In this episode of Sekulow, we dive deep into the alarming crime rates in major American cities like Chicago. As the numbers soar, the political tension between state leaders and President Trump intensifies. We explore how left-leaning governors are defying federal intervention, raising questions about the effectiveness of their strategies to curb crime. With over 54 people shot in Chicago over a single weekend, the need for action is more pressing than ever. Tune in as we discuss the reality on the ground and the potential impacts on residents and visitors alike.
SPEAKER 09 :
Today on Sekulow, we have breaking news. Crime soars in a major American city as the left defies President Trump’s policies.
SPEAKER 07 :
Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 09 :
And now your host. Welcome to Sekulow. We hope everyone had a wonderful Labor Day, spending time with your family, taking a little time off work. But we are back here at Sekulow. I’m joined by Jordan Sekulow in studio. And we’ve got a lot to cover today. You’ll remember that last week we talked about the mayor of D.C. actually kind of changing her tune. when it comes to the policies of President Trump by surging federal law enforcement with the National Guard into the city to help get a hold on the crime situation there. While that was happening, you had out in California, the lawsuits from Governor Newsom trying to stop the use of the National Guard there when it came to federal immigration policy. And you had the governor of Illinois, who was another 2028 hopeful, pushing back defiantly against President Trump, even with some meme worthy video that we’ll show a little bit later. So as these liberal governors defy the president’s policies and say, we don’t need you to do here what is clearly working in D.C. to get a hold of the crime problem that we have. In Chicago over the weekend, 54 people were shot with seven or eight killed in those shootings. That is just unsustainable, unacceptable for an American city, all while the governor is not wanting to do anything with the president of the United States to try and get the crime problem under control. Chicago has the most murders of any city in the United States. It’s not the top murder rate when you do per capita, but it has the most murders. And then when you look at other cities on those lists, there is a major crime problem in American cities, Jordan, and the president is trying to fix that. But the states that are more left leaning prefer to play politics with the lives of their citizens instead of getting a hold on what has been a decades long problem.
SPEAKER 10 :
what it shows will too is how chaotic this weekend was in Chicago when major news outlets are reporting slightly different numbers I mean I was looking it up and WGN news is saying 57 people were shot and 8 killed you have others saying that it was 54 people were shot and 7 killed that’s how chaotic the weekend was that major news outlets based in Chicago couldn’t even get a solid number yet, and that may be because some of those people who were shot could be in such critical condition that two hours ago they wouldn’t have been considered someone who had died or killed, and now they are. I mean, imagine also the stress on the police. This is not like this happened in a couple big incidents. This is 50, at least 54 individual shootings. The only one that had a multiple person connection was a drive-by shooting. Yes, those are still occurring in the streets of Chicago that injured seven. So that was one grouping. But imagine the police force necessary and the response necessary on a weekend like this to deal with 54 individual incidents of violent crime using using guns and then having having the gall to go out on national television and mock What Donald Trump is doing to clean up Washington, D.C., where carjackings are down nearly 90 percent just about 15 days into the program.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right, Jordan. And we will get into this with sound and all sorts of other commentary in the segments ahead. You won’t want to miss it. But before we end this segment, we do want to say thank you. to all of the ACLJ members and champions for your generosity during our 35 years of victory drive that concluded at the end of August. That support empowers our work, defending life, defending the Constitution, defending your religious freedom. But these threats to your constitutional rights, they’re not going away. So if you believe that you are the victim of a constitutional violation, reach out to us at ACLJ.org slash help. We’ll get into some of the ways you can do that later on in the broadcast as well. But thank you for your prayers and support. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Seculo, and we are discussing the crime surge that happened in Chicago over the weekend. And this is nothing new. This is what’s been going on in many of these mismanaged cities for decades at this point. And the president, which took initiative in D.C., a federal city, being able to take control of it under their Home Rule Act and and be able to send the National Guard in and to give a surge of resources to the police. We saw that the mayor of the city kind of changed her tune last week, saying that we appreciate the federal surge in resources and how crime has gone down 87 percent in carjackings and she gave a litany of other areas where the crime rate is dropping and you even saw her say i talk regularly with the attorney general and susie wiles and and know that this is a priority of president trump even before he was elected president in 2016. that he really cares about the crime rate going down in our major cities so that they can be a place people can enjoy and be safe in. This is something he actually cares about. However, the left obviously can’t give that other than the mayor of D.C. at this point cannot give him credit for at least caring about the safety of Americans in the city. And you’ve seen now the two 2028 hopefuls that have a position of authority currently, namely the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, and the governor of Illinois, Governor Pritzker. They are using this as an opportunity to show that they are stronger than the president, these governors, that they don’t need federal resources to get a hold of crime. You see that Gavin Newsom at the end of last week, week announced a surge in state resources to these cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles that are having rampant crime. You also saw the governor of Illinois holding a press conference in a very unique place. And I think we should play this clip for people, Jordan, because this is where he was positioning himself as the anti-Donald Trump and the one that can lead Chicago through. And what a wonderful, safe place it is. Let’s go ahead and roll bite seven.
SPEAKER 08 :
We’re very pleased about the progress that we’re making. I know that I live rent-free in the president’s head, and I wish he would spend some time in Chicago so that he could see what a lovely city we have. Governor Crickfellow, what do you do if the National Guard is activated and comes here?
SPEAKER 09 :
You were just listening on the radio because we do have a large radio audience. Not everyone watches on Salem News Channel or YouTube.
SPEAKER 10 :
What were we looking at? Governor Pritzker was on the river there in Chicago and a nice background. And as he said that, you know, President Trump, I live rent free in his head. He’s obsessed with me. One of the camera operators just panned up. It happened to be that he’s standing in a part of the river that’s right behind him is the huge Trump Hotel and Condo building. It’s a huge building that both operates a hotel and sells condos. So it’s two sections and has a pretty prominent place in Chicago. So the idea that the president doesn’t have A concern for Chicago, I mean, he’s got one of his major buildings in the United States, is right there in the heart of Chicago in an area where crime usually wasn’t an issue, even when Chicago was a high-crime city. What’s happening is that the crime is spreading out, and when you have 54 gun violence crimes in a holiday weekend, you are stretching the police force thin. I mean, they’ve got to, that’s not, and that doesn’t mean that they’ve been able to arrest any of these wrongdoers or most of these wrongdoers. So these are like ongoing cases. And then you add that, what happens today in Chicago? What happens tonight in Chicago? And you, you understand how the police forces could be doing the best job they can. And they’re still totally overwhelmed by the violence on the streets.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. And when you also think back last week, the mock help, right?
SPEAKER 10 :
Here’s free help offered and you’re mocking that when you know that help has already worked in Washington DC brought carjackings down 87% just a couple weeks into the program and it kind of defied all of the things liberals were scared about. It comes to a close after 30 days. We’ll see if Congress reauthorizes it for DC or not or other places. They may, they may not depending on where the crime is at that point. You would think if you’re a Chicago police officer, you’d say, please come help us.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right.
SPEAKER 10 :
I mean, please come help us so that we can get these numbers down to a number that we can police as the size of our force. Right now, we’re being overwhelmed. Let’s get the number down to one we can actually stay in control of and keep most of our citizens safe from gun violence, safe from murder or being seriously injured by violent crime.
SPEAKER 09 :
And when you look at the mayor of Chicago was on Morning Joe last week and was asked multiple times by Joe Scarborough, obviously no fan of the president’s. But would 3000 extra police officers or law enforcement officials be something that would help you, even if you get your wish list of all your. community advocates and all of the mental health advocates you want but if you add that would it help he refused to answer the question but here’s the question I have for the audience today that’s listening is this something you’re concerned about these major cities the crime that is going up that has been unchecked for so long has it changed the way that you travel The places you go on vacation, the way that you support the economy of these places. Do you support the president wanting to make America safe again? Call us 1-800-684-3110. We’d love to hear from you today. That’s 1-800-684-3110. and ask us or if you have questions about can the president do this unilaterally we will get to that ruling out of a judge in California that the left is really excited about what the nuance there is when it comes to the National Guard but I want to play this as well Jordan because you mentioned you know why wouldn’t even these these local officials want this this is a Democrat alderman of Chicago Raymond Lopez he was on Fox News and here’s what he had to say after After this crime spree that went on in Chicago this weekend, bite three.
SPEAKER 02 :
As we’ve seen multiple mass shootings here in the city of Chicago, over 50 victims of gun violence, several people dead. You know, we’ve made the best argument for Donald Trump to say that action is necessary right now. And that is just looking at reality.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah. But he opposes it. I mean, this is the thing that the mayor or the mayor opposes it. Right. Correct. You’ve got these councilmen are saying, please come, but that’s not going to be enough. You’ve got to, it’s the, it’s the mayor and the governor and really in the case of Chicago, probably more the mayor than the governor, unless the governor is just trying to offer more support to the mayor’s decision. But you see folks who are representing smaller communities in Chicago are saying, okay, I mean, what better case is there than 50-plus gun violence, at least seven or eight are dead, our police are overwhelmed, and they go into a new day today. I mean, that was just over the weekend. And so it’s not getting better. And something has to change. And really, it looks like the way only something can change here is that you put more law enforcement on the street or you deputize National Guard to work with law enforcement. So in effect, you are getting this for free. I mean, we’re taxpayers. We’re all paying for it. But the city is not having to use its tax revenue. The federal government is offering to put these troops in.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and I think once again, this is no fan of the president and not someone that we normally play.
SPEAKER 10 :
Crime down in the city when it’s clear when you’re the mayor or the governor that you can’t do it alone.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. And I think we should play. This is Joe Scarborough actually this morning. Not someone we normally play. Obviously an antagonist of President Trump. But here’s what he had to say about Trump. Just all of this issue. This is bite two from this morning. And why these leftist officials can’t really see what is a logical move.
SPEAKER 04 :
Let’s roll bite two. Well, my concern is you have leaders in Chicago that see this as you say, we’ve been reading about this for years now. Every weekend. And maybe crime has gone down. But, you know, we had the mayor of Chicago on last week saying, oh, we don’t need any more police officers. Police officers aren’t the answer. No police officers. You know, I think he said no five times. You look what’s happening this weekend. You know, I actually think that J.B. Pritzker should do something radical. I think you should pick up the phone, call the president. Right now, just a, hey, nothing to see here moving along. No problem here. Hey, Donald Trump, we don’t need you. And, you know, the mayor talking about we’re going to protect people’s dignity in our city. We’ll protect their lives. That’s protecting their dignity.
SPEAKER 09 :
And I think, unfortunately, because we have to agree with them, that is a very common sense response from Joe Scarborough there is that the left forgets that allowing there to be such crime ridden places when they are the leadership of it is not protecting the dignity of their citizens. It’s the opposite.
SPEAKER 10 :
It’s less dignity when you have to walk on the street and be scared. That’s a hit on your day. You’re not even focused on dignity. You’re focused on just getting to where you need to go without being robbed or without being violently assaulted and being part of a crime or becoming one of those statistics. Life’s very different when you walk out the door and that’s the first thing you have to think about. And in a lot of these major cities, depending on where you live in those cities, that is something you have to think about every time you go out the door or sometimes even coming home. And when you’re coming home from work, what time of day, what time of night? Are there any police on the street? Is there anyone there to protect you if you needed to shout for help? And that’s a total lack of dignity when that has to be the first thought. And you know what? I think it could spill over too. And it does spill over into the suburbs. So I want to hear people who might live in suburbs of these cities who are seeing increases in crime. 1-800-684-3110. Or what are you doing in those neighborhoods and suburbs to prevent an increase in crime? Maybe you’re taking action at the local level. 1-800-684-3110 is the number you call to talk to us on the air.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. And we will be back with more talking about some of the work of the ACLJ and how the ACLJ can help you. As we know, a lot of people are in that back to school season now that we’re past Labor Day. But give us a call 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Seculo and we are taking your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. If you want to talk about this issue with crime in American cities and the way that the president is tackling that and the way that he has plans to hopefully expand that and whether there’s legal questions you have about what the president can do or that ruling out of California where a judge this morning issued a ruling regarding the National Guard use in LA. We’ll talk about that in a coming up segment, just to give you a little bit of nuance, as opposed to what you’re probably seeing from Gavin Newsom’s X account or the Associated Press. But I did want to spend some time on this today, Jordan, because we know a lot of families are either just back to school or preparing to go back to school this week. This is after Labor Day in a lot of places around the country. It’s back to school time. And we also know that when it’s back to school time, it is also constitutional violation time is when things start to kick up. There’s new administrations, there’s new teachers, there’s new policies that get put in place over the break in the summer. And a lot of times those policies, those teachers, those administrations, even if they’re well-meaning.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
end up violating constitutional rights of American citizens, namely students in many cases, which are minors that don’t necessarily know what they can say to their teacher or express in a way because they aren’t constitutional attorneys when they’re in seventh grade.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s why it’s really important, especially during back to school, and it may have happened for you a couple weeks ago, it may have been happening for you as we speak, to talk to your children, or maybe if it’s your grandchildren, about their day. Because, again, like Will said, if something like this happens to them and someone in authority that they respect tells them they can’t do it, they may just say, oh, I can’t do this and not talk about it anymore. but for those times that they actually do speak up to you and say you know i was told i can’t do this this is why aclj.org help exists it doesn’t matter if it’s a a young student in a school district and and you’re trying to get the story out and understand what happened and you’re not sure uh if it’s a legal case or not don’t worry about that just go to aclj.org help we will review it an attorney will contact you and if we need more information We’ll ask for that. If we think we can help you right away, we’ll let you know and walk through what that would look like. And again, if we say, now that doesn’t seem like a matter, no loss. That shouldn’t mean that you shouldn’t come back if something else happens. We want you always utilizing ACLJ.org slash help because sometimes the cases that sound the smallest, a kid who wants to give out Bible verses on a piece of paper, in a small town, at a small school, that kid could end up setting Supreme Court precedent for the entire country. And often that’s the cases that do end up setting Supreme Court precedent for the entire country. So go to aclj.org slash help when you have one of those situations. And a lot of those happen in back to school when the administrations of the schools are kind of overdoing it. with what they think the rules need to be or they’ve been trained improperly by a school district and so again don’t be afraid to contact us don’t be afraid to ask for help sometimes if it is someone who was improperly trained and the school district just needs a reminder about the law it doesn’t even have to be that nasty of a situation Other times they might want to double down and fight back. Well, the ACLJ is ready to fight with you. No cost to you. And again, you could be setting precedent for so many kids, for so many students around the country who weren’t willing to kind of express that to their parents or express that to a loved one, an adult, who could then take some action on their behalf. So that’s why you should go to ACLJ.org and Anytime you think you’ve got one of those matters occurring and you’ve got a direct connection to it, let us know so we can assist, aclj.org.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right, Jordan. And I think a couple things I want to highlight here as well as we talk about, you know, they can happen early and it may seem insignificant maybe at the beginning of the year or maybe, oh, they’re just, you know, feeling it out. They’re just getting back into the swing of things. Your dad used to say a constitutional violation doesn’t get better with time. I think that is something to remember here as well. But if someone in the administration does something, even if it’s small, like you can’t have your Bible out on your desk or what may seem small or something like that, that they are violating in some way your constitutional rights. So whether if that’s not instructional time and you’re able to read something of your choice during that time – That’s not going to get better if you don’t address it quickly. And it doesn’t mean that it has to be adversarial even from the beginning. Normally, a lot of these are resolved by the ACLJ getting the facts and contacting the school and saying, listen, we are the ACLJ. We are prepared to go to court if needed. But here’s what the law is. Let’s resolve this so that you’re not violating the right of a student. Yep. But also the diversity of the types of cases that we can handle here. I mean, we have fight for students, for teachers, sometimes for the schools themselves. Just a quick rundown I wanted to give a people. We’ve got a case in New Jersey where… A parent was refused transportation for the child attending a Christian school, which is a part of New Jersey law that the transportation. There’s some school choice initiatives in this country that are not all just being able to use a voucher to go to a school, but sometimes it’s OK. Well, they can use transportation. They’re violating the law in New Jersey. We’re fighting that there. We’re in court. We’ve got one where we’re fighting for a teacher. We won for her. She was told you can’t be seen praying anywhere a student could see you.
SPEAKER 1 :
Think about that.
SPEAKER 10 :
Think about that standard. I mean, that means you’d have to, I guess, be always behind a closed door that doesn’t have a window that doesn’t have that can’t be opened. Right. I mean, very bizarre. Be anywhere a student could see these policies like that are insane. I want to go back to New Jersey. The law provides for it. If you’re eligible for the school choice program in New Jersey, the law provides for transportation. So this is a law that is, again, not being followed, that New Jersey taxpayers, including the family we represent, they’re paying for these services and not receiving them. They’re paying for the education, deciding to take advantage of a program to go to a private school. But the state says, but we’ll still get that New Jersey student there. And they’re not doing it. I mean, they have been dragging their feet on this and the taxpayers are paying for something that isn’t being done. And so think about it’s not just the what the effect on the student, but the effect on that entire family who is just trying to give their student a better education. Now having trouble just getting them to that school. It’s them trying to force them back into their public school system by saying, well, if they just went to one of our schools, they’d get picked up.
SPEAKER 09 :
No problem. That’s right. And that teacher we talked about, we won that case in federal district court. Now it is on appeal because the school district is appealing it in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. So federal appeals court. And this is a Texas school. So these violations don’t always happen just in these liberal cities that we’re talking about where they’re trying to push back on the president with the crime situation. They happen even in some of the most red states. So Always be on the lookout. And if something seems off, contact the ACLJ, aclj.org slash help. Someone will be able to review it, be able to guide you through it. You will get contacted by an attorney. This isn’t an automated AI chat bot that’s going to try to give you the next step of the process. Our attorneys review this and they get more information where needed. They tell you where we can help. And none of that costs you a penny. Why? Because of those that stand with the ACLJ, the members, the champions, those that were so generous in our 35 years of victory drive. They sustain this organization and they allow us to provide these services to you for free, for no charge. You get some of the most high-powered attorneys in the country working on your case and no case is too small. That’s why you go to aclj.org slash help if you feel like your rights are being violated, Jordan.
SPEAKER 10 :
It’s a great place to go. And again, an attorney is going to review your file and get in contact with you. If we can help, we will help at no cost. ACLJ.org slash help.
SPEAKER 07 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow.
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome back to Sekulow, second half hour of today’s broadcast. And we are talking about the conflict between the president of the United States and the leaders of many of these more left-leaning states and cities. As we see what the president has done to great success in D.C. by seeing crime rates drop as much as 87% for some crimes like carjacking. And the mayor, the Democrat mayor of D.C., also saying that we appreciate this surge in in federal resources to the city but you’re seeing a different tune out of those especially those that are 2028 presidential hopefuls like the governor of illinois and the governor of california they’re taking different takes on it but one thing that cannot be denied is that the crime rates in these areas are way too high these are american cities these are historic american cities that are huge tourist destinations, that have thriving populations. And what we have seen over the past decade, really, and in some cases longer in many places, places like New York, like Chicago, like Los Angeles, descend into chaotic crime levels that are not sustainable. It’s also tarnishing the reputation of America and the American experiment. When we have the republic that we have and you have the federalistic system that we have where states can enforce their own laws and we don’t have a national police force. they all of a sudden these governors sound conservative in the way that they read the constitution but at the end of the day they could ask for help they could make their cities better if they were focused on the safety of their citizens and the people that voted them into office instead of being so concerned about pushing back and fighting back against the elected president united states and
SPEAKER 10 :
And remember, on top of that, they’ve got the Trump derangement syndrome of any help that the administration may provide they have to somehow be against. They also have vilified a lot of police officers and police forces in these cities. These are the cities where the defund police movements were most vocal. And so you have a police force which feels like they’re not respected by the community and may even be disliked or hated by the community. And then you go to the local leaders, well, if their constituents feel that way about police, they think that they’ve got to almost be anti-police and then look what happens with the crime numbers. Now, at certain point, the attitude of constituents changes when the violence gets too high when the crime numbers get too high and yet they refuse uh looking at things maybe from a just a different perspective of maybe we could get this under control a lot quicker if we would work with the federal government and we put the right guidelines in place that we’re comfortable with in our city so that we can get our crime rate down to something our police force can actually manage and that’s really you know there’s not gonna be crime free city major cities but but you can’t have 54 individual gun violence crimes that are impacting again 54 people plus at least 7 maybe 8 who have already died because of those crimes in one city and then at the same time tell us you don’t need extra people on the streets helping the police
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. And we are going to get to your phone calls in the next segment of the broadcast as well, starting then. And we’re also going to go over this ruling that came out this morning from a judge in California related to the deployment of National Guard to Los Angeles during the anti-ice protests and that deployment. what it means for those National Guard members that are still in L.A. There’s about 300 left. And what it means broadly for the president’s use of the National Guard in that way. I think the analysis is a little bit more nuanced than what the media and the headlines and the governor of California are telling you. Jordan and I will go through that in the next segment as well. But stick around and give us a call at 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110 to talk about all of these issues, the way that the leftist governors are responding to President Trump, what you feel about the use of the National Guard in some of these cases, whether it be D.C., L.A., or even if these governors were to say, hey, we want your help. Is that something you’re for or against? Give us a call, 1-800-684-3110. We’ll be getting the calls and much more when we come back from this break. Welcome back to Sekulow. We’re going to get right to some phone calls as we discuss this issue with Chicago. During that break video, we heard that the governor is telling the news in these interviews that this is an invasion by President Trump. They’re trying to… hijack language and use it against the president whether it be the president was calling the way immigration was happening an invasion into our country now he’s trying to flip that and use it but once again what have you seen i saw a headline this morning there was a 14 000 person caravan coming from central america that turned around there was to some sense an invasion the What the president is doing is not an invasion by any means. But let’s go to a phone call here. Let’s go to Roger on line six calling from Georgia. Roger, you’re on Sekulow.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, sir. I have a couple of comments. I kind of feel for the Chicago police and the New York police who risk their lives to arrest criminals. And then they walk out. Why can’t they keep them in jail for a little while?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, Roger, that’s the secondary problem here, right? I mean, the interesting part about this is these governors and mayors that are speaking out against this don’t even want the police on the streets so that eventually what you want is not just a bunch of arrests made, but enough force there to where the criminals decide not to take the criminal action, that it’s not worth it, it’s too risky, there’s too much security and force here for us to be successful in carrying out our crime. So the goal is not to just have a bunch more people arrested, but is to actually prevent the crimes from occurring themselves. The secondary problem is, though, in these cities, you’ve got… Because there is so much crime, there’s no place to put people, even sometimes fairly violent criminals and repeat offenders. And so they are released really quickly back out on the streets and oftentimes commit more crimes. Right. And that’s a two different problems.
SPEAKER 09 :
And a lot of that goes also to the district attorneys in some of these areas that have been put in place that have a legal ideology, which are very contrary to what we at the ACLJ would promote. And a lot of those were a grand scheme across the country of seeing leftist NGOs, including the Soros organization, the Open Society Foundation that supported these races that are normally overlooked, but then have real consequences in the real world.
SPEAKER 10 :
yeah so how do you how do you then just you know almost take this power outside the DA you decrease crime and you make it manageable for both the police force and the prosecutors because then they have no excuse to be letting violent criminals back on the street or repeat offenders back on the street so quickly because the prisons the jails they wouldn’t be so full and there wouldn’t be such a backlog of cases but what does that take crime prevention so you’ve got to get into people’s mind that it is not worth carrying out this crime you will be apprehended and by the way there’s there’s the police force and they’re being backed up by national guard so it’s a serious show of force to get the numbers down so that they then are manageable and then what even a liberal da can’t use these excuses of you know it’s a human rights abuse because we have our prisons are so overrun with people that we have to let some of these people go so quickly that won’t be an excuse anymore for them so what is the first job the first job is to bring down the crime numbers so that it’s manageable for local police to then keep the citizens safe from the crime that will always be a part of big cities. And then second, for the DAs to have a manageable caseload and the prisons to have enough space for those violent and the type of offenders that need to be there.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. Let’s take another phone call while we’re at it. Let’s go to Martin calling from North Carolina on line one. Martin’s an ACLJ champion. We thank you for your continued support. Martin, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, I wanted to let you all know that I was, and I came to that by thinking I’m a tither at church, but I wanted some money to go to Kingdom Walk, and it seems like virtually everything you all are doing does that. We appreciate that, Mark. But going to what you had asked earlier, I am from Chicago, 60 years removed. We moved down here when I was a kid, and we’re going to Michigan. My wife and I are going to Michigan in a few weeks. We have to go through O’Hare both ways. So she thought, well, maybe we could spend a couple of days or one day in Chicago. And I flat out told her no because of what’s going on. And what I feel like is if people there would understand how it’s affecting their tourism, their business, nobody’s going to want to go there for half conventions, basketball games, football games. Maybe they’ll get the idea we got to do something, maybe a back way of doing it. But they got to do something. They got to make common sense.
SPEAKER 09 :
I mean, it’s 100%, and it does affect, even if the headlines that come out of these cities aren’t violence against tourists, they are still seeing headlines of 54 people to 57 people, depending on which news outlet, because as you mentioned earlier in the show, that’s also in and of itself is part of the problem. It’s such a large, chaotic weekend. They don’t even have… the direct number easily reportable, but people like Martin, people like many just American citizens that would normally go to these places because they are American treasures. They should be places that we go visit. There is culture to these cities. There is history to these cities. You end up saying, you know what? Maybe I’ll skip it because the odds are that I’m not going to be one of these victims of gun violence in your city. But it makes you think twice. And that hurts the economy of the cities. It hurts the economy of the state. It hurts those people that need the revenues and the tax money going in to help better their city. It hurts everyone.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. Because when you read these headlines, you don’t get the, and this happened in this neighborhood, which is not where, you know, this is off the tourist track, or this is not, you know, this is where most of the crime is. You’re just reading a headline of, in Chicago, just over Labor Day weekend, 54 acts of gun violence, 54 people injured, 7 or 8 dead. And you read that number and it just says Chicago. And you’re not going to be – you don’t live there. So someone may be visiting. You’re not thinking, well, what part of Chicago or is it a part of Chicago it would actually be in or not be in? And the truth is when the numbers start getting that high, it is spreading throughout the entire city. And so I would hope that the constituents, the people who live in Chicago, start realizing that – While, again, the criminal actors are there, there are ways to prevent and stop the criminal actors from even taking part in the crimes. And we’re seeing that directly in Washington, D.C. And so if it’s a program that can work in such a quick way to get cities back to manageable crime numbers so you don’t have to have these headlines and wonder, how many people are going to get killed this weekend in Chicago? Try something new. Try something different and maybe start electing some different people at the municipal level and statewide as well, but especially at the municipal level.
SPEAKER 09 :
Jordan, I did want to get to this quickly. And if you have a question about it, call us also at 1-800-684-3110. We’ll get to more calls in the next segment. But you’re seeing headlines today. This is Associated Press. Trump’s use of National Guard during L.A. immigration protest is illegal. Judge rules. Gavin Newsom posted on X. Donald Trump loses again. The courts agree his militarization of our streets and the use of military against citizen is illegal. New York Times judge says Trump’s L.A. troop deployment was illegal. And yes, we did get a ruling from a judge here. This is out of the Northern District of California, U.S. District Court, that gave injunctive relief to the plaintiffs that were Gavin Newsom against the government, the U.S. government and Donald Trump. Right. The very beginning of this opinion, the judge takes a few shots at the president and able to say that, yes, there were indeed protests in Los Angeles and some individuals engaged in violence, yet there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law. That feels like a judgment call by this judge. But when you get down to it, what the judge even ordered was, was that the government doesn’t have to recall the troops they can remain stationed in la they have to follow the posse comitatus act everything all their actions have to fall within that i understand that that that’s the law to some degree while there could be wiggle room because they’re trying to say this wasn’t a rebellion so that judgment call kind of gives some wiggle room on appeal but also that they can continue to protect the federal buildings there, which the entire deployment was because there was a protest movement, Jordan, trying to stop federal law enforcement from carrying out the law in the immigration race.
SPEAKER 10 :
Huge exception to the Posse Comitatus Act. which is Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which says that, in fact, the National Guard can be commandeered by the president to execute federal law. So what’s the opposite there? If federal law is being prevented from being executed, like our immigration law or any other federal law that supersedes state law, immigration law does, that if federal officers are not able to carry out their function, then this Title 10 of the U.S. Code allows the U.S. president to utilize National Guard troops to make sure that the federal laws are being executed. So, and by the way, this judge, some nasty language, doesn’t put this on, actually says that they can continue their actions they have been taking for at least an additional 10 more days, almost two weeks, which includes arrest. So, thought he was, you know, taking all these shots at the Trump administration politically and then legally pulls back.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. And if you have a question about that, we can get more into that in the next segment. 1-800-684-3110. We’ve got almost a full bank of calls. So if you call right now, you can probably get in and we will get to those calls when we come back. But once again, if you, as you go back to school, feel like you need help, if you feel like there is a violation of your constitutional rights, your religious liberty, go to aclj.org slash help and we will be in touch. Welcome back to Sekulow, final segment of the broadcast, and we are going to get straight to the phones, Jordan. Let’s go first to Julie calling from Florida on Line 3. Julie’s watching on YouTube. Hi, Julie. You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, guys. Love you. I just wanted to let you know I just got back from a family wedding. And we were told, we stayed downtown, nice hotel. We were told to try not to go out at night. We did go out during the day. I had an incident. My husband protected me. We were walking downtown. It was crowded. And I had some girl get in my face and walk around me three times. And it was, he just kept holding me to let her know she wasn’t going to get near me. And then we went to a store. It was dust to get water. We had an incident also with somebody on a bike started hassling us. It was maybe two blocks away. We got into the store. There was a cop there. We told him what happened. So he watched us walk back to our hotel. And then we had one other incident that wasn’t quite as bad, but it was an Uber incident.
SPEAKER 09 :
Julie, you’re in Chicago for a visit and you had three incidents.
SPEAKER 10 :
It’s a weekend visit and you’re having to tell us in severity, this happened and it is more severe and then this maybe a little less severe and then finally went to this place and something else happened. We told a police officer who then had to watch us go back to our hotel two blocks away. I mean, the fact is that, you know, the people are getting in your face. There’s a number of reasons why people do that. A lot of times it’s trying to steal from you when you’re not paying attention because you’re being distracted by someone getting up in your face. So it’s good that your husband was there. But this shouldn’t be happening, you know, one after another after another. I mean, sometimes you hear people have their story of it. Yeah, I had this happen to me in a big city once. It shouldn’t happen four times in one weekend visit.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. And I think part of that is to blame of the leaders because they are so forcefully pushing back against President Trump. That it almost sends the wrong signals to people in those cities that are wanting to be reckless or be criminal because they are almost positioning themselves as we’ve got it under control. Don’t worry, everything’s fine here when everyone knows it isn’t fine. Like, I don’t think anyone can look at a headline that says that 50. This is ABC News. So regardless if the numbers have changed since this was printed, 54 shot over the weekend in Chicago as governor rejects Trump’s threat to send in National Guard. No one can look at that and say, that’s a fine number. We’re doing okay here. Even if you don’t agree with the policy.
SPEAKER 10 :
It’s like 54 people were killed and the governor refuses to consider President Trump’s offer, not threat, offer to help. by sending in the National Guard. That’s really how it should be read, not threat to send in the National Guard, offer to help. But the politicians in Illinois, both Pritzker, the governor, and then the mayor, have made it a political issue. And so it’s President Trump trying to invade Chicago, not our National Guard troops being available to Chicago so that its citizens are safer.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. Let’s keep taking phone calls. Let’s go to Tom calling in Florida. Tom, you’re on Seculo.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, well, thank you guys for what you do. I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in criminal justice and studied statistics at a graduate level as well. And I can tell you that crime reports are useless. They’re subject to manipulation. They’re voluntary. When the sheriff is running for election, crime goes down. When he needs more money the next year, crime goes up. So they’re hopelessly manipulated. And this is the only time that I would recommend the media as a better source. because reporting crime sells products.
SPEAKER 09 :
I agree with that 100%, Tom.
SPEAKER 10 :
I think what’s happened in these cities is the numbers have gotten so big, they aren’t able to hide. That’s right. There’s way too many people being admitted into hospitals. It’s too much violent crime, too much gun crime. In Chicago, I think they said last year there were 272 incidents reported of violent gun crime. I mean, think about just in this weekend, there were 54. Right. I mean, that’s a quarter almost of the entire year of last year. And yet they’re trying to tell us that their crime numbers are down. But, you know, and they put all crime together. So the violent crime is looped in with nonviolent crime and kind of misdemeanor level crime. And so, yeah, maybe there’s less misdemeanors going on. But the amount of gun violence is shocking to anyone in the country, including the people who live in Chicago. And it’s shocking that they just immediately rebuke any offers of help.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. And to Tom’s point as well, you see that whenever there’s political statistics anywhere across the board, numbers are easily manipulated, whether it becomes job numbers, economic numbers, it’s always a political tool in your tool belt to manipulate.
SPEAKER 10 :
They can try to say crime numbers are down because they’ll put every single possible crime statistic together. So every white collar crime, every nonviolent crime, down to the smallest misdemeanors. See that we had less criminal events. But that’s not really how you understand how bad crime is affecting people in the community. It’s the violent crimes. It’s the robberies, the thefts, the ones that make you feel unsafe, that hurt the tourism, they hurt the people who live there, the businesses that are there as well, and the people who work in the cities. But when you pull those out, you start seeing, wait, those numbers aren’t really going down. So again, be careful with the politicians giving you numbers. Right now, just see the headlines. They don’t lie.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. Let’s go to Elsie on Line 5 calling from Maryland. Elsie, you’re on Seculo.
SPEAKER 11 :
Good morning. Oh, I’m sorry. You’re all right. Thank you for taking my call. So I had a question and it’s sort of a statement. Are the mayors in cities like Baltimore and Chicago or the governors in states like Massachusetts and California bullying and bluffing in spite of Trump with or without him? Because they’re sort of acting like children with their hands in a cookie jar and they don’t want to be caught with more policing because they may be afraid of things found out about
SPEAKER 09 :
their internal system i think lc and i’ll get jordan’s take on this the problem is one it is president trump two their party has been so anti-police for so long they feel like it would do them damage politically instead of appealing to the common sense american that says hey your job is to help protect us instead they’re they’re catering to the far left of the party
SPEAKER 10 :
Probably this needs to be the next questions asked to these governors and these mayors that are opposing President Trump. Say, okay, put in a Democrat president. You’re having this problem. If they offered the help, would you see it as an offer of help? Or would you still say that that Democrat president is trying to invade your city by offering National Guard? and so you know how do they answer that question of course they’ll trust that’s hypothetical we’re dealing with President Trump it’s unprecedented you know line goes on and on and on except for they’ve shown in Washington DC the program can work it can work quickly and it’s not some it’s not a government takeover it’s not a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act in fact it’s part of the exceptions which is the federal government can’t even operate in your cities effectively because the crime is so high.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and when you have a federal district judge starting to decide what is and isn’t a rebellion, when the entire stated goal of the entire protest movement was to block federal law enforcement from doing their job of enforcing federal law, I think you also open yourself up to a loss on the appeals level, even if it is the Ninth Circuit. But even if it’s a loss there, the Supreme Court may weigh differently on that. We’ll keep an eye on it and we will break it down as news comes out. we will follow it all the way and if you as we mentioned earlier are looking at your new school year you’re starting to see maybe some questionable things from the administration about what your student can and can’t do with regard to their faith with regard to their activities at school contact the aclj go to aclj.org help an attorney will reach out to you they will get information needed and we’ll see how we can help and all of that help is free of charge thanks to our members and champions that support the work of the ACLJ. Once again, ACLJ.org. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.
