Convicted felon, Donald Trump has long been the candidate attaching himself to Christian Nationalism and even promised his supporters that he will deport anyone in the country who isn't a Christian Nationalist. But now, his bibles will be in every classroom.
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Since beginning his first run for president in 2015, convict Donald Trump has promised to give Americans back their freedom of speech that was apparently stolen from them by someone, somewhere but none of the red hat lovers can seem to pinpoint when, where, or how.
But freedom of speech is a constitutional right given to all of us under the first amendment which states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
It sounds pretty simple and it's a right Trump himself uses quite often at his rallies when he rambles on for hours about Hannibal Lecter, when he mocked a disabled person, or just this week when he mocked the widow of his supporter killed by the would-be assassin in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Yep, remember the firefighter killed in the audience at his rally in Pennsylvania because the republican shooter missed the shot? Well, Trump was talking about his widow this week and said "So, they're going to get millions of dollars but the woman, the wife, this beautiful woman, I handed her the check...and she said, 'This is so nice, and I appreciate it, but I'd much rather have my husband.'" To which Trump replied and said, "Now, I know some of the women in this room...would have been thrilled, actually."
As we always say on this show, freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequence and just because there's legally nothing stopping you from mocking the widow of your own supporter who was murdered by another of your supporters, it doesn't stop anyone sane from thinking you're a dick and should be disqualified from running for president. Can you imagine if Obama did that by the way?
But for this story, we actually have to take you to Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains and the governor gets paid $147,000 per year but one man who serves on his cabinet actually gets paid way more, all from taxpayer funds. That man is named Ryan Walters.
Now, you might recognize that name because we've talked about Ryan Walters before on this show. He serves as their state superintendent of schools. He appointed the terrorist group, Libs of TikTok founder onto the state school library panel even though she does not have any kids in Oklahoma and does not live there herself. And just this past February, when Nex Benedict was murdered in a school restroom by transphobic girls, Ryan Walters had an appalling response to the situation.
Ryan gets paid a total of $164,373 which is over $17,000 more than the governor because he serves as both the state superintendent of public instruction and the governor appointed him as secretary of education. But don't worry, in a never-before-seen act, he's receiving both salaries at the same time.
But this past month, Ryan was approved to spend $6 million to ensure there was a Bible in every classroom in the entire state of Oklahoma. For the record, Oklahoma has around 1,720 schools in 512 school districts and 96 private schools.
Buried in his approval to the state to spend $6 million on bibles, Ryan Walters mandated that the bibles had to meet a few basic requirements: The bibles have to be bound by leather or material like leather, have to have the Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights inside of it. And they have to be the New King James version of the Old and the New Testament.
First off, this is unconstitutional to make it mandatory in all school classrooms. Just think how odd it's going to be to enable grade schoolers to show Ryan Walters the exact amendment that prohibits the government from forcing any religion onto citizens in the same book as the evidence of the government clearly forcing a religion onto its citizens. No one wants to be schooled by a little girl, Ryan. Especially not someone who looks as creepy as you.
But secondly, if all those requirements that were secretly passed along with the budget seem like they're getting WAY too specific, it's because they are. Salespeople for multiple publishers have said that with all these specific regulations, none of their bibles meet the requirements. Mardel Christian & Education publishers said they publish 2,900 versions of the bible but none of them fit the criteria to even bid on the project.
So, then who can bid on the project and who gets awarded the contract worth $6 million? Well, for that answer, we have to take you back to March 2024. That's when convict Donald Trump announced he is selling Donald Trump Bibles for just $59.99 each.
He called it the "God Bless The USA Bible" and the book comes with some interesting features. The book is bound in leather with the symbol of the American flag on the front along with an inscription that reads "Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America. The Day God Intervened, July 13, 2024"
You might be asking yourself, what does he mean by that date? Well, that's the day Trump was in Butler, Pennsylvania and was shot at by a republican would-be-assassin but the shooter missed and hit the fireman and others instead. So, this was Trump's way of profiting off of the assassination attempt by selling Bibles to his followers. But I'm glad Donald gave the widow of that firefighter a check and mocked her after she didn't kiss his feet for giving it to her.
Anyway, there are some other interesting features of Trump's bibles. They include the handwritten lyrics to "God Bless The USA" by Lee Greenwood, a full copy of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and The Pledge of Allegiance. Oh, and Trump bibles only feature the "trusted King James translation." And they even say on their official website that they "...do not offer additional translations at this time."
Oh, and fun fact: on his website, Trump mentions a frequently asked question section where he answers many common questions from customers. One of those common questions is "What if my bible has sticky pages?" to which Trump's answer is "Are some of the pages in your Bibles sticking together? No worries, this is very common with new Bibles...".
I'm sorry, but there will always be something creepy about a man who's already been found to be a sex offender and a frequent flyer to Jeffrey Epstein's island, saying it's common for pages of his book to stick together.
You should also know that Trump's bibles are printed in Hangzhou, an eastern city in China and as you might recall, in 2019, Trump put tariffs on Chinese goods. But while Trump made sure the tariff applies to rosaries, he specifically left out any tariffs on bibles coming from China. It's as if he already had a plan in mind to print bibles, even back in 2019, and wrote the tariff to exclude his own business tradings, which is illegal.
We actually tracked down the exact shipping container with the most recent shipment of Trump bibles to the United States and found its declarations page required by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It says the container had a declared value of $342,000. Inside the container was just 120,000 copies of his Bible.
If you do the math, that means each copy cost Trump just $2.85 each but he’s selling them for $59.99, a 2,100% markup.
But in listing off the features of Trump's bibles, you might recognize some commonalities between that list and the list Ryan Walters put out as criteria for bibles in Oklahoma. In fact, they're identical. Both lists feature how the Bibles are bound in leather, have the Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, and are both the New King James version.
When you consider no other publisher of Bibles has those specific qualifications to any of their thousands of versions of the bible, it almost seems like Ryan Walters and Trump have worked out a back-room deal to make the criteria so specific that only Trump bibles meet the qualifications which is also illegal.
Even though red hat lovers don't think we do our research, our team also tracked down how many classrooms are in Oklahoma and found there’s about 32,916 classrooms in the state. If you round up to include 1,720 school libraries, it’s about 34,636 classrooms that would need a Bible.
698,696 / 21.23 = 32,916
32,916 + 1,720 libraries = 34,636
Multiply that by $59.99 each and you only get $2,077,813. So, why did Ryan Walters need $6 million for Bibles?
Well, government contractors can charge whatever they want per copy for the books they sell to the government, even if those prices are way more than what you can buy the same item for at retail. And according to the Government Printing and Binding Regulations, that includes the ability for printing companies to charge additional fees to upkeep their machines on top of the fees to actually print the books.
Even if Ryan Walters wasn’t buying Trump bibles, which it very much appears he is, he has a budget of $6 million for just 34,636 bibles which is $173.23 each. That’s 2.8 times what Trump normally charges and it would be a $170 profit on each Bible sold.
Who knows? Maybe the $170 markup is so school children don’t have to read a Bible with Trump’s sticky pages. But just remember, Trump would only need 34,000 copies to sell to Oklahoma and thanks to his most recent shipment, he already has 120,000 copies in the country.
I'm not saying this is yet another of Trump's quid pro quo deals like when he offered U.S. military aid to Ukraine in exchange for them investigating his political rivals. I'm not even saying this is Ryan Walter's way of bribing Trump by lining his pockets with cash like when foreign governments made $160 million in business dealings with Trump when he was president and Trump almost always helped them with some effort shortly after their trading with Trump enterprises.
Or when Trump's properties in Ireland and Scotland were considered to be his "...biggest liabilities of his [business] empire." were suddenly making $82.5 million shortly after he became president. I could go on and on but really, we already covered Trump's shady business practices in a previous episode so you can just use the link below to find out how he stole over $636 million from taxpayers while he was president.
But I will say, it's very odd to come up with a list of criteria that's weirdly specific for what you want in a book. It's even more odd to come out with that list of criteria in September 2024 when Trump released his Bible with the same exact specifications in March, just 6 months prior. Isn't it weird, out of the thousands of versions available, no other book publisher has a bible that could even match the criteria to bid on the project?
So, unless a lawsuit is filed and wins in a court packed with Trump-appointed judges, it appears that Oklahoma schools will be subjected to forced religion and will soon have a $173 Trump bible in every classroom across the state, all thanks to a back-alley deal between two of the most evil and vile creatures to ever walk the earth.
No matter your feelings on this, it's unconstitutional and it would be easy to play it off by the mere argument that they're just buying bibles to put in classrooms. No one is forcing the students to read the Trump bible. Well, Ryan Walters released a mandate this school year along with the $6 million deal to have a bible in every classroom.
That mandate says that schools in Oklahoma are "...[ordered]...to incorporate the Bible into public lesson plans." and regulates that the Christian text "...should highlight its historical context, literary significance and artistic and musical influence."
So, while Trump wants to keep saying that drag performers are grooming kids by reading books to them...once again everything Trump accuses someone else of doing is really just an admission of guilt. Because, I genuinely don't know if you could get a more textbook, or in this case, bible book definition of grooming kids than forcing them to read your sticky bible in a public school classroom.
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