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In this engaging episode of Sekulow, we dive deep into the latest political storm surrounding the President’s controversial decision to pardon Hunter Biden. Our knowledgeable hosts unpack the constitutional authority, historical precedents, and the significant ramifications this decision holds for the political landscape. With reactions split across party lines, we explore how this development could pave the way for future administrations to wield the pardon power.
SPEAKER 14 :
after last night’s breaking news we’re breaking down what you should know about hunter biden’s pardon 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, Jordan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right, folks. Welcome to Sekulow. Well, after the Thanksgiving holiday, it wasn’t just the turkey that got pardoned, Logan. It was also Hunter Biden. And let me tell you this right off the bat. The president has pardon power. Universal. Not Kareem Jean-Pierre. Not his spokespeople. Not people on CNN. Not people on MSNBC. And by the way, the president of the United States, President Biden, and whether that’s President Trump in the future, who has a lot of pressure on him. to issue a lot of pardons on day one. This is a power the Constitution and the legal community has given to the President of the United States as Commander-in-Chief. He can both pardon… or commute sentences pardon means your record is cleansed only on federal issues so it does not involve state crimes a commutation means you’ve served your time uh you should be released if you’re incarcerated that crime should or that crime should kind of no longer be following you around in life so what I have to hear what I like what I think is so hilarious about this for the left And there’s not a lot of funny things usually about the pardon power. But the funny thing here was that the left put out until last week, I think, Kareem Jean-Pierre, right before Thanksgiving. Yeah, I feel for her in some ways because clearly they gave her that message. What I wonder is, did they even ask Joe Biden… because we’ve all talked about how this was a White House that looked like it was being run by someone other than Joe Biden right like it didn’t seem like he was actually in charge it’s so they thought they could go out there and make these big huge statements about democracy and even after he was pushed out of being president let me tell you the moment Joe Biden said I don’t care about any of your stinking protocols I don’t want to talk to Kareem Jean-Pierre I’m going to I don’t want to listen to you you are a bunch of turncoat traders and I’m going to do whatever I can do legally by the way legally with his position so be very nervous and cautious folks about jumping on some train that’s oh hunter by this hunter by that when President Trump has got immense pressure to pardon both some of the people involved with January 6th he put that in his statement you
SPEAKER 06 :
even the last night. I mean, it was on there saying, you know, this kind of opens that door to making this a bit more easy to do when it comes to Hunter Biden.
SPEAKER 05 :
I would say 100% it opens that door. The reaction, Will, on the left is meltdown, which is interesting. The right is just kind of poking fun at Kareem Jean-Pierre.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, Rick Grinnell said, hey, you should flip over to MSNBC, so I did, and it was them trying so hard, so hard to spin, and then a few of them just being like… You know what? It is what it is. It is what it is, Logan, because they just realized they pushed the guy out of being president. I think so. And I think you do have that situation. If he had not doubled and tripled and quadrupled down on the pardons. on not pardoning, I don’t think anyone would care. I think we would understand. It’s your kid. I don’t think he thought he was going to lose or not going to be the president. I thought he had another four years. Yeah. He thought he had another four years. He thought he had another four years. Then when it wasn’t, and then when it was definitely that Kamala didn’t, it’s like, okay, at this point, like you said, forced out. I don’t necessarily blame him for doing this, whether I agree with the decision or not. I understand the point that you’re angry. It is what it is. And we have to move on. But what it does do is lower… The bar. The bar for pardoning, which I think is interesting. It’s kind of like impeachment in that sense, which is if you lower the bar for impeachment for Trump, you’ll have to lower the bar for impeachment for any other president. And I feel like it is very similar with the pardon situation here, which is if you lower the bar for your family, you all of a sudden are lowering the bar for pardons overall.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, absolutely. I remember there was a lot of talk. when President Trump left office about the idea of a self-pardon. He decided not to do that. But again, this also plays into that. I mean, this gets as close as you can to a self-pardon is pardoning your son for crimes that were completely unrelated to anything involving politics or the White House. We want to take your calls, though. 1-800-684-3110. What do you think about this move now that we’ve explained how it could actually be beneficial? to President Trump as he takes office. 1-800-684-3110. And I think that’s why the American left is freaked out. Joe Biden just set a new lower bar for president and that helps President Trump. We’ll be right back on Secula. All right, welcome back to Sekulow. Do we have some soundbites on this too, Will? I mean, just because it wasn’t just Kareem Jean-Pierre. I don’t want to just beat up on her. It was President Biden too. And listen, I think it was a President Biden… imagining at that moment when he was making those comments one he didn’t even know how the legal system would come out and I just think at this point because he was going to lose this power very soon that if this charges which most people expected to be kind of a slap on the wrist you’ve repaid maybe some fines no jail time kind of situation well now you’re looking at your own party pushed you out your own party has been you know going nuts on if Donald Trump comes in he’s going to let out like you know the the mega warriors who are going to take over the country all those crazy conspiracy theories right and I think this actually leads to you know what some of these Joe Rogan type characters and others have said which was and you’ve said it will I mean we’ve all kind of said to each other It seemed like when Joe Biden was voting that day, he had a big smile on his face and he knew that with that big smile on his face, Harris was down in every major poll. And he put on a Make America Great Again hat.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I think he had gone definitely rogue in terms of what they expected. There’s a lot of reports. There’s lots of even reports that… Him endorsing Harris was sort of a slap in the face moment because he didn’t want out. He thought, well, this is not going to be what they wanted because maybe the Obamas and the Pelosi’s wanted. I think I forgot who said that. John Morgan said that on Chris Cuomo show that he had heard that’s what had happened. So a lot of those talks had happened where he was just bitter about everything that went down.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. And I’m going to first I want to read some tweets for you of how some of the left is taking this news today. Here’s the Democrat governor of Colorado. While as a father, I certainly understand President Joe Biden’s natural desire to help his son by pardoning him. I am disappointed. that he put his family ahead of country. This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation. Mark Penn, former Hillary Clinton longtime advisor, disgraceful pardon. This was not a pardon of just Hunter Biden, but of Joe Biden himself as his son ran a scheme with Joe’s brother to shake down adversaries of over $20 million and then didn’t even pay taxes on it. And the loot was distributed even to grandchildren. This is yet another of many issues the American public was shamefully gaslighted over. So a Hillary Clinton advisor now sounding more like a right-wing pundit when it comes to that. And then you’ve got this, Congressman Greg Lansman. As a father, I get it. But as someone who wants people to believe in public service again, it’s a setback. So the left is having a meltdown over this. And part of the reason is because they were so adamant by believing what the White House was telling them that he would not issue such a pardon. Here’s a super cut of folks on MSNBC. Back through, this is over a span of time when the White House kept telling everyone there will not be a pardon for Hunter Biden. Here’s how MSNBC chose to report this by two.
SPEAKER 01 :
A current president of the United States has so much respect for the law that he has said he would not pardon his son. I mean, what you know, again, it’s all about the contrast.
SPEAKER 12 :
President Biden saying I will respect whatever this jury decides versus Donald Trump after he was convicted on 34 counts, saying the entire system is rigged against him.
SPEAKER 08 :
Their latest attack has been that Joe Biden has politicized and weaponized the DOJ, right? That was the whole argument around Donald Trump’s conviction. And this week, of course, Hunter Biden was found guilty, and Joe Biden has very clearly said he would not pardon his son, he would not commute his sentence. How stark is this difference? I mean, how can Republicans keep making this argument now that Joe Biden has really put it out there? Where’s Hunter? And he stood there in a courtroom, flanked by his family, and he’s accepted his sentence.
SPEAKER 10 :
He is not pardoning his son, which he could do. These are federal charges. He is not doing that. He is not doing it because he is living what it means to have a rule of law in this country. I mean, if you want to know if he believes it, you can actually see what is happening with his own son.
SPEAKER 05 :
I mean… There you go right there. The left, that was Andrew Weissman. Those were the Mueller team guys. They praised him for being, he was like the most gracious. He’s like above the legal system.
SPEAKER 06 :
Captain America.
SPEAKER 05 :
How could you be? And now you know what Joe Biden showed? and you know what folks this isn’t necessarily bad there’s a reason why the founding fathers put this in our constitution it’s because there was a high level and there always has been in politics and it’s happened to Donald Trump for the legal system and the justice system and the IRS and the other government agencies to come down hard on political leaders that they disagree with and so was hunter biden treated fairly or not seems like he was actually treated sometimes better than others because of like the laptop he got totally what but we all eventually learned that that stuff was not real that he’s gone through rehab very publicly it’s been this very kind of interesting public story yeah i think at the end of the day a president is a president but they are also a father and when you know that you have that power to maybe help your son stay on the right track this time why aren’t you going to give it to him and by the way I don’t want to hear another liberal the entire Trump presidency ever once complain about a single person Donald Trump pardons because none is going to be like this one
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I think you look at this one, and you can look at some of the ones that Trump did do, and they were some high-level people that were within the Trump world.
SPEAKER 05 :
They may have been his friends. Incarcerated.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, whether that was Manafort or any of these ones, Roger Stone or whoever it may be, that were pardoned over time.
SPEAKER 05 :
He wanted a commutation.
SPEAKER 04 :
Not Roger Stone.
SPEAKER 05 :
He wanted to keep fighting, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Right, yeah. I believe there was a commutation there so that he could continue to fight. They put Paul Manafort in solitary confinement.
SPEAKER 05 :
For God’s sakes, folks. And he got a pardon, and the left went… nuts. That’s what I’m more saying. Hunter Biden’s been painting million dollar pictures.
SPEAKER 06 :
This is where we are in time so you know what? It is what it is. This is the law of the land. But I think if it didn’t come down to all of those super cuts you just saw, where there is 10 minutes or so, at least, that people have already put together of them saying there’s no chance. And the reason there’s no chance he’s going to pardon him is because he’s so great. He is America’s America. He is the greatest of the greatest. If you had not said that, I don’t think you would have any issues here. I think people would understand and people would expect that you would do this.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and I think one thing to also point out, Jordan, is that the left loves to put arbitrary restrictions on elected officials like the president of the United States, but are completely fine with the bureaucracy running amok and doing whatever they want. But when you read the article of the Constitution, the clause that talks about pardons, Article 2 says, article two section two clause one we have uh he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the united states except in cases of impeachment there’s not a ton of of over restrictive what kind you can put placement of that yeah the first clause
SPEAKER 05 :
under the Constitution establishing the presidency of the United States as Commander-in-Chief. Clause 1 is the pardon power. That is how concerned our founding fathers were with those who were elected. Because let me tell you, you think our politics is rough. It is nothing like it used to be. I mean, not even, it may have gotten close under the Trump years. And of course, we’ve seen political violence, unfortunately, throughout our history. And that’s that liberty versus freedom balance that we constantly have to look at. But the fact is, Article 2, Section 1, gives you the pardon powers president it’s it’s a very important power and listen there’s going to be a lot of other parts of people like you said logan that did much worse things yeah i’m sure those will come out over the next few weeks let’s go ahead and take a call real quick let’s go to david who’s calling watching on youtube david you’re on the air hey thanks guys um and listening to y’all uh really feeds into the comment that uh
SPEAKER 16 :
I have. We’ve we and I’m talking about from at least right leaning center on over to the more big C conservatives. We’ve known all along what the shenanigans would be. And we’ve been raked over the coals or even thinking such a thing.
SPEAKER 06 :
Even just asking how many times they asked about Hunter Biden over and over and over again because we kind of knew this is where it was going.
SPEAKER 04 :
I don’t even know if I’d go so far as to say it’s shenanigans. This is a constitutional power of the president. The fact the left believed him when he said, I’m not going to pardon my own son because he has the power to do it. Did he ever say it after he was not running for re-election? From the White House. The White House did put out statements.
SPEAKER 05 :
No, no, did he?
SPEAKER 04 :
I don’t know if he did in person.
SPEAKER 05 :
That video was way before, right? Correct.
SPEAKER 04 :
But even that fact, it’s a power of the president under the Constitution. It doesn’t say except for family members. It says except for in cases of impeachment. So it gives the Congress that oversight for the political trials. But it’s our culture that has created really limitations in saying, oh, he’s got to follow the rule of law. He has the power.
SPEAKER 05 :
to pardon so how is that not following the rule of law based in our constitution no i i think listen folks this is a time to support the work of the aclj it’s to explain these issues to get to the bottom of these issues there’s going to be a lot of this under the trump presidency And is the left going to forget that they just had a meltdown today and yesterday over the fact that President Biden made this move and then they’re going to act like, you know, what President Trump is doing is fascist and Hitler-esque again? Because we’re just going to point right to this one. Pardoning your family members, which, by the way, the president has the absolute authority to do it. Lord knows if I was president of the United States and my son was in a position like that or child, I’d certainly pardon them. And Logan, I hope if I was in that situation, you were present. Pardon me.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think that’s pretty good.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know TDS continues in Washington DC as you know with Trump derangement syndrome they’re letting out on Joe Biden I don’t know if they’ll be JBS there might be I mean based off this news except for the fact that he’s an outgoing president I think we can all move on it’s like they still figured out a way to make Joe Biden the news of the day by just going after him if you’re listening to a lot of conservatives you know what they’ve said other than saying you know it is weird that they lied about this for two years and no one believed any of their lies and neither did any of us by the way if the what they were saying because they were hoping at that time those trials remember were supposed to be done yeah well they kept asking i think the reason you have uh maybe the more conservative leaning news people asking
SPEAKER 06 :
Kareem Jean-Pierre knows over and over, even though she has said no over and over and over again, it’s because we knew this is where it was going. Now, supposedly she’s tried to spit it already. I think she put out some kind of statement.
SPEAKER 05 :
I have not seen it yet. Hey, T, will you go look for this? Because she’s tried to put out a statement that this does not actually contradict… what she had been saying for the podium. And I would love to read how that is possible.
SPEAKER 06 :
We’ll try to find it here. And obviously they’ll probably take questions later today during the press briefing.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, one thing I wanted to know before we take the call is that tomorrow is Giving Tuesday, Logan, and that is one of those important days of the year. It’s set aside after we’ve had Black Friday, which I was in New York City for. I want to say good for New York, the fact that you could barely get down the street. Good sign for retail, good sign for spending. But also, of course, you’ve got Cyber Monday today. But that doesn’t mean that while you’re on your different sites, whether it’s Amazon dropping, and they’ve been having it for four days at this point, or wherever you go, think about, hey, you know what? While I’m spending all this and I’ve put this aside, because you’ve saved some money today, maybe make that $20 donation to the ACLJ during… a Cyber Monday and the reason I say that is you’re seeing the savings you’re getting if you’ve if you got half off the TV that you wanted put 20 bucks aside donate it to ACLJ and Logan what does that become?
SPEAKER 06 :
40 becomes 40. Yeah, everything is doubled right now and matched. It is a really important time. It’s our Faith and Freedom year-end drive. We really know that for all organizations, December is the biggest month as people start to decide where they’re going to give charitably. So why don’t you start it off strong? So we appreciate if you would do that today and make your donation during this Faith and Freedom drive. as we are headed towards a historic Christmas season. Honestly, I’ll tell you the truth, because we map this stuff out, the way the weeks line up, whether it was Thanksgiving or Christmas this year, there’s not as much time for us to do our traditional sort of fundraising, just due to the way, you know, people’s vacations and everything. So if you’re going to make your donation and you can, I encourage you to do it now. Go to ACLJ.org and support our work. Again, gifts are doubled and matched throughout this month. It’s a very important time, as Jordan said. Tomorrow’s Giving Tuesday, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it today because it’s the same deal. Gifts are doubled.
SPEAKER 05 :
Let’s go to Jeff in North Carolina Online 1 before we get to some of the other nomination topics that hit last night in the news that I definitely want to cover because the media, I think they were so not expecting this. They thought it was going to be cash Patel day. Let’s say that instead it is Joe Biden beat up on the old Joe Biden from the left conservatives have an honest. I think, you know, this is a power of the president. It’s his son. It looked like those cases were going to be settled and it wasn’t going to be an issue. They didn’t get settled. He is not going to get another four years. He knew he wasn’t going to get another four years or even a friendly. I guarantee you this has been in the works for, for a very long time he’s just kept the team around it extremely close but he’s president of the United States you can criticize this all you want but this is a constitutional power this is not a legislative power it’s a constitutional power and hopefully if you mix in what President Trump is hoping to do that’s why I want to talk to Jeff in North Carolina hey Jeff you’re on the air
SPEAKER 15 :
Hey, guys, thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to say I truly believe it doesn’t matter what happens when Trump starts pardoning some of these Jan 6 folks that absolutely should not be in prison and had their lives destroyed. Once that happens, they’re just going to spend this as Trump’s releasing criminals, Hunter was just a troubled guy with a drug addiction, and his father’s just trying to help him. That’s the way they’re going to spend it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I think… They could spit it however they want the fact is he was convicted of crimes people on January 6th were convicted of crimes and that’s what the pardon power is about.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right and also you have to take into account is that it was his justice department while some of it may have started before he was president but it was his justice department that followed this through and ended up charging and getting a conviction of Hunter Biden but Karine Jean-Pierre, we mentioned that she’s already trying to spin it. She was asked on Air Force One. We have a sound bite from this morning. And this is how she kind of lays it out in bite seven. We’ll go ahead and take a listen to this. And there is some background airplane noise because they are on Air Force One. But let’s go ahead and play bite seven.
SPEAKER 13 :
You have said repeatedly yourself since the election, the president has said for months no pardon was coming. I just wanted to ask you, could those statements now be seen as lies from the American people? Is there really a credibility issue here given now this announcement?
SPEAKER 02 :
First of all, one of the things that the president always believes is to be truthful to the American people. That is something that he always truly believes. And if you see the end of his, I assume that you’ve read his statement and you look at the end of that statement, and he actually says that in the first line in the last paragraph. and respects the thinking and how the American people will actually see this in his decision-making. And I would encourage everyone to read in full the President’s statement. I think he lays out his thought process. He lays out how he came to this decision. He came to this decision this weekend. So let’s be very clear about that. He says it himself. It’s in his voice. He said he came to this decision this weekend. And he said he wrestled with this. And because he believes in the Justice Simpson, but he also believes that the war politics infected the process and led to a miscarriage of justice.
SPEAKER 05 :
So she didn’t want to use the term lawfare because that’s our term. But miscarriage of justice, though, and miscarriage of justice. The idea is, listen, she’s put a difficult spot because she was told by Joe Biden over and over. I don’t know why she’s even still there. The moment Joe Biden was pushed out, if I was Creed John Pierre, I would say this is going to be a mess. This is going to be a mess.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER 05 :
Because this hasn’t happened before. He’s probably very unhappy. And that means on things like this that aren’t going to endanger the American people. I’m not you know that he is going to make up his own mind and it is he doesn’t care about what his advisors have to say this is the end of his political career.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah you have to remember that she’s not the one to blame for the actual messaging point they’ve given her that messaging point for years she now has to be the person who has to go clean it up unfortunately that is the role of being in the press secretary and having these conversations why it’s very important. If I was her I would have resigned that day and moved on.
SPEAKER 05 :
yeah the day he told her he told her yeah maybe he told her because she said this weekend if she knew it this weekend i would have said mr president i went out there 25 times yeah i said this for you that’s what you told me i i’m not even disagreeing with your move i’d like to just hand this over to someone else to take the questions because i’m going to get beat up 40 days which is going to make you look bad yeah absolutely and instead though this white house because they never wanted joe biden to be running things
SPEAKER 06 :
it’s like they’re upset the one time he actually made a decision right probably twice probably when he endorsed kamala harris and probably uh this situation here phone lines are open for you because we have a second half hour coming up if you don’t get us on your local station find us broadcasting live on aclj.org on youtube on rumble we are there on x you can find this broadcast so make sure you tune in each and every day you can if you just listen watch us you can see us in living color at 1-800-684-3110 also to have your voice heard on the air and of course We are kicking off today, our December drive. Right now, it’s the end of the year. This is the most important time to support the work of the ACLJ. And hey, fun thing, given Tuesday’s tomorrow, but a fun thing, Jingle Smells, our Christmas movie that we’re all in, is available right now on the Roku channel for absolutely free. You just got to watch some ads. So take a look at that, jinglesmells.movie.
SPEAKER 14 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow.
SPEAKER 05 :
And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. All right, I want to go to the phones. I’ll take as these pardon calls come in. I think it’s important to educate the American people on how broad the pardon power is. And it is only the only limits to the pardon power. are the federal issues you know you cannot pardon yourself from a state action because of the 10th amendment and those are separate criminal charges but I want to take Tim’s call out of Colorado we got a lot of other things to talk about but this is driving the news it’s also driving the questions about what kind of power what kind of precedent this sets for incoming President Trump and his team because the pardon process works two ways there’s a formal one where you’ll see a lot of people like death row and all those things they go through a system of there’s a pardon office but also the president just like how we argued had the ability to declassify whatever he wants also has the power to pardon whoever he wants from federal charges without question again it usually happens when they are leaving office because they don’t want to be concerned about political ramifications not just for themselves but for their party and also the potential for even though you can do it Could you possibly be impeached? And I think that’s the question Tim wants to know about, I think, looking into the future. Hey, Tim, welcome to Sekulow. You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 17 :
Thank you, gentlemen. Yeah, in my mind, the Supreme Court, if they have a conflict of interest, they cannot preside over a case, right? So how can he, as the court— True at all.
SPEAKER 05 :
Tim, no one can make a Supreme Court justice refuse themselves. They oftentimes in hearings. when they’re about to be a justice, okay? And so if they were working, let’s say, at the Department of Justice before that, and they were involved in a case, they will oftentimes agree to the Senate Judiciary Committee and the senators that they’re meeting with that they will not participate in that case. No one. though can can force you can’t file you can’t ask for a supreme court justice to recuse themselves uh and so that i just wanted to clarify that for people right there and tim that’s kind of a lesser known thing because in other court every other court system including federal you can do that but go ahead tim uh well yeah it just seems like such a huge conflict of interest for him to pardon his own child and as far as i know no president’s ever done that before I don’t believe that they’ve ever pardoned their own child. They’ve certainly pardoned their top advisors, and their friends. I remember, what was Bill Clinton’s with Mark Rich? He was living in Switzerland as a fugitive from U.S. justice and ultimately was pardoned. He was a major funder. I think it was his ex-wife at the time, but that was only because of the legal issues. And she was a major donor to the Democrat Party. Say what you will about it. It’s a power that, again, a constitutional power of the commander.
SPEAKER 04 :
And even at that time, there were headlines, Bill Clinton’s last outrage. This is from the Brookings Institute. The president’s defenders feel betrayed by his pardon of Mark Rich. I feel like the pardon power, because it is so broad when it comes to federal crimes and the only limitation on federal crimes is the impeachment issue, is that. It has the ability to unilaterally outrage people when it’s used. And there is a reason, as you’ve mentioned already on this broadcast, that the founders left it broad for the president. It’s a check on the judicial system. Our entire system is checks and balances. So the fact that President Biden was able to use this on his own son, of course he was. It may not be what people like or the right of that, but… This is the elected president of the United States using a constitutional power in the last days of his presidency. You actually see this always in the last days of presidency, pardons that upset certain people.
SPEAKER 05 :
President Trump pardoned Jared Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, in 2020. He is now, I believe, the nominee to be ambassador to France. Right. That would have been an issue for him, but it’s no longer an issue. And so, again… a family member as well so you might have said it wasn’t you know his son but it was you know the father-in-law of his daughter so take it with a grain of salt remember i think this is actually a good sign for those political prosecutions that came earlier Welcome back to Seculo. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. That’s 1-800-684-3110. And let me say this, too. We got so much into the news. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. And we appreciate so many of you who donated until midnight on Saturday to support the work of the ACLJ. These are, you know, between November and December. And you may wonder, like, why are we back at it again? These are the two months that make it possible for us not just to be able to continue our work this month. We’ve got those resources really set aside and we know and we’ve learned from history how you can get administration that doesn’t agree with you as much making decisions that they never would have made before. but for the fact that they are leaving office and not up for re-election and Joe Biden is in that unique situation so you really have to watch it it happened you know this is when President Obama took a real I think first step the United Nations by not supporting Israel at the UN Security Council and instead abstaining from a vote that criticized Israel so we have to watch out for things like this but it’s also Logan this is a time to donate because this is how we’re ready to hit the ground running on January 1st and lord knows with Donald Trump coming in and a new congress coming in there’s going to be plenty to work on.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and I think with Israel being such a hot topic still, I mean, look, we had it over the weekend. You had President Biden leaving a bookstore. Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, carrying a very… He’s barely gotten the ceasefire done with Hezbollah, and it’s still right on the edge.
SPEAKER 06 :
So where is President Biden? He is leaving a bookstore on Black Friday with a book that is notoriously known.
SPEAKER 05 :
It is the… best known book to make the case for why Palestinian terrorism isn’t actually terrorism.
SPEAKER 06 :
And that Israel shouldn’t exist entirely.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, The Hundred Years War on Palestine, A History of Settler, Colonial Conquest, and Resistance, 1917 to 2017. Those pictures are done on purpose.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. There’s no problem with reading something on the other side. We all do it. I think it’s important, actually, to always stay informed of what other people are saying, what they’re doing, and what their points are, so you can argue back. But if you’re doing essentially a photo op, Which is, here’s how I’m stimulating the economy on Black Friday. Just went in for a little light reading, picking up the hundred year war on Palestine. It’s kind of a ridiculous moment, but of course, this is how the Biden administration’s decided to wrap up.
SPEAKER 05 :
Anybody? No, it has. I mean, this is how the Biden administration has decided. It’s…
SPEAKER 04 :
We will see, though, what else they pull at the United Nations. And we also can’t forget what happened on Saturday. CeCe, a video was released by Hamas on Telegram of one of the American hostages, Eden Alexander, who has been held by Hamas for more than 420 days. And this is still the reality. While Joe Biden has his photo op with anti-Israel literature, Americans are still being held by the very terrorists that could get a boost from the American president holding a book like that at this time.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right. And, you know, it’s sad because it’s a 19 year old. Edan was 19 years old on October 7th when he was captured. And he grew up in New Jersey and then volunteered to go into the IDF, which so many do. You know, American Israeli citizens do that. and was captured, and now 422 days today still captured. And what’s really sad is you have, we had seven U.S. citizens. Three of them are now confirmed dead. So you have four possibly alive. We hope that Edan is alive now that we’ve seen this video. But, you know, the White House releases a statement that says it’s a cruel, this video that Hamas, released was a cruel reminder of Hamas’s terror against citizens. And what is the saddest part of that statement is why does the White House that has citizens still captive there, why do they need a reminder that we have US citizens there? That’s shameful. Now, we have been engaged at the UN on several things. We do oral interventions, We do written submissions supporting the hostages and demanding their release. We actually represented 10 of the hostages before the working group on enforced or involuntary disappearances. Four of those that we represented were released. Two, unfortunately, have been killed, and we have four that remain. And, of course, we don’t know whether they’re dead or alive. So we continue to fight for the hostages, and we don’t need a reminder.
SPEAKER 04 :
And Jordan, in this video, which also gives hope, because many times you don’t know if these videos were filmed a year ago and they’re just now releasing them, but he is talking about incoming President Donald Trump and actually pleads with the incoming president, president-elect, to use his influence and the full power of the United States to negotiate for our freedom. And I think what the hopeful side of that is, as tragic and horrific as this entire ordeal has been, is that the entire time we felt like the Biden administration was more playing to… limit the Israelis from getting things done than they were even caring about getting the hostages freed. Now there will be a sea change with even the ambassador to Israel being Mike Huckabee, whether it be just the foreign policy that will be in place, we know that it will be a foreign policy to empower Israel to protect their citizens, but also hopefully the terrorist in Hamas won’t see a friendly White House that is putting limits on their adversary and instead realize if we don’t get something done, nothing will be left. And hopefully that influence will be effective at getting these remaining hostages free and really getting an end to this war in Gaza by eliminating Hamas.
SPEAKER 05 :
videos are done with a gun to your head right um and you look at the darkness there you realize what they’re being kept in could you imagine that i mean for over 400 days being basically in pitch black dark um and you’re being told if you don’t say what we’re about to tell you to say we’ll kill you right here um and send that video to your family yeah if anything it’s a wake-up call that people are still alive i think there’s two things we have to be watch one um um is it true or did they make him film two versions Trump and a Biden one they’re terrorists yeah so just because they put one out where he says Trump doesn’t mean he also didn’t film one where he says Joe Biden please so take it with a grain of salt I’d still I think if yours is family that’s the best you could hope for is that you’ve seen some sign of life and maybe they’d be A better resource in the sense of looking at him now and realizing how much he’s changed in a year, probably like his physical, obviously physical appears, but it does also then provide president Trump. an individual American to point to to really I mean squeeze the the Muslim world into getting Hamas to release these final hostages listen Israel went into a very difficult ceasefire with Hezbollah it is barely holding as we speak the Hezbollah I think violated it within Two hours, I think they were firing back. I mean, so I just, I remember I was in New York over the weekend and you could see the tickers going across that Hezbollah did it violated, did it not violate it. Israel’s trying to keep it in place. So while Israel’s doing the right thing with Lebanon, you would think this is the time where the Trump team coming in can start putting really… The screws to, if you will, these Middle Eastern countries who have U.S. air bases and are basically a lot of these regimes, or if you want to say monarchies, that are kept in place because the U.S.
SPEAKER 06 :
defends it. Well, we know these conversations are happening. They have to be happening. Look, whether it’s Trudeau flying down to Mar-a-Lago or last night, Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife was eating with President Trump. Right. So you know that though I’m sure it’s a cordial conversation you know these are the topics that are coming up because it’s going to be an important time in the next few months to really hopefully bring this all to an end.
SPEAKER 05 :
And remember President Trump always wants to see how much can I get done even before I have to take the oath. Can you pull that kind of Ronald Reagan move while the day you’re taking the oath hostages are being released. We’ve seen success already. Yes, and there have been successes already around the world. I think that we’re about to see a big shift in how the… Well, we knew it happened the first time, but now that he’s got experience, Logan, I think if you’re one of those… And CeCe, if you’re one of those Putins or even Zelenskys or… or the Ayatollah in Iran, you realize you’re about to be, your people are about to starve again. I mean, literally, we are going to starve them out so that they take to the streets.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, and exactly what you said about Ronald Reagan, that was what was coming to my mind because I remember that. that those hostages were released, the Iranian hostages, U.S. citizens being held. As soon as Ronald Reagan is taking office, they are being released. And so I pray that that’s what happens with the hostages that are still remaining that Hamas has. I hope that the fear of God is put into them and they do release those hostages immediately.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes. I mean, I think this is a moment where we could bring this to a close, Logan.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is a great moment for you to support the work of the ACLJ as well, because as you’ve heard from CeCe and our incredible team here, we are not stopping. Things don’t stop over holidays. In fact, especially this holiday. they will heat up entirely so you’ll hear so much and and you’ll get so much information coming up especially in the new year we can’t do that we can’t have the best of the best the best video team the best media team the best legal team without your support all of it is funded really by individual small donors If we really look at it, most donors are given $50, $70. These are not people who are out there giving you huge checks. If you’d like to, of course, happy to match that. All donations are doubled right now. But understand, if you think, hey, I can only give $20, that is not insignificant. That is the backbone of the ACLJ.
SPEAKER 05 :
time if you are like one of those folks who gives at the end of the year that’s when you make your donations your bigger donations you still get that match like logan said so speaking to you as well aclj.org be part of the faith and freedom drive we’ll be right back All right, welcome back to Seculo. And just again, because we like to be fair, honest, and truthful to you here. We don’t spin things. We don’t put a lot of, you know, if it’s, again, it’s not that you don’t know where we are politically, where we are, you know, legally. But when we do talk about the power of the party, it is a basically limitless power it is a limitless power when it comes to federal offenses and let me just read it to you again and how you interpret it that way article 2 section 2 clause 1 so this is again very early in the presidential powers in the U.S. constitution so that clause one says the pre and he that’s you know talking about the president shall have the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States those are federal crimes except in cases of impeachment so you can’t pardon uh yourself from impeachment which is the only way congress has uh to remove a president who they believe is violating the law or dangerous to the country which we’ve also seen be politicized I would hope learning from this experience from the Democrats about what Joe Biden just did and the future for the next four years that they don’t waste all the American people’s times on impeachment, which honestly, if you look back on, distracted the U.S. government from being able to focus on COVID.
SPEAKER 04 :
And Jordan, I would also bring up that the people on the left that are all of a sudden terrified that this sets a precedent that Trump will now be able to pardon people on January 6th that were maybe on the Capitol that day. And we’ve seen how broad the federal government went after people that may have even just been in the vicinity of the Capitol on that day. But I think that these aren’t Precedents that are on the same level. It’s not apples and apples. What they really should be looking at with the precedent of what they call an insurrection was what Abraham Lincoln did to unify the country after the Civil War, which was issuing pardons to people that served within the Confederate government, to even leadership within the Confederate Army, generals, majors, corporals. That was a move to unify the country, to move beyond the Civil War during Reconstruction that they seem to have forgotten about that, that what Abraham Lincoln did and then Andrew Johnson after that. They actually tried to impeach Andrew Johnson over many of those issues. And I think the fact of pardoning your son isn’t something that’s all of a sudden opening the floodgates to what President Trump can do with the pardon power. they seem to think, oh, he’s giving permission to President Trump now. Yes, it may give some political talking points for the president, but I don’t think he’s been waiting around for permission from Joe Biden to do anything.
SPEAKER 06 :
It just makes it easier. Right. It makes it easier from a, well, he did it, you know, that kind of situation. Same with impeachment or anything like that. Let’s go ahead and take some phone calls. Tamara’s calling in Indiana on line one. You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and so I think that when we talk about these pardoning powers, I can’t imagine that our forefathers would have envisioned the situation that we’re in today, politically, this environment. And I think that one of the most exciting things about President Trump being reelected is, I believe, I hope, and it seems like we’re going to see some restoration of our government back to the way that it was intended to be.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, listen, I think that the founders did anticipate, actually, that it would be people very close to the president, including potentially the president himself, who would face these kind of issues. And that’s why the idea of a self-pardon has never been held by any court as unconstitutional or wrong. I think that it’s also people that are close to the president. And what did we see in the last administration? They held back. So what they did was they waited until President Trump was out of office and then they started filing federal lawsuits against everybody who was close to him.
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s easy to frame our mind around current day politics and not look back hundreds of years. But remember what they were dealing with and remember also what they were dealing with in terms of. All the other countries that were in upheaval at the same time that were having revolutions that were, you know, whether it was in France or anywhere where things were happening specifically to families of people. So I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. I think in modern politics you can look that way. But even so, if you look even to the last in our lifetime. Plenty of family members, plenty of people.
SPEAKER 04 :
Roger Clinton was pardoned by Bill Clinton in the final days for drug-related offenses. That was his half-brother. I mean, this is not the first time that a family member has been pardoned. I feel like there’s a reason that it’s so broad. I feel like the founders, even if they were concerned about that, knew that it was more important to leave it broad than to start putting constraints on the elected executive of the country and let it go.
SPEAKER 05 :
Honestly, you know what I thought, too, is when the founders were writing the Constitution, the thought that the president’s son would become a legal target for the U.S. system, which was still being put into place about what that was even, would be seen as a political prosecution and thus would be more safe for the country to do away with regardless of what that was unless it was like murder or something like that um then it’s worse for the democratic republic to to look like we are going to be like every other country in the world that prosecutes people because of what political family they’re so let’s open it up day one pardons i want to see what happens you know let’s have some fun
SPEAKER 06 :
Day one part. I think that could be the entire show tomorrow. Let’s go down the list. I have a list of people I think probably shouldn’t be in there. Let’s go ahead and continue on with some calls. Do we want to go to, because we may only have time for one more. Do we want to go to Gary? Gary from Washington, you’re on the air. Annabelle, stay on hold. We may get to you. Gary, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi. My question is can Hunter under our next administration to testify about Joe’s involvement in his business dealings from 2014 to 2020.
SPEAKER 05 :
He would still, you know, obviously there’s double jeopardy involved, so he would not, I don’t even know if he’d have to seek an immunity deal. He might want one still because it depends on where the questioning wants to go. But here’s the truth. There might be House committees and Senate committees that want to do this, but they’re going to look to President Trump as well. And I think, you know what President Trump needs to do right now? Get his team in place. if you are a someone who voted for President Trump what you do not want to do is have the house and senate wasting their time right now on Hunter Biden okay they did the work they got the information out there Joe Biden didn’t even make it to November as the candidate okay we you know Trump won he won big Republicans kept the house the Democrats thought they there was no way the Republicans could and they did and Republicans added to their majority they grew a bigger majority of the Senate than people expected so Chuck Schumer also gets retired from the majority leader situation. what did we see was the biggest issue in the last Trump administration what was the one thing and it’s not easy to get out of President Trump all the time that he thought he did not do right it was didn’t really fully grasp what he needed to do when he became president was having all of those people in place and a lot of those people require Senate confirmation. Republicans control the Senate. Let’s get the right people in place. We’re going to talk about Kash Patel. We’re not ignoring that. We’ll talk about it a little tomorrow. We’ve got Rick Ronell joining us Wednesday. Kash Patel was his deputy. I really want to get some insight there. They’re very close. You saw his nomination for FBI. This is a time Logan really that we need people’s support because I just listed a handful of what will be very tough confirmation battles, but it is the most important thing President Trump has got to do.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. Throw that graphic up on the screen. If you’ve got that QR code, scan it right now. If not, go to ACLJ.org. Support the work of the ACLJ because right now your donations are doubled. I know it’s not Giving Tuesday until tomorrow, but it doesn’t matter because it’s Giving Tuesday every day here. Just go to ACLJ.org right now. Make that year-end contribution. We’d really appreciate it. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.
