Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin [00:00:04] Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John de Lin. It's October 30, 2020, and we are just a few days away from the general election in the United States. November 3rd will be the election. Many feel it's a super important election and this is probably the most divisive election that I've ever seen as a 50. What? As a 51 year US citizen. And of course, as always, there are some fun and interesting religious themes that go along with this election. And so I thought I would do something that some people think is crazy that other people really like.

John Dehlin [00:00:46] I think we had a really productive session just a few hours ago. But what I decided to do on Mormon Stories podcast was to feature voters from both major candidates in the US Political system. We just spent three hours with, with voters or supporters for Donald Trump and most of them were post Mormons. We did have at least one active believing Mormon. And so we gave Donald Trump a good three hours and now we're, now we're doing the other side. We are now going to be interviewing supporters of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And I'm really excited about this series.

John Dehlin [00:01:29] I want to give some disclaimers just like I did at the beginning of the last episode, just so that everyone knows kind of where I stand and where I don't stand. I am nonpartisan in the sense that I think both parties have good things, both parties have bad things. I don't think there's one true party.

John Dehlin [00:01:45] I grew up very conservative, voted for Republicans my first few times voting. Loved Rush Limbaugh. As I was at byu, majored in political science. I did a Capitol Hill internship in Washington D.C. for Republican congressmen. While I was there. I got really disenchanted and disillusioned by the political corruption that I was seeing in D.C. so I jumped out of my ambitions. I threw away my ambitions to be a politician.

John Dehlin [00:02:15] And as I graduated from BYU and started becoming sensitive to issues like homophobia and sexism and racism, more and more, my politics definitely shifted more to the left. I became a little bit left, left of moderate for, for many, many years. Also. One of the big issues for me was just hating war. I saw the, I believe war personally. War is one of the most immoral things there is.

John Dehlin [00:02:45] And so I've kind of been on the right and I've been on the left. I'm a, I'm currently a registered Republican in Utah. I primarily did that to vote for John Huntsman in the primaries for his candidacy as governor.

John Dehlin [00:03:00] But I also, I'm just going to admit I am a Biden supporter. I voted for Joe Biden, and I should say that with an asterisk because even though I voted for Joe Biden and largely because I have deep concerns about Donald Trump and I was honest with my panel last session about my concerns with Donald Trump, I, I do not feel like Joseph Biden was by, in any stretch, our best candidate. He was probably fifth or sixth or seventh on my list. I would have loved to see a woman president. I loved Klobuchar. I loved Elizabeth Warren. I'm really impressed with, with Kamala.

John Dehlin [00:03:39] But having said that, I do think Joe. There's a lot I like about Joe. And, and so what I'm trying to say is I'm not a partisan. Politically. I'm not. I don't worship or. Well, I don't worship either candidate.

John Dehlin [00:03:54] I was going to say I don't demonize either candidate. But the truth is, I'm really concerned about Donald Trump. But I'm going to try and be as moderate as I can in this panel about that. And just like I asked the Trump supporters a lot of hard questions about Trump, I hope to ask tough questions of Biden supporters about Biden. I'm going to invite listeners to share their tough questions for Biden supporters because I really do want to incorporate comments and questions from our live YouTube audience, which I want to welcome, and our live Facebook audience, which I want to welcome as well.

John Dehlin [00:04:29] I also want to say, just a personal editorial opinion that I believe that politicians often use social issues as a way to mobilize, but also sometimes distract voters from other influences and powers and issues that are oftentimes more important in terms of actually being relevant in some sense. I have distaste and distrust of all political parties. I very much wish there was a viable third or fourth party sometimes in the United States. Sometimes I'm super disappointed by all candidates in all parties, which I'm sure our panelists today may appreciate.

Guest [00:05:10] So.

John Dehlin [00:05:10] And the final thing I'm going to say is, do not come to Mormon stories to get your political information. None of us are. I was not. I'm not super informed. Our panelists last session were not super informed. I love, I love our panelists today, and I think many of them are super informed.

John Dehlin [00:05:29] But, you know, the purpose of today is not to provide evidence for your vote. Go get that from reputable sources, journalistic sources, information sources. I believe, as Jonathan Haidt teaches, that most people make their religious and political decisions primarily originally based on emotion. And then oftentimes they use their logic or their reason or evidence to bolster or justify the decisions that primarily they arrived at emotionally. Now, my panel may be angry with me or may disagree with me about that, and I welcome you to disagree with me. But today, the purpose is not to establish truth, to indoctrinate anyone. I simply wanted to invoke. I wanted to invite Biden and Harris supporters to share their experiences, their feelings, their perspectives on why they have made the choices that they did.

John Dehlin [00:06:22] And so that's the main choice. It's sort of like a podcast of record in 2020. Why did certain Mormons and post Mormons vote the way that they voted? I'm going to do my best to guide this discussion, ask fair questions, and. And I tried in both panels to get more diversity in the panels. I failed miserably. In the last session, we did have two. For those who didn't listen and didn't want to listen to the last episode, we did have two members of the LGBTQ community who were Trump voters, but we did not any. We did not have any people of color, and we only had one woman.

John Dehlin [00:07:00] And I'm super disappointed about that. Part of that is just Mormon and post Mormon demographics. Part of that might be Trump demographics in terms of, like, who is a follower of Mormon stories. But I'm super happy that today we have a more diverse representation for this, this episode. And so, without any further ado, I'm going to welcome my. My awesome, amazing panel of Biden and Harris supporters. And what I'm going to do is just kind of go around the horn and. And I'm going to ask each person first to just introduce themselves briefly, tell us some of their basic demographic information, and if they're comfortable sharing their relationship with the LDS Church, that's great, too.

Panelists Introduce Themselves

John Dehlin [00:07:45] And so let's begin. Kim, I'm going to start with a woman, if that's okay. In this session, Kim, tell us a little bit about yourself. And welcome to Mormon Stories. And I'm going to unmute you, Kim, Just one second. Okay, go ahead. You're ready. You're live.

Guest 2 [00:08:01] Awesome. Okay, so my name is Kim. I am currently in East Texas. I am also a. Well, I'm still a member of the church, but I consider myself an ex Mormon. I am also an X BYU I student, and right now I'm currently a social work student at the University of Houston downtown. And I should graduate with my master's by, I think, summer of 2023 with my social work degree. I hope to go into either medical, social work or crisis intervention. And I recently joined in the advocacy field by speaking at the latest Texas Behavioral Health Executive Commission meeting on behalf of my disabled son against Governor Abbott's changes to the social workers code of conduct. And they actually reversed it. So, so that's great. And that's it about me.

John Dehlin [00:08:54] Okay, excellent. And really quickly. Okay. Okay, perfect. Kim I'm so glad to have a social worker's perspective because I think that's a really, really important perspective as we talk about why some people vote for Trump. So I'm just so glad you're on. Hope to have you back on Mormon stories. Thanks for joining us, Kim. All right, next we have Kevin. Kevin, tell us. Tell us a little about yourself, Kevin.

Guest 3 [00:09:21] Yeah, my name is Kevin Lundell. I'm from Ogden, Utah. I'm a chiropractor and gym owner. I am a father of two kids, 8 and 6 years old and married. And I'm post Mormon myself, ex Mormon. And I think my politics have shifted dramatically as a result of my shift out of the church.

John Dehlin [00:09:44] Excellent, Excellent. It's so great to have you. Kevin thanks for joining us. Is that a CrossFit gym behind you,

Guest 3 [00:09:52] Jim? Formally known as a CrossFit gym. We actually took the name of CrossFit off in the wake of the CrossFit CEO and founder making some racist statements about George Floyd or in the wake of the George Floyd incident. So we've distanced ourselves a little bit from CrossFit, but we still do a lot of the same stuff.

John Dehlin [00:10:12] Excellent. So glad you're with us. Thanks for joining us, Kevin. All right. I assume it's pronounced Roseanne, right? Roseanne, Is it Roseanne?

Roseanne [00:10:21] Roseanne, yes.

John Dehlin [00:10:22] Tell us a little bit about yourself, Roseanne.

Roseanne [00:10:26] I was born and raised in Utah, grew up in Cedar City. My husband and I met while we were missionaries in France in the 1970s. And I have three adult children, one of whom is a Trump supporter. And I laughingly tell him, I don't know what I did wrong raising you, but and I have six grandchildren. I'm a retired public school teacher. I taught theater for 30 years and I have a master's degree in counseling, although I taught for 30 years instead.

Roseanne [00:10:59] I'm 67 years old. I live in Walnut Creek, California. My husband and I left the Mormon Church 20 plus years ago and then we retired, resigned from the church after that horrific November policy several years ago. I come from a large, devout family. My father worked for church education system his whole career.

Roseanne [00:11:19] I'm the second of 10 children. My ancestors were pioneers, polygamists, the whole thing. I was a Republican by default until I was in my mid-30s when I really started paying attention, and I thought to myself, I'm not a Republican. I'm a Democrat. And So since my mid-30s, I have. I've been a Democrat.

John Dehlin [00:11:43] Excellent. And you're in. You're in Carolyn Pearson's neck of the woods, is that right?

Roseanne [00:11:47] I am, yep. Carolyn was in my ward back when I had a ward, and she's my good friend.

Guest 2 [00:11:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:11:53] Well, we love Carolyn Pearson, and so glad to have you. Roseanne, thanks for joining us. All right. I'm super excited for the first time to have my dear friend Gerardo joining us. Gerardo is the guy responsible for making my camera and my lighting and a lot of the thumbnails that we use on YouTube and Facebook. He's a graphic designer. He's a dear friend, and he represents really important groups that I wanted on this episode. So, Gerardo, thank you so much for joining us on Mormon Stories and tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:12:27] So I was born and raised in Mexico. I served an LDS mission in Mexico City. And shortly after, I moved to the US With a student visa and went to BYU Idaho after graduating BYU Idaho. Well, now I live in Utah. I'm married to my husband. So I'm part of the LGBTQ community.

Guest 5 [00:12:57] And.

Guest 4 [00:12:57] And although I can't vote because I'm not a citizen, my husband voted, and we both hold. He's a U.S. citizen, and we both hold, like, pretty similar or virtually the same political views regarding US Politics, but

John Dehlin [00:13:18] also as an immigrant. Gerardo, I just really love so much of the discourse around Donald Trump has been around immigration. And so I'm just so delighted to have someone from Mexico who's an immigrant who's able to speak to those issues along with all the other things you can speak about. So thank you so much for joining us. I'm just so delighted.

Guest 4 [00:13:39] Thanks for having me.

John Dehlin [00:13:41] All right, next is my dear friend Jeff Gardner. Jeff, tell us a little bit about yourself. I'm so glad to have you on Mormon Stories.

Guest [00:13:50] Yeah.

Guest 6 [00:13:50] Hi, I'm Jeff Gardner. I live in Salt Lake City, Utah, although it's probably the one corner of Salt Lake or Utah that doesn't feel like Utah at all. Trump. Trump supporters are not to be found in our neighborhood, nor are Mormons really, for that matter. But what else? I grew up in Salt Lake. I grew up Republican, went to byu, graduated from BYU as still a Republican, kind of made my transition as I Got into medical school and started to see how the healthcare system was working or not working for many people. I'm now an emergency physician and probably and have been for the last 18 years. And mid 2000s is kind of when I started to transition. Obama was the first Democrat I voted for and have voted Democrat pretty much since then. I'm sure we'll get into specific reasons, but that's kind of.

Guest 3 [00:14:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:37] And also, also, Jeff, I, I'm so one of the things I love about the, the reason why you're here, you've really studied the COVID issues inside and out. Is that correct?

Guest 6 [00:14:48] Try to. Yeah, we're all going, we're all doing it blindly, so.

John Dehlin [00:14:51] Well, I'm just, I'm, I love that I can have a physician comment on his perspective on the COVID situation and frankly on Obamacare and on healthcare. Right. Because that's a, that's a big issue that's confronting a lot of people. So, Jeff, so great to have you on. Thanks for joining us.

Guest 6 [00:15:07] No problem.

John Dehlin [00:15:08] Okay, Donna Cox, you are next in my, in on my video panel. Donna, tell us a bit about yourself.

Guest [00:15:15] Hi, I'm from South Bend, Indiana. My husband and I have been here 12 years. We moved here from Hawaii. We've kind of lived all over the country. I'm 64. I have six kids. I have six grandchildren. Been a Democrat all my life. My father was a civil rights activist. I grew up in New York. Martin Luther King was in our home. John Lewis, the Jordans who started Habitat were all friends of my dad's. So that's in my DNA. Four of our kids are adopted. I'm a nurse by education, a realtor by profession. My husband and I were foster parents for over 30 years. We adopted four special needs kids.

Guest 3 [00:16:05] So

Guest [00:16:08] I'm pro choice because I've seen firsthand what it's like to have children who are not wanted and involved in a very broken system. So I'm very strongly pro choice because I feel like until we start taking care of the children who are actually already born and here and treat them humanely, that, you know, you can't very well say you're pro life if you don't actually respect and take care of the children that are already here.

John Dehlin [00:16:46] Beautiful. I'm so glad. What, what an amazing upbringing to be able to have exposure to some of those amazing civil rights leaders at such an early age. Donna, so glad you could join us. Thanks for coming. All right, Quentin, tell us a little bit about yourself. Quentin. And I'm super excited that you represent the active LDS sort of wing a little bit, although none of us really represent anything. But I'm just glad to know.

Guest 7 [00:17:13] Yes, I remain active in the church, though I've been through probably over the last decade or so a long evolution of my faith. I've listened to your podcast for many years. I would characterize it in terms of recent guests. I really enjoyed Carl Jungblood who talked about Mormon transhumanism. I would say my beliefs probably overlap significantly with his.

Guest 7 [00:17:35] So I remain in the church and I'm trying to be the change I want to see in terms of so general life background. I'm in my late 40s. I grew up in Colorado. I currently live in Lubbock, Texas.

Guest 7 [00:17:50] The reason to live in Lubbock, Texas is the university here. I am married to a professor at Texas Tech University. She's in education. She teaches education, the use of technology and education, etc. I am myself an engineer, trained as an electrical engineer, currently work as a data scientist and we are the parents of two teenagers.

Guest 7 [00:18:13] So in terms of my politics, I grew up in a home where Cleon Skousen was the world's foremost leading expert on the American Constitution. So that was kind of the default background I came from. I voted Republican for a long time.

Guest 7 [00:18:30] I, in the late 90s, married a Democrat. I think that that was a very worthwhile exercise to. I eventually shifted my views, but for about five years we basically canceled each other's votes out in elections. And I actually think that that was really important phase of our marriage to be able to disagree with somebody that you love and respect and understand that their political points of view and beliefs came from real thought. And look, I've. I've met plenty of people on both sides of the political spectrum who I feel like are just taking beliefs that they've kind of taken for granted and haven't given them a great deal of thought.

Guest 7 [00:19:11] But it was very useful for me to basically discuss with my wife early in our marriage, our differences and understand why she thought the way she did. And it's. It's helpful for. I mean, we need more constructive dialogue than that, I would say. I voted in 2000 for George Bush the first time for a number of reasons, including, of course, his reckless decision to go to war. I couldn't vote a second time for him, so I eventually supported John Kerry. I've voted basically Democrat ever since then, although I still. I consider myself moderate, only a little bit left of center. And I think the Republican perspective is important.

Guest 7 [00:19:51] We need two viable parties and I kind of worry about the state of the Republican Party right now. We can perhaps get into that later.

John Dehlin [00:20:00] Beautiful, Beautiful. Thank you so much, Quentin. It's so great to have you here. Thanks for joining. Donna Kelly, I am so thrilled to have you on Mormon Stories. I've wanted to have you on. There are probably 10 topics I could bring you on to Mormon Stories podcast for. But I'm not sad that this is a topic I'm having you on for because I really am dying to hear your perspective. So the Donna Kelly, welcome to Mormon Stories. Oh, sorry, I picked the wrong window. Donna Kelly, welcome. Yeah, tell us about yourself, Donna, for those who don't know.

Guest 5 [00:20:35] Okay, so I, my, my name is Donna Kelly. I grew up as a part of a Mormon family in Southern Arizona. Got married to a non member, wound up converting him and, and he and I moved to Oregon. We had four children there in Oregon. They're all adults now.

Guest 5 [00:21:01] One of them is named Kate Kelly. I don't know if any of Mormon Stories followers recognize that name, but she was excommunicated from the Mormon Church in June of 2014 for starting a group called Ordain Women, pushing for the ordination of women.

Guest 5 [00:21:19] We moved to Utah in 2002, right after the Olympics. My husband got a job. He was the head of the communications department at byu and that was quite an experience itself. I grew up Republican as part of a family that was big Republican Party. My husband grew up Republican and his father was a Republican state senator in North Dakota. So they were big Republicans. But over the years, I've just gradually become more and more left of center just because and kind of the final straw for me was the Iraq War and the whole weapons of mass destruction thing. That was not really true.

Guest 5 [00:22:17] I started voting for Democrats more and more after that. And the Democratic Party aligns more with my philosophy of life on so many issues. And so I'm very happily big supporter of the Democratic Party now. So I'm a prosecutor by trade. I've been a prosecutor since 1990.

Guest 5 [00:22:46] I started as a prosecutor of sexual assault and domestic violence cases and I've kind of stayed in that field. I've only taken a few hiatus, brief hiatuses from that since 1990. So I have probably worked with about 5,000 victims of sexual assault, domestic violence over the years and find it very rewarding, frustrating challenging all of those things all at once. So that's another reason I'm a big, huge fan of Joe Biden because of his.

Guest 5 [00:23:20] Well, we can get into that later. But he authored the Violence Against Women act in the early 1990s and has been a champion of the fight against domestic violence and sexual assault. So that's my career. Kind of influenced me to support Joe Biden.

John Dehlin [00:23:38] Got it. Okay, perfect. Donna, so thrilled to have you on. Thanks for joining us.

Guest 5 [00:23:43] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:23:44] And last but not least, Ryan, tell us a bit about yourself and let me unmute you. Go ahead, Ryan.

Guest 8 [00:23:54] All right. Thank you, John. I appreciate this opportunity. I just want to say I was listening not to all of it, but to lots of the conversation earlier from the panel this morning, and I want to thank them and appreciate hearing their perspective. I really am grateful for what you're doing here.

Guest 6 [00:24:16] Yeah.

Guest 8 [00:24:16] So I'm Ryan Harvey, 35 years old. After hearing some of these other introductions, I kind of feel underqualified, but happy to be here. I live in West Point City, which is about 30 miles north of Salt Lake County.

Guest 8 [00:24:30] I was born in Canada. My dad and his family are all, all Canadians and, and, but, but raised most of my life here in, in the United States in Utah. I come from pioneer stock, pioneer Mormon stock on both sides of the family.

Guest 8 [00:24:49] And out of I have a large family out of around 70 cousins or so I think only two, maybe that I know of are out of the church. So I come from a very Mormon family, live in, have always lived in very Mormon cities.

Guest 8 [00:25:10] Growing up, I did study political science at Weber State University. By default, I was a Republican, as some others have said here. And that political science degree was really when my mind started opening up that, that maybe I, I wasn't really Republican, or at least I didn't espouse lots of the Republican views.

Guest 8 [00:25:35] And I went on to study, get my master's of Political Public administration at the University of Kansas. So you can see my Jayhawk hat in the background. And I work now at the city of West Point as the, as the finance director.

Guest 8 [00:25:55] My Mormon background, I've always been a devout Mormon up until about a little over a year ago when I read the CES letter and my wife and children and I all decided to leave the church. And so now we are, we are post Mormons. And, yeah, that's about it.

John Dehlin [00:26:18] All right, Rock Chalk.

Guest 8 [00:26:20] Rock Chalk.

John Dehlin [00:26:24] All right. Well, thanks so much for joining us, Ryan. All right, so the first thing we're going to do is we're going to have each panelist discuss, let's just say, three of the main reasons they voted for, for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And as a second part to that question, if to any extent, their Mormonism and, or their post Mormonism influenced those decisions. I want to make sure we incorporate a Mormon element. There are a couple participants. They're going to have to either leave us early or come in and out. And so I'm going to start with one or two of them. And so first, Jeff, Jeff Gardner. Let's start with you, Jeff. Tell us three reasons, three main reasons why you decided to vote for Biden and Harris. And let me unmute you. Let me unmute you really quick. Okay, you are. Wait, you're okay, you're unmuted. Go for it.

How Mormonism Shaped Political Journeys

Guest 6 [00:27:22] These are a little bit related. I'll try to be brief. I think my first transition towards the Democrats in general, as I said before, I was an economics major in college and I remember as I graduated from byu, Muhammad Yunus spoke at our commencement and he said that poverty was a problem that we just didn't have the collective will to solve yet. And so that was the first idea where I thought, oh, I believe in a Zion society where there's no poor among us. But I kind of just tacitly accept that there are always going to be poor among us, that we can't solve that.

Guest 6 [00:27:55] And so that's when I first started getting interested. Moving on to medical school a few years later, it really struck me how inefficient our healthcare system is and from an economics only perspective, how much sunk cost goes into delivering healthcare in the way we've chosen to do it, where it's not really benefiting us as a whole and we're just wasting money. So kind of the combination of all of that got me thinking we're not doing things right.

Guest 6 [00:28:23] And as I looked back, Hillary Clinton was the first one who even talked about health care reform. And then it just kind of got ignored. And I watched the Republican administration, this is Bush second, and they kind of ignored it. They had a chance, chance to address it. And then Obama comes In and Mitch McConnell's first move is, I'm not going to vote for, you know, he's completely obstructionist. So that was really frustrating to me as a doctor thinking this is a big problem that's not going away.

Guest 6 [00:28:49] I'm all in favor of hearing a variety of solutions, but I'm only hearing solutions from one side. And when Obama comes forth with what is essentially a conservative solution, all there is is obstruction. And so that I just, I've watched the Republican side. Quentin mentioned something about the Republican perspective devolving into this, this obstructionist, power grabbing, non solution solving entity. And I'm very much in favor of a strong conservative voice in the world, but I feel like Donald Trump has destroyed that one. But I think it preceded him. I think he's just, he's just amplified it. So I, I just feel like the Democrats are the ones that are interested in solving the problem.

Guest 6 [00:29:27] And as soon as I hear an option from a, from a Republican, I'll have. I'm happy to listen. But, you know, Trump had two years of, of promising us something better than ACA and did nothing about it. And I just see four more years of that. So that, that's a big reason why I was going Democrat. I would have voted for Kanye over Trump. Honestly. I mean, I, I think an anti Trump vote is completely appropriate at this point. Now, why did I go to Biden?

Guest 6 [00:29:52] I feel like we are so divided right now, and, and I felt like there were a couple of voices on the Democratic side. My problem with Sanders, as much as I, as I'm impressed with his purity and his ideological, you know, idea. His ideological purity and just not really being sacrificed to special interests. He does a lot of yelling and not a lot of problem solving. That's what I feel like he's coming across as. And I felt like I needed a bridge. We need a bridge builder in the country, and Biden is one of the small group. You know, there are three that kind

Guest 4 [00:30:22] of appeal to me.

Guest 6 [00:30:23] He wasn't my first choice, but he was in the top few just because I, I felt like we need a moderate voice. I respect Sanders. I love a lot of what he thinks. I love a lot of what Elizabeth Warren thinks, but I just don't feel like it was the right time for that. And I feel like we need a uniter. Hopefully I'm right in that. Hopefully we can do something with this and we can get access to this centrist vote, which I really probably fall in politically. But, but yeah, that's, that's, that's really my biggest reason for Biden, I think. I feel like he's the most centrist choice we had at the end, and he's very good at working across the aisle. So that's kind of my. That's my two cents on why I like Biden. I have a lot more to say about other stuff. That's my brief one.

COVID-19 and Trump's Pandemic Response

John Dehlin [00:31:05] Just because in some ways, Jeff, you've been on the front lines of the COVID thing. Tell us to what extent the COVID Trump's handling of the COVID situation has, has been influential for you.

Guest 6 [00:31:17] Okay, so I won't pick on Trump to the extent that some liberals Will in that I think this would have been an impossible situation for any president to deal with. We were going in blindly. What I would have appreciate. And I do think there were local variations that I thought a liberal, a lot of liberal voices were sort of ignoring, ignoring. I felt like people in New York were wanting rural Utah to act just like people in New York City were. And really the approach at that time was different and no one seemed to be acknowledging that. So I feel like in just to give him a tiny bit of credit, I feel like there is some local variation and local, coordinate, locally coordinated response was appropriate.

Guest 6 [00:31:55] I felt like a lot of Democrat voices were missing that. However, if Trump had just been. On the other hand, he just dropped the ball, the very simple ball of just saying, hey, follow your community leaders. This is their gig. This is what they know about. Trust the scientists.

Guest 6 [00:32:13] I, I would have had a very different review. From the beginning, he's been palpably against science. He's been, you know, he's been, his, his view on masks has been here and there. There's just a lot of stuff that has been pretty consensus that he's just kind of had this open disdain for. And that's been really frustrating politically. I don't know that, you know, it's asking a lot to handle 50 different states with such a wide range of needs and political, political opinions. That's asking a lot for a president to coordinate that. But even the very simple stuff, I feel like he's completely dropped the ball on.

John Dehlin [00:32:45] Okay, excellent.

Guest 6 [00:32:46] That was much more about him than it was about Americans.

John Dehlin [00:32:50] Jeff, tell, tell, tell us if to what extent your Mormonism or post Mormonism influences your political thinking. I'm just curious about that.

Guest 6 [00:32:58] So I made my shift. So I, I kind of left Mormonism 2008, 2009, 2010. I made my shift to the Democratic Party. 2008 was the first election I voted Democrat, so it preceded my shift out of Mormonism. One of my problems with Mormonism is this kind of us versus them that had formed, you know, we, we are united against any, everyone outside of us.

Guest 6 [00:33:18] I didn't like that dynamic in the church. And I feel like, you know, if I'm going to connect my disdain for Trump, it's, it's in that same vein. There's a lot of us versus them thinking and not let's come together, let's come to an agreement, let's, let's make everyone happy. I love Joe's rhetoric, at least in that sense. It may be all lip service. We'll See, but I think even just lip service and rhetoric has value.

Guest 6 [00:33:42] And Trump has, Trump has demonstrated how harmful language can be. So if that, if all, if all this is lip service, fine. If it's more, I hope it is excellent.

John Dehlin [00:33:54] Well, Jeff, thanks for joining us. I'm excited to have you and thanks for that introduction. Kevin, I know you've got to leave earlier than some of the others, so I'm, I'm going to go ahead and go to you next. Kevin, tell us three or so of the main reasons you voted for Biden or will vote.

Guest 2 [00:34:10] All right.

Guest 3 [00:34:11] Well, yeah, well, John, thanks for having me on. You know, I would say my three reasons are economic issues, racial issues, and social issues. And let me tell you what I mean by that. You know, I really think on the ballot in 2020 is whether or not the United States of America is going to be a multiracial and multicultural democracy. You know, I think Trump and the GOP have shown that they don't really, they don't really want this.

Guest 3 [00:34:41] They've shown that they want to consolidate power and wealth among the white Christian elite. And they've shown that by giving tax cuts to the wealthy, by banning Muslims from entering, entering the country from certain Muslim countries, from excluding transgender folks from the military, by separating families at the border. You know, Trump has explicitly said he wants less people of color in the suburbs while also refusing to condemn white supremacy.

Guest 3 [00:35:12] And on the opposite side of that, we have the Democratic Party. And in order for the Democratic Party to win elections, they have to bring together a multiracial, multicultural coalition. And because they have to do that, they have to govern in a very similar way where they have to push power downward and outward to that coalition.

Guest 3 [00:35:33] You know what? I believe Joe Biden is the right person at this time to help do that and to win this election. Like you, John, Biden was not my first choice coming out of the Democratic nomination process, but I do think that he can be and will be a uniting force that he can. He's a good person. He cares about a lot of the same issues that I care about. And I think he can be that person that wins this election and we can start, start anew here in January with a new president.

John Dehlin [00:36:08] And do you feel like your Mormonism or post Mormonism has influenced your politics?

Guest 3 [00:36:16] Without a doubt, John. You know, I lived in the Bay Area, California during Prop 8, and I was a true believing Mormon and I was going to chiropractic college at the time. And I was telling my friends that they needed to vote yes on 8 and yes on 8 was going to make gay marriage illegal in the state of California. And, you know, coming back from that experience, I came to school the next day after that proposition was passed, and the feeling was so heavy. We're at chiropractic college in the Bay Area. I mean, we're talking about a fairly large LGBTQ population and a progressive student body.

Guest 3 [00:36:54] And, you know, there was some anger, and a lot of that anger was directed at the Mormon community and the Mormon students because the Mormon Church put their thumb on the scale of that election or of that proposition and really single handedly turned that vote as they told the members that they needed to vote for it, as they told the members to make phone calls and donate money. I mean, we're talking every single Sunday this happened.

Guest 3 [00:37:18] And throughout the week, it was a huge deal. And after that experience, I sat one on one with a friend of mine from my class who was gay, and she called me over to her house. She wanted to talk about it.

Guest 3 [00:37:31] And she. I sat across from her and told her that I loved her and that I cared about her, but that I didn't think she should be married. And, you know, I went home after that experience and I told my wife, you know, everything I know about what is right and what is wrong tells me that that experience was wrong.

Guest 3 [00:37:48] And it was really the first crack in my Mormonism. It was really the first time that I had stepped outside of my own learned experience and really honestly put myself in someone else's shoes. And having done that going forward, you know, after that, and also binging on a bunch of Mormon stories, podcasts led me out of the church. And as I put myself in more situations where I could learn from other people's experience and step out of my own learned experience had led me to find myself going towards the Democratic Party. Who cares more about. About these issues.

John Dehlin [00:38:28] Beautiful. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for that introduction. It's so good to have you. And. And that's a really valuable perspective.

Guest 3 [00:38:36] So one more thing, John, if I might.

John Dehlin [00:38:38] Yeah, please.

Guest 3 [00:38:39] I did give John's permission to do this, but because I stepped outside of my own learned experience, and it has really influenced my life and changed. Changed my. My views. I started a podcast where we organize or where we have conversations with people from vulnerable or otherwise marginalized communities, and we hear their experiences and their stories and seek to learn from them. The podcast is called Community Spread, so if you want to check that out, you can find it on any of your podcast apps. Community Spread.

John Dehlin [00:39:08] Brilliant.

Guest 3 [00:39:08] Thanks, John.

John Dehlin [00:39:09] Thanks. For raising your voice. Kevin.

Guest 3 [00:39:11] Appreciate you.

Main Reasons Panelists Support Biden

John Dehlin [00:39:12] All right, Donna Kelly, let's get you in. Next. Donna, tell us some of the main reasons.

Guest 5 [00:39:19] Okay, well, how long do I have? Like, three hours. No, my top two choices. When the Democrat primary, Democratic primary was

John Dehlin [00:39:32] happening, I was saying you can do three of you.

Guest 5 [00:39:34] Sorry. Okay. My top two choices during the Democratic primary are now the nominees and Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. And I kind of might have preferred for her to be on the top of the ticket, but I'm happy that they're both there. I have been huge fans of them both for many years.

Guest 5 [00:40:01] The primary issue that I have been dedicated my career and my life to, which is the fighting of sexual assault and domestic violence. You know, Joe Biden has been a champion in that fight for 40 years. And he. Not only, you know, when you talk about, you know, he's. He's got good rhetoric. Joe Biden has good rhetoric, but he also works hard for what he believes in. And I. I can't tell you how many times I have attended national or international conferences concerning sexual assault and domestic violence and other women's issues. And he's been there as a speaker, as a participant, listening to ideas, you know, and he's been a fight in this area of one of the most important areas, even for the state of Utah.

Guest 5 [00:40:52] We've got some really high numbers for domestic violence, well above the national average, well above the national average in sexual assault. So he not only has good rhetoric, he fights for what he believes in. He works hard at it. He. He seeks to find people that will join with him on both sides of the aisle. And so he's a very effective leader, and he helped lead this country out of the recession in 2008.

Guest 5 [00:41:21] Those kind of things, I think, are what our country needs right now, working together with other people, regardless of their philosophies of finding compromise. I think compromise has become a dirty word in politics today, and I don't know why compromise is a good thing. It gets us where we need to go as a society, and he's very good at that, working with people, finding common ground and coming up with results.

Guest 5 [00:41:49] One of the other reasons that I support Joe Biden and Senator Harris is that they are both intentionally inclusive in their approach to every issue. They want to include voices from all walks of life and experience, people with lived experiences in various walks of life. And Joe Biden has shown that since he has been the nominee, he has chosen people that are from all different walks of life to join the fight with him.

Guest 5 [00:42:27] I think you know, if Mormons truly believe that tenant that all are alike unto God, we should be intentionally inclusive of people that aren't like us, that represent different lifestyles, different backgrounds, different races, different philosophies. If we really believe all are alike unto God, then we should support other people that are trying to do work, that include and bring together other people. And Biden has shown that it's not just talk. I mean, he has chosen people on his campaign staff and said that he will choose. For example, he said, I believe we should have a public school teacher running the Department of Education.

Guest 5 [00:43:24] That. That just sounds so basic and simple and almost silly. But that's the kind of person he is, is he wants to bring in good people that have good, valid experiences that can, you know, make the country better. And so those are my main reasons for supporting them.

Guest 5 [00:43:46] I think they're just going to be phenomenal because they're both people who have a demonstrated record. Biden has been a public servant for 54 years, if you count his time in the Senate and his time as a vice president. And he has done phenomenal work. He's respected all over the world. He brought this country, helped to bring, was one of the main people that helped bring this country out of the recession in 2008. And he's in everything that he. Every fight that he joins, he works hard on it. It's not just rhetoric to him. He works hard to.

Guest 5 [00:44:23] For women. And that, you know, that fight that he started in 40 years ago, he was. He was one of the few leading voices that was willing to speak up for victims of assault and. And sexual assault and domestic violence.

Guest 7 [00:44:39] So I love it.

Guest 5 [00:44:41] Okay, thank you.

John Dehlin [00:44:42] Thank you, Donna. So great. Really quickly, I. I'm noticing our stream. Our stream is not as high for this interview as it is for the morning. And I think part of that is social media is more active in the morning than it is in the afternoon. But if any of you listeners want to share this stream, I think this is really useful, valuable information. I think we should have at least as many viewers and listeners for this episode as we did the last one. Please feel free to share this in groups or on social media wherever you want, because I would love as many people as possible to hear from these wise people and in my sense, from my followers.

John Dehlin [00:45:21] Two thirds. Two thirds of my followers are voting for Biden and one third for Trump. So we need to have the viewership on this podcast represent my listeners a little bit. So, Gerardo, let's have you go next. Now, I know you're not, as I understand it, I don't believe you're officially US Citizen, but I just love all the perspectives you bring. And again, as you said, your husband is. So tell us three reasons you would be. Maybe vote for Biden if you could, or why you support Biden and not Trump.

Guest 4 [00:45:57] Yeah, John. So I think the three main reasons would be the first one. Immigration. Immigration has been pretty much a nightmare for us. Since I married my husband, we started the paperwork for going from a student visa to be able to have a permanent residency. And Trump's administration's policies have made it a nightmare and completely, like, super, super difficult to immigrate to the United States.

Guest 4 [00:46:39] It was already difficult. And I think US Citizens don't really have a perspective on this. A lot of them don't, because I remember going at byu, Idaho, most of my friends were American citizens, and they would just ask me, oh, why don't you just apply for citizenship? And I'll be like, do you know what that entails?

Guest 4 [00:47:01] Unless you're marrying a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident, it's like, virtually impossible to get a U.S. citizenship. And Trump has made it even harder by putting a lot of restrictions and a lot of policies that have elongated the process. Just to give you into perspective, before, when you married a US Citizen, the process would take around six months to get your permanent residency. Right now, it's taking up to three years. So we're right now still on that process of waiting, and you're kind of like, in limbo, not knowing what's going to happen, not knowing what immigration is going to come back with or what they're going to tell you.

Guest 4 [00:47:45] So all these policies have really affected us personally and affected a lot of my friends and people that I know of that have tried to immigrate to the United States and trying to do it illegally. I'm talking legal immigration very, very, very hard nowadays. And I watch a lot of immigration lawyers, YouTube channels, and they are always talking like, they're always coming up with YouTube videos about new policies that the Trump administration is putting on to make it harder for immigrants to immigrate and to make legal immigration harder. This has made the uscis, which is the organization that.

Guest 4 [00:48:38] That is in charge of all this process, of all these processes to really struggle. And pretty much they. They were. Just a few months ago, they were saying they were gonna have to furlough. I think it was 2/3 of their employees because they. Because so many people are. Can't if immigrate. So there's not enough applications. And they. And that's how they survive through the money of the applications.

Guest 4 [00:49:05] So they were going to have to furlough two thirds of their employees because they just didn't have enough resources anymore. And this would make the process even longer. And this is a lot of people speculate that this is pretty much what the Trump administration has always like that was their intent.

Guest 4 [00:49:23] But I don't know. So that's one of the first ones why we are strong Biden supporters. Biden has pledged to remove all Trump administration's policies on immigration and pretty much going back to what it was and making the policies better instead of just harder for no reason.

Guest 4 [00:49:48] Then the second one would be LGBTQ issues. And I know there's a lot of debate on this, but I've read several of the cases that the Trump administration has brought to the Supreme Court and other LGBTQ issues that the Trump administration has been involved with. And to me, it's just outrageous how they tried to set LGBTQ rights back.

Guest 4 [00:50:16] And the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett has really worried us and many of my of my friends who are part of the LGBTQ community. And just to give you some examples, on November, I think it's November 4th, the Supreme Court is going to be hearing on this case that the Trump administration is being part of where an adoption agency from Philadelphia who is affiliated to the Catholic Church but receives tax funding they want to maintain or keep discriminating against LGBTQ couples. The state of Philadelphia removed pretty much their rights to manage the adoptions and they're taking the case to the Supreme Court with the help of the Trump administration, to pretty much ask the Supreme Court that because of religious reasons, adoption agencies could potentially have the right to discriminate against same sex couples.

Guest 4 [00:51:28] And with this new nomination, to me, I really think it's going to go towards what the Trump administration wants. And obviously Biden views on that are completely different. They're more going more towards equality and LGBTQ rights. And yeah, so that's another of the main reasons. And the third one I think would be abortion. I am pro choice and that's something that has changed quite a bit since my experience transitioning. My faith transition has made my views on abortion change and I'm pro choice and I know that's something that Biden supports.

John Dehlin [00:52:22] Love it. Thanks, Gerardo. So glad you're here. Love your perspective. A lot of commenters are thanking you and our previous commenters for everything they've shared. So thanks for. Thanks for being on with us. Thank you, Roseanne. What are your top reasons? Let me unmute you really quick. Okay, I've unmuted you. Go ahead.

Personal Stories of Shifting Political Views

Roseanne [00:52:46] So when I started college in 1971, most. In Utah, most Mormon girls just went to college until they found themselves a husband. But it. In case you didn't find someone, you either became a teacher or a secretary or a nurse.

Roseanne [00:53:03] I thought, well, I'll do the teacher route. And I'm glad I did, because I really loved my teaching career. And that is probably one thing that has had one of the largest effects on me for why I became liberal.

Roseanne [00:53:18] There's a statistic that says roughly 70% of teachers are liberal. And I think that might be because you're working with children and you're seeing how what the government does affects children. For example, in my classroom before I retired, having to do those active shooter drills with my little children and trying to say, you know, this isn't to scare you, just so you're ready to have to even do that, just really upset every teacher. I know because. And over the years, more and more, there were more school shootings. And that all has to do with gun control. And the fact, to me, it seems to me that Republicans care more about their right to have their guns than they do about our children's safety at school.

Roseanne [00:54:05] And when they started that ridiculous stuff President Trump did, well, we'll have teachers armed. I mean, like, I don't know, any teacher that wants to carry a school a gun to school, that is crazy. Another thing is, as a theater teacher for 30 years in middle school, I had a lot of little boys that were just starting to figure out that, oh, my gosh, I think I'm gay. You know, as they went into adolescence and being in a position to make a safe place for them and a place where all children felt like they mattered, I thought, our government needs to do this. Not just our teachers.

Roseanne [00:54:42] You know, we need to have a government that supports the right of all children to grow up and flourish how they are and being who they are, and. And having students that lived in their cars because they had no home or, you know, they would come to school and the secretary would have to feed them breakfast. That, you know, the fact that we live in the most wealthy country in the world and we still have children who are going to bed hungry and living in cars, and I live in a wealthy community here in Northern California, and we still had children. I'm sure it's just much, much worse with COVID And now I look at how all of our teachers are just stepping Up.

Roseanne [00:55:21] A lot of my friends are still teaching, and my son is a teacher. But hearing how they're doing distance learning and what good things teachers are doing with our Republican leaders, kind of making it like, no, the teachers want to go back to work.

Roseanne [00:55:38] I feel like we need to take better care of our children. And as I became a Democrat, I started thinking, it's not just the children. I know it's not just. Not my own children, my own grandchildren. All children are my children and our children, and we need to do a much better job of taking care of them. I remember when President Trump was starting to detain families at the border and he was taking children away from their parents.

Roseanne [00:56:10] I was trying to find the name this morning. I couldn't. But there was a Republican congressman who was questioned about that, and he said, well, those aren't our children. And that just made me sick. I think a civilized country takes care of the children. We take care of our children by making sure that they will have a world to inherit that is habitable, that they're going to. I love that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are talking about having universal preschool and even talking about paying for community college for kids, because we know that education is. Is really the way that people are going to do well in this world.

Roseanne [00:56:46] So I think a lot of why I went toward becoming a liberal, and I probably am way far off center, I'm probably almost a socialist, because I think we as civilized human beings need to make sure that the basic needs of all of the people in our civilization, especially the vulnerable ones, the children, those that suffer from mental health issues or anything else, we as civilized people, need to take care of them.

John Dehlin [00:57:16] Beautiful. Thank you so much, Roseanne. What a bunch of great reasons. Thank you for sharing. Kim, let's have you go next,

Guest 8 [00:57:27] and

John Dehlin [00:57:27] I'm going to unmute you. Okay, go ahead.

Guest 2 [00:57:31] Okay. So I realized when everybody was introducing themselves that I forgot to say my conversion from conservative to Democrat. Would you mind if I went ahead and did that now, too? Okay. So growing up, my mother had a boyfriend in the house, and I actually got my phone taken away because I had CNN news on my phone and kind of liked some of the things that Obama was doing. And that was a lot of contention in the house for me. So I kind of just learned how to be quiet about it all. But I always really had Democratic tendencies since the beginning. And when I was in the church and living in the Houston area, I had friends who accepted that part of me as being Democratic and were actually democratic.

Guest 2 [00:58:25] Themselves. When I moved back to a small town, members were less accepting of the fact that there were of people who had Democratic beliefs. And you know something, as a social worker I hope to cultivate in myself is having unconditional positive regard for people. And that was something that I feel was not given to me by a lot of conservatives. So I make sure to try especially hard when I have these debates with people that like, I attack the argument, not the person.

Guest 2 [00:59:09] And that same people don't give me the same. What's it called? I'm trying to think. They don't give me the same. Yes, thank you. They don't give me the same courtesy. And yeah, I just, and that was hard. And so I really try to just make sure that I still, you know, people aren't their political ideologies, they're people. And so I my even like the guy who confirmed me as a member of the church like as attacked people who are Democrats. So that was definitely hard. But I do have members who still support me and my friends are still my friends through everything. And so that's that.

Guest 2 [01:00:03] So moving on. So the three things I like about Biden, I like that he's creating more tax expenditures that the middle class can take a part in. I definitely, I read this book called the Submerged State in one of my social policy classes and it just talks about how the tax expenditures when it comes to real estate and all these other things, the more you make, the higher the home you buy all these things, the bigger cuts you're going to get.

Guest 2 [01:00:36] And if you can't afford a home and stuff like that, you can't take part in them. So I like that he's creating more tax expenditures that the middle class people can take part in. Like he wants to raise the child tax credit.

Guest 2 [01:00:51] I know there was a video circling on Facebook of somebody saying that Biden wants to take away Trump's raise for child tax credit and everything. And yes, he wants to do away with the bill that allowed that, that Trump put out, but he also is replacing it with something that actually raises the child tax credit.

Guest 2 [01:01:13] Another thing that I like in his policies is that he wants to create a tax credit credit for $15,000 for first time home buyers for their down payment for their houses, allowing more people to be able to partake in the expenditures they get from being homeowners, which I think would be great. Another thing is that he wants to cap insurance premiums at 8.5% for people in the middle, middle class. And I love that about him and Basically, like, I'm a lot more progressive, especially as somebody in. As a social work student.

Guest 2 [01:01:54] But I think the biggest threat to our country right now is internally, and I think it is the partisan gridlock that we see right now. I think our country needs someone who can end that. And if I want the gridlock to end, like, I can't vote for someone who's Trump who is basically pushing that. So, yeah, those are my three reasons why I definitely support Biden.

John Dehlin [01:02:16] Excellent. Super helpful. Thank you so much. Kim Ryan, let's have you go.

Guest 8 [01:02:27] All right. Am I unmuted now? So, like, with the others, I could go on for hours talking about this, but I'll try to keep it brief. The number one reason why I'm voting for Biden is that I feel that Biden and Harris is. I feel that they represent the underserved and the underprivileged groups in society more than Trump does, especially LGBTQ community, the black and brown minority community, and. And women.

Guest 8 [01:03:06] The second reason is just human decency. I feel that we've lost that from our president. One of the things that's hard for me when I hear he's not a politician, and the reason that bothers me is, you know, I went to school and studied political science.

Guest 8 [01:03:28] I think there's a way that you're supposed to act as a politician and that someone who brings people together, someone who has language that is inclusive, as. As others have stated. And I feel that this. He's not a politician. Is giving Trump an excuse to say whatever he wants about anyone at any time and just excusing that. And that's something that.

Guest 3 [01:03:57] That.

Guest 8 [01:03:58] That I can't stand for. And so human decency, some others have said, you know, maybe it's just lip service, but. But it is the language. It's the language of inclusivity. And that's not only Democrats. You know, George Bush and other Republican presidents of the past haven't said. Haven't had that type of language. They've had the inclusive language.

Guest 8 [01:04:28] And so that's something that I've seen with the current president. That's. That has me worried. And then the third one is science. That, from my perspective, I see Biden and Harris and the Democrat Party as a whole as embracing science a lot more.

Guest 8 [01:04:49] You know, you see it very. A clear example that we all are dealing with right now is the masks. You know, the science says that if we wear masks and social distance, that that's what's going to stop the spread of the virus. Well, it took Trump Months and months to finally wear a mask and finally encourage others to wear a mask where Biden was doing it from the beginning. And I feel that relying on the science is an important thing to do when we're trying to protect the public as a whole. So those are probably my three main reasons and how it relates to Mormonism.

Guest 8 [01:05:36] It's very intertwined with my story. So as I started studying political science at Weber State University, I started realizing that, you know, maybe, maybe I'm not a Republican or maybe I don't support everything that's Republican. Right? So that was kind of the first step. And as I, as I, you know, I was very, very into the church at that time, a tbm. And as I studied the Scriptures, I studied the words of Christ, I could not reconcile what was going on, lots of the policies of the Republican Party with Christ's teachings.

Guest 8 [01:06:25] Now, the abortion issue was something that held me, kept me from going all in as well as the lgbtq. The stances of the church had on those types of issues helped me or prevented me from going all in as a Democrat, as a liberal.

Guest 8 [01:06:43] But, but I started having that, that crack. But what really was probably the biggest shelf item before I actually read the CES letter and left the church, the biggest shelf item was the election of 2016, when I could see this man, Donald Trump, who, from all of my reading of the Scriptures, was the exact opposite of a person that, that I felt that Christ was, and that the church was teaching me to be. And when he got elected and I looked around, you know, I live in Utah, I looked around and saw all my, you know, the, the Mormons who had so heavily supported him and continued to support him despite, like, I can understand why you would vote for him based on certain policies, but I saw many members of the church continuing to support everything he said, excusing away the sexist remarks he made, excusing away everything he did.

Guest 8 [01:07:48] And, and that was a big shelf item for me. And, and so when, when I read the CES letter and left the church about, you know, a little over a year ago, it gave me permission to fully embrace liberalism.

Guest 8 [01:08:08] And, you know, I can fully, I can say, you know, now that I'm, I'm a bleeding heart liberal, like, that is my stance, like, I, I stand with those groups that I wasn't able to stand with as a member of the church.

Guest 8 [01:08:22] And it was so freeing. And so this is the first election where I can actually really vote how I really feel inside. And it's, it's 100% Biden. Biden represents all of those values that I, that I hold dear, that I don't see from the other candidate.

John Dehlin [01:08:45] Beautiful. Thank you so much, Ryan. That was, that was outstanding. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing. Thanks Donna. I think you're next. Donna Cox, let me unmute you really quick and tell us, tell us your feelings and thoughts. Three, three or so reasons.

Guest [01:09:05] Well, I would say my. Well, Kali, there's so many reasons. Where do you start? I guess probably I don't believe in trickle down economics. I can tell you that I was a single mom with two children and I know what it's like to go to bed hungry. I know what it's like to worry about how I'm going to keep the lights on.

Guest [01:09:33] I'm a poster child for government assistance that kept me afloat until I could get on my feet. I was able to access WIC which kept food, kept my kids fed. I got a government subsidized first time homebuyer loan to buy a house which kept a roof over our heads while I was building my career and digging us out of poverty and putting us in a better situation.

Guest [01:10:07] I can tell you that I, along with my now husband of 35 years, we worked our rear ends off and as a small business owner, I'm a realtor and I own my own business. You know, I'm in the top percent probably in the country of income wise. But I feel like too that for those of us who much is given, much is required. And so I've always felt like it was a privilege to pay taxes.

Guest [01:10:41] I feel like, you know, I owe my country my participation in the tax system because my country supported me when I needed it. My children are now, you know, in the six figure incomes because they were fed and taken care of and we did not live in horrible poverty while I was single. And so they got a good education, they went to good schools.

Guest [01:11:15] I support public education. I'm sickened by the continuous effort to take funds away from public school. I'm a public school recipient. My kids have all been in public schools. I think the more that you take away from public schools, the worse off we get.

Guest [01:11:37] I believe that the environment is something that we have to protect. I've always been a tree hugger. I think we all have a responsibility to participate and take care of the environment. And I don't see the Republican Party given two flips about the environment. I think they're in denial of climate change. And I think if we don't have a planet left, then none of it's going to matter.

Guest [01:12:06] And then lastly, I would say my family looks like the United Nations. So, you know, we have children who are Filipino. We have a foster son who's African American. I have two autistic children. One of my daughters is pansexual. Another one of my daughters is gay and an artist.

Guest [01:12:34] So I think we represent a pretty diverse part of the population. And, you know, my family isn't Lilly White. So, you know, we're directly impacted by some of this racist rhetoric that has become. I mean, I think Trump has given a license for that, for people to come out from under their rocks and. And just be the worst of what our country represents instead of the best of what our country represents. And so I need civility to come back. I need to be able to, you know, live in a country where it's okay for my children to be different from other people.

Guest [01:13:27] You know, I agree with what some of the others have said. There's nothing Christ like about what I've seen in the current political state. It's. It's about as opposite of what I was taught as. As you can get. And it's sickening. And I need it to stop. I need sanity to come back. I will tell you one fun story.

Guest [01:13:55] My. My father just passed away. He was 94 years old, and as I said, he was a civil rights activist. He was a pastor for 74 years. Maybe circle back to how I made brain fart and joined the Mormon Church,

Guest 2 [01:14:11] but

Guest [01:14:14] he was determined after my mom died six weeks ago that he was going to live long enough to cast his vote.

Roseanne [01:14:20] To cast.

Guest [01:14:21] To vote Trump out of office. So he cast his vote on Thursday morning, went into a coma Thursday night, and died two days later. But he got that vote cast.

Guest 2 [01:14:39] Oops.

Guest [01:14:43] John, you're muted.

John Dehlin [01:14:47] Donna, such beautiful story. Thanks for sharing. Such personal heart, heartwarming, sensitive things. Your insight, your commentary is all beautiful. Thank you so much. That was wonderful. Quinton, I think you're last but not least for this round.

Immigration, Environment, and Mormon Values

Guest 7 [01:15:06] Okay. Yeah. So, you know, ordinarily, if we were dealing with any other Republican nominee, these would all be points of policy. And I will get to points of policy. But it turns out that Trump has illustrated that there are some much more basic qualifications in terms of fitness for office.

Guest 7 [01:15:28] I've thought a lot about the Bush presidency because that was the thing that kind of switched me from Republican to Democrat. I felt like George Bush always understood his limitations and understood the appoint, the importance of listening to advisors. But I think he got very bad advice and Ultimately, part of the job of president is listening to that advice and then, you know, being the decider, as George Bush liked to say, being the decider and making a smart decision based on that advice and being smart enough to recognize when you're getting a bad advice and taking advice from different sources. And that was sort of, as I see it, George Bush's ultimate failing.

Guest 7 [01:16:08] So Trump sort of takes all of this to a completely new level, aside from the dishonesty and corruption and all of that. Just so many really basic things like reading security briefings and, you know, not contradicting the experts that work for the government, that have spent their careers working on stuff, whether it's, you know, intelligence, foreign policy, or science during a pandemic like this all seems like such really basic stuff. And Trump's narcissism seems to make him feel like he's the expert on all of these things and that he basically has final authority to just contradict anybody he wants, say what he wants, try and bend reality to his will simply by saying it.

Guest 7 [01:16:51] Some of the falsehoods that he says, I honestly can't tell if he's just intentionally lying or if he even cares what the truth actually is. So at some basic level, truth matters and sort of living in the real world and running a normal organization, this is not a small family real estate business. This is a organization with millions of employees that he's running. And, you know, just firing everybody who disagrees with you is a bad way to run a government. So that's point number one. And I would argue that that's consistent with principles that have always been taught in Mormonism in terms of choosing good leaders.

Guest 7 [01:17:32] My other points would be. So, number one, I align heavily with Jeff on healthcare policy. That one's not so much that one has less to do with my Mormonism. And I will probably push that aside and pick two others. But I'll just say I like what he said and that I think fundamentally it was my engineer sensibilities that kind of took over and said, this is just a ridiculously inefficient way of running things. It doesn't cover everybody, it costs way too much, and it's just kind of a mess. And, yes, I too, am waiting for a Republican alternative.

Guest 7 [01:18:06] Ultimately, Obamacare was actually the Republican alternative. It was proposed. The structure of it was proposed by the Heritage foundation in the 1990s. It was adopted, as, you know, now nicknamed Romneycare in Massachusetts under Governor Mitt Romney. And as I see it, the Republican Party is sort of in their making a short term choice to oppose that in 2009 for short term political gain. They've essentially painted themselves into a corner here that because we already adopted the Republican solution, they're against it. And so that's why we've gone a decade without them offering a solution. So I'll go on to two other points that I do think my Mormonism is related to.

Guest 7 [01:18:44] One of them is immigration. I feel like my experience as a missionary and actually also experience as a home teacher. In times past, I've been a home teacher to people from immigrant communities, both for, you know, Latin American immigrants as well as African immigrants. I remember talking to an African immigrant about, you know, why he hadn't been going to church. And, you know, ultimately I came to understand that he was feeling residual discrimination at church and didn't really feel particularly comfortable. And I think that taught me a lot of empathy. And ultimately, I want this to continue to be a nation of immigrants. As Gerardo pointed out, it's not just illegal immigration anymore.

Guest 7 [01:19:30] Trump and a lot of other people have been complaining about illegal immigration, but this administration has taken tremendous steps to restrict legal immigration, both in the changes Hiraido talked about with the so called Muslim ban, which in order to make it legal, we had to include some Christian countries. So Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, now has a complete and total ban on their citizens traveling to this country. Like, explain to me how is that rational? That's about reducing the flow of immigrants from countries with people of color.

Guest 7 [01:20:04] Likewise, refugees have been restricted. They've been cut by about 90%. So, you know, maybe they don't like illegal immigration, but they're taking every step possible to restrict legal immigration. And this country needs immigrants. We have an aging population, increase our workforce. It's good for the economy. Immigrants are net contributors to the economy. All of the economic research shows that.

Guest 7 [01:20:26] And ultimately, I would say the solution to illegal immigration is to make it easier for those people to come here legally. If we had an easy process for a poor person in Central America to come here and apply for legal residence, I believe almost all of them would do it there. People are complaining about the people using the asylum system as some sort of a loophole. And I would say, yeah, maybe that sort of is a loophole, but the last resort they have, they have nothing more that that's the only possible way they can. Unless you're marrying an American or unless you have a relative who's already immigrated, there is no way.

Guest 7 [01:21:05] We need a modern day Ellis island where people can come and show up and say, I want to be an American. Get processed and apply. You need to apply in advance. You know, we don't have to go to Ellis, an Ellis island scenario, but the reality is we've made it very difficult. I'll just give one other anecdote about immigration. My wife university department recently tried to hire a postdoctoral fellowship. This is a person who was a non US Citizen who was in the United States on a student visa. She was by far the best qualified candidate for the job. She was offered the job. The Trump administration suddenly changed the requirements for H1B visas, which is the visa that she would be hired under, and essentially made it impossible for them to hire her.

Guest 7 [01:21:51] They now have to reopen the job and spend more resources trying to find a different, less qualified candidate for the job that is not a country that's being welcoming to immigrants. So lastly, I just want to talk about the environment and I want to say that I think Mormonism made me an environmentalist. And I can think of a couple of things. Number one, really the Boy Scouts, my experience in scouting in my childhood, this would be the 1980s, doing all the outdoor activities, doing the merit badges in which we talked about the environment, we talked about citizenship.

Guest 7 [01:22:28] Like that really planted the seeds for me for caring about the environment. And I really believe that protecting the environment should be conservative value. I would remind people that the Environmental Protection Agency was started during the Nixon administration.

Guest 7 [01:22:43] And I feel like the business interests, specifically the fossil fuel industry within the Republican Party, have sort of won the internal battle and basically made it all about that above all other concerns. And they've sort of abandoned. And of course now more recently, questioning client Simon Science.

Guest 7 [01:23:05] Another thing about my Mormon experience that sort of helped made me pro environment was at byu. I once attended a lecture by a botany professor. This has been in the 90s. The guy's probably retired now. And I remember him talking about how he felt a spiritual duty to protect the earth, that God had created this world and that we had a stewardship for it. And I'll have to say that as I've moved away from sort of taking the Scriptures in a literal way, I'm very non literal believer now.

Guest 7 [01:23:39] I increasingly feel that if you talk about God talking to Adam and Eve and telling them to take care of the earth, that is a responsibility given to us. And as I struggle with whether I believe in a literal second coming of Christ, I think we can't take shortcomings and say Jesus is going to come and Jesus is going to come and he's going to fix the problems in the world. We have to fix it ourselves, and that includes our environment. Anyway, sorry if I've gone too long.

John Dehlin [01:24:10] No, you brought a lot of wisdom, Quentin, and people are very grateful for your comments, as they are for everyone here. What an amazing panel. I just have to say this is a brilliant panel, and I'm not just trying to butter you guys up.

Concerns About Biden's Age and Mental Fitness

John Dehlin [01:24:24] Okay. I want to move to the, to the next part of this, to this portion. Everyone can go ahead and unmute, especially if your rooms are quiet. If you have, like, fans or engines or loud things, go ahead and mute and then unmute when you talk. But if you have a quiet room, go ahead and unmute. I'm going to do something that may be a little uncomfortable for you guys. I'm going to raise concerns with Biden. Now. We've given it over an hour, you know, to why you guys like Biden and Kamala, why, why you voted for them.

John Dehlin [01:24:56] I'm going to do what I did in the last Trump conversation that we had earlier this morning, and I'm going to express concerns that either I have or others have for Biden. And I want to have a candid conversation. And what I did last time is when I expressed a criticism, I first want to hear from people that, that choice. Share the criticism, you know, or, or, or have that crit. Yeah. Who share that criticism.

John Dehlin [01:25:21] And then I want to hear people rebut it. But I don't want to immediately sort of have it be where I express the criticism and then it's just attacked because I try to pick things that at least have some credibility or legitimacy. There may be exceptions to that. But, but just stick with me here and, and we'll, we'll give this a try. This will be more of an open force, freeform discussion than the last one. So the first concern that many people have about Joe Biden is a combination of his age and, you know, let's just say perceptions that he is either not as, not as with it or not as well or not as articulate somebody.

John Dehlin [01:26:07] This is offensive. Some would say he's too old. So. And I also know that, as I understand it, he does experience a bit of stuttering when he speaks, and that, that can sort of convolute it a little bit. But there's just this basic sense he's probably the oldest president we will have ever had if he's elected, and he's just not. Some people are concerned about his full faculties. Does anybody first of all, share that concern to any Level. I'm curious.

Guest [01:26:40] Can I speak to that? Just real quick?

John Dehlin [01:26:42] Wait, are you. Do you share that, Donna?

Guest [01:26:44] No.

John Dehlin [01:26:45] Okay, let's have the people that share it first, and then I want to have the rebuttal. So, Quinton, you raised. And I know that some of this is going to feel offensive, or I know I'm not always as articulate as I want to be in talking about sensitive things, but, you know, let's just do our best. So, Quinton, you said you do share some of those concerns. Tell us.

Guest 7 [01:27:05] Yeah, I mean, to a degree. Look, we've got Kamala Harris's backup, so there's that. So I'm not that concerned. What I would say is that, yeah, I'm not crazy about the notion of two people in their mid-70s running against each other for president.

Guest 7 [01:27:23] I think it's obvious to me that Biden does not have dementia, which some people are saying. I do think that he's perhaps not quite as sharp as he was a decade or two ago. I would have preferred that Joe Biden, like, cognitive decline, especially in your 70s, is a real thing. I would say in the case of Joe Biden, I trust him, first of all, to surround himself with good advisors. I also trust him to step down if he felt like he were at the point where he could no longer do it. Like, we know now, for example, that in the final year or so of the Reagan administration, he was starting to experience early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, and that was basically hidden from the public.

Guest 7 [01:28:05] I think I trust Biden to be transparent about that. If he did feel like he was starting to experience enough cognitive decline that he wasn't up to the job and that he would step down and let commonly take the job, and that would be fine.

Guest 7 [01:28:17] I most certainly wouldn't trust Trump to do that, because I feel like his narcissism was. Prevent him from ever admitting any kind of frailty.

John Dehlin [01:28:26] Beautiful. All right, anybody else share that concern to any level? Ryan, you're raising your hand. And then we want to get Donna in. Of course.

Guest 8 [01:28:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:28:34] I mean, what else? Both on us. Okay, Ryan?

Guest 8 [01:28:38] I definitely do. I mean, if he's in for eight years, that means he'll be 85 when he leaves office. Actually, 86, because I think he has. He's about to turn 78 anyway. 85 or 86 years old. So I. I share what Quentin said, that, you know, we have a good backup and. And hopefully he can be transparent about it. Um, but 85. 86 years old is, um, is very old.

Guest 6 [01:29:09] That.

Guest 8 [01:29:10] That doesn't prevent me from voting for him over the alternative, but it sure would have been nice if. If we had some younger blood to choose from. So, yes, I definitely share that.

John Dehlin [01:29:22] Okay, anybody else want to share anything on that side before we bring in the Donnas? Okay, let's do Donna Cox and then Donna Kelly. Donna, you want. Kelly, you want to talk to. Right, Donna Kelly.

Guest 5 [01:29:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:29:34] Okay. Donna Cox first.

Guest [01:29:35] Well, I was just gonna say, so I have Ms. And I have fibromyalgia, so I get brain fog, and I have problems finding words sometimes. In particular, if I'm under any kind of stressful situation when I'm asked to explain myself or speak quickly, I tend to have that same kind of stuttering that you hear from Joe.

Guest [01:30:00] But I can tell you I've met him in person, and he is sharp as a tough attack. And he's very healthy. He's very health conscious, unlike his opponent, who eats cheeseburgers and drinks Diet Cokes all day. So I don't have any worries at all about Joe's mental capacity and his institutional knowledge. I mean, so I have the same issue come up with in my profession where the young realtors have the bright and shiny and they know all the technology and they do all the social media, but they don't have the institutional knowledge that I have of getting transactions completed because I've been doing it for 40 years.

Guest [01:30:41] And so it's the same with Joe. He's been in the system working across both aisles getting things done for, as the other Donald said, 54 years. It's worth a lot to have somebody that actually knows how to get things done.

John Dehlin [01:30:57] Yeah. And just like LBJ was such an effective president because he knew how Congress worked, certainly that has to be useful for Biden. Donna Kelly, did you want to add something to that, to this, to this topic?

Guest 5 [01:31:11] This will be really short, but I think the Mormon community of any community in America ought to be accepting of somebody who's an older leader, because the Mormon hierarchy doesn't even come into their power over the general church until they're, you know, almost in their 80s. So I find it somewhat hypocritical that Mormons would want to criticize Joe Biden for his age and say he's not qualified when every one of their leaders is much, usually much older than Joe Biden. So just.

John Dehlin [01:31:50] Thank you. Oh,

Guest 2 [01:31:56] in response to Donna's comment, like, I just think it's really unfair that people are equating people not being able to speak well to not being intelligent, because, like Donna was saying she has fibromyalgia and Ms. Well, I have fibromyalgia, and words just fly away when I'm speaking, and I can never get them back. And. But I have a 4.0 grade point average, and I'm a really good writer. And there are all these other strengths that you wouldn't see if my credibility was immediately blown off because I forget words sometimes.

Roseanne [01:32:31] So that's all I have to say.

Guest 8 [01:32:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:36] Yeah. And I, I stumble with my words all the time. So, Jeff. So I was going to ask if any of you have perspective on this. I was hoping to ask Jeff. I think Jeff had to step away for a second. But, you know, my, my mom's response is Biden has dementia. Biden has dementia. And I think that's probably got to be a talking point on Fox News or something. I, you know, my reaction to that is, well, do any of you guys have a reaction to that sort of description of Joe Biden? I want to give people a chance to respond to that.

Guest 5 [01:33:14] I think Joe Biden had a medical exam by a real doctor, unlike his opponent, who wrote his own medical evaluation and had a doctor sign it. So I think that if Joe Biden had dementia, his health evaluation would have shown that.

John Dehlin [01:33:38] But also, isn't that a really offensive allegation to be making or kind of a really serious and inappropriate and inoffensive allegation to make unless there's, you know, medical evidence for it? I mean, I just wanted to kind of. That's. Roseanne, did you want to.

Roseanne [01:33:56] It's almost like it's projection. I mean, if you watch Donald Trump sometimes or read transcripts of what he said, it doesn't even make any sense. So it's like, it's like, how can they say Joe Biden has dementia when Trump is, is totally incoherent sometimes? I don't understand that.

Guest 8 [01:34:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:17] Okay. Okay. So, so that's, that's. Oh, go ahead. Does somebody, anybody else want to come out on this topic?

Guest 5 [01:34:25] Yeah.

Guest 6 [01:34:26] Point out.

Guest 4 [01:34:26] I don't know if I'm wrong, but I think the year difference is just like three years. Like, Trump is 74 and Biden is 77.

John Dehlin [01:34:36] Right. Yeah, they're. They're definitely close. Just a few years apart.

Guest 6 [01:34:39] Right.

Guest 4 [01:34:40] Yeah, I, I think sometimes they talk about Joe Biden as if he was, like, way older than, than Trump. But it's just.

John Dehlin [01:34:49] Yeah. And, and, and you make a good point. Donna Cox. Health care can affect your, your real age. Well, there's kind of your real age, and then there's your functional age, and depending on how healthy you live, your. Your. The number of your age doesn't always reflect your level of health. And I think that's. That's an important thing to mention. Okay, thank you so much. Oh, Jeff, I wanted to bring you back in. Jeff, I was just talking really quickly about the allegations that Trump has dementia and how kind of inappropriate and, or offensive it is for people to make statements like that unless they have evidence. As a physician, is there anything you can or want to say about that?

Guest 6 [01:35:30] I mean, it's ridiculous. I don't hear anyone with any medical background making those allegations. It's clearly not dementia, first of all, and clearly you can't make that diagnosis from random press clips, which is what they're using to do that. It's not even worth the attention.

John Dehlin [01:35:46] And as I mentioned to the others, that's my mom's number one thing that she says, is that Biden has dementia. You know what I mean? So it's, it's not great, but it's. It's out there and it frustrates me.

Guest 6 [01:35:59] Yeah, I'm frustrated, too. I guess I'd be more interested if a doctor ever said that, but I. You just don't hear that. I. And I think people are also underestimate. I'm sure people were saying this, but the grind, and, you know, the grind with the presidency is not. Is nothing less, but the grind of, of a 247 campaign. Campaign is, is really going to cause some cognitive. Cognitive, just like word. Word salad kind of things that are completely, completely normal. I think I would have problems keeping that schedule and, and finding words that I'm looking for. I, I've been silly, especially if I had an issue with stuttering or a history of that. It's just not even worth the attention anyone's paying.

John Dehlin [01:36:39] Okay, well, I hope you're not sad that I brought it up, but I'm.

Guest 6 [01:36:42] No, no, I'm sorry. It's just.

John Dehlin [01:36:43] No, I'm.

Guest 6 [01:36:45] Put that to rest.

John Dehlin [01:36:45] No, no, it's good, it's good. I appreciate that. Thanks for the medical perspective. That's super valuable. Okay. And by the way, I hope you guys aren't offended that I'm bringing up the criticisms, but I did it with Trump and I want to be fair, and so I hope you guys are okay with that.

Hunter Biden Controversy and Family Ethics

John Dehlin [01:37:00] So the second thing that I actually share some concerns about are some of the dealings that we've heard about with, with Joe Biden's son, Hunter. And I want to be clear about that. When I heard about sort of Hunter Biden allegedly, you know, working in the Ukraine or in foreign countries, getting these really large salaries where his experience was questionable. And, you know, it seems as though somehow Joe Biden's kids were benefiting from.

John Dehlin [01:37:35] From their relationship with Joe Biden and making a lot more money than they should for not having enough qualifications. For me, it smells or sounds really fishy and problematic. That's just my opinion. I know that those who are critical of Joe Biden go way beyond that. And this is separate from the recent allegations that have come over just in the past couple weeks. But taking aside for a second, the laptop and the Russia, China, corruption, state stuff, just the. The concerns about Hunter. Hunter Biter in the Ukraine, Hunter Biden in the Ukraine. Do any of you share those concerns before I ask people to respond negatively against them?

John Dehlin [01:38:15] So the. The allegations of sort of corruption and. Or concern about political advantage or financial advantage. Anyone want to comment in support. Support or share concern?

Guest 2 [01:38:31] I'll comment on it. As somebody who, like, I've always valued things being fair, and if I see things that are happening that are not fair, then I don't like that. However, my hands are tied because we can also look at Trump's family and see some of the same things that are going on in there. So, yeah, that does bother me. And if I had another choice, I would be choosing anybody else, but what are you gonna do?

John Dehlin [01:38:56] Okay, so for you, it smells fishy, but it's. It's. It's kind of like both parties are. Are guilty.

Guest 2 [01:39:02] Everything's squishy here. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:05] Okay, anyone else share this concern before we invite people to. To criticize the concern? Anyone else? Okay, who wants to criticize the concern or give a response to the concern? Okay, Quinton. And then Roseanne again.

Guest 7 [01:39:25] Right. So I guess my number one response is that I think Hunter Biden deserves every bit of the criticism coming to him, but that's why I didn't write him in on the ballot. I voted for his dad. I think more generally, I think this kind of thing is probably more common than we realize among politicians, kids, and, you know, other family members.

Guest 7 [01:39:47] You know, there was some stuff early on in the Trump administration involving Elaine Chao, the Secretary of Transportation, who has close family connections to a Chinese shipping company, and there were allegations of favoritism there. A lot of this stuff happens. A lot of it's legal. It looks bad. It's. It smells bad. I don't like it. It's unethical.

Guest 7 [01:40:11] We ought to consider passing laws against it. I'm I'm totally in favor of that. There's nothing so far proving that. I, I know that Joe Biden's critics are trying really hard to try and connect Hunter Biden's activities to Joe and demonstrate that he somehow influenced policy. There's no evidence of that yet, and if there was, I would take it seriously.

John Dehlin [01:40:34] Okay, excellent. Roseanne, did you want to go next?

Roseanne [01:40:39] Yes. Yeah. So appears to me that they can't find enough dirt on Joe, so they're going after his son, who may or may not deserve it. I don't know, but I find that interesting also. I like that Biden has. People have asked him, well, why don't you go after Trump's children? They certainly deserve it. And he said, this isn't about our families. This is about us. And I like the fact that he won't criticize Trump's children.

John Dehlin [01:41:09] I love it. Yeah. Thank you. That's an important perspective. Anyone else have a perspective on Hunter Biden and all that? Okay, really quickly, in the last couple weeks, we've all been waiting for the October surprises. We saw an October surprise kind of take down Hillary Clinton, which I was really, personally, really unhappy about. Even from a nonpartisan perspective, the way the FBI did what they did right before just really super bugged me. But, but these allegations about the laptop and, you know, someone that a laptop store repairman didn't quite see drops off, you know, sorry, Joe Biden's son allegedly drops off three laptops or whatever to a, to a computer repair store.

John Dehlin [01:42:02] And the person, the repair store repairman didn't quite send them. But then Hunter Biden left the laptops there, never retrieved them, and then somehow they end up in the hands of Rudy Giuliani. Like, I hate this entire story. I want to give people a chance to respond to it. Does anybody. Has anybody read enough about this to be able to respond to it?

Guest 5 [01:42:25] Well, first of all, it involves the name Rudy Giuliani.

Guest 7 [01:42:31] Okay?

Guest 5 [01:42:32] That's the first reason. I don't care to read anything about that and don't. I mean, I don't believe anything he says. But second of all, Hunter Biden is not running for president. Who cares about Hunter Biden's laptop? I mean, that's my take on it. I mean, I think there's lots of things you can criticize Joe Biden about, but whether his son had certain emails to a Ukraine to Burisma on his laptop is not something that anyone should care about. That's my opinion.

John Dehlin [01:43:12] Other, other, other perspectives. There was the guy who made the speech recently that testified about his business dealings with the Biden family. Help me out, guys. I'm not a follower of Fox News. So I. Do you know what I'm talking about? Anybody? No? All right. Okay. No biters on this one. That's okay.

Guest 6 [01:43:37] One quick thing. I don't know if people have Tucker Carlson, who, you know, I put him on the same level as I think Hannity as far as believability, but there was some of the headline that I read this morning that he's now saying this, these documents that he allegedly sent away without copying it, that got lost in the mail now. Oh, he did remember to copy them. But no, he doesn't want to pile on Biden. I mean, there's just so much smelliness to this whole story. I can't believe it's getting the attention it's getting. And I will be much more interested when even conservative outlets are interested. Even Wall Street Journal is going, this is not worth our time. And it, I just, we. My, my bandwidth is limited.

John Dehlin [01:44:17] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right, the next, another criticism of, of Biden and Kamala Harris is just around taxes that, that they're going to raise your taxes. Now, my understanding is he, Biden has said he's only going to raise taxes of people making over $400,000 a year. But there's this number one perception about higher taxes, and then there's the bigger concern that they're socialists, that the Green New Deal is going to destroy our country financially. So thoughts about concerns about Biden raising taxes or bankrupting the company and, or arguments against that position?

Taxes, Healthcare, and Economic Policy

Guest [01:45:00] You know, what's interesting to me is that people keep fighting, focusing on saying that the economy is directly tied to how the stock market's doing. And yet if you look at the demographics of the, of Trump's base, I would venture to say that a large majority of them don't have one dime invested in the stock market because they can't afford to.

Guest [01:45:25] So, you know, it's the same as with taxes. If you're making less than 400,000, your taxes are, they're not going to be affected. In fact, you'll probably come out better. If you're making over 400,000, then you should be paying more in taxes.

Guest [01:45:40] And a big majority of those people are also beneficiaries of the Social Security and Medicare benefit. And if he keeps cutting taxes in the way that he is, those are going to be bankrupted programs. And I don't want, for one, want to see a country full of old People that are out on the streets because we have no safety gap for them. So it's just mind boggling to me that so few people truly understand how our economy works and how it affects you individually.

Guest 6 [01:46:20] Right.

Guest 5 [01:46:21] I totally agree with that. And you know, I think a lot of people have used socialism as a curse word and tried to attack Joe Biden on that. But, you know, there's not one person in this country that hasn't benefited from, you know, taxpayer dollars. I drive down streets every day that I didn't pay for.

Guest 5 [01:46:43] I get lots of benefits and so does everyone else in this country gets benefits from our tax dollars being used wisely. I think what Joe Biden is about is making sure that people pay their fair share. You know, the fact that Jeff Bezos made $50 billion last year, whatever it was, and paid zero in taxes, I paid more taxes than Jeff Bezos, who is a multi billionaire and Donald Trump. That's just wrong. And I think Joe Biden is absolutely correct in that everyone needs to pay their fair share and that's what he's going for, is that more people that are the rich, millionaires and billionaires in this country don't pay anything. And I fully support what he wants to do on that.

John Dehlin [01:47:33] Other comments on taxes Ryan Yeah, I

Guest 8 [01:47:38] think it's a, it's a fair criticism. When you, when you look at right after Trump got elected in 2016, you saw the stock market, you saw the, what economists call the Trump bump and the economy did do well, the economy, they responded to his election.

Guest 8 [01:48:00] I think what Donna is saying about how it's benefiting the rich, it's very true. What Republicans believe is trickle down economics that'll benefit everyone and everyone all rise. So there's a debate there, but I think it's an issue that has legitimacy that I think we as liberals need to take seriously and think about the economy and how we can make sure that it, you know, we don't get rid of all the gains that, that Wall street isn't worried about a Democrat president.

Guest 8 [01:48:36] But, but on the other side of that, like for me personally, the reason that I'm a Democrat and a liberal over Republican is even if I grant that, you know, certain parts of the economy will benefit from Republican policies, to me it is more important to look out for the underprivileged, the underserved in society. It's more important to make policies that are going to help those who are less privileged rise up than to worry about how well the rich are doing. And if that means I'M taxed a little bit more. And I'm not saying Biden's plan is taxing me because it's taxing, you know, the rich.

Guest 8 [01:49:26] But some Democrat policies, you know, will tax, tax us more. If I'm taxed a little bit more so that we have equality, so that the under privileged in the community can rise up, I'm okay with that. I like that because that to me is a more important value than, than, than the other side than making sure I have more money in my pocket. So that's where I stand on that.

John Dehlin [01:49:56] Love it. Anybody else want to jump in on this before we move on?

Roseanne [01:50:01] Roseanne, I just don't see how you can say an economy is doing well when some people don't have health care, other people are losing their place to live because they can't pay for it. That people are being underpaid if they are working. I mean, that's like saying we're all doing fine, but if you pull back the top layer, we're not. If only the people at the very top are really beneficial right now. So I don't understand that the economy should be how, how everyone is doing, not just the, the millionaires and billionaires and, and the stock market.

John Dehlin [01:50:43] Yeah.

Guest 6 [01:50:44] And I just want to mention, if I can say one more thing, John. Sorry, I'm talking a lot.

John Dehlin [01:50:48] No, no, you're not at all.

Guest 6 [01:50:49] But I, I think that, you know, one of the common objections that I actually agree with on the Republican side about social, social welfare programs is they become bloated and inefficient. I think a progressive, you can't argue against a progressive tax structure as being bloated or inefficient because there's no administrative costs. It's clear that wealth inequality and income differences have just exploded over the last 20 years.

Guest 6 [01:51:20] And if we want to address that, if we care about being fair, I think the progressive taxation is, is one of the best ways to do that. It eliminates all the inefficiencies that conservatives complain about. So, and, you know, I think we're in for higher taxes. We can't put that on the shoulders of the poor.

Guest 6 [01:51:39] So there's going to be some, we're the least progressive taxation system in the world among the developed nations. So I think it's natural that we have to go that way. Who's going to suffer from this?

Guest [01:51:50] So.

John Dehlin [01:51:52] Right. And Jeff, while we have you on this and while we're talking about taxes and the welfare of the poor and the disadvantaged, one of Trump's Sort of key, I don't know, pillars is destroying Obamacare, getting rid of the Affordable Care act and replacing it with something of his own. And I guess Biden's position on the Affordable Care act is to improve it. I would just love to hear your thoughts on destroying, you know, repealing Obamacare and letting Trump create health care for us, a system of health care for us and. Or Biden's, you know, proposition to potentially amend it. And just a general medical perspective on Obamacare overall in, obviously in one minute, which is, you know, a couple minutes, which is impossible. I'm joking, but just talk to us about health care for a minute.

Guest 6 [01:52:46] Yeah, I mean, this is a huge discussion and way more complicated than I think both sides are making it. I worked for a year in New Zealand, which I think is one of these model socialized medicine countries, so I kind of saw the good and the bad of that. It's not all good. I don't think Americans will not be completely satisfied with that. There will be. There will be a number who will be much better off. There will be some who will be worse off, and I think we need to acknowledge that. My question for Trump is, why didn't you do this? 2016-2018, it was one of your campaign promises.

Guest 6 [01:53:13] You had, you had the Senate, you had the House. Nothing happened. So I don't know why we trust him to do this now when he won't have the House and may not have the Senate. I don't think Obamacare. My problem with Obamacare is that it's been sabotaged at every step. I don't think it's a terrible solution. I think it has its problems, but it. At every. And I don't think it's a complete solution, but at every step, it's been sabotaged. And ironically, I think Quentin made the great point that this was for a short term gain. Because I think what's coming.

Guest 6 [01:53:46] Something has to happen. I think what's coming may be much less palatable to Republicans. So I'm very much in favor of, let's do some gradual fixes to Obamacare and see if we can make it work. But if you're resisting that, then Medicare for all is coming. And I don't think. And that might be. Well, that's a whole other discussion, if you're gonna like that. But, but this is, this is the compromise. And if you're not willing to compromise, then something's got to be done.

John Dehlin [01:54:11] Right? Thanks for that perspective, Jeff. We have a criticism man. I'll just say that I've been monitoring these comments. I've probably banned 200 people. The comments are so outrageously offensive and trolly. Nothing like our past conversations. So I, and it's mostly Trump supporters who are just being outrageously awful in the comments. And I just want to say, Trump supporters, you are not doing your, your candidate any service by being so awful in our comments.

Media Bias and Trustworthy News Sources

John Dehlin [01:54:47] I just had to say that because I'm just, just distracted and outraged by all the stupid comments and all the people I have to ban. Stephanie has a criticism of us panel. He says none of us knew Tony Bobulinski's name. Wow. And I'll just admit it. I don't watch Fox News. My mom has been texting me about Bobulinski.

John Dehlin [01:55:09] I did watch his little press conference. And I'll just tell you, Stephanie, why I choose to not remember Bobulinski's name and don't like talking about him. And I referenced this before. I feel like Bob Alinsky's press release was an October surprise.

John Dehlin [01:55:28] It feels like it's stuff that is hearsay and it feels like it's the type of thing brought up at the last minute to try and take down a candidate. But if you've got issues with dealings with Joe Biden or his family, bring it up a year ago, two years ago, bring it up when you know it, speak out. Then if there's been something illegal done, go through the legal channels, but don't come out with the press release the week before the election.

John Dehlin [01:55:58] Make all these claims that are sort of personal and hearsay and then expect us all to take them super seriously. That's why I am not paying attention to Bob Alinsky. Do any of you. You know, I know the Trump people love that story and I really think it's important. And they're saying that it's, you know, big tech and the fake news, that's, that's all not publicizing that story. We've already addressed it. Is there anything else you guys want to say about Bobulinski or is it just dumb?

Guest 7 [01:56:35] I'll just say I've heard his name before. I'm aware he's made some allegations. I don't really know much about them other than it's associated with this laptop and deals in China. What I will say is that I'm glad to, I would be glad to read more about it. When a organization with journalistic standards reports on that and that would include a conservative leaning journal journalism organization. So find me something in the Wall Street Journal or Forbes or something like that. They're conservative leaning, but they have journalistic standards. They verify stories before they report them. I will gladly read any story about Bobulinski's allegations when it shows up there.

John Dehlin [01:57:18] Okay, so that, that brings up a really important point that was brought up last time. One of the criticisms of,

Guest 7 [01:57:27] let's just

John Dehlin [01:57:28] say non Trump supporters of Trump supporters is, you know, Trump calls it the lame stream media fake news. He basically says that all the media outfits except for Fox News are corrupt and that Twitter and Facebook and YouTube are all in on it and they're censoring these credible and important stories and America should be scandalized and that all these things about China and Russia and Bobulinsky should be plastered over all of the news media outlets. But because the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today, all of the media outlets are liberal shills and are untrustworthy and biased, then Trump's a victim because true Americans can't get the real information they need to make informed decisions.

John Dehlin [01:58:22] So who wants to take a stab at that? Because I think that's really important. One of the biggest problems right now in America is the access of reliable information and the believing of fraudulent fake information and or non credible biased or conspiratory based information. So I hope several of you will take a stab at this. But let's start with Roseanne.

Roseanne [01:58:53] Okay, So I, I sometimes when things happen, try, try to change the channel from my watching and I turn to Fox to see what they're saying. And it's like we live in different universes. They might not even be talking about rising Covid cases or it seems like when I get on there, the things that they're talking about is Bobulinski. I knew who he was, but I don't even think he's worth mentioning. So they're talking about Hunter Biden's laptop and rioting and looting in cities like Portland, how everything's just falling apart because, because they're looting and that the, the left is getting way liberal and, and they're influenced by antifa and that's all they want to talk about on those channels.

Roseanne [01:59:36] And, and when something happens like, like Governor Whitmore getting threatened, you know, with, with being kidnapped and tried by a white milit crickets. So I think, I think maybe a lot of really devout Trump supporters only look at Fox where I think people who are liberal look at a lot of different news sources and are able to take maybe more informed opinions and judgments on what they're hearing.

John Dehlin [02:00:08] Quinton, you were the one who brought up credible news sources. And Donna and Jeff and others, I want to hear you guys as well. So please talk about the access of reliable information in 2020 and anything else you want to say.

Guest 5 [02:00:23] Right.

Guest 7 [02:00:24] So I think conservative media has become something of an echo chamber. One of the things that I find particularly amusing. And you'll sometimes see late night comedians making fun of this. You'll find people at, say, Fox News telling people about something and then say, you won't hear mainstream media tell you this. And then they'll play the clip from the mainstream media organization that's covering it. This happens all the time. They live in such an echo chamber that they don't even check to see whether the mainstream media outlet is actually reporting on it.

Guest 7 [02:01:02] And they tend to hyper focus on these minor stories before the facts have fully been vetted. So, you know, and there's a belief that the mainstream media would never report something that is critical of Democrats. That's not true at all. For example, we had earlier this year these allegations by Tara Reid against. She alleged that Joe Biden had sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.

Guest 7 [02:01:29] I read about that in the New York Times. It was reported very thoroughly. It was troubling to me. I was concerned about it. I read them carefully. And over time, those allegations kind of fell apart with the credibility of Tara Reid as it kind of became clear that she had a history of kind of making up stories and. Which is unfortunate. Right. Like this is. This is bad for the MeToo movement to have people coming in and make up stories.

Guest 7 [02:01:56] Fake allegations of sexual assault are rare, but they do happen and they sort of make it worse for everybody else. I guess what I would say also in a context of Mormonism and on a podcast like Mormon Stories, where, you know, you talk about informed consent that we people in the church need to look at outside sources of information. They need to not only live in the echo chamber provided to them by the church. I would, I would challenge people with conservative leaning views to consider a variety of sources, look at what other sources are saying about things, and see if they really are reporting on things. And I had one other thought, but it's. I lost. Anyway, I'll let other people talk.

John Dehlin [02:02:40] Other panelists.

Guest 8 [02:02:45] Well, I'll chime in. I'll be sure. Yeah, I think what I think Quentin nailed it on the head when he says, you gotta review sources with journalistic standards. And you know, there's, there's plenty of websites out there that will.

Guest 8 [02:03:02] That have analyzed different media outlets on how conservative or liberal they are. Right. And you, if you're if you go to some far left leaning sources, you can be in an echo chamber there. If you go to far right leaning sources, you can be in an echo chamber there. But when Quentin says go to one with journalistic standards, every profession, you know, my profession, we have standards of professionalism.

Guest 8 [02:03:30] Each, each profession has that. And journalists is, is no different. And I think that's where, if you want to make sure something's credible and reliable, go to those sources, try to go into the middle as much as possible. And if you can't go to, go to ones that lean right, ones that lean left. But look at those that are credible, that have those journalistic standards, that's where you're gonna find truth, in my opinion.

John Dehlin [02:04:01] What are. So, you know, there's this question of what's, what's a fair. Or, or, you know, what's what. What are the publications that are not biased, that are not controlled by the left or the right, that do a really good job of trying to provide balance, fair and balanced news. Any of you guys want to nominate your favorites in that regard? Jeff?

Guest 6 [02:04:24] I'll say a couple. I think Wall Street Journal, if you want a conservative publication like slightly conservative leaning, that has good journalistic integrity and accountability, if anything, just that they're accountable for what they say, that's part of what's lacking with Breitbart and some of these conservative voices. So I think Wall Street Journal gets a good one. New York Times, of course, is leftist. I think most journalistic sources are going to be somewhat leftist because it's the nature of the institution. It's a check on the power powers that be in government. It's what the press is there for. So of course it's going to have some leftward bias. But to say that, to say that it's consistent, you know, they're just suppressing other voices, I think is silly. And it kind of, it kind of reveals a lack of other perspectives from the conservative side.

John Dehlin [02:05:08] Yeah, because I watched Meet the Press, I watched this Week with George Stephanopoulos, I watch pbs, I listen to npr. I even read the New York Times. And those journalists do a really good job of interviewing people from both sides. They have supporters of Biden, supporters of Trump. I don't like the idea of broad brushing all of the mainstream media as being biased and unfair. That's just my other. Go ahead.

Guest 6 [02:05:35] I'm sorry, but the deeper question then is if you don't trust any mainstream media, you're just choosing, I mean, you're choosing your authority. It's not like you've looked at Hunter Biden's email specifically by yourself. You have to trust in some authority. And so you're just choosing a different authority that has no accountability, has no ethical standards, you know, established ethical standards that we've accepted for 200 years. So, I mean, whatever your authority is, you're choosing something. Why is yours more believable than, than the Wall Street Journal or New York Times?

John Dehlin [02:06:03] We have a couple, we have a couple people recommending their own sources. We have several people recommending NPR. Thanks, Kelly, for that recommendation. Shimon Chew 2006 Also, summer represents the Epic Times. I don't, I think I can recommend the epic Times. The AP newswire is, you know, something that someone's recommending. Shimachdu2006 is also saying the economist Sherry writes the Atlantic. So there's lots of people recommending, you know, some more fair and balanced, reasonable.

Guest 6 [02:06:44] Al Jazeera and BBC are two, like, two, like non US sources that are actually pretty balanced. And I think they're really interesting to look at.

Guest 3 [02:06:53] Yeah.

Guest 2 [02:06:55] And to add to the news discussion, it's like you can learn how to look at data, where to find it, how data was collected, and you can come to your own conclusions about it on your own as well. So you can look at news, but you can also do the digging yourself and find out what's true, what's not, and how they might be twisting things.

John Dehlin [02:07:19] I love it. OJ Says that, Sorry. Oh, let's see. Laura says NPR is the most bipartisan news source. That's Laura's opinion. And then OJ Says that the Hill can be pretty balanced. I think the Hill is a, is a news outlet, you know, out of, out of Washington, D.C. that focuses on coverage of Congress and of Washington politics.

John Dehlin [02:07:47] All right. Oh, and then Sherry says, echoing, echoing, echoing what Jeff said, BBC, if you get out of the usa, is a good source. And I agree, Al Jazeera does some amazing work. Jeff, that's a great recommendation as well.

Energy Policy, Fracking, and the Environment

John Dehlin [02:08:03] Okay, we've got a few more things to cover. Fracking. So we talked about this in the last episode. You know, there was that last debate where Biden was asked about fracking, and he basically said, you know what I heard, what I understood is that he wants to move us away from fracking, you know, because he wants, he thinks there's a real imperative within the country to move towards more clean energy, natural, natural, cleaner energy.

John Dehlin [02:08:37] So, of course, I saw Trump the next day, you know, doing, doing his stump speeches where he's basically saying, that Trump wants to end fracking yesterday, that he wants to destroy the oil and gas industry. It didn't seem fair. But I think probably most people on this panel are for clean energy. So thoughts on thoughts on fracking, thoughts on oil and gas industry, on clean energy. Anything anyone wants to share?

Guest 5 [02:09:09] Well, I really like Joe Biden saying that he doesn't agree with the Green New Deal, but he agrees with, he likes the Biden green deal. So he has his own plan for that. And one of the things that I think is really important is that that's not talked about enough, is it could create millions of new jobs for Americans. If we decided that we were going to take, be the world leader in clean energy then and set the standard for the rest of the world, we could create millions of new jobs in this country and sort of be a leader in a very positive thing that could happen in our stewardship, stewardship of the earth.

Guest 5 [02:09:58] So I like Biden reminding people that, hey, if you want to talk about creating new jobs in the United States of America, we need to be the leader in the world on clean energy and not, you know, try to do things like saying coal is still alive, coal is clean. It's, you know that that's not happening.

John Dehlin [02:10:23] Right. Other thoughts on, on this topic.

Guest 7 [02:10:29] Sure, Quinton, I'll go. Yeah, so I think fracking, fracking is kind of with us to stay as long as we're still using oil. At least that's my take. I live in West Texas. It, it happens all near where I live.

Guest 7 [02:10:45] It's become clear that it does need to be done with adult super provision. We have cases of fracking causing earthquakes, causing pollution of groundwater. So there needs to be regulation to make sure that those things aren't happening and causing problems. It's kind of a double edged sword. It has greatly increased America's reserves of both oil and gas. We've shifted our electrical power away from coal toward gas. And that's at least in the short term. That's a net win for reduction of greenhouse gases because you can produce more electricity for the same amount of emissions with gas than you can with coal. It's a cleaner technology.

Guest 7 [02:11:21] We still need to move away from it. I guess my take would be that we should not ban fracking. We should make sure that it's carefully regulated and that we should be finding ways to encourage development of other energy resources. In general, I favor the notion of a carbon tax because I, I still believe in markets and using markets to determine the best allocation of resources. A carbon tax Basically puts a price on carbon and allows the market to decide how best to spend what carbon things are worth it. And that puts cleaner fuels more competitive with carbon based fuels without necessarily having to subsidize them.

John Dehlin [02:12:07] Beautiful. Other, other comments on this on this

Roseanne [02:12:12] topic, Roseanne So there's, there's this movement that's kind of getting be worldwide where you vote as if you were voting as your great, great, great grandchild, which I really love that because why, why would we not want to leave this world intact for our great great grandchildren? You know, they leave so some natural resources for them to have plants and trees and clean air. So I love the idea that Joe is trying to move toward sustainable energy that is from wind and sun, but is just renewable rather than just more and more and more. Maybe fracking has to stay for a while, but I think we need to get away from all of those things as soon as we can and get to renewable, sustainable energy.

John Dehlin [02:13:03] The only thing that stressed me out about that comment, and by the way, if we all drive automobiles that rely on gasoline or we use oil or whatever products, airplanes, whatever, if we're all consumers of oil and gas, then we're hypocrites if we are just summarily dismissing the sources of it. So I've been probably more critical of fracking in the past than I should be.

John Dehlin [02:13:33] And we actually had one of our panelists last episode on the Trump episode. He's worked in the fracking industry and he said for his perspective, it's one of the more clean ways to extract fossil fuels from the earth. But anyway, what bothered me, what worried me was that that Biden could potentially lose Pennsylvania because of the way he talked about fracking. And, and for me, I, I know that Pennsylvania might be one of the key states, so I don't want him to lie. But I also didn't feel like he handled that question as well as I would have liked him to politically. Did any of you guys feel that way? Yeah, a little bit.

Guest 8 [02:14:16] Can I, can I say one Ryan?

John Dehlin [02:14:18] Yeah, Ryan.

Guest 8 [02:14:20] Since this is Mormon Stories podcast, I'll, I'll add a little my pers. And I heard someone in the morning panel talk about this as well, about how as a member of the church, so sorry, okay, sorry. I thought I heard something. As a member of the church, I didn't worry about environmental issues because Christ was going to come and he was going to save us all.

Guest 8 [02:14:46] And so as I've left the church and had to deal with, okay, Christ's second coming isn't imminent. In my opinion, I've now got to leave a planet to my, to my kids and my descendants. That's, that's better than I came into it, that I've really felt the need to speed up these environmental issues.

Guest 8 [02:15:11] And so I'm grateful for what Biden's willing to do, but I would love to see it be even more accelerated and getting as much clean energy as possible as fast as possible, while taking into account the economy and making sure we have jobs that can replace those that would be lost.

John Dehlin [02:15:34] Thank you. Okay, we have a lot of questions coming in about abortion, about female women's reproductive rights, about the right to choose. I actually didn't bring this up at all during the Trump conversation, although it's really relevant. But I think who is in favor in theory of abortion? But I think we should have a really quick and educated, thoughtful discussion on women's reproductive rights and the right to choose. And let's have, let's have the women jump in on this first, if that's okay. So does anybody, for those of the panelists who are asking, what are your views on abortion? And if you want to tie it to Biden, please do. Who wants to start on that one? Donna Kelly?

Abortion and Reproductive Rights Discussion

Guest 5 [02:16:24] I can start on that one because I, first of all, I think it's a mistake to say anybody is pro abortion. I don't think anybody on this planet has ever been pro abortion. No woman wakes up in the morning and says, oh, goody, I get to have an abortion today.

Guest 5 [02:16:42] It's a choice that a woman has to make that's very complicated. And it's never something that anybody wants to do. But I think to me, the key is there are two ways to try to reduce abortion rates, and I think everyone's in favor of that. Trying to reduce abortion rates is a good thing.

Guest 5 [02:17:08] There are some people that believe we should dictate what a woman should be allowed to do with her body. And I use dictate very purposely because that's leaning towards a dictatorship approach for all of those people that say the government is too big and interferes with our private lives too much, that this is one of the most extreme invasions. So there are people that want to dictate whether or not a woman should be allowed to have an abortion. On the other hand, you have people like Joe Biden who say that they would like to reduce abortion rates by providing education and contraceptive care that's available every, if you look at the CDC website, every time Democrats are in power, the abortion rates decline significantly with the Obama administration, it was a 26% declination with Clinton's, Bill Clinton's administration, it was a 30% decline in abortion rates.

Guest 5 [02:18:13] That is because Democrats believe in providing education and contraceptive care that's available to everybody. And so that is the way that we can reduce abortion rates in this country. When Republicans are in power, the abortion rates stay the same.

Guest 5 [02:18:31] And so the way that we need to approach this is we need to give education and contraceptive care to women and let them and their doctors make that choice.

John Dehlin [02:18:43] Beautiful. Who wants to, who else wants to speak? Kim?

Guest 2 [02:18:48] I'll just echo everything that Donna said and add that why are we only talking about regulating women's bodies? Why are we not talking about regulating men's bodies? Because I can orgasm and not have a baby. But men can orgasm. And so why are we focusing on women? Why are we not focusing on men? That's just my two cents.

John Dehlin [02:19:14] Very important. Very important. Other. Roseanne?

Roseanne [02:19:19] Yes, I, I agree with what both of them said. I don't, I don't know any woman that is pro abortion, but women need to have autonomy over their own bodies. This is maybe something that men don't get because it's not, there's nothing parallel in their lives. But when a woman is pregnant, it could change the trajectory of her whole, whole life. What she, you know, what she can do with her life, what she earned, how she is, what kind of mother she is to her other children.

Roseanne [02:19:47] So it's, I'm, I'm not, I don't think women per se are pro abortion. They are pro women having choices. And also, I find it ironic that the, that the right are very, very pro life. But, but it appears to me that so much of that pro life disappears after the woman has given birth. We don't want to pay for child care for working mothers. We don't want to pay for universal preschool. We don't want to pay for, like, WIC and other services for women with small children.

Roseanne [02:20:26] We don't want to help these kids with school lunches or, or help them pay for college. So I don't get how you can be pro life and not want to help that life all along the way. Doesn't make any sense to me.

John Dehlin [02:20:43] Excellent. Any of the gentlemen on the call? Oh, Donna. Donna, Kelly. Oh, Donna, you're muted. Just one second. Let me unmute you. I gotcha. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Do it one more time. Okay, perfect.

Guest 5 [02:21:01] We could pass a law that says every male, once they turn of age, to be able to reproduce, should have a vasectomy every male and then that would eliminate abortions. And they could only get their vasectomy reversed if they pass a test and they prove that they're going to be a good responsible father. We could do that. But you know what? That interface with men's use and rights to their own body. That's exactly what the people who are claim to be pro life are saying. We get to regulate women's bodies. Why don't we regulate men's bodies so they can't cause pregnancy and therefore there will be no abortions.

Roseanne [02:21:45] Can I say one more thing? Just I know that there has been talk among the Republicans about late term abortion and how Democrats are for that, which is kind of puzzling to me because late term abortion is not legal anywhere unless there's a really compelling reason. And Pete Buttigieg, I think he was talking on Fox said something really compelling. He said, he said late term abortions happen to people who have. Because they have no other option because of, you know, something severe going on. They've already, they've already made a nursery, they've already picked baby names. So I think that there, there's misinformation, disinformation there about late term abortion. You know, where they're saying, you know, we're gonna, the Democrats are gonna kill your baby until the day before it's born. That's crazy. That's not abortion. So I hate the disinformation there also.

John Dehlin [02:22:41] Jeff?

Guest 6 [02:22:42] Yeah, that's. I want to echo Roseanne's point because I think that's the biggest problem in this discussion. You know, I, I work with a lot of women who, and I am the unfortunate bearer of news of unwanted pregnancies quite frequently. And I am a little uncomfortable, I'll admit to how many and I won't say to if it ever happens. It's, it feels a little uncomfortable. So I sympathize with the, when women say, well, can you tell me who can take care of this? You know, and the idea of getting them to someone who can abort pregnancy. I get the, I get the objection or the kind of the feeling that goes with an abortion of convenience.

Guest 6 [02:23:21] Now I'm not ready to tell them they can't. I think that's not appropriate for, for a government to act in the same. For the same reason that I have some libertarian tendencies towards gun control. And I just think it's not, it's not a problem proper decision. But this late term abortion discussion I think is reprehensible. I've been through a lot of Trauma. I have a lot of traumatic memories in my career as 18 years in the ER.

Guest 6 [02:23:44] There are, there are cases that stick with you. There is still one that haunts me every day of a woman who delivered a stillborn baby. It's the most traumatic experience as a physician that I can remember in my 18 years of emergency medicine. I cannot imagine, imagine what she went through to. For the government to step in and say you will deliver this baby because we, because some group of white guys somewhere said you had to is just unbelievably. It's unconscionable. And I. And for the Republicans to jump on this emotional situation, these women just like, just like Roseanne said and Pete Buttigieg said as well, these aren't abortions of convenience.

Guest 6 [02:24:25] Never. No. No woman says I'm going to get pregnant and I think I'll carry it for eight months and then have an abortion because I don't really feel like having the baby anymore. That just doesn't ever happen. There's always issues involved and, and the issues are so complicated that we don't need an outside force coming in and telling the doctor and the patient what to do with that.

Guest 6 [02:24:42] It just complicates it. And for Republicans to jump on this emotionally charged situation because of course no one wants to kill a baby. And that's, that's their, that's their example that they're going to use for political purposes to trample all over these women who are going through an awful experience for political points I think is reprehensible. If you want to talk about abortions of convenience, that's a different discussion. But late term abortions stay the hell away.

John Dehlin [02:25:08] So there are commenters who are saying no one's talking about the right of the child. No one's talking about this innocent life that's being taken. What are your guys response to that sort of question? About what about the baby?

Guest 5 [02:25:21] Well, this is a Mormon community that we're talking to here. The Mormon Church doctrine is it is not murder and that abortions are acceptable to have in certain situations. They say the Mormon doctrine is abortions are acceptable to have if the mother's life is in or health is in danger, if there's rape or if there's incest. So it is not murder according to the Mormon Church. It's just that people who are pro choice want to be able to allow women to say when they feel it's acceptable or necessary to have an abortion as well. Not just the Mormon Church define or other white male leaders in this country decide when it's acceptable.

Guest 5 [02:26:14] We want the woman to be able to decide with her doctor. I had a friend who had a, she was five months pregnant and it was determined that the fetus's brain was growing outside of her body, outside of its, the fetus was, the brain was growing separately. There was a zero percent chance that she would have a healthy live baby if she carried the baby to term. And those are the kind of situations where we're having those late term abortions. And she was devastated by the whole thing. She had waited for years to be able to have a baby. Those are the kinds of things that we need to let the woman and her doctor decide and not other people who I just want to exercise power and dictate what she should do.

Guest [02:27:09] Can I chime in here a minute?

John Dehlin [02:27:11] Donna Cox?

Guest [02:27:13] I mentioned before that I've adopted four special needs children and I love my children and I'm thankful for them and I wouldn't not want them to be here. But let me just tell you that a lot of these kids who are being born are coming with a whole multitude of special needs that our government, our systems are not prepared to handle. With the increase of opioid addictions,

Guest 7 [02:27:48] all

Guest [02:27:48] the mental health problems that are not being addressed, I can just tell you that my kids for one have cost the taxpayers multi, multi millions of dollars with all of their special needs. And if you want to talk about bankrupting our system if you keep forcing people to have children who are not prepared to take care of their health while they're pregnant, who are drug addicted, who are homeless, there are not enough people like my husband and I stepping up and taking these kids. And you know, I don't know where they expect all these kids to go, but it is a broken, broken system and having more babies is, is not the answer.

John Dehlin [02:28:37] And what do we do? And I'll just ask this again, forgive me for somebody says but what about the life of the child? What about the rights of the child?

Guest [02:28:45] So I say, yeah, what about the life of the child? I've got a child who, whose parents were so their birth parents. I have set of twins that we adopted in Hawaii. Their parents had 10 children between the two of them. Every single one of those kids were impaired because the parents were drug addicted and mentally ill. And so my child is blind, he has cerebral palsy, has autism, he has a seizure disorder, he only has a third of his intestines. And so I say, yeah, what about the right of the child? He was brought into this world under horrible circumstances. So if his mom had had access to mental health care and birth control, then, you know, he would not be in a situation where he's got a lifetime of health problems.

Guest 2 [02:29:40] Yeah. And just to add to what Donna is saying right now, you know what, my son James, my youngest, he has level 3 autism spectrum disorder. And our conservative Senator Ted Cruz has enacted things during his, his run as senator that has taken money from children's Medicaid and this has affected children who need the therapies at their home. So you have that. And I'm just, I'm sorry, I don't believe that. And Governor Abbott, I just had to talk to the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Commission because Governor Abbott removed disabled people from a list of that social workers discriminate against. So I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time believing that the right really cares about the child once it is born from the actions that they have given. And children are the poorest age group in America. One in six children live in poverty. So. Yeah, what about the child?

John Dehlin [02:30:58] Okay. We're certainly not going to resolve the abortion debate here, but we definitely got some, some thoughtful perspectives. And so thank, thank you for all that and thanks to all the listeners. Was somebody else wanting to jump in?

Guest 4 [02:31:12] Me, yeah. So I just wanted to mention, Donna, I think mentioned two or three of the cases in which the LDS Church allows the consideration of abortion. There's actually three. And she mentioned two of them, which is one is rape or incest, which is they put them on the same bullet point.

Guest 4 [02:31:38] The second one is when a competent physician determines that the life of her health of the mother is in serious jeopardy. And the third, if a physician determines that the fetus has severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth. So there's actually three, which, and one of them is the fetus has severe defects, which is one. I think the last, that one last point, like, I haven't heard a lot of people talk about that one. But yeah, I wanted to mention that. And I also wanted to mention, just, I don't know, Trump supporters care a lot about children and the lives of the ch of children, but more than 5,000 children were raped from their parents by Trump border policies.

Guest 4 [02:32:27] And at least seven children have died in U.S. custody. And at least 362 are now accounted for. And 500, 545 of them have been affected plea orphan because they can't find their parents. So, and these children are in cages. Like I, so I don't understand. I think there's kind of Like a little bit of hypocrisy there on.

Guest [02:32:50] That's pro birth, not pro life.

John Dehlin [02:32:55] Exactly. Thanks, Gerardo. That's a great perspective. Any. Anything before we wrap up this particular issue and go on to one, one or two more.

Guest 7 [02:33:04] Sure. I'll just add a couple of things. Number one, I'll say that I agree that abortion is a morally complicated question and that's why the law treats early term and late term abortions differently. I struggled with this. I struggled with it the first time I voted for a Democrat. But the one thing that I would point out, and some people in the audience may be familiar with these, the retired American Heritage professor at byu, Frank Fox, has got these videos going around which he's explaining why he's voting for Biden. And one of the points that he makes is that this election is going to have less bearing on the abortion issue than any election in a long time.

Guest 7 [02:33:43] With one third of the court appointed in the last term, it's unlikely that the court is really going to change substantially in the next presidential term. So I guess if there were ever occasion for pro life voters to consider what their views are on other issues, this election is it.

John Dehlin [02:34:03] Thanks, Quentin. Okay. We wouldn't, I wouldn't be sort of, I wouldn't have journalistic integrity if I didn't bring this up. Of course, Donald Trump has a long known history of, you know, allegations of, of sexual predation, of, of assaulting or mistreating women or, or speaking in really vile terms about women. I, I think that's not really in question. But Joseph Biden also has allegations regarding sometimes, you know, people say creepy behavior, sometimes people say inappropriate behavior. There may even, I, I think there's at least one claim of some sort of sexual abuse or assault. Who wants to speak about why? You know, a lot of people say they're both, they're both, they're both inappropriate with women. You know, who wants to speak to that charge? Donna Cox wants to start on that one.

Guest [02:35:01] So I think a really good indication of the soul of a man is who he's married to. And if you look at Jill Biden and you look at her credentials and you look at who she is as a human being, if you think for a minute that a woman of her character would be married to somebody who was a sleaze bag, you know, I'm sorry, I just don't buy it.

John Dehlin [02:35:28] Well, I, you know, and I don't know Melania at all, but I. Is that her name? Trump's wife?

Guest [02:35:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:35:33] I mean, I don't I don't know her well enough to say she's not a good person too. So I, I want, I mean, I

Guest [02:35:40] want to be careful about that. What's that, a previous porn star?

John Dehlin [02:35:47] Well, you know, so I wanted, I want to try and keep this as, you know, respectable as possible, just in terms of like being respectful. But also, Donna Kelly, a lot of, a lot of women stay with abusive husbands. So that logic that a woman isn't going to stay with a sleaze bag, that's not super true. Right. And Donna, let's unmute you because we want to hear what you have to say.

Kamala Harris and Social Justice Issues

Guest 5 [02:36:15] The issue of domestic violence is very, very complicated and would take several hours to kind of analyze and discuss. But let me just say this about Joe Biden. I think that he did some inappropriate, invading of space kind of things with people. Not just, not just women, but you know, boys and men as well. You know, he rubbed their shoulders when they didn't ask him to. He went over to a woman and smelled her hair.

Guest 5 [02:36:47] We're talking about things that happened like 20 years ago, but they were kind of creepy and invading their space kind of thing. But Joe has learned and he has progressed. And that's one thing that I will say about Joe is that he recognizes his own. He's very self aware of his own imperfections and he has changed that. He doesn't do that stuff anymore. You shouldn't have been rubbing the shoulders of somebody that didn't ask for that. I mean, but to say that that's the same as, as 22 women credibly accusing you of sexual assault is really, really outrageous.

Guest 5 [02:37:28] Rubbing someone's shoulders is not the same as sexual assault. I have read all of the accounts that I'm aware of of the women who say that they were sexually assaulted by Donald Trump. And I gotta tell you that I believe they are credible statements.

Guest 5 [02:37:48] I personally know of someone who was in a beauty pageant when she was younger. That was a Donald Trump beauty pageant. And she was told one of Trump's assistants came to her and told her that Donald Trump would like to speak with you in his motel room at 9:30 tonight. And he told her what to wear and he told her to come without panties on. And she was supposed to come to his motel room, hotel room. She did not go.

Guest 5 [02:38:21] She did not comply with that. And the next morning she was eliminated from the competition. So I believe there are a lot more stories out there like this because of the two dozen that I have read, some of them are very egregious One of them, a woman, was thrown against a conference room after everyone had left. And he held his forearm across her throat, put his hand up her dress and inside her vagina.

Guest 5 [02:38:50] So those are the kind of things that Donald Trump has been credibly accused of doing. That is a universe away from what Joe Biden did in the past in invading people's personal space and that sort of thing, which he has now said, that was not good. I shouldn't have been doing that and does not do anymore. So I think that we denigrate the accounts of sexual assault victims when we say that rubbing someone's shoulders is the same as sexual assault. It's not.

Guest 5 [02:39:25] And again, I just think you have to look at what happened and say that was inappropriate. He shouldn't have done that. And he's changed his behavior and doesn't do that anymore.

Guest 2 [02:39:40] I'm sorry.

John Dehlin [02:39:41] No, no, no. Just one sec. Thank you, Donna. That was great. There's a comment by Larry, when was Joe Biden ever pictured with Jeffrey Epstein? You know, that's also, you know, Jeffrey Epstein is super disturbing. And yeah, Trump was associated with him. I don't know of Biden ever being really quick, Donna, before I jump to you, Kim, but wasn't there one woman who made allegations of assault against Joe Biden?

Guest 5 [02:40:06] Yeah, Tara Reid. I have read as much as I can read about that. And I am a big, I wrote the Start by believing proclamation for the state of Utah. I am a big B believer in believing women when they come forward. And we need to start by believing. We need to say, you know what, 92 to 98% of the time women are telling the truth about this. But there are those rare account, rare statements of women where they are false. I think they're somewhere between 2 and 5%. That's what the research shows. I have read as much as I can about hers. And first of all, I don't know 100% that something didn't happen.

Guest 5 [02:40:55] But I can tell you that all of the red flags for a false report are there. She changed her story on significant key details numerous times. She's told numerous versions of what happened. She said that she had to leave the Biden, that working for Biden because he had done this, but to other people. And in a social media post which she later deleted, she said she left the Biden working for Biden because he didn't respect Vladimir Putin. And all American women are sexually aroused by Vladimir Putin. I mean, she has said things that just make her count, not believable at All. And so I don't really know 100% whether that happened or not.

Guest 5 [02:41:42] But I can tell you this. The state of our country right now, I mean, we're approaching 250,000 dead Americans because of COVID Racial tensions are at an all time high. There's great unrest in our country. We have other things that we need to worry about more than whether Joe Biden and did something like this 30 years ago by a statement that's not very credible.

John Dehlin [02:42:09] Thank you. Thank you, Donna. Kelly. Kim, what did you want to add?

Guest 2 [02:42:15] I just wanted to add that I am really grateful that people are pointing out Biden's actions as being creepy, because moving forward, we can stop men touching women in that way without our consent. So if the conservative men especially are going to point that out, then I hope we, moving forward that they will act in a way that is different from Joe Biden.

John Dehlin [02:42:39] Beautiful. Others want to comment on this particular topic before we move on to another

Roseanne [02:42:45] one, I just have one rhetorical question. What kind of man says he would love to have sex with his daughter if she wasn't his daughter?

John Dehlin [02:42:55] Okay. All right, here's the. Here's the last comment or question I'll ask for the panel before we actually ask for kind of some closing statements. One of the reasons my, my mom does not want Biden to be president is because she's terrified that Kamala could become president. And so there's a lot of people who think Kamala represents extreme, you know, socialism, the Green New Deal, that she'll. All sorts of terrible things about Kamala, that she's an extremist.

Guest 3 [02:43:31] What.

John Dehlin [02:43:31] Anybody want to share their perspectives about Kamala? Do they agree or do they disagree?

Guest 8 [02:43:39] Oh, I can start. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:43:42] I mean, I.

Guest 8 [02:43:44] If you're afraid that she's more left than Biden, then yeah, I guess I agree. But I'm also more left than Biden, so I, I support her. I liked her when they were during the primaries. I think she has some fabulous ideas. And so. But I get the concern from conservatives because I think she is more, more left. But for me, I like that.

John Dehlin [02:44:16] So, okay, that's, that's Ryan's perspective. Others for other perspectives on Kamala.

Guest 2 [02:44:23] I watched Kamala in a 60 minutes. I think it was 60 minutes. I don't remember, but it was an interview and she was talking about. The interviewer was asking her about the, the questions that you're bringing up, that she's all more progressive and everything. Why is she like that? And she was like, because as a woman and as somebody of color. I'm pulling upon my own personal experience experiences. And I think it's really important that we, when it comes to things like socialism or socialist ideologies, that's usually coming from people who have experienced going through this. And if we can combine people with this lived experience with others and come to an agreement, then that's going to help our country. And I think that's what she is doing as being Biden's vice president. So.

Guest 3 [02:45:18] Beautiful.

John Dehlin [02:45:20] Thank you, Kim. Other perspectives on Kamala Roseanne living in

Roseanne [02:45:26] the Bay Area, I've watched her for years since she was in San Francisco and I thought, wow, that is a smart woman. And, and she's a go getter and she's got enthusiasm. And I've also watched people say, oh, well, she got there by sleeping with people, specifically Willie Brown. She had a relationship with him. But, but it was way before she ran for public office. So I hate that women are held to a different standard. And then, and then you can kind of just make it so maybe it's sort of true, but not. But, but she is just a go getter. She's smart. She's in her, enthusiastic. I think she has the best interest of people in mind. I think we'd be really lucky if she ended up our president someday. I do.

John Dehlin [02:46:09] Thank you, Roseanne. Other comments on Kamala

Guest 7 [02:46:15] I'll just offer a quick one about, you know, all this talk about socialism and such. I think Kamala is probably somewhat to the left of Joe Biden and her politics. I really wouldn't label her a socialist. I every time I hear the label socialist applied to Democrats in the United States, I get the impression that Democrats and Republicans are working from completely different definitions of the word. And I find it no longer productive to even really talk about socialism. If somebody's concerned about socialism, let's talk about specific policies. So I challenge people to say what socialist policy that you think she supports do you have a problem with? Because these labels are ultimately just kind of another form of name calling.

John Dehlin [02:47:01] Yeah, I have a. Yeah. And we're, we're having comments from people that are being super rude and mean and nasty, calling lots of names. I do think some of the opposition to common law is racism, is veiled racism. And I just want to state myself, I think this country desperately needs a female president or several women presidents. We have had only top male leadership for way too long and what, what positive things could come for this country to have to have women leading us at the higher, highest levels. So that's my own editorial opinion, but I feel really strongly about that.

Guest 5 [02:47:43] It's too late for me because I already turned in my ballot. But I would write you in, John.

John Dehlin [02:47:49] I would write you in Donna Kelly. And several people have said they want the Donnas as vice president and President of the United States.

Guest [02:47:56] Hey, that sounds like a good idea.

John Dehlin [02:48:01] Donna's for president. We just have one name. Donna's. Donna's 2020. I like it. Other, other perspectives about Kamala before we close. Okay, well, we, we want to give you guys equal time. We've got about, you know, 15 minutes left before we match the time we gave the Trumpies. So the way I want to close out really quickly, I asked them, what are the things you fear most about Biden and Harris? And so I'm going to ask you guys all the same thing before we have a closing round of predictions and final words. So what do you guys fear most about a Trump Pence second term? And we'll start with Roseanne. What do you fear most about a Trump Pence second term?

Greatest Fears About a Second Trump Term

Roseanne [02:48:50] Well, I think, I fear that maybe they will be able to get rid of some of the protections we have. The Affordable Care act, the marriage for LGBTQ people, Roe v. Wade. Those things really scare me. But also the fact that there's such a big division in the country and it's just getting bigger and bigger, and I think that it will just keep growing if, if Trump is there again. He even says for himself, you know, I'm the president of people that like me. Everybody else, I don't care about you like California with all of our wildfires. He, for a long time, he was like, I'm not, I'm not going to give you any money to help with these wildfires because you don't like me. I mean, he just, he's divisive. And I think it will get worse.

John Dehlin [02:49:41] Okay, thank you, Roseanne. Let's get Jeff back in here. We got Jeff in the house. We lost Jeff for a little bit because Jeff's doing double duty here. Jeff, the question is, what do you fear most about a Trump Pence second term? Sorry if I'm putting you on the spot. Let me unmute you as well before you start. Oh, you have to unmute yourself. Unmute yourself before you start. Okay, go ahead.

Guest 6 [02:50:08] That is a little putting me on the spot. I, I'm just, I fear the division. I think that's just ripping us apart. I fear, I fear the lack of a conservative voice that is credible, that's intelligent. I think the discourse in our country over the last four years has degraded considerably. There's I, we can't talk to each other, we can't like. And I do feel like it's one sided. I'm sorry, I've been on both sides and I feel like there's one unique side here that's, that's really responsible for a lot of the us versus them rhetoric. So I feel continued division in the country. I want to solve problems and we're just not in a place where we're solving problems.

Guest 6 [02:50:48] There were people that I liked better in the Democratic ticket in, in terms of their solutions, but at the same time I feel like the division, we can't get anywhere until we start, until we start talking back and forth between us and respecting the other side. So the biggest fear of a Trump presidency is really the continued degradation of the Republican Party and the conservative voice. There's just not a credible conservative position at this point.

John Dehlin [02:51:14] Beautiful. Thank you, Jeff. Appreciate that.

Guest [02:51:17] Donna Cox I fear we're going to lose our democracy. I think that, you know, Trump thinks he's a king. He doesn't have nothing about what he's doing is conservative as far as conserving our economy, conserving our planet, conserving our civility towards one another. When I see people show up at polling sites, armed non military people that think that they've been personally chosen by Trump to represent me, I fear that we're going to have an all out civil war if we don't get reasoning back in, in office.

John Dehlin [02:52:08] I love it. Thank you, Donna. Gerardo, unmute yourself and share with us your biggest fears with the Trump Pence second term. Yeah.

Guest 4 [02:52:20] So I would. John, I was at BYU Idaho when Trump got elected in 2016 and I just couldn't believe the comments that stood students, white students, which is the majority of BYU Idaho were making about immigrants, about Mexicans, about Latin Americans. Once Trump won, like just such racist comments that I just started listening at work, just during class, even roommates. It was just crazy and I couldn't believe it. He would. Because he, because I hadn't seen it. I hadn't seen it before, even while Trump was just running for president. It was until after he was elected when I just felt this gave a license to a lot of these white Mormon students to start talking about these subjects in very racist ways in my point of view.

Guest [02:53:29] And

Guest 4 [02:53:32] I've seen that played out

Guest 2 [02:53:36] in

Guest 4 [02:53:36] many aspects as well. Not just at BYU Idaho, even just after BYU Idaho.

Guest 3 [02:53:41] And

Guest 4 [02:53:44] another thing that really worries me is the LGBTQ issues and how not Necessarily Trump. And this is, this is something that I think a lot of Trump supporters play to. They say Trump is super pro lgbt because I don't necessarily think it's Trump, but it's his party and his administration who have really, really fought against LGBTQ issues during this past three, three and a half years.

Guest 4 [02:54:22] They passed policies, fought for with the Supreme Court for to in their mind, improve the religious freedoms, but also taking back LGBTQ rights. And this November 4th, next the, the hearing that the Supreme Court is going to have has really had, has me worried.

Guest 4 [02:54:53] And just like others had said, even same sex marriage is still part of the, one of the things that the Republican Party is against in their anyway and immigration too. Like as an immigrant, it has been a nightmare for us, for my husband and I to try to get it done correct. We've done the whole process right. And correct.

Guest 4 [02:55:26] It's just, especially when the pandemic hit and Trump started hitting on immigration and putting a lot of policies. It was just a lot of nights I just couldn't sleep because we didn't know what Trump was doing to tweet or what he was going to come up with like the next day for to slow down the pro our immigration process. So, yeah, those are the things that I fear the most.

John Dehlin [02:55:57] Thank you, Gerardo. I'm so, so grateful for your perspective here and so glad you, you've been with us. Kim, are you next? Go ahead and unmute yourself. Okay, thank you.

Guest 2 [02:56:12] Okay, so one thing that scares me about Trump as a mother of a special needs child is when he mocked a physically disabled journalist as a mother of a disabled child. I know what his mother went through whenever she saw her son be mocked by a president at a rally, in front of everybody while he stands at a podium. You know, when you're a special needs mom, like, you rock your son at night and then you just, you, you know that at some point in your child's life, he's going to meet somebody who does that to him. And it just, it hurt in a way that I can't describe to watch the leader of our country treat somebody like that.

Guest 2 [02:57:01] And I fear that since he is the leader, that people are going to think it's okay to treat people who are different physically like that. And then you have the people who are different mentally. People who disagree with Trump are now called radicals.

Guest 2 [02:57:22] And we want to take. And he just slurs all of these lies about us. And I mean, people follow him. Why would anybody listen to me when the person who they idolize is Saying all these negative things about people like we can't have that, that's not healthy for our country. That is not going to bring peace in any sense of the word if we cannot work together.

Guest 2 [02:57:51] And so I really fear for, for my friends who are both conservative and Democrats, because it feels like we're not going to be friends anymore. We're not going to be able to be friends anymore because of how polarizing everything has been. And I don't think that is the direction that our country can go down and survive.

John Dehlin [02:58:14] Thank you, Kim. I was so a lot of conservatives and Republicans respond saying Obama was super divisive. And I, I just want to say he may have been divisive because it's controversial in the United States for a person of color to be president. But to compare the divisiveness of the president, I don't think they're in the same universe. So I object to that. But, Kim, thank you for that heartfelt plea for respectful speech and treatment of, of special needs humans in our society and from the perspective of a mother's special needs. That was beautiful. Donna Kelly, have you, have you expressed yet? Okay, let's unmute you and hear your biggest fears.

Guest 5 [02:59:01] My biggest fear about a second Trump administration is that he will become even more unhinged than he has already been. I mean, when he said that neo Nazis were very fine people, I think that unleashed a lot of hate and dangerous, dangerous things in our country.

Guest 5 [02:59:28] And I think it will be even more so in his second administration because he doesn't have to pretend to be presidential. He doesn't have to pretend to be, you know, anything anymore. He's not going to get reelected anyway. So he will be even more unhinged than he is now and things will we, you know, like someone, that woman that screamed at the Republican convention, you know, the best is yet to come.

Guest 5 [02:59:56] I am afraid of that. I'm afraid that he will be even more extreme. And for the first time in my life, I am afraid for my country. I have for the first time in my life. In the last few weeks, I've started to look at how to move to a foreign country when you retire, because I don't want to be a part of a country that keeps kids in cages on the border and supports neo Nazis and perpetrates hate and division. And so please go out there and vote for Joe Biden. Thank you, John.

John Dehlin [03:00:45] So beautiful. Donna, we're not quite done, but that was beautiful. We are getting some comments in. You know, some people say that comment he made about find people on both sides was taken out of context. And, and that he actually, in that, in that speech basically excluded. Excluded the extremists. I, I'm not educated enough to know for sure, but I just want to put that as an asterisk because I tried to do fact checking. And I'm not saying you said something wrong, Donna. Do you know what I'm saying?

Guest 5 [03:01:20] Well, he also recently told the proud boys to stand back and stand by.

John Dehlin [03:01:24] Yeah, that was a.

Guest 5 [03:01:25] When he was asked to denounce white supremacy. So I don't believe for a second that he would, would do anything to bring people together on racial issues.

John Dehlin [03:01:39] Yeah, for sure.

Guest 5 [03:01:40] You don't tell white supremacists to stand back and stand by. That's just wrong.

John Dehlin [03:01:46] Yeah, that was problematic. For sure. I mentioned that in the last episode also, just as a kind of to try and do fact checking. I've had a lot of people write in that these cages were actually used in the Obama administration. That is something that, that bled over. Is there truth to that, Donna?

Guest [03:02:04] He did put the cages in, but he was not doing it to separate families, and he wasn't leaving people in for an indeterminate amount of time. It was a temporary holding space that had, I think there was a timeline for how long they would be kept there. So it's been totally bastardized, for lack of a better word, of what the intent was. It was temporary holding quarters until they could process people because they had so many coming from Central America coming up, and they didn't have any place to put them safely, so. But they were not separating parents from their children when they did that.

John Dehlin [03:02:49] Okay, Gerardo, I want to make sure and get you in on this.

Guest 4 [03:02:52] Yeah, yeah. From what I understand of everything I've read, yeah, the cages existed, but the Trump administration is, is, is the author of the Family Separation Program. And, and from what I understand, the, the, the purpose behind it was to scare immigrants from trying to cross the border illegally if they could take away their children. And then the, the voice, like, like people would hear about this. Like, then immigrants wouldn't. Wouldn't come here, but it still didn't stop a lot of immigrants on coming here during the caravans. And that's where a lot of these children come from. And a lot of them, over 500 of them don't. They can't find their parents. But yeah, it's totally a Trump administration's brainchild.

John Dehlin [03:03:46] Okay, Ryan, I think are, is there anyone who I haven't had speak besides Ryan? Oh, Quentin. Yes, of Course. Quentin. Okay, let's do Ryan then. Quentin. Yeah, Ryan.

Guest 8 [03:04:03] So, yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty similar theme here with all of us. The, the thing that scares me the most is just the continued lack of, of human decency from the top. I hear a lot of arguments when I bring that issue up or someone else brings that issue up. Oh, well, the left is doing it too. And, and I, I agree there's lack of decency on both sides, but I don't think we've ever seen that from the top from the President of the United States.

Guest 8 [03:04:42] And what I see from Biden is rhetoric, language that is inclusive, that is accepting. And, and that's what scares me the most, is from having another four years of a president who, who lacks that decency and that trickling down into our everyday lives. I've seen more people be willing to express hateful views over these past four years than ever before because they're hearing that from the top.

Guest 8 [03:05:20] And that's what worries me the most. You know, I'm, I'm a bleeding heart liberal. All, you know, I, the issues, I support all the liberal issues. When it comes to the character, I think that's what is the most scary about so many people and why so many, even Republicans and conservatives friends that I have are jumping and voting for Biden because of this lack of, of being presidential, of human decency. See, and, and that's, that's what scares me the most. If, if Trump and Pence were to win again.

John Dehlin [03:06:01] Excellent. Thank you, Ryan. All right, Quentin, bring us, bring us in. Quentin, on this question.

Guest 7 [03:06:07] Yeah, sure. I would echo, of course, all the other stuff, kind of how it influences our culture. I'm very concerned about that. But in terms of just my, my desire for, for good government, accountable government, I'm really concerned about what a second Trump administration would do for that. I feel like if you look at who he put in his Cabinet, he started his administration with a lot of fairly mainstream establishment Republicans in his cabinet, and slowly, over time, he's basically fired them all. Anyone who ever dared contradict or question him, question the things he was doing, he's sort of taken off all the guardrails, all the checks against his words.

Guest 7 [03:06:48] Impulses have essentially been removed in the last year or two, and a second term would basically expand that further. There's speculation that he, if he were reelected, is gonna, he doesn't like the people running the FBI and other entities, and he's basically going to be cleaning house and putting personal loyalists, and this is basically going to entrench the corruption that we've already seen. And, you know, a lot of people who, who research these kind of things will say that, you know, once corruption becomes normalized in government becomes very difficult to get rid of. So if we just want to live in with good, effective government, you know, regardless of your party, that's one of my greatest fears of a second Trump term.

John Dehlin [03:07:30] Excellent. Thank you, Quinton. This is an amazing panel. I'm really grateful for this panel. I'm going to go ahead and weigh in just because I'm the moderator and I have the rights to, to do so. I didn't weigh in last time and express my concerns about Biden, so I'll do that just to be balanced. My, my only concerns about Biden, I, I don't think he's a little bit too gaff prone for my taste. And I really want a woman. I think it's, I think it was time five, you know, 100 years ago to have a woman president 150 years ago, but it's certainly time now.

John Dehlin [03:08:05] And I really, really wanted a woman president last time. And I'm really frustrated we don't have a woman president this time. That's my biggest concern with Joe Biden and that's not his fault, but I'm just being honest. That's my biggest concern.

John Dehlin [03:08:20] My biggest concern with Trump is, and I'm surprised this hasn't come up at all, but my biggest concern is how he has disrespected and tried to dilute confidence in, in our core electoral process as a country. I really hate that he's trying to block people from voting and only the people that would not vote for him. He's trying to find ways to exclude them from being able to vote. The way he's filing all these last minute appeals to courts to try and keep people that he doesn't want voting from, from voting. That really bothers me.

John Dehlin [03:09:03] But, but it also bothers me that, that, you know, he messed with the post office leadership explicitly because he wanted to disrupt the mail system because he knew that mail favored Democrats on average. And criticizing mail in ballots and, and saying that, you know, that a couple, you know, hundreds or dozens or a couple, you know, ballots were found somewhere in some trash can. And that means that, that, that we can't trust the voting system.

John Dehlin [03:09:34] And then, you know, the fact that he's basically declared already that if he loses that it will be a scam that's so that it will be, have been rigged, that's so awful. I've never heard of a president saying that, that if I win, it'll be great if I lose. It was rigged. What world are we living in where a human can speak that way, A leader of the, you know, of a country like the United States. And then the fact that he's even, even expressed uncertainty as to whether he's willing to step down and that he's been coy and unwilling to sort of express his willingness to step down if he loses.

John Dehlin [03:10:12] And we just all know that if Biden happens to prevail, that there's going to be a huge, long, drawn out battle where every possible means is used to try and undermine credibility of his successor if it's to be Biden. All of that is just super, super disturbing to me because if you're going to undermine confidence in the electoral system, then what do we have? And he's already been too close to Putin.

John Dehlin [03:10:42] And we know that Putin, Putin undermined the electoral process of his own country, changed the constitution, and then extended his own terms beyond what was legal by Russian standards. And Trump has already tweeted jokes about, you know, three terms and four terms and five terms, you know, violating even what, what, you know, the, the precedent that George Washington himself said for us, which is that he stepped down voluntarily after two terms and of course, FDR made it so the, so the Constitution had to be amended to do a two term limit, but certainly trying to just not even willing to respect the precedent of people like George Washington.

John Dehlin [03:11:21] You know, that's, you know, along with a lot of the things you guys expressed, that's my biggest concern about Trump and I'm really upset with him for doing that. And so I'm sorry, forgive me, listeners, for needing to share my own viewpoint point, but I, I am just deeply concerned about that. Okay, so the last, the way that I wanted to kind of bring it home is to have everybody share their prediction for the election and any final closing words. And I'll try and go in a somewhat of a reverse order. So, Quentin, we kind of had you go close to last. Quentin, what, what is your prediction on the election? And any final word words from Quentin? You've been such a great panelist.

Election Predictions and Closing Thoughts

Guest 7 [03:12:06] I don't know, I'm loath to predict things because I made predictions four years ago and they were wrong. I, I am one of these people who obsessively reads like 538 and these kind of polling sites, the polls are showing, you know, a very clear lead for Biden and a probable victory. But, you know, there are pollsters talking about the phenomenon of the shy Trump voter, someone who will not be willing to admit to a pollster that they're a Trump supporter. Apparently a phenomenon which is not mirrored in the other direction. So that makes me nervous. So I'm inclined to predict very conservative in Lee and say Biden wins narrowly. But I would be delighted to be wrong and see a big victory and most importantly, a Biden victory in Texas, which is now becoming competitive. But I'm not banking on it.

John Dehlin [03:12:55] All right, any final words, Quentin?

Guest 7 [03:12:58] Nope. It was fun talking about all this. Thanks for having me.

John Dehlin [03:13:03] All right, thank you, Quentin. You've been great. Ryan, let's have you go next. Ryan, what's your prediction and any final words?

Guest 8 [03:13:12] Well, my prediction is that Biden wins in a landslide. That comes from the site that Quentin predicted or mentioned. 538. They're, you know, I'm a stats guy, I'm a numbers guy. I look at that, those updated numbers 10 times a day. It's showing that Biden has a 90 chance of winning.

Guest 8 [03:13:36] I, I get the, you know, it, it could be wrong. They were wrong last time. They've actually talked about how they were wrong, wrong on certain things and have tried to account for that. So anyway, that's my prediction that Biden will win in a landslide. It may take a while because of the mail in votes.

Guest 8 [03:13:58] I hope that it's a landslide so that it's not close and we have court battles going on for months or longer, so. And then final thoughts. I just, I want to express gratitude to you, John, for putting this all together.

Guest 8 [03:14:18] I, I personally learned a ton from the panel this morning that support Trump. I think it was a very good point that I think you and others made that, you know, 40 to 45% of the, the people who are voting are supporting Trump. And, you know, I live in a very conservative city in a very conservative state, a part of a very conservative family. Most of the people that I interact with on a daily basis are very conservative Trump supporters. And they're good, awesome, loving people. And, you know, I, I have been, especially since I left the church, have been fighting for people to not look at me, not look down upon me because I'm not a Mormon anymore or because, you know, I'm a Democrat.

Guest 8 [03:15:13] And so I've tried to, you know, have that same respect for others. And I think as we do that, we will regain the civility that I think is part of, is part of our country. And as we do that, I think we'll all live in a country that we'll be proud of.

John Dehlin [03:15:36] I love it. A call for civility and respect. Thank you. Ryan Gerardo, what's your prediction and any closing thoughts? Make sure to unmute yourself.

Guest [03:15:49] Yeah,

Guest 4 [03:15:52] I don't know, John. I, I really didn't think Trump was going to win in 2016 and then he did. I think Joe Biden is going to win the popular vote and as far as who wins the presidency, I, I really don't know. I hope it's Biden, but I, I really don't, I really don't know. Some days I think it's going to be Trump. Some days I think it's going to be Biden.

John Dehlin [03:16:23] Any final, any final words or thoughts?

Guest 4 [03:16:27] Just to thank you John, for having us and having this discussion. I, I, I agree that the, the earlier discussion with Trump supporter was, was pretty enlightening and pretty helpful for me as far to understand more of Trump supporters point of view.

Guest 6 [03:16:47] And

Guest 4 [03:16:50] yeah, thank you for allowing us to share our thoughts and our experiences and our reasons why we are Biden's supporters.

John Dehlin [03:17:00] So great to have you. All right, Donna, number one, Donna Cox or Donna A and Donna one Donna

Guest [03:17:06] Cox, can you hear me?

John Dehlin [03:17:08] Yes.

Guest [03:17:11] I'm hoping that by what I saw in the lines when I voted yesterday.

John Dehlin [03:17:15] Okay, wait, wait, Donna, let me,

Guest 3 [03:17:20] you're,

John Dehlin [03:17:20] you're, somehow you've joined us twice and I don't know how you did that. So let me, let me see if I can kick one of you from the studio. Okay, go ahead, Donna.

Guest [03:17:31] Am I there?

John Dehlin [03:17:31] Yeah, go ahead.

Guest [03:17:33] Yeah, but, okay, well, so you can hear me now.

John Dehlin [03:17:36] Yep, everything's good.

Guest [03:17:37] Okay. So based on the lines that I saw, I yesterday when I voted, I'm hopeful because I saw a lot of women, I saw a lot of minorities, I saw a lot of really young people that, and I asked several of them if it was the first time they voted and they said yes. So I'm hoping that that means we have a crushing blue wave coming. I, I need some sanity back. I've had, I've lost both of my parents within three weeks of each other. It's been a really hard, hard time and I just need sanity.

John Dehlin [03:18:21] Okay, well, we wish that for you, Donna.

Guest [03:18:25] Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:18:27] And you've been a delightful guest. So thank you so much.

Guest [03:18:30] Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:18:32] Let's go to Donna Kelly, part other part of the Donnas. Donna.

Guest 5 [03:18:43] So I am really hoping for a landslide as well. I know that a lot of people perceive the Biden supporters as being just anti Trump and will vote for anyone but Trump. But I'm actually a big pro Biden voter because I believe that we need a return to civility and decency and inclusiveness and just competence. We need competence back in the White House. And so I am actually a very pro Biden voter because I believe Biden has all those qualities. He's a decent, kind, thoughtful, experienced person and somebody that can bring our country out of this disastrous state that it's in right now. So I'm with a lot of the others. I'm hoping for a landslide because I hope that things like hate are denounced and racism is denounced and all of those ugly things that are going on in this country will be denounced by a landslide.

John Dehlin [03:20:02] Love it, Donna.

Guest 5 [03:20:03] Thank you, John, so much.

John Dehlin [03:20:05] Roseanne, looks like you're next.

Roseanne [03:20:09] So I have, I don't know, maybe it's kind of an old fashioned attitude, but I think people in public life, whether it's teachers like me or political people, I think their behavior needs to be held to a higher standard.

Roseanne [03:20:22] I think we need role models. And Donald Trump has just turned that all upside down. And one thing, Joe Biden wasn't my initial first pick, but actually I think he's in a really good place because he is a gentleman. He is kind.

Roseanne [03:20:40] He seems like he really hears people. And so I really hope that we have that. So we have, like Donna was saying, a return to civility in this country. And I just have a hard time making any predictions, but I hope that the Democrats have such a landslide that it can't go to the courts or Donald Trump can't say, well, you didn't really win because of this. I mean, I hope it's a big, big landslide. I don't know what's going to happen.

John Dehlin [03:21:07] Okay. Any final thoughts?

Roseanne [03:21:11] No. I really appreciate being here with all of you and thank you for having me on today.

John Dehlin [03:21:16] Okay. All right, Kim, I think you're the final person to make a prediction and to leave your closing thoughts. So we need you to bring us home.

Guest 2 [03:21:27] Kim, I'm gonna choose to be optimistic and I'm gonna say that Biden wins. And something that I heard Kamala say when I was researching everything is that she said, I can imagine what can be and be unburdened by what has been.

Guest 2 [03:21:46] And my prediction is that if we all just try to empathize with one another and try to be kind and try to understand where the other person is coming from and view them as a human that is just like us, that is trying to preserve their ideal of their country just like we are when we realize that we're really all just the same. I think that can really help our country, no matter who the president is. I may not have hope that President Trump will ever be a decent human being, but I can always have hope that everybody else is going to choose to be kind and choose to be decent and choose to love one another and to put everything aside when somebody needs some thing in need.

Guest 2 [03:22:36] We've seen that during this pandemic. We've seen that in every crisis that our country has faced. And, yeah, the future looks scary with everything going on, but when I remember who Americans are, I feel a little bit better. And so thanks for having me on here.

John Dehlin [03:22:56] I love it. All right. Well, I was really grateful for the panel in the morning, the Trump supporters who were, who were courageous and willing to come on Mormon Stories because it's a hard thing to do. And I'm also super grateful for all of you for being willing to come on the podcast to talk about your support for Biden, to speak up vocally. And you are all, just, all of you are such articulate, thoughtful, gracious, grace. Gracious, grateful. No, gracious human beings. And I've loved our time together today. So thank you, each of you, so, so much. You've been wonderful.

Roseanne [03:23:38] Thank you.

Guest 2 [03:23:41] And during this pandemic, we've seen that.

John Dehlin [03:23:45] And I want to thank, I want to thank all our, all the people who have joined us in the comments. I guess there's a lot of people I don't want to thank who have joined us in the comments because there have been some awful trolls in this episode, like 55,000 times worse than the previous episode. I don't know why that is, but shame on all you trolls. But for all the people who contributed positively to the conversation, thanks for everyone who joined us on YouTube and on Facebook in the comments.

John Dehlin [03:24:13] Appreciate that. And yeah, this has been great. So to close, I just want to say that I think this, as far as I'm concerned, I think this was a successful series. It was. I was worried, I was nervous. But I think we got two, two panels who are willing to discuss the issues. I think it's really important that we learn to not demonize each other, to not dehumanize each other, and to try and have civil discourse where we can be thoughtful and even critical, but try and be compassionate and kind of and honest and frank. And so I think we did it. I'm grateful for it.

Closing Remarks and How to Follow the Show

John Dehlin [03:24:51] Thanks to everyone who has followed us. If you have any comments when we post this to mormonstories.org Please make comments there. We appreciate your comments on YouTube and on Facebook. Feel free to keep making comments there. I want to thank everyone who donates to the Open Stories Foundation. Your donations make the Open Stories Foundation, a Mormon Stories podcast, possible.

John Dehlin [03:25:15] So thank you if you know I always say that less than one out of every thousand listeners or viewers actually donates. So if you value Mormon Stories podcast, if you value content like this, I invite you to go to MormonStories.org and to make a monthly contribution. To sign up for a monthly contribution. All these donations are tax deductible in the US we are transparent, as all 501C3s should be. We are transparent in our finances.

John Dehlin [03:25:43] All of the money that you donate goes to the programming support to support me, to support the work that I do. I love our board. We have a great board and we are committed to making sure that your contributions advance the cause of the Open Stories foundation and Mormon Stories, which is to provide communities of support and forums for people who are experiencing or have experienced the transition to. To promote honesty within Mormonism, to discuss the hard things within a Mormon in a post Mormon context, and to reduce pain within Mormonism and post Mormonism, and to increase joy and healing and growth within Mormonism and post Mormonism.

John Dehlin [03:26:26] So please support us if you can. Donate now, if you can. And there are all sorts of these things you could do if you're not able to donate. You can like us on Facebook. You can follow us on Facebook or on YouTube. You can share these episodes with family and friends. You can leave positive comments on itunes or positive reviews on itunes or on Facebook. You can spread the word and let people know about these programmings and share these episodes all over social media. Lots of things you can do. Please support us if you can. We have lots of great content coming up. So thanks for all the support.

John Dehlin [03:27:08] Thanks again to our wonderful panelists. And please stay tuned in the future for more cool content from Mormon Stories and the Oba Stories Foundation. Thanks, everybody. My voice is shot. It's time to go. Take care and we'll see you guys as soon. And go vote. Freaking go vote. I don't care who you vote for November 3rd in the United States, go vote.

John Dehlin [03:27:32] Because this is a democracy and we need your vote. So please go vote. And please spread the word about voting. All right, everyone. Love you guys. Take care. See you soon. And we'll talk to you again soon on Warmer Stories Podcast.

Roseanne [03:27:44] Bye.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.