In this episode, we delve into the recent developments surrounding an aggressive protest that took place in a Minnesota church. With FBI arrests made, we discuss the implications of the Face Act in such scenarios and what this means for protesters and religious communities alike. As legal frameworks catch up with real-world events, the importance of security in places of worship becomes more evident.
SPEAKER 12 :
We got breaking news. Arrest made in the Minnesota church protest.
SPEAKER 10 :
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. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 12 :
Welcome to Sekulow. Jordan’s here today as well as Will Haynes in the studio. We have a packed show. I believe Rick Grinnell’s joining us a little bit later. Is that right? So we’re going to… Yeah, you stay tuned. Give us a call if you’d like to talk. 1-800-684-3110. The big breaking news. Obviously, there are a few things going on. Jack Smith is currently speaking. We have… He’s saying nothing. We have stuff coming on, obviously, involving Gaza and Israel as President Trump laid out his plan. But the big breaking story this morning is that a lot of you have said…
SPEAKER 11 :
no one gets held accountable nothing ever gets done well there’s some movement in that and that is that one of the minnesota agitators really the leader uh who invaded that church has been arrested yes that’s right this is nikima levy armstrong and she was even the one that uh that don lemon pointed out and said you know this is her group she is the one jordan obviously she had history with Black Lives Matter in Minnesota years back and actually faced criminal charges there with some of the actions under protests. It’s very interesting and we’ll be able to get into some of this because she even did an interview with CNN yesterday with Aaron Burnett and talked about this, tried to reframe it, but even some of the language she used there was almost admitting to violating some of the language and the way it’s described what they did in the face act so not only do they have video but now they have interview testimony where she says you know people should be talking more about what the ice agents are doing not that we uh peacefully disrupted a church service which is the letter of the law of the face act is if you are disrupting a service then you’re in violation you’re
SPEAKER 13 :
have to go inside if you were like pounding a drum or you were on like uh speakers things like that that’s enough to be arrested under the face act you don’t have to love the face act because of what it’s done to the pro-life movement but it also protects house of worship and the doj is doing exactly the right thing which is if you’re going to enforce it against us we’re going to enforce it against you and now you’re going to be charged with a federal crime and arrested by the fbi like she was this morning. So as you said, Logan, when people say nothing gets done, she was arrested by the FBI. She’s the leader. She’ll name names. This will not be the last arrest. I think there will actually probably be 100 plus arrests.
SPEAKER 11 :
And this is just days after. Exactly. And Jordan, as you said, it isn’t the last arrest. They have already arrested a second individual has been taken into custody. And Pam Bondi in a tweet said, we will protect our houses of worship. On a post on X. You are saying, sorry, I always say tweet. It’s easier to say than she put out an X post. I think we still say tweet. Take that up with Elon. But then you could say X. No. What does Elon say when you post a message? Post. Okay, her post. Okay. She posted. But that could be it. We will protect our houses of worship.
SPEAKER 12 :
We are true social. You post on X is what you say. He’s put out the guidelines. It’s just too long. You know what? Take that up with him.
SPEAKER 13 :
I will.
SPEAKER 12 :
Elon, come on.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right. Well, there you go. Again, phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. So two arrests have been made, one with the leader and one we don’t know who it is yet. Is that right?
SPEAKER 11 :
We know her name, but not specifically what their role was in this. But Chantel Louisa Allen has been taken into custody by the FBI as well as the direction of the attorney general.
SPEAKER 12 :
And these kind of activists, not specifically ones that will interrupt church service, but we have represented protesters and activists that are very comfortable and are very used to being arrested. Now, usually, Jordan, they’re probably arrested on the local level. They’re probably arrested like a pro-life protester who gets arrested, which we’ve had clients arrested hundreds of times.
SPEAKER 13 :
And let me just say, there were police there when this happened. If that was outside an abortion clinic and those people went inside, every single one of them had been arrested. They would have had arms broken on the spot. Those police just sat there.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yep. All right. We’re going to take your calls and comments about this. We’re also covering the Jack Smith situation. And we’re going to talk a bit about the plan to rebuild Gaza into what looks to be a luxury resort destination. What do you think about that? 1-800-684-3110. Of course, support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. You know, Will, I didn’t look to see if we broke your goal yesterday. We didn’t. All right, well, I’ll report on that number when we get back. We set a goal, an arbitrary goal, for Will’s birthday, $40,000 to raise in honor of Will’s 40th birthday. And we’ll tell you if we make it. Will just spoiled it. I’ll tell you what happened. So I’ll tell you what happened when we get back from the break. But thank you all for turning up. And with that, we’ll be right back on Secular. I’m 50. Phone lines are open, like I said, at 1-800-684-3110. I think we need to restate the breaking news, but there’s so many actual moving items right now. I mean, you have Jack Smith testifying right now. We have what’s going on at Davos and President Trump laying out a plan of what they call the Peace Council.
SPEAKER 11 :
The Board of Peace.
SPEAKER 12 :
Board of Peace, as well as what looks to be New Gaza.
SPEAKER 11 :
The Board of Peace logo, have you seen it? It’s incredible because it looks very similar to the UN logo, except gold instead of baby blue. And they shifted the world so that it’s just the United States. Love gold. Love it.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right. And then, of course, the big one actually that’s happening, I think for our supporters and our listeners who want to know what’s going to happen to that situation where, I mean, this was just talking about this. This was just Sunday. Remember, we’re only to Thursday now, so that was Sunday, where that church was invaded by protesters that were angry, essentially an angry mob that came in, including Don Lemon, who pushed their way and disrupted this service and traumatized children, went through all of this. And I know a lot of you call out and go, I feel like there’s never any justice. I feel like there’s never anyone put in jail for these kind of things. And look, We have supported so many protesters over the years, pro-life protesters, people that get arrested all the time. Yeah, as Jordan said, they get put in jail. We visited them in prison many times when we were kids. That is part of the nature of doing this. And I’m sure this woman who did get arrested is aware that likely this could have happened to her.
SPEAKER 13 :
She’s probably… These aren’t like prison in and out in one day. These were guys serving.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, I want to kind of serve it that way and say, listen, this is a different thing. The federal government is getting involved, but there have been multiple arrests now, and this is happening. And I think that if you did want to be one of those people who calls in always and says nothing ever happens, here we are. Line one. Line one, okay. Let’s go. Okay, yeah, let’s do it. You want to go? Let’s go to Tim who’s calling. Tim’s watching on the Salem News Channel, by the way. Great way to watch us each and every day if you want to watch the whole hour. Tim, go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, yeah, I’m in Ohio down here, and I know everybody’s making a big deal kind of about the two arrests, but… Those to me and a lot of American people are low people on the totem pole. When are the people that are inciting this stuff that’s happening going to be held accountable? And like Don Lemon, he’s on the internet bragging about it.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, I get what you’re saying. He didn’t organize it that I know of. These are the people who did organize it. These are the top probably two. And then they will keep telling names. as part of deals and things like that, and more people will be arrested. But they’re looking at charging Don Lemon with a different crime, and it’s actually a bigger crime. It’s a violation of what is the KKK Act. This allows the federal government, any time the constitutional rights of Americans are being violated, that could be by state officials, so we saw that during the Civil Rights Movement, that could be by organizations like the KKK, That can also be if you are involved in inciting. So what here would be is that by Don Lemon’s presence and with the cameras, he was actually inciting that to the next level and almost encouraging it to get more aggressive, going up to the pastor, putting on the cameras like it was some kind of an event. And so the DOJ is looking at that charge. It’s a more serious charge, and Don Lemon is going to use, of course, arguments that he is just a reporter he was there on site and he was just there and he was not part of the protest so they are going to have to show under that that he was inciting and actually part of violating constitutional rights of americans so that’s a separate law from the face act which is actually a broader protection for all of us in the united states in case organizations local law enforcement other state officials are violating our rights
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and Jordan, to that point as well, the person who is looking into Don Lemon’s actions, Harmeet Dhillon, who is the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Division. So the Attorney General telling the FBI to get the people that actually perpetrated the crime that would violate something like the FACE Act, much more simple, as straightforward, but the Civil Rights Division needing to look at that and make sure they have a case before they go and make an arrest for someone like Don Lemon. Yeah, because- That is the appropriate way to do it.
SPEAKER 13 :
You could move down and you could utilize Face Act and other things because he entered. But you have to then look at his claims as the journalist and his connection to the protests, which they’re going to have to do their research on. So they probably need to file initial claims to get more evidence to see, was Don Lemon part of it? He obviously knew what was going on, but that was on Facebook. So is he going to say, my people just found it on Facebook and we showed up? Or did they contact the people and say, we’re going to come with cameras. We’re going to go with you. Is that okay with you? And then if they could show that kind of connection, then you can look at bringing the charge. Well, and also that’s why it’s a little bit more difficult.
SPEAKER 11 :
To this point, I want to play this bite for people because the individual, Nakima Levy Armstrong, who was arrested already, who was the organizer, she went on CNN. She obviously doesn’t have very good lawyers right now. And she is an attorney. She is an attorney herself. Well, then she just wants this to happen. Once again, though, but I want to play this for people, and I also want to put it in context of the things that we’ve already played from Don Lemon, him going on podcast and bragging and saying that this church is white supremacist, all these bad things. He was admitting they were targeting Christians. So once again, already civil rights issues right there. They were targeting people based off their faith. But I want to read this. This is from the FACE Act. it says freedom of access to clinic entrances that’s what faith stands for prohibited activities whoever and then section two by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction intentionally injures intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure intimidate or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the first amendment right to religious freedom at a place of religious worship shall be subject to the penalties provided in subsection B and several remedies, etc. Here is what this individual who was arrested said on CNN last night, admitting to the violation of the FACE Act, bite 16.
SPEAKER 01 :
more concerned about us going and having a peaceful disruption of a church service than the reason that they that they were there it needs to check their heart and they need to check their theology so right there she said anyone more concerned with us going and having a peaceful disruption of a church service that is exactly where it says interfere with
SPEAKER 11 :
Any person lawfully exercising their First Amendment right to worship, she is admitting on CNN a violation of the faith act.
SPEAKER 13 :
She will be held to a higher standard in court because she’s an attorney and knows the law.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, and when you read this and it says, you know, if someone needs to check their heart and their theology, if they were more concerned about the disruption of the church, why not both? Why can you not be someone who is… disturbed by everything that is happening in minnesota i think that’s true for most people they see what’s happening on the streets they see people’s lives lost they see the chaos that’s happening there they see the massive fraud that’s happening then they see churches getting stormed how about we all can say we got a problem with all of it it can’t be always this well it’s a party line thing so we got to pull one side or the other that’s what i think most people look at this most human beings that are you know not necessarily all
SPEAKER 13 :
This is also why they tune out and say, this is just a party line.
SPEAKER 12 :
It’s a political moment.
SPEAKER 13 :
So I’d have to take a view now. And so she’s coming after conservative white Christians. Well, if you happen to be a conservative white Christian, you’re probably then going to take the view that, you know what? Go ahead, Ice.
SPEAKER 11 :
I think we should play this other bite from her, Jordan. This is where she tries to reframe what happened, even though we’ve seen the video and it doesn’t make it any better for her. But it’s like she went on this CNN interview trying to reframe it. But bite nine, trying to say that they weren’t actually interfering. Bite nine.
SPEAKER 01 :
correct something that was said in the beginning, we did not rush into that church. We actually went and sat down and participated in the service. And after the pastor prayed, that is when I stood up and asked him a question in response to his prayer. And then he responded to me. And then I proceeded to ask him about Pastor David Easterwood and how is it possible for him to serve as both a pastor and the director of ICE for Minnesota. And instead of responding to me, as soon as I said the name David Easterwood, the pastor says, shame, shame. And that is when I let us enchant justice for Renee Good and Hands Up, Don’t Shoot. So I want to clarify that. We didn’t rush in. We didn’t bust in. We were a part of the service until I got up and posed that question to the pastor.
SPEAKER 13 :
So you went into a church that peacefully allowed you in because doors are open at church to anyone, sat down, disrupted the service by asking the pastor a question when it was not an appropriate time, wasn’t asking for questions. Then you did another question. The pastor was trying to calm this down and say enough and basically was telling his people to get out. And then I had my people start disrupting the church service and getting aggressive so that people were running out with their kids. Nothing she says makes it any better.
SPEAKER 12 :
If you stand up and disrupt a service at this point in time in 2026, likely a security comes by or someone and they get rid of you. They usher you out. Yeah, that’s just not how it works. And I think they know that. And to act like it’s not premeditated or planned is absurd. If you wanted to go meet… With the pastor, you want to do something, schedule that out. You know what? There probably is a good chance that could have happened. But instead, you decided to make a spectacle of it. And that’s all it is. It’s just disrupt and harm. And look, like I’ve said, we’ve got to calm this all down because it’s getting out of hand. But look, I think actually having arrests in this moment does help that. I think it actually makes you go, okay, all right. Let the federal government do their job. For sure. I think for both sides, they can go, all right, you should realize there will be ramifications to disrupting a church service or doing something like this. And with that, we do have only one line open right now, 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110 to get your voice on the air today. But I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org. You had a great day yesterday celebrating Will’s birthday. Let’s have another good day today. It’s at ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Secula. We’re going to take some calls and comments on this situation, obviously talking about the arrests coming out of that Minnesota church protest. Let’s go ahead and do that. Let’s go to Robert in Illinois who is watching on the Salem News Channel. Robert, go ahead.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, I have a comment. I am a very… aware of what’s going on in Minnesota. But what gets me that, uh, what happens Sunday is the lack of security because, uh, with all of these church shootings, I’m surprised that people like, uh, these agitators were easily able to just get into this church and,
SPEAKER 12 :
without no type of, you know… Well, remember, Robert, I understand that a lot of people have brought that up with security concerns in general, but you’re talking about 100 people. You’re talking about a group of people.
SPEAKER 11 :
And also there was… Well, and once again, if you hear what Don Lemon said, remember, we played this a couple days ago where he was with the group before they went into the church. And he was even like… Hey, it even looks Maga coded. Like one of them has an American flag and it’s a bunch of white allies. Like he was laying out that they had a strategy. Now, once again, that’s also them thinking way too much like, oh, if it were people of color, they wouldn’t be welcome in the church, which is ridiculous statement in and of itself. But. Robert, to your point, that is one of the why churches are such a hard place to secure fully, because the entire goal of a church is to welcome people in, to share the gospel, to spread the good news of Jesus Christ and to welcome in unbelievers, people from all walks of life. I know the left doesn’t think that’s what churches do, but that is the goal is to share the good news of Jesus Christ. And so when you have people that come in, That maybe they look like they belong there. Maybe they don’t look like they belong there. A church is, is traditionally going to be welcoming them. So you don’t want to lose the ministry where people are then turned away because they look different. And, and that is the, I feel like a lot of people’s immediate knee jerk reaction is like, okay, well members only, but that is not what a church is supposed to be. However, then you also hear from that clip with aaron burnett where she was saying they did it all strategically they went in they sat down they listened through the music they waited until the pastor was giving a prayer and then began their their uh their demonstration and their disruption and to to the other hard part of this as well you think of the tragedies with shootings One individual getting up, that is, I feel like, what most church security would focus on. Not thinking a mob of more than 100 people taking over your service. That’s not something three security guards, four security guards. Exactly. You’d have to need a lot more.
SPEAKER 13 :
and get the people out. I think they probably did that. They noticed this was not like a violent kind of thing in the sense of people were coming with a gun. So this was not that kind of action, which is what they’re really mostly focused on is the one individual that comes in and starts shooting. And also just general kind of protection, getting people on the street, things like that, parking. And also checking who’s in the crowd. But again, a church is the welcome to people who are broken. So there’s people coming off the street all the time to churches. That’s part of, as you said, their ministry. So I’m not going to criticize the security guards here because these security guards, one, are under a ton of pressure at all these places, like kids’ schools and these houses of worship, and they’re there to protect us from being killed basically now. So they’re putting their lives on the line that way. This was a mob protest protest. No one was going to get killed. It was definitely, as Don Lemon said, traumatic for kids and disruptive to the entire church service. But it was a different situation. So I don’t want to criticize church security. People are putting themselves on the line with it, like our security here at the ACLJ.
SPEAKER 11 :
once again when you think about also what would these agitators have loved they would have loved a security guard getting too aggressive yeah because they were filming it all and that one uh individual who’s like a professional paid uh protester that there’s videos of him in dc with the national guard getting in their face saying nasty things trying to provoke He wants someone to hit him. He wants someone to rough him up and get him out of the building because one, it also furthers their narrative that look how intolerant this white church is that isn’t standing up against ICE. That would play into their narrative. So as you said, the pressure on a church security, especially when, was it traumatizing? Was it disruptive? Did it make people feel very uncomfortable and probably fearful? Yes, that was their goal. They terrorized the people in that church. They ended the church service. But if it had gotten out of hand in another way, then that would have fed more into the narrative of how bad these Christians are. And I think that you have to almost in some way commend the church and their security for that. being delicate with it and that’s where it is a very very tough situation and why i’m glad that the department of justice is taking this strong action because if they hadn’t you can’t let that become the norm where people are just going in and trying to completely disrupt the practice of your faith in this country yeah let’s uh let’s take one more call before we head to the second half hour of the show let’s go to ruth who’s calling on line three
SPEAKER 12 :
Ruth in Minnesota who’s watching on the same, oh, we just lost her. All right. Maybe, I think we may have accidentally dropped her. Let’s see if she calls back and we’ll get to her. With that, let’s go ahead and take, you want to go to Pete? Pete’s calling online too in New York. Pete, go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hi, how are you? I have a question. The lady that you’re talking about, if you go back to Monday, you ever heard of News Nation with Cuomo? She was on there with three other people with Cuomo. And if you go and see it, it shows it all, it indicates it all. I think personally that if you look at the video, which you’ve probably seen it, the people were intimidated. The young girl was in the corner. They were really intimidated by this. I was wondering if something was going to happen about this. And by the way, I’m African-American and we have a multi-racial community. a church, which is awesome. So in terms of them always using, you know, this reverse racism, you know, ideology all the time, I just hope something happened. And I do hope something happened to Don Lemon because you should, again, I’m thankful. I thank the Lord for it. That’s all I wanted to say is that it was intimidation.
SPEAKER 13 :
It doesn’t even have to be under the law, intimidation. It just has to be disruptive. That’s it. So if you’re going to do that for abortion clinics and put all of our clients in prison, breaking their arms a lot of times, I mean, throwing them around immediately on site, which the Minnesota police did not do, but could have before they even entered the church or as they were entering the church, they could have stopped them and arrested all of them. and they should have been ready with paddy wagons just like they were at big pro-life events where they would arrest hundreds of people, dragging them through, breaking their arms, putting them in prison for a month plus through long trials. And usually, by the way, what would we do? We’d win. court because they screw up something because you know well usually they’re in the wrong usually a lot of times it’s not they go too far they go too far so here what you have to be careful is you don’t want to go too far you will be right on the map so that doesn’t matter what judge you’re in front of they can’t they can’t argue with you they know that these people have violated a law that’s been held to be constitutional Whether we like that law or not, it also protects our places of worship. We don’t see it utilized as much because there’s not a lot of people out there just trying to disrupt religious services in America on any faith. And I think that’s great. And that should be the norm is that people aren’t outside religious places of worship trying to disrupt them.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yep. Hey, the ACLJ has always been there supporting churches wherever they need. So go to ACLJ.org if you’re someone who needs help. And you can fill out the form, get connected with us. It’s great. But also, we’ve got a second half hour coming up available on all our social media platforms and on YouTube. We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 10 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 12 :
Second half hour of Sekulow coming up. Look, there’s a lot of topics going on, but we’re going to stick with this one for the time being because a lot of you are listening and watching right now. And I know a lot of people have called in. So if you have a question or comment related to the arrest made in Minnesota or maybe the entire situation of that church protest invasion, what the rules are, what the laws are, we’ll cover it here. Because look, as I said, the ACLJ has been a supporter of protesters, peaceful protesters. And look, sometimes these protesters get involved. Sometimes they get arrested. The ACLJ is there supporting those who protest. but in this situation we can see where the line was crossed and of course now you are actually seeing real arrests being made so those of you who often call in and say it seems like nothing ever happens here’s a moment where it’s happening now we can talk a little bit if you have a question or comment and we do have one coming in about the situation in gaza the plans that president trump unveiled today and his whole panel of peace and then of course you have more things happening including right now jack smith testifying so a lot of things happening all at once And the ACLJ is kind of involved in a little bit of all of them. Obviously, our work in Israel continues on. Obviously, if you’ve been listening to this show, Jack Smith’s name has come up more times than I would ever like to say. And then you have the situation in Minnesota, which is right in the ACLJ’s wheelhouse. We have both been on the side of the protester and the side of the church for so many years. But we know where is right and wrong. And when the person who managed this disruption, this church invasion, goes out and says, yeah, that was the plan. But we were just going to sit there. And then we started just asking questions. We know what that looks like. And we know what that process is. And she probably thought, yeah, there’s a good chance I’m going to get arrested. And that’s exactly what did happen.
SPEAKER 11 :
And this time, Will, it happens on a federal level. That’s right. And you’re seeing this. The Department of Justice and the FBI made the arrest of Nikima Levy Armstrong. We actually have a photo we can put up of her being arrested, actually being led away by federal officers, federal law enforcement in handcuffs. And then we also know that a second individual. was arrested by the Department of Justice by the FBI at the direction of the Attorney General at the direction of Pam Bondi so we are seeing movement we are seeing what is happening we’ve also talked about how Don Lemon is not necessarily off the hook or any other people that were a part of this are not off the hook just because the organizers the the ring leader so to speak were arrested. And I also feel like there’s such a strong case against these individuals because they were even doing interviews talking about what they did and the language they are even using is admitting to violation of the law, things like the FACE Act. We’re going to talk more about that in this show as well. But Jordan, also, we aren’t going to get into it as much today, but this Jack Smith hearing is interesting because it is going to be long. There’s going to be a lot of moments, a lot of Democrats trying to say you’re great.
SPEAKER 13 :
Democrats are grandstanding or not even asking questions.
SPEAKER 11 :
One of the interesting angles that the Republicans are really honing in on, especially the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, are the subpoenas that were issued and the toll records, the phone records that were gotten by members of Congress, the Speaker of the House.
SPEAKER 13 :
updates on that coming because DOJ, not surprisingly, and some of these other agencies, because they’re national security agencies, did not respond in a timely way to our FOIAs, which, by the way, are endorsed by… Most of the senators whose phones and these subpoenas went out to, including friends like Senator Hagerty, Senator Blackburn, Senator Graham, Senator Cruz. I don’t want to leave anyone out. But what I’m saying is even when the Trump DOJ doesn’t respond in a timely manner, what is the ACLJ going to do? You’re allowed to file in federal court a lawsuit. It is coming.
SPEAKER 11 :
And I think we’ll get to more of that tomorrow as well. Because some of the answers Jack Smith gave, where he kept relying on the Public Integrity Office and Division of the DOJ, they were able to show guidance they had gotten, the Congress had gotten, that were like, eh, we’re not so sure you can do this. And his answers were not spectacular. It could get him in some more trouble.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right, we will be back in just a moment. Make sure you tune in to the rest of the show. And remember, we put out a lot of incredible free content available at ACLJ.org. And we’ve been fighting in support of churches for our entire existence. So when you support the work of the ACLJ, you know you do that. And you know you do it in a way also that never charges these churches for any of our representation or any of our clients. It only comes because people like you support the work and the mission of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Secular. We are now joined by Rick Grinnell. Rick, a lot has gone out. We’re going to shift our topic here because, of course, we were talking about the arrests that were going on in Minnesota. But I think one of the very big and interesting moments, Will, and you can kind of set this up too, coming out of Davos, coming out of everything, is this President Trump unveiled this panel of peace, if you will. Board of peace. Board of peace.
SPEAKER 11 :
And what would be planned for a new Gaza. That’s right, Rick. What we saw was countries coming together from all over the Middle East, the region, Eastern Europe. You’re seeing people like the president of Indonesia, as well as the prime minister of Hungary, the prime minister of Armenia, the president of Argentina, Morocco, Kazakhstan. It goes on and on. It’s a wide representation of governments, both in the Middle East and not in the Middle East, that make up this board of peace that which is intended to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza, as well as Jared Kushner laying out with a very compelling development plan for Gaza and how it can become a place that is kind of a gold star in the Middle East. And I want to get your take on, once again, the unorthodox methods of the Trump administration, but getting us further down the road to something that maybe we never thought we’d see in our lifetime.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, first of all, I think that this idea is long overdue of bringing people together to do reconstruction and to push the next phase of peace, right? You’ve got peace breaking out because of President Trump. And one of the things that we have to be able to do is implement the peace. You can’t just talk about it. And the president is really good at that. And so this is a board that is going to implement, operationalize the peace agreements that President Trump is bringing forward. It’s a great idea. It’s long overdue. And I think what we will have is initiatives that support peace pretty fast.
SPEAKER 12 :
think when you look at this board of the countries that are involved in this and just the whole situation in general like you said do you feel like this has you know real ramifications because some of the forecasting is you know obviously this is going to take years this is not a quick turn but knowing how Washington works and how quickly even just a political turn so say you know the next president is not as pro-Israel as President Trump Do you feel like, though, this could have these long-term ramifications in the few years that President Trump has to get the plan set?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, look, I think we’ve got three years left of President Trump where this will get established. The rebuilding will begin. And at that point, it’s going to be incredibly hard to pull it back. People want to see peace operationalized and the next steps. And this is exactly what’s going to happen. I think it was a brilliant idea to ask people not just to sign up, but to also give money. Because that’s what we need. And I think that’s the failure of the UN. The UN hasn’t been able to do that. And yet you see President Trump saying, look, we’re going to work with the UN. We want to make the UN better. But this is not going to go through the UN because we know its limitations.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, we also know what the U.N. has done in Gaza specifically with the U.N. schools that were teaching propaganda to Palestinians for decades as well as harboring terrorists and including keeping kidnapped hostages that some of the leaders of those schools were harboring hostages at the direction of these terrorists. But you also start to see Some countries that are saying they won’t be a part of this. You’re seeing Norway, Sweden, France, Britain, the UK has not yet signed on. They’re concerned about it. You’re starting to see… The world in a different light where you’re seeing members of these Middle Eastern countries that traditionally would maybe have had a harder time signing on to something like this. You see Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, as well as places like Paraguay and Argentina that are coming together to try and do something different. They’re doing something that has never been done, which is trying to revolutionize the way Gaza is seen on the world stage. but also to actually do something that, how many presidents and how many times has the UN been trying to deal with this and nothing has been done? And now you’re seeing some of the old guards say, we’re not sure we want to be a part of this. What does that tell you about the state of global affairs, if you will?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, let’s be really clear. The only people that are sitting on the sidelines on this idea are the Europeans. And we need to be very clear, Europe is an amazing place to travel and vacation. It is a horrible place to do business and to push new ideas. They are stuck in their old ways. Their economies are stale. I hate to say this because I do love my European friends, but they’re all complaining about Europe dying. And so it does not surprise me that European leaders can’t look at this entrepreneurial idea and get on board. They’re not good with any entrepreneurial idea. They are old school and they can’t shake off the old ways, which is why their economies are struggling.
SPEAKER 11 :
We actually have a call coming in, and this is someone that doesn’t like the Gaza plan as it is. And once again, all of this is just now being put forward. But I think we should take this. Just while we’ve got Rick on, this is Charlie calling from New York. Charlie, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi, how are you guys doing today?
SPEAKER 11 :
We’re doing well. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 08 :
Good. Yeah, I really have some bad feelings about what’s going on over there in Gaza. I really feel that it’s going to come back to haunt us and that there won’t be peace. We all know, I mean, we’re Christians, that there will be no peace in the Middle East until Christ comes back. So to say that there’s some peace now, I believe it’s just temporary. And with all the deaths that had happened over there, you know, I’m sure a lot of terrorists were killed, but I also know a lot of innocents were killed. And I don’t understand why we gloat over making a resort out of a battlefield. I think that battlefield is going to be there for quite some time, no matter, even if you make it look like a resort, people are still going to have bad feelings and it’s really not going to go so well. So I just see delusions of grandeur going on.
SPEAKER 12 :
Charlie, look, I’ve been in those areas of the world. It’s been a battlefield, as you said, for a very, very long time. This was nothing new. was the scope of maybe the war efforts bigger than it had been a very long time? Absolutely. But this was nothing new. And what you have, and I’m sure Rick can speak to this as well as Will, you have an area, and sure, when it comes with President Trump out there saying, here are the resorts we’re going to build, all these things, it’s a beautiful area of the world. A beautiful area of the world that has been overrun by terrorist regimes. So is there hope? That can be turned around. It can become an economic center and hub for not only – they showed the labs that they’re going to be building, all the different energy sources that can come from it, as well as technology. As we know, the Middle East has been – an extreme, and I can turn to Rick, an extreme help, especially the Israelis in terms of the technological growth and the amount of products and the amount of things we use that come out of Israel is astonishing. So to say that we’re just going to say, Charlie, we’re going to say, okay, well, because it once was this, it can never be anything great. That’s what happened to Iran. That’s what happened to a lot of places.
SPEAKER 05 :
Look, what I would say to Charlie is I get that he is skeptical and this has been an area that we’ve tried a lot of ideas and things keep failing and we keep going back to war. I get it. But Charlie is not a government official. Charlie is sitting on the sidelines and he gets to be skeptical. For government officials, we have to try. We have to do something. And this is the closest we’ve been and this is the most… uh important moment for possible peace and we must take this responsibility and try to operationalize it we’ve never been this close certainly he’s right we may have 20 years of hostilities and it might take a while but we’ve got to try and this is the beginning
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and I think to Charlie’s point as well, Charlie, I think even when first peace plans were announced, Logan and I were on here very boldly saying how skeptical we are that any of this will go anywhere. I’m skeptical that this will move forward because it is a very difficult place. I like the concept. And I would also point, and I agree with your point, there will never be true peace anywhere in the world until Christ comes again. But even Gaza itself is not Jerusalem. We know that we pray for the peace of Jerusalem and that that peace will never come until it is in God’s hands. However, Gaza is different. Gaza is not Jerusalem. It is not the historic battles that Jerusalem is. It’s just down the road. It is very close, but I’m saying that there is a difference between Gaza and Jerusalem. And I also think if you’re not putting forward… a way to economically develop it, a way to bring people out of the destitution that they were put in by the terrorists. And have been in for a very long time. Right. Then you’re never going to be able to move anywhere. So it’s not necessarily gloating about there being resorts and tech and all of these things coming to there. It is showing a path forward instead of being, we’re going to send concrete everywhere. from the UN, and what are the terrorists going to do? Build terror tunnels. They are saying, here is a new way forward.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yep. All right. Hey, we’re going to take some phone calls. Thanks, Rick, for calling in. We’re going to take some more phone calls coming up. We’ve got a few lines open at 1-800-684-3110. If you want to get on the air today, 1-800-684-3110. We’ll be right back. to seculo in this last segment of the show we always like to take as many calls and comments as we can some of you been a hold for a long time so we’re going to start getting to some of you that is again if you want to call in three lines open at 1-800-684-3110 1-800-684-3110 let’s kick it off with eric who’s calling in pennsylvania you got a hold for a half hour eric i appreciate it watching on salem news go ahead thank you yeah i kind of disagree with you about um
SPEAKER 02 :
this thing at the church not being political. Statistics show that if conservatives get 20% of the black vote and 4% of the Hispanic vote, the conservatives are going to win a bunch of elections, and it seems that the left is trying to import liberal voters from foreign countries. I doubt it will see many even conservatives or conservatives Matt, even Ryan, as much as magnet at something like that church, um, rally causing chaos. You know, I, I just don’t think they would show up. I think those are mostly your level. And the fact that she went on TV on, uh, CNN, at News Nation, I don’t blame them, but why didn’t she go on Real America’s Voice or Fox News? They’d have been glad to broadcast that. She didn’t even think of that, or she was afraid of the, you know, answers she would have to give.
SPEAKER 12 :
Eric, I think you misunderstood what I was saying there. I’m not saying that they were not political activists. Certainly, they were political activists. What I was saying is that she went on there and specifically said, The reason they interrupted this church, they went through this. They started putting a party line saying, well, if you don’t agree, if you’re more outraged about what happened in this church and not what happened that caused this protest, you need to check your heart and your mind. What I’m saying is there are a lot of Christians. There’s a lot of conservatives. They have a lot of problems of what’s going on in the streets of Minneapolis in general. Whether that is, whether you disagree or agree with whatever happened, someone’s life was lost at the hands of an ICE agent. I understand there’s a lot of conversation around that specific death, but there was a death, and I think that that can’t be undersold. However, what I was saying was, why can you not be outraged about all of it? They are painting it as politics. They are painting it as this is a conservative versus liberal moment, and I don’t see it personally that way.
SPEAKER 11 :
They certainly do. Well, and to Eric’s point where we agree as well, let’s play Byte 16 and then I’ve got a kind of a follow up. But this is the Byte. This is from CNN where Ms. Armstrong was talking with Aaron Burnett about the whole situation that kind of sparked this conversation, Byte 16.
SPEAKER 01 :
So anyone more concerned about us going and having a peaceful disruption of a church service than the reason that they were there needs to check their heart and they need to check their theology.
SPEAKER 11 :
And to that point, it also shows the party lines and the political nature of it. especially when you hear the things that were said to the people in the church by many of those people. We’ve seen the videos of the agitators themselves getting in people’s faces saying, look how privileged you are. You don’t care. You’re just enjoying your comfortable life. You don’t care. They have no idea who these individuals are. They are making a presupposition based off of color and faith. that they don’t care and that is even in her statement that if you’re more cared you care more about this peaceful disruption it’s like no this is a violation of our constitution the first amendment the very foundation of of our bill of rights is the freedom of religion and being able to be protected, to worship. We know things will get bad for people of faith. It has from the beginning of time and will go on in forever more. But we have right now the First Amendment. And just like the old saying, it’s a republic, madam, if you can keep it, that Benjamin Franklin gave, we have a First Amendment right now if we can keep it. And that’s why it is important for groups like the ACLJ to fight to keep the First Amendment, to fight for these protections. Because if we don’t, then it will go away for everyone and it will get chipped away at in perpetuity. And that persecution that we see that we at the ACLJ fight against in Nigeria, in the Middle East, in India, in Pakistan, that will come here. And someday, I don’t know if it’s hundreds or thousands of years from now, it will. Until God sends his son back to earth, until Christ comes back, there will be persecution on this earth. But we have this First Amendment, and we should fight for it right now.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right, we’ve got two calls in four minutes. We’re going to try to do it real quick. Anthony in Pennsylvania, line one.
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re on the air. Yes, I’d like to know if Gavin Newsom went to Davos on his own dime, or did he shaft the California taxpayers again?
SPEAKER 12 :
That may not be just a yes to one of those questions. Because it seems like there’s a good chance, based on his accompaniment well, that it is certainly being funded.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right. Who’s to say that it’s not? Yes. Allegedly. Right. But we know that he was there with his good buddy, Alex Soros, who clearly is going to be behind him when he’s running in 2028. I don’t know who paid for the trip. I don’t know who paid for the flight. I assume he probably had security paid for by the taxpayers of California. Yeah. Likely that Gavin Newsom financially does probably pretty well for himself. That being said, though, I don’t know that I would… If a governor of a state is invited to Davos, and that means that you can get attention on your state, it probably is in the best interest of you to go. But we understand why you’re asking that question. I understand why you’re saying that, but honestly, it’s probably already in the works of setting up his 28 campaign, and maybe it was paid for by that. We’ll find out in weeks and months ahead, I’m sure.
SPEAKER 12 :
Bill in Wyoming, we only got about a minute, Bill. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, I’ll try and… Thanks for taking my call. I’ll try and get it taken care of real quick today. I was a member of the security team of a church, and first of all, just let me go over quickly, not being too serious, but first of all, the team needs to have a good relationship with local law enforcement. Next, they need to make sure that the grounds are secure, because in As an example, we realized that we needed to put a security fence around the playground. But speaking to what happened, the security team also needs to be part of the greeters so they can get an idea of who’s coming in. You can usually tell within the first 10, 30 seconds talking to a person what’s going to happen. And if they feel insecure, they need to contact the rest of their security team to keep an eye on these individuals. And then, if necessary, that’s when they should call law enforcement. And I realize that there were police out there, but still, that’s a general idea, the purpose of a security team.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, and Bill, law enforcement, like I said, was there, but a lot of these law enforcements have been put under a lot of stress in terms of what they feel they can and can’t do. Look at so many of these cities where the PD has essentially been stripped of their powers or threatened that if they do anything… Not only could it cause them to lose their job, possibly their whole career, possibly wind up in jail themselves.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and one of the individuals, the one that we’ve referenced that has been seen getting in the face of National Guard, he put a statement out when they were saying they were going to come after these protesters and said, you can kill the revolutionary, but not the revolution. If they have this martyrdom mentality, that’s a very dangerous thing. And it does. It puts not only bystanders, it puts law enforcement at risk. If they are willing to go that far and make statements like you can kill the revolutionary, but not the revolution, this is about disrupting a church service, people. And that’s a very dangerous thing and puts the security and the police at high risk as well.
SPEAKER 12 :
It’s moments we got to reaffirm the ACLJ stance and ACLJ stance. Obviously, we are always there for the church when they need us. And if you feel like you are one of those people who need us right now legally. I’m going to encourage you to go to aclj.org slash help. But you want to make sure that we’re also there for you when you need it, even if that’s not right now. And if you can, not only can you sign a petition, you can get involved financially and help support us. We go to aclj.org. Make your donation today. Again, at aclj.org. We’ll talk to you tomorrow on Seculo.
