Even though President Trump is not on the ballot, Ryan Helfenbein told American Family Radio that the president will be on voters’ minds when they cast a ballot for Congress, for state governor, and in other state and local elections, too.
Trump himself has stated that, too. He jokingly told supporters at this week’s Corinth, Miss., rally to “pretend that I’m on the ballot” when they vote in the Senate race with Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith on the ballot.
At the Mississippi rally, and at others during his midterm blitz across the country, President Trump has said what is on the ballot is his “Make America Great” agenda. That includes tax cuts passed by a GOP-led Congress and his fulfilled campaign promise to stop illegal immigration at the U.S. border and to deport illegal immigrants.
The political dilemma with that message is President Trump’s approval rating is currently in the negatives, hovering at 60% disapproval, and Democrats are using the Republican president to urge their base to vote, too.
Helfenbein, a spokesman for Liberty University, is executive director of the Standing for Freedom Center located there. He was a guest of the “Jenna Ellis in the Morning” program to discuss next week’s elections and the influence of President Trump.
It’s nearly impossible for President Trump not to be on a voter’s mind, Helfenbein told Ellis, when he has been the main figure in national politics for 12 years now. So there is probably some “voter fatigue” that Evangelicals are carrying with them when they cast a ballot, Helfenbein allowed.
“But just to remind listeners: This is the man who has been the most pro-life Republican, the most pro-life president in the Roe era,” Helfenbein pointed out.
Dems plan 'reform' and political revenge
An important legal success President Trump can point to, Helfenbein shared, is his appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court as well as federal court judges.
Landmark rulings from the right-leaning court have upheld parental rights and religious freedom, and struck down abortion rights, affirmative action, and strict gun laws, among other political and cultural losses to liberal ideology.
Furious over that string of legal setbacks, Democrats have vowed to “reform” the U.S. Supreme Court by adding more seats that will outnumber the conservative justices with liberal appointees.
A more recent vow from congressional Democrats is "100 hours" of political revenge if they regain the House or the Senate in the midterm elections, The New York Times reported last week.
If a Democrat is chairing committees, targets of those committees include President Trump, the Trump family, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Pete Hegseth.
Another target of Democrats is Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division.
She has used that legal authority to target major universities for racial discrimination against whites and Asians, and the Civil Rights Division has investigated public schools for Title IX violations against female athletes.
"The full extent of your misconduct remains unclear. At the very least, you have shown gross negligence in supervising the activities of your office," Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin stated in a letter to Dhillon.
If they win back power next week, Democrats must also weigh what to do with the growing influence of Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA. That socialist-communist group got the attention of national Democrats when it defeated incumbent Democrats, and it has emerged as a political force with a grassroots network of far-left activists.
Flirting with a pretty farmer
Wading into evangelical voters’ frustrations with Trump, Helfenbein said Christian voters are concerned with how people “carry themselves” in office, including Trump’s coarse tone and his behavior.
At the Corinth rally, Trump interrupted his speech (pictured below) to flirt with a rallygoer, a blonde woman, standing in front of him who had apparently captured his attention.
“You’re a farmer? You don’t look like a farmer to me,” Trump, who has been married three times, told her. “Do all farmers look like you? I don’t think so.”
During his campaign speeches, which are often rambling and unpredictable, Trump drops curse words that many parents would object to their children hearing from the president of the United States. "Hell" seems to be his favorite word during his current midterm tour, but transcripts reviewed by AFN show he drops other objectionable words, too.
“At the end of the day, we triage those concerns against actual policies, actual things that affect people's lives,” Helfenbein stated. “We care about the protection of children. We care about immigration and the rule of law. We care about the rise of Islam.”
Piggybacking on that observation about Trump, Ellis said she agrees Christian voters should care about how a candidate behaves and talks.
“They should care about all of those things, and it's not a ‘but’ or an ‘or,’ it's an ‘and,’ Ellis said. “They should also triage that and look at who's actually on the ballot.”
Ellis, who previously worked as Trump’s personal attorney, has a unique one-on-one history working closely with the current president. She shared with Helfenbein that radio listeners have complained to her when she criticizes Trump, as if he is above criticism because it hurts the Republican Party and helps Democrats.
“I don't think that's the right way to respond to some of these things,” Ellis stated.
Helfenbein said both Democrats and Republicans have their own problems in both political parties, and he said Republicans have a president in the White House who says mean things and posts mean things on social media.
Nobody who supports Trump, he said, believes those things are appropriate, but they are adults who see what the other political party stands for and plans to do.
“We understand that there are serious issues facing the electorate when it comes to life, marriage, family, national security, economic concerns – all of that,” he concluded.
Back at the Corinth, Miss. rally, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves urged the crowd to weigh the two parties when they vote.
"It's not just Republican versus Democrat," Reeves said from the podium. "It's common sense versus chaos. It's freedom versus government control."
