Democrats Plot Shutdown Over Iran War

Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Seculo.

“We want to hear from you, share and post your comments, or call 1-800-6-8-4-3-1-10.”

And now you're host. Welcome to Seculo Will Haynes here with you today, and we've got a jam packed show. And you're going to want to get in this conversation early, call me at 1-800-6-8-4-3-1-10. We have CC-Hile of the ACLJ joining us in a few segments to talk about a major victory in Pakistan, from the ACLJ as well as Rick Grinnell joining us later on some of this news regarding the conflict in Iran.

And here's what is fascinating to me today.

The Democrats are showing their hands that they have really only one thing in their toolbox that they feel like they can use to get their way. And that is threatened to shut down, or create a shutdown. We know that the Department of Homeland Security is currently shut down because of the inability for Democrats to negotiate and come together for the betterment of the country.

But now we have Senator Cory Booker, as well as a handful of other Senate Democrats, that are going to shut down the United States Senate over the Iran conflict. They are going to use procedural measures and other things at the disposal of individual senators

to stop all the business of the United States Senate until their demands are met.

And what are these demands? They want testimony from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, as well as other senior officials to testify before key committees over this military conflict with Iran. Now, I'm actually certain that will happen at some point. I'm certain that these members of the administration will testify before the Senate,

before the Armed Services Committee, or the Homeland Security committees,

“probably in both the Senate and the House, because that's how this works.”

That's how the oversight of Congress works.

But at this point, with their war powers resolution vote failing,

they feel like they have to turn to other things to make a name for themselves, while U.S. men and women in uniform are conducting this operation in Iran. They want to shut down their branch of government over this. And this is what we're hearing from Senator Booker says. Each individual senator has a tremendous amount of power to disrupt the normal functioning of the Senate

as well as certain privileges that we can exercise. And what we have agreed to now is that we are not going to let the Senate continue business as usual. Now, the Senate already has not been a very speedy process. And to some degree, that's by design. It is the deliberative body.

“Some call it, at least formerly the world's greatest deliberative body.”

In recent years, we have seen it not necessarily live up to some of those standards. But what we see now is that the opposition within the U.S. Senate, the Democrat minority, is going to hijack the Senate and make it go at a standstill until they get their way. What do you think about this? Call me at 1-800-6-843-110.

This group of senators, which includes Senator Booker, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Senator Tim Cain, failed Vice Presidential candidate from Virginia, Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, and you guessed it. Senator Adam Schiff is on this as well. Let me know how you feel about these senators deciding to shut down their branch of government

because they're not getting what they want right away. Call me at 1-800-6-843-110. As I mentioned earlier, and a few segments will be joined by CC Hile to tell you about a major victory in Pakistan that happened just yesterday. And this as we are in our seven days of global impact.

It's a perfect time to tell you about this victory. And you can have your global impact doubled right now. If you support us at aclj.org/global, and have your impact doubled, we'll be right back. [MUSIC]

I'm Will Haynes, and we are talking about this move by US senators that happened to be

Democrats that are vowing to shut down, yet again, their favorite thing to do. This time, the US Senate over the Iran conflict. We are hearing from Senator Booker who is kind of leading this charge. They're going to use procedural motions. And privileges that individual senators do have that are in the rules of the Senate

to try and stall all business of the Senate until they get what they want. And what do they want? They want hearings in both the Armed Services Committee, as well as the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, to be able to bring forward Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of War, Pete Heggseth, other senior officials to testify on this conflict in Iran. Now, also, I feel like many of these members, if they wanted to have these conversations with Secretary of War with Secretary Rubio,

they could do that. They're very powerful senators, many of them.

They could have these conversations, and even probably get them to agree to hearings. Set this up. But instead, they're choosing publicity stunt route threatening a shutdown, and then I assume they'll say this is the Republican shutdown of the Senate,

“because we're not getting our way. That's how they play these out with their PR teams and their spin on it.”

But this is what Senator Booker also said. He said, "It is unacceptable. We have not had hearings, and we have not had sufficient debate on the issues in public. In hearings, witnesses under oath, this is what we are demanding." You also hear from Senator Chris Murphy, where he said, "What we're saying is that we're not going to let the Senate be silent.

We want there to be a hearing so that the American public can hear from their leaders why they think this war is in the national interest.

I think they'll fail in that exercise." One, there has been no lack of communication from the executive branch. The president is giving press conferences directly to and taking questions, talking directly to the American people. The Secretary of War is giving multiple, multiple updates, almost daily, giving updates on what is going on and taking questions from the press.

The difference is that when it happens to be a committee, typically what you see is the circus. You see the senators try to hammer down a talking point. Many times not even allowing the member to explain the person that's defined the witness in this case would be cabinet members. We know how this plays out.

They will be trying to get their talking point across. They will let them start to answer, but cut them off and not allow them to fully testify. So I don't think that they can say that this administration isn't talking to the American people. We have seen them talking nonstop to the American people.

“Yes, I know that this is an important part of their role of oversight,”

and I do believe it will and should happen. But the way that they're doing this, saying we're going to shut down the Senate, they already have one shutdown. The Department of Homeland Security is not funded as we speak. At a time where and we're going to talk about this more,

the U.S. is saying that they're receiving encrypted communication out of Iran that they believe could be activating terrorist cells, sleeper assets around the world. And what have we seen? We have seen panic and airports where the TSA is short staffed

because of the Department of Homeland Security shutdown. We are seeing there be flights diverted. There's already a level of high alert and panic that is taking place. Instead of maybe debating whether or not they should refund the Department of Homeland Security, they are more concerned about their 15 minutes of fame during these hearings

to be able to do the serious job of questioning cabinet members. Of which is a part of their job, I will give that to them. But there's a lot of other business that should be going on at the same time.

“Maybe if you want people to take you seriously, you should say,”

we think it's of utmost importance to refund the Department of Homeland Security. But we also want guarantees that we are going to get hearings from these cabinet members.

But I feel like this is going to backfire on these senators.

And I'll read you their names again. This is Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey, Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut. Senator Tim Kane of Virginia. He is the one who introduced that war powers resolution that failed last week. Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Senator Tammy Baldwin.

It was constant and of course, Senator Adam Schiff of California. But once again, even the language from Cory Booker saying that we are demanding these hearings, be hearings debates and questions answered, it is unacceptable.

We have not had hearings for 10 days into this.

“Have you tried to actually work with the committee chairs and work out a path to have these hearings?”

I understand you can call a hearing pretty quickly, but also understanding that the Secretary of War and the Secretary of State are both in the thick of this right now. You can probably figure this out if you don't want the soundbites on TV. And elevate your name status for, I don't know, maybe a potential attempt at being president against Senator Booker. Is that the plan here?

Because all of this just seems so disingenuous to me. That they are going to shut down the business of the Senate for hearings.

At the same time that they currently are holding the Department of Homeland Security in a shutdown perpetually.

Now, they've even seen that the Secretary of Homeland Security has been reassigned. And there will be another one.

“Are they going to wait and hold up a nomination to lead that very important part of the executive branch while we are in a heightened security risk scenario?”

These are the questions I want to know from the senators. I know they have their questions they want answered from the members of the executive branch, but the people who elect these senators that are supposed to be representatives of their states of the people that elect them and send them to Congress. Where are those questions? Why aren't you working on refunding Homeland Security? Even if you want reforms, why are you not working towards that instead you're just keeping it shut down?

Your war powers resolution already failed. You weren't able to stop this conflict. So during that, maybe work for the betterment of the country instead of what you're doing right now. And that is trying to do another political stunt of shutting down now the Senate. People already complain that Congress isn't effective enough. You think this is adding to your credibility senators when you are saying, you know what?

“We're going to exercise our authority and our privileges and we are going to shut this down.”

What do you think? Give me a call 1-800-6843-110. But I also think it's so rich when someone like Adam Schiff is a part of this group. Obviously trying to make a name for himself. He was on real time with Bill Mar, and this was just a couple of days ago. And I want you to hear this bite because of how serious many of these Democrats senators are.

This is Bill Mar asking him a question about conflict from the executive branch. This is by 20. Just listen to the response from Adam Schiff. Let's roll it. This statement from the administration. The president had the constitutional authority to direct the use of military force because he could reasonably determine that's a use of force was in the national interest. That's too vague for you.

Totally vague because that's from Obama, about Libya. The gotcha question there from Bill Mar is not lost on anyone. Because it is so partisan. It's because it's President Trump. It's because it's Secretary Rubio and Secretary Hegseth that are conducting this. When it was Libya, no one had a problem in their party with the operation that was taking place under the War Powers Act.

And it was sold to the Congress at the time, the American people, that he had constitutional authority to use the military force because he could reasonably determine that such use of force was in the national interest. That is the prerogative of the president. And now that it's not a president that they voted for or that they support, they're going to shut down branches of government.

They're going to shut down their own job because they don't like who it is. This is why they don't get the conversations that they're looking for because they are presenting themselves in such an unserious way.

And so I think they should be called out for these tactics, these antics.

“Folks, when we get back, we are going to be joined by CC Hile to talk about a big victory out of Pakistan because the work of the ACLJ doesn't stop.”

In places you may not even think that we operate in, we have a global impact. And that is why we are showcasing that during the seven days of global impact. And you can double your impact by going to aclj.org/global. You are in this fight with us. We cannot do it without you. Go to aclj.org/global today in double your global impact.

Welcome back to Secula. We are talking today about the Democrats that are valuing to shut down the Senate until they get their hearings on this Iran conflict.

“If you want to join that conversation, call me at 1-800-6-8-4-3-1-10. I'll be taking calls very soon.”

But I have CC Hile joining me, Senior Council here at the ACLJ, to talk about some of the other work as we go through this seven days of global impact of the work of the ACLJ. And CC we had a victory in Pakistan yesterday. And these are hard-fought victories. This is a place where, especially at the lower court levels, are very difficult to get good victories. And then we see how long it takes the appeals process, but we don't stop fighting. But tell us about this victory that we were able to get for a client in Pakistan yesterday.

This is a really great victory. Mr. Javade is an elderly Christian homeless man who lives in a small town in Pakistan.

And basically he took refuge in a dilapidated building in a Christian cemetery.

And so living his life quietly, literally he's an elderly homeless man. And his neighbors, who are Muslim, people that live next to the cemetery, decided in May of 2024, that they were going to go to the police and file a complaint with the police, that they had heard Mr. Javade insulting the prophet Muhammad's family members. So in May, they filed a report with the police and Mr. Javade was arrested and charged with insulting words spoken against the prophet Muhammad's family members, which carries a three-year sentence.

So Mr. Javade was of course put in jail, and I'm going to just brag on our law office there in Pakistan because of their stellar reputation. This small community was about eight hours from our offices. But the Christian community, of course, it's small and the Christian community in the small community is even smaller.

“They hear about this case, and they immediately then contact our offices again eight hours away. And so as soon as we got involved in the case, Mr. Javade had spent, I think, about a month and a half in jail before we got notice of the case.”

We went there immediately, we filed for bail and we got him out, and this is again in, I think that was July of 2024. So we start fighting this case, and as what usually happens in Pakistan, we literally had 13 post-poments.

So every time Mr. Javade's case came up for hearing, it was postponed, and it was postponed because these people that tried to file a report did not show up. So the witnesses never showed up to court.

They never provided any evidence that Mr. Javade had said anything against the prophet Muhammad's family members. So after 13 times our office is going to court last week, and they're prepared to file a petition for acquittal, which is basically a motion to dismiss. Amazingly, the judge said, "You don't even have to file that petition. I am going to dismiss this case." So last week, after we've been fighting this since July of 2024 on March 6 of 26, we obtained a victory for Mr. Javade. Again, a homeless elderly Christian man who did not do anything wrong and ended up spending a month and a half in jail because of false allegations. But our office was able to jump in, get in bail, and now we've actually got him acquitted. So that is a huge victory in Pakistan.

Once again, when we talk about the global impact of the ACLJ, this is not a case you're going to hear anywhere else. This is going to get picked up by the media here in the United States and everyone's going to hear about it. But it is vitally important work.

And then on top of that, you have laws like these blasphemy laws, which are a violation of Pakistan's membership at the UN, even still having these on the book.

But they do. And it is used as a tool by people in the Muslim community to harass, attack people they don't like in the Christian community.

“Absolutely. And that's what we see time and time again. If someone's a nuisance to them, they go for a blasphemy law. They make an allegation in those people end up many times on death row.”

If they don't like them for other reasons, straight to the blasphemy laws. And at the higher courts, many times we do have victories. It's long and hard fought. And when we talk about the mission of the ACLJ and even the commandments of Christ to what you do to the least of these, we are going and fighting in places where the Christian community are seen as outcast, cast aside. They have no legal representation. They have no means to get that. But just like here in America, where people don't have to hire an attorney and put their entire life savings on the line for us to stand up for their human rights and their constitutional rights.

“We do the same in Pakistan. So while it may not be a flashy headline story that you're going to see here in the United States, it's vitally important.”

And many times these individuals lives are on the line and we're still fighting those cases today.

Absolutely. And when you talk about the least of these, I mean, Mr. Javade is an elderly homeless man and obviously he would never have the means to be able to hire an attorney to fight this case. And really, again, I'm going to brag on our offices in Pakistan because even the attorneys going and fighting for these Christians who have been falsely charged. You know, that's not a good position for them to be in. That's not a popular position. So they put their lives at rest too. And I will say also another thing with our office in Pakistan, when we do have success in these blasphemy cases, because it's usually mobs that have targeted Christians.

And like you said, they're going after them to destroy them. We literally have to help these people a lot of times move away and start their lives all over again somewhere else because we need to protect them. And that's what our offices do there in Pakistan. I mean, they're just, it's very successful. Unfortunately, we do have a lot of these postpoments like we saw in this case 13 on our cases that are at the Supreme Court for blasphemy and people are on death row. We see that same thing. Time and time we get to the hearing where we're hopeful that the Supreme Court will actually equip our clients. We have postpoment after postpoment, but we hang in there to the very end. And as we see, we achieved victory from Mr. Javade.

That's right. Now I want to encourage people also stick around in the final segment of the broadcast. I'm going to play a video of another one of our clients, parents.

And that's Shazad. It's a case we talked about many times on this broadcast in an individual young man was 16 when he was arrested and put on death row for another blasphemy case. And when you hear the parents in Pakistan tell this story, I feel like it's important for you to see it because we can talk about this and it sounds almost theoretical these cases. But we add our team, able to film the parents which is takes courage to do because being under a spotlight when they've already put your son on death row for allegations.

But telling his story, I'm going to play that for you later because it's important for you to see this is real. This is tangible. These are real people whose lives are at stake. Only because they are Christians. But the ACLJ, not just here, but all around the world is fighting for them. And you can make an impact as well. As we're in the seven days of global impact, double your impact. Go to ACLJ.org/global and stand with us as we continue these long fights for people's freedom and lives. ACLJ.org/global.

Keeping you informed and engaged. Now, more than ever, this is secular.

“Welcome to secular second half hour of the broadcast. If you want to talk with me, go to 1-800-6-8-4-3-110 to be heard on air.”

We're going to pivot back now. If you missed the previous segment, go back and listen. It was with CC Kyle talking about a major victory in Pakistan for a client who had no means to hire attorneys.

We're very powerful to hear the work of our international affiliates and being able to tell you that. Mainly because we are not beholden to corporate overlords or the mainstream media.

“We can bring you stories like that that would never make the news. There's not enough, there's not enough salaciousness there to it. It's not great for a headline, but it's vitally important work that you contribute to when you give to the ACLJ.”

So I encourage you to go back and listen to that. But we are talking about the Democrats in the Senate that are vowing to shut down the Senate because they're not getting their way. They're not getting hearings thus far from Secretary Rubio, Secretary Heggsith and they really want to grill those members of the cabinet over this Iran conflict.

I'm going to go to a caller now and maybe it'll encourage you to call as well. Let's go to Cliff, calling from Illinois online six in ACLJ champion Cliff, you're on secular.

Yeah, hi. Thank you. I got two quick points with my May. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, first one is that the style tactic like what they did, the governor Walker, it was Scottson before Trump, they fled there in order to come to Illinois and then recently what they did in Texas, they flood Texas, not not not not able to do there.

“Do their job. Now the senators in Washington DC, they want to basically do what these other Democrats had done in the past.”

Right. They want to, they're, they're thrown a wrench into the monkey works of on what how everything's supposed to be run, because they're spoiled right little brats Cliff, I hear you. I mean, and yes, what he's referring to also is that the senators and and taxes that fled the state

to avoid allowing closure for the vote on redistricting. They have done that many times in Texas and in other states he mentioned Scott Walker from Wisconsin, them fleeing the state.

And yes, it to some degree it is a stall tactic and that they're not even being shy about that they're saying we're not going to allow any business of the Senate to move forward and they're using Senate rules are using privileged motions that senators can bring. They're coordinating and doing this and they are forcing it so that they can stall and run out the clock on on whatever sort of business and maybe going until they get their way. Now here's the other side of it. They're going to claim victory because in no world.

“Would the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense not at some point testify before these committees. That's the oversight role of the of the Senate and of the Congress.”

They are going to testify. So these senators are as soon as they agree on a time going to say, look, we won. We got it. We got what we wanted, which is also disingenuous. There is no world that Secretary Rubio and Secretary Hexith would not eventually testify in probably pretty quickly. They have regular testimony because they're also saying we want to justify budget requests because who has the power of the purse the Senate at the Congress. Yes, they will eventually testify, but they are going to use this not only as a stall tactic, as Cliff said.

But as a way to claim victory later and try to raise their stature within the party once again. It's all politics folks. It's disingenuous. It's dangerous to some degree when they're still keeping the homeland security department shut down and I think it's got to change. We'll talk to you in the next segment. Welcome back to Secular. I'm joined now by Rick Grinnell and Rick. I want to get right into this. What we've been talking about this show is that now we have a group of senators, Democrats senators,

that are vowing to shut down something new. This time they're going to shut down the Senate itself until they get their way because they really want hearings with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary Heggsett as well as other officials on the Iran action.

I mean, that is how it's going to work. There's going to be hearings on it, and especially they do periodic hearings on funding.

So they're going to testify before the Senate. But at the same time, the funding for another shutdown caused by Democrats, the Department of Homeland Security, is being held up in the Senate right now. At a time where we're seeing reports that there have been encrypted messages that have gone out of Iran, ABC News is reporting on this. It could be activating sleeper cells outside of the country. We saw what happened in New York over the weekend.

We've seen the panic in some of the flights that have had to be diverted.

These senators think it's a better idea to shut down the Senate, which will keep the Department of Homeland Security shut down. Then doing the business that people sent them to do, and maybe even have it debate, maybe get you some reforms from the Department of Homeland Security to get this back open.

“But they think it's a better idea to do nothing at all. What's your take on this?”

Look, I think what we're seeing over the last couple of years is that Democrats are willing to pull every lever of power that they have, whether it's political prosecutions. It's within the Senate. It's manipulating the Senate rules. It makes me immediately think that we should change the rules now to pass the policies that we want to put forward right now since Republicans had the House, the Senate and the White House and the filibuster. I mean, what I see is a little evidence right now of what they're doing to not pay for DHS.

That is a warning sign for what they will do in the future. Though last couple of years, they have not followed protocol. They've not followed tradition. And so when we hold to this idea that, oh, the Senate has this tradition, and we should follow the traditions, we're going to look weak. Because the Senate Democrats are signaling to us. They are ready to pull every lever of power that they can get their hands on. And so I'm very concerned that this action that they're taking now to not fund DHS, which is extremely dangerous, especially right now, is going to get worse as we move forward.

I have watching the sleeper cell debate in America. And when you combine the open border that we had for the four years of Joe Biden, with this focus now on the sleeper cells because of world events,

“I think it's a dangerous combination that we just don't know who is in this country line and waiting to attack us.”

And as we even know from the Department of Homeland Security Zone numbers, there were hundreds of individuals that were known on the terror watch lists that came across our poorest border.

During the Biden administration, hundreds, those are the ones we know about. And at a time when, and that doesn't count all the gotaways that they never even encountered.

But Rick, we're sitting here at a time where we are seeing heightened alert. Clearly, the airlines are very high alert. The Kansas City airport was evacuated for hours. We saw what happened in New York with two ISIS-inspired individuals that have been fortunately arrested with no one harmed. But this is what was a concern from the beginning, whenever there is an action against an exporter of terror like Iran.

“But now that we're in the middle of it, and we also see that they won't fund the Department, are they also going to hold up the next nominee to lead that department at a time of crisis like this?”

Look, I think what they're signaling is they will do anything to make their political points. I'm very nervous when I look at the situation again, because you rightfully point out, they only admitted to hundreds of people on the terror watch list that got into our country. They were forced to admit because they were caught. Think of how many people got in that they didn't acknowledge. And the tip of the iceberg analogy is very real to me. And I'm concerned about it. I'm watching to see what happens. I think that the line and weight to attack Americans individuals who are living inside our country.

Americans are going to be targeted with these world events. And so I want to make sure that we're communicating very clearly to our democratic friends. Now is not the time to play politics, fund the DHS completely. And part of it and you say play politics because that is what they're doing. We know even this move by Cory Booker and Chris Murphy that are saying we're going to shut down the Senate till we get our way. They will be able to claim victory on this because as I said, there's no world in which

these cabinet members don't eventually testify. That's how it works. So they'll be able to claim victory and look. We shut down the Senate and got our way. Obviously Cory Booker has run for president before we understand the cycle of this. We know that Chris Murphy has tried to raise his profile within the national audience of late.

“They we know what they're looking for. But I guess my thought here is they talk about how serious this is. And we've seen a center cane, you know, raising that that war powers motion that got shot down and we see people like center Kelly joining him.”

I'm curious why no reporters have asked center Kelly. Do you agree with your colleagues center came that this is an illegal war? If so, are you going to tell people not follow the orders? Of course, no real reporting going on there.

But all of these people that are saying it's so serious. We have to stop it. But at the same time, aren't taking it seriously enough to do something like fun, the Department of Homeland Security.

It just makes all of their it's so serious comments seem disingenuous that they don't really believe it's as serious as they are trying to make it seem because if they did, they would do the right things to protect the American people. Look, we have two democratic senators in California, New Mexico and Arizona, but all three states have two democratic senators. These states are taking the brunt of the border crossings, the illegal activity, and yet all six of these democratic senators are saying that we are not going to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

Knowing that they are border states. I think that this is so outrageous, the people in California, the people in New Mexico, the people in Arizona should be outraged that their senators are plain politics with their safety and the rest of America's safety. What we have learned is that every state is a border state eventually.

And so one of those ideas is that the states are on the front lines, the ones that are experiencing it first should be absolutely vigilant and the toughest in yet.

“We now have six democratic senators from border states that are ignoring this growing crisis. I think it's outrageous.”

Thank you so much for joining us today and for your insight on this. It is outrageous. And the complicity of the media of airing their comments, but no pushback. I think that is the one that bothers me the most, too, is when Senator Kelly was the face of that, you don't have to follow illegal orders campaign.

And then he's joining Senator Kane, who is calling this an illegal war.

Senator Kelly has not gone that far. He has said it's reckless, it's dangerous to our men and women in uniform. There's no clear in-game, but where are the real reporters in Washington? Asking him that question, do you agree with your colleague of whose resolution you voted for when he calls it an illegal operation?

“Because that will tell you a lot. And that's what I want to hear from Senator Kelly. Do you agree with your Senate colleague?”

Because that means a lot. If he agrees with him, then his video of telling people to not follow orders of the military, that is getting very close to calling for mutiny and calling for insurrection and pushback on the president. However, I don't think he would go that far, and I think he was actually asked the question. He would say he disagrees with his Senate colleague, which would also cause a whole problem with their own caucus in the Senate.

When we get back folks, I'll take your phone calls. I also want to play a clip from Pakistan that I teased earlier. You're not going to want to miss that, but support us during our seven days of global impact at aclj.org/global in double your impact around the world.

“Welcome back to secular final segment of the broadcast. And before I get to callers of which I'm going to do, I did want to play this clip for you because I think it's important you see what we're talking about.”

These are the parents of one of our other clients in Pakistan, Shazad, who at 16 years old was arrested on blasphemy charges and given the death penalty. And we're still fighting and have been for many years for justice there and to get him released.

Our confident in our ability to argue at the higher courts in Pakistan and get freedom, but it is a long hard battle and the stakes are this young man's life.

So I want you to hear directly from his parents. Our team was able to get a camera crew and get their story of their son who is languishing on death row in Pakistan. Take a watch. He has been accused of blaspheming the prophet of Islam, but he didn't do it. It started in 2017. He started working at a hospital as a janitor. So there were two other guys that worked in that room with him. One was involved with a religious sect.

Shazad came home one day and he said a few days ago, there was sort of a conversation between him and the Muslim guy Ishtiak. He came home and told me that Jallali says we don't look like Christians.

Why don't you become Muslims? Shazad said, "No, I don't want to become a Muslim. I'm good with my religion. I'm not going to leave Christianity."

“Ishtiak told Shazad that when he asked him why doesn't he become a Muslim, you gave me an answer in anger. Why were you angry about it?”

Why do you not become a Muslim? What's wrong with becoming a Muslim? Ishtiak told him about Muslim prophets. Shazad told him that there's a Muslim guy who knows my dad and he comes and hangs out with my dad.

And even he drinks alcohol and he swears whenever he hears a name with Muhammad in it and he's a Muslim.

So Ishtiak Jallali said what kind of Muslim is he who says these kind of things. Shazad told him that it was his father's friend. And Ishtiak just got furious. He swore at Shazad, walked out of the room and he slammed the door.

“After that he didn't talk to Shazad. Later Ishtiak came home to fetch Shazad and told him that he was going to take him to the hospital because the doctor was back.”

Now there's a madrasa near the hospital. It's an Islamic religious school. Ishtiak brought other Muslim men from the Muslim religious fanatic group with him. Across the street from the hospital there's a mobile phone shop and they took Shazad there to record his words and there were maybe 30 to 35 people who gathered all from that Muslim sect. A lot of people were there. After they took him to that store they asked him tell us what you said. Shazad kept telling them that it's not me who said anything. It's my dad's friend who said bad words. I haven't said anything.

From the phone store they took him to the madrasa, the Islamic school. Shazad's dad and his older brother went to the hospital and some people told them don't even go near the madrasa. All these Islamic clerics are very very angry. The police were informed and came to the madrasa. The policeman said that he's going to take Shazad with him. So he took Shazad to the police station. We met Shazad in prison. He was very worried and he kept crying. I would only meet him for 20 minutes each time. He was a little child when they arrested him and he's still too young.

We go to the prison and we just survive by just seeing him. It's like a bird in a cage and it's like my son is locked in a cage. So we just plead with everybody who are watching pray for us. Pray for our son that he gets justice. As you heard Shazad's mother say they're pray for Shazad, pray for them, pray for the ACLJ team in Pakistan. And you can also join us as we fight in cases like those around the world.

And we are fighting at the highest levels in Pakistan for his freedom.

But that is what global impact means when you support the ACLJ. That is what we fight for. And I thought it was important for you to see from his parents because we can talk about it all we want. But until you see it from Pakistan, what we're talking about, then you truly know what we're dealing with. I'm going to get back to some callers here. As I said, I would very quickly Doug is calling from Washington. He's an ACLJ champion. Doug, you're on secular.

Thank you. Two questions. First off, when the Senate decides to hold hearings, the various secretaries show up by assume they're compelled to do.

“They compelled by statute or does that exist in the Constitution itself?”

So once again, the typically they come voluntarily as they set a hearing. Many times they are testifying because of budgetary reasons. They're coming to give a defense of their budget to the committees that oversee that. Congress has an oversight role. They can be subpoenaed for other reasons if they don't want to go. That is at the cabinet level or our under secretaries things of that nature. But this is a formal role the oversight of the Congress. So yes, cabinet secretaries can be compelled to go testify on certain things as well. They can't make the president go testify.

“But the various members underneath the cabinet can be. So in your secondary question, can the White House do the same to members of the Congress?”

No, there's no formal oversight role in that way of the executive branch of Congress. They don't even really have that type of forum where there's compelling in hearing. So that it doesn't work that way. It's kind of a one way street on the oversight portion of that. But thank you, great question. I'm going to get to Michael who's calling online five from Florida. I've got another Michael, California. I'm going to try to get to you too, but Michael from Florida, you're on secular. My question is, a lot of these issues seem to be, you know, you can say 80, 20 that type of thing that the Democrats are, you know, I'd like to say back and those kinds of things.

“My question, though, is in the long game because Schumer hasn't really had a win for anything. Would it be a huge win if he was able to go the Republican party into doing away with the filibuster?”

You know, Michael, I think that that is probably some of their in the game. We know that they wanted to get rid of the filibuster back when Joe Biden was in office, but they had centers like Kirsten Cinema who was actually left the party and left the Senate altogether, who was adamantly against it.

For the reasons that we always say that they're going to use it next, it is a check that is within their rules. Do they have to do it? No. Can they do other ways? Yes.

But you do have to think futuristically of what the next Congress will do when it's not your party in charge. Yeah, I think that that's probably a lot of their in-game is trying to get the Republicans to be the one that did it. Because they ended it for judicial nominees a long time ago. It was the Democrats that did that, and then they cry foul when Republicans play along with their rules that they set. Folks, thank you for joining me today. We covered a lot today. Michael from California. Sorry, I'm not going to be able to get to you. We're running out of time, but I do once again want to encourage you to support the ACLJ during the seven days of global impact.

I showed you many ways that that is a tangible use of your support. Whether it be in Pakistan or around the world, ACLJ.org/global.