Biden Admin Wages Economic War on American Families

Today on Sekulow, the Biden administration engaging in an economic war against American families. We'll talk about that. We've also got Senator James Lankford joining us.

Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. Oil companies making their largest profits in years have a choice to put money into producing and refinery oil or to put it into the pockets of wealthy stakeholders while American families suffer at the pump. Exxon made that choice.

They made the choice this quarter. Exxon announced that it is tripling its buybacks to 30 billion dollars. We want to hear from you.

Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. Energy security worry is driving a lot of the thoughts now about, oh, we need more drilling of gas. We need more drilling of this. We need to go back to coal. No, we don't.

We absolutely don't. And we have to prevent a false narrative from entering into this or, again, pun intended, we are cooked. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. All right, welcome to Sekulow. We're going to take your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. We weren't even able yesterday to get to all of your phone calls. So if you want to talk to us on the air, back to this issue, too, of the oil, gas, these prices, and what the administration is saying they are doing. They are attacking through letters, like the letter to ExxonMobil's CEO and saying, blaming them for not producing more oil.

Now, let's do a couple of things. One, this administration campaign, Joe Biden himself, as a candidate, campaigned on shutting these companies down, ultimately. Ultimately ending these companies. Now he's trying to shame them into producing more oil.

So that's part one. He already told them, if he won, there would be no more new drilling, and there wouldn't be increased drilling. In fact, they were going to end these companies. Two, he's comparing where they were in 2019 pre-pandemic, ignoring the pandemic, and the fact that his administration hasn't really fully come out of the pandemic. They're still fighting to keep masks on people in airplanes.

Remember that. So if you're one of these companies, it's still a very volatile time to say, yeah, I feel like we could spin more and we could produce more with an administration that hates us. And I don't think that's too strong of a word because they said they wanted to eliminate them as an industry.

That's a pretty tough word. Eliminate them as an industry. Let's play it. Would there be any place for fossil fuels, including coal and fracking in a Biden administration? No, we would, we would work it out. We would make sure it's eliminated. No more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling, including offshore, no ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period. I guarantee we're going to end fossil fuel. What about, say, stopping fracking and stopping new pipeline infrastructure? No more, no new fracking. We are going to get rid of fossil fuels. So, okay. If you're Darren Woods, chairman and chief executive officer, you get this letter from the President and the President's now telling you he's got his prices in there and he's saying you've got to increase this. A direct quote is, I request that you provide the secretary of energy with an explanation of any reduction in your refining capacity since 2020 and any concrete ideas would address the immediate inventory price of refining capacity issues in the coming months.

Well, okay. I don't even, you don't have to be like some oil and gas expert to know what happened in 2020. People stopped going to work. People stopped traveling. Everything was shut down. So, of course, they had to figure out, they had to decrease their production because they would be, they were losing money already. Those companies were having a tough time.

Now when, again, it takes years for them to ramp back up. He's ignoring all of that, but he's acting like, he blames it on Russia again in this letter. First of all, if you believe the Russia part in total, it's $1.70. Take $1.70 if the gas prices are down, it's still high and still going out of control. So, even if you believe that part, inflation was already there.

Yeah. So, the reality is, and then you got the climate czar, John Kerry saying, we're going to put all these things, all these enterprises out of business. Here's the problem. If you're in this industry, you know what the problem is?

The problem is, you'd be afraid to be doing drilling. You'd be afraid to increase production because they're telling you, we're getting rid of your business as soon as we get through this crisis. We're in a crisis right now, self-made, I think, and now we need you to produce.

This is where policies that make no sense become very dangerous. Yeah. Folks, I want to hear from you. One, if you work in the oil and gas industry, I'd love to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110, but also this is just, as a consumer, as somebody who's got to get to work, when you see this as the letter to Exxon, they have no credit.

All right. So, you get a letter from the White House. You're the oil company CEO. You're a very powerful person, big companies, but you got your corporate interest at stake here, shareholder interest at stake here. The President of the United States puts in the letter, what's the explanation and why you didn't refine more since 2020? He doesn't know.

One is COVID. Two is the fact that these guys came in and said that they are going to destroy, eliminate the oil and gas industries. This is yesterday, Secretary Granholm, this is the Energy Secretary he's asking to report to, on CNN talking about five and 10 years from now when it comes to refineries. You cannot have it both ways.

The Biden administration will not acknowledge it. You can't have them produce more and also threaten to close them out in five, 10 years, because it takes, it would bring down the price. They announced that they're going to increase more, but to actually get the resources is years, years.

Take a listen. Five years from now, 10 years from now, are you telling me you want them drilling for more oil? You want the refineries putting out more gasoline in five or 10 years? What we're saying is today we need that supply increased, of course, in five or 10 years, actually in the immediate, we are also pressing on the accelerator, if you will, to move toward clean energy so that we don't have to be under the thumb of petro dictators like Putin or at the whim of the volatility of fossil fuels. Ultimately, America will be most secure when we can rely upon our own clean domestic production. Well, first of all, we were energy independent 24 months ago.

So let's not kid ourselves here. We were energy independent 24 months ago. Now what do we have is the energy secretary saying, we want you to drill now, but you're not going to be able to drill in three to five years.

So spend money now. You're a publicly held company. You're not going to be in business to do that anymore because we're going to put you out of business. Now, this is where they have got this so dangerously backwards. And this was, they're trying to close the industry down while they're being, and then they blame Vladimir Putin.

Andy, they cannot resist. You know, when I see this in this letter that he sent to the CEO of Exxon Mobile, the President, and he calls it and he continually refers to it as the Vladimir Putin price hike, and that's in capital letters, that just galls me when I see that, that everything that has happened to American oil and to the price of fuel at the gas pump today is the result of the war in the Ukraine and the Vladimir Putin price hike. That is an absolute false narrative. This President said, and we heard it said earlier, no drilling on federal lands, no drilling offshore, no fossil fuels, no fracking. And now he's coming and trying to make nice to the oil companies that he castigated an attack on the campaign trail and he wants to close them down and then eliminate them, that we want you to do your part in making us energy independent. What about your part, Mr. President?

And let me tell you, letting loose of the strategic petroleum reserve, okay, and doing the end of the Defense Energy Production Act does not solve the problem. You know, we're going to stay a minute in Washington, D.C., our director of government affairs. Than, we're taking action on this. We just launched a brand new petition up at ACLJ.org just moments ago.

Literally, it stopped President Biden's economic war on American families. I think this doubles speak from the administration. We want you to ramp up now, but also within that ramping up period, and we know it will take that many years before that even entered the market. So we want you to ramp up to lower prices right now for futures, but we're also going to shut you down. We're going to try to put policies in place to shut you down in five to ten years.

So we want this from you, but we also want to end your business. And of course, take out the corporate side of this. Let's talk about ExxonMobil. This is the impact it has on the American families and American workers. You absolutely can't have it both ways, Jordan.

It's outrageous to blame the energy companies for not producing or not ramping up exploration when it's been the federal government that stood in the way of that exploration at every stage of the process. We had Senator Blackburn on this broadcast yesterday, and she laid out a very articulate case for exactly what the administration can do to bring this pressure down. Jordan, that's what this petition that we really need people to sign and stand for. That's exactly what we're asking. We're demanding that the administration stop the war on American energy and really stop the economic warfare that's happening here.

There are very specific ways they can do it. Jordan, they need to be for leasing. They need to be for permitting.

They need to be for exploration and production and transportation. Transportation, of course, comes through the Keystone XL pipeline. But, Jordan, it really doesn't require a new law, and we know that because we had it 18 months ago. We just need the administration to decide that they're for the American people rather than against them. But you send out a letter as the President of the United States begging these companies to increase production. You want them to increase oil production. And then this is what you say in the letter.

In advance of that, this is what I want you to do. I request that you provide the secretary with an explanation of any reduction, like you said, Jordan, in your refining capacity since 2020, any concrete ideas that would address the immediate inventory price and refining capacity issues in the coming months, including transportation measures to get refined product to market. We were energy independent energy exporters 20 months ago, and this policy has done this. And if you're the CEO of Exxon, you know what you're going to say? Mr. President, you know why we haven't come back to full market?

Because you're telling us we're going to be out of business real soon. Yeah, they're going to want guarantees. Guarantees that Joe Biden can't deliver because his party is, the Democratic Party, is hijacked by the Green New Deal Democrats. His entire administration, I bet they don't even like this letter. I'm sure not. I mean, I bet just getting this letter out, which was still, it's actually a nasty letter.

It is very nasty. To the companies as if they are trying to destroy the American worker by, listen, they need you to be able to afford it. There's a price point here. They have to make money. That's their job as a company. But they also need you to be able to afford it almost to where you're not thinking about it. Because that's how their business works. They need you to travel as much as you want, drive as much as you need, fly as much as you want.

The list goes on and on. So when you start cutting back and having to think about it, they don't love the fact that that's not good for them either long-term. So I just think what we ultimately have to do, it's like our petition and a push. Listen, we've already gotten to point one. Point one is he's starting to ask.

Now, he's not asking in a nice way. But if you start, again, it shows it's grand hope, so you put the accelerator down, which costs a lot of money right now if you ever decide to do it in your car. We need to put that accelerator down on this. This is the one time I think we're going to have with this administration to possibly get something done that helps the American people. And I think we have to harp on it every single day that they're hurting the country and the shortages of a new shortage every day being announced and supply chain issues. All of it comes back to their bad policies. They laugh about it.

Don't forget that. Here's Secretary Granholm. This is the Secretary of Energy in November laughing.

What is the Granholm plan to increase oil production in America? Oh, my God. That is hilarious.

Would that I had the magic wand on this. This is now the Secretary of Energy laughing. And now look at the situation the country's in. I mean, understand this. The country's in an unbelievably difficult situation with gas prices going up.

And that was how she viewed things. That's the problem, Andy, with all of this, is there is no concrete plan, except as you said the other day, Jordan, to try to eliminate fossil fuel at the end of the day. That's what they're really trying to do. Well, that's what they're trying to do. And they're trying to do it through the left wing approach that we're just going to make it so tough on you that you're going to have to go electric. And you can't afford to do that, but we're going to do that.

And then he says, and he has the audacity to say in this letter to the CEO of Exxon, and I'm looking at the letter, there is no question that Vladimir Putin is principally responsible for the intense financial pain the American people and their families are bearing. What nonsense. So Than, and this goes to Jordan and Than. Than, we had Marsha Blackburn on yesterday, specific concrete steps that we could take. We're going to push for those in Washington. Absolutely, Jay. I mean, because the plan of the administration was specifically not to produce.

That was the plan. And now that the chickens have come home to roost, they're scrambling. But Jay, they're not scrambling to fix the problem. They're scrambling to point the finger of blame. Well, look, we're going to tell them exactly what they need to do to fix the problem.

They need to expand leasing, permitting, production, exploration, and transportation. Senator Blackburn talked about it on our broadcast before. We're going to Capitol Hill, Jay, to try to tell them, look, now is the time. You've got to pressure the administration to do it.

It doesn't require a new law, by the way. It just requires the administration getting off the regulatory back of these companies. Jay, they better do it quickly. It's going to take some time to ramp production back up.

But the draw down on the regulations, that has to happen very quickly. When you talk about too that these younger influential people around Biden are socialists, just out there on the left, just listen to Corrine Jean-Pierre yesterday when she talks about the oil companies too, by 25. Oil companies making their largest profits in years have a choice to put money into producing and refining oil or to put it into the pockets of wealthy stakeholders while American families suffer at the pump. Exxon made that choice. They made the choice this quarter.

Exxon announced that it is tripling its buybacks to $30 billion. Okay. They are a company. They publicly help them. Their job is for their first and really their only duty is to their shareholders. That's their only financial duty, their fiduciary duty. They comply with the laws, which they do, and they do what's best interest. They try to make decisions of best interest for their shareholders, not the best interest of the Biden administration, not even the best interest of the consumer, but they have to deal with consumers. So it's a ridiculous statement to say that they want the price of gas to be so far out of reach that you decide you're going to stop driving or you're going to make decisions not to drive. That is hurting the company. Hurts the oil and gas companies.

They don't want the prices to be out of your reach. Take your calls, 1-800-684-310. Welcome back to Secula. We're tracking all these issues. We've also got Senator James Langford is going to be joining us the next half hour of the broadcast because he's got a letter out to the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee saying, get Mayorkas back on this disinformation board because he misled us and was telling us it wasn't even started yet and it was already operational. They had meetings scheduled with Twitter and places like this. So we'll talk about that with Senator Langford in the next half hour.

You definitely want to join the broadcast. We're also, you know, at the ACLJ, we've been saying we are preparing for war in the states when it comes to life, especially with the Dobbs decision coming any week now. We're seeing pro-life states taking good proactive steps, but also very far left states doing, taking very extreme pro-abortion steps, and especially in California. So in California, we sent a letter just a couple hours, I mean, two days ago, to the Senate Judiciary Committee because they are using the phrase perinatal, which is perinatal, which is perinatal, perinatal, perinatal, perinatal, perinatal, perinatal, because they are using the phrase perinatal, which is on abortion, which is post life. I mean, the child's born.

It's life in the womb anyways, but it's the child is actually born. On top of that, and this is also breaking news, the state Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill that would put a right to abortion in the California constitution. So our teams are working on this, and C.C.

Hiles here. Let's first talk about the legislation that we addressed in our letter. What is going on? What are they trying to do with that? Well, and in many states, we have identified the fact that Planned Parenthood and the pro-abortion team are trying to get perinatal language into these statutes. And what that means is perinatal is a child up to 28 days after they're born. So almost a month old child is what perinatal is addressing. And they insert this language into these statutes and making it not a crime, not a crime if a perinatal death occurs. So basically allowing infanticide up to 28 days after a baby is born. And so we are addressing each one of these statutes and telling, you know, we are objecting to this language. And here in California, it was AB 2223. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on it yesterday, and they also held a hearing on the constitutional right to abortion. And our letter of objection was submitted.

We're gonna talk about that in a moment, because Jordan, there's a post-dob strategy that we're doing at the ACLJ, but also ACLJ action. I think it's very important people understand we've got both entities working on this. Yeah, there are states, pro-life states, that are not gonna just be able to pass a law. They're going to have to look at similar measures like California is doing in a bad way for abortion. They're going to have to look at putting in constitutional amendments. Now, it's easier at the state level and the federal level to do that, to do those ballot initiatives like California is doing. You can do it as early as even like this election cycle.

But it's also analyzing. So what legislation you need, what you might need on a ballot, what ballot initiative you might need. What's the makeup, not just of the governor and the legislature, but also the state courts, especially the state Supreme Court.

How are they selected? So what laws? So we're doing a full analysis ACLJ action where we're breaking it all down by secretary of state. Every potential hurdle you could be in place, even in a state that wants to go right out of the gate with pro-life legislation. Is the attorney general someone who's gonna defend it? What kind of authority does the governor's office have versus the attorney general? It's different folks in all 50 states.

I mean, even what you call your state legislature members is different or whether you have some that aren't bicameral. So there's a huge war. Even when I think we're gonna win and overturn Roe versus Wade, we should celebrate that, yes, because a huge victory. But we should take the momentum and you've got to go right into the states because it will be a hollow victory if you don't fight those battles.

A hundred percent. And so I wanna be clear on what we've done so far here. So first, when we found out about the language that was gonna be in that bill, we took action.

Absolutely. And so when bills pass and Jordan's right, every state's different, but this was an assembly bill first. And so that's their house. And so we address this actually in the assembly first. And it's interesting that the chief counsel for the Committee on Judiciary at the assembly level even agreed with us that the perinatal death language could lead to an unintended and undesirable conclusion that the bill could be interpreted to immunize a pregnant person from all criminal penalties for all pregnancy outcomes, including the death of a newborn for any reason during the perinatal period after birth, which is 28 days. So they have their own attorney telling them this is problematic in the assembly, in the house part, yet it still passes. And now it's gone to the Senate and there are several committees in the Senate that will hear it. And every time it goes to a committee, we will send a letter, again, reiterating our objection to this language and the peril that it puts babies in. And then at the same time, as Jordan said, as that's going on, ACLJ action is working, as you just said, laying out the legislative hurdles that are there and how to overcome them because you got a real fight here.

Yes. And so in some states, yes, you're going to be able to get legislation very quick. And a lot of those states have already taken that action. They have these laws that are called trigger laws. So if the court case comes down the way they want, they will go into effect immediately. They're all going to be challenged in court under various different state constitutions.

Some might end up being federal because they're going further than what this decision might do. But I think where you have to look at is what we're up against, even in states, how we fight in states that are deeply blue, deeply pro-abortion politicians. What we know is this, that in a lot of these states, people will vote Democrat and likely they're going to vote Democrat, but they're not voting to protect perinatal death liability.

Correct. And that's the difference, is that you could go into states like Maryland and say, you're politicians. It's not that you're going to convince them to vote conservative, vote Republican, maybe not even vote pro-life, but they're not that extreme. Most people are just not that extreme on this issue. So you point out, and what the C-4 can do is how extreme your politicians are acting and maybe rethink. So we're seeing that at the DA level. They're not going to, let's say, put in a conservative Republican DAs, but they want to put in DAs who at least are going to enforce the law.

Same thing here. We can point out how extreme, how disgusting they are, and we can do it through ads, targeting the politicians themselves. They've been targeting the justices and all this kind of idea, but they're the ones trying to protect any liability. And this is from their own chief counsel, including the death of a newborn for any reason during the perinatal period after birth, including a cause of death, which is not attributable to pregnancy complications. Well, that's exactly why we've got this two-pronged approach with the C-4 ACLJ action and the ACLJ. Because we're pointing out in the ACLJ, pointing out the legal issues that are at stake here. And look, what Jordan said is right, CeCe, and that is this isn't going to be a pro-life legislature, but they may not be pro-infanticide.

That's exactly right. And people don't realize that. So it takes the ACLJ, the legal team, and the C-4 bringing this to people's attention and encouraging people to take action. Again, there have been amendments to this bill through the assembly process, and I'm sure there'll be more in the Senate process, but what's interesting to know, they have yet to take out perinatal.

So it is very intentional that they want to leave that in to be able to continue abortion after someone, after a baby's born. All right, so we are not, we are on top of the amendment process. We're monitoring the hearings, we're sending in letters, we're making the analysis, and ACLJ action will be taking appropriate action as well to push this back, folks. We don't just take this. We could win this, actually, even in California. We just got to get the word out. Yeah, I think that, again, you're setting the stage for what you can do in each state.

What is the victory in this state is going to look like a different victory right now in another state. And of course, this is just the immediate actions you take. So support our work at ACLJ. And also, if you haven't joined as a member of ACLJ Action yet, it's $25 a year to become an official member of ACLJ Action. You do it at ACLJAction.org. And again, we're preparing our post-job strategy based off the resources available at ACLJ Action.

So how many states we're able to work in and what we're able to do and how many ads we can run is based off your support at ACLJAction.org. 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. And now, your host, Jordan Sekulow. All right, welcome back to Sekulow. Folks, we talked to oil and gas. Senator Lankford's going to be joining us in the next segment of the broadcast live. And I want you, again, folks, this is an issue we know, again, we're staying on because the Biden administration wanted you to kind of turn the other, say, oh, well, you know, we got rid of Nina Jacobowitz, but we do want to start back up the disinformation board and the mis-dis and mal-information board. I remember they said, as Secretary of America testified, that it had nothing to do with Americans. It was about Russian cyber attacks and Latin American cartels. But then we found out it was about whether or not you think that the efficacy of masks and it was about domestic surveillance and meetings with Twitter were on their calendar, that they were already stood up at months ago, I mean, in February. So you're talking about, again, the committee, the information that was provided to them by Secretary of America was incorrect. Either he lied intentionally or he was provided with incorrect information by his staff. They want to get to the bottom of it.

You know how I can kind of feel about where I think it is. I think he was a little too direct to be acting like he didn't understand who he was talking about, that Twitter meeting, all of that coming together. So we'll talk about that with Senator Lankford coming up, because what he's doing with a team of senators is saying, we're not letting this go. We're going to put pressure on the chairman.

Right now, it's still Democrat controlled committees, to bring Secretary America's back on this specific issue so he can't say, oh, I'll just go and get that info for you later. So he knows why he's coming, knows what he's going to be testifying about. And the letter lays out what we've laid out.

The timeline is just exactly opposite of what he testified to under oath. Right. So we've got a letter that we sent, remember, initially, to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This was our Freedom of Information Act request on this misinformation disinformation board, because we knew this was problematic and was, in fact, since going to be monitoring Americans.

No response. So you know what we did? Then we filed this. In the United States District Court, it's up on the screen for those that are watching on our social media platforms, for our radio on it, so I'll explain it to you. This is our federal lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, American Center for Law and Justice versus the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. And it lays out what we are entitled to know, including the notes from the purported director of the committee that talked about monitoring Americans and misinformation and disinformation. And so we will get to the bottom of it, but we're going to be joined by Senator Lankford, who's calling for the hearings, folks.

I mean, you know what this shows you? I hope it's clear to our audience. At the American Center for Law and Justice, our affiliates globally, our ACLJ action, we're able to—I mean, we have hit how many issues today? Energy, pro-life, and now government oversight with this misinformation and disinformation issue. And we're in federal court in one on this whole issue of the misinformation disinformation board.

We're addressing legal issues in California directly on pro-life matters. And at the same time on the oil and gas, our government affairs office is working with Senator Blackburn to get protections and relief to the American families and pointing out the hypocrisy of the Biden administration's approach here. Yeah, and I think this is one of those issues where they wanted to say, well, they got rid of Nina Jankowicz, so maybe you won't pay attention anymore. But one person was not the only issue behind this.

And as we've heard from the White House, they doubled down and said they're going to reconstitute this. It was a bad rollout. They blamed it on kind of, you know, they didn't do a good job of it, which they did a horrendous job. Even if what they said was true, it was bad. And now we know it's even worse what they are planning. And I think it still exists.

It exists inside there. They said that this existed before they announced it. They were already setting up meetings to put pressure on. So all that data, they don't have any teeth. They have federal law that gives them unbelievable teeth because there's federal law that protects these companies from liability.

That's huge for these internet companies, content platforms. So all the federal government has to do is pressure them into saying, we want your content moderation to focus on efficacy of mask or immigration or election integrity. Those are all domestic issues. It's not about Russian cyber attacks into our infrastructure or drug cartels and human smuggling from Latin America. It's about domestic, what they consider miss this or malinformation. Remember what they said is awful but lawful speech.

How can they censor it through these content platforms? Senator Langford, joining us next, share with your friends and family, get the latest update from him. Welcome back to Secula. We're joined right now by US Senator James Langford of Oklahoma, a great friend of the American Center for Law and Justice. Senator Langford's leading a team of senators who have sent a letter to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security to bring back Secretary Mayorkas to answer a lot of questions about this disinformation governance board, which is not completely dead yet. As the Biden administration said, they want to bring it back.

It wasn't a good rollout. So go right to Senator Langford. And Senator, I appreciate you being, joining us today on the broadcast.

Let me go first to the letter because it lays out, we've been laying it out for our audience. The misstatements, if you want to call them lies, misstatements, however you want to characterize it, from Secretary Mayorkas to you and the senators on that committee about when this governance board started, what its purpose was, if it was going to target Americans or where its target was. And it was all the opposite.

Everything was the opposite of what he was testifying to. Right. From the most basic elements of, is there a charter document?

Do you have documentation? It was like, you know, we're just still getting together. When they actually had already documents, they already had an outline for it. They already made decisions for it to what it was going to do. You know, it was going to be outward focused. It was going to be focused on internationals. It was going to be dealing with immigration issues internationally, putting down rumors that cartels put out.

When we actually find out, no, it's going to be on mass. It's going to be on anything on election security they want to be able to put out. It's basically what they think is not the correct line to have. They want to be able to help put out the information. And what I try to affirm to them is people are not looking to the government to say, tell me what's right and wrong. They're looking to the government to do the right thing.

And that includes protecting the rights of Americans to be able to have free speech and not try to go manage speech. So clearly that's what this is about. They can blame it on. It's a bad rollout. It's a bad idea is really what it is. Senator, one of the concerns that we had, of course, and we've talked to you about this before, and I'm glad you're addressing this again with the secretary. And that is this whole idea that you'd have a misinformation disinformation board anyways is so antithetical to the First Amendment. I mean, cuts so against First Amendment free speech and the concept of ordered liberty that you'd have the government determining what was the appropriate speech for individual citizens.

And then you had to complicate it. The secretary is saying, I know this is foreign governments we're looking at that may be doing disinformation campaigns when they already had listed, had talking points on US surveillance of American citizens. We sent a Freedom of Information Act request into Homeland Security, which of course in response to we now have gone to court. How dangerous is the proposal that Homeland Security put forward here with this misinformation disinformation board to freedoms for the American people? Yeah, let me cut to the chase. One thing if government says, okay, here's the CDC website, this is what we believe scientists are saying, or here's what we think accurate information is.

It's very different. What you had here was DHS cooperating with Twitter to say, hey, let's help identify together what is misinformation and what we're going to disqualify. And then we're going to work on trying to be able to get those things taken out of American conversations. Now you're talking about government working with a private group to be able to silence voices that government doesn't agree with.

That's a very different issue. So this is not just putting out quote unquote accurate information. This is trying to be able to silence voices and working with private companies and entities to be able to find out a way to be able to take out your enemies.

People who disagree with you need to be silenced and if they're working with outside individuals to do it, that is a toxic combination. I mean, I wouldn't think, Senator, what he was testifying about originally were things I would think that DHS was already doing. They didn't need to bring in a 32 year old, 33 year old expert on Twitter to on drug cartels or on Russian cyber attacks on US infrastructure. And so it never made sense because the people that they were empowering, like Nina Jankowicz, to be the executive director of this would have had no expertise in that kind of security. And you would, I would have imagined Department of Homeland Security should already have been doing that, should already do this work. And they don't need to come up with, even the title alone, just shows me how out of touch they are with the American people that someone thought this would be a good thing to do. Let's do a disinformation governance board after all these attacks about social media and content providers and flagging posts and comments that in an election year, we're going to come out with a disinformation governance board.

But yet they did. And he does need to come back to your committee and testify to the truth about what is going on. He does. There's just basic facts that we asked him very simple questions. I get one set of answers. When we get documents and background, it's a very different set of answers. And it's not just loosely out there.

It's things that actually had his physical signature on it, that he was very well aware that the answer he was giving us was incorrect. And by the way, you are correct. The State Department already engages with misinformation from overseas. There are already entities to do this. So at a minimum, it's redundant in government and not needed. If there's misinformation moving from cartels internationally, State Department's already engaged in those areas. But this was not about just international movement in cartels.

This was about managing American speech and working with private entities to find a way to be able to silence voices they disagree with. I wanted to change topics a little bit, Senator, and that is the situation the American people are facing right now with skyrocketing inflation, but also gas prices that are just unbelievable. And in some states, it's $7 to $8 a gallon.

In others, it's $5. You come from an energy state. I mean, what's your sense of what? I think the Biden administration had a bad policy to begin with, and then they just doubled down on it, which has made it worse. We went from energy independence, energy exporter, to now we're begging the Saudis and Venezuela to help us, and the President's threatening oil companies after he told them he was going to try to shut them down in the next three to five years.

It is amazing to me. It's the most disjointed policy because they're just flailing. They are fulfilling the climate activists' desires of just take out all fossil fuel. And this was the simple thing that they continue to say and that candidate Biden said to someone on the campaign trail in one of the events when they asked about, are you going to get rid of fossil fuels?

And he said, look at me. He walked right up to her and said, I'm going to get rid of fossil fuels. Well, this is what this looks like when he tries to drop tariffs on solar panels coming from foreign companies to try to offset the high cost of energy. Just shows how out of touch this administration is. Our allies are confused by it, that literally he's going to Saudi Arabia to be able to ask if they can get more oil when Canada, our next door neighbor, is saying, we have lots of oil and you cut off the pipeline from us. Our energy companies are confused because they're literally cutting off access to capital, access to moving pipelines, access to more drilling on federal lands and waters. At the same time, he's saying, I'm going to punish you if you don't actually do more refining. It's the most bizarre set of ideas that lead to this kind of policy and this kind of price flux.

This is not hard. It's supply and demand. You increase supply, the price goes down. It's not just, it's global.

Everybody's trying to say now, well, it's a global issue. The American price, what's called WTI, West Texas Intermediate, is traditionally much lower than the Brent crude price, which is the international price because we produce our own. Yes, it's a global market, but our prices are less.

Now it's almost identical global and us because we don't have enough production here. And then he blames it on Vladimir Putin. I mean, that seems to be the White House's excuse for everything, Senator.

It is, but it has been for a while. As you can remember doing the Trump administration, it was Russia, Russia, Russia, everything. And they've just shifted back to that same playbook. Senator Lankford, I appreciate you joining us on the broadcast on both these issues. One, because we want to get to the bottom of this disinformation board, because our goal here is ultimately it doesn't exist. And they're trying to reconstitute it.

They admitted that they're trying to reconstitute it, at least the White House press secretary did. So I appreciate what you're doing on that. Appreciate to your information as a senator from Oklahoma on energy. It's important for people to understand as we keep reiterating, like Senator Lankford said, this idea that they can take this nasty gram to, you know, a letter threatening that they're going to, you know, put in their own resources somehow, punish the oil companies when they've already told the oil companies we want to put you out of business. So you can't, you have no leverage. That's the problem. This administration has no leverage with the Saudis. So you've got no leverage with international producers. You have no leverage with your domestic producers because they don't trust you.

No one trusts you. Yeah, this is, you know, look, I mean, you know, failed policies produce failed results. The problem is, that's what I just said to Senator Lankford is, Jordan, they're doubling down on all this. I mean, blaming this on Vladimir Putin is ridiculous, okay?

You know, we're going to talk about Ukraine and Russia in the next segment of the broadcast, but it's ridiculous. We do have a question coming in on the life issue, and I think we should take it, and we'll switch kind of back gears here. But let's take the call.

Hey, Larry, it's Colin from New York Online 2. Welcome to Sekulow. Thank you, guys.

First of all, I want to thank you, gentlemen, for what you guys do. Thank you. My question is, this whole abortion issue, the language that is established in the states, the proposed language that's going to be established in the states for this abortion issue once Roe is overturned, which I assume it will be, should it not protect the child as well as the mother? Because right now it seems like this whole issue is focusing more on the mother, more rights over the child.

So here's the thing. You understand the case we were just talking about in California was after delivery. And their legislative council even said, they agreed with us, that this would allow infanticide. So you don't even have to get into the argument about what does Roe v. Wade do for that one.

Look, I think Dobbs, I think, is going to come out by the end of June. It'll be an overturned Roe v. Wade, but that's just going to be the beginning of this battle. Yeah, and I think what you're picking up on is the idea is that they're trying to say this is about punishing women or criminalizing women. And that's actually not the case. Even in the most pro-life states, you don't see the laws. They're not attacking the woman. They're attacking the abortionist. If there's anyone that they are singling out in the criminal codes that they're preparing, it's the abortionist. It's not the woman who's in these situations. But that's the line they're trying to take.

And I think it's even a more extreme line. They don't even really want to talk about abortion as the issue. They want to make it about other issues.

But we know this is real, and the battle is just beginning. Welcome back to Sec The Biden administration blaming everything on it. It certainly has an impact on a lot of things. It does impact the gas prices. It's not the only impact. The policies the Biden administration are bigger, but it certainly has an impact when you cut it off and you don't have a plan. That was the biggest thing we talked about with all of our kind of experts is that these were all moves that were fine to do if you had a backup. They didn't have a backup when they cut off Russia.

But it's also worth doing an update because we're seeing much stronger language. We're going to go to Wes Smith. Wes, from Russian political leaders that were starting to peel off maybe a month ago who are now doubling down. We have the former President of Russia, when they were in that constitutional period, changing the constitution for Putin.

He became prime minister for a little bit and elevated as President. So the former President said on Telegram that basically put out the question, does Ukraine even exist as a country in two years as a place? Does Ukraine even exist? This is the kind of language we're seeing from Putin allies. It is shifted again back towards it seems like in favor of where Russia, internally in Russia.

Right, right. And Western intelligence officials just this week said that the war in Ukraine is at a critical turning point right now as to what happens long term with this war. On an encouraging note, Jordan, today in Brussels, the NATO defense chiefs called a meeting. There's 30 members of NATO to discuss the war in Ukraine. That group's called the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.

They opened it up to other nations who might want to come. 50 nations showed up for this meeting in Brussels to discuss how to help Ukraine win this war, which is indicative that the world has not given up on Ukraine, but they are taking a pounding. Jay, right now, Russian forces occupy about one fifth of Ukraine, but Putin has made it clear he wants the whole thing. He wants the entire country. Here's what I'm just watching this shift with President Zelensky in Ukraine. He's trying to rally his troops. He's trying to keep his populace motivated.

Right. But clearly he is very, they're losing over 100 troops a day. The reports are they're running out of ammunition. The Russians, you said the number of armaments, missiles coming in and coming out, the differential is gigantic.

Oh, it is. Ukrainian forces are expending about 5,000 rounds of artillery a day. That's a lot. And we have given them a lot of those weapons. They say the Associated Press says Russia expends 10 times that amount on any given day. So you're firing 5,000 from Ukraine to Russian troops. Russia's firing back 50,000.

It's hard to imagine. And they're starting to flatten some of these cities, right? I mean, the destruction, the rebuild with this ever-ending successfully for Ukraine is going to be a mess.

Yeah. They are targeting civilian population centers, which is of course a violation of the laws of war. Zelensky was on a video address to his nation yesterday. It was very touching, but he talked about these losses of troops and civilians. And he said this, the losses unfortunately are painful, but we have to hold on. And he went on to say in that address that they have to also keep their troops in the Donbass region and take it back.

That is indicative of a very, very long war. One of the other things I wanted to bring up is the, and we could talk about this after your question, Jordan, and that is Ukraine is the breadbasket for grain for Europe. And there's concern that if they cannot get their seed in the ground, that you could have a real, real international food crisis. Yes.

And it's already actually developing in places like Africa. The Russian Navy has blockaded the coast of Ukraine. They control most of their seaports now, the Ukrainian seaports, although, you know, there are some places where Ukraine still controls the harbor.

Here's the interesting thing about that. Russia had told Ukrainian officials, if you will take the mines out of the harbors, we'll lift the blockade. The Ukrainian forces have mined the harbors to keep Russian ships out.

That is like the big bad wolf saying, you know, let me in, let me in. They cannot afford to do that. Meanwhile, Western nations have actually gone to Vladimir Putin and told him, you need to let them export their grain. It is the breadbasket of the world. And particularly in Asia and Africa, they depend on food from Ukraine and Vladimir Putin refused to even consider it. I want to play this sound from the White House because this is important to me because it's all the blame Russia issue. And I want to take it back to oil gas. I think it just drives it home to the American people. If the imagery and the war that's happening, that one thing, but then also just how it's affecting you at home. So listening into the White House on oil, gas, Ukraine by 21. Is the administration reconsidering the idea of a federal gas tax holiday and what other things are you guys thinking about on the table?

So don't have anything new for you. We don't have anything new for you to announce on gas prices or the gas tax. But as you know, gas prices are up nearly $2. And that has been the case per gallon. That has been the case since Putin started to threaten the borders of Ukraine with the troop enforcement at the border. The US is on track to produce a record amount of oil next year. That's not what it seems like from the letter from President Biden.

I just I just pray this out is when you're talking about wars in Europe, you're talking about what Chinese aggression in Taiwan and our own domestic issues that we're facing shortages, whether in the price of gas inflation. This is an administration that has no policy. Like she said, they have no policy.

She said they have no policy, no plan. But oh, the oil is back. Well, you wouldn't have written this letter saying the oil is not back. So even your actual press secretary, not someone else in a different part of the administration, not John Kerry Azar, something. But your actual press secretary should be on the exact message as you, is not on the same message as the letter you're sending to the Exxon CEO. So if you're the Exxon CEO and you're advising them, you would say, don't take any action based off that letter.

And the inflation, including the price of gasoline, did not go up as dramatically as it has until he was the President because of his policies and what he's indicating towards the whole gas and oil industry. The other thing, Jay, about this whole issue, in another time and era, before there were nuclear weapons, what Russia is doing in Ukraine that impacts the global economy, gas, food, it would have instigated a world war in another time. I also think that we have to realize too, because of the amount of casualties Russia has taken, it's a reminder that there are countries still out there who will take those kinds of casualties for. And I think that's Russia, the Chinese, there are a few others where we, again, we value life at such a different level. And, you know, we saw Iraq and Afghanistan in the thousands, but not hitting like 10, 20, 30, nothing like that.

They've hit in months. And yet we're still talking about them as potentially winning. And if you look at their history, they would a lot of times lose more troops than who they beat in war and civilians. So this is, again, it's a reminder of what your potential enemies are willing, how far they're willing to go for victory.

Yeah. So which begs this question, we only got a minute left, and that is, what's the prognosis right now? You know, most military experts, their prognosis is that this will go on for a long time, probably some are saying another two years, and it is 50-50, how it ends up. Here's the thing though, if we... Would Russia end up with all of Ukraine? They could.

But if we allow that to happen, Jay, that will be a picture of what the future looks like and the chaos of the turmoil in the world. Quickly then. So what else should the United States be doing? We're not putting troops on the ground. We're not flying aircraft in.

No. It's a caught topic for another day. The weapons and supplies we're sending them are being held up because of a lot of bureaucratic red tape. The things we've promised them, they haven't even received all of them yet. We could expedite that. The Washington Post just sent out a notice saying a billion dollars more in aid going to Ukraine. So there you go.

Yeah. I mean, it's going to continue and the war will continue. I mean, it's not a short-term... There's no short-term solution to this war right now. I mean, you can always be surprised, it could always come up, but there's nothing floating around right now in the public sphere about a short-term solution to this. I think the American people's attention has been drawn back to what's going on here in our country. Go to ACLJ.org. Sign that new petition today.