All In To Win: What’s Going On In The News? | Victoria Nerem

Bob: Welcome back to All In to Win. I’m Bob Vander Plaats, and I am thrilled you are choosing to join us on this podcast. So whatever you’re doing today, thank you for joining in, listening in, and I, again, I just hope you’re enjoying these. I’m having a blast doing them. Matter of fact, the instigator of these podcasts is none other than my guest today, Victoria Nerem. She’s a Gen-Zer. She’s way younger than I am. She’s way hipper than I am. She’s got fire, aura, I don’t know what ya’ll have. I’m ‘unc’ — I have no idea what’s going on, but we’re going to talk about some current events today. Victoria, there’s a lot on our plate, so let’s get to it.

Victoria: We are switching gears a little bit. Usually we like a good sit-down conversation on a certain topic, but today I just think there’s so much going on in the news, and all the time people are telling me, like, we just wish we could pick Bob’s brain. And I always think that also. So I’m like, OK, I have put together four current event topics we’re going to tackle today, so it’s going to be heavy.

Bob: Full, full disclosure, there’s not a lot of brain left to be picked, but we’ll see what we can do.

Victoria: So the first thing that, if you are paying attention to the news at all, if you are on X, if you are on TikTok, you know about the Lindsay Clancy trial. So maybe if you are not as involved into politics or the news cycle, you might not know as much about this trial. So I do just want to give a quick rundown for those who maybe don’t know what’s happening.

But Lindsay Clancy is a former labor and delivery nurse from Massachusetts, and in January 2023, at 32 years old, she was living with her husband and her three young children, Cora, who was 5, Dawson, who was 3, and Callan, who was 8 months. And so on January 24th, 2023, Clancy’s husband Patrick left their home to pick up dinner. According to the prosecution, while she was gone, she strangled all three of her children with exercise bands, and then she attempted to take her own life by jumping out from the second-story window. So when her husband Patrick returned home, he discovered the children and Lindsay and called 911. The children were transported to hospitals but died from their injuries. Lindsay survived but suffered severe spinal injuries from the fall and has been confined to a wheelchair.

So that’s the basic factual framework. It’s a really—it’s a sad, it’s a sad case. No matter how you dice it, how you look at it, like, it’s sad. And the Family Leader, like, we love families. We’re beyond pro-life. That means outside of the womb–we’re for children, we’re for families. And so it’s sad. No matter which way you spin it.

So now that brings us to motive. Why? So after the birth of her three children, Clancy experienced significant mental health problems, according to testimony and records discussed during the trial. She struggled with anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, sleep deprivation, and medication changes. I think she was on 12 different medications at the time of her children’s death. And so her mental health reportedly deteriorated substantially following the birth of her last son in May of 2022.

And so the defense’s argument is that she should have been diagnosed with postpartum psychosis. And so then she isn’t going to be able to be liable under the law. Basically, similar to, like, being insane, and so you can’t be charged under the law. So it’s not necessarily the question of, did she kill her children? Most people believe that’s undisputed, but some people still think maybe the husband did it–like, there’s conspiracy theories out there, but that’s not really the question on trial. The question on trial right now is, was Lindsay criminally responsible for those acts because she understood what she was doing and understood that it was wrong?

So this is a very recent event. It just ended in a mistrial on the 4th, September 4th, after the jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict. The jury deliberated for more than 38 hours, and it was reportedly divided 11 to 1. The case now moves into a new phase. Prosecutors must decide whether to retry Clancy. And that would be kind of decided on September 29th. So that’s coming up quite, quite soon.

But the defense is pursuing a legal strategy seeking that a ruling because she—because there was a mistrial and she couldn’t be found criminally responsible–that, like, because of her postpartum psychosis, that she shouldn’t be found guilty. So she has not been acquitted, she has not been convicted, and the case currently is unresolved.

And so while this is a one-off case, it has sparked quite the conversation online and in culture. There are many, many, many women who are siding with Lindsay, saying, like, you have no idea what it’s like to, you know, deal with postpartum psychosis or postpartum depression, whatever it would be. And then there’s other—there’s others on the same side as the prosecution saying, like, no, she deserves to be held to the fullest extent of the law. Her children are not here. And that’s because of her today.

And so I’m sure many of you have seen either a neighbor, a family member post on this or speak into this. And so we do want to pursue this conversation with just a level of cautiousness, knowing that it’s, you know, it’s a very complex situation. But we also know that the Bible gives us clarity on all topics, and it’s sufficient for things looking at even a trial case like this. And so I think that it can show us kind of where our culture is at right now.

And so, Bob, I just want to kind of hear what your gut reaction is–I’m sure you know about this case already–and how you have looked at it as a Christian.

Bob: Well, there’s no doubt, even as you recapped it, you know what a sad, sad situation. I mean, obviously our hearts go out with compassion. They go out with compassion to Lindsay Clancy, that whatever depression, whatever state she’s in that would lead her to the killing of three children and then the attempt of taking her own life. And so obviously, we, our hearts leap with compassion about how do we—how would we come around somebody like that dealing with that kind of depression?

But two, is there some facts here? You have a husband that’s been forever impacted. You have three children’s lives who are—who no longer exist. And there needs to be accountability. There needs to be a sense of justice, of reconciliation here.

Even the fact that Lindsay decided to jump out, it was almost like, I know what I’m doing. I’m taking these kids out, and then I’m—I’m going to try to end my own life. Now, that could be the ultimate act of depression. I get that. But the fact is, it also shows I know what I did, and I know what I’m doing is being wrong. And because of that, I want to take the ultimate step and that is end my own life.

I take a look at this as a broader context. How do—how do we come around a culture of life, a culture of life for these three children, a culture of life for that baby in the womb? We need to be about enhancing a culture of life.

Yes. How do we come around Lindsay and women like that who are going through postpartum depression and to say we’re getting them the help they need, but the same time we’re either removing the children from them or we’re having a separation, we’re putting her someplace, the kids different place, whatever it is. But the taking of innocent lives, these three, is never, ever the answer. And I believe that needs to be communicated to a society, to a culture. That is not the answer.

And when we say it’s a one-off, it is. But I believe that maybe it was Michigan, I’m trying to think where this recent one happened, where a mom basically claiming the same thing just took a 2-year-old’s life as well.

What you don’t want to have happen, that’s always the danger here, is all the sudden for a culture…listen, I’m having a rough day too. Not just a rough day; ever since I’ve had the birth of this child, my life hasn’t been the same. Well, you don’t want to create that scenario either, like now we get to kill the children. That’s never, ever the answer.

So I believe in this case, justice needs to happen. I think the broader question is, how do we come along and embrace and uphold a culture of life?

Victoria: 100%, and like, we are not a current news organization. We are not an organization that follows case law and criminal case law. But I think the reason we’re talking about this today is because it’s flown down–it’s downstream from culture, the culture that we have currently that is not pro-life in all, all of its aspects.

And so neither of us are—are moms. I’m a woman and you are father. So we’re around children. And so this does affect both of us. But I did see a clip the other day that was a mom talking through how she—how she feels after this trial and after so many women are speaking up about it, how we got to this place even as a culture. And so we want to play that so that you can watch that.

Clip: I was at the pool this morning when I overheard some moms whispering about the Lindsay Clancy trial and saying that they do think she should be punished to the full extent of the law. And I went over to them and I said pretty loudly, I agree with you. And they said we’re afraid to talk about this in public because so many moms stand with Lindsay Clancy.

And honestly, we shouldn’t be that surprised because our culture supports abortion. In 10 states, it is legal to kill your children through all nine months of pregnancy. Now, what does this have to do with the Lindsay Clancy trial? Let me explain.

The overwhelming support that we’re seeing for Lindsay Clancy should not be surprising to us because these women are sympathizing. She had postpartum depression. She couldn’t handle it. She couldn’t handle her children. Does that sound familiar? Because to me, that sounds like the language the abortion industry has been using for decades to give women an excuse to kill their children in the womb.

And that’s the only difference because these children were outside of the womb. These three children that Lindsay Clancy killed were outside of the womb. The children that the abortion industry supports the killing of and that many women in America support the killing of are inside the womb. The difference is location, but the ideology is the same.

The ideology is saying that sometimes it is OK for women to kill their children if their mental health is being affected by their children. And so we should not be surprised that we have so many women in support of Lindsay Clancy because so many of these women have had an abortion themselves. One out of three women have had an abortion, so they’re thinking in their mind, I was in the same state that she was. I couldn’t handle it mentally. I couldn’t handle having a kid mentally. And so I killed my child in the womb. She killed her three children outside of the womb, but her reasoning was the same. She couldn’t handle her children mentally, so she killed them.

A nation that kills its own children is a nation without hope. That’s what Mother Teresa said. And we’re seeing this play out not only in the children being killed in the womb, but we’re seeing a society start to accept children being killed as infants, as toddlers, as young kids. This is evil. What Lindsay Clancy did was evil.

Victoria: So that is a clip of a mother who is showing us the link maybe between how we view women, how we view abortion in this culture, and what’s happening here in the Lindsay Clancy trial.

So do you think that those two things are correlated? Like, do you see that maybe the culture that we have not had of life is downstream to what’s happening now?

Bob: Well, there’s no doubt, and that’s why at The Family Leader all the time we talk about a culture of life and how do we—what do we do to sustain, enhance, and promote a culture of life. When it’s OK to say–we have a governor candidate right now in the state of Iowa saying–you know, listen, life begins that first breath, meaning you can abort that child all the way up to when he or she takes a first breath, which means it could be outside of the womb, which means there’s a total disregard for the sanctity of human life and how God ordained it and how he purposed every day before one came to be.

And so there’s no doubt, I think that the two can be equated.

The other thing, though, that she said that I think everybody’s—imagine the husband coming home, the devastation that he found and three children who had their whole lives in front of them. It’s not just the husband and those three children, but it’s the grandpas, it’s the grandmas, it’s the uncles, it’s the aunts, it’s the community. It’s a whole nation watching right now of how are you going to respond to this?

And so, yes, we want these women to get the help that they need and that they deserve if they’re—if they’re suffering from a postpartum depression. But killing the children is never the answer. And that is the message that I believe a court of law, a country needs to send to its culture.

Victoria: And honestly, the precedent coming from this trial could be dangerous because if the law is now saying she can’t be held accountable for her crimes because of her hormones or because of the effects of motherhood on you, then, I mean, that could be weaponized against women to say, well, you know, we can’t trust–we can’t trust you to have a weapon. We can’t trust you to be in the workplace. We can’t trust you to be a police officer because we don’t know about your hormones.

I just think that it could set a very dangerous precedent if the law doesn’t deal with this the way that it should.

Bob: Yeah, it could be weaponized against women, but also could be weaponized against the children, weaponized against the children about, listen, I now have justification that I can do the very same thing that Lindsay Clancy did and I’d be held accountable to this.

That’s why I think what is—you need to send a very clear message. This is not acceptable. The killing of the children is not acceptable.

Victoria: 100%. So although that’s something that’s really uncomfortable to talk about, it’s a heavy topic. It’s something that’s important to our culture. And so we wanted to speak into it. We want to speak about life. We want to be an organization that wants to love mothers and love children and overall be an organization that wants to see life thrive. And so that’s why we’re talking about this today.

Bob: And I think the reason we’re talking about it is that there’s two instances just in the past couple of weeks. One is the governor of Massachusetts signs an unlimited abortion bill, basically saying you can abort through the full term of pregnancy. And you had people behind her cheering. And that’s just a gut punch to those of us who believe in the sanctity of human life.

And in this case, the amount of people rallying around Lindsay Clancy’s ability to kill her three children, that’s also a gut punch. And so we need to deal with this. These are heavy topics. I wish this wasn’t part of the podcast. I wish you were talking about something fun, but this one’s not fun. This one’s very heavy. It’s very real.

And Lindsay Clancy’s life has forever changed because of it. Those three children don’t get to live their life. Her husband’s life has changed. Honestly, the whole culture’s life is changed because of this incident.

Victoria: So yeah, we’re—we’re grateful for your just openness to be able to listen as we talk about the details of this trial. Neither of us are experts. We just want to speak about the general culture of life surrounding this case.

So the next current news topic that we’re going to discuss is, again, not a happy one. Sorry, Bob. The Iran war.

So the US-Iran war, which we’ve been calling it, but it’s more of a conflict, has entered another tense phase. After a period of a relative lull, the United States launched new strikes against Iranian targets. Iran retaliated against the United States and allied positions in the region, including targets in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, and Iraq. President Trump has warned that additional attacks remain possible.

So the larger question now is what the United States’ objectives are and whether the current military campaign is moving toward those objectives. It seems as if Trump’s original goals included ending Iran’s nuclear program, limiting its ability to strike neighboring countries, and creating conditions that could lead to a change in Iran’s government.

So the Iran conflict’s been happening for a while now. I think we did the first strikes in, like, 2025, in May of 2025, June of ’25?

Bob: It was actually June of 2025 is when we—we came in with a bunker—the bunker busters, right? And that’s where we teamed up with Israel in order to hopefully decimate their nuclear capability.

Victoria: So then, now that this conflict has been going on for over a year now, where do you think Americans are with the Iran war? Are people paying attention, or has this become kind of background noise?

Bob: Well, the people have to pay attention. And the reason I say they have to pay attention is that every time you go up to fill up your tank of gas, it’s over $4.00 a gallon. The price of diesel, $6 a gallon. And why does the price of diesel matter if you don’t drive a truck? Because the groceries that get hauled to your grocery store are driven by a truck, which means those gas prices get passed on to you with grocery prices.

So the economy is just a higher—it’s a higher market today as far as to exist or provide for your family. And so you have to look at that Iran war.

So the clear objective—and so I think when President Trump came out on February 28th and announced Epic Fury, the whole idea behind Epic Fury was, listen, Iran’s in a weakened position economically,  militarily they’re weakened. This is the time to once and for all, decapitate Iran from having a nuclear weapon. And I believe he cast a vision that we’d be done in a couple of weeks.

The problem is we’re now into over six months. And so the people’s fatigue with a war in Iran, I think, is growing. Americans in general do not have a large appetite for war or for conflict, whatever they want to call this. They don’t have a large appetite for that. So the longer it extends past the given expectation or narrative, I think that’s where you’re seeing the ripple effect of Americans, people kind of waning with their interests in the Iran war.

Victoria: I think so, for sure. So then what do you think are some of those, like, the political consequences that we could face if this conflict continues to escalate?

Bob: Well, I think you’re seeing it right now. We’re going to talk about here in just a minute, but President Trump’s job approval rating, I believe the midterms, a lot of people—the people are forecasting what that’s going to look like. They’re not optimistic about conservatives’ or Republicans’ chances in the midterms. All that can be a ripple effect of this Iran war.

The thing with people I think need to remember, you cannot negotiate with evil. And Iran, when their mission statement is to have Israel removed off of the map, they want Israel to be done, but not just Israel, they want the United States of America to be done too. So when that’s their mission statement, it’s awfully hard to negotiate with them. It’s awfully hard to make a deal with them because you can’t trust them, because their mission is to destroy Israel and to destroy you.

If that’s their mission statement, you just can’t negotiate. So the only thing that they’re going to understand is strength. And we can argue, should have we gone in, not gone in, that type of thing. The fact is we’ve gone in. Now that we’ve gone in, we need to finish the job, stop negotiating, stop dealing, finish the job. Make sure they do not have nuclear weapons, make sure they cannot be a threat to their Arab neighbors. Make sure we can bring peace to the Middle East. And hopefully the Iranian people who want to have real leadership–put them in charge of having real leadership in Iran.

Victoria: So how can us as Christians approach this topic? Because, like, war is, I mean, that’s death and that’s, I mean, that’s sad, and it seems like conflict. We don’t want conflict. Like, we want to be people of peace.

So then, how can we balance praying for peace and wanting to pursue peace while also recognizing that evil sometimes, it requires force to restrain it?

Bob: You know, it’s a great question. You know, nobody wants to go into war. It’s almost like a surgeon would say, listen, surgery is your last resort. Let’s see if we can do a lot of other things before we have this surgery. In this case, war is always your last resort.

What you want to do is you want to pray for the peace. Pray specifically for the peace of Jerusalem, pray for the peace of the Middle East. But what happens is when you have Iran with nuclear capability, and not only the willingness, but the boldness to use it, to take out the neighboring nation of Israel, to try to take away American interests, to be a threat to the Arab neighbors, sometimes you need to use war to say we’re going to stop that devastation because that has an evil intent.

The intent always hopefully that we have is to say we have a good intent, we have a righteous intent. We want peace in Jerusalem. We want peace in the Middle East. We want people to live in peace. We don’t want to have a bad actor have the ability to carry out evil consequences, right.

And so a lot of times I get asked, Victoria, why—why are the Arab nations aligning with us? You know, why? Why is Qatar? Why is—why is the UAE, why is Saudi Arabia? Why are—why, why is Jordan? Why are these people aligning? Because they know a nuclear Iran is a threat to their very existence in the Middle East.

It’s not so much about the nation of Israel or the United States when I say it’s the nation of Israel. It’s more about they want peace in the Middle East. And so hopefully the heart is we want peace and we’re willing to deal with a bad actor if we need to.

Victoria: Yeah, I would say that a lot of Americans felt like that at the beginning when we originally got into it. Like, we can understand Iran should not have a nuclear weapon. Like, we’re scared of that. But the fact that it’s gone on for so long, I think you’re right when you’re saying a lot of Americans just feel war fatigue.

Bob: Yep. And so the way I try to visit people about this is, is go back to October 6th, 2023. Everybody was kind of living in harmony. Everybody’s going about their business, doing OK. October 7, Hamas decides to invade Israel and they—they rape, they kill, they pillage to an unbelievable degree. Well, then right away on October 8, most of America and the rest of the world, they stand with the nation of Israel. That was wrong, that was evil–that was backed by Iran, that was paid for by Iran.

And so my question right away, on October 8th, when Biden was president, you can say all the right things today, but two years down the road, three years down the road, five years down the road, what’s going to be your posture at that point? Because remember, Israel did not want this to come upon themselves. This was Hamas backed by Iran, doing this to the nation of Israel with a greater goal of doing this to the United States of America.

So what it is is that war is not pretty. War is not convenient, and war rarely goes by a stated timeline. And so some of the things—we’re in it now. Steve Dace: never attack what you don’t intend to kill. I think you need to finish the job right now.

Victoria: That’s good. OK, so talking about how Americans feel right now about the Iran conflict is, like, we’ve been saying they’re—they’re getting sick of it because they’re done paying $4.00 a gallon for gas. Like, I filled up my mom’s van yesterday. It was $72, and I like President Trump, but I’m someone who’s saying, like, oh, I’m sick of—sick of doing this. $72 to fill up a car is actually crazy. So I think that we’ve seen that overall. They just put out today Trump’s approval rating, and it’s fallen to an all-time low, 33%. So this is his lowest point in this specific poll. And approval among the Republicans is 72%. And the survey found that 57% of voters said that they were financially worse off under Trump, while Democrats have held a 7.5-point advantage on the generic congressional ballot.

So this is basically this poll showing us, like, Trump is down with Republicans and he’s down with Democrats. And so do you think this—that Trump’s approval rating declining has something to do with the economy, Iran, tariffs? What do you think?

Bob: Yes, yeah, yes, on all of it there. There’s no doubt about it.

The other thing I’d say is don’t ever underestimate President Trump. A lot of people have done that to their own peril. So I would never underestimate him. But there’s no doubt America is sending a message. They’re not happy with the way things are going, whether it be the tariffs and the weaponization of tariffs, or whether it be I’m just going to rename something because I can rename something.

There’s some things, like, they want the president to stay focused. And what they want him to stay focused on is, one, are we secure? Can I go to bed tonight knowing that me, my wife, my family, that we’re safe? And two, is—can we be prosperous here?

Can you—and, you know, a husband down the road–can you afford that first home after you get married? The first time homebuyer age is going through the roof right now. And so a lot of times Americans have this unique ability to personalize things. And right now they’re personalizing it.

They’re personalizing the war with Iran about, I’m tired of paying the high gas prices. I’m tired of paying high grocery prices. I’m tired of hearing it’s going to be done next week and then it’s not done next week, that we’ve got a pause, we’re making a deal, but we didn’t make a deal. And so I think what they’re doing is they’re just being exhausted. They’re being fatigued.

And when they’re fatigued, that’s when Trump’s approval ratings go to where Trump’s approval rating is. But before you listening, and you, Victoria, before you believe all is lost, OK, understand that Democrats have doubled down on crazy. And as long as they double down on crazy and socialism, I believe the American people will always respond with, we will take a shot with common sense to take these gas prices down. We’ll take a shot at common sense with the war in Iran. We’ll take a shot with common sense with all their stuff that we’re dealing with versus embracing crazy.

So that may be what gives me hope as we enter the midterm.

Victoria: That’s a really good point, because instead of, like, being black-pilled and being like, oh, well, I can’t afford anything and I hate Trump because the gas prices and da, da, da, da, it is important to think, like, OK, but what would it have looked like under Biden? Or what will it look like under maybe a different socialist leader or super, super liberal leader? So that’s something, yeah, that’s good to think about.

Bob: And I think what you can do is you can put some visuals on it. Right? And we mentioned a couple of them already, one of them being, you know, you got the Massachusetts governor signing an unlimited abortion bill. So, and you got people behind her cheering. That could be your state, that could be your America. Is that what you want?

You have the mayor of New York, and you have candidates like the mayor of New York now popping up everywhere who are embracing socialism. In the heart of socialism is there’s no God. I remove—I remove God. I close up his word. Government is God. I take what is yours. I make it mine. I redistribute it on my terms, OK?

So when you take a look at that, we don’t want to be a country filled with socialists, OK? And the greatest way to weaken a country or to threaten a country’s security is by putting in weak leadership who really does not believe in the foundation pillars of America.

So before we say all’s lost, understanding that Americans will rise up to choose common sense versus crazy.

Victoria: That’s true. That’s a good point, Bob.

Also, Trump isn’t on the ballot in November, but a lot of his policies are going to be affecting the midterms in November. And so that’s something I want to shift to.

Our fourth thing we want to talk about is the midterms. Where are we at right now? So should Republicans want these midterms to be about Trump or about the candidates running? Where are we in the midterms right now?

Bob: Well, first of all, you want to be about Trump, and you want to be about the candidates running. About Trump because obviously it’s going to be his agenda. If we lose control—when I say we, if the Republicans lose control in the US Congress and in the US Senate, it’s going to be constant impeachment all the time on President Trump and nothing’s going to get done. You’re going to have a Washington that is polarized. You’re going to have a nation that is polarized.

However, you also take a look at the candidates. You know, are the candidates representing your values? Can you legitimately get behind them and raise up their arms to get them across the finish line?

But there is a lot at stake. It’s always the thing about if Trump isn’t on the ballot, that’s always a concern. We don’t do as well if Trump’s not on the ballot because Trump brings policy to the ballot, but he also brings personality to the ballot. When he’s not on the ballot, do the Trump voters stay home?

If the Trump voters stay home, it is going to be a dismal bloodbath of a midterm election for the GOP and the Republicans. If the Trump voters rise up—and that’s why I believe this midterm election, or this midterm convention that’s happening this weekend in Dallas is so important–if the Trump voters rise up, I think we have a shot to win. And we need the Trump voters to show up.

Victoria: So for just a little bit of landscape for the 2026 midterms right now, it’s going to be on November 3rd, that’s a Tuesday. So get out and vote. But it’s less than two months away, and it looks like it’s going to be a challenging national race for Republicans. Democrats hold roughly a 6-point advantage on the generic congressional ballot, while Republicans are trying to maintain control of Congress.

The Senate map is becoming more competitive as Democrats see opportunities in places such as Texas and Iowa, while the House has roughly 50 genuinely competitive races. Trump is also making himself central to the Republican campaign despite not being on the ballot, holding an unusual midterm convention in Dallas this week, just like you mentioned.

So now that you’ve seen, like, this is the landscape–we’re going to have this midterm convention in Dallas this week, I’m excited to see how that’ll go, if that can give some energy to the Republican Party–but now that it’s saying that the generic ballot currently has Democrats with a 6-point advantage, how much do you think that Republicans should be concerned about that?

Bob: Well, you need to be concerned. I think that number’s inflated, and it might be real, but I think it’s inflated. And what I mean by that is it’s real because it’s what we said. Again, Victoria, Trump’s numbers being at 33%. I think Americans are sending a message. They’re sending a message of, I want to be heard. If I want to be heard, I’m willing to vote for the Democrat and not the Republican.

The closer we get to Election Day, I think the more Republicans come home. I think more of the independents are going, do we want common sense or do we want crazy?

The Democrats, though, they have a lot of passion. They have a lot of energy on their side. They want to get rid of Trump. They want to decimate Trump, anything that has Trump’s fingerprints on it. So I believe it’s good for Trump to hold this midterm convention in Dallas. It’s unconventional, I get it, unconventional, conventional. But it’s—I think it’s an opportunity to show, listen, these are the things we’ve done. Allow us to stay the course. Let JD Vance communicate that message on Thursday night. And I think it may help get the Trump voter out, bring the Republicans home. And it’s your best shot to win this time.

Victoria: Yeah, I think it’s probably a good idea.

So this November, what do you think the voters are actually going to vote on? Do you think they’re voting on Trump, the economy, Iran, immigration, abortion, or something else?

Bob: That’s a great question. I think it’s going to be a mixed bag. The way, you know, I boiled it down in this podcast, the way I boiled it down in an interview that I just did before I came in here is I think it’s going to come down to common sense versus crazy.

And do you really want to send a message and get crazy, or do you want to say, listen–I don’t like everything. I don’t agree with everything, but I still want common sense, not crazy.

We talked about pro-life here. That’s how we started out. I’d look at your kids and your grandkids, you know, the future generations. Do you want them to deal with common sense, or you want them to deal with crazy? Do you want to deal with the pillars that have made this country great. Religion, morality. There is a God. You’re not it. Or do you want it to be socialism? There is no God and everybody gets to do what is right in their own eyes, which is absolutely chaos, which means they’ll take down this country.

This midterm election is exceptionally important, and I encourage all the churches, all the pastors, everybody in our base, engage this election like never before. This is an election where your voice will matter. Why? The economics are largely taken off the table. So that means people of conviction, people of faith, those who really want to make a difference–this is the election to make the difference.

Victoria: That’s a good point. We’re also seeing in traditionally safer races, places like Iowa and Texas, so we can specifically speak into this, that these are actually competitive races. So what does that tell you about the political environment right now, and how do you see that playing out in Iowa specifically?

Bob: Well, in Iowa specifically, what you do is you have—you have a couple of top-tier candidates–Rob Sand on the Democrat side, Josh Turek on the Democrat side–who are basically saying, listen, I belong to the Democrat Party. We know they’re whacked out. We know they’re crazy, but that’s not us. We’re—we’re this moderate.

I mean, Josh Turek, I will vote with Trump. I’ll back Trump to close, to secure the border. You know, really, you’re really going to do that? Rob Sand, I’m not that kind of a Democrat, but yet you are for abortion up till the time of first breath.

So I’d be very concerned about how they’re packaging themselves to win a race and what they’ll actually deliver.

I think what it shows is that it hits right here at home in Iowa. We—we are way more of a purple state than we are a red or blue state. We’re the ones who had several years of consecutive Democratic governors. We had Tom Harkin. Will they—will we come back to be way more of a purple state than a red state? I hope not.

But Josh Turek, Rob Sand, and those like them, they’re—they’re counting on Iowans to basically not look beyond, you know, the—the thing that they’re selling.

Victoria: It’s kind of a little Trojan Horse moment where they’re packaging well, keeping distant from, like, the crazies like Mamdani and AOC, but then really they vote similar to them on almost all the policies.

Bob: I tell people all the time, take a look at the candidate for governor in Virginia, the Democratic candidate.

Victoria: Yes, great example.

Bob: You know, Rob Sand is basically mirroring her campaign playbook. But then take a look how she’s led as governor of Virginia. That could be Iowa—I tell people all the time, Iowa is figuratively and literally one state away from being Minnesota, one state away from being Illinois. You don’t want to go down that path.

Victoria: Yeah. And, and the conflict, the tension comes in where—where it’s like, well, it’s not Minnesota here right now, so I don’t need to be involved, I can be apathetic. But it’s like, no, you’re going to be wishing that when you end up being like Minnesota because you never voted, you never got involved, then you’re going to be saying, oh, I wish I had been involved.

This is the moment. This is a very pivotal race in Iowa. We’ve been able to enjoy many of the blessings under Governor Reynolds’ leadership being in a red state, like, don’t take those for granted. Don’t be apathetic just because things are going well now instead of, like, going out and continuing to let those things happen.

And that’s exactly what the governor’s race, I think, is a wonderful example of. It’s like, are we going to be apathetic and not go out and vote in this race, or are we going to let someone steal our state from under us?

Bob: And sometimes when things have gone so well for so long as they have here in Iowa, you can become complacent. And complacency will—will spell at least a different—a different leader come next January. We don’t want that to happen.

Victoria: Yeah, so if you could sit down with Christian voters across Iowa today and give them one piece of advice about how to approach the 2026 midterms, what would you tell them?

Bob: I would say, I’d say walk around with a bounce in your step because your eternity does not depend on a lot of these earthly things we just talked about. So we say look higher, think bigger, expect more. We really do believe that. So we stay heavily focused while doing earthly good, and doing earthly good, the candidates are not perfect. Believe me, all of us know that the candidates are not perfect. But vote for the one who shares your conviction, who shares the one that’d be the most righteous and just in their leadership. So fearfully good, but at least do good by getting out to vote.

Victoria: All right, Bob, that’s enough of the news today. I won’t make you do any more. Those are the four things you wanted to talk through, and I’m grateful for your insight kind of tackling these current issues.

Bob: Well, thanks so much. Hey, I just real quick for the audience that’s watching out there, the NFL does begin this week. So now sports have gotten way too involved in this stuff as well. But hopefully your NFL team does well. My Minnesota Vikings will still be the Minnesota Vikings.

Victoria: There you go. Well, if you enjoy this podcast, it makes a huge difference if you leave a five-star review, send it to a friend, post it on your story, like it, subscribe, make sure you’re following us on all of our different platforms that we post things on. It really does make a big difference.

Bob: And we look forward to seeing you next time on All In to Win. Do not let your testimony be disqualified for the prize.