MIC DROP: Leavitt Releases DOGE Receipts

In a mic drop moment, Press Secretary Leavitt releases the doge receipts. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you.

Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow. This is Logan Sekulow.

Welcome to Sekulow. Will Haynes is joining me in studio later on in the broadcast. Harry Hutchinson and Jeff Balaban from ACLJ Jerusalem are going to be joining us and we've got a packed show.

Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. Of course, there's some breaking news. RFK Jr. has been confirmed.

Will, we want to make sure that we give everyone those updates before we get to the topic of the day. That's right. He was confirmed 52 to 48, the same vote tally as Tulsi Gabbard had yesterday. The one Republican voting against him was Senator Mitch McConnell.

No surprise there. But we also have news that Kash Patel has advanced out of the Judiciary Committee and will be soon having a vote scheduled for his confirmation in the full Senate. Obviously, cloture vote, 30 hours, then confirmation. I assume that will be sometime next week based off the calendar and how these things have been running. But good news that Kash Patel has advanced out of committee and we have a new Secretary of Health and Human Services in Bobby Kennedy. Yeah, absolutely.

And again, phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110. It does seem like this is progressing pretty quickly. The conversations continue. We have Tulsi Gabbard sworn in last night. So this has all been good. We have seen great movement.

And I have to say thank you, obviously, to the ACLJ supporters who got behind a lot of this. Today, we also have Linda McMahon having her hearings. And those just started about an hour ago.

I was tuning in live right before we came on air. So again, getting that cabinet approved, ready to go, confirmed is a process. That's one that's now happened in what? Just under a month. You've seen most of the cabinet positions get pushed through.

Obviously, it's now the 13th of February. So again, President Trump's been in office for three and a half-ish weeks. And we have seen a lot get done in that time period.

And one, of course, is the Department of Government Efficiency, maybe one of the more controversial but fun-to-watch departments that has been launched with Elon Musk. And there have been a lot of debate of whether actually they're getting stuff done. Are they calling things to attention? Is any of this real? Is what's happening here? The questions came up with our press secretary, Carolyn Levitt. And Will, she had a pretty good response.

That's right. And we're going to go ahead and play Byte 2 for you. This is from yesterday's press briefing, when the press, now their new narrative is, is anything actually happening?

Let's go ahead and play Byte 2. On Doge and the fraud claims, Elon Musk in the Oval yesterday gave us some information on that. We're just wondering if there's some proof evidence. Is the White House willing to share evidence of those fraud claims? Or can Elon Musk come to the briefing room and share material evidence of what he's talking about? Sure, I would love for Elon Musk to come to the briefing room. That's why we had him go to the Oval Office yesterday, where I think he provided great answers.

He was speaking in layman's terms, speaking common sense to all of you in the media, but also to Americans at home. But I would say especially to all of you in the media, because I think it's a real fallacy that there's this alleged lack of transparency when it comes to Doge. President Trump and Elon Musk have been incredibly transparent on what Doge is doing.

There is an ex-account with the Doge handle. They are tweeting out what they are doing on a daily basis. They have a website where they are posting the receipts of the contracts that they are reviewing and the payments that they have stopped from going out the door for the secretaries of our departments have stopped from going out the door. Yeah, so there's Karen Levitt again, making her statement. This has been a very open door. It feels like administration in general, the fact that you had had Elon Musk again, the richest man in the world, taking unfiltered questions in the middle of the Oval Office with his son on his shoulders.

It is a different presentation, a different world than what we were used to for the last four years. Phone lines are open. What do you think about this at 1-800-684-3110? Do you approve of the Doge department's work? And what do you think about the Senate confirming RFK Jr.?

Because look, Health and Human Services, I'm sure a lot of you have thoughts about RFK, some for, some against. What do you think? I'd love to hear from you now that he will be confirmed or he's confirmed, and then we'll be put in place in probably just a matter of hours. Usually it happens within a matter of hours.

Happened last night for our friend, Tulsi Gabbard. So again, I'd love to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. We'll be taking calls earlier today because one of our guests is in the last segment. So call in now to get in line. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Secula, amongst the many things that were showcased from the Department of Government Efficiency.

And again, we're going to take a lot of these calls at 1-800-684-3110. Some of the more outlandish ones, and some of the ones you may not even know were happening. And Will, before this, he showed me pictures of what looked like a scene from Indiana Jones, like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark when they're, you know, putting in the Ark of the Covenant. There is, maybe they're going into Petra in Jordan is what it looks like. But no, this is in Pennsylvania. If you're watching right now, you're seeing pictures of what appears to be some sort of cave, some climate-controlled cave, where currently there are government employees by hand, individually processing the retirement plans for our government workers. And it's happening in the most inefficient and archaic ways. And again, nothing against the people who are doing this. It's their jobs. It's the fact that we have decided as the government, as the United States government, to not keep things up to date and upgraded. It's like when you call the IRS, you have an issue with them, they ask you to fax something.

Just the idea of people having access still to fax machines on the regular, that is not what's happening. Of course, when you see these, you know, there's a cave in Pennsylvania that they're doing this. There's a bunch of people right now as we speak in a cave in Pennsylvania by hand, typing in all this information. How long did it say to process someone's retirement?

That's right. So it can take over a month to process retirement because it is 230 feet underground. This is a mine.

There's 700 workers in this old limestone mine. It is 10,000 applications per month is what they see. And it takes, by hand, they process, they have to fill out the information, process it. And the retirement process takes multiple months, not just a month, multiple months. They are stored in manila envelopes and cardboard boxes in this mine.

And I believe Elon Musk said they could literally do anything and it would be more efficient than what they're currently doing. The fact that we are operating as if it is still the 1960s or 70s, having to hand fill out everything, it's all paper copies to process this. It's stored in an underground facility.

I mean, it's a beautiful cave, nothing against the cave itself, but the fact that we're sitting here in 2025, and this is how they're still processing retirement of US government employees, which newsflash, there's about to be a lot more retirements coming up. And we'll get to that later because of the buyout plan that President Trump has offered many of these federal workers where they can take a buyout and still get paid until September. But it is just egregious that this is how we're still operating. I keep pointing back to the fact that Doge is called the Department of Government Efficiency. And that is the key word there, efficiency. It's not just cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.

That's the easiest segment they can go to first. But the fact that we're still operating in this manner, we've talked about it for a long time, how the IRS is still using fax machines to process things. I had to do it myself. Old IBM computers and dot matrix printers, things that are technology that you can't even find by going to a store.

You'd have to go to a thrift store and maybe find one for $5 to replace the technology. That's how our government is still operating. So the efficiency, when the left says, are they even really saving money? Are they even really cutting these things? One, they are. But two, when you look at the ways that they can modernize the government, will save millions, billions of dollars for the US taxpayer, I would go so far as to say it is immoral that we are using taxpayer dollars.

We are wasting the resources of the American people operating our government as though it is still in the Cold War. Yeah. The website also launched at doge.gov. You can go look at that.

It just launched yesterday. You can kind of follow along what they're doing. It's also an ex-account. Really, that's what you're seeing is sort of an ex-account. And then, of course, the savings, the workforce, all of that is there. It doesn't look like a government website.

I'll be honest, when you go to it, it looks like a very Elon Musk website, very black and gold, and it's cool. So you can go and do that. I want to take a call about this. Ronnie's calling from Arkansas, who's watching on the Salem News Channel, where we're live now from 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time on the Salem News Channel.

Ronnie, go ahead. Yeah. I was just asking, are we still going to have to make good all of the things that Doge found? You know what? They found out all the money that they funneled to all these different locations and different places.

Yeah. I think Ronnie asked a very good question, which is we're uncovering this, but are we saving? It's being uncovered. A lot of these contracts are being canceled immediately, so they are not going to have to make good on these grants.

But here's the problem. The left is trying to, and many of them are liberal states like New York, are suing are suing President Trump and the administration to try and stop his funding freeze. They are trying to force Donald Trump's administration to continue to pay out. And what we have and what the ACLJ did yesterday is we filed in three different cases where the left is trying to stop the work of Doge and the administration of making the country more efficient, saving taxpayers money and one is the funding freeze out of Rhode Island, a district court in Rhode Island where New York, the state of New York, sued Trump. We filed there yesterday and R. Amicus argues that the case is moot because the act, the actual suit is based on a memo from the Office of Management and Budget, which they rescinded.

However, this is a very activist judge at the district court level. He is the one who put a blanket order on funding freezes, which then he is trying to say the administration is ignoring, they're in contempt of court. This is why the left is saying there's a constitutional crisis because he went even further than just the funding from USAID. He said all funding freezes need to stop, including things like the Mexico City policy, which is a pretty normal funding freeze that happens when a conservative President comes into office. Usually it's the one of those first day one or week one decisions where it's, you know, like I said, international funding of abortion and usually it flip-flops immediately.

Right. And so he's even trying to put that on hold. He also rejected briefs from outside groups yesterday.

So our argument, he doesn't even want to hear, but we'll be ready at the appeals process on that one, even though we already tried to file yesterday and did file, he just said, I don't want to read these. But we had briefs accepted in two other cases. One was out of DC. This is where a group was suing to stop Doge from having access to the different agencies as they go around DC. And we're arguing there, something the ACLJ has experts on, that there is a unitary executive, that the President is uniquely laid out in the constitution as the branch of government. The executive branch is the President himself and those agencies work for him. And we are arguing the President needs to be able to run the executive branch, not let courts or Congress step in and say, you can't run your agencies.

And we also filed in New York against the state of New York there with a TRO that is in the same thing with Doge. So your American Center for Law and Justice is getting involved here to ensure, as Ronnie was questioning, that these payments do stop, that we do stop just wasting Americans' taxpayer dollars and also uphold the constitution and allow the elected President to get in there and clean house. And this funding, a lot of it is very divisive issues. When you really flip through some of the stuff that's been uncovered, it's not all just government funding to humanitarian causes. It's very specific that a lot of these causes, you would not want your taxpayer dollars going to.

And of course, that's true for always when there's a President or an administration that you don't really fully agree with in office. But some of these are just getting swept under the rug because that's what happens in Washington, DC. A lot of keeping your head down and your funding will come through.

How many of these grants and things that USAID couldn't even find a website or any proof that they existed, but the funding was happening. We're going to continue to take your phone calls in the next segment, 1-800-684-3110. We also have Harry Hutchinson joining us in the next segment.

We're going to talk about that buyout plan for a lot of federal employees. I want to take a quick call though, because people have been wanting to know about all these updates on the confirmation. Let's go to Bobby in New York on Line 5. Bobby, go ahead.

Hi from Niagara Falls on the American side. By the way, I want to point out that your voice and Jordan's are so similar. If you wouldn't say your names, I wouldn't know who was who. I wonder if you look alike. But my question is, I'm very worried about the Cash Mattell nomination failing because they're bringing up new stuff about him. I want to know what you think. Does he have a ghost of a chance? Oh, he definitely has a chance, Bobby. I think that if you see where Bobby Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard ended up, I think that means we are headed towards a Cash Mattell confirmation.

He is out of committee. Is that correct? Correct. That vote finally happened. They did delay it, but it did happen.

Yeah. The Democrats used some rule tactics within the Judiciary Committee and were able to delay the committee vote by a week. Dick Durbin is also on that Judiciary Committee.

He is trying to now accuse Cash of perjury before the committee. However, he was passed out of committee today 12 to 10, which is a party line vote. And as early as next week, he will be up for full confirmation. I think, especially after Tulsi and Bobby Kennedy, that Cash Mattell actually has the easier route to confirmation than those two did. So I'm not concerned about it at this point.

Yeah. So hopefully that gives you a good update. Of course, Bobby Kennedy has been confirmed, and that will all be your new Health and Human Services Secretary tonight, likely. Before you hear from us again, I've said that before, I'll say it again, 1-800-684-3110 to have your voice heard on the air. I'm going to encourage you also, as the ACLJ takes action on a lot of these issues, including supporting the Doge Department, making sure that things that you do not want to be funding are not happening.

Go to ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Sekulow. Keep calling. Phone lines are jammed right now, but we are going to have some open up at 1-800-684-3110. Harry Hutchinson's joining us in studio right now, Will, because one of the big moments right now that's happening is you had a federal judge actually has let one of Trump's plans go through, and that is the federal buyout.

This is something that has come up and maybe some hearts and minds have been changed. This was obviously the plan that said, hey, you can go away. You can get paid for six months. We don't want you here anymore. We don't need you. If you want to leave, please leave, and we'll even pay you to leave.

That's right. So the buyout plan, as you just eloquently described... That's probably... That was a direct quote. ...is that you can accept basically an early retirement or a resignation, and you're paid through September.

So for some workers, if they were close to retirement, I mean, depending on paperwork, as we've already discussed, they could get paid longer if they were up for early retirement, they decide to take the resignation and move forward. But labor unions representing government employees stepped in. They sued in Massachusetts, and they were trying to get this blocked, saying that this was unconstitutional. But a judge originally, he was appointed by Bill Clinton, George O'Toole Jr. out of Massachusetts, a district court in Massachusetts, originally put a TRO, temporary restraining order, on this while he looked at this issue. So it kind of paused the deadline that the Trump administration had given for this buyout for a few days while he looked at it. And what is surprising, maybe to a Clinton appointed judge out of Massachusetts, he threw out the plaintiff, the union's claim here, because, Harry, he said the union didn't have standing to bring the case, but also went another step further saying that if those that were harmed, so the employees that the union was representing, were wanting to bring the case, it wasn't like, okay, go refile. There's actually under the Administrative Procedures Act, a law that dictates you have to go through the administrative process first before coming to federal court. So what's your read on this ruling by this judge? A victory, a victory really, yeah. This victory for the Trump administration, but the ruling and the language used by this judge here?

Well, I think the judge is correct, but it's important to keep in mind that the judge was mistaken when he issued the temporary restraining order initially. Basically, we should look at the Constitution. Under the Constitution, the President of the United States is equipped with all executive branch power pursuant to Article II. And so what we have seen is the exercise of an unconstitutional amount of power by an Article III judge who essentially has interfered with President Trump's legitimate power.

That's number one. Number two, we should keep in mind that John Fitzgerald Kennedy, as President, made a mistake by allowing federal employees who were already protected by civil service to unionize. That makes things more cumbersome. And what are labor unions? Labor unions, in essence, are another special interest group.

And I'm not saying all special interest groups are wrong, but they basically can interfere with the exercise of the levers of power, particularly if you look at the federal government, which has operated inefficiently for the last 40 to 50 years. So if you think about it, neither of you were born when the federal power became exercisable inefficiently. And it's only gotten worse, and that harms the American people who have to pay taxes so that these employees can exercise their quote-unquote powers inefficiently in a cumbersome manner.

And it's throughout the United States. More likely than not, we could cut federal employment by about 75 percent. And many of the jobs currently performed by federal employees could be exercised by artificial intelligence as opposed to having people in a cave somewhere in Pennsylvania. Well, I think that's a big question. And look, the conversation on AI has obviously raised a lot of eyebrows. But I also want to remind people, we've been using some version of artificial intelligence for decades now. You just only hear about it now because you can have a conversation with it. Remember, most of what you've been doing on your phone, on your computer, on anything, it just wasn't branded that way as artificial intelligence. But what you have now is the computer, I guess you could say, you can have a conversation with it. You can work with it a little bit more user-friendly. This is nothing new. Technology is moving forward.

And what we've seen with the fax machines, with all of the things that have happened, is though technology has moved forward, the federal government will not move forward with their plans to change. And then you run up with these situations. Look, it is hard as someone who's a creator to have that decision, too, of whether you utilize AI as a tool or whether you utilize it as a replacement.

There's a lot that can go wrong. But again, as you said, it can be scaled down a lot. And that's not to say every union or every collective bargaining is part of that. I think there's some of that that's absolutely needed for certain departments, for certain industries, that you need that to make sure you are protecting the employees.

That's not always the case, though, when the federal government is involved. Well, and I think your point that we've been using some form of artificial intelligence, spell check itself in a Word document, is an artificial intelligence. It's predicting what you meant to say, misspelled, and corrects it. So I mean, we've been using that for decades.

You just weren't talking to it. Right. I did see, and I want to get Professor Hutcheson's take on this also, as an economist. I saw a comment that said, it's too expensive to upgrade the federal government because technology keeps advancing, and then it would just continue to be all these replacement costs. Even if we were at 90s level technology within this cave, we would be saving millions and potentially billions of dollars a year. I think we got to stop for a second.

Because if those who are just joining us, I'm sure a lot of them are. When you say this cave, that is something that came up in segment one or segment two. I think we need to restate, oh, there it is, if you're watching. Let's restate about this cave, where currently there are employees there, mining away on keyboards, making sure that federal employees get their retirement plan set up right. Hundreds of feet underground, using archaic technology, and Elon Musk exposed it and said things like, literally, you could do anything else, and it'd be more efficient than this. Right. And I think to that point, this cave, it's an inefficient process. It's costing the taxpayers a lot of money. Technology does continue to grow and evolve, but if you're looking at the economics of it, updating technology cost is going to save money in the long run for the federal government. Absolutely. And the federal government has been reluctant, and in many cases, incredibly slow in adapting to new technologies. Why?

Because they recognize that new technologies save man hours. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, we only got about a minute left here in this segment and in the first half hour. If you want to join us for the second half hour, we are continuing our live coverage.

Do that right now. Go to aclj.org. Watch on YouTube, watch on Rumble, watch on the Salem News Channel, available on Pluto, available on Samsung Plus. You can find the show broadcasting live there, and of course, archived later on on all those platforms as well.

On the podcast feed, just search Sekulow, or make sure you're subscribing on our YouTube channel, or Rumble, you'll find us there. You can always go to aclj.org for great information, and of course, a great time to support the work of the ACLJ because we're getting involved in so many of these matters right now. You can do it.

Go to aclj.org. Make your donation today. We've got multiple cases that we are involved in. We're going to discuss some of those when we get back. Also, stay on hold because I've been taking your calls earlier than usual, so stay on hold. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow, second half hour of the broadcast coming up right now. Phone lines are completely jammed, but they may open up at 1-800-684-3110. I'm actually going to take a lot of those calls in the next segment because at the end of the broadcast, the last segment, we're going to be joined by Jeff Balabon from ACLJ Jerusalem to give you an update of the Hamas hostage releases, what that's going to look like this weekend as we head into another week where technically, right now, the ceasefire is still in agreement.

However, it seems to be falling apart because of issues, of course, when you deal with Hamas. We're going to talk about that towards the end of the show. A lot of you have called in. You might as well take a call off the top.

Why not? Some of you have been on hold for a long time. I want to go to Jacqueline, who's calling from Maryland, who actually has a very real question that a lot of people are concerned about. I want to hear from you, Jacqueline. Hi. Hi. Can you hear me? I can hear you.

You're on the air. Hi. Yeah. I am very, very concerned about the folks, I believe, in getting rid of waste. I support that, but I'm very, very concerned about the people who are starving to death in other countries who we have just completely cut off aid in this quest for efficiency. And as a lifelong Christian, I don't understand how we could not have something to segue and help these people. And it's really, really upsetting me. And I'm concerned. I don't understand, as a Christian country, how we can do this with babies literally starving to death.

But there's got to be some way. I think some of it you're not really seeing of what the spending a lot of it was gone to. Do I think that we should be supporting other countries and funding them and funding their humanitarian relief? I think there's probably a level of that.

That is fine. Also, as you said, I'm glad you're saying it's a Christian country. I don't think a lot of people would agree with you. Sadly, Jacqueline, this is where we are in America today. I do think it's part also of the church.

Step up. I don't know if it's part of the federal government to decide who we're funding and who we're not funding when we are so much in debt in terms of government spending. Now, we also know that a lot of the cuts were not humanitarian cuts. A lot of the cuts were legitimate waste, were wasteful.

And to Jacqueline as well, the department, remember, they fired around 10,000 staff, but they did keep staff specifically in the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, the Global Health Bureau, the Middle East Bureau, an African Bureau, as well as management. So it's not 100% that humanitarian aid has gone out. However, I think also to your point, Jacqueline, there are many studies from economists, especially that are more conservative in how... And some that aren't so conservative, that government foreign aid for programs like that is easy to flash a headline like, you're saving starving children. But in reality, the USAID has been, since its inception, a mechanism to get control over developing countries and their governments. That's why grants go to their press there to make sure that propaganda is printed within these countries' press. It's why many of these developing nations become dependent on USAID, and they can never break out of the cycle of poverty and take care of the people there, and the corruption abounds.

That's about to say, the corruption, I think, is so much a big part of this. Look at what even happened in Gaza. When you're talking about trying to put in humanitarian aid and continue humanitarian aid, we all know where that funding was going, and it wasn't going to the people. It was going to the leaders. It was going to fund terrorism. It wasn't going to do the right thing and to feed people and do all those things, which of course we support. But Jacqueline, I understand your concern, because it's easy to see that, but remember a lot of what you're seeing is propaganda.

Well, a lot of what you're seeing is not the full truth, because if it's going to come from a President Trump administration, it has to be bad, according to the press. But again, I understand your concern, but I also think there are plenty of great organizations to get involved with. I mean, you have something like a Samaritan's Purse or some of these others. Do it right now. Support them.

I mean, support us as well, obviously, but support those organizations. Get involved at your local church level. That is how we're really going to change the world.

It is not through the federal government. All right, we're going to continue to take phone calls coming up in the next segment. 1-800-684-3110.

Stay on hold. We'll be right back with you. I encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ as we lead so many vital cases right now. We need your help.

Go to ACLJ.org and donate today. Welcome back to Sekulow. In this segment, I'm actually going to do what we usually do at the end and take a lot of phone calls, and we've got a lot right now, and we'll do our best to get through them. And then later on in the broadcast, we'll be joined by Jeff Balaban from ACLJ, Jerusalem. Let's kick off the calls today with Julia, who's calling from New York, who's listening on the radio. Julia, you're on the air.

Hi, and thank you for taking my call. I spent the last weekend with a friend that is a severely disabled boy, and she gets funding through the Department of Education, and she was so concerned about that funding being cut. Her child, even if both parents were working 24-7, they probably could not afford the services that this disabled boy requires. And I couldn't find anything specifically to calm her worries about cutting the Department of Education. I'll do it for you right now, Julia. I think there's some pretty easy answers to this one.

One, right now it has not been cut. Of course, there is the plan to get rid of the Department of Education, but what that doesn't do, it doesn't end public schooling across the country. What it does is it takes it out of federal hands, and it actually would give people like your friends and family a more catered, based on the state they live in, a more specifically tailored plan for your student, so they're not living under some federal rule that doesn't apply to where they live. One of the big problems we're having right now in this country with education is you are teaching the kids in Montana the same way you are teaching the kids in the same curriculum you're teaching them in New York, or you're teaching them in Florida and in California, and it doesn't always work out.

These things don't make any sense. So, Julia, for you, I understand that situation. I think a lot of people have that in their family. They need the public schooling. They like that they have that. Of course, when you hear things like the Department of Education is going to be cut, it's easy.

It's kind of like the last caller. It's easy to get scared in those moments, but it's not like they are proposing to get rid of schooling or options. It's actually going to be tailored more to these states and to maybe even your specific county, your specific city that can then take over the schooling.

Well, and once again, this is more... The way that they talk about this a lot of times is a scare tactic. You hear ending Department of Education, you don't really understand what you're talking about.

Right. And that is the common concern, Julia, is that a lot of it comes from the Department of Education to the state and then is administered there. What President Trump has even said is that I'm not ending necessarily the way that the federal government funds programs and things in the states. It is saying that he wants to make it more efficient and that this is a bloated bureaucracy. As most bureaucracies in the federal government are, $268 billion annual budget for the Department of Education. That has not been around all that long.

Right. It is the fourth largest of all federal spending. And when you look at the way that education in the country has declined for our students in this country, being competitive on a global scale, that we keep putting more money into the Department of Education and get fewer results, this is about trying to get results for people whose children may have different learning needs, may have different special needs. And that's one reason why conservatives push for things like school choice, where your tax dollars follow the student, not the school system. And things of that nature, that this is a holistic approach on how to increase and make better the education system, make sure that the tax dollars that we pay are still going to follow the student and help things more efficiently, instead of having thousands and thousands of bureaucrats that are giving grants and things to wasteful projects. When they get to the Department of Education, it's going to be just as eye opening and shocking how many grants are going to programs, to special interest groups. And these are all pushed by the largest union in the country, the teacher's union, to ensure that their favorite pet projects are getting federal dollars. With it's more streamlined and is going to the individual states like New York, Julia, New York will not receive necessarily no money from the federal government to help students. It will just hopefully, if it's not blocked by the teacher's unions trying to sue, et cetera, it'll make it more streamlined and hopefully make it better so that then New York can look and say, this is how we need to spend our dollars. There aren't as many strings attached from the federal government. We can actually cater to our students and citizens better. That's the way government should work instead of it being tied up in bureaucratic red tape.

And then you see all of these bureaucrats just rubber stamping all these grants out that are wasting taxpayer dollars, which should go help students like your friend's son. There you go, Julia. Thanks for calling. Let's continue on. We've got only a few minutes. We're trying to get to some more calls. Travis is calling in Oklahoma online too.

You're on the air. Yeah. My question's about those preemptive pardons that Biden issued. Do preemptive pardons take all the possibility of prosecution off the table? I'm concerned if it does, that the pardons may be an attempt to impede discovery or can the recipient of a party and be prosecuted and then the pardon applied only after the guilty verdict is rendered, in which case a discovery and subsequent trial. We got you, Travis.

Yeah. The pardon power of the President is very broad. We've discussed this before on the show that it wouldn't get to that point. They're pardoned for these crimes, so they would not be wasting resources on trying to investigate a crime that they have no chance of ever seeking a conviction on because the person's pardoned. And usually it's within a time frame. So it's not like they could in the future now just commit any crime they want to commit. This is preemptive of things they may have already done, if that makes any sense. Thanks for calling, Travis.

I appreciate it. But one quick caveat that a lot of people do point out, now Congress can subpoena these people if they want information about these things that they were concerned, so the President gave them a pardon, and they don't have that Fifth Amendment privilege as strong of a protection there because there's no jeopardy of them impeaching themselves and admitting to a crime that they've been pardoned for. So they may have to be a little bit more forthcoming with congressional investigations down the road. All right, continuing on. Chris is calling in Montana on line three.

Chris, go ahead. I wonder if the answer regarding all the paperwork, the government paperwork being stored in Iron Mountain, Pennsylvania, is as simple as the government is doing it that way because they want to so that their system of records can't be hacked or looked at. I'm sure there is security reasons of why they do it in Iron Mountain, this whole process. It's not necessarily that they're there, it's that they're using archaic technology and still doing it in a way they've been doing it for decades, the amount of time that's being wasted to do it. I think a lot of people need to be exposed to these things are happening, that it's happening literally underground right now. And if you're looking at some of the videos that have come up or the pictures you've seen of this, it's not that it shouldn't exist, it's more the way that it's currently being run is completely inefficient, and it is completely a waste of time and money and resources. And Chris, much of our government does have very sensitive things that are digitally created and stored. The fact that even Elon Musk pointed out, there are 150-year-old people allegedly still receiving government benefits. He said, you can't name these people. Not 150 people, 150-year-olds. 100-year-old.

They should be the most famous person in the world for their age. So the problem is, is that it becomes inefficient and there's so much waste that is not picked up on because you're filing it away in manila envelopes that no one has the brain capacity to be able to go find and root out all the record system when it's done this way. And so I believe they could build very secure systems for the money that they would be saving with that issue.

And some of the comments said that they lost theirs 15 years ago into the Iron Mountain, so I'm sure it's not the most efficient way. Let's go to Carlos, who is calling, watching on Salem News Channel on Line 1. Carlos, you're on the air. Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you for taking my call. I have several recommendations to go. This is the first would be to identify also the politicians that are involved with all this fraud so that we can take further action in the future. And I also think that the State Department should rein in all the spending.

Yeah, I think, Carlos, there's a lot of feedback like that. And look, I think when you have this new cabinet in place, you have people like a Tulsi Gabbard, even RFK Jr., who just was confirmed moments ago, you're going to have a new group that is really looking into it. Of course, you have Elon Musk out there doing this, the richest man in the world, the man who does not need to be doing this. It's not unlike President Trump, another person who did not need to be doing this, but is stepping up. And look, you may have things to say about Elon Musk, but he has done some incredible, incredible work, whether that is for space industry, whether it's for the car industry, whether that is so many of the resources you use and you don't even know he was involved in that he has been for decades.

So again, I think, Carlos, yes, to get rid of government waste and government spending, all that needs to be investigated, I think it will be. In the next segment of the broadcast, we're going to be joined by Jeff Balabon of ACLJ Jerusalem. We can't have an ACLJ Jerusalem without ACLJ supporters.

You support us so we can have these amazing broadcasts. We can have these amazing lawyers who take on the hardest of hardcore, sometimes deep state officials, and we win. And then we couldn't have an office in Jerusalem where the ACLJ is front and center in so many of the issues that are going on today in Israel, in America, the ECLJ, the European center, which you saw me at just a few months ago. And I'm going to encourage you right now to support the work of the ACLJ. If you're on hold, we will get to you. I'm going to get to you in the next segment. And if you still want to call in, no guarantees, we'll try because Jeff Balabon is going to join us.

And I want him to give you guys a really big update because this is a critical weekend in Israel right now. And you need to support our work. We must have the resources right now. If you can go to ACLJ.org, donate today. We urgently need your tax deductible support.

Do it right now. ACLJ.org. We'll be right back with Jeff Balabon from ACLJ Jerusalem. Welcome back to Secula. Let's go ahead and take a couple of calls as we try to get connected with Jeff Balabon from ACLJ Jerusalem. First, let's go to Jennifer who's calling in New Mexico, who is watching on Salem News Channel.

Jennifer, go ahead. Yes, I was just wanting to respond to a lot of people being concerned about the Department of Education. I have a Master's in Education on top for 10 years before I got pulled back in the military. And the thing is, is that it is redundant. All schools are supposed to be site-based managed because every different district, every different location, the children have different needs. And if you can't go from, say, doing site reading to changing it over to phonics or someone with dyslexia, these kids, this is why these kids aren't learning because they're all doing site reading. Well, that doesn't work for students with dyslexia.

So you have to go to a site-based management. Thus, the Department of Education is redundant because they're saying this is what you're going to teach them and that's it. Yeah, Jennifer, I think that's a great response. I'm glad you called in and it helped explain how these can be actually siphoned to a much better use for your students who may have, like you said, dyslexia, which many kids do, many people in my family do. It is not an easy thing to really even explain often to the teacher that you're working with because they have not had the proper vetting and proper teaching. They've not had the proper education to teach children with dyslexia or any of these other specialties or learning difficulties or differences that aren't the extreme cases.

They're the extreme cases like we heard from the last caller who was someone who was severely disabled and they were worried about their concerns. Some of these are, in the big picture, smaller issues that currently the Department of Education just doesn't have the bandwidth and the way they spend their time and money to really help on that front. Well, and that caller was from New York, which New York has a very robust public school system. And I believe that the management of it is probably better suited for the students of New York rather than the Department of Education meddling with it. Instead, get the money to the states and let the states handle it. I know Tennessee has a very robust program for children with special learning needs and disabilities, and this is a conservative state.

So if we can figure it out in Tennessee, New York should be able to as well. But we're joined now by Jeff Balaban, Director of ACLJ Jerusalem. Yeah, and I wanted to say, Randy, I know you're on hold. Unfortunately, just because of Jeff, we're not gonna be able to get to you today. So call in tomorrow and I will do my best to get you upfront. But thank you for listening.

We appreciate it. But Jeff, I want to get an update from ACLJ Jerusalem because it's a pretty critical week. We've seen a lot of movement happening right now in Israel in the current war with Hamas.

There were cease fires. There was a lot of joyous moments as many of the hostages were freed, but it feels like we are headed towards a very difficult weekend. Yeah, this obviously, as we talk about this a lot on the show, things are extremely painful. And even these moments of rejoicing, of being reunited with these hostages, comes along with pain. Many of them are finding for the first time that their loved ones were murdered.

And so it's joy and pain all mixed together. And now, of course, there's a whole new phase with now there's a new President, President Trump, who seems to have a lot less tolerance for hostage taking and slaughter of innocent Jews than the previous administration. That's a good sign. But what does it mean practically on the ground? What does it mean practically for the military? What does it mean politically in terms of the future of Gaza? These are all very much up in the air.

I will say one thing. What it means for the Palestinians, I was on social media and somebody put out a threat to murder President Trump, which got thousands and thousands of likes. Apparently some Palestinian cartoon went out there. So the dividing lines are very clear with this President. They should have been more clear until now, but they're very, very clear now. And as for the path forward, things are very, very much up in the air, but no longer is Israel feel pressure to kowtow to the obscene, truly obscene demands of Hamas. And Jeff, we actually had some positive news at the ACLJ. Hopeful news, I will say, is that with the three hostages that were released last week, they were able to inform the families that the ACLJ represents that the two remaining hostages that ACLJ has represented through the families, at least within the recent timeframe, these gentlemen said that they are still alive.

So they're twins. They are of military age, which does not bode well for a hostage being taken by Hamas. But at least as of recently, these two were still alive, which gives us hope. This wasn't through Hamas propaganda. This was from released hostages. But we know that Hamas already had said they were stopping any further hostage transfers. They've come back a little bit after President Trump's ultimatum and say they will release hostages as scheduled this weekend.

So as we've said, things are a little bit up in the air, but there is some hope for those of you that have followed the ACLJ and our journey representing and advocating on behalf of these hostages that we could see more returned home to their families. FINKELSTEIN You know, 100% right. Look, you know, it's famous that the enemies of Israel like to say about themselves that they think they're going to win because we love death. They say more than you, Israel and the Jews love life.

They say that. And the truth is they do seem to love death. But I don't think it's more than we love life in Israel.

And I don't think it's more than ACLJ loves life. And I think that that the all the effort not knowing the fate of these hostages that we've been working on and trying to advocate for and not knowing what the situation is and signs of life, you know, it comes along with the feeling of, oh, the hard they must have endured. And we see the signs recently of the hostages coming out that President Trump referred to himself as they look like Holocaust survivors.

I mean, the shocking conditions, again, not really surprising. And yet the ultimate value here is saving their lives, getting them out. And obviously that's what we continue to work on at ACLJ. And it's so important.

And thank God, yes, there are signs of life. And obviously we have to continue working on that. Jeff, we appreciate you joining us.

It was a quick hit today because we were just running out of time. So we appreciate you coming on to give us an update. I know a lot of eyes will be on Israel this weekend as we see what unfolds. We'll keep you updated on ACLJ.org and we'll be in touch with Jeff at ACLJ Jerusalem to make sure that you are all engaged in everything that's happening. That's why it's a great time also to support the work of the ACLJ. If you feel like there's no way for you to help, that is not true. We have offices around the world taking action for a lot of the beliefs that you hold.

And right now is a great time to give. So I encourage you, we need these resources, whether we were talking about what's going on with the Doge Department, whether we're talking about going into federal court in New York against people like Letitia James, the Presidential funding freezes, and then of course our European work and our work in Israel, which is incredibly important. They're doing amazing things worldwide.

You need to see that. Now, the differences we've explained with Jeff before is that ECLJ represents the European Center for Law and Justice. We are in there in the European Court of Human Rights. We are there at the UN representing the ECLJ. But the ACLJ Jerusalem is a little bit different because it's not a Israeli Center for Law and Justice. It is the American Center for Law and Justice. It's making sure that you have your voice shared with the people of Israel. Jeff, we only got about a minute left, but you can explain that maybe in 20 seconds. Well, it's as you say, when we're elsewhere, we're working with the local laws and pushing, but the same agendas that we believe in values believe in Israel.

It's the unique nature of the relationship that we try to bridge and represent there and here. Absolutely. So again, support the work of the ACLJ by going to ACLJ.org. You can make your donation today.

We really would appreciate it. While you're at it, you may want to you may want to download the new ACLJ app that is available in the app store or just go to ACLJ.org slash app or scan the QR code. You may see there it is. And you can get that new app. It's great. You'll get notified when we're live.

You'll get all the new updates. It's a really great experience. And if you are an ACLJ champion, someone that gives on a monthly recurring basis, you get a special presentation, a special version of the app just for ACLJ champions. Of course, again, you can opt into that very easily and become a champion. And what that does is help us create a great baseline for all the work of the ACLJ does, whether it's this broadcast or what we do in the courts or what we do around the world. We can't do it without you. Become an ACLJ champion today.