We got breaking news. Tim Walls announced he will not seek re-election. 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 lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. What a weekend it was.
Obviously, the news out of Venezuela. We're going to cover that later. Mike Pompeo is going to be joining us. But there is some breaking news this morning, and that is that Governor Tim Walls, former vice Presidential running mate to Kamala Harris. Who we've been talking about for the last couple of weeks, been involved, obviously, in the big fraud investigation that has been going wild.
You know, we were told for a long time there wasn't a lot of smoke there, that this was just a bunch of Republican talking points, conservative talking points.
Well, how often do a conservative talking point end? And someone saying, you know what, we've decided not to seek reelection after already announcing. And that's what happened. As Tim Walls had announced, And he was going to be seeking a third term as the governor, but now has withdrawn that, said he needs to focus on being the leader for the next year to get Minnesota through. The chaos that has happened.
Of course, spend a lot of time blaming the Trump administration about that. He will be making a formal announcement coming up very soon. We're going to be staying kind of making sure that's happening live. We'll be watching it, cutting in if we can. But we've seen the statement.
It's been out there since a little bit earlier this morning. As well, obviously, as Nicholas Maduro, who is. Captured. I mean, I think we all woke up and had to read that headline a few times that America had captured. Nicolas Maduro and his wife And brought them to New York City.
Tim Walls is speaking right now. We will cut to that live here in just a moment when the team tells me to. I'm just going to make sure that we are up for it. You guys let me know when. I think we're going to know here in a second.
I don't know if you all even care, but you know what? We'll do it anyway. Phone lines are open for you before we go to this live at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Of course, it's our first show back since the new year.
Will, do you think we should cut to it? Should we? Let's hear what the governor of Minnesota is having to say right now. Even as we make progress in the fight against the fraudsters, we now see an organized group of political actors seeking to take advantage of a crisis. I don't want to mince words here.
Donald Trump and his allies in Washington and in St. Paul and online. Want to make our state a colder, meaner place. They want to poison our people against each other. by attacking our neighbors.
And ultimately, they want to take away much of what makes Minnesota the best place in the country to raise a family. They've already begun trying to withhold funds that were meant to help families afford child care. and they have no intention of stopping there. Make no mistake. We should be concerned about fraud in our state government.
We cannot effectively deliver programs and services if we can't earn the public's trust. That's why over the past few years, we've made systemic changes in the way we do business. We've gone to the legislature time and time again. All right, we'll cut back into this later on. We kind of know where this is going.
He's sticking very much to the script. Can we cut his audio there? We know he's very much sticking to his script of what we saw earlier, so we can get those quotes. Essentially, gonna eventually say, hey, but with that, I've decided to focus. On getting out of this race and focusing on kind of restoring Minnesota.
But look, we've seen this time and time again in politics. How often does just political pressure get you to drop out? Very rarely. It is usually because there is some glowing reason, whether it is clear that you are not going to win reelection, like what happened with President Biden, or a situation like this where a controversy is brewing so much, you have to give. The new leadership time to be able to run successfully.
We're going to be taking your calls on this. We already got some calls lined up, even from Minnesota. We want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. Of course, we're also going to be talking about what happened with Venezuela. Mike Pompeo is going to be joining us.
Great person to hear from in that situation. Once again, Phone lines are open for you. 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. I did want to also give you a thanks to everyone who supported the work of the ACLJ during the month of December.
It was a groundbreaking, record-breaking month, and we really appreciate it. And we'll be back in just a moment on Sekulow. I did want to take a quick second and say, only about 20 seconds. Pray for our team here at the ACLJ and for members of our family here. We lost one of our own over the weekend, one of our security guards, Mike, who really took care of us, made sure our families were safe, made sure everyone here was taken care of, and just a tragic loss over the weekend.
So I ask you to just keep us in your prayers. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Of course, we are covering a couple breaking news items of the day. We have Tim Walls, governor of Minnesota, announcing he will not be seeking re-election after the mounting pressure that came over the last couple weeks on the fraud scandal that has broken out in Minnesota, where it looked like what went from a billion-dollar fraud went upwards of $9 billion.
We saw the YouTubers who were going to some of those daycare and learning centers, leaning centers, and a leering center. And really, that pressure, which shows you the power of independent journalism, shows you the power of what's going on here, pressured. Tim Walls to not step down. But to wrap up His time in office. This is after he announced he was going to be making a third-term run, something that was kind of unheard of, even in Minnesota.
So, you know, big moment there, a big moment for a lot of people. This shows you that these kind of shows, this kind of pressure, does work. Change can happen. Of course, we'll see where things go from here. They'll blame you.
They'll blame the independent journalists. They'll blame President Trump and the administration. But of course, we know how this all plays out, which is there has to be a lot of pressure. I mean, allegedly, let's say a lot of pressure from some people on the inside for this to have been the decision that he made. Not something anyone who's really in power wants to do because you're ending your term.
Uh you know, two terms. as governor plus your um controversial but unsuccessful run as vice President, which catapulted you into a massive spotlight. And that turns into leaving with egg on your face. And that is not something that anyone wants to wrap up their political career with. He's going to try his best to spin that, but we know how it is.
We also know right now that Maduro is in court right now. which is wild that that is happening in New York City. Ah they they I guess what they say, the self-elected President of Pres of Venezuela is there. That's right. And when you read the statement from Tim Wallace, it's four pages long.
It's kind of meandering, blaming just about everybody but himself for For what has going on. And as you mentioned, that you know there has to be a lot of internal pressure. Clearly, polling numbers or something came back and said, listen, you got to just get out. Because he goes from blaming Donald Trump in Washington, people in St. Paul online.
He says it's Political gamesmanship from Republicans, and no one has done more than he has on fighting fraud, but yet then there's YouTubers. Like it literally just goes all over the place and says, so I'll let others worry about the election and I'll focus on work.
So he's trying to say face when clearly The writing was on the wall as far as where the election was going to go, but it still shows that he's not willing to take responsibility for what was going on. The entire time he had kept saying, you know, I kept asking for more resources from the legislature, I kept asking for more things, but never really just owned it and took responsibility for, like, yeah. This is ballooned to be one of the worst fraud scandals ever. I'm going to fix it. I'm going to end it.
And so I think That probably for many in the state. Was enough. And if they were doing internal polling, they were looking at things, I'm sure his consultants were like, you've got to get out of this race. You are not going to be the first third-term Minnesota governor in the modern era. Yeah, and giving it a lot of time, really.
Think about it. We're pretty much a year away. 11 months away from the election for Tim Walls.
So it's giving enough time for somebody to get their act together because I'm sure that Democrats were not looking at primarying him. That probably was not happening.
So there's probably not even an infrastructure set up to who will take his place. I mean, sure, obviously, there are always someone in politics angling, but this gives them enough time to get something together in Minnesota.
Well, they're even saying the senator, Amy Klobuchar, is considering running for governor. Going back home. And I feel like that type of a move would be a smart one for the party.
Someone who has won many terms in the Senate, would be seen as kind of a stable, familiar name, would probably be able to do well there coming out of something like this where the incumbent governor is having to step away. Or it's Mike Lindell's time. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see what happens.
There are two calls right now from Minnesota. I want to take both. Let's go first to Mike, who is a ACLJ champion. Go ahead, Mike. Hi, thank you.
You know, this is a joke in Minnesota. The thing I'm concerned about. is here we got the biggest fraud. And what are we going to do? Ship these Somalians back to their home country with millions and billions of dollars.
Why don't we send them to South American prisons? If we want to stop this garbage, we got to have some severe penalties. And if it's proven that Waltz and Ellison have stolen money, They need to be sent to prison. We got to put some teeth in this stuff. Or Why would anybody quit stealing when they can get billions of dollars and get shipped back to their own country?
Well, Mike, I think there is that concern of you when you're listening to when someone says, hey, I'm going to decide to not seek reelection, there also is to avoid Potential consequences and tried to get around that. Saying, hey, I stepped down. Let's try to distract what's going on and move on. But we'll see. It looks like that the FBI and the group is really taking a hard look at what went on in Minnesota.
It doesn't feel like they are letting people slide. You never know. It's politics, unfortunately, as we've all learned. Look, Nicholas Maduro right now is in court right now. Not something I thought I would be saying, but also who knows where this is going to lead.
You're in New York. Your judge is over 90 years old. That's what they just put up on the screen. I just saw the 92-year-old judge. Who knows where this ends up?
We live in a very interesting country right now, and it's something that we should obviously always be digging in on. You know, what's so interesting right now is that as Maduro is about to be arraigned, there is also an emergency UN Security Council meeting going on. Because of the operation in Venezuela, the country who is the there's a rotation on who is the President of the Security Council. This month it's Somalia. Is the presidency of the UN Security Council?
So, all these things tie together, or it's a simulation or something, Logan. But we will be talking about that as well with Secretary Mike Pompeo in the next segment because sometimes you look at what is happening in the United States and you forget about kind of the bigger things, about what can happen when these dictators get away with just wreaking havoc on the world for years. And then finally, someone steps up. You know, you're seeing the Democrats say this is illegal. Um that this was impeachable.
all these things, but they forget that The Biden administration actually increased the bounty that leads to the capture of Nicholas Maduro, When they could have just done it.
So either putting a bounty on someone's head, saying we want the capture of this individual. for an indictment that was sitting in US court. Or they don't believe it at all.
So that's where I think that the Democrats are going to have a lot of explaining to do is whether or not they. Believe the Biden administration saying, Yeah, this person needs to be captured, even though we're not necessarily going to do anything about it other than put a bounty on his head. The Trump administration raised that bounty from $25 to $50 million. And then, what did they do? They went and captured him.
They went and put their money where their mouth is, so to speak. Let's take real quick before we get to Mike Pompeo in the next segment. Let's take one more call. Let's go to Warren, who's calling also Minnesota, listening and watching on the Salem News channel. Warren, welcome.
Hello. Hey, go ahead. I got a couple of divergent things that still connected. You know, Mondami is, you know, running the playbook of emasculation and collectivism. Oh, yeah.
That was one of those moments in that speech where you go, ugh, maybe he isn't just pretending to be this way. That was a bit of a, even my kids were like, oh, no more rugged individualism. But okay, go ahead, Ward. That's the exact playbook that Tim Walls, Tampa on Tim, has been running for the last eight years in Minnesota. emasculation of men.
Children gender of surgeries and all of that crap. and uh collectivism The amount of billions of dollars he's taken from families middle income people, small businesses and the grifter takes and gives it to NGOs Nonprofits, and you got that may not exist. You know, Lauren, I think that's been one of the big things is when you look at this, there's a lot that people vote for. And you can't. Look.
People vote for Madami en masse. And it's not like he was hiding how he felt. Um There was maybe a little bit of that glimmer of hope when he met with President Trump, going, maybe this guy won't be as bad as maybe he is a bit more of a showmaneer. And then he, first thing he did in office was revoke the description of anti-Semitism and then started to line things back. And of course, that big statement of we want to get rid of collective or of rugged individualism for the warmth of collectivism.
And man, I was pretty shocked. I don't know why, but it was that. But when people vote for something like that, I don't feel as bad. But when there are moments like this where I don't think people voted for Tim Walls and thought, yeah. We're voting for a guy who is going to be, at least should be held accountable, if not responsible, for fraud beyond belief.
to the tune of $9 billion. With that, we are going to be back in just a minute. Thank you, Ward. Thank you for everyone's call from Minnesota. If you want to keep calling, I love hearing from locals: 1-800-684-31-TIP.
But even if you're not in Minnesota, I'd love to hear from you. And we're going to move on to the next segment, talk mainly about what's going on, obviously. With Maduro, Venezuela, and all of that with Mike Pompeo. In just a moment, I'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow.
We are going to take your calls and comments coming up in the next segment.
So get on hold, 1-800-684-3110. We're now joined by Mike Pompeo, who's been a valuable member here at the ACLJ and our broadcast team for many years now. And Secretary Pompeo, I can't think of a more important time to hear from someone like you than what happened over the weekend. I think a lot of us looked at our phones and said, oh, what happened? Oh, we had some sort of action in Venezuela.
And then we read, of course, it says captured Nicholas Maduro and his wife. And now they're in New York City being arraigned in court. I just wanted to get your overall thoughts in general about all of this, how it went down. Obviously, from a military point of view, it seems like it was an excellent moment. But just in general, we got to hear your thoughts.
Yes, so I woke to the same news as well, about 4 a.m., if I remember right, East Coast time, when something flashed and picked up my phone. Important for the world. We now have a narcoterrorist that's in a U.S. court system. He'll get his legal due process, but he can no longer wreak havoc either on the United States and the risk that it has presented to us for years and years and years.
He can no longer cooperate with the Russians and the Iranians and Hezbollah down in Venezuela, not too far from our southern shores. But importantly, the Venezuelan people now have a chance to live a life that is more decent. And when they do, they will be more productive. And that will be good for the United States of America as well. This was a once-thriving economy.
It can be so again. And a thriving Venezuelan economy is great for the American economy as well. And I think President Trump appreciates all of that. And it's why he did what he did this past weekend. And it's not something that we're used to waking up and seeing that the U.S.
has swooped in and arrested a foreign leader and captured. I mean, I think it was 36 years to the day that Noriega was arrested out of Panama. But there is a portion of the right that kind of has this regime change fatigue, concerned about getting involved in foreign theaters and how that could potentially not want to lead to another Afghanistan or Iraq situation. How should the administration be explaining this action to the American people to, one, alleviate some of those concerns, but also bolster support for the action taken here? Look, we've all got memories of big foreign troop commitments in mind.
Some of us are even a little bit older, remember Vietnam, right?
So you can go back an awfully long way and see that this has an enormous toll on the American economy, the American military, our soldiers, our families, all of that. I don't see any evidence that what President Trump did here is remotely related to that. I remember when we took the strike on Qasim Soleimani, which was exactly six years to the day before this strike. It seems like January 3rd should put bad guys on notice. Um People said, well, we're going to get involved in a big war.
Pelosi and Schumer said the same things that they're saying today about that strike against General Suleimani, but the world was a safer place, and Americans were safer as a result of what President Trump did six years ago. And I think we'll find the same thing here today. It's not the case that we're going to deploy U.S. Army divisions inside of Venezuela to retake ground and hold and capture big pieces of Venezuelan real estate. That is not the model that President Trump has ever talked about or nor that he's ever actually executed.
So I think what you saw was a well-conducted operation, and now America using its diplomatic and economic pressure to give Venezuela a shot at being a normal nation again. And that will make us an awful lot safer. And the risk of an extended deep engagement there, it's never zero, I suppose. But I haven't seen any evidence that the friends of Maduro, the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, are coming to the rescue of the leadership. In Venezuela.
No, now the United States has firmly demonstrated the place that Venezuela needs to go. At most, you've just seen some strongly worded social media posts. It's about all we've seen so far. But look, I mean, the American people, like you said, woke up to this. This is not what we're used to.
They're not necessarily saying that that is a bad thing. I think, if anything, we have now an administration, once again, that's willing to act. Maybe we're not used to that after many years of inaction. With that, also, though, we woke up to felt like everyone on the left. Was all of a sudden expert at Venezuela.
They knew everything about this. They knew all of the issues that were at play. How dare President Trump commit some sort of illegal action? That's what they're saying. Chuck Schumer called it illegal.
A lot of people are calling it illegal. I was watching it with my kids, and they cut to streets of Miami. They cut to some of these streets and they showed the Venezuelan people. And that's the main thing I said. I go, look to the actual people that matters to.
And the people of Venezuela, obviously, were celebrating. We're celebrating to the point of, we had a party in Nashville at one of our big events where people had printed shirts already that night of Maduro captured that they were all wearing at this party. When you look to the people, you can see the truth of what's happening here. And I think we jump so quickly in this politically divided world to go everything that Trump does bad, everything that, you know, or the other way around as well, that we can't see the forest through the trees, if you will, and see that this could be a very good thing for people who have not been able to return home, a lot of them their entire lives. This is a really important point.
Uh, step back from the noise. Uh, I was in New York City across the weekend. There were protests in Times Squares. Looked like the same crowd that was supporting Hamas to me, to be honest with you. These are people who claim they care about Freedom and liberty and decency, and they were out supporting a regime that was the exact opposite of every one of those things.
And so, yes, when I hear US elected officials from the left, uh concerned about uh legal technicalities Or assertedly saying, Goodness, we're worse off as a result of the decision President Trump made. I'm mindful that they're not looking at and seeing what the people who are most affected by this think. And that is certainly the case. That they know that the road ahead is difficult. Getting rid of Maduro is step one.
Getting Venezuela to a better place is a longer, more difficult task. But they couldn't get there without step one. They needed step one to take place. And President Trump enabled that, created this opportunity.
Now the hard work begins, and the Venezuelan people, just like the Iranian people and the people in Gaza, are going to have to step up and begin to self-govern in a way that is decent and normal. You mentioned the Iranian people. Lost in all this is that there are still massive protests in Iran going on, about nine days going right now, some of the largest we've seen in some time. Could Iran be the next shoe to drop as far as the people rising up and taking back their freedom? Boy, these protests are big.
There have been protests for years in Iran. These feel different to me. Make no mistake about it, the Iranian regime is no different. It still wants to suppress and kill these protests and maintain power. But they're an awful lot weaker today after Operation Midnight Hammer and what the Israelis did.
And so perhaps this will be the moment when the Ayatollah will hop a plane and join Assad in Moscow. That'd be a great thing for the broader Middle East and certainly a great thing for America. And we shouldn't take our eye off the ball. Cuba, too, is weaker than it's ever been. Venezuela around each of these places where the political middle, the normal people in the street, are looking for a change in leadership.
Hopefully, we can facilitate a model which gives them the opportunity to do that. Secretary Papeo, thank you so much for joining us. Look, we're going to be back in just a minute. If you don't get us on your local radio station, find us broadcasting live. Full video television-style broadcast.
If you don't watch us, you should be watching us at aclj.org or YouTube or Rumble. We do that each and every day from 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern Time. Full hour there. You can always be a part of that.
You can hit that subscribe button, get involved. It's a great way to do it and support the work of the ACLJ in doing so.
However, I know a lot of you are joining us right now on YouTube. I can saw the number just spike.
So you're probably wondering what those details are in the Tim Wall's exit. We're going to talk about that coming up in the next segment. Don't worry. We'll get back to that. Topic.
We definitely loved hearing from Secretary Pompeo and hearing about everything that happened in Venezuela. Maduro just pled not guilty. We're going to keep covering that as well for the next half hour. Stay tuned again. That's at aclj.org.
But hey, all our phone lines are open right now. I want to hear from you: 1-800-684-3110. That's at 1-800-684-3110. We'll be right 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. And of course, the big news. I mean, obviously, there are a couple big news stories.
One of them, which is Maduro and his wife just pled not guilty in court. The judge having to silence them, quiet them down. We're just watching as that news comes in out of Manhattan. It's happening in New York City. This is happening after, obviously, the capture of Maduro and his wife over the weekend.
A push notification I was not expecting to get. But I know a lot of you are joining us right now to know what's going on in Minnesota because that has been such a story we've been following, which is the massive fraud scandal that has broken out there. And it's now led to Tim Walls announcing he will not seek a third term. This was something that he had already announced, had already made plans for. The election is 11 months away.
And now, due to the pressure, look, he'll claim it's from the Trump administration being distracted or trying to play politics, whatever it may be. We know how this runs in politics. None of this happens. Decisions are not made unless there is a lot of pressure going on. This guy does not want to not be the governor of Minnesota.
If you had already decided to run for a historic third term, something that no one had really done in modern history, This was not an easy decision to be made. And I am sure the internal polling and all that happened, and look, we've seen this on the left and the right, pushed him to this decision. Giving the whoever wants to run for the Democrat candidate, which look is likely to win in Minnesota, will see a year-long now election, a year-long campaign. This is happening again. He made this statement.
The statements came out. The statements were pretty clear, which is, I'm going to blame everybody else. And it's not really about the fraud. We know the fraud's bad. We got to investigate the fraud.
It's really, I don't want to feel like I'm distracted from running this state. A lot of fluff. That's right. Well, the statement itself, which was four pages long, could have been read equally as I'm still running. You can't stop me.
Because he says things like, I cannot abide the actions of the political leadership in Washington, these opportunists who are willing to hurt our people to score a few cheap points. They and their allies have no intention of helping us solve the problem and every intention of profiting off of it. Doesn't make any sense right there. But then he goes, which brings me to this: 2026 is an election year, and election years have a way of ramping up the politics at a time when we simply can't afford more politics. Goes on to say, So I've decided to step out of the race and let others worry about the election while I focus on the work.
It's an interesting statement, as you said, because he is blaming everyone but himself. For the loose Controls over their programs, which led to historic fraud. The U.S. Attorney, Assistant U.S. Attorney in Minnesota.
said it was at an industrial scale. It it made him question everything he knew about the state of Minnesota. That's not someone trying to profit off of uh political points here. That's the assistant U. S.
Attorney. And yet, he's trying to have it both ways. We're saying, so I'm going to finish my term here really strong, doing the work of the Minnesotans that you elected me to do here, but I'm not even going to worry about these political things. In reality, his consultants said, Don't end up being the Joe Biden of Minnesota. Don't be the guy who, as these stories kept coming out.
Made it impossible for you to win, and you drop out too late or you lose, and you allow a Republican to win. I guarantee you, a conversation like that was had between Tim Wallace and his campaign manager about not being the Joe Biden of Minnesota. He's already lived through that, what it looks like when you are short timeframe to try and mount a campaign.
So maybe that was what convinced him. But it also tells me, I don't think we've heard the end. Of how bad the fraud in Minnesota is. No, I think we've just had the tip of the iceberg. With that, though, we'll be back in just a moment.
I want to take your calls at 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. What are your thoughts also about Venezuela? I definitely know a lot of my friends, like you said, some well-meaning going, as we talked with Secretary Pompeo, they have flashbacks to Iraq. They don't want to see that repeated.
Do you feel that way when they say, hey, who's going to be running? the country and we say we are. Do you like that? Do you not like that? I want your honest opinion.
1-800-684-3110. Also put it in the chat, but I'd love to hear from you and actually hear your voice again. And support the work of the ACLJ while you can. We've had a great month of December. You can continue to support at aclj.org.
Welcome back to Sekulow. We're going to take some calls and comments coming up. 1-800-684-3110, of course, talking about really the two stories of the weekend. Number one, Nicolas Maduro captured.
Something, again, I don't think we all, you know, there's been a lot of talks. There's been obviously a lot of pushing in Venezuela. There has been the boats. I don't know if any of us had on our bingo card at the beginning of the year the capturing. This is sort of the weird part: we're not used to this also because we're used to taking out leaders, if you will, dictators, and these kind of things.
Something like even Saddam Hussein, who was captured under our watch, but his final decisions of what would happen to him were carried out by the people. Right. This is being taken, flown into New York City. Uh With a lot of pomp and circumstance, putting the show on, having the press conferences, doing the whole deal, saying we captured this dictator, false leader of a country. And what does that look like?
For the future of the United States, as we know, they do have partners. We do know they do have friends. We've seen pushback from China. We've seen pushback from other nations.
So how does that all play out? And how does it play out for the safety and security of our country? I think that's a real concern we should be thinking about. And that's why I posed that question to you. A lot of you have started to call in.
We'll get to those as they roll on. And then, of course, a lot of you are still paying attention to what's going on in Minnesota, where Tim Walls. Governor of Minnesota, heading into his third term. had announced he was going to be seeking reelection. And today, due to all of the controversy surrounding everything, and regardless of what he wants to say, that at least.
Is the truth that regardless of what side you end up on? The controversy of it is. It was too big. to continue running for reelection. Yeah, and I think that we're going to see more come out of that as well.
I think that this is an indicator that the fraud story wasn't over. They clearly knew more. Obviously, you would think that they would be able to know more and see more being in charge of those executive agencies in Minnesota. And that this was a, you're going to have to get out of this race at some point or you're going to lose it. You should do it now to give a full year to whomever may wish to run in your stead instead of you being a Joe Biden of Minnesota.
But then you also talk about what's going on in New York. And it's interesting. I'm watching kind of the live updates from reporters coming through that. Maduro and his wife have both pled not guilty. The attorney for Maduro is not seeking bail at this time.
I feel like they may. Think, eh, it may be difficult to say he's not a flight risk. It may be a flight risk, yeah. Yeah, but there's interesting things as well, like he, uh, the Maduro telling the judge he's been kidnapped. He was blocked from speaking freely.
I think maybe courts in Venezuela may have a little bit different rules, but he was blocked from speaking freely. But he also asked the judge that He could keep his notes and that his notes be respected and that he be allowed to keep them. And it says the judge sounded a little surprised, says, Yes, I believe you're entitled to that.
So I feel like there's some maybe cultural translation barriers going on, which makes it interesting as well.
So once we get a full accounting of this from the press that are in there, it will be fascinating. And even with some people being able to weigh in on what is maybe going in the mind of Nicholas Maduro in that crazy thing, it's got to be crazy. Let's go take, let's take a call. Michael in Florida, who's watching on YouTube. Michael, go ahead.
Get on. Ha ha ha. After the events of the weekend, And then Mandani Calling the President. Do you think? After the pleas from Madani, That President Trump kind of got a good chuckle.
Michael, I'm sure. I mean, look, we do know Mamdami said he reached out to President Trump directly to tell him how bad he was for doing this. He said he was briefed on the matter, which everyone was like, What does that mean? How does the mayor get briefed in New York? He was monitoring the situation.
Monitoring the situation. And look, there's a large Venezuelan population in New York City for sure. What does that mean for them? I think a lot of them are celebrating. Like I said, look to the people.
For everyone that wants to complain about this, look, I understand your concerns when it comes to regime change and all of that. That is not something that we want to necessarily relive that we all lived through in the early 2000s. But I do understand. When I see people in the street celebrating, when I see parties break out here in Nashville, Tennessee, of families saying, We never. Thought we'd ever be able to take our kids to Venezuela, and maybe we'll be able to do that again.
Maybe we'll actually see our return to our homeland. It's pretty emotional. It should be something that feels very American that we would do this. Safely. And I'm hopeful it will play out that way.
We'll certainly be covering it. We'll certainly be watching it. You know, I understand people protesting in Chicago and New York with maybe no war signs or, you know, no adventurism, no, no colonialism or something, trying to make a point there. But I don't understand the Free Maduro signs. And that's what just, it feels so fake.
It feels so pre-planned. You know, astroturfed is the term they use where it's a fake grassroots movement. It feels so fake when all of a sudden people are popping up around the country that were ready to make slogans for Maduro. Like, really, that's where your head was. I mean, maybe they've been prepped.
I mean, look, people like Tucker Carlson have been kind of prepping a pushback to any sort of response in Venezuela. I've been pushing them as a conservative homeland where we can, you know, go. And we all know the truth, hopefully, of what that looks like. And again, When you're talking about shipping Tons. Of drugs into our country, murdering hundreds of thousands of our citizens here that I don't really care about your feelings on the social side of politics.
This is a big moment. We need to not ignore it. And like you said, when you see it on the streets, it does feel performative, it feels staged because it's right. It's giving the same people who protest everything another thing to go after. And like I said.
It feels like all of your friends on the left woke up. And we're experts in Venezuela. And that's at least one thing that I am proud to say here on this show we don't pretend to do, which is if it's a topic that we are not well informed about, we're gonna get ourselves well informed about it. We're gonna learn everything we can. We're gonna have people like Mike Pompeo who can come on here and give you their points of view.
People who have met with Maduro before giving their points of view, because I think that is extremely important. And to just jump, and I would say this even for those on the right, who, when they have a Democrat that says something that they aren't sure if they agree with or disagree, to just disagree with it. because they're not on your political side is worthless. Take a honest look at what's going on. And look, I don't have all the information and everything.
It wasn't well established in my thoughts on Venezuela, other than I have a really strong push against drug trafficking and human trafficking. I feel very compelled to fight against that in any way we can here in this country because I've seen what it can do, the destruction it can cause to members of people of our families, of everyone's family, really, who has had to deal with the ramifications of what that looks like, especially over the last five, six years. And to see any kind of real action. take place. We had Jacqueline Stapp on a few months ago.
They were she was part of the campaign to really take down fentanyl here in the country, make America part of the kind of the healthy again, but also to fentanyl free. And If this is what that is. I'm all for it.
Well, and when you also look at how much damage, not just on the lives of the United States, that the drug trafficking and the way that these dictators have enriched themselves through utilizing the drug trade, but how they've oppressed their people with failed socialist regimes that have caused the people of their country poverty and destruction and death. And instead they've enriched themselves. And that's happened all throughout our own hemisphere. And a lot of people are talking about the Monroe Doctrine again because that's the historic protecting your own backyard. That was Kind of forgotten and not paid attention to for a long time.
This is very much a historic kind of American foreign policy. That we're looking at again. And it's, I think that's why it feels so foreign to many, and because our modern foreign policy has been 100% focused on the Middle East. It has been focused on Europe and Russia and China and not realizing what's going on in our own backyard and that. There are things that are affecting the people here in the United States on a daily basis that is going on very close to home that has just been ignored for a very long time.
We only got about a minute left in this segment. I do want to take phone calls in the next ones. We got three lines open for you at 1-800-684-3110. We'll spend that next segment taking your calls, getting your comments in as well. And look, we didn't do a big push here because look, we had a huge month in December.
I talked to you every day about our year-end drive.
So I want to thank you all for supporting the work of the ACLJ during our year-end drive. It really meant a lot to see some of those donations roll in. It's really shocking every year. On the last day of the month. how many of you support financially.
It blows our mind. And I really can't um. I can't articulate enough thanks. for that. If you do, if you're brand new to this show, which I know about half of you are, on YouTube.
I'm not going to ask you to donate right now. I'm going to ask you just to click that subscribe button if you're watching on YouTube or Rumble and be a part of the team. Hit in the comments. We do this show each and every day. We'll be back with your calls and comments in just a moment.
If you're on hold, stay on hold. We'll get to you. Welcome back to Secula. One line still open at 1-800-684-3110. Give us a call.
I did want to take a bunch of calls right now. Obviously, we're talking about kind of two main topics: Maduro currently in court right now with his wife in Manhattan, and then flip it over. We're also talking about Tim Walls announcing he will not be seeking re-election in Minnesota after the mounting pressure due to the whole fraud situation. Let's take some calls and comments about this. Let's go to Steve first, who is calling from Kentucky.
Steve, on watching on the Salem News Channel, which is another great way to watch our show, Salem, or on Salem. Go ahead, Steve. Yes, sir. I just want to say we appreciate your program. All the time, and we also appreciate what y'all's organization is doing.
Excellent. I just want to say, my comment is simply this. is Uh it may be questioned. Uh I believe the governor of Minnesota Tim Waltz. Um Needs can be indicted by our federal government.
I believe he is He's violated our country so much and the money involved have wasted millions and I believe billions, what I understand. And if it's found that he's done it He needs to be held accountable. Yeah, Steve, see, billions is certainly the words we've been being told, upwards of 9 billion. That number is still a little flexible on where that's actually going to land. But again, I always try to break it down to people with billion because I think you start getting number fatigue and you start not really understanding these numbers.
Not that you don't understand what $9 billion is, but it's very easy to hear $1 billion, $2 billion, and remember how many millions a billion is. Remember how many millions $9 billion is. How many hundreds of thousands 9 billion is? It's an absurd number. It almost becomes a fictional number for finances.
So, Steve, I understand that feeling. I don't want. To lead anyone astray and say that I think he's going to be indicted for this fraud. I'm not saying that they're not going to do a good job looking into it. I think you have a top-notch FBI now who is really breaking things down.
So, if there is something there, I'm not going to be shocked if they find the accountability there, Will. But I also don't want to pretend to lead people down a road which could lead to something like that. That's right. Based off what we're seeing publicly, is there some alleged crime that Tim Walls has committed? Not that I've seen.
Negligence. Right. Gross negligence of running your state is he's getting the consequences for that. He will no longer be the governor because he will not be seeking reelection. And leaving, not in a way anyone wants to leave, you know, leaving in a way where you have egg on your face.
Not unlike Joe Biden, you know, leaving in a way where the American people essentially Pre-rejected you. Before you had time to even lose the election or to not fulfill your duties there, they decided it's not worth your time. That's right. But as you said, we do need to be careful that just being awful at your job and allowing people to completely defraud your state doesn't necessarily mean you go to prison where failed politicians don't always go to jail. Just because they failed at their job, that would turn us into more of a Venezuela, Latin American-style dictatorship where they didn't like you, they threw you in prison.
So I don't think he's done a good job, but I haven't seen directly anyone alleging that he was benefiting off the fraud. He was benefiting off of all the things that were going on in the state. Yep. Let's go ahead and continue on with some of these calls. Let's go first to Dave in Ohio on line five.
A little bit of a swerve here, but it's all right. Phone lines are open, though. I do want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. Let's go to Dave. Dave, you got a comment?
Yeah. Yes, I am I'm a bit concerned. I mean, I agree with most of the comments, good comments on Venezuela. But I think it it may have cost us this doing it cost us the moral higher ground When it comes to uh dealing with China and Taiwan. I mean, we haven't ever owned or never been, Venezuela has never been a part of this country.
But China, you know, Taiwan was a one-time part of China. And they China keeps saying. You know, it's a rogue thing. It's a rogue state. And we've kept defending it.
Oh, no, you know, it's separate, but now we've done this. I could see where China could come back and say, you know, which is what you did. We'll go in and take Tito. I get that. I get that.
Dave, I understand that concern. I understand even those people that have said, look, well, this kind of gives Russia a pass for one to go after what they saw was a criminal leader of Ukraine. I don't buy the argument. One, I think they are different. Um this was arresting someone who had been indicted back in 2020 for these charges.
They did capture a leader and and the the annexation of Venezuela Is not what the purported goal is here, which is what would happen with China and Taiwan. But I understand people saying that. I also would push back and say China and Russia don't need permission. Or, or an evaporation of the perceived moral high ground to do what they're going to do. They are going to make their foreign policy adventurism moves regardless of whether or not they're like, oh, finally, the U.S.
did something, so we can do it now. I just don't think it's going to play out on the world stage that way. And if we're looking for, you know, the UN to give us some sort of pat on the back or anything, that's never going to happen either.
So, all right, let's quickly take what probably could be our last call of the day. We'll say, let's go to Rod in Texas. Rod, go ahead. Yes, man, I want to just quickly speak on this none of the fraudulent thing. And I think they did a good thing.
Well, he did a good thing going ahead and designing it HM Walls. But I want to point out. how the fraud seemed the the the business model for the the fraud i it come about. They always seek The job sector, where they can get some type of government assistance from. I haven't heard not one story about.
I don't repair shop opened by Somalis in Minnesota. I have not heard not one time. There's a car wash in Minnesota that was owned by Somalis. It's always job stuff to where they can expose and just just ch just just Take out hard-earned tax money and get government assistance for health care, the non-emergency transportation, the daycare. And it's always something that they can get government assistance for.
Yeah, right. I'm sure that is. I'm going to cut you off because I'm running out of time. I am sure some of that is part of the scam.
Now, are there Somali-run auto repair shops and all that? Very likely in that area because there are so many people that are there. But you're right, there may be the ones who are not. Seeking government assistance slash creating some sort of scam front business. I'm sure there's plenty of good people there who are doing those kinds of work, but you're right.
What do we hear about? We hear daycare, child services, all of these government programs. Because when you're talking about $9 billion of government funding, it's got to go somewhere. And it's probably easier to fake a daycare than it is a lot of these other businesses. To that point as well, if you are offering a good or service that the customer is paying for.
Then there's an exchange of value. They give you money, you fix their car, or even if you are taking care of their children. The problem is, when it's being paid for by the government, that's where it's much easier to see fraudulent things, especially if the controls are so loose that it goes undetected for a long time. All right. Hey, unfortunately, Tim, we're not going to be able to get to you today.
We took as many calls as we could. You only want to hold for a few minutes, though. Call back tomorrow. With that, I want to thank everyone for listening today. It's been a packed show and a great show.
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Work your way back from there. And again, I just want to say thanks. Thank you again for your support during the month of December. It's a new year. Let's try to kick it off strong here.
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