BIG Win for Border Security

Today on Sekulow a big win for border security in federal court. 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. So what happened on Saturday, it was breaking news that came out on Saturday, a district court judge. It was a multi-state challenge to the Biden administration's ending of Title 42. And what these states argued is you didn't even give us time to put in comments in the Administrative Procedures Act.

We see that time and time again in this administration but in other administrations too. Where courts say, listen, you can't just remove these big policies because the CDC decides all the policies should be over now. Because of the impact the removal of the policy has, you at least have to give states who are impacted time to comment so that you have to go through their comments and at least understand that they have objections. Some states might say they agree but you didn't do that here through the Administrative Procedures Act and so this has been put on hold. Now in a sense, this is kind of a win for the Biden administration because while they are going to challenge this in federal court, Dad, they did not file an emergency appeal which they could have after a Saturday ruling by a district court judge. They did issue the statement a district court judge should not be responsible for the entire immigration policy of the US, the typical line. But they didn't say let's appeal it today. They said we will ultimately appeal this.

I'm sure it's coming. But what this means is that Title 42, which would have expired today, is still in place and can be used as a tool, thank God, for our Border Patrol and ICE officials. Just to explain to you how significant of a tool it can be, 1.7 million people have been expelled under this policy since it began under the Trump administration. They enacted March of 2020. And under the Trump administration, it's also how you use the tool, under the Trump administration they were able to immediately expel 90% of the illegal immigrants to the border and asylum seekers.

It puts a halt on asylum seekers as well so you can't get around it by saying no, I'm going to claim an asylum and I need this court process. It's all based off the pandemic. And if you actually look at where the world news is right now on COVID and some of the regional news in the US, it is hard to argue that they have not declared this completely over.

They're still talking about a next booster and all these different things and the fall wave and the summer wave. So it didn't even make sense logically based off how this administration has been handling COVID that the CDC all of a sudden was going to say, okay, now you can open up your borders to people. What's also interesting is that in a Politico Harvard poll, and this is interesting, this is regarding the Title 42 expulsion policy, 55% of those polled of American adults oppose ending Title 42. 55% want to keep Title 42 in place as a protection at our southern border. So what you've got is the Biden administration is fighting against both I think what the law is because I think the judge, the district court opinion is a lengthy opinion. It was totally correct.

This was out of the Western District of Louisiana. The judge was correct in his analysis. But also just the body politic is saying it's working. It's at least a tool they have to what is otherwise still an unbelievable crisis down there. So let's let that play out. Yeah, I think here what is so important when it comes to Title 42 is remember by keeping the people knowing by knowing that this is in place, it keeps a lot of the coyotes from trying to do the mass migration because they know people are not going to just be released back into the United States.

It keeps the fentanyl out. I mean, they didn't even do a lot more because the Biden administration unfortunately isn't using their Title 42 power to the extent that the Trump administration did. Like I said, under the Trump administration and while the wall was being built, they were able to use Title 42 to keep 90% of the people out.

90% under a legal order issued by the CDC, a policy by the CDC. And what these states have said is if you're going to remove it, you've got to give us notice and time and you've got to give us the ability to comment. That's the Administrative Procedures Act. We see that time and time again when these federal moves are trying to be made quickly by the executive branch.

They argue, of course, that they're not subject to the Administrative Procedures Act. But I also want to tell people right away, on the World Health Organization issue, which I know a lot of you are talking about, this is an ACLJ action memo circulating among our team right now. We're on it. We're analyzing it. We're not ready to get into every detail with you, but we are on it, folks. I just wanted you to know that. Support our work at ACLJ.org. We're going to be right back.

Welcome back to Secular. We are taking your phone calls too. 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. So Title 42, just so you know, so Judge Summerhays in Louisiana, he's temporarily blocked the CDC move to end Title 42. It would have ended today. So there were all these migrants at the border, I mean we've seen the imagery of it, that were ready for this to expire, hoping that it would expire today, but we knew that there was this court issue because the states had brought a legal challenge saying we need time to comment through the Administrative Procedures Act. Now the DOJ didn't just let this sit, they did say we are going to appeal, but here's what's interesting, while they said we are going to appeal, and they say we've got the authority to do this, not through the Administrative Procedures Act, it's a CDC power, so far it has not been an emergency appeal. I mean, Dan, I guess between Saturday and today it could still be filed as like an emergency appeal?

Yeah, but only you would file it as an emergency appeal as soon as the decision came out and they didn't do that. Right, so in some sense I think they're taking a breather because Title 42 is not gone, but then for their own base, and because of Presidential power issues, which is normal actually through the executive branch, they're going to fight back whatever policy this was because they always want to say that the President can just remove policies. Right.

That's a kind of normal thing. Yes. But I think what is so clear here is how well this policy has worked and they don't have a follow-up policy yet. And I think there's tension between the progressive part of the President's base and the more centrist part because a lot of Democrats, Harry, have come out and said they're in favor of Title 42 staying in place, especially in border states, but not just border states.

So he's got a real mixed bag coming from his own party. I think that is correct, and so if you look at middle Americans, you will find strong support for the retention of Title 42. Many Democrats, particularly in both border communities and in the hinterlands, they are concerned about the resources that will be used up within their own communities with respect to schooling, for instance, with respect to law enforcement. In addition, many of these illegals are bringing across the border fentanyl, marijuana, and meth and other drugs, heroin, and so there are lots of associated problems in addition to COVID itself.

And so keep in mind that Title 42 was introduced, why? It was designed to reduce the spread of COVID-19, and so you have the administration basically telling people to quarantine. This was months ago, of course, and now they're saying, oh, we are going to let immigrants come in who have not been tested for COVID, and basically they haven't been vaccinated, nothing has happened to them, but you can come in and perhaps we'll give you a pass to either El Paso or New York City. Well, I think the issue here, what has got to be so clear, is that even people who think, and there's a lot of Republicans who say we should declare the pandemic over and move on, is that there's no follow-up policy here. So if we remove Title 42, even if you think it's time to say this pandemic is over, which by the way, I don't think the Biden administration is ready to say, I don't think a lot of the world is ready to say, but a lot of conservatives are saying in states, it's been over for a long time in the way things have gone back to normal in some places, but when you don't have a follow-up policy, and you've got the highest ever numbers last month, 224,000 plus people, and we know that there's a whole group waiting for Title 42 to fall.

Now, what will be interesting to see is now that this has happened, what does that whole group that's been at the border waiting do? Because the Biden administration has not been as aggressive as using Title 42. The Trump administration used it to keep 90% of people out, immediately expel everyone, so all those encounters, 90% of those encounters were sent back home. The Biden administration certainly has not been that aggressive in enforcing the policy, but it's still been one of the few things Customs and Border Patrol has been able to use under this mess of an administration. Yeah, so, I mean, the Customs and Border Patrol Association and the ICE agents said that Title 42 is, they called it essential to their maintaining some kind of decorum and order at the border. And what's so ironic to me, Harry, as a policy matter is, here you had a policy, granted it was under the Trump administration, that has been successful, that could be even more successful if implemented, and Biden's immediate reaction is, oh, it was Trump's, we have to get rid of it.

I think that is correct. And so what you have on the part of the Biden administration is an illustration of their commitment to childishness. So in other words, this policy is working. It is helping the American people. It is protecting the American people from harm in Missouri and Louisiana and other states. And yet the Biden administration basically says, let's go ahead and reverse this policy and unleash a tidal wave of consequences throughout America in terms of school systems, which are already overwhelmed in terms of drug trafficking, in terms of other consequences. And I think Judge Summerhays offered a brilliant opinion in this particular case because he suggested, at least implicitly, that the decision by the Biden administration to reverse Title 42 was arbitrary and capricious. It was not well thought out. It is really designed to help Joe Biden's ideological left-wing base, and it is not grounded in the best interest of the American people. Listen to what the DHS secretary says, Mayorkas, talking about Title 42.

Take a listen. We recognize that with the end of Title 42, there very well may be an increased surge in migration, and we have to equip them with the resources and capabilities to address that increase as well. He's acting like this is something that might have happened four months later. It was happening a month later, and they had no ability to do it. Listen, they have not been handling it under Title 42. We saw the highest numbers in April ever in history, ever reported since they've been recording those numbers.

224,000 people, that's with Title 42, and it's unclear. This administration is not taking it seriously. Again, they've attacked the Border Patrol agents. They've attacked ICE like they have other law enforcement.

They've demonized them as well. Here's our biggest concern. It's not so much if Title 42 is able to exist in perpetuity, because it's not going to.

Ultimately, you can declare the pandemic is over, even with this court decision, if you go through the Administrative Procedures Act that gives you a couple, few months maybe, maybe 90 days. Ultimately, we've got to push forward. I think why the elections are so important in November, and it's something that if there is a Republican takeover of not just the House but the Senate, that they can put pressure on the administration more through the power of the purse to do more enforcement at the border. I'm not sure you're going to get comprehensive immigration reform through that.

I don't think so. But what I think you can do is use the power of the purse if you've got control of both the House and the Senate come January to make sure that they are doing more at the border. And it's not just about the people. Those numbers are staggering, but it's the drugs.

It's the illegal activity. You know, for every time they've got to deal with those larger groups of like 400 or 500 people, the drug cartels know that's where their focus is. They use all these individuals to take our resources at the border and shift them to the people. And then that's when they send in and utilize the drug mules and get people inside with that. So this whole idea that it's just about the people, it's not.

On Friday, we had our offices represented some of the Northern Triangle countries. One of those, El Salvador, they were talking about how under President Trump, they like the deals they made with President Trump. They didn't want to keep losing their citizens to drug cartels. So what the diplomats, and I won't name him here, but he was talking about, said is that those people are paying $5,000 to $10,000. He said, one, in our country, if they've got $5,000 or $10,000, those are people with some resources. We don't really want to lose those kind of individuals. But, two, for every one of those people paying $5,000 to $10,000 that the drug cartels are making as much or more off the human smuggling to the border than they are drugs and other illegal activity. And so we are boosting by allowing this constant churning of people to the border and these coyotes, we are funneling money into massive paramilitary-style drug cartels.

You know, you're right. And the Biden administration in their briefing to the court said that Title 42 is a public health order, not a border security order, and therefore the decision to lift it must be based on public health. And then it said, the CDC has said after considering current public health conditions and an increased availability of tools to fight COVID, the CDC directors determined that an order suspending the right to introduce migrants into the United States is no longer necessary.

That is doublespeak, Harry. Absolutely. While they're saying it's increasing right now. You are absolutely correct, but basically this particular issue illustrates one thing and one thing only, and that is a lack of seriousness on the part of this administration in terms of how they deal with the COVID pandemic and also how they deal with the border.

And if you look at the work of DHS Secretary Mayorkas, it is basically laughable, and it included, of course, the disinformation bureau. And this ties in, Jordan, to what you're doing at ACLJ Action on the World Health Organization situation, where they may try to get global control of how we respond to these. I know people have been putting that in the chat. They've been asking, we are on this issue. We've already got a memo out internally through ACLJ, through ACLJ Action, so we're on it, folks.

All right, welcome back to Secular. We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-31. Tim, we're going to talk about some other issues, but if you've got questions about Title 42, the border security, the fact that Title 42 can still be used as of right now by our Customs and Border Patrol agents, and that was set to expire today.

The Biden administration was not going to renew it, but the court stepped in and said you can't do it like this. I'd love to take your calls on that, 1-800-684-31. Tim, because how is this affecting you, whether it's the drugs, whether it's the people in communities, especially in a time when inflation and things are tough, and economics are tough already, when you put the economic strain of individuals like this. Again, it's not like an easy time to just immigrate into the U.S. and pay the bills. But we've also got some international work to get into as well. Yeah, we do a lot of work at the United Nations. By the way, we're not ready to make that announcement yet, but we're about to expand that work rather drastically. But you probably won't make that announcement until the end of the year? Yeah, probably not. But in line with that, remember on Friday we were hosting our second of what will be a whole series of continuing training programs in Washington, D.C. for foreign service and foreign diplomats from around the world, and we're doing a couple events for higher-level members of the diplomatic corps, including ambassadors and deputies, with people like Mike Pompeo.

Rick Rinnell will be on later in the broadcast, and I know Senator Hagerty has confirmed for that as well. Exactly. So we do a lot of work at the… All of our offices in D.C. Yeah, all out of D.C. So we've got to do a lot of work at the United Nations. As you know, it's a hostile environment. We do a lot of work in front of the Human Rights Council, which sometimes is the most hostile of the councils.

C.C. House here, Senior Counsel for the ACLJ, heads this work up. C.C., we have just completed three country reports.

I think it's an important first to let in there. This is Pakistan, India, and Nigeria. What are we doing when we write these reports? Right, so the Human Rights Council, this is their 50th session, and they will have agenda items that they are going to go over. So we look at those agenda items and we see which agenda item we could do a written submission on. And in this 50th session, we did one on India, Pakistan, and Nigeria.

And they have to comply with, again, what those agenda items are. One was violence against women, one was freedom of expression, and one was on IDPs or internally displaced persons. And so we write these written reports and we highlight what's going on in these countries, and particularly with religious persecution. And in India, on freedom of expression, we went after their anti-conversion laws, which basically don't allow Christians to share their faith at all. And we show how that violates the freedom of expression. And of course, we had Pastor Naran, who is a pastor from Tennessee that was an American pastor, and he was trapped in India just for the same thing that the Hindu majority is going after Christians and wants to shut them down. So in that case, we got him out. But it's important to say, and Jordan, you've done these UN, these interventions, C.C. has too. The second phase of this is oral interventions, oral arguments before the UN General Assembly.

That's right. You do a presentation and we can do those via our studios here. We can have our European team in Geneva. We've gone before, sometimes with family members of clients who are being illegally held abroad and imprisoned abroad. And so there's different ways we can utilize it, and they're all effective. Sometimes it's effective to have our fridge team there because they resonate with a certain audience in Europe. And then sometimes there are issues that we need to get out in more of the U.S., and we want to make you more aware. So one of us will do it, C.C.

or me. And again, it is still this time where, because of COVID concerns, you're able to get more creative. And what I think is very cool is that whether it's by video or whether you're in person, they are there. They're locked in with their listening devices, the translation devices.

They're listening, and you're able to speak to all these different countries around the world and call out some of the countries while they're there as well. And our reports have actually made it into the HRC's final reports. That's right, especially the country reports with the UPR.

They make it, almost every single one of our reports makes it into those reports. So the UN has told us that they appreciate our reports, and we will keep reporting on it as long as we have a place there to do so. Because we're up against the other side of this that's committed to doing these reports is very left-leaning.

It's very left-leaning, and so they very much pick and choose how they want to do these. And that's why I think the UN appreciates our reports, just like how I think you appreciate our broadcast. Yes, we take sides on issues, but we're also honest. If our side has a tough shot at winning, we're honest about that. If our side has a good chance of winning, we're able to say that as well.

But we don't try to fool you and just say everything's going to be a win, everything's hunky-dory. It's kind of the same thing there. You get these groups on one side, and they call themselves human rights groups, but they very much pick and choose who they go after. And most of the time, who they're going after is the United States, our allies, the Western Europe, and Israel. Yep, no question. We also filed in Pakistan, if we have it, let's put these on the screen.

This is what it looks like. So we filed written statements submitted by the European Center for Law and Justice, an NGO with special consultive status. We did this on Pakistan, and we have firsthand knowledge of these cases because, as you see, we have an office in Pakistan. Right, and that's another thing that's very important because we have actual cases.

I believe that brings a lot of attention and specific attention to what we're saying in these reports. This one in Pakistan, we have a young girl who is 14. She disappeared after receiving over 40 text messages from her Muslim neighbor.

Gone, like literally gone. They do not know where she is. 14 years old, completely disappeared after, again, the day she received over 40 text messages from a Muslim neighbor, which she had never received before. And the police won't do anything, and literally the courts won't do anything. And you contrast that with a Muslim girl who disappeared, and within weeks she is found and returned to her family, and the perpetrators are held accountable in court. But this little girl that we represent, 14 years old, been gone for two years, the parents do not know, and the police and the courts will do absolutely nothing.

Why? Because she's a Christian minority child. But that's the exact reason why we then go to the United Nations.

That's correct. To show these kind of, they're not fair, and Pakistan's not fair in applying their laws, that all children should be protected regardless of, you know, whether they're a Christian or a Muslim or a Hindu. They all should be protected. And so we're able to point these specific cases out and encourage the United Nations to remind Pakistan. We do, on the HRCs, we do three times a year, about five, so 15. And then we do the UPR reports, the country reports, we do three times a year, 14 of those. So, there's a lot. Yeah, a lot of work. About a hundred reports probably.

Okay, so just think about that, folks. A hundred reports a year generated by the American Center for Law and Justice to the UN, just for the Human Rights Council and other related entities. That, it's not all the international work.

That's just the reports and the documents that we're filing in these cases. Last one is India. There, it's the anti-conversion laws. Right. And so, India, I had said about Naren and the anti-conversion laws, that the Hindu majority there has really gone after cracking down on Christians, correct? All right, last one, Nigeria.

Yeah. So that's an... We have an email out on Nigeria today, by the way. So, Nigeria is terrible on, they're the seventh worst country in the world for persecution of Christians. We highlight that with the internally displaced persons, which is in the millions, and how Boko Haram and the Fulani herdsmen go after Christians. Over 46,000 killed, 17,500 churches attacked, and 2,000 Christian schools attacked.

There you go. That's why we're fighting back at the United Nations, to defend those who cannot defend themselves. Jordan? Yeah, I mean, right now, the number hit 100 million. That's the highest ever of people displaced in the world. So, you look at what's happened in Ukraine, you look at a lot of these situations across the world. So, over 100 million people are now displaced people.

And that number has never hit that number before. And so, that came out of the UN. So, again, continuing that work there. I want you to support our work at ACLJ.org on that WHO issue. We're getting into it, folks. We've already got a memo circulating among our team.

So, we're on it, folks. ACLJ.org. Become a member today.

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

All right. Welcome back to Sekulow. We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. And again, we will talk about these issues continuing throughout the show.

Rick Rinnell is going to join us because of some of the statements that President Biden made overseas, specific to Taiwan, and kind of the pullback that we've seen there. But also, on Title 42, let me just kind of update you because if you're just joining us, a judge halted the end of Title 42. So, it's still in place for Border Patrol to utilize. The district court decision at Louisiana said that, listen, you can't have in the states that filed against the Biden administration, you can't just pull back this policy willy-nilly whenever you want because it's such a serious policy.

You had to go through the Administrative Procedures Act. You'll hear that a lot in these cases. And that means you had to give time for states to comment, comment about how it was going to affect them if you do remove this policy. We've seen a lot of the numbers about how it would potentially affect.

The judge was citing the numbers about what it could change up to 18,000 people a day. And we're still seeing record numbers before even with Title 42, but it would take out the expulsion power from Border Patrol. So, instead of having to process all these people into the United States or into holding facilities where you can't have the spread of disease. And by the way, take out COVID. The spread of disease is still very real in these holding facilities of just disease in general when you've got all these folks. Of course, the CDC is speaking with, you know, both sides of them. Right. At one side, they want everybody to continue to be masked up. On the other side, they said, no, no, let everybody in.

We don't care. It's no problem. Right. And also to let all these folks who definitely unlikely have not been vaccinated, we're going to let them in, but you're not going to let it. So you let the illegal crossers in and then, you know, these asylum claims and things like that, which that was the way they thought they could work around it. You can't work around that under Title 42. So I think what we see here for immigration purposes is this won't be a long term fix because ultimately they can go through the Administrative Procedures Act and remove this if they want to.

But they weren't able to do it today. This fight will continue in court. And ultimately, what is so concerning, I think why the elections are so important and there's a lot of primaries going on tomorrow night and there's been primaries going on, is that if Republicans take both the House and the Senate, I think they can put financial pressure on the White House to at least put some enforcement mechanisms in place that follow up on Title 42 whenever that does come to a close. Right now, the issue is that if Title 42 is dropped, they basically have no extra tools at their disposal.

So they're having to run down every individual process, every individual separate claim. And you can't do kind of this mass expulsion at the border, which under the Trump administration, I will say it again, how effective this tool can be. 90% of the people, as they always say, encountered were expelled immediately, regardless if they were just illegal immigrants or if they were going to claim asylum.

They were expelled immediately and said just go through a process and wait. And I will tell you, this whole idea that these countries are angry with us is wrong because when we open our borders to these human smugglers and these coyotes that bring these mass groups through, we are allowing the funding, and since we're given a green light, to this funding of these drug cartels, which are much more than just drug cartels. They're paramilitary units that run vast majorities of territory throughout Central America. And I was with one of these, a deputy head of mission this weekend from a Northern Triangle country.

What do you think? Well, when you have MS-13 and these kind of, they are not just a criminal, they are not just a drug cartel. It's a military. They are almost like the Latin America's version of ISIS, how militant they are, how violent, the level of violence. And so you are, these human smugglers are funding them. So you're also not just, it's not just bad for the people, you're propping up drug cartels, which are declaring war on governments in these Latin American countries. So they don't like it either when we say this green light kind of come and go, because they know then that the cartels that they're fighting against are going to be that much more well-funded inside their countries. And to me, that's the reason why this judge got this right. First of all, the Biden administration did not play by the rules. Now they're appealing it, but they're not doing it on an expedited basis. And as we said, the polling data shows well over 50% of the American people, 55%, oppose ending Title 42.

And by the way, that includes a lot of Democrats. People know that removing this is going to take an arsenal out of our border agents, and that does not bode well for the country. Back with more in just a moment. All right, welcome back to Sekulow, and we are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Rick Rinnell is joining us. I want to play this, because President Biden is overseas in South Korea. He's asked about Taiwan and kind of the interplay between Taiwan and how the U.S. would respond to Chinese aggression there versus how we've responded in Ukraine to Russia. Take a listen. Here it is.

Bite 8. Very quickly, you didn't want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons. Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that? Yes.

You are? That's the commitment we made. Well, of course, it's not the commitment that was made, actually. The commitment that was made is military assistance, you know, equipment. But, Rick, it's been called – the U.S. policy has been called strategic ambiguity.

And, you know, as someone who's been practicing law for 40 years, that's a good phrase, strategically ambiguous. What does that – what is our policy in Taiwan? What is the actual policy right now as it relates to Taiwan? First of all, I think, Jay, we have to call out President Biden and that question from the reporter, which was an assumption, erroneous assumption right away. That reporter said, in Ukraine, you didn't want to get involved for obvious reasons. Let's remember that the first Joe Biden policy in Ukraine was to offer Zelensky a ride out of Ukraine.

He wanted to get the Ukrainians out of the way, which means that – so that Russia had the ability just to do what they wanted to do, get out of the way and remove Zelensky from that. That is the original Biden policy. But now what we have in this strategic ambiguity, which is really purposefully evasive is what it should be called, what we're trying to do is have it both ways.

And what Joe Biden did was really unsuccessfully have it both ways. You want to be able to talk about America's strength and our resolve and our commitment to democracy and the rule of law. But you also don't want to say that we're going to get into a war with China. And so it's this idea that you have to have a credible threat of military action. Unfortunately, Joe Biden has the credibility part missing.

He's not credible, and yet he's trying to make a threat. Rick, my question here, too, is on this kind of one-China policy that gets discussed and the idea that we don't necessarily accept but we recognize China's oversight, we acknowledge that China claims to have authority over Taiwan. These statements, I mean, they're very important. I just want to underscore, when the President of the United States, even if it's Joe Biden, says we're going to go to war and then they have to walk it back, that again, it sends that signal that he doesn't know what he's talking about and it's not clear, the administration doesn't have a clear policy or at least they're not briefing him on a clear policy.

You're a smart guy. You're going to get me in trouble here, Jordan, because you're asking the poignant question, which is, wait a minute, one-China policy seems to be a little bit at odds with our ability or our desire to want to defend Taiwan or help Taiwan in some ways. And I think you're exactly right. Look, the one-China policy means that China gets to decide its territorial issues, its sovereignty issues. And in theory, that sounds right, like, oh, we want other countries to be able to figure out their borders. But what one-China policy really means is that China believes Taiwan is theirs and we, the United States, are just not going to get involved. And we, that's where we have this strategic ambiguity, where we say one-China policy, but we're defending or wanting to defend or talking about defending Taiwan and wanting to have a closer relationship with Taiwan. So literally you're asking the very good, tough questions where diplomats try to be ambiguous about, well, we're trying to play both sides.

So, Rick, let me ask you this. If China were to make a move on Taiwan militarily, what does the U.S. do and what does the rest of the world do? Because getting into a war armed conflict with China doesn't have a good outcome, I don't think. This is just a morning of, like, direct questions.

Well, I think the American people are going to think Joe Biden created this by his statements. He's basically saying, he said multiple times now, yeah, we're going to respond militarily and gets people thinking we're going to have World War IV now if you include the Ukraine as three. What do you do if they get attacked? This is why people should be listening to us, listening to ACLJ. You go right for the heart of it. You go right into the issues.

Look, I think the answer, Jay, is I'm going to go back and it's going to sound like I'm ditching the question, but I'm really not. You've got to have a credible threat of military action, because if you have a President who talks about strength and what America can do, not what America won't do, then you don't get yourself in a situation where other countries are testing us. We know there wouldn't have been a war in Ukraine if Donald Trump were in office because he would have sent early signals of strength of what we would do. When you have a weak President, you invite all of these tests, you invite all these people to push the envelope. And that's what's happening with China right now. Look, the reality is that America needs to be able to stand firm for democracy, the rule of law, but the question becomes at what point when another country sends in troops, a nuclear-armed country sends in troops, are we going to say what is the threat of national security to the United States? At the end of the day, what my criteria is, when are we and our people and our allies threatened? That's interesting.

Randall on YouTube asked this for you, Rick. How is the Biden administration going to defend Taiwan when they've already sold out to the CCP? Also, I think President Xi is looking at the Afghanistan debacle and saying, this is the guy that is going to try to defend Taiwan when he was proud to get 90% of the Americans out of Afghanistan, signaling that 10% would be left behind.

That's total weakness. And so, again, you've got to have a credible threat of military action, not just a threat of military action. You know, Rick, I want to kind of talk about, because the domestic impact these all have, and we're seeing the inflation numbers, we're in the political season now, big primaries tomorrow night, we've already seen some big primaries, we're still waiting on some others, which is a little absurd, by the way, that we're still, that Pennsylvania can't get numbers. It just shows you, when we talk about election integrity issues and also getting our systems up to speed, the problems, even in a primary, you can't figure out who's won, you know, more than a week later.

But these issues, Rick, I think they all get back to the kind of core issues. We were talking about the border issues and Title 42, basically a Trump-appointed federal court district judge saving the country with Title 42 a little bit on the immigration issue this weekend, but the Biden DOJ is going to appeal it. We see, again, what's going on in Ukraine, this kind of stalemate. Are we going to continue to send billions and billions of dollars over? We saw some Republican senators step up and say, no, this is not right because we don't know where this money is going or how it's being spent. And then you add on to this in an even more complicated situation, which is how to deal with China. I mean, and how compromised this administration seems to already be. If you're in Taiwan and you're getting all these U.S. resources, is that basically, are you basically looking at yourself as like a mini Ukraine and you think I might get the resources at best, but at the end of the day, they're not coming to help me even with this Biden gaffe?

I might get the resources too late. I think the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian government would say that the Biden administration was way too late. And, you know, again, Donald Trump wanted to sell arms to Ukraine and Joe Biden is now scrambling to give them the arms. And I think that this is one of those situations where weakness breeds more problems.

And we've talked about this a lot. But if you're in Taiwan, you have to be nervous about Joe Biden. I hope that the American people understand Taiwanese Americans, Ukrainian Americans, Iranian Americans, that when you have a leader like Joe Biden sending weak signals around the world, it's going to get worse. Remember, you know, he took the Houthis off the terrorist list and the Houthis then started bombing the UAE, a country that had literally signed a peace treaty with Israel. And yet now is getting bombed by Iranian backed terrorists.

And so you can't make this stuff up. I mean, Donald Trump literally brought us a great economy and world peace. And Joe Biden has done the opposite.

I was just going to say, Rick, I'm looking at the front page of the New York Times and just pulled it up just out of chance. Biden says U.S. military would defend Taiwan and China if invaded. Biden to begin new Asia Pacific economic bloc. Zelensky urges global business elites to punish Russia further. This has all happened since President Trump left office.

We're faced with Russia and China in ways we never imagined. Rick, we appreciate your comments. Glad you're part of the team.

Rick brought up that World Health Organization just in passing last week on the broadcast. We're on it, folks. Our team is researching actually through ACLJ Action First. Now we're getting our legal team on it as well about so that you know the truth. So when we get all that together, we're going to get the facts to you on what the Biden administration is planning and not planning, because we're truth tellers with the WHO and we're getting as much info as we can before we start getting into the details with you. We know you want the info, but we want to get you precise, exact info. And again, as always, I want you to support our work at ACLJ.org.

There's a lot of new great pieces up too that just went out over the weekend up at ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. So at a time literally in the world where there is potential military conflict with the United States and two nuclear powers, two of the world's other major nuclear powers other than the United States. I mean, yes, you have some other nuclear powers in the world, but not with the kind of arsenals these two countries have. We're talking about, of course, Russia, which has been a concern the entire time with the conflict in Ukraine. And now China, who is not happy with the remarks by President Biden, which the White House is trying to spin, because usually, you know, if he makes something totally kind of off the wall, totally inaccurate or outside of U.S. policy, they'll say, no, it was, you know, he just went too far.

They'll actually have to really clean it up. In this, they said, you know, we met with resources. So, you know, similar to like Ukraine. And that is not, of course, what it sounded like Joe Biden said, because he was asked, would the U.S. military get involved to defend Taiwan? When it sounds like that, when you get involved, that sounds like more than just sending weapons. But that was their walk back. So now we've got the United States in this economic situation of facing these issues at the border, facing these issues with the drugs coming in and killing Americans, coming out of a pandemic.

They throw monkey pox on you. And then on top of that, two potential nuclear world wars, because Ukraine is not over. You know, even though it kind of ebbs and flows in the news, that's not over. And a major nuclear power is engaged in that with a leader that you're questioning, again, their stability because it's making decisions usually wouldn't have made. And then China going over to Asia and South Korea and making statements about going to war with China, which is another major nuclear power. These countries, you could take out the ground war, take out the land war. I think we beat them on all those fronts. But when you have those kind of nuclear arsenal they have, that doesn't matter if they're willing to use it. I'm going to change the dynamic so drastically.

Colonel Westmith is with us. Colonel, strategic ambiguity seems to be the policy, whatever that means. You want to explain that to people?

Well, I can explain it. However, you know, the policy itself is not completely clear. The one China policy is what established what's called strategic ambiguity is often misunderstood. The one China policy simply recognizes one China that is communist China. And while we acknowledge their claim on Taiwan under the one China policy, we do not endorse that claim.

On the other hand, just like Putin sees Ukraine as a part of Russia, President Xi sees Taiwan as a part of China. So the U.S. policy is purposely unclear. By law, the only thing we're obligated to do is to give them the means to defend themselves. The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 obligates us to arm them. That's all. But here's the thing, Jay. There is nothing in law to forbid any President from sending troops into Taiwan. So when President – do we have the statement where he said it? Let's play it again.

I want people to hear this. It's really troubling. Very quickly, you didn't want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons. Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that? Yes.

You are? That's the commitment we made. So it's been interpreted that militarily meant troops. But Xi used the example of Ukraine that what we did not do there.

And basically the import of the question is are you willing to do in Taiwan what we did not do in Ukraine? And his answer is an unequivocal yes. Here's the thing, Jay. This is the third time President Biden has said this. I know.

So let me ask you the same question I asked Rick Grenell because this is what's bugging me. So if the Chinese decide to invade Ukraine – excuse me, invade Taiwan, what do we do? What does the United States do?

Yeah. Hopefully, I mean – No, let's say they invade. Tomorrow morning we wake up and what Putin did to Ukraine, Xi does to Taiwan, flies its troops, amphibious landing, military attacks, starts a war. What do we do? We invoke vigorously the Taiwan Relations Act.

We continue – Which means what? We arm them. We give them everything they need to defend themselves. Can they defend themselves?

I'm being hard on this because I'm going to be practical. I know. Yeah.

How do you defend yourself? Taiwan's not a large country. No. To defend themselves against the Chinese military if the Chinese decided they were going to take it over. Right.

It's one of those unknowns. We thought Ukraine would fall in a matter of days. The will to fight figures in prominently. But on the other hand, you're correct, they would be completely overpowered and outnumbered, Taiwan would, by China. And so, you know, they would defend themselves for a while. We have armed them to the teeth. They are, minus the nuclear powers, Jay, Taiwan is as well armed as China is. It's just that there are so many more Chinese and so many more Chinese weapons.

But the Chinese military could overrun the Taiwanese. Oh, absolutely. So this to me is, Jordan, is the problem of reckless statements coming out of Joe Biden. Yes, it's just, again, there was an easy answer there to, we're going to follow US law, use this to US policy. Next question.

But he doesn't take the easy route. He takes these, he makes these tough statements and then put our entire military into a corner and gives the Chinese the ability to come out and say, which is what they said, that they're very upset about this, as you can imagine. It's not that I care about upsetting the Chinese, but let's all be honest right now in the United States of America. We have not done what we need to do here for our economy to just cut China off. So let's talk about, let's say we didn't have the nuclear threat from China and they still invaded Taiwan, which they do, so it's hard to imagine. But let's take that off. Think about the economic threat they pose to us.

Oh, unbelievable. We are so reliant on goods and high tech to medicine to, I mean, so what's happened is in China, the production of high level goods, you know, and high tech, medical, and of course, all the just normal stuff that you need to, you need. So we're not ready in the United States. I would like to get to that point, just like I would like to get that point on energy where we don't, we aren't so reliant on China, but they could punish us economically in a way that very few countries actually, we can punish a lot of countries economically. Very few can punish us. This is one that can. They could punish us.

They could. We have so many fewer options with China than we did with Russia because we are dependent commercially and financially on China so that we could go in robustly with Russia and try to cut them off economically. If we did that to China, we would wreck the US economy and hurt US citizens by that because we're so dependent on them.

That's geopolitically, that's the one thing that we really, really, really need to change because we have little leverage over China because we're so dependent on them. Colonel, let me ask you one question about Ukraine. It's not in the news as much these days, but Zelensky is saying they are running out of supplies. They're running out of munitions. What's the situation? We are still giving them lots of supplies and I am not sure exactly what kind of munitions he's talking about other than they are expending a lot of rounds, both rockets and artillery rounds.

We are still shipping things to them. Perhaps the fight is so intense and they are using so much ammunition, they are indeed running short. But here's the other thing, and this has been in the news recently too, Russia also is running short on ammunition and they've lost thousands of military vehicles. It's becoming more and more a true stalemate logistically and militarily in Ukraine. So how does that end? I think there needs to be a negotiated end to this.

I really do. I can't see Vladimir Putin continuing this indefinitely. I know there's a lot of fear of him using a tactical nuclear weapon. I personally don't think he will go there either. They've had their hat handed to them militarily. He will look for an exit ramp.

Zelensky needs to look for one for him too, perhaps giving him Donbass and calling it a day. By the way, more developments on the Durham trial. We'll get into those on the broadcast tomorrow. The trial that's going on against Sussman, interesting developments there, showed that Russia hoax was exactly that.

A hoax from the outset and as I said on the floor of the United States Senate, they knew it the moment it happened. That's right. So more to talk about. I can't, if we're trending on this Monday, get to a lot of different issues to get you up to speed on what's going on here in the United States, around the world that's affecting the United States. As always, I encourage you to check out ACLJ.org.

Secretary Pompeo has a new piece up on the baby formula shortage and how the administration is responding. So check that out at ACLJ.org. You know we're on Truth Social now, just like we're on Rumble with the show, so check us out there. If you're on Truth Social, the same names, you know, at Jordan Sekul, at J-Sec, you can find us there. Yep, ACLJAction.org. We're still seeking your members. You can join $25.