In this episode, we delve into the controversy surrounding a Democratic candidate for Attorney General in Virginia, whose violent and disturbing text messages have recently come to light. This raises critical questions about political rhetoric, accountability, and the erosion of civil discourse, as prominent figures remain in support of the candidate despite the inflammatory comments.
SPEAKER 07 :
On today’s show, state attorney general candidates, unhinged and disturbing texts rock the Democratic Party and so much more.
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Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 07 :
Welcome to Sekulow Pact Show today. Jordan Sekulow in studio. Will Haynes in studio. We got Rick Grinnell coming up a little bit later. It’s going to be a fun show, a packed show. And today we are talking about a Democrat candidate, Attorney General of the state of Virginia.
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Commonwealth. Commonwealth.
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Commonwealth of Virginia having to cancel some fundraisers today, having some issues as some text messages were released. Now look, we’re not big fans of the whole cancel culture thing and all of that and what your private text may say or not say. However, when these are your private texts, I think the voting public probably should know. They should probably know that they are threatening violence and or murder
SPEAKER 08 :
of their political rivals will that’s right so what we have here is a situation that it’s a couple years old uh this was the text messages are when they were sent in 2022 and this candidate jay jones then he was a former delegate of the house uh the house of delegates in virginia which is their House of Representatives in their bicameral system. He used to represent Norfolk, Virginia, and he texted a former colleague who was a Republican, Kerry Koiner, who is still in the House of Delegates, about how upset he was that there were Republicans, including the Speaker of the House at the time, Todd Gilbert, were praising this moderate Democrat who had passed away. They were speaking very kindly of him and the way he worked. He was a longtime Democrat in the Virginia politics. And he said vile things, wishing that they were dead so he could desecrate their graves. I’ll put it that, because I’m not going to say what he said.
SPEAKER 06 :
I would go one step further just to let people know how it’s filed, though. Yeah, I think we go a little bit more. Okay. He said he would like to see the speaker’s wife. To watch their two children be shot and executed in the head. Right. This guy. So policy could get changed. Is being supported by Senator Tim Kaine. I think that support alone disqualifies Tim Kaine from public office.
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Tim Kaine said something to the effect of, I don’t agree with him on this.
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It’s a disgusting comment, but you know why they don’t? It’s because early voting’s already started.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and here’s the deal. It started off with, I’m going to, I wish they would die so I could mess up their graves. And then when the Republican who he was texting pushed back, and said you know you shouldn’t talk like that he went further he said if there were uh two bullets and three people hitler paul pott and the speaker of the house two of the bullets would go in the head of the speaker she pushed back on that and he said spoiler any of the worst people you can think in the speaker he still gets the two bullets she pushed back on that He called her. And I pushed back on it. I said, like, you’re going too far. He said, you need to stop saying this. I don’t like that you’re texting this. This is disgusting. He called her to try to explain that conversation. We don’t know the contents of, but has been reported was him just doubling down, trying to explain. They end up getting off the phone, and she said, on the phone, stop talking to me about this. You were saying you wished harm to his children, whom you know. You have met his wife and children. And he said, they’re evil people. They’re breeding little fascists. I wish that his wife had to hold his dying children… So he would change policy. And then he said the only way you get people to change their minds on policy is when they experience real pain.
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And they’re trying to push back on this saying, oh, this was a long time ago, a full 36 months ago that this had happened. Don’t pay attention to it. Not that this guy was well into his adulthood at this point. Phone lines are open for you. What do you think about this? We’re also going to talk about some other topics coming up. We’re talking about this for a few. It’s just the… The rhetoric still rises, and of course now, even though he’s a couple years old, this information gets out there. And what are you going to do with it? And this was during a Biden administration, so maybe you should have been a little cooler for this guy. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110 to have your voice heard today. There’s also some updates on Comey. There’s some updates right now on the Palisades fire that’s happening right now, which is pretty wild. We’ll cover that and a few more things. Go to ACLJ.org if you can. Spend some time on there. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Secula. We’ve got to reset this. A lot of you are just joining us right now. We’re talking about a candidate for Attorney General in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Now, you may wonder why that’s important, why we’re talking about it. We’re talking mainly about the rhetoric that’s coming out, and this was from leaked text messages. And again, a lot of people have said some crazy things in text messages. I don’t know if this is funny. Could you maybe go with that?
SPEAKER 08 :
I don’t think you can do that.
SPEAKER 07 :
That qualifier when it’s tripling down on assassinations of people. A lot of people are going, oh man, I’m texting my buddies. You never know. Locker room talk. All those kind of things you’ve heard for years and years and years. That’s not what this is. This is a guy who doubles and triples down as he’s currently running for Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Pretty historic spot to be running. And he is threatening violence. Very, very specific violence and desecration of the graves of his political rivals. This is disturbing. But, of course, what’s happening right now is that no one seems to be able to disown this guy. He is canceled. a few of his fundraisers for tonight. But Tim Kaine, even, who has endorsed him, said, you know what, I don’t like this rhetoric. I find it gross. However, he’s still got my vote.
SPEAKER 06 :
So that’s what every major Democrat in the state is saying. That’s what the gubernatorial candidate is saying. She said that. That’s what the head of the Democrat Party there said. That’s what the leader of their house said. That’s what the leader of their senate said. So the House of Delegates, the state senate. So this is kind of what I put forward. This idea that we will learn a lot if he stays in the race about violence and leftist voters, and honestly, Democrat voters. Because if they’re okay with their leaders calling for us, calling for you, calling for conservatives because they have a different viewpoint on the Second Amendment, to have their children assassinated, executed in front of their mother, and then to desecrate their grave… And they’re writing it to a Republican just three years ago, and now they’re running to be the top law enforcement official in the state, in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This, to me, speaks broader to where the Democrat Party is when it comes to violence emanating from the left. It’s an endorsement. If you are a bit crazy, it’s an endorsement to go ahead and carry out this job.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and to that point as well, Jordan, there was an arrest made in D.C. It didn’t make a ton of news, which is shocking. Just over the weekend, where the Supreme Court justices before the October term reopens, many of them go to what’s known as Red Mass. It’s at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in D.C., And they go and have a mass. They partake in mass before the starting of the Supreme Court session. There was a man from New Jersey who had camped out on the steps of the church in a tent appearing to be homeless. I don’t know if he was homeless indeed, but he traveled all the way to D.C. and had his tent packed with more than 200 explosives. Molotov cocktails, the same explosive ingredients concoction that was used in the Oklahoma City bombing, and was preparing to try and take out Supreme Court justices. This individual had writings that were anti-Supreme Court, anti-ICE, and against Jews. It was, once again, People whose ideology, they’ve been hearing what’s coming from the left, and there are crazy people out there that will do crazy things. And when you have someone running for the Attorney General, the top law enforcement official in the state of Virginia, who’s also made horrible statements about police in the past, and he’s trying to be the top cop, he literally said, if you want fewer police shootings, more police need to die. That is who is running for the Commonwealth’s Attorney General position. And has he had no response to any of this really yet? He did put a response out and said, you know, many of us regret. Like all people, I sent text messages. that I regret and I believe that violent rhetoric has no place in our politics. Let’s be clear about what is happening in the Attorney General race right now. Jason Meares is dropping smears through Trump-controlled media organizations to assault my character and rescue his desperate campaign. This is a strategy that ensures Jason Meares will continue to be accountable to Donald Trump, not the people of Virginia. This race is about whether Trump can control Virginia or Virginians control Virginia.
SPEAKER 06 :
Jason Meares, who we’re talking about as the Republican candidate, is the current Attorney General, so he has already won statewide election in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Two, yes, people say things in text messages they wouldn’t want out. They don’t say these kind of things. This kind of thing, if a high school kid said right now and was uncovered, their house would be raided. And they’d go to jail. Rightfully so. And if their parents didn’t report it, the parents should be going to jail. And I think we’d all agree because that’s not just blowing off steam when you keep doubling down and doubling down and tripling down on exactly what you’d like to see because of their political views. So the idea that, yes, no one would want all their text messages out. That’s trying to compare, again, apples and oranges. We’re talking about text messages about killing people. unelected innocent kids of the speaker don’t know their political views but let’s watch them die in front of their mother i would i would support that as they is what the current lead i mean he’s the number two official he wants to be number two in the commonwealth of virginia he wants to be the top law enforcement yeah he’s the candidate for one of the two parties in a state that goes blue all the time is elected We know a lot, we’ve now learned that mainstream Democrat voters are okay with this kind of rhetoric, which then all it takes is one person to carry this out.
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And it may be something that we can look into. You may know the answer. If he was to withdraw, because voting has already begun, You said early voting has begun. What does that look like for the Democrats? Are they put in between a rock and a hard place going, well, we have to run somebody or can they not run somebody? Because the decision, maybe we can just look into that coming up. I’m just curious. Because you may go, well, what are they going to do?
SPEAKER 06 :
You always have options for people to drop out because people get sick. People in office, they pass away in office or they resign because of issues. So there are safeguards in place here even with early voting. Now it tells you a lot about how they feel about how their campaign is going if they think that by him leaving they’d somehow lose because the early voting. I thought he’s crushing the current candidate and let’s say he is. I don’t think that justifies endorsing him and covering him for this kind of rhetoric. When they attack Donald Trump for rhetoric that is not anywhere close to… Not even in the same ballpark. Because this is very much reality talk. This is a tough guy talk. This is like…
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It’s not comedic. It’s not vulgar.
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That’s usually what people are talking about when they say the text is, you might have been in a text message you regret. Three years later, something vulgar, something personal. Again, that used to get people to have to drop out of politics.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you’re just seeing me. You brought up this. The Palisades fire right now, they’ve made an arrest and they said that they found a lot of information through phone texts and through chat GPT records because the person had made images and they were able to see the images that they were creating, which again, tells you what you should be doing and not doing with AI. I think that’s, you know, we got to make sure you’re well aware of that. They were able to get those records and they seized over a million and a half records to find this person. But that’s because of why? Because what they were doing online beforehand, I don’t think it had to do with what they were doing in terms of Were they caught in the act?
SPEAKER 06 :
They definitely weren’t caught in the act. Maybe it’s security cameras and things like that, but this has been a long time now. So the idea here, again, that he even ran knowing that he had sent this to Republicans.
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And the police stuff was public?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes. And that was a while ago. That controversy, he’s already weathered. And so it’s not even like this is a non-controversial figure. Which is a disgusting…
SPEAKER 06 :
ridiculous comment he could say you people could say that’s not what i how i meant that i meant that people don’t realize the violence and things like that so they have to experience their own community it wasn’t the triple downing it’s very different when you’re calling for specific children who you know to be executed because they happen to be the Republican speaker’s children.
SPEAKER 08 :
And here’s the other caveat to this as well. And it’s kind of the hubris of these people that feel like they can say these things and mean it. And when the person they’re talking to is saying, please stop, like literally, please stop talking like this. This is not okay. Keeps going. that the the individual the republican delegate said i have sent screenshots of this to the speaker so he knows what you’ve said like it wasn’t even at the time like oh my goodness it just you know i i can’t believe that i didn’t even know anyone would ever see that he knew that it had been shared with people and still thought and you know in this climate you know i can still run i’m i’m untouchable even if this comes out and maybe he’s right he might be
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I mean, I think, listen, end of the day, the Democrats are supporting him. Okay? I mean, I just want to make it clear. That’s what I’m saying. He may be untouchable.
SPEAKER 08 :
When Tim Kaine was asked directly, should he drop out, he said no. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. Well, I mean, the idea to me, that kind of disqualifies… Tim Kaine plays like he’s some moderate, in the middle, nice guy. I think we all know, if you even remember who he is, the senator, he… Did that on Saturday Night Live? Mm-hmm. He… Is OK with this kind of rhetoric? Would he be OK with a Republican senator that he serves with saying this about his own children?
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I mean, he technically won the popular vote to be the vice president.
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He would be OK with that. I mean, he’d be OK with saying these comments about not just him.
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the politician the one with views but his wife his children or grandchildren and he’d say you know what that person’s that’s a republican i understand it yeah we want to hear from you i want your response right now give me a call at 1-800-684-3110 we got a few lines open for you right now this would be a great time to call in and we’ll get some of those comments coming up in the next segment that’s at 1-800-684-3110 we’ll be right back Welcome back to Seculo. I do want to take calls from you today, so give me a call at 1-800-684-3110. We’ve got about three lines open right now for you, so it’s a great time to call in. Stay on hold. Give our phone screener a minute as phone lines are lining up right now. Let’s start off with a call from Stacey, who is calling on line one, who’s listening on SiriusXM. Stacey, go ahead.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi. This is the first time I’ve ever called into the show. I’ve listened before, but today, the topic is, it just shows how far our society has come because our politicians actually reflect our culture. And unfortunately, we have a culture here in America that is so based on hate and anything that is against what we believe, oh, we have to attack. And unfortunately, you see this on Facebook, you see this on Twitter, people saying and doing things that they wouldn’t normally say and do in person. And I think part of the problem is that we have a culture that thinks that they are immune to things because it’s done behind a screen. And until we as a culture change our thought processes and change our thing of saying, hey, look, it’s okay if you disagree with me. It doesn’t make you evil. It just means that we have different perspectives. We will not change what our politicians do.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, Stacey, I think you’re right. When this rhetoric comes out, you know that this is not just an isolated incident. And you also know that the next years that followed this text thread did encourage violence that was happening against people. You are right. that being behind the screen, the keyboard warriors, if you will, as they’ve been called, we have lost that disconnect. We have lost a connection with our neighbors, with our friends, with human beings, because we all have had friends who are different political views, who are usually your good friends, your best friends. And when you’re in person, that’s a lot easier than when you’re behind a screen and it’s just you alone in a room getting fired up and the other person getting fired up and there’s no real consequences to your actions. I think what we’re honestly going to see is maybe this turnaround happened. I think this turnaround may happen as the increase increases. In the internet becoming a little bit harder to differentiate truth and fiction. We’ve seen this week alone, and this gets a way heady topic, the launch of a new platform for AI-generated video that is becoming very difficult to, without the watermarks, to understand what you’re looking at is real or not. I think that could lead… to the turning off of a lot of these devices, to the turning off of these screens, to where maybe you actually start looking to your friends, looking to your neighbors again to have these conversations with, because you realize you’re not talking to something that is real, that a lot of this is what we’re gonna be occurring is going to be created. Even the comments from your friends, they have a button to click. Where an AI can, you know, you see that even on social already. It’ll clean up your words. It will create the response for you. I accidentally clicked them and realized that I’ve put the weirdest responses up on people’s text messages. I didn’t even know I could report a text message. I found that out on accident the other day. There’s a lot happening in this digital space that could eventually lead to that dead internet theory that will then maybe bring back society.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, in another angle to this as well is the fact that why they’re so concerned about this individual dropping out of the race is because of the early voting. Right. And this is a problem we’ve seen for years. But actually, today, there is a case before the Supreme Court that is about the meaning of Election Day, what’s in the Constitution and how that’s defined and whether candidates vote. can challenge the way that the state runs elections if it’s kind of vague or outside of the bounds of what traditional election day is. That’s BOST versus the Illinois State Board of Elections. We have an amicus brief up there with this case right now that’s being heard by the Supreme Court today. So even in these periods of time that you’re not really thinking about elections, Virginia is bizarre, obvious all the time because they have off cycle elections for their state offices. So it’s not in a midterm. It’s not in a major election year.
SPEAKER 07 :
They always want to be their own thing.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. They do their own elections in, you know, odd numbered years. And it’s different. So you’re not normally thinking about this, but you are now. And we are always thinking about things like this. That is why we are filing in that Supreme Court case that’s being heard today. The ACLJ doesn’t stop. We don’t stop thinking about the implications of small moves that states make. And then there’s sometimes real big impact because when even Election Day, we all know what was the disaster of 2020. But when you start to see those things take hold and become precedent and take place over a longer course of time. you start to realize these little things make big impact. And so you have to fight them. You have to always be thinking about election day, even when most of the people in the country aren’t. And so, Jordan, even that, we have to fight these things. And that’s why you support the ACLJ, because the last thing you want to be thinking about right now is an election. But things like that have real consequences, especially even in this topic today.
SPEAKER 06 :
Children being executed in front of their mother. by a candidate that the entire democrat party in virginia including the gubernatorial candidate and uh one of their u.s senators is backing and until the candidate themselves canceled a fundraiser tomorrow night tim kane the senator was happy to still attend i would like to take this phone call because i think this opens up a whole different you know can of worms here if you will but michael’s calling south carolina on serious xm michael go ahead
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Yes, I don’t want to sound insensitive or a lack of compassion, but I have a legal question. And it comes from the concept of the Republicans doing a lot of talking but no action. And I’m not on either side, but if I had to pick, I would definitely be a Republican over a Democrat. But here’s my question. If the government declares an organization, for example, a terrorist organization or a gang, why are we arresting them versus just killing them? like they do with the boats coming from Venezuela. Just blow them up.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. I think that’s the last resort, right? I mean, it’s hard. You want to take apart networks of terrorists. You want to capture them alive. They’re very hard to capture alive, terrorists, when you’re talking about kind of the traditional terrorism. These networks are underground. They’re masked up. So the more of their people and leaders you can get, the more you’re able to round up off the streets. The question he did put to the phone screen, which is, If you designate them as a terrorist organization, can you use violent actions? Of course, you could. And if they’re shooting back, if they’re going to be arrested because they planned an attack, of course, that’s a tough situation.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and also a little bit of a nuance there as well. When you designate a foreign terrorist organization, that honestly just gives the appropriate measures for sanctions or people that do business. Financial sanctions. For when you think about the war on terror, just designating ISIS and Hamas and people like that or the Quds Force as terrorist organizations, that wasn’t the authorization to use a military force. There still was the global war on terror authorization to use a military force. Yeah, I mean, it’s a different situation. There’s a lot of different… That’s why I was saying… Some of the most nuanced… If they were in a violent situation with the police…
SPEAKER 06 :
It doesn’t really matter if they’re designated that way or not. What I was talking about more is you know that this person is a leader, you believe this person is a leader, and so you go to their house, knock, knock, or no knock, smash in. I mean, you have to be prepared for violence. But you don’t want to use that, even if you could. It’s not a good policy because you want to be able to take down the network. It’s why cartel leaders… are usually taken alive if possible. Right. Like El Chapo. Even though he’s gotten out those two times, it was better to have him alive and trying to get him to spill names to reduce or improve his situation.
SPEAKER 07 :
I did want to clarify real quick. That’s not what the phone screener said that the call was going to be. So when I’m like, this will be an interesting segue. Not the segue I was expecting. You’re just protecting yourself. Yes, I am. I’m not like, yeah, it was an interesting one. But we’re ready for it. But we have a good answer. With that, we’ve got a second half hour coming up. Give us a call. 1-800-684-3110. While you’re at it, support the work of the ACLJ. Become an ACLJ champion if you can. That’s the one that gives on a monthly basis. Knows that really helps us create a great baseline for this show and for our legal work, which we’ll talk about coming up in the next few segments. And Rick Grinnell’s going to be joining us. If you don’t get us on your local station, find us at aclj.org.
SPEAKER 03 :
Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever. This is Seculo. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 07 :
Welcome to Sekulow’s second half hour of the show today. If you missed the first half hour, find us later on Archives on ACLJ.org. However you get your podcasts, YouTube, Rumble, we are there right now. And if you are watching live between 12 and 1 p.m. Eastern time, welcome. We love getting your comments in, so make sure you put those in the chat as well. We’re monitoring them. We look at them. But if you also want to call in, it’s a great time to call in, 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. If you’ve been listening a long time, I also want to encourage you to support this work. I’ve done a big pitch recently for the ACLJ, and I think it’s always important to let you know that when you’re listening to this show, when you’re watching it, however you get this content, it’s not paid for by major sponsors. You’re hearing ads in your local market on the radio. That money doesn’t go to us. That goes to the station or the network. If you see YouTube ads, know that is so minuscule in terms of the amount of money it costs to put on the show that it just it makes it that’s a nice little dent. But it is a dent to say the least. What really pays the bills here, what’s able to keep the lights on and do this show for you. And to have all of our incredible legal staff and the dozens of people that work on this show, just this show every day. We need your support. So I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org. There’s a thing called ACLJ Champions. Those are people that give on sort of a membership level. They give on a monthly automated donation level. Of course, it’s tax deductible. And I encourage you to do that today. If you’re not already a monthly supporter of the ACLJ, you can be part of the fight, whether that is in the media or whether that is in the courtroom. And that is at ACLJ.org. dot org slash champions or scan the qr code that’s on your screen i hadn’t done that in a little while i want to make sure we get that out of the way we can go through a lot of the things that you support here and we’ll do that as the show progresses because know that it’s not just a show we’re not just running commentary we do direct legal work for so many people including you if you need it at no cost if you have some legal issue that is within the scope of what we do here first amendment freedom of speech religious liberty Kurt, you go to ACLJ.org slash help, fill out a simple form, and a lawyer will be in touch with you. We know there’s a lot of students right now who are going through it. I expect school is in full swing as we are actually headed towards Christmas. I mean, we are headed towards the back half of the first semester of school. We know a lot of you are going to be doing Christmas programs soon, what that looks like. And the ACLJ will be there to help support your religious freedom and your First Amendment rights. With that being said, Will, what do you want to go to right now?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I mean, what we’ve been talking about is this issue with the candidate for attorney general in Virginia, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the despicable, disqualifying statements that he made over text message about Republican colleagues of his in the House of Delegates a few years back. And the other thing that you’re starting to see is you’re seeing like the Virginia Beach Democrat Committee. So a very large place in Virginia, one of the largest cities in Virginia outside northern Virginia. But they have come out with statements themselves of saying, you know, recent press may have spotlighted past mistakes. We say let those without sin cast the first stone and said that it points out the hypocrisy of Republicans for statements they have made. When you start giving this like back and forth, well, oh, no, they’ve said worse, bad things, too. One, it kind of pours water on how bad these were. And so they’re trying to deflect. about what these statements were i haven’t seen really on either side of the aisle democrats or republicans messaging like this for a leading candidate for a very powerful position in a very powerful state in the country let’s talk about that too what is the power of the attorney general like many people don’t even necessarily know that
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, each state is a little bit different. But typically, when you have elected attorney generals, they have some independence from the governor. So their job is to both represent the state, but also carry out various functions like the top law enforcement, very similar to our U.S. attorney general. They are overseeing. the carrying out of the functions of the legal decision, whether that’s on the civil side, a criminal side, but they kind of set the tone. What are we going to prioritize? What is going to be the issues we’re going to take on? So significant. And in some cases, they also are the party that represents the state before like the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts as well. So they have a unique independence system. From the governor. So you can’t just say, well, this guy, he’s going to be number two and the governor’s really going to run things. No, no, that’s not how it works.
SPEAKER 07 :
Different kind of position. Hey, phone lines are open for you. We’re going to take as many calls as we can. Actually, in the next segment, you know, we usually do that at the end. But today we got Rick Grinnell joining us in the last segment. So you need to call in right now. We got two lines open, 1-800-684-3110. Stay on hold if you get on hold. It’s going to take a minute for our phone screener to get to everybody, but we will. 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Secular. We’re going to take as many calls as we can. A lot of you called in. Phone lines are completely jammed right now. So let’s kick it off. Some of you got calls kind of all over the map, but you know what? Let’s just take them. Chuck’s calling line two. Listen on the radio. You’re on the air, Chuck.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, good afternoon, guys. I’m here in Michigan, and I love listening to you guys throughout my midday whenever I get to my noon part of my day. But just a quick question or a quick statement. I’m concerned about our domestic terrorism that goes on. I know we look at nations. far off, but it seems like domestically we’re having a lot of domestic terrorism, and some of these things aren’t, I don’t think, being either addressed or I don’t know if the FBI, CIA, or our local police agencies are doing enough to address those things. I’m fortunate to have Charlie Kirk, then we had a couple of Democrats, and then we had some Turkish here in Michigan. Some of these groups, the affiliations that some of these individuals may have, and we are either just wiping it away and saying it’s a far group to the left or somebody from the right, or we’re just kind of being vague and inconclusive. How do you guys feel like our agencies, like Patel? It’s like they can’t give us any uptick on even what’s going on with the KKK or other militias that things are happening in our world.
SPEAKER 06 :
Here’s the truth. Here’s the truth. The previous administration didn’t prioritize this. They prioritize people who go to church with Latin mass. Parents who showed up at school board meetings. They didn’t prioritize cartels. They didn’t prioritize illegal immigrants with criminal records. They didn’t prioritize, again, the idea of actual crime. They started sanctuary cities. They started giving out fentanyl and drugs. And so it’s kind of the opposite. Now, new administrations come in and they have opened up a task force on these hate groups and domestic terror groups.
SPEAKER 07 :
And there’s been the responses of bringing in the National Guard in these areas.
SPEAKER 06 :
a lot of these cities obviously there’s been that’s controversial we know now see between antifa and the national guard is happening as we speak in ice as we speak so again a couple of those incidents were related to uh veterans with ptsd which i think is a somewhat separate issue that the government can do a better job on right um one of my good friends just became the general counsel for veterans affairs and just got confirmed in that big confirmation that they did like 100 plus confirmations last night, which is a great move by Senator Thune, the majority leader, to kind of stick it to the Democrats during the shutdown. It’s like, well, we can still confirm all of the nominees you’ve been holding up for nine months. So, you know, we’re going to work with him on that. On the other issue, though, this is the first administration that has prioritized these domestic groups who are targeting people because of their political views, whether they are elected officials or high profile or just happen to be activists with different views.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yep, absolutely. Let’s go ahead and take some more calls as we try to get through as many of these as we can. Let’s go to Beth, who’s calling in Arizona, who is watching on Rumble, one of our favorite platforms. Beth, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, thank you. My question, my husband and I were discussing today that these rioters have to be arrested three times before they are charged with a crime. Why Why is that? I mean, why can they not? I mean, they commit the crime. The first time they arrest them, if they would charge them, put them in jail because they are Of course, criminals.
SPEAKER 08 :
I think we have an answer for that for you. What I would say, and I’ll also pass it over to Jordan, is that one, that may be a specific case in a specific area, but I don’t think that you can broadly say that you have to be arrested.
SPEAKER 06 :
There are other crimes where there’s three strikes and you get a much more serious sentence. uh that’s not what we’re talking about here so don’t confuse that also local police departments and usually those in uh heavily populated areas do have to prioritize who is going to take the space up right in their local prisons in the period between arresting someone and then actually sending them off at a prison into jail after their trial right right so they have to prioritize what space do we have i mean that’s a so again that doesn’t more discretionary doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be prioritizing people who are burning down cities and attacking federal officials. But there has to be some kind of discretion into who is going to fill up the prisons first. And I think we’re seeing that now. That’s why ICE is getting involved on its own with its own detention facilities because local police could not… take on the amount of people that ICE is apprehending. So the federal government has set up its own centers.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s a good example. The other caveat I think there, Jordan, is in many of these jurisdictions where there are people of this ideology wanting to have these riots, a lot of times there’s a district attorney there that is very far left, that we know that the plan that the Open Society Foundation to get these type of people District attorneys elected, spending money in races that no one ever really thinks about, actually pouring in cash to get people with the leftist ideology into the DA there. A lot of times it’s the DA who has prosecutorial discretion of, are we going to use our resources on this individual to prosecute?
SPEAKER 06 :
The people that would be are people who actually, they weren’t just there in the crowd. So unlike how they treated January 6th and what happened with those folks, because again, that shows you where their priorities were. They would go after the people that actually committed the most violent acts first. So if you were in the protest that turns violent, you’re not necessarily going to be mass arresting. but if you’re if you’re the one punching the police officer or throwing a molotov cocktail well that’s the person who should be taking up the space in the jail that night and and ultimately prosecuted because prosecuting people again just for being there is not so easy as much it’s you want to have a direct tie to uh usually more criminal activity whether that’s and i think what’s important here is going after the antifa organizing that alone is a criminal kind of rico a situation, a conspiracy organized, and those organizers, even if they never take the streets and never punch the police officer, are just as guilty as the person who throws the punch. And so it’s actually, I think, more important, like we were talking about, taking alive cartel leaders to dismantle the cartel. We have to find the leadership underground and the sources, financial resources that they have, who’s dropping off the bricks, who is putting this together, saying this day we’re going to have these people show up. It’s not just random grassroots.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I want to take another call. Let’s go to Russ because it’s going to tie into our next segment. Russ, go ahead in Ohio. Okay. I’m going to try to stay calm.
SPEAKER 10 :
I wasn’t real calm with the… The man that talked to me. But I am so frustrated with some of the stuff going on, especially these riots. These communists are shooting us. We’re not shooting back. We’ll just leave it at that. But what I’m really frustrated about today is I saw Lindsey Graham on Hannity last night, and I saw him with A.G. Bondi yesterday, and he was so seething angry. Yep.
SPEAKER 06 :
and that’s how i feel right now about this guy from virginia that’s getting away with all this stuff i don’t understand why he hasn’t been arrested is there a law against arresting him i mean again you know we talked about freedom of speech things out of context is he using his ufd really you know mean what he says i think here they was very direct kept doubling down and there could have been some legal issues especially if it was immediately take it to law enforcement we do know also the speaker was notified about it at the time right so they had some decisions to make as well about how to deal with this since the threat was posed to them so i think again it’s words usually take words and actions but If you’re talking about your place of employment, no, you’d be fired. If you’re talking about a high school kid, they’d be arrested. Suspended at least. They’re not going to be charged with as serious of a crime. And their parents might be in trouble if their parents were the ones getting those messages or other people who didn’t report it. This individual did report it. And so people, decisions were made. What I think is worse here… is that the Democrats in the Commonwealth of Virginia and in the federal government, so that senators and congressmen are standing with this candidate. I mean, Tim Kaine was ready to go to the fundraiser. The candidate himself had to shut the fundraiser down, and Tim Kaine still wanted to go. Let’s take Vince in Virginia. So Tim Kaine wants this to happen to your kids? That’s what I’d ask him.
SPEAKER 07 :
To wrap up our calls today, Bob, unfortunately, not going to be able to get to you. Vince in Virginia, go ahead. Last call of the day.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, thanks, guys. Thanks. Yeah, guys, I’m calling you from Williamsburg, Virginia, birthplace of America. I’m a lifelong Williamsburg, Virginia guy, same age as Jay Jones. Jay Jones actually went to William & Mary here in Williamsburg, ran into him a couple times. I’m going to tell you guys, Virginia is under attack. Just point blank, Virginia is under attack. Abigail Spanberger refuses to disvalue him from the ticket, tell him to get off the ticket, because our rights are under attack. They want to legalize marijuana, recreational marijuana in Virginia. They want to take our guns, and next is the freedom. Abigail Spanberger is dead set on attacking the Second Amendment right here in the birthplace of America, and Jay Jones is a huge part of that. Jay Jones has to stay on that ticket, because if he’s off that ticket… Jason Menard stays in, and he won’t prosecute the BS that they’re going to try to push. I feel like they’re going to try to turn Virginia into a copy, cut, and paste of Colorado. Prove me wrong.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. Well, thank you, Vince. I mean, we’ve got a lot of Virginia politics there. Just checked in the last minute there. But I wanted to hear from someone locally. Clearly, you’re dealing with it right now. When we get back in the next segment, Rick Grinnell is going to be joining us. We’re talking about that spying situation. You’re talking about Lindsey Graham being upset. You know why he’s upset also. I saw a video of him saying, you know, why were they looking at my phone records? We’ll get to that and so much more coming up with Rick Grinnell here in the next segment. While you can, support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. We’ve got a couple minutes until we’re back. It’s the perfect time to go on, make your donation, and come right back with Rick Grinnell. Welcome back to Secular. Rick Grinnell’s joining us right now. Rick, this wasn’t going to be the main topic we’re going to talk about, but we have had some breaking news while we’ve been on the air. Of course, it has to do with California and the Pacific Palisades fires. It seems like they have caught somebody who was responsible, potentially, a potential arson in this situation. I just wanted to get your feedback on this as this has been ongoing for months and months and months. It’s been pretty quiet. We haven’t heard much about this. Then all of a sudden, boom, they found this person. I wanted to get your thoughts.
SPEAKER 04 :
I have been briefed on the situation, and I’m extremely pleased. I think our U.S. Attorney Bill Assele in Southern California has done a phenomenal job working with DOJ and the FBI. This is something that when Bill came in as the U.S. Attorney, he was focused on. This has been a devastating fire. We need to have accountability for how this started. We know that it just wasn’t random. and i think when you follow the trail as they did and they figure out exactly who was up there they have videotape evidence they have other information i think this is a great day for holding people accountable who produced one of the most horrific acts in los angeles and uh we we all feel a little bit safer knowing that the person who did this has uh been caught and will be charged
SPEAKER 08 :
Rick, back to the topic that we were going to actually lead with before this breaking news, which is, as I agree, the people of Los Angeles can get some justice and maybe feel like the government is doing their job as well of going after the perpetrators of such things. But yesterday we found out some things that the government was doing that was not something that should have been their job, and that was when Special Counsel Jack Smith was was getting the phone data and records of eight U.S. senators and one member of the House of Representatives effectively spying on elected members of Congress as a part of his investigation into President Trump. We were shocked but not shocked at the same time because we’ve seen the abuse. from that special counsel’s office, from the Department of Justice that we saw under the Biden administration. I want to get your thoughts on this about how far does this go? We keep getting new revelations of how bad they were running this operation for political purposes. And I’m just I’m curious, are we going to see more? And is it going to get worse?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I would equate this a little bit to the fire. We know that we’ve had this catastrophic situation where DOJ and the FBI have really wreaked havoc on Americans, whether it’s tech companies working with the government to go after and debank and try to deplatform individuals. or groups that have created lists of people who are critics of DOJ and critics of the FBI that were targeted. The situation that unfolded in the last administration with government agencies really attacking individuals is so horrific that holding these individuals to account, being transparent, unearthing all of the evidence to show exactly what the government did to us is extremely helpful. The people want to know that their government is transparent And when it makes mistakes, that there is a process to come forward and say, this is what happened. This is what we did. This is how individuals were abused. So I think the transparency thing is crucial. But there’s also an accountability. mechanism here. We need to hold the people accountable who did this so that it doesn’t happen again. I think this goes into Comey and it goes into uncovering, and I’m glad Congress and the FBI and DOJ now are working together to uncover exactly the strategy of the last administration and the last DOJ and the last FBI, because we have to make sure that our government is working with us, not against us, not targeting individuals. And when you’re working with the private sector phone companies to tap people’s phones, this is illegal, immoral, and outrageous. And what we have to be able to do is hold these individuals to account. I hope that we figure out what private companies worked with the government to turn over this information instead of fight against turning over this information. This is a situation that we need to make sure doesn’t ever happen again.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, Rick, I think that that brings up a very interesting point. You know, we spent so many years talking about sort of the corruption behind the scenes, what was going on, whether that was in the FBI or the CIA or all these kind of issues under the last administration that it almost becomes a little harder to retrain ourselves and our audience to now think about this being a brand new crisis. group of people that’s in charge right now. As someone who’s been there during those transition years, what is that like for people to understand that there is kind of a new group of people in town and they can put a little bit more trust in what’s happening?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it takes political leadership to work with the career people to uncover and expose all of the hidden strategies. And that’s what we’re seeing now is that this happened at DOJ, this happened at FBI, and we now need to make sure that the current leadership is accountable to the people. So you have to work within your agencies to figure out what happened and then just come clean. And don’t try to spin it, don’t try to hide it. just come clean and what i did as dni is is make sure that all of the redacted information that was damaging to the agencies to the intel agencies was just put into the public uh We knew that the information that we were uncovering was not a source or a method that was going to damage the intelligence agencies. We knew that it was just bad PR for a strategy of targeting political opponents. And so we unearthed it. We were very transparent. Transparency is not a political strategy. thing. It’s an actual accountability strategy. And so I hope that our political leaders dig deep into their agencies to uncover all of the things that have been happening targeting Americans.
SPEAKER 08 :
Rick, real quick question here at the end because we only got a couple minutes left, but couldn’t let you go without getting your thoughts on that disastrous interview that the candidate running for governor in California decided that, you know, it’s not worth my time to answer a question to a reporter when they ask, how will you reach out to Trump voters?
SPEAKER 04 :
look i hope everybody watches this katie porter just reminded all of us that she is southern california kamala she is someone who has not been vetted uh is ill-equipped to lead the state of california just watch the clip look at her it was a really ugly situation where she is unable to actually just be transparent offer explanations and she told us and she doesn’t wanna work with any Republicans and she doesn’t need us to win. And so she is absolutely gonna have this continued strategy of partisanship. And I think she demonstrated that she was extremely weak and petty. And that interview I think is the end of her campaign.
SPEAKER 07 :
Rick, thanks so much for joining us today. It was a packed show. We appreciate all of you who watched today. We rocked through it. So many different topics, so many different questions that came in. We appreciate everyone who called in as well. I do want to encourage you here because we only have 30 seconds left on this show today. Support the work of the ACLJ. That supports this show. It also supports our incredible legal work. And we’ll dive in more into that in the coming days. I mean, we have done a lot. We have filed at Supreme Court a case being heard today on Election Day voting rules. We have a critical FOIA operation right now over a Biden-Jack Smith case. There’s so much I can cover in 10 seconds here. Over the last year we’ve engaged in, I’m going to read these off, 216 pro-life cases, 98 international cases, 244 school matters, 181 government cases, 36 cases battling anti-Semitism, 117 religious liberty cases, and so much more. Talk to you tomorrow.
