Trump Likely Slapped with Gag Order

Today on Sekulow, reports indicate that President Trump will likely be slapped with a gag order at his arraignment tomorrow. 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, Jordan Sekulow.

Hey, welcome to Sekulow. We are taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110 as the world and the United States prepares for tomorrow. 2.15 p.m. Eastern time when President Trump will arrive at the courthouse in Manhattan and be formally arraigned. We're being told now he will not do a perp walk, so we won't see him necessarily be walking. We might see him get out of a car and walk in, but he will not be in handcuffs.

That is the report right now. If I was him and I could convince the Secret Service to let me be in handcuffs, I would have said put me in handcuffs. He will be arraigned. He will be fingerprinted. He will be photographed, Logan.

As you said, that photograph could become a t-shirt for Donald Trump pretty quickly as I think you do the Tom delay, which is you smile and it just looks like a normal headshot. But that will all occur. And now we're starting to hear about everything that could occur around it. We know that President Trump is heading to Manhattan today and he's going to be at Trump Tower this evening. And the news coverage is very interesting, Logan, because two months ago, Donald Trump couldn't get cable news coverage. Now they're covering just his plane on the tarmac. We've been watching the plane on the tarmac for what feels like three hours of just, he's going to leave, sometime he's going to leave.

We're just going to watch him fly off to New York and then land in New York. Which is why you have to wonder if this was really a, first of all, it's a miscarriage of justice because it's a political prosecution. And we've got a new petition up on ACLJ.org so you can stand against this political prosecution. Go to ACLJ.org and sign that today. So take action.

I want to bring in my dad quickly. We'll get into this more in the next segment. My dad, a lot of talk today that the judge may issue a gag order right from the bench even tomorrow after President Trump has arraigned that would prevent the President, not us, but President Trump, a Presidential candidate, from talking about the case. Yeah, and that would really restrict free speech in an unprecedented way. A gag order.

Let me explain what that means. A judge would say, President Trump, here are the direction that we're giving as far as your ability to discuss this. You can't bring the court into disrepute. You can't make threats. You can't discuss the evidence.

So on and so forth. Well, number one, those are, the Supreme Court of the United States has said those are presumed to be unconstitutional. We've dealt with what's called a prior restraint. A prior restraint being before you even speak, you're told you can't. We've had about a half dozen of those cases at the Supreme Court.

We've won all of them. I think the closest case it ever was was eight to one. So it's not like these are closed cases. But in the judicial system, it's interesting. There's a conflict within the circuit courts. But this is in a state court.

And New York has said you have to have a compelling, substantial, real harm that would have to be pronounced before you can even consider the validity of these. You're dealing with political speech that gets some of the highest rung of constitutional protection that exists when you're dealing with political speech. You're dealing with the candidate for public office. Forget the fact that there was a prior President.

He's a candidate for public office, leading candidate of the Republican Party right now. And when you put all of that together, the idea that the court can come in and silence a viewpoint, this kind of prior restraint, I think the courts, the higher courts, the appellate courts, would say are unconstitutional, void, and of no effect. Because there's a lot of other mitigating factors you could do before you'd have to reach that kind of extreme measure of silencing free speech. You know, Dad, one of the things I think that people might have questions about, and give us a call about this, because I'm sure you have questions about what this gag order would mean, or could mean at 1-800-684-3110, is that this could provide an opportunity for the ACLJ to ultimately take action here to protect free speech. Well, look, if they issue a gag order that violates the First Amendment, we have to.

I mean, that's the core of what we do, is the protection of free speech. If we have to be in an appellate court, that's usually where these kind of briefs can be filed. If it goes in that realm, a little bit of speculation right now, but obviously that's mostly what's being discussed on air. And by the way, and Logan will know this, the media organizations would follow suit against that as well. Yeah, you'd hope so.

We'll see. So we want you to sign our petition against political prosecutions. Go to ACLJ.org, we know something about those. Sign it today, get Congress to act.

ACLJ.org, we'll be right back. Can we go to this live just for a minute? Mayor Adams is talking about the security situation in New York. Right now he's the mayor of New York City. Again, a lot of this buildup, roads being closed, areas being closed around the courthouse and Trump Tower.

Let's take a listen just for a minute. We have no specific threats, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is known to spread misinformation and hate speech. She stated she's coming to town, while you're in town, be on your best behavior.

As always. Marjorie Taylor Greene is an elected official, has the ultimate right to be there and speak to the press, which will be a press circus. But Dan, I think what was pointed out there by the mayor is that they have no threat at all. Well, no, but, you know, what's interesting here is this entire buildup on the speech issue. Hate speech?

That's nasty. Well, exactly. But here's what you have to realize. I mean, we're going into a proceeding which normally takes minutes. The charges are presented, they'll waive the reading of the charges, there'll be an entry of a plea of not guilty, and that's it. Now, the judge could issue a gag order or could issue directions from the bench. You would think that because the constitutional burden that the judge would be undertaking, which is to have this compelling governmental interest with least restrictive means, that he wouldn't do that.

But if he did, I think what you have to then understand is the media organizations that are covering this, which if you look right now is every single network in the country, certainly the cable networks, they're going to want that information. They're going to want the individuals to speak because, by the way, it doesn't just apply to the defendant. It would apply to other witnesses as well. So it would apply to anybody involved in the case specifically, anybody who's a witness, anybody who's been called to testify, anybody who's been notified, I guess, at this point? Well, possibly. And it depends on what the judge would do.

But, I mean, here's the problem that you have. You can't have this one-size-fits-all gag order, we call it a gag order, which is called a prior restraint in the law, this idea that before the case even starts, you shut people's ability to communicate. And remember, the idea of a gag order is to preserve the rights of the accused, the defendant. The defendant here is the former President.

He's the defendant. So it's the Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial, but he has the First Amendment right to politically speak on these issues under the First Amendment without a prior restraint, and I think that's where the conflict would come in. But the trend has been away from gag orders because of the First Amendment issues. But what they've done, the gag order is usually aimed at the press.

You can't publish this. But now what the courts have done is they'll go to the witnesses or the accused and say, we're not going to let you do this famous case involving a former governor of Louisiana, Governor Edwards, and they try to silence some of the defendants from speaking in that case. And the interesting aspect of that is the courts have said, you know, that does the same thing. If you shut off the information source for free speech, you've shut off free speech, whether it's the ABC News or Fox or CNN or whoever is reporting it or the people being able to get the information. So you would think, you would hope that the media organizations would enter this as well in saying, no, there should not be a gag order. So, I mean, Andy, I think what's important for people to understand, I think what they're hearing from my dad is there's a lot of different types of gag orders. There's gag orders that could be very specific to the entire case, which would affect the media. There's gag orders that could impact the accused. There's gag orders that could impact the accused plus others. And it's all speculation, though there's wide reporting that some kind of gag order will be issued. We don't know if that will happen after the arraignment tomorrow, but it could.

Well, you're right, Jordan. There are a variety of gag orders, and I don't like to use the word gag order. I like to use what Jay used, and that's prior restraint because it's a more accurate statement of what it is that the judge is attempting to do. But one thing that Jay said that I really want to emphasize is the real purpose of a prior restraint decree by a judge is to protect the rights of the defendant, of the defendant who is the one accused and is on trial. And that is the thing that this judge should focus on, what statements and what speech protects the right of the defendant and what speech and what statements hampers those rights or impinges or inflicts some danger to those rights. Those are the things that the judge should be thinking about. I mean, in this defendant, dad, in this scenario, it's like, give me a break.

A gag order makes no sense at all. He's running for President, which is, again, sets you up to be highly criticized and also you become a highly critical person because you're running for President against someone and against other candidates and you speak to issues. So this idea that you need protection or that President Trump needs protection is absolutely absurd.

Look, here's the reality. The first amendment right that's at stake here is really the former President. Of course, it's the media as well that wants to report it, but it's the former President.

He's the declared candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States and right now the leading candidate. And the idea that you could then have a state court. I mean, remember what this is. The county court judges, they call it the Supreme Court of New York, which is their trial court. It's not their fellows. Yeah, that's not their Supreme Court. I mean, they call it that, but it's their trial court. This Supreme Court judge, this local judge in that sense, can silence the first amendment political speech rights of a declared candidate for public office, including the presidency of the United States, is absurd.

I mean, just think about what that would mean for a moment. There's a lot of things a judge can do to mitigate to make sure there's a fair trial. In fact, although these charges are so ridiculous, that brings up a whole other topic though. I think that the reality is you have to look at this as a restraint on the freedom of speech. And every American, Republican, Democrat, Independent, every media organization from MSNBC to Fox News to Newsmax to everybody should be opposed to a prior restraint, this kind of gag order, going in effect to silence the voice of the person accused who happens to be a political candidate as well. Well, Dad, what I think we'll have prepared too is if we need to add this to our petition as well, we can add this to our petition that we're asking people to sign today, which is to stop political prosecutions, lawfare, and the weaponization of justice. This is going to Congress directly because Congress does have a right to investigate here because these local DAs receive federal funds to help crime in their communities. So Congress plays a role in that, but we could also, if necessary tomorrow or whenever, update this petition to also call out the gag order if it's issued. You know, here's the interesting aspect of all of this, and I think this is where everybody that's listening to this should be concerned, should sign that petition.

The reality is that if a restraint on speech is put in place by the court, which would then probably be volatile of the First Amendment, and you have to appeal that out and litigate that out, which you would have to do because the idea that you would just let this kind of restraint on speech go is ridiculous. But here's what you have to also understand. How did we get to this place in the first place?

How did we get to this spot in the first place? Three different groups of lawyers looked at this, federally, the Department of Justice, two groups within the DA's office, and found there was no violation of law, assuming, again, that the indictment is based on business entries, which appears to be the case. We'll know tomorrow when it's unsealed. And yet, here we are, so that New York City has to be shut down for the next 48 hours or so.

I mean, this is where all of this is really absurd. There is more breaking news on a separate case. This involved a special counsel, Dad, while we've got you. Brett Baer just tweeted that Fox News has told that multiple U.S. Secret Service agents connected to former President Trump have been subpoenaed and are expected to testify before the D.C. grand jury on Friday.

The grand jury appearances are related to the special counsel's Jack Smith probe and to the handling of classified documents in Mar-a-Lago. I mean, that certainly has got to bring up some constitutional issues as well, subpoenaing Secret Service agents to a now former President. So here's going to be the interesting issue there is, does the Secret Service come in and say, we don't want our agents to be put in this position of having to disclose conversations they have overheard with what they call their protectee? And it's a protectee because they are the individual agents assigned to protect the former President, and the government's interest is to protect the safety and well-being of Presidents and former Presidents because of the nature of their threats. So all of that is relevant, but this is an escalated move on the special counsel's part, and we have a lot of experience with the special counsels when Bob Mueller was a special counsel. And what you have to be concerned with here is that, is this move taking place? Are they doing this so that they can ratchet up the pressure now on the Secret Service agents?

That's a pretty bold move. Yeah, I mean, because I would say, Andy, these Secret Service agents, they're not the FBI. Their job is not to listen in on the President. In fact, that probably violates a lot of their rules because he's handling things with potentially world leaders and other issues that they should not be trying to listen in on.

Absolutely not. It's a reprehensible thing to call a Secret Service agent in to the grand jury to tell them, what did you hear about what the President said, or what did you see what the President did, or what did you suspect that the President was doing with this, that, or the other document? They're not spies.

They're not there. They're there to protect the President because he is the former President of the United States. All former Presidents have this protection, but they're not there to be spies and to come and tell on them to special counsel or, for that matter, to anybody else.

That is just breaking. That's a separate, again, that's the special counsel, a Jack Smith federal investigation. As we go into this next break, let me encourage you, brand new petition up at ACLJ.org. As my dad argued at the Supreme Court, on behalf of President Trump, when we represented President Trump at the Supreme Court, that we can't allow 2,300 local prosecutors to harass a President for politically motivated reasons. And we're seeing that happen in real time as we speak.

And right now, he is not only a former President, but a leading Presidential candidate in the Republican primary as we speak. So we're asking you, demand Congress, which has a role here, to investigate the abuse of power and the DA to prosecute violent criminals. Sign the petition at ACLJ.org. If a gag order gets issued, we'll add that as well. ACLJ.org. Sign it today.

All right, welcome back to Secular. I want to start taking some of your phone calls too at 1-800-684-3110. But the significance, because there's a lot of talk today about a gag order, a gag order that would really impact President Trump specifically, but I want to get to some of your calls as well. We've also got a brand new petition up. So ACLJ is taking action on this very issue, a petition to stop political prosecutions, lawfare, and the weaponization of justice against politicians in America. We don't want to look like Venezuela and a third world dictatorship, which is what this looks like right now, doesn't look like America. We talked about the idea that having 2,300 local prosecutors go after a President is not how our system of justice or our system of government was set up to function.

In fact, it causes dysfunction. And we want you to speak up and sign this petition at ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org. Let's go to the phones. Myron in New York on Line 1. If you want to talk to us on air, if you've got a question about all of this that's happening in the next 24 hours, give us a call.

1-800-684-3110. Hey, Myron. Hey, I love your show. I love you guys.

I love what you're doing. I have, I don't know if to complain or not, but here's, here's my idea. And that is that you and Heritage and these other wonderful Christian entities should do a class action suit against the Department of Injustice. I mean, that is Chris Ray, Demerit Garland, all the firm that are up there.

They all need to be taken down. Of course, Joe Bileman himself, what they're doing is a conspiracy. So, and that can be proved in court and it can be proved before the American people put it on, put it on air, let the NPR put it on, who cares?

It will, it will, it will pull their pants down. Listen, Myron, I think that's what honestly Congress is attempting to do through the weaponization committee and they don't have to go to court. They've got authority on their own with the power of the purse.

So you've had one, the DA, they've demanded documents from the DA that got a little fishy because of the indictment that was issued, but they're still working on that. I think that the class action is probably not the right way to go, Andy. I appreciate, Myron, your concerns because we all have these concerns. The best way, Andy, to get rid of these officials is throw them out with an election.

Absolutely. The class action is not really Myron's design for what you're talking about. Doing a class action suit is not really the vehicle that you use, but what you use is the ballot box and you vote. Get rid of these people who engage in lawfare, who engage in the weaponization of our political and our judicial systems.

Get rid of these people whose aim it is to prosecute somebody for political crimes in the United States of America and you do that through the election. I want to go to Logan on this because, Logan, we're all watching the news. Can we go to the coverage of this?

Just go to Fox News. Just the video. Can we talk over it? I don't think I can show the video. Oh, you can't just show the video? Show it for a second. I don't think we can.

We can't actually do it. Right now, if you're watching it, they are following him like this is OJ in the 90s is what it feels like. You're just seeing loads of cars of the motorcade. This is just the motorcade to go to the airport in West Palm to get on the plane. The coverage of this is already absurd. If you want to know if things are going to get crazy and the chaos could break out, it's because this is the kind of coverage you're giving this. We haven't seen this for anyone.

Here's the interesting thing. Donald Trump was basically banned from cable news, even Fox. Sometimes they'd let him on through sit-down interviews that were pre-taped, but not live. They don't go to his rallies live.

It's pre-done after. Now, we've seen this shift in the media where, like you said, Logan, because he's the leading candidate, maybe because their ratings are down. All these ratings get better. They're literally following his motorcade on the way to his plane in Florida, which is just flying to New York and preparing for the arraignment tomorrow. Right. This isn't a real-time event that any of us are going to follow in the sense of, get off the plane in New York, go straight to the courthouse.

He's not going to be arrested if he gets off the plane. This is a 26-hour coverage, if you think about that, because it's going to happen tomorrow at 2.15. 2.15 Eastern Time. 2.15.

This is 12.24 Eastern Time right now. We don't even know if we'll see him enter the courthouse because they're not going to do a perp walk. If I was President Trump, I would almost demand that, but the Secret Service said for security purposes. So it looks like he'll be going in some kind of entrance that we might not necessarily even see, or if we do see, he'll just be walking in. He won't be, he'll be surrounded by a Secret Service. He will not be handcuffed. That is the report now. If I was him again, I would almost demand it, but Secret Service are probably telling me that puts him in a very dangerous situation.

So then he gets arraigned. We're going to get Logan the photograph. And they're already, we were talking about it last week, that the photograph is going to become a t-shirt. Drudge Report, look at the top right now. They already are showing what it would look like, and they say it could be the cultural symbol of this year. Yeah, I mean, we all know, and are pretty sure you put it in the comments, that they also have different feeds, which means there are different airports, or different helicopters and drones covering this.

Is everybody doing it? So not just one, not just one feed they're covering. This is the WFLX helicopter, likely, on the Fox feed, so that means NBC's got one. They've all got their choppers in the air, likely, or drones, as I said, maybe, but probably not, probably helicopters. So about just being in this area.

Those are the resources they're willing to spend, because the viewership numbers they think they are getting, just by following Presidents. So absurd. So in a sense, I mean, this is where I get to, we'll get back into the legal issues. I sort of hate it, because in the sense of this is so distracting from everything that could be happening in the world, that you're following a guy's motorcade to his plane to fly to New York, that nothing will even happen for another day. To me, this is a great mistake by the DA's, Logan. This DA who thinks they're going to politically take down Donald Trump, first of all, you're not going to do that with a state felony charge that was a misdemeanor. And instead of maybe letting, you know, Jack Smith and some of these other guys go ahead, you're making a spectacle. You've got Mayor Adams out there saying, Marjorie Taylor Greene's hate speech, so you're already dividing people. The mayor's already dividing people. It's like they want violence, and the TV coverage, which wouldn't show Trump for years, is now showing just him driving in an SUV. So to me, Andy, this could be the ultimate backfire of the DA, because it makes him look very important and very powerful.

Well, it does, and it could be the ultimate backfire. I know a district attorney who made that terrible mistake once by taking a perp walk, as we call it, of a person through the streets of downtown Atlanta, and the jury didn't like it. They saw it, and they turned him loose.

They found him not guilty because they said it was an abuse of power, and it was a political stunt in order to destroy your political enemies rather than to do something within the judicial system. And that's what I'm seeing on television right now. I'm seeing them, like the O.J. Simpson, following them with helicopters and drones. To what? To the airport? To get in a plane?

To go plead not guilty? And we're making this into the scene of the century? Come on.

Yeah, I mean, it's very challenging. At least that was murder. You know, that was at least something that was... Well, I mean, at least it was a murder, yes. Well, that was a murder and a fleeing from the police.

Of a celebrity and a... I mean, it was a car chase. It was a car chase. This is not a car chase. This is the Secret Service just driving to the airport. Backed up on U.S. already there. You gotta say, they couldn't even clear up the traffic there for them?

No. Well, they do, but like there's some maneuvering going on here. There's a Kia Soul stuck in there, I see. Yeah, they have to be very careful about things like that.

Oh, it's on I-95. They're being very careful. They got in a situation here.

Interesting. It's interesting to watch. It is kind of. It feels old school. It feels like 90s news is what you're saying here.

It's not, compared to what we've seen for 24-7 news coverage, this feels classic. So we've got a second half hour coming up. Rebecca, we're going to get to your phone call right away.

Same with Dennis and Tim. We want to take more of your calls. If you've got questions. You know, the big issue here, we know the arraignment is going to happen tomorrow now. We know there's a lot of counts. Will they all be related? That's likely. Will there be a surprise in there?

There could be. A surprise count, a surprise charge that hasn't been discussed or leaked out. But the other big question is, will the judge try to slap President Trump with a gag order and prevent him from being able to talk? And that's when we would get involved. We've already got our petition up at ACLJ.org. Sign it today.

We'll be right back, second half hour. heading to the airport in Florida to fly to Manhattan. He'll spend the night in Trump Tower and he will turn himself in tomorrow at 2.15 p.m. Eastern time. The mayor of New York is already calling Republicans who are going to be there to talk to the media.

Bad names and saying they're hateful and full of hate speech. So it feels like they're trying to churn up, even though he did admit that they have no evidence, no credible evidence that there's any kind of mass protest being planned. And I would imagine in New York, Logan, the mass protest is likely going to be coming from the other side.

Yeah, I think that that's probably right. I mean, you know, you don't want to you don't want to ever guess that. We've all seen these protests get out of hand. We've all seen also people who show up who are not actually the protesters show up and cause chaos. So you don't want to I don't think you want to jump to any conclusions on how far people are going to go on this.

However, they don't think there's any threat so far. That's where day out. Yeah. It'll be very interesting to see what's going to play out the next 24 hours. But mainly, like I said, I feel that this the the exciting part about this, because it does feel like that kind of old school news television. But the sad part about it is just so much is happening in the world. It's attention to that there's so much happening in the world, so much real stuff. You go listen to our shows for last week. A very intense coverage of everything that's happened in our in our world the last week.

Yeah, we had Tulsi Gabbard. This is almost a nice it sounds bad, but this is a nice, silly distraction, if you will. I know it's not silly, but you know what I'm saying is because we all know sort of how this story goes. Yeah, we kind of know how this story is going to go. And even with the case itself. Yes, it's such a weak case. This one in particular is not like even I'd say it's always more dangerous when you're dealing with a special counsel. We've dealt with them because they look for things like not the actual charge, but obstruction in these side charts and false statements. They're not really looking to get you on the big charge. It's the side federal charges in this situation here. If what has been reported in the media is true and there's nothing spectacular added to this. This is a joke of a lawsuit of a legal challenge by the DA.

It's a made up claim, at best a misdemeanor that the DOJ passed on. They said this is not worth. And I want to go back to the phones because Rebecca has picked up on this too on from Texas. Hey, Rebecca, welcome to secular.

Thank you for taking my call. I just want to say I am beyond. I mean, beyond concerned about this two tiered justice system going on in our country because the Antifa and BLM riot rioters. They roam free and rich while January 6th protesters are in prison without bail. And then Hillary Clinton, who bleached out thirty thousand high security government emails from her computer and that she was not arrested. You just paid one hundred and thirteen thousand dollar fine. She didn't have to pay a fine for that, by the way. She paid a fine because of a similar issue like President Trump's where she mislabeled the Steele dossier as a legal cost instead of a campaign cost. And so she paid a hundred and thirteen thousand dollar Andy FEC fine, which at best should have been the issue here.

That's right. If it was just a mislabeled filing of was it a legal cost? They're all campaign costs. So was it a legal cost for the campaign or was it a political cost for the campaign? And at best, that's a that's a fine.

Yeah. Be careful of your bookkeeping entries. We're now the IRS, the DOJ, the Manhattan DA.

Everybody's going to look at this and look at your bookkeeping entries and see if you miss judge something and put it as a tax contribution or an exemption from tax or did something like this. And you're going to take it and you're going to contort it was what they're doing from a misdemeanor, a misdemeanor, a misdemeanor. And then you're going to make it a felony so that you can weaponize the lawfare system into making it a crime against the former President United States. Because what you want to do is make sure that he's defeated and he's not the candidate and that he doesn't get reelected.

That's what this is all about. And you don't talk about Maxine Waters statements. You don't talk about Sandy Cortez's statements. No, we're going to talk about Marjorie Taylor Greene statements.

They're reprehensible and terrible and hate speech. The rest of them. OK, no problem. Right. I mean, I think even going out there saying there's no credible threat, but we heard a Congresswoman's coming. OK, you know, there's there's either a credible threat or no credible threat. Put the security in place. You need to put in because you're arresting a former President United States. You need some serious security regardless of who that is.

Don't be caught off guard again, like on January 6th. There needs to be serious security. Now that the media is showing President Trump is boarding Trump Force One, which, again, very impressive.

I love the colors. And, you know, he's getting this coverage for sure. You got to say a guy who knows how to handle the media without having to say a word to the media has just gotten an hour and a half of full coverage. Which, Logan, to me, again, just looking at from the political side, which is kind of sad to do in this because we're talking about our legal system and criminal law system.

But from the political side, this makes him look extremely powerful and certainly important. Yeah, I mean, to have the coverage like this is absurd. I really do think it's absurd. And for both sides, I'm sure right now, if I was to listen to the Fox News feed that we're seeing, it's all, you know, this is insane that they're having to do this. I'm sure you flip over the CNN that they're praising it. They're so happy about it. But they're all coming. Well, right. They all have this feed. CNN has this feed.

The historic nature of it. This has never happened in our history. The closest thing that ever happened was a former President, Ulysses S. Grant, was in his carriage in D.C. and pulled over for speeding.

They ultimately dropped the charges. Classic. That's as close as we've ever gotten to what's about to happen tomorrow where the former President is actually booked.

Yeah, that's a fun fact. Someone sued Grover Cleveland over an adopted baby, and she said, Ma, Ma, where's Paul? Gone to the White House. Ha, ha, ha. I mean, Ulysses S. Grant, the first DUI. Yeah. But ultimately wasn't booked. Yeah.

I think that this is- He was driving fast enough where he could have been. But CNN, you're platforming him. I don't care what they say.

Right. You are platforming Donald Trump when you want to be the people who go out there and go, well, we don't do this. We're not giving him the kids.

Let me tell you what's good for business. Stephen Colbert won't say his name like Voldemort. He has it where he calls him something else. It's all this dog and pony show where it's- but here it is. Finally, you have it.

What happens? CNN puts it on just covering the guy getting in an airplane and flying here. Let me go to Andy on this, because Andy, a headline right now is, one, how we're heading into an unknown, which is 100% true.

We've never had a former President. But the second headline is, quote, will be gagged. I mean, there's a source coming out of New York that is from that judge's office, which is bizarre, that is like they are almost 100% certain there's going to be a gag order here. I think that's a big error on the part of the judge if he tries to do that. It is a prior restraint. It is not the least restrictive means of protecting the accused in this case, which is what prior restraint, so-called gag orders are designed to do. It is unconstitutional, in my opinion, when it's applied to a person who is an announced candidate running for reelection to his office as President of the United States of America. It's going to create all kinds of constitutional issues and problems. I think the judge ought to leave it alone and let the First Amendment and the Constitution take its course.

That's my opinion. You know, I want to go right back to the phones at 1-800-684-3110. I think Tim from Tennessee brings up an important issue here. Hey, Tim, welcome to Sekulow. You're on the air. Hey, guys, thanks for your call. Hey, listen, two things. One, it almost sounds like this is another one of the less greatest things of misdirection.

Don't look over here, look here. And then secondly, the other part is, is this something, if he gets indicted or if the trial is continually going on, does that prevent him from being able to seek the presidency in 24? I want to address the first part of this, which is, is this drama feeling to draw attention from the real problems happening in our country? Absolutely.

I mean, I think there's a huge part of that. Yes, it is a historic moment, but you wouldn't cover it like this. Democrats think this is helping them. Right. This is a nice distraction to what's happening in the world. Like you said, they think that what would be better is show this situation and then we'll get back to actually. We're not talking about the border, the economic crisis, inflation, school shootings. No, it's a little bit lighter of a week when it's the former President getting arrested.

Candy romance, the number of people that were killed in these tornadoes that again hit after two weeks in a row of massive tornadoes in the southeast. But this is the coverage. But instead. Right. And again, this is again, that's not up to Donald Trump.

No, it's treated. The news is showing that they're not serious. They are not serious entities. They are entertainment entities that are only out there for the numbers not to actually inform you, which understandably, that is the case for all of this.

Everyone's searching for how do you get more people to get eyeballs. This is how you do it, even if it's ridiculous. But on the second part of that question, it does not bar him from running for President at all. Andy, in fact, you could run for President from prison.

Absolutely. The truth is that it could, of course, hamper your ability to run. It does not bar you from running or bar you from taking the oath of office. What is interesting, Andy, is that usually under the DOJ, it's why I think the special counsel is moving so quickly. They're getting into a timeline where there's still a policy on paper there that says you don't file charges when you get close certain amount of time to elections. And the closer and closer we get to a primary, which, again, you get the Iowa caucuses and Presidential debates happening in less than a year.

That's right. There are certain restrictions the Department of Justice has imposed upon itself in terms of approaching elections and that you don't pursue people for criminal charges as they're approaching the elections. And Alvin Bragg doesn't seem to be bothered by those kinds of things. He's just, you know, going straight ahead with his political warfare prosecution against the former President of the United States, notwithstanding the impact that it may have.

I think it's going to be a backfire impact, in my opinion, because I think it's going to catapult the former President into the nomination and probably back into the White House. But that remains to be seen. The important thing is I do not like prior restraint and gag orders.

They are not constitutional because they are not the least restrictive means of protecting the rights of the defendant, which is what you should be doing, Judge. That's who you need to be looking out for. Let me say, we are consistent here at the ACLJ. Whether this is a political benefit to President Trump or not, Democrats think it's not going to be. I personally think it will be. But either way, it's wrong. It shouldn't be happening. We should not be weaponizing our justice system to the point where everybody who's a politician or former politician or running for office is now going to be indicted by a DA from a different political party. And Democrats, be careful here, because while Republicans would certainly not want to adopt this policy, if you kind of force us to, you're going to end up getting indicted for being a Democrat, just for being someone running for office. It's a horrible precedent. It's why we've got this new petition up at ACLJ.org to say no to this kind of weaponization, because again, take the politics out of it for a minute, which is almost impossible to do. This makes us look like a third world country. Yeah, I think that's the discussion we had last week, which does sound like something that would come out of Africa and from these areas where this happens regularly, where there's always political turmoil. And very few people want to actually run for office because they know whenever they are removed from office, likely that ends up in their imprisonment. That is what happens in a lot of these countries overseas.

We can't let that happen here. That should never be the norm here, and it's why even there was pushback on a move, and Hillary Clinton was not a former President, but as a former secretary of state and Presidential candidate, there was a lot of pushback. Remember, Trump agreed when they came back out and said, oh, we're reopening the investigation three days before the election, and Jim Comey was highly criticized for that move. Again, this is why, to protect our country, we want you to sign the petition at ACLJ.org.

It is bigger, which is tough to say at this moment because of the coverage, but it's bigger than President Trump in that sense. It's wrong that it's happening to President Trump, but certainly he can withstand this. If anybody can, he can, but this can't become the norm. It's like Logan said, it's already tough to get people to run for office.

It's going to be impossible to get good people to run for office. If the norm is, if you lose, you're going to be politically prosecuted, not even by necessarily the federal government, but even by a state DA over a made-up federal crime. It's why we have impeachment, Andy.

That's right. That's the process that you use to remove the President of the United States. You don't use the criminal process. You use the impeachment process.

The founders of the Constitution knew exactly what they were talking about when they made the impeachment, the vehicle for doing it, and says you cannot indict a sitting President. Now we've put that one step further and said, yes, what we'll do is we'll charge him politically post office with a made-up charge that the Department of Justice and the DA's office in Manhattan had already rejected. But Soros told Bragg this is what you got to do if you want to be elected, and Bragg, the pupil of Soros, says I'll take care of it, master, and I'll do it, and he's doing it.

I want to play this. This is from our case when we represented President Trump. This is back in, is it 2020? Yeah, 2020 before the U.S. Supreme Court, Trump versus Vance.

Vance at the time was the Bragg. He was the district attorney in New York trying to pursue criminal charges and investigation against President Trump. Take a listen to my dad when he represented President Trump before the Supreme Court because, Deja, it is happening. What he predicted is happening. The Second Circuit is wrong. It should be reversed. If not reversed, the decision weaponizes 2,300 local DA's. An overwhelming number of them are elected to office and are thereby accountable to their local constituencies. The decision would allow any DA to harass, distract, and interfere with a sitting President. It subjects the President to local prejudice that can influence prosecutorial decisions and to state grand juries who can then be utilized to issue compulsory criminal process in the form of subpoenas targeting the President.

This is not mere speculation. It is precisely what has taken place in this case. Yep, you can right now be a part of this petition. We just launched it. It's at ACLJ.org. To walk you through it, just go there right now and you'll see it's on the right-hand side of your screen at ACLJ.org. Sign the petition.

Thousands of you have done it just this morning. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Cenk Hill.

We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110 and that's what we're going to do right now. A lot of questions as President Trump is about to take off, it looks like. We saw the entire motorcade to the airport in West Palm Beach. It's been riveting. The plane is moving now.

It's still taxing. It's going to be a while. And then the President will land in New York. He will spend the night in Trump Tower. It's amazing that I have all this information at the top of my head.

Where else would he stay? And he'll be arraigned at 2.15 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow. We'll be ready to come back on the air if necessary.

So check that out, Rumble. And if necessary, it's when something real happens, not like they landed. No, no, I'm talking about after he's arraigned tomorrow because we will get the indictment unsealed and I think we'll probably go live to let you know if it's exactly what we thought it was or if there's anything new in there that's surprising. And Jordan and I will be back this afternoon for the secular brothers podcast. So it'll be landed by then. I know, we'll be able to cover what was he wearing. Alright, let's take calls. Will he helicopter into New York or will he motorcade into New York?

I think motorcade. I don't know if he's a big helicopter guy, is he? Well, Marine, he used to be. I mean, he has to be. You have to be when you're the President. I'm sure there's, I think there's Trump helicopters. I've seen them.

Well, I mean, there's Trump everything. Alright, let's go ahead. Take phone calls. Yeah, we're going to go in order. So let's start with Dennis in Missouri on Line 1. Hey, Dennis.

Yes, thanks for taking my call. I had a question we keep talking about. Let's get him at the ballot box. Can you explain to me and lots of other people why we would think that there's ever going to be another fair election, especially in the states? Because we got the laws settled. We now know the rules of the game in most of the states.

We actually did a review of this for a U.S. Senator who was looking at making sure that the rules of the game are out there. What we have to do a better job of, Dennis, is using the rules to our advantage. So if you can ballot harvest in your state, we should be harvesting. We shouldn't be preaching against early voting. We should be early voting. And we should be tracking those early votes. We shouldn't be against absentee voting if your state has a no reason why absentee ballot request. We should be supporting that. We have to take advantage, Logan, of everything that is legal and every state's different. But if it's legal in your state to do it, we should be doing it. And that's how you win. We need to get out of that sort of mentality of we're not going to do this, we don't do that. We don't go on those platforms.

We only wait until election day. Yeah, we're on social media platforms, but not that one. You will lose. Because on TikTok is maybe one thing, but the rest of them, it's like, engage.

Engage with people. You have to use the tools that are available because they are using them against you. So why not? You don't want to go into election day millions of votes down because you told your people not to early vote. Which, by the way, is using the exact same machine to go and vote.

It's the same system. Also, the fact that we don't do absentees, there are people you know on election day are going to have things come up, elderly people, people with kids. So if you've got a state that's easy to do it that way, and you can track, you can see, hey, they made a request for an absentee ballot.

Let's make sure they actually voted. That's how you win. I just want to put that to rest. I know, I'm done with it.

We can win, but we have to take advantage of all the laws. All right, a lot of calls. We're going to try to get as many as we can. Lori's calling Arizona. Line 4, you're on the air. Hello, thanks for taking my call.

Go ahead, Lori. My question is, if the judge puts a gag order on President Trump, former President Trump, and it is unconstitutional, can President Trump still talk? You have to challenge it, Andy, because if you talked before, you'd be held in contempt.

That's right. You've got to challenge it. If it's an order of the court, you don't violate the order of the court and do something that the judge has told you not to do. You'd be in contempt. You could be fined and jailed. You challenge it legally, and there is a legal process for challenging prior restraint gag orders.

But you don't violate the order without having it challenged in an appellate context. All right, let's continue on. All right, let's go to John in Illinois. Line 5. Hi, thank you so much for taking my call.

No problem. I'm still really puzzled about how Bragg is going to, if he's able to bootstrap these charges into a federal charge as a local DA, how is he ultimately going to charge on a federal level? Okay, so Andy, let's talk about this. This is the theory. They have a misdemeanor on filing. They're trying to then take it and add a New York law to it to turn it into a felony.

It is novel. I mean, what John is asking is, we're actually not sure. I mean, this could get dismissed by a judge. I don't know if it will in New York by a judge who's already ruled against the Trump organization before, but it certainly could be because it's made up. Well, the first thing I want to look at is the indictment and see what the felony charge or charges are and see how Bragg contorted this so we don't really know right now until we actually see what the charge is. But you cannot take a misdemeanor and contort it, twist it, and make it into a federal felony that's not a felony charge that's not and charge it as a state crime. This is how they're getting around the statute of limitations too, which is they're saying that this is something new that they discovered so the statute of limitations on the federal side wouldn't apply here. I mean, it is, again, Alvin Bragg ran to do this, then decided not to do it, and then the liberal pressure came on him and now he's doing it.

He actually had staff quit because he wasn't going to bring the charge. Alright, let's continue on. We've got a couple minutes to try to get these calls.

Daniel, Colorado, you're up. Yeah, thanks for taking my calls. I think that all the honest lawyers, prosecutors, judges, anybody can take off should ascend on that court tomorrow and protest in front of all the media because they're the ones that went to law school and spent years in legal stuff. And if this continues, where's it going to stop?

Well, I think, again, it's great to have peaceful protests. What lawyers understand as well as judges is you beat this stuff in court. This legally questionable stuff and unconstitutional gag orders and made-up charges. But they're not going to, this is always important, Andy, and I do want to take the final call, but as lawyers, and of course judges too, we've got to see what's in the indictment.

That's right. The first thing we've got to look at is what is the charging instrument and what is it saying? What does it charge?

How does it charge it? And if that is something that can be attacked in court because it's charged in an improper way, making a federal crime into a state crime, which sounds like what it is, and that's not what the New York DA has a right to do, we need to charge it, but we need to challenge it. But we need to see the document first, the indictment. Alright, well time. Let's go to Cindy really quick in Texas. You're on the air.

Hi guys, thanks for taking my call. This is based on what you told a previous caller, that President Trump could run from prison. If that happens and he were to win, or let's say when he wins, can he pardon himself? Listen, I don't think he's going to be in that situation where he is in prison, but could you pardon yourself? Absolutely. I believe so. It is not federal.

It gets a little different. It gets a little goofy there, but he's not going to be in prison on a state issue. And the crime is federal, so it gets very complicated on the pardon, but the issue is Alvin Bragg is not bringing down President Trump. Are there other issues, like the special counsel? Sure, they're a lot more dangerous.

They just are. But I want to tell you this. It's why the ACLJ is taking action today. This is unacceptable to the United States of America. Now we'll be ready, if necessary, to file against that gag order, if necessary. If the reports are accurate, if that is going to be utilized against President Trump to try and silence him, we will be ready to challenge that. We've already got a petition up ready to go for you to sign today at ACLJ.org to demand the end to political prosecutions. This is to protect the United States of America.

I mean, think about it, folks. We don't want to be a third world country. It already starts feeling that way in our country right now. With the shootings, the economy, and the train derailments, and China and Russia invading Ukraine and Iran shooting at U.S. troops, the last thing we need is to make ourselves look worse at the world stage. Sign the petition. ACLJ.org will be live tomorrow.