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Join Logan Seculow as he hosts an engaging discussion with experts and callers on the ongoing document release by Tulsi Gabbard. The show not only dives into the heated responses from former President Obama’s office but also analyzes the broader implications of these claims. As updates pour in about Planned Parenthood funding and U.S. involvement in Syria, this episode holds essential insights for anyone interested in understanding the current socio-political dynamics.
SPEAKER 06 :
We got breaking news. Tulsi Gabbard releases more documents after a response from President Barack Obama.
SPEAKER 11 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 06 :
And now your host, Logan Secular. It’s a new day, but sometimes these topics feel like it’s the same day, Will. But there’s always new updates. And this is from our friend, Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. You may say, Logan, this is exactly how you started the show for the last two days. That’s right. But now she is in a bit of a war of words. It’s hard to say. War of words. Yes. With, I don’t know, the guy’s pretty good at speaking, President Barack Obama, who finally put out a statement, and his statement was like, look, I usually don’t put out statements in regards to the current White House. I find them ridiculous. But these are unfounded. You know, it feels very denial-y. Why don’t you go ahead and give everybody this update? And then Tulsi then responded with dropping even more documents with even more information.
SPEAKER 03 :
this is the statement from former president barack obama and put out by the office of former president obama so he’s even keeping himself one step uh removed out of respect for the office of the presidency our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this white house with a response but these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction. Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion.
SPEAKER 06 :
Here we go.
SPEAKER 03 :
You got to listen closely to this part because this is where the word games start. Right. The widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee led by then-chairman Marco Rubio. This is next level shell game here. Because that’s not what this is about at all.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and you broke this down for me. We’re going to talk about it in the next segment in a lot more detail because then Tulsi said, oh yeah? She didn’t say oh yeah. She probably said it very calmly. Right. She just said, release the next tranche. And the next tranche, by the way, had a lot of details about Russian influence on the election. And look, some of what he’s saying, like you said, is shell game. It’s true on the surface, but there’s a lot to infer. They’re inferring by saying that, that he was talking about President Trump. And that President Trump, at the time, candidate Trump, was who Russia was manipulating for. But the documents not only prove otherwise. We’re going to get into it specifically. This is, again, we’re talking about almost 10 years ago now because this is the Clinton campaign. The original Clinton-Trump campaign. So, again, we were much younger men then, Will. We were. 10 years younger. Some of them weren’t even born yet.
SPEAKER 03 :
We have 10-year-olds working on this broadcast. I don’t think that’s true. I’m going to go out on a limb.
SPEAKER 06 :
I started working on the show when I was probably, I was 97, so I was probably 11. Okay. So it’s not possible. Sure. Different times. I was just trying to be complimentary to these young people in the studio. Phone lines are open. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. A lot of people are saying, Logan, start taking action. Quit talking about this. Well, we are. We actually have a big update also again. Again, this is not a rerun. We have even more of an update in the Planned Parenthood situation as there has been quite another big movement. We’re going to talk about that. Coming up here. Phone lines, like you said, are open right now. Bill, I see you’re on hold. You’re an ACLJ champion. We’re going to get to you first in the next segment. Because, Bill, I want to thank you. I want to thank everyone who’s become ACLJ champions during this specific drive. Right now, we are just eight days away from the end of our ACLJ 35 years of justice drive. We urgently need your support. I want you to have your gifts doubled. You can do that right now. There’s also some updates to what we’re going to be doing in Syria. And I think you’re going to find that pretty interesting. Rick Grinnell is going to be joining us a little bit later. You have asked for us to get involved. And we’ve been working really diligently on how to get involved in Syria. Obviously, it’s a very complicated issue. It’s not something you can just jump out and go, okay, here’s what we’re doing here. you know like you would a local bible club in minnesota no we gotta you know be really specific and get really uh into it if you’re talking about working in those areas of the world but we can’t do it without you we need your support to continue these fights we urgently need your support as i said have your gifts doubled that means there’s another aclj supporter or a champion that’s someone that gives monthly recurring like a membership fee of course you can cancel anytime that’s at aclj.org when you become a champion today your first gift is doubled be right back Welcome back, Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you. 1-800-684-3110. Slogan Sekulow. Will Haynes joining me in studio. A little bit later, Rick Grinnell. former director of national intelligence, and just been a great ACLJ commentator and secular commentator for a number of years now, of course, special envoy currently in the Trump administration. I do want to quickly take a phone call right off the bat, because this is actually a topic that I know a lot of you are interested in, and I know we’ve talked about it before, but even the New York Times article I read on this story this morning had to tie in some of this as well. And Bill in Wyoming, who’s an ACLJ champion, who’s been on this show a lot, Because I always think of when I hear Bill from Wyoming, I don’t know, you know. Bill Cody. Yeah, Bill Cody from Wyoming. Go ahead, Bill. You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, thanks for taking my call. First of all, just input on who you might want to interview on your show. Maybe John Hine from OAN or even Thomas Sowell. All right, cool.
SPEAKER 06 :
We’ll put them on the list of people maybe to reach out to. I appreciate that, Bill. Go ahead, though.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, okay. My thoughts are this business with Epstein and the files that’s going on. Now, this is kind of a question or even a comment that maybe this is kind of a way of distracting from… The Russiagate with Obama and the deep state. Am I right or what?
SPEAKER 06 :
Will gets one called happy hands. And all of a sudden he’s going, oh, go to me, go to me. So you’re like the Hermione Granger here. Go ahead, Will.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Bill, it’s interesting because the Democrats are saying that the the trump team is doing all this to distract from the epstein files while as the trump team is saying hey the democrats are trying to push the epstein files all of a sudden to distract from this so there is political games on both sides going on about this but here is what’s interesting bill is that president obama would have been better off not issuing this statement because he is obviously trying to cover and say you know there’s nothing new here nothing to see here people were asking for his statement. Right. But he says that nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election. That’s not what Tulsi is alleging here. Tulsi is showing through these documents that that was the intel community’s assessment and And that going up all the way through the election, that Russia was attempting to influence through their bot armies, as well as they didn’t have the capability to manipulate votes. That was the intel community’s assessment the entire time. And then after President Trump got elected, President Obama… Calls a meeting in the White House and they change the story. Then all of a sudden it wasn’t Russia’s trying to sow discord in America and weaken the United States. It is that they were trying to get President Trump elected and they used the Steele dossier. So he’s trying to reframe this entire thing back to the original intent, which is what the problem that Tulsi is showcasing is. They went away from that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oddly enough. President Obama’s statement actually says what Tulsi Gabbard is saying with these documents. However, because they manipulate you in the way that they talk, and I mean that for all politicians, right, left, doesn’t matter. It’s never clear what they’re saying. But what they’re inferring, if you were to read that statement purely on knowing it’s coming from the Obama group, you would read into it that he’s talking about Russia influence specifically for the benefit of President Trump in 2016. Not a, they were just trying to, I don’t think there’s really a lot of people thinking that there was no Russia interference in the sense of like, Russia didn’t have some sort of operations. By the way, I think most countries probably do.
SPEAKER 03 :
We talked about yesterday the United States funding NGOs under the Biden administration trying to influence the Israel election.
SPEAKER 06 :
That shouldn’t shock anybody. But when the statement comes out, from barack obama and there what was it the obama the the office of former president barack obama whatever that means the office of former president barack obama uh and it’s not clear but its intentions are clear its intentions are to make you believe that this is talking about uh president trump working with the trump administration or the trump campaign really working with putin and russia when really what they’re saying there is that they just, everyone knew, and Marco Rubio even said, yeah, here’s the documents, though, also saying that it would have been a benefit to Vladimir Putin for Hillary to win, and here’s why, and also that it wasn’t going to be this one, they were anticipating a Hillary Clinton win, which, by the way, so were almost everyone. If you remember, if you can flashback to 2016, we were sitting in not this studio, in our old studio, and my brother, My brother Jordan was the only person who said President Trump has got this in our room. Because the polls, that was when we still believed somewhat in the polls, the polls were showing a landslide victory for Hillary Clinton.
SPEAKER 03 :
And here’s what was released today. So Tulsi Gabbard declassified, or President Trump would have the power to declassify, but put out this declassified House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. So the House Intel Committee did a report on, on the 2016 election and the intelligence, the underlying intelligence. That committee can go into the SCIF. They can look at all this when they’re conducting their report in their oversight role of the executive branch. That’s a part of the Constitution, what they’re supposed to do. They did this, but this was a classified report because it dealt with classified intelligence, systems and methods, sources and methods, all of the things that we don’t normally get to see. They’ve declassified this now. And this is a really interesting, this is right at the beginning of this report on the ICA, the Intelligence Community Assessment, and what they see. They point out some things that were in the report that would have had proper analytical trade craft and consistent with what the intelligence was telling them. Here are the three things that were consistent from the intelligence, but what shifted. one president putin ordered conventional and cyber influence operations notably leaking politically sensitive emails obtained from computer intrusions that’s number one as you said logan we know that this was a thing we know that there was bot armies that there was a cyber influence campaign it wasn’t changing votes it was trying to sow discord two Putin’s principal motivations in these operations were to undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process and weaken what the Russians consider to be an inevitable Clinton presidency. This is what the intel community was gathering. That means they thought it was going to be Clinton. They wanted Russia to be stronger than America. So they were trying to already weaken America during the election process. And three, and this is the kicker. And this is why Chairman Grassley, Chuck Grassley from Iowa, the senator released that entire declassified Horowitz report, the annex to his report about the email investigation that basically said the FBI did nothing. They were hands off. They had they had these thumb drives. They didn’t even look at them. Three, Putin held back leaking some compromising material for post-election use against the expected Clinton administration.
SPEAKER 06 :
Think about this. Okay, so let’s hold on that topic and that release. So what you’re saying is that they had potentially damning information to the Hillary Clinton campaign.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 06 :
And they decided to hold back that information. Assuming she was going to win and they were going to need some theoretical ammunition here and some blackmail they had. Again, if they were really looking for President Trump to win, you would have thrown everything you could. That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
So what does it tell you? It tells you that Putin thought, I’ve got leverage over the United States president. If she wins, that goes a long way in sanctions negotiations, anything we can say, hey, you don’t want us to release this. Or if they do, then America’s crippled because they’re going through some sort of impeachment, things like that. That’s what the goal of Russia was, a weaker United States and a stronger Russia. So when all of a sudden this shifted is when President Obama called that meeting and said, hey, all you principals in here, CIA director, attorney general, we got to change the message. And that’s what happened. Then they started relying on the discredited Steele dossier, which completely changed the narrative. There’s even a quote that Tulsi released. Before you do that.
SPEAKER 06 :
because i saw this in the comments can you give us well 20 seconds on what the steel dossier was because again it’s another one of those terms we use very flippantly and if you haven’t been following for 10 years now you may not know what we’re talking about so the steel dossier was a work product that the clinton campaign paid for you pay for opposition research you get people to dig up dirt on your political opponent unfortunately that’s how the
SPEAKER 03 :
right world works so they had paid for this product from a former british spy christopher steele to create this dossier they got the dossier they got the dossier and by the way the clinton campaign never really used it because it was so incredible and then when they started to see incredible incredible like not credible not incredible right Well, that’s what the word incredible means. When you’re like, man, this is incredible. I’m making sure people understand. It was not creditable, but they paid this guy for it. And then all of a sudden that makes its way into the Intel community, which all the CIA, all the analysts said, this isn’t credible. We shouldn’t use it. They only started using it to try and tear down Trump after After he won. And as a matter of fact, the CIA was telling Brennan, don’t use this work product. And this is a quote Tulsi released. He said he agreed that it didn’t meet Intel standards. He said, yes, but doesn’t it ring true? It just feels right. He’s just vibing.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. Just vibing on the steel dossier. It just rings true, man. It just feels right. When you read it, you’re like, yeah, I get it. I feel like he did this. Yeah. All right, how do you feel about that? Don’t you want to respond? There’s thousands of you watching right now. Some of you want to call in, but right now, none of you have. 1-800-684-3110. I’m looking at an empty bank of six phone calls. Will’s got to leave me in the last segment, so you better call in, because I’m going to have no one to talk to at the end of this show. I’m just going to be rambling on. 1-800-684-3110 to call in. Of course, support the work of the ACLJ as you can right now as we start to wrap up 35 years of Justice Drive. Be right back. Oh, hey, phone lines are starting to fill up. Good. So when Will abandons me, I have someone else to talk to. Stay on hold. We’re going to get to as many calls as we can. I did want to give you an update on some of the work of the ACLJ. The ACLJ, of course, we are celebrating the last week of our 35 years of Justice Drive. But there is work happening right now as we speak, and there is an update. Well, later on, by the way, in the show, Rick Riddell is going to join us. We’re going to talk about how the ACLJ is going to get involved in Syria. And you may say that is an intense thing you guys are getting involved in. It is. We know you’ve asked for it, and we’ve spent a lot of time working on it. So we’re going to talk about that coming up. But this is about Planned Parenthood, the whole defunding situation. Again, if you have not been following closely, part of the big beautiful bill was the defunding of Planned Parenthood. was some rogue judges a tro temporary restraining orders that went back and forth back and forth of will they still keep their funding they say they they deserve their funding and now we sort of land on this situation where as of yesterday it was 75 could remain defunded while 25 remained remained funded because those 25 didn’t provide specifically abortion practices but here we are will with even yet another update
SPEAKER 03 :
This is something that we in some ways knew was coming. We didn’t know how quickly, but the administration has already filed their notice of appeal to the district court, meaning they are taking up, they are appealing this preliminary injunction for that 25%, the 25%-ish that gets to continue receiving this funding. They are appealing that. to the U.S. Court of Appeals. We filed at the district court level, remembered, and now we are going to be filing at this appeal to try and once again tell the court that this isn’t an entitlement for Planned Parenthood to receive this funding. But there’s also, Logan, another case out of Maine. There is a clinic there that falls under the, they provide abortions and they receive over $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements. So they fit the definition of what will no longer be funded under the Big Beautiful Bill, but they aren’t Planned Parenthood. So this case didn’t affect them at all. They have sued in Maine in district court, which will still be in the same circuit, the appeals court circuit, the first circuit, once it gets up there. But they have an interesting angle now because the Massachusetts court. Allowed other Planned Parenthood’s with the same definition as this main clinic to remain Defunded they remain the law remains in place for them So they’re now trying to get their funding back even though they meet the definition of the law They can’t rely on that First Amendment freedom of association claim that the subset of Planned Parenthood’s got the injunction on in Massachusetts in Maine They drew a judge in the district court that happens to be a Trump appointee. I think the only one in that district. So we’ll see how that goes. But the ACLJ will be filing in that case in just days. So our attorneys are hard at work, writing briefs, filing briefs, and we will continue to fight this all the way to the Supreme Court if we need to.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and of course, that’s been one of our key issues that we have been fighting for years and years. And you may think, hey, one of the big success stories, of course, was the overturning of Roe versus Wade. But it opened up a whole new gamut of life cases. The defunding of Planned Parenthood has always been one of those big issues. Look, here’s what also really bothers me. If you support Planned Parenthood, put your money where your mouth is. Make your donation. I see a lot of people talking about the NPR and the PBS situation right now. And look, as someone who was raised on PBS, as someone that was raised listening to NPR, as someone who thinks they actually have some great kids programming. Some has gone too far recently, but my kids were raised on it, okay? Put your money where your mouth is. Be a supporter. That’s what we talk about here. I’m not here asking for government funding. I’m not saying we demand government funding for our radio show, for our television show, for our streaming broadcast. For our legal work. For our legal work. That’s not how it works. Support what you want to support. Why does the government have to be subsidizing this? Trust me, there are billionaires who love NPR, who love PBS. I wish there was more billionaires that loved what we do here. There’s a few. This is where we’re at. Support what you want to support. If you want to support Planned Parenthood, I don’t believe you’re right, but there’s nothing stopping you. So for this kind of false narrative of we demand government funding, we deserve government funding, give me a break. Let people make the decision. Vote with their wallets. They can do that. You can support an organization that you believe in. That’s what happens. Same with the Stephen Colbert situation. A lot of people were talking about that last night. I was watching some highlights from the Happy Gilmore 2 premiere. And a lot of people were saying, including Rob Schneider, who said, you know what? People did decide. They voted by not watching. Because the advertising dried up. And you know what? That’s what happens when you alienate 50% of the country. With that being said, we have a ton of calls, and some are ACLJ champions. So I want to take one of those before we head into the end of the show, or end of this first half hour. Is that okay, Will? Yeah, go for it. All right, Carrie’s calling in Montana. She’s a champion. And by the way, when you’re a champion, you tell our phone screener, we confirm it, you get bumped up to the front of the line. Just a fun little perk that I threw out there. Carrie, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hi, guys. Thank you so much. I was just wondering to ask you and Will, Logan, because Biden, I mean, yeah, Obama was also one of his responsibilities as commander-in-chief, which is military for our country. Would that have any perspective on the way they can crack a lot of this back with this Russia issue? Well, we know he committed treason. We know he committed a lot of crimes. But I was just wondering if that would have any bearing on the difference in the way we might get justice.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I’m going to say with you quoting that he committed treason and all that, that’s actually probably quoting President Trump. It’s not quoting me, but I think it’s quoting people in pretty high positions. I don’t know if the military side of this really can play into it. I mean, yes, sure, he is the commander in chief. But again, what you’re really going to have to be running into, and again, keep your eyes Expectations in check. Keep your expectations in check. We just won the presidential immunity case. I mean, that just happened for President Trump. So there are consequences that come from things you even think are right. One of them is going to be directly Barack Obama. I really highly doubt you are going to see… Look, I’m not saying that you should be disappointed or excited, whatever. I don’t even care. I’m saying… Keep your hopes in check. I don’t think you’re going to be seeing that happen. I just don’t. I don’t think you’re going to see it for the country as well.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, and Kerry, to your point, the president being subject to the Uniform Code of Justice in some sort of different way, I think that at one, it’s a novel concept idea. But once again, the president is treated differently and held to a different standard than many Americans, most Americans, because he is the president of the United States. And as Logan just referenced, there was the Trump immunity case, which gave broad immunity for official acts and for official duties. One of the official duties of President Obama, you know who’s going to be the biggest fan of that case? All of a sudden, Democrats, when they’re like, wait, you can’t go after President Obama because he called a meeting of principals, which is in the White House, which is among his official duties, which I think is a good cover.
SPEAKER 06 :
We bring it up a lot. You always have to remember the consequences of the actions, which if you’re willing to take something like this Supreme Court, remember, it’s not only going to affect you, President Trump. Remember, it’s not going to only affect conservatives. It will affect liberals. And you have to understand that if they set the law, that is how the law is going to be interpreted. And that’s how it’s going to work. It’s just the nature of the beast. And that should be how it is. People shouldn’t have, there shouldn’t be a double standard because of you’re a conservative or you’re a liberal. or you’re an American Christian, or anything else. We have a baseline here, and that’s okay. We talked about support and we need your support. We have 30 seconds left this half hour. We have a second half hour coming up. Some of your stations don’t carry it. Go to ACLJ.org or find us later on. We’re live also right now on YouTube and Rumble, many different places. And if you’re catching this later, of course, the full show is available on demand right after the show ends each and every day from 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time. But support the work of the ACLJ with just eight days left and our deadline of our 35 years of justice drives. Scan that QR code. Just go to ACLJ.org. This is our short break. Just one minute. We’re coming right back.
SPEAKER 11 :
Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever. This is Seculo. And now your host, Logan Seculo.
SPEAKER 06 :
Phone lines are jammed right now, but they’re going to open up at 1-800-684-3110. Welcome to Seculo. If you’re just joining us for this second half hour, Will Haynes is in studio with me for this segment and the next segment. And the next segment. And then the last segment, he’s got places to be. You leave me all the time in the final.
SPEAKER 03 :
All the time.
SPEAKER 06 :
What are you talking about? I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. Okay. Okay. I like that all these people are on hold. So you stay on hold. Whether I can answer your question or not, I’ll pretend. Okay? I’ll do my best. So stay on hold if you’re on hold right now. Michael, James, Don. People like hearing their names. Estelle, Justin, Jane. A lot of J names. Yeah. You know what? That happens. People like that.
SPEAKER 1 :
50%.
SPEAKER 06 :
Jordan. You’re not a J name. Well, I’m talking about in the call queue. I know.
SPEAKER 1 :
50%.
SPEAKER 06 :
I got it. Quick math. Yeah. What’s 35 plus 40?
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, you’re going to blame me for that when you said we had 10-year-olds working on the show. Well, you know, in their hearts.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. Young at heart. Young at heart. Too young. Way too young at heart to be working. I don’t think we allow that in this country. That being said, I digress. Let’s talk about the topic at hand because some of you are just joining us right now and you’re like, what am I listening to? That is right. Tulsi Gabbard, our friend, former colleague, current Director of National Intelligence. By the way, a former Director of National Intelligence will be joining us in the next segment. But the current Director of National Intelligence has to respond to President, former President Barack Obama saying, hey… This was all known. This was widely admitted. We know that Vladimir Putin got involved in the election. Even Marco Rubio says so. And of course, she’s got to drop a bunch more documents saying, yes, but you are inferring something that is not accurate. And here we are, of course, Tulsi, Trump, both putting together saying words like treason. You know, again, those aren’t my words. I don’t know if I would have gone that far. I don’t know if our country needs this right now. Purely, I didn’t think we needed it during Trump. I don’t know if we need it for Obama. I’m sick of the incredibly divisive language that’s coming out of it. I was watching last night, this is obviously a tribute to Ozzy Osbourne who passed away yesterday. I watched him at the press gala and you have George W. Bush making all these jokes about Ozzy’s lyrics and how his mom loves the lyrics and it’s this great, silly, unifying moment and you look at that room and you realize that we are so far removed. Just 20 years later, 23 years later, it was in 2002. We are so far removed from any semblance of what that felt like, which was some sort of politics is politics, but unified beyond politics. And sadly, we’re not there right now. So there are times when this kind of thing comes up and you start throwing around treason for Barack Obama, President Barack Obama, who, by the way, probably 50-50 shot you have Michelle Obama running for president. I don’t know if this is the right timing. However, that doesn’t stop the facts. The facts are there’s a treasure trove of documents. that you got to give it up to Tulsi. She has said she was going to do these things, released all of the JFK files, released a bunch of documents for the MLK files yesterday. She is meeting her campaign promises, if you will.
SPEAKER 03 :
I do. And this leads up to that as well, Logan, is that when you dig into this new report that she released, that some of these reports that all of a sudden made its way after that meeting in the Oval Office with President Obama into their reporting when they changed their assessment was some of it were things that. CIA professionals had decided not to publish for various reasons having to do with tradecraft standards, the standards they have when gathering intelligence. Three of them. became foundational sources for their claim that Putin aspired to help Trump win. Of those three, they had not been reported because they were judged by the CIA to have not met various longstanding intelligent community standards for publication, and they had not been published when first acquired. Then the three reports all of a sudden were published after President Trump won on the orders of the director of the CIA, despite veteran CIA officers’ judgments that they contained substandard information that was unclear, of uncertain origin, biased, implausible, or in the words of other senior officers, odd. The director of the CIA forced that after the meeting with Obama to try and smear and perpetrate this coup on President Trump’s presidency.
SPEAKER 06 :
Phone lines are completely jammed. I’m going to ask you to please stay on hold. And while you’re doing that, maybe you can surf on over to ACLJ.org and make your donation today. Really appreciate it. Rick Grinnell is going to be joining us in the next segment. Rick was former director of national intelligence. We’re going to talk about how the ACLJ is getting involved in Syria and some of the really important information. Welcome back to Seculo. Rick Grinnell is joining us by phone. Rick, of course, former director of national intelligence, has been involved with the ACLJ and we’ve been doing for many years now. It’s always on the show. You know, you never know where Rick is going to be, where he’s calling from, what’s he doing, what’s he up to. But this will really is something that I know our audience has been talking about. And we’ve been talking about it internally quite a bit, which is we’ve seen sort of the information and the war and everything that’s been going on, the violence in Syria. And people have been asking the ACLJ team as we are involved in a lot of different areas, whether it’s through a European center or ACLJ Jerusalem and places we don’t even talk about. They’re saying, what can we do in Syria? Because, you know, they have the Druze community, which are a minority community that are being persecuted. Of course, you at least have to give Christians that are firmly under attack there as well, as well as just chaos that seems to be coming out of the region on a daily basis.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right. And the Druze people, and this is a minority religion in Syria, as well as in the world. I mean, there’s only about 2 million Druze worldwide. But Rick, what we’re seeing is escalating violence and not just… Some people are trying to call it sectarian violence, but we’re seeing executions, summary executions of people that are Druze. And in fact… One American from Oklahoma who is visiting family is now a victim of this violence. Can you give us kind of a rundown of what we’re seeing, what’s going on, and why we should be paying attention to this?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, first of all, I think this is an extremely complicated issue, and I’m so thankful that the ACLJ has experts in Europe, in New York, in the Middle East, and we’re really watching this and we’re able to respond. I was one of the first people, if not the first actually to highlight this Oklahoma, uh, resident, this American who was, uh, brutally gunned down and murdered in Syria. Um, I got all sorts of information early on from my friends in the region. Um, I’ve seen the videos of him being killed. It’s horrific. It is brutal. It is akin to ISIS. And I think the Trump administration and our great US ambassador to Turkey, who is also the envoy in Syria, has been up all night trying to calm the situation, working with Israel. Remember, Israel just recently bombed in Damascus to try to protect some of these individuals. It’s a complicated issue because of the sectarian violence of Syria, the long history of what’s happening in Syria, where you’ve got a lot of different factions inside Syria who are trying to get power, and through power they use violence. And they just don’t have the wherewithal right now or the ability to talk out their differences. They’re literally just trying to kill for power. And that’s where America and I would even go so far as to say, groups like ACLJ and others are doing a good job of pushing through this idea of talking and trying to use diplomacy. This is a country, the country of Syria, that President Trump has recently dropped the sanctions to give them an opportunity to say, can you move forward? They’ve kicked out the Iranians and now they’re fighting within their own country for power. And the leader, the new leader, is not proving to be able to be effective at this point. And we have to be able to keep pressuring. I did see today that the Trump administration had announced that there was going to be a meeting with the Israelis to try to talk through some of these issues and get the Israelis to… to help as much as they can. But the brutality, ISIS style, vengeance and power grabbing that’s happening inside Syria right now is very troubling. Christians have been targeted, but the latest has been the Druze, as you say. And I have to give a shout out to Congressman Abe Hamadeh from Arizona, who has been very vigilant in calling for calm and for diplomacy. Remember, Abe is somebody who has been very close with Kayla Mueller, the Christian missionary who was also brutalized and killed by ISIS. And Abe was sworn in on Kayla Mueller’s Bible. And He was sworn into Congress with her parents standing with him. And his family is Druze, actually. He’s an American congressman, but his family is Druze from Syria. His mother is from the area where this has all happened. And so he’s been a great leader in Congress on this issue.
SPEAKER 03 :
And Rick, we’ve had Congressman Hamadeh on the broadcast in years past, and he’s impressive and very strong and know that he will be an advocate in Congress for this. But as we look, we’ve mentioned the ACLJ. I know I’m reading emails right now. Our team is working on reports to the UN that we will be doing coming up on the situation with the Druze, as well as the Christian minority that are… facing this violence at this time, this persecution. This is something that ACLJ fights for around the world, both here with advocating to Congress, at the UN, and anywhere we can. When there is violence against people for their faith, we will stand against that. And Rick, as we look at this, and I know you talk, it’s a complex situation. We know that Syria is now led by a former al Qaeda leader that has since sworn that off and is saying he wants to be a part of the global community. President Trump extending kind of that olive branch of saying we’ll relieve sanctions. We’ll see if you can if you can make good on these promises. We know that there are also reports this is government or this is not government, all of this fighting. What should we be looking for? How can the United States be a leader on this to try and squelch this violence to protect these minorities, but as well try to see Syria make good on those efforts and those promises?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, the current leader of Syria is a guy named Ahmed al-Shara. And you’re exactly right. Trump gave him an incredible gift, which was a second chance. Maybe we can call it a fifth chance. But we’ve given him the opportunity to turn the corner and to lead. He said all the right things, but so far he has not been able to produce. And I think this is What Tom Barak, our U.S. ambassador in Turkey, has been saying, which is you’ve been handed a golden opportunity. Don’t blow it. So far, you haven’t been able to lead in the proper way. We’re seeing this killing. I think the Israelis lost their patience and are protecting this minority in ways that I think frustrates. other sectarian leaders inside Syria. It’s a very complicated issue, but thank God we’ve got organizations like ACLJ that understands these issues, that’s at the forefront of calming this down. And I just got to give a shout out to our team because You know, I think there’s a biblical mandate to protect the vulnerable, regardless of what religion you are, whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Druze, Muslim, Buddhist, it doesn’t matter. what religion you are when it comes to the protection of civilians. And ACLJ is at the forefront of protecting people for religious liberties and protecting them when they’re vulnerable. And this is a case in point. working hard to protect the Druze.
SPEAKER 06 :
When you have free speech and religious freedom as your two big things that you really support, of course, it doesn’t just mean your freedom of speech. It doesn’t always just mean your religious speech. And it’s very different around the world. And I think you know that because you’ve been there. You’ve experienced it. A lot of people haven’t. Look, I’m looking. When these numbers have been going up, people are watching. But the comments kind of slow down when we start talking about this because people are listening. They’re having to get informed. We’re having to sit there with our teams. Like I said, people have been talking about this, Rick, for a while of how can the ACLJ get involved in Syria. And I mean that internally as well as support from our listeners and our viewers because – We know these are complicated. And again, it’s not the same as we can jump on a Minnesota Bible club that’s getting shut down in a church. But we can still handle both at the same time. But they are very, very different. But again, I agree with you as well that this is something for the vulnerable, for the needy. We need to make sure we are always there for them, whether that’s in our country or it’s abroad. There are times when the ACLJ can extend beyond the borders of America and reach into these communities where it’s needed.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, you know, you touched on something that is so good, Logan, because, you know, the First Amendment, the freedom of religion, means that you get to be free to choose your religion. We don’t get to pick and choose. We certainly don’t have a Constitution that says that you’re only free to be a Christian. And I know this is, you know, I grew up evangelical, and I know this can be a dicey conversation, but when it comes to government protecting the Constitution and the freedom of religion… We have to be at the forefront of protecting that religion because it will come back to benefit us. by demanding that governments around the world allow people to choose their religion and to protect them to be free. I’ll go so far as to say our missionaries, our Christian missionaries around the world, they want the protection of religion no matter where they are. And so this benefits us and it benefits the biblical mandate that we believe in.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, absolutely, Rick. Thank you so much for joining us. When we get back, we’ll be taking your calls and comments. So you heard that. Give us a call. We got two lines open for you. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Support the work of the ACLJ all around the world. Go to ACLJ.org right now. Make your donation doubled. Welcome back to Seculo. I do have two lines open for you, and no one in the studio with me. I’m so lonely. Will left. You know, this is what happens. You’ll see what happens when I have eight minutes to my own devices. What’s going to happen? We’re going to take some phone calls. That’s right. A lot of you have been on hold for a long time, and I appreciate that. Some of you are traditional terrestrial radio listeners. Some are YouTube viewers. If you are on our YouTube channel, I’m going to ask you real quick. 508,000 plus subscribers. Millions watch each week. Half of you that are watching right now may have never seen me before. We look at our numbers. We can see that 50% often aren’t subscribed. So if you look for a way to support the ACLJ and support this kind of broadcast, maybe you’re not ready or you can’t right now make a financial donation. I understand it’s a tough time for a lot of people. But a great free way to do it is just hit that subscribe button. Helps us get into your feed and more people’s feeds. Let’s go ahead and take some of these calls. We’re going to first start off. Let’s just go into order as they come in. I’ll do my best to answer them. Estelle’s calling from South Carolina. Again, listening on the radio. Estelle, welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, guys. I forgot to tell them I’m a ACLJ champion. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you. I would have got you. Thankfully, you got first anyway. So though you’re on hold for a half an hour, I maybe would have tried to do it, but I really do appreciate it. Of course, Estelle, that means that she gives on a monthly recurring basis, which is great. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, I just am so frustrated because all this stuff going on, all the Obama and Brenner stuff, Will there ever be any repercussions from all this, or is it just going to go floating in the wind somewhere?
SPEAKER 06 :
It is totally understandable you would feel that way. I’m not going to say I don’t feel the same way. We have been through this. I’ve seen this movie before, as we’ve heard many times. Now, a little bit different here. You have an administration that is actually living up to some of their campaign promises. You have a Tulsi Gabbard who doesn’t play politics in that sense, who is someone that was a Democrat, who ran against President Trump, but could see the corruption that was going on and joined forces. That does not happen very much in Washington, D.C. People hold grudges for a very long time. So it’s a different world. That being said, do I think there’s going to be a huge indictment of President Obama? I don’t. Do I think there’s other people that can be held accountable surrounding it? Yeah, possibly. That could happen. I just don’t see it happening in this country. And I don’t personally know if a decade later, if that’s really the best mode. I know you’re going to say, I see the comments are going to come in and say, Logan, they committed a crime. They got to do the time, all those kinds of things. But remember it’s politics and you have to see through it and see clear. Also look to the future. What does it mean? What are the ramifications? What’s the ramifications of presidential immunity? Here you go. Which by the way, I’m not saying I was against it, but you got to live with the consequences. Both goods go both ways. It’s not just presidential immunity for the guy you like. But Estelle, I understand you feeling that way. I do think there could be some real investigations. There could be some real criminal activity or criminal prosecutions. But I do think to think it’s going to get to the level of President Obama is maybe going a bit too far. But we’ll see. You never know. It’s an interesting team in that White House. Thanks for calling. Let’s go to Justin now, who’s calling from California. Justin, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, thanks for taking my call. You know, I think Democrats constantly claim that they’re the party of moral and ethical superiority. Yet now, you know, thanks to Tulsi, this information has been uncovered. For the Obama administration, it’s so disappointing, to say the least. But, you know, I think Democrats play dirty. We know this. And I just want to make sure that as Republicans… We spread the message that, you know, we’re not going to do that. And I play dirty. That is. And I think our moral compass is the Constitution.
SPEAKER 06 :
Justin, I hope you’re right. I encourage those who are watching and listening that are in the administration right now. And look, I know many of you do watch. I hear from some of them and I appreciate that. Listen, what Justin said, he wants you to be in there with your morals and your head on straight. not just playing politics, very hard in Washington, D.C. I don’t like being in Washington, D.C. I don’t care to be around the people there because typically it is very dark. But there’s some light. There’s some light. There’s some good people there. He brought up he was very disappointed in President Obama. I typically say there was actually a pretty big difference between the Obama administration and the Biden administration. We worked with the Obama administration even when we disagreed with them. There are times we had meetings where our team got to meet with President Obama and his team. That did not happen at all. the biden years however now you look at this and you look at the information that was uncovered and you go well maybe it’s just the same great speaker most people voted for him okay those were pretty much landslide elections you know most people were supportive of president obama uh we weren’t necessarily one of them but that is where uh that’s where we were so i understand the disappointment i’m going to continue on jane is calling uh in california jane go ahead
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi, friend. I love getting my news from you. And what I have to say is just a little bit tongue-in-cheek, and maybe Justin will want to hop on board. But after having been gaslit for 10 years about all of this stuff, And I just think it might be fair. And I’d like you to take my case. I think I have standing that you, the $40 million that was wasted on the Mueller report because they already knew the answers that we could use that to turn Obama’s Martha’s vineyard property into an Airbnb for all of those who were robbed of, you know, Trump hands were tied because of that stuff. And so just if we could have a little R&R at the Airbnb. Why not?
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, everyone wants to visit Martha’s Vineyard. Why not? Look, I understand that this is tongue in cheek and I understand your thoughts about this. A lot of people, a lot of people sacrifice themselves. A lot of people went through the ringer during those years. And look, my family represented President Trump and everything, all the stuff that happened during all that situation. You have no idea the hours that were spent. You can only imagine what it was actually like. It’s brutal. Beat a lot of people up. A lot of people didn’t make it. A lot of people did. But a lot of people didn’t make it because this is a, they say politics is a blood sport, and that’s 100% true. So what I can say is that’s very funny, and that would be nice. Everyone needs a little R&R. Pray for the people that are involved in this because it’s darker and heavier than you can imagine. Let’s go ahead, continue on. I got two minutes, three calls. I don’t think I’m going to get to all three of you, but we’ll get to as many as we can. Don’s calling. Go ahead, Don.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, that’s you. I had a real quick question about consent decrees. You know, here in L.A., that Mr. Trump’s team is doing a great job trying to round up the legals. But LAPD is enjoined by the mayor, by the governor, everybody not to cooperate with us. And I remember Mr. Obama. Mentioning him during his administration, like things like Ferguson, for one example, he put police departments under consent decrees to make them do what he wanted. Can we use a similar mechanism to compel them to comply with federal law, comply with the authorities?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, a lot of times you think federal law would go above this. Look, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t claim to be. I don’t want to go into the details. But some of this is also what’s going on, even in your own churches, what’s going on in your own community. I watched a clip this morning of a church in California where the pastor, priest, I think it was pastor, was dressed like RoboCop. And the entire sermon was about how RoboCop was preaching against the police and how we need to remember what RoboCop was doing. And then he went on and talked about ICE. And I’m watching there going, man, I don’t necessarily even disagree with all his points. But it’s coming from a dude dressed like RoboCop. We got to change the way we talk about these things. But Don, thank you for calling. We’ll try to pass that on. I only got 58 seconds. So unfortunately, I’m going to say thank you to Adam and Rhonda and ask if you want to call in tomorrow. Hopefully you guys weren’t on hold for too long. If you want to call in tomorrow, we’ll try to get you up first. Best I can do. Thanks for calling. That being said, it is the final week of our drive here. It is 35 days. years and remember i am about to be 40 years old i have worked on this organization with the aclj for the mass majority of my life if you got those original envelopes from us and newsletters there’s a good chance this five-year-old was stuffing those envelopes to send to you we’ve been involved in this our entire lives and we hope to continue it for generations to come because we want to be there for you and be there for people all around the world. If you could have said it would gone from our kitchen table to now we’re taking on cases in Syria, we would never imagine it, but God has blessed it. Go to aclj.org slash 35. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.
