Join Logan Sekulow and the team as they unpack the complexities surrounding Jack Smith’s investigations into Ted Cruz’s phone records amidst the ongoing government shutdown. With insights from Washington D.C. insiders and voices from affected federal employees, this episode highlights the political intricacies and personal impacts of key national events.
SPEAKER 03 :
We got breaking news. Jack Smith targets Ted Cruz. 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 Sekulow.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you. I want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. It’s Tuesday. We’re live. Jordan Sekulow is in studio with me and Will Haynes. It’s going to be a packed show. We’re going to hear from members of our team in Washington, D.C. We’re going to hear from Rick Grinnell. And of course, all the commentary you can hear from all three of us and the work of the ACLJ continues. We did want to open up the show today talking about, once again, Jack Smith. You’re like, okay, Logan. How many times can we start the show with Jack Smith? At this point, I’m not even sure I remember who this man is, but Jack Smith has been caught again spying, searching, attempting to, and you got to give it up. Sometimes you got to give it up to some big tech. And AT&T said, sorry, Jack, you’re not going to get Ted Cruz’s phone records. And we don’t even really know why they did, but they did not do it, but we know for a fact that he was searching for it.
SPEAKER 13 :
That’s right, Logan. So what we’ve got here now is a ninth U.S. senator that Jack Smith was attempting to subpoena the phone records from. We know that at least with eight of them, it’s reported he was able to get them. That was Senator Marsha Blackburn, Senator Johnson, Hagerty, Hawley, Loomis, Lindsey Graham, Dan Sullivan and Tommy Tuberville, as well as a sitting member of the House of Representatives, Representative Mike Kelly from Pennsylvania.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s why Tommy Tuberville’s like, I’m going to be governor.
SPEAKER 13 :
That’s right. Enough of this. Now we’re hearing that, and Axios got the scoop last night, that Ted Cruz was also targeted. The twist here… is they subpoenaed these phone records, including text messages, voicemail information, all of this, yet AT&T did not comply with the subpoena. That opens up a lot more questions, and I know, Jordan, we’re going to get into that in the next segment, but the fact that he at least was not, his information was not transmitted to the special counsel’s office because they decided not to comply.
SPEAKER 04 :
I think it’s even interesting that they did not comply, which means the other…
SPEAKER 05 :
organizations that did comply probably were afraid that if they didn’t apply they would be sued in court so what AT&T did was say basically call their bluff and what happened it looks like Jack Smith was really on his fishing expedition he didn’t have enough on any of these people to actually get the work he was saying this wasn’t a murder he was trying anybody and everybody who is basically a well-known name that you might see on Fox News or someone who got very connected to one of the voter issues in their state may have been in conversation with President Trump It shows you who really has the power here. Well, now these other telecom companies, I hope you don’t use Verizon, I hope they listen and say, you know what, let’s do next time what AT&T did and stand up for our customers’ security when we believe that that data is not appropriately requested and we’re not afraid of a lawsuit because it seems like this is connected to nothing. Because at that point, Ted Cruz’s name was not being discussed as someone who was being looked at as a potential. None of these people were. No.
SPEAKER 13 :
as a potential criminal actor. Well, in Jordan, I mean, when a subpoena is issued… It’s really enraging. A company could be held in contempt of court if there’s a subpoena. So AT&T, at least, from the reporting, by not complying, their general counsel thought it was a better move to call the bluff and the risk being on the other side. Sanctions, contempt of court, the list goes on to fight it to some degree.
SPEAKER 05 :
The Democratic Party, if they were in control, could really make AT&T’s life not pleasant. Right. I mean, you can regulate companies in a pretty nasty way. So it was interesting they said, we’re going to stand on the side of the consumer, and I hope… they actually lean into that message because I think you’d see a lot more people switching over their service.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, exactly. What do you think about this? Give me a call at 1-800-684-3110. That’s 1-800-684-3110. We’re also going to get an update on the government shutdown straight from our offices in Washington, D.C. So you’re going to hear from our team there. And then later on, Rick Grinnell is going to be joining us to chat about everything from the No Kings protests to so much more. You want to be a part of this show today, though, as well, because we have some great voices on the air. It’s always great to hear from you. In the meantime, I encourage you, go to ACLJ.org. I want you to support the work that we’re doing here. Of course, that includes this show and our amazing legal work. And, of course, our offices all around the world. So we’re talking about Washington, D.C. You’re talking about our ACLJ Jerusalem. You’re talking about the European Center for Law and Justice. Of course, our media center here in the Nashville, Tennessee area. but be a part of the show. You can do that by calling in, by supporting us, however you can. Go to aclj.org. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Seculo. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. Will, I want you to kind of give us maybe a bit more of a history of what this is, how we got here, because, of course, when people see the headline, they read that Ted Cruz has essentially been a… really maliciously gone after by jack smith they kind of wonder the history of why this is happening now why is it even information that we’re just getting but also the full context here maybe we need to give a breakdown i see some comments coming in going i don’t even know what y’all are talking about that’s right so you’ll remember back that the biden administration strategically waited to start pursuing investigations against president trump and trying to indict him until
SPEAKER 13 :
Later in the Biden term, and we had that famous raid on Mar-a-Lago, which was related to classified documents, and then the Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to handle investigations into the former president at the time and looked into both trying to get charges on the classified documents case out of Florida and then out of D.C. related to January 6th, trying to tie him into this conspiracy, making it some sort of obstruction charge at the president because he didn’t do enough to stop people on January 6th. So that’s what this all stems from. And this Arctic Frost investigation was related to the January 6th information.
SPEAKER 04 :
Again, Arctic Frost is like a code name.
SPEAKER 13 :
FBI code name for their investigation. You think about Crossfire? hurricane i know we gotta get a razor yeah that was the one when you hear arctic fraud we have to give people some background that’s right so arctic frost was the code name within the fbi and then later the department of justice for this investigation jack smith as a part of this decided the name of the bear and k-pop uh demon slave oh yeah bear animal yeah arctic frost so this was the the part of that investigation he started targeting phone records of sitting u.s senators and one sitting member of congress he did this through subpoena and we know that this was not subpoenaed until 2023 even though the records he was seeking We’re back in 2021, right around the time of January 6th. It was like January 4th through 7th. He wanted all text messages, ingoing and outgoing phone calls, voicemail data. Things of that nature is what he was trying to obtain on these sitting presidents. As though also… that seeing a phone call come in or going out to the president, another member of Congress, would be abnormal for a sitting member of Congress with the president that is of their same party.
SPEAKER 05 :
I just wanted to ask real quickly, because I’m sure people just want to get this straight in their head. Every one of these members, was that the same date frame? It was the same time frame, yes.
SPEAKER 13 :
January 4th through the 7th of 2021.
SPEAKER 05 :
So you know 100% this was connected to January 6th and exactly what they were looking for by using geolocation and who they were speaking to. Were they talking to the president? Were they with the president? Were they in the White House? Basically, you could find out who someone is meeting with in any of the buildings in DC or have at least 90% chance of being correct just by knowing their location and time because you can kind of play into, okay, what was happening at that day. So you imagine if this is an attempt to spy on yet another US Senator, they did it on 8 And now we know they’ve done it on 9th. If I was a U.S. Senator and I was in Senate during that time period, I’d be going to the FBI right now and say, like, okay, Bongino Cash, tell me. How compromised did I get?
SPEAKER 04 :
Where did we get?
SPEAKER 05 :
Because no one ever told me about this. And they may not be the ones you know by name. they’re on TV as much, but that’s certainly who they targeted.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, and this is also an attack on a co-equal branch of government. They are looking at this in a way that we have not seen before, but also we see that Senator Marsha Blackburn is actually calling on the DOJ to investigate this. She has sent a letter to the attorney general requesting an investigation. But I think another question that this brings up, we know that at least for the first eight years, That the phone companies appeared to comply. They gave the information to the special counsel’s office.
SPEAKER 04 :
It kind of feels like the social media world where they felt pressure.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, if the special counsel with the Department of Justice comes and you’re a regulated industry, you’d think that your first, your general counsel at first is going to be like, we should probably comply with the government. Give them what they want. AT&T, in the case of Ted Cruz, it appears did not comply with the subpoena, which means that someone in the general counsel’s office, at least this is what we can maybe infer from this, looked at this and thought about consumer protections, public relations, as well as the separation of powers and thought, This doesn’t necessarily seem like something we should comply with. That puts the company at jeopardy of sanctions, contempt of court. They would then have to expend money to fight that in court. We don’t know if Jack Smith just dropped it at that point or if he filed motions to compel or if there was a motion filed by AT&T. Hopefully that will get reported out because that’s the most fascinating angle.
SPEAKER 04 :
Interesting. yeah it’d be interesting to hear what at&t has to say i know they probably are not going to respond to this but you know what i like in my theory in my head is they looked up ted cruz’s account like he’s been a loyal customer since he’s a bell south man really is what we’re talking about here he’s been with us for a long time we’re not gonna turn over his records how dare they he’s he got the little card he’s been he’s had a landline with us since 78 he wears a lapel pin right under his american flag lapel south i would love to
SPEAKER 05 :
know if AT&T got any response after the date they had to submit this information or as is so typical with Washington did it disappear was it just a fishing expedition that they knew they probably couldn’t defend in court so let’s just see how many companies will send it over.
SPEAKER 13 :
If Jack Smith didn’t fight this that also shows that it was a fishing expedition.
SPEAKER 05 :
And then we don’t know how many other companies did what Ted Cruz’s did now. Now we need to learn that. So I would ask the US senators to go and check to see, was there a time when your service provider was contacted in this time period, so January 4th to 7th, uh about the information from january 4th to 7th does it matt did that happen and did you uh did you just not respond because then we’d know i think if they did respond uh that would have been in the information that we already have seen like if they already got the information they’re requesting those are the initial eight plus the member of the house i mean but it is again it’s the worst of the worst because they are just spying to spy for political damage this has nothing to do with US national security so turning on our own elected leaders I mean that is the worst of the FBI that’s the worst of the deep state intelligence agencies and policing forces coming together and using their power to try and intimidate elected members of Congress who are supposed to be running the country because they are voted in by the people of the country.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. Hey, I want to hear, speaking of the people of the country, I do want to hear from you. We do have some phone lines open. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. If you’re watching on YouTube or Rumble, that doesn’t stop you from calling in. There’s thousands of you watching right now, and I appreciate that. If you’re brand new, I ask you to subscribe. Join the over 530,000 of you who just joined us on YouTube alone, which is wild to think about. We are hopefully going to grow that. We’re going to march to a million subscribers here. So ACLJ.org, you can do it right now or just click that subscribe button if you’re watching because it’s an important time.
SPEAKER 05 :
I would love to know from our audience, so give us a call, 1-800-684-3110. Kind of two groups. Group one, you don’t work for the federal government. How is the shutdown affecting you or is it affecting you at all? And just your honest opinion. There’s no right or wrongs here, but we’d love to hear from you. If you don’t work for the federal government, is it impacting you? You give us a call 1-800-684-3110 and make sure you tell our call screener. I’m the one who doesn’t work for federal government. If you do work for the federal government and you have been furloughed, how is it affecting you now that we are, you know, Post two weeks into this and hearing things like it could be post Thanksgiving, you start getting the holidays with no checks. It gets a little nerve wracking. So let our call screener know, are you a current federal employee or are you a non-federal employee and how the shutdown is affecting you? I feel like we’re going to get two very different answers.
SPEAKER 04 :
Are we at the point of it being record breaking? I think we’re getting very close. We are.
SPEAKER 13 :
So we are at day 21. I believe 35 is the record. And that was back in 2018-19. So 35 days back right there in the first Trump term. I’d have to look that up. Is it another budgeting issue?
SPEAKER 05 :
continuing resolution situation and back then President Trump actually has been pretty consistent about these government shutdowns not being a smart thing to continue to do when your party loses and the other party is saying listen we haven’t come to an agreement to get past the 60 vote threshold so we just want to pass an extension so that everybody gets paid and to keep the government open so we’re fully functioning for the American people and our men and women in uniform are getting paid and staff are getting paid janitors are getting paid everybody is that we’re not going to change anything. So Democrats, we’re not trying to slip anything in on you. Democrats, we’re not going to allow you to slip anything on us. We’re just going to keep things how they were last time we passed a resolution or budget. And then we will have another six months to negotiate. And that’s not good enough for the Democrats because Chuck Schumer and all these aging Democrats want to sound and talk tough like AOC. And they feel like I think with Mondami, things like that in New York, they are quickly getting pushed out of the party that they were so critical in kind of creating in its modern form.
SPEAKER 04 :
Phone lines are completely jammed right now. Oh, two just opened up. People like that question. They do. It’s a good question. 1-800-6… We’ve got a lot more government employees than I thought.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, in Northern Virginia. Plenty of our listeners are government employees in Northern Virginia.
SPEAKER 04 :
We’re going to break all of that down in the next segment. We’re going to be joined by a member of our team in Washington, D.C., so we’re going to have that happening. And then later on, Rick Grinnell is going to be with us. It’s going to be a packed second half of the show. If you do want to call in, I suggest this is the time to do it. Get on hold. Wait, we’ll get to you. 1-800-684-3110. Again… 1-800-684-3110. I do want to really push how important it is if you can become an ACLJ champion. That is someone that gives on a monthly recurring basis. Know how important that is. It gives us a great baseline. But also, look at all the work we’re doing here, whether that’s this show or the work in the courts, of course, our work in Washington, D.C., and around the world the ACLJ is engaged. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Seculo. We’re going to go to Washington, D.C. now. Jordan has been really working a lot on the expansion and the growth of our government affairs office in Washington, D.C. as we have been expanding not just the actual physical footprint of our offices, but also the incredible people that have been joining our team. So, Jordan, I’ll let you take it from here.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I mean, so something you know, we’ve always had a government affairs office as part of our operation in D.C., but we’ve attempted to, as we’ve been able to expand our office there and space there, we’ve been able to expand our government affairs team and have, because of your support of the ACLJ, an ability to bring in people with that much more experience to build out new teams as we face new requests. as an organization that’s been around for over 35 years on topics that we may talk about a lot on this show and other times topics that you might you’ll see in our blogs and places like that we also launched ACLJ Action a C4 to take issue advocacy to the next level and so We’re going to introduce you today, our brand new Director of Government Affairs, who’s also assisting with the ACLJ action out of Washington, D.C. Mark Kelly’s joining us. You can put up on the screen for us. He’s in our D.C. studio. We’ve actually got a new D.C. studio being built as we speak right now. I was trying to wait it out until he had the new studio, but this was too good of a time to bring Mark in because… I just want you to know the kind of person we’re hiring with your support at the ACLJ. So Mark has three decades of experience in public policy, politics, and strategic leadership, including 24 years on Capitol Hill. So he knows how things work there. And he served as a chief of staff to five different members of Congress from all over different parts of the country. During that time in Washington, he held roles at Heritage Foundation Media Research Center. So he’s got that effort too. And I love this. I mean, such a perfect fit. He’s a Regent Law grad. Like so many of us. So even though he’s focused on the government affairs side and the kind of what’s going on in Congress, he’s able to interact with our legal team at that level because of his, again, schooling at Regent. And he went past that, also earned an MBA. What I think is just great as you’re seeing folks is the kind of individuals we are adding to our team to take that government affairs operation totally to the next level. And so Mark, with the shutdown now entering three weeks, I was like, I can’t wait for the new studio. I gotta bring you in on this. And my first question is this, we hear rumbles that the shutdown could end sometime this week. A lot of people were texting me that saying, you know what, after all these no kings protest and they had their big protest, can’t we just do a kumbaya moment and pass the continuing resolution? But then I hear the flip side, you know, an hour later, you see from another news outlet, it could be past Thanksgiving. Where do you feel things are right now? Is it changing like hour to hour?
SPEAKER 01 :
I think one of the things being around Washington this long and living through a few of these shutdowns is this one feels a little different. Both sides seem dug in. The Senate has voted 11 times on moving to the House bill that would keep the government open. And so far, there’s been no movement. The same three Democrats keep voting with the Republicans, and they’re short of the 60 votes. So I think the next inflection point really is Friday. That’s when Federal employees missed their first full paycheck. You have six senators in three Democrat states, three of the four biggest states with federal employees. So we’ll see if their constituents start weighing in. The Trump administration has been doing a great job. The core functions of government, getting those checks out on time. They solved the problem with the Women, Infants, and Children program. So the WIC program, getting that. money for that. They also solved getting the military paid at their mid-October pay. So this Friday seems like the next inflection point, although there hasn’t been any movement.
SPEAKER 05 :
So Mark, real quick, I just want to underscore that on the military pay. They were able to get some back pay or some on-time pay to our men and women in uniform?
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s correct. The Trump administration found $8 billion. They used some accounting to do that of money that was available under the spending rules. And so they were able to make that payment. We have not heard yet whether next week’s payment, the end of the month payment, has been accounted for yet. I’m sure they’re looking at it. The Trump administration has been going out of their way to make sure that there is as little pain as possible on the American people as we go through this shutdown.
SPEAKER 13 :
Mark, one question on that as well. We know that it took the Trump administration finding internal already appropriated funds to be able to pay the military. There has been talks about even floating a standalone bill to make sure that the men and women in uniform get paid. But you’ve also heard Democrats shut that idea down that, no, we want to move forward with a full package, a full continuing resolution with what their demands are. How do the Democrats as a party right now see that as a solid messaging point to the American people as the midterms approach us next next year that we are the party that would not pay the military when the opportunity was given to us?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, that’s a great point. They have floated the possibility of a single bill to pay the military. The Senate Republicans also put a procedural motion on the floor to pass a standalone military spending bill, which would have funded not only just the pay, but also all of the military. The Democrats rejected that. There is a bill talked about going on the floor this week from Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. And that bill would pay all essential employees. So any employee that’s being required to work right now would get their paycheck on time. So far, it sounds like the Democrats are not going to accept that way forward either. And, you know, they’re really they’re trying to make this shutdown about health care. You all have talked about this on the show before, I know. But one of the big ask is to extend these Obamacare subsidies. And they’re really asking Republicans to help them fix a health care system that they put in place. And that’s what they’re trying to make this shutdown about.
SPEAKER 04 :
Mark, I appreciate you coming on today. And like Jordan said, we wanted to showcase what’s going on in Washington, D.C. as we are growing and things are really changing there at the ACLJ in Washington. I want to give you the opportunity also to tell our audience about that and just what the ACLJ is doing in your new role and everything that’s happening there. Though we’re here talking about the details of the minutia of what’s going on with the government shutdown, but the growth there is tremendous.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, it’s an excellent opportunity for me to work with the team here. We have an excellent set of lawyers and making sure that Capitol Hill knows the work that we’re doing and they can be partners with us on anything from the amicus briefs that we’re filing with the Supreme Court to legislative activity that we really feel we should have a part in. One of the things we’ve weighed in on already, I mentioned the Obamacare subsidies. Those right now go to help fund abortion. And we weighed in with a letter to Speaker Johnson and Majority Leader Thune saying, hey, you may negotiate these subsidies eventually. They’re not talking about negotiating them during the shutdown, but when you do, We need to make sure our decades-long practice in America of not having taxpayer funds go to fund abortion is continued. And so there are many opportunities. We had the one-year Planned Parenthood defunding that was part of the One Big Beautiful Bill. We’re going to be advocating that that be extended. So I’m just very excited about this opportunity to do the things that I know the ACLJ supporters want us to do here in Washington.
SPEAKER 05 :
And Mark is building out. Mark, thanks for joining us. We’re going to wait until probably a couple more months to bring him on. But I had to have him today. He’s putting together his team right now. So his deputies. And so, I mean, not starting from scratch, obviously, because of his background, his ability to contact deputies. members because of his longtime service on Capitol Hill, but to then bring in a new team for our government affairs staff and we’ve been able to expand folks. It’s all because of you and your financial support of the ACLJ. So I encourage you donate today at ACLJ.org and that team can be bigger, stronger, and more, I guess, more impact in DC on things you care about. Go to ACLJ.org and donate.
SPEAKER 03 :
Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever. This is Seculo. And now your host, Logan Seculo.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome back to Seculo. Second half hour coming up. Rick Grinnell is going to be joining us. I think in the next segment we’ll have Rick joining us. But between now and then you’re going to hear some great sound. We’re going to keep this conversation going. And we’re going to hear from you. And phone lines currently are one line open. 1-800-684-3110. Before we get to the calls though, Will, I know you wanted to address… Hakeem Jeffries.
SPEAKER 13 :
That’s right. So what we’ve been seeing is the Democrats trying to spin this as this is the Republican shutdown. Obviously, they are the ones that are not voting for the bill that’s being put forward 11 times and refusing to pay the military and things of that nature. But this was so rich to me, I had to play it. Because over the weekend, we saw the No Kings rallies that they made a huge deal about and actually may have pushed back. some of the moderate, more centrist Democrats of coming to an agreement because they see all these people across the country protesting the president. And how many times have you heard where the Democrats have told President Trump to stop meddling in the business of Congress? You know, we are a co-equal branch of government. But here’s how he classified and said, this is the only way that we’re going to come to an agreement between a co-equal branch of government. Listen to Hakeem Jeffries just yesterday afternoon.
SPEAKER 07 :
Donald Trump definitively needs to get involved. He needs to get off the sidelines, get off the golf course, and actually decide to end the shutdown that he’s created, that he has allowed to happen. We know that House and Senate Republicans don’t do anything without getting permission from their boss, Donald J. Trump. And the reason why there have been no negotiations, zero negotiations, since Republicans shut the government down, is because Donald Trump clearly wants the government shut down. He wants to inflict pain on the American people, and this will not change. Until Donald Trump gives Republicans permission to sit down with Democrats.
SPEAKER 13 :
Jordan, they had a no kings rally. They said they don’t want a king to… But how can Congress not do it without them calling the king off the sidelines?
SPEAKER 05 :
They want Donald Trump to come down to Capitol Hill to run it? To run for Congress? To say, you know what, Speaker Johnson, let’s do this together. That’s what Hakeem Jeffries, who… This weekend, his people were calling him a king who won’t stay out of their role, is now begging him to come to Capitol Hill to save, what, Democrat votes? He thinks that Donald Trump can bring enough Democrats on board? Because the only Republican not on board right now is Rand Paul. And I think once there’s enough votes for this, he’ll be on board. So I think that’s more of a protest vote as of now, an easy one to make because it’s not deciding whether it passes or not. But come on, you think that Donald Trump… on on capitol hill on the house floor is going to help with those left-wing democrats they’re still holding out that’s what hakeem jeffrey’s strategy is bring him back out we want him on the floor we think we can in the shutdown he can talk to aoc i don’t want to anymore i mean that’s the truth they don’t want to deal with their own people right i want to take a call real quick before we get to break uh let’s go to therese who’s calling ohio because look there’s real ramifications what’s going on with the government shutdown i want to hear from you uh therese got about a minute before we got to get to breaks go ahead
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you, sir. Good morning. And I am a federal employee on furlough. I’m not receiving a paycheck. I am patriotic along with the other team members that I work with. We just want to go to work and we want to do the good work for the government and for our families. And this reminds me of kind of the remnants of COVID where we’re not able to come in together as social beings. To be able to talk to one another and just see how life is going with one another. Instead, we’re isolated or back home, not doing the work that we were hired and that we have a passion to do. So I would love to get back to work.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’d love to ask you, how long have you worked for the federal government? 17 years. So you’ve been through shutdowns before. Each time, how long did it take to get that back pay on average?
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s a great question. I really don’t remember, but we’ve never been out this long.
SPEAKER 05 :
One other time you’ve been out this lot. One other time it’s been about 35 days. I’m interested to ask that because it gets you back on your feet. And I see a lot of banks advertising right now when I go on my apps that if you’re affected by the shutdown, they will kind of extend things. So take advantage of what your financial institutions will provide to you if you’re one of those furloughed waiting for their back pay.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. Thank you, Therese, for calling. We have a lot of thoughts and prayers for everyone who’s struggling right now through all of this. Phone lines are open, but we’re going to have Rick Grinnell joining us in the next segment. We’ll take as many calls as we can in the final. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Seculo. We have, like I said, a bit of a fact show today. Rick Grinnell’s joining us now. The beautiful new camera setup, looking great, Rick. Will, I know you wanted to kind of take the lead on this one, so I’ll kick it over to you.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, this follows up on the discussion we had in the previous segment. So we had these massive, across the country, no kings protests, as they said. Did you say massive? They said that they were not organized. These were organic, even though they put out advertisements and somehow they had a Super Bowl worthy halftime people demonstration on the beach in your home state where they said no Kings and then. Vote on yes on 50. Don’t know how that happened so organically. We can put that up there. But at the same time, Rick, as this government shutdown is going on, Hakeem Jeffries is telling the media and the American people, we can’t open the government because Donald Trump’s on the sidelines. So we’re a co-equal branch, but we can’t do it without the president getting involved in negotiating. So I’m just confused about how we have no kings, but then Hakeem Jeffries kind of wants a king, and then they’re using it for political campaigning in California. You’ve been around this a long time. I want to get your take.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, first of all, let’s state a couple of facts. One, you’ve got 60 votes that’s needed in the Senate. The Republicans don’t have 60 votes. So you need Democrats to vote for this. And so the bipartisan push right now is to open the government. But there are too many Democrats who are just not joining that bipartisan push and we need them. So there’s no question that this is the Democrat shutdown. That’s the first point. The second point is I’m pretty sure that if you Googled and checked the facts, that there was only one party last year which nominated their presidential candidate without a single vote of the people, the elites got together and handed it to Kamala Harris. And I’m pretty sure that there was only one party that had 13 states try to kick Donald Trump, the nominee for the Republicans, off ballots. 13 states tried to kick him off the ballot. Now, what type of queen or king scenario is an appointment of the presidential candidate without a vote of the people and the elites getting together to try to knock off the opponent of the other team before you even have a vote. That sounds a little bit like a royal flush to me. And I would just say that this no kings stuff is so phony that the reason why it wasn’t that popular is that the media really didn’t get behind it that much. People saw it as a desperate attempt, a fake attempt to pretend like Donald Trump was the king. Remember, if Donald Trump was the king, the king just went through like 91 indictments from the Democrats to try to literally cancel him, crucify him. He was almost assassinated a couple of different times. This is… just riddled with the facts showing that we don’t have a king. We haven’t had a king since 1776.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, and when you think about the history of the two parties in our country, traditionally, the Democrats have been very good at messaging. even if they’re not based on facts, they’re very good at messaging and getting people behind their platitudes and all of these things. But you’re seeing such chaos where the conservatives, unfortunately, have been too rational at times for messaging well or always behind the ball sometimes. We’re seeing just a completely topsy-turvy world where conservatives They’re they’re messaging no kings. They aren’t even looking at internally at how their house has been run for the past few years. And then you’re also seeing that they didn’t learn the lessons of the mistakes that Republicans when they were in the minority and shut down the government over Obamacare, things of that nature. It didn’t work out well for them. I’m not trying to give them any tips here, but have you ever seen such a topsy-turvy world when it comes to messaging when they’re supposed to be the ones that have the earned media? They have the control of the bully pulpit when it comes to the media, and it’s just not seeming to work right now.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, look, I think that the spirit of the media is not really with them. The media is for sure trying to blame this on Republicans. But the facts are just not there. And they’re struggling. The media is even struggling because the facts are so against them. Look, I don’t want to help them either. But keeping Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries is an amazing gift to Republicans. I love it when the minority leader of the House, Hakeem Jeffries, goes on TV. I feel like he’s a total robot who doesn’t make sense. He’s got these really weird hand gestures that enunciate every single syllable. I can’t watch it, and yet I’m watching him and thinking, I hope they keep him. because he’s so ineffective that I don’t understand why Democrats are not abandoning him. And then Chuck Schumer is the same on the Senate side. He’s terribly ineffective, but I love having him there because our political opponents don’t have a good team on the field. And so I like the fact that they’re not effective with the media. But I fear that they’re going to wake up very soon and realize they need new leadership.
SPEAKER 13 :
Rick, I wanted to play this for you because this was Senator Bernie Sanders, the quintessential capitalist that really understands hierarchies and things like that. But this was him on The View. And he was asked a very interesting question by one of the panelists about congress getting paid during this shutdown i know you right now you know with your work at the kennedy center you you oversee a lot of government employees at this time so you may have a better insight into that than than many that are speaking to the media but let’s take a listen to this it’s bite four this is sarah haynes not related by any means uh just want to get that out there but on the uh a panelist on the view talking with senator bernie sanders bite four
SPEAKER 02 :
What would be powerful, though, is if Congress didn’t take their money while they were waiting. Because right now, it’s hard to imagine it’s incentivized. It’s easier for the politicians in D.C. to go away from each other and say, we will win this. While people are losing their paychecks, if Congress just said, we’re not going to take our paychecks until we figure this out, that would be a noble step in the right direction, I would say.
SPEAKER 08 :
Not everybody can afford to do that. You’ve got some young people there with kids.
SPEAKER 02 :
Either can the people that aren’t getting paid, though.
SPEAKER 08 :
I think that’s a fair point.
SPEAKER 13 :
So Bernie Sanders all of a sudden says, wait, not everybody can afford to not get a paycheck. Completely missing the point of what the logical question from the panelist on The View is even asking him. What are your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, the question was, not everybody can afford to miss a paycheck. What do you think about punishing Congress, too? And his reaction was, well, we can’t afford to miss a paycheck. It’s like, don’t make us do it. We’d rather have everybody else in the federal government miss a paycheck. This is elitism at its finest. Bernie Sanders has really worked hard to try to not be an elite, but he can’t help himself. He’s a multimillionaire elite. And he has the attitude of, well, we can’t miss our paycheck. Federal government employees can miss their paycheck, but don’t ask Congress to do it because some members of Congress have kids. And he didn’t see the hypocrisy. And by the way, no one on The View called him out and said, wait a minute, aren’t you being a hypocrite on this? It was pretty scandalous.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I mean, I look at it, Rick, and this is Jordan. I just say, you know, if Bernie Sanders, who is all about, you know, universal income, can’t figure out, think past just his own staff and think about the American people that are trying to make their way, who are hoping soon they’ll get that back pace.
SPEAKER 04 :
A lot of them are on hold right now.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, so that they can pay their debts off who are living as a lot of Americans are, even middle class Americans and upper middle class Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck right now. And now they have no paycheck. And he just ignored them, ignored the actual American people.
SPEAKER 06 :
Look, we do feel like the hypocrisy from the media on this point is almost too much to take because when Joe Biden was in office, when Barack Obama was in office, The narrative of a government shutdown was completely the opposite of what we’re hearing now. You had Nancy Pelosi screaming about, why aren’t we settling this? People can’t afford to go without a paycheck. Programs are literally causing grandma to be in the snow and people to starve to death. the drama that was being portrayed in the media for a government shutdown was enormous. And now they’re just not doing it. They’re trying to help the Democrats as much as possible. And that hypocrisy I think is not lost on some members of the media and certainly the public. And so the Democrats are damaging themselves, their message and their credibility by having a completely different tone this time. But we see it. We see it. And we think that it’s a really big problem.
SPEAKER 04 :
Rick, thanks so much for joining us. Always have great to have your thoughts are invaluable to our team here and to our listeners. viewers of this show we always appreciate it thank you so much that being said we’re going to hear from you directly coming up in the next segment we got two lines open but other than that we got some great calls coming in at 1-800-684-3110 we want to hear from you as you continue to support the work of the aclj know we really appreciate it especially even during these harder times aclj.org we’ll be right back with your calls and comments coming right up Welcome back to Seculo. This is it. We’re going to take as many calls as we can. Some of you have to hold for over half an hour. Know that I appreciate you waiting, but we do have two lines open. We’ll do our best to get to any new calls that come in as well. 1-800-684-3110. Let’s just go in the order they came in. Let’s go to Susie, who is calling on line four. Susie, go ahead.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hi, good morning. I was just calling to say I am not a federal government worker, and my boss and I were actually just talking this morning about… the fact that it really hasn’t affected us at all in any way. And just the fact that we probably could do with a lot less government in our lives.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, Susie, a lot of people feel that way. It’s interesting. If you kind of polled everyone, I think you’d find some very interesting responses. I look at my kids’ school. Some of their field trips have been canceled. Those kind of things. Which, again, don’t really matter in the long run whether you can go to Mammoth Cave.
SPEAKER 05 :
However… Is it federal?
SPEAKER 04 :
it’s partially and they have you know part of it’s being now funded to reopen but there’s you know they had to cancel a field trip without my kids but another grade and i know those kids were disappointed there’s those kind of things that are they’re trivial but for families that they have money to go to washington dc right over these last couple people have fall breaks and things you spent your money couldn’t get your refunds and most things were closed
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, and to that point, I was out in Colorado a few weeks back right when the government shutdown started happening and hearing stories of some of the reservoirs that are on federal land that people use recreationally. They may have a houseboat there that they were getting calls because the marina is overseen by the federal government saying you have to pull your boat out of the water. You can’t leave it here because we are shutting the government down. And some of those things that where you look at and like, how is that? This is the least efficient way to even shut a government down is by saying you have to cut. You’re not not chaining it off.
SPEAKER 04 :
You can’t use it. They’re like down the streets now. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER 13 :
They were lined up across the highway because they had to go pull boats out of the water. And then others that were on federal land, but the state was running. They were fine. 10 20 miles apart and it just goes to show you sometimes the inefficiencies of government when they’re like government shut down we can’t have an employee here therefore you cannot go on the water uh just things of that nature that those are the weird things but it’s a pain point and sometimes that’s done on purpose to make you get upset and call your representative and say this is ridiculous all right let’s continue on thanks for calling suzy rob’s calling now in south carolina who’s an aclj champion i really appreciate it rob
SPEAKER 04 :
You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yes. I have a twofold question. One is I am on social security. I’m concerned about how that’s going to work. The second thing is I have a son that works for the government under a government contract. Right now they’re holding, but in a, by the time November gets here, it’s all over with if they don’t get paid.
SPEAKER 13 :
We’ve got answers for both of these. Interesting enough, Rob, Jordan and I were talking about this this morning. One, Social Security should not be affected by this at all. And that is one of the things that they ensure whenever this.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m talking about it being impacted on the left, but it should not be at all.
SPEAKER 13 :
Correct. On the second thing is that the government contractors is an interesting issue. And actually, I have some friends that are government contractors as well. Of course you do. When it first shut down, they were like, this isn’t that big of a deal. These things don’t last that long. I’m fine until the end of November, based off the government contract. It’s been fully funded already. However, if it continues to go on, some of these individuals that aren’t considered essential government employees and aren’t technically government employees, but are a government contractor individual, If that rolls up and there’s no CR to continue the funding of these programs that the government funds through contractors, those can start to come up as well. And then those sometimes are a little bit more tricky, depending on what the company is that you work for or what the service is, if that gets renegotiated back when a new CR. Most of it probably will. But that isn’t directly the government looking at the funding or the back pay. That sometimes is up to the third party. So it can get more dicey. And you are about to see a lot more individuals that aren’t government employees get a little bit more boisterous when it comes to the shutdown in the coming weeks.
SPEAKER 05 :
I think if we’re still into this in two weeks, we’re moving past federal employees. We’re moving even past some of the kind of quasi-federal employee contractors to just people who have a federal contract as part of what they do. And that contract is not being paid, even though they have performed on it. So they are at a loss because they have spent time, money, and purchased the resources. Right. So while they’re supposed to ultimately recoup that, how long will the banks allow them to basically stay on loan? Obviously, it’s difficult to grow your business during a time like that because you’re not even able to recoup the funds that are due to you.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, we got four minutes or three and a half minutes and two calls. Both, I think, are really important to hear from. Let’s try to get them both in. Tito in Georgia. Go ahead, Tito.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yes, sir. I appreciate the chance and opportunity to be on your great program and for you guys to discuss this topic. It’s really important. For us, I’ve talked to a lot of my friends on chat groups, and we discuss this every day. It’s created a lot of anxiety because people have mortgages and car payments, some kids in school, some additional expenses that develop. So that’s created a lot of anxiety. And also, if we do get reduced for a buyer, that’s creating a lot of other anxieties because Our skills are very focused military. Most of us are retired military. We work for the military. And it’s hard for us to find employment that will cater to the abilities and skills and experience that we have.
SPEAKER 05 :
Listen, I think one is whatever happens at the end of the day, you will be paid during this time period. So the time period where you were furloughed. There’s been this talk about will people ultimately be cutbacks in positions that are maybe not necessary or the government is just too bloated. I don’t know if that’s really going to happen with this. Some of that is a negotiating tactic. We saw that when they tried to do some of that with the FAA, that didn’t work so great. So they brought people right back in. I will say this. You will get paid for the time you were supposed to get paid. under your contract. This is an administration that has looked at shrinking the size of government. And they are going to try and make this as least painful as possible, I think, to show the American people that you could cut the government by 30% and you’re still just as safe and we could be just as functioning if we funded the 70% that is getting funded right now.
SPEAKER 04 :
You have a lot of people that don’t feel anything and that’s the reason why. Let’s go to Ann really quick on Facebook watching in Pennsylvania. Ann, go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, I love you guys. I just wanted to quickly say that Dems have always been the party of lies, even under JFK when the party was so-called tamed, if you will. Hakeem Jeffries is simply a continuation of that. They’re the ones not passing a bill that is what is overwhelmingly what the people voted for. That is what democracy looks like, people. People decided in 2024. Now, the Dems, they are the party of kings, and since 2016 especially, behave just like kings, spying and fake Russian conspiracies. They mandated all kinds of unconstitutional mandates. including trying to take Trump off the ballot, like you were so eloquently saying, and try to jail him on false charges. The Dems are shutting the government down, not President Trump. Love you guys.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you, Ann. I wanted you to wrap up the show. I know.
SPEAKER 13 :
You could have done a pitch right there at the end and say, talk to you tomorrow.
SPEAKER 04 :
We appreciate you calling in and having your thoughts. A lot of people feel that way. Of course, when you saw that rally over the weekend, there was a party going on. Well, there’s a lot of people who did vote a different way, and you’re acting like we didn’t have a fair election, of course, now. But, you know, whatever. Whatever you want to do, go out there in the streets, complain about whatever it is you do, and see if it changes anything. That being said, I appreciate all of you who called in. That was a great segment. Great group of callers. Great job, phone screener. Give a little clap. There you go. aclj.org support the work so the other phone screen mad mad that he got he got complimented aclj.org right now support the work of the aclj uh we do great work here people i know you know that whether that’s our legal work or media work uh just be a part of it it’s how we stay in business is through you so go to aclj.org make your donation today we’ll talk to you tomorrow
