Governor DeSantis Drops Out of 2024 Election Ahead of New Hampshire

Breaking news today on Sekulow as DeSantis drops out of 2024 race ahead of tomorrow's New Hampshire primary. 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. Alright, welcome to Sekulow folks. A lot of political news over the weekend that could certainly impact this primary race as voters go to the polls tomorrow in New Hampshire for the first primary of this election cycle. And we're down to two Republican candidates, Donald Trump and Nikki Haley. This weekend all signs were pointing to it.

We were all texting each other. The DeSantis team moved out of New Hampshire, stopped their ad buys. They did not take their Iowa staff and move them to New Hampshire.

They didn't really go into South Carolina either and they took all of their event schedules down from their website. So it was pretty easy to predict at some point, Ron DeSantis was going to be making the speech he made, officially dropping out of the race. Now the question was going to be that, what was the timing and who does it help that he's out now? I would imagine if you're Donald Trump, you think, you look at the Ron DeSantis voter, they're a lot closer to Donald Trump voters than they are Nikki Haley voters right now. I think that's true and I think, look, I think the inevitable in these primaries are two things. Is there a pathway to get the nomination and do you have money? And for Ron DeSantis after coming in second, but so far behind in Iowa where he had really banked his campaign to come in 30 points behind, the money stopped.

That's number one and there was no pathway. So he did the honorable thing. He endorsed the former President. The former President thanked him for the endorsement, said he's a good man.

That's how you start rebuilding. But a lot of people have asked, is there a chance that Ron DeSantis becomes vice President? There's zero chance because they both live in Florida and constitutionally, both the President and the vice President cannot be from the same state. Also, if I was Ron DeSantis, I think I would keep working Florida.

And like you said, it may be, what was your idea? Maybe later in the administration, take a cabinet position and then be a springboard for running for President. If President Trump wins, be helpful to the administration. Advise them on policies that have worked well in Florida. Keep up doing a great job in Florida. Keep your popularity up in the state as you return. Really go out to see the Floridians that you represent and kind of back off away from this kind of national thing.

Keep doing the media, keep talking about it. And then I say, you know, a couple, I don't know if it'd be right off the bat because of some, you know, just kind of cooling down period. But if President Trump, two things, he either utilizes Ron DeSantis on the campaign trail. And if he does that, then I think DeSantis could go into the cabinet early.

If you don't see him on the campaign trail for Donald Trump, it might take a couple of years, but he'd certainly be someone you'd look at a couple of years down the road when he finishes up his term as governor to fill a cabinet spot. It's interesting what Ron DeSantis said. He said, it's clear to me that a majority Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance. While I have had disagreements with Donald Trump, Trump has appeared to the current incumbent, Joe Biden, that is clear. Then he took a shot really at Nikki Haley saying she represents basically the corporatism of Washington, DC.

I mean, that was kind of her, his tactic. Look, I think she has, we'll talk about this in the next segment too. I think her is do or die tomorrow. There's a poll that, I mean, these polls are all over the place, but there's one poll that has Trump at 62% and Nikki Haley at 19%. If that happens, she's done. Yeah, I mean, and again, she's going to be higher than 19 because there's going to be more people voting. Yeah, but at the end of the day, if you're, if you've got a 60 point plus lead, you know, let's say she gets to 40, I mean, that's still a blowout at 20 point a blowout and it's tough to go into your home state where so far the polls have showed you down and then end up losing it.

See, Ron DeSantis made the play and he will not lose Florida now because he will no longer be considered or counted as a candidate that night. We do want to encourage you to support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice. We've got a lot going on. As you know, we encourage you to become an ACLJ champion. We've got the FBI case that we're about to announce on this ridiculous financial investigation they're doing with anybody that, you know, purchased items at various stores or yeah, MAGA in there and a Bible purchase. We're going to talk about that coming up. We've got a team in Israel, from Israel in Europe this coming week, actually starting today. Your support of the ACLJ makes a huge difference.

Become a monthly donor, become a monthly ACLJ champion. Welcome back to Secular. We're taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. I know we've got listeners in New Hampshire, but also around the country. If you were out in Iowa, did you again expect that big victory like Donald Trump had and kind of how that's impacted the race with Ron DeSantis dropping out? For those of you who may have been DeSantis supporters, and again, we're not judging here.

There's nothing wrong or right about that. We'd like to know, you know, are you now, would you now probably be voting for Donald Trump if your primary hasn't occurred? Is that your next choice now that DeSantis is out of the rain? Or is it Nikki Haley because you've just got an issue with putting Donald Trump back? So I'd like to know that from folks because we're going to get two more primaries very quickly here. Sort of.

1-800-684-3110 if you want to talk to us on air. One of the things we talked about was what's going to happen in the primary season here. And Logan, you said you always look forward to the primary season.

Well, yeah, I think that this is a fun time for broadcasters. This is sort of the Super Bowl. So what you have is now eight weeks or less, but March is usually, we really start getting a clear picture, Super Tuesday. Here in Tennessee, we're Super, are we Super Tuesday State? Yeah, we're Super Tuesday State. So now you're going to have, is anyone in Tennessee come out to vote? Because by the end of the time, by the time we get to March, it's going to be one person.

It's going to be Donald Trump without really a doubt. And look, I'm saying it as someone who is disappointed in that. Not that I wouldn't support President Trump, but I did hope to see a bit more, you know, entertainment, a campaign. I thought there'd be debates and all the stuff that we're used to every year. I feel bad for broadcasters like us, but I feel really bad also for Super Bowl. It's a weird thing to feel bad for, but for all of the main broadcasters who you have to think about, advertisers, ratings, all the things that usually come from an election year, that now, because Donald Trump is so secure, you are not going to have those bumps every week that you used to have for a year.

Or Logan's hitting something that is important. For the broadcasters, the advertising that's generated during the primaries is really significant. And Jordan, you've been on these campaigns. You take that out. That has a big economic impact. Plus, how do you keep the enthusiasm up of your base? I guess you turn it to the general election.

Yeah. I mean, I think, yeah, you've got to be speculation VP and you send them around and let them do a lot of rallies. We've seen that before where they got to go out and if Nikki's out in the next couple of days, do you think he picks a VP right away?

I don't think right away. I think you do a victory tour that you've got to go through and vet them. I mean, usually you wouldn't have this early of amount of time to vet them. He's obviously got a short list that he's working with. But there's usually someone not on that list that someone says, hey, you've got to look at this person too.

Then they go through a review process. Who's going to be a good fit? And they try to predict as much about what's happening in the world. Do I need someone who's going to be stronger on domestic policy advising me or do I need someone who's going to have the military experience because we've got conflicts raging in Ukraine, conflicts raging in the Middle East, and just what happened with the attack on our US troops that suffered traumatic brain injuries that were hit by the Houthis.

So you might need to look with someone that's got military experience. Mike Pence was not picked officially until they were headed to the convention in August. So that would be a very long build-up. But usually it doesn't feel that long because you have months of primaries. You have a contested moment where it goes back and forth. In all honesty, if we're just being as 100% upfront as we can be, it's over tomorrow.

This is it. If the numbers hold to what all the polls are showing and he wins by double digits saying 12 or more or 10 or more, yeah. I was sad to see Ron DeSantis drop out. I think he's a really good contender. He's one of the best governors in our country.

I am a Florida property owner. I went through COVID with him and everything that he's able to do to keep that state going. Unfortunately, it wasn't his time. But I do empathize with the fact that when he made that statement yesterday, it was a bit of, oh, this is really over.

It was funny. It was the night before we were out and I was talking to friends. I go, oh, yeah, it's going to be over. Tuesday, it's it. But then the fact that we didn't make it to Tuesday and I feel like it was over is I feel like once DeSantis dropped out. DeSantis, again, came in second in Iowa and now we're headed to New Hampshire.

We're not even to New Hampshire and we're already essentially getting a declared victor. I do think the one thing that can reinvigorate the, I don't want to even say the never Trump crowd because I don't even think they're never Trumpers. I think these are people that were just wanted someone new, wanted someone fresh.

I've been very vocal saying I wanted both to be fresh. I wanted to see a new Democrat, a new Republican up there. I think the only way to get those people really motivated is to have a heck of a VP choice and go out there strong, get someone who can really rally people together. And that will be exciting to me to see who they decide to run with Donald Trump. And I hope they make that decision in the next few months. So then you have another person who can counterbalance it.

I do think they will do that. I also think, Jordan, something you said we were texting over the weekend that becomes very important here. Your VP pick here is as important as ever because of the world conflict.

You've got China, Taiwan is a huge issue right now. Of course, the Middle East, we've got the United States troops being now harmed by the Houthis with traumatic brain injuries. Folks, those traumatic brain injuries are serious injuries. You know, our friends that do tunnel to towers, the organization that helps the veterans, they do a great work. We know a lot of those people. That's what they're talking about.

The people they're helping are a lot of the people that have had these traumatic brain injuries. So your VP and your Secretary of Defense are probably your two most important positions. And specifically when you have both number one contenders for the presidency who already are or will be in their 80s in their term life.

So you have to have someone there that is ready to pick up the ball and go. We know that the conversations have been happening with Michelle Obama trying to maybe be there. I think both Republicans and Democrats, there are people waiting in the wings to see when you have a candidate who is in their late 70s or in their early 80s, you're going to have candidates who are ready to go if something happens. Yeah, and I think that's more important to this election cycle than before, and Kamala Harris does not do a great job for them. I don't think she's built any kind of sense that if Biden was gone, she would really be able to run the ship at all because they hardly ever use her. When they say they're going to put her out and she's going to do some policy initiatives, she gives a speech for five minutes and then disappears again. Well, they say they're going to put her out on the abortion issue, but here's what's interesting. Do they have any more info on that?

Not really. They've done some of the events. They've started to wheel out their abortion. I don't know.

I haven't seen anything from it. But I do think that part of the reason Biden won't, a lot of people are saying that obviously the Obamas and some have been meeting with him to try to get him to leave. One, I feel for Joe Biden being like, I worked my entire life to be the President. I don't agree with Joe Biden on anything. But the fact that they're trying to not let me run is kind of ridiculous.

Well, they are trying to not let him run. I understand, but I do think there is a bit of his legacy going, oh, I could also win reelection, step down in a couple of years, and then the first female President is essentially your legacy. Your legacy is you got Kamala Harris to be your first, because all you have to do then is say, I'm resigning from office.

I'm 86 years old or whatever it would be. Are people going to be okay with her being President? No. I don't think they'll be okay with it.

I think they think history may look nice on it. I'm telling you what I think. I mean, I can be totally wrong here. If he's as difficult to shape as he's in going into the convention, remember that the Democrats have something the Republicans do not have, super delegates. The super delegate can say, well, I know the party nominated Joe Biden, but we, the super delegates, in looking at the situation, have determined that the best candidate for us is, and it will be the Trump possible player, and it will be Michelle Obama.

And that makes it a very difficult race for Donald Trump or anybody else. Yes. I think that her favorability, I'm sure, is probably off the charts. It is off the charts.

And I don't know what it is. You put that by them, Jordan? I wouldn't put anything by them right now to try and win. I mean, it's just they're getting late in the game to pull these kind of moves off, because Donald Trump is maybe less, you know, about 36 hours away from winning the Republican nomination, where all he got was negative attention from the media. Does he debate Joe Biden?

Does he do the general things? Right now, there's no Presidential debate agreement. That whole... Neither one of them want to debate, I think is the truth. Yeah. I don't think you're... I think you may not see a debate. I think that's right, too.

I think Donald Trump might want to debate Joe Biden, but because Joe Biden is not great off his feet, I'm not sure the Biden team would let him. No. I'll tell you what we are going to do. We're going to take your calls at 1-800-684-3110, and we're going to ask a couple of things. Number one, where are you leaning in this race right now, especially with Ron DeSantis out?

How do you view things? We really want to hear from you. From all 50 states, it's fine. 1-800-684-3110. And then we're going to talk about what's going on in Fulton County a little bit later in the program. We're going to talk about, we're going to re-up and re-inform you on what's happened on this financial situation with your banks giving information to the federal government, the FBI, if you buy a Bible. If you shop at Dick's Sporting Goods and a couple of other places, this is what's going on right now. So, we'll take your calls at 1-800-684-3110.

Let me also ask you to do this. We have crossed 19,000 ACLJ champions. When we started our ACLJ champion campaign on the 1st of October, we were about 14,500.

We're now at 19,000. So, we have added 5,000 new ACLJ champions. These are people that are champions for life, liberty, and freedom because they give monthly, whatever the amount. You help us in our matching challenge campaigns.

You help us in our budgeting. The champions program is something we're very excited about. Our goal with the champions is to get as close to 30,000 as we can by the end of the year.

So, if you're able to donate to the ACLJ, I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org forward slash champions. And whatever the monthly amounts you're comfortable giving, do it monthly. And if you have been a champion, re-up.

If yours is expired, re-up. We encourage you to do that. I really believe that we can get to 20,000 by the end of next month, by the end of February. That would be my goal to cross 20,000, then we're within 10,000 of our goal.

So, it's incremental here. But go to ACLJ.org forward slash champions. Become a champion for life, liberty, and freedom. You know about the cases. By the way, our team in Europe is with the Israeli delegation starting this week in both Spain and in England. So, we've got a lot going on there. We'll update you on that. We've already filed our brief for the Supreme Court case, our opening brief on the attempts to take Trump off the ballot. We're going to file a reply in February, arguments February 8th. So, we'll talk about that as well. Taking your calls at 800-684-3110 when we come back. Welcome back to secular. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Again, a lot of political calls coming in. Do you want to take one of those before we go to the next? Let's do that. Harry Hutchinson is joining us and he'll be able to comment on this too.

There's a lot of interesting hypotheticals and I get it because people are wondering. So, let's go to Court in Virginia online too. Hey, Court.

Hi. Sort of a two-part question. If convicted of a felony prior to the election, would Trump still be able to become President? And then, if he is not able to, how late is it, or rather, when is it too late for the Republicans to replace him with someone else on the ballot? So, I've become an expert on disqualification clause of the Constitution because that's subject to the litigation that we have at the Supreme Court of the United States on the Colorado matter with these other states, this whole disqualification issue.

So, let me tell you what the law is, Court. Even if convicted, he can run for President, he can be elected President, he can be seated as President. That does not disqualify you from serving as President. Now, the one question would be if they would have had an insurrection charge, which they don't, which has a disqualification component to it. So, the short answer is no. It does not affect his ability to run or be seated as President.

And, of course, here's what can happen. On the federal charges, if Trump wins the presidency, he can order the Department of Justice, they work for him, to simply dismiss the cases. He has the authority to do them. People go, oh, that's our, what about the independence of the Department of Justice? They work for the executive branch. It's an Article II agency. So, they have the, I'm just talking about the Constitution. Don't start writing crazy notes of Jay Sekulow saying the President's gonna do this. I don't know. I haven't talked to him about it.

I have no idea. I'm just saying what the Constitution allows. That's what the Constitution allows.

So, people need to understand that's what it is. I want to take that right down to this disaster in Georgia. Fannie Willis's prosecution, persecution, I will say, of some of these people in Georgia has, is totally falling apart. There's now an allegation that her lead special counsel that she hired has been paid like four or six times what everybody else has paid.

Almost 700 grand. Yep, almost $700,000, where I think the other one is paid $79,092,000, has taken her, the guy, that she has a relationship with the guy and that they're doing all these trips at basically taxpayer expense. The Fulton County Commission has now opened up an investigation and the judge has called for a hearing on motions to dismiss. Harry, that prosecution is desti-, I think it's doomed. I think you're right. I think Fannie Willis has put herself in an unenviable position in part because she's put her own self-interest ahead of the interest of the public in a fair and independent prosecution. She has undermined public confidence in this particular case by hiring Nathan Wade, who is demon-, who has demonstrated his capacity to be an expert in romance as opposed to the law.

And of course, he's been well paid for his expertise. And so I think at the end of the day, the judge in this particular case, who has ordered a hearing, I believe, on February the 15th, Judge McAfee, yep, will perhaps stop this particular persecution because the prosecution is not necessarily grounded in the facts. It's grounded in animus. And then this animus has been amped up by a romantic relationship. And the other thing that Fannie Willis has demonstrated is poor judgment.

She has decided to have a relationship with a guy who's going through a messy divorce. There's another party in this case. Well, that's the party that's asking for the documents about Fannie Willis. That's how it all came to light.

Absolutely. So let me tell you this. Donald Trump's lawyer is a very good friend of mine.

And I texted him over the week and I said, you can't make this stuff up. Because here's what, here's the damaging part of this. And this is what, so if, if she's disqualified, Jordan, her office is disqualified. Now, if I'm, if I'm Governor Kemp at that point, and if I'm Attorney General Carr, the, the, the Attorney General for Georgia, you know what I say?

This is personal because their theory of RICO is absurd. I would dismiss the whole thing, get it done, finished over. And anybody that's pled guilty, I would allow them to file a motion to rescind their plea, which should be granted.

So they would take it over. So people want to know, so if her office has taken off, who does it, it goes to the Attorney General? The Attorney General at least would be involved in the appointment.

The Governor could shut it down and everybody that pled should then file a motion to rescind their plea. So this could be potentially the id of that. Oh, I think this is over.

I think the drum beat, Norm Eisen said yes. One of the most dangerous potential cases. I thought it was one of the, what was most dangerous because he would have no chance in Fulton County. And all these people flipping each other.

And there were so many deep defendants here. All right, let's go take another phone call. Yeah, let's go to Terry at Florida Online 4.

Interesting about Rhonda Santos. Hey, Terry. Hey, guys. First of all, I want to tell you how much I love what you do.

And I'm with you 100 percent. I am a monthly contributor. Thank you as an ACLJ champion. Thanks, Terry.

And I live in Florida for 12 years now. And I'm really happy to have our Governor back. I never wanted to lose him. And he's young and he can do whatever in 2028.

But I'm very happy to have him back. Well, you know, I think if he handles this correctly, and I think so far he has by not staying in past year like sell by date, it just wasn't happening for him. He spent the money. He spent the resources. He did the work. And what happened was he went in, remember, thinking when he started everything, even before he launched his official campaign, that maybe Donald Trump wasn't going to run again.

And it wasn't 100 percent. He was facing a lot of legal issues. So maybe he decided, you know, I'm going to go to the business side, get this figured out, I'm not going to go through this politics again.

So he made that gamble. And he did a lot of great fundraising early on because a lot of people went along with him and said, you know what, I think you may be right. Or that people might be somehow tired of Trump, but they want the same kind of policies and issues. They want a MAGA candidate.

And so he got in early, tried to be that person, but then the real MAGA candidate came in, the real McCoy, if you will, and he just lost all the support. Harry, quickly, and I'm going to talk more about this in the next segment coming up, the select subcommittee on weaponization have obtained those documents showing people being targeted, their banks being targeted, if they had purchased a Bible, purchased things at Dick's Sporting Goods, Cabela's, and also at Bass Pro Shop. It's unreal that this has happened, but this is, in fact, now clear that it did happen.

Absolutely. So if you simply look at the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, it says, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or bridging the freedom of speech or of the press. And so what the federal government has done in going after traditional Catholics and going after pro-life individuals, they have simply labeled individuals who perhaps, perhaps purchase a Bible as extremist. This is unprecedented in American history.

So in effect, the U.S. government is saying, if you exercise your constitutional rights, you are potentially at least an extremist. And I think the American people need to push back against this. Well, we are. I'm holding in my hand.

We can put it up on the screen. This is our Freedom of Information demand that we have sent now to the FBI. And this is a FOIA request about the FBI's flagging of financial transactions using terms like MAGA, Trump, and Bible.

That is started. I'm sure we'll end up in federal court. Your support of the ACLJ lets us do this to keep our government accountable.

Go to ACLJ.org forward slash champions. If you can donate monthly to the ACLJ as the caller did, you become an ACLJ champion for life, liberty, and freedom. And you're really making a huge difference, folks. We can tell a major difference. Our revenue from our champions is up almost 25, almost 28 percent so far this year because of people like you standing with us. Absolutely. So go today. Become an ACLJ champion.

Choose that amount you're comfortable with. It is great. You're at the tip of the spear for the ACLJ. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow, folks. So a lot of politics going on. We're going to take your calls on that. 1-800-684-3110 New Hampshire tomorrow.

And we're down to two Republican candidates. Can you believe that? When it started off a field, I don't know, it's like one of the biggest we had. It was one of those 14, 16 fields. But the way they handled the debates really did winnow it down pretty quickly.

And it also, Donald Trump not participating as the leading candidate, those debates did not matter nearly as much. Also, we are filing today our Freedom of Information Act request against the FBI for flagging financial transactions at bank. It could be on your accounts. For using terms like MAGA, Trump, and Bible. Also purchases at Dick's Sporting Goods.

Also at some of the other sporting goods stores as well. And again, this is another overreach by the FBI. I just want to let you know the ACLJ's Office of Government Affairs on top of this. Letters already out, what's called a Freedom of Information Act request.

Maybe end up in litigation. There we go. Alright, we're going to take some phone calls right off the bat here because people have been holding.

Who do we want to take first? Yeah, I think it's interesting to call Keith in Maine online too. Hey Keith. Hi.

Hey Keith. Hey, earlier in the broadcast you were discussing possible names for Trump's pick for VP. My question is, has Mike Pompeo's name been considered? I'm sure Mike Pompeo has got to be on everybody's short list. He was the Director of the CIA. He was the Secretary of State. I mean, my gosh, he'd be a great VP. He'd be a great Secretary of Defense.

He'd be a great Attorney General. We'd hate to lose him here at the ACLJ, but for the good of the country, obviously, yeah, I think Mike Pompeo was on everybody's list. I'm not going to confirm that.

I can't confirm that. But I'm just saying, yeah, it would make sense that he was on the list. And I think where he potentially may end up will be kind of like I was saying, based on where the events are going, are things continuing to escalate in Israel and the Middle East? Are they continuing to escalate in the Red Sea with the Houthi rebels in Iran? Is Ukraine and Russia still in conflict? What has China done? If you're looking at a world that looks like it's still teetering on more conflict and more war, then I think Mike Pompeo, again, makes a lot of sense even as a potential VP.

But certainly, somewhere in the Cabinet, you need those kind of advisors because so many potential conflicts, and he's got the military background along with all the government service. Let's go ahead and take one more call. We'll take your calls at 800-684-3110. Here to Kate in Colorado on Line 1. Hey, Kate.

Hi there. I am curious about this rumor that floating around that may not be much of a rumor about the potential of Michelle Obama floating in or parachuting in, as Ted Cruz stated a few months ago, becoming the Democratic nominee. Can you speak to that? Yeah, I don't think that's out of the question because, remember, Democrats have superdelegates, so even though they go through – you know, this is not a contested primary for him, really. There's no one really running against him. You have some individuals, but they're not going to score serious points. But they could get to the convention and say, hey, you know what the President can say?

Hey, for the good of the country, I need to step aside. Then it goes to the superdelegates. And do I think they would pick Michelle Obama? Of course I think they would pick Michelle Obama because she probably would win – what, you were in all 50 states? It would be very difficult. Not all 50 states. There are some red states that are pretty red, but it would be a totally different race.

I mean, a totally different race than Joe Biden or Harris or anything like that. I think, again, you don't know 100 percent? Does she come out and have the same gravitas politically as her husband did?

So, again, it's not 100 percent, but it would seem like it would be a lot stronger. Now, she has to make the decision that, one, you're going to go through all those machinations to get there, which is a war with someone you're pretty friendly with, right? For a vice President. And that you're going to win that war, and you're going to tangle with Donald Trump when you could wait it out.

Because he's only going to serve it most one more term. Well, that's going to be interesting. All right, we're taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. Coming up, Rick Grenell is joining us because what's happening in the Middle East now is affecting the health and safety and lives of our American troops. We're fully engaged on every one of these issues we're talking about. The ACLJ is front and center because of you. Especially because of our ACLJ champions, those of you that can give each and every month.

By the way, if you can't give each and every month, we totally understand. We appreciate your support whenever you can do it. But if you want to be a champion for life, liberty, and freedom on a monthly basis, become an ACLJ champion. Go to ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org. You'll really become the backbone of the organization. We appreciate so much, and we're hearing from so many of our champions on air. Very encouraging.

ACLJ.org. 1-800-684-3110 if you want to talk to us on air. All right, welcome back to Secular. We're joined by Rick. Rick just dropped so we can get him back.

I will let you know. Rick Grenell is going to be joining us. He was right there.

He was right there, and then we dropped him. But we'll get his info again on... Let's go ahead and take a call. Yeah, we do. We have a lot of calls coming in. 1-800-684-3110. Let's go to Yvette in New York on Line 5. Hey, Yvette. Hi, Yvette. Hi. Oh, yes.

Here it is. Even though the Democrats have done every dirty thing to keep Trump off the ballot and they say, oh, he's the worst thing for democracy, I have heard it theorized that some of the Democrats might say, you know, go ahead. Let Trump be the candidate. He'll lose anyway because there's no Democrat who will vote for him and not even all Republicans are for him. Yeah, so there's a lot of people saying that, but let me give you my counter for this as the lawyer that's handling the biggest election case in U.S. history. If that was the case, and Yvette, your people are saying that they really want Trump to be the nominee, well, then let me tell you what you don't do. Don't file 15 lawsuits trying to keep him off the ballot. And that's what they're trying to do.

Now, the case in Colorado is now at the Supreme Court. I'm holding it in my hand. I don't know if we have this in there or if we could show this to our television, our audience that's watching us. But this is the opening book. I call it a brief, but this thing looks anything but brief. It's two inches thick. By the way, the one we just filed is about six inches thick.

It's got five appendices, and all have to be printed and all have to be sentenced, so that's now been filed and done. But I think, look, people are saying that, oh, yeah, they want Trump to be the nominee, but they're fighting so hard to keep him off the ballot between the litigation and the criminal cases. I think we've got Rick now. Rick, what's your kind of reaction to that? It was a good question. Because there are people saying that. Yeah, I think it's an excellent question.

We hear this pretty regularly. Look, I think there's a big difference between those in Washington, D.C., and those outside of Washington, D.C. Clearly, the leadership of the Democratic Party and the Biden administration that controls the Democratic Party and the U.S. government, the word has gone out that they want to go after Donald Trump with as many lawsuits as possible. All of the Democrats that are trying to prove that they're hardcore Democrats are filing lawsuits.

We've got 91 charges against the guy. I think they've overreacted. And now you have people like Andrew Yang and some other, David Axelrod, some other Democrats who are saying, wait a minute, I think the Democrats have overreached here. You don't get to talk about an attack on democracy while you're attacking democracy by kicking off the opponent off the ballot.

That's what dictators do. No, I think I think you're right, Rick. I want to turn our attention to something. And we, of course, we have an office, as you know, in Jerusalem. We're very involved in the Middle East. But this situation with the Houthis. And of course, it reached a different level this weekend.

Let's just be honest. And that is when our men and women in uniform that are defending your freedom and mine to be Americans, to have freedom and liberty, are having traumatic brain injury. And that's how they're saying it on TV, traumatic brain injury. I try to remind people, and I'm not trying to be like, you know, pain in the negative. But our friends at Tunnels to Towers and these groups, those are the people that are getting help from those groups when you've got traumatic brain injury.

Lots of times, unfortunately, that is permanent. And I think we lost Rick again. But so we got him back. So, Rick, the situation with the Houthis and the direct attacks now in the United States and now having damage to and harm putting our lives of our military in danger and already causing traumatic injuries. What's the forget what the Biden administration is doing?

What should you've done these positions in government? What should we be doing? Well, first of all, we never should have taken the Houthis off the terrorist watch list. They should be immediately put on as a foreign terrorist organization. What's happening is, is that they're trying to treat them differently. The Biden team is not classifying their terrorist activities in Yemen or Saudi Arabia as a terrorist act. What they're doing is they're saying your attacks in the Red Sea have gone too far, so we're going to just target those attacks.

And the message is clear that if the Houthis would just stop attacking in the Red Sea, that somehow all things would be fine. What I believe you do is you classify the entire organization as a foreign terrorist organization, an FTO, which allows you to freeze all of their money and to demand our allies and other banks around the world to either freeze their money or stop doing business with the United States. It's a crippling sanctions. They cannot move money around. They cannot use the banking system. And then you really isolate them and label them as a terrorist organization so no one will do business with them.

That's what you need to do immediately. I was going to ask you the next part of that is, of course, the Houthis are backed by Iran. And that's where they're getting if there was no Iran, there'd be no Houthis. Let's be honest.

I mean, that's just the way it is. So what do we do on the Iran front? I know these are pointed questions, Rick, but I mean, when you start having soldiers being harmed or maybe killed, we're at a different level here. What do you do with Iran? I mean, no, Jay, you're exactly right. We have American soldiers who are being killed, maimed and attacked.

And it's brand new in many ways. We had stopped so much of this under the Trump administration. What you need to do is you need to make sure that we are using every arm of the U.S. government to really go after them. And look no further than what the Trump administration did. Do the opposite of what the Biden team is doing.

This is this is a disaster. And what we do know is that we had Iran isolated. We had Iran without money. We had Iran really worried about how they were going to pay for their nuclear programs and their terrorist activities. And yet when the Biden team came in, they gave them credit. They gave them sanctions relief. And it's been more than one hundred billion dollars that they've been able to assess. Is anyone surprised when you give Iran one hundred billion dollars that you're not going to get terrorist activities and more programs towards a weapon?

I mean, the U.N. even knows this. It just seems like this could dominate to be very important in the next election. And I did want to ask you about this, Rick, as we saw the big win for Donald Trump in Iowa, all eyes on New Hampshire, because there is a chance and you never know.

But there is a chance that this Republican primary is effectively over with tomorrow night and which would go against a lot of people what they thought early on in this race when there were 12 or 13 candidates. But over the weekend, I think Ron DeSantis did the honorable thing, no path to victory, and made the speech and goes back to govern in Florida. And he endorsed President Trump and was thanked by President Trump. And I think, you know, he's got a couple more years as governor, stay in that position. And over that time, you know, he can rebuild the relationship with President Trump. Everybody's tough here and political actors can get through that.

And, you know, he's got a long career ahead of him. But the Nikki Haley Trump, I mean, this could really be over for her because the next state, South Carolina, it's going to be hard to go in there if she gets trounced in New Hampshire. Yeah, look for two things to happen in New Hampshire. One, Nikki Haley is still going to lose, but the media will immediately say, oh, Donald Trump didn't win by as much. He might win by, you know, 15 points. And they're going to say that since he didn't win by 50 or more than 50 percent, somehow that that's a bad thing.

It's not a bad thing. This is part of the process. So look for the media to immediately say that, but also look for Nikki Haley to drop out before February 3rd. February 3rd is the South Carolina primary. It's her home state. She's going to lose. She does not want to be embarrassed in her home state where she was the governor, where she goes head to head with Trump and loses big. And she will lose big in South Carolina, make no mistake.

So she'll drop out before February 3rd. I'm confident of that. And lastly, I'll just say, you know, these primaries are tough.

We focus on all of the ways that we're different, but we are so alike in so many ways. We welcome the Ron DeSantis endorsement. We hope that his people will take some time and then get on the Trump train, get us focused on Joe Biden. We need everyone and we welcome back the DeSantis people. It does seem like with this large of, if you have this much time between the primary and the general election, which usually you got to at least fight it through Super Tuesday, which is in March, and then kind of, you know, really work on coming back together. Because that means it was a tough campaign and with a lot of people who are really taking tough positions on each other, you have a decent amount of time here now to build back the team and earn people's support. And then ultimately choose a VP, put people on the trail for you and really start going after those voters that you think are most key and maybe even more difficult to get. So you get a lot more time and you don't spend as much money if it's over this early.

Not spending as much money is the key there. We need for Nikki to save her money. We need for Ron DeSantis to save the money and focus on Joe Biden. And so that's where we are. I absolutely don't believe that Nikki Haley is going to stay in this race into her home state and then be embarrassed by losing big time.

That's a narrative you really can't live down that you went to your home state and got pummeled. Hey Rick, one last thing here. We got less than a minute really. We are filing a Freedom of Information Act request against the FBI for this information where if you're buying a Bible and you use your checking account or if you're shopping at Dick's Sporting Goods or Bass Pro Shop, they're flagging it. And this is another FBI overreach. We've started the FOIA information there. Let everybody know, we only got 30 seconds, how important this is. Look, it's incredibly important.

I don't know many organizations that do the follow through like this, that hold them to account, that don't just talk about it on a radio show. We need every little bit of support we can get to continue doing this. Our team is amazing. Our legal team is amazing.

I hope people will help us. These are the types of things that really matter when we follow through. Yeah, I appreciate that, Rick, very much. And by the way, folks, if you want to support the ACLJ and become an ACLJ champion, so many of you add by supporting our work monthly. We really appreciate that at ACLJ.org. We'll be back with more.

The FBI looking at you, if you've gone into sporting goods stores, maybe you made a purchase of, I did some baseballs, some softballs or yeah, if you bought any religious text recently, they went to your banks to look for that information because they think that might be a sign that you are an extremist. John, welcome to Sekulow. You're on the air, line three.

Yeah, guys, how are you doing? I have a question. Is there a list available that maybe you guys have or is there a published list of the institutions that did this so those of us that might choose to take action against them or just pour our money out could take that action? And also, how about Rick Grenell for VP? Hey, Rick Grenell for VP. We're probably pretty happy about that here at the ACLJ.

Mike Pompeo. It's good to know who the vice President is and the President. But Bank of America was in the release, so they were not, again, they didn't try to keep their name out of it. They were named publicly.

But I'm assuming that if Bank of America gave it over voluntarily, every major bank probably did under some law that the government used to scare them away from pushing back. Yeah, so that's why we're filing the Freedom of Information Act request so we can find out this information. So, John, we will get that information. As we get it, we will get it to you. I want to turn our attention, we'll take more calls coming back in a minute, but I want to turn our attention overseas because we've got a delegation from our European Center for Law and Justice with our colleagues in Israel in Europe right now.

CC? Yeah, so the hostage situation remains. This is day 107 of the Israeli hostages being kidnapped by Hamas. And our ACLJ team is working in the UK and Spain with a hostage delegation and to keep, you know, forefront that we cannot forget that there are still, you know, over 100 hostages being held by Hamas. The other thing that's important to understand, and do we know that number for sure and the answer is nobody knows for sure. We do not know. We don't know because the situation is that bleak. But what we want to establish here is we have already gone to the United Nations.

Let's talk about that for a moment. We have filed at the UN both with the Secretary General, with a bunch of the committees, and also the committees that deal with people being taken hostages. Yes, so we have kept all of our, you know, communication lines with the United Nations bodies open. We have been keeping the hostages forefront before them. The Working Group on Unforced or Involuntary Disappearances is one of them.

We have filed on behalf of several clients there, and we will continue to do so. We keep bringing this forefront before the UN that Hamas cannot be allowed to hold Israeli hostages. It's a very difficult situation, folks, right now over there. I mean, you're seeing it on the wars in the south, which is Gaza, but there's also a lot of skirmishes. I'll still call them skirmishes going on in the Galilee region up north, so it's tough there.

There's been problems on the West Bank. I mean, this is a very difficult situation. Let me encourage you to pray. Pray for our lawyers. Pray for the UN. Pray for the leadership in Israel. It's a mess over there right now, politically, legally, militarily. It's very difficult. We have an ACLJ prayer guide that we released for this first quarter this year.

I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org and get it because part of that includes praying for our various cases and includes our teams that are working overseas. All right, we're going right back to the phones at 800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110. Who's next? Yep, we're going to go to Rebecca in New Hampshire on Live 6. So, Rebecca, all attention is on voters in New Hampshire and tomorrow's primary.

Have you made up your decision, and did anything that happened over the last few weeks change it? Yes, I made up my decision, and I am sad that Ron DeSantis is out, but hopefully he'll become President later on. And I'm excited, and a lot of people here in New Hampshire are, to vote for Trump. In fact, I'm finding it interesting that a lot of Democrats actually are saying, we want Trump too, because they do not want the intelligence agencies spying on us, surveilling us, trying to control our lives.

I think there is a libertarian streak, a lot of independents in New Hampshire, there's a libertarian streak that runs within the core of the American people. And while we want national security, I think we're always concerned when the government is encroaching on our civil liberties. Yeah, government overreach is a concern. And when you feel that you're personally being attacked or spied on, that's something that motivates people to get out and vote. I mean, this thing with the FBI looking at your bank records, if you bought a Bible or you're shopped at a sporting goods store, is absurd.

I mean, or if you bought MAGA material. I mean, who does this? That's what the FBI is spending their time on? That's a little scary. Alright, we're taking more calls, 800-684-3110. Julie is calling from Florida. Hi, Julie. Hi, I just want to say I love you guys. Thank you for taking the call.

I'll watch you every day. I just wanted to say when you think this first was going to run, I was thinking of voting for him. That was my husband's Trump train all the way. The first indictment, then the second, then the third for Trump, I changed my mind months ago. We're having a lot of trouble hearing you, Julie.

Let me ask you a question. You said you were for DeSantis before Trump started being targeted by DOJ. Did that DOJ targeting make you end up supporting Trump?

Absolutely, a hundred. Alright, this is exactly what I think has happened. This was the great backfire in this political process where the Democrats overreach with the weaponization of these agencies and hoisted and foisted to the top Donald Trump. I think if you look at the numbers from the time they started indicting him to now, it's exploded and that's why you're going to have no primaries.

Because I think people realize that if you can do this to him, a former President of the United States with unbelievable economic resources, how easy it would be to take down any of us, just an average American citizen, over just the fact that they don't like your politics or how you talk. And so if it can happen to him, you can certainly say, well, I'd have no chance against the government. And so the tracking of what you're buying at the sporting goods store, the tracking of if you're buying a new Bible, I mean, all of that people relate to because Lord knows we've all done it in the last week and a half. We've been at those stores doing that, especially people my age, you know, sporting goods stores for your kid. So when you put it all together, you realize, wait, that's going to get me on a list to potentially get me investigated by the FBI.

I'm somehow radical because, you know, I went to Dick's Sporting Goods for my daughter's softball bat. I mean, that's insanity. And we're going to find out if you treat Donald Trump this way, people can easily assume how bad they would be treated. No, I think that's right.

And I think that has worked to the former President's advantage. I expect, unless something very strange happens out of New Hampshire tomorrow, about Wednesday at this time, we're going to be talking about this as a one-person race and then basically you'd be focusing on a primary. But again, I want to end this segment by saying our teams are fully deployed in the Middle East, in Europe. Our team in Jerusalem is working with our folks in our offices in Strasbourg.

That's happening right now. Right now, as we speak, we are in the UK and Spain this week on behalf of the hostage families to make sure that they stay front and center on the minds of everyone. And your support of the American Center for Law and Justice allows us to do that, including funding our offices in Jerusalem, and that's an ACLJ office in Jerusalem, and our European Center for Law and Justice, which is the accredited unit of the ACLJ that's with the United Nations. So when you support whatever amount you donate to the ACLJ, you're helping to do that. So for all of you that have donated to the ACLJ in the past year and continue to do so now, thank you. And for those of you that can stand alongside of us monthly and become an ACLJ champion, we encourage you to do that, to give monthly. Go to ACLJ.org forward slash champion, and you become a champion for life, a champion for liberty, and a champion for freedom. You become the backbone of what really helps us be able to budget for these what I call emergency cases, which happen all of the time. You also help us on our matching challenges. It's just a tremendous campaign. Be a champion for life, liberty, and freedom at ACLJ.org forward slash champions. We'll talk to you tomorrow.