Democrats Use January 6 Hearing As Distraction

Today on Sekulow, Democrats use the January 6th hearings as a distraction from the country's real problems. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Hey, welcome to Sekulow.

We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. As you heard the tease, we think that the big takeaway from last night is that, one, we've all seen this footage. We've all heard similar testimony. There's nothing really new. I couldn't really say there's nothing new or shocking that is brand new out of what happened 18 months ago.

And usually the further away you get from an event, that is the case. It was shocking when it happened, that's for sure. Sure, shocking when it happened. Something we have condemned and said how horrendous it was, this attack on the Capitol, of course was wrong.

But I think that there's also a point to say, you know, do I have to keep condemning this? Because it's also not really relevant to what we're all dealing with currently as the problems in our country. For instance, a real problem right now is not actually conservative or right-wing extremism, it's left-wing extremism.

We see that typically in the summer. We saw it aimed at Brett Kavanaugh in his home and tried to kill a Supreme Court justice. We saw a leak of a Supreme Court opinion. We saw the barrier around the Supreme Court now because of Roe vs. Wade. We've seen threats from that Jane's Revenge group.

We've seen fire bombings of pro-life pregnancy centers. And I think this, we're never, this committee is not going to answer one of the bigger questions out there. Which is why on earth were there so few police and so few security there when we now know from Capitol Police, as I'm holding in my hand, these are documents that came out, but you're not going to hear it from the committee, that the Department of Defense was texting the U.S. Capitol Police Deputy Chief saying, hey, are you going to put in, and this is four days before January 6th, are you going to put in a request for National Guard soldiers? Well, if they were having that discussion about National Guard soldiers on January 6th, they knew there was a very large crowd coming to Washington. They weren't peaceful in the sense of this wasn't like a regular crowd.

They were angry because they thought that something happened with the election. So you have a large angry crowd coming to Washington, D.C. DoD says are you going to put in the request? The response from the U.S. Capitol Police Deputy Chief on January 3rd, plenty of time to get this all handled? No. Not forthcoming at this time after consultation with the Chief of Police.

That's the, you know, that's the one thing I keep... So they are really responsible for putting their law enforcement officials in those situations where they were so outnumbered. I'm not saying they're responsible for the acts of the bad actors, but they are responsible for not having enough security there, and I still think there's a problem with that in Washington, D.C. Every time we're there, they're trying to secure another place now because of left-wing activists or this kind of activists, and I don't feel like they have the right because of this whole debate over the National Guard.

We forget that. They politicized at the National Guard. Well, they would help. They're right-wing extremists, so Nancy Pelosi didn't want that. We also have the mayor's office in D.C. saying no.

So here's the problem. Look, if you look at what took place on January 6th, we condemned it when it happened because it was an attack. It was an attack on the Capitol. It was a riot. Now, let me tell you what it wasn't, though, and I want to be clear on this because I think there's some... I think our Constitution survives these things because our form of government as a constitutional republic is not at the whim of two groups who attack an institution of our government physically, which is the Capitol in this particular case. Now they're doing it to the Supreme Court. Our institutions don't fall. It was horrible.

It was horrific. We said that. But here is the problem. It's not the Civil War. You don't have states succeeding from the Union.

You don't have armed uprisings to the point of armed conflicts with the military. But why in the world, in Washington, D.C., are we not ready for these kind of events? I mean, it's like what happened at Brett Kavanaugh's house, and then the protests were back out there two hours later.

Some of it's an explosion. We're operating like a third-world country. Rick Renell started with that, that we're on foreign aid for baby formula, foreign aid to feed our children.

We're still reliving these January 6th, like somehow we don't have a military that can prevent this easily, which we do. And they lied right from the start of the hearing, which is typical. When Liz Cheney put up the Donald Trump tweet but didn't read the part of Go Home with Love. I mean, how do you leave that part out of that tweet? That was kind of a serious important part.

We'll be right back on Secular. If there was anything out of this committee that might be helpful, which we knew from the start, remember the fight over, they wouldn't let Kevin McCarthy pick. Usually in these committees, you would let the Republican leader choose whoever they wanted to be on the committee, so it was truly bipartisan. And by the time they do this, you really can't say this is one-sided. These are the two angry Republicans that don't like Donald Trump mixed with Democrats who have been in every impeachment. We've got to tell you, it's their third impeachment. In a sense, it's still focused on taking out Donald Trump as a political player in the United States.

He's still showing influence as we speak in primaries, a lot of candidates that are backed by him who are winning. So I think that there's that target there about long-term politics. Unfortunately, the part that I would like answered, we have a couple interests for. One, our building is right there, our office, so I've got staff right there. Two, we know that a liberal group is planning to try and shut down. It could be turned violent.

The justices, because they're trying to prevent the justices from being able to get inside the court on Monday, the next day they issue opinions. So they are doing the similar kind of action, which is threatening to try and prevent the function of our government. So it's very similar to that.

The only difference is they're actually saying it. And so we know that this is actually something DC's got to deal with again very soon, like in a few days. So why then, what will be different?

This will be interesting. Will the DC mayor work with National Guard with Supreme Court police? Will the Supreme Court police work with National Guard? Because we've got, as we said, things that are not going to get answered by this committee, unfortunately, is why when they knew there was a very large group of angry protesters coming to Washington, they were mad about something specific to Washington, DC. That didn't mean you could predict that they were going to go storm the Capitol, but you knew they were angry. You've got the White House.

You've got all these different institutions of the U.S. government right down the Constitution Avenue. Why were they so flippant denying requests for National Guard? So the chief of police for the Capitol denied it. Let's put it back on the screen for people.

Let's put it back on the screen. This is an actual Capitol Hill police document, and it says Saturday, January 2nd. This comes from DOD. Are you going to put in the request for National Guard soldiers for January 6, 2021 event? So I already know this is going to be a big event.

It's more than just a rally. The next day, the deputy chief? No.

No plan for that. Not forthcoming at this time after consultation with the chief of police. So that's the Capitol Hill police saying, no, we don't need you, DOD. And then on January 5th, let's put this letter up. This is when you think you're operating as a third world country. This is from Mayor Bowser to Jeff Rosen, who was the acting attorney general of the United States, to Chris Miller, the acting secretary of defense, and to Ryan McCarthy, who was the secretary of the Army.

To be clear, I'm reading this very specifically. To be clear, the District of Columbia is not requesting other law enforcement personnel and discourages any additional deployment without immediate notification to and consultation with MPD, Metro Police Department, if such plans are underway. The protection of persons and property is our utmost concern and responsibility. MPD, Metro Police, are well trained and prepared to lead the law enforcement coordination responsible to allow for the peaceful demonstration of First Amendment rights in the District of Columbia.

Here's the problem. That is a ridiculous letter from the mayor because, Andy, the chances of any mass gathering, having troublemakers in any mass gathering is always a possibility. I mean, we've seen it with the attacks on the Supreme Court. We've seen it with the attacks on the justices. We saw an attack January 6th. This was a dereliction of duty, in my view, but you understand that they're saying, we don't want additional law enforcement here.

And having been warned what is coming, they make this inane statement about, I don't want any more. Look, I've tried cases in small rural counties in south Georgia where you don't have that kind of advance warning. But you also were a U.S. Attorney in Atlanta.

And I was a United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, OK? We would have high profile trials. We would have, we know that juries are coming.

We know that people are going to be exposed to, the judges are going to be exposed to pressure. And we call out all available law enforcement officers and we have them surrounding the courthouse on the surrounding streets and the adjacent areas to make sure that things don't get out of hand in events that are far less likely to be as rambunctious as this turned out to be. Now you've got notification from the intelligence and notification that it's going to happen and the mayor of the District of Columbia says, no, we are the Metro Police Department, a PD, a simple PD, is sufficiently well trained and prepared to lead the law enforcement coordination and response.

How ridiculous a remark is that? We work with Metro Police in Washington, D.C. regularly with securing our own building. These sites are not their job.

So she's really wrong on that. They are not crowd control guys. Because the crowds are in federal areas. They do have some crossover authorities, police in the District of Columbia, but that's why you have all these different departments. You have Capitol Hill Police, Supreme Court Police, you've got Secret Service Police, Uniform Police for the White House, and you have U.S. Marshals.

You have all these different federal services. And you had the Department of Defense ready to go with the National Guard, which means you could have had a lot of protesters even try to get into the Capitol and guess they would have gotten not very far. It wouldn't have been much violence because you wouldn't have been able to overrun National Guard lined up with machine guns and crowd control. And they're more trained for high level of violence. The testimony last night from that officer, I do believe her in the sense that she does not have the training to do what they were trying to do, which was like armed fist fighting and things like that.

I get that. She should have been in that position. Because if you had 5,000 National Guard or 7,000 or 10,000 National Guard surrounding the Capitol, guess what would have happened to the proud boys in the old papers? They would have protested. They would not have been able to get in and they wouldn't have seen access as a possibility. Now, that doesn't justify what they did because what they did was an attack on the Capitol.

But it's bizarre that in a free republic where you have security concerns, known security concerns, they talked about the intelligence gathering they had done, that you didn't take adequate preparation. And now we're seeing this violence play out 18 months later with an attempted assassination, attempted murder they're saying actually. He's been charged with attempted murder. Attempted murder.

I'm going to ask you about that in a moment. Attempted murder of Brett Kavanaugh. They're not just calling it an assassination attempt, they're calling it an attempted murder. You had Steve Scalise shot four years ago on a baseball field for a Democrat-Republican-Congressional softball game.

I mean, think about this stuff, folks. You've got a threat coming that we're going to shut the Supreme Court down. Are they calling out troops? I doubt it.

Who knows? And at the same time that Brett Kavanaugh had a threat on his house, they were protesting his house hours later. Now, think about this with his kids at home. They had someone that was attempting to murder Brett Kavanaugh at the front of his home. That's where he arrested him, in the front of his home. Hours later, protesters back on the street. When there's laws that say, you know what, you can't have protests threatening justices. And by the way, there is legislation that's already passed the Senate to provide more security to the Supreme Court justices in light of what's happened in our country. Which is unfortunately getting stalled in the House of Representatives. And guess who's not letting it for a vote?

Nancy Pelosi. So this is the second time she's preventing security from being put in place to prevent something horrible from happening. Okay, so Andy, the fact that they had charges with this guy from California that was going after Justice Kavanaugh with attempted murder, I mean, that's next to attempted murder is murder.

Yeah, that's right. Attempted murder is an attempt to commit a homicide with malice of forethought implied by law or expressed by law. This man had weapons and guns and pepper spray and instruments upon him that he was prepared to kill an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in violation of both the federal law and the law of the state of Maryland where the crime occurred. And we have taken these precautions, you know, against him now after the fact. And let me tell you what they don't want you talking about. They want you talking about this. This is fine. We talked about it.

Let me tell you what they don't want you to talk about. I'm reading headlines. Inflation rises 8.6%. Highest since 1981. Shock.

$95 to fill up family car. Next headline. No ceiling in sight. American's wealth declines. Yellen rejects idea. Corporate grain to bleed. No recession coming.

Even deep pocketed buyers back away from housing market. So here's the question I want to ask you, our audience. The hearing took place.

There'll be more of those hearings. Meanwhile, you're paying $6, almost $7 in some states for gas. Pam and I went out to eat yesterday.

It's breathtaking. The cost of food. Baby formula shortages. How is this impacting you, the American people? Because we're going to have our legislative teams take action on this. We want to hear from you. We've opened up our phone lines.

1-800-684-3110. I think this is the real issue is that they want this to be an election issue. This is not an election issue coming up in a midterm election because even the people kind of on trial by January 6 aren't on the ballot.

The people are going to be voting. And that's what I really want to ask you is that with all this, wouldn't you like a hearing on inflation? Wouldn't you like a hearing to know how do we how do we become a country that it let's see if the networks will let it be prime time about how Joe Biden let us be a country dependent on foreign aid to feed babies in our country. But ABC, NBC and CBS, no way they're given that even if they had that hearing. When the Republicans take back to the House, they'll never give them prime time. They should, though.

That's what people would tune into. How is the Biden economy affecting you? We're going to bring in Harry Hutchinson, our director of policy. We want to hear from you on this.

1-800-684-3110. How is this economy right now affecting you, your business, your kids, your grandkids? So, well, again, Democrats and a couple of, you know, outlier Republicans, to say the least, about Liz Cheney and Adam Kissinger are trying to, I think, distract. And I think, again, these hearings, because we've been through, remember, a lot of people forgot we went through a full impeachment with all this imagery and all this testimony already.

So we're doing it again. But at a time in our country where we know that there's problems now coming from the left on attacks on our institutions, like Brett Kavanaugh, like Monday at the U.S. Supreme Court. And what I hope is that in Washington, D.C., they still aren't playing politics with that, but it would be pretty interesting to see that because some of their friends are at that Supreme Court, maybe they have a little more security. Second, and they're not playing that game about the National Guard being so bad, but second is the American people are having to make tough decisions about when to eat, what to eat. You know, we had a conversation in our meeting, and we said, you know, this is horrendous to the United States of America, we're talking about this for working people, for people that have a job and, you know, you're a good person, you know, you don't have other issues going on. And, yeah, it's a country where you can still easily feed people, okay?

We're not at that point yet. Now, if you need special baby formula, not the case. We are relying on foreign aid. But we're at a point now where it's kind of like going back to like beans and pasta and rice, so that things that you know, at least your kid will be full. And that should not be the United States of America in 2022.

No, it shouldn't. So I want to, first of all, I don't have the latest, as we're coming to you live, those that are watching us live, the stock market had fallen about 800 points. I don't know what it is currently, maybe you can find that out for me. You also had reports on the Consumer Price Index, CPI. You have had reports on inflation.

I want to go to Harry Hutchinson, Director of Policy, but also an economic law expert. Where are we on the CPI and where are we on inflation? I mean, the number that they're talking about now is that inflation is at 8.6%. You think it's higher, highest since 1981, which was the end of the Carter administration.

I think that is correct. And I think the Biden administration parenthetically doesn't seem to care about the central issues which concern Americans. And it suggests at least one possibility that it is now time to bring back Jimmy Carter and his failures. But Jay, we live in a world of pendulum shifts where an elite global globalist leaders of our country are simply out to launch while Americans are getting poorer and poorer by the hour. You have statements from Secretary Yellen suggesting that Biden is doing all he can on gasoline.

Untrue. You have statements from the press secretary suggesting that we are in a historically good place in terms of the economy. Meantime, real wages in the United States have fallen by 3% year over year since last year. Inflation is up sharply and the forecasted inflation rate is going up even further.

And if you look at the University of Michigan Consumer Survey of Sentiment, which looks at eight particular categories, we find that the survey is at the lowest level apparently in about 81 years. So what the American people are doing is that they're looking out toward the future. And the future looks bleak. And it gets bleaker by the day so long as the Biden administration continues to make misstep after misstep.

They don't seem to care. And I think that message has gotten through to the American people. Chris has called in from Virginia on Line 1. Hey, Chris, welcome to Secular. You're on the air. Hey, Chris.

Good afternoon. Three years ago, it was surf and turf. And now it's canned soup. This administration is kneeling on the neck of America.

Thank you. I absolutely agree with you. I think the same people who could have been working people, not necessarily steak and lobster every night three years ago, but it was an option to do it when you wanted to celebrate something or had a special occasion. Now people, the cost of traveling, the cost of hotels, the cost of rental cars, the cost of food, the cost of the gas.

I mean, it all impacts everything and the wages aren't going up. Look at this. This is on our screen.

So we'll describe it for our radio audience. But for those watching on our social media applications or TV, this is steak in security wire at a local grocery store chain. I think it was actually Walmart. Walmart in Florida. Where when you buy it, they take off the security tape because they're afraid you're going to steal it. Because a steak now, those two steaks are now $20.

They were probably $14 or $7 each or less a year ago. This is the problem. So all this other stuff, when we're rehearsing history here, this really affects Americans in a big way. We keep re-condemning something we've all condemned. And it's not a constant problem. We have seen political violence on both sides of the aisle.

We're seeing right now a lot more of the left. But they ignore that completely. And I think that when you see those images, the only difference between us and the third world is that you can still buy it here. Because you can buy steak here.

Steak is not really a specialty item. There are levels of it, obviously. But I think, again, what we really want to understand and think that people should listen to Janet Yellen. We can play this again because it's absurdity after absurdity from the administration. And she says, listen, we're doing everything we can. I mean, all this pessimism.

Take a listen by 20. There are jobs available. And people can get employment. That's not the issue. I mean, she's the secretary here. And the job is not paying enough money to keep up with the cost of the goods, Harry. That's the problem. Or gas.

Absolutely. And getting to the job now is very expensive. And the American people know this.

So, for instance, it takes the average American family roughly $100 to fill up on gas. Natural gas prices are up about 65% month over month. If you look at business sentiment in the United States, forecasting ahead, it's down 24%. The steepest decline perhaps in history. And yet the Biden administration keeps proclaiming that the economy is strong. I think it is clear to the American people that the Biden administration is wearing no clothes.

And so I think essentially a child could see this, but apparently the toddlers that run the Biden administration cannot. And this is also increasing the crime rates. The frustration, especially in inner city.

Andy, you said you experienced this in Atlanta. In the inner city, people are desperate. And when people are desperate, because of cost, they do desperate things. Well, that's exactly what generates crime is desperation. You've got a person who goes to buy a steak and then there's one of these theft devices on it. You got people who have to make a decision whether to buy bread or whether to put gas in the gas tank to get to work and take the children to school. These are the kinds of terrible things that we have stooped to and that we have fallen to. That means crime is on the rise.

People steal in order to get money, in order to buy gas, in order to buy food. It does happen. Yeah. We want to hear from you coming up in the next half hour. This is very important. We're getting great calls. 1-800-684-3110.

It's 800-684-3110. How are these policies impacting you and your family? We want to know that because we have a legislative team in Washington that's actually working with Congress to try to get some solutions here. I think people like Janet Yellen, they show how out of touch they are.

This goes to me as I think they're too old, too elite, too rich to understand. Just because these jobs are available doesn't mean that that job pays enough to buy anything. So it's a cost benefit analysis.

You work at a job and it costs more to get there than you actually get paid. Be back in the second half hour coming up. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress and in the public arena. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org where you can learn more about our life changing work. Become a member today.

ACLJ.org. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow.

We're going to be going to the phones at 1-800-684-3110. Listen, we addressed kind of earlier the show but do a synopsis of what we addressed on this primetime January 6 hearing. One is we believe there should be a primetime hearing on inflation or a primetime hearing on Supreme Court, why they won't approve more security, which really just authorizes the U.S. Supreme Court police to have more jurisdiction so that they can provide the security necessary for these justices. Well, we know there's active threats, as we've seen, on their lives and we haven't even had an opinion released yet.

We just saw a leaked opinion. We know that the same fencing that they put up around the Capitol after January 6 is now around the Supreme Court, which is right across the street from our office. So we have an interest in that too at the ACLJ about how they're going to protect our staff on Monday from a group that is saying they want to shut down the ability for the justices to even get in, which by the way, they get in an entrance that is right by our office because that's behind the Supreme Court and that's where they drive in and under. And oftentimes they close down that street when they're there, but sometimes they just drive right by the justices.

If you're paying attention, you might see one in a normal time. I don't know if that's happened in the last couple of years. So what we have said is that we've all condemned what happened on January 6. They're forcing us to re-condemn it is a political move. And they will not get to the, well, they love root causes, you know, they love root causes always. So I'll say this, they won't get to the root cause. We know that they were one issue.

A huge group of people come to Washington, D.C. They had days of knowledge of that. We have the documentation that showed it.

We've gone through it on the, I'm not going to go through it again. We know that they refused National Guard and assistance from the DOD that would have prevented this from ever happening and we wouldn't have had any committee hearings. We also know that they won't, NBC and ABC and CBS will not do a primetime hearing on why Janet Yellen thinks everything is great and the economy is so strong when you can't afford anything.

So they're not going to do that. So the mainstream media, who, by the way, talking about overblowing production again, which is a usual thing they do because, oh, we brought in the ABC President, so he's like 80 years old at this point too, right? And you can tell that everything was delayed. It was not like, they tried to make like half of the Trump tweet. Except for the important part from the tweet, which says, go home with love and peace, which is how you talk down a crowd. You don't talk down a crowd condemning them.

You talk down a crowd by saying, but get home, stop it. And she left it out while it's up on the screen. And that's how she started with lying. But it is worthwhile to point out that we do now have the documents, put this on the screen from the mayor of Washington, that on January 5th, 2021, she specifically states that the District of Columbia is not requesting other federal law enforcement personnel and discourages any additional deployment without immediate notification and consultation with the Metro Police Department.

So Andy, you did a lot of law enforcement, including the federal level. She turned it down. I can't believe that. I cannot believe that knowing, having the intelligence and the information given to her in advance, that the mayor of Washington, D.C. turned down the auspices of the abilities and the forces of the National Guard, of the Department of the Army, of the Department of Defense, knowing what was about to happen or what could have happened in anticipation of the events that ultimately occurred. How she turned it down is saying in the most fundamental way a dereliction of duty, but is gross negligence on the part of the mayor to say we don't want additional reinforcements and troops. The Metro Police Department can handle it.

How naive, how negligent, how grossly out of touch this mayor was. All right, we're taking your calls, especially on the economy issues. We've got Professor Hutchinson here with us.

We're going over this. We're going to try to get you some concrete solutions on what can be done in Capitol Hill. They've got to get the gas prices down. We've gone from an energy exporter to an energy dependent on foreign aid.

Foreign aid for that, foreign aid for, I can't even believe when I have to say this, baby formula. And then in Washington we've got the mayor saying we don't want additional help. That's when they let the cities burn last summer. They didn't want National Guard in there either. Remember all that?

Process. Just let the federal building burn down. At the same time, the White House press secretary said we're at a better economy.

Is it a better place now than it has been historically? Who are you talking to? 800-684-3110. How is this impacting you? 1-800-684-3110. Back with more in a moment. We're going to take your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. I want to play this, though, because we played Janet Yellen.

This is kind of out of touch. Well, there's plenty of jobs available, but those jobs don't pay enough to even pay the bills to get to the job or provide for the food. So it's a cost-benefit analysis of would you rather just be on a government program, unemployment program, because of the cost. And these jobs are not long-term career jobs. These are service industry jobs. Again, think about the delivery folks. We all got very used to that during the pandemic of Uber Eats and Postmates, and I'm not trying to be shipped and I don't know who I'm missing, but I'm not promoting any of them.

Just say that's the tip now. And you realize that the guy or gal that did this for you has driven probably not more than a mile or two, but that mile or two cost them maybe $7 or $8. Well, depending on what vehicle they have.

Well, it's more than a mile. They've got to get from their house to the grocery store to the grocery store to your house. Even if you do give them like a $10 tip. Let's say you give them a $10 tip.

You may be helping them with some of their gas. A little bit. So before they were putting all that in their pocket. Yeah, not now. So now, if you look at a lot of those apps, there's not as many people doing it.

It's not as quick. I just think that that's how you see how things work, but I don't know that Janet Yellen knows how to use one of those apps. I've got a question for Harry, and that is this. So when you have inflation at this rising rate, what would be the appropriate economic policy to get this under control? Well, first, we should stop digging a hole for ourself. And so that would mean we should eliminate all stimulative monetary policy, and we're moving in that direction. Perhaps we should move faster. Number two, we should stop federal spending.

And then number three, we should unleash the inherent power of U.S. energy. If we expand energy production in the United States, that will help at the margin. The other issue that's out there, which we can't really help with too much, and that is the inability of the Biden administration to anticipate problems.

So, for instance, a refinery went down. They don't seem to be able to anticipate this particular issue and help out at the margin. And you see the same issue with respect to baby formulas and the scarcity. That was a problem that actually commenced in February of 2021.

The Biden administration began to address it perhaps in April of 2022. That's the problem. So the failure to react promptly really hurts. Absolutely, yeah.

And so pure competence would help a lot at the margin. All right, let's go back to the phones. Yeah, I want to go to Peggy first in Arizona on Line 2. Hey, Peggy, welcome to Sekulow. You're on the air. Hi, Peggy. Hi, how are you?

Good. Yeah, well, I don't know how I was working, and I thought I could retire. I've lost $50,000 in my 401K. The cost of gas, cost of food. I don't know how we're going to do it.

I think that this is the decision. People are not going to make those decisions to retire right now. I mean, if you could keep your job and keep the resources in. Because look at the stock market right now. You don't want to, because it's down right now at 767 points, and everything that you have is in red. I mean, and down significantly. That's based off the number.

Three and four percent, based on the consumer price index and consumer confidence. But they said this at the White House. Take a listen. This is the White House press secretary. They can see the stock market crashing. They can see the consumer price index highest since 1981.

That's Jimmy Carter, into the first year of Ronald Reagan trying to correct Jimmy Carter. And they still make comments out of a 30-something-year-old press secretary's mouth who's living in Washington, D.C., who is so outside of regular world that they can say this with a straight face. That's what's even ridiculous. Take a listen. Sixty-one percent are saying now in this Wall Street Journal poll they are generally pessimistic about people having an opportunity to achieve the American dream.

How's that going to look on a bumper sticker? I guess what I'm trying to say, Peter, is that we understand that people are feeling this. They are feeling the increase of prices, which with food in particular right now, and gas. That is something that we understand.

What we're trying to say, what I'm trying to say to you, is that the economy is in a better place than it has been historically. So first she downplays you and just says you feel this way. So she's trying to say, oh, this is just right-wing talking points.

This is just the media telling you. So you just feel. It's not actual. She doesn't – because she probably doesn't drive a car. She lives in Washington, D.C. Again, she's not living in reality. And everybody who does live in reality, even if you're very wealthy, can see. You know what?

Very wealthy people will start making – they already do – make decisions based off how the stock market, which then trickles down to everybody. So to be able to say that it's in a stronger – I don't even know what she's talking about, except for there's a lot of jobs available that don't pay enough to pay the bills. So that's enough people to utilize the gas to get there. Now, here's the problem.

But here's where it's so condescending. And that's why, folks, it's very important, and we're glad you're calling us. We want to hear from you. We need to hear from you on this because we take this information we use in our government affairs office in Washington.

1-800-684-3110, 800-684-3110. When you listen to her response, White House Press Secretary's response to Peter Doocy, I guess what I'm trying to say, Peter, is that we understand that people are feeling this. They're feeling the increase of prices with food, in particular right now in gas. That is something that we understand. What we're trying to say – what I'm trying to say to you is that the economy is in a better place than it's been historically. Now, Andy, that is – we deal with words.

She did not answer the question and then said, well, people are feeling this way, but they have a job at least. How can you make that statement? Gas prices are spiraling up. Food prices. A mediocre steak costs $20.

A loaf of ciabatta bread full of holes costs $5. You got to buy rice and beans in the United States and pasta in order to live. And you're telling me that historically we are in a better place than we've ever been?

Nonsense. That's because, Harry, they're conflating jobs available and people employed with cost of living and these businesses are getting hit by these costs and that's why they can't raise the wages. I think that is true. And the other issue, which actually is a factor long term, is that the southern border is open.

What does that mean? It means that there are individuals who are coming across the border who effectively are keeping wages in the United States from rising. As I mentioned earlier, real wages in the United States have fallen by 3% year over year and it's even worse for lower middle class people. But I also think the fundamental problem, or at least one of them, is the fact that elites basically disdain rank and file Americans. Elites believe they have a better handle on reality. Elites generally don't shop at Walmart or even Costco.

And so they don't face the real world cost of living and the American people do, day after day. And I hope the American people have a long memory because one of the things they can do is that they can exercise their right to vote in four or five months. You know, I want to go back to the phones. I think the greatest thing about our broadcast when we have these kind of times come up in our country is that you're able to hear if you don't call in from all over the country. So very different places, people with very different backgrounds who are feeling the same issue. So we had a call from Arizona.

The next couple of calls, I can see how I shoot. Pennsylvania, then Alaska, you're going to hear. So let's go to Pennsylvania first and Marty in Pennsylvania on line 3. Hey, Marty. Hey, how are you guys doing?

And I do appreciate you guys taking my call. I come from a little bit different perspective, but asking how is everything? How's the economy?

How's the raising inflation affecting us? I am a small business owner. I own a Mac tools franchise, which is already kind of a dangerous business to own based upon how a tool business works. But I started in 2019.

It is radically a different world now in 2022. And back in May on the second, I had a notify Mac tools that I could no longer keep this open due to the rising cost of everything. And I am resigning. And now I have shut down my business. And America is built on small businesses like myself and we're getting squeezed out. Did you have any additional employees or was just, was it just you? How did that work? I am an LLC S Corp, so I was the owner and the employee.

Every quarter I got to write a check and want to fire myself. Well, the problem, here's what the problem is though, where Marty's a hundred percent correct is really did shutting it down. He did have to shut his business down and he's right. Small business, Harry is the backbone of the American economy and especially small business like these franchisees are, whether it's in the food industry, this tool industry, you could retail industry.

I mean, they're out there. And that is precisely the business category that this administration doesn't really care about. What does Joe Biden care about? He cares about Facebook. He cares about Mark Zuckerberg. He cares about the globalist elites. He cares about Bill Gates, Microsoft, Amazon.

And so one of the things that we face with respect to the Biden administration is their insistent flight from reality, the reality that faces average working class and middle-class Americans each and every day. All right, folks, we'll continue to take your phone calls. 1-800-684-3110. We'll go to Alaska next.

So, I mean, let's hear the impacts of people coast to coast in every state in the country. We want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. A lot of resources available up at ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org. Here on this broadcast, we deal with reality and what you're actually dealing with is a crisis.

ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. We've been taking calls coast to coast. Let's go further out in our country. Let's go to Alaska. This tells you about the reach of our broadcast. So these days when we ask people to really call and tell us what it's like. Martha has called in from Alaska online. Martha, welcome to Sekulow.

You're on the air. Hi, thanks for taking my call. Yeah, I'm a school teacher, a public school teacher here in Alaska and we made the decision when schools were shut down with COVID the next year to put our kids in private Christian school because they weren't shutting down their schools and the cost of gas and the inflation now and just our general cost of living.

My husband and I both work, but we're looking at taking our kids out of the private school next year because it's just too much money and actually the other thought is that I might go and teach at the private school because then my kids get free tuition. Right. Listen, these are decisions I wish you weren't having to make. I mean, that's the problem with this, Harry. This is why it's so important.

I'm so glad you called us and people are calling to talk about this. Here you've got a teacher in Alaska. They made a decision to put their kids in private Christian school. She's working and now the cost of living, gas, food, whatever it might be, is at an amount where she cannot afford to keep the kids in school unless maybe she goes there and teaches, which then sometimes the tuition is either discounted or free, but the salaries are usually lower. So you run into that, but why should Americans in 2022 be in this who are working husband and wife working at jobs that should be able to pay the bills?

Right. Well, I think the fundamental issue is the people in Washington, the elites that control the levers of government, they live in a bubble and they really don't care about middle income people who live in what they term flyover country. And so essentially they're suggesting to those people who live in flyover country that we really don't care and we don't really mind if you wind up in a truly hot place. And I think the American people need to respond to this neglect that is coming from our global elites and we should stop putting those individuals in office. And that means not only the President, but it also means Congress. Do you have members of Congress who care about the lives of the American people or not? And I think if you certainly look at the data, the Biden administration is comprised of individuals who could care less, who are going to tell you that inflation is transitory, that President Biden is doing a fantastic job while you get poorer and poorer.

At the end of the day, they don't care. So Tammy on Facebook wrote in, she's been retired for almost two years, but is about to go back into the workforce. Why? Because of the cost of gas and food along with everything else. So people that have retired, worked their entire career, had retirement, ready to go, cannot retire. So yes, employment numbers are high.

It's just that the cost, they can't get paid enough to keep up with it. Yeah. I would go to the next call. Let's go to Denise in Pennsylvania on line five. So again, we've gone all over the country. We're continuing to do that on the show.

Hey Denise. Hi, thanks for taking my call. I want to echo the comments of the parent, the parent who reiterated taking their kids out of public school. I'm calling from Pennsylvania.

Like I said, in my region, the majority of the public school districts are not meeting standard testing scores. So I'm a single mom in the middle class category who cannot seem to make it over on the other side and everything is going up. So I'm at the end of the school year, I'm stuck. I am paying a higher price for gas. I drive every single day for my job. I'm paying more for food and now I'm going to have to pay, try to afford my child an education.

I'm really stuck. You pay for it with your taxes, but you can't rely on the schools you're paying for. And that's why we support school choice and programs like that. Because exactly from moments like this in history, like COVID, moments like that and moments like this in the economy.

So where you could choose these schools with tax vouchers or tax support or again, because you are, this is, everybody's calling, they're being very honest. They're not saying like, you know, I'm someone who could barely make ends meet. Usually these are, like I said, they're middle-class Americans where life's pretty good.

They deal with the struggles before, but now they're making very tough decisions they've never had to make before. But here's what's happening. People that can, and the reports are showing this, people that can afford this cost increases, that can afford the increase in food and housing and all this are still slowing down because you look at it.

And you said getting two bags of groceries. It's shocking. It is shocking. You go in there and the price of food has just skyrocketed. The price of gasoline skyrocketed.

And you have, this is the end. How come we didn't have this two years ago? How come we didn't have this three years ago? Is it just coincidence that this has happened in a year and 18 months? No, it's because they did not anticipate what, Harry, you said.

They did not anticipate market shifts and market moves. And we went from energy exporting to energy dependence. And that is what caused a lot of this.

I think you're precisely correct. So if you go back to January 20, 2021, Joe Biden launched an attack on the American people. How? Because he blocked, for instance, the XL pipeline. Since then, energy prices have been on a trajectory, an upward trajectory, independent of whatever is going on in Ukraine. Now they're trying to conveniently blame each and every crisis on Putin. The American people are smarter than that, but the Biden administration continues to disdain the opinion of the American people. They need to unleash the energy sector. And if they unleash the energy sector, guess what?

It actually provides a large number of high paying jobs for Americans and lowers the cost of living. All right. As we said, going coast to coast. So we'll go to Scott in California on Line 1. Hey, Scott. Hi, Scott. You're on the air. Hello.

I'm just calling from California. I just want to let you guys know I'm not finding any baby formula out here. And I luckily, my baby's nine months old, so we're just transitioning into whole milk and like Gerber foods and other options. But I just can't imagine what it would be like for other families. It's not like you decided with the doctor, this is the time we should transition. It's that we're going to have to do this now, even if it's three months.

And we don't have baby form. That's what's so ridiculous about. Let's let's go to Charlie also in California.

This is absurd. Charlie, do this. Go ahead, Charlie. You're on the air.

Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my call. I appreciate it. Thanks for what you do. Yeah, I've been on disability now for about four or five years.

And, you know, this year I have not received anybody that I know of who received a cost of living allowance. And thank God my landlord hasn't raised my rent because he did. I'm you know, I'm going to be homeless. So and I feel sorry for the people that are on disability or just, you know, your average American trying to trying to make a living. You're exactly right.

I appreciate you calling in, Charlie. Here's the employer's problem. Their costs are going up, too. So the government not increasing it or employers not increasing is the cost of health care insurance is through the roof.

You cannot even imagine if I gave you the number, you would you would you would say that can't possibly be right. I mean, you've got as many employees as we have, for instance, but you want to provide the benefit. But it's not going up at two percent.

It's going up at astronomical numbers. So the cost of everything is affecting the businesses. That's why on this Friday, I'm glad again we heard from you. Very important to communicate all this to our offices in Washington, D.C. Yeah. Again, we're going to talk about the issues that are actually impacting you, unlike what the mainstream media tries to get your attention with.

But what is really news for you, which is getting by day to day right now and kids, your grandkids with school, cost of living. And we're going to be on all the issues. We're not going to let it go. We're not going to be distracted. Go to ACLJ.org. We'll talk to you next time.