Georgia Voting Law: MLB Bows to the Radical Left

Today on Sekulow, Major League Baseball bows to the radical left, cancels the all-star game in Georgia, and the U.S. and the Biden administration just begging for some kind of communication with Iran. Live from Washington, D.C., Sekulow Live. Phone lines are open for your questions right now.

Call 1-800-684-3110. And now, your host, Jordan Sekulow. So today on Sekulow, by the way, Secretary of State, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, the ACLJ will be joining us in the third segment of the broadcast live.

We'll be talking about this as well. Fox News reported, and I think everybody knows who follows baseball at least or follows the news, knows that the Major League Baseball has decided to move the July all-star game out of Atlanta, out of Georgia, the same week that they signed a new deal with a Chinese firm that dropped the NBA over at NBA's Executives Hong Kong support. That firm is a tech firm, Chinese tech firm, run by the Communist Party of China, and it is also one that helps track down dissidents.

That's the same firm that has signed a deal with Major League Baseball. The question here is, are all these activists just following talking points instead of actually realizing what this law has in it and what the law does not have in it? And a lot of what's going on online, the law doesn't have. In fact, Joe Biden got four Pinocchios from the Washington Post fact checkers, four Pinocchios for saying that it ends voting hours early. No, voting hours in Georgia stayed exactly the same, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. As long as you're in line by 7 p.m., you'll be able to cast a vote, so no change there. But Joe Biden and the left will just continue to lie about this.

They're calling it Jim Crow 2.0, and literally there are blue states like his home state of Delaware which have more restrictive laws. Delta Airlines is also supporting the idea of this kind of boycott of Georgia. And that's an Atlanta-based company. A big Atlanta-based company, Coca-Cola.

All of these companies. Now, Major League Baseball makes the move. Now, realize what they're objecting over is a requirement for voter identification.

That's really what it is. Okay. Now, to get on your Delta Airline flight, you have to show your ID to get your ticket. To pick up your will call tickets at the Major League Baseball game, you have to show your ID in order to get your tickets. To visit the world of Coke and pick up your tickets at our will call, you have to show your identification.

You would think to vote, that might be the same thing? No, I mean, you can list everything that requires an ID in the United States. I mean, they can ask to see your ID if you use a credit card. They can still ask. Under COVID, maybe that is not the case as much, but it's still obviously something that can be done.

You have to show your ID for just about everything in the United States, registering kids for school, all of this going down, down, down the list. But here's the bottom line. They're lying about the water and the food.

And it's a sad commentary, too. The county and the specific election precinct can hand out as much water, provide as many resources to people waiting in line as they want. What it bars is interest groups from feeding people to wait in line. Now, that's a sad commentary on voting in America, that the only way they think that these people will vote, and that Stacey Abrams thinks they'll actually vote, is if they feed them in line.

And that I guess water is not enough either from the county. This again, they have expanded the ability to do absentee voting. But you do have to have an ID. And by the way, to make it easy, if you don't have a driver's license, if you're asking that question, you can just get a state issued ID for how much? Absolutely nothing.

It costs you zero dollars to get a state issued ID, and you can then participate in voting however you like. What's also interesting, we'll get into this, the Major League Baseball Commissioner is a member of Augusta National. Oh, that's happening this week. Yeah, that's this week. Now, they haven't moved to get rid of that one yet because they didn't have time. But here's the thing, Marco Rubio, our friend, the United States Senator, has sent a letter to Mr. Manfred saying, by the way, you're a member of Augusta National. Are you going to keep that membership?

That's in Georgia. So here you go. This is what's going on. We're going to get you all this information. We're going to stay on top of these issues. Your support of the ACLJ keeps it all happening. Matching Challenge Month for April, ACLJ.org. Any amount you donate is doubled. Yep, and we're taking your phone calls too as well, 1-800-684-3110.

It's the MLB following in the bad business decision footsteps of what we saw with the NBA, NFL, and now the MLB. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. But whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

Take part in our Matching Challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life.

Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. Alright, so here's all the companies that are supporting the Major League Baseball decision and condemning the Georgia election law. So you got Coca-Cola, which is of course based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Same place where the All-Star game would have been located. Home Depot, based in Atlanta, Georgia. Both of those companies, Coca-Cola has expanded its beverage production in China with six new facilities, with more to follow in 2021. Home Depot has tried to operate inside China. They haven't done a great job there, but it still accounts for 0.3% of their sales.

They haven't given up completely. Delta, of course, a major airline. They are totally partnered with China to be one of those major airlines, and yet Senator Rubio tweeted earlier, what can we expect your letter saying?

Their ongoing genocide is unacceptable and does not match Delta's values. So again, Apple, same thing. That's their manufacturing base for your iPhone. Facebook was banned in China. They're hoping to return, so they're begging China for a return to their market. And of course, the Atlanta Hawks, the NBA, has made deals with China as much as possible and even fired an executive over their criticism of Hong Kong. The NBA fired its executive. So the double standard here is pretty unbelievable.

I want to go to Professor Harry Hutchison. Our policy director is also in senior counsel at the ACLJ. And first of all, the law in Georgia actually expands, in my view. I mean, if you look at it in total, and you have to look at election laws in total, expands various areas of election rights, I mean, voting rights. Absolutely, and it codifies this expansion in quite a contrast, for instance, with the Delaware election law. And it's very, very important to note that all of the opposition to the Georgia law, all of the criticism is based on first a false narrative that election, the opportunity for voters to vote has been shrunk.

That is untrue. At the same time, the opposition to this Georgia law is grounded in opposition to election integrity. So the Georgia law was aimed primarily at one thing, expanding election integrity. Apparently, US corporations, who have a distinguished history of racism in their own past, and who are continuing to work with the eugenics-based regime in China, now feel free to criticize a law by claiming, along with social justice warriors, that you can vanquish racism in the United States by what?

Seeing it everywhere. And I think at the end of the day, the American people ought to reject this approach by woke corporations to bully the state of Georgia or any other state that votes in favor of laws that improve election integrity. You know, one of the things I said earlier, and I want to reiterate that, is the main objection to the law is this voter ID requirement, which is, by the way, voter ID requirements are in most states. We did an analysis, the law in Georgia is more open for election, more available, makes election easier than Joe Biden's home state of Delaware.

Joe Biden also said, which got four Pinocchios from the Washington Post, that, and why don't we play that sound of his, let's go ahead and play it first. What I'm worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is. It's sick.

It's sick. Deciding in some states that you cannot bring water to people standing in line waiting to vote, deciding that you're going to end voting at five o'clock when working people are just getting off work. Number one, you can bring water to a line in Georgia. Now, what they don't want is political parties handing out food, water, inducement on voting.

If you want to bring your own water, or if the local county officials are going to have water available, they can do that. So that's not right. He was wrong on the less hours. Yeah, it goes until 7 p.m.

It goes to 7 p.m. As it always has. But really what it's about is also the ID. They're not going to just mail out ballots anymore to people that may or may not be able to receive them, appropriately receive them. And they're going to require voter ID, just like Major League Baseball requires that when you pick up your tickets, just like Delta Airlines requires it when you go on the airplane. Now, Than, Marco Rubio has already spoken out on this.

Where are the other members of the Senate on this? Well, Major League Baseball may have really opened Pandora's box on this, Jay. And I mean, I'll say this first. You know this. I'm a huge baseball fan, Jay.

I mean, I've got the surgically repaired shoulder and need to prove it. But this is something that they have ventured into deep waters on. You mentioned Marco Rubio. He's working with Senator Cruz, Senator Rubio, and Congressman Jeff Duncan out of South Carolina, Jay, to introduce legislation that would repeal Major League Baseball's antitrust invention. I know we probably don't want to get all the way into the weeds on that, but essentially it's this. Since the 1920s, Major League Baseball has been considered a sport, not a business. That is not true for the NBA, the NFL, or the NHL. But, Jay, if they want to go down this path and attack businesses in Georgia, they are going to get a response from both the House and the Senate.

And I think all of those members that we talked about are going to push for hearings and they're going to push for bipartisan support of that kind of legislation. That's something, Jay, that Commissioner Manfred, he absolutely can't tolerate that. He also can't tolerate giving up his national membership.

Yeah, I mean I think this is where this all comes to an interesting point. Is that these elite CEOs are some of the wealthiest people in the country. They are detached from reality.

They are detached from even probably baseball itself. Because even though it's not considered a business, as Stan said, under our law, it is a giant corporate business. It's made a decision that because of other corporations, they should cancel this event in Georgia because of the laws of the state. Even though it was going to be at the Atlanta Braves stadium, a city that is really being punished. Even Stacey Abrams, she doesn't like this law at all, but she says, I've stated I respect boycotts, although I don't want to see Georgia families hurt by lost events and jobs.

That's exactly what is going to happen. The people that are affected the most by this moving are not the corporations that can go move their event sites and other parties they're going to have and events they're going to have to another city. Coca-Cola is not going to move out of Atlanta.

And Delta Airlines is not going to move out of Atlanta because of all the tax incentives they have for being there and the airports that were built for their businesses. So who are they hurting here by doing this? Who are they hurting there? The people that work the concession stands, the small businesses that would have been benefiting from this, Harriet. It impacts the local economy to the tune of at least a hundred million dollars. Absolutely.

So that's what you're hurting. Corporate virtue signaling has a disproportionately adverse effect on African Americans and this is a classic illustration of that. And so the Major League Baseball League and many of these corporations, they are sending a signal loud and clear. We are prepared to believe a law so long as we believe it will improve our bottom line. Equally clear, these corporations are quite willing to maintain and expand their relationship with China. One of the worst human rights violators in the world.

It continues to subordinate the Uyghurs and other members of its population. And more likely than not, these woke corporations cannot stop themselves from going to China hat in hand, bowing a knee to these Chinese dictators. So at the end of the day, all Americans, African American and non-African American alike, should reject the false narrative being pushed by these major corporations who do not care really about the American people.

It's all about improving their bottom line. I don't know if we have time for this and maybe, Will, we need to do this in the second half hour. But the quote that Sage steals question from ESPN, we have time.

Go ahead and listen to this and listen to Joe Biden's response. What do you think about the possibility that baseball decides to move their All-Star game out of Atlanta because of this political issue? I think today's professional athletes are acting incredibly responsibly.

I would strongly support them doing that. The very people who are victimized the most are the people who are the leaders in these in these various sports. And it's just not right. This is Jim Crow on steroids.

You know, I don't like when people throw around the term Holocaust and I don't like when people throw around Jim Crow, just as if it because I think it diminishes the significant historical aspects of those two of those tragedies. However, let me explain something to Joe Biden. The people who are victimized the most are the people who are the leaders in these various sports. The baseball player making 30 million dollars a year could figure out. And the MLB commissioner.

Right, right. And the Major League Baseball commissioner are not being victimized by these laws. No, they're victimized by hardly any laws.

They're some of the wealthiest people. And they're exempt, as fans said, from antitrust laws. So let's be clear. So I mean, I think they have opened up a box where, again, we've seen the NBA do it, but they don't get the special treatment of baseball. Saw NFL do it, they don't get the special treatment of baseball. Baseball gets this special treatment as kind of America's pastime. But when it starts canceling out on some of America's biggest cities, is it America's pastime anymore? How many people are going to turn off baseball now that turned off so many of the sports and so much of the ESPN commentary because it became like another MSNBC?

Yeah, fan said this, and we'll pick it up in the second half hour. You know who's getting hurt here? The hot dog vendors and the hourly wage earners.

That's what's getting hurt. Exactly. Explain that to those families, by the way.

And people are finally starting to get back to work. We'll be right back on Secular with Mike Pompeo. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, the Planned Parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad, whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support. Take part in our Matching Challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org.

Welcome back to Secular. We are joined by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Senior Counsel for Global Affairs at the ACLJ. And Secretary Pompeo, I want to go right to you on the Major League Baseball decision to cancel out Atlanta as the host of the July 13th All-Star Game.

We don't know where it's being moved to, but you've been very direct. You tweeted out, Georgia's laws don't comport with the Major League Baseball quote values, but I guess China's do. And you continued tweeting out, and we've continued explaining to people, Secretary Pompeo, all these different corporate interests based out of Atlanta who are supporting this move and all their ties to China. You know, Jordan, it's odd to hear the Major League Baseball commissioners say that this is about values, when in fact, if he'd have taken two minutes to read the bill, this was something that Georgia put in place to protect the electoral system and the process. All the stories about food and all this, this is crazy stuff.

It's not consistent with what they really did. And I know when people around the world see this, when they watch what we're doing here in Atlanta too, to the hardworking people who fill the stadiums, who park cars, who do all this good work around them, all the restaurants and bar owners around the stadium, this is an enormously punitive measure taken to support some woke understanding of a piece of legislation that they only believe exists because the left wing medium told them it did in spite of what's really in the bill. You know, Mike, this is Jay, one of the things that they keep harping on is the requirement that you're going to have to have some type of ID to have absentee ballots, so that you mail in your absentee ballot, you're going to have to prove with some kind of ID.

Now, if you don't have a driver's license or the other ID that you can get for free, a Georgia ID card. The irony of this, this has kind of been their focal point of this thing because the stuff about the food ended up not being true. You could carry water if you want to bring in water. Local election officials can provide water.

They could provide a smorgasbord if they wanted to. They don't want the parties doing that, obviously, but it was the voter ID. The irony, of course, of all of this is that to get a ticket, to get your ticket at Delta Airlines, you got to show your ID to get on the plane. To get your tickets for Major League Baseball, you have to show your voter ID to pick your tickets at Will Call.

If you're going to go to the wonderful world of Coke in Atlanta, by the way, where Coca-Cola is based, you have to show your ID to get your Will Call tickets. So this is, again, they're using non-sequiturs. They are creating an issue in this woke environment, and all they're really hurting is the local, it's not hurting these baseball players who are making $20, $30, $40 million a year. It's hurting the hot dog vendor. It's hurting the suppliers.

It's hurting the people that work in the Atlanta stadium. The voter ID makes perfect sense. Most Americans know this. There's very few things that we do that don't require us to show an ID if there's a security component, if we want to know who it is, we're actually dealing with. You know, what underlays this too, Jim, we should just be honest about this, is this is Stacey Abrams' idea that is built on a lie that says somehow that asking for someone to get a free ID is past the skill set of certain groups of people.

It's not. Everyone can do this. We ought to honor them. We ought to make sure every Hispanic, every African American gets a chance to vote. We want all of them to have the opportunity to vote, just like anyone else in America.

It's the right thing to do and to suggest somehow that voter ID hearkens back to these times of poll taxes or Jim Crow. It's frankly sickening. They know it's not true and it is an effort to divide, not to unite us. You know, it ties into also Major League Baseball is doing deals with the Chinese Communist Party, both distribution deals where they can cover networks and using technology. Now, the Chinese, as you know better than anyone because you served as Secretary of State, have one of the worst human rights records in the world. I mean, one of the worst in the world. You're hearing no objection to them doing business with the Chinese Communist Party, but they have an objection to a baseball game being played in Atlanta. Yeah, it's the facts that belie the underlying theory of the case for them.

We know this. What are the voting rights for the typical Chinese person inside the country of China? Zero, unless you live in a place like Taiwan, a free and democratic place. But if you live in mainland China, your chance to vote, there's no voting ID required, Jay, because there's no voting to take place. This is a cynical ploy by these business leaders to make money in China and then deny the capacity for hardworking Americans to earn a living in Georgia.

It's really disturbing. Yeah, you look at the voting laws in Georgia versus New York because New York is making a bid. Chuck Schumer said all he wants is New York. Georgia, under the new law, allows 17 days of early voting. New York only allows nine. Georgia allows no excuse to vote by mail, and New York requires an excuse, so you have to have a reason why you're voting by mail. The difference, Georgia, you have to have a valid ID required to vote by mail and in person, and New York doesn't.

See, that's it right there. The water, even New York has a ban on passing out food and water unless it's under a certain value, and there's no ID, so there's nothing about. Whoever passes it out to you doesn't have a shirt that says, Vote This Way, or a political movement that you would somehow connect to how to vote. And then, of course, in Georgia, they ban passing out food and water within 150 feet, but allow unintended water receptacles, so you can put out water for people as much as you want.

You just won't get to put out your political messaging. Look, Jordan, at a bunch of states, including my home state of Kansas, what Georgia did is a sincere effort to enhance and create a broader scope for valid voters to cast a ballot, but to make sure we have secure and integrity-filled elections as well. It's common sense that the Left has used this, again, as a chance to divide us. It's really unfortunate that it became a fact-free discussion based on some liberal critical race theory that was thrown into the mix, and that a series of senior business leaders who are headquartered in the state of Georgia saw fit to do this, while having to acknowledge that it's not really about values because other places they operate have far worse voting rules, including places they operate all around the world. It's not just China. Many other countries where Major League Baseball does business, including all the wonderful Cuban ball players who come from Cuba, are a place that Commissioner Baseball has no problem doing business with.

Mr. Secretary, let me ask you this. I want to turn our attention to Iran if we can. I mean, Joe Biden's administration, of course the people that are there now, are the ones that negotiated the so-called Iran JCPOA, went back in desperately. They're not doing direct negotiations.

I don't know if we have that quote from Jen Psaki where she talks about that the environment's not the same as 2015 and 2016, not because of the changes that your administration made in the Middle East with these regional partnerships. So they want in desperately here. I mean, they're not going to talk direct, but they're talking indirectly. Where's this going? So there are a series of meetings that will take place this week in Vienna.

Americans will be present. I'd heard Secretary Blinken talk about longer and stronger, but they wanted a better agreement. I hope that's what they really mean. His negotiating team, Rob Malley, Wendy Sherman, the folks who are likely to be at the center of decision-making around this, are using very different language. They're suggesting some sort of moral equivalence between Iran and the United States.

They say, well, we both distrust each other. That sounds very much like something the UN would say, not somebody who was representing the United States of America in a discussion that has deep, deep security implications, not only for America, but for our friend and ally, Israel, and for our friends in the Gulf as well. Yeah, I mean, I think, again, when you look at this situation involving shuttle diplomacy, to me, it just reminds me that the Biden administration seems like they are begging, just begging Secretary Pompeo for Iran to give any communication to them whatsoever. Yeah, we've got about 30 seconds here, but it does seem like we're begging for engagement. We can't be desperate in a negotiation. You have significant provisions that have disappeared or disappeared in 2025 and 2030.

The old agreement is not something we can go back into. Thank you very much. We appreciate Secretary Pompeo being with us, and, of course, he is our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs at the ACLJ. Thanks, Mike. We appreciate it.

Let me tell you this, folks. Your support of the American Center for Law and Justice allows this broadcast, with this kind of analysis, to come into your home five days a week on multiple media platforms. It also allows us to hire people like Mike Pompeo and Rick Grenell and others. Support the work of the ACLJ and our Matching Challenge campaign. Any match you donate, we get a matching gift for. ACLJ.org. March was fantastic.

We want to see the same in April. ACLJ.org. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20. A $50 gift becomes $100. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family.

Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. We're talking about freedom. We're talking about freedom. We will fight for the right to live in freedom. Live from Washington, D.C., Sekulow Live.

And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. So we've tried to go through with you some of this latest move by the left in corporate America. You know, for everybody out there who thought and maybe who still thinks, oh, big business and Republicans, they are there in bed with each other. The Republican Party is the party of big business. Think again. It is the left that is the party of big business. It is the left that is the party of big corporations. And it's put on display by how quickly Major League Baseball will move the All-Star game out of a state, out of a city, because of what a state has done.

Think about that, too. It's out of a city, part of the state, because of what a state legislature has done, which, by the way, is less restrictive than many voting laws in the country. And we heard this from Joe Biden, too. When he complained about Georgia, he said that, oh, it's not just Georgia, it's like the majority of the country. In fact, more than just what you're thinking, majority.

Take a listen to Biden. This is Jim Crow on steroids, what they're doing in Georgia and 40 other states. 40 other states is a lot more than just red state, blue state. So does he mean that 40 other states, great, are securing their voting laws?

I mean, I think that would be a wonderful thing, but I don't see that happening in a lot of blue states unless those blue states already have such restrictive voting laws that they don't need to reform theirs. We saw New York State does. Yeah, New York State does. Much more so than Georgia. Much more so than Georgia. But the idea that 40 states, he has no idea what he's talking about.

None. I realize we have a President who literally makes statements about 40 of the 50 states in the United States doing what Georgia's doing with no proof of that. He got four Pinocchios for that as well.

This is a guy who's just making up things when he's not on teleprompter. So you've got his home state of Delaware more restrictive than voting in Georgia. You've got New York, where Chuck Schumer wants the All-Star game to go, more restrictive than Georgia. Now Joe Biden's saying 40 other states.

But Logan's joined us. All of these businesses, entertainment businesses, are all going to be part of this. Airlines.

This is the new woke moment, and this is the new attack. Well, I think you have to look at Georgia as its own thing. You think of Atlanta being just this major metropolitan area. People are not familiar with Georgia. They hear Georgia and they think of things that maybe are less savory to those communities and the way they look at it.

You don't think about Atlanta as this massive New York-style city that when you go and you see these businesses that are thriving there. Like you said, Hollywood has called for boycotts. Hollywood's called for boycotts in Georgia, though, back for the last few years, whether it was the Heartbeat Bill Bill or other things that have come. Because the problem is Atlanta doesn't necessarily represent the rest of the state. And it's always going to be a conflict. It's always going to be an issue.

And this time you are seeing... They wanted boycotts of businesses because of the Heartbeat Bill. Hollywood was a laundry list of people who were not going to work in Georgia because of it. And a lot of them stuck to it. Some did not. Some said, well, we're still going to do it. We're still going to donate our money to...

I think the Lovecraft Country donated their money for the episodes, certain people, to Stacey Abrams or to other places. So there was ways they kind of got around it without actually doing the full boycott. This time you've seen James Mangold, who's directing the new Indiana Jones movie.

Mark Hamill, who's Luke Skywalker. These are guys who are saying they're not going to work in Georgia until something is done. Now a lot of the people in Georgia, they're going to give themselves a little bit of a loophole there to get out of it. Because a lot of the pressure has come now from other people and said, again, much like Stacey Abrams said, this does not hurt the lawmakers. All this does is hurt a huge community of people who are blue collar people working on a lot of these movies.

They're talking about grips and it's not just about the stars. They said the local impact, Harry, I know we only got a minute here, is $100 million to the county. I mean, they're talking about Cobb County, immediately around the stadium. I mean, that's a huge number. It's a huge number. And again, I think as Logan intimates, this will hurt working class individuals and it will significantly hurt African American workers and African American businesses. So the whole idea of a boycott is hugely ironic, but we also live in a moment in which the facts rarely matter, truth doesn't matter.

It's all about emotions all the way down. All right, folks, we come back. We'll start taking your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110 to talk to us on the air. We get your Facebook comments, YouTube comments as well. We'll talk more about that Iran issue too.

We'll be right back on Sekulow. In the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support. For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

Take part in our Matching Challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, the play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift.

Alright, welcome back to Secular. We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. I want to take Mike's call in Oregon on Line 1. Hey Mike. Hi Jordan, how are you doing?

Good. Hey, um, I guess my question is, is, you know, this weekend I had a chance to meet with friends and family and trying to explain to people just the truth, like on the Georgia election law. I mean, there's so many people that are upset about the alleged discrimination because of water bottles and stuff like that. And you can tout the facts, but that doesn't seem to make a difference. How can a 1.12, you know, they want that sound byte, a quick area to be able to set them on the right data file? Well, that's the problem, right? So if they're only going to listen to sound bytes, then they're going to pick who they like the sound byte from. And if they liked it from the radical left, then, you know, unfortunately it's going to be tough to convince your family.

If you want to show them just side by side, there's tons of them available. In fact, just making it clear how this law is not disenfranchising, but it's actually a Georgia law that enfranchises more voters, expands voting times, expands access to absentee voting, and puts in the free ID. You don't have to get a driver's license, you get a free ID from the state. Once you also apply for an absentee ballot, you don't have to continue to apply in the future elections that year, so you only have to make one application once, no reason why, just make the application, but you do have to have an ID number to put down. So that's it. Driver's license or if you don't have one, they're paying for it in the state of Georgia.

I would think that that would be sufficient and that should not raise the problem, but it is. Now, some of it is there is an anti-Georgia bias. I think there is when it comes to, again, they're conflicted with the state of Georgia because Atlanta is, like I said, such a huge metropolitan area. Very diverse.

Oh, incredibly diverse. Great city, born and raised there, but you look at the rest of Georgia doesn't necessarily represent all of what's happening in just Atlanta. You have gigantic businesses, Coke, Delta, obviously. The film industry now. The film industry, and here's a little of a concern, so Hollywood moves to Atlanta about a decade ago, and now you're talking about full infrastructure. You're talking about gigantic film studios that are there. We're not talking about someone goes and shoot a movie there, and the same thing happened in Louisiana. In Louisiana, they ended up leaving because of tax credits. The tax incentives were better to shoot in Atlanta than they were there, but now Louisiana is filled with sound stages that are just abandoned. Not unlike Orlando in that sense, too, because these areas become hot for a moment and then the industry leaves. So Hollywood can leave. Now, most major motion pictures you watch are shot in Atlanta. All your Avengers, all of the things that you mainly see.

You look around. If you're familiar with the area, you realize all of this is in Atlanta. All your major Netflix shows are in Atlanta because the tax incentives are so good. That industry decides to pull out. Now, thankfully, it's just been a couple people.

We're not talking about no-name people here. When you're talking about some major production designers, we're talking about major actors and obviously huge directors that have said we're no longer going to work in the state because of these laws. Again, they did it for the heartbeat bill a few years ago and it kind of quieted down.

As things happen in Hollywood, the news moves on and so does the stars. But it could really hurt a big group of people who rely on this now as their business who moved to Atlanta because of the booming industries that they're threatening to leave. I want to talk about those tax incentives as the reason why people come to places and the impact this is going to have on all of that.

But I also want to go first to Thanh. We're talking about local elections, we're talking about statewide elections, but we're also talking about legislation on the federal level that wants to federalize all of this. Yeah, a couple of things, Jay. First of all, we talked about a couple of segments ago about the effort in both the House and the Senate to repeal Major League Baseball's anti-Trump trust exemption.

I think this could really escalate that. Jay, though, to the point that Logan was making about the political consequences here, look, I think you can cut through all the interpretation here. What Logan's talking about is exactly why Stacey Abrams and Jon Ossoff, who both say that they hate this law, who both say that it is discriminative, all of those things. Jay, it's why they simultaneously said that it was a bad idea for the All-Star Game to be moved because they know two things. They know, number one, the impact will be felt on the very people that they say they are trying to help. And here's maybe the bigger one, Jay, maybe this is why they weren't willing to go to that second step. They also know that losing this type of revenue for the very people that they count on to vote for them, that hurts them in 2022 and it hurts them in 2024. That political calculation is why they're hedging on this. You're right.

There are other people even involved in the entertainment industry who've responded to people like James Mangold, who specifically said, hey, we worked for years here. We brought all of LA to Atlanta. Look at the elections. We did this. Don't boycott us, some of the more hard liberals that came to town.

Now you're going to pull out after we worked for years to get Democratic senators and representatives to get Biden to win. We did this. Hollywood did this. Hollywood brought it to Georgia. Now, obviously, not exactly what a lot of our people want to hear, but that's where you're going to see the industry kind of freaking out because they've spent so much time.

And infrastructure. Yeah, making Georgia potentially a blue state. Then when something could threaten that, including, again, The baseball game? The baseball game or people just abandoning ship for Georgia.

But yeah, you're talking about the big stars that have had this. It's an interesting issue that will continue to happen, I think, in Georgia because of the conflicts that happened there. This whole woke culture can have severe economic consequences, Harry, for these communities.

Like you just said, Logan, you've got an entire movie industry moves to Georgia. Now there's calls for that industry to move out, and they've done it before, like you said, in Louisiana. Now here you've got the tax incentives, and the incentives might override their wokeness. Or the incentives may go away.

Or maybe the incentives go away. Which is what happens, by the way, too, and that is the concern, is that what happened was Louisiana said, we can't take this anymore. The infrastructure was not there to keep giving them unlimited, essentially, no taxes. So what's the impact of all of this at the end of the day if this goes to end?

Because they're not playing long game. We'll talk about the politics in a minute, but I mean economically. Well, I think economically, people in Atlanta could be in for some tough times.

But it's also very likely that these boycotts, irrespective of the economic impact, will backfire. Because the whole Jim Crow woke culture narrative is largely fictional. So it's important to note that 70% of African American voters support, for instance, voter identification laws in order to support voter integrity. After all, they recognize it was the Democrats who invented voter suppression. After all, it was the Democrats that expanded the poll tax. After all, it was the Democrats that gave us separate but equal. So I think African Americans, they have some memory of the participation by the Democratic Party in suppressing the franchise with respect to African Americans. And so I think at the end of the day, over a period of time, more and more African American voters are going to recognize that this whole narrative is fictional and it is designed to drive power politics. You also have H.R.

1 pending, right? I mean, and the Senate version of that. So I want to go to Jordan and Thanh. I think it's important for Jordan and Thanh to speak to this. Because that also is kind of an overlay in all of this.

Yeah, absolutely. The overlay is that the federal government is going to try and come in and override any of these states' laws or try to, again, put these states' laws in jeopardy. And Thanh, that is key in Washington, is they want the federal takeover of election laws, which the Constitution is very clear about, but they at least want to try. It's very clear, Jordan. I mean, think about the conversation you had just a few minutes ago about more than half of states having these voter ID laws.

They've chosen that that works best for their population. If H.R. 1 and its companion, S. 1, were enacted into law, Jordan, all of those state laws on voter ID would be wiped away because it would be the federal government that would be setting that standard. And when it comes to the issue of identification, the bill specifically says that you would allow sworn statements, Jordan, sworn statements to be put in the place of a voter ID.

So if a voter is planning to break the law and vote as someone that they are not, all they have to do is swear to you, Jordan, that they are telling the truth. That's what H.R. 1 and S. 1 would stipulate.

So, look, I really... What's the status of those? It has passed the House. It is in the Senate. And, Jay, this ties directly into the conversation we've had many times about the cloture motion, about the filibuster. They are trying to get Joe Manchin to modify his stance on the filibusters so that they can move S. 1, this bill, through the United States Senate.

Jordan, to me, he sounds wobbly on it. Yeah, I think absolutely. I mean, this is, again, it is another one of those moments where we're going to have to see the filibuster remain. Joe Biden said he wants a build-up. He wants laws to be rejected first. This could be one of those that then is the kind of building point to get to the removal of a filibuster. And they're saying they even might want to remove it for purposes of voting rights only.

They're going to try to limit its removal because they know that they're so close to losing the majority in the Senate that it would easily benefit Republicans to be able to just stop any kind of move by Biden, but also pass any legislation they want. All right, so we're going to be coming back for the last segment. We'll take your comments on Facebook or on YouTube, however you get them in, on social media platforms. We'll also take your calls at 1-800-684-3110, 800-684-3110. Don't forget to support the work of the ACLJ. We're at the beginning of April. We've got our April matching challenge, March and April, both matching challenge months.

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Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. All right, welcome back to Sekulow. One other topic too I just wanted to point out because we talked about with Secretary Pompeo is that over the weekend, yet again, announced that in a weekend where they're hoping you're not paying attention, you know, with Easter and with more things opening up, that the U.S. begging to do this deal with Iran and get back into the Iranian nuclear deal, so they're in Vienna tomorrow, the Iranians will not meet with the United States face to face. They are saying, we're not meeting with you face to face. In fact, if you don't drop all the sanctions on us, we're still not going to really meet with you. But the U.S. is hoping for what's called shuttle diplomacy.

What does that mean? Someone else in the room that they're meeting with, a European country that is in a deal with Iran, will bring messages from the U.S. and then Iran will bring messages back to the U.S. The question is, why is the Biden administration begging to get back into a horrible nuclear deal with Iran? I just didn't want you to lose that because that was a new development that now the Biden administration is beginning to try and get into communication with Iran in a more formal way.

Rick Rinnell talks about it a lot on our show, this consensus approach of utilizing other countries to do our bidding for us because Iran is at a point saying, well, we got this deal with China, we don't need the United States face to face and deal with their trouble. Well, you're right. We've got some interesting comments coming in on Facebook and YouTube.

This is Jackie on YouTube. She writes, IDs are free in Georgia. How can they claim this restricts voters? Well, they can't, but what's happened is there's this false narrative. They made a big deal about water. I mean, that became this whole thing of they're denying water in Georgia for voters, which ended up not being true. And then Joe Biden saying the hours are restricted.

Not only was that not true, they were expanded, but they're more broader and more accessible than his home state of Delaware, which I guess is maybe in the 40 states that he considers restrictive. Then Chuck Schumer wants the voting, the all-star game moved to New York where they have less early voting dates than they do in Georgia. So there is a Georgia animus here. That is what this is.

Yeah, I think so. I think Georgia takes a brunt of a lot of these things just due to the fact that they're Georgia. I mean, it's just true. I mean, look, and look, is there a checkered past in Georgia?

Sure. A lot of people can look and look at the history of it and go, yeah, there's obviously things that happen in all states that have issues, but Georgia gets lumped in on this because again, it isn't an odd state. It's an odd state.

You said first time voted blue, but really if you look at it just as a map, you can just see the little blue dots that exist within Georgia. So you have all of these issues. And again, like you said, there's a lot of misinformation going on about these, even talked about this morning, like let's try to break this down. It's not that simple to break down what really the argument is. And that's maybe the weirdest part of all this.

It's not like you can easily see the other side. You go, okay, is this, what are we, what are we talking about here? It's an odd situation. Harry, the disproportionate impact of all of this, and that's what I'm trying to look at here is the impact that it has economically, we've talked about the impact it has on voting. I mean, if Georgia, for instance, if you're a Democrat, you'd be thinking, hey, we've got two Georgia senators, right? There's a governor's race in less than two years.

Hmm. How's that going to shake out? And you've got a demographic shift in Georgia that's been real, a lot of it because of the movie industry coming in.

So you've got a much more diverse culture. I think that's why a lot of the Hollywood guys have been quiet because they're like, we've done a lot. But now let's destroy those industries that have been built up and created an economy. That's what it sounds like the plan is here, which is really insane. Well, I think it is, but Democrats and politicians in general are not well known for their ability to think long term. And so it's very likely that over the long term, a boycott of Atlanta will backfire against the very interests that are supporting the boycott. And so at the end of the day, they are using a fictional narrative claiming voter suppression when Democrats obviously were able to get out and vote in the last election. And they claim two seats in the United States Senate.

They seem to ignore the actual history of voting in Georgia. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Let's go ahead and take the phone calls 1-800-68-431. Tim, we'll also take other comments that are coming in. Dan's calling from Ohio on Line 1. Hey, Dan. Thank you for taking my call. My question is, since the Constitution gives the states the right to make their election laws, wouldn't they have to amend the Constitution in order to do what they're trying to do in H.R.

1? So I mean, Dan, this is the issue, is that voting laws have been left up to the states, but there's been voting rights acts. The federal government has gotten involved before.

Sometimes the Supreme Court stepped in and said, okay, that's no longer necessary to apply that law. But certainly there has been a federal role that's been asserted before by Congress and that the Supreme Court has accepted. Yeah, no question about it, Jordan. And I think the caller is correct that this would definitely end up in litigation. The one thing I would tell him, though, is this is not an issue where the federal government is trying to come in and regulate some portion of election law that states haven't decided on.

Jordan, this is a full takeover. So this is them taking over areas that states have well-regulated statute on. I have no doubt that it would be litigated. We would be involved in that.

Let's talk about what those are, though, Dan. Tell people what would be at stake here if H.R. 1 and S.R. 1 were to become law.

Whole line of things, Jordan. The federal government would take over registration. There would be automatic registration. Every state would be forced to do mail-in balloting where all the ballots are sent out to the voters. Jay, how many states did we see problems on that in 2022?

So take those states you had problems on and multiply it times 50 states. You would have public funding of elections, Jay. So if I donated $20 to Jordan's campaign for federal office, you and other taxpayers would have to multiply that by six and also donate to him. And Jay, one thing we've talked about on this broadcast that's also in there is the repeal of the Lois Lerner rule, which is something that we advocated for very vociferously.

It would give the I.R.S. again the ability to target organizations based on their political viewpoint. Jay, that's scratching the surface of what's in this bill. You're talking about letting the fox in the henhouse, but let's also talk about voter integrity.

Now, we have an elections clause in the United States Constitution and an electors clause. And I would think both of those would be at play if this bill becomes law. I think that's correct. But I also think that the Democrats see this law as a possible insurance program which would allow them to control the federal government and the state governments eventually for the next 10, 20, 30 years. So I think that's their objective. I secondarily, I would point out that a recent study of Montana absentee voting found that there were irregularities with respect to one out of 14 ballots. That's virtually 7% of the votes. And that could sway an election in virtually any particular state. Again, I think what you have to realize here is there is a push by the left to radically change our election laws. And any attempt to secure the elections so that we do not have a repeat of the previous election where people have such doubt on either side about whether their votes were counted, about whether wrong votes were counted, and so these states are stepping up. Now, I wish it was 40 states that were doing so, but Joe Biden is wrong on that. There are some states doing so, like Georgia. Georgia is probably the biggest when it comes to having the financial incentives that may increase to a backlash.

So what will it need? Well, I think one thing is the big question is did any of these companies actually do anything that changes Georgia or is this a one-time, yes it's bad, it's a $100 million loss to a county, but over time that can be overcome. Or is this the beginning? I'm more concerned that this is the beginning.

We're starting to see this more often and to see this headline continually, and I think that's very dangerous. We need to support the work of the ACLJ, another matching challenge month, this month of April. March and April is so important to the ACLJ. Donate today and we will talk to you tomorrow.

At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20. A $50 gift becomes $100. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org.