- Posted May 2, 2025
SHOCKING: Media Frenzy Following Trump U.N. Appointment….
Join us as we explore the impactful cases spearheaded by the ACLJ this March, from advocating for a teacher’s right to prayer to battling governmental inefficiency with Doge at the helm. We spotlight the recent court victories that reinforce constitutional rights and discuss Bill Maher’s planned meeting with President Trump, signaling a surprising shift towards bipartisan dialogues. As the March Life and Liberty Drive comes to its deadline, we reflect on the significant strides made in supporting pro-life resources and urge listeners to participate in critical initiatives aimed at preserving freedoms.
SPEAKER 04 :
We got breaking news. Doge enters the CIA to start cleaning things up.
SPEAKER 09 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 04 :
And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. We got a packed show today. We’re going to have an ACLJ attorney on with a big win. It’s real fun. It’s actually continue on, but you’re going to be able to hear an update, a real update of what we’re doing. And look, I may be talking a million miles an hour. That is because this is the last day. of our Life and Liberty Drive for March. Of course, that focus usually is on life. And then we move into some of the big wins and the big moments that are happening for Liberty right now. As I said, phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. You may have seen the headline if you’re watching on YouTube or on Rumble. And that is, yes, Elon Musk and co., the Doge team, are entering the CIA today. And look, I think we need to talk about this as those protests continue for Tesla, as Elon Musk has continued to be the boogeyman. I was just in L.A. over the weekend, I can tell you. No one’s talking about Trump. They are talking about Elon. That is the number one discussion point. And of course, the people on the ground there, Maybe they like what’s going on. Overheard a lot of conversations being like, well, you know, who wants government waste? A lot of that kind of discussion happening. But of course, in the media, it’s being spun a very different way. But today… Elon Musk is set to visit the CIA to start discussing how they can bring more efficiency to the department. But, Will, I think what we need to make sure people are clear about is this CIA, we’re now months into a Trump administration CIA. They’re welcoming in Doge. It’s not like a – you think of it like a raid. This is not a raid. These are cordial now. These are an organization. Sure, no one wants to see jobs get cut. But you even had John Ratcliffe saying that he’s coming in and I’m sure he’s happy to meet with him.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s right. John Ratcliffe, who is the director of the CIA, actually early in the administration said, I would like to see. The Doge team come to the CIA. He even did something similar with the buyout of staff at at CIA to to lower the workforce or give early retirement to individuals. I think that what you’re going to see with this is another attempt by the media, though, to make this seem like something really nefarious is happening. You’re going to see them say. How dare they allow Elon Musk, an unelected, not bureaucrat, just unelected individual, even though the only person in the executive branch that is elected directly is the president of the United States and his running mate, the vice president. But pay that no mind. But they’ll treat you like you’re stupid and don’t. And they’re going to have access to every secret of America. And then Elon Musk is going to sell that out to China. And it’s going to be terrible. This is the end of the road here. He’s going to go start doxing all of the undercover CIA agents. No, they’re going to go in there. They’re going to talk about efficiency. And I think carrying over from our conversation on Friday, where you saw those very serious principles of Doge talking about what their work actually is. Yeah, I think every single government agency needs a little bit of a taste of that to make sure that we’re not just wasting money here and there. I think this is going to be one of the harder lifts for the Doge team because I think a lot of money is probably not directly enumerated in the budget of the CIA. But I think it is a good move and we’ll see what comes out of it.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. I’d love to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. You’re going to hear from this from me a lot today because it is the last day. And it is a big day. We got to make sure we hit our goal, and we are behind right now. So I need you. Midnight tonight is the deadline for March’s Life and Liberty Drive. Your donations are doubled. You need to be a part of it right now. If you want to see what’s happening with Doge, you want to see that to be more. We are involved in many different ways. We filed seven briefs in five different courts to defend the fight for Doge to stop corrupt spending. Of course, that is also… filing to allow president trump to stop funding planned parenthood and other abortion clinics and we filed and we’ve won in two other cases defending all those executive orders so right now it’s very important that you give to organizations like the aclj that’s why we’re putting this qr code up on the screen right now i want you to scan it as we go into break Do it right now. Again, 1-800-684-3110 if you want to be on the air. But go ahead and make that donation right now. It’s tax deductible. We urgently need your help. And your gift will be doubled today at ACLJ.org. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Seculo. We are here. That’s me. So that’s great. There you go. 1-800-684-3110. We’re continuing the discussion on Elon Musk and the team visiting the CIA today. And look, there’s a lot of talk, a lot of talk about the defunding and whether what’s good, what’s bad. I was in LA over the weekend. I went to see a stage show, like a Broadway style show. Of course, I know you’re probably gonna get mad at me for that. You’re gonna be like, how dare he? But I’m a patron of the arts, if you will, Will. It’s going to get worse when you tell them what you saw. Oh, yeah. I’m not going to tell them. Oh, okay. Good. They can figure it out themselves. Okay. It had a lot of, you know, a lot of magic in it. But I saw this play. And at the end of the play, they came out and they cast in and said, hey. Funding for Broadway Cares and AIDS research is under attack right now and it’s a very unsettling time. So if you can give, please consider giving. And give right now. We’re going to have buckets that’s going to get passed around like a church to donate to this. And I thought, exactly. This is how it’s supposed to be. Do you care about the funding of AIDS research or do you care about the funding of Broadway Cares and everything they’re doing? Great. Make your donation. Put your money where your mouth is. You all just spent $150 to $250 on a ticket to see this play. This is how we were supposed to do charity. This is how we’re supposed to do church. This is how the country works, which are when there are those specialty things and the government’s not taking more of your money. You are able to make these kind of donations, support the kind of things that you care about, as a lot of us do. We don’t rely on the federal government to give us that money. This is what happens here at the ACLJ. You support it. Do you care about what we talk about? Great. Well, there’s ways you can help because it’s all funded just by you. Same thing can happen for a lot of these organizations and charities. I’m not someone who’s saying we need to go and cut everything. I think that there are some really great causes that the U.S. government does work with that does great humanitarian aid. But what I really wish is that the American people would actually stick up for those organizations and not rely on the federal government to handle charity.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s right. And to some degree, that’s how the big government mentality has been able to creep, is that there are the ability to then start going and funding NGOs, which is almost comical to think that some of these non-government organizations… would not exist or do not exist without government funding so they should be quasi government organizations not non-government organizations but it the oversight breaks down at that point when you’re looking at it from that perspective as well because then your taxpayer dollars are going to a third party that is not government that is not subject to the oversight and the checks and balances of our government and so when you talk about it’s one thing to talk about charitable organizations or grants like that And that’s what’s been the big headline from all of the first round Doge media blitz is that those are also the easy things to find and correct of like a government here, a grant here that the government shouldn’t be funding. We can just get rid of that until, you know, a lower court judge puts an injunction on it nationwide. Right. But the real work, and I think where, as we mentioned on Friday, that the Doge team should have done that style interview earlier to really get to the bottom of these are the types of things we want to look at, the systems within government. The way that our government operates, whether it be Social Security to the retirement program within the government to even now the CIA, are there things we can get in there and find ways that we’re operating that are stuck in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s? And bring that up to modern standards for a host of reasons. One, to make it more secure, to make it go quicker, to save money. So when they talk about things like Social Security, that they want to find $300 billion or something within Social Security, they’re not talking about cutting $300 billion of benefit to the Social Security recipient. They’re talking about how expensive it is to run that bureaucracy. When you’re talking about 40% of the incoming calls being from people trying to commit fraud. When you talk about the way that things are handled on paper still. How it takes nine months to retire someone from the government. Those are things that if they can be done quicker and more efficiently, save money. You don’t have to spend that money of taxpayers to go in and do it this old way. And that’s where you look at the CIA. I don’t think as the media is going to try to declare that this is all of a sudden him, he’s going to go in, he’s going to start line iteming undercover agents to fire. No, what they’re going to do is find ways that the CIA, the clandestine, uh, central intelligence agency is working inefficiently and try clandestine. You know, top secret spy stuff.
SPEAKER 04 :
I know. See, that’s what you should say. Spy stuff. Top secret spy stuff, not clandestine. Well, clandestine seems like an all-inclusive resort I would go to.
SPEAKER 10 :
Clandestine? I would go to clandestine. They also have an escape room where you are a CIA agent trying to get out. Yeah, it sounds like very fun.
SPEAKER 04 :
Clandestine. You’ll see the ads running now all of a sudden. We need to open that. All right, let’s go ahead and take calls. Let’s go to Minerva, who’s calling in Texas. Also, name of a character I saw in the play. Minerva, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 07 :
I wanted to comment that I don’t even watch the local news anymore because… my blood pressure can’t handle it all the lies the we have veronica escobar and everybody here is the majority are democrats i used to be that way thank you to you guys you guys opened my eyes i hear you on kelp my christian channel but but it’s wonderful when you open your eyes and you hear the lies they’re going to cut social security checks they’re going to cut this and then they came and they um did the picketing at tesla this weekend And ask them what they believe in. They’re like parrots. They just say what they see on the news. Do you check it? Absolutely. And Elon Musk is rich and famous and he doesn’t care about the local people. Do you understand where your money is going? And I’m going crazy.
SPEAKER 04 :
investigated it’s lies and everybody here follows you’re exactly right i have these conversations all the time especially with a lot of people who say hey i’m open-minded i want to hear your point of view you’ll see a lot of those kind of baiting posts on social media now being like look i’m not gonna try to fight you i just want to know how you possibly can agree with what’s going on and then you have a discussion you realize that their point of view is only you know a half inch thick They have no idea really what’s going on, whether that’s on this topic, whether that’s what’s happening in the Middle East. They are just, as you said, parroting the very brief posts that they see on social media. They are parroting what they are seeing on television. They have no idea truly what’s going on. And then, of course, when you try to and you say, okay, this person really would like to have this discussion, it turns south very quickly. All of a sudden, you’re getting called names. You’re getting called a racist. You’re getting called all these things because it’s the easy way out. But I encourage you to try to have those conversations, but don’t get sucked into it. If they’re not willing to actually have a real discussion and actually have some open mind. And look, we’re going to talk a little bit later about Bill Maher is going to be visiting the White House this week and what that’s going to look like, or they announced it officially. You know, that’s… an interesting spot to be in, okay? Where you have Bill Maher, who historically has been a leader of the far left who has now seen his own Democratic Party and his own left go beyond him. So much so that he is actually willing to go sit with conservatives now. He’s willing to go sit in front of President Trump, actually be honored to go to the White House and meet with him, even if they disagree. After years and years of bashing, that shows you actually where conservatives land on a lot of this. that they will have those discussions and those debates and they’re not scared of them. Because you know what your background is. You know the facts. You listen to this show. You watch this show on YouTube. We give you the tools to be your own boss, Will. Like Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Like Enterprise Rent-A-Car. And we tell people… The true facts. And then you’re able to go and share those. That’s one of the great things ACLJ does. It’s not just this show. It sounds like I’m just like tooting my own horn here. No, you go to ACLJ.org and there is a treasure trove of content that is absolutely free, not behind a paywall. It is just there for you to take in, to ingest, and be able to use however you’d like. Whether you want to share that content on social media, whether you want to have that information so you share it with friends, or if you need legal help. Because there are some big wins happening right now. In the next segment, you’re going to hear one of those wins. And then tomorrow, we can’t say it yet, but there’s something happening tomorrow. And I’m excited to share that as well. Because the ACLJ can be there for you and is there for you. Whether that’s providing incredible content like this broadcast, whether you’re watching it on YouTube in podcast format, Or maybe, like I said, you need legal help. Or maybe you just want to be armed with the facts. So you go to ACLJ.org, you download the ACLJ app. All of this material is available for zero cost. But it can only be at zero cost because people like you have decided that this work is important enough to fund. Not the federal government saying it’s important to fund. Not some big government grant saying it’s what should be. Not big corporate sponsors saying individual people like you, ACLJ supporters who maybe give one time a year during these big drives. And right now, this is the last day of the March Life and Liberty Drive. Midnight deadline to have your donations doubled. Of course, we’ve been focusing a lot on what’s going on in life as well. We know you care a lot about the unborn. We have filed… to defund Planned Parenthood. Once again, we’re waiting to hear back from the Supreme Court on this. This is a big moment. Of course, you have President Trump saying he’s ready to do it. We’ve got a major lawsuit to defeat the government of Massachusetts. That’s our plan. And the abortion industry, you’ve heard about that. Our Choice Begins Here campaign, which was our counter campaign, which we’ve seen massive success in because people like you donated up to $500,000 to have that campaign of hope and true choice. to help those pro-life pregnancy resource centers. As you stood up and it’s time to do it again, we’re short of our goal. Scan the QR code right now or go to aclj.org. back to secular phone lines are open for you right now i encourage you to call 1-800-684-3110 1-800-684-3110 we’re gonna continue our conversation about elon musk visiting the cia as well as president trump having an unlikely guest coming to the white house of course that is real times bill maher from politically incorrect and stand-up comedian someone who has not been a friend to the to people of faith for a while but we’ve seen him have a bit of a change of heart recently And now they’re going to have a sit-down dinner together, which is pretty interesting. But I did want to talk, because we are in that last day of our life, and Liberty Drive for the month of March. And I wanted to bring on one of our attorneys, ACLJ Senior Attorney, a great member of our team, Christy Campagnone. I say it a hundred times, Christy. You think I get it right. But… This is a good moment for the ACLJ. We are seeing success happen again and again. And this one, you all may remember us talking about, which is a teacher who essentially was told, and you can give us, Christie, a brief sort of 101 overhead, was told, no, you can’t be seen praying by anyone, by your students or anything. Again, not leading prayer. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about she couldn’t be in her car praying in the eyeshot of someone on the staff and one of the students.
SPEAKER 02 :
Exactly. So this all came up with See You at the Pole, which is a standard thing that we’ve had in the United States for many, many years, where both teachers and then sometimes students will go before school, before classes and meet at the flagpole for prayer. So our client is one of the teachers with a few other teachers. There were no students there, went in September and prayed at the pole. And then, of course, had the principal come and grab them from the pole before. bring them into his office and tell them that they’re never allowed to pray in the presence of students. And then when they responded with, well, it wasn’t in the presence of students. There were no students there. He said, well, yes, there were students walking into the building that could have seen you. And you’re not allowed to do that. That’s school policy. So we brought our lawsuit and we just had a big win down in Texas. The court denied the school’s motion to dismiss, which means our case is live and the court effectively agreed with us that our complaint sufficiently alleged all of the facts needed to go forward and win that our client’s constitutional rights were violated by this official school policy.
SPEAKER 10 :
And Christy, for those watching, the motion to dismiss was brought by the defendant. So the school, the principal wanting to have this case thrown out of court because obviously they’re not wanting to be sued over it. So this is really like the big first legal hurdle that you have to get past. And sometimes if a judge doesn’t want to deal with it. or if they don’t think that it was enough standing is there to be brought, they can just get it out of their court, clear it out. But I want to read this from the opinion on this motion to dismiss because it’s one, it bodes well for the future of our client in this as we go forward. But I also want to get your reaction when the judge writes, accepting the allegations in the complaint as true, Kennedy serves as an on-point case that clearly establishes that it is a violation of the First Amendment for a school to instruct its employee that she cannot pray in the presence of students. Therefore, Principal Rounds is not entitled to qualified immunity. Meaning the principal was trying to argue that as an employee of the school district, he couldn’t be named as one of the defendants in this lawsuit as well. But we claim big victory here because we have that next step. But now our team has a lot of work ahead. And there’s no better time than today to have a victory like this when we’re in the end of our life and liberty drive for March because these resources are going to be needed. We need to now take this forward and fight in court to make sure that, yes, we survived one hurdle, but we have to get to the finish line.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, it’s very exciting for us that one line from the judge was very strong in our favor, but that doesn’t mean that we have an automatic win. And so the next steps here is we’ve got to go through what’s called the summary judgment motion stage. So that’s where we ask the judge to rule based on the evidence that’s been presented and based on our complaint without having it to go to trial. And if we can win on that, that would mean we win the entire case. So, we’ve gotten one step in, but now we have the big fight ahead of us with these summary judgment motions. So, we’re going to file one. I am sure the school is going to file one. We then have to respond to each other. It’s a significant amount of time, a significant amount of writing, and a whole team of attorneys that are going to be on this. So, you’re exactly right. We couldn’t do this without your support because this is, I mean, we’re talking 30 plus hours of of our time and you guys are making that possible so that we can do that for our client and not just our client but this is going to set precedent along with kennedy for future school rulings and so this is very exciting but we got we need you to get it there
SPEAKER 10 :
And Christy, we know that while viewers and listeners may think, okay, this is one teacher in Texas. We know that’s never the case. We know that school, and you may be surprised that this is happening in Texas, but you know that it’s happening all over the country. It’s one teacher speaking up. Right. So if people have something similar happening to them, they can go to aclj.org help and our attorneys will be there to guide them through this process and secure victory for their constitutional rights.
SPEAKER 02 :
Exactly. So if we hear of anything else like this, we can not only use the little win that we have here, but we can jump into court and try to bring another case as well. And so then the more cases that we have in all of the courts, the more likely it is that we can solidify this precedent moving forward. And right now, our whole goal is trying to determine where are the boundaries of the Supreme Court case in Kennedy and that quote that you read from the judge. is one step in helping solidify that, that these teachers do have the right to pray in front of students, maybe not in class time, maybe not when the students are asking for them to do certain things, but when they’re on their free time, in the lunchroom, on snack, on break, before school, of course they’re allowed to pray, and that is what we’re here to fight.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you so much for joining us today. And look, these are very important issues. And I think people, like Will said, you can maybe look at it from a small scale and be like, this is sort of lowercase p persecution. Like you could say, hey, we know what’s happening in places like Congo and where people are being murdered for their faith. And yes, this is not that. But the ACLJ is involved in that as well. So we’re able to multitask. We’re able to get an incredible team that can go all around the world. but also can go to Texas and represent a singular teacher to hopefully set precedent for the future to say, of course, you can pray. Of course, you can pray in your car. Of course, you can pray before your meal. Of course, that is violating your not only First Amendment, but your religious freedom. You get prey before a meal. This is absurd, but thankfully, we have an incredible team that can get into action very quick. And you may even say, why is the state of Texas even pushing this? Why do they not just figure it out and settle it? Hopefully, they do down the road. But what we like about this and what you can see this is that the ACLJ can get it done even when things may be hostile. So right now, this is the last day of our March Life and Liberty Drive. You just heard from Christie about this very good win that again, it’s a, you don’t wanna say it’s a temporary win, but it’s a win to move us forward. And a lot of times in the law, it doesn’t move as fast as you’d like. Trust me, I’ve been there, I understand. It’s not fun for it to last so, so long. But unfortunately, sometimes that’s how the courts work. But there’s other instances where things move very fast. And tomorrow, we should be able to share one of those. And I’m excited to share that one with you. But right now, this is the last before the break, the last time you can give. A lot of you lose us here. If you listen on Terrestrial Radio, find us on aclj.org broadcasting live, 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time. That’s on aclj.org, on YouTube, on Rumble, on Facebook, on X. And of course, you can find us archived later on, aclj.org, the app. Anywhere you get podcasts, you can find Seculo there. But right now, I’m going to encourage you, because without you, we’re never going to hit this goal. And we are short of that goal. And midnight tonight is our deadline. Give right now. Scan the QR code. All your donations are doubled by another incredible ACLJ supporter, ACLJ champion. So right now, do it. Go to ACLJ.org and we will be right back.
SPEAKER 09 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. We got a second half hour of our show for you right now, and it’s going to be packed. And we’re going to talk not only about Elon Musk’s little stop in, little visit, the Doge department, popping into the CIA, see what’s going on, looking at the books, seeing where things can get cut. We’re going to talk about that. So keep calling if you want to talk about that at 1-800-684-3110. You also heard about that victory that’s going to allow our case for that teacher to continue moving forward. And that’s an amazing thing. Those big wins, they may sound little, but they can move. And they move to the next step. And that next step is hopefully a step to full victory. And of course, if we live in America, you’d think that’s the case, that that’s what would happen. But we’re also in that last day of our March Life and Liberty Drive. And I want to know of our topics, what do you care about the most? That’s always something I find very interesting. Put it in the chat or maybe call in. Do you care about Israel? Do you care about what’s going on in life? The pro-life movement right now, it’s a very different time. Do you care about government efficiency and Doge and or religious freedom? Or maybe you care about the European center and what we’re doing all over the world. Maybe you care about helping persecuted Christians all around the world. I want to hear from you. Give me a call at 1-800-684-3110. Because we can’t win those battles without you. And I also want to make sure that we are supporting the causes you care about. And we’re still short of our goal. And look, midnight tonight is the end for the March Life and Liberty Drive. Your donations are doubled. And we focus this month a lot on life. You saw us launch that Choice Begins Here campaign in Massachusetts. Hundreds of babies have likely been saved. Because we’ve seen how many people have gone to the website in that local area in just the one market, just Boston, Massachusetts, in that area. Hundreds of people have gone, maybe more than that now. It’s probably thousands. They’re going to get a new update on that number. Maybe thousands of people have gone and tried to find locations of pro-life pregnancy resource centers that are going to help them make the real choice. And that real choice is for life because we know these pro-life pregnancy resource centers are being attacked by their own state. simply providing that choice for simply providing hope and i don’t know what else ultrasounds baby formula clothes we had one person call in said they paid for their kids first birthday party these are sweetest people you’ve ever met a lot of them are very volunteer driven and they are being you know really hurt by their own state and we have seen that ad campaign that they ran against the pro-life pregnancy centers work We saw that they had 30% less people visiting during this ad campaign that the state has been running. And 30% more abortions. So we knew we had to fight back. So the ACLJ created the Choice Begins Here campaign. And we’ve been talking about it for this month of March. It’s only a three-month campaign because that’s what we have budgeted. You helped us raise it. And maybe you want it to continue on. Maybe you want to see more. We need to hear from you that that is what you want. So I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org and if you can today, because your donations are doubled, which means, by the way, that there’s another group of ACLJ supporters or ACLJ champions. Champions give on a monthly basis. Those ACLJ champions are ready to unlock a matching donation. They’re asked sometimes if you’re one of the top level ACLJ donors, maybe you’ve given a lot in the past, which we really appreciate. You’re asked, hey, would you consider putting your donations towards a matching fund? So we know when this happens, your donations can be matched and doubled. You’re essentially connected. You’re essentially matched with someone who will say, yes, I’ll give an extra $10. I’ll give an extra $20. I’ll give an extra $2,000. Because any donation, the cap is very high. And our goal, we’re still short of. And without you, we can’t do it. So I’m going to ask you right now, go to ACLJ.org. We’re going to continue the discussions going on because I think, well, it’s important time for people to focus on, sure, global events, what’s happening around the world, what’s happening in politics, but not to forget people like the teacher, not to forget the church on the beach.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, and I also want to bring up what you mentioned in the last segment where the persecution in the Congo that we’re also fighting for. Daniel on YouTube was asking about that. And that’s in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There were 70 Christians that were abducted from their homes, primarily women and children, taken into a church and brutally executed there. And we at the ACLJ are also fighting that. And we’ve sent a letter to the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner urging that the DRC government prosecute those responsible, pressure Rwanda to cease its support for the rebel group, and call on the UN to establish a dedicated body within the Human Rights Council to monitor that. That’s also work we’re doing at ACLJ. You can support that by giving today at ACLJ.org.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome to Sekulow. We are discussing now the interesting dinner that looks like it’s going to occur between President Trump at the White House and an unlikely… Maybe new friend. He says not a friend, but someone who’s been very hard on the president, but has kind of seen the light a little in recent years. And that, of course, is television commentator, stand-up comedian Bill Maher, who I’ve actually been a viewer of real-time or politically incorrect most of my life. I think that Bill Maher is someone who I disagree with fundamentally on just about everything until the last maybe five years. But I always respected his show. He always would have on people who did represent the conservatives and not people that were just going to be there to get made fun of. Now, the stuff he was doing during the first Trump administration, I’d say, was pretty intense. And maybe I stopped watching towards then. But he’s had a little bit of a wake-up call. And he started having a podcast where he would bring on people he would disagree with. He would bring on other conservatives. He would bring on different people. One of them recently was Nashville’s own Kid Rock, Bob Ritchie, who came on and after a little bit asked the president, hey, would you consider meeting with Bill Maher? And this is big news because who knows how that can go. But the fact that the President of the United States is willing to have this sit down is pretty remarkable based on what we’ve been dealing with the last decade. And honestly, the fact that Bill Maher would accept it. Because that’s kind of a death nail to certain people in his audience. Because he has certainly been more moderate recently. He has always, by the way, he’s someone who is a devout atheist. He created Religious, which was a movie about that. Now, in that movie, and even if you saw him, he was very critical. on the radicalization of the islamic world very critical on the middle east and the way they treat women was very critical on a lot of those things so that kind of lines up with where he’s gone including the support of israel because a lot of people look at that in the far left now you know is somehow advocating it seems like for that they’re advocating For these moments. So he was never exactly, as his show said, politically correct. But President Trump, last night, it was been talking about the last couple of weeks that this is going to happen. Chris Cuomo was on a podcast on Club Random, Bill Maher’s podcast, and he talked about how he was going to be honored to go. And finally, there was kind of the official confirmation. This is from President Trump just last night on Truth Social. It is a mouthful. I’m going to read it to you, so just buckle in. I got a call from a very good guy and friend of mine, Kid Rock, asking me whether or not it would be possible for me to meet in the White House with Bill Maher, a man who has been unjustifiably critical of anything or anyone Trump. I really didn’t like the idea much, and I don’t like it much now, but thought it would be interesting. The problem is, no matter how much he likes your favorite president, me, he will publicly proclaim what a terrible guy I am. Very much like the Democrats at my recent address to the joint session of Congress, where I stand correctly that no matter what I said or did, they wouldn’t stand, they wouldn’t applaud, they wouldn’t smile or laugh, and certainly they wouldn’t be in any way nice. Who knows, though? Maybe I’ll be proven wrong. In any event, I’m doing a favor for a friend. I look forward to meeting with Bill Maher, Kid Rock, and I believe even the legendary Dana White will be present. It might be fun or it might not, but you will be the first to know. So I’m pretty sure that came directly from President Trump.
SPEAKER 10 :
You think Ian Stafford write that and say- He may have been speaking it. Did he put it in chat GPT and say, make it sound like me, your favorite president?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, make it sound like me and make it a little concerned, but I’m doing this for the greater good of the American people. Because it really is what, to me, that’s what that is. It is actually being at the greater good of the American people. It’s saying, let’s sit down with people who have been really opposed to us publicly and A guy who said he is a dictator and so on and so on over and over again. But now he’s going to the White House to meet with him. That’s a good sign for the country.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, I don’t think that either Trump nor Bill Maher. have anything to gain really from their base by this meeting. You know, you think of a, some of the times the public meetings that turn into like a shouting match that are filmed or something, it’s like, yeah, there’s red meat for your base to see you being tough. I think that this for Bill Maher, he can, I really feel like he means it when he’s like, this could be a good thing for the country because it definitely isn’t a good thing for his most ardent supporters.
SPEAKER 04 :
that think this is a terrible idea they’ve already started to turn on him just for having some basically old school democrat true liberal theology right true liberal beliefs uh that has been an issue with his audience over the last few years and we’ve seen it kind of creep into it to now like i said if he had done this before it would have been the end of his career because his audience had become so far left. Now he is getting a bit more from the moderate podcast-y kind of world. So maybe that does help him a little. I don’t think it helps him if though it turns into some sort of shouting match, nor do I anticipate that it will. I think they’re both, you know, have similar backgrounds. I have a feeling this will be cordial and, you know, both really funny guys. So we’ll see.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, and I think also that, We say Bill Maher seems a little bit more moderated compared to the party. And I think it’s important to point out for everyone, this doesn’t mean that he is really what we would even consider a moderate. He is a liberal. He is definitely on far left of the political spectrum. But what separates him from the current party is he uses his brain and he can see things that are rational in the world. It doesn’t mean that he believes the policies of conservatives, but he at least thinks about it instead of automatically writing everything off. There was this clip about the NPR PBS defunding that I think just showcases once again that if you’re a rational Democrat or member of the left, then you can say things like this, and it’s like, oh, I agree. There can be common ground on issues, but it doesn’t mean that you’re all of a sudden a conservative or even are going to vote for someone. You’re just honest with yourself. Yeah, I think we should play this, though, because it’s interesting to hear the rationalizing of what Republicans and conservatives have long thought about even NPR, which made so much news last week. This is Byte 12.
SPEAKER 03 :
The heads of NPR and PBS testified before Congress this week amid accusations of liberal bias. Should the government continue to send taxpayer dollars to public broadcasters? Well, a little background here. I mean, they’ve been after them for the Republicans have wanted to get rid of PBS for as long as I can remember. This crowd will probably do it. I mean, I also read my namesake, Catherine Marr, was head of NPR and NPR. You know, she said, we’re completely unbiased. Give me a break, lady. I mean, they’re crazy far left. So, I mean, I think we’re past my view. We’re past the age, really, where the government… First of all, why do we need to subsidize? Why can’t we have outlets like this? And we’re so polarized. These… outlets became popular at a time when republicans and democrats didn’t hate each other and weren’t at each other’s throats and didn’t think each other was an existential threat in that world you can’t have places like this i think anymore they have to be private
SPEAKER 04 :
that of course is coming from Bill Maher on his show real time. And I think, yeah, I think that’s the, that’s the big wake up call to a lot of people is that there are people like Bill Maher. And look, I’ll even go back to maybe the one of the first times we had Tulsi Gabbard on this show, she was still a Democrat. Maybe she had been an independent. And I kind of asked her, I go, does it not feel like our generation? And when I say our generation, people now that are getting close to her a little over 40, uh, aren’t necessarily always striving for, do I agree with this person? It’s, do I believe that this person is being honest and are actually talking what they believe? They’re not just parroting a party. They’re not just parroting some sort of rhetoric. And look, I think that Republicans and conservatives have had those issues too, where I think there’s a lot of that going on where it needs to be, let’s not just fall in line here and whatever a certain administration says, you have to agree. Let’s talk this out. But in these instances, when you had a Tulsi Gabbard who then moved, again, didn’t necessarily move far to the right as much as felt abandoned by her party. I think the same was with Bill Maher. Again, not praising Bill Maher. I think he’s a talented guy, a smart guy, even when I disagree with him. And he’s someone who clearly is thinking for himself. But I do think when you have a president like President Trump who’s willing to do this, none of these kind of people probably would even be invited to a Biden White House. I don’t think Bill Maher was being invited to do that. President Trump is willing to have those, I don’t know, they’re stirring moments because it goes, oh, this is sort of out of left field. And I love, of course, for me, the entertainer in me is like, I love that this was set up by Kid Rock and Dana White will be there. Those are like, that’s an all-star cast right there.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s right. And once again, even the humorous post on True Social that he put up that’s, you know, it probably won’t be good. Maybe it will. You’ll be the first to know. But just once again, everyone in the left and in the media tries to make it like Donald Trump is not in any way someone who could unite anything. But he’s actually willing to have these conversations. And I don’t see the other side willing to do that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, we got a lot of phone lines open right now. I’ll be honest. We got five lines open. So if you want to get on the air, this is a great time to call 1-800-684-3110. Hopefully you’re not calling because you’re all donating right now during our end of day life and liberty drive. It’s at midnight tonight. Deadline ends for the March life and liberty drive where all your donations are doubled. Of course, this is for the month of March. Of course, a lot of that has been focused on our success with life. And we’ll have another big win, hopefully, to announce very soon on the Liberty portion. We’ll discuss that coming up. But again, phone lines are open for you. Give us a call. Welcome to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you right now. It’s kind of last time you can call in for the day. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Go ahead and take some phone calls. Let’s go to Ronald, South Carolina, watching on Rumble. Ronald, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, thanks for taking my call. And I agree with the first caller and what she had literally said. It is very difficult to try and convince the liberal Democrats of the fact that it is the information of the Doge and so forth, that that is literally helping the entire country and even families because of the amount of money that they are literally saving and recouping from all of the useless spending that’s going on. And it’s unfortunate that they do not do their research because they’re just trusting in the lies that has been given out by the by the liberal Democrats, and they’re running on that, and running on that alone, and not doing the proper research for themselves.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, Ronald, and I think that goes to the point also of when you heard, one, the seriousness of the other aides and advisors to Elon on the Doge committee, or Doge organization within the government, and that it completely destroyed any narrative that you’ve heard that these are 22-year-old tech bros running around breaking the government. It was actually the opposite of that. It was… executive with Morgan Stanley, a rocket scientist, literally, that has been with Elon for a long time at SpaceX and Boring Company and X. And then you look at just the work that they’re doing when they’re talking about computer systems that don’t even communicate with each other. So a small business administration may ping the Social Security to see if a Social Security number is real, right? but it doesn’t have any sort of check like, oh, this person that’s trying to get a loan is nine months old. So that kind of fraud is happening. Or you look at the systems internally where they’re so redundant and it’s costing hundreds of millions of dollars to prop up dated technology. And then Elon Musk says, we could not pass an audit if we were a company, the United States government. We would fail an audit. And we would be insolvent if we don’t do this work. Those are very real terms that are scary when you think about the future of the country if it continues this spiral into more and more debt, less and less control over our own house’s finance here in the United States. And that people will then hear one thing and run and protest a car dealership or vandalize another person’s property. That’s not rational. This isn’t a world that we ever expected to be in where a government initiative to try and restore the financial safety of the United States and get it back on track is met with terroristic activity to the level that we’re seeing from those on the far left that think it is okay to firebomb a car dealership.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I kind of go back to sort of the big push for BDS coming from Ben and Jerry’s and a few of these other things. We were saying, yeah, don’t eat their food. Don’t eat their ice cream. You know what? Don’t support them. If you feel like you don’t agree with their policies or do. And you know what? You just realize that’s what you’re living with. In America, we have a bunch of different points of view. But no way were we saying, hey. Go take out Ben and Jerry. On my birthday, I want you to do that. Find Ben and Jerry. That’s not the way we roll. Let’s go ahead and take a couple more calls before we wrap up for the day. Randy’s calling. Randy from Kansas, you’re on the air. Yes.
SPEAKER 06 :
I’m listening to your radio and I’ve heard a lot about fraud and But my question is, who’s writing all these scripts?
SPEAKER 04 :
crazy things that they’re funding you know i know the origin i got i got you uh we run out of time so i’ll make sure we get to you what’s sort of the origins a lot of these a lot of these are negotiated some of these are lobbyists there are a lot of things that happen meetings if you think about aids research how much that like bono had to do with getting that uh done with president uh george w bush you know there’s a lot of that a lot of politicking going on
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, and Randy, to some degree, a lot of this is discretionary spending. So the agency asks Congress for a specific budget amount to fund NGOs in a certain nation. But then it’s the actual bureaucrats themselves that are publishing the grants it’s not the congress’s line item it just says here’s some money for grant work in in the continent of africa but it’s the actual grants written within the bureaucracy where it gets out of control and then there’s not a ton of oversight after it leaves that and you may remember elon even saying that it didn’t seem like anyone was being turned down if you were on the left or even really looked into a lot of these organizations didn’t have websites didn’t even have ways for people to get in touch with them the money was just being
SPEAKER 04 :
flowed out, and that’s what we’re seeing change right now. Let’s go ahead and try to get another call in. Rachel in Virginia, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, Champion, and you guys are wonderful. So I have a comment about my college in California. We were one of the very first to have what we called Freedom Rock. Where you couldn’t have anyone, we had not taken. And he spoke. Rachel, I’m only cutting you off because we’re running out of time and we think it’s any other reason.
SPEAKER 04 :
Look, I think a lot of people, when they went to college, they had that sort of free expression space where a lot of these things could happen, where you could have people from the other side or from all sides come and discuss and talk. I know at some of the university I’ve worked in, they have some of that as well. That has become less and less as the student body has changed. The student body is less accepting of hearing difference of opinions. But you know what I’ve really learned? A lot of time, it’s the faculty. Students sometimes are actually pretty cool with hearing things they disagree with, having those discussions. The faculty is who clutch their pearls. But hey, let’s go quickly to James. James, you only got like 10 seconds. We’re running out of time. 15 seconds. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I was wondering, with all doses cutting the budget of the government, Is there any way they can work on dropping the salaries of everybody?
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m sure that conversation’s happening, James. And also, you’re definitely seeing people be, you know, their jobs being cut so that may, you know, balance itself out, if you will.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, and to some degree, you know, there’s levels within the government, the structure, the way it’s set up. You’re like a general services level 18 or something where that’s kind of how your salary is dictated. It’s a little different. It’s almost like a military type structure to some degree, and there’s a bracket range. But I mean, a lot of that would be set a lot of times by Congress. But I think that there’s wiggle room there.
SPEAKER 04 :
But once again, I don’t know if a lot of government employees are getting really great salaries. so there’s also you got to look at that remember that these aren’t necessarily always incredibly well paid but you know we try to pay well here at the aclj because we want the best of the best and we can’t do that without you look i want to read this to your aclj we’re engaged in hundreds of cases every year you know that but we can’t fight these fights alone we need your support We only got 50 seconds left in this show today. And our March Life and Liberty Drive deadline is tonight at midnight. We urgently need your tax-deductible gift. I want you to have your gift doubled. And you can only do that by scanning that QR code. Go to ACLJ.org. Because we can’t win all of these cases. We can’t produce this incredible amount of content, whether it’s this show or all the great video, audio, and text content you get on ACLJ.org. Can’t do any of it without you. And that’s not hyperbole. That’s just the truth. So again, go to ACLJ.org. That’s why I put that graphic up right now. It’s not because I don’t want you to see my pretty face. Of course I do. But you need to scan that QR code right now. Get your gift doubled. Midnight deadline. Talk to you tomorrow.