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Join us for an in-depth discussion on the role of politics within disaster relief organizations, featuring insights from whistleblower accounts and legal experts. We explore how political discrimination has infiltrated FEMA’s procedures and what it means for communities in need. Discover how organizations like ACLJ are stepping forward to combat these injustices and what you can do to support or seek help if affected by these disturbing practices.
SPEAKER 08 :
Today on Sekulow, a bombshell as FEMA blasted as new whistleblower revealed.
SPEAKER 06 :
Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 08 :
And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Hi folks, welcome to Sekulow. So, it gets worse. We expected it would. When you’ve represented groups like the Tea Party, and you’re told by the IRS, oh, this only happened once, and you tell the IRS, well, we’re representing 40 groups right now. and then you find out a thousand letters went out to organizations and there were about 40 to 50 groups that were willing to actually go to battle alongside ACLJ with the IRS because that silences speech that’s really bad because it violates a first amendment right and it of course is horrendous that the government did that we always have to be on guard for actions like that but let’s take it a step further The government denying you life-saving services because of your personal politics. Now I’m not just repeating the story out of Florida where that one regional coordinator in Florida who put that list together supposedly and said don’t approach homes with Trump Vance or MAGA signs. They will be hostile or could be hostile. folks just imagine the huge hurricane comes through and they decide not to do wellness checks because of your personal politics people could have died we don’t know if people did die because it was such a chaotic situation I think if you need any kind of medical machine that requires power or even the backup generator had gone out because it had been too long the people who ordered this deserve to go to jail and not because a jail of some kind of a misconduct at you know typing up a first amendment violation this is jail for some kind I don’t know if it’d be first-degree murder but it would certainly be manslaughter or worse.
SPEAKER 09 :
We heard about this right when it was happening. We heard that they were doing this and there was a lot of conspiracy theories online. People thought this is just some sort of social media trend that’s being sent. We actually heard the Biden administration saying, hey, don’t listen to what they’re saying right now. A lot of this is just missing disinformation that’s coming out. FEMA is doing their job. It is what it is. But of course, just like a lot of these things. When the facts come out, they were right all along. So we knew in Florida that this had happened. And now we know also in Georgia this happened. And when this happens now in multiple states, it starts to feel like a concerted effort and not just one rogue person who decided to take on some sort of anti-conservative, anti-Christian, anti-Trump sort of statement. They decided to, oh, that’s not worthy of being saved.
SPEAKER 08 :
Can I uh can we put do we have it up on the screen too the piece of paper that had play you know things you need to worry about things you should be concerned about because here’s the deal like Logan said one regional person who got fired in Florida obviously this worker Marnie Washington who also hinted that she was not the only person by the way that people told her to put this there so we don’t know where her supervisor is and obviously this goes up to the chain of command where the FEMA director needs to step down before they get fired it may be worse for them if they knew these kind of instructions were going out because firing wouldn’t be enough they need to be these are criminal prosecutions This is not you violated my rights, IRS, because you didn’t let me form our group. This is you didn’t provide me water for my child because you don’t like my politics of a major political party candidate who now happens to be the president elect. So this could go extremely deep if we’ve already gotten into two states. But what we need to hear from, especially groups like us, the ACLJ, if you were in the path of this hurricane, and you had a Trump, Vance, or MAGA sign in your yard, were your neighbors getting door knocks, wellness checks, food, water if they needed it? And did anyone come to your door? Because if no one came to your door and they came to all your neighbor’s doors, we think we know now why. So where do you go? ACLJ.org slash help. If you believe that happened to you, our lawyers will work with you. Again, I know you probably can’t be 100% sure, but if you think your neighbors got the assistance who didn’t have signs and you didn’t even get a knock, they didn’t even try to attempt to contact you. you need to contact us at aclj.org slash help. It doesn’t cost a thing if we decide to take up your case. And this is a case that can be so important, folks. It’s why to donate to the ACLJ right there. I can offer all those people free attorneys, no cost to them because of your financial support. Donate today. Yeah, we talk about lawfare as kind of politics at its worst. I think actually you can take a step further. Disaster relief, playing politics with disaster relief with Americans is the worst of the worst. And we now know that this FEMA issue about the Donald Trump, Vance, MAGA yard signs, I had two in my yard, I still might. And just to let those neighbors across the street with their giant Harris Waltz sign down. They still have them out too. I’m driving around. I see a lot of signs still. Blew down a lot. It was not well made. The Trump sign was big, beautiful, got right into the grass. It was a beautiful addition to the home. In fact, when the Christmas tree light guys came over to decorate the house, they said, those Trump signs are so beautiful. Can we just decorate them? Oh, that’s nice. I’m kidding about that. I don’t know. I mean, I can see that. They are beautiful. They’re red, white, and blue. All right. Okay. Get back to this. But if you had those signs of disaster relief. Yes. So you have those signs of disaster relief. And now we know in Georgia, they told their team, basically someone got ahead of it. Two states, by the way. Now we know Florida and Georgia, both are conservative leaning. Right. The majority of the homes you’re knocking on could have been actually Republican homes. Yeah. But what they were told though is, hey, before FEMA gets here- This was by a contractor that told them, a little tip off, before they get here, get those signs down because they won’t knock on your door if they know you’re a Trump supporter. Okay, so how did that person, that contractor in Georgia who called during a hearing yesterday, which is why talking about like this on the broadcast, talking about it at the hearing is so important because I just want to understand and just kind of Remember, the government will always try to say, Logan, it’s like the radical traditionalist Catholics, the RTCs, that nothing happened there. Then we find out that there’s actually FBI undercover agents at the Catholic Church. Here, they said it was a one-off. The FEMA administrator has not yet been fired or resigned. You would think she would with her head down, but she may be facing more legal liability as this goes on because we now know that this was something at least known to contractors so not just federal government employees but contractors as well in now two different states and we want to know how many more people were affected that’s going to be tough to get out of FEMA but if you start contacting us If you were in that kind of a neighborhood or you know your friends were, give them a call and tell them to contact us at ACLJ.org slash help because this is the worst of politics. If politics enters disaster relief, it’s not disaster relief anymore. It’s relief for those the government deems to be decent people. But those unwanted, you know, the, again, I mean, how many times
SPEAKER 09 :
we demean nazis fascist uh the the clinging to your bibles and guns what’s always interesting is when we open up something like this that more people do come out of the woodwork and we start finding out that this is a widespread issue this has happened pretty much with every sort of topic that we bring up here at the aclj that we’re able to address which is we open the door and say hey if you had this happen to you reach out to us and you know we expect maybe some people to respond maybe they have some some half facts they’re not sure exactly maybe that’s why but then a lot of the times It develops very quickly that this becomes a widespread issue well even beyond what we expected, well beyond maybe Georgia and Florida. Maybe there’s more happening. Maybe there’s documents that can be more uncovered because we know that we’ve seen that obviously with this whistleblower and with what happened in Florida where we saw the list of places that you should go and not go and what you should be looking for and not looking for. And it’s a sad time because of this. As you said, politics should not be associated with this. And we have a bite that you should listen to. This is from Representative James Comer from Kentucky. Just give you a good understanding of what’s happening.
SPEAKER 10 :
During the recess for votes, my staff made contact with a new whistleblower who provided a credible account that a FEMA contractor visited the home of an elderly disabled veteran’s family around October 10th following Hurricane Katrina. Helene, while there, the FEMA contractor recommended that the family remove Trump campaign materials and signs from both their house and their yard. He warned the family that his FEMA supervisors do not take kindly to Trump supporters and that they seem as domestic terrorists. The elderly homeowners were so frightened by this and afraid that they would not recover their loss that they removed all Trump materials and signs. Nevertheless, FEMA has not returned to their residence. This took place not in Florida, but in Georgia. Administrator, we’re happy to provide you with more information on this, but we and the American people want to know what FEMA is doing to ensure that political discrimination is not dictating how the American people are receiving aid following a disaster.
SPEAKER 08 :
I want to get your phone calls on this 1-800-684-3110. Listen, Donald Trump is going to get into the White House. This will be a top issue. But we always tell you these 60 days, 60-ish days in between is when things get really bad. It’s when they also try to push the bad stuff under the rug. Phones start disappearing. Data starts being destroyed. Billions of dollars get spent. IRS, you know, they smash the computers and they clean them out completely and now they can’t locate the cell phones anymore. All of that. So we’ve got to get into court with the FOIA and things like that to almost preserve. But if one or two of you even just called today and know or believe this happened to you, we can preserve a lot more information right now, even more potentially than Congress, because we can get into court quickly. You need to contact us at ACLJ.org slash help because I feel for this one administrator who got fired, they tried to make her the scapegoat like they tried to make the Cincinnati field office the scapegoat for Lois Lerner and her team in Washington. And she said, look, I’m not even someone who voted for Harris. I was just carrying out the task. Someone told me to do this, and I did what I was told to do as an on-the-ground field worker in this disaster situation. And I got the list, had a bunch of other things on it, and I gave it to the staff. I didn’t make it. I didn’t write it. So we need her to point to others now that she’s lost her job, and maybe that’s inappropriate that she did. I also want to know why no one spoke up. It seems like are the FEMA employees that nervous about speaking up that this seems like something very dangerous we’re about to say or about to put together as a policy, which looks like we may be picking and choosing who lives and who dies. And that again could be a crime equal to some level of murder because it would be intentional because the intentional act is you’re telling people do not approach those houses so I mean it’s premeditated in a sense you know if you don’t approach those houses there may be people there who are dying or who if they don’t get the electricity or something like that they will die and that’s why I think this is the worst of the worst we’ve heard and Logan like you said I really only believe it’s the tip of the iceberg I mean it’s to me and I think is there more to play on this too because I do want to get to that the FEMA administrator what she blames On this, it’s truly despicable.
SPEAKER 02 :
Our workforce persevered through all of the challenges I’ve just described. And they also persevered through a difficult security environment generated by misinformation about FEMA’s work spread through social media. We help all survivors, all people, obtain all of the assistance that they are qualified for under the law. And misinformation was making that work much more difficult.
SPEAKER 08 :
Misinformation. It was very difficult because the right wing and social media, but the misinformation, I don’t even know what she’s talking about. We have proof. They fired the regional person that was helping out there because it was real. Logan, that’s not misinformation. That’s not disinformation.
SPEAKER 01 :
No.
SPEAKER 08 :
That wasn’t a conspiracy theory. You know what’s worse now is we’ve got it in another state. Are they going to say, oh, well, that’s also a conspiracy theory? And at this point, it’s fair to say now that if it happened in one part of Georgia, it happened in other parts of Georgia and likely happened in other states wherever there was at least someone at some level who had a regional ability to put this kind of checklist together to give out to the teams who were going to go door to door. And it may be regional. It may be that they have a few states. It may be national. It could go all the way to the top. Washington, D.C. usually is involved in these types of efforts, especially when politics is in play. So I just believe, one, We can do a lot of work on this. We’re getting the FOIA, and I would love to assist you if you feel like you were skipped over because of the political sign in your yard, knowing that your neighbors were not.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right, and phone lines are open. We’d love to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110 because we’re going to be taking calls a little bit earlier today because we have some guests in the studio and coming in via remote. We’re going to be doing that later in the broadcast, so we’re going to take calls a little bit earlier. I know a lot of you wait until the end. Give us a call now at 1-800-684-3110 and get in line to discuss this and other topics that may be of interest. Coming up in the next segment, we have a very special guest that are going to be joining us, and that is the group Donnie Van Zandt, johnny van zandt you know them as southern rock icons uh from leonard skinner from 38 special they have a new uh christian album out right now we’re going to talk about that in their experiences i’m really excited to have them in the studio you know that’s something that i always enjoy but we’re going to continue this discussion going on after that as well so make sure you give us a call at 1-800-684-3110 give us a call like i said and support the work of the aclj at aclj.org
SPEAKER 08 :
Listen, FEMA was just exposed at a congressional hearing viewing Trump supporters, quote, as domestic terrorists. We’re preparing to file a major FOIA request. We’re also battling 18 cases right now against the deep state. And we’d love to represent some of you who may have been passed over because of your yard signs if you were in the path of that hurricane and you know your neighborhood, other neighbors were not. How do you do that? Contact us at aclj.org. Now, how do we pay for this where that doesn’t cost you a thing? It’s our donors who donate to the ACLJ during things like our Faith and Freedom Drive. Where you donate today, your gift is doubled. Donate at aclj.org.
SPEAKER 09 :
Very excited because in studio we have Van Zant, Donnie and Johnny Van Zant, Southern Rock icon, Skinnerd, 38 Special, probably collectively I’ve seen a hundred times, maybe more over my lifetime between the two of you guys.
SPEAKER 08 :
Our dad’s been taking us, our mom’s been taking us since we were young enough to go to a concert. Yeah, and see some things, man. It was good. It was a good time. Well, we thank you.
SPEAKER 09 :
Our kids appreciate y’all coming to the concert. This is a bit different for you guys because it’s been a little while since it’s been a Van Zant record. Yeah. But this one is sort of your first real four. I mean, I guess get right with the man that some of those had faith elements. Skinner’s obviously had some faith elements. 30 is special always has. But this is the first going into it with intention. Yes.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER 09 :
You know, go ahead.
SPEAKER 01 :
No, it was on our bucket list of things to do, you know, and this happened to be right on the top of it. So we’re very blessed and great to have it out.
SPEAKER 11 :
You know what? It really hit us doing COVID. You know, I was off for 15 months with Skinnerd and we have a little studio behind my house and we’re neighbors, by the way.
SPEAKER 09 :
We live right next door.
SPEAKER 11 :
I’ve seen on Instagram that you guys are always together. So, you know, so I was like, hey, you know, let’s try to write some stuff. And to be honest, God just jumped on us. And hey, we…
SPEAKER 09 :
we uh we’re so proud to have it out right now i mean we’re like kids in the can you know it’s a great time to have out a gospel album too right now absolutely christmas and everything and it’s called always look up and it that is something that is at the end of all your videos i see your sunday videos you were voting because i’m a legit fan there you go But during COVID, I remember specifically that those became, you know, every Sunday you’d get a video and you’d get an update from you with prayer requests and all the things that were happening. And it really did bring a different side to what you all have been doing for the last, you know, multiple decades because you’re connecting on a different level. You were connecting with the fans, like I said, that were going through it during all of that and then becoming that sort of, you know, conduit for your faith, right? which seems to have really kind of shined over the last few years.
SPEAKER 11 :
You know what? We’ve always had faith. Our dad used to preach to us. He should have been a preacher. And if you listen to a lot of Skinner songs, the Lord has brought into it. A song like Simple Man is a godly song.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER 11 :
Tuesday’s gone. And you know what? We’ve been saying, it’s been on our bucket list for years, man, we should do a gospel album. And what was really cool, we went and seen Crowder, another Christian artist, and Mercy Me just last year. And we were kind of, we just wanted to blend in the audience. And they were like, no, we want to meet you guys. And we were like.
SPEAKER 07 :
Really?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yes. And it was a really fantastic show. The two of them put on a great show. And we were like, this isn’t far from us at all.
SPEAKER 09 :
No. And for those of us that even grew up in the South and spent time listening to this kind of music, like I said, if you had not told me, hey, this is the first time we’re doing this, in my head, I’d be like, of course, this is very natural that this style of music, as you said, something like A Simple Man or any of these songs, Jordan’s Simple Man.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s the twist. So a story behind that for everybody, because they see us a lot in suits and ties as attorneys and politics. But the truth is, at my wedding, which is in 2021, we were at 2011. Yeah, I was like, not 2021. No, yes, I know. You get that right. I got COVID in my mind a little bit. No, but the mother-son dance, the song we chose was Simple Man. And not only did everybody love it, but people had tears in their eyes. I mean, so those songs, like you said, a lot of young people still listen to Skinner. And then as they get older, you start hearing the lyrics again for a totally different way. And I think that’s the same about gospel music and Christian music is that songs about the faith, hit you at different points of your life. You can be down in life, you can be up in life, be really excited one day and it hits you and it keeps you in that mood. You can be down and get you out of that mood.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, you know what? Y’all were just playing There You Are and that’s what that song’s all about. You know what I mean? Whenever you’re down, look to god hey when in the good times look to god you know and uh he wants us to come to him and and we’re we’re very uh faithful uh jesus lovers here you know and uh you know some of my friends you know we’re and we’re not here to preach to anybody you know because we’re not preachers we’re far from it we’re still sinners yeah and uh but uh that sounded bad you know what i mean
SPEAKER 07 :
We all are. Of course.
SPEAKER 11 :
But you know what? We loved, and we’ve sang rock and roll for over our years, and it feels really, really good to sing for our Lord Jesus Christ and spread the word.
SPEAKER 09 :
I know the tour dates for Skinner and the 38th special still are packed in. Do you think you guys will be doing this live? You’re going to be taking this anywhere? You know what? Is it just an album right now?
SPEAKER 11 :
We just did a little acoustic thing this morning, and it was the first time we really played these songs acoustically, and we were just… We were in your bathroom talking and we were like, you know, we could possibly do this.
SPEAKER 09 :
So we’ll see where it leads. I think people would like to see it. I think they’d like to see that different side of you because, again, we’ve seen versions of Skynyrd or 38 Special for so many years. To see this side of you is very fun for us. And I think it’s fun for fans because not that those shows aren’t amazing. They are. And I mean, you guys did the New Year’s Eve thing last year in Nashville.
SPEAKER 07 :
We froze. We froze.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, but on TV, because I didn’t go, I’ll be honest. I went to your event the day before and I have small kids. I’m like, we’re going to watch it on TV. And it did. I won. I was very proud of them for that being what New Year’s Eve was in Nashville, which was Skinner, which was just awesome. Yeah. But to see that different side for you guys to go into this effort. Again, this album comes out on Friday. Comes out on Friday. Which is very exciting. I know it’s exciting. You’re going to be able to get it on stream. We’ll make sure we link it everywhere. Again, it’s called Always Look Up, which, like I said, is how you typically end your videos.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, yeah. You know, that all started doing COVID. And I love doing it. and seeing the people’s comments and what gets me is that i love seeing the people go always look forward to this on sunday so believe me i’ve been traveling i do it wait a minute i’m trying to get home you know i’m trying to get home and get it done but uh i love doing it and uh some amazing prayer warriors on there and uh hey i’ve had to ask them for myself you know i have a young daughter who’s who’s going through some hard times right now storm and we yesterday was a great great doctor’s appointment for her and and uh so we’re coming out of that storm thank god yeah that is great yeah i mean a lot of us been following and following your stories and like you said whether it’s family members or whatever it is there is that uh sense of realness that comes through uh and with this style of music and with your music by the way historically as well where
SPEAKER 09 :
if you look back on maybe the legacy of Southern rock, it is that honesty, whether it was what’s going on in the world, whether it was talking about anything that Skinner covered, 38 Special covered. Sure, it’s fun, it’s loud. But when you really break it down, as Jordan said, lyrically, it has always had a pretty big depth. Yeah, that’s why we write songs.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. You know what? I mean, what we try to do is write about truth. And if we can touch you emotionally and spiritually, we’ve done our job here. Looks like we’ve done pretty good so far.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, I love that. The dance, the simple man.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s amazing. And just, I mean, I think about how many generations of people in there know every word to the song.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, now you’re going and it’s through.
SPEAKER 11 :
or four generations do you know when we went it was just like our parents just recently I did a show with Skinner and I have a picture on my phone I wish I could show it to you but there was a little fella he couldn’t have been no more than four years old but he had the big earphones on you know his parents thank God were covering his ear but he sat there the whole night
SPEAKER 09 :
lip syncing with me singing along i was like look at this little guy so i took a picture i was like oh my god i’m gonna remember this forever you know what we do man we get in the car to carpool and we’re like all right i’m playing you the music you need to hear you know because this is what they need this is what we need to be you’re teaching them and then we go to these shows and it’s funny because my kids will have conversations with their teachers and their teachers will tell me they’ll be like It’s like you’re raising your kid in a different timeline than everyone else.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, thank God. It’s job security for us.
SPEAKER 09 :
Absolutely. Van Zandt, always look up. It is available on Friday. I got a CD, which is cool to see. I feel like a real talk show host. There you go. Look, there it is. Always look up. It’s coming out this Friday. We are so thrilled to have you guys in the studio.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER 09 :
Busy day. Oh, yeah. Doing promotion. And God bless you. We just, again, appreciate the two of you coming in and spreading the good news. Yeah, you got it. Spreading the good news.
SPEAKER 11 :
Happy Thanksgiving to everybody.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you. All right. That again, Van Zant, take a look at their new record, Always Look Up, which is available on Friday. Man, it’s just been such an honor to have you both in here. It’s very cool. As just a super fan, it’s very, very cool. So thank you so much. We’ll be right back. Second half hour coming up.
SPEAKER 08 :
keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is seculo and now your host jordan seculo all right welcome back to seculo yes we are live and so you can imagine uh you know you got your some heroes of rock oh i know i mean it’s almost like that was a dream that happened i mean it feels like that wasn’t live that just happened they walked in i bet that in a lot of those homes that didn’t get knocked on
SPEAKER 09 :
I bet Skidder was playing. A lot of Skidder fans. A lot of Skidder fans. A lot of 38 Special fans. Absolutely. Our friends in the Charlie Daniels band. I don’t know anybody that doesn’t know the songs.
SPEAKER 08 :
No, I was talking to… Even people who might not even be… Southern rock may not be in their top five. They might not even be from the South. My son the other day was like, hey, I would love for you… If you go to Alabama, you could sing in any country in the world that I do karaoke to.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, huge in Europe and all these different places. But my son was like, hey, he kind of played a game with me. And my wife was like, every decade, pick a song. If you had one song you had to pick from each decade to stick around, all other songs were destroyed. And we went through the 50s. I was like, Elvis, I said something like, that’s all right. Mama, 60s, picked a Beatles song. The 70s, I was like, it’s Freebird. Freebird is the song that has to be around. So it was very cool, again, to have them. Freebird as well and all the karaoke.
SPEAKER 08 :
It just takes a long time. You better be able to sing.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, you better be able to sing. And then you got an awkward standing for about eight minutes there at the end with the guitar solo.
SPEAKER 08 :
So you just kind of air guitar.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, just mic drop. But okay, we’re back on. Sorry to the fanboy out there for a minute. It was really fun for us. Hopefully it was fun for you. Check out Van Zant’s new record on Friday. Give us a call though. I think Van Zant, we put up the domain here. Van Zant Band, I believe. VanZantBand.com and you can find out all your favorite streaming services. You can get the CD and it’s available again. It’s coming this Friday. So again, thanks to those guys for stopping in and being on the broadcast. But we want to get back to our topic of the day and some of the other content we have. And we are going to be taking all of your calls coming up in the next segment. So we have a guest in the final segment. So 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, so we look at this, too. We’ve got this new FEMA whistleblower, and we’re hearing his statements. And this is, again, this is a five-year FEMA veteran who is revealing this bias at the Disaster Relief Agency, calling it, quote, rotten to a core. Rotten to a core. These are folks who, if you decide to work for FEMA, one, you’re someone who’s interested in logistics, but number two, and maybe actually the bigger than number one is that You want to be able to help people. I mean, you’re there for emergency management. You want to help people be able to get back on their feet. You want to make sure people get the right insurance information done. You want to make sure people are alive, like doing wellness checks. And the fact that they are picking and choosing Americans. Imagine if the story was flipped to, you know, don’t knock on the black people’s house. don’t walk on uh don’t knock on the door of anybody who’s got a democrat side in their house or don’t walk on you know if they don’t speak english to miss skip over their their yard that’s not what fema is supposed to do it doesn’t matter who you are or whose house that is they should be knocking on the door it goes back to the rhetoric that was spread during uh
SPEAKER 09 :
Now, of course, that’s changed. Now Joe Biden can have a meeting with Donald Trump. Now Mika and Joe Scarborough can go down.
SPEAKER 08 :
He disappeared into the rainforest yesterday.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I saw that. Go meet with Donald Trump. But before it was, you know, people that supported him were Nazis.
SPEAKER 08 :
Would you usually welcome Hitler into the Oval Office for a peaceful transition of power?
SPEAKER 09 :
And when that starts to permeate people’s minds, including whoever was making these decisions, sure, they think, of course, we shouldn’t be helping these people.
SPEAKER 08 :
There’s got to be someone in FEMA sweating. Not just the director, but somebody who at least at a regional level, because we’ve got Georgia and Florida now. This particular hurricane was mostly in the south. So you’ve got to go into their regional offices, the south regional office, I’m sure. I would imagine it’s headquartered likely in Florida or Georgia, somewhere around there because of the amount of storms that come through Florida. And the fact is, this didn’t just hit the local office. We know now that someone else was told, a contractor picked up on this and went ahead at a neighborhood and said, take those signs down or else they’re not going to knock on your door. And that was in Georgia. That was not in Florida. So this is new. It was a whistleblower who came out. during the hearing called the committee. This is why I know you’re out there, folks, and you can go to ACLJ.org slash help if you believe this happened to you. If your neighbors got a knock on the door and got supplies or help, but FEMA never contacted you and you’re in the same neighborhood because you had a Trump sign up or MAGA something by your front door, let us know. we need to take this to court. ACLJ.org slash help. Representation costs nothing. Donate today as well. We need your support to do that. ACLJ.org donate. All right, welcome back to Secchio. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. And I really encourage people, if you were someone who in this neighborhood, I mean, because, Logan, the widespreadness of this, we’re going to play for people in a moment. It wasn’t like, you know, one house out of 100. I mean, so I really do believe you need to think a bit. If people in your neighborhood were contacted, think about it. Were you at your house? Or not contacted.
SPEAKER 09 :
Were they not contacted? Were people, do you feel like, oh, that’s weird that they didn’t come by me, but they came to someone else or someone in your neighborhood? Now, Will, we’re going to play this bite from Annapolina Luna. What was this exactly at? So people know.
SPEAKER 05 :
This was at the House Oversight Committee hearing on the whistleblowers, as well as this FEMA employee who was fired.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, I just wanted to give you a setup so you understood what you’re about to hear. So if you want to know if this was a widespread issue or if this was a one-off, take a listen to this.
SPEAKER 02 :
people have been impacted by avoidance and de-escalation. Do you have a number for that just nationally or is there a database for that? I can tell you that for this particular incident at the direction of our employee, 20 homes were skipped.
SPEAKER 09 :
20 homes were skipped of, and that’s just this one incident, 20 homes were skipped due to this specific issue of saying if you had something that would indicate that you were a conservative or a Trump supporter or whatever it may be, that you were skipped. This was a conspiracy theory that happened that quickly became almost confirmed. We saw this list come out and there was a lot of conversation in FEMA saying, no, no, no, this is all false. fake this is all disinformation and much like all of this it ends up becoming true and as jordan said if this was signaling any sort of group democrat republican any sort of of minority race religion creed uh it would be horribly offensive. It would be the worst of the worst, really, in humanity, because you’re saying, I’m going to skip helping someone who has no water, no power, because I don’t like who they’re voting for, of one of the two major parties, which, by the way, ended up winning all of the states that were mentioned that had this problem, and the majority of the country.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I think, Will, our producer said you went from a conspiracy theory to a legal conspiracy, and we now need to go find all the conspirators. to put on trial. Because this, I will tell you, folks, I don’t say this about most things immediately. Like, you know, when you’re talking about a violation of your First Amendment rights, you fight that in court, and it is, there are damages there, and it is horrendous, and people deserve to be fired. People deserve to go through retraining, and sometimes commissioners and heads of agencies need to, you know, be fired as well. And have that spot on their record so people know this was someone who needs to got to carry it around for the rest of their life. This is a step further because people died and there could have been people, there could have been someone in those 20 homes that could have passed away that maybe didn’t have to pass away. Because they didn’t get the supplies. Or just suffered. They suffered longer because they couldn’t get their child’s access to baby formula or water or if they needed any kind of medical machine. And they lost even the generators that back up with that because the power was out for so long. And we didn’t know and FEMA didn’t know and FEMA didn’t care because they had, what did they call it? Avoid Holmes advertising Trump.
SPEAKER 09 :
We had family members that were there. Our aunt was there without power for an extended amount of time. And not only without power, then it became power and then it became a cell phone service. And I had friends, you know, by the way. who are on a completely different side of my political spectrum, but are someone who I consider very close and are good people, who walked down the street in the area and went to my aunt’s home to check on her, and then they were able to call and contact me. If that person was not someone who would see a political sign and be upset about it, what would they have done? They would not have done that because that’s basic humanity. Basic humanity is reaching out and helping your fellow humans.
SPEAKER 08 :
Beyond politics. You put away the politics. But FEMA now appears to be, just like most of these government agencies, just filled with a swamp. They said it’s rotten to its core, another unnamed FEMA employee said. The whistleblowers are coming out saying this is happening in other states. And I think we have to add now FEMA to the list. of agencies that need to be thoroughly reviewed people need to be fired some need to be prosecuted some need to be need to be behind bars because again they abuse their authority and that could have cost people not just their life but also as Logan said it could be a lesser thing it could be still severe bodily harm severe physical damage that or even the a process to go through to get insurance documented correctly. FEMA does that as well. They document what has happened so you can provide it to your insurance company. Those are all, if they avoided providing you a service that you as an American deserve because you pay for with your taxes and so do your neighbors, that is the worst of the worst kind of treatment of our fellow Americans by the federal government. It’s a federal government no one has faith in. We even know that when President Trump comes into office, his biggest obstacle is not the American people, it’s the actual bureaucracy.
SPEAKER 09 :
What is his moves when it comes to FEMA? Where does the president stand on being able to adjust what’s happening inside of that department?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I mean, completely, this person, I don’t think this administrator is going to survive past the time that they’re useful to keep in the position to keep asking questions. And, of course, you can fire them or they can resign. Is that the president’s decision? They can’t stop. Well, the president can fire them, yes. But someone probably much lower could actually take out the FEMA administrator usually because it’s under DHS. Yeah, so Department of Homeland Security. so again you think Mayorkas though this is a guy who doesn’t think there’s a crisis at the border is they’re not going to rigor rigorously pursue this they’re going to try to run the clock on it Logan hope we don’t aren’t concerned about it but this is the type of people that Donald Trump comes in and you’ve got to you start at the top and you work your way down and that’s the big deal about draining the swamp is to truly do it you can’t just cut the head off the snake
SPEAKER 09 :
You’ve got to get the whole body. Let’s take a phone call. Let’s go to Bill who’s calling in Wyoming who’s got a related question. Bill, you’re on the air, and if you want to call in, this is kind of the last chance to call in, 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I’m not too sure if this includes FEMA, but I do think the left talks about how much humanitarian they are, and yet this is happening. I think that’s really upsetting. My question is about what’s happening in Ukraine. I’m kind of wondering if maybe they’re trying to set this up so that if anything that President Trump sets up to make it look like a concession America makes, that they might try and say that, see, he’s a lot weaker than what he is.
SPEAKER 08 :
I think, again, if I’m hearing you right there, and we’re going to talk about this with former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, this idea of we’re hearing about nuclear weapons from the Russians. We’ve heard about what we have now allowed the Ukrainians to utilize missiles that can, and they have, hit inside Russia. So not just being used in a defensive manner, not just being used on the battlefield, inside land, or that has been… taken by the Russian military that is considered Ukrainian. So this is, again, I think what they’re doing is escalating the war as quickly as possible to make it more difficult for President Trump and his team to be able to get this horrible conflict to an end so people stop getting killed and it’s not going to be perfect for either side most wars that end like this aren’t but you’ve got to have you got to be honest about who you’re dealing with and you’re dealing with Putin so you’ve got to give him an off-ramp where he doesn’t look like he lost and I think the same goes for Zelensky I mean you could already say by by actually keeping back and being able to push back the Russians this long uh with support from the United States uh is a victory in itself that Ukraine has maintained most of its territory in this again in this invasion but remember this all started again under Obama and Biden and they took Crimea and the world did nothing and then Donald Trump comes in and they didn’t take any more land And the moment Biden’s back, what do they do? They try to totally take over Ukraine. Now, they haven’t been able to do that because of our financial support and weapons. But the problem is no one is giving us and providing us how this ends. And you are not some kind of Russian spy or Russian agitator or you’ve been turned by the Russians or just sympathetic to Putin because you’d like to know that our leaders, even if they can’t tell you specifically, but at least our leaders are working towards
SPEAKER 09 :
an end game here and the goal should be ending the war uh and and so that the suffering stops this has been a war that’s been very stalemating you know it doesn’t it’s not like that has moved a lot yeah we have a lot of these borders it kind of you know disappeared from the news for a while until you had some situation where you know we’re approving large spins billions of dollars more billions of dollars going uh and allowing this weaponry to be used in different ways
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and I think, again, we’re going to talk about it. I think people are rightfully concerned, but also I think this is playing politics. with people’s lives again, with war, because I do believe President Trump could bring this to a close. I think what they know is that they can make it that much harder by allowing the Ukrainians between now and January 20th to start trying to escalate the conflict by firing deeper and deeper into the state of Russia, in the Russian state. And that then, Vladimir Putin says, well, if you do that, I’m going to respond this way. And now considering the U.S., by the way, he considers the U.S. a part of this war. Our leaders try to say we’re not having to fight it. He says we are. So we’re targets too. Give us a call. Secretary Pompeo is coming up next. Support our work at ACLJ.org. Donate today. All right, welcome back to Secular. We are joined by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as a senior counsel with us at the ACLJ. Secretary Pompeo, thanks for joining us. I want to get right into this FEMA investigation we’ve been talking about. There’s a congressional investigation that was launched into FEMA allegedly discriminating. The use of disaster relief against Trump supporters. I mean, it was a very broad. We know in just one neighborhood by one of those employees that 20 houses were passed over. And again, that was just by the one that we know about. We also have another whistleblower that is called in during the hearing. and talked to the staff yesterday and said, well, I’m a contractor and I went to these neighborhoods and when I was speaking to people, I said, hey, before the actual FEMA team gets here, remove your political signs, those Trump signs, or they’re not going to knock on your door. So it also appears, Secretary Pompeo, this is not one rogue employee at FEMA, but at least regionally, This was a talking point and a directive that was going out to the people that were going to be going door-to-door in these parts of the Southeast.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, look, Jordan, it’s very clear this is illegal. It is indecent. I think your hypothesis is right. I don’t think this is a one-off situation. I think it is almost certainly the case that this was a broad directive, and that’s why this investigation matters so much. It will not only unpack this corruption, which I think this is undoubtedly just an example of, But it’ll unpack this corruption in a way that will allow the next administration to hold anybody who was involved in that accountable. And I’m counting on that to happen, both the investigation and the accountability. The American people deserve this to happen. And those who discriminated based on political views in an emergency situation have to be held responsible for their actions.
SPEAKER 08 :
Interesting Secretary Pompeo, because they tried to place the blame on someone pretty, you know, a field agent for FEMA and they fired her immediately. And then she’s gone on television to say, listen, one, I didn’t even vote for Kamala Harris, not a political person at all. This was just what was sent to me to send to the team. And she gets fired because they tried to scapegoat her and… lo and behold a new whistleblower comes forward and they’ve got the information and I think what we see time and time again Secretary Pompeo with when we see this kind of corruption inside the federal government the first action is to always try and blame you with the IRS it was the Cincinnati field office I remember it was field agents there they don’t they don’t know what they’re doing when in fact it was Washington DC IRS headquarters that was putting this out same if Same kind of feeling here. They tried to scapegoat someone, fire them, and then hope this story would go away. And instead, more FEMA employees are coming to Congress with the same information. So I think when we talk about, again, the people inside these government positions, it’s got to be extremely difficult for them right now under this kind of politicized disaster relief, you can even call it that, because if they speak out, they may lose their job. And then if they don’t speak out, they may have to take the blame.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. Jordan, they take the fall. Look, this is now pattern in practice. And so I fully expect we’ll find the same phenomenon here where there were senior people who understood from the president on down that this was the expectation. This was the norm. This is this is how we rule. Right. They politicized everything we’ve talked about at the IRS. We we know it took place at the FBI. Now we see it at FEMA. They took these institutions that aren’t political institutions, but are institutions that the United States people depend upon not to be political, and they politicize them. And I doubt that this is just one rogue official. This is going to turn out to be part of a larger scheme designed to benefit the political moment, which was an election that was pending at the time. And I can’t imagine anything that is more indecent to do to these important American institutions.
SPEAKER 08 :
We’ve seen some interesting actions inside the Baltic Sea. So two undersea telecommunications cables are cut. They’re damaged earlier this week. It impacted, I think, communication Germany, Finland, as well as Switzerland and some other countries as well that are being impacted, some more than others. And now in Europe, they’re worried it may have been sabotaged by a Chinese cargo ship that was dragging its anchor along, and they are following this ship. Would you be surprised to find out That it was the Chinese that were behind this?
SPEAKER 04 :
Jordan, I’m pretty hard to surprise at this point in my life, to be honest with you. It would be rational for them to have done so. It’s a pretty low threat way to go after it. It was indeed a vessel that drug its anchor. You can always claim it was accidental if there’s video. But more importantly, I think the lesson is for all of us, these are pretty vulnerable systems. I hope that we’ll take a breath and do the hard work to figure out why it happened here. But Just as important is to figure out how we can prevent this from happening, whether that’s in peacetime when someone’s trying to just be aggravating and create a nuisance, or in wartime when these undersea cables really matter, when that connectivity is essential to keeping America safe. We’ve clearly now seen that there’s not a capacity to secure them, and we need either an alternative communications model so that we have a backup model, Or second, the ability to actually protect these cables from having a simple anchor drag across them and shut down the system for a while.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, you bring up a good point. We’re probably at a point where the undersea cables can be part of the communication, but we can probably do better with something that’s more secure. This idea, too, we’ve got with a new administration coming in, we know… that China had, they learned a lot from the first Trump administration, you know, with, with COVID and issues like that. I think that, you know, it’s on the, it’s on people’s minds that we know that part of a new incoming presidency that the world leaders like to test, especially those who can be, have adversarial relationships with the United States. And so what do you expect from the Chinese? Do you expect any kind of acts of aggression and test early on of President Trump?
SPEAKER 04 :
Jordan, that’s interesting. I actually think you’ll see a period of quiet. And maybe they’ll do one or two small things. But I actually think they’re going to try and figure out if there’s a path forward that isn’t what we’ve seen these last four years, which is push and push and push and receive no response. I think they believe and had evidenced and experienced President Trump responding. There won’t be one free bite at the apple in a Trump administration. I think you’ll see President Trump respond vigorously to Chinese actions. So I’m hopeful that the Chinese will take a path that is fundamentally different than the one they’ve taken these last four years and that Putin will do the same thing in Europe. He will see that there’s a different set of leaders, a different sheriff, and his model for aggression will be much more accommodative to U.S. interests, much as it was during the first four years of President Trump, where, as you said earlier in the show, they didn’t take any of Europe. They didn’t attack Europe on our watch. We did it under the president before and the president after. I hope the Chinese will do the same and recognize that there’s real risk. in threatening America with President Trump as its leader.
SPEAKER 08 :
Secretary Pompeo, as always, we appreciate you joining us with that insight because, you know, people, they’ve gotten past the election. They’re starting to think, what’s this going to be like from some of our adversaries in the world? And we’re certainly going to want to keep coming to you as we, you know, these international stories get more and more complicated and foreign affairs can get very complicated during these transitions of power. So we appreciate always your work with us here at the American Center for Law and Justice. And folks, all of this work you know it was bringing bringing the man’s ant brothers logan mike pompeo and of course being able to tell everybody who could possibly be listening to this or watching us right now that if that happened to you via fema to contact us that we could represent you at no cost We’re able to do that because of our financial supporters and donors. We have our Faith and Freedom Drive ongoing right now. And Logan, this is really important for when you have an issue like FEMA pop up and now you realize it’s not just one place and it could be a lot more people. But it’s also so we’re prepared for the new year as well. And so you double the impact of your donation. And it’s really important to us at ACLJ.org for people to make that move right now if they can.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yep. Currently we’re in our faith and freedom drive. All donations are doubled. All your gifts are doubled right now because we have incredible ACLJ supporters and ACLJ champions who are ready to unlock their pledge if you do it right now. Go to ACLJ.org and join the fight and have your gift doubled. Talk to you tomorrow.
