From the heart of Washington to distant lands, today’s episode explores ongoing diplomatic efforts and the potential for peace with a long-time political adversary. Featuring discussions with political and military experts, the podcast scrutinizes the balancing act of power and rhetoric, ensuring national safety while keeping war at bay. A parallel thread tugs at domestic issues, notably political violence and the latest occurrences that challenge our societal norms—showcasing Seculo’s continued commitment to keeping you informed and engaged.
SPEAKER 04 :
We got breaking news. Pete Hexeth won’t rule out war with Iran. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Seculo. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 08 :
And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow Packed Show once again. Rick Grinnell’s joining us. CeCe Heil’s joining us. We’re going to have a lot of guests. And Will Haines, of course, in studio with me as well. Phone lines are open for your calls at 1-800-684-3110. We’d love to hear from you. And what we’re talking about today… Not only did Pete Huggins say, hey, we’re not going to rule out war with Iran, it was essentially confirmed that there were those face-to-face talks and round two is on the horizon. And that’s a good thing, according to the administration. They said, hey, you know, we’ve had our issues in the past with Iran, maybe having some issues currently with Iran, but we can sit down face-to-face and have this issue, you know, at a negotiating table instead of potentially in the battlefield, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right. And so with these comments from Secretary Hegseth, which we’ll get to in a moment, do stem from this first round of talks that took place in Oman over the weekend on Saturday. There were some discrepancies in how they were described. The U.S. said we’ll be having direct talks. The Iranians pushed back on that and said, no, they’re indirect talks. And what the reality was is that they were the indirect talks where they’re in two different conference rooms and there’s a mediator that goes in between. That is the traditional style when you don’t have this diplomatic relationship with the foreign power. However. There was pre-planned a meeting between Steve Witkoff, who’s the president’s envoy on these things, and the foreign minister of Iran. But this pre-planned meeting, where the two spoke for about 45 minutes, was staged to appear as a chance meeting, a chance opportunity. I would say like a tarmac meeting. Right. Well, I wouldn’t go that far. That has bad connotations, Logan. Just being funny, Will. They did speak for about 45 minutes. This has been described by administration officials that they are satisfied with how the first round went and that they will be continuing these talks in Rome this coming Saturday. So a second round, this time in a European country. And it’s very interesting. When in Rome. Yeah. No, I said, well, it’s in Rome. Right. But when in Rome, negotiate nuclear peace. Yeah. Rome. If you want to. There you go. Around the world. Rome around the world.
SPEAKER 08 :
Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. We have a lot of comments coming in. A lot of people are, you know, unsure. They’ve heard people like, you know, Mike Pompeo on this show. They’ve heard other people who’ve been like, you know, we’ve got to be careful when we’re sitting down with some people. Iran may be one of them. But… Uh, there’s some good quotes from Pete Hexeth. I think you’d hear from him yourself. Look, and currently right now, by the way, president Trump and his cabinet are meeting with the El Salvador’s president. Uh, so we’re going to monitor that and see if there’s anything worth sharing. Of course, this is a kind of the public portion of the meeting, which will happen in front of the news cameras. President Trump had a very busy weekend. You may have seen him at the UFC event. My family, we get around. All of us get around the fireplace and we watch the UFC every couple months. And of course, you got to see what was crazy. And it is cool, but it’s also crazy. You had, and we’ll save Pete Hegseth for the next segment. You’ll hear from him. You had President Trump you had tulsi gabbard you had uh elon musk you had uh ted cruz and there’s other oh kash patel you had other members of the cabinet sitting there and there was part of me going like they’re all here like all in the country a little bit i was like no it’s fine to me i love the ufc so it was really fun to watch but they’re part of me like jd vance is the only one that didn’t show up but he didn’t get to be there but like well someone’s got to
SPEAKER 05 :
Stay home.
SPEAKER 08 :
There’s some kind of emergency here.
SPEAKER 05 :
The State of the Union, the lone survivor, the designated survivor, rather, where they have one person remain. They don’t name who it is. Do they have to do this for these UFC events now? Be like, okay, somebody’s got to stay back. Sorry, it’s your turn.
SPEAKER 08 :
They were not going to miss Chandler versus Patty Pimplett. It wasn’t going to happen. Phone lines are open for you. 1-800-684-3110. Look, we’re halfway through our life in Liberty Drive. We know tomorrow’s tax day, okay? I just signed a couple documents right before I came in here. There’s always that panic right before tax day. But it’s also the perfect time to get ready for next year’s tax. And that’s because you can get a tax-deductible gift and have it doubled right now during our life and liberty drive. Twice the power to keep us in the fight for all the things you hold dear to your heart. Of course, we’re talking about the broader life and the broader liberty here. We’re taking on critical cases. We’ve just uncovered some major revelations over the weekend. We’re going to talk about one of those coming up in just a couple segments with CeCe Heil. We’ve got a lot more to cover today. 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Seculo. Phone lines are open for you. 1-800-684-3110. Probably need to restate some of the news that’s happening. Well, breaking news, a couple items are happening. President Trump right now is meeting with the El Salvadorian president at the White House right now. There’s a whole, the cabinet is there. They’re having a lot of discussions. We’re going to go through whether there’s anything there worth really covering. Again, this is kind of that public display, but also Pete Hegseth. made a statement talking about those sit down conversations, whether they were planned or unplanned or whatever happened with Iran. And of course they pushed him and said, Hey, are you going to rule out war? And who would, if you are Pete Hegseth, if you really, you can’t say those kinds of statements because you never know what another country is going to do. you want to try to avoid war no one wants a war i’m pretty sure if i asked for a show of hands how many people want to go to war with iran it would be pretty low hopefully from our listenership from our viewers on youtube and rumble or on aclj.org or even our crew here because no one really wants this war to happen but there has to be procedures to set in place to make sure that our country is safe and as well as that our allies are safe let’s hear first from pete hex that’s you have an idea of where we’re setting up here
SPEAKER 03 :
I can tell you that President Trump is dead serious on this issue. He’s dead serious that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. He’s said that for 20 years. He’s been consistent. That is clear. He’s dead serious that he wants it done at the negotiating table. He wants it done peacefully. And that’s why he’s going straight to these talks. He set that deadline. These were productive talks yesterday. I don’t want to get ahead of our skis. Steve Witkoff does a fantastic job, but it was a good step and they’re going to they’re going to go at it again on Saturday. But he’s also dead serious that if we can’t figure this out at the negotiating table, then there are other options to include my department to ensure that Iran never has a nuclear bomb. We hope we never get there. We really do, Maria. But what we’re doing with the Houthis and what we’re doing in the region, we’ve shown a capability to go far, to go deep, and to go big. And again, we don’t want to do that. But if we have to, we will to prevent the nuclear bomb in Iran’s hands.
SPEAKER 05 :
Being, Logan, in the media now is trying to characterize this as things like Pete Hegseth won’t rule out war. I mean, even our title is that he’s preparing for war. That is actually the job of the Secretary of Defense is to always be prepared for a potential war or the option of war. But you are going to start to see the media try to spin this as President Trump and Pete Hegseth are looking for war. I think what they are doing is, once again, the negotiation that it takes to actually get to a point of getting some real resolution. During the Obama administration with the JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was the first Iran nuclear deal that the Obama administration put forward, that was where Iran gets money, we get pseudo-oversight through the UN and through the IAEA, And nothing really happens except for Iran gets closer and closer to a nuclear bomb. There was no real credible threat that if they violated this and kept going forward, which we know that they’ve been violating it the entire time, that the United States would actually do anything. If we are serious that the largest state sponsor of terrorism cannot have a nuclear weapon, because we know what they would do with that, and we know that the nuclear arms race that would be set off in the Middle East, the least stable region of the globe right now, then it has to be coupled with a real, serious, credible threat of military action to take out that. So I don’t think that that’s what the president wants. I think he is genuinely one of the least war-hungry presidents that we’ve seen in our lifetime for sure.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, he’ll push it. I think he’ll, like you said, you know that if he has to do it, he will, and he will push an angle saying, hey, maybe scare him a little. But our hope is that we don’t get there because you don’t want to be in a war with Iran. I think we need to also have a little global reset for those who maybe don’t understand the region as well. Iran is not Gaza. Iran is not, you know, this, I mean, they are helping funding all of that, but when in terms of their reach, their impact, their power, this is a real player on the world stage and a scary real player on the world stage. When you’re talking about look up cities like Tehran, go look at it. It’s again, this is not what you picture as really the Middle East. This is a real area that could do real havoc and damage to America.
SPEAKER 05 :
And while the people of Iran, many of the people of Iran are suffering under the rule of there because Iran actually could be a very wealthy, prosperous country. But the mullahs of Iran, the Ayatollah, they use the money that they make. The industry that is all connected to the IRGC in Iran, the businesses, is like a cartel within their elite paramilitary IRGC there. What you start to see is that this what could be prosperous kind of example in the Middle East and western part of Asia is a complete opposite. You know that they have these capabilities because they spend the money that these businesses, that the government has on terror, on building up a nuclear weapons program. So it takes serious, tough talk to, one, even get them to the negotiating table. There’s that famous quote where President Trump said that he didn’t like Ambassador John Bolton, and he was terrible, awful, said all that, but he said he was useful because everyone thought he was crazy enough to drop a nuclear bomb on them. And so there has to be that credible threat of military force if you want someone like Iran that only knows how to react to that. to come to the actual table to get something done. I don’t think that President Obama, I know for a fact, never had that real credible threat. And I think also it enlightens us a little bit more about this campaign about the Houthis, which is opening up that shipping lane is kind of the stated goal. This is the entire issue that Signalgate was about. But Pete Hex had talked about that as well, about why… They are doing what they’re doing with the Houthis and how that is also sending a signal to Iran. Let’s play by two from Secretary of Defense Pete Hexeth.
SPEAKER 03 :
We know, Maria, that Iran’s taking a look at what’s happening to the Houthis and realizing they don’t want any part of it. And and that that’s because we’ve dismantled we’re dismantling the Houthis capabilities. We’re even hearing rumblings of of them second guessing what they’re doing. Ultimately, we just want to open up our shipping lanes. That’s it. It’s a very narrow interest with the Houthis, but it sends a clear signal to Iran as well. You’re not going to mess with the United States. Iran, come to the table. Negotiate full dismantlement of your nuclear capabilities, and then that doesn’t have to be your future.
SPEAKER 08 :
Of course, we are a year and a day, a year and a day just from when Israel had so many rockets and 300 drones and missiles. 99%, of course, were stopped, which was great, but aimed at Jerusalem. Of course, that was pretty much known to be coming from Israel. Iran that was you know they stated it there was that whole moment of well they sent them but you know they gave them a little warning and we knew it was coming so they were able to shoot them all down so Israel wasn’t allowed to to respond and they were there that whole debate that always happens but that was a year ago of course this is during the season of Passover which just began a lot of people had their their seders over the weekend we saw direct threats to some of our our officials here in this country we’ll talk about that a little bit later as well with Rick Grinnell so we saw that happen in Pennsylvania But phone lines are open for you. As I said, we will take some more calls coming up. And in the next segment, we’re also going to discuss some of the work of the ACLJ because there’s some big movements. Will, we can tease it out a little bit about what’s going on. Of course, we are in the middle of our life in Liberty Drive and we need your support. But this is the reason why we need your support.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right. So if you’ll remember towards the end of last year when we discovered that training slide at Fort Bragg in North Carolina that was labeling groups like Operation Rescue, the National Right to Life, people with the license plate that says Choose Life under a slide talking about terrorist groups. And we did an investigation. We were told that that would stop. We sent FOIAs. We were told the Army was doing an investigation into it. And we earlier, a couple weeks back, we told you we got the full training deck finally from our FOIA. We also saw that there was some hints of maybe anti-Semitism where they said the first origins of terrorism were from Jews known as the Zealots. But regardless, we kept pushing to get more information from the FOIA and we just got another release. And this is the full document of. of the Army’s investigation into how this happened. Now we were told this would no longer be the training and we got those assurances, but what we found out from the actual investigation they conducted was more troubling. Because they interviewed individuals and they tried to see how this ended up where terrorist organizations and then these groups were listed. Yep. And I’m going to read before we get to it. You want me to go for it or what? We got a minute. Okay. So we’ll tell what their rationale. Okay. Which doesn’t make anything better at all. Their cover-up that the Army did in this bottom-line, up-front executive summary. This is where you see Crestum go. Right. Right after this. And that’s what we’re going to tell you. Exactly what they discovered and how they tried to make this go away and why we’re not taking this investigation as the end of this. We’re going to keep pushing. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s not over. CeCe Heil is going to join us in the next segment, senior attorney here at the ACLJ, to break that down a little bit further because we are smack dab in the middle of our life in Liberty Drive for the month of April. We were able to extend it through April because of great ACLJ supporters and champions who are ready to say, hey, any donation that comes in, I’m ready to match it. That’s whether it’s $5, $500,000, whatever it could be, we’ll be there, ready to unlock our donation. ACLJ.org right now. If you are going to get $500,000, reach out. I feel like you’re going to get your credit card flagged, maybe, if I just put that on there. But, you know, any support really is really critical right now. You’ve heard about our work at the Supreme Court to defund Planned Parenthood. You’ve heard about so much going on at ACLJ.org. Scan that QR code. We’ll break down this case when we get back. Welcome back to Seculo. There are some phone lines open for you. 1-800-684-3110. I always like to spend a little bit of the show, at least not only break down the breaking news items that are happening, but the breaking news items that are happening within the walls of the ACLJ, which are pretty broad walls because it goes all over the world. CeCe Heil is joining us, senior attorney here at the ACLJ, because, Will, I’ll let you set this up again because you were the master teaser in the last one. You’re like, here we go. Will went full Seacrest. And what’s going on here with this situation? You may remember it. where the military was training their soldiers, their team. Here are some terrorist groups you need to watch out for. Of course, we’re talking about pro-lifers. We’re talking about your Meemaw Pawpaw who have their Choose Life license plate on it. Again, no offense to your parents.
SPEAKER 05 :
I think they had them.
SPEAKER 08 :
But they are. You’re offending them right now. They are grandparents. It’s just true. But they had it when they were just parents. They’ve had it a long time. Long time. Maybe the OGs, if you will. But labeling these groups, again, this is kind of like what happened I feel like with the pro-life pregnancy centers, which is you’re attacking people that are usually some of the kindest, most volunteer-centered, sweetest people that you’ve ever met that are just there to hopefully save babies’ lives. And of course, we can then have our own United States military saying, you got to watch out for these people. They’re terrorists. Now, we have had a couple updates. We had it confirmed, and then we got a bunch of FOIA documents out that said, here is what broke down. And when you really start to dig, you’ll learn a lot more.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right. So in the what’s kind of the executive summary. So at the very top of the investigation, introducing who the investigator is, what their goal was, and then what their findings were before then. I mean, almost 100 pages of investigation documents. Here’s what they describe about this investigation. On July 15, 2024, I was appointed to investigate the facts and circumstances surrounding terrorism awareness training conducted on the 10th of July, 2024. by a Fort Liberty Directorate for Emergency Services employee. The terrorism awareness presentation incorrectly listed several organizations, e.g. the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, National Right to Life, and Operation Rescue, on slides labeled terrorist groups. labeling the slide terrorist groups was a mistake that likely occurred when redacted used several slides from a larger, older presentation. Redacted inserted group names not present in the earlier version into the revised presentation without paying attention to the slide title and without considering how this visually misrepresented what redacted was attempting to convey. So through all of this, what the Army concluded, CeCe, was that there was a mistake that happened the mistake wasn’t in this terrorism awareness training of talking about these groups national right to life operation rescue people that have license plates that say choose life sidewalk counselors the mistake was in the terrorism awareness training that the specific slide said terrorist groups.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER 05 :
They can go and talk as much as they want about it. And actually, there’s more information we’ll get to in a minute. But their top line was like the big mistake was wrong label on the specific slide.
SPEAKER 02 :
Do you buy that? well and that’s what is so egregious about this answer when they’re saying oh oops we just weren’t paying attention to that slide label when we named like you said again all these pro-life groups and it’s not just even pro-life’s groups it’s it’s actually goes to individual people like a person who would have maybe a pro-life you know license plate Or somebody who doesn’t really agree with what Roe v. Wade said for. So individual people. And the PRCs were included because they’re in the counseling. They’re in the crisis center. So they are a terrorist group. And what is so sad, again, to point this out, because this is the most egregious part. It’s not that they were. included in this presentation, the entire presentation, terrorism awareness, it was just, oops, we mislabeled a slide. So they were fine being in the presentation. Yes, they were supposed to be in the presentation. We just mislabeled a slide.
SPEAKER 08 :
It doesn’t really…
SPEAKER 05 :
say that well when you actually look down the people who were talked to about right what was said what was said was oh yeah they were not fans that’s right because we have the the interviews the actual interviews from the investigation now a lot of names are redacted things of that nature to protect uh members of the military that were being interviewed this isn’t a nefarious redaction uh as sometimes we see from other deep state agencies but these are are the questions that were asked like uh what did you just discuss the organization listen on the slide what did he say about them uh they were used as an example of showing the class not all terrorist groups come from foreign nations were any of the organizations listed described by redacted yes they were used as examples of domestic terrorists as terrorist groups it goes on another individual Um, uh, where any of the organizations listed described by redacted as terrorist groups, all of the groups that he described to my knowledge from what I remembered were considered potential terror watch groups. And then one more did redacted discuss the organizations listed on the slide. What did redacted say about them? Yes. To he discussed them not friendly and pay attention. So I don’t care what the army tries to say. about it being mislabeled terrorist groups on the slide the content that was being trained to over 9,100 members of our military that they know of that they’ve been able to estimate 9,100 soldiers getting this training and they’re being told regardless of the title, these are terrorist groups you gotta watch out for.
SPEAKER 08 :
And Cece, we get all this information, a treasure trove of information, if you will. Now, what do we do with it?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, so obviously it’s constitutionally protected, the speech that they’re going after. We have done a FOIA, we have done a letter, but we are now doing a follow-up letter to the secretary of defense saying that they have to do something immediately they have to hold the army accountable by taking swift and decisive action to get to the bottom of this because obviously the answers we’ve received so far do not answer the question
SPEAKER 08 :
So the ACLJ keeps going. Yes. This is not the end. I want to make sure people understand this is not the end of this. Sure, we’re finding out the information we want, but now we’ve got to take action. And we need your support also to do that. Look, just to go through these FOIA documents, Will said how many pages?
SPEAKER 05 :
On this specific production, there are 94 pages in the investigative document, but we’re not done receiving productions from the Army. This is just another round of them. So more could be uncovered. So we have to stay diligent on that track. I know over the weekend, our attorneys were going through this document, sending emails back and forth. Did you see this line? Did you see this line? So we’re crafting that letter that will go to the Secretary of Defense. So the the big victory up front was that they acknowledged it and have said that they have stopped that portion of the training but now the battle continues because as you get this slow drip of information you find out it was as nefarious as you thought it was and their cover up by saying it was a mistakenly labeled slide isn’t going to cut it.
SPEAKER 08 :
I mean we knew that couldn’t be the truth that you don’t just mistakenly label a bunch of groups and look I’ll throw PETA in there as well. Look, PETA has been known for some radical behavior, but so have some of these pro-life organizations. They are not a terrorist group, the people for the ethical treatment of animals. You may not agree with them or you may not agree with their tactics, but let’s make sure that we’re also defending all kinds of speech and making sure the government isn’t training our military to go after that. Now, thankfully, when we’re sending now to a secretary of defense, we’re sending it to Secretary of Defense Pete Hexeth. Maybe a bit more active and ready to help us out. Ready to help out those in the pro-life community, I think. Likely. We can’t do it without you. We can’t have teams of attorneys working on this day and night over the weekend without people like you who support the work of the ACLJ. Let’s put up that QR code. ACLJ.org or go scan that QR code right now. You heard what CeCe and Will were just talking about. they’re covering up, they’re targeting a pro-lifers. We’re not going to stand for it. They are not going to be labeling them as terrorist groups. We need your support. Scan the QR code, go to ACLJ.org and have your impact doubled today.
SPEAKER 04 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Secular. Phone lines are open for you right now.
SPEAKER 08 :
If you want to get online, you want to get on hold, we’ll take your call coming up towards the end of the show. It’s a great time to do it. 1-800-684-3110. If you’re just joining us now for the second half hour, welcome. We are in the middle of our life in Liberty Drive. We’re going to talk about that. And Rick Grinnell will be joining us in the next segment. We’ll talk a little bit about the meeting currently happening between President Trump and the president of El Salvador. as well as those talks with Iran that, you know, casually happened, and now round two is coming up. And, of course, Pete Hensley said, hey, we’re not ruling anything out. You know, people may say that, you know, we’re not going to go to war with Iran. And, look, Lord willing, we’re not. I don’t think anyone wants to go to war with Iran. But… these kind of gotcha moments where they say, hey, any chance? Of course there’s a chance. With any nation, if they attack us, if something happens, if a threat, credible threat happens, guess what’s going to happen? The U.S. military is one of the strongest in the world. We’re going to go to war. Right now, though, that is not the plan of President Trump. Right now, that’s not the plan of the Trump administration. They want to be able to sit down, and unlike previous administrations, they will sit down with people who are maybe a little bit more nefarious. Maybe they are the people who are attacking and killing innocents. But we can’t get that to stop by just saying, hey, we’re never going to talk to you. The U.S. military is pretty strong. Carry a bit of weight with us as well. They don’t want to be in a war with America either.
SPEAKER 05 :
But if it happens, it happens. That’s right. And these talks that happened over the weekend, obviously the reporting is that it kind of was distrustful at the beginning from both sides for obvious reasons. The Iranians were bringing up the fact that, well, President Trump dropped out of the JCPOA. Why should we trust you to make a deal? And the Trump administration doesn’t believe that the JCPOA was much of a deal at all. So you look at that, that’s where they started from, from that point where like, you pulled out of the last deal, why would we negotiate with you? But then officials on both sides say that they see a path forward after several hours of talks on Sunday. So the Iranians are still saying that the next round probably won’t be that direct format. We’ll see. There’s a week for them to kind of put this together. It’s always interesting when you look at how much theatrics go on with just a meeting and with uh diplomacy how much is done behind the scenes beforehand afterwards but uh we are looking at this it should be in rome this saturday that they are both saying they see some sort of path forward we know that what president trump wants is something that is more in line with what libya did when Muammar Gaddafi completely dismantled his weapons of mass destruction program, this is what he and Prime Minister Netanyahu talked about when Bibi Netanyahu was in the United States last week, that this would be not just a, hey, Let’s hold it down. Let’s put controls here so you can’t do this breakout period, which is what the entire Obama administration plan was. This would be, we want to see concrete, you dismantling the program and shipping the materials out of your country.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, absolutely. We’d love to hear from you about that. Look, there is one way you could deal with Libyans. We’ve learned this. You give them a bomb created with old pinball machine parts.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, right. If you know what that’s from…
SPEAKER 08 :
let me know in the comments uh phone lines are open 1-800-684-3110 uh in the next segment rick renell will be joining us you’re not going to want to miss that look our aclj team is hard at work you have heard from them and there’s some you haven’t heard from okay that’s because we are working so hard it’s so many important things right now all over the planet and i mean that Just back at the end of the year, I was at our office in Strasbourg, France, the European Center for Law and Justice, which has a wall of victories of all the incredible work that they’ve done. Okay, and I’m very proud of that work. Because look, when you fund the ACLJ, when you support the ACLJ, when you give during a Life and Liberty Drive moment, those donations are not only doubled, they go to support our work worldwide. Now, predominantly, our work is here in the United States. But there are places that we are that we can’t talk about. There are people that we are supporting and helping that we’re not going to talk about. But you know that we’re going to support your beliefs all around the world. Of course, we have the ECLJ. Of course, we have the ACLJ Jerusalem and so much more. So I’m going to ask you right now to think about donating during this drive. These are big, important months because donations are doubled and people are ready to unlock. They’re ready to become ACLJ champions. Do it for me today. Coming up, Rick Grinnell is joining us. Welcome back to Seculo. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. Rick Grinnell is joining us live. Rick, I wanted to get your thoughts. There’s a lot of people commenting right now on a lot of topics, whether that’s what’s going on currently in Pennsylvania with Governor Shapiro, whether what’s happening with these talks with Iran. But I did want to start first a bit with what’s happening with the president of El Salvador, who is currently meeting with President Trump and the cabinet. What should we be taking in from this meeting?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, look, I think it’s a very important meeting because they’re actually being very clear about the rule of law on immigration. I thought it was great what Stephen Miller was saying, what Kristi Noem was saying. And it’s clear that the president of the United States, President Trump, is trying to make sure that we make immigration, illegal immigration, a priority for America. And you see right in the Oval Office, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, is saying that President Trump has really done an amazing job of closing the border. World leaders are noticing that they can’t get to the point where they take advantage of the United States. And it was clear in the Oval Office that The closing of the border has been a priority for President Trump, and it’s benefiting places like El Salvador.
SPEAKER 05 :
And Rick, this is a young leader who is very charismatic in a region that has been dominated for a long time by tyrannical authoritarian leaders that never give up their hold on power. Obviously, the left is not a fan of this world leader because he is not of their autocratic socialistic agenda. But seeing this here and seeing the rapport between President Trump, I think it’s very refreshing. compared to our relationship with central america that we’ve seen for decades this feels new this feels different and also he’s praising president trump on the border uh the job he’s done on the border and things of that nature and working well with an american president this is uh something novel for at least in my lifetime seeing someone from central america that has a very good relationship with the united states in this way and just wanted to know if you could speak on that
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, one thing that you’re really noticing here is a brand new strategy that President Trump has, as you refer to. And world leaders come, they sit in the Oval Office, President Trump has cabinet officials that directly relate to that country in the room. He invites the media in. There’s real-time negotiation going on. The world is watching. And this is such a benefit for a country like El Salvador, who also has its leaders there. Because when you’re in the Oval Office talking to the president, openly talking, openly negotiating, it really educates the people to show the importance of the relationship, the strength of the relationship. This is good for El Salvador, it’s good for America. And I just feel like our media have always wanted to have an open, transparent process. Donald Trump gives them that. We just watched in real time a diplomatic negotiation. And I think the transparency issue is incredibly important to fix the problems of the government. We don’t want a secret government. We don’t want decisions behind the scenes. And President Trump is giving us in real time an open process. And I think Americans are loving it.
SPEAKER 08 :
Rick, I wanted to continue this discussion. I’m just seeing images pop up on our screen from this arson attack on the Pennsylvania, on Shapiro’s house. And, you know, I saw a lot of the news reports that said, hey, there was, you know, fire set. And you’re seeing these pictures. It looks horrendous. It’s terrifying that this is what’s happening. This is where political violence is getting to. In our country, and you can say whatever you want about it, whether it’s political violence or it’s anti-Semitism, it’s being stoked at a place that I don’t remember in recent life. And I’m seeing it happen here. It’s really just disturbing, incredibly disturbing.
SPEAKER 09 :
Look, this is an admitted far left activist, socialist, democratic socialist. And I think it’s clear that it’s anti-Semitic. I want to know how someone can jump the fence and start a fire at the governor’s mansion. There needs to be an immediate evaluation of the security for the governor. This is a horrific situation, which could have been so much worse. And thank God that people acted quickly. But what’s clear is we have a Democratic Party where this conversation continues to fester. And they’re gonna have to get it together. Look, as you know, Logan, I’m somebody who’s worked very closely with our Arab and Muslim friends. And so many of our Arab and Muslim friends wanna make sure that Israel protects itself. But after that, there’s a lot of discussion that needs to be done. How do we fix this? I think we’re all on the same goal, which is to have peace in the Middle East. And it’s a question of tactics. And I just feel like the Democrats have avoided any conversation. They always want to talk about black and white issues. And that’s not helpful to anybody. We need to dig deep. It’s exactly the conversation that I had in Detroit during the campaign for three months with our Arab and Muslim friends. And in many instances, we’re on the same page. We’ve just got to be able to talk about the peace and achieve the peace. It’s one of the reasons why they supported Donald Trump is because President Trump brought peace. And it was the Democrats who, through Joe Biden, brought multiple wars.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and Rick, and I think back to this situation in Pennsylvania, now we’ve seen two high level attempts on political figures in that state, whether it be Butler, Pennsylvania, where President Trump was almost assassinated as he was campaigning. And now this attack, which the police are saying the individual planned to beat the governor with a hammer. But so now a high profile Democrat and a high profile Republican have both been the targets of political violence in that state. I think there’s a lot more questions that come out of just that, that this has been in Pennsylvania, but as well that those on the left, they’re afraid to speak up and condemn political violence when we see firebombing at Tesla dealerships. horrific fire arson at the governor’s mansion and assassination attempts this this has to stop it doesn’t matter if it’s governor shapiro who’s a democrat or president trump who’s a republican or elon musk who’s a businessman political violence does not belong here this is not how to solve these issues but it’s growing and that’s concerning
SPEAKER 09 :
Look, we need to have a Democratic Party that is very clear eyed about the rule of law. They can’t pick and choose when to support the rule of law. They can’t create things like sanctuary cities, which is a direct assault on federal law. We can’t have a system where if you disagree with the law, you just take matters into your own hands. You attack someone with violence. gets to be punished for that. And that’s what a sanctuary city is. That’s what is clear an attack on the rule of law. And when we start allowing people to pick and choose which laws they follow, then you get political violence because people take matters into their own hands and they say, I’m gonna do whatever I want regardless of the law. And they justify it somehow morally. because they think that they can get away with it or they are allowed, the media allows people to ignore the law and just do individual actions. I think it’s a dangerous, slippery slope. And I would point it directly to sanctuary cities, which was the Democratic Party policy to ignore federal law, take matters into your own hands and create safe spaces for people who clearly are breaking federal immigration law.
SPEAKER 08 :
got about a minute left in this segment and i want to just give your you an opportunity to let me know what your thoughts are on these talks going on with iran i know this is something that is close to you but also it can be an uncomfortable topic for a lot of people as it is negotiating with a pretty hostile regime but i know your thoughts are always be sit down see what we can do avoid war
SPEAKER 09 :
Of course, I want to talk as much as we can and sitting down and having Steve Witkoff look the Iranians in the eye and have these discussions is fantastic. We have to remember that the Iranians are a country that the government lies about what they have in terms of the nuclear programs. They outmaneuvered John Kerry when talking about heavy water, when they’re talking about the number of centrifuges. John Kerry went public saying that they got rid of all their centrifuges. And that just wasn’t true. We have to remember that people like Wendy Sherman have been duped by the Iranians. We in the Trump administration need to make sure that we are very clear eyed about who we’re negotiating with. And we need to verify. You need to almost verify first before you trust them.
SPEAKER 08 :
Rick, thanks so much for joining us today. We always appreciate your insight. I wanted to take the next 45 seconds, though, to tell you we are halfway through. I mean, we’re heading to Tax Day tomorrow. I know that’s fun, but hey, Tax Day is coming. Next year, Tax Day will be there, and you can already make a charitable donation to the ACLJ. Make a donation right now. Have your impact doubled. And guess what? It’s tax deductible. And throughout the rest of the month, you’re giving us twice the power. Because if you make a donation right now, it unlocks another donation from an ACLJ supporter or a monthly ACLJ champion who has pledged to do that. So right now, I encourage you to do that. We are there fighting for you, fighting for your values, and we can’t do it without you. Scan the QR code if you’re watching or just go to ACLJ.org or do it on the ACLJ app. We’ll be right back with your calls and comments at 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Seculo. Phone lines are up before you at 1-800-684-3110. I would love to hear from you. We do actually have some sound also, which I think we should get pulled up from this meeting President Trump is having with the president of El Salvador that maybe had just wrapped up the public portion of it that was with the White House. So we’ll go through some of that. Let’s take a listen, actually, of kind of a back and forth right now. I just want to give you a bit of an inside scoop on what’s happening.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, I suppose you’re not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States, right? How can I return him to the United States? Like, could I smuggle him into the United States? Of course, I’m not going to do it. It’s like, I mean, the question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States. Yeah, but I’m not releasing… I mean, we’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country. We just turned the murder capital of the world into the safest country in the Western Hemisphere, and you want us to go back into releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world? That’s not going to happen. Well, they’d love to have a criminal released into our country. I mean, there’s a fascination. They would love it. These are sick people.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s from President Trump and the President of El Salvador. We actually have a call related to that. Let’s go ahead and go to John. uh, from New York, obviously talking about that person who is, uh, mistakenly deported. Uh, but let’s put that in kind of quotes. Let’s go to John in New York here on the air.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. Hi. Um, so this gentleman I’m talking about came here in 2011, uh, because he, he was, he was being threatened. His family’s being threatened by gang members there in El Salvador. So fast forward, He got picked up by ICE. He’s been working here. He’s in an apprenticeship. He hasn’t been any crime. The administration’s admitted that they made an administrative error, but they’re saying that they can’t bring this person back. And so I don’t, I’m not understanding that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, so John, for everyone else also listening, kind of the background on this is that- Let’s go a little beyond the headline. The Supreme Court had said that the United States should be at least facilitating this return of this man that lived in Maryland that was deported to El Salvador. There was a court protective order- where he was claiming the threat of violence if he were to be deported from El Salvador so and I don’t even know if it was quite to the level of an asylum claim but at least along those lines and that he was deported in the administrative era that they’re talking about is that That protective order, which should have stopped him from being deported, was not put in place. What the administration is arguing, John, and once again, we don’t necessarily have all the facts on the criminal record, things of that nature, but their allegations from the administration is that he was a rival gang member, that that is the fear of persecution that he had if he was sent back to El Salvador. So in a way, it’s an admission that if I go back because I’m in a rival gang, then I will have retribution or fear for my life. So that’s where… The story is not painted by even the Atlantic as though he’s just this family man, suburban Maryland. It’s not as clear on that. Now, what that clip we just played was the Salvadorian president saying, I don’t know how I would even return this person. Am I going to smuggle him into the country? Things of that nature. I think he’s probably being a little hyperbolistic there. But the administration is pushing back saying that they have no idea. legal obligation from the Supreme Court to return him, only that they would have to admit him if he makes it back from the high security prison. I don’t think that that battle in the courts is over. I think that the Supreme Court may take a little bit of issue with the way that the Trump administration is categorizing that. We’ll see how it plays out. I don’t think it’s over, but I also think this is one of those odd scenarios it’s one anecdote within the many where people are the gang members that are being sent back to there that has some very different very novel uh issues surrounding it that we’re not used to seeing um but and i think there are plenty of people that maybe argue yeah just it’s one person bring them back keep them under monitoring and and go from there sure and i and i
SPEAKER 08 :
maybe lean that way but i also was talking to one of my friends who was who’s much more liberal than i am and he was just reading the headlines and you’re right reading the headlines just saying this is some family man who gets uh deported and this happens you’re like well he was a member of ms-13 oh he was this and you start to go through the list you’re like that doesn’t necessarily mean that he would they admitted that it was wrong that they were not supposed to deport him out of the administrative error yeah administrative error so yeah do they think we need to clean that up and make it right yeah probably if possible but let’s not paint this picture that this guy wasn’t on a list for some reason right of course on a list maybe for a reason and there was another one that didn’t get checked it does feel like just an error a bad error i’m not going to say it’s not but an error nonetheless let’s actually hear from secretary marco rubio about this situation
SPEAKER 01 :
This individual is a citizen of El Salvador. He was illegally in the United States and was returned to his country. That’s where you deport people, back to their country of origin. Except for Venezuela that wasn’t refusing to take people back or places like that. I can tell you this, Mr. President. The foreign policy of the United States is conducted by the President of the United States, not by a court. And no court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States. It’s that simple. End of story.
SPEAKER 08 :
May not be that simple end of story, but that’s at least how Mark Rubio wants you to go, and that’s why the administration is taken there.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and to that point, the fact that there was an administrative error that they even admitted to, that another court had given him a protected status because of that fear, whether or not that was based off of kind of a ridiculous thing, they’re like, oh, rival gangs will get me, that some judge did that. I honestly think, personally, as far as the optics of this one, This is one where this is a single individual. They could have ICE monitoring. There are ways to make this go away, this story, and not make it the only one that people talk about. Because to some degree, the liberal media is able to write the better headline on this. The better headline, PR-wise, is… mistakenly deports, admits in court, and refused to operate. That I think is giving people that just get the headlines much more reservation about the foreign policy and the immigration policy going forward. They kind of need this one to go away. If they are to somehow facilitate him coming back, he goes because of crimes. Maybe if they have evidence of that and they can prosecute other things, go down that path. But is one individual that is causing all of this media bad publicity really worth the the fight to some degree that could jeopardize all of the other big foreign policy wins and immigration policy that you’re able to carry out because if they’re able to keep getting these injunctions and things of that nature is it really worth it to not figure out that one in a different way
SPEAKER 08 :
And look, I think that’s what’s different between our show and others. It’s what’s different between the ACLJ and other organizations. We tell you the truth, whether you like it or not. And I know some of you in the comments are probably going to be like, how dare you question? It’s not what we do here. We give you the facts and we give you the truth. Sometimes the truth can hurt a little. It’s all right. Because we’re going to be there for you. We’re going to be there for members of the ACLJ. whenever called upon. If you need our help also, by the way, I encourage you, go to aclj.org slash help. That’s for legal help, and you get that at absolutely zero cost if it’s within the scope of the work we do here. We’re going to talk more about some of those cases coming up later this week, because we are right in the middle of our life in Liberty Drive, and I want to make sure those are showcased, because you get to see what we’re doing on the individual level, and of course what we’re doing on the global stage. Take this next 15 seconds. Scan that QR code. I’m going to leave it up on screen the whole time. It’s not that I don’t want you to see my pretty face. Of course I do. But right now, you need to scan the QR code. Have your donation doubled today. We’ll be back tomorrow with more on Sekulow.
