Matt (00:01.566)
Hey everybody and welcome to the Latter Day Lens. It's good to have you with us this week. Today, I'm your host, Matt. With me as always is Sean. we have, Porter, is this your second time being with us? Hey, and Porter's back with us for his second time. I didn't keep track very well, Porter.

Porter (00:14.702)
It is.

Shawn (00:19.104)
A Rye Porter!

Porter (00:22.061)
It's gonna be back.

Matt (00:24.532)
Sean, you shouted something Porter and I didn't hear what else you said.

Shawn (00:27.989)
said, welcome Porter because we need young voices. I mean, we're young, Matt, we're not old, but we're middle, we're middle aged. And so a good young Porter is a good voice. You were fiery last time Porter and we're excited for your fire this time.

Porter (00:42.935)
Good.

Matt (00:44.724)
All right, so we're gonna open, yeah, go ahead Porter.

Porter (00:45.377)
What's going on?

Yeah, I'd say good, I'm glad.

Matt (00:49.972)
Oh, okay. I thought you said Matt. was like, what? Okay. So one listener wrote in, this is a little bit older, but this is what it says. Would love for your guys input on this thing that was posted to social media. There's a link I put in the show notes. Is project 2025 a legit thing or anti-conservative propaganda? Am I just out of the loop? And if it is a real thing, what do you think of this project 2025 tracker? I saved this for Porter. I know Porter knows.

Shawn (01:15.105)
Matt loves, you love, Matt loves Project 2025.

Porter (01:20.589)
Little known fact, Matt was a contributor of Project 2025.

Matt (01:26.264)
Uh, when they needed a name, they're like, what should we call this thing? I was like, how about project 2025? Then it's really easy to deny what it is. people Trump can say he's never heard of it, but then he can appoint everybody who was a part of it into the white house and into the executive branch and we can do it and debate. it real or is it not? Sean, you saying Sean, you say it's real?

Porter (01:45.005)
you

Shawn (01:49.299)
Is the report real? mean, I...

Matt (01:51.558)
No, it's, it's project 20. Yeah. Project 2025 is a report, right? It's a, they lay out an agenda for what should happen in the first year of Trump, Trump's White House, if he wins.

Shawn (02:00.897)
Well, yeah, I mean, that's real. then JD Vance and Trump denied that they even read it or knew about it, which I mean, you either believe him or you either believe him or you don't. And then the fact that, the assumption, I don't know what the, really the question is, I mean, I looked at the tracker thing. That was interesting. So that tracker thing said that 40%, 47 % of what was in that report has been implemented. 47%. Okay, well, all right. But the things that are implemented are things like,

Matt (02:08.798)
Seems weird.

Matt (02:18.324)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (02:27.017)
Yeah.

Shawn (02:30.763)
Cut the USAID budget. Make mugshots searchable online. I mean, obviously things like remove the word sexual orientation, gender identity, reproductive health from federal rules and agencies. What's that?

Porter (02:44.127)
woman or black.

Also words like diversity or woman. Yeah.

Shawn (02:53.429)
Yeah, DEI in general was the thing that one of the things that they said, let's remove that. That's unfair and remove it.

Matt (02:53.526)
inclusion.

Matt (03:03.476)
Those are such bad words. They make me feel icky inside. Diversity, equity, and inclusion? Yuck, yuck, yuck. Get rid of that.

Shawn (03:08.869)
You know, you know, you know that that's, you know what the real issue was on the right with that. It's not just, they're not against diversity and inclusion. Yes, you do. It's the, it's the, come on, political science professor. Come on. Why does the right have a problem with the AI? Why do they have a problem? Really? What? Porter, help us out. Why does the right have an issue with DEI?

Porter (03:09.115)
That's more stupid.

Matt (03:15.348)
I- I really don't.

Matt (03:23.858)
No, this is not something we talk about. I don't know. I really don't know.

I don't-

Porter (03:34.844)
they'll say it's unfair. They'll say it's discriminatory against healthy white men. I'll say I saw something funny. was someone who worked in the government on this very, important seed bank. They collect seeds from every type of crop or plant that ever gets grown or discovered in the United States. And they study them and preserve them to make sure

Shawn (03:36.789)
Why?

Porter (04:04.738)
that like if there's ever like disease or some kind of disaster or crops get wiped out for some reason that they have enough seeds to have genetic diversity among our crops. And because the reports talked a lot about genetic diversity and have the word diversity all over them, they got like flagged for funding cuts.

Matt (04:24.934)
you

Matt (04:30.324)
Yeah, well, it makes sense.

Porter (04:30.351)
Suddenly we this farmer at some seed bank in like Nebraska the middle of nowhere. It's like, yeah, your department's getting shut down because you're DEI.

Shawn (04:30.799)
there you go.

Matt (04:39.892)
There you go. Well, it sounds to me then like project 2025 is a real thing and people are implementing it. But if the question is, did Donald Trump read project 2025, I'm going to say no, because I don't think he likes to read very much. Did JD Vance? Probably not. But they're doing they're appointing people who wrote that report into positions of power. And those people seem to be doing the DEI, getting rid of DEI stuff.

Shawn (04:40.641)
There you go, choose your words wisely.

Porter (04:42.714)
Yeah.

Porter (05:09.382)
Yeah, Project 2025 is thousands of pages long. I would be surprised if there's like anybody on Trump's staff who's actually read the whole thing, but he's definitely, he's definitely in with the crowd that all just kind of thinks along the lines of what's in Project 2025 because he's in with the crowd who made Project 2025.

Matt (05:09.428)
I

Shawn (05:10.865)
they're definitely getting rid of the AI stuff,

Porter (05:37.668)
The goals are aligned there, whether or not he's actually read it or cares about what's in the document. I doubt that he actually cares, but he'll listen to the people around him that he trusts. And right now those people are the creators of Project 2025.

Shawn (05:38.325)
mention.

Shawn (05:55.809)
I what do we not just look at the tracker and just say, I guess the Trump administration agrees with 47 % of the project 2025?

Matt (06:03.143)
or 40

Porter (06:03.214)
Well, that's what they've implemented so far, and it's only been, we're only, what, nine months into his term?

Matt (06:08.167)
Nine months.

Yeah. I wish like, I wish the people I voted for were so successful at implementing the things in an agenda like that. A lot of people I vote for aren't so efficient at getting that kind of stuff done.

Shawn (06:23.116)
Well, well, and project 2025 became a buzzword that most people don't know what's in it and never read it. So it's kind of a joke that people just have a gut reaction to something they have no clue what it is. Right. Like, I mean, I'm sure there's stuff in there that is annoying and stupid. I'm sure there's stuff that's unprincipled. Like, like I don't have any faith that any political, uh, what were they? What were the people that put it together? What was it? Uh, a think tank. I was a think tank.

Matt (06:48.968)
The Heritage Foundation? Yeah. Yeah.

Porter (06:50.563)
Yeah.

Shawn (06:51.711)
Yeah, so I don't have any trust that a think tank has pure and altruistic and righteous intentions through and through. So of course there's going to be garbage in there, but I also don't like when people just use it as a headline and be like, any association with, with something called project 2025 is, is wrong and evil. And I mean, it's just so lazy. Come on, go find out what's in there. You probably agree with X percent and you probably disagree with another X percent, right?

Matt (07:16.276)
Do know why the people I vote for never implement the agenda the way that I want them to? Because they lose the election. Everybody I vote for loses the election. I almost, when I go to a rally or something, I almost feel like going up to the candidates I like and saying, I love you so much. And I'm sorry because nobody I've ever voted for has ever won an election before, but you won me over. So good job. I know it's too bad.

Shawn (07:25.686)
haha

Shawn (07:36.577)
You

You're jinx. You're jinx,

Matt (07:44.472)
That's why I didn't vote in the presidential race. I had this hope that if I didn't vote for any of them, maybe neither of them would win, but it didn't work.

Porter (07:49.986)
Mm. Mm.

Matt (07:54.15)
Okay, let's go to the thought provoker. So first up this week, a government commissioned report called the Alcohol Intake and Health Study found strong evidence that even low levels of alcohol use raise the risk of cancer and premature death. It showed risks increased sharply with more drinking and confirmed alcohol is linked to at least seven cancers with women at higher risk per drink than men.

The study was launched in 2022 under Biden to inform the 2025 US dietary guidelines. But after it was submitted in March of this year, the Trump administration and health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. chose not to publish it. Instead, they leaned on a separate national academies report, which downplayed cancer links and suggested possible health benefits from moderate drinking, a stance that is clearly more favorable to the alcohol industry.

I know Sean likes some of the stuff RFK Jr. promotes, does this show, I chose this word on purpose just for Sean, does this show that RFK Jr. is a sellout, just like the rest of the people in Washington, D.C.?

Shawn (08:57.249)
See ya.

Shawn (09:02.333)
Or I was going to say, when I read that question, was like, wait, Matt, you're saying that everyone in DC is a seller? I'm fascinated that you think that.

Matt (09:08.53)
Yeah, pretty much. mean Porter's in DC right now and he has sold his soul. I'm just saying Sean, like you say everyone in DC is a seller. I was using your phrase that they're all sellouts.

Shawn (09:13.386)
Porter Porter be principal dude

Shawn (09:21.621)
Yeah, well, I've never ever said that.

Matt (09:25.462)
what about poser? Would you say they're all posers? Well, I don't know. OK. OK. But you would use the word sell out, right? That's a good word. OK. Well, is R.F.K. Jr. a sellout, Sean?

Shawn (09:27.797)
not nor said all of them.

Shawn (09:34.485)
Not for all of them, No, I never said all of them.

I mean, in this case, obviously if he is, if he's suppressing truth in order to allow corporations to sell alcohol, then yeah, that's a sellout. Yeah, obviously. Why?

Matt (09:52.412)
Okay. Do you know why I would say he's not a sellout, Sean? Cause he lacked any form of soul to begin with. You can only sell out if you're in like a good spot and then you move to a bad spot. But RFK Jr started in the bad and just stayed in the bad. So he's not a sellout. He just lacked any sort of moral code from the very beginning. I know it hurts to hear this Sean, cause I know you love RFK Jr, but yeah, you appreciate some of the things he does. But in my view,

Shawn (10:00.33)
jeez.

Shawn (10:08.661)
What the heck?

Shawn (10:16.021)
I don't love him, but I don't know the color.

Matt (10:22.482)
He does all bad things.

Shawn (10:25.195)
All right, let me throw three things that he's done so far. You tell me if these are bad things. Investigating vaccine safety and childhood vaccine schedules, just investigating them, just doing some research. It's bad to investigate, to research whether or not the vaccine schedules and vaccines are good for children.

Matt (10:27.912)
Okay.

Matt (10:35.048)
Bad. Bad, bad, bad.

Matt (10:40.382)
Why do I need to have the government investigate research that's already been done and established? Like the amount of research you have to...

Shawn (10:46.101)
That's his point that it has not, because that's the second thing. He wants radical transparency in clinical trials, data, and more public information about chemical contaminants in food.

Matt (10:56.09)
my goodness, Sean. my goodness, Sean. In my research methods class where I teach people how to do statistics and research and stuff, I take them to the website because if you want to do a clinical trial that gets approved by the FDA, you have to submit all of this stuff in advance. So I just can randomly select of literally thousands of studies that tell you so much information about not just who's going to get selected in the population and how they're going to get treated.

Like it has more detail on all of these FDA studies. There's been more transparency on that than anything I can think of. There is so much transparency.

Shawn (11:29.185)
But I think, yeah, but, but so I, so I've worked in pharma and I've been a part of, I've seen like the huge budget that gets allocated to teams that are working in regulatory and legal, just giant, Matt, giant teams in pharma.

Matt (11:43.686)
Of course, because there's so much regulation of how to get something approved.

Shawn (11:46.987)
That's right. That's right. And they have to, and their main job is to jump through whatever hoops it takes to get the drugs approved. They're basically, their job is to be like, okay, well, this says we have to do this, just do this. So, and in the end, in the end, I think the biggest issue that JFK Jr. has put out there is you didn't go through that process with COVID, with the COVID vaccine. You didn't do it. No, they did not. No, they did not. Many of the requirements, you need years and years and years of clinical studies.

Matt (12:07.24)
Yes they did.

Not before-

No, that's right. didn't go through that. By the way, when I got vaccinated for COVID, they told me this is not an FDA approved drug. So they did go through the process with COVID. Everyone who got vaccinated knew that the drug they were taking was not FDA approved, that nobody had gone through that process.

Shawn (12:30.369)
No, no, it's not. It's not. The process isn't. You don't have to go through the trials if you disclose that the process is you have to go through these trials. So he's just pushing.

Matt (12:38.228)
but it was an emergency pandemic situation where people wanted to get vaccinated.

Shawn (12:42.577)
All I'm saying is he's pushing for radical transparency in clinical trials, data, and more public information. That's all he's doing. That's not a terrible thing.

Matt (12:49.428)
That's not even a good thing, You take an example like a pandemic and say, hey, in this pandemic, they may have rushed the process. Therefore, let's review everything that they do. That doesn't make any sense.

Shawn (12:52.499)
I report. sorry.

Shawn (13:03.231)
I think it makes great sense.

Matt (13:05.051)
Okay, what do you say Porter?

Porter (13:06.829)
I say that research and statistics is a place where I'm very slow to form strong opinions based on what other people tell me. Because research and statistics is an area, I think possibly the area in which it is easiest to deceive and misinform people. Because it...

Matt (13:30.068)
Ouch. That hurts.

Porter (13:33.336)
The science of doing research and compiling these statistics is so robust now. There are people who spend their whole, like the people who did the clinical trials of these vaccines, spent lifetimes, so much time acquiring specialized knowledge to perform these trials over the course of decades. And then I'm not gonna, I'm not convinced.

by RFK Jr., who's a complete layman in this industry, just because he throws around some words like placebo or transparency. It's very easy to throw out a few statistics buzzwords that people are familiar with and make them think something about some kind of research study.

That's completely wrong. Yeah.

Shawn (14:33.473)
Can I, can I ask you a question Porter? Yeah, I agree. I agree. No questions. I agree that RFK juniors entire persona is not, mean, yeah. Qualifications, not really, but his entire persona is based on, I guess what he would call faith, right? He just has a belief that for example, uh, the role of psychiatric medications in children is causing more problems than good. And so he has this belief.

Matt (14:36.688)
No, we don't do that, Sean.

Shawn (15:01.801)
And so he has the power now to go and let's research, let's do the studies. Like, I think that a big part of his message is the power of pharma and pharma's influence on government has caused, is basically corrupt. Like they, there's so much power and money in pharma that government has allowed a lot of things. And his basic message was, I believe that's wrong. Let's go study it. Let's go. And I agree. He's, he's not a doctor. He's not even a scientist. He's a lawyer, but

His he's definitely moving forward on a belief system and

Porter (15:33.584)
Yeah, the problem with that is you've got to at the end of the day believe somebody's research in order to have modern medicine that's safe. And when you have a secretary of health that

has absolutely no education, no qualifications, no idea what...

goes into that, no background in that, they are going to be more easily just persuaded by the people around them. People in government generally have to rely on the information of experts. And so the experts that they choose to trust end up being very influential, although we never tend to hear about those people. So I worry that the people that RFK Jr. listens to, he'll say, I'm not satisfied with this study. I think it's corrupt.

Who is he then going to? Is he going to qualified people? Or is he going to people who understand and could do as good of a job with that research, those regulations? I don't know. I don't know. That's what's worrisome.

Matt (16:49.416)
So Sean, this is why I say the man has no soul and isn't a sellout because from my perspective he prays I think that Sean the reason he appeals to you is because you're a skeptic at heart and you don't like you don't think we should just trust institutions that there that there should be some oversight and some like some skepticism there and I think that what RFK jr. Does is he appeals to the skeptics inside of individuals, but he doesn't

bring anything to the table that's beneficial, right? So when he's all about vaccines cause autism, and then the research shows that he was wrong about that, he doesn't ever go back and say, you know what, I was probably wrong about that, right? And then he picks up on the COVID-19 vaccine stuff and says, there's a lot of skepticism and distrust about this. And he plays into those fears without ever providing anything of substance to like, like all he does is question, question, question. So then when this comes out where now I know,

that he's hiding evidence about that alcohol is unhealthy, then I say that to me reflects who he always has been and who he always is, is not a person who's genuinely concerned about the health of Americans, but somebody who wants to prey on people's skepticism in order to build his own credibility or power or whatever.

Shawn (18:07.489)
Yeah, I was gonna ask you, what do think his motive is then?

Matt (18:10.506)
notoriety. He doesn't he I mean

Shawn (18:11.969)
You don't think you think think you think a a Kennedy needed more notoriety? He wasn't famous enough?

Matt (18:19.942)
Yeah. I mean, imagine that Sean, imagine being RFK's son and the pressure that comes with that to be something, to do something important like your dad, like Bobby Kennedy's name, like people just love the way he fought for the downtrodden. I think that in his heart, RFK Jr. has some of that in him. He just doesn't have the talent of his father and he doesn't have that. He's just not that same guy. And so I think that, yeah, there's something there that's like.

Shawn (18:27.681)
interesting.

Matt (18:47.288)
Maybe he feels like it's what he's supposed to do or something, but I don't think it's altruism. I don't think it's genuine like care and concern for everybody else.

Shawn (18:56.213)
Yeah, I don't know that I can call, I mean, I don't know that we could look at any, any famous politician and be able to judge if it's altruism or ulterior motives, maybe Trump, but, yeah.

Matt (19:07.038)
Yeah, but it is dangerous. It's dangerous to question without providing some kind of, like, I'm fine. You know what I love about you, Sean? You'll question, but when somebody presents you with compelling evidence, then you're willing to change your mind or adopt that view or...

Shawn (19:23.777)
I am. In fact, when you posted this question, I'm like, all right, let me just go study what has he actually done, right? I know there's a lot of rhetoric. He talks a lot, but what has he actually done? And so far, the only thing that he's done is start investigations. And he started them into the vaccine safety for children and the schedules, the role of psychiatric medications on the health of children and pushing for studying how do we make, are the clinical trials processes transparent?

And so I think there's yet to see if there's any good that'll come from any of that.

Matt (19:53.14)
I don't know if it's fair to blame him for the measles outbreak in the United States or for Florida just passed a law saying that you don't have to vaccinate your children in order to send them to public schools. I don't know if it's fair to blame him for that, but it's possible that it is, right? Because as a state, you can't necessarily pass a law that says vaccines aren't required unless the federal government in some way kind of like gives you this nod and sort of says, yeah, that's okay.

Right?

Shawn (20:23.105)
But when you say blame, should we just maybe play it out and see if it's a bad idea? If it's a bad idea, blame them. If it doesn't have an effect, well, who are you trying to blame? For what?

Matt (20:32.052)
But the measles outbreak, right? Somebody caused that measles outbreak. Somebody said, we're gonna let these kids not get vaccinated. We're not going to encourage vaccination by let's say the age of two or something like that, right? We're gonna provide, I don't know, like, we're gonna, if you're skeptical and you think measles isn't that big of a risk for me and my kids and vaccines are a greater risk than getting measles, having somebody in the federal government in an official position, sort of like,

validating that idea, that can be harmful, even if you're not officially doing anything to make that happen.

Porter (21:05.297)
Here's what I'll say in RFK Jr's defense. I think he might have done a good job in a more general leadership capacity in the government than secretary of health and human services. That is a, sure. Yeah. Or even, even president. I would have preferred to see him in office over Trump, I think.

Matt (21:20.988)
Like as attorney general? okay. Something where he has expertise.

Matt (21:30.47)
president. okay.

Porter (21:32.634)
Because that's what he was shooting for and he kind of missed and landed in this role, a role that requires it like subject matter expertise that he does not have. And I also would prefer for whoever our secretary of health and human services is to not be an attention seeker. I would prefer for them to keep their head down in the study and in the work that they're doing and to not be in the media at all. That's what I prefer.

Matt (21:45.118)
Well, we...

Porter (22:01.903)
because public opinion really shouldn't have that much of a role to play in such a highly specialized area. It reminds me, I attended a hearing the other day, Herschel Walker, the NFL player, it was nominated to be the ambassador to the Bahamas. And he, we haven't had an ambassador in the Bahamas in nine years. He's in this, this,

Shawn (22:15.472)
boy. boy.

Matt (22:20.684)
sweet gig.

Shawn (22:20.693)
Yeah.

Porter (22:31.17)
nomination hearing and the senators were all asking him questions and the Foreign Relations Committee. And they're really just chucking him softball questions. And they tucked him into a hearing with like three other people with much more important jobs, like the ambassador to India and the ambassador to Jordan. And he just kind of gave general answers about his work ethic and his passion because he has no qualifications really to be an Indian.

But I think he'll be fine because it's a very general leadership role where he'll have lots of other subject matter professionals around and he can be the person that brings attention to, you know, U.S. relationship with the Bahamas and he puts a face on it. I think RFK Jr. could have done a really good job in an area like that where you don't need advanced expertise in particular area.

Matt (23:30.324)
Okay. Well, now we're going to attack the left a little bit. Kamala Harris has a new book coming out. It's called 107 days. And in that book, she criticizes former president Joe Biden's decision to run in 2024, calling it reckless and blaming campaign dynamics for enabling it. She stopped short of questioning his acuity, but argues his team's choices harmed both the campaign, her campaign and her vice presidency.

The excerpt sparked fury from Biden's former aides who accused Harris of rewriting history after years of publicly showing unity. So question is, is it right for Kamala to blame Biden for what happened in 2024? Was his decision to run for president, for reelection reckless? I like that she didn't question his acuity because that's the one thing that there's considerable debate about.

Shawn (24:13.18)
haha

Shawn (24:18.721)
You

Shawn (24:24.575)
Hahaha

Porter (24:25.636)
No.

Matt (24:28.724)
I'm glad she stopped short of questioning that because that would have just been awful. It would have been like, how dare you get so political by questioning his acuity of all things.

Matt (24:41.382)
I want you to go first, Sean.

Shawn (24:41.537)
I, Matt, I would love to see a Democrat party who implements more common. I would love to see both the Republican and the Democrat party that applies more common sense tactics and everything that, everything that not only Biden did, Harris did, and the whole Democratic party in that whole process was so anti-common sense that it was just so obvious and so ridiculous. I think the easiest task to perform was to overcome Donald Trump in that election. And they were, it was such buffoonery that

Matt (25:11.334)
Yeah. Yeah.

Shawn (25:11.573)
They failed miserably. And so I don't, I think it's pretty weak that, that she's going to come out and blame other people and play a victim. That is absolutely just as weak as I can possibly see, but they were all to blame. She was to blame. Biden was to blame. The Democrat party was to blame. It was just a really weak showing man. Really weak.

Matt (25:30.42)
So I was very, very excited when Biden was elected president because he had so much experience in both the legislative branch. He had relationships with world leaders. Like I was so excited and, and I thought he was going to really try and do a lot to help heal racial wounds that were, that existed at the time. a lot of people I know who are racial minorities who dislike

Shawn (25:39.669)
I remember you said that. Yeah.

Matt (25:57.716)
Affirmative Action or DEI programs, they'll say that they feel like if they get a position just because of their race, that people don't feel like they're up to the task, that like they couldn't get it if they weren't a racial minority. And they also feel like sometimes they're given jobs, but then they're not given anything to do to like actually prove that they're up to the job. And so I don't think that Kamala is just blaming Joe Biden. I think she has a legitimate point that

that when Joe Biden chose her to be vice president, he did not treat her as like an equal partner in governing the country. He relied far more on his staff or his trusted advisors that he had had. If you look at like the, JD Vance vice presidency and what Trump kind of allows JD Vance to do compared to what Kamala Harris did as vice president, I think that's where Joe Biden did a tremendous disservice to the country and then to her in particular.

Shawn (26:37.119)
my gosh.

Shawn (26:54.657)
Let me see if understand what you're saying. You're saying that when people accuse the DEI movement of being empty and a fake facade just to look good in public eye, you're saying that's exactly what Biden did. He chose someone and then did not give them an opportunity to serve. So he basically said, because I mean, that's the big accusation is he literally came out and says, I'm not going to choose someone who's qualified. I'm going to choose someone who's a black woman. I'm to choose a woman of color and a female.

And it was like, well, just on those merits. And then you say, you're saying he didn't let her do anything. So you're saying the right accused him and was correct.

Matt (27:24.478)
Yeah.

Matt (27:29.372)
Right. So, Katanji Brown Jackson, who he appointed for the Supreme Court, right? She has had the opportunity to demonstrate herself as a very capable, brilliant jurist. Like nobody looks at what she does on the Supreme Court and says, she's just a DEI hire. She's not qualified or anything like that. But because of the thing, the way that the Biden administration worked with Kamala Harris, a lot of people can make that argument because they can say,

What did she even do over those four years? And she never had an opportunity to like have a policy agenda that was all her own. He gave her abortion and he gave her the border and he gave her the border at a time when it was like the most unpopular thing and, didn't really give her any tools to work with the border. Like why would a VP be in charge of the border when that's Homeland security and, and you have a party that doesn't want enforcement at the border. So it's like, he didn't, he didn't really like allow her to shine.

in the way that other presidents allow their vice presidents to shine.

Shawn (28:27.617)
Wow, what do think Porter?

Porter (28:30.847)
I think that's a good insight. I think it's interesting that she is blaming campaign dynamics and like his staff basically. think, I don't know, based on my limited interactions now at this point, but definitely far deeper than what I've ever had before with people in government and people in power, staffers even very

seasoned career staffers with long-standing relationships with elected officials show this like incredible amount of deference to those elected officials that reminds me of relationships between like like counselors in a bishopric like When I was in the bishopric as a counselor we like we supported with me had a close relationship with our bishop But like whatever he said went and we really respect him as a super

you know, wise person and we would never like question his decisions. And that's the vibe that I've seen in every, you know, staff that I've had the chance to interact with now. I don't really think it's fair to blame his staffers for a big picture decision like, are you going to run for president again? Some like my experience tells me that that was probably Joe Biden himself wanting to

Or struggling with the decision to for far too long run or not run.

Matt (30:04.926)
I think it's the staffers, the way that they, the way that they tried to protect Joe Biden from any kind of negative press kind of crippled Kamala Harris because they wanted the like from their perspective, they're saying the reason we didn't let her shine was because we were afraid the more she shines, the more weak Biden looks. And so his staffers are like trying to protect him.

Porter (30:24.649)
Yeah.

Yeah, but I think that's also one for like I think

You need to allow staffers to have that kind of loyalty and sense of alignment with the elected official that they work for, which is the president.

Matt (30:45.97)
Yeah. Well, so then if she's blaming staffers instead of Joe Biden, she's actually questioning his acuity at the same time, right?

Porter (30:52.154)
Yes, he's trying to just dance around the real, the obvious, obvious problem is that he wasn't fit and it took them way too long to figure that out.

Shawn (31:03.179)
Matt, I didn't read the book and I will not read the book. So can you tell me if there's ever any admittance of like mistakes on her end? she ever say like, you know what, I'm kind of the reason we didn't get elected ever. there?

Matt (31:03.316)
But I- Go ahead, John.

Matt (31:16.956)
No way. There's no way. Who writes that book? Sean. She's writing this to try to help. She's trying to lay the foundation for the next run for the White House, right? She's going to run for president and she's got a.

Shawn (31:26.635)
Can we say maybe she's the worst modern example of a politician we've ever seen on the planet?

Matt (31:33.652)
No. What about... what about...

Porter (31:34.602)
she got caught in a really bad moment. Political timing writes a lot of our history and I think she just drew a bad hand.

Shawn (31:35.807)
Really?

Shawn (31:46.005)
Do think she helped? didn't, she didn't much help herself with that bad hand and everything she did.

Matt (31:49.852)
I think that if Kamala Harris, I think if she had gone through a primary election process, you get seasoned, right? You get, like campaigning is a little bit like a football season or something like that, right? You could take a great quarterback and just throw them in where they haven't prepared and they're not gonna be that great. And I think that the difference you saw was that Trump had been campaigning for two years doing rallies, all that stuff. She was just thrown into it kind of last minute.

Shawn (32:06.785)
Hmm.

Shawn (32:12.193)
That's a fair point. I see.

Matt (32:17.074)
Now she's not a great campaigner anyways. Like I don't think that there's anybody that says, wow, she's brilliant. Watch out for her. But she was in a really tough spot having like no prep.

Shawn (32:25.441)
That's a great point I can see that

Matt (32:28.2)
Yeah. Okay. So this last topic, there's a BYU baseball player and, he was accused of molesting somebody when he was younger, before he became a BYU baseball player. And the allegations are horrific and terrible, but, the process he went through, it's called a mediation that leads to a binding plea deal. So this BYU baseball player.

was entered into a plea agreement and it was binding. So it's like, I'll plead guilty to these two felony charges of like molestation. I don't know exactly what they were. And then the judge who takes that plea is bound by mediation to give the sentence that was agreed to. So this happened in Idaho recently. Steven Boyce was the district judge who gave him that sentence and he was sentenced to 180 days in jail and eight years of probation.

And when people heard about this, they were enraged. Like I've actually, I actually sometimes in research try to make people angry when they're taking surveys because I measure anger. And I've actually learned one of the best ways to make people angry is to tell them a story of somebody assaulting, especially sexually assaulting another person and getting a weak sentence and result for that. That makes people very angry. Well, this made people angry too. as a result,

The judge, Steven Boyce, has been receiving death threats and so much so that the Idaho Supreme Court came out and condemned the threats and stressed that judges must rule on evidence in the law, not public opinion, and warned that threatening a judge is itself a serious crime. So this is the question I have. When disturbing things happen in public that make us feel angry, what is the appropriate thing to do? I know we all are going to say death threats are bad. Of course, those are bad.

And also they're illegal by the way. If you're thinking of a death threat, don't do it, you're breaking the law. So we all agree that's wrong, but what should we do instead of taking our rage online or breaking the law in some way? What is the appropriate response when something like that happens that just makes you feel so angry inside?

Shawn (34:44.959)
Matt, once again, the mantle of my beloved friend, mission companion and political scientist, the mantle and the expertise comes out. Like what a beautiful way to use the context of the story and ask such a great question. What a great question. When disturbing things happen in public that make us angry or feel angry, what's the appropriate thing to do? In the context of what happened this week, that is a beautiful way to pose the question. Awesome.

Matt (35:00.372)
Thank you. Thanks, Sean.

Matt (35:14.164)
Thanks, thanks Sean. Thank you, thank you.

Shawn (35:14.337)
Well done, Matt, well done. I love it. This is why the latter day lens is so great because you have a way of really framing these questions in a way that makes people think. And the first thing, since this is the latter day lens and we have yet to talk about scripture, I did find an interesting verse in Ephesians 426. says this, be ye angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. how do you interpret that, Matt?

Matt (35:39.805)
Ooh.

Matt (35:43.582)
So you can't necessarily control when you feel angry or not, but you can control. You should try to like make it go away, right? And don't do anything sinful while you're angry.

Shawn (35:54.613)
Yeah, like anger itself can alert us to something that's wrong, right? There's, just, think we're justified to feel anger, but what we do above that anger is what matters absolutely most. Yeah.

Matt (36:05.832)
Yeah. Well, so I mentioned that I study anger and what anger does. And I think it's actually, I'm actually going to try and bring in the latter-day lens perspective on this too. So in the scriptures, it says that Satan is the father of contention. And it says he stirreth up the hearts of men to anger one with each other. And I think that many people interpret that to mean that if I'm feeling angry, it's because Satan is causing me to feel anger.

Shawn (36:16.991)
Yes, yes.

Matt (36:35.06)
Well, I actually don't think that that's what it is. I think that anger is an emotion that when you feel it, this is what the research says. Like if you're afraid, like let's say a spider comes in the room and you're afraid of spiders, it actually makes you become more attentive to your environment and less certain about what's going on because you feel threatened in some way, you feel unsafe. And so you become very like, it turns on this cognition.

that makes you think more deeply about what you're doing and your surroundings and everything that's going on. Anger is actually the opposite of that. When you feel angry, you become less aware of your surroundings and you become more certain that whatever action you're about to take is the right action. And so I think that the scriptures teach us that Satan makes us angry because when that anger switch turns on, we turn off all of the things that are there to help us

Shawn (37:19.605)
my gosh, whoa.

Matt (37:31.422)
to not sin basically, right? We become really confident that we're doing the right thing. We become less aware of how our actions are affecting other people. And it makes it really easy then for Satan or others to manipulate us into doing stupid things, because that's what anger does is an emotion.

Shawn (37:47.265)
So in the Old Testament, there's a verse that says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. And so, and I love that because it's basically saying, look, we feel certain things with these brains and these mortal bodies and these emotions. We feel them. Now, can we control how we feel and what we, maybe not sometimes that are all the time, but we can control how we react to them by focusing on what our brain thinks, right? So as a man thinketh, so is he, that's what he becomes. And I know you, I know you've got this incredible book coming out about this,

Matt (37:52.734)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (38:13.886)
Yeah.

Shawn (38:16.875)
this concept of becoming, right? And I think this has a lot to do with it. What we think and how we choose to respond to our emotions is absolutely key here.

Matt (38:28.102)
Yeah, and I'm not a highly emotional person, but there are times as a parent where I would get angry or in my marriage, I'd get angry and there I had to learn because my wife would be like, stop it, stop it. And I'd be like, it's okay, hon. I've got this. It's all right. Don't worry. I'm confident that everything's going to be fine or whatever. Right. And I had to learn to listen to my wife when she's like, stop it because because when you're angry, you are so confident.

that everything's gonna be just fine and you're not even thinking about it like the things that matter. so my answer to this is when something makes you angry, it's okay, feel the emotion, embrace the emotion if you need to, like sit in the emotion for a while if you want, but the answer is don't do anything until that emotion's gone away, because you're not gonna be able to properly evaluate your response while you're feeling anger.

Shawn (39:24.207)
Porter bring in some Gen Z wisdom here. Your Gen Z, is that right? Yes. Bring in the Gen Z wisdom. Just to preface, I've read a lot of reports Porter and I think we're going to talk about this a little bit. Gen Z, you guys have a very different experience with emotions. Your generation for some reason is highly

Porter (39:29.345)
Gen Z. Yeah.

Matt (39:50.398)
Volatile, unpredictable.

Shawn (39:51.445)
Volatile? No, no. You have high levels of depression and I think anger in your generation. And I think it's our fault for the way we raised you guys. you...

Matt (40:02.196)
I won't take any responsibility for that.

Shawn (40:05.942)
Okay, anyway, give us your perspective

Porter (40:07.071)
I'll say that what I see, like in my family, my wife's family, I sort of see like a gradient from the oldest, like my parents and in-laws, from the oldest children down to the younger ones, a gradient from the oldest people being the most reactive to stuff that they see online down to the youngest ones being the least reactive.

Matt (40:32.788)
Cause they grew up with it. Yeah.

Porter (40:34.289)
Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't comment angry things. It's like...

Matt (40:45.684)
So then what do you do, Porter, when this stuff makes you mad?

Porter (40:50.033)
Here, you know, there's a great latter-day lens for this in the New Testament in John 8 with the woman who's taken an adultery. The Jews of the Bible had a really terrible habit of anytime anybody else's action made them angry, they loved to stone people as soon as possible, which I guess was the New Testament version of tweeting was stoning people. And then...

Shawn (41:18.593)
Porter (41:19.766)
And then we see, you know, Jesus gives that famous, he that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone. So he says, first, stop worrying about what other people are doing and worry about yourself. And then, and again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground. He just like sits down and kind of hangs out. And I think that is exactly what Matt was saying.

just don't do anything for a little bit. And then he had this wonderful opportunity to connect with and change this person who had done something wrong. And everyone kind of was diffused in that situation. As I spent time as a chaplain in a prison with people who had made mistakes, some of them were, were

Shawn (42:05.867)
Yeah, that's great.

Porter (42:17.269)
on the receiving end of angry sentencing. You know, that was maybe more proportionate to how victims and people in the community were feeling than it was to how much correction this person really needed. You know, people that were in jail for very long periods of time for maybe accidents, car accidents or, you know,

things that...

Matt (42:50.644)
Drug possession.

Porter (42:51.601)
Yeah, things that you wouldn't necessarily talk to that person and you wouldn't ever talk to that person and think, wow, this is a really bad person and they needed to be in jail for this period of time, know, years and years of their life. But people get angry when they feel like they've been wronged in some way. And it's really easy when you're just getting the minimal amount of information of a case or a situation.

to pass some kind of sentence from behind your phone screen without thinking first about what you would be going through if maybe you were on the other side of that confrontation. We tend to put ourselves on the side of the victim. You know, what is this baseball player going through? We don't know what his life was like.

We don't actually know that much about what he's done or what those situations or dynamics are like. We don't know what his family is going through. I think the thing that we have a responsibility to do as disciples of Christ is to put ourselves in other people's shoes, even when it's uncomfortable and strive to do what's right by everyone, not just...

not just the people that we tend to relate with more instinctively.

Shawn (44:22.975)
Yeah, there's a good like Proverbs 18 13, right? He that answereth a matter before he heareth it is folly and shame unto him. There's obviously a, we let our emotions jump to conclusions without real knowledge, then that's a problem. I also think the last element of this, Matt, I'm assuming, I think the only answer is we have to trust in God that justice will be meted out in the most righteous way, right? And when we see injustices or people not getting the right amount of justice, what else can you do?

the legal process was followed and your anger is going to accomplish very little. You have to trust in God in these situations that he's going to make things right, right?

Matt (45:00.98)
Points to both of you guys. I agree. You guys are great. Okay, here's the big question. I have to bring in a survey every single time because I like what you're doing. So Gallup does surveys. They did their 2025 survey shows that 28.5 % of US adults report having been diagnosed with depression. That's near the record high of 29 % that was in 2023.

Shawn (45:04.341)
Hahaha.

Shawn (45:10.495)
Yes, you do. I'll go with it.

Matt (45:29.076)
Rates have risen most sharply among young adults and low-income Americans. Among adults under the age of 30, current depression has doubled since 2017 and went from 13 % to 26.7%. Among those earning less than $24,000 a year, rates have climbed from 22 % to 35%. Gallup attributes the surge to two factors. They say that each new generation of young adults begins adulthood with a higher baseline depression rate.

And they say the overall depression has been rising among older cohorts, which is creating a compounding effect. So my question is, what do you guys think? Why is depression on the rise among poor Americans and younger Americans? Why is it at record levels in the last two years? Is it because advances in medicine are simply making it easier to diagnose? Does the gospel of Jesus Christ offer any solutions for people struggling with depression? Those are two different questions.

Shawn (46:28.097)
Holy cow, dude, there's so much to unpack in this one. It's such a complicated issue. To me, let's start with the poor, right? The economic challenges. Yeah, I mean, obviously, poverty, people in poverty face chronic stressors. Like we've all faced, I gonna be able to feed my family or pay rent? Those are chronic stressors. mean, I love that, I love...

Matt (46:38.868)
Yeah, less than $24,000 a year.

Matt (46:45.746)
Yeah

Shawn (46:55.105)
It seems like that is one thing that both the political left and right should be able to come together on, which is maybe our goal would be to uplift all of us and get rid of poverty. Now the tactics of how to do that are so different on each side that there becomes a huge debate and problems, but clearly there's going to be chronic stressors. So that's got to be one factor. think with the younger people, why it's happening with younger people, I don't know, man. Anecdotally, I just see the prospect of owning a home, for example.

Matt (47:06.728)
Yeah.

Shawn (47:25.353)
really stresses kids out. But then they're also the generation who's been raised on phones and electronics and social media. That's obviously a factor. But then I also think that the medical industry is perpetuating it, right? They're basically, I don't know how to deal with this. Yes, you've got depression, take these pills, take these drugs. Again, I've brought this up before, but I've got a buddy who is a ER doctor at the emergency room and he says that

man, the amount of people that come in daily saying, I'm having a heart attack, I'm having a heart attack. And then they calm down and go, that's just anxiety. You're just having anxiety attack. the recommendation, like 99 % of the time they say, hey, here's some drugs, go deal with your anxiety. Like that's just perpetuating the issue.

Matt (48:06.749)
Yeah.

Matt (48:10.304)
I do think there are people that need medication to deal with depression, but I do not believe that every doctor that prescribes depression medication has really kind of considered all of the other alternatives before they go to medicine.

Shawn (48:14.944)
Absolute.

Shawn (48:24.981)
Yeah. Which is an institution that we should be skeptical of, right,

Matt (48:28.468)
What do you think Porter?

Porter (48:28.907)
Shawn (48:30.486)
Hahaha

Porter (48:33.769)
I think, especially among young people, they each new generation of young adults begins adulthood with higher baseline depression rates. I'm going to, as a layman, I'm very confident saying that is in large part because of social media. The statistical correlations between social media and depression and anxiety are astounding.

Shawn (49:00.799)
Yeah, pretty clear.

Porter (49:04.177)
And the intuitive, like we all know what it feels like to be depressed after scrolling on your phone for a few hours. It's not... And I think to the most important question, does the gospel of Jesus Christ offer any solutions for people struggling with depression? Many solutions. The first of them being to develop

Shawn (49:29.419)
Yeah, many. I agree.

Porter (49:34.61)
habits in your life, especially daily scripture study and prayer, that can replace time that you would otherwise spend on your phone. I think that's such an easy thing, and not easy, but such a simple thing that in my life for sure has, the difference is like impossible to

Shawn (49:47.649)
Great advice.

Porter (50:03.409)
to express how huge of a difference that simple thing makes is just waking up a little bit earlier and instead of scrolling on my phone until I need to leave for work studying the scriptures.

Shawn (50:15.137)
Porter, to support that, have you heard what the apostle Elder Christofferson has said about that? Like this is a shocking line, Matt, in the missions prep series thing that I do and in the podcast, we talk a lot about, because obviously one of the principles of serving a full-time mission is you're going to deal with hard things. You're going to have our companions, you're going to have rejection, you're going to have physical threats, all kinds of hard things. And so how has God equipped us to deal with that? And about a year ago, Elder Christofferson came out with this. You tell me Porter, if this aligns with what you're saying.

This is a shocking kind of bold statement. says this, if we can lead our youth and young adults to spiritual rebirth, depression will evaporate and any anxiety in their lives will be quite manageable. Even death itself cannot threaten their peace once they have been born of the spirit and have learned to trust in God.

Matt (51:06.568)
Yeah, I think that there is some truth to what he's saying there. I think that when it comes to mental health, we are not as far advanced with mental health as we are with say like heart health or liver health or something like that, right? Like there are times when a person has a heart attack and you're like, well, there's nothing that person could have done to prevent that heart attack. That was just going to happen, right? There was genes or whatever. I think with mental health, there are so many different causes of mental health challenges.

that we're not really good at diagnosing who's got mental health challenges for what reason. And I do think that what Elder Christopherson is saying is that is 100 % true. That when I'm down, when I'm sad, when I'm lonely, when I turn to the Lord, he gives me peace in my life and helps me to get through those tough times. But it's also true, I think Elder Holland talked about this in 2013 where he's like, but there are also conditions where

You can't break through that. Like, right. It doesn't always work for everybody all the time.

Shawn (52:07.445)
Yes.

Yeah, no, no, I think there's absolutely X percent of the people who there is just, there's just the chemicals in our brains or in our bodies that get imbalanced. And for sure, the advances in medical, like in medicine have really been a huge blessing. I mean, there've been so many people in my life who were brave enough and humble enough to take the path of working through with a doctor to get those balance, that medicine, that balance of medication that balances out those chemicals. And it's a lifesaver.

It's just beautiful, amazing things. I'm very grateful that that exists, but I think you're right. Doctors just default to, you've got this, I'm gonna diagnose this for you, here's medications. What I think in the majority of the cases, what Elder Christofferson is saying and what the scriptures teach is, come unto Christ. Learn of who you are and what your true identity is. Don't let social media define you.

Don't, like the loneliness factor is huge. I think so many people today with digital relationships feel so, so, so, so lonely. There you go. Jesus Christ says, go get out and be with people, have a social life. Yeah. So I think the gospel of Jesus Christ and, I love how he framed it. He went back to the old phrases of a mighty change of heart. That like, that is what is like, it's not just going to church, but it's doing what Porter says. You daily read your scriptures and feast upon the words of Christ.

Matt (53:01.544)
Yeah.

Shawn (53:28.053)
Your heart begins to change. You become a different person. You're led to a greater faith which leads you to repentance. And then your covenants really matter and they really start working and you have the happiness and joy that Matt has. Look at your face, Matt. There's happiness and joy. I've never seen you angry. I know, it's true.

Matt (53:42.152)
all the time. My kids have never seen me angry either. I think that like it's a natural thing if we talk about natural laws or the way things are, it's a natural thing that if you do something sinful or harmful or that hurts another person, that you're gonna feel an unease, maybe a guilt, maybe a shame, and you're gonna carry that with you until you're able to get rid of that, right? And so,

Shawn (53:46.837)
No, good.

Porter (53:47.355)
Peace.

Matt (54:09.106)
I think that there is a lot of like guilt and shame and pain that happens in society. There's a lot of sadness that happens in society because we are in a fallen world and people are sinning. And I think what I would say is we should all try repenting first because it's free and it's available to everyone no matter where you are. Like if you're feeling down, try repentance first. And if that doesn't work, then you can look for other solutions. But I start with repentance.

Porter (54:23.845)
Yes.

Shawn (54:33.057)
Matt, you're on fire. You're on fire. The first three questions, you're just kind of like, I'm a, let's talk politics. And then the last ones, you're on fire with the latter day lens. Repent first. That's such a truism, dude. Turn to Christ and repent and you will find that joy comes back to your life. What a great message, Matt.

Matt (54:45.128)
Yeah, go there first,

Porter (54:50.79)
And I know the repent first is such an important distinction. was a, there's a really good missionary training center training. like an hour and a half long from elder Yorg Klebengott, who's just a legend. Love that guy. But he, he, it's like, it's very long. It's very difficult to find. It's only accessible through like the missionary portal. I have a, an illegal

Matt (54:51.23)
Sean likes- Go ahead Porter.

Matt (55:08.536)
yeah.

Porter (55:20.505)
recording of it, but and I think the reason is it's very I think maybe the reason they don't put it out there for everybody is it's very specifically for missionaries and it's it's very It's very bold in in proper York Cleveland got style and that he he addresses problems that many missionaries face including depression and he says if you are feeling

Shawn (55:23.617)
That makes me feel anger, Porter.

Porter (55:49.061)
And this is a paraphrase, I don't want to misquote him, but he says if you are feeling depressed, the first thing you should be doing is looking in the mirror and looking at what your habits are in your life. What are you doing every day as a missionary? How is your relationship with Christ? Are there things that you know that you need to be improving, that you would suggest other people try improving? Start with that. And repent coming unto Christ.

ends up being so much more than just getting on your knees and praying and hoping that it gets better. I feel like sometimes when we say, you know, Jesus Christ will be with you through hard times and help you, that there's kind of this notion that if you, I guess, just like think about Jesus or pray, that you'll feel some magical warm...

Fuzziness that'll just make you not be depressed anymore And I've found that that's almost never the case in my life and I own it's it's not common for me to You know just have a sudden inexplicable You know 180 out of depression because the spirits with me What my practical experience has been with Jesus Christ?

helping me to have joy in my life and helping me in working with depression is his example and his scriptures and his words that trying to live like him and trying to help others understand how much he loves them that

brings the spirit into my life in a practical, tangible way that I think treats any mental difficulties that we could have so much more powerfully than just kind of hoping that it'll be better.

Matt (57:58.982)
Awesome, Porter. We're gonna let you have the last word. That was great. Hey everybody, thanks for joining us. It was good to have you with us this week and we hope you'll join us again next week. Have a great day.