Pro-Family Legislators Conference – With Charlie Duke, Part 1: Is Louie Gohmert’s lawsuit constitutional? Today we talk a little bit about January 6 and then bring you a special session from the Pro-Family Legislators Conference. Tune in to hear the youngest person to walk on the moon, Charlie Duke!

Air Date: 12/30/2020

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

This is the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live, where we talk about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture, always from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. My name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach, normally here with David Barton, America’s premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, and Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. You can find out more about all three of us at our website, wallbuilderslive.com.

But instead of us talking today about what’s been going on the last 24 hours, we want to actually take you back to a presentation, we had the privilege of hearing at our ProFamily Legislators Conference. Charlie Duke, one of the few people to actually walk on the moon was one of our special guests at ProFamily Legislators Conference, and it was just fantastic to have him. 

We want to share it with you, our listeners at WallBuilders Live, and so that’s going to be our radio program the next three days. We’ll have that entire presentation broken down into three parts shared with you right here on WallBuilders Live. So if you’re miss tomorrow, make sure you go to our website wallbuilderslive.com you’ll be able to get it there and then same thing for Friday, as well.

But before we take you to that live presentation from Charlie Duke at the ProFamily Legislators Conference, I got to just comment real quick on what’s happening with the election. The Louie Gohmert lawsuit that was filed a couple of days ago, we’ve known Louie for a long time. He’s been on this radio program many times. 

He’s not only a congressman, he’s a former judge. He knows what he’s talking about in this lawsuit. It has standing because it has the Arizona electors in it. I don’t think the court can throw it out based on standing this time.

Some Important Constitutional Questions

And he raises some of the most important constitutional questions, things we’ve talked about on this program, most of them, now some of them are actually really good questions we have not addressed yet. 

And I am thrilled to see this lawsuit be filed. I hope that we get a good resolution out of it, regardless of this election, that going forward we have a very clear understanding, we’ve remove the uncertainty and we know how electors will be counted on January 6th each time.

And I’ll just say this about the lawsuit. He is absolutely right that the 1887 law is unconstitutional. It actually takes away the power of the Vice President as serving as the President of the Senate to be the one determining how those votes are opened, how they’re counted, and it gives that power to the House and the Senate, which is unconstitutional.

First of all, you can’t just pass a law at the federal level and strip a federal officer have their constitutionally granted powers. That would be like Congress passing a law just on, not a constitutional amendment, just a law in Congress that strips the President of his constitutional power to pardon or strips the President of his constitutional power to appoint justices. No one would support that. Of course, we would say Congress can’t do that.

Well, that’s essentially what they did in 1887. It’s been largely ignored. It’s a really muddy, hard to follow, very confusing law, probably the worst written statute in the history of mankind. But that’s essentially what they did. And what Louie Gohmert is saying in this lawsuit, he’s saying that’s unconstitutional. The Congress can’t strip the Vice President of that power and give themselves the power to determine which electors to count.

Is also really a really bad idea, because it gives the House the ability to choose who the Vice President is going to be, and constitutionally, that’s a power given to the Senate. So if there’s no majority in the Electoral College, then it’s supposed to be the Senate to choose the Vice President and it’s supposed to be the House that chooses the President.

The 1887 Law

Well, if you interpret the 1887 law, the way that everybody’s trying to interpret it at this point, you’re actually given the House the power to choose both President and Vice President, and you’re given the Senate to power to choose both President and Vice President. Well, that’s not what the Constitution sets up. And it also changes how the House would vote on those kind of decisions.

The Constitution in the 12th Amendment says that when the House votes in one of these difficult tight situations, when the House makes a decision about the President of the United States in this case, it has to do so by state. So you don’t vote 435 folks and decide whoever gets the most votes. No, you vote 50 states, and whoever gets the most states, wins. That’s the way it’s supposed to be done. And what that 1887 law does is it changes the Constitution without amending the Constitution.

So if the courts do the right thing here, and I have to chuckle here because they haven’t done the right thing all year long, except in very rare exceptions, the courts have failed us in 2020, without a doubt. And so my expectation is they probably fail us again, on this lawsuit. But there’s a chance and constitutionally in upholding the rule of law in the Constitution, they should make it very clear what Louie Gohmert is asking for in this lawsuit.

Judge Gohmert, congressman Gohmert, what he’s asking for is that the court rule that 1887 law unconstitutional, and that it clarified that it is the President of the Senate, just as the 12th Amendment says that is to open and count the electoral votes and he is presiding, that’s the other word use there, he’s presiding over this, the House and the Senate are only present. That’s the only word given to the House and Senate in this particular case.

And therefore it is up to Mike Pence, in this case, the Vice President, as President of the Senate to decide if there’s two sets of electors from a state, then he absolutely could make the decision to say, we’re not going to count those, that’s in dispute, that state needs to get their act together, we’re moving on without them. Or he could accept a set of electors. That has happened in 1800 with Jefferson. That happened in 1961 with Nixon. Happened in 2000 with Gore. There’s a lot of precedent on this.

So I hope that Mike Pence does what the Constitution empowers him to do. I hope that this lawsuit is decided before January 6th, so that he goes into that session, knowing that it’s very clear, the courts have ruled on that, that he does have the power to do that. But you know, I have hoped a lot of things about what the court would do this year, so we’ll see how that all plays out. Let’s jump into that presentation. We’re going to take a quick break first, when we come back from the break, we’ll hear from Charlie Duke, one of the few people to actually walk on the moon. You’re going to be hearing right here on WallBuilders Live.

Constitution Alive!

Have you ever wanted to learn more about the United States Constitution but just felt like, man, the classes are boring or it’s just that old language from 200 years ago or I don’t know where to start? People want to know but it gets frustrating because they don’t know where to look for truth about the Constitution either.

Well, we’ve got a special program for you available now called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. And it’s actually a teaching done on the Constitution at Independence Hall in the very room where the Constitution was framed. We take you both to Philadelphia, the cradle of liberty and Independence Hall and to the WallBuilders library, where David Barton brings the history to life to teach the original intent of our Founding Fathers.

We call it The Quickstart Guide to the Constitution, because in just a few hours through these videos, you will learn the citizens guide to America’s Constitution, you’ll learn what you need to do to help save our constitutional republic. It’s fun, it’s entertaining, and it’s going to inspire you to do your part to preserve freedom for future generations. It’s called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. You can find out more information on our website now and wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. Charlie Duke is about to share at the pro family legislators conference.

Welcome Charlie Duke

Charlie:

Dottie and I are delighted to be here. It’s first the legislative conference we’ve attended, so it’s a real honor for us to be here and to be part of this morning. And thank you for the opportunity to share my story. I feel like I’m inadequate. I mean, we got here and heard preaching yesterday and speakers and you got an all pro-lineup, and I’m the waterboy here today, I’ll tell you. So it’s delight.

I’m a Naval Academy graduate, but I went into the Air Force. Back then you could go into the Air Force, it wasn’t an Air Force Academy. So I’m a retired Brigadier General in the Air Force, and people wonder, how did you get into Air Force from the Naval Academy? Well, you could do that since there was no Air Force Academy. So I fell in love with airplanes at the Naval Academy. I wanted to fly airplanes.

So there’s naval aviation in Air Force, which do I pick. And I was leaning in Air Force, but you know, which one I pick. And the doctor that senior year said, has decided that for me, he said Mitchie McDuke, you have a stigmatism and you’re right on you don’t qualify for naval aviation, but the Air Force will take you. So I ended up 29 years active in reserve in the United States Air Force and a great career.

I am not a preacher. I’m not an evangelist. We do have a 501(c)(3) ministry just to handle finances and stuff when we travel. And we help other ministries mostly with that. Well, anyway, so I got a lot to say, but it’s my testimony. And the power of a testimony, as I think is a very rare, powerful. And Jesus says and you should receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be my witness; was hard to be a witness if you don’t say anything.

A lot of us powerful witness by just your life and people look at you. How are you so calm? How are you so peaceful? How do you have such joy? And all of those things and we get a chance to tell them how we have that from Jesus. And so with all that I have to say, I wanted to tell a little story.

One Nation Under God

Many of you know Danny White, he’s a friend, and we were on the same program one time and he tells this story about this preacher that’s going on and on and on and on. And in the second or third row was this little five year old girl with her grandmamma, and he’s just preaching on and on and on and on.

And the little granddaughter looked up and whispers, grandmamma, what’s the flag for behind the preacher? And she said, oh, that’s the honor those who died into service. She says, was that in the 8:30 or the 10:30?

The title of my talk is “One Nation under God”. And several years back, I started thinking about our pledge, “One Nation under God”. And the thought occurred to me, if the nation’s under God, our president’s under God, our Congress’s under God, our government’s under God, our military’s under God, our school’s under God, we are under God. And I had another thought, are you really under God, Charlie? Do you submit your will to God?

Rick:

Alright, friend, stay with us, some moment, we’re going to take a quick break and we’ll pick right back up with Charlie Duke at the ProFamily Legislators Conference. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

A Moment From American History

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. The second amendment to the Constitution which guarantees to every individual the right to keep and bear arms has been targeted for years now by those who are determined to dismantle the individual right to self-protection.

Opponents argue that only the militia, the military, and law enforcement are to have and used firearms. But those who wrote the Second Amendment strenuously disagreed, including founding father Richard Henry Lee, a signer of the Declaration, a president of the Continental Congress, and one of those who actually framed the Second Amendment. He declared, “To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young how to use them.”

For more information about Richard Henry Lee, in the history of the Second Amendment, go to wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

Thanks for staying with us here on WallBuilders Live, you’ve been listening to Charlie Duke share at the ProFamily Legislators Conference. Let’s pick up right where we left off before the break. Here’s Charlie Duke.

Charlie’s Early Life

Charlie:

Do you seek God’s direction and guidance in your life? Do you submit yourself totally to God? Now, nobody asked me those questions in the 60s when I was from 66 on at NASA. But if they had, and I’d been honest with my answer, I would have said no. To me, God’s Sunday morning, one hour at church.

I believed in God. I grew up in a little town in South Carolina. I’ve been baptized at 11, the Baptist Church.

And I figured that when you came 11 years old in a Baptist Church in a way back then, where I grew up, you walk down an aisle and they’re off your back. You’re in. And so I’m in, my twin brother, and I honored God on Sunday, but the rest of the time, I’m in charge.

And I was doing a pretty good job, I thought with my life. Went off to prep school at 15 so I could get into the Naval Academy. And I grew up from 15 on, is just all boys boarding school. So when I got to the Naval Academy, I knew how to salute, I knew how to match, I knew how to do all of the things you do in the military. But it was still, I wanted to excel.

My mama had taught me, by the way, my grandma was one of 16 kids all by the same mama, by the way, and so we had a lot of relatives. By the time I get in my generation, they all settled in our area. So don’t do anything, don’t embarrass our family. And so that was sort of my gold of obedience because I knew couldn’t get away with anything because everybody was relative almost

And so anyway, I get to the Naval Academy and fell in love with airplanes. So I started my career as a Naval Academy graduate, but as Air Force officer, I was in Spence Air Base in Moultrie, Georgia, October of 1957 when Sputnik went up, the first satellite. Two years later, I’m going to Germany 1959, I got my wings. I’m all trained and I’m off to Germany. NASA gets formed in 58. They pick the first astronauts in 59.

Chosen to Go to the Moon

In 61, I’m sitting alert in a fighter interceptor Squadron at Ramstein, Germany when Yuri Gagarin went up in April 61. A couple weeks later, in May 1961, Alan Shepard, I think is the 5th of May launched in the space, a first American, and the race was on at that point.

A couple weeks later, Kennedy announced we’re going to go to the moon by the end of 1969. That was 8.5 years. How do you get to the moon? We don’t know, but we’re going to go to the moon.

And so we started working. I laughed at him, yeah, sure, 15 minutes in space, and you’re going to get us to the moon in 8.5 years. The most amazing thing about it was 8 years and 2 months later, I’m sitting in Mission Control talking to Neil Armstrong when he landed on the moon with Buzz Aldrin. Couldn’t believe it.

How did that happen? 1962, the Air Force sent me back to graduate school at MIT to get a master’s degree. And that was probably the toughest two years of my career, that’s MIT. But I made it on probation most of the time. But the Air Force had mercy on this captain, and let me stay.

And my thesis was on the Apollo Guidance and Navigation System, which MIT had the contract to build. And so I was working on this equipment to see if what they had designed a pilot could actually operate. They didn’t have any pilots if the instrumentation lab. So here we go, two of us captains, and we’re working on this. Well, I met some astronauts, and they were so gung ho and so excited about their job. How do I get that job?

Rick:

You’re listening to Moonwalker, Charlie Duke. He is one of the few people actually walk on the moon he shared with us at the ProFamily Legislators Conference. That’s who you’ve been listening to today. We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, we’ll join Charlie Duke again at the ProFamily Legislators Conference.

The American Story

Hey, guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called The American Story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today. And we would say very providentially in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not out of statement, Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on, and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America.

Well, is America worth defending? What is the true story of America? We actually have written and told that story. Starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln, we tell the story of America, not as the story of a perfect nation or a perfect people, but the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out wallbuilder.com, “The American Story”.

Moment from American History

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. Alexia de Tocqueville, a political official from France, traveled to the United States in 1831 and penned his observations in the now famous book, Democracy in America. Being from France, what he found in America was completely unexpected to him. He reported, “Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention.

And the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this. In France, I’d almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom, marching in opposite directions. But in America, I found that they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country.” de Tocqueville recognized that it was biblical Christianity and the morals it produced that made America great.

For more information about Alexia Tocqueville and the positive influence of Christianity in early America, go to wallbuilders.com

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today, special program today, tomorrow, and Friday. Charlie Duke is sharing at the ProFamily Legislators Conference and it was so good. We wanted to share it with you. We’re going to jump right back in with Charlie Duke on “One Nation under God”.

Charlie:

He said, well, when you get your degree, you go to Test Pilot School, and you’ll have a chance. So when I graduated, Dorothy and I met at MIT, or in Boston anyway, in the summer of 62, yeah, and we talked about an hour. And the next day, I drove back to South Carolina on the summer break, and I told my mama and daddy, I’d met the girl I was going to marry.

Dorothy Duke

And I did in June of 63. And off we drove to Edwards Air Force Base. Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert is the desert. And let me tell you, but it’s a fighter pilots haven. I’ve never seen so many exciting airplanes that I was going to get to fly and Dorothy cried for two months, you know. I got to live here for whatever it is.

Anyway, I graduated and in 1965, and I went to work for the [inaudible 21:15], Chuck Yeager, who was head of the Test Pilot School. And a month later, I saw an ad in a article, I guess it was, I call it a front page one ad in the Los Angeles Times, says NASA is having selection for more astronauts, please apply. And so I applied and was selected.

And so in April of 66, we moved to Houston. And during that time, we had like 54 astronauts, but we had a… And if you remember, those that are older ones in here could remember, we had a lot of accidents. Back then, we had four guys killed in airplane accidents. We had three killed in a fire at Kennedy Space Center in Apollo 1 when it’s caught fire. We had one kill in automobile accident. So there’s eight fatalities in the space of a couple years.

And John Glenn retired, Scott Carpenter retired, Shepherd was grounded, Slayton was grounded, several others were grounded for medical problems. And so there was about 40 to 42 of us that actually could work and fly on Apollo during those days, and we were pressing on to get there. Well, of course, the fire in January of 67 put us dead in the water and we were dead in the water for 18 months until we fix this thing.

So in October of 1968, we flew Apollo 7, which was the first manned Apollo mission, and it was successful. The next mission was supposed to be another Earth orbit with the Saturn V, but we got rumors that the Russians were going to launch to the moon. Can we beat them? And NASA made the boldest decision I think they’ve ever made. And they said, the Apollo 8 crew, you all want to go to the moon? And they said, you bet.

Saturn V Rocket

So in December of 1968, on the Saturn V rocket, they launched this crew to the moon. And once we sent them on the way to out Earth orbit on the way to the moon, it had to work, they had no backup, none. I mean, it was the boldest mission and the riskiest mission in my mind NASA has ever undertaken, but it was successful.

The most famous words I think, from the moon, were Neil Armstrong’s words when he landed, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” But I think the second most important, and to me, one of the most moving Christmas Eve 1968, Apollo 8 crew started reading from Genesis.

And I believe it was the first 11 verses, and I took turns reading. And at the end of that, they had a TV camera and you watch the earth rise. And it was so moving to me and to hear this. So it honored God, which I thought was amazing. Buzz Aldrin, by the way, had communion on the moon.

He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church. Several others, Paolo 14, took microfilm Bibles. I took a prayer From Nassau Bay Baptist Church, Bill Rittenhouse, the pastor was a big fan of the space program. And on that little microfilm was their prayer for us and all the names of the congregation. We were going in Episcopal Church in La Porte, Texas, and part of my PPK, Pilot Preference Kit was another prayer from our congregation.

And so there were some evidences of God being involved. But to be honest, during that 11 day mission, I don’t think I ever prayed once. I don’t think I ever thought oh God, I was focused on getting to the moon and if this thing fails, it’s not going to be my fault. That was our focus.

Pro-Family Legislators Conference – With Charlie Duke, Part 1

Rick:

We’re out of time for today, folks, you’ve been listening to Charlie Duke at the ProFamily Legislators Conference, we will pick up right where we left off today, we’re going to pick up with that tomorrow right here on WallBuilders Live. Be sure to visit our website wallbuilderslive.com, that’s where you can get archives of the program, a list of stations across the country, and most importantly, right here at the end of the year, that’s the place to make your donation, can be a one-time or you can sign up for a monthly donation.

But we greatly appreciate you considering us in your end of your giving wallbuilderslive.com for the donation. Every dollar you donate helps us to speak truth even louder, to reach more people, and to save America’s constitutional republic.

Thanks so much for listening today. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live!