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The Trump DOJ is launching an investigation into the anti-ICE protest that threatened the safety of Christians at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Sekulow team discusses Attorney General Pam Bondi’s statement, former CNN pundit Don Lemon’s role in the protest, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s press conference, the ACLJ’s legal work – and much more.
SPEAKER 04 :
We got breaking news. We’re covering the Minnesota church protest, which sparked a DOJ investigation.
SPEAKER 12 :
Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Seculo. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome to Sekulow. Thanks for tuning in. It’s Monday. We are live. It’s Martin Luther King Day. And we have really, you know, another tragic weekend to cover the news from last night. Obviously, we had those protests that entered a church in Minnesota. You know, As Tim Walz called for a temperature to come down, for President Trump to come down on the temperature here, I do think we have to start looking at what this looks like because the safety and the issues are getting out of control. And this happened during a church service. Now, we do know that they were targeting this church specifically, and this was a lot of people that stormed this church.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s the Black Lives Matter chapter in Minneapolis, which, again, you go back to George Floyd. Remember the city that we’re talking about here that’s been in the news these last 10 days. This is a city that can burn.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, it really should be concerning. Even when it’s 18 below. And you had Don Lemon there awkwardly kind of bum-rushing the pastor who was speaking. We’ll play some of those clips a little bit later because it is this very…
SPEAKER 05 :
Ellison, also the former congressman who’s now the current attorney general, was doing an interview with Don Lemon right before. I don’t know how close they were to that church, but obviously there’s laws that protect churches from people standing outside and banging drums. Even doing that is illegal.
SPEAKER 04 :
This wasn’t a… Martin Luther King Day this wasn’t what we’re called a peaceful protest yeah this was a legitimate uh overtaking of this church uh Don Lemon was actually out there videotaping video recording uh children leaving and saying look at these kids I bet they’re uncomfortable but that’s the point of protest uh you know what it proved to me honestly is that Don Lemon uh as much as we kind of from I’m seeing it on purpose. Right. There’s a reason he doesn’t have a job at one of these big networks anymore. This is someone who was a good commentator who could read a teleprompter pretty well. I don’t mean good. I don’t agree with him. But could be a television host. But clearly was not liked and clearly not very smart. Because he also goes after this pastor and says, well, they have a First Amendment right to be protesting. You clearly don’t understand the law or how this works. Going into a house of worship and doing this in general is disgusting. And we really need at this moment, I’m nervous. I’ll be honest and I’m nervous that the next statement that comes out from the right and the left is just going to amp this up more that we do not have an opportunity to take a breath, to step back because it feels for the first time in a very long time that we are on the edge here, everyone. And we are on a edge of what could be chaotic beyond belief. Later on in the show, this is Martin Luther King day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Um, Martin Luther King Jr.’ ‘s, um, Nice will be joining us Alveda King towards the end of the broadcast you want to stay tuned she’ll be on to really explain you know not only why we celebrate today why we celebrate the nature of Martin Luther King Jr. the civil rights movement but how different it is compared to what we’re talking about today. Obviously, there are parallels you can look at, but they do not fit the messaging that Dr. King would have had or that a lot of really that whole leadership would be looking at this and disgust.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes. I mean, first of all, it’s one thing to have a silent protest outside of a building, a private property. That is not illegal. I mean, so if you’re not disrupting the service, so you’re not like banging drums or using megaphones, that’s not illegal yeah sure why not it’s the same law that was passed in the 1990s in the middle of the pro-life movement that protects abortion clinics the same law that protects abortion clinics what they did to get bipartisan support this was the early 90s remember so the republican party had not had its kind of come to jesus moment on the life movement yet To get Republican support, though, because they certainly weren’t like Planned Parenthood supporters, though a lot of them were back then. They said, we’ll also put in House of Worships. So even though the FACE Act is a free access to clinics, it doesn’t say anything about churches. It involves, it includes places of worship and it makes it a federal crime.
SPEAKER 04 :
If you have a question or comment about this, call us at 1-800-684-3110. You talk about the Face Act. We see a lot of people talking about it, claiming it, stating it. Let’s get into it in the next segment about what that really is and what it actually means in terms of how this church was treated. We’re also going to discuss a lot more. We’ve got Jeff Malabon joining us also. And again, Alveda King at the end of the show. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Seculo. We do have phone lines open at 1-800-684-3110. Of course, covering the ICE protest that ended up with a church kind of been taken under siege. Yeah, the church was basically everyone left. Yeah, I mean, then they had to. And look, thankfully, it seems like they’re, I mean, it looked very stressful. It looked panicked. Let’s actually play a clip. This is Don Lemon, who, you know, former CNN, entered the church, kind of looks like you know went up to the pastor who would be like he was like the journalist following a protest but then he became part of the protest is it city’s church and really tries to question this pastor and the chaos that’s happening around him i think it speaks for itself take a listen
SPEAKER 03 :
Our church had gathered for worship, which we do every Sunday, and we were interrupted by this group of protesters. We asked them to leave, and they obviously have not left. What do you think of it? I mean, this is unacceptable. It’s shameful. It’s shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship.
SPEAKER 13 :
But there were folks who will say, I have to take care of my flock. Listen, we live in a, there’s a constitution in the First Amendment to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest.
SPEAKER 03 :
We’re here to worship. We’re here to worship Jesus because that’s the hope of these cities. That’s the hope of the world is Jesus Christ. I want to be very respectful.
SPEAKER 09 :
Please don’t push me, though.
SPEAKER 03 :
We’re here. We’re here to worship Jesus. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re here. That’s what we’re about. Don’t you think Jesus would be understanding and love these folks?
SPEAKER 04 :
We’re about spreading the love of Jesus. We’re about spreading the love of Jesus, of course, at that moment. I mean, Don Lemon says, listen. I mean, we have the quote here. He says, listen, we live in, there’s a constitution and a first amendment to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest. Of course there is. That’s not what is happening.
SPEAKER 11 :
in this moment there’s also freedom of religion within the first amendment don lemon leaves out as well but these individuals these quote unquote protesters it wasn’t just as the news has tried to say that they were going after what seemed to be a connection between a a pastor there not the one that’s in that video uh and ice and maybe being an act uh acting field director one it doesn’t matter if he is or isn’t because you can’t go in and do what these protesters did but Jordan they were going in up to individual members of the congregation and attacking them saying look at you you’re so comfortable with your latte look at you you’re so comfortable you’re wearing clothes like what about the people in the street that that are unhoused what about the the refugees and the immigrants and calling them fake Christians and getting in their faces filming them and there’s an individual come and said please just we we don’t want to talk to you can you please just leave us alone and they wouldn’t they were agitated they were getting in the face of the congregants it’s illegal what they did but it wasn’t about some pastor connection at all they went in there to try and create fear to terrorize this congregation there are
SPEAKER 05 :
Federal laws on the books. Most of the time, listen, I’m not a huge fan of the FACE Act because usually it’s used to harass, intimidate, and arrest pro-life protesters or sidewalk counselors who end up being found not guilty.
SPEAKER 04 :
Let’s take a step back and give people an idea. What is the FACE Act?
SPEAKER 05 :
The FACE Act is the Free Access to Clinics Act. So it’s 1994. So right at kind of the heart of the pro-life movement becoming, and we were living it, becoming a little bit more aggressive, doing the sit-ins, sometimes violating the law. So the Congress, in a bipartisan manner, Because at that time, remember, the pro-life movement had not become a core of the Republican Party. Like, you kind of almost kind of take for granted today that almost every Republican that’s elected is pro-life. There’s only like a couple who… It was kind of a non-issue. Right. But to get the FACE Act bipartisan support, it was Ted Kennedy, actually. And for Ted Kennedy to get the bipartisan support, even though it’s not in the name of the law… it also protects houses of worship and it’s not just from people blocking doors it’s it’s it’s in any way disrupting so if you for blocking the door to banging a drum to showing up with 300 people inside the protest you don’t even have to go inside the building To violate the FACE Act. In fact, most pro-life activists don’t go inside the abortion clinic. They get arrested. The guy who got the FBI showing up to his house, I think it was in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania. Yeah, Pennsylvania. He didn’t go inside. He was a sidewalk counselor. The Obama administration tried to, or Biden, tried to go after him with the FACE Act. So even though I don’t love the FACE Act, in the United States of America, it exists. Most states also have laws that would protect a house of worship and private property from this kind of harassing behavior. Does that protect you from people on the street protesting always? No, but houses of worship under federal law today, if you’re making noise, if you’re disrupting, that alone is enough for you to be charged criminally, federally. You could be a federal criminal.
SPEAKER 04 :
For the rest of your life. I’ve seen some complaints, people going, where was security for the church? You’re talking about 100 people show up? Yeah. One or two security guards is not going to be able to fix it. Is that like one bad actor? This was a rush of this. And look, I think we could even take the legal side of this, the FACE Act, all that. Put that to a side for a second. Just from a humanity point of view, where are we headed? Where you have someone get shot on the streets, then it amps up, you have ICE in general that amps up a lot of people, then you have the issue where the protester gets killed, then this happens, it feels like it’s just compounding and there has to be a breaking point. I really would hope especially today, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, that you could actually have a moment where maybe Tim Walz, President Trump, doesn’t feel like this could likely happen right now because it’s not their MOs. Tim Walz is in so much trouble on the phone. That they could actually meet, discuss, and figure out how to Calm this down and not this lower the temperature. That’s not real. Talk about how to end this because we are at a boiling point that is nerve wracking.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and Logan, to that point as well, we know that the DOJ has opened up an investigation. And fortunately, many of these people were live streaming and posting videos. They won’t be too hard to find. But here’s also the problem I have in concern as you talk about this. We’ve seen the increased need for security at places like synagogues because of the rise in anti-Semitism. We’re going to talk about something that has been normalized in anti-Semitic trope in the next segment with Jeff Balaban. But unfortunately… We saw that and we’re like, that’s terrible that synagogues had to have that much security and people afraid to just go to worship. Now you’re seeing it. You’ve seen attacks on churches recently. They don’t make the news as much as they should or they don’t stay in the cycle as long enough. But now you’re seeing this. that now this red line is being crossed where houses of worship are not seen as sacred, are not given reverence by even people that don’t believe that they’re going to go in there and they’re going to get in the face of worshipers. And Don Lemon, I mean, said the quiet part out loud. That was the goal. When he saw people leaving the building, we should play this. This is bite nine. He’s trying not to slip on the sidewalk, so it’s a little disjointed, but you’ll get the point. Bite nine, Don Lemon.
SPEAKER 09 :
This guy here, look, he’s hugging his kid. And, you know, I just imagine it’s uncomfortable and traumatic for the people here. But again, careful, it’s very slippery right here. It’s uncomfortable and traumatic for the people here, but that’s what really, careful, please, really slippery. Not kidding. That’s what protesting is about. And so…
SPEAKER 11 :
That’s what protesting is about. He says it’s uncomfortable and traumatic. They’re creating trauma. And he says that’s what protesting is about. No, it’s not about going into a church and causing trauma in young children.
SPEAKER 04 :
And that’s why one of the reasons, not just because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, this was not actually planned before this show. The reason we’re going to have Alveda King on at the end is you look at the civil rights movement. Was it hostile? Were there a lot of intense moments? Was there violence? Obviously, you know, ended in the tragic death of Martin Luther King Jr. However, his goal was to bring people together, was to actually change hearts and minds within the church, within the community, and to actually bring people to give them something new to hopefully hold on to, to show them the truth. What we have here now is Don Lemon saying the reason people are protesting is to make you uncomfortable, to make kids traumatized. That should not be the goal of a protester. The goal of a protester should be to protest the issue and to hopefully make change, make an impact. You can agree with what ICE is doing, you can disagree with what ICE is doing. You can agree with President Trump. You can agree with Tim Walz. You can do whatever you want. I don’t really care.
SPEAKER 05 :
You can protest peacefully, too. That can also mean violating the law. It can mean causing people… It often does. It means you can be blocking the street. It can mean having a march that’s not sanctioned, that wasn’t approved.
SPEAKER 04 :
How many of our ACLJ clients, quote unquote, were breaking the law and the reason the ACLJ got involved was to help change the law because the law was incorrect. So you know what? When there is that statement of people going, well, they have to just obey the law. That’s what it is. Sometimes in protesting, that is not the case.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s true.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. Does it mean essentially threatening a house of worship? Does it mean causing just chaos? Not again. It feels like there’s no win in sight. There’s no win for the people who are against ICE. There’s no win for the people that are pro-ICE. There’s not a middle ground at all. And we’re going to discuss that coming up more. I want to hear from you. The ACLJ is hard at work as well. Go to ACLJ.org. You’re going to hear about more of our content, what we’re doing here. But we had to talk about this. Go to ACLJ.org. We get back. We’re also here from Jeff Balaban, who runs ACLJ Jerusalem. Another interesting moment that you’re not going to want to miss. A revelation. In the sort of anti-Semitic tropes that have come out of Israel, this one coming out of the autobiography of Josh Shapiro. You’re not going to want to miss that. Of course, remember, he was being vetted to potentially be the vice presidential candidate instead of Tim Walz. Probably would have been a better choice looking at it now. Again, phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. We’ll be right back with more on Sekulow. Check out ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Secular. We are going to take some more phone calls coming up at 1-800-684-3110. If you’re on hold, stay on hold. We’re going to divert a little bit off the main topic of what’s going on in Minnesota. And of course, that church protest that turned into chaos. And we’ve been talking about it for a few segments. We’re going to continue to talk about it. But now we kind of want to pivot over to Jeff Balaban from ACLJ Jerusalem here in just a second, Will.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, that’s right. We’re going to give kind of this crazy update that came out of the weekend, as we saw. This was reported by the New York Times that Josh Shapiro, that is the governor of Pennsylvania, who was vetted to be the running mate of Kamala Harris in 2024. And he revealed in his book, which is called Where We Keep the Light, that that he was asked in this vetting process if he had ever been a double agent for Israel. Now, obviously, the only reason he’s asked that is because he’s Jewish. He’s the sitting governor of a state. But they ask him, have you ever been a double agent? And he responded to the individual who’s doing the vetting, that’s offensive. You’re asking me, I’m the governor of Pennsylvania, if I’m a double agent for Israel. And then they said, well, we have to ask. As if that’s, you know, it’s a thing that you just have to do. Then they continue. They wouldn’t let it go. They said, well, have you ever communicated with an undercover agent of Israel? To which he responds with, if they were undercover, how would I have known?
SPEAKER 04 :
so that’s that but now we have Jeff Balaban joining us our director of ACLJ Jerusalem to talk about this but Logan when you think about that Jeff I mean we know one of the things that leaked out when they were deciding on whether Josh Shapiro would be the Democratic vice presidential running mate was hey he may just be too Jewish for this position that that is what came up that is some of the talking points that were happening they were laughed at a little bit but what’s clear out of his book from himself that that was absolutely true
SPEAKER 10 :
Absolutely. They tried to deny it. I mean, this really first came up because CNN speculated that maybe Shapiro couldn’t do it just because he had a Jewish name and he was a Jew. And that was enough to make him persona non grata for a candidate for national office. And it looks like that it’s even deeper and worse than that. It’s not even just pandering to a base. It seems as though the people surrounding the presidential candidate of the Democrats, the people in that campaign, with full knowledge, decided to explore whether someone just because he’s a Jew some kind of a dual agent for another country. Didn’t seem to have the same problem with who ended up being the vice presidential candidate, right, with Walz, who was, you know, paid by China dozens of times and went over to China, who was actually an enemy of our country. They didn’t seem to have that problem, but he came to this guy because he’s a Jew. So Governor Shapiro, they hammered on whether he’s a foreign agent or, it’s outrageous.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and Jeff, I think as we see what happened in Minnesota last night with protesters storming a house of worship, we’ve seen attacks on synagogues. We have seen an attack, an arson attack on this governor of Pennsylvania because he is Jewish for no other reason. and the fact that the Harris campaign would and it’s not as if this was like a public polling question like do you think that he could be a dual agent which would be disgusting enough as it is but this is their private communication with him vetting him this is what they think are the questions they’re gonna inform them whether or not he’s the best fit to run with her First of all, have you ever thought, you know, I’m going to go directly ask someone if you’re a double agent and they’re going to give me a straight answer. The absurdity of that as it is, but the fact that they’re buying a disgusting trope, a disgusting anti-Semitic trope that gets spread everywhere on the worst parts of the internet. That is what the Kamala Harris campaign was. They were willing to go and ask someone, just because they’re Jewish, do you have dual loyalty? Are you a double agent? Like it’s some James Bond spy movie, and he’s going to go, oh, you got me. You got me. Double agent for Israel. I can’t be your vice president. Maybe they should have spent more time asking real questions about policy or fraud in your state. How have you handled waste, fraud, and abuse? And they wouldn’t have ended up with Tim Walz. But instead, this is where we are.
SPEAKER 10 :
Look, it ties very much into a cultural moment in the United States that you just talked about in the last segment, which is things seem to be coming apart in ways that are very frightening and very dangerous. And famously, the phrase is that the Jews of any country are the canary in the coal mine. You know, the coal miners will take down a small bird And if there’s some kind of a gas emanating that was dangerous to them, first the bird would die, they’d know to run. That’s what that phrase means. And so the idea is that when a country turns against its Jews, it’s a sign that the whole country is about to collapse. And that is actually a moment of danger when you have people knowing not much else running in and storming into churches, yelling, and no one’s listening. when you have media commentators not understanding the First Amendment and sort of standing by these people protesting. And this is, it’s a similar cultural moment. These aren’t random people charging into a church. These are well vetted. Probably there were a bunch of lawyers who looked at this, the people on the team reviewing this, asking these questions of a governor, a sitting governor. By the way, you know, you’re also not allowed to discriminate against somebody based on religion for public office. That’s also a pretty constitutional factor as well. And yet this wasn’t street people. These are people in the campaign who are actually asking this question. And it’s really much about the cultural moment where someone just because he’s a Jew, listen, I’ve shared this. I mean, I wear a yarmulke, so people all the time in Washington, not always enemies, sometimes friends, they’re not thinking, and they’ll talk to me when I go to Washington about my government, my country, or my prime minister. Well, let me tell you something. My government, United States of America. My country, United States of America. And I don’t have a prime minister because I’ve never been anything but an American. I’m a Jew. But this notion that it’s pervasive, but you’d think that smart people would know better. The fact the campaign took out of him, you could see that Governor Shapiro’s incensed, is infuriated. He included it here, and he’s right to be infuriated, and we are right to be concerned that this is what’s happening in America in 2026. Yeah, we see the rise of…
SPEAKER 05 :
really hateful anti-semitism both on the left but now we’re seeing it on the right as well and unfortunately you could say it’s kind of in the in the shadows of the right but it is moving it in a direction that is we we’ve called it out a number of times before but Jeff it goes back to the dual loyalty issue that has always been an anti-Semitic trope in the Western world since the foundation of Israel, which is that if you happen to be Jewish, even if you’re an American, even if you’re the governor of a state being vetted to be vice president of the United States, you’ve got to be asked these questions because you might not be fully loyal to the United States of America.
SPEAKER 10 :
I mean, Jordan, it’s eerie. If you think of, when’s the first time we see this? When Farah turns against the Jewish people. I mean, Joseph literally saved his country. He literally saved the Egyptians. He was more than the equivalent of the vice president. He ran the country. And yet they turned against their Jews and said, oh, we’re suspicious. Maybe they’re going to join our enemies. There was no basis for it then. There’s no basis for it thousands of years later. But when it happens, it’s a terrible sign. And we need to, the only way to fight that, and you’re right, Jordan, we have been raising this here on ACLJ. The only way to fight that is not through anger and resentment and conspiracy theories. It’s by returning to what America was meant to be, which is freedom and tolerance and understanding each one of us, our human rights are inviolable. They’re inalienable because they come from God.
SPEAKER 04 :
Jeff, thank you so much for joining us today. I know it wasn’t in the plans and I appreciate you popping on because what was going on with that one specifically is absurd. But obviously what’s happening also in Minnesota, as you said, it doesn’t feel like America. It feels like we’re at this boiling point. This point is going to break over.
SPEAKER 05 :
A nightclub having to put out a statement apologizing to the city with the third largest Jewish population because they played a song called Hal Hitler. with Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate this weekend.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, in attendance. I mean, this is where we’re headed here. A huge nightclub in Miami. And this is what I’m saying. There’s got to be this big change that has to happen. I don’t know how we get there, but I want to see it, and I’m going to pray for it. I’m going to promote it as much as we can because this can’t be what we’re living in every day. We have the second half hour coming up. If you don’t get us on your local station, find us broadcasting live right now at aclj.org. However, get your podcast, YouTube, Rumble. We’re there. We’ll be right back with the second half hour in less than a minute coming right up.
SPEAKER 12 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome to the second half hour of Sekulow. It’s going to be packed as well. Look, it is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We’re going to be joined at the end of the show by MLK Jr.’ ‘s niece, Alveda King. You know her. She’s seen her on Fox News, many other places. She’s been on this broadcast and a lot of our productions over the years. This, of course, is coming on the heels directly. Last night, as that anti-ice protester group, agitator group stormed a church, disrupted a church service, and not even disrupted, ended a church service. What felt like, or what the video looks like, dozens of people, if not a hundred people, take over this Baptist church in Minneapolis. And we’ve been talking about it a lot. Whether you are on the side of, and maybe there shouldn’t even be a side, whether you’re on the side of, I guess, what ICE is doing or whether you’re on the side of the protesters. There is a heat index that’s boiling over right now in this country, specifically that cloud that is over Minnesota right now. And again, we can go back to three or four things that are happening there. You go back to what’s having the ice, of course, all the fraud. You go back to all of the issues they’ve had in general. And now you have another moment. It’s another moment in Minnesota. A woman obviously was shot and killed. And look, you go back and forth and go, what side you’re on on that one? A loss of human life is loss of human life. And it’s unfortunate. The same instance, you now have these protests that have broken out and are now taking over church services and people like Don Lemon saying essentially good, they should make these kids traumatized and uncomfortable that we’re at this church service just worshiping God. This can’t be the America we live in. Unfortunately, it is. It doesn’t feel right. It feels off. Look, we can all be separated from it. It’s not happening in our hometown, so you’re not feeling it. Will and I were in Las Vegas a couple days ago. You didn’t feel it in Las Vegas. That wasn’t happening there. But we know if we had just taken a flight two hours the other way, we could have been in the middle of what’s happening. um these riots and these protests again there is i’m sure you can point out right and wrong in these situations but the wrong is certainly you don’t take over a house of worship in a church and i think what you cannot do also is say we need to figure out a way to calm this all down and we need a message to the governor of minnesota and the leadership of minnesota and we also need at equal hand a message to the president united states into our administration to figure it out And the next statement can’t be to amp it up because Jordan, it does feel like the boiling point is here and we can’t go much further than this or it’s going to erupt around the country.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, we’ve seen violence. We’ve seen rocks being thrown in California with ice there. There is something though unique about Minneapolis St. Paul and I mean it’s been going on for over a decade now I mean so you’ve had George Floyd and the city burned down and again you could be on different sides of the police that were found guilty I mean police were found guilty of murder so I mean I mean and so it’s not to say that always law enforcement is in the right that’s not what we’re saying here on the broadcast But there are issues there. Then you had the Somali community there. You’ve already had the issues with kind of this anti-Semitism, anti-Israel with Ilhan Omar. Now you realize she went from basically nobody to $20 or $30 million. You have a whole community, $9 billion worth of fraud. Tim Walz is saying he’s not running again for office. This was someone who was just a vice presidential candidate who raised $30 million his first day on the ticket. So as goofy as he kind of came out to be, he is still the governor of a state that is in crisis right now. You have the mayor who has also amplified everything. I mean, everybody’s throwing out curse words and back and forth to each other. And I feel like they’re all just acting. And what they don’t actually care about is the people they represent.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, we’ll be right back in just a moment. If you’re on hold, stay on hold. We’re going to get your calls actually in the next segment. And phone lines are open for you still at 1-800-684-3110. We’re also going to go into an ACLJ victory, so you’re going to want to stay tuned for that. And we’ll be all doom and gloom here today. We’ll have some hope, and we’ll hopefully get some hope also from Alveda King, Martin Luther King’s niece, Martin Luther King Jr.’ ‘s niece, to wrap up this show here on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And of course, it feels like a definitely appropriate time to talk to her. So we’ll be right back with more on Sekulow and support the work of the ACLJ at aclj.org. Seculo. Phone lines are open. We’re going to take calls in this segment before we join Alveda King here in the next segment with Dr. Alveda King to wrap up this Martin Luther King Day, which I think will be pretty interesting to hear from her directly. With that, though, I want to jump into some phone calls. Let’s start off with an ACLJ champion. That is Martin in North Carolina. Champions are those that give on a monthly recurring basis. You can become a champion as well at ACLJ.org. Thanks, Martin. You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you. I appreciate it. What I’ve thing is really just statements of the things that you all have said in a different way that I’m going to say it now about the hypocrisy that’s going on when people of faith are persecuted for standing up for pro-life and the people of persecuting the church, like what happened in Minnesota, basically being condoned. But what you had talked about, Jordan, too, is that peace comes from prayer and from knowing the Bible and standing on the Bible because we’ve been told through it, these things are going to happen. We just need to stand on God’s word, pray for people, spread the gospel, and put our faith and trust in God because he’s the only one that’s got what we’re looking for as Christians.
SPEAKER 05 :
You’re absolutely right. But here’s the thing. We’re not Nigeria. We do have sometimes acts of violence at churches. Unfortunately, we’ve seen that before in the United States, and that is something that, again, we have to- Christian schools. They’re usually individuals. This is not something mass organized by hundreds of protesters in a major city. because somebody on the staff they don’t like what another job that they do outside of the church and somehow then everybody at that church had to be subject to not a protest you know a half mile down the street different story if they weren’t interrupting the service because there are laws about that but you are correct in the sense that we take for granted sometimes in the United States that you go by a place to worship. It doesn’t mean that you’re a Christian. It doesn’t mean that you’re Muslim or Jewish, but you respect those places of worship. You don’t even kind of think about that as a place to go and protest.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and I want to play this clip from the mayor, Nicholas Frye.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s why this is shocking to people because it’s not a normal place to protest. There are places, abortion clinics, yes. Controversial businesses, all the time. But places of worship, usually, all they’re having to deal with is, can they take care of the amount of homeless people that they need to, that are on the steps waiting for the soup line to open up? Things like that in big cities. They’re not worrying about mass protests entering the service.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and this is from the mayor of Minneapolis who was making the media rounds yesterday. This was probably before all of this came out about the disruption of the service. But this is him talking about ICE. And I also want, when you’re listening to this, remember, as far as I can find, I have seen no statement from the governor, Tim Walz. nor the mayor of Minneapolis Nicholas Fry about what happened in that church. So listen to what the the mayor is trying to say here about how these protesters are behaving in his city and how they are pushing back against ICE and remember that context they put up no statement thus far in the videos where people are getting in the faces of people worshiping and accusing them of being fake Christians and it’s despicable listen to the mayor.
SPEAKER 08 :
This is not about safety. What this is about is coming into our city by the thousands and terrorizing people simply because they’re Latino or Somali. And yeah, people in Minneapolis are speaking up. They’re speaking up peacefully. They’re standing up for their neighbors. And this is not just about resisting Trump. This is about loving and caring for the people that call this city home. And it’s been inspiring.
SPEAKER 11 :
that is absurd that he would put that out in that morning yesterday saying that this isn’t you know it’s about loving everyone and then seeing what these protesters did and he hasn’t been the first person to jump out there and put up a video clip or a statement and say look that is not what we’re talking about if he really meant his words he would be the first person saying, nope, nope, this isn’t what we’re talking about. You can’t barge into a church and threaten people and terrorize little kids as the trauma that Don Lemon is referring to that that’s what protesting is about. No, he should be the first person out there saying this is not what I’m saying, but it’s still crickets as far as I can tell.
SPEAKER 04 :
I want to go over to Jerry who’s calling in Tennessee. Jerry, who’s a pastor, who’s also watching on YouTube. Jerry, go ahead.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, Logan. Hey, Jordan and Will. Man, how close are we getting to the end of our society when stuff like this happens? I mean, I’m really concerned. Any society, any community has to have some respect, some level of respect for the law, for churches. Without respect, you move from protest to terrorism. Without respect, you move to cultural collapse. It’s chaos. This entitlement mentality that just seems to keep spreading. is going to turn us into a nation of anarchy instead of a nation of loss.
SPEAKER 05 :
This is my point. Do you really expect Keith Ellison, the Attorney General of Minnesota, is going to launch a major investigation? Because every one of those people could be arrested under state law today. Their homes could be no knock.
SPEAKER 11 :
that’s the kind of level, maybe or not. It’s what they did to a man who was protecting his son in front of an abortion clinic in Pennsylvania.
SPEAKER 05 :
The feds, who are already under enough pressure, God forbid you’re a federal agent right now in Minneapolis, St. Paul, they also, I mean, based on what I saw just from the video, could absolutely show up at every one of those people who are on that video and everyone they can figure out through Facebook at their home or place of work and arrest them and charge them with federal crimes so that for the rest of their life, like so many pro-life protesters, they are federal criminals. Yeah, he carries with him.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and Keith Ellison, to your point, Jordan, he was interviewed by Don Lemon yesterday. And here’s the tweet that Keith Ellison put out 19 hours ago, still nothing about what happened at that church, and said, even when barriers are put in our way, my team and I stay focused on seeking justice and accountability for our communities. Grateful to Don Lemon for being on the ground in Minnesota to help lift up this fight for truth and fairness. That tweet’s still sitting there and no follow-up saying, oh, by the way, I don’t condone what else Don Lemon was reporting on that happened, and that was the barging into disruption of the church service and threatening and terrorizing the congregants there.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, let’s go ahead. Let’s go to Mary Ellen in Illinois on line five. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, hello, Logan and Will. All I could think of when I called in was, and I had other thoughts after listening to y’all, but this reminded me of the pro-life issues that we’ve always been facing with the peaceful pro-lifers against the abortion folk. You know, now, skipping forward to this event yesterday, I mean, you know, the pastor mentioned lack of respect. Yes, yelling and screaming is not peaceful, and that’s no respect just barging in like that. And the other thing that really struck me is the lack of knowledge about immigration law. You know, they’re always saying, oh, they have no warrants. Well, how do they know? And second, there’s a different what I understand. There’s a different due process protocol for people under the immigration laws. You know, and now going forward today to what you’re all talking about, you know, and we could probably spend another day talking about it. Who’s funding all this chaos?
SPEAKER 05 :
And that’s what they really want. It’s the same liberal agitators. I mean, it was Antifa. Black Lives Matter hasn’t gotten a lot of, it’s not been in the news much because they got in trouble, a lot of their organizers, for how they were utilizing their resources. But in places like Minneapolis, St. Paul, because of George Floyd and that protest that turned into a city being burned down or parts of a city being burned down, And a lot of violence, a lot of criminal activity. Kind of opposite of what protesters should be their goal. But I think what is interesting to point out here is that police were there. Okay, if that was an abortion clinic, those police would have been breaking arms. okay putting people in the pad all the all 300 would be in a paddy wagon and they’d probably still be being criminally actually we definitely know they’d still be in jail right now because it’s a federal federal holiday state all day so they’d still be in jail and at least today yeah were there any arrests nothing not that i’ve seen no the police were there so you can’t rely right now If you’re a churchgoer in Minneapolis, St. Paul, the police can literally be outside your church and they will not enforce the law that’s on the books.
SPEAKER 04 :
We only got one minute left in this segment. Sharon, I’m going to go to you real quick. You only got about 25 seconds or so.
SPEAKER 05 :
Think about what would happen in an abortion clinic. Just imagine what would happen in an abortion clinic if 300 pro-lifers showed up. We know, because we’ve done those cases, all 300 would be arrested. Sharon, real quick. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 06 :
OK, this is Sharon from Maryland. I’m a Christian and I’m also a board certified chaplain. This is Martin Luther King. Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Day. He wanted freedom, equality for everyone. If you watch the movie Selma, you will see how blacks. were beaten in Alabama. And I read to a group of children, mostly Hispanic in the class. I’m African American. And we talked about Martin Luther King. I do not want to see the same thing happen to these Hispanic children and children out of other cultures that happen to black individuals.
SPEAKER 04 :
Sharon, I’m only cutting you off because we have five seconds left. You want to stay tuned. In the next segment, we’re going to have Dr. Alveda King, Martin Luther King Jr.’ ‘s niece, on in just a second. Welcome back to Seculo. We’ll be joined in just a moment by Dr. Alveda King, Martin Luther King’s niece. Of course, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And a day when it feels more, you know, maybe it really just connects more than ever. Just due to the current situation, what’s happening and what happened yesterday in Minnesota. We are seeing violence on the streets. We are seeing protests breaking out. We are seeing church services interrupted, children scared and traumatized on the streets and it being celebrated. I do feel like right now we had a call earlier and you can call in also at 1-800-684-3110. Maybe we’ll get to you today. We had a call earlier that said, you know, we got to be relying on God. We got to be praying. And I 100% agree on that. And what we need to be praying for also is for our leadership, leadership of the state, leadership of the country. to figure out what we’re going to be doing as a society. Because as a society, this does not feel like the America that we were in or that we’ve grown up in, where the world feels like it’s on the cusp of being turned upside down. Whether that is protesters, whether that is what happened with the death of somebody who was protesting. Obviously, we know there’s going to be a lot to break all of that down in terms of who was in the right and who was in the wrong. Here’s what we can at least say is human life was lost and that’s a tragedy. The tone that ICE has taken, I think, has become a little cartoony. When you have videos that have, you know, the theme to Pokemon, got to catch them all running, or you have some, it’s an interesting tone we have created in this country that I think can spark some inhumanity amongst the right and the left. where your compassion is gone, where you start to just rely on good and bad or right and left. And I don’t think that’s where we need to be as a society. And when you have a church service taken over, again, with what goal? These are protesters protesting ICE. I understand that. The set goal has to be at some point to change people’s hearts and minds. That’s what Dr. King was doing. His goal was to not only change the laws and what was happening in the civil rights movement, was to also open up people’s eyes. And though he tragically lost his own life, you could say that his legacy certainly did that. But now we are decades later and it feels like the fight continues on in the fight for peace and The fight for calm in this country is just simply not there. You compound that with everything else, including the whole Greenland situation, which I think could be been handled much differently. But now it’s ending in President Trump putting out these sort of global threats, saying we’re going to tariff everyone 10%, not by 25%. I understand the reasoning for the want to control this area as there are threats that could be coming in. But this idea of this essentially what feels like bullying of Europe is not gonna play well long term. President Trump only has three more years as president. We gotta think long term what’s next. And does the chaos that is coming right now create a long-term ripple effect that isn’t worth the short-term win.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and as you mentioned, there’s a lot of posts out there marking today. It is a holiday that everyone… points to his words. He was a man of words, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And so there’s a lot, fortunately, to look to on a day like today. And you see tweets from all over the place, all using Dr. King’s words. But the mayor of Minneapolis this morning, as we… mentioned he had not addressed that situation, did tweet this out or posted this on X. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Dr. King said it best on MLK Day. I’m thinking about this call to stand up for justice, love others, and speak out when power goes too far. As the federal government moves the opposite way, we will keep standing with our neighbors. And I think… that is the uh the problem when when you’re sitting there saying the government goes too far right that is what dr king what his message was his message wasn’t break into churches and and disrupt and get in the faces of congregants. It was peaceful protests, civil disobedience of the laws that were there that were the injustice, not what we saw last night in Minnesota. So I think when you have the mayor… putting that message out today but failing to say and by the way that’s not what we saw at that church that is that is what the caller i feel like was talking about in the last segment not to put words in her mouth but that the politicization of every single aspect of this is problematic and i think that’s what we’re seeing
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. We’re having some issues connecting with Dr. King. We’ll do our best to get to her before the end of the show. But I think Will’s right. It’s something that should be on everyone’s hearts and minds, especially our Christian audience right now who’s listening, going, how can we be better? How can we do better? How can we be better stewards to the people, not just of Minneapolis, but how do we make sure this doesn’t bubble up in your own community? How can we be better in that way? And look, I know that’s not necessarily popular. I know some of you may look and you go, Logan, you’re sounding too liberal. You’re sounding too left. I see those comments that come in because I really feel in my heart, there are moments that we have been presented with that we need to take a step back beyond a political party because this doesn’t represent what we are fighting for. We don’t want to have to go into our places of worship and be scared. We already are often. You’re seeing your police officers there in synagogues and in churches because of real threats that have happened, murders that have happened, people that have been killed, children that have been killed in schools, Christian schools. This is not something to laugh off. And when I saw that footage, it did break my heart. It also made me really concerned. It made me really concerned for the spirit of this country. It made me concerned for what the future looks like. And I want to make sure that we’re not getting distracted. by so much else that’s going on in this country and going on around the world. And I mean that to President Trump as well. We’re praying for you. We are praying that you can do a good job in toning all of this to a point that feels bigger than ever, that really we can rise above what’s happening in the streets and we can calm down the situation. I think you’re going to hit some long-term issues, if not. And I mean that from a political point of view, and I mean that from a country point of view. We are celebrating the 250th birthday of America. Let’s hope this is not one of the last. But there are moments when you see what’s happening in the streets in one of your major cities where you can’t help but question that. We saw what’s been happening to the Jewish community the last few years, and you can’t help but question that. Now you see what’s happening. It is just heartbreaking. The ACLJ gets involved. in many different ways. And look, maybe there are times where I do, I mean, we visited ACLJ people in prison, in jail who had been arrested for protesting. So my heart goes to protesters as well. I’m a free speech advocate, but there’s a line and that line is when you start threatening what I feel like threatening families and children in their place of worship. We’ve crossed that line. So how do we get ourselves out of this as America? Stop and think about it today. Hopefully we will hear from Dr. King later on. If so, we will get a special video presentation done and we will release that later. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to connect with her due to some technical issues. But thank you so much for listening to this show. I know it’s very different when we start talking about sort of the spiritual warfare, the dark clouds that hang over. But I think it’s important. As we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr., let’s remember his words. Let’s remember what he stood for. And we’ll be back tomorrow with a brand new show. So stay tuned. Subscribe if you can. Go to ACLJ.org. Talk to you later.
