Psaki: Root Cause of Mass Looting is COVID-19

Today on Sekulow, the White House and Vine Administration blame the pandemic for the rise in looting and violent crime in the United States. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. Los Angeles just yesterday announcing the arrest of 14 people connected to 11 recent robberies, but all were released including repeat offenders. We want to hear from you.

Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. When a huge group of criminals organizes themselves and they want to go loot a store, a CVS in Nordstrom, a Home Depot, until the shelves are clean, do you think that's because of the pandemic? I think a root cause in a lot of communities is the pandemic, yes.

And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. They love root causes, don't they? It's an easy thing to then blame without discussing what's happened outside of the pandemic to encourage people to commit these extravagant acts of criminal activity in public, right in the streets, highly coordinated, likely being organized by bigger organized crime actors. How about the fact that these are happening in states where there's no more bail, so you get arrested, you're out.

No bond. Then you're told, kind of like in the immigration situation after you cross the border illegally, show up at this court date. And oftentimes these are repeat offenders. And where do we see this? Again, it's not to say it could never happen in a red state or a big city that's in a red state, but where we're seeing it happen is the states and cities and municipalities that are far to the left who have changed the rules of the game. Again, the police arrested those 14 individuals that Bill Himmer was talking about in Los Angeles, but they were back on the streets immediately.

So, I mean, they were responsible for 300,000 plus stolen goods in the actions that they know about. So what's happened in Los Angeles? What's happened in San Francisco? What's happened in Chicago, Seattle, New York, and Minneapolis?

Harry, the uniting factor there is not that they're all dealing with COVID because the whole country is. What unites these cities is that their mayors, or it may be at the state level, have taken this far left position, the no bail position, the no bond position, and the idea that they won't really police these acts of stolen goods that are under a certain amount of money. You are precisely correct, and Jen Psaki is rapidly becoming the Bill Clinton of crime explanations. What Jen Psaki and the Biden administration ignore is that neither guns nor COVID have anything to do with America's crime wave.

What is most imperative to understand with respect to America's crime wave is that it's driven by ideological considerations. So where was Joe Biden when the defund the police movement started? Where was Joe Biden when the low bail movement was started? And so if you consider, for instance, the individual charged with driving his SUV into a Christmas parade and massacring up to seven or eight people in Wisconsin, Mr. Brooks is what? A career criminal. He was out on $1,000 cash bail after he allegedly punched the mother of his child and purposely ran over her with his vehicle. And after being convicted of abusing his partner and raping and impregnating a teenager. And what was he out on bail for in terms of the total amount?

Roughly $1,000, maybe $1,500. So what we are doing in these blue cities is we are incentivizing crime. My question for you, is this affecting where you live and how you go about your daily business or how you operate your business? Give us a call. 1-800-684-3110. I think it's very different depending on where you live in the country, but it's something we're all seeing as a nationwide issue. So give us a call.

1-800-684-3110. Because is the real root cause the fact that in red states, police are still supported by the government and law matters and enforcing the law matters. And so there's a major deterrence to committing these kind of criminal acts because you will be spending a lot of time behind bars when you are ultimately caught.

That's not the case right now in these other states and cities. It's changed the entire paradigm of the law. We'll be right back. 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. I'm covering 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.

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Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. I want to put this in perspective. There are many jobs open to the American people right now where you don't have to choose a life of crime. And while some of these criminals, it was initially like petty crime, it's become this organized kind of crime, but it's been dumbed down to misdemeanors with no bail. And so you show up at a hearing months from now, there is a time when pro-life protesters, the RICO statute, which was used to take down organized crime, was used against pro-life protesters who were engaged in civil disobedience.

And they tried to apply these laws, very stringent, massive prosecutions with massive fines, long jail sentences, and the idea is that instead of taking laws that exist like that, whether it's a federal RICO, the state RICO statutes, and what that means is racketeer influencing corrupt organizations. Because when you have 15 or 14 individuals carrying out one organized criminal activity after another, so a lot of people involved, you know that, you don't have to figure that out because just with the arrest, you're dealing with 10 plus people. But instead of taking these laws that we have on our books, this is not about we don't have the right laws, it's that the power of the judicial system has been severely hampered to the point where the police make the arrest, but the people are back out on the streets. So they've got to make this judgment call about what's the risk-reward here, because putting our lives on the line, for someone who's then going to be back on the street committing another crime like this, they involve violence, and so the two things the White House has tried to blame this on.

One is that we have a Second Amendment in our country that allows people to legally own firearms. But one of the things that you'll see throughout these crimes is that while violence may be a part of it, it's the organized effect and the knowledge that if you're caught, you're going to be back on the street, and that when you're ultimately charged, if you do show up for court, it's a misdemeanor. So again, these are career criminals. They don't see that as a, that is not a deterrent. And where we have actually, the root cause of this is the change in the laws. They will not accept just reality.

But I want you to take a listen, because this is the White House position by 29. So when a huge group of criminals organizes themselves, and they want to go loot a store, a CVS in Nordstrom, a Home Depot, until the shelves are clean, do you think that's because of the pandemic? I think a root cause in a lot of communities is the pandemic, yes.

I mean, I want to go to Thad Bennett. Thad, the idea that the root cause, so the ultimate cause of this is not that we've changed the laws and told these criminals, hey, if you act this way, you're only going to get this slap on the wrist, you're not going to face a felony charge, you're not going to be held in prison while you await trial, even if you are caught, ultimately. That seems to be a kind of easy way to answer the question, but that politically doesn't work for the left. It's outlandish, Jordan.

And look, I would go even a step further. It distracts from the things that actually do make an impact, that actually do work. You know, it just bothers me that they act like there are no solutions or way to at least help the problem on either a policy level, Jordan, or a societal level.

I mean, I'll just give two examples. You've already touched on the policy matters, but it is things like defund the police or the fact that there are no consequences for action like this, no bail policies, no bond policies. If you reverse those policies, Jordan, it would make a direct impact on this criminal activity, yet they pretend like that is not even something they could address. And then on a societal level, Jordan, I mean, you see groups, group after group after group on the left doing things like attacking the value of the nuclear family or attacking the presence of parents in the lives of children.

When study after study, Jordan, shows that the presence of a father is one of the most significant ways to keep a child from entering a life of crime, to make sure that they finish at least a basic education level. Jordan, so on both the policy side and the societal side, it's like they're throwing up their hands and pretending there's nothing they can do but blame it on the pandemic that just rushed down the line and made these people commit these acts. Jordan, if they would focus in on things that work, and again, I think this goes back to what we talked about yesterday in the migrant protection protocols and the remain in Mexico. Policies have an impact, and if they would focus on getting the right policies in place, taking the wrong policies out of place, and then also trying to impact society where it makes a difference, we would see change.

Don't just throw up your hands, do what works. Well, because you can see where this is happening. In municipalities, Harry, that have not changed the rules to favor the criminal actor, we're not seeing this kind of widespread looting and crime, and I think one, the criminal has to make a call if this is the right way to go about it. So they're not dealing with the same kind of these just unbelievable movie-like criminal conduct one after another after another. The root cause of this problem is a short-term root.

It hasn't had that much time to grow. It could be quickly changed. It is this idea that setting bail is somehow wrong, making people make bond is wrong, holding people who are repeat offenders until the trial wrong, or doing what you should do here. These would be felonies under any other definition, but when you take them down to a misdemeanor and you're talking about people whose career is criminal conduct, again, it is not just a deterrence any longer. It's encouraging criminal activity.

I think you're precisely correct. So rather than simply claim that the Joe Biden administration and Jen Psaki are abdicating their responsibility, they are literally encouraging crime. And so Jen Psaki is prepared to blame crime on everything, including climate change for human misbehavior. And so rather than insist that state and local prosecutors in San Francisco and Los Angeles and in New York enforce the law and eliminate their no bail or low bail policies, what is the Biden administration prepared to do about crime in America?

Well, this is what they have settled on, according to Attorney General Merritt Garland. So instead of encouraging prosecutors to go after real criminals, the Department of Justice prefers to charge parents or at least potentially charge them with domestic terrorism. So the Biden administration has misplaced priorities. So when a parent stands up and objects to critical race theory in a school board hearing, that particular individual could indeed be charged with a felony.

But if an organized group goes into a Nordstrom's and they steal three hundred thousand dollars worth of goods, guess what? They are out on bail. Often they are never either charged or convicted.

And apparently the Biden administration is absolutely fine with that. My question for all of you is, are you seeing this increase in your own community? Have you seen criminal activity increase?

And do you believe it's a direct result of change in policies and law enforcement policies? You know, it's not the police fault. They're making the arrest. But then the people are back on the streets within hours. So, I mean, it's like they did again, they're putting themselves in danger and they have to keep making those calls about, OK, what is this worth it? And then, you know, the streets of these cities, they look like, as what our producer will say, it looks like they're preparing for a hurricane or some kind of storm or that they were already looted.

But now it's, you know, the plywood goes back up again. So give us a call. 1-800-684-3110.

As we're sure those who watch, these are open stores just trying to stay open on the streets, but keeping their basically any glass windows covered up like a storm was coming or like the looting continued. So I want to know from you, are you seeing the increase in your community? And do you believe it's tied to policy decisions that were changed? Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. I mean, up to 65% of retail stores have seen an uptick in this kind of criminal activity. We're talking about the acts that make it to national news. The idea, Thanh, that you talked about as well is that we're no longer kind of saying like, is this going to, is this stopped?

Is this a one-off? It's just, when will it happen again? What night will they get more footage of 15 people driving up in a coordinated fashion? And instead of being treated like organized crime, they're being treated like misdemeanors. And it's going to be the same people, Jordan. I mean, it's not like there's just a new copycat of criminals. It's the same people who are being let out time and time again. So you don't just ask whether or not they will strike again.

You ask when and where. And it's why those images that you put up, Jordan, it's why storefronts are still boarded up because those same individuals are back on the street with no consequence and they will surely strike again. And Jordan, just maybe to underscore something that Harry talked about, this is also about the utilization of resources on both the federal level and a local level.

I mean, when the FBI is diverted to looking at parents who attend school board meetings, and then police resources have to continually be dwindled and actually worried about attacks on their own ability to enforce, all of those things, Jordan, mitigate the ability to respond to these acts. We're taking your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. Second half hour of the broadcast, Rick Rinnell is going to be joining us to update us on the situation involving Russia and Ukraine there and how the U.S. is responding to, again, what looks like a preparation for invasion and at the same time, trying to undo the destabilized Ukraine from within by the Kremlin. So we'll talk to Rick about that.

But we're taking your calls on this. If you see that increase in your communities, support our work at ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org.

We'll be right back. This is 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. 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.

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Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. We ask that you are calling in to share your reactions to the increase in crime. We ask that you have seen it in your communities.

And it's because the White House, we play the bite, say that the root cause of these criminal activities that we're seeing, these smash and grabs that are highly coordinated with multiple individuals being utilized. Sometimes it's high-end stores. Sometimes it's drugstores.

It's the Walgreens or the CVS. Sometimes it's the big box stores. But it is highly coordinated activity to take as much out as possible. Listen, there's issues too. Past the root cause of what do you do when this merchandise is hitting places like Amazon and people start reselling the issues there. That's not the root problem. The root problem is not what they do after the fact. The root problem is what is encouraging people to take that risk of committing the criminal conduct and balancing out whether or not it's worth it or not.

It's not COVID. It's that these cities during the pandemic, but not related to the pandemic, started changing their laws because of the whole idea of the anti-police movement, the idea that we're going to get rid of police departments in communities. And then instead of some of them doing that, what they did is said, well, the police might still be there. You might still make the arrest, but there's no bail. You don't need bond.

And these will be misdemeanors. So I want to go right to the phone. Steve in California on Line 1. Hey Steve, welcome to Sekulow.

You're on the air. Hi guys, thank you so much for what you do. Our city is completely overrun with criminal activity. I've had multiple neighbors either in armed conflict in their homes or houses broken into by homeless people, by drug addicts, by people that our mayor has actually brought in and gotten paid to bring into our town. And he has even orchestrated to own a Motel 6 that's real close to our multimillion dollar homes where they have free rent for drug addicts.

No, I think Steve, we might have dropped you, but these are the kind of stories, we know those stories are true. Utilization of hotels, public drug use. We're seeing New York opened up two facilities where you can go and they provide you everything you need. You bring your drugs and they make sure you don't die. But instead of saying that maybe getting these people into programs, which it's tough to get people off those drugs, no doubt about that. A lot of intervention is necessary. But the idea is that it got so bad on the streets that instead of people dying in the streets, they're now monitoring drug use. And what this does to communities, again, it's encouraging, it is incentivizing criminal behavior and illegal behavior. And there's a balance, I think Matthew's calling about that, Nevada Online too. Hey Matthew, welcome to Secular, you're on the air.

Hello, and again, thank you for having me. I'm from Vegas, I'm African American, I'm educated, conservative as well. I agree with you on the issue of bail and it's crazy to hear about the smash and grab things going on in California. I also wonder though, with African Americans, sometimes bail reaches the point because so many are in poverty to where an individual can't get out, even if it's a low bail amount. And so kind of question, comment being how do you try to reach a point to where it's equitable for an individual who's doing something that they need to be off the street, make sure they're off the street. But at the same time, the person who can't afford a $2,000 bail isn't sitting in jail forever simply because, you know, there's been some... I think it has to be balanced out, right? I think that if you make it a process where it's not basically the same for everyone and it's not right.

So here I think you look at factors and that's what people used to do. Are you a repeat offender? What level of crime? Was it a violent crime?

Most of the time, if you went into one of these stores and you had any kind of weapon on you whatsoever, this would be a major felony. So that's I think how you look at it. Is it a small drug crime that someone got picked up on that is, again, over maybe a small amount of money and they're not a repeat offender but someone's got issues? That's where you can look at the bail issue but when you abolish it completely for everyone, then you get into this issue where you're incentivizing the bad actors and that then causes trouble for every community, the wealthy communities, the poorest communities. I think you're precisely correct.

So I think Matthew offers a very interesting set of questions and offers some great analysis. So I think what we need is a reasoned, balanced approach to the bail question. So for particularly an individual who is a repeat offender, for particularly an individual who uses a weapon, we probably need stricter bail requirements, particularly in many jurisdictions. So if we again go back to the example that I raised earlier, Mr. Brooks in Wisconsin, he was out on bail for five or six very serious, very violent offenses. And the maximum bail that he had to face was $1,000. And so what the state of Wisconsin did in that particular case, at least in my opinion, is that they incentivized additional crime because there were very limited consequences. And so far, to my understanding, he has not yet been convicted of any of these lesser charges. Now he is in jail.

Why? Because he essentially, according to the allegations in the indictment, he killed seven or eight people. So I think one of the real problems that we have in this country is that we need a systematic approach to analyzing bail reform, but that does not mean allowing particularly violent criminals to get out of jail quickly unless they can come up with a very significant bail amount. We also have that problem with respect to repeat offenders who are in the United States illegally.

And again, the Biden administration seems reluctant to basically enforce the law against those individuals as well. Let me go to Ted in California online for Hey, Ted, welcome to secular you're on the air. Hey, guys.

Hey, Ted. Hey, so I just wanted to support you and what you're saying because I completely not only do I agree with everything that you're saying as far as these criminals getting out and everything, but I can you can give me, you know, a situation or whatever, and I'll give you a story on every single one of those where these guys are getting released constantly where I Mirandize them. And when I Mirandize them, the comment is I don't want to say anything, you just get me to jail so I can leave.

So, you know, I mean, that's that's the difference, Ted, is that before that process, I mean, depending on their record, depending on what the crime was, I mean, going to jail was not like I'm just going to get right out. I'll back out of the bay and they'll be crossing right in front of me while I'm getting back in the street. It's not even hours. It's literally minutes.

So by the time you're through your process or your paperwork, they're already gone and they're back out. Sometimes they beat me. Yeah, sometimes they beat me out. And listen, we're on a lot of radio stations in California. We're broadcast all over the state and a lot of this is happening in cities there, of course, you know, high profile attention, major cities. So we get a lot of calls out of California and appreciate that. Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110.

Has this rise in crime affected your community? Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. We'll be right back.

Second half hour coming up. Support our work at ACLJ.org. That's 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. I'm talking about freedom. I'm talking about freedom.

We will fight for the right to live in freedom. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow.

And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. So yesterday, the White House claimed that the idea of the rising crime that we are seeing in specific communities, by the way, especially these acts, these outrageous acts of highly organized smash and grabs, that the root cause is the pandemic. Ignoring the fact that the laws have been changed, bail has been changed. The root cause is guns, except for you're not hearing a lot of gun violence related to these. They are violent acts, and certainly these individuals are using violent behavior.

They've used other weapons, and they might have guns on them, but that's not what we're really seeing as the focus here, is that they are utilizing what have been now these laws that usually would have been a felony, are now misdemeanors, and they're able to organize, but RICO laws are being used against them even though it's organized crime, and it's affecting people all over the country in different ways, but communities of people who are well off to people who are in tough economic situations. Let me go right back to the phones. Richard in California on Line 3. Hey Richard, welcome to Sekulow.

You're on the air. Hello, how are you guys doing? We're good. Good, good. I just want to report that you're right.

Everything that you've said is correct. We've got a mayor that is not doing anything about crime. We've got a school district attorney that's letting people go the next day.

There's no enhancements for anybody. In my area, Trump City is Lincoln Heights. In that area, that district last year had 11 murders.

This year to date, 36 murders, and some of them in plain daylight. They don't care. They know they'll be out.

I run along, my house runs along a train track there. Every day they're breaking into these crates. They're unloading them, and the tracks are full of merchandise. How do people get away with this every, every, every day? It's beyond me. People don't understand that as consumers, we're going to pay for this. The millions and millions of dollars that are lost, we as consumers are going to pay for that. When does this city wake up and do something about it?

Honestly, I just want to sell my house and go somewhere else now. This is very regional. I live in a red state. We don't see these kind of issues. The laws haven't been changed because of protests over the last couple of years. While there's still the normal criminal conduct that occurs in places where you've got a certain size population, we're not seeing the kind of stuff you're seeing on the TV where I am. And I think that's because the root cause of that conduct is the decriminalization of crime.

It sounds absurd. Let's go to Tim in Colorado on Line 6. Hey, Tim. Hello.

Thanks for your work there at the ACLJ. I have two questions. The first is when people like the administration, Jim Basaki, and congressional leaders make these ridiculous claims, what are journalists doing to publicly refute them and show them how foolish these are? And my second question is, in these cities and states where a lot of this looting and crime is happening, what can the average citizenry and business owners do other than resorting to vigilantism? What can they do to counter this and get changes made?

So I'm interested in your thoughts. You've got to change your leadership. By the way, it doesn't always happen within partisanship. I think New York, in the mayor's race there with Erica Adams, who was a foreign police commissioner and has come forward, got elected instead of the far-left de Blasio. It happened with inside the Democratic Party workings, but he's very different. It appears to be like, well, we will see soon, but it's coming at it with a different approach. So a lot of this has been put in place by de Blasio, who's had this far-left thinking of that, you know, the crime's not really crime anymore.

The first is people have a say, the most say, in who these leaders are because it's happening at the local level. I think second on the claims, there's only one network that's getting question time to even ask those questions, to even get the absurdity out there so that you can call them out on it. We'll be right back with Rick Grenell on Sekulow. We're 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. 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. We're right out of the Daily Mail. Russia is drilling 700 snipers near the Ukrainian border, as Kiev claims that Putin has now almost 100,000 troops in the disputed region and could attack in January. Rick Grenell, our senior advisor for foreign policy and national security, is joining us now. Rick, we've been following this.

We've been tracking it with you. But becoming more and more serious, our secretary of state meeting with the Russian foreign minister, and I'll play it for everybody a second, but it seems like there's been this deference of, well, it's going to be up to the Russians to decide whether they invade Ukraine or not. Well, it shouldn't be up to Russia. Certainly, we've seen the weakness of NATO and the inability of NATO to kind of respond to the Russian threats.

And this is a growing threat. Remember, the Russians now are feeling very emboldened after being given a pipeline by Joe Biden. And the Germans are, you know, facilitating this. And with the new government in Germany, I think it's even going to get a stronger ties to Putin. Putin is feeling emboldened. And let's remember that the last time borders were rewritten in Europe, it was under the Obama-Biden team when Crimea was grabbed by the Russians. And now what we've seen is Brexit, the British leaving the Europeans. The Europeans have to think long and hard about what's happening to them and around them right now and what kind of policies they have that are emboldening Russia and others so that the EU is shrinking. And there's no other way to say it.

I'm going to play this out. This is our secretary of state, Tony Blinken, by 21. We don't know whether President Putin has made the decision to invade. We do know that he is putting in place the capacity to do so on short order should he so decide. So it seems like has the Western world just kind of said, well, we're going to try to talk them out of it, but if they do this, we'll just see what happens because we don't want to upset other items? Or do they feel like they just don't have a coalition to counter any of this Russian aggression? Well, look, what we do know and what I've learned in my eight years at the U.N. is that most foreign policy problems can't be solved unless the U.S. shows leadership. And we are not showing any leadership right now.

So back to the point of remember, during the Obama Biden days, Susan Rice was our national security adviser and her deputy was Anthony Blinken, our secretary of state. And so you've got this pattern where this team has done nothing when the Russians grabbed Crimea. Now they've given Russians a pipeline. What are we expecting the Russians to do when they want to bully Ukraine? They are going to continue to move in this direction. And for the secretary of state, our secretary of state, to say we don't know what the motives of Russia are or what plans are is a ridiculous statement. It doesn't matter what we think that they're going to do. They clearly are showing a buildup.

They've got the history. And now we are showing weakness, which emboldens them further. So I would say this is a big moment for Congress to step in and say to the administration, get tough, get focused because you're failing us right now. Yeah, I was going to ask you the next question, which is that if this was happening under administration, you were advising. And again, we see this action, a lot of it is the tone you take with the world and how you conduct yourself as a country and the response. And so, you know, Afghanistan has been looked at as one of the issues that the way the U.S. kind of withdrew their hands up in the air and just kind of left was encouraging to actors like Putin to take more aggressive steps.

And the last time they took these kind of aggressive steps was under, like you said, similar actors, same administration. But if you were advising the administration right now, what could the U.S. do to deter this kind of Russian aggression? Well, first of all, we would have started months ago because like Afghanistan and like Ukraine, when you don't have leadership, you find yourself in very terrible corners and you have limited options.

And every single day that goes by, we're creating even more limited options. So it's really unfair to kind of say, what would you do now? Because we wouldn't be in this particular situation.

We wouldn't have allowed it to get to this point. What I would say is that the Biden team needs to wake up and they need to recognize that this whole consensus idea that they're building with the Europeans is not working. They tried consensus with the Europeans on the Iran issue. They're trying it on the Balkans issue.

They're trying to do it with Nord Stream 2. And they need to understand that they miscalculated the Russians from the beginning, the same team as miscalculated now. And so they're going to find themselves in a situation where once again borders are rewritten in Europe if they don't change their policy.

They've got to completely change the way that they're dealing with Russia and with the Europeans. I wanted to ask you about this and going back to a domestic issue because you live in California. You talk about a lot through your social media. In LA specifically, we've seen this rise in crime. We just started talking about today for the first time and allowed people to call in. We're on a lot of stations out in California. Almost all the calls have been coming out of California.

Though it's happened in other cities, but cities that have similar kind of political leadership. How real is this problem for just the average person who's living in LA when these smash and grabs are going on? It's a very big problem. It's a real problem. And we have Hollywood stars like Seth Rogen who are really giving aid and comfort to these criminals. He's saying things like, well, it's a part of life.

You're going to have these moments. You're going to have carjackings and cars that are stolen. And really what Hollywood is trying to convince us is that we should just deal with it. We should allow it to happen and not be so dramatic about a car theft or burglar actions.

And what I would say to the Hollywood types and all of the partisans in California that control our state, we have one party, one political party controls the whole state, is that you can't expect to push sanctuary city policies where you allow federal law, state law to go unchallenged and unenforced. And then you can't go down the road and expect the thieves and the criminals not to bite back. And so this is a huge problem. It's a growing problem, Jordan.

It's not getting better. And we have to be able to stop these progressive policies that say ignore it and allow it. I always say this, Ricky, big cities, you have your street smarts, especially if you've lived there. And yeah, there's certain places and there's certain things where there is going to be criminal conduct and that doesn't really matter where you live in the whole country. But we don't incentivize it in a lot of cities.

And it just seems like now when it's incentivized, it should never be the norm. The United States, carjackings or home invasions. And yet that's becoming, like you said, something to just accept as a reality. You look, we the latest home invasion also is now a death and it's a murder. It's it's a terrible situation.

What's happening? This happened in Beverly Hills. And for for those that don't understand, this is a very wealthy neighborhood. And when it happens in this neighborhood, it really means that it's happening everywhere. This is kind of the last place that it should be happening. And yet we shouldn't be surprised because the policies that are being pushed, George Soros style policies, he supports people who want to allow some criminal activity to go unchallenged.

And I think that's wrong. It's a slippery slope. And we certainly have emboldened many criminals. And it's only going to get worse, as I say, that it's not getting better.

It's only getting worse. As you know, Rick, our European team has done a lot of work on the Soros influence throughout the European international institutions and regional institutions, but also in the district attorney races here in the United States. And his groups and affiliated organizations, millions of dollars electing these far left district attorneys is Rick's point.

This idea of a little bit of anarchy is something you have to live with in a in a democratic republic like the United States of America. Rick, as always, we appreciate you keeping us updated on what's happening around the world and what's happening in our own backyards as well. So appreciate that, Rick. If you again are being affected by this, folks, we've got another segment coming up. We'll take your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. And we've got some lines open up now. So I encourage you to call and just let us know what it's like. Is it really affecting you? And if you feel like, hey, if you have to take another position that you feel like it's being overblown, I really just want to get people since because I think it is very different. We all see the same news. It's very different if you're living it every day versus just watching it on the news every day. And I think you look at where you live, what the laws are like, who's in charge.

Does law enforcement feel like the state officials and the elected officials have their back? 1-800-684-3110. How is this criminal activity that we are seeing affecting you, your business, your community? Give us a call.

1-800-684-3110. And as always, support our work at ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. Music 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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Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. We're going to take a go right back to your calls on how this rise in crime is affecting your communities. And Tammy on Line 1, I think this is another issue. We've actually seen this in Washington, D.C.

There are offices there and in places around the country as well. Another legal chain that's been made. Hey, Tammy, welcome to Secular. You're on the air.

Hi, guys. Just as a comment on the crime, I work in property management, so our company manages about 30 different apartment communities from all my family. The amount of homelessness and the amount of crime from just the homeless population has skyrocketed. You could drive anywhere in downtown Sacramento, anywhere in Sacramento area, and find miles after miles after miles of broken down RVs. How these people are getting these RVs is what's questionable. They're broken down cars, tents. I'm glad I don't live in that type of environment, but at the same time, our government, I blame it 100% on King Newsome and his laws and the way they took away the no camping law. So where you used to just not be able to camp along the freeway no less, they're allowed to camp anywhere and everywhere. Because we've heard these laws be demonized, loitering laws, camping laws, and so when you do that, and then tent cities pop up, and they get to a point where they're out of control for law enforcement.

It's too dangerous. It's violent within. We saw areas and cities in Seattle, specifically a place like Portland, where entire areas of the city were taken over by these kind of actors, and lawlessness to very dangerous people getting killed, drugs freely being used again, and the criminal actors taking advantage of those situations. So by demonizing our laws, instead of having rational discussions, like we talked about earlier in the broadcast, you don't want to over penalize, but if you under penalize or take out penalties, there's no disincentive for this criminal conduct or very little, then it hurts everybody. It hurts the property managers.

It hurts because the properties themselves can be devalued, and of course it puts people at risk all the time, because they just become these melting pots for bad conduct. I think you're precisely correct, and I think you are absolutely correct to emphasize that weakness incentivizes criminal misbehavior. And so in addition to criminal misbehavior, we also have homelessness as another issue. So if you look at both of those issues together, I think the real problem lies with state and local prosecutors who have taken the position that arresting, incarcerating, either in jail or in mental health facilities, an individual is offensive to those individuals who may be engaged in misconduct. So what do these state and local prosecutors do?

They basically license individuals to destroy neighborhoods, to engage in criminal misconduct. We are so concerned about criminals, we allow the victimization, if you will, of law-abiding citizens. And so I think everything has been turned on its head from an ideological perspective by these elite globalists who basically do not believe that the state should enforce the law.

Why? Because they believe law, and particularly law and order itself, is oppressive. And so I think we have to see a move by citizens to remove these individuals from office, and we have to see a move by citizens to remove politicians who continue to support and provide political cover for these individuals. I think, Thanh, it speaks to a bigger issue, too, is that every policy decision has become partisan now. So law enforcement, what we deem as criminal conduct or how we treat the criminal conduct has become a partisan issue, and so it seems like it's just so divisive, and it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be issues that we have to be so divisive on.

It's needlessly divisive, Jordan. I mean, look, on the issue we're talking about today, it's no longer a guess. We have abundant evidence of what these policies create, and really it doesn't matter who derived them to take a look at the data. I mean, when you look down the cities from L.A. to Portland to Minneapolis to Seattle, Jordan, we know that these policies do not work. So if you're really a genuine leader, if you're really someone looking out for your constituents, for your voters, you're going to take a look at that and you're going to say, okay, maybe I still agree with the other side's proposals, but my policies are not working. I've got to pivot. We just haven't seen enough of that pivoting. And just anecdotally, Jordan, I'll just give you one more example.

You kind of referenced it. The caller was talking about these camp cities that are popping up across America. I mean, we've literally got them on Capitol Hill. We've got them, literally, Jordan, in the shadow of very robust facilities that the city actually does a pretty good job providing services to the homelessness, but yet we have these camp cities where there's no sanitation, there's no trash service, you know, there's heavy drug usage, and there has been a hesitancy to crack down on those. Now, Washington is starting to do a little bit better, but I just bring that up, Jordan, to point out, even in the shadow of very robust services, there has been a decision to allow these things to crop up, and it leads to crime. There are literally, Jordan, U.S. senators who are walking on their commute to the United States Capitol past these places.

It's just not a situation you want to see. Yeah, I mean, to me, ultimately, I mean, it gets started to one of those issues, Harry, where the country is, we saw in New York the election there where inside even the Democrat Party, a former law enforcement official was chosen by a city that leads pretty far left because after years of de Blasio and the idea of, you know, we're going to decriminalize this, decriminalize that, take away the power of police, take away the power of prosecutors, people have had enough, so they put a law enforcement official in charge. So those might be examples. We will see.

Ty will test. The new mayor hasn't been sworn in yet. But in the new year, we'll see if that kind of, if it finally just hits people that even if they are acting within their party, that they need to choose people who, again, understand how to enforce the laws. I think that is correct. So consequences force people, I think, to wake up.

And I think one fighter once said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. And I think the citizens throughout the United States are increasingly taking a punch, and I believe they are beginning to wake up and realize that the policies enforced by these progressives do not work, and they are causing consequences that lead to problems for families, children, for property crime, and the like. And I think it's about time for the American people to take charge of their own cities and to wrestle these cities from the control of progressive ideologues. Folks, it's been quite a week. Obviously, the center of the week was the Dobbs case at the U.S. Supreme Court, the first challenge to Roe vs. Wade since 1992. We filed three briefs there. We are going to be filing today in the case in South Dakota in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. We represent the state of South Dakota there and Governor Noem in their informed consent case. So fighting for life, the 6th Circuit in Tennessee. Also, now it's going to be here on Bonk, Tennessee state law on abortion restrictions as well. So we've got all that information up at ACLJ.org. That battle and all those fights continue, and we're engaged with them. Support our work at ACLJ.org.

We'll talk to you next week. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. With 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. Get a gift today online at ACLJ.org.