VP Harris Gets Highly Defensive During Long-Awaited Border Visit

Today on Secular, Vice President Harris gets highly defensive during her long-awaited border visit. The DOJ files a new lawsuit against Georgia over voting and the new law there. We're also going to be joined by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Live from Washington, D.C., Secular Live. We are here today to address and to talk about what has brought people to the U.S. border and again to continue to address the root causes which cause people to leave and often flee their home country. Phone lines are open for your questions right now.

Call 1-800-684-3110. How did you decide that right now was the right time to make your first trip to the border? Well, it's not my first trip. I've been to the border many times.

That's the person in charge of the response. The important aspect of this visit is leading this visit after the work that we did in Guatemala and Mexico. Because as I've long said, I said back in March I was going to come to the border, so this is not a new plan.

And now, your host, Jordan Secular. Oh, but the timing is certainly suspicious. The location, to put it in the words of a former Obama official, it's a much more secure location than Brownsville area or some parts of the Arizona area. And so if you're trying to show that the border is secure, you are much more likely to go to El Paso. Also, the former President, President Trump, plans to join a number of members of Congress, as well as the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, next week, next Wednesday on the border in Texas with Mexico. So you saw this, I think, quick change in plans because they realized this could quickly be utilized because Republicans are going to show the real problems, where the real humanitarian crises are.

And so now Vice President Harris is finally at a border facility. But as we have been told by all of the experts, she's not really where the problem is. She's about 1,000 miles away still from where the real problem is.

As Senator Corden said, this came about 100 days late, 92 days exactly, to be exact, and 1,000 miles apart, too far away. And that's because where she is is not the hotbed. In fact, it's much more under control. It has been.

This has not been the problem zone. So we're going to talk about that today. Foreign Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be joining us in this first half of the broadcast. Second half hour, Ned Ryan, he's got a new book out called The Adversaries, a story of Boston and Bunker Hill. It's a historical fiction. Ned's a great friend of the broadcast and the conservative movement.

He'll be joining us live to talk about his new book as well. But I do want just everyone to understand that with everything going on right now, we're going to talk, too, about the lawsuit announced by DOJ just right before we went on air against the Georgia law. That's the first of about 17 states that tried to, following the 2020 election, put in place voter integrity measures at the state level, which they're allowed to do under the Constitution. And now the DOJ is saying, well, they're going to start with Georgia. They're looking to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, saying that these were actions done to implicitly prevent people from being able to vote.

So we will, again, and we're going to be able to analyze that even further next week as we actually start to see the lawsuits that are filed. But that has been announced by the Department of Justice. So those of you in Georgia and those 16 other states who have passed laws to try to build up your election integrity following 2020, so we don't see a repeat of that, be aware the activist DOJ, Merrick Garland, who's gotten a lot of pressure from the left to start taking more activist role as attorney general, is coming after your states.

And he's starting with Georgia. But he's also doubling the staff in the civil rights division of the DOJ. And they are looking to sue. They are looking to prevent your states who have the constitutional authority to make these rules, to change the rules and go through the legislative process, which they all did.

But they can still be challenged by the federal government. And that is what we're seeing. And what remains to be seen is whether there'll be a bigger pattern here.

Let me focus us back. Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110, because Vice President Harris is trying to say, well, this isn't a new trip. This is just a continuation of my big plan, except for if it was, you could have told us about this trip, right? It didn't have to come with 48 hours notice.

Oh, it just fit right now. You didn't have to go to the place that everybody says, oh, come on, that's a check the box visit. That's not what you do when you're vice President.

You don't make check the box visits. You go to the places where the real problems are. We'll be right back on Sekulow. Share this broadcast with your friends and family if you're watching online. The challenges facing Americans are substantial at a time when our values, our freedoms, our constitutional rights are under attack. It's more important than ever to stand with the American Center for Law and Justice. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress and in the public arena. And we have an exceptional track record of success.

But here's the bottom line. We could not do our work without your support. We remain committed to protecting your religious and constitutional freedoms.

That remains our top priority, especially now during these challenging times. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org where you can learn more about our life-changing work.

Become a member today. ACLJ.org. 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. It's interesting because I'll play the first bite because Vice President Harris, this is when she landed. You know, she said, I'm always going to, I was always planning to come here.

This was always the plan. She was kind of defensive because the question that was asked, you could hear, hey, was this all put together because former President Trump is coming next week? This is her answer. Take a listen.

Bite 26. How did you decide that right now was the right time to make your first trip to the border? Well, it's not my first trip. I've been to the border many times.

That's the person in charge of the response. So the important aspect of this visit is leading this visit after the work that we did in Guatemala and Mexico. Because as I've long said, I said back in March I was going to come to the border, so this is not a new plan. Okay, so she says this is a new plan. I said back in March. This is how she said it back in March. Now, if you listen to this closely, do you see this as something that, oh, I can plan this out?

This is something to put on the calendar somewhere, maybe a moving target, but it's in the plans. Take a listen. Do you have plans to visit the border?

Not today, but I have before and I'm sure I will again. That's what she's saying when she said, this has always been the plans, I said that in March, was that I'm not going today and I'm sure I will again. I mean, that's about as open-ended as it gets. But Andy, we will see today, and that's the vice President without being pushed too hard, just about, hey, why are you here now?

She's only there for two hours, we've learned. This is about, as they've said, the safest place to go, the place to check the box, the place that's most secure. You can show the imagery. This is kind of well run.

That's great, by the way. I think it'd be great to compare a facility that's gotten it under control because they have a lower amount of people, Andy, with a facility that's being overrun like in the Rio Grande Valley. Because there, you can also see some root causes and effects that are different, depending on where you're talking about crossing the border. Well, that's exactly right, Jordan. I mean, you go to the scene of the – not where everything is serene and wonderful and taken care of, if in fact it is, at El Paso or Brownsville.

I'm not sure that it is, but it's probably better than otherwise in other areas. But let me give you a statistic that really stands out in my mind. In May, at the El Paso border, where she is going for all of two whole hours today, 120 minutes, in May at El Paso, there were 22,219 encounters. In May, the same month, okay, at the Rio Grande border, where she should be going today, there were 50,793 encounters, over two to one. Why are you going to the place that is more placid, that is more under control if you're the border czar, because that's what she really is, then go to the place where there is the crisis 800 miles away? She cannot answer that question, Jordan.

Yeah, I mean, Harry, this idea, again, that this was all in the plans, it just reeks of more politics – it's playing politics with the issue. She's going to do her two hours there. That's not a significant trip to the border. She spent a lot more time in the Northern Triangle, a lot more time just with the Mexican leaders.

But with her own American team, the border patrol agents, ICE agents, those who run these facilities, even if she's in a place that doesn't see as much action, still sees 22,000 crossings. I mean, so there's action there. But, you know, it just reeks of a political decision that she never really wanted to go there, but oh my, Donald Trump's going there, he's going there with the Texas governor and Texas Republicans, so that's happening next week. We better get out ahead of this, so we'll just sit her down for a couple hours and have these kind of blah meetings.

Absolutely. So I think the Biden administration, just like the Obama administration before it, insists on leading from behind. As illustrated by Vice President Harris's press gaggle this morning, the Biden administration has been crystal clear on one thing. They have no idea what they are doing in terms of dealing seriously with the U.S. border crisis. First and foremost, they continue to show they're not serious about virtually anything unless it expands the power base of left wingers who continue to dominate the Biden administration's policy chops. Second, the Biden administration continues to focus on so-called root causes while ignoring clear and unmistakable evidence that it is their own unintelligent, incoherent policies that have caused a flood of illegal to surge across the southern border, with illegal crossings up this past May to a 20-year record of 180,000. And I think it's important to put this in context that President Biden's immigration policy failures are enhanced by incoherence, which was recently put on display by what? The Biden administration's decision to offer admission to the United States of Afghanis who helped U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

And I think we might applaud that. But guess what the Biden administration is doing? They are sending the Afghanis to third countries so that they can apply legally for a visa. Wouldn't it be more efficient to simply fly them to Mexico and then escort them to the U.S. border and allow them to walk across the U.S. border, just like terrorists have been free to walk across the U.S. border for months?

So again, the Biden administration's policy is incoherent, it's unintelligent and it's not working. This idea, Thanos, it's great to follow the rules when they can, so would like the interpreters, so go to a third state, file the claim there with the embassy and they'll take care of you. So we'll follow the normal rules of asylum seeking there. But yet when it comes to this mass influx of what they hope are new Democrat voters, they've always hoped that they can get to some way where these people will be legalized and able to vote, is they treat it, as Harry pointed out, just very differently. If you're immigrating anywhere else in the world, you've got to go through the long immigration process or make your asylum claim and have it adjudicated. If you're coming up through the southern border, and she's at a processing center, but again, many places on that border, you never have to go through any processing center, you get across and you make your way into America. Look, Jordan, everybody knows the asylum process is being abused.

Nobody in Washington, D.C., including the President and the vice President actually think that it's being used legitimately. And look, we've said it on this broadcast a lot, the people that hurts the most, Jordan, are the legitimate asylum seekers. These are people that we have helped during the course of the last several decades on many occasions. Jordan, those are the ones that are being left out in this lack of a strategy.

I would tell you maybe two things from sort of a macro Washington, D.C. perspective. First of all, on the timing of this, literally nobody believes her that this is not a response to President Trump and Governor Abbott announcing their trip. Everyone knows that it's a response to that. And then second, Jordan, you've played probably three or four bites now where Vice President Harris has essentially said the same thing. She's said some version of, look, this was always the plan.

I was always going to go to Mexico and Guatemala first, and then I was going to come to the United States. Look, Jordan, the problem with that is it's backwards. I mean, of course, the problems in Mexico and Guatemala are a part of this, but it is the job of the American administration to start with the American interest and then work the problem from that perspective. They're doing it exactly backwards.

And so, of course, you're going to get the results of all-time highs of encounters. Until they turn that around, Jordan, the problem is going to continue. I want you to share this broadcast with your friends and family, especially if you're watching on Facebook, on YouTube, on Periscope, because we're about to be joined by our senior counsel, former Secretary of State, former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, to talk about this. And the idea of just a lack of plan, Thanh, as well, there just doesn't seem to be, on the congressional side, but also on the administration side, their plan was to come in and undo the policies that were working that the Trump administration put in place at the executive level as policymakers. They have not tried to put forward anything comprehensive, and so far, those reversals in those initial plans have led to this massive surge.

They've caused the problem, Jordan. I mean, look, there were policies in place that were working at the end of the last administration, and let me just say, this is actually why we are in active litigation against the administration right now as a result of our FOIA requests. I won't mention all of the issues, Jordan, but, look, there was no reason to suspend the migrant protection protocols that were working the Remain in Mexico program, and yet they did it. There was no reason to suspend the Operation Talon program that was seeking down sex criminals illegally present in the United States, and yet they did it.

There is no reason to not be testing the DNA of parents or of adults that come across with minors, and yet they did all of that. Jordan, we are in a lawsuit. We're in litigation right now to find out what is happening and why those decisions were made. And one of the questions we want answered is, if you are taking down press releases when known terrorists cross the border, what happens when the next one crosses the border, Jordan? I mean, literally, today, if a known terrorist, someone that the United States knows is a terrorist, crosses the southern border, are we apprehending them? I'm not sure. Yeah, it's not clear. It's not clear because the word that we get, I'll ask Secretary Pompeo about this as well, this word encounters.

How is that legally defined? Does that mean that you took them under some kind of control and then released them? Are they in your custody?

Are they out of your custody? Is it different for every person? What does that mean when they say they have 180,000 encounters? Are most of those people just let on through? I mean, that's the question we still don't have answers to. I don't think we'll get them from Vice President Harris today, but we can certainly ask Secretary Pompeo about it. You know, these terms that are used to, I think, try and distract us. When they say 180,000 encounters, it sounds like they stopped 180,000 people.

I don't believe that's the case. We'll talk to Secretary Pompeo coming up next. 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, playing 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. The challenges facing Americans are substantial at a time when our values, our freedoms, our constitutional rights are under attack. It's more important than ever to stand with the American Center for Law and Justice. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress, and in the public arena. And we have an exceptional track record of success.

But here's the bottom line. We could not do our work without your support. We remain committed to protecting your religious and constitutional freedoms.

That remains our top priority, especially now during these challenging times. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life-changing work. Become a member today. ACLJ.org.

Let's get right back to it. We are joined by ACLJ's Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, the former Secretary of State, former CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Secretary Pompeo, let me ask you first this. It's shocking everybody this morning because Vice President Harris is finally at the southern border right now.

There's a lot of questions about the location that was chosen as kind of a place to check the box because it's a much more kind of a processing center, much more secure. It's not like what's going on in the Rio Grande where we see. But the numbers continue to rise. We're at 180,000. These are 20-year highs for just the month of May. Since they've come into office, it's over 700,000 encounters.

I want to ask you about that in a minute. But first of all, it's a two-hour visit, Secretary Pompeo, to one spot. So she's not going to multiple spots to see the differences and see how one area may be handling it, the other areas kind of, you know, feels like they've got not enough staff, not enough resources. Do you honestly think that anything will come out of this visit or was this a, we better check this box before President Trump heads down? Well, Jordan, I can't imagine that tomorrow there'll be fewer people come across than today or that today there'll be fewer people come across than came across yesterday as a result of her trip down to the border.

It doesn't appear to be a particularly serious effort. It looks like she's going down there just to complete a task that's been on her to-do list for an awfully long time, and she caught flack for handling this poorly. Sadly, we focus so much on her travel down there. I'm happy if she doesn't travel down there, if she could actually address the crisis at our southern border, if they could actually fix it, if their actions actually delivered in the way that we did for four years in the Trump administration. It took us a little while to get it right, but we had this issue in a place where we understood who was coming across our border. We had clarity about what was going to happen, and I think people all across Central America and Mexico and the world knew that our southern border was closed, that there was lawful immigration. But if you tried to get here illegally, we were going to stop you. We wouldn't do catch and release.

We wouldn't play any silly games. If you applied for asylum, you were going to stay in Mexico. Those are the things that matter, and for Vice President Harris to go down there and have some video taken of her at a processing center today, I can't imagine this is going to convince anyone thinking about coming across our border illegally to change their plans. With the policies, and that's really the focus, Secretary Pompeo, is that there were policies in place when the Trump administration came in. Things were not good at the border. That was acknowledged by the President while he ran for office in his first campaign, and he talked about the border a lot, securing the border, building the wall.

In fact, when she's in El Paso, you can see portions of that wall when they flew in, and you can see where it was finished and why maybe this is a calmer location. But the idea is that with all the policy changes made, do you think it matters really who is tasked with this administration, with this duty, if they won't get realistic about the actual policies that work and stop playing politics with policy? No, Jordan, it doesn't make a darn who he tasks. In the end, it's President Biden's responsibility. He's the commander in chief. He has the responsibility to secure our southern border. It is his statutory duty, his legal duty, and it's the right thing to do. And so in the military, we would always talk about the fact that you can delegate authority but not responsibility. In the end, this all falls on President Biden.

He's got to get it right. I hear them talk to Jordan about how our policies were bad. Look at what's happened to these people. They're trying to make their way across. Look at the horrors that are being inflicted upon them by these cartels and these coyotes. This is truly a humanitarian crisis, wholly apart and separate from the crisis that presents to our southern border. We get this word a lot, Secretary Pompeo, I know some other guys from our team have got questions for you, but this term, encounters, is used a lot.

We heard that there's 180,000 Border Patrol encounters in the month of May. How should we all interpret that? Does that just mean that people were taken and released? It certainly doesn't imply that they were all turned back. It just seems like a word that's specially chosen so that it's vague enough where you can't actually define what it means even when you were able to stop someone.

Jordan, I think that's exactly right. I think when the Biden administration uses this term, encounters, that just means that they came across someone. We know when we came into office that there was this policy of catch and release.

Take their name, take their number, tell them godspeed. I actually think this administration is handling it even worse than this. I think when they're having encounters, they're actually taking them into custody and then moving them throughout the country, giving them the capacity to be here and remain here, even if in an ambiguous status. We know that many of these folks will ultimately come to live here long term, and they'll do so in a way that was inconsistent with US law. So my guess is, Jordan, your fears or your concerns about them using this word encounter are entirely justified.

Mr. Secretary, let me turn your attention for just a minute to the JCPOA. Under Benjamin Netanyahu, the former Israeli Prime Minister, Israel refused to engage with the Biden administration over the Iran nuclear deal except to strongly oppose it. But the new Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, is taking a somewhat different approach by at least appearing to be working with President Biden behind closed doors. Netanyahu has said that Bennett isn't strong enough to stand up to Biden over the JCPOA.

What are your thoughts about that? Well, I don't want to quibble with the new Prime Minister about his tactics. In the end, the United States has to do everything that they can to ensure that the Iranians never get a nuclear weapon and go back into this nuclear deal.

It's just crazy. I hope that this is what Prime Minister Bennett is telling President Biden. I hope what he is saying, if they're talking, is that this will risk Israel's security situation. It will risk stability in the region. It will create the chance that other countries in the region will decide they need nuclear weapons. And the Prime Minister should be saying very clearly, we will never let Iran have a nuclear weapon. It's too dangerous for the Jewish homeland. And you are putting us in the difficult position that one day we may have to do the most difficult thing Israel could do, which is to go be in a position where they had to go take out an Iranian nuclear program. We ought not put the Israelis in that position.

We have the capacity to prevent that. And sadly, this is muscle memory for President Biden and his team, the same people who created instability in the Middle East by sidling up to the Iranians and giving them tens of billions of dollars in cash appear to be headed down that same dangerous path again. And Othead, you've got a question for Secretary Pompeo as well about his new piece up at ACLJ.org.

Yeah, Mr. Secretary, I wanted to ask you about your latest blog at ACLJ.org. It's called In Europe Trip, Biden Puts America Last. And I would tell you, Mr. Secretary, I actually feel kind of the same way about the Vice President's trip first to Guatemala and Mexico and then to the United States border.

It just seems like she got that backwards. But on Europe specifically and on what you wrote, why do you call this a wasted trip? Do you think there was absolutely no progress made there?

Was it just a waste altogether? I saw nothing that put America as the preeminent interest of this trip, whether, you know, whether he was handing over a pipeline to the Russians or the Germans or saying the point. It's great to be back in the club. I think those were President Macron's words. It was so much about optics, so much about saying that we're back on the team and we're back rather than say, no, this is what matters to America. This is how we're going to keep America secure. We want to be your friends and partners. You are great allies.

You've got to do your part, but we're going to make sure we get this right. And it was that was a lost opportunity because if President Biden had gotten there and made clear that his mission set was unambiguous to secure American freedom and to build out a set of alliances that could protect us against the Chinese Communist Party and the threats from Iran and the threats from the North Koreans. If he had done those things, he had a chance to do some real good.

And he just he gave up on that for the ability to stand in front of a group of people. Our own soldiers say that America's greatest national security risk is climate change. Check out that new piece by Mike Pompeo at ACLJ.org.

It's entitled In Europe Trip, Biden Puts America Last. Secretary Pompeo, it was always great to have you on the ACLJ team. We'll be right back.

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

ACLJ.org. Live from Washington, D.C., Sekulow Live. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Welcome back to Sekulow. And again, I think just to hear those words from Secretary Pompeo that this is these trips, both Biden's trip to Europe and he could see any concrete, anything that was gained for the United States, anything worthwhile for the United States. And we're seeing the same kind of trip today with the vice President's trip to the southern border, which I think would be much more effective if she was willing to go to the places where it was rough.

See how bad it gets. Maybe that spurns her then to take some action back to Washington, D.C. to say, you know what, this is horrendous, this humanitarian crisis. But instead, so far what I've seen is her visiting what they dub the new Ellis Island more of a processing center. Well, that's after you've already kind of gone through all of the tough stuff and you're at a government processing facility. She's only there for a couple hours. I don't even know if she's still there.

I mean, I mean, it's not much longer. And again, it will be an empty trip that will likely not lead to any new policies. Maybe it'll lead to more policy reversals that will make the situation at the border even that much worse. But when I heard, Andy, from Secretary Pompeo that what that term encounters really means to the federal government, it is scary. I mean, it is all the fears he talked about that this word encounter does not mean stopped. No, it doesn't. It doesn't mean that. It means just a confrontation with someone.

It doesn't do anything of the sort that was happening before. One of the things into the Trump administration, one of the things that really interested me was Sergio Gonzalez, executive director of Immigration Hub, who was former aide to Vice President Harris, said that this is a great opportunity for the vice President to be able to talk about the ways in which this administration, meeting Biden, has undone the damage of the previous administration. And I asked myself what damage that we built a wall, that this Operation Talon was put into effect, that we wanted to do the DNA testing, that we wanted to have the remain in policy, Mexico policy put into place. What was the damage? Please articulate that.

I'd like to know. I don't see what the damage was that was being done. Instead of addressing those issues and saying, trying to politicize what President Trump did as being damaged, they sent her today to El Paso to an antiseptic, as you say, post entry zone where everybody has been cleansed and clean and everyone's all fresh and right and good. Why don't you go down to the Rio Grande Valley to see where the babies are being thrown across the border? Why don't you go down to see where these mules and the coyotes are coming through? Why don't you go to the real cause, the center of the crime, and look at that?

You don't want to see it, that's why. Yeah, I mean, Harry, that's what it just appears to me is that they wanted the photo op, it looks so far what we've seen from her visit, you know, these very kind of blah settings, a government processing center meeting with nonprofit charities, so not spending hours with border patrol agents and different officers, not visiting different zones to kind of get the full impact. She did that in Central America. She went to different places to get a feel for what were the reasons why people were coming, but what she didn't do on the border isn't doing today is that, which is going to different parts of the border to see why are they having trouble here, why is it different here than there?

Absolutely. So I think in addition to the parade of horribles that Andy so eloquently analyzed, it's important to note that Vice President Harris fails to acknowledge the Biden administration's missteps with respect to immigration. So they've reversed Trump era policies such as catch and release, remain in Mexico, expanding the border wall, all of these policies were working.

So at the end of the day, the Biden administration refuses to take responsibility for its own failures or its own missteps. That is the primary root cause of the surge in the illegals coming across our border. All right, folks, when we come back, Ned Ryan is going to be joining us live. Ned runs American Majority, which is a great organization, grassroots and conservative activism organization that trades people and again, gets people, trades candidates. But he's got a new book out as well called The Adversaries, a story of Boston and Bunker Hill.

You want to check that out as well. Ned will be joining us to talk about his new book when we get back. The challenges facing Americans are substantial at a time when our values, our freedoms, our constitutional rights are under attack. It's more important than ever to stand with the American Center for Law and Justice. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines, protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress and in the public arena. And we have an exceptional track record of success.

But here's the bottom line. We could not do our work without your support. We remain committed to protecting your religious and constitutional freedoms.

That remains our top priority, especially now during these challenging times. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org where you can learn more about our life changing work.

Become a member today. ACLJ.org 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, 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.

Welcome back to Secular. We're joined by a good friend of the broadcast, a good friend of the ACLJ, Ned Ryan. Ned, of course, in his role outside of being an author, is the founder and director of American Majority, which is a great organization that trades conservative leaders, which is so important, not just in grassroots, but to run as candidates.

You know, we always talk about the importance of all those different positions in government, and so American Majority does a lot of great work there. You can follow him on Twitter at Ned, Ryan, R-Y-U-N. But, Ned, you've got a brand new book out as well, and it's available on Amazon. It's called The Adversaries, a story of Boston and Bunker Hill. First, let me just ask you, what was your inspiration to write this book? Tell people about the book, because I believe it's kind of like a historical fiction, right?

It is, it is. No, yeah, I appreciate being on with you, Jordan. The real inspiration for me was the life of Dr. Joseph Warren, somebody that I think has been forgotten by many people, who was one of the main political organizers in the days leading into the Battle of Bunker Hill. Those last nine or ten months before that battle, Jordan, are incredible.

I mean, what was taking place on this side of the Atlantic and the other side of the Atlantic. But Dr. Joseph Warren eventually became the President of Provincial Congress. He became the major general in the new army. And then on the day of Bunker Hill, as a young 34-year-old Harvard-educated doctor decides that he's going to go fight on Bunker Hill. And you're right, this is like what I call faction. 90% of it's real.

There are no fictional characters. They're all historical. A lot of the events actually took place. I tried to recreate a lot of the dialogue based off diaries and speeches and letters to really give people a feel for what I think are some of the most important months in the cause of freedom. In which Sam Adams and Joseph Warren and Paul Revere and John Hancock and many others, obviously, in Boston and Massachusetts said, no, you're not going to abuse our rights anymore. And if we cannot find a compromise in this area, we're going to actually fight. The idea, too, you were inspired to write the book.

You wanted to put it together. It's an interesting approach because you also talk about the idea that this was Englishmen shooting at Englishmen. Sometimes we forget that in our history, but 85% of Massachusetts at that time was people with direct English lineage. So this was people who were, again, fellow citizens of the same country at the time who decided to take up arms. And you get into the reasons why they decided to do that.

Yeah, no, and that's a really good point, Jordan. This is 85% of Massachusetts is direct English lineage. They're not Scottish. They're not Irish.

They're from England. And all of a sudden you have these Englishmen on either side of the Atlantic looking at each other going, we don't agree on some fundamentals of what is rule of law, who governs, who makes the laws. And one of the themes that I tried to explore a little bit in this book is that those coming over from England to colonize the American shores brought with them very English ideas written out in black and white that had been passed by Parliament and ascended to by English kings. Magna Carta, 1628 Petition of Right, the 1689 Bill of Rights. Then they had the Charter of Massachusetts, which had been signed by King William III that stated very clearly, outside of a British governor, royal governor, they had the right to elect and appoint all the other officials. They had the right to democracy and self-government.

And I think what happens in those last nine or ten months before Bunker Hill had obviously been building in the 60s, 1760s, but really became very forefront to the debate of who governs, why do you get to govern, and who gives rights. And this is one of the things I discuss in my first book, Restoring Our Republic. The founders of the Free American Republic felt that we had transcendent natural rights that had been given to us by our Creator. And because they had been given to us by our Creator, no temporal earthly power had the right to revoke them, so Parliament and the King's ministers couldn't take away those rights. And Parliament and the King's ministers looked at those ideas and said, ah, that's more of a series of suggestions and the here and now, we're the power, and if you don't comply, we'll send more troops, more warships, more cannons. And the American colonists said, well, we're going to have to fight and decide who actually gets to govern these colonies. You know, it's interesting because you wrote it in a way, and again in a more narrative form, so that when people pick up this book, and I encourage them to check it out, is the place you want them to go, Amazon, Ned, by the way, is that where you...

I do, Jordan, and I do that for a reason. Of course, I've got real questions about some of the tech companies, but I want a conservative author. My first surge of PR went to number 83 on all books at Amazon. It's a deeply patriotic book, it's a deeply historical book, and I want people to go buy it at Amazon to prove to people, yeah, conservative authors, we can do really well on Amazon. Yeah, because certainly it is a changing world out there as an author as well with conservative books, and even knowing back to my last publisher, probably would not publish that book today, honestly. I mean, that's just an honest assessment of where things are in that world, so just being able to get these books together. But a patriotic book like this, what will the reading experience be like, Ned? I know, you know, our audience, they're up to speed on the issues of the day. I think you're talking to a group that would be really interested in picking up a copy of your book at Amazon.

It's called, again, The Adversaries, a story of Boston and Bunker Hill, so put in The Adversaries there when you search on Amazon. We've been putting up the book cover-up on the screen here so people can see, but kind of what will the reading experience be like? Well, I hope that they'll be inspired. I mean, this is the one thing.

I was appointed to the 1776 Commission by President Trump. We obviously wanted to go into public schools and really confront some of these insidious fictions of the 1619 Project and critical race theory. But I hope that people who pick up a book will be inspired and understand.

I mean, again, let's be realistic. We're imperfect human beings in an imperfect world, but the founders of the Free American Republic, in an act of principle defiance in the face of this overwhelming, overpowering authoritarianism, said, no, we believe we have rights, we're willing to fight for them, and we're, quite frankly, as Warren showed and demonstrated on Bunker Hill, we're willing to even die for them. And so I hope, and in the opening note and the author's note, Jordan, I say this, history done well is like the wind at our backs. It should inspire us, it should move us to action, and that's one of the reasons we need to go back and look at the founding of the American Republic. It should inspire us, but also should motivate us to action in today, in 21st century America, because that's how you actually achieve change, Jordan. It's not reading, just simply reading or having great ideas.

It's going into action to actually implement those ideas to cause change to happen. You know, the book is The Adversaries, a story of Boston and Bunker Hill. It's by Ned Ryan, who is a great grassroots leader in the conservative movement, but has also written this great new historical novel for you folks. I want you to all go check it out, The Adversaries. I'll tweet about it after I'm off the air today. Ned, it's great to have you on the broadcast. Thanks so much for sharing about the book, and good luck with the book as you continue to share with people.

I know many people listening to this broadcast right now will be checking out Amazon later today and ordering a copy of The Adversaries. I will be as well. So Ned, as always, great to have you on. Jordan, I really appreciate it.

Thank you. The book is The Adversaries, a story of Boston and Bunker Hill. And again, I think Ned's put together something that our audience, all of you that are listening, you're going to enjoy this. You know, if you enjoy history, American history, patriotism, but also parts of it that you might not have gotten in school. You know, to dig into some of these stories and the initial beginnings of how we got to ultimately declaring independence and the Revolutionary War, these actions leading up to that, these people who were very brave, who knew that they were risking their lives.

So again, the book, The Adversaries, check it out on Amazon. It's by Ned, Ryan, and of course the organization. He leads American Majority doing great work as well. Now, Vice President Harris just wrapped up a meeting with faith leaders, so she's moving through this trip very quickly. She held a press conference, but what was interesting in the press conference, she took no questions, so she just made a statement, I guess, or they allowed the news cameras in to cover some of her meeting with faith leaders. She wrapped the meeting by asking if it would be okay if she quoted scripture. She said, do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God. That's all, again, this is all wonderful, and your meeting with those faith leaders. But at the same time, though, you have to say, are you doing justice to those individuals who are being told one thing by coyotes, Harry, and then, you know, spending their life savings to get here? And by not making it clear that just a speech in Guatemala saying don't come, which she was heavily criticized by Democrats for saying, you know, and again, I just think that it's fine to quote scripture. It's fine to do all of this if you're putting policies in place that actually do justice and that provide mercy.

You're absolutely correct. So doing justice requires some complex analysis, and that is absolutely what is missing with respect to the Biden administration's policy with respect to the border. Doing justice includes doing justice to the immigrants, to the individuals who wish to come to the United States legally. Doing justice also means doing justice for the individuals in the United States who are being inundated with illegals, and then they have to share in the cost of taking care of those illegals. It's important to keep in mind that the Biden administration is flying illegals by night into interior cities and basically straining the resources in many of those cities.

So doing justice means more than what the Biden administration is currently doing. The final segment's coming up. If you want to talk to us on air with your thoughts on Vice President Harris' trip to the border, if you want to call it that, is a quick visit. It certainly feels like it's going to be a very quick visit.

It's almost totally complete. Will there be an actual press conference that they'll actually be able to ask questions? Will that happen there?

Will that happen back in Washington? We don't know, but what we do know is we've got a final segment up and we can take your calls and your comments. If you do have a call you'd like to get in and be on the show, give us a call now. 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Make sure to go pick up a copy of Ned Ryan's new book, The Adversaries, a story of Boston and Bunker Hill. 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.

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Welcome back to Secular. We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. Let's go to Bianca in California on Line 3. I think it's a great question about where these people go when they're put on planes. Hey, Bianca.

Hello. My question, you said it exactly. Are the illegals going to red states primarily or blue states? Are they trying to load up the blue states with illegals in order for voters? Well, I think we know it's spread out all over the country, including the interior parts of the country, Andy. We know about Chattanooga has been talked about, so that would be into a red state like Tennessee.

Maybe not red cities, but certainly red states. And so this is why we talk about the border. The issues at the border don't stop near or around the border or in border states. It affects all of us because of the way these Democrat administrations redistribute people throughout the country.

That's right. Senator Blackburn from Tennessee, I think, said it very well the other day when she said there are we are all border states. It's not just the Arizona, New Mexico, California, Texas and so forth on the southwestern border, but we are all border states in that these people who are coming in illegally into the United States through these porous borders, through the actions of the Biden administration, reversing the salutary policies of the Trump administration. They're not settling in those states that I've just mentioned necessarily. They're leaving. And the United States is facilitating the transportation of those, by the way, at your expense and taking them to other places and putting them there. As Jordan said, there was one large shipment of illegals to Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is about as red a state as you're going to get in Tennessee. And so they're moving them around and they're moving the problems that they face all over the place. But I wouldn't be surprised if you looked at it statistically that they're probably putting them in places where they become ultimately Democratic voters and do what the Democrats do best.

And that's grab power because that's what they're after. Let's go back to the phones. Lynette in New York online, too. Hey, Lynette.

God bless you. Thank you so much for taking my call, Jordan. And my comment is that I agree with everyone who said before that the real reason that Vice President Harris went to the border is because President Trump announced that he was going to the border. So I'm I'm really interested in what should we anticipate from that trip? Well, I think that trip is going to be very different. You're going to have President former President Trump. You will have members of Congress.

You will have the governor of Texas. And I think they will be going to places where there are real problems as best they can if they're not tried, stopped by the Biden team who may try to prevent them from going to some locations. But again, I have hopes that it will shed light on what Vice President Harris is not shedding light on, which is that this is a this is a crisis is a humanitarian crisis. It's one that we need to get a handle of. It's more than just a problem. It's it's it's not business as usual right now. The numbers are 20 year highs.

We need to deal with this seriously. So that's that's what I hope. And I don't think she accomplished blocking out the importance of that trip next week by this visit today, which just looked so tame. It didn't look like when Ted Cruz went down there. It didn't look like when other senators and members of Congress have gone down there and really seen what's going on.

It just didn't have that imagery. We saw Lindsey Graham down there in the in the in the bush. You know, I see a company across people illegally crossing into border. Rosa has that experience. She's called it from Texas online. One. Hey, Rosa. Hi.

How are you doing? I am a truck driver. I drive down to the valley, which is Bronzeville and far when I am in the middle of nowhere off a 281. I see people just walking off the ranches. You see the Border Patrol coming to pick these people up. I know everything down here is packed, but you there's a legal not just one or two, but like 20 to 30 just lined up on the side of the road.

And it's not just me. I mean, there's another driver that drives down to Laredo and he has footage. He has video of people just walking off the ranches.

Yeah, just walking around. I mean, this is this is when you create a crisis situation, Harry. Absolutely.

So let's be honest. We have an absolutely open border and the Biden administration refuses to acknowledge any responsibility for it. The Biden administration is not comprised, I believe, of individuals who are interested in solving problems. They are interested in photo ops.

They are interested in optics. They are interested in poll numbers. And the reality, of course, is that the people who are located along the border, as well as the people in Chattanooga and elsewhere in the United States, they have to clean up the mess which was caused by the Biden administration.

I think at the end of the day, the American people increasingly see what the Biden administration is doing and they recognize it as nothing less than a failure. Cindy's calling from North Carolina online for hey, Cindy, welcome to secular. You're on the air. Hey, I just got back from the border. I drove from El Paso all the way to Brownsville and we stopped and prayed with Border Patrol agents in all the major city, all the major stops, Del Rio, the radar, etc. And I can tell you, they don't feel like what's happening is just. And it's not just what's happening when they have to see little kids thrown into a river so that the drug runners on down the way can swim across with drugs.

Well, they have to respond to a drowning child. It's not just to be across from the bus patrol or the bus station in Del Rio where homeless are right outside that charity and the homeless can't even get a glass of water. And yet they're taking the people shopping, right? We're taking the homeless people out of the shelter, putting the immigrants in and letting the other people go shopping with them. That's not just it's not just our taxpayers, not just our citizens at the Donta facility. That thing is built right in the backyard in a big field behind apartment complexes and across the street from houses.

How is it just to a homeowner with property taxes? How could they sell their house today in this booming house market when the Donta facility housing 5,000 migrants is a stone's throw away? Well, Cindy, you'll love this for Vice President Harris today at the border. Take a listen. I hope this does not sound trite or corny, that we have the capacity to give people hope and a belief that help is on the way. And so those principles are a large part of what is informing the work that we've been doing addressing the root causes. So, I mean, there you go, Cindy, if you're still with us, it's a belief that hope is on the way and again, using those terms, root causes, but the hope isn't actually coming yet.

It's on the way at some point. Again, this generic statement from Vice President Harris. Listen, folks, this issue is not going away. We're in court over the border issues. You've got the former President that's going to be, again, that's going to gain a lot of attention next week as well when he makes his trip along with members of Congress and the Texas governor to see what's really happening at the border.

Because let me tell you, if you watch Vice President Harris today, and by the way, the media has been kind of cutting in and out of it because it hasn't been much interesting to show. That's because she's not saying anything of substance, not announcing any new policies, so no major announcements so far. Again, our show ends in 55 seconds, so if I'm wrong on that, I'm wrong on that, but so far no major announcements, no major policies changes or policies announced either. Now, what we did get is a major announcement out of the Department of Justice, the Attorney General Merrick Garland, that a lawsuit will be filed by the Department of Justice against the state of Georgia today. That they're looking at the other 16 states who changed their voting laws following 2020 to add more voter integrity to the system. Now they've got the DOJ coming after the state of Georgia, and I'm sure those other 16 states are next. So you know what we'll be talking about next week on Secular. We'll be getting into that lawsuit, going through it over the weekend, so we can get all that information to you on Monday.

Because even if your state has done the right thing, now it's got to defend doing the right thing as the DOJ again politicizing voter integrity. We will talk to you on Monday. As always, go to ACLJ.org. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress, and in the public arena. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life-changing work. Become a member today. ACLJ.org.