BREAKING: Massive Blow to Radical Left’s Agenda

Breaking news today on Sekulow, a massive blow to the radical left's agenda.

Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. This commission from the very beginning has just been an effort to provide Joe Biden cover from his far left and his far left is already criticizing it because they do want to pack the Supreme Court. They want to pack the federal courts more broadly. That is deeply corrosive of the rule of law and most Americans would strongly oppose it. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. It is deeply, deeply harmful and undermines confidence in the rule of law to try to change the composition for the Supreme Court or any other court just because you don't like the outcomes of the cases that is antithetical to the rule of law in America.

And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. So as you know, if you go to the White House website, there is the Presidential commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. They have issued a 200-page draft. This is not the final, but a draft report of their findings.

Let me read to you a part that I think, it's unlike what most liberals are going to want to hear, especially the far left. The prudential question on a court expansion is more difficult and commissioners are divided on whether court expansion would be wise. That means packing the Supreme Court. We also explained the counterarguments that court expansion, absent other reforms to our system of government, presents considerable drawbacks. As other commissioners conclude, including commissioners who are critics of many of the court's recent decisions and support other reforms, court expansion is likely to undermine rather than enhance the Supreme Court's legitimacy and its role in the constitutional system. And there are significant reasons to be skeptical that expansion would serve democratic values. We also raised tentative concerns about how expansion of the Supreme Court might be received really in the broader domestic and international community. They talk about how it could be perceived as highly partisan.

So dad, right there off the bat, you've got this big commission. They have issued their first draft and their first draft is packing the Supreme Court, as we all know, does nothing good. It is not good for the country, it is not good for the court, and it will make them look hyper-partisan. Yeah, and that's because, and this is no great shock, I mean let's be reality here, the next administration comes in and they add two more justices, so they have their majority.

So the court packing doesn't go anywhere, but there has to be a concern that there's going to be changes possibly in jurisdiction. That could be done legislatively. There's talk about removing the lifetime appointment. I personally think the lifetime appointments are very important and necessary, but they're talking about an 18-year term. That would take a constitutional amendment for that to take place.

Right, so not so easy there. I mean, you can add justices by legislation. You can change their jurisdiction, what they are able to hear and not hear by legislation. What you cannot change by legislation is the lifetime appointments. That's in the Constitution. So you'd have to have a constitutional amendment.

That process is a heavy lift, a heavy lift in a divided country. And again, you know, it's especially a heavy lift for when you're talking about the term would be almost 20 years, which is kind of like a lifetime appointment. I mean, obviously there are justices that serve double that length of time, but that's still a significant amount of time. Whether or not be willing to go through a constitutional amendment process to go to a 20-year term limit, I think that would be a very tough sell to the American people, the cost of that kind of process. But I do want to point out what is clear here is that they are not shying away from the idea that this would be hyper-partisan and it would create a hyper-partisan Supreme Court. As my dad was talking about, that each time the legislature changed, the White House changed, add a couple justices and the court would just keep getting bigger and bigger, which would serve no purpose at all, which is exactly what they figured out, which, hey, if we do this, next guy's going to do this. Next President's going to want to do this too. So we'll add two, they'll then add five.

And suddenly this is not going to be working very well for anybody. This is still not their final report. It's just a draft. We're going to get into that more, but coming up next, Secretary Pompeo, he's going to discuss his new piece up at aclj.org as part of the senior advisor for global affairs at the ACLJ. It's on Taiwan and why the U.S. support is so critical. So we're going to get to Secretary Pompeo right when we get back from this break, and then we'll get back into the court packing questions as well. If you want to take your calls on that, 1-800-684-3110, start getting them in now, this idea of packing the Supreme Court. The challenges facing Americans are substantial at a time when our values, our freedoms, our constitutional rights are under attack. It's more important than ever to stand with the American Center for Law and Justice. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress, and in the public arena.

And we have an exceptional track record of success. But here's the bottom line, we could not do our work without your support. We remain committed to protecting your religious and constitutional freedoms. That remains our top priority, especially now during these challenging times. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side.

If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at aclj.org, where you can learn more about our life-changing work. Become a member today, aclj.org.

Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, the play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at aclj.org slash gift. Welcome back to the SEC.

We're trying to connect with our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, Mike Pompeo. Until we do, let me get back to this court idea. One of these ideas, Ted, was to have each President gets two picks.

But now I look at a court and you pick someone who's in their 40s. We're going to have a hundred Supreme Court. I mean, you know, it just, it seems to me like we'd be at 20 Supreme Court justices very quickly.

And it would just be this revolving door. And again, hyper-partisan. Who is to say that the Senate's going to approve those picks?

I mean, so this whole idea of that it's purely an executive branch function is wrong as well. So I think that, again, we have to focus in on that. We're going to continue to focus in on that later in the broadcast. Secretary Pompeo is joining us now, our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs. Secretary Pompeo, thanks for joining us.

You've got a new article up on aclj.org. People can check it out. It's called US support for Taiwan is crucial. China's aggression deserves more than a strongly worded press release. China's been flexing its muscles in an unprecedented way towards Taiwan.

We've all seen that. We've seen the military aircraft they've sent Taiwan's way, especially since President Biden has taken office. What do you think the Chinese end game is here? Well, Jordan, thanks for letting me talk about this this morning. This is an incredibly important issue to the United States of America. The Chinese interest here is very clear.

We don't have to guess. Xi Jinping, the leader, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party says he wants to bring the people of Taiwan inside his totalitarian communist regime. He uses the word reunite. But of course, that doesn't reflect the real history.

Taiwan has never been part of China. He wants to dominate them. He wants to control this enormous economic power. He wants to take away this democracy that is just offshore from China. He's intent on doing it. We cannot allow the Chinese Communist Party to take this island away from these people who are Democrats, who are freedom loving people and who provide an important security component for the region.

Mike, this is Jay. A lot of people, I'm sure, that are watching the broadcast right now are saying this. Well, you know, we know China is a big trading partner of the United States. Why should we be, as Americans, so concerned about what China does to Taiwan? How does that impact the United States? And a lot of it's concern over the fact that we do significant trading with China. It's a huge deficit, unfortunately.

That wasn't months ago, but it looks like it's back to that again. But for the American people that are watching this broadcast right now and are thinking, what is the reason that we should care as Americans of what happens between China and Taiwan? Three things. First, the simplest and the crudest is this is an important trading partner for the United States of America. Everyone who has a cell phone, everyone who has a laptop computer almost certainly has a component that comes from Taiwan. And the Chinese Communist Party knows that it's a company called TSMC.

They're the largest producer of high end semiconductors in the world. And China would dearly love to control that so they can continue to expand and dominate artificial intelligence and high end computing in the 10 and 20 years ahead of us. So we have an important economic element to making sure that Taiwan remains free and democratic. Second, the United States has always supported freedom loving peoples around the world.

We should do that here. And it's not the case that we have to go deploy 20 or 50 or 100,000 American soldiers there to do it. We just need to establish in the minds of Xi Jinping, the mind of Xi Jinping, that we're prepared to defend these folks. The third one is that we've made a commitment. We have a set of understandings with Taiwan and Jay, as you and I have talked about, we walked away from the state of Israel when Iranians launched rockets out of the Gaza Strip. We did nothing but issue a statement when the Taliban pushed us in Afghanistan.

We walked away from this commitment. The world is watching American weakness. And so it is very important that the United States demonstrate resolve on the things that matter to the American people. Right now, it seems like we're not demonstrating a lot of that resolve, Secretary Pompeo, unfortunately for the United States, because we saw the Nord Stream 2 pipeline with Russia, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Iranian recent kind of their proposals to go back to the nuclear talks and also just the way they're behaving. Do you think these other world powers just say, you know what, they're not either, they're not paying attention, they're not asserting that leadership, let's go grab what we want when we can get it?

100%, Jordan, 100%. World leaders notice what happens in other places. I'll never forget when President Trump authorized the strike that we took against Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian Quds force leader, when he was plotting to kill more Americans. It mattered in Iran, the leaders, their notice for sure. But in the Middle East, leaders took notice. Chairman Kim in North Korea took notice. Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin in Russia took notice. But they understand when American leaders are prepared to in a restrained but serious, realistic way, defend the things that matter. Those leaders notice around the world, they won't push the United States and will be allowed to live the way we want to and with the religious freedom we want at home and all the things that matter to every American. Mike, you have a piece up at ACLJ.org and I'm going to read a quote from it.

I want to get your comments. You write that China is testing our mettle. They want to know how far they can go before America responds with something other than strongly worded press releases. If this aggression is an opening salvo or test of our resolve, how far do how far do you think the CCP is willing to go? Which is the question?

How far is the CCP willing to go? Jay, it is the question. And we know a good part of the answer. We know the last 25 years. This isn't partisan. This was Republican Presidents and Democrat Presidents and Congresses alike. We just turned the other cheek for so long. And President Trump and our administration was the first one to acknowledge that just as the Soviet Union want to undermine our republic, the Chinese Communist Party now sits in that same place. They have enormous capacity, enormous strength. They will push until they find steel. We need to demonstrate that not just not just militarily.

We need to make sure that we have the capacity to defend ourselves militarily. But this is an economic war that the Chinese have been engaged in for decades now. We've allowed them to take millions of great jobs from the United States of America and transfer them to China. And we did not think President Trump was serious about fixing that mismatch, that asymmetry.

I hope this administration will be serious about as well. I've not seen that the people they've put in place to lead their China policy suggests that we will appease the Chinese Communist Party until the day that the world looks very different from the one that allowed us to live in prosperity for the past 240 years. Is that what it's all about, is appeasement? Because I'm trying to look at it for a strategy for the Biden team when it comes to the Chinese aggression. And you talk about appeasement, you're talking about press releases.

That's kind of all I see. I mean, there might be things happening that we don't see, but it doesn't seem that we're taking the strong approach. And sometimes it feels like they're just not even, they don't even care about this issue.

Jordan, this is something you all have been working on at ACLJ, right? It's this project about, here's another example about religious freedom. John Kerry actually said, you know, about these million people, maybe it's 2 million, held in Western China, where they're conducting genocide against the Uyghurs. He said, you know, it's a tough world out there, we just need to make sure that they built a couple less coal-fired power plants. This is naive.

It is amazing, the Chinese Communist Party that isn't about to live up to its promises on climate or anything else. And the administration has demonstrated that they are confused and weak and unwilling to do the things that will preserve our way of life here in the United States. Final question to you. Oh, go ahead.

No, please. Yeah, just, Secretary Pompeo, yesterday your tweet, which I liked, was, when America leads with strength, the world's a safer place. By default, are we less safe right now? I mean, it feels that way. I think that for people who are paying attention, it feels that way. If you don't even look at it from a partisan view and just kind of see the standing of our country around the world, it feels like we're not as safe as we were.

Jordan, I was in Israel for four days over this past weekend, and I had a chance to meet with people from all across the region. They kept asking the same question. Is America prepared to do the things that it has traditionally done to not only ensure its own safety and security, but live up to the promises this has made for all these years? And the data set, the evidence in place, these first nine months of the Biden administration, has really cast doubt on American credibility across the world.

It's just like trust in any relationship. It's possible to get back, but you have to demonstrate that you're prepared to do hard things, to do difficult things when they're right for America. And the world is asking, is the Biden administration up to the task? I hope and pray that they are. Secretary Pompeo, as always, thank you for spending some time with us, our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs. I encourage everyone to go to ACLJ.org and read and share this new piece by Secretary Pompeo. U.S. support for Taiwan is crucial. China's aggression deserves more than a strongly worded press release.

That is up at ACLJ.org. As always, Secretary Pompeo, I appreciate you being on. I want to go to Thad Bennett in Washington, because Thad, we're going to talk some about reconciliation, the budget that's been looked at by the Republican Study Committee. These international issues, though, it seems like they are just getting pushed to the side when it comes to Washington, D.C., and also Capitol Hill's involvement. Yeah, no question about it, Jordan. And the thing that I picked up from that conversation you just had with Secretary Pompeo, obviously this administration, Jordan, sees foreign policy diametrically different than the last administration does. But, Jordan, there are still things, even inside that worldview, that this administration has got to be focused on. We've got to stay competitive with China. We can't let that technology gap close too much, and we can't let China pass us. There are things that we can't wait for another election to get corrected. Secretary Pompeo is on this, and we've got to be as well.

All right, we come back from this break. We're going to get more into the court packing issue. I want to ask you this question. Do you believe there should be term limits on the U.S. Supreme Court? Do you believe there should be more justices added to the U.S. Supreme Court? There's not really right or wrong answers. We all have our different opinions.

I'd like to get your thoughts on that. Do you care about this issue? 1-800-684-3110 to talk to us on the air. That's 1-800-684-3110 as we shift back to the court packing issue. Later in the broadcast, second half hour, we'll get into what is in this $3 trillion reconciliation.

One thing is the IRS inside everything. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, Planned Parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life.

Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. The challenges facing Americans are substantial at a time when our values, our freedoms, our constitutional rights are under attack. It's more important than ever to stand with the American Center for Law and Justice. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress, and in the public arena. And we have an exceptional track record of success.

But here's the bottom line. We could not do our work without your support. We remain committed to protecting your religious and constitutional freedoms.

That remains our top priority, especially now during these challenging times. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life-changing work. Become a member today. ACLJ.org.

Welcome back to Sekulow. So again, I want to shift back to the court packing idea, ask the question and for you to call us 1-800-684-31. Did you agree that there should be justice added to the Supreme Court? Do you believe that there should be term limits? This committee, Dad, they focus it on maybe an 18-year term limit. Now, where they run into a problem there is that is not something the legislature can do.

This would require a constitutional amendment. This is a 200-page report where even they admit that if they did what they were put there to do, it would be so hyper-partisan that the country would lose faith in the whole judicial system of the United States. Which, by the way, is exactly what Justice Breyer said about all of this. I mean, he notedly and I think courageously said that the problem would be that if, in fact, we have a situation where they start adding justices just because they want to get their side to have the majority, that the country will lose faith in the court and that the next administration will just fix that by adding more. And I think this commission said you'll end up with 30 judges in 30 years.

And so it sounds like there's not real support for this. Now, I am in favor of lifetime appointments. I think the founders actually got it right. And my concern, Jordan, is you start putting 18-year term limits on it. I'm not saying you won't get fair justice, but there was a reason the founders said lifetime appointments. That was to keep it out of the political system. And Andy, that has served the country well.

I know there's a lot of people going back and forth on that. But I really think the lifetime appointment for Supreme Court justices and appellate justices and federal courts really has served our country well. Well, Jay, I agree with you entirely. You know, the Constitution says that federal judges, including justices of the Supreme Court, shall serve during good behavior.

That's the language that's used. And that has been interpreted to mean as a lifetime appointment. And what that does is it raises them above the political world. It raises their awareness of the legal implications of their decisions and not tainted by political considerations, because they know that they're there for life. And that appeals, yes, of course, to their conscience. It appeals to their sense of what is right. It appeals to their interpretation of the Constitution. But it raises them above the political fray. It raises Supreme Court justices as well as the inferior justices of the United States above politics. They don't have to worry about getting elected or getting reappointed on a system like that. They know that their decisions are not tainted by political considerations. The founders of the Constitution thought about this. They knew what it meant to have lifetime appointments. They thought it through. It was a good idea in the 18th century. And I submit to you that it's a good idea in the 21st century.

Leave that lifetime during good behavior appointment alone and don't meddle with it. Listen to what Justice Stephen Breyer said about this exact issue. And this is one of the most liberal members of the Supreme Court. I've been before him many times. He and I get along well. Jordan knows him. I mean, you could disagree on judicial philosophy and whatnot. But he gave a really smart answer here.

Take a listen. The rule of law has weathered many threats, but it remains sturdy. I hope and expect that the court will retain its authority. But that authority, like the rule of law, depends on trust. A trust that the court is guided by legal principle, not politics.

Structural alteration motivated by the perception of political influence can only feed that latter perception. And I think the committee figured that out, too. I mean, they agree with Justice Breyer. Listen, this is from their page 14 of their draft.

But the risk of court expansion are considerable, including that it could undermine the very goal. I mean, this is from the Biden White House, undermine the very goal of some of its proponents of restoring the court's legitimacy. Recent polls.

Now, think about that. They go right to politics, to polling. That is not where the rule of law should be. It shouldn't be based off polls. It shouldn't be based off how people feel that moment. That's not a system of law.

That's not how you are governed by the rule of law. That's polling. But anyways, the polls suggest what we believe. A majority of the public does not support court expansion.

And even some supporters of court expansion do acknowledge this is all from their report. During the commission's public hearings, the reform, at least if it were ever done in the near term and all at once, would be perceived by many as a partisan maneuver. I mean, because it is and would be and certainly if it was done right now by this administration, it would be a partisan maneuver because right now the Supreme Court leads to the right. Yeah, here's what they're going to do, though. If they want to make a political statement out of this, which they might, I mean, who knows?

But they could do that. You know what they're going to do, Jordan. They're going to use the decision if it comes out where Roe v. Wade is no longer the framework for the issue of abortion and it returns to the states or some similar situation. They're going to use that to put whatever plans they think they could that are palatable. That's what this commission has set up to basically respond to what I will call the inevitable. That's what I think is really going on here.

And that this is the prelude. And then they go back to the commission. The commission said all this would happen. So we're going to take action.

I think that's a large part of it. And then if they try to toss this to the legislative branch or states for a constitutional amendment, I mean, this would be that kind of proposal to put term limits on the court dead in the water, right? And with Congress? Yeah, I think it would be and I think it would be dead in the water with the states as well, Jordan. But, you know, one of the things I think we really have to stress is the President and Congress certainly aren't bound by this commission. And I remember just back a couple of months of conversation that you and I had, I think we had it on air, actually, that, you know, maybe one of the things that we've got to be wary of is either the commission comes out and says what it looks like they're about to say, that adding seats and packing the court would undermine the legitimacy of the court, or maybe even President Biden would say that. But then they would use that, Jordan, as sort of a guise to look reasonable by instituting other reforms that would do similar harm.

I mean, you and your dad have already talked about term limits. There's also a conversation even in this initial draft about jurisdictional limits, you know, you know, maybe there's a legitimate debate around that. But, Jordan, I think we've got to be very careful at what this report ultimately says. And then, you know, look what the political branches do with that report.

They might throw it out altogether and still put forward some harm, some recommendations or some efforts that would harm the court. Jordan, all of it's got to come back to these two points. In order for the Supreme Court to do the job that it was set out to be, it has to maintain its legitimacy. It has to maintain its authority.

And here's the one that's, I think, the most important, Jordan. It has to retain the confidence of the American people. If we're adding justices every time there's a new President or every time there's a new Congress, you think the American people are going to have confidence in that court? I sure don't.

No, absolutely not. We're going to take your calls to get back for our second half hour. We'll take your calls on this.

We're going to get into the Republican Study Committee, their report on the Reconciliation Roundup, as they call it, policies to wreck America. One that we're very concerned about is this idea that the IRS would have access to every single person in the country's bank account without having to go to court, no warrant necessary, no showing a probable cause, because any transaction over $600, right now that number is $10,000. Over $600 would be monitored by the IRS.

It doesn't matter where you are economically on the scale. There are times each year where you've got to spend $600. And once you spent that, the IRS would have full access to your bank accounts without going to court.

See a problem there? I mean, this is another one of those, again, stuck in with thousands of pages in a budget reconciliation, a new power grab. I mean, just wait for how much staff they want to add to the IRS, how much more money they want to give the IRS. We'll talk about that when we come back. We'll talk about the court packing issue when we come back as well. 1-800-684-3110, if you want to talk to us there.

Let's get some of your thoughts on the IRS getting access to your bank account because you spent $600. I would love your thoughts on that. Give us a call. 1-800-684-3110.

The potential for wrongdoing there supersedes anything else. Perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life-changing work. Become a member today. ACLJ.org. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Welcome back to the show. We are going to get into the budget reconciliation, the IRS issue as well, but I do want to kind of sum up where we are on this SCOTUS commission by the White House because of their draft that they have released. To go further, I mean, they just pound down how negative it would be to expand the court. I think there's other issues.

We brought them up. We're going to wait for their final report. Like if they tried to change jurisdiction, that could be done legislatively. If they tried to do, again, term limits, that would take a constitutional amendment. They can add justices or remove justices by—I think the removing actually would be more difficult even by law, but certainly they can add by legislation, but they don't have the numbers in Congress right now to do that. Here they go.

This is page 14 of their report. There are other reasons to believe expansion of the court efforts might have negative effects on the Supreme Court's long-term legitimacy or otherwise undermine its role in our legal system. Court expansion today could lead to a continuous cycle of future expansions.

Dad, this is what we all knew. I don't know why it took 25 law professors who can't even put the actual formal document out, yet that's coming in November, to figure out what an average person who follows politics could figure out is that this would be a never-ending cycle. Not only would it be a never-ending cycle. Look at the parameters it would set for the rest of the country. I mean, just think about that for a moment, that we're going to have the judiciary now controlled at the whim of the executive. I mean, there was a reason we had separation of powers and these law professors, and I know there's some dissenting law professors here, so I want to be clear on that because that's important too, but you have to realize you have 25 law professors, academics, whatnot. We're tinkering with something that has served our country very, very well for a very long time since our founding.

When you start messing with this, you are messing with the way we balance our constitutional powers, and that is very, very dangerous. This is a Harvard law professor, and I just love the basis of this because it's stuff that we've just been talking about. You don't have to be a Harvard law professor to make this statement by 19. We may be in a polarized situation in which there is no possible reform that would improve everybody's faith in the Supreme Court.

It's shocking, you know, shocking thing that Washington can't take action without getting, you know, universal approval. The law professors live in their bubbles. Politicians live in their bubbles. We're out with the American people, and the American people say, yeah, it doesn't take a Harvard law professor to figure that one out.

It makes you chuckle, Jordan, but sort of in a painful way. I mean, I just want people to think back to, let's just go back to justice nomination processes. Think about Brett Kavanaugh's process. Think about Amy Coney Barrett's nomination process. There is clearly, Jordan, I mean clearly already plenty of politics inside the Supreme Court. Every effort that we make now needs to be to actually mitigate, to limit the amount of political influence on the court. If you're going to turn this over to a completely political process, those nomination processes, Jordan, I mean, those will look kind.

Those will look simple. Those will look almost collegial compared to what's going to happen if we're going to dramatically expand the court each and every time there's an election cycle. So look, yeah, this is a do you really think statement, but I think that's just the beginning of the process.

It'll get dramatically worse if they looked at justices every time there's an election. Yeah, I think, again, folks, we come back to the break. We'll take your phone calls. We get more into the reconciliation as well. 1-800-684-3110. So two questions we're asking. One, this idea of packing the Supreme Court or term limiting the Supreme Court, what are your thoughts on that?

1-800-684-3110. And the idea that the IRS would have the power to go into your bank account because you spent $600. No warrant, no probable cause, don't have to go to court to do it. Right now that threshold, by the way, if you're wondering is $10,000, much higher threshold, but $600, you're talking IRS access into every single American's bank account.

Because if you have a bank account, you're likely throughout the year spending at least one time $600 at one time. That gives them full access. Danger's there. Danger's lurked inside this giant reconciliation as they typically do. They'd say it's about the budget.

That doesn't seem like it's about the budget. That seems like it's about targeting Americans, getting into their bank accounts, and then trying to find out if they've done something wrong and we've seen the IRS and how partisan that can become. Be right back on Secular. The challenges facing Americans are substantial at a time when our values, our freedoms, our constitutional rights are under attack. It's more important than ever to stand with the American Center for Law and Justice. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress, and in the public arena. And we have an exceptional track record of success.

But here's the bottom line. We could not do our work without your support. We remain committed to protecting your religious and constitutional freedoms. That remains our top priority, especially now during these challenging times. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side.

If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life-changing work. Become a member today, ACLJ.org.

Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. Let's start taking some of the phone calls. 1-800-684-3110. First on the Supreme Court Commission out of the White House.

Then we'll get into this IRS issue as well. We'll start with Tim in California Online 1. Hey, Tim, welcome to Sekulow. You're on the air.

Thank you for taking my call. I care very much what happens with the Supreme Court. If court packing is allowed to happen, it's going to give too much power to the left. Well, I have the same concern, Tim, is that both sides would have the ability to do this.

When I look at the makeup of politics, it's the left that I think is encouraged to do it, and here's why. They know when they pick a justice, they can 99.9% of the time know exactly how they're going to vote on every single issue. We don't have that kind of judicial philosophy in the conservative world, so it's not as predictable, but theirs are. So it's hyper innocence. They know if they can add two more or three more, they know what they're getting.

That's the difference here. I don't think that the why there hasn't been this push on the right to say, oh, well, the court was out of whack, and we thought it was to the left. We want to add justices because that wasn't a solution for conservatives. You don't just add justices and know how they're going to vote.

First of all, you don't know how they're going to vote. That's become obvious and has been obvious since the founding. But also, I think it's important to point out, I want to play a statement by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We played Justice Breyer's. Now here's Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I'm going to ask Andy to comment, but go ahead and let's play it, Will. He mentioned before the court appearing partisan. Well, if anything would make the court appear partisan, it would be that one side saying when we're in power was only to enlarge the number of judges.

So we will have more people who will vote the way we want them to. So I am not at all in favor of that solution. So, Andy, I want to bring this to Andy because we've been before the Supreme Court, the three of us, Jordan, you and me a lot. And you look at this and now we've quoted Justice Breyer and now Justice Ginsburg, probably the two most liberal members of the court. And they don't like this either, playing with the system.

No, that's true, Jay. Justice Ginsburg also said, I think that nine is an appropriate number in terms of how many justices should be on the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice. And when you hear Justice Breyer and the late Justice Ginsburg, ideologically, both of which are completely opposed to any ideological thinking that I entertain or that is in the Constitution, in my opinion, nonetheless, I respect them in their persistence in saying that we need to leave the court not to be a political instrument and not to be one that is swayed by political opinion as the changes and the tides of politics mutate through the years. And Justice Ginsburg said that very clearly and Justice Breyer said it even more clearly, leave that alone. Now, if the justices on the left like Ginsburg and Breyer take those positions, and I think that that should make leftists and Democrats realize that that is in it and a very astute position, a very good position, and a position that should be adopted by them. Whether they will do that or not, I do not know.

But I agree with those two justices entirely. Let's go back to the phones. 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Kathleen in Maryland, on line three. Hey, Kathleen. Hi. I want to thank you also for everything you do.

Thank you so much. I just wanted to say that it upsets me that rather than spending time on all these problems that we're having in this country, that these people serve their own interests. It seems like that's all they're concerned about. I also wanted to say that the 200 years this has worked for us, the Supreme Court this way, and rather than trying to change that, change the makeup of the court, the length of it, and instead of all that, I wish they would do term limits on Congress. Well, listen, I'll go to Thanh on term limits on Congress because, Thanh, some members of Congress, oftentimes we'll see they'll run on the idea of term limiting themselves and then come up with a reason why, well, I can't actually apply that to myself.

Now, some follow that. The difference, though, between Congress, Thanh, of course, and the court is that the court has the lifetime appointments. Congress, they're up for reelection either every six for the Senate or every two years for the House, so people do have a say in whether or not they want to send their member of Congress back. Yeah, that's the key difference, Jordan.

I mean, look, you're right. When a politician runs on it, they almost never adhere to it. Look, I'm one, I'll just be very transparent, I'm one that thinks that term limits for Congress is probably something that on its merits is not a great idea because it takes power away from the people, but maybe its time has come, Jordan. I mean, I think there would be, Congress would benefit from fresh blood after a while, but look, the distinction that you point out can't be lost on the caller or anyone listening here.

The American people in every single district, in every single state, even without term limits, gets a regular chance to decide if their sitting member of Congress should be returned to Congress or replaced. That's not true with the Justice. And by the way, Jordan, I actually think that is one of the strongest reasons against packing the court. I mean, a lot is made about the Merrick Garland situation where the United States Senate chose not to seat Justice Garland. Well, why did they do that, Jordan? They did that because in the midterm elections, in the last term of President Obama's term, the American people, the voters, went to the polling place and said, you know what, we want a check on this President. We don't want him to be able to seat additional Justices. Jordan, if you change this, that would take the power away from the American people. And that is, by the way, that's what made it different from the President Trump's last term in President Trump's last term, the American people, the voters, went to the ballot box and they said, we want to affirm the current President and elect in the United States Senate that is from the same party. Jordan, no matter which way that cuts, I don't want to take that authority away from the American people.

I want them to have a midterm opportunity to go to the ballot box and either affirm the sitting President of either party or put a check on that President. Yeah, I want to go to Chris's call from Ohio on Line 5, 1-800-684-3110, if you want to talk to us on the air. Shifting a little bit here to the reconciliation package, there's a lot to talk about in there. The Republican Study Committee has found, I mean, over 40 issues they're concerned about, but one of those, of course, is the IRS access to your bank account. Chris, welcome to Sekulow.

You're on the air. Hi, thank you very much for taking my call. I was a consumer banker for 13 years, and one of the requirements we had was to fill out a cash transaction report at $10,000 or more. My question is, is this change that you're speaking of, will that be only for cash or will that be any kind of transaction? Any kind of transaction.

So it's changed to, and they actually say transactions. I'll read to you the provision. So to do this, by the way, the IRS would need $80 billion because they would need to hire 87,000 new IRS agents.

Can you imagine that? Another 87,000 IRS agent, an army of agents, as the Republican Study Committee calls it. And this is what they'll be able to do. Review every account, not transaction, every account that has either a $600 balance. So you got $600 or more in your checking account, they can review not that $600 balance, the entire account because you had $600 in it, or if you spend $600 over the year in a transaction. So that would take any kind of form, whether it's a check, check card, debit card. If it's coming through that bank account in any way, that transaction.

So it's $600 sitting there or spending $600. Now, this is one of the biggest power grabs by the IRS. And of course, it's coming from the left. They're selling it as a way to, oh, there's people cheating on their taxes. There are other ways to figure out how to do that than to create an IRS agent army of 87,000 new agents to go after every single American without probable cause, without having to go to court, without bringing a case. They would literally have access to everybody's bank account.

That number is no mistake. Yeah. With the agents, with the agents authorizing this with suspicious activity reports, whatever it might be. And the bank holder, the owner of the money, you, me, RP, everybody that's listening to us that has $600 transactions would not even know this is going on. So, and you said it's interesting.

There's no probable cause. So Andy, what you've got is an ability for the government to engage at a level, threshold level now that affects every single American. $10,000 transactions may not affect everybody, but $600 ones do. Oh, $600.

Definitely. Well, as the Congresswoman from Wyoming said, whether I buy, I might buy a couch or a cow, I'm going to be spending $600 and that's going to be subject to scrutiny by the IRS. Look, when I have a contract, an account with a bank, I've got a contract between the bank and me to handle my transactions.

Okay. That's my business. And that's between me and the bank. The IRS has no business scrutinizing without a contract with the IRS. The IRS has no business scrutinizing without probable cause or without any indication of suspicion, suspicious activity. What I do in my bank account, we've seen what the IRS has done with tax exempt organizations. Do we want to now create a militant IRS looking at us for $600?

I hope not. I really do believe as Andy said, it's a way to re-militarize since the IRS, which has been so weak since our cases. They've been looking at it anyway. How can we bring them more agents? 87,000 new agents, 87,000 new agents so that they can look at everybody's bank account. You're worried about big tech. Worry about big government too. They're the ones who can put you in jail.

They're the ones who can put you behind bars, bring legal actions against you and follow your every move. We come back, we'll take more of your calls, your comments on secular. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected, is there any hope for that culture to survive? And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

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ACLJ.org. Welcome back to SECCHI. I want you to hear Nancy Pelosi. She gets asked about the people who are concerned about this transactions greater than $600, the new IRS army of 87,000 new agents and $80 billion to pay for this new program, which, by the way, they say, well, they'll get the taxes back because they'll be going after Americans en masse, more Americans.

Take a listen to Pelosi by 7. Banks are starting to get calls from customers and they're reporting these calls. They're concerned about this tracking of transactions that is greater than $600. So Americans are starting to be worried about this. Do you think that this pay for of giving the IRS more money to crack down on unpaid taxes is going to stay in the reconciliation? What do you say to Americans who are concerned about that? Yes.

Well, I mean, with all due respect, the plural of anecdote is not data. I've said that before here. Yes, there are concerns that some people have, but if people are breaking the law and not paying their taxes, one way to track them is through the banking measure. I think 600, but that's a negotiation that will go on as to what the amount is. But yes. So then what we saw in this is, because people are asking, is it one transaction? But the way it reads, so if you, for instance, were donating to your church $100 a month, six months in, you've hit that threshold for the $600 then. Yeah, I actually just refreshed my memory, Jordan, read the section of the statute during the break here. It's section 138402 and Jordan get this. It's on page 2284 of the bill. That's how big the bill is, page 2284.

But you're right. The way it reads is any third party that settles a transaction to the same payee over a calendar year, and that exceeds $600 in the year, it would trigger this provision. So Jordan, just to simplify that down into very layman's term, you pay your cable bill every month, maybe it's a hundred or $150. That would trigger this in just a few months. Maybe you pay a bill on your home security system, maybe it's $50 a month. Over the calendar year, Jordan, that would trigger this provision.

It's any amount to the same payee over a calendar year that exceeds $600 over a calendar year. So you look, you think about it that way, Jordan, it's hard to think about a middle class or even well below middle class. Just about every American, Jordan, is going to be caught up in this provision if it passes as it's written now.

Yeah. I mean, so dad, this is, again, we're just kind of touching on the problems with the reconciliation, but I think it's one we're particularly concerned about because we know what the IRS is capable of doing in targeting people. So you can see their religious donations, political donations.

I mean, the list goes on and on. No, I mean, this is, I would call this, this, this change and they think it's just, well, it's just, we're just dropping the threshold number, but that, and I know they're doing all this reconciliation issue, but, and as Stan said, but you're talking about letting the government being involved in every aspect now of your life. You mentioned political donations, religious donations, donations to your church. I mean, all of that would be known by the government. And as I said earlier to Andy, and I'll say it again, Andy, what in the world is the basis upon which the government has the authority to do this? There is a suspicious activity report for $10,000 has been on the books because the $10,000 cash withdrawals, which are really antiquated, were deemed triggers back in the 1960s.

And here we are in 2021. Yeah, well, what it is is a democratic power grab via the Internal Revenue Service, which has been used as a vehicle for Democrats to grab power in an unprincipled fashion by intervening and interfering in the lives of American citizens. We saw what the IRS did with tax exempt organizations, putting them on bolo lists, checking out their names and seeing if it's 9-11 or Patriots.

And we call them out on that. Now they're coming in through the back door and they're saying, we're going to look at your transactions, which if they aggregating your bank accounts, $600 a year have got to be reported by banks so that Uncle Sam through the reckon mechanism of the Internal Revenue Service can snoop over your shoulder and look into what you're spending, who you're giving money to, what the source of your cash is, and so forth. I submit to you that that's not the government's business.

The government's business is to protect us from bombardment from a bard and from our enemies and to deliver the mail. That's it. But let me go to the phone, Steve in Indiana online too. Hey Steve, welcome to secular.

You're on the air. Yeah. There's $600. What does that do when a politician goes to lunch? Well, listen, I, I, everybody would be subject to it.

I don't think there's any exclusions for politicians. Uh, sometimes Congress does do that. Uh, but then I don't, I think that again, this is a way the Democrats idea is that they can then go after more Americans for, for back taxes is the, is the way that they're selling it. But I really do believe it's power. It's the, it's the ultimate power to be able to get into anyone's bank account. Uh, they use this number 600, but that is an aggregate, an aggregate of 600. So basically everyone I'm talking to right now, if you have a bank account, you would meet this threshold over the year.

You'd meet it. And that means they would get full access to your account because the reporting without needing to go to court. So Dan, I mean, whether it applies to Congress or not, I think it would apply to Congress and the congressional staff. Uh, it is, it is, this is a very partisan move because we know the IRS can be used, uh, to, uh, try and bully people.

Yeah. It's a power grab. It's centralizing power in Washington, DC Jordan. And I would say the caller is correct to be on the lookout for carve-outs. I mean, we don't have the final legislation yet. So, you know, those kinds of things tucked in it, Jordan, that, that will absolutely happen.

So you have to watch out for that, but I would just tell the caller this. I think in addition to being a power grab, the reason that speaker Pelosi is so wedded to this idea, I mean, she really got pushed on it. She said, no, that absolutely has to stay in there, Jordan. It's because they're really committed to, to convincing the American people that this is what they call revenue neutral, that there are payfors in the bill.

Now I won't get all the way into the weeds. Those things never work, but here's the bottom line, Jordan, they need this provision in there because it's expected to raise a lot of revenue. Let me translate that for you. It means if that provision is in there, they are going to get billions and billions of dollars from the American taxpayers that they can then can spend on what they're calling human infrastructure. We haven't even gotten into all of the things that are in this bill, but Jordan, they need to spend $3.5 trillion over 10 years. Well, they got to find somewhere to pay for it under this bill. And this is one of the provisions that generates the most revenue for them.

They would take money from the American people and spend it on things like climate policy. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, you know, Rosemary YouTuber, this is ridiculous. Most people's writ is over $600. I mean, this number, Andy, it is right at a number where it's an aggregate number. So this would include all of us. It includes all of us from whether you are a working class to the very wealthy, everybody that's got a bank account will basically meet this number.

That's exactly right, Jordan. And that's the intent of it. The intent of it is to sweep within its purview every single American citizen who doesn't have a transaction in a checking account that is not at least $600 in a year.

Everybody does. So you're talking about tens and tens and tens of millions of American citizens who will be swept up in the current. I think it's an absolute abhorrent thing. And it really needs to be purged from this bill. We're going to be on top of this, folks. We're going to be watching that reconciliation very closely. And, you know, in all these topics, the Supreme Court issue, watching closely, seeing out of the commission right now, they are admitting to what we all do, which is that, hey, we tried to add justices right now to the Biden administration. This would look pretty partisan because it looked like we're doing it just because we don't like some of the outcome of the cases from the Supreme Court. And that's not really why we should be acting this way. So people have less faith in us, less faith in the judicial branch of the United States and the highest court in the land. Yeah, surprise, surprise.

But they were honest. Now that doesn't mean the Biden administration has to follow it. And this $600 IRS move, we're going to be watching this one very, very closely and do what we can to get the strip out of that reconciliation bill.

We will talk to you next week. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress and in the public arena. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life changing work. Become a member today. ACLJ.org