BREAKING: Idaho Judge Sides with Pro-Abortion Left

This is Jay Sekulow and we've got breaking news.

A judge in Idaho sides with the pro-abortion left. 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, Jay Sekulow. Hey everybody, welcome to the broadcast. Well, as we expected was going to happen, we're going to start seeing a series of judicial rulings in what I call the post-Dobbs world, which is where we live right now. This is, after the Supreme Court decision saying that Roe versus Wade was no longer the law of the land, there would start to be decisions being taken in state courts.

So groups like Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups weren't going to take this sitting down. Obviously, they've gone into courts in numerous locales. Now I'm going to start actually with the Texas case because there was an initial order in Texas that was against Texas's law going into a force.

Cece, that's now changed. Yes, so Texas actually, in Texas, Texas was actually the one that brought suit against the HHS. And they were saying that HHS can't mandate a Texas hospital to perform an abortion through the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act that is in direct contradiction with their Texas law.

And the judge in Texas agreed with Texas that the HHS had gone, surpassed their authority by trying to say that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act trumped Texas's state law that outlawed abortion with their trigger law. But Logan, what we're seeing now, and this is what I want to, we're going to get into the Idaho decision in the next segment of the broadcast, but I want to paint the picture for people on this. This issue is becoming both, it's of course a legal issue, but it's now also a political issue. It's certainly, I mean, I'd say it's more of a political issue at this point.

That's why I think it was important. Yeah, take your victory lap, be happy about the fact that Roe was overturned, but now look to the states and look to the voters. And when there are more extreme measures put in place, you have a lot of the people who find themselves in the middle on this, and maybe they get activated.

Maybe they get activated to vote in a way they weren't going to vote three months ago. So that really does change everything. And you have to be aware. I've always said this when we have these conversations, I understand where people are at morally for sure. I understand where they want it to be legally, but sometimes you do have to baby step this and make sure that people feel comfortable with where we're going. And sometimes it gets too extreme for the, not necessarily too extreme for us, but maybe too extreme for the couple percent in most of these states. Now I do think people see Idaho or they see Texas and they go, well, why does this matter to me? Because my state is, you know, either super blue or super red, which is where a lot of people live.

They live in states where it's either going to be completely illegal or whether it's going to be, or very close to completely legal or where it's going to be, you know, California, New York, where it's going to be open season. In some states you have a conservative populace and conservative state government, but the Supreme Court, because of the way they're appointed of those states could be very liberal. We've seen that in a number of states already.

Right. And we've talked about that several times that again, don't just assume that you live in a red state. You have, you know, a conservative legislature. You might not have a conservative judiciary. And that's where a lot of these cases are going.

And that's, who's making these decisions at this time. So, you know, it's not just a given that if you live in a conservative state, you're going to have conservative opinions. I mean, Jordan and I were on the phone with the attorney general for South Dakota just the other day going over some proposals they have coming because Logan, like you said, in that state, Planned Parenthood and others are pushing for a constitutional amendment to have abortion recognized in their state constitution.

So we're having to do this state by state, but I'm going to tell you, Idaho and South Dakota, of course, Texas, we are fully engaged. The resources of the ACLJ are being deployed to fight these on a state by state level. And it is important that the Dobbs Club of Roe versus Wade is now removed from this process. Yeah. I mean, I think it should be something that is celebrated in the fact that we're able to get that done, but now you do turn to what's going to happen and what's going to happen in the next few months. And it's going to be a very interesting time. As we talked about the meetings, I think that things were swaying one way. Tightening up now.

But they're going to tighten up, but they're getting tightened up. Honestly, I told you that even the rhetoric that's coming out of the liberal media originally was a, we need to replace Joe Biden. He can't be our candidate. He can't be our President.

And now just in a matter of weeks, things have shifted to look how cool he is. Look at all the campaign promises he's gotten done. We'll talk about that too. 80% of campaign promises. One of the top, you know, they're starting that sort of spin heading into the midterms. And then you have some divisive issues that could motivate a moderate group of voters. It will be pretty interesting to see how it all plays out.

And that's why you can't drive the ball. And you have to make sure you stay tuned to what's going on in these kinds of states, even if they're not important to you. I said before we started the show, I was wondering if people were going to watch the show on social media because they're like, Idaho? I don't know.

If it matters to me, it does. And we'll tell you why. Hey, welcome back to the broadcast. We're taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. We're taking these two segments to talk about the life issue because this is obviously, since the Dobbs decision, the states have been very active across the country. In fact, at ACLJ.org, we have a map up that goes state by state.

So you can look at the map and go state by state to see where the laws are in your state. Now, Texas was a success. The law is going into effect as planned. However, in Idaho, there was a challenge to the law.

Cece, you've been following that. What's the status there? So Idaho is a little bit different, just like you said. In Texas, Texas sued the Health and Human Services Department. So basically sued the Biden administration from implementing the Emergency Medical Treatment Act, Labor Act that would trump then their state law. So Texas got a win. In Idaho, the Department of Justice actually sued Idaho saying that, again, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act trumped their trigger law.

And the judge, you know, they're, everyone's saying that this is a big win for the Biden administration. But when you really look at the opinion, the judge says that, you know, Idaho can't prosecute a doctor for forming, and this is emergency treatment only, emergency treatment only, they can't prosecute a doctor if they perform abortion as an emergency treatment. But, but there's still a requirement that it's necessary to avoid placing the health of the pregnant patient in serious jeopardy or to bodily impairment, serious impairment of bodily functions or serious dysfunction of any bodily organ. So there's real concrete harm.

Yes. A health harm risk to the woman. And there's still something that needs to be proven there. You can't just come in and say, oh, I did an abortion. You're still going to have to prove that basically it was to save the life of the mother, which is what the Idaho law said in the first place. So this was a very narrow defeat, if you want to call it that.

Probably goes onto the court of appeals likely. But I think what we have to establish here, Logan, is that we are now seeing that the abortion issue is going state to state, and it's going to be in states that are conservative too. So Texas, very conservative state, but we're having to fight it out in Texas. I mean, Idaho is a very conservative state, but we're having to fight it out in Idaho.

You got to get activated in your midterm elections. And I think that's important. It's something that a lot of people do not. A lot of people don't pay attention to what's going on. They don't care. They vote the Presidential. Maybe they'll vote occasionally here and there, but they get distracted and don't vote.

And now we have situations like this that occur. And when you have a state, we have a state like Texas, it's a 49% blue. I mean, it's, you know, it's this narrative talking about huge margins in these places.

States like Tennessee, which are some of those red states in the country, 45% of the people who vote, vote for a Democrat or vote for someone who is pro choice. So if 5% stay home and don't get out there and don't actually do their due diligence, because you look at the President right now and you go, well, I don't even care. I'll, I'll deal with this in two more years.

Look how bad things have gotten. This could become a cyclical issue over the next year. How is your generation looking at this issue?

I think it depends on, on where you're coming from. I think that there are a lot of people who in my circle of friends, obviously that celebrated the win, you know, the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, something we didn't think we'd see in our lifetime. And then you have a lot of people who feed into the hysteria that comes out of the, the social media public opinion, which is concerning for those on the left.

Like you said, it activated them and it did activate them. And then we knew this was coming. It also activated them when Joe Biden is presented as a pretty much one of me, I'd say the worst President in our lifetime to all of a sudden the media has decided, and really that's what it is. They decided to rally behind him because they saw numbers slipping and they have to be able to get people to go out and actually still get activated even with the midterms. Cause if Joe Biden's endorsement doesn't do anything for you, then, you know, that's kind of a big problem in midterms.

So now all of a sudden you're touting me. I'm seeing it every day. Here's where President Biden has had some big successes more so than we have seen in the last couple of months. You know, on the heels of Afghanistan, one year after Afghanistan, exactly.

It's easy, you know, history is very short in people's minds. So that's really about what's happening right now. You know, the gas prices spiked to $6. Now they're down to $4, you know, and people go, Oh, look, it's down. Well, it's not really down, but it's still way up, but you can spin it as a win.

And when you start spinning things as a win, the tide starts turning in your favor. When you start looking at an issue like abortion, which is still probably one of the more controversial subjects and one of the most highly debated subjects. There is not a universal understanding or agreement on any level because they've shifted where actually, I think conservatives have stayed pretty consistent in the sense of here is why we believe that it's wrong. The Democrat agenda and the liberal agenda has shifted over the last 30 years to, well, it's, you know, a blob of tissue to it's not a baby to it's, you know, it doesn't matter. And that's not the point of women's rights.

Those, those tones have changed because they can't justify their own thing. But when you have a social media presence like you do, it's easy to kind of manipulate your audience. And that's, what's happening right now is kind of a mass manipulation. You know, it's interesting because the district court judge here said that, you know, he interpreted the bill, which was a criminal enforcement against the doctor who performed the abortion, unless it involved the real health of the mother. He looked at that and said, it's not about the bygone constitutional right to abortion. That's what the judge said. He said, this court is not grappling with the larger, more profound question. Rather, the court is called upon to address a far more modest issue, whether Idaho's criminal abortion statute conflicts with a small but important corner of federal legislation. And he says it does. Now the federal legislation they're talking about, Cece, is the Emergency Act. So explain that to people we're talking about there. You know, what's very interesting, I'm going to tie these things together because what Logan was just talking about was what we call the abortion distortion.

They always spin things. So this is the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. And this is what the judge is saying, this is going to trump. What's very interesting is he quotes the language of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.

Almost exactly. Here's what the language also actually says, that a medical emergency is one that places the health of the individual, now get this part, or with respect to a pregnant woman, the health of the woman or her unborn child in serious jeopardy. So the actual language of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act actually protects the unborn child's life from being placed in serious jeopardy.

He clearly, in his opinion, leaves that one point out. He just talks about the health of the woman in serious jeopardy, not of her unborn child. So even an argument can be made, even under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, that protects the life of the unborn child. So he is really not doing anything by enforcing this Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act because a doctor should try to protect the health of an unborn child from serious jeopardy under this act. Here's where the legal issues are going to get complicated though, Logan and Cece, and that is states are going different ways.

There are some states that are calling for a total ban on abortion, no life of the mother, no rape or incest exceptions. I think those are not going to bode well in the body politic. You're going to lose. You lose though. You're going to lose. I mean, they don't lose legally, but even if you don't agree with that. You're going to lose politically. You're going to lose politically on most states.

If there's no life of the mother, I think that is where people kind of have drawn the line. Most of the states have not pushed for that. No, but South Carolina is looking at that right now. And I think it's a mistake.

I've said it. I think we have a big win coming from Dobbs. We have the club of Roe versus Wade removed, like Logan said, never thought we'd see that in our lifetime. We did. So we have a great decision. Then we have to go to the next level, which is how do we now win at the states? Because there's going to be litigation in conceivably in all 50 States.

I think it will be. And this is where we've got our lawyers being deployed, but also it's important to get legislation put through. And some of these are requiring constitutional amendments that the people actually understand because here's the problem with constitutional amendments. Generally, when you see a state constitutional amendment, your answer is no, I don't want them to amend the constitution. Now, sometimes it may be amending it to add abortion.

So no is good. Sometimes they may be adding it to protect unborn life. So you would want to vote. Yes, but they're so convoluted, right?

The populace can't understand what they're voting on. That's right. And we're breaking that down for you state by state.

Yes. And so what has happened since Dobbs is the work that the ACLJ does in protecting life has quadrupled. I mean, maybe more than quadrupled because we have to look at, we filed in this Idaho case, um, and we'll file when they appeal again. So we are watching every single, um, court case that is dealing with the issue of life. We're watching every single, like you said, ballot initiative. We're talking to legislatures. So we are literally on the front lines and doing just immense work in this issue of protecting life.

It comes down to at the end of the day, uh, we value human life and we want to protect the life of the unborn child. And now we're having to be really strategic on how we engage. And this is where you come in. Your support for the work of the ACLJ makes all of this possible. We don't produce this program five days a week that goes on television, that goes on radio stations across the country, satellite radio, terrestrial radio, various social media platforms, rumble, YouTube, Facebook, none of that happens without your support. And then of course, deploying our lawyers in these cases is also critical.

I mean, CC's got a major case she's working on that's got a conference call this afternoon and it involves a Christian persecution case in China. And folks, this doesn't happen without your support. If you not yet supported the work of the ACLJ and our matching challenge, we want to encourage you to do that today. I'm going to tell you it's easy.

It works very straightforward. Any amount of money you donate, we have donors that are going to match it. So if you donate $40, we get 80, 10 is 20, a hundred is 200. The other day we got a gift for 5,000, we get a match for that is 10,000. So it doesn't cost you that, but we have donors ready to match.

Go to ACLJ.org, ACLJ.org. And coming up, we'll take some phone calls to Logan after the break. Yeah. If you want to call in, you want your voice heard on the air on any of these topics, 1-800-684-3110. It's 1-800-684-3110. Call us now. Welcome back to the broadcast, everybody.

We're taking your calls at 800-684-3110. We're talking about the life issue. We're now going to be talking about the issue of prayer because we've got a case headed for the Supreme Court of the United States.

So I want to get into this because it's important for you to know what you're supporting when you're supporting the work of the ACLJ. It's a fascinating case. It's a case that literally could have happened in any place in the country.

This so happened in Ocala, Florida. Abby Sutherland's lawyer has been primarily responsible for this case. And Abby, let's start with, I think, giving people the factual background of what actually led to these prayer vigils being called in the first place. Before we get into the controversy, let's talk about what actually happened.

Okay. So the facts are that there was a crime spree resulting in the harm to several children. It occurred in a small community in Ocala.

The police believed they knew who was responsible for the crime, but no one wanted to come forward. And so the police, as they do many times, began to engage community leaders to work with them to say, hey, what do we do about this? How do we increase cooperation among citizens? The leaders of the community decided to hold a prayer vigil to bring the community together, to rally the community. And in response, the chief of police encouraged people to attend the prayer vigil.

All right, let's back up. So you've got this crime spree going through in a smaller community in Florida. Ocala Logan is, you know Florida, so where- Yeah, I mean, it's not a smaller community. It's a pretty significant community in the central Florida sort of area. Yeah. Close to Orlando?

Yeah, within an hour, roughly. It's outside of Orlando. They had a crime spree going on, so there was a problem in the community. Who decided that a prayer vigil would be a good idea? Was it the community, was it the police, or was it everybody? Community leaders suggested. What's a community leader mean in Ocala?

A non-city employee. So a community leader, many of them were religious leaders, some were members of the NAACP, and they were all sitting at a table meeting with the chief of police and determined that this is what they as a community wanted to do. So you had representatives from the NAACP, you had representatives from other community leaders within the area, and the chief of police who is dealing with this crisis and trying to get control over the situation and has the nerve to call for a prayer vigil with these other community leaders. How did the prayer vigil then turn into an event?

I mean, and what happened at the event? Well, and it was the community leaders who called for the prayer vigil. The chief of police just said, whatever you decide, we will support your efforts. And so what ensued was community leaders planned the prayer vigil, they gathered for the prayer vigil, volunteer chaplains with the police department attended the vigil as they would any event and helped lead citizens in prayer at the vigil. So, you know, Cece, we look at these cases and you say, okay, Congress has a chaplain for the House and the Senate.

Other departments have chaplains, fire departments have chaplains, police departments have chaplains. This idea that prayer is divorced from America's public life is a myth that I think has been significantly shattered, especially with the decision in the Coach Kennedy case, that prayer is not to be treated as if it's toxic material, dangerous to be around. So that part, I think the idea that prayer is, should be banned, so to speak. You know, you could have a secular vigil, whatever that means, but prayer itself is still under attack by these.

And we'll talk about the group in a minute. And like you mentioned in the Kennedy case, they're saying, you know, prayer is historical to our society and our nation. And it is, it's foundational. You see for the National Day of Prayer, you see Presidents calling for prayer. Prayer is a foundational part. Presidential proclamations on prayer.

Of our nation. So what we get to, and I don't know if you want to jump into this, is, you know, you get somebody who's an offended observer. We're not going to go there yet.

Give me a little time to build that up. So somebody just goes to these prayer vigils hoping to be against it. Okay. Let's talk about the vigil itself.

What happened? So they held the vigil. And I think an important, another important fact to mention is that the crime spree took place in a faith-based community. And so it made sense that the response by the faith-based community was a prayer vigil. When you say it took place in a faith-based community, what do you mean by that?

It was a, it was a smaller community within Ocala. And so the individuals in charge of leading the vigil were located and led churches in that smaller community within Ocala. And so the pastors gathered together, along with private citizens, planned the vigil. They held the vigil. And a few of the plaintiffs who have since filed a lawsuit challenging the vigil and the city's alleged involvement in the vigil, essentially they objected to the fact that the city encouraged citizens to participate and vocally supported the prayer vigil.

So who's the group that brought the challenge? The American Humanist Association is a law firm and the plaintiffs are in some way related, yes. Individuals? Are they members of these groups? Yes and no. Some were and some are not.

Okay. So they said their complaint that was, we knew this was happening, so we're going to go observe it so we could be offended, basically? And the testimony and discovery indicates that they attended two protests.

They didn't attend to participate. They specifically say, we expected there would be a violation, we attended so that we could witness the violation and essentially be offended as CC said. So in the 11th Circuit, Court of Appeals has a very bizarre rule on what's called legal standing.

That is, who can bring a lawsuit? Because normally an offended observer, the answer to the offended observer is, don't go, look the other way if you don't like the monument. But this idea that you would, you know, ban the entire event because a person doesn't like the event is called offender observer status and that should be, really in most circuits it's gone. The 11th Circuit has this bizarre rule that covers Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and it basically says if there's a, I'm not kidding you folks, if there is a metaphysical harm, that could be enough.

Explain that one, please. Well, it's hard to explain, quite frankly, because the Supreme Court's been clear there is no offended observer standing. And then the 11th Circuit, just months after that decision came down, said, well, we recognize something different. It's psychological or metaphysical harm. However, even the judges in the 11th Circuit have had difficulty explaining, how is that different from offended observer standing? If there is no other injury whatsoever and the plaintiff cannot articulate any injury other than offense or metaphysical harm. Whatever that means.

Right. Most circuits say no standing. You can't even file a lawsuit to challenge the case. So Logan, we are taking the case now on this issue of offended observer standing to the Supreme Court of the United States, because we think this is a vehicle upon which these kind of cases would stop. Just, I'm offended, so I want to then be able to sue.

That's not the way it's supposed to work. Yeah, I think that's how culture is right now. Everyone is so easily offended and offended at everything that this is what gets spun out of control.

So if you actually can have a legal standing to say that's not a thing, that would be fantastic. I think you'd get a lot of people who get riled up about that. You get people who listen to these broadcasts, because again, not unlike the laws earlier today, I think we have to always break down why this is important on the grander scheme. Because you look at, okay, I don't live in Ocala. Ocala is Gainesville and it's 60,000 people. What does that matter to me? Because I'm one of the millions of people who listen to this broadcast that doesn't live in Ocala.

I'm one of the millions of people who listen to the broadcast that don't live in Idaho. But these have much bigger precedent that could be made on a much larger scale. And that's why we take these cases, not just obviously help the people who are in these communities and singular, but how it could affect the whole country. And that's why we're taking it to the Supreme Court of the United States, folks. And we're going to try to file this cert petition by the middle of September. And the reason I'm doing that, we're doing that, is because we filed by the middle of September and they were to grant review.

It will be determined this term. So we're going to make a full effort to protect this right to prayer, this right for this vigil, for this community. And it will affect a lot of other cases around the country.

And that's again, where you come in. Logan's going to let you know how this Matching Challenge, folks, works. We've got state actions we're taking on the life issue, going to the Supreme Court of the United States on a prayer issue. You can support the ACLJ. This is a great time to do it with our Matching Challenge.

It's very easy. Just go to ACLJ.org, click that big Matching Challenge donate button. What that means is any donations that are made during this month are immediately matched by another donor who is ready to go. So you give $10, it becomes 20 effectively for the work of the ACLJ.

So do that now. Second half hour of the broadcast coming up. If you don't get us on your local station, find us on social media. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes 100. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. And now your host, Jay Sekulow.

Hey, welcome back to the broadcast, everyone. We're taking your calls at 800-684-3110. Texas, the court upholds their pro-life law at the appellate court. Idaho, a district court judge says this particular portion of the law involving emergency abortions, he's declaring the law in Idaho unconstitutional. And in other states, we've got fights going on at the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on this. So we're litigating it around the country. You just also heard that we've got a case going in the Supreme Court of the United States on prayer at a prayer vigil for a city that was under distress because of a crime spree.

And the American Humanist Association lawyers and plaintiffs filed a lawsuit. We're taking that to the Supreme Court of the United States. But we also have calls that have been coming in on this issue. We'll take your calls at 800-684-3110.

Rick Grinnell is going to be joining us in the next segment as well. But let's go ahead and take Kim's call. Yep, Kim's calling in Pennsylvania. You're on the air. Hey, Kim. Thanks for taking my call.

I'm a bit confused by this whole thing, just simply because all this time, we have been prosecuting people who are in a car accident or involuntary manslaughter or what have you on an unborn child. Yes. Now they're trying to say that it doesn't matter. Correct.

And it does. Well, here's what you're right. There was laws in most states that if there was a vehicular homicide, let's say, that and the woman was pregnant, that it would be two charges, the mother and the unborn child. Some states had what they call quickening, which was determining at what stage of the pregnancy it had to be at. But regardless, now the framework of Roe versus Wade is gone. So there is no federal constitutional right to abortion. So it now returns to the states. Remember we said, if Roe gets overturned, it simply returns it to the states.

Well, it simply means, in this particular case, a lot of activity in these various states because states are nuanced and different in their laws. Right. And Kim is exactly correct in what she's saying. Yes, we know that if you took the life of a pregnant woman, you were charged with two deaths. But then we have the abortion distortion spin. Yes, it's a baby in every situation unless it's an abortion.

And then suddenly it's not a baby. But what's amazing too is we see this abortion distortion even in this particular case, we see this abortion distortion, even in this judge's opinion from Idaho, when he's saying he's basically quoting the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act of when, you know, you have to provide this emergency medical treatment on patients. But in the definitions of the act of the act itself, it says placing the health of the individual and with respect to women, the health of the woman or her unborn child in serious jeopardy. So even the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act itself acknowledges the life of the unborn child and that the doctor must take action to prevent serious jeopardy to that unborn child's life. But the judge mysteriously leaves that part out of his opinion.

So that now will be appealed. So what I'm telling is where you're having to strategize on a 50-state basis, and Logan's going to walk you through this, if you go to ACLJ.org, we've got an interactive map that shows the law in all 50 states, and it is constantly updated to show where things are because it's changing daily. Yeah, it's a really interesting tool that we've created. The ACLJ website, go to ACLJ.org, I think just slash abortion will come up. But you can really go through state by state, so not just your states, the surrounding states, you can pick through and just see where people, because the states are very different.

Some have more restrictive rules, some don't. We kind of have a sliding scale there that you can see as well. But interesting tool that our digital team and our development team created, so you can really quickly see from a legal and non-biased way, we're telling you the facts here, what your laws are in your area and what could be coming.

And again, how that's constantly evolving, so we'll make sure we stay on that as well. Coming up in the next segment, we have Rick Grenell joining us. If you want to get on the air, you can give us a call right now at 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. And support the work of the ACLJ today at ACLJ.org. If you're looking for something else, we have a brand new podcast starting September 12th. Myself and my brother, Jordan, are here on this show most days. A new podcast coming up, Sekulow Brothers. Go to SekulowBrothers.com, subscribe on Apple Podcast. You can already write a review and rate it. So just say, hey, I'm looking forward to it.

Give us a five-star review. We're already seeing his chart, and that's great. It's great to get the word out.

As Apple changes all of their analytics and all the way they serve things, it really could really help us. And again, go to ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. Hey, welcome back to the broadcast, everyone. We're taking your calls at 800-684-3110. Our senior advisor on national security, former director of national intelligence, Rick Grenell, is joining us.

And Rick, I want to start with the announcement yesterday. What you're seeing happening is, politically, things are tightening up, which is to be expected as we get towards September. Things are going to tighten up.

So yesterday's big announcement was the forgiveness of loan debt of $20,000. The right thought it was bad. The left thought it was not near enough, that didn't impact enough people. And someone on the left said it's not fair to others. But this is mostly politics right now, right?

Yeah, there's no question. Look, I think they saw that they were facing a blowout in November, and they had to come back with some sort of ideas. The Democrats are trying to make sure it's not a blowout. So they're doing big giveaways.

They're spending a lot of money, as John McCain used to say, they're spending like drunken sailors. And my apologies to the sailors. Let's try to reconnect with Rick. I think we're having some issues here. We'll get him on the phone and stuff on Skype.

Sometimes that happens on our video connection. But you talked about that. I think these are big political moves. How is this thing being played right now, the loan forgiveness? Because it's your generation that's being impacted by it. It depends on the side of the aisle you're on. If you're on the conservative side right now, it is the talking point. And I think maybe slightly unfairly, everyone kind of is bumper sticker-y when it comes to it. I hate that when you're just like, everyone kind of says the same thing and they say, oh, it's just you got to pay back the loans. I understand that.

I believe you should. That doesn't stop the conversation that I believe a lot of these loans and these situations that happen were not necessarily on the up and up. And I think a lot of people got taken advantage of.

So let's not forget that part of the story. There are a lot of kids and families and parents who got taken advantage of. And though I do think we're having a mass exodus from higher education for probably a positive overall of it being the only thing, the only option you have is to go to college.

I'm glad to see some of this change, but no one wants to be hit with a bill essentially to pay off other people's liberal arts degrees. It's just not the case. It's not how we all feel. And though I have sympathy for the fact that a lot of people got really taken advantage of, and I think there is solutions hopefully to that, this way isn't it. It can't always be, you messed up.

Now it's not just the government pays for it because what that means is that you have to pay for it. So it's a nice little talking point. And again, a win to come into a primary season.

All right. So Rick, we got you back now. But it was strategic announcement time. I mean, we're getting into the holiday, the September holiday, and then all of a sudden we are really into election season. So the timing on this was obviously political. Like there's people for it, there's people against it.

But where do you see the trend lines here? Well, first of all, you can't blame them for trying, right? They're seeing a blowout in November, so they're trying to do everything they can. They're spending like crazy. And I don't blame them for trying. I think the Republicans right now have to get very focused on beating back some of these bad ideas. And it's not good enough just to say, don't do it. But you have to talk about why it's bad for, you know, individuals who make more than the $125,000 or individuals who have already paid off their student loans. I'm hearing a lot of people saying, wait a minute, $10,000.

That's not even enough to do anything for my $90,000 gender study degree that I got. So I think the politics can be in our favor, if conservatives go out and get aggressive. One interesting fact here, I think this was Susan Rice's first large scale domestic launch. Remember that Susan Rice is inside the White House doing domestic politics. And this is the first time we've seen her at the podium at the White House, talking about a rollout.

And I have to say it's been a disaster and her first big domestic rollout has not gone well. So we've got that issue. And then you've got the Iran issue where they're talking about the President launched a surgical strike on Iran-backed rebels in Syria. And at the same time, they're trying to get to the table to get an Iran nuclear deal back on the table, which would only be good for two more years, while everybody knows Iran's violated the entire time. Yeah, not only have they violated the entire time, but what I've been telling our friends in the Senate to focus on is the outstanding issues that the IAEA currently has with Iran.

There are three outstanding questions about enriched uranium, about the Fordow plant. And this is a plant where they have not allowed international inspections. There's a secret program going on. They have not abided by the UN's arm of inspectors. And yet, we continue to move forward pretending we can trust the Iranian regime. And we've already seen this Iranian regime targeting Americans to kill them here in the United States.

I don't believe that anyone thinks, including somebody like Senator Chris Murphy, who is the biggest fan of this JCPOA. I don't even believe that he thinks that Iran has pulled back on its terror activity. So, I don't understand why we're negotiating with an Iranian regime that haven't pulled back on its terror plans, is secretive towards the UN's questions. And we know they've never been honest. So, it's a trust factor. We've got senators in Washington, DC, trusting the Iranian regime. I think that's a bad mistake.

Yeah. When you trust the Iranian regime, it doesn't necessarily sound like something you want to get involved with. Rick, one thing I wanted to bring up with you, as obviously you're deeply involved in a lot of what's going on politically, is we've seen sort of a shift in tone from the Democrats over the last month, or maybe two months, not only because of roving overturned in those situations, but it felt like the prevailing conversation was, will President Biden be able to even make it to run in 2024? Will they even keep that going?

Or will we even allow it as Democrats? Now, heading into the midterms, I think to obviously build up a bit more cred for him, it seems like the tone of the media and the tone of the political left is like, now they're celebrating President Biden, saying, look at all the amazing things that are getting done. And it really has all happened the last three weeks. I mean, I've even read an article that just opened, I think it was a CNN article that opened with, look, now he's back to like, he looks like the feeble old Joe Biden.

Now he's back to wearing sunglasses, looking cool, getting stuff done. This feels very strategic in terms of the way the media is now presenting this presidency. I think it's very strategic. And I think the lesson that we all need to learn from what's happened over the last couple of weeks is that the media and the Democrats have not given up on Joe Biden running for reelection. They are still pushing him forward as a successful President. They are trying to spin that he's on a roll, that he's found his footing, and that things are going to get better, which means to me that they're convincing, they've already convinced themselves and they're trying to convince the rest of us that Joe Biden deserves reelection in another two and a half years. That to me is a bet that I'll take all day long.

I think that he gets defeated fast. Rick, you are the acting DNI. You're the acting director of National Intelligence.

So as head of DNI, you dealt with classified documents and secure documents. And there's obviously been a lot of controversy in the press over the last week, two weeks, since the situation in Mar-a-Lago involving what are purported to be classified documents. But again, we are now entering September.

In just a week, we're going to be in September. And then everybody knows it's for real political time for the midterms. So are these calculated political moves that these things are happening in this timeframe? I mean, you're looking at the correspondence now, and it looked like negotiations were going on with the former President's team and National Archives for a year. Yeah, I think when you look at the memo of what the White House Counsel's Office said to, you know, they had every right to go after these documents, the White House literally giving them the green light to go do this, that to me signals that they are so serious about Donald Trump running, and want to stop him, mess him up.

It's a PR exercise more than a legal exercise. I think that the reality is, is they want to make it seem like it's too much drama around Trump. But what I think Washington DC misses, is that the rest of the people across the country are looking at policies and facts.

They're looking at their their savings accounts, they're looking at gas prices, inflation, and crime, and the border, and they're saying, you know what, things were much better under the other guy. And I think that's a argument that Washington misses. They're going to have to get out of Washington and go into the to the to the states and try this message.

And I'll just finish with this point. When they try to go into the states, they're not welcome. We see Democrats across the spectrum saying, I don't want to appear with Joe Biden.

So I think that's why they're staying in DC is because they're not welcome in the rest of America. Rick, we appreciate your insight. As always, Rick Connell, Senior Advisor of National Security and Foreign Policy.

Thanks for being with us. When we come back from the break, we're going to talk about more on kind of the military situations going on, but also get into a little bit more on the student debt issue because Nancy Pelosi had a very interesting statement. I'm going to play it when we come back from the break about the President's limits on his authority. And also the Justice Department has just filed a submission under seal to the court. This submission is involving the affidavit that justified the raid. I suspect that we're not going to hear anything on that today, but I could be wrong.

We'll see. Back with more. Don't forget, support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. We are in a matching challenge campaign. And also subscribe to the Secular Brothers podcast.

That's right. You can do that right now. Just go to secularbrothers.com. You can find all the links to our Spotify and Apple podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts. We'll be there September 12th if you can subscribe today. Hey, welcome back.

I'm going to play a flashback for you. We're talking about this debt forgiveness issue that is out there. And Logan did a good analysis of the pros and the cons and where people are in this. But listen to what Nancy Pelosi said about this just about a year ago. People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not. He can postpone.

He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress. So that tells you the politics of this were what was motivating it. He could not get that legislation through Congress. So he did it by executive fiat, Logan.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's those situations that are coming from this administration that really, I think, just frustrates a lot of people because they see, oh, you don't like the way it's going here. Let's change the rules. Let's change the laws. Let's pack the court.

That becomes the constant spin that comes out of this. You don't like that Roe was overturned. Too bad. We're going to try to codify it. Oh, that didn't work. Now we're going to go executive order. You don't like that.

Okay. Now we're going to try to add justices to the Supreme Court that I get to unilaterally pick. It's an absurd situation, but it's the playbook currently. It is somewhat as the playbook of social media response because they're responding to what they think is the mainstream. They're responding to what they're hearing, which is, at all costs, protect these things. At all costs, protect abortion. At all costs, climate change. Even if we all go one step into it and go, okay, well, we all want electric cars.

One, I think they're cool. But then you go one step forward. How are we making that electricity? Well, you're going to get that from the same that we're doing now. Maybe it's worse.

Maybe there's child endangerment and child slavery that's causing the creation of some of these batteries that are needed. And maybe that's happening in other parts of the world. And it starts spinning out of control, but you only read the first part.

You only see the first part, and that's what happens constantly over and over. So this is an interesting issue. So Jason Furman, who chaired President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, ripped into the Biden debt forgiveness plan in a lengthy Twitter thread. It said, inflation's hit an 8.5% high in July, was already expected to remain elevated for the foreseeable future before the announcement, quote, pouring roughly half a trillion dollars gasoline, so half a trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning is reckless. Then he also tweeted, doing it while going well beyond campaign promises, $10,000 student loan relief, and breaking another, all proposals to be paid for, is even worse. So you've got people on the left and the right that do not like the way this is going. Then we're on the heels, like any day now, of a possible situation with Iran with the nuclear deal. And here's what's so bizarre about that. The President ordered strikes against Iranian-backed Revolutionary Guard rebels in Syria yesterday while we're supposed to be sitting down with them and negotiating an Iran nuclear deal, Wes.

It is so crazy. The President, as we say in the South, bless his heart, is bungling his way through foreign policy. And there's so much duplicity in DC. You mentioned, you know, the education loan forgiveness thing. Another thing that is being done by executive fiat is this Iran nuclear deal. I mean, there's a reason why President Obama did not and President Biden will not try to put this through the Senate as a treaty because it would not pass.

It is not what the average American wants. It is certainly not what Israel wants or our Arab Gulf allies, but it appears by the signature of the Biden administration and the Iranians in Tehran, the terrorists, that there is going to be an agreement very, very soon. And, you know, this is alarming for the national security of the United States, but more so for Israel and the Middle East. If this goes through, here's what we know right now. It'll give $100 billion annually today to Iran in income. It will stop all IAEA investigations of their undeclared nuclear sites.

They've found three so far. It will also keep the military sites still off limits to inspection. There will be no restriction on their ballistic missile program. And get this, in these negotiations, there is no discussion. The Iranians have taken it off the table to even discuss their exporting of terrorism in the Middle East.

So this is an extremely bad, dangerous deal, but the President will do it by signature. Yeah, but what they're trying to do is chalk up wins. They're trying to, Logan, you said this, notch up some wins going into the midterm election. Yeah, it's working.

Because most people will not follow the details of an Iran nuclear deal. Yeah, and I don't want to be like Mr. Doom and gloom, but it's working. The polls show that it's working. The spin, like Rick just said, is working for the midterms for right now. So where it was a sure thing almost a year ago that you'd have this, maybe six months ago, you'd have this potentially sweeping red wave, if you will. I don't feel that right now.

I don't feel that from a country standpoint. I think there's a lot more rallying behind the Democrats. There's a lot more rallying behind me. You've seen what's happening in Pennsylvania. You're seeing what's happening in all these different states. Georgia. In Georgia, where the polls have either tightened or you've had things take the lead. Now polls are what they are, but I can tell you, you can read the room of the country. And the room of the country is not as, it's just as doom and gloom as maybe it was, but they're activated.

A lot more activated. Yeah, but you said like, because gas was $6 and 50 cents a gallon, and now it's down to $4 and 20 cents a gallon. And everybody's saying, oh, this is great. Forgetting that was two years ago, it was $1.89. Yeah, exactly. And that a year ago it was a dollar cheaper. President Biden, for all of his faults and his missteps, he has survived and thrived in the political swamp in DC for over 40 years.

And there's a reason. And we're beginning to see some of that too. He is crazy like a fox. He's very shrewd in spite of all the missteps that he makes.

And politically, he's very, very smart. Do you see China doing anything to Taiwan? I do, but I think they will wait at least till after the midterms. But I personally think they're going to wait until the next Presidential election to see who's in office because that will determine a lot about the US response. And Russia, Ukraine, six months into that war? Tell you what, Putin by all estimates is in the long game here. He just signed an order yesterday increasing the Russian military by 137,000 troops. That brings their total force to over 1 million active duty troops.

I think he's in it for the long haul. It's a little bit static on the front lines right now. But yesterday, his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, made the statement that their approach to the war in Ukraine is what he called a maximalist war. And that includes what they started from at the beginning, he said.

Well, what did they start from at the beginning? To depose the Ukrainian government and to put in their own government. So that is still their goal. And they, even though they've had setbacks and there's a little bit of a draw right now in Southeastern Ukraine, they are in it for the long haul and they are determined to win.

What do you think, Logan, right now? The people's interests right now, conservatives, they're upset about what happened down to the former President. They didn't like that move politically, legally. Is that impacting anything right now? Uh, I think it was. I think it had a moment. And I think because nothing's come of it, it's sort of off the news. I mean, you know, we're talking about it here and there. Barely. But it didn't, maybe, I think it was a spark, but it didn't necessarily become a fire in terms of a rallying crime.

I think that happened around Dobbs. It became a spark, didn't necessarily become this huge fire around the country because you didn't see those protests in the streets like you did for other issues. Cause I think people are very nuanced on their feelings. And that's what we've talked about. They're nuanced on their feelings about abortion. They're not necessarily all or nothing.

They have these sort of conflicted, you know, these conflicted feelings, especially if they're not of faith, they, they, they see both sides and you have these extremes on both sides really causing an issue. That is something that is going to have to be played out. And I think it'll be a curious few weeks to see.

I mean, that's all you got. You're talking about, what, six weeks, eight weeks until really, I mean, 10 really technically, but yeah, you got the weeks that don't count. What's the holiday week. I mean, after the holiday, you are, you're seven weeks away from the midterm elections, right? And so that's either the Republican to get the house or they're not either they're going to get the Senate or they're not, if they don't, it's gonna be big rebukes on both ends.

Oh yeah. We're gonna, you're gonna have to just hit the reset button and see where everyone stands if that happens. But we don't have to hit the reset button here at the ACLJ because our work continues regardless. And Logan's gonna let you know how you could support the work of the ACLJ. Don't also forget to sign up for their podcast, Secular Brothers, launching September 12th. Yep, that's right. You can do that at secularbrothers.com or find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. There'll be a video component as well, launching a little bit later on September 12th, but we'll be there to subscribe a little bit later. Support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org.