you know Yes. Here's where you were, here's where you are. How is that allowed? Yeah, is that allowed? I don't know about that. I want to know what they think. But yeah, I do sometimes identify with, and it's weird because I'm largely libertarian, and so I should not identify with these people who want the most powerful office in the world. But sometimes I do. I feel sorry for them. And I want those moderators to back off of them. But, um, anyway, sometimes I don't. But, um, you know, we've got to move quickly. But I think I think Rubio Rubio didn't have a great night. A lot of people gonna say he won. I don't I don't think so. I don't buy it. I think I think Cruz bested him. I think I think Jeb Bush Now this is the surprise to me. Oh, right. I've never said this before, but if you're saying who won the debate last night, I think in terms of who helped himself the most, who looked better, I think Jeb Bush came out on top last night. That's what I think. He did a good job. Now it's too little too late. And I'm not voting for Jeb Bush either. I'm just saying. What was it he said? He got into this immigration thing just like Cruz did, but he got into it with Rubio, and they're going back and forth, and Jeb basically said, yeah, I was with you, I was with you, and we changed, and here's why, blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, he talked about a book he wrote, you know, you can get it for $2.99, that was funny. Right. But Rubio comes back and basically says, well, Jeb, you changed your position. That's the book you changed your position on. And Jeb goes back, you did too, Marco. You did too. I mean, that was the point. And Jeb, to me, just looked better there. Yep. So. Well, it's like my grandma said today, if they flip flop, why don't they just admit it and tell everyone why they did that? That's right. Just be honest. That's right. But it was more of the same. It was all predictable. So we'll see what happens on Monday. The voters will let us know out in Iowa, and then we're on to New Hampshire, right? Now, we've got to mention this before we close it out, because we didn't do it at the beginning. We always do the Drudge Poll. OK. All right? Now, here's the odd thing about it, though. Drudge, they usually ask, who won the debate? Didn't do that this time, or at least I couldn't find it. but they do have a poll who is your pick for president. So maybe they replaced it. Now that it's here, now that the Iowa caucus is on Monday. 787,000 votes so far. Let me say that again. 787,000 votes so far. So who do you pick of a president? Who's number one? Not you, me, but according to judge readers. Who do they pick, do you think? Donald Trump. Trump! 63%. Who do you think's second? I don't know. Does this include Democrats? Uh, no. No, those are Republicans. Oh, Ted Cruz. Yeah, I don't see any Democrats on the list, so I don't know. But anyway, yeah, Cruz is second. You know, Trump is at 63%, Cruz is down to 18. Oh, yikes. Who's third? Quick, quick, quick. Rubio. Rubio, 7%. Who's fourth? Bush. No, Rand Paul. Rand Paul, yes! He's moving up! Like 4% what? We gotta get those college students out on Monday night and vote for Rand. Why do I like Rand? Liberty, liberty, liberty. Liberty, liberty, liberty. And he's genuine. I'm coming out of the box now because it's here. Genuine. Anyway, so it's Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Paul, and then all of these were less than 2%. In this order, Kasich, Carson, Christie, Fiorina, Bush, Huckabee, Santorum. Wow. Wow. Have fun, Christie. Thank you. Join us again next time on the Dean's List. You've been listening to The Dean's List, an analysis of news, culture and theological trends from a biblical worldview. To access archived broadcasts, go to trueworldview.net where you'll find other helpful resources as well. Join us each week at 11.30 on Friday and Saturday and noon on Sunday for The Dean's List. The opinions expressed on today's program are those of the announcers, their guests, and callers, and do not necessarily represent those of the staff and management of his radio network, the Radio Training Network, or iHeartMedia.