In today’s episode of Seculo, we delve into several pressing topics. Join us as we discuss a group of Democrats making a significant trip to the border amidst swirling controversies concerning border security and the Trump administration’s policies. We also celebrate a legal victory for Church on the Beach, setting a precedent for religious organizations everywhere. With high-profile guests and insightful commentary, this episode promises to inform and engage.
SPEAKER 11 :
Today, the Democrats make a rare visit to the border, and we’re not sure why.
SPEAKER 19 :
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 :
Welcome to Seculo. We got a packed show today. We’re going to be joined later on by a pastor, who had a church on church on the beach. You may have heard us talk about that ended up being a big win as this church was told, Hey, after 20 years, nearly 18 years, I believe you can no longer meet weekly at the beach side that you’ve been doing that at for this long. But the ACLJ team got into action and we were able to talk with that pastor because we were able to get it taken care of so quickly. And that is why our team is the best of the best. So I can’t wait to share that with you a little bit later. But today we have some pretty interesting news to discuss as a group of Democrats is heading to the border. there’s a lot of discussion on why are they there because the border wall is about to begin construction again are they happy about that are they sad about that look we had that moment where Bernie Sanders even just a few days ago said hey President Trump He has done some things that I disagree with. Mostly, I disagree with. However, there are some things I agree with him on. And one of them is about stopping illegal immigration and having a safe border. Let’s hear from Bernie Sanders.
SPEAKER 15 :
Is there anything that you think Trump has done right?
SPEAKER 14 :
Yeah, I mean, I think cracking down on fentanyl, making sure our borders are stronger. Look, nobody thinks illegal immigration is appropriate.
SPEAKER 11 :
That’s coming from Bernie Sanders, at least someone who if you disagree with, you may at least respect his opinion that he. doesn’t tow a party line unlike people like benny thompson who is taking this group of people group of democrats down to the border but let’s flash back to 2022 when he was uh on the homeland house uh homeland security committee let’s take a listen to what he was saying back in 2022 chairman one question in your opinion is the border secure i have to go give a speech didn’t you hear me i heard you it’s a quick question is the border secure
SPEAKER 03 :
Answers about the border few and far between from some Democrats on Capitol Hill, including the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. I’m Bill Melugin with Fox News. Do you have a few moments to talk about the border real quick? I’m sorry, I don’t. A week before this, we sent this email to DHS notifying them we would be in D.C. and we were requesting an interview with the secretary. We received no response, so we went to him. A few moments of your time is all we’re asking for, and we’ll let you go. Reached out to your office, asked to talk to you last week. They blew us off. I appreciate it. It’s 900,000 gotaways. Have a good day. Thank you.
SPEAKER 11 :
No comment, sir. Of course, that’s when we couldn’t use the word crisis for what was going on at the border. But these Democrats who are visiting, they’re claiming that they are going there to conduct oversight of the Trump administration’s border policies firsthand. That came from Bill Mlugin. That is what they are claiming they are doing. And of course, this is a photo op. This is a spectacle. This is something to hopefully get their name in the press. And we know that that is the point already. all together we’re going to continue discussion about that i’m curious your thoughts hit us up in the comments on what you think about this border visit is it now something serious because i don’t know president trump wants to secure the border once again we got a packed show as i said we’re gonna be joined by a lot of great guests a lot of great content you don’t want to miss Also, I’m going to encourage you, this is still our life and liberty drive. We extended it because of people like you who want to support the work of the ACLJ and have unlocked their matching donation. So right now, I’m going to encourage you to become not only an ACLJ supporter, not only to donate during ACLJ, The Life and Liberty Drive that’s happening right now where all donations are doubled. That means if you give $20, it becomes $40. But while you’re there making that donation, your first donation will be doubled. But you can also select to become an ACLJ champion. That’s someone that gives on a monthly recurring basis. Helps us have a great baseline for what we do here at the ACLJ. Without that baseline, setting budgets, all those things are very hard because we have all these incredible legal fights happening. You heard yesterday about all the fights going on with Doge. You heard today, again, what we’re working on. You’re going to even hear from a church pastor whose church was being shut down. He was told after 18 years, you can no longer meet on this public beach. But guess what? The ACLJ team went into action and we got stuff done. And we can’t do that without you and without your support. So number one, I want to say thank you. And number two, I want to say if you have the opportunity and you have the extra funds right now, this is a great time to give because the donations are doubled. We’ll be right back with more on Sekulow. Welcome back to Seculo. We are here. That’s me. So that’s great. There you go. 1-800-684-3110. We’re continuing the discussion on Elon Musk and the team visiting the CIA today. And look, there’s a lot of talk, a lot of talk about the defunding and whether what’s good, what’s bad. I was in LA over the weekend. I went to see a stage show, like a Broadway style show. Of course, I know you’re probably gonna get mad at me for that. You’re gonna be like, how dare he? But I’m a patron of the arts, if you will, Will. It’s going to get worse when you tell them what you saw. Oh, yeah. I’m not going to tell them. Oh, okay. Good. They can figure it out themselves. Okay. It had a lot of, you know, a lot of magic in it. But I saw this play and at the end of the play, they came out and they cast it and said, hey. Funding for Broadway Cares and AIDS research is under attack right now, and it’s a very unsettling time. So if you can give, please consider giving. And give right now. We’re gonna have buckets that’s gonna get passed around like a church to donate to this. And I thought, exactly. This is how it’s supposed to be. Do you care about the funding of AIDS research or do you care about the funding of Broadway Cares and everything they’re doing? Great. Make your donation. Put your money where your mouth is. You all just spent $150 to $250 on a ticket to see this play. This is how we were supposed to do charity. This is how we’re supposed to do church. This is how the country works, which are when there are those specialty things and the government’s not taking more of your money. You are able to make these kind of donations, support the kind of things that you care about, as a lot of us do. We don’t rely on the federal government to give us that money. This is what happens here at the ACLJ. You support it. Do you care about what we talk about? Great. Well, there’s ways you can help because it’s all funded just by you. Same thing can happen for a lot of these organizations and charities. I’m not someone who’s saying we need to go and cut everything. I think that there are some really great causes that the U.S. government does work with that does great humanitarian aid. But what I really wish is that the American people would actually stick up for those organizations and not rely on the federal government to handle charity.
SPEAKER 18 :
That’s right. And to some degree, that’s how the big government mentality has been able to creep, is that there are the ability to then start going and funding NGOs, which is almost comical to think that some of these non-government organizations… would not exist or do not exist without government funding. So they should be quasi-government organizations, not non-government organizations, but the oversight breaks down at that point when you’re looking at it from that perspective as well, because then your taxpayer dollars are going to a third party that is not government, that is not subject to the oversight and the checks and balances of our government. And so when you talk about, it’s one thing to talk about charitable organizations or grants like that, And that’s what’s been the big headline from all of the first round Doge media blitz is that those are also the easy things to find and correct of like a government here, a grant here that the government shouldn’t be funding. We can just get rid of that until, you know, a lower court judge puts an injunction on it nationwide. But the real work, and I think where, as we mentioned on Friday, that the Doge team should have done that style interview earlier to really get to the bottom of these are the types of things we want to look at, the systems within government. The way that our government operates, whether it be Social Security to the retirement program within the government to even now the CIA, are there things we can get in there and find ways that we’re operating that are stuck in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s? and bring that up to modern standards for a host of reasons. One, to make it more secure, to make it go quicker, to save money. So when they talk about things like Social Security, that they want to find 300 billion or something within Social Security, they’re not talking about cutting 300 billion of benefit to the Social Security recipient. They’re talking about how expensive it is to run that bureaucracy. When you’re talking about 40% of the incoming calls being from people trying to commit fraud. When you talk about the way that things are handled on paper still. How it takes nine months to retire someone from the government. Those are things that if they can be done quicker and more efficiently, save money. You don’t have to spend that money of taxpayers to go in and do it this old way. And that’s where you look at the CIA. I don’t think as the media is going to try to declare that this is all of a sudden him. He’s going to go in. He’s going to start line iteming undercover agents to fire people. No, what they’re going to do is find ways that the CIA, the clandestine central intelligence agency is working inefficiently and try clandestine, you know, top secret spy stuff.
SPEAKER 11 :
I know. See, that’s what you should say. spy stuff top secret spy stuff not clandestine well clandestine seems like an all-inclusive resort i would go to clandestine i would go to clandestine they also have an escape room where you are a cia agent yeah trying to get out yeah it sounds like very clandestine you’ll see the ads running now all of a sudden we need to we need to open that all right let’s go ahead and take calls let’s go to minerva who’s calling in texas also name of a character i saw in the play uh minerva you’re on the air
SPEAKER 07 :
Um, I wanted to comment that I don’t even watch the local news anymore because My blood pressure can’t handle it. All the lies. We have Veronica Escobar and everybody here is the majority are Democrats. I used to be that way. Thank you to you guys. You guys opened my eyes. I hear you on KLP, my Christian channel. But it’s wonderful when you open your eyes and you hear the lies. They’re going to cut social security checks. They’re going to cut this. And then they came and they did the picketing at Tesla this weekend. And ask them what they believe in. They’re like parrots. They just say what they see on the news. Do you check it? Absolutely. And Elon Musk is rich and famous and he doesn’t care about the local people. Do you understand where your money is going? And I’m and I’m going.
SPEAKER 11 :
investigated it’s lies and everybody here follows you’re exactly right i have these conversations all the time especially with a lot of people who say hey i’m open-minded i want to hear your point of view you’ll see a lot of those kind of baiting posts on social media now being like look i’m not gonna try to fight you i just want to know how you possibly can agree with what’s going on and then you have a discussion you realize that their point of view is only you know a half inch thick They have no idea really what’s going on, whether that’s on this topic, whether that’s what’s happening in the Middle East. They are just, as you said, parroting the very brief posts that they see on social media. They are parroting what they are seeing on television. They have no idea truly what’s going on. And then, of course, when you try to and you say, okay, this person really would like to have this discussion, it turns south very quickly. All of a sudden, you’re getting called names. You’re getting called a racist. You’re getting called all these things because it’s the easy way out. And I encourage you to try to have those conversations, but don’t get sucked into it. If they’re not willing to actually have a real discussion and actually have some open mind. And look, we’re going to talk a little bit later about Bill Maher is going to be visiting the White House this week and what that’s going to look like or they announced it officially. You know, that’s. an interesting spot to be in, okay? Where you have Bill Maher, who historically has been a leader of the far left, who has now seen his own Democratic Party and his own left go beyond him. So much so that he is actually willing to go sit with conservatives now. He’s willing to go sit in front of President Trump, actually be honored to go to the White House and meet with him, even if they disagree. After years and years of bashing, that shows you actually where conservatives land on a lot of this. that they will have those discussions and those debates and they’re not scared of them. Because you know what your background is. You know the facts. You listen to this show. You watch this show on YouTube. We give you the tools to be your own boss, Will. Like Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Like Enterprise Rent-A-Car. And we tell people… The true facts. And then you’re able to go and share those. That’s one of the great things ACLJ does. It’s not just this show. It sounds like I’m just like tooting my own horn here. No, you go to ACLJ.org and there is a treasure trove of content that is absolutely free, not behind a paywall. It is just there for you to take in, to ingest, and be able to use however you’d like. Whether you want to share that content on social media, whether you want to have that information so you share it with friends, or if you need legal help. Because there are some big wins happening right now. In the next segment, you’re going to hear one of those wins. And then tomorrow, we can’t say it yet, but there’s something happening tomorrow. And I’m excited to share that as well. Because the ACLJ can be there for you and is there for you. Whether that’s providing incredible content like this broadcast, whether you’re watching it on YouTube in podcast format, Or maybe, like I said, you need legal help. Or maybe you just want to be armed with the facts. So you go to ACLJ.org, you download the ACLJ app. All of this material is available for zero cost. But it can only be at zero cost because people like you have decided that this work is important enough to fund. Not the federal government saying it’s important to fund. Not some big government grant saying it’s what should be. Not big corporate sponsors saying individual people like you. ACLJ supporters who maybe give one time a year during these big drives. And right now, this is the last day of the March Life and Liberty Drive. Midnight deadline to have your donations doubled. Of course, we’ve been focusing a lot on what’s going on in life as well. We know you care a lot about the unborn. We have filed to defund Planned Parenthood once again. We’re waiting to hear back from the Supreme Court on this. This is a big moment. Of course, you have President Trump saying he’s ready to do it. We’ve got a major lawsuit to defeat the government of Massachusetts. That’s our plan. And the abortion industry, you’ve heard about that. Our Choice Begins Here campaign, which was our counter campaign, which we’ve seen massive success in because people like you donated up to $500,000 to have that campaign of hope and true choice. to help those pro-life pregnancy resource centers. Because you stood up and it’s time to do it again. We’re short of our goal. Scan the QR code right now or go to aclj.org. Check it out. CeCe Heil is joining us in studio right now. And we have a guest. connecting with us right now from his car, which is totally fine with me because when these kind of big moments happen, I want to make sure we share it and we celebrate with all of you ACLJ supporters, with our ACLJ legal team, and of course with our clients. And this one you’ve heard about, honestly, not for all that long because sometimes… Things can get done very fast. Not always, as we know with the law. Sometimes these cases take years. But fortunately, this one was able to get handled very fast. You may have heard the story of the Church on the Beach. You may have heard of our friend now and client, Pastor Jason Flinty, who is connected with us. Church on the Beach was told, hey, you’ve been meeting here for almost 20 years, but sorry, you’re going to have to find somewhere else. Maybe you could find a building, a closed door, a space, which, of course, goes against the entire mission of the organization, but also we felt was not something they could legally do. And CeCe, I’ll go to you first before we are joined by the pastor himself, because we were able to get this handled very quickly and celebratorily.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yes, absolutely. After we were contacted, we sent a demand letter on March 6th Telling the county of Los Angeles what the problem is with this new policy that the executives had implemented. And basically, like you said, here’s a church that’s been meeting on the beach, Redondo Beach, for 18 years. And now this new policy says, wait, only… It only applies to religious organizations. And we’re going to limit you to six, but only two of those actually could they have at the same location. So really limited them to two. So every Sunday, they went from every Sunday having church to now they could only do it twice. We got involved and we have a good resolution.
SPEAKER 11 :
Very good resolution. We’ll get to that because Jason, you’re joining us. Pastor Jason, tell us how you got in touch with the ACLJ. What happened? Give people a little bit of backstory on this situation because it’s very exciting that when things get done fast, when our team gets into action. And like we said, we filed this first just a few weeks ago and thankfully it’s taken care of. But give us a bit of the backstory here.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah. First of all, thank you so much. And to all of the ACLJ supporters and donors, thank you from the bottom of my heart. There’s no way we could have gotten done what happened without ACLJ. So God bless ACLJ and all the people that support. um we we’ve been doing this for 18 years and then apparently there was a new policy change that went into effect in 2024 that we weren’t aware of because we filed for our permit at the end of 2023 and so at the end of 2024 around october that’s when we i contacted the county to start the permit process for 2025 and i was informed that we there’s a new policy in place and we would only be allowed to meet there two times just like cece said And we did not know what we were going to do. There’s a couple of people in our church that are supporters of ACLJ and follow the radio programs and podcasts. I wasn’t personally familiar with ACLJ at that time. And they said, you’ve got to write in and contact. So we did. And we heard back from Nathan right away. And Nathan and Ben started working us through what the process was going to be like. Like CeCe mentioned, we were able to send a legal demand letter in, and within a matter of weeks, this was taken care of.
SPEAKER 11 :
This is fantastic. And look, this is the power also of you ACLJ supporters. Again, Jason didn’t know about us. He hadn’t heard about us. We’re a big organization, but you know what? It’s not necessarily floating on everyone’s radar. But what’s great is there are people in his church who said, hey, I know who you should contact. You should contact our team. And let’s give an answer of, I guess, what that victory really is. What does that look like? We didn’t necessarily even have to get to court. Right. Sometimes it’s fun to get to court. We didn’t get to get to court this time.
SPEAKER 12 :
We just received a response letter and it basically from the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors. They capitulated. They said that they acknowledge that it’s beach and harbor use licensing policy and other policies pertaining to access to beach use. on its face and application must be content neutral and applied in the same manner regardless of the religious or non-religious nature of the activity and they’re going to immediately withdraw the policy to limit permits for religious activities and they will now process all permit applications under the same standards which is exactly what we demanded and is exactly what the constitution demands so it is a win across the board not only for our clients church on the beach but for any religious organization who wants to apply for a permit on the beaches of california and when you hear an issue like this arise out of somewhere like california you may immediately go to well this is going to be years-long battle they’re going to do it but you know what there are people
SPEAKER 11 :
in power who actually are going to get these demand letters and a lot of them are realizing that people below them are going rogue and are doing things that really are not right and thankfully we people like our team and of course people like the people at the church of the beach whether that is the people who are who are attending or whether it’s you guys in leadership uh who are able to really be there on the ground and do the good work and make sure you can because i want to give you an opportunity here uh pastor you know we got a couple minutes left here to really talk about your church and your mission and your ministry, because that is why the ACLJ exists because we are not the clients. We have, we get to be able to represent people like you at no cost because of our supporters. But this is why it’s important because there are ministries like yours that are, even though it’s 18 years at this point, but you’re still changing the hearts and minds of people because you’re presenting an option of the gospel, presenting an option of church that, that is non-traditional and can get people to not have to, I was reading on your website, to not have to walk through those doors, to even have something that is more accessible to even them. And I just want to give you an opportunity for this segment to just talk a little bit about your organization and why the church is so important there on the beach.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, thank you. You know, nothing against churches that meet in buildings. I love churches that meet in buildings. But we’re at a place that happens to work out really well for us being in Southern California, getting to have weather that can sustain an outdoor church nearly 52 weeks out of the year. And, you know, the beach is a place that a lot of people will go to as they’re processing big things in their life. It could be relational issues, health issues, financial issues, things that everybody goes through. But because we live by the beach, we notice a lot of people will go to the beach to process in that open space, the ocean air, going for walks, bike rides. And some people are doing that simply because they’re living a healthy lifestyle. lifestyle, other people are there because there’s something going on. And it is our sort of beachhead location where we’re accessible to receive those that the Lord is bringing and be ready to minister to them. We provide a regular full on church service. We have worship music. an expository preaching for 45 minutes, prayer, communion, baptisms, everything that you would do inside a building, we’re doing out in public on the sand. And we’re also doing that with being good community members. There’s a group of guys that play volleyball right next door to it, right adjacent to us. Surfers are out front. The lifeguards are going by. The county maintenance trucks are going by. And we’re always waving and smiling. And we try to be good neighbors, good community members, and also still uplift the gospel in a public setting.
SPEAKER 11 :
It’s amazing. Y’all need to check out Church on the Beach. I think a lot of people… understand what you’re saying the ocean is healing you know you have that sort of emotion when you’re out there and i think people can feel that connection to god even if they don’t believe they know there’s something there they know there’s something in the water if you will or by the water there is that like you said people go there to grieve you go there to learn you go there to think and clear your mind because there is that feeling of water hitting you that’s been traveling for millions of miles around the world, around the world, and then lands on your beach. It’s remarkable. So I wanted to give you that opportunity and I want to thank you also for reaching out. And maybe you’re listening right now and something like this is happening to your church and you feel hopeless and you can’t do anything about it. We can be there for you. And look, these are the ones that we can celebrate and are great because they get done so quickly. We’re able to take care of it. This is why you support the work of the ACLJ. Because if people like Pastor Jason, you hear his story, we got to make sure people are out there doing that kind of good work. So go to ACLJ.org right now. Maybe become an ACLJ champion. That’s someone that gives on a monthly basis. You can do that at $5 if you want. Go ahead. ACLJ.org. We’ll be right back. Second half hour coming up.
SPEAKER 19 :
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 welcome to seculo we got a packed show today we’re going to be joined later on by a pastor
SPEAKER 11 :
who had a church on the beach. You may have heard us talk about that. Ended up being a big win as this church was told, hey, after 20 years nearly, 18 years, I believe, you can no longer meet weekly at the beach side that you’ve been doing that at for this long. But the ACLJ team got into action and we were able to talk with that pastor because we were able to get it taken care of so quickly. And that is why our team is the best of the best. So I can’t wait to share that with you a little bit later. But today we have some pretty interesting news to discuss as a group of Democrats is heading to the border. there’s a lot of discussion on why are they there because the border wall is about to begin construction again are they happy about that are they sad about that look we had that moment where Bernie Sanders even just a few days ago said hey President Trump He has done some things that I disagree with. Mostly, I disagree with. However, there are some things I agree with him on. And one of them is about stopping illegal immigration and having a safe border. Let’s hear from Bernie Sanders.
SPEAKER 15 :
Is there anything that you think Trump has done right?
SPEAKER 14 :
yeah i mean i think cracking down on fentanyl uh making sure our borders are stronger look nobody thinks that illegal immigration is appropriate look that’s coming from bernie sanders at least someone who if you disagree with you may at least respect his opinion that he
SPEAKER 11 :
doesn’t tow a party line unlike people like benny thompson who is taking this group of people group of democrats down to the border but let’s flash back to 2022 when he was uh on the homeland house uh homeland security committee let’s take a listen to what he was saying back in 2022 chairman one question in your opinion is the border secure i have to go give a speech didn’t you hear me i heard you it’s a quick question is the border secure
SPEAKER 03 :
Answers about the border, few and far between from some Democrats on Capitol Hill, including the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. I’m Bill Malugin with Fox News. Do you have a few moments to talk about the border real quick? I’m sorry, I don’t. A week before this, we sent this email to DHS, notifying them we would be in D.C. and we were requesting an interview with the secretary. We received no response, so we went to him. A few moments of your time is all we’re asking for and we’ll let you go. Reached out to your office, asked to talk to you last week. They blew us off. I appreciate it. It’s 900,000 gotaways. Have a good day.
SPEAKER 11 :
Thank you. No comment, sir. Of course, that’s when we couldn’t use the word crisis for what was going on at the border. But these Democrats who are visiting, they’re claiming that they are going there to conduct oversight. of the Trump administration’s border policies firsthand. That came from Bill Mlugin. That is what they are claiming they are doing. And of course, this is a photo op. This is a spectacle. This is something to hopefully get their name in the press. And we know that that is the point altogether. We’re going to continue discussion about that. I’m curious your thoughts. Hit us up in the comments on what you think about this border visit. Is it now something serious? Because I don’t know. President Trump wants to secure the border once again. We got a packed show, as I said. We’re going to be joined by a lot of great guests, a lot of great content you don’t want to miss. Also, I’m going to encourage you, this is still our Life and Liberty Drive. We extended it because of people like you who want to support the work of the ACLJ and have unlocked their matching donation. So right now, I’m going to encourage you to become not only an ACLJ supporter, not only to donate during ACLJ, life and liberty drive that’s happening right now where all donations are doubled that means if you give 20 it becomes 40 but while you’re there making that donation your first donation will be doubled but you can also select to become an aclj champion that’s someone that gives on a monthly recurring basis helps us have a great baseline for what we do here at the aclj without that baseline you know setting budgets all those things are very hard because we have all these incredible legal fights You heard yesterday about all the fights going on with Doge. You heard today, again, what we’re working on. You’re gonna even hear from a church pastor whose church was being shut down. He was told after 18 years, you can no longer meet on this public beach. But guess what? The ACLJ team went into action and we got stuff done. And we can’t do that without you and without your support. So number one, I want to say thank you. And number two, I want to say if you have the opportunity and you have the extra funds right now, this is a great time to give because the donations are doubled. We’ll be right back with more on Seculo. Welcome back to Seculo. We are going to take your calls in the next segment. I want to hear from you. And you know what? I’ll be honest with you. We got a lot of lines open. This is a great time to call 1-800-684-3110. Rick Grinnell’s joining us. Rick, I wanted to go over a few different things. Obviously, there’s a big special election happening right now in the state of Florida. There is this 60 Minutes interview that went so crazy in terms of the way that they were speaking. And Leslie Stahl was interviewing former hostages. And we’ll get to that. But also before that, because we know that you love the state of California, Rick. You may have not heard, but we just had on the pastor for the church on the beach in Redondo because we have won in that. And now that church is able to continue on thanks to our ACLJ team getting into action. So I wanted to give a shout out to you in the state of California.
SPEAKER 06 :
Awesome. Well, that’s great news. I know we had talked about this previously, and it’s just one of the reasons I have to say that I am so honored to be a part of this ACLJ team. We don’t just talk about issues. We find these issues that need attention, that need not just media attention where people complain, but where people take action. We have amazing lawyers on staff. And in the world where, you know, lawfare is coming at conservatives hard, if you don’t have an organization that’s ready to fight back, file legal claims, be in the court, you’re just not going to win on these issues. And this is just an example of the ACLJ protecting religious freedoms, being on the front line, being proactive, being on the offense. And so I just have to say, nobody asked me to do this, but if you’re not a part of our team, you should be. I mean, everybody listening should be so incredibly proud of the work that we’re doing to protect religious liberties and to make sure that in the United States of America, the government is not telling the people how to worship, when to worship. We went through this in COVID and we’re not going back. We’re going to fight and you should be a part of the ACLJ because we’re fighters.
SPEAKER 18 :
I want to play this bite real quick as we look at what’s going on at CBS News. Let’s go ahead and run bite two. This is Leslie Stahl talking to Keith Siegel, who was a hostage of Hamas, and she was interviewing on 60 Minutes. Let’s go ahead and run this clip.
SPEAKER 13 :
Keith says things got worse for him after Aviva was released and that early ceasefire collapsed.
SPEAKER 16 :
The terrorists became very mean and very cruel and violent. More so? Much more so. They were beating me and starving me.
SPEAKER 13 :
Do you think they starved you or they just didn’t have food?
SPEAKER 16 :
No, I think they starved me and they would often eat in front of me and not offer me food.
SPEAKER 18 :
Rick, I just want to get your take. What is going on at CBS News? We have Margaret Brennan trying to say that free speech led to genocide because it was weaponized when it comes to the Holocaust. Now we have Leslie Stahl trying to run defense for Hamas, saying maybe they weren’t actually starving you. Maybe they just didn’t have food. You know, the pier didn’t work, so maybe they weren’t able to get food. What is happening?
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s actually laughable. If we didn’t see the evidence of this, nobody would believe this. But the reality is, is that we have a big problem with our national media. They just don’t understand what’s happening in the world. And they have their advocates and they’re not even fact based anymore. I mean, 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl, they literally can’t see what’s in front of them and what Hamas is doing. They have to trip over themselves to come up with the PR points to help Hamas. Think about that. 60 Minutes helping a terrorist organization with their spin. You know, they have hostages. They took American hostages who are starving, but you have a 60 Minutes reporters saying, well, maybe they just didn’t have food. Are you kidding me? This is a new low for Leslie Stahl. And I hope that people see this clip and remember that this is not a news organization. This is an advocacy organization.
SPEAKER 11 :
And I just don’t see the point in the end game. It’s like they want their narrative to be real so bad that they are going to push this on people who are being held hostage. You think that guy… is going to be very critical of what’s going on, I don’t know, from his captors in Hamas. You think he’s going to go, well, you know, they were hungry too. I don’t think so. And he said, they taunted him. They ate in front of him. At least he gave an honest answer. And look, at least they aired it. We know that sometimes they cut those things out. But, The look on her face of, do you think that they, maybe they were just hungry too. Maybe they didn’t have food too. It just shows how badly, how badly they want what they have are feeding people to be true. So then they can keep their narrative going because it’s crumbling in front of their face, but they don’t seem to care about that. It doesn’t matter. But I told people, this is a moment you’re going to want to clip and send to your friends who are maybe on the other side of this issue, because it is so telling that you would even say, ask that that you would insult this person to his face.
SPEAKER 06 :
Look, I think that we need to figure out and we need to ask some tough questions of Leslie. So where did this come from? Who was telling you? What information did you get that suggests that somehow they weren’t starving people? was this a producer who asked this question of you, who pushed you to bring this up? I think we need to know where this is coming from. How did Leslie Stahl get to the position where she’s talking like this? Because I think it would inform us as to what’s happening at CBS, what’s happening at 60 Minutes, what’s happening with Leslie Stahl. She completely has lost uh the ability to be a a journalist and this is evidence and i’d like to just dig down and ask her how did this question come about
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, she’s like, I found it from executive producer Sinwar, who sent it in. I mean, this is where you have to draw a line. I think you’re right, Will.
SPEAKER 18 :
Well, and Rick, before we let you go, I did want to get your take. There’s elections going on today. There’s two House seats in Florida for the seats that were formerly held by Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz. And then there’s that election in Wisconsin. Normally, people don’t pay attention to Special elections right after a big national election or even a Supreme Court judge for the state of Wisconsin. But these could have real impacts on the Trump agenda and even the midterms as we look forward to that. As scary as that sounds that we’re already potentially even talking about that. I just want to get your take on what we’re seeing and what the political impact could be.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, look, it’s very important that people get out and vote. We can’t get complacent. If you believe in conservative values, then you’ve got to get out and vote. If you’re in Florida one or six district, if you’re in Wisconsin and you’re hearing this, if you know of people in these areas, please get them out to vote. It’s incredibly important. You can’t complain if you’re not out there voting. And this is one of those times where not a lot of people are remembering to go vote. It’s not a traditional voting time of year, but it is incredibly important to get out and vote. If you live in Wisconsin, if you know someone in Wisconsin, get out and vote. In Florida 6, in Florida 1, get out and vote.
SPEAKER 11 :
Thank you, Rick, for joining us. Always great to have your insights. We appreciate it. I do love to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. You may have been inspired by what Rick just said. You may have been hearing about the mainstream media. I see a lot of comments right now in our chat, people talking about some people saying they don’t see anything from the mainstream media until we bring it to their attention, which I guess is good and bad. Part of me goes, maybe we shouldn’t give them a platform. Another part is you have to know what your friends and family are being fed. And sometimes what they’re being fed, I don’t know, you could ask them, do you think they’re starving or are they being fed misinformation? That’s what’s happening. Okay, these are the real moments that are happening in America. You have a one-on-one opportunity to talk to someone who is a hostage under Hamas and you question the validity of their starvation. That is where we’ve gotten. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. And I did once again want to just thank you for the March Life and Liberty Drive. We could use more support. I’m going to ask you to become an ACLJ champion if you haven’t already. That’s someone that gives on a monthly basis. So maybe you said, hey, I gave during Life and Liberty, but now I hear you all. I hear that win coming out of the state of California where that church, the church on the beach, is able to continue on only because of people like you. And what’s great, when you have an ACLJ champion, you become an ACLJ champion, over 20,000 of you have, it’s creating a baseline for us to know what we can budget, to know how we can hire, to know where we need to move resources because we know we have that baseline of people who support on a monthly basis. So while I do want to just thank you, and if you gave and that’s what you can give, that is totally fine. But if you can become a champion… I’m encouraging you to do that. And one of the perks, hey, you get bumped to the front of the line when phone calls are coming in. And look, I said before we had a lot of lines open. We only had a couple lines open now. A lot of you have called in. If you’re an ACLJ champion, you’ll get bumped to the front. 1-800-684-3110 to be on air today. Again, that’s 1-800-684-3110 because we’ve heard from Rick Grinnell. We’ve heard from Will Haynes. You’ve heard from me. You’ve heard from C.C. Heil. You’ve heard from that church on the beach, Pastor Jason. Now… We get to hear from the most important voice, and that is yours. So be a part of that right now. Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. Phone lines are lining up as we speak. So stay on hold if you are on hold. We will get to you coming up in the next segment. And again, go to ACLJ.org. Incredible resources there, by the way. I just want to encourage you to go there, download the ACLJ app, get involved, get engaged. It’s not all about donations. Go there and check out the incredible content our team puts together just for you. We’ll be right back. 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 08 :
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 uh up for for uh real id then you know what push for voter id let’s push for those kind 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 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 01 :
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 1800, 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 :
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 04 :
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 10 :
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.
