We got breaking news, Jack Smith targets Ted Cruz. 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, Logan Sekulow.
Welcome to Sekulow. Phone lights are open for you. I want to hear from you at 1-800-684-311. It's Tuesday. We're live, Jordan Sekulow's in the studio with me and Will Haynes.
It's going to be a packed show. Show. We're going to hear from members of our team in Washington, D.C. We're going to hear from Rick Rinnell. And of course, all the commentary you can hear from all three of us and the work of the ACLJ continues.
We did want to open up the show today talking about, once again, Jack Smith. You're like, okay, Logan, how many times can we start the show with Jack Smith? At this point, I'm not even sure. I remember who this man is, but Jack Smith has been caught again. spying, searching, attempting to, and you gotta give it up.
Sometimes you got to give it up to some big tech. And ATT said, sorry, Jack. You're not going to get Ted Cruz's phone records. And we don't even really know why they did, but they did not do it. But we know for a fact that he was searching for it.
That's right, Logan.
So what we've got here now is a ninth U.S. senator that Jack Smith was attempting to subpoena the phone records from. We know that at least with eight of them, it's reported he was able to get them. That was Senator Marsha Blackburn, Senator Johnson, Haggerty, Holly, Loomis, Lindsey Graham, Dan Sullivan, and Tommy Tuberville, as well as a sitting member of the House of Representatives, Representative Mike Kelly from Pennsylvania. That's why Tommy Tupperville is like, I'm going to be governor.
That's right. Enough of this.
Now we're hearing. That Anaxios got the scoop last night, that Ted Cruz was also targeted. The twist here. Is they subpoenaed these phone records, including text messages, voicemail information, all of this, yet. AT ⁇ T did not comply with the subpoena.
That opens up a lot more questions, and I know Jordan, we're going to get into that in the next segment. But the fact that he at least was not, his information was not transmitted to the special counsel's office because they decided not to comply. I think it's even interesting that. They did not comply, which means the other Organizations that did comply probably were afraid that if they didn't apply, they would be sued in court.
So, what ATT did was say, basically, call their bluff. And what happened, it looks like Jack Smith was really on his fishing expedition. He didn't have enough on any of these people to actually get award. This wasn't a murder. He was trying anybody and everybody who is basically a well-known name that you might see on Fox News or someone who got very connected to one of the voter issues in their state.
May have had conversation with President Trump. I mean it shows you Who really has the power here?
Well, now these other telecom companies, I hope I use Verizon, I hope they listen and say, you know what, let's do next time what ATT did and stand up for our customers' security when we believe that that data is not appropriately requested and we're not afraid of a lawsuit because it seems like this is connected to nothing. Because at that point, Ted Cruz's name was not being discussed as someone who was being looked at as a potential. None of these people were. As a potential criminal actor.
Well, in Jordan, I mean, when a subpoena is a company could be held in contempt of court. If there's a subpoena.
So ATT, at least from the reporting by not complying, their general counsel. Thought it was a better move to call the bluff and the risk being on the other side. Sanctions, contempt of court, the list goes on. To fight if they were in control could really make ATT's life not pleasant. Right.
I mean, you can regulate companies a pretty nasty way.
So it was interesting, they said, we're going to stand on the side of. The consumer, and I hope. They actually lean into that message, because I think you'd see a lot more people. Switching over their service. Yeah, exactly.
What do you think about this? Give me a call, 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. We're also gonna get an update on the government shutdown. Straight from our offices in Washington, D.C.
So you're gonna hear from our team there, and then later on, Rick Rinnell is gonna be joining us to chat about everything from the No Kings protests to There's so much more. You want to be a part of this show today though as well, because we have some great voices on the air, and it's always great to hear from you. In the meantime, I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org. I want you to support the work that we're doing here. Of course, that includes this show and our amazing legal work.
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You can do that by calling in, by supporting us, however you can, go to aclj.org. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. Will, I want you to kind of give us.
Maybe a bit more of a history of what this is, how we got here, because of Course, when people see the headline, they read that Ted Cruz has essentially been a Really maliciously gone after by Jack Smith. They kind of wonder the history of why this is happening now. Why is it even information that we're just getting, but also the full context here? Maybe we need to give a breakdown. I see some comments coming in going, I don't even know what y'all are talking about.
That's right. So you'll remember back that the Biden administration strategically waited to start pursuing investigations against President Trump and trying to indict him until later in the Biden term. And we had that famous raid on Mar-a-Lago, which was related to classified documents. And then the Attorney General Merrick Garland opened a special or appointed special counsel to handle investigations into the former President at the time and looked into both trying to get charges on the classified documents case out of Florida and then out of D.C. related to January 6th, trying to tie him into this conspiracy, making it some sort of obstruction charge that the President, because he didn't do enough to stop people on January 6th.
January 6th.
So that's what this all stems from. And this Arctic Frost investigation was related to the January 6th information. Yeah, Arctic Frost is like a code name. FBI code name for their investigation. Think about Crossfire Hurricane.
I know we got to give Crossfire Razor. Yeah, that was when you hear Arctic Frost, we have to give people some background. That's right. So Arctic Frost was the code name within the FBI and then later the Department of Justice for this investigation. Jack Smith, as a part of this, decided.
What's the name of the bear in K-pop Demon Slayer? Oh, yeah, bear animal? Yeah, Arctic Frost.
So this was the part of that investigation. He started targeting phone records of sitting U.S. senators and one sitting member of Congress. He did this through subpoena, and we know that this was not subpoenaed until 2023, even though the records he was seeking were back in 2021, right around the time of January 6th. It was like January 4th through 7th.
He wanted all Text messages, ingoing and outgoing phone calls, voicemail data, things of that nature is what he was trying to obtain on these sitting Presidents, as though also. That seeing a phone call come in or going out to the President, another member of Congress, would be abnormal for a sitting member of Congress with the President that is of their same party.
Well, I just wanted to ask real quickly, because I'm sure people just want to get this straight in their head. Every one of these members was that the same day frame? It was the same timeframe, yes, January 4th through the 7th of 2022. This was connected to the January 6th, and exactly what they were looking for by using geolocation and who they were speaking to is: were they talking to the President? Were they with the President?
Were they in the White House? Basically, you could find out who someone is meeting with. In any of the buildings in DC, or have at least 90% chance of being correct just by knowing their location and time, because you can kind of play into, okay, what was happening at that day.
So you imagine if this is an attempt to spy on yet another U.S. senator, they did it on eight. And now we know they've done it on 9th. If I was a U.S. Senator during and I was in Senate during that time period.
I'd be going to the FBI right now uh and say like Okay, y uh Bongino cash, tell me. Like was it w who How compromised did I get? Where did we get? Because no one ever told me about this, and they may not be the ones you know by name. They're on TV as much, but that's certainly who they targeted.
Well, and this is also an attack on a co-equal branch of government. They are looking at this in a way that we have not seen before. But also, we see that Senator Marsha Blackburn is actually calling on the DOJ to investigate this. She has sent a letter to the Attorney General requesting an investigation. But I think another question that this brings up: we know that at least for the first eight, that the phone companies appeared to comply.
They gave the information to the special counsel's office. That feels like the social media world where they felt pressure. Like Jordan said. Right, I'm sure if the special counsel with the Department of Justice and you're a regulated industry, you'd think that your first, your general counsel at first is going to be like, we should probably comply with the government. ATT, in the case of Ted Cruz, it appears, did not comply with the subpoena, which means that someone in the general counsel's office, at least this is what we can maybe infer from this.
looked at this and thought about consumer protections, public relations, as well as the separation of powers, and thought This doesn't necessarily seem like something we should comply with. That. Puts the company at jeopardy of sanctions, contempt of court. They would then have to expend money to fight that in court. We don't know if Jack Smith just dropped it at that point or if he filed motions to compel or if there was a motion filed by ATT.
Hopefully that will get reported out because that's the most fascinating angle. Yeah, it'd be interesting to hear what ATT has to say. I know they probably are not going to respond to this. You know what I like in my theory in my head is they looked up Ted Cruz's account. Like, he's been a loyal customer since he's a Bell South man, really, is what we're talking about here.
He's been with us for a long time. We're not going to turn over his records. How dare they? He's got the little card. He's had a landline with us since 78.
He wears a lapel pin right under his American flag lapel pin. Bell South. I would love to know if ATT got any response after the date. They had to submit this information. Or, as is so typical with Washington, did it disappear?
Was it just a fishing expedition that they knew they probably couldn't defend in court?
So let's just see how many companies will send it over. Jack Smith didn't fight this. That also shows that it was a fishing expedition. And then we don't know how many other companies did what Ted Cruzes did.
Now we need to learn that.
So I would ask the U.S. senators to go and check. To see, was there a time when your service provider was contacted in this time period, so January 4th to 7th, about information from January 4th to 7th? Does it matter? Did that happen?
And did you just not respond? Because then we'd know. I think if they did respond, That would have been in the information that we already have seen. Like, if they already got the information they're requesting, those are the initial eight plus the member of the House. I mean, but it is, again, it's the worst of the worst because they are just spying to spy for political damage.
This has nothing to do with U.S. national security.
So, turning on our own elected leaders, I mean, that is the worst of the FBI. That's the worst of the deep state. Intelligence agencies and policing forces coming together and using their power to try and intimidate. Uh elected. members of Congress who are supposed to be running the country because they are voted in by the people of the country.
That's right. Hey, I want to hear, speaking of the people of the country, I do want to hear from you. We do have some phone lines open. 1-800. 684-3110, 1-800-684-3110.
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So aclj.org, you can do it right now, or just click that subscribe button if you're watching. It's an important time. I would love to know from our audience.
So give us a call, 1-800-684-3110. Kind of two groups. Group one: you don't work for the federal government. How is the shutdown affecting you or is it affecting you at all? And just your honest opinion.
There's no right or wrongs here, but we'd love to hear from you. If you don't work for the federal government, Is it impacting you? You give us a call, 1-800-684-3110, and make sure you tell our call screener, I'm the one who doesn't work for the federal government. If you do work for the federal government and you have been furloughed, How is it affecting you?
Now that we are, you know, Post-two weeks into this and hearing things like it could be post-Thanksgiving, you start getting the holidays with no checks. It gets a little nerve-wracking.
So, let our call screener know: are you a current federal employee or are you a non-federal employee and how the shutdown is affecting you? I feel like we're going to get two very different answers. Are we at the point of it being record-breaking? I think we're getting very close. We are.
So, we're at day 21. I believe 35 is the record, and that was back in 2018-19. That was the 35 days back right there in the first Trump term. I'd have to look that up, but it's a budgeting issue. It was another continuing resolution situation.
And back then, President Trump actually has been pretty consistent about these government shutdowns not being a smart thing to continue to do. When your party loses and the other party is saying, listen, we haven't come to an agreement to get past the 60-vote threshold, so we just want to pass an extension so that everybody gets paid and to keep the government open, so we're fully functioning for the American people, and our men and women in uniform are getting paid, and staff are getting paid, and janitors are getting paid, everybody. Um is that we're not going to change anything.
So Democrats, we're not trying to slip anything in on you. Democrats, we're not going to allow you to slip anything on us. We're just going to keep things how they were last time we passed a resolution or budget. And then we will have another six months to negotiate. And that's not good enough for the Democrats because Chuck Schumer and all these aging Democrats want to sound and talk tough like AOC.
And they feel like I think with Mondami, things like that in New York, they are quickly getting pushed out of the party that they were so critical in kind of creating in its modern form. That's right. Phone lines are completely jammed right now. Oh, two just opened up. I like that question.
They did. It was a good question. 1-800-600. Yeah, a lot more government employees than I thought.
Well, I'm not listening yet. Plenty of our listeners are government employees in North Virginia. We're going to break all of that down in the next segment. We're going to be joined by a member of our team in Washington, D.C., so we're going to have that happening. And then later on, Rick Rinnell is going to be with us.
It's going to be a packed second half of the show. If you do want to call in, I suggest this is the time to do it. Get on hold, wait, we'll get to you. 1-800-684-3110. Again, 1-800-684-3110.
I do want to really push how important it is if you can become an ACLJ champion. That is someone that gives on a monthly recurring basis. Know how important that is. That gives us a great baseline. But also, look at all the work we're doing here, whether that's this show or the work in the courts, of course, our work in Washington, D.C.
and around the world. The ACLJ is engaged. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. We're gonna go to Washington, D.C.
Now, Jordan has been really working a lot on the expansion and the growth. Our government affairs office in Washington, D.C., as we have been expanding not just the actual physical footprint of our offices, but also the incredible people that have been joining our team.
So, Jordan, I'll let you take from here. Yeah, I mean, so something you know, we've always had a government affairs office as part of our operation in D.C., but we've attempted to as we've been able to expand our office there and space there. We've been able to expand our government affairs team and have, because of your support of the ACLJ, an ability to bring in people with that much more experience to build out new teams as we face new requests. As an organization that's been around for over 35 years on topics that we may talk about a lot on this show and other times, topics that you might, you'll see in our blogs and places like that. We also launched ACLJ Action, a C4, to take issue advocacy to the next level.
And so we're going to introduce you today, our brand new director of government affairs, who's also assisting with the, again, ACLJ Action out of Washington, D.C. Mark Kelly's joining us. We can put up on the screen for us. He's in our DC studio. We've actually got a new DC studio being built as we speak right now.
I was trying to wait it out until he had the new studio, but this was too good of a time to bring Mark in because I just want you to know the kind of person we're hiring with your support at the ACLJ.
So Mark has three decades of experience in public policy, politics, and strategic leadership, including Twenty five. four years on Capitol Hill.
So he knows how things work there. And he served as a chief of staff to five. Different members of Congress from all over different parts of the country. During that time in Washington, he held roles at the Heritage Foundation Media Research Center.
So he's got that effort too. And I love this. I mean, he's such a perfect fit. He's a Regent law grad. Oh, that's great.
Like so many of us.
So even though he's focused on the government affairs side and the kind of what's going on in Congress, he's able to interact with our legal team at that level because of his, again, schooling at Regent. And he went past that, also earned an MBA. What I think is just great as you're seeing, folks, is the kind of individuals we are adding to our team. to take that government affairs. Operation two.
Totally to the next level. And so, Mark, with the shutdown now entering three weeks, I was like, I can't wait for the new studio. I got to bring you in on this. And my first question is: this: We hear rumbles that the shutdown could end sometime this week. A lot of people were texting me that saying, you know what, after all these No Kings protests and they had their big protests, can't we just do a kumbaya moment and pass the continuing resolution?
But then I hear the flip side, you know, an hour later you see from another news outlet, it could be past Thanksgiving. Where do you feel things are right now? Is it changing like hour to hour? I think one of the things being around Washington this long and living through a few of these shutdowns is this one feels a little different. Both sides seem dug in.
The Senate has voted 11 times on moving to the House bill that would keep the government open. And so far, there's been no movement. The same three Democrats keep voting with the Republicans, and they're short of the 60 votes.
So I think the next inflection point really is Friday. That's when Federal employees miss their first full paycheck. You have Six senators in three Democrat states, three of the four biggest states with federal employees.
So we'll see. If their constituents start weighing in, the Trump administration has been doing a great job at the core functions of government, getting those checks out on time. They solved a problem with the Women, Infant and Children program, so the WIC program, getting that. Money for that. They also solved getting the military paid at their mid-October pay.
So This Friday seems like the next inflection point, although there there hasn't been any movement.
So, Mark, real quick, I just want to underscore that on the military pay. They were able to get some back pay. or some on-time pay to our men and women in in uniform. That's correct. The Trump administration found $8 billion.
They used some accounting to do that of money that was available under the spending rules. And so they were able to make that payment. We have not heard yet whether next week's payment, the end of the month payment, has been accounted for yet. I'm sure they're looking at it. The Trump administration has been going out of their way to make sure that that there is as little pain as possible in the American people as we go through this shutdown.
Mark, one question on that as well. We know that it took the Trump administration finding internal already appropriated funds to be able to pay the military. There have been talks about even floating a standalone bill to make sure that the men and women in uniform get paid. But you've also heard Democrats shut that idea down that, no, we want to move forward with a full package, a full continuing resolution with what their demands are. How do the Democrats as a party right now see that as a solid messaging point to the American people as the midterms approach us next year?
That we are the party that would not pay the military when the opportunity was given to us. Yeah, that's a great point. They have floated a single The possibility of a single bill to pay the military. The Senate Republicans also put a procedural motion on the floor to pass a standalone military spending bill, which would have funded not only just the pay, but also all of the military. The Democrats rejected that.
There is a bill talked about going on the floor this week from Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and that bill would pay all essential employees.
So any employee that's being required to work right now would get their paycheck on time.
So far, it sounds like the Democrats are not going to accept that way forward either. And you know, they're really trying to make this shutdown about health care. You all have talked about this on the show before, I know, but one of the big asks is to extend these Obamacare subsidies. And they're really asking Republicans to help them fix. A healthcare system that they put in place, and that's what they're trying to make this shutdown about.
Mark, I appreciate you coming on today. And like Jordan said, we wanted to showcase what's going on in Washington, D.C. as we are growing and things are really changing there at the ACLJ in Washington. I want to give you the opportunity also to tell our audience about that and just what the ACLJ is doing in your new role and everything that's happening there. Because though we're here talking about the very, you know, the details of the minutiae of what's going on with the government shutdown, but the growth there is tremendous.
Yeah, it's an excellent opportunity for me to work with the team here. We have an excellent set of lawyers and making sure that Capitol Hill knows the work that we're doing. And they can be partners with us on anything from the amicus briefs that we're filing with the Supreme Court. To legislative activity that we really feel we should have a part in. One of the things we've weighed in already, I mentioned the Obamacare subsidies.
Those right now, Go to help fund abortion. And we weighed in with a letter to Speaker Johnson and Majority Leader Thune saying, Hey, you may negotiate these subsidies eventually. They're not talking about negotiating them during the shutdown, but when you do, we need to make sure our decades-long practice in America of not having taxpayer funds go to fund abortion is continued. And so, there are many opportunities. We had the one-year Planned Parenthood defunding that was a part of the One Big Beautiful bill.
We're going to be advocating that that be extended.
So, I'm just very excited about this opportunity to do the things that I know the ACLJ supporters want us to do here in Washington. And Mark is building out. And Mark, thanks for joining us. We're going to wait until probably a couple more months to bring him on, but I had to have him today. He's putting together his team right now.
Like, so his deputies. And so, I mean, not starting from scratch, obviously, because of his background, his ability to contact. Members because of his long-time service on Capitol Hill. But to then Bring in a new team. uh for our government affairs uh staff.
And we've been able to expand folks It's all because of you and your financial support of the ACLJ.
So I encourage you to donate today at aclj.org and that team can be bigger, stronger, and more, I guess, more impact. in DC on things you care about. Go to aclj.org and donate. Keeping you informed and engaged.
Now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Luke. Logan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow.
Second half hour coming up. Rick Rinnell's gonna be joining us. I think in the next segment, we'll have Rick. Joining us. But between now and then, you're going to hear some great sound.
We're going to keep this conversation going and we're going to hear from you. And phone lines currently are one line open, 1-800-684-3110. Before we get to the calls, though, Will, I know you wanted to address. Hakeem Jeffries. That's right.
So, what we've been seeing is the Democrats trying to spin this as this is the Republican shutdown. Obviously, they are the ones that are not voting for the bill that's being put forward 11 times and refusing to pay the military and things of that nature. But this was so rich to me, I had to play it because over the weekend, we saw the No Kings rallies that they made a huge deal about and actually may have pushed back some of the moderate, more centrist Democrats of coming to an agreement because they see all these people across the country protesting the President. And how many times have you heard where the Democrats have told President Trump to stop meddling in the business of Congress? You know, we are a co-equal branch of government.
But here's how he classified and said this is the only way that we're going to come to an agreement between a co-equal branch of government. Listen to Hakeem Jeffries just yesterday afternoon. Donald Trump definitively needs to get involved. He needs to get off the sidelines, get off the golf course, and actually decide to end the shutdown that he's created, that he has allowed to happen. We know that House and Senate.
Republicans don't do anything without getting permission from their boss, Donald J. Trump. And the reason why there have been no negotiations, zero negotiations. Since Republicans shut the government down, is because Donald Trump clearly wants the government shut down. He wants to inflict pain on the American people.
And this will not change. Until Donald Trump gives Republicans permission to sit down with Democrats. Jordan, they had a no-kings rally. They said they don't have a king to, but how can Congress not do it without them calling the king off the sidelines? I think they don't dynamite Trump to come down to Capitol Hill to run it, to run for Congress, to say, you know what, Speaker Johnson, let's do this together.
That's what Hakeem Jeffries, who. This weekend, his people were calling him a king who won't stay out of their role, is now begging him to come to Capitol Hill to save. Uh what? Democrat votes? He thinks that Donald Trump can bring Enough Democrats on board because the only Republican not on board right now is Rand Paul.
And I think once there's enough votes for this, he'll be on board.
So I think that's more of a protest vote as of now, an easy one to make because it's not deciding whether it passes or not. But come on, you think that Donald Trump On Capitol Hill, on the House floor, is going to help with those left-wing Democrats that are still holding out. That's what Hakeem Jeffries' strategy is. Bring him back out. We want him on the floor.
We think we can end the shutdown. He can talk to AOC. I don't want to anymore. And that's the truth. They don't want to deal with their own people.
Right. I want to take a call real quick before we get to break. Let's go to Therese, who's calling Ohio, because look, there's real ramifications of what's going on with the government shutdown. I want to hear from you. Terese, you got about a minute before we got to get to breaks.
Go ahead. Thank you. sir. Good morning and I am a federal employee on furlough. I'm not receiving a paycheck.
I am patriotic along with the other team members that I work with. We just want to go to work and we want to do the good work for the government and for our families. And this reminds me of kind of the remnants of COVID, where we're not able to come in together as social beings. To be able to talk to one another and just see how life is going with one another. Instead, we're isolated or back home, not doing the work that we were hired and that we have a passion to do.
So I would love to get back to work. I'd love to ask you, how long have you worked for the federal government? 17 years.
So you've been through shutdowns before. Each time, how long did it take to get that backpack? On average. That's a great question. I really don't remember Um but we've never been out this long core.
One other time you've been out this long one other time has been about 35 dates I'm interested to ask that because it gets you back on your feet. And I see a lot of banks advertising right now when I go on my apps that if you're affected by the shutdown, they will kind of extend things.
So take advantage of what your financial institutions will provide to you if you're one of those furloughed waiting for their backpack. Yep. All right. Thank you, Therese, for calling. Look, we have a lot of thoughts and prayers.
I'm just for everyone who's getting. I'm struggling right now through all of this. Phone lines are open, but we're gonna have Rick Rinnell joining us in the next segment. Take as many calls as we can in the final. We'll be right back.
Welcome back to SecKillo. We have, like I said, a bit of act show today. Rick Ridnell's joining us now. The beautiful new camera setup looking great, Rick. Will, I know you wanted to kind of take the lead on this one, so I'll kick it over to you.
Well, this follows up on the discussion we had in the previous segment.
So we had these massive across the country no kings protests, as they said. They do say massive. They said that they were not organized. These were organic, even though they put out advertisements. And somehow they had a Super Bowl-worthy halftime people demonstration on the beach in your home state where they said no kings and then Vote on yes on 50.
Don't know how that happened so organically. We can put that up there. But at the same time, Rick, as this government shutdown is going on, Hakeem Jeffries is telling the media and the American people: we can't open the government because Donald Trump's on the sidelines.
So we're a co-equal branch. But we can't do it without the President getting involved in negotiating.
So I'm just confused about how we have no kings, but then Hakeem Jeffries kind of wants a king, and then they're using it for political campaigning in California. You've been around this a long time. I want to get your take.
Well, first of all, let's state a couple of facts. One, you've got 60 votes that's needed in the Senate. The Republicans don't have 60 votes.
So you need Democrats to vote for this. And so the bipartisan push right now is to open the government, but there are too many Democrats who are just not joining that bipartisan push, and we need them.
So there's no question that this is the Democrat shutdown. That's the first point. The second point is: I'm pretty sure that if you googled and checked the facts. that there was only one party last year. which nominated their Presidential candidate.
Without a single vote of the people, the elites got together and handed it to Kamala Harris. And I'm pretty sure that there was only one party. That had 13 states try to kick Donald Trump the nominee for the Republicans. Off ballots. 13 states tried to kick him off the ballot.
Now, What type of queen or king scenario? Is an appointment of the Presidential candidate without a vote of the people and the elites getting together to try to knock off the opponent of the other team before you even have a vote. That sounds a little bit like a royal flush to me. And I would just say that this no kings stuff is so phony. that the reason why it wasn't that popular is that the media really didn't get behind it that much.
People saw it as a desperate attempt, a fake attempt to pretend like Donald Trump was the king. Remember, if Donald Trump was the king, the king just went through like 91 indictments. From the Democrats to try to literally cancel him, crucify him. He was almost assassinated. A couple of different times.
This is this is. Just riddled with the facts showing that we don't have a king. We haven't had a king since 1776.
Well, and when you think about the the history of the two parties in our country, traditionally the Democrats have been very good at messaging. Even if they're not based on facts, they're very good at messaging and getting people behind their platitudes and all of these things. But you're seeing such chaos where the conservatives, unfortunately, have been too rational at times for messaging well or always behind the ball sometimes. We're seeing just a completely topsy-turvy world where They're messaging no kings. They aren't even looking internally at how their house has been run for the past few years.
And then you're also seeing that. They didn't learn the lessons of The mistakes that Republicans, when they were in the minority and shut down the government over Obamacare, things of that nature, that it didn't work out well for them. I'm not trying to give them any tips here, but have you ever seen such a topsy-turvy world when it comes to messaging when they're supposed to be the ones that have the earned media? They have the control of the bully pulpit when it comes to the media, and it's just not seeming to work right now. Yeah, look, I think that the spirit of the media is not really with them.
The media is for sure. trying to blame this on Republicans. But the facts are just not there, and they're struggling. The media is even struggling because the facts are so against them. Look, I don't want to help them either, but Keeping Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries is An amazing gift to Republicans.
I love it when the Minority leader of the house, Jakeem Jeffries, goes on TV. I feel like he's a total robot who doesn't make sense. He's got these really weird hand gestures that announce every single syllable. I can't watch it, and yet I am watching him and thinking, I hope they keep him because he's so ineffective that I don't understand why Democrats are not abandoning him. And then Chuck Schumer is the same on the Senate side.
You know, he's Terribly ineffective, but I love having them there because our political opponents don't have a good team on the field. And so I like the fact that they're not effective with the media. But I fear that they're going to. Wake up. very soon and realize they need new leadership.
Rick, I wanted to play this for you because this was Senator Bernie Sanders, you know, the quintessential capitalist, right? That really understands, you know, hierarchies and things like that. But this was him on The View. And he was asked a very interesting question by one of the panelists about. Congress getting paid during this shutdown.
I know you, right now, you know, with your work at the Kennedy Center, you oversee a lot of government employees at this time.
So you may have a better insight into that than many that are speaking to the media. But let's take a listen to this. It's Byte Four. This is Sarah Haynes, not related by any means. I just want to get that out there.
But on the panelist on the View talking with Senator Bernie Sanders, Byte 4. What would be powerful though is if Congress didn't take their money while they were waiting because right now it's hard to imagine it's incentivized. It's easier for the politicians in D.C. to go away from each other and say we will win this way while people are losing their paychecks. If Congress just said we're not going to take our paychecks till we figure this out, that would be a noble step in the right direction.
I think that's the point. Not everybody can afford to do it. You've got some young people there with kids there. Neither can the people that aren't getting paid though. I think that's a holdout.
I think that's a fair point.
So Bernie Sanders all of a sudden says, wait, not everybody can afford to not get a paycheck, completely missing the point of what the logical question from the panelist on the view is even asking him. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, the question was: Not everybody can afford to miss a paycheck. What do you think about punishing Congress too? And his reaction was: well, we can't afford to miss a paycheck.
It's like, don't make us do it. We'd rather have everybody else in the federal government miss a paycheck. Uh, this is the elitism at its finest. Bernie Sanders has really worked hard to try to not be an elite, but he can't help himself. He's a multi-millionaire elite, and he has the attitude of, well, we can't miss our paycheck.
Federal government employees can miss their paycheck, but don't ask Congress to do it because some members of Congress have kids. And he didn't see the hypocrisy. And by the way, no one on the view called him out and said, Wait a minute, aren't you being a hypocrite on this? It was pretty scandalous. Yeah, I mean, I look at it, Rick, and this is Jordan.
I just say, you know, if Bernie Sanders, who is all about universal income, Can't figure out, think past just his own staff and think about the American people that are trying to make their way, who are hoping soon they'll get that back pace. A lot of them are on hold right now. Yeah, so that they can pay their debts off, who are living as a lot of Americans are, even middle-class Americans and upper-middle-class Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck right now. And now they have no paycheck. And he has just ignored them, ignored the actual American people.
Look, we do feel like the hypocrisy from the media on this point is almost too much to take because. When Joe Biden was in office, when Barack Obama was in office, the narrative of a government shutdown was completely the opposite of what we're hearing now. You had Nancy Pelosi screaming about why aren't we settling this? People can't afford to go without a paycheck. Programs are literally causing grandma to be in the snow and people to starve to death.
The drama that was being portrayed in the media for a government shutdown was enormous. And now they're just not doing it. They're trying to help the Democrats as much as possible. And that hypocrisy, I think, is not lost on some members of the media and certainly the public. And so the Democrats are damaging themselves, their message, and their credibility.
by having a completely different tone this time. But we see it. We see it and we think that it's a really big problem. Rick, thanks so much for joining us. Always have great to have your thoughts.
They're invaluable to our team here and to our listeners. Viewers of this show, we always appreciate it. Thank you so much. That being said, we're going to hear from you directly coming up in the next segment. We got two lines open, but other than that, we got some great calls coming in at 1-800-684-3110.
We want to hear from you as you continue to support the work of the ACLJ. Know we really appreciate it, especially even during these harder times. ACLJ.org will be right back with your calls and comments coming right up. Welcome back, Sekulow. This is it.
We're going to take as many calls as we can.
Some of you that hold for over half an hour know that I appreciate you waiting, but we do have two lines open. We'll do our best to get to any new calls that come in as well. 1-800-684-3110. Let's just go in the order they came in. Let's go to Susie, who is calling on line four.
Susie, go ahead. Hi, good morning. I was just calling to say I am not a federal government worker. And my boss and I were actually just talking this morning about The fact that it really hasn't affected us at all in any way. Yeah, yeah.
the fact that we probably could do with a lot less government in our lives. Yeah, Susie, a lot of people feel that way. It's interesting. If you kind of polled everyone, I think you'd find some very interesting responses. I look at my kids' school, like some of their field trips have been canceled, those kind of things, which again.
Don't really matter in the long run whether you can go to Mammoth Cave.
However, is it federal? It's partially. And they have, you know, part of it's being funded to reopen, but there's, you know, they had to cancel a field trip.
Well, not my kids, but another grade. And I know those kids were disappointed. There's those kind of things that are, they're trivial, but for families that they... Washington, D.C. over these last couple, people have fall breaks and things.
You spent your money, couldn't get your refunds, and most things were closed. Yeah.
Well, and to that point, I was out in Colorado a few weeks back, right when the government shutdown started happening, and hearing stories of some of the reservoirs that are on federal land that people use recreationally. They may have a houseboat there. They were getting calls because the marina is overseen by the federal government saying you have to pull your boat out of the water. You can't leave it here. because we are shutting the government down.
And some of those things that where you look at like how this is the least efficient way to even shut a government down is by saying you have to cut, you're not chaining it off and saying you can't use it. They're like down the streets now. Right, yeah, they were lined up across the highway because they had to go pull boats out of the water. And then others that were on federal land, but the state was running, they were fine. 10, 20 miles apart.
And it just goes to show you sometimes the inefficiencies of government when they're like, government shut down. We can't have an employee here. Therefore, you cannot go on the water. Just things of that nature that Those are the weird things, but it's a pain point. And sometimes that's done on purpose to make you get upset and call your representative and say, This is ridiculous.
All right, let's continue on. Thanks for calling, Susie. Rob's calling now in South Carolina, who's an ACLJ champion. I really appreciate it, Rob. You're on the air.
Yes, I have a twofold question. One is I am on the security. I'm concerned about how that's going to work. The second thing is, I have a son that works for the government under a government contract. Right now they're upholding, but in a By the time November gets here, it's all over with if they don't get paid.
We've got answers for both of these. Interesting enough, Rob, Jordan and I were talking about this this morning. One, Social Security should not be affected by this at all. And that is one of the things that they ensure whenever this within. I'm not thinking about it being impacted on the left, but it should not be at all.
Correct. On the second thing is that the government contractors is an interesting issue. And actually, I have some friends that are government contractors as well that when it first shut down, they were like, this isn't that big of a deal. These things don't last that long. I'm fine until the end of November based off the government contract.
It's been fully funded already.
However, if it continues to go on, some of these individuals that aren't considered essential government employees and aren't technically government employees, but are a government contractor, if that rolls up and there's no CR to continue the funding of these programs that the government funds through contractors. those can start to come up as well. And then those sometimes are a little bit more tricky, depending on what the company is that you work for or what the service is, if that gets renegotiated back when a new CR. Most of it probably will, but that isn't directly the government looking at the funding or the back pay. That sometimes is up to the third party.
So it can get more dicey, and you are about to see a lot more individuals that aren't government employees get a little bit more boisterous when it comes to the shutdown in the coming weeks. You know, I think if we're still into this in two weeks, we're moving past federal employees. We're moving even past some of the. Kind of quasi-federal employee contractors to just people who have a federal contract as part of what they do, and that contract is not being paid, even though they have performed on it.
So they are at a loss because they have spent time, money, and the Purchase the resources.
So, while they're supposed to ultimately recoup that, how long can the banks allow them to basically stay on loan? And obviously, it's difficult to grow your business during a time like that because you're not even able to recoup the funds that are due to you. All right, we got four minutes or three and a half minutes and two calls. Both I think are really important to hear from. Let's try to get them both in.
Tito and Georgia, go ahead, Tito. Yes, sir. I appreciate the chance and opportunity to be on your great program and for you guys to discuss this topic. It's really important. Uh for us, I've talked to a lot of my friends on chat groups.
And we discuss this every day. Um created a lot of anxieties. Because people have mortgages and car payments.
Some kids in school. additional Expenses that develop.
So that's created a lot of anxieties and also Um if we do get reduced For for uh Or um That's creating a lot of lot of other studies because Our skills are very focused. Military, most of us are retired military. We work for the military. And it's hard for us to find employment that will cater to the abilities and skills that we think experience that we have. Listen, I think one is whatever happens at the end of the day, you will be paid during this time period.
So the time period where you were furloughed. There's been this talk about will people ultimately there be cutbacks in positions that are maybe not necessary or the government is just too bloated. I don't know if that's really going to happen with this.
Some of that is a negotiating tactic. We saw that when they tried to do some of that with the FA, that didn't work so great.
So they brought people right back in. I will say this: you will get paid for the time you were supposed to get paid under your contract. This is an administration that has looked at shrinking the size of government. And they are going to try and make this as least painful as possible, I think, to show the American people. that you could cut the government By 30%.
and you're still just as safe. And we could be just as functioning if we funded the 70% that is getting funded right now. You have a lot of people that don't feel anything, and that's the reason why. Let's go to Ann really quick on Facebook, watching in Pennsylvania, and go ahead. Hey, love you guys.
Just wanted to quickly say that Dems have always been the party of lies, even under JFK when the party was so called tamed, if you will. Hakeem Jeffreys is simply a continuation of that. They're the ones not passing a bill that is what is overwhelmingly what the people voted for. That is what democracy looks like, people. People decided in 2024.
Now, the Dems, they are the party of kings, and since 2016, especially, behave just like kings. Yeah.
And fake Russian conspiracy. They mandated all kinds of unconstitutional mandates. Including trying to take Trump off the ballot, like you were so eloquently saying. Tried to jail him on false charges. The Dems are shutting the government down, not President Trump.
Love you guys. Thank you, Ann. I wish I wanted you to wrap up the show. I know it's great that you're going to rock and roll right there at the end and say talk to you tomorrow. We appreciate you calling in and having your thoughts.
A lot of people feel that way. Of course, when you saw that rally over the weekend, there's a party going, well, there's a lot of people who did vote a different way. And you're acting like we didn't have a fair election, of course, now, but you know, whatever. Whatever you want to do, go out there in the streets, complain about whatever it is you do, and... See if it changes anything.
That being said. I appreciate all of you called in. That was a great segment. Great group of callers. Great job, phone screener.
Give a little clap. There you go. ACLJ.org support the work.
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