DeSantis Cuts Campaign Staff

Today on Sekulow, the US military stockpiles dwindle as Biden sends weapons to Ukraine. 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. All right, welcome to Sekulow. We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. We talked about a little bit last week about how our military stockpiles are dwindling, but now we are getting more information about just how bad they are dwindling.

I want you to listen to John Kirby. Again, he is the National Security Council spokesperson. He used to be at the Pentagon, now he's at the White House. And after Joe Biden made that remark about how our stockpiles are very low when it comes to these ammunitions that we've been sending to Ukraine, and that's why they sent cluster bombs over is to try to bridge that gap.

How bad is it in the United States? First, take a listen to John Kirby. We're working very closely with the defense industry to try to ramp up production, particularly for artillery shells. You saw that we gave some cluster munitions to Ukraine as a bridging solution here while we ramp up production. We're having very, very strong conversations with the defense industry, and we believe that we'll be able to get there. But there is going to have to be some production rate increases, no question about it. Okay, so there's going to need to be production rate increases. But then Logan, we go to a retired Lieutenant Colonel Darren Gobb, said that through his sources, this is a Fox News article, I'm being told it's going to take us 10 to 15 years to recover from everything we've shipped over just to Ukraine. 10 to 15 years.

You know who loves that? China, who's looking at invading Taiwan. Russia, knowing that they're basically depleting our weapons sources, and Iran, and basically any of our world enemies. Yeah, I think that when you heard that, when our producer, our producer, Allie, she kind of presented with these two contradictory statements back to back, it got, I mean, that's all very nervous because you hear that kind of thing that it's going to take 10 to 15 years to recover, and we're trying to ramp up our creation of weapons and artillery, and we can't necessarily meet the demand, and it really all has to do with what we're sending to Ukraine. He said, we're running perilously low on ammunition and is behind in manufacturing the 155 millimeter artillery shells and other systems, and he added, we're sending it over there to Ukraine faster than we can make it. We have lines that are inactive and unfunded, and we're not even able to make these munitions and much of the equipment we need for the American military at the pace that we need to now for just us to maintain our own readiness. This is when we talk about America First is not about ignoring the world, but it's about making sure that we are prepared first before we go funding everybody else's war, that we are ready to go.

And you know what? When the US is ready to go and we've got stockpiles of weapons and our troops have everything they need, it's a safer world. So America First actually makes it a safer world for other countries and our allies. When we're depleted and the world knows it, it makes it a much dangerous place for our allies who have enemies on their border because they look and they say, this is a great time to act. The US doesn't have the weapons they need.

The US doesn't have the manufacturing they need. So let's act now. We'll go into Ukraine and we'll get the US to just deplete all of their weaponry.

And then maybe our friends in China are going to go into Taiwan and they won't have any weapons to be able to go there. This is a very dangerous situation. I want to take your calls on it. 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. We cannot live in a country, we cannot be the leader of the world if we don't have the military equipment we need to be the best military in the world. I don't want to have to use that equipment, but Lord knows I want to make sure we have it. And right now we don't. The White House has admitted it. Joe Biden has admitted it. Our top generals are admitting it. And they're even saying it would take 15 years.

I'd be 56 years old by the time we'd have the weapons necessary. That's insane. Hey, we're going to take your calls. 1-800-684-3110. And make sure you share this broadcast with your friends on your social media platform of choice.

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We'll be right back with more on Secular. 1-800-684-3110 to talk to us on air. That's 1-800-684-3110. So we now know that Ukrainian forces have been using up to 240,000 of these F155mm artillery shells every 30 days.

And here's the problem with that. When they're using that many shells, our production right now was 14,000 a month. It's now at 90,000 by 2025. So think about how long they're talking about this conflict going. They're already looking at 2025 as we're still providing weapons. The Ukrainians are using it up to 240,000 every 30 days.

And we're trying to get up to 90,000 a month. So even by 2025, we're not even close to the number of shells they're using. This is one conflict. This is what Mike Pompeo warned us about. We are not a military that is ready for a sustained ground war. We have air superiority.

That's correct. But when it's a ground war, we are significantly depleted in our ability to sustain a long-term ground war. And America needs to be ready to sustain that first before we are fighting it and sending our weapons over for free to other countries. Because if we're not strong, everyone else in our world of democracies is that much weaker. Because we're supposed to be the strongest. We want to be the strongest. Don't you want to live in the strongest country in the world? Don't you want to live in that America where we put our needs first, our concerns first, but in fact, by doing that, we help others? Because a strong America makes a stronger democracies around the world, makes a safer world, a much safer world. We all see that, see the less conflict under Trump and the extreme conflict under Obama and under Biden, ISIS, the terrorism leads, the fall of all those, the Arab spring, which turned into a terrorist spring. All of that happened under Democrats because our military wasn't given the resources they needed to get the job done. And they love going around acting like they're the world's policemen, but they deplete our own resources. And that is something we cannot accept in the United States.

The more we learn about it, the more dangerous this is to our country, to our children, to our grandchildren. I don't want my kids. And the numbers they're talking about, my kids will be teenagers by the time they're talking about this, us having enough weapons to sustain a ground war. That is unacceptable.

You know, I've got kindergartners, two and three-year-olds. It should not take another 15 years before the US could sustain a ground war. That's not a safe country for my children. No, and we've seen, it's not like we haven't been through a real ground war in our lifetime or something like that. This is not, this is continual. So why we get to this point is insane. And why we get to this point over the situation that's at hand is really disturbing. And I think when you read these quotes, not just again, it's not like this is just coming from conservative media. It's not like this is just conservative media or whoever it is. This is coming from leading officials and Kirby saying, yeah, we're working very closely to ramp up production.

That tells you what, that we are down, that things are not quite what they were, that we are running low. And when you see the demand, I think one of the numbers on here, this was from a report from Business Insider. It said in January, the US military said it aimed to increase productions from 14,000, this is for standard round ammunition, from 14,000 a month to 90,000 by 2025, you said.

But they said, that's not enough to keep up with the demand because Ukraine forces have been using up to 240,000 every 30 days. So we are so significantly behind, if these numbers are accurate, that catching up and still being in one of these, we'll say we're in the conflict with Ukraine, but essentially we are at this point, it's unsustainable. No, we cannot sustain this two and three more years. I mean, they're planning this as if this is going to go on into 2025. This is when we have a Presidential election coming up.

I want to hear those clear differences. I'm glad that President Trump is going into it with the mindset of that this needs to end on day one of my presidency. And people say, oh, that's impossible. No, it's not. You have months in transition to handle that. We've talked about that a number of times. And there's a lot of history that shows this can be done. But the Biden administration is planning this to go on for another three, four years. Three, four years, we're just depleting our own resources. We know NATO is not paying their fair share. How many times have you heard from Rick Rinnell that they're not paying their 2% of their GDP and military spending?

They're not doing it. Only eight of the 30 something NATO members are actually paying their fair share. Countries like Canada, wealthy countries, they aren't doing it.

Germany, the wealthiest country in Europe, not doing it. So they all rely on us to protect them, even when the war is in their backyard. This war is not in our backyard.

It's their backyard. I mean, it affects us economically. But you know, the reason it affects us economically is we put sanctions on Russia. You know what? This is your war to deal with. We're not going to sanction Russia gas. Guess what?

Our gas price would be $2 a gallon right now. Right. We're having to hit with the consequences of what it is. Yeah. Let's take a phone call. Yeah. Let's go to Dan in Wyoming.

Dan, you're on the air. Yeah. I'm not wanting to discount the seriousness of the lack of military ammunition, but I also see it as another excuse like we saw during the Obama years to reduce or completely stop production of civilian ammunition so that it becomes impossible for people to get ammunition for self-defense, for reporting uses, or defense against tyranny, should God forbid it come to that.

Yeah. I do think, again, they think very short term. And so when they see these wars that they think are going to be popular, and the way to say that is, I don't even like saying that, but wars that they think will energize the world and make them look like they're the good guys in the world. So they go all in without even looking at, hey, do we have the weapons to do this?

Can we sustain this? Why are we not going to other countries and saying, you send more weapons, you send more materials, you start depleting your stockpiles too. Why are we, the country, depleting all of our stockpiles? Why is Europe? This war is happening in Europe. It is not happening in Latin America. It's not happening in Central America. It's not in North America. It's not a place where our troops are very active.

This is happening in their backyard. Shouldn't they be the ones depleting their resources right now to make sure Russia doesn't continue to expand the conflict outside of Ukraine? But instead it's us. And listen, that's one thing if we had the weapons to defend ourselves, this would be an entirely different debate. But when they admit to us that we are depleted, that we could not sustain a ground force to protect our own citizens and our own interests and our other allies in the world, then we have done something very wrong in the planning of Ukraine. It is why so many have said Joe Biden is the worst when it comes to foreign policy.

That comes from Democrats, from the Obama administration. He is the worst. Every decision he makes was the worst decision to make when it came to foreign policy. He didn't want to go after bin Laden. He told President Obama not to do that raid. I mean, this is the guy who's been on the wrong side of foreign policy every single time. But see, now he's in charge.

And look at the mess we are in. A war that they are thinking is now going to go two and three years down the road. So one that I thought, Logan, it might not even be an issue by the time we got to the next Presidential election, like it might be done, is now it's, I mean, they're planning for a war into 2025. That's a year after. If you look at what was really going on just a few weeks ago when we said the war is over, things are kind of like, okay, maybe this could be Russia lost.

Right. So you'd think, yeah, you'd think he'd want it wrapped up before heading into the general. Look, we got involved in that conflict.

It was over in a year and a half, two years, and we're done. All we had to do was provide military equipment and we're fine. Now, obviously, we know now just providing military equipment means pretty much depleting our entire stockpile of equipment, but he could work his way out of it that way.

Instead, it's the exact opposite. Instead, it's a situation where, as you said, they are planning well into the future, into years, and they are planning 10 to 15 years to recover, to be able to have the stockpile that we had in weapons and artillery. That is, like you said, a pretty scary time to be in. Yeah, it is.

1-800-684-3110 to take your calls. We're going to get into politics too in the next segment of the broadcast. Big news out of the DeSantis campaign. I want to get your thoughts on that.

He's a big staff shake-up there as we get closer to the first debate, Presidential debate, next month. So we will talk about that as well, but I do want to take your calls on our military. Sure. Phil in California on Line 1. Hey, Phil.

Hello. I wanted to tell you that I have a close relative who spent 30 years in the Navy and recently this year retired as a captain. This information he gave to me is that at one time, our Navy had 13 carriers afloat. And he tells me that several years ago, Congress passed a law that said we must always have no less than 10 carriers afloat. Today, the year that he retired, he says, we only have nine carriers afloat. It takes how many years to build a carrier? It's not short. I'll tell you that.

I lived in Norfolk, Virginia. It is a huge process. And I mean, obviously these are floating cities. So years. And again, are we investing in that? Defense Authorization Act right now, we're just trying to get our ammunitions levels back to even. I don't even know if we're thinking about building new equipment. It's just about replenishing the equipment we already have.

While the other countries in the world are coming up with higher tech equipment, better aircraft carriers, I hate even saying that, but it's just the truth. We'll continue to take your phone calls. Support the work of the ACLJ. We work on all these issues. We're at the UN, the Security Council. We've got those advisors like Mike Pompeo, like Rick Rinnell and Tulsi Gabbard, because we're on top of these issues. Donate today.

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

That's 1-800-684-3110. We are going to, in the second half hour of the broadcast, are going to start talking some politics as well. There's big news in the Presidential campaign on the Republican side of the ticket. For the first time since it was coming, I've said it on this broadcast, I certainly said it on Secular Brothers podcast, that the DeSantis campaign was starting to feel a lot like the Jeb Bush campaign that I worked on, where it was just bloated in size. The difference was we were actually the front runner when we started.

He never was. He was always going to be in second place when he announced, but he built this giant apparatus. And guess what? You start running out of money very quickly. So they've actually had to start firing campaign staff, not reassigning. So if you had the money and you thought maybe the people just weren't as effective, you would reassign them to other places, to other positions. They're actually having to let people go and they say, this is just round one of campaign cuts. Not a position you want to be in before you even get to the first debate.

I mean, we're not even talking about like really having to spend money yet. Like when the people are really about to vote in January in Iowa and then as the campaigns really kick off with New Hampshire and South Carolina at Super Tuesday, that's all into 2024. We'll take some calls on this last topic before we get really into this, but I want to hear from you all. And I also want to hear from you about what this looks like, because you do often hear about campaigns shedding staff, cutting people, but like you said, it's usually either much later or I guess the DeSantis campaign just started with a very stacked, essentially payroll, which could be a problem when you're not polling the numbers you thought you're going to be. And we hear all these kinds of chatter around that's not bringing in the numbers financially than he thought he would. I mean, DeSantis was on the road this weekend doing events and we know the debate is coming up, but it seems like President Trump is not really interested.

And what does that mean for the entire process? Let's go ahead though and take Paul is calling Washington about the military situation so we can also move on to talk more politics and other news. So Paul, you're on the air.

Oh, thanks for taking my call. I just would question the 15 year story because in World War II, we went from a peaceful nation to a full-fledged fighting nation in less than a year. Boeing was running their production plants 24 hours a day.

They had three shifts a day, three eighths. And if there's a will, there's a way. I would question the 15 year story. Yeah, listen, if there's a will, there's a way. I think, could you go back to that time period? I don't think we have the industrial capability to turn that on like this, Paul.

I think we did then. We built a lot of things in America in that time period, the 1930s and 40s. And even before that, we were an industrial leader in the world. We've now sent all that industry around the world. So I don't think you can just flip a switch and start making these weapons 24 hours a day, even if you had the staff to do it, which I think you do.

You have the Americans to do it. I don't think we have the factories to do it. And the tech doesn't come from the United States. So we're not talking about weapons that we could build. Our tech is coming from China. The pieces we need come from China.

So you've got to import the tech, rebuild factories. So think about the long-term process we need to start right now. And where I agree with you, Paul, is we need to get to that point where, if necessary, Logan, we could turn that switch on.

Yeah, I think that we need to be able to get ourselves there. And I think this should be that eye-opening moment. We're deciding what we're going to talk about today.

If this was an eye-opening moment, right, then we got to get this fixed and got to get it handled. And hopefully that comes up now, actually, as we head into a Presidential race, that someone starts to bring these topics up. These are the topics that never get attention, and I wish they would, because these are the ones that actually affect our nation's security and national security as a whole, and all of the things that go with it. But we always get stuck and hung up on these controversial, ridiculous issues that get thrown around from the right, thrown around from the left, and we don't actually get down to the meat of things. We'll forget about the Supreme Court. We'll forget about Islamic extremism and what's going on in the Middle East.

And then we'll forget about something like this, which is our military, and make sure they have proper equipment and proper planning to, if a conflict arises, if, God forbid, another 9-11 type situation happened that forces us into a war, do we have the ability to actually fight and be a part of it and do what we do best, which is typically win. So we'd love for that to be the case. And I think, as we head into the second half hour, we start talking more about the political side of what's going on, what's going on in the world, what's going on, whether that is the fact that we are seeing a kind of a narrowing already of the frontrunners.

I mean, God, not even narrowing, a pretty clear indication of where the frontrunners are going to be for the Republican-Democrat Party, that these kind of issues become part of it. And that's somewhat even what you're doing with ACLJ action, and we're going to be talking about that coming up with ACLJ action, slightly different than what we do at the ACLJ traditionally, but you launched it a year ago, and we're going to be talking about that in the next segment or two. That's right. I mean, ACLJ action, we're fighting hard to make sure that we're not going to have to deal with the national defense authorization act, is exactly that. It's to authorize to make sure we've got the money and the resources to our military that they need.

And again, what we've seen is the military just, it's become another woke institution, and how dangerous that is for our US military. These are men and women who are trained to kill, to protect us. They volunteer to train, to have the right to kill, to protect Americans.

To go to war, which means to kill, to protect Americans. They don't go into the military to do social justice. They don't go into the military to rebuild. We have institutions for that. They don't go into the military to conduct diplomacy. We have the State Department for that. But as Rick Grenell's talked about, too much we're relying on the military to be the diplomats because, and any conflict arises, we send in the military first because our diplomats are no longer a warrior diplomats.

They used to be. Those used to be very dangerous positions to join the foreign service. You were risking your life, but you were risking your life to try and prevent bigger conflicts. So you'd go into very dangerous zones and try and work out negotiations to prevent the larger scale conflicts.

Now, our State Department isn't acting that way, and our Defense Department is acting like it's a social justice institution. Instead I want these to be the best trained killers in the world with the best killing equipment possible. I know that can sound rough and tough, but it's mostly defensive. If you have the best equipment, usually you won't have to use it. And when you do use it, you overwhelm the other side so quickly that the wars are very short or the major battles are very short. But the strategic thinking. So we've been fighting to make sure the National Defense Authorization Act is what it sounds like. It isn't just another woke policy move, which we'll talk about when we come back from this break on secular.

That's right. We do have a second half hour. If you don't get us on your, if you're listening on local radio, if you're watching on social media, if you're watching on our website, you're good.

You got us locked in, but some traditional terrestrial radio doesn't carry the full hour. And if they don't make sure you find us right now, broadcasting live or later on ACLJ.org, your favorite podcast player or YouTube or rumble. We are there right now talking with everyone. You could be part of the live chat, which is really fun. So make sure you join us there. We can't do this without the support of you as ACLJ members. And you can be a part.

This is the perfect time to do it right here in the middle of this matching challenge in the month of July. You can join us. All you gotta do, give a donation of any kind and it is doubled. That means there's another member, a great member who's already pledged to unlock their gift.

So if you give $100, it becomes $200 so on and so on and so on. And we would really appreciate it. It's a great time to do it.

All you gotta do is go to ACLJ.org. We're also be taking your phone calls because we want to hear from you. We love hearing your voice. If you're one of the thousands of people that watch on social media, put in your comments, we'd love to hear from you too on the air. Always fun to do that.

1-800-684-3110. Again, support the work of the ACLJ. We got a second half hour coming up. We're going to talk more about politics, what's going on, and also more of what's going on with your process.

Think about this. The Department of Defense just announced another $800 million for Ukraine. That brings the total to $95 billion that we have spent. So not only are we depleting our money, we're depleting our ammunitions. We have to think, why are we never talking about how to bring this to an end, to bring this conflict to an end?

Why is it going to be the never-ending conflict? We'll be right back on Sekulow. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Welcome back to Sekulow. We're going to take your calls to 1-800-684-3110. A little bit more on the National Defense Authorization Act. We told you a victory in the House and we had it through ACLJ Action. Over 6,000 of you sent letters to individual members of Congress at ACLJAction.org in the House to support the removal of the language that would fund abortions and even the travel for abortions for anyone in our U.S. military. That's the role of our defense budget is to pay for abortions, not weapons, not making sure we have the weapons we need.

Right now, we're depleted. No, we want to use the money, your taxpayer dollars, to fly people around to kill babies. That's what they wanted to do. Now in the House, where we have a pro-life slim majority, we were able to get that language stripped. This now moves to the U.S. Senate. It's going to be much more difficult there because the Democrats are in charge, but it is a slim majority. And remember, even if they try to take it out, they will have to conference this legislation and they'll have to come together and compromise. So we're going to fight hard until the very end to see if we can get this removed from the language so that your taxpayer dollars aren't going to the military to pay to kill children.

So what we need to do is go to ACLJAction.org and start taking action there. Again, this is a way we built this tool that makes it so easy, Logan, for people. They put in their name and address. In the case of the House, it pulls up their exact member of Congress.

Of course, for Senate, it pulls that up. We have a pre-drafted letter, but you can edit it. We actually encourage you to add a few of your own sentences, make it more personal.

Maybe you've got a relationship with that member or some members of their staff. You can put that in there. Or you can delete the whole thing and write your own letter and send it in. And of course, the ACLJ Action also writes its own comment as well. So we utilize this tool so you can go direct to your members of Congress and tell them, this is what I think you should do. I am your constituent.

This is what I'm hoping you do. This is what's right. This is what's wrong. And I think when we're fighting for life in a military that has gotten so woke that instead of focusing it on our depleted weapons and the industry needed to make sure we have the stockpiles we need, they are instead worrying about how they can pay for people to go fly to have an abortion. That is not the role of the US military.

Make it clear. Go to ACLJAction.org. That's why we've created it so you can take really direct action to your members of Congress. Great tools we've invested in there. And I appreciate all the donors to ACLJ Action who have provided those tools for all of our supporters. That's right.

And you can do that, like you said, going to ACLJ Action. It's just another arm of what we do here. And there's so many things that are going on. I always say I wish I could turn the camera around so you could see our entire studio that's happening here, whether that's here in our media center, which is a thriving media operation. We're talking about not just this daily broadcast, multiple broadcasts, multiple videos that are produced every single day. Our incredible IT team, what it takes to actually get all of this on the air every day. Plus all of the incredible legal work that's happening.

Some of it right upstairs from us, some of it in Washington, DC and all across the country and the world. And we couldn't do that without the, again, we are a multifaceted organization and we are growing. There are so many more paths that we are going to take to make sure that the influence of you as an ACLJ supporter is heard from all fronts, not just the media, not just legal. There are so many new ways to get involved in this fight and it's going to be very interesting. And I can't wait to unveil some of those in the coming months, because there's a lot happening here as we head into the second half of the year. And then none of that happens though, without your support. So again, we are at that halfway mark of our matching challenge, just over halfway. So we'd appreciate your support by going to ACLJ.org and making a donation. And it has doubled. We are taking phone calls on, we'll still take some on Ukraine, but we'll also take some on politics and what's happening. What do you think?

I mean, just weigh in again, there's no wrong opinions here. What do you think about the fact that Ron DeSantis is already having to fire campaign staff because of budget issues? Not because of, again, disagreements with the staff, but they can't afford them. And that is not a great story to have out this early in the game still, when you came out and said, look how strong my fundraising is. Has he maxed out?

Has he gotten to this high as he can in the polls, hovering around that 20 to 15%? Does that leave room for someone else to jump in? We'll take your calls on it. 1-800-684-3110.

I mean, again, I think him as the number two is now a real question about whether he even keeps that role. We'll be right back. All right, welcome back to Seculars. We take your calls at 1-800-684-3110. Let's take a couple more calls too on Ukraine, and then we're going to get into politics and get those political calls in too, because the big political news, DeSantis is having to cut campaign staff, and they say this is only round one of the campaign staff cuts.

More will be coming. I've been a part of campaigns that started off very big like this and maybe too big, and then you literally are running out of money. So even when you say, oh, we raised $20 million, and by the way, Trump raised $35 million in the last quarter, you've already got 10 or 15 of that spent that you don't have that much cash on hand to do new events with or come up with new ideas with, especially when he was already, Logan, I think acknowledged they were doing a reset, that the launch did not work. Yeah, I think they know they have to do that because it's, I mean, it's just the numbers don't lie in that sense. I mean, if it was within a margin of error or something like that, but it's so wildly, the delta is incredibly wild between the two candidates.

If he wants to try to do something, honestly, it's going to be one of those decisions where he needs to figure out whether he keeps going or just get yourself back to Florida and let's pretend this didn't happen for a couple months. And I mean that in the nicest way. Before you go into total war and get embarrassed. Or show up at debates. And I think you do the first debate and you see what happens, see if anything happens. I think a lot of us who are more of political news junkie kind of people will watch that debate even without a President Trump involved, but that doesn't mean it's going to sway opinions. Because most people won't. Because you're going to go, well, okay, well, if I like that guy, I still want to see what he, how he does against the former President. So someone who's been through it before, especially when we are in the time of war with what's happening.

Sometimes you want people who are more strategic and have dealt with that before. Let's go ahead and go to Jerry, who's been holding the longest, Jerry in Pennsylvania on line two. You're on the air. Hey, Jerry.

Hello, guys. You're talking about the United States running low on ammunition and weapons and because Ukraine, we're giving them to Ukraine. Ukraine is pretty angry right now with Israel because they keep begging Israel for weapons and Israel keeps refusing them.

They send humanitarian aid, but no weapons. Do you think Israel is right about this or are they the smart ones? No, I think Israel is right about this.

I think it's a country of 7 million people. The war is in Europe. There's plenty of countries in Europe that have a lot more weapons than Israel to send to Ukraine. Israel has got to be very careful with Russia.

They don't need to turn Russia into a major enemy. I mean, Russia already kind of plays both sides in the Middle East. Sometimes they'll be friendly to Israel. Sometimes they'll be friendly to Israel's enemies. So it's a very complicated situation when you're a country the size of Israel. And by the way, the U.S. isn't acting like you're a very good ally of Israel right now. So again, they've sent humanitarian aid in. I think they've been clear about that. But why is Israel responsible when Germany is not sending the weapons in, when Poland is not sending the weapons in, when the U.K. is not sending the weapons in, or France?

I mean, the list can go on and on and on. There are many European countries that could be doing a whole lot more. And I think that when we go to why is the U.S. — the U.S. is funding the whole thing, and then they say, well, Israel's not doing enough.

And we're very unhappy that Israel's not doing enough. That's a country of 7 million. Germany is the biggest economy in Europe. The E.U. is the biggest economy in the world. And there we are still sending the most weapons. We're the ones depleting our resources. They're the ones still upset that they can't do business with Russia. So I think Israel, again, should not have to play a major role in a war in Ukraine.

I mean, that's just not fair to a country of 7 million. Yeah. Let's go ahead. Let's continue to take calls, because we do have a lot on this topic. We want to clear through them so we can get more people calling. As soon as you hear someone on the air, start calling, because we'll have open lines.

And we do right now. 1-800-684-3110. Let's go ahead and go to Bill in Wyoming. Bill, welcome. Hi.

Thanks for taking my call. Now, I'm going to be sounding facetious on this, but the thing of it is, is that aren't these the same people that when President Trump was sending access defense money to build the wall, they screamed and cried and hollered about that. And yet these are basically the same people that are sending all this money and stuff to fight the war in Ukraine. I mean, why don't they send some of these armed IRS agents to fight the war over there as well? You know what they should do is send some of the IRS agents over to audit what's going on in Ukraine. Like, are these weapons getting to the right people? And since it's one of the most, again, not trying to demonize them, it's one of the most corrupt countries in the world. It was before the war.

It is now. So when you send these weapons over, how many are actually making it to the battlefield? How many are being resold on a black market? How many people are we making into oligarchs and billionaires in Ukraine right now becoming arms dealers? I mean, I'm serious because we're using not just a regular military in Ukraine, but also all these offshoot militia groups that fight in Ukraine that aren't really totally affiliated with the Ukrainian military.

So it's not totally facetious to say we should be doing an audit of how our resources are being used. Now to the second point of that, the Democrats, they only scream about cost of money when it's something they don't like. When it's something they do like, they ignore the cost. They don't care what the cost is. They don't care if it's going to hurt you at home. They don't care if it's going to hurt the stock market.

They don't care about inflation. If it's something they care about, like a green new deal. But if it's a policy that will work, that they disagree with, suddenly it's too expensive. And I think that's the problem with our defense spending. I want to play this from Jake Sullivan. Jake Sullivan has attacked Republicans for saying they've made the National Defense Authorization Act about domestic public policy.

Take a listen. Jake Sullivan – Trying to mix up domestic political issues into support for America's military and America's troops. That's what the set of amendments that the Republicans brought forward did. And those who oppose those amendments who said, let's keep focused on what's real here. What's real is the necessary capabilities, technologies, and fundamental social support for our troops and their families. That's what this all should have been focused on, not these domestic political issues.

It's more gaslighting. The US military created the domestic issues. They are the ones who announced that they would pay for their men and women in the military to travel and have abortions. They would pay for the abortion.

They'd pay for the travel. Chris They reacted to Dobbs and all that. Jake Sullivan They created, they became domestically woke. The Republicans and pro-life members of Congress are just responding to that to say, to agree with Jake Sullivan, the military should not be about domestic public policy.

It should be about the US military. But you see how they try to gaslight us on that and say it's Republicans making this. Chris Yeah, conservatives are bringing social issues into this. Jake They did it.

I mean, I just want to make it clear. Chris Yeah, explain that. Jake The US Department of Defense announced that they, after Dobbs, that if they had military that were located in states where someone could not get an abortion, they would not only pay for the abortion in another state, they would pay for the travel for that troop to go to another state.

Chris Yeah, the US military essentially acting the way that some of these like big super liberal corporations acted. Jake Yes. Chris But it's the military. Jake Yes.

And so all the National Defense Authorization Act by Republicans was due is to take back things to normal, which is that is not the role of the United States military. 1-800-684-3110 to talk to us on air. We want to get to politics too and the DeSantis news, but let's take the final call on Ukraine first. Chris Okay, let's go to Andrew who's calling in New Jersey on line four. And then again, phone lines are open right now and we have one more segment to go.

We'd love to hear from you. Jake Do you think the DeSantis campaign is over? Chris Do you think he has it? Could he reset? Jake Even if you're a supporter? Chris Yeah.

Jake I think there is realism that has to set in. 1-800-684-3110. Let's go to Andrew in New Jersey.

Welcome. Andrew Hey, thank you so much for taking my call tonight. So my question is, what's the end game here? My big question is, what's the end game?

My parents were born in Poland and they were they were taken to Siberia by the Russians in World War II. And notice that I'm not, listen, Joe Biden invited the Russians into Ukraine by saying, hey, my minor incursion won't hurt here. But what do you think the end game is here? Is the end game a negotiated settlement with Ukrainians not having their territory? Because I remember my parents, you know, they were they were Catholic and they were Russian Orthodox and they wound up in Siberia fighting for the allies after Germany invaded Russia.

What's the end game here? Chris Yeah, I mean, listen, I think so many of us have family that I mean, that's where our family could probably figure out from the secular last name that the Eastern European ties both to Russia on my dad's side and then on his father's side and on my grandmother's side from, you know, Belarus is in the news a lot there for Minsk. Now at the time, this was all part of the Soviet Union for some periods of that time when they immigrated to the United States because of persecution of Jews that was going on in the in the programs. And so, again, we a lot of Americans have ties to Eastern Europe, more so than I think people really realize. We're not all just, you know, Western Europeans, though our other half of our family is.

But so you have ties, you do care about this part of the world. I think it's the Donald Trump strategy. We need a President who scares the crap out of these guys, literally who scares them.

And Putin, I mean, we've said it a bunch. If you can 90% think Donald Trump is just bloviating. But if you think 10%, he might be telling the truth, like when he shows you the picture of your house or your kids, I know where they go to school.

I know where you are right now. If you 10% believe he might be telling the truth, you start thinking very differently. And it's why I absolutely believe he could negotiate and into this war before he even took the oath of office. By the time he takes the oath of office, it would be officially done. But if he was elected President during the transition period, this would come to a close. I think that's the only way I see this coming to a close in the next year. I think if we reelect Democrats, this is going on in 2025. That's what they're planning on right now.

Weapons into at least 2025. So no end in sight. Now in our final segment, we're going to switch to politics because there's big news in the Republican primary. So long we were told it was Ron DeSantis was really the only candidate that could potentially take down Donald Trump in the primary, except for his poll numbers have not moved. He is now raising less money than Donald Trump and he's having to fire staff, a major shakeup.

And it's only round one of the shakeup. Where do you think the DeSantis campaign is? Are you looking for other alternatives?

Are you on the Trump train? 1-800-684-3110. Give us a call. All right, welcome back to second. We're taking your calls.

1-800-684-3110. So the news over the weekend, I mean, this just came out really last night about the DeSantis campaign. DeSantis has fired campaign staff amid a cash crunch as he continues to lag far behind Trump in the polls. He's not, he's not really been able, and these are both in state polls and in national polls. So we look at the early state polls, but also the national polls.

He's just not really getting above that 20%. Donald Trump is in the fifties, sometimes sixties. So I mean a huge gap. Donald Trump, who has not always been the strongest grassroots fundraiser, I think some of that is just because he's Trump. And people say, do I really need to give Donald Trump money? Outraised DeSantis by another 15 million this last reporting cycle. So people are questioning, one is, is DeSantis even going to make it through? Two, could someone else? There's money still on the sidelines. The Koch brothers, for instance, have got like two or $300 million they put together. They were going to get it to DeSantis.

They've decided not to right now. Yeah, at least to hold for a while. Would that go to Tim Scott?

Does Tim Scott have the ability to make a jump that quickly? When people hear that and they hear, you know, tens of millions or whatever it would be, what does that mean? Because I don't think people understand what that means for, I guess, profile. All of a sudden you go from a, can it really take, is all you need money to really get that profile up? Because we've seen some people have the money, not really work.

We've seen other people come from nothing and you're like, oh, where's that coming from? It's because they have backing. I think if you're a good candidate like Tim Scott, who raised a good amount for where he was, he raised like $6 million.

Who on paper and on stage, solid. So if he gets an influx of money that, yes, because he's already a good candidate. If you're a bad candidate, which I think DeSantis is kind of showing, you can have as much money as you want.

And no, it doesn't mean you're, listen, I worked for Jeb Bush. We had the most money, very similar to DeSantis, came out of Florida, huge staff. The only difference was we were actually polling in first place and had a lot of general support and it never took, it just never connected. We never connected with the voters and Jeb never connected with the voters. And he would admit that, it just didn't work. And he was beloved in Florida also, same kind of idea.

And DeSantis just seems like every time he goes out, he's not clicking with supporters. Let's go to the phones. Chris in California online five. Hey, Chris. Hey, how's it going? Thanks for taking my call.

Just wanted to continue the discussion. So obviously if Donald Trump were to have the nomination, he would be going to the general. I believe, since there's no reason to give Vivek any praise, he's been doing that, especially this past weekend. I think he chooses him as his running mate. Similar politics, he's an outsider and he doesn't seem to be taking establishment money.

You're talking about Vivek Ramaswamy. I think he's doing a lot of interesting things. He just announced last week this new fundraising program where you could sign up to be a fundraiser for him and you get 10% of the funds you raise.

So you actually have an incentive to go out and ask your friends to donate to Vivek. I think he's done a lot of interesting things. I'm not sure, and I think you probably agree, Chris, that he's qualified to be President of the United States yet.

Is he going to play a very important role? I think he's someone who certainly could be in the cabinet, is probably on the list of vice-President nominees, but we're just not at that point yet. Right now, we're at the point of who's going to win the primary and you got to wait and see. Some of these candidates have to decide, are they actually going to take on Donald Trump? So far, the only two that have, Ron DeSantis, who has fallen apart since then, I'm not saying it's totally over for him, but it seems like it is, and Chris Christie, who has no chance of being the nominee on any paper.

So 1-800-68-431 tend to talk to us, but I mean, Logan, that's the thing. It seems like there's a lot of people running for VP. Yeah, absolutely. Especially the ones, like you said, that aren't necessarily going after President Trump the way you would if you were really to win. They're just not quite doing it, and you know those people are being careful because unlike, I'd say, even some of the previous Presidential campaigns where VP was picked from one of the people running against them, where even if it got nasty at the end of the day, all is forgiven and move on.

President Trump's not really like that in that sense of if you're going to go crazy nasty against him, there's a good chance you don't get that position. So let's go ahead. Let's go to Jeff, who's calling in North Carolina. Hey, last chance, if you want to be on the air, you can give us a call right now. 1-800-68-431 last chance of the day. 1-800-68-431 last chance of the day. 1-800-68-431. Jeff, welcome.

Hey guys, how are you? I wanted to very quickly say that it looks to me like the DeSantis campaign is over and I'm on the Trump train and we need Trump badly right now. I think, listen, that may have been a miscalculation by the DeSantis people. They didn't realize how strong the support still was for the majority of Republican voters for this primary. That they weren't too tired of Trump after six years, that in fact they thought he was wronged and they want him back and that so far, through all of the controversies, through all the indictments, they're sticking with him. I think if you had four years of a relatively quiet Democratic presidency, maybe you had a better chance of a DeSantis.

But when you see the difference between when he left office, even during COVID, I mean, he would turn the hardest of times on our history, our current generation's history, compared to where things are now, it feels pretty drastic. And I think people do see, well, at least we know what we're getting ourselves into with President Trump. Again, we are wrapping up today's show, but we are talking about not only this and not only how we can get involved, but you can also get involved by just going to our website. I think you need to go to ACLJ.org and check out all the incredible content. Obviously, we're encouraging people to donate right now during this matching challenge, but every day there are brand new articles and videos and content that we are just continually updating by our incredible staff here at ACLJ.org. And some of those include people like Mike Pompeo, Rick Grenell, Tulsi Gabbard, who are on there and they're commentating on what we're doing here and really good content. So go to our website, go to ACLJ.org, go to that page, obviously support the work if you can, but also just look at the vast amount of content that we're providing you and information, because I think you'll be surprised and you're really, it's not just a one hour broadcast that we do here every day.

It is so much more, whether that's with ACLJ, Jordan, or with ACLJ Action or some upcoming projects that we have yet to announce that we're looking forward to. Yeah. Did you see over the weekend, the Turning Point Action Conference with Tucker interviewing some of the candidates? Well, I watched the highlights, yeah. Did you believe some of them went? Yeah, they went and really stepped at it, if you will. I mean, they didn't even answer the questions. I mean, they knew what they were getting themselves into. You know the audience that you're serving there. I don't really understand it when there was a Mike Pence or some of these who just kind of took a different, I mean, they went away that I think you got to read the room and I don't understand why.

Or don't go to the room. Yeah. You know, it was weird. DeSantis didn't go. Yeah.

He was actually in Nashville. Yeah. You know, I think that there's, he's probably smart in some sense.

You, all because the only things I saw clipped out were negative. Yeah. So much so that I saw Mike Pence actually posted like a full length of something from it to try to be like, it wasn't all bad. Like you could tell that. Yeah. Because what was circulating online was just those few minutes of peril, if you will. Yeah.

I mean, 85% of the attendees support Donald Trump in the poll that they took there. I mean, when you have the head of turning point, Charlie Kirk coming out and being like, he's full blown, been endorsing President Trump for years now saying there's no other choice. Why are you, why are you putting yourself through that? Why do this? Yeah.

Why take the time to just get beat up? I mean, I think some of this is just bad campaign decision. And that's kind of what Trump said about why would I do the debate? If I'm leading by 50 points. He still, he hasn't said a hundred percent no, but it's looking that way. Yeah.

He said Ronald Reagan didn't do it when he had this kind of lead. No, because why do you, you're going to go. And the only thing they're going to do is attack you. The moderators are going to attack you and the other people on the stage are going to attack you. So, and you're not going to get as much time as they want is the positive.

Yeah. In fact, you could probably host your own event, which he's thinking about and might be able to get more viewers to that counter-programming that's what he's thinking about. All right, folks support the work of the ACLJ ACLJ.org. We bring you all this analysis because you have great team that you make possible ACLJ.org donate today. Talk to you tomorrow.