Dr. Alveda King Addresses Weekend of Mass Shootings

This is Logan Sekulow.

After a weekend of mass shootings, we are joined by special guest, Dr. Alveda King. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.

This is Logan Sekulow sitting in for my dad and brother after a rough weekend. Let's just all address it. We're going to have a conversation about it.

Let's take a different maybe approach than we typically would. Actually talk about what's happening in this country when after this weekend we had two mass shootings. Now that doesn't include obviously the mass crime that happens throughout the country. Chicago alone, there was 30 plus people shot just this weekend. But then we also have these situations of very targeted attacks. And one from a very young man that was clearly and I think kind of irrefutably racially based that came out of New York.

And then another one targeted at a church in California. Now this opens up a big conversation that goes well beyond gun laws, goes well beyond anything we can do. And it goes beyond what people are saying in Washington. And also Thad Bennett is here.

We're going to talk to him too. Because this is a topic that can get politicized very easily. And as you can see over the weekend, it has been. But is this a much bigger topic that we need to be addressing when it comes to the mental health and wellbeing of specifically our younger people who have grown up now in the world of social media, have grown up in the world of division and chaos and now two years of lockdown.

And is this a result of a lot of things beyond just what's happening at face value? I want to have that discussion with you. And I want to have that discussion as well with our guest, Dr. Alveda King. And you know her from Atlanta, Georgia. She serves as the chair for the Center for the American Dream.

But she's also the daughter of the late civil rights activist, slain activist Reverend A.D. King and the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King. You've heard her talk about life. You've heard her talk about race relations. And we're honored to have her on in the next segment. So we're going to discuss that with her. But I want to hear from you as well.

Give me a call at 1-800-684-3110. Be kind and calm to our phone screener as he tries to address the specific questions and comments that people have on this very sensitive topic. But we can't just let things breeze by and not address some of these big problems that are happening.

I understand it is something that gun control and gun rights and the Second Amendment come up all the time in Washington. But whenever there is this kind of wave of mass shootings, which is horrifying, it's something I don't want to live in a world where we have to be worrying about this truthfully. I hate that we do.

I hate that it has to even cross your mind. But it can quickly be politicized. And I'm concerned whenever that happens, specifically heading into midterm elections, that people seize on an inappropriate moment when really we need to be talking about a much, much bigger problem. Yeah, you're correct to be concerned about that, Logan. First, look, let me just say what is patently obvious here. This is devastatingly heartbreaking.

And the depths of evil and racism and instability are just staggering. And my heart breaks, Logan, for the families impacted here. And look, I would tell you, we've got a duty to ask the questions that you're asking.

We have to be asking the question, what works? What prevents the next attack from happening or what starts to heal some of these divides? But unfortunately, Logan, I will tell you, in the town in which I sit, there's not a lot of that introspection going on really from any side.

You'll see a pretty quick, immediate political reactions. And Logan, I just have to tell you, most of the solutions that are put out there, they might feel good on a bumper sticker in a campaign slogan. But Logan, I'm just not convinced they answer that question.

What works? What role can we play to mitigate this in the future? Those are the questions that all of us have to be asking.

And this town, Logan, not particularly good at doing that. No, not at all. And we'll be joining, like I said, the next segment by Dr. King to discuss a lot of these topics, as well as the life conversation and how that all is connected. And trust me, it is. In the final segment of this half hour, the first half hour, we're going to be taking your phone calls. So I'd love to hear from you. Give us a call.

1-800-684-3110. I want your opinion, your thoughts on this conversation. This is a kid who committed this, an adult now at 18, who is definitely on a watch list, but some things failed to stop it. We're going to discuss that as well. Coming up.

Welcome back to Sekulow. We are joined by a very special guest today, and that is Dr. Alveda King, who you may know because you've just seen her all over media for the many years, but more recently you've seen her on Fox and Fox Nation. But you also have someone who grew up really in not just the pro-life movement, but in some ways obviously grew up in the civil rights movement, civil rights activist father.

You may know as Reverend A.D. King, who was slain and obviously her uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King. Now, Dr. King, you're joining us today and we're talking the first segment of the show, we had to talk about what was happening. Obviously there was mass shootings over the weekend, something that is maybe becoming all too common in America.

One of them was specifically race-based. I want to get your thoughts and views on that, because if I remember back around New Year's, you were on Fox News and you kind of had a prayer for calm, a call to calm. And that we need to all calm down and have maybe more of these conversations that are happening while we have this sort of mental health crisis and so much more happening over the last few years.

I want to get your initial feedback from what you saw this weekend. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you. I'm going to answer that question, but first, because of this terrible shooting and my heart is so full, we are praying for the families. The American dream is still alive. The American response with those church members coming and apprehending obviously a very disturbed man. So I just want everybody to know that we are praying and we are very grieved for the losses and the injuries. So let me say that first. But yes, we have gone through some tumultuous times recently and it's been amazing. COVID didn't help anybody. And as soon as we are beginning to recover, then we are reeling with Ukraine. A decision, the decision that will determine whether we, the people, will get a chance state to state to take another look at that bad United States Supreme Court decision that we call Rosie Wade.

All of that is going on. But I want to encourage people to fear not. And as a Christian woman, of course, we do have God. We have Jesus. Now, if you say I'm not a Christian, that's OK. We still love you, but we're going to be praying here in America. So the answer that my dad, Reverend A.D. King, would give my mom, who just returned from Israel on a prayer pilgrimage.

My uncle Michael became granddaddy, whole family, King family legacy. Do not panic. Do not fall apart.

When we see these terrible things, we see the American dream rising up and rescuing and taking action. Don't sit back. Don't be afraid. Don't lock yourself away at home. But live, live, live.

And as we live, and that means from the womb to the tomb, the little children in the womb as well, the sick, the elderly, the veterans, the rich, anybody. We have to live and not be afraid and step up and answer with solutions. We can do that. We brought up solutions. I think that's a problem. And that's the question we've even posed to our audience.

What are solutions when these type of things happen? Obviously, we're going to touch on life. We're going to talk a lot about that coming up here.

But when you have a weekend like this, what are some of those solutions? Because we look at, I would say, as a dad of young children, I see what they're exposed to daily. I see the way they're having to deal with, even already having to deal with sort of social media and the online world. And a little differently even than the way that I grew up in the 80s and the 90s. It's a completely different world just a couple decades later. This does seem to be a problem that goes well beyond just someone was radicalized by watching a certain news source or radicalized by something. This feels like a much bigger issue that's in America. As you said, we've got to pray and we've got to get more motivated to really reach out and see what's going on, especially in terms of our younger people.

Well, here's a solution. Now, my grandmother, Alberta King, in 1974 was playing the organ at Ebony Baptist Church and was gunned down. So some things, there's no new thing under the sun. Things used to be done in the dark.

They're being done more overtly. So we are not in denial. We can't just say, oh, everything is roses and peaches and cream.

No, it's not. So we have to be alert, sober, and vigilant because the devil, that's our adversaries, going about like a roaring lion. So first be attentive.

Then be supportive. See human beings as human beings, not separate races, one blood. You see everybody as a brother and a sister. Martin Luther King, we must learn to live together as brothers.

I added sisters. So the human race, the one blood human race. Now, we do have security in churches now. Unfortunately, you need that. You have to be alert when someone comes into your church body. That's a little different.

Not afraid and get them out of here. We don't know them. They're not from this town.

They're not from this church. No, we do not cut each other off. But we are more alert, more aware, less fearful. We should not be afraid.

And so this is why you didn't ask me about this. But defund the police. Get rid of all the police.

So you have a lawless nation. No, make friends with the incident responders, the police, the fire trucks, the ambulance, all of that. Make friends with your community.

Do not be afraid, but do not be foolish. Absolutely. You brought up obviously a lot and I think a lot of people can take from that. When it comes to life, this is interesting because I've followed your career for the many decades at this point as a pro-life advocate. You saw some people on Washington when the when the leaked Supreme Court decision. And look, we hopefully it stays.

We're still obviously all praying that it does or some version that similar stays. But I saw some people on Capitol Hill, Elizabeth Warren, and some of these people saying this is what these pro-life activists, they even told you this is what they've been fighting for for decades. I merely thought of people like my family and your family who have been fighting this fight for decades. And did you think obviously we're still awaiting a final decision?

We always were hopeful and prayerful that we would see a reversal of Roe v. Wade. But it is still when you saw that initial news, it is still pretty, pretty shocking to see as someone who is in the pro-life movement for so long. You know, one thing that has disturbed me greatly, even the homes of the Supreme Court justice being just belabored, beleaguered and all of that. People out there yelling and screaming, law has gone out the window.

These are the types of decisions that have to be made very seriously. And the people who have offered themselves to serve as United States Supreme Court justices should be safe and secure and not intimidated. And so I'm very disturbed by the attitude of America and all of that. Now, these are the people who are saying, oh, no, all of our rights are going to go away. We won't be able to get abortions.

Well, there's a better way to serve America and serve humanity than killing America and killing humanity. We have the obligation and responsibility. That's why the laws have to be re-examined state by state without terrorizing the justices so that people can examine. There's so much that has changed with that law that it's not law, it's the law of the land, but the decision.

Because, I mean, you're an attorney, you know, it's really a decision by the Supreme Court, it didn't pass through the legislature, it didn't change the Constitution. So there's so much that needs to be re-examined because we're talking about should be human rights and civil rights to human beings, whether they're in the womb or not. You can see on those 40 ultrasounds, they're perfectly, really human beings.

Technology has changed so much and so rapidly that it's hard. That argument's gone. I feel like the argument of whether this is a human being or not, I feel like that argument is gone and they're even starting to acknowledge that it's gone. Now, we only have a couple minutes, but I know that this is a sensitive topic.

Look, I've seen it honestly more than I thought. People who I know that are conservative or people that I know that I've seen more moderate saying, you know, I'm pro-life personally or maybe I've had some decisions I made in the past. But this wasn't an easy thing for a lot of people.

I mean, for you specifically, again, really a couple minutes for people who are sort of uncomfortable or unsure, maybe due to their own decisions in the past or maybe their decisions moving forward, who have had your questions about Roe v. Wade. This wasn't easy for you. You were not a pro-life activist from the start. I was not. My granddaddy, Martin Luther King, Sr., asked my mother not to abort me with a DNC in 1950.

So that's a man saying, hey, don't do this. I saw this baby in a dream three years ago, bright skin, bright red hair, she's going to bless many people, prophetic ultrasound. Now, I drank the Kool-Aid, so to speak. I was tricked and had two abortions myself and a miscarriage because of damage to my cervix from the abortion. And so I had to repent of all of that. And when I saw an ultrasound of my baby who's now 40-something years old, he's an attorney, I had almost, I guess, a breakdown.

I said, oh, my God, they lied. That's a person. That's a baby. So I'm not trying to be hypocritical.

I had an abortion myself. But, you know, women who say I'm not going to let a man tell me what to do. Well, what about Dr. Fauci? He told everybody what to do, women went ahead and did that. So if a man says, hey, like my granddaddy, baby, that's my legacy and yours, don't do this. I mean, no, we have to be logical.

We have to understand that these are human beings in the womb. If you're like me, I did repent. I'm sorry. It was not the best thing I've ever done.

It's just bad. And my body, my health suffered as a result. So I woke up to the truth that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And it's unjust, whether it's a sick person, whatever it is, it's still unjust.

That's a person. Thank you so much, Dr. King, for joining us. And I will post, make sure we post where people can follow you on all of your accounts and everything that you're working on right now, doing great work. I appreciate you coming here and helping to educate and inform our listeners and also tell a little bit of your story.

I know it's got to be hard to tell that story so often, but it impacts so many people. And I want to thank you for joining us today. We are going to be taking your phone calls in the next segment. If you heard Dr. King and you had some thoughts or comments or you have thoughts on, again, the horrible shootings that happened over the weekend and what we can do about this crisis happening in America, give us a call, 1-800-684-3110. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Secula.

We're going to be taking a lot of your calls. I just kind of want to recap. First, thanks to Dr. King for joining us in the last segment. If you didn't catch that, I encourage you to go listen to it on the podcast, go listen to it on replays on social media.

You can find it on all of our channels or on ACLJ.org. We're talking mainly about, and obviously there is obviously the shooting that happened at the church in California, but the one that's getting a lot of attention or more attention because obviously how many people perished in this was one that came out of New York. And there was an 18-year-old who was about to turn 19 last spring, graduated from high school, kind of set up all the red flags, including even in one of his final assignments at school brought up the fact that he wanted to commit a murder-suicide.

And then he claimed to be joking. He was taken into question, later released. When someone has an issue like this, New York has what's called a red flag law, which is an extreme protection order. It's effective in New York, prevents individuals who show signs of being a threat to themselves or others from purchasing or possessing any kind of firearm. I will tell you, I'm sure that's controversial for a lot of people who are listening. However, this state put in that law and guess who was not added to that list? And this was after the Parkland shooting, and there were reasons why people react to these kinds of situations differently.

And I understand and I respect it completely. Didn't go into the database and then went in to legally purchase this firearm in New York. So this is sort of a much bigger problem. Not only do we have what I feel is a—the guy who passed all his background checks and all of that, went around it the legal way. But not only did we have a problem in terms of someone putting in the information, just getting that information out there. He was potentially on a watch list, which seems to be time and time again the problem that happens is these people are known in their community as potential risks who have a lot of issues.

And I think it stems back way beyond—way beyond—obviously he wrote this manifesto that is racially charged and horrifying. But we need to get to the core of these problems that are happening in our country, especially with kids. We live in a completely different world, and mental health is something that is sadly still not talked about near enough. Especially in terms of kids who just went through two years of—especially in New York and New Jersey—remote learning and went through a lot of things over the last few years.

Spent a lot of time by themselves. A lot of thoughts can happen, especially if you're that age. And you have to be able to identify it in your household. I think that's something that we don't talk about very much at all, which is if your child seems to—you know your kids better than anyone. You know your grandkids better than anyone. You know how they're feeling often. Sometimes this stuff is all kept in, but often it is hard—it is very hard as a parent to identify if your child is going through a mental health crisis because you feel like a failure as a parent. But at this point, we have to realize they have been putting under so much pressure that we don't understand. Just we don't even—we can't even fathom what they're going through.

And even the youngest of ages at five, six, seven years old are dealing with things you never had to deal with as a kid. And instead of making this a political moment where we pick right and left and we decide what we're going to do politically, who you're going to vote for, which I think is very important, obviously. But this isn't that issue. This issue doesn't matter if you're left or right. It doesn't matter if you're a conservative or a Democrat or a liberal or however you want to identify yourself. That doesn't matter.

What happens is it's the hearts and the minds of our—especially for this situation—our younger people and trying to relate to them in a way that's a lot harder than simply politics. I'm going to take some phone calls. Our first call is coming from Deneen in Buffalo, New York. And I thought if there was going to be someone who needs to kick off the phone calls, it needed to be Deneen. And if you want to be on the air, 1-800-684-3110.

You've got about four minutes. Deneen, you're on the air. Hi. Thank you so much. And I just want to say I support you all and cheer you on Facebook constantly. I just want to say first our community in Buffalo, the other communities around here, our churches, the communities, even our Buffalo Bills team. We are stepping up.

We're supporting these families through prayer, through anything we can do. And we do have a great community here in Buffalo and surrounding areas. Second of all, I'd like to say that it definitely is being politicized here in Buffalo and in our communities here. Governor Hochul, she's already made mention that the rhetoric from our past administration fuels this stuff.

She was also the President is supposed to come here tomorrow. But yet he's it's funny how he's missed other math things. But he's coming to this one because race and gun laws are such a huge issue. And so it is being politicized and it's too it's fitting their agenda, which which stinks, because as you said, it shouldn't be.

It doesn't matter. You know, we need to step up for our children, for our communities. But it's really even some of the churches, it's sad to say, are politicizing, politicizing this. And that is very sad to see.

Yeah, well, I mean, our prayers to everyone in Buffalo and that community as well. And when it comes to even the church is politicizing it, I think we all know that it can can quickly become the case. But in Washington, D.C., in the surrounding areas and everything that's happening, we know that the politicization of an issue like this. Of course, there are obvious connections to politics because you have the right always talking about fewer gun laws and fewer restrictions.

Second Amendment rights of the left who are constantly going the other way about it. But when there are mass shootings, it is hard to to really not make this politics when it comes to even your church. I think it's tough because that's the first place your mind goes. And sadly, that's true. Your first place your mind goes, well, how's this going to affect your local community?

How's it going to affect your laws? It's kind of sad. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a natural inclination to go political. There's also a danger, Logan, I think, to step out of these issues altogether because it's difficult to find footing for solutions.

And that's honestly why I appreciated what Dr. King said so much, because I actually think, Logan, that the role for people of faith and especially our churches is actually disproportionately large in an issue like this one. I mean, look, all of the issues we talk about on this broadcast have a mix of solutions, right? Some of them are political. Some of them are personal. Some of them are societal. Logan, I think on an issue like this one, a dramatically larger portion of it is societal and personal. I mean, you talked a minute ago about how New York had a red flag law.

Clearly, this is an individual with a red flag. So, Logan, it did not prevent this from happening. But we as people of faith, we as institutions of faith, churches, we need to be able to identify people that are not living out of a sound mind and come alongside them and try to remedy it. So I would say to Deneen, I'm glad that churches in Buffalo are stepping up to the plate.

And I have no doubt, certainly the politicization has infiltrated churches as well. But, Logan, this is an issue where that really is a threat to finding the way forward. Absolutely. It's a big problem.

It's without easy solutions, as you said. It's something we're going to keep discussing, I'm sure, in the coming days. Now, in the next segment of the broadcast, those watching right now, I want you to be aware that we're going to kind of divert and play you some stuff that we talked about over the last week. Because there are some important issues that happened that you may have missed. A lot of people were out.

A lot of people are traveling. And we really want to dive in that. So in the next half hour, you're going to see some content that's sort of the best of the last few days. We're going to talk about what happened with Elon Musk and Twitter. We're going to talk about a lot of problems that are happening.

And maybe we can offer even some solutions. We have a lot of crises happening right now. You have the border crisis. You have the formula crisis that's happening, shortage. Now you have a weekend of gun violence. It's a really tough time to find the calm, as Dr. King called for, in society.

Gas prices. It feels like every day there's another new, giant problem that we're all having to deal with. But I encourage you to stay calm.

I encourage you to talk to your family. Discuss these issues. Discuss mental health. Discuss race within your home. I'd love for that to be what you took away from this show.

Is to maybe involve a little bit more of what's going on in your family's life. Support the work always at the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. Make sure you go there not only to support, but you can obviously see some incredible content that's produced each and every day by our amazing team here. Again, that's at ACLJ.org.

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

And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. First I want to remind folks, the vote in the U.S. Senate, we won that vote, 51 to 49, the extreme abortion legislation where they attempted not just to legislate Roe v. Wade, but to legislate abortion on demand through the nine months, no restrictions. And even the restrictions that have been in place under Roe v. Wade would go.

It was 51 to 49, all 50 Republicans plus one Democrat, that one Democrat's Joe Manchin. Now the issue there that we're watching is that Joe Manchin's already said, though, he would be good with codifying Roe v. Wade. That legislation exists by two Republicans, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, who voted no yesterday on the more extreme legislation. The question now is, does the abortion industry give the green light to start a legislative move on that codification of Roe? I mean, that would be basically taking Roe and exactly codifying it into law, which again would be bad because we believe in our legal analysis that we could beat that in federal court.

But again, it keeps the issue in the federal courts instead of actually returning it to the states like that draft leak opinion talks about. So we're updating you on that just to update you there. And of course, a big thank you to everybody who participated in our matching moment. We doubled our goal. The original goal was $250,000. We raised over $500,000 over those two days.

So a huge thank you to people who participated in the matching moment. So we have the resources to get this work done. Harry Hutchinson, our director of policy, has a piece up at ACLJ.org called President Biden's Extremism. We've just been talking about this in the Department of Justice going after parents at school board meetings. And then we've got on top of that the new misinformation disinformation governance board run by someone that thinks they could edit your tweets on Twitter, that she should have the authority to edit and put context in your tweets. So in other words, you don't have free speech. They can correct your speech. And you look at all of this, Harry, and it points to a very draconian environment where the government's heavy hand is at the people's free speech, which is always dangerous.

Absolutely. And I think if you look at Nina Jankiewicz, for instance, she doesn't believe you're entitled to have speech unless it's approved speech, which is directly contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. So one of the things that we should notice is that the Biden administration typically hires individuals who fail to respect the United States Constitution. They fail to respect the rule of law and they hope that they can continue to get away with it. And I think, again, it's up to the American people to respond to this infringement, in my opinion, of their constitutional rights by getting engaged and by going out and basically supporting candidates who support the United States Constitution. And you said also what the Department of Justice has done is weaponized the FBI.

It is. The FBI has become a gun, a mortar, a weapon, just like they did with the IRS that we beat back. They are now taking the FBI and they're saying, if you don't comport with the speech that we like, the speech that we approve, the speech that is within the parameters that our, to use Harry's excellent phrase, our Ministry of Truth says is the speech that's permissible, we're going to make you a target. We're going to make you a terrorist. We're going to open a file on you in Washington, D.C. We're going to tail you. We're going to come to your house and we're going to get you. That's exactly what they're saying here.

Don't think it's any less than that. Congressman Mike Johnson, who co-authored this letter and went to Mayor Cardin last night, is going to be joining us in the next segment of the broadcast. I just want you to understand that one of the examples of the whistleblower was a mob the FBI investigated after a tip because she was part of a, quote, right wing moms group.

You know what it's called? Moms for Liberty. But, oh, it's right wing. So you've got to investigate that. These are people that had the FBI come to them. An FBI file opened up on them because they had the audacity to speak out against an elected official, against a public official and a school board member.

This again, it's the basis of trying to get you to shut up and sit down and not engage politics. As you know, folks, as we reported, there's a letter that went out to Attorney General Merrick Garland from Congressman Jim Jordan, Congressman Mike Johnson. Congressman Johnson's joining us now. He's a ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. Congressman Johnson, I want to go right to you with this letter because you've got whistleblower reports now that contradict Merrick Garland's testimony to your committee about parents being investigated by the FBI for voicing their concerns at school board meetings.

That's right, my friend. This is a big deal. You know, we have been investigating this for some time. Our Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, you know, we have jurisdiction over the Department of Justice and all of its agencies and the division.

We've been investigating the Biden administration's misuse of law enforcement resources. Part of that has been to target concerned parents. They've been doing this since last fall. Remember all the angry mom affairs and all the dads were going to the school board meetings. They were they were protesting. They were letting their voices be heard. They were exercising the First Amendment, Jordan, and they were they were letting these school boards on the local level know that they're not on board with the CRT nonsense. They didn't like the mask mandates and all that.

It's a quintessential part of our process. But here's the problem. The Department of Justice and the FBI targeted those parents and considered them a threat.

Now, here's the deal. When Merrick Garland came in front of our committee in October, we asked him under oath right in front of the Judiciary Committee whether that was true or not. He said that those parents had never been targeted. Now we have a whistleblower that confirms our worst fears. Mike, this is Jay Sekulow. And you write in the letter in sworn testimony before this committee, you denied that this was to Merrick Garland. You denied that the Department of Justice or its components were using counterterrorism statutes and resources to target parents at school board meetings. We now have evidence that, contrary to your testimony, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has labeled at least a dozen of its investigations into parents with a threat tag created by the FBI's Counterterrorism Division to assess and track investigations related to school boards. We just were talking about, Mike, that you put all this together, all the actions of the Biden administration over the last several months, the Governance Board for Misinformation and Disinformation.

The President really targeting anybody that disagrees with him is ultra-maga. And then you have parents being targeted by the Department of Justice. What do you want to see happen here? Well, ultimately, we need accountability. We've got to make sure that the Department of Justice is not weaponized to become a political arm of the Democrat Party. And that's exactly what they've done, Jay. All these surreal dystopian developments that you just described and many others lead only to one logical conclusion. The DOJ is no longer this neutral arbiter, the agency that's in charge with maintaining our justice system and making sure that the law is equal, everyone's equal before law and justice is blind, all that.

They've thrown it all out the window. They're using this to advance political objectives and go after their political opponents. And sadly and very unfortunately, not a dozen, but dozens, now we know because of this whistleblower, dozens of parents who have just shown up at their local school board meetings to show their care and concern for what their children are being exposed to. They've been labeled as domestic terrorists.

This absolutely happened. The threat tag, by the way, is EDU officials. That's the FBI's tag they put on these files. And they're treating these people like they're enemies of the state.

It's unconscionable. And, Jay, at the end of the day, the greatest threat here, you and I both know, is that it's undermining the people's faith in our institutions. And if we lose our faith in our system of justice, brother, in a constitutional republic, we're in real trouble. Well, it reminds me, just one second here, it reminds me exactly of what we had to do with the IRS when they targeted groups.

The same thing based on their names. Liberty, 9-11, Freedom. That became a be on the lookout list. And then we had the, I'll never forget in the discovery, getting those emails from Lois Lerner where she said, let's get in touch with the FBI and the FEC and bring a criminal case because that will shut this down. So we know where this can go. And we took action on that.

Of course, we won. But you had to take legal action to do it. Well, that's right. And that may be a component of this. In the meantime, Jim Jordan and I, in our letter to Mayor Garland, we told them, listen, number one, you have to now produce all the documents and materials that we have been sending these requests for almost 18 months now on this issue and things related to it. They haven't been forthcoming.

They haven't shown us what they are required under the law to produce for Congress. So we demanded that. We also said, take reasonable steps right now and immediately to preserve all those records responsive to our letters because you know what they'll do, Jay, they'll get rid of the evidence. So this is serious stuff.

It goes to the highest level. This is the top law enforcement official in the country. And remember, what's so ironic about this is Mayor Garland, they told us, remember, he was going to be on the Supreme Court. As you well know, Jay, they told us he was the lion of the left. This guy is supposed to be the smartest, the man of the highest integrity on the left. And it turns out he just raised his hand and lied to Congress.

I mean, this is this is really, really serious stuff, but we are not going to let it go. What I'm concerned about, Congressman, too, is the idea that in some of these most of these examples, it's someone who is using political speech saying, you know what, we're going to get rid of you guys. The school board officials, they're they're elected.

The school board members are elected officials. And the idea that in America you can't say to someone, you know what, we're going to beat you politically, we're going to run candidates against you, that suddenly that makes you a threat. It makes you're inciting violence if you express displeasure with their policies. I mean, this idea, again, what I'm concerned about is that there's no longer this idea in our country. It's not shared by both political parties anymore that we protect free speech. In fact, now saying that you're a free speech absolutist is a bad thing in America. But we've heard a use by this disinformation board, this awful but lawful, of course, they're defining what awful is. I mean, I think here there's the there's the disillusion with the institutions of government.

But then there's the second idea, which is they really just want all these parents and everybody who may have been politically motivated to get involved to sit back and say, you know what, I'm going to make the calculation. I'd rather not have the FBI knocking on my door, so I'm not going to show up. I'm not going to voice my concern.

I'm not going to get involved. That's exactly right, Jordan. And the three of us have been serving this arena in this arena, defending our fundamental freedoms and free speech, religious liberty, our whole careers, because we saw that a day like this may come one day. And we're here now.

Right. You have the government, the highest levels of power in the country labeling citizens who have disfavored opinion. They're late. You know, we had a press conference yesterday. We're going to defund that disinformation board to give it our best shot.

Jim Jordan and Lauren Bobert and others. And we stood there and I stood in front of this whole cadre of Hill reporters, you know, Washington Capitol Hill reporters. And I said to them, guys, everybody wake up out of your stupor and remember, this is not who we are in America. In America, we do not trust the government to be the arbiter of what is true and acceptable speech.

That's called tyranny, guys. You're the free press. Right. The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech and a free press.

Guess what? That's in jeopardy right now because the government may disfavor what you say tomorrow. Right. We're all in jeopardy. We have to stop this. We have to keep government in check and we have to defend freedom. And it's never been more important to do that than it is right now. Congressman Mike Johnson, a good friend of ours for a long time, a fellow worker and for religious freedom, for First Amendment freedoms. And it's always great working with you, Mike.

And I'm thrilled that you're heading this up with our friend Jim Jordan. This is really important. Thanks, Mike. And folks, again, Congressman Johnson has run into a committee hearing, but I want you to understand, too, they have exposed this. So now they're going to be able to say not to Mayor Carlin, it's not just an idea that the FBI might be doing this. They have a whistleblower who's providing them information. They get federal protections for that whistleblower to provide information to Congress because, again, they have the oversight. They have the power of the purse. Like he was talking about defunding and things like that.

The idea, and even when you're in the minority party, you're still on the committees. You have the ability to seek information. The idea here is that it's no longer just hypothetical.

Right. They've got the evidence now that the parents are actually getting the knocks from the FBI. You know, I'm wondering if these parents, you look at what their civil rights claims and violations have been here, could be very significant. So what we're saying is we're looking at all this in totality. As we put together our efforts, and you saw how successful those efforts could be on the pro-life situation, where we were able to defeat that bill and now we're looking at the legal work. Hopefully, Alito's leaked opinion will be the opinion. It will be a big day for children in America. And stop the slaughter of unborn children that has taken place for decades now. At least reduce it. But I want to say this. These kind of encroachments on free speech and fundamental liberty are the reason the ACLJ exists. And I want to again, and Jordan joins me with this, Logan joins me with this, our whole team joins us.

Thank you. We had a moment that we realized that we were going to have to expend significant resources in a very short period of time because of the leak of this opinion and to combat the attempt to intimidate judges, the attempt to get legislation through, or maybe even pack the Supreme Court. And we had to act really quick. And we did it, it was called a moment, we've never done it like that before, where we had a matching challenge for a moment. And it was literally Tuesday and Wednesday and that was it. And we met our goals, exceeded our goals because of your support of the ACLJ. And I know, I filled up my car with gas yesterday too folks, I know what it's like out there. It is unbelievable. $105.50 to fill my car up yesterday, it's an SUV.

And I was low on gas. But $105, so knowing that you all sacrificially gave makes a huge difference. And so all of our entire team at the American Center for Law and Justice, from the people that you don't see behind the studio to the lawyers and government affairs people, to our entire teams around the globe, thank you for supporting the work of the ACLJ.

This is Logan Sekulow, by the way. We're talking about the news that has come out that the monumental deal that Elon Musk had planned to take over Twitter, one of the strongest, most powerful social media platforms, and the most divisive and destructive, in my personal opinion, was going to be taken over by, at minimum, a guy who is all about free speech, free speech advocate. You may agree with them and disagree with him on a lot of other issues, but you can at least agree with his point of view is likely on free speech. Now, he did an interview just the last couple days and talked specifically about the ban of President Trump. I think a lot of people know that's where sort of the bigger divide happened. I would say it happened years before then on Twitter, but that was sort of the end-all for a lot of people. And to some degree, President Trump was what saved Twitter initially, because back prior to President Trump's election, Twitter was really struggling, and so we're thinking back now to 2015. And then President Trump announces that he's running for President, and the interaction that people were getting from, one, a Presidential candidate, and then what turned into be an actual U.S. President, it really kind of lifted Twitter in a moment where there was a lot of people questioning the future of it to begin with. So they had four good years, and then they banned President Trump, and it becomes the liberal cesspool that it has been. And I think the numbers are wonky.

I think they're strange. If you really look at how social media is controlled, look at right now. Right now, when I'm broadcasting live to you, some of you guys are listening to this taped or watching it later or listening on radio.

Let's just look at our social media platforms, if you will. On Facebook right now, we have on the page we're broadcasting from roughly four, four and a half million Facebook likes. There are currently 1,200 people watching us live right now on Facebook. Now, take that back a few years, there was 10,000 people sometimes watching live, and that's the number they're reporting.

Who knows what that number really is? Go over to Rumble, which has become the free speech advocate. There are more people watching right now at Rumble, a much narrower base. On this channel, there's 170,000 subscribers.

And over, what is watching on Facebook is watching right now on Rumble. So these numbers are getting skewed and people are getting aware of it, or even inactive accounts. It's not necessarily all fake accounts or bot accounts. A lot of people that signed up for Facebook 15 years ago, a lot of people that signed up for Twitter 15 years ago and gave up on the platform.

Maybe didn't deactivate or delete their account, but they just left. And a lot of that did stem from political division. And it got even worse when President Trump was essentially removed from the platform. Now, they asked Elon Musk, potentially the new owner of Twitter, as we know, he right now says it's on hold as they do their due diligence, but he's still committed to doing it. And we all hope he does.

Well, not all. We'll get to who is not thrilled about that a little bit later. But let's hear from Elon Musk when he was finally asked, and this is what I can really appreciate about this guy, is when a hard question comes. He doesn't give you some political, you know, answer that doesn't make any sense.

That's, you know, flipping it on the narrative and making sure that it doesn't really answer the question. He's pretty darn direct. So let's hear from Elon Musk. I do think that it was not correct to ban Donald Trump. I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice. He is not going to be on Truth Social, as will a large part of the right in the United States.

And so I think this could end up being, frankly, worse than having a single forum where everyone can debate. So there you go. Not only putting off Truth Social, but saying, yeah, it was not correct. And I believe later on he actually says it was morally wrong to do that. Now, you can decide that for yourself.

But it does start a very interesting conversation. And when that happened, when he said, I'm going to put President Trump potentially back on, I believe it was wrong. Now, he said he was, as of now, committed to just be on Truth Social.

And why wouldn't he? It's his own platform. There's millions of people there. It's, you know, fairly nice. I will say that. It's nice to post something and not just have thousands of, like you said, fake accounts, bought accounts or accounts paid for. Remember, there's a lot of this, too. People that, businesses that pay for people, pay for fake accounts to then go after conservatives, go after, and look, that's not all media.

I'm not even going to say that. There are sports products that are made or TV products where there are thousands of bots that are made to go after them because this is sort of the modern technological entertainment warfare, if you will, political warfare. It's not just done in a very clean-cut, easy way to understand. And obviously, you have all the international things. You have the Chinese government.

You have the Russian government. You have other places that are putting out information that's not exactly accurate. And a lot of times, those are made to target people who they can engage in, start a conversation, and create that, what they've said, you know, the disinformation. There is some of that that is accurate, that is coming from foreign governments, foreign influencers.

That's something we should certainly take a look at and see what's happening. But here's, again, Elon Musk. Let's hear from him, and then I'm going to talk a little about TruthSocial.

It was a morally bad decision to be clear and foolish in the extreme. I think that's a good part to stop because what he pretty much says, even a little bit later, is specifically that permanent bans should be rare and few. Now, I have to say, as someone who has been personally attacked, had my family's life threatened on Twitter, there's a little bit of me that's like, you know, maybe it shouldn't be that rare.

Sometimes, and he says illegal activity, maybe we should put people on suspensions, but I've had that happen. I've actually had Twitter say, you know what, this person keeps creating accounts. There's nothing we can do about it.

Sorry. Now, President Trump, we're going to keep him off. We know how to do that, but some rando who decides to threaten your family because they don't agree with your politics, that person gets to potentially stay on.

So I have some concerns, but overall it's a step in the right direction. Well, and that's what we've talked about here many times is that what Elon Musk is saying, not necessarily that he thinks that conservatives are right, and so therefore he wants their voices to be amplified. What he's saying is that the world and the country and everyone is better when there are competing voices in an open public forum. And he views Twitter as that. And what Twitter has instead done over the past years and decades that it's been around is marginalized certain voices that it doesn't agree with. And it went to the extreme when they started doing permanent bans on people that they disagreed with politically. Not to mention, as we have many times when people like the Ayatollah of Iran or Vladimir Putin, their official verified accounts still exist. So, you know, you're getting a real message from the Ayatollah when he tweets death to America. But if it's a political opponent here in the United States of what the liberals that run Twitter currently are into, you could end up with a permanent ban.

You could end up with a block on your account where it says you must delete your speech or else you cannot use your account. And so what he's getting at with that entire statement about President Trump is not necessarily like I want to hear everything President Trump has to say. He's saying that because they limited the open public forum, that those voices aren't going to be silenced because that's the way that this country works. So they're going to find a place to speak.

And instead, you're separating people from being able to get their points across and to discuss with their fellow citizens. Well, that's going to do it for the show today. Thank you for all your support again at the ACLJ. It's greatly appreciated. Visit ACLJ.org for more.