our transition to renewable sources. we believe energy policy should include generous job retraining programs for fossil fuel workers as we shift towards renewables. we hope that approval for all new energy projects will be conducted in a fair, scientific, and unbiased way that will consider the impact of each project on climate change. today's decisions about the future of energy in the united states will help determine the future of america and the world. announcer: you can watch each winning studentcam documentary online at studentcam.org. host: d -- he ise host of the also the chief political analyst for the christian broadcasting network. thank you for being with us on this easter sunday morning. let me ask you, we spent our first hour asking our viewers about public gatherings and

whether they should be exempt from the stay-at-home orders. what is your sense of how religious leaders across the spectrum are handling the challenge of getting a congregation together somehow or keeping them apart? >> it's a good question, and it's a challenge, to a degree, but i want to do a disclaimer off the top. that i think will cloak the whole conversation we have. most christians, most churches are abiding by either the federal guidelines or state guidelines. the reality is, for most of the country, for most evangelical christians, excuse me, christians across this country, they are abiding by these rules. we are talking about certain cases, a certain handful of churches. it has been a challenge. more than that, i think, how do you come up creatively with ways

to go ahead and hold church, not just online, but whether they be driving services. and hold church not just online, most people are turning online but whether they are be -- but whether there be drive-in services. thursday you drive through and pick up a cracker and wine or the grape juice and you open it on sunday during the online service. there are different ways people up duringg churched this difficult time. host: it does seem like governors and mayors will raise in his -- will raise an interesting constitutional question, about the government's ability to say to the disorganization's you can't or shouldn't meet in person or worst-case scenario you are subject to some sort of penalty. guest: that is exactly right. we have the contours of the argument, it is public versus religious freedom, two very

important contours in this discussion. what do you do exactly? what we are seeing is a line. for the most part, you see christians and pass and even jessica leaders being ok with heating those guidelines and siding on the side of public health but when you start crossing the line and i think we sort it to see this popping up in the news whether it be down in mississippi where they are ticketing people in their car. drive-in cars in a church service, they are not entering the building. the cars themselves are six feet apart. the cars are social distancing and yet these folks are getting ticketed. we know what is going on in kentucky as well whether it is being -- whether it is a license plate being reported by authorities.

those license plates will then be reported to public-health officials. you have church folks that if you go to a church parking lot, they write down your license plate number and you get a knock at the door by public-health officials saying you need to be quarantined for 14 days. at that point we are starting to cross the line and that is where this debate is going and that is the big concern among even silica. host: we showed the interview with vice president pence. when will that air and tell us more about what he said on the gatherings and his take on these church gatherings either online or in person? guest: a programming note, we have released a couple clips over the weekend and there is one just on the news because i host that podcast. that one is up as well. then a full report on the interview on monday, the 700

club, check your local listings as they say. as for the interview with mike pence, he started by saying he has a lot of gratitude in his heart for the churches that have stepped up, so he is happy with that and i asked him what about these pastors that are in essence going rogue and he said his concern is that you can worship jesus anywhere. you don't have to be inside a church and that was basically his point. he is onto something that is very true. the last time i checked, jesus isn't in a church building, jesus can be online. you don't quarantine jesus. jesus is everywhere. as you go throughout the day and i think that is what his point was that overall he has been very pleased with how churches are responding. one very interesting part of the conversation that has been

controversial to some on the far left and the liberals as it relates to contribute into churches during this time, mike pence has made it very clear during the white house task force briefing that people should donate to their places of worship whether they be churches or synagogues or monasteries because the ministry still goes on even if you are not in the building. host: our guest is david brody, chief political reporter for the christian broadcast network. we will take your calls on the conversation. (202)-748-8000 is the line to call for folks in the eastern and central time zones. for those on the west coast, (202)-748-8001. you mentioned airing on the 700 club on monday. tell us some of the other things you heard from the vice president. guest: they were a couple interesting things.

we talked about testing and i think it is going to be interesting to folks. i pushed him on this idea that there was a slow rollout and in essence, without admitting it, mike pence has a way of saying things without it coming across of ao bad but in terms slow process, he did talk about that, he talked about how there is bureaucratic red tape and they are changing the model and the system to these rapid testing systems and he believes they -- key was that instead of it just being with the cdc, it went into a more public/private sector partnership, so i thought that was interesting. income --about male mail-in voting as far as what democrats are pushing for in congress, whether or not that is political. i cannot reveal everything but those are a few things in the

interview. host: the president reacted fairly strongly to a wall street journal editorial on thursday, editorial ran, the title was trump's wasted briefings, saying the president should not lead these briefings. early on, the vice president had led them. did the vice president indicate how he thought those briefings were going? does he think they are helpful? guest: i talked to him about the media and how the media has been covering this. interestingly i thought he would take a jab at the media he didn't. he said overall he thought the media was doing a relatively good job but he also realizes they will have questions and they have a role and a job to do as well, so he did not take the bait if you will, because he's got more pressing things on his hands. host: let's hear from callers.

bob in texas, you are on with david brody. caller: speaking of rogue wasors, years ago i listening to pastor dan cummings who is now frequently at the capital, he started in a cattle in texas. anyway, just this morning i am reading his book, about 80 pages, it is the people, the preachers and the politicians, how one woman's prayer changed the nation. it is free on amazon, like a the answert this is that hebrews used, the answer our founders used and it is the only answer that i think will do anything to help america. right now i am in the hospital

with a 97-year-old mother who inadvertently got put in for covid which she toast -- which she tested totally negative for. we are praying for her and i sow jesus is the solution until we bound down -- until we bow down to our one lord and savior, we are toast. host: good luck to you and your mom. he is right. jesus is the solution. what is interesting from a research perspective, more than half of all americans are praying more than they ever have before. they are praying for an end to the coronavirus pandemic and what is interesting is that if you go inside those numbers, about 36% of people that call themselves religious, none, they

don't have a religion, they are even praying. it goes on from there. prayer is a good thing and when folks that don't even believe, whether it be jesus or any of that, they are praying, that is something that is a positive development for sure. host: henry in michigan. hello there. caller: good morning. like mr. brody's help in trying to resolve an inner conflict. as a liberal, i am well instructed in the bible and in disbelief -- and in religious belief. in my upbringing i have always been taught that god will not be mocked. america hasat elected satan and satan is in the white house. you interviewed one of his

demons yesterday. if i am to be reunited with my country, my country has to be reunited and instructed by the goodwill of jesus christ and his social ministry and i don't believe we are following that now. i think this president has mocked god and that is why we are where we are today. i have no hope of being reunited with my country and with my fellow countrymen if they continue -- if they continue to follow satan. how am i supposed to resolve that conflict within myself when i have been raised to hate people -- to hate people and to hate -- to hate evil and to hate the people that love evil? guest: it is a great question. i don't even know where to

begin. there is so much to unpack. you have one view of it and there are a lot of folks who have a different view and believe that donald trump is in office for such a time as this from a biblical perspective. we believe that debate for another day -- we will leave that debate for another day. is, ifth of the matter you come out of a biblical conservative perspective, this president is the most pro-life president in history. many things he has done from a conservative biblical perspective and a word from god perspective, he has been very positive. you will of course counter with the fact that the social justice aspect of all of this, but there are a lot of things he has done in that area. a lot of times, and i think both sides are guilty of this, you

have the conservative even to liquids on one side talking about -- concentrating on certain issues with a cut -- with a biblical context and you have liberals talking about social justice aspects, but the last time i checked, jesus wasn't all about social justice, he was about coming to this earth, dying for our sins and giving everyone a chance to be with him for eternity. that is what the common bond should be on both sides. host: our guest is david brody, chief political analyst of cbn. our next guest, -- our next caller, go ahead. you are on the air. caller: the church should be allowed to go to church and congregate. [indiscernible]

when you get sick, you go to jesus and pray. why wouldn't they let people go and pray? host: we kind of touched on that earlier. we will go to oklahoma. jerry is on the line. caller: good morning. happy easter gentlemen. i think the distinction needs to be made between pastors who are shepherds of the flock and religion because personally i am hearing a lot of talking between butanne williamson and etc. christianity and i am a christian, i believe we see too many puppeteers and not enough pastors. together,meeting pastors can exercise their buildingutside of the church ink the

revelation was a perfect example. thank you for your time. host: david brody? guest: first of all, we have to remember most churches are following these guidelines. i don't want to say it isn't an issue but for the most part it hasn't been. we know in places like tampa, the pastor there has physically gone against authority. he has now gone online. in places like ohio and down in louisiana, especially white tabernacle was holding church sunday services and brought 2000 people attending. it is happening but it is in pockets and that is important to point out. the ones that are having church, and once again i am not defending people holding these services, i'm just explaining

from a factual standpoint, they are still doing social distancing guidelines. some churches removed some of the pews, move them to the side and kept families six feet apart. i am not saying that is the way to go but there are certain precautions they are taking and that is part of their defense. host: your interview with the vice president done on thursday, you tweeted some photos about that and i wanted to show one of those. you say in this tweet, i was tested for covid-19 today because i was doing a one-on-one interview with the vice president and the test was negative. did you have to take that test in order to get the interview? guest: i am glad you brought that up because i did want to bring it up. i was tested and it was negative. here is what happened. we thought we were all going to get temperature checks going in and we did but then we are in the room and this took place in the old executive office

building, the ceremonial office and the interview was going to start late morning and about an hour before that i was told very nicely we are going to need to give you one of those rapid covid-19 tests. myself and the woman that was going to apply makeup to the vice president. that is exactly what happened. we both went down there about an hour before the interview. it took about 10 seconds. these rapid tests are nothing at all. graphic,d be a little it is five seconds up one nostril, five seconds up another and your eyes are watery little bit and that is it. they said they would only contact me if it came back positive and an hour later nobody contacted me and the vice president walked in and i figured we were good. host: during that hour were you a little bit on pins and needles? guest: i was a little concerned. as you know in journalism we

always have a plan b and quite frankly we have a plan c and we were already in plan b territory with the producer who was getting ready to ask those questions that i had ready for the vice president just in case. host: we go to illinois. lawrence, go ahead. caller: good morning. to hopefullynt give some solace to practicing christians locked at home. most christians understand the significance of the resurrection but what led up to it is also important. christ dying in his crucifixion and the reason he was crucified was because he came to earth and told the congregation i am the sacrificial lamb, you don't need to go through religious leaders because prayer to christ, everybody had -- prior to christ, everybody had to go to their religious leader to do the sacrifice and christ said you

can talk directly to god through me. he ripped open the tabernacle, that is what happened. people at home can administer to themselves. they don't need to go to a pastor or priest to tell their sins. they can call directly to god through christ and receive the body of christ, the communion and administer to themselves and receive it in christ's name. people forget that. it is one of the reasons why christ was crucified. many of the religious leaders were frightened they were losing control and power. christ did that all through his life. that is why he took a bullwhip to the temple. i don't want to make it to political, but he was pointing out a lot of fake news of the day. host: david brody, any thoughts? guest: i like how we turned it into a fake news story. he is absolutely right. there is the sermon of the morning and beyond that what is

important is to understand that what he said is true which is you don't have to necessarily be in a church to worship god. is there a community aspect to it? yes, is church important, of course. that is a lot of what people are missing, the community aspect to all of this but the main point is correct and this is something that a lot of people don't quite get which is christianity is called a religion but a relationship with god is not a religion. a relationship with jesus is a personal relationship. aere is a difference between relationship with church and a personal relationship with jesus. people get hung up on the relationship with religion. host: his comments reminded me we need to get some politics into this conversation. we read this story earlier about joe biden, winning the alaskan primary with 20,000 voters in that state.

the lay of the land in terms of the presidential race, the convention already moved for democrats into august. how do you see things and focusing in particular on the democratic side, how do you see things moving forward? guest: i think joe biden has a big challenge on his hands and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with donald trump, it has to do with democratic politics internally. he has to get the bernie folks to the polls. they've got to be energized. it is all about energy and momentum and all of that energizing debates. the democratic party has to figure out -- they have a lot of people angry at trump but if you are angry and sitting at home, that is one thing. you have to be angry to get to the polls. the millenials and the bernie people out there are not too jazzed. how does he engage them and get them to the polls? the answer would be to embrace some of what bernie has been talking about and move the

platform to the left and that is the problem. if you want to play to what the general election, you better go to the middle. what is biting going to do? is he going to go to the left or does he go to the middle and go blue-collar rust belt and try to win those folks? he needs both but if you are here and don't know which way to go or you are trying to thread the needle, that is difficult and it will be pointed out by the trump campaign as we move toward november. host: the problem for the former vice president in that he has no podium, no pulpit. whatever you think of the daily briefings, the president is out there every day and perhaps some people these substitute for his rallies. he is there every day by the nature of the pandemic, the vice president does not have that platform. guest: he doesn't and it is a real problem. even when he tried to go virtual and read off prompter, you might

remember, the prompter speech from his library or wherever it was, and he still messed up. machined himself a gaff and he talked about calling out the national guard at about 20 seconds later he said we should call out the national guard. in other words, he was all over the place. he has a gaff problem for sure. i will say for the president, he has his work cut out for him. we are going to go into june, thisand august, if not situation, kind of a modified quarantined situation, what does he do for his rallies? on those daily coronavirus task force briefings but his biggest pulpit of all are those rallies and right now that weapon has been taken away from him. host: a couple more calls. california, robert on the line. caller: yes sir.

good morning guys. i just wanted to say that i am a christian, kind of a devout christian. i went on the road for jesus for a year to search out his faith and his trust. i want to say this. ande don't get on our knees return to our first love, then we are missing the mark. that is what all this is. he wants us to return to him. do is picture a man hanging on the cross dying for you. he died for you. he will always be proved. all you have to do is picture that man this morning. if you are struggling to find him and find the love for him, he hung there for you, personally for you. but i wanted to say to everyone who is listening, you need to return to your love, get on your

knees, cry out to god this morning. bernie -- david brody, you wrote a book a couple years ago talking about the faith of donald trump. the president tweeted that he would be watching the robert jeffers service online. are we hearing from the president in these recent days of some thoughts on religion, some of his religious beliefs in terms of how he is addressing the coronavirus? guest: we are but it is not done in a traditional way. nothing with donald trump is traditional and that is what the book explains and goes into. he is not going to say it, forget a pastor but your normal even jelly coal having a brunch and cracker -- a brunch at cracker barrel after service, that is not him. he is going to say get his way but the truth of the matter is he has in essence ushered in a whole bunch of even to little christianity type policies from

a conservative perspective and he is seeking out prayer in the white house. it is a store that does not get told much. donald trump is part of the reason why this happened. donald trump is the law and order guy, the tough guy, he is control and that is what he wants to project. behind the scenes it is much different. he is much more compassionate behind the scenes. he is seeking out prayer behind the scenes and inviting people in who want to pray with him and more importantly pray for our country and for guidance. a lot of that doesn't get told as much but it is happening and it is interesting because normally politicians want to do the exact opposite. they want to kiss the baby in public and show the softer side. donald trump doesn't want you to see that. but he does have a softer side, you are just not seeing it. in response to the last caller about prayer, he is absolutely right. we do as a country need to get down on our knees. from a google analytics

standpoint, this past march the search term prayer was searched more often this march than it has been in the last five years. clearly people are turning to prayer whether it be searching for it or doing it more often but that is a good thing and is something we should remember. host: here is isabel in missouri. caller: good morning. if you got the sense that they were going to fix the issue of ticketing the people in the drive up service. we have a church with a pastor service anddrive-in we downsized on our worship team. we do zoom for our sunday school classes. threat inhat a missouri? is your governor threatening to

ticket people? caller: he is not. we do everything in compliance, what we are supposed to do but upon hearing the news of other states doing this, i feel like that is and infringe on the religious side of that like they should not be doing that and i really feel that that is a presidential thing, that as a government they should step in and go that is on the freedom of religion. they are not being next to someone, they are not threatening someone. it is no different than going to mcdonald's or whatever as far as socializing. host: what time is your service this morning? caller: 10:45. host: thanks for calling in and happy easter. guest: i think isabel is onto something very important. let's start with this. in terms of my interview with the vice president, we were talking specifically about pastors holding church inside,

in the pews. we did not get into drive-in services. having said that, we know the department of justice is going to be coming out this week with we believe some sort of guidelines. it is going to address exactly what isabel is talking about, this sense of what is protected and what is not protected under the first amendment when it comes to what is going on right now. expect that guidance to come out this week and win that guidance comes up, you can be sure the president in the vice president have a lot to say about it. isabel makes an interesting point, this is part of the concern among even? christians which is if you are going to go to parking lots and start taking down license plates or giving people tickets are ,eing in a church parking lot hold on for a moment. why are we not going to

mcdonald's anja polian a lot of other places where there are drive-through's -- mcdonald's otheripotle and a lot of places where there are drive-throughs? that is part of the issue here. is church essential or nonessential? that gets into a whole lot of issues as it relates to religious exemptions. we can talk about that some other time. host: david brody, chief political analyst for the christian broadcast network. look for his interview with vice president mike pence online and coming up this week. thank you for joining quick c-span's washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up monday morning, responsive u.s. health insurance companies to the coronavirus. -- how washington is it addressing job losses amid the

coronavirus epidemic. be sure to watch washington journal live at 7:00 eastern monday morning, and be sure to watch washington journal primetime on monday, dr. anthony and member of the white house coronavirus task force will be our guest, live, taking your phone calls and questions on the coronavirus pandemic. welcome reverend jim wallace, the founder of sojourners jim wallace. thanks for being with us, happy easter. >> happy easter to you. >>t tell usy your thoughts, what typically would be your easter sundaypicall?