Chaos On Capitol Hill As Dems Rush To Save Their Agenda

Today on Sekulow, chaos on Capitol Hill as Democrats rush to save their agenda. We'll talk about that more today. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever.

This is Sekulow. How did you see that election? You hear how Republicans see it. How did you see it? I just saw it to confirm that we have a divided country. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments.

Or call 1-800-684-3110. So does this result last night embolden you to make sure that the Build Back Better or the Reconciliation Bill does no harm to the economy? Oh, absolutely. I'm concerned about...

I mean, you're... Oh, absolutely. I'm concerned. I've been talking about our debt. I've been talking about inflation. I've been talking about the fallout we may have and all these things. And, you know, maybe they've listened and maybe they haven't.

We'll see. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow. We are taking your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. A lot to talk about today, including the fact that since the election results from Tuesday's elections we have seen just Democrat fallout on Capitol Hill, chaos there about both the bipartisan infrastructure package and the reconciliation bill. Nancy Pelosi was just out speaking about trying to get a vote on this. Still today, I want to go back to Than Bennett on this because, Than, we hear that message time and time again, even after Tuesday, even after yesterday with Senator Manchin getting up and saying, I want this scored by the CBO.

I am not just going to be a blank vote on this. And he's talking about the infrastructure bill again and wants to see how it all works out, that they still say, well, maybe we're going to have a vote today. Well, first of all, Jordan, it's just unbelievable that the message that some Democrats on Capitol Hill at least seem to be getting from the elections in New Jersey and Virginia are that they aren't doing enough radical, that they aren't doing enough big spending and that they do need to do more and they need to do it quicker because Jordan, like you said, Speaker Pelosi was just out speaking and she said a couple of things. Number one, she said the reconciliation bill, the social spending bill is going to get not smaller, Jordan, it's going to get bigger. She is in the process right now of adding provisions back into the framework that President Biden announced a couple of weeks ago. She has the rules committee sort of sitting in limbo, trying to write what is called a same day rule. Jordan, I won't get it all in the technical specifics, but essentially she's trying to get them to put together language and put forward a rule that would allow them to vote on it as soon as tonight. Jordan, now, like you said, I want to want to give a word of caution. She said this a bunch of times before and she hasn't been able to get it over the floor, but she just said just a moment ago, she wants to vote on that social spending package as soon as tonight and then vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill tomorrow.

Jordan, there's a lot of specifics we can get into, but I would come back to this just to start the broadcast. That was not the message by a long shot that voters in both the Democrat party and the Republican party sent in New Jersey and Virginia. But it's the message that it appears that Democrats on Capitol Hill heard. I mean, you have, think about this, the longtime New Jersey Senate President. So this was, again, not the governor's race there. He is ousted by a Republican, happens to be a truck driver. We got a lot of truck drivers on the store broadcasting, but Lord knows they do critical work for the country all the time.

And we all know that right now with the job that they're doing to help unload this cargo. He spent, raised about 10 grand, but only like 160 bucks on his campaign. This told you about the grassroots momentum.

He takes out a 20-year elected official, powerful position, President of the New Jersey Senate, and a Republican takes them out. I mean, so if this is a preview of the upcoming election in 2022, or what the Biden team has to try and figure out that, listen, they're going to be pushed from two schools of thought. There's a school of thought from the AOC progressive world that the reason why you lost Virginia is you didn't get Democrats excited. You didn't double down. You didn't double down on saying that parents don't have a role in their kids' education and their curriculum.

That wasn't enough that you need to go further. So you're going to have that progressive wing. Then you're going to have the more pragmatic wing of the Democrat party say, we got to get elected.

We have to put people forward who can get elected. But what you really look at is you just lost a state that's purple. So it's not, I mean, that's blue. It's not a purple state. It's a state you should have won easily with a decent candidate. You can have questions about Terry McAuliffe, but also look at who's at the White House.

Look at the unpopularity there. We're going to talk about all this and take your calls on it too at 1-800-684-3110. There's also news on those $450,000 payments to illegal immigrants.

Is the Biden White House trying to have it both ways? We'll talk about it when we come back. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

Take part in our Matching Challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at 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 Secular. We are taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110.

Let me ask you the question. Who do you think will win inside the Democratic Party? Will it be progressives who say, you know what, we need to go further left. We need to push harder left. Or is it going to be the more moderates inside the party who say, you know what, we've got to get back to a message that somehow resonates with the American voter the way that they did last election cycle so that they have some shot in the midterms in moving forward.

And of course, there's also the control factor. You have primaries all across the country. If Democrats decide to put forward progressive candidates, you're going to have more of these far left ideas, which when they get exposed to the American people, they are very extreme. So you have both sides of this are making the case about why this should push them.

This is AOC. Her response is they got to go further left. Take a listen. On the election front, I actually think we have good news as well. I know that Virginia was a huge bummer. And honestly, if anything, I think that the results show the limits of trying to run a fully 100 percent super moderated campaign that does not excite, speak to or energize a progressive base. And frankly, we weren't even really invited to contribute on that race. So here's the thing I would say, Harry, is that, well, on the one hand, I get that Terry McAuliffe probably didn't want to be seen running around with AOC in the squad. There's a lot of Democrats.

I do agree, too. He's a retread of someone who's already been around. He's got baggage, kind of a just like lifelong politician.

Why is he coming back to do this? But at the same time, where he got into trouble in the final weeks of the campaign was not being a moderate. It was by being a hard left progressive. And that was by doubling down on parents having no role in their kids' education.

I think you're precisely correct. I would also give him credit for being a bad candidate overall. He seemed to be a little tone deaf.

But you are absolutely right. He went on the offensive against parents. And he then also doubled down by supporting strongly teachers' unions, who are, generally speaking, hard left. So imagine a, quote unquote, moderate Democrat bringing the President of the teachers' union to campaign in Virginia the day before the election.

I think that was a huge mistake. He also has announced or he did announce during the campaign that critical race theory is not being taught, for instance, in Virginia schools, except we have documented evidence that he or his Department of Education when he was governor essentially demanded that Virginia schools teach critical race theory in 2015. And if you go on and I mentioned this yesterday, the Loudoun County websites, critical race theory is still being taught and often critical race theory is being taught under a different name.

One of the names that's quite popular now is having a courageous conversation. Well, what does that mean? It means that essentially at the end of the day, everything in the world is determined by one thing, race.

Everything being determined by race. And then on the other side of the coin on the left, Anderson Cooper's talking to Van Jones. He said, is it too far left? So you got AOC saying not far left enough. Hey, we weren't even invited to participate.

They didn't even want us down there. Then you've got Van Jones and Anderson Cooper saying maybe they went too far left by three. How much of this is a message just to the Democratic Party that it's too far left?

That if you're the squad or if you're someone who's been calling for defund police or socialism or democratic socialism. I wonder if, if, if Terry had been able to stick on a message of economic progress, uh, you know, family, uh, uh, leave and minimum wage and that kind of stuff. And, uh, maybe we wouldn't be making this argument. So there, there's just that he got off guard with what we said then was that he got into it on the education stuff.

He waited there. Glenn Young kid the whole time was running this very good campaign, talking directly to Virginians. He's a Virginian talking about what he wanted to do for the, for, uh, very statewide, but, but local in that sense. And it wasn't, he wasn't just talking about national issues.

He was talking about how those issues affected the people locally. So while Terry McAuliffe is floundering around, Glenn Young kid is running this very professional campaign. Uh, he, he's a good, great candidate for Virginia and it showed, uh, but, but it also, it worked down ballot to where, uh, you've got the first female Lieutenant governor who's also a black and then you've got, uh, the, an attorney general who's Republican now. And it looks like they had the house of delegates is going to go a Republican. So while the Democrats try to figure out, was he too far left or was he not far left enough at the end of the day, I think a lot of this was tried to explain away the mess of Biden and Virginia being so close to DC with a lot of contract workers, a lot of government employees, and also a lot of military.

Yeah. Jordan, I didn't see Glenn Young can being worried about whether or not he was, you know, Uber conservative or Uber moderate. He went out and met real voters, talked about real issues and then provided real solutions. And Jordan, you see this really across the Republican demographic of Virginia.

We talked about this a little bit yesterday, but if you go into Western Virginia, if you go into Southwestern Virginia, where the vote is very Republican, uh, it's very conservative. He ran the tallies up in those regions. But then Jordan, if you move towards Washington DC to the suburban counties, counties like Prince William and Loudon and Fairfax, really the population centers, Jordan, he improved on the typical Republican form performance in those counties by 10 to 15%. So like you said, he ran a very professional campaign.

He built a big coalition and that's what led him to success. Now you look at the, you know, the, the left trying to interpret the results here and you see AOC taking the opposite approach of Anderson Cooper. Look, I don't say this a whole lot, but Anderson is a hundred percent correct here, Jordan. I mean, the message, uh, from, from, uh, voters in Virginia was that the, the agenda has gotten far too radical. But let me tell you this, uh, as I look at Washington DC right now, I still see progressives inside the conference to answer your question, getting their way. Jordan. Now, does that mean they'll be able to pass this huge bill? I'm not sure.

The majority of these are so razor thin. I think maybe they won't. But even today, Jordan, I mean, think about this. Even today, speaker Pelosi is saying, which of these bills is going to come up first? It's the one that the progressives are insisting on Jordan. They haven't pivoted back to the bipartisan bill and say, we're only going to move that. They are still giving AOC and the squad, uh, the vote on her bill first. Now, if it goes down, maybe they'll pass the bipartisan one in the past, but I just don't think the Democrat conference here got the message from Virginia and New Jersey. No, I mean, listen, I don't usually agree with Don limit, but I want you to take a list of just because as Democrats are still trying to, and the left has tried to digest this and they're all over the place.

Take a list of what he has to say. The lesson Democrats should take from this election. Voters are speaking loud and clear. People don't care about the back and forth on Capitol Hill. They don't really care that much about the sausage sausage making. They want to see things done. They care about the sluggish economy. They care about high gas prices.

They care about expensive groceries, about crime, about the supply chain concerns about the rights of parents, what they have to say about their kids, what their kids are being taught in schools, whether you believe it or not. But that's what, that's a real concern. Whether some of that was built on misinformation, still a real concern. Here's his problem is that he still wants it to be a lie that like somehow, Hey, this is what people bought into.

So we have to adjust, but they still won't admit it's the truth. Even though Terry McAuliffe's own words about, uh, parents not being able to be involved with their kids' education or that it should be the school board, not the parents. And listen, the parent, the school board should be a direct reflection. We saw that about on races across the country. I don't even have time to get into all those today where school boards were flipped.

And I say, I say, congrats. We've been preaching that at the ACLJ for a long time here about the importance of these school boards, but it's not misinformation. It's parents learned a lot during these COVID lockdowns because they saw and heard what their kids were being taught.

And they read the books along with their kids. This morning I listened to a progressive Muslim feminists who voted for Youngkin and she outlined what her son was learning. And it was all grounded in critical race theory. One of the books that he was required to read apparently was book called Courageous Conversations. Another book that was a part of the curriculum was a book by Bettina Love, uh, suggesting, uh, that whiteness, uh, is the real problem in the United States. So at the end of the day, even though the Democrats want to ignore the evidence right in front of their face, parents realize what their kids are actually being taught.

And at the end of the day, this progressive Muslim who is a woman of color, she said, I'm going to vote for Youngkin. And so if the Democrats want to live in a never never land, a land of make believe, I say, go for it. Yeah, I mean this to me, again, we're going to start, we'll take your calls on this at 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. The ramification of this could be huge. Also when it comes to the infrastructure, the meltdown that we're starting to see is that, you know, is there any way Democrats can get across, uh, that, and I'm not just talking about from the House of Representatives side where they have trouble in the Senate where we're going to talk about what and play some of the sound.

What does Joe Manchin mean when he says, I want to be able to read this, I want to be able to get this scored by the Congressional Budget Office. What would that mean to actually even pass any of this legislation through when in the background is we just got slaughtered, we almost lost a race in New Jersey for governor that was right on the line that no one had on the radar because people were that angry at Washington and that angry at Washington policies being enacted in their states. It's that kind of mindset in their states. Be right back on Second Life. Anyone in 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 were 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. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes 100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support. Take part in our Matching Challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family.

Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Secula. We are taking your phone calls too. Jon's calling in from North Carolina online. We want to talk some of the political fallout. We're going to talk some in a bit too about that immigration issue and get it to the second half hour. But hey, Jon, welcome to Secula. You're on the air.

Thank you. My point is we have been discussing what the Democrats, what have the Republicans learned. Biden, since day one, was elected. All he's concerned about is his voting base. He has been concerned about doing things for his voting base as well as the House and the Senate. I think the Republicans need to learn this. And if they get back in power in the midterms, they need to, without apology, start taking care of their voting base.

Yeah, I mean, thank you for listening. Yeah, Jon, and I think you just have to, you have to have a fair and realistic approach to what does that mean. If Republicans take back the power while you still have a Democrat President, it means that you're going to be fighting uphill. So you want your constituents to know, one, you're going to do what you can in a bipartisan function to do what's best for them.

But two, you're always going to fight for the causes that put you in that seat. And you've got to make it clear to your constituents back home. That's the job of every House member. And of course, Senate members have to do that for their state, for the statewide level.

You need your staff to be reinforcing that. I think one thing Republicans can take away from this is that when you have good candidates, Virginia is a good example because it wasn't just Youngkin. It was Sears.

It was Mayares. You had this great group at the top. And so it mattered. Good candidates can affect the outcome of an election. Yeah, you need to run candidates that reflect the population and the concerns of the voter base. And I think they did that up and down the ticket in Virginia.

And quite frankly, they did it in New Jersey as well. And look, we talked about this dynamic a little bit yesterday, but Jordan, they also used the popular figures inside the party very effectively. President Trump did a tele town hall and spoke to voters again, mostly in western Virginia.

But he didn't come and do a big rally in the suburban area where maybe Glenn Youngkin wanted to speak more directly to parents. And he just utilized people in the correct way. I thought it was very professional.

I thought it was very smart. And again, I think the biggest key here was he listened to voters inside the state and then spoke to the issues that they said that they cared about. The one thing I would say to John here, though, I think while I agree with him, the Republicans need to fly bold colors when they come and legislate and they need to try to accomplish real things during that needs to mean taking the victories that are available to them when they're available.

And sometimes that means you're not going to get everything you want. And I look again to the Democrats for an example here. They could have passed this bipartisan infrastructure bill with Republican votes a long time ago and at least showed their voters some some progress. But instead, they got boiled down into so much infighting that they've been able to accomplish absolutely nothing. I think no matter what party you're talking about, if you control the chambers, especially if you control both chambers and the White House, like Democrats do right now, Jordan, you've got to get something done, even if it's not everything that you want.

Yeah. I mean, let me let me just say I think that what is important is that it you run good candidates. I think that we've got things we've been working on institutionally because I think we've realized this over time. Obviously, all the work that we do with government affairs, there's there are a lot of good people in Washington, D.C., elected officials, all politicians are bad. And we have a lot of them on the air with us and some former on our ACLJ team. But but the truth is, you see the strength in what you can do with an extra two, three, five percentage points where you also have a solid candidate who's not creating chaos around them, who's not creating a scandal around them.

And so the vetting process is very important and kind of how they present themselves to the people, because, again, these were these were looked at like national elections for ramification purposes, but they are local elections for that matter. I think that on this point, too, you don't want to overplay. You know, you get you get a victories like this. It is wonderful. It is nice to have a victory as a conservative in a state like Virginia, which it looked like just wasn't going to be the case anymore. That that feels good and you should feel good about that.

Don't you know, you don't say I would go right back to it. But let's remember, we're fighting still uphill against a Democrat Congress and a Democrat President right now. And so, Harry, while they can't get their votes together, if they can, that's that's why looking forward, we want to make sure we're not in this position in two years.

Absolutely. So if you're going to be in politics, if you're going to be in the fight, you have to be committed to stay in the fight long term, day after day, night after night. And one of the things that the Republicans did in Virginia, which I admire and I would encourage our listeners to the extent that they support that party to do the same thing. The Republicans, they focused on what the election law said and what they could do.

They trained personnel to go into voting polling stations and to basically make sure that the votes were counted correctly. That's hard work. It's often unpaid work. But if you want to win in the end, you've got to do the preliminary work.

You can't simply wait for a television ad or perhaps a savior coming from whatever, wherever to rescue you. Now, we're going to get into more of the legislation in the second half hour. But also, I want to just play this for you. Do we have the sound for President Biden? Remember that $450,000 payment we talked about?

We talked about with Rick Grenell, we talked about with our team. So Peter Doocy from Fox News, finally, he was able to shout out a question to President Biden on this. Now, take a listen, because you might hear from President Biden say, oh, hey, that's good news. But not so.

Take a listen. About the way forward, Mr. President, as you're leaving for your overseas trip, there were reports that were surfacing that your administration is planning to pay illegal immigrants who are separated from their families at the border up to $450,000 each, possibly a million dollars per family. Do you think that that might incentivize more people to come over illegally? If you guys keep sending that garbage out? Yeah, but it's not true.

So this is a garbage report? Yeah. Okay.

$450,000 per person. Is that what you're saying? That was separated from a family member at the border under the last administration. That's not going to happen.

Okay. He says that's not going to happen. Now, maybe he's going to instruct his DOJ something differently, but that is not what the ACLU thought. Let me just say the ACLU, their executive director, Anthony Romero, said this, quote, President Biden may not have been fully briefed about the actions of his very own Department of Justice, as it carefully deliberated and considered the crimes committed against thousands of families separated from their children as an intentional government policy. But if he follows through on what he said, the President is abandoning a core campaign promise to do justice for thousands of separated family.

But then he later on said that the Justice Department assured the ACLU the talks were continuing. So this was a perfect example. We'll go to the team. Why don't we come back for the break? We'll replay that for people where you can't now trust the President.

It's a pretty simple question, right? He acted kind of like we all did. It sounds absurd.

That's got to be garbage, right? We can't be doing that. And he agreed that it would incentivize more people to come to the country illegally if if it was done. So he also agrees with this. Their problem is it doesn't like his Department of Justice and he's synced up. White House wouldn't comment further. How will they try to save this one? He wasn't direct enough about the question he was being asked.

He was pretty frank. He introduced, he made it clear, talking about the ones who were separated under the last administration. We come back. We're going to continue to take your calls at 1-800-684-3110. Support our work.

The matching challenge is on the month of November at ACLJ.org. Double the impact your donation. We'll be right back. I'm talking about freedom. I'm talking about freedom.

We will fight for the right to live freedom. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow.

We are going to take your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. So we're still talking about some of the Democrat fallout. And obviously we're going to focus in specifically the fallout, how it relates to the legislation they've been trying to pass.

Nancy Pelosi was back up there today. Maybe we'll vote on it now. Maybe we're going to vote on it today.

What does it mean? But Senator Manchin, he's backed up and said, you know what, if you want to try to move forward with that vote, this country has just shown you yet again, this is not a center left country. He said, if anything, it might be a center right country.

And to push these kinds of policies, we don't need to be more progressive. But again, so let's say they get it through the House, which is a huge question. Then he gets to the Senate, he said, well, I want Congressional Budget Office scoring. I want time to actually read to see what's in this. So none of that rush it through. Nancy Pelosi originally wanted this like the Affordable Care Act. She wanted to say, you know, rush it through, then you'll read it after the fact. Remember at this time around she said, people just don't know what's in it.

When they find out what's in it, they're going to like it. But that was the same day they wanted to vote on it. So that's the kind of theory we made. But I want to go back to this because, let me play Senator Manchin again, talking about issues that people care about following the election, following this disaster of trying to put forward both a bipartisan infrastructure bill and then the more partisan reconciliation bill.

Take a listen by 20. If you don't take in consideration what people are going through with the gas pumps and at the grocery stores, the inflation that's coming. At first we thought it was transitory. If you recall, Brett, about a month or more ago, I said, let's take a strategic pause. So that is interesting, Thayad, right there, a strategic pause. I mean, that's got to hurt the Nancy Pelosi's of the world, the Schubert's of the world and the Biden team.

Well, it kills the bill. I mean, if Joe Manchin means that, and Jordan, that's always a hedge with Joe Manchin because he does change his mind an awful lot. But if he's not going to support the social spending bill, the reconciliation bill, then it's dead because they need every single Democrat in the United States Senate to vote for it in order to pass it.

But Jordan, as I just kind of look through some of the mechanics that are happening literally as we speak, as we're on the air, this just occurred. Pelosi was asked about if she had the votes for the social spending bill. And her response is that, well, Mr. Clyburn keeps the whip count. And so then James Clyburn was asked whether or not he had the votes for the bill. And he says, I don't I don't make the decision about putting the bill on the floor.

I will say this. When the bill gets put on the floor, I'll get the votes. So Jordan, what that tells me is neither one of them has the votes for this. They can only afford to lose three votes in the House to still send it over to the Senate. But as you point out, even if they do that, Jordan, even if they pull that off, it's pretty clear that Joe Manchin wants a pause on that. And so if it gets sent over this weekend, I don't see how in the world Joe Manchin can vote for it. I mean, this is maybe Joe Manchin's just waking up to political reality. Maybe he doesn't want his final four or five years.

I don't know if he's going to run for reelection in the Senate to remember just being kind of the losing side of issues. But Harry, he is speaking truth that what people are concerned about, the inflation, the shelves being empty. Will there be, even if you are in a decent economic situation, will the toys be there to buy or the presents and gifts be there to buy for Christmas or the food for Christmas, for Thanksgiving, that those are the issues that people care about right now, not Green New Deal? Absolutely. So we are in the midst of a historic inflationary spiral, particularly with fuel.

And then you accompany that with what? A supply chain crisis. That means if you go into many Walmarts, if you go to Costco, many of the shelves are absolutely empty. But notwithstanding that, the Democrats say, hey, let's throw more inflationary pressure on the economy by spending money we don't have.

This makes no sense. But at the end of the day, that is probably the best summary of what's going on in Washington. All right, folks, we come back. We'll continue to take your thoughts, your comments, 1-800-684-3110. I know if you're watching on social media to have some issues there with the lines, you can go to YouTube, find things like that.

No. So maybe to your Sirius XM or your local radio station has got the broadcast. You can listen to everything that we're talking about. If you want to give us a call, it's 1-800-684-3110. We're working through that issue for you.

We'll be right back on Secular. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad, whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support. For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes 100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

Take part in our matching challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at 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.

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I want to play it for you. This morning, right before we were on the air, she held a press conference. So is this vote coming? Is it happening? Where are we?

Take a listen by 35. I was really very unhappy about not passing the BIF last week. I really was very unhappy because we had an October 31st deadline.

And I thought that that was eloquent, but not enough, I guess. So now we're going to pass both bills. But in order to do so, we have to have votes for both bills. And that's where we are. Harriet does not, yes, you do have to have the votes for those bills.

And that's where we are. I think where she's saying is we don't have the votes. I think that's what I'm reading in there is she's pretty upset to the point where she can't find her words. This is not the usual strong Nancy Pelosi that we see kind of come out and say, this is what's going to happen. We're going to have the vote today and then kind of push through. What Thanh was talking about before, we were talking about it earlier. No one wants to say if they've got the votes or not, but it's clear from Clyburn and others too, they don't have the votes yet.

I think that's true. And I listened to Nancy Pelosi this morning. And for about 15 or 20 seconds, she was virtually speechless.

And then she followed her speechlessness by incoherence. So I think at the end of the day, she is stumped by her own caucus. She's pulled in two directions by the progressives on one hand and by the moderates on the other. But I think the Democrats' problem tends to be far larger than that because the Democrats are really triangulated because there are many Democrats in the House who want to eliminate the restrictions on state and local tax deductions. And Bernie Sanders in the Senate opposes that. And I think then they also have to deal with the moderate faction led by Joe Manchin. So I don't know where the Democrats are going and I'm not sure they know either.

Yeah, so Thad, we're going to watch this very closely because we know that they are willing to put this on the floor. Nancy Pelosi doesn't like putting things on the floor though that are going to fail, unless she has to, unless she feels like I've got to let this vote move forward and let her fellow Democrats vote it down if that's the case. That's not usually her strategy or her style.

Yeah, you don't put a bill on the floor of the House unless you have the votes to pass it. That's long been her rule. That's long been what she's tried to practice. But look, Jordan, I kind of had to go ahead to chuckle when you were playing that soundbite because she said we had this October 31st deadline, like that was something that was tying her hands. Jordan, that was a self-imposed deadline.

And I think it was the fourth one that she said. I mean, there was a deadline in August after the Senate passed it. There was one in September. There were a couple in October.

Now we're into November. Jordan, they had the votes to pass the bill that she's talking about in that clip, the bipartisan infrastructure bill. She let it get tied to the larger social spending package by progressives. And she said it right in that clip. She said, now we have to pass both bills in order to have a chance at passing either. She's the one that tied these together, Jordan. She's the one that made it so she only has to pass both of these with votes in her own caucus. Look, she's right. They would have been better off had they passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill before the elections in Virginia.

Maybe it would have made a difference. But look, she could still do this. She could still tell progressives, look, I don't have the vote for the larger bill. We're not going to vote on that today. In fact, we're not going to vote on it at all unless we get more votes on it. We're only going to vote on the bill that has bipartisan votes. Jordan, the fact that she's not doing that tells me that she's caved to the progressives and it absolutely confirms what you just said. She doesn't have the votes on that larger bill. No, I mean, this to me, it speaks against the elections, it gets to what is all happening. This can quickly unravel for Democrats. I mean, you don't want to, again, you don't put too much on this because she gets asked about what was the effect of not having done this and then Tuesday elections. First it was, we want to get these votes done before the President goes overseas. Then it was, now it is, hey, you didn't get this done before an election. You just got, you know, your hand handed to you. Your hand handed to you.

What are you going to do next? Take a listen. What effect do you think having not passed these bills had on Tuesday's election results?

Well, let me say it in a different way. I think that getting the job done, producing results for the American people is always very positive. Each election is different. As you know, I was former party chair and I always know, let's look down into the numbers and see what it is. But I do think as the American people learn more about what we are doing in this legislation for families, for children, for women in the workforce to save our planet and the rest, it will be very positive.

You can't deny that it would be very positive. She keeps going back to this idea of learning more about what's in the legislation. It's now it's been kind of sitting out there. The fact is the more people learn about it, the more they don't like it.

Yeah. I mean, she's wrong on this, Jordan, the American people, the voters absolutely hate this large social spending package. Look, it's going to be three and a half trillion or it's going to be five trillion or it's down to one point five seven five trillion. No matter the number, Jordan, the voters said that they do not like this. Now, you know, maybe maybe if they'd have passed the bipartisan bill, they would have had a work product that they could have showed to their voters and said, you know, maybe that one would have been a little bit more popular. The truth is that they didn't have anything to show Jordan and even their voters, voters that voted for President Biden just a year ago. They came out and said, we hate this agenda. So she says that she wants to learn from her voters.

They spoke pretty loud and clear. But in order to learn, you actually have to absorb that data and then make an adjustment. She's not making an adjustment. She's just trying to shove it down their throats.

Yeah. I mean, this again, to be folks, it is the classic Pelosi to say, you know, once people find out about all this, they like it. I mean, I think what she's really saying is once we start handing out money, once people start getting used to another government program, yeah, it's always a rocky start, but then you'll never be able to get rid of it.

People will always want to utilize this. So again, I think that that's kind of where we are legislating. You've got a big slowdown push by Joe Manchin when it comes to all of this. I mean, he's saying, listen, even if it gets to the U.S. Senate, we're going to have to take our time on it. I want to switch back to the $4,000 to $50,000 a year payments, because I think this is something we all have to pay attention now even more closely to because President Biden has opened the door to really flooding the DOJ with comment and notice that the President of the United States thinks what you're doing is absurd and that will encourage more illegal behavior.

Because take a listen, Peter Doocy, thanks for asking the question, shouting it out and reminding the President what it was about. About the way forward, Mr. President, as you're leaving for your overseas trip, there were reports that were surfacing that your administration is planning to pay illegal immigrants who are separated from their families at the border up to $450,000 each, possibly a million dollars per family. Do you think that that might incentivize more people to come over illegally? If you guys keep sending that garbage out? Yeah, but it's not true. So this is a garbage report? Yeah. Okay.

$450,000 per person. Is that what you're saying? That was separated from a family member at the border under the last administration? That's not gonna happen. Okay, so he says that's not gonna happen. The ACLU comes out immediately and says, you know what, the Department of Justice, President Biden, quote, may not have been fully briefed about the actions of his very own Department of Justice. I mean, there it is, it looks like no one had told him about this or he had been briefed on it. But the ACLU, quick to throw the President under the bus.

Absolutely. And he deserves to be thrown under the bus if he doesn't understand what's actually going on in the Justice Department, particularly on a decision that is as important as this. Yes, the President is right when he says paying illegals up to a million dollars per family is garbage in the sense that it should not be done. But that is precisely what is being negotiated, I believe, as we speak, because the ACLU basically has suggested that they are continuing to negotiate with the Department of Justice. So perhaps Merritt Garland had a chance to view this press conference and maybe he can get the message down to some of his staffers.

But lastly, I would point out that President Biden's failure to take charge of this situation, at least so far, suggests that he has never been in charge. So I mean, I think that Harry is right. I think that this idea that the President, when he's pushed on these questions that are very specific, that have been out in the news, we've been talking about, you know, Fox News conservative media has been talking about is this real? ACLU saying it was real.

They were in these discussions, but it wasn't finalized yet. So what did we learn there? Two things. One, we don't have to have this precedent set. Two, the President realizes, like us, it's not a partisan issue to realize that if you did something like this, you were going to encourage a lot more illegal immigration. He says talking about it is garbage, but the ACLU says no, no, unless the Department of Justice has changed their mind and not informed us, who represents these 5,500 people, it's the President who is out of step with his administration.

We come back, we'll talk more about that, too, if you have calls about that, 1-800-684-3110. It's like, who do you believe, the President or the ACLU on this? I do think, though, that the President, like every other American who hears that, says, you are going to incentivize more illegal activity. So that sounds absurd. No, we're definitely not going to do that.

I can't believe you're putting this garbage out there. But then you've got to go to the ACLU, who should be in line with where the President is. You know, they should be able to figure this out with the White House. And they say, no, no, the President's wrong. So I don't trust either of them until we have a final response from the Department of Justice and the actual people running the government. Because as Harry said, unless the President just instructed his Department of Justice on what to do, which by the way, I don't think they'll take that as an instruction, we can still win this issue, and we still need to fight on it.

Give us a call, 1-800-684-3110. We'll be right back. 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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Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Secular. Again, I have some issues with our phone lines, I have some issues with online, but we're not having issues with broadcasting out and getting the message out. Be clear about that. We talked a little bit more about the election because we're starting to see more and more of the ramifications. I don't think the ramifications are done. I think that even like what the President's saying about the $450,000 payments, I think all of that does, like the infrastructure bill, like the reconciliation, it all is kind of up in the air right now because they are putting their finger to the wind and saying, you know what, maybe we have just been on the wrong message this entire time. Yeah, Jordan, I think the impact will continue to be developed for a long time, all the way through the midterms, for sure. But look, the impact is going to be bigger if there's no pivot. I mean, there are a lot of historically significant pivots.

I mean, the second half of Bill Clinton's second term was a lot. I don't know if I'd use the word conservative, but it was moderated, Jordan, because he heard the message of the voters. If the leadership in the Democrat Party in Washington, D.C., don't hear the message and pivot, then you, I really do think you're going to see a huge red wave in the midterm elections. But again, it's going to come back down to localized elections. Who runs the best candidates? Who builds the biggest tent? Who reaches out to all portions of the coalition that's inside your party?

And Jordan, I would just reiterate this, too. I mean, both chambers literally hang by a thread. We talked about earlier in the broadcast how Democrats can only afford to lose three votes on a given measure right now.

There is one vacancy, so that might go up by one before the next elections. But it only takes a handful of flips for the House of Representatives to change. And it only takes a single flip in the United States Senate for control of that chamber to change. And so, look, I think the message of Virginia and New Jersey, even if it's not being heard by people in Washington, D.C., Jordan, I guarantee you it's being heard by voters all across the country. Yeah, but to me, too, it just kind of settles.

You know, the first day it's like, whoa, second day it continues to settle. You start kind of taking it all in what it means as people woke up on Wednesday to find this out. But how close to things that were happening in New Jersey, not just the gubernatorial race, but the fact that the speaker, the President, the Senate, they're taken out by someone who had never run for office before, happens to be a truck driver, didn't spend much money on his campaign, beats the incumbent Senate President who's been there for 20 years by like five or six points or more. These are those moments that if you look to as a conservative, you want to say, OK, let's see who are these, like the messaging. Obviously, we know a lot of the talk in Virginia was the education. A lot of it's been about regaining local control, taking back the power that's either been given to the federal government or just, if not formally, just by shrugging of the shoulders.

Absolutely. So, sorry, Tuesday was a wake up call to anyone who had the plausibility of being awakened, particularly for Democrats. So beyond the highlight elections, the Virginia election, for instance, it's important to note that down ballot elections are also important. So in Seattle, a left wing prosecutor was ousted in Minneapolis.

Of all cities, they defeated the defund the police movement. State, if you look at state houses, many state legislators, legislatures turned from blue to red. And so I think there is a widespread awakening of the American people. Yet the Democrats persistently prefer to remain asleep at the switch. And in my view, I can I continue to hope that they remain asleep, because I think at the end of the day, that will awaken the American people. And indeed, there will be a conservative movement which takes over down the road. Hey, Mark's calling from Colorado online one. Hey, Mark, welcome to secular.

You're on the air. Hi, I was wondering about the mechanics of how the executive branch can go out, you know, 450,000 to illegal aliens. I thought Congress was in charge of the purse strings. So And Congress created a judgment fund, Thad, many years ago. And that judgment fund is what is utilized by the executive branch to pay out when they believe there's wrongdoing and sometimes there's wrongdoing. It's usually very difficult to get a dime from the federal government. It's not impossible. But there's, again, there's a lot of sovereign immunity.

There's a lot of issues you have to get through. But if you're in a negotiation, which is what the ACLU is doing with the Department of Justice, are not going to trial, but instead negotiating a sub judgment for a payment instead to settle it out of court. They actually were authorized by Congress to do that. I mean, so it's it's now it's their policy that they they've got to decide what is the right policy here for the President.

He agrees with us. Bad policy. Right. It's a policy, which means it's a choice, Jordan. I mean, it's not like a judge would be forcing them to do this. It would still be a proactive decision by the attorney general, Merrick Garland, and then prosecutors down the line to reach settlement in a case. Congress authorized them to do that, just like you said, so they could do it, but it would still be a choice. Want to be very clear about that.

But here's here's the thing that I really take away from it, Jordan. I mean, the President of the United States is the boss, or at least he's supposed to be. So if President Biden recognizes that this is a terrible idea and that it would, in fact, incentivize a tremendous amount of additional problems, well, then he needs to make that clear to the people that work for him. Like Harry said, he needs to make that clear to the attorney general. The attorney general, Jordan, might have the congressional authority to make settlements, but if the President of the United States, the boss, says this would be horrible policy, this would be a terrible idea and you will not do it, guess what?

He's the boss. The attorney general would have to follow through. So while they're authorized to do it, it would still be a choice to do it, not a mandate from a judge. And the President ought to just tell the attorney general, you heard what I said, now go execute the order. Yeah, I mean, it's called garbage by Harry, by President Biden. So one thing I think we can agree on with him, I wish he was a little bit more engaged because it would have gotten to this point, but this is his moment for his White House to pick up the phone to call DOJ to say, hey, this is wrong.

We're not doing this. I think that's absolutely correct. And so he could have a direct conversation with the attorney general or have his chief of staff make a phone call. Secondly, though, I would point out that what is truly incentivizing our border crisis is, in fact, the Biden administration's open border policy. They have basically reversed all of the policies of the prior administration that were working. So to the extent that we have a problem with illegals in this country, that is Biden's problem and he cannot escape responsibility for it. I think the policy was basically wrong at the start.

It was illogical. And the Biden administration continues, however, to double down on opening the border to illegals. Basically, if you follow the Biden administration, if you're a citizen of Mexico and you wish to enter the United States, you have to comply with vaccine protocols.

But if you are simply an illegal, you can walk across the border with impunity. Just quickly, should people just we should be on alert about these votes? It's it's like it doesn't seem like they've got the votes, but I put nothing past Nancy Pelosi ever. So it does seem like they have trouble in the Senate. But again, I put nothing past Joe Manchin's change his mind on that either.

Yeah. Speaker Pelosi says she's trying to issue a same day rule to consider the reconciliation package. So we look, I don't I don't necessarily trust her, Jordan, but we've got to believe that she's trying. And then on the bipartisan infrastructure package, which is tied to it. Remember, the Senate already passed that in a bipartisan fashion in August. So if she were to put that up, it would go straight to the President for his signature.

So I think it's an any moment exercise if she can find the votes. All right, folks, we're going to stay up to speed on everything. Of course, we encourage you support our work.

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