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In today’s episode of Sekulow, we navigate a day filled with groundbreaking news—from Trump’s investigative orders to a compelling Supreme Court decision supporting religious institutions. Special guests Jay Sekulow and Mike Pompeo weigh in on the ramifications of these significant legal and political shifts, while Rick Grinnell explores the newest travel bans and their implications. The discussion also touches upon the potential geopolitical impacts of new auto-pen controversies, reflecting on how these revelations could reshape America’s political dynamics.
SPEAKER 08 :
We got double breaking news today. Donald Trump orders a major investigation into the previous administration and a huge win, a bipartisan win, if you will, out of the Supreme Court. Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever.
SPEAKER 11 :
This is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 08 :
And now your host, Logan Secule. You cannot ask for a more packed show today. It is jam-packed. Lots of guests. Lots going on. Some breaking news out of Supreme Court. Breaking news out of the Trump administration. Breaking news out of the ACLJ world. And we got an all-star lineup coming up. Including Will Haines joining me right here. I like how you did the little nod. Yeah, I did a nod. They didn’t cut to it. No, it wasn’t quick enough. Gotta be quick. So… Will Haines is joining me. But then, next segment, my dad, Jay Sekulow, is going to be joining us. Then, former director of national intelligence. Ambassador to Germany. Special envoy currently for the Trump administration. That is Rick Grinnell. He’s going to be joining us. Head of the Kennedy Center. And also… Mike Pompeo will be on later in the show. So it is going to be packed. You’re not going to want to miss this. And of course, one of the things that came out after Will, we spent a good hour saying we think this may be a little bit of a waste of time. President Trump said, I don’t listen to Logan and Will. I think this is worth our time. And look, I think some of our audience feels the same way. which is the sort of auto pin gate, as I said, as they look and start officially investigating President Biden’s actions, auto pin use, who held the auto pin, if you will. And we’re going to go through that. President Trump, again, put out a statement investigation. It is a little unclear, though. And Will and I, when we have this conversation, I said, well, who was doing this investigation? Who did he empower to do this? It’s not clear.
SPEAKER 12 :
That’s right. So in this memorandum that came out and it’s on the White House website, it says today President Donald J. Trump signed a presidential memorandum directing an investigation into who ran the United States while President Biden was in office. Memorandum directs an investigation into whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state. and unconstitutionally exercised the authorities and responsibilities of the president, as well as mandating an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Biden’s purported execution of numerous executive actions during his final years in the office, examining policy documents signed with an auto pen, who authorized its use, and the validity of the resulting presidential policy decisions. We got into a lot of this earlier in the week about the auto pen issue, whole situation, the investigation. And it does seem that the president is doubling down on this. It is going down this path to see what they can find out. I don’t know how they will find a smoking gun of there was a giant conspiracy that Joe Biden had no idea about. And therefore they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt in some sort of court that
SPEAKER 08 :
that these uh issues like i just don’t know if this is necessary is where we need to go but you know what the show is going to be packed we’re going to keep going because the aclj work doesn’t stop here president trump right now by the way is taking questions from reporters we are monitoring that to see if there’s any good sound or video to play you uh we’ll do that during the break make sure there’s if there’s anything about what we’re talking about that will cover it he’s currently he’s meeting with what the head of germany I believe, who was there. Again, phone lines are open for you. I want to hear from you. Do you care about this? Do you care about, like I said, this auto-pin situation and who was really running the country? It’s not about do you care about it. I understand caring and feeling like you were misled. I think a lot of people feel that way. Look, you have Karine Jean-Pierre now saying she’s no longer a Democrat. I think a lot of people felt like they were pushed to do this. A lot of people felt like they were pushed to say they were not… They were not going to, President Biden is fine. He’s fine. Look at him. He’s doing all these great things.
SPEAKER 12 :
And this will be led, this investigation, so this is just a little bit more to that, by the White House counsel. So the internal White House attorneys, they’ll consult with Attorney General and any other relevant executive department agency head, but it is emanating out of the White House counsel’s office.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, good time then for my dad to be joining us in the next segment, Jay Sekulow. Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, formerly worked for President Trump last time around as private counsel. We’ll talk about that. And we will talk about a huge win. Again, the Supreme Court, in more of a bipartisan way, finally has done, once again, the right thing. So we’re going to talk about that coming up in the next segment. And phone lines are open for you. Look, we have so many guests. I’m going to take calls sporadically throughout the show if we get them. So it’s not going to be waiting until the end. Give me a call. 1-800-684-3110. That’s 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Sekulow. My dad, Jay Sekulow, is joining us right now via phone. Again, Chief Counsel, American Center for Law and Justice. Now, we want to lead off, Dad, there was a big win. And, Will, you can kind of set this up out of the Supreme Court that happened just before we went on air. And then we’ll discuss the other topics at hand. But we want to make sure we keep everyone up to date.
SPEAKER 12 :
That’s right. This is a win that just came out of the Supreme Court. A unanimous decision written by Justice Sotomayor. And this is a case that the ACLJ engaged on where a Wisconsin-based Catholic charity was essentially not given some tax-exempt status situation in Wisconsin because the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that their work to feed and care for the poor was not inherently a Christian activity. This was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, and we want to get the Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow’s thoughts on this. It was something the ACLJ filed on, and obviously we take very seriously here, but obviously this just came out, but kind of first glance, what are your thoughts on this?
SPEAKER 04 :
First of all, it’s a huge win because it was unanimous. So anytime you have a religion case that’s unanimous, that’s a good thing. The other aspect of it that’s significant is we’ve been litigating for several months, or for several years, really, this whole issue of treating religious institutions differently than other groups when it comes to getting various government benefits. Here it was a tax credit for religious institutions. Now, they were denied their credit simply because they were a Christian charity and that their view of how this work could be violated in the Establishment Clause. Well, the Supreme Court, in that opinion by Justice Sotomayor, unanimously concluded that when the government distinguishes among religions based on theological differences in their provision of services, it imposes denominational preference that must satisfy the highest level of judicial scrutiny, which this law did not. And so it was targeted. It’s very much in the line of cases that we’ve argued going back to Lamb’s Chapel in the 1990s, where religious institutions were treated differently for access to public schools than every other group. We won that unanimously. It’s interesting here, Logan and Will, and to our audience, that a lot of these cases where there’s denial of a specific benefit to a religious group, if you look at the history of that litigation, it’s often been unanimous. or 8 to 1, where all of the justices think that that’s an unlawful discrimination. So it’s a major victory. It’s a real advance for the First Amendment and for the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. Very good decision. We should be very happy and thank our donors for allowing us to participate in the case.
SPEAKER 08 :
And I want to clarify, though, for those you say, you know, it does seem to always be now unanimous or eight to one or very close. That wasn’t the case back before you and the ACLJ started because you were arguing it a very different way. People were arguing religious cases based on the freedom of religion, not necessarily always the freedom of speech.
SPEAKER 04 :
Correct. And that was a sea change that we really implemented back in the late 80s. And it’s taken, you know, 40 years. But now you look at these decisions coming out of the court on the religion clause. In other words, a couple of aberrations last week on a couple of cases. But for the most part, they’ve been very good. And this one goes a long way. Very positive. All right.
SPEAKER 08 :
We want to move on to some other topics, but that’s great. Thank you for everyone who supports work at the ACLJ. That’s how these kind of decisions get made. But one of the topics at hand right now is President Trump announced yet another travel ban. You were kind of involved a little bit. We were there. uh, last time around. Uh, so, uh, this now is a list of countries to seem like for a various different reasons have now had these travel restrictions placed.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. And, uh, of course there’s, there’s going to be, as you know, there’ll be litigation on this, but there was a case called the United States versus Hawaii back in 20, I think it was 17, 18. We were involved in it. Um, I was representing Donald Trump, uh, the president then, and we were in involved in some aspects of it as from a legal standpoint, uh, And, of course, I think we filed a major brief in that case. And the conclusion was a 5-4 decision in favor of the administration, recognizing that they have the right to control access to the country from various other countries of origin where there’s problems. So the court said 5-4. The president has that authority. So all this is doing, this new executive order, is updating the previous executive orders as it relates to countries that will not be allowed access to the United States.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, and when you look at this order, it very much does look similar to what was then called the Travel Ban 2.0 as the first one needed to be reworked. And as you referenced, that was some of the work that you were involved in during that first Trump administration. And when you look at it, following very much that framework of the 2.0, I guess this would be 3.0 at this point, it seems like this should be relatively quick transition. to get through the courts knowing that there’s already the precedent set based off the first administration.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, it was interesting.
SPEAKER 08 :
I remember when… Hey, Dan, we’re going to call you right back. We’re going to reconnect with you. We think we’re having some sound difficulties and connection difficulties. We will redial you in just a moment. I do want to take a second, though, and say to give us a call because when he is done, we’re going to have Rick Grinnell joining us, and then I’m going to take a lot of calls. 1-800-684-3110. Once again, that’s 1-800-684-3110. Maybe while we wait for him to get connected, we can take this call real quick. Susan in Kentucky, can we do that? Let’s go ahead. Susan, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi. My concern is about the auto pen being used for the pardons that Biden did. And I’m especially concerned about some of the individuals that he pardoned, especially like Anthony Fauci and some of those ones.
SPEAKER 08 :
Susan, we discussed this the other day. The actual law that’s in place for pardon doesn’t say anything about having to sign a document.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, the Constitution, if you just go to the plain text, just says the president shall have the power to pardon. And therefore, it is a broad power. And kind of the concern that we expressed was that if you start putting limits on the presidential power outside the text of the Constitution, that could be detrimental to even this presidency and actions that the power of the presidency inherently has. And therefore, we…
SPEAKER 04 :
don’t necessarily want to start putting more limits outside the text of the constitution all right our dad jay seculo uh he’s back dad you’re there yeah all right continue yeah let me finish something on what will just said about the you all talked about on the broadcast yesterday and you were 100 correct uh the pardon power is absolute i argued that for president trump it’s absolute and there’s no requirement that it be signed as you said there’s no requirement that it theater, so to speak, but I don’t think it’s worth a lot of time because the president has the authority. As it goes back to the Hawaii, the United States versus Hawaii, which was the first case that dealt with the constitutionality of the travel prohibitions from various countries of origin for access, we were involved in that, in the second rewrite of that, because I remember where we were. We had a bunch of our lawyers were in and um i think logan and will you were all were there we were in a uh ruth chris steakhouse we were at dinner after yeah at dinner at a project project we were doing something in vanderbilt in their executive education program with a lot of our team and it came in that night the call came in and we went to work on it drafted it up that night got it out and then ultimately was we were successful at the supreme court so the president this is just reasserting the rights he already has.
SPEAKER 08 :
It just shows how deep the work of the ACLJ is at right now. And look, we’re having a good month so far. We’re kicking things off strong. I think people need to understand, our supporters need to understand that we’ve been involved in each one of these issues in many different ways and in ways that other organizations just simply can’t.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s exactly right. I mean, every topic you’ve discussed this week, we are involved in at the ACLJ, whether it’s over in Israel, whether it’s here, whether it’s a local school board or representing pro-life protesters or sidewalk counselors. All of that happens because of the support of the people that are supporting the work of the ACLJ. A special thank you to our ACLJ champions and also to our ACLJ members around the country, because it’s really making a difference.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I want to encourage you all to take a minute and support the work. We usually do like a 30-second pitch here to tell you, go to the website. Look, we’ve got a big day right now, and we really appreciate if you help us take it over the line. Again, if you can become an ACLJ champion, that’s someone that gives on a monthly basis, we really would appreciate it. But you don’t have to do that. You can give $5 or you can give $5,000. Look, we’re up against a pretty good day today. We’re going to have some great results if you guys all get behind it. And when you have a win out of the Supreme Court, You have all of the action we’re taking, whether that is for life in Massachusetts, whether that’s what we’re doing in Israel right now and preparing for the ICC, whether that’s the Supreme Court, as we said, doing so much and whether we are talking about those who are preaching the gospel on the streets and protecting their rights. And of course, everything has happened internationally. And we always have to remember that the ACLJ work goes well beyond the borders of the United States of America. And that’s very, very important. That’s very important. I know that it could sound that way. But even today, the Supreme Court, we are arguing whether feeding the hungry, housing the poor, housing the homeless is a Christian thing to do. Whether the government says that’s really within a respect of a Christian doctrine. We all know the truth of that. That the church has always been the bastion of hope for those communities. We got to continue to do that. We got to fight for people so they don’t get things taken away from them. You can be a part of that right now at ACLJ.org. I encourage you to do it. I’m going to be monitoring all the donations that come in over the next 30 minutes or so. And I really want you to be a part of it. Let’s see today be a big success. What more could you want? Big wins are happening all around the country and all around the world because of you. You did it. You helped us have the best of the best. So be a part of that team right now. Go to ACLJ.org. I encourage you to become a champion if you can. That’s something that gives on a monthly basis. And if you’re brand new to the broadcast, you’ve never seen us before, maybe you’re on YouTube, you’ve never seen me or Will, hit that subscribe button. It’s absolutely free. It helps us out a lot. Welcome back to Secular. We are going to take your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. Rick Minnell is going to be joining us a little bit later in the broadcast. Now something’s come up. You know what? He’s a busy guy and we’re going to have him on later. Mike Pompeo as well. This is the last segment of the first half hour. And I usually tell you at the end to make sure you find us online because if you don’t get us on your local radio station, we do broadcast each and every day on Rumble, on YouTube, on ACLJ.org, where they’re broadcasting live every day from 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern. I’m going to tell you that early. The ACLJ app as well. I’ll tell you that early so you can be prepared. Some people say, Logan, you give me no time. So I’m giving you time to make sure you’re ready for this second half hour because it’s going to be jam-packed. President Trump also is addressing right now, as we speak, he’s taking questions from reporters. And the topic that we’re at hand is now President Trump has opened an investigation through the White House counsel into President Biden’s cognitive state, whether he was able to actually do the things he said he could do, whether he was actually the one controlling the auto pin, if you will. Now, we have discussed this. My dad, Jay Sekulow, just discussed this. He said… You know, he thinks this is sort of a bit of a waste of time. I think this a little bit of a waste of time as well, because what is the conclusion you’re looking for? If you just want to know the information, I think that’s fine. You want to be Jake Tapper? You want to write the book about it? Fine. I don’t think I have an issue with that. But what are you going to do about it legally? That is going to be the question. If you can find some sort of smoking gun. President Biden, former President Biden, has made a statement already saying, I was the one controlling all of this. I don’t know what they’re talking about. Of course, what do you expect from President Joe Biden? But let’s hear specifically from President Trump moments ago about this.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, look, the auto pen, I think, is the big scandal here. Outside of the rigged election of 2020, I think the biggest scandal of the last many years is the auto pen. And who’s using it? I happen to think I know, okay, because I’m here. And I’m not a big auto pen person, fortunately. I’m glad. I’m very glad. It’s an easy way out. But it’s a very bad thing, very dangerous. You know, I sign important documents. Usually when they put documents in front of you, they’re important. Even if you’re signing ambassadorships, I consider that important. I think it’s inappropriate. You have somebody that’s devoting four years of their life or more to being an ambassador. I think you really deserve, that person deserves to get a real signature, not an Autopen signature. And I can tell Autopen easily. I can look at it like two little pinholes from pulling the paper, right? You always see the pinholes. It’s real easy to tell about Autopen.
SPEAKER 12 :
well you know i i hear that and honestly that’s what you’re saying during that you’re like i hear that man i hear it uh there i don’t disagree with a lot of what he’s saying is that president trump does take the signings very seriously he has the signing ceremonies for almost everything he signs but the the one caveat i have with that is that Currently, as it stands, and as the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel has a memo that dates back to 2005, auto-pin having someone affix your signature to legislation, which is the only document that, at least from the text of the Constitution, is required to be signed by the Constitution. They It is of the opinion through study and through court cases and legal tradition going back through British common law and everything that makes up legal theory that having someone affix your signature to legislation does not violate the text of the constitution saying signed by the president. So therefore, using an auto pen, if the president is making the decision that this shall be signed and says, subordinate, put my signature on the document that is constitutional as american jurisprudence views the the nature of signing something so while he may take that uh privilege of being the president and signing things much more seriously than more ceremonially every other president at this point I don’t disagree. I love that he does that. I love that about President Trump that he does take it seriously and shows everyone I am signing it. But where the caveat is, is that… The huge Sharpie. It is a very… Where do you get those?
SPEAKER 03 :
I may have one in my office. Well, I know you do, but you don’t just go to Staples and get that size Sharpie.
SPEAKER 12 :
No, they got his name on them, so… But all that to say is that that’s where I have the struggle with this entire thing is that I agree with the philosophy of President Trump about signing things. And I think that is a wonderful thing that America can see the president in action and working. But it also doesn’t take away that… So what’s the point? You can just make this statement. He can be like, I only am going to do it this way. And that’s great. But it’s the investigation, especially when you have Joe Biden saying, I did all this. That’s kind of the end of the investigation because you need to also for President Trump’s sake in the future. If the next president is a Democrat and wanting to go and undo everything he did, even beyond the scope of what they should be allowed to do, then you don’t want him being the one to say, I don’t believe you.
SPEAKER 08 :
You have to think into the future and the future consequences. I don’t get when some of the presidents… I feel like maybe it’s their… people around them or maybe it’s the ego whatever it is it’s like they don’t they care about what’s happening right now they don’t care necessarily about how this is going to be when there is a democrat president it’s going to happen likely look at our lifetime the last 40 years it’s pretty much been a swinging pendulum where there has been a republican a democrat republican a democrat almost entirely in our lifetime So likely will this happen again? Sure. And what are the consequences of that action? Let’s also talk a little about the travel ban. How long is that bite? Is that bite something we can play? Because President Trump did discuss it. I don’t have it here in front of me because I would like to hear what he’s talking about. My son, big fan of Equatorial Guinea, was not thrilled to hear. that they were on the list. I’ll be honest. He studies a lot of world history. He may fly the flag of Equatorial Guinea in his room. Not going to lie. I don’t think he knows much other than, I mean, he does know a lot about it. He knows a lot about the topical, the history. Do we have that bite? Here we go. Let’s hear from President Trump talking about that travel ban that went into place last night.
SPEAKER 10 :
your new travel ban, why now? And if the Boulder attack was part of your reasoning, why not include Egypt on that list where the suspect was from?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, because Egypt has been a country that we deal with very closely. They have things under control. The countries that we have don’t have things under control. And why now? I can say that it can’t come soon enough, frankly. We want to keep bad people out of our country. The Biden administration allowed some horrendous people and we’re getting them out one by one. And we’re not stopping until we get them out. We have thousands of murderers. I hate to I even hate to say this in front of the chancellor. Of course, you have a little problem, too, with some of the people that were allowed into your country. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It shouldn’t have happened. I told her it shouldn’t have happened, what she did. But you have your own difficulty with that. And we do. And we’re moving them out. And we’re moving them out very strongly. But it can’t come fast enough. We want to get them out. We want to get them out now. We don’t want to have other bad people coming into our country. By using the word bad, I’m being nice.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s kind of par for the course, Donald Trump language. Bad people coming into the country. Not necessarily very specific on why. For some of them, we go through the list. You’ve had Afghanistan. You have Iran. You have Myanmar. Myanmar? Myanmar. I knew I said it wrong when I said it. Yemen, Haiti, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Afghanistan. Republic of Congo, Chad, and Equatorial Guinea. I may have missed one there, but yes. So that is where the travel bans are coming from. We’re going to talk about why that’s important, the good and the bad of it, to be honest, and sort of the sad state of affairs occasionally we get to in this country where we have to start looking at that. Right now, though, you can join us in the fight, become an ACLJ champion. I encourage you to do that as we head into the break. I already told you how to get the second half hour. If you didn’t hear that, find us online, ACLJ.org, wherever you get your podcasts, wherever you get your broadcasts. We’re there, YouTube Live from noon to 1 p.m., Facebook. We’re always broadcasting. We’re available to you. And we have a second half hour of the show coming up. Rick Grinnell and Mike Pompeo will be joining us back to back. So it’s going to be a packed second half of Sekulow. Join us right now and give us a call. 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 11 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 08 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. This second half hour, let’s reset what we’re talking about. We’re talking a little more auto pen. We’re talking about the travel bans. We’re talking about a big win for the ACLJ out of the Supreme Court that just happened. Maybe we could start with that, Will, because maybe that’s not going to get the number one story. You may have gotten a push alert from Fox News or something talking about it. But even us, we were finding out we had a win today. out of the Supreme Court of the United States.
SPEAKER 12 :
That’s right. This was a case which was out of Wisconsin and it went all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court where there was a tax exemption issue with religious charities. And it had to do with certain religious organizations weren’t getting this benefit that other nonprofit organizations were. And the relevant statute exempts nonprofit organizations operated primarily for religious purposes and operated, supervised, controlled and principally supported by a church or convention or association of churches. And what the Supreme Court of Wisconsin held. was that they were within their right to not give this exemption to a Catholic charity within Wisconsin that was primarily dealing with feeding, clothing, housing the poor. And what the Wisconsin Supreme Court found was that the petitioners, that was the charity, was not operating primarily for religious purposes because they neither engaged in proselytization nor limited their charitable services to Catholics. which is a very odd decision by a court. Basically, they’re saying you feeding the poor and generically poor, not just Catholic hungry, means you are not a religious organization.
SPEAKER 08 :
No matter in the Bible does Jesus talk about feeding the poor. Right. nowhere in the bible does it command us to care for the least of these those are just uh you know that’s just things people say the government’s saying you know we don’t really want to do this what’s going on with you wisconsin you know better but it went all the way to the supreme court after the petitioners the charity in wisconsin lost and surprisingly today
SPEAKER 12 :
We were not expecting necessarily this to be a big opinion day this Thursday in early June, but a opinion came out of the Supreme Court that was authored by none other than Justice Sonia Sotomayor. And here’s the conclusion of her opinion. There’s also a concurrence from… Justice Thomas, as well as Justice Jackson. But she wrote, it is fundamental to our constitutional order that the government maintain, quote, neutrality between religion and religion. There may be hard calls to make in policing that rule, but this one is not. When the government distinguishes among religions based on theological differences in their provision of services, it imposes a denominational preference that must satisfy the highest level of judicial scrutiny. Because Wisconsin has transgressed that principle without tailoring necessary to survive each scrutiny, The judgment of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. Therefore, Supreme Court of Wisconsin got it wrong and they were violating the U.S. Constitution in their discrimination of a charity because of their religious beliefs.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and I think we got to always be there and fight for those who are fighting for religious beliefs that also are involved in the basis of Christian values. making sure that we are, like I said, feeding the poor, housing those that need housing, taking care of people. Look, you may not want the government to get involved in some of these things, and I understand that. You may want to say, hey, I don’t want government funding. But you know what? It’s our responsibility also as the church to do it. Step up. Be there for people. Be there as least of these. And when the government says, we’re not going to allow you to do this, and says, hey, we don’t think this is very Christian of you, maybe number one, we need to start educating people and re-educating people of what Christian values really are. They may see the pomp and circumstance coming out of Washington, D.C., and look, I understand that. Let’s not forget who we are to begin with. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. We got Mike Pompeo joining next. Is that right? One more segment than Secretary Pompeo.
SPEAKER 03 :
One more segment.
SPEAKER 08 :
And then we got Secretary Pompeo. I don’t think that’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m wrong. You’re correct. I am right. You are correct.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, it is what it is. I want you to support the work of the ACLJ. Just do it right now. Okay. Just do it while we’re, we got a one minute break here. You can do it real quick. Be right back. Welcome back to Secular. Secretary Mike Pompeo is joining us right now via Zoom. You’re there live. There you are, Secretary Pompeo. Just popped up on my screen. I was making sure that you were there. We’ve got a lot to cover with you today. We’ve hit so many topics. And one that we have not addressed right now is sort of these pathogens that were being brought in, agro-terrorism, if you will, that was coming in. There are… Well, maybe you can set this up because there was a lot of national security concerns because… Essentially, Chinese nationals were coming in, sneaking these bioweapons in, and we’re now just finding out about it. That’s right.
SPEAKER 12 :
This was a fungus that was brought in by a couple that has extreme potential for both negative effects on humans, livestock, potentially crops, and all of this. And they were… Headed towards the University of Michigan, but you’ve talked about the threat of the Chinese nationals, whether coming through the southern border, here on student visas in many cases, in the consulates. What is your take on this story that just broke this week?
SPEAKER 07 :
So this is precisely what I and many others have been worried about. The free transit of Chinese Communist Party affiliated folks or officials inside our country, and they bring in stuff, right? So in this case, attacking America’s food supply chain was clearly, according to them and their text messages, as alleged in the indictment, their mission set. Make no mistake about it, these were not rogue people. These were folks directed by the Chinese Communist Party. And we’ve seen this time and time again, whether it’s the spy balloons or we shouldn’t forget the connectivity between bioterror and what was taking place in the Wuhan lab that killed nine or 10 million people across the world. Different in kind, but the nature of the regime, their efforts to infiltrate the West and the United States, and in this case, bring in, uh, bioterror weapons that could have caused enormous damage to the American food supply chain and put millions and tens of millions of American lives at risk is very real. And I am so pleased that the Trump administration, the FBI found these folks, pulled them, uh, got at least one of them arrested and now can go to trial. But how many others are out there? What other vectors are being used? This is something we need to be completely on alert for and devote the necessary resources to make sure and take this risk down.
SPEAKER 12 :
And Secretary Pompeo, you’ve been talking about this threat on this broadcast for years, that there are nefarious actors that are directed by the leadership within China, the Chinese Communist Party, that are here to Do nefarious things. They’re not here for for these lofty moral purposes of just getting the education at our great institutions and making the world a better place. And when you look at the contrast of I mean, in one way, it’s the most terrifying thing to hear this headline. but also extremely refreshing that the administration is clear eyed about what this threat is. It is not concerned that back in 2020, when the virus came from China and you saw Nancy Pelosi saying that you cannot say that this virus came from China and because you will be xenophobic. But in reality, if you are concerned about a foreign government that is doing this, it’s not xenophobic to call out the threat of the Chinese Communist Party. And I think it’s important that the administration continue to push back so that they can hold them in check.
SPEAKER 07 :
Amen. You couldn’t say it any better. Remember, we had a program that the Department of Justice and the FBI had built out in Trump’s first term. The Biden administration basically took that took that off the table. They were unprepared to do the kind of work that probably led to pulling these this particular incident off the street. This requires enormous vigilance. This requires thoughtfulness and it requires a preparedness to do precisely what you say, to call the risk what it is. This is the Chinese Communist Party engaged in preparing bioterror weapons that they can use and activate on a timing that is their own. We saw what happened in Ukraine, right? They drove trucks in and launched drones. We saw what happened with a bunch of pagers in the Middle East. The risk of these kind of tactical efforts leading to real strategic risk inside of our country from a nation that is as capable and as determined as that being led by Xi Jinping today in China is so real and so serious. And it heartens me to see that the Trump administration’s FBI and Justice Department are pursuing this vigorously. I hope they are at this in many dimensions that we don’t even know about today.
SPEAKER 08 :
Secretary Pompeo, a lot of conversations happening right now. I’m also looking at the chat because I know you were recently in Ukraine and a lot of people are asking, well, what was going on there? Why were you there? Why is it important to be there? Because, look, I think I was watching Putin make a statement to a couple of Republicans. hostages from israel during that that were uh you know that were set free and he’s out there making statements saying you know we gotta thank we gotta make sure we thank the uh political arm of hamas and you’re sitting there going okay you know this is where where maybe we we live in two very different worlds but let’s talk about your trip to ukraine i know you’re there for a very specific reason
SPEAKER 07 :
I was. I had a long planned trip to travel to Odessa, Ukraine, where they were holding a defense security conference. I wanted to go there to be with a group of people from around the world, not just Ukrainians, who are as concerned about what Vladimir Putin is doing today in Europe as I am. I know this is not shared by everyone, but I think there are deep American interests there. If Vladimir Putin is perceived to prevail, if he rolls through Kiev and begins to confront NATO nations, the risk to the United States, to Americans here at home is so real. And I hate war. No reasonable person wants there to be a war. We don’t want Vladimir Putin to escalate. But it’s pretty darn clear by now. And I think In spite of President Trump’s best efforts, we can see plainly Putin has no interest in peace at this point. He has no intention of slowing down. His vision of greater Russia remains. And so he has to, in the end, be perceived to have lost this. And that just means the United States needs to continue to do the things we’ve been doing, providing the tools to the Ukrainians so they can fight for their own country. They didn’t ask us to send the 82nd Airborne or the 101st. They’ve simply said, give us the resources and the intelligence so that we can defend our own sovereignty. And they’ve done a pretty good job of doing that so far. And I wanted to go to Odessa to be around and with a group of people to share ideas about how we might bring peace to that region on a set of terms that isn’t surrender to Vladimir Putin and his partner, Xi Jinping and the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. The three of them are working together and we can’t let them win here.
SPEAKER 12 :
And we obviously diverted a little bit from where we started talking about the pathogen that was brought in by the Chinese nationals. But I did have a follow-up question as you talked about Ukraine handling things pretty well on their own. And that is that remarkable… drone attack that the Ukrainians were able to pull off deep with inside Russian territory that wiped out a large portion of the active fleet. Uh, the air fleet of Russia was strategic bombers, fighters, um, One, just your take on it strategically. I mean, obviously a huge intel operation that was pulled off and with your entire background, both Secretary of State and CIA, just wanted your take on that operation and what it means for the war going forward.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, goodness, just as an Intel operation, kudos to them. This was clearly long planned and well executed. I’ve seen reports that they didn’t do as much damage as might have been initially reported. But nonetheless, their demonstrated ability to do this, it’s not It’s not quite the same level of what the Israelis pulled off with the pagers in Lebanon, but that model is very much the same. By the way, that’s the kind of risk from this Chinese bioterror, right? It’s that something inside, something small can do escalatory damage inside of your country. So I give the Ukrainians credit for a good operation, but this conflict is going to require a lot more than that. We’re going to have to impose real costs on Vladimir Putin so that he sees the benefits of bringing peace. And we all know that it may be in the end that all the real estate does not immediately get returned to the Ukrainians. I’ll accept that realistic possibility. But that shouldn’t mean that we don’t do the necessary to make sure that Putin doesn’t continue to roll and create real risk to whether it’s Moldova or Estonia or Finland. And as a result of that impacts NATO and the United States of America even more deeply than we’re impacted by what he’s done already.
SPEAKER 08 :
And I think people are seeing that even out of the Trump administration. You’re seeing sort of a change of tone and a change of presentation and how we’re talking about the war in Ukraine. And I believe it’s always good to hear from you, Secretary Pompeo. Some people agree with you. Some people disagree with you. But you were there. You’ve been there multiple times. You’ve actually seen it. So you’re spreading information, at least, that you feel is correct. And I always think that’s important. We hear from you and hear from other people, even with differing opinions, because it is something that I understand the American people understand. are stressed out about. They look at what’s going on financially and they get concerned. But it’s important for us to at least hear out the reasons why America is involved. So I appreciate you joining us today, as I always do here on this broadcast. Look, we’re going to take some calls coming up in the next segment at 1-800-684-3110. We’ll also be joined by another guest, 1-800-684-3110. 3-1-1-0. If you’re on hold right now, I’m going to try to take your calls right off the top. So stay on hold, and we will get to you very shortly. Let’s make sure we clear those calls. Let’s clear Fred, and if Anna’s got a good call, we’ll try to get Anna, and Candy. So we’ll do that right now again at 1-800-684-3110. If you want to call in now, we’ll do our best to get to you in just a moment. Look, this is a very important day for the ACLJ. We have taken you literally around the world today, and I think that’s very important, and this week even more so. Big victories are happening. You are the ones who cause those victories to happen. None of it happens without you. Help us beat our goal today. Go to ACLJ.org. Become one of the thousands of ACLJ champions that sets an incredible baseline for us. Do it right now. We’ll be right back with your calls and comments. Welcome back to Sekulow. Rick Grinnell is joining us. We are going to get to your calls, though, coming up before the show is over. So Fred and Candy, stay on hold. I’ll get to you after we wrap up with Rick. Rick, there is a lot going on. We’ve covered so much ground today, but… There is some big deals also happening with the United States and our dealings with Iran, as well as the travel bans that have come into play. And, Will, our audience certainly has a lot of different opinions on this. And, of course, now President Trump’s saying that they’re going to start investigating President Biden on the use of Autopen. Again, we may even have a different point of view than Rick does, and that’s okay. We like to have different voices on here.
SPEAKER 12 :
That’s right. But Rick, we wanted to get your take on this because the Ayatollah has put out a statement. He has rejected the proposal from the United States that it was arrogant. And he put this on X. You Americans possess atomic bombs and have the massive destruction of the world at your disposal. What business is it of yours whether the Iranian nation should or shouldn’t have uranium enrichment or whether it should or shouldn’t have a nuclear industry? How would you respond to the should or shouldn’t question here from the Ayatollah, Rick?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, here’s the thing about nuclear weapons is they’re extremely dangerous. And you are going to have to demonstrate that you’re one responsible country, that you seek peace. And and not war and and three, that there’s some sort of checks and balances on those. So the idea that countries should be able to decide their own fate on energy, of course, that’s true. But but here’s the deal with the Iranian regime. They don’t miss a moment to not talk about the destruction of Israel and the destruction of the United States. They look for ways constantly to start wars. Remember, the Biden administration gave hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief, cash and credit to the Iranian regime. And When you total everything up in terms of their oil sales and what they’ve been allowed to do, it’s an enormous amount that they have been able to use to foment violence and support terrorism, whether it’s through the Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon. It’s an endless support for terrorism. So, and then you just take the, the, the leader’s words of how, you know, the U S should, uh, be attacked or, or the destruction of, of America and its allies. Um, I just constantly see this as red flashing warning signs that this is a regime that’s not responsible and is so closed off, you know, remember they don’t allow their people freedoms. that we can’t take their word and we certainly can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.
SPEAKER 12 :
Rick, the president was just in the Oval Office with the Chancellor of Germany, a country you know very well from your time as an ambassador there, and was asked about the new travel ban, among other things. But this week we saw horrific attack on Jews that were just trying to demonstrate and ask for the hostages to be returned. And that individual was here. under the Biden administration, overstayed a visa. And the left immediately is saying, back to the old talking points of this is a racist ban, this is xenophobic ban, when in reality, we’ve already seen how quickly that the border can be cleaned up when there is enforcement. And we know that the vetting under the previous administration was non-existent. So just when you look at this, what is your take on this new travel ban on a very tailored list of countries, especially knowing what we know about the previous administration’s vetting standards?
SPEAKER 09 :
Look, I’ve run a visa operation through the embassy in Berlin and to our consulates. in other places in Germany. And we have frontline State Department workers who review information and decide very tough decisions about people and their motives and what’s going on. But we don’t always get it right. I think we try with limited information. And so what I love about President Trump is that he’s seeking more information, demanding that we get more information so that we can make better decisions, and When we can’t get that information, when there are certain breakdowns, whether it’s in countries or our embassies or the processes, he says, look, we’re going to have a pause. We’re going to stop doing this. We need extreme vetting because for two reasons. We need extreme vetting for two reasons. One, we have a long list of people who want to come into the United States. We are very generous with our visas and immigration policies. But we need to be able to have an orderly line. Nobody should cut the line. And two, we’ve seen abuses of the system, whether it’s our border, people just rushing through the border or the breakdown of being able to vet properly. We’ve got to get it right. And what President Trump feels every single day is that his responsibility is safety of American citizens. And so I have no problem with extreme vetting, with making sure we get the right people in. And when the system breaks down, having to freeze until we can get it right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you, Rick, for joining us today. I’m going to cut you off a little bit early today because we’ve got a couple calls about to hold for a very long time. We always appreciate hearing your expert advice. We’ve had a packed show of expert advice. Really a great one. So if you want to support the work of the ACLJ, I know we can’t have people like Rick, like Mike, like even our team. My dad, Will here. We can’t have this great media team without your support. So let’s go ahead and take some phone calls, though. A couple people are calling in. Let’s first go to Candy in Georgia on line three who is watching on YouTube. Candy, go ahead.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, if the auto pen is legal, why bother investigating it unless they can prove he didn’t have…
SPEAKER 12 :
somebody signed for him but they did it on their own without him even and i think katie that’s the question that they’re trying to solve the answer trying to solve this can be very as will said it’s gonna be a very hard one to solve because president biden is not going to admit this well and even president biden’s latest statement that he has issued is let me be clear i did it all executive orders pardons legislation proclamations they came from me
SPEAKER 08 :
So at the end of the day, different things from Mike Johnson and those statements that are made. But again, it becomes hearsay. And what actually is provable? I don’t know. And I don’t know if this is worthwhile. Thank you, though, for candy. And we agree with you. Thanks for calling in, Fred. Last call of the day. Watching on the Salem News Channel. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, I was just curious. You know, I heard some things that the rift between Elon and Trump is know it may not be as serious as everybody’s playing it out to be like like elon’s not turning his back on him that there’s maybe a a deeper root here yeah like an agenda you know uh maybe so president trump actually just made a statement on it we don’t have time to play it today but he specifically said in it uh you know i i we’ve had a great relationship i don’t know if we will anymore
SPEAKER 08 :
President Trump’s obviously out there making big proclamations about the big beautiful bill, which goes against a lot of what Elon was there for. So understandably.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, exactly. And at the end of the day, the media is liking to say if there’s any time a conservative disagrees with another conservative. They’ve turned. on they’ve turned on him the relationship’s over there’s a split but in reality can’t we have different of opinion especially when the doge guy who was trying to get rid of all the spending may not like a giant spending bill there’s a lot of conservatives that probably feel that way too maybe this is just giving the opportunity for the liberals to go we don’t have to sell our teslas if he turns on trump then go back to you figured it out logan you figured it out
SPEAKER 08 :
All right. That’s going to do it for today’s show. We appreciate it. You’ve been joining us all week. We’ve been around the world. We couldn’t do it without you. I want you to become an ACLJ champion right now as we speak. Again, I told you I’d be monitoring all donations that came in over that last half hour. This is the time to do it. Make it matter. It’s a big day for us here at the ACLJ. Show up. Stand up. Scan that QR code if you can or just go to ACLJ.org. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.
