DOJ Needs Censorship to “Prevent Grave Harm to the American People"

Today on Sekulow, breaking news as President Biden prepares to give his buddy Zelensky a very dangerous gift. 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 phone calls at 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Your tax dollars at work. This time with a more dangerous weaponry prepared by the Biden administration to be sent to the Ukrainians and Zelensky. This time around, it's a weapon that many countries have banned.

And at the United Nations, you can be considered a war criminal. In fact, they tried to hold the U.S. as committing war crimes for using these weapons in Afghanistan and Iraq during those conflicts. The cluster bombs is what we're talking about here.

The use of them has always been controversial. Now, we have not signed on the United States government to any international agreements that ban the use of cluster bombs. Much of the world has. The other country that hasn't signed off on that of one of the other countries is Russia, which has never signed off on one of those agreements. Now, what was interesting was early in this conflict, do we have the sound bite?

Jen Psaki was still the press secretary at the White House. Early in this conflict, there were reports that the Russians used cluster bombs. Hear what the Biden administration then said about what Russia may be guilty of. There are reports of illegal cluster bombs and vacuum bombs being used by the Russians. If that's true, what is the next step of this administration? And is there a red line for how much violence will be tolerated against civilians in this manner that's illegal and potentially a war crime?

It would be. I don't have any confirmation of that. We have seen the reports. If that were true, it would potentially be a war crime. So it's a war crime for the Russians, but not for the Ukrainians to use it?

Well, this is absurd. And first of all, she's calling it a war crime then. The U.S. has used those in Iraq and Afghanistan and she's demonizing her own military, putting them at risk. It was reported that there has been settlement discussions, negotiations going on offline between the Russians and the Ukrainians to try to get a resolution to this war. And it seems like every time they're getting close to at least discussions, that what happens is you have the Biden administration upping the ante by now saying to the Ukrainians, we're going to give you cluster bombs. Which, as the previous administrations have said, was basically engaging in a war crime. So, I mean, I don't understand what the strategy is here and where this is going other than people are dying every day in this conflict with no end in sight.

Yeah, I mean, this is, again, what I think people are so concerned about with this conflict is there is no end in sight. We keep escalating the weapons that are being used and, in this case, weaponry which will then greenlight the Russians to use more dangerous weapons in Ukraine. It's like we're egging them on to use those tactical nuclear weapons or to use more cluster bombs, which will kill more civilians. On top of the cluster bombs, by the way, that's not all. They also are going to send the Army Tactical Missile System, the ATACMS, they have refused to send this missile system until now because the weapon could reach deep inside Russia.

Again, Dad, no longer defensive. We're talking about a weapon system that Ukrainians can fire deep inside the Russian state. I don't understand, and we have Rick Renell coming up and some of our other experts Tulsi Gabbard, I got to tell you something, this escalates the tension and escalates the conflict significantly. And again, there is no end in sight. So ask yourself, what is the real policy here that's being implemented? And frankly, I don't have an answer to that. But what we're doing at the ACLJ is we're getting to the bottom of a lot of these things and getting you the information and we have a team of experts.

I mean, what other organizations has a former Secretary of State, a former Director of National Intelligence, a former member of Congress as part of their team? And we are fortunate to have that at the ACLJ. And we have that and we're able to bring you this broadcast every day and do our legal work around the world because of your support of the ACLJ, including filing a major document at the United Nations in Defense of Israel today.

Your support makes a huge difference. We're in a matching challenge campaign. I'll encourage you to go to ACLJ.org.

Any amount you donate, we get a matching gift for. That's ACLJ.org. ACLJ.org. We'll be back with more in just a moment.

Welcome back to Secular. We're taking your calls too at 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. Rick Cornell is joining us again today as well. He's joined by phone today. For those of you watching the broadcast, our Senior Advisor for National Security and Foreign Policy. And Rick, we talked yesterday about the Council of Foreign Relations doing this offline negotiating with Russia, and that was during a Security Council meeting that's come out. Now the White House is pretty much not fully condemned, but they definitely said that we're not supporting these discussions in any way, even though this is kind of a left-leaning group at the Council of Foreign Relations and usually would be pretty in line with, it would seem like, the Biden Administration. At this time around they say, no discussions unless Ukraine. I guess they have these new strategies called Ukraine, nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine, so that the U.S. has limited itself to negotiating unless Ukraine is part of the negotiations.

Yeah, it's a pretty basic principle that, you know, if you're going to talk about a solution or a peace plan between Russia and Ukraine, you've got to include both of them. And Richard Haass, who is the head of the Council on Foreign Relations, looks like he's got egg on his face because he had a meeting in New York that Lavrov, the foreign minister from Russia, attended. And then he went to NBC, where he works, because he's a commentator for MSNBC, and he pitched the story that, hey, I'm out there, you know, talking about a peace plan, and then the Biden State Department came out and said, we didn't authorize this. So, you know, Richard Haass should be asked, well, what were you doing? Did you have a discussion? Did you offer a peace plan outside of the State Department saying that they wanted you to do that?

I mean, NBC looks like it's just pushing one of its commentators on now a phony story. Reuters came out and had a story that said this is not true. And so, you know, what is the story?

We need to know. Is there a peace plan? Why is the State Department saying, no, no, no, we're not for any peace plan. We're not talking about a peace plan. The State Department seems pretty jumpy for an entity that's supposed to be pushing peace. Yeah, that's what the interesting part is. I mean, I get, again, their strategies of they may not want third parties doing that.

They might not always agree with where those third parties went. It also seems like those talks now didn't amount to much. But what we kind of focus on today is it seems like instead of peace plans, it's escalation right now is the strategy of the Biden administration. I mean, sending potentially cluster bombs, but also this new weapon system that the Biden administration has been refusing to send, but now is going to send to Ukraine, which is called the Army Tactical Missile System. And the reason why we didn't send it earlier, Rick, was because it can be used to reach deep inside Russia once the Ukrainians have it. So instead of any kind of de-escalation, I mean, cluster bombs and this kind of long-range missile system is an escalation.

Yeah, for sure. Let's be clear that, you know, I don't support having third parties or outside groups trying to do the work of the United States government, and yet the State Department and the Biden administration should be pushing a peace plan. They shouldn't be running from any ideas.

And yes, they are. There is no State Department peace plan. There is just more talk of war and more money for war.

And look, I think that we're playing with fire. Tuesday is a NATO meeting. And it's a very important NATO meeting.

It's in Lithuania. And we're going to not only talk about new members, which I believe we should not be adding new members to NATO when the current ones are not paying their fair share. We have eight out of 31 members that are paying the required 2%. Think about that.

Only eight. And that's a disaster. The Biden team is not making paying NATO obligations with 2% of your GDP on military issues. That is not a priority for them. They don't bring it up. Very often our ambassadors are not instructed to make it a priority issue. Speeches by our ambassadors in Europe constantly are made and they don't even reference NATO spending. This is a real problem because it just means that the American taxpayer continues to have to pay for this large umbrella of war and protection when others aren't paying their fair share. I agree with you, Jordan, that we have to be able to have something other than just war talk and more money for war talk out of Washington, D.C. and the Biden team. Yeah.

Rick, let me ask you this. It seems to me, and as we go back into this, I'm trying to figure out what the endpoint here is in this conflict between Russia and Ukraine. You're a diplomat. You have a lot of experience at the United Nations.

You obviously were our ambassador to Germany. What is the endpoint? How do you end this conflict? Well, first of all, you've got to talk. Talking and having discussions is not a goal.

It's a tactic to get to a goal. I think first we have to sit down, bring foreign ministers in, and let's discuss some of these issues. Look, there are two points, and this is going to make a little news, but I think it's important to point out. There are two previous ideas, and one is an agreement, that we could build upon. One is the Minsk agreement, which is not perfect, but it is a starting point. And then in Minsk agreement, it talks about an autonomous region, Donbass being an autonomous region. Chancellor Merkel kind of signed off on it, never really pushed it, but it was an agreement that the Russians clearly agreed to, and so did Ukraine and others, and it took a long time to get it. So we could build on the Minsk agreement. The other is the Chinese came forward with a peace plan, good starting point, not perfect, but it had territorial integrity, which is a key of the Minsk agreement as well.

And so I think that those are some starting points, and it certainly doesn't take a rocket scientist. It takes a diplomat to put people at a table and start talking about a peace plan. If you don't talk about a peace plan, you're going to continue seeing Russia escalate to this conflict.

They have nuclear weapons. I'm very concerned about the future. You know, Rick, I think, again, everyone is concerned about the future here and concerned about what happens next, how we handle any of these situations.

The Biden administration feels like it just does not have its hand. It doesn't have a steady hand on any of these issues, and we appreciate your insight, Rick, appreciate you joining us again for the second day in a row, even by phone today. And folks, again, I think this underscores the importance of having a team like this back to back when we get new reports that we need Rick to weigh in right away for you to update you on. He's able to get right on and give you new information as well, not just, again, kind of re-talking about yesterday.

Things changed since he was on yesterday, and he's able to join us. And it's because he's not just a guest of the program, he's part of the ACLJ team. The reason why he's part of the ACLJ team is because we have donors who commit financial resources to the ACLJ so that we can continually expand our team and bring in the best people.

You know, I was going to underscore that. We've been very fortunate that we've had three members of the cabinet of previous administrations serve alongside us. John Ashcroft initially, when he left being attorney general at the end of the first term of President Bush, we had that privilege to have John Ashcroft as part of our team.

Still does work with Regent University Law School, so we're still involved with him there. We've got, of course, Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State. We've got Rick Rinnell, former Director of National Intelligence, both members of President Trump's cabinet as part of our ACLJ team.

And then most recently, we added a new voice, and that is former Congressman Tulsi Gabbard. And so you look at the team that's been assembled and then add to it the caliber of the lawyers that we have around the globe. I've got a report in my hand—we're going to get into this in the next segment—of a document we filed—and we can put this on the screen, it would be great—at the United Nations, a 20-page legal brief defending Israel before the United Nations on issues of self-defense and armed conflict. And a masterful job done by our legal team, filed through our European Center for Law and Justice, which happens to be a non-governmental organization recognized with credentials by the United Nations, which means we get to go to the General Assembly. We can participate in oral interventions. Cece Heil is on her way to Geneva right now on one of our cases to present before the United Nations. So what I'm saying here—and I think this is important to understand—is engaging at this level requires a lot of really good talent.

And to continue to build that talent. And that means you come in. And so many of you are members of the ACLJ, but a lot of you watch this broadcast every day and you haven't joined.

And it's so simple to do. All you do is make an online donation to the ACLJ, you become a member, and it's tax-deductible, and then because we're in a matching challenge month, any amount you donate, we get a matching gift for. There are thousands of you watching right now on our social media platforms, and tens of thousands of you listening on radio. Let me encourage you right now to go to ACLJ.org and support the work of the ACLJ by signing on and giving an online gift at ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org. That is a great way for you to help us do this work for you and your family, here in the United States and literally around the globe. So right now, any amount you donate, we get a matching gift for. So go to ACLJ.org and hit donate.

And your gifts are doubled this month. We encourage you to give today ACLJ.org to become part of the team at the ACLJ. Give us a call.

Be part of the broadcast. What do you think about this escalation sending cluster bombs and long-range missiles to Ukraine? 1-800-684-3110. That's your tax dollars being spent. All right, welcome back to Stake Hill.

We're going to take your calls to 1-800-684-3110. We've told you about, of course, that judge's decision out of Louisiana, in the federal court there, to limit the government's role in censoring speech and telling social media companies what speech to censor. Again, talking mostly about political speech, election speech, having opinions that are different than the government.

We are not talking about criminal behavior. That's not protected speech ever. Criminal speech, illegal speech, is illegal. And social media companies don't need the government telling them they need to get rid of that. They know that.

Yeah, you can't have obscenity and pornography on your sites. And if the government feels like they need to come to them and say a cartel is using it this way, a drug is being sold this way, and we know they're using this terminology, or people are being trafficked and we know that these accounts are recruiting them, nothing in the judge's order prevented them. If they said ISIS is using this specific hashtag or title so they're trying to blend in, nothing in that judge's order prevented the government from going right to the social media companies. But in their appeal, the Biden administration is saying this is putting our country at a dangerous, irreparable harm because they can't have their regular monthly meetings to discuss, and as they admitted to, the 2024 election and social media.

Correct. So the government filed a motion for a stay and for an appeal to the courts of appeals. So here's what they say. To start defendants, this is the United States, will suffer irreparable harm, that's what Jordan just said, absent a stay of the injunction. And then they say the stay is in for public interest. And this is what they say. The court order does not satisfy the requirements of, and they're talking about the federal rules of civil procedure. Listen to this. For example, its prohibition against taking any action such as urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any social media companies to moderate content protected by the free speech clause of the first amendment does not clarify exactly what conduct is prescribed.

So let me read you this again, because this is important to understand. This sentence tells me how out of touch our government is with the first amendment, which protects these individuals. It says it's prohibition against taking any action such as urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any social media company, they're talking about any of the companies, and asking them to moderate content that is protected by the free speech clause of the first amendment does not clarify exactly what conduct is prescribed.

Yes, it does. If it's protected by the first amendment, it can't be prescribed. Andy, this appeal is so desperate in tone. It is desperate in tone because you've got a desperate administration that wants to be able to convey its message by pressuring social media to do the things that it wants to do. And you have a federal district judge standing between them and the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The statement that they make in this appeal, the government, the Biden administration makes really is amazing. It says this, that if this order is allowed to stand, it will chill a wide range of lawful government conduct relating to defendants' law enforcement responsibilities and obligations to protect national security and speak on matters of public concern.

Nonsense. Like what? What law enforcement obligations is it going to prevent from happening? What national security concerns are they talking about going to be jeopardized?

They never say that. What matters of public concern that you want to speak about? What you want to do is pressure the social media platforms into keeping your line of left-wing liberal woke chatter in place.

That's what you want to do. And you've got a federal judge who says you can't do it and you don't like that, so you're crying to the Fifth Circuit to stop it. Well, I hope it doesn't work. You know, I think, again, we want to take your phone calls on this at 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. The idea, the Biden administration, again, they won't limit, they are unwilling to limit their contact with social media companies over actual crime and actual threats to our country, which this decision does not put in jeopardy at all. And as Andy said, they don't want to outline the harms. They want to, they said it in the meetings that they had to cancel at the State Department and at Homeland Security, specifically the issue was the 2024 election. It wasn't cartels, it wasn't fentanyl, it wasn't human trafficking, it wasn't terrorism, it wasn't extremist groups, it was the election. And guess what? You have the free speech rights to say what you want about Hunter Biden, to say what you want about Joe Biden and Vice President Harris, to say what you want about Democrats, and they have the rights to say what they want about Republicans and conservatives.

But we know that's not the problem. It's putting, they are, again, going to these places and they will tell them when something is true, they will claim it is false and literally it will be told to you as false even though we can all see it as true. The Hunter Biden laptop is the best example of the government trying to play a scam like that. It's literally in front of you with actual photos, emails, timestamps, dates. I mean, there's no way it's not real and yet they lived in this other reality where they banned, they even banned the New York Post.

They took down their Twitter account for claiming that the laptop was real. So what you have here, though, legally is, so the government lost, an injunction was issued, we're buying the way, we're going to file a brief at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals here. But what is so interesting with all of this is the government, as Andy and I were just talking about, is so desperate that they're stretching the truth. All the order does is protect free speech and says the government cannot engage in pressure tactics to cause viewpoint discrimination. Doesn't mean the government can't have its own speech, which they make a big deal about. I argued the government speech case. The seminal government speech case before the Supreme Court of the United States, Pleasant Grove v. Summer. I argued it.

We won 9 to 0. When the government's the speaker, it could send out its message. Nobody questions that. But when the government is not the speaker, but rather is going to the platform where others are speaking and saying, hey, squelch this viewpoint, not because it's illegal, not because it's violating some law, not because it's obscenity or pornography, but because it's a viewpoint we the government disagree with, they don't get to do that. No, they don't. I mean, the government does not have the right to go on a platform and say, hey, don't say that. It's not consistent with our program. Our program is to do this and this and this, get with the program.

Who are you to do that? I don't want the government telling anybody else that they can't express their views. The government wants to express their views and know that it's from the government, like Jay said.

That's fine. But you can't go to a social media platform and say I don't want to do this and I don't want you to do that and I don't want you to do the other because it's inconsistent with the program that we set out. And when you say that, you know, why don't you go and do the things that you're supposed to do? Why don't you protect the border? Why don't you watch out for slave trafficking?

Why don't you look out for human trafficking? Why don't you do the things that you're supposed to do instead of promoting your agenda by squeezing Twitter? That's what they're doing, Jay.

Well, that's exactly right. So they're engaging in enforced censorship and the courts are saying no. And the Second Circuit should say no and the Supreme Court of the United States will say no.

You can't do that. But this is the fight that we're in and this requires lawyers in court and lawyers writing briefs and that's exactly what we do at the ACLJ and that's where you come in. Look at every issue we discussed today. The American Center for Law and Justice or our affiliates around the globe are involved in all of them. Your support makes a huge difference. Let me encourage you to go to ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org and support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice. We're in a matching challenge campaign.

This is a very important month to us, folks. If you enjoy this broadcast, if you appreciate what we do, you go to ACLJ.org, make that online donation in any amount and we've got a donor that's matching it. So if you donate $100, we're getting another $100 becomes $200.

If you donate $10, it's $20. I encourage you to do it at ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org. We've got another half hour coming up. Back with more in a moment. keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is secular and now your host Jordan Sekulow Alright, welcome back to Sekulow. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Coming up, Tulsi Gabbard will be joining us. We'll talk about all these issues with her as well. So you don't want to miss that. We're also going to dive into the economy and the new jobs numbers in the final segment of the broadcast. So talking again a little bit of an economic update as we know how important those issues are to you.

We'll have our Director of Policy on Harry Hutchinson joining us there. But I do want to take a call. Brian called in from Wisconsin on Line 1. Hey Brian. Hey, how you doing? Hey, we're good.

Yeah, good. Say I wanted to comment on the use of or the US sending UXOs or cluster bombs over Ukraine. I do have a major concern about that. I've seen the fallout from that over in Laos in there a few times. And basically, I know it's been outlawed in like 120 countries, but apparently we're trying to get around being able to send it to Ukraine. And my concern is that, well, first of all, I don't have a concern that we help Ukraine defend themselves. But I do have a concern that we would potentially damage their land to the point of leaving these bombs behind for decades to come. Basically, I was hoping we could learn from history. What I've seen in Asia is even today, they've got thousands of people that that still get come across these unexplored ordinances and lose a limb or something.

They've got prosthetic manufacturing plants in Laos that that all they do is make artificial limbs for people that have come across them. So I think that using them over there is a bad idea. And I was calling my congressman to say the same thing and wanted to express that view. I want to play that Jen Psaki bite again, where she talks about it being a war crime when she was working for the previous administration.

Take a listen. There are reports of illegal cluster bombs and vacuum bombs being used by the Russians. If that's true, what is the next step of this administration? And is there a red line for how much violence will be tolerated against civilians in this manner that's illegal and potentially a war crime? It is.

It would be. I don't have any confirmation of that. We have seen the reports. If that were true, it would potentially be a war crime. Yet we are about, I guess we've now authorized, the President Biden has authorized sending over ammunition that Jen Psaki, his press secretary, a year and a half ago said was a war crime. So this is, you're trying, what is the policy we're trying to implement? How are we trying to get this matter resolved?

I keep going back to that. What's the end game here? It seems like right now the current policy and strategy is escalate, escalate, escalate. Put weapons on the ground, not just these cluster bombs, which again, the U.S. will explain how they utilize them in a very unique way, not like how other bad actors sometimes use them. So oftentimes the case is that these other countries have banned them. The reason why is they don't use them with the kind of specificity and the scarcity, but also the protections we put in place when we do utilize them. The U.S. has not signed a lot of treaties that limit our military abilities.

That's not bizarre. That doesn't mean though, just because we haven't signed treaties on nuclear weapons, we should be sending the Ukrainians nuclear weapons. It doesn't mean that you should be sending them cluster bombs because it's really about who is responsible for utilizing them. They can be utilized in a way, like the caller said, that is absolutely, is more than just destructive on the battlefield, but so dangerous to civilians. Same thing goes for this new missile system they want to send.

Again, which you haven't even heard about, but you look up and it's called the Army Tactical Missile System and it's a long range missile system. So it's not so much about is the weapon banned or not, or is it a war crime if you use it. It's how you use it and who's getting to use it.

Who gets to decide to use it. And in this case, it's not the U.S. It would be the Ukrainians. And again, they'd have the potential to go deeper into Russia so they could escalate without the U.S. being able to stop it. And supposedly these systems are on the way. They are on the way to Ukraine. Your taxpayer dollars at work. We're going to be joined by Tulsi Gabbard coming up next, a senior analyst for us on military and political issues as well.

So you don't want to miss that coming up. Get your thoughts in at 1-800-684-3110. If you've got questions and comments, we'll take those with Tulsi too. 1-800-684-3110.

Be part of the show. Support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. Hey, welcome back to Sekulow. Tulsi Gabbard, who is part of our Sekulow broadcast team, is joining us now.

Tulsi, there's a lot of issues I want to discuss with you so I'm going to get right to it. The first one is a new report about weapons systems that are going to be sent to Ukraine, both cluster bombs, which when Russia used them, the White House press secretary at the time, Jen Psaki, said that could be war crimes. The U.S. hasn't signed onto treaties banning those used, but of course it wouldn't be the U.S. utilizing them. It would be Ukrainians utilizing them.

So it's a great kind of power to be giving them. But on top of that, and it gets a little less attention because it's not the cluster bomb name, is also sending them what's called the Army Tactical Missile System. The Biden administration had previously refused to send that missile system until now because the weapons could reach deep inside Russia. It just seems like the administration's only plan for Ukraine is to escalate the conflict.

That's right, Jordan. First of all, we should be under no illusion other than the fact that we are at war with Russia. Yes, we are providing these munitions to the Ukraine. The Ukrainian troops are the troops that are on the ground. But we are at war with Russia, both the Cold War and a hot war via this war with Ukraine. And every single escalation led by the Biden administration providing these munitions and weapons to talking about that do escalate these tensions, they push us closer to the brink of nuclear war.

Once again, as we have said, you have said, I've said from the beginning of this, how does this serve the best interests of American people, our national security interests? We've got an issue with Tulsi right now. We're going to reconnect with her just because we're seeing that repeat.

I'm not sure. We'll see if we can get it fixed. Right now, we'll check real quick on that because I do want to, again, go back to this idea of this escalation with Ukraine.

I will make sure that the connection is correct. We're taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110 to talk to us on air. How do you feel about your taxpayer dollars being used to send cluster bombs and long-range missiles to Ukraine? I mean, just a bottom line question for you.

1-800-684-3110. Tulsi is joining us again and back. So Tulsi, you're talking about the escalation here. I think Americans are very nervous that this seems like the only path forward. The question we should be asking them is where does this lead?

What objective does this serve? And that's exactly what we're talking about here. We know the answer to this question, the question that the Biden administration refuses to answer. To get Tulsi's thoughts, we'll figure that out. We'll reassign that he's got a little connection problem there. So we'll get that figured out, folks. We're talking about a couple other issues, too, at 1-800-684-3110. As you know, it's live radio. It's the real deal here.

It's not pre-recorded, so you get to see the live broadcast. Give us a call, too, at 1-800-684-3110. We will take your thoughts and questions in. Another issue we're going to talk about with Tulsi is the, you know, we talked a lot about the school board meetings, the issues on, again, with the school board meetings, but also how mobs have come under attack at school boards. I have her by phone. Tulsi's joining by phone.

Is she with us now? All right, so Tulsi, I want to get to this issue, too, as we're kind of running through this segment. Thanks for calling in.

It's a live show, but I appreciate you doing that. Mobs for Liberty, too. We're representing right now a mom out in Nevada who spoke out at their school board meeting in Clark County, Nevada, because of what her daughter was forced to perform, which was this just really obscene, a lot of curse words, but really just obscene monologue that was not her choice. She didn't want to do. She's a teenager, and the mom came under attack at the school board meeting just for reading out the content of the monologue. They said that's too offensive. That's too obscene to read to the adults at the school board meeting, and in the way they treated the daughter, there's a lot of legal issues there, but now they're attacking this group, Mobs for Liberty, and comparing them to women of the KKK. It's just it's so crazy to see how this is playing out in such an extreme way, and the so-called woke radical activists and largely the Democratic Party, they're just turning a blind eye and they're not confronting the harm and the damage that's coming from this.

The insanity of comparing Mobs for Liberty, when you actually meet them and talk to them and listen to what they're fighting for, they're fighting for parents' rights to be able to raise their kids and make sure they're getting the education that they want them to get. They're fighting to protect their kids from being exposed to highly obscene and graphic sexual novels like genderqueer. We've had hundreds of Muslim and Ethiopian Orthodox parents protesting in Maryland just recently, a few days ago, a Montgomery County Board of Education meeting, because the state of Maryland is trying to end a policy that says parents don't have a choice to opt their kids out of being forced to read these LGBTQ books in their classrooms.

There are so many examples here. We've got kids who have written papers and posted about it on social media how a girl, she wrote a paper and she referenced the biological female and biological male in her paper, and she got a failing grade because of her using that terminology. This is about parents and their ability to raise their kids and freedom and trying to end this sexual indoctrination of our kids. It's so intense, the rhetoric, just for parents to speak out. I think it's more important than ever, as we always say, to an ACLJ, we've always pushed the school board involvement, getting involved at the local level. The teachers unions might not like it, the school might not like it, the left might not like it, and the people that are teaching this philosophy and this more and more extreme as we go. I think some of it too is parents are actually learning about what their kids have been taught, so they're waking up to that.

The best way to do it is to stay involved, don't let them just demonize you and scare you away. If you speak out, if you gather and organize together, you can take over those school boards and really impact the curriculum and the education that our kids in America are going to have. Another issue, this one on censorship, so a district court out of Louisiana, a judge out of Louisiana, issued an order prohibiting the Biden administration from contacting social media companies and having them censor items that would fall under freedom of speech. So not criminal speech, not illegal speech, not terrorism, and the Biden administration has now appealed because they say it's a grave harm to them not to be able to tell the social media companies what they should and should not allow on their sites.

And we know that the meeting they had to cancel most recently was on Wednesday, a State Department meeting with Meta, so that's Facebook, and their other companies, and that meeting's focus was not on terrorism. It was on the 2024 election, and they said it's a grave harm because they won't be able to tell social media companies what to do on the 2024 election. Yeah, Jordan, you know, the irony of this is they're actually being honest when they're saying it will cause them grave harm to not be able to control what we as voters are able to see and read and hear about on social media. The grave harm is that if we actually see the truth, if we actually get exposed to different perspectives and opinions, then we do pose a threat to their existence and their power so for once they're actually telling the truth on this one, that an empowered free society of free-thinking Americans actually being able to cast votes based on real information and our ability to discern what is fact versus fiction poses a threat to them, which is why they are so concerned about being able to continue to control what we see and what we don't see, what they deem as information versus disinformation, and ultimately appointing themselves from being the sole arbiter of what is true and what is false.

It just points to, again, how they see the American people as idiots. They think we're stupid. We can't think for ourselves, and they've got to control every aspect of it.

The reason why they are so committed to this exertion of control is because they recognize their existence depends on it. We pose, an empowered people pose a threat to their power, and we should recognize that and hold on to that power. Well, as always, we appreciate your insight.

Thanks for joining us by being able to hop on the phone and join us so we can do this segment, get your opinions and your thoughts on all these important issues because your military service, your political work, all of that, again, it's so important, folks, again, these are major issues facing our country. We have domestic issues on freedom of speech. We now have basically confirmation from the Biden administration. It's not like we didn't know it was happening, but they're confirming it. I mean, they're being very honest. Like Tulsi said, they're being very honest about it.

They're saying, like, oh, taking this power away from us. You know, we can't have our regular Facebook meetings to tell Mark Zuckerberg and his team what to allow and not allow about Hunter Biden being up online and what you can serve and not serve. And they act like it's, oh, because of the criminal conduct and the illegal conduct. That's not protected speech. They can always inform social media companies that, hey, a drug cartel is utilizing this or a terrorist group is utilizing this. Nothing in that court decision bars them from doing that. What it does bar them from doing is saying, picking political sides, picking viewpoints on issues like the origins of COVID. Just the origins of COVID.

Is the laptop real? And letting people discern, is it Russian disinformation or not? Letting them have that debate instead of squelching debate and squelching opinions. Well, take your calls. We come back at 1-800-684-3110. We're also going to get into the economy as well, dive into economic issues. We know that's a concern to all of us. A new jobs report out on not as good as what was expected.

So what does that mean for all of us? We'll be right back on Sekulow. Support the work of the ACLJ. Donate today.

Be part of our matching challenge at ACLJ.org. All right, welcome back to Sekulow. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Let me take Angela's call out of Iowa. We're talking about those weapons systems being sent to Ukraine, which only can be used to escalate the conflict. And Angela, you're on the air.

Hi. Um, I guess my concern, I mean, obviously Russia and the current situation going on there is a concern and the Ukraine, but we've seen it in the past where we have supplied weapons to our allies. And I say allies with little quotations in my fingers because later down the road they end up becoming an enemy and those weapons are turned against us and used against us in a conflict or a war. And I guess, you know, when are we as a country going to say, hey – I think what's interesting here is because we're fighting a proxy war so you're not actually operating the systems and you might be training the users but then ultimately you're giving it to them and you have to trust them that they're going to use it in a way that would be like how the U.S. would use it.

But we hold – our military holds itself to a very high standard that the rest of the world doesn't. And again, Ukraine is in a total conflict to say, okay, you're going to deliver these systems over that can be highly deadly. It could go deep inside Russia so they're very escalatory and say, okay, we'll see what happens with it.

Hopefully they'll use it the right way and they won't be violating human rights laws. That's, again, I don't think you have to be worried about it being turned against you as much as you have to worry about the Russians seeing it as another major escalation where the U.S. starts becoming, and our assets around the world, legitimate targets in this conflict. The more we get involved, the deeper we go. Like Tulsi said, we're in a war with Russia. If Russia feels like the weaponry we're providing is not just offensive now but offensive and they use that to shoot inside Ukraine, guess what happens? We become targets. Our assets, Americans, become targets of Russian – the military and of Russian aggression.

So, again, that's my concern there. I do want to get to the economic issue, though, because, listen, that affects all of us. All these issues, too, are being affected, what we've been talking about today, all these international issues and domestic issues.

Harry Hutchison, our director of policy, is joining me now. Harry, new payroll numbers came out, 209,000 added in June, but it was below the estimate, which was 240,000. The unemployment rate down to 3.6, down 0.1 percentage point, but the jobless level rose to 69 percent. So the reaction kind of like where – I guess it wasn't that off of their estimate, but what is it showing to us in general about where we are in this economy?

That's where people are trying to figure out. Are we recovering? Are we going back to normal? Or are we heading towards higher interest rates? Well, I think we are headed toward a slow-walking recession, and that's my view.

But I also think that higher interest rates are on the horizon. If you unpack the numbers disclosed by the government, it's important to keep in mind that, yes, 209,000 jobs were added, but of that number, 60,000 came from government hiring. So if you back that particular number out, hiring was relatively sluggish, and I think it's likely to become more sluggish going forward. You mentioned the 6.9 percent number, which includes discouraged workers. That number has in fact gone up. If we talk about unemployment and we include in that number so-called discouraged workers, individuals who are no longer looking for work, it's important to keep in mind that we are now almost at 7 percent.

So there was some job growth in healthcare, social assistance, and the construction industry, but meanwhile, retail sales were down, or retail employment was down, transportation and warehousing were down, and those unemployment numbers or employment numbers are important for forecasting what the consumer is indeed thinking. And so I think if you now turn to price increases, price increases or inflation has come down a bit. It's still not where the Federal Reserve would like it to be at 2 percent, but it has come down to around 4.4 percent.

But here's the really bad news. In my opinion, for the economy, mortgage rates are up 31 basis points to 7.2 percent. So mortgage rates, again, are almost double, if not more than double, where they were a year, year and a half ago. So I think we face headwinds, and I think the American people need to buckle up, and they need to face the reality that the Biden economy, despite Biden economics, is not moving very briskly.

Yeah, I mean, they try to tell us the rhetoric that everything is great. They're trying to redefine Bidenomics and that this is all working, this is all a plan, and people should support it. Everybody is feeling the interest rates, and they see the hikes because it slows down so many sectors. It makes people think twice before purchasing a home, a new car. That then affects the people who build the homes, sell the homes. So many different industries get affected by that. And again, even the cities that were booming may not be booming right now, and they were already having trouble in a lot of other major cities before this happened. I think you're precisely correct. And so I had a conversation with a lumber operator in one of the fastest growing cities in America, and he has indicated that lumber prices have fallen very sharply, as much as 60 to 70 or 80 percent.

That's number one. Number two, he's not selling a ton of lumber in this particular market. So that tells me that the long-term construction forecast is simply not there, which could lead to a sharp decline in construction jobs going forward. I think this is, again, folks, we've got to watch all this very carefully. And again, I think with an election on the horizon, it's always the top issue. People will look past attitudes, how people talk, their personalities, when they are suffering economically. Now, they're trying to tell you that you're not suffering economically, and I'm sure they have some tricks up their sleeve. I can't imagine they won't in the days, in the months leading up to the election, but they can't change reality if you actually realize what's going on. Most people do.

I think most people are feeling the pain right now. It's something real. It doesn't really matter where you live. You can see it in the prices. You can see it in things that aren't maybe as busy or the buildings. Maybe there's not as many cranes in the major city you drive by. There's not as much construction or the houses they're staying on the market much longer, and people aren't yet necessarily willing to drop the price.

They're hoping that the interest rates will fall, but again, that's hope. Now, this is why it's a great time to financially donate to the ACLJ, because you can double your impact. So even if you can't donate what you would like, maybe you've usually donated $100 to the ACLJ a month, but you can only donate $50 right now. Your $50 will be matched by another $50 donation by a donor at the ACLJ who's agreed to be part of our matching challenge. We want you to be part of that matching challenge. You go online to our website.

It's very simple. Go to ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org. You'll see matching challenge. You make your donation, and whatever that donation is, the donors through the month of July will match that donation 100%. So if you can donate $25 online right now, another donor is going to match that $25. It'll be like $50 to the ACLJ. Donate today. We'll talk to you next week.