Join Logan Sekulow and his team as they delve into the breaking news surrounding Iran’s latest demands on the United States. With a new 14-point proposal that demands a significant military and political shift, President Trump faces a critical decision. Explore the implications of this proposal, the future of the US-Iran relations, and what it means for global peace.
SPEAKER 07 :
We got breaking news. Iran gives Trump a new and shocking ultimatum.
SPEAKER 08 :
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, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 07 :
Welcome to Sekulow. It is Monday. It is May the 4th, 2026. Welcome to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. I did want to take a minute to thank everyone who supported the ACLJ during the Double the Difference Drive, the Double Your Impact Drive, all those double drives. Now you get a little break as we can just say thank you. It was a great month. And again, to all the members and all the new champions, Thank you again so much. Months like this make the whole organization possible, and really it’s because of you. So thank you again so much. Phone lines, like I said, are open at 1-800-684-3110. As we weren’t sure what we were going to talk about, more news is coming out of Iran, and it seems like we may. be reentering another conflict. Will the war in Iran resume? Of course, this comes after the ceasefire for a number of weeks now as the new demands have rolled in from Iran to reopen the Straits of Hormuz and they are far from ideal.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. So the Iranians have now sent a 14-point proposal to end the war to President Trump. It has a 30-day deadline on it. So they’re giving the president and the American government, the administration, 30 days to respond to this and to make this happen. And it has no mention of the nuclear program, which is the key sticking point. That is one of the reasons that this entire conflict began was over the nuclear program. So this main point that they make in this is that both sides will lift the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. The United States will withdraw its forces from the Middle East, end all hostilities in the region, including Israel and Lebanon, which is currently in a ceasefire as well. And all sanctions on Iran will be lifted. The Iranians now seem to think they have the upper hand. This may be because they’re starting to see Democrats in Congress say, hey, War Powers Act, you’re up on this 60-day deadline, which is creating a little bit of a pushback from the administration.
SPEAKER 07 :
to that in just a little bit because the president and the administration has uh sort of doubled down on what could be the resume of this war or is this a new conflict we’ll debate that coming up in the next segment as we you know you think there’s probably you could probably go both ways here you can have that conversation either way but certainly president trump has decided which way he is going to go again iran’s 14 point plan really just saying uh give us everything we want
SPEAKER 09 :
in the war will reopen but also you’re not going to get anything in return exactly especially with the the sanctions part as well saying hey no you have to lift all sanctions on us the majority of those sanctions are because of their nuclear program now there’s others for human rights for supporting terrorist organizations etc but a vast majority are due to their nuclear adventurism
SPEAKER 07 :
And I want to clarify, in this also had no mention really of any sort of nuke program or uranium or any of the things that are happening.
SPEAKER 09 :
They said actually the opposite. Their foreign ministry spokesperson said that will not be a part of any deal to end this conflict. So clearly they’re thinking they have some momentum here, whatever that may mean. Maybe because of the political winds, maybe they’re reading some of the polls that are out. So what comes next?
SPEAKER 07 :
There we go. What comes next? Where is the move for the Trump administration? What is the move for Iran? If Iran is not in the business of essentially surrendering, does this war kick back off? What do you think? What do you hope happens? 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. This after a confusing few weeks as the president even had to cancel some of his plans on meetings, saying, we don’t even know who we’re meeting with. Are we meeting with low-level officials? What is it? What do you think? Phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110 to be on the air today, and I’d love to hear from you. Again, thank you again for supporting the work of the ACLJ during the Double the Difference drive. It meant a lot, got us pretty far, got us very close, I believe, to the budget, and we will have other months and other opportunities. Of course, you can continue to support, but I also… ask you if you can just go spend some time on the free content that we’re able to provide because you donate that is at aclj.org or subscribe right now on our youtube channel you’re watching it’s a great way to get notified when we go live each and every day from 12 to 1 p.m eastern time and again even if you don’t get the full hour on your local radio station hopefully you’re watching us anyway online at aclj.org or any of our live streaming options Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. I see a bunch of you are just joining us right now. President Trump has been given a list of demands, maybe if I think that’s the best way to describe it, from Iran. That is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz completely and what it would look like moving forward as there is a lot of global pressure to get that done. the same moment we are in the middle of a ceasefire, it’s easy to forget that, that that has happened. And we’ve been in a ceasefire for a number of weeks now.
SPEAKER 09 :
does that look like moving forward and feeling president trump is at least laying out i wouldn’t even say the breadcrumbs he’s laying out the plan that essentially says you know we’re about to go back in action well and there’s reports that he’s frustrated at the inaction on both sides either get back to the operations or get to the table clearly the iranians have taken some sort of step back with this latest proposal also giving a 30-day deadline, now starting to dictate the timeline to the U.S., it does seem that maybe that has stepped back. But I think it could also show us that when the president decided to remove the United States from talks just a few days ago, really a little bit over a week, That when he said we don’t really even know who we are negotiating with, that clearly is a signal that things like this were going to start happening. Now, on the other side of that. The US started an operation helping ships traverse the Strait of Hormuz, especially some American flagged vessels that have shipping containers that are going through that Strait of Hormuz. Then Iran had struck with a drone attack targeting both a UAE tanker. South Korean government is saying they are investigating what appears to be an attack from the Iranians. So Iran is attacking vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States is saying through Scott Besant that we actually control this. Now there will be some time to let this unfurl and put this back into perspective. Now I think what you’re going to see is what he’s referencing is maybe hostilities getting back up to speed especially with what we’re seeing from this type of demand and timeline now back here at home you have democrats saying listen war powers act you hit 60 days yeah let’s back up so people don’t know with the war powers act
SPEAKER 07 :
President Trump and the administration really had the ability to go and do this without any sort of confirmation, any sort of vote, any sort of authority, given they had the authority to do it temporarily. It’s a 60-day essentially window where if you need to go get something done, you can go get it done immediately. and handle it and get out now 60 days is almost up president trump’s got a bit of a caveat to that and i don’t think he’s uh ill-willed or ill-intentioned i think it’s actually probably somewhat accurate but it may depend on how you read the act itself how you want to describe it but 60 days are up from the first day of the engagement but it’s been a number of weeks since there has been so that that one ended
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, exactly. So the 60 days and then you have an additional 30 days, 90 days total where you can wind down hostilities. The the Democrats that are detractors of this operation in Iran are saying, listen, you had 60 days. We better see this wrapping up now. Now. The administration has the opposite take. They’re saying, no, that operation, Operation Epic Fury, for all intents and purposes, ended when we started a ceasefire. And didn’t they give this one a new name? Well, exactly. This is specifically the shipping route one, I believe, is Operation Freedom of something. We’ll pull it up. But when you start to look at this, you’re talking about… did someone find it for us did that happen did when a ceasefire happened even if you don’t withdraw everyone the United States it seems did not conduct operations we did see Iran violating that shooting drones at at Gulf states at Israel project freedom project freedom is the is specifically focused on the Strait of Hormuz that so once again who’s right now with a Republican majority I don’t think it matters that much because who is going to be the ones that would hold an administration accountable? You see all these resolutions they keep trying to pass. They keep failing. If for some reason you start to get poll numbers for people that are nervous in the midterms. you could see people start to peel off and get a resolution passed that is saying the president has gone too far. We need to wrap this up.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and it’s certainly not as popular as it once was to have this kind of ongoing conflict. Again, a lot of people thought when day one. You had essentially the destruction of the top leaders in Iran. This could go very quickly. Now, in general, it really still has only gone a couple months here. We’re not talking about a very long-term engagement, but there is hesitancy heading into midterms, as we’ve seen. Sort of the polls started to really show where things are going to be heading. So who knows? You may have some Republicans that also decide this is not worth it. The juice is not worth the squeeze. We’re not going to. Maybe we’ll hold the president’s foot to the fire at this point. What do you think? 1-800-684-3110. We got a phone call coming in. Let’s go to Dale in California. Dale, you’re on the air. Let’s give Dale a second here. Dale, you there? Put Dale on hold. Let’s see if we can get back to him. I think he’s just listening on the radio the old school way, Will. I hear that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Speaking of old school way, you’ve got a villain on your shirt today.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, yeah, I got Darth Vader. I do want to bring that out. I got Darth Vader. It’s May the 4th. And you know what? I have a few Star Wars shirts. This is a very 90s looking one of Darth Vader. You know, he’s the bad guy, right? Maybe in your version of the story. I mean, I think that’s everyone’s version. I don’t know. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER 09 :
The Rebel Alliance are liberals? Is that what you’re saying?
SPEAKER 07 :
He’s a strong leader. You know, at the end of the day, he is the hero of the story. Well, he does. Yes, there is redemption. Yeah. Yeah. People always say that. They’re like, you know, he’s the hero. I was like… At the end of the day, Tony Soprano loved his son too. After a lot of genocide, actually. He was blowing up whole planets. Whole planets. And then he was like, you know what I don’t want you to do is do something to my son. And I kind of could get that. But it is Star Wars Day. I’m excited. We have my kids dressed up. Everyone dressed up. It is fun to celebrate something. But remember President Trump? He talked about the leader himself. Let’s take a listen. This is a flashback bite to just a few months ago. It was October, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
We have Darth Vader. You know Darth Vader, right? Darth Vader is a man who, I think he’s sitting right, is that Darth? Stand up, please, Darth Vader. I mean, they call him Darth Vader, but he’s actually a very nice person. Russell, vote.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, see, I wish we didn’t reveal. I like the idea of just… I love that he says Darth Vader, stand up. That is the most President Trump thing. Who was he talking about?
SPEAKER 09 :
It’s the head of the… It’s Russell Vogt. He’s the director of the Office of Management and Budget for the administration.
SPEAKER 07 :
Stand up. Darth Vader’s here. All right, we’re having a little fun here. Phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110. We got Dale back. Is he good to go? Dale, California, go ahead.
SPEAKER 11 :
So I wanted to ask why we’re having a ceasefire when there’s tankers of Iranian oil going along the coastline of Iran and Pakistan, and they’re dumping their oil into a finery, either in India or Pakistan, which allows them to get money, which will allow them to build more things. So during a ceasefire, They have money to build more things. They would have money to build a ballistic missile. And I find it hard to believe that they were so dumb that they didn’t isolate, refine uranium so they could have a nuclear bomb someplace really secretive that no one knows about. So I’m just concerned about that. And you let your guard down a little bit, and things really happen bad.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, Dale, I think to that point, according to the administration, that is not happening, that the Iranian ships are not getting through. They’re not going through the coastline. They’re not getting to secret places to offload their oil. As a matter of fact, some of the reporting is that they’re actually about to be in a bit of a bind because their refineries are about to hit capacity. of all the storage that they can have in there uh then they’re going to have to stop production which causes a whole host of issues when they want to restart that production so uh there has been a lot of propaganda out there um one you saw even i think it was senator murphy that said something to the effect of like awesome when that report that 26 ships had gotten through and people called him out for that and he’s like what i can’t be sarcastic anymore it’s like No, but also that story wasn’t even true. It came out later that it was just Iranian propaganda. And I think that goes back to a lot of what we’ve talked about here. This entire conflict is how well the propaganda machine from Iran has permeated the entirety of American society.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, yeah. I mean, I think it’s… We’re living in a very different time, everyone. I’m looking at comments on social media, Instagram, TikTok, everywhere that we are, you know, where the people are chatting. And it is very interesting to see. Now, somewhat, of course, you could say that’s bots. That’s not real. I can see the ones that are real, though. You can feel the ones that are real. You can feel how society is reacting. And look, I think there is a reason to question. Something like a military conflict of this scale. I understand that. I have no problem with debating whether or not we need to be at war with Iran. I believe that originally when we were positioned this, we talked about regime change and all of that. That’s where I was more leaning. And then it became a little muddier as time went on. However, that’s not really what’s happening. You are having, as Will said, Iranian-backed propaganda seep its way in to the mainstream media. You are having the conspiracy theories take over me. I was even watching CNN on the way in. I flipped through all the channels. CNN was saying how the conspiracy theories have taken over the right and the left. And how they’re even sitting there going, we don’t know what to do. And this was coming from CNN. And I kind of want to go, well, you’re part of the problem. But you know what? It is what it is. Phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Ann and Gene, stay on hold. We’ll get to you. Rick Grinnell’s joining us in the next segment. And then we’ll hop around and get some more calls from around the planet. 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Seculo. We’ll have Rick Grinnell here in just a minute. Let me know we’re good to go. All right, we’re good to go. Rick is joining us. Rick, thanks for hopping on here. It’s been a busy day already. We are really talking about a few different things. A lot of it still seems to be centered on Iran. But one of the others, Will, is that President Trump has announced a reduction of numbers of troops in other places.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. So at one place in the world, he’s getting flack for having troops. And that’s where, you know, our, uh, conflict with Iran is in other parts of the world. He’s getting flack for removing troops. Rick, uh, try to explain this one to us where, uh, it’s kind of caused some uproar in Europe that president Trump is withdrawing 5,000 troops that are stationed in Germany. And also said that he may be considering a further drawdown of, of us, uh, service members stationed there. And if anyone knows Germany. It’s the former ambassador to Germany, Rick Grinnell. So explain why people are upset that he may be bringing troops out of Germany.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, first of all, I can’t give you the reason why they’re upset because it’s ridiculous that the Europeans would be upset about this. But let’s just give a little bit of history here. If you count the rotational troops… in Germany, and that’s troops that go in for a little while and then come out, we’re talking about US troops. If you count all of the US rotational troops, there’s over 50,000 American troops in Germany. If you count the civilians that go along with and that work as part of the civilian force, American civilians paid by the Pentagon in Germany, it balloons even higher to more than 55, 57,000. in Germany, that’s too high. Especially when you look at what the plan is for a US troops in Germany, it was always based on the idea of a land ground game, a military game of an invasion somewhere and us trying to get troops across into Poland or further, to be able to blunt the Russians who were invading just long enough to be able to get air power in. That was the whole theory in the 80s and the 90s. We haven’t really rethought our force posture in Europe since then. And we need to. When I was ambassador to Germany, Georgette Mosbacher, who was the ambassador to Poland and I, wrote a memo to President Trump in the first term and said, let’s just rethink this. We think that there should be a lot fewer. And I think the number, I’d have to go back and look at our memo, but I think the number that we said was somewhere between 10 and 15,000 troops should be removed. And I still believe that you can do that. I think at the time we said move 2,500 or 5,000 or 4,000, something like that into Poland, take them out of Germany and move them into Poland so that they had kind of a forward advantage already if that was the strategy. But I think that when you look at unmanned vehicles and drones and the new technology that we have to rethink what we need in Germany. I don’t think that this is just simply about the chancellor, the new chancellor in Germany, Chancellor Merz, being anti-American or not paying his fair share. I think this is about America and it’s about our best strategy going forward. I think we need fewer troops in Europe.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and I think when you’ve been there and you’ve visited, by the way, these areas, again, 5,000 doesn’t sound like all that many. When I’ve been to those areas, I’ve been to those areas on the 4th of July, fireworks celebrations, you’re eating at, you know, they have American restaurants. It feels like you are in America in some of these areas, which was fun, I have to say. It was a good time. I had a good time with all the troops and all the troop families, amazing people that have been stationed there. But I understand that maybe a little bit of a scale down, again, when you’re saying 5,000, it sounds like a lot. But considering the amount of people that are there and the families, like you said, all the independent contractors that are involved that are Americans, you know, this was back probably 15, 20 years ago now. But it felt, like I said, like a little mini enclave of America.
SPEAKER 05 :
Look, one of the things I’ll be honest with you, when I was U.S. ambassador to Germany, one of the problems that we had is that we had too many American service members going over to be stationed in Germany and then asking for extensions, multiple extensions instead of a three year tour, which you should have a two to three year tour and then come home or move somewhere else. That’s the theory. Instead of that, they were extending and some people were there 10, 12, 14 years. And they were buying homes and asking for permission from the American government to buy homes in Germany and even in some cases requesting to use their housing allowance to go on their mortgage payment of a home in Germany. I said, no, we’re not going to have this. I denied all extensions and I was not very popular for doing that. But my theory was let’s not get too comfortable in another country. Let’s not set up shop so that your family is there for 10, 12 years and then it’s hard for your kids to leave a school that they’ve been in for 12 years. The theory when you sign up, whether you’re in the foreign service of the State Department or military service at the Pentagon, the theory is that you do two or three years and you move somewhere else and you bring some fresh ideas. That that’s the system. And I think that that system is much better than having people who extend and stay for these long periods of time. I don’t think it’s healthy.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and I think this in and of itself shows the the Trump doctrine when it comes to the the use of the military, the purpose of the military system. as compared to everything that has come before him. And when he has talked about America first, know these long-term engagements, we remember why we are in Germany and why these bases started there and was World War II and then the Cold War that followed. By showing, look, we can modernize and we can update at the same time that there is a conflict going on, I think… But proves to the detractors that he has all of a sudden fallen in love with military force that that still that doctrine holds true of the long term and modernizing of our military is still ongoing, even in the midst of a conflict when there is a very real threat to the United States.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, look, I think nothing brings about change more than frustration when you see the system not working and you say, oh, wait a minute, we gotta change this, it’s not working. But also I would say is no one should be surprised that President Donald Trump is someone who questions the process on everything. He doesn’t go in and think, oh, it’s always been this way, so we’ve just got to go along with it. He goes in and says, man, this doesn’t make sense to me, and we should look at it. I love that about the president. I love that he gets impatient with the bureaucracy in Washington, DC, because I can tell you from my experience, Though the bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., just kind of goes along as seat warmers because they they they’re tired, they’re out of ideas. And so they just show up to work and work nine to five and then go home and they just want their pension. And it needs a refreshing. People need to be able to be in different jobs. Otherwise, you really become stale, especially in government service.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, Rick, that’s why we have you here. Such a unique voice and a unique perspective being a former ambassador to Germany to come in and have these conversations with us. Really appreciate it. Hey, we only have about 55 seconds left here in this segment. I do want to tell everyone, if you do lose us here, we broadcast the whole show. Live, 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time. On every social media platform you can think of. ACLJ.org, YouTube, and Rumble. We’re there. But also, you can catch us archived however you get your podcasts later on. If you’re even listening to this first half hour later on, you can find the rest of the show. Just go to ACLJ.org. Find all the options. Search Seculo. It’ll pop right up. With that being said, second half hour’s coming at you right now. We have two lines open still at 1-800-684-3110. I did want to say just another thank you to everyone, our members, our new ACLJ champions. for your generosity during our double drives that happened throughout March and April. Now we’ll give you a little break. That doesn’t mean the ACLJ slows down. So go to ACLJ.org today. Look at all the incredible content that we give you because you support us. We’ll be back in less than a minute.
SPEAKER 08 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow.
SPEAKER 07 :
and now your host logan secular second half hour of secular coming at you for may the fourth that’s right we’re celebrating star wars day here but we’re also talking about president trump and the move towards maybe the re-institution i guess of what you’d say or the start of a brand new engagement depending on how you want to define these actions you know we said war for a lot of it even though the president the administration never said war she can’t say war well that also
SPEAKER 09 :
becomes uh you know like a talking point that people on the left’s like well you said war how dare you not go i’ve just said we have to say war because it’s just easy to understand once again there are semantic arguments for all intents and purposes for uh casual conversation or analysis war is not an inappropriate term but for the purposes of declaring war Declaring a war, that is what Congress does. A conflict is cumbersome to say, and it is fighting between countries on the colloquial level. war but not a declared war by congress i i love how people think that’s a gotcha when it’s like no everyone understands the difference of what we’re saying that this is not a war in the sense of declared i don’t think you have to keep explaining i think i’m gonna i’m gonna keep doing it got it i think i got it all right darth vader yeah exactly i just got i gotta throw around my power here right now says they know what you’re saying do that though but do they what is it good for
SPEAKER 07 :
well absolutely nothing if you ask me yeah say it again russia all right let’s uh let’s continue on let’s uh let’s take a quick phone call uh let’s go to ann in pennsylvania for a little while uh watch it on youtube and go ahead oh my god hey guys uh the aclj uh you guys deserve an award because you’re changing the country you’re bringing it back to its roots
SPEAKER 10 :
Really quickly, I want to say there’s a couple of things and a couple of reasons as to why we’re in Iran. We’re in Iran because, first and foremost, more Americans have been killed by Iran than any other terrorist regime on Earth. And Trump put out a statement March 2nd, 2026, just go to the White House. and you’ll see that, very importantly, all of the years, 1983, 1985, 1989, the years of Americans being killed, but now it’s not just Americans, it’s Iranians. No other country has its own people been fighting for their freedom, fighting for their lives. They’ve been hung in the streets. They’re really one of the only countries, besides Israel, In the Middle East, to stand up for themselves after being brutalized for years and years and years, now we have a president, President Donald J. Trump, the commander-in-chief. He is communicating with God. We can have difference of opinion on that. But the bottom line is… It’s obvious. And here’s the thing. He is doing exactly what every other president said that they were going to do, should have done, but never did do what they said and assured the whole world that they were going to do, including Democrats, including Democrats. So now President Trump is doing this war again. And he’s doing it brilliantly. He’s doing it strategically. The reason why we’re having such a hard time is because of the leadership in Iran. The leadership is so evil, so profoundly evil, that for all these different reasons, I see a pattern here. In 2016, when Trump was elected, and nobody, even people on our own side, guys, believe that, oh, he could never be president, oh, he’s not conservative enough, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, some of these same people believe are pretty much coming at Trump as to why this is a forever war. This is not right. This is not America first. You know, and then, of course, you know, fast forward to today, a few weeks later, and we’re kind of still hearing that same argument by with the war experts that come on their shows. You know, here we have a president. I love you guys.
SPEAKER 07 :
I really appreciate it. You did. That was a great call. So you covered a lot of ground and I really do appreciate it. We got 30 seconds left in this segment. So I’m not only cutting you off because of time, but thank you so much for calling in. We always appreciate all of our listeners, especially ones who come in and have a lot to say and a lot to say. That’s really a solid material. Great. You’re great on the air. I always love having Ann on. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Ann’s a longtime supporter and I appreciate that. Again, I want to thank everyone who has supported the ACLJ this year, specifically over the last eight weeks during our double drives. And right now, I’m just going to encourage you to call in and be a part of the show. We’ll be right back. Welcome back. A couple segments left. We want you to be a part of the show. 1-800-684-3110. There are a lot of little breaking news items that we keep seeing pop up. We’ll go through some of those and see if there’s anything really happening here. And of course, there is some updates, Will, on the James Comey situation. We know people love talking about those seashells. Right.
SPEAKER 09 :
and homie sells seashells this is uh something that’s interesting especially in light of our conversation last week because uh even we were saying you know if you’re indicting james comey just based off the one instagram post uh even though it may rise to the letter of the law threat it’s probably going to be hard to convince a jury that he was serious that james comey meant that as a threat right so we were trying to caution physical threat Right. We were trying to caution people to not get your hopes up on that one. We’ll throw the yellow flag. I did. I did. But I do want to play this because I feel like it’s important to add to that conversation. This is Todd Blanch, the acting attorney general on with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press talking about this. And it’s pretty interesting what he has to say. Let’s go ahead and play it.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, part of what the government would have to prove is intent. James Comey deleted the post the same day, and he wrote, quote, I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me. But I oppose violence of any kind, so I took the post down. How do you prove intent, Mr. Blanch, when Mr. Comey himself said he didn’t understand that some people would look at that and think about violence?
SPEAKER 06 :
You prove intent like you always prove intent. You prove intent with witnesses. You prove intent with documents, with materials. So again, this is not just about a single Instagram post. This is about a body of evidence that the grand jury collected over the series of about 11 months. That evidence was presented to the grand jury. And it’s not the government. It’s not the Department of Justice. It’s not Todd Blanche that returned an indictment against James Comey. It’s a grand jury.
SPEAKER 07 :
So saying it wasn’t just about this single Instagram post. And to clarify, this is Todd Blanche.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. So Todd Blanche is the acting attorney general. He took over that acting role after Pam Bondi left the Department of Justice. And what you hear him saying here is… is what’s interesting about this because we won’t know what was presented to the grand jury we we will never know specifically what was presented to the grand jury in order to get to an indictment of james comey here but what he’s inferring is that we didn’t walk in with just one instagram post and say look here’s the law here’s the instagram post Please give us an indictment that there was multitudes of evidence over the 11 months of this investigation that led to this indictment. At least inferring we are smarter than that. Right. And good. Good for them. And I would hope that they are. But once again, when you saw that and we were trying to bring caution, I still would caution that it is always easier to get to an indictment than it is to a conviction. But what we will see is is at least some, if not all, we won’t know what was given to the grand jury specifically, but when they bring this case, we will know what that evidence is to a significant level that, hey, we are trying to convict him. We are trying to prove intent. They will lay that out whenever this ends up going to trial. If it makes it to that level, I know that James Comey and his attorneys will try to have this thrown out before then or try to find some way.
SPEAKER 07 :
I don’t know. He loves the TV, so you never know. And I do have to say, look, good for Todd Blanch going on Meet the Press. You know, we’re seeing sort of an acting attorney general take this kind of role. Certainly doesn’t have to. Is not required, I don’t think, to necessarily make these PR rounds. Sure. But is doing it when he’s being pressed. And I think he’s being pressed from just that clip alone. Seems like has some decent answers.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. And so I’m happy that he went and did this as well as, you know, like you said, we’re smarter than that. You know, kind of laying it out there because when we saw that indictment come down, especially since that was the second attempt at indicting James Comey, they indicted him originally over lying to Congress. And that had more directly to do with the Russia investigation. And when you saw that and then it was thrown out of court by a judge saying that the U.S. attorney that brought it was illegally appointed, therefore that could not stand. And they didn’t go right back to that. then they pivoted to this it felt like almost like is this the consolation prize indictment is this the we didn’t get him the first time let’s find the second time that gives me more assurance that they’re not walking in there just trying to say like look you gotta hand us this indictment look what he did and we will find out more as this progresses through the court system yeah of course that was Todd Blanche acting attorney general of the United States Blanche also Will’s favorite golden girl
SPEAKER 07 :
Let’s go ahead and take some phone calls. But they are not the same person. The acting attorney general?
SPEAKER 09 :
No, Rue McCallaghan, I believe, is no longer with us. Right, but I’m saying that is clearly not Blanche from the Golden Girls.
SPEAKER 07 :
No.
SPEAKER 09 :
If you were watching on one of our video streams.
SPEAKER 07 :
Both seem truthful. They both speak their minds. Here for it. They got a lot to say. Both love cheesecake. That’s what I’ve heard. All right, let’s go. Back to the calls. Let’s go. We’re going to take these things back to Iran. We have a lot of conversations happening about Iran. Phone lines are open. You can talk about any of these. 1-800-684-3110. Let’s go to Jean, who’s calling in Illinois. Jean, go ahead. We’re having some calls today, man. Let’s go put Jean back on hold. They, I’m not sure if it was a man Jean or lady Jean, they were on hold for half an hour. I want to make sure that we can get to them if we can. Let’s hop over to Ross. Ross in Florida. Ross, go ahead.
SPEAKER 12 :
Hey, I just wanted to make a very quick comment and ask a question, and that is, first, it seems like Iran’s main return things are saying, I’ll gladly talk to you Tuesday for a hamburger today.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I mean, once again, what they’re saying is, hey, you got to open the strait with both of us. You got to not sanction us anymore. You got to take all the military out of the region. You got to do everything we want. But we’re not going to talk about really the one thing that you started this operation against us. We’re not going to talk about that at all. Maybe one day. Maybe we’ll talk about it. I don’t know. But you got to get all of this war, non-war wrapped up first and then we’ll talk. yeah it’s it’s ridiculous i don’t think that uh it’s gonna go very far i think that the president will say no deal uh i’m sorry your 14 points i will throw out because it is it’s ridiculous it’s shocking that they think do we know who presented this 14 points we know iran but do we know who we’re talking about here Well, this foreign ministry spokesperson made comments about it. So we know that the foreign minister has been one of the lead negotiators. So that is their equivalent to a secretary of state has been one of the lead negotiators on this. But the spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry also gave commentary about it. So I assume it came from that office, but we don’t know who’s also making the dictation of this is what we will present at this point. Let’s, Try to go back to Jean.
SPEAKER 07 :
Jean in Illinois, you there?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. Thank you. And God bless you for all you do. Thank you. I, I just get concerned when politics starts to get involved in possibly any decision making when it comes to war or conflict. It really, I wonder why the American people have not learned from previous episodes like this. You know, like when was the last time we really out and out won a war? Yeah. you know politics got involved with vietnam so much though that we didn’t win and i just it’s we have congressmen now who are believing the iranian propaganda i think i think one of the problems is and you can stay on hold maybe we’ll get back to you um one of the problems is i guess the good and bad of it is what is defining a win
SPEAKER 07 :
Finding a win becomes very difficult when you have the country so polarized. We can look back pre most of us being born and go, well, World War II was clearly a win. If this was America in 2026 and we were in the middle of World War II, I don’t know. that you would declare that a win.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I mean, if you listen to some people on even the right… That’s what I’m saying. …in the podcast sphere that are like, you know, who was the real villain was that Winston Churchill. That’s what I’m saying. And we should have never gotten involved.
SPEAKER 07 :
Sure, history is sort of told by the winners, you know, is rewritten by the winners. We know this. But also… history has sort of shifted as the way we have a large culture of people who are very politically split. I agree when politics and wars start to get intermingled, but they kind of always have been. I can’t really think of a time, maybe you could probably find some sectarian wars that maybe, but even those were political in nature, if you will.
SPEAKER 09 :
Sure, and once again, when you have the checks and balances that are built into our constitution on the executive branch, when you have members of Congress that have an authority to declare war and a check on the president’s power as commander in chief, then you’re going to naturally start to see politics play into this. But even to your point, Gene, I mean, we saw the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. And who’s in charge of Afghanistan now? The Taliban. I don’t think anyone would say… The United States won that war. We may have won some objectives along the way, but I don’t think anyone would say that was a won war.
SPEAKER 07 :
We may have won the first decade of it. Sure. Again, how do you declare victory? There’s not really a roadmap to declaring victory in a politically divided country. So let’s keep that conversation going. What do you think about that? I really like that sort of spin. Let’s discuss it. 1-800-684-3110. If you’re on hold, stay on hold. We’ve got a few lines open, though. 1-800-684-3110. We’ll take some calls. Really, if you want to call in right now, it’s a great time to call. The last chance to get on air today. If you call in right now, likely you’re going to make it up. 1-800-684-3110. We’ll be right back. And more on Seculo. Go to ACLJ.org for more information. This is it, folks. We made it here into the show on Monday, but that means it’s time to hear from you. 1-800-684-31.
SPEAKER 09 :
Before we get to that, you know, we had this discussion earlier. I was saying you have the bad guy on your shirt. You have Darth Vader. We talked about the redemption story, but then, eh, was he just doing it because he loves his son? I think you may have, over the course of this broadcast, you know, changed my mind a little bit because I just saw posted on X that for the Obama Presidential Library… President Obama, former President Obama, did a video with Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker, in front of that dystopian-looking presidential library that everyone is saying it looks hideous. You know, for Star Wars days. That was the most Trump thing you’ve ever said. everyone says it looks it’s not me i’ve never heard a single person that said looks great glad you put this up i don’t i haven’t looked at it that closely well anyhow it’s uh for star wars day luke skywalker joined forces with barack obama to to do this video so maybe i like your darth vader shirt well yeah i mean mark hamill notoriously uh pretty pretty liberal guy
SPEAKER 07 :
But you know what? I like Luke Skywalker. Do you though? Because in that final one, awful. He would say that too though. Well, I don’t agree with him. So he was great. He did a great job. He says, I think of that as like Eric Skywalker. I can’t even think of it as the same person because he thought it was so off character. Okay. We got to get back on track guys, right? I think so. No, everyone’s saying no. It’s good banter. Yeah. I mean, look, if we’re going to, Never mind. Who’s your favorite Star Wars character? Star Wars character? I like Chewbacca.
SPEAKER 1 :
Oh.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. That’s a very politically neutral one. I know.
SPEAKER 07 :
Because it’s like, he can’t even speak.
SPEAKER 09 :
I mean, probably Han Solo is my favorite, but Chewbacca’s great. You got a good Chewbacca. Flip that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. Giving people what they want on a Monday. I can’t take Marsha’s call just yet because it would be so inappropriate to go from what we just did to this. I apologize. I didn’t think you’d take the bait, but you know what? I sometimes do things for you. People are getting very mad about the Star Wars in the chat. People are saying that it holds no weight compared to the Bible. Well, yes, I agree. I think we agree. Yeah. I do love the Star Wars films, even some of the books, but I’ve never thought of it as my- Canon. My religion.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m sure there’s some people that do. I like the Obi-Wan Kenobi. You know why? Because he was sort of, he was kind of a trickster. Yeah. He was a good guy. Well, no.
SPEAKER 1 :
What’s that?
SPEAKER 07 :
I just meant like he’d be like, everything was from a certain point of view. Sure. You didn’t tell me your father. Well, he did kind of kill your father. Right. From a certain point of view. Yeah. That’s my elegant. That’s pretty good. All right. We are going to continue to take your phone calls. I would love to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. There’s only five minutes left, so if you want to call in. We have covered a lot of ground here today. One of which is that, we’re speaking of wars, that Iran, it’s actually the star conflict region. What do you call it?
SPEAKER 09 :
The presidential… The Imperial Senate never declared war. It was just an ongoing… They keep saying war.
SPEAKER 07 :
The news keeps saying war. It’s not a war. But there are a lot of people who are interested in us continuing that conversation, and I’ll let them win this war. Let’s go to Marsha in California. Marsha, take it from here.
SPEAKER 03 :
My feeling is that this operation in Iran should have started… On October 8th, 2023, perhaps it was in some circles. Yeah, Marcia. On October 7th at a music festival. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a music festival. Oh, I have. But here’s people enjoying music, and they flew in, and rode in and slaughtered people.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, Marsha, I’ve been to plenty of music festivals, and I’ve been to some since, and I have to say, that does creep in the back of your mind, the fact that something like this could happen. I don’t even say it creeps in. It was like going to, there’s always these reminders now. It’s like going to a movie, and you get the reminders of, if there’s an emergency, you need to be able to find the exits, and you know they’re not necessarily referring to a fire. Our conversations are leading to that. And look, Marshall, we’ve seen a lot that’s happened even over the weekend and the last week in the UK with anti-Semitism on the rise. We’ve seen so much happening. But yeah, of course, we know Iran backed Hamas and we know that had a large impact on what they were able to accomplish on October 7th. And you had, like we said, that sort of 48 hour window, it felt like where Israel was, the world felt like it was okay for them to fight back. And then all of a sudden they no longer could without the wrath of really political non-neutrality.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and to Marsha’s point, the fact that it should have started on October 8th, I actually would say it should have never happened. October 7th should never have happened. We know that the Iranians helped conduct that. They helped plan it. They helped carry it out with Hamas, which is their proxy that they fund. And that is the reality of it, because when every president since the Iranian revolution has said, you know, we have to push back against Iran. Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. They must stop their terrorism that they export globally. And no one did anything about it except sanctions. then you see where that got you it got everyone nowhere it got everyone to in october 7th so i’m i want to see the job finished here i i would like to resume uh operation epic fury or whatever 2.0 is named because i also like the way that this has been carried out it has been surgical it has been overwhelming for the iranian air defenses i want to see the end of the islamic republic of iran i want to see the people take back their country in their history and once again join the community of nations that aren’t throwing people in prison and beating them and killing them for not having their head covering on perfect. That is what this terrible regime does. And they have gotten stronger and stronger by weak foreign policy of presidents all the way up until today. And so what I want to see is this continue. I wish that they had been taken care of a lot, many years ago, so that something like an October 7th would have never had the opportunity to even happen.
SPEAKER 07 :
Look, we only got a minute and a half left before this show closes. I want to say thank you to everyone who called in. Thank you for letting us kind of hop around topics today, whether that was talking about Iran, whether it was talking about Star Wars. We were able to discuss a lot. Hey, the president and the White House, they put up a Star Wars. We’re not the only one celebrating them. That’s right. So do we have that image? Can we throw that up there? Look at this. President Trump, I’m sure. The nerd internet is exploding right now, I’m sure, in Fury right now. Right.
SPEAKER 09 :
I also love when there is the popular character, he ruins it for people that hate him. Yeah. It’s like, oh, he’s going to be the Mandalorian. He’s the Mandalorian in Grogu holding an American flag. Here’s the other thing.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s really the most egregious part because that totally breaks the universe.
SPEAKER 09 :
This was probably 30 to 32 years ago. We did a radio ad that talked about Star Wars. And the audience didn’t like us talking about Star Wars 32 years ago. They still don’t. And they still don’t.
SPEAKER 07 :
Some things never change. Yeah, and Star Wars is going to be celebrating 50 years next year. So guess what? You’ll get some more discussion about that. Look, I’m seeing a lot of clowns in the comments. I don’t know if you’re calling us clowns. We may be today. Are we the clowns? But the bad kind of clowns? I don’t know. We look a little bit like clowns. Will likes clowns. With that, I want to say thank you so much. And may the force be with you. But not too far with you. Not as my religion of choice. I want to thank you all for supporting the work of the ACLJ. Go on ACLJ.org. Spend time with us each and every day. We meant a lot. Look, our double drives are over for right now, but they went really far because of you. We’re able to keep not only this show going, but our incredible legal work. Things will get a little more serious, I’m sure, as the week progresses. But you know what? It’s Monday. We want to have a little bit of fun here with you guys each and every day. We stream this show live from noon to 1 p.m. on all your favorite social platforms, YouTube, Rumble, ACLJ.org. However you get your pods, we’re there. Talk to you tomorrow.
