IMPEACHMENT: Biden’s DHS Under Fire Over Mayorkas’ Border Crisis

Today on Sekulow, impeachment as Biden's DHS is under fire over Mayorkas border crisis. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow.

We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow.

We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. A lot of activity on the House representatives today in different committee hearings. First, we'll start off with the Mayorkas hearing that is finally underway.

This is after the House vote to formally authorize an impeachment inquiry into Mayorkas for failure to do his job as a Secretary of Homeland Security because of what's been happening at the border. And a number of different reasons at the border. One is the amounts, the numbers from the border we're going to go through. The amount of people that have been just let go into the United States. The fact that we're already on track in 2024 to hit record numbers that have never been seen.

So we've had record months already starting to come in on that fiscal year. You also of course have the drug crisis, the violence and the cartel violence that's poured over. The drug crisis, the number one killer of Americans between the age of 18 and 45 are the illegal fentanyl drugs coming across mainly the southern border where they are produced.

Some of them in China then taken into Mexico, put into some kind of a sellable form and then taken across the border by drug cartels. So you've got not only a crisis of illegal immigration but you have a crisis of Americans dying. So multiple reasons why Mayorkas now faces this impeachment inquiry which began today with testimony from three state attorney generals about the different issues they're facing. And then we saw out of New York, we'll talk about it later with Rick or Nell, just an unbelievable story. They are sending kids home from school to do virtual learning because they have no place for these, about 2,000 migrant families have nowhere to go when the temperatures drop this weekend and next week. So the New Yorker kids, citizens of the US, they've got to do at home learning and they're kicked out of school. James Madison High School, huge high school in Brooklyn.

My mother went there and was on the, so did Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it was a famous high school actually. We've also gotten, and this is important to point out, let's put these on the screen. We've got two pieces of litigation against the Department of Homeland Security and that involves everything from the disinformation campaigns that were being instituted by them and also some of the catch and release and some of the information there and terrorists coming over the southern border. So this situation with Mayorkas is serious. Our ACLJ action went to work on it. I think we've generated, Jordan, right now over 5,000 letters to Congress on this.

That's right. That just began yesterday afternoon. If you're on the ACLJ action email list, you would have gotten that email to send a letter to your member of Congress to act now encouraging. This is separate from, we first did a campaign to open up this inquiry.

This is the second, which is to vote to impeach. And again, you go to ACLJ action, you put in your name, address, so that we can pull up the right members of Congress for you in the House of Representatives and you are able then to send a letter immediately to them. You can edit that letter.

We have a preset one there. You can take all the preset language out, write your own letter and we make it a deliverable for you. But also then we're able to put these numbers together. And again, I just went out. So if you're not on the ACLJ action email list, I encourage you to do that at ACLJ action.org, but you can go now to ACLJ action and you'll see right on the homepage where you can send that letter to your member of Congress.

And it's again, a very quick way to do it as quick as you want it to be, or you can take time and add some of your own language as well. We're going to talk about these new numbers. We get back from the break with Bob Barquette from ACLJ action on our team there. I just, again, folks, we are fighting these issues, whether it's government corruption, whether it's the two lawsuits, like we were talking about against the, the, the Mayorkas DHS, we need our ACLJ champions. And by becoming an ACLJ champion today with your monthly recurring gift, you helped fund our fight all year long, go to ACLJ.org slash champions. Now again, folks stand with us. We'll be right back again, getting into the issues on why this impeachment inquiry on Mayorkas is so important for the American people. And again, support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org by becoming an ACLJ champion.

That means you'll donate monthly. That keeps us in the fight. All right, welcome back to Sekulow. As all these issues right now with Mayorkas, again, the impeachment inquiry beginning, three US state attorney generals are testifying to the Homeland Security Committee right now, chaired by Mark Green, Congressman Mark Green of Tennessee. We, last night, the ACLJ action team, the email went out, if you're on that list, to ask you to take that second step, which is to contact your member of Congress in the house and ask them to vote to impeach. We did an initial campaign to open up this inquiry.

And the second campaign is to get the vote to impeach. I want to go to Bob Barquette, who is a chief of staff at ACLJ Action, senior advisor there as well. And Bob, right away, I know over 5,000 people initially have already sent letters to their members of Congress. It's an easy thing for people to do, even if they're not on that email list. And we encourage them to do that at ACLJ action.org. But if they go there at ACLJ Action, they'll see it right on the homepage.

I'm holding the preset, the letter. But again, you get to edit it if you want. You can write your own letter.

You can take this language or you can use ours exactly. But we make sure it goes to the member of Congress that's correct, that represents your district. And I think, again, we can get this to 10,000 plus very quickly this week. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, thanks, Jordan. It's a very important issue for the country.

It's not going away anytime soon. And we here at ACLJ Action want you to voice how important this issue is to you. And we want you to make sure that you can contact members of Congress to let them know how much this matters to you. I once was in a congressional office, and my job was to review the mail the Congressman got. And I can tell you for a fact that every letter the Congressman gets, he is made aware of. And the more letters a Congressman gets on a specific subject, the more they want to focus on that subject. So if you go to ACLJAction.org, as Jordan mentioned on our homepage, our Impeach Mayorkas campaign should be very prominently displayed. Very easy to click on it. You type in some information in about two more clicks. Your member of Congress is made aware of your concern on the issue.

So please, if you have not already, take time and go and do that. I mean, just some updated numbers that we were sending 302,000 migrants encounters in December. That's the highest ever in a single month in US history. So I mean, every month we're getting numbers, we're hitting records here. 785,000 encounters since October 1st. That's the highest quarter in US history. It's on pace to set a new record for fiscal year 2024. You look at 7 million, over 7 million encounters between 2021, a fiscal year and 2023. And then you go through the removals. 142,000 removals in 2023, 72,000 in 2022. I mean, when you look at how low those numbers are, and then you realize, okay, wait, where's the other 6 million plus people? They're inside the United States. Yeah. So the interesting question here, I'm going to Harry Hutchinson on this, is when you look at impeachment, it's usually for high crimes and misdemeanors, right?

I mean, that's kind of the standards. What's the basis upon which, Harry, as you see it here, that justifies the impeachment of Mayorkas? Number one, he has abused his authority. Number two, he's engaged in a dereliction of its constitutional duty to protect the American people. Number three, he has exposed the American people to a fentanyl crisis, to a child sex trafficking crisis. And his efforts in this arena have been willful and deliberate.

It's not a mistake. In other words, basically, the Biden administration has opened the floodgates and has exposed the American people to harm. And as such, he ought to be impeached quickly. Bob, what is the temperature read right now in Washington for an impeachment of Mayorkas, as you see it? Right.

Yeah, no. So I think that these series of hearings is proceeding at an opportune time. I think that when the resolution was initially introduced in November, there were some people who were a little hesitant. I know eight Republicans sided with Democrats to send the impeachment vote back to committee. But I think that a lot of the more moderate Republicans that were concerned about this before, now that a comprehensive investigation has been conducted by the committee and they've seen a little bit more of the evidence for themselves and it's gone through the appropriate processes, I think that they can stand pretty united behind this impeachment.

So I think it's full seam ahead for the time being, and I think it'll be a relatively quick timeline. And then, of course, the Senate has to take this up. That's going to be a tougher bar, but then a full trial still before the US Senate. And then, Bob, there is when I think you get to refocus the American people and even bring more people in so that they understand these numbers. I mean, we talk about the illegal immigrants, but I also want to always make sure we talk about the number of Americans being affected by this. The fact that fentanyl is the number one cause of death between Americans that are 18 to 45 is probably the most important part of our workforce here.

That is the key demographic in all ratings because it's the age group where people are both, again, starting their work and also starting to, again, kind of make it up the ladder in work, also have families and they are spending more. And yet that part of our society, the number one cause of death, again, not car wrecks, not cancer, but fentanyl overdoses, which we know is also a plague from the open southern border. All of that message, I think it's got to be made clear to the American people, Bob, that there is a way to stop this.

Well, yeah, a hundred percent, Jordan. And I'm glad we continue hammering the fentanyl aspect of this. It's really interesting. It's very obvious now that the White House and the Department of Homeland Security are increasingly concerned about Mayorkas's impeachment. Today, DHS and the White House released kind of talking points or overall messaging for attempting to frame the debate. One of the points they mentioned, Jordan, is that there has been a record amount of fentanyl intercepted at the border. Well, underlying that is there's more fentanyl overflowing across our southern border than there ever has been in American history. And as you mentioned, I was reading an article today and in the past few years, deaths as a result of fentanyl have tripled. American citizens are dying at three times the rate they were just a few years ago.

So you can manipulate statistics all you want and pretend like Mayorkas is doing a good job, but he is directly contributing to the deaths and multiple harms of American citizens. Harry, do you think that the — I was asking Bob the same question — is the populace there? Are the American people there to say, this guy needs to go? That's the question to me.

I think that is the quintessential question. And I think the American people are beginning to mobilize on this particular issue. I also would argue that the American press and the journalists, they haven't focused sufficiently on this issue. And so I think this letter that ACLJ action will help focus attention on this. But I hope the Republicans in Congress will pursue this particular issue and they will pursue it with all deliberate speed because this is a very important issue for the American people. One study, for instance, has shown that the border crisis has cost us about $500 billion, and it's growing. And the Biden administration shows no signs that it's willing to restrict illegal entry in this country. Eight million encounters have occurred since the Biden administration took office in January of 2021, and 6.7 million encounters on the southern border, which also means that there are encounters with illegals on the northern border and elsewhere.

So these are very, very important issues, bread and butter issues for middle Americans. And Bob, I wanted to also talk about one other interesting note people may be waiting for us to address. Hunter Biden did show up in the House of Representatives today during his hearing about whether or not he'll be held in contempt for not responding to a House subpoena to testify behind closed doors in that hearing. He was there for a few minutes and left, but I guess we were going to get the question is, what could the House have done while he was on their property? And he hadn't yet been held in contempt, so he pulled up some of the rules and it looks like there you would have to have that probably that contempt vote before they could kind of almost force testimony. Yeah, Jordan, I think that, you know, unfortunately, Hunter Biden seems to have exploited a potential loophole in the rules. The House rules say that you can compel testimony or require testimony via subpoena or otherwise. It doesn't exactly explain what otherwise is. But I do know that Congress has in the past used kind of an inherent contempt power where the sergeant at arms has come and forcefully taken somebody who is in the process of being held in contempt by Congress and brought them to the House floor for kind of a formal proceeding there. So we did not use that today, but maybe we'll see it used again in the future.

Yeah. And I think, again, the House Republicans, the difference there is that they've wanted this to be behind closed doors, not to be a public spectacle. And you're seeing an interesting move by Hunter Biden and his team to say, let's every week to make it a new... He's got a very good lawyer in Abby Lull, the best in Washington. But it also puts it back in the news each week, puts Hunter back in the news.

Yes, but it's... Each week, in an interesting way. He's got a great lawyer. Folks, we'll continue to take your calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. We want you to join our ACLJ Champions campaign. Again, I thank Bob for joining us as well. And go to ACLJ Action. Sign that letter. Let's get that to over 10,000.

Again, it's so easy to do that, folks, with the tools we've got at ACLJAction.org. But we want you to be an ACLJ Champion, to stand with us on all these issues with your recurring donation. We'll be right back. All right, welcome back to SECU.

We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. And the hearings are ongoing, the impeachment inquiry ongoing, into Secretary Mayorkas on his failure to secure the southern border, specifically the northern border as well, to implement policies that work, to really not address the numbers, which are setting records. Every time there's a new report on the numbers of people that have been... Either they've been encountered at the border or have been released, they're setting new records. The amount of people being killed by drugs like fentanyl, setting new records in numbers.

It's also the number one cause of death for all Americans between the ages of 18 and 45. So this is something that has happened, again, under the Biden administration. Rick Grenell's joining us now. And Rick, one thing that's happening in New York City today, at one of the major schools in Brooklyn, is that students were told to go home, that they will do remote learning because they have to use the school for about 1,900 to 2,000 illegal immigrants who are in New York. And they're worried because the temperatures are dropping so low over this weekend, storms that are happening on the East Coast, that they're going to use the school for those 1,900, but that students and citizens and taxpayers in New York are told to go home and try remote learning, which was a huge failure under COVID. Look, let's be clear, the rip and replace of Americans in New York City is just one of many of the consequences of an open border. You wouldn't really think that New York students would be impacted this way, but these sanctuary cities and sanctuary states, which the media have turned into some sort of noble cause, but the reality is these are states within the United States, cities within the United States that are ignoring immigration laws, federal immigration laws, and giving people aid and comfort to flout the United States legal system. This is an undermining of democracy.

This is an attack on our democracy. And now what we're seeing with students being replaced in New York, this is just the beginning, Jordan. We are going to see this in every single city where illegal immigrants are going to become the priority over US citizens. And let me just finish by saying, of course we want legal immigration. The State Department has a very long line of people who are trying to get visas and asylum seekers.

We need to do a better job on the legal side of moving these people along so that people don't jump the line. You know, Rick, when you're talking about James Madison High School in Brooklyn, New York, you're not talking about some tiny building. You're talking about a huge high school.

My mother was a graduate of James Madison High School, as was her classmate, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I mean, this is a famous New York landmark high school. It's a full block, or was then, a full city block, mammoth. And it's disrupting. So by not having immigration policies that are working, we are disrupting the flow of our own students, citizens of the United States, young people, ability to learn.

I mean, that's how bad this is. And make no mistake, this is just the latest example. We've had numerous examples of Americans being displaced, certainly money alone. You think about all the money that Arizona and some of the border states like Texas have had to deal with because of the open border. And now it's impacting every single state in the United States. The open border is no longer just a border issue. It is a crisis for our budgets, for our cities, and for our states. So I've said, and we've said on this broadcast, Rick, that the border crisis is not limited to border cities and border towns or border states.

It's Brooklyn, New York as well. Yeah, look, this is what's scary. If you live in Iowa, if you live in New Hampshire, if you live in Wisconsin, Michigan, this is an issue that is directly impacting you. If you have a sanctuary city, a sanctuary state, if your politicians in your state are allowing people to openly disregard federal laws and have safety aid, comfort in doing so, this is an outrage.

You need to speak up. You don't have a country if you don't have a border. And I'll finish by saying, we saw this in Europe. The UK left the European Union, a term we call Brexit, simply because the European Union wouldn't enforce immigration laws.

And the UK said, we're out of here. I want to show people, and I'll explain it to the audience that's listening by radio, but for those that are watching on our social media, this is James Madison High School. It is a full city block in Brooklyn, front and back.

It's mammoth. It's been there since the early 1900s. Like I said, my mother went to school there. And the interesting thing is the New York comptroller, Brad Lander, who is a Democrat, by the way, said that placing the migrants at these particular places highlights mismanagement and the waste of money that is all too present in City Hall's approach to shelter and services for asylum seekers being at the school made no sense because not only are you displacing the students, these schools really aren't set up for that kind of situation. We know there's really rough weather coming in, so we're sympathetic to that.

But I think of the Javits Center or Madison Square Garden or places like that. But instead, it's a huge public school servicing thousands of Brooklynites in New York that go to school there. Look, this is a side effect of the problem. We will continue to have the side effects where individuals are displaced, whether it's tourists in a hotel, whether it's students in a high school. This is all going to continue to happen until we tackle the problem. The problem is allowing the border to be open, allowing asylum seekers to abuse the system. They are abusing the process. They're coming into our country claiming all sorts of excuses.

We're ill-equipped to be able to get them through in time. And instead of keeping them outside of the United States as they apply for asylum, the Biden administration is welcoming them into our cities. And we will never be able to keep track of these individuals who have illegally cut the line. They're everywhere in our country now, millions.

We always appreciate you joining us and being part of the team. And I think, folks, if you actually did a survey right now in New York of those other places, they probably are being used for that. That just didn't displace American students, so you're not getting as much in the news. But we know, like Rick said, private hotels, conference centers, and places like that, but they've run out of space in those places. So now they're having to kick American kids out of school and say, we'll go back to remote learning because we have nowhere for these 2,000 people in Brooklyn.

So again, this is just one borough in New York. Again, folks, this is why we think it's so important for you to become an ACLJ champion on all these issues. We've got two pending lawsuits right now against the Department of Homeland Security, one on the disinformation board, another, again, on these policies exactly and why the policies were changed from, remember, the working policies under the Trump administration. So we're fighting those out in federal court right now. We're also, again, fighting at the US Supreme Court with that deadline, now seven days away to file our brief there, the 14th Amendment case.

The Israel issue, of course, as you know, continues on as we work with the hostage families as well and continue to work with leaders around the world on getting as many of those home as possible and reunited with their families. Again, all this work at the ACLJ, some you can plan for, others that you can't, which is why having ACLJ champions, recurring donors, is so important. So if you go to ACLJ.org slash champions now, we want you to choose the amount you're comfortable with donating. It automatically happens each month. And it's a way for us then to look and to say, hey, we know this is coming in this month. So if something happens that isn't planned for the ACLJ can still be at the tip of the spear. And we always want to do that and not just talk about these issues, but give you a way to be involved in every one of these issues.

Go to ACLJ.org slash champions. Become a champion today. We'll be right back. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. All right, 1-800-684-3110.

If you want to talk to us on air, that's 1-800-684-3110. In the first half hour, as we talked about, the impeachment inquiry has begun. That was voted on by the House to start, by the House Homeland Security Committee into Secretary Menorca's three state attorney generals testifying today. Again, about the impacts this is having on their states. And we just talked about how this is having impacts, not just on border states, it's not just Texas and California and Arizona that you're hearing about. It's New York. It's every city and state around the country. When you're talking about the crisis, whether you're talking about the drug crisis, the number one killer of Americans in the United States between 18 and 45 is the fentanyl, which primarily comes across the southern border, illegally manufactured in China and then distributed by cartels from Central America, or the actual people that are displacing high school students in Brooklyn, New York this weekend and next week. They're being told, don't go to school today.

You'll be learning from home because the weather is getting too severe in New York for migrants to be housed in these outdoor tent cities that have been utilized in these different cities where, again, even some of these biggest cities in the country that just cannot handle this kind of new people who have no resources coming into their cities every single day because of the poorest border. And then on the other hand, with the other issues that we've been talking about as well, of course, with Mayorkas. And then you've got the issues involving Hunter Biden today on Capitol Hill and the hearing there on whether or not he'll be held in contempt. He was there for just a few minutes. If you've got any questions about that, we kind of broke that down for you about this kind of loophole that was likely there about why he wasn't forced to testify because he showed up. He hadn't been held in contempt yet.

And so there wasn't a kind of... The House didn't order anyone to use a sergeant of arms to kind of forcefully take him in and say, you must testify. I think after that contempt vote, you could do that.

You just don't have to do that. And even after the contempt vote, remember that goes to the Department of Justice to actually arrest someone or criminally bring charges against someone. This is the Biden Department of Justice.

So it'd be unlikely that it would be enforced there. It'd be like, I'd say similar to Eric Holder. We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110 because we have questions about the impeachment of Mayorkas. I want to go to Liz in Virginia online too. Hey, Liz, welcome to Secula. You're on the air. Hi, everyone.

Thank you for taking my call and for all the hard work that you do. I have three questions for you. The first one is how does impeaching Mayorkas help since the Biden administration will simply replace him with someone else that will just keep following his orders or their orders? And then my second question is, on a separate note, will the ACLG also address the Supreme Court about the fact that President Trump was never charged with an insurrection in the first place and not found guilty by Congress during the impeachment inquiry? And then the third question is, is the American people or are the American people able to do like bring like a class action lawsuit against all these different government actors that are like... We've asked three great questions with regard to the class action, very difficult to get a class certified in something like that. With regard to, are we going to raise the issue that the President had never been charged with nor convicted of an insurrection?

And in fact, the only charge of insurrection was made by the House of Representatives in an impeachment proceeding upon which he was acquitted by the United States Senate. We have done that in our brief for certiorari, and we did that in our ply brief, and we will be doing it now that the court is going to hear the case. That will also be in our merits brief as well.

So yes, all of those issues will be addressed. I think on Mayorkas, which is different than impeaching Biden, I think you want to go through these facts and these numbers and make sure the American people hear it. Because again, sometimes these border issues, they get in the news for a couple of days and then they're out of the news. But to hear the full impact and the testimony on the American people and what this is doing to our communities, it's horrible for also the people who are crossing illegally.

Because again, they're being shifted from tent cities in New York into housing at a high school over the weekend because of weather. These kind of stories. So I think, again, having that full blown discussion sometimes is necessary so that you have the power to get that testimony. We'll be right back on Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow. We are joined now by former Secretary of State, Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, Secretary Mike Pompeo. There is a lot going on, again, around the world. And while we've been focusing on the domestic issues here at home and what is happening on Capitol Hill today, I do want to focus on what's happening around the world, specifically in the Middle East and the Red Sea, that this, again, this issue is not yet over. And the US Navy and the UK Royal Navy, they shot down 18 Houthi drones and three missiles, again, they were fired into the Red Sea. So Secretary Pompeo, when you talk about those kind of numbers from the Houthi rebels, which in my mind years ago was not a group that had access to 18 drones, and it wasn't that sophisticated.

But now you see when they make statements on television, they've got full military attire on and they look much more formalized as a military group. How close is this to almost a full-scale conflict with at least the Houthis? Well, Jordan, I think it is hard to distinguish between almost two dozen rockets and missiles coming across the Red Sea and what you talk about full-scale war. I mean, I would argue that we are at it.

We can all argue about what full-scale means, I suppose. But it's a very serious threat. We should not underestimate the capabilities that have been delivered by Iran to these tribesmen, these proxy forces, right? It's essentially cut out so the Iranians can claim we didn't have any responsibility. But your point is exactly right, that they neither have the technology, the infrastructure, the training, the money to do what they're doing without Iran.

And the fact that our folks were so successful at shutting these down last night and the day before is fantastic. I'm thrilled at the military capability. But if you don't deter what Iran is doing through these proxy forces out of Yemen into the Red Sea, you will have commercial vessels avoiding the area.

You'll have prices go up. We'll have a soldier, a sailor, airman, marine, somebody will get hurt, injured, killed as a result of this because our defenses will ultimately prove imperfect. This is a real threat. And if we don't reestablish that deterrence, Jordan, we're in for an awful mess in the months ahead. Mike, we often talk about this as a proxy war. It's a proxy war with Iran. But one of the things I think that's becoming crystal clear here is that direct engagement, whether it's politically, diplomatically, militarily with Iran, may be what is necessary. You can blame the Houthis, but they're just the front for Iran.

How direct could we be handling Iran right now? Jay, they are contract labor. You have it exactly right.

This is truly a cut out. This is the Iranian regime. We should refer to it as that. I wish the administration would own that. It's hard for them to do because their entire Middle East policy was built about around detente to reestablishing of the relationship, the central idea that there were moderates in Iran that they could talk to. And, you know, we're now watching them enrich uranium at a rate they had not done before. And we're seeing now not one, not two, but at least four fronts open against Israel. Combat, direct military conflict between Iran and Israel happening in four fronts.

This is a real challenge. We ought to confront it precisely where it is and not just go after these cutouts, these contract labor hands, because that doesn't impact Iranian decision. What does that look like if we were to go after that directly?

What does that end up looking like? So, you know, I've heard some say, gosh, if we do that, we'll escalate war. I think just the reverse is true.

And I think we could talk about this for hours. But history reflects that. When the United States took out the Iranian Navy a couple of decades back, they stopped. When in the Trump administration, we took out Qasem Soleimani, we established deterrence. It looks like whether that's, there are clandestine things we could do. There are things we could do overtly to demonstrate to the world.

We're going to be friends with the Sunni Arab nations. You could, it's not just missile strikes, not just rockets, it's not just aviation. There are so many kinds of cost-imposing actions we could take.

I hesitate to even begin to list them all. Sadly, Jay, and this is your point, I think, this administration has done none of those things and they are on the march. You know, we also, you talked about the uranium being mixed up, but we also, at 60% now, that's a report from the UN. And, you know, is this question how close they are to a nuclear weapon is a question that everyone's kind of always on the cusp of everyone's mind. But then on top of that, we've got our Secretary of State in Israel yesterday, but it's not focused on that issue. It's focused on kind of telling the Israelis to tamper down their war against Hamas, instead of kind of focusing on the bigger promise we're all talking about, which is that Iran is the reason why all of these other actors, as you said, contractors for Iran, are able to commit these horrendous acts of whether it's terror, whether it's, you know, shooting up, sending up drones against US ships and UK, Royal Navy.

I mean, they're kind of like the bigger issue is being ignored. Let's take a look at what President, or excuse me, Secretary Blinken is doing in the Middle East by telling the Israelis, you've got to deal with a quote, reform Palestinian authority in Gaza, you've got to restrict what you do. Think about this from three perspectives. If you're Hamas, you just stay in the tunnel a little bit longer, knowing you're going to get to live to execute another October 7. If you're Iran, and you watch that same Secretary of State travel in the region, and not speak about the threat that you pose, watch them just defend against missiles that are inbound. And then think about this, if you're our friends in the capitals across the Middle East, and you watch America trying to thread the needle and befriend Iran, while calling your nation a pariah state. When those things all come together, you get precisely what we're seeing today, Jordan, an enormous amount of increased risks in the region, but to our friends and partners in Israel, but to us here at home as well. So what is stopping Iran, Mike, from reaching a 90% enrichment capacity and securing multiple bombs?

What right now is the deterrent? Well, I don't know the answer to that other than I do think Iran is smart enough not to get into a direct conflict with the United States at scale. That's why a direct response from America is so powerful. They know that in the end, if we chose to do so, and we had leadership prepared with that kind of resolve, we could crush them. I think that's the only thing today that's causing them to stay back. But you know, as a practical matter, Jay, being on the cusp of having sufficient visionable material, material that you can use for a weapon is almost as good when you have President Biden who stares at that and says, boy, we can negotiate our way out of that.

I don't know when we'll find it, but know this, there's not really a technical, anything technically preventing Iran from getting to the level of weapons-grade materials that they actually need to develop the capability to have a weapon. I wanted to ask you about this because you served as Secretary of State and so we know our Secretary of Defense was hospitalized, had cancer surgery, and then had complications from that surgery. And the issue that is concerning to the American people is that none of that was reported to the White House is saying they didn't know and that there wasn't the official kind of transfer of temporary power to a deputy at the time.

And so these kind of normal processes and procedures were not in place. So it freaks people out. I mean, it scares people to think that a top secretary, and especially while there are two major conflicts going on in the world, right now as we speak, including what we talked about with our US Navy and the UK Navy and the Red Sea, so it affected US troops, and that the Secretary of Defense can be totally out of the game and yet there's not a second person who's officially put in charge and the White House isn't even notified. I don't even know where to begin, to be honest with you.

Everyone knows the procedures. I was a cabinet member. When you sign up for those kinds of responsibilities, you forego some of the privacy that you might prefer about what's going on in your own life. But the incompetence demonstrated here, and frankly it's indicative of what we saw in Afghanistan as well, just incompetence from the most senior levels, unable to execute the most basic functions of government. I think people can see that, and I know the world watches this and says, what the heck is going on in the nation that ought to be the premier leader that knows exactly how to do this? When someone's ill or there's an incident, we know how to handle it, we've got depth, we've got capabilities, and yet somehow the Secretary of Defense couldn't tell his boss, the President of the United States, and for days this goes on.

It just seems unimaginable to me. I can't imagine it happening when I was Secretary of State where President Trump didn't know where I was at, if not every hour or every few hours, certainly every day. And somewhere in that deep in the bowels of the administration there's something dysfunctional when this kind of communication fails to take place. We appreciate it. Mike Pompeo, of course, Senior Counsel for Global Affairs for the ACLJ, thanks for the insight, the information, glad you're part of the team.

Thanks, Mike. And talking about teams, folks, 2024 is already off to a huge start with many historic and vital issues at stake, as you know. The Supreme Court, we're there to defend your right to vote. We've got teams being dispatched to Israel, maybe dispatching some more teams next week to England for the Israel matter, fighting government corruption with 18 lawsuits, including at least two against Mayorkas. We talked about today, we're representing whistleblowers.

We've got life issues with two cases at the Supreme Court right now and countless religious liberty cases. We're going to continue to be faced with many major challenges this year and we want to be ready. That's the key thing. By becoming an ACLJ champion today with your monthly recurring gift, you help fund our fight all year long. So let me encourage you to go to ACLJ.org slash champions right now. And any amount you're comfortable donating monthly, you become an ACLJ champion. And as I've said, the goal is to be close to 30,000 ACLJ champions by the end of this year. You can make a huge difference there. Again, go to ACLJ.org, ACLJ.org if you can give monthly, you become an ACLJ champion. As our champions like to say, they're reporting for duty and then reporting for duty allows us to fight.

ACLJ.org, back with me in a moment. All right, welcome back to Secular. We do want to take your phone calls to a variety of these issues we've been discussing today and some of the complications. I want to start with Angela, actually in Nevada on line one on a primary caucus slash issue to answer this question for her. Hey Angela, welcome to Secular. You're on the air. An interesting one here.

Go ahead Angela. Hi, I received my election ballot yesterday in the mail and to say I was unsettled was quite, I can't even sign a word for it, but Trump, Ramaswamy and DeSantis are not on this ballot. Are they thinking that it's too late for us to change it? So in Nevada you've got this interesting development. So the state passed a law saying that political parties have to have primaries. In the past, the Republican party there has had caucuses. So what the Republican party said they were going to do is they will have a primary but they will still have a caucus and they will allocate delegates for who will win, who will get the delegates for the nomination will come from the caucus. So candidates decided whether or not to put their names on the ballot in the primary that you got or participate in the party's caucus. So we know President Trump, these other campaigns have decided DeSantis, Ramaswamy, they would participate in the party's caucus because right now the party is saying that's where we're going to allocate a vote. So that's why you get this ballot that does not have not just the Trump name on it, but also a DeSantis and Ramaswamy. I would imagine Angela, what needs to be done is to make more education coming to you directly from the Nevada Republican party so that you're not having to just call shows like ours nationally, but so you understand why you got about like that, but also to know that because you got that primary ballot that you should know that there's a caucus that's going to be going on and that's where they're saying they're actually going to allocate the votes from to who gets the delegate votes and who wins the Nevada I guess caucuses you will say. So the party kind of got around the law by saying sure we'll host this primary but we're not going to we're going to use the caucus to actually allocate delegates. The first amendment allows the parties to establish how they select their candidates.

One of the issues that comes up actually in the Colorado case. Let's go ahead and take another call, Jordan. Yeah, so we'll go back to the phones at 1-800-684-3110. Tony in Michigan online too. Tony, welcome to Secular. You're on the air. Hi, Tony. Thank you for taking my call.

I listen every day and I thank God for all of you. Thank you. I ran into a situation applicable to Mayorkas's impeachment proceedings. In the process of trying to secure housing for a veteran with PTSD off to get him off the streets and in the housings the vet has pushed in with seven other people to be inside in the night the cold night in Michigan. The Veterans Administration representative clearly stated that unless he is deficit they cannot help him. The next second the vet said he then speaks up to the rep and he said well what about the two houses on such-and-such street here in Benton Harbor that's been given to illegal immigrants.

Don't they have a place like that? And the guy rather than to answer he picks up a piece of paper he answered to us and says here here's all your commerce people write them. Well this is the problem and this is the distortion that's happening with this situation with those that are here illegally but yet being housed in your situation in housing that would be available for a vet who needs assistance. And isn't this a tragedy that a vet who needs assistance is placed in a second-class status because of the illegal immigration overflow of people that have come in that sanctuary cities and other cities just can't handle. That's the tragic real tragedy here and there's not a simple answer to this except government change and that's going to come an election but that doesn't solve your problem for today unfortunately. Yeah we're gonna go back to the phones 1-800-684-3110 that's 1-800-684-3110.

Let's go to Whitney in Texas online for hey Whitney. Hi thanks so much I'm a member of ACLJ Action and you guys put together really beautifully composed letters for us to send to our representatives thank you for that. Absolutely. I do try to add my own language the language I added yesterday was pretty strong. What Mariahorcas has allowed to our cabin to our country so far is clear I'm worried about what hasn't happened yet. So I included the following that if there were to be an internal terror attack that is bound to have been enabled by his dereliction of duty that's no longer a dereliction of duty that's a betrayal of the American people. Americans will have been killed, harmed and betrayal is grounds for treason and I said that with the full understanding of what that entailed so I suggest that Secretary Mariahorcas can give up his job now or something more precious to him should the worst occur. Yeah I think again that when we talk about these issues we talk about the individuals we talk about the drugs we talk about the violence we talked about the terrorists the people on the terror watch list who have been apprehended and when you start getting into millions of people in each year hundreds of thousands in a month you're gonna have a lot of bad actors who are coming right through because they know this is the time this is the time to get the drugs in this is the time to get the terror cells through and yes you might catch a handful of them but that's all you're encountering is the handful and then most of the people when you look at the numbers of who's actually been deported and detained versus how many they've had been these are the encounters that they know of there's seven million encounters in three years and only 250,000 that have either been detained or sent back to their home countries and they got a ways you can't even you're not counting that right so but you know from that seven million six million may have been given some trial date in the next two or three years that they won't show up for and you don't really know who they are let's let's take one more call today Todd in Georgia on yeah online three hey Todd.

Hey Todd, thanks for taking my call. My question is about Israel being accused of genocide at the ICC. Can America or the UK bring Hamas before the ICC for their war crimes and why does Qatar get to harbor the billionaire leaders of Hamas but they won't take the constituents from Gaza that voted America? So this is not at the ICC that's the International Criminal Court this is at the ICJ the International Court of Justice. We will be announcing tomorrow that we have served a brief you can't serve it directly on the corporate we can serve it directly on the UN which is where the court is an organ of that says it's the entire process utilized by labeling Israel a you know committing genocide is factually and legally incorrect and what Hamas did was engage in genocide and they say that in their charter so this is no great surprise but as far as how that proceeding goes their hearing is tomorrow and then on Friday and then it probably sits for months that's how these things move very very slowly but we're on top of it and we'll be able to give a full report tomorrow. Yeah I mean I think again on those issues like the ICJ and the issues different from the ICC I mean I think the ICC we have to watch also and then you'll also get an opportunity depending on what happens at the ICJ for how the US and the Biden administration ends up having potentially to respond because of actions taken by that court that ultimately did go through the UN and the Security Council and this is why again folks we encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ and become an ACLJ champion because you know these issues what happened in Israel on October 7th and what has come from that as we speak now whether it is assisting families of hostages whether it is putting together that brief and making sure the world knows and the state's parties know the truth about what is going to come out of these hearings actions that you could not predict it a month before they occurred but because we have ACLJ champions who have decided to make these recurring donations to the ACLJ we have resources ready to go so we don't ever have to have the discussion of can we afford to get involved in this issue we only have to the only discussion we have to have is how can we make a difference in this issue in the best way utilizing the resources we have in the United States and around the world that's because of ACLJ champions we want you to become an ACLJ champion today go to aclj.org slash champions choose the amount you're comfortable with that recurring donation and it really helps us when to plan but also to deal with unexpected...