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Join us as we navigate through the complexities of recent tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. With commentary from J.D. Vance and in-depth analysis from experts, this episode uncovers how reciprocal tariffs are reshaping America’s role in global economics. From the return of manufacturing jobs to the debate around educational reform led by Linda McMahon, discover the multifaceted effects of these policies. We also touch on media narratives and their influence on public perception concerning politics and international trade agreements.
SPEAKER 11 :
On today’s show, J.D. Vance goes scorched earth over the left’s tariff panic.
SPEAKER 15 :
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 Seculo.
SPEAKER 11 :
We got a packed show for you today. I know I say that a lot, but this time I mean it. We’re going to have Harry Hutchinson joining us in the next segment. CeCe Heil joining us right after that. And in the back half, we’ll have Rick Grinnell joining us as well live. So it’s going to be a packed show. And I want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. Yesterday, you may remember we were talking about what were the options going to be? What was President Trump going to announce at that Make America Wealthy Again event that they held? Which one was he going to go with? And he ended up going with the option where pretty much there’s a baseline tariff of 10% on imports and reciprocal tariffs. That was a big one, reciprocal tariffs based on which each nation imposes on us. So essentially saying, if you impose that on us, we’re going to impose that on you. A lot of people have been talking about what the impact of this will be. The short term, the long term. We also heard the coffee industry freaking out. Look, everyone needs their coffee. We know this. You know, I didn’t have my coffee this morning and I regret it. OK, I’ll be honest. I had to go grab an energy drink and I try to keep myself awake for this show. You know, I’m just kidding. The tariffs, though, will go in place immediately. But again, this is starting to happen and roll out around the world. And what does it mean? We’re going to have Harry Hutchinson joining us in the next segment to really break that down. as well as some of the moves going out of the Department of Education where we’re seeing essentially the removal of the Department of Education, what that looks like, and actually a very cordial moment that happened between Democrats and Linda McMahon, who is the Secretary of Education. And it was kind of refreshing to see how Washington used to work in some ways, where it’s not just screaming at each other. We’re actually able to have real conversations because kids’ education goes beyond politics. And they try to preach that a lot. And you’ll see that in this clip that we’ll play a little bit later. But we also want to talk about J.D. Vance, who did an interview specifically about the tariffs. They got really in-depth with us on Fox News. And I believe it aired this morning. But I want to give you a bit of J.D. Vance’s point of view as he kind of laid out what this looks like. Let’s go to Byte 14.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, I think on one hand, frankly, a lot of people have gotten rich from American jobs moving overseas, but American workers have not gotten rich. And frankly, American companies have not gotten wealthy from the increasing growth of foreign competitors manufacturing overseas. As the president says, Lawrence, these foreign companies, they charge us ridiculous tariffs. They engage in a lot of non-tariff practices like currency manipulation. That has been awful for Main Street in the United States of America. It’s meant those diners, their customers, don’t have jobs anymore. It meant those great steel mills, those great auto plants have closed down and their workers have been laid off. What I saw yesterday in the Rose Garden was incredible enthusiasm because a lot of those workers, they’ve been working hard for 10, 20, 30, 40 years, young and old, were in the Rose Garden yesterday. They’ve never had a president who stood up for their jobs and stood up for American prosperity. They finally see something has shifted. There were Democrats out there, Republicans. There were union and non-union workers alike. They know this is a big change, but we need a big change in this country because what we’ve done, what we did under the Biden administration, it just wasn’t working.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, I think that’s what a lot of people feel, that you’ve got to at least try something new. And I know that J.D. Vance kind of even positions that later on, talks about specifically that, look, this may be a little disruptive. This may be different, but different isn’t always bad. You can’t just be doing the same thing over and over again and expect the same results. But I want to hear from you. What do you think about the tariffs? What do you think about this new version of the way that we’re going to import and export goods? Of course, we’re talking about from all over the world. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. If you know your coffee prices are going to go up, what are you going to do about it? start brewing more at home, then that’s going to go up too. What’s that going to look like? I don’t know if that’s accurate. No one knows if that’s really what’s going to happen, but of course that is what the, I guess you’d say the coffee stock market is saying. 1-800-684-3110. We’ll play some more from that interview also with JD Vance. You can have some better insight into how this all works. I think he does a great job of breaking it down for people like us who just want to know exactly what’s going to happen and how it’s going to work. But we’re also going to have that from Professor Harry Hutchinson coming up in the next segment. Again, support the work of the ACLJ, by the way. We are bringing an incredible amount of information to you each and every day. And I want you to be an ACLJ champion. Scan the QR code. We’ll be right back. welcome back to secular harry hutchinson’s joining us in studio as we continue the discussion about the tariffs and what was announced yesterday i think we should start by going to the president who was having his make america wealthy again event yesterday to unveil the plans for the tariffs there was a lot of options on the table uh three main options and to be going with a reciprocal tariff as well as a 10 on imports where i guess there isn’t a reciprocal tariff we’re going to talk about that a little bit more in detail but i think we need to first hear from president trump
SPEAKER 14 :
and then we’ll go and break this down for you from this day on we’re not going to let anyone tell us that american workers and families cannot have the future that they deserve we’re going to produce the cars and ships chips airplanes minerals and medicines that we need right here in america the pharmaceutical companies are going to become roaring back they’re coming roaring back they’re all coming back to our country because if they don’t they got a big tax to pay And if they do, I’ll be very happy. And you’re going to be very happy and you’re going to be very safe. We’re going to build our future with American hands, with American heart, American steel. And we’re going to build it with American pride like we used to.
SPEAKER 11 :
I think a lot of people hear that and are very excited to hear that because there is that safety concern. And that’s something that I don’t think it’s brought up enough. You know, with most of the medicines that you’re taking, if your prescriptions or whatever, a lot of these are manufactured overseas. A lot are manufactured in China. And there’s always that moment where you’re like, I’m about to take a pill. Who made this? Where did this come from? What am I even ingesting here? And I think bringing that back to America will at least give a little bit of relief. And J.D. Vance discussed this, and we’ll play that clip in a little bit, about sort of the import-export process that’s happening right now, specifically in China. But Harry, when you hear this, when you hear these kind of statements, it sounds nice. I think people are excited to hear it. The logistical side of it is maybe a bit more complicated because we have become so reliant on overseas manufacturing. It’s almost impossible to get things manufactured in the United States.
SPEAKER 02 :
I think you’re precisely correct. So this has essentially been a 60 to 70 year process of hollowing out the middle class, hollowing out manufacturing, hollowing out pharmaceutical manufacturing. And in part, it’s attributable to a move that Richard Nixon made almost 60 years ago, opening up a trade with China. And that led basically to a reduction in the living standard of the middle class and the working class. And so the Republican Party under Trump has officially become the party of the middle class and the working class. Having said that, there will indeed be growing pains. And so one of the things that I would encourage listeners to do is, number one, not listen to cable news. Don’t listen to CNN. Don’t listen to MSNBC. Those two networks, along with others, have one precise job. And that is to cause as many heart attacks among the American people as possible as a way of driving down the popularity of this particular president. Number two, I would encourage Americans not to sell their stock. as the stock market declines. It’s probably the worst time to sell, and it’s going to take days, weeks, probably even months for this entire operation to work its way out. So I think all of us need to calm down, but I also recognize that That is going to be very difficult. It’s going to be tough to resist the temptation.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, well, when big business also starts to panic and you start hearing these companies saying, well, we’re really concerned about this, of course, the American people are going to respond. And I also want to say, hey, for those who are listening, Harry gave you some opinions and thoughts. We are not financial experts. I put that disclaimer. We are not giving you financial advice. or discussion about your taxes. It’s just Harry’s point of view. But it does feel like the panic, you have to start at least looking at the big picture on how this could impact things a little bit later on. Even J.D. Vance brought up that there will be some growing pains. He mentioned that, look, not even growing pains, just, hey, we’re taking a new direction because the old direction wasn’t working. We know this. We saw how the tariffs worked in the first Trump presidency. Definitely didn’t get as much blowback then. I don’t really, anyone was really talking about it. Then there was, it was, it was in the conversation, but it wasn’t the number one thing. It has become the number one issue right now. Cause you’re right. Cause they are trying to control a narrative and make this seem like this is going to be the most detrimental thing. What’s also good about president Trump. If things don’t work, they’re going to pivot. They’re going to move. Things are going to change. I think we should hear though quickly though, from JD Vance, uh, again from Fox news, let’s go bite 13. So you have an idea. Cause he had a line in here that I think is, again, I think he does a really good job of explaining to people why, what we’re dealing with here, specifically with China and overseas. So let’s go listen. J.D. Vance, Byte 13.
SPEAKER 12 :
I think it’s useful for all of us to step back and ask us, ask ourselves, what has the globalist economy gotten the United States of America? And the answer is fundamentally, it’s based on two principles, incurring a huge amount of debt to buy things that other countries make for us. And to To make it a little bit more crystal clear, we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture. That is not a recipe for economic prosperity, it’s not a recipe for low prices, and it’s not a recipe for good jobs in the United States of America. For 40 years, we have gone down that pathway. We’ve seen closing factories, we’ve seen rising inflation, we’ve seen the cost of housing so high that most Americans can’t afford to buy a home right now. President Trump is taking this economy in a different direction. He ran on that. He promised it. And now he’s delivering. And yes, this is a big change. I’m not going to shy away from it, but we needed a big change. Lawrence, we cannot keep going down the Joe Biden globalist pathway where we have two trillion dollars of peacetime debt, debt and deficits. We have manufacturing disappearing. That is not working for Americans. We’ve got to take this country in a different direction.
SPEAKER 11 :
I would be willing to even say, hey, we’ve got most of manufacturing already disappeared. Hopefully some of it gets brought back. But I think that line that we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy things those Chinese peasants make should really ring pretty clear for people of what we’re dealing with and the situation at hand. Because look, I have someone, personally, I have worked in that and getting things manufactured. And to get things manufactured in the United States, so incredibly expensive, typically they don’t even want to do it, especially if you’re a small business. And you go to China, And you deal with people who are so ready to take your money and they are so ready to work with you in whatever cost they can to get things down as low as possible. Look, the ethical reasons and the things that are behind that, of course, we all know what we’re dealing with. But at least you have, you know, it sounds weird, customer service. where in America, the manufacturing industry has got to pick up that slack as well and say, you know what? We’re going to want to do this. We’re going to want to make things in America, not just, you know, if you have a ton of money, you know, back up a truck, maybe we’ll talk to you. That has to change as well in the way that we position manufacturing, because manufacturing needs to become a backbone of society. It needs to become another great avenue for jobs and for employment, but also for businesses constantly. to be able to innovate. And right now, at least President Trump mentioned the chips and those kind of things, because right now it does feel like when he mentioned China, kind of a beach ball situation. We’re just getting bounced all around, and the money’s just going right back, and that’s where we’re at.
SPEAKER 02 :
And I would piggyback on your statement by pointing out that Vietnam is a backdoor to manufacturing in China. And so Vietnam has grown quite rich over the last several years. Vietnam, however, imposes massive tariffs on American products, and we impose very limited tariffs on Vietnamese-made products. So if you look at the entire Lululemon-type business, for instance, most of those goods and services, they are produced in Vietnam or countries that are connected to China but are not necessarily in China. So it’s a huge, huge problem. But the elites in Washington and in the Silicon Valley, they have ignored this problem for far too long.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, so at least we have something new. And that, to me, look, it’s how we’ve been dealing with Israel and Gaza and all of those different things. It sounds crazy, but at least President Trump and the Trump administration, I’ll say the fact that they put together this new team, this team of people who is willing to take chances, actually should give Americans, though there may be moments where you feel like this is all too much, all too much change, at least they’re trying. At least they’re trying something new because we’ve been stuck. And Washington is way too easy to get stuck on things that don’t work, but they still just continue on doing them.
SPEAKER 02 :
I think that’s correct. And so we finally have an administration that cares about the people in Springfield, Ohio, in small towns in Michigan, and in small towns in Indiana and the Midwest, which have been hollowed out by international trade.
SPEAKER 11 :
All right. Well, thank you, Harry, for joining us. Look, a lot of people are commenting. They’re very excited that you even know the background of Lululemon. We see the comments are coming in. They’re like, Harry talking about Lululemon is not what we were expecting on the show today. But I do want to encourage you as we head to next break, give us a call. We have a few lines that are open still right now. Two lines, 1-800-684-3110. Does this ring true to you? Do you appreciate this conversation about the tariffs? I know that it can get heady. And I know we’re even saying, you know, give it time. Let it breathe a little bit. This isn’t necessarily like the stock market is for a lot of people. So this is not necessarily what we all deal with on a normal everyday basis, but we’ve all seen the prices go up. We’ve all dealt with a real situation with housing and inflation. At least they’re trying something new. C.C. Howell is going to be joining us in the next segment. We’re going to talk about the Department of Education and what is coming soon. And that’s sort of a cordial moment. of disagreement that happened with secretary of education linda mcmahon and we’ll discuss that coming up i did want to encourage you to support the work of the aclj we have extended that life and liberty drive through this month and we need your help we need your support you can become an aclj champion that’s a really easy way to do it which is set your donation today it’ll be doubled which is great and matched and then say hey i want to become a recurring aclj champion and it’s a great way to keep continuing our support all right we’ll be right back with more on seculo Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are jammed right now. We’re going to try to open some of those up, but I did want to move our discussion on a little bit. But if you’re on hold right now, please stay on hold if you can, because we will get to you. It just may be a little bit because we got a packed show. As I said, CeCe Hiles now joining us, senior attorney here at the ACLJ. Because we were talking about, and I told Cece, one of the first people I ever knew to talk about pretty much the dismantling of the Department of Education with Cece back many years ago. So it’s always been on her mind. But what happened yesterday was very interesting. And that was that Linda McMahon, Secretary of Education, had a good meeting, I guess, with some Democrats who have, obviously, a very differing point of view. But instead of this becoming some sort of shouting match, instead of, you know, it’s WWE style with Linda McMahon, so I’m sure it can get there. But… She was great at even diffusing the situation so much so that she showed up at a press conference that they were holding, stood off to the side, watched very nicely. And it was so refreshing to see them say, you know what, let’s let Linda McMahon come up and say some words as well. Obviously, she had a very different point of view. But it is nice to see this kind of conversation happening in Washington, D.C. once again. So let’s play that bite. This is Linda McMahon again from yesterday. This was a press conference that was happening after they had a meeting with Democrat leaders who obviously oppose the ending of the Department of Education and Linda McMahon, who’s really been tasked with wrapping up the Department of Education to put herself out of a job, if you will. Take a listen.
SPEAKER 01 :
As Representative Tanaka said as we were ending the meeting, which I thought was incredibly appropriate, and that is that this is not a partisan issue. This is about the children of America. And it’s the next generation, the generation after that. And if we want to have our leaders, if we want to have that next group of engineers and doctors and lawyers and plumbers and electrician and HVAC operators, then we need to focus on how they can best have their education. And I believe, and I know the president does believe this as well, the best education is that that is closest to the child, where teachers and parents, local superintendents working together and local school boards to develop the curriculum for those students is the best way that it can happen.
SPEAKER 11 :
I think they’re coming up with some great lines, I’ll be honest. You had J.D. Vance saying the situation in China that we’re dealing with, where you are buying goods from Chinese peasants to manufacture goods. It really does put it into perspective. I think this is a great line, too, that her and the president believe the best education is that closest to the child. It kind of sets everyone’s mind a little bit at ease. Obviously, the Democrat talking point is the concern over… The states to be able to provide special needs courses, your 504s and those kind of things. But this has been a long time coming. And I think for my generation, we hear the dismantling of the Department of Education and we think, oh, that’s that’s crazy. But the Department of Education itself hasn’t been around that long. Really, our generation was the start of it.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, and I think, you know, Linda said it great because that’s what my belief is as well is that education, the primary, you know, person who’s in charge of that is the parent for their student, for their child. And then, of course, then you have your local school board, your local superintendent. It’s done. Education is best done. close to home. So the federal government does not need to be involved in this. And I know that funding is always the issue. That’s what always the concern is. But when you look at what the public schools, what federal funding comes to the public schools, it’s about 8%. of public schools funding comes from the federal government. So it’s not going to be 50% or 75%. It’s not a huge amount. It’s 8%. And now what is great is the federal government has now said to these public schools, look, if you don’t follow a lot of these executive orders that are coming down, if you don’t follow the fact that we’re getting rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, then we’re going to pull your funding. We’re going to pull even that 8% that is remaining. That is going to be gone. And so, again, funding, federal funding is a privilege. It’s not a right. And if these schools want to continue that funding, then they need to abide by the rules.
SPEAKER 11 :
Much like the tariffs, the manufacturing, much like the way that they’re dealing with Israel and Gaza. Again, it’s just trying something new. Right. Because if we’re seeing the fact that our education system is failing and failing our students and we’re teaching them things that they don’t need to know and they are learning, they are not learning things they do need to know. A lot of people think you probably learn a lot of what you really need to learn in just a few hours a day. Right. But we’re wasting a lot of time. then at least we have people in office right now who are trying new things, who are willing to say, what does this look like if we were to dismantle, if you will, the Department of Education? Rebuild it in a way that makes sense, that is not just going with, okay, well, we’re going to be kind of mid-pack in education in the world forever.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah. And the other thing is, you know, what education, what’s important to somebody in Mississippi is not necessarily important to someone in New York or their needs for a school in wherever. Minnesota is not the same as needs for school in Florida. And again, it is best done, like Linda said. And the whole purpose of getting rid of a federal Department of Education is because education should be done online. on the local level where it’s best served and it serves the individual needs the best way possible. And then the children get educated in the best way possible.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, absolutely. I think that this is a new way of thinking. I think that schooling in general, personally, look, we’ve seen some of the attacks on homeschooling that’s happening around the country right now. And of course, the ACLJ has been involved in a lot of those situations throughout our existence because I think homeschool parents learned a long time ago what was going on in the schools. And we’re able to go, this is, uh, I mean, look, my kids are in school. I’m not, not going after schooling. Um, But there are new ways to think about things. There are creative ways to educate your kids beyond if they’re going to be taught all of this stuff. And like you said, there is a major difference between the kids in Florida, kids in New York, kids in rural Florida, kids in Miami. But we’ve treated it with this like blanket universality, which does not make any sense. And I think when you have that statement alone. The education needs to be close to home. We need to be handling it. That should be enough said. But it was nice, though, to see a friendly disagreement in Washington, D.C., not just maybe it has to come to that. Maybe it has to be if it’s a situation involving that is not necessarily partisan because it is involving the education of your children. Maybe we can actually come to the table.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, hopefully. And like you said, a bipartisan discussion, the fact that she was able to show up at this Democrat press release and that and they actually conference the press conference. They actually let her speak. And it was very cordial. And that’s the way that. discourse should be we should be able to speak to each other cordially get our points across we can disagree we don’t have to agree but i think that showed that you know she has the respect of the democrats and hopefully they can’t argue with the fact that a parent and and local control is best for education of our students
SPEAKER 11 :
All right. Hey, thank you, CeCe, for joining us. We’re about to wrap up the first half hour. If you don’t get us for the next half hour, I want you to join us online. We broadcast live each and every day from noon to 1 p.m. Eastern time on ACLJ.org. You can work your way back from there. If you are listening to this taped later on, if you’re listening to us live in a different market, again, it’s noon to 1. So work your way back live on ACLJ.org. on YouTube, on Rumble, on Salem News Channel, which is available on Pluto, I think it’s available on Samsung, and of course on their website as well with a great lineup of hosts. We are making sure that we are always available to you and without a paywall. There’s nothing behind a paywall. If you support the work of the ACLJ, you’re supporting getting this message out to as many people as possible. And we believe that that is a big portion of this, is to don’t have that pop-up that says, hey, you gotta put in your credit card here if you wanna know about this information. No, we wanna provide all the information we can to you at absolutely no cost. And we want to also do that for our clients, our people that need legal help. And we do that at ACLJ.org. And if you need legal help, you should go to ACLJ.org slash help. You heard this week about the big win that came out of California where that church, the church on the beach, is able to continue on because our team was able to jump in and very quickly resolve their issues where a church that had been around for nearly two decades was being shut down. But because of people like you who support the work of the ACLJ, we’re able to bring in the best of the best. And we’re going to be back for a second half hour coming up. This is only a one-minute break. Stay on hold if you’re on hold. I’m going to get to your calls coming up. keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is seculo and now your host logan secular welcome to seculo second half hour of our broadcast our phone lines are completely jammed so i’m going to take some calls here in this segment hopefully open it up to give you an opportunity to call in a little bit later rick renell is going to be joining us of course we are talking about the tariffs we are talking about the department of education and so much more. I want to get your feedback on this as well, and look, I’m not going to pretend here that I know everything about how all the tariffs work and the situations I had Harry Hutchinson. That’s why we have great minds come in and kind of help educate and explain. I thought you had a great explanation from J.D. Vance, but I wanted to let you share your point of view as well. Let’s go to Dave, who’s calling in Illinois, who is listening on the radio. Dave, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi there. I just wanted to say, first off, kind of Joe average, but until yesterday, I didn’t realize that all those different countries were imposing tariffs on us. And, uh, I think it’s a good thing to turn it back and say, Hey, you know, we’re going to do it back to you and drop yours. And what dropped bars?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, Dave, I think a lot of people feel that way. I think a lot of people did not know how much tariffing was happening around the country, around the world. I’ll be honest, like you said, I knew that it was happening and I knew it was happening at some degree for a lot of these nations, but maybe not at the amount that it was happening and how little we were doing. And what President Trump rolled out yesterday was essentially a reciprocal tariff, which basically goes to, hey, whatever you are charging us, we’re going to charge you in terms of what the percentage is going to be. And then we get to go to the negotiating table. And I think that’s helpful. I think it’s helpful to have some chips in our favor here in the United States of America to not just say we’re the global superpower, but therefore we have to just do whatever all the rest of the world wants. We have to fund the rest of the world. There are things that I think the American people like funding. uh there are things that i believe the american people really do appreciate that the government does but when it comes to the other governments if they are going to charge this for us to import and export we might as well get involved in that situation as well or at least give it a good try and i think that is what i have learned in any sort of the panic that comes in from some of the trump administrations maybe they’re what feels like a lot of changes all at once If you ever have that sort of feeling of like, this feels like too much is at least they’re trying new things and new can at least give us the opportunity to get it better. whether that is the Department of Education, whether that’s going on in Israel and Gaza. It’s coming up with creative ways to think, and that is not the way Washington, D.C. usually works. But thankfully, we have an interesting administration. You have Elon Musk. You have Tulsi Gabbard. You have a group of people that are in there who are not, or RFK Jr., people that are not thinking just about their political future and not just thinking about party. They are thinking about people. And we have seen businesses respond to that. We have seen companies respond. We’ve seen countries respond to it. We saw Israel remove all tariffs from America. Things are changing. Things are moving. We do have a phone line open for you at 1-800-684-3110. Look, I’m going to go to PJ real quick. PJ, he’s been on hold for a while, and he’s got a bit of a different point of view, and that’s okay. I want to hear from you. PJ, go ahead.
SPEAKER 04 :
What’s going on? How are you guys doing today? Yeah, we’re good, PJ. I believe that what Donald Trump is doing is right. We need a voice at the negotiating table. What I do believe, though, is that we need to be wise. You know, when Tip O’Neill was in Congress, he was a great negotiator, and he made a lot of big differences. But he always, always got the truth and the opinions And he allowed the American public to allow their views to be heard so that we can make an honest decision that’s going to benefit everybody. We don’t need to go around blowing a whistle and making demands on people that we don’t have any control over. So in the long run, we might end up hurting ourselves, let alone being stuck with a tariff that we don’t like that’s going to be put on the American people. I don’t know what I think. education as well, because I believe that education starts at home. But we have to insinuate, we have to get back to PSAs and the old way of America that used to be strong.
SPEAKER 11 :
If we don’t do that… I think you got your point across. I’m only cutting you off because we’ve only got 20 seconds left before we have a hard break here. But look, I wanted you to speak your mind. People feel that way. I understand. I might not necessarily agree. I think we should be trying these new things. And I believe that we will be able to do that in just a couple years. Because you’ll be able to speak your mind if this does not go the way you think. We’ll be right back with Rick Grinnell. Welcome back to Seculo. Hey, we have a bunch of lines open all of a sudden. I don’t know what happened. We lost some during the break here, but we were full and now we’re not. So you know what? Give us a call because in the next segment, I like to hear from all of you at 1-800-684-3110. We’re talking about a lot of those different topics, whether that was the tariffs. Whether that was J.D. Vance’s response to those tariffs, whether it was Secretary of Education Linda McMahon having a very cordial conversation about wrapping up the Department of Education. It was nice to see that political point of view go back and forth. But Rick Grinnell is joining us. Rick, you know, there’s a lot of talk about the tariffs happening right now. And we just had a caller who said, look, I support the tariffs. I support President Trump in this. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t have some nerves about it, because I think we’ve been told for years and years and years, the tariffs, not not exactly one of our most favorite words.
SPEAKER 13 :
Look, I think that we all can agree on a couple of things. One, when you look at the tariff numbers, for instance, what Europe does to America on cars. Let’s just take that as an example. The Europeans charge 10%, and the American government charges 2.5%. Now, everybody realizes that is not fair. And so what we really need to be able to do is recognize that America is being taken advantage of, and Other countries have way higher tariffs on us. And President Trump is, I think, doing this amazing job where he is saying, you know what, I’m going to take the hit in the short term and say, we’ve got to do something better. I’m going to increase the tariffs to show them what they’re doing to us. And in response, I can tell you, I see it all around the world. Leaders are saying, okay, let’s have a free trade agreement. Let’s get to zero. Let’s negotiate with President Trump. And so I think that what you’re gonna see is that President Trump is doing the right thing by leveling the playing field that we all know. By the way, Democrats complain about the tariffs from other countries. They just haven’t been able to do anything about it. President Trump just did. So I think you’re gonna see this is gonna be the best thing for our economy in the long run.
SPEAKER 11 :
People need to look at the big picture, look down the road to see what happens. Now, we also saw a lot of pushback from the EU, as you mentioned, and from Canada and from China with these tariffs. Who really has the leverage here? Who does this really affect when it comes to this? Because I believe you’re right. The President Trump can do these kind of things, can come up with these new kind of wild ideas sometimes. But what it does is it brings people actually to the table, as you said. Because we have learned… that at least the way things have been going is not the proper direction. So let’s try something new. But when you have such an outcry from Canada, from the EU, what does that tell you?
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, first of all, let’s take the EU in particular. There’s a real concern that Brussels, where the EU is based, is really strangulating the business community in Europe. And what President Trump is doing is literally trying to say, we’re going to match your tariffs. We’re going to show you how bureaucratic it can get. And so therefore, the squeeze that you will feel is exactly what you’ve been doing to us. And now let’s try to get a free trade agreement or go to zero. I’ve seen European business leaders already saying, thank God, that what President Trump is doing is actually breaking that bureaucracy in Brussels for all of Europe. and making sure that we actually have a plan for economic growth. I think that the European CEOs, they may not say it publicly, but they love what President Trump is doing. Giving Europe a taste of its own medicine, and therefore Europe and the European government saying, wow, this feels very bureaucratic, feels like too much. And President Trump is kind of saying, yeah, welcome to what we’ve been feeling for the last decade.
SPEAKER 11 :
I think that’s a good perspective to see because we can get very easily caught up in a media narrative. And that’s true from Europe. That’s true from America. We all know this, that the media doesn’t always represent the people, doesn’t always represent law, oftentimes doesn’t represent the people, doesn’t represent business. I was in California like you are often over the weekend. I overheard so many conversations of people who were actually excited about about what was going on with Doge and with Elon and the things that you would think of as like the bad boogeyman that no one in California could certainly, and I’m sitting there poolside next to a guy who you would never expect to be like, well, you know, he’s got some good ideas because the media spends this one way And it happens around the world too. You can flip on the news from the UK and you see the conservative news and you see the liberal news. It’s just become part of American culture. But we start to think of like, oh, everyone in Canada hates us. Everyone in the UK hates us. But you pointed out even, and this to me was really, really interesting. The left has always seemed to be complaining, specifically now, and they throw racist, Nazi, those kind of things at us what feels like continually all the time, which is ridiculous and absurd to label huge groups of people that way. But you actually brought up, there is a U.S. attorney that is being brought up, President Trump appointee. that for some reason Politico decided, you know, this is a person who is background, a Lebanese American, and they’re going to throw in that and call him a bomb hurling person. And of course your mind goes to one place and you talk about, they talk about Islamophobia or any of these things coming from our side. But it’s always the truth always comes out. It’s it’s Omar saying it’s all about the Benjamins. You know, these kind of moments that happen should be a wake up call, hopefully even to people on the left, that this is not as easy as it sounds. This is not as black and white as it sounds in terms of, yes, they’re the good guys. They’re the bad guys. They’re the racist. They’re not the racist. Here’s what’s happening. You have Politico almost posting a slur, if you will, about this guy.
SPEAKER 13 :
Logan, I’m so glad that you brought this up. This is about my friend, Billy Assele, who is a amazing assemblyman here in California. And President Trump met Billy, talked to him and said, this guy needs to be the US attorney for Southern California, the Central District. And so Billy became the US attorney yesterday. He resigned from the assembly in Sacramento and on Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning, he became President Trump’s US attorney. He is Muslim. He is probably the most pro-America, pro-Trump, MAGA person in all of Sacramento. And he’s Muslim. And what did Politico do? They said that he’s a bomb-hurling Republican. Now, I don’t know anyone who uses the term bomb hurling. That’s not an idiom that we use. In my life, no. Yeah, that’s not something that we use. I mean, if you wanted to say he’s MAGA or he’s pro-Trump or a pain in Gavin Newsom’s butt, I mean, all of those terms would be appropriate and truthful. But the reality is that you don’t get to call… this young man who happens to be Muslim, bomb hurling. And so I’ve called it out and I think that Politico needs to come clean and tell us who wrote that, who wrote that expression because it’s unacceptable and I’m not gonna stop until I figure out who did this. I’ve asked the very top of the Politico management to tell us, is this acceptable? This seems very Islamophobic to me.
SPEAKER 11 :
I think that’s right. I think it’s good for you to call those things out, Rick, because if they’re going to do about everything that’s happening from maybe a conservative perspective and try to throw those labels on people and they’re doing it, they’re doing something worse. You have to make sure we call those things out. And look, I have friends and family and I’ve met with with interesting Muslim leaders over the last few years and much like what we’ve said about the media. It is not paint by number. Not all of these people of different faiths and background. It’s same with the Jewish people. There’s conservative Jewish people. There is liberal Jewish people. There are conservative Muslims are politically conservative Muslims. And there are ones that are going to vote more liberal or are not involved in that situation that way. That is just the truth of America at this point. But when you start throwing those labels on people, and not even just America, that’s all over the world. It’s not just the American companies or American people that you meet with who are of different faith backgrounds. There are a lot of shared unity. But of course, we’re going to be positioned to go against each other at every time that the media can.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah. And the other thing, Logan, is the hypocrisy of this, right? That’s what you’re touching on a little bit. What drives me crazy is just… You and I both know that if this was a Republican using this terminology, there would be nonstop calls for cancellation. But this is Politico that’s doing it. It’s unacceptable to me. We really need to call this out consistently. And when I saw it, I just didn’t jump in and do it.
SPEAKER 11 :
Absolutely. Rick, well, thank you for joining us today. And as always, an incredible member of our team. And we know our audience really appreciates all of your opinions and points of view. You’re able to break it down so easily for our audience to understand. We always appreciate that, especially when it comes to Europe and everything that’s happening in the international space, because I know that can become a little harder to kind of get your head wrapped around. But I’m glad we have people like Rick who can do that. Phone lines are completely jammed right now, but we’re going to get to all the calls that are on hold right now. So do not leave. I will give you your time. And we’re going to try to take some more. But I want to encourage you right now to become an ACLJ champion. You’ll hear about every single victory that we have done in the past few months. I could list them all. You’ve heard that ad where I say 100 and something and I have all these numbers. Because the ACLJ team is always doing amazing work. But we can’t do that work without your support. And we really can’t do it without ACLJ champions, monthly recurring donors, people that give on a monthly automatic recurring basis. Of course, you can cancel at any time. But you can make our mission possible by going to ACLJ.org slash champions. All right. We’ve got a full bank of calls. We’re going to get through these. I’ll try to commentate on some of them, but we’re also just want to, as I always say, I want you to be able to speak your mind and have your voice heard, whether we agree with it, whether we disagree with it. I’m just going to go in order they came in. So some of these have to do with what we’re talking about. Some don’t. Let’s go to Bethany in Tennessee. She’s watching on YouTube. Bethany, go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, I have a quick question, please. The real ID. I’ve heard negative and positive about that. Do you guys have an opinion on this? Because my driver’s license is due in a week. And they want to skip the real ID. But I have a passport. So I’d love your opinion on that.
SPEAKER 11 :
I mean, I’ll be honest. I don’t know a ton. I mean, I know about what you have to do to get one. I do not have one yet. I know that they keep delaying and delaying on what it is. But I know that it will become more uncomfortable for you to travel with that. With a passport, I think that does help. However, I honestly think if you have a passport… If you have gone through a lot of this, if you’re going through TSA, if we’re just being honest with ourselves, they have all of this information. It exists. Do I love another layer of the government getting involved to verify your identification? Did you go this other thing that could develop? I don’t love it, but let’s just be honest in the world we’re living in right now. We don’t live in a paper society. We live in a world where almost all of your information is available to sadly just about everyone at all times. So Bethany, as much as I understand the concerns of your privacy, really what are they going to get that they don’t have already? What are they going to have? All it really is. Look, if we’re going to be up for, for a real ID, then you know what? Push for voter ID. Let’s push for those kinds of things. Push for things that you also think need ID. So thank you, Bethany, for your call. I appreciate that. We can get a legal perspective on that though next week and get people’s thoughts. But look, I mean, I’m going to probably do it because again, I’m a traveler. I go around the world. I do have a passport obviously, but, uh, It is what it is. And I’ve heard it’s actually pretty un-invasive for what they do. Let’s go ahead and continue on. Karen is calling in North Carolina. You’re on the air, Karen.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, yeah, it was reported earlier on Newsmax, and it’s been on X, that Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, and three other Republicans sided with the Democrats to block President Trump’s tariffs on Canada. Well, they can’t block an executive order. It takes an act of Congress.
SPEAKER 11 :
I think I have to look up exactly who did and who didn’t. Would it be surprising to me if those names were that way? No, it wouldn’t. But I’m not sure if that’s 100 percent accurate. We’ll have to find out. I want to make sure I can confirm that before I commentate on anyone in particular. But in terms of President Trump, no, I think you’re right. I think he has executive power to do this and to put this into action. And of course, the Democrats are going to try to figure out any possible way to stop it. Because if it does work, what does that do? It hurts their chances next time the elections come up, which is not all that far away. Remember, we will have a new president elected in three and a half years. A little less than that. Right around three and a half years, we will have another presidential election with a brand new president of the United States. Because it will not be President Trump again. This is his second term. And that will be it. And we will have a brand new president. So they already are thinking that way. Washington works way far in the future. That’s what you got to think about with these tariffs. is the impact that this could have on not only this presidency, but the next one and the one after that. And of course, how it’s going to affect your children and your grandchildren and whether this brings us to that negotiating table. All right, continuing on, let’s go to Marion. Marion, I’m going to apologize because I did not see that you were an ACLJ champion early enough to get you at the front of the line. But you know what? You made it third in line pretty good. Marion, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 17 :
Thank you so much, Ian. I wanted to compliment ACLJ. In 1980, when I was in Wichita, Kansas, with Operation Rescue, Jay was there this whole time, and he supported us even then. So I’ve been in love with your organization all the way back since then, when pro-life was kind of a dirty word for a lot of people. But as far as the tariffs are concerned, I don’t know why more people don’t bring this point out, but they’ve said that in the 1800s I think all the way until 1913 there were no taxes on the American people we lived on tariffs and I keep hearing people say well tariffs are a tax on the people it’s not a tax on the people Money is generated from imports, and that money is used to help the United States of America. And Trump has even expanded that position by saying he’s going to bring companies, and he’s already started doing it, to where they’ll be building their plants and stuff in the United States of America. And that’s going to bring a lot of jobs to the people. I don’t know how anybody can be against tariffs.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, Marion, I don’t know. I’m not trying to cut you off here, but I wanted to tell you, why do you have to speak so logically? Why do you have a thought process that makes sense? It doesn’t buy into a media narrative. You’re 100% right. Thank you. And also, I wanted to say thank you for supporting the ACLJ for so long, getting involved in Operation Rescue, which, by the way, we still are supporting people from Operation Rescue. We just had that happen where they were labeled a terrorist group from our own military base. They were doing a presentation and Operation Rescue’s logo popped up. Marion, I want to say thank you. Those stories from Wichita, Kansas are probably spoken more than any of the stories in ACLJ history because of people like you who were there. And maybe we could play later on, not today, but another one. We can play some of those old clips where you can see because we’re celebrating some big anniversaries here coming up at the ACLJ. And those are those stories, Marion. So no, I appreciate and reach out more because I love hearing people who have been around for the entire existence. I heard from a friend yesterday who said, my dad has been giving for decades. And he still supports. And now I do. And it’s just amazing to hear those kind of stories. Let’s continue on. But Marion, thank you so much. Eric is calling in Ohio, watching on the Salem News Channel. Eric, we are starting to run low on time. So just go ahead.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, real quick. I appreciate your show. We watch every day during my lunch break. The only real way to create wealth is to make things. We can manage things. We can do other things. But President Trump understands that you make things, you create wealth. And that’s the only way you can do it. And God bless you guys. Thank you.
SPEAKER 11 :
Thank you so much, Eric. And I do believe that that is correct, that we need to become a nation of makers once again. Easier said than done, just based on the damage that’s already been done to the system. But I hope that we can work our way back there and that these companies will start doing that more and more. Terry’s calling on line four. Terry, you got like 30 seconds because we’re just running out of time. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, thanks for taking my call. I was just saying to the guy that the only way we won World War II is we outproduced the enemy. Their soldiers, their aircraft, their ships were just as good as ours, but if they made one tank, we’d make 1,500. That’s the only way you’re going to win, and you can’t do it if everything’s produced in China or someplace else.
SPEAKER 08 :
call appreciate it i i would love to keep this conversation going but we got to move on kathleen really quick we got a minute left in the show so you only got a little bit of time but go ahead well and this isn’t the most important question but i have to ask most of the clothes are made in china i can’t hardly find anything that’s not made in china what are we going to do if manufacturing doesn’t start back until after that
SPEAKER 11 :
Kathleen, I think there will be some bumps along the way, but yeah, I mean, I’m sure what I’m wearing right now, most of it is probably not made in America. Let’s just be honest with that situation at hand. Maybe my necklace, that may be about it. Other than that, because it’s handmade. Other than that, I don’t know if that’s happening. Now, I think, don’t panic. I think like what Professor Hutchinson said, we are a long ways out from this having that kind of major impact. And also, China is going to come to the table. All these people are going to come to the table. We’re going to talk it through. We’re going to make it happen because they need the United States too. Okay, we’re pretty big for consumerism here in this country. I don’t know if you know that. We sell or we buy a lot of stuff. So these countries need us too. So remember when President Trump makes these statements, it’s not only about bringing manufacturing back to America, which of course it is, it’s also about getting everyone on the same page and negotiating with these countries that need to be doing their fair share. And we need to be working with them. And I think President Trump is pretty good at the negotiating table. That’s going to do it for today’s show. I appreciate all your support. If you want to become an ACLJ champion, this is a great time to do it. Your first donation will be doubled because we are still in our life and liberty drive that got extended. Become an ACLJ champion today at ACLJ.org. Scan that QR code right now. It’s not that I don’t want you to see my pretty face. Of course I do. But you can scan that QR code. Do it.
