Join us as we unpack the latest developments in the ongoing legal battle over the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Our team discusses the intricacies of the case and the significant role of judiciary in this controversial issue. Discover how the ACLJ is actively involved in defending these pivotal cases and why it matters more than ever in today’s political climate. Stay informed on how such legal decisions shape the balance between legislative power and judicial activism.
SPEAKER 07 :
in a brand new interview supreme court justice jackson fears for our democracy 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 And now your host, Logan Sekula.
SPEAKER 08 :
Welcome to Sekula. We got a packed show for you. Jordan Sekula, Will Haines joining me in studio right now. Phone lines are also open for you at 1-800-684-3110 as we celebrate the ACLJ 35 years of Justice Drive, where all donations are matched. So I encourage you, while you’re waiting on a hole maybe to talk to us, you can also make a donation. That’s at ACLJ.org. We want to lead off with sort of the breaking news coming out this morning. And this is a Justice Jackson, Kataji Jackson. Well, she’s been doing some interviews. She’s been making some statements. She doesn’t really like… Remember just like what? A week ago? Two weeks ago? She had a pretty epic… dissent that went viral if you will because it was very very dramatic but now we’re finding out that’s not just in these moments that she wants to be dramatic it is she feels like her calling to be dramatic as a Supreme Court justice let’s hear from her directly this is at the Forbes Indianapolis Bar Association event top-notch event I’m sure let’s hear what keeps you up at night
SPEAKER 02 :
I would say the state of our democracy. I would say that I am really very interested in getting people to focus and to invest and to pay attention to what is happening in our country and in our government.
SPEAKER 08 :
We call that in the wrestling business a cheap pop, which you go out there and you’re like, you know, if you were in Nashville, you’d be like, Oh, man, who here are Titans fans? I feel like it’s very similar going out there and just being like, what keeps you up at night? The state of our democracy. Everyone cheers. Of course, this is not the usual rhetoric we’ve heard from Supreme Court justices. This came from an interview where they even asked her stuff like, what music do you listen to? What’s it like behind closed doors? And even her statements of what it’s like behind closed doors. She thought it would be letting your hair down. chilling out with the justices, and he finds out that it’s not really like that, at least with this group of justices. We know historically there has been some good friendships that have come out of the justices, but this lineup of justices clearly are not hanging out on the weekends.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I mean, you’ve got a different age group in. You’ve got some with kids. You’ve got some that are just at different points in life. But it doesn’t mean that they’re individually, there aren’t the relationships there, but that when they’re in the room to make serious decisions that impact Americans’ lives, that impact our economy, impact our health care. The entire country. Impact the power of the president, the power of Congress, the power of the judiciary, that we’re going to take those fairly seriously while we’re making those decisions. That’s not the time to necessarily be casual, but I think when it goes to is that she is unabashedly, and she went on in these statements and interviews, based off of that dissent that she issued, that she is going to not only let you know how she thinks about the law, which is the job of a judge, in this case a justice, and that’s really the only job. Their job is not to tell you whether a law is good or bad. It’s whether it’s legal, basically, and whether it follows the Constitution. And is the law being carried out correctly? That’s the executive side of the law. So is the executive branch carrying out the law of Congress correctly? So, I mean, these are, again, it’s the balls and strikes situation. scenario. It’s not which pitcher to put in, which pitch to throw, when to swing, when to steal the base. That’s not the job. And it’s not their job to say that you had a good strategy going into the game or you had a bad strategy going into the game. Their job is just bottom line. And this is what makes me the most nervous is that if the left starts embracing this on a new scale, it’s about judicial activism on steroids.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. That’s right, Jordan. And we’re going to get into some more of these statements in the next segment because it didn’t just stop there with the state of democracy. She even talks about what her favorite part of the job is and things of that nature that just seem outside of the norms of what you would hear from a Supreme Court justice. So stay tuned, folks. We’ll get to that when we get back from this break.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s right. I encourage you right now, as we are heading to break, to one, if you have a question or comment related to this or any of the topics we brought up this week, give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. Of course, we’re broadcasting live 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time. So if you’re on that, hopefully you’re joining us live. If not, later on, we’ll be live on Monday. But hopefully you’re watching us live. And I encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ by also going to ACLJ.org during our 35 Years of Justice Drive. Be a part of it today. Scan that QR code. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you. I’m also going to encourage you to hit that thumbs up if you’re watching on YouTube right now. Let’s get this into some more people’s algorithms. Will, why don’t you restate what’s happening here?
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. So we know that Justice Jackson had some interesting comments in some of her dissents recently. And there was a back and forth even between the opinion debate. and the dissent between Justice Barrett and Justice Jackson. But this is what stuck out to us just a little bit, almost two weeks ago, about the universal injunctions issue, where she said, perhaps the degradation of our rule of law regime would happen anyway, but this court’s complicity in the creation of a culture of disdain for lower courts, their rulings, and the law as they interpret it, will surely hasten the downfall of our governing institutions, enabling our collective demise. But she didn’t stop there. Just putting it in writing, she’s been, now that they’re out of session, the Supreme Court term is over, she’s been going and doing interviews, speaking at some local bar associations, some things of that nature, which is not abnormal. When they’re in a recess, they may go and have some interviews. A lot of times they have a book that they’re promoting during that time. So it’s not completely abnormal, but it’s the content of these interviews and the statements that she’s making are raising eyebrows and and creating headlines about the junior justice on the court and what we have seen is one what we played in the first segment where she said the state of our democracy keeps her up at night but also we’re getting an insight of how she views her job and As a Supreme Court justice. I think we should play this from Justice Jackson. This is just from about four days ago. It’s bite three about what she sees the purpose of these dissents that are so apocalyptic. Let’s go and roll that for everyone.
SPEAKER 02 :
What I feel that I’ve been privileged to do is use the writings that I do, the work that I do, to explain my views about the way our government does and should work, the way the court does and should work. I think the nice part about being on the court is that you have the opportunity, whether you’re in the majority or in the dissent, to express your opinions.
SPEAKER 06 :
So, Jordan, I know that there’s probably not like a primer on what you need to know before you become a Supreme Court justice. The justices will bring you on and kind of show you the ropes. And you have you definitely have clerks that help you with that as well. But. The fact that she thinks it’s the privilege to explain her views about the way the government does or should not work, that is actually not really the job of this. These aren’t op-eds that she’s writing when she writes a dissent that are going to the Washington Post. These are a part of the record of the court.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, I mean, this is, again, it is the job of elected politicians. who are, again, who represent a constituency of voters in their district or at the state level, to go and take those issues, ultimately the President of the United States, then to set up a government to execute those laws, like we keep saying. It is not the job of the judicial branch to tell the government how it should run. And so where I think that it’d be okay is if she went to that statement and jumped right to the part about courts. There’s certainly a lot of cases that get to the Supreme Court about whether or not the courts made the right decision and whether or not even a court may have violated your constitutional rights by issuing this kind of jury instruction or by how long the case took or issues like that. Fine, that’s when to weigh in on the court system. Stay in the lane of the separation of powers because the reason why… This keeping her up at night is the state of our democracy. So long as we have a court system that is a check and that the check works without any kind of enforcement measure other than a court decision. So it doesn’t take police force. It doesn’t take a military. Then we have a system of law that we respect. And I think actually the bigger concern there is not what’s happening when a case makes its way all the way to the US Supreme Court. I don’t think anyone disputes that. like the decision or not. It’s these lower court decisions that are making people lose faith in the judiciary because it’s like, how many times does the Supreme Court need to say you can’t issue nationwide injunctions? And then a judge came back and says, I’m just going to certify a class before the class is even put forward.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s the comments that are coming in. It seems like every day we’re talking about either judges or justices and whether they’re activists or not.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, that should actually be what keeps you up at night is where the court system’s going to strip away the power of the people that you’ve actually elected. So you went, you cast your vote. And then these judges and justices last month, through many different presidencies and different elected officials. But again, they’re just supposed to be a part. And they’re supposed to be the place of last resort. You go to the court because, again, the legal other avenues to get a wrong-righted weren’t available. And this is supposed to be the most difficult avenue. If they start just becoming legislators, we’ve talked about legislating from the bench. If they become legislators… then, again, the confirmation process needs to be totally looked at once more because this is, again, it’s the most dangerous fact is to go down and say, I don’t care about the law. I care about the outcome of this case.
SPEAKER 06 :
And Jordan, they’re actually, it’s not just… the conservative members of the court that are calling out Justice Jackson’s opinion writing and not sticking to looking at the law. There was a stay granted after the term was over by the court. And this was about the reduction of the size of the federal workforce that had been blocked by a lower court judge. And the court granted a stay on that issue, so sided with the administration. And Justice Jackson felt the need to dissent from the grant of stay. But because of her dissent, which was about reckless executive power by the president, Justice Sotomayor wrote a concurrence, just about a paragraph, agreeing with the court granting the stay and here’s what she wrote had to call out one of her colleagues on the same ideological spectrum as her and says i agree with justice jackson that the president cannot restructure federal agencies in a manner inconsistent with congressional mandates here however the relevant executive order directs the agencies to plan reorganizations and reductions in force quote consistent with applicable law end quote So she’s having to even point out, like, did you look at the material and what was at hand here? Because the EO isn’t saying willy-nilly, just start firing, get rid of everyone. It’s saying, in accordance with law, you have to do this. And so she even says, I joined the court stay because it leaves the district court free to consider those questions in the first instance and whether or not they’re going to go through the proper process.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. And that’s, again, that’s… She’s not saying whether she agrees or not that the Trump administration should be doing this. It’s because that’s not her job to say under the law and the way we apply the laws, should this be stopped from the beginning or should the case begin and then ultimately let this go through the judicial process? She’s not coming to a conclusion on the major issue. These are supposed to be issues, again, they’re not on the merits. This is not substantive. This is all procedural, and yet procedure has become the weapon of the left in the judiciary. They’re not using the actual court case anymore. They don’t think that they need those. They’re using procedure to try and prevent those who you’ve elected, actually elected by the American people, from being able to do their jobs.
SPEAKER 08 :
want to take a quick call on this i’m gonna go to michael in florida uh and then mike in utah you’ll be up next but i just want to make sure we get it clear michael in florida who’s watching on youtube uh you’re on the air michael you got a great comment gentlemen it’s my understanding that lady justice has on a blindfold and i’m getting really tired of these
SPEAKER 05 :
Justices, whether they be federal, state, district, whatever, trying to micromanage our executive office. So to me, this is a classic example of why DEI exists.
SPEAKER 09 :
elections are so destructive well I think can I just jump in there because I do think the biggest issue here is that what we’ve seen at the lower courts is this idea this is new in the past lower courts were very hesitant to take side on the procedural issue of telling an executive before a case had even gone about before they even heard any actual argument before the evidence had been presented in the trial court That you can’t do something. I mean, it happened, but it happened like a dozen times in entire presidency. And then President Trump comes along and it’s the majority of times in history, more times than if you add up all of the others, since this would be a modern law, President Trump has had this happen to him more than any other presidents all combined. So this is not something we’ve long been dealing with. This is, Logan, what I said, is like the new threat to our democracy is actually coming out of the judiciary and her judicial philosophy.
SPEAKER 08 :
You never knew this much about the justices or the judges in general. They had an era of mystique. You didn’t know exactly where they were going to land. You didn’t know how they were going to vote. That was part of it. You could get 9-0 decisions. You still can, by the way. You could get 9-0 decisions because you knew they weren’t necessarily always judging it based on their personal political beliefs. Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I remember what a terrible outrage there was when one justice, Justice Alito, after President Obama mischaracterized an opinion by them, just quietly to himself said, that’s not true, under his breath. And that was scandal all over D.C. I thought he said, you lied. No, that was Congressman Wilson.
SPEAKER 08 :
That was different. Felt like the same. I kind of combined those in my head. Hey, we get back. I want to hear from you as well. We’re also going to talk about the ACLJ as we are fighting back for this current defunding of Planned Parenthood that we are for the defunding. But now it is under attack by, of course, Planned Parenthood saying we deserve this money. We’re going to talk about that and how we are taking action here during the ACLJ’s 35 years of justice drive. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Secula. We are going to take more calls and comments during the show, so give us a call right now. We’ve got a few lines open, 1-800-684-3110. At first, I want to thank you all for becoming ACLJ supporters, ACLJ champions, and even those who don’t financially give, and you should during these specific double-year donation times, which right now is one of them because it’s the ACLJ 35 years of Justice Drive. But even if you don’t, there’s great ways you can engage with the ACLJ for absolutely free. And I want to encourage you, ACLJ.org has just an immense amount of resources, whether that’s from our legal team, whether that is from our media team. can legitimately spend all day uh ingesting the content that we are putting out this incredible team puts out each and every day it’s really amazing and it’s not behind a paywall and it’s not behind a paywall because we want to make sure everyone can see it but we can’t do that again without your financial support if you are the brand new we know about half the people that watch on youtube each and every day are brand new maybe you’re like logan i’m not ready to give i don’t know enough about this organization just yet that’s okay great way to help hit that subscribe button ring that bell that’s a really really great way over 506 000 on youtube alone have subscribed hundreds of thousands on rumble millions on facebook and of course we have tons of people throughout the world who listen and watch in different different ways now the aclj work is not just about reporting the media if you’re brand new here you may not know this the aclj gets work done in court as well we are a law firm and will this is an update on what was going on just in the last 24 hours
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. So the ACLJ today is filing with the district court in Massachusetts regarding the defunding of Planned Parenthood. You’ll remember that defunding Planned Parenthood was a part of the big, beautiful bill. Planned Parenthood immediately sued and they chose a very unique forum where they thought they would have the best shot. And they went to Massachusetts. And they were able to get a temporary restraining order ahead of a preliminary injunction hearing, which will happen in just about actually from today, one week. It was moved up because Planned Parenthood tried to move the goalpost even further back. But the judge actually moved the hearing up to the 18th and the briefing schedule remains in place. So we are filing our amicus brief today with our motion for leave to file. And so that is one good work that we’re doing here. But Jordan, this just happened in the docket as our attorneys are always watching what’s happening in this case. I just got this update from this morning. that the Trump administration has now filed a motion to dissolve the temporary restraining order ahead of the preliminary injunction hearing. And here is kind of their rationale. They filed an eight page memorandum in support of their motion because the motion itself is like one sentence. And then you have the motion, which is essentially the memo is the brief that in support of it effectively. And this is what they say. And I want to get your take on this. In joining an act of Congress signed by the president of the United States, is among the most serious and consequential exercises of the judicial power. It must be exercised with caution and restraint as the separation of powers counsels against one branch of government, effectively seizing for itself the powers of the other two branches. Yet here, without even awaiting a response from the government, the court exercised that power through an extraordinary, highly unusual temporary restraining order preventing the enforcement of a duly enacted legislation approved by Congress and signed by the president barely a week ago. The court should dissolve that order immediately before the preliminary injunction hearing scheduled for July 18th.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I think, again, you look at this case, as we said, ultimately, this is a winner for the Trump administration and for Congress. And we have to I want to remind people that we want to keep reminding our members of Congress that which is why it’s so important to fight this out in the lower courts, because you’ve got these judicial activists. They pick where they’re going to file. They do their court shopping. They find, okay, let’s go to Massachusetts. Let’s file here. And they’ll say that this is this unconstitutional action because it’s punishing Planned Parenthood to decide not to fund abortion providers with Medicaid funds for one year, as the federal government decided to do. I want to make sure this defunding occurs yearly. and is a long-term win for us. To do that, we have to make sure, one, that we are ready to defend it in court. So Congress does its job. The president signs it into law. Let’s make sure we do our job. That’s what we’re doing at the ACLJ. We want to make sure we do our job, defend this in court. We always want to make sure it is vigorously defended as well, because how many decades… have we wanted to defund Planned Parenthood through these congressional acts, which was the only way to get at the big chunk of money, the $450 to $550 million a year. The only way to take that away from Planned Parenthood is through these kind of defunding actions. And so they’re, of course, going to fight back until the very end, until the money’s taken away. And remember, they’re going to come back next year and fight it again.
SPEAKER 08 :
So we have to double down. It’s been a campaign promise, I feel like, from everyone running as a Republican.
SPEAKER 09 :
Since as long as I’ve worked in politics.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, for our entire life.
SPEAKER 09 :
It was an easy campaign process because you knew it wasn’t going to get to your desk.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and even Planned Parenthood didn’t seem all that concerned about it because they thought this wasn’t going to happen. But of course you have President Trump who is going to buck the system all the time.
SPEAKER 09 :
And you have Republicans who are willing to take it down to the 50th vote and have Vice President Vance come in and cast the 51st vote. I will tell you, if you tell, if we don’t, thank members of congress for taking these votes this is what i’m concerned about it’s not that they’re not i i’m questioning whether they’re pro-life or not deep down it’s we make this legislation it makes this kind of legislation concessions are made that much more difficult right and so because you’re you’re losing republican votes actually And so we want to make sure they have the backbone in the future, right? So if we get enough people elected, we want to make sure this actually gets done. This will only get done if we then, one, acknowledge their contribution to the issue and to the fight by stripping this funding, and then to make sure we go into court and defend the stripping of the funding so that the executive and Congress together… aren’t stopped by a random unelected judge in Massachusetts.
SPEAKER 08 :
I want to take this call because I think it’s a good one to head into the second half hour because you know what? I feel the same. A lot of people do. Mike in Utah, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thanks. Can you hear me?
SPEAKER 08 :
I can hear you. You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
Appreciate all you guys do. Listen to you every day. Thank you, brother. I’m very anxious for the birthright citizenship decision to be adjudicated by the court. I’m disappointed that it’s going to take until October at the earliest before it can happen, which causes me to sit there and go, why does the Supreme Court get three months off when most average Americans get, you know, four, three, four months? maybe five weeks of vacation.
SPEAKER 08 :
There’s always recess going on. It feels like in Washington DC.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes. I mean, I would say this, the court’s not shut down. Yeah. So they are still cases that, right. It’s just, it’s just about, this is about oral arguments, scheduling arguments, scheduling decisions. Uh, yes, this is the time that they actually go through and figure out too. What are we doing the next year? Because again, they get so many case requests. There’s only nine of them and they, they sit as a group of nine. Um, and so to go through that, according to justice Jackson, not that kindly. Well, too formal. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER 06 :
Too formal when you’re deciding.
SPEAKER 09 :
They wear robes in court.
SPEAKER 06 :
I mean, it’s a formal process here.
SPEAKER 09 :
What did you expect? It’s probably, in the United States, the most formal process we have regularly is the U.S. Supreme Court. I’m trying to think of anything. Of course, other countries have more formal processes.
SPEAKER 08 :
People do have concerns with sort of the recesses that happen on all the other branches of government as well, that it feels like there are these massive delays because everyone wants to get back home. And when they were taken—
SPEAKER 09 :
when they were taking a when they were taking a horse you know drawn carriage okay fine well there has to be time for elected officials to be with the people that elected them yeah and so uh and for the courts they’ve got they’re just this is when they’re doing their background work i think that we get confused with time off versus time off from oral arguments there’s a difference there well hopefully mike that answer your question uh
SPEAKER 08 :
We do have another half hour coming up. I want you to join us. If you’re not watching right now, you should watch us online at aclj.org, Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, however you get your podcasts. We’re there live. And then, of course, you can catch us on archived later on on all those platforms. Great, great content at aclj.org. And we are celebrating that 35 years of justice right now. So while we have the shortest break right here, scan the QR code. We only got a minute, and then we’re going to be right back, and we’re going to take more of your phone calls. But in that time, I want you to support the work of the ACLJ. You heard what we’re doing today. filing in that federal court to defend plan or just to fund Planned Parenthood. We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 07 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 08 :
Welcome to Sekulow. The big question, do we need to get the politics out of the judiciary? And of course, a lot of people are saying that’s nearly impossible. Of course, you have judges of their own political opinions, but the Supreme Court didn’t always used to be that way. You would have a lot of decisions being made. And of course, in the lower courts as well, decisions being made on what the Constitution says and how they interpret it, not necessarily where their political beliefs lie. I want to hear from you, though. What do you think? Do you like the fact that these judges and justices are taking more of an active political stance? Or do you want them to stay quiet and mysterious? 1-800-684-3110. People like quiet and mysterious, Will. The ladies. Oh. That’s why I’m here. 1-800-684-3110. That was not what I was expecting from you today. I know, you know, it’s Friday. I want to try to make some people laugh. Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. I just want to know, did anybody see the clown imagery? Oh, everyone did. It was one of our biggest fundraising days ever when we brought up our friend Rob, a.k.a. Boba Hogan, the clown.
SPEAKER 09 :
I don’t have a lot of fears, but a random clown that pops up, you know, walking down the street at a city center.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, there it is, the surprise clown. Yeah, yes.
SPEAKER 09 :
You don’t want to be surprised with a clown. No, and they always do surprise you. And I will tell you, you know, I was in Europe for some of these street clowns. Yeah, well, a street clown is different. A street clown is kind of like, you know, it’s… Are you about to be robbed or do they just want to take the photo for the money?
SPEAKER 08 :
You don’t really know. Yeah, it’s like when you get a picture with a smoking Elmo in Times Square. You never know where you got to make sure you’re being careful. They come out of nowhere. So people are asking about the justice as well and the judges because Justice Jackson has been doing a slew of interviews but pretty much saying, you know what? I’ve got a voice. I’m going to speak. And no, some people may agree with that’s how it should be. But of course, that isn’t necessarily… against the law. It’s just not precedent to how the Supreme Court has run historically. Like I said, we didn’t know that much about Supreme Court justices. There’d be like leaked images of Scalia and Ginsburg riding an elephant in India that would come out and you’d be like, oh, that’s crazy because you just never really heard from them. But now it’s becoming a little more popular. Also, Supreme Court cases, the oral arguments are being done live streamed. That is something that wasn’t the case pre-COVID. There’s a lot of changes. The time limit has changed. So much has changed in terms of the normal precedent of the Supreme Court for our lifetime.
SPEAKER 06 :
that’s right and what we’re seeing now though is that justice jackson who’s the newest member of the court uh is using her summer vacation these three months off as as it was brought to our attention before the october term she’s been doing a lot of interviews doing a lot of speaking at local bar associations that’s that’s not abnormal that that does happen and has happened but it’s the way that she’s talking about the political arena That is really raising some eyebrows because it is different than what we’ve heard from justices in the past. And I think we should play bite six because this boils kind of down to the entire problem of what we are seeing with what she views her role through her writing of dissents. And even the language that’s used in some of these dissents, during the one about injunctions, how to dot, dot, dot, wait for it, dot, dot, dot, almost as if it’s like a thread on X instead of a dissent.
SPEAKER 08 :
An injunction, conjunction, junction.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. That’s schoolhouse rock. But if you want to listen to this, let’s go to bite six from Justice Jackson.
SPEAKER 02 :
I just feel that I have a wonderful opportunity to…
SPEAKER 06 :
tell people in my opinions how i feel about the issues so jordan she’s literally you know not burying the lead here she’s telling everyone that she has an opportunity to tell people her opinions and they get asked questions about that it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to answer yeah they say it’s not my job but you have an opinion about that it’s just about the law
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and then suddenly, you know, you become, again, I do think you’re right to some extent. The way we look at the court has changed what we kind of expect, and I think for the most part, the justices actually fall in line with the more traditional approach to it, even with the new, but I think some of the, you know, these newer justices… I mean, they have to deal with a lot more security risk. And so I think that makes them think, too, maybe I am this bigger figure publicly that I’m supposed to be speaking out, so I’m going to go do these much more kind of
SPEAKER 08 :
partisan events. I don’t really love the partisanship. I do like sort of peek behind the curtain. I think it’s interesting. I think that’s fine.
SPEAKER 09 :
I think what’s not fine is saying I’m going to tell you how I feel about the issues. You should have run for office.
SPEAKER 08 :
Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. That’s 1-800-684-3110. Support the work of the ACLJ during this 35 years of Justice Drive. We’ll be right back. We do want to hear from you. We got still three, four lines open. 1-800-684-3110. That’s 1-800-684-3110. We’re also reflecting back on has been over the weekend will be one year since President Trump’s assassination attempt. The first assassination attempt, of course, that happened in Butler, Pennsylvania. And where we’re at a year later, you know, obviously you have a new president, you have President Trump in office. The world has certainly changed a lot more, but it does seem universally like we’ve kind of forgotten that this moment in time happened as President Trump was struck by a bullet. We don’t know still a whole lot about the shooter. We still don’t know a ton of information. And we know that some of the FBI had been, or the Secret Service had put on leave. President Trump said they were having a bad day. Very gracious in the way he, unlike President Trump, maybe one of the few moments, very gracious in the fact that these kind of things could happen. And I know probably every time he went on a stage, he thought about that this could be One of those moments that we all even see that when we watch on TV, you kind of are sort of a gut feeling of where security is. But looking back at a year since this happened, so much has changed, Will.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. And one of the things that hasn’t changed, unfortunately, for the country is the rhetoric that’s used against conservatives.
SPEAKER 08 :
It was like two weeks of quiet.
SPEAKER 06 :
And then you’re seeing things that are taking place across the country. You’re seeing ambushes now against ICE agents, people that are federal law enforcement carrying out their job. And you’re seeing people go and try to assassinate them, target them because of the rhetoric that’s coming out of the left. And we don’t put – we are a very pro-free speech organization. Of course. But what we’re seeing, the rhetoric out of the left is actually endangering lives and has been endangering lives for more than a year, much more than that. But we thought that that could have been a turning point. And instead, they’ve doubled and tripled down on the rhetoric.
SPEAKER 08 :
There was a lot of discussion. Well, didn’t. Did he get shot? Did he not get shot? Was it being overdramatic? Jordan, you were at the RNC just a couple weeks later, a couple days later. Right. That’s the same week I was in Boston before we launched our Choice Begins Here campaign because that was when all of that was happening. You were there. You experienced what it was like to not, you weren’t in Butler, Pennsylvania, but there just a couple days after and definitely changed the vibe. And of course, very shortly after that, I think it was the day after the RNC, Joe Biden decided to be dropping out and put in Kamala Harris, or within a few days.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, so it was, again, we knew the convention was going to be high energy. It’s Donald Trump. What you didn’t know going into it, of course, you’re going to have a live on television assassination table. The president is shot. There’s blood on the face. There’s someone killed. And I think that also, that part of it, when people kind of talk about this as some conspiracy, let’s not forget that there was a firefighter killed, you know, and a father and a husband gone. So these were very much, this was a very real situation with rifles being shot at the president of the United States and a crowd of people there as part of a campaign event, as part of kind of what we do as Americans. And so, yes, I mean, going into it, there were some very somber moments. because you had the family there of the firefighter. You had the acknowledgement of the firefighter’s family. So it was, I think, the tone, and if you remember from President Trump’s speech, it started off not darker, but just a more serious tone, because he knew what the country had also just gone through. And I think also when he got up in the fight, fight, fight, uh you can’t you can’t manufacture these these moments in history and if people want to go back and look at when’s the moment that that campaign was over um honestly it was that and it wasn’t uh again it wasn’t because he was shot it was because people saw you know this idea of are they too old to be president all the him hopping up with blood on his face no knowing not knowing if the situation was over by the way yeah to Make sure the American people knew that he wasn’t gone, even though he was a candidate for office and not the actual president for just that moment. Because I think even he said when you hit the ground, he saw the blood. He didn’t know exactly. You don’t know how serious it is yet. Your body is still running on adrenaline.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, you’re definitely in shock. Well, you got some. I was agreeing with you. I was saying yes. You were saying yes.
SPEAKER 09 :
I mean, that is what that imagery. Horrible moment. And then remember, a couple of weeks later, Which they haven’t focused on as much in these reports. There’s a guy with an AK-47 in the bushes.
SPEAKER 08 :
But also it was, like I said, the media changed narratives because they were able to say, okay, when was the time that President Biden was going to step down? Of course, we’re going to do it before, or we’re going to wait until we need something to shift the media attention, and that’s what happened. As soon as you shifted to Kamala Harris, Quickly, it became right back to the usual. He’s a Nazi. He’s all the different rhetoric all came right back as soon as you had a different person saying it because it was that Hail Mary attempt because they were seeing at that point that the writing was on the wall.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. If that election had been held between, first of all, it was a pretty blowout anyways, but let’s say it was still Joe Biden on the ticket. I don’t even know if we would have had to have been up more than 20 minutes. I mean, I don’t know. How long did it actually take that? It was not very long. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
I mean, it was over pretty quick. It was definitely one of the quicker results. 11 o’clock at night. We would sleep pretty quickly.
SPEAKER 09 :
I don’t think it got to the next day, at least here on Central Time.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I mean, it was very early in the evening where it was. Yeah, and it was over, you know, very, very quickly.
SPEAKER 09 :
So again, but the rhetoric hasn’t gone down at all. No, it’s increased to a level that actually is worse today than it was a year ago in Butler.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and I think there has been maybe some turning points that have happened, but for the most part, no.
SPEAKER 09 :
It’s definitely where people said, okay, maybe we need to re-look at this. They say we need to back off and they don’t. They can only do it for about, it’s like what happened with October 7th with Israel. For a few days, everyone’s saying that what happened to Israel and the Israelis and the hostages are horrible, condemning Hamas finally. And then after a few weeks, you forget even that Israel was responding to that horrendous event.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yep. and we’re even seeing that rhetoric as how terrible that this is the end of the country even from justices of the supreme court with the injunctions ruling where justice jackson said that this will lead to our collective demise that is language that is apocalyptic and is is what we’re seeing is that the left is not able to even break out of this activist protest mode That regardless, that’s their default when it comes to the language these days. And no matter what happens in the world, they are going to default to that language. And that’s elected officials, sitting judges. They are now apocalyptic. And that just goes back to the root of they’ve never been able to get over the fact. that president trump has been able to win has been able to secure victories against them and that’s that’s a problem and that’s something that needs to be addressed the way that this discourse takes place uh has real world consequences and when you are are sitting there writing trying to memorialize in in this court that this is the end of our country this one decision That’s on injunctions that clearly there’s still other routes that that is the hyperbolic language that we’re seeing out of the left. And that is concerning as we go forward.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s right. And phone lines are open for you. We want to hear from you in this next segment. We’re going to try to take as many calls as we can at 1-800-684-3110. The ACLJ, though, is involved in a lot of these issues. You know, whether that has been working. Jordan, of course, you guys, you and dad worked with President Trump in the last time or during the first impeachment trial. Whether that is what you feel like could be small potatoes comparatively. But they’re really not. Whether that is a Bible club case. Whether that is someone that just wants to pray who is a public school teacher. Whatever it may be, the ACLJ is always there. And I want to encourage you not just to donate. Of course, it’s during one of our big drives right now. But also if you need help, we’re always looking for new ways we can help out. So you go to ACLJ.org slash help. You fill out a very simple form. That form was going to take you and connect you directly to our legal team. And of course, if you need something else, I’ll direct you to someone else on our team. go to aclj.org slash help if you need it or you find out there’s someone in your community that needs it and maybe they don’t know about the organization that we’re there at absolutely no cost of course it’s at no cost because uh jordan we are able to do this by supporters and champions that come alongside us and say you know what uh because a lot of these cases aren’t with the president of the united states there are people who never could afford the legal fees never could afford to actually do something about their injustices that are happening that’s what
SPEAKER 09 :
awesome about the ACLJ right is that the same attorneys that a president united states would choose to use when they are in one of the most vulnerable situations so whether that’s the entire special counsel coming after you investigating you and uh hiring uh partisan attorneys that want to put you uh you want to have you impeach want to have you removed from office want to put you behind bars as we’ve seen uh that the president has been up against or impeachment Which, again, is something where you could say, well, we went in there with enough Republican votes, but you, again, can never predict these. That those same attorneys are being able, because of your support to the ACLJ, are able to help the little guy. And you know what? When it comes to constitutional law, setting major precedents for our country, it’s oftentimes the little guy, those cases, that actually because of groups like the ACLJ, because you support us, because you donate to the ACLJ, that we’re able to be there. And actually that’s what shifts the real history. That’s what changes precedent. It’s not always what happens to this president or that president. It’s what happens to our rights.
SPEAKER 08 :
as americans and that’s the that’s being able to help the little guy fight back when they would not have the resource to do so otherwise absolutely look we got two lines open right now we want to hear from you because we’re going to take a lot of your calls and comments so jack bill franklin bob stay on hold we’ll do our best to get to as many of your comments as possible and as jordan said you can support the work of the aclj right now and it’s a perfect time to do it because we are in the middle now of our 35 years of justice drive all your donations are doubled today Scan the QR code. That doesn’t mean you’re going to be charged double. It means someone out there is ready to have their donation pledge unlocked at any cost. If you want to give $50, that becomes $100. If you want to give $1,000, it becomes $2,000, and so on and so on. We’ll be right back with your calls, your comments, and so much more on Sekulow.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. Final segment of the broadcast today on this Friday. Jordan Sekulow joining me in studio. Jordan, let’s go to the phones. Let’s hear from people who’ve been waiting on the line.
SPEAKER 09 :
1-800-684-3110 if you want to get a call in.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. Let’s go to Bill from Texas who is an ACLJ champion. So as per Logan’s rules, he goes to the front of the list. Bill, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, the Supreme Court justices are required to make their decisions based on the Constitution only. And I’m not interested in what their personal opinion is on any of these matters. And when they start putting those into the mix, it seems to me that they – don’t know what their own job is.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I mean, I think this is the concern, right, Bill, is that we see these confirmation hearings. And even when it’s contentious, it’s usually contentious on how you see the outcome, how you see a case, how you see the actual law, not what’s your policy on tax reform. or social security or the size of the bureaucracy or whether or not um the executive uh branch uh should be making decisions to cut back on the democracy uh the bureaucracy or not it’s all supposed to be focused in on law now we’ve seen the politics of personal destruction come into uh the nomination process too many times i mean too uh way too often uh but When it comes to these issues, you’re right. Their political views, again, they can have them personally. They are Americans. They have the right to vote and to do it that way. But they’ve decided to become part of one of the three branches of government. And this branch’s kind of defining moment is that, of course, you’re going to have a judicial philosophy and you’re going to have ways that you look. So we can look at conservative justices, liberal justices. But even when we use those terms there, It’s not politically that we’re speaking. It’s judicial philosophy. It’s whether or not you have a more of approach of we’re going to radically take whatever, wherever we want to go on an outcome and we’re going to figure out how the law gets us there or are we going to let the law direct us to the outcome?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and Jordan, one of the issues that we’ve talked about for a very long time is that the activist judges and the more conservative judges, as we’ve seen, what the dispute typically was, was their view of the Constitution. textualist people that live by the text and interpret the text as written of the constitution is more of a conservative judicial philosophy and those that believe that the constitution is a living document that can be interpreted to mean different things in a new era that’s kind of what we’ve been dealing with for the most part what justice jackson appears to be is something completely outside of those two judicial philosophies because it seems like her view is that the opinion of a justice on policy can be inferred or given through a ruling without even the need of the text of the constitution. So it seems like it’s this new development when it comes to the way that the court has, it needs to be looking at things is that there is a member of the court that believes the opinion of that individual on policy is
SPEAKER 09 :
could be outside of what even the law or the constitution says not even just interpreting it in modern context double standard here if you had one of the uh let’s say the three trump uh nominees who are now supreme court justices start coming out during uh their break for moral argument and speak public speaking and making political statements and saying if this is this is i think this is a good uh decision is a bad decision policy-wise the left would be outraged. The left would be outraged. But when it’s their own justice, and this is always a trap you don’t want to fall into, because it needs to be the same standard for all, which is that we would not want our Supreme Court justices necessarily hanging out at political rallies either or giving us their political viewpoint. That’s just not what they’ve signed up for. I care about their judicial philosophy. which I can learn from what they did either as academic or in their legal practice, their confirmation hearings, in their lower court history. I mean, you gleam that from that. You gleam that from the meetings that they have behind closed doors, the meetings that they have publicly through their process to be confirmed. I don’t need their views on the issues of whether or not they think the government is structured correctly. Their job is to look at whether procedure was followed and the law. It’s supposed to be, for the most part, 99% of the time, fairly dull. And now it’s every decision by this administration is becoming politically supercharged. And that’s not right. I mean, the majority of the American people elected this president, elected a Congress to back that president up so that they could get these kind of laws to their desk. And the fact that then you’re told by a court, by one judge in Massachusetts saying this, that you can’t go forward with reforming the government. And you wonder why people get disillusioned by politics.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. Jordan, let’s go take a few more calls before the end of the show here. Let’s go to Jack calling from Pennsylvania on line one. Jack, you’re on Seculo. Okay, thanks for all the work you folks do.
SPEAKER 01 :
I tend to put Justice Jackson, AOC, and people like Jasmine Crockett all in the same intellectual category, pretty close to the bottom. Is there any way that these people, now I’m talking now about Justice Jackson, can be either impeached or in some way legislatively, since the legislation confirmed her, is there any way that they could remove her for failure to adhere to her job description?
SPEAKER 09 :
It would have to be impeachment. So it has to meet high crimes and misdemeanors. I mean, so when you look at that standard and what you need in the Senate, and so two-thirds majority, I mean, first of all, I don’t think in this scenario saying what’s right and wrong is not necessarily what’s criminal. And I think it’s, do we want this to become the norm, or do we say, no, like her fellow justices, including those on the left, are saying, which is, we are not to be this level of political actor. Of course, you can never take politics out of everything, and there always are going to be those discussions. But what the court oftentimes does is let those discussions happen without involving itself. I mean, you know, the few times that Justice Roberts spoke it out, he’s just been leery because of the violence against judges that we have seen from lower court judges all the way up to Supreme Court justice because of the rhetoric around them. What he’s not saying is that they should be joining protest lines and telling you, you And so because I have this – listen, it’s not – it’s one of the more difficult jobs if you’re politically engaged, like many of them would be if they reached that level inside the core system, to be able to – Put that disconnect in. You know, I don’t have to do that at ACLJ because my job as the advocate is to go in and advocate for the position. But if I was to become a judge and that’s the route you want to take, you’ve got to be able to divorce the politics and the law.
SPEAKER 06 :
And that’s why the confirmation hearings get so contentious are when someone in their legal career as an attorney, not as a judge, has writings, has things that were in law reviews that were more opinion based, not as a judge. That’s why they attack that stuff is because that’s not where it’s supposed to be. Franklin, we’re not going to be able to get to you, Franklin, from California. But you did have a question saying you think that the Trump administration should increase the number of Supreme Court justices to 15. We actually fought against that tactic previously.
SPEAKER 09 :
Court tactic is dangerous because it does end up, it might temporarily give you what you want. And ultimately, again, going to the U.S. Supreme Court takes a long time. So even ultimately then, it takes a lot, it takes some time. It turns that will turn on you either because the next Congress comes and says we want to pack. We’re going to add four more because we want the majority now. So that’s not how we want our legal system working. And it’s honestly tragic that we have to even think that way because of how the system is going.
SPEAKER 06 :
And Jordan, just a reminder to everyone that we are filing our major amicus brief in federal court today. We are fighting to defund Planned Parenthood. That’s probably headed to the Supreme Court. Support the ACLJ. Stand with us. Your donations are doubled. ACLJ.org.
