Biden’s IRS Targets Babysitters Instead of Billionaires

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And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Just to ask you this quickly, do you use things like Venmo or Zelle, which is built in a lot of times your online banking, to send... It's basically like, in the past, it was like using cash if you were going to pay someone maybe a small fee, a handyman, or a tip, or you were splitting the bill at dinner. Instead of handing over four different credit cards, one person hands over the credit card and then you Venmo the rest of the money to the person who paid with their credit card. So that it wasn't as confusing of a transaction for the waiter and for the restaurant.

And this is something we've all gotten used to pretty much in our country. I think that certainly, I mean, it's the idea of it's basically like having cash in a digital way where you can transfer quickly. And you don't have to go through the same processes of a wire transaction where you've got to put in all this bank debt on somebody and have all these different things. And those still exist for larger transfers, but we're talking about the small transfers.

The IRS has now issued a regulation to start allowing them access to those transactions. It's $600 aggregate dollars a year. Now, before this regulation, just to put it into perspective, it was $20,000 and, not or, and 200 transactions a year. So you had to be taking in $20,000 or more and 200 and more or more transactions. So that would be someone who's really using it for their business at a regular, you know, very regular and likely should be reporting on a 1099 that income. And that was no problem.

No one had issues with $20,000 and 200 transactions. When you start dropping it to $600 in aggregate a year and there's no transaction number. So it's just, you're talking about babysitters, handymen, and the confusing situation where the burden is going to be on you. If you were the nice guy who said, I'll just put it on my card, you guys Venmo me, you've got to make sure, I guess, to keep that receipt, which has been something that I know generations wise, we're used to digital everything. But you know, if a place doesn't offer that, you've got to keep that receipt because the IRS comes knocking and you've done that a few times a year and they want to know, you know, where's that receipt to prove that you weren't just getting paid by these people, free cash from these people.

Instead of a reimbursement and had all the record keeping that comes with it, but it'll also allows the IRS right back in. They're not getting into your bank account yet, but they're getting very close. No, what they've done is, and they're doing this through a room making. So this isn't a law, this is a regulation they put in place.

So that's number one. Number two, what it allows, and this is what we have to be very concerned with is, it puts, like you just said, Jordan, the onus now is on the taxpayer. If we all go to lunch and I put it on my credit card and then you all pay me back and there's going to be 1099s created and I've got to show now, no, no, that wasn't income.

That was just reimbursement of money I laid out. This is not going to increase revenue of any significant proportion, yet the government gets in. We're going to get into this, what we can do about it. At the same time, we are on guard for the bill that has both a revocation of the learner rule, which is the one that prohibits targeting of conservative organizations, and also changes the election law scenario between state and federal control. That's going to be picked up in January. We just got word on that. We want to talk to you at 1-800-684-3110. Your comment on all of this, elections, election integrity, the issue of the IRS in your business, we're going to talk about all of that, but also we don't want you to forget, so 1-800-684-3110, but don't forget to support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice. We are literally down to eight days in our matching challenge.

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Welcome back to Secular. We are taking your phone calls too on this. I'm sure there's a lot of people that have a lot of questions about how this is going to impact them, especially small businesses, independent providers, handyman services, babysitters, your daughters, your granddaughters, grandkids who might mow the lawn in a neighborhood. If they're taking in in a year over $600, so $601, then they will be subject to the IRS will be able to look at those transactions and then subject to like 1099s. Then you've got people who are just using these services a lot of times as reimbursement so that you don't have to. I've done it with golf, I've done it with restaurants where I'll put it down, put it on my card, or somebody else puts it on their card and you say, okay, I'll just Venmo you.

Or also, it can be used as tipping. But again, small dollar transactions is what the IRS is trying to do. And they're claiming this is about revenue. Let's be honest, the revenue generated by this because of how much work they'd have to do to really track this down, this is about spying on you.

No, I mean, here's the thing, and I'll go to Andy first and Harry. And Andy, this is another ability of the federal government through rulemaking, through regulation, actually, to put in place a regular, not a law, a regulation, which they're saying is closing a loophole. But the reality is, if someone's getting money from babysitting, if that's what they do for a living, not likely they're going to even meet the federal income tax threshold. But now all this paperwork and IRS reporting is being generated. Where this goes is not a good sign.

No, it's a terrible sign. But what it is, as Jordan alluded to earlier, it's an attempt again by the IRS to snoop into the activities of even the smallest of us taxpayers on the planet, in the United States of America, trying to look into our lives, trying to make a determination of what money little inches and dimes and dollars they can possibly accumulate. But it's an attempt to snoop through rulemaking and not congressional action. But it is an attempt again to interject themselves into our daily lives by giving us 1099, and saying that's income to you, and putting the burden on the taxpayer, on the individual citizen, on the person like who Jordan says who picked up the tab at the restroom, but who gets money from the other people that are just paying him off or her off, to have to show that that's not income, that that's simply reimbursement.

But in the larger picture, it's the United States of America through the Internal Revenue Service, which is the great octopus of the federal government, getting into our daily lives for a tax that may amount to, what, a year? $18? $50?

$100? That's what bothers me. Well, I look at people who are retired, who are listening right now, who, again, are kind of outside the regular tax system now, because it's Social Security, retirement is set up this way now. It's allowing the IRS to get into people's transactions that they really before had no reason to. So this wasn't enough for them to have revenue on. I think that really what they're trying to go at is the retired and people who are just scraping together a living, who would not be subject to any federal income tax. They wouldn't meet the threshold for income tax. Right.

That's what makes no sense here. And the retired people who are outside of the regular system as well. Yeah, so, you know, Harry, I'm trying to figure out what the real impact of this is. And if I'm a taxpayer, which we all are, you'd be concerned about this.

Absolutely. So plain and simple, this is simply another IRS espionage attempt. And it's led by individuals who are related, at least in part, to James Comey, the failed FBI director. At least philosophically.

Philosophically. The IRS claims that this initiative is designed to bridge the tax gap of billions of dollars from a lack of taxpayer compliance in reporting. That's a nonsensical claim because those who are specializing in hiding money from the IRS know how to escape IRS burdens and requirements. They can hire tax accountants, they can hire lawyers, they can engage in moving money overseas. So at the end of the day, the burden of this new reporting requirement will be felt largely on the middle class.

Small business owners, handymen and handywomen. And so the lower middle class in the United States and the middle class will now run the risk of doing what? Overpaying the IRS because the IRS will, in some respects, insist that they have made money when simply they have received reimbursement from their fellow citizens. I think at the end of the day, the Biden administration really does not care about raising funds.

They care about increasing the burdens on the American people because at the end of the day, it's all about control. And it's all about a backdoor way of advancing, at least in small part, the Build Back Better program through regulations as opposed to through a statutory enactment. It's important to keep in mind, for instance, that there is a Build Back Better program in Canada.

There is a Build Back Better program in Haiti, in the United Kingdom, throughout the world. So at the end of the day, I think the American people should be very suspicious of this move by the IRS. It's only one part of a larger puzzle. Yeah, they're not ready to go yet. Janet on Facebook wrote in, I feel like this just creates a major headache for everyday Americans with a false assumption that the majority...

Right. That is the assumption is that you're not reporting your correct income and you're using apps which track everything you do. So that reasoning is also ridiculous because at the end of the day, at any time, if you are someone who is... You're in the tax bracket so you're paying income tax, these are apps that have every transaction you made. If they ever needed that, they can get it. If you're someone who's a regular taxpayer, I feel like they're just going after people who they can't go after under their current system because they're not making the income threshold or they're retired.

They're not making the threshold that way. So on the front end, kids are also just people who are immigrants trying to work and put some money together. And I feel like what this will do, once more people figure this out, is it just pushes back to a cash system which we've moved away from because it was convenient.

But this actually becomes more inconvenient when you start carrying around cash again. No, I think this is the 20 bucks and stuff like that. It's the entire problem and I think the caller we have really enlightens exactly what the problem is going to be. Yeah, Simon in Minnesota on Line 1.

Hey Simon, welcome to Secular, you're on the air. Hey, thanks for taking my call. As soon as you mentioned Venmo right away, it got my attention because we have a son in the Army and we went to visit him over Thanksgiving. And right after that, he had a major break on his car, a breakdown, so we just went and Venmoed him the $1500 to get that repaired. But then he's got a big Christmas bonus coming and that's coming back and then he was just going to Venmo that back so he's got the money. Now how do I try to show them that that's not income, it's just money given back? First of all, this is exactly the problem. We've got now two, at least two, reportable transactions.

Neither of which are actually taxable. First of all, you could have gifted the money to your son and then he could pay you back and you could have lent it to him and he pays it back. So you're going to have to show that it came in, that you lent the money to your son, you're going to have to probably add that to your... Get the receipt from your son, which is not a receipt that you got. It's ridiculous. This is the point right here. It's so ridiculous, this is the perfect example of why this is ridiculous. The receipt, it would be his son, so now he's got to go to his son to get the receipt to keep for his records.

But the son has to keep records because he will be getting both. This is Andy, really quickly here, Simon's question is exactly the problem. Jay, this law, this regulation is based upon the assumption that the people of the United States of America are thieves, liars and cheats and you can't trust them and we have to supervise them and engage in espionage. That's the basic assumption here, that we have a dishonest population. I mean this is, Simon's call was perfect because this is exactly what you don't want the federal government doing.

No, absolutely. And this is why we exist. There is a way, we've already looked at this, so these regulations go through. I don't think the current Congress, now the makeup right now with House Pelosi, but we all know that that is likely coming to an end. Regardless of what side of the political aisle you're on, you see this massive wave of retirements in the Democrat side of the aisle.

What does that mean? Well you could go in legislatively and take this power away from the IRS. So we're going to, as we move forward with this, you kind of keep track of these, you put this data, you say okay this is something that a Republican Congress has got to fight back against.

And they're going to have to negotiate, if they come in, a Republican Congress, they're going to have to negotiate with the Biden administration, he's got the veto power for a couple of years. But you can legislatively fix these power grabs by the IRS to figure out ways they can get inside your accounts that they normally would not be able to do. And again, it's kind of an accusatory position that all Americans are somehow bad at not doing what they're supposed to do and not following the law. Again, this is a reason to support the work of the ACLJ. We fought the IRS, we have no issue fighting the IRS again, but they are trying to change the rules on how to target conservative groups again as well.

Say that you can target for political purposes. This is a time you've got to support the ACLJ. Our work is very critical to protecting your rights. ACLJ.org, be part of the matching challenge, the most important month of the year, final eight days, donate today at ACLJ.org.

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.

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. 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. I'm covering 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. If you want to talk to us on air, the number is 1-800-684-3110. You can call that now.

It's 1-800-684-3110. So we're starting to see, because of the failure of Build Back Better, we're starting to see the Biden administration is under a lot of pressure from progressives and liberals to use executive authority, to at least try to use executive authority and the regulatory process to implement some of those programs. And one of those programs was an increase in the size of the IRS budget, $80 billion and 87,000 new IRS enforcement agents. So that obviously didn't pass in Build Back Better, because of what Joe Manchin did. So it's dead for now. Now we've seen the IRS trying to backdoor ways to increase, what they're saying is increase the revenue.

I think it's twofold. They may want more money, because it's an agency that is not well run and does not really work in 2022, as we're about to reach. I mean, it's still run off like typewriters. But at the same time, they're going to be able to just get into everybody's accounts. Because Venmo, as someone wrote in, they use it for $3 to pay for something at any farmers market. But don't worry, if they did that a lot of times, at an equal $600, you'll be involved.

Right, I think most people who use these apps are using more than $600 a year. Yeah, so we've got that. So our team's going to get on top of this and see what we can do legislatively to undo this at the first of the year.

Now, H.R. 1, the Senate version now is Chuck Schumer saying he is going to move that right after the first of the year. He wants to scrap the legislative filibuster to do it. This will first, eviscerates the integrity of the election process because it takes out of the state control and puts basically everything centralized in the federal government. That'll include mail out ballots to all residents, banning states from implementing any voter ID measures, and then legalizing ballot harvesting, which is always inviting fraud.

Jordan, explain to everybody what that is. So, I mean, ballot harvesting is you go into a nursing home and you basically utilize a law that allows you to, if someone asks you, they need help filling out their ballot, you can basically tell them who to vote for. Or for a population which may be new to voting, so immigrants who have just become U.S. citizens who are not as up to speed on our political process and the different parties. And so that's one way of harvesting. The second way of harvesting is putting the boxes out. So there's actual in-person harvesting where you are actually telling the people who to vote for and using a law like, well, they ask for assistance. And that is ripe for abuse.

I'm talking about a nursing home situation where people, again, they are there for a reason and then they're being manipulated by people. And I will just tell you one issue is that the left does this very well and conservatives, they kind of don't think it's the right thing to do, so they don't do it. The second is the drop boxes. Remember the battle over, they didn't want cameras on the drop boxes? Why? I mean, if really it was just a fair drop box where you put your ballot in, why were you so concerned about this being watched by camera? Because there was nothing good going on with this. That's not how the process should work.

The ballot balance was absurd. Because we're not Oregon in every state. Oregon decided as a state, we are going to use this system. We have a population, we think this will work for us.

But they put in all the safeguards in. Last election cycle it was ch-ch-ch-ch. You know, if you've moved a couple times and it's been more than the ten years or they haven't gotten rid of the voting rolls like a lot of blue states who don't go through those processes, you're getting multiple, as I call them, live ballots. Live ballots. Not a request for a ballot, but an actual ballot to choose the President of the United States and then, oh, we don't want cameras on those boxes? I mean, it's just, they try to do it in the sense of it's voter intimidation to have voter integrity. And I think that what you have to cut through in this is this is not about race, it's not about voter intimidation, it's about integrity. If you're going to move to systems and modernize voting and you're going to allow for these kind of mail-in or drop-off, then you must have the security and you can't buy in it. Putting a camera on the box is somehow racist?

Why? What are you doing that you don't want people to be able to see? Law enforcement to be able to see? You're not going to be able to read the ballot. I mean, Andy, you said these were, these ballot harvesting places, the boxes were lined up on like Peachtree Street in Atlanta. Yeah, Jay, they were lined up along Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta, which I've traversed for 47 years, plus next to newspaper boxes. Remember where you put a nickel in and got a newspaper out? Well, next to it was a ballot harvesting box.

And there was no one, there was no one there, there was no camera there, there was no one guarding it, there was no one watching it. You just went in and dropped your ballot in, supposedly your ballot, and then someone came and harvested the ballot in the manner that Jordan described. So this is where there is no election integrity.

And we've been filing briefs, we're going to continue to do that, we have an email going on that today. But Harry, when you look at the situation of voter ID, something that basic, why would we centralize this in the federal government? Well, we would centralize it in the federal government because the federal government wants to control it, number one. Number two, the Democrats want to make sure that they win every future election, and so they would like to do as much as possible under cover. And so they are opposed, for instance, to virtually every state voter integrity measure, even though every single country virtually in the world has, for instance, voter ID. But the Democrats are claiming somehow that voter ID, when it happens in the United States, is racist.

I think at the end of the day, the Democrats are consumed by their own incoherence. You know, all of this points to what your support of the ACLJ allows us to do around the globe, but here in the United States. And this gives you a sense of it. Not only this broadcast that comes to you every day, but all the work that we do around the globe.

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Second half hour is coming up. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. 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. 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. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow.

Second half hour of the broadcast. Just to let you know, coming up live, Rick Grenell and Mike Pompeo are going to be joining us to get into some foreign policy issues as well as we finish out the year. And what's going on in a world which seems very dangerous, even outside of the COVID issue. A world where you see Chinese aggression in Taiwan, Russian aggression in Ukraine. I mean, threat of nuclear, the use of nuclear weapons on Russian state TV.

So I paid for this. Again, it's not a, it was not like a private news organization. This was, it's Russian owned and they're talking about this. So we're talking about these issues as well and how it affects us here at home. I know that Rick has got a new piece up on energy independence and how we've given this energy independence away through these climate accords. And we're also punishing many allies, Poland, Vietnam, India, Japan, barred from receiving U.S. energy support under new regulations by the Biden administration. And so again, that affects you too, because those are countries that you would rely on to work with you if there were, if there were any kind of conflicts or also some for national security purposes year round. And you suddenly cut them off from, you know, the energy support and they're in trouble, they're scrambling, but they're also not as, it's like these administration, what they are trying to do is dismantle the U.S. superpower. And take us, and it's quickly happening where you start seeing a China who can realistically say a country where most people are living in very rough conditions that we would consider the U.S., but they can actually say that we see ourselves as the next superpower. In the not like 25 year future, like in the, in a few years that they will be the dominant power. And that allows the Russians also who don't necessarily, they'll be the dominant power, but they'll be ignored by the Chinese. We'll let them go on on what they want to do in their region of the world to also take extraordinary actions that they would not do if they really feared the United States of America.

So we'll be getting that into this second half hour of the broadcast. Yeah, this is, I mean, there's a lot going on here, but as we get ready to have Rick Rinnell and then former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, of course, Rick was the Director of National Intelligence and Ambassador to Germany. I wanted to take just a moment here as we are getting near the end of the year to say we have people like Rick and people like Mike Pompeo, Rick Rinnell and Mike Pompeo, because of your support of the ACLJ.

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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, 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.

Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to my heart. But it's part of our team. And it's got a piece up that we haven't gotten to yet on the broadcast about the Biden administration abandoning America's energy independence, but also how this is affecting our allies.

So, Rick, I appreciate you joining us today. Just right off the bat, I think that your piece says it starts with the idea of, quote, we will oppose. And it puts our allies like Poland and Vietnam, India, Japan, barring them from receiving U.S. energy support.

Explain that to people. Well, what's really shocking about this latest move from the Biden administration is that they're opposing certain forms of energy independence. And it's, you know, unbelievable when you think about telling other countries that they can't use coal, they can't use oil, and they can't use certain natural gas types. Now, what's really remarkable about this is that many countries have to have a mix of energy. They can't just have wind and solar. They need to have coal because they've got plants that are, you know, using coal for 20 years. They've got a source of coal, so it's cheap. Look, we all get that we want to improve the environment and be sensitive to the environment, but cutting energy and energy projects from other countries simply because it's a coal project or it's an oil project is really remarkable because they're going to find themselves in the situation like California, where they have rolling blackouts, rolling energy crises, simply because the Biden administration is demanding that these other countries do more wind and solar projects.

Otherwise, we're not going to help them fund these projects. Yeah, Rick, you also said in your piece that the new policy not only impacts our foreign partners, as we just talked about, but also penalizes U.S. energy companies. Look, one of the breakouts of the last five, six, seven years in the United States in terms of a transformation of the energy industry is that we have become, for the first time ever, an energy exporter with liquid natural gas.

Now, think about that. We've been on Middle East oil for so long here in the United States that during the Trump administration, when we moved to explore natural gas, which we have plenty of access to here in the United States, that transformed our economy. It transformed the industry. It allowed us to not purchase as much Middle East oil. It let us grow this clean energy source, which is natural gas, and it's been an explosion for American jobs. We've had so many companies grow and be able to begin to sell overseas. Certainly, we know Sempra Energy, for instance, has a big huge – it's an American company out of California.

They have a big operation in Mexico now, creating jobs both in the U.S. and in Mexico. This is an amazing opportunity for American companies, but yet this latest move from the Biden administration is that we won't be able to fund projects overseas with our partners that have certain forms of liquid natural gas that are not clean enough. That's what the Biden administration is labeling things. If they're not clean enough, if they don't meet a standard, then we're not even going to fund them. What's really shocking, Jay, is that just take a country like Germany. Germany talks a big game about clean energy and wanting to have a climate policy that is always geared towards clean energy, but they have coal plants. They use coal energy, and so does the United States. We have to be able to be smart about not cutting off these countries' cold turkey, so to speak, just simply because the energy source that they have available to them is not clean enough. They're going to have to find it elsewhere, and I would assume, Rick, they're going to be looking towards the Chinas and the Russias of the world to find it. These are not countries that want to necessarily be reliant or doing business at that level with Russia and China, but if you force them into doing it, they've got to keep the lights on.

They've got to keep the plants on. What you just said, Jordan, is totally key, because it's not like when we tell them that we're not going to fund coal plants or oil plants. They're not going to stop using coal and oil. They have to use it in their energy mix, and so it's a false choice that the Biden administration is giving them because it's really not going to cause them to do anything but look to Russia and China for coal and oil. And our products are much cleaner. I mean, there is a truth to cleaner coal.

That is the truth. If you use technology, you can create cleaner coal. And so I think that what we have to do is take these countries where they are, what is their energy mix, how are they getting their energy sources.

Yes, we want to diversify them, but we need to understand that they are going to go for the cheapest energy source for their people, and that only makes them. You know, we were energy independent just an administration ago, and it's amazing to me, Rick, that it changed so rapidly, and that impacts our national security as well. One hundred percent, and that's one of the reasons I love being with the ACLJ is that we have this holistic look when it comes to energy or human rights and foreign policy and domestic policy. It's one of the things that I'm most proud of being at ACLJ is that we get to do all sorts of different policies that interact and intermingle. I can't imagine not being a part of ACLJ, not being able to write pieces like what I just did up at ACLJ.org to be able to put some of these Biden administration policies into perspective. What does it mean for our domestic audience? What does it mean for our foreign policy audience?

How do these affect human rights? The freedom that I get to be able to write and to speak out at ACLJ is just like no other place. I'm really appreciative that we can bring together all these issues under one roof. And we've been trying to do this for people too at a time where it's easy to almost ignore the rest of the world because of COVID and because of the situation with travel and people aren't moving around and they're kind of just dealing with crisis after crisis. But it's to make sure they understand, Rick, is that really all of that that is happening is impacting you at home. And I think that by bringing you on, having you part of the team and putting these kind of new perspectives out in the articles at ACLJ.org and bringing you on to kind of explain it to everybody is that always it ties back to right at home. Yeah, that is so true because just look at this instance in particular of the Biden administration saying that we're not going to help fund foreign countries that don't have clean energy sources.

And you might think, oh, well, that's too bad for Bulgaria or Serbia or Kosovo or some other country. But it actually impacts us because if you work for a company or you live in a state where energy jobs and energy production are part of your economy, this directly impacts you and your economy. You know, as we were getting ready to close out this segment, Rick, I want to reiterate something you just said, and that is the unique role that we get to play at the American Center for Law and Justice and all of these policies. Look, I'm really humbled to be able to be a part of the team. And the only way that we get to be a part of this team, which is a big you know, when I write a piece, for instance, Jay, you know that there's an editor that helps edit it to make sure that it's correct. There are a team of people that put it up.

They're production people. This is not a cheap endeavor. But if you're hearing our voice, if you're reading the pieces at ACLJ, you know, hopefully people understand that this is something that's expensive that we need to be able to continue funding. Because I just, it's invaluable to me to be able to have a place like ACLJ that allows us to bring perspectives from foreign policy and domestic policy together. You know, I said this earlier, everybody, and Rick, I really appreciate you saying that. And, you know, you got the former director of national intelligence, who's also an ambassador to Germany, and had 10 years of experience at the United Nations. And we have the former secretary of state, who also happened to be the director of the CIA.

All of that happened this year. Rick, we appreciate your input, your insight, and your being a part of the team. But Jordan, this goes right back to why it's so important for people to stand with the ACLJ in these last days of the month. Yeah, and Rick said, you know, from his perspective, he sees the team that works with him, just on the piece, going up at ACLJ, making sure the right hyperlinks are there so that you're understanding how this links back to maybe other pieces that have been written or other work that's been done.

So you can take that, you learn a lot, but also you can share it with friends and family. And that's not one person, that's not just Rick, and it's not on the broadcast, it's whether you're watching the broadcast, listening to the broadcast, making sure both those things are working at the same time. And we're still just talking about really the production side. All of the legal work and policy work that goes into it, all the people involved there, it's because of your financial support of the ACLJ. We are grassroots organizations based on grassroots level donations. We're your $25 donation, your $35 donation. That's the key to keep the ACLJ moving forward and able to grow. In two years, even during these pandemics, we've been able to grow because of your financial support, be part of our matching challenge, double the impact of your donation we've explained throughout the broadcast. We'll do it again at the end of the show for you at ACLJ.org today.

Coming up next, we have former Secretary of State and, again, Senior Counsel for the ACLJ, Mike Pompeo, joining us. 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 Sekulow, our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joining us now. Secretary Pompeo, I want to jump right into it because we've got the Kremlins propaganda machine. It's a state-owned news network, so it's owned directly by Russia. Not just affiliated, not friendly, but actually owned by Russia. The head of the station goes on to talk about the U.S. and Ukraine.

The quote translated is, We're holding very strong cards in our hands. Our hypersonic weapons are guaranteed to produce a response that is so unpleasant for America to hear being reduced to radioactive ash. I mean, yeah, you could say it's bluster, but on the other hand, this is a new era of using nuclear weapons as a threat to America and our allies.

Jordan, you're quite right. That kind of language is relatively unprecedented from an official who is directly connected to a state that has a nuclear capability, the scale and scope that the Russians do, that Vladimir Putin controls. While there's probably some bluster in it, there's probably something going on inside of Russia where that made him say that, we should take seriously the threats, the credible threats that the Russians are presenting, not only the hypersonic weapons to which he referred, but the incredible military buildup that they've placed along Ukraine's eastern border.

This is a serious challenge. It's a challenge to the Biden administration. They watched the Bidens give them the New START treaty, a treaty that we were holding out, that we said, fine, we're happy to fix this with you, but we need something for it. The Biden administration gave it to them.

They then gave them the pipeline in exchange for nothing. They have seen this administration cave time after time, and I think they're convinced that they can get the administration to cave to the demands that Vladimir Putin has laid out again. This matters to the American people. This central idea that borders should be respected and sovereignty is important and democracy should be rewarded is something the American people understand impacts them every day, and I hope this administration doesn't allow the Putin team that you quoted from there today, displace the central understanding. Well, this is Jay, Mike, and supposedly the same media outlet and the same spokesperson is saying that Putin has put forward written agreements to NATO, and which he once guarantees that NATO never expands at any time in the future. The same media host that Jordan quoted said, Russia's prepared and handed over to the Americans its written proposals on strategic stability, or more simply, on the prevention of nuclear war since we are already at a critical point, to be honest.

It's simple. The U.S. and NATO must roll back from our borders. Otherwise, we will, figuratively speaking, roll up to their borders and create symmetrical, unacceptable risks.

If you put a gun to our head, we will respond in kind. Now, this is the language coming out of a state-controlled media in Moscow. These voices almost certainly are reflecting what Vladimir Putin intends them to reflect. Is that your point?

The state control is real. These are messages that Putin himself intends for Western audiences, probably for his own internal audiences as well. But remember, Jay, he knows that Latvia is not going to invade Russia, right?

He knows that there's no threat to his homeland. This is what he is proffering when he talks about, well, we can't expand NATO. What's serious and what matters most is that we are clear about the things that we have expectations for. We were working to try and find Jay, the ACLJ has talked about this before, a good arms treaty makes sense. We were working to find a place with him on these strategic weapons systems, along with the Chinese and their new nuclear-capable programs.

But we couldn't get to a place which protected America. I'm afraid that whether it's climate change that is driving it or something else that doesn't protect America's security interests, this administration probably hears those words and is prepared to say, look, we're not prepared to do the right things to protect the things that matter to every American all across our country. And I think one thing, Secretary Pompeo, that our listeners need to prepare for for the Aussie-American people is that it's like Putin is putting in place a possibility where he can blame his invasion of Ukraine, if they take those steps to go further than what they're already doing, on the U.S. and NATO.

And he's going to say, I had to do this. It's because of the United States and NATO. And again, people have to be pretty educated on this topic to understand why that's not true.

Yes, Jordan, indeed. Yesterday, I saw some reporting that suggested that the Russians were accusing the United States of placing chemical weapons systems inside of Ukraine to create a provocation. The U.S. government did the right thing. They denied it. Well, I'm not privy to all the actions.

I am very confident that that did not take place. This is classic KGB, Russian, Soviet disinformation designed to make them look like the victim, not the aggressor that they are. As we look to 2022, just days ahead, what do you see as the most pressing national security issue we're going to face in this new year?

Oh, goodness. The long-term challenge that we'll face right away is continuing to press the Chinese Communist Party. Answers about how we've now had millions of people killed across the world from a virus that escaped from their country. Answers to why they're holding people in the western part of the province and using slave labor and forced sterilizations upon those people.

Lots of answers about Chinese Communist Party hegemony. But what's taking place in Vienna and Tehran on these negotiations with the Iranians is also something that is very concerning. The administration has now thrown up their hands. They're turning to blame the Trump administration for the place that they've found themselves in. And it is the kind of place that this administration has found itself before and has not demonstrated resolve.

You can tick them off, perhaps starting first and foremost with Afghanistan and the way that they so poorly exited there and cost 13 Americans to be killed. Mr. Secretary, we've been telling and talking with our donors around the country and those that listen to this broadcast or watch us on television how critical it's been for us to have your expertise as part of our team. And I just want to thank you for being part of the team here at the ACLJ.

It makes a huge difference. Your insights are phenomenal and our ability to take action items because that is great. So from all of us, thank you for being part of the team here at the ACLJ. Thank you, Jay. Thank you, Jordan. Bless you. You all have a very Merry Christmas and a good start to the New Year as well, sir. You too.

Merry Christmas. And folks, for all of you, again, just think about these last two. These were live segment discussions. And the work that we're able to do behind the scenes, what we're able to discuss on air to get you informed at a level where you can't just – you're not going to click on any cable news outlet and get that much information in 20 minutes. And that's what that was.

Twenty minutes you had Rick Rinnell not on for three minutes, but 11 minutes discussions on issues which might not be, again, enough flashy enough to get on a cable news three-minute segment. But you've got to understand because those are the real threats that we have. They become the flashy issue real quick when you get an invasion of Russia – I mean of Ukraine by Russia or an invasion of Taiwan by the Chinese at the same time we learn that we're cutting off our allies and our energy support.

How we are really dismantling our own standing as a U.S. superpower. But we're able to bring all this to you, again, it's because of your financial support. This last minute of the broadcast I told you I would explain why it's key right now and why it's a great time to donate. It's of course the end of the year and we are working through the end of the year. I know even on the vaccine mandate case we've got – we know the Supreme Court on December 30th has got required briefs to the federal government, may have a response to the next day. So within 2021 still.

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