A Trumpy Trial of Jim Bennett's Faith

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I am here in this bright new year with Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir?

I'm doing very well today, Jim. How are you?

Doing well. I understand you got a little bit of snow. We're getting quite a bit of snow, which is, I suppose, a nice thing, but, uh, it's also cold and miserable. I think snow ceases to be charming on December 26th of every year, right after Christmas. It's like all of a sudden, okay, great. We've done the snow thing. Let's move on.

I, I love snow. We love snow. I don't like driving on snow. Snowballs, snowmen, skiing, snow is great. We've only just got our snow where we live, which is usually snow from November. It only started snowing a couple of days ago. Over Christmas and New Year's, it's been unbelievably mild, +5, +6, no snow on the ground. I saw a Harley-Davidson motorbike traveling up the highway only a few days ago, which is I've never seen that before. But yeah, we've got some snow on the ground. It's not a lot. And my son shared a joke with me over Christmas. He said it was a Chinese proverb that says, never eat yellow snow.

Yes.

I thought that was good advice from a 13-year-old.

Well, that's a quote from Frank Zappa from his song St. Alfonso's Breakfast. Watch out where the huskies go and don't you eat that yellow snow.

I never knew that. That's—

I— There you go.

Right. So it's not nothing to do with the Chinese proverb. It's from Frank— was it Frank Zappa?

Frank Zappa. Well, I think, I think many people, it's in the movie Elf too. So I think there are plenty of people that live by that, by that credo. So I'm trying to do a segue from yellow snow into our topic today. Speaking of yellow snow, let's talk about Donald Trump.

That's a good segue.

Yeah, there you go.

That's a perfect segue, isn't it?

Yeah. There you go. Because we talked about this, and this is not a political podcast. This is a religious podcast, or it's a podcast where we're discussing the strengths and weaknesses of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But I wanted to bring up Donald Trump specifically. Because Donald Trump represents to me the single greatest trial of my faith right now. And we talked about this offline, but I want to tell our listeners what I mean by that. So obviously Donald Trump is in the news. Of course, I mean, it's not possible for Donald Trump not to be in the news. The Iowa caucuses are coming up., and he's about to start a new defamation trial. He was found liable for sexual assault in a previous defamation trial. A woman named E. Jean Carroll, uh, said that Donald Trump raped her in a department store back in the '90s. And, uh, she had contemporaneously told that story to others. And she had evidence that that was the case. And she, and Donald Trump, uh, since has said, uh, she's ugly. She's not my type. There's no possible way I would've done that because she's so ugly. And then during the deposition for this, Donald Trump looked at a picture of her and said, oh, there's Marla. Marla being his second wife. And she looks very much like his second wife. So completely undermining the idea that she was too ugly for him to be interested in. But anyway, the trial proceeded and she won. She proved in a court of law that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her. Now we have to navigate a little bit of the language here because I want to say she proved in a court of law that Donald Trump raped her. The problem with that is The legal definition of rape under New York Penal Code is being vaginally penetrated with a penis. I'm going to get very graphic here. So if that makes you uncomfortable, I'll try to tone it down as much as I can. But she was unable to determine herself in the flurry of the assault whether or not she was penetrated by a penis or by his fingers.. And so the jury determined it was sexual assault, but couldn't specifically, uh, pin the word rape on it. But later on, the judge in the case said, the fact that it didn't meet this sort of legal standard does not mean the jury did not prove that she was raped using that word in the way that everybody else uses the word. If, if you describe the physical details of the assault, Everybody would presume that that's a rape. But I mean, that's neither here nor there, other than the fact that the reaction of people when I point out that Donald Trump is a rapist and has been proven to be so in a court of law, people get very indignant and very angry. That's just one of the things where Donald Trump is front and center. The other is He was arguing before an appellate court in the DC Circuit that a president of the United States has total immunity from all criminal activity. President can do anything and not be prosecuted criminally for it, and has been arguing this for months. And we finally got it before a court, and the DC Circuit judge asked Trump's lawyer— they said, okay, so if Donald Trump orders SEAL Team 6 to take out a political rival, can he do that? Is he immune from prosecution from doing that? And the, the lawyer hemmed and hawed and said, well, he would have to be impeached and convicted first, and then, then you can prosecute him. But if there's no impeachment, then you can't prosecute him. Which is essentially arguing that Donald Trump can order a hit on Joe Biden and, and not be prosecuted.

Yeah.

Or, or that Joe Biden right now as president can order a hit on Donald Trump and not be prosecuted just so long as the Senate doesn't impeach or convict him. And we've seen through sad experience with Donald Trump that impeachment is not a legal process. It is a political one. Uh, uh, there is no legal ramification for a Senate ignoring criminal crimes. You can impeach somebody for something that is not a crime, and you could ignore actual crimes, and you can vote however you want. There's no cr— this is not a criminal proceeding. So, uh, the lawyer essentially had to say, well, okay, fine. No. Yeah. If the Senate does not convict, then you can't be prosecuted. So a president is completely above the law, can do whatever they want. If enough partisans are behind him in the impeachment process, he can literally get away with murder. So I went online to talk about these things, which of course is my first mistake. I still participate on Twitter. I refuse to call it X. But on Twitter, I posted both links to the Eugene Carroll thing and to the Donald Trump thing. And members of the church, not just random people, but actual members of the church. These are some of the comments from a guy named FG Bandems. He says, you're an idiot and a pathetic loser. Get a life and try to have an original thought for once. 'You jackass.' Another one: 'You can't pretend this isn't a political witch hunt. Hating Trump has been preached to you. These facts won't change your mind, but it's evil.' I mean, I can go down this list and I can find you all kinds of terrible, terrible responses, most of them from members of the church.

How do you know they're from members, Jim? Just to clarify.

Because many of them identify themselves as members.

Okay.

And they have in there— I mean, you go— usually when I find a comment like this, I go back and I look at their timeline because I, uh, I, I'm a prodigious blocker on Twitter. I will block anybody for two reasons. One, if you're rude to me, I don't want to talk to you. I don't have to listen to rude people. I will block you instantly. 2, if you are incapable of recognizing facts, I will block you. And this is such a problem with Trumpers because if you continually tell me, you know, it, it, it's very, uh, I, I have all the time in the world for people who disagree with me on opinion. I have no time for people who are not willing to acknowledge facts. And so many Trumpers live in an alternate reality where the 2020 election was stolen and all of these things happened. And it's not an agree to disagree sort of situation. I always think back to the movie Anchorman. You ever seen Anchorman?

I have.

There's that great scene in Anchorman where, um, Will Ferrell is out with, um, what is her name? The woman in Anchorman. Anyway. Uh, she was from Married with Children, Christine— Christina Applegate. And they're in a car on their first date, and he's talking about San Diego and how, uh, the words San Diego are translated from German as a whale's vagina. And Christina Applegate says, no, they're translated from Spanish as Saint Diego. That's what San Diego means. It means Saint Diego. And, and Will Ferrell's character says, no, agree to disagree. It's like, no, you can't agree to disagree. One is right and the other is wrong. One is incorrect. And the Trumpers have had every opportunity. There have been over 60 court cases where they've been able to present evidence of fraud, and they haven't presented any of it because it doesn't exist. The 2020 election was not stolen. It is not a matter of opinion. You don't have to like Joe Biden. You don't have to like the fact that he won. But the undeniable reality is that he won. And so I am not willing— I am no longer willing to have any kind of an online conversation with anybody that isn't willing to acknowledge facts. And so much of Trumpism relies on an alternate reality with alternative facts. One of Trump's advisers gave us that phrase. I mean, right from the outset, Trump would lie about things that didn't need to be lied about. He insisted that more people came to his inauguration than came to any other inauguration in history. Well, that's a verifiable fact. We have pictures, we have records that demonstrate how many people came. And there were more people at Obama's inauguration than at Trump's inauguration. I mean, it's just a fact. And it was Trump's advisor, Kellyanne Conway, who said, well, Trump has provided alternative facts to that. And all of Trumpers seem to live in this world of alternative facts. All right, so this is my political rant. What does this have to do with the topic here? Why do I say Donald Trump is the biggest trial of my faith? The reason I say that is that I find the greatest strength of the church to be the church on the local level. Throughout my life growing up as a lifetime member of the church, the people in the church that I grew up with, my leaders, my teachers, my bishops, all of these people had such a profound effect on me and such a profoundly positive effect on me. That I see the church's goodness in the day-to-day interactions I have with its members. And so when people start to criticize the church on a macro level, when you start to sort of focus on problems in church history and everything else, I am happy to engage in those discussions, but they matter less and less to me. Than my practical lived experience in the church, which for the majority of my life has been overwhelmingly positive. On this podcast, I've talked about the experience of my daughter getting injured and how the ward just sort of sprung into action and literally saved our lives in terms of just helping us through this traumatic, terrible event. And it was the Church at its best. And I've seen that with other people. I mean, that's the time that it was most impactful in my own personal life. But my daily interactions with members of the Church, with members of my ward, with members of my community, are to me the greatest testimony of the Church's goodness. And so the reason I say that Donald Trump is the biggest trial of my faith is that I have seen these people that I know, good people, or people I presume to be good people, embrace the worst possible person in the world. I mean, I say that Donald Trump is not only the worst president, it's not even that his policies are bad. It's that he is just the most vile human being I can imagine. He's a man without a shred of empathy who is incapable of telling the truth, uh, who has been found in a court of law to have raped a woman. And there are also many, many more active, um, accusations, credible accusations of sexual assault and harassment that are out there against Donald Trump. And, you know, this is just a terrible, terrible person. And not only is he a terrible person, I don't know that members of the church realize just how terrible he has been to the church. His advisors have called the church a cult. He has embraced people who hate the church more than anybody. I mean, evangelical Christians. Hate Mormons more than they hate Democrats. You saw that in 2012 when they just had to bite their tongues and support Mitt Romney, and it was almost impossible for them to do it. And as soon as Mitt Romney lost, the facade was stripped away. And you saw once again that these people hate us, you know, and so, but the bigotry, the, you know, Initially, Donald Trump was having problems in the state of Utah, particularly because he hated refugees so much. And the church— Patrick Kearon gave that great talk that we talked about in our podcast about Elder Kearon, talking about how Latter-day Saints were refugees in the days after Nauvoo. We were driven from our homes and drove— were driven to Utah. And so we, we understand historically what it's like to be a refugee. And Donald Trump calls them garbage. Donald Trump issues a travel ban designed to keep anybody who is a Muslim out of the United States. You know, this is the reason my father on his deathbed said, I want to go up to every Muslim in this hospital and apologize on behalf of the Republican Party for Donald Trump. You know, I mean, this is just a guy that is antithetical to all of the principles that I grew up being taught. And to me, it's not even political. This is the thing that drives me crazy. It is nothing to do with, uh, ideal conservative or liberal, left or right. To me, it's decent versus indecent. And it's bizarre to me as having been a lifelong Republican who left the Republican Party when Donald Trump became its nominee. It's, it's fascinating to me on an ideological level to see the Republican Party completely morph into something else, into something it wasn't. The Republican Party, if it stood for anything, stood for free markets, free trade. Donald Trump hates free markets, hates free trade. So all of a sudden the Republican Party does, and we're supposed to pretend that the Republican Party always has, and that the party of Ronald Reagan and the party of Donald Trump are ideologically consistent when they absolutely are not. I mean, politically, ideologically, I'm every bit as conservative as I was before Donald Trump, and the Republican Party has turned into something else. It has turned into a cult of personality. I mean, the Republican Party used to stand for, um, fiscal responsibility and limited government and lower government spending. Donald Trump— well, Barack Obama spent like a drunken sailor over 8 years, and the Republican Party was screaming at him and doing everything they could to stop him. Donald Trump spent more money and added more debt to the national debt in 4 years than Barack Obama did in 8. And the Republican Party was cheering him on. I mean, it's just Orwellian Looney Tunes to think that the ideologue— ideology of the Republican Party in 2024 bears any resemblance to the ideology of the Republican Party, even as recently as 2012 when Mitt Romney was the nominee. I mean, so, but to some degree, that's neither here nor there. It's— it isn't necessarily about politics. It's about decency. It's about how are we allowing this man to, to normalize terrible, terrible actions? I mean, Donald Trump, January 6th, to watch Republicans pretend that the assault on the Capitol that they all decried within 24 hours of the assault on the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, now to watch them backpedal and pretend it's not that big a deal. Wasn't really an insurrection. There really wasn't a problem. You're just a jerk for even mentioning it. It, it's astonishing to me. I mean, I used to be, I worked for a Republican Senator, Alan Simpson of Wyoming, and I was an intern. I mean, I wasn't a big deal, but, uh, I, one of the things I did was give tours of the Capitol to Wyoming constituents that came to Washington, DC. And I know I know pretty much every nook and cranny of that building. I love that building. It's, it's, it's just, there's so much history. It, it's just a temple of democracy. And to have watched January 6th and have people marching through there with Confederate flags and smashing windows and bringing up a gallows to say, hang Mike Pence, uh, it, it felt like they were breaking into my own home. And it, it was so repugnant. And, and Trump has normalized that now. Now that's acceptable behavior. I mean, it's just, it, it's, it's what he, what he's done is normalized the worst possible instincts of all of his followers. He's given all of his followers license to be bigots, license to be cruel, license to lie. With impunity, license to ignore reality. And this is all normal now. It's all acceptable. We all have to sort of tiptoe around it and say, oh yes, well, maybe, maybe the election was stolen. Who knows? Maybe it's okay to break into the Capitol after you lose and try to prevent them from certifying election. Maybe that's fine. I mean, that's, it's so, so bizarre to me that anybody with any ideology, of any ideological persuasion, can look at that and say that's acceptable. So it's bizarre that anybody can do that. But it's especially bizarre to me that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who have a covenantal relationship with God that gives them the gift of the Holy Ghost, which provides the gift of discernment by the power of the Holy Ghost. We are told in Moroni 10:5, ye may know the truth of all things. We are the people who have been given a charge and given, uh, authority from God to discern truth from evil. And 70% of us voted to re-elect Donald Trump and Not only that, it's not even just a macro— they voted for him. On a day-to-day level, in my interactions with actual physical members of the church, uh, that kind of cruelty, that kind of dishonesty, that kind of bigotry, that are the— all of which are hallmarks of Donald Trump as a human being, all of that has filtered into one-on-one personal interactions with people in the church. And I don't know how to reconcile that. I don't know how to deal with that, because the greatest argument for the goodness of the church is the goodness of its members. And we have sacrificed that. We have given that up. We have Got into just, just— classy, classy, classy ways of behavior. We talk to each other in ways that we never would. I mean, the things that I've read to you from members of the church online, I've— online is different. I often say that, you know, real— most of the real-life Mormons I know are wonderful people. And most of the anonymous online Mormons I interact with are not just the worst the church has to offer, but they're the absolute worst people in the world. And these are people that cheer and gloat when anybody leaves the church. These are people who just are bullies beyond measure. Everything I post, everything I post, there are a handful of Twitter accounts that repost it and go, ah, look at Jim Bennett, what an idiot he is, what a jerk. I really wish he'd leave the church. You know, I had the one guy who said he was really upset about the tab choir. Um, you know, somebody else said they were upset that they, they thought they'd seen somebody with more than one earring in the tab choir. And somebody else says, well, it's not as bad as Jim Bennett's whole body being in the tab choir. I mean, this guy, I don't know. This is a guy, but, but he feels comfortable enough just to be cruel to me out of nowhere because, you know, I mean, that's what Donald Trump does. That's it. It's, it's a genuine struggle for me. It's a genuine trial of faith because I know that the principles that I've been taught principles of kindness, principles that are embodied in the 121st section of the Doctrine and Covenants: by persuasion, by long-suffering, by kindness, which will greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy and without guile. I mean, those kinds of principles, my uncle, who was a stake president in Los Angeles, used to rattle that off all the time when he'd talk about interactions with other church members and how he's like, this is so important, we always need to remember this. And that's all taken a back seat. And a majority, a solid majority of Latter-day Saints look at Donald Trump and don't see a problem with it. And, and, and downplay it and justify it. And it's not acceptable. I don't care how much you hate Joe Biden. I don't care how much you hate Democrats. It is not acceptable to have this monster as your president and as your role model and as your exemplar, which, I mean, it's just unacceptable. So there is my opening rant, and I want to see if you can talk me off the ledge.

Okay. I, I, I'm not sure if I, if I want to, but I'll see what I can do. Before I give you, uh, a longer response, I want to ask you a, a question. First of all, thank you for, uh, sharing your thoughts and feelings. Uh, I'll talk in a few moments about the relationship between church and state because in my opinion, you can't separate, especially people interested in politics as you and I are very passionate about politics. You come from a political family as well. You've run for office, et cetera. And, you know, a lot of people obviously have this, uh, interest in politics because that affects our daily lives at every level. And what's that relationship with religion and the church, uh, specifically? And, and what's that separation line? And I don't think you can separate them, and I'll, I'll explain why in a few minutes. But I've got a question for you. You've got some— you've had feedback from what you've clarified and confirmed is coming from rank-and-file church members. On your thoughts and position on Donald Trump and the conversations around that. What is your understanding of the official or unofficial position of the leadership of the church, the First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve, in respect to Donald Trump's political aspirations, views, his extraordinary history including insurrection. Could you comment on that? You've got feedback from members who don't hold back. What's, what's your understanding or perspective of where the church is officially or unofficially in respect to the Donald Trump issue?

That is a good question to which I only have anecdotal answers. I have not had a direct conversation with any church leader of any prominence with regard to Donald Trump. I've had some conversations with Patrick Kiran that to me suggest that he is absolutely not a Trumper. And I think publicly his stance on refugees, particularly that speech which was given in the heat of a political campaign, he no doubt realized just how contrary that was to Trumpism and to the prevailing conventional wisdom from Trumpers. So I, I am fairly confident that Patrick Kearon is not a Trumper. I know that Dieter Uchtdorf got into trouble for donating money to the Biden campaign, which general authorities are not supposed to do, let alone apostles. So it's very clear that, uh, Dieter Uchtdorf is not a Trumper. The only political conversations I've had with general authorities— I had one with Marlon K. Jensen who was talking actually to my father. I mean, I participated in the conversation, but he said to my father, almost thou persuadest me to be a Republican, because he was very much adamantly a Democrat. So I know that there are Democrats in church leadership. James Faust famously was a Democrat. So, so what I'm about to tell you is based solely on impression not on actual data, because I don't have any actual data one way or the other. But the impression that I get based on the tea leaves that I'm reading is that the brethren to some degree are beside themselves with regard to Donald Trump because they don't— I don't think that they are big fans. I think they probably don't like him at all. That I wouldn't even include conservative leaders like Dallin Oaks. I don't think Dallin Oaks is a fan of Donald Trump. Dallin Oaks has given a number of talks that have had political implications that have been directly— I mean, Dallin Oaks explicitly has said it is immoral to vote straight party. You can't just say since someone's a Republican, I'm going to vote for them and I'm just going to vote straight party. He says you need to consider every candidate on their own merits. And the church has issued a statement to that effect. I think that's a direct response to Donald Trump. I think the church is doing everything it can to throw lifelines, uh, to members of the church who have a problem with Donald Trump. And I, and, and This precedes Trump. But when I worked in 2010 for Sam Granado, who was the Democratic candidate for the United States Senate against Mike Lee after my father lost earlier in the race, we had Elder Stephen Snow come as a consultant to our, to our campaign. Elder Snow at one point was the church historian, was very much involved in crafting the gospel topics essays. And was very much a believing, hardcore Democrat. And those conversations were very interesting. And he said, look, the church is desperate for a credible Democrat to win a statewide office in Utah because internationally the reputation of the church as a Republican church does us great damage. I mean, he explicitly said that. I mean, this is, this is 6 years before Trump came on the political scene. But I can only imagine that that kind of concern, particularly for the international reputation of the church, as the church gets more and more going down the MAGA rabbit hole, um, I, I think that that's a huge concern for the church, and I think they recognize it internationally. Having the church identified as a Republican, Trumpy church does us great damage and makes it very difficult for convert baptisms. So the other thing that's just happened that is very interesting to me, and this is, this is really inside baseball, but I'm going to talk to you about a man named Aaron Sherinian. Aaron Sherinian was the bishop of the Arlington Ward at the time my father died. He came to my father's home within minutes of his passing and sat and wept with the family. I mean, I love this man. He is such a kind man and showed such kindness. He presided over my father's funeral, and at the time he was the head of the United Nations Foundation. Which is not a conservative stronghold. And I have talked to him. He is not a fan of Donald Trump, uh, on any level. And he was just hired yesterday as the managing director of communications for the entire church. And I am really fascinated to see how that will work because The previous managing director of communications that I remember was Richard Turley, who was also a historian. I don't think he is a Trumper, but I know that the government relations director of the church is a man named Marty Stevens, who's the former Speaker of the House in the Utah legislature, and he's very Trumpy, you know. So, so I— but it— to me then, I think that there is I understand every bit the kinds of back— all kinds of challenges that these men are dealing with. But I don't think on the whole church leadership is happy to see us going down the Trump rabbit hole. And I think they're terrified of doing anything about it. I mean, the things that they've done about it are sort of half measures. As far as I'm concerned, uh, and, and I think they're terrified of alienating the Trumpers who pay the most tithing. I mean, these are the most loyal members of the church if you look at the metrics that the church uses to measure. These are tithe payers, these are bishops, these are stake presidents. These are priesthood leaders. These are the kinds of people that the church does not want to alienate. And you saw during COVID how easy it is to alienate these guys, you know, 'cause these Trumpers are also the people that are the anti-vaxxers, the people who insist that the vaccines are some kind of evil secret combination You know, and all this. And the church very tepidly initially just suggested, please follow health guidelines. And that was very easy for these guys to ignore. Oh yeah, okay, great. Well, I, you know, consult with your health professional. Well, I'm consulting with my health professional who's a chiropractor who doesn't actually have a medical degree. And he tells me that the vaccine will kill me, so I'm not going to take it. Finally, then they release pictures of Russell Nelson getting vaccinated, wearing a mask, and then they issue stronger guidelines saying we encourage, we urge. I think that's the verb. We urge members of the church to get vaccinated. And that was dismissed. The anti-vaxxer Trumper types were like, well, forget it.

No way.

You know, I mean, in the Tab Choir, we were told we had to be vaccinated to be able to return to the Tab Choir afterwards. And a big chunk of Tab Choir members wouldn't return. They waited. Now anybody can come back. That requirement is unnecessary. And so many of them waited waited it out. But they refused to come back. They refused to be vaccinated. And they refused to wear masks. You know, I'd go to church and they, they'd say, okay, you need to wear a mask to church. And there were several families that just didn't. And it was— they were daring you to say something. You know, so, so that's the long answer. But the short answer is I don't think they like Trump. I think they recognize this is a problem, and I think that they are terrified of doing anything about it.

As a follow-on question to that last piece, taking into account the church's approach to the COVID vaccinations and the reaction that the church members got, and just to clarify, Jim Bennett, and please check me on this, we're talking about, we've said, or we believe that We think around 70% of what, Utah members? Are we talking members?

American members.

American members. I wanna clarify that.

The number I've seen is that 70% of American Mormons voted for Donald Trump.

I give a clarify. That's a really important clarification because outside of America, the situation is very different. In Canada, they can't stand Donald Trump mostly, many of them. Support him, but many do not. UK, elsewhere around the world, if you look at the graphs of the world's reaction to Donald Trump, there's a lot of material research of the global opinions, if you like, of Donald Trump Part 1 and the prospect of Donald Trump Part 2. We look at the graphs of the research, I think that fills a lot of people in the world with fear and concern. So we're saying then, or we, we, we say very clearly that, uh, 70% of the church members in, uh, in America specifically, exclusively in America, typically generally support Donald Trump. My follow-on question is, in this context, in the last piece that you just shared, what is the church approach? To the, the fact that, or the, the basis that 70% of the church members supports Donald Trump in the United States specifically. What is the church approach to that? What will their response be or should be? And how are they going to handle that and respond to that? Because if you look at Donald Trump, he is way ahead in the, he's not showing up to any of the meetings. He's dealing with all the legal fallout. And just to be clear and to summarize how serious that is in terms of the legal issues he's dealing with, he ha— and these are from, these are credible claims, criminal claims and accusations and claims being addressed through the judicial and other institutional processes that exist in the United States, where you've got the inquiry that went into the January 6th insurrection, the 2020 election aftermath. That was a criminal case heard in the District Court of Colum— US District Court of the District of Columbia. You got the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, which again, another criminal case, uh, through the Southern District of Florida. These are official formal procedural, legal, criminal case against Trump that following the due process. And I think a lot of the institutions and judicial system is being tested. I think democracy potentially is at risk as well, by the way, just as a side point. Other claims, which again, these are official formal legal activities that are happening against Trump, criminal case in New York County is the Stormy Daniels hush money. Uh, there is the, uh, again, another civil, this one civil, uh, in New York County. Uh, prosecutor, uh, Leticia James, New York attorneys brought the case for business fraud and tax fraud in New York. They want to ban Trump doing business in New York. You mentioned E. Jean Carroll, which is a civil case, New York Supreme Court attorney there, Robert Kaplan. And again, that's been, um, judged to where Trump actually committed a sexual assault. So there are the very serious allegations against the church. And then if you look at the 13th Article of Faith in the church, it's one of the canonized texts, I think, in the church or thereabouts in terms of the, the basic fundamental principles and doctrines of the church. Article 13 says, we believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men. Indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul. We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, are a good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things. And then another article that the church has published, and there's lots of material on this, the church position to, to add on to my question here, just for context, is, is that, quote, voting in government elections and performing other civic activities, civic activities where we have the opportunity is a sacred responsibility. Quote, a God-given blessing and a duty to be carried out with honor and trust, end quote. They then quote the 13th Article of Faith. They quote Articles 1, uh, 12. Uh, he says, because we're subject to rulers, we must do all we can to— we can in diplomatic, legal, supportive ways to select and help elect officials. Let me quote that accurately and, and more clearly 'cause it's important. Quote, because we are subject to rulers, we must do all we can in diplomatic, legal, and supportive ways to select and help elect officials who are honest, wise, and good. DNC Section 98.10. We also should consider running for office ourselves and support laws that observe the, quote, principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges which belong to all mankind and are justifiable before me. Again, section, uh, Doctrine and Covenants 98:5. So the church is, is very clear on the values, the standards, the principles, um, and the, um, commitment that we have to politics. There is a very important, valuable relationship. It is this relationship between politics and religion. You can't get away from that. It's in the Book of Mormon. It's in the early restoration of the church. Joseph Smith ran for office. Brigham Young ran for office, right? He was the governor of Utah. So historically, you can't get away from politics. Neither should we. It's an important part of life. In the Book of Mormon, it talks about, um, the relationship between government and church, you know, that relationship between church and state. And I think that's been tested in the United States. So my question is the following question: with what you said already and with that information I've just shared there, quoting the church on its position, what will be or should be or is likely to be the church response to, Trump, and also to what we said, 70% of the members in the United States who are, uh, pro-Trump, who are going to vote for Trump again, uh, what is the church approach to that? Or should the church— how should the church approach that considering its, um, position and the reaction that they had from the members when it urged members to take the COVID vaccine? And keeping in mind what you said, that a lot of these members are faithful tithe payers, so there's a financial driver or component to this.

So it's a good question. What has the church done? There is a concrete answer to that question. What should the church do is more speculative. But what the church has done— I just pulled up as you were talking a letter that the church issued to General Authorities and the following leaders in the United States: Area Seventies, Stake, Mission, District, and Temple Presidencies, Bishoprics, and Branch Presidencies, to be read in sacrament meeting. This was issued in June, June 1st, 2023, and I, I will read— I, I won't read the whole thing, but I'll read the important bits here. Dear brothers and sisters, Citizens of the United States have the privilege and duty of electing officeholders and influencing public policy. Participation in the political process affects their communities and nations today and in the future. We urge— here's that verb again— we urge Latter-day Saints to be active citizens by registering, exercising their right to vote, and engaging in civic affairs, always demonstrating Christlike love and civility in political discourse. I mean, I see that right there, that sentence, as a thumb in the eye to, to Trumpers who don't know what Christlike love and civility are. We urge you— another urge— to spend the time needed to become informed about the issues and candidates you will be considering. Some principles compatible with the gospel may be found in various political parties. I think various is See, they used to have a letter like this and a policy like this that included a lot of this language. This isn't necessarily new, but some of the things in it are new that, that are, that are interesting that I want to focus on. And here's the sentence. I think that the biggest sense, merely voting a straight ticket or voting based on tradition without careful study of candidates. Oh, I, I, I'm gonna give you the sentence beforehand. Members should also study candidates carefully and vote for those who have demonstrated integrity, compassion. Okay, so Donald Trump is already excluded. And service to others regardless of party affiliation. Merely voting a straight ticket or voting based on quote tradition— that word is in quotes— without careful study of candidates and their positions on important issues is a threat to democracy and inconsistent with revealed standards. The rest of it is boilerplate, talks about how the church buildings can't be used for political functions and all that kind of stuff. But the idea of just specifically calling out the idea of just voting for somebody because of their party That is new. And that is— I can't interpret that as anything but a direct response to Trump. So, uh, I don't think it is going to have any impact. I don't think it has had any impact. I don't think it will have any impact. Uh, I recall, I think I've talked about this on this podcast before, but, uh, I'm gonna repeat myself a bazillion times if we keep doing this. So, At one point, I interviewed with the church for a position as the director of governmental affairs for the church, the position Marty Stevens now holds. At the time, it was being held by a man named Bill Evans, who I, according to my understanding, has left the church, got a divorce, and is now a— is now an advocate for LGBTQ rights. And I think he's the head of an LGBTQ pro-rights organization. But at the time, we were talking about, you know, the church and politics. And his response was, he says, the church knows that it has the biggest stick. You know, Teddy Roosevelt once said, speak softly, but carry a big stick. He said the church has the biggest stick in Utah politics, which is why We very seldom use it, says I as a lobbyist. He was a registered lobbyist. He says, as a lobbyist, I don't go up to Capitol Hill during the session because I don't want people to feel like they can't vote however they need to vote. You know, when my father was a senator, he also said the church really didn't come after him and ask him to vote a certain way very often. Very, very seldom did that happen. He says the flip side to that is that when we do use the stick, we use it very, very deliberately, and that we don't take that responsibility lightly. And it goes all the way to the top. Those are decisions that are made by the First Presidency, by the Council of the Twelve in unanimity. So if we feel strong enough to take a political stand or take political action, you can be sure that the entire apparatus of General Authorities and the entire First Presidency and the entire Quorum of the Twelve is behind it. And, uh, he used that as an example of the fact that about a week before the Utah State Republican Convention, uh, there was a document called the Utah Compact that called for, um, uh, I mean, I don't remember the exact language, but it essentially called for a very liberal and very compassionate response to illegal immigration. It was very anti-build the wall and all that sort of thing. And so we're talking about this, this was, this was also before Trump. I think this is somewhere around 20 2012, I want to say. So it's, so it's probably in the heart of the Romney campaign. And, and he said, we issued a statement in support of the Utah Compact, that the church was in support of the Utah Compact. And days later, Utah Republicans met in their state convention and issued a resolution condemning the Utah Compact in no uncertain terms. And how wicked and awful it was. And when they, the lawmakers were confronted with, well, the church supports this, they said, well, the prophet didn't. You know, this came, this came from the church's government relations. This didn't come from the prophet. This didn't come. I mean, they did the same thing with the COVID Well, the prophet didn't say us to do this. And then when the prophet finally did do it and did say it, well, he's just speaking as a man. I mean, they're more than willing to throw out anything that contradicts their politics. Politics is more important to them than, than religion. You saw this, you saw a version of this just recently with Tim Ballard when the church issued its very strong statement condemning Tim Ballard. You had all these people saying, well, who is it? It wasn't the prophet, it was some rogue. You know, it's like, guys, it doesn't work that way. You can't go rogue in this church. And last, right, the Deseret News, which is owned by the church, published the statement about Tim Ballard. And I used to write editorials for the Deseret News. I know the head of the editorial department quite well, worked with him. I think very highly of him. And he issued on Twitter, yeah, this came from the church. Then I said, if Hal Boyd had issued a statement saying something came to the church and it didn't, he would be on the street within seconds, not minutes, seconds. I mean, the phone would ring, sir, you can't do this, you're out. I mean, it's, it's just bizarre to me. So, so again, this comes back to the central thesis. It's, it's a huge trial of my faith because my faith is, is largely rooted in the goodness of the church and the goodness of its members. And Donald Trump brings out the worst of us. Anybody who is affiliated with Donald Trump in any way pays a cost in decency. I mean, you, you see that from all of the people who worked with him. And, you know, it, it's very telling that 16 Cabinet members who work for Donald Trump refuse to endorse him and say they're not voting for him again. People who knew him, I mean, look at Rudy Giuliani. Rudy Giuliani was the most respected person in the United States in 2001 after 9/11. He was America's mayor. I mean, everybody, uh, adored Rudy Giuliani. He was the front runner to run for president in 2004 for the Republican Party. Rudy Giuliani's life has been destroyed because of his loyalty to Donald Trump. He's had to file for bankruptcy now because he's, in lying about the election and lying about all this, he's lost all of these legal cases and he lost a huge defamation case. And that, that's the word he used. He says, I'm destroyed. Uh, you know, the closer you get to Donald Trump, Donald Trump demands absolute loyalty and gives none. You know, the recent testimony from his deputy chief of staff that, uh, is now circulating is that, uh, he, he, so they came to him on January 6th and said, sir, we've had to move Vice President Pence to a secure location because they're trying to hang him. And Trump's response was, so what? I mean, this is his vice president. They're trying to kill your vice president, Mr. Trump. So what? Uh, for 3 hours, uh, his own family, Ivanka, his children were begging him to stop the violence, begging him. Um, uh, Sean Hannity of Fox News, Laura Ingraham of Fox News, his chief of staff, Mark Meadows. We have the text messages, we have the records. All of them went to Donald Trump and said, stop this, people are dying. Uh, stop it, stop the violence. And Donald Trump wouldn't do it. Donald Trump sat on his hands and wouldn't do it. And, and what's so terrible about that is he's normalized that. Now people make excuses for that. If that had happened in 2012, if that had happened, uh, you know, if Hillary Clinton had done that in 2016, you know, she would've been vilified. Everybody would— nobody would be making excuses for that. She— there's no way she could have gotten away with that. But now members of the church look at that and say, oh, it's not a big deal. Who cares? Why? Who? Yes, that's fine. But the election probably was stolen. And you're a jerk. And you get them saying these things to me that I read to you online at the beginning. You know, you're a— I've been called every name in the book by church members in defense of Donald Trump.

So, Jim Bennett, can I just briefly, because I know we're coming up to the end of the podcast here, but just touch upon briefly the drivers behind why people like in the church vote for Trump, because there's a reason why they think and behave the way they do. Is it that some of his policies resonate with people in the United States, including in the church, like border control? Foreign policy, the wall that he keeps, you know, talking about, claiming that the institutions are not democratic, that there's a better way of doing things, claiming he's not a politician, he's a businessman, and he'd get things done. And what is it that drives people to support Trump? In his policies? It's not his, uh, exclusively or solely his charisma at influencing people. There are other factors behind this. Is it that on some level, on some of his policies, he is— again, being devil's advocate here— he is right, or is perceived to be right on certain topics, certain issues, and, and being seen to be getting things done? And on some policies at some level, it does resonate with, again, a large majority of Republican conservative thinking people, which America over the years has been from the early historical periods of America has been Republican conservative. That comes a lot from the, the mothership there, United Kingdom, which has also been a conservative country for many, many years. Things have changed there dramatically over the last 50 years for sure. But what is it that drives people to believe these things and to support Trump? Is it the fact that possibly that he's right on some things, or they see that he's right and that some of his policies at certain levels do resonate with them and therefore they, you know, he has their support. What's behind the drivers?

There is some. Well, the most obvious answer to that is the people who are drawn to Donald Trump with unvarying loyalty out of ideological concerns. And I'm convinced that that's actually a minority of Trumpers. I, because I think the vast majority of Trumpers like Trump because Trump hates the people they hate and ridicules the people they want to ridicule. And he's, he's the first Republican. I mean, George W. Bush, uh, was nice and they don't want nice. They want somebody to unleash the worst parts of them and they just, it's so much fun, uh, to watch the people they don't like get taken down by Trump. I mean, I can understand that because when I was a hardcore partisan hack, one of my favorite things to do on election night was to watch the news anchors who you knew were all Democrats and watch them report Republican victories and see their faces just sink. And that just stirred up something in me of, yeah, Ah, how do you like that, George Stephanopoulos? You know, uh, and it's embarrassing for me to admit that now because that's not— I mean, finding joy in someone else's suffering or in someone else's loss, that, that's a miserable thing to do. And, and I did it all the time, and Trumpers do it all the time. And, and I think it's reached that point because I don't think that ideologically most Trumpers realize what Donald Trump has actually done. He didn't build the wall. Joe Biden is building more wall than Donald Trump did. He didn't control the border. He was putting kids in cages. I mean, over and over again. But if there is one issue where Donald Trump did deliver, it's the issue of abortion. And I think that that's a whole podcast in and of itself, because I don't think Latter-day Saints realize that these prohibitive abortion laws are not consistent with what the church teaches. They don't allow for exceptions in cases of rape or incest. You saw a big disaster in Texas when a woman whose life was threatened by her pregnancy was shot down trying to get an abortion. You know, and that, that is not the church's— but I think many people in the church believe it is and believe that It's absolutely wicked to vote for a Democrat because— and, and those people don't look at the abortion numbers. Abortion numbers come down more when Democrats are president than Republicans are president. Abortion numbers have been falling for decades and they're now lower than they were before Roe v. Wade was passed. I mean, that's a whole other podcast. So I think if there is an element of principle Donald Trump put 3 people on the Supreme Court who reversed Roe v. Wade. That scene is a huge conservative victory, and I can understand to some degree people saying, well, that's, that's worth it. But after January 6th, I don't think anything's worth it. This is a man who does not accept American democracy. He does not accept the will of the people, and he will not accept the will of the people in 2024. If the people don't vote for him again, I mean, that was a trial run. He'll do this again. It will happen again. And he's talked about suspending the Constitution so he can run for a third term. I, I mean, listen to this guy. This is not a guy that believes in the American constitutional system of government and wants to see it suspended in order to make him a dictator. And he said he will be a dictator on day one. He did.

For day one, I think.

For day one? Yeah. You listen to this man and he talks about China and how wonderful it is that President Xi is able to rule his 1.4 billion people with an iron fist and how much he envies that. This is not a man who's interested in presiding over a representative republic. This is a man who wants to be a dictator. And is doing everything in his power to be a dictator. And members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are cheering him on. And that is a huge trial of my faith.

So as a final question, because we're probably coming up to the end, right at the end here of the podcast, and again, thank you so much for sharing your feelings and thoughts. You obviously, and rightfully so, feel very strongly, very emotional about You know, what's going on there with the church members' position and reaction and, you know, the principles of common decency and, you know, the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the gaps between, huge gap between someone like Trump's behavior and history. And the principles of the church. Look, my question, my final question to you is, as you look ahead over the coming 12 months, when is the election date?

First Tuesday in November.

So we, that's this year, 2024. It's gonna be here before we know it. You know, we'll be there before we know it. Let's face it, Trump is way ahead in the polls, I understand. Is that correct?

He, he, he is a prohibitive favorite to win the Republican nomination. Uh, there are some polls that are very encouraging for him in the general election, but that is not a slam dunk.

And, and to add to that, you've got a number— two states, at least two states, who have gone to the state, uh, highest level in these states I think Colorado is one. What's the other one?

Maine.

Maine, who have basically prohibited or restricted or banned Trump from running for office for that. No, let me get that right. Who has— could you articulate that for me? Sure.

The 14th Amendment.

Okay.

Was passed after the Civil War with the intent to bar insurrectionists, uh, uh, from holding public office. And the language, the plain language is that if you participated or given aid and comfort to people who have engaged in insurrection against the United States, you are not eligible to hold office. Uh, the idea was we don't want Confederates who were in the South and part of the Confederacy, uh, to be able to just pretend it didn't happen and come and, and, and hold office again. So, um, this has never been invoked since then because every president until Donald Trump accepted the peaceful transfer of power. And yet Donald Trump sat on his hands, uh, that could have used a stronger word, uh, for 3 hours while people tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power. I mean, and, and, and this is the thing is, well, it wasn't an insurrection because they didn't carry guns and they didn't actually hang Mike Pence and they didn't. It's like just because they're incompetent insurrectionists doesn't mean they're not insurrectionists. And, and the standard isn't even just you need to participate. You give aid and comfort to them. Donald Trump tweeted out that he loved them even when he called on them finally in a wishy-washy message. To back down in a video message. He ended that video message with, "We love you. You're very special," talking to the insurrectionists. And he has since, he now talks about the people who've been convicted of crimes for the insurrection, not as convicts, but as hostages. These are the January 6th hostages. The American government is holding political prisoners. I mean, That's aid and comfort to insurrection. And when I've talked about that, I get pushed back. Well, he's never been convicted of insurrection. It's like, yeah, how many of the people in the Civil War were convicted of insurrection before they were barred from office? And the answer is zero. That's not what the plain language of the Constitution says. They don't have to go through a legal proceeding. They just, if they've given aid and comfort to insurrection, then they are insurrectionists and they are ineligible for office. And Trump says, well, this will be a terrible thing because then other presidents— other presidents what, Donald? They won't be allowed to commit insurrection? Yeah, I can live with that. I mean, he tweeted on his stupid platform yesterday, it's like, if I'm not given absolute immunity, then other presidents won't be able to enjoy their golden years without having to be worried about being indicted. It's like, yeah, Talk to 100-year-old Jimmy Carter how worried he is about being indicted. Uh, the reason he's not worried about being indicted is because he didn't commit any crimes, Donald. The reason you are in danger of going to jail for the rest of your natural life, Donald, is because you committed crime after crime after crime. You know, you— I mean, you paid hush money to your to your porn star mistress that you had an affair with while your third wife was pregnant. And that's the least of the problems you took. You took classified documents from the White House and refused to return them and showed them to people without clearance for them and may very well have given them to enemy hands. We don't know that yet. But over and over again, you committed that crime when you were given every opportunity to return those documents, and you committed insurrection against the United States. And, and you now have members of my church cheering you on. Well, I'm not, and I'm not going to, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that Donald Trump is not elected in 2024. I don't know that there is anything in my power, but I'm going to speak out. I'm going to actively campaign. I'm gonna do whatever I can to make sure that never happens again.

You have actually answered the question I was going to ask. So, uh, Jim, thank you for that. Um, and, uh, very lively, uh, podcast here, folks. And, uh, hope you, uh, get, uh, you know, some, some value from this. Uh, but it's impossible to separate church and state. We do have a huge responsibility to elect good people into office to do the right thing. And, you know, vote with a good spirit, vote with a good conscience. And again, Jim, thank you for your time and for sharing your thoughts and perspective with us today.

Thank you very much, Ian. And we'll see you all next time on Inside Out.