Family Talk

Dr. James Dobson: You’re listening to Family Talk, the radio broadcasting division of the James Dobson Family Institute. I am that James Dobson, and I’m so pleased that you’ve joined us today.

Roger Marsh: Well, welcome to another edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk. I’m Roger Marsh, and today is a very somber and sobering day here in the United States of America. It was 25 years ago on this very day, September 11, 2001, that radical Islamists attacked the United States in four different locations, and 3,000 souls were lost.

On today’s edition of Family Talk, we are picking up part two of this timely conversation about the 9/11 anniversary and what it means for this year's election cycle. Our host is Gary Bauer, Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, and his guest, the Honorable Michele Bachmann, former congresswoman from the great state of Minnesota, who now currently serves as a member of the board of directors here at the JDFI.

On yesterday's program, Gary and Michele reflected on the anniversary of 9/11 and the evil our nation confronted that day. Today, they're going to dig into the story of United Flight 93, the ordinary Americans who took a vote, then ran down the aisle and fought back against their attackers. Michele Bachmann sees a lesson in that for all of us, and she and Gary Bauer will use it to sound the alarm about this year's elections.

They'll also be talking about the threats facing our republic, why Christians can't afford to stay home on election day, and that ancient sin of anti-Semitism that God's people must reject. So now, let's join Gary Bauer and Michele Bachmann right here for this special 9/11 edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk.

Gary Bauer: Well, folks, welcome back to Family Talk. Michele, let's not waste any time. Let's get right back into it. I just thought it was interesting and maybe even a God thing that on the day that Osama bin Laden meant to lay our democracy, our republic, low, the American people on that plane voted, and then they fought. And of course, we don't have to die today to go to the voting booth. It's just a reminder of how important the voting is that Christians must do.

Michele Bachmann: Well, it is. That was United Flight 93. There were about 40 passengers on that flight, and with crew, about 45. But it was completely unexpected, of course, when it happened. No one knew anything like that was going to happen. I think it was Tom Burnett Jr. He was from San Francisco and the thought was that he was perhaps the one that had pulled everyone together.

I was doing some research materials just on that particular flight because it’s extraordinary. We know so much about what happened because that was in the day and age when airphones were invented, where you had little phones in the headrest of the seat ahead of you. You could pull that phone out and use a credit card and swipe it, and you could make phone calls from the air. Again, this is pre-cell phones. So this was a really big new thing, and thank God those phones were in those seats.

So people were all calling their loved ones. So we have a lot of information about what people were thinking. And you're right, there was a division of opinion. But as the jihadists were in the front of the plane, by this point, people figured out this was a suicide mission. This was not about negotiating with terrorists and then they could land the plane. They knew that their fate was death.

Once they realized it—because the jihadists that were flying the plane didn’t really know how to fly it very well—the plane would drop 700 feet or it would go back up or it would go side to side and shake. The people were shaken to their senses, if you will, and they realized all we have is our ability to unite, run down the center aisle, try to take down these four terrorists, take over the plane. There was a pilot among the passengers who could land the plane.

So they figured they’re going to give it their all. They’re going to do it all. There was a division of opinion; they didn’t want to do it. But when they realized there was just a moment when they realized, "This is it. This is our only chance," all of their courage rose up within them. They unified and ran down that aisle, and they actually ended up taking some of these jihadists out. They believe they got into the cockpit.

The problem was really a math problem. The plane by that time was so low, there was no way for them to take it over. But the victory, as you had stated, Gary, this was the first time that Americans pushed back against the jihadists against their plans for victory, and it was in real time. I think that is the lesson to all of us. There is a real-time plan right now by communists and Islamic jihadists together. It’s called the Red-Green Alliance.

There is an active, real plan now to rush forward in a quantum leap, if you will, in these elections in the midterms. They’re serious because they’re serious about their goal of toppling the US Constitution and replacing it with socialism. We don’t think it could happen, but look at the most recent CBS poll. 58% of the people who responded to CBS, of Democrats, believe in socialism. 60% of youth in this country believe in socialism.

So they’ve already been winning this war through TikTok and social media and also through materials they’re taught in the classroom. They’re very far down the road. So that’s why if we sit on our hands and don’t vote—that’s our weapon. That’s our weapon that God has given to us, our tool to hold on to a godly country. We see a lot of ungodliness in America, but America has been a force for good for 250 years to the whole world.

Ask anyone in the world what country has helped you. The United States of America. So this is the moment. So just like the passengers on Flight 93, we too have to unite. We have to use what we have. What they had was a beverage cart and pitchers of hot water. We’ve got a ballot box. We’ve got to just—and I will tell you, again, I’ve been researching this. The mosques across the United States, they are mobilizing every Muslim in their congregations to vote.

We have pastors who say, "Well, I’m not going to do that. It’s political." We’re not asking any pastor to be political. Be biblical. Be biblical and teach your congregations, open up your congregations for voting. The mosques are the voting place. So Muslims never even have to leave their mosque in order to vote. They register there, they vote there. Every church should be registering and allowing voting at their church because, otherwise, what is your reply going to be if our culture is lost, if our nation is lost?

Christianity won’t be allowed to be the dominant religion in America if Islam comes in. Islam will dominate, and Islam will take over.

Gary Bauer: There's no question about it, Michele. You may have seen this. I came across my desk the other day. Just as one example, a Chicago Muslim Imam at his mosque in a Friday sermon told the people in his congregation, "We need Muslims to be in every aspect of life. We want Muslims in the police, as federal agents, in Congress, in the Pentagon, and in the White House. If we can produce leaders who hold on to our Islamic values, we will change America and change the world."

Now, what jumped out at me, Michele, is I’m not surprised that this guy said this because there’s no concept in Islam of separation of mosque and state. Islam is a very political philosophy. But what struck me about this is I didn’t see any civil liberty groups saying, "Wait a minute. That’s totally inappropriate." There was silence from the Left.

If a pastor said this, "You Christians need to run for office. We need to get into the Pentagon, into the White House because we must win America for Jesus," they’d call us Christian Nationalists. But this alliance between the radical Left and radical Islam, they’re working together even though they’ve got major differences. But they’ve got one big thing they share: they hate Judeo-Christian civilization.

Michele Bachmann: They do, and they hate America. They are very much anti-America. And what a bizarre platform to run on, Gary. I mean, you’ve been in politics for years and years and years. Can you imagine running on a political platform of destroy America, burn it all down? That’s their platform. It’s a mob mentality, and they’re getting a mob to come around them.

It’s so bizarre and so far out. That’s why it’s important that you and I are talking about what these people actually stand for, what they want. We can’t imagine people want this because we have a living laboratory of the last 100 years of the complete and utter misery and failure of communism and socialism side-by-side with a free-market capitalistic economy like the United States of America and freedom.

So right now, which country does everybody want to go to? It’s America. They’re not all wanting to run to the Soviet Union or to communist China. They want to come here.

Gary Bauer: It’s the old gates test that Reagan used to talk about. If you open the gates, do people run in or they run out? Well, people are running in here even when the gates are closed.

Michele Bachmann: Exactly. But the formula of what they’re selling is socialism and communism matched up with Islamic Sharia law. So quite literally on the streets of Michigan—you talked about the streets of Chicago—on the streets of Michigan, there’s Imams and followers of the mosque who stand on the street now and say, "Death to America. Death to America."

What they mean by that is death to our American way of government, our American freedoms, and death to anything that isn’t what they believe, their Islamic beliefs. So there’s distinctions within Islam. There’s different Arabs that hate other Arabs, there's different Muslims that hate other Muslims, but they hate the infidel. They hate the Jew, they hate the Christian.

So our freedoms, if we go into the minority, won’t be protected. They’ll be run over. All you have to do is look at the history of Islam from when Muhammad came. This is no religion of peace. We’re told the lie that this is a religion of peace. Are there peaceful Muslims? Yes, there are. But the history of Islam is one of conquering and taking over.

And they do it by first invading a country. They take over also by having a massive number of children. We have a lot of Somali families here in Minnesota with 15 children. We’re pro-family, we think that’s a wonderful thing. But that’s considered a form of jihad for them to immigrate and then populate and then they take over. They seize power, and that’s what this election is about: seizing power.

They say it themselves. It’s not me. They say it themselves that they’re seizing power, and they’re organizing their mosques to do that. So I think both you and I, Gary, are appealing to every pastor that would be listening to this or people who are part of a congregation or a Bible study. Organize yourselves. Go down through your phone tree and your contacts and make sure everyone you know is registered to vote and then get them to the polls. Make sure they actually vote.

You can’t believe how many of these races are decided by a couple hundred votes, maybe a couple thousand votes. This Syed that just won in Michigan for the Democrat Party, all the polls said, "Oh, he’s running away with it. He’s going to win it by 15 points, maybe 20 points." He barely won by 1% of a point.

There’s now the lieutenant governor in the state of Virginia. She’s Muslim. And she won by just a few votes because nobody paid attention. Nobody cared. So are we going to let the sacrifices of 250 years in this country go to waste because we’re too apathetic to get out of bed and go vote, or at least figure out who is a decent pro-family candidate, a pro-America candidate?

This is not your granddaddy’s Democrat Party. I think that’s the other thing we need to realize. Establishment Democrats, old-time Democrats, they were pro-America. They were pro-Israel. I could give you Scoop Jackson, Hubert Humphrey. I’ll even go so far as to say Nancy Pelosi.

Gary Bauer: Oh, now you’ve gone too far, Michele. I’ve got to draw a line there.

Michele Bachmann: When I served with Nancy Pelosi, she was pro-Israel. But now Nancy Pelosi flipped, and there was a vote just recently, just a couple of months ago, to defund Israel, American support for Israel. Nancy Pelosi voted for that. So she completely flipped. That’s the new Democrat Party. They’re anti-Israel and they’re anti-American. What a weird platform to run on. And we’re not motivated to vote?

Gary Bauer: It shouldn't be that hard for a Christian to sort this out. I mean, these are not the intricacies of what is exactly the best marginal tax rate. This is on basic stuff. I noticed that Speaker Johnson, a wonderful Christian man who is Speaker of the House, and President Trump too have both used this same formulation where they’ve said, "Look, these people are crazy," referring to these folks on the Left, both radical Islamists and also socialists and Marxists.

Michele, I grew up in a Democrat town. My family were all Democrats. Everybody in the neighborhood was a Democrat. But they all loved America. These were people that were proud of their military service.

Michele Bachmann: My parents were Democrats too, Gary. I know it’s hard to believe. My parents were Democrats too, and in Minnesota if you’re born here, they stamp it on your birth certificate that you’re a Democrat. But the Democrat Party completely changed, and that is the whole point. People have to look through the smoke and mirrors, and now they’re going to try and moderate their message and make themselves sound normal.

But let me tell you, there will be nothing normal. So the America that we live in today, we won’t recognize it anymore because their whole goal is to burn it all down. And there’s no freedom where socialism is. So that’s what’s being offered on a silver platter to the American people. No freedom from socialism, no freedom from Islam.

But the other option is there, and that is we can vote to continue what our founders gave us. They bled and died many of them and gave their lives so that we could have and enjoy what we have: freedom, freedom to worship, freedom to rear a family, freedom to start a business. And we are not kidding. Gary and I are trying to have a five-alarm fire here because Gary’s right: there is not energy on the side of Christians and conservatives. I think it’s because, Gary, they have no idea what we’re about to lose. And that’s what we have to wake up and figure out. We’re about to lose the most precious thing we have: our freedom.

Gary Bauer: I think you’re absolutely right, Michele. We take so much for granted. A fish isn’t really aware of water. It’s in water all the time. It’s only when it’s out of water that it realizes it’s lost what gives it life. And we got a tremendous gift from God when we were allowed to be born in America or come to America legally.

We could have been born in so many other places in the world and lived entirely different lives with less freedom, less freedom to worship God, less freedom to teach our own children. But God, for whatever reason, allowed us to be born here. Now, when somebody gives you a wonderful gift, do you let anyone abuse that gift, or do you treat the gift badly and don't keep it clean or handle it roughly and take a risk of breaking it? No, you'd be an ingrate if you did those things. Well, we can't be ingrates about America.

But, Michele, I know this is something that really moves your heart as it does mine. You referred to young people buying into socialism, and I think we both agree part of that's because they've been educated in universities where they've been indoctrinated in that. But they've also been indoctrinated into something else, which is anti-Semitism. And we see it really pronounced on the Left, but it’s showing up on the Right too in a way that just breaks my heart. Can you address why must Christians reject the mortal sin, the ongoing ancient sin, of hating Jews because they’re Jews?

Michele Bachmann: Because this is God’s idea. Again, God chose the Jews for His people. They are the light-bearers because through the Jewish people came a Jewish Messiah, Jesus, who would come to give His life and to redeem all of mankind and to make a way for us to return to God so that we can be with Him forever in heaven. We owe the Jews everything.

God gave to them, He entrusted to them the law and the prophets. They’ve been the light-bearers and the standard-bearers for the world. Have they always been right? No, they haven’t always been right. Have they sinned? Yes, they’ve sinned, but so have we. We’ve sinned too. That doesn’t mean God rejected them; we should not reject them.

The Bible’s very clear that those who bless Israel, the Jews, the chosen descendants of the covenant people of Abraham, those who bless them are blessed, those who curse them are cursed. And again, the very covenant, the centerpiece of the Bible, is God’s covenant, and that’s that He chose a certain people to live in a certain land. The book of Genesis tells us why. Why did God do this? To be a blessing to all families on earth.

So when we reject God’s plan and God’s way, then we’re holding up a fist of rebellion against God. This is God’s choice. So are we going to agree with God and God’s plan, or are we going to assert that we’re going to have our own way? There’s blessing and there’s cursing. And as for me and my house, we want blessing.

So this is an extremely important thing. We’ve saw that our opinion—I’m at Regent University—and our opinion is that we haven’t seen the floor fall out yet on this Jew hatred, this irrational hatred of the Jewish people. And so to that end, we started an Israel Institute to get specifically to young people, to talk to them about this lie that’s being perpetrated on them.

This isn’t just an organic thing. The country of Qatar is the largest funder of terrorism in the world, this tiny little Arab country, but they’re very rich. They’re the richest per capita people in the world, and Qatar puts their money where their mouth is. They’ve invested about $400 billion at least in the United States, a lot of that in marketing and lies to young people about the Jews.

So we’re having to fight that, but this is a David and Goliath battle, but I like those odds. David only needed one smooth stone. And so what we have is the eternal truth of God’s word. And so that’s the weapons of our warfare that we have. We have God’s word, we have the faith of God Almighty behind us.

So we stand on the power of His word, His holiness, His name, His blood. So we speak to this next generation from truth. They’re hearing lies, but I believe that God puts a chord of recognition in every person’s heart. When people hear the truth of God’s word, they respond accordingly. I believe the young people of this generation in America will do the same just as we did, just as generations before did. When you hear the truth of God’s word, that’s what sets us free.

And that’s my prayer, Gary, for this young generation, that they too will be set free and be brought out from being captives to the lies of this generation and be set free by the truth of God’s word.

Gary Bauer: Well, that's beautifully said, Michele. Our good friend who’s with the Lord, Dr. James Dobson, was a great admirer of yours, and he would have been cheering us during these two days of conversation. Jim felt very strongly about all the things we’ve discussed—the need for Christian citizenship, the need as Christians to reject anti-Semitism, that we must never give in to the siren song of Marxism and socialism. He was deeply worried about the spread of radical Islam.

So I know that Jim is applauding today, and when we see him again, I trust that we both will, we'll reflect on how over the years important it was to have fought the good fight. He was a great admirer of yours, as I am. And I want to thank you on behalf of all the supporters of JDFI for all you’ve done over the years for faith, family, and freedom and also to sound the alarm as sort of a modern-day Paul Revere of the danger of both radical Islam and of Marxism. You’re a real national treasure.

Michele Bachmann: Gary, thank you for your kind words. And all I can say is may God truly bless all of our listeners and may God truly bless the United States of America, that we would fulfill our destiny.

Gary Bauer: Fantastic. Well folks, that’s it. Glad you listened over these last two days, but the most important thing now is to get your pastor to wake up, to get your church to wake up, and vote, vote, vote to save this great nation, one nation under God.

Roger Marsh: Well, that certainly is a sobering look at where our nation stands today, and it's a clear call for God's people to stay engaged rather than to just sit on the sidelines. You've been listening to a special edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. Today is the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and we've been hearing part two of a conversation featuring Gary Bauer and Michele Bachmann discussing how America got from where we were on September 11, 2001, to where we are on September 11, 2026, especially with an election coming up.

By the way, if you missed part one or if you'd like to hear it again, parts one and two are now available for free downloading available at drjamesdobson.org. That's D-R-James-Dobson-dot-O-R-G. If it's easier, just go to jdfi.org. They are one and the same. And by the way, if you'd like more from Gary Bauer on the issues that are shaping our nation, be sure to check out his weekly blog as well as his bimonthly podcast, Defending Faith, Family, and Freedom. It's available wherever you get your podcasts. You can also subscribe here on our website at drjamesdobson.org.

Conversations like the one you heard today are at the heart of what we do here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. This is the only organization that Dr. Dobson entrusted his legacy to, and we are carrying out that legacy to reach new generations and new geographies. You can learn more about our ministry when you go to drjamesdobson.org. You can also give a member of our constituent care team a call. Their number is 877-732-6825. That's 877-732-6825.

Well, I'm Roger Marsh and on behalf of Gary Bauer, Michele Bachmann, and all of us here at Family Talk and the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, thanks so much for joining us today. Be sure to tune in again next time right here for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love.

This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.