BREAKING: SCOTUS Strikes Down Biden Student Loan Forgiveness

Breaking news today on Sekulow as SCOTUS strikes down the Biden Student Loan Forgiveness Program and another huge victory for religious liberty. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Hey, welcome to Sekulow.

We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. What a final two days, the Supreme Court term, four major opinions, all victories for conservatives. Reminding you yesterday, striking down affirmative action, upholding religious observation, making sure that, again, if you work as an employer in religious accommodations and you worship on Sundays, that was a huge victory and a much needed clarification on that.

And then today, two more huge victories out of the Supreme Court. One, a huge loss for the Biden administration because this was a major campaign promise that even liberals thought when Biden announced this one for the $20,000 or $10,000 student loan debt forgiveness that it wasn't going far enough. Problem being, Joe Biden had already acknowledged he didn't have the power to do this as President alone.

Nancy Pelosi said he couldn't do it alone, would require legislation. Well, the court picked up on that and the court decided this student loan forgiveness program does not fall under the HEROES Act, which allows delays to payments. So that was utilized during the COVID pandemic when people were having a tough time economically that you could delay payments on loans, but you could not just forgive payments on loans. And so that was, again, utilized to say you're stretching that one too far, it doesn't apply here.

It actually went further in the opinion. And we wrote a brief in this case, and this opinion tracks our brief very closely. And what we said was that there was no statutory or constitutional authority for the President to do this. He didn't have the authority to rewrite through his secretary of HHS to rewrite laws involving the purse, in other words, involving finances. What the court said here was the control of the purse, when they say the purse, that meaning the government's spending, is uniquely the role of the United States Congress. The President cannot do that on his own where he disqualifies or eliminates an asset of the United States without legislative support. And here there was no legislative support for this move.

What is significant about this is this is really a case about Presidential action. And President Biden knew he did not have this authority. He said he did not have this authority. Listen to what he said.

I'm prepared to write off the $10,000 debt, but not 50. Mr. President, let me ask you, because I don't think I have the authority to do it by signing the pen. There you go. Yeah, I mean, he had said that. And that's what he did. He did it by signing the pen, so you could not do it.

Yeah. And it was what the Supreme Court said today is, no, you were right. At that time, President Biden, you didn't have the power to do this, not $10,000 or $20,000. And another religious liberty victory, this time, again, kind of just redefining that if you're a small business and more of a creator or an artist to an extent... First Amendment issue. That you have First Amendment rights. I was on TV just recently with that web designer, and what she said too is like, this is also a win for someone who has the opposite views of me, that you wouldn't have to create something that you were also opposed to.

Yeah. So the issue was the creator of the websites did not support same-sex marriage, which you have a constitutional right to not support it. You have a free speech right. So the question was, could she be compelled to design a website for a position she does not advocate? And she has gained lesbian customers, plenty of them, she says, and she's happy to do that to this particular creativity she didn't want to do. The court, six to three, said the First Amendment cannot be used to compel you to make speech you disagree with.

I use this example. Would an African American owned dry cleaner be compelled to do the dry clean the robe of a member of the Ku Klux Klan? No. Would a kosher butcher have to do pork? No.

That's because it's not the person. You cannot say, I'm not going to serve black people. I'm not going to serve Jewish people. I'm not going to serve gay and lesbians. You can't say that. That would be a violation of a whole host of laws.

But individual acts that require assent, you cannot be compelled to violate your conscience. The four major victories. ACLJ involved in every one of these victories. Support the work of the ACLJ. Donate today at ACLJ.org. We'll be right back.

Sekulow. There have been four major cases out of the US Supreme Court. So folks, if you've got calls and questions about any of those cases that have come down the last two days, I mean, we've had affirmative action, we've had religious liberty and religious accommodation when it came to that postal worker being told, you've got to work on Sunday because they cut a deal with Amazon.

That's going to be a much different kind of case now in the future because the court made it a much higher bar for employers to be able to try and force you to work on those days and not give you that religious accommodation. That was a big win. Then today, the student loan forgiveness program, which was a major promise that President Biden made and that, again, even when he announced this one, it wasn't really good enough for the left, which was interesting. There's another religious liberty victory today as well.

But I do want to go to the student loan program because that is one that gets to the heart, dad, of just all of these issues. And it was the big one about Presidential power in this term. And we are joined by our senior counsel for global affairs, Mike Pompeo, former secretary of state and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who also last year, Mike, you wrote in August, is kind of predicting, an article for the website for the ACLJ said, Biden's student debt cancellation is misguided and illegal. And six justices of the Supreme Court of the United States said Mike Pompeo was right.

Oh, goodness. Well, it's a really good outcome for America. I wish it had been nine justices. I wish everyone could see the simplicity of the fact that Presidents can't use language and statutes in ways that are just made up.

And, you know, President Biden himself knew that this was made up. And this has a good policy outcome. That is, people who take on obligations and responsibilities, in this case, student loans, will have the responsibility to repay them. That's a, as a policy matter, a very good thing. But this case and the three others that Jordan referenced a few minutes ago, they each get back to individual responsibility, accountability, accountability and autonomy.

And this is certainly that too. This will reduce Presidential powers to inflict harm on the American people and restore the capacity of the Congress to actually get it right and to write laws that make sense. I've now read the majority opinion, and it was remarkable in the specific with respect to student loans and really powerful about the shape of our constitutional republic. So ironic about this was that you have the student, the way they had the program set up, you literally could have the individual, the man or woman that let's say went to trade school or community college became a plumber and doesn't have student debt. Their taxpayer dollars are going to use, you know, to offset the student that got an MBA at, you know, at a major university. And it's the plumber's taxpayer dollars being used to upset that individual's tuition. I mean, when you think about it, it was totally absurd.

It's crazy. You know, long before we knew each other, I ran a machine shop in Wichita, Kansas. These were some of the hardest working men and women, engineers, technicians, creative talent, some of whom had formal educations, but many of them did not. These folks were going to be made to pay for others who just were completely irresponsible and took out loans to do things that didn't have a return on their lives or their capabilities, their skill sets as we begin to think about the 21st century workforce. To force others to pay for your education is kind of the socialist model, the Democrat progressive model that we've seen for a long time, Jay. We know this, and this is one less instance when they've been able to take from someone who was hardworking, diligent, and responsible and give to someone who was far less so on each of those three counts. It's interesting, Secretary Pompeo, also, when you get kind of go broader, we saw what happened on student loans, but hopefully what we're hoping to see is that this decision puts more of a check on the administrator's attempt to basically legislate outside of the normal legislative process so that they now have this clear Supreme Court decision that says, you know what, we're not going to accept these moves when you don't have the authority to act.

There's not been legislative authority granted to you, and you don't have the authority in your office to do it. So if you want to do these things, go through the regular process, but you can't do it by executive fiat. I think that's definitely true. That's the theme of the majority opinion is process, return to the constitutional norms, not just executives willy-nilly running off and doing things that are inconsistent with the law.

That is absolutely true. You saw that in the affirmative action case as well, where now they're simply returning to historical constitutional norms that matter a heck of a lot. You know, Jordan, it's funny, the first response from the Biden administration is to say, how can we slip the noose again? How can we give them three month deferrals and maybe more? And right in the end, this is a tell. And for people who are thinking about their lives and who they're going to vote for, you have a party that is clearly determined to give handouts to people who didn't earn them and take money away from people who in fact did earn it.

And that's unfortunate. I hope that the courts will immediately slap down any Biden administration to get around the Supreme Court decision today and make clear that the expectation is exactly what you described. If you want to change the law, if you have an idea and you think it makes sense, present it to the Senate, present it to the House. When they pass it, a President can sign it.

And until then, he must follow the law. It's interesting because you have served both as a member of Congress, you have served running two large agencies, essentially the CIA, as well as the State Department. It was interesting to me on page 24 of the opinion.

The Chief Justice writes that, he said, experience shows that major questions have arisen from all corners. This is the quote of the administrative state. An administrative action resulting in the conferral of benefits is no exception to the rule. So when we talk about an administrative state, you've run these large agency. Explain to the folks what this is because there is like, you have Congress passing laws and then you've got this administrative bureaucracy that puts out rules and regulations that are 50 times the size of the actual law.

Oh my goodness. Pick up Department of Labor regulation, pick up EPA regulation to the thousands of pages and to the layperson completely incomprehensible. All around a statute that might run four, five, six, 10 pages. This administrative state, I saw it firsthand, most especially at the State Department, Jay. They are absolutely willing to take a law and say, well, that's interesting and I'm glad you suggested that, but here's my vision for how America ought to move forward.

It is unchecked. It is unconstitutional. And most importantly, it is unresponsive to the democratic process. And so to see a court now come back to this idea of major questions and say, nope, when you're going to make big changes, you have to have explicit statutory authority. The law has to tell you, you can do it, is heartwarming for those of us who believe in constitutional principles.

This isn't even about what Congress might pass. It's that, and I saw this when I was a member of Congress, much easier to be lazy and not take responsibility and pass it off to the administrative state. That's a bad way to run a nation. Joe Biden knew he couldn't do this. He said it on the record a couple of times on his own without legislation. Nancy Pelosi backed him up when she was speaker and said, can't do this. Don't think that President Biden could just do this.

We'd all love it if he could, but he can't. It's going to take legislation. It's going to take the legislative battle. So she was on the record that way too. And the Supreme Court noted that, that they had already acknowledged that they didn't believe that they had this power. But now we kind of look at this and they're like, you mentioned, they're already trying to look at workarounds because they want to make good on this campaign promise. And the left didn't think this was even big enough.

So it's interesting. They thought that this was just a pretty weak to begin with anyways, the left of the party. But I still think with this administration, we got to follow them really closely because I think they're going to have some of their back pocket while we might not be able to do it in full, but maybe we'll try something else. Jordan, I think they fully anticipated the Supreme Court would get it right as they did today. And I have no doubt that they have already tried to figure out a way to avoid the conclusion that the Supreme Court handed them today.

So I completely agree. It reminds me too, Jordan, why elections matter so much, why the work of places like the ACLJ matters so much. These ideas, these ideas of merit, which is at the heart of the affirmative action case yesterday, merit is at the heart of this policy as well. When we let leaders who understand that individual liberty and autonomy matter, we'll get good outcomes for broad swaths of the American people and efforts like the Biden administration is surely intent upon making in the weeks and months ahead will be viewed as fundamentally indecent and not the right direction for our country.

Elections in the end, elections drive our policies. And this decision today makes sure that that is so and that unelected bureaucrats sitting in the administrative state don't have the chance to do that. We only have a minute left here, but we filed a brief in this case, as you know, Mr. Secretary, on this whole idea of administrative state running out of control and checking executive power.

And just for a moment here, let our folks know why that is important, an issue like this, which seems very technical, why we need to be able to engage that. Look, I saw this when I was a secretary of state, the work that the ACLJ did impacted how policymakers on Capitol Hill and in the White House think about certain sets of policies. A brief to the Supreme Court like this also provides intellectual ammunition for those justices as well. I've seen the ACLJ's brief and I've now seen the court's decision.

It wouldn't surprise me, but there is a nexus between the two. The work that you do, Jay, and your team Jordan do is really, really important. It impacts the way each of us lives our lives and our capacity to take care of our families and all the things that folks that watch your show cares so much about. Mr. Secretary, thanks for being with us. We appreciate your insight and glad you're part of our team here. We've got another segment coming up as we're going to get into the other Supreme Court case.

That's right. Take your calls. We have people holding on. Hold on. We're going to start getting to you right away. All four cases we can get into. So 1-800-684-3110, get your calls in now.

So we're going to get you on the air. Support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Sekulow. So four major victories at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ACLJ involved in all four of those cases at the United States Supreme Court. I want to go to your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. I also think that the student loan issue, just broadly, I think what it does is it puts back the attention on the real problem, which is the rising cost of college education, things that actually could be fixed legislatively or at the state level as well, where Americans say, you know, this is absurd. We're not going to take out these loans. We're not going, this is the, you've got to cut the cost.

You've got to lower the cost and you've got to make it, again, worthwhile. If you are going to take out loans, you need to be able to pay them back, which means your college, whatever you're taking it out for, needs to be a, some kind of return on that, that you can get a job that you can pay those back without extreme hardship. And so again, you know, they're sold to 30, you know, 18 year olds and they're not thinking it's a racket. To be honest, the whole student loan program is a racket. Now, if they want to have comprehensive reform of the student loan program in America, I say Congress get into it because it was a racket. And I do think they took advantage of people. Absolutely.

But the universities tended to raise their tuition rates in line with the availability of student loans. It's a scam all the way around. Let's take a call on that. We're going to take calls on all these cases. 1-800-684-3110.

Let's take one on the student loan. Yeah, Kim called in from Idaho online too. Hey Kim. Hey Kim. Hey.

Hi. I have a comment about that. So, I mean, I agree with most of the stuff that you guys are saying, but I do have to say I'm a little offended by the implication that possibly people who aren't paying their student loans back are somehow deadbeat. I mean, things happen, things change, things happen. And you know what? I say at least the American people are getting some money where billions of dollars are going to foreign countries. No one's talking about that. Our taxpayer dollars are spread out all over the place. Kim, here's what I just said.

I mean, you were coming on, so you may not have heard it. If the Congress wants to fix what I think was maybe a gigantic ripoff of students, if you're one of those that got these loans, that schools were pushing them, everybody was putting, the government was pushing them and they end up being outrageous. If Congress wants to get in there and fix this, I'm all for it. I think what Professor Hutchinson just said, the schools just raised the tuition to meet the loan amounts. That's one thing. But to saddle the burden of that tax, because listen, someone's paying for it.

So someone that got a master's degree in accounting or business doesn't need their loan paid by the student that went to high school and then went to work as a plumber's apprentice. And that's the problem with how this went. Now, if Congress wants to get in and fix all this, I'm all for it, but that's what it takes, not the administrative state. If Congress is going to do that and provide any kind of relief, they need to cut other spinning.

I mean, that's the thing is cut spinning that is waste. Like you talked about, Kim, do we need to be funding so much of the war in Ukraine? Can't we get other partners in there? If this is going to continue on, which it appears like it is for indefinitely right now, that we should be putting, put pressure on some other countries, free up seven to $10 billion.

Let's start there. Free up, free up some, I mean, there's so many places to find billions of dollars in our federal budget that would then free it up so it wouldn't feel like you're adding more to the taxpayer who, again, this was not their loan. It was not their contract that they took out. Then speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi, this goes to what was just asked, talked about the fact that the President, and that's what this case involved, did not have the authority to forgive the debt.

Take a listen. People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not. He can postpone, he can delay, but he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress. The case was as much about the loan burden as it was about congressional authority and Presidential authority. So you had article one and article two, article one being with the legislative authority, article two, the President of the executive power. That's what this case was about at the end of the day.

I think that's correct. And I think for once in her life, Nancy Pelosi got the law right and the structure of the constitution correct. Keep in mind that if Congress takes up this issue, it can hold hearings.

It can listen to individuals, callers like Kim and others, about the burdens that have been imposed. It can deal with the fact that many universities are literally taking advantage of students, saddling them with debt for degrees that will not necessarily pay off economically in the long run. That is part and parcel of the problem. And President Biden has simply ignored the problem.

He's ignored the basic issue and he's based his analysis on pure political power and politics. The other part of the opinion that's really important was the acknowledgement that there is an administrative state that is passing regulations that undo the law passed by Congress. I think you look bigger here and realize that this is just another check on executive power done without any connection to a legislative power given to the President. And that's what the court said here.

I think that's something, listen, that's where we've always been very careful here. The President has a lot of power when it comes to foreign policy. When it comes to domestic policy, you have all these agencies that can carry out the rules after legislation has gone through Congress and been signed by the President. Then your agencies get to write all those mega rules that we talked about that also need reform. But again, we have a process in America. If people really do agree, and I think there is agreement, the student loan is a problem.

Where there's not agreement is the left will never go along with cutting. And I think our folks understand that. The idea is that we can't saddle the people who are going to have to pay for that loan, right? We can't saddle them with 10 or 30, I guess in this case would have been $200 billion, $230 billion more. So we've got to cut other places to provide this relief or else that plumber that you're talking about, that builder, that guy who works construction, that mechanic is going to be paying for all that war in Ukraine plus the $230 billion of relief that, again, is not affecting him. He did make the bad decision. And that's why Congress, I do think Congress has that.

It affects inflation, it affects all these other issues too that make it, again, harder for the working class to get by. All right, we're going to take more calls. We only got two minutes left in this segment. We're going to be here for another 30 minutes. Our phone lines are jammed. We're going to keep them open.

You can talk to us at 1-800-684-3110, 800-684-3110. When we get back, we're going to add to the discussion another case. This is very interesting because it ended up being a First Amendment case when people thought it was going to be a religion case and it ended up not being that at all, which I think the court got right. And that is this issue, can you compel in this case a web designer to do a web design for a process she doesn't agree with?

And it's very interesting. This particular web designer did not support same-sex marriage. Now, you could argue both pro and con about you're a business and you're open to doing it.

You're a web designer. Can you say no to a particular activity? What you cannot say no to is, I'm not going to serve gay or lesbian couples. You can't say that. That would be a violation of a host of laws.

What you can say, and this is, again, I go back to the dry cleaner. An African-American-owned dry cleaner can say no to doing the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan's robe. The butcher can say no to doing pork if they're kosher butcher. But you still have to serve Gentiles. I mean, you can't do that. So it's a fascinating case.

And it really focused in on the First Amendment aspect, not the free exercise of religion. So we come back from the break. We'll talk about that. We'll take your calls at 800-684-3110. But as Jordan said, you heard it from Mike Pompeo. All of these cases we're involved in. And you heard what Mike said about the impact that we have on Capitol Hill and with the courts. Support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org.

That's right. If you feel like you've got a case, if you feel like your rights have been violated, we want you to contact us at ACLJ.org slash help. That's ACLJ.org slash help. These new cases are going to make some of those cases you'll contact us about that much quicker to resolve. So contact us there. 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.

That's 1-800-684-3110. I want to take a call on that religious liberty, but actually... Free speech case. First amendment case, but it's also a way for religious liberty and this idea of, again... Compelled speech. Compelling people to do things, especially in a setting where it's like an independent business, small business, maybe even a single employee at that business and deciding, you know, you don't have to do things that you fundamentally disagree with in a business setting. And we've kind of... I feel like that's very American. Well, you take it for granted until you've got these human rights groups, not groups, these commissions.

Colorado has been unbelievably aggressive on stifling... I mean, really free... I do think it's a free speech case. The freedom of speech of people that they disagree with. But you know, in America, the price of freedom is you're gonna hear things and see things you disagree with. That's kind of... You live in America.

That's what happens. Let's go ahead and take calls on this. We have one phone line open at 800-684-3110. We're gonna get to these calls.

Keep calling, though, 800-684-3110. Yeah, Ronald's calling South Carolina on line one. Hey, Ronald. Hi, Ronald. Hey.

Hey, enjoyed all that I'm hearing. Thank you very much. Now, the one thing you're talking about the First Amendment rights concerning the web designer. And I seem to remember it about, oh, 20, 25 years ago that there was another family business. I believe they were Clark.

It was a bakery. And the fact that they was objected to was requested. Could they have now, based on the Supreme Court ruling, come back and maybe sue the city for damages because everybody came against them and they went and... Yeah, probably not retroactive going back. I think that... I will say this, though.

I think these city... These statewide laws on trying to compel speech that people don't wanna say or engage in a creative activity they don't wanna engage in, I think anybody that tries to do that is running against a big Supreme Court decision here. It's interesting to me, Harry, they did not decide this on the religion grounds, which I think was right. They decided it on the speech grounds. And I've been a huge free speech advocate for 40 years.

And I think robust speech is the way you... Speech you disagree with, you rebut it by speech you agree with, that's the American experience. But they used the compelled speech, I've always found to be offensive. And by the way, that is if you're a pro-life resource center being told, you've gotta compel people, this is where they go get their abortion. We won those at the Supreme Court. The court has definitely taken a view that compelled speech is not within the context of the First Amendment.

I think that's precisely correct and that's precisely what should have happened. I think one of the things that we need to re-establish in the United States is protection for freedom of speech, freedom of thought. Now, the left increasingly believes that we should go the opposite direction. President Barack Obama has suggested that we need to crack down on so-called misinformation.

Why? Because he doesn't wanna hear it and he also wants to use it as a political weapon. So I think it's very, very imperative for the United States Supreme Court to keep pounding the drum of freedom of speech.

By doing so, you actually protect freedom of religion. We have, as Jordan said, we got a lot of calls coming in on this to discuss this, and that's why we're here. We're taking your calls at 800-684-3110.

Yeah, we'll go back to the phones. 1-800-684-3110 and get your calls in. Todd in Colorado on line three. Oh, we're running out of time already, this segment. So Todd, we will be back with you first. So just hold on for just a couple more minutes and we will get you on the air. One line's open at 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684. Fair to say it's moving rapidly.

3-1-1-0. I mean, four major victories at the US Supreme Court. Joe Biden said this court's not normal. Maybe not for like the past 25 years when it was far left and then fairly moderate. Yeah, it's a conservative court because elections have consequences and we're winning now. Big cases year after year at the left, they just call them, oh, they're weirdos.

This is not even normal. They're trying to delegitimize the entire US Supreme Court because they don't agree with the decision. I mean, let me tell you something. Donald Trump delivered three very conservative Supreme Court justices. Yeah, and it's going to be interesting to see how that impacts. Protective of free speech.

Everything as well. We'll be right back on Secular. All right, we're going to go. We said we'd take Todd's call and we were running out of time. So we'll go right to Todd in Colorado and Rick Rinnell is going to be joining us next. Some international, some big news out of Iran in this Iran deal that the Biden administration is trying to get us back into.

Maybe it'll be a little bit, maybe a little bit derailed, which is a good thing if possible. But Todd, we want to go to you first in Colorado. Hey Todd. Okay guys, how are you doing?

Thanks for everything you do. Congratulations on the decisions and here's my dilemma. When it comes to the student loan decision, I'm okay with that because I agree with everything you guys are saying on that. However, there is a scam going on and it has to do with the banking. And I borrowed $8,000 between 1988 and 1990. I have so far paid back $36,000 and I keep getting letters, and this is before COVID happened, that I owe another $34,000.

So I'm kind of curious. I was going to ask you about, I've heard from this, what kind of loan was it? Was it a, this was in the, in the mid late eighties, was that a student loan? It was a Stafford loan. Yes, that's what it was. The Stafford loan program.

You remember that Harry? So that's where it was, it, the, the payouts are, are, it was, this is like consumer fraud. I mean, I'm sympathetic to your plight, but it takes Congress to fix it. The President chins cannot waive it away, but he, he's right. That's, these student loans, it was a gimmick.

I hate to say it. And as Harry said, they raised the weight rates into the tuition to match the loan amounts. I mean, there's gotta be a whole reevaluation of return on investment from what you're going to pay to go to school. Yeah. It's kind of like the medical costs. They were not inexpensive. They were expensive, but there was a return, but you got to make sure there is. Yeah. And these medical costs that go up because they know the insurance companies are going to pay it.

So they keep going up in cost, but the insurance gets more expensive for your employer or for you. I mean, it's, it's all seems like a racket and it is things that Washington address, but I say as conservatives, if we're going to, if we're going to make changes to that, we have to cut other, other expenses. And it has to be Congress. Rick and Elle's joining, Grinnell's joining us.

Rick, I saw this last night. The situation with Robert Malley, and I'm thinking, you know, you got a multi-count indictment against the former President of the United States for quote, miss, you know, mishandling classified documents. And then now you got the, the envoy, special envoy to Iran has been suspended for months, by the way, without pay because of allegedly security concerns. What are you making of this right now?

Well, look, let me just first quickly comment on the student loan, if I may. Look, my attitude here is Congress, the Democrats controlled it for two straight years. Why didn't they fix this problem? Why did they wait? They, for two years they had the House, the Senate and the White House, they could have easily passed anything they wanted.

I think they just wanted an issue to pound the Supreme Court on separately. Let's talk about Iran. Iran, look, Rob Malley, I think is, is a big problem. He's been attacked for being way too weak.

He is been totally ineffective. And I think people on both sides wanted him out. So this is a real convenient way to kind of push him out from his leadership role because he's just been a disaster. Rick, do you think for those of us who oppose this deal and think it's crazy that they're trying to get back into this deal yet again, when we see there's so much other things we need to repair in that region of the world instead of trying to work with a bad actor like Iran, with a bad deal that just didn't work. But we know Malley, I mean, he was at the heart of it the first time.

He was brought back. This is another, you know, brought back from the Obama years to do it again. If he's out, is it less likely that they are able to move forward because Iran loses their kind of the person they're kind of used to working with? Or like you said, is there somebody else that they think is going to do a better job and potentially get us back into this horrible deal? Well, there were two people that were the weakest link for the United States, Wendy Sherman and Rob Malley, and now they're both out.

So I think it's an admission that their strategy hasn't worked. Wendy Sherman was certainly frustrated. She was the deputy secretary of state.

She was frustrated. You know, her reputation is what do you want, Wendy, when she negotiates. She just gives everything away, whether it's North Korea, Iran. There's a long list, Russia. So I think that where we are now is that there's no leader, which means there's no one pushing this bad strategy. But it's indicative of the fact that the NSC and the White House are not going to pursue this policy.

It's the last year before the reelection of Joe Biden. And I believe that they have touched this third rail and were electrocuted by trying to be too soft on Iran. And then we saw what happened. Remember, they removed the Houthis from the terrorist watch list. And within months, the Houthis were attacking the UAE. So they're really, their weakness is causing us and our allies to be less secure. Or we've got military bases and a great military and security relationship pushing them to try to make deals with Iran because they want to stop getting the shot at too, by the way.

I was thinking about this for a comment. We were so close to seeing Saudi Arabia sign the Abraham Accords. And then the Biden administration comes in and the Saudis are looking at a total change of the Middle East policy and are starting to say, we got to contain this Iran situation. We may have to make a deal with them because we don't trust the United States. And don't forget, they have been listening and coddling up to the Chinese. And I think it's an admission that without the United States leading, they need a cover.

They need somebody else that's gonna help them. And so there's been a panic throughout the Middle East, not good for America. Whether it's the Balkans, the Middle East, Venezuela, Taiwan, you need American leadership in order to lead the world and to find consensus.

But this is a Biden administration, when you look at the Iran policy, that was more interested in consensus with the Europeans than pushing what works for America, than pushing an America first policy. We're gonna take a call because I know you, especially you were in the administration, understand the importance of the selection of Supreme Court nominees that President Trump put in place. And we're starting to see that in big ways now at the Supreme Court. Now, the left is trying to demonize and delegitimize the court in ways that are unreal. Having said that, it's the law of the land now, folks.

So an administrative state can't forgive dollars that are owed. Let's go and take Kenneth's call because this kind of thing ties in. We'll get Rick's comment as well. Hey, Kenneth. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call.

First of all, I'm so grateful that President Trump got to put three Supreme Court justices conservative on the bench because we can see the work that's been able to be done with them, along with all the federal judges he got to put on the bench as well. But I went to school for three semesters. I decided it wasn't for me.

I left. I procrastinated on paying back my school loans. And so as a result, I had my wages garnished and everything else. And I was last in school in 1998. And I just paid off my student loans last year.

But I'm not salty with anybody else because it was a choice I made. And so I just feel like you go out, you get a loan. And I decided three semesters in, this is not for me.

I'm going to go do something else. But you get a loan. And even if you get help, if Congress does something, it still shouldn't be the responsibility at bulk of the American people to pay back a loan on a decision that you made. It punishes directly Kenneth, who has gone through wage garnishment to pay back his loan. Does he get any relief from this? No, he wouldn't have gotten any.

In fact, he'd be paying back more loans for other people with his taxpayer dollars. Correct. And Rick, what Kenneth said about the Supreme Court justices, the lasting legacy of any President are the justices on the Supreme Court. And you've got generations here. I mean, you're talking, these nominees were in their late 40s, early 50s. They're still in their late 40s, early 50s.

And they serve until usually till their late 80s. So you're so you're seeing a potential sea change at the Supreme Court right now. I mean, let's credit Donald Trump. He has ended federal abortions. He's ended affirmative action. He has come out swinging for religious liberties all through the Supreme Court.

So it's pretty remarkable. You know, I have to say this about the student debt issue is that Democrats and Republicans actually agree on the problem, which is that the cost of higher education is out of control and our universities have been unable to do anything about it. We disagree on the tactic because Democrats have decided that instead of controlling the costs at the university, they've decided to just cancel the loans. But that really rewards the universities. They continue to get the money that they're really wildly spending on ridiculous programs. And they have, you know, assistant Presidents for this and that they need to get rid of the administrative state, pay teachers more, have teachers that are good, get rid of tenure, have a supply and demand capitalism type rule where if the students don't like the teacher, they should be able to get rid of the teacher.

And that way we can clean up the cost of education and not have to go in and cancel people's obligations that they made. Appreciate it. Thanks for being with us. We are, we got last segment of the broadcast coming up, 800-684-3110.

If you want to talk to us. We didn't have time to get to it with Rick today, but I do want to read because, and we'll read it when we come back from the break, what President Trump had said in an interview with Reuters on how he would deal with that Chinese base in Cuba, which Rick tweeted out and made sure everybody could see it. I've retweeted it as well.

It was very interesting. It's similar to how he handled Turkey when we were dealing with Pastor Brunson. I mean, so we know when he says these kinds of things, he is willing to do it.

And we'll tell you what that is and how he would handle it and how quickly he thinks he would be able to get it done. We come back for the break as well, and we're going to keep taking your calls about the Supreme Court cases. 1-800-684-3110 to join us on air, support the work of the ACLJ.

Mike Pompeo, Rick Rinnell, all joining us today, all part of the ACLJ team because of your financial support of the ACLJ. All right, welcome back to Secula. We are taking calls to now 1-800-684-3110. Let me go to Cheryl in Tennessee on line three. Hey, Cheryl.

Hi, thank you so much for taking my call today. And I would like to ask for prayer for David Dolodin, who is going before the Supreme Court shortly for journalistic freedom against Planned Parenthood, who is suing him for millions, and they have trumped up federal charges against him. So I would like to ask everyone to please pray for victory, just like all these victories that we've had at the Supreme Court. So Cheryl, just so you know, we actually represent one of the other defendants in that case, both at the trial court and at the Supreme Court. If you're watching our broadcast, I put up on the screen right now, Troy Newman versus Planned Parenthood. Troy was a board member for David, who also got sued for RICO in those cases. And those cases are now pending before the Supreme Court.

We've done our opening brief, there'll be reply briefs that are due, and then it'll be before the Supreme Court for what they call the mega conference, which is at the end of September, and it's announced the first Monday in October. It's a very big case. And, Harry, what I've always found so interesting about that case, they punished the investigative journalist, they didn't punish the individuals engaged in the sale of fetal body parts, which was against the law.

Absolutely. You make a very, very good point. And it's also important to keep in mind the jurisdiction. The jurisdiction loves abortion. Many Democrats worship at the altar of abortion, so they want to protect their allies, even if they're engaged in illegal conduct. And so they are actually going after individuals who are exposing the illegality. This is outrageous.

All right, folks, we're going to go to your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. I did, because we spent a lot of time talking about here that the Chinese putting a base in Cuba, a trading base, it would also act as like a spy base. And President Trump addressed this, and Rick pointed it out as a former DNI, how he would address it in Reuters. And I think that, again, we can weigh in on how this is pretty realistic. He said, I'd give them 48 hours to get out.

And if they didn't get out, I'd charge them 100% tariff on everything they sell to the United States, and they'd be gone within two days. And dad, the left sometimes scoffs at these statements. Let me tell you something, we've seen those kind of statements work, and he has done it. When he said to Turkey, first step, I'm going to sanction all of your leaders, all of your capital.

A billion dollars a week. So he did that. And then he said... On Bronson, yep.

Their currency started to tank. Lyra, right. And then he said, if he's not out in the next 24 hours, I'm going to sanction your entire economy. Right. He did that.

And guess who got it released? Yeah. And so I was there when it happened. So I think that is the kind of tough, but they have to believe this is the key. Anybody can say that.

They have to believe you're willing to do it. Exactly. And the Chinese, I think, would know that... Because he's got a history of doing it to even an ally, a NATO ally. He was willing to sink their economy to get an American home. Yep.

I think that's, again, it's the kind of... It doesn't take 50 State Department officials. It takes a President. It doesn't take military troops either.

Nope, it doesn't. No bloodshed. It just takes three sentences. Yeah. Statement from a President.

I mean, this, again, I think is what people are hurting, where we're hurting right now in a country, is we do not have a leader who, instead of criticizing the Supreme Court and calling them, you know, there's something wrong, they're just not normal. Right. He's never willing...

He's never able to just go out and make a definitive statement that scares the world and our enemies. Exactly right. All right, back to the phones. We go 1-800-684-3110. Curtis is calling from Texas. Hi, Curtis.

Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. My question is, with the Supreme Court decision about the student loans that impacts government spending, why can we not attack the President's executive order when he shut down the pipeline? Yeah, so it's an interesting question, and one involves the actual expenditure of funds, and what the Supreme Court said, Harry, in the case involving student loan forgiveness was, that the control of the purse, the finances of the United States are uniquely in the power of the legislature under, which is the House and the Senate, under Article I of the Constitution.

The opening or closing, that's a different... That would be a different parameter. I think that's precisely correct. So we have an organizational structure within the meaning of the Constitution. Congress has the power of the purse. The President attempted to usurp congressional power by forgiving student loans. He lacked the authority, and the Supreme Court rightly slapped him down. I'm simply surprised, though, that three members of the Supreme Court actually sided with the President of the United States in this particular case. Essentially, they're saying the President of the United States has unilateral power with respect to spending.

That is nonsense on stilts. Yeah. I mean, I think, too, with Keystone, the back and forth, it was President Trump used executive action, actually, to get it back on track.

Correct. And then President Biden used executive action to put a halt to it. I mean, again, I do think some of the executive orders, some of it has kind of been allowed to go, even by the Supreme Court, because of how ineffective Congress is. I mean, and they are so bad at getting legislation done because even when there's not, even when there's Democrat majorities in the House and the Senate, they can't compromise, they can't come up with ideas. And so I think even the court sometimes gives it a pass.

I mean, I think, and they're going to look at every one of them differently. But when it really does affect you, the American, economically, the power of the purse, I think that's where they step in always and say, you know what? This is going to force other Americans to pick up a tab. We're going to step in here because no one legislated that.

The people who are most responsive to their constituents. We'll go back to the phones. Joanne in Ohio on Live 5. Hey, Joanne. Hi, guys.

Hope everyone's well today. My philosophy on this student loan thing and the cost of tuition is let these colleges put their money where their mouth is. You know, they've got all these huge endowments. You finance these kids. Let's see what the real cost of an education is. And if you put out such a great product, they'll have no problem paying you back.

You know, I don't disagree with you. And I've often said universities, a lot of universities do pay for their students. I mean, Harry, you have been in the academy for a long time. And the endowments at some of these universities are many billions of dollars. There's a way to lower tuition costs. But as you said, they look at these loans and say, oh, we can increase our tuition.

It just becomes it's like a cat and mouse game. I think that's correct. It's important to keep in mind that universities see themselves as profit maximizing entities, both financially and also in terms of influence and power. And so that's what they're attempting to capitalize on. They sell their influence and their elite status, and they demand that the students pay them back for access to power down the road or money or whatever. So it's very, very important that we rein in these endowments and we rein in these universities. And one step, I think, in that particular direction is to begin to tax these endowments unless the funds are going for student loans.

Right there we just described creative ways to get at this problem. That again, I would imagine that it doesn't have to be so partisan either. Because a lot of them talked about legacy students, just say the Democrats.

Well, what about them? Well, remember, a lot of those people, those are parents that are building the school or their families built the institution. So I mean, they donated even more money. So I think that's not the right way to go.

It's to punish those people who built the school for other people to go to. But you could look at the endowments, you can look at the money and say, again, just start bringing down the cost, bringing down the cost, bringing down the cost. Doesn't mean that you won't necessarily have to take out any loan. Yeah, right. But you won't be taking out an amount that's reasonable.

Nearly a million dollars in loans if you're going for a graduate degree. Exactly right. All right, folks, that does it for the broadcast today and for this week. Boy, there's a lot of activity this week. Your support of the ACLJ is absolutely critical. We encourage you to go to ACLJ.org to support the work of the ACLJ, which includes not only these Supreme Court cases, but this very broadcast you're listening to right now. Have a great weekend.