We got breaking news once again. Republicans are now pushing the Democrats with a new Snap and Air Traffic Control funding bill. 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. As I said, phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110. Flying Solo here today, so I want to hear from you.
I want you to call in again at 1-800-684-3110. We are going to have some special guests joining us. Packed first half hour with guests, second half hour. Open phones, okay? We're going to take a lot of calls on that second half hour.
And you can give me a call.
Next up, though, I'll Mark Kelly from our Washington, D.C. office, head of government affairs there in D.C. You heard him last week with his kind of premiere appearance here on the show. He's going to be back on. And then later on, my dad, Jay Sekulow, is going to be joining us as we continue our discussion.
It's going to be a little more information about that FBI Arctic Frost probe. We're going to have a little more information breaking that down. But the news of the day, every time there seems to be a new crack in the shutdown, and today is no different. And today's, you actually have Republicans taking on a plan, which I'm very much in favor of, saying, you know what? Democrats, if you're not willing to budge, if we're not going to actually get to the table in any of this.
There is one thing that we can hopefully agree on. And only one of them has agreed on it so far, and that's Peter Welch in Vermont. But hopefully, other people will come on and say they will vote for this. He's co-sponsored the bill. It is a new bill that says we are going from Josh Hawley, co-sponsored by James Lankford, Murkowski, Collins, Marsha Blackburn here in Tennessee, who's going to be on the show tomorrow.
So you're not going to miss that. I'm sure we'll talk to her about this. Bernie Moreno in Ohio, Kevin Kramer, Bill Cassidy, Katie Britt from Alabama, and a few others. John Corwin and John Houston in Huston. That is.
The main focus of this bill. Get SNAP funding at least temporarily back going. What that is is food aid programs. The old food stamp program, if you will. This will keep SNAP funded.
Of course, it's going to expire the day after tomorrow. On Saturday, it's supposed to be the end of the SNAP funding. This would keep SNAP funded at least for another period of time. Not indefinitely, but I believe another month.
So it would keep it going for another month. And hopefully, as we come to an end of the shutdown, this could happen between now and then. I think this is very much needed. There's another bill coming from Ted Cruz that essentially says a similar wording, but this is specifically for air traffic controllers. Obviously, we want to stay safe.
In the air. I'm flying next week. I'm sure a lot of people are. A lot of people are going to be traveling over the next. A handful of months.
You know, we're heading towards probably the busiest travel season of the year. We're seeing what's happening as the FAA is having a lot of issues where I think it's what, triple the amount of air traffic control issues that they have had in the past, where that's mostly due to staffing because people are expected to come and do their jobs even without being paid and not being paid for a significant amount of time. This will allow both the funding to snap and the funding to the FAA or to the air traffic controllers. I would love to hear from you. Are you in favor of this?
I very much am in favor of this. I think that food programs, no one should be going hungry in this country. And I understand that may not be always the most like conservative Republican point of view. But as a Christian, as someone who believes in this country, also believes that there should be some funding for certain things. I think keeping people fed, I don't have a problem with that.
And if we have really some of the leading, I'd say the leading dozen Republicans, including people like Marcia Blackburn and Katie Britt on this list, James Lankford, these are people who you probably agree with. And I want to know, do you agree with? This, this should get done, that the Democrats have anything that they could be bipartisan on. This is the time to do it. And of course, uh.
Air traffic controllers.
Now that may be a little bit different. But again, it's not like these are the most high-paid positions. These are people who are in need. And I'm curious your thoughts. Give me a call at 1-800-684-3110.
I have these bills right here. We can go through them and walk through them as well. We're going to be joined next up, though, by Mark Kelly in our Washington, D.C. studio. He is, again, head of our government affairs, a new addition to the ACLJ team.
And he can really walk you through what all of this means and what it could mean for the future. And those who need financial assistance. Look, I know a lot of you watch this show, even.
So, hopefully, we'll get you some information that you need. And hopefully, this is at least a step in the right direction. But you know what?
Some of you may disagree. Let me know what you think at 1-800-684-30-110. Of course, if you can, check out the work of the aclj at aclj.org right now. That's at aclj.org.
So many incredible free resources there. Everything, none of it's behind a paywall. All of it's available to you right now. Go to ACLJ.org today. Welcome back to SecU.
I did want to restate this and also give you a little context. We bring in Mark Kelly out of Washington, D.C., one of our new team members here at the ACLJ. You heard him last week. He's back on the show today. But to give you a little setup, I want you to hear what's happening and how CNN is even talking about this.
Because right now, the Republicans, Josh Holly and a group of others, said, you know, it's time at least for people to understand why we need to be keeping funding to SNAP. Of course, that is food assistance. And he said, surely it's not hard to understand why SNAP is so essential to so many. The American economy has not been kind to working people in recent years.
So this would, this new bill, which is sponsored by probably 10 to 12 of the leading Republicans, the ones you know the names of, saying, you know what? If we can't agree on anything, can we at least agree to keep SNAP paid for? And then Ted Cruz came in and said, how about while we're at it, here's another bill that says, let's also keep the FAA, TSA, or whatever it needs to be. Be air traffic controllers, the people who are protecting our skies when we're about to head into the busiest travel season of the year. I know many of us will be flying over the next two months.
Maybe we need to be funding them as well to make sure we're keeping our skies safe.
So it doesn't Controversial. Let's hear from CNN and then I'm going to give you a little context and Mark will go to you for reaction. It hasn't. If anything, it's been helped a little bit. Let's take a look here: the shift in net popularity versus pre-shutdown.
When we're looking at the Republican Party overall, that brand actually up two points. That's within the margin of error, but clearly it hasn't dropped. Come over to this side of the screen. Look at the net approval ratings for Republicans in Congress. It's actually up five points since pre-shutdown.
So what we're seeing here is the Republican brand in Congress has actually improved somewhat compared to where we were pre-shut down, despite the fact that Republicans control. And that's the math that John Thune and Mike Johnson are looking at: hey, why should we give an electorally speaking when our brand has actually improved a little bit?
So, of course, saying, hey, our brand's approved. This is what's happening. And in context, of course, this is putting Democrats in a bad spot because it looks like, you know, they are not willing. If they don't move on this, it looks like they don't actually care about the people that they're representing. Of course, they're talking about people who are in need of food assistance, people that are in need of, you know, I think we all are in need of the air traffic control.
But, Mark, is that the sort of feeling that's going on in Washington, D.C.
now that this is a crack that at least could start pushing us forward? Yeah, I think that's a fair take. And if you look historically at shutdowns Um I think Republicans would tend to tell you that they Get blamed often in the public, but that's just not happening this time. If you look at one public opinion poll after another. Either both sides are equally taking the blame, maybe Republicans slightly more to blame, but there's no big gap like there has been in the past.
And Right now, I think we're at an impasse and you're seeing senators starting to come up with these alternative ideas, like let's take a limited, narrow approach at something like food stamps or snap. The air traffic controllers. I know my wife and I were flying last weekend, and we were thanking the TSA agents who were being. At their duty stations without being paid.
So I think you're starting to see, you saw the unions on Monday come out and say, hey, let's break this impasse. I think it's starting to change a little bit here in Washington. Yeah, I mean, we're starting to feel the pain, I'd say. I mean, not personally, and I don't want to act like I am feeling the pain of this, but a lot of people are. The trickle down of it is starting to happen.
I'm hearing people talk about it a lot more in my regular public life. We're not in Washington, D.C. We're in Nashville, Tennessee. And all of a sudden, it feels like it's starting to bubble up. The conversation is happening more.
Now, I know some of the concern out of Washington is that. Simply the representatives. Don't necessarily feel the pressure and the pain themselves. They're still getting paid, and it is what it is. Clearly, their offices have to shrink down.
Things happen, things get furloughed. Is there a tone shift in Washington, D.C. when these shutdowns happen? Do you feel it, you know, if you want to say in the air? Because people who are not there may not understand what happens and how it actually feels.
You do see a little bit of a tone shift, and You see, traffic gets a little better for those of us who have to commute in. But. That's right. But the House of Representatives staff, they get paid once a month. That's the way their pay schedule works.
Their first missed paycheck is this Friday. And I was in a meeting yesterday and someone brought up, hey, if you're not a member of your federal credit union, You can become a member, just put a $5 deposit in, and you can get an interest-free loan. And some of these more junior level staffers, folks right out of college that come to Washington, they want to make a difference, they're not paid a lot of money. They're starting to worry about where their next paycheck is going to come from. It is something that's starting to be felt here in D.C.
And you know, members of Congress are constrained by this pesky 27th Amendment in the Constitution, which says they can't. Alter their pay. A lot of them have voluntarily had their pay withheld. They go to their clerk, the clerk of the house, or the secretary of the senate, and say, don't pay me till after the shutdown. But um You know This food stamp snap thing that expires on Friday, Saturday.
That seems to be the first one that both sides are paying attention to a little more closely.
Well, it affects everyone, and it starts to affect you probably can speak to this, but it definitely affects people on both sides of the political aisle, and it starts affecting everyone around the country. I think people will be surprised how many people are reliant On the SNAP program, as much as there are some people who are calling in saying, you know, they don't like this kind of funding in general, I think we know that that's not the case. There simply are some things that our government should be helping out on, and maybe. This is one that we can have some bipartisan support over because it's not just hurting. It doesn't, I feel like the pressure.
It may be hurting someone politically. And look, the Republicans are going to blame the Democrats. Democrats are going to blame Republicans. I had overheard people who are Democrats say, it feels like the ballroom is the focus thing. All President Trump cares about is the ballroom, and he doesn't really care about what's going on.
Of course, they don't know all of the minutiae and how everything works, but maybe visually they're not wrong in the sense that it doesn't look great to be like, look at the construction happening here. We obviously know how that funding works. while things are not getting paid. Do you feel like there is I know you said that typically the Republicans are the ones that take a hit on this. Do you feel like, though, that that has shifted this time where the American people are?
Reacting maybe from both sides. I think that's accurate. 42 million people rely on food stamps. And um that's something that both sides are going to have to wrestle with But I think What you're seeing here in DC is both Republicans and Democrats, I think, are starting to acknowledge this is a stalemate with the American people, and they're going to have to look for a way to get themselves out of this shutdown. I don't know what the final answer is going to be on that, but If you talk to, if you listen to what Senator Thune, Majority Leader Thune, and Speaker Johnson, and even spokespeople for the White House have been saying is We can meet the food stamp need, we can pay the air traffic controllers, we can pay TSA, we can pay the military, we can do all of that.
If the Senate Democrats will just release this hold on the House-passed bill that keeps the government. Funded status quo. That was a seven-week bill when they first passed it. It's now down to a three-week bill. That just gets us to right before Thanksgiving, but at least it would reopen the government.
It would take care of all of these problems at once, and then they can negotiate on other things later. Yeah, I think we need to push for this. Mark, I appreciate you joining us today and really explaining it to our audience because I think you do a great job in that and breaking down what's actually happening, what it feels like in Washington, D.C. And look, that is why the Washington, D.C. office is so important, is why it's our headquarters.
It's why we're expanding that office. We have seen such a, you could say, a rebuild of that team and what it could look like because it changes. As I said, the last year you have to change when it comes to who's in control, who has power, whether it's Republicans or Democrats, is it all three? Is it just the presidency? All of that shifts the way we work on it.
But now we're kind of rebuilding this new team. And this new team is able to take things to the next level. And it only happens because people like you support the ACLJ. As we wrap up the month of October, I do want to say thank you because we're going to have some big November and Decembers. And if you're considering supporting the ACLJ, it's a good time to do it now, but it's going to be.
Great time to do it starting next week in November and December, as you roll out some really cool concepts and plans and things that are going to be happening as you can support our work towards the end of the year. But we know things are tough right now, and that is why I want to fully get behind this and say, yes, if you're one of these supporters who say, I think we need to get snap back and we need to be working on it, I mean, we got calls coming in right now, people who are saying that they are on snap, that they need it.
So I know that this is important. And whether they're willing to take the sacrifice or not, it is something that we need to at least be aware of as Americans. That this is happening, like you said, to so many millions of people. But I thank you for joining us. I do want to quickly take a call that hopefully can help set up.
My dad's going to be joining us in the next segment. We're going to pivot a little bit. Stay on hold if you're on hold because we will get right back to calls coming up in the second half hour because a lot of you are calling in right now. But there's some ACLJ champions on the line. I want to make sure I get to the one that's been on hold the longest.
Let's go to Melissa first, ACLJ champion. You're on the air. Hey, I just wanted to say I think that I agree with the bills for the snap to be uh in stated and and the TSA to keep stated, but I think Congress Senators Should not be paid. In lieu of the fact that these other people aren't being paid, and one group that is not being acknowledged at all is people with disabilities living, they live with a wheelchair, et cetera. They're going to be compromised if they don't get their staff services.
Sure. There are a lot of people who are really. I mean, again, I'm pushing this hard because I really believe in it. I think we need to get this done. Look, it is a very short bill.
This is a two-page bill that's happening right now. We're not talking about hundreds of pages to deal with, we're talking about a couple pages. Get this done. Get It done. Make sure people who are in need Don't go hungry.
That's the least we can do in this country. Get this pushed through. I think the Democrats need to do it. Republicans need to do it. And of course, I also agree with it for Air Traffic Control, the FAA.
Thank, as Mark said, thank those people, by the way, when you see them. They are working there often with no pay right now to keep you safe.
Okay, would you do the same for your job?
Something to think about. Adad J. Seculus joining us in the next segment. We have a ton of people calling in.
So stay on hold. I will get to all of you that are on hold right now. Hey, so don't go anywhere. My dad's joining us. We'll pop back to calls.
All right, go to aclj.org right now, support the work. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Secula. We got one line open, and I'm going to take a ton of calls coming up in the next few segments. Again, just me today in studio, so we're having some fun here, but we're also breaking a lot of great information down for you.
We had Mark Kelly from the ACLJ DC office in just a moment ago. And now we're going to be joined by my dad, Jay Sekulow, of course, chief counsel here at the ACLJ Dead. First probably need to give people, again, history when they hear Arctic Frost. They may not know what we're talking about because I feel like I always have to go back and remind myself with all these code names what it is we're talking about. But a lot of news is reporting, including Just the News, our friends at Justin the News, which, by the way, you're looking for a great news source.
They're always great and they're always very in-depth. I will say that that team, they don't put out a one-paragraph article ever. That is, it is dense. In a good way.
So, if you're looking for a lot of information, our friend John Solomon at Justin News, they always put out great work. But more than 160, this came out, it's even bigger than we thought. More than 160 Republicans have been potentially investigated in Arctic Frost.
So, Dad, why don't you give them a breakdown of what Arctic Frost is and what this means?
Well, let me you know, the government always comes up with these You know, notions Yeah. describing their investigations with awkward terminology. Arctic Frost is what the code name was for this investigation. Involving lawmakers, legislators, I'm talking about members of the United States Congress, House and Senate. Uh And the January 6th certification process and the protests that went up on Capitol Hill.
And here's what is just unbelievably outrageous about all of this. If you look at who they targeted here. It was the then chairman Security Committee, Lindsay Graham. Senator Marsha Blackburn, Senator Bill Haggerty. Senator Ted Cruz.
And Jack Smith, the so-called special counsel, and you know my views on special counsels. I I never liked them for any party. I don't care what party it is. I I I've seen the abuse and I've lived the abuse. representing President Trump.
So I we know firsthand And they basically were getting phone records On these individuals, now we know it's much broader than those senators. Um Up to 150 people. I suspect, Logan, by the way, there's many more. That may be legislators. I'm sure there's other people.
And they were getting who they called, when they called, where were they when they called? And we are representing these members of Congress. A number of them. including Senator Graham and Senator Blackburn and Senator Cruz. And we are taking this very seriously.
We have authorized the filing. initially of the Freedom of Information Act demand, which is going out tomorrow And that will start the process that I suspect here leads to litigation because we've also looked at constitutional violations that have taken place, including something as important as the speech and debate clause of the United States Constitution, which talks about equal branches of government. There are a lot of names that people would know on this list. It's nearly 200 pages of documents provided new insights into, again, they said this is a quote from Justin News: sweeping insight aimed, of course, at President Trump and the Trump world. You're talking about a lot of people that you would know.
Again, like you said, a lot of those elected officials, then, of course, people. You know, if you look at this, there's John Eastman, there's Rudy Giuliani, people you obviously worked with during that time. A lot of people that were under investigation in this, they were using tags in their files, the new records, including fraud, corrupt, corrupt, whenever talking about this, corrupt camp. The new release documents also included various people and various targets. But again, they were even already going ahead and starting to make these labels and tags and groupings, including, like you said, fraud and corrupt.
It also just shows you the leanings that were already coming out of this. No question about it. It's a very good point you made, Logan. And remember, what we're doing here in our government accountability project, this is an ongoing effort of the ACLJ. Is just like in the IRS targeting scandal, we'll get the answers.
We're going to take appropriate legal action. And we're going to run. represent the American people and call, of course, these members of Congress. And we'll talk more about this in November, but I will tell you that this is Uh, very, very important. I'm seeing a lot of chats come in, uh, Logan, on the YouTube feed I'm watching right now, and people are saying, so, what exactly is Arctic Frost?
It was this a portion of the investigation. that Jack Smith had undertaken going after President Trump and others. And he Yeah. The phone records of sitting members. Of the United States House and Senate, among other people.
It seemed like for no reason other than maybe the party they represented. I mean, it was people who were involved very loosely. in all of this. No, you A hundred percent. And what the outrage of all this is, was that Merrick Gartland's office.
authorized all this.
So we're going to get to the bottom of it. We will get the accountability in place. We will take the appropriate legal action. Logan, these are big cases. I've got another one we're going to announce next month at the Supreme Court that's huge.
I mean, just incredible. I'll save it for then. But the support from our individual ACLJ members, and especially our ACLJ champions, is very. Vital, and I encourage everybody that's listening or watching to support the work. Just go to aclj.org.
We have a bunch of champions on hold. Stay on hold. You know, I get to you first, so I'll get to you guys coming up first. Plus, a lot of other people that are calling. A lot of people dad are calling in, not to pivot off of this, but are calling about this SNAP funding because I think people feel maybe this could be a sign of relief.
We've got people, many people who say, I mean, I think we have a warped view on the amount of people that use this service. There are plenty of people that call in, many people that support, who listen, who watch, who are reliant on some of these special services and need them. And you have some of the leading Republicans, and Marsha Blackburn will be on this show tomorrow. Of course, she was part of that as well. Saying it's time to at least, if we're not going to stop the shutdown, let's keep the funding going for SNAP.
And I have a question for you who are all watching on YouTube. You can simply put yes or no. Do you think that this simple two-page bill? needs to be passed to continue SNAP funding. Of course, that is essentially food stamp funding, funding for people so they don't go hungry here in America.
And it feels like this may be one of those moments where they hopefully could be some bipartisan support. Dad? What do you think? Yes. You're 100% correct.
Uh that. And the issue, Logan, is there's now a proposal to end at least to get this funding in place. And if the Democrats don't agree to it, that tells you exactly they're using the American people as a ploy here, and that's outrageous. And again, our government affairs team, you just heard from Mark on the broadcast, we're on top of this. this is a good solution.
Let's see if we can get it through. And if not, It falls. On the Democrats. Not all of them, because a number of them have joined with us on this. Yes, quite a few.
And look, we have at least one co-sponsoring it. We'll see where those votes end up. And I'm hoping this is it. And also, of course, for our air traffic controllers. I know that Ted Cruz has put that.
I think Dad is someone who flies a lot. We all fly a lot. There's really very little more important jobs out there than keeping our skies safe. Yeah. 100% correct.
That needs to be rectified immediately. Hopefully, this will get them to the table. There's a clean bill on there. We'll see what happens, but it's politics that it's worse when it doesn't get done. All right.
We will keep everyone updated, Dad. Thanks for joining us. And I'm going to take so many calls coming up. I'm going to try to get as many of these calls taken care of to open up lines so we can even continue to keep this discussion going. I'm seeing all the comments in.
I'd say it's probably like a 95% plus. People saying, yes, get this done. But you know what?
We got comments, very different points of view. As we head into the second half hour of this show, some of you lose this. Look, I'm looking at some people are listening on terrestrial radio.
Some terrestrial radio stations, especially those that are maybe Christian teaching and talk kind of stations. Only carry the first half hour of the show. One, they should carry the full hour. You should tell them they should. But because they don't There are other ways you can find us.
We broadcast live each and every day from noon to 1 p.m. Eastern Time. You can work your way back from there. You figure out in your own time zone where we're at. Of course, you can find us archived, but you can find us live.
That is on aclj.org. On Rumble, on YouTube. On all your social media platforms, we're probably there live. And if we're not there live, of course, you can catch us on Archived However, you get your podcast. We are there and check out the ACLJ app.
Also, great place to engage with us and the team here. But you can support the work of the ACLJ as well at aclj.org, which I encourage you. This is our shortest break.
So don't go anywhere. In less than a minute, we'll be back. Keeping you informed and engaged.
Now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now, your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow second half hour coming up now. Phone lines are completely.
Jam.
So I'm going to take as many of those as I can as we really discussed in the first half. We had my dad on. We had Mark Kelly from the ACLJ Government Affairs team. We got a lot of those people on this second half hour. It's just me and you, everybody.
So, strap in, it's going to be fun. But we got a lot of calls coming in specifically about the plan from Republicans right now, the bill that they have put forward. We're talking about some of the leading names here in the conservative world. You're talking about Marsha Blackburn. You're talking about Josh Holly.
You're talking about, let me pull up the whole list here if I can, in just a second here. Here it is. All right, we got James Lightford, we got Murkowski, we got Collins, Blackburn, Moreno, Kramer, Cassidy, Katie Brett, John Huste. There's a Husted Huston, I'm not sure exactly, and John Cooper. Yeah.
Uh as well as Peter Welch, who's Democrat in Vermont, saying it is time To at least co-sponsor this bill. It's two pages. It's right here. I mean, almost a page and a half. If you actually, if you, if, if, you know, when I was a professor, Briefly, college professor, if you had turned this in, I would have said this is fake two pages.
This is about a half a page. It's about a half a page of content. I could read this to y'all in about 45 seconds, if that. Essentially it just says, let's keep Snap funded. Snap, of course, the food stamp program.
So babies don't go hungry. Kids don't go hungry. Adults don't go hungry either, by the way. That that we keep people who need food assistance. taken care of.
And you'd be surprised the amount of friends you have, neighbors you have, that they are in need of this. And I understand you're probably listening as a traditional conservative Republican, and maybe the words food stamps and those kind of things don't ring true to you. But I understand it is affecting people in a major way. Regardless if you like it or not, it is needed right now. People are relying on it.
We should not, as Americans, be funding everything else and not be keeping. Are people fed? It's pretty easy. On the other side of it, Maybe a lot of you are going to be traveling over the month of November and December. I don't know there's some major holidays coming up.
How would you like to know that your air traffic controllers are actually being paid? that your TSA agents are being paid. That they're working hard to keep you safe in the air. without with actually being paid.
Okay, you got to start looking at your own self. Would you be willing to go to work for no money? To go work at the airport?
Okay, to deal with the craziness of holiday traffic?
Okay, you can't blame them for having frustrated when they're not receiving money. And of course some of these people are not the highest paid.
So let's see what we can do. Let's actually get this one pushed through too. Ted Cruz has sponsored that. I want to take some calls. I'm going to take one right now, but I'm going to take a ton in the next segment.
Let's go ahead. We've got to first go to our ACLJ champions because I love that giving that little perk here. Oh, man. We got two champions that called in within 20 seconds of each other. But let's go to Mike first in Colorado.
Mike, you're on the air. Hi. Can you hear me? I can. Go ahead, Mike.
Okay. My take on this is quite different from most other peoples. I'm on Snap. Good. But I don't think That They should vote to keep it open.
In fact, I think Sean Daffery should just say all air traffic control all Go home and shut it down. No travel for safety's sake. until the Democrats sign the continuing resolution. How long I don't think they last very long. I get it, Mike.
I understand that point of view. Of course, there's a bit of sarcasm there and a bit that can't be done because hopefully this is not the way we function. But you're right. I mean, look, and a lot of the air traffic controllers. About triple the amount of normal?
are doing that. They aren't showing up to work. Or they're having issues, or they're calling in sick. And you know what? You can't necessarily blame them when the government's acting this way.
But when you do go through those airports, I do hope that you thank them. And look, Mike, you said you're using Snap benefits and you're happy to go without them. That's fine. But there are a lot of people who don't want to play politics with this, a lot of people who are on Snap who do not care. Who was in charge?
Okay, they just want to make sure that they are really that their kids are fed And that's the least we can do.
So let's just push that through. I understand your feelings and your frustrations there, Mike. And I appreciate them. Just like those say, you know, if. I appreciate it in the way that some of your representatives are saying that they aren't going to take a paycheck, but certainly just it's not realistic for a lot of people.
So let's see what we can do. We got a lot. We got two lines now open at 1-800-684-3110. I'd love to hear from you on this as well. 1-800-684-3110.
Do you agree with Mike in the comments? Let me know. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are jammed right now, but I'm going to try to open up some lines because we're going to try to keep this discussion rolling, whether it's about this new bill, latest bill coming in for Republicans saying, you know what, if you're not going to stop the shutdown, fine, not fine, but you know, we'll deal with it. But first, can we at least get people fed?
Keep the food stamp program, the snap program open. While we're at it, Ted Cruz is like: how about we keep our air? Safe. How about we pay our air traffic controllers? That'd be nice.
A phone line opened up at 1-800-684-3110. Of course, if you're watching on YouTube right now, I know about half of you have never even seen my face before. I don't ask you to financially support us. I ask you to just hit that subscribe button if you've never seen me before. Join us each and every day, Monday through Friday.
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So, go ahead and put that in the comments as well. Let's keep the calls rolling. Let's go to Brenda, who is an ACLJ champion. A champion is someone, by the way, if you're brand new, that gives monthly, kind of like a membership to the ACLJ. They all of a sudden automatically set it up.
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So, when you go and make a donation to aclj.org, you can opt in to become a champion. And I like to give champions a bit of preferential treatment. I know some of you don't like that, but I like it. It makes me happy because they are the ones creating the great baseline for the organization. Brenda, you're on the air.
Okay, thanks. I'm in favor of the Republican plan. There are a lot of mainers who really need SNAP. And I also have family members who are recipients. And And also regarding the traffic controllers getting paid, I feel this is paramount.
I have friends who are frequent flyers. And this morning, I prayed with this group of women, and we prayed this morning. for their safety and also for the shutdown to end.
So this is This is a this is a big deal. for some people. Brenda, for the people that it affects, it's the biggest deal. I mean, you're talking about... Either their finances, holding up their finances, while they're supposed to be thinking about keeping you safe in the air.
I don't think people understand sometimes because we've seen like the television version of what an air traffic controller does. how much they are working. Whether that's in their local area, whether those that work on the federal level, nationally, because they're working on making sure there's not birds flying into the engines. I mean, we're literally talking about that kind of thing. Making sure they're shooting off, you know, different kinds of warning flares to keep birds from flying into your plane.
I mean, stuff like that that you're not thinking of. that keeps the air safe to fly in. Course, air traffic and air uh travel is the safest of all. But there's a reason. Because we have these robust plans and you know what?
If we don't have this robust FAA, this robust air traffic control system, it's not going to work. And if you don't have people getting paid, there's a certain point where they stop showing up to work. They got to find other ways to work. They got to find other things to do, or they're simply frustrated. And you can't blame them for that.
On the other hand, you have people that legitimately are trying to feed their families. And whether you agree with the SNAP program or not, I typically do. You go. Uh yeah, well they've been reliant on it. We're not gonna all of a sudden starve a bunch of people.
I think it's the right thing to do. Thank you though so much though for calling and we continue on to take a couple more calls in this segment. Let's see here. Let's go to Paul. A little bit different.
Let's go to Paul in Texas. Go ahead. Hey, go ahead. Hey, you know, I know this isn't popular, but I disagree with this single source bill. You know, you're gonna reward two million people that, for the most part, don't even pay into the tax system.
But jo those that do fund those type of programs with their federal taxes are the ones that are being punished and not getting paid.
Now I by no means want to see anybody go hungry. I mean, let's be honest, SNAP is one of the most corrupt programs in our federal government.
However, at the end of the day, If they tie that to air traffic controllers, The military. and federal workers, I have absolutely no problem with it. But if you give them single source bills, That you're rewarding the Democrats by allowing them to pick and choose. Because let's be honest, once the American people realize that they could vote to be funded through the Treasury. They're going to vote for those that feed them.
They're like a stray dog. You feed them once and they're always going to come back. Paul, I think a lot of people feel that way. That's why I wanted to give you the opportunity to speak. And I understand the frustration here.
And it is two separate bills. You are right. There's the air traffic. I want to make sure we're clear about that. The air traffic funding bill by Ted Cruz and then the SNAP funding bill.
These aren't all looped together. These are two separate things. The SNAP funding, I think it does have more of a chance of getting through than the FAA, the air traffic control bill, which is unfortunate. I think both are, you know, the bill is the Keep American Flying. Keep America Flying to Keep It Safe in the air.
I think that that's important. Of course, you have Keep SNAP funded. Both are separate. Paul, I understand the frustration with it. I understand you thinking that it's corrupt.
And I'm not saying there isn't that happening here. And maybe some of the food that gets funded is not great for everybody. And there's a lot of issues with that that people have with the SNAP situation. I side with this, which is we are doing this, and it's not like we have taken away. This Uh it exists.
So, if it exists, and we've been funding people for so long, and we have been helping people out with food assistance. I don't believe we should be taking it away. And, you know, again, it may not be the most Republican thing, the most small government business thing, but I do feel like if we are going to have government funding of any of this, there are certain things I'm fine with. That's one of them. Like I said, funding the military and making sure that our military doesn't have to be on these systems because they have had to be put on SNAP.
They have had to be put through different dollars and delayed. And that's really heartbreaking. You've also seen some interesting things push forward in certain states where SNAP funding. You know, when you're given your food, essentially your food allowance, your financial allowance for it. Things like farmers markets, if you go to a farmer's market, your money is doubled in certain areas.
There have been certain things that we have done correctly, depending on the state. I think that can happen even more so if we start talking about this. It becomes something that we don't just push onto the rug. And what we're seeing right now is thousands of people, millions of people who this affects, but we are seeing tons of you who are even commenting here saying, yeah, I use SNAP benefits. And I think that's telling.
But thank you, Paul, for calling. I appreciate it. I'm going to continue on. Let's take another call. Let's go to Charleston, Georgia.
Charles, go ahead. Yes, thank you for taking my call. I just see that what the Democrats are doing is what they always do. There you are. create a crisis, which is what they've done here.
And then uh they want Yeah. Yeah. I don't believe they're going to budge on anything the Democrats I mean the Republicans put Forth in standalone bills, you know, to the best thing that we could do with that is to verify who's really causing this by making them to respond to these, and when they turn. them down Hopefully, they'll convince the news media that it wasn't the Republicans because The Democrats will use this opportunity to Yeah. Fail.
They won't agree to anything, in my opinion. 100%. And then they'll depend. on the news media. Yeah.
To spin it to project what they've done back on the Republicans. And that's how they think they're going to win an election. Charles, you're not wrong.
Okay. You're 100% right. Which is this is manufactured. This is created crisis. All Republicans did.
We want to continue on what we're doing. And they're saying, no, that that's not good enough. We need to go back. We need to be fun planned parenthood. We need to do all the things that the American people voted for.
But, Charles, you're right. They're going to create this problem and they are going to go to the news and they're going to say, look at the ballroom construction. That's where the President's mind's at. He's focused on the ballroom where all these people are starving. And of course, now they've had their feet put to the fire a little bit right now because you have a bill that says none of that matters right now.
Let's keep Americans eating. Let's keep the skies safe. And you're right. There's a good chance, sadly there's a good chance that those fail just because of who is listed on this. Who wants to get it done?
James Lankford. Marshall Blackburn. Katie Brett. Names that if you're a Democrat you don't n typically care for.
Now, can we push across party lines? I sure hope so. But you're right. you shouldn't necessarily hold your breath on it. It's not 100%.
Phone lines are still jammed right now. We will take as many of these as we can. I know this is touching a lot of people. A lot of people have a lot of issues with this. We had other topics we were going to get to.
I don't know if we're going to get to them. We'll try. But so many of you are calling in and commenting about this that I do think it's important to keep this all going. And they're right. You have the mainstream media on your side, but that is why.
It is important to have shows like this. Understand. That as many people watch this show by the end of the day. And listen to this show, if not more. then watch a lot of mainstream media.
And we are not funded. by some corporate overlords. our major sponsors. We are funded completely independently by people like you. That's not only our incredible legal work that the ACLJ is doing.
Always. That is this show. That is the media operation we run here. It's why we have a large media headquarters, some of the best minds in media. And I want to be able to pay them as well.
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Probably not even. for a full year. None of this happens without your support.
So I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org. A bunch of lines just opened up: 1-800-684-3110. Give me a call right now. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are busy right now, but there may be a couple open up.
I'm going to try to get through these calls. And then we'll see where we're at. Let's kick it off. Hunter's calling in Ohio.
So many of you have called in today. Thank you. You may hold for 45 minutes. I appreciate it, Hunter. Go ahead.
Yeah, I was just first I want to say that I am in Yeah. any action that's going to get the men and women who work for the country paid. I'm in full support. Even snap, even though I'm not 100% behind that because I believe that responsibility falls to the Church. But I digress.
My main reason for calling, as far as the shutdown is concerned. The shutdown has been presented. As a $1.5 trillion spending package for the Democrats. Under the guise that it's all for healthcare, the ACA and whatnot. And if that were the case, they wouldn't have this spending package full of pork.
Right. Side spending things that they want to do, which is largely just a reversal of the big beautiful bill and what they. Yeah Yeah. Yeah. as far as fraud and waste are concerned.
concern. But the main thing is I don't think that it was ever intended to bring Yeah.
Okay. was really just meant to be a stalemate so that they could do the whole Uh Yeah.
social media posts, go in front of the cameras. Yeah. the good fight. And then I have a lot of for the Speaker of the House who's been playing uh there image control. goes on and just dispels these lies.
Uh on uh every day he's on on on the T V. dispelling what and kind of informing what's going on, because it's more than just that. It was always intended to be a stalemate for police. political gain on their side. And if they don't vote for these bills, That's going to show it.
on top of the fact that if they do vote for the bill, they're going to have to have some sort of admission that they might have been in the wrong here. Yeah, I mean, Mahunter, I think that you are right in this. Of course, this is manufactured. This is made to put pressure on Republicans to make it seem like they're not doing what they said they were going to do. But of course, you have a moment here where you just passed a big, beautiful bill.
You already made some concessions, some of which I was not thrilled with. And now they're asking to reverse a lot of them. And of course, they have control of the mainstream media, a lot of those outlets, and they're going to push those forward. They're going to push the narrative forward, and I see it working. And I'm having to spend too much of my time explaining all this to people.
Thankfully, we have a very educated base that listens, watch this show. I don't have to sit here and break it all down for you, but you know, most people, politics is not the number one thing they're talking about or thinking about. Look, I'll say this for me: you know, people come up to me in the street, they ask me questions and comments, and of course, I'm willing to engage and talk about it. But I got a family, it's not the number one thing I'm thinking about. When this show is over, sure, I go back to the work of the ACLJ, we got a lot of work going on, but it is not politics.
Playing politics is not the number one thing that is on my table, and nor should it be, and should it be for any of you, really. But unfortunately, when you stop paying people and you start taking away food assistance to people in need, it comes to your doorstep very quickly. And we're seeing that with how many of you are commenting, seeing with how many of you are calling in. How many of you who called in didn't want to be on air but have told us that you're on these food assistance programs? Commented and said the same thing.
Okay. We know it's real. It's the reality of America right now.
So, whether you like it or not, and I understand why some people don't. And look, I think if we were going to go back to the origins of this system, there are things we could have done a lot better. I'm not saying it's a good system, I'm just saying it's the system that we have right now. And I think people who are relying on it should continue to have it. Let's continue on.
Rodney is calling his ACLJ champion another champion, man. Today is the day of champions, and I appreciate each and every one of you. I appreciate everyone who donates and supports, and I appreciate everyone who just watches. You know, that's enough for me. The people that say I'm going to give on a monthly basis, rock and roll.
Thank you, Rhett. Rodney, you're on the air. Ronnie there? Go ahead. Hello.
Hello. Yeah, I just call him saying we don't need any extra standalone bills. We have a bill. That all they have to do is pass it. opens everything up.
True. That's right, Rodney. But we are seeing that as a stalemate. Nothing has happened. It's not moving.
They're not, no one's moving.
So what you're doing is now, when you have the pressure from the unions, you have pressure again for the two big unions over the last couple of days.
Now you have Republicans saying, fine. Yeah, again. Kind of put your money where your mouth is. If you really care about the American people, let's get. the two big pain points over with.
So then, the American, we can actually focus on getting this done, and it's not going to affect people who are in need of food assistance or people. I don't know, air traffic controllers, those that are going to keep people safe flying when we're about to head into the two busiest months of the year. I'm not saying it's going to get done either, Rodney. I'm saying they're going to play politics with this too, unfortunately. I hope I'm wrong.
So I'd love to see it done. But I understand when you feel that way. Let's go ahead and continue on. Let's go to, let's hop over to Sharon, who's watching on the Salem News channel, which is a great place to watch the show as well. Great lineup of people there for free on Pluto and Samsung TV and a lot of options, of course, on their website.
It's another great place to watch us. It's a real 24-hour news network that we're a part of. And Sharon, go ahead. Yes, I'm sharing a I think they out of funded uh boost outs for all these kids because they're going to end up doing without and the air traffickers. And I think we ought to take the Democrats' money away and then they'll start voting.
Look, Sharon, Bernie Sanders was asked about that and said, Do you think, you know, these representatives, they should not be, they should have their finances withheld as well? He's like, well, some of them have. Have small kids. They got families. They can't afford to do that.
Of course, completely throwing away what's actually happening to regular American people that aren't in Washington, D.C. As we heard from Mark in our offices earlier, when I asked him, Do you feel the difference? Do you feel the pressure? What he said was, traffic slider. That's not exactly what I was hoping for.
What you hope is they actually feel a bit more pressure.
So, call your representatives, be involved in that as well. Sharon, thanks for calling. I appreciate it and I agree with you. Let's hit up. We got two calls in two minutes.
Let's see. Leslie, go ahead. Hi, yes, I was calling in about the EVT situation and. First of all, I think they need to go ahead and release the funds because you do not I just don't believe of anything that they can negotiate with. Feeding hungry people is not the way to go.
And they're also risking a lot of civil unrest because you see on social media a lot of people. whether they're in the right place and doing it for the right reasons and deserve. or there's someone who's abusing the system. It could create a lot of civil unrest.
So I think they need to free it up. But moving forward, I'm hoping that this has taught people a lesson in how the SNAP program is being abused. because it the the allowing the abuse of it is creating systemic and generational oppression, I believe. Once a mother has a child, you know, if she's having a child and she's supported by the taxpayers on welfare, whether it be HUD, Section eight housing, food stamps, medical work, whatever. And then let's say she moves on and has a second child and a third child and so on.
The government has been good at subsidizing single parent homes. These fathers in hell often comes unaccountable. And I think that they just really need to start looking at how they're going to overhaul the system. They encourage mothers, I think a lot of times, and I would say seduce them. to a lot of the the bare minimum requirements So that then they have security.
They don't have to worry about a home and a roof over their head if they're a protection of their life. And so I think they need to free up the funds. Let people have food. You don't negotiate with that, regardless of who it is. These are children that we're talking about.
They did not ask to be brought into this world. But we need to move forward. There needs to be some.
Some hard conversations about how we stop this moving. I'm only cutting you off 'cause we're running out of time. Uh, I agree with you, and I think maybe this will be one of those eye-opening moments where they go, Oh, let's take a look at what's actually happening with the SNAP program now that it's become a bit more You know, as the top news story. Hey, Brent, unfortunately, we're not going to be able to get to you today if you were called in. I appreciate your comment.
Brent essentially said he wants both parties to come together in unity. We ought to stop hurting people for this country for playing politics. I agree with him. Brent, if you want to call in earlier tomorrow, I'll do my best to get to you. Thank you all for listening and watching today.
Flying Solo is pretty fun with all of you. Had a good time. Talking about stuff that's not that fun to talk about. But I'm glad a lot of you joined in and chimed in. Of course, we are headed towards the end of October.
November and December are big months for the ACLJ. We got a lot to reveal next week. Marshall Blackburn is going to be on the show tomorrow. And so much more, go to aclj.org. You can donate if you can, become champion if you can, but look around at some of the amazing free resources we give you right there as we head into the holidays.
Talk to you tomorrow.
