--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Today Explained, I'm your host Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Olivia Beavers covers House Republicans for Politico, which meant this week, with a government shutdown once again looming over the nation, was a bit of a gamble.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: I was making bets, and when you started seeing Democrats starting to say, hey, we're interested, the Senate and House Democrats were not taking the same tone as the White House, which was basically slamming it as some sort of radical extremist Republican plan initially, then I was like, oh, I think we might have our Christmas holiday break saved.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Christmas was saved by the devoutly Christian new speaker of the House, Shreveport, Louisiana's Mike Johnson.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: People are still Googling him, definitely. I've known him for quite a while, I think since I began covering the Hill in 2018.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But he kind of did come out of nowhere when we were watching the leadership races happening to replace Kevin McCarthy.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: Because first you had the number two and then he was, Steve Scalise wasn't able to get in. He was blocked. I just share with my colleagues that I'm withdrawing my name as a candidate for the speaker-designee.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then you had Jim Jordan, who was sort of the darling of the right, and he was blocked.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: Look, there's been multiple rounds of votes for speaker before. We all know that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I just know that we need to get a speaker as soon as possible so we can get to work for the American people.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: And then you had Tom Emmer, the number three top House Republican, and he was blocked.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I said, there's only one person that can do it all the way. You know who that is? Jesus Christ.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: Jesus came down, said, I want to be speaker. He would do it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So then Mike Johnson is in this very crowded field to run again.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: A few words of gratitude. I want to thank Leader Jeffries. I do look forward to working with you on behalf of the American people.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I know we see things from very different points of view.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: And he's someone who has maintained friendships across the Republican conference.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But I wouldn't say like he has any particularly close friends.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: So when he was elected, I remember going up to members that I know quite well saying, who's his best friend? Who is he always hanging out with?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't, usually this is information I know, but I don't know this.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: And they go, I don't know either.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I've been asking around because that's how the power structure usually is formed.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: So he has a lot of friendships from the Republican study committee.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Which is basically the largest Republican group on Capitol Hill.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: They come up with policy ideas and pitches, and he has friendships from that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And also, you might remember his face from sort of pushing back against Democrats' first efforts to impeach Donald Trump in 2019.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: Because he was one of the Republicans that was very much fighting against that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And you might not remember his face from being one of the behind-the-scenes guys trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: Following the vote, ABC's Rachel Scott trying to ask the new nominee, Mike Johnson, if he still stands by his vote to overturn the 2020 election results.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Johnson supporters, including Congresswoman Virginia Fox, telling Rachel to shut up.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: So we've got an election denier Speaker of the House.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Was this continuing resolution, does CR his first big test, or was there something that came before it?
--:-- Olivia Beavers: No, this is certainly his first big test.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And depending on who you ask, he's going to be getting a different scorecard.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: So Democrats are out there saying, look, we helped carry you across the line.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We're glad you were willing to work with us.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: It's kind of a pretty big win for Democrats because they got what they wanted.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So when Mike Johnson first released the plan, I think the first instinct was to be like, we don't like your idea.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: And then they realized they basically got what they were asking for, which was no cuts, no sort of surprise, what we call policy riders, where they slip in conservative agenda items that Democrats would never go for.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So then they started showing that they were on board.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: But if you talk to House conservatives, Chip Roy, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Warren Davidson, some of the people who Kevin McCarthy used to struggle with, but none of those three were part of his ouster, they were very much slamming it, saying, how dare you continue Pelosi-level spending?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We just kicked out a speaker for basically doing the same thing.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said she will be voting no on this clean continuing resolution.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Warren Davidson, Republican of Ohio, also said he'll be voting against it, adding, quote, disappointing is as polite as I can muster.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: And the Texas Congressman Chip Roy posted on X, Quote, my opposition to the clean CR just announced by the Speaker to the House GOP cannot be overstated, end quote.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Right. That's what's kind of funny about this situation, right?
--:-- Olivia Beavers: Mike Johnson victory here was what lost Kevin McCarthy his job.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: McCarthy tried to pass what we call it We call it a clean CR basically keeping the funding in line
--:-- Olivia Beavers: And he did it with the help of Democrats.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that was the leaping off point for Matt Gaetz to try to trigger ousting him.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: Because all over America, Republicans think that when you negotiated that debt limit deal, they took your lunch money.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Now, if you do break it down, though, some of the eight, and I was having these discussions with McCarthy allies, some of them will point to other things that they were mad at and reason for them to vote to oust him.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: It sort of all came to a head with the government funding.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: McCarthy ended up ousted and Mike Johnson ended up with some mean tweets.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: What's he saying about why he's signing on to work with the Democrats in this moment?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's arguing that it puts them in a better position for negotiations down the line.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: So basically, this is essentially kicking the can down the road.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's claiming it gives them more leverage to negotiate on two fronts.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: One is continuing to fund the appropriation bills.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So they say, like, we're in a better position because we're not in a shutdown.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: And they are still going to be dealing with a whole separate issue that he did not include in the government funding bill, which is how to address the border, Ukraine and Israel.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay. And do we know what's going to happen in those further negotiations about, say, Israel, Ukraine, the southern United States border?
--:-- Olivia Beavers: So there was this leadership press conference, and I tried to ask Mike Johnson about this on Tuesday.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Essentially, I was asking if he was committed to passing some sort of supplemental bill that would fund Israel and potentially include Ukraine and border funding by the time of the short-term spending bill deadline, which is January 19th or February 2nd, depending on what date you want to pick.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: And he wouldn't answer that question when I was basically running up to him at the end of the press conference asking him off the cameras.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I also was trying to ask him if he would accept a Senate supplemental.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: So if they came back with their own plan tying in border and Ukraine money and whatnot.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But I didn't quite get answers about that.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: But that's where we're trying to suss out where he is.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Now, when he passed the Israel funding bill, he did it without Ukraine.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: Newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson is facing backlash after proposing a bill to send more than $14 billion in aid to Israel while slashing the same amount to the IRS from the president's signature inflation reduction act.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So he was throwing some meat to his right wing, and basically the Senate and the White House said they're not going to support it.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: So the Senate's going to come up with what it wants and repackage it and send it back, and so the negotiations begin.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So he's kind of given us some hints about where he might want to go in the new year when spending relatively quickly comes up again.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: What do you think we should expect in the new year?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, I actually think it's more complicated than that because I think Mike Johnson's trying to figure out what kind of speaker he wants to be.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: And there's sort of this perspective among House Republicans, which is you can cater to the right, but then you're not going to govern.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Or you can govern and you're going to piss off your right.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: You know, we were talking to some of the Republicans and they basically said, we're giving you extra rope right now.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But don't take it for granted.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: If you are basically going to be like Kevin McCarthy, we might do the same thing to you that we did to him.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What do you think this episode here has taught us about Mike Johnson, if anything?
--:-- Olivia Beavers: I think it's taught us that any GOP leader, no matter what their conservative record is, is probably going to be facing a kind of tarnished reputation at the end of this.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's not a great way to win in the way that, you know, McCarthy sort of learned.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: And it's more about survival and getting your wins where you can, but trying to also prevent your right wing from coming after you at the end of the day.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And he's making quite aware that he's overwhelmed.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: His argument to his members was, this was not a hand I picked.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This was a hand I was dealt.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: And I'm trying to make it work, but this is not really how I would have handled it if I had had more runway.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And when he was talking to reporters, he goes, I can't turn an aircraft carrier around overnight.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm not a plane expert, but maybe you could.
--:-- Olivia Beavers: But that's basically the message he's giving publicly and privately, saying, I'm doing my best.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And he's trying to figure it out.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Olivia Beavers, reader at Politico.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When we're back on Today Explained, where Speaker Mike Johnson might want to point the aircraft carrier.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for today's show comes from Adio.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like, really happy?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The unfortunate fact is that a huge number of people can't say yes to that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Far too many of us are stuck in a job we've outgrown, or one we never wanted in the first place.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But still, we stick it out.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And we give reasons like, what if the next move is even worse?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I've already put years into this place.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today explained
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Sean Ramos from we wanted to find out more about speaker Mike Johnson, but we didn't want to listen to all 69 episodes of his podcast, Truth Be Told, with Mike and Kelly Johnson, because quite frankly, it sounds really bad.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What a job.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What a great guy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What a good politician because you love it and you love the people.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You really are.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You're a natural.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thank you very much.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I appreciate it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Mike and Kelly Johnson have been leading together on faith, family and freedom for nearly a quarter of a century.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Few couples are trusted more.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So he reached out to Spencer McNaughton instead.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He teaches journalism at NYU with a focus on LGBTQ issues.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But he also produces and writes stuff.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Most recently a big piece for Rolling Stone about Mike Johnson, but it came to be about Mike in a sort of roundabout way.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So it kind of happened by accident.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I had been investigating a group, Alliance Defending Freedom, for about four months for Rolling Stone.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then a few weeks before we were set to publish, or a few days actually before we were set to publish, you know, Mike Johnson got elected to the House and we found out that he actually worked for the ADF for nearly 10 years, nearly a decade in the early 2000s.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And we realized immediately, you know, this had to be an integral part of the story because, you know, all of a sudden you have somebody who worked at this group that's designated an anti-LGBTQ hate organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center for nearly a decade.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And now he's second in line to the president.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Our listening audience now knows that Mike Johnson is a big election denier.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We know that he's now second in line to the presidency.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What else is worth knowing about Mike Johnson?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think the number one thing for me that is worth knowing is how extreme his views are on the LGBTQ community, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: While he was working at Alliance Defending Freedom in the early 2000s, he penned op-eds in local Louisiana newspapers that described homosexuality as sinful and destructive.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He warned that if we legalize same-sex marriage, we're opening up a Pandora's box that will eventually allow pedophiles to marry people and will even allow humans to marry pets.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And, you know, this hasn't stopped either.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: After he left the Alliance Defending Freedom, he introduced a sweeping federal law that's essentially the don't say gay law that we remember DeSantis passed in Florida into law, where teachers in schools cannot teach anything related to sexual orientation or gender identity in the classroom.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And we're not talking about the ABCs of anal, okay?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We're talking about books that might include two dads.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Anything that's outside of the realm of heteronormativity, he wanted to ban at a national level.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In addition to that, he has a long history of coming after women's reproductive rights.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's advocated and voiced support for legislation at the state level and at the national level that would, you know, rule back women's rights or, you know, at this moment in time, now that he's House Speaker, intensify, you know, the anti-abortion policies that are, you know, now pervasive in the United States.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tell me more about this group that a lot of people might be hearing about for the first time, the ADF, the Alliance Defending Freedom.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Exactly.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They present themselves as a benevolent Christian legal organization.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, they say that their mission is to protect religious freedom, and to protect the faith and the Christianity, this sort of thing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Together, we work to build a future in which the law affirms and protects religious freedom, free speech, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And sure, there are a few bills that do that, but really they're a monstrous legal juggernaut that's existed since 1994 that has rolled back LGBTQ rights, women's rights since its inception.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hi, I'm Erin Hawley, and I am so excited to talk to you today about the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The decision today is a huge win for life and for the Constitution.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The decision finally overruled the exact same thing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What people may or may not know is that this year, there's been over 501 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures, and 70 have passed into law.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: For the record, that's record-shattering, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That is more than any other year by far, unprecedented, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The ADF has their lawyers parachute into these states, into the courthouses, to testify or voice support for these bills.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: These are bills that are don't say gay laws.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: These are bills that are, you know, banning, you know, what's known as life-saving health care for trans kids, you know?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the majority of these bills come after queer children.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Should a school-aged girl or a grown woman be forced to give up her privacy in a locker room because a biological man identifying as a woman wants to change there?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Not to mention, they're not just powerful state legislatures.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They're also really powerful at the Supreme Court, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They have 15 wins at the Supreme Court.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What are some of their greatest hits at the Supreme Court?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, since 2011, they've won 15 cases.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Some of the cases have focused on abortion, and the group helped draft and defend legislation that helped overturn Roe v. Wade.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, a lot of others focus on rolling back LGBTQ rights.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We won the 303 creative case on behalf of Lori Smith.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: With God's help, this is our 15th victory at the United States Supreme Court, and it stands for a very important principle...
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The group ADF right now is trying to get the Supreme Court to take a case where they're representing a Christian therapist challenging a law that disciplines healthcare providers for practicing conversion therapy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So this group is getting these cases almost all the way to the Supreme Court.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Who exactly is the ADF?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, who are the actual people that comprise this group?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then help us understand how Mike Johnson fits in.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The ADF was founded in 1994 by a group of conservative, you know, white evangelical men.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And they really wanted to be an answer to the American Civil Liberties Union.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They wanted to say, we're defending religious liberty.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We're defending religious freedom, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The first CEO was Alan Sears.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's so hard for many people to remember what it was like in the late 1980s, the early 1990s, when essentially there was only a tiny handful of Christian attorneys engaged in standing against organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, and the countless initial allied groups that wanted to reshape this nation, that wanted to abolish the sanctity of human life.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think it's really important to note that he authored a book called The Homosexual Agenda, exposing the principal threat to religious freedom today, where he talks about how homosexuality is the biggest threat to religious freedom and evangelism
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And he says it will silence Christians
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They started out extremely homophobic and they continued on that way right
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They now comprised of allied attorneys who go around to state legislatures to the Supreme Court, and even internationally to, you know, litigate in favor of laws and bills that would roll back women's rights, LGBTQ rights, and really undermine American democracy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And how does Mike Johnson fit into the puzzle?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Mike Johnson, he worked there for nearly 10 years.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He was a spokesperson and a lawyer at ADF.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, he penned a bunch of op-eds while he was there.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He wrote amicus briefs that would illegalize gay sex, so sodomy laws.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He wrote in favor of those.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He vehemently opposed the legalization of gay marriage.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He was one of the main players at ADF for nearly a decade.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I think it's important to note now, you know, Mike Johnson may be the most notorious government employee who also has ties to the ADF.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But one thing I wrote about in my reporting is that there's over 100 current or former members of the U.S. government who worked at ADF at one point.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that's kind of their game plan, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like, they want to instill biblical values into government at every single level.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Has anyone asked Speaker Johnson about his connections to this group since he became speaker?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So, you know, a lot of people have asked, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And maybe unsurprisingly, he spoke with Sean Hannity on Fox News shortly after he got elected as House Speaker, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And he says he, quote, doesn't even remember all of his anti-LGBTQ policies, comments, supports.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't even remember some of them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I was a litigator that was called upon to defend the state marriage amendments, if you remember back in the year.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Again, even though last year he wrote legislation that would create a federal don't say gay law, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In June on a podcast, he referred to trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney as real sick stuff.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Some marketing genius at Anheuser-Busch decided to team up with Dylan Mulvaney, who's this, you know, transgender advocate who parades around as a woman and makes videos to appeal to, you know, young teen girls.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's just, it's really sick stuff.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: However, you know, in fairness to him, when asked about, you know, the legalization of gay marriage and how he feels about that, he did say he respects the rule of law.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Anybody that knows me will tell you this is true.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I am a rule of law guy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I made a career defending the rule of law.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I respect the rule of law.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay, so it's really easy to be a fringe figure when you're literally on the fringe.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But as we saw this week, Mike Johnson is having to work with Democrats.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's having to work with the White House.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's having to work with moderate Republicans to keep the government open, to keep the government functioning.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Do you think that might mean that his ADF days are behind him?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Absolutely not.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you think about where we're at politically in American society right now, you know, Trump appointed three justices to the Supreme Court who all voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that reflects Mike Johnson's political views, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's against women having reproductive rights.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He's in favor of anti-LGBTQ policies and laws, not only at the state level, but also at the federal level, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He introduced this Don't Say Gay bill that's called the Stop Children from Sexualization Act.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Just to clarify, it's called the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But I think what's really important to note here, and that's one of the reasons that I write about this stuff and feel really passionate about it, is that these bills are, in large majority, attacking queer children.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: These Don't Say Gay laws.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: These laws taking away trans kids' health care.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So I think it's really dangerous.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And no, I don't imagine he will become any less extreme, any less fringe.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If anything, it'll be the opposite, especially as, you know, Trump likely becomes the candidate and his rhetoric gets more and more back into the mix as we get closer to, you know, November of 2024.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, when you have somebody like Mike Johnson with those fringe beliefs second in line to the president, you have Fox News, right wing media celebrating this person.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It shifts American perception.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's a normalization in terms of, you know, what's acceptable to believe when it comes to LGBTQ rights.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that's really dangerous, especially as we approach the 2024 presidential election.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Spencer McNaughton is a producer, a professor and a journalist.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can find the piece he wrote about Mike Johnson and the ADF at RollingStone.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's called Inside the Alliance Defending Freedom, the anti-LGBTQ org where Mike Johnson spent almost a decade.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Our program today was produced by Siona Petros, edited by Amina Alsadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and mixed by David Herman.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We reached out to the ADF for comment, but we did not hear back.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But we did hear this ADF radio spot about Mike Johnson's ADF origin story.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And we figured we'd just play the whole thing for you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It was unearthed by the investigative watchdog group Documented, and it is real.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Honey?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Mike Johnson, you scared the daylights out of me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Sorry, babe, I thought you heard me come in.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I wasn't expecting you home yet.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Why are you home so early?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I've had warmer welcomes in my life.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm sorry, honey.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What's wrong?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Did you lose a case?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: No, I lost my job.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Mike, you just started at the firm.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How could you get fired?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I had to make a choice.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: About what?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Whether to keep representing that coalition that's trying to keep that strip club from coming into town, or keep the job that brought us back here.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They made you choose?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Oh, Mike.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm so sorry, babe.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I know this was our dream, to come back home and raise our kids in the same safe little town we grew up in.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I messed it up.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You did the right thing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This won't be the same safe little town anyway if people like you don't do something to protect it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm proud of you, Mike.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I love you and the kids so much.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I know.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Mike Johnson, a compassionate young lawyer, put his family's future in God's hands, and the Alliance Defense Fund proudly welcomed him to our team.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today, Mike is helping others who have faced moral dilemmas and is firmly backed by the legal resources that ADF provides our allied attorneys.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Find out what ADF is doing in your community.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Request our free weekly alert by calling 1-877-TELL-ADF or visit our website at telladf.org.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Alan Sears, President of ADF, The Voice for Freedom.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thank you.
