Sekulow

Logan Sekulow: We have breaking news. Another fake midterm poll scandal breaks wide open.
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Logan Sekulow: Welcome to Seculo. This is Logan Seculo. Phone lines are open for you on 1-800-684-3110. Once again, I always have to state this at the beginning, we are live. This is not a replay, but there has been another just breaking news story that again breaks down Here comes Will Haines. He's a little late. Breaking down. I'm going to call you out on it on the on the air. There you You can You can go go sit down. Go sit down, you know. Let's restate this. There you go. He's going to walk in front of a camera. Oh, look, he did a good job. Phone lines are open at 1-800-684- 3110 to be on the air. This is Wedge Wood polls, which again would been picked up, incited, and sourced by the New York Times, by plenty of other major media outlets. MS Now featured one of these polls. Well, they admitted to the public that this was all a social experiment to see how much the mainstream media was vetting cuz guess what? All of these polls were completely fabricated. Now we can go into the morality of this, whether this was lying to the public, whatever it may be, maybe even sort of the election interference nature of it. But what it does is a bit of a whistleblower way to say, hey, we need to actually be vetting media who we're sourcing. And in a world where you have to continually churn new content, you need to make sure your reputation stays intact and thankfully in some ways I mean part of me loves this that they were able to expose that major organizations again like the New York Times and MS Now were not vetting their sources properly and were relying on a brand new company that popped up, claimed all these numbers including some pretty egregious ones compared to some of the other polls that came in, and they were sourced and ran with. And now we need to go down to the details of what that means because it also shows the truth behind the mainstream media and what's happening. I am sure between that and some of the election integrity issues we're going to have a little bit later cuz you're going to be shocked to hear, probably not shocked, but everything is always a little surprising when they're out there and they admit it. But Los Angeles has admitted something pretty major in terms of the way they're vetting people who are legally or illegally voting or their inability to Of course, Rick Grenell is going to be joining us for that. We're also going to have Jeff Balabon on to talk about from ACLJ Jerusalem talk about the most recent statements from Al Saied claiming again in a big statement that we need to reframe our thoughts on Israel and then maybe Not even maybe that Israel is not our friend. That's his quotes, not mine. We're going to get into that a little bit later. But Will, why don't you take us through some of this polling scandal?
Will Haines: That's right. So if you'll remember back in August, there was another company, fake company, that did the same thing during the Democrat primaries and they focused in on Wisconsin governor's race, the LA mayor, as well as the governor in Nevada. Now those were just Democrat primaries, but it should have been a wake up call then.
Logan Sekulow: Yeah.
Will Haines: Now those weren't picked up by the media as much. Those were used by campaigns to try and tout look we've got a We've got a lead. Right. But what happened next, this company, Wedge Wood polls, actually got picked up by sources like the New York Times in their poll tracker, the kind of king of all polls, Nate Silver. Uh he used these and even in his polling data will give weights to different polls of like this one influences my model more. The Wedge Wood poll for the Michigan Senate race with El Saied and Mike Rogers, he waited at a 1.1 which is a very high weight. That means that it is getting a lot of influence in his prediction to the outcome. Now we're going to get into this because it brings up a lot of questions, First Amendment questions, media questions, the press. All of these things are now starting to We're peeling back the veneer that a lot of you have been saying the whole time of don't trust polling. These are polls are fake. In some cases,
Logan Sekulow: Yeah.
Will Haines: they actually were just fake.
Logan Sekulow: Yeah, they put out a statement. We'll read it when we get back. But just the opening is Wedge Wood polling, an experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, overall low barrier entry in the modern political polling industry makes this public statement. So that is just the beginning of their statement saying guess what? We were fake all along. This was to mess with you and mess with the media and to prove the point that a lot of us have been sharing. We're going to get into the details of that of course what they plan to do with this experiment. Phone lines are open at 1 800 6 8 4 3 1 1 0. We'll be right back with more on Seculo. Don't go anywhere.
Nate Sekulow: The challenges facing Americans are substantial. At a time when our values, our freedoms, and our constitutional rights are under attack, it's more important than ever to stand with the American Center for Law and Justice. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress, and in the public arena. And we have an exceptional track record of success. But here's the bottom line. We could not do our work without your support. We remain committed to protecting your religious and constitutional freedoms. That remains our top priority, especially now during these challenging times. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well this is the perfect time to stand with us at aclj.org where you can learn more about our life changing work. Become a member today. aclj.org
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Will Haines: With under 13 days until the midterms, phone lines are open for you at 1 800 6 8 4 3 1 1 0. How are things looking in your area? But when you hear this, does this make you laugh? Does it make you your eyes open? Do you have a problem with it? Maybe you have a problem with the fact that maybe it this kind of thought experiment or experimental project if you will could mislead people, sway people's votes. How do we hold them responsible? But at the same time, I'm happy that it happened cuz I think it 's good to show the vulnerabilities that sometimes the media portrays. Of course, I'm talking about this polling company, Wedge Wood polling, which again was cited by the New York Times, by Nate Silver, by MS Now, Newsweek, Decision Desk HQ, where a lot of people turn to for the current polls in the election coverage. And they put out this statement. This of course they put out statement yesterday. Wedge Wood polling, experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, and overall low barrier to entry in the modern political polling industry makes this public statement. Why do we do this? Having previously worked in polling and research sector sector, we watched as the public's trust in polling eroded alongside a rise in unverified low quality methodology. We wanted to test a simple hypothesis. How easy is it? How easy is it for an entirely fabricated polling firm to gain traction, be taken seriously, and expose how little scrutinization exists in media and public commentary? The short answer, far too easy. It goes through the how far it went, the scope of the project, and now moving forward, which their concept with moving forward is Wedge Wood polling was never intended to sway an election or permanently mislead the public. It was designed as a wake up call. If a fictional entity run by a small group of industry veterans can be integrated in the major polling averages incited by major news organizations, the standard for how polling data is vetted, aggregated, and reported must change.
Nate Sekulow: Well, and also they they were very thoughtful in the way they did this because they actually did one legitimate poll and that was in Nebraska and they used a standard rigorous methodology to give a real baseline to compare against the synthetic data. So to ensure that their synthetic data was indeed fake,
Logan Sekulow: Fully synthetic.
Nate Sekulow: they did a real poll as well. So this was a I mean this in some way they said it was a crowd funded Nebraska poll. So they obviously were using money for that that was used for a legitimate purpose. So I think they were very cautious to make sure that this wasn't something they were profiting off of, that when they did crowd fund to do a poll, it was spent for a real poll as to not get in trouble with some sort of fraud claim. I think that those that are upset about this, mainly Democrats probably, are going to try and figure out if there is a way they can try to pursue a claim. I don't know under this Department of Justice if they will. But here's what's also interesting is because it fooled the media, it fooled the New York Times. They put it in their poll aggregator. Nate Silver who runs the Silver Bulletin, obviously he gained fame by creating 538 which was later bought by the New York Times. He was taking the the methodologies that were used in Moneyball, you know, that that made the Oakland A's such a a success story and that everyone heard about. He used that same methodology to apply to polling forecasting in politics and had some success for a while. But his his credibility and his ability to call things has fallen off of late. And I think a lot of that goes into the heart of this very story. Is it Are the polls being vetted by the people that are saying that they know what they're talking about? And it turns out no. Now there was pushback how this kind of all came to fruition is that there was one organization, 50 plus one, that started to raise questions and that prompted them to to put this release out as finally someone was pushing back on it. But not before all the legacy people ran with it. And we're seeing polls in which like I said El Saied in Michigan that had a big lead. It was an outlier poll but was weighted 1.1. So if you're over 1 point, you're one of the more blue blood polls in the Nate Silver analysis. That's giving a lot of of of credibility and weight to what your poll is saying. Nate Silver gave them a 1.1. Now in the main Senate race, he used it and it was only a 0.5 still as factoring into what his prediction is for the Susan Collins and Troy Jackson race. But then you also start to see things like this. They released polls in Mississippi where Cindy Hyde-Smith who's the incumbent is running and and it 's not even a race that people track because typically in Mississippi the incumbent Republican is going to win. They released a poll, and I put that in quotes because it was a fake poll showing that she was only four points ahead in a 511 likely voter poll conducted between October 12th and 14th. What did the Democrats decide to do in that? And Chuck Schumer who is the head of the Democrat Senate fund, they started spending money in Mississippi because it showed that the incumbent was only four points ahead in a race that should be well outside the margin of error. They spent 1.2 million dollars after spending zero dollars in Mississippi. So there were real consequences and even the politicos weren't even doing the the They were just reading it.
Logan Sekulow: What do you think about that? I want to know from you. Do you You're happy that this I'm happy that it was exposed that they were able to admit this. This wasn't some like group of kids or even group of political operatives creating fake polls to help bolster their candidates. Uh this was an experiment to see if the media would attach themselves to fake poll numbers without vetting them. But what do you think about that from a political point of view, from a moral point of view? I think we have There There are some blurry areas here for sure in terms of Is this more of a whistleblower scenario? Is this this uh a scenario where they could influence elections or you could see how it Now if they had never admitted this or admitted this after the election, I think we would have had a bigger uh response here. But they said that was never the plan.
Nate Sekulow: Well, exactly. They're saying that the point was never to go to election day and then after it say we were a fake. It is two weeks out. That is close. It technically is election day every day in most of the country. But at the end of this statement, they say we hope this experiment sparks a necessary conversation about data integrity, media literacy, and accountability across the political research landscape. Now I know our audience always tells us don't believe the polls, right? What have we seen that the polls have not been right by an average about 3 and a 1/2 percent for Republicans over the last few cycles. But when you start to pick
Logan Sekulow: It's not though your candidate was had a massive lead maybe. You may not be as motivated to go wait in that line.
Nate Sekulow: Right. And once again, who who is who's at fault here? Is it one They were trying They As our producer Will pointed out, they're begging for someone to catch them. They They They wanted to not be trusted. But they had a hypothesis as well is that they were going to be able to run with this and that no one was going to pay attention. And this is coming after another organization which I think raises a lot of questions and hopefully we'll find out and people will probe this and try to see were these related to median strategies, the one that in the primaries was admitted to being fake and was putting out polls. Are these entities related? Are the people that were behind it related? But at the end of the day, the media and the politicians they use these as confirmation bias of what they wanted to be true. They wanted to be a much bigger lead by the Democrat candidates than actual reality or even if it is reality, there was no data behind this. This isn't real statistics.
Logan Sekulow: Could that hurt Republican candidates as well by saying well look there's no chance. Their lead is down significantly. So you go okay well what was the true motives of a Wedge Wood polls? Can we take them at their word that this was not to influence elections or is this more that kind of got caught?
Nate Sekulow: Well, and I think if you do take their statement at face value that they were trying to get caught, they were trying to see if people would vet it, then yeah you can believe that it there's a way it could hurt both parties. I don't think that what we've seen here is a clear indication that this was partisanship and and I think that the the First Amendment actually gives a lot of leeway in experiments like this. Now there there is I think they have to be careful if they're looking at if if people were making money off this experiment.
Will Haines: Yeah, you could be charged with fraud or something of that nature if you had investors. But if they were running this and it was purely their own cash except for the one legitimate poll they did use it says that was crowd funded, then I think that yeah this is an important wake up call for not just the American people. I know our audience don't trust polls but the the media itself if they're running with these polls and they're saying look everything we believe to be true El Saied is going to run away with it or or Susan Collins is going to lose or Mississippi could flip. It We could have a Democrat senator like in Georgia. Then I think that it really should be a wake up call and completely reform the polling industry. I still think in this day and age now know you and I disagree on this quite a bit about there is a place for legitimate statistical analysis in the world today but we've been so far away from that for so long that this isn't even something that you can take at face value anymore.
Logan Sekulow: Are you telling me that I have a problem with statistical analysis? I do.
Will Haines: You know you hate polling. I just think that it has been well well underserved to the people. I I think that the people who are actually committed to doing polling right now are largely all pushing you one way or the other. I can't tell you the last time I felt like I had a legitimate pollster reach out. There wasn't a biased push poll or something like that. So sure, do I think there could be places for polling? Do I think the idea of surveying less people that are watching this show on Rumble right now is going to give me a good statistical analysis? No, I do not. And I think we live in a world where you could update that significantly. However, I am so thrilled that the light has been shined on the media and saying look when you cuz cuz everyone it also tells the American people you got to be careful with who you trust and the sources that you trust cuz even those sources are sometimes not vetting their own sources. But I think we can go into the sort of moral gray area we have with creating a fake poll in general. I want to hear from you about it. 1 800 6 8 4 31 10. We're also going to move this conversation a little bit to El Saied coming up here in the next segment. Jeff Balabon ACLJ Jerusalem is joining us. If you have a comment about that or maybe you're in uh one of those areas, one of these highly - contested elections, give me a call.
Nate Sekulow: Welcome to the all new ACLJ app. Expert analysis and insight Big Tech can't censor. Customize your news and get real time alerts on the issues you care about. Advocacy is now at your fingertips. Take action, make a difference, support the causes you care about with just one tap. Be the first to know. Breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox. Everything you need all in one place. Stay informed, stay empowered. Download today. We are so excited to announce the ACLJ's brand new app, completely redesigned to provide you with the best tools available to partner with us at the ACLJ. You can watch the daily Seculo program, sign the petitions, customize your ACLJ membership experience, donate with the click of a button, and receive up to the minute critical updates that the mainstream media can't censor. Just scan the QR code on your screen or go to your phone's App Store, search ACLJ, and click install. It's that simple. The challenges facing Americans are substantial. At a time when our values, our freedoms, and our constitutional rights are under attack, it's more important than ever to stand with the American Center for Law and Justice. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress, and in the public arena. And we have an exceptional track record of success. But here's the bottom line. We could not do our work without your support. We remain committed to protecting your religious and constitutional freedoms. That remains our top priority, especially now during these challenging times. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well this is the perfect time to stand with us at aclj.org where you can learn more about our life changing work. Become a member today. aclj.org
Logan Sekulow: Welcome back to Seculo. Jeff Balabon from ACLJ Jerusalem is joining us but before we do that, I want you to hear from the source itself. This is from ABC News by the way just a few days ago. We were going to try to get to this yesterday by the way if you are watching, you're wanting to know the update here but we had such a crazy show. We had to move some things. So today though, we want to talk about this. Of course, the polls have been showing a much closer race in Michigan with Abdul El Saied running obviously. And now though he has pushed back on a lot of the claims, the Muslim Brotherhood claims, all the different things has has taken a how dare you kind of approach. When he was asked about our current relationship with Israel, it could not be clearer. So let's take a listen again to some ABC News.
Jeff Balabon: So you don't consider Israel to be an American ally?
Abdul El-Sayed: An ally that takes your money to push you into wars you shouldn't be fighting is not an ally. It's like I mean Do Do you have kids?
Jeff Balabon: I do.
Abdul El-Sayed: Um and if you have a a a your your kid has a friend who keeps bumming off their their their money and then talks about them behind their back and then gets them into into fights with other friends. What would you tell your kid to do with that friend? You'd probably tell them maybe it's not actually a friend. I think it's time for us to realize that like Israel is not actually our friend.
Nate Sekulow: Jeff, when you hear this and there's a lot to unpack there obviously for many reasons but I want to focus in on where the media As we've been talking in the previous segment about the media not doing their job vetting polls, now the media not doing their job vetting candidates because he uses this analogy of kids on on the playground and and and to use it and say Israel's not our friend. And he says this line. He says
Logan Sekulow: And clarify I want to say this again. This is not used in in some sort of you know gray language of you know we need to start thinking about it. It's it's time for us I think it's time for us to realize that Israel is not actually our friend is the end quote here. Yeah, go ahead.
Nate Sekulow: Right. And he says you know that that obviously this this friend of your kid is is bumming off their money, talks about them behind their back and then gets them into fights with other friends. Where is the question from any respectable journalist that says okay who do you consider the United States friends? It it one if Israel is not but also what friends is Israel getting us into fights with that are our friends, that you think are our friends here His logic here is leading to something that no one is willing to follow up on. And I want to get your thoughts on it, Jeff.
Jeff Balabon: Right. Well, there is a lot to unpack here. Let's actually look at this matter.
Logan Sekulow: Hey Jeff, we are going to reconnect with you. I think we're having a little bit of a difficulty here. Check him to make sure I just want to make sure that I I feel like what you have to say is very important. I want to make sure it's clear. So again, this is another moment we all have to be really checking in on what candidates you're pretending you're potentially voting for.
Jeff Balabon: Right.
Logan Sekulow: I saw a lot of my more left leaning Christian friends sharing this sort of clip of going back and forth when he was you know are you part of the Muslim Brotherhood? And then they had this whole debate and saying look how good he was at this response and and calling him out for his own Christian bias and all of those things. So it's not unlike the fact that you will have people who may have not voted for for him. I mean look you had major conservative figure saying yeah I would vote for him over current but yeah Jeff, I think we got you back. Let's kind of restate where you're at.
Nate Sekulow: Sure. So I'm hoping you can hear me now but the There There's a lot to unpack as as you said. And Let's start with this. First of all, what's the premise of this We hear this argument Nate from the radically most extreme you know fringe on the right and now increasingly the mainstream on the left, right? The the extreme right who you're part of the Republican Party, the Republican Party, same story. Story is that somehow Donald Trump and the United States of America, the Republican Party, they're dupes and they don't know what's in America's interest and they're fighting some other countries war. But it's an absurdity. The fact is I've written about this but you know we've heard testimony about this over and over again in Washington for 20 years. Uh in 2008 which was not quite 20 years ago, Iran tested a weapons delivery system that would literally wipe out our grid, right? From 2009 to 2015 to 2015 No. The Pentagon had a team their entire job is what to do about the threat to America's grid because if that happens, it is literally an existential threat the entire 48 lower states because our grid is interlocked and it would shut down the grid which will So many millions of people I don't want to say it on air cuz it's terrifying. Okay more than many multiples more than all the wars that they've been lost in all the wars fought by Americans the beginning of the next states of America. That's the threat. Iran has the delivery mechanism. That's the testimony written in 2008. The reason the only reason that America didn't take it out was twofold. One, they had Obama and Biden money at them. while they were while they were developing nuclear weapons. And you had Republicans who were saying they have to stop it but they didn't come up with any plans because there was no delivery mechanism to actually drop the bombs because the Iranian air defenses were too strong. So America couldn't do couldn't drop the bomb we've had for over a decade. Israel Israel tiny Israel launched its armada of airplanes and in a day and a half it did what Russia couldn't do in Ukraine in over four years. It controlled the air over a a distant enemy that's a thousand miles away from Israel that Syria and Iraq their enemies. It's extraordinary. By the way, America when the American planes are flying, they're flying with Israeli systems to protect them. Israel cleared the way and General Kane gave the staff They reported the next day after we bomb Port Hallow that that it would that no Iranian response, no planes rose up to meet them, no uh anti aircraft defense cuz Israel wiped it out. When America took back again, Israel once again wiped it out. So who's actually helping who? This is an incredible alliance from both the Hexagon and Marco Rubio referred to them the two most powerful air forces in the world cuz they acted as one air force. And I'm here in Israel see a lot of US Air Force and US military and it's a talk. And the experience they've had is extraordinary. They They They said they had no idea what to expect and they couldn't believe how they integrated and how much they loved working with the Israelis. So it I'm The narrative's a lie. This is the America's war. That was not cleared by Iran 1979. From that day to this day in the process killed named thousands thousands of Americans, mostly military. The fact that we are waging a war on the other part of the world, that's not a bad thing. That's the most America first policy you can imagine. Instead of waging war on the American homeland where things will be destroying America, wage it on Iran's homeland. And Israel made that possible to literally save America. This entire thing is reversed. This entire thing is nonsense. And the problem is it's already in the mainstream among Democrats and the fear is might it's getting mainstream now by extremes and among Republicans.
Will Haines: And Jeff, I I think you're right on that. We're seeing it mainstream. You see it everywhere online now that they are not our friend. That has become almost the uh the easy and accepted thing uh across that. We've only got about a minute and a half left but I do want to quickly ask you know we talk about the midterms here and that Iran may be quiet after that but there's a warning in Israel. I want to let people know what it's like there because uh the Israeli elections are next week and there's concern Iran may try to do something. We got about 30 to 45 seconds here.
Jeff Balabon: Okay. So very quickly on Netanyahu respond to questions on the Israeli about rumors that there might be an attack and that he confirmed that there was solid intelligence that there may be an attack to interfere with the Israeli elections which are coming up on October 27th next week. Uh very big elections, national elections obviously to to form a new government potentially. And um and so there is some there is a warning now saying he's not he's not planning to preempt this strike although he just saying that but uh they're they're on high alert here for any Iran might do to to try and damage the state of Israel.
Logan Sekulow: Thank you so much for joining us, Jeff. I apologize for some of the technical difficulties we had there but I appreciate it. Thank you so much for spending some time with us and go try to enjoy the rest of your night. With that being said, we only got 20 seconds here but we have a second half hour coming up. You don't get us on your local station. We broadcast live each and every day Monday through Friday noon to 1 p.m. Eastern Time. Join us live of course. Catch us archived wherever you get your podcasts but we're streaming now for another half hour. Be a part of it at aclj.org, YouTube, Rumble, Facebook, or however you get your podcasts.
Guest (Male): For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress, and in the public arena. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well this is the perfect time to stand with us at aclj.org where you can learn more about our life changing work. Become a member today. aclj.org