BREAKING: Pres. Trump Expected to Appeal 2024 Ballot Challenges

This is Jay Sekulow breaking news. President Trump is expected to appeal the 2024 ballot challenge.

We're already at the Supreme Court for Colorado's Republican Party. Hey everybody, welcome to the broadcast and Happy New Year to everyone. We need to start and we're really grateful to our ACLJ members and donors from around the country that supported the work of the ACLJ, especially the last day of the year, which is our biggest day. We had an overwhelming response.

I mean, it was fantastic. We could not do it without you. It set up a scenario for the ACLJ with solid financial footing. So from all of us, thank you for your generous support to the work of the ACLJ.

We can't do any of this without you. And the fact is, we exceeded everything we anticipated. In fact, we were hoping for 18,500 ACLJ champions by the end of the year. We ended up, my last count was, which may be a little bit off after this morning, was 18,936. So we exceeded that by 400. Where that's important is our goal is to get that up to 30,000 by December of next year.

That really does give us a base of operation for a lot of the special projects, Logan, that we're engaged in. Yeah, and I think 2024 is going to be a great year, but also a year with a tremendous amount of work that's going to have to be done, whether that's in the law, whether that's in media or around the world, really. We know that heading into this year, it's not going to be easy, but thankfully, due to a lot of your support, look, we can be honest and truthful to people.

First quarter of last year was incredibly uncertain, and really first half of last year. And thankfully, our supporters were able to really turn it around and help the organization out, but also speed volumes to what they want us to be focused on in the new year. Also, the movie was out and did well, and we're happy about that as well. That was, again, we're trying to impact the culture as many places as we can.

Yeah, exactly. So we'd love to hear from you too. 1-800-684-3110. We're going to keep the conversation going. It's a new year. What would you like to see us focused on?

Any thoughts on that? 1-800-684-3110. Again, 1-800-684-3110. We have phone lines open right now.

This is a perfect time to call. I will tell you what we are focused on, and that is the Supreme Court of the United States. And the case that we have involving the Colorado Secretary of State removing candidates from ballots because she doesn't like them, or Maine, as happened last week, is now at the Supreme Court.

It's anticipated. We represent the Colorado GOP and a number of Republican parties around the country. It's anticipated right now that, in fact, the Trump legal team may be filing today, is expected to file their petition today. We did get notification, and we'll get into this more in the next segment of the broadcast, from the respondents, which is the group of lawyers, representatives from CREW, which is a more left-leaning electoral group. They are filing a response to our petition this afternoon. So, we're going to be doing briefs. We'll have to respond to that on Wednesday. Then the Trump campaign files, and then there'll be a response to that, although we're obviously on the same side, and we have a motion to expedite. And there is a conference.

We don't know if we're in it yet. There is a conference on Friday at the Supreme Court, and the conference is where they decide where they're going to take the case. So, I'll get you more into that in the next segment of the broadcast. As Logan said, we're taking your calls on the issues that matter most to you in 2024.

Whether it's election integrity, pro-life, religious freedom, free speech, Israel, whatever it might be, we want to hear from you. Phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110. I also want to say a special thank you to our ACLJ champions. You did report for duty, as so many of our callers said, and like I said, we were at a goal of 18,500. We hit 18,936 on our way to 30,000. You can be part of that team, by the way, just by agreeing to donate each and every month.

Go to ACLJ.org for that and become an ACLJ champion by hitting the monthly recurring donation. All right, folks, again, I want to start the broadcast off by thanking you. We could not do it without you. You came through in a huge way. Thank you so much from all of us, and that goes from the legal team to the production teams to the social media teams and our teams around the globe. We really appreciate your support of our work at the ACLJ. Thanks so much. ACLJ.org. Phone lines, 800-684-3110. Back with more in a moment.

Welcome back to SetKilla. We are taking your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110, really diving more into the current legal challenges based on the Colorado case. Well, that's because they're going to move very quickly, so let me give you a time frame of possibilities here. So we filed our petition for certiorari and motion for expedited review last Wednesday and Thursday. The respondents, which is the law firm is CREW, that's the public interest group that's representing the people that filed the suit to try to get Trump off the ballot, responded the next day, and they said that they are going to respond to us today. So we're expecting a response on the petition for certiorari and a motion for expedited review today from them. There's also, the thought is that the Trump campaign, which has not yet filed the Supreme Court, will be filing today. That's expected, and a motion to expedite as well. So, Andy, this case is already going to go out of the normal zone of response, because if this was the normal case, folks, it would not be argued until next, this coming October, which would be weeks before the general election.

That won't happen. I mean, it's going to move much, much quicker, how quick we're still looking at, but this is out of the normal flow right now. Yes, Jay, that's a good analysis, and it is a correct analysis. This is not the garden variety Supreme Court case. This is a case that involves the national interest, and it can create national havoc unless the Supreme Court comes in here and makes a decision with respect to whether President Trump can or should remain on the ballot in these various states. And there's a recipe for national disaster if the Supreme Court does not take it.

That's why I think the Supreme Court will take the case. We are preparing. Our response has been filed.

I think it was December 27, actually, Jay, that we filed on behalf of the Colorado State Republican Party asking for expedited review and for a petition for a writ of certiorari for the Supreme Court to review the Supreme Court of Colorado's ruling that effectively removed President Trump from the ballot. And we are monitoring this very carefully, and we're reacting as soon as things happen. So, you know, Logan, it is the conversation, just like going to restaurants, people are coming up to us and asking about this, so people understand what's at stake here. Yeah, they may not understand the details or even how it happened specifically, but they do understand that there are potential ramifications for it. I think first a lot of us laughed it off, and not necessarily laughed it off. We knew we'd have to file legally, but I think a lot of people, well, it's never going to make it out of these states.

Well, initially the Colorado court ruled on our family. Right, it just seems sort of like these rogue people coming up with some wild theory, and it wasn't going to happen, but of course all bets are off when it's President Trump, and you get the situation at hand. But it's not going to come easy.

A lot of attacks are coming. A lot of people who are not liking the fact that we're going to take it to the Supreme Court and say, look, you know, the Supreme Court knows, look, I think most American people know that this is ridiculous. You could be a fan of President Trump. You could be a fan of another Republican candidate. You could be a fan. You could be a Democrat for all it matters.

You could be someone supporting Joe Biden, and you at least have to be fair and look at this and go, this is not going to defuse the situation. I think that's what we're going to happen. 2024, I think one of our goals has to be to help defuse the country when at all possible, because it's not going to help. I went to a movie a couple nights ago and every trailer, I mean, legitimately every trailer was painting either Christians or conservatives in some sort of negative light. And you realize that's what's going to be rolling out spring, summer of next year. So you know what's coming.

And there is that sense of going, well, how do you how do you respond to this? Because, you know, look, I'm sitting in a movie theater, probably the reddest county in the country. The people there are not thrilled with this being every ad because you're sitting there going, OK, well, I'm the bad guy in this one. I'm the bad guy in this one.

I'm the bad guy in this one. Some of them are based on reality. Some are based on true stories. Some are completely fictitious. Some are Florida has caused a civil war. I mean, that's legitimately the movie this whole trailer for.

And what does that look like? It does look like a fun, well-produced movie, sure. But you know what the underlying message is. I think it's similar with this. This is not helping. This is not going to help the country heal.

This just makes everything worse. And I hate that because I think we want to head into a new year being hopeful, excited, looking forward to what could come. The election year is usually very exciting back pre 2020. I feel like even 2016, I'd be looking forward to this year as something fun. Elections are fun to me. I enjoy the political process, but it hasn't been that way leading up. It's not going to be that way heading into the rest of the year. When you have courts that are instituting themselves and coming up with theories that are preposterous, that really rests with somebody like the Secretary of State of Maine, sole authority to remove somebody from the ballot, you're right.

That's not going to bring Logan healing. Jay, you know what's interesting is the Secretary of State Shinobellos in Maine is an appointed position. She's not even an elected officer, not that that makes any difference. But she makes a unilateral decision on her own that he's an insurrectionist and therefore he's not going to be on the ballot and then says, I have fulfilled my duty to the Constitution. What court said that? What conviction is there in any court in the United States finding that the President of the United States is an insurrectionist or President Trump was because he made a speech at the Capitol on January 6, two years ago now, I think it was three years ago.

I mean, why are we doing this? And Jared Golden, who is a congressman from Maine and a Democrat says, I didn't vote for him for President. I voted to impeach him, but he needs to be on the ballot. So, you know, even the Democrats themselves are not entirely together on something like this.

Let me tell you something about rocket speed though, and this is what's going to happen. The one proposal that we have from, we've said it should be expedited, but we're leaving it to the court discretion on what that should be. Should it be before the Super Tuesday? Could they, they could do a summary, procurement reversal.

There's a lot of things they can do. That's up to the court, but the proposal right now that we have from what's called the Anderson respondents, which is CREW, the group that's against us, they want Trump and the Colorado Republican Party's opening briefs due on January 8th, which I'm trying to do the math on that. That would be today, next week? Monday, next Monday. Next Monday.

National Championship Day. They want the respondents brief and their amici supporting them due on the 12th, four days later. Reply brief from us would be due on the 16th and they're proposing oral argument on the 19th, which is not even a calendar to argument day at the Supreme Court. And there's no guarantee the Supreme Court has to take argument in these cases either. My sense is that the court's going to try to move expeditions. Like I said, we're already filed.

So the court ruled in Colorado. We got right up to the Supreme Court of the United States because, look, and that's going to cause the left. There are, although they all acknowledge, this is the irony, right? Ninety percent of them acknowledge we're totally right. Do you think that's going to stop the attacks? No, of course not. And then, you know, CREW's saying in their, what they said they're going to say is, we agree it should be heard too, really quickly.

We just disagree with the questions that are being presented by the parties. So we're going to, we'll probably be filing on that today. All that to say is this thing, Logan, is moving in record speed and it is going to galvanize the media attention for the, they're waiting for the Trump petition. I got calls from media today. Do I have any idea when they're filing? And, you know, I said their lawyers are going to file when they have the, you have to, look, put it up on the screen. It's not just you go file it.

It's got to be printed and bound. And it's a process and we, that's exactly what we've done in the case. And we have a case number and ours is 23696. And I expect there'll be other motions and briefs that'll be filed today.

Yeah, I think so. If you look at the schedule, it looks like the next 10 days are going to be critical. You know, Jay, you mentioned something about scheduling and there are certain rules in the Supreme Court about when things can and can be filed in the scheduling. But this is a completely unique and different case altogether. And the Supreme Court basically can do what it wants to do as far, as far as scheduling is concerned. And there is nothing that prevents the Supreme Court from hearing something on an expedited basis or hearing it and saying that I don't want an oral argument in the case.

That I'm going to decide, the Supreme Court can say, we're going to decide this case on the briefs that we have in front of us. Yes. That's possible. I think the normal rules and procedures that you normally see in these cases is out the window in this situation. Yep. So all bets are off. We've got five lawyers, well, more than that, seven lawyers working on this. And we are already drafting documents in anticipation of filings. So we're doing the work, folks. That's going forward.

But do understand that this is going to be a very fast-moving case. We'll take your calls on that, by the way, at 1-800-684-3110. We'll take some calls coming up in the next segment, too.

The special counsel has filed another filing, you know, basically saying the world's coming to an end because of President Trump's immunity defense. We'll talk about that. And we'll take your questions again. But I do want to say, and I'm going to say this a couple of times coming out of the broadcast today, a huge thank you to our ACLJ friends, members, donors, and ACLJ champions, our law and justice counsel. You came through in a huge way for us. And we really, really appreciate it. Like I said, our goal was 18,500 champions, where as of this morning, we're at 18,936. Our goal for this year is to get that number to 30,000.

You can join that group by just going over to ACLJ.org and donate monthly and become a recurring donor, and you become an ACLJ champion. When we come back from the break, we're going to take some of your calls. We're going to get into the situation on Jack Smith's latest filing, where he argues the immunity defense could allow the President to commit murder. That's what he puts in the pleadings. You know, you talked about healing, Logan.

That kind of rhetoric doesn't heal the country. We'll take your calls on that at 1-800-684-3110. Again, 1-800-684-3110. I'd love to hear from you today as we kick off the new year and the new shows heading into 2024. Here we are. Let's get your feedback on what you want us to do.

What do you think the ACLJ should be focused on? Love to hear from you on that. 1-800-684-3110. Thanks again to everyone who supported us in the month of December during that year in drive. We appreciate it more than you know. We'll continue on in 2024. Thanks to you and all the ACLJ supporters and ACLJ champions. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to Secula. We're going to kick it off with phone calls right now. It's going to Bill is calling in Wyoming on Line 1. Bill, you're on the air. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. Jay, I'm wondering if you could help me with my thinking because it seems to me the special council is trying to initiate some kind of a gag order over Trump's team and his testimony or witness and maybe even further on obtain some kind of control over the judge.

Am I thinking wrong or what? Well, what he's doing is he's filed another motion and another brief and in it he is asserting that I'll read you the quote. It says, quote, former President Trump's approach would grant immunity from criminal prosecution to a President who accepts a bribe in exchange for directing a lucrative government contract to the payer, a President who instructs the FBI director to plant incriminating evidence on a political enemy, a President who orders the National Guard to murder his most prominent critics, or a President who sells nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary.

That is really hyperbolic language. And Logan, you mentioned this thing about settling the country down and calming the country down. That doesn't help either. The gag orders don't help either that they're trying to put in place. Trying to skip the court of appeals is not helping that.

Yeah, no, I think you're right. I think all of this is on both sides is heading towards the disaster. We have to figure out ways around it. I mean, I think both sides are going to be heated and it's going to be a continual conversation. We just saw, you know, they announced the Biden campaign and really the White House announced essentially an abortion tour they're going to be doing this year.

You know, it was very like almost fun and exciting. And it's like, we're going on the road to talk to you in battleground states. This kind of stuff we have to fight against. We also have to fight against it away. It's not going to add to more chaos or you're not going to win anyone over.

So how do you do that? We're working on that actively of how not necessarily you win people over for any sort of political candidate, but you win people's hearts over and their minds over for issues that are important, way more important than a singular President, way more important. I think that's what you look at this 14th Amendment. I don't really care whether this was President Trump or President Biden. I don't think it's right. And I think that's where you have to win people over is go, I don't think this is right.

And if you don't think it's right for President Trump, or you don't think it's right for any President, it certainly shouldn't be for President Trump as well. Let's continue on and take some calls. Justin's calling to California on Line 4. Justin, you're up. Thanks for taking my call and Happy New Year. I'm a proud donor and extremely proud of all the work that you all do over there. Thank you, Justin. We appreciate it. Do you have a question?

Of course. My question is this. How is this state ballot situation happening now similar to what happened in 1860 where Abraham Lincoln was not on the ballot in 10 southern states, but he's still obviously going to win the national election? Yeah, well you could, I mean, Donald Trump could be off in Colorado and Maine and still win a national election. The problem is it skews the system. The problem is it creates, as Logan said, chaos. And the chaos that's created here is it leaves an uncertainty. What if it's not just, the Lincoln situation was 10 southern states, but what if like 30 states said, you know, or we didn't even have that, would we have anything, just 30 states maybe then. What if they said, we don't want them on, so we're just not going to put them on the ballot. And then there's no way.

There's no counter check. And then also for this not to become an election that feels, interfered it. So there's, the story keeps going.

And now President Trump has the next time to say. But they're like fueling it. That's what I'm saying. Like there's no clean cut way out of it. If this is really where it's going, which by the way, we don't think it will. At the end of the day. No, but the Supreme Court has to, I mean, has to. Yeah, I mean, if it was today, it would be the situation, right? Yeah, I mean, he's on the ballot only because we moved to the Supreme Court in the United States within a timeframe that the state agreed they would keep him on the ballot. But it does give tremendous uncertainty to the system and it's chaos.

And the main, we should play the bite from the main. Let's play that and get Andy's responses to criminal defense. Laura, go ahead. This is not a criminal matter and Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does not require a conviction. That definitely makes it a more complex and close question, as I acknowledged in my decision. It was not a close call on the question of whether January 6, 2021 was an insurrection. Wasn't a close call. Wasn't obviously for, it was a call for Jack Smith because he decided and the U.S. attorney that investigated before decided we're not charging on insurrection.

But decided it's not a criminal matter, so therefore I get to decide? I don't know what she's saying. Unelected. She's not elected. She's not elected. She's an appointed official of the state of Maine, but I don't understand what she's saying.

This is not a criminal matter. Section 3 applies. There was an insurrection. Who says? I say. I'm the Secretary of State and I control the ballots. And who's going to be on the ballot or not? And I'm going to throw my incendiary language because that's what Jack Smith's was. It was a bomb thrower's language, not a prosecutor's language. But she, this is Sheena from Maine says, I'm going to just decide on my own that there was an insurrection and therefore the people of Maine cannot vote for this person for President.

Says, who says me? That's why, and that's where they're casting a doubt on elections and election integrity, which I know is a buzzword that can get you thrown off of social media. But hey folks, I mean it's at the Supreme Court of the United States. Here's the problem. When we first filed, even the coverage on the groups that are left to center said we were right.

Or they were at least factual. This is what it, but now the other's going to start. And then when Trump files, you know it's going to be a pile on. And then the other side's got to respond and this thing, so if they do this in record speed, which I anticipate they will, and we win, you know what the other side's going to say? Supreme Court was involved in election interference. That's exactly what will be coming out of the left.

Mark my words. But I'm looking at the schedule, Logan, and I'm telling you, we've got a document we're probably going to have to respond to today, so we'll have to file it tomorrow. Then Trump's petition's coming in and if they file a motion to expedite, that'll be coming in. So I'm looking between the, what's today, the second and the fifth. And then it could go to conferences early the fifth. I just checked the docket.

It has not been distributed yet, but they're just back today. So folks, this is moving at record-breaking speed, but what we've got to do here is maintain cool, calm, collected process to not let this get out of control. And the Supreme Court needs to issue, which they will, an order and a rule that says this is what this party does, everybody needs to abide by that, and file the briefs, and then the Supreme Court's going to make a decision. I looked at the date. They requested January 19th for oral argument.

This is the lawyers for the Anderson respondents, which is crew. That's on a Friday. They don't usually hear cases on Friday.

That's a conference day. It could be specially set, but I think the normal rules here, Andy, are out the window. No, there's no rules. You're right, Jay. There's no rules anymore. But they've been through this before the Supreme Court.

This is not their first review. No, I mean, we have Gore v. Bush. Bush v. Gore.

Campaign finance. All the cases. So the Supreme Court of the United States knows the routine here, and they furthermore know that what they decide is what's going to happen in terms of briefing scheduling. And they can abbreviate the briefing scheduling. They can eliminate oral argument. They can summarily reverse the Colorado Supreme Court. There is anything that the Supreme—basically, the Supreme Court can do what it chooses to do. It can not hear this case.

I don't think that will happen. But I think what's going to happen is they are going to move with a rapidity we have never seen before, because why? The nation's moral fabric and national unity is at stake, as David Axelrod, Obama's campaign manager, said. We'll play it next segment.

Yeah, we don't have time to play it this segment, but coming back from the break, we're going to play what David Axelrod has even said about this. Again—and I'm going to say it and sound like a broken record, but that's okay—thank you. We could not have done this without you. We closed a gigantic—you closed, I should say—a gigantic gap. I mean, the gap that we had, we were always very upfront about it. We had a $5 million shortfall going into October, and it was trending not the right way. And it was a dramatic turnaround here. And we thank God for that, but we thank you, our donors and supporters at the ACLJ.

All I want to say is thank you. And we reached our goal of 18,500 ACLJ champions by hitting 18,936. And if you want to be a champion, you can continue to do that all year. We're going to try to get that up to 30,000. You'll be a champion for life, liberty, and freedom. You give monthly to the ACLJ at ACLJ.org forward slash champions.

It's a great way to do it. ACLJ.org forward slash champions. We'll take your calls coming back from the break. 800-684-3110. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jay Sekulow.

Hey, welcome back to the broadcast, everyone. Well, we've given you what's called the abbreviated schedule, at least being proposed by the respondents' crew in the Colorado litigation now at the Supreme Court. Maine, of course, their secretary of state ruled Trump off the ballot as well. That just adds fuel to the fire of the Supreme Court hearing the case. David Axelrod, CNN commentator, former Obama official, very well-respected political commentator. He had an interesting take on this.

Let's go ahead and listen. He's only gained since he started getting indicted. You know, what you thought might be kryptonite for him has turned out to be battery packs. And this is a big one for him. Presumably, the Supreme Court will deal with it fairly quickly, and I expect that they will leave him on the ballot. I do think it would rip the country apart if he were actually prevented from running because tens of millions of people want to vote for him. I think if you're going to beat Donald Trump, you're going to probably have to do it at the polls. I think David Axelrod is exactly correct. If I want the country to calm down for the election here and make sure the laws are applied, they haven't been with this Colorado decision and the rogue secretary of state in Maine.

But we've got to be cool, calm, and collected about this as the lawyers because we've got to get a result and we've got to get it quickly here. And where he's right, you remove this guy from the ballot in these states, you are adding to the chaos. Well, what you're doing is you're throwing a bomb into an already great conflagration and putting the sun on fire even more. You don't do that. Seventy million people voted for President Trump, I think, in the election.

Seventy-five million, whatever it was. And you're telling these people you can't vote for him anymore because some secretary of state in Maine said that he's an insurrectionist because she concluded on her own mini jury trial the people of Maine can't vote for him or the people of Colorado can't vote for him or another state. You are dividing the country worse than it has ever been divided. And I'm not a fan of David Axelrod, but he's an astute political analyst. And I think what he said is true. You would rip the country apart if you were prevented from running and being on the ballot. Cliff on YouTube said, well, where Axelrod is wrong is the country is already ripped apart.

Let me address that. I think I understand that sentiment, but here's what we have to do. We've got to live in a, we're fortunate that we get to live in a constitutional republic. And sometimes in constitutional republics, like any political thing, things get heated.

But there's a cooling off point, too. And now we're coming to, now you can't say the election is, oh, it's so far off. It's in two weeks. The Iowa caucus is in two weeks. The New Hampshire is three weeks. There's another debate there, town halls and town halls and debates.

And then there's, I think, isn't South Carolina, like, February. So in the next five weeks, folks, it's pretty much, you're going to know where this thing's going. And the problem is we've got this fury at the Supreme Court. Now, here's what the court can do. They can calm the waters by expeditiously reviewing it, considering it and making a ruling.

But it condenses our time. Normally you get, folks, if this was an oral Supreme Court case, we filed a cert petition. They would file the response in 30 days. We'd file a reply 15 days later. In a month or so, or maybe a little bit less, it would go to a conference, probably be conferenced a couple of times. They would, if they granted review, you'd have 90 days to get briefs in because it'd be in the summer and you'd be arguing in October.

You can't do that here. The primaries are starting. So the court's going to, for the good of the country, the court's going to have to move in an expeditious manner.

And, Logan, I believe they will. I'm not telling them what date they have to pick. I just am telling them it's got to get moving. Yeah, I think people know that it has to get moving. If not, we're going to be stuck in an even worse situation.

I'm really, we've harped on this before, but it is true. It's this heat that's already starting and I'm seeing it all over social media. It was like, new year hit and everyone's like, well, now it's time for us to get political.

And all of your friends start posting their points of view on both sides. But it seems like the Biden camp is, it does feel like there's finally some unity behind President Biden. As we've seen some successes, I'd say in quotes, that they could at least use.

If you look at their list of successes, they put them out, they're 20, I should probably read them and find them on their Instagram page. And it's like everything you disagree with. You know, there's like none of them that are unifying. It's all things that make you sick to your stomach, unfortunately. Give us a call.

I'd love to hear what you think. 1-800-684-3110. Rick Grenell's going to join us in the next segment following up with C.C. Heil to end the show.

Yep. And talk about our UN work there at, on behalf of Israel. So there's a lot going on besides the Supreme Court at the ACLJ again. Become an ACLJ champion by supporting us monthly. We're going to get to 30,000 this year.

ACLJ.org forward slash champion. Become a champion for life, liberty and freedom. And we're already at 18,936. Back with more in a moment. Welcome back to Secula. We are joined by Rick Grenell now live in the new year. So kick things off with more interesting content news with Rick. Yeah.

And Rick, happy new year to you. And let me say, starting out with a bang for us at the ACLJ, we're going to be, we've got Supreme Court activity moving as we speak. And literally we filed last week and now it looks like briefs are going to be filed probably pretty much every day this week. But I wanted to go to the border issue right away because we've got a very serious situation. A customer's border patrol told Fox News Digital that migrant encounters hit a staggering 300 incidents in the last month of 2023. That is reaching a new level thought unimaginable just a year ago. And they're afraid it's going to continue to increase.

Your reaction to this? I mean, look, it's getting worse. All of the attention that the conservative media are putting on this issue, the Biden team is absolutely allowing this to happen. They just had a meeting in Mexico City. The secretary of state did.

And basically it was a failed diplomatic meeting. Mexico is not going to help anymore. The Biden team doesn't have any leverage to push on Mexico. You know, meanwhile, Jay, we've got the media ignoring the issue largely, not pushing back on the growing number every single month.

The fact that the problem is getting worse. The media is not focusing on it. And I have to say that the media is beginning to trash Trump even more so that they know within the Biden administration that they can get away with this, that they can ignore the border. And this is all a secret plan because they believe and I think it's wrong, but they believe that all of these individuals who are going to come in illegally up to nine or 10 million people so far under the Biden team will eventually just be added to the voting rolls for them.

And I don't think that that's true. I think that the American people are not going to stand for it. And there's a lot of people who are curious how this plays into the political season this year now as we head into this election year. How do you think the border plays in? Obviously it's been a hot topic, but it also seems like one of those ones that the Biden administration will, I mean, I was looking at their Instagram and their greatest hits they put out of 2023 and it feels so polarizing because it's everything you read.

You're like, I disagree with all of this. How do you feel about that heading into the political season? Look, conservatives need to remember one thing, that the Democrats are always going to confuse and interchange illegal immigrants from immigrants. They want the public and the media to believe that conservatives are going after immigrants.

Conservatives need to work overtime. We need to start and finish every conversation by saying we welcome immigrants who are legal. We're trying to stem the flow of illegal immigrants, people cutting the line. The State Department and the Department of Homeland Security have a massive line of people trying to get visas and immigration papers. We need to be able to deliver that service at the US government in a legal way and not allow the Democrats to somehow muddy the waters to pretend that we're going after immigrants. I know first and second generation Americans who are absolutely voting for Donald Trump.

New immigrants are voting for Donald Trump and conservatives. So this is not an issue that we should take at face value from the Democrats. Rick, we've also got this election controversy going on already because of Colorado and now Maine.

I'm trying to say we've got to get calm. We need a process here. We need an orderly electoral process. We need election integrity.

This cuts away from that. Even David Axelrod said you really should not be doing this. Gavin Newsom said, nope, not in California.

We don't take people off the ballot. But you've got these other states where they are. I want to take a call from Pamela in Oregon and then we'll get everybody's comment. Pamela, go ahead.

You're on the air. Yes, I'd like to know if there's going to be some heavy sanctions put on the state supreme courts in Colorado and Maine to deter any other state court from trying this. So first of all, it's not been decided by the Supreme Court of Maine. It's not even in the district court yet. That'll be probably filed and then put on stay. The only sanction will be getting them overturned.

And that's all you can expect here. You can't find them for their decision. That would be wrong too. But, Rick, it has put this, it casts this shadow over the whole electoral process. Well, Trump's on the ballot, but do I know if it's going to count? I mean, it really does play into the whole election interference issue.

Yeah, it really does. And the reality is, is that the Democratic Party is beginning to fight within themselves about what should happen. Remember, as you just quoted David Axelrod, but there's been other very high profile Democrats saying this is not something that we should do. So you've got the far left progressives of the Democratic Party really going after other Democrats. And we need to be highlighting that as much as possible.

Yeah. And I mean, you even got like Senator Fetterman and some of the other ones have said, no, no, no, no, this is not the way you do it. And it's interesting that it's causing this inter-party conflict. But Logan, you're concerned about, you said this earlier, we need an election process that doesn't appear to have impropriety.

Well, if you have any of this situation, it's going to be hard. Like you said, both sides are going to say this now. So now you have the Democratic section of the world saying, well, you should be thrown off the ballot. A good percentage of them. I see some of my social media friends going, good for Colorado.

I wish I was a Colorado resident. We've been seeing those kinds of statements. Of course, they don't think about any sort of repercussions on them in the future, but whatever. Even if Texas wants to take Trump by and off in Texas, they could just do that?

No, of course not. Well, not because they're idiots, but this is, I mean, truthfully, these are people who I look at and go, you are an idiot that you think that this is how this should work. And it's un-American. And then you take a situation where now the Supreme Court has to rule. They're going to say, well, this was Trump's Supreme Court.

Because look at these cases. He gets put back on the ballot. Well, there's election interference there. So now you're going to have both sides claiming election interference already. We're only into January 2024. It's concerning. It's the opposite of what you hope an election year will look like.

We're talking to Rick, we talked before. I used to really look forward to these years. These were fun times. Even if you lost at the end of the day, at least it was a fun year with exciting pomp and circumstance and razzle dazzle. And you're having fun.

You're doing these big events. It does not feel that way now. The country is not in that situation. There is no one who's excited really about this. There are people obviously showing up to rallies that are excited about who they want to vote for. But it's a different tone.

It's not a tone that it used to be, for sure. No. And Rick, so we're at the Supreme Court right now for the Colorado GOP. Trump lawyers are filing hopefully today. So the case is going to be joined at the court today.

And we've been up there for a week now. And it could go in conference as early as Friday. I think the court's going to act expeditiously. Does expeditiously mean a week or two weeks? I don't know. It's not going to be three months.

I would be surprised. But what is your sense of what this is doing to the body politic? Well, first of all, I think we should thank all of the ACLJ supporters who are allowing this fight to happen from ACLJ lawyers. I mean, this is amazing.

Thank you for all of your support. Look, I think that if you're listening to us and you live in Colorado or Oregon and you're hearing about all of this, your media clearly is not covering this. You have a responsibility to speak out and to highlight the fact that the Democrats themselves are not even agreeing with tossing Trump off the ballot.

This is election interference. Many Democrats are believing that. And one group that absolutely believes that are the independents. The Trump campaign is very excited about what's happening with independents because they see this weaponization. I still believe, and we've talked about this before, Jay, I believe that the media is largely to blame for allowing the Democrats to go off this woke cliff. They haven't pushed back. They're playing partisan politics in Washington, D.C., so there's no consequences.

The Democrats keep charging off the cliff because no one from the media is saying, stop, you're about to jump off the cliff. No, I think you're right. Rick, we appreciate you being with us. Thanks so much. And again, Happy New Year to you. Let me go ahead and take Susan's call very quickly here. Susan, go ahead. You're calling from Virginia. You're on the air. Yes, thank you.

And thank you for the work of the ACLJ. Hey, what I wanted to say was I've never heard a conservative or any program like yours say on the radio that part of this could be, besides them throwing this against the wall to see what will stick in terms of just trying to weaken Trump in any way and actually be successful, which would be insane. But they are trying to also bait his people.

Please tell as often as you can. Tell all of the conservatives, the Republicans, everyone to stand down, stand your ground, support your candidates, support Trump or whoever you want. But don't take the bait.

Don't do something stupid that then they will point to and say that we're crazy and we're bad and all of that. This would be an unforced error that will set our case back. Yeah, Susan, I think you're 100 percent right. I think that this is a lot of trying to bait people to do things that they regret. There's a lot of people out there on both sides who also are, let's just be honest, are mentally unwell.

And these kind of things can push them over the edge. And we really don't want to see that. That's why I play out in the courts.

I hate that. We've got it in the courts, which is where it belongs. The Supreme Court is going to do this in a, I'm telling you, they will issue an order. It's going to be methodical. It's going to be detailed. And it's going to say this is how we're going to resolve the matter. And I'm confident we're going to win.

But I don't take that confidence, by the way, to not prepare. We are prepared and we have a lot of lawyers working on it. But we got to maintain cool. Got to maintain our focus. And the focus is on the courts right now. That's where it's going to be determined.

That's right. Hey, 1-800-684-3110. We're going to take some calls coming up in the next segment.

DC Hall is going to be joining us. Got a couple of you on hold. We'll do our best to get to you. We also have some time for some more calls, hopefully, at 1-800-684-3110. Again, thanks to everyone who supports the ACLJ and supported us in our year-end drive, kicking off 2024 the right way. We'll be right back.

Thanks. We're going to take some phone calls here. Let's kick it off. We'll go to Mary Jane, who's calling in New York, listening on the radio. We appreciate it. Mary Jane, you're on the air. Hi.

Thanks for all you do. Quick question. Is there a legal definition of the word insurrection?

There is. According to Black's Law Dictionary, which a lot of the courts use, it's a rebellion, a rising of citizens or subjects in resistance to their government. Insurrection shall consist in a combined resistance to the lawful authority of the state with the intent to denial thereof when the same is manifested or intended to be manifested by acts of violence.

So it's the overthrow of the government. And by the way, the special counsel looked at this for over a year, and the previous U.S. attorney looked at it for another year, and both of them concluded that they were not going to charge under the Insurrection Act. So when you see Trump being removed, understand that he's never been charged—C.C. Hall just came in the studio here—never been charged with insurrection in the first place. So this whole discussion is really ridiculous.

It is ridiculous. And once again, it's just based on one secretary of state's decision. Like you said, he's not been charged. He's not been convicted with insurrection. But a secretary of state can decide, hmm, I think that he has committed it, and I'm going to take him off the ballot. You know what's interesting about that? The only time insurrections come up with President Trump was the second impeachment. He was charged with insurrection, tried in the United States Senate, and acquitted, found not guilty. That's the part they leave out.

So there's been a trial on insurrection, and he was acquitted. Let's take Kate's phone call. All right, moving on. Kate, Colorado, line three. I'm watching on YouTube. We appreciate it. You're on the air. Hi, thanks. And I've become a champion, finally.

Thank you. The biggest observation I want to make here to people – oh, and by the way, I love Rick Grenell when he's on – is that this right to vote for whoever we want being taken from us also includes our total rights as parents, as individuals, and everything. There will be no stopping, as they have begun already, to take everything away from us, and it's so true. Trump is not the one they want, but if they get him, then they have the rest of us, and they know that. The truth is, I said this the first day this case came up, and the reason we moved so quickly to get to the Supreme Court is if we lose the right to vote for the candidate of our choice – this is what Logan said – whether you're for Trump or against Trump or for Biden, it doesn't matter.

If a secretary of state could do this, we have put the entire constitutional republic in jeopardy, and then you're not going to have to worry about freedom of speech or freedom of religion or free exercise of religion because you're not going to have the right to vote, or it's not going to matter unless the state tells you who you're voting for. That's the danger of this. Let me change focus for a minute. We also have teams – I was on calls this morning on the situation in Israel, and you need to know we have taken a lot of action at the United Nations. Yeah, we have. We still have our complaints filed with the working group on enforced or involuntary disappearances, and that's for our 10 hostages, their families, and that mandate is for that working group to assist families in determining the fate and whereabouts of those hostages.

So we're continuing on with that working group. We also have two submissions that we're filing with the Commission on Inquiry, which has asked for submissions on the crimes, the international crimes that Hamas has committed, and we will be submitting submissions for that. And then South Africa has filed a complaint at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and Israel for the first time says they are going to respond. This is unprecedented. They've never done this before.

That's right. Typically with the International Court of Justice, typically Israel would not respond because they don't have jurisdiction and they don't want them to come under their jurisdiction. But they want to respond. But this is so important that they are responding. So we will be filing a brief, and we might be more involved as well, but we will be filing a brief under Practice Direction 12 there as well. Yeah, so what's interesting on that case is there's been some talk that our friend Alan Dershowitz may be appointed as one of the legal advisors, who I already told him will be ready to assist on that if they do this move, which is actually responding. So that's all going on right now at the same time.

So all of that work is going on. I don't want people to forget about the hostage situation. Look, there are reports that, you know, there's somewhere between 30 and maybe 100 hostages still alive. No one knows for sure, but we're doing everything we can to get them out and working with international tribunals.

The Prime Minister of England has been very vocal about this. He is going to be possibly meeting with teams of ours at the end of this month. So there's work going on simultaneously around the world. Let's continue on and take some calls related to that. Ken's calling in Nevada.

Line 1, listen on the radio. Thanks, Ken. Welcome. Yes, in support of your Champions Crusade. My wife and I have been ACLJ Champions for more than 25 years. We appreciate that. Even though we're now on fixed income and in addition to our tithing, we continue to support monthly the ACLJ. We stood with Israel by standing in Israel with the ACLJ tour. Why do we do this?

Because we know that everything ACLJ does is in accordance with biblical principles. I encourage you listeners now to seriously consider being an LCLJ Champion. We appreciate that. And I will say a huge thank you to the 18,936 people, Ken, like you and your wife, who are now ACLJ Champions. And our goal is to get that up to, I'm hopeful and believing that we will get to 30,000 by the end of next year, which would be, end of this year. What am I saying?

The end of this year. And I'm encouraged about that. I do want to keep on, for you to understand, folks, that our team is working on the international legal aspects of what's going on in Israel. There was also a report earlier that a major Hamas leader was taken out in Beirut by Israel's military. Yeah, that came out as we were on the air, really. The top Hamas leader has been killed in a suspected Israeli strike in Beirut.

Here's what the news report says, top Hamas leader was killed Tuesday by a suspected Israeli strike in Beirut, according to two Lebanese security officers, raising further escalations in Israel's war against militants in the Gaza Strip. So that's, again, that's a quote directly from the Wall Street Journal. We'll keep you updated on that, though, as more comes out. Again, it seems like the war, at one moment this weekend, they said, we're going to withdraw some of the troops. We're going to move around. But now it seems like maybe you're reallocating.

I think they're reallocating it to other places, not just Gaza. But we are on top of the legal situation. That's what people need to understand.

Yeah, absolutely. It's almost been 90 days since the horrible massacre on October 7th. And so in those 90 days, we have taken a lot of action to support Israel and to also support and help get the hostages released.

And we are continuing to do that. Those actions continue, and they continue on the legal front internationally, now including the International Court of Justice, since South Africa has filed that claim of genocide against Israel. South Africa, huge support of the Palestinian Authority, huge support of Hamas, just to be blunt. Hamas has an office in South Africa. So not shocked. The shocking thing is Israel is going to respond this time. I understand.

I'm of mixed minds on that, but I understand why they feel like they need to do it. Let me say this, folks. As we close this out, I want to say again, thank you for your generous support to the American Center for Law and Justice. We could not do it without you. And as I said, we started off our campaign for ACLJ champions October 1st with 15,000. We now have 18,936.

So I'm sure we're probably close to 19,000 today. And that's made a huge impact on our work. Yeah, we appreciate it so much. Again, those who support, those who continue to support. Look, people have donated. Obviously, thousands of people have donated each and every day.

So I don't want to say people who are doing it today are any less valuable to us. We really appreciate all of the support continually. I know a lot of you got a lot of emails over the weekend.

A lot of you saw a lot of responses. You saw a little breather today. You get a little bit of a breather today, but we appreciate it. It's the end of the year. It was the end of the year.

It was a really important time for us. And now we roll into 2024. And you will not be getting a breather in the next few days because we've got a lot of work at the Supreme Court.

Could be happening as late as, as early as this afternoon. So that's going to do it for the broadcast. Yeah, thank you again for supporting the work of the ACLJ. We'll be back tomorrow with brand new broadcast. Go to ACLJ.org to continue your support. And honestly, just for great content. Great, incredible content put on by our incredible team here. So thanks to them as well. Talk to you tomorrow.