Sekulow

Intro Voiceover: On today's show, Mayor Mamdani booed off stage at a heated New York event. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
Logan Sekulow: Welcome to Sekulow. Let's open up the phone lines. I'm going to wait for them to do it. Let's see. Happy Friday. Still not open. Still not open. One day they're going to open up. There they are. 1-800-684-3110. Give me a call right now to be on the show. 1-800-684-3110. We made it to a Friday. It's August 7th. It's just me and Will for the next hour, which also means I want to hear from you. That's always the most important voice. Any of the topics that we've been talking about the last couple weeks. Open Phones Friday, as Will likes to say.
Will: Why do you always keep throwing this on me?
Logan Sekulow: You actually said that to me today. You said we could do that. You said we could do Open Phones Friday.
Will: I said we could do that. Let's see. Are you Team Will, that Open Phones Friday will go very well? Or are you Team Logan, thinking they're not going to call me?
Logan Sekulow: It mainly just makes me sad because I go Open Phones and then no one calls. Having a phone line but no one rings is an emo song. We have two people calling already. They're regulars. They were going to call regardless. That being said, let's get back to it because they always get mad when I don't talk about the topic right off the top here. Look, the Mayor of New York City, and I've been talking about this. I said, you know what, I love the people of New York City. I love New York City. It's my favorite place in the entire world. I lived there. I spent so much time there. I spend time the most there, probably second or third to my hometown. Hometown Nashville, I'm either in Central Florida or I'm in New York City probably the most. So, I love it there. I also love the people, and I know that what you see in the news doesn't reflect all the people of New York City. I know when you hear the Mayor of New York City going out and making these crazy statements sometimes, that does not reflect the overall feeling of a lot of New Yorkers. And they made their voices very clear. Mayor Mamdani, he was out at a police event, an NYPD event on Staten Island. If you know anything about New York City, you know Staten Island is one of the places where they maybe are a bit more—I don't want to say conservative—but let's just say you're probably going to have a lot more friendly conversations there on Staten Island than you are politically on other places. Let's just look at the pure brass tacks of what happened in the last election. In the last election, you had Mayor Mamdani coming in second by a hair to Sliwa. I mean, neck and neck within a couple thousand votes. And then you had what, an 80,000 swing?
Will: It was 82,000 voted for Andrew Cuomo on Staten Island, 33,000 voted for Mamdani, and then Curtis Sliwa got almost 32,000.
Logan Sekulow: So if there was a moment of where Andrew Cuomo would have had what they consider a monumental landslide, it would have been on Staten Island. So when the Mayor comes up at an NYPD event on Staten Island to do just a short address, I wonder what is going to happen with the current state of New York City. Let's actually just see it in real time. Here you go.
Mayor Mamdani (Video Clip): Hello, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. I want to say thank you to the borough of Staten Island. Thank you to my brother, Scott LoBaido, a great artist that we just mirrored on the politics. And thank you also to all the elected officials and the incredible men and women of the NYPD for all the work that they do. It's a real pleasure to be here. Happy National Night Out against crime. God bless everyone. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Logan Sekulow: You can't even hear what the Mayor was saying in his short one-minute address, being booed aggressively and obviously cursed out by the people in Staten Island who had a few choice words to say about the Mayor. But remember, not saying that's good, that we should be up there causing a scene, but I just wanted a quick reminder that when you see the news, do not forget that there are people in these states—whether that is in Wisconsin, whether that is in Michigan, whether that is in New York, whether that is in Southern California—who not only disagree with what's going on, they're willing to stand up and say their piece. I cannot imagine that was very fun or felt very secure for the Mayor. You've got to give it to him for going to make that statement, knowing that he was walking into that kind of territory. What do you think? Give me a call. 1-800-684-3110. Phone lines are open today.
Jay Sekulow (Video Clip): Do you even realize the impact you make? Choosing freedom or oppression, justice or corruption, faith or godlessness, life or death? One factor can make the difference. And what is it? You. As an ACLJ supporter, you have great power. You make a tremendous impact. And this month, you can double that impact. Right now, your most sacred rights as an American—your freedom of speech, your freedom to pray and worship, even our free and fair election process—are being threatened. Right now, as part of our ACLJ Impact Match, you can double your support. Go to ACLJ.org/Impact and have your tax-deductible gift doubled dollar-for-dollar, doubling your impact to defend faith, freedom, and innocent life. Your impact is powerful, but the time is short. Go to ACLJ.org/Impact and have your gift doubled today. We've witnessed monumental legal victories from defending the 14th Amendment and protecting our sacred American right to vote, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and standing up for the religious liberty of our kids and seniors. But even with the many historic wins we've achieved, the battle is far from over. The attacks on our constitutionally protected rights persist. Countless unborn babies remain in jeopardy, and across the globe, innocent Christians are being targeted and killed. This fight isn't just the ACLJ's. It's all of ours. It belongs to every American who wants to preserve the values and beliefs on which this nation was founded. None of the victories we've won would have been possible without the unwavering support of ACLJ members and ACLJ champions. It's been an honor to fight for you all these years. Join us in fighting for freedom. Have your donation doubled at ACLJ.org/Freedom.
Logan Sekulow: Will, you tell people open up the phone lines and guess what happened? They're calling in. But stay on hold if you're on hold. I know it takes a second for our phone screener to go through all of you, so just be patient. We'll get to you. Again, phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110. Before we step right back into the Mamdani situation, I do also want to let you know because, look, our ACLJ team—I've got to love them. Sometimes they send me some highlights of what we need to cover when we're talking about these special drives like right now we've got this Impact Match. There's a lot of text here, everybody. I'm going to be honest, this is a lot of text. So I can tell you, I'll just summarize. ACLJ does real good things. ACLJ does real good things. We're helping people who need help. But I could go through it if you want to know about very specific proposals out of California and things that we're working on right now. We'll walk you through it. But it is part of our Impact Match that's happening right now. You guys have already made it a really historic couple days. Let's keep it going. If you like this show, if you like the legal work, if you like the fact that we do all this and we do it without a paywall, I need you to continue supporting. Again, if you hear an ad in your local market, that doesn't go to us. That goes to the network or to the local station. If you are getting an ad on YouTube, understand that does go to us, but it is such a small proportion of our revenue that even like a full year's worth of that is not paying for even close to the budget of just this show. So I want you to know that really the only way this exists is because of you. And right now, we've other ACLJ members and champions ready to unlock their pledge right now to match your donation. So again, if you can donate 50 bucks, it becomes effectively $100. Become a supporter. If you can opt in and become an ACLJ champion—that's someone that gives every month—know that we'd appreciate it and you can cancel it any time. Because we're engaging in these battles. Look, the ACLJ, just like we never charge you, we never bill a client as well. So again, no paywalls on anything we do like that. It's pretty amazing. So thank you so much again. That's at ACLJ.org/Impact. Will just put a finger up like he's got something.
Will: No, I didn't. I just kind of stretched. You're doing great. I've got lots to say because I just saw that clip in the previous segment of the Mayor of New York getting booed off stage.
Logan Sekulow: Yeah. Let's go to Robert in Maryland because he's always good. He's a classic caller. One of the originals. Let's go ahead. Robert, go ahead.
Robert: I appreciate it. Thank you. Now, let me preface this before I ask the question. I heard the clip about the Mayor going to a police event in Staten Island. And so he's getting booed, he's getting cursed at because they're bleeping it. And so based on that, based on how he campaigned and now how he's governing—I know New York is very blue, I live in a blue state of Maryland. I know New York is very Democratic, Maryland's very Democratic. As openly socialist as Mamdani was, what are some of the reasons you believe he still ended up being elected mayor, particularly over Curtis Sliwa, more so than I think the former Governor, Cuomo?
Will: Well, I think one, you look at Manhattan, which is the largest voter base of the five boroughs. It's very progressive, very far-left. You think of even what we've seen prior to his election. You look at the encampments on Columbia's campus. You think about all of the things that happen in Manhattan, and that is a big, big portion of the voting base. Staten Island, as we said, it's much smaller. When you add it up, it's not even 200,000 votes that were cast in Staten Island. So yeah, there are differences in the demographics in all of the boroughs really, but specifically here. And once again, I don't think it was wrong for him to go to the National Night Out event. He is the mayor. That's where he should be. And these events—what is the National Night Out? I mean, this is an event that happens all over the country. It's the first Tuesday in August is when this happens. Many of you have probably attended them in your hometown. It's a community outreach between police departments and the community. It's supposed to make it a place where people can interact with the police in a positive way, in a way that fosters a community and shows that police are here to help, not to be the bad guy. When you campaigned that way though, and then you are the mayor and you show up at an event like that, I think it's to be expected that that's what's going to happen, especially when you think of the blue-collar nature of Staten Island. You think of, as Robert said, it is more of the Curtis Sliwa kind of vibe. It's much more old-school, blue-collar New York, more moderate I'd say, but more traditional Democrats than anything.
Logan Sekulow: Think about it as Manhattan would be your downtown and Staten Island would be your suburbs. I think that there are visuals on Staten Island you'd look at and you would not even understand you're in New York City. So it's a much more comparable lifestyle to what maybe you're used to. I'd love to live there. It's a cool place. That being said, it is also—you have New York, to address Robert's question, how he got elected in the first place. You have a very progressive city. You also have a city that always feels like what? It's very young. There's a huge young population that comes in. You have Mayor Mamdani, who comes in, who is a very gifted communicator, very good at social media. You put him up against two old white men, let's just be honest. And you have a very progressive base that also is going to vote in a way that makes them feel good. And they think it makes them feel good, by the way, to vote for the young, hip, Muslim candidate. I don't put that—I mean, that's why you see how much the Jewish community did support Mamdani. It's a lot. Why? Because they're so progressive. They so want to fight back against the stigma that's been put on them that they're willing to even put their own lives at risk, I feel like often, to not feel like they are being labeled in some sort of way as a conservative or even worse as a racist or something like that. They will fight so hard against it that sometimes this is what happens. I think New York is one of those places as of recently. Remember, before this, Eric Adams, Mayor Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg. These were not young, hip people by any means. These were pretty strong, aggressive guys who came in and did the job. I think what you have right now is what you have in a lot of places, which is a fight back against that from young people and old people who want to feel young.
Will: And I think also what we need to draw the contrast. If you saw the video in the break, it was talking about what's going on in Wisconsin. We saw this week that there was a primary that elected El-Sayed in Michigan to be the Democrat nominee for Senate. In Wisconsin, this coming Tuesday, we have a primary for Governor in Wisconsin that has Francesca Hong, who is another DSA candidate, very progressive, has gotten a lot of attention recently because I think the DSA has been marching towards this, trying to notch new victories. It's not just House seats anymore. It's trying to get US Senate seats. It's also trying to get executive positions in states, like the Governor. What does she believe? She believes not just in defunding the police, but abolishing the police. She has said previously that she supports defunding the police as a first step to abolishing the police. And what have we seen happen? There was a police-involved shooting in Wisconsin, in Madison. And they have taken over. They are doing the same playbook from 2020 after the George Floyd incident. And what have they done? Autonomous zone. No one can come in. Trying to keep the police out, shutting down a portion of the city. They're acting like totalitarian socialists where they're saying you're not even allowed in unless we want you in. The jokes abound about them setting up borders and checkpoints. But then you look at what the gubernatorial candidate is saying.
Logan Sekulow: Did you say the jokes are?
Will: The jokes, oh not jokes-zar. The jokes are.
Logan Sekulow: Ah, I thought I would like to be the Joke Czar.
Will: Well, that's what the comments say. They say not funny, which makes it perfect for it.
Logan Sekulow: No, that's why you're the best at being the Joke Czar if you're not funny. Kind of like the Border Czar. They just need—I'll never tell a joke. Never. But I'll talk about it. Just like, I'm not going to visit the border. That one's not funny. So what did she say? It got so out of control from people fighting in this autonomous zone that the police had to go in. Surprise, surprise. What did the gubernatorial candidate say? "I'm deeply disappointed that the situation ended with police intervention and arrests rather than the voluntary community-led resolution that so many of us had worked toward." That sounds like a joke. It sounds like a parody account. Because yeah, no kidding. When there are autonomous zones with no law enforcement and a bunch of radical revolutionaries playing pretend, then what's going to happen? There's going to end up being fights and things that have to get settled by the police. And she plays this joke on herself. However, there's a good chance she's going to be the nominee for the Democrats to be the next Governor of a state. That is where we are. So when you see the Mayor going to this event in Staten Island and you see him getting booed, it doesn't tell us that, oh, the people are waking up. To me, it shows that yeah, places like Staten Island understand what's going on. But Wisconsin, a place that will simultaneously elect a Republican Governor and a Democrat for Senate and vice versa—it is a traditional purple state in that sense where they will split the ticket—they could very likely elect someone like this as their next Governor. And that person has more power to do things like defund the police than a Senator ever would in Michigan. Hey, we've got only a couple seconds left here. We've got a bunch of lines open now. 1-800-684-3110. Go ahead and give me a call. 1-800-684-3110. Support the work of the ACLJ during this Impact Match. We are wrapping up this week, but let's help us end this week strong. We also got some special video presentations we're going to run throughout this show just to let you know what's going on in the world of the ACLJ, some that you have loved, some that have gone viral. We'll talk about that coming up in just a minute. We got some really good ones that are rolling out next week, Will.
Will: We'll see. We'll get excited about it.
Logan Sekulow: All right. Scan the QR code you see on the screen right now. Support the work of the ACLJ. We'll be back in just a minute.
Jay Sekulow (Video Clip): We've witnessed monumental legal victories from defending the 14th Amendment and protecting our sacred American right to vote, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and standing up for the religious liberty of our kids and seniors. But even with the many historic wins we've achieved, the battle is far from over. The attacks on our constitutionally protected rights persist. Countless unborn babies remain in jeopardy, and across the globe, innocent Christians are being targeted and killed. This fight isn't just the ACLJ's. It's all of ours. It belongs to every American who wants to preserve the values and beliefs on which this nation was founded. None of the victories we've won would have been possible without the unwavering support of ACLJ members and ACLJ champions. It's been an honor to fight for you all these years. Join us in fighting for freedom. Have your donation doubled at ACLJ.org/Freedom. As an ACLJ supporter, you have great power. You make a tremendous impact. And this month, you can double that impact. Right now, your most sacred rights as an American—your freedom of speech, your freedom to pray and worship, even our free and fair election process—are being threatened. Right now, as part of our ACLJ Impact Match, you can double your support. Go to ACLJ.org/Impact and have your tax-deductible gift doubled dollar-for-dollar, doubling your impact to defend faith, freedom, and innocent life. Your impact is powerful, but the time is short. Go to ACLJ.org/Impact and have your gift doubled today.
Logan Sekulow: Welcome back to Sekulow. We do have some phone lines open, but we have a special video presentation we want to run as well in this segment. Phone lines, though, are open. I'd love for you to go ahead and get on hold. 1-800-684-3110. Will, this is a video that we've run before, but it's really an important one people need to see.
Will: Well, I think especially when we're talking about what's happened this week in Michigan when you look at the Senate race and the socialism that's coming forward. Just to remember that that is an ideology that is very competitive in fighting with the foundations of our country and where our rights come from. It's completely different than how our founders envisioned. And so I thought it was important to play this video again as we see these candidates rising because it reminds us what we need to be focused on. So let's go ahead and roll that for everyone.
Jay Sekulow (Video Clip): Our rights come from God, not from the Constitution or legislation or a petition or anywhere else. This isn't a fringe idea. It's a foundational belief put on paper 250 years ago in America's Declaration of Independence: "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." Jefferson wrote it, and it's one of the most iconic, recognizable, and powerful sentences in the world. So why then does it seem that so many people in America today don't agree with it, or at least don't understand it?
Senator Kane (Video Clip): The notion that rights don't come from laws and don't come from the government, but come from the Creator, that's what the Iranian government believes. It's a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia law and targets Sunnis, Baha'is, Jews, Christians, and other religious minorities. And they do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator.
Jay Sekulow (Video Clip): Those voices have sought to distort this self-evident truth that we know so well, that our founders boldly proclaimed in the Declaration: that our rights do not derive from the government, they come from you, our Creator and Heavenly Father.
Katie Tur (Video Clip): Is this him putting God over the Declaration of Independence? So the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.
Jay Sekulow (Video Clip): Politicians like Senator Kane, who ran for Vice President just 10 years ago, and journalists Katie Tur, who has a national news platform, probably wouldn't take such positions if their opinions were on the fringe of culture or unpopular. Because political discourse is generally a reflection of the values and beliefs of the culture it represents. But do people really believe our rights come from somewhere other than God? Just how popular is that viewpoint? We decided to send our team to ask just that.
Guest (Female): The Bill of Rights and the Constitution. I think just being a basic human should be where our rights come from.
Guest (Female): Our Founding Fathers.
Guest (Male): The people.
Guest (Male): I think the Constitution.
Guest (Male): Beginning in England in the Magna Carta. That was a good start.
Guest (Female): The Constitution, the Bill of Rights.
Guest (Male): The history of people making mistakes and realizing what we need as a society.
Guest (Male): The law of the land. So I think it comes from the Constitution, things of that nature.
Jay Sekulow (Video Clip): That's a harsh reminder of how important it is to pass down the biblical values that are enshrined in our founding documents. The ACLJ still believes, no matter what culture may say, our rights come only from our Creator. What the government does is ensure that the rights that we are endowed with by God are enforced, meaning we are human beings who are put on this earth and created by a higher power. And whether you're a Christian or you're a Muslim or you're a Jew, it doesn't matter. God is the reason why we're here to exist on this earth, to do good and to make our fellow man better. And I think that's very, very important. And our founders were very intentional about that. They wanted to make sure that everyone understood that our country was probably the first country in the history of earth to sort of reverse that and say that human beings have free will that is endowed to them by God, and it is the government's job to make sure that it is creating a society where those rights are able to be expressed by every single one of the citizens. And when you look at sort of the ways in which our country is failing, I think a lot of it can be linked directly back to a straying from faith and a straying from the idea that being faithful and trusting that your life is in the hands of a higher power and trusting that our government was created under the auspices of the same higher power. It doesn't mean that I have to disrespect somebody for being an atheist. But it does mean that we have a government that was created to ensure that an atheist's rights are equal to that of a Christian or a Jew or of a Muslim. And so faithfulness doesn't know a specific creed. But our government was so smart to use the basis of the Christian faith in order to make sure that everyone's rights, particularly their rights to worship and their rights to speak, were always going to be protected at all costs. I mean, there's a reason why it's our First Amendment. And the reason why it is our First Amendment is because it's the most important one for building a proper society. Every single word that you find in the Constitution and in our founding documents can be applied to all the new technological changes and things that happen in society. But they all get back to those founding Christian principles that they said were the best way for a society to govern itself. And it doesn't mean you have to be Christian, like I said before, but it does mean that those guiding principles should be guiding all the decisions that are being made in every single legislature across this country. And I think that's what's so genius is it gives the kind of wiggle room for our laws to change, but for our founding principles to remain rock solid and to never change. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what we believe about the origins of our rights if we aren't willing to defend them. You see, if our rights indeed come from God and are recognized in our laws and Constitution, then it's our responsibility to make sure they're exercised freely and enforced as written. Because history teaches us that our Constitution is only as powerful as the people and efforts to uphold it. It's why when a street preacher legally comes under attack in Chicago for practicing his First Amendment rights, the ACLJ jumps into action. We aren't just defending that preacher. We're defending his right and ensuring it can be freely applied and exercised by all Americans. Otherwise, that God-given right is trampled and destroyed. At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin famously called America a republic, if you can keep it. Now, two and a half centuries later, the ACLJ remains dedicated to keeping our beautiful constitutional republic and all our rights as one nation under God.
Logan Sekulow: And as we show in that video, and at that ending that was so pertinent I feel like and so timely because as we look at what these candidates are trying to do, it is completely out of touch with the founding of this country, where our rights come from, and that's what is so devastating when you think about our constitutional framework. That's right. We got a minute and a half left here. I want you to be a part of not only the ACLJ, but a part of this show today. Some of you don't get the full hour on your local radio station. Maybe if you're watching on YouTube or Rumble or Facebook, you're fine. Don't come anywhere. We got a very short break coming up, like less than a minute, just for a reset for those who are listening on radio. But you can always join us online. 12:00 to 1:00 PM Eastern time, I want you to do that. As things move to a more digital platform, it's always good to make sure you're engaging in a different way. We have full television-style broadcasts, so watch us. Look at our pretty faces. It's fun to watch. 1-800-684-3110 is also the number to call into the show. So we kind of have one foot in the old-school radio, one foot new television, new streaming style. So be a part of the show as well. We got three lines open right now at 1-800-684-3110. If I do lose you here though, I can't let you go without telling you this is the time. It's Friday, you're not going to hear from me for a couple days. It's an Impact Match right now. Be a part of it today. You can scan the QR code you see on the screen or go to ACLJ.org if you're listening. ACLJ.org/Impact if you want to go straight to that source to donate. Do it today. All donations are matched and doubled by another ACLJ member or champion. Join us in our fight to defend the Constitution and preserve religious liberty. I want you to be a part of the team on the front lines, engaging in these battles. We never bill a client, and we never bill you to watch this show. Nothing is behind a paywall when it comes to the ACLJ, but that's just because you support us. That's at ACLJ.org. Second half hour starts in less than a minute.
Jay Sekulow (Video Clip): As an ACLJ supporter, you have great power. You make a tremendous impact. And this month, you can double that impact. Go to ACLJ.org/Impact and have your tax-deductible gift doubled dollar-for-dollar, doubling your impact to defend faith, freedom, and innocent life. Your impact is powerful, but the time is short. Go to ACLJ.org/Impact and have your gift doubled today.
Logan Sekulow: Welcome back to Sekulow. We do have some phone lines open, but we have a special video presentation we want to run as well in this segment.