The Presidential Debate: A Constitutional and Moral Consideration
Sept. 12, 2024
Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer
Guest(s): David New
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 9/12/24. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Sam Rohrer: Hello and welcome to this Thursday edition of Stan in the Gap Today. And it’s also our bimonthly focus on the Constitution and American history and from a media and headline perspective, that consuming narrative as I evaluate what’s out there and happening in the news and as you are, no doubt as well, the consuming narrative right now, at least anyways, continues to revolve pretty much around the immediate and secondary impacts from Tuesday nights first and quite possibly the only presidential debate prior to the November election, which is just a mere eight weeks away speculation and spin in such days as this runs rampant polls in pragmatism. Not only attempt to measure but shape public attitudes by presenting in so many cases, partial truth or even flat out lies presented as fact-check truth, right? And if the consequences of this election from the president on down were not so critical, not just for America here, but the entire world, it would actually be a fun exercise to observe and to walk through.
Sam Rohrer: But the impacts and the consequences, though always great for such elections, the considerations are perhaps even greater this year than ever. And for a number of foundational reasons, some of which my guest today, constitutional attorney, author, and speaker, David New and I will discuss now the tide I’ve chosen to frame our conversation is straight up the presidential debate, a constitutional and moral consideration. I can tell you upfront, we are not going to exhaust everything that we could. We’re going to highlight some of the issues that are key on both of those. But with that, David, welcome to the program.
David New: Well blessings to you. It’s some nice to be with you and everyone with us today in the audience.
Sam Rohrer: David, glad you’re back with me. And let me set up just a little bit more, if you don’t mind, ladies and gentlemen as we get into this because this election, ladies and gentlemen, just recall this, this 2024 election year, not just for America, is historic. It’s in a global sense. We’ve touched on it before. Dr. Isaac Crockett and I spent a program on this some time ago about how here in 2024 there are more national elections taking place, affecting more people as in like 65% of the world’s 8.2 billion people are being affected by elections this year occurring in 2024 or having occurred as it did in Russia and China just at the very end of 2023. But taking effect in 2024, we’ve never ever, ever seen this kind of thing before. Countries like India and many nations across Europe and Africa and South America have held elections or like America yet to hold an election.
Sam Rohrer: Ladies and gentlemen, and David, just as we get into this, one of the things I’ve commented on is it’s almost like in the secular, those who are viewing it use the word historic because it is so many people, so many nations never this number ever. And I know I’ve made a comment that elections, ladies and gentlemen, are times when people make choices and they make choices about who will govern them. But in that process, I’m going to submit that God is also arranging something because you cannot consider voting for someone unless you consider such things as the role of God in government and truth and law and those things that are so very, very basic. And those things which are controlled media is working so hard at reinterpreting and redefining. So I just say that this is a significant year for a lot of reasons, David. Alright, let me go to you in this for the balance of the program. Take and express your opinion more from a 10,000 foot level regarding this November election and this debate that we watched. From your perspective, when you see a debate like this, what do you look for content-wise and otherwise within the debate as essential considerations, particularly since you’re coming from a constitutional perspective primarily?
David New: Well, this debate that we had on Tuesday was a very sad one, very disappointing. Donald Trump did not deliver a fatal blow to Kamala Harris. He did not expose her far left progressive ideology, how extreme it is, how dangerous it is, how she wants to have free medical care for people who come to this country illegally. She wants the government to pay for transition operations for people who want to change their sex. I mean, just ridiculous. And so I was very, very disappointed. Nevertheless, the other thing is that she never gave any specifics about what she was going to do. She was very vague, very broad, and she didn’t help herself that much in the debate because people want to know more about her and they didn’t really get to know too much about her. Now, when I look at this election, especially when I’m looking for a president to vote for, there are basically three things that I have on my agenda. Number one is the Supreme Court, number two are taxes, and number three is the family. Those are the three things that I’m looking for in American president. And overall it was a bad night on Tuesday. So what can you say?
Sam Rohrer: Alright, so those three areas, and David, we’ll build those out. Again, I come back in the next segment, I want you to ask you to build out the reference to the court. So ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to talk about why is that aspect of considering the judicial branch court, Supreme Court rulings, that whole piece, why is that so important? We’ll talk about that second and the third segment, we’ll talk about the matter of taxes because when you think about taxes, it’s not just the money we pay out of our pocket, but what ultimately are we talking about when we’re talking about taxes, government levying taxes, and when our money goes from our pocket to government, what actually is happening in that process? There’s a whole lot involved in that. And whereas there was a lot of discussion about taxes in the debate and some references to the court, it wasn’t within the context I think that David will express and we’ll talk about in the next two segments.
Sam Rohrer: And the other then of course is the family. Literally everything, every matter of policy that comes out of government has an effect on the people and therefore the family. So that’s why we’re going to go there. So anyways, David, it’s a great setup for these items that we’re looking at. And ladies and gentlemen, stay with us. We’ll come back and we’ll follow this backdrop a little bit as we walk through and consider a little bit more about what we heard, what we saw, what we didn’t hear and didn’t see in the debate on Tuesday night. And we’ll be back in just a little bit. Well, for most nations around the world and throughout the history of the world elections, and we’re in that election year and we’re talking about giving some comment here on the debate on Tuesday night, but elections, you think about it for most around the world, the history throughout the world, elections either never happened, it wasn’t a part of the form of government have passed or when they do happen in the time in which we live now actually don’t reflect elections of integrity based on truth.
Sam Rohrer: For instance, who believes the elections in China or Russia or well, how about America? Now, in America, our nation, God has given us what William Penn prayed for here in Pennsylvania and what he called a holy experiment in freedom. Now that meant self-government under God, bound by God’s definition of morality and purpose for government where rights come from God, not government. That was how we started. And we’ve enjoyed a representative republic important to understand a representative republic, not a democracy, not a monarchy, not a theocracy despite what you hear people talked about and the references made continually on Tuesday night. But how we started and where we now are reflect two entirely different things, yet as a constant reminder of where we started and where we still should calibrate our thinking. Well, it does happen, at least in the constitutional oath taken by every person in every elected office from the President on down.
Sam Rohrer: Now that oath in every state reflects a similar promise, not all worded exactly the same, but it’s almost always an oath is taken one hand in the air, the other on the Bible. And here in Pennsylvania I took this oath many times, but they read similar to this. I do solemnly swear to uphold and defend the constitution of my state, Pennsylvania, in my case and of the United States of America. And in some cases the additional words, so help me God, are added to ensure that the hand on the Bible in its purpose is understood. The questions in all elections and all debates should naturally focus on well the substance of the oath, which includes the Constitution. What does it say? I make an oath to support and D, defend it. Do I know what it means? And of course, the hand on the Bible indicates God watching over this promise and therefore truth and morality and accountability, pretty powerful. But how often do we go back there? Well, all right, David, you are most concerned, you’re concerned biblically, but as a constitutional attorney, you’re in that mode of thinking, constitution, law and Supreme Court. So you mentioned on the other side that when you hear debates, you are looking for comments about the candidate’s knowledge of and the involvement of their view of the judiciary generally. But the Supreme Court specifically, why is that
David New: You rarely ever hear and polls as one of the most important issues. You don’t even see the Supreme Court on the list. It rarely is on high up on anybody’s list. And that is a tragic mistake, ladies and gentlemen, when you have five members on the US Supreme Court who swim in the same pool, who think the same way, who are willing to vote as a unit, as a block, what you have with those five people is more power than the president of the United States and all the members of Congress combined. Listen, that is absolutely true. In many, many areas, those five people are more powerful than the President and the Congress combined. People don’t think like that, but that’s the way they should. Now you take America of 1924, you take America of 1964, you take America of 1994. It’s basically the same country, a lot of problems, a lot of bad things going on, but the roots are still the same.
David New: That is no longer true. Starting after the year 2000, America took a real shift and it’s not the same country in any way, shape or form. And the problem was not the President, it wasn’t Congress. They share in it, but they aren’t the fault. The bulk of the responsibility for the moral chaos we have in the United States rests with the US Supreme Court. That’s why I focus on that institution. That institution has what you have today in America. The horrible things that we see going on is because of the Supreme Court. Now, in the 1960s, the Supreme Court filed for divorce. They wanted to divorce the United States from Christian America. Later in the seventies, the United States Supreme Court made abortion on demand legal in Roe v. Wade. Then later in the year two thousands, the United States Supreme Court assaulted the family institution. The family is the first government.
David New: It is the most basic government on this planet, and it is the first government, moms and dads, parents and children. That’s the number one government. But in the year two thousands, the Supreme Court invaded that government with a foreign government. Same sex marriage is a foreign government and it has a completely hostile attitude towards God’s government on this earth. The family, all governments are built upon the family. They should be all superseding. Governments that are above the family should complement the institution of the family, the same sex marriage business, not there is no reconciliation between the two. So the America that we have today that is extremely destructive, exists for one basic reason and only one reason the President couldn’t do it. The Congress couldn’t do it, only the Supreme Court could do it. Now in this next four years, the chances that at least one member of the Supreme Court will retire are very, very high.
David New: It’s likely to be Clarence Thomas. He is 76 years of age. He’s been on the court for 33 years, and I’m sure he’s getting tired. He may not. We hope he won’t, but he might, which means the next president, as much as I don’t like what Donald Trump has been saying about abortion, I wish you would be much stronger on a pro-life position. I do know what Donald Trump will do when it comes to the Supreme Court and the kind of nominees he picks, and that’s why I go with him. So what we’ve got, ladies and gentlemen, with these six members that we’ve got right now, Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh Barrett, Roberts, Gorsuch, what we have in a sense is a second chance for this country, these six people potentially can do and reverse a lot of the damage that the prior Supreme Court has been doing. Well, we already know they’ve overturned Roe v.
David New: Wade, that’s wonderful. They returned it to the States because of the 10th Amendment to the Bill of Rights, which is exactly where it belongs. I wish the states would be all pro-life, but that’s the way it is. This Supreme Court also could reverse same sex marriage and return that to the states. You remember at one time in this country, 30 states voted on the issue of same sex marriage and they voted against it also, these six people. And if there is going to be a replacement in the next four years, we want somebody in the White House who’s going to pick another Kavanaugh, another Barrett or another Gorsuch, we want that six vote majority to stick. What can they do? They can return the Bible back into the public schools. It is even conceivable that prayer could come back in the public schools. We know without those people, it will never happen with those people. Maybe out of those six, there might be five who will say yay, the having prayer restored.
Sam Rohrer: Okay, David,
David New: Nobody knows.
Sam Rohrer: Okay, and so ladies and gentlemen, you get the idea the court has become not the weakest of the three branches as intended, but the strongest because what have they done is they have been the determiners of right and wrong, moral and immoral took God’s 10 commandments, which was the basis for what is right and decided to redefine it. Alright, so now we’re living under that. Now, David, I agree with what you say, they could turn those things around. But ladies and gentlemen, I’m just going to put before you that on other programs we’ve talked about the attitudes of the American public, even those who define themselves, self-identify as evangelicals. The majority now says it’s okay to have murder light, it’s okay to consider the family not traditional anymore, male and female, but other. So we have moved as a nation in what? David, you said we’ve moved a lot.
Sam Rohrer: So ladies and gentlemen, that’s one point. This court then judiciary, we’ll come back. We’re going to talk about the important aspect of taxes and what’s involved in that. Well, if you just joining us today, this is our bimonthly emphasis on Constitution, American history and special guest is well known to all of you listening to the program here at Constitutional attorney, David New, and what we’ve chosen to converse about today a little bit are some commentary on the presidential debate just a couple of nights ago. And we are not at all trying to be comprehensive and covering everything that could be covered, certainly not the kind of things that you’re finding out and about on the news as there’s so much, everybody’s got a perspective. We’re trying to narrow down a little bit in doing that here today. David, let’s go into it then The last segment when you talked about it, and again, this is from your perspective and it’s wonderful perspective, you say when you listen to debates and interaction between candidates and all of that, your ears are tuned for commentary and views on three issues.
Sam Rohrer: One regarding the Supreme Court because of the importance we just went through. That one is on taxes, we’re going to talk about that now. And then the third is obviously the family, which gets into the moral, which gets into the fundamental building block of every society and all of that. So we’ll talk a little bit that in the next segment. But on the matter of taxes, David, there are a lot of discussion on Tuesday night about taxes, but I’m just going to throw this in an open way to you. Why is the subject of taxes important to you and really should be important to everyone who loves freedom? When we consider debates and candidates and policy positions
David New: Within the legal community, the greatest chief justice of the United States that has ever existed was John Marshall. They call him the Great Chief Justice, and you don’t even need to say his name, John Marshall, because everybody will know who you’re referring to. Now. He made one of the most popular quotes by any member of the Supreme Court that the average American has probably heard before. The power to tax involves the power to destroy. That is one of the great truths of American life and of all government, the power to tax is the power to destroy. He said that in a case in 1819, by the way, for those of you who think I’m a little bit wacko because I believe the United States is a Christian nation, may I have your permission to point out a few facts. This gentleman by the name of John Marshall was a member of the Virginia Ratification Committee Convention rather. And on June 25th, 1788, John Marshall for the state of Virginia, voted to ratify the US Constitution. In 1825, chief Justice John Marshall wrote a decision in a case called the Antelope. The antelope was a slave ship and it was doing bad things like all slave ships will. And of course, by 1825, the slave trade was illegal. In that decision, the chief justice of the United States called the United States a Christian nation.
David New: In 1829, he attended a convention to rewrite the state constitution of Virginia. Now, the Virginia Constitution is somewhat unique. There’s only one other constitution that does what Virginia does. It includes in the Constitution, the word Christian. In Article 16, the chief justice of the United States voted to keep that word Christian in Article 16. So I would ask those who think that this is not a Christian nation to consider these historical facts. Now listen, Kamala Harris says she wants to give $25,000 to new home buyers. She wants to give $50,000 to people who want to start a new business. Now, this is not a loan of $50,000 that you can get right now from the small business administration. This is a gift of $50,000. She also, and this is where she really shows, she does not understand economics. She also wants to use price controls to reduce the high cost of food.
David New: Well, anybody who understands economics, I understand economics, I have a degree in it, a bachelor’s in economics as well as accounting knows that price controls don’t work. She’s trying to buy the White House, is what she’s trying to do. And every one of these proposals are unconstitutional. They violate Article one, section eight. If you see something in Article one, section eight, it tells you what the federal government can do. And if you don’t see it there, it could be somewhere else in the Constitution. But once you leave article section a, article one, section eight, you’re on thin ice. Now listen, the American people are in a very bad place right now. We are in a death spiral because of taxes, a death spiral because of taxes. The more the federal government gives away and benefits for houses for new businesses, the more it must collect taxes.
David New: And the more it collects taxes, the more the federal government must give away and benefits. It’s a revolving vicious cycle. Now, think about this. Today, many Americans, almost one half of what they do and spending their entire life working goes towards taxes. In effect, all of us are slowly becoming US government employees. We will spend half our life for somebody else to take our money that we will never meet and never have very much control in how they spend it. Now, of course, people like Kamala Harris and our good friend from Vermont comrade, this is some of the facts that they need to understand.
Sam Rohrer: Okay,
David New: Larry Kudlow,
Sam Rohrer: David,
David New: Very smart man.
Sam Rohrer: David, let me interject something here right now. I want to get this in this segment. You could provide a lot of information. The fact that half of what we earn is collected in taxes is the point. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re sitting here almost $36 trillion in debt. That is the death spiral. We cannot go much longer without a complete reset of currency. That’s a part of discussion. All of that. And David, you could give a lot of examples about how much money when we spend on a dollar of gasoline goes to taxes. But here’s the question I want to ask you here, and that is this. When the person considers taxes constitutionally, just bring it back here. Yes. The power to tax. Yes, it’s the power to destroy because you’re taking from people that which they need to support their families. Okay, alright. People can make that connection. But in reality, can you take and connect the matter of taxes to let’s say the issue of property? Because when I was in office, I had a real problem with this. Well, just because the government can’t take your money, doesn’t mean it has the right to do it. But when they take your money, what are they taking actually from David stealing. How should person view money? It’s their property, right?
David New: Yes. When the government takes taxes from you, they’re taking your property because you’ve worked for it, you’ve earned it, and the property is a symbol of your life’s energy, your life’s work. So when they take your taxes and they’re taking your property, they basically are taking your life. One of the most important ways in a free society for a government to operate is having liberal property rights, really respecting the rights of people to own property. Because when you have a lot of freedom with property, that means you are free. So it’s not just a thing, an object. It represents your life, your energy, everything you do. Now, here’s the bad news. When it comes to taxes, people think that taxes are a federal, state and local, and of course that’s high. But remember this, according to Larry Kudlow, the top 1% of earners pay 40% of all the taxes, the top 10% pay 70% of all the taxes.
David New: The bottom 50% of income earners only pay 3% of the taxes. Now that sounds pretty good until you get into that issue of hidden taxes. Those are the taxes you don’t even know you’re paying. You like to go to a hotel room, 40 per 3% of your bill to stay in that hotel, and most cases are taxes. If you like to fly on a plane, go on United and fly and so forth. About 40% of the airline ticket is taxes. When you buy $1 of gasoline, 34 cents goes to the production and expiration, 12 cents to the wholesaler, 6 cents to the refinery, and 48 cents due to federal, state and local taxes. So what’s happened when Covid hit that accelerated the death spiral. The government gave out lots and lots of money to people, and the people just took the money. And now even with all the money they got, they still are losing. They can’t catch up.
Sam Rohrer: And ladies and gentlemen, that is the reason for taxes. Its relationship to property, its relationship to independence becomes such a critical issue. We’ll come back, we’ll talk about the segment area of family. Okay, David, as we summarize a little bit, I’m just going to ask you a couple of questions and ask for a brief response from you. Let’s go back and revisit the first one. We’ve talked about the matter of the Supreme Court primarily, but judiciary and so forth in the debate on Tuesday night. What did you hear relative to that theme which you were looking for that you heard that was good or perhaps that you did not hear that stood out to you?
David New: What I heard on the debate Tuesday night was Donald Trump saying that he returned the issue of abortion to the states, which is exactly what the 10th Amendment to the Bill of Rights says should happen. So I liked what he said and she said, no, no, no, no. It’s a national right and all this kind of stuff and it comes out of thin air. There’s no such thing as a federal right to an abortion. It’s all made up.
Sam Rohrer: Okay. So that aspect of the federal government involvement at all in that matter could have been something that could have been a constitutional connection that could have been made and strengthened, but I’ll just leave it at that for right now. So that was an example. Trump said it belongs in the state and that was a good thing that you’re agreeing. That was the reference. Was there any other reference to Supreme Court that you remembered that was said or should have been said?
David New: Well, no, that was the only reference, but what should have been said is what each candidate is going to do. What kind of justices are they going to pick? Well, I already know the answer to the
Sam Rohrer: Question.
David New: I already know what Donald Trump is going to do and I already know what Sister Kamala is going to do.
Sam Rohrer: Yeah, I
David New: Agree. So I know which way I’m going to vote.
Sam Rohrer: Alright, let’s go to the matter of taxes. A lot of discussion on taxes, and you did cite some that in the last segment, Kamala was promising more and more and more. She was accusing of Trump tax policy favoring the rich and Trump was saying no. So there was a discussion there about taxes, but what was said that was most problematic, what perhaps was not said that would’ve been helpful to have said,
David New: Well, I don’t like what either one had to say about taxes. We know what Kamala Harris is going to do. She’s got a lot of giveaways ready, but we also know that Donald Trump is going to do tax cuts, big tax cuts. I don’t think so. I think the federal government needs to get out of the business of operating and managing this US economy. So I don’t think they should be giving out big tax cuts that just raised the deficit. And Donald Trump did that when he was president.
Sam Rohrer: So in reality, I would agree with you. In both cases, the deficit has continued to climb only by a matter of degrees, meaning Obama started to drive it up, it went up after Covid and giveaway dramatically. And then the Biden administration and Kamala has only driven it up further and Congress now has a budget resolution before them of what they’re going to do. But again, nobody has taken this matter of the deficit which ties directly to taxes, which goes directly to overspending, which ties directly into inflation, all of the things which they talked about, but not connected to this piece on taxes. So just a bit more discussion from you on that.
David New: This, during World War ii, FDR had the highest deficits in the history of this country, and it remained that way for the remaining years until Obama became president. He actually exceeded the level of FDR as a result of World War ii. I will say this, in defense of Donald Trump, if I can, as you might say, mitigating circumstances, a lawyer might say he knows how to get out of the hole. He knows that you’ve got to, the only way we can get out of this mess is to grow the economy. She doesn’t know how to do that. He does know how to do that. I’m sad that he plans on using tax cuts to do it, but that is, he knows he’s got grow the economy to ever get caught up on these mega deficits.
Sam Rohrer: Alright, and ladies and gentlemen, anyways, back on that. Lemme just turn just a little bit because the third area, David, that you talked about was the family. But literally it goes without saying, ladies and gentlemen, that the discussions on abortion that came up during that debate, it’s now supported on both sides. Kamala and the Democrat is murder all the way through, but on the side it is murder light. It’s 15 weeks. So we’ve got some circumstances there that was very confusing for you. But all of that touches on the family, the makeup of the family, traditional, nontraditional, male, female, all of those things. Taxes, axes, healthcare, foreign policy that touches on war, nowhere, all of those things touch on the families. So David, your commentary, we don’t have to spend a lot of time on that because it really does come back to that issue.
Sam Rohrer: But ladies and gentlemen, if I could do this, and David, your permission when I was listening, I’m listening in terms of where are the anchor points. Well, you got the Constitution. We’ve looked at that here today, just a few points, could have been more we talk about. And then the other issue is under God, which to me says moral. Here’s a statement that I read yesterday. We put it on Facebook, my summary of what I thought about the debate overall, and let me just read to you what I put together. I said this quote, opinions, commentary and public opinion. Polls are flooding the news today. Both sides are seeking to spin the results to their own benefit. The debate demonstrated one reality of our current desperate situation that is our nation is fractured. It’s split politically, socially, economically, religiously, and in nearly every way because we are not unified on the most basic of all things, the role of God and morality in our nation on any level because we cannot agree on the role of God.
Sam Rohrer: We are not unified on the simple but profound definition of truth and without agreement on God and truth, policy positions on any issue from foreign policy to Israel, from social issues, to economic issues, from family to community, have no anchor, no predictability without agreement on these things. There can be no administration of justice agreement on that, which is good or bad, right or wrong. Our problem is spiritual and nothing said last night, Tuesday night, pointed to God alone as our answer. The world has no answer. We as God’s people do, and we must anchor our faith and trust in him and in him alone. And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. That was basically the statement that I’d put together, ladies and gentlemen, as a way of summarizing and saying, we must compare what we hear always, what somebody says they will do or what they think or party platforms or the media or what it comes from the pulpit on the thing.
Sam Rohrer: What does God say? How do we define God? How we define truth determines how we define justice and freedom and all of the things that now are part of what we are hearing and will hear further unfold as we move towards the election. So anyway, I just put those out there, David New. Thank you so much for being with us today. We could have gone so much further, but great insight and ladies and gentlemen, hope that this has benefited you a little bit. You can find the program again if you would like on our website, stand in the gap radio.com and on our app and pick up a transcript from this if you want that quote or other things that were stated. God bless you. See you all tomorrow.
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