The ACLJ’s initiative isn’t isolated within political halls; it touches grassroots movements. From pro-life protests in Massachusetts facing governmental pushback to the strategic deployment of advertisements supporting pro-life centers, the episode brings forth the significance of digital advocacy in today’s political discourse.
Yet, it’s not merely the mechanics of nominations and confirmations that are under scrutiny. There’s a growing conversation about social media platforms and their evolving role in facilitating free expression. Facebook’s relocation of its content policy team to Texas is emblematic of this shift, as discussed in the episode, fostering discussions on whether this could reduce biases perceived in content management.
Amidst this, the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence is a flashpoint. Her high-profile nomination underscores a broader debate on national security, public perception, and the potent mix of past affiliations and current expectations. The podcast navigates these waters with a deep dive into the preparatory processes and political dynamics influencing such appointments.
The complexities of Senate operations unveil themselves as the Democrats’ strategy to block certain nominees becomes evident. The podcast doesn’t shy away from exploring the implications of such maneuvers, analyzing what it means for an administration at the precipice of change. As partisan lines reveal both friction and cooperation, insights from figures like Mark Warner provide a nuanced understanding of the procedural hurdles at play.
This episode, rich with analysis and energizing calls to action, invites listeners into a world where policy, patronage, and public opinion meet. It’s a testament to the ACLJ’s unwavering commitment to civic engagement and advocacy as they continue to shape conservatively aligned ideals in a constantly evolving political environment. Log on to ACLJ.org to discover more about how you can join this effort and effectuate real change in governance today.
Logan Sekulow delves into the changing landscape of social media as platforms like Facebook reconsider their content policies. With insights into bipartisan cooperation in the Senate, the show provides a comprehensive look at the ways political dynamics are shifting. As Tulsi Gabbard faces hurdles in her nomination, the ACLJ community rallies to ensure her confirmation, discussing the importance of having trusted figures in critical intelligence roles.
SPEAKER 07 :
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
SPEAKER 06 :
And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow. Hopefully you're watching on YouTube, on Rumble, or maybe on the Salem News Channel, which we are now live on every day. If you're not a part of the Salem News Channel, you should check it out. See what they're doing over there, our friends at Salem. We've been on the network for about a year, but now we are live. Now noon to 1 p.m. each and every weekday. So find us there on Salem News Channel. I did also want to take a minute to thank everyone who signed up and became an ACLJ member. Champion, over the last couple days, we've been promoting that a lot, and I encourage you right now, if you can, if you have the money right now, as we head into a very important week, and we'll discuss that in a second, a very important week in terms of all of the confirmations that are going to start happening, the hearings that are going to start happening. we could use your support here at the ACLJ. And you can become an ACLJ champion. That is someone who gives on a recurring monthly basis. Or if you can give a one-time donation, do it as well. Just go to ACLJ.org to do it today. But Will, it's an important week coming up next week.
SPEAKER 02 :
That's right. And as we look ahead, as we approach the inauguration of President Trump as the 47th President of the United States, the Senate, who has already been sworn in, were sworn in just at the beginning of this January, They are moving forward. They are going to have these hearings while they can't vote on the nomination until President Trump has been sworn in. They can begin to hold their hearings and get everything ready so that on January 20th, they can begin to start to vote, vote out of committee and then to the full Senate. fulfilling their advice and consent role. We know in this week ahead, we have Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi are going to start hearings. We also know that Tom Cotton, who is the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is pushing for the CIA Director John Ratcliffe hearings to begin, as well as the next Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, for her hearings to begin. So we will be following it all closely. We will be reporting on it and bringing you information here and giving our analysis as we watch these hearings in this week ahead. But it is something that we are very focused on. If you go to aclj.org slash petitions, There is a petition there where you can support these nominations. And when you sign that petition, our government affairs team makes sure that the senators see that. We say the ACLJ is bringing this many members, have signed this petition, and they want you to confirm President Trump's nominees. And we will even break it down by state many times. If a certain senator from a certain state, we have a large portion of our audience that has signed that petition, be like, look how many of your constituents want you to move forward with President Trump's nominees so that we can begin this fight to restore the America that we fought for.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. It's going to be a big week, so make sure you stay tuned. Obviously, we are just a few days now from President Trump being inaugurated in Washington, D.C. It is a crazy time. I think it feels like it happened. The election was 100 years ago. It also feels like it happened just yesterday. And it's hard to believe that we are already here today. midway through the month of January heading towards inauguration day. It's pretty wild. Again, I want to encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ. Earlier this week, you heard from one of our new clients or lawyers about one of our new clients who is on the front lines for the pro-life movement with someone who is protesting out in front of a pro-life or sort of an abortion clinic. And they were told and arrested for speech. That, and you know what we've been doing in Massachusetts, and we're about to roll out in the next few weeks, that $500,000 counter ad campaign to promote pro-life resource centers in the Boston and Massachusetts area because they have come under such attack by their own government. You can find out more. I encourage you just to go to ACLJ.org and look around. Incredible resources, incredible content that's posted every day. Obviously on our YouTube channel and our Rumble channel. On Instagram, we're putting up new content every single day. So make sure you're staying engaged that way. And of course, important time. Become an ACLJ champion. Someone that gives on a monthly recurring basis. You can do it right now as little as $5 or set it as high as you'd like. We would love that. All right, we got a packed show coming up. Stay tuned. Again, aclj.org right now. Read the new articles. Get engaged. It's a great place to interact.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right, welcome back to Seculo. We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. The next war you get into here, and it's not just watching what the Biden administration is doing, these final days there in office, the executive orders, the money they are throwing around, the potential to even start other foreign wars, because, again, you've got... basically advisors running a presidency. And we see that in the mainstream media now. So it's a very dangerous time already, always is in a transition. The Democrats will make it as difficult as possible, and the Biden team will make it as difficult as possible for the Trump team to get on the ground running. And the Democrats in the Senate want to do the same thing. They want to keep you from actually having... control of the federal government of the executive agencies as long as possible so that bureaucrats and holdovers are in charge which are their friends who will not implement uh or with any speed the policies of the president of the united states so it is key to get your cabinet confirmed And as we've said, to get your deputies confirmed so those people are not being sent into a 10,000-person agency with not a single person they can truly trust and work with and know is on their same team as an American. That's how bad it is inside that bureaucracy. They have to assume everybody they're working with in the bureaucracy will try and undermine them or is recording what they're saying and is going to try to take it out of context. Basically see who they can remove before they've even gotten started. They did that with the first Trump team that went in there with the Russia story. We have no idea what they're going to come up with next. But right now they've actually taken it to another level which is not moving forward with some of the key hearings. for nominees on the cabinet like Director of National Intelligence for Tulsi Gabbard. She is a colleague of ours at the American Center for Law and Justice and on the Seculo broadcast. She remains one today and we are proud to have worked with her and hopefully we'll be able to work with her again in the future and assist whatever we can while she's DNI but even further into her career. she's got to get a hearing and will the democrats excuses for not having a hearing is absurd especially when you have a country that has faced a new kind of terrorism is kind of come back Islamic terrorism is it something we can quickly put you know nip in the bud the border issues we know that the cartels are working with terrorist organizations we know that there are bad actors and we also know these intelligence agencies haven't been focusing on the right people they've been focusing on American citizens speech and organizing instead of the bad guys. And that's why we have these unprepared security at large events.
SPEAKER 02 :
Jordan, this is the problem. This is the fight that the U.S. Senate on the Democrat side has decided they want to pick at this dangerous, pivotal time in American history. Because they're already letting forward these nominations, these hearings to begin on Attorney General Pam Bondi would be Wednesday and Thursday of next week. Pete Hegseth is scheduled to have his hearing on Tuesday. Doug Burgum also on Tuesday. That'd be the Department of the Interior. Lee Zeldin is scheduled for Thursday for EPA. And Tom Cotton, who's the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wants to hold both John Ratcliffe for the CIA director position and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence. Their hearings early next week. His goal is to get these hearings started so that we can get start getting to votes on January 20th when President Trump is sworn in. But the Democrats have picked their fight. They've drawn their line in the sand. They're going after Tulsi Gabbard. Mark Warner, who's the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is saying that Tulsi Gabbard hasn't provided the enough material, the required vetting material for them to go forward with this. So the Democrats are forcing a delay in this hearing, forcing a delay for the position of director of national intelligence. And he's trying to make it seem as though because she hasn't provided these materials that she's somehow obstructing this process. But in reality... Her FBI background check, the work for that was done and completed and sent to the FBI last week. That should also be expedited because she is someone who holds that high security clearance. Therefore, they already have much of this material. They don't have to start from zero and work their way up in this background check. But then also, They're saying she didn't provide a questionnaire. She provided the first questionnaire already, and they've given her a deadline of today to provide the second one, which she said she'll comply with. And then the final thing is the ethics statement that they want signed. Many of these nominees, because of the snow and the offices being closed in D.C., haven't been able to receive them yet because people haven't been in the office. It doesn't mean that they're not going to have it. So they're trying to play this game and pick this fight and make it be public that Tulsi Gabbard isn't playing along. She's not being helpful. She's obstructing this process. We have to delay her hearing. But in reality, she is. She's doing the things that need to be done to go before the Senate. And I think you should hear from Elizabeth Warren because she's been an outspoken critic on many of the nominees, but she gets pretty nasty. She uses the old rhetoric on Tulsi Gabbard. And this was on CNN yesterday. Let's
SPEAKER 09 :
Why is Donald Trump doing this? And I think the answer is, let's have a big distraction and several more questions so we don't spend more time on Pete Hegseth, the nominee to be the head of the Department of Defense. So we don't spend more time on Tulsi Gabbard, who has been in the pocket of Putin and is not someone who should be trusted with our secrets so that we don't spend more time on Robert Kennedy's views on vaccines. In other words, we have a job in front of us right now, and that is advise and consent on the nominees who are there to run our government.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, first of all, Tulsi Gabbard already has top secret security level clearance. She might need another level one or two up, but there's not much higher that she can get, and she's maintained that for two decades, including this time period that they think she was, because of meeting with foreign leaders, somehow violating security. what would be then like a they would take your security clearance away if they thought you were doing something wrong in fact I just don't think we know the full story there because it's probably connected to a lot of different background things and Tulsi's been involved in a lot of operations throughout Africa in the past couple of years that you don't talk about much that's all you kind of hear about and you see that in her bio she talks about that so again some of this will have to be done as we said like behind closed doors But the idea here that she is some unknown to the intelligence world, it's the exact opposite, Will. The FBI and everyone who's been through it says this is the person who has the easiest time to get their clearance through because they already have a very active high-level clearance from the U.S. military with all the events that have occurred, has never once tried to revoke or question her security clearance. I mean, she's walking in with a higher-level security clearance as a non-politician um you know because she left congress then someone like uh marco rubio who's coming in because he was elected as a u.s senator that's what empowered him to get the information that's right elected officials don't have to get clearances from uh the executive agencies it's like the president you don't have to clear them uh but she's already got it from those agencies and they're acting like they can't let her see this information it's a sideshow to try to uh get uh so that people won't pay attention to other big issues. The truth is, if we can't get the director of national intelligence confirmed, and you can't get your DOD secretary confirmed, and you can't do four of these at once because it's the same, all different committees at this level. This is what the Democrats' last attempt to do is to really prevent the Trump administration from actually beginning because the president can do a lot by executive order and he can do a lot with his team, but what he can't do and makes it very difficult is to really implement big policy changes without the personnel in place to do it. And the bureaucrat holdovers, not only will they not do the work, They disagree with it. So you've got to get your people in place. You have to have a cabinet to govern the U.S. government right now. It's so huge that without a cabinet, I mean, it's a government that's run amok.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, let's go ahead and take a call because some people have been asking this question online as well. Sally's calling in Arizona on line one. You're on the air.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, yes, I wanted to find out actually what is the best way for us out here to support Tulsi Gabbard in her nomination?
SPEAKER 05 :
So I think there's two things to do. One is we have our petition at ACLJ.org. So as someone who an organization that Tulsi has been a part of and on our team, I think it speaks a lot to even Republican U.S. senators who don't know Tulsi as well because maybe they are not always aligned with the MAGA movement. But they do know the work of the ACLJ, which is longer than that movement. They've worked with us on lots of issues. So making sure you sign our petition so that we've got a lot of names there and thousands of people that know, hey, I'm an ACLJ supporter. Tulsi worked with the ACLJ, wants you to be reminded of that. So make sure when you are taking this vote, um, or getting this, helping get this vote to the committee and then out to the floor of, uh, the U S Senate that, you know, you're supporting someone that the ACLJ works with, uh, directly. Uh, and I think that's important. Now, when she gets the actual hearing date, we'll want you to call, uh, strategically u.s senators and ultimately on the floor of the u.s senate both of your u.s senators to vote yes but right now share the information get more people on our petition logan that's what we got to do we've got a specific petition for tulsi so they could sign it and then at no cost share it with your friends and family online it's easier to do that now on facebook yeah it's very easy do that and let's get a lot of signatures there she needs the support
SPEAKER 06 :
Do it right now, aclj.org slash sign. It'll take you directly there, S-I-G-N, sign. Sign for Tulsi and we need a supporter. We'll be right back with more. Welcome back to Sekulow. I also want to say a welcome to our new friends on Salem News Channel. If you're watching us on Salem News Channel, make sure you give us a call. Tell us. We'd love to hear from you because we have been on the network for the last year, but we are now live. So if you're watching this right now on Salem News Channel, unless it's a later on, way later rerun, we are live noon to 1 p.m. Eastern Time, I wanted to say. Hello to all you. Great lineup of other hosts on there, so I hope you enjoy it. Take a look at what they're doing at Salem News Channel. Let's go ahead and take some phone calls. Let's go to Ronnie, who's calling in South Carolina, who's listening on the radio. Ronnie, you're on the air.
SPEAKER 12 :
Good afternoon. It's not morning anymore.
SPEAKER 06 :
Go ahead.
SPEAKER 12 :
So, a question about Facebook. Do you guys have any inkling here? I was thrown in Facebook jail so many times because of fact checkers. quote-unquote fact checkers, and now my friends do not see my post, and if they do, it's a couple of days old. Anything I post on their marketplace, nobody sees it, and I'm really curious if any of that's going to be affected once these budget changes come in.
SPEAKER 06 :
Maybe so. One thing we can actually talk about and share is that they will be moving their content policy team from California to Texas. Now, we have seen the moves to Texas from a lot of these platforms. We've seen X start to do it. We've seen a lot of the others start to move their way to Texas, a lot of times to Austin, which can be a little more liberal leaning. But I assume what you'll have is a good group of people who will probably be leaving
SPEAKER 02 :
the platform because they don't want to move and they simply don't want to move to Texas and that could shift a lot of these policies well and Mark Zuckerberg did say in that announcement about the the content-based review team going to Texas he says as we work to promote free expression I think will help us build trust to do this work in places where there's less concern about the bias of our teams So what you can also, I think, infer from that, I'm not putting words in his mouth, but that if they move it from the most liberal part of California, Northern California, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, then you move it to Texas, that they're not expecting, I assume, I'm not, once again, not putting words in their mouth, that Not everyone is going to want to leave Silicon Valley in San Francisco area to move to Texas, wherever that may be in Texas. And by saying there should be less concern about bias of our teams, that they're looking for talent. That are less biased, that maybe come from those areas of the country.
SPEAKER 06 :
Maybe they're trying to find people that will go into the office again, too.
SPEAKER 02 :
Exactly. Well, I mean, that's probably also a part of it as well. But I think this entire thing from the leadership being having board members that we know are of like mind. That is a huge deal.
SPEAKER 06 :
I can't reiterate that enough. In a platform that large, in a company as large as Meta, the board controls a lot. They can do a lot. They can get a lot done. And you have someone who is as outspoken as Dana White, and you said another Republican lobbyist that's getting involved and now on the board as well. Those are big moves. And look, I know it's easy to just go, oh, don't trust them. And I'm not saying you should. But I think that this is an opportunity, maybe an opportunity to get back a bit where we came from. Let's go ahead and take another call. Let's go to Charles, who's calling in Georgia on line two. You're on the air.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hello. I just wanted to express my opinion that I think the only thing that is really going to ensure that Facebook and Google and big corporations like that that have gotten control over information, which they have in the past used it to censorship, collusion with FBI, all kinds of things to limit free speech for political purposes. They've demonstrated that they've done that. They're capable of it. And I think what we're seeing now is just a ploy. All it is is to, like, if you can't beat them, join them. And then if the Democrats get back in control again and all that wokeism comes back and all that stuff, Zuckerberg will be a chameleon and join right up with him again.
SPEAKER 02 :
Charles, I would say I want to jump in here because, I mean, I hear your points. And that's why I keep pointing back to the board members because it's a publicly traded company. The board members have a lot of power by saying, hey, these moves you're making, company, aren't in the best interest of the shareholders. Because what's the point of doing things in interest of the shareholders? To raise the stock price. At the end of the day, that's how the corporate America, these big corporations... the board of directors gets to look it down and have oversight and say, what you're doing is going to decrease the value of this company to the people that own stock of it. And if they're going to revert back and try to push things that one are draining resources, really expensive and don't produce any profit and lose actual users of the platform. People like Dana white, who has built very large companies based off the principles that we hold dear and, as well as another person that's conservative as well. I think they will have a lot of power to try to keep that in check. Yes, obviously, you can't control a publicly traded company from the outside, but you can with your pocketbook, with your users, and I do think That we are a big part of the reason this is a shift, not the administration. That we, the American people that are conservatives and believe in American conservative values, are a big part of the reason they are making this change.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and I think you have someone like Mark Zuckerberg. Obviously, you have Dana White coming in. He's a big Brazilian jiu-jitsu guy, I think. Zuckerberg, he's involved in MMA. He's challenged Elon Musk to a fight. We've had all that happen. Remember that? That happened just a few years ago. How quickly things change. You also have Tim Cook. uh, yesterday pledging a million dollars personally, personally, not the Apple, you know, usual an additional million dollars of his own money, uh, to the Trump inauguration, uh, events committee. And that is a little bit traditional, but if you read the comments that came out of Tim Cook and we know that Tim Cook, the head of Apple, by the way, uh, He's been down in Mar-a-Lago as well, Auburn grad. He's been down in Mar-a-Lago with Elon, with people like Zuckerberg. So yes, are they kissing up to what's happening there? Maybe so. I mean, yes, definitely. Yes, but maybe that is because they also see how the American people are reacting and maybe you'll have companies that actually respond. I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm just saying that it's at least a good spot. So let's go ahead and take another. Should we play from another clip from Zuckerberg? It's a little bit longer, so we'll hold that for the next half hour. If you're watching online, you'll get the full hour. If you're listening on the radio, some of you don't. Make sure you watch us live. ACLJ.org. YouTube. Rumble. Yes, on Facebook. We are there. We're also on X. Find us, just search for ACLJ or Secula. We're broadcasting live now. You can also sign our petition to help us continue our battle against online censorship and social media censorship. Sign our petition at ACLJ.org slash sign. This is a huge win as they're getting rid of fact checkers, something that has been a bit of a bane of our existence for the last seven, eight years. So excited to hopefully have some positive movement in that again you go to aclj.org we'll be taking your calls coming up in the next segments as well at 1-800-684-3110 let's quickly go to charlotte who's calling in georgia online for charlotte you're on the air yes kevin and i are just saying hi and thank you guys for the wonderful work that you're doing and we are praying for you every day you're in the front lines for us they're even on the phones
SPEAKER 11 :
So we just, Kevin and I are just in prayer for the ACLJ and Jay and the entire crew. Thank you. Your safety, as well as the wonderful front lines you've been for Trump. and the entire conservative voice of which we are a part.
SPEAKER 06 :
Charlotte, I appreciate you calling. I appreciate your prayers. I don't mean to cut you off at all. We're just ahead to a break. But I want to thank everyone who does that, who not only supports the work of the ACLJ, whether that's by signing petitions or donating financially, but just pray for us. Continue to keep us in your prayers. Like she said, pray for our safety. For us, for our families, for our team, whether that's here in the office or when we're traveling around the world. I was at the European Center for Law and Justice, our European office. I was just there two weeks ago or less than two weeks ago. There's so much amazing work happening. There's so many people. You hear our names, sure. There are hundreds of people working full-time here at the ACLJ, and we can't do that without you. So go to ACLJ.org, but phone lines are open. 1-800-684-3110, second half hour, coming right up in less than a minute.
SPEAKER 07 :
Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever. This is Seculo. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 06 :
And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow. Hopefully you're watching on YouTube, on Rumble, or maybe on the Salem News Channel, which we are now live on every day. If you're not a part of Salem News Channel, you should check it out. See what they're doing over there, our friends at Salem. We've been on the network for about a year, but now we are live. Now noon to 1 p.m. each and every weekday. So find us there on Salem News Channel. I did also want to take a minute... They thank everyone who signed up and became an ACLJ champion over the last couple of days. We've been promoting that a lot. And I encourage you right now, if you can, if you have the money right now, as we head into a very important week and we'll discuss that in a second, a very important week in terms of all of the confirmations that are going to start happening, the hearings that are going to start happening. we could use your support here at the ACLJ. And you can become an ACLJ champion. That is someone who gives on a recurring monthly basis. Or if you can give a one-time donation, do it as well. Just go to ACLJ.org to do it today. But Will, it's an important week coming up next week.
SPEAKER 02 :
That's right. And as we look ahead, as we approach the inauguration of President Trump as the 47th President of the United States, the Senate, who has already been sworn in, were sworn in just at the beginning of this January, said, They are moving forward. They are going to have these hearings while they can't vote on the nomination until President Trump has been sworn in. They can begin to hold their hearings and get everything ready so that on January 20th, they can begin to start to vote, vote out of committee and then to the full Senate. fulfilling their advice and consent role. We know in this week ahead, we have Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi are going to start hearings. We also know that Tom Cotton, who is the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is pushing for the CIA Director John Ratcliffe hearings to begin, as well as the next Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, for her hearings to begin. So we will be following it all closely. We will be reporting on it and bringing you information here and giving our analysis as we watch these hearings in this week ahead. But it is something that we are very focused on. If you go to aclj.org slash petitions, There is a petition there where you can support these nominations, and when you sign that petition, our government affairs team makes sure that the senators see that. We say the ACLJ is bringing this many members, have signed this petition, and they want you to confirm president trump's nominees and we will even break it down by state many times if a certain senator from a certain state we have a large portion of our audience that has signed that petition be like look how many of your constituents want you to move forward with president trump's nominees so that we can begin this fight to restore the america that we fought for
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. It's going to be a big week, so make sure you stay tuned. Obviously, we are just a few days now from President Trump being inaugurated in Washington, D.C. It is a crazy time. I think it feels like it happened. The election was 100 years ago. It also feels like it happened just yesterday. And it's hard to believe that we are already here. midway through the month of January heading towards inauguration day. It's pretty wild. Again, I want to encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ. Earlier this week, you heard from one of our new clients or lawyers about one of our new clients who is on the front lines for the pro-life movement with someone who is protesting out in front of a pro-life or sort of an abortion clinic. And they were told and arrested for speech. That, and you know what we've been doing in Massachusetts, and we're about to roll out in the next few weeks, that $500,000 counter ad campaign to promote pro-life resource centers in the Boston and Massachusetts area because they have come under such attack by their own government. You can find out more. I encourage you just to go to ACLJ.org and look around. Incredible resources, incredible content that's posted every day. Obviously on our YouTube channel, on our Rumble channel, on Instagram, we're putting up new content every single day. So make sure you're staying engaged that way. And of course, important time, become an ACLJ champion. Someone that gives on a monthly recurring basis. You can do it right now as little as $5 or set it as high as you'd like. We would love that. All right. We got a packed show coming up. Stay tuned. Again, ACLJ.org right now. Read the new articles. Get engaged. It's a great place to interact. to Sekulo. I want to jump right into your phone calls. Give me a call too. We got three lines open so you can get on the air. 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. This has been a big victory for us. And yes, I'm taking a little bit of a victory lap right now as we have been continually in, especially over the last few years, it's gotten a little bit better the last year or so. We have been constantly in a struggle with meta, with Facebook and as they have taken down posts or they've put strikes or they've put, you know, fake news kind of labels on it, even to the point where they would notify millions of people. You know, we don't get notifications for this show very much anymore on Facebook, but there was a time where whenever they decided to slap a partially true, partially false, totally false label on it, they would notify everyone who saw it. or who engaged or who shared it. And of course, what they didn't do was then notify people when that strike was removed and when their system went through and they did a double check and said, hey, we were wrong, which happened every single time. So I'm taking a victory lap. That is going away. The fact-checkers groups, and I hope they all go completely out of business, go away. Because remember, they were a third party. Third-party fact-checkers, goodbye. Hello, community notes actually done by the people. So I really like that. Let's go ahead and take some phone calls. Rebecca's calling in New Hampshire. Line three, you're on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi. I was thinking, too, that perhaps... Facebook and the other ones should consider that our privacy is worth something to us and that they should allow us to decide what they get to have and what they don't. I think Europe does that. And I think that's an important thing, too, because otherwise they still have a lot of information that either can get stolen by other countries or used improperly at their choice.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think this is an interesting conversation. She battles sort of the TikTok situation, which is if you remove TikTok, are you actually causing more issues because of the potential censorship you are allowing? Or are you feeding into the algorithm? Now, do I use TikTok? No, not regularly. because of some of those concerns. But I have the choice to do it. I think you have that sort of same issue here, Will, with Facebook, which is, yeah, to create a privacy policy that's stricter, sure. And look, we've all had it happen. I'm talking about Dairy Queen and all of a sudden I'm getting an ad for Dairy Queen. We've had all those situations happen in real time and real life. So maybe there should be some of those, but it gets a little gray and it gets a little concerning.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. And one, that is every social media platform's business model is the data that they get from you for offering you a free service as well as ads. So, yes, Rebecca, that is a very robust discussion that should happen about individuals' privacy, but also what they give up when they agree to use a platform. And so that I think having conservative minded people on the board is very helpful for those discussions going forward as well. So those are things, though, that weren't necessarily brought up by this announcement. And so we can't speak too far to what they're thinking about that. But I understand that is a concern of a lot of people. And Logan, you brought up TikTok. You saw Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank fame. Obviously, he does a lot of media appearances on Fox News now. He's a conservative. He's in talks to purchase the assets of TikTok here in America. which is a part of that deal where if they didn't sell the company by X date, I think it was January 19th, but that's on hold from a court, but then it would transfer over. And he's saying, though, we need to have the Trump administration help negotiate this deal out, but that he's looking to purchase that and to try to almost take TikTok over in America so it wouldn't necessarily go away, but that connection to China would be severed and some of those privacy concerns would go away. there as well.
SPEAKER 06 :
That could be interesting. You know, you put sort of a more trusted face, I guess you'd say, Mr. Wonderful, involved in running something like TikTok. Maybe that can win more people over and it continues to plow from there. Millions of Americans and millions worldwide who their businesses are reliant on TikTok. So that is always the concern when you're dealing with that. You're going to start limiting people's ways to make money or you have built an entire business on these platforms and then you're kicked off. Now, of course, YouTube has done that. Of course, Facebook has done that where they have kicked off prominent figures or they've throttled prominent figures who did build their whole career on social media. But I'm talking about someone that, you know, sells candles. You know, I'm not talking about someone who's a political commentator, a mom and pop shop that built up on selling a croissant that is legendary in Houston, you know, something like that. Those are the ones that I get a little concerned about in terms of the people still having a voice.
SPEAKER 02 :
This is another interesting thing. Our team has been looking through at some of the historic things that we had happen. And once again, we did mention that those got, we were able to defeat them and get those strikes against our account taken away. But even in his statement, Mark Zuckerberg mentions that we're going to simplify our content policies and get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse. We actually had a broadcast yesterday back in 2022, February 9th, so almost three years ago, that we were talking about our lawsuit that we were bringing. It was a FOIA lawsuit. We had FOIA'd the administration. They didn't comply within the statutory limitations, and so we filed a FOIA lawsuit. We were then flagged for false information on an immigration topic, but in there, they said it was also related to false information about Hillary Clinton, which had nothing to do with anything on the broadcast that day. I don't even think she was mentioned on the broadcast that day. It was very directed about the ACLJ work, filing a lawsuit based off our FOIA request. It was all internally created story. And they were fact-checking us telling what we were in real time doing and we got a content strike on that. And that's, once again, the flaw that even Zuckerberg is pointing out here with the third-party fact-checking and how much power they had to silence your content. If they didn't like it, even if the topic, because it was about immigration, a very contested time, and even if the excuse was wrong, that specific voice, The ACLJ talking to you was shadow banned, delisted, moved down, whatever you want to call it, through that process of the fact checker.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I've seen – I have to say, this last election season, we saw a lot less of that. Right. We saw a lot – I'm not sure if we had one flag on our account. No one told me if we did because – You could tell they were already moving in this direction. So when those topics come up that are specifically mentioned and we're addressing them, as half the country agrees with, that's something that at least we brought up. Hey, no sweet baby rays this time. You know what? That was maybe the most disappointing thing. Where was the barbecue sauce? Yeah, if you don't remember, back when I think we introduced Meta four years ago. looming in the background out of focus was a bottle of sweet baby ray barbecue sauce which i think he's a big fan of uh just a solitary bottle on the shelf yeah and uh i've always thought you know he should put that if you're watching mark every should be an easter egg yeah every time hide a bottle of sweet baby rays we are gonna be taking your calls coming up in the next segment it'll be our last segment of the day 1-800-684-3110 let's go ahead and take a call paula it's in florida you're on the air
SPEAKER 10 :
Hey, this is Paula. Thank you. Just wanted to give a shout out saying just give the public some time to even believe what Zuckerberg is saying. And because we have. We've been hearing the opposite for so many years, and we didn't even believe that at the time that they were saying it. Just for instance, yesterday I was watching the news, and here they're still blaming Trump for the insurrection on January the 6th. I mean, it's who do you believe?
SPEAKER 12 :
Who do you believe?
SPEAKER 06 :
And so you... What we want, Paula, is that conversation to be able to happen, is for you to be able to say what you feel about that and for other people to say the opposite. And then somewhere in the middle, maybe people will have a discussion. You'll actually be able to talk these things out, not just turn into one side. And maybe that's what can happen on these social media platforms. Once again, no guarantees. As you said, we got to build time, got to let it trust, build some trust up. Mark Zuckerberg has been headed this direction. And I will say, think about all the people. who have come on board to the more America first, I guess you'd say, conservative movement, the Trump movement, the MAGA movement, very unlikely people have come on board. You could say that from our own colleague, Tulsi Gabbard. You could say that from an RFK Jr. You could say that from an Elon Musk. You could say from a Russell Brand. A lot of people, hearts and minds have changed over the last four years, over the last six years, over the last two years. So if I sound more hopeful, And maybe you think, because you're like, I can't trust Mark Zuckerberg. We have seen it now time and time again. We've seen a lot of these leading voices in tech and entertainment start to take that risky swing. And it's really not risky, and that's what they know. They know it is not risky to the actual consumer. It's only risky to the advertisers, and it's only risky to the mainstream media. And that's when he starts saying terms like legacy media. You know what they mean.
SPEAKER 02 :
And it was almost two years ago that we brought Tulsi Gabbard on this show. In a very similar situation where she had left the Democrat Party, has not joined the Republican Party. I don't even think she had left the Democrat Party yet. Right. Yeah. I think she had just become an independent.
SPEAKER 06 :
Maybe that's what it was.
SPEAKER 02 :
Just become an independent. But even that, it took time for her to build trust within the conservative base. And our audience. Exactly. And so I think you can also look at that, why we have hope, because we've seen what can happen.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. The first comment, though, said, you guys are being naive. Yeah. Maybe so. Maybe? Maybe so. Maybe we're looking for a hopeful 2025. We're going to take your calls coming up. If you disagree or agree or have other things to say, 1-800-684-3110. Last call to get your comments in. And sign the petition at aclj.org. Slash sign. We'll be right back.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right, welcome back to Seculo. I know we've got a lot of listeners, viewers in Southern California, as we said. We know it's a key support base for us, the American Service for Law and Justice, one of our largest areas of supporters. And, you know, if you're being impacted by it, sure, we want to hear from you on the broadcast too, 1-800-684-3110. I don't think Rick is trying to politicize it, but people are talking about the causes and they're all known. You could go through that whole list of causes that they needed more water put away. People voted for it means they would pay for it. And it didn't happen. People know that clearing the brush is the brush is how they spread so quickly and they won't clear the brush because of other environmental reasons. And you've got to make choices if you're going to live in certain terrains for humans first. I mean, you know, this is, again, when you get to policies that try to disregard, well, you know, we have to worry about the frog more than the human, then the policies end up with these kind of disasters. And it's not a place where you can look and say, well, at least people in these situations, you know, middle class people, especially who can get hit the hardest, they've got insurance. A lot of them don't. when it comes to fire, that that was revoked years ago, and they likely could not afford the add-on that you'd have to pay extra to get that insurance. So the extremely wealthy, they can rebuild. And those who are in some kind of subsidized housing, that can be rebuilt. But people right in the middle, they have to rethink, are there going to be the jobs there? Is this going to be a place that is livable? And it's crazy to say that about one of the better climates, usually 90% of the year, In the United States of America. So if there's any of you that want to update us on anything that's happening, 1-800-684-3110. I do want to go back to the confirmation issue, though, using Tulsi Gabbard as an example, because Federman, Senator Federman has talked about how He's been open to meet with all these nominees, Will, and yet the criticism, the concerns people have, he's not really picking up on it in these meetings. That's right. The politicizing so many of these nominees because Donald Trump chose them.
SPEAKER 02 :
And two years ago, when there was a midterm election, who would have ever thought that we would be this point in now 2025 saying the one of the voices of reason in the Democrat Party is Senator John Fetterman from Pennsylvania. But we've seen it over and over again, whether it be through the election. We even he was asked about the Lake and Riley Act yesterday, where that was an act if a criminal alien is here and has been picked up for petty theft or some other lower level crime, then they're detained and not released back out. And a lot of the Democrats are saying they're not going to support it in the Senate. John Fetterman said, if we can't get seven Democrats to vote for this in the Senate to get past the 60 vote threshold, then they don't understand why we lost the election. I mean, that's the type of things that John Fetterman as a Democrat in the Senate is saying. But back to your point, this bite is from yesterday on Fox News. He was asked about Tulsi Gabbard specifically as one of the nominees. Let's take a listen.
SPEAKER 05 :
Is this Tulsi Gabbard one of the nominees that you could vote for?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, you know, I met with her. In fact, I think I've met with virtually all of them. And the ones that I haven't, they're on my schedule, RFK and Governor Noem. So I'm happy to meet with all of them. and that's also part of this i don't know why that was controversial i mean i got a lot of blowback just you know even to to meet with them and to me i see that as just doing my job and i'm going to have a conversation with with anyone that would like to have a a conversation with me and if if i if someone believed everything that's been written or said about me was true. I mean, you can't possibly know me, or I think I could know her either, just based on someone read. But I want to sit down and have a conversation. And I'm really glad that I've done that. And some of these nominees I'm going to vote for already. In fact, whether it's our colleague Rubio, Representative Stefanik, or even Sean Duffy, I expect to vote for him as well, too.
SPEAKER 05 :
So there you go. It's very interesting, Logan, because he's not afraid of the normal politics of the Democrat Party. Political blowback. What he's saying, first off, I mean, the fact that he's been announcing that because he's had those meetings, is that Democrats, because in those meetings, it can humanize people one-on-one. And yes, you could talk about your differences, but you also could talk about how you agree more than differ. And it's those situations. The party is why they say, don't even take the meeting. And I think where he's going is, listen, a president got elected. This is who he chose. They're willing to meet with me. You know, if we can have the discussion on the issues I care about, if we can come to a middle ground, that's as much as I can hope for and want in America. Someone who's obviously going to be nominated, a party very different than mine, and I'm not going to be afraid to meet with them. But the left and leadership, they don't want you to even meet because it's a lot easier to then be groupthink and be nasty in those committees if you've never sat across from that person and had to actually have a discussion.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, but he's sitting there on a Fox News set with Katie Britt. You know, like this is someone who's taking – talk about – a moment where we've kind of had a flip, which has happened now multiple times. And I've said this, we've seen people grow and change over the last few years. They're also taking the temperature of their own state and their own areas. We saw what happened in Pennsylvania. So he's not just going to step by. I think this is a big moment. But you're right. When he already is mentioning names. Sure, he doesn't say Tulsi, I'm 100% going to confirm. But when he says Rubio, for sure. Stefanik, for sure. Sean Duffy, for sure. Pretty much. I mean, when you're saying that already, you're making these statements.
SPEAKER 02 :
That's pretty wild. Well, and John Fetterman has said he's not rooting for Trump to fail, which seems like, yeah, right, that should be the right thought process as an elected official. But that's not what you see out of the Democrat Party this year. You shouldn't want your president to fail even if you don't believe in their policies because you don't want the failure of America. But he said that, that gets him in trouble. And we mentioned, you mentioned he's on set with Katie Britt. the Republican senator from Alabama, one of the most conservative states in the country, they're actually partnering together on the Senate version of the Lake and Riley Act. So that's going to be bipartisan from him. But even he is saying he doesn't know if he can get his colleagues in his party to vote for something that is so simple of keeping people that commit crimes in detention if they're here illegally until that's adjudicated. He doesn't think he can get people in his own party to get there. So I think he's the anomaly. I think it could be good, especially to get him voting for some of these nominees when you do have some of the Hawks in the party. Now, we don't know how he's going to vote for Tulsi yet. He was... He didn't directly say it like he did Sean Duffy or Rubio, but he seemed more open to it. But you need people like him, especially if there's some more hawkish Republicans that are afraid of maybe her taking away some of the governmental powers of security or of intelligence gathering. But I think it's going to be important to have voices like that that are honest brokers to the American people and say, you know what? President won. They swept Congress. You got to give him his picks at this point.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I mean, this is this is the key. And Republicans really, you know, there might be those couple, like you mentioned, who don't always agree with President Trump. But this is, again, their job is to look at the person and say, does this person just have the qualification? That's it. It's not the policies. because they're working for a president who will instruct them on the policies and make ultimate the big decisions. These are the people he's chose to carry out his policies. And when you win big and your party's not just in charge of the White House, but the House and the Senate, it shouldn't be too difficult to get your nominees through. And that doesn't mean you got to fight and push back some, but we want to make sure that again, that these aren't put on hold where it gets hold on indefinitely. And then these important agencies don't have directors. And then we have another attack and we still don't have a director that oversees all the intelligence agencies, except one who's a holdover from the bureaucracy. Let's get these appointments in. Let's get people like Tulsi Gabbard, make sure that they've got their committee hearings scheduled. so we can move to their votes for the full Senate. Sign the petition to help Tulsi and to make sure we get her committee hearing scheduled at ACLJ.org. Share it with your friends and family as well. Let's build some grassroots pressure with one of our ACLJ colleagues. Be historic for the ACLJ.
