IT BEGINS: IRS Unveils Spying Plan

Today on Sekulow, it begins, the IRS unveils their spying plan and how they'll use that $80 billion. 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're taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. Let me first say, pray for those in Louisville, Kentucky. It looks like a targeted shooting at a bank. A former staffer, maybe current employee, who has killed four employees of a bank there. The governor there used that bank, actually knew someone who was killed at the bank.

For our listeners in the Louisville, Kentucky area, we are monitoring that sad story as well. But to get to some of the national news, while that's breaking, the IRS has announced how they will utilize the $80 billion they received under the Inflation Reduction Act. What a joke that is just from the start. They're going to bring on 30,000 new employees over the next two years. That includes, where they did actually specify, 8,782 new hires will be enforcement staff.

That will be the auditors to go after you, the American taxpayer. This is while inflation is high, the economy is on shaky ground, so a great time to announce 8,700 more new IRS enforcement agents. And Ty, what I'd like to question is, how many people are working at the IRS main headquarters right now? I mean, showing up to work at the building. How many offices are empty? How many are still working from home under outdated COVID protocols that we're paying for to show up to work that they aren't showing up to?

I'd love to know the answer to that, but you're not going to get that, of course, from the IRS in this report. This is where we get into the spying. They're bringing on data scientists.

They don't say how many they're going to bring on, but they don't include that in the 8,700 enforcement agents. But what we know is a data scientist is out there to use, again, science and technology to try and find taxpayers that they want to go after with audits that they believe are not complying. Now, listen, most Americans try to comply with the massive Internal Revenue Code every year. And the higher up you go in levels of income, the more people you have assisting you in complying. So supposedly the IRS is spending $41 billion just to go after high-income taxpayers who are, again, scrutinizing those returns. But you have to ask yourself, where are you going to find revenue there when those are the people that are most protected, that have the most attorneys and the most staff? What I think is just very unsettling here is that in this memo to Janet Yellen from the IRS commissioner, they say all efforts will be made to comply with your directive, not law, but directive not to use the resources, the $80 billion to raise audit rates on small businesses and households making under $400,000 a year relative to historic levels.

A lot of word there. They'll try to comply is what they're saying. But that's all they say about that. Politico pointed out what's not in here. And by the way, something that Democrats have asked for, too, information that's not in here. How many employees the agency would like to hire long-term, because this is a plan that goes through 2031, for enforcement. How many more IRS auditors do they want out there targeting middle-class Americans? Because all they're saying is, we won't use half this budget to target middle-class Americans. And that's if they comply. But the rest of the budget can be used to go after wage earners and people who, again, the gig economy, if you will. A 1-800-684-3110, what else is not in there? How they're going to comply with that pledge to not go after people making under $400,000 a year, not increase that number. And then what about the forecast to spend on things like customer service? Why aren't we getting numbers on that? You know what the report says? We're going to deliver cutting-edge technology, data, and analytics to operate more efficiently. Better customer service. That's all it says.

It doesn't say how. Well, take your calls. 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110 back in a moment. I see a lot of you watching on Rumble are saying, hey, I thought House Republicans were going to prevent and block some of this money, at least tie it up in Congress. Those efforts are still underway. Remember what we're talking about is the IRS plan. It's taken them this long just to say, this is what we'll do.

You can understand why. They think they're going to get $80 billion. This is how we're going to use it over the next two years. What's unclear is, do they have any of that money yet under the Inflation Reduction Act, or is it still being tied up in Congress?

I know some of it is still tied up in Congress. It's whether they've got enough to start, which may be some of the reason why they're not saying we're going to hire 20,000 new enforcement agents right now because they can't. So instead they announce that they are going to hire 8,700 new enforcement staff. I want to go to Andy O'Connell because, Andy, that number is huge in itself because that's on top of the enforcement staff they already have. So that's 8,700 more IRS agents coming after Americans.

That's exactly right. 8,700 more people who are going to be scrutinizing you and looking at you, checking your tax returns, making sure that you're coughing up what they want for the federal government for this left-wing woke administration to put its policies into effect. And the only way they get the money is by looking at taxpayers and scrutinizing taxpayers. The word that bothers me is this data scientist. When I hear that they're going to hire more data scientists than they ever have for enforcement purposes is what the deputy treasury secretary told reporters at a press conference. These are people who are these nerd geek people who are algorithm people who sit in the back rooms and who look at tax returns and figure out how are we going to attack this person and try to get more money out of him or her or the small business.

And they put it into their little formula, Jordan, and they figure it out and they attack you. And that does not comply with what he said was Janet Yellen's pledge that they're not going to increase audits on those making less than $400,000. They never say how they're going to follow that maxim that supposedly the secretary of the treasury has imposed.

All efforts will be made to try not to comply. But we know that they're not spending all $80 billion to go after high-income earners. They say they're going to spend $40 billion. That's their plan through 2031 to go after high-income earners. That would be people over $400,000 a year.

And again, like I said, the higher up you go, the more sophisticated tax advice you are getting as well as tax attorneys and then, of course, accountants who are putting together your return. And so where are they going to get all this windfall of money? And you know why they have to do this? The federal government did this. And you can thank Joe Manchin of West Virginia for this spending debacle is because the government keeps running out of money, the federal government, because they're unwilling to cut spending. They have to keep spending, spending, spending on wars that they can't tell us how they're going to end.

You know, we keep hearing now Ukraine is going to invade Crimea. That's going to cost a lot more U.S. weapons. So they've got to find new sources of revenue. And their way of finding new sources of revenue is finding more money from you, the American taxpayer. And as Andy pointed out, let me just tell you where this would put the IRS.

It's why we've got to fight so hard in Congress to keep these funds from the IRS. They would end up increasing in employee size by 25%. We're talking about a 25% bigger internal revenue service. Joe, that puts them at over 100,000 employees. And Andy, right now we know many of those employees aren't even showing up to the office to work. No, their faxes are coming into their kitchens. They're bringing stuff home and they're working on them, much less now having them in their offices in Washington, D.C. and throughout the country in their regional offices scrutinizing you and your tax return.

I say leave the people alone. We are paying substantial taxes. We've got an economy that is flat on its back right now. We've got gas prices high. We've got borders that are insecure. We've got a disastrous situation in Ukraine where we're funding the 51st state. That's really what it is in this war that's going to drag on forever and ever, in my estimation. And now you've got someone saying, the Secretary of the Commission of Internal Revenue rather, through his boss, the Secretary of the Treasury, is we're going to come at you for more.

It's not enough. We're going to hire 30,000 new employees, 8,700 new, more staff people, increase by a quarter of the agency and we're going to get – this really bothers me. This data scientist, that bothers me. I've read all the corpus of George Orwell and that's coming true today. The thought police, they're going to come in here, put algorithms together as our producer told.

That wasn't new to me. That's Will Haines came up with that and he's absolutely right. And they're going to focus on us and they're going to try to suck the blood out of everything that a small business makes. Well, the small businesses are the heart of America. The small taxpayers are the heart of America. I say to the IRS, leave us alone. Yeah, let me ask you this question, folks. I'd love to hear from you too.

Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. How key of an issue do you think this should be going into an election cycle? I mean, should we hear more from our politicians on this very issue, the increase in size of the IRS, when we are under a time of economic uncertainty each week? We don't know what will happen with interest rates.

We don't know what will happen with inflation. We don't know, again, our own currency, the situation there. I mean, there's so many issues. There's war in Europe. There's escalating conflict. We're going to talk about later with Rick Grenell in the second half hour with Iran and the United States, except the U.S. is being isolated in that situation because Iran is making security deals with Saudi Arabia, China and Russia, even bringing in Syria as well.

And so we're being isolated around the world. China showing their full force this weekend and how they would encircle Taiwan. And basically take over the island by shutting off the ability to leave or get goods in or out.

They did that this weekend. So when you put all those events together, you have to wonder, do you think this is the way our resources should be used in the United States to help us get out of this economic uncertainty, is by, oh, making Americans be more afraid that the IRS is coming after them, punishing success in America, punishing creating a small business right now in this tough economy that's successful. And oh, if you make more than $400,000 a year in that small business, you've now got to be worried about all these data scientists at the IRS trying to figure out an algorithm to get you to have to pay more money or to scare you into paying more money at a time when people have less money to spend.

I mean, everybody knows that and things are more expensive than ever before. But what they don't tell you ever is how they're really not going to go after people who make under $400,000. They're going to do their best to comply with that. Their best to comply is never good enough. I mean, this is an agency.

Try to give them a call. I could finish this whole broadcast before you talk to someone. Probably today's and tomorrow's, maybe Wednesday's before you actually talk to a human being.

And when you do, they will just be putting you to someone else who you don't get to talk to. I mean, they're still using typewriters. And they say, well, that's why we need more money. How about you use technology and less people? Why do you need all these data scientists?

Can computers do this for you? No, you've got to have individuals with political persuasions who then target a certain group of Americans. And we see this coming back. The IRS was beaten up by us. I say that directly by the ACLJ under the Obama years because the targeting of the Tea Party. I mean, it was their tax exempt division was obliterated.

They really get their enforcement powers because they had lost in court and they had started politically targeting. And so the fear factor had kind of been lifted from the IRS. But now we're seeing, Andy, an emboldened new IRS coming back with the same ideas and same strategies.

Let's increase our numbers by 25 percent twice over the next two years so that we're an agency, an army of over 100,000 IRS agents. It seems like every time the snake is beat down, the snake comes up again. And that's what they are. They're beaten down. We beat them down with Lois Lerner and all that stuff, spying on tax exempt organizations. And now they're emboldened again. The Biden administration is back in the seat. They're pouring more money in it. Hopefully the House of Representatives, controlled by the Republicans, is going to claw back some of this money.

I don't know. But it worries me very much when I hear the Internal Revenue Service is on the ascent, folks. It's on the rise. Eighty billion dollars. Thirty thousand new employees.

Twenty five percent increase in size. They're going to try to make us not be audited for less than four hundred thousand dollars. But they don't say how. They're an emboldened organization. And what we have to do is keep beating them back. Keep beating them back or else they are going to engulf us. And don't think they won't. Remember, someone said long ago, the power to tax is the power to destroy. And that's exactly what they're after.

The power to destroy those who ideologically don't agree with them. And that's us. You know the ACLJ is in this fight, folks. I mean, we've been in this fight for over a decade at fighting with the American people, have been unlawfully, illegally targeted by the IRS. It's why we're raising the concern flag here today.

We've got to do everything possible with the Republicans in the House, at least, to keep that money from flowing to the IRS, because now they're telling us what they want to do. They want to get to over one hundred thousand employees. They want to, in a year, hire eighty seven, just in one year, hire eighty seven thousand new enforcement agents. But they will not tell us how many new enforcement agents they want to hire in total.

And even Politico is pointing that out. Support the work of the ACLJ. We have a matching challenge now. Double the impact of your donation.

We fight back. ACLJ.org. Donate today. We've got new updates in the fight for life, but I do want to take right off the bat a call on the IRS. Claudia in California, online one. Hey Claudia, welcome to Sekulow.

Thank you for taking my call. Yeah, I have a, I've always thought, and especially now that all this extra money might be going to IRS, that they should, every senator and congressman and every secretary of state, such as defense and such, and career positions of top officials of like the FBI, the CDC, HHS, Department of Education, all of those should be audited at least every other day. Every other year, rather than every other day. And it would maybe keep them more honest. It seems like they can do whatever they want. And we can't, you know, we don't want to stoop down to their level of having them politically audited. Now you could say, well, it doesn't matter if they're Republican or Democrat, but I don't know who's going to take that job because you can't be on their audit forever.

Ask Donald Trump how that is. It's not pleasant. It makes it hard to move forward with just filing your taxes.

So I get your concern though. It's like they go after the political opposition. They don't know what it feels like themselves to face these audits and they don't care what it does to their political opponents.

And it's sad that you even say it that way, but we have lived it when we represented the Tea Party. So I totally get your concerns and why you believe we should be auditing the IRS. That's the truth. How about audit the IRS and see how much waste there is there before giving them another dime? You know, the typewriters, the empty office buildings, the staff that's not showing up right now. I mean, we all know that's true.

That's accurate. So audit the IRS first and then see how they could improve customer service. Let's start there with the Americans who are just trying to comply with a bloated Internal Revenue Code. Start there.

Improving customer service instead of more enforcement agents. I want to go to another issue, though, because we're directly involved with it. We filed it in a new case out of Florida at the Florida Supreme Court.

We'll get to that in a moment. But, Cece, there are two conflicting cases on the abortion pill right now at the district court level, different district courts. One in Florida, one in Texas, one in Washington State that one bans the abortion pill and would uphold that ban. But there is a one-week delay on that court decision. And then Washington State saying status quo, abortion pill is okay.

Right. So this is about the drug Mifepristone, which actually stops the pregnancy and actually kills the unborn baby. And so this judge in Texas said the FDA ignored legitimate safety concerns when it approved this drug. So basically he's put an injunction on the FDA approval of this drug. Meanwhile, in Washington, that judge said status quo, the FDA has approved it. It's an approved drug.

So it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. But we've been involved in this fight for a long time, especially with Mifepristone, and that it's not a safe drug. In 2020, we actually sent a letter to the Department of Health and the FDA, and we pointed out that although the FDA declared that Mifepristone is safe and effective, it puts perfectly healthy women in the hospital, and it may not work in a safe or effective way nearly 25% of the time it's implemented. We pointed out that even in the clinical trials, there was hemorrhaging.

One out of 100 women had to be hospitalized, and then even surgeries that happened. So we have been able to point out that this is not a safe drug. And actually, the FDA has actually acknowledged that because they put in risk evaluation and mitigation strategies, acknowledging the serious complications associated with this drug, yet it's approved.

A lot of this came under COVID with telemedicine. It was whether or not this could be prescribed via telemedicine. We've seen large, by the way, pharmacy chains say they don't want to get in the business of this drug because there's too many laws going back and forth, and this wasn't how it was prescribed before.

This was not something they would hand out. In fact, when this drug came out, if you utilized it, you went to Planned Parenthood, and they watched you take it to make sure none of those complications occurred. That's absolutely right, because those are the risk evaluation and mitigation strategies that the FDA has said they've acknowledged. There are serious complications with this drug, and so it needs to be overseen by a medical professional. But yet, we're seeing that they're attacking, attacking, and Becerra is one of them, even when he was an attorney general in California who's a fan of this drug and really wants it to be prescribed with no oversight whatsoever. Yeah, I mean, again, they just want it to be, you know, it can be done by telemedicine. I need to have an abortion.

Telemedicine, they call it in, and you just pick it up, and you take this. And yet, that's not how this drug was ever administered before. And a lot of the safeguards started going out the window under COVID, so states are starting to say, after the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, we don't have to allow this in our state, that this does not have to be something that just goes unchecked and unregulated. But listen, this is the wildest part about this story, is that even if you're not as engaged on the abortion issue, listen to Xavier Becerra when he's asked, would you ignore a court order, a separate but co-equal branch of the United States government, would you tell the executive branch to ignore a court order? You would think his answer right off the bat would be, no, absolutely not, we disagree with it, we're going to fight it out, but no, absolutely not, we have this system of government, the rule of law. We've talked about that a lot in the past, like last week with the indictment of the President, this week with this.

But listen to his response instead. Are you taking it off the table that you will recommend the FDA ignore a ban? Everything is on the table. The President said that way back when the Dobbs decision came out.

Every option is on the table. So that would include, Cece, an option which would be, again, unprecedented, and by the way, dangerous precedent to start setting Democrats and pro-abortion advocates, that you could just ignore court orders because there's going to be a lot of courts that are going to try to install broad abortion rights at the state level. Can we just ignore that? Because if they start that precedent, the law does not matter anymore to the United States. That's right. So to this administration, complete lawlessness is an option.

That's on the table. And that is ridiculous because we do have a judge here, and although he did an injunction saying that the FDA ignored legitimate safety concerns and put an injunction on this law, he did put a stay on it for seven days for the DOJ to appeal, which they have already filed their notice of appeal. So this is going to go up on appeal, and right now it's not enjoined, but it could be, depending on what the Fifth Circuit does. But again, we've heard from the administration that if the court doesn't rule the way they want, they'll just ignore it. We actually filed today, the ACLJ. We're always taking action on these issues. And so, Cece, today in Florida, the Florida Supreme Court were filing on behalf of the state of Florida on their 15-week ban.

That's right. So it's House Bill No. 5, which is a Florida law that prohibits the abortion of an unborn child after 15 weeks, which was similar to the Dobbs case. And we just filed our brief saying that they need to uphold the House bill because the state definitely has a compelling interest in protecting unborn children before viability. Yeah, so the ACLJ taking action there. The blog is up there at ACLJ.org if you want to read it.

It's also got a link to our brief. What is most dangerous here, and they do this under the abortion issue because this is the issue. Again, we always say they worship at the altar of abortion. But the precedent that would be set, take abortion out of it, which is tough to do with abortion politics, but you just had a cabinet member say on television, would you ignore a court order, a co-equal branch of government's order because you don't like it?

And would you instruct your department just to ignore it like it never happened? And he said, well, it's on the table, that that would be on the table of the United States of America. We talk about banana republic. We talk about lawlessness. It's not just violence in the streets lawlessness. It's when the executive branch starts saying, ah, we don't care about that judicial branch that the founding fathers created with our systems of government and our three co-equal branches. We'll just ignore that one branch, which is the judicial branch.

Folks, that is dangerous. Support the work of the ACLJ. ACLJ.org. Double the impact your donation this month with our matching challenge. Donate today.

ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

All right, welcome back to Sekulow. We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. So we've got the IRS. They've announced their new plan on how they want to spend their $80 billion. Now there's still a fight in Congress to keep them from getting their hands on all $80 billion to spend that way. What they are telling us is they're going to hire, in the next two years, they would hire 8,700 new enforcement agents.

They also want to invest heavily in data scientists. Now we just talked about an issue, it involved abortion. Of course, when they talk about abortion, it's like all law, all reason, all ration goes out the table, all logic.

So you've got the HHS secretary, a cabinet member of the United States, asked on TV, would you possibly, because you don't like this court order on the abortion pill, instruct the FDA as HHS secretary to ignore a co-equal branch of government's ruling and decision, the judicial branch? And he doesn't just say, no, we don't do that in the United States of America. Even if we want to, like to, we don't do that in the United States of America.

He says all options are on the table. Well, what does that mean about the IRS spying on you or the US government targeting you politically? We know right now that the left, they don't like the First Amendment, they don't like free speech, they certainly don't like the Second Amendment, and most of those protections we have in place by fighting in court. So if they start ignoring courts and that becomes an acceptable precedent in the United States, we are not a system of government with the rule of law anymore. And if we're not a system of government with the rule of law, we're no different than most of the countries in the world where it's just the executive, the most powerful, who can do what they want on a whim. And again, that is a dangerous kind of country to live in.

It's certainly not the country we all want to be living in or we want to leave for our kids, grandkids, and great, great, great kids. I want to go to the phones. Bob in New York on Line 3. Hey, Bob. Hey, how's it going? Hey, good. I'm not a data scientist, but I am a data analyst, and I have some numbers that you guys might be interested in.

Sure. There's approximately 330-plus million United States citizens. Right. 24% are under the age of 18, so if you take the current number of IRS agents, 93,654, and you add 87,000 to that, each IRS agent would only have to audit five adult Americans per day to audit 100% of working Americans. They can audit every single American or start an audit.

I mean, Bob, great statistics, great numbers there. They have enough employees to start an audit on every American easily, and that's just starting an audit. Again, you just start the process. Then they've got other staff in place to take it from there too.

I mean, it's not like it's just one person. So the idea, again, that they want to be a workforce of over 100,000, and the only reason they try to justify this need is because the federal government keeps running out of money because they spend more money than they have, and they get involved in conflicts without an end. They get involved in Ukraine, which sounds wonderful, but tell us how you're going to bring the conflict to an end. Instead of us reading in the news that it looks like there's going to be an invasion by Ukraine into Crimea, so not just a conflict which has been in a stalemate that's going to start again this spring, but now a more aggressive move by the country we are aiding with our weapons and military assistance. So that doesn't tell us how we're bringing this to an end.

That seems like how this conflict continues, and that's just one example of why the federal government keeps running out of money. They also keep running out of money because no one audits them, so they're not even at their job. They might be working, but they're all working from work from home. Ask big companies. Ask Facebook. Ask Twitter how that worked out for them, or Disney.

It didn't. They're saying you've got to come back. You must come back to the office. It's not working, this mass idea of work from home. It just does not work in the American way of corporate structure. Same in our government.

You're going to be faxing your tax returns to these people's homes? This is why, again, they should be audited, figure out how much they're wasting, and then we'll figure out budgets from there. But oh, no, no, no, they don't want an audit of their own agency.

They don't want you to go see their empty buildings and empty hallways and empty desks. We'll be right back with Rick Rinnell on Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow. We've been talking about the misuse of your funds and auditing the government before they start building up the IRS. One of the issues that's bubbling back up, it's pretty surprising, too, because remember just last month, there was a drone attack by Iran on a U.S. base in Syria, killed a U.S. contractor, injured our servicemen and women, I think at least four or five. We then responded.

They responded back. So we've gotten back into a shooting conflict directly with Iran and their proxies like Hezbollah. And we did hear from this administration that basically the JCPOA, the old nuclear deal, is going nowhere. But now we're learning that the current Biden administration is trying to negotiate a mini deal with Iran.

Rick Rinnell, who's our senior adviser for foreign policy and national security, former acting director of national intelligence, is joining us now. Rick, this is pretty unique that in a time when they tried to tell us, well, we're kind of done with Iran, and you would think that would be the case since Iran is making deals with China, Russia, even Saudi Arabia, this may not be a time to try and deal with them on their nuclear capabilities, that while they can't get a big deal, they're going to work on a little deal which will provide Iran with billions of dollars of relief. Look, we see so many countries around the world moving away from the United States. When you look at the dollar being mocked, you look at the Chinese, the Russians, we got a whole litany of problems that are being created around the world. And one of the reactions that the Biden administration always does is they seek a compromise which sounds nice, but this consensus focus is not helping America, does not put America first.

And let me give you an example. We in the Trump administration really had the Iranians isolated internationally, and we were very tough in the Trump administration to demand that our allies and others not do any business with Iran, to squeeze them, oil, products. We worked very hard, I worked very hard in Europe, getting the Europeans to get on board. But now that the Biden administration has come forward, they are allowing our allies and others to go around the sanctions and to believe in this dialogue with the Iranians is somehow going to work.

They are very naive. And let me just summarize by saying the Biden administration would rather have the Germans and the French and the British all complimenting Joe Biden on how well he conducts diplomacy and, you know, applauding Joe Biden rather than protecting America by isolating Iran. And that's what we're doing right now is we're allowing the Europeans to come up with a JCPOA light, an interim deal that seeks to engage with the Iranians, trusting them, I would say, to do the right thing. We should have learned a long time ago that they lie, this regime lies, and they are not going to do the right thing, and we need to isolate them. Ricky, it's bizarre because at the same time our military has got, and they actually made this announcement, which they don't usually make about the submarines, that they've deployed a guided missile submarine capable of up to 154 Tomahawk missiles to the Middle East, specifically in a show of force toward Iran.

So our military is taking that action, but then you've got the administration and their top advisors. And what always upsets me about this is it's not like, Rick, Iran is just doing this to show good faith. The only reason they would even do this deal is because the U.S. would be providing massive sanctions relief to them.

So it empowers a regime that is killing its own people in the streets. Well, look, it's about money. The Iranians want the American money, which would be billions of dollars that we would give them, and then they would lie to us and pretend like they're not seeking a nuclear weapon. Look, what you just pointed out is the strategic massive blunder that the Biden administration has put forward. They don't have a plan. So what they do when they want to please the Europeans, they pursue this JCPOA light, let's talk to the Iranians, let's try.

They put that on one track. And then when all of a sudden the Iranians show themselves and literally the groups associated and funded by Iran start attacking Americans and an American is killed in Syria, then the U.S. government and the Biden administration has to react and they say, oh, well, let's send a Tomahawk-filled ship to make sure that if there is some sort of military action that we're prepared. What they fail to see is that they are the ones putting forward this weakness. The Biden team is so weak that they are encouraging Iran to have this bad behavior. If they would stop the negotiations, if they would isolate Iran, we wouldn't be having Iran targeting Americans inside Syria. And you would think, too, that would isolate Iran on the world stage as well.

So instead of what these countries are trying to utilize, Iran is a new proxy for them and a new ally. So if they were truly isolated, China wouldn't want anything to do with them. The Russians wouldn't want anything to do with them. Even if they hoped they could, it would be not worth it.

It would not be worth it economically. It wouldn't be worth it militarily or strategically, especially for the Saudis. I mean, that one alone is really scary considering how much we've invested in their security but also in having our own assets there for our security. And then they're saying, no, we're willing to also get into a negotiation with Iran, too. These are long-term enemies now saying, you know what, without the U.S. here and if they don't have our back, we've got to make other plans. You know, you and I have talked a lot about the fact that the Biden team really has weak diplomacy, that Anthony Blinken doesn't know what he's doing. He's certainly allowed the Chinese to come forward with a plan in Ukraine.

But this is another example. When an American is killed inside Iran, the reaction from the Biden administration shouldn't be just the military side of sending a ship. They should also go to the diplomats and they should say, this is unacceptable to have an American killed. We are not going to negotiate with these people while they're killing Americans. Anthony Blinken should go to the Europeans and he should demand an end to these talks because the people they are talking to, the Iranian regime, just killed an American. I can tell you this for sure, if a Frenchman or a German were killed, they would not be pursuing talks with the Iranians.

There would be much tougher reaction. The Biden team is too weak to understand that diplomacy has to have muscle. You need diplomats who are tough if you want to avoid war. I think what a lot of people, Rick, when they hear all of this, they think, what is the way out, even if we have a change in leadership in Washington, D.C., because we're getting into Presidential election year and talk of these big issues like this, is can we claw our way back to where we were just a few years ago, to where, again, you've got a weak Iran and world powers thinking twice before they cross the United States, and also our allies believing that we've got their back.

I mean, just these kind of simple things, but it feels like we keep going down this path and it becomes a lot more difficult to get there. Well, I agree with you, it's a lot more difficult, and certainly the Biden team is making the next President's foreign policy team, giving them terrible choices and creating a lot more, I would say, trouble for the diplomatic team. But as a diplomat, I still believe that when you can unite the world and isolate, then you can really make some change. And I still believe that with tough diplomacy, you can get the Europeans to stop doing trade with the Iranians, certainly could get the Saudis and others in the region. They know the nefarious activities that the Iranians fund and do. And so I do believe that the world can come together and unite and isolate the Iranians, but it takes American leadership.

Rick, as always, we appreciate your insight, and Rick is part of the ACLJ team because of your support of the ACLJ folks. We've got a matching challenge right now, donate today at ACLJ.org, and I think it also underscores the importance, when it comes to these issues of foreign policy specifically, the diplomatic approach, like Rick is talking about as a diplomat, these are the issues the executive has the most influence on, I mean the President of the United States, where they don't have to consult Congress as much. And again, they have the flexibility to govern as the commander in chief. So this is when your commander in chief is very important, and the advisers they have around them. So when it's the people who are diametrically opposed to the ideas of Rick Grenell advising a President, I would say that's who's in office right now.

You get to these situations, like Rick said, where you're leaving the next administration with horrible choices. While the Trump administration left the Biden administration with basically peace in the Middle East, growing peace plans between Israel and the Gulf states, a very weak Iran that no one wanted to do business with, and look how quickly they've destroyed all of that goodwill and all of that hard work by bad policies and a commitment to strategies that just don't work. We're going to keep exposing that here on the broadcast, because these issues affect every one of us.

They affect our national security, they affect our economy, they affect the United States standing in the world. The world's still laughing at us right now. They're not scared of the United States.

They're not scared of the Biden administration or Joe Biden. We've got to redouble our efforts and our work here in the United States and around the world, support the work of the ACLJ. We've got our matching challenge right now. It's an important time. I know it's tough economically with all the uncertainty, but this is a great time to donate, because if you have to donate less, you can still double the impact your donation. So donate online to ACLJ.org to be part of our matching challenge. Again, it's a very important time for our work as well, so we can continue to expand the work at ACLJ. ACLJ.org, donate today.

All right, welcome back to Secchio. We are taking your calls too as well. If you want to call in about the IRS situation, we're going to get back into more of that and how it affects our economy too.

That's at 1-800-684-3110. Eric on Rumble asks, has anyone asked what the rate of the ROI is, the return on investment is, of the agents is? Now, this is interesting.

I want to go to Harry Hutchinson, our director of policy, because Harry, the IRS is counting on these new agents to actually, it's not just for their budget, but for the federal government's budget and their largesse to be increased in size, because they are going to audit more Americans and thus bring in more money to the federal government. That is the claim made by the Biden administration. But I think the American people need to keep this in mind, that the IRS alleged focus on the rich, the alleged focus on taxpayers that are failing to pay their, quote unquote, fair share. This is a charade.

It's an illusion. What the IRS and the Biden administration is focused on is on controlling all of us. If the Biden administration was really focused on the rich, we don't need 30,000 new agents.

We don't need thousands of data scientists. So the Biden administration has engaged in a great bait and switch campaign that is designed to fool Americans who allow themselves to be fooled by Joe Biden and the IRS. So I would urge our listeners not to be fooled. The IRS is coming after all of us. This is where I think it's concerned, because all they're saying is it's half of our budget and we're going to try to comply. They're not even saying they can comply with that, but they will try to comply. That's all they said on that issue, and Politico said that was a non-answer, because that doesn't actually say how they're going to comply with this pledge from the Treasury Secretary that the IRS won't do this. But on top of that, instead of investing in technology to make the filing process easier, and also easier for the IRS to figure out if there's issues or questions, it's always about adding people. So in a world where we know that there's technology that certainly can replace some of these people so that you have less human error and you could make the filing process easier, there's no talk about that.

There's no talk about making it more simple for Americans just to comply, because that's what most people aren't trying to be tax cheats and tax fraud. They're just trying to comply with a very complicated IRS code. Part of that reason, we see all the companies that exist, these accounting companies and software that exist, to try and help you do that. It's its own business.

It's its own economy. You hear the ads for people to say, we'll help you do this, we'll help you do this, or use this computer program in place if you've got to do your taxes on your own, because it's way too complicated for anybody to actually do on their own. So even the wealthy have got to not just have one accountant, but an accountant firm and a legal firm who specializes in it just to make sure they're filing right.

I think that's precisely correct. So I think what the IRS is doing first is adding complexity to our filing. Most Americans, I think you're correct, Jordan, are quite willing to comply, and many Americans actually see the tax rates as reasonable. However, the Biden administration wants to add more complexity, even though it's clear beyond question that 89% of all taxes are paid by 25% of Americans, and that the top 10% already pay 74% of total tax payments in the United States. So when they claim they're going after the rich, they are not really going after the rich. They are going after the middle class. They are going after individuals, in my opinion, who are making under $400,000, and they are quite willing to impose greater penalties if they can. And the other issue that's out there, of course, is that the IRS director has suggested that they are quite willing now to hire armed IRS agents. So why do you need to hire armed IRS agents for individuals, for instance, who are making $80,000 a year, and most of their tax payments are already made through withdrawals by their employer? So I think the IRS claims are simply a bait and switch, and we should not listen to them seriously. Well, it's also wild with inflation, too, because they try to throw out numbers like, oh, these people who make over $400,000 a year, but they always slip in there, and small businesses. I mean, the small businesses, which make the United States very unique to the rest of the world, that we have these larger small businesses that employ lots of people, and they try to act like a small business that makes $450,000 or $500,000 a year.

Somehow they're the top. Under their plan, you go right after them. That doesn't have an impact over how many people they can hire. If they've got to spin more to now comply with more IRS agents coming after them. I think that is precisely correct, but the IRS, in many respects, has always been a game played in favor of the elites. Keep in mind that this complexity actually helps the rich, because they're able to afford the accountants. They're able to afford special tax assistance and lawyers. And so if you look at the proponents of raising taxes in Congress, people like Bernie Sanders, they are already rich.

Elizabeth Warren, she is rich, but she keeps claiming, we need to go after the rich. I think what we're dealing with is a world of illusion pushed by cultural and political elites who don't really care about the American people. Ultimately, I think this is a huge issue, because it's not a type 2 where every dollar every day is becoming less valuable. So these numbers that they throw out, it seems just outdated to me. When they say it's $400,000 a year, that includes a small business owner and a small business filing, too, with pass-through taxation.

I know a lot of our listeners understand that. They try to make that out to be like the super rich in our country. That's not the super rich, that's the backbone. Precisely, and you're quite right to focus on the inflation rate.

If the inflation rate continues at 8 or 9% on an annual basis, someone making $320,000 will cross the $400,000 tax threshold, the alleged tax threshold offered by the Biden administration in a couple of years. So one of the things that the Biden administration needs to do is to reduce spending, and that will lower the inflation rate, and that will arguably lower mortgage payments for the American people. So if they really want to do something, which of course they don't, there are plenty of opportunities for the Biden administration to demonstrate their commitment to the American people.

That's what I've never understood. If they really cared, it would be about modernization. It would be about at the middle of bringing their people back to work.

You've got to show back up at the office. And they would actually say, you know what, our majority is we need a self-audit of the IRS to figure out how we can be more effective, how we can make it easier for people, what could we change in our tax code to make it more straightforward so that you don't have to have a team of accountants and attorneys to comply. Because as Harry said, the people who are making sure they get all the deductions are people who can afford to pay for that advice. They're not doing that on their own.

No way. They're not going to take that risk. But the IRS knows if you're trying to do it on your own, you're not going to take those risks. You're not going to take as many of those deductions that you might actually deserve. It might be for you because you're concerned that the IRS will come after you. You're already concerned about that. Now you have to be more concerned. We've got to work hard in Congress to tie up this funding for as long as we can and try to see something else happen politically. That's the end goal here is to keep these funds out of the IRS because now we know what they want to do with it. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Secular.