This episode dives into the intriguing discovery of $4.7 trillion in untraceable treasury payments, exploring the implications of such a massive, mysterious sum and the measures being taken to enhance government efficiency. The discussion brings Elon Musk’s role into focus as we explore proposals to modernize financial processes and eliminate wasteful spending, such as the substantial cost of paper checks. Our hosts talk through potential reforms and highlight how the transparency push could reshape governmental operations.
SPEAKER 01 :
In another discovery, Doge finds $4.7 trillion in treasury payments that are impossible to trace.
SPEAKER 07 :
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.
SPEAKER 01 :
And now your host, Logan Sekulow. found that are impossible to trace we’re going to discuss that rick grinnell’s going to be joining us a little bit later harry hutchinson’s going to be joining us a little bit later so it’s a packed show will but i know a lot of people are tuning into here what is it what else has elon found and of course look i as much as i would love to keep talking about this every day it feels like there’s a new giant discovery and elon even said he hopes that in like four or five months he’s put himself out of a job because he’s just going to go really fast to get a lot of this done But it’s not only $4.7 trillion that we cannot trace. They said the quote was almost impossible to trace. There’s also some proposed things like deleting paper checks, which you may go, hey, how much are we really spending on paper checks? I don’t know, to the tune of at least $750 million a year on just paper checks. Again, that is the idea of government efficiency, is to modernize things to where you do not have to be worried about these kind of expenses. When you’re closer to a billion dollars, three quarters of the way to a billion dollars just on paper checks, things can be changed. But let’s talk about that 4.7%.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. When you look at the way that our government has been operating, it’s astounding, really, that the United States is still standing in the way that we are. Because this $4.7 trillion in Treasury payments, basically when an agency… submits a request for a payment and the treasury cuts the check they were not putting the treasury account symbol in the coding field so they know what that money is for so they’re just cutting checks at the request of agencies and these things much of this is appropriated funds or things that were supposed to be spent as far as we know But the problem is, is they weren’t coding it when they’re cutting the checks. So you have agencies that have a budget, and then you have the Treasury Department that cuts the check for them. And it’s impossible to reconcile what payment goes with what line item. If you were a small business and you were not dealing with $4.7 trillion, let’s just say $47,000, a small business you’re operating in, And you weren’t able to reconcile what checks you were writing for what? You know who’s knocking on your door? Some of those 87,000 IRS agents that the Biden administration hired.
SPEAKER 01 :
Does it sound shocking when the quote is just, as of Saturday, it’s now a required field, increasing insight into where the money’s actually going. Good work. It’s funny to me that that’s somehow controversial. Now just making sure we have a line item expenses to make sure you know where not only your money is going, but just where the government themselves, so they know where they’re spending their own money. Like I said, we’re not oblivious to the idea that the government needs money and is going to be spending taxpayer dollars on something. But if you can’t trace trillions of dollars… That is a big problem. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110. We’re also going to talk a bit about, you may have seen in the news, that Marco Rubio and Mike Walz are currently meeting in Saudi Arabia. Is that correct, Saudi Arabia? That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. Saudi Arabia with dignitaries of Russia to try to begin the conversations of an end to the war in Ukraine. So, of course, this is probably one of the first times a Russian official has met with an American in many years. As we know, the Biden administration would not even discuss anything, would not talk to Vladimir Putin or anyone in his administration to try to end the war, to settle things down, to stop death and destruction. Hopefully we have Secretary Rubio and Waltz in there to really get things done. I’d love to hear from you on those topics at hand, 1-800-684-3110. And look, the ACLJ is involved also in terms of how we can support the Department of Government Efficiency. We’re going to talk about in the next segment exactly what we’re doing in the courts. So right now, support the work of the ACLJ. We get back. We’re going to discuss that. Become an ACLJ champion while you’re at it. That’s someone that gives every month. We appreciate it. It helps us set a great baseline. We’ll be back with those details. Vote lines are open. We’ve got two lines still open, 1-800-684-3110. Actually, three lines because someone hung up. This is a great time to call in and get your voice heard on the air. Well, we wanted to restate what was going on with the Doge Department uncovering another $4.7 trillion, but also how your ACLJ is getting involved in this. And I kind of wanted to walk you all through it because you may go, yeah it’s a lot of talk what’s the action point what can we do that’s why we listen to this show that’s why we get engaged with the aclj the secular broadcast because these guys don’t just talk about it they go to work and they get it done that’s why we have an entire incredible top-notch legal team as well as our media team we are founded the aclj on those legal fights I know a lot of you tune in now for your news, and I appreciate that, and I like that, our commentary. And if you’re brand new, we do this show each and every day from 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time. Hit that subscribe button if you’re watching on YouTube or on Rumble. But, Will, I wanted to talk about not just the $4.7 trillion, but how by supporting the ACLJ, you are getting involved in this. That’s right.
SPEAKER 06 :
So when you look at what’s going on here with the Department of Government Efficiency, this is really a mandate from the people. This was one of the main reasons that President Trump got reelected among many, among many. But the people were tired of seeing their hard earned money that was taxed by the government. going to programs that they knew were ridiculous, that they knew there was wasteful spending. I don’t think we knew to the degree of which the… There’s definitely corruption within the government in some areas. There’s definitely waste, fraud, and abuse. But I would say this new category that we’re looking at is just incompetence. The fact that the Treasury is just cutting checks but not coding with a Treasury account symbol where these payments correspond with line items, basic, simple accounting practices that they require the American people to do it. Why isn’t the government required until now to follow those same practices when they’re answering to us? That’s our money. that they are spending. It’s your tax dollars. But then you have to ask, as Logan said, how do we get involved? How can we support this? Other than many people that already voiced their support with their vote last November. This is now being attacked by states, by state’s attorneys general, by outside groups are finding any way that they can put a stop to Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency. And we talked last week that we filed four amicus briefs in court supporting the government and Doge, and they’re being able to continue this work while outside parties are trying to stop it. Now, what does that mean? When the ACLJ files an amicus brief, we have our skilled expert lawyers write the brief and file it in the appropriate case. Those then get read by the judge. They get read by the other parties and see the legal arguments that we’re making. And what legal arguments are we making in these cases? that the president of the United States is a unitary executive. He is the branch of government. The president is in and of himself a branch of government. What the left has been trying to do and successfully in many ways for decades is to isolate the bureaucracies, the agencies that fall under the president’s purview as somehow independent of his oversight. and they’re using Congress to make laws to try to hamper him, that’s not an oversight role of Congress. That’s them impeding the function of a co-equal branch of government. And so when they file and say, look, this violates things like Administrative Procedures Act, or this isn’t done the way that we think as Congress it should have been done, they’re not allowing the president to have oversight of agencies under his direct oversight. And so that’s what we’re arguing. Our attorneys are experts in constitutional law, but also because of work over the past eight years in presidential power. So when we make an argument before the court, It’s heard and it’s looked at very seriously. Many times our briefs get cited in the opinions by judges because of the compelling arguments we make. We may not be directly representing President Trump in this case or Doge or one of the states. But we have the ability to represent you before this court. And we are already before have filed in four different cases. So when you give to the ACLJ, you support that work. And we don’t charge our clients for that work. When we write and give a legal argument, you are helping make a path forward for a better America and making sure that we operate with inside the constitutional framework that our founders set up. and try to put a stop to the way that they’re trying to let the bureaucracies just run by themselves, unaccountable to anyone. And so when you donate to the ACLJ, that work continues, and that work will continue, Logan, all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary, which I have a feeling a lot of these cases will be it.
SPEAKER 01 :
absolutely so that’s how you can support that’s how you get involved i want to make sure will could break that all down for you and we have harry hutchinson joining us in the next segment i believe that’s right in the next segment he’ll be able to talk a little bit more too he’s senior lawyer here can really break down everything that’s going on and how the aclj is getting involved phone lines something happened and we lost a lot of calls so there’s some lines open right now at 1-800-684-3110 perfect time to call in let’s go ahead and take joe who’s calling from new york on line three joe welcome hey guys
SPEAKER 10 :
What Will said is why I’m an ACLJ member. Thank you so much. Accountability. Here’s my question. I’ll try to make it short, but I had a conversation yesterday with a woman who says my 84-year-old grandmother isn’t going to have heat payments now because of Doge. Another comment was the university in the town I’m in isn’t going to get research grants. People are going to be out of jobs. Things like this. Another one, you know, things like that. Human services, drug, alcohol treatment places aren’t going to have housing anymore for people. So these are concerns. And how do we verify these things? How long it’s going to be paused for? And, you know, it’s just I appreciate Elon posting on X, but I think But, you know, I don’t know how to respond to people. I guess at least we have somebody monitoring this now. But these are serious.
SPEAKER 01 :
Look, people are losing their job. It’s true. I mean, there are thousands of people that are having their jobs cut. That’s not fun. That’s not fun for anyone. I feel for those people. Now, a lot of them are provisional. We’ve learned that. If you may have seen the reports of the national parks, had 1,000 cuts. Now, 1,000 cuts, by the way, to National Park Service is only a very small percentage amount of people that work there. And most of these were people either the jobs were doubled up or… They, again, were in their provisional basis. It wasn’t felt necessary. And then also, a lot of them were then switched over to seasonal because it felt that these jobs were not necessary as full-time work. Joe, so there’s a lot that goes into this more than just people are getting fired, people are getting fired. It’s not that we don’t have heart for people getting fired and losing their jobs and losing their benefits. Look, it’s not their fault. They took a job. However, to be good with your money, to spend your money wisely, how many times have you or a lot of our listeners gone through layoffs in your business? And you’re not sitting there going, oh, man. I mean, yes, you’re mad at your employer probably for the layoffs, but sometimes you know that the business can’t survive. It’s not dissimilar to what’s happening in America. You have to be able to survive. And to do that, sometimes these cuts need to be made. And when they get out of control, when you have something like $4.7 trillion that you can’t even account for, that’s where a checks and balances actually gets to come in and do their job. Joe, it’s unfortunate. It’s sad that some of those things are happening. I also think those are a little overblown.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I would also, I’d echo that, Logan, is that many of the programs within some of these agencies were not actually pausing the direct payments and direct assistance to the American people. And so the media has tried to spin it as the, you go back to the time where when Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan were running and they said they want to push grandma off the cliff. Because they want to reform Medicare and they want to reform Social Security. And many times those are the easy headlines to create fear and genuine fear in the American people that when they are trying to clean up wasteful spending and fraudulent spending, that that isn’t the case, that they are fraudulent. freezing payments that are going directly to Americans that are dependent on that. Now, you also mentioned research at universities. Yes, I think a lot of those are going to go away because of how vast and out of hand research The grants that were being just pushed out the door with no oversight and any pet project was getting a research grant. I mean, it’s been the joke in conservative circles for a long time of how absurd some of these projects were. And then when you also look at things that USAID was doing, yes, it was things that you never thought that your hard-earned dollar was going to pay for. And the consequences, there are people… That’s their job. Should the American taxpayer be paying for that job? I think what most Americans look at is say, no, that’s not what our tax dollars should be used for. And so, yes, there are layoffs. There will be things where people are redundant. They are no longer necessary because the work they were doing for the federal government wasn’t actually doing anything for you, the taxpayer, that is supporting that.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. We’re going to continue on this conversation. Phone lines are jamming up right now, but we’ll try to get to them. Some won’t make it through. So keep giving us a call. But I do want you to support the work of the ACLJ. And as I said, Harry Hutchinson is going to be joining us in the next segment. And Rick Grinnell will be joining us a little bit later to talk about some of the movements that’s happening with our conversations with Russia. If you had questions about that, it’s a good time to get those questions in as well. But again, I really want you to become an ACLJ champion today. Get involved in this fight. ACLJ.org slash champion. We just filed, as Will said, four briefs to defend Doja’s fight, and you can be involved in those. ACLJ.org. Do it now. Welcome back to Sekulo. Phone lines are jamming up. We’re going to take as many as we can. We’ve got one open still, 1-800-684-3110 to pivot on this conversation. Though, obviously, we’re talking about more uncoverings from Doge and, of course, the legal process that’s going ahead with it. And, Will, there are some familiar voices, some familiar names to a lot of our listeners in terms of who the judge is that’s going to be making potentially this decision and maybe going in a very surprising way.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. So last week we talked about the four that we had already filed in. There’s another case that is before the D.C. District Court. And this is state’s attorneys general that are bringing a lawsuit trying to stop Doge from cutting.
SPEAKER 01 :
You’ve probably seen the headline of, oh, don’t worry, the rogue judges are going to take care of this. They think they’re above the law.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. So this one and I will say the ACLJ is preparing to engage this one as well. This would be the fifth that we have engaged in just just shy of a week and a half whenever that one is filed. But Professor Hutchison, this name of this judge is they had preliminary arguments yesterday or hearing on whether or not this judge would issue a temporary restraining order trying to stop Doge from their cuts and firing of employees. is one we’ve heard before. It’s Judge Chutkan who oversaw the January 6th case from Jack Smith. And Professor Hutchison, what have we heard from Judge Chutkan thus far?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, surprisingly enough, Judge Chutkan seems like she is prepared to follow the Constitution. As you explicated earlier, Will, the President of the United States is a unitary executive under Article II of the Constitution. And now we have 14 states who are claiming that the President lacks the authority to provide oversight and perhaps to fire federal employees The predicate to their claim is they must show irreparable harm, and this particular judge does not believe that they can muster sufficient evidence in support of their claim, and at least on a preliminary basis, she is inclined to basically dismiss them
SPEAKER 01 :
the temporary restraining order request by the 14 states so it’s very surprising yeah maybe we actually are seeing a judge step in one that we knew of and say hey it’s not all political it’s not all party line there is a rule of law here and we’re not just going to go ahead and go with it because uh you know the the internet sphere on threads decides you know the judges need to take control of this
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. And also when you think about this, sometimes we get frustrated by judges that dismiss things pretty quickly based off standing because they’re like, ah, the parties didn’t actually have the ability to bring this in the first place. But that’s kind of what she indicated when she declined to rule from the bench. Now, she can issue an order that could go differently if she has a change of heart, but we’ll be looking for that. But Professor Hutchison, that did seems exactly like what she’s saying here is that these states attorneys general and the states themselves may actually not have standing to file here because they can’t prove that they were directly harmed.
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely. Indeed, the judge went a little further suggesting that the employees, if they were before her court, would have difficulty because they could be fired. But let’s assume they were fired wrongfully. They could then reclaim their jobs down the road and they could be compensated. Here, it is even more extreme because the states are claiming somehow they are harmed. They thought they had a favorable judge, but the judge right now, at least so far, is inclined to follow the law and to follow the Constitution. We should also consider the background. The background is the US government is still stuck in the 17th century with respect to some of their processing. I started my professional career as a check reconciler on the midnight shift and I used an adding machine and I added up checks to make sure there was no fraud, waste or abuse. What Elon Musk is trying to do is trying to introduce the 21st century to the United States government.
SPEAKER 01 :
You think you’d be showing your age, but they’re still doing it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, but also I would say the difference there is that you were actually reconciling the payments. what it appears has been happening is that as far as our treasury goes, they haven’t been reconciling anything because they’re not even putting the line item code in the treasury. What was it called? The treasury account symbol. So they know where those line items are reconciled from.
SPEAKER 02 :
Precisely. So what the treasury has been doing, the treasury department and the federal government, they have in some respects either inadvertently or deliberately been assisting potential fraud.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right, let’s go ahead. I want to take a phone call. John is calling from Pennsylvania. He’s got a question related to this. I think it’d be a good time to take it. John, you’re watching on YouTube, which we appreciate. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I don’t know if you guys heard this, but I’ve heard a couple of constitutional scholars stating that the way the court system is being used, these federal local courts and all these filings could be not constitutionally correct and that the founding fathers are
SPEAKER 02 :
uh didn’t have it set up to be that way to be going after to the after the executive branch i don’t know if you guys have heard that or any comment on that yeah you got a comment we’ll defer to the lawyer uh sure so brilliant question so the real question here is whether a district court can issue a nationwide injunction affecting all 330 million people based on a case brought before that particular judge. It’s a nonsensical argument made largely by the left. Justice Thomas on the United States Supreme Court has indicated that the Supreme Court needs to rein in these district court judgments. and basically insists that a district court have only authority over his own jurisdiction, meaning that Judge Chutkan could rule, but her ruling would only affect potentially Washington state.
SPEAKER 01 :
dc well hopefully john that answers your question we do have a second half hour coming up on this broadcast i want to make sure you’re tuned in and you know so if you’re listening over the radio some of you are i know that uh some stations don’t carry the full hour they should but they don’t so you go to aclj.org or if you’re listening later on we’re live from 12 to 1 p.m eastern time each and every day But then you can find us later on, archived on YouTube, on Rumble, on our podcast feed, on the new ACLJ app, which you can get in the app store just by going to aclj.org. There’s a lot of you watching right now on YouTube, and I know just based on the way YouTube runs that a lot of you are brand new. You may have never seen us before. We do this show each and every day. If you’re brand new, a great way to support the work and a great way to get this voice out there is just to hit that subscribe button. I’m going to encourage you to do that. 465,000 plus have done it already, plus over 200,000, I believe, of our own Rumble. So however you’re watching this show, I encourage you to get engaged that way. But if you’re watching on YouTube right now, hit subscribe, click the bell. You’re going to get a lot of great content each and every day, not just this live show. But if you’ve enjoyed this show for years and you’ve been part of our ACLJ family here, I encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ. If you’ve already given, I encourage you, if you can, give again because this is the end of February. We’re starting to wrap up this month. It’s a great time to become an ACLJ champion. That is someone that gives on a monthly recurring basis. Over 20,000 of you do, which was incredible, but we could use your support. This is not a cheap endeavor. We are not funded by major sponsors, and we are involved… With the Doge fight. We’re involved in what’s going on in Israel. We’re involved in what’s going on all around the world. Rick Grinnell is going to be joining us in the next segment. Former Director of National Intelligence. Now Special Envoy of President Trump. We’re going to discuss that coming up. What’s going on in Russia. So stay tuned. Phone lines are open too. 1-800-684-3110. We’ll be right back with more. Second of Admiral Seculo. One minute break. We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 07 :
keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. We’ve got the second half hour coming up. If you’re just joining us now, we’re talking about that $4.7 trillion payment, dollar payment, that is unaccounted for. They cannot figure out where it all goes. They said it’s virtually untraceable. I can get the exact quote for you. And as Elon Musk and the Doge Department starts making these cuts, they’re even exposing things like $750 million that is currently being used just to write paper checks. This is the type of changes that we want in the government. We want modernization to save money and to put money in better hands, to put it in places where we actually need to put money. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. Rick Ronell is also going to be joining us in the next segment to discuss what’s happening in Saudi Arabia right now as Marco Rubio and Waltz are currently… meeting uh with Russian officials I guess you’d say uh to start I don’t want to you know oversell it but to start the discussions that hopefully could lead to an end of the war in Ukraine now this is the very early discussions but as we know the Biden administration decided they were not going to talk to Russia at all and the Trump administration said hey if we’re going to actually stop the death and I think that’s what President Trump has been saying stop the senseless death We need to bring it into this war and we need to get involved in any way we can. And that is what’s happening. We’re going to discuss that with Rick Grinnell in just a little bit.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. I think we should go to a phone call here.
SPEAKER 01 :
Which one do you want to take?
SPEAKER 06 :
Let’s go to Bob calling on line six from Ohio. Bob, you’re on Seculo.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. First, I want to say that I definitely can feel for the people losing their jobs. I’ve been through multiple job losses thanks to previous administrations of the Clintons and Obamas and now the Bidens. But what is totally incredible to me is that so many people throughout the country that’s upset about the work that Doge is doing, which I applaud highly, and it’s just totally disgusting what they’re turning up for. is that the people don’t seem to be able to see or don’t choose to see through the fog about where the blame really lies with this. It’s not The work Doge is doing is wonderful. The problem and the fault lies with the people, the past administration.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, who’s making the decisions at the beginning of the day? Not necessarily. Look, we feel for people who are losing their jobs or they’re losing their benefits or anything like that. And again, I feel like some of that has been overblown to some extent. However, it’s not that we have no sympathy or no compassion, but… You have to treat the country, running the country like a business in many ways.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and to Bob’s point, many of the positive jobs numbers that were happening, especially during the last two years of the Biden term, the growth in the jobs wasn’t in private sector jobs. It was either hospitality industry, so people getting hired in restaurants, hotels, things of that nature, which many times are shorter term. They’re not necessarily like career jobs in the way that they’re reported. But also… was the biggest source of growth was government jobs. So the government has a way to manipulate the jobs numbers, which gives better poll numbers for the president. Look, we reported all these new jobs. Many times that was government jobs that they were adding to help boost the poll numbers and to boost the jobs numbers. They also had to keep revising down their numbers months later after they got the boost in the press. So their plot didn’t work to help it look like we’ve got this thriving economy. But to Bob’s point, these people were just being added to the government. And when we talk about as conservatives about not needing to be dependent on the government, there’s so much of our economy, whether it be the NGO economy, which is only basically getting funded by places like USAID or just how vast the federal government has become. There is a large swath of the population that is fully dependent on the government and they keep growing it. And that’s not really what the founders envisioned.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yep. And Rick Grinnell will be joining us in the next segment. So you want to make sure you stay tuned for that. If you have a question for Rick and what’s going on with our conversations now that have begun with Russia, give us a call. 1-800-684-3110. Call anyway if you have a question or comment. Because after, Rick, we’re going to take as many calls as we can. And I’ll be honest, we just opened up a bunch of phone lines. So there’s four lines open right now. And I have a feeling there’s more than four people listening. I can look at YouTube and say, hey, there’s about 6,000 of you just on YouTube live right now. Give us a call if you’ve got a question. 1-800-684-3110 or a statement. Of course, if you are an ACLJ champion, this is someone that gives on a monthly recurring basis. You get bumped up to the front of the line in terms of getting priority treatment when you call in. It’s a great little perk that I created. I just threw out there for fun. So you can become an ACLJ champion right now. We’ll be right back with Rick Grinnell. Welcome back to Secular. Rick Grinnell is joining us. Rick, there’s a lot of conversation happening right now in the news about what is happening in terms of our conversations with Russia. Right now, we have Marco Rubio meeting with, I guess you’d say, Russian officials in Saudi Arabia right now to begin sort of, I guess you’d say… preliminary discussions the first time that we have spoken to anyone on that side face to face in many years and of course there’s going to be some pushback to that saying well you know we shouldn’t be negotiating we shouldn’t be talking to them but as president trump once said i believe in his campaign you know i just want to see the end of death i just want to see end of senseless death happening in these countries where are we and what should people know well first of all let’s be really clear is that the the trump team president trump himself and the team
SPEAKER 13 :
have met with the Ukrainians several times. I can think of at least four meetings that they’ve had with the Ukrainians. And so this whole idea that since Joe Biden hasn’t spoken to Vladimir Putin in more than three years, and President Trump and his team now are reaching out to the Russians for the first time, I think the context needs to be clear in that we’re talking to the Russians, but we’ve been talking to the Ukrainians. We’re having these discussions. Talking is a tactic to get to a goal. It’s a very good thing to talk. It doesn’t mean that you’re weak when you talk. You can talk to people and present a very strong America-first argument, but you’ve got to talk. And so… I applaud President Trump for actually having his team meet with the Russians and begin this conversation. The American people are spending hundreds of billions of dollars for a war. And yet there’s been no peace talks. And so we owe it to the taxpayers that we should be trying to end wars. And that doesn’t mean we’re being weak. It means that we’re being very smart and sensitive to the fact that there’s been hundreds of thousands of people that have died.
SPEAKER 06 :
Rick, one thing that never ceases to amaze me is the way that the American left decides what they’re outraged about as they move forward. You know, before we had… Trump was Hitler and was going to cause a world war. And now that he’s doing what he promised all along, which is to try and end this war between Russia and Ukraine, uh, the outrages, uh, you know, well, the Ukrainians aren’t at the table today, which as you just pointed out that they’ve been talking, that’s how a mediation works. You go to both sides and then you start to find common ground and work it out. But that now that they are outraged as this meeting is taking place, uh, I, fully expect that when this war is resolved, the American left will decide that it is a bad thing that the war in Ukraine is over instead of a good thing. It feels that way that they’re already pushing that. Right. So I just kind of, what’s your read on that?
SPEAKER 13 :
Look, I think the reality is that we just need to ignore some of these very negative people who will never be satisfied with anything that Donald Trump or Republicans do. The idea that you’re talking to end a war is somehow considered weak or problematic is, you know, it only flies in Washington and in newsrooms. Most people look at what’s going on and they think it’s common sense to try to solve problems and solve wars. Remember that Donald Trump handed Joe Biden peace in the Middle East and peace in Europe. Joe Biden handed Donald Trump a war in Europe and a war in the Middle East.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, absolutely. And I’d love to take some phone calls on this as well. So if you want to call in, if you have a question for Rick in this situation, I think you should call in 1-800-684-3122. It’s always good to sort of read the room to see what’s happening well. But there are a lot of new developments that feels like it can become nonstop, whether it’s with Doge or anything like that. But the talks are also happening currently in Saudi Arabia. uh saudi arabia has taken a very interesting turn over the last even handful of years where we have seen them try to embrace maybe a more moderate western uh point of view still with their traditions and their kingdom and everything but even terms of tourism and promotion we’ve seen saudi arabia become um a bit more i don’t want to say palatable but it feels like it’s trying they are trying to make themselves into this sort of moderate world leader i just want to get your thoughts on the significance of this meeting happening there
SPEAKER 13 :
Look, I think, again, I just go back to, you know, talking is a tactic. It’s exactly what we need to do. I’m for having these diplomatic meetings and trying to work through issues by peacefully engaging. you know, peaceful diplomatic means. And so we have to wait and see what the outcome is, what people are pushing will determine the outcome. But being able to show up and present your case is never a bad idea.
SPEAKER 06 :
Rick, I wanted to turn to something, this is actually something we talked about yesterday, but you being, we talk a lot about you being the former director of national intelligence, but also you being the former ambassador to Germany. A lot of talk about JD Vance at the Munich security conference has been going on. And we saw the absurd statement from Margaret Brennan to Marco Rubio saying that, you know, free speech is what led to the Holocaust. But I want to get your take about the tough talk that we’re seeing out of the vice president going to Europe and calling out the Europeans for abandoning the shared values that the United States and Europe have had together. As former ambassador to Germany, I know that you were never shy of being tough with the Germans. But how does this play out, you think, with the new administration?
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, I was in the room when J.D. Vance gave his speech in Munich and he was very diplomatic and I thought he gave amazing examples. And he had a simple point that the media and many diplomats, you know, freaked out about. But his point is, is that if we are Westerners and we have a Western alliance with Europeans and America, So we have to act like Westerners. And what that means is, is that we value freedom of speech. We reject this idea that Europe has moved towards, which is that speech is violence and therefore violence must be punished. And so we’ve got to get back to the place where we can sit in a room and listen to different different voices. We hear a lot about diversity, equity, and inclusion, but if you want to be inclusive, that means that you sit and you listen to opinions that you may not agree with. You don’t pick yourself up in a meeting and run out of the room because you can’t hear something. You don’t listen. My dad used to say something to me as a child when I would speak up and I wasn’t listening. He’d say, shut up and listen. You might learn something. And I think it’s really true. We’ve got to get back to the place where diversity of opinion is valued. And that’s, I think, what the theme of J.D. Vance was. Don’t cancel people just because you disagree with them. And it was a really a finger wave way being exercised to the elites in Europe. And I loved it.
SPEAKER 01 :
I think we can also see that just in the administration that’s been picked this time around. And the team that President Trump has put in is it is not about everyone who is a yes man, everyone that agrees on everything. We have a lot of differing opinions, even with its own administration, which I think is great. Rick, I do say I think we spoke to you the day that you were in Munich. I didn’t even know you were there. As I’ve always said now, you know, where in the world is Rick Grinnell and the hardest working man ever? in politics i feel like is rick grinnell so we appreciate you always finding time to talk to us wherever you may be in the world Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 13 :
And I’m coming to you today from, uh, the Kennedy center where I have been placed as an interim president and trying to, uh, help president Trump, make sure that the arts are not completely taken over by the fringe radical, but that we appeal to the masses. And I think that’s exactly what we’re looking to do is to be able to, uh, make sure that places like the Kennedy center, Don’t fall into disrepair. Let me just add one thing. The Kennedy Center currently has zero cash on hand, zero reserve. The last president was making $1.3 million. And financially, this place really needs an investigation. You know, roughly $40 million of taxpayer money coming into it. And it’s just financially in shambles. We’ve got to fix it. We’ve got to fix it.
SPEAKER 01 :
We appreciate you doing that, and obviously we’re big supporters of the arts here as well. So let us know however we can get involved, and we appreciate it, Rick. Thanks for joining us. Hey, we’re going to be taking more calls and all your calls coming up in the next segment. We’ve got two lines open at 1-800-684-3110. Again, if you hear the expertise coming from Rick Grinnell, you can’t have that kind of level of staff, that level of team. without financial support from you because we are supported by you individually not federal grants not big sponsors we are supported by you in the community here that want to become aclj champions want to give and donate some people give five dollars some give five hundred dollars you know it really just depends on the person and where you feel comfortable at and where you can give we know things are still tight But if you can give, this is a great time to become an ACLJ champion. Even again, if it’s $5, $10, you know, if it’s $25, $30, that’s going to make a huge impact in the long run. Don’t think something’s too small. Go to ACLJ.org. We’re going to take your calls coming up in the next segment. Again, 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Seculo. It’s time to take the calls from the most important voices in the room. And of course, that’s you. Our Seculo listeners, viewers, ACLJ supporters. And we got two lines open right now. 1-800-684-3110. This is the best time and probably the last time of the day to call in. 1-800-684-3110. Let’s go to Mary Ellen. About to hold for a while in Illinois. Long time caller. Mary Ellen, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi. I just want to talk about all the political gaps People seem to forget that. And when Obama was in office, he fired all of the Bush people. Biden took over. He fired all of the Trump people. Then he hired 75,000 new people. So now Trump comes in and he’s doing the same. And he learned his lesson from the last time when he had the holdovers. They’re howling. It’s like they have nothing else, and they’re just showing their Trump deranged syndrome, in my opinion.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and Mary Ellen, the clips that are resurfacing are astounding, actually. When you go back and look, President Clinton, when he was first in office, he made very declaratory, like, we are going to shrink the size of the federal payroll. And it wasn’t just the political hires like they were going into the bureaucracy and the agencies and they were laying people off. And I feel like the the policies of President Clinton would not be welcome anywhere near Trump. the policies of the Democrat Party today. So it was astounding to see him and talk about we have to. And that was a big portion of President Clinton with triangulation and Newt Gingrich getting to trying to cut the federal deficit. They were warning that the federal deficit could get up to $600 billion. And that was something that would have wrecked the country. And now we see the trillions of dollars in the deficit that the United States has. But then also, yes, you’re correct. President Obama, it was during the financial crisis, was laying people off, was shrinking these agencies to try and keep the government afloat. All of a sudden, when it’s President Trump, you have to file lawsuits. You have to stop it. You have to say this is unconstitutional. When Democrats do it, it’s fine because probably there’s a lot of pet projects that keep getting funded. When it is Donald Trump, it is the end of democracy itself.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Thank you, Mary Ellen, for calling. We always appreciate your support. Let’s continue on. Raymond is calling in Texas. Raymond watching on YouTube. By the way, if you’re brand new on YouTube, I ask you to subscribe. which I know sounds redundant, but please do it. A lot of you don’t. Half the people that watch don’t subscribe. They watch every day, but it really helps us to do that. And if you put in a comment, if you don’t know what to comment, I always say, let me know where you’re watching from. Or of course, we’ve sent in the clouds a time or two, but it’s a different day. It’s a different year. Maybe we don’t do that as much anymore. You tell me in the comments, but let me know where you’re watching from. Raymond and YouTube, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 05 :
Good morning. Thank you all very much. I have a question for perspective. On the $4.7 trillion, a lot of money, how long of a time is that spread out over? Are those receipts over a year or a budget?
SPEAKER 06 :
Raymond, the information that we have thus far from the official DogeX account, which is where they put out a lot of the information, they didn’t give that time period. Now, and it is, we should be clear, A lot of this is not like a big bucket of fraud that’s $4.7 trillion. So even if it was one year or over 10 years, it’s the fact that they weren’t coding it. This is more the issue is that our government isn’t even operating on basic accounting principles. So they know when this payment, what it was tied to pay for that was appropriated by Congress. So I’m sure we will know soon because they have been very transparent, but we don’t know what that time period is.
SPEAKER 01 :
We can certainly push for that as well. Thank you so much, Raymond, for calling, but we’ll do our best to find that out. Let’s go ahead and continue on. Scott in Florida. Scott, you’re on the air watching or listening on the radio.
SPEAKER 04 :
I also watch on Rumble every day. Great. Questions about standing two parts. How do all these resistance groups always have standing? Meanwhile, people that on my side never had standing against COVID vaccine mandates, the election issues.
SPEAKER 06 :
the years don’t necessarily disagree with or agree with that because we’ve actually had a lot of movement and uh now understandably it feels that way and it feels like people are not held accountable in the court system often that’s right and scott a lot of times the groups do what they call jurisdiction shopping they try to find the right plaintiff in the right place where a district court judge can get it into court because then you can start going on to the appeals process and one day maybe the supreme court But they look for a place where the judge may be more favorable. Maybe Vermont over Tennessee. Right. And so, but we have had many successes here at the American Center for Law and Justice because our cases weren’t thrown out based on standing. Now, I do agree that some of the high profile cases, it seems that sometimes that is the way the off ramp works. Especially the Supreme Court did quite a few of those that made it all the way up there. And then they said, no standing here. But what we’re even seeing is that Judge Chutkan is very much looking at the issue of standing for the progressive states that are filing against this. So it may not always be one-sided, even though sometimes it feels that way.
SPEAKER 01 :
want to be clear also uh when you call and ask those kind of questions i think they’re great questions to answer but that’s why the aclj has had such a success rate uh in our past and why we will in the future because we are not uh stupid we put lawyers in place who are great who are not going to take a loss to take a loss who aren’t going to raise money with no hope with no chance and maybe some other organizations do that that is not the way we roll here We are putting our best foot forward in every instance, whether that’s in the media or whether that is in the courtroom. So you can be assured when you give and you donate and you support the work of the ACLJ or you just watch this show that we are putting the best of the best. You’ve heard today from a former director of national intelligence. You’ve heard from Professor Harry Hutchinson. We had Tulsi Gabbard, who’s now the current director of national intelligence. She was on this broadcast just until a few days ago. as a member of our team. We can’t put together this all-star team. We can’t put together the incredible work we do here without you. So we encourage you to make that donation today. We’ve got two calls in two minutes. I’m not sure we’ll be able to get to both. Let’s start with Paula real quick on YouTube. Paula, go ahead.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hi. Yeah, I was wondering about Zelensky. Do you think Trump is going to ask for accountability on the billions of dollars that we’ve already sent him?
SPEAKER 01 :
Maybe so, Paula, but I think the goal and the initial is to end the war, is to settle things down and whatever that looks like, looks like. But I think that stopping death, senseless death, is the number one concern.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. And we know that hundreds of billions of dollars were reported missing by even the liberal media. So I feel like Doge looking at the Pentagon will also look into that as well.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right. Marlene, very quickly. You got about 20 seconds. Go ahead with your question.
SPEAKER 12 :
I was wondering when Doge gets done sifting through the agency money spent through federal government, since states get about 51% of their income from the GAO, will then Doge be sifting through state corruptions and spending also?
SPEAKER 01 :
I think, Marlene, you’ll see that they’ll investigate probably what the federal government is doing to grant to the states. But then it gets a little messy. I don’t know if you want that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, they’re not going to be sending their departments, unless it’s asked by a governor. They’re not going to be sending them into the state capitals looking at that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, again, I don’t know if you really want that. It’s nice to have a little bit of separation there, Marlene. Thank you for calling, though. And thank you for all of you who listened, watched, viewed today’s show or will later on. We know we appreciate it. So however you watch and interact, Subscribe on that platform. If you’re watching on Salem News Channel, thank you so much. If you are watching on Rumble or on YouTube, subscribe, Facebook, like, X, follow. Do what you need to do to support the work of the ACLJ. And if you can, beyond that, give financially. Of course, that’s by going to ACLJ.org. As Will said, we are involved on so many of these Doge cases right now directly. And you can be a part of that team. By becoming an ACLJ champion, all you need to do, scan the QR code or go to ACLJ.org right now. We must have the resources to help protect. Talk to you tomorrow.
