SEKULOW

Logan Sekulow: Welcome to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. We have a packed show today. Will Haines will be joining me in studio in just a moment. Again, we'll be taking your phone calls. There's a lot of news. Obviously, all eyes have been on Minnesota. It feels like Minneapolis specifically and the Twin Cities seem to be under a very heavy dark cloud that is over this part of the country.

It doesn't matter what the news cycle is. It's not even the same story, but things happen. Of course, we're talking about a tragic death yesterday. Let's not overshadow that. We don't know all the details, and I'm not going to act like we do. Of course, now the politicization of it is coming into play, and you start falling on party lines. Whether Republicans say this is what happens, or Democrats say this is what happens. Obviously, someone was fatally shot by an ICE agent.

What does that look like? How does that now play out on the scale? The investigation is taking place right now. Kristi Noem is speaking right now, the DHS Secretary. We'll keep an eye on that and see if there's anything that we should break into. I think we have to now look at this as a real bellwether of what's happening in America and how people respond to it.

We also have to look at what the political implications are as well. We saw Hakeem Jeffries say what we're focusing on now, that maybe we need a pause. Maybe we need to be shutting down the government once again specifically over the fact that this happened and we need to get a better hold on what's happening with ICE.

Again, I think there's a conversation that can be had on both sides of this. There's probably some gray area somewhere in the middle. Specifically, those of us of faith have to come at it from a specific lens and a specific point of view. Loss of life is never the answer here. We can't be looking at it that way.

But of course, you had the mayor come out and make profanity-laced statements. Not that the President doesn't respond in that way as well. I can't say that there's one side better or one side that looks like they're more on the side of good in this kind of moment.

I do want to look at the bigger picture here, which is how politics takes a tragedy and then twists it to reach their goals. That goal may in fact hurt more Americans. Instead of bringing people together, instead of figuring out some sort of process or regulation or whatever it may be, the idea that we need to just shut down the government or we need to come up with something like this is where we see once again heading into a midterm what the real stakes are.

Unfortunately, Washington D.C. doesn't often respect you, the human being. It doesn't respect the American. It doesn't even respect the people in Minnesota. We know that. We have callers all the time from Minnesota. It's one of our top stations there in Minneapolis. I can see because I know how many of you call in.

I'd love to hear from you. How does it feel? We see it from the outside. We see it from the national news side. How does it feel in Minnesota? If you're watching in Minnesota or in the area, I'd love to hear from you. Even if you're not, I'd still love to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110.

I believe it's at least our obligation to discuss these kinds of things in a serious tone, but also in a rational tone. If you come at it from a place of just political division, you're not going to get anywhere in these conversations. You can't be on one side saying that you're in the moral right and then not have a discussion about the gray areas that seem to come in.

We have seen different versions of these videos play out. They are graphic videos, and again, someone got shot. Not only someone got shot, someone was murdered. I don't know, but I haven't seen a played-out version where it seemed to be that should have been the case.

There were certainly some issues. I'm sure they'll be investigated. I'm not trying to be here and just talk out of my own head here. I think a lot of us have been focused on what we can do and how things can help. My real concern is the politicization of any kind of tragedy and that Washington D.C. jumps on it. You have now Democrats saying we need a government shutdown again because of it.

We know how that went last time. I can point to this having to do with the midterms, not point to helping you, the American people. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. Will Haines will be joining me in the next segment and we're going to have a lot more to cover.

Phone lines are open for you as I said. Logan Sekulow, Will Haines joining me in studio right now. Of course, we want to talk about this as the main topic of the day. Minnesota seems to be where, it doesn't matter if we decide we're going to divert off, something happens in Minneapolis. Like I said, we're not based there, we're based in Tennessee, but somehow there's a cloud over this area of the country and more tragedy keeps coming upon this area. It almost feels not real.

A lot of people are commenting. Some people agree with me, some people disagree with me, and that's okay. I think it's open to have this discussion. We need to at least talk it out. But to me, the topic on hand is not necessarily whether you think the ICE officer was justified or not in blocking when the car was being blocked. We're going to find out all the details there. Whether you think they're justified in opening fire, I think that's a bit much to be okay with.

But let's say you are. That's fine. Now let's talk about the ramifications of this. In this moment now, you have the Democrats calling on a shutdown and a shutdown of ICE and the shutdown of what could be more pain to the American people and using a moment to politicize and now swerve towards a midterm election.

In that is always the concern. Sadly, Washington D.C. doesn't have your back most of the time. They are looking towards when's the next vote. Will, that feels like what happens in these moments. Instead of moments of reflection, instead of moments of conversation, instead of looking towards it, it is bloviating and making it some sort of political swerve.

Will Haines: That's right. So right now you're hearing from people like Chris Murphy, Senator from Connecticut, who's saying Democrats cannot vote for a DHS budget that doesn't restrain the growing lawlessness of this agency. Pramila Jayapal, who is the leader of the Progressive Caucus, a Democrat from Washington in the House, said we can't just keep authorizing money for these illegal killers. That's what they are, this rogue force.

As well, Representative Ramirez from Illinois said statements and letters are not enough and the appropriations process and the CR expiring on January 31st is our opportunity. So some big names, especially with the leader of the Progressive Caucus as well as a Senator from Connecticut, Chris Murphy, bringing this forward and trying to basically say like, hey, we've got another opportunity here.

I know that Chuck Schumer and leader Jeffries are focused on the Affordable Care Act subsidies that we brought everyone to a fiscal cliff on and government shutdown last time, but maybe we try a different path and try a different shutdown. That's where we're at, and it's actually really disheartening because there are so many problems in this country.

The rhetoric from the left that has been used since before the election, even now, calling ICE illegal killers. Blanket statements about human beings that work for the federal government that ICE are illegal killers. That's taking it so broad. I think that's what you were also cautioning people of.

There's a lot of facts we know, a lot of things we've seen, a lot of things we don't know about what happened there. So maybe everyone should take a step back. But on the right, we are seeing everyone fall in line as well. On the left, everyone is falling along party lines that there is nothing wrong that happened and that there is everything wrong that happened. I think at the same time, just like I said these are human beings that are members of ICE, there was an American citizen that was killed by federal law enforcement yesterday.

Logan Sekulow: At least needs to look... we need to at least look into it.

Will Haines: Exactly. I think it's the exact same cries that a lot of people had on January 6th a few years ago when an American citizen was killed inside the Capitol by federal law enforcement. That you can be sad that an American was killed by federal law enforcement and want to know what really happened without even breaking your party line at all.

Logan Sekulow: Or killed in general. How about no killing? I think we should be, sadly, this is just the nature of the world and I hate that because I think that we would be progressing a lot further if the first jump wasn't to... Look, I see a lot of comments coming in and I know that we're ruffling feathers here. I'm not trying to.

What we're trying to do is to say take a breath, think about what you are about... if you're going to post, think about what you're posting. Think about who you're going to be influencing. Think about if you know all the facts. Do you feel like you are informed enough to really form a full opinion? I know we are not. We do not know all the facts.

We know that you have the DHS saying that it was in self-defense. Yeah, but where's the line of self-defense? There is that as well, which is was this someone driving away fleeing an accident? Was this someone blocking a road? And when does lethal force... where is the line for lethal force? And that's something we need to have that discussion.

On the other hand, we have this moment in time where every single tragedy is used as a political weapon and is used to fraction us more and is used to look at it through a lens that is frankly not American, not Christian. It is to look through a lens of a political party, which is how do we progress? How do we move?

Let's say if you're a Democrat and you want to go for a shutdown here, how do we get rid of ICE? Really what we're trying to do is get votes. How do we get votes so then we can keep our jobs and somehow funnel money continually instead of actually looking at it from a humanitarian point of view.

Similar situation with the fraud scandal, which is what's really the heart of the fraud scandal? It may be fun to be like pointing fingers at Tim Walz or pointing fingers at Minnesota, but what it really is is that the American people were hurt. Tax money was being funneled to places that did not exist and being used for fraud. Tax money that could have gone to help people. Instead, it went to fraudulent organizations, potentially illegal organizations. It went to cause harm.

So the serious nature of all of this, even when it can get tied up in political theater, needs to really be addressed. And as long as we have politicians, and I think we will have politicians the rest of our lives, that are really just fighting for their job and really just fighting to stay in power, and power I would even just put employed, we will always have these moments that are politicized.

How could they not be? I'm saying that to both sides here. You had the mayor come out immediately in Minneapolis, make that angry profanity-laced speech. You had President Trump respond on Truth Social with also a similar on the other side post and you go, okay, so can we just take a moment, grieve with this family, address the situation that's happening? I don't care if you agreed with that person or not, they still probably have... I don't know if they deserve to die. I think that's a gross overstatement, at least based on what we've seen.

We have to take a real hard look at all of this. And to say that it is clearly a Republican or Democrat thing, it is not. But with that we have so many calls that are coming in as well right now and I want you to call in and I will take your calls, because I know a lot of you disagree with me, and that's fine. 1-800-684-3110. We fight for everybody here and everyone's free speech here at the ACLJ. It's always been important to us.

We are going to talk about other things. I don't want you to think we're just going to be doom and gloom talking sad. We also have some fun content to get to you a little bit later in the show, but of course this is where everyone's mind's at. And look, if a vehicle's being used as a weapon, it's all a bit gray. What I don't love right now in society is that we jump to being the expert immediately.

Whether it is Venezuela or whether it is Minnesota, that somehow we all are supposed to be, or Ukraine or Gaza, whatever it may be, or Russia and Israel. We have to know everything immediately, we have to pick our side, and we have to make our statement immediately. This is how we feel. When sometimes you do need to take a look a little... you need to go to that 10,000-foot view.

We do have no lines open for you right now. That's how impassioned a lot of you have been. 1-800-684-3110. We only got a minute and a half in this segment, so I'm not going to take your calls in this segment but I will take them in the next one. And look, it's sometimes tough to come on here and do these shows because on the same hand, Minneapolis as we said, is sort of the crux of two different controversies right now.

The other one, of course, is the fraud scandal. The ACLJ is involved in that by the way. We're not taking that lightly. As silly as you can make it and go, "Tim Walz funny, call him a name," we're taking real action here at the ACLJ. We're going to expose what was going on because billions of dollars of American taxpayer dollars are being wasted. So yesterday we filed many, I think five, Freedom of Information requests and we're going to get some answers.

The ACLJ team doesn't only do that, we also have a petition where you can get behind that as well. So there are times where it's clear and I encourage you, go spend some time at ACLJ.org. Sign the petition, get involved, see all the content that we produce here. We have an incredible team that does incredible work and it only happens because people like you sign, support, get involved, donate. It's fantastic.

Phone lines are jammed, no lines open right now, but we'll see how many we can get to coming up in the next segment. That's at 1-800-684-3110. We'll also be able to hear specifically from some of those Democrat leaders. We'll play some of that coming up, some sound bites, some video bites. So stay tuned, again go to ACLJ.org. We'll be back with your calls and comments in just a moment but stay engaged and involved on all our social media platforms as well. And if you're on YouTube and you haven't yet, hit subscribe. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are totally jammed. Before we get to the calls, Will wanted to walk us through a bit of a timeline here of this situation that happened not only in Minnesota but just in general in the conversation that has surrounded ICE and has surrounded immigration in some of the changes.

And look, we have been honest with you. We're not going to tell you what you want to hear. We're going to tell you what we believe legally and what we believe spiritually and with that, I know it can cause some conflict, but that's okay. Let's have those discussions. I've always been open to having these discussions. But Will, I know you wanted to walk us through a bit of a timeline here and before we take calls, let's go ahead and do that.

Will Haines: And I think also this is because of how partisan it gets with the finger-pointing as well because this is so predictable, unfortunately and tragically, in our country that something like this was going to happen. Because the Democrats almost wanted it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. They were saying eventually ICE is going to kill an American citizen.

Logan Sekulow: The amount of people I saw last night posting, "I told you this was going to happen, I've been waiting for this day," and not in a positive, obviously in a negative saying, "I told you eventually we'd get here."

Will Haines: Well, but here's what's frustrating when you look at this. The President and the administration, it was never a secret that immigration was a big deal. We know how bad it was under the Biden administration, how open borders were. And the American people were genuinely frustrated with that. And instead of Democrats trying to find a way to get common ground or to shut the border down, they gaslighted the American people and said it wasn't true.

And what happens? Then someone who's going to do something different gets elected. The Trump administration, we knew all along there were going to be deportations and the border shutdown. Then politicians immediately start calling ICE going in and conducting federal law enforcement of the immigration laws of this country Nazi tactics. They call it fascist. Tim Walz himself said that ICE was the Gestapo.

So they are using all the rhetoric that no one learned anything from during the election cycle where there were two assassination attempts on the President, the current President now, of the United States. After calling him Nazi, Nazi, Nazi, and then there are two assassination attempts, they still keep doing it and they call ICE his Gestapo.

Those are very heated, powerful words that have consequences. So what happens? You see what happened in L.A., the need for the National Guard after American citizens trying to stop the federal law enforcement activity going after people that are here illegally, not going after those people that are here legally. And what are they doing? They're shutting down streets, setting cars on fire that are not even connected to the government, trying to stop the operation of the federal government.

And that was happening all over the country. And then there's a big fraud scandal in Minnesota. There's tension there. ICE goes there as a response of that, as a part of it going around the country where there are more sanctuary, more friendly cities towards illegal undocumented immigrants. And the illegal activity and the disruptive activity of American citizens in the streets, which was able to be continued in many of these blue cities, raised the temperature even more.

You have to think that the members of federal law enforcement are nervous and on high alert because of that throughout the country. Eventually, something like this was going to happen. I don't think that any of us should be able to look at a couple video clips that are a few seconds long online and decide one way or the other what happened there.

I mean, I think that a real investigation should be done, that the bodycam footage should be reviewed, that people that are actual experts in this should look into it. And yes, there's a lot of leeway when you are law enforcement and a large vehicle's coming at you. But at the same time, we got there because of the rhetoric. Because those members of ICE should not have been afraid of the American public that they may be run over and killed.

And when you're calling them the Gestapo like the Governor of Minnesota has, that fear is going to be in many people that are just doing their job. And you can't start looking at all of the members of ICE and calling them illegal killers, calling American citizens an entire government branch illegal killers and expect this to not continue.

The rhetoric is going to keep making it worse. In the wake of this, when the mayor of Minneapolis gets up there and uses expletives to say get out of my city, that's not going to make it any better. That's not working together. When Tim Walz is inferring he's at war with the federal government by calling up the National Guard, saying that we'll be ready, and then saying, you know, no other governors had to go to war with the federal government before.

One, completely ignoring an actual war in this country where governors and the federal government did go to war. That happened, that's not good. People don't want to go back to that. But two, making that inference doesn't make it better. Either more law enforcement are going to die or more American citizens are going to die. They've got to figure this out without immediately going to all of them are illegal killers because then the people that want to disrupt that, they don't see them as human, they dehumanize them. This whole thing has got to come down a few notches.

Logan Sekulow: I want to hear from you. Let's go to the phones. I'm going to kind of try to ping-pong back and forth to different points of view. Let's go to Matthew first on line six. Matthew, you're on the air.

Guest (Matthew): Thank you. Hey, you guys have got this right. You need to have respect for human life. There should be an investigation. You should watch the bodycam footage and there needs to be respect for law enforcement. Law enforcement can be wrong. They should be questioned, but they should not be yelled at, called names, and run over by cars.

Logan Sekulow: Yeah, I think, Matthew, that's a very rational point of view going, you know what, things happen. There's not necessarily always this clear-cut answer. But you know what, I want to hear from someone who feels completely on the other side and that's totally fine. Let's go to Charles in Denver. Charles, you're on the air as well.

Guest (Charles): Yes, I believe that she was resisting arrest. Then there is not one single camera vantage point that shows how far the officer was in front of the car, but they're saying that he should have seen where her tires were pointed. If he's too close to the bumper, he couldn't see the tires. And what is the turning radius of that car?

Logan Sekulow: Yeah, Charles, I mean, that's partially why we say there needs to be a full investigation here. Exactly, Charles. I think, and once again, the member of ICE that pulled the trigger on this, there's a good chance did fear for his life. And with all of that context of everything that's gone on and being called illegal killers and being called the Gestapo and a car coming at you, yeah, I'm not saying that it wasn't...

And by the way, I'm not saying that there is not a justifiable defense that will come out of that from an investigation. I'm also not even saying that he should be investigated as a potential criminal act here, or non-justifiable. Just that we need to know what happened. But to that point as well, though, you also bring up resisting arrest. ICE arresting an American citizen for being there? They don't enforce regular American laws. They're not a police force in that sense. Therefore even that brings up more questions.

Will Haines: What is law enforcement? What is law enforcement in that situation? Do they have the right to detain her in enforcing immigration laws? That's a big question that a lot of armchair expert attorneys on Twitter have the answer for but may not necessarily be the truth when all the facts are laid on the table.

Logan Sekulow: Phone lines are jammed right now but they will open up and we have a second half hour of this broadcast. So if you don't get us on your local radio station, we are broadcasting as well on YouTube, Rumble, ACLJ.org. You can go there, find us live at Salem News Channel, and be a part of that conversation.

It's a great way actually to gauge what people are thinking too. If you're on their YouTube channel, you can see all the comments that come in or on Rumble and have this discussion back and forth. There's a lot of people that agree, a lot of people that disagree, and that's okay. That's part of our show. Go to ACLJ.org right now. Second half hour coming right up.