Midwest Primaries, Taiwan’s Ukraine Lessons, and Abortion Pill Case

The Bulletin

Christianity Today

News, News Commentary, Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture, Christianity

4.4 • 586 Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On Tuesday, Indiana and Ohio held primary elections. Chris Butler joins Russell Moore and Clarissa Moll to discuss how Republican candidates endorsed by the Trump administration fared. President Trump heads to China next week to discuss trade with President Xi Jinping. Mark Tooley from the Institute on Religion and Democracy shares what these conversations mean for Taiwanese independence, and how China and Taiwan are both taking notes from Russia’s war in Ukraine. On Friday, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit paused the distribution of abortion pills-by-mail for patients who did not first have an in-person doctor visit. John Mize from Americans United for Life joins us to discuss why the Supreme Court subsequently blocked that decision. REFERENCED IN THE EPISODE: CT’s Reporting on Religious Freedom GO DEEPER WITH THE BULLETIN: Join the conversation at our Substack. Find us on YouTube. Rate and review the show in your podcast app of choice. ABOUT THE GUESTS: Chris Butler is the director of Christian civic formation at the Center for Christianity and Public Life, and he has pastored at Ambassador Church in Chicago for nine years. Chris co-authored Compassion (&) Conviction: The AND Campaign's Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement. Mark Tooley is president of The Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) and editor of IRD’s foreign policy and national security journal, Providence. He worked eight years for the CIA and is a graduate of Georgetown University. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, World, Law & Liberty, and National Review. John Mize serves as CEO of Americans United for Life, advancing the human right to life in culture, law, and policy. He previously served on the Senior Leadership team at the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, a leading patient advocacy organization devoted to supporting people impacted by inflammatory bowel disease. ABOUT THE BULLETIN: The Bulletin is a twice-weekly news analysis podcast from Christianity Today, with editor-at-large Russell Moore and executive editor of news Clarissa Moll. Each episode offers commentary on current events and headlining news with a roundtable of premier guests, and shares a Christian perspective on issues that are shaping our world The Bulletin listeners get 25% off CT. Go to https://orderct.com/THEBULLETIN to learn more. “The Bulletin” is a production of Christianity Today Producer: Clarissa Moll Associate Producer: Alexa Burke Editing and Mix: Kevin Morris Graphic Design: Rick Szuecs Music: Dan Phelps Executive Producer: Erik Petrik Senior Producer: Matt Stevens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:27.1	on Amazon or at faithgateway.com.
0:36.1	From Christianity today, you're listening to The Bulletin, a podcast about the people, events, and issues that are shaping our world.
0:43.2	I'm Clarissa Mall.
0:44.8	Today, Russell Moore and I join Chris Butler, Mark Tully, and John Meiss to talk about the Indiana-Ohio primaries, Trump's meetings next week in Beijing, and this week's abortion pill flip-flop.
0:56.3	Welcome to the show.
1:02.1	Good morning, listeners, and welcome to our Friday roundtable.
1:05.7	On Tuesday, Indiana and Ohio held their primaries with Republican candidates handpicked by the Trump administration
1:11.8	for endorsement. In Indiana, five of seven Trump-backed Republicans won their primaries, and in Ohio,
1:18.9	former presidential candidate Vivek Ramoswamy, clinched an endorsement from the president,
1:23.8	sending him to a primary win for governor and forward on to November for the general election.
1:29.6	Joining Russell and me to interpret what we've seen this week at the voting booth is Chris Butler,
1:34.2	political strategist and director of Christian civic formation at the Center for Christianity and Public Life.
1:40.1	Chris, thanks for being with us today.
1:42.4	Thanks so much for having me.
1:44.0	Chris, how was this set of primaries different from others we've seen in the past?
1:48.8	You definitely saw the president more present than we've seen before, but you also saw a lot of groups, especially the Indiana primary, the Club for Growth, Turning Point USA, very active there, Folks who also had like a really large stake and there were districting fight.
2:04.9	This issue of mat making, Indiana is one of the states that is controlled by a Republican legislature,
	...

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