Trump Fights FBI Raid at Supreme Court

Breaking news today on Sekulow as President Trump fights the FBI raid at the U.S. Supreme Court.

We'll break it down for you. We'll talk about even more issues today on Sekulow. Now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Hey, welcome to Sekulow. We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. So right away, if you have questions about this new filing by President Trump at the U.S. Supreme Court, we'll take your calls on that. 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. President Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on a specific part of the document review when it comes to the special master's review of the documents taken from Mar-a-Lago. And it's specifically the classified documents. The Department of Justice has said, hey, we don't want the special master to be able to review those. We want to continue our criminal investigation.

So I want to go right to Andy O'Connor. So Andy, where this stands right now, the 11th Circuit said the special master does not get these documents, that the DOJ can keep them, continue their investigation. What President Trump is saying here is, listen, some of those documents, out of the 10,000 we're talking about, we think about 100 pages of paper here, it could be classified or marked classified. We don't know if it's remained classified because they could have been declassified. But there are documents that keep them marked classified and be privileged. And those documents should be excluded from the DOJ's investigation. That's correct, Jordan. This is a kind of a two-part attack that the Trump attorneys, the new Trump attorneys are taking in the Supreme Court.

One attack is, it's a two-pronged approach. One is, they are saying to the Supreme Court of the United States that the order that Judge Cannon entered appointing a special master and the appeal from that order was not a proper procedural step. In other words, that that was not an appealable order. The appointment of a special master was not an appealable order.

What does that mean? It is required under the federal rules of appellate procedure that you cannot appeal something that is not a final order in the case that finally disposes of the case. So they are saying, this is not a final disposition, this is just interlocutory, which means interim only, and that you cannot appeal it.

That's number one that they're saying. So that the Supreme Court should say, 11th Circuit, you stay out of this, you let Judge Cannon handle this. Judge Cannon appointed this special master, let the special master do what the judge has told him to do. The other thing that they're saying is the 11th Circuit said that the Justice Department could continue its ongoing criminal investigation of President Trump, and now the 11th Circuit blocked that and said you can continue your criminal investigation, and the special master doesn't have to review the documents in the meantime to determine first if they're privileged and not disclosable. So it's two prongs that they are taking here, Jordan.

Alright folks, we want to take your phone calls, 1-800-684-3110, that's 1-800-684-3110. And should the DOJ have ever really appealed this to the 11th Circuit, because again, this is procedural, but it could have a significant impact in the future as well, when it comes to Presidential privilege, executive privilege, and that is why, in a lot of these matters I would say, it's always unlikely the Supreme Court takes cases. I mean, when you look at the amount of cases they take. But when it comes to Presidential or former Presidents' privilege, that does add some weight. And it's kind of why they exist, the U.S. Supreme Court, is when you've got these different branches of government, and a former kind of branch but asserting executive privilege, and then another branch of government, another government agency saying, hey, we should be able to get these documents. Like Nixon tapes, like Paula Jones, but it's not at that level.

I would say it's not nearly at that level. But it is another, could be a very interesting precedent that could be set by the Supreme Court. We'll wait and see if they take the case, but I want to take your calls. If you've got questions about this fight, 1-800-684-3110, share the broadcast.

You're watching with your friends and family. We'll be right back on Sekulow. All right, welcome back to Sekulow.

We're taking your phone calls, 1-800-684-3110. And even this procedural matter, I would say that the commentators on the left, you could already hear them say, well, usually the Supreme Court wouldn't take this. But this court, they're so political, they're so right-wing that they probably will just to help President Trump win. In fact, if you look at history, when Presidential issues arise, it's not unlikely for the Supreme Court to take it up, especially on procedural matters. It doesn't mean they will definitely do so. But there's another play at this, too.

And I want to ask you this question. Give us a call with your opinion, 1-800-684-3110. I think just by if they take the case, which is a big if, anytime it's to the Supreme Court. But if they do, will the left use this as another way to try and delegitimize the U.S. Supreme Court?

Give us a call, 1-800-684-3110. And polling is showing that their strategy has been working to some extent. So usually the court has not been very popular or unpopular with the public. In fact, the public doesn't know a lot about it usually. But because of some of the high-profile confirmation, of course, the Dobbs case, it's high-profile decisions. They're now throwing that in there with political polling questions. Do you like the Supreme Court or not? Do you think it's too political? So what do you think will happen with that side of it?

Also, an interesting, unique angle here. Remember, the January 6th Committee was supposed to have another hearing last week, a public hearing. We do know, while they canceled that because of the hurricane, we also know that Justice Thomas' wife, Jenny Thomas, did go in to provide testimony.

She said, really, she wanted to clear her name. It was being thrown around in the left-wing media, saying she's somehow delegitimizing the Supreme Court by being the wife of a Supreme Court justice, of being Justice Thomas' wife. And so, Andy, in this situation, the decisions like, for instance, when the DOJ has to respond, which is by October 11th, it is Justice Thomas who oversees the 11th Circuit.

That's right. Every circuit has what they call a circuit justice. And Justice Thomas is the circuit justice for the 11th Circuit, which consists of Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. And he handles matters that come up that require a judge to make a ruling, usually on procedural matters. And Justice Thomas, not because he injected himself in the case for political reasons, but because he happens to be and has been for years the circuit justice of the 11th Circuit, where this case is coming from, has said to the Department of Justice, you've got until October 11th to respond to the petition filed by President Trump's lawyers in the Supreme Court. Now, of course, everybody on the left is going to say, he should be recused. He shouldn't do this. His wife has made political statements.

Well, that is the most biggest nonsense I've ever heard. She has a right. She's sui juris.

She has her own law, her own right to make those decisions. And Justice Thomas should not be recused from hearing this. And again, it's an attempt by the left to do anything they can to delegitimize the actions of the conservative members of the U.S. Supreme Court. Let's go to the phones 1-800-684-3110.

If you want to talk to us on air, that's 1-800-684-3110. Do you believe when you're talking to your friends, family, that this effort by the left to try to delegitimize the Supreme Court, do you believe it's working? And do you think they're going to try and use this, even if they just take up the case? I think that there's going to be a reaction of, oh, well, of course they did because it's President Trump and he nominated three of those justices, even though that won't even be the time when we know what they're, even if they do take it up, what their decision is. And Presidents, and you could probably include former Presidents, have not fared that well before the Supreme Court went asserting these kind of issues. They've given a lot of deference to releasing documents, to being transparent.

So again, on these privileged cases, you look back at the Nixon case, you look back at the Paula Jones case where the civil trial was allowed to proceed while President Clinton was in office, so treated differently than like a criminal prosecution. So take your calls at 1-800-684-3110. Let's go to Brian in New York on Line 1. Hey, Brian. Hey, thanks for taking my call.

Just two quick things. First, I think that because they couldn't hack the Supreme Court, they're going to do everything they can to delegitimize it. It's just the next step in their machine, I guess. And the other thing, I just had a quick question, not too far off topic, but if Trump was to regain presidency in 24, what is to say that he doesn't, quote unquote, weaponize a Department of Justice to look into all the other former Presidents since that's what's happening to him now? Well, it's interesting that you bring that up because, Andy, on this specific matter, Joe Biden, President Biden, waived privilege.

Yeah, that's true. So he has opened up this door, actually. It's not President Trump who opened up that door. It is President Biden who opened up the door to the incoming President, and we'll see it. This would be part of what the court would be looking at, too, is can an incoming President waive the privilege rights of a former President? If so, a whole new game develops. Oh, yes, completely.

I mean, if a new President who comes in, waives the rights and the privileges of his prior, successor, or predecessor, I should say, in office, it changes the game considerably and entirely, and it could open up the door for all kinds of investigations by new Presidents of their predecessors, as you point out. Yeah. So I think, Brian, you're right. I'm not saying it's right to do that, but if it becomes the norm, if it becomes the norm that if you're from a different party, just release all, you know, clear the privilege, I think it's a very dangerous path to go down. I think President Biden was not thinking long-term here.

It's Trump Arrangement Syndrome, you know, 365 days a year, 24-7 over on the left, and part of that is they make decisions that they're just not thinking through. So, again, we're going to take your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110 on this case. Now, the other part of this question, too, Andy, which is did the circuit court really have the jurisdiction to override what the trial court judge is trying to, how she's trying to conduct her trial?

Right. And I think the answer to that is no, that the Eleventh Circuit should have stepped and kept out of that entirely, and two Trump judges went along with that, I think, as I recall. But I have been appointed special master by federal judges. I have been appointed as a examiner and as a receiver by federal judges. These are – and I've done this for 40 years – these are discretionary moves by the judge who says, I don't want to be burdened with having to review thousands and thousands, and in this case hundreds, maybe thousands, of documents. I'm going to appoint somebody as a special master, as a neutral party who's like a judge, and she appointed a former judge from the – a judge who sits in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York to conduct a document review.

Absolutely nothing wrong. The ultimate determiner of what happens is Judge Cannon, however, not Judge Dery, the special master. The Eleventh Circuit, I think, jumped the gun on this and got into an area that it should not have injected itself in, and that is the discretion of a district judge to appoint a special master with instructions to that special master to report to the district judge. And therefore, that's one reason why I think this case isn't over. Therefore, an appeal that the Justice Department took to the Eleventh Circuit was premature, and that's one of the things that the Trump lawyers have pointed out. You know, June on YouTube – and this is a good reminder for those of you in those chats, whether you're on Rumble, Facebook, YouTube, and you're watching the broadcast, we do look out for your question statements to pull.

Sometimes there's a lot going on in there, so – but we do our best to do that. June wrote in on YouTube, said, the Supreme Court should look at this case due to the abuse of power we've seen. So a lot of people think, you know, should they just do this because this is so – and there is – if it was a normal person, I would say that's not really how the court works. When it's the former President of the United States, Andy, they do, I think, take at least a second look, even if their initial reaction is, I don't want to get involved in this, you know, the trial decisions that, you know – but when it's a former President, I think that there's a lot of pressure on them, both sides of their ideological spectrum, to clear it up for everybody.

Oh, I think so. I think the fact that it is a former President who's talking about such things as executive privilege and Presidential privilege and Presidential records and Presidential documents, and an Eleventh Circuit that has overturned a significant holding by a district judge, this is things that a Supreme Court ought to be looking into. And as you pointed out early on, the Supreme Court only looks at a very small spectrum of cases that are appealed to it or that seek to be reviewed in the Supreme Court. But with a President, or in this case a former President, I think they look at it more critically and with a view possibly toward that. We don't know whether they're going to take it or not, but if I was betting, I would say that they probably are going to look into this because of the depth of privileges and things that are implicated. All right, folks, you know, I wanted to update you on that. What we try to do on this broadcast, when there's something new legal, it involves the Supreme Court, it involves President Trump, it involves the Mar-a-Lago raid, it involves the documents, and really how this will move forward, we wanted to take that time to update you on that.

If you've got questions again about it, you can call us at 1-800-684-3110. Coming up next on the broadcast, Frank Manion from our ACLJ legal team is also going to be joining us to talk about a new filing in Kentucky, specifically there on two pro-life laws. So we'll get you up to speed on what is happening in states that took very proactive action in light of what might have happened in Dobbs and they were ready to go. Now they're, of course, already being challenged in court, so we're going to talk about that with Frank Manion, the ACLJ involved there in filing a brief as well.

As always, you go to ACLJ.org to learn about all that we're doing. We'll be right back on Secular. Alright, welcome back to Secular, and we are taking your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. Let me take this call quickly from Rick in Kentucky on Line 1 on the Trump matter, and then we're going to get into, actually in Kentucky, some life issues.

Hey, Rick. Hey, thanks for taking my call. And my quick question is, my understanding, you may have answered this, I'm sorry, but this goes to Judge Clarence Thomas, is that correct? Well, like the scheduling matter, right. So it goes to him.

He will likely refer to the entire court. Now, he's handling right now is when the DOJ has to respond, which is October 11th. But on a case of this magnitude, even though it is a procedural issue, I don't think they would handle it on their own. So again, there's a lot of discretion.

There's a huge call right now by the left to say, oh, Justice Thomas needs to be recused. This is procedural. It's not substantive to the case. It's important procedure. And lawyers, you know, we understand that procedure is very important, but it is not substantive. So, Rick, a good question there.

But I think because if the court decides to take this up, it involves a former President, it's going to be the full court. Let me go right to Frank Manion in Kentucky as well, like Rick was calling in. Frank, we just filed a Mecas brief with the Kentucky Supreme Court. Let's tell people about it.

Sure, Jordan. We filed our brief yesterday. We are supporting the Kentucky Attorney General who's defending two pro-life laws that went into effect immediately upon the court's decision in Dobbs. Both these laws have been passed in the years when Roe held sway. And they each said that in the event that Roe was ever overruled, these laws will go into effect. Now, the one that's the most sweeping is the Human Life Protection Act, which prohibits most abortions in the state of Kentucky. Although it does contain a fairly broad health and life mother exception, but basically left to the judgment of a medical, of a doctor basically. There's also a heartbeat law which kicks into effect at the first detectable heartbeat or around six weeks.

But obviously, the Human Life Protection Act is even more restrictive than that. So that is in effect now since Dobbs. Immediately after Dobbs happened, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU of Kentucky and the usual suspects sued. They went into the circuit court, which is the trial level court here in Kentucky and they got an injunction against those laws. Obviously not based on Roe v. Wade or Casey anymore, but on the basis of an alleged right of privacy in the Kentucky Constitution. Attorney General of Kentucky has appealed, obtained a stay of that injunction from the circuit court. So as of today, most abortions are illegal in Kentucky. And that's the case that we're involved in. The Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing on it for November 15th, which incidentally is a one week after there appears on the Kentucky ballot, a proposed amendment which would specify that there is no right to abortion contained in the Kentucky Constitution. So the Supreme Court obviously wants to wait and see what the voters have to say because that will largely determine the case, at least in our view.

So that's basically what's going on here. Because you're based in Kentucky too, Frank, on the amendment, is there a polling out on that? I know our ACLJ action, we're involved in those amendments throughout the country because there's some that are saying, you know, recognize a right to privacy, which means recognize a right to abortion in the Constitution. There's others that are in the negative. This one is in the negative.

It's to not that there is not a right to abortion in the Constitution. Has there been any polling yet on it that we're getting close to election hour, about a month out? There hasn't been any polling that I've been able to find, Jordan. And it's a little bit concerning. One of the things that concerns me most is the money that has been flowing into Kentucky, mostly on the pro-abortion side.

I don't have the numbers before me, but I looked at them yesterday. And let's put it this way, whereas the pro-abortion side's funding figures for their advertising campaign is in the tens of millions, it looks like the pro-life side is still trying to get to one million. So the TV ads are already out and I've only seen them on the pro-abortion side. They're very slick, they're very smooth, they're also very misleading and deceptive.

But I suspect they'll be effective for a lot of people. Yes, I mean this is the interesting part about this, Frank, is that we're so used to dealing with this at a federal level and being really, all of it being held up by ultimately federal courts, circuit courts, maybe the Supreme Court now that things have opened up because of Dobbs, we're in state courts all across the country. What is the makeup like of the Kentucky Supreme Court? Well, it's interesting that they granted a stay of the lower court's injunction in a four to three vote. It's a seven-member court.

So that's a good sign. It's not determinative of what they're going to say on the merits of the case. And obviously they'll have to go to a considerable degree by what the people say on November 8th. But here's a factor in Kentucky that we try to alert them to. Basically what we've said to the Supreme Court is you don't want to go down the road of the Supreme Court and the federal courts after Roe v. Wade and become a super legislature, the nation's ex officio medical board, getting involved in every decision involving the medical procedure of abortion.

You just don't want to do that. And that leads to a sort of institutionally debilitating factor, which Justice O'Connor first diagnosed way back in the 70s, that gets the court out of its lane and not what it should be doing. And these are decisions that should be left to the people.

And in Kentucky, think about this. This is an elected Supreme Court. So if the Supreme Court of Kentucky injects itself in this and says, oh, we're going to find a constitutional right of privacy that covers abortion, the Kentucky Supreme Court elections are going to become the equivalent of what we've seen in Presidential campaigns and U.S. Senate campaigns for the last 50 years. Talk about destroying the independence and impartiality of the judiciary.

It will completely destroy it and will become nothing but a political body. You know, Frank, as always, we appreciate the updates. We appreciate the work that we're doing. Also, just it is unique. And so, again, that's Frank Manion, ACLJ senior counsel, and leading the charge here and protecting life in Kentucky and really all over the country.

Frank is part of that significant life advocacy that we do here at the ACLJ. And it is different. That's why I want to take those moments to, you know, I know you're not all in Kentucky, but there's strategies going on in every state. Some are very different.

And so I appreciate Frank joining us because this was what we were talking about in the post-obs era. It's not that you're outside of federal court now. And suddenly you're in these state supreme courts. These state supreme courts, sometimes they're partisan elected.

Sometimes they're nonpartisan elections. Sometimes they're selected by, and there's like, you know, votes to whether or not you want to keep a justice on the court or whether you would like someone new. And most people, depending on the state, depending on how it's made up, feel like they have either not much to say or it's a lot of incumbency depending on how it's made up. But this is where these cases are going to end up unless the voters take it really outside of the court. So they vote on these, you know, amendments to the Constitution or clearing up what the Constitution does not allow. So in Kentucky, you have this amendment being put forward that says we are not going to recognize a right to abortion inside our Constitution. In other states, it's the opposite. So you have to be very educated. If you're in one of those states that's got those ballot initiatives, be very educated and not to not be misled by confusing language.

If you're confused on it, you should reach out to us. I mean, literally, that's part of the reason why we exist at the ACLJ. We have a lot of information on it at ACLJ.org forward slash abortion. We've got a whole map of what was going on around the country when it comes to abortion rights. So ACLJ.org forward slash abortion and you can see your state. For instance, in South Dakota, there will be a preview of a potential amendment and that amendment wouldn't try to write to abortion.

So we wanted to make sure that was clear to people when they see this for the first time. They'll see it in the November elections. And then if they agree to move forward, then, you know, you can gather the signatures to actually get it on the ballot next. So some of these are going to be a couple more years from now. We have more time to educate people.

But as you just heard from Frank, others were passed in case the Supreme Court did what they did by overturning Dobbs. Go to ACLJ.org. Support our work.

Second half hour coming up. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress and in the public arena. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org where you can learn more about our life changing work. Become a member today.

ACLJ.org Keeping you informed and engaged. Now, more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow. Rick Renaud is going to be joining us in the next segment of the broadcast.

Wes, from our team here, kind of, you know, we've handled the Trump appeal to the Supreme Court. I think we've updated you on that. And if you missed it, the first half hour of the broadcast, you can always go back and listen online or watch the broadcast online as well. If you're watching, by the way, on Rumble, YouTube, Facebook, you know, on Facebook you can share. On Rumble, you hit the plus button and that actually helps move the broadcast up and more people will see it. And then on YouTube, it's the thumbs up. So a little bit different for each place. But if you're probably familiar with the one you're on, if you're watching the show, and of course if you're listening, like, the majority of our audience is listening to the show, we appreciate that as well.

And of course you can always tell friends and family about the broadcast. So we're going to get to some different issues this half hour. First up with Rick Renaud will be the OPEC issues, which this will affect all of us. So we started to see some stagnation when it came to the inflation when it comes to gas prices.

So it came down a little bit. There was the use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And there's a lot of criticism to the Biden administration that by releasing those million barrels a day from our reserve, they're depleting it.

And that is true. And it's also kind of for politics because it's short term. It's not handling long term what we need to do to become energy independent like we were just a couple of years ago. We were exporting energy overseas because we were not only independent, we had extra.

So that of course helps the entire country. Instead, OPEC has just made a move, which by the way tells you the lack of influence this administration has. President Biden went to Saudi Arabia and they increased output a little bit. Now they've met again, the OPEC plus, so it's OPEC plus some additional countries that have joined up, have now are going to cut production by two million barrels a day. Now think about the math there.

We opened up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve President Biden did at one million barrels a day. If they cut it by two million, what have they done? They've wiped out anything that would have an impact of plus more.

So we are getting to a situation. I think the White House is probably freaking out a lot about that. John Kirby was on Fox News with COVID today from his home to say, oh, this isn't that big of a deal when they said they were going to increase oil output.

It really didn't even get to that point yet. And so they're decreasing it. Listen, in a sense, if you're a Republican political strategist and they have failed to convince the world, hey, help us out here allies, like Saudi Arabia really leads the charge in OPEC. Right before an election, if we start seeing, like they're already sitting in California, it's not everywhere yet, but you're already seeing gas prices back at like $7 a gallon.

You know, the signs, $6.50. So if it starts going back up again, we talked about Herschel Walker in our podcast yesterday. I think those issues go out the door because it's all about pocketbook. And so it's very bad timing for President Biden and Democrats. It's not good for our country, though. You might like the politics of it short term, but this President is going to be in office a couple more years and it is just kind of breeds American weakness.

That's how I feel about my mask. Rick Grenell about it as well. I want him to weigh in on on all this involving OPEC and also Poland's request to the United States to host our nuclear weapons. Now, there are other countries in the world that do have U.S. nuclear weapons on in their country that we control.

But Poland, of course, borders Ukraine. And this has been something that Putin has directly said, you know, I will see that take that as a more direct threat. So we're talking about both those issues with the former acting director of national intelligence and ambassador to Germany. Rick Grenell, who's part of our team at the ACLJ, is a senior adviser for the American Center for Law and Justice. Share the broadcast with your friends and family. You can stay updated on all of our issues at ACLJ dot org. If you have questions, you take calls with Rick.

Give us a call. One eight hundred six eight four three one one zero. If you've got questions about OPEC, questions about nuclear weapons, one eight hundred six eight four three one one zero.

Welcome back to secular. As I just mentioned, the first few minutes of the second half hour, OPEC cutting production by two million barrels a day. OPEC plus, which involves more countries outside of just the Gulf states. But of course, the leader leaders of OPEC really are those Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia. And they control about half the energy production in the world when it comes to oil. And the Biden administration supposedly was working for this not to happen. This also involves Russia.

So I want to bring Rick Grenell in right away just because one Rick right off the top for everybody listening. This is going to affect them yet again in the pocketbook right away. I mean, they're already starting to see gas prices go up. This was the White House was hoping it would at most be like a million barrels a day cut and they announced a two million barrel a day cut. Look, one of the problems that we've seen from the Biden administration from the beginning is an inability to see that supply is the issue, that they must increase the supply in order to bring the price down. What they've tried to do is really manipulate the market in every possible way, getting OPEC involved, trying to to lower prices through a short term political manipulation.

I think all economists are seeing what's happening. They're draining the strategic reserves to pretend like we have more supply when we are just using up the strategic reserve. This means that they're manipulating the price in order to get through the elections and then quickly thereafter, there won't be any other choice than to see the skyrocketing of gas prices.

We will be skyrocketing gas prices after the November elections. They have shown their cards and this political manipulation by Washington, D.C. politicians has got to stop. The reason it keeps going, we've talked about this of the manipulations of DOJ and FBI and now through the economy and gas prices is because the media doesn't push back on Democrats.

And when the media doesn't push back, the lesson that the Democrats learn is they can keep going and keep getting more outrageous. Rick, what's interesting here is how the media has reported this is, well, you know, it's really the Saudis and they're standing up with Putin and they did rebuke Biden on this and the administration was hoping that OPEC wouldn't do this. But when you were acting director of national intelligence, when you were ambassador to Germany under the Trump administration, we didn't have to rely on OPEC anymore. We didn't have to rely on Russia anymore. We were a net exporter of energy just a couple of years ago. Yeah, and that's what's really sad is that this this supply issue can easily be solved by us, by America.

We have the ability to supply our needs. And what we were able to do with even LNG and gas to become an energy exporter was literally ended by the Biden administration. We ended pipelines, we ended gas exploration drilling in a significant way. And yet, you know, we saw the Biden administration and Senate Democrats drop the Trump sanctions on the Russian pipeline into Europe. Literally, both domestically and internationally, the Biden team has messed it up on both sides when it comes to supply. I ask you, Rick, because Saudi Arabia really does leave this and they've become a fairly close ally of the United States, but there was some bad blood with the Biden administration on some issues.

And then, you know, President Biden went there to try to repair that. And the way this is being portrayed in the media is also that this is a move of OPEC towards Russia. So how big of a failure is this by the Biden administration that not only is OPEC basically ignoring the United States, but they're also, in a sense, helping to bail out Russia?

I would even go a little bit further, Jordan. I would say that there's a rejection of the Biden team. Remember that OPEC was considering a cut of a million barrels a day. And then what we saw is the Biden administration come out very publicly and say, we're going to launch an effort to stop that.

We're not going to support a million barrels a day being cut. And so they pressured OPEC. We saw lots of diplomacy from the Biden team going on.

And what happened is OPEC cuts oil output by two million barrels a day. So they literally did the opposite of what the Biden team was trying to push. And I think that there's a recognition internationally that when Biden asks to do something like drop the Russian sanctions on the pipeline, on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, that we should do the opposite. Do the opposite of what Biden is asking and you might help the situation. One more question on this, and then I want to move to another nuclear weapons issue. You talked about how you think what they will do is just keep releasing from the strategic reserve to try and keep the price down this next month, basically, is what they've got to try to do at the White House. So we might not see it all across the country. Some states are already the numbers are going up, but that's their attempt here is they'll kind of give that up and our security based off of that. Drain that resource just to hope politically that they can keep the price down through November 8th. Yeah, look, I would encourage people to go to my Twitter feed.

It's at Richard Grinnell. I shared a graph from the Department of Energy, which is the June to October 2022 forecast on the oil piggy bank. Right. The strategic reserves, the oil that we have in our piggy bank. And it's plummeted.

What is in our piggy bank for hard times is literally at near the bottom that you look at this graph and it falls off a cliff. And that is Joe Biden's administration using up our piggy bank of oil because he's trying to prop up prices as much as he can through November. They are running out of oil in the piggy bank.

And this is a crisis. They're not thinking about increasing the supply here at home, but they are talking several months ago about trying to find oil from Venezuela and other places. What I don't understand is the same people who really care about the environment or say they care about the environment are willing to take oil that does not use the same technologies that we do when it comes out of the ground.

It's dirtier. They're willing to use dirtier oil simply to make sure that America doesn't pump. And that's an outrage. As our producer Will pointed out, the strategic reserve is at a 40-year low, inflation at a 40-year high. So we're going to watch this very closely. Quickly, I want to get to this Poland nuclear issue. So Poland has put in a request to host U.S. nuclear weapons. And I do want to clear, there are other countries in Europe that do host U.S. nuclear weapons, but this Poland specifically here borders Ukraine.

What is your take on this situation, again, where the Biden administration is going to have to make some serious decisions? Yeah, look, I think Poland offering to have the nuclear protection is a serious move. They obviously are feeling threatened. When I was U.S. ambassador to Germany, I used to always talk about the difference in the threat assessment between Europe and America. You know, Europe doesn't believe that they are under the same threat assessment from Iran, for instance, from Russia, which is why they were doing this pipeline. And so we've just got to have a serious conversation about the threat that we all face.

And I think Poland is having that conversation. All right, Rick, as always, we appreciate you joining us and giving us this updated insight into what affects every one of us. As always, Rick Rinnell, and as you said, you should follow Rick on Twitter, so much good information. He fights back for all of us against the left, takes them on with facts, with info, with data.

That's the way you fight back, folks, with the numbers. And when you look at the strategic reserve being – Rick has made this point, and I want to make this point, too, just for you again. The strategic reserve is not put in place to keep the prices down, and certainly not to be put in place to keep the prices down for politics and political games. It's there in case you have a situation where you get cut off from the world and you need oil fast.

And you're not even thinking about price at that point. You're just trying to, you know, protect yourself. That's why they say it's strategic. We're seeing some of that now from the world. I think we can quickly right this ship politically. We need a strong showing in the midterms and then a strong showing in the general election a couple of years from now. Because as we know, you can get back to American energy independence quickly. Now, the longer we stay away from it, the longer it takes to get back to it. But that is the hope, and that is why you continue fighting. This administration is not going to make good decisions. We've seen that time and time again. And now, when we come back, we're going to talk about a new piece up by Wes Smith on our team at ACLJ.

The likelihood of Russia using nuclear weapons. Seven things you need to know. It's up at ACLJ.org. Wes is going to walk us through it when we come back on Sekulow. As always, support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org.

That's ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. So we talked about the OPEC boom and how that will also benefit Russia. And by really cutting the oil supply to the world, which impacts Europe, it impacts, of course, all of us in the United States. As you heard Rick say, he thinks the Biden administration will do everything they can using our strategic reserve to try to keep that price down through November 8th.

So for a few more weeks. And then, here we go again. We're going to start seeing those numbers at maybe a level we haven't seen yet. Because OPEC wasn't expected to go to 2 million barrel cut. The White House was worried about their 1 million barrel a day cut. And OPEC, I mean, they're sending a message to the United States.

And this is the bad part about it. We don't really see you as the leader of the world. I mean, end of the day. Or as a real threat to anything we want to do. So if we're the Saudis, if we're this, we're going to take this action.

They did not take advantage at all of what the Trump administration left them. Which was a lot of positive actions in the Gulf. And instead, came out saying we're going to take down the Saudi government. They need a new regime change, all of that. So putting that aside, we got into some nuclear issues as well.

Wes Smith from our team at the ACLJ has got a new piece up at ACLJ.org. The piece is entitled, Wes, it's very clear, Will Russia Use Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine? Seven things you need to know. So let's walk through them for folks.

Yeah, absolutely. And if I could, just back up to what you just said about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That oil is reserved for war and national emergencies.

It's the lowest since 1984. If something happens and we actually get into a shooting war with Russia, our strategic reserve of oil, you know, war is fought with oil, you know, at so many levels, we would be short on oil. And it's just amazing that for political purposes, President Biden is doing this. But back to what's going on. In Ukraine, Russia is losing this war. High casualty rate, over 10,000 Russian soldiers killed, wounded and captured. They are losing the war in Ukraine for now. Occupied land by Russian forces is being reclaimed by Ukrainian forces. So Vladimir Putin is humiliated and he's desperate.

And sometimes desperate men do desperate, crazy things. And that's the fear of this nuclear threat in Ukraine, because President Putin has several times indicated that he is considering using low-yield tactical nuclear weapons. And Jordan, three things happened just in the last three days that should, I don't want to say it should create alarm, but it should create concern.

And the administration needs to take these three things seriously. First of all, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said this week that using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine should be considered. He's the former President, but he is also the head now of the Russian Security Council. This view was echoed by the head of the Chechen region in Russia, a guy named Ramzan Kadyrov, who actually said this week that now, right now, low-yield nuclear weapons should be used in Ukraine. You take those statements combined with intelligence officials have revealed that a train has been traveling through Russia. Russia is a very large country, of course. But it originated near the directorate that controls Russia's nuclear technology, weapons, supplies, maintenance and equipment. We don't know where it's going, but the fear is that because it's in charge of issuing tactical nuclear weapons and equipment to individual units, that it might be heading towards Ukraine.

That would be a game changer. And then finally, the other thing that happened this week, Russia has launched this past June the world's largest nuclear submarine. It is 600 feet long, called the Belgorod. It is a nuclear-capable submarine that can carry what they call the Poseidon nuclear drone. Russia claims that this underwater nuclear drone can be fired off the coast of a country, create a massive tidal wave, a tsunami, that will render the coastline, for example, of America uninhabitable for decades. That Russian submarine this week left its port in the Arctic Circle, and we, at this moment, don't know where it is. And so you take those three things – They don't know where it is. No, they don't know where it is or where it's going.

It left, and they can't find it. And so you take that with the nuclear saber rattling that's going on from Putin. This is serious business. Probably not since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis have we been under this kind of a threat and this kind of uncertainty about the outcome of a conflict with Russia. Yes, I mean, this is – again, when you start talking about the Poseidon weapon that they claim it can cause a tsunami plus nuclear fallout making places uninhabitable, that's a step more than a tactical nuclear weapon on a battlefield.

I mean, they're moving those weapons around too. So you've got that one risk of the – even the tactical nuclear weapon on a smaller scale, because this is a tight – you know, this is in Europe, the wind blows the wrong way and suddenly you've got nuclear fallout from a weapon like that in a NATO country and you've got tough decisions to make. On top of that, they're threatening the bigger weapons as well. I think Putin – you have to take his threat seriously.

It could be a bluff, although he said last week this is not a bluff, which is indicative of a man who has a really big credibility problem and a self-confidence problem when they have to say this is not a bluff. But I think his fear probably is that if he uses tactical nuclear weapons and NATO and the United States responds and some military leaders this week have actually indicated what a possible response would be, and it included – and I could not believe I heard this because I think it's unwise to say it even if you're thinking it, but for example, General David Petraeus said we would target every Russian unit in Ukraine, but we would also sink the Russian Navy if we were to do something – That's a full-scale war. That's a full-scale war.

And here's the thing. The tactical nuclear response, we have to respond to that if he uses tactical weapons. But if an all-out war breaks out and we're trying to sink the Russian Navy, I think that's the point where Putin would consider using a strategic nuclear weapon, the ICBMs, this new submarine, that kind of thing. So I think what Putin is doing, he's hedging his bets in case this escalates into a full-blown shooting war.

But in reality, I think what he wants to do, whether or not he will do it we don't know, but what he wants to do is use a low-yield tactical nuclear weapon in order to turn around the war in Ukraine, and he hopes that he can do that, win the war, and get by with it. Yeah, because the ground war is not moving, right? He called up hundreds of thousands of Russians, they call them reservists. They're not really reservists like we have here that are constantly training and ready to go. There's a report out, and again, you'd have to take it all to the greatest stop, but Ukraine set up a hotline number so that these Russians who are being put into the battlefield can call it to surrender.

Oh, yes. And they said they're getting thousands of calls. Oh, they are, and many draft-aged men in Russia by the thousands are leaving the country because of his call-up of these 300,000 so-called reservists. Now, some politicians in Russia are being bold enough to call for a complete withdrawal, and a few politicians, including the mayor of St. Petersburg where Putin is from, have called for his resignation. Putin is not doing well, and presently on that battlefield they are losing the war. When he's not doing well, he could order things that could cause serious trouble. Desperate men sometimes do crazy, desperate things. Let me encourage you folks, as Wes said, we're not trying to be alarmist, but we should be concerned, taking this very seriously.

The piece is, Will Russia Use Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine? Share that on your social media platforms. 7 Things You Need to Know is by Wes Smith at ACLJ.org. And we always encourage you, go to our website at ACLJ.org, support the work of the ACLJ if you can financially. It's great to do that, but it's also great if you take a piece like Wes's to share it with your friends and family. It brings more people to the ACLJ website, and they see the kind of work that we do, the expansive work. Think about today's show and all the topics we covered with our own experts at ACLJ.