[00:00:04] Broadcasting live from atop the Rocky Mountains, the crossroads of the West, you are listening to the Liberty Roundtable Radio Talk Show. The question is, when will the world not always, all the time, be about Trump? Let's talk religion.
[00:00:27] Happy to have you along, my fellow Americans. I'm Sam Bushman, hard-hitting news that I refuse to use, no doubt, starts now. Lowell Nelson, Campaign for Liberty, back with me. Welcome to the show, sir. Good to be with you, Sam. Thank you for having me. We had an incredible weekend, two hours, two times on Saturday, two hours, two times on Sunday. So four sessions, eight hours of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints semi-annual general conference.
[00:00:57] And I don't think anybody said a word about Donald Trump. Can you imagine that, Lowell? Not a word. Nobody mentioned him, and he was really kind of nice. Wasn't it delightful? Yeah, I think so. Anyway, I just found that an interesting dichotomy, because in the news, it seems like you cannot get away from Trump. I mean, I look at it, and almost every story has Trump somehow, some way, weirdly involved.
[00:01:26] In this case, we talked about God, family, country, and we didn't have Donald Trump involved at all. It was just a blessing and a half. And you had some thoughts, and I had some thoughts as we attended. That's right. Before jumping into the thoughts that I had yesterday and the day before, I just wanted to suggest that maybe the news media likes to put presidents and celebrities and so forth in the news all of the time.
[00:01:55] I don't think Trump being in the news every day is unusual. I think that's happened to presidents long before him. But the news media does that maybe because they want to promote him and make him pretty important. If we're talking about him all the time, then obviously everybody thinks he's important, and then they think that they need to look to him for answers, when in reality we should be looking at ourselves, our own local jurisdictions.
[00:02:25] Our political solutions can best be solved by local, the more local the better, the local politicians, the local public servants. They're the ones who can best solve our problems. And by talking about the president all the time, you're changing the focus of the people. And I think that's an unfortunate byproduct of the media focus on a president. We need to be local. That's where we really can solve problems. Amen.
[00:02:54] When we talked about the president, we talked about one man who has limited power in the first place. I know people don't think that, but he really does. He has limited power. I mean, just see how many people are against him. I believe it's to a great degree Trump derangement syndrome. But nevertheless, he's one person. He's far away from the people. I mean, from us, he's 2,000 miles away or whatever. And so not only is it local that we need to look when it comes to political, but we also need to look to God and to our family even more than political, Lowell. Yeah.
[00:03:23] Well, very good. It was hard to choose. You know, I chose just three talks to talk about. But we could spend a whole hour talking about everything that was said there. But I really enjoyed the talk by Sister Tamara Rooney Saturday morning. She was talking about, you know, bad things. She was talking about adversity. And she suggested that, you know, when bad things happen to us, you know,
[00:03:49] poor situations or surprises we're not expecting in life, they come along. Instead of asking why, we really ought to ask, you know, what we can learn from the experience. She emphasized that not understanding is not the same as not believing. So, in other words, you can still believe even though you don't understand, you know, why these situations happen to you. Just continue to believe. That's the bottom line.
[00:04:17] And it will be for our experience. You know, no matter how bad the experience is, it's there to shape our souls and to help us be more like God, you know. So she asked, well, can we just skip these difficult circumstances? No. No. She said mortality is where we are given what we need, not what we want all the time. Although I think that if we really want something and work for it, we can get what we want.
[00:04:45] But that's not necessarily the best thing. We really ought to pray for what we need and work for what we need, not necessarily what we want. All of us get rained on from time to time. And to make the point, too, that oftentimes we think we know what we want because we have a very narrow scope in mortality. But the Lord really gives us what we really want if we're aligned with his will and his, you know, he knows all things and he knows us best.
[00:05:10] And so most of us, when we look at it in a narrow way, we kind of want things that maybe if we saw the big picture, we wouldn't want or we would choose something differently. And so oftentimes it's trusting God that he really has our best interest in mind, right? Yeah. I mean, and you are a classic example of that, Sam. You don't have your eyesight. And most people do have eyesight. And so are you shaking your fist at God and cursing him because you've lost your eyesight?
[00:05:39] Or are you looking at that as a blessing and an opportunity to excel in other ways? I mean, when I was younger, I did wonder why a lot. But as I get older, I realize that it's a blessing. When I was younger, people used to say, would you get your sight back if you could? And I'd say, yes, of course. But the older I get, I think I probably would not right now. And the reason I say that is because I believe the Lord has a mission for me to perform as I am. And once that mission is accomplished, then, hey, good things will happen. Until then, I'm content to say the Lord knows. He's aware.
[00:06:09] And he's got me doing what is best for me at this time. And I trust him for that. And so I probably wouldn't get my sight back unless I prayed about it and felt like I should. But I feel like I have. There's a reason that I'm this way. It wasn't an accident or an oversight by God or anything like that. There's an opportunity here for me to carry out God's will. And I look in the Bible, Chapter 9. It said, hey, why was this man born blind? Was it him or his parents that sinned? And the Savior Jesus Christ said neither.
[00:06:36] It's so that the works of God may be made manifest through him. And I hope that I can qualify and do the same. Well, that's why I really liked her talk because she emphasized that our suffering has purpose, right? You're being blind. There's purpose behind it. You're being blind. You're being blind. You're being blind. You're being blind. But I hear you now.
[00:07:01] I know you well enough to know that you've matured and you understand that it's a blessing from God. And that's the way it is for anybody who faces adversity. You can either curse God and blame him for your troubles or you can turn to him and let him heal you. That was what Sister Rooney talked about. You know, Christ can heal the wounds of this world while carving out room for joy.
[00:07:29] He can change something that happens to you into something that happens in you, right? And that's what's happened inside of you, Sam. So, you know, one day when all of his suffering and loneliness has ended, the pain is gone, we will thank our God for all of it. You know, the good and the bad, the shaping, the molding, the pain, the adversity, everything that helped us to shape our character to become more like our God, like our Father in heaven.
[00:07:57] And then we will look back with great gratitude and far more understanding, a much more eternal perspective for these adversities that we face. So, great talk. I loved it. And I thought she just, wow, she was amazing. Yes, indeed. All right. Who else do you got? I got President Christofferson talked about gambling, you know, and that came as a bit of a surprise.
[00:08:24] But apparently it's a problem, you know, among members of the church and members of the world. He wasn't talking just to the members of the church. He was talking to the whole world. He says of the 8 billion people on the planet, 46% of adults, which equates to about 2.3 billion people, gambled in the last 12 months.
[00:08:49] And in other words, they put real money down and most of them lost, you know, probably lost most of their money. You don't have to travel to a casino to participate in this anymore. It's now accessible by smartphone. The gambling industry generated estimated revenues of $758 billion in 2025. And everybody knows the house wins. You go to a casino, the games are set up that you lose and the house wins. And that's the way they're built.
[00:09:19] And yet people, they still go and they go lose their money. Well, and he mentioned that people believe that on a whole. But when it comes to them personally, they don't think that's the case, right? Yeah. It's very illogical. You know, people must be making emotional decisions, not logical decisions. Because, you know, I, you know, Vicki, I turned to my wife and I said, you know what? I don't think I've ever gambled in my life and have never wanted to. I mean, what a blessing.
[00:09:49] And my wife said the same thing, you know. She's never been tempted and she's glad that she's never participated in that. I gambled. My wife gave me a quarter right when we got married. We went through Vegas on our way home. And she gave me a quarter and she said, make us a bunch of money, honey. And I threw the quarter into a slot machine and it gave me back two quarters. Oh, wow. And so then I gave her the two quarters back and I said, I'm done. I won and otherwise I'll lose both of them. You doubled your money, babe. I've never gambled since.
[00:10:19] That is awesome. Well, you know, he's warning us that gambling has societal costs. Gambling, it's morally wrong. It robs you of your time. It robs you of your money. It creates nothing of value. It enriches its purveyors. And it leads us away from the giving path of Christ toward the taking path of Satan. And I thought that was an interesting observation for him to make, the giving path, right?
[00:10:49] There's something for nothing. You know, my dad taught me when I was very, very young, you know, you don't get, you don't try for something from nothing. You know, he would get, you know, things in the mail and I was a little kid, six, seven years old, you know, and I would see that he, boy, you dad, you could get a free washer and a dryer if you just go over to the store, you know. And he says, and I said, why don't you do that, dad? And he said, well, son, because I didn't earn it.
[00:11:19] And that phrase stuck with me my whole life, Sam. It's been a wonderful lesson for me. If you don't earn it, then, you know, it destroys your character to get it. If you get something for nothing, then it somehow, you know, erodes your character to some degree. And so... Amen to that. He also highlighted that about two to five percent of people actually get super addicted to gambling. He said, you may not personally, but your example, and then other people get involved
[00:11:47] because of your example, and then they may get addicted and it may ruin lives and destroy families. And it was a very good talk highlighting the pros of not gambling. Basically, he clearly made a joke kind of at the start. He's like, hey, people talk about gambling. Where do we stand? We're against it. You know, and he was very clear and bold in kind of a funny way, but he made the point very poignant indeed. Indeed, there were one last talk for you, then I got a couple quick ones. We got to hurry, Lowell. Wow. Oh, okay. Okay, okay.
[00:12:15] Neil Anderson talked about the need for stillness to nourish our faith in Jesus Christ. Well, like him, I didn't grow up in a world of cell phones, and neither did you, Sam. I spent hundreds of hours in our alfalfa fields of our farm and ranch, the sagebrush covered hills of our ranch, alone with my thoughts. I would move irrigation pipe. I would tend cows, herd cows to expense, all of that, and just hours and hours alone with my thoughts.
[00:12:43] And he quoted David O. McKay, who said, quote, the greatest battles of life are fought within the silent chambers of the soul, end of quote. And, you know, I believe our society would be more thoughtful, more purposeful if we spent more quiet time. I really believe that time will teach us, Sam, that giving smartphones to our children and Chromebooks to our students, I think we're going to find out there was a huge mistake to do that.
[00:13:12] Another reason not to have your children in public schools, in my opinion, they are growing up without the marvelous blessing of quiet time. Yeah, one of the things that when I was a kid, we were growing up, we had one phone with a super long cord in the kitchen hooked to the wall, and it was rotary. Yep, I understand. That's all we had. We had party line phones. We had four people on our party line up the Creek Road, you know, up the 4th and 5th Creek Road. That's right. And you could dial four numbers.
[00:13:40] I think it was four numbers or three numbers. I can't remember. And you could call anybody locally if you needed to. And you never really called internationally or nationally at all, hardly for any reason. And it was a once in a while super special occasion, like we're going to call grandma for her birthday or something like that. You know, that kind of thing. Other than that, it just really wasn't hardly done at all. I want to mention that they focused a lot on faith and hope in this difficult world.
[00:14:08] They focused on individual agency and it's important of the choices that you make. They mentioned that oftentimes, even if you don't understand things, you can still have faith and follow Christ. They talked about being a covenant keeping people that God always keeps his two-way promises with you and how important it is and how much of a blessing it is if we make and keep covenants. We're a covenant making people. We talked a lot about the temples. They're special places where covenants are made with God Almighty.
[00:14:38] We learn how to return to him. We have sacred, eternal marriages in those temples and how it doesn't. The buildings are beautiful, but it isn't about the buildings. It's about the covenants made with God, the personal obedience and sacrifice and law of the gospel where we have faith and repentance and baptism and we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and learn to endure to the end. Anyway, there was a lot of talks about it.
[00:15:04] The cool part about it is all the conferences, folks, are free and whether you're a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or not or whether you just want to kind of learn about what kind of we had to say, it's all available at churchofjesuschrist.org and you can check it out and watch them or listen to them. I download the MP3s because then I can just listen to them anywhere I'm at. But you can get all four sessions. There's nothing secret or anything about it. Everybody can learn and all that kind of stuff.
[00:15:32] And the last point that I think is really important to make is they talked about the importance of testimony. And each person has their own testimony, but it's important that you do things to strengthen your testimony. Read scriptures, pray often, go to church, you know, do the things that strengthen your testimony. Learn to forgive others, learn to repent, learn to turn to Christ in difficult times and say prayers.
[00:15:58] Anyway, there was a lot there about testimony, about remaining faithful to your God, to your family, to those around you. And then lastly, it was important they mentioned that it's really vital, folks, that we spend our time looking after one another, ministering, if you will, caring about your neighbor, love thy neighbor as thyself. Or, you know, and your neighbor in this sense in our world might be somebody that doesn't even live near you. They might even not be in your country.
[00:16:26] But you can still reach out and minister to them, be a listening ear, be a sounding board, be a fixture of faith and love and sacrifice and service. Anyway, it was a tremendous conference. And, you know, we just wanted to let you guys all know it was a celebration over the weekend for me. It was a time to break away from politics, a time to really spend time on things that matter much more.
[00:16:53] Ron Paul, speaking of politics over the weekend, though, wrote this incredible column. He's calling it the coming GOP bloodbath, Lowell. Yes, he is. I predict he's right. Yep, he's basically just conjecturing, I guess. The Democrats will likely win the midterm elections and retake both houses of Congress. Why? Well, because Republicans have refused to uphold their constitutional obligation to take
[00:17:20] leading responsibility for war powers, right? And so that's kind of a theme of all three columns that we're going to hit today, Sam. And basically, Congress, he writes this, quote, So Congress has been used to allowing the president to have his own way on matters of war and peace. Members bask in the false patriotism promoted by the media and special interests as the people rally around the flag.
[00:17:48] But eventually, when the war has gone on for years without victory, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, many claim they were never really for the war in the first place. End of quote. And so Congress, basically, they just turn everything over to the president, let the president make the decision that the war goes good. They take credit for having authorized the president to, you know, to the War Powers Act. If the war goes bad, then they just blame the president for getting involved.
[00:18:14] And so the bottom line is, and Ron Paul makes his point, the bottom line is that we need a restoration of the Constitution, right? We need to, a president who is strong enough to resist the temptation to go to war without a congressional declaration of war.
[00:18:37] And, you know, it takes Congress with a spine and it takes citizens with a spine, thousands of citizens across the country. Sam, what would happen if thousands of people across this country would vote for candidates in the midterm elections who will vote against more war, regardless of who is sitting in the White House? Amen to that, and that's something that we beg people to do. We've done that on the radio by standing up. We're not against Donald Trump, but we are for the Constitution.
[00:19:06] And so when anybody is out of line with the Constitution, we have a problem with that. And we're not trying to be a never-Trumper. We're not trying to go against the president, but we are trying to follow the rules of the supreme law of the land. In fact, Jacob G. Hornberger says Trump deserves to be impeached because he went to war without congressional approval, number one. And number two, he's really basically assassinating people without due process of law. He doesn't have authority to do that either. And so Jacob Hornberger is saying he should be impeached over those two items.
[00:19:36] And I think those are, you know, two. There's actually more, sad to say, Lowell. Yeah, there are more than that, but he chose those two. He writes this, quote,
[00:20:10] End of quote. And so, you know, this is a big concern, Sam. I mean, we are on the brink of another world war. Why? Well, because Congress is afraid to impeach a president for the high crime of waging war without a congressional declaration of war. Now, I think Trump has done some good things. They've always been in office. I really do. He's done a ton of bad things. He's done a bunch of good things.
[00:20:37] But when it comes to this, you know, waging war that is not a declared by Congress war, then that is reason to be impeached. And when he orders the killing of people in boats on the high seas near South America, thousands of miles away from the American shores, he deserves to be impeached. Why? Because due process is something that's guaranteed in the Constitution.
[00:21:04] Our framers wrote that into the Fifth Amendment expressly forbids federal officials from depriving any person of life without due process of law, which means, you know, formal notice of charges and the trial, being able to be prosecuted and face witnesses and procure witnesses in your behalf and all of that, right? Well, all of that just goes down the drain when the president orders that these drug-running suspects be murdered by the military.
[00:21:34] And that's simply unconscionable. You can't just kill somebody. The leader from Venezuela got brought to America to get a chance for a trial and due process to some degree, right? That's exactly right. So Trump's orders to kill drug-running suspects that are not lawful. And I think Hornberger also makes this a point. If he didn't, I do.
[00:21:59] The military personnel who carried out those unlawful orders, they should be prosecuted criminally for murder as well. I mean, they have a duty, right? If you're in the military and you get an order to do something that's illegal or unlawful, you have a duty to countermand or to disobey that order.
[00:22:19] And so any of the military personnel who carried out those murders in the Caribbean, they should be prosecuted criminally for murder, in my opinion. I mean, in my opinion as well, I double down and support that because that is the Supreme Law of the Lands declaration, not just our opinions. We just happen to agree with the Supreme Law. But Judge Andrew Napolitano really highlights the importance of it's a tyranny of one man's opinion. This is kind of what we're going by.
[00:22:49] Trump says this is the way it is, and he does it, and everybody is afraid to go against one man's opinion. Yeah, that's exactly right. And he cites, and this is by, like you said, Andrew Napolitano, a former judge, and he cites Thomas Cromwell. Remember Cromwell back in England? He was the Lord Chancellor of England for much of the reign of King Henry VIII. He engineered the convictions and executions of many whom Henry wanted out of the way.
[00:23:19] So the king wants him out of the way. His chancellor makes, you know, prosecutes him for some reason and kills him basically, right, including two of Henry VIII's, I'm sorry, two of Cromwell's predecessors in office, one of whom was Thomas Moore. Great movie, by the way, Sam. You probably have seen it. It's entitled A Man for All Seasons. It's all about the story of Thomas Moore and his dealings with Cromwell.
[00:23:48] So, but anyway, he got killed, and when Cromwell's son Gregory asked him why he had a trial for Queen Anne when he had already paid for her execution, Cromwell replied, well, the king needed a jury trial to give the appearance of legitimacy to her conviction.
[00:24:08] Well, we've got people in office that want to, you know, give this appearance of legitimacy to what they do when what they're really doing is disobeying the Constitution for the United States. Sam? Thank you, Lowell. My pleasure, Sam. It's always good to be with you. Let's follow the Constitution, folks. Let's restore our republic. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to pray for peace and then stand for peace.
[00:24:36] It is a sacred cause, and we're engaged, and we invite you to join us. God save our constitutional republic. Thank you.