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Join us as we dissect the latest in the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. With behind-the-scenes perspectives and media reactions, we cover the implications of this clash of titans on American politics, media narratives, and global political relations. From fake news to public statements, we explore the explosive dynamics and what they reveal about the intersection of business, politics, and technology in today’s fast-paced world.
SPEAKER 05 :
On today’s show, we’ve got an update on the battle of the billionaires, Elon Musk versus President Donald Trump.
SPEAKER 02 :
Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Seculo. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Secular.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, it happened. Inevitably, we kind of knew this was coming. That’s right. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. They lost that loving feeling. President Trump and Elon Musk decided to go head-to-head after rumors of a fallout. TMZ style, People Magazine style. Are they or aren’t they? And now we have heard… that the white house currently right now is saying that uh elon musk would like to speak to president trump and currently president trump is saying not that interested in talking to you right now after if you really look you look you have to be a little bit discerning because even will sent me some fake news thanks well uh i was just sending you funny memes i can’t help that you the problem is you don’t know what’s real that’s fair you don’t know what’s real when elon musk who, again, I think is a brilliant person and an absolutely amazing person in terms of the technological achievements that he has made, what he has actually done for our lives in terms of all the different systems that he has done. So I’m not taking any of that away from him. And then you have President Trump, who, again, President of the United States. But clearly, I’ve actually been saying this for weeks as the conversation of Elon Musk leaving. started to bubble up, which is once you actually get into the swamp, if you will, in Washington, D.C., it doesn’t run like a business where you say something, work gets done, things get changed, and then you do have a moment, like the big, beautiful bill, which kind of goes against a lot of what Elon thought he was there for. Now, however, did it need to be aired out in public? That is what Elon does. And he did it in a way that was maybe a bit aggressive, a bit rude, started making claims, started talking about the Epstein list, started talking about impeaching the president and having JD Vance replace him. All of this while JD Vance was was in town here in Nashville. He’s clearly staying out of it. He’s like not interested in, in fighting. But again, you have those, uh, two kinds of minds and those kinds of egos and those kinds of billionaires, if you will, in the same room for so long. Uh, I understand that inevitably this was probably going to blow up, but this has blown up on a big scale. Cause yesterday when we had this show starting, we said, Oh, he’s like, we had a great relationship. Maybe he doesn’t like me anymore. I don’t know. And it felt like within a few hours, uh, It was very clear where you had Kanye, yay, saying, please, guys, quit fighting.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. The voice of reason in the room was not the most reasonable person on the planet. That did kind of take a turn. But we’ll get into this in the next segment as well, because last night Politico was reporting that there would be a phone call between President Trump and Elon Musk. Susie Wiles this morning said that that wasn’t true, as well as President Trump said that to dana bash on cnn and we can play that bite in the next segment uh what kind of what he thinks is going on right now and and that he’s not even thinking about this anymore he’s moving on kind of with the business you know i want to say this too everyone has to remember what you’re dealing with in washington dc and why i have been sort of a uh i have to be there we have to work there we have to our office is there got a
SPEAKER 05 :
Because this is what happens. And remember, President Trump, who again, we have supported a lot of the things he has done. I think we can all debate on the big, beautiful bill. There are certainly elements in it that are very good. And there are certainly elements in there that I think maybe go too far or maybe a bit wasteful. You can discuss that. You can have that conversation. That’s okay. But also remember, he took a call this morning from CNN. from Dana Bash, and they had a very cordial, interesting conversation. So don’t get caught up too much in the theatrics, because know behind the scenes that this is what’s happening. He’s still taking a call from CNN. You can go on and yell about fake news. You can go on about that. But remember, he had dinner with Joe and Mika. This is all part of the political system. As much as I don’t want it to be, you gotta remember. You gotta look through the evidence. And I’m not saying that the Elon Trump battle is phony. I don’t think it is. But… Honestly, for the betterment of the country, I do hope this is something they can settle down because there are actual real news, big news that is coming out of areas. President Trump has now said he will be making his way to China, but that is being overshadowed by this battle of the billionaires. We’re going to hear from you guys very soon. Welcome back to Seculo. I do want to take your calls on this. I want to know how you feel because, look, this is someone who President Trump has had out there on not only the campaign trail, but in the White House for his term right now with Elon Musk, richest man in the world. This is not a dumb guy. This isn’t somebody who you can just laugh off. Now, however, does he say some ridiculous things? Is he very socially media active because he owns X and he can say what he wants on his own platform and that gets picked up? sure president trump also went after and said no one wanted your electric car and started kind of slamming him there now i will say elon took it up a notch uh you can go after somebody’s business okay he started saying uh essentially equivalating him to being on the jeffrey epstein list and what that could look like and calling for his impeachment it escalated very quickly now President Trump spoke this morning to CNN, to Dana Bash, and we have a bite we’re going to play for you. This is her discussing what they said and what that conversation looked like.
SPEAKER 03 :
He said that he, quote, well, here’s exactly what he said, quote, I’m not even thinking about Elon. He’s got a problem. The poor guy’s got a problem. He said he won’t be speaking to him for a while, but he said he wishes Elon Musk well. It was a short conversation. He didn’t seem very exercised about it. And the interesting thing is, of course, the context of this is, how many people who are in both men’s orbits are trying to broker a peace deal, so to speak, and trying to get them to talk because of the concern about the fallout in so many directions. I mean, the blast radius from this fallout is really, really big and very wide.
SPEAKER 05 :
don’t think i heard that last part till right now the blast radius is going to be so wide from this uh you know and fall out okay these are two billionaires fighting publicly What could even the fallout be? He’s the president of the United States and he’s the richest man in the world. I’m sorry. My sympathy runs a little thin. I don’t think I, and for me to try to be like, I’m not even thinking about Elon. Okay. But now he’s saying he’s very disappointed. He thinks he’s unwell. Look, this is a guy who has been very public about some of his issues and some of the social awkwardness maybe he has and is on the autism spectrum. We know this. It’s not like I’m not, I’m not, disparaging the guy this is he talks about it very openly and I look I’m very proud to say that he is who he is in that sense because it’s an amazing inspiration for for kids to see someone that can go from that become the richest man in the world and can really change the world and I believe he has from Starlink to SpaceX to Tesla to, I mean, you should go back to PayPal and eBay and all of the things that he has touched over the last 30 years. Really impressive, impressive guy. And it was really great to have someone, to be honest, like him, you’d say on the conservative side. He called for a start of a new political party. We even know, even if you’re the richest man in the world, It’s just about the hardest thing that I think anyone has ever tried. Every time they flirt with a third party, unfortunately it falls apart because the machine, just like he probably learned the machine in Washington, DC, uh,
SPEAKER 04 :
Has very few winners. Well, and here’s another way also to look at this is it’s kind of when you have the richest man in the world that’s able to, you know, buy a company on a whim to make it a free speech platform or send rockets into space. What is one of the most frustrating things probably in the world? The bureaucracy and Congress. Everything that is about the way that DC works today is what would frustrate someone who is able to achieve that greatness. And when his goal was to come in and eliminate waste and try to balance the deficits and try to tackle the debt issue that the United States have, we really… can understand a little bit why that frustration could bubble over when something like the big, beautiful bill seems at odds with what he had been working for. Now, the other part of that is that when you are in business and you have the luxury of being able to, uh, fire people at will get rid of departments. If you need to, you can do those things because there isn’t the, the checks that are on the government, the, the entire, uh, reason a big beautiful bill is happening is because it has to be done through reconciliation because our system is so broken you can’t get a straight bill through the senate because of the filibuster reconciliation you have to take a large swath of things and you have to kind of replace things within the existing system you can’t make big changes because that would require 60 votes So in order to make big changes like tax cuts, you have to also find ways to maneuver the numbers so that it comes out at net zero effectively so that it can pass through the budget reconciliation process. isn’t the best way for this country to operate. That is the reality of the very partisan environment we’re in. And I can also see how that would frustrate someone very much like it frustrates me, like it frustrates Elon Musk. But what we also see is when you are a billionaire, both the president and the richest billionaire in the world, you don’t get to that level without a very strong self-confidence and ego. And when you feel challenged, that’s why people were trying to almost seed this happening in the, in the Democrat media for a long time of like, there’s going to be a big blow up. They’re hanging out out too much. It kind of was a little inevitable. There’d be a falling out. Now. I don’t think anyone thought it would look like this, nor would they want it to look like this. And I don’t think it’s necessarily great because of some of the things that, like you mentioned that yesterday during the call with president G and president Trump, uh, They agreed to have a meeting in China and the talks continue. Jordan texted us and said, in France, where he is, that’s all anyone’s talking about because of the global ramifications. Here in the United States, people were saying, hey, if you’ve got some bad story you want to get out, drop it now because no one will care.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, because everyone is paying attention to this, you know, fight online between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, two best friends who had a falling out. Look, we’ve all been there at some point. It’s never fun. But you know what? Maybe we can air it out in public. Look, maybe there’s things we can look at like, hey, President Trump, maybe let’s not call it the Big Beautiful Bill. I get the joke. I get it’s the Build Back Better, the BBB and all that. But you know what? Take things more seriously. Show us that you’re being serious with this. And if it becomes, you can have a clever name. A lot of times they have clever names. But when it becomes a little too far in the comedic sense, maybe we have an issue. This is coming from me. who is typically one, I’m not usually one fighting against having comedy. Little jokes here and there. But if you’re talking about a massive spending bill for a specific reason, maybe making it that silly in name is not going to make the base too thrilled. Now, do I think this sends people falling apart? No, I think most people who supported President Trump will probably continue to support President Trump over Elon Musk. I don’t know if that’s true, but it feels that way. Maybe you have some of those moderates that were in the middle that he won over. And I think Elon did a terrific job of bringing over a lot of people who were not. I think I could say that about Elon, about Tulsi, about RFK. These are a group of outsiders to the Republican Party that I do think brought a lot of votes. Let’s go, though, to Justin in California, who’s online, too. Justin, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, thanks for taking my call. I mean, yeah, I commend Elon’s work and contributions to the government, especially with Doge, and uncovering just vast waste and fraud and abuse. I also think, and I understand your point of view, and I think it’s unreasonable. I can see it from Elon’s point of view, but I think it’s unreasonable for the government and for President Trump to not put forth a bill that
SPEAKER 05 :
has the government spending money um it’s kind of inevitable i mean it’s not like and again maybe that’s sort of the naivete that maybe was coming from uh a new group of people that were going to come into washington dc and change things up and i think that’s what we see the government’s obviously going to keep spending money we know this because you know what they don’t want their money cut uh they don’t want funding to be cut because they’re looking out for their interest as well
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and as well, the reconciliation process isn’t an appropriations bill. This is kind of what sets up the spending in the major, the mandatory spending and things of that nature. And so in reality… A budget reconciliation bill is always going to be very large. But the difference is that the Trump administration is trying to show that we are still working on promises through this because, as Justin said, you’re going to have to pass bills that are spending bills. And really, they’re not going to be great ever until we can fix the brokenness of wanting to rein in between both parties, government waste, fraud, and abuse. But I mean, it does deliver trillions of dollars in savings. It does have resets levels of things that were way too expensive, makes tax cuts permanent in ways like there are in the border. It gives money to the border. Like there are a lot of campaign promises in the bill that also do cost money. So you in order to do this process, have to pull from somewhere and put here and able to actually get something passed because the Democrats are never going to let anything get passed.
SPEAKER 05 :
I want to keep taking your phone calls. I want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. Look, if you like this show, by the way, two great ways, absolutely free, that you can continue to support the work of the ACLJ, even if you don’t have the financials right now to make a donation. I’m going to encourage you today to download the ACLJ app. It’s a great way to stay in communication with us, watch this show, sign petitions, get all of our content, absolutely for free, no paywall. You can do that at aclj.org slash app. Scan the QR code. If you’re new and you’re on YouTube or Rumble or you just haven’t subscribed, half of you haven’t, do it now. Welcome back to Sekulow. We do want to take your phone calls coming up. So let’s go ahead and try to get some of those screened so we can have them ready to take because we are continuing our discussion. We’re going to move on in a little bit. We have Rick Grinnell joining us a little bit later. We’re going to talk about also, you may remember Tulsi Gabbard. She was placed on the Quiet Skies program. And now we have learned that the Quiet Skies program has been pretty much eliminated. We’re going to talk about the fallout from that, the goods and the bads. Of course, we think it’s mostly good as it did no good from what we’ve learned. But we’ll talk about that coming up as well as continue the conversation about Elon Musk and President Trump. What it looks like. What’s the fallout? Is there a fallout here? I know a lot of you are siding with one or the other or just saying hopefully they can get back going and get back along. We know that President Trump, or he reached out, or someone reached out saying he wanted to speak with President Trump today. And President Trump has said, not really interested right now. We’re going to let things cool down for a little bit. And I understand that. Anyone who’s run a business, anyone who’s had to deal with people that you have issues with, it’s not always the best to deal with when emotions are running hot. And they clearly are, as Elon started to throw out some pretty outrageous allegations. And President Trump has said to people like CNN, saying, hey, you know what? I hope the guy’s doing well. I wish no ill will towards him. But, of course, also has to throw in his worthless cars that nobody wants and that kind of thing. So, you know, President Trump doesn’t take fully the high road ever, but… higher road I guess than maybe where Elon is coming from right now but again the frustrations that happen in Washington DC I can’t explain how annoying it all is you’ve had Rick Grinnell come on this show and say I leave as soon as I can there is a reason and it’s not because it’s a blood sport like they say or because everyone’s so tough it’s just so difficult to And it will. It’s one of the issues we’ve talked about on the air here for years. It is so difficult to get things done. And that’s why when the ACLJ, when we have a big celebration and we have a big victory, understand, the fight to get a law changed, to get anything moved, for status quo to be disrupted, it is nearly impossible in Washington, D.C. However, nearly. It’s not 100% impossible, but you’ve got to have patience, patience, as Axl Rose once said, and you got to give it time and you got to have the best of the best. You got to have an incredible team working on your behalf. And that’s why here at the ACLJ, we do hire the best of the best. I believe that. We hire the best media team. We hire the best legal team. Because you can’t do it. You have to be able to wait it out. You have to be going through the disappointment, through the frustrations. You have to go through all of that to finally get to an inevitable, hopeful victory. Not inevitable, a hopeful victory. Because sadly, in Washington, D.C., the people who are representing us a lot of times are representing themselves. And you have to find the good people that are involved. I believe there are good people who really want things to get done in Washington, D.C. But there are a lot of long timers. There is a lot of new blood also that comes up and they are, you know, essentially becoming celebrities. They are not taking the job seriously to work in a bipartisan way or work towards… Look, I think we’re seeing that with those cuts. So many of the cuts, I think a lot of people were very, very excited about. Finally, we’re seeing government waste end. And then you turn and you look at some of the issues when it comes to some of the funding that maybe, like our call said, to think that government spending can’t exist. Of course it’s going to exist. There are things we want our government spending on. I want to make sure… that our servicemen and women are not treated poorly when they get back home, that they do have their medical bills taken care of, that they can afford to buy groceries. I want to make sure that we are taking care of people when they need it and that we’re not falling into a trap of just deport everybody because it looks good on paper without actually spending the time to be nuanced on this. If we can’t be at all nuanced, you’re going to run into situations like happen right now, which is a campaign is very different than a presidency. And I think Elon Musk has learned that over the last few months, as sad as that may be.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and when you also look at the way that even Dana Bash, I want to read that line from that bite we played. You know, there are many people in both men’s orbits trying to broker a peace deal, so to speak, trying to get them to talk because of the concern about the fallout in so many directions. I mean, the blast radius from this is the fallout is really, really big and very wide. This is the same day. That we had news that the president had a phone call with the chairman Xi in China and that there’s going to be a trip. That is very high level. Remember, Joe Biden wouldn’t even make a phone call to President Xi in his four years. You also had Russia retaliating against that drone attack with this massive barrage of rockets. You had President Trump hosting the Chancellor of Germany in talking about the world order as far as Ukraine and getting him to kind of side with the president in some things. Those are very big global stories that no one, I feel like, has heard about because… of reporters that want to talk like that that this is uh the fallout the blast radius they are making this salacious and tabloidy and now president trump and elon musk added to that they helped by keeping this this fight going online in public for hours but At the same time, it also shows you that the people in Washington, especially the Washington media, they thrive off this kind of salacious, partisan politic that… This is what they’ve wanted.
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly. They have wanted the fallout. And their fallout is show any sign of vulnerability because right now the Democratic Party is in a complete free fall mess. But when you have now two of the biggest names in current MAGA conservatism, as you will, fighting it out online and getting real petty, it shows cracks in the armor. It can happen. You can actually see how things can fall apart. And a midterm election is not too far away. I just saw a comment come in from Mr. X-Man. Good name, by the way. It says, I will always be Team Jesus because I’m never disappointed with human beings acting like humans. And I think that’s true. We will always be the sense that you are dealing still with human beings who are flawed, have issues. No one escapes that. And they certainly, it is why we should not be putting up our political figures as some sort of spiritual guide or spiritual leadership. They are here to make sure our country is running safely, securely, that you’re taken care of financially, that things aren’t going horribly wrong with the economy, that we’re safe, that we’re protected here. Those are the things that they should be worried about. And I do think there is a mental mind flip that can happen here where we got to quit worshiping these people because you got to understand that there is no reason to. They are there to represent you and to make sure that we as American people and as America in general are stable. That is all I want. Some stability. I want to make sure that we are protected. that we can feel safe to walk down the streets, whether you are a Christian or Jewish or atheist or Muslim, that you can walk down the streets, not be afraid you’re going to get attacked because the way you believe, which is what it is in the Middle East. But we’re seeing that now in the streets of America. We want to make sure that we’re still taking care of people like the way that Jesus would do while also being respectful of the money that we have to spend and make sure that it’s not being wasted and sent to places that don’t even exist or to organizations that don’t even exist. There’s a way for all of it to get done. We can meet in the middle on a lot of this. But if we spend our time on social media fighting, it just feels like you’re ignoring the real issues of the day. And when President Trump has an opportunity now to go to China and start to solve those problems, that is what the story should be right now, not the fight of the billionaires. We’re going to be taking your calls coming up. We also want you to go to the ACLJ website at ACLJ.org. Download the ACLJ app if you’re with me. Also, we have a second half hour coming up. If you don’t get us live on your local station, find me broadcasting live each and every day on YouTube, Rumble, or however you get your podcasts. Be right back in less than a minute.
SPEAKER 02 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 05 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. Second half hour, of course, we are talking about the, what happened to Dana Bash put it? She said the fallout. The blast radius could be quite large. The blast radius for the Battle of the Billionaires again. And if you’re a WWE fan, you get the reference here. The Battle of the Billionaires, originally Vince McMahon versus Donald Trump. Now you have.
SPEAKER 04 :
I mean, you missed a golden opportunity for the thumbnail today, Logan, to just copy the Battle of the Billionaires artwork. You know what?
SPEAKER 05 :
A lot of people on the IWC, the Internet Wrestling Community, they’ve been posting that. Oh, got it.
SPEAKER 04 :
So you know what? I didn’t inform our team.
SPEAKER 05 :
I should have. Obviously, President Trump and Elon Musk, the honeymoon’s over. The fallout has begun. I don’t think this is some sort of pretend shell game here. I do think that a lot of this has to do with frustration in Washington, D.C., And Elon must not be able to take it. And I do think you’re talking about very, very strong personalities. Unfortunately, though. This has distracted a lot of the mainstream media because there is some real things happening. We’re going to be talking about that coming up next with Rick Grinnell as the Quiet Skies program, the TSA program that we know that Tulsi Gabbard was put on and a lot of people have put on over the years where you were being monitored is being shut down by the Department of Homeland Security. So we’re going to talk about what that looks like, why do we think that’s important and why we think that’s actually a good thing. I know some people will be like, why is that a good thing? When you hear about the facts of that program, I think you’ll agree with us. But also, President Trump had a not just a call with President Xi Jinping from China. There is now planned movement for our relationship with China, whether you like that or not. By the way, I know some of the comments say don’t go to China, but looks like President Trump will be making a trip.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. So that has to do with the trade issues that the United States negotiators are working out. And it’s going to a high level. One, we found out that the negotiations will continue, that the U.S. teams will be meeting soon again with the Chinese counterparts, as well as an unplanned time yet. But there was an invitation from Chairman Xi to President Trump and Melania to come over to China, of which the president said he accepted. So they will be working on that. But I think there’s another angle to this, too, Logan. And this is something that is quite frustrating when you’ve been around conservative politics for a long time. And that is sometimes conservatives are their own worst enemy. They get in the way of they we have the Senate, the House and the presidency right now. And everyone focusing, and I was as well. It was hilarious on the internet yesterday. The memes were top notch. It was the best meme day maybe ever. It was the best of memes. It was the worst of memes. But it was very funny and it was entertaining. I preferred the baby JD Vance ones, whatever. Those were making a comeback yesterday as he being the child of Elon and President Trump. Very funny.
SPEAKER 05 :
He was like, I’m hanging in Nashville with Theo Vaughn.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m not dealing with y’all right now. But that being said, while entertaining, sad for the country that that was the focus and the big issues weren’t. And that… People were able to score political points like AOC had a very witty comeback when asked by a reporter. What is going on here?
SPEAKER 05 :
You’re just trying to make the chat go crazy.
SPEAKER 04 :
What I’m saying, though, is that the right thing to do is one. President Trump has moved on on truth. He’s no longer posting about Elon. But I do think for the good of the country and for the movement, the conservative movement, something needs to be resolved of it. reconciliation or even just no more hostility in order to say, hey, look, here’s what we are focused on doing. And it does seem that President Trump has moved on. Elon, in some of his later statements later in the night, seemed like maybe he was cooling off. But I do think there was damage, not just to the country’s perception, perhaps. President Trump has been saying what he wants to say for a long time. But I do think for the movement, with the midterms coming up, there needs to be some sort of fix there.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right, phone lines are open for you. Rick Grinnell is going to be joining us in the next segment. And then after that, I’m going to take all the calls we can. So if you’re on hold right now, Rich, James, Len, stay on hold. We got three lines open, 1-800-684-3110. As always, continue to support the work of the ACLJ, whether that’s financially or just by engaging. Almost 490,000, we’re at 489,000 people, are just on our YouTube channel. We’re changing the world, everybody, one subscriber at a time. And we know only about 50% of people that watch this show each and every day even subscribe. So you can do me a big favor. While we’re in this break, which is going to be very short, I promise, hit that subscribe button right now. I want to see that number pop. Be right back. Welcome back to Secular. We are going to take your calls in the next segment. We got one line open still. 1-800-684-3110. Rick Grinnell is joining us. Rick, it’s been a quiet day in Washington, D.C. Not a lot of issues going on. Not a lot of feedback. But hey, we want to actually talk about some issues that we feel like are important for our audience today. uh to know about and to be following what’s going on in one of those and maybe will could even set us up here one of those has to do with the tsa and the tsa’s quiet skies program which some of you may be familiar with uh because we would have tulsi gabbard on this broadcast it was during the time she was under surveillance due to this program
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. And Rick, now we’re hearing that the Department of Homeland Security is shuttering this program. This was a program that began during the Obama administration, cost about $200 million a year, never stopped a single terrorist attack, and violated the civil rights of many Americans. So par for the course for Washington, D.C. But what’s your take on this? Is this the right move at the right time from DHS?
SPEAKER 01 :
Look, Christie, Secretary Noem, is somebody who wants to see that programs work. If they don’t work, she’s going to act quickly. And this particular program over the last several years has spent almost a billion dollars of American taxpayer dollars And it just didn’t work. It was a weaponization program, just exactly like what the Biden administration did to DOJ. They did with these lists and it was very political in nature, wasn’t stopping terrorists. It was stopping people that were enemies of the Democratic Party and the controlling party. uh groups that were in the biden administration and so christine ohm uh is right to look at the program and say you know what look at this is not working this was a weaponization program it wasn’t geared towards making us safer it was geared towards making us more politically uh against each other and and by ending it i think she deserves our support she it’s it’s you know not without controversy to step up and say i’m getting rid of this program all of the money was wasted uh we’re cutting the people we’re cutting the programs we’re cutting the money we’re going to save the money um and and she did it in a way She took her time. She looked at the program to say, is it working? Is this program from the Biden team a good program? And she decided it wasn’t. So she cut it. I love the fact that she’s acting like a governor, which is being responsible for the programs on whether or not they work. And implementing these programs is exactly what we need from cabinet secretaries, people who follow through on the money to see, is it being well spent? Not just saying, you know, we have a program that in theory is going to work. We want to know if we have a program in practice, if it’s working. And she made the decision that it wasn’t.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and I think a lot of people look at this and go, well, why would we want to do away with a TSA program that’s causing us, hopefully keeping us safe? But that’s what we’ve learned, and it really wasn’t that. It means you can start to free up that budget to reimagine ways to keep us safe, reimagine ways to change the way the airport system works, the TSA system works. It’s not about eliminating safety precautions. It’s about evaluating really what’s going on from, like you said, from a gubernatorial, from a business standpoint, really.
SPEAKER 01 :
There’s no question, Logan, that if this program was working, Secretary Noem would have kept it. There’s no question about that. She’s not a partisan person. When she was governor, she made decisions that were best for her state. And by the way, some of those decisions were controversial with Republicans and independents. Some of the programs were controversial with Democrats. What Kristi Noem has demonstrated is that she knows what works and is willing to make tough decisions. choices and tough decisions to make sure that the money is spent wisely. This program didn’t work. It needs to be cut. I would challenge other secretaries, other cabinet members to really look at the programs that their divisions, their bureaucracies are spending our taxpayer payer dollars on and ask the question, is this program working? Does it justify the hundreds of millions of dollars that we’re spending on it? If the answer is no, step up, take the political hits and do it. Cut it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Rick, when you look at this specific program, and one, this seems very much like the encapsulation of how things should work within the executive branches. When something’s not working, cut it. And that’s also what was a promise of the Trump administration when President Trump was running, that he was going to make reforms, make changes where things weren’t working, do away with, and try to make government more efficient. Right. You see this, but they also, when he was running, ran on transparency and openness. Do you think we need to see, whether it be an inspector’s general report or something of that nature, even just a congressional report, but into the types of abuses that went on? Because we know the high level of Tulsi Gabbard, which was high profile, obviously, and now the director of national intelligence. But just what extent… that this program could have or potentially did violate civil rights of US citizens.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, well, I thought that the way you characterized that was perfect. It’s not vindictive. It’s trying to figure out transparency and accountability. We spent almost a billion dollars on a program. I think there needs to be an evaluation. There needs to be an honest assessment. How was that money spent? Did it work? What were the abuses of it? What were the outcomes? I believe that transparency is not political. I believe that when government officials, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, when they come forward and they say, look, we tried this program, it didn’t work, we’re cutting it, or there was abuse here, or we did something wrong. I believe that when we’re honest and transparent with the American people… that the American people then say, you know, I trust the government more. And right now, people don’t trust the government because we see these shady things. And so, when you have transparency and when you have accountability, it may seem like it’s painful to go through. It may seem like, oh, gosh, you know, we mismanaged funds or we spent money poorly. But I actually think for the long run, it helps the public see that there is accountability and they will have faith the next time you come up with an idea and decide that you’re going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Obviously, we can’t let you go without at least talking about some of the top stories that are going on today. China obviously is in the news, but obviously Elon Musk and this whole kind of debacle has been breaking. And there’s a lot of people with a lot of feelings on it. And I know that you’re involved in a lot of inner circle stuff, so I don’t want you to violate any trust. You need to. But I think there are concerns when people see this and go, OK, it’s not only just a battle of the billionaires, as I said, as President Trump and Elon seem to be talking it out. But how should people, especially those listening who who are are concerned about this, take all of what’s going on for the last 24 hours?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, first of all, I think President Trump is right in that, you know, he was thankful for Elon Musk’s support. Doge did some great things. But to be able to say, look, not any one person gets to have their way constantly. There’s going to be disappointments. You’re not going to be able to impact every single decision. I think that that’s a strong leader. And the president is saying, look, I value Elon Musk’s ideas and support, but I’m the president and I’m going to make the right decisions. And I think the non-political people tend to not get that. They just think that everything runs like a business and that’s not true. There’s politics in everything. And I love the fact that
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, Rick, how many times have we talked about Washington, D.C. just operating so differently than any sort of business or environment that really anyone could step in, including the richest people in the world?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, exactly. And I think that’s what we’re seeing play out is the president is the president. He ran. He was almost assassinated. He’s put skin in the game. And he’s the one that’s going to be accountable for these decisions. And he’s going to make the decisions and he can rely on people like Elon, but they don’t get to control the government. The president is in charge.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you so much for joining us. Will, you got any last? No, I thought it looked like your mouth was about to open. So I didn’t want to stop that. You’re like. Rick, thanks for joining us. As always, we always appreciate your feedback, your advice, and your commentary. If you want to support the ACLJ when you do that, know you’re supporting having people like Rick on this broadcast, having incredible team members as part of the ACLJ, whether that’s our legal team, our media team, our broadcast team. We can’t do it without you. Right now, it’s usually what I’d be saying, please call, but phone lines are completely jammed. So right now, if you’re watching, you’re one of maybe the 3,000 or so that are watching live right now, hundreds of thousands of you watch later on. Maybe you’re one of those hundreds of thousands that are watching this not live. What I’m going to ask you to do, because we know, we can see the back end of the analytics. And over half of the people who watch this show every day, Maybe they’ve never seen us, but usually they just have, you know, I’ll be honest. We’re all a little lazy. I don’t subscribe to some of these channels I watch every day, but I understand how important it is because it helps us get into the algorithms of other people, not just like-minded people, people that need to hear this. So I encourage you to just hit that subscribe button. We are about to crest 490,000 people just on YouTube alone. It’s game changing. It’s world changing. Understand that’s bigger numbers than a lot of the mainstream media outlets could dream of having on their daily broadcasts. And that is because of people like you who support this work because we’re not paid for by major sponsors. If you’re hearing an ad in your local market, that’s not going to us. If you’re seeing a YouTube ad, that is a very small, small, small percentage of revenue that could come in here to the ACLJ. And that’s why we always need your support, need your help. Become a champion if you can also. That’s something that gives on a monthly basis. I see you got two champions on the line right now. They’re getting buffed up to the front. Some people have been holding triple the amount of time, but they’re going to go first because that is one of the perks of being an ACLJ champion. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Hey, one line opened up. Someone hung up. Give me a call. 1-800-684-3110. Let’s go ahead and kick this off so we can get to as many calls as we possibly can. We’re going to go to Bill, who is an ACLJ champion in Florida. Bill, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, this may sound a little far-fetched, but I keep thinking of the possibility that President Trump and Elon Musk fabricated this rift between them so that… Elon Musk could distance himself from Trump because his relationship has been damaged by everything that he’s done. There’s been a tremendous loss in Tesla and then there’s, I read of a company I think in Finland that announced they were going to get rid of all their Teslas because they don’t like the way that
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s crossed all of our minds whether this is a course correction for Elon to try to get his actual businesses back on track. But I do think starting to throw things out like the Epstein list and all that, you don’t have to go that far.
SPEAKER 04 :
I also think Tesla stock went down aggressively yesterday when this all started playing out. And I think the number reported was Elon Musk lost about $34 billion in stock value personally with it tanking like that yesterday. So I don’t know that that was really the price that they would have done. There is a lot of theories out there. I think this was a pretty genuine fight aired publicly. I do see a lot of people posting their Trump-wrapped Cybertrucks. What are we going to do with this? Earlier in the week, you said, though, that I said, you know, that was a lie, like Maury Povich. Maybe we could broker the piece that Dana Bash was talking about, have both of them on here in studio, and we can just go through the tweets, go through the X post, and we can work it out for them.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right. We can do it just like, look, we’re on in the midday. Right. Or like those old shows.
SPEAKER 04 :
Daytime TV. Daytime TV. That’s right.
SPEAKER 05 :
Maybe we can get an Emmy for that. you know it better win an emmy if we can broker that beast deal yeah that’d be great so uh president trump mr musk the door is always open to you all right let’s continue on elizabeth is calling from florida elizabeth you are on the air thank you for taking my call i am um it’s pretty red hot down here in florida it’s 92 degrees already but um
SPEAKER 11 :
I wanted to call and put in a plug for all the ACLJ, for all the work they’ve done, even for people I don’t necessarily agree with. Sounds fair?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I think that that, Elizabeth, we saw you reference the Green Party and some of the election rules that we were getting involved with. Last time. Look, it’s true. The ACLJ team, what I’ve always told you is, sure, we are here to support Christian conservative values, but we also know that those values have to be protected and sometimes protected in ways that is unique, ways that are different, ways that aren’t just directly tied to Christian conservatism, because we know. that if they go after another party or if they go after a candidate, there’s a good chance they can turn that law back on you. That is what our concern is on some of what we talked about yesterday. Right, right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Exactly that. I was just going to say, talking about the auto pen issues and the investigation retroactively, while it may be inconvenient or not what politically you want to see because of the damage that was done by the Biden administration, But that’s also why we’re going to tell the truth and we’re going to say – call it like we see it and say I think it’s maybe a short-sighted investigation, especially if they try to rein in certain things because it could hurt what we value down the road. What happens when you see the executive proclamation of – you know, reinstating the the ban of funding of abortion and things of that nature when the next president comes in and says, I’m going to undo that because also not just because I don’t like it, but this can never happen again because I think the president was mentally unfit to make that decision. It’s things like that that you have to think of. How can it hurt if you start putting limits on the executive, if you start putting things that are extra constitutional outside the Constitution as restrictions? It’s not good for the country or for what we hold dear in the long term if you start to do that.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right, let’s keep going. We got four minutes, three calls. Let’s try to do it. Let’s go to James in New Mexico. James, you’ve been on hold for a long time. Apologize. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
uh, Sunday, more than likely.
SPEAKER 05 :
James back on hold. We’ll try to get to him. All right. It looks, sounds like he was at a pottery class. David is calling. Uh, actually, yeah, let’s go, David, David, quickly go ahead with your comment.
SPEAKER 08 :
Uh, yeah, I was wondering if the ACLJ could put together as, as you being attorneys, uh, a constitutional amendment that we could do as a grassroots type thing to, uh, make Congress do a balanced budget.
SPEAKER 05 :
Sure. Our legal team is listening, David, right now, so maybe they can get that done for you. We’ll put in that request. Will and I are not attorneys, but we do kind of play one.
SPEAKER 04 :
constitutional amendment process david very very difficult i feel like especially something on like a balanced budget but you know uh i don’t know that there’s a more noble cause than trying that would be nice so david appreciate your call let’s go to lynn who is calling in new york on youtube uh lynn you’re on the air hi i just had a comment for president trump and elon musk
SPEAKER 10 :
You both have an ego problem right now, so take the egos, put them in a closet, lock them up, throw the key away, and move on. And I think President Trump’s already started that, so Elon, it’s up to you now.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, we know Elon’s reached out to try to maybe make amends on a phone call. President Trump says, let’s let cooler heads prevail, give us some time here. So we’ll see, just like any time apart. Sometimes you just got to… Respite. You got to give a break. Just take a minute. Yeah. All right, let’s go. Last call. James in New Mexico. You there, James? I’m here.
SPEAKER 1 :
Go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
I just wanted to comment real quickly that, you know, disbelief opened the door wide, opened for the… Democrats. And yeah, the fallout, the radius blast is nuclear in proportion. President Trump, comment for him, please. Seek God daily in everything you do and things will straighten out. I kid you not.
SPEAKER 05 :
i agree with you i think that’s true for everyone who’s listening this you should be doing that uh every day yourself so i appreciate james great call great comment to wrap up the broadcast here look we got two minutes left uh usually and that we went through those calls pretty quickly well yeah we did i i didn’t monologue you didn’t monologue we let them monologue yeah there was very distinct uh comments also so we appreciate everyone called in look it’s friday We hope you have a great weekend. Try to take some time for yourself, for your family. Relax, rest, spend time in prayer. Know that the political side of all this, sometimes it can be very entertaining, but it shouldn’t be controlling every aspect of your life. And look, today we’ve just simply asked you to download that ACLJ app or subscribe. So you can do that right now on our YouTube channel. You can download the ACLJ app in the App Store. Those are great ways to get involved with the ACLJ without just saying, you know, support the work, donate. No, you have to donate. Sure, that helps. It goes a long way. But these are easy ways to really support the ACLJ. I’m sure at times, specifically as we head into some of these bigger summer months, there’s going to be things we’re going to ask you to do that will be not as easy as that. And I want you prepared. I want you to be ready because we have a big second half of the year planned here at the ACLJ. Our legal team is ramping up. You’ve heard about it so much. Our media team, even more so. We’re working on new studios. Talking to our crew before this about our new studio options that we’re going to be having all over the world. Because like we’ve said, the ACLJ stands for the American Center for Law and Justice, but our borders do not exist. We are around the world. We have the ECLJ. It’s a European center where my brother is right now. We have teams in Jerusalem at ACLJ Jerusalem. The European Court of Human Rights. We’re at the UN. We’re involved in politics here when we have to be. And of course, we’re there to support your rights. views and your rights as Christians to believe how you want to believe, to worship how you want to worship. And we’re doing that again around the world, whether that is in the DRC or Europe or America. It was a great week. Talk to you on Monday.
