Falling Into Place

Mark Hitchcock: I see what's happening today in our nation with this socialism, this communism, that is rising out of nowhere and moving meteorically. I have to wonder if that's going to be the dominant political economic philosophy on the earth when the tribulation period begins.

Could what we're seeing today be part of the downfall of America and help explain the lack of any biblical reference to America in the end times? This kind of ideology will ultimately lead to the collapse of our nation as we know it today and our superpower status.

There's no doubt to me that socialism, democratic socialism as it's called, is tailor-made for the rise of the Antichrist because it ultimately seeks a one-world system of government. Revelation chapter 13 describes the rise of the Antichrist, called there the beast.

It says the whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. The beast was given authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation. This stunning rise of socialism could be another part of the stage-setting for the rise of the Antichrist, happening at the same time and in conjunction with all of these other tools of world domination that we see rising around us.

Jan Markell: Thank you, Dr. Mark Hitchcock, for setting the stage on our discussion. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson says that the barbarians are inside the gates, referring to those pushing this radical socialist agenda. He went on to explain, "We are fighting right now in Congress over whether we're going to maintain our status as a constitutional republic or go down this dark road of death to communism."

The Speaker isn't crying wolf. The threat is real. Leftists can put a label on communism and call it democratic socialism, but it is Marxism and it is dangerous. It has resulted in the death of at least 100 million people worldwide. We would lose almost every freedom.

Many nations have gone down this path. Some of you are watching from nations that made that terrible decision. To the believer, there is another dimension, and that is what the Bible prophesies: a coming one-world system with a one-world leader.

The Antichrist will be a dictator that allows no freedom. Believers will be absent during that time, but again, we are watching the stage being set. The stage of what the Bible calls the time of Jacob's trouble or the tribulation. Just watch headlines and you can be assured that this time is drawing closer every day.

Today, I begin some new programming that will feature on many of our online platforms how all of these events are falling into place as history winds down. Believers prepare to ascend up and the final chapter of biblical history closes. Joining me for each program will be Michele Bachmann, now with Regent University's Israel Institute. She served in the US House of Representatives from 2007 to 2015 and ran for President of the United States in 2012.

Michele, welcome to the program. Glad you can join me today. Let's spend a few seconds on democratic socialism. Quite frankly, almost nothing surprises me because I hear the hoofbeats of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, so I expect absolutely anything. I believe this is driven by strong delusion. You are a seasoned politician; tell me what you thought when you saw this rising on the American horizon, not Venezuela or China, but the American horizon.

Michele Bachmann: It's shocking because our Constitution guarantees a republican form of government, a representative form of government, and this is the opposite of that. I saw this rise in 2018 when AOC was running for the very first time for Congress. She didn't run as a Democrat; she ran as a democratic socialist.

This was a brand new term. I spent a long time combing the entire website for Democratic Socialists of America. I called you up because I was shocked. When you get down to the end of some of these rabbit holes on their own website, they say that they began as the Communist Society of America or the Communist Party USA. That's their origin.

As Solomon says, there's nothing new under the sun. The Democratic Socialists of America is communism. It is Marxism. It is totalitarianism. When you hear democratic socialist, cut off democratic. It's not democratic; it's socialist. It's worse than socialist; it's communist. It's Marxism. It's something that has nothing to do with our form of government or our form of success in America.

Jan Markell: I think it would bring unspeakable hell to America. I'm going to have Mark Hitchcock weigh in for a quick clip here because he's going to explain exactly some things that are on the platform of the democratic socialists.

Mark Hitchcock: There's a publication called City Journal and it summarizes the radical platform of the Democratic Socialists of America. It says a rebooted platform for the organization features a host of radical proposals. The document commits DSA to scrapping the US Senate, so no more US Senate.

It suggests abolishing the carceral forces of the capitalist state, so get rid of capitalism. Defund the Department of War, so we no longer have a funding for our military. Amnesty for all immigrants and replacing the President and the Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.

There would be no more three equal branches of government. One branch will now have all the power. Our founders developed the three branches of government because they believed in the depravity of humanity. They believed that humans were fallen and they didn't want too much power concentrated in the hands of one branch of government. That's exactly what democratic socialism desires.

Here are some other things they want to do: get rid of prisons, no arrests, no jails, no punishment, no borders. They want to defund police. They want to enact the Green New Deal and all of the expenses that go with that, the trillions of dollars. They want to end any US support of Israel and they want to make Jerusalem the capital of a Palestinian state.

Think about all of those things for just a moment. If all of those things were instituted in the United States of America, Marxist ideology has killed more people than any ideology on the planet. The death toll from Marxism just in the 20th century is almost 100 million people. Think about the nations that are Marxist nations and the massive failure that they've been: Cuba, Vietnam—Vietnam instituted capitalism back in 1988 to rescue their country—Venezuela and all the disaster there, the USSR, Cambodia.

Jan Markell: Michele, you ran for President in 2012. Could you have envisioned this back at that time? Granted, socialism was rising in many other countries and the Democrat Party was slipping more to the left all the time, but still, do you see this as something that has sprung on the scene quickly? As you said, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came into Congress in 2018. Or do you think this goes beyond that because the Communist Party USA has been here for over 100 years?

Michele Bachmann: There was an attempt to put communism into the United States back in 1914 and 1917. There was an attempt by the Bolsheviks to try and take over the United States then. It didn't work because too many people in the United States had a background and a backbone regarding biblical understanding of history and American history.

People rejected socialism; they weren't interested in it. What people love is free stuff. When you are offered a free bus ticket, or somebody else pays for your kids, or you get free healthcare, that sounds wonderful. But the reality is somebody has to pay for it.

In this instance with democratic socialism, how did it get here where it's acceptable, especially to young people? It's because of our education system. You know that's how I got started in politics in Minnesota, because I saw all of the trash coming home in the backpack for our foster children.

I did serious research. I spent 2,000 hours studying what went wrong with America's education. It's very simple. In 1993, everything was completely changed in America's education system under Bill Clinton. It was a rejection of local control. Bill Clinton actually said America has to get over its love affair with local control and instead the federal government took over all education.

It was federal education standards, federal teacher standards, federal testing. What that meant is federal curriculum. The curriculum taught socialism. Think about those who were in school in 1993. How old are they now? They're in their 30s. These are the ones who are now in Congress saying we think socialism is great because that's what we were taught in our public schools. That was the curriculum. What happens in the classroom in one generation goes into the government in the next generation.

Jan Markell: Surely the Antichrist will be a socialist, communist, Marxist. He'll be a dictator; we know that. He fits into this economic system because there's no freedom. Satan comes to kill, steal, and destroy. Everything that we saw Mark Hitchcock talk about, these socialists want to do. They want to steal from us our freedoms.

There is not one country in the world without a department of war. Not one. America is going to be left naked with no defense system. This says they hate America; they want to destroy America. Everything you saw on that list is to destroy America.

I want to add one more thing not only to the list but our discussion here because one of the primary victims is obviously America. A secondary victim is going to be Israel. Let's look at clip one and come back and talk about it.

AOC: The majority of Democrats now have shifted where we are on this issue with respect to Israel. The US cannot continue to finance a reckless government that has no regard for human rights. I would certainly hope that anyone running for President in two years would not be stuck ten years in the past.

Bill McGurn: She doesn't know what she's talking about and she's never been to that region. But she's right about this: even Nancy Pelosi, formerly one of the most pro-Israel Democrats in Congress, is now flipping to vote against the funding bill. This is only the beginning as Jewish Democrats discover their loyalty to the party is not being returned. This is the direction the Democrat Party today has taken in America. 20 years ago, it would be a shock. To see the New York contingent especially be overtaken by anti-Israel voices, I just wouldn't have thought it imaginable. AOC better represents where the Democrat Party is going.

Jan Markell: Your comments on this, Michele. Then I want to bring in another factor, the Red-Green Alliance. Israel is clearly going to be the second victim of this kind of socialist push.

Michele Bachmann: It is, but we're also a victim because when we take the posture of cursing Israel as opposed to blessing Israel, we're the ones who are going to have to deal with the fallout. Israel also will be in the line of sight because the Democrat Party is now the anti-Israel party.

Other than John Fetterman, I have never seen this before ever. I left Congress in 2015, so that's 11 years ago. Just think, this was a unanimous issue from both parties. Israel was not a partisan issue. It was still a fairly bipartisan issue until October 7th of 2023.

Just when Israel was barbarically attacked, that's when the Democrat Party decided it would be a genius move for them to point the finger at the ones who were hurt and then embrace the aggressor, the terrorist aggressor. These people have beans for brains. They're moral monsters.

I can't believe what's happened to the Democrat Party. I don't recognize the Democrat Party. My parents were Democrats. If you were in Minnesota, you remember you were a Democrat when you were born; it was stamped on your birth certificate. It has changed so much.

The Democrat Party is literally embracing moral monsters. They are going down this road because they are literally embracing immoral monsters. There's something else people need to understand. This didn't just happen; this was intentional. This happened with big money. Big money.

Ambassador Mike Huckabee came out this last week and talked about how Qatar had spent 100 billion dollars targeting our viewers' kids to be able to capture their minds to hate Israel and love the terrorists. Now Mike Huckabee came out and said it's not 100 billion; it's 400 billion that Qatar has spent. We shouldn't be pointing our fingers at Israel and saying you have a terrible information campaign. They don't have 400 billion hanging around to spend on social media campaigns; they're trying to stay alive when terrorists are trying to bury them in their own land.

Jan Markell: You raised the name of Ambassador Mike Huckabee, somebody I deeply admire and I think most conservative people and particularly Christians do. I'm going to play a 38-second clip here. Sadly, it goes back to somebody we no longer recognize, and that would be Tucker Carlson and one of his guests. The mocking and the scoffing that's going on takes on new life here.

Tucker Carlson: Netanyahu and Ben Gvir and who's the ambassador there, the US ambassador? His name is Mike Huckabee. Mike Huckabee, excuse me for laughing, but yeah. Crazy Christian Zionist. And you know what, maybe at the bottom of it all is they're all waiting for the coming of the Messiah. They don't care. Mike Huckabee obviously hopes it'll be Jesus because then he can go to heaven with Mike Pence and the other Christian Zionists. I'm sorry to make fun of it, but—

Guest (Male): No, I couldn't agree more. That's not Christianity just for the record. It's not even a close facsimile of Christianity.

Jan Markell: In fact, I am waiting for the coming of the Messiah. There's a lot of problems in my life that would instantly go away once that happens. I suspect you are as well. But here's the point: this kind of satanic mocking over not only a good man but the fact that people like you and me are waiting for a sound of a trumpet and a shout and we are vacating from this very polluted planet.

Michele Bachmann: I am so sorry to hear those words from Tucker Carlson because he is stating an out-and-out 100 percent lie. What this fellow talked about with the Messiah coming again, that is Christianity. That's the whole point. Look at the scripture, the Old Testament prophecy, the New Testament, the words of Jesus himself.

He is coming back. He said when he was ascending from the Mount of Olives that he will return in the exact same way. The angels confirmed that. It is amazing to me that a mainstream communicator like Tucker Carlson would confidently state that this isn't Christianity when that is the essence of orthodox Christianity.

That is mockers and scoffers. I pray for the repentance for both of them. I pray that they understand what the scripture is. I'd like to see them in heaven, but what they're doing is they're leading people astray. That's why I think you and I are having this conversation, because I never would have thought of Tucker Carlson would ever be on a show and actually straight up lie to his viewers and confidently state that's not Christianity.

He doesn't understand anything about the Bible. He's been out saying that he's been reading the Bible and all the rest, and now he is actually the epicenter of lying about the Bible because this is the blessed hope. He is telling us not only is it not the blessed hope, it's not true. He's just lied to people all across the globe in a way I never thought I would see before. This clip is shocking to me.

Jan Markell: He's made the blessed hope the blasted hope. That's been going on for a few years here, but yes, it's accelerated and the mocking is what is shocking.

Michele Bachmann: It's a new era now. This is when you reject a standard, then all of a sudden everything falls off the table. You've got chaos. When we see at the end times the rise of delusion, the rise of deception, the rise of chaos, that's how it's going to happen. Truth is being exchanged for a lie. Tucker Carlson just did that. We have to pray for him.

Jan Markell: We've got a very significant date coming up here in September. It's going to be the 25th anniversary of 9/11. That's one of those events everybody remembers where they were. Everybody remembers the horror of that day as we're watching these buildings come crashing down. We have sadly thrown into the mix this year a Red-Green Alliance coming together under Mr. Mamdani, the mayor of New York City.

Michele Bachmann: Meaning Islamic takeover together with Marxism. That's the Red-Green Alliance.

Jan Markell: Islam and communism coming together. Certainly with Zoran Mamdani, another lunatic leftist, Antichrist-esque he is.

Michele Bachmann: And an ignoramus. Just like AOC, these people have no idea what they're talking about.

Jan Markell: Who would have thought right after 9/11, 25 years ago, we would be talking about a Muslim mayor? For that matter, you served under a President whose middle name was Hussein, so Americans elected a President with some Islamic ties. I can't fathom how this happened in both cases. They're both very serious. President, but mayor of America's largest city. Here we come on the 25th anniversary in just a month or two away. Give me your thoughts.

Michele Bachmann: His Marxism is destroying New York City in front of our eyes. He's destroying it. But his Islamism, he wants to establish a global caliphate. I just learned this week he's actually Shia Islam. That's the Iranian version. He embraces the Iranian version of Islam. It's as bad as it gets.

The victims' families from 9/11 don't want him anywhere near the ceremony. Because he's an in-your-face arrogant person, his office said, "Oh yes, he's going to be at the anniversary." It's unbelievable. If he had any decency in him, he would stay away.

Remember with 9/11, he's the one who downplayed it. He is for the terrorists. He came out for the terrorists in 9/11. Should someone who's on the side of the terrorists be there as mayor? He's disqualified himself in every respect. I think it's a shame what's happened.

People need to be forewarned in these upcoming elections and this midterm. There are a lot of Islamic people just like Mamdani, just like AOC. They both embrace Islam. She's not Islamic, but she embraces it and she lifts it up. She's for El-Sayed, the one who is running in Michigan for Senate. She embraced him. She's lifting up the Red-Green Alliance of Islam making America into Islam. That's their goal. Let's face it, that's what they want to do and communism.

These are what the new candidates are. We can't even believe it. We have gone from people who were traditional Republican-Democrat, had different views on how much money we should spend and different freedoms, to now talking about communism and Iran. We're going to make America into Iran. We're going to make America into communist China, communist Russia, communist North Korea, communist Cuba.

That's literally what we're talking about. You and I are sitting here in 2026. We're normal humans in Minnesota. We had liberals here in Minnesota, but we didn't have communist freaks and we didn't have this sort of thing. Now everything has changed. The whole table has been upended. The new normal is that the Democrat Party is now the Communist Party. It's now the party that wants to turn America into Islam and it's the party that has wholesale rejected Israel. They hate Israel. You can't find any senator other than Fetterman that has anything good to say about Israel.

Jan Markell: Let's spend a minute on Iran. That scenario changes literally day by day. The President spent a couple of weeks doing some damage in Iran. As we speak, that has died down just a little bit. I'm intrigued by the passage in Ezekiel 38 that for that invasion, Gog and Magog, to happen, Israel is supposed to be dwelling in some time of peace. If we neutralize Iran, it's possible that Israel could have a short time of peace. I'm not sure we're going to neutralize Iran. My hunch is some mullahs are going to survive. My concern is that we need to pray for the collapse of this regime because it represents what you referenced earlier: Shia Islam, which is the most dangerous kind. Shia Islam wants catastrophe. Shia Islam wants bloodshed. Shia Islam wants chaos around the world so that it can then come to the rescue and dominate the world.

Michele Bachmann: Then the 12th Imam emerges. What they say is there's an Imam that's hidden and when there's fire and terrorism and bombing, then the 12th Imam comes out of hiding and then he is their Messiah. That means the entire world will turn to Islam. That's their belief system. The entire world. What that means is if you don't kowtow to Islam, you're dead. Under their system, you're dead.

Jan Markell: Are negotiations just a delay tactic? I mean, how do you see it?

Michele Bachmann: That's how Iran's always done it. Negotiation is delay.

Jan Markell: But our President seems to be falling for it.

Michele Bachmann: He's engaging in it. I don't know why. It doesn't make any sense to me because Iran is literally at their weakest. I'll tell you the biggest problem that the Trump administration had is that for whatever reason, Vice President Vance decided to spill the tea, spill the beans. He told Erdogan, who's the head of Turkey, that they were going to do a deal with the Kurds and the Kurds were going to be the boots on the ground to have regime change in Iran. That was exactly the right plan, the exact right thing to do. But why in the world did the Vice President tell the President of Turkey that's what they were going to do? Then the President of Turkey persuaded Trump and Vance not to do that, but also then the news went out everywhere, so it was impossible. They couldn't do it. But we have to have regime change. There's just no question that's the only thing that can happen in Iran. You will not see a different Iran because remember there's 90 million people in Iran and those people are in captivity. They're in jail. They're basically in a horrified jail. They've been there for 48 years. This is a disaster that's happened in the Middle East. President Trump was doing everything brilliantly and then for whatever reason, Vice President Vance told the head of Turkey what their plan was and it threw everything off balance. It's really sad that that happened.

Jan Markell: Let me just play a quick clip of J.D. Vance. Clip six. It's very short.

JD Vance: Is that you've seen people within Bibi's cabinet who have come out and attacked the deal and in some ways very personally attacked the President of the United States. And I guess my message to them would be twofold. Number one, Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time. And he happens to be the head of state of the world's superpower. If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world. Two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars. The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump. And anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the President of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation.

Jan Markell: My hunch is this is the 2028 Republican candidate for President. I think you would probably agree with me. There may be others.

Michele Bachmann: No, I don't agree. I know that there's been a lot of talk that it will be J.D. Vance. I think that he's disqualified himself because of the things that he said on Israel. There's a lot of people out there that want Marco Rubio to run or other people to run, so I don't think that it's a foregone conclusion that it's going to be J.D. Vance.

I want to say for the sake of our viewers that the very first statement stated by J.D. Vance is completely false. There's many other nations that are in support of Israel. Take a look at Argentina for one. There's many nations and many more coming out and they recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and they're putting embassies in Israel. We have many heads of state now, especially in Latin America, South America. We're seeing a huge conservative turn down there and they're turning toward Israel. His first statement's absolutely false.

The other statement is that he's not recognizing what Israel gives us. We couldn't even begin to do the work that we do in the Middle East without Israel. They have the best intelligence service in the world. We'd have to build six CIAs to do what it is that Israel does for us. This is a joint effort. Plus, we create new military equipment and we share that with Israel and then the Israeli genius and engineers, they make it even better and the deal that we have with the Israelis is they have to share the new and improved with us.

To think that a nation of 8 million people, 9 million people, that they're able to be on par with us militarily, it's shocking. They are the best friend America's ever had. We would be poorer if we didn't have them in our gift. I don't know what it is with Vice President Vance. He is not pro-Israel. He tries to pretend that he is, but his statements have absolutely and his actions have absolutely shocked me.

Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State's been complete opposite. He gets Israel, he understands it, he understands the strategic example. But I also think it's important for people to understand the sea of lies that we've been living in. These are lies paid for by Qatar. 400 billion is a lot of money. Qatar has this national news network called Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera is all over the world. They're even here in the United States and they're putting forth their lies everywhere.

Unfortunately, we actually have people in the highest echelons of our government believing Qatar's lies. It may be because of some of the personal relationships that people have with Qatar, but Qatar was smart. They're 330,000 people. They're the size of Pittsburgh. And we're going to let them tell us what to do because they have a lot of dough. They have a lot of money. We have to get our moral compass right. That's what I like about you and your shows over the years; we're trying to get our moral compasses right if our biblical compass is right. That's what we're trying to tune now.

Jan Markell: We've got some waning minutes here, but you've got 40 days of prayer and fasting coming up. If you'd like to give it a one-minute plug, now's your time.

Michele Bachmann: Please, all the information that we've been giving you, a lot of it's tough to hear, but the very good news is through prayer. This is something positive that we can do. This is our sixth year to do 40 days of prayer and fasting together. Jan has told her audience about this every year. You can join us and I'll have a QR code that we can put on the end of our show today for more information. Please join us. This gives us such hope. This will give you hope. This will give you peace. We'll come together Monday through Friday. It'll be starting in mid-August and will end on Yom Kippur, which is the Day of Atonement, and that is at the end of September.

Jan Markell: One more thought, Michele, and then we'll wind this down. If you could give President Trump just a word of encouragement or warning, for that matter, if you had five minutes with him, how would you advise him?

Michele Bachmann: I would tell him that there is only one criterion upon which nations and leaders are judged, and that's how they treated Zion. That's not me saying it; that's the prophet Joel, chapter 3, verses 1 through 3. This is sobering to me because nations need to recognize they will be judged, just as we as individuals will be judged for our sin, nations are judged.

I would let President Trump know that the balance is in his hand with his decision: will America be blessed or will America be cursed? It's based on one criteria: how our nation treats Israel. It isn't just America; it's every nation throughout all of history and how does that leader treat Zion.

I would let him know that Israel can make their own decisions about their world. We have been a very good friend to them; they've been a good friend to us. The best thing that we could do is supply them—they pay for it—we could supply them with the weapons that they purchase from us and then we get out of the way and we take the handcuffs off of them and say do what you need to do to stay alive, whether it's with Lebanon, whether it's with Iran, or any of the other terrorists that surround them. Just let them do it.

And if they ask us for weapons, we supply them. Not that long ago, he told Israel to stay out of Lebanon, to stay out of Syria. Well, they're there because they're defending their country. They were attacked. In every instance, they don't want any more attacks. And yet the President told them to stay out of those countries, which was very concerning advice.

It's the exact opposite advice that the President should have been giving because they have every right, just like we have every right. If we are attacked, we have the right to defend ourselves. How many people have said Israel has the right to defend herself? That's why it was shocking what President Trump said, because Israel does have a right to defend themselves. They were attacked by the worst terrorist organization, Hezbollah, that's located in Lebanon. They are attacked almost every day.

Just this week, there were huge attacks from Hezbollah-affiliated in Judea Samaria. What's Israel supposed to do? If they put their gun down, they're dead. Their enemies are very clear. It's even written in the charter of Hamas: "Our goal is we kill every Jew." How much more needs to happen to think that these people are serious? Do we think they're insincere? These are not insincere terrorists; these are terrorists that are acting on their belief.

This is what I don't understand about President Trump. He is brilliant in every way. I love President Trump. I support him. He's done brilliant things on Israel, but he's actually gone weird on some things with Israel that I don't understand. He's great on the economy, great on so many things, but when it comes to Israel, the one thing a President can't get wrong, he's half—I would say it's a mixed bag.

He's like half right, half wrong, and I don't get it. Just this last week, he was really good because he was taking out the Iranian threat and then he hit another pause button. I don't know which direction he's going to go. Nobody knows. He came out last week and he said that he was going to give Saudi Arabia a nuclear program and then the next day he said it's only dependent on if you recognize Israel and join the Abraham Accords. I wouldn't give it to them even with that. He's going back and forth and I think he's confusing people. He's gotten a lot of bad advice. He needs to be paying attention to who he's listening to. That's where we can pray. That's why we want you to join us with 40 days of prayer and fasting, because we pray for Israel, we pray for America, and we will be praying for all these things.

Jan Markell: Folks, we're going to do this on a frequent basis, so I want you to pay attention to whatever platform you're watching this on. Bottom line is, as you watch things in the headlines and in the news, you may be thinking everything's falling into pieces. No, just keep in mind everything's falling into place. We hope you join us next time here on this programming.