Don Lemon Faces DOJ Investigation

On today's show, we got a big win out of Colorado while Don Lemon faces a DOJ investigation. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Seculo. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments. Recall 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Seculo. Welcome to Seculo. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-31110. I want to hear from you today. We got a packed show. Cece Hiles is going to be joining us a little bit later to talk about a big victory for the ACLJ. You've heard about this case for quite a few weeks, months now. Out of Colorado, we're going to discuss that as well. As of course, the big news now is that the DOJ has put Don Lemon, quote-unquote, on notice for his role in what he would say probably was just covering the press side of the church that was overtaken by protesters. And of course, if you watch the footage, you maybe feel otherwise. And if you watch his follow-up commentary, you maybe could feel otherwise that this wasn't someone just going in there, making a, you know, just covering what was going on, asking questions, doing his job. This is someone who clearly had an agenda and an angle, including earlier when he was out front seeing children be escorted out or being consoled by their parents and saying, well, that's the point of protesting is to make people uncomfortable. And of course, targeted that at kids. Of course, this is in a house of worship, a place that has been a target of attack before throughout the last few years. It has never, has not felt near as safe as it once did to be in your own house of worship, whether that's a church, synagogue, mosque, wherever it may be. We know that security has had to be up to a lot of these places. But what can security likely not do? If you stop a mob of a hundred people or whatever it may be, you may have a armed guard or police officers in the front of your facilities. And fantastic. I fully encourage you to do that if you're a pastor or you're someone in church leadership, to be vigilant and to take those precautions seriously. But I mean, ask probably that police officer that's on duty working. If a hundred people showed up, if 50 people showed up and bused through the doors, what are they supposed to do during a church service on a Sunday? And now that included Don Lemon. Will, you can kind of break down what they're actually saying. Of course, we're talking about former CNN, former CNN broadcaster, Don Lemon. That's right. So what we're finding out is that Harmeet Dillon, who is the assistant attorney general for civil rights, put out some statements yesterday as well as did some interviews talking about the Don Lemon angle specifically, but as well as the other members of that mob that broke into the church on Sunday in Minneapolis. And what Harmeet Dillon is saying is that a house of worship is not a public forum for your protest. It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal, criminal and civil laws, nor does the First Amendment protect your pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service. You are on notice. She later in an interview said that Don Lemon himself has come out and said he knew exactly what was going to happen inside that facility. He went into the facility and then he began, quote, committing journalism as if it's sort of a shield from being a part and embedded part of a criminal conspiracy. And Logan, I think it's important because we are robust free speech advocates here. Absolutely. But I think it's times like this where you do have to be honest about where free speech lines exist. I think the people within the media have taken advantage of protections and shielded things such as New York Times versus Sullivan, where we are fighting against that at the Supreme Court, where CNN themselves could be in trouble for for defaming Alan Dershowitz. And when you look at this and go to this point where someone like Don Lemon, and we have plenty of sound that we're going to play as well, are trying to say, no, no, no, I was just in there documenting being a journalist. There is a line between advocate and journalist. We know what he followed up with was insulting to a lot of people. And look, I do think there is a broad protection for journalism as there should be. But remember, in this moment, when you are disrupting a church service, what does that look like? Let's just take you out the legal side of it and just say, how about just common human decency, morality? If you're going to be so act like you're so much better than the other side on this issue is disrupting a church service and traumatizing children. Really going to do you much good. Is that really what makes you feel good? Makes you feel better? Helps you sleep at night? Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-6-8-4-30-1-10. I want you to support the work of the ACLJ. I'm going to tell you why coming up here when we get back from a break and get a big victory and CeCe is going to be joining us in about two seconds. We'll be right back. Welcome back to CeCe. We are going to be taking your calls at 1-800-6-8-4-30-1-10. A lot of you are calling in right now. If you're on hold, stay on hold. We'll try to get to you. But we do have two or three lines open. 1-800-6-8-4-3-1-1-0. We're going to restate what we are talking about and then we'll get to some of those calls and some of those comments as well. And this is that, of course, we were discussing the church that was overrun by anti-ice protesters in Minneapolis. This has been another point of contention, another part of the cloud that's hanging over that area of the country. Whether you feel that that is real or manufactured, it is happening. That could be, of course, we can go through the fraud. We can then go through the death of one of the anti-ice protesters at the hands of one of the ICE officers. Whether you agree with it that it was justified or not, that's a whole different discussion we can have here. But that happened. Loss of human life. Then you have protests that broke out, riots. And then you, of course, have this moment here. You have 10 walls saying, I'm not going to run for re-election. And now you have this, this church that was overtaken on Sunday. And now you have a former CNN anchor, Don Lemon, going in there as, quote, unquote, sort of as a journalist, intimidating the pastor, as well as commenting on what was going on outside. And clearly not someone who's coming in from an editorial point of view saying, essentially, this is our first amendment right to be here. Plus saying, it's good to essentially be making children traumatized and uncomfortable. And I'm not even really, I mean, I'm paraphrasing a quote here, but it's not like I'm blowing that out of proportion. It's essentially what he said. Well, and what we saw also is he was reporting before. He was even giving commentary about how they were MAGA-coded. Like they had, he said, we have a bunch of white allies here. And that's very important for what's about to happen. He knew the entire intent, and we can play that later. But I wanted to play this because it's also what he said after, where he is being an advocate for what is happening. It wasn't just covering it. It wasn't just reporting on it. It was actively participating and supporting what happened. And this is Byte Nine. This is Don Lemon on the I've Had It podcast that's hosted by Jennifer Welch, who is just a delightful human being, former reality TV star, who is now making waves within the liberal community as kind of being the Joe Rogan of the left, except for she just says nasty things about people all the time. And they get excited about that. She's on CNN a lot. Who is it again? Jennifer Welch. She's, like I said, she's a podcaster. I've had it. You don't follow liberal media. Like I do. I have to stay up on it so I can educate you about all this stuff. But you've seen her before. We played Bytes of Her. And I think you've said, who is that again? Multiple times. But that's the podcast that Don Lemon was on. When he made this statement about the church, he doesn't know the people that were sitting in those seats in that church. Guarantee he's never spoken to any of them, except for maybe the pastor, when he was interviewing him and saying they have the first amendment right to assemble within your church. But here's what he had to say after the fact, after seeing the children terrorized and saying trauma and uncomfortable was the point. Bite nine. And there's a certain degree of entitlement. I think people who are, you know, in the religious groups like that, it's not the type of Christianity that I practice. But I think that they're entitled and that entitlement comes from a supremacy, a white supremacy. And they think that this country was built for them, that it is a Christian country when actually we left England because we wanted religious freedom. It's religious freedom, but only if you're a Christian and only if you're a white male, pretty much. And so, yeah, absolutely 100%. But it's an intimidation tactic. And, you know, I said, I don't understand how I've become the face of it when I was a journalist. I do understand that I'm the biggest name there. And I'm also, as I was on with my producers this morning, you know, you and Kylie talk all the time, my producers were saying, I said, how did I become the face of this? And my producers had done, you're a gay black man in America. The absurdity of everything that he said in that statement of starting from the very beginning to the very end, about one, then making it all about himself by hypothetically questioning, I don't even know why I'm the face of this story. It wasn't because you were the biggest name there. It was because of your actions there. And everyone saw you for who you are and your inability to grasp the concepts of the Constitution, the First Amendment, when you're speaking to the pastor. And the way you were filled with joy, looking at a traumatized child that was in a church service, worshiping God, and did not know what was going to happen when they saw her nasty vile things being spewed at people that they had never met. And now you're getting on a podcast, a very safe space for you, because Jennifer Welch is not going to push back on anything nasty, you say. As a matter of fact, they got real bad real soon after this clip. They didn't stop there. But he's saying and in applying these motives to people he does not know, saying that they are entitled white supremacy. They think it's a Christian country, but actually we fled England to have religious freedom. Right. And you think that a mob going in and disrupting a church service is practicing religious freedom. Is that what you think, Don Lemon? So I don't think that you get to play this card of I was a journalist. They're covering it. I don't know why I'm the face of this all of a sudden. You knew exactly what you were doing. You knew exactly what they were doing ahead of time during and after. And then you couldn't help it. You still have to be the face of it by doing all these interviews. And you even had Keith Ellison on the attorney general of the state. And we'll play that in a little bit, Logan, because it's just as shocking. How little the attorney general of that state knows about the US Constitution. That's right. I think that's one of the big points when we talk about Don Lemon in this situation and look, we've had our issues with him over the years and clearly CNN did as well. We know some of the internal issues he had, how he treated other people who he worked with, how a lot of his female co-hosts, co-anchors had a lot of issues with him and the way that they treated. There's a reason he hasn't shown up on one of the mainstream networks since then. Like you see pretty much everybody who ends up off of CNN shows up somewhere. Don Lemon tried to go to X. We remember how that went when he had that contentious interview with Elon Musk. Now you have this moment. Again, I'm not saying a journalist doesn't have the right to be there and cover it. And I don't know where the line is in terms of this being a federal crime or not, but the idea of it being investigated doesn't surprise me, nor should it, based on the rhetoric that comes out of it. I think you can be an honest journalist and be there and ask those questions and have those discussion points. But if you're going out there not only with that, but with a real motive and looking like you, why are you leading it? You know, he said, why did I become the poster boy and become the most famous person there? Why are you going into this church in the first place other than just, maybe you did want to just follow, but you didn't do that. So again, it gives Don Lemon some interesting coverage because who was talking about him a few weeks ago, nobody. I haven't heard the name Don Lemon in quite some time. So of course it gives him a pop. It makes it exciting because who's going to be going after him? President Trump, the administration gives him a little more street cred in terms of his base. I'm not shocked by any of this. What's shocking is the actual events that went down and that now you're claiming, if you go to this church and look, I don't know anything about the church. I don't know anything about their doctrine. I don't know anything about their beliefs. But if you're saying, hey, with a very, very wide brush saying, if you are essentially an evangelical Christian in America, you are now considered a white supremacist. Look, I don't know what kind of church you go to. Maybe it is predominantly white. Maybe it's predominantly black. Maybe it is a lot of different cultures go to your church. I wouldn't say that about really any church that I've ever attended where I felt that way. And I think that's true for most people in America. Again, I don't know anything specifically about this church per se, but it didn't feel that way from the way that it has been presented. Well, and here's the other problem. And we'll get to Keith Ellison's statement. He's made a couple of them. He's the only official I've seen actually publicly make a statement thus far from those that are leaders in Minnesota. That includes the mayor of Minneapolis. It's been everywhere. That was fine going on TV multiple times using expletives on television, knowing that he was going to get covered more because of that. Or the governor, Tim Walsh, I haven't seen him out there rushing to the microphone like he's been doing when he's saying, we're at war with the administration and saying, oh, but we just want to love each other here in Minnesota. And that's not what the Trump administration wants. Instead, the only one you've seen is Keith Ellison. And we'll play it in a little bit. We don't have time here going on and not understanding the Constitution of the United States. But here's the only statement that I've been able to find from Tim Walsh. Not it's not him putting out a statement on his website, not him putting it out on X. He's fronted. It's he was asked by a journalist with the daily signal for a comment. And he spokesperson respond from the press office that said, spokesperson, they had to clarify quote. The governor has repeatedly and unequivocally urged protesters to do so peacefully. While people have the right to speak out, he in no way supports interrupting a place of worship. End quote. That's it. Pretty lukewarm. Couldn't have said this is exactly the opposite of what I've been talking about. He couldn't have said they have the right to worship peacefully. He just says he in no way supports interrupting a place of worship. Pretty weak when you've seen how aggressive he has been against the Trump administration in all of his dozens of press conferences. It's sickening. It's all narratives. It's all just sticking to your own political party. That's why I said we got to we got to break that. We got to break it right now. Throw your party to the side and figure out, OK, if there are riots happening in the streets, if churches are being invaded, if there are people getting killed, we've got to figure out what to do here. And I don't necessarily have the answers, but the answers aren't to amp it up. The answers aren't to have Tim Walls going out there making statements. President Trump going out there making statements. Get together, get in a room and figure this out and get your city under control. Get your state under control. And I feel that way across the country right now. It can't just be let's amp each other up on social media. Let's just turn up the heat. Turn up the heat. Let's just keep doing it because eventually the boiling point is going to hit. It's going to hit very soon. Now that being said, we do have some successes and some exciting news to cover. So you know what? The next segment, we'll get back to Minnesota. But the next segment, we're going to celebrate a victory. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Secular. We're going to break this up a little bit. Of course, we're going to get back to Minnesota. If you're on hold right now and you want to talk about that church, we're going to get to it. So, stay on hold. 1-800-688-431-10. You can call in about that as well. We'll get to you in the next segment. Coming up, Cece Hile, senior attorney here at the ACLJ is joining us. Cece, we have an exciting announcement, but maybe we need to back it up a little bit for people who maybe don't remember or need some refreshers of what was going on in Colorado just a few weeks ago. Yeah. So once again, we're always kind of shocked, even though we shouldn't be, that Christians face the amount of targeting that they do. And in Colorado, we had these pastors from several different churches that were simply doing what they believe is their biblical mandate of reaching out to the less fortunate and feeding them. And so they were at this picnic place and they would feed the homeless every Tuesday. They did this for four years at the park with no problems. But then the city decides, and they literally said this, they're going to crack down on this ministry. And so they pass a law that prohibits and it bans reoccurring gatherings of groups of five or more, which at a park is absolutely ridiculous because that's exactly who you have coming to use the park, whether it's an exercise group that meets every Monday, singles group that meets on Wednesday nights, whatever the park is used for those things. But they were literally going to crack down on this particular Christian use of the park. And so they literally arrested three pastors for feeding the poor under this law. And we immediately jumped in and defended them. And we filed a motion to dismiss immediately. And when the prosecutor had tried to delay, had some delay tactics, but on the day that they were to file their opposition to our motion to dismiss, the prosecutor dropped the charges against these pastors. They felt the pressure. They knew what was coming. Well, and Logan, what I think is so interesting, especially on today, when we've been talking about what's happening in Minnesota, and you saw the response from Don Lemon, what a lot of, I feel like, unfortunately, the world thinks about churches is that they are white supremacists that only want to help them. They want to help themselves and ignore the good work that churches are doing, that evangelical churches do in their community around the world with disaster relief. But once again, this was a city that decided they didn't like the churches ministering to people in their community, to the least of these. And so they tried to make a law against it. They tried to do it in a clever way where it wouldn't appear as on the nose as churches can't help the poor. But it was this convoluted, you can't have more than five gathering on a recurring basis at a public park. They tried to limit who could use the public park. And then they went so far as to criminally cite these pastors. And we have been talking about this. We also mentioned that they had a hearing for their arraignment right before Christmas, when these pastors should have been focused on sharing the gospel, ministering to the community even more during the Christmas season. Just days before Christmas, there was an arraignment hearing that the prosecutor sought for it to be delayed. And it was. Even over the objections of our attorney saying, no, let's have the arraignment now. And now we have secured victory. They have dropped these charges. But the fight's not over. No, it's not over. Because we have a civil component as well. Yes. We've also filed in federal court against this law itself that it's viewpoint discrimination. And it is. And the Supreme Court has ruled on this that the government can't shut down speech because of its Christianity. And that's what they're trying to do here. And that's what this law does. So we will continue to fight the law. And if we win on that, we win that for, again, not just our clients, but pastors and churches in that area that want to do the same kind of ministry. You got to understand that. When you're listening to these individual cases, you may be able to kind of disconnect yourself from it. But the implications, whether it's citywide, statewide, countrywide, is why ACLJ gets involved. I mean, obviously we want to help out the individual church. We want to make sure that they're protected. And we will do that. But there's always these global ramifications, or at least countrywide, or statewide ramifications that then protect the next church that could run into this issue. That's why sometimes these can make it to Supreme Court of the United States. A lot of them have been handled already. But still you have state and local governments that don't understand the law. We have to jump in and help. And of course we help all of these churches at no cost to them. That is how the ACLJ operates. None of our clients pay a single dollar. Understand that. When they have anything that has to do with the law, in terms of what we do here at the ACLJ, they're not being charged. Our legal teams fly there. They do all of that work. They make sure everything is handled without taking a penny from the client. But that is only because people like you stand up and say, I think this is important. Because likely this church that was meeting in a public park that was helping feed the homeless, they likely did not have the funds to pay for a top-notch legal staff to take this to court and to continue the case forward. But because people like you step up, even with your $10 or your $20 or your $50, it all compounds and makes a huge impact that keeps these cases going, keeps our work going, keeps this show going, all because of you. Well, and Logan, think about the other things that we're involved in right now. We are fighting at the Supreme Court for Calvary Chapel San Jose, because the Newsome administration and the government in California wants to take tithes from the people of those churches. They want to take the tithes away and put it in the coffers of the government. For fines during the COVID era that have already been overturned as unconstitutional and were blocked, but they still are trying to enforce these fines. And this is 2026. This is crazy. But that's what the government in California is doing. You hear what's going on in Colorado and that we've gotten a victory, but we still have to keep fighting. And then you see what happened in Minneapolis over the weekend. This is, it feels like a dark time. You said that yesterday, this cloud that's hanging over Minnesota. But really, you see what governments, local governments, are trying to do to churches still and how they are trying to stop God's work going forward. And they are trying to stop them reaching out to the least of these. That is what the people like Don Lemon want to say, churches don't even care about that. They are white supremacists. They feel so privileged. We need to make them feel uncomfortable and feel trauma. That was his message. In many cases, I guarantee you, I guarantee you, he has no clue about what we are fighting for in Colorado. But in his mind, that's not even something that's possible. For a church to be doing. Because he thinks it is white supremacists that are entitled and do not like him for all these reasons. But in reality, we know what the church does. And we know it doesn't make headlines. And we know even when we talk about it on here, sometimes, it doesn't pop the numbers on YouTube. It doesn't feed the algorithm. But it's important work and it's real work. And it's stuff that we will not stop fighting for. Even when the world turns away and says, that's not what they're actually doing. We'll keep fighting. I encourage you to become an ACLJ champion. Also, someone that gives on a monthly basis. So, Cece, just to wrap up before we get there. So, the next steps in this, because look, in some instances, like you said, just to reset the stage. We've won. But the fight somehow, as always, never seems to wrap up. We won. The criminal charges have been dropped. But the law still stands. So, we're going after the law itself. All right. Be a part of that team right now. Go to ACLJ.org. Again, if you become a champion, that's someone that gives on a monthly basis. We have a second half hour coming up. So, make sure you join us. If you don't get us on your local station or you're watching online, if you're watching online, you're good to go. We'll be here for the next half hour. You're listening on terrestrial radio. Some of those networks don't carry us. Find us on ACLJ.org on YouTube, on rumble, full video, television style production, Salem news channel. Again, go to ACLJ.org though, if you wanted to donate and support. Perfect time to do it and become a champion if you can. At any level, we got two lines still open. Also, I'd love to hear from you. 1-800-6-8-4-30-1-10. We'll be right back. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now, more than ever, this is Seculo. And now, your host, Logan Seculo. Welcome to Seculo, second half hour. That's right. We got a packed show still for you. Earlier on, you just heard from C.C. Hyall or ACLJ, a senior counsel. We talked about a big win that we had out of Colorado. We're going to keep that going as well. But I know a lot of you are calling in, a lot of you are tuning in, because you want to know more information on what's going on in Minnesota, including the potential for a DOJ investigation into Don Lemon, and to those who interrupted this church service. That's right. And I think it's also important to start bringing up what the Attorney General of Minnesota has to say about this. Because with Jordan yesterday, we were talking about even states have sometimes laws that are reflective of what federal law is, like the FACE Act, which we talked about yesterday extensively, that stops, it was originally put forward to try and stop First Amendment activity around abortion clinics. And the way they got it passed was by also putting a similar label on the other side to help protect houses of worship, even though FACE Act stands for Free Access to Clinics. What we have to look at now though, is that we know that the Attorney General is going to do nothing to protect this church. And sides 100% with the people that stormed that worship service. And there are two bites here. And we'll play the first one, where he is talking with Don Lemon after the events of the day. They had also talked before, but after, let's go ahead and play Bite 13. This is the Attorney General Keith Ellison on with D.L. Hoogley and also Don Lemon on his show, which is very interesting, but let's roll it. The protest is a fundamental to American society. This country started in a protest. And it's freedom of expression. People have a right to lift up their voices and make their peace. And none of us are immune from the voice of the public. So quite honestly, I think that you got the First Amendment, Freedom of Religion, and the First Amendment, Freedom of Expression. So he's trying to say they're at odds with one another, but no one is immune from the voice of the public. So even if you are practicing freedom of religion, it still seems in his mind one trumps the other. You get a protest outside. You do a lot of different things. But here's where he was on with Erin Burnett on CNN. And she was asking, do you think that these protesters will get federal charges against them as Harmeet Dillon, et cetera, has put forward? And for those that don't know, Keith Ellison. Right. He is the Attorney General of Minnesota. The top law enforcement officer of the state. People may not be that familiar with who the Attorney General is of each state. So I just wanted to make sure before you hear it, you can know who you're hearing from. Once again, let's play Byte 14 on CNN with Erin Burnett. So I wish in a normal time, I would say no. I'd say this is First Amendment activity. And time like this, it's just really difficult to say. Because the only one thing is clear. If Trump likes you, you can do no wrong. If he doesn't, he's going to use every weapon he can against you, including our criminal justice system. For he is saying to her, her question was about, is the federal government going to bring charges against these people? He was saying, in a normal time, I would say no. I say this is First Amendment activity. But the Trump administration is going to go after people they don't like. How is he not know, one, that the First Amendment activity was them worshipping in there, and that is protected as well. And that storming the place of worship, interrupting that First Amendment activity, is not just First Amendment activity. That there are ways they could have been outside protesting, even though if they were too loud, that could have violated the face act, as many pro-life protesters have been charged with. Now, what do you think? Because look, it's a little bit of a slippery slope when you start saying, this is what a protester can and can't do, or what a journalist can or can't do. How do you feel about that? I want to hear from you at 1-800-6-8-4-31-10. Are you worried that ramifications that may come out of what happens to Don Lemon and to these protesters could be used against you? Your support? I'm just curious. Let's just find out. I want to kind of weigh the room here. Let me know in the chat and give me a call. 1-800-6-8-4-31-10. While we're at it, again, you heard about what we did in Colorado. We defeated one of those big attempts to silence another church. We're just trying to feed the homeless. And of course, was arrested for it. We were able to really take a hand of that only because of you. So go to aclj.org. Support the work. We'll be right back with your calls, comments, and so much more. Welcome back to Secular Ophold. Lines are open for you at 1-800-6-8-4-31-10. Do you want to take some calls? Send me about a hold for a while. Let's go to Bill in Wyoming on line one. Bill, go ahead. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. You're going to have to help me because I'm very confused. Years ago, when I went to Bible college, I along with other students wanted to become part-time ministers. My ideal fell through. But the thing of it is, is this is after what the Supreme Court explained in the fact that if a minister ever has an issue about something, this person, while they are being recorded, I repeat, while they are being recorded, step down or step away from the pulpit and speak as a private citizen, this is how I feel about this. And then explain it. Now, this is what the preachers have got to do. And yet, we've got people right now using their own venue as an entertainer site or news reporter or something like that, standing on their qualifications and speaking this and that. I think I'm following what you're saying, Bill. Is it effectively that with the, there was distinctions where pastors being political or something from the pulpit was an issue for a long time, and actually some of the IRS rules have changed after that, but drawing that distinction with that the pastor should, if wants to address something in their private life, don't do it from your pulpit effectively and trying to draw that directive with Don Lemon being an activist and saying, I'm a journalist in there. Once again, this is part of the issue. And there is great leverage that journalists have and great deference that is given to them under the First Amendment, the freedom of the press to do their work. And unfortunately, even with things like New York Times versus Sullivan, which we're fighting, where they have gotten this super protection from the law that isn't afforded to houses of worship, that isn't afforded to common people using the First Amendment, we know that if you had conservative ideas under the Biden administration, you were targeted. We know that they worked with banks to police what you were, where you were shopping, if you bought Bibles, if you went to Bass Pro Shop. Put on a list. These were things that were happening under the previous administration for common citizens using their First Amendment, right? But journalists have had this super protection under the freedom of the press that other categories of the First Amendment have not been afforded historically. That's one of the reasons why we are fighting for the Supreme Court to relook at New York Times versus Sullivan. We filed that cert petition at the end of December. So we are still actively working on this issue as these things bubble up in real time. Now, this isn't a defamation style case that would be necessarily addressed by New York Times versus Sullivan, but this is one of those instances where even Keith Ellison is pointing out that there's kind of a conflict within the First Amendment, but he's siding with protesters being able to take over and shut down the people worshiping in church, actively expressing and utilizing their First Amendment rights by worshiping God on a Sunday. And he is siding with the protesters saying, eh, it's First Amendment activity to shut it down. We all know that that's not how the First Amendment works. We know you can't yell, fire in a crowded theater, that there are limits to what the freedom of speech actually delivers for the individual. But once again, the journalist fall back on these protections and are now using it for activism. But it is a double-edged sword as you brought up and you wanted to ask the audience about because you also look back to what happened to people that were inside the Capitol. They're documenting, filming and claimed we are here as journalists. We are trespassing. We followed the people in, but we are journalists and therefore use that as a defense. And many of them were convicted, sentenced to jail for their participation in January 6th. I don't think that Don Lemon, while he was still at CNN, was rushing to their defense. I've looked this morning. I'm going to keep looking because for him, that would be a very important thing if he has advocated for people being in places they shouldn't be and trying to advocate themselves or put forward a defense that I'm a journalist. But you also have that double-edged sword. If we are talking about Don Lemon should not have been engaged in this in this way, I'm not an expert on those cases. I don't know what was on their film that they collected, if they were just filming or if they were more actively involved. But you have to be consistent. And I think that is one of the things that we see here, that there is so much inconsistency because it is so shattered along partisan lines within this country that you can't even go to church and worship without the threat of people rushing in and taking over. I want to hear from what you all think because I know a lot of you have a lot of different points of view. And again, I would ask you that maybe you think beyond the frustration and the anger that you may be feeling right now because I understand that that gets heated. You have an evisceral reaction. We all do. I know I did when I saw the footage of people storming this church and footage of the children having to be consoled. You start to think back also, we had Christian schools that have had shootings and all that in recent years, even here in Nashville. You start to kind of feel those emotions again when you see a church overtaken. And it's easy to side with the anger in your brain. And I'm not saying necessarily that's wrong. I'm saying there's likely that you're probably right to feel that. It's probably righteous anger, if you will. With that, though, I want to hear from you. Let's go to Ann, who's calling first in Pennsylvania, watching on Facebook, and go ahead. Hi, guys. You guys always stir up such a mixture of emotions because that's how great your show is. Thank you so much. I'm telling you right, thank you so much for everything that you guys do. So I wanted to quickly say a couple of such different things. Churches, right to free speech in this case, was actually violated. The free speech of the stormers and the invaders, their free speech was not violated. They violated the speech of the church. Now, also, the right of the people to peaceably assemble, which is in the first amendment of the Constitution, that was also violated. Now, and then Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. So they were violating their free exercise thereof, being able to practice their religion. And these people that invaded the church, they're not, they're, they're, it's not about free speech. It's about breaking the law. They broke the law. They broke the Constitution. And they violated the free speech rights of the church and of Jews. And this ongoing slaughter on not just the Christian church, but the Jewish church, the synagogue. And you guys are great at pointing out everything. And I thank you so much for letting me get that off my chest because this is serious. This, the first amendment, and also, as I was telling your amazing producer, it's not absolute. Free speech was never absolute. Remember, we can't scream fire in a crowded theater when there's no fire, because that could cause harm to other people. And so we understand, but we understand the grab the level of, of, of the, how the First Amendment, the right to free speech is because we can say it protects hate speech, but it doesn't protect violent hate speech. It doesn't protect violators. And absolutely, you're 100% correct. You should run for attorney general of Minnesota. I had such a problem with the way that, I'm sure we have that bite, we can grab it, where Don Lemon, the way he spoke to the pastor and specifically said, well, aren't, don't you think they're just using their freedom of speech? It made me look at Don Lemon in a different way. I never loved the guy to begin with, but it made me go, oh, you are just a guy who is decent enough to read a teleprompter and to do this. You actually were not smart. You actually don't understand how this works. Do we have that bite? By two. By two. So the church, our church had gathered for worship, which we do every Sunday. And we were interrupted by this group of protesters. We asked them to leave and they, obviously have not left. What do you think of it? I mean, this is unacceptable. It's shameful. It's shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship. But there were folks who said, I have to take care of my flock. Listen, we live in, there's a constitution in the first amendment to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest. Right. Here you go. Listen, we live in a constitution, or there's a constitution and a first amendment to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and to protest. Of course there is Don Lemon, but that is not what was happening involved in this church. And as Ann pointed out, there are limits to all of this. And when you start pretending there's not, of course, you're going to be inciting more and more chaos. And it just seems like you don't understand the basics, the basics of your first amendment rights. I mean, once again, you go back to how much airtime was given to January 6th and the fact that they repeatedly called it the insurrection, went after it. But yet they're also now trying to say when someone just breaks into a place, that's the freedom to assemble and protest. You cannot have it both ways. But that's exactly what he's trying to do here. And that's just at least be consistent, at least be consistent. And they can't do it. Three lines are open for you. I'm going to take as many calls as we can in the next segment. Stay on hold. If you're on hold, I'll get to you as well as again, three more calls that can potentially make it on the air today. 1-800-684-3110. Go to aclj.org for more information. All right, we've made it here. Last segment of the day. I want to hear from you. We still got two lines open. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Let's kick it first to Susan in North Carolina, who is listening on the radio. Susan, go ahead. Good morning. I just want to ask, how does the Biden administration send out its Department of Justice FBI, surround a pastor and his family, go in, arrest, and pass the run of court? But we can't do anything to Mr. Lemon. Well, I don't think we can not do anything. I think it's getting done. Susan, when it comes to people being arrested for protesting during that administration, or honestly, it's been an ongoing fight for us for our entire existence here at the ACLJ. If you're a sidewalk protester, sidewalk counselor, maybe pro-life counselor, we have one of those cases right now happening. Today, we filed a motion to dismiss in a case near Atlanta, where a preacher's pro-life message was silenced and he was criminally cited. These are still happening today in America. But you know what they're not doing? They're not invading people's space. They're not disrupting at a point to where it is causing chaos or causing fear to children. And if they are, they shouldn't be. We do live in a different society now that we even did in the 80s and 90s. There are laws on the books, and they're there hopefully for a good reason. Sometimes, they get a little blurry. The FACE Act in general is this odd situation where it protects houses of worship, but also is put in place really to protect abortion clinics. Right. The name stands, FACE stands for Freedom of Access to Clinic Interances Act. And it's not something we typically are big supporters of. It has been something we've had to fight against because of how generously it is applied to people that are near or close to, or doing pro-life activity near abortion clinics. However, what we're seeing here, it is on the books. And if it is something that they use against grandmothers praying in front of abortion clinics, then it definitely should be used against these, this mob of protesters that are breaking into the church, in, intimidating and inciting fear into the congregants there. Some of these protesters and agitators, if you will, are known entities. Are people that have been around forever that are used to doing this? This wasn't a bunch of locals, as it always is. It's not a bunch of locals protesting and causing a storm. These are people that fly in or drive in because they are professionals at this. Whether they get paid or not is up for a debate. But in general, we know that some of these people have been linked to harassing people throughout the country. Yeah. Let's quickly play bite eight because this is Don Lemon before they went into the church, when he is reporting on the group before they go in and in describing in great detail, knowing what these individuals, why it's these certain people that are making up this group. Let's run bite eight. Speaking to an organization there that's gearing up to, for resistance and protest. I've been surprised, pleasantly surprised to see the community coming together. The diverse community, if you see this when we first pulled up, we're like, wait a minute, what is, which operation are we at? And as it turns out, because we're like, well, this is kind of MAGA coded, right? Saw the American flag or whatever. But these are resistance protesters that are planning an operation that we're going to follow them on. I can't tell you exactly what they're doing, but it's called Operation Pull Up. And it's the Kema Armstrong, and she has been doing this since George Floyd, Dante Wright and others, where they surprise people, catch them off guard and hold them to account. Surprise people, catch them off guard, hold them to account. MAGA coded because of their American flag. And there's one where he says, you know, it's so important that we have white allies in there because, you know, they're not going to expect it. They want to catch them off guard. It's disgusting. Yeah. And they don't know these people. Hold them to the church account for what? Right. It's, it's, that's what's so frustrating about it and why it makes your blood boil and why you have to keep reminding people of the truth about things like their case in Colorado. They think that if you're a Christian, you're a white nationalist, you're a white supremacist and you're evil. They have, they have no love for their neighbor as they keep trying to say, in Minnesota, we love our neighbors. No, he said, I am pleasantly surprised how this community is coming together to do what, what did those individuals have to do with any of this? All right, let's go ahead, try to get a couple more calls in. Let's go to Michael in Florida, watching on YouTube. Go ahead. Gentlemen. Yes. I'm so glad you guys are calling this out for what it is because this was purely an attack. It was violence through words. And then you have, you know, people who are pretending to be journalists trying to put together an acrobatic word salad to justify this whole thing. You know, the thing that we never do with people who are victims in this type of thing, yeah, we can prosecute these people, but that memory will live forever in their minds. Michael, I appreciate you calling. Yes, I feel that way too. I think hopefully this is a wake up call for a lot of people. Unfortunately, I don't feel like the other side is making any statements, any comments about this. They are virtually ignoring it. You're seeing it on conservative news. You saw it break during that moment, but look, I have a lot of liberal friends. I didn't see one of them post about this. I didn't see one of them. I saw a few people who were on the, maybe you'd say center right. They were not, they're not traditionally Trump supporters. Call it out who are more conservative and even them, you know, it takes them a bit of time to do that, but at least they did. But I saw no one, even from the liberal church community, call it out. Well, and you have to think, you know, Minnesota has been the focus of a lot right now. If in the wake of the videos that Nick Shirley put out about the daycare centers in fraud, if individuals had said, you know what, we see this daycare fraud, we're going to go to mosques that have predominantly Somali congregants. And we are going to break in during Friday prayers and we're going to interrupt and we are going to protest and we're going to live stream it. And we're going to get a journalist to come film it and live stream it. We would call that out. Absolutely. Say that is disgusting. That's a violation of their rights. And you shouldn't be doing that. That's not what this is about. This isn't a campaign stop. You use the law. You use the ways to go after fraud. You don't go do that. But that's the equivalent of what's happening here in the lefts doing nothing. I want to quickly take Susan and Marilyn. Susan, we only got about a minute left in the show. So go ahead. Okay. I just like to quickly say that I don't agree with the previous caller about the violence with the violence with words because that concerns me that they'll accuse the church for reading the Bible of violence, violence with words. But anyway, like to hear your opinion, not only on the First Amendment rights violation, but the violation for separation of churches, church and state. These people are inserting only a political point of view views to this house of worship. And Don Lemon did not sit down in the pew and listen. And that's why the early colonies were fleeing Britain for controlling and inserting themselves into our houses of worship. Susan, what we learned very quickly in this entire spiel with Don Lemon is he really has no idea what he's talking about. Unfortunately, he is not the state. So, and one also, the violation of separation of church and state isn't in the constitution. So there's not a violation there, but I do understand your point as well. But I can't tell you how much it means that you guys would all call in and speak your point of view in your minds. It really does. I guess it warms my heart in some ways to hear this kind of discussion where people are nice and calm and kind and have different points of view. And that's okay. That's where we should be in America. We're not there right now and I have no idea that road back or if that road ever existed. Let's just be honest. But maybe there's a way to at least in the chaos that's happening in Minnesota. I encourage Tim Walls. I encourage President Trump. I encourage everyone who represents the state to figure it out. In the meantime, I want you to spend some more time on aclj.org. Make a donation if you can, support our legal work, support our media work. We'll be back with you tomorrow on Seculo. Thanks for listening.