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In another shocking U.S. foreign policy reversal, the Biden-Harris Administration just authorized sending land mines to Ukraine to be used in Russia. The Sekulow team discusses the worsening conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, new Trump Administration members Tesla’s Elon Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy’s plans for the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), the ACLJ’s legal work – and much more. National radio personality Ben Ferguson joins as guest co-host.
SPEAKER 03 :
Breaking news today on Sekulow as Biden approves the use of landmines in Ukraine.
SPEAKER 05 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 03 :
We said it during the transition from the Obama team to the Trump team. We say it from the Biden team to the Trump team yet again. In these days in between, it can be very dangerous for the country. It can be very dangerous for our military. It can be very dangerous for the actions we are engaged in abroad. Some actions today by the ICC, putting out a warrant for arrest of Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel. We’ll discuss that and we’ll go to our office in Israel later on in the broadcast today. But first, landmines. from the United States being sent to Ukraine. Now, this is by the Biden administration. It’s a policy shift in their last 60 days in their administration. While they know they’ve got an incoming administration that wants to handle the Ukraine-Russia situation and try to bring it to a close so less people lose arms and legs and their lives, they are now shipping landmines out to the Ukrainians. Now, this is interesting Because when Joe Biden came into office, he actually had a program in June of 2022, four months after the start of the war in Ukraine, Biden announced that they would not use any anti-personnel mines. That’s how they want to call them now. They don’t use landmines anymore. I guess they don’t want to evoke Princess Diana and having the idea of going through countries and having to remove landmines. Those landmines, if you’ve been to Israel, if you’ve been to parts of the world where landmines were used, there are still no go zones because there are still areas that were mined that have not been cleared and are too dangerous to be cleared. So that is a real issue. So the fact is, okay, the Biden administration was going to destroy and curtail the use of anti-personnel mines worldwide, that we no longer develop them, we no longer export them. They have now reversed this decision with just less than two months to go in office. And Ben Ferguson, who is joining us today from The Verdict, and you see him on Outnumbered as well, and from The Ben Ferguson Show. And Ben, they’ve got two months left, and now we’re shipping. Yeah. landmines to Ukraine so we can, I guess, take arms and legs off of Russian soldiers because that’ll make it a lot easier to bring this conflict to a close.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, it’s amazing when you saw Donald Trump meeting with Joe Biden. He said, we want a smooth transition of power. We want to be here to make sure everything goes well. We listen to the American people. And now what are they saying? They’re like, and we’re also going to try to hand you World War III. That’s what this is. You’re trying to hand a dumpster fire to the Trump administration, things that you don’t believe in. I don’t believe they believed in this because if they did, they would have done it a thousand days ago or 500 days ago. This has been going on for what? I mean, a very long time. And it was something that when it first started, this conflict between Russia and Ukraine, you had, all right, we’ll wrap it up quickly. Oh, we’re going to do this diplomatically. None of that worked. And now they say, OK, here’s everything you want that we said would escalate the situation. This is an administration that said they were going to de-escalate, yet they send unlimited dollars to Ukraine and they say, here’s more weaponry. Here are things that put you into an actual world war. And I think this is honestly just hoping on the day that Donald Trump is sworn in, January the 20th, that he and his foreign policy team are handed a disaster. They can then point and say, good luck with this.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yep. We’re 60 days out from the inauguration, and they’re shipping out landmines to Zelensky to utilize against Russian troops. What do you think that’s going to do to Vladimir Putin, who’s already decided, and we’ll get to it in the next segment as we take your calls, 1-800-684-3110. One, do you support the U.S. shipping out landmines to anyone? I mean, we’re not using them for our own troops protection. We’re just shipping them off for the Ukrainians to utilize against the Russians. Who’s going to be placing these landmines? Is it going to be U.S. troops? Because there’s a lot of U.S. troops training those Ukrainians who now are in harm’s way. Ballistic missiles are being fired. And the debate on TV is, well, was it a mid-range ballistic missile or was it an intercontinental ballistic missile? Was it an ICBM? Well, both. are test runs to use of course nuclear weapons and that is what Russia is showing their capability that they could use a hybrid nuclear weapon and a more targeted nuclear weapon we’ll talk about that when we get back and take your calls 1-800-684-3110 are they doing everything to prevent peace between Ukraine and Russia All right, welcome back to Secular. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. I do want to get calls up because I think for members of our military, those who served, many of you who probably served in conflicts where landmines were used, this is something that, I mean, the United Nations has tried to make a move because they are so dangerous, not just during conflicts. But after conflicts, children end up, you know, years after conflicts are done, decades sometimes, and children end up stepping on them. I mean, we’ve had big campaigns to try and rid the world of landmines to say this is not something we are going to utilize. The Biden administration in 2022 said they’re done producing them and they’re going to actually start destroying our stockpile of landmines or whatever. I love the term that they use, anti-personnel mines. which is even more dangerous because I think that means that there are landmines that can actually take out an entire vehicle. But now we’re shipping them to Ukraine. So how does Russia respond, Ben? They respond with a debate that’s now on TV, and I love these debates. Some headlines are the Russians have utilized an ICBM for the first time, an intercontinental ballistic missile. Now, it was not armed with a nuclear warhead, but it was fired. And then others are saying, no, no, no, it was mid-range. So a mid-range ballistic missiles, both of which are capable, very capable of carrying a nuclear payload. including a weapon that we really haven’t seen utilized on the battlefield we have them where the Russians have them probably the Chinese have them I don’t know who else maybe the Israelis these tactical nuclear weapons and tactical nuclear weapons mean they have less of a you know of a range of disaster a nuclear fallout this is not how you take out an entire city but if you were going up against a massive force or you were trying to take out you know a large amount of troops or vehicles uh, you would utilize one of these weapons and then hope that the nuclear fallout was contained. Remember they have been tested, but they haven’t been used in warfare. The Russians have just now told the world, listen, you’re going to throw out landmines on us. You’re going to keep funding this till the very, very end. Um, and sending over us troops to train, uh, how to, how to, how to fire into Russia. Um, that we’re going to shoot off a couple of missiles that have got the capability of carrying nuclear weapons.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and that was the only point of this. It was to say, you want to go there, get ready for this, and see what happens. I was talking this morning to somebody that works in the military, and he said to me, he goes, I don’t think people understand just how close this can take us to World War III, because if you don’t think that Vladimir Putin would use one of these nuclear weapons, the smaller ones, as you just described it, against people in Ukraine and say, well, this is because we had to hit this ammunition area or this airport or this power grid or all these troops where Zelensky was staging an invasion. They’ll lie, right? There’s propaganda. They will lie to their people and they will justify it to their people why they had to use a smaller nuclear weapon. This is something if they did it, then how does the world react? That’s the bigger question. I mean, you noticed last week that you had the German chancellor who called and said, hey, maybe we need to dial things down a little bit. Because do you bring in these other countries? You have Russia that has just shut off a natural gas. I think it was Austria just a few days ago. This is ratcheting up to the things that happened in World War II.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s what they do in wintertime. They get the natural gas. They try to freeze everyone to death.
SPEAKER 08 :
I mean, this is about freezing people to death. And if you look at what they hit last week in Ukraine and hitting the power grid in Ukraine, it was to make sure they could maximize civilian casualties throughout the winter. Because when you don’t have electricity and you don’t have the power and you don’t have the gas, people literally freeze to death. We saw this last winter. We saw it the winter before. And now they’re saying we’ll do it on a larger scale. And there’s no one that can save you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I want to go to this because this is Democrat Jason Crow. He’s a congressman from Colorado, and he disagrees strongly. He’s a veteran, I think, with the Biden administration. Take a listen or watch it. Bite number two.
SPEAKER 02 :
And on the landmine thing, I disagree with that decision as well. I think it would be setting a dangerous precedent. There’s an anti-landmine treaty. These are weapons that the United States should be leading to prevent the use of around the world. And I just don’t like the idea of that precedent being set here and creating permission for that.
SPEAKER 04 :
So you think this is a bad idea that the president is doing this? Just to make sure I’ve got that.
SPEAKER 02 :
I do disagree with that yeah I mean I’m very clear about that I have pushed against the use of these weapons and I think the United States should be leading to help prohibit the use of these weapons around the world not enabling it I thought we were I actually thought I knew again that they were there are IEDs and things like that that were used in Iraq and Afghanistan and uh
SPEAKER 03 :
those were developed by the Iranians typically to take out our Humvees and other troop patrols and they were very deadly and that’s why we say that the Iranians have blood on their hands from many conflicts we’ve been involved in but now we’re shipping them out and I think when we’re shipping them out to in the Biden administration I say we because it is the U.S. government and Trump owns that when he comes into office and the Trump team and if they’re already getting distributed How do you pull them back? Right. How do you pull it? And when you tell Putin that we’re going to go in there and demine it? I mean, that, first of all, which is a process that, again, if you’ve traveled any places in the world, they are still having issues with going back to World War II.
SPEAKER 08 :
And you also have the question of, if you hand this to Zelensky’s guys and they decide to put them out, are they going to listen to the U.S. going, hey, you know those weapons we sent you the other day? Hey, we don’t want you to use them anymore. Yeah. They could easily just lie and say, sorry, we’ve already deployed all of them, even though they actually have not. And that is where this is all about a dumpster fire. This is the Democratic Party. And I’m waiting for all of the Democrats who are sensible and responsible to stand up and say to this White House, this is not what we believe in. This is wrong. And says and start saying no to this. But notice it’s basically crickets because this is about we want to hurt Donald Trump when he goes into office. We want to saddle him with a new conflict and a new war that takes him off his domestic agenda. And we don’t care who dies in the process. And people will die because of these decisions. And they know that.
SPEAKER 03 :
What they are trying to do, what you said with the domestic politics is exactly right. They don’t want to talk about DOES. They don’t want to talk about cutting federal spending. They don’t want to talk about improving the economy, getting out of this inflation, and getting people back to work. But also, the fact that only 17% of the federal workforce is going into an office right now. Have you gotten calls from any of these federal agencies?
SPEAKER 1 :
17%.
SPEAKER 03 :
So you’ve got 100 employees, only 17 of them are going into the office. Yes, and the federal government has hundreds of thousands of them. So imagine at HHS and all those places you drive by when you’re in Washington, D.C., Department of Education, all the ones that they like to cut or completely cut down to nothing eventually. There’s no one going in. Literally, there’s people that are going in that have to to turn something on. This is why if you’ve been contacted by the IRS, even for a normal thing, if you listen closely, you’ll hear a dog in the background or kids in the background. Calling for mom. The agents are doing their work from home. They’re asking you, can you fax something to them? Or they’re using their Gmail. And you’re like, wait, I’m going to send IRS, send tax documents to Gmail? Is this even what I’m supposed to be doing? I mean, this is, again, COVID does, it’s not a problem anymore. And yet no one went back to work. And this is, again, part of Go back to 16. And you guys experienced this.
SPEAKER 08 :
What did they do after Donald Trump was elected? They immediately said, we’re going to steal dossier. We’re going to impeach him. We’re going to straddle him with what was the issue? Russia. And it worked. It got him off his game. It got him distracted because you had to be distracted when they’re trying to impeach you. You guys were involved in that. and defending him.
SPEAKER 03 :
We were the attorneys for the Mueller investigation and then when Mueller was done and had nothing and you know that there was nothing to do that was immediately they switched to Ukraine and it was Ukraine it was the phone call. So we’re going to impeach someone over a phone call where he said hey you know we’ve had these issues with Hunter Biden, Joe Biden and Ukraine is this something you should look at and of course now we know you should have but we did impeach him and then he got impeached when he wasn’t even president.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. And you go back to that, and it worked. It worked so well in 16.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, the Democrats are hoping if they can get the House back in a couple years, that’s what they’ll start again.
SPEAKER 08 :
They can’t do it these first couple years. They’ll have him pinned down in a World War III scenario.
SPEAKER 03 :
that he doesn’t want so he’s going to again you’ll have to bring in a whole new different team of people and trust these military guys that again he has had issues with because of Iraq and Afghanistan the endless wars as he calls them and it looks like they’re trying to create another one right before he comes into office one that there are ways to see out of this conflict there were ways to see how to get out of this conflict a year ago and yet we’ve kept ratcheting it up instead of trying to put a deal together that gives Zelensky a way to walk away and Putin a way he can walk away and tell his people whatever they’re not going to know and by the way neither Zelensky his people stops the destruction Ukraine they got to rebuild there’s lots of US companies that want those contracts to rebuild Let it rebuild.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, you look at the phone calls, and if you look at the calls that were going out from the Trump transition team, it was very clear they were calling everyone in conflicts, whether it was Israel… whether it is Russia, whether it’s Ukraine saying, hey, we want to dial everything back when we get into office. That is our foreign policy. And so the game that was played was the Democrats immediately said, no, no, no. If that’s what you want, whether it’s the right policy for the world or for the United States of America, or even respecting the voters and the voters need to realize this right now more than ever before. The Democratic Party does not respect your vote. They do not respect who you voted for, and they are going to do everything they can to undermine Donald Trump every day in Washington.
SPEAKER 03 :
We’re going to take your call as we get back at 1-800-684-3110. In breaking news, also the ICC, the International Criminal Court, where we’ve argued before, has just issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This is… Not only outrageous and illegal, it violates international law and, again, the Oslo Accords. We’ll get into some of that later in the broadcast with our team at ACLJ Jerusalem. We mobilize our international legal teams to take aggressive legal action. We’ve been working on it since it was announced this morning, overseas and overnight as well. So support the work of the ACLJ. We have our Faith and Freedom Drive right now. This is where we raise the funds to really kick off the new year, but there’s so many battles in these 60 days ahead. Uh, donate today. You’re good.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to secular. We are taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. That’s 1-800-684-3110. Let’s go to Mary in Maryland on line three. Hey, Mary, welcome to secular. You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you very much. Um, I’m just concerned, and I was wondering if there was any way that the Senate and or the House, I don’t know how that works, but whoever could do it would do it since some of the Democrats are against this move by Biden.
SPEAKER 03 :
for the landmines if they couldn’t demand an immediate emergency medical mental exam for biden he’s on the way out you’re kind of saying like who’s running this the problem is they’ve authorized the funding and when they’ve authorized the funding then the funding gets to be utilized by president biden and his team i’m not saying he’s necessarily going and picking out choosing all these things to do but this is a big reversal on just the landmine issue um to say the funding i don’t
SPEAKER 08 :
believe if they would have said this is going to be used for landmines.
SPEAKER 03 :
Could you imagine them going to Congress and saying to the Democrats the Democrats who were going to have to be up for re-election all of the House members many of the Senate members it was tough which they lost the Senate and they lost the White House if they were going to add to that campaign that they want to be the party who brings landmines back to conflicts.
SPEAKER 08 :
You and I were talking during the break This was a CNN headline, just to put it in perspective about how dangerous landmines are. Quote, an unexploded American bomb from World War II that had been buried at a Japanese airport exploded on Wednesday, causing a large crater in a taxiway and the cancellation of more than 80 flights but no injuries, Japanese officials said. This is an American landmine we used in World War II that just exploded a week ago. Yeah. So the idea, and I think to the caller’s point, she made a great point, Mary, can they not stop him? I don’t think Democrats want to stop him.
SPEAKER 03 :
I don’t think they do either. Some will say that they’re against it, but they are not against the bigger idea here, Ben, which the bigger idea here is we want to escalate this conflict so that President Trump cannot go in as easily and negotiate a way out of this for Putin and Zelensky that they can both accept. I think both of their people, if you polled most of the Russian people, they would like to re-enter the world again. I mean, we had an office there for 20 plus years. It survived during the invasion of Crimea because the sanctions weren’t put in place completely by the Obama administration. So we didn’t have to cut that office off. But the sanctions that were put in place when they invaded Ukraine this time, by the way, nothing happened to the Trump administration. So no invasions by Russia then. Then they go into the full invasion of Ukraine when Biden takes president. But we had to cut off. I mean, after 20-plus years of work in a post-communist Russia, the Slavic Center for Law and Justice has been able to survive some on its own. But I think most Russians would like to rejoin the world. Most Ukrainians would like to stop this conflict that they didn’t even want with their Russian neighbors, many of which are… I mean, this is like family versus family, a lot of these fights, too, especially when you get towards the eastern side of Ukraine.
SPEAKER 08 :
The number of casualties, Russia has lied about that. And there’s been a lot of disinformation.
SPEAKER 03 :
But if you look at the number… The mothers know, the families know, and you can see that.
SPEAKER 08 :
And that’s where I think there’s a genuine want by the people in Russia, can we please stop this because this doesn’t make any sense. And it doesn’t make any sense to our family and friends in Ukraine. It doesn’t make any sense why you’re trying to do this for the rest of the world. And they want to reenter the world as you described it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I think, again, we see ways out of this. But every Biden decision, or let’s just say every Biden White House, every decision they’re making in these next 60 days is going to make it more difficult for President Trump to be able to end this conflict quickly. Now, I think he’s going to use creative ways. He’s going to have to look at every one of these situations. But we know this is on the top of his list to do because it’s the only real hot war in in the world right now of course you’ve still got the the actions going on in Gaza and we’re going to talk about that right now with the ICC if again so if you woke up to the news and you may have said well is this new Jordan is it really new that the international criminal court has issued an arrest warrant against prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the former defense minister of Israel they only issued it against one member of Hamas because the other two that would have actually been The other two they would have issued the warrants against are no longer with us. Ishmael Heday and Sidwar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sidwar and Ishmael Heday are no longer with us. But their minister of defense is. So they did issue a warrant for him. But Hamas is praising this action, of course.
SPEAKER 08 :
And by the way, that guy’s not trying to travel into international diplomacy the way that he is really.
SPEAKER 03 :
He’s living in tunnels. Probably not even in Gaza anymore.
SPEAKER 08 :
Let’s paint a picture because… Yeah, he’s hiding out. Let’s paint this picture, and I want to ask you this, Jordan, because I think this is important for you to understand. When you have an ICC-issued arrest warrant, and you are an actual leader of a country like Israel, it is clearly to handcuff you and to put you in essence a jail where you cannot travel to many parts of the world that you desperately need to travel to as a world figurehead.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, it treats you as a… As almost a criminal already, because yes, you are a prisoner in at least your own country, especially when you are surrounded by mostly enemies. I mean, now Israel has made new diplomatic deals through the Abraham Accords, and I think through the Trump administration in this second round of the Trump administration, those deals will be even more important for Israel. But right now, imagine this. If you’re Benjamin Netanyahu and you think you needed to go to Europe, Most European countries are members of the ICC. They would be under an obligation to arrest you and turn you over to the Hague. Now, are they definitely going to do that? No. Could you negotiate out that they’re not going to and you’re going to still be allowed to attend this meeting or event or speech? But then you’re going to rely on that government. And you have to double cross you to not double right to not double cross you or that your plane doesn’t have some kind of issue and you’ve got to land somewhere and then you land there. I mean, this does cause trouble. It causes problems internationally, diplomatically. And by the way, the reason why the ICC hasn’t done it before is because even in the Oslo Accords, when Palo Alto. Palestine was somehow recognized and they let them join the ICC they still said very clearly that the Palestinians and the ICC have no jurisdiction over they cannot assert jurisdiction over Israelis that means that they cannot refer cases to the ICC so you’ve got all this international law telling the ICC you can’t do this we filed in this over a year ago when this conflict… Much more over a year ago now when this conflict began after what happened on October 7th. And you would think in the world… That the people who would be most worried about an international criminal court would be the Hamas rapist and murderers. I’m still wearing a yellow ribbon because there’s still Americans being held hostage, for God’s sakes, in Gaza. But who’s having to worry about being arrested and going to the Hague for the international criminal court? It’s the Jews. It’s the Israelis. who are only fighting this battle because of what Hamas did on October 7th. They would not be in Gaza. This conflict would not have been going on. No one was interested in starting a new conflict with Hamas, including Netanyahu. Go back and look at his speeches. He was trying to say, you know what? They don’t look like they’re bothering us right now. Let’s not bother them. And they planned this attack. Israel has to respond. There are still Americans there. There are still hostages there. And yet they are the criminals.
SPEAKER 08 :
And make no mistake, the ICC, this is clearly an anti-Semitic move.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, the ICC, which we worked in before, the ICC’s whole goal has been, since its founding, is how do we become an international criminal court that doesn’t just indict and charge and then jail? African warlords. Yep. Because it’s easy to go and arrest them. Yeah. A lot of them are kids when they join. I mean, young people, they’re not sophisticated. They don’t have militaries and governments really protecting them. So we can go in once they lose a conflict, the other side will hand them over to us. And it looked like, wait, this was kind of not right what was going on there. We’ve got a lot to talk about. ACLJ.org. Donate today. Have your gift doubled. We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 05 :
keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 03 :
We have a lot of calls on this. I want to take some of those now, people that are holding on the line, just to reset this Here is Senator Thune. He will be the majority leader, and he has said this. The ICC’s arrest warrant against Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant is outrageous, unlawful, and dangerous. Leader Schumer should bring a bill to the floor sanctioning the ICC. If he chooses not to act, the new Senate Republican majority next year will. And the question is, can we get to next year? I mean, we can. you’ve got to be very strategic about it now if you’re Netanyahu, if you’re the Israelis. And you’ve got to, again, have some faith that the Republicans will do what they say. I think that they will. They will have the votes then. And let’s say, like, what will those sanctions be? Because we’re not a member of the ICC. We need to ban… Anyone associated with the International Criminal Court, if you work for them, if you’re a judge, if you’re an investigator or prosecutor, you cannot travel to the United States of America. And if you have assets in the United States of America, they are frozen. You can’t touch them. You can’t get them out. You got some condo here. It’s ours now. And we’ll figure that out later. But for now, because you are violating law, you’re violating other international law to try and make this political point to go after Israel because of European law. and Palestinian pressure. We got breaking news. Yes. Oh, breaking news right now. This is very big breaking news, folks. So Matt Gaetz is withdrawing his name from consideration for Attorney General. Now, we talked about this yesterday, Ben, because you work with Senator Cruz, and we know yesterday that Matt Gaetz was in the Senate meeting with members of the U.S. Senate on the Judiciary Committee. Yeah. who would be the first committee to look into his nomination, and it appears he was doing it with J.D. Vance. We don’t know if it’s because of the report. The report hasn’t come out yet.
SPEAKER 08 :
There’s three theories that were running around D.C. I’ll give you the three, and I’m not saying I prescribed to any one of them. Yeah. Theory number one was this. Donald Trump said, I’m going to I’m going to help Matt Gaetz out because this report was about to come out. He could withdraw from Congress, which he did resign his seat. And then he could be a nominee. And then we see what happens. That’s theory number one. But it makes the report not come out because no longer a member of Congress. Gaetz has been a very close ally. The president traveled with him. Theory number two was, let’s see how he’s received on Capitol Hill behind closed doors. J.D. Vance was shepherding him around Capitol Hill. And there was word yesterday that some of those meetings did not go well at all behind closed doors.
SPEAKER 03 :
I think that there were a lot of people concerned about what they would be having to ask about like almost being put in a bad situation as a Republican because they know the Democrats were going to hammer him and then what are they going to ignore it completely or how do you I said this on my show and Senator Cruz and I talked about this I had no doubt the report was going to get leaked out yeah
SPEAKER 08 :
If you can leak the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the person who did it has still not been held accountable for that at the Supreme Court, you think that some Democratic staffer in somebody’s office, a congressional office, was not going to find pages and leak to the media the Matt Gaetz investigation?
SPEAKER 03 :
They said it was going to be bigger than it was going to make Kavanaugh look like nothing.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, like nothing. And I think, look, this could be a blessing in disguise that this is for Donald Trump, 100%. I think Donald Trump now is going to go back and pick whoever is going to be the next one. I think then people are going to look at that nominee even differently. I also think this took some scrutiny off of Pete Hedstaff and is probably going to help him move through, I think, quicker now because this is going to be a victory for Democrats that just can’t stand Gates, guys in the Republican Party that can’t stand him.
SPEAKER 03 :
Do you think it’s a victory for Democrats or is it Republicans who actually pulled this one? Oh, I think it’s Republicans. They may blame it on Democrats.
SPEAKER 08 :
But Republicans are saying, don’t make me vote on this guy. Don’t make me ask these questions that I don’t want to ask and that the world will see.
SPEAKER 03 :
So if any of you are on the line, I think we should switch to this and get your thoughts, too, because this is a big move. Again, I know that there was talk that this could happen, but now it has happened.
SPEAKER 01 :
It has.
SPEAKER 03 :
It was not Donald Trump who did it. It was Matt Gaetz who did it. So how quick do we get a replacement name? This is a huge, obviously very important position if you’re Donald Trump, because the Department of Justice was really the cause for all the issues, overseeing the FBI. I mean, that’s where all his problems started in his first term. Gaetz is gone. And Gaetz is gone. And he’s no longer a member of the House of Representatives either. He’s gone. 1-800-684-3110. We will talk to you on Secular. I’ll be right back. All right, so if you were just joining us, there is breaking news. And I want to make it clear. I want to make sure you hear it clear. Matt Gaetz. The former congressman from Florida and the first attorney general nominee put forward by President Trump started his meetings yesterday on Capitol Hill with senators on the Judiciary Committee. And as vice president-elect, J.D. Vance was a part of being really the Sherpa, as we call it, in those meetings as well. And now by noon, 1 p.m. Eastern time, before that, he has withdrawn. His nomination, Matt Gaetz, will no longer be the nominee for attorney general. He is no longer a member of Congress. There’s lots of different reasons why you could say this has happened. And then there’s questions about how this will affect other nominees, for instance. Would it have been good, Ben, if you had Gates maybe hang on a little bit longer for Pete Hegseth, for Tulsi Gabbard, and for some of these other targets? He was absolutely a great distraction. When Pete was first named, Hegseth, for DOD,
SPEAKER 08 :
it was clear that Democrats said, that’s the one we want. We want to get that one. We want to take him down. And then all of a sudden Gates came out and it was like, oh, wait, pause. Let’s pivot to that. And we know there’s a lot of Republicans that hate him. And there was. But I think the part that’s also so shocking about this is Gates yesterday was on Capitol Hill meeting with senators and with the vice president-elect, J.D. Vance, walking him around, there was no indication that this decision was going to happen today. So there’s one of two things that I think probably happened. One, the letter that went to the FBI.
SPEAKER 03 :
If you thought that that was going to be responded to by the FBI. FBI in a positive way so that Senate Democrats sent a letter saying there’s precedent they wrote it down that you can’t send us your FBI report on him if we’re going to have to vote on whether he should be Attorney General and the FBI report probably would be worse than the ethics yeah and I
SPEAKER 08 :
I think there was must have been such damning information there and or there were questions that senators said, I’m going to ask you in confirmation that you need to be prepared for. And I think there was probably some of that as well, where there were some senators that looked at him and said, hey, if we move forward. And you’re in front of us. I’m going to ask you this question based on information I’ve been given. You need to be prepared for this. Do you really want to answer this question publicly? And if you do have to answer this question publicly, do you think the rest of the room is going to vote for you? There had to be a moment there yesterday in gamesmanship where Gates went home last night and said, this is not going to work. Or, it could very well be that Vance called Donald Trump and said, hey, this is not worth, this is not the hill you want to die on. There’s no way it’s going to get confirmed and you do not want these questions being asked on national TV and bogging down your other nominees.
SPEAKER 03 :
if you don’t get the AG in place and that’s important guess who you don’t get in place your deputy AGs your head of the criminal department your head of your civil division your head of the civil rights division I mean those are the divisions that that oversee the prosecutors your deputy Your principal deputy, which right now that nominee is Todd Blanche, who was one of the attorneys during President Trump’s some of these criminal cases. I don’t think this affects his nomination at all. He would be overseeing the U.S. attorneys, but they’re not going to move to his nomination until the attorney general is chosen, right? So they go through the nomination. I mean, there’s a whole list of people who it could be. I don’t even think we’re at that point yet. Now, President Trump could act very quickly because he may have… Listen, this is someone who games things out and is usually steps ahead of the media. So he may have someone to put out there right away or by tomorrow or by even this afternoon. But you want to kill the Gates story.
SPEAKER 08 :
Politically, if I’m the White House press secretary right now or the incoming White House press secretary and I’m with my comms team, I’m saying… Excuse me. Excuse me, President Trump. I need number two and we need to announce him very quickly because I want the name Matt Gaetz to go away forever. And I want to disassociate from the story. And I don’t want any more leaks to come out over the next couple of days. And I don’t want anything to be released by Democrats as retaliation to make us look like we made a very bad pick. We need to move on from this. What could be a disaster if more info comes out. Let’s get a name. And I look Donald Trump smart. Donald Trump knows what the media does. I would be shocked if he waits that long.
SPEAKER 03 :
I don’t think so either. I think that he, again… Do you want to go to the short list? Not yet. And the reason why is because we had a short list of a bunch of names that most of you would not know. A lot of them would have been attorneys that worked on his criminal cases, some who had some government experience. Others would be like some state AGs, people like that, people who had U.S. attorney experience. There’s a vast group to choose from. Now, the issue for President Trump is you want to choose someone who is going to be, and this might sound weird to our audience, but what I say all the time is you want to choose your Eric Holder. Yeah. Who is going to be an AG that is both respected… even if the Republicans don’t love him and there’s really, you can hold him in contempt, which they tried to do, but you know that’s not going to go anywhere, but he’s going to block for you. He can block and tackle. That doesn’t mean he’s going to violate the rules and somehow violate his duties as Attorney General and not investigate what are real issues if they’re real issues arise, but they block and tackle. And I think that’s been an issue. I told you, Ben, I mean, the department that caused all of the trouble for President Trump was the Department of Justice because remember the Attorney General oversees and the DOJ oversees the FBI they oversee Jim Comey and so Jim Comey going right into the White House and saying I met with Mike Flynn no one stopped us and we got the investigation going all of that crossfire hurricane started within two days Of Trump’s inauguration. Two days. So you better get people in quickly.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right away, and you better clean house right away. By the way, Gates has come out with a statement.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, what’s he saying?
SPEAKER 08 :
He said on Twitter, I had excellent meetings with senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback. Translation, they said this isn’t going to work. And the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump-Vance transition. There is no time to waste on a needless… And he goes on to say, you know, Washington scuffle. Yeah, you got a translation here. He’s saying there were senators yesterday, Republicans that I met with that looked at probably J.D. Vance, who I think you would say is the adult in the room and said, what are you guys doing? This is not going to work. And I bet you J.D. Vance. called Trump and said, this is not going to work. My colleagues in the Senate, remember, he knows these guys. He’s a senator. And J.D. Vance is going to have those texts and phone calls from guys going, what are you doing? This is not going to work. Don’t put me in a position where I have to go against the president here.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. And I think one statement he said is true. Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on day one. Yes. And that is absolutely correct, because if it’s not… They will go in again. You already think Ukraine is a distraction and landmines are a distraction and ICBMs are a distraction. Wait until the bureaucracy and the deep state, which is still there. Now, some of their leaders aren’t, but they’re still there, chomping at the bit to get at President Trump. They thought this was their way because they thought Matt Gaetz is going to take, if they really stick with him, this is going to take weeks and weeks if they ever can get this guy confirmed. Or they’re just going to spend weeks and weeks, then he won’t get confirmed, and then you’ve got to put someone up again. And that slows down all the deputy, all those other positions I said, like FBI, all of them that are so important.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, go back to Trump’s comment. He said taking down the deep state isn’t just a priority. It’s everything.
SPEAKER 03 :
And if you’re going to do that, then you cannot have this attorney general who can’t get in place fairly quickly. Does that mean that anybody he dominates is not going to get nasty questions from Democrats? No, but this was going to require uncomfortable questions from Republicans, a lot of Republicans who are very close with President Trump and supportive of President Trump, but were going to be pushed into having to try and ask a question to somehow justify a vote or justify not providing this information. Now, it is interesting. People are asking, because he was re-elected in Florida, could he still be sworn in? No.
SPEAKER 08 :
The HR was told is once you resign. I think once you resign, you’re out.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I think you are out. I mean, he resigned.
SPEAKER 08 :
He straight up resigned from Congress. Yeah, I mean, he doesn’t have a place to stay anymore in his office in D.C.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I think, again, we could try to. I know people are asking that. Matt Gaetz didn’t indicate that at all.
SPEAKER 08 :
No, I think Matt Gaetz is going away.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. And listen, he might be a very strong surrogate for President Trump later on as these confirmations move forward. And you know what? Maybe they’re going to be so nasty to every one of these people. He’s going to say, see, I told you it didn’t really matter who he put forward. They were going to trash everyone. But I tried to do the right thing.
SPEAKER 08 :
And I think, listen, I will say this. A lot of Congress people I talked to when Matt Gaetz resigned so quickly. Right. Because you knew it was going to be an uphill battle in this confirmation. If you have a brain said, why did he resign so quickly? Because then the report wouldn’t come out, the ethics report. And many conservatives that I talked to in Congress off the record told me this in the last week and a half. There was no way he was going to survive the ethics complaint and the ethics investigation as a sitting member of Congress. So he needed an out. This was his out. And now Donald Trump’s got to move on.
SPEAKER 03 :
Donald Trump moves on. And there’s still a Senate seat to fill in Florida. Now, Laura Trump’s talked about it. Is that a move where DeSantis can then make good with Trump? And so that kind of partnership and friendship can be reunited once again? I think absolutely. We will see. Again, we’ll take your calls on this. If you want to talk to us, 1-800-684-3110. It’s breaking news. It’s living news. So this is why we encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ. We know that coming up in January, we’re going to be fighting for nominees. active role right now we don’t even know all of those nominees yet now we know some some who are on our team right now people like tulsi gabbard who are taking a lot of heat as well we’re ready to fight for and we want to fight for the ag so support our work donate today at aclj.org gift is doubled we’ll be right back with this break all right we got some breaking news Matt Gaetz has taken his name out of consideration. He’s withdrawing as the Attorney General nominee. But I want to take us quickly to Israel. Jeff Balaban, who’s our director of ACLJ Jerusalem, is in Israel right now. Jeff, your reaction to these ICC arrest warrants on Netanyahu and the former defense minister Hamas? I keep thinking one surviving minister of defense was also… Indicted, though they think this is a great move. We’ve been explaining to people why this is an illegal move by the ICC. We’ve already filed this at the ICC once, that they lack jurisdiction here. But the ICC has now decided to ignore those laws, to ignore the rules, and I think it’s time for the U.S. and Israel’s other allies… to do what Senator Thune said they will do if Democrats don’t do, which is take action against the ICC, which would mean sanctions with organizations that do work with them as well as banning them from travel to the U.S. and maybe some other countries.
SPEAKER 06 :
Jordan, this is incredibly important, but I feel as though as many of enemies of just basic good are happening in the world, they’re self-immolating. They’re really burning themselves up because by taking this action, as opposed to – they’re treating the good guys who are trying to defend themselves as though they’re the bad guys. No country – in modern recorded history has ever waged a war with fewer noncombatant casualties. And indeed, no country has ever faced this kind of a dug in enemy that uses a population as shields. And nonetheless, the IDF takes more care to prevent civilian casualties or noncombatant casualties than any army on planet Earth, probably in recorded history. And yet, The ICC is pursuing these claims against them, and I believe that the incoming Congress, along with the president, will do a great deal, hopefully, to show that they’ve really savaged themselves, Jordan. So, yes, in Israel here, this is being met with Some degree of chagrin, concern, shock, horror, but the truth is nobody suspects for a second that this challenges the morality and the decency and legality of Israel. It challenges the morality, decency, and legality of the ICC, and God willing, the new administration, new Congress will hopefully end this reign of terror against the Jewish people.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I mean, we’ve heard from the leadership of the new Congress coming in that they will put sanctions in place. They want the sanctions in place now, but if it’s not done in these next 60 days by Senate Democrats and House Republicans, of course, could work on that, but they’re not going to be able to get it there if the Senate Democrats oppose it, that they will do it immediately. And that would freeze ICC organizations in the U.S. that have funds in the U.S. from supporting the ICC you could also ban the ICC team from travel to the U.S. and work with some allies to ban them from traveling there as well and I think that’s the first move you make Jeff and then you’ve got to go actually fight this out with the ICC.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think that’s right. And I think that the fact is, you know, obviously ACLJ is, I don’t know if it’s the right phrase to say ahead of the curve. The fact that for so many years, we’ve been arguing about this, they’re having a presence there. It’s also, that’s why people here are trying to understand for me and others like me, but especially because of ACLJ, what this really means practically, but also because of our access to an understanding of the political situation in Washington, this has become a really pivotal moment. This is where the law, uh, clashes with reality or and and helps things to clarify and so this is why fighting these battles on this level becomes so important but i do think and i hope and pray but i also think that the icc has essentially uh signed its own irrelevancy warrant let’s call it by by this action uh it’s very plain that they’re taking a side here without any real justification
SPEAKER 03 :
We’ll get more into this as well. We’ve got breaking news. Jeff, I did want to get to that as well because that’s important news. Jeff Balaban, who oversees our office in Israel. So Ben, also from the Ben Ferguson Show, from The Verdict, from Outnumbered. We’ve been friends for a long time. My wife just texted me and said, you should tell people how long you’ve been friends with Ben. It’s true.
SPEAKER 08 :
You were in my wedding. I was in your wedding.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s how long we’ve been friends. That’s how long we’ve been friends. 2004. We had the Van Zant brothers in yesterday, and I was talking about at my wedding with my mom, we danced to Simple Band. And I had them here. And so, I mean, that’s how far we go back. So if you’re wondering like, hey, why has Ben Ferguson here today? It’s not like random to do that. That being said, though, we now know that this was coordinated because Donald Trump’s got a statement on True Social. I’ll let you take that one.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. Trump says on True Social, I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gaetz in seeking approval to be the attorney general. He was doing very well, but at the same time did not want to be a distraction for the administration for which he has much respect. Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do. So I think it’s pretty clear Matt Gaetz’s career for the time being is over, full stop, and it’s not going to be in this administration or in Congress. And it is clear, I think, also from that statement from Trump, we’re moving on very quickly, and I bet you the short list is maybe two or three names, and he may already know exactly who he’s going to replace him with.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I mean, President Trump will know if he’s got the name, if he’s 100% on who’s next or if it’s within two people he wants to talk to. You don’t want this story hanging out much longer because it kind of looks like when you read that statement, Listen, we put him forward. The grassroots loved him. He tried. There’s no way it was going to happen. Let’s get this distraction out of the way, and we’re going to move on because we got bigger and more serious things, and he understood that well. So it gives him a more honorable way to bow out. Ronald in Florida is calling about an online one. Hey, Ronald.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, good afternoon. My question was, what do you think the chances Mike Pompeo as attorney general?
SPEAKER 03 :
I mean, I have not had a chance to text Secretary Pompeo, who does work for our broadcast in the ACLJ. You know, Donald Trump put out that tweet saying that he and it was Nikki Haley would not be part of the second. So. I don’t know if that changes things.
SPEAKER 08 :
In a normal world, I would say it’s 0.0% chance, but it’s Donald Trump and we’re not in a normal world. And Donald Trump may say, well, that statement was a statement when I was had my guy, Matt Gage. So now I like him again. I still think he’ll probably pick somebody that is a more MAGA type of individual.
SPEAKER 03 :
I think, again, we don’t know. Usually trying to predict these is not smart until you get at least some names start floating out there. I would say this. I would say people that have law degrees who have been active enough in overseeing agencies, Donald Trump knows this is one that caused him a lot of trouble. Do you want to put someone there who’s never run an agency this big? Or do you want to put someone there who’s run something this big who you can trust? Now, I think that we’ve still got some big spots left. Treasury is not filled. Now, DOJ is open again. When DOJ opens up again, that really opens up to a lot of the deputies. I mean, I don’t know if they’re going to keep the deputies they’ve been announced. I guess… some of them would be and then what about the FBI yeah as well so it opens up a lot of questions we can’t get to them all today but I think by tomorrow if I’m Donald Trump You don’t want Matt Gaetz to be the headline. It will be some headlines. You don’t want it to be the Sunday morning conversation. You don’t want the Sunday morning talk show to be Gaetz. Right. I mean, tomorrow’s news is going to have it on there. But by the afternoon, if you’ve got someone else out, the attention moves to them. So the question is, how fast do they move? I mean, is it by this afternoon? I don’t put that past President Trump to already be ready for this. They decided to put this out at exactly 1 o’clock Eastern time so that it would take the afternoon news and maybe if by evening they’ve got someone else to announce the evening shows, the primetime shows, aren’t even talking about it anymore. So we will see. Support the work at ACLJ. We’re ready to go on this. Obviously, you’ve got to be ready to go on multiple fronts. 60 days to go. Officially, 60 days to go. There’ll be a lot of news ahead. Stay with us on the broadcast and support the work of ACLJ. Donate today at ACLJ.org. And Ben, thanks for being with us today. Thanks for having me, man. ACLJ.org. Donate today. We’ll talk to you tomorrow with more, I’m sure, breaking news.
