The ACLJ Uncovers Their Cover-Up

Today on Sekulow, we've uncovered their cover-up. 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 everybody, welcome to Sekulow. Let me first wish you a happy Good Friday and Easter. We know a lot of you may be traveling, listening in the car, or you might be watching the broadcast. And let me just say I hope you have a great time with your family, friends and family, over this weekend celebrating the resurrection of our Savior.

And again, so it's very important a weekend and all week to us as Christians. It's also been a week where it's been pretty overwhelming with the news. I know for us in Nashville, starting with last week, and the horrible incident that occurred at Covenant Christian School, and then the indictment of President Trump, and so many of the issues that we've talked about, that we thought on this show we needed to almost go back and update you on other things that have been going on.

Because the news is kind of dominated by one or two stories where there's a lot happening here in the United States and around the world. One is our FOIA that we filed with Department of Homeland Security and CBP, because the FBI, remember, had, we now learned, had the Department of Homeland Security remove their press release from CBP's website that they had apprehended two terrorists at the southern border. And they put their images up, and they were actually promoting the good work that they were doing at Customs and Border Patrol. So we uncovered this cover-up with the Department of Homeland Security. We're going to break it down for you. What did we find out through our FOIA work, which is, it's very important work, and it takes time, because ultimately you've got to go to the agencies, you file the FOIA, and then you've got to go and get actually, sometimes find it out in court.

But it's worth it every time because you get information that sheds light. We now know here this was a move to appease which floor? The seventh floor at the FBI. We also had Tulsi Gabbard was at our offices in Nashville the day President Trump was indicted. And we, through our podcast, the Secular Brothers podcast, we were planning on going live with Tulsi already for our podcast viewers who were, you know, a lot of them on Rubble and places like Facebook and YouTube and downloaded on Apple or Spotify. And talked to Tulsi about a wide range of topics. She was already planning to be in Nashville before the shooting occurred, and we were going to talk about those issues. And the moment we literally were walking into the studio to go live, sitting down in the chairs with Tulsi, President Trump was indicted. And remember, that was after news that was breaking that the grand jury was actually taking a month off. And so there was some bad information being reported.

And so we literally sat down and go live with Tulsi. And so you get her reaction because that was on the Secular Brothers podcast. But I wanted you all to be able to get a chance to hear that interview to get her reaction as someone who came out of the Democrat Party, as a member of Congress, a Presidential candidate, has vocally left the Democrat Party. And been talking about one of the issues that we're so concerned about, which is the weaponization of the government against people because of their political views and against our politicians and leaders.

And in this case, it happens to be a top leader, a former President of the United States. So we'll get her reaction as well, because if you didn't see the Secular Brothers podcast, you may not have heard or watched that interview with Tulsi Gabbard. And of course, this is a really important time for us at the ACLJ. We have a matching challenge. And at ACLJ, I know some of these you may get from these text messages, emails from politicians, and it says like 30 times match, 40 times match.

Here at the ACLJ, it's very simple. We have a group of donors at certain months of the year that say, we'll match the donations that come through. So it's a match of your donation. So if you donate at ACLJ.org right now, $50 at ACLJ, we have donors that will match that $50. So effectively, because of your $50 donation, we will get an additional $50 donation. So you've gotten $100 into the ACLJ.

So you can really maximize the impact of your donation. I encourage you to do it today at ACLJ.org. Have a great Good Friday and Happy Easter to you all. We'll be right back on Secular. We'll be right back.

We'll be right back. That never works, because once it's up on the internet, it's there forever. You can take it down. But in fact, in the emails, they say, you know, what was interesting in the emails is they say it later on in what we've uncovered through having to go to court over this FOIA is they finally said, hey, you know, this could cause an issue, because once we take it down, people are going to raise their eyebrows.

And of course, it did. That's why we filed a FOIA and ended up in federal court because Customs and Border Patrol is in this fight within the executive branch to get more resources so that they can keep our country safe and try and get the chaos at the border under control. So I think this is going to be very helpful. We now know moving forward, DHS does release data on the people on the terror watch list who've been apprehended, but they don't release specific data.

So it's very general. We have those numbers, like nearly 70 since. Yeah, right. So we have those kind of numbers and we get the monthly reports, 16 last month, but we don't get the imagery of who was actually captured and apprehended by law enforcement, which, by the way, in a normal situation, someone was arrested on suspicions of being a terrorist. You would get that info. If they were arrested, you would get the pictures and the imagery and you'd go figure out who are they connected to in the United States already.

All right. And that's the problem is who are they connected to? I mean, they're caught with SIM cards in their shoes. They're hiding. So we start with a letter. There's the letter. It's up on the screen. That's the FOIA request. That's the demand for information and documentation. Of course you get nothing. So then what we do is the next thing, put it up on the screen, a federal lawsuit. There it is. And it is the American Center for Law and Justice, which means all of you are members against the United States Department of Homeland Security, United States Customs and Border Protection, and the United States Immigration, Customs and Enforcement.

That's ICE. They come back and they try to not give you documents. We go when we litigate it out. So we get the first batch. DHS says, hey, we got nothing, which is interesting because we got a lot of documents from our friends at the Customs and Border Patrol because those agents really are concerned about this.

DHS is so politicized that they don't care about it. But here's what you got to understand. They said this is to me the critical part of this.

The house, the horse is out of the barn. That means it's already known that there were in fact terrorists coming through the southern border to cause harm on your family and mine. And let me ask you this question. They want to take $8 billion of your money, more than it's like $80 billion of your money, and spend it to get 87,000 new IRS agents. You know who they're investigating?

You and me. That's who they investigate. Everybody that's listening, they got to collect taxes.

That's what the agents do. How about taking that money and stop the terrorists coming through our southern border? The fence, Border Patrol agents and reinforcements, more judges, lawyers to protect the country. So we're taking action on this. As soon as we got this data, and we just got it, we are turning it over to first our government affairs office, then we're going to turn it over to Congress. But what you have to understand here is the information we found out is, quite frankly, shocking. The nature of the response between the FBI, and by the way, the FBI field office approved that press release going up. But oh, the national FBI, they're not happy about this.

You know, the horse is out of the barn. So when you go through what was actually said between their colleagues, I don't want someone to falsely claim again that I'm muzzling CBP. That's the Customs and Border Patrol.

That's the Border Patrol agencies. Because why are they being accused of muzzling? It goes up and they said take it down.

Absolutely. I will accuse them of muzzling. That's exactly the definition of what they are doing. When you have the Border Patrol saying, look, we've arrested two known terrorists, Yemeni terrorists at the border.

We've stopped them from crossing. They do a press release. And then you have FBI in DC saying, no, you have to pull that.

That's exactly the definition of muzzling. And it's because they don't want us to know that terrorists are crossing our border. What we have to do in a situation like this, Jordan's at our DC office now working with our team up there, is this is serious stuff.

So here's, let me give you the message of hope of the part of this. We don't just get the information to, oh, we got this information, they're covering it up. We're not saying, okay, what action do we need to take to protect the American citizens?

Your kids, your grandkids, you, your family? What can we do substantively to get help? And we know that the House leadership can call oversight hearing. They can allocate funds in a House bill to get on the border protection. So that in the end of the day, when they said, and they can demand that DHS produce these documents, we're going to court on it too. We'll hand over our entire file over to the government, to the Congress. So Jordan, explain, you're in our office in Washington, which houses both our litigators and our government affairs office, which we're about to expand that office by the way, significantly. And this is a change since just January after the elections, because we now have House committees run by House Republicans who are not going to do the bidding of the Biden administration, but the exact opposite, getting to the bottom of these issues. Because this is an issue about, at the end of the day, securing our border and protecting Americans from all of the issues that are coming across the border. Whether it's drugs, the cartels, the violence, the amount of people that are taking over small cities and towns and closing down hospitals that can't afford to operate because none of these folks have insurance, but they do provide the medical care. And then the terrorists add that aspect to it.

But what's on top of this? Local FBI in San Diego approved this with CBP. So this goes right back to the Washington DC, like we talked about seventh floor FBI, it's the political actors within these law enforcement executive branch agencies who are always doing the bidding, the political bidding of the administration, and specifically here, the Biden administration, so it fits a narrative. I'm going to tell you this, for those that are watching on Rumble or other social media apps, when we go to a break, we're not going to a break on our social media.

So those of you watching there, we're going to stay live during this. This is a big development because, again, I want to underline this quote, and this is from a customs and border official person that's worried. They said, I just don't want someone to falsely claim that I'm muzzling the customs and border patrol, which of course, as we said, we think they actually, they are doing that. What's according, this is also, I think this is the critical part of this. Why did they want it taken down?

Well, it's obvious. They wanted it taken down because it shows that we have a porous border that it's not just illegal aliens coming through unlawful entrance, it's terrorists. And those terrorists will sit here for 10 years and do nothing, then they take flying lessons where they only want to learn how to take off. Remember that? How did that one slip up through our government? That was during the Republican administration.

I mean, give me a break. Don't some 87,000 new IRS agents to do what? Audit people so they can get 15 more dollars on their tax return? Send them down there to the border and protect us from the terrorists.

That's what we need to be doing. Yeah, they've totally, the Biden administration totally has this backwards. You're absolutely correct that they're targeting law abiding American citizens by these IRS agents, weaponizing these IRS agents. And then leaving our border completely open for terrorists to just walk across.

And why were they so upset about this? Because these people, they were from Yemen, you know, Yemen terrorists, and they had faces that you could see and it actually identified them. And it makes it real then instead of just a number, it's actually, oh, my gosh, there's a terrorist who's crossing our border. And, you know, we have one point three million got aways that we know of. And how many of those people are terrorists? I mean, we're catching 69 of them, but how many have we not caught?

You probably didn't catch 10 percent. Let's be real. And it's not the individual border agents problem, I mean, fault. They're so overwhelmed.

So, like I said, this is a really simple solution. When we get this information, I want to get results. You know, it's like those students that went into the Smithsonian with their pro-life hat and then they get popped. We went right to court. Got that resolved in about a, you know, nanosecond. Still fighting it on some, finding out who did all this.

But on this one, this is what you need to understand. We caught them. They posted a news release. They take it down because it shows, whoops, hey, terrorists really did get in through the southern border. This isn't just, you know, talk show radio programs discussing it. This is our own press release.

And then it says, I'm being told it was released at the request of the Border Patrol's El Centro sector after being cleared by the FBI in San Diego and they still didn't want it. So those of you that are watching on our social media, don't go anywhere because I'm going to keep going to you. Radio, you're going to go to a commercial break. But if you're on our social media, especially Rumble, and by the way, hit follow on all of these wherever you're watching right now. We encourage you to hit follow. And let me tell you something, folks. We got to fight back on this.

This is for real. We got to take action and we are. Support the work of the ACLJ. We're in a matching challenge campaign.

That's ACLJ.org. Any amount you donate, we get a matching gift. And that's how we find out this stuff. We're going to be back with more, including your phone calls at 800-684-3110. But folks, this is a real fight. More with Jordan and Washington in just a moment.

Welcome back to the broadcast, everyone. We've got breaking news. We've uncovered a major issue and that is at our border. Two Yemeni individuals who are on the terror watch list, the federal government, FBI's terror watch list, got in through our southern border. Fortunately, Border Patrol caught them.

Here's the problem. That was announced. It was put up on a website with the picture of them.

Face blocked out a little bit, which shows that it's for real. They came in through the southern border, through the El Centro regional area. It was put up on their custom Border Patrol issued a release on it.

And here's what happens. And we just got these documents because we filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Patrol. And in this particular case, in addition to that, and this is important, also ICE. Customs and Border Patrol is producing documents while we're in court, which is great. DHS stonewalling. We're fighting them out. And now we're going to get Congress involved. But here's the thing.

So this is what we've got. Customs and Border Patrol officials in Washington, quote, let folks know this should have never happened. That's putting the release up by the Customs and Border Patrol.

It should have been elevated for a determination on releasability. The records show that the FBI demanded a phone call with Customs and Border Patrol about the release on the day it was issued. The officials discussed that, quote, it was a mistake to issue the release, that doing so put our, quote, colleagues at the FBI in a very bad position. Bad position with the administration because now it's known that there are, in fact, terrorists coming in through the southern border. A very important fact to know. Another recommended, referring all questions to the FBI, stop us from digging a deeper hole.

Okay. Finally, the records show that we're going to have to, the San Diego FBI approved the release, but the FBI and Customs and Border Patrol leadership in Washington wanted a name. We're going to track that down and address it.

The records show that the press release was intentionally taken down within 24 hours of being issued, confirming that the removal was not, quote, a glitch or technical error. Now, here's what it shows you, though. Really bad people are coming in through our southern border. People are on our terror watch list from Yemen. They're not coming through our ports of entry. They're coming in a porous border. The Biden administration doesn't want you to know that, obviously. But we found out about it, and this is what you have to realize. Your federal taxpayer dollars, our federal taxpayer dollars, are going to be used to hire 87,000 new IRS agents.

That was the plan. $80 billion to the IRS. How about taking that money and reinforce our Border Patrol agents that are trying to make sure we don't get hurt? So your government wants to take your taxpayer dollars so they can go after you. They don't want to take your taxpayer dollars to protect you. And that's the problem with this, and that's fundamentally upside down.

It is fundamentally upside down. The fact that the Border Patrol caught two terrorists crossing our border is a good thing and should, and demands a press release, that we know that, and they've done something good. And then for the FBI to step in and say, oh my gosh, you've put us in a bad situation, and we're terribly upset about this, and you should have never released that, and then pulled it down.

And then they say, well, now the horse is out of the barn. Well, of course it is. Once you've put that up on the internet, once you've made that press release, we now know. And the ACLJ found out about it, and we want to know, then why do you pull that back down? Of course it's because they don't want us to know that terrorists on the terror watch list are freely coming across our border. Yeah, why does the FBI, Will Haines, our producer, is pointing this out.

The FBI, they say, Jordan, we can't have this stuff going on. This has got to be stopped. It puts us in a bad position.

A bad position? I mean, do you mean it's exposed what happened here? Yes, because then they're going to have to come testify on Capitol Hill about what they know about terrorists who are entering in through the southern border, which they are allowing to be more and more porous because they came in and reversed the Trump administration policies. Like the border wall, like Remain in Mexico, like Operation Talon, some of those were reinstated by courts. But the Biden administration said, well, if it was a Trump policy, we've got to get rid of it, even if it was working.

And now you have the reason why, and I want to go back a little bit, because we started this in 2021. Now in 2023, Jim Jordan is a chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

We are now able to go directly to them with this information and say, by the way, bring in Maria Espinosa. She was at CBP and now she is the senior principal adviser to Mayorkas at Homeland Security. She was in these email exchanges because she was at CBP at the time. She was directing all of this, saying, we'll handle it for the FBI. We don't want to upset our friends at the FBI because she's a political actor. She can be now brought before Congress to testify about what they knew, why they made these decisions, who are they protecting?

They're not protecting the American people. No. You know, I'm going to take Jerry's call from Rhode Island on one. Jerry, you're welcome to broadcast. You're on there. Go ahead with your question.

Hello, team. If I understand this right, FBI San Diego released this under their normal protocol and National FBI said no. What happens to these people at the border? Are they incarcerated?

Are they just turned back? It's got to be a record of the processing and arrest and what they disposed of it. Okay, so normally what would happen on this, they'd be charged with unlawful entry. And then if they're on the terrorism watch list, if you could bring charges on terrorism-led activity, possibly depending on who they are, we don't have that information.

But no, they're prosecuted or it's supposed to be prosecuted. Now, here's the fundamental problem, Jerry, in what you asked. This is the key.

And this is what I want everybody to listen and focus on. What we found out was Customs and Border Patrol did a good thing. They caught these two. Now, there's 70 that they caught since October.

Now, we don't know how many got away. And I'm not blaming the agents for that because those agents are so overtaxed it's unbelievable because of the number of unlawful entrants coming in. But this is why it cuts against the Biden narrative. The Biden narrative is, oh, we got to keep, you know, kind of porous borders because we're the country that accepts everybody.

And that sounds great. It's a high platitude. Here's the problem with it. Bad people. I'm not talking about the people coming from Honduras that are kind of trying to come to the United States for economic gain. They should come legally. They shouldn't be doing it illegally. But these are people that desire harm.

These terrorists, we know this from 9-11, folks. I was involved in that. You all were too legally. You were following on a radio broadcast. We've been on the air that long.

Here's the problem. Those people come in and they will sit in the United States, Jordan, for 10 years working out their plan of terror. Whether it's a mass shooting, whether it's blowing something up, whether it's getting on an airplane, whatever it might be. So, yeah, they had mass killings of Americans via fentanyl. There's a new report that just broke in the news. The DEA is warning Americans about zombie fentanyl. This is a fentanyl that's been seized in 48 out of 50 states, come through the southern border, that actually starts eating your flesh. The drug itself eats your flesh. The only reason that drug is so prevalent in the United States, it's called zombie fentanyl now, DEA just released.

I mean, this just broke. That is just as dangerous as a terror attack. In fact, it is terrorism.

And it's emanating from an enemy. It starts in China. China then creates fentanyl very cheaply.

Then they've now made zombie fentanyl, which eats at your skin. They get it to cartels in Mexico. The cartels then bring it to the United States because the border is porous. And you know who the cartels also work with?

Terrorist groups. We know that. So this is why, folks, we're taking direct action at the ACLJ. And I want to encourage you, if you're watching right now, if you're listening on radio or whether you're watching on our preferred platform, which is Rumble or YouTube or Facebook, we'd prefer you to go to Rumble, where we know we're never getting censored. I want you to hit the thumbs up and I want you to hit subscribe so that you follow.

It just says follow. We're going to go to a break for our radio broadcast, but we're going to stay live on here. And I want to tell you something, folks. This is the time to support the work of the ACLJ, because we got a result. And now we're going to take action to get hope and help to American families. That's what we want to do. Support the work of the ACLJ.

We're in a matching challenge campaign. What that means is any amount you donate, we get a matching gift for. So I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org.

Any amount you donate, tax deductible, we get a matching gift for. Again, ACLJ.org. We'll be back with more, including phone calls at 800-684-3110.

More on this case coming up. Hey everybody, welcome to Secchio. Let me first wish you a happy Good Friday and Easter. We know a lot of you may be traveling, listening in the car, or you might be watching the broadcast. And let me just say I hope you have a great time with your family, friends and family over this weekend, celebrating the resurrection of our Savior.

And again, so it's very important a weekend and all week to us as Christians. It's also been a week where it's been pretty overwhelming with the news. I know for us in Nashville, starting with last week, and the horrible incident that occurred at Covenant Christian School, and then the indictment of President Trump, and so many of the issues that we've talked about, that we thought on this show we needed to almost go back and update you on other things that have been going on.

Because the news is kind of dominated by one or two stories where there's a lot happening here in the United States and around the world. One is our FOIA that we filed with Department of Homeland Security and CBP. Because the FBI, remember, we now learned, had the Department of Homeland Security remove their press release from CBP's website that they had apprehended two terrorists at the southern border. And they put their images up, and they were actually promoting the good work that they were doing at Customs and Border Patrol. So we uncovered this cover-up with the Department of Homeland Security.

We're going to break it down for you. What did we find out through our FOIA work? Which is, it's very important work, and it takes time. Because ultimately you've got to go to the agencies. You file the FOIA. And then you've got to go and get actually, sometimes find it out in court.

But it's worth it every time because you get information that sheds light. We now know here this was a move to appease which floor? The seventh floor at the FBI. We also had Tulsi Gabbard was at our offices in Nashville the day President Trump was indicted. And we, through our podcast, the Secular Brothers podcast, we were planning on going live with Tulsi already for our podcast viewers who were, you know, a lot of them on Rubble and places like Facebook and YouTube and downloaded on Apple or Spotify. And talked to Tulsi about a wide range of topics. She was already planning to be in Nashville before the shooting occurred, and we were going to talk about those issues. And the moment we literally were walking into the studio to go live, sitting down in the chairs with Tulsi, President Trump was indicted. And remember, that was after news that was breaking that the grand jury had actually, the grand jury was actually taking a month off. And so there was some bad information being reported.

And so we literally sat down and go live with Tulsi. And so you get her reaction because that was on the Secular Brothers podcast. But I wanted you all to be able to get a chance to hear that interview to get her reaction as someone who came out of the Democrat Party, as a member of Congress, a Presidential candidate, has vocally left the Democrat Party, and been talking about one of the issues that we're so concerned about, which is the weaponization of the government against people because of their political views. And against our politicians and leaders.

And in this case, it happens to be a top leader, a former President of the United States. So we get her reaction as well, because if you didn't see the Secular Brothers podcast, you may not have heard or watched that interview with Tulsi Gabbard. And of course, this is a really important time for us at the ACLJ. We have a matching challenge. And at ACLJ, I know some of these you may get for these text messages, emails from politicians, and it says like 30 times match, 40 times match.

Here at the ACLJ, it's very simple. We have a group of donors, certain months of the year that say, we'll match the donation that come through. So it's a match of your donation. So if you donate at ACLJ.org right now, $50 at ACLJ, we have donors that will match that $50. So effectively, because of your $50 donation, we will get an additional $50 donation. So you've gotten $100 into the ACLJ.

So you can really maximize the impact of your donation. I encourage you to do it today at ACLJ.org. Have a great Good Friday and Happy Easter to you all. We'll be right back on Sekulow. Tulsi Gabbard is with us on the set in the studio in Nashville. Tulsi, it's great to have you. Thank you. Everybody who's watching this knows your background in Congress, knows the Tulsi Gabbard show, your Presidential campaign, that you still are serving our country in the reserves.

Just your reaction to this, just because we were talking about, you were talking to our staff earlier. And this is before this news broke, about the divisiveness in our country. And then you add something like this where we start using law enforcement to go after politicians and people running for office or former Presidents who are running again for office. And then immediately everybody's got to pick a side.

And then you've got to jump into a box. Are you for President Trump or against President Trump? And it doesn't really matter what the issues were or how ridiculous this is. Politics determines that. And that's what's so dangerous about what we're seeing here is the weaponization of these these institutions that that should exist to serve the best interests of the American people, but instead are being manipulated to serve the political interests of the party that's in power. And this is the kind of warning signal to all Americans, regardless of what party you identify with. You maybe don't identify with one party or another who you like, who you don't like is this sets that precedent of saying, well, whoever gets in power then has at their disposal all of these different federal agencies and law enforcement agencies to go after their political opponents. This is a very dangerous thing that directly undermines it undermines the Constitution. It undermines our republic. It undermines our democracy.

We use law enforcement to go after our political opponents instead of just beating the ballot box, beating them with ideas. I mean, unfortunately, it's like we can't even have these discussions by the time we're all here today and the shooting was on Monday in Nashville. Now the protesters took over the Capitol today here.

It wasn't particularly violent, but they did take over the state Capitol. They did that in Kentucky yesterday on the same issue. And it's like we're not we've forgotten that there's three kids that got killed and having the debate about how do we keep the Second Amendment, but also figure out to keep how do we keep these guns out of the hands of people with mental illness? The conversation I was talking to my wife about earlier, immediately when this stuff happens, it's like, well, now we know progress.

It almost feels disheartening to you. Well, now progress can happen because three days after this, the protests are happening. People are are protesting. We're not really sure what they're saying, what the point is.

I asked some of our friends to go, well, what is your intended goal of going down there and protesting? And they can't really come up with the answer. Then we know there has to be some kind of change. The problem is you see this kind of divisiveness immediately.

Then all of a sudden the sides split again and nothing happens. And that was her concern. That's my concern is apparent living through these type of things is it just feels so split apart that there can't even be that conversation. As Jordan said, it's just it just becomes politicized within days. And that's the problem. You know, you saw I don't know if you saw the screaming match between Congressman Massey and a congressman from New York.

I can't think of his name at the moment, but it was it was it it turned into a screaming match when it should have been just a conversation about a very, very serious, serious matter. And, you know, you mentioned people, even with the best of intentions, recognize, hey, we have serious problems that that cause us to keep facing these tragedies. We have to do something.

Something has to change. But unless we as a country and a society are willing to confront the foundational challenges that we face, the erosion of a spiritual foundation in this country, the values that are being propagated by these so-called woke voices who are pushing their own agenda, unless we're willing to to really get to the heart of things, then what we'll still see are politicians saying, well, something's got to change. You've got to pass this bill, but it will it's not really going to solve anything or change anything. We'll see what's packed in that bill and then it won't get through. And then the story just gives them a talking point to go out on the campaign to look what we did or look at what those guys are not doing.

When, in fact, it doesn't actually end up helping, helping solve the problem. Bring up the spiritual issue. We had our the day of the shooting. It struck to many of us because it was the TVI, the head of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, state investigators. And he got up in the press conference and made a statement. But then he said to us, he said, I know people are going to mock us for this, but we're going to pray.

We're going to pray. And the fact that he has to put a caveat to that right now, because everybody goes, say, oh, where's your thoughts? And like, that doesn't matter. Like, that's not important. Yeah. These people, people have been affected by this. Do you need that some kind of peace to also be able to function and just start moving on?

Yes. Have the, because to even get to the point to have the conversation, if we start just screaming at each other, which is kind of what it's devolved into here in Tennessee in two days, you'll never have the conversation. You're never going to have, and it seems like at least, and you've kind of been part of this in our circle that we're all in. We can have the conversation amongst ourselves, but it doesn't seem like we can have the conversation with the other side. They just, it's like a hundred percent our way or you're evil.

And that's how they paid us. And now we see these shootings. And that right there is something that not, I haven't really heard very many people really addressing the consequences of that as it relates specifically to this tragedy that your community is facing right now.

You mentioned your kids are going to school right next door to Covenant School. I mean, this has really shaken this entire community and the country for that matter. But you look at the consequences of those who are pushing this, this so-called woke agenda and basically saying, hey, if you are being subjected to quote unquote traditional values or Christian values, whether it be at school or at home, you are a victim of abuse as a child. So, so, you know, you can imagine, I know they haven't released this manifesto, but basically like, okay, so if I am, if you're, if you know, the shooter was very likely motivated because of this agenda. Recognizing like, well, obviously I am justified in carrying out this vengeance against those that, that this person sees as, as abusers and completely taking away from, from the real child abuse that unfortunately kids are being subjected to across the country by those who are pushing this trans ideology, this gender ideology, this sexualization of our kids.

This is, this is real. Yeah. And a lot of folks may not know, but Nashville does get a lot of attention for that because Vanderbilt University's role. Now the government stepped in. And so people are blaming now politicians for stepping in and saying they shouldn't be doing this with children and these gender reassigned with children, especially without their parents knowing about it. And they're basically victim blaming and saying, because these kids happen to be at a Christian school, they deserve what they got.

I mean, that's, that's what I'm hearing from the protest. And what's weird, I talked to one of our friends who was posting things that I was really someone who doesn't live here and knows we live here. And I was pretty offended. I was like, I can't believe you're sharing this.

You know what we're going through here at Citi. You know, and of course it was a blanketly conservative. It was like, you know, all conservatives were smiling that day when they found out like, that's just totally not true. And she was like, well, you know, that's not how I actually believe, but I can't actually post anything about how I feel on the other side because I am more of a moderate, but I can't post my conservative sort of feelings because I know what will happen to me. And it's like, oh, well, this is where we live here even during a time of crisis. You know about this because you decided to step, you ran for President of the Democrat party, decided to take on that machine, face the consequences of taking on the machine, quite honestly, and decide to keep speaking out.

Yeah. But you've been, you've been through that. A lot of us are kind of learned, kind of, I'd say for the first time in a lot of our, we may have grown up the other side politically, but are realizing that, hey, we can question this too. We don't have to just go by whatever it say.

We have to start this war or we have to rush into Ukraine or we have to, and if we don't agree with that, we're not bad, we're not bad Americans. We're just searching for the truth. And we've talked about that.

I talked to you about that when we did, when the Afghanistan withdrawal happened, so it was just, I think our generation, the three of us are just searching for people who are telling the truth. Even if it's the truth they believe, at least you know they believe it. Right.

Right. And, and people who are willing, who unfortunately that is an act of courage now, an act of courage to actually not only speak the truth, but believe in and recognize there is such a thing as truth. There is such a thing as objective truth, not just my truth or your truth or whatever someone wants to concoct.

And this, this goes directly in line with the danger of weaponizing our government against political opponents, against the American people is, is then if there is no such thing as objective truth, then it is those who are in power and who have these powers of the force of law and law enforcement who then get to say, well, this is what is true and you must fall in line and comply or else face the consequences. You know, what's unfortunate now with this indictment, people aren't going to be talking about, this is going to take Nashville off the news, which some of it needed to be. But, but just for our own local community, to be able to tolerate, because it's been a media thing. But to have those discussions that we all need to have, you know, everyone's going to question the second amendment. And I think it's right, it's okay to do that and say, where should the lines be and how can we address the mental health issue? Of course, you know, we're, we had to file a lawsuit on behalf of synagogues in New York so that they can have armed security.

Now we won, we beat New York, but they were trying to deny it and it was through the state insurance companies and all that. And we know that they're the number one most targeted group is synagogues, but to get to that discussion is so difficult. And it's easy to do it amongst your friends who agree with everything you agree with, but to actually get it done on paper seems, it does seem impossible sometimes. And you have people, as Jordan said, they start questioning. I know you've gone from different points of view on your feelings on, on guns. And I know we've seen that and that's okay to evolve and to change as the world does.

Well, it's, it's, I think it's, it's more than okay. It's, it's, you know, what is normal and necessary for us as humans to be able to allow for that space to learn and grow, but really how does that even happen? It can only happen when we are willing to have those conversations. So if we, as a society in America of all places are not even willing to allow the conversation, regardless of your position on the issue, then, then there's no hope for progress. And so I think some introspection for people who have strong feelings about this one, one, one way or another, allow for some listening, treat others with respect, whether you agree or disagree, or maybe they don't even know where they stand, but be willing to have that conversation and, and, and listen to a perspective that may be different from your own. You know, we have an organization that fights in court because we believe it's worth fighting for.

You're in the army reserve because you believe the idea of America is worth fighting for. Not a specific politician, but the idea of America. And we're always trying, like you said, we should accept people whose ideas change and grow and, and because that's the whole point of our country. And we have to constantly always, we're always trying to make it perfect. We're never going to be perfect. We always want to try to get there, which means we always have to rethink things and question our leaders and question pretty powerful people that for a long time felt like they were above questioning.

It wasn't even Republican, Democrat, big companies, huge industries. And we realize if we do come together, we're still strong enough as people that, that to question them is no longer makes you an unpatriotic, bad trader, un-American, but it's actually the most American thing you can do. It absolutely is.

And I think it's important to remember that, you know, even, even as the situation sometimes seems hopeless, first and most importantly, as, as God embodies and is unconditional love, as long as there is God, there is love and there is hope, period. When we look to the Declaration of Independence, we're reminded we are a self-governed people. So I hear from a lot of people who just say, my gosh, like I don't even feel like voting because I don't think my vote will be counted or I don't think it matters.

I don't think it makes a difference. I'm just one person. This is important for us to remember. We are a self-governed people. That is the vision that our founders had for this country. So if we are sick and tired of corrupt politicians, we are sick and tired of the elite in Washington who think they are better than us, that they don't have to answer to the people, that we exist to serve them rather than the other way around. Well, we are the ones who can bring about that change. And that changes through lifting our voice, exercising our God-given rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution and voting. It's the idea of America still at this point.

It's the idea that we know where we can go. We know what it can be. We're just maybe not there yet. We're a young country still. This is another sad day in America because when you have an indicted former President who's now running for President, you're politicizing the entire country. And like we said, the conversation becomes, well, how will this affect him politically?

I mean, that's the truth. The truth is the big conversation here is not whether or not he's going to be—it's probably not going to be found guilty. This charge is very hard to prove in court. If what he's indicted on is what we all believe, which is just the payment and whether it was categorized the right way, that's probably not going anywhere legally. The question is, how does it affect him politically? And that's what we—I know every American's feeling is like that's what the DA was calculating too. Is it going to hurt him enough or is it going to help him too much? And it feels like, well, George Soros must have thought this will hurt him enough, so go ahead and indict him.

And this is the problem here, right? Is that exactly where—I imagine if we turned up the volume, we'd hear that probably on every single cable news channel where our politics has really been reduced to, you know, a sports commentary. Well, how will this affect him in a horse race or will this help this person or hurt him in that way? Rather than saying, holy crap, how is this going to affect us as a country? How is this going to affect us for generations to come? How is this going to affect, you know, our ability to maintain this system of governance that remains the best system in the world?

Or is this something that completely gets to the heart of undermining people's ability to have any kind of trust or faith that this system will actually work for the people and for the country? There's a place for breaking news. There's a place for some of us to be angry sometimes too. But when we have these abilities to where we can have a show and basically not control by anyone, decide how you want to do it, have longer conversations about big issues that we can just all think and talk in a rational way and just have a discussion. It doesn't mean we're all going to come to the same conclusion at the end of the show or the end of the day, but at least we can start those conversations with each other.

Well, you mentioned my conversation with your dad, the episode that we did with Jay. I think it's so relevant to what we're talking about here right now because as he talked through the work that he and ACLJ has been doing for so long, decades upon decades, it has been firmly rooted in the Constitution. And I know you guys have gotten a lot of crap.

I know he has personally for taking positions that were not popular with the quote unquote conservative base or whatever the case may be and saying, OK, well, no, ACLJ is going to work with ACLU on this issue because it's about freedom for everyone. And today it may not be your tribe or your group that's under attack, but we're going to fight for those other guys because we know that we could be next. And that's so important. So important. And fortunately, you know, the ACLU is not what it used to be.

No. But we had it today, which was Matt Taibbi, who was testifying before Congress, has the IRS knock on his door. He's agreed with where we are politically on a lot of things, maybe more recently.

But also, you know, he's been a very outspoken critic of Republican politics and Republican politicians for a long time. And we were on there saying, you know, we're the we're the ones defending him. That doesn't seem like the other side is there anymore because they're the other side. That's right. That they became the other side.

And instead of, hey, the idea we've had, we've seen people on the pretty far left, but far left who have gotten more influential question, you know, well, I wish we didn't have a First Amendment because really this freedom of speech is a problem. He broke the one. He broke the narrative. He just said, yeah, I don't think the Russia investigation was on the up and up. And that was it. It was like his career done.

And then a bunch of us who were fans ended up paying for him separately and doing some stuff and all that, because we appreciated his journalism and free. Exactly. And people are rushing to defend. The IRS has shown up to store organizations were not rushing to defend him or not. No, they abandoned quickly. Yeah. They're going after him because he's he's somebody who has the courage to speak the truth. Yeah.

And it's not convenient for them or politically advantageous. Yeah. And we're going to see this obviously unfold over the next few days now. And, you know, we we brought you in here. You spoke to our staff about sort of that need for hope, that need for a spiritual awakening somewhat in this country as we've kind of abandoned all of that. And that is incredibly important to not only work we do here, but just for for us to have any kind of sanity and to be able to get through this.

I mean, for us to get through this week alone for a lot of people has been very tough. And if you don't have that, at least kind of backbone to go, OK, well, we believe, as you said. Well, then, how how do you continue on the way that we've been able to? How do you send your kids back to school? How do you do that when you know what's happening and that these, you know, our schools are having to send out, you know, long emails of, well, here's everything we're adding to protect your kids.

I know there's people are talking about, you know, forming parents that can can be little armies and little armies for their schools. And you're like, this is a crazy world we're living in. And it does feel like even our generation, every generation goes through it.

But our generation specifically who had to go through 9-11, the economic crisis, then we had COVID. And now we're, you know, and now we're dealing with these kind of conversations. And now in our community and though, yeah, the exactly everything that happened with the last election and then it's still going.

And it's like, man, like you said, every day it feels like there's something else that we're just like, OK, all right, we wake up to this. And how do you move forward? I think the hard thing, but the necessary thing for all of us to do if we care about this country, if we care about our communities, our loved ones in our kids, the next generation is to not allow these intimidation tactics, threats and even tragic acts of violence to to cause us to give up our freedom. We can't allow them to cow us into silence and conforming to the insanity that they're waging across this country.

Now more than ever, the hardest thing, but the necessary thing is to have courage. We have a group of donors that are loyal to ACLJ that come together and say, we will match the donations that come through to ACLJ. So if you make a 50 dollar donation right now at ACLJ.org, that group of donors will match that donation. So it takes those of you who are listening right now to make that donation.

And by the way, don't get scared away by amounts. It could be a five dollar donation. And when that's matched, it's matched by another five dollar donation. So it's like ten dollars without your initial action and your donation. We don't get that matching promise that only occurs through you taking action and donating what you do online at ACLJ.org. Right on the home page, you'll see Matching Challenge. Can't miss it. Takes a couple of minutes to donate at ACLJ.org. Be a part of that match.