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Join us for a revealing conversation as we unpack the strategic selections for Trump’s new cabinet. From cabinet picks to Tobias’s nomination of John Thune as Senate leader, we delve into the implications these choices have for both the transition of power and future policy making. Plus, we discuss the ACLJ’s continuing commitment to fighting for faith and freedom through legal avenues, offering our supporters detailed insights into the essential legal battles being waged on behalf of conservative principles.
SPEAKER 04 :
We got breaking news. Donald Trump returns to the White House for an Oval Office meeting with President Biden.
SPEAKER 05 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekula.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome to Sekula. We got a big show today. Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. We’re going to break down all of the cabinet picks so far by President Trump and his, again, newly selected cabinet. Still names are coming out there. The way these have been coming out, we may have 10 more by the end of this show. Who knows? It feels like a midnight. They get dropped. It’s like a special release. All of a sudden, you’ll have some big things, including, of course, what Elon Musk is going to be doing. We’ll be discussing that as well. But the breaking news is that President Trump is in Washington, D.C. He is meeting with President Biden. An occurrence for the press just happened. This is not a very long clip, but this is all they provided. But I want to make sure you see it to start this off as they have a very cordial conversation. if not awkward conversation. I want to hear from you though. Phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110. What do you think about these cabinet picks? We’ll walk through them as well if you don’t know about them again a little bit. But here is President Biden meeting with President-elect slash former President Trump in the Oval Office today. A very surreal visual. I don’t think any of us really could anticipate what this would look like. The fire blazing behind him. Take a look.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, Mr. President-elect and the former president, Donald, congratulations. Thank you very much. And looking forward to having a, like we said, smooth transition. Do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated, what you need. We’re going to get a chance to talk about some of that today. It’s good. Welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back. Thank you very much. And politics is tough. And it’s in many cases not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today. And I appreciate it very much. A transition that’s so smooth, it’ll be as smooth as it can get. And I very much appreciate it. You’re welcome.
SPEAKER 04 :
And that was just about it. They said, all right, thank you. Sort of some chaos kind of broke out as they tried to ask some questions. But that was it. President Biden again meeting, having a very cordial conversation with President Trump. All smiles, by the way, ear to ear. I think we can’t discount that. There’s been a lot of talk of whether Biden has been secretly a little bitter, obviously, on all the things that went down. There’s also some reports that the pick of Harris, when he endorsed Harris, that that was not something that Pelosi and that team had planned on, that they had planned on an open primary. And then 30 minutes after his announcement, he dropped that tweet that said, hey, or X post said, hey, I’m endorsing Harris. And apparently that caused a lot of chaos. That’s all just reports. No one’s confirmed that. But you can kind of feel that tone. There is the conversation, though, of it being a smooth transition. I feel like each time they say that, that is a bit of a dig. Obviously, we know what happened in 2020, 2021. Maybe not smooth as the transition, but I guess that will be determining whether you see President Biden showing up to the inauguration. What is that going to look like? And it should be an interesting couple months.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. And this meeting is a traditional meeting where the incoming president meets with the current president to discuss transition, other items that they may decide to talk about. This meeting did not happen in 2020 after the election when joe biden won president trump did not have this this traditional meeting because he was contesting the election still it went on and on exactly so so this is a return to this meeting uh after it not happening four years ago but what you did see there was A Joe Biden that looks unburdened by what has been, to borrow a phrase from the current vice president. He had smiles. He seemed very relaxed. And I think he’s probably just ready for this all to be over.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I mean, this comes on the heels of him doing one of these – Q&A type moments for the press yesterday where someone asked about the hostage situation in Israel. And we’re going to play that because his response to that was shocking. We’ll do that coming up in one of the later segments in the broadcast. Again, phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110. In the next segment, we’re going to break down a lot of these cabinet picks. One of our producers says that Trump is releasing his choices like California releases election results in small batches over a few weeks times. So that is how it feels. I mean, finally, we’re getting some answers here. But we’re going to keep taking your calls. We’re going to walk through these. I see a lot of the comments. Some of them I can take. Some of them have some words I can’t read on the air. So we’ll discuss that coming up. Support the work of the ACLJ right now. We’ve got to continue on. We’re in our faith and freedom drive. All donations are doubled right now. So donate today. Welcome back to Secular. We are going to take your calls at 1-800-684-3110. And we’re going to walk through some of these cabinet picks and the ones that have to be confirmed and ones that could just be appointed. We actually have a phone call about this. I’d like to take a call early on. Let’s go to Scott, who’s calling in Virginia on line one. Scott, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, how are you guys doing? I was wondering, is he going to still take RFK Jr. into the cabinet? And one other thing, too, I was confused about the headsets and the walls. I felt like they were kind of backwards a little bit there.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. So secretary of state there as what he referenced and Tim Waltz. Uh, so one, the secretary of state pick is not been confirmed. That was media reported earlier this week to be Senator Marco Rubio from Florida. However, uh, That has not happened yet. It’s not materialized yet. So sometimes, you know, that President Trump likes to put things out in the media, maybe test the water, see what the reaction is. It was a mixed reaction. There was people like John Fetterman praising the pick. And then there were people that on the more MAGA side, right side saying, hey, No offense to Senator Rubio. However, this seems a little bit more in line with the more hawkish military interventionalist type pick that we were wanting to not come out of this term. So maybe he was testing the water with it. We’ll know when it’s officially announced by a press release, probably first seen on Truth Social as we’re seeing those come through. However… The Mike Waltz, we’ve had a very good relationship with him on this broadcast. He was in our Afghanistan documentary. He is definitely more hawkish, a little bit more. It’s a Green Beret. He was the first Green Beret to serve in Congress. That being said, he’s national security advisor. That’s not a role that needs to be confirmed by the Senate, even though it is a cabinet level position. And I think that what we will see, hopefully, when the cabinet is rounded out, is you will see Many voices that bring different experiences to the table so that they can mellow each other out and give President Trump the best options to decide on. That is kind of how he runs it. It is definitely a more smooth process this time than we saw in 2016. He even admitted on Joe Rogan, you know, what’s a mistake from your first time around is that he didn’t really know what he was doing picking cabinet members. He was looking at their votes. their resumes as if he were making a hire at a business where you can hire him and fire him if they’re not doing the job. And while you can do that, it’s a little bit more tricky when you’re president. So he didn’t necessarily have the politics side of it that you really need for those picks. This time, he’s doing it very orderly, very smoothly, very quickly, comparatively to most of the time when you hear cabinet officials members announced but i think we’ll it’ll be interesting to see what comes out of that secretary of state role because right now uh we had the media leak about uh the department of homeland security being christy gnome and then that did come to fruition yeah pretty quickly like 12 hours later uh the the rubio pick is still not been confirmed and so i don’t know that it’s 100 been decided yet
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I do want to also let everyone know if you’re watching, there’s a breaking news right now, which is that John Thune, Senator Thune, has won the role to be the Senate leader. So that is just breaking right now. I know I’ve seen a lot of people asking what that was happening. Right now, again, if you’re watching live, that is just breaking. as this very moment as we’re on the air.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. And a lot of people in MAGA world aren’t necessarily as excited about that. Now, there’s many ways to look at this. There was John Cornyn, there was Senator Thune, and then there was Senator Scott that were wanting to take this role. Kind of the coalescing behind Senator Scott was happening from the more MAGA world leaning senators.
SPEAKER 04 :
And supporters of that.
SPEAKER 06 :
And what we’re seeing now is that the first vote that did take place, they have to do it until they get a majority of the senators. And then if you are the third, when the lower candidates drop off and they do more rounds. First vote was John Thune. Senator Thune got 23. Senator Cornyn got 15 and Senator Scott got 13. So Senator Scott got the least amount of senators. He dropped off the ballot and then they did the round again where Senator Thune did end up winning by 29 to 24. So he got, it looks like the majority of, he got the majority of the senators, but some of those, Scott votes went to John Cornyn, which I’m actually more surprised about. I think between the two that Senator Thune at least is more friendly towards the MAGA side than maybe Senator Cornyn would have been. But we now have a new leader. The Senate gets to pick their leader. That is their rules. It’s not a constitutional position. It is based up of the party that’s in the majority. Makes their decisions and their rules about how they will go forward as a caucus. So now what the senators in the Senate need to hold their new leader to account is that there was a mandate from the American people. We saw the Senate being taken back. uh potentially it looks at maybe gains a few seats in the house as compared to where the house is right now and the president winning both the popular vote uh there’s a lot of people out there saying you know you know he’s probably not going to win it because california still has 20 percent out every time ballots come in he’s still maintaining a two percent uh a gain over Harris in the popular vote. So he’s still up 3.2 million votes. It’s not going to flip. Um, there’s a mandate wanting the agenda of president Trump to go forward. So no matter who the Senate majority leader is, uh, he needs to understand that and i think the senators within that caucus need to hold him accountable as their leader and say we know you control the docket we know you control the calendar but we need to get things done we need to get these appointments through very quickly we need to get legislation and when budget reconciliation happens that’s how a lot of moves will happen Because of the funding of government, that takes the filibuster out of it. So the Senate Democrats can’t block it. That leader needs to be willing and courageous enough to move forward with these reconciliation packages that will deliver what the American people voted them into office to go do. And that is to put forward an America First agenda and move forward what President Trump ran on.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, let’s go ahead and run through some of these cabinet picks that have happened right now because as that breaking news that Senator Thune has become the Senate or will be the Senate majority leader. I do think there’s a lot of conversations happening. I can see them in their phone lines. We got a couple lines open at 1-800-684-3110 and in the comments right now. So let’s just get through some of them. I know some of you heard of Susie Wiles, who’s the chief of staff. Right. Who we knew that does not need Senate confirmation. You have Tom Holman does not need Senate confirmation as the border czar, essentially. Right. Elise Stefanik, who has been a friend of us and friend of our show for a long time as the U.N. ambassador. You’ve heard all these before. Lee Zeldin. Right. who you know almost flipped new york is an environmental protection agency we have homeland security secretary christy gnome so again that’s a name uh coming out that’s a name that most of our audience is familiar with who we’ve seen her running ads nationwide forever uh so that one i don’t know if it was a surprise it was a surprise not that she got a position in in the she was a short runner
SPEAKER 06 :
for vice president, but department of Homeland security was the surprise. It was not, I mean, she has a state that has a very rich energy, uh, economy. I could have seen something like department of energy or something like that for her. And it made a little bit more sense on paper, but president Trump, he’s, he’s working through these, he’s picking who he thinks is going to be best for the job. And the ACLJ has actually, uh, fought cases on behalf of Kristi Noem and have won cases for Kristi Noem and the people of her state.
SPEAKER 04 :
A lot of friends on this list, which is always good, always great for ACLJ and ACLJ supporters because, you know, obviously the ACLJ carries big influence and that helps as long as we have more friends in there. Of course, we have maybe the big one, which is not a cynical confirmation. This is the new Department of Government Efficiency, or as they call it, DOJ, which is Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. This is a pretty interesting one. We all expected there to be something. There was rumors of Doge becoming a department. My son, who is a big Elon fan due to all his tech movements and because of Doge and all the things he’s done. When I sent this to him, the announcement from President Trump, I just got a text back that just said, oh my goodness. Because the fact that he created a department that I think is really needed and is going to be very fun to follow because they are not only going to take on sort of government waste, but They said they’re actually going to create a leaderboard where you’ll be able to log on and see where the waste is happening the most. And then they will then be able to advise where things should be defunded, essentially.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. And a lot of people, especially if you are watching Twitter and seeing the left, they’re freaking out about this. How can he do this? This seems unconstitutional to create a new department. This effectively is a blue ribbon commission, which has a long history in our country, probably the most famous of which was the Warren Commission. Yeah. which brought in experts to analyze the failures of the government in the JFK assassination. But blue ribbon commissions are not rare, really, in the government. It’s where you bring in outside experts and they give recommendations to the government and then it still is up to the government to then go And implement those. He gave them a timeline, basically an 18 month timeline to really get in there, find this stuff. And so that that tool I mentioned earlier, the reconciliation package, that’s really where they’ll be able to get rid. A lot of these things is in the funding of the government cutting these things out and it doesn’t need. a 60 vote threshold in the Senate to get through. So with the Republican majority there, if they stick with it and follow through with the agenda that President Trump was putting forward, we could see a lot of these big cuts happening.
SPEAKER 04 :
The work of the ACLJ keeps going on as well. We’re going to talk about that a lot in the next segment. So stay tuned. Hear about the important work that we’re doing. We need your support right now. Go to ACLJ.org. It’s a faith and freedom drive. These are the two most important months of the year right here at the end. So support the work of the ACLJ, and your gift is doubled. We’ll go through more cabinet picks when we get back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Senior Counsel CeCe Heil is joining us in studio. I did want to keep going through some of the list, but mainly hit on this one, which was the U.S. ambassador to Israel. And that was obviously named by a former governor, Mike Huckabee, which I think it’s a really interesting move. It shows really a, when you have a former Southern Baptist preacher teamed up as the ambassador to Israel, it does show this big move. you know, the closeness that the evangelical community has with Israel. I actually really love this pic. I think it’s very good. Jordan was obviously on Huckabee’s show just a few days ago. Mike Huckabee played Apostle Polly in Jingle Smells, our Christmas movie. So again, someone that we feel connected with. And CeCe, I know you’ve had a relationship with him for a very long time, but I like this pic. I think this is a… I like it being kind of a name, one that people know.
SPEAKER 02 :
You’re exactly right. I think it’s a very, very good pick. I think Governor Huckabee has a love for Israel. He understands it. He has the intelligence to do this job very, very, very well. And I think it was a very solid pick.
SPEAKER 06 :
And Cece, one of the things that we’ve seen, unfortunately, over the past year, a little bit more than a year now, 13 months since October 7th, is some of the softening in some evangelical circles for their support of Israel. Yeah. I feel like the pick here with someone who, one, we know that Governor Huckabee, now Ambassador Huckabee to be once he’s confirmed by the Senate. Yeah. has a unique ability. One, we know that he’s been to Israel probably a thousand times. He knows Israel very well. He is a staunch supporter of Israel, but I also feel like his roots in the evangelical community in the United States could also pay dividends for, the future of Israel of being that ambassador of maybe refocusing some of the evangelical circles that have softened on Israel back to understanding the importance of us supporting the state of Israel.
SPEAKER 02 :
And I think that softening, it’s exactly what you just said. It is really a lack of understanding. I think that’s what you see in it. in the evangelical circles if there’s any softening of support for israel’s because they really do lack the understanding and that’s something that governor huckabee will not have i mean he is very intelligent on this and so he he understands the importance of it and again i just think i applaud that pick i think it’s a great one and having a name that we can point to immediately because i mean no offense to the current ambassador but
SPEAKER 04 :
I doubt anyone in our chat or calling in could name the ambassador right now.
SPEAKER 06 :
And unfortunately, the Biden administration, most of their moves towards Israel has been tepid at best.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, that’s what I mean.
SPEAKER 06 :
Exactly. And that relationship has definitely suffered over the past four years. The fact that we have not just the ambassador to Israel in Mike Huckabee, but having Elise Stefanik as the UN ambassador, who we know personally, face down the anti-semitic outrage on the on the campuses of the ivy league universities and calling out those university presidents she is fearless in her defense of of israel in america and saying there’s no place for this in the world she’s going to the most anti-semitic body in the world and she is going to be fearless there as well i think that these picks are are a good thing to start pushing back against the racism and anti-Semitism that we’ve seen since October 7th.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely. I want to shift off of Israel for a minute, shift off of Huckabee and the cabinet and talk about some of the work the ACLJ is doing because that work has not stopped. It is not like President Trump wins, all of a sudden all of our cases go away, things happen. We’re obviously viciously supporting life wherever we can because we know that it is still under attack so majorly. You’ve heard us talk about what we’ve been doing in Massachusetts, and we’re going to roll out our big campaign coming in just about a month. You’re going to see, or next month, you will see what we’re going to be rolling out. You may have seen a quick preview of that in our film special. You may have seen our documentary special, For the Love of God, Save Our Country, which came out just a couple weeks ago. There was a quick preview of our counter campaign that we’re going to be running, but we are also in the courts specifically going after this taxpayer supported, if you will, anti pro-life pregnancy center campaign that’s being run throughout the throughout the state.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, so Massachusetts partnered with the Reproductive Equity Now Foundation, a pro-abortion group, and they launched this mass campaign. It’s a pro-abortion propaganda campaign, but it targets um the pro-life crisis pregnancy centers or pregnancy resource centers and so we jumped in back in august and actually logan was after you were there in massachusetts and you actually saw this campaign that they launched brought it to our attention we immediately filed a lawsuit going after the massachusetts and this reproductive equity now foundation um it’s clearly viewpoint discrimination. They have gone after and targeted pro-life organizations. They’ve had public threats. They’ve had selective law enforcement prosecution and now the state sponsored advertising campaign. And so What happened was the Reproductive Equity Now Foundation filed a motion to dismiss our lawsuit, and we just filed our opposition to that motion to dismiss. And it’s not something… We expected that. This is something that they typically do. We have every… hope and confidence that this motion to dismiss will be dismissed and the case will go forward not only against Massachusetts but the Reproductive Equity Now Foundation.
SPEAKER 04 :
The fights in the courts continue. I want to make sure it’s clear that though they have issued or they’ve tried to get it to be dismissed, it has not and we continue to fight the ACLJ. This is a very important time I want you to clear your mind for a little bit of the politics in the world that’s happening right now. Because November and December for all organizations, all nonprofit organizations, are usually the biggest fundraising months. End of the year, Christmas bonuses come in. People are trying to figure out what to try to get their tax incentives. This is an opportunity for you to support the work of the ACLJ. And we’ve seen, look, the economy has taken a toll on everybody. We can see that though we have had a record number of people donating, individual donations, and recurring ACLJ champions, that the dollar figure is a little lower than it has been. We have to continue fighting on. So if you have that little bit of extra, this is the time to do it because we are in the middle of our life or our faith and freedom drive where all donations are doubled. They are tax deductible and your gifts are doubled. This is one of the more critical times of year, as we said, to determine our resources that we’re going to have for 2025. And we know 2025 is going to bring a different world. One where a world where we can get actually a lot more done. I think that’s what you need to understand because of politics and because of the things that come out, came out of this election that we are not directly involved in any of that. Now the work can actually proceed bigger than it ever has before, but it’s easy to take the win and say, Oh, you know, the conservatives won. Therefore, you know, Christians and conservatives are fine, but it’s actually the most important time because it’s going to be the most under attack. Plus, It’s actually the time we can get the most amount of work done.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and also, Logan, when you look at the last four years, when you have a president and executive branch that is putting forward things that are hostile to the things we believe in, you have really one target of your legal action and fighting their policies. In this new world that we’re moving forward with starting January 20th of 2025, when there is a White House that will fight for the things that we believe here, now you see states like California and other states that will be trying to push back and implement things in their own state that are detrimental to the rights that we believe Americans are afforded. And so now our target of lawsuits of fighting back is 20. It goes from one that you can focus on to a much broader playing field that we have to fight back on. Like in Massachusetts, like we’ve already started. Those type of things are going to be popping up around the country and that takes infinitely more resources because it’s not just targeted at the federal government. You’re having to fight state governments that are trying to take away and squelch rights of Christians and conservatives.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yep. All right. Again, it is the middle of our Faith and Freedom Drive. It’s a very important time. I encourage you, scan that QR code on your screen. Go to ACLJ.org. Have your gift doubled. Second half hour coming up. We’re going to take your calls and more.
SPEAKER 05 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Seculo. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. We got a full second half hour for you and phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. Let’s start off with some phone calls because I want to get through some of them. So we open up lines and more of you can call in. Let’s go ahead and go to Susan, who’s calling in Kentucky, who is listening on the radio. Susan, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hi. Since President Trump has picked a lot of his cabinet members from the House and the Senate, do we need to worry about keeping our Republican majority in those places?
SPEAKER 04 :
So this conversation is starting to happen. I’ve seen sort of the bubble up when you even see Kristi Noem even in a lot of questions to start happening when these names start getting thrown out and you realize that, oh, some of these high profile senators and so on and governors are going to be now unavailable for that position. What does that look like?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, in the House, that is, one, a smaller margin. But also, he’s only picked two people out of the House so far. He’s picked Elise Stefanik and Mike Waltz from Florida. So in that case, those will be vacant seats until there’s a special election. And there will be a lot of eyes on those elections, obviously, to see if they change party or not. However… Right now, and Steve Scalise, whose leadership in the House, has said President Trump is probably at his max of how many he can take from the House right now and still have the comfortable margin. You obviously want as large of a margin as possible because people get sick. People pass away in office. And for other reasons, they resign. There’s many reasons why you have vacancies. However, they are comfortable that they will still have their majority. with these two leaving but Steve Scalise has cautioned the president maybe stop picking from the house now you’ve gotten two really good picks from here but in the Senate right now the only senator that is not going to be there once the new administration begins is J.D. Vance because he will be the vice president if Senator Rubio was picked that would be another the strategy there is if you’re going to be pulling from the Senate You pull from states that have a Republican governor that will then appoint an interim senator to that seat while they get prepared for a special election. So there are no vacancies in the Senate the way that there are in the House because there’s much smaller membership of that chamber of Congress. But you wouldn’t pick… say, a senator from North Carolina to serve in your cabinet because they just elected a Democrat governor. So therefore, you would probably be actually losing a seat because you would assume that that governor would appoint a Democrat. But you would pick it from safe Republican governed states where that interim will be in place immediately and will still be able to carry out the agenda. Now, as I said, right now, it’s only one senator. It’s from Ohio. It’s J.D. Vance. Governor Mike DeWine will appoint an interim senator. Sometimes it’s a placeholder. Sometimes it’s who they want to run in the special election. But that will be a safe Republican seat. So a little bit easier in the Senate than it is in the House because you can immediately fill that seat. But right now, there’s not a concern about losing the majority based off of these picks. And it’s only been three members of Congress.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. I think people are just hesitant. I’ve seen some of these calls, like Charles, we’ll get to you in the next segment, that have just concerns. I think they have a little bit of PTSD coming out of 2020 and the midterm elections. It almost feels too smooth. You have that with President Biden’s meeting today. We can replay that coming up in the next segment. President Biden has been meeting with President-elect Trump. And it’s a bit surreal after what we… dealt with the last four years so it’s a bit weird to see kind of business as usual politics being put aside it’s refreshing it’s nice but you almost feel like your guard is up because it doesn’t feel real. Phone lines are open. We’re also going to continue talking about these cabinet picks. There’s a few more we haven’t gotten to yet, including Pete Hegseth, who you probably know from Fox and Friends Weekends, or, you know, a lot of things. Incredible communicator and incredible host, but also a decorated guy. So we’re going to discuss that coming up. In the next segment, two lines are open for you, 1-800-684-3110. And, of course, we’re in the middle of our Faith and Freedom Drive. All donations are doubled right now, and we could use it more than ever right now. So if you can support the work of the ACLJ or become an ACLJ champion, I encourage you to scan that QR code or go to ACLJ.org. More phone lines are open right now at 1-800-684-3110. I encourage you to call in. I really like hearing from you all, especially when we’re talking about all of the cabinet picks. Will, one that we discussed as we were heading into the break was Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, which probably our audience mainly knows of as a broadcaster, but is someone who has a deep… history and president trump’s statement said i’m honored to announce i’ve nominated pete hexliff to serve in my cabinet as secretary of defense he spent his entire life as a warrior for the troops and for the country pete is tough smart and a true believer in america first and with pete at the helm america’s enemies are on notice our military will be great again and america will never back down so again another uh familiar face right what i like about this is that what i it’s the same with mike huckabee I believe probably the mass majority of people cannot name the cabinet currently in the Biden administration. not for lack of experience, not for lack of being people who are of character. I don’t know them personally, but they’re not names that you could just rattle off. What I like about this is if you’re in this world, you know now Mike Huckabee is the ambassador to Israel. You know he’s the one we need to turn to. And now you have Pete Hegseth, similarly, a person who’s very familiar. People know the name. You could add Elise to that. You could add Kristi Noem to that as kind of known quantities in this. I mean, Elon, obviously, and Vivek. It’s a lot of heavy hitters.
SPEAKER 06 :
It was fun to be on Twitter last night to see the left melting down. Sorry, I’m old habits. But seeing the left melt down over this announcement that Pete Hegseth would be nominated to be the Secretary of Defense. He needs to get confirmed by the Senate. I think of all the picks, this is probably the harder order for the Trump administration because of what people see and what the left is saying on Twitter is that, you know, he picked an outsider. Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
I mean, look, of all the rumblings, I never heard Pete Hegseth thrown out there. And we’ve heard a lot of these names thrown out there, at least in some positions. This was not one that I had even heard a rumbling about.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. And now he is a decorated veteran. As you mentioned, he served a tour in Afghanistan and Iraq and also served at Guantanamo Bay. He has two bronze stars for valor in battle. guard now when you look at this and it to me this is why i love this pick the people who are melting down are the people who have uh defense contracts who are are very hawkish and and want someone who is going to be more like the generals that we’ve seen i’ve even seen people pointing to like you know general uh you know the secretary lloyd austin who is the current secretary of defense um You know, he was a general. He knew the inner workings of the military. And people are saying, yeah, right. This is the guy who disappeared from the job and didn’t tell anyone and had a serious medical condition and tried to pretend that he was still there. He oversaw the disastrous withdrawal of Afghanistan. Maybe just because you spent your entire career with inside the military machine doesn’t make you the best manager for that job. And I can understand some people saying, you know, there’s two million employees in the Department of Defense. It’s a large operation. If you don’t have that kind of managerial experience, maybe that could be a detriment to you. They build teams around them.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s the other thing.
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s not like he’s the only person. He will be appointing deputies, probably many deputies that have been in those kind of roles, so that it’s not a steep learning curve of managing the department. But I like the plan. Yeah, I like it. The people that are freaking out about it are the people that have a lot of skin in the game as far as contracts. And then you also look at, this is someone who makes millions of dollars a year with his contract at Fox. Yeah, this is a lot. This is big people who are taking significant… You make about $250,000 a year to be the Secretary of Defense.
SPEAKER 04 :
Obviously, it could really build your career beyond this. It could be a big moment for Pete. And it is. I mean, obviously, if they’re taking these positions, look, I feel the same way about Governor Huckabee. He’s got a deal. He’s got a TV show. He’s a contributor to Fox. He’s on a lot of these broadcasts. What I like about it, and I believe what I’ve heard in the picking of the cabinet right now, is there have been these moments where they’re not only going through all of their records and making sure that they match up with where President Trump wants them to be, but he also is taking a look at how they all are on camera. And they all are when they can speak to the American people. So now you’ll have a Secretary of Defense who is very comfortable speaking to the American people, knows how to speak in an English that is understandable. And has some built in trust, at least with your own community. I think that’s good. Same when you deal with such a sensitive situation in Israel and you have at least Mike Huckabee, who, again, was a pastor, a broadcaster for the last 20 years or so, can speak to the American people in a way that’s understandable and is relatable. I think that it goes, and Christine Ohm even, that goes beyond just normal politics as usual, where you put in somebody who may ruffle feathers and can’t speak to the American people and end up causing more chaos for you and unrest for the people.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and here’s a statement from John Thune, who was just elected by the Senate, by his colleagues.
SPEAKER 04 :
This is just coming.
SPEAKER 06 :
And he said, I’m extremely honored to have earned the support of my colleagues to lead the Senate in the 119th Congress. And I’m beyond proud of the work I have done to secure our majority in the White House. This Republican team is united behind President Trump’s agenda. And our work starts today. So this is where you’re going to start seeing what happens with John Thune in leadership as the majority leader, because picks like Pete Hegseth, That one, I do believe, is going to require the most heavy lifting because it’s the most outside of the norm. It’s the most left field pick on paper. So they’re going to have to really prep him for these confirmation hearings. And people like Senator Thune, now Leader Thune, are going to have to ensure that if they are really behind President Trump’s agenda, that they can get these type nominees over the finish line. Because you can’t just put people in the cabinet. They are there with the advice and consent of the United States Senate. So if he is united behind President Trump’s agenda, these are the times that you’re going to start seeing that is how these picks for cabinet start getting their hearings, how they’re voted on, and where we go from here.
SPEAKER 04 :
Let’s go ahead and take some more phone calls. Let’s go to Charles. He’s calling Washington, listening on the radio. Charles, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I’d like to know your opinion about… as far as the Democrats using the 14th Amendment to the point where President Trump would not be president.
SPEAKER 04 :
Sure. There’s obviously always going to be rumblings of this. I think when you have a President Biden out there saying, hey, keep reminding people that he wants this to be a smooth transition, I think they are trying to, maybe the establishment, if you will, in Washington, D.C., is trying to make sure this does not happen.
SPEAKER 06 :
The biggest… A source of this question was from Jamie Raskin back in February. This was before the Supreme Court released their opinion on getting Trump off the ballot that Colorado tried to put forward, the 14th Amendment question. And he had said at Busboys and Poets, a very… famous location to hear liberals talk in D.C., that it’ll be up to Congress to enforce the 14th Amendment if the Supreme Court doesn’t vote the way that they wanted them to. He has since kind of quieted down on that, but that is where the anxiety around that comes from. Now, do I believe that we will see many Republicans, Democrats in the House on January 6th try to object to object to certifying the election for President Trump? Yes, they’ve done it before. They did it for George W. Bush. This is not something that will be novel strategically for them. However, I think ultimately it will not happen. I don’t think that the leadership of the party will. really want to go down that road because they have been the ones trying to push, as you mentioned, peaceful transfer of power. And with President Biden hosting him today, that doesn’t look like it’s the playbook for the leadership of the Democrat Party. And so therefore, I don’t think that it’s going to go through. But let’s play that clip. Yes, this is the clip where all the anxiety sourced by 11.
SPEAKER 01 :
what can be put into the Constitution can slip away from you very quickly. And the greatest example going on right now before our very eyes is Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which they’re just disappearing with a magic wand as if it doesn’t exist, even though it could not be clearer what it’s stating. you know they want to kick it to congress so it’s going to be up to us on january 6 2025 to tell the rampaging trump mobs that he’s disqualified and then we need bodyguards for everybody in civil war conditions all because the nine justices not all of them but these justices who have not many cases to look at every year not that much work to do a huge staff great protection simply do not want to do their job and interpret what the great 14th Amendment means.
SPEAKER 04 :
I mean, I forgot how wild that is. It’s so wild. It’s crazy. Now that you think about the fact that there has been this major referendum where Donald Trump successfully pulled off what could be considered a landslide victory. It’s a crazy thing to see. So I understand why you called in and asked that question. Now I see it even more because I totally forgot the rhetoric that was coming out in that sense. It was wild. We’re going to take some more phone calls coming up at 1-800-684-3110. But there’s always people like him in the deep state, you know, trying to subvert. They’ll probably be subverting President Trump, I’m sure, at every turn. I’m sure they’re going to try to do it again. They did it last time as much as they could. We’ve got to fight back. That’s why we built our Faith and Freedom Drive, which is right now. During the month of November, we’re also giving thanks. I want to thank everyone who supports the work of the ACLJ and encourage you, if you can give, to give today. Welcome back to Secular. We’re going to spend the rest of our broadcast taking as many calls as we can, so give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. Will, is there anybody else on this list of cabinet picks that we really need to go over that our audience would find interesting?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, John Ratcliffe being picked for CIA director I think is a really strong pick. He was the director of national intelligence at the end of President Trump’s first term. Very well versed in the intelligence community, but he’s also did a really good job of cleaning up what Rick started as acting director of national intelligence. John Ratcliffe was then, after Rick moved on from that position, he jumped in there as well, was confirmed by the Senate, and he did a really good job of starting to take on the intelligence state, kind of the deep state within the intelligence community, making things more transparent for the American people. And I think at the CIA, it’s an agency that especially people in the conservative world have a lot of issues with how much leeway they have sometimes And how the deep state within some of these intelligence agencies have acted nefariously. I mean, even the fact that today the FBI announces that they have arrested a CIA employee. It was someone in the CIA that leaked the plans, the assessment that the U.S. Intelligence Committee had on Israel’s response to Iran. And that was leaked to the Iranians and spread around Iranian telegram channels. That was a CIA employee. So the fact that we have someone strong like John Ratcliffe to go in there and clean up that agency, there is a real purpose for the CIA in this world. We do need that. However, there is so much that goes on within the CIA that it really does need to be cleaned up from someone who will take them on.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely. In relation to Israel, can we go to bite eight? Can we pull that up pretty quick? All right. So this was President Biden yesterday. So he was in a gaggle, so the press is kind of yelling and screaming. And you’ll hear someone, and you’ve got to listen closely, and I’ll read it to you after. They throw out there a question about getting a hostage deal by the end of his term. So take a listen.
SPEAKER 03 :
President Biden, do you think that you can get a hostage deal by the end of your term?
SPEAKER 12 :
All right.
SPEAKER 04 :
See, there we go. It’s a little hard to hear, but what happens is President Biden is asked, do you think you can get a hostage deal by the end of the term? President Biden looks up, looks at the reporter and says, do you think you can keep from getting hit in the head by a camera behind you? By the camera behind you? That was his response. And then all right, got up and pretty much that was the end of it. These are concerning times when you hear that. This is how Donald Trump goes in and wins in a landslide. Because one, that’s not how you respond to the press and number two does not respond what you’re talking about do you think you get a hostage deal get American hostages home what that is an answer he can’t give he has to give a snarky response to you know I hope the camera doesn’t hit you I mean that’s a ridiculous thing right that you can’t even believe happens it also just shows clearly they weren’t wrong to try to replace Biden even though it went chaotically
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. I think we should get back to phone calls here as we wrap up the show. Let’s go to Heidi calling from Texas on Line 6. Heidi, you’re on Sekulow.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hello. My question today is about the secret ballot vote that took place in the Senate. And as a constituent, I like to know how my senators vote to know when the next primary comes around, if I should be voting for somebody else. And my question is, why… Um, was it a secret ballot vote? Is it always that way for Senate majority leader or was it just this time? And if so, why?
SPEAKER 06 :
It is always an anonymous ballot, a secret ballot. This isn’t a constitutional position within the Senate. It’s not a statutory position. The Senate is free to make their own rules about their leadership and how they choose that. And so the party normally does it this way. It was just Republicans there, obviously. It was the Republican conference meeting. They go over agenda items. One of their first orders of business is, is to elect the leader of their leadership for the next Senate. The Democrats will do the exact same thing on their side. They will pick the minority leader of their party. And we will see if that is still Chuck Schumer. I would assume it would be unless he decides that he doesn’t want to be in that position anymore. But yes, it typically is. This is the way they do it. Now, you can not like it. But there’s no real strings that you can pull to get them to change that. They have to be the ones that decide, hey, we’re not going to do it this way anymore. Now, you did see many senators come out and say who they were endorsing, who they were going to vote for. Now, we ultimately don’t know how they all voted in the final ballot, but you do know a handful. It was about 13 that were publicly supporting Rick Scott in that. I know Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, both Tennessee senators, were supporting him. and that. So it’s not out of the ordinary, even if we don’t like it. We’d like more transparency. However, that’s how they choose to do it.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, let’s continue on. Thank you for your call, Heidi. Let’s go to Daniel, who’s calling and listening on ACLJ.org, which I appreciate. Daniel, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 08 :
Gentlemen, thank you. And thank you, ACLJ, for everything, for decades of everything. I haven’t heard this discussed much, but a couple of days ago, I heard General Flynn say talking about a potential problem during the transition period. He described that the transition from Obama to President Trump, during that time, the deep state filled 1,500-plus positions in it. in packing the uh deep state with oppositional characters and uh he warned that it was happening again and suggested that mike uh sorry uh the the house lead that the representative speaker johnson yes he recommended the implemented hiring freeze can you tell us more
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I don’t know specifically how a hiring freeze would work. It depends also if those are positions that are already allocated they could fill or even if they’re temporary positions that would need to later be confirmed by a Senate. There’s a lot of different variables there. However, he is not wrong. And Jordan has said this many times. It’s the most dangerous period in American politics is when President Trump was elected until Inauguration Day because the deep state will be making moves. We know that when Obama was going out of office, they stabbed Israel in the back at the U.N. They abstained from a vote, which on Palestinian statehood that was being put forward by the General Assembly. We know that James Comey took advantage of that period of time while they were still setting up their government to send FBI agents to interview General Flynn, as you just mentioned. So, yes, they absolutely are going to try to do everything they can to try to protect themselves, protect their legacy and make it harder for Trump’s agenda to move forward. It absolutely is happening and absolutely will happen. And it’s just knowing where to go to try to root that out first. And I think that the Trump team is better suited to do that this time.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I think so. But also, we’ve got to continue our work as well. And I apologize to Tony and to Michael. We’re not going to be able to get to you today. But as Will said, the deep state, if you will, is always trying to subvert the plans of conservatives, it feels like, and of Christians. And I’m sure they’re scheming to do it again. And that’s why we got to continue to fight back. We just filed actually a critical brief to have Jack Smith removed from his unconstitutional political prosecution against Trump. We’ve heard that. We’re still battling, and we’re going to continue to battle for the next few months, the Biden-Harris administration, because it’s going to keep piling up, as our caller said. This takes a lot of resources, because they have endless resources, and we need your support. Have your gift doubled right now. Have your fight doubled right now to defend faith and freedom during our Faith and Freedom Drive. I encourage you to do that. Go to ACLJ.org and have your gift doubled. If you can… Give a little more than extra. And if you can, become a recurring member of the ACLJ. We call ACLJ champions. Those people that give on a monthly recurring basis. You can do all of that very easily. Just go to ACLJ.org right now. And again, if you’re brand new to this broadcast, hit that subscribe button if you’re watching on YouTube or on Rumble, and we’ll talk to you tomorrow.
