Biden’s Court Packing Commission Fails to Deliver for the Left

Today on Sekulow, Biden's court packing commission fails to deliver for the left. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.

And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. All right, so less than a week after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Dobbs case, the first major challenge to Roe versus Wade since 1992, the Biden Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, as we call the court packing commission, issued their final report. Last night the report came out, I'm holding it in my hands now, this is, by the way, front and back copies, so it's nearly 300 pages. It comes to no conclusions.

But I want to take you back. So in April, this came through executive order. President Biden created a Presidential commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, directed to address reforms to the courts like term limits, expansion, jurisdiction limits for the court, modifying the emergency docket mechanisms for Congress to expressly override court rulings. Well, the report is, surprise, surprise, typical for the Biden team, even they can't appease the left because their group that they chose could come to no conclusions. I think that my favorite part about this comes from NPR. And they said the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court has issued its final report.

The panel steers clear of taking a position on many of the most controversial suggestions. This is key. This is where you think NPR would be a little bit more educated. Still, the report states pretty unequivocally, I would think it would be 100% unequivocally, that Congress does have the power to enlarge the court. Well, of course they do. That should be pretty unequivocal.

The debate is whether or not it should ever be done. That's not even, the Constitution doesn't specify the number. Right. So the number is determined by congressional act.

If Congress said they wanted to have, you know, 35 members of the Supreme Court and it passed and was signed into law, they got to have it. But that's not what they're talking about. Right. They say, well, for term limits, maybe it's not necessary for a constitutional limit, but all of this goes to this. I don't think that's right either, by the way.

Yeah. And again, they're not 100% on that either. So don't worry, you're not in disagreement with this commission, which came to no conclusion. So what is the left doing? Well, the left's not happy about it. So they're putting forward already legislation now to say that they need to expand the court even before the Dobbs case comes out. But that's what it's all about. It's all about Roe vs. Wade.

It's all about abortion. That is the single issue driving this entire discussion on the court issues. So when you look at, again, 300, nearly 300 pages, you put together all these legal experts and all they've come down to the conclusion is we have no solutions. We have no conclusions.

It's just a back and forth, a pros and cons list, a very expensive pros and cons list. But I thought the fact that journalists who were trying to say, well, they've done something, they didn't do anything, but it shouldn't be pretty unequivocal. It should be unequivocal that Congress does have a role here and could expand the court or change the number of justices on the court. The question is whether that's the right thing to do. And does Congress right now, when you look at the makeup of the court today, doesn't have the votes.

Now, we talked about this before in our meeting. If the Supreme Court were to come back, overturn Roe vs. Wade or something similar to allow Mississippi's law to stand, which basically would gut Roe vs. Wade or how Roe vs. Wade has been interpreted. They'll use it as a, they'll run on it. And there are a couple of senators, Manchin and Sinema, who have said they don't support this, would be under a tremendous amount of pressure from the left.

Unbelievable. There would be some Republicans too, who would be under pressure because they were reelected on the idea that there's a couple who get elected because they say they're pro-abortion. Yeah. So the question will be, will the politics of this become the major issue next year?

And we're talking about next year, we're talking about, you know, the campaign season, folks, gets into full gear for the midterms in about three weeks. Yeah. So are they going to use this? Yeah, they're going to use this or they're going to try to use it.

I mean, whether they'll be successful or not is a different question. That's a different question. But this commission, what a joke. Yeah. I mean, what about political, it was political expediency for Biden. That's what it was. And it comes, it's a joke.

Yes. The fact that the only conclusion is conclusions we all already agreed upon, which is where the Congress power is, where the constitutional amendments come in. But whether it's right or wrong, you're not going to get that from this report. You'll just get arguments from both sides and that's it.

That's what the American taxpayers paid for. We'll be right back on Secular. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad, whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support. For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

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

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

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

Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. Welcome back to 2Sec.io. It's also a key day in our history.

Yeah, it is. And we'll mention this a little bit later in the broadcast as well. But this was, of course, it was 80 years ago today that the Empire of Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor. So again, we want to remember that and the significance that brought the United States into World War II. Of course, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave an impassioned speech. I think we're trying to pull some of that now.

We may have it in a moment. But before we get back to the politics, I just want to say, I mean, this is, I'm going to go to Wes here, Colonel Westmith. I mean, that was, in our moments of history, like the beginning of the Civil War and the firing on Fort Sumter, these kind of things, that was one of those events.

Yeah. And to our nation's credit, it's still one of those dates that unites us. We think about this date, and it doesn't matter what race, religion, political party, you're moved by the remembrances of this date.

And we need more of that in America. But it is a somber and a sacred date in US history. I want to play, this was Franklin Delano Roosevelt 80 years ago, I think, probably two days ago. Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy.

The Empire of Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor. Actually, Andy just brought up a very interesting historical point that was not in the original speech. No, the original speech did not have the clause, which will live in infamy. The President added that himself extemporaneously when he made the statement. And in fact, the date has lived in infamy. Here we are, 80 years later, remembering the infamous attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and the fact that the United States then entered World War II and changed the course of the war.

Well, and I was going to say that. I mean, I'm just finishing up a five-volume set of Winston Churchill on the Second World War. And he talks about that the fact was that the attack by the Japanese, the Empire of Japan on the United States west was probably the main, was the main reason we got it. We were really hesitant to get involved directly. We were helping the British, but to get directly involved, we were very hesitant. Yeah, and President Roosevelt had a lot of resistance from both political parties about helping the British. And he almost had to do it initially clandestinely to help them.

And yet, you're right. It changed the course of the war. Winston Churchill was elated and grateful and relieved whenever the attack came. And I can't recall which leader it was, but one of the Japanese leaders said to, was it Toto who was our ambassador here, is we have unleashed a sleeping giant. Yes, we have unleashed a sleeping giant.

And we were that giant. And we won the war. But there was a calculated move to attack the United States 80 years ago today. Did they not think, I mean, I'm looking at it historically, Andy, and get Harry's comments, did they not think the United States was going to respond like this?

Of course. It was a foolish remark, an act of infamy and point of fact. Tojo, who was in the United States talking to Cordell Hull, the Secretary of State and the President, when the attack occurred. So, it was brazen and duplicitous for them to have made this. Determined that they knew that those diplomats knew at that time. It was controversial before, but I think it came out that they knew.

I think they knew. And I think there's now a question that those diplomats were in Washington DC. While they were talking to our diplomat.

Right. While they were talking to the President, they were planning the attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States response was massive. And as Wes mentioned, Winston Churchill breathed a great sigh of relief because up to that point, Britain had stood alone. Yes, we gave them ammunition. I mean, we gave them ships.

And land lease. We did not give them land lease, but we did not give them fighting men and women. Well, and what Japan was counting on was they were going to destroy the entire Pacific fleet. And had they done that, we would have been crippled for a couple of years. As fate would have it and God's grace, part of the fleet had moved out of Pearl Harbor.

They weren't all there. Otherwise, they would have destroyed the entire Pacific fleet. So, that one little incident helped save us going forward in the war. The attack on Pearl Harbor also, we'll just do this for another minute or two, but I think this is interesting for our audience to know. Harry had a dramatic effect on the law too, because you had a lot of actions of the presidency at that time.

I think the Youngstown Seal, these kinds of cases, and some of the others. I mean, with the New Deal, Kormatsu, which was the internment of Japanese Americans. All those actions took place. That's why in the time of crisis, you have to have an independent judiciary. Although the judiciary got it totally wrong, stare decisis, by the way, for those that are so concerned about stare decisis. But it did change the law. I think it did. And so, if you look at the combination of the New Deal and World War II, and the attack on Pearl Harbor, the importance of the presidency in American history rose very, very significantly.

The attack on Pearl Harbor also underscored the fact that the American military was unprepared. And so, that raises an argument in favor of ensuring eternal vigilance and eternal deterrence with respect to aggression. All right, folks.

Again, I think one thing we wanted to ask you today, and if you want to give us a call, 1-800-684-3110. So, you think the Democrats will try to get what is the Judiciary Act? I want to go to Thad Bennett on this, to expand the court before the 2022 midterms. I would say that if it was today, they don't have the votes. But the court, again, if they come out with an opinion, I think the pressure, Thad, is obviously what they're trying to do. They didn't get that through the Presidential commission, but they still have the power to act. They don't have the votes right now. But it's a couple of votes away from potentially a court expansion, which Congress has the authority to do.

Well, Jordan, let me first say this. I mean, I think that they had the votes in both chambers. I think they would be taking those votes right now.

I mean, it's literally just a matter of the math. It's a matter of the votes. It's why they haven't taken them. Jordan, if it were to be called up in the House of Representatives right now, I think they probably do have the votes to pass it. But when you look at the United States Senate, and how many times have we said this, in a 50-50 divided Senate, I think they have a tall hill to climb with a couple of their members. As you mentioned in the outset of the broadcast, Jordan, I don't think they've given up on getting a couple of Republicans to come their way.

And I think they probably feel like something post-Dobbs is their best opportunity. But today, Jordan, my biggest takeaway on the Judiciary Act and its fate, I actually think the sponsors of that legislation, Senator Markey and then Congressman Hank Johnson, by the way, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler is a co-sponsor as well. I think all three of those members, Jordan, I think they feel like they're in a worse place today because of this report than they were before. Because before this report, Jordan, they didn't even have to engage the discussion about whether or not there was a valid play for the Judiciary Act. They just had to try to convince members to vote for it. Now they sort of have to engage both conversations because this report takes so little position. Just quickly, Jordan, I love this line from the report. It says, on all these issues, the commission takes no position, no position on the wisdom of expansion. Well, I'm really glad they spent months and months on this to take no position on all these issues.

I want to laugh at this because it's comical, to be honest. You got a 300-page report, roughly, Harry, right? I mean, it's close to 300, front and back of those pages. And they say at the beginning, by the way, we take no position on any of these controversial issues. We're just saying, here's the pros and cons. Now, did you need a commission to do this or was this... Now, they're going to use it for political ammunition because it basically gave some Democratic talking points and they're not particularly clear. But this court, we're talking about FDR, court packing was his idea, Harry. I mean, it didn't work out so well for Franklin Delano Roosevelt either. Well, Democrats, and this is one of my fondest hopes about Democrats, is that they failed to learn from history. And so if you look at Biden's Supreme Court commission, basically it reached an expected conclusion consistent with President Biden's record. In other words, it was a failure.

The Presidential commission on the Supreme Court delivered zero concrete recommendations. This is simply seen ironically as another matchless success consisting, Jay, as you correctly point out, of 300 pages. It essentially is the sound and fury that signifies nothing. Yeah. I mean, they open up their line, Jordan, and they're saying we're taking no positions on any of these things, including adding justices, including the term limit thing, which by the way, I think you've got them in the constitution to do that. It says they're appointed for life, for good behavior. Right.

Yeah. So on the one hand, I mean, they acknowledge, but not even as clearly as I think we would be honest about, which is that Congress could expand the court and Congress can, and they won't even, they wouldn't even want to go that far. Like it's a pretty unequivocal. Well, it's not pretty unequivocal. I don't think there has to be a debate about, does Congress have that power? The debate is whether or not it's right. And again, we've heard from scholars, both, both, you know, left, right.

There's not agreement on it. I mean, Congress wants to politicize, continue to politicize the court. And so by doing it in partisan ways to, you know, say it's going to be Democrats, the Democrats have the most to it. The fact that that's how we talk about it is what makes the court that much more political. And honestly, do people want to go through another four, more confirmation hearings that divide up the country because of how partisan these nominations have become, especially if it's a Republican President that gets to make the pick and they basically try to destroy these people's lives by the time they get to the court?

I mean, we don't need more of that as a country. And I don't think there's as many people to sign up to take that on, but we would take your calls 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110 and continue to support our work. ACLJ.org.

We have our matching challenge the entire month of December. You can double the impact of your donation. That's 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. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

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

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

All right, welcome back to Secular. This is from a progressive group, so the left of the left, it's called Indivisible, and their director of democracy policy said, this is the quote, despite the obviousness of both the problem and the solution, the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court has refused to make a formal recommendation on court expansion or any other reform. The American people deserve better than this long-waited, yet deeply unhelpful pros and cons list. So I think this is where the left actually sees this as hurting more than just being a nothing, is that because they could come to no conclusion, it seems like they shouldn't be taking any action.

Well, they came to no conclusion. I go back to what I said earlier about the court packing that took place under FDR. He did that because, Andy, he didn't like the way the Supreme Court was rolling. What's going to happen with this court packing commission too, by the way, that you're going to see what they'll do is after the decision in Dobbs, they will use the language, in at least some of the pros and cons stuff, they'll use the pro.

Go ahead. Yeah, what happened is that President Roosevelt wanted to get through a lot of his New Deal projects, and the Supreme Court at the time, which was leaning toward the Republican side, kept finding those unconstitutional. And he said, well, I can take care of that. I'll just go ahead and add some more justices to the Supreme Court. And the people who opposed him were largely his fellow Democrats who said, no, you're not going to do that. And as Justice Ginsburg has said, and I know we constantly refer back to her statement, it's been nine for a long time, not to be left that way. I think that was a bad idea to expand the court, she says, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to pack the court, and I think it's bad now. And that she was a pretty liberal justice on the court, I would say.

And I think she has got the right idea. Leave it alone. Don't politicize the Supreme Court of the United States.

Yeah, we can play that sound. This is from the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg by night. There is no fixed number in the Constitution. So this court has had as few as five, as many as 10.

Nine seems to be a good number. And it's been that way for for a long time. I have heard that there are some people on the Democratic side, who would like to increase the number of judges. I think that was a bad idea when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to pack the court. There you go. So I mean, I think that's why even on the left, and some of the heroes of the left, they looked at to those who were there, and they don't know and they don't agree with this idea that you do this for political purposes, which is what the issue would be here.

Totally. You know, Sotomayor made this whole thing argument during the Dobbs case about this was going to politicize the court. Well, I'll tell you what will politicize the court. Every President that comes in, Harry decides, I want another justice so I can tilt into my favor. They also ignore, by the way, the fact that these institutions are supposed to not be political, except they're nominated by Presidents, confirmed by senators, and they tend to fall along party lines in their decisions. You do have anomalies, but generally that's the way it is.

I think that's correct. And so if you continue to add justices to the United States Supreme Court, then you've got a logistical nightmare. And so if, for instance, Biden adds for, his successor adds for, et cetera, et cetera, what we really then will need is a much larger Supreme Court, or the Supreme Court will have to divide itself up in panels. And then the question becomes, would such a decision retain any legitimacy or bind the rest of the court?

So one of the things that the Democrats sometimes are fortunate about is that they do not get what they are asking for, because I think this is a fairly unintelligent move by the Democrats. Let's go to Chris in Nevada on Line 1. Hey, Chris, welcome to Sekulow. You're on the air.

Hi. Isn't the real reason that the court packing is coming up now is to subconsciously put pressure on the current justices in relation to the Dobbs case? I agree, and I don't think it's subconscious. It's direct. They have the legislation written to weaken the power of this current justices. So the legislation is there, and they're kind of holding it over, saying, if you make these kind of moves, and I will say this, I don't think that any justice should be swayed by that, but they're people. That's one. And two, it's very real that people on the left who have said they were opposed to this would feel massive political pressure from the abortion industry, from the groups like Planned Parenthood, their lobbying groups, and the Democrat Party itself to support the idea of adding justices.

I think that you don't have to really get into more than that. I think it's right there. And unfortunately, they want to pressure that. It's coming right at the time when the court... The fact that they even decided to hear the case outraged the left, Andy. I mean, that was upsetting enough that they'll even... That was part of the argument for the DOJ is, we shouldn't have this case because we walked through it again in 1992.

Right. We already decided it, and we already... And Casey, why are you coming through again? And it politicized this... Trying to politicize the court by doing these kinds of things is the thing that really puts the stench on the court. The politicization that Justice Sotomayor said would be what happened if we didn't... A poll row be weighed.

And I think that's... If you want to stink the court up, you'll add more justices and allow every President who comes in to put his political ideology on the court. Don't do that.

Stay away from that. By the way, if you went to 13, what prevents Congress from the next time saying we want nine? No, nothing. We want three. I mean, Congress has the authority to set the number. You fired the others. Well, no, they're lifetime appointees. You want to create a constitutional crisis?

There's a way to do it here. It becomes a political football. You know, the Supreme Court by design is not supposed to be political. Its members have political opinions because they're human beings. And as you said, Jay, they're appointed by a President who's part of a political party and they're confirmed by senators. But their job is to interpret the law. They're not supposed to make direct political statements. They're not supposed to, you know, have political involvement. It is why, and this is an example of this, during the State of the Union addresses, the justices are there. They're in their robes. They do not applaud in response to the President's address to the Congress.

They will applaud if they're honoring a veteran in the gallery or something, but they don't applaud to the address itself because they're by design are not supposed to be political. What is not surprising, but it's always shocking to me, is the left is intent on making the court blatantly political in the name of, you know, trying to denounce the politicization of the court. It's crazy. You know, I'm going to guess you in this to you and Than.

Let me go to Than first. Than, the legislation, what is the exact status of that legislation right now? Yeah, it's introduced in both the House and the Senate, Jay, and look, I would tie it directly into the pressure that Jordan talked about. The pressure to pass it happened actually during the Dobbs argument. It was Justice Sotomayor talking about the stench that would be on the court should this ruling go the wrong way.

Jay, I saw that as her laying the groundwork for moving that legislation if this case goes the way she doesn't want it to. All right, folks, again, we're going to get the second half of the broadcast. As you know, President Biden and President Putin, they've been on a phone call this morning, and it's a lengthy call. We don't know if it's ended yet.

We think it's still going. All we've gotten so far is the initial greetings, which I'll be quite honest with you, even there, we look pretty weak. He forgot to hit the button. Smilin's hands up are all over, we'll play, you know, and the Russians released the video immediately. So as Russian, as the Kremlin releases the video of what looks like a kind of out of touch older President from the United States not able to even, you know, say hello and be able to again, it's just started off pretty weak.

And there's a reason why the Kremlin released that video, even though there's no readouts of actual what is being said. But again, we'll have that for you. Rick Renell is going to be joining us to break this all down. If you want to join the conversation 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110 support the work of the ACLJR Matching Challenge month of December. You double the impact of your donation at ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. 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. All right. Right now, as we speak, and until we get further word, President Biden is on the phone with President Putin trying to avert what could be a full-scale conflict in Europe and yet another Russian attempt to annex more of Ukraine, which we saw under the Obama administration with Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine.

The Russian troops are massing on the border. We've talked about that. And now is the President of the United States trying to make the final diplomatic pitch to the President of Russia not to do this.

But I think the tone is already off. One, I can show you. Can we show the image?

This is what it looked like in the beginning. Now, interesting enough, this release, if you look closely here, you got smiling by the hands up, try to figure out how to hit the button. The Kremlin releases this video. Does that look like a guy who's about to threaten your entire economy? Whether or not, I mean, the Kremlin released that on purpose to try to show already American weakness. He had trouble with the buttons. That's staffing issues, not all Biden's fault.

Some of that's his problems with his staff. The Associated Press just put this out that Russian state news agencies say Biden and Putin have wrapped up their video call. It's been two hours.

That's all it says. So the call has just ended, a two hour phone call. Jen Psaki was asked about what's going to happen on this call.

And already, I think they take the wrong tone by 25. What is President Biden willing to threaten in this phone call will happen if Russia invades, just beyond more sanctions? Well, again, I think that it's not about threats. It's about conveying that the right path forward here is through diplomacy. In the meantime, on financial sanctions, we've consulted significantly with our allies and believe we have a path forward that would impose significant and severe harm on the Russian economy. You can call that a threat.

You can call that a fact. You can call that preparation, whatever you want to call it. What I hear there is, and we'll talk to Rick Rynum, is that we don't have full buy-in from our European allies on this. They think, would they specifically call it, that we believe they have a path forward, but it's not a united front where he could get on this phone call, I guess, with Putin this morning, because he's doing it now with the allies in Europe and say, we're all going to single you out and basically make it impossible for your financial system to operate. The US standing alone on that, it could still impact significantly Russia's ability to operate, but without Germany, without the buy-in, and I think that's what you really hear in that statement is we think we have a path forward to impose significant harm on their economy, but not a hundred percent. No, I think that's exactly the point.

And I was going to go to Wes who's got an article coming up on ACLJ.org on this. I mean, how do you view what Jordan just said as far as the willingness of Europe here? Yeah, I think there's a lot of hesitation and vacillation on the part of Europe. Germany is all for this Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which President Trump was trying to block and President Biden has approved it. They want to do trade with Russia. And for a while we were selling them liquefied natural gas in the United States. We don't even have it to sell to them anymore because of President Biden's policy. So yeah, whether or not Europe will come on board with economic sanctions that will make a difference is still in question.

You were just there. I would just say I was in Europe for three weeks and I can tell you that if we think we're going to lead the charge with our European allies a hundred percent behind us in terms of economic threats, that's a pipe dream. It's not going to happen because the Europeans are interested in dealing with the Russians, in trading with the Russians and having commerce with the Russians and interfacing with them significantly. We're going to be leading a charge with no soldiers behind us, Jay. This is Rick Riddell, our Senior Advisor for National Security and Foreign Policy. He's going to be joining us in the next segment of the broadcast with reaction, the initial reaction to this, taking apart these statements that we've heard from the White House. It seems like what happened is that President Biden is going from this call to a call with those leaders from the UK, France, Germany to try and sell them on the economic response, the diplomatic approach to trying to prevent and halt what would be a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian comments are interesting. What they've said is because the Trump administration, they have beefed up their military and they believe that they got fully invaded by Russia, they could slow down the retreat. That's the best case scenario for them is a slower retreat, a more managed retreat as Russia continues.

And that would be again if they fully with a full-scale invasion and think about a full-scale invasion in Europe in 2021, still trying to redraw European borders. We'll be right back on Secular. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad, whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support. For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

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

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Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. The call has just wrapped up, but literally I just in our first segment as we come back for a second half hour, associate press just put out the phone call. It was a two hour phone call. We showed you what the Kremlin leaked, which was Biden having issues with trying to get the microphone working correctly.

That's really staffing issues and the smiling that came before it. We now know that the President is on the phone with European allies. What appears to be trying to sell them on these economic sanctions, the White House that they're pretty confident on, but not 100% that they've got buy-in from our European allies.

Rick Rinnell, our senior advisor for national security and foreign policy is joining us today. Rick, just right off the bat, we haven't gotten readouts yet from this phone call, obviously, but we know that President Biden has gone from this call to the next call with the European allies, trying to sell them on joining this economic sanctions package, which I think if it went the full scale, the way that people try to basically limit Russia's ability to act internationally, that's one thing. But if we don't go that far, we've seen sanctions in the past that would not prevent this kind of Russian aggression. Well, let's hope the United States strategy is not simply to try to get the Europeans to be tough, because if that's our strategy, I can tell you we're already failing and we're going to fail. We've already given, the United States has already given the Russians an amazing pipeline of leverage into Europe. So they pocketed that pipeline and are now looking to do more within Europe, and that's why they've got more than 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border. Remember, they've already grabbed Crimea and there was really not a reaction that made any difference from the Europeans or from the Obama-Biden administration. So you really have the Russians knowing exactly who Joe Biden is, and they're reacting accordingly.

So one of the things, Rick, that I find interesting about this is the President's trying to carry a big, walks awfully and carry a big stick. Meanwhile, as you just mentioned, the Russian military is on the border of Ukraine. First of all, on that one, do you see a scenario of events where Russia would basically invade Ukraine?

I do. Look, we have given away our leverage over the last 11 months with Biden. It's a very difficult situation and the United States needs to, 11 months ago, partner with the Europeans under Joe Biden and send a very clear message. Since we didn't do that, now we're finding ourselves in a situation where we have to decide between multiple really bad choices. And so I'm very concerned that Chancellor Merkel now is off the stage.

She's no longer the chancellor. The Green Party is now in charge in Germany of both defense and foreign policy, the foreign ministry. And so when you have the Green Party in control of the military and the diplomacy of Germany, I think you also send to Putin a very strong message that you're weak. So combine that with the Biden administration and I think Putin is reading the tea leaves and saying, who's going to stop me? Well, Rick, this is the idea is that already we saw this interesting move by the Kremlin to release this video where the President was having issues with even the problems and they look like they're very smiley.

And it just doesn't seem like the that's how you start when if the talk is that tough. And I think it was Putin had to actually was trying to get Biden's attention to tell them where to start. So there were issues there. And then the criminal, of course, releases it. But that's done intentionally. I want just our audience to know that the decision to take that kind of video, that's all we have from this so far and know that it's coming from a foreign power like the Kremlin to do that.

Those are intentionally released. They think that that, again, it underscores this idea of of weakness. The Russians are great at manipulation. This is what they do.

They push misinformation. And so I'm sure that that was a moment where President Biden was greeting President Putin. But it makes it really look like Biden is the one coming to beg. It looks like Putin is in control. It looks like Biden is weak and funny and irrelevant.

And it is a terrible signal. All of Europe is looking at this picture. All America is looking at this picture. The world is looking at this picture.

And it only emphasizes what we were already thinking, that Joe Biden is weak when he goes head to head with Putin. That's what I was I was trying to come with. What is it?

This was while we were live on the air. And that's what it is. It's the back. It looks like the way they shot it because they shot it from his view. Right. Which you could do it from the other view.

But they released, but there's a Kremlin got ahead of it. So he's in this office. He's digitally clear. And you have a President with the open arm. Who looked like we were using technology from 100 years ago.

Go ahead, Wes. We look like the supplicants in this case. We really do. You know, any gesture of goodwill that we give to the Russians, Rick, seems like they see that as a sign of weakness. I remember when President Obama was in office and we agreed to remove our defensive missile batteries from the countries in Eastern Europe. Putin's response to that was to continue the aggression in Crimea and to invade eastern Ukraine. And so now if you were in charge, what what repercussions would you put in place if you were the President? You know, there's talk about financial sanctions, not just on his oligarch friends, but on himself removing Russia from the G20.

I don't know what effect that would have. But if you could lay out three or four things, what would you do to make it clear to Vladimir Putin, you will be punished and this is how? Well, first of all, I got to start with saying that I'm really angry that we're in this position where we're finding ourselves having to respond and our only choices are bad and very bad.

You know, the answer to your question is really 11 months ago I would have made different decisions and not put us into this situation. First of all, I wouldn't have allowed the Nord Stream two sanctions to lapse. By the way, if Biden had been stronger on Nord Stream two, then there are senators who wouldn't be holding up all of his ambassadorial nominations. And one of the reasons why Ted Cruz is really doing a good job of holding the State Department's feet to the fire is because if we have a whole bunch of ambassadors appointed by Biden out in Europe singing the messages that Joe Biden wants our ambassadors to be singing, then that's even more so sending a weak message because we will be organizing European countries to back off from standing up to Russia. Now we're finding today that the Biden administration is trying to get the Europeans to be stronger on Russia. Well, it's a little too late.

They've already sent the signal and Chancellor Merkel is gone and we don't really have a leader in Europe right now. I thought it was interesting, Rick, the timing of the way in which we're engaging seems to be, I'm a drummer by passion, not by career, but I'm a drummer. You got to keep in the pocket. You got to have rhythm. And I feel like we're out of rhythm here. It's like we're two beats behind, if you will. And if you're two beats behind, the song ends up being horrible. Now, Andy was just at our European Center for Law and Justice offices in Trostburg and you said the consensus in Europe was that we're not leading.

Yeah. Ambassador Grenell, my view of what I saw in Europe in three weeks that I was there is that if we lead, if the Biden administration leads a charge economically or otherwise against the Soviet Union, against Russia, that you're not going to find a lot of European allies right behind you, supporting you and taking up your line because the Europeans are soft on this. They're interested in trade and commerce with the Russians and they're not going to go behind a weakling President. But what I want to ask you is if you were Vladimir Putin sitting in that chair today, looking across the Atlantic Ocean at Joe Biden and his performance, and you know the mind of Putin and the mindset of the Russians, what would you as Vladimir Putin be thinking of this person that was sitting across the screen to you?

It's such a good question and I will give you a little tip that I'm writing a piece right now, I'm almost finished, that will go up on aclj.org that really answers that question. What is Putin thinking and what is happening and I think what Putin is thinking is he's watched over the last 11 months, you know, Joe Biden say that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation. Putin knows that that's not true and yet all of the US media sing from that same book that Hunter Biden's laptop is Russian disinformation. Joe Biden pushes that and so he's sitting across the table from somebody who has been pushing the Russian hoax for four years saying that Donald Trump was a Russian asset. Putin knows that that's not true. There's a whole bunch of things that are happening in this lead up where I think Putin has determined that Joe Biden is too weak to respond to him and he's going to make some moves. Remember lastly too, Putin made a big move on Crimea when Joe Biden was vice President.

Not a lot happened so this is the second part of the act. Rick, we know you've got that working on that piece and you're going to be joining us tomorrow because we think we'll get more of a readout, more from our European allies about what this push was after the call with Putin and so again Rick will be joining us tomorrow as we get more information about this two-hour phone call between President Biden and President Putin and in the call with our Western European allies. As always we appreciate Rick and check out aclj.org.

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Give a gift today online at aclj.org. All right, welcome back to Secular. So right now the President is trying to sell whatever threat he made, or they don't like to call it threats, but diplomatic options on the table, whatever was made, he does not have full buy-in. And I think just the White House allowing the Russians to know that before this call, even if that was the case, but that card being out on the table puts Putin in a more powerful position. As we heard from Rick, just that imagery they're trying to release is the fact that we're going to them, say, begging them not to invade Ukraine as if we really had the wherewithal, we couldn't stop that. Everyone, every player knows at this table that the US has the military weaponry. I'm not saying we want to go that route, but they all know it.

And yet they feel like we're too weak to even utilize it if we fell strongly. And we can't even convince smaller European countries who usually are very reliant on the US for their own protection, but also their economies, to go along with us in sanctioning Russia because we've allowed this pipeline to be developed. And I think and I think that's the apathy that you kind of feel from Europe is that they don't have a strong position on this because economically they're benefiting from Russian gas. It hasn't started flowing yet, but this administration has lifted a lot of those sanctions. But then Rick brought it up.

I want to get into a little bit more because Rick's brought up a couple of times, Senator Cruz, the holdup on the administration. The Biden team has had a very difficult job getting their diplomatic positions filled because of Nord Stream 2. Question about it, Jordan.

I mean, there's been stiff opposition in the United States Senate really all across Washington, D.C., and it hasn't been just strictly partisan. You know, another factor in this, Jordan, and I really I was thinking back to the conversation that the panel there had about the attack on Pearl Harbor and how there were Japanese diplomats in country leading up to that. Jordan, I actually think there's somewhat of an analogous situation here as this conversation takes place while the Russian troops are staged on the border.

And so you kind of take the optics that you've been talking about and then combine them with some of the sound that you've been playing from Jen Psaki, especially that one where she talked about this is not a time or this is not about threats. Jordan, maybe this is a time for threats. I mean, maybe maybe the Russians have been provocative. Maybe it's very clear what they plan to do, or at least they are threatening to plan to do. Maybe it is time for the superpower of the world, the United States, to threaten them diplomatically. Maybe they will say this is the force that we would put in place should you take this action. I think that kind of strength is what would get you coalescing across Europe.

And Jordan, I think it is probably what would get you greater buy-in even inside your own party in Washington, D.C. on some of these nominations. Yeah, we take a listen. This is FDR, as Stan referenced back, again talking about the Japanese try to deceive us by 28. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace. The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. We do want to take a moment and again remember the men and women that served during World War II.

Not many of them left now, but what a historic moment. But I was thinking about this, Harry, and I tied into the foreign policy issue because you are our director of policy. We could be, I mean, Will Haines wanted us to ask and we'll talk to Rick about this tomorrow. Are we about to witness an invasion of Ukraine? I kind of asked that and Rick said, yeah, this is probable.

I think Rick is right. I think after the American government and President Joe Biden caved in Afghanistan, a signal was received and that signal was loud and clear that the United States will no longer protect its own interest. It will no longer protect American soldiers in harm's way. It will continue to basically engage in a conspiracy that harms individuals who have been allies with us, for instance, in Afghanistan for decades. And so I think what we need now in Washington is we need a President who believes in preemptive sanctions and if necessary preemptive actions.

We don't have such a President. And given that, I think an invasion in Ukraine and possibly an attack on Taiwan are potentially in the offing. And those are game-changing world events, if that were to happen. Game-changing world events. Yeah, you have to have a lot of backbone to either respond to that, your military has got to be ready.

I mean, lives are going to be lost. I wonder if you've got massive invasions in two different regions of the world with two different major powers that you're still dealing with. And some of this goes to the fact that when you get too greedy, which I think we did with the Chinese, and allow you to rely on slave labor and a country committing genocide is going to host an Olympics, then invade Taiwan and tells everyone they're going to take the top spot in the world. And yet this family, specifically the President's family, has so many financial ties to it. Like they got a problem today because they're trying to explain away which Chinese government official did Hunter Biden sell his stake in a Chinese firm to after his dad became President. They got problems. And I think it's not just American greed, it's world greed. Cheap labor, allowing these powers then to utilize that and then act like they're different. They're not that same actors, same problems, same people, but we're empowering them now. Yeah, and weakness invites aggression. Always. Weakness invites aggression. And Putin, he's winning already because he's sowing friction and disunity with our European partners and his NATO. If he can prevent NATO from acting cohesively against him, he's won. We got to call Ralph calling from California on Line 1. Hey Ralph, welcome to Secular on the Air.

Thank you for taking my call. My question was, in history, didn't the US and Russia agree that if Crimea would disarm their nuclear abilities, that they would always remain sovereign and independent? I think there was an agreement in 1994, so let's get flashback to then Russia was a mess. The Soviet Union was still disintegrating.

They were still trying to figure out who they were, where they were. So I think that they would say, we didn't make those agreements. Those were previous administrations. And they've already shown that because Crimea has already been annexed.

That's been something that happened in the Obama years. And there's no penalty for them, Andy, to ignore this, to be bound by it. They ignore it. They're not going to have a penalty.

No. Putin is saying, look, I've got a free pass. I'm not worried. I got a weakling. I got a backboneless, feckless person on the other side. What's he going to do to me if I invade the Ukraine? The Ukraine is mine anyway. Historically, it's been mine.

And in practicality, it's going to be mine. And the Americans and the Europeans are going to take no real action against me. I believe in sitting in his seat as I asked Rick Grenell to put himself in, that that's the attitude that Vladimir Putin is taking. He's a strong man against a weak man.

And the stronger is going to win every single time. We are going to continue to follow this very closely. So again, just to remind you, the President went from that call to a phone call with the European leaders, trying to sell them on whatever sanctions package he threatened Vladimir Putin on. But Putin knows that's happening after the fact. He didn't come into the meeting with 100% agreement.

At least that's not what the White House indicated, which why would you want to play that as your hand unless you felt like you had to, or they already knew? So let me just encourage you to stick with the broadcast tomorrow as well. As always, go to ACLJ.org. You can support our work there. This is the most critical month of the year for us, the ACLJ. Financially, if you can donate online, if you're able to do it, that is great at ACLJ.org. And right now you double the impact of your donation with our matching challenge. That's at ACLJ.org. Talk to you tomorrow. to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org.