The clock is ticking again, a government shutdown to begin at midnight. 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. It's Friday. Not only is it Friday, it's Friday. The third table.
And how Apropos, as another government shutdown is looming tonight at midnight. I guess technically. Valentine's Day is when that government shutdown will occur.
Now, a lot of you are going to be asking the big questions: what does it mean to me? How is this going to impact my life as we know what happened with the last government shutdown?
Now, this one is a partial. government shutdown. Within this segment, in the next segment, we're going to break down exactly what it means, who it affects. Of course, it does affect quite a bit of people negatively. Not necessarily who the Democrats that are holding this up, not exactly who they probably Want you to believe?
are actually going to be affected by this. But we're going to discuss this quite a bit because some of the big ticket items, if you will. are things you would love to continue to be funded. And of course the things that they're going to tell you is the reason. are not going to be defunded.
Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. I'm just going to walk you through this. And then a little bit later, we'll be joined by Ben Ferguson. You know him, political commentator, been one of our friends for decades, one of our close friends. And of course, you may know him from the Ted Cruz podcast or whatever it may be.
He's CNN, Fox News. He's been around for years and years.
So he's going to be joining us talking about election integrity. ACLJ has a big update on that as well.
So, continue to be a part of the show for this Friday, the 13th. Let's break down this government shutdown. Again, a partial government shutdown. Got these papers here in front of me.
So, you know what? I'm going to make sure that I give you exactly the facts here that our team put together. I don't want to, you know, no stone will be left unturned. Partial government shutdown for the Department of Homeland Security. We'll begin February 14th at 12:01 a.m.
Who will be impacted? Will be impacted. Let's go through some of the big ones first. One of the big ones, and of course, you know, this is after weeks of rejected offers from the Democrats, mainly saying that they would not budge if there was not major reform and really the dismantling of ICE programs. Here's what will actually though be impacted.
Transportation and Security Administration. That's right. The TSA, once again, 95% of the 61,000 employees. 58,000 people are essential and will work. But will work without pay.
Again, of course, that is going to cause a potential for disruption. I mean, those people stop showing up. Paychecks due March 3rd could be reduced, and full-shaped paychecks will be at risk by the 17th. Here's another big one when we're dealing with what's going on in our border security. 'Cause this is the only armed force branch under the Department of Homeland Security.
That would be the US Coast Guard. I don't know something I think that we would love to continue funding. All fifty six thousand active duty reserve and civilian personnel will go without pay. That is kind of terrifying, to be honest, if we're talking about where our vulnerabilities are. I mean, this is essentially our military.
Again, they are essential, but they will go without pay. And what does that look like? We know the ramifications of that. Here's another one. Let's say there's another big storm.
We just had this here in Nashville, Tennessee. We had a big ice storm that, and even now, you drive around it, maybe 60 degrees outside, but it looks like a tornado went through the entire city.
Well, guess what? FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will go to reduced operations, will be defunded quite a bit. You also have the Secret Service. which of course Their core functions will remain unaffected, but 94% of that 8,000 employees, about 8,000 employees, will work without pay. It keeps going, everyone.
There's a lot more to cover. We only got 57 seconds. This is what happens when you start playing politics with people's lives and people's livelihoods. And guess what? It's not going to be nearly as affected.
What they want you to believe is immigration and customs enforcement ice. Because it is deemed essential work.
Now, some will be deemed to not be paid, but there was prior funding from what? the big beautiful bill. $75 billion over four years of the core function sets taken care of. And I'm not even to the end of the list of who's going to be affected by this. What do you feel about this?
1-800-684-3110. Also, gonna be taking calls on Election Integrity. 1-800-684-3110. We'll be right back on Secular. I want you to take a moment now, though, if you can.
Support our incredible work. You heard about our fight for those street preachers and some big wins that we had out of. Chicago, that only happens because of you.
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Welcome back to Sekulow. Of course, again, we were talking about the partial government shutdown that will go into effect at midnight. Really looking like there's unlikely that that won't happen as Democrats and Republicans just can't seem to work together to get this kind of thing done. Who does it hurt? Does it hurt them?
Of course not. Doesn't hurt your politicians in Washington, D.C. Is it hurting the American people? And this one specifically, the Department of Homeland Security, which look, after we had that airspace shutdown in Texas, After we've had all of the attacks that have happened in or around the United States. Um Of all the things that I don't want defunded right now.
The Department of Homeland Security, including our TSA, and many things like that in terms of our travel safety. That is not one of the ones that I would love to see affected right now. And of course, they're going to say because the Republicans will not bend at all. on ICE protocols. With that.
Guess what's not being changed in this? with a shutdown. Any advice. They have $75 million in, or billion dollars, excuse me, $75 billion in funding that has already been approved.
So, nothing's going to change for that.
So, you're going to hear the spin that comes out of Washington, D.C. But remember exactly what it is: which is spin. To all of a sudden hurt the American people to start. Pushing forward the potential midterm elections in just a few months. And I hate to be that person that feels all doom and gloom, but I've seen behind the curtain too many times in Washington, D.C.
to pretend it's not how it works. And that it's all about votes, and it's all about getting people riled up right before an election to secure their own jobs. We've even heard the sources are saying that the proposal, again, of all of this, because Democrat leaders said this week they were underwhelmed by any of the counterproposals that came from the White House to their demands on ICE reforms. But look what's going on in Minnesota. The response, the American people kind of spoke out.
It said maybe things were getting out of hand. Maybe they thought it went too far. And look, they switched up the leadership. You brought in Tom Holman. He was essentially said, yeah, maybe it is going a little too far.
Mix some things up. wrapped up one of the operations there. and seems to have done a pretty good job of calming it down. There's also sources that say the proposal was being panned internally by Democrats as insufficient. This is just part of the market.
of what's going on. And again, it's hard to predict when a shutdown may end. Typically, I would have told you a couple days. Maybe a week. But after the last one which went historically long.
I think all bets are off. What do you think about this? We told you this was coming. You know, when the original shutdown was solved, we said, you know what? In a few months, we're going to be talking about this again.
Just watch. And here we are. And again, who's being defunded this time? FEMA, the Coast Guard, the TSA, the Secret Service. These are not things that we need to be playing with right now in America when our safety feels as insecure as ever.
Border security, customs, and border protection. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agencies. These are the ones that will be really affected. Not the Democrat leadership. These people These hundreds of thousands, it seems like, of human beings who are also just trying to do their job.
who are now got to be asked to do their job either without pay or told not to come into work. And we know that a lot of times they just stop going into work and why would you? When you feel like you're job, your livelihood is a pawn in a in a political swamp.
Now a huge also update came from the Save Act. Which would require a voter ID. That's something that happened yesterday, and we talked about it and discussed it as it passed. The House moved its way to the Senate.
Now we know that the uphill battle in the Senate Is exactly that. It's an LPL battle. We're going to have Ben Ferguson on our next segment to talk a bit about that, but also about how the ACLJ is getting involved. in a different way and helping out some of our friends in Congress. to uphold some of the Election Day protocols that are going in.
We got a call coming in about the save act. I want to take it. Let's go to Donald in Kentucky. Um Hey guys, thanks for taking my call. Yeah, I am very concerned about what's going on in the Senate.
I very much want the same act to pass, but I'm very concerned about them going nuclear, them altering the filibuster, because the moment that the trifect is on the other foot, which one day it will be, this is going to be used maliciously. Don, I'm only cutting you off because we're having some sound connection problems.
Sounds like you're in a bit of a wind tunnel, and I think you got someone else trying to call you.
So it's like the best of all worlds is happening for you, Donald. But no, I say this all the time. You have to think about. the impact beyond today. What happens is those in power don't.
They do know. By the way. They know this will impact the future. Democrats knew when they threw out impeachment.
So willy milly last time. that now it devalued or devalued what impeachment is, the standard of impeachment.
So now impeachment can be thrown out so easily. And you better believe they are working towards how they're going to do that again. Even if they don't have the votes. to remove someone from the White House. We knew they didn't last time, but it didn't stop the pain and it is a pain to go through.
It's nothing fun. I don't want anyone to think that these are fun. They're putting you through a lot. Because when the shoe is on the other foot, it will be weaponized against. And you will be weaponized against typically, because this is always what seems to happen.
And look. Maybe I feel good about this and also you have to start. you know, wondering whether you know two should play at the same game. It was like confirmation hearings. for the Supreme Court of the United States.
Uh historically, if you were qualified, even if you disagreed. With the political Bind of a Supreme Court justice. Typically they would get through. Pretty well. if they were qualified.
Lindsey Graham historically always would say, you know, I'm not here to necessarily judge you. I mean, this is a paraphrase, on your beliefs, it's more. Are you up for the job? And are you qualified? Does your background qualify you to be someone who can judge this way?
We learned that that doesn't happen anymore. That all of that got turned upside down last time. And then they did affect. Who President Trump put up. It also affected who President Biden put up, how they're going to deal with it.
And like I said, no one impeached President Biden. I wouldn't be surprised if he had gone to the second term that you would have gotten to that point. And I am sure they're trying to use it as a tool.
So you're right. When it comes to breaking the filibuster, you have to be very careful. You be very careful when you start playing a political game. that you know, as you said, the pendulum will swing. And I think that we are a bit ignorant.
If you start thinking, and I think the Democrats are this way, and I think this is honestly how the Democrats have lost time and time again. They start thinking the American people are on their side fully. And how how could they possibly Vote in Donald Trump again for a second time after he lost the last time. How could that possibly happen?
Well, it happened because the American people aren't easily as easily manipulated as you think they are. They're not as tribal as you think they are either. There's a good chunk of the country And I think this is going to actually change significantly when it's not President Trump. I think you're actually going to have a tightening. Of this to where now you're going to have a very, very small majority of people, or a minority of people that are going to be deciding who wins this election.
Because I do think you're going to have a smaller group. that are no longer uh feel like they are loyal to against Trump or feel loyal to be for Trump.
So what does that look like in an election coming up in just a few years? And midterms coming up in just a few months. We know what midterm elections often do in these moments. They often Switch everything up. Why?
'Cause the American people. Maybe not always the most happy of what's going on, regardless of who's in the leadership, and they decide it's time for a change. Happens in the presidency, it happens in the midterms as well. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. But again, another shutdown looming.
What does it look like? What does it mean? Of course, what it means is that you are going to have to deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of people, often those who really We don't want to see defunded, including the TSA, the Coast Guard, FEMA, Secret Service, cybersecurity specialists, immigration. Though that will be a lot of the ICE operations will be funded still, border security. And uh I mean again.
Just leaving the Coast Guard alone should be a wake-up call to a lot of people here. Let's take a call. Let's go to Michael. He's calling in Florida online three. Michael, go ahead.
Gentlemen, I remember you know, Congress and the Senate. back in the day when a government shutdown was the absolute last thing you would want to get to. You would do anything to avoid it. And now Any time that I hear that the left has all of a sudden decided that they're going to try and force a shutdown, all I hear is. I'm not getting my way.
You are right, Michael, that it feels like, again, it's been trivialized. It would be something that they know would hurt the American people. and hurt their potential voters. And they would vote accordingly. And it was not necessarily as partisan.
As it is now.
Now, you're right.
Now it is. They're mad that Republicans won't budge on certain things. Therefore, let's shut it all down and let's go on our European vacation. That's what it feels like. Let's get out of Washington, D.C.
It's cold up here right now. We don't want to be here. Let's get back to our home states. Not have to worry about it. Again, let's go to Europe and go complain about our country.
When we get back though There are elections, and elections have consequences, and we also know that there are a lot of election rules that are being moved around continually. We have had an interesting Decade? Of elections, two decades. Let's start with 2000, maybe. Let's start with George Bush and the hanging chads.
Remember all that? Were you old enough to remember it? A lot of you were. Many of you probably aren't, which makes me feel very old. But phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-30-110.
But the ACLJ. Has filed amicus brief at the United States Supreme Court, and you're not going to want to miss this one. We're going to give you an update on how it is and what it has to do with Election Day and Election Day. Security, election, integrity. Be a part of that conversation, though, as well.
Ben Ferguson will be joining us. And you can support the work of the ACLJ at aclj.org. Get in line to get on the air. 1-800-684-3110. We'll be right back.
Welcome back to SecKillo. We are talking about a lot of different topics. One of, of course, the government shutdown that is impending for tonight at midnight. Another is election integrity and election security and how the ACLJ is getting involved. We just filed the U.S.
Supreme Court on behalf of 29 members of Congress to uphold Election Day and protect election integrity. Of course, this is a moment where you go, okay, we know in 2020, look, we even know back to 2000 even, but we know back to 2020, things got chaotic with how votes were counted, when they were allowed to be counted.
Some were counting weeks later as mail-in balloting was happening and the chaos that erupted over it. This is to really make a standard. That ballots postmarked by November 3rd, which we knew last time, continued to arrive after November 3rd, were counted. On the 2020 election day, what this move would safeguard the integrity of those elections. The ACLJ again has filed this.
The brief was not only filed for all of our ACLJ members and supported them, but on behalf of 29, like I said, members of the United States Congress, where the stakes are pretty high and integrity of security of our nation is pretty high. Ben Ferguson is joining us, Ben, the man with as many jobs, I feel like, as I have. Ben, welcome back. It was good to see you. Good to see you just a couple days ago here in Nashville.
And now we're doing this once again. What are your thoughts on this? Election integrity, election security always starts to pop up. It starts to bubble up, especially as we head now into the midterms. Yeah, look, I think this is insane that we're even having to have the conversation.
You and I should not be able to look at an election result. And then, if we are bad actors, decide that maybe we're going to figure out a way to keep the counting going for days and weeks. Until we get to the number that we need to overturn an election.
Now, let's say that that doesn't happen 99.9% of the time. There is still a very big fear in the world, and I would argue on both sides of this. That you shouldn't have to wait a week to get results from election. Like, we are the greatest nation in the world. Why on earth are we waiting days or weeks to find out who the next President or mayor or governor or congressman, city councilman is?
Like, this is not hard with what we have in technology in 2026.
So, bad actors know how to use this to their advantage. We saw this during COVID. I think we can all agree the Democrats were brilliant. And the way that they basically legaled up to figure out how can we change and alter the way we do the elections in the name of COVID, an emergency. And Democrats are like, that worked out really well for us, where we did this in Pennsylvania or in Georgia in specific areas.
Remember, it wasn't statewide. It was specific Democrat areas. And they exploited what they describe as a loophole.
Now, you and I both know I want every person's vote to count the same. If you're canceling out my vote, voting for Hillary Clinton. or for Bill Clinton or for Barack Obama. The list goes on and on. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris.
That's fine as long as it's a legal ballot and it's done the right way.
So I got to say to the HLJ, thank you guys for leading on this and filing this with the Supreme Court. It's vitally important for integrity of elections. And if you look at polling, Logan, I think this is also something else that's really important. Data among Americans right now is extremely low when it comes to do you believe that your vote matters? Is it counted?
Or is there fraud or abuse? We need to get rid of that. I want people to be inspired to go vote because they think their vote actually matters, that their vote means something. And why do we have such low voter turnout and participation? It is because there's a lot of people that believe, well, the system's rigged anyway.
So let's have it where that major piece of the pie is gone. Let's not give them the reason to at least believe that, that it feels that way. I think when you bring up also these elections, I think we were maybe blessed in the last election that it was a pretty clear winner up front for the President.
Now, I think when you You don't have Trump on the ballot in three years, or even going on the midterms, you're going to see once again a very, I mean, if the world is the way it is today, a very, very tight election because it feels like a giant landslide of Reagan-level landslide just maybe happens. Electorally, but maybe won't happen vote-wise.
So, we do need to figure this out to make sure these don't go on for weeks and weeks and weeks, especially as we know in a lot of these elections, it's going to be incredibly tight.
So, when they're incredibly tight, we got to figure it out. No, we got to figure it out. And the American people deserve answers. You don't want delayed answers that then you think, well, maybe there was fraud or abuse, or maybe they found a batch of ballots, or maybe all of a sudden someone randomly drops off 2,000 ballots at a polling station that just randomly show up or at a mailbox, right? Like these are the problems that we have right now.
I was talking to a CEO of a bank the other day and we were talking about this issue. He goes, How many times, Ben, have you gone to an ATM and you've never gotten less or more than the amount of money that you want to take out? And I'm like, it's never happened, right? If I want $100 out, I get $100. If I put $100 in, it shows up $100 on my thing.
How is it that we live in a world where we are so secure in everything else we do, but our elections are still 50 years old? Like it doesn't make sense.
So why would politicians who you could also argue have unlimited funds, right? We print money. We have trillions of dollars in a deficit. Are you telling me that we can't fix this problem overnight if we wanted to? I believe the reason why I.
It's not fixed is because it's deliberate and it's being done on purpose. There are bad actors that want areas that are gray and loopholes and ways that you can change and alter an election if it doesn't go your way. We've seen that and we've seen proof of it. I also think there's another big part of this: Democrats want to make sure that legal immigrants have the ability to somehow try to vote. Right.
I mean, we got to get to that. We got to get to that. We talked about it yesterday. Obviously, the Save Act. Very popular.
We've seen the polling from CNN. We've seen the polling saying even Democrats, 70% approve of some kind of voter ID, a photo ID.
So the arguments, there's never been one convincing argument. No one has ever given me even a moment to think of why we don't need this kind of security. No, it's bipartisan. There isn't an issue out there, Logan, that's as bipartisan as the SAVE Act is, which is a real simple question. Do you or do you not show an ID to vote?
Do we make sure you are who you say you are when you go to vote? This is not controversial. Liberals, moderates, and conservatives all agree unanimously on this issue, probably more than any other issue in America right now. When you've got that level of a consensus, right? And it is a big consensus.
It's going to be a landslide beyond landslides. Yeah.
So, so why are Democrats against it, right? That's the only people holding this up because you got to get to 60 votes, remember, in the Senate. And Peter, I quote, Republicans need to fight harder. I want to be clear. Republicans are fighting as hard as they can.
You got to know how Washington works, unfortunately. Came out of the House, right? Goes to the Senate. You got to have 60. It's not 50 plus one.
It is 60. And why are Democrats hell-bent on not doing this? It is for one reason. They know that they have a better chance of winning in certain areas if you don't have to show an ID to vote. Every other major country that you would compare the United States to has voter ID law.
Because my vote should not be canceled out by a dead voter or someone lying about who they are, or someone that goes into a nursing home and grabs a bunch of ballots and takes advantage of the elderly and seniors and votes on their behalf. All of these things the American people overwhelmingly agree with, and yet not one Democrat in the Senate right now is saying that they're going to go along with this because the Democratic leadership has said, do not do this to us. It will hurt us on election day. The only way it hurts them on election day is if there is fraud that they know about that they're now sanctioning with this vote.
Well, Ben, I appreciate you coming on, popping out, helping me out here when I'm flying solo.
So I appreciate it today. Hey, we got about a minute left. Plug away. Where can people find you? Obviously, you do, again, you're on, you're everywhere.
No, no, if you do a podcast called the 47 Morning Update, it's about 10 minutes long. If you want to know what's coming out of the White House, grab the 47 Morning Update. I do another long form, it's called the Ben Ferguson Podcast. It's like my radio show, but it's a podcast. And then also, I co-host three days a week a podcast with Senator Ted Cruz called Verdict with Ted Cruz.
You can get all of those for free wherever you get your podcast. Fantastic, Ben. Always again, man, of so many different careers. Always great to follow you, and it's always great to have you on here. All right, we got a second half hour coming up.
Phone lines are open: 1-800-684-3110. I want to hear from you. Always good to have bed on. Always great insights. We're going to continue this conversation, though.
If you want to be a part of the broadcast, the easy way to do it: go to aclj.org. If you don't get us on your local station, however, you get your podcast, you can find our show at aclj.org, YouTube, Rumble. Apple Podcasts, we're there, but we're live right now for another half hour. Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow.
And now, your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow. We do have a couple lines open at 1-800-68-430-110. Usually like to take these segments to give you sort of a reset of what we're talking about here. The main topic of the day is really focused on the DHS being shut down.
That's right, a government shutdown, partial government shutdown this time. Heading tonight at midnight, it is Friday the 13th and happy Valentine's Day. Guess who's going to be not paid? A lot of people that you want to be paid. The TSA, the U.S.
Coast Guard, FEMA, the Secret Service. They say ICE, but when you really look at it, guess what? ICE has already been funded.
So they're going to use that and say what it actually is, but it's not. Cybersecurity Infrastructure Agency and Border Security Customs. Just what we need right now. Does it feel like this is the time to shut down our safeguards? I don't think so.
It is maybe the most stressful time in America in terms of our own national security and our own homeland security. I mean, the Coast Guard, like I said, that's a big one. You're talking about all 50,000, 56,000 active duty reserve and civilian personnel. Go without pay. You say, go work.
Work for us, protect us. But we don't care about protecting you and your families. All in the name of politics. We got a lot of calls coming in about this topic and many others. Of course, we have calls coming in even about election integrity, which we talked about.
Let's go to Catherine, who's calling in Ohio online too. Go ahead.
Well, hello. I'd like to say something. According to the Constitution, we're supposed to protect our borders. And I don't think Democrats, anybody has the right to fund border security in any way. I don't think they have the legal rights of the city.
It's the, unfortunately, it's just the name of the game when you talk about these government shutdowns. Who's it going to affect? It's going to affect someone negatively. And one of them is border protection. And of course, that's through the U.S.
Coast Guard, even through the TSA. You're talking about the TSA 95%. are essential workers, but they will go without pay. They will go without pay. Delays, again, partial checks.
Do march third probably be reduced? Full paychecks fully at risk by March 17th. Typically I would say a government shutdown could last a day, two days, three days, maybe a week. But we learned the last time that is not the case.
Some of these government shutdowns last months. Um and can be very brutal. On the American people. Obviously, Bruno, when it comes to travel time, we know spring break is coming up. You're talking about another big travel season.
This week is a lot of people's winter break for schools. How does that affect them? It's probably okay. It's probably close enough to not have too much of a ramification. But spring breaks only a month away.
And a lot of the American people travel for that week. And when your T S A is defunded And your FAA is struggling. And your Coast Guard. Has been defunded. And the FEMA, by the way, imagine all the storms that have come of recent weeks and the storms we've had here.
A lot of people do not agree necessarily with uh how FEMA does its job occasionally. But you do want them to be there. You'd love them to do it more, maybe, more efficiently. And more proactively, but we do at least want there to be some sort of government assistance when they are natural disasters that are unavoidable. We only got a minute and a half in this segment left.
When I get back, I want to continue to take some of your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. Again, though, and you need to be part of the ACLJ because of this, if you didn't get to watch the whole show, I want you to go back after it's over, watch the segment we just did with Ben Ferguson about election integrity. Because today the ACLJ filed on behalf of over 29 key members of Congress filing amicus grief at the United States Supreme Court. That essentially says We're going to have an election day. And you can do early voting.
But on election day, that's it. And the American people are going to know who's going to win, hopefully, within 24 hours. That why? Because we live in a pretty technologically advanced world. Has been said.
Have you ever gone to a bank? Put in, you want $100, and typically, guess what happens? $100 comes out. It was a great analogy. It happens 99.9% of the time.
But we can't figure out simple elections in each one of these states to give us clear comfort. that it's all being handled correctly and safely. And of course that ties into the Save Act. and everything we've been discussing. for this week.
That is Friday the 13th. And with that, I want to take as many calls as we can. And I'm by myself. The worst time to be by yourself in a studio, this studio this size is on Friday the 13th, everyone. It's a little creepy.
We'll be right back with more on Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow. Hey listen, I just realized this is my fault here. A lot of you clicked on this broadcast and you saw a headline that said, John Fetterman erupts. at the left to funding the Coast Guard.
I was unaware that was the title of the show until right now. And some of you said, What did John Fetterman say?
So Maybe we'll set this up a little bit. Here is John Fetterman. I guess this is from just in the last 24 hours, probably. Last 24 hours. Here's him erupting as the title said.
Go ahead, bye three. Hi, as a committed Democrat, I want the same changes that every other Democrat wants to make on ICE. But ICE already has 75 billion dollars in funding from the big, beautiful bill that I did not vote for.
So, what it will impact is that will shut down important parts of DHS, whether that's FEMA, whether that's the Coast Guard, whether that is also about. The CISA, the cyber security agency in our nation, all of these are shut down. We want to find a way forward to produce those changes, but shutting the government down is the wrong way. Yep. And then next up He took it even a step further.
Because look, I think for some reason, John Fenim and I, we get along on one topic. When you start saying, like, defund the Coast Guard. That is where we get a little nervous. Of what that actually means for the American people, not just for people's, obviously, their bank accounts and their funding. But what does that look like in terms of the safety and security of our nation?
Byte three. How many other Operations. Departments are in DHS. Like Coast Guard. Coast Coast Guard, FEMA, CBP.
FEMA, FEMA.
Okay. CISA, which is. Like cybersecurity. Yes, sir. I mean, that's kind of important, right?
Okay, then that would shut down. Yes, sir. Okay. And now another one, another one also, TSA. TSA is on the DHS.
That's another one.
Okay. So if you, now, if someone votes to shut the DHS down, they are. Not having any meaningful functional impact on ICE because they have unlimited money effectively for right now, right? Yes, sir. Oh, oh, yeah.
So you're going to punish all of these other parts, the very important parts of our government, TSA, Coast Guard, FEMA, and cybersecurity. That's what kind of a statement if we announce to our enemies, like, well, our cybersecurity agency, now we're going to be shut down. Uh if if I really want to make a move, that probably makes it better than them. Give a little applause to John Fetterman. You know what?
He has proven to be at least someone with some sense and some sanity. Most people read this list. and get nervous like he did, like I did. going, We are deciding to play politics. With the Coast Guard, With the TSA.
With FEMA, Cybersecurity This is where there it feels like we are just being dumb. We are playing dumb. We are telling, as he said, our enemies. Cards down. Literally, the Coast Guard's down, but the guard's down.
We have a bunch of people who are no longer getting paid, who are going to be much less motivated to do their job.
Some of them are required to still be there. We all know how that rolls. Look what happened last time with the TSA. And when the FAA shut down. What did that look like?
Absolute chaos that we really haven't fully recovered from, by the way, in terms of air travel. We I mean, yes, it has gotten better. It's fully staffed, but we kind of all felt The Permanent impact, or at least you could say long-term impact. That happened post-shutdown last time. Because, again, a shutdown that lasts a day or two, a week or two, we know they get back pay.
It works out. It's usually something that is played with politics. I don't care for it. But it usually gets handled pretty quickly. We know that's not necessarily the case now.
with the Trump White House. That the Democrats will play this card to the detriment of the American people. Even when it doesn't, do what they say it's doing. Which as John Feynman says, is this going to affect ice? No.
So that it doesn't affect ice. What is it doing? It's just trying to drum up pain that will then get votes in the midterms or long term in the presidency, because that's all it's about. It's about keeping your own job and getting more people in office that you like that are part of your party and part of your team, and that's all it is.
So they continue to get paid. There are a lot of good calls coming in. A lot of you have thoughts on a lot of these topics. Let's go to Warren first. Calling online too.
Warren, go ahead. Yeah.
Thanks for taking my call. I just think it's kind of funny and ironic. Number one, they're taking the week off for President's Day. They hate President Trump. They should work.
with their paychecks while at the same time wanting to shut down other departments for not getting a paycheck. And the second one, you know they want to cheat. In the elections, why would you not want to? Have voter ID. Look, Warren.
And I hope you don't hear Freddy Kruger nails coming down the hall.
Well, I locked the door, you know. Making sure I'm keeping my nightmare secure here. Oh, there we go. That's twilight's up. That's good.
That's good. Close enough. Closest we had. I'm not even sure if I can tell you what Friday the 13th like. What the song is I think part three, Love Kills by Vinny Vincent, I think that's one.
I'm not sure other than that. That's a little, I don't even think that's right, but close enough. Look, I think a lot of people have that voter ID. uh conversation. And again, I've not heard one person And I am willing to listen.
If you know everyone who calls into this show, and all of you that direct messaging me, even when I don't ask for it. That I will listen to all sides and I will make a non-biased, non-partisan decision based on how I feel and what I think is right. and what I think is constitutional. No one has ever given me a good reason why. We shouldn't have some sort of voter identification program.
There may be different scales. You could be like, well, that's too far. I don't think you need a birth certificate, a passport, and this. And look, I understand some of that.
Some of that maybe gets a little bit of a pain. But no one has ever shown me why you shouldn't have at least a photo ID card that says, I am who I say I am, and I am a resident, and I'm a citizen, not just a resident, I'm a citizen of the United States of America to vote in our federal elections. I've never heard a good reason other than you're trying to get people to vote who should not be voting. I want to take one more call for this segment, but the others that are staying on hold, stay on hold. We will get to you, and I'll take more calls in the next segment as well at 1-800-684-3110.
Let's go to Renee, who's in Texas, watching on the Salem News Channel. Another great place to watch our show. Renee, go ahead. Yeah.
Uh mine I'm I live near San Antonio, but I live in a rural area. I just want to say first off I grew up right next to JBSA Lachman. It has the largest civilian contractor base in the nation, I mean in South Texas. My next question is I grew I've been 40 years as a database administrator, now data analytics. it boggles my mind that we can't compile that data in the twenty four hour time you requested.
And then lastly, or not lastly, why does mister Trump keep going after the n twenty twenty election? It just seems silly to me to beat a dead Cavallo to death and then Finally, uh I'd like to see a race between Mr. Cornyn and Mrs. And Ms. Crockett.
Thank you. I can't say personally that I like when he evokes 2020 so often. If you're in the National Day of Prayer Breakfast or the prayer breakfast of faith summits, do you have to be going back to 2020? You won in 2024. You showed what it actually meant.
I think you winning was enough, but for some reason, he can't let this one go. And look, I'm not the President of the United States. But I do feel like you are right. He gets a little hung up on it, and it to me. Um It's the wrong messaging.
And I think it's the wrong messaging heading into midterms. I think Republicans are notoriously bad about focusing on their successes, often which are grand, by the way. when they're running for political office and they get stuck On whatever injustice they feel happened to them. And I put President Trump on this, I put a lot of them on it. One of the reasons I think 2020 happened the way it did, beyond obviously the mail-in voting and everything that went on and the chaos that we're trying to help.
Alleviate. There was no Real terrorism happening. Middle from the Middle East. There was no war in the Middle East. You had ISIS destroyed.
But President Trump barely ever spoke about it while running in 2020. It frustrated me to no end. And I came on this show. And remember, the day after the election, or maybe whatever the the final. Confirmation was in.
It said You remember this show? We'll be dealing with Middle East Islamic terror very soon. Once again, you're not thinking about it now because we're out of sight, out of mind, people. And of course a couple of years later, Look where we're at. You had a war break out in Israel.
You had the Afghanistan withdrawal and the rise of the Taliban. You had all of the attacks that even happened in our own country. You had the rise of anti-Semitism. You've had everything that's built. Because I believe Sometimes You gotta remind people about your victories and quit focusing on where you think an injustice may have happened to you, especially when you've already proven them wrong.
We got four lines open right now: 1-800-68-430-110. Thanks for letting me be on my soapbox right there. With that, again, we had an extremely busy week. It's exhausting, everyone. That's why it's just me alone.
Everyone else, too tired to come in. That's what I was told. They were just, they needed to sleep at. That's what Will told me. Will told me, I need a nap.
And I said, I got you covered this today. Don't worry. Sleep in today.
Someone cluffed that and send it. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. I want you to be a part of the team here at the ACLJ. Just to clarify, that was a joke. But 1-800-684-3110 to be heard on the air today.
And of course, if you can give, support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. We'll be back with your calls and comments coming right up. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you, and I do want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110 talking a lot of different topics. And look, if we've discussed any topic this week you want to talk about, whether it's border security, whether that's a situation with ICE being drawn down, scaled down in Minnesota, whether that is election integrity or this looming shutdown coming out of Washington, D.C., which will end up.
Will it affect ice like they want it to? Of course not. It's only going to hurt the TSA, the United States Coast Guard, Cybersecurity, FEMA, the Secret Service. Border security, customs, you know, everything that you really want to happen as we are just weeks away from some of the biggest travel days of the year, just like we were last time. We're heading to the holidays, the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
Now we are doing it once again, heading into spring. And a lot of you are looking forward to spring, but guess what's going to happen? You're going to show up to the airport and deal with the fact that TSA has been defunded and 61,000 employees who are working there, if they're showing up to work, are working without pay. People love dealing with the TSA to begin with. Guess what happens when they don't even receive a paycheck?
Can't even imagine. Can't even imagine what you deal with. Of course. I have to give it to the DSA as well because I can't imagine what you have to deal with as well on a daily basis. You know, it's pure chaos.
You know, when you had Sean Duffy going out there saying, everyone needs to start dressing up for the airport. That was one of the few times I've been like, Well, they need to start treating people better. You know, how about the airlines start first? Let's treat your customer well. Then you worry about whether or not I'm wearing sweatpants.
All right, let's go ahead and take some more phone calls. I definitely am not going to wear a suit to the airport anytime soon. We'll see. Let's go first. to Bobby in New York calling on the radio.
Bobby, go ahead. Niagara Falls on the American side. Hi, Logan. This is your fellow rascal. I'm a little confused.
First of all, my buddy says that there's not even a ghost of a chance that the Save Act is going to pass the Senate. I don't know if that's true or not. But what I'm also confused about is what you guys are doing at the Supreme Court. Could this make the whole election thing turn out, integrity turn out right? Is that the purpose of your filing?
And that's my question. Those are my questions. Yeah, okay, so to answer the last question first. Yes, it's to actually simplify and to give some standard operation. That's why you have so many, again, 29 members of Congress saying we need some kind of standard of operation here in terms of the election day, and that we aren't stringing this thing out for weeks and months, and everyone's willy-nilly and not sure who is who and what's going on, and we're sending people to different places.
No, we need to have some standard of operation.
So, yes, what your hope is that it could. at least alleviate?
some of the pain that comes on these election days, or at least that worry. Take away that worry that things are being handled correctly. Where you can't have a a a piece of mail that's been postmarked five days later show up. and now have to be counted and now we have to figure out how that gets done. We give people ample time to vote in this country.
I mean, here in Tennessee, I feel like early voting, I feel like, has already begun for, you know. The next three elections. I feel like there's always something happening. There's always some kind of voting happening. And that's being joking around.
But we give plenty of time. We can have the answers on Election Day. To go back to the other question that you had related to the Save Act. Ghost of a chance? I think there's a ghost of a chance.
Is it a high likelihood? As Ben said, we had him on earlier. In let's be honest. Probably not. Unless they're gonna nuke the filibuster.
And is this the one you do that for? I'm not sure. Uh You need 60 votes. There are some Democrats that are willing to vote for this because they see that their people, their constituents, are in favor. It was something like 95%.
This was from a CNN poll, 95% of Republicans. I believe there should be a photo ID. 70% of Democrats. Who are the only people really holding this up? 70%.
If you had 70% victory on any other kind of poll or election or issue, You would be talking about nationwide landslide sweep.
So, there's only certain reasons this is being held and why people don't think that the Democrats think there should not be voter ID. But will it get through? I think it's unlikely. I hope so. I I think we need it.
Again, I've never voted other than when I voted absentee the one time in college. I've never voted. Without showing some form of ID, and even then had to provide a lot of different documentations, obviously, to be getting even added to D-Ballot. I'm going to continue on. Got a couple calls, a couple minutes.
Let's go to Michael in New York. Michael line six. Uh President Trump. What he has done has been Undisputable and absolutely irrefutable to the benefit of our nation.
However, political strategies can be consequential and costly. One I deem in measure as such is the acquisition among ICE to leave Minneapolis at a time when it would be more suggestive to actually be more aggressive to the situation and tactical about it, but absolutely more assertive. My point is: the Democratic Party will and has and will continue to be as relentless as possible in regards to the Republican Party not doing what they would if they were more aggressive and continue to ride only on Donald Trump, President Trump, as their coattail to get their positions. He is absolutely undeniable, but they are not working to continue the cause of what he has absolutely implemented. If this party, the Democratic Party, which is not a party of politics, it is a socio-religio base from the Islamic radicals and the Marxism mass that want to take it and supplant everything under their own accord and absolutely destroy Americanism altogether.
If they win the election, the midterms, they will go like Old Salem and take President Trump as a witch hunt. Look, I think you're the, I mean, as a metaphor, I think you're the impeachment and those kind of things very likely on the table once again. If they take the Democrats I take the midterms. And I think right now you're heading towards a an election where that's. Yeah, at least a good chance that's what's going to happen.
With that being said, you brought about the ICE situation, how you feel like it was a mistake, that maybe they gave into the pressure and what. Here's what I at least like. You sent in Tom Holman. Tom Holman said, This is overkill. What's happening here?
We need to reform this. And The Trump administration and ICE did it. Could that lose them votes with people like you, Michael, who feel like they back down? Maybe. But you know what?
At least they did something that broke with their own, you'd say, political strategy. Which, again, President Trump is not a big fan of apologizing, even when I think he should. Not a big fan of saying what he's wrong, even when I think he should. But you know what? That has not been his MO.
The man will never say that. But what he did do Was read the temperature of the room. Sit in someone who knew what they were doing in that position. And that person said, we're doing this incorrectly, and they made the changes. That you're right.
It may backfire politically. But you know what? If it's better for the American people, I at least can applaud that. We only got a minute and a half left. Uh I don't think, I mean, we can take this call really quickly.
You're on live from New York. Go ahead.
Not there. Nothing I could do about it. Thanks for calling. That's going to do it for today's show. I appreciate all of you for helping me out this week.
Friday the 13th, and we made it, folks. But I want you to support the work of the ACLJ right now by going to aclj.org. If you have an opportunity and you think financially you can give, This month I've been asking people to become ACLJ champions. That's people that give on a regular basis, monthly, automatically. It's easy to sign up.
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So do that today if you can. That is that. ACLJ Yeah. Again, I really appreciate it. And I appreciate everyone who's been a part of this show this week.
And if you have an opportunity, also pray for our team. It is a busy time. extremely busy week. Extremely busy month. of already.
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We'll talk to you next week.
