Biden Parties, Americans Suffer

This is Jay Sekulow.

Americans suffer as President Biden parties at the White House. 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. Interesting day in Washington yesterday, I have to say. So the stock market falls 1,300 points, which is very significant. The inflation number comes out. It dropped from, what was it, Logan, 8.5 to 8.2 or something like 8.3. So terrible inflation numbers. Stock market reacts horribly to it, which is understandable.

And Joe Biden is at the White House having a party about the Inflation Reduction Act. Yeah. And has James Taylor singing... And I like James Taylor's music. I'm a huge James Taylor fan. He's singing Fire and Rain, which I'm not sure that would have been the right... You're an atmosphere.

You look at how things look atmospheric. Was that the right tune you wanted to pick? Well, I feel like just having the party in general is out of touch completely with society. But in general, yeah, you already have a week ago or a week and a half ago now, the death and destruction speech that happened. And since then, having a road path to recovery, maybe not the best visual to have a party when you have, again, the stock market dropping 1,000 points and you have inflation marginally coming down. This is, again, like when they celebrated $5 a gallon going down to $4 a gallon or $3.80.

Again, not looking back two years or a year and a half where things were $1, $1.50. It's these little tiny wins. And they're accumulating all of these to me for a 2024 President Biden run. They're already starting that because that's the only thing they can do now is they have to have these big parties and celebrations for tiny wins that in reality, big picture, are just trying to fix the mistakes, the giant mistakes that have already happened. Well, the economic mistakes have been unreal. I mean, our energy dependence now in other countries and you got a war in Eastern Europe.

I mean, this has been a fiasco approach. I need to say a couple of things at the outset. We're going to get into that.

We've got Mike Pompeo joining us. Yeah, and give us a call if you want to be on the air, 1-800-684-3110. That's a good time to get calls in right now as we keep talking, 1-800-684-3110.

Yeah, I'd like to know from our audience how the cost of food and the cost of transportation and energy is impacting you. We need to hear from you, 1-800-684-3110. Let me take a moment here as we get ready to go to break to send my condolences as I already have, but also to let you know that a very good friend of ours, someone that I've worked with since 1989, the former Solicitor General of the United States, former judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, former colleague of mine, Ken Starr, passed away from complications from surgery a while back, but he's been in the hospital for a number of months. I will tell you something, one of the nicest people I have ever worked with, one of the most brilliant lawyers, a scholar and a gentleman are what a lot of people are saying. He's had a tremendous career, and he had a big impact on young lawyers and lawyers that weren't that much younger than him, like me. I was 10 years younger.

I'm 10 years younger than him. But we argued our first case together in 1990, and it involved prayer and Bible clubs at the public schools. He represented the United States.

I represented the private petitioners. We were both on the same side arguing to have, and this was big, to have prayer and Bible clubs authorized in public schools, and we won that case eight to one, and Ken Starr had a big role to play in that, and again, he was on our side. And then fast forward, so we've been friends over the years, and then fast forward when we did the first impeachment trial, Ken Starr was my colleague. He did some of the major arguments in the opening and the closing segments of those hearings, and just a tremendous, tremendous lawyer, praying for his family.

He's got grandkids, of course, children and grandkids, and praying for Alice's wife, who we've known for, again, a number of years. Great legacy from Ken Starr. I just hate to even have to say the passing of Ken Starr, but our prayers and thoughts with his family, and it's been a very tough road for them over the last four months. I was with him two weeks before he was hospitalized.

He was on the board of directors, board of trustees for Regent University. We served together. We had dinner. He seemed great, and then two weeks later, he was in the hospital and never recovered.

That's right. It was a sad day for a lot of people, and obviously, we sent our prayers to his family. We got a lot more show coming up. Inflation.

A lot of guests. Yeah, we'll get back onto track, onto our topic for today. We'd love to hear from you, 1-800-684-3110. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the broadcast room.

We are taking your calls at 800-684-3110. So the President has a party celebration at the White House yesterday celebrating the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. Meanwhile, inflation reduced from 8.5 to 8.35, so really no reduction at all, and the stock market fell over 1,300 points while the President of the United States made this statement.

Listen to number 18. Let's be honest. For passing this law, wasn't he?

What a great day. Exactly four weeks ago today, I signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, a single most important legislation passed in the Congress to combat inflation, and one of the most significant laws in our nation's history, in my view. Okay, so look, we didn't have inflation until you became President.

Let's be clear. At these kind of rates, this is going back to Jimmy Carter. So, you know, Logan, I've got questions for Harry on the substance here, but the picture and the imaging of this as the stock market was falling 1,300 points. Yeah, and as we all know that really, I mean, that's why you have your James Taylors out there and all this stuff is because it really just had very little to do with inflation. That was part of the entire thing. Even Bernie Sanders was like, yeah, this is gonna do nothing for inflation. This is really just a climate change and a green kind of positioning. It didn't really have that much to do with it. You saw minor changes in the rates.

It went from 8.5 to 8.3. Yeah, it's nothing, but they'll take the victory lap. Well, they did take the victory lap. So the question is, Harry, from your perspective is looking at it, we said this yesterday when we were looking at the stock market falling, if you look at the inflation situation right now, how do you view it? I mean, they had the celebration of this party, but the end result is a disaster.

I think that is precisely correct. So the markets, that is the stock markets have exploded downward and for very good reason. First and foremost, because President Biden is in office. He is as inept a President as Jimmy Carter was. The perfect metaphor for yesterday's stock market crash, in my opinion, Jay, is the fact that President Biden, who has consistently poured gasoline on inflation, is flying to Detroit today to drive an $80,000 electric vehicle as part of the so-called transition to green energy.

Guess what? Huge swaths of the American people earn less than $60,000 per year, so they can't afford an $80,000 car. Egg prices are up 39%. Electricity prices are up 16%.

Health insurance is up 24.3%. All of those products and services are services that are characterized by what is called inelastic demand. What does that mean? That means people cannot do without them. You have to have food. You have to have energy.

And you have to have healthcare. Right. And meanwhile, the President is celebrating with a champagne brunch on the south lawn of the White House, and he is oblivious to the fact that virtually every single policy that he's enacted or supported has driven up inflation.

Okay, so let me ask this question, because this is a question I think a lot of people have, Harry, and that is this. Inflation didn't come out of nowhere. So what triggered all of this to see these numbers just spike in the last couple of months like they have?

I mean, we didn't see this in the previous four years, and now all of a sudden we're in inflation numbers that are back to the Jimmy back to the Jimmy Carter. Well, first and foremost, President Biden has taken a difficult decision with respect to energy. Essentially, he has enacted policies that drive up energy costs. Keep in mind, he shut down ANWR. He shut down the Keystone Pipeline.

And he basically avoided oil and gas leases. Meanwhile, Europe became more and more dependent under the Biden administration on Russia. And so they are now demanding more and more US energy. That is driving up energy.

So this was foreseeable. Would these policies result in inflation? Absolutely. And then you have the student loan bailout.

That's a trillion dollars, which is adding gasoline to the inflationary fires. Yeah. All right. Logan, we got a lot of calls are coming in 800-684-3110. We want to know how this is impacting you. Yeah. Let's go to Tim in California on Line 1.

Probably a state that's been impacted the most. Tim, you're on the air. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. Inflation is having a negative effect on me. For starters, I'm on a gluten-free diet. The stuff I need to get is more expensive. Gas is out of sight in California.

As a matter of fact, I came very, very close to losing my power because of nuisance and aptitude. So inflation is affecting me in negative ways. Tim, what is the gas prices in California right now? What are you paying per gallon?

Well, actually, I don't drive, but it's that person who drives me. I mean, I forget the exact price, but it's high. Yeah.

Go ahead, Logan. Yeah. He had a question. He just said, what can be done to make things more affordable? And we actually discussed this a little bit on our podcast, on the Secular Brothers podcast yesterday, because I kind of asked the same question, which is, we all can kind of present, we know there's a problem, but what is the solution? Is the solution, like you said, open up the pipelines, do these kinds of things.

Yeah. People are looking for... I mean, I don't want to just present, here's the problem, good luck. Here's the solutions that we should be working on in Congress. Well, first Biden should reverse the student loan bailout. That's a trillion dollars, which is adding... Let's assume that's not going to happen, because they politically made a decision that that politically sells for them.

I think you're right, politically, unfortunately. But you should, at a minimum, open up all of the pipelines, all of the sources of energy. Keep in mind, Jay, fossil fuels have powered modern civilization. So you combine fossil fuels with nuclear power, you will have a stable source of energy, you will have lower prices, you'll have lower food prices, lower health insurance costs. All of these things work together, and the Biden administration doesn't seem to understand that.

Meanwhile, what are they doing? They're pushing green energy, which is terribly expensive, and much of green energy is unstable. Yeah, we're on a verge, also, of a freight train strike.

I don't know if people have been seeing that, where that's happening all over. So when you have that combined with it, you're right. If the pipelines open up, as Jordan kind of said on this podcast yesterday, if that opens up, if we can get our energy independence back, that should trickle down, essentially, to everything, because everything is going up because of that. Then you have things like a rail strike, which may sound like it's out of the old West, but we're talking about so many of your goods, especially coming over to the West Coast and through the Rocky Mountains. You need that to get things going. I mean, as of a few hours ago, still was on the verge of strike.

I want to play by 25. This is Senator Schumer. This is the celebratory nature. He has restored dignity, respect, and a sense of action back to the Oval Office. So thank you, President Biden, for your incredible leadership. Americans are seeing what it looks like to have a President and a Congress that's focused on delivering results to make their lives better. So here's what Americans are seeing. They're seeing gasoline at over $5 a gallon in a large part of the country. They're seeing a stock market that has basically tanked since the President came into office. They're seeing their grocery bills up 20 and 30%.

They've seen the mortgage interest rates double in a year. So that's what they're actually seeing. So, you know, to me, they could politicize this all they want, and they're trying to change the... This was a change the messaging moment is what they were trying to do yesterday, but the reality is the number of changes is what the American people are dealing with.

Absolutely. And so Senator Schumer's comments were insanely delusional. He is not looking at the facts.

And so increasingly, Jay, we live in this world of unreality. The American people, middle-class people, working-class individuals, they see the facts facing them every single day when they go to the grocery store, when they go to the gas pump. And yet this administration is blind to all of that. They keep talking about this grand strategy of energy transition. That is simply a road to nowhere because the energy that they are talking about, the so-called green revolution, A, is unreliable. It has led to deaths in Texas, over 200 deaths, $300 billion of damage.

We now have blackout in California. But at the end of the day, we still have Schumer. We still have Biden and the American people need to react to that.

I wanna play this bite as we go into the break. This is number 43. Take a listen to this. The stock market doesn't necessarily reflect the state of the economy, as you well know. And the economy is still strong, unemployment is low, jobs are up, manufacturing is good. The stock market doesn't reflect... Quickly, can we play by 25 also from Chuck Schumer?

I think we have the time. Let's restore dignity, respect, and a sense of action back to the Oval Office. So thank you, President Biden, for your incredible leadership.

Americans are seeing what it looks like to have a President and a Congress that's focused on delivering results to make their lives better. How do you feel about that? We want you to give us a call, 1-800-684-3110. I wanna show a little bit of both sides there.

1-800-684-3110. Do you feel that way? Do you feel like we've restored dignity into the White House?

I feel like most of our listeners maybe have something to say about it. So give us a call right now. We'll be right back. All right, welcome back.

Logan did a little ad lib there at the end. We played a bite that we played once before, but he wanted to see if you get a reaction to it. We got a reaction. Yeah, phone lines right now are jammed. So we're gonna get to those as soon as we can, or do you wanna go ahead and start? Yeah, let's go.

Well, some people have discussions about the inflation. They've been on hold for a little while. Yeah, let's do it. So let's first, well, first, yeah, let's go to Phillip in New York online for, because I think he's responding to that. Can we go to Phillip? Phillip, you're on the air. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. The clips you just played about Schumer and Harris and or Joe Biden talking about the border's not, they're being secure and the President's having the ability to talk to the American people to say how good we're doing. Yeah, he brought the dignity.

He restored dignity. Yes. My question is how stupid do these people think that the public is? Look, I feel that that's a really reasonable question. And the truth is, this is how Democrats typically treat their own constituents, which is to just blindly go, look, everything is great. You know the world's crumbling around you. We can all feel it.

It feels like the end times, but for some reason we're allowed to, we have to pretend. And I think that's actually a little bit of a difference between some Republican politicians and Democrat politicians. I think they're all corrupt. I think a lot of them are evil, but I do think that there are usually some more honesty because you have the Democrats come out and I feel like blatantly lie and people go shake their head yes. It's like we talked about yesterday on the podcast that 60% or 70% thought that the speech was divisive, which actually the Biden death, the blood drenched speech, but people, that means 40%, 50% of people thought it was not divisive, which meant those people went, oh yes, what he's saying is right. These are the evil people, the bad people. They agreed. So it is kind of a scary time and you're right.

They do treat you like you're dumb because they anticipate that you will just go along with it as a sheep. Well, they say, Biden made the statement, I want to play it again. He said, don't judge everything about the stock market, but the health of companies is indicative, Harry, of the economy.

Absolutely. And so if you look at the stock market, the stock market crash really yesterday, what are sophisticated investors anticipating? They're anticipating that the federal reserve will continue to raise interest rates, which will perhaps stop inflation, but how?

By causing unemployment. So over the next six months to 12 months, we should expect unemployment to rise 30 to 40% because that's the most effective way of reducing the inflation rate. So keep in mind, the American people are now paying the highest mortgage rates they've paid in 14 years. And with some mortgage rates beginning to approach 7%. Now don't get me wrong, that's not as crazy as it was under Jimmy Carter when there were 14 or 17, but Joe Biden is making progress in accomplishing his single most important objective to become the worst President in American history. Well, the economic impact of this is everybody's feeling it. I mean, there's not a person here that goes and say, oh, gas is down to $5 a gallon. This is really a good day.

Yeah. I feel like we're living like the emperor's new clothes story. The reality is he doesn't have new clothes.

He doesn't have any clothes on in that story, but yet it's being pitched as, oh, look at his great clothes. And it's the same thing that's happening here with the economy is tanking, it's trashing. We, the people know it, but they're saying, oh, look how Biden has done such a great job and look how, you know, everything in the economy is great. And I think we're, we aren't that stupid.

We are saying, hey, he doesn't have any clothes on. Yeah. It's a show. And they're putting out a show to try to James Taylor. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm sure cultural relevancy of James Taylor.

Not exactly peak performance, but it's fine. Fan. I'm a fan. I'm a big fan, but you know, it's just, I mean, it's been a while since you've heard James Taylor, maybe not just your classic rock station. Well, that's all I listen to.

That's fine. I don't listen to anything really modern either. I'm just saying, it's not like they're like, yeah. I mean, I feel like you're having a party.

I don't think of let's have James Taylor. I mean a party. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. You can bring out Mr. Worldwide, you can bring out, you know, Pitbull or something. Why not someone who's going to actually have a party. So, you know, I don't know.

I mean, my, my names are dated as well because I'm an old man at this point, but you know, I don't know. I feel like that you have James Taylor out there very slow, very calm, very peaceful to say, look, I love fire and rain, but the song, I mean, I've seen fire and I seen rain, the stock market's dropping. It's a lot of rain. All right. Back to the, let's go Perry on line two. You're on the air.

Perry, Michigan. Yes, sir. Thanks for taking my call guys. Really appreciate what you do. I'm driving back from Northern Michigan and I just paid $5 and 40 cents for diesel fuel. Thought I could give you an update on that.

Yeah. And our family is a family business that's also been in Michigan for 65 years. Prior to a couple of years ago, we were 400 employees and now we're down to 200 and it's awful hard to keep new employment people employed for more than a couple of weeks. So this is, so I was going to, Harry, I was going to ask you this on, because this is kind of impacts the economic issue. Gas price, I mean, he's paying over $5 for diesel.

They're in a business where obviously logistics and transportation are important. Unemployment is still low, right? I mean, the unemployment rate is still low. Are we going to see, I mean, in these kinds of situations, does that start to impact things or is it going to still stay relatively low, do you think? I think the unemployment rate will rise, but also keep in mind that the current unemployment rate, the current relatively low number is deceptive because we have the lowest labor participation rate that we've had probably in the last 30 years. So that means that there are a significant number of Americans who are not in the workforce.

And if you're not in the workforce and if you're not looking for work, you are not counted as unemployed. So many people have simply retreated to the margins and perhaps they are working in what is called the underground economy, which is actually growing under the Biden administration through the sales of fentanyl and drugs coming up from the southern border. So here's their two announcements in like three days. One is the border secure, that's the vice President of the United States.

And like I said, the border secure, what you mean by secure is it's not secured because the border is not secured. And then he's having a celebration of the inflation reduction act while inflation is still 8.35% and the stock market dropped, you know, 13 or 1400 points. But you know, Cece, you've got kids in college, we've only got a minute and a half here, but you've got two kids in college.

I mean, we haven't even talked about that. The cost of higher education right now is incredible. And it actually increased from last year to this year, which you would think maybe we'd get a decrease or some kind of break, but it actually increased.

And truthfully, I don't know how people who aren't making significant amounts of income can have any children in college. It's just, it's ridiculous. It is really tough. All right, we're going to take more calls. A lot of people are calling in. Yeah, a lot of people are calling in. We took some more calls, so we have some open lines.

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Become a member today, ACLJ.org. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jay Sekulow. All right, we've been talking about inflation and the economy because President Biden had a party yesterday at the White House and had his entertainment, James Taylor.

I'm a huge James Taylor fan. I'm not sure that would have been the right for the message. Here's the messaging. Inflation is going to be reduced. We've got this new bill and it reduced from 8.5 to 8.35 and the stock market fell over 1,300 points. But Chuck Schumer was very happy that President Biden's policies are going into effect and the Congress is doing a great job.

Here's what he said. He has restored dignity, respect and a sense of action back to the Oval Office. So thank you, President Biden, for your incredible leadership. Americans are seeing what it looks like to have a President and a Congress that's focused on delivering results to make their lives better.

Here's what it looks like. Inflation at 8.35%. Gasoline prices in most parts of the country, over $4.50 a gallon. Diesel, over $5 a gallon.

And that's down from the seven it was. Food prices up in some segments of the food industry, 26%. Same thing with healthcare. So that's what it looks like, the American people. And we have got a lot of phone calls. People are already calling us about this because we asked in the first half hour, how's this affecting you? And it is affecting people, Logan. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people have called in.

So let's go ahead and take some of those. Go to Cambria, who is calling in Utah on Line 3. Thanks for calling. You're on the air. Hey, Cambria.

Hi, thanks for taking my call. It's pretty rough. My new husband and I are both just disabled. So it really is tough. You have to choose between, you can't eat healthy anymore.

That's impossible now. But you have to choose between your pharmacy, your gas, or your food. And then, of course, your bills. Utah has got a low unemployment rate.

I think they said 2.5 on the news the other day, which is nice. But you're cutting your hours. So now you've got two disabled individuals picking up second and third jobs.

So Cambria, here's what I want to say. We are the United States of America, Professor Harry Hutchison. People shouldn't be choosing between their medicines and food. I think that's correct. And so if you go back to Chuck Schumer's comments, again, I would add that his comments were insanely delusional. Keep in mind, healthcare costs, particularly with respect to this caller, they are up 25%.

For average Americans, their wage increase over the last 12 months has been around 5%, while the average inflation rate is close to 9% or 10%. So guess what? People are falling behind even if they're working. We should also keep in mind that there is a baby formula shortage still today, even though President Biden promised that he would solve the problem. One of the things that we should take to the bank is that we should reverse every single Biden policy.

That's number one. But when he claims progress, that means things are actually getting worse. But it's what Logan said, though. This is like smoke and mirrors. It's like it's creating imagery here. That's how I view it.

I try cases. You create an image. That's what they're doing here. You have a big party, even though things are a disaster.

That's right. And it's in hopes that we're not paying attention and we don't know. But the problem is the people when they go to get gas, the people when we go to buy our groceries, we are seeing it and feeling it. So it's not so easy to do smoke and mirrors. Now, the people that just listen to the media and listen to the politicians, maybe they'll believe it and go along with it. But you can't go along with it very long when you go out and become a consumer and you can't find products. And you're paying way more than you've ever paid for gas and food and drugs and everything else.

It's unreal. We'll be joined by Mike Pompeo. Talk to him about some of this economics, but also take more questions. Yeah, we'll be taking more calls. Mike Pompeo will join us in the next segment. So you're going to want to stay tuned for that. You can also call in. There's a couple lines.

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Had one just dropped last night. Secularbrothers.com. And you can get a Logan Sekulow on YouTube. Yeah, yeah. Just search Secular Brothers. You'll find us on YouTube.

Yeah, it's on my channel. We'll be right back. All right. So Joe Biden's having a concert at the White House while the stock market's falling 1,300 points. I happen to like James Taylor's music. I'm a big fan.

Our band hasn't done any James Taylor, but maybe we will in celebration of, I don't know, inflation going from 8.5 to 8.35. I mean, this is absurd. Joining us now, of course, former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, your Senior Counsel for Global Affairs.

Mike, okay. So they have a party at the White House yesterday, literally, to celebrate the Inflation Reduction Act. Meanwhile, the numbers come out and inflation was reduced from 8.5 to 8.35, which is statistically insignificant.

And the stock market, while James Taylor's singing Fire and Rain, drops 1,300 points. And I'm thinking, okay, what do they think? The American people are oblivious to this? The reality is very clear, but this is the consequence of policies. And I think what the American people need to hear, and you've been involved in Congress, you've run the CIA, you've been Secretary of State, policies have consequences. And that's what we're seeing played out here.

Oh, Jay, that's exactly right. It was really quite something to watch the split screen yesterday with the stock market falling people's 401ks, tanking, and James Taylor singing Fire and Rain. It was all one could take. The reality is last night, for example, I was in Chicago at Illinois.

I was out with a bunch of folks. They can all feel this. You can hold all the parties at the White House.

You can tell all the stories you want. But in the end, they know that the decision the Biden administration has made, the decisions on energy, the decision on banking, on regulation, on farmers and agriculture, all the things, the combined effect is that President Biden's highest priority, he said his absolute highest priority is inflation. And it is destroying the lives of ordinary Americans all across the country. You know, he actually said, President Biden said, America is vibrant and the future is bright. And I've got a lot of hope for our country because we've been through the Jimmy Carter's before and we survive it. But to say that America is vibrant and the future is bright. We had called earlier today, Mike, a guy that's had a business, his family's had a business in Michigan for 65 years.

It sounded like they were in some kind of logistics transport business. And he said, good news, diesel fuel is only $5.60 a gallon compared to less, you know, $2 a gallon a couple of years ago. And what people are starting to see is when you double the cost of things, the trickle-down effect is gigantic. So, but I want to hold out hope for the future for our country. I don't want people to think that all is lost because we've been through these before and there is a way out.

Jay, not only is there a way out, we're going to find the way out. We're going to start in November to push back against these policies. I'm convinced of it.

They're going to throw, the rascals who deliver these bad outcomes for American families are going to get tossed on their ear in November. I am convinced of it. Just not, this isn't politics. This is about people's lives. This is about America.

And your bigger point, Jay, I think is so true. This is a country worth fighting for. We've been through difficult challenges in our nation before, even in recent history, we always get it right.

I am confident of that. Not because of folks in Washington DC or capitals in places like Topeka or Albany, but because the American people demand it and get it right. And in our churches, our PTA groups, our little places, America gets it right. And that is happening all across the country today. This is a nation that is worthy of fighting for, and I'm convinced the American people are going to continue to do that.

And when we do, it will turn out that President Biden is right, that this is a great nation, but not because of the policies he put in place, because of the ones we reversed when power was restored to the rightful people who are getting it right for the American people. I want to turn our attention to the situation with China and Russia. The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin's about to meet with President Xi of China. This is an in-person meeting. You have met, you know these people, you've sat down with them.

What's your thoughts on what we're going to see out of this? And what's the messaging being sent by this meeting? So I have, I've met with each of those two leaders multiple times, both men who are deeply evil, both men who are intent on denying freedom and prosperity for us here at home in America. They're meeting to demonstrate their commitment to each other on a combined basis. They have a pretty formal military capability, a pretty formidable nuclear capability and real economy between the two.

The world should acknowledge that the Chinese Communist Party has refused to condemn the killing of Ukrainian innocent children. That alone should tell us all we need about the things we need to do and why it is these two guys are meeting today. They don't have lots of friends, but these are two that will have a deep relationship. We ought to do everything we can to make that relationship difficult, but we should be absolutely clear about the fact that those two countries, Russia and the Chinese Communist Party, are trying to undermine the way we live and to do everything necessary to push back against them. Mr. Secretary, what would make their relationship, the relationship between Putin and Xi, you know, painful?

I mean, what would be the relationship deal breaker to make it uncomfortable for these two individuals? Well, there's a whole handful of things we can do. One is, we ought to make clear that it's not a free pass for the Chinese Communist Party to do business with the Russians. We've told everyone else you can't do business with them, but we have given China a free pass. We shouldn't permit that to happen. Second, on the energy front, the way to make it most painful is to produce American affordable energy for us here at home and for people all across the world, in Europe and in India and throughout Southeast Asia. The last, the most valuable part of the relationship for Xi Jinping in China is that he's going to get discounted crude oil and natural gas from Russia. We should prevent that from happening, and we should make sure we dry up the profits connected to Putin's petrochemical regime. Last question. I could tell, like me, you have great hope for the future of America. I do, tremendously. Yeah, I think, I don't want everybody to walk away thinking that this is, you know, there are solutions to these problems.

They didn't come out of the air. There were policy decisions made that have impact on all of this. You've got to change the policies.

I think you're going to see a lot of that change in November. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being with us. As always, we appreciate you being part of our team. We're going to go right back and take some more calls at 800-684-3110. We've covered a lot of material today, and we're going to continue to do that. Let's go to Bailey in Texas on Line 6. You're on the air. Hi, Bailey. Hey, how are you guys doing today?

Great. I just want to say, you know, when you talk about Joe Biden and his administration of the Democratic Party, and people ask, like, is it his incompetency or is it being done on purpose? He ran on all these things. He ran on raising taxes for the wealthy and for corporations, which is going to raise the price of everything. He ran on capping oil wells, on removing subsidies from oil companies and everything else that would, because he said he wanted to transition us. He ran on all this.

No, you're 100% correct. I mean, this isn't hidden. These aren't hidden policies, Harry. These were policies he promoted. This is what he ran on. This was his platform.

The caller is precisely correct. Joe Biden is intentionally mismanaging the U.S. economy. He's mismanaging energy.

Why? Because he's driven by a globalist ideology that comes straight from the World Economic Forum, which basically says shrink dependence on fossil fuels, which means shrinking American civilization. You know, the other thing is, I mean, I know they're pushing this green energy and the electric cars, and it sounds great, but $80,000 for a car. Most Americans cannot afford that. That would be a lower end one other than a couple of the Teslas that are more affordable. They're in the $40,000, $50,000, but most of them are significantly more than that. Plus, you can't charge them. In California, you know, you got to put the air conditioning up.

You live in California. Has it changed at all? You know, the one thing I do remember, and I lived there a long time ago, but I do remember the gas prices, you know, when they were probably 89 cents were like over $3 there. And that was a long time ago. So I remember the gas was always expensive. And we were out there in April and things had just started to heat up over here in the east and in the middle of the country.

And you saw like it was already $6, $7 there. And you're like, oh yeah, you forget this is what L.A. is like. All right, let's wrap up with some more calls. Nina's calling in California. You're on the air. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. Can you hear me OK?

Go ahead. OK, well, I wanted to talk real quick about like four points, five points I've seen, OK, of what's going on and what's affecting me. First of all, I'm talking about bad quality of medical care and also no public services.

Also, homelessness and more crime. Another thing is that I just retired like two months ago and I can't go nowhere. I tried to book a hotel with extended stay America and they stole my reservation. And it was a three month reservation. When I got to Sacramento, there was no reservation.

Also, when I booked the hotel, I mean, a flight with United Airlines, they stole $2,700 that I just had to talk to. Yeah, Nina, there's a lot of like announcing if you need anything, you know, you have the website. I didn't mean to cut you off. We are running so short on time and I really apologize. We weren't able to get to all your points. But this is the example of what's happening around the country.

It's called frustration and people are really, really frustrated. I want to grab Julie. I know we only got a minute. Julie, go ahead. Go ahead.

You're really like 20 seconds. I just wanted to know on that clip of Schumer. Yes. Who are these people in the background that are clapping? There you go. There you go.

Yeah. People were clapping are people who are just trying to get into your mind and say, look, what he's saying is good. It's real.

It's, you know, it's the mentors in the background, you know, clapping. It's a, it's an absurd situation, but it is what it is and you have to see past it. And if you are logical and sensible, I don't care if you're Republican or you're a Democrat, if you're logical and sensible and looking at the world around you, you can't say all is good and all is better. But like you said, there is always hope. We will be back tomorrow with another episode. We got another segment coming up. We're gonna talk about the life issue.

That's right. We do have another segment coming up. We're going to get ready to go to the tomorrow. I step out of here and then I get back to work. You guys keep going. Go to ACLJ.org though. Also check out some of the amazing work that we're doing.

Not just go and sign and support and donate and do all that. It's all great, but there is great brand new content that is produced, that is put up there each and every day by our incredible team. Check out our podcast, Secular Brothers, and just in general, go support the work and take a look. Great entertainment and great news. Hi everybody.

Welcome back to the broadcast. We've had a lot of information on today's program. I want to end the program with a discussion of the life issue.

Our friend Senator Lindsey Graham yesterday put forward a bill in the United States Senate on the issue of abortion and life. There's been a lot of talk about what's going to happen in the post-Dobbs world after the overturn of Roe versus Wade, return to the states. We're involved in a lot of cases.

In fact, C.C. Howe is with us, Senior Counsel for the ACLJ. We've got cases literally going pretty much coast to coast right now on various states that are making, putting forward their law. But some of these state issues, even in conservative states, you've got these constitutional amendments, which are very confusing to the populace. We'll get to Lindsey's bill and Senator Graham's bill in a moment, but we are heavily involved.

And we've got, I think we're in eight cases right now. Right. And like you said, the ballot initiatives, which are separate than the cases that are going to the state Supreme Courts, the ballot initiatives are very confusing because the way they do the terminology or the wording of these ballot initiatives, you don't know whether to vote yes or no.

And so we're engaged in that. Generally, and when you see a constitutional amendment, I mean, I remember this from years ago, if you don't understand it, you just vote no. Just vote no. Right.

And so they'll probably try to word it so the no really is a yes. And so we have to be very careful about that. And our C4 ACLJ action is working on that, making sure that we cover that, make sure the language is correct. And then we are involved at each state level, if there is a case that's been brought to define abortion in the state's constitution, we are filing briefs in all of those states. Yeah. And so back on the issue of these constitutional amendments, you may be having them in your state.

Like for instance, we helped in South Dakota. The wording was very confusing and it was actually to enshrine the right to abortion in the South Dakota constitution. But if you read it, you would have said, is this a pro-life measure?

Is this restrictions on it? It was very difficult to tell. They cleared that up, which is good. All to say, we're involved in this from beginning to end. We knew in a post Roe versus Wade world, this is what it was going to look like.

So there we are. I do want to talk about what Senator Graham proposed yesterday, because it's getting a lot, there's a lot of confusion about this. So let's first lay out what the Senator's bill is. And it's not new in this sense. It is, it's to amend Title 18 to protect pain-capable unborn children. This pain-capable act have been introduced many, many times. So in that sense, it's not new.

It got kind of lost in the discussion yesterday, because there was a lot going on. What does the bill actually say? So basically the bill says that abortion shall not be performed or attempted if the probable gestational age of the unborn child is 15 weeks or greater. And, you know, some people might say, oh my gosh, this is extreme. And you're putting a limit on abortion. However, when you look at the world, I mean, you take the abortion laws across the world right now, because we don't have any limits on abortion.

No, no limit. Now the States do, but we don't have any federal limit. We are one of six countries like North Korea and China. And if you look at the, at the world, 193 member States of the UN, actually 90% of those member States limit abortion at 14 weeks or less. So even at 15 weeks, we're still at kind of the outlier of 10% because 90% of the world limits abortion to 14 weeks or less. And actually the majority limit it either altogether or for the life and health of the mother. This is not to set a standard that the States have to adopt by the way. So the States are free to adopt measures that they, some have heartbeat bills as the kind of the triggering mechanism.

This is a kind of a, basically a floor, a minimum. Now there's issues of, should this be something that's federally legislated or not? I know what the counter to that is. And that is, there was talks that the Democrats have said they wanted to enshrine Roe versus Wade in a statute to say there is a right to abortion on a federal law basis. That was one of their plans here. Right.

So that is the problem. If you do federal legislation and you don't just leave it completely up to the States, then you are making the argument that if you can have federal legislation, legislation, you can have it either way, either limiting and saying we are going to protect life at 15 weeks or saying we're not going to protect life at all. You know, one of the things you have to understand on this is we knew when the decision in Dobbs came out and if we were successful and then obviously the opinion leaked. So we felt relatively confident that we were going to be successful. That what you had developing and what was going to develop was this idea that the States were then going to get involved in this and that there be some States that are even conservative States that would have, and this is what we were concerned about, you know, maybe a liberal state Supreme Court, and they could go the other way on this.

Yeah. And we are seeing that because when these cases go before judges, you know, you can have a very conservative state, but the case may go completely a different way. So one of the other things I want people to understand is we have a big audience in California, a big audience in New York, but California is our largest market. And I know a lot of you there are saying we're the most, you're the most pro-abortion state in the country and it's true.

How do we fight for life there? I'll tell you what the frontline of this is, and it's going to still be, and it's going to be regulated. They're going to try to regulate them out of existence. I mean, we already know that people have said it, like United States senators have, Elizabeth Warren has said, we want to regulate to get rid of these pro-life pregnancy centers, but in California, that is the frontline defense in the fight for life.

Yeah. And we represent a lot of the crisis pregnancy centers or pregnancy resource centers because one, when they were targeted by Jane's Revenge and they were firebombed and attacked, we have clients that we're protecting in those cases. And then we're also protecting them when New York or California pass laws or introduce laws that are particularly targeting crisis pregnancy centers to shut them down, which we have seen and I know we will continue to see. We've won a lot of those laws. We won an evergreen case in New York where we protected crisis pregnancy centers. And we'll continue the fight because they are on the forefront of this battle because they are the ones that are actually dealing with the pregnant mothers and showing them the ultrasounds and giving them options. And that always cuts into Planned Parenthood's bottom line. When a mother sees her child or has options, she doesn't choose abortion.

Talking about bottom lines. Yes. Okay.

So this is the one... See, now I've talked about this. Okay. So Planned Parenthood used to say, hey, look, only 3% of our revenue is from abortions. Then let me ask this question to you, Planned Parenthood. If 3% of your revenue is from abortions, why are you closing up your abortion clinics all over the United States? Because you do other services, you say there. So the money issue with them is obviously, I mean, obviously abortion is more than 3%.

That's right. And it's always the driving force. The money is always the driving force. I mean, you have to understand that if you're a business and you have supposedly 97% of your business still operating in a state that has limited abortion or restricted abortion, you're not gonna close down your operation. Of course not. So the fact that if they're in a state that has said we're restricting abortion, they're out of there.

And that proves that it's not just 3% of their business. All right, folks, that's gonna do it for the broadcast today. Let me say this. Jordan and Logan have this new podcast out called Secular Brothers. I gotta tell you, you gotta subscribe to it, you gotta watch it, you gotta listen to it, Spotify, wherever you...

I think go to secularbrothers.com. I'm biased, but I will tell you it is fantastic. It's funny, but it's also serious. And it's a whole different view of the secular because you get a whole different perspective here. And it was number 121, I think 120 in podcast rankings yesterday. So that was a big, big break.

So they're very excited about it. And put your comments up there as well. Also, don't forget to support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice at ACLJ.org. We appreciate that as well. Again, my prayers and thoughts go to the family of my good friend, the late Ken Starr, former judge, former Solicitor General, former colleague of mine, great American, great life led, and I'm praying for him and his family. Again, this life throws curve balls. And I was with Ken two weeks before he was hospitalized, and no one saw it coming. So pray for his family, and we'll talk to you.