In this enriching episode, we don’t just stop at the headlines. We explore state-level issues with insights from West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey, who sheds light on America’s opioid crisis and the systemic errors that have fueled it. As always, we invite you to engage with us, whether it’s about civil liberties infringements in schools or political maneuverings from California to D.C. This episode is packed with information and dialogue that aim to inform and empower our listeners.
SPEAKER 09 :
On today’s show, Tulsi Gabbard destroys 37 security clearances from the deep state.
SPEAKER 06 :
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 09 :
Welcome to Sekula. Once again, we’re back. And we got some breaking news. And we also have Jordan Sekula in the studio. Will Haines is in the studio, as always. We’ll be joined a little bit later by Rick Grinnell and by Attorney General of West Virginia, J.B. McCuskey. So you’re not going to want to miss that. We got a packed show for you. Of course, we’re going to talk about some of the breaking news that happened overnight. That was our friend, former colleague, now current Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, went through and got rid of 37 security clearances. These were all involved with the Russiagate scenario and everything that went down. Will, give it to us.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s right. So these individuals are people that had some sort of connection to politicizing or weaponizing intelligence. And what we see is that we know early on in the Trump presidency, even before Tulsi Gabbard was director of national intelligence, they got rid of the top names that you know of. The Clappers, the Brennans, the John Boltons. They had their security clearance revoked. But this is as a result of their investigation and finding out how deep this widespread conspiracy to politicize weaponization went. And now that they’re putting out that information, they’re also taking action. by suspending the security clearances of 37 individuals. And they are people that politicized or weaponized intelligence to advance personal, partisan, or non-objective agendas inconsistent with national security priorities, failure to safeguard classified information in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, and agency policies, i.e. leaking. Failure to adhere to professional analytic tradecraft standards, also known as weaponizing, manipulating, changing the intelligence to fit a different narrative than it shows, and other conduct detrimental to the trust and confidence required. for continued access to national security information. Jordan, I know that you dealt with this type of stuff a lot, working with the Bob Mueller probe, looking at things of this nature, and we’ve seen this pattern. This isn’t going after the names you know necessarily. This is going after the true deep state at this point.
SPEAKER 08 :
Remember, a lot of you know more about these bureaucracies and the FBI than you ever have before, knowing who the director is, the deputy, the deputy’s assistant, that you can go on down. Same thing goes for the Department of Justice, because there have been some high-profile individuals taking on those roles. But for the most part, the most dangerous part of these governments are not always the political appointees. Yes, you have the clapper on this list and others. It’s the bureaucrats inside these organizations, whether it be any of the intelligence organizations, who are the long termers, the survivors who, again, believe that they could leak classified information without any negative recourse. Yet, remember, they raided President Trump’s home, a man who could declassify anything at any time for any reason. And they raided his home. It took his own administration to make sure that lower level information, intelligence officers were following the basics of keeping a security clearance. We’re not even talking about criminal law yet. We’re talking about keeping a security clearance. Right.
SPEAKER 09 :
I think when every time someone says, oh, it’s a bunch of nothing. There’s going to be a list of names. There’s going to be stuff happens. Nothing’s ever going to get done. This is active. This is happening. This is getting done. People are being removed from their security clearances. That is a bigger deal than maybe you know of.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, because you can’t use it for your business anymore. A lot of times these military contractors, your security clearance gets you a better job.
SPEAKER 09 :
So remember, certain things can get done quickly. This is one of them. Of course, Tulsi Gabbard was a member of our team here for many years before going on to, I don’t know, become the director of national intelligence. Very cool. It’s always great to see when she makes some headlines and takes some action. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. And look, it’s back to school season. Unfortunately, for some of you, they’re like me that I hate my kids go back to school, but, you know, they go back to school and sometimes they’re going to get met and they’re going to get met with some recourse. Kids being punished, we know for their faith around the country. A lot of times these are schools that honestly don’t know any better. So the ACLJ will jump in. and help support your student, help support you as a family. Often it can be done very quickly, confidentially. All you got to do is go to aclj.org slash help, fill out that information, and you can become one of our clients at absolutely no cost to you. So if you need it right now, do it today. Of course, donate if you can. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Seculo. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. A lot of you are just joining, so we’ve got to restate what’s going on. That is our friend, former colleague, current Director of National Intelligence at Order of the President. That’s, of course, Tulsi Gabbard has ordered the 37 security clearances. uh, be revoked. These are people that were involved in the Russiagate situation. People are involved in a lot of the Obama administration. Well, people that still had their security clearance. I don’t know if people understand even how that process works, that a lot of people retain their security clearance throughout, um, throughout maybe the rest of their lives because sometimes they’re called in, there’s opportunities for them to do it. And then Jordan said, a lot of times they use this for their own corporate gain. Now, again, nothing wrong with that. It’s just part of the nature of the business. But that being said, uh, Tulsi has stepped forward and said, here’s what we’re going to do. She even uploaded her own video. We should actually pull that and see if we can pull some of the bites from that to her YouTube channel just a few hours ago. I mean, that is the difference in this administration. You have the director of national intelligence has her own YouTube channel where she’s putting out. It just got served as I was pulling up mine. That is Tulsi removes security clearances from 37 intelligence officials. I think a lot of it is the clips from Sean Hannity that she was on last night.
SPEAKER 07 :
But this, again, very different world, very different administration. Here’s also part of the problem as well. And whenever you see this line in an article by the legacy media, just go ahead and click away because it’s unnecessary, but they’re already going after Tulsi saying that she accused them of having engaged in the politicization or weaponization of intelligence to advance personal or partisan goals, failing to safeguard classified information, failing to adhere to professional analytic trade craft standards and other detrimental conduct. She did not describe in the memo. Then they say, The memo offered no evidence to support the accusations. First of all, she’s been laying out the evidence for weeks now. Second of all, this legacy media is the same legacy media that told us if there were layoffs at the CIA and intelligence world at the DNI because of Doge. That that’s a national security risk because those people that have security clearance might go to our enemies with the information. You got to be careful of your firing because those people are going to go straight to Russia. So maybe if the legacy media told us that there are people that are bad actors within the intelligence community that are so easily able to betray their country, commit treason. that maybe you don’t need a ton of evidence for a memo saying we’re revoking your security clearance. And actually, that’s the prerogative of the president, who is the one who classifies everything. The classification comes down from the president of the United States.
SPEAKER 08 :
People get their security clearance. revoked for a lot less than what we’re reading here. I mean, not just intentional, but just negligence alone. And then there’s many people who you would think would have no problem who get rejected. They go up the chain, up the chain. and they cannot get through the security clearance process. There’s also, as you said, there’s one person who can strip these away immediately. There’s one person who can declassify anything. There’s also one person who can give a top security clearance to anyone they want to, and that’s the President of the United States. President Trump, I think, has done that temporarily a couple of times when these business guys have joined the administration, and their application for this could be 2 000 pages long so again a lot of this goes back to the presidential power being utilized to get this bureaucracy under control and you’ve all wondered where’s the action where do people finally get in trouble when do they lose their jobs let me tell you something When you lose this security clearance, you’re not working intelligence anymore and you’re not nearly as valuable to defense contractors, that military industrial complex. They don’t want to hire a bunch of former bureaucrats who have lost the access into that top secret world.
SPEAKER 07 :
Now, they may still keep their job on MSNOW, formerly MSNBC, because they can wear that as a badge of honor. Look, Tulsi Gabbard took away my security clearance because, you know, I manipulated intelligence. I lied to the American people, et cetera, et cetera.
SPEAKER 09 :
They definitely treat her like a boogeyman kind of situation every time she pops up. And again, doing something that’s not that uncommon. It’s uncommon maybe in these big sweeping digital moments, like I said. It’s more uncommon that we have her out there on the news and that we have her putting up a YouTube video talking about it. But that has been the transparency of not just this administration, but of Tulsi since the beginning, which is I’m going to tell you what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.
SPEAKER 08 :
What I think Tulsi is great for this position and in the intel world is we know how much she loves our country. She served until it remains that service as long as possible, has done that throughout her career, didn’t retire from reserves while she was a member of Congress or running for president. And in the current position, I’m not sure how that works when you’re a cabinet secretary, but I know she still does a lot with the troops she’s linked to. The bottom line is her demeanor. is the right person that balances with Trump, with President Trump. So President Trump, you know, we’re getting rid of these 37 people. Whereas Tulsi Gabbard can thoughtfully walk through why these 37 people should not have this access and the reasons why they take these steps. And she does it in a way that I think is very serious about someone who cares little about partisan politics and much more about the United States of America.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and to your point as well, Logan, how she seems to be this boogeyman. I think her calmness in the face of all the vitriol that they will spew at her, I think is what makes her more scary to them is knowing that she wants to get the job done and she’s going to do it with precision. And I feel like they feel like they can go after Trump maybe a little bit more because he is bombastic. He loves the rhetorical joust. But with Tulsi Gabbard, she’s very clear. She remains calm and she is decisive in her actions. And I think that probably scares them more to some degree because now she’s going after people that fed the American people this lie. They weaponized our intelligence apparatus against the American people. We can’t lose sight of that. These people work for us. These are members of the government. The bureaucracy somehow thinks that they’re above the American people and that they are above the president even. They’re not. They work for us and there have to be consequences. And now they’re doing it. And this is a great day for the United States.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, actually a vote on the poll. Also, if you’re watching on YouTube right now, we have a lot of people who are watching. I do want to take a moment and just say, look, for all of you who are brand new, there’s always about half the amount of people. They’re either brand new or they’re not subscribed. They watch every day. If you’re one of those people, I’m going to ask you to subscribe right now. We have just hit over 515,000 subscribers on YouTube alone. We are going to start a march to a million. I really want us to get there. I think that’s important. Because a million people strong is going to be pretty wild to get there. We already are beating the numbers, by the way, of a lot of mainstream media when it comes to the amount of views and the amount of people that actually watch this channel on YouTube. And, of course, people that watch on Rumble and watch on other platforms. You combine them, we’re destroying a lot of those shows. But when it comes to YouTube alone, that’s a big public-facing number. Help us get that number up because it’s really important. I know it seems like vanity, but it really isn’t. It really gets it into more people’s feeds, gets this information out there at a stronger and bigger level. And you want that. And look, I know a lot of you don’t understand the structure of how the ACLJ and how this show and how it all works together. I understand we’re part of the same family here, but the ACLJ is our organization. It is our nonprofit, we say First Amendment Religious Freedom Law Firm that also produces incredible amount of content. So we have probably an equal amount of people on our media team as we do on our legal team that go out and help make this show possible, make all the content we do possible, but also are in court. And we’re going to discuss that even later about what we are doing currently in court. And one of those things always around now, around August and September, is back to school. And we have been fighting for the rights of students for the last 35 years. And that has been part of our 35 years of victory. Because it is almost unanimous that when we go and fight for the rights of students that we win. Not always. Sometimes you got to fight it hard and go long. Sometimes it takes years. But most people, there’s a lot of teachers out there. There’s a lot of principals. There’s a lot of faculty that purely don’t understand the law. And as soon as they get an email from a lawyer at the American Center for Law and Justice, After they’re done wetting themselves, the next thing they do is go, what do I do about this situation? Maybe I should look at the law. And the law says, we’re right. They’re wrong. It’s taken care of. All of a sudden, it goes away. That’s what happens. Now, sometimes we got to go to court. You got to get stronger than that. All of this, by the way, is at no expense to the client. So if you’re one of those parents right now who is watching and there’s something that’s going on in your school, I encourage you to go to aclj.org slash help, fill out that simple form. You’re going to be attached immediately to an ACLJ attorney, to a lawyer, not to a call center, to an attorney. And they’re going to determine whether there is something we can do about it, and likely there is. So I’m going to encourage you to do that today as you see what’s been going on in your schools. If you feel like there’s something that feels inappropriate… Now is the time. This is the way you can do it. It doesn’t cost you a dollar and will never cost you a dollar. And that is because people like you who are watching this show who also want it one day to know that we are there for them are ready to donate. And you have seen the 35 years of victory and you want to see another 35 years of victory for your children and for your grandchildren and maybe your great-grandchildren for that matter. So I encourage you to make a donation because when you do today… and you do during these months of celebration, these months of victory, 35 years of victory, all donations are doubled because there’s other members and other ACLJ champions, that’s people that give on a monthly basis. When they give, if you give, it unlocks a donation they’ve pledged. So whether that’s $25 or $2,500, whether that’s $50 or $50,000, You can do it today. Have your donation effectively doubled. It is a very important time of the year for us. Probably the most important time as we head into the back quarter of the year. We’re not going to have another one of these opportunities until Christmas. So do it right now. That is at ACLJ.org. Scan the QR code. Think about it. Pray about it. We’ll be back in just a moment. Next up, we got Attorney General of West Virginia, J.B. McCuskey, joining us. Welcome back to Seculo. My brother Jordan Seculo is in the studio as well as Will Haynes. And now we’re going to be joined by Attorney General of West Virginia, good friend J.B. McCuskey. J.B., I’m going to kick it over to some of these guys because there’s been a lot of news about what’s been going on in Washington, D.C. and the calling up of the National Guard and what that means and what it looks like. And he thought having someone like you, who obviously has a part to play in that, would be a good voice to hear from. But Will, why don’t you kind of set us up?
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s right. So the state of West Virginia has authorized some National Guard troops to go and assist the D.C. National Guard in their law enforcement operation that President Trump has authorized you as a top law enforcement official in the state of West Virginia. I know you care a lot about law and order, about the rule of law. But why is it important that we see, one, both states with Republican leadership that are willing to send National Guard to assist with this? But why is it important as a nation, not just to individual states, that we see this mission come to fruition?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, so I think the first thing, and thank you guys for having me. Obviously, it’s great to see both of you. What’s important to note is that the National Guard has a dual role. And one of their two constitutional roles is precisely what is happening right now when the president has asked for these guards troops to come in and work in a cleanup environment. Everyone understands that Washington, D.C. is a super interesting and great place to take school trips and to take your family, but it is also the seat of our federal government. And it is the place where the business of our country has to be done, and it is the place where every citizen of this country needs to feel safe and welcome in order to conduct their business with the government that they have elected. And so what President Trump is saying here is that this city, Washington, D.C., and I’ve lived in D.C. with you guys in various times in my life, it must be a place where every American person feels safe and welcome to come and hold their government accountable. That is part of the American experience, right? There’s maybe no other more important thing that D.C. can do than that. And so he felt, and it appears that the mayor and the police chief there in D.C. agree that some added resources, some added law enforcement folks on the streets of D.C. would go a long way to getting them a real kickstart into cleaning D.C. up and turning it into the beautiful, amazing city that we all know that it can be. It’s also important to note that West Virginia’s eastern border is only about 30 miles from DC. We have thousands of West Virginia residents who ride the train or drive in every day to work in the District of Columbia. So there is a pretty significant nexus between West Virginia and the District of Columbia and why our guards troops would have been and are a very reasonable pot of law enforcement folks to dip into. And we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 6,800 guardsmen here in West Virginia and women And so this is a very, very small portion of that. And obviously, if any kind of natural disaster comes up, they’ll head right back home and take care of their other duties as guardspeople.
SPEAKER 08 :
You also have some news, some big news, because this is something I remember talking to you about. in between the time you were elected, even when you were running for office and ran for this office, and then after you won, and then even on Inauguration Day, the opioid crisis in West Virginia. And you as Attorney General and your team are taking action directly against those who are responsible for the loss of so many lives, for the addiction of so many people and just families ruined. Tell people about how West Virginia and your office as Attorney General is taking action.
SPEAKER 03 :
yeah so um to everybody out there and and the opioid crisis is not um limited to places like west virginia sometimes if you’re here it feels like it because we have you know a myriad of other problems but the opioid crisis has affected families throughout this country whether they’re rich or poor or black or white or christian or jewish or you name it the opioid crisis has has affected communities and families and children all over this country and in no other place was it more prevalent than here and we have sued as of yesterday a company called express scripts which is a pharmacy benefit manager and what pharmacy benefit managers essentially are is the middleman between pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies and pharmacies And so what Express Scripts had a very unique ability to do was they were the only ones that had the data. They knew which doctors were prescribing these pills, which pharmacies were dispensing them, and which patients and how many of these pills were being dispensed in what locations. And instead of taking that very, very unique perspective and seeing at very early stages that these drugs were being overprescribed and prescribed in ways that were noticeably dangerous, Instead of saying, hey, we need to pump the brakes here, they actually, and what we believe, is that they doubled down on the marketing aspects of these drugs, moved them up in the formulary so that they’d be marketed more, added rebate schedules so that people would get paid more for prescribing these drugs, and thus were one of the main architects, if not the most important player, and the explosion of these drugs in the coal and other communities here in West Virginia. So we filed a 200-page lawsuit, and we’re really excited to get started holding them accountable for the harm that they’ve done to the people here in West Virginia.
SPEAKER 07 :
JB, we also saw you on Fox earlier this week and some other interesting angles that you’re taking on. I wanted to play something you said there and get you to expound on it. This is Bite 7 from JB on Fox just yesterday.
SPEAKER 03 :
We’ve asked Instagram to make a couple of simple changes, mostly that the location sharing is an opt-in, especially for children’s accounts, and to make sure that every user, especially people who might be vulnerable, have a real understanding of how the technology is tracking them and who can find them on the Instagram site.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, JB, I call you that because we’re friends, but Attorney General, just to make it a more, again, serious, more formal for our audience. We both have young daughters who actually are very good friends and they chat basically through the summer all day and night and even mix their friends groups from West Virginia and here in Tennessee. And so we know our kids are utilizing it better than we can. And it’s actually kind of surprising, I think, probably to a lot of people to hear that a place like Instagram, if you don’t read the small print, is doing that kind of tracking. And you might be saying yes to it, but a 13 or 14-year-old, and most adults aren’t reading all that language either.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and I think what’s interesting here is that Instagram actually isn’t a necessarily bad actor in this space, right? They’re obviously part of this sort of big tech situation. But what parents have to just be incredibly vigilant about is every single application that their child is using and all of the other ways that that application is being used. And this just isn’t about kids, right? What we’re asking Instagram to do is to make sure that child predators aren’t able to track the very children that they’re preying upon. But it’s also very important for other vulnerable populations, specifically people who have been in abusive relationships, right? There are women all across this country who have gotten themselves out of these miserable, horrible, abusive relationships. And those who seek to abuse them could use these location services to find the people that, quite frankly, they’re trying to stay away from. So we’ve asked Instagram to just take a look at this and make sure that all of their users understand the other parts of this application.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, absolutely, J.B., and we appreciate you joining us again. Attorney General of West Virginia joining us.
SPEAKER 08 :
One last thing. We only got about a minute. If you want to find the office, it’s at, on X, it’s at West Virginia AG. At West Virginia AG. So you can look that up or put J.B. McCuskey in on X. You’ll find him there. Follow him. They’re doing a lot of great work, and that’s why we continue to have J.B. on.
SPEAKER 09 :
Throw that up in our comments so people know exactly where to go.
SPEAKER 08 :
Taking on opioids, taking on these big businesses and clients for the safety of our children and families. Thank you, JB. We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 09 :
As always, that’s right. And before we go… We have a second half hour coming up. If you don’t get us live on your local radio station, find us broadcasting live always on YouTube, rumbleaclj.org. Again, that’s from 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time. You always catch us later on podcasts. However you get your podcasts, we’re there. But again, support the work of the ACLJ right now. We’re celebrating 35 years of victory. You need to be a part of it. Again, we already told you how you can help as we are in back-to-school season. Get involved right now. Go to aclj.org slash victory. Scan the QR code. We’re back in less than a minute. Don’t go anywhere.
SPEAKER 06 :
keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is Sekulow And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. Second half hour coming at you right now. Rick Riddell is going to be joining us in the next segment. If you didn’t catch the first half hour, I encourage you when we’re done to go back and listen. We spent a lot of good time talking about the current situation with Tulsi Gabbard. We’ll give you a little reset there. As well as we just got done with Attorney General West Virginia J.B. McCuskey talking about the National Guard, talking about the crises that affect his state but also affect Tulsi’s. the entire country and how they are fighting them you need to go back and listen it’s really uh phenomenal to hear from him i’ve also told you about how you can support the work of the aclj and usually i do this at the end of the segment but you know what i’m going to do it right now here up the top because look we’re a little behind i’ll be honest with you you know with economic issues people honestly with a lot of you who are brand new who have never donated who never donated to understand why you even donate to what you probably just see as a show or even a law firm. Why are you donating to a law firm? Why are you donating to a broadcast? That is not how we work here. Again, as we’re in the back to school season, we know that there are kids right now that are being punished for sharing their faith. And you know what? A lot of those parents, they would not have the financial backing to take that to court or to even hire a lawyer for a few hours. But the ACLJ, we provide that absolutely no cost. But the only way that happens is because people like you donate. And whether that’s one time a year, whether that’s one time ever or whether that’s on a monthly recurring basis. But during these special months, we’re able to have the opportunity to present to you what we’re essentially matching donations, where donations are doubled. Now, of course, you’re not doubled. If you give $50, you’re not going to get a credit card charge for $100. You’re going to have unlocked $50 that’s been pledged by an ACLJ member or champion. And we have a very high threshold because we have some incredible people that are involved. So if you want to give $5, great. If you want to give $5,000, great. If you want to give $500,000, and if you do, maybe give us a call first, you know, make sure we get that process through. It effectively is going to be doubled right now. It’s an amazing time to be a supporter of the ACLJ. We can’t do it without you. I’m looking at this incredible crew right now. We can’t do this show, which is a full-blown television production. It’s not a little podcast in someone’s corner of a studio or corner of their office or corner of their house. None of this happens without you. And of course, the legal work, we’re going to get to that coming up as well, because you just heard what we’re doing in West Virginia well. And I think when you understand the global impact of what we’re doing here at the ACLJ, it’s a little bit hard to even get your head wrapped around.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and Jordan, even you last night, we are busy all the time, even late into the evening. But last night, you had a special opportunity to meet with some leaders, many that have been on this broadcast before. But tell us a little bit about that before we head into this break.
SPEAKER 08 :
Sure. So I was invited along with our colleague Don Parsons, who oversees a lot of our legal work, both internationally and corporately at the ACLJ in Washington, D.C. And my wife, Anna, you’ll see in those photos as well, to the governor’s mansion here in Tennessee. Governor Lee and the first lady of Tennessee graciously opened their doors for a pretty small group of us to come together today. to get to know the newest U.S. Senator, and this is the Senator that was appointed to take J.D. Vance’s seat, John Husted, who we’ve already been doing work for on nominations, and our own Don Parsons from those photos actually used to work with him in the state Senate when Don was a chief counsel for the Republicans in the state Senate in Ohio. And he’s got probably, in the last two days we found out, the toughest… Right. Race in the country when it comes to the Senate, because Sherrod Brown has reentered the race. And so, again, it was a night really to talk to some major players in this realm about this race just went from one that could be that would be pretty much favor the Republican to one that is a toss up. And that’s really important going into the. President Trump’s final two years. So quite a group with the governor there, the former governor, Bill Haslam, Senator Hagerty, the Secretary of State, and of course, the newest senator from Ohio, whose seat we really need to keep.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s right. And Logan, these battles don’t stop. That’s why we have to continue working all day long, every day.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. It is a 24-7 gig. Everyone who knows who comes to work here knows that’s part of what you sign up for here. And of course, like I’ve said, I’ve always wanted to hire the best of the best. I want to make sure we have the best broadcast we have. I want to make sure we have the best legal team possible. We don’t need to be scraping the bottom of the barrel to find people who come work for us. I want to make sure we have people who can not only take this, but also can win. And that’s in media as we cross millions and millions of viewers each and every day, whether that’s in the law or that’s in the courtroom. That’s why we’re celebrating 35 years of victory. It’s always been that way. That has been our message, our motto the whole time. Win. ACLJ.org slash victory. Scan the QR code. We’ll be right back with Rick Grinnell. Welcome back to Secular. We are now joined by Rick Grinnell. Rick, you’ve been making some headlines and making some ex-posts, as I saw over the last 24 hours or so, as the new, cool Gavin Newsom account is starting to shake things up, Will. It’s clearly him, posting all these fun memes, getting into it, calling you insults there, Rick. Another moment where… The Newsom team tries so desperately to be cool, to be relevant. And you know what? Sadly, there’s I’m sure a big group going, oh, look at this. Finally, someone having fun here. And to me, of course, I look at it and just you could see how phony it is.
SPEAKER 02 :
A phony, but it’s consistently phony. What we know is Gavin Newsom keeps reinventing himself. I think he keeps trying to find a new version of himself that’s likable because remember, he’s launched like five podcasts now. He keeps renaming them and coming up with new gimmicks. Then he hired this new Twitter team. which is so obviously not him because suddenly it’s like whiplash on his Twitter feed and he’s attacking people. Yesterday, he called me the janitor at the Kennedy Center to which my response was, why are you making fun of working class people? I don’t understand why we are supposed to as politicians or people in leadership look down on people who are, you know, teachers, janitors, working class. My brother is a is a truck driver and he’s one of the smartest people I know because he is so informed. And so I think we’ve just got to get to the point in our country where these elites stop making fun of people that maybe they can’t relate to. But who just don’t have the level of maybe sophistication that they want them to. I’d much rather be with the janitors and the truck drivers than with Gavin Newsom.
SPEAKER 09 :
You probably look at the numbers of how many people work in sanitation or health or. Or janitorial services in the state of California. And I’m sure it is a large amount of your voter base. And you decided to some reason call that in. So look at the Kennedy Center. I’m sure you do employ quite a few of those people as you should, as you have to when you’re running, I don’t know, a theater, an arena, anything like that. So when you do those kind of moments, I do think you have to have, look, I mean, we have a social media team. It’s very clear. I think no one thinks that some of the stuff posted is like individually being posted by each one of our people. No, but we’re also not pretending it is. And the other thing about it, is it’s not, you have to make sure you’re the right people there who understand your voice. And if they don’t, they step in it just like this, where all of a sudden you have insulted, I can’t even imagine how many Californians.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and I mean, I don’t want to play devil’s advocate here, but Rick, I feel like whoever they did hire, kind of nailed his voice because they, what did they do? He mocked, his account mocked working class people. This is the same guy that went to French Laundry during COVID when no one else was allowed to even go do their jobs, the working class people.
SPEAKER 09 :
Real quick, this is just a quick Google search for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 245,790 janitors and cleaners in the state of California in May of 2023. I mean, that is not insignificant.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’ll take every one of their votes and all of their hard work. Look, let me just make one thing clear. I don’t employ a single person to run my social media. I run my social media. And sometimes I would say that, you know, I probably go too far and I have to dial it back. But it’s all me, and it’s my authentic voice because I actually like calling out these hypocrites who call themselves politicians. Look, I hope that the Democrats nominate Gavin Newsom. I just don’t believe that he will ever work in a swing state. People in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, they’re going to be able to tell how inauthentic he is. He’s like a robot. His sounds, his hands, his hair, everything about him is totally contrived, poll tested. I hope that they do turn to him. He’s term limited, so he’s done. And I pray to God that he jumps into the presidential race because I think he implodes really fast once he gets outside of California.
SPEAKER 09 :
And you’re right, Rick, that it feels like every time he makes this brand move, it’s so drastic. All the goodwill you may have thought he could have had by interviewing Charlie Kirk, by doing all of that, And all of a sudden, clearly did not work. It clearly did not resonate with the right people or his team doesn’t think it did. So let’s just knee-jerk reaction go completely the opposite direction. And you’re right. It just screams inauthentic. It screams elitist. And it’s unfortunate. You’re not Wendy’s, okay? You’re Gavin Newsom. You’re the governor of the state. You can have fun on social media. There’s nothing wrong with that. But when you start throwing around jabs and you start really just picking fights, it just becomes lame.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and Rick, here’s what I want to know, because I’m starting to see a pattern, but whether it’s his hired social media team or Gavin Newsom himself, he keeps going after you. Why are you such a threat to Gavin Newsom?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, look, I think we’re holding him to account in some ways, you know, between the water problems. I should say water management problems because we live on the ocean. We don’t have a water problem. We have a water management problem. We don’t have a forest and fire problem in California. We have a forest and fire management problem. And we’re calling them out. And President Trump has me as the point person really holding back some of these funds that California is thinking that they’re just going to automatically get. And what we’re saying is we’re not going to give these funds over to California so that they make the same mistakes. And we have another fire because we don’t have the reservoirs filled we don’t know how to do water management we still haven’t fixed the problems of uh forest fires and and forest management how do you do that just through common sense gavin newsom is out running for president he still hasn’t fixed these and so our concern president trump’s concern is if we somehow just allow this money to be handed over to california they make the same mistakes and we’re going to have another fire look last night i had an event for my organization fix California we had 150 people gathered in Manhattan Beach, and they are outraged. I would say 50 to 60 of the people that showed up lost their homes in the Palisades. They now live in Manhattan Beach, where I live, and they’re outraged. Many of these are Democrats. I talked to a woman last night from the Palisades who is a Democrat who will never vote, at least for the next couple of years, for a Democrat. She’s so outraged that the basic utilities, we have the highest property taxes in the nation, and these individuals saw a fire coming over the hill. They went to turn on the water. They had no water pressure. They had no water. These are just basic services. Karen Bass is a disaster, but you know what? Karen Bass thinks that she’s gonna win. She’s running again. And I opened up the speech last night and I said, look, we’re all outraged at Karen Bass. We think there’s no possible way she’s going to win. She’s running and her people are telling her she’s going to win. Now, that’s pathetic. I want to meet the people who are going to vote for Karen Bass. Because between Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom, the people of California, common sense voters see this as so lame. They are not going to go for this again. We’ve got a big moment in California. I think that’s why Gavin Newsom is afraid.
SPEAKER 09 :
I’m very curious about that, Rick, because I know that a lot of people here are probably like, why are you spending so much time on local news here in California, in West Virginia? We’re here in Tennessee. We’re seeing a mass migration, obviously, from California to Tennessee. Most of my friends from L.A. are now here because of reasons like that. And these aren’t necessarily most conservative people. These are people in the arts who just decided they couldn’t take it anymore. And I think we have to always look to these big states to see how things are going. I mean, with Karen Bass in that situation, I feel like you had the media, she had the media so under control that if you wanted to vote for anyone else, even a moderate Democrat, you were ostracized. You were all of a sudden the enemy if you just said, you know, I don’t know, I want to vote for this other more moderate Democrat. Sorry, you’re no longer welcome in California.
SPEAKER 02 :
The Los Angeles Times is the newsletter for the Democratic Party. It’s a simple little newsletter. It’s not interesting anymore. You don’t even need to read it because you know exactly what they’re going to say. They’re going to say the Republican is bad, the Democrat is good. It’s tanking. They’re literally firing people left and right, laying people off. And so that’s the largest newspaper in the state. And the media are, you know, they’re not even jumping on the fact that the governor of the state is mocking janitors. The media are like largely silent in California. Now, if I mocked, janitors they they would be mocking me for three straight days and i’ve had i would have an editorial in the los angeles times and so it’s just a double standard everybody knows it we don’t care anymore about the los angeles times uh they’re totally irrelevant but gavin newsom does and he’s feeling the heat from the pressure and the the fact that californians are sick and tired of uh bad politicians ruining our state and we’re gonna we’re gonna do something about it so we’re we’re organized
SPEAKER 09 :
very thankful you’re there rick uh a state that you know again i don’t write anyone off i don’t write any states off any areas off whether it’s new york california these places are are some of our shining cities these should be the ones that everyone goes to the tourist capitals where people think of america they think of these places and we got to make sure that they are being properly managed and handled you want people living there you want people to become as tourists uh and they should you think about that for worldwide economy With that, I have to say thank you, Rick, for joining us. We have another segment coming up. I want to hear from you. We’ve got a few lines open at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Any of the topics around the table, give us a call right now. And, of course, support the work of the ACLJ if you can. Right now at ACLJ.org. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Tequila. We do want to take your calls, and I’ll be honest, we have four lines open. So you know what? If you want to call in, great time to do it. Hopefully you’re all too busy going to the website and making your donation during your 35 years of victory drive. That’s why you’re not calling right now. I know you’re putting in your credit card information, you’re doing what you can, your debit card, or you’re making that pledge. Right now, though, I do want to take some phone calls, and we’ve got to go through some of them. Some have to do with sanctuary cities and other topics we didn’t necessarily get to, but you know what? Why not? Let’s go to Jim in California, watching on YouTube, been on hold for about 15 minutes. Jim, go ahead.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes. Sanctuary cities should be unlawful. They’re harboring illegal aliens.
SPEAKER 07 :
There you go. Well, and Jordan, I think that is one of the big issues with sanctuary cities. Right. And this is how they try to skirt around the law.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s not that they don’t enforce immigration law at all. It’s just a low priority, which means if you stumble upon or are called upon as a police to a violent crime or even a domestic dispute, people scream in the street or fist fight, you’re not going to ask about immigration status. That’s not going to be part of your inquiry. And you’re not going to have a team devoted to those who are here illegally. So what you’re doing is saying, basically, it’s illegal here. We’re just not making it a priority. And that then becomes a state size like California or even the size of just a municipality or town.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right, let’s shift again. Completely different topic, but we’re going to keep going. Call in if you want to call in. This is probably your last chance. You’ve got about five minutes to get on the air. We’re calling right now at 1-800-684-3110. John’s calling. Are you ready for this call? I mean, you know. We’ll see what happens here. We’re ready for everything. John, go ahead. Johnny, are you there? You know what? Me?
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s you. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, buddy. I’m…
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I want to know why nobody brings up the fact that Zelensky has siphoned off millions and millions, probably billions of dollars to go to him to purchase yachts and all this stuff for him and all of his buddies. And yet we just act like, oh, no, he’s some great guy. Not to mention the fact that. He has thrown Christians in jail. He won’t hold elections.
SPEAKER 09 :
He’s not even a… Well, John, I think that the… I’ll be honest, I don’t know a lot of the details about that. I’m sure that’s a theory about the tax dollars going to different places. I do think there’s probably a lack of transparency of where… Some of those dollars do get allocated to. I don’t know if it’s going to him on a yacht party. I don’t know anything about that. There was some of those situations, definitely, in terms of the way he was treating people in the Christian communities and all that. That’s not something to not look at. And the election situation, which I thought was very interesting, by the way, when it was brought up. It was brought up at the White House. Are you going to have elections? I think our friends over at Right Side Broadcasting asked him. And he was kind of like, he kind of… dodged it and was like well you know when there’s time we’ll have elections and you know we’ll see where it was one of those moments of like i don’t say a moment of clarity but a moment of we are not dealing with the american way and i think you need to understand that regardless of who uh we’re talking about russia or ukraine or even israel or gaza you’re dealing with some countries that have american like values but they do not come from the American way of voting and elections, and it’s not the same.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and I think to John’s point, one, yes, there were talking about a defense of democracy. They suspended elections in Ukraine. That is a fact. He is wartime president. They’re not continuing their constitution. Right. But they’re not moving forward with any sort of democratic process. But to the other point, there is a lot of theories online about corruption. One, we know for sure, Ukraine, corrupt country. Has a lot of corruption problems in the past. There are concerns that there’s over $100 billion that’s unaccounted for as far as the aid that’s been sent. That was reported by mainstream sources. That wasn’t necessarily… Just a fringe or theory online. There is unaccounted for money. We also know that our government, our Defense Department, has failed eight audits in a row. So what you have to look for is, one, we don’t know where that money went necessarily. So a lot of the things online may not be fact about what is going on. But we do know that that has been one of the problems all along with Ukraine, Jordan. Corrupt country. unable to account for everything we sent them, and still we continue.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, I mean, this is pretty common in the former Soviet states, these now independent states, which have been independent now for decades. And corruption has kind of seeped in to fill the void of where the state used to provide services. And again, is it corruption or is it just a different style of business than the United States? It’s not the West. But I think one of the things we could do as the United States, as we continue to broker this deal, is to ensure that Ukraine will be and continue to be a place that U.S. businesses can do work in without that fear of corruption, which means maybe a U.S. task force based or a maybe global task force with those allies like Great Britain and France and others that goes to Ukraine maybe for five years to audit the corruption, to make it where this is truly a place we can invest in.
SPEAKER 09 :
I want to keep going. Let’s go to Marion who’s calling in Texas because she’s an ACLJ champion. They’re an ACLJ champion. They get to be pumped to the very front of the line. And I understand that if you call in and you say, hey, I’m a champion, it checks out. That’s something that gives on a monthly recurring basis. That’s just a little perk I offer. You won’t even see that on the website. It’s just something I like to do. So if you’re a champion, always tell the phone screener, Marion, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, actually, I’m a guy. You know, I stopped myself.
SPEAKER 09 :
I said that, and then I corrected myself, and I went neutral. Play it back. Play back the tape. Go ahead, Marion.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, no, that’s all right. Sometimes when I call you, I’ll say I’m standing… Just drop something. My middle name is Shane, so sometimes I say Shane. But anyway, I just wanted to compliment y’all. Y’all have done a lot of great stuff. I’ve been following y’all since the 80s, and I just love hearing your viewpoints and things. As far as Gavin Newsom is concerned… I don’t know how anybody could vote for that guy, and I’m elated that he’s even considering running in that mayor over there too. And as far as Ukraine is concerned, I’m glad. I have a lot of people that I talk to, and they hate Trump because he’s not helping out Ukraine and things like that. Well, he’s helping out Ukraine, but he’s not going to give them money. without having any accountability of what they’re going to spend the money on. And that’s the reason. Trump’s a great guy. I love Trump. I saw him when he came to Dallas. But anyway, y’all keep up the great work.
SPEAKER 09 :
I appreciate you being a champion. Look, I think a lot of people are giving President Trump a lot of grief right now over Zelensky and Ukraine, when right now it seems like more than ever he is more on his side than ever. Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
You look at what happened. The Europeans were all together. They all seemed happy. It was elated. They actually have still been giving military support to Ukraine. He hasn’t cut off Zelensky. It’s another lie that the media perpetrates. Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
the power of president trump in this situation vladimir putin had to come to the united states of america now again alaska but he had to come to the united states of america walk past our fighter jets our superior technology remind you what would happen to moscow if you even thought about using a weapons of that style and then at the same time is is able to sit down and negotiate i think that realize that Putin comes to meet the president of the United States. This is a president who is authorizing the sale of lethal weapons to Ukraine, weapons that are killing Russians. And that is the power situation we’re in right now, where the person who comes is Vladimir Putin. We weren’t rushing to Europe to meet with Putin. No, he had to come to the United States of America. And I think that shows you he’s not on Putin’s side. He’s playing Putin the way Putin tries to play others.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right, and with that, that’s going to do it for today’s show. I appreciate you all watching, listening, however you engage with us. We appreciate it. If you appreciate it as well, I’m going to ask you right now to become a ACLJ champion or supporter. As we are in that back-to-school season, though, if you’re looking for legal help, if you’re a student you feel like is under attack, or maybe you’re a student who’s listening right now, catch us later on the pod feed. You know what? Go to ACLJ.org, maybe with your parents’ permission. ACLJ.org slash help. Fill out that information, and we will get right with you. We’re here for you. Talk to you tomorrow.
