SCHUMER Faces Nightmare Election

Today on Sekulow, Chuck Schumer faces a nightmare election scenario as party anger rises. 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. Welcome to Sekulow. Will Haynes here, Jordan Sekulow, joining me as well. We've got a lot to talk about, folks. And one of the main things here.

Is that we're starting to see The Democrat Party realized, wait a second. Maybe it's not great to be so closely aligned with people like Hassan Piker. People that are Pretty explicitly anti-Semitic, and that's been growing in the party for a long time. But we're seeing now headlines like: El Syed's ties to Firebrand Influencer Threaten Democrats' path to control the Senate. Jordan, we know the main goal for someone like Chuck Schumer is to become the Senate majority leader again.

And if it's an anti-Semite And through derailing a Senate campaign. In Michigan, that could be the most irony of ironies of him losing this bid to become the Senate majority leader again. Wild Paris, this is the group that they were running across the country. They tried to unseat some incumbents. They did in some cases.

They went into open seats. And in many cases, these Democrat socialists got the victories or got very close. And so it's becoming tougher and tougher, especially at the Senate level. You know, I always divide kind of like the House and the Senate at the Senate level to divide the Democrat Party from these radicals, from the DSA, because it seems like that's where the energy is in the party.

Now, the energy in the primaries may be their will, but then as these candidates now become the candidate for Democrats, for Michigan voters, they start looking closer, they start looking at who they're connected with, and these guys have just got reels and reels of commentary. That not only Jews, that makes lots of people uncomfortable from various religious backgrounds. They said some really nasty stuff about Vice President Vance's wife. I mean, they just take these hits. They think they need to be tough.

And I think they're trying to out-tough Donald Trump. And in that, if that's not who you actually are and someone's writing you tough lines, and he really sounds like that when he talks, like he's got his bullet props done, it comes across as even more crass and not natural and just plain out mean and nasty. And in a time when they should be winning. They should be ahead in races. Just naturally, the way that midterms go.

And we're supposed to believe the other polls that say that President Trump is down in the 30s. But then you look at the actual polls of where people are voting, you look at and say, wow, I mean, the Senate might not be as in play as they thought it was because of the horrendous candidates that ended up getting through these primaries. That's right. And we're going to talk about that. We're going to play some sound from other Democrats that are trying to say, hey, stop talking about streamers.

Stop talking about people online. Not realizing that that is where culture is these days. That is where people get their news. They're not getting it from MS Now or CNN, where you get booked every day because you can go on and give your campaign message. No, they're listening to people online.

And that's when you start to seem that some people are uncomfortable with what's being said. By people online. We've got sound also from Hassan Piker that kind of doubles down on his support for Abdul Sayed. Because what's going on there? Remember what we talked about earlier this week.

Hassan Piker. called Israel Jewish Isis. and made a threat that if hey If you're a Jewish American and you support Israel, Be prepared for violence. I'm just warning you. It's not me.

It's just I'm warning you that that's gonna come. That would include someone like Chuck Schumer, who historically. was strong on Israel. A Jewish American.

So, I don't think that the Democrats can deflect anymore and say, don't worry about these people. They're just streamers. Stop making it about that. We're the important ones, we're the politicians. It's not gonna fly in 2026.

We're gonna break that down and I wanna hear from you. Is this something that you see changing in the American politic? 1-800-684-3110 to talk to me in Jordan on air. We've also got huge news. Of something that the ACLJ and ACLJ Action have worked on with Meta.

You've heard a lot about them in the news this week. as well as Rick Rennell joining us in the back half of this broadcast. Join us today though, call 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Sekulow. We're talking today.

About this growing problem, and it's something we've been talking about on the broadcast. The radical elements that are taking over the Democrat Party heading into the midterms. It's not just the DSA candidates, it's also people like Hassan Piker, who is a streamer on Twitch that has a huge following. He's formerly worked for Young Turks and is now his own entity when it comes to his political influence. And what you're starting to see.

Is Mainstream Democrats Realize all of a sudden they're uncomfortable with the association with someone like this. But instead of them Really, just saying, like, no, this isn't a thing, we don't agree with it, and rejecting it. They're just trying to minimize. And saying it's just a streamer. It's not someone that is really influential.

Not understanding how the world works, how media and influence works in 2026 and thinking they can get away with this. I mean, it is the equivalent on the left as if Not if someone was supported by someone like Nick Wentz, but actually took them on the campaign trail. That is someone that has a lot of influence online. But yet the vast majority of people say we reject his brand of whatever politics he has, mostly because it is rooted deeply in identity politics and racism. It's the same thing on the left, just with progressive ways to go about things, more liberal ways to control things, but all still rooted in that same hate, that same identity politics mess that we're starting to see play out through both sides of the aisle.

And I want to play this because this is another Michigan Democrat who is trying to push aside all of these issues that are now infecting their party headed up to November. This is Debbie Dingell, who is saying, listen, this isn't about it at all.

So take a listen to this bite, and then we're going to break it down for you. I am done, so don't any reporter ask me again about Hassan Piker. It's not what November is about.

So I'm a reporter. Why can't I ask you about Hassan Piker when he has campaigned with Senate Canada Abdul Saeed? Look, I'm going to, I'll tell you what I'm tired of. I'm really worried about health care. I'm worried about reversing the snap cuts.

I'm worried about hunger. I'm worried about the affordability of groceries and gasoline and housing and a broken health care system. And quite frankly, everywhere I've gone for the last 10 days, someone throws a camera in my face or a phone in my face and asks me questions. I don't agree with them. I've made it very clear.

And not only do I agree Israel's got a right to exist, but as I've got more into them, just looking at things he said, there are a lot of things that deeply disturb me. But he's not on the ballot. But he's not on the ballot. Here's the problem. What he's saying is on the ballot.

That's where you're seeing this rise in DSA candidates, where you're seeing people like Abdul Al Sayed. who won his primary A large part because of how vocal on the campaign trail people like Hassan Piker were to bring attention to him. He was able to defeat someone who was a more mainstream Democrat, Haley Stevens. who supported Israel, and what did they make that entire thing about, APAC? About the Jews coming after them, trying to shut down their freedom by outspending.

It's such a tired, disgusting, anti-Semitic trope that they continue to bring up, Jordan. And as if. That one thing it should be Proof that it's not what they say it is is these candidates that keep pushing like APAC's trying to derail me win?

So, how effective is this insidious Jewish oppressive group, APAC? If it was so effective, L-side would not be the nominee. Right. What we see is that they can't change who the base voters are that show up in a Democrat primary in Michigan to a guy who back in March, when referring to an attack at a synagogue in Michigan, said, Well, hurt people, the Muslim who carried out that attack, hurt people.

So, hurt people, hurt people. And kind of that's dismissing that as well. If you're going to hurt Muslims because you're, what, Jewish? You happen to be at a Jewish synagogue, what does that have to do with what's going on in the Middle East? But here's how they tie it in.

Hassan Parker takes it and says, it's going to be dangerous for American Jews to tie their identity to Israel. Physically dangerous, violently dangerous. And these two guys, Al Syed has not condemned and tried to stand apart from Piker at all. In fact, I mean, they've showed up together and they may say we don't agree on everything, but the fact is, how you take a comment, one that says, well, hurt people, hurt people.

Okay, so you're dismissing the radical Islamist attack on a synagogue in the state you're trying to represent in the U.S. Senate by a guy from Lebanon who I think was living in the United States.

So who was he being hurt by in the United States? What Jews were hurting him? And how is Israel hurting him in the United States of America? That's question one. But also, the dismissal of violence is just not cool ever, even if that switch it around and it's an attack on a mosque.

You'd never make a statement like that. No, no Bible-believing Christian would ever make a statement like that and be supported or played down that kind of violence. But when you truly believe that if you tie your Jewish identity or your Christian, Christian identity. to the importance of supporting Israel.

Now you somehow must be prepared for violence. And you know what Hassan Piker said? He said, I didn't say people should go out and commit violence. I just think there will be violence.

So he's not really condemning it. But he's also trying to stand back and saying, Well, you can't actually say that I'm the one telling people to do it. I'm not endorsing it. That's so he doesn't get arrested as a leader of a group that's you know trying to encourage terror attacks, domestic terror attacks in the United States.

So he's saying, Listen, Jews, and I think you can broaden that out to other groups. Lots of listeners to our broadcast and watching this show right now. If you support Israel, he violence may be coming your way in the United States of America. We're not talking about in Israel. We're talking about in the United States of America.

This is, again, not as it is anti-American, it's just flat out wrong as human beings. And so we will see how this affects voters in November. I mean, there's a lot of time, as quick as we'll get there, there is a lot of time in between to see whether we, you know, Michigan goes Mike Rogers' way, and can Democrats effectively ever? In the near future, pivot away from what started off as a small squad will, and has now become what appears to be, and they're allowing the narrative to become the base of their party. And they're losing.

Another big part of their party, and that is the Jewish vote, which has consistently been with. In fact, AIPAC works with and used to work with a lot more Jewish Democrats that were elected on the Hill and just Democrats on the Hill who supported Israel, not necessarily Jewish elected officials. And so to make them out to be this evil partisan organization, they are not. And in fact, there's a lot tougher groups out there on the issue. But again, Will, they're easy to say, well, it's AIPAC and they're somehow controlling Washington, D.C.

And I think all of this is really troubling. It gets more troubling to me also when it starts bubbling up in our kind of, I wouldn't say conservative movement, but in the Republican politics. Right. Because it's the same way. They try to take institutions that are built to win elections.

So they try to take over those institutions and then by taking over those institutions, they change then who the institutions actually and what the institutions actually stand for. And I want to play this really quickly because as we heard from Debbie Dingell, who wouldn't just go, and she's a U.S. representative, U.S. Congresswoman, wouldn't just say, we need to condemn this. We need to reject this from our party.

She's like, this guy isn't on the ballot. Right now, let's hear what Hassan Piker had to say about Abdul Al-Sayed, who is on the ballot. Let's play byte five. There are going to be a lot of people who are already questioning Abdullah Syed's. Sincerity on these issues that will then turn around and say, oh, he's, you know.

He's moderating his position on Israel, all this stuff. I don't think he is.

Okay, I will say this. I am literally the person. That is being dangled. And I'm going to tell you once again, he's not moderating on his perspective on Israel or anything like that.

Okay, his reaction to this has always been very good, which is: look, I deal with people that I don't fully agree with and don't fully subscribe to on a daily basis. This is politics. Politics is about addition, not subtraction, right? It's smart. It's the right way to...

It's the right way to deal with it and then deflect back to the issues because they are the ones who are engaging in the deflection.

So, once again, right there, he's saying politics is about addition, not subtraction. Bloom, right. Bloomberg is saying, reporting, Democrats are now conceding that the party's anti-Semitism problem is veering into dangerous political territory that could eventually cost Democrats Jewish support at the ballot box, to say nothing of the moral implications. Jordan? Right there.

I mean, when he's saying it's about addition, not subtracting, what are they adding to their party? Racism, anti-Semitism, hate. Yeah, and what are they losing? Actual seats, actual representation in Congress at a time where, you know, historically that shouldn't be so difficult for mainstream Democrats. The problem was mainstream Democrats didn't do so well in these primaries.

Folks, we will be back with more. We've got a fascinating update of some of the work of ACLJ action on the tech side. I think it plays right into this conversation, as well as a FOIA request we have into Michigan about Abdul Al-Syed. We'll talk about all that in the next segment. We'll be right back.

Support the work at aclj.org. Welcome back to Sekulow. We are going to pivot here a little bit from our original topic, but I think it all ties in. It does. And I did want to briefly say also, and we can put this up on screen, our FOIA request, because we do have a records request into Michigan about the work that Abdul Al-Sayed did as the health official in both Wayne County and Detroit.

Looking at what ties he had to Planned Parenthood, who has fully endorsed him.

So that's interesting. We're going to keep you updated on that, but I want to let you know that that is some of the work ACLJ is doing. But here's something else that you've been working on, Jordan, a lot. And we've talked about some of the things we've dealt with with Roblox. When we talk about, because we are in back to school week.

What is one thing that is ever present in the world of students these days, and it is online presence, even in their schools?

So that's something that ACLJ, who has a Pro-life, pro-student organization as well. We want to make sure that protections, family values are paramount and that those children are protected and that parents have their rights upheld to shepherd those children and to raise those children. And something that's been in the news this week is this settlement between Meta and state's attorneys general regarding parental protections of children on their platform. Tell us a little bit about this and what you've been able to work on. We talk about Meta, and we've been working on this in Capitol Hill on policy changes, some that could come legislatively to protect children.

We're still working on those. And then also policy changes that can be implemented by the app developers as well. Because ultimately, it's the app stores that could put in the best regulations.

So, like the apples of the world and their stores, because it would be easier. But what Meta has done through Facebook and Instagram. Just to kind of make it easier for you, it said has committed to putting together a program to protect young people. And specifically, you know, you're not supposed to even be on Facebook or Instagram until you're 13. They released teen accounts and they've done things like that.

Now it's going to default when this all goes into effect.

Some will go into effect in a few months.

Some could take up to a year because they've got to put all this together. But if you're under 18, it will default to only allow you to be on for one hour a day. It will also heavily restrict the content that you are seeing based off your age, looking at like a PG-13 model.

So they're going to kind of compare it to that rating system. As parents, you don't have to get these devices or allow your children to even have these devices.

So we're just talking to people who do allow their children to have these devices. And I'll tell you, I do allow mine. And that's because even at their Christian schools, they're starting to implement those at a younger and younger age. I don't want American children to be behind on technology and the rest of the world. You know, thousands of steps ahead of them, and then we're not competitive in the global market, and they're not competitive in the workplace that they will ultimately be entering, unfortunately, for us as parents of younger kids, quicker than we even want to acknowledge.

But as a parent, I loved reading and I'm really proud of what we got done here working on this because you have 52 AGs plus DC.

Now, you're going to hear also you've got a couple of the territories. The only two AGs that didn't sign on to us, it's not partisan. One was the Florida AG. They just think they should get more money of the $18 billion that Meta has put forward for states to help educate parents about this. They think they should get more money.

Same for the Democrat AG out of New Jersey. And I think Meta, they'll handle that. I don't think that's the big story. It's handled. The lawsuit is over now, which could have been trillions of dollars.

That's kind of taken that away as well. But what I thought was great and was also done by Meta. The parental controls make sense now.

So it's it's easy as here's the defaults. Here's what you can do as a parent. Like, if you've got a six-hour car ride coming up or a 10-hour flight, of course, you can then go in as a parent. And allow them to spend more than an hour on these sites if you want them to. But the defaults also.

Meta has pledged that if YouTube And TikTok also adopt the same plans. That they will limit it not to two hours, but one hour a day will be the default for everyone. Um, right now it's a two-hour, it'll be a two-hour, then it'll be a one-hour default. And uh, They'll have to contribute some into this account. And at 30% of that $18 billion will be released, but it'll be released with more billions to the states if.

YouTube and TikTok also agree to this.

So, this is empowering parents, but with tools they can actually use. Because what we were very concerned about, Will, throughout this process, when we work on these, since we actually have young kids and we live this, is how many 50, 60 buttons do I have to do to make sure my older daughter is getting it right for her, my middle son is getting it right for him, and my youngest daughter's got it right for her. And it was pretty, pretty difficult. And it was Because the App Store itself. Is not Policing this.

So now you're having the biggest app maker in the world with Meta on Facebook and Instagram underneath it, having to do it on their own.

Now, truthfully, This should be legislated and the app stores should be doing it on their own. But Apple, Google, they have been fighting back on that.

Well, and I think that's what's also interesting. One, it is a different world where the tech companies that were seen as so hyper-liberal agenda for so long under, one, we say elections have consequences, but you are seeing the willingness of Silicon Valley and the tech world to work with bipartisan common sense ideas. But this is also what's interesting to me as well, because I mean, I'm seeing comments like, oh, they only did this because they're sued. That's sometimes what gets things to the table. Meta's coming forward.

They're trying to call others in the industry to a point of saying, hey, join us in this when you're not. But this is how you get things done without having to be. Regulating and legislating everything. Because, as a conservative, that's what we're concerned about: the government over-regulating everything. If you can get it to this place, this is actually a more conservative path.

Yeah, I think Mark Zuckerberg is a father, right? And so, he wants these tools to still be available to young people. He understands that they're going to need to be able to use technology to a greater extent than we even thought probably five years ago to be viable in the workplace in almost every single field you could imagine.

So, because of that, how do we do that in an appropriate way? And so, I think he's thinking like a dad as well. And one of those is night mode, for instance. This is going to be a default that from midnight to 6 a.m., teens will not be able to post or view their feed stories, explore, or reels.

So that's default midnight to 6 a.m. You can increase that number. Again, you can remove it if you want for your team. I mean, but that's going to be the default operating as well as school mode. During school hours, 8 a.m.

to 3 p.m., teens no longer receive any push notifications except for direct messages. And the reason why there is direct message systems are used to alert them about their security and safety on campus.

So, right there, that they have to allow, but that's the only kind of messages that would be coming through to their accounts. And that's if their school even allows them to access their devices. A lot of schools don't during the school day.

Well, and as an organization, we're talking about nighttime, daytime, weekends, really limiting the ability for teens to sit there and just go through and spend 10 and 11 hours scrolling through. Also, you You get worried about what algorithm they're pushing on your kids. When you sit down and now go through this, when this all launches. You're a young person, your son, your daughter. Can choose a non-algorithmic feed.

So that means they are not, Facebook or Meta are not trying to push them on things that they necessarily want to see because they clicked on one shoe or one political candidate or one band they liked.

So it won't be algorithmic at all. And so you can choose that. You can choose the algorithm.

Some people like it. I do. It helps me find things and find other like-minded people and kind of things that I would like that I might not find otherwise. But all of that's there. And I think people are saying, oh, this is a loss for Facebook and Meta because the court case.

I think this is a huge win for American young people, families, parents, and for. Companies like Meta who realize this is a serious issue and they're going to do something about it. That's right. And you can support this work at aclj.org. Uh keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever.

This is Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow. Will Haynes here, joined in studio by Jordan Sekulow. We're talking about a lot today.

So, if you want to join on any of these topics, whether it be the way that the Democrat Party is now receiving this backlash for embracing anti-Semites like Hassan Piker and all of the vitriol that goes along with that, or if you want to talk about this settlement and these new policies that Meta has put out and some of the angle on that, you can call in about that as well. We're going to be talking about some Iran stuff with Rick Rinnell in the next segment.

So, a lot of topics that you could call in on. We'll take any of them at 1-800-684-3110. But I did want to bring this up because we are in back to school week here, where your donations are double when you support the work of the ACLJ. But I think a lot of this ties in, especially even this work with the tech companies and work on these issues that you see, because ACLJ and ACLJ Action have worked on a lot of these. These issues, whether, like you said, the app stores, the parental controls.

As an organization, that firmly fights for parental rights of students. Whether that be in school, we talked about that yesterday when it talked about some of the content that was being shown by the school to students and telling them, oh, just be mature about it. Or the monologue in Nevada that we had to fight and go for to protect students there. I said Nevada wrong again.

Someone called me out yesterday. Nevada, I think that's the way you say it. But when you get to the bottom line of this, we believe in empowering and equipping parents. Because we believe they are the best for their children, the best guides, not the government, not the tech companies. And if you don't engage these issues, They're not going to go away.

They're not going to all of a sudden self-realize, you know, every single company that provides a service is not going to collectively say, let's all get together and make this better. And if you don't, we've seen it with other companies. where they have lip service parental controls. That are so convoluted and complicated, it's almost as if they want you to not use them.

So, when you can work on an issue like this that brings together state attorneys general, policymakers in DC, and the companies themselves to move forward and make a better system, that is all about empowering the parent. And I think that's just so important to point out to folks: that's why we engage these issues. No one's ever gonna be fully happy with anything, but that's where also as a parent. You get to make these decisions, but now you have a better path forward and a more empowered path forward of whether or not you want your children to engage with these things.

Some of this gets very specific. I mean, from Meta, they are not only their existing policy, which blocks teens from using cosmetic surgery filters, they're now going to block teens from using extreme makeup filters.

So it's not like they're just trying to do these kind of like the 10,000 feet. They're going down to very specific things: age assurance. They have plenty of teenagers who try to put in wrong birthdays. They have an entire department they're going to double down on to look at that to figure out and find more of those accounts because of who they're interacting with and put them under the right controls and for the right age group.

So it doesn't, you don't just circumvent the system by putting down a different date, which again was kind of like the old school way of being able to get around these no longer. Also, these regular prompts, every 15 minutes, they're going to get a prompt saying, Uh, you've been on for 15 minutes straight. Are you doing something that's actually important? Are you doing something that is actually uh you know that's continuous? Is this actually uh something that is intentional you're using for research or school?

And then it keeps going even more and more prompts once their daily usage hits uh 60 minutes and then 90 minutes because remember. The default will be after two hours. If you're under 18, So, between under 18 and 13, you default, you have two hours right now on Facebook and Instagram once that's implemented. And if. TikTok and YouTube come on and adopt these policies as well.

That goes to one hour default. How does this also tie back to the story about Hassan Piker? Where is his influence grown from? Of course. A streaming platform that is created around streaming video games.

That's not targeted at the traditional advertising demo. That's targeted at children. That is making policy in a very powerful way.

So, if you also don't teach your children how to consume social media in an appropriate way, once they hit 18, all they're going to be flooded with is the Hassan Pikers of the world. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. We are now joined by Rick Grinnell, and we're going to change topics again.

So, if you want to call us 1-800-684-3110, because Rick, what we're starting to see, and I think for many people, yourself included, have said, you know, let's see how this plays out in the diplomatic angle as well as the people within Iran themselves. Wall Street Journal is reporting that labor protest and panic buying Have started up in Iran. We know that their economy was already in terrible shape. The real was hitting the lowest it's ever hit. uh versus the dollar.

And then on Monday, you had the Sec Treasury Secretary unleash uh a new round of sanctions, which targets any other people doing business still with the Islamic Republic of Iran. You're starting to see the very same type of labor protests. That triggered the massive protest across Iran back in January pop up across the country again. We obviously don't know how this will go, but if it was like the last time. That Could be very different outcome than it was earlier this year with a weakened regime in Tehran.

Yeah, look, we have a serious situation here. And what President Trump is trying to do is use all the tools in the tool belt. He's used military action. He's used sanctions. We're trying to squeeze them every possible way.

I love the fact that the President is looking at this situation, adjusting the policy regularly, sometimes weekly, and he is trying to use the maximum Pressure in order to change their behavior. We've certainly had some good successes in the Straits of Hormuz. but we still have work to do, and President Trump knows that. I was communicating this morning with a couple of friends who live inside Tehran, and they were talking about the economic sanctions. One friend of mine said, look, it's very difficult right now.

I don't have much money. My family doesn't have much money. We understand the sacrifices that we have to make. We hate this Islamic regime that is over us. They'll do anything to stop this regime.

They understand that economic sanctions are coming uh because of the Islamic regime, but they don't like it. And it's obviously something that's extremely uncomfortable for him and his family on a daily basis.

Well, and as we look at as you said, it is trying everything. Nothing is the way that we have watched in previous administrations, Republican or Democrat, of trying to address this threat. And as we constantly remind people, there were people earlier saying, I feel like this is spiraling into the next Vietnam. Vietnam was a twenty year war. That had multiple administrations, and there's been.

volumes and volumes of of people that have written about the failures and the and the the issues with Vietnam and in that war. There is no planet that you can compare What's happened in less than a year here? To what happened in Vietnam in the mid-century. And I think that's where people should. Take a breath and look at the way that this is being executed by the administration.

It's not just sending hundreds of thousands of troops and getting into jungle warfare. It has been some kinetic action, a lot of this economic action. And we it's not over, but it's in no way. comparable to what we have seen i in prior conflicts. Yes, it's not comparable at all.

It's a silly comparison. Certainly, we are frustrated by the fact that this regime Continues to lie and manipulate that cannot be trusted. I think President Trump realizes that. And so what we're trying to do is figure out what leverage will work. We have had some success.

Their military has been decimated. The Straits of Hormuz is now controlled by the United States. These are all good successes on the path, but President Trump has made it clear He wants to be done with this. This is one of the reasons why we've really concentrated on trying to find Domestic energy sources so that we don't rely on the Middle East, so that we don't have the economic dependency. I was struck by what Scott Vessant.

Was saying in terms of how to squeeze the economy. He seems to really understand. Where it's going to hurt the elites. And remember, there is a huge difference in countries like Iran where. Your economic sanctions, your economic pushing and leverage is going to be much different on the people than it is on the elites.

And we have to target the elites, and I think that's exactly what Scott is focused on. I do want to pivot here because it does seem that for the race for mayor in Los Angeles. Um that they are trying to outdo each other. With some of the most ridiculous social media content I've ever seen. Because we played last week and got you to speak into where Karen Bass.

Current mayor. Did a video trying to be cool, like the mayor of New York, of getting a request and trying to fix a pothole. And what happened? The whole video was him saying, We couldn't do it. There was a car parked here.

So we put up no parking, which was the biggest indictment on the government of Los Angeles that I've ever seen. But now you have her opponent, council member Nithia Rahman. putting up this graphic on X that said We're improving neighborhood street infrastructure. And it says that in the Lois Feliz Neighborhood Council, they alerted in late 2025. That there is a need for a crosswalk at Sunset Drive and Bates Street, and it's just now been completed.

What was that? They painted stripes in the crosswalk. They didn't even fix the horribly broken and cracked street. Make this make sense for me, Rick.

Well, it's you know, well, I have to say I would like to call upon our listeners. To have them tell me and my friends what to do in this race, we literally have a choice between dumb and dumber. I'm not sure that we know. Uh How low we can go. But clearly one of these clowns is going to be the mayor of Los Angeles, a great city, a great city that's going to host the Olympics, by the way.

And Showcase to the world what America and California and Los Angeles is all about. I'm horrified that these are our choices. I don't know what to do. It literally is one of those Dilemmas that no matter what you do, you're going to be criticized. Because you're making the wrong decision.

If you support either one of these, candidates. It's the wrong decision. But you got to pick one. And they both are totally incompetent. And I just I don't know how We can find ourselves in this situation.

We just have a lot of voters in Los Angeles who are low-information voters who just are voting because of name recognition. They clearly did not know what they were doing when they put Nithya Rahman and Karen Bass in the top two. This is just, it's embarrassing.

Well, and I think to me, what's so surprising as someone who's followed politics for a long time, has studied politics, I always assumed that California leadership. We're just so Liberal and progressive, that they had just all these ideas about how government should control everything. But at the end of the day, they still understood the concept of government. But what I'm seeing in this race, which is kind of revealing to me. is they don't even know what government's supposed to do.

Like the most common baseline thing of fix the road, they're applauding themselves for not doing their job. Like Karen Bass in her video saying, we couldn't fix the pothole, but we put up a no parking sign and I got myself a milkshake. And this councilwoman saying, it took us almost a year, but we painted some stripes on the broken road. We've got about a minute left, but it does seem that the lowest common denominator is not knowing how government should even remotely work.

Well, we have a huge problem in Los Angeles and in California statewide in that the NGO communities, the radical left NGOs, are highly paid political consultants who control the politicians. from abortion rights to the environment, some radicals are in charge of these big NGOs that have a lot of money, produce a lot of votes. And so we've got a system here where the politicians pay attention. Rick, thank you so much for joining us today. And once again, folks, we are in the middle of our back to school week.

This is one more day after today. Where we are talking about these issues across the board that impact parents and students. As we know that we are in this, what I call constitution violation season as kids are going back to school. Go to aclj.org/slash school to defend students, defend parents and families and their values. We know that these issues will arise, but we will be there to walk alongside those families and parents and to make sure that their rights are not violated any longer.

Support that work at aclj.org slash school and have your donation doubled today. Welcome back to Sekulow, final segment of the broadcast. If you want to be on air and talk to us, 1-800-684-3110, probably the last chance to call in, go ahead and do it. Let's go ahead and take Bill from Wyoming right off the top here. Bill, you're on Sekulow.

Okay, thanks for taking my call. I just got to say something. Taking a step from this crosswalk business, I had a sticker on my car some time ago that said you cannot mend a broken fence just by using whitewash. And I just think that this is what's going on with the leadersh uh the leadership of the left, right, uh of the Democrats.

Well, it it is remarkable because it it's it's such a sickness within the party top to bottom, it appears, that Their priorities, their changing of the world order, the way that people view the world, they can't do the fundamental business of government well. I mean, to reverse that, that is something that is resonating with people and did resonate with people in New York. Was that the mayor there was promising that government will do all these things for them? We'll do all these services, right? For free.

For free. Now, What has he done well?

Some of those social content of saying, hey, here's a pothole, let's go fix it. That's what these people in Los Angeles are trying to capitalize on. They're trying to capitalize on that earned media, that goodwill, just from showing, look, we can do the basic thing.

Now, it shouldn't be something you have to celebrate. It shouldn't be something that is so remarkable that you got a crew out there. To fix a pothole. That is why it is so unbelievably funny and horribly sad that the current mayor of Los Angeles. Tried to do that.

And went to a pothole that a constituent pointed out on social media. They made a whole video. of her going to this pothole. That a car was parked next to, so they put up a sign and said, We'll try to come back tomorrow. They didn't even have the foresight to think this is going to make us a mockery.

That they thought we did a good job. They didn't think, maybe we wait and come back tomorrow and actually try to show that we can do this. Yeah, we don't have to show this video. They did this and they put the video out. It's the same thing here with Nithya Raman.

There were eight yellow stripes painted. Across a crosswalk. And it took from late 2025 until 19 hours ago when she posted that for it to get done. Eight stripes. And as Jordan, as you pointed out, probably cost the city six figures.

Low estimate, six figures. If we're being honest, probably a million dollars. This is what local government is supposed to do.

Now, when you are a mayor of a large city, you should have departments and capable people that run those departments because the buck does stop with you. To handle this, you should not, as the mayor of LA, have to be running out to potholes. I get the one or two visuals, like in New York, and if it had worked out in LA, but like for the most part, For goodness sakes, if you're going to govern millions and millions of people, you should have a department that makes sure your roads are good for the vehicles and good for those who are walking and safe for people walking. And if you look to where they did the striping, I mean, the road's still falling apart. They just put like this paint over it.

And again, the idea that these are the people encouraging you not to drive and not, you know, to walk and there's no crosswalk for a year and a half is that it just shows that even with their giant bureaucracies and their huge taxes, they can't even get the right people in charge or because of the bureaucracy and the unions they have to work with and all that to make the fixes that should just be basic, like getting the roads cleaned up in their own communities, because that's where it starts as being a mayor. Doesn't matter if you're the mayor of LA or the mayor of a small town. That's where it starts. And that's where people kind of feel it most. And again, if you're the mayor of LA, you have plenty of resources where you don't have to be showing up at all these potholes to get it done.

And if Your people aren't doing the job. Get new people. But instead, they always want to pass the butt. They don't want the buck to stop with them. I mean, listen, after the fires thing and all of that, is it really any surprise that potholes become this big of an issue?

No. And the videos. And it's like, sometimes I'm like, is this resonating with people, like Will, with people that just think so differently than us that, oh, she made the effort and that's what it's all about? Or is it just they are that out of touch with just reality? It's like when participation trophies go all the way up to the government level, this is what you end up with.

The fact that they're like, we tried our hardest. We got a crosswalk. We didn't fix the road for an hour in traffic. You could trip in this crosswalk because it looks so hazardous. But my goodness, we got eight yellow stripes painted across from sidewalk to sidewalk.

Let's go to Karma Calling from Missouri on line two. You're on Sekulow. Go ahead. Hello, thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to ask if there isn't a possibility that in California, if there's something preventing the Republican coalition there to get out a massive.

Uh Saying to set up for a wag in vote.

So here's what's interesting about the elections in California, especially this mayoral race, is that it's technically a runoff. The general election is technically a runoff in November.

So there could be some tweaks in some localities, but I'm pretty sure in Los Angeles, I have to check my facts, but that because the primary was nonpartisan, it was a jungle primary, that this isn't technically a general election. This is technically a runoff vote in November. That they needed. And you can write in in the jungle primary. Right.

But you would have been if someone got to 50% plus one. We're talking about L.A. County right now. Let's say you launched the best write-in campaign ever. You would not be successful here.

Like Rick said, unfortunately, one of these two women is going to be or could. Continue to be the mayor of LA. Right. And that's really the bottom line of it. One other thing I wanted to bring up back to the tech issue and story that we've been talking about.

This, I've seen some questions in the chat talking about: well, parents need to get their kids outside more, do all of these things. Once again, it's not the role necessarily even of the government. To parent your children. We've always believed that. And yes, we agree with statements like that to encourage your kids to do outdoor activities, to learn things, all of this.

We also think that there should be common sense steps that empower parents that do choose to let their children use technology, learn technology, because once again, if you hit 18 and it's the Wild West to you, that's also not a good thing. It's not a good thing. You're not going to be going off to college, it's going to be difficult. Or if you want to go right into the workforce in any kind of workforce, you're going to be dealing with technology. Even if you go into more of a workforce where you are dealing with the trades, technology is heavily involved.

And so you don't have to be going into like computer programming, law, all of that, where technology was basically used to be like, how do you file a brief?

Well, now everything is online. You've got AI assisting law firms.

So all of that is going to be important.

So I think we have to find ways of how do you implement that as parents who, again, want to allow their children to use that and have the measures be easy enough to protect them. And again, you still should be monitoring. This is just, I think, really cool that a company like Meta. And after we've been working on these issues, we'll adopt it and call on other companies to adopt it, not because it increases their bottom line, it could even decrease their bottom line, but because it's the right thing to do instead of just banning kids or teenagers completely from it, which again backfires because then kids in China and around the world are gonna have a big lead on our kids. Thank you so much for watching and listening to this broadcast today.

Support the work of the ACLJ as we talk about all of these vast programs and things that we are involved in to support parents, to support families. Go to aclj.org slash school and have your gift doubled today. Aclj.org slash school. Um