In this episode of Sekula, host Logan Sekula unravels a pertinent issue that’s hooking the attention of states across the nation. The U.S. Treasury finds itself investigating a labyrinthine fraud scandal in Minnesota, questioning the purported misuse of Medicaid and COVID relief funds. Allegations tie the unlawful diversions to terrorist groups like Al-Shabaab, exposing both state and federal level vulnerabilities. Adding fuel to the political fire, Election Day in a complex Tennessee district garners spotlight with fierce competition, mirroring regional and national political dynamics.
SPEAKER 11 :
The question on everybody’s mind, where did the billions go? The U.S. Treasury targets Minnesota fraud scandal.
SPEAKER 09 :
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 Sekula.
SPEAKER 11 :
Welcome to Sekula. We are live. It is Tuesday, I believe, Will. It is Tuesday. Unfortunately, it is Tuesday. It’s election day here in Tennessee, so that’s obviously… In one district. In one district, but a district that’s getting a whole lot of attention. That’s right. So we’ll talk about that coming up.
SPEAKER 12 :
Which is bizarre because Donald Trump won it by 22 points. But the polls are showing. And a former Republican won it by 20. So the polls are showing. The only nonpartisan poll, Logan, is showing it two points with a plus or minus error range of four. The partisan polls on the Republican side show it with higher. It’s all about turnout, especially post-Thanksgiving. And it’s a district that starts in downtown Nashville, very urban, and goes out to the rural area.
SPEAKER 11 :
It’s a very strange district when you actually look how it’s cut out. Of course, if you were here in terms of, I feel like, looking at who probably had the edge, it would probably be Afton Bain, the liberal Democrat, just purely based on the money spent. I see so many people talking about it. I see the advertising.
SPEAKER 12 :
Democrats are usually pretty good at mobilizing during these specials.
SPEAKER 10 :
But we got a lot of other topics to hit with. Sure. That’s right. And one of the big things that’s hitting this morning, and if you saw the title, is that the Treasury, the U.S. Treasury, is now investigating allegations of this fraud in Minnesota. They have a big fraud scandal going on there between their Medicaid fraud situation that’s going on as well as this COVID relief fraud. This is where a large organization, Feeding Our Future, uh used over a billion dollars in in covid relief to help what was supposed to be people that were food insecure or needed food assistance and instead they enriched themselves off of it created fake profiles fake documents to just siphon off this what was supposed to be covid relief money And now the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Besson, is saying, in my direction, U.S. Treasury is investigating allegations that under the feckless mismanagement of the Biden administration and Governor Tim Walz, hardworking Minnesotans’ tax dollars may have been diverted to the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab. Thanks to the leadership of Donald Trump, we are acting fast to ensure Americans’ taxes are not funding acts of global terror. We will share our findings as our investigation continues.
SPEAKER 11 :
Good week for Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Feels like he can’t catch a break here. A lot of attention, a lot of eyeballs on him. We’ll talk about that. Phone call lines are open for you.
SPEAKER 12 :
Because the guy is a nonstop crazy attack machine on President Trump and the administration. So what does he expect? You know, if you’re going to go after political opponents like that, someone that beat you in the presidential race as he was VP candidate. And by the way, he was a horrendous VP candidate.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, I mean you think about the consequences of being the vice presidential candidate, probably knowing a good chance that you were going to lose is showing now what that looks like.
SPEAKER 12 :
I just want to be clear to people though, this is not Donald Trump driving this. This was whistleblowers in Minnesota who work in that office. many of them who are not uh you know conservatives who have just said this fraud is horrible we’ve tried to tell him and he and he retaliated and is going to what looks to be al-shabaab which does make sense if you see the current sort of population of what’s going on in minnesota in general when you’re our treasury secretary is saying that again this is not a talking head this is not just a thing on you know x Treasury Secretary, I mean, he is a highly respected guy. Huge role, of course, Scott Besant. I mean, he would not be saying words like al-Shabaab and money getting there out of our taxpayer dollars if they didn’t feel like there’s something wrong going on there. And we know those districts. have been basically shariaized.
SPEAKER 11 :
And we do also know how we’re going to be engaging on this level. And of course, some of the attacks that have happened very similarly in other places and how we’re doing that. We’ll go break down the ACLJ’s work coming up in the next few segments because it is Giving Tuesday, one of the biggest days of giving of the year. Actually, the biggest day of giving of the year. And it couldn’t come at a more important time here at the ACLJ. Have your tax deductible gift doubled also today. So it’s not only Giving Tuesday during our year-end drive, Your donations are doubled. That means there’s another ACLJ member or champion ready to unlock your donation. If you become a champion today, by the way, your donation is doubled as well. But let us break some records. Be a part of it today. Be a part of our biggest Giving Tuesday ever. I appreciate that. Let’s try to hit the goal and break it. Come on. This is a crucial time for us. ACLJ.org. We’ll be right back. All right, we’re back and phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. I did want to kick off this segment and each and every segment probably today saying it is Giving Tuesday, the biggest giving day of the year. And I’m going to encourage you right now. I want to break some records today. If you enjoy this show, if you enjoy the legal work of the ACLJ, and I’ll have Jordan break down some of the new content we’re doing, some of the new ACLJ work that we’re at right now, because it all ties in, even to what’s going on in terms of sort of the rules that Will talked about with the issue in Minnesota and how we are fighting back on very similar issues in different states. With that, though, it is Giving Tuesday. Your donation is doubled today. I have a big goal. Okay, I’m going to say just during the show, I’d like to raise $100,000 during this show today. Can you be a part of that? Okay, now that’s big. Of course, that’s double. So really, we’re looking for $50,000 donated and $50,000 to be matched. And we have that right now pledged. We have the match pledge. So if someone gives today, whether that is $5, $500, $25,000, $50,000, whatever you can do at any level, It will be matched today during Giving Tuesday, the biggest giving day of the year. I’d love to do that during this hour. And even if you’re hearing us later on, we’ll track the other shows. We’ll give you an update tomorrow as it re-airs. But I’d love to do it while we’re live. We’re live every day from 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern Time. So you’ve got 50 minutes right now to make your donation. Of course, you can do it any time after that as well. But I’d love to break some records today. Make sure our crew is taken care of for this holiday season, whether that’s coming up for Christmas. Obviously, there’s a lot of incredible people that work here, whether that’s on our legal team or whether that is, of course, on our media team. And it’s amazing work that they do. And we’ll make sure that we can hit some of those big goals. And if you’re looking at where you’re going to give today, consider giving to the ACLJ at aclj.org. Now, Will, we have been talking about this because it does tie into some of the direct work that we’re doing.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s right. So what we’re talking about is this investigation that the Secretary of Treasury, Scott Besant, has said that they are now conducting into how this taxpayer money may have ended up in the hands of al-Shabaab, a terrorist organization, an enemy of the United States. And What we’re seeing is that there was a massive fraud scheme. The big one is the billion-dollar scheme that had to do with COVID money, which we know had been happening all over the country. But there’s also these other, these Medicaid fraud situations where people were getting money, they were overbilling, and a lot of that money was then remitted back to family in Somalia. Because we know there’s a large Somali population there. Al-Shabaab effectively controls much of Somalia. And when that happens, they’re skimming that money. So even if the individual wasn’t meaning to fund this terrorist organization directly, they were just trying to send some of the money they illegally got back to Somalia. It was still being skimmed by the terrorist organization to the tune of potentially millions of dollars of taxpayer money. But here’s where it also ties into what we’re doing here, because we see even bureaucrats within the state of Minnesota have put up a Twitter account, an X account that is basically a bunch of whistleblowers from the Department of Human Services. Now, Department of Human Services, a lot of bureaucrats. It’s a more left leaning state, obviously, Minnesota. But also a lot of them are social workers, things of that nature that are even in that field, that profession. You have people that are more left leaning that may have agreed with and voted for Tim Walz are calling him out publicly on this, saying that they were warning the governor’s office of all this. And that not only were they shut down or not listened to, a lot of times they were retaliated against for being whistleblowers. How does this tie into what we’re looking at here? When you think about what we’re fighting in California, we are fighting a government that is still pursuing $1.2 million against a church for COVID regulation lockdown policy violations, many of which, most of which, were later deemed unconstitutional. They’re still trying to take that money. Yeah, the Calvary Chapel. If you think… That Minnesota’s alone in having this massive fraud scheme where COVID money, taxpayer dollars, was just being given out and going for fraudulent criminal activity. then you are delusional because we know that this is happening all over the country, especially in the places that had looser regulations on how they were giving out the money, places like California. So you think California is fixated on trying to get this $1.2 million from this church when maybe they should be seeing if they had similar NGOs that were set up directly to steal from taxpayers.
SPEAKER 12 :
We know there was fraud that was occurring. Everyone knows it. It occurred everywhere. But were there mass scale frauds in specific communities where the government leaders looked the other way? Because they look to those communities, especially as Democrats, as core supporters. This is the kind of the Ilhan Omar world, the Rashida Tlaib world. They look and say, you know, to keep them on board, we kind of let them do their own thing and look the other way. I mean, they’ve implemented almost like Sharia in these places like in Minnesota and in places like Dearborn in Michigan. And it’s been happening.
SPEAKER 10 :
uh really it’s not something new it’s just getting more extreme and more exposed jordan this is another thing i think also that people should realize when you think about the this was a man who is the leader of the state that was almost vice president of the he was the running mate he was on the national ticket no matter how the democrats put them in there he was that close they got down to the finish line and did not succeed he is not our vice president But if when whistleblowers are coming to you within your own state, a much smaller budget compared to the federal government, and saying, look at how much fraud’s going on, and it’s a billion dollars.
SPEAKER 12 :
Especially with inside one community. Right. Which makes it even easier to investigate because it’s not like it’s just a criminal enterprise involving all these different people that aren’t really connected. That community there is very tight. I mean, so these are, again, and the idea was we were helping, this is like what we were doing through Afghanistan that we’ve now had to pause, helping those who were in danger by al-Shabaab to get to a safe place. And then they started radicalizing themselves. So did they actually want a safe place to go or were they just trying to move terrorist cells to the United States?
SPEAKER 10 :
When you think about, though, what even… They could wash it and get it back to the terrorists. the Doge program did at the beginning when they were going through finding waste, fraud, and abuse. Imagine how much more waste, fraud, and abuse we would have at this point if the vice president were someone like Tim Walz that clearly was unable to get a handle on even the state government level to the tune of a billion dollars in one case that they’re investigating. Just imagine how much worse for where our country and our budget and the fiscal health of our country, which after decades of bad policy, isn’t in a good place per se. Imagine where it could be. And that’s why these things have to be exposed. people have to be held accountable for it but also i don’t think it needs to stop at minnesota when you see how aggressively that the uh the gavin newsom regime in california is going after a church for fines and where are these investigations there we need to get to the bottom of where all this fraud was taking place and what bad actors it was potentially going to i want to take a call i should just go to james in new mexico who has a similar comment let’s go ahead james
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi, can you hear me? We can hear you. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you for all your work. I’m a Native American. I’m an Apache from the Mescalero Apache tribe in New Mexico. Similar thing happening in here and the Navajo Nation. COVID monies… We’re being funneled to the elite here on the tribes, not being investigated. I am a supporter of Trump. They are not here in New Mexico. You know that. And so, therefore, I was about to get on Truth Social, try to reach the president to please investigate these people. They are ripping us off badly. Do your little bit of homework. Wounded knee number two that happened in the 70s. Same thing happening here. We’re being intimidated so we can’t even get the message out or get any kind of justice here.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, James, I think maybe the good and the bad of some of the corruption that’s being exposed in Minnesota right now is, as Will said, it’s going to start rippling around the country, hopefully to show where this is happening. So if it’s happening in New Mexico on your reservation, it’s something that should be looked into for sure. We will make sure to do some digging on that as well and have our teams look into it. Because we know that there’s been those issues that we’ve represented and supported the reservations many times in the different tribes throughout the year. So if there’s something going on, the ACLJ could potentially get involved. Of course, when you’re talking about things like religious freedom and religious liberties.
SPEAKER 12 :
Someone like James, if he could hang on the line, and we will get your contact information, James, so we can get you in touch with attorneys, so we can get the deeper information from you. Because Logan’s right. I remember the time, even when we were young, and my dad was going to meet on some of these reservations when it was about preserving their integrity, religious liberty issues involving the practice of their faiths, which is kind of mixed in a lot with Catholicism. with the catholic faith but they keep their traditions sure just like many people would a lot of you know like us with celebrating hanukkah and things like another jewish holidays as part of like who they are to not lose that but so we’ve done that that work and so it wouldn’t be so maybe this is new for other people but yeah we’d love to help out but this is kind of work air we’ve done before for you know 20 30 years yeah absolutely and if that kind of rings a bell for you going well maybe that could help me
SPEAKER 11 :
Give us a call. Be a part of it. Go to aclj.org slash help forever. And by the way, if you need help, all you have to do is go to aclj.org slash help. Fill out a very simple form. Remember, no charge to you or any of our clients ever. And that only happens. Because people like you give. And you give on a day like today. It’s Giving Tuesday. I said I got a big goal. During this show, just in this hour, I want to raise $100,000. And of course, that’s $50,000. And $50,000 can be unlocked because all donations are matched. You can be a part of that today. That is not unreasonable to do. Thousands upon thousands of you watch and listen each and every day. Maybe millions. Be a part of that team today. Go to ACLJ.org. It’s our year-end drive. But today’s Giving Tuesday, the biggest day of giving in the year. Be a part of it right now. Welcome back to Seculo. I do want to hear from you. It is Giving Tuesday, and look, be a part of it at ACLJ.org. But also, you know, we had a big November, and I wanted to say thank you to everyone that gave during the month of November. And of course, now we’re kicking off December strong, and I really would love to break some records today. And I know, look, it’s a fundraising pitch. Of course it is. But it’s Giving Tuesday. I’m sure you’re getting tons of text messages, tons of emails. I’m not going to say we’re not part of that machine as well. Of course, it is a big day, and it’s a day that you can be a part of the team as well. So I’m going to encourage you, have your gifts doubled today. That’s because there are people ready to unlock their pledge. Great ACLJ members, ACLJ champions, have created a whole fund, I think up to a million dollars, that can be unlocked during Giving Tuesday and during our year-end drive. So do it right now and have your donations doubled at ACLJ.org.
SPEAKER 12 :
saved during the Cyber Monday or Black Friday sales $400 or $500 off of a new TV. And think about it. You could become an ACLJ champion at $25 a month by the savings that you made, and you’d still be, again, saving money off that TV. So maybe utilizing even what you may have spent over both The weekend and then into Cyber Monday and say, you know, I did save a lot so I could put a little bit of this into a group I really like. And then this would give me the opportunity to become an ACLJ champion, which is an awesome thing to do on Giving Tuesday. And it’s so important because. Later in the show, I’m going to be talking about some new work we’re drafting up right now. This is serious stuff and taking on the deep state to expose them as best we can while we’ve got such good friends in the executive branch and in Congress.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, and I think also one way to look at how much work we do in the month of December, it’s not just the end of the year. A lot of businesses are kind of coast through December and they’re like, yeah, we’ll get to it in the first quarter. Jordan, we have our attorneys are filing briefs. They are writing briefs. We have a cert petition that we’re filing in that case against Gavin Newsom in just a little over a week. that we will be going before the Supreme Court as well as we have oral arguments early January in cases like defending pregnancy resource centers in Massachusetts or we have where we have lawsuits against Chicago because they were discriminating against the speech of of people trying to share the gospel we already won their criminal side but then we had a civil suit a federal lawsuit against the city of Chicago for that That’s in early January. We have a status conference. We are filing briefs nonstop, it feels like, when I see the legal reports of fighting to defend pregnancy resource centers, filing to make sure the government can defund Planned Parenthood. When we talk about our international work, you have Jeff Balaban today. He was going to be on today, but then he’s at this conference with legal scholars where they’re going around Israel. He was at the Gaza border today. And he met with a survivor of the music festival. and heard her story and she was there standing next to a sign with the picture of her two friends she was with that were murdered that day and they’re going through the complexities of the law because how much of this atrocity was unprecedented in the way they weaponized themselves against the people not just murdering but in some of the graphic and horrific things you’ve heard about that we don’t want to go over that some of even the international law doesn’t even cover fully what went on and how to handle that. So we have a legal expert there with other legal experts around the world going over those things in Israel today. And tomorrow they’ll be at the border of Lebanon where Hezbollah is. So we can, and hopefully we’ll have him on to give some update about that. But you talk about the scope of what we’re doing Not a in six months from now, here’s what we’re planning to do. But what the ACLJ is doing every single day, working hard, not just this broadcast, not just giving you analysis on things that you care about and your conservative values, but really doing the work. fighting for these people that are strong and brave Americans that stand up for their rights and say, I am allowed to do this. I’m allowed to preach the gospel. I’m allowed to take care of mothers that don’t want to get an abortion, but yet the government and the left doesn’t want them to. And so we have to stand with these real American heroes, people that are standing up for their rights, We’re doing it even today at the end of the year when a lot of other businesses and things are starting to coast, get through the end of the year. We are ramping up our efforts, and that’s why supporting us in December when it’s Giving Tuesday, you’re funding that. These individuals don’t have to pay a dime for the legal services the ACLJ provides, and that’s only because of you.
SPEAKER 11 :
And you don’t have to pay a dime, by the way, to watch or read or be informed by any of the content we create here. One of the things we kind of take a little pride in is unlike a lot of organizations, we don’t put all of our content behind a paywall. We put none of it behind a paywall, actually. You don’t have to become an ACLJ supporter to share our content, to watch our content, to see our show each and every day. That is not the way we roll here. Of course, we appreciate everyone who does become ACLJ champions. You’re creating all of this. When you become a champion, you’re the one who gets to say, yes, I support that financially. And because of that, my message gets out there. We talk a lot. You know, we brought up, Will brought up Israel and what we do there. There was a big group. I know we talked a little bit about it yesterday who said, we want our music back. know off of israeli streaming services we don’t want israelis to be able to hear our music these are some of the top pop stars in the world and i go man that is the exact opposite of how i want things done here i want people who may never like us who may never think that they should be tuning into us to stumble upon what we’re saying here and because we’re able to create this content and put it out there on so many different platforms for free That happens. Whether that is on the Salem News Channel, because you get to see it on Pluto or other free television outlets. Whether that is on YouTube. Whether that’s on Rumble, on X, Facebook. Whether you’re listening on Terrestrial Radio. All of that costs money, by the way. We have to be able to produce the content. And for a lot of that, we have to be able to get onto those stations, which sometimes costs money to be on those stations. If you’re hearing advertisers in your local area… No, that money does not go to us. That goes to the network or to the station. If you’re watching and you see a YouTube ad, you may be, oh, look, there are nearly a half a million people watching on YouTube. Half a million people and the ad revenue that comes in from YouTube and that does not pay for more than maybe a salary of one of our team. And of course, we have dozens of people working on this show each and every day. It is because people like you give and support the work of the ACLJ. So again, I’m going to encourage you. It’s Giving Tuesday to do it. You’re going to hear a lot about that today, but we aren’t going to just slam you with that. We got a lot of great new content to go over coming up. And is Jeff Malabon joining us? We’re going to see.
SPEAKER 10 :
Not today because of the schedule shift where they were at the Gaza border and some other things that they are doing today. He was going to be joining us, but we’re moving that to tomorrow so you can hear about all this work that he’s doing there.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, one thing that he’s doing there at the ACLJ Jerusalem, and Jordan, something we can also touch on, although it’s something that’s close to us, but sometimes it gets a little lost in translation, if you will, no pun intended here, is the work that we do overseas, the work we do at the ECLJ. It’s something that’s been very personal for Jordan and I growing up. We spent a good portion of our lives in Europe. So when we are there, it feels like a second home. And it’s just as important to make sure that our values are being represented there, which is why the ACLJ, one of our wings, if you will, is the ECLJ, the European Center.
SPEAKER 12 :
And one of our goals there was to ultimately have that cultural impact in the world, in the political world as well. So we actually have opened this kind of like how we have ACLJ action, a version of that at the European Center for Law and Justice. I want to let you know, like I’m on the board of that. So we have American Center for Law and Justice people on the board, making sure your resources are spent correctly for on things that you would support here in the United States to make significant impacts in countries that are our allies, right? but that we could have 10 times better relationships with overnight if these current elected officials would kind of pull down the bars to those upcoming conservatives actually winning elections. Because when they do, they come up with some reason to ban them.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, and look, when you’ve been in Europe the last 25 years, you’ve seen even massive shift in English speaking. You’ve seen a massive shift in the way people, you can translate things. So all of a sudden, the walls are coming down as technology moves forward.
SPEAKER 12 :
It’s happening in South America too.
SPEAKER 11 :
And it’s really amazing because it changes everything. You can get real-time translation for everyone without having to pay a translator, all the things you’d have to do. Now we’re able to get real work done, and we’re seeing cultural shifts happen there. We’ve got a second half hour coming up. Again, my goal, $100,000 during this broadcast. Do it right now. Give it ACLJ.org. We’ll be back in less than a minute. If you don’t get us, find us broadcasting online.
SPEAKER 09 :
Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Seculo. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 11 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. You just tuning in. We do have some big topics we want to cover today. And, of course, one of them, if you’re looking at the title, you may say, what is going on here? What is this billion-dollar heist? And maybe it’s something we need to reset, Will, and talk about a bit more. Of course, it involves Minnesota. And a name that seems to can’t get out of the news over the last week or so, and that is… Tim Walz from Minnesota.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s right. Former vice presidential candidate, Tim Walz. The governor of Minnesota has kind of become the center of this because a group of workers at the Minnesota Department of Human Services has even been calling him out publicly through an ex-account they created saying, listen, we told him about all this fraud. We told him this was going on and the governor’s office did nothing. And in fact, they retaliated against people that were doing this. And I think it’s so rich because he was on Meet the Press on Sunday. And Kristen Welker, to her credit, asked, you know, do you take responsibility for all this?
SPEAKER 11 :
Because it’s so much money. She asked the big question. Let’s hear his response. You think it goes political? You think he swerves us? I don’t know. Maybe he’ll answer truthfully and honestly and just clean and blunt and we’ll get, let’s see. Bite one.
SPEAKER 01 :
Do you take responsibility for failing to stop this fraud in your state?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, certainly I take responsibility for putting people in jail. Governors don’t get to just talk theoretically. We have to solve problems. And I will note, it’s not just Somalis. Minnesota is a generous state. Minnesota is a prosperous state, a well-run state. We’re AAA bond rated. But that attracts criminals. Those people are going to jail. We’re doing everything we can. But to demonize an entire community on the actions of a few, it’s lazy.
SPEAKER 11 :
I don’t think that is what anyone even asked you, Governor Walz, if we were demonizing an entire community based on this. What they asked was, do you take responsibility? As far as I know, you are not one of the Somali people that have come over to Minnesota. I don’t believe you are. You’re the governor of the state. So do you take responsibility for failing to stop that corruption, for failing to stop that fraud? And his answer was, I take responsibility for putting people in jail.
SPEAKER 10 :
You know what my biggest problem with that is? It’s also that he’s saying, look, we’re just doing so great in Minnesota. Criminals want to come here. They just want to come here because we’re doing so great. As if it’s not like, no, as you’ve seen, as I’ve been governor, that we have put in place mechanisms to stop this fraud, to stop this. It’s like, we’re just doing so good. We can’t even keep up with all the criminals. coming here. That’s the biggest indictment on the left’s policies for crime I’ve ever heard in my life.
SPEAKER 11 :
Our business is so successful. What do you expect them? Not to loot?
SPEAKER 10 :
What are your biggest weaknesses? This is the Tim Wall’s job interview. We’re just so successful that criminals want to be here. That’s how weak we are.
SPEAKER 11 :
I do take responsibility for putting bad guys in jail with me. It is just another one of these sad instances where, of course, we are seeing this. And where does that money potentially go to? To terrorist regimes or to al-Shabaab. These are the moments where you have to start looking at what this looks like as we reverberate around the country. We’ve had people call in, Native Americans that have called in from tribes who are having issues with this kind of same thing. We have the fines still being put from Gavin Newsom onto a Calvary Chapel church building. saying that they committed over a million dollars in fines during COVID, and they’re still trying to capture that million dollars. Of course, like I’ve said, what does that million dollars mean to the state of California? Absolutely nothing. What does it mean to this church? Potentially everything. but they’re still pushing for it. That’s how friendly the state of California has become and stayed in terms of these churches. I feel bad for them. But look, there’s a reason the ACLJ exists, and that’s because of organizations like ours that are able to represent churches, represent individuals at absolutely no cost. And that’s because you give. People like you support the work of the ACLJ. One of the things we’re going to be talking about here coming up also is the elections that are happening today in the state of Tennessee. I know a lot of you have been curious about that. It’s making national news something that would not usually be the case.
SPEAKER 12 :
Make your way through the break because we’re actually working with Matt Van Epps right now who is running in this race. And, you know, this is election day and he is working on joining us live in the next segment. Not planned, not pre-taped, but live. So we’re working on that now. So wherever you are in the country, you’re seeing a lot about this race. Be very interesting to hear from him on the final day of the race. So do not miss that. If you don’t get this full, again, wherever you’re listening, if you’ve got to go somewhere else, stay with it.
SPEAKER 11 :
You’ve got about a minute break here coming up. I’m going to ask you during that minute to give and support the work of the ACLJ. Do it right now. Help us hit that big goal today here on Giving Tuesday. Welcome back to Seculo. We are going to be taking your phone calls and we are going to be diving in to that special election happening right now in the state of Tennessee. It’s happening as we speak. It has become national news, more so than I think I ever expected. I feel like more people were talking about it outside of the state than even been talking about it inside the state. And we may be joined by a special guest here very soon. With that being said, phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. In this segment and the next segment, I’d like to hear from you. It’s always important to hear from our listeners and our supporters. And if you’re one of those people who have chimed in and maybe put in a few dollars today to the ACLJ or put in a few dollars yesterday and you’ve been part of our Giving Tuesday push. And like I said, I set a big goal for ourselves and said I’d love to hit $100,000 during our broadcast today. We’re not quite there yet, but you know what? We’ve got 25 minutes left. Maybe we can get there. And of course, I’ll add all this up. for tomorrow in terms of, you know, a lot of you don’t hear us live and you should, but a lot of you don’t. We understand that. So give today, be a part of that team. We have a much bigger goal actually for the day, but just for the broadcast alone, it helps support this team, this crew that puts together this incredible broadcast each and every day. during our Giving Tuesday year-end drive. Because it is our year-end Freedom Drive, all donations are doubled. That means if you give $10, it becomes $20 because another ACLJ supporter unlocks their pledge. If you give $1,000, it’s $2,000. So to say we could reach $100,000 is not impossible. In fact, it’s very plausible. with the amount of people that watch this show each and every day. And I want you to be a part of that team, as we know. A lot of you have been concerned about the corruption that has been going on in terms of where all this money goes, where taxes have gone, how things have changed. We have a call coming in. Let’s take that call off the top. Let’s go to Jerry on line one. You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, how’s it going? We had a question about in lieu of the recent discovery of fraud in Minnesota, our property taxes have gone up considerably. Now, on the basis of that, can we use that as a basis to fight our property taxes and maybe in a class action form as opposed to onesies, twosies? going and talking to the, you know, because state, county level, I mean, we had an $18 billion surplus in Minnesota. It’s gone. You know, the school lunch program, $100 million gone. And it seems like no one’s being held accountable for this. So that’s my question.
SPEAKER 10 :
Jordan, I will defer to you to some degree, and obviously within states there’s different issues, so I’m not necessarily sure we’re specific on Minnesota state laws, but a lot of times the governments themselves, unless there is some sort of exception or something stated in the law, are exempt from class action lawsuits. There’s a lot of those issues that, no, you wouldn’t be able to.
SPEAKER 12 :
It’s not 100%, but it’s even a bigger bar than a normal class action, which still can be difficult and long-term. I think what you want to do here is let the federal government, it’s on their radar now, focus on this issue with Waltz. And then the federal government can certainly open up investigations into other financial wrongdoings. in his administration, especially if there are whistleblowers willing to come forward. We would not have known this information but for… There are good bureaucrats. There are good government employees in the world who do want to make sure that your tax dollars aren’t being wasted. Not only are they not being wasted through fraud, but that they’re not going… via fraud to organizations that are terrorist organizations that want to kill Americans, that again, try to restrict our shipping capabilities, all of that. So again, he’s now on the radar for a legitimate reason. Minnesotans blew the whistle in his own. He retaliated supposedly. I mean, that’s what they said against them. So there’s a lot to investigate here. And again, it kind of shows you the true waltz is not the dancing waltz that you hear about.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, and I think Jordan, I like that. That was good.
SPEAKER 11 :
I don’t pay him as much attention as I did a year ago.
SPEAKER 10 :
But this is also something we were going to talk about in this segment because you start to see what these policies do and you start to see people within that vein of the political left. And that’s even what the concern is with this special election that’s going on here in Tennessee. And as you mentioned earlier, Congressman Greene, who just won that seat reelection last November, just a year ago, got 60% of the vote. And now what we have is a special election that’s going on today where it seems much closer. Special elections are concerning because on December 2nd, a lot of people aren’t thinking there’s an election day, but Jordan, we’re actually joined by the candidate right now who’s running in this special election.
SPEAKER 12 :
This is Matt Van Epps, who is running for Congress in Tennessee in a race that the whole country is watching right now. A lot of people in our listeners know, Logan, that we have a big headquarters in Washington, D.C. We’re in Tennessee right now. This is where our production team is and some of our legal team. And Matt, I wanted to ask you first, first of all, Thank you for taking the time on Election Day to join us. There’s all this attention on your race. You have an incredible background. We’ll go through in a minute. And you’ve got an opponent that it’s almost unimaginable that the left decided, let’s put a lot of money behind her in Tennessee.
SPEAKER 08 :
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for having me on. We’re all over the district today trying to get people out to vote. That’s what we need. We’re up right now. We have great early voting. We just need everybody to get out and vote today, and we’re going to win this decisively. But listen, I live in Nashville. I love Nashville. I love country music. And we’re going to fight for Nashville, all 14 counties. And the distinction here and the difference between me and my opponent cannot be more clear. I’m a Christian, a husband, an America First conservative, a combat veteran. I was a helicopter pilot in the Army. I served in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. I deployed to combat nine times total. And it’s a background in real world boots on the ground leadership. I worked in small business in Nashville, served in Tennessee state government, still serving in the National Guard. And that difference in leadership is clear. And I think the other big piece here, too, is my opponent is someone who wants new and higher taxes to fund her socialist agenda. She’s been endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America. And that’s going to skyrocket our cost of living, not to mention for wanting to defund the police and bullying and harassing ICE and the Tennessee Highway Patrol, wanting transgender surgery providers without parental consent. I mean, the list goes on. It’s a far left radical agenda that we have to reject today. And you reject that by getting out and voting for Matt Van Epps.
SPEAKER 12 :
And again, this is Matt Van Epps. He’s running the special election. If you’re in Tennessee and you’re listening to us now, again, check to see where you are. These are some new districts. You might not know that you’re in. the 7th district, and then you can vote today. But if you haven’t early voted, make sure you know where you are. And if you live in the 7th, make sure and get out the vote today. I believe, Matt, most voting is open until, is it 7 or 8 p.m. Central time?
SPEAKER 08 :
7 p.m. Central. So you’ve got time after work to get there.
SPEAKER 12 :
I wanted to play for this because I always want to make sure when you made the claim about what she said that people can hear it in her own words. And we’ve got it. So as Matt just said, this hatred of Nashville that she has exposed and expressed is on camera and on audio. Take a listen, folks.
SPEAKER 04 :
Because I hate the city. I hate the bachelorettes. I hate the pedal taverns. I hate country music. I hate all of the things that make Nashville barely…
SPEAKER 11 :
All of the things that make Nashville apparently she hates is Logan, by the way. Matt, it’s been an interesting thing as someone who’s lived here for over two decades. It’s very sad. I’ve seen the economic boom that has happened in Nashville. I’m not complaining. I know a lot of Nashvillians do not complain about the fact that we have had. They remember what it was like 20 years ago and that a lot has changed in terms of the financial success. Did you ever think, though, because I’m seeing people from all over the political world, and all over just my personal friends who aren’t even living here in Nashville, who are bringing so much attention to this race. Did you ever expect the national attention, obviously the money that was trying to be flooded in, to be coming to your campaign and to this election?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, no, I think the short answer is no. It’s been an amazing experience to be endorsed by the president, to have Speaker Johnson in town with campaign with me all day yesterday. We went to 10 events. We were in six counties. The support has been just incredible. And we built a really broad coalition. I’ve got over 50 endorsements from folks across the 14 counties, business leaders, farmers, county mayors, highway superintendents, sheriffs. It’s just been humbling and amazing. And we built a really great team and this broad coalition that since the primary, and we’re taking this forward and we’re going to win decisively today because of that. And we just need everyone to get out and vote.
SPEAKER 12 :
One more issue I wanted to talk to you about, Matt, was this idea that she has expressed that we could live in a world with no police. And one of the things that makes Nashville so great is that even though it can get wild, there’s a huge police presence and they’re helpful. I remember walking out of a hockey game just last week. It was late at night, getting busy on the streets with my young kids. And the police were there. They were passing out stickers as we went across. They made sure we got across safely. Kept the wildness to the wild side. But she said she wants a world with no police. I mean, it’s crazy. But again, hear it in her own words, folks. This is who Matt is running against. Let’s play it. Play some of it. Can we play some of it, guys?
SPEAKER 11 :
We’ll play when we get back from a break here. Matt, thank you so much for joining us. I really do appreciate it. We are encouraging people to vote today. Of course, we have reached out to Afton Bay’s campaign. If they’d like to come on, of course, for equal time here, you’re more than welcome to come on. Haven’t heard. She’s got a couple minutes left to make that decision.
SPEAKER 12 :
Matt, you might get more clips you can use if she does say yes.
SPEAKER 11 :
All are welcome here. So thank you so much for joining us. We’re all, look, the world and really the country have eyes on the election today, and we’ll be praying for you and your family as well, as we know that it can be a heated time when it comes to politics. We appreciate you, though, taking a couple minutes and joining us. And, of course, if you’re in Tennessee, get out and vote. We’ll be right back with more. Just give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. We’d love to hear from you.
SPEAKER 12 :
It’d be great to have another solid ally in Washington, D.C. Be right back.
SPEAKER 11 :
Last segment of the day. I do want to hear from you. We do have some lines open, so if you did want to call in, of course, it is 1-800-684-3110. It is also Giving Tuesday. It is the biggest day of giving of the year for all nonprofits and charities and organizations like ours. I want you to be a part of that. We set a big goal. I want to hit $100,000 during this broadcast. Of course, what that really is about raising $50,000 that will be matched That’s very doable. We can hit that goal today. And I’ll tell you tomorrow if we did or didn’t. And that’s at ACLJ.org. Do it right now. Even if you’re watching this later on, we’re not live. We know when we’re live in different areas and we can track that. So I’m going to keep an eye on it. So go to ACLJ.org, scan the QR code that’s on your screen. It’s Giving Tuesday. Be a part of this big, big day. It is a crucial time for us at the ACLJ. And of course, again, it’s tax deductible. But more importantly, your gifts are doubled today. Even if you become an aclj champion someone that gives on a monthly basis your first donation will be matched by another great aclj supporter now we were just joined in the last segment by matt van epps who is currently obviously running in that special election happening here in nashville in the nashville area in tennessee district seven uh that is a very odd cutout If you look at it, technically, the three of us, not in that district, but many of our neighbors are.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. And I think one thing, Jordan, also to point out, because some people we’re seeing is like, oh, this is a Nashville election. Why does this matter? Well, the Democrats, no matter what, they are going to claim momentum because this is a race. This is a Bob Dombie moment. This is where Congressman Greene was able to get 60% of the vote against Megan Barry, who was a very popular political figure in Nashville. She’s a former Nashville mayor. There was a scandal. She had to resign, but still remained very popular. She lost. She only got 34% of the vote, I believe, whereas Congressman Greene got 60% of the vote. What the Democrats are going to try to do here… Now, you have to take in context. It’s December 2nd. It’s a special election. It’s all about turnout. It’s not like something that’s been publicized that every single person knows, oh, I got to go vote on December 2nd. But they’re going to try to use this, even if it’s close, to show, look. The Republicans are in decline because Congressman Green got almost 60%. And now, even if it’s within those two points you see in the poll, they’re going to try to use this as a messaging moment. That’s why. Outside groups. She hasn’t necessarily fundraised very well herself locally, but you are seeing tens of millions of dollars for a special election being poured into this race to try and show something that may or may not actually exist.
SPEAKER 12 :
And here’s why it matters, you know, the moment whoever wins this race is sworn in. So right now the House has broken up 219 Republicans, 213 Democrats with three vacancies. The only vacancies that is Republican was previously Republican held is this seat. So if they flip this seat and then the other two vacancies were Democrat strong blue seats, they add those two. I mean, we are at 219 to 217. So, I mean, literally the margin of error when you’ve got a Thomas Massey right now who’s basically voting against all Republican legislation. I mean, this is why this race will impact the House of Representatives through until the next election cycle.
SPEAKER 10 :
As well as you think about a resignation in Georgia that just will be taking place very soon after the new year. I didn’t hear about that. There will be one less Republican on that side. If this race were to go to Afton, it would be a very close, if not, a couple more resignations or special elections could actually flip the control of the House before the midterm.
SPEAKER 12 :
We talked about also how the margin of victory is important here. If she wins by a sliver, then when the midterms come, the Dems are going to pour the money even back in more to keep that seat blue. If Matt wins with a significant margin, I mean, I’m talking 7%, 8%, 10%. That would be huge. Media will try to play that down. In a special election, things are weird. So many less people vote. they’re not going to come back in the midterms and spend this kind of money in Tennessee so this is a chance to kind of say progressive Dems you tried it here in Tennessee it didn’t work for you stop wasting your money here and then this seat would become solidly conservative as it has been but This is a real race happening. Polls are showing it tight. Again, Speaker Johnson being here, Matt being all over the district. It’s serious. And it’s a district that literally goes from rural farm to the most urban areas in Nashville.
SPEAKER 10 :
Jordan, we did reach out, as we mentioned, to Afton’s campaign. She’s a state representative right now. We reached out to Matt today. While we were on air. Right. So because she wasn’t able to join us, and obviously these things happen fast. This is a live broadcast here. We should play some more so you can hear from her. Yes. She has been on MS Now quite a bit. Yes. And they are a friendly, obviously very friendly host talking to her. So we can set this up. And she still is unable to give…
SPEAKER 12 :
Even just friendly answers to them. We talked to you about this issue. We said we’ll play it for you so you can hear her and watch her say it about a world without police. And how do you talk to your your family and friends about that? And she got asked about that on MS Now. And you think, OK, this is the best place for me to have the crafted answer on it. And there was no answer. And there was also no one. She did not say, I don’t hold that view anymore. She tried to say it’s a little different. Just just listen to her in her own words.
SPEAKER 05 :
Crime is, of course, also was a major issue in the presidential election. And I know there are some old posts you’ve been asked about those old posts a number of times. My question for you today is whether more money for cops on the streets in the district you hope to represent would help fight crime. Would you like more money for more cops on the streets in your district?
SPEAKER 03 :
So those past comments were at a time when I was a private citizen as an activist and organizer. And now as a Tennessee lawmaker, I represent 40,000 individual opinions and political thought. So what do you think now?
SPEAKER 05 :
Would more money for cops be good or bad?
SPEAKER 03 :
I think it depends on what the community wants. And so I’ve worked with communities, at least my constituents, want to ensure that there is investment in their community for community safety, community protection, mental health services. And that’s what I’m hearing from at least my constituents. All right, fair enough.
SPEAKER 11 :
All right, we got two minutes left on the show.
SPEAKER 12 :
That’s as much as they could get from her. And I want to just let you know, in her previous statement, it’s because she went on this whole dialogue as a student just a couple years ago, like an ultra grad student and a county commissioner.
SPEAKER 11 :
She knows if she loses also, she’s got to go back into that world. So you can’t pivot too much because all of a sudden you’re back and needing to be this sort of cultural activist. And when you know, if you start backing down on some of these more radical claims, that crowd is not going to bring you back in.
SPEAKER 12 :
A world without police. Anarchy?
SPEAKER 11 :
This is what they want. Chaos. Yeah, what was it? They had those during the time. There was the no police zones, what were they called? Right, the CHOP. Yeah, exactly. That’s what she’s advocating for. That’s how radical she is.
SPEAKER 12 :
I mean, it’s, I think, hard for people to understand that’s happening in Tennessee, but we’ve seen this all around the country.
SPEAKER 11 :
Look, we got one minute left, and with that, look, we had a packed show. We appreciate everyone who joined us. I’m going to ask you to think about, pray about supporting the work of the ACLJ during Giving Tuesday. It is Giving Tuesday. I’ve said it so many times today. Make me not have to say it again. Giving Tuesday is happening right now. It’s the biggest charitable giving day of the year. Of course, that also means nonprofit organizations like ours, not just your traditional charities. You’re talking about people like us who run a media and legal nonprofit that really does incredible work for people at no charge, whether that is our incredible media that our team puts out. that we put out every day. Of course, the legal work the ACLJ does in the courts. And we are all involved. You know all the work we’ve done, whether here, abroad, in Israel, in Europe. We are involved in so much more. But the midnight deadline tonight is Forgiving Tuesday. Of course, I’ve asked you, let’s hit that big goal during the broadcast today. I’ll give you an update tomorrow. If we did it, I hope we did. If not, keep supporting the work. It’s our year-end drive, and all donations are doubled through the end of the month. So be a part of that as well at ACLJ.org. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.
