BIG 2024 Trump Win in Michigan — Another One Bites the Dust

This is Logan Sekulow. Another one bites the dust.

The big 2024 Trump victory in Michigan. 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, Logan Sekulow. This is Logan Sekulow joining me also. Will Haynes, executive producer of the Sekulow broadcast, sitting in for my dad and brother today. We're going to talk a lot about big victories that are coming out.

Well, right now we got a big break-in one in the Trump world. So we're going to talk about that. Following up, I don't know if you've heard about what was going on. Is it in Iowa or Idaho?

Iowa. There was a statue built, a monument built, if you will, temporary monument built to the church of Satan with a goat head man creature. And someone took the law into their own hands. We're going to talk about that coming up. I want to get your feelings on it. Obviously, we're all for religious freedom and freedom of speech, but you know what?

Sometimes people take it too far, I guess, if you want to say that. We're going to talk about that coming up as well. If you want to call in, I'd love to hear from you as we are in the spirit of giving here at the end of the year. It is the Faith and Freedom Year-End Drive. I want to know why you support the work of the ACLJ right here.

Give me a call 1-800-684-3110. And if you have a question or comment, I'm happy to take it. We will also be joining you later on today hosting the Sean Hannity Show, the radio show. It'll be not just me, and I'm sure you'll hear from Will, but it'll be my dad and brother that will be hosting that as well live. So we'll make sure you tune into that.

It's going to be a really interesting broadcast packed with a lot of great guests. But let's start off with what this big win is. Will the Trump world know if their people are on Rumble?

If they are on YouTube, they saw the title pop up. This is not the same big win, by the way, from yesterday. So the hits keep coming and they don't stop coming. As they say. As they say.

Tell me what it is. So this is in the state of Michigan. So it'll be a swing state in the 2024 election, but this was another challenge to President Trump being on the ballot under the 14th amendment. And this was Robert Davis versus the Wayne County Election Commission and also Robert LeBrant at all versus Jocelyn Benson, the secretary of state. And we filed in this lawsuit an amicus representing 15 different state Republican parties.

We represented Michigan, Oklahoma, Colorado, West Virginia, Wyoming, Kansas, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Georgia, Delaware, Maine, Idaho, Rhode Island and Ohio in this brief. Now, this was an appeals court brief. It had already won at the lower court, keeping President Trump on the ballot.

But the three judge panel in the appeals court here in Michigan unanimously decided that they should not be removing Donald Trump from the primary ballot for this upcoming primary season. This is another victory. I don't think the left and those that are in the Republican side that have maybe been supporting some of these lawsuits have won a single one in court. And everywhere we have engaged, we have won.

Yeah, undefeated right now. But look, it has to keep going. This is not the end. Just because you have a victory here could take it up the Supreme Court. Then look, it could go the more states that get together on this.

It could go higher and higher. It is ridiculous that we have to be fighting this case. I think a lot of people feel that way when you have a situation where you are trying to keep someone off a ballot, specifically one who is maybe as divisive as President Trump, but also someone who was a former President of the United States.

It does feel ridiculous. And look, I truly believe, I wish Democrats and Republicans look, because we're seeing it right now a bit with the impeachment stuff, would just look at their own history and go, do you really want this to happen when the tide turns? Because as we know, I mean, in our entire lifetime, it is pretty much ping pong back and forth between Republican and Democrat presidencies. And the Senate and the House have switched almost every other time. I mean, there's been very rare occurrences where you've had a string of somebody from the same party politically back to back. The only one we had maybe in our life was Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. And that's one term.

And then it's been ping ponging back and forth ever since. So do you really want this to be your legacy also? And really, do you want the tide to be turned against you?

And that's what we're seeing right now with the sort of trivialization of impeachment. We're taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. But today is a big day as we are officially halfway through our faith and freedom here in Drive. And we're only about a quarter of the way to our goals. We really could use your support. It is your support that keeps us in the fight. We've never had a busier December here at the ACLJ from either our work at the Supreme Court or obviously what's going on still in Israel. We're going to continue to discuss that. We can urgently need your tax deductible support though right now as your gifts are all doubled for this month.

Go to ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Again, Logan Sekulow here. We're discussing the big win.

This is midway through December, by the way. We are live. I want you to know that. So give me a call if you can. 1-800-684-3110.

I'd love to hear from you. Well, we are winning around the country in these. And this one came out just in the last 24 hours since we've been on the air, which is the 14th Amendment. Well, I want you to know the ACLJ, we have a list of representation. We've already won. And of course, when we say win, I do want to clarify we're winning them at the court, different court levels.

So obviously you're going to work your way up. So there's a chance that these end up at the Supreme Court, state Supreme Courts, and who knows where it could go from there. But there is a chance that that happens. So even when there's these big victories, that doesn't mean it's over because, well, maybe that's just how our system is set up. But right now we've already won now on appeal in Colorado. We've won straight up Michigan, Minnesota, and Oklahoma. We've intervened in pending litigation in West Virginia, Virginia, and Wyoming. This one's a long list. This is where we're representing the state Republican parties that are obviously in support of having President Trump on the ballot.

That's Oklahoma, Colorado, West Virginia, Kansas, Wyoming, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Delaware, Georgia, Nebraska, Maine, Idaho, Rhode Island, and Ohio. So a huge list right there of people who want our ACLJ representation. We can't do that without you. We had a comment come in from Flo on Rumble, who said they are wasting money and time, pay back all the spent money on these witch hunts. Look, it is expensive. It's expensive to even do the work that we're doing. I hope you guys understand that we don't do anything on the cheap in the sense of we're getting the best of the best. I want the best attorneys on this.

I want the best media people on this. But we can't do that without your support because we do offer these legal services at no cost. So when you offer them at no cost, there's someone who has to fit that bill at some point. We do, and we can't do it without you though, our ACLJ supporters and our ACLJ champions.

Those who give one-time gifts are those that give on a monthly recurring basis. We're going to talk about that a lot more later on because we are still in the middle of that faith and freedom year-end drive. But Will, I know that there's more you want to discuss on this.

Will Barron Right. Well, and it plays off of what you were saying is that while these are big victories and they're, to some degree, some unexpected victories because we won at the, both the lower court and the appellate, well, it went straight to the Supreme Court in Colorado. So we won at the lower court level where we didn't expect to necessarily win there.

And some of these were at states that lean blue. And so maybe they have some judges that aren't as conservative. They cherry picked some of these jurisdictions where to file these cases based off of the judges they could be pulling and things of that nature. So while it is a little bit unexpected and big victories to be racking up legal victories as we go along, it's not over because this Michigan victory was at the appeals court after winning at the lower court, now the appeals court, it will most certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court of Michigan. We have the case we're waiting for. The oral argument was last week in Colorado, where if it wins or loses there, you can expect it to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court. So that's really the last stop is these are going to go up and then after there's exhausted the level of state courts, then they will be appealed to the United States Supreme Court. So the fight isn't over, but winning these victories and getting good opinions on the side of people's right to vote for the candidate of their choice is vitally important. And that's why we have to start at the lower court levels, at the district court levels in many of these places and work our way up fighting for people's right to vote.

And also this is what came out of the opinion. There's another level of caution here too, where we think, okay, for this primary fight, it may be over soon, but some of these judges are giving a little wiggle room that if they were to bring a suit again, once a candidate is chosen. So they did say the Michigan Supreme Court, while saying that the secretary of state has no discretion to decide whether or not to place President Trump or any other candidate identified as a primary candidate by the state political party on the ballot, that's a big win because we know the secretary of state in Michigan was wanting to unilaterally make the decision under the 14th amendment to not place him on the ballot.

But where the caution comes in, and this is a direct quote from the opinion, which was unanimous, it would be improper to decide whether to grant a declaration that Trump is disqualified from holding office of the President of the United States at this time. At the moment, the only event about to occur is the Presidential primary election. So we're not at the stage where many people are filing a lawsuit about the general election. And now that's where this fight could resurface next summer, as we're heading into the general election. If President Trump is the Republican nominee for President, then are all these groups and all this time we've spent then going to refile in all these jurisdictions, especially ones like Michigan, where they give you a little bit of wiggle room that there could be another case coming. So you better believe that the ACLJ will be ready for that fight. We will be representing parties that have interest in that as we go forward and we'll continue this battle as it goes on. But that is what comes at great cost to the ACLJ is a good victory for the American people.

I think the answer is yes. I mean, what's going to happen is you're going to see all of these really conveniently timed situations happen throughout the next year. As we turn over to 2024, I'm happy that this episode of Sekulow, December 15th, here we are, is able to be a little bit more light. We're able to tell you there's a victory. We're living in a kind of dark and heavy time. We're going to talk a little more about our movie coming up.

We're going to talk about sort of this statue of Satan that was destroyed and discuss that a little bit because it's a little fun. It's a little goofy to discuss, but also because we know coming up 2024 is going to be a really hectic time for people. You know, when people are here interviewing for jobs, we're telling them that too, which is, are you prepared for what the next 12 months is going to look like? Because mentally, physically, emotionally, it is going to get crazy. And we have to be prepared for that. And look, I don't want that to be the case. I'd love for it to be a nice, fun political season like any other one, but it's simply not there.

The world does not feel that way right now. You're going to have more than likely a Biden versus Trump rematch. I mean, I think that unless some medical emergency happens, that that is going to be the, it's almost the shoe-in bet right now. You know, things could change.

We're less than a month away, a couple of weeks away from the Iowa caucuses. Stuff can happen. But right now, if you're betting on it, obviously I think most people would be betting on that. No?

I don't know. See, I think that within the primary season on the Republican side, yes, I do agree with you. I do think that President Trump will be the nominee. I do think there are big questions surrounding Joe Biden being the nominee for the Democrats. I think that it's, as you see these poll numbers come out in states like Michigan, in states like Georgia, where President Trump has a double-digit lead over Joe Biden, I could see the Democrat party, which has a completely different process than the Republicans, they have the super delegates, which have a lot more weigh in on who becomes the final nominee, could revolt if the polling continues in a disastrous level. Now, you see things like the Federal Reserve announcing this week that we're going to not raise rates again and, hey, look out for some fun surprises in 2024.

You're going to have some, you're going to have all that happen. That could boost poll numbers for him. But as of right now, I think there is probably a lot of turmoil within the Democrat party, especially the leadership on the party side, where the super delegates reside, whether or not Joe Biden is the right candidate for them. So I think that, yeah, it probably is a solid bet that Donald Trump will, barring some unforeseen circumstance, will be the nominee for the Republicans. But I don't know that you can say with as much certainty that Joe Biden will be that nominee when we get to the convention next end of summer. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, we'll see what plays out. I tend to believe that there is that want to that to happen. I even think Democrats want it to happen, but I don't see President Biden just casually going into the night and just saying, thank you, I'm done here.

He's waited his whole life to be the President of the United States. But that's where the party bosses come in. Yeah, I know. We'll see. We'll see. It could be nasty.

It could be, but either way, it's going to be a crazy year. And look, we even designed this office. I know it's something that you guys may not know, but if you walk through this media headquarters, you're going to, you would notice that it has, it doesn't have a heavy vibe.

It's got some silliness to it. It's got a lot of windows, very bright. It's a colorful environment. We did that intentionally because we know that the topics that the ACLJ team has to work on each and every day, whether that's right now, what's happening in Israel, whether that's the fight for life, by the way, which is a heavy, probably the heaviest topic, a brutally heavy topic that you have to deal with and put on your own conscience, or whether that is pretty much every topic we deal with.

None of them are just casual or comforting. We're going out there so you don't have to, but we create an environment that's very light and colorful and fun because we know there has to be some sort of counterbalance there. And we hope that this episode today of Psych Hilo can do that for you as we head into the Christmas season, as we head into, not Christmas season, we do Christmas, 10 days till Christmas. I know it doesn't feel that way for a lot of people, but we're only 10 days till Christmas. And then heading into 2024, which unfortunately could be just an incredibly chaotic time. And I'm already seeing how that's going to play out with friends and family who are concerned with our nation's future, are concerned about just the political upheaval that can happen.

If a President Trump was to win or was to lose, because they know what that can mean for their relationships with their friends and with their family and all that, but that's why the ACLJ is here. We're here to help support you through this. And today, like I said, is a big day because we are officially halfway through this faith and freedom year-end drive.

December is incredibly important right now, and every gift matters. So whether you can give $5 once or $500 a month, you can do that right now at ACLJ.org. Many of you have said that you want to become ACLJ champions, thousands of you that said, I will give on a recurring basis. We appreciate that. All you have to do is go to ACLJ.org slash faith and freedom.

Do that right now. We'll be right back with more on Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow.

It is the holiday season and whoop-de-doo and just giving it up. And don't worry, they built a statue to Satan in the middle of the Iowa, Iowa State Capitol. And look, I got a lot of feelings on this because sure, there is part of me that is very much for religious expression. It's what we do here. It's part of our core. Look, you can maybe blame us a little bit for this because we've always been out there fighting for your rights to have your religious displays, whether that is in a public place or whether that is privately on private land. This one has gone to become an interesting story. And that is that they built during the Christmas season. I think that to me is maybe the part of this that's getting a little lost.

Sure, do they meet the requirements? But they built a statue of Satan, I guess what you'd say. He has a name.

Baphomet is the name, right. It's a goat head person and it is terrifyingly weird. And that's also, I think probably part of it is going, well, there is sort of a time and place situation of, is this appropriate during Christmas season? Do you have to put up a church of Satan when you have a Jesus display? But that to me wasn't the kind of the ridiculous part that came out of this.

There's obviously been that discussion. And look, it is part of the problem. The blessing and the curse of being a conservative is the rationality and going... The blessing being Christmas, the curse being satanic. I believe you should have freedom of expression. You should be able to actually be able to promote whatever religious expression you would like.

I believe in freedom of speech pretty much with very little other than, depending on the audience, obviously if it's for children or something with very little censorship. However, this is not, I don't think a very appropriate time for Christmas, but the main thing that happened was overnight. And whether you call him a hero or not, I'm just going to let you all decide this, the display was destroyed in quotes beyond repair. The headline I woke up to was that the Satan statue had been beheaded. And I mean, it's pretty hysterical in some ways. You don't want to encourage bad behavior.

You don't want to encourage people to come in and disrupt, especially this. But did it really make me that upset that a former military man, 35 years old, Michael Cassidy came in and destroyed this satanic temple's representation? Maybe not. The symbolism behind beheading Satan was not lost on many people. I mean, the statue, the head was removed and thrown in the trash with some of the reports I saw. The veteran was, he was arrested. Actually, it said he turned himself into the police.

So he vandalized it, but then turned himself into the police. And he's been charged with a kind of a reckless type, not endangerment. It's fourth degree mischief. Mischief. That's it, criminal mischief. Which is what I charge my children with, I think, all the time. It's like, oh, what you're getting into? I don't know what it means though. The charge in Iowa, it's essentially like a vandalism or a disruptive type charge.

It can carry with it up to a year in jail and it's like a $2,500 fine plus court fees and things of that nature. I would assume a veteran, if no prior, any sort of priors or prior criminal activity, probably is not spending a year in jail for the beheading of Satan, but that will then go onto the court process. What do you guys think about this? Put in the comments on rumble, because I think that's mainly what we have to do here.

Put in the comments on rumble or on YouTube or Facebook and give me a call. I just want to get sort of like public opinion here and not public opinion on, do you agree with a Satan statue being erected in your town square or in your state capital? I think probably the majority of our audience would go, no, I'm not really down with that. Not really down for a Satan statue anywhere.

But what about the legality here? What about the law saying that for us to say, hey, we want to have a nativity scene, if we want to have a cross or we want to have a cross display during Easter, is there some time, place, situations where you go, well, we wouldn't want to interfere here? Because obviously they probably have a menorah, I would assume, with Hanukkah ending last night. They have a nativity scene or some kind of religious situation here. I don't like that there are people erecting Satan statues. And I honestly think with the Church of Satan, if you've done any real research on them, it's not really what you think of it as. It's not necessarily like the devil worship. It's more in the sense that it's more... It's more earth worship.

Earth nature worship. Yeah. And it's more a counterbalance.

It's more to say... It is anti-Christian, I would say that. A hundred percent.

A hundred percent. It's made essentially to be provocative. You wouldn't have a goat-headed devil statue as your main mascot. With a pentagram and closed in red velvet. There are probably, weirdly to say, probably some kind of time or place appropriate Satanist displays.

You could have a tree for all I care. But this one is something that your kids would walk by and be scared of. And they also called it an altar. So it's a little different than... You're making a place of worship.

Right. You're inside the Capitol making a... An altar is a place where worship occurs. It's not just a statue or a sign or something in that manner.

The entire purpose of it is to provoke and to upset those that are celebrating Christmas. Now, that statue will no longer be in there. I think there's also something to be said about the fact that after committing what was a violation of the law, that the veteran... He said he was following his conscience and he also turned himself in to the police. So this wasn't... Now a manhunt underway for the person who beheaded Satan.

What a story. But I have to say, this hasn't been something that has gone unnoticed in politics. You even had comments from Governor Ron DeSantis coming out, not only saying, sure, he condemns there even being this, but blaming the Trump administration...

Trying to flip it on him. Blaming the Trump administration for granting... The IRS granting nonprofit church status, religious organization status to the Church of Satan. Now, first of all, if we've learned anything about the IRS is that they're marching to the beat of their own drum and not necessarily taking orders from the top unless it's a Democrat.

Yeah. But is it not surprising that the IRS gave carte blanche, no investigation, no auditing of your return to the Church of Satan? Now, if you were Tea Party... Yeah, exactly. Somewhat I'm like, maybe that's a good thing. I don't necessarily want them judging my religious speech either.

I want the IRS getting involved in what defines me as a church. Right. So I guess I'm not that as opposed to it as Ron DeSantis, but he was able to come up with a way to flip it on and make it a stump speech kind of moment, which I think he said in a debate. I think it did come up randomly, one of those ones where he was just yelling and then said, and then President Trump. Yeah.

He gave IRS status to the nonprofit status. The church was saying, it's a ridiculous time, guys. Honestly, should this be where our energy is going? No. Do I condemn acts of vandalism? Sure.

But I really think we need to definitely look at sort of the core of our being in some ways and the core of the rotten society as well. Right. Look, I'll say this. I got...

It's Christmas time. There's a lot going on. There's a lot of vandalism happening in your streets, a lot of vandalism happening in your neighborhoods.

There's a cultural rot happening throughout society in areas that you never would expect. And I want to hear from you about it. 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110. Some interesting calls are coming in. I look forward to taking some of these.

So give me a call. We're also going to be talking about our film, Jingle Smells, brand new Christmas movie, available right now on Rumble, Voodoo, and on DVD. And you can find those all really easily by just going to jinglesmells.movie. It's our new Christmas, family Christmas movie with big heart, big laughs, and you're going to love it. And it's a great way to support the ACLJ as well and our new endeavor.

So go to jinglesmells.movie for that. Of course, it is the end of our Faith and Freedom drive. We're halfway through. Be a part of it today. We're back for a second half hour of Sekulow coming up. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.

Seeing your comments file in. A lot of people watched our new movie, Jingle Smells, so I appreciate that. Our big Christmas comedy featuring people like John Schneider and Eric Roberts and incredible cast, James Storm, Brad Stein, all of us involved in it, Victoria Jackson and Jim Brewer. We're going to have John Schneider on later today. I believe Schneider's going to be joining Hannity also later on. So make sure you tune in to that. We're going to be hosting the Sean Hannity radio show today. So from, what is it, three to six?

Three to six Eastern time. That's right. So you have three more hours of fantastic Sekulow time. I won't be on this side. I'm sure you'll hear your voice. Perhaps.

Perhaps. So it'll be me, Jordan, and my dad will be joining you for that. So wherever you get Hannity, you'll find us there for another three hours talking about all things, what's going on in the news, as well as the work of the ACLJ and of course our movie, Jingle Smells. Let's go ahead and take some phone calls. I'm going to first start with some comments about what we were just talking about, which is this statue of Satan that was erected in the state capital of Iowa. Right. The hotbed of Satanism. It seems like, you know, just exactly where you think that would be. Let's go ahead and take a call from Joe who's calling from New York.

You're on the air. Thank you for taking my question. Is the beheading of the devil statue any different than the destruction of our past President and other statues being defiled? Probably under the law, no, because it's still an act of vandalism. Now, the value of the destruction may come into play there where it may be an elevated crime. But your point is taken, Joe, that there was a lot of statue defacing during the riots of 2020 that we saw, things of that nature.

It's still ongoing and you typically never see... But they're also not taking credit for it. They are typically wearing a mask of some sort and in a mob of people, whereas this veteran turned himself in and released a statement about his conscience. But I also think that probably the left would equate Columbus, Lincoln, and Jefferson with the devil. So they probably think the statues are very similar there as well.

Yeah, just a couple of different statements just to know what it is. We're gonna continue to take your calls. 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110. Let's hear from Joanne who's calling, or Joan, sorry, in Ohio. Line one, you're on the air.

Hi, guys. Never in a million years did you think you'd even have to consider this. I mean, and the left keeps doing these things to promote more legislation. But maybe we just need to start passing some laws that says, you know what, you can do this, but you're not gonna do it in our time. If it's Christmas, if it's Hanukkah, if it's Passover, if it's Easter, you know, lay off. You wanna do it some other time, limit the amount of time you can keep your displays up, because let's face it, Christmas and Hanukkah displays aren't up year round, and just do it. But I mean, we shouldn't have to.

They keep doing these different things to promote more control. The Church of Satan lists their holidays under a section on their website, Blessed Be the Satanic Holidays. Some of these holidays, I cannot pronounce the word. Well, I can't pronounce you not to, because it may summon some sort of... That's fair.

I'll try not to. But they do say that December 25th is Sol Invictus, which is a ancient Roman holiday to the cult of Sol. There has been a lot of those discussions, whether a lot of... Look, we can just be honest with the situation. A lot of Christian holidays were sort of taking back some of the occultist holiday timeline, whether that is Christmas or Easter. A lot of these were used in really to kind of try to... Especially during the Reformation and things like... Not the Reformation, but the sort of redemption of the people, I would say. A lot of those timelines were made to get rid of the pagan festivals. The pagan and the cults that were happening.

So that's tougher, but I do think that maybe you're right. Right now we could say America celebrates Christmas and Hanukkah pretty aggressively. So maybe you could say there's an argument for when it's appropriate, when it's not. I also think what is appropriate. And I don't think a scary goat-headed pentagram statue is appropriate. That's an altar. That's an altar to the devil. I just don't think that is.

I think you could probably come up with something that is visually, and your kid's not going to walk by it and scream like they're in a crappy haunted house. Okay, give me a call. 1-800-684-3110. Coming up next, writer of Jingle Smells, Bart Scott's going to be joining us. We're going to have a lot of fun coming up, so stay tuned.

Welcome back to Secula. We are talking about a few different topics, but right now we want to focus on our new holiday Christmas. It's a Christmas movie. I don't want to say holiday because maybe the Church of Satan will be like, oh, it's one of ours. Well, we weren't represented. There's no Satan in it. Not much. Not much.

How do you know? Oh, well, we got Bart Scott joining us. Really, the writing force behind this movie. It has been so much fun to tell you all about it, but also it has been a process that Bart and I and the three of us have been working on for really the last almost three years. Three years. When they say that about making movies, you'll hear that on like behind the scenes like, well, we came up with this idea a decade ago and then it got made.

It's been a cool process. Yes. I mean, it's an unbelievable story for us that we kind of thought, well, it's not going to happen. Put it in the virtual drawer. Yeah, it got put on the shelf, as they say. And then just out of the blue, one day it was alive again. Yeah.

It crept out like Baphomet. Oh, no. Don't say that.

Don't say that. We have to take a sword to it. Which actually that story.

Or just tackle it. It did kept saying decapitated. And in my head, he did walk in like with like a Marine sword. Yeah. And just, you know, like that old Adley sword.

That would be so cool. But it wasn't that. I think it was he just pushed it over and the paper mache head fell off. Yeah. The disco ball. Disco devil. This one was.

Disco devil. All right. Back to our movie. Yeah. So Bart and I, I remember I texted Bart three years ago when after I threw a garbage bag over my shoulder and my kids laughed, I said, ho, ho, ho.

And I said, what if there's something that's about a Garbage Man Santa or what could it be? And then it developed and it really started developing. At the same time, we saw a lot of the cancel culture stuff start kind of percolating. We started to see those stories of toys being pulled from the shelves because the celebrities said something that, not even the audience, that an executive disagreed with. And there is that story. It's kind of like, well, when the Super Bowl happens and all the t-shirts show up and you're like, what happened to the t-shirts of the other team that lost?

And a lot of those, a lot of those we know get donated, but then for a while, a lot of those legitimately just got sent to a landfill and destroyed. So we developed a story and it was a wonderful script. And we were able to also take real life events to place you in this, though it has a lot of Christmas whimsy, as people said, like it's got that sort of Christmas magic in it. It still deals with important topics and our characters also are, most of the main characters are vets.

Yeah, that's true. And it sort of, it all just happened organically. We didn't sit out.

I don't think we set out to say, well, it needs to be about that. It was kind of just what was happening around us. And also we got to work in some of our nerdy obsessions like toys and action figures, and it all just kind of gelled together and it worked. It really was, it's the first movie I've ever written, but of all the other things I've written, this one came kind of the easiest, the most natural.

And of course it went through a few permutations in the editing process and whatever, but it just came together really smoothly. Yeah, and one of the things that did get changed, because we wrote this three years ago, we were the main character, Nick, who's played by Ben Davies from The Daily Wire and from Courageous and a lot of great movies, a lot of great faith-based movies. The character was a Afghanistan or Iraq, we're on terror veteran, but maybe a little bit further along in his life. Maybe we're replacing this character another 10 years. I think the original script I wrote him is closer to, I would say our age, but we are a few years apart, but an older character.

Yeah, someone in their 40s. And the character who became his father was his army buddy, you know. And then times changed and we had just a couple years ago, and we did a documentary series on it on the botched withdrawal in Afghanistan. And when we were discussing where this script could come, because the director, Daniel, he came to us with a crew ready to go in New Mexico and said, what do you got?

And this was sitting on the shelf. And we dusted it off and go, well, how can we give this a new kind of coat of paint and bring things to change some cultural references and that kind of thing? And one of it was, what if we placed this character as someone who is dealing with the fallout of being there, being in Bagram Air Force Base during the withdrawal from Afghanistan and what that would do to people. And we actually got to talk to some real people that served in Afghanistan. We had great military consultants and we discussed the feelings and the emotions that they went through. And coming home, what that looked like, because it was different than the sort of traditional hero's welcome that a lot of people had because of how crazy it got. So we wove a lot of that into the script, though it's done in a way that if you are watching with your family, you're not going to be inundated with war footage. I want to make sure people know that there's no real inherent violence in this movie. There's some discussion of what was seen, but in a way that if you have small children, they're not really going to follow.

And if you have older children, it gives you an opportunity to have that discussion with them. And though this movie is on its, I would say the packaging is this silly Christmas comedy. If you open up the package, there's some real meat and real heart there.

Anna on Rumble said, we saw jingle smells over the weekend. It was funny and I enjoyed it and it was perfect for the whole family. And I think that does go to your point that it's not just all fluff. There are deep discussions about faith, about patriotism, about how to treat veterans and what they're dealing with and just kind of eye opening experience of the struggle that many veterans face on a level that is by far appropriate for all family audience. But if there are questions that are asked, it can be taken to that level of there are many veterans in this country that are suffering greatly because of the sacrifice that they gave. And so I think that it brings up the opportunity for the family to sit around and have a good time, but also not just be like, well, that was fluff.

We just watched whatever Christmas film and it has no real meat to it. There's a lot of really positive conservative and Christian discussions that can come out of this. Yeah, I think when we were writing it, we were working on it, one of the things was, yes, it's got a silly title, but even that title comes in at a point where it's someone being essentially bullied and having it turned on them and turning their bullying into something heroic.

There's a lot of great, great messages here. And when people watch it, they may see jingle smells and giggle. And that was the point. Does it make your family giggle? Do they want to watch it when they hear that title?

And our hope is yes. We hope that's better than them seeing something that's like this movie is about someone getting canceled and all this. It doesn't come off inherently political, if you will. What it does though, is it packs a lot of comedy in it, but also it just tells a great story. And like, I think some of you should touch on Bart, is it, it is a movie that you can watch with your family, but it's not a children's movie.

Right. And it's not, I mean, I was sitting there thinking that, and I've thought that as I've, you know, we've all, the three of us have watched it probably 7,028 times, but even in the most recent viewings, I'm like, you know, the one thing I don't often pat myself on the back, you know, but I think we, even though it's, I see it as kind of a fable, even the issues that we bring up are brought up in conversation. It's very real. So it's not, so to your point, it's a, it's a movie, it's a family movie. It's appropriate for, from kids to grandparents and beyond, but it's never like sometimes as parents, you know, we have to sit through some rough watches, you know, like this is horrible, but this, I don't think this ever, it's never, I don't think it ever gets too corny. I mean, there's a few jokes that I purposely was like, okay, this is a dad joke, but let's leave it in, but let's leave it in, you know, but, and it also, I don't think we ever hit anybody over the head, you know, we purposely made a point to make even some, to add some levity, even to the issues, like, you know, why he gets canceled, you know, which I've seen a handful of the, of the critical reviews and be like, well, this is ridiculous that he got canceled for this. I'm like, is it though? Yeah, he gets canceled.

Look online. He gets canceled for the big Hollywood celebrity who gets canceled. His toys get pulled on the shelves says, God bless America and may he protect our troops, which is again, inherently supposed to be satire, supposed to be funny as we're telling the story. However, look at like a Chris Pratt, look at these guys who legitimately are just like supporting the military, putting up a cross in Easter and they're getting just destroyed in the press.

I mean, sure. The box office says otherwise because actually we know the audience, but in terms of people calling for their quote unquote cancellation, it's nonstop for doing very, very little. And that's the point. And even when they explain it in the movie, they completely twist and manipulate what really happened. Oh, he was waving a loaded weapon and shouting, you know, whatever offensive statement. And that was actually, I will say, we'll pull back the curtain a little bit. That was Logan's addition to make it a bow.

So it's even more ridiculous, you know, in my, in my mind, it was a shotgun cause they're on a hunting trip, but to tone down the violence and make it more ridiculous, we made it a bow. Yeah. And then some people are putting, they wrote reviews on IMDb. I encourage you to do that by the way, we got kind of review bombed by let's just say the hardcore liberals. And we, we learned also a lot of people, not in this country and guess where this movie is not available in the countries that we're getting hit by.

So you know what? I'm not someone who personally typically goes on the IMDb and gives a rating review review, but I'm encouraging you to do that because it does help us. The movie is available right now.

I want to tell you that it is available in three different ways, but they're all simply at jinglesmells.movie. Again, an incredible cast. We got to work with John Schneider from the Duke's Ads or speaking of bow and to just have him work to work with him.

It's just amazing. We got to work with Academy award nominee, Eric Roberts. We got to work with Victoria Jackson, Jim Brewer from SNL with Brad Stein, great comedian, Dylan Hornswoggle Postel and James Storm, great professional wrestlers who have made the leap into acting. An incredible list of other people, including all of us and Bart and Will both have heck of a scene. People that say their favorite scenes are the scenes with these two guys. And I was there for those scenes. I was there for every day pretty much, but I was there for those two scenes and they are so incredibly well-written and so incredibly performed. And if you're going to cry, it's going to be in one of their scenes. I won't say which one. Well, it is my favorite moment just because we get to be back.

We didn't plan that way, but here we are back to back. I see myself, which I hate, but then I see my buddy. He's great. It is a great moment in the movie.

jinglesmells.movie. We'll be right back with more. Welcome back. I almost did my whole intro.

I haven't done it in two years and I was triggered to almost do it. That was our whole theme song for the reprogramming. Maybe coming back.

Reprogram rebooted. Oh really? I mean, I'm just saying that right now out loud. Who knows? Oh, okay.

I was about to say you didn't tell me about that. Rebooted, but it's going to be a cowboy boot. It was Brooks and Dundon when they came back.

They were like rebooted. I loved it. What's your favorite Christmas song, Will? Favorite Christmas song, One More Sleep Till Christmas from Muppet Christmas Carol. Watch that last night with my fam.

I like the Wonderful Christmas Time by Paul McCartney. I mean, Silent Night, obviously goat. There's nothing. I'm talking about non-hams. Different kind of goat. Right. Greatest of all time. All right.

Goat status. All right. Let's go to Eric who's been on hold for a long time. Eric, I apologize for the wait, but you know what? Hopefully we can answer your question.

Go ahead. Hey, I was wondering, is there any possibility that they tie the Hunter Biden investigation to the classified documents found in his garage? Eric, I would think no because there actually are two different special counsels on this.

There's a Hunter and a Joe. Right. And the special counsel that is investigating Hunter Biden is based off finances. And the documents case is a completely different situation based off of the retention of documents post his vice presidency. So under the Obama administration that he kept that he was not authorized to have. And that special counsel is also kind of signaled already. They don't expect charges.

It would be something that they found within those documents that was unbelievable if for some reason the financial investigation into Hunter Biden got carried over into the document scandal. And I don't believe that that is gonna be the case, but it was an interesting question, Eric. Thank you for calling. Man, I was just...

Thank you, Eric. I was just flipping through some of the comments. A lot of... There's a whole discussion right now on there whether we should be celebrating Christmas in general. Oh, well, yes, we should.

Yeah. They don't know. Some people don't know. The birth of Christ. Because they're saying it's not in the Bible.

It literally is one of the key elements of... But the celebration isn't in the Bible. Right. I beg to differ.

Real time. I mean, shepherds show up and celebrate. Yeah, that's true. They bring gifts of the wise men. Now, the wise men later. Yeah, a couple years later.

The storybook version, they amalgamate them, but he was a little bit older when the wise men came. Yeah. But I'm pretty sure the celebration of the birth of Christ is pretty well given to us as an example in the Bible.

Direct your comments to Will. Yeah. I mean, you can come at me, but I do believe that it is completely appropriate... To celebrate the birth of Christ.

...at least within my theology to celebrate the birth of Christ, as well as when we celebrated Easter, that he has risen again. Why didn't you put that tree inside? What? Never mind. Moving on. Let's go to Anthony, who's calling in PA on line four.

You're on the air. Yeah. And people need to read their Josephus.

Nobody reads that anymore, so they don't know what happened back at TROBC. Go ahead with your comment. I'm gonna do some googling.

You guys know who Josephus was, right? Right. I hope so. Will. Will, discuss. Moving on. Well, he's telling us. Yeah. So go ahead.

Let's go ahead with your comment that you told our folks. How many states is this 14th Amendment going on? Sure. And if one goes to the Supreme Court, why wouldn't they all get lumped together? Because aren't they all essentially the same case? So... Yeah. We're talking state Supreme Court somewhat, too.

Right. There are 30 states that have some sort of legal challenge. Some are at the federal level. Some are in state courts. So that is where there's some discrepancy about where the litigation initiated.

But, for example, if Colorado... However, it's decided. So if we get the opinion within the next few days, as it is very likely that we'll get it very soon, whatever that decision is, that case, once it's out of the state system, so it's exhausted the appeals within the state court system, they can then take it on appeal to the US Supreme Court. So it doesn't have to go through the federal system at that point. It goes directly to the US Supreme Court. That is the likely outcome. And what the Supreme Court decides will be the law of the land or the interpretation of the law of the land for all of those other cases. So it will have a precedent-setting effect for all those other cases that can't conflict with the US Supreme Court's ruling.

The others may not make it up in time to be lumped together as in, like, Colorado and Oklahoma and all these at all versus the United States, but it is likely to have that same effect. All right. Let's continue on. Hopefully that answered your question. Let's go to Dan, who's calling from Washington State.

You're on the air. Hey, guys. Listen, I got a question. I don't understand why we're not using the strongest power of the United States, and that's the people through an initiative. We have an initiative power. You know, you have a Trump rally, you have everybody sign the initiative, and you get rid of these electronic voting machines. You know, you put on the terms and demands of the people. Dan, I don't disagree with you that there obviously can be discrepancies in terms of something digital, in terms of physical, but also fraud's going to fraud.

I mean, I'll be honest with you. Well, there's also a very potential pitfall with having something federalized. So we actually prefer the states to run their own elections. Now, you could, within individual states, get some sort of initiative passed. There are some states, I believe Oregon, or it may be Washington State where you are, Dan, only does mail-in voting.

They have no in-person voting at all. I don't like that, but that state does that, and they have their situation in place. I don't believe that I want the federal government, because the federal government tends to mess things up worse than they already are in many cases. I don't want the federal government to then take over the election, and that's what a lot on the left wants.

And so something like that initiative would then give the federal government more power, which wouldn't necessarily play well for conservatives in the future. Let's go to Ken in South Carolina. Hey, Nancy, I apologize. We're not going to be able to get you today, and thank you, though, for holding. Ken, you are on the air. Quickly, though. Yeah, I just want to thank you guys.

I've been a supporter. I wanted to make a comment. You asked about what we think should be done for the veteran that cut the head off of the Satan statue. I think we should add up all of the time that Hillary Clinton has served for her crimes, all of the time that the Biden family has served for their crimes.

Take the sum and divide by one million. Yeah, I think you're right. I think you know what? I think Ken's got the perfect solution. Yeah, that's how the court should decide on this.

10 times the amount if we want even. It is what it is. Ken, thank you. I couldn't think of a better way to wrap up today. We will be joining you later on Hannity, Sean Hannity's radio show. So if you get that in your local market, which if you get us, you likely do, or you just go to hannity.com. We're going to be broadcasting live there from three to six Eastern. Me, my dad, my brother are going to be having great guests on as well. So make sure you join us there live for three additional hours of we'll talk about ACLJ work. We'll talk about the breaking news happening, and we'll also discuss our movie jingle smells, which is available right now.

This is the halfway point to our faith and freedom drive. And I want to encourage everyone who's watching it. So many of you are watching right now, and I really appreciate that.

I know it's a little different when I'm hosting. So I'll first want to say thank you. I appreciate it. If you liked this broadcast or you like what we do here, if you like the work of the ACLJ, perfect time. Be a part of the ACLJ faith and freedom year end drive. Today's a big day again, halfway through at those 14th amendment cases. We got what's going on in Israel. Try to give you more light today, give you a little more joy heading into the Christmas season.

I wanted you to maybe smile a little bit today. And what could really help us out is to support the work of the ACLJ during this year end drive. And all donations are doubled. There's already incredible people ready to unlock their donation. If you donate $50, it becomes $100 as use for us. None of this is cheap.

None of this can be done for free. We can't do it without you. You can also just check that box, become an ACLJ champion. That's someone that's dedicated to supporting the work each and every month. I encourage you to do that today. Have your gift doubled and join the fight. If you can, this is a great time to do it. We'll be back later on on Shot Hand 80 radio. See you then.