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Join us on Sekulow as we delve into the ongoing legal wrestling over President Trump’s recent executive orders, focusing on the contentious issue of birthright citizenship. With insights from key figures like Senator Bill Hagerty, we consider the implications of these orders, strategic responses from the ACLJ, and the broader impact on U.S. policy and governance. Stay informed and engaged as we bring clarity to these complex legal discussions and explore the profound effects on both domestic and international fronts.
SPEAKER 05 :
Today on Sekulow, showdown in court as a judge blocks Trump’s executive order.
SPEAKER 04 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right, folks, welcome to Sekulow. Well, no surprise as these executive orders were starting to be signed by the president on day one of his presidency, nearly 200. Now, some of those executive orders, when you say 200, one order may have removed 78. different decisions by the Biden administration but a lot of executive orders and plenty that are on the target list of the left so we saw the first target is on birthright citizenship and this debate about what does this mean under the constitution when you look at both the qualifications for president of the United States where you see this kind of a natural born citizen language and then look at the 14th amendment these amendments that were put in place post the civil war to make sure that black Americans were able to become a U.S. citizens and the language that is used there and so there’s this interplay it has been used of course very broadly we’ve talked to you about that the interpretation of what it means to be a natural born citizen in the United States for many decades has been extremely broad to the point of we don’t punish the child so it doesn’t matter what the parents actions were if the child was born here they should have the protections of the United States the question here is now is should that be limited based off how the parents came into the United States this judge is the district court judge has put a TRO now it’s not that doesn’t mean that this is on hold indefinitely what this means is now that parties have time to prepare briefing here’s the tough part about this case right now for the Trump administration let’s just talk honestly Pam Bondi is not yet the attorney general. Her deputies are not in place. The deputies run the departments that would be defending this in court. So who is defending this in court right now? DOJ bureaucratic attorneys and we know that out of the DOJ at least 95% of them are Democrat donors so there’s a pretty good chance that someone on that legal team was defending a position that they disagree with which means they put in weaker arguments I’m not trying to say by the way to to demean their work 100% but that is generally how this goes when you start early in the process which goes back to underscoring why you’re going to see a major push for us especially with the colleagues like Tulsi Gabbard on moving through these good nominees who are going to shake Washington up and not just be more of the same. You know I’d rather have more nominees by President Trump who only get in by 51 or 52 votes than nominees that get in with 100 votes or 99 votes and the reason why is those nominees that get in by 51 or 52 are the ones that the left fears the most. they know that those are the ones who are actually going to go in there and do everything they can to implement President Trump’s policies but he’s got ahead of that by issuing those executive orders to begin the legal battles I think that was the strategy here is we know that this is not going to be handled by a district court ultimately so what do you do you have to start preparing for this going in these TRO we’re still the we’re not into the point of this case where we’re anywhere close to merits Where are we right now? We’re in the just the temporary restraining order that will get, you know, there will be replies there and then there will get to a merits case in the district court. I hope at that point. And there will be appeals on the TRO. So there’ll be side appeals. But when you’re talking about the merits of this case, we need to make sure it’s not just Pam Bondi who’s in place as Attorney General, but that she’s got her Solicitor General’s team in place and her top advocates in place ready to go to put the briefing together. and the oral arguments together as this develops through courts because it’s four or five states bringing this action. So you ask, okay, here, what can the ACLJ do in these situations? The ACLJ is ready to go with whatever research is necessary, whatever, again, if we need to look at certain areas of the law to assist, we can do that, provide information To the Department of Justice and to Pambani, if we believe that’s necessary, support our work. To do all of that, you need to donate. ACLJ.org. It takes resource. All right welcome back to Seculo we are talking about first the first legal action out of these executive orders of course was on birthright citizenship no surprise there it was an easy one to get into court quickly because there are people that are pregnant now who might have again temporary work visas and are about to give birth there are people who are here legally but not permanently it could be on various h1b1 visas where they are you know if they’re brought in for tech companies and places like that and so they’ve got a question then about you know well What is my child’s nationality when they are born? Is it mine? Do they have both? And under the current kind of interpretation, it would be both. If you want to take advantage of your child being born in the U.S., you can do that. You don’t have to, but you can. And of course, in your home country, you would get that citizenship as well. because of your parents citizenship. I want to go right to Harry Hutchinson because Harry this was one that when legal scholars started looking at we knew it was going to be one that would definitely head to courts because there hasn’t been a clear definition out of courts really since the 1800s there were some cases about what exactly it the kind of the interplay between the birthright citizenship and the natural born citizen clause in article two of for the president who can run for president in the United States and in the 14th amendment which granted a wide U.S. citizenship to those who previously mostly who were slaves who previously were not treated as citizens of the United States So there’s these double interplays within our laws and in our Constitution.
SPEAKER 01 :
I think you’re precisely correct. And so one of the places to start is with the objective of the 14th Amendment. The objective of the 14th Amendment was designed to deal with the status of former slaves. And secondly, we should consider the legislative history attached to the 14th Amendment, Section 1. And if you look at the legislative history, there is a clear and unmistakable argument in favor of Donald Trump’s position. However, I think if you look at the weight of current legal authority, there is a clear counter argument to the president’s position. And so ultimately this issue will have to be decided, I think, by the United States Supreme Court. So one of the arguments in favor of Donald Trump’s position is a practical argument in the sense that some people have attempted to, if you will, game the system by having a child here even though they are here illegally. But in reality, individuals that are in this country fall into three or four categories. Legal immigrants, individuals that are here legally but temporarily, so for instance, on a work visa, and then individuals that are here clearly illegally. And I think President Trump’s executive order is primarily aimed at the third category. This does not mean that President Trump will prevail in the end. But I’m sure hundreds of thousands of dollars, probably millions of dollars, will be spent litigating this case. At least five lawsuits have already been filed, more lawsuits are likely to be filed in the future, but we simply do not know at this particular point if you look at the legal precedence.
SPEAKER 06 :
I’ll just turn to both of you as the legal experts in the room here. When he issues these executive orders, is there the assumption that sometimes this is going to happen? Were they aware, do you believe, that with this one, this is just to start the conversation, to get it going?
SPEAKER 05 :
Precisely. I mean, there’s a set of executive orders that have come in play that is pretty usual. When a Democrat comes in, they get rid of the Mexico city policy. When a Republican comes in, they, they, they put the Mexico city policy back into force. It’s about international funding of abortion. So those are clean. Those are, yeah. And it’s been back and forth that way. So there’s that set of executive orders where the president can clearly act. Um, for instance, you know, directing 10,000 trips to the border, things like that. I don’t know if that came through executive order or just his decision-making, but Yeah I’d say about half the executive orders really aren’t up for legal review. It’s more these are the policies we’re going to be pursuing and a lot of time the executive orders are teethless until Congress provides them funding to carry them out. Now some you don’t need funding for like this one.
SPEAKER 06 :
Or declassifying documents and those kind of things that are happening.
SPEAKER 05 :
Declassifying documents. The president of the United States doesn’t have to issue an executive order for that. The president can declassify anything he wants. He could literally declassify where all of our nuclear weapons are right now. I mean, he has full power to do that. He wouldn’t do that, obviously.
SPEAKER 03 :
I don’t advise that.
SPEAKER 05 :
No, but I’m saying that is the extent of his power. He is the executive branch of the U.S. government. I know that it’s weird for Americans because we’re not like a king and a monarchy. But remember, he is the executive branch, the commander in chief. And all of those other agencies… Their job is to work to implement his policies. The difference between us saying that and the rest of the world that does not have elective democracy is that we have two other branches of government to check that power. So it’s not like being a monarch in the sense that I decree executive order and that means it goes into force. Sometimes it just needs money or else it can’t be enforced. Sometimes it’s going to be challenged in court. Other times, it’s very easy policy decisions that are easy to do, like the Mexico City policy.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, and Jordan, if you look at, this is just one that’s already had some sort of legal action. It’s the most controversial one probably issued on day one. Right, but I mean, our team at the ACLJ has already been putting together lists analysis of the executive orders, ones that have current lawsuits, ones where we assume based off of just what the reaction is and the nature of it that there will be litigation coming soon. But As you mentioned earlier in the week, when you were in D.C., you were meeting with the lawyers, meeting with the teams to really hone in and focus where, one, the area of expertise within the ACLJ, as well as the practicality of some of the… At some point… You also have to pick which ones, knowing which other organizations are going to help fight others that we are best primed to help preserve and continue forward. But I know that that’s a big priority here at the ACLJ as we look at how we can offer our legal filings to help continue this forward.
SPEAKER 05 :
The most important executive order that President Trump has issued so far, in my opinion, is the one to overhaul the civil servants. And he did it in a way that was more specific. So it wasn’t saying all civil servants can just be fired for no cause. uh the bureaucrats we know this is how you drain the swamp right so what he did and what they did in the language was say that if you are a non-presidential appointee who are a policy maker though so you’re a career policy maker in the federal government that you are not going to get the typical protections employed by civil servants and can be fired at will if you are unwilling or even going a step further and putting roadblocks in place to implementing the president’s policy so that you’re not even though you might be a civil servant because you aren’t a presidential choice because you have a role in policy making if you are not going to implement that policy just as strong as the political appointees so if you’re someone they know is going to try and undermine or already is undermining that they can remove you or fire you they can remove you to a different position that doesn’t have policy making abilities or even a remove you from the job itself and there’s all that interplay of well can you actually fire them or is it is it easier just to move them Right now, it’s easier to move them to a place where they have a less influence because we’ve got to have this battle first, which is that if you have a policymaking role in the federal government, then you should not also be able to have a new president come in and decide as that bureaucrat with a policymaking role that I am not going to follow the implementation of the policies of the duly elected president of the United States that I serve. Even as a bureaucrat, they serve, they take the oath to serve. And so this would make it easier to remove those. To me, you’re talking about the bigger issue of draining the swamp so that when these cabinet members get into their positions they can actually get the job done that is key this civil servant reform is so key to so many conservative efforts when you’re not just talking about one issue but you’re talking about changing Washington, D.C., and the way our federal government works for the better. Support the work of the ACLJ. We need you to donate at ACLJ.org. We’ve already seen the lawsuits start coming in on President Trump’s executive orders. They’re flying. It’s fast. It’s furious. Our team is on it. They’ve got it against Doge, which is interesting, too, because it’s just really an advisory committee, which the president is allowed to set up. We’ve been meeting again with our senior legal teams to figure out where to go first. But we need your support. Donate today. All right, welcome back to Seculo. As you know, we are taking your calls too. There’s a lot of things I’m sure you’d have questions about because when this starts, when the lawsuits start flying and you go from issue to issue, we certainly want to make sure that if, as you’re listening or watching the broadcast, that you are understanding the points that we’re making and understand kind of how we’re analyzing this for you. So I always want to make it clear that we’re in this situation where we’re on offense. If there’s no bad questions, to ask us so that you then can go out to your friends and family and talk to them about these policy positions in an educated way and not just hearing the, you know, the two minutes on TV of two different people screaming at each other about why it’s wrong or why it’s right. So that’s important and that’s why I encourage you. If you’ve got questions about these issues, give us a call at 1-800- Right now we’ve got Rick Grinnell joining us. Rick, I want to go right to what is happening overseas with Hamas and Israel. Hamas has named an additional four hostages that it plans to release on Saturday in the latest Gaza ceasefire exchange. We’re hearing most of these are females. There’s seven right now who are females who are still held hostage. These three are soldiers. They are believed to be alive but Rick your thoughts on how Hamas so far has continued not to do mass release but has continued to release these hostages and we hope they make good on this promise as well on Saturday.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, look, this is the most hope that we’ve had in a very long time. Thanks to Donald Trump. We’ve really been able to, uh, to shift the paradigm, but we still need this to be a lot faster. There needs to just be a fundamental change from Hamas, uh, relief. These individuals just don’t, don’t trickle it out. Um, and so that’s frustrating, but you know, we, we are in a position. The United States, I think we have to be very clear about two things. One, we need to be fighting for our Americans that are held hostage. That should be our priority. And two, we should be supporting our allies like Israel. Israel is going to tell us what they need to do. They’re going to be the ones that say, look, we are defending our homeland. We believe that this is a security risk. We’re not in a position to be critiquing another country’s desire to keep security as a priority and to critique what they feel they need to do in order to be safe. At the same time, we can share our honest concerns if it affects national security for the United States. But at the end of the day, people need to understand that this is a new administration. Donald Trump won because he had a very popular phrase that people supported and policies underneath that phrase. And that is make America great again, America first policies, putting America first unapologetically. And so I just look at the world a little differently than the typical Washington DC types who want the United States to continue to do uh you know generous giving of american tax dollars to other countries and to tell other countries what to do and i think we’re living in a world where donald trump says we got a 36 trillion dollar national debt we can’t be giving away the u.s taxpayer dollars so easily uh every program should be justified and why are we telling other countries what to do let’s pull back let’s concentrate on america let’s make america great and let’s spend the money in america
SPEAKER 03 :
Rick, you bring up a great point talking about all the expenditures that the United States spends abroad. And one specifically that we’ve talked about many times here on the broadcast with you is the United Nations. And this ties in because the first three hostages that were released last week told the the authorities and the israelis and the media when they got out that they were actually being held in surprise surprise un facilities shelters shelters that were set up by unra and the united nations in gaza by some of our taxpayer dollars exactly that is funded by the u.s hamas exploiting and utilizing the generosity of foreign countries that funnel it through the u.n unfortunately it was not as shocking to me reading this report as it should have been but now that there is the new sheriff in town and we do a lot of our advocacy at the u.n how does this have to look different going forward
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, look, Will, as you know, I spent eight years inside the UN Security Council representing the United States. I know the UN very well. And let me be very clear, there’s a lot of great programs that the UN funds. UNICEF, World Food Program, some of the refugee organizations. There’s some really great ones that need more funding. But there’s also some disastrous programs that need to be cut or completely revamped. And UNRWA is a program that we talk about that’s the UN Refugee Works Program. It’s geared towards refugees in the Palestinian territories. And this is a notoriously bad organization. They have a history of hiring all of the wrong people who hide terrorists everywhere. And UNRUN needs a total gut renovation or it needs to be closed down and we need to figure out different ways to help the refugees in the Palestinian territories. We don’t want to turn a blind eye to refugees, but we also don’t want to be funding people who are protecting terrorists. And right now, I don’t have faith that the UN program has been cleaned up. They keep telling us they have, but they haven’t. And it’s very frustrating for Americans who pay a lot of money at the UN. You know, we pay a quarter of the UN budget. We pay a quarter of the peacekeeping budgets, which is an extra expense. And then there is voluntary contributions to all of the outside agencies. like World Food Program and UNICEF, that’s not under the assessed contributions that every country has to make. So it’s a behemoth organization, and Elise Stefanik is going to have her hands full to get in and figure out which programs work and which programs don’t. I am not an advocate for, and this is controversial within Republican circles, but I am not an advocate to say, just tear down the UN and get rid of it. I actually think there are programs there that are good, that can save us money because we’re only paying a quarter of the bill on say the world’s food program. Well, we pay almost 50% of that, but, but we’re saving money when we can bring the world together to, uh, to take care of refugees and humanitarian crises. It also helps us because then those individuals aren’t racing into America. They’re staying in their region. And they’re being fed and housed and we’re trying to fix the problem so that they don’t become refugees inside America.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I mean, Rick, I think this could be a big discussion because the back and forth on is how do we get to that point with… The limited amount of time we sometimes have, whether it’s four years or eight years, in trying to make those fundamental changes. I think it’s almost got to be something, and maybe just real quickly, Rick, in like 10 seconds, it’s got to be something we can educate both sides on to say, you know what, if we’re going to send our money there, they need to be doing the right thing. And that’s not housing terrorist hostages in UN facilities.
SPEAKER 08 :
You’re exactly right. ACLJ is already doing this work. We’ve got the offices there. We’re experts on it. Support the ACLJ if you want to have a thoughtful approach to these problems.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right, Rick, as always, we appreciate you being part of our team. Donate today, as Rick said, at ACLJ.org. And if you can, become a champion. That means you’ve chosen a recurring donation at ACLJ.org slash champions. keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is Sekulow and now your host Jordan Sekulow so we have talked about uh first on just kind of the executive orders and uh what we’ve got to make sure how do we fight legally we’re looking at other executive orders as well uh coming down that we our team is already preparing um to engage now the question will be at what level there’s the policy level that you can get out early and then there’s the actual legal level when these cases usually have to move past the district court states there’s very few district federal district courts in the united states that allow amicus briefs from outside organizations at the district court level dc sometimes does they’re the most likely to do it but the others you have to file something unique and usually it gets denied Plus, however that goes, you know these cases are going on appeal, not just on, by the way, on the technicalities, but on the merits as well. And so that’s when we really, again, our team is already preparing for both the technicalities and the merits.
SPEAKER 06 :
Let’s go ahead and take this call. John in Virginia, I think, is asking a question that a lot of people want to know. John’s watching on YouTube. If you’re watching on YouTube, hit that subscribe button. We appreciate it. John, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I just want to know how did this lawsuit get up to this judge in Washington in two days after Trump got elected? How does it go that quick?
SPEAKER 06 :
Sure. John, a lot of people have been asking that question, even members of our own team. How did this happen? How did it get to this point less than a week into President Trump’s presidency?
SPEAKER 05 :
okay so the executive orders they get filed and executive orders do have a meaning it’s not like they they just some of them I said do need teeth they need congressional funding to get done others like redefining birth birthright citizenship and then utilizing that to really make a big fundamental policy change the question is does that need legislative action could it potentially need constitutional action and it’s going to be something litigated so you’ve got then attorney generals of these states who have individuals that under this law could be close to having children and they just assert that this this their citizens or lawful residents even if they’re temporary And they’re going to have a child. And as of, you know, two weeks ago and for maybe even longer than that in the United States, it could be 100 years. I’m not sure how far back it goes, but it looks like it goes back to around the 14th Amendment. So over 100 years that we’ve given this broad definition of birthright citizenship. Right. So you go into court and say, listen. This has been the way the law has been interpreted. Here’s how courts have interpreted it. Here’s the addition to the constitutional part on the Natural Born Citizens Clause in the 14th Amendment when American slaves were given full citizenship in the United States and there’s talk about that in the 14th Amendment. So you got that at interplay as well. So then it’s not so hard to get into court. because you’ve got citizens that would be affected by this very quickly so you go into court it’s a temporary order right now there will be briefing just on the temporary order there will be appeals on those orders and then ultimately we will get to a merits case that will start there but then ultimately and I think on these big issues likely end up at the U.S. Supreme Court that is not every executive order what we’re looking at right now is the five or ten out of those 200 that are basically ripe now or very soon for lawsuits and that’s what the left is doing they are going to try and just overcome the Department of Justice as Pam Bondi is able to get her new team in when she’s in as AG. A lot of this has bigger constitutional consequences.
SPEAKER 06 :
A lot more than, like I say, declassifying a document or doing what it be or signing this. The president has declassification power. Yeah, these are big deals that get done, whether you like them or not. This is kind of opening the can to the conversation. Speaking of which, I’d love to hear from you. 1-800-684-3110. Have your voice heard on the air today. If you’re watching on YouTube or Rumble, you can also do that still. Give us a call. 1-800-684-3110. We do a few lines open. This is a great time to call and support the work of the ACLJ by going to ACLJ.com. And if you become an ACLJ champion, we’d appreciate it. And you always get bumped up to the front of the line if you call in as well. So it’s a nice little perk that we created here. ACLJ.org slash champions. Become a monthly recurring supporter.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right, welcome back to SECU, a great friend of the broadcast. Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee is joining us now. And Senator Hagerty, I know, has been a very busy first week in Washington, D.C. I got to see a couple of times, but now the Senate is right to work on these, especially on getting President Trump’s nominees confirmed. We’re hearing that Pete Hegseth could be up for a vote pretty soon for Secretary of Defense. Any timing on that right now?
SPEAKER 02 :
Right now, the timing looks like about 830, 9 p.m. tonight. That’s that’s the current state of play. I should make note, Jordan, that the Democrats have done everything they can to slow this process down, doing every procedural roadblock in our way that they possibly can. Leader John Thune has basically said, if that’s the case, we’re just going to stay here all weekend. And that’s my plan to be here forever. into the wee hours of the night, Sunday morning through Monday morning. We’re just going to stay right through and keep doing this. The Democrats want to grind this out. It’s you know, it’s their their procedural ability to do that. That is slowing down President Trump’s ability to get at the problems that face our nation. Let’s just step back for a minute and realize and remember that 75% of the American public felt that the nation was on the wrong track right before Election Day in November. They cast their votes. President Trump won a landslide electoral victory. He won every single battleground state. He won a majority of the popular vote. I would think the message should be loud and clear to Democrats, but that doesn’t seem to phase them here in Washington. The resistance movement seems to be in full force. We have only two members of President Trump’s cabinet confirmed at this point in time. Here we are, Friday afternoon. At this time, in his previous administration, the day one, he already had two members of his cabinet appointed. You look at President Obama’s administration, a dozen members of his cabinet in the first 15 days. Joe Biden did better than this. They are really pulling out all the stops to try to frustrate President Trump here in his second term.
SPEAKER 05 :
And we know, Senator Hagerty, that when that is done, it takes that much longer for those departments to get up to speed because they don’t have their directors, they don’t have their deputies, which are also important, who have to get confirmed. And so you’re going to have to rely on the bureaucrats. to carry the weight of any kind of lawsuits that come in or policy issues that come in and so you’re not being able to rely on your team yet in these departments. You’re waiting to get them there. You’re relying on the federal bureaucracy which we know is overwhelmingly not very supportive of President Trump’s policies.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, that certainly became clear to us in President Trump’s first term. As you know, I served in his administration. The deep state is real. The frustration and the issues associated with that, something that President Trump has had four years to think about while he was preparing his comeback. And I think that the deep state bureaucracy is on notice right now that this sort of behavior is not going to be tolerated anymore. You’ve got a lot of people here in the Washington areas of the federal government who weren’t even showing up to work, Jordan. It’s shameful, I think. And at best, what we were hearing is that people were coming in two days per pay period, four days per month. That is absolutely unacceptable for the American public. American taxpayers expect to get value for their dollar. I certainly, in an oversight capacity, will make certain that that happens. Now that Republicans have the gavel here in the Senate, we can hold these people to account under…
SPEAKER 05 :
We’ve had these bizarre stories, Senator Hagerty, where, you know, like someone, the IRS, someone gets contacted by the IRS and maybe it’s just a random audit. Nothing, nothing. So nothing wrong with that. But the person conducting the audit is definitely at home. You hear dogs barking. They’re giving you they’re giving you fax numbers and you’re like, wait, I’m. faxing you confidential tax records to your house i mean uh that’s not even really how this is supposed to work at all and yet uh again this is what we the the this is this is normal practice as we speak today not like three years ago or four years ago and you know with covet raging this is what you’re dealing with right now, if you’re getting a call and you start working with any of these agencies, a lot of the times they’re saying, well, can you send it to this email address? Because I couldn’t get the full file on my work one. And can you use my at-home fax machine? I mean, it’s very real what you’re talking about that, well, Washington DC and downtown DC, which is where the corporations are, people are at work, but the federal government, the largest employer in Washington DC, you look into those buildings and you see a lot of empty desks.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s that’s absolutely the case. One thing is very interesting, though, Jordan, that I’ve seen since the November 5th election and particularly since President Trump announced the Department of Government Efficiency, the traffic in D.C. has picked up a great deal. It tells me that these federal workers have realized the new sheriff is in town. They better get back to their seats. And so I think we’ve already begun to see this change. It’s interesting how many changes we already saw before President Trump even took office. You think about the progress that we began to make in the Middle East. You think about the European Union stating that perhaps they should supplant Russian LNG with American LNG at this point in time. They didn’t figure that out a few years ago after after Russia invaded Ukraine. You start seeing, you know, countries like the UK saying they’re going to step their defense budget up to two and a half percent of GDP. All of this in advance of President Trump taking office. Now that he’s here, now that he’s in office, it’s time to get his cabinet in place to support the extensive change that’s necessary. And I think the bureaucracy is on full notice that it’s time to change, it’s time to get more efficient, and the resistance movement needs to stop.
SPEAKER 03 :
Senator Hagerty, you’re also on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. And one interesting thing we saw coming out yesterday was now that there is a new sheriff in town with a new administration and new majorities in the Senate and the House, that Some of these big banks that had maybe done some questionable things during the last four years are trying to at least publicly do an about face. And we’re looking at this issue where people who had conservative leanings or beliefs were debanked. by large American banks. And I know this is a concern for you, but I just want to hear from you. What is the path forward on this? And how will the Senate and the Banking Committee specifically hold their feet to the fire, ensure that there’s not this discrimination based off political belief by our banking industry, one of the most fundamental industries that Americans have to them?
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, President Trump called this out. I appreciate you bringing this up. He called this out at the World Economic Forum yesterday when he when he zoomed into their meeting. And Brian Monahan, the CEO of Bank of America, was right there. And he pointed them out by name, saying, look, you guys have got to stop this debanking. This goes all the way back to the Obama administration when they instituted Operation Chokepoint. What we’ve seen under the Biden administration is just a renewal of this Operation Chokepoint 2.0. What you have are bank supervisors that might suggest to a bank that they’re overseeing, that they’re regulating, that there might be some sort of exposure to a particular industry, to a particular client, even Barron Trump. was not able to get a bank account. You think about Christian ministry organizations that have been debanked. I’ve talked to industry after industry that when they become, quote, politically disfavored, they suddenly become not a client of these large banks. That’s got to come to an end. We cannot see discrimination in the bank supervisory regime. That needs to be cleaned up extensively. That lies within the OCC, within the FDIC. We’ve got considerable work to do at the Fed as well. to make certain that we don’t have political views permeate the regulation of our banking system this needs to be the most open the deepest and the fairest banking system in the world it has been it should continue to be that way yet you’ve had democrat activists and now bureaucrats get in and try to contort these systems to their own political ends it’s got to come to a stop and now that we have the gavel here in the senate i was going to mention this earlier Under the Democrats, under Sherrod Brown and the Banking Committee, there was never any effort to hold the administration to account, to hold the bureaucracy to account. That’s going to change. It is changing right now.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, Senator Hagerty, for all the people watching the show right now and for those listening as well, a lot of them kind of want to know. Okay President Trump’s in we’ve got the confirmations going what can they do and you know we’ve pointed them to some of the confirmations have been tougher and said you know call your U.S. Senators but is there a message that you’d want to send to them so that President Trump, and you’re able to get in, the people that need to be put in place so the Republican Senate and the Republican House can work together with President Trump to start implementing these policies as quickly as possible. Because the American people, they voted for this, they worked hard to get President Trump into office, and now they want to know, what should I do now?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I think it’s a great point, particularly as these cabinet members move through the confirmation process for our viewers and listeners to encourage their representatives to be supportive. The policies that are coming through, a number of the executive orders also require funding. They also will benefit from legislative efforts as well. Stay alert, stay informed, and support those as well. But I’d like to convey this as well, Jordan, a sense of optimism. We saw it in President Trump’s inaugural speech. A new golden age is opening up. We’re going to see our economy thrive and flourish again. We’re going to see our military get back to the basics of lethality and effectiveness, get off of the pronouns that they’ve been focused on at the Defense Department. And what we’re going to see is a nation that’s respected around the world again. I’m so optimistic about what’s going to happen. And the fact that we have the gavel here in the Senate and the House means that we can fully support President Trump in moving our nation back on the right track.
SPEAKER 05 :
Senator Haggerty, you’re a great friend, a great friend of the ACLJ, and I’d love to have you on the broadcast. You break down all these issues for our listeners in such a clear way, but what they can do about what’s happening right now in Washington, the importance of the different steps we need to take, and I think you’d really assist us through this process. So we’d love to come back to you as these confirmations move forward and we start going into the policies being implemented and the legislation being voted on. So I thank you for taking that time in this very busy week. of getting our government back on track for the American people. Support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org and make sure, share the clips we’ll put out with Senator Hagerty later today to your friends and family so you know what Senator Hagerty and the Republicans in the Senate are doing. All right, welcome back to Secular. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. Great to have from our team, Rick Grinnell. It’s great to have that relationship with Senator Hagerty as well, who, again, able to break down because of his ambassador to Japan. He’s actually the only U.S. senator who served in the first Trump administration. So an interesting interplay there with foreign policy, his banking and investment background, and his conservative views on just how we need to get things done and how things are moving in the Senate. And I think what’s exciting is that usually the first Friday of a president being inaugurated, you wouldn’t be talking about this many specific problems. policy goals and ideas the president’s traveling the country today he’s in western north carolina looking at those towns that are trying to rebuild from that the horrible hurricane that led to all that flooding it’s just disaster and then he’s off to california later today because there’s more fires breaking out and to look at the damage that was done by the initial fires it’s
SPEAKER 06 :
Clearly creating a completely counter version of what we saw before. Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
This is a president who could go across the country in one day and really help the American people because it brings attention back to North Carolina. Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
And then doing the speech for Davos yesterday.
SPEAKER 05 :
And how many times…
SPEAKER 06 :
many times we’ve seen now inside the oval office over and over and over again more so than we saw in the last four years and i think that is an intentional move to say hey in the first week we’re going to do all these things we’re going to go see the hurricane victims we are going to get to california because these american people they deserve to see the president united states and we’re going to get things taken care of but i think it is to bring that sort of stability and peace that hopefully could come and i think what you’re going to see from president trump is you said that building the contrast now
SPEAKER 05 :
is what he said you know the difference here between a Biden or Harris is that I’m going to go work for the American people is that he will spend days whether it’s frigid cold and it is probably where he is right now those mountains you can tell it’s cold or it’s and then getting on a plane not just to fly back to Washington and fly to California next week no jumping back on the plane and flying to California right to see the damage that was done and the new damage that is being done so that he can push for those reforms like clearing brush to point out that this does not have to happen at this level that you could be living in California in those environments and if you had the kind of correct forestry um that these crazy environmentalist leftists won’t allow uh that you will not have this this uh same kind of severity when these fires break out but the left says no you can’t do that because it impacts some frog or some some kind of ecosystem and and yet then you have cities and towns burned down and that interplay there but the energy factor is what you’re really talking yeah i’m really talking about that i mean this is the one thing that can’t be changed is that’s 10 hours on a plane
SPEAKER 06 :
today right regardless that’s flying to north carolina and then falling from north carolina to california and then probably back Presumably, that means you have a minimum. That’s the one thing that can’t change is the president.
SPEAKER 05 :
They don’t go any faster. He’s sleeping on the plane and starting the next day when he gets home.
SPEAKER 06 :
This is different.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, it is different. I think it’s what the American people want to see from a president, especially in modern times when you can be in three or four places in a day, but you’ve got to have the energy to do it. And you know what’s so important? He’s bringing the attention back to some of these forgotten areas like… because we’ve had so many big things happen, but North Carolina isn’t fixed yet. You know, these people are still hurting. And so it’s, what does he do? He goes and he’s able then to bring more resources there. In California, he’s able to go and say, look, if you want our resources, these are the changes you’re going to have to make because we can’t keep coming out and using federal taxpayer dollars to rebuild your infrastructure if you’re going to keep the same problems that will cause these fires potentially again in the future. Even if they aren’t as huge as these fires, the reason why they’re all so destructive when they launch is because of the bad forestry policies that are put in place in California. I just like to see the difference. between a president who is ready to go out and see the people in the toughest situations and a president who basically came out in Washington DC would fall asleep talking to a world leader and had to have a printout card of who even to ask questions about from the media whereas Donald Trump I think he didn’t even know who was asking questions yesterday from Davos I mean that was done electronically taking questions from journalists from all over the world And he’s prepped and he’s not concerned and he gets right through it. He moves on.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. And you haven’t heard of really any big major blunders or mess ups here in the last few days, which again, for the amount of time he’s actually spent in front of a microphone, it’s pretty impressive. But again, I think they’re creating that stark contrast. Will things slow down? Maybe they will slow down, but you’re going to have a first week in office with some pretty historic moments, some historic executive orders. And then obviously the move to go to North Carolina, which took the Biden administration a long time to really, Get there and to spend time.
SPEAKER 05 :
It took a long time to get anywhere. Remember the train derailments? Oh, yeah. It was still a continual problem. You couldn’t even get the Mayor Pete types there. I mean, they did anything that went against… Out of defiance, it felt like.
SPEAKER 06 :
They were defying the fact that they were like… When we’d say, Harris is not going to the border. Even though he made her border czar.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
They would then say, well, pretty much because we’re now saying, why is she not at the border? She’s not going to go to the border because then it looks like you’re kowtowing to conservatives. This doesn’t feel that way from this administration. I hope it doesn’t. Let’s go ahead and take a call. David’s calling in Tennessee, listening on the radio. You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you for taking my call. I really appreciate it. And I just quickly want to say how much I appreciate the work that you all do in defense of conservative Americans. We really, really appreciate it. Thank you, David. And one thing, what you just talked about in North Carolina, where I live in Tennessee, I am within 20 minutes of the North Carolina border. I personally know folks that lost everything in Asheville and in the Asheville area. And they can’t rebuild because the devastation was so that it They can’t rebuild their house because it took the land away, too. I mean, it changed the landscape. You know, the liberal media never did report all that. But I’ve been there and seen the devastation. It’s horrible. But my question was, it’s my understanding. I looked at an article a couple of days ago. Our governor here, Bill Lee, is asking for kind of like an article or some kind of legislation for additional land. I know he said that he would use Tennessee National Guard if necessary. I was wondering if you had any information on that. The gist of it that I get is that he wants the state to have even additional… Hey, David, we’re only cutting you off because we’re running out of time, but we do have an answer to that.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right. So the special session convenes in Tennessee for the legislature on January 27th. Bill Lee’s legislation that he’s proposing does several things to effectively help the state coordinate with the federal government. They are the ones ultimately tasked with enforcement. But this creates… local accountability standards for incentivizing the local governments to participate in the federal immigration policies and training for the local departments as well to work with the federal government. But Jordan, I think to turn this back to what you’ve been saying, even with our talking with the attorney general from West Virginia last week, is that these states are going to be putting together plans to also help President Trump. You know that the liberal activist groups will sue the states, and that’s why it’s important for also the ACLJ to be nimble enough to help the state’s attorneys general, which we have these relationships with, to uphold their laws as well to further this agenda.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and this is what we’ve got to do, folks. We have to be ready to fight. You heard from Senator Hagerty. We’ve got to get these nominees through. Some of these nominees, like friends of ours like Tulsi Gabbard, they’ve got hearings scheduled next week. We’re going to do work there. A lot of that will be behind the scenes. We’re not going to be talking about so much of it on the air, but we are working to make sure, do everything we can to get her through her committee as the first step there. We’ll keep you updated later on this evening. As Senator Hagerty said, 8.30, 9 o’clock, they’re expecting a vote on Hegseth and getting in. So we have a Secretary of Defense in the United States. Pretty important when you’ve got hot wars going on around the world. So support the work of the ACLJ. We are ready right now to go to court to defend President Trump and his policies, but we need your support, ACLJ.org.
