SEKULOW

Logan Sekulow: Welcome to Sekulow. It is July 14th, my brother's birthday. Happy birthday, Jordan.

Will: Happy birthday, Jordan.

Logan Sekulow: Is he joining us? We don't know if he's going to be joining us. Not currently. He's in DC, though, very busy. He's got meetings. He's got stuff going on. He's celebrating his birthday, but we can say happy birthday to him.

You may have turned on the news this morning and noticed that Supreme Court justices, which you don't typically see, were out front. You had Elena Kagan, you had also Amy Coney Barrett. What appeared to be testifying. You may be going, "What is happening here? Why are Supreme Court justices testifying before Congress?" We found out is this was really a situation to discuss their overall safety.

I think when you actually hear what they have to say, you start realizing how much of a risk it is. We always knew this is one of the most prestigious jobs you could have in the whole country, to be a Supreme Court justice. One of the hardest ones to probably ever accomplish. Not that many in the history of the world have there even been. But you realize that their safety well has been really over the last few years particularly, maybe the last decade, has been at a very, very high risk.

Will: That's right. The reason they're testifying today, this is before the appropriations subcommittee on financial services and general government. What we're looking at here is an increase in security request. It's only 10% increase. In the grand scheme of things, it's actually an interesting fact that they're doing a hearing for such a relatively small increase in budget they're asking for.

The justices themselves are saying, "We need this." Congress obviously controls the purse. They set the budgets for all of government. The Supreme Court gets a distribution, a budget item of funding. Now, some of that goes to their security. They're asking for an increase in that security budget because of the threats against them.

This obviously we're going to get into it, what it looks like and even their testimony of how real these threats are ongoing. We know that we saw things like an assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh when the Dobbs decision was coming out during that leak period. We know that there have been as recent as six weeks ago a swatting attempt on Justice Barrett's home where she has young children, 12 years old, in her home that they are threatening with swatting events. Those are things that can turn out very poorly if it's not handled in the right way. That is kind of the goal of them in many times. You look at all this and you see justices before Congress testifying why they need this appropriation.

Logan Sekulow: This is not something that you see very often. The last time sitting justices were before the Congress testifying for their annual budget was 2019. So almost a decade ago was the last time they were before that. It's not something you see every day. It's not something you hear them. Once they become justices, other than like a summer book tour or speaking at a law school, you don't hear from them that often, especially in this context.

I think we should actually hear from Amy Coney Barrett. This is the real sincerity. Remember, this is people with young kids. These are real human beings. It's easy to kind of write them off as these sort of political figures that kind of exist in some sort of cloud that we don't ever see. Will's right, we don't hear from Supreme Court justices. Now we're hearing from them more often than we used to. Let's take a listen real quick before we go to break from Justice Barrett.

Amy Coney Barrett: They have required me to, or my children, to think about and see things that children should not have to see or think about. One example is when threats to my life were particularly intense a few years ago around the time of the Dobbs leak. My security detail sent me home with a bulletproof vest.

I carried it into my house, put it into my bedroom, dropped it down on a table, turned around, and my 12-year-old son was standing in the doorway of my bedroom. He wanted to know what it was and why I had it. I didn't know how to respond because maybe I lack imagination, but I didn't expect that performing this service was going to put me in the position of explaining to my children what a bulletproof vest was and why I had to wear one.

Logan Sekulow: This is the reality that they're dealing with and all elected officials, all political leaders, and honestly, a lot of us are just dealing with sadly as American citizens right now, especially those who speak out and have their opinions known to a national audience. You'd be surprised even what's happened to people that are sitting in this studio. Got to change that. Folks, phone lines are open 1-800-684-3110. Hey, Jordan's going to join us in the next segment. We'll be right back.

Jay Sekulow: Over the past 250 years, we have formed a great nation, a nation the world has looked to for guidance, for support, and for protection. This month we celebrate our liberty, but that liberty is fragile and requires every American to defend it. That's why this month we've launched the ACLJ Liberty Drive in honor of America's birthday.

We're redoubling our commitment to continue fighting against any attacks that would strip us of that freedom. We owe it to our forefathers. You can join the fight right now through our ACLJ Liberty Drive. Go to ACLJ.org/liberty today and have your tax-deductible gift doubled dollar for dollar to enable the ACLJ to fight to defend our God-given liberty.

Logan Sekulow: Welcome back to Sekulow. We do phone lines open for you at 1-800-684-3110. President Trump right now is also meeting with the Iraqi Prime Minister at the White House. If there's anything worth a note, we have a team watching that. We'll break in if we need to. My brother Jordan is joining us from Washington, DC. First, we got to say and let them know in the chat happy birthday. Welcome.

Jordan Sekulow: Thank you very much. We won't disclose the age because after walking around Capitol Hill with some of the meetings this morning, when you're talking to the younger and you used to be the younger guys on the hill working, you realize different point of life. You're not staff age anymore. We can say that.

Will: No, definitely not staff age. I was just talking to one of our attorneys, not junior attorneys anymore. There we go. Jordan, you're on Capitol Hill where we're actually talking about today as well, the security that the Supreme Court justices, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett, are actually testifying before the Supreme Court today for security increase.

I think it's pertinent to talk about this. You're there. We've seen the security threats even against the Antifa members, the terrorist members that were arrested that were trying to attack the UFC event. We've seen security for our nation's capital and every branch of government be something that's heightened, a heightened threat. You're there in DC. We know that the crime rate in DC is actually gotten under control in a way that we haven't seen in decades there. But the threat to our institutions seems like it's at an all-time high. I want to give you a moment to speak about this even as we see this unusual, it doesn't happen often, last time was 2019, that justices go before the appropriations committee asking for more money to keep them safe.

Jordan Sekulow: I was actually in a meeting with Senator Hagerty's, who's on this broadcast a lot, but his chief of staff and a couple of staffers. It caught the corner of my eye because I saw Justice Kagan testifying. I was like, "This is not like replaying a video unless we're talking about a judicial nomination that somehow happened in this crazy last 48 hours." You look and it's very rare to see because again, you don't have the court broadcasting any kind of back and forth before when it comes to the visuals. You get the audio.

But it's also interesting to see them on the other side of the room, if you will, sitting back down, having to answer questions instead of being the person who does ask questions. I know Senator Hagerty is going to have an opportunity this afternoon as well to be part of that questioning. I think there's a lot of bipartisan support. Our office is behind the US Supreme Court and right catty-corner to the first Senate office building in Russell.

There's already a lot of security right here because this is the street justices or their vehicles come down to park. So now, anytime that the court is in session at all, which means the justices are there, this street is blocked for vehicles. We can walk. You can walk down the street, but the armed guards come out, and not just with handguns, but also sometimes you'll see machine guns, a big presence when they know there's a big case either being argued or that possibly the decisions coming out.

So on a regular basis, you've got right now which has been about two blocks or two-and-a-half block radius is now expanding down 2nd Street. So if you were to take a right out of our office, it used to kind of stop right at that intersection for folks who may have seen our office before in DC at that catty-corner. It now goes for blocks further.

I think that tells us right there that what could be done quickly enough because of the amount of security threats the court is facing. I think that you're hearing that today from the justices. When we talk about the wise use of resources and the intimidation tactics, we want to make sure justices of the US Supreme Court feel safe, that they can't be intimidated by groups for either ideological reasons or just because they happen to be a Supreme Court justice.

We live in an age where even though you don't see much of this visual, you'll see sometimes them doing lectures and things like that, but not this kind of a visual. We're living in a day and age where you can't hide behind the building anymore. With that being said, I think again, in Washington and where we are and what we do, as long as it's smart and it's things that have already shown in the past to work, that it's a good place to invest resources.

Not just because our office is right here and not just for the justices, but for all of the American people who visit Washington, DC, and our nation's capital. Maybe they do it once or twice in their life to feel like they are safe when they are taking tours and going to the most important places that our federal government is associated with. It's not just for the justices. It's for all that staff. Behind us, they've got a parking lot and people are working 24/7. These are huge government buildings. From everybody down to the janitor on up to the justice themselves, you want them to be safe.

Then you also want law enforcement on the hill, the Capitol Hill police, to be able to focus on their job, which is different than the Supreme Court police's job. They work together, but they have a different client, if you will, where they're focused on protecting. So yes, it is serious in Washington. You guys have seen the talk about what's happening potentially in front of the White House. That's something that can also probably be more temporary. But there are just nonstop threats. I think that's as far as I can go with communication I've had. But the threats do not stop. It doesn't mean that they're all credible, but we've seen in the past there are people that will act or try to act against these justices.

Will: Jordan, I think one of the other issues here and this is something we're going to get on later in the broadcast. I know you've got meetings you're about to head back out to. We're grateful you could hop in literally and thanks to our team to get everything in our studio in DC turned on real quick, have Jordan in. But here's another issue and this is what I see as the broader issue. These threats I think are the unfortunate symptom of what is happening at a broader level in our country.

We saw first in 2016 and then in 2024, the way that the left said President Trump is an illegitimate president. So they delegitimize the executive. What do we see? We see violent threats. We see people that feel like the only thing they can do is use violence to try and stop the executive. We saw then through the Supreme Court, illegitimate court, pack the court. You see that symptom again. You see them having these threats against the members of the court.

Now what we're hearing, and we're going to get into this more, Jordan, the DSA, who has all these candidates that are now going to be in Congress because they've won in safe blue seats their primaries, they're calling to abolish the Senate. I know you are meeting with senators, but they think it's an illegitimate thing because of the very reason the founders created the Senate, to have equal representation from states and not just a direct popular representation like the House. They want to get rid of it. So obviously, very difficult if constitutional at all to amend it out. But that's their goal. I'm not as concerned about them getting rid of it on paper as much as the threat to the very people that you're having meetings with because they're delegitizing now the third branch of government in the legislative branch. Jordan, it's shocking and also dangerous.

Jordan Sekulow: I would love to know if Bernie Sanders is a self-hating socialist enough that he would support getting rid of his really I think the only job he's had, which is in politics as elected official, maybe some part-time work as a professor when he was much younger. But again, Will, it is rhetoric. It comes down to the idea of they've been demonized. The left was really, they took that mantle on. On the right, we would disagree with decisions by justices and by the Supreme Court, but we'd never made it personal or these calls for violence and again to make it difficult for the police to do their job of just trying to keep people safe.

Again, the whirlwind that we've heard with Senator Schumer and I think it just reminds us all that the rhetoric that is being used in Washington that is most dangerous emanates from the left. As you said, Will, it's the radical left and they are being normalized by becoming members of Congress in the House of Representatives. Their rhetoric is becoming normalized. So I am glad to see Justice Kagan there as well to make it clear to everyone that this is not some partisan move while at the same time understanding that much of the rhetoric is coming out of the left, especially the rhetoric that takes it past just, "I fundamentally disagree."

Then of course this abolish the Senate. I mean, yes, the Constitution can be amended. But here's the thing. It's interesting for those socialists what the Senate does is to make sure that states with smaller populations still have full representation in Congress because they're not going to get that in the House. So they've got to work together, the House and the Senate, but really that's so that they are representing all of us equally.

Logan Sekulow: All right, well, thank you, Jordan, for joining us. I know you got a lot of work to do. We appreciate it and happy birthday. Phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110. Let's hear from you about this. Also, we are right smack in the middle of our ACLJ Liberty Drive. Be a part of the ACLJ team today at ACLJ.org. Scan that QR code you see on the screen. Whatever it is, all donations of any kind are doubled right now. They're matched by incredible ACLJ supporters and champions. We're going to take your phone calls when we get back. 1-800-684-3110.

Jay Sekulow: Over the past 250 years, we have formed a great nation, a nation the world has looked to for guidance, for support, and for protection. This month we celebrate our liberty, but that liberty is fragile and requires every American to defend it. That's why this month we've launched the ACLJ Liberty Drive in honor of America's birthday.

We're redoubling our commitment to continue fighting against any attacks that would strip us of that freedom. We owe it to our forefathers. You can join the fight right now through our ACLJ Liberty Drive. Go to ACLJ.org/liberty today and have your tax-deductible gift doubled dollar for dollar to enable the ACLJ to fight to defend our God-given liberty.

Logan Sekulow: Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open. We have a lot of callers coming in. 1-800-684-3110. Of course, talking about the security and safety of the Supreme Court justices as they were testifying today to try to get the budget up due to ongoing threats. We can kind of trace back. I mean, look, Supreme Court justices in modern day have always been a little bit of celebrities. We've seen in the '80s and the '90s, there was people that we all knew of. We knew their at least their names, their faces, but maybe they weren't as regularly a part of the mainstream media or maybe they weren't targets of attacks. They were maybe targets within their own political parties or if you watched CNN, if you watched the news, you knew about these people.

The difference was, and a lot of it goes back to the Dobbs decision, we can flash back to even someone like Senator Schumer who just started to inflame the rhetoric. We know this has been an issue with the right and the left over the last decade or so where it went beyond politics and started becoming very personal. Like Jordan said, if you live in a modern day, you live in a modern society where finding out where someone lives is not exactly the hardest thing in the world, especially when those people are public figures and Supreme Court justices.

And you have Supreme Court justices like Amy Coney Barrett or Brett Kavanaugh or whoever it may be who have come under real threats from people who are crazy, who have been inflamed by their political leaders. So let's flash back before we take this call, let's flash back to Senator Schumer back when the Dobbs decision was leaked.

Chuck Schumer: I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.

Logan Sekulow: Again, threatening the Supreme Court justices from our elected officials. We have some calls coming in about that. I want to go to Martin in North Carolina who's an ACLJ champion. That's someone that gives on a monthly basis automatically, like a membership, which is great. I always like to give them first bite of the apple here. They're always able to get on the air quicker. Martin, go ahead.

Martin: Thank you, sir. I'm glad that you all are at the helm and you hit on it. Jordan hit on it too. It's a two-faced thing that I'm going to touch on. Exactly what you just said. I'm a firm believer in freedom of speech and I'm glad we have it. But like you just said, Logan, is that it becomes inflammatory.

I don't know how to do it, but I'd like to see some sort of way of holding these things in check. It's almost treasonous with that kind of rhetoric, with the leaks that are going on with the Dobbs decision, Schumer and Comey leaking. Even this last week and a half, two weeks, the leak that came through the news media about the assassination test. Something, there's got to be something to hold people accountable so that we can move on and do things decent and in order as they say, and not have these inflaming arguments and rhetoric and things of that nature continue to fan the flames to do like you said, the crazy people out there that are going to do stuff.

Logan Sekulow: Martin, you can hear real, and I hate to say this, you can hear real fear in the voices of these Supreme Court justices who are out there testifying before Congress asking for more money for their security to be raised. Let's hear, this is bite two, let's hear from Amy Coney Barrett again talking about something that's just happened to her in the last few weeks.

Amy Coney Barrett: It's also been reported in the news that roughly six weeks ago, I was the victim of a swatting incident. At that point, my teenage son, one of my teenage sons opened the door to go out with friends and saw in our street it was full of police cars who had responded to a false report of gunshots and raised voices in my home. I was very, very grateful that I had Supreme Court police outside my home because they were able to stop and meet with and explain to the county police that it had been a false alarm, and so the police did not actually attempt to enter our home.

Logan Sekulow: Understand that in many occasions, and this has happened directly, by the way, to people sitting in this room, where you have people who feel justified in making your life miserable because they disagree with maybe your political point of view. Or maybe it's a little bit different because they are the ones who are, they are deciding the law of the land here. If you have political leaders saying "unleash the whirlwind, we are going to go after you, you're not going to know what's going to hit you," yes, Senator Schumer may be living in an old school mentality going, "Well, I don't mean physically," and that's not what I meant by there.

But we don't live in that world anymore. We live in the world where every word is scrutinized, where everything is justified. Sadly, we have now seen that rhetoric raise up not just to a Supreme Court justice, but we've seen it across the board, not even just for political opponents or people that are in the political sphere. Basically, if you're willing to have a voice, you have to be willing to take real security protocol because your life may be at risk.

Will: And once again, I think the positioning of this before the Congress today, it was Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee, and Justice Barrett, a Trump appointee. It was two different justices from two different eras. Also, Elena Kagan opened her remarks talking about the senator, Senator Graham, who just passed away because of how he engaged with talking to someone that he didn't agree with.

That's one of the things he caught flack for was he would interview, he was on the Judiciary Committee, actually was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee at the time of his passing. But he would get flack for voting for nominees that were judges from the other side. She pointed out, she goes, "It's rare these days. It used to be justices got 100 or 99 votes to sail through." What she was trying to point out is that, one, disarm the committee a little bit and say, "Hey, we're here. Obviously, it's a Republican-led committee at this time." They were there for a specific reason.

Now people, there was one congressman from Wisconsin that was trying to make it about the shadow docket. They're asking for security and they obviously have their prerogative and they can do what they want with their time, especially when they don't get to speak to the justices very often. But trying to in some ways use the rhetoric that people have been using to delegitimize the court itself by saying you took a lot of things on the shadow docket, you made a lot of these decisions, to which Justice Barrett said, "Yeah, we're the court. If it comes before us when we're out of session and it's a stay grant request, we have to dispose of it. We have to do either grant or not. That's how that works."

But they even in their questioning, when they're talking about security for their families and themselves, there were Democrats trying to go after something that has been a Democrat talking point and a media talking point this entire year. I also to Martin's point, the rhetoric of Chuck Schumer was very bad. But it's not only isolated to people on the left. Of course, I mean, even the dehumanizing language that we see when people say "demon-rats" or these cute names or they're all demons. That's a dehumanizing thing.

Now, we may disagree with and in a lot of their policies may be anti-human or evil the way that they are so pro-choice. Those things. But it doesn't mean that you strip their humanity or them being created in the image of God from them and try to find a way to work towards a more perfect union.

Logan Sekulow: When we get back, I want to actually play the bite that Justice Kagan spoke about Senator Graham because again, maybe that little glimmer of hope that we can get back to that kind of place. And the fact that we're talking about who is uniting us, it feels like the most unlikely case. Sadly, it would have been the passing of Lindsey Graham, someone who was very controversial and very polarizing for a lot of people.

But what you've been able to see is that it was old school Washington in the way that he worked with people and actually could get things done. Maybe we need to get back to that. Speaking of getting things done, it is our Liberty Drive. Be a part of the ACLJ team today at ACLJ.org. Scan that QR code you see on the screen. Whatever it is, all donations of any kind are doubled right now. They're matched by incredible ACLJ supporters and champions. We'll be back in just a minute. Less than a minute break here. If you lose us on your local station, find us on ACLJ.org or wherever you get your podcasts. We're live 12:00 to 1:00 PM Eastern time each and every day. We'll be right back.

Jay Sekulow: Over the past 250 years, we have formed a great nation, a nation the world has looked to for guidance, for support, and for protection. This month we celebrate our liberty, but that liberty is fragile and requires every American to defend it. That's why this month we've launched the ACLJ Liberty Drive in honor of America's birthday.

We're redoubling our commitment to continue fighting against any attacks that would strip us of that freedom. We owe it to our forefathers. You can join the fight right now through our ACLJ Liberty Drive. Go to ACLJ.org/liberty today and have your tax-deductible gift doubled dollar for dollar to enable the ACLJ to fight to defend our God-given liberty.