Join Logan Sekulow as he delves into the tragic events of the recent synagogue attack on Yom Kippur in Manchester, UK. Discover how this shocking occurrence has impacted the global Jewish community and learn about the political responses from both Israel and the UK. Steve Wiggins provides insightful biblical context, revealing the deep connections between historical covenants and the current political climate in Israel.
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This is Logan Sekulow. On today’s show, we’ve got the latest details on the deadly synagogue attack on Judaism’s holiest day.
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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.
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Welcome to Sekulow. It is a very interesting day to start off this show. We had planned some different content today, but a lot of it was going to be planned around talking about Israel because today, of course, is the Jewish holiest of holy days, Yom Kippur. the day of atonement, the day of where you are going to, we’ll talk about this in detail. We’ll go through some of those where you go and make peace, where the Jewish people make peace with God. Obviously, this is a holiday celebrated in Judaism. Some Christians have made their own version of it as well as, of course, this would have been a holiday that Jesus would have celebrated as well as someone who practiced Judaism. Um, This comes under the really unfortunate news that this morning that outside of a synagogue in Manchester in Heaton Park in the UK, there was an attack that left at least two people dead, three if you include the attacker, using a car as a weapon as well as knives. And this has not become sadly too uncommon in the world right now. Now, of course, in the UK, the sort of crime involving stabbing and stabbing has become a much, much bigger problem as guns are not easily acceptable or accessible. Now, I do have to say at least a thanks to the police force there that was able to really take down this attacker very quickly. I mean, unfortunately, of course, you have multiple people left dead. And I can’t tell you how horrible that was to wake up to a text this morning from our producer to see that as we were planning out this show late last night. But they were able to take out that attacker very, very quickly. And of course, this again, like I said, is on the holiest of holy days as we also approach the anniversary of October 7th next week. This is not something that you could just turn a blind eye to. We need to be looking at what’s going on around the world. And look, there are other things happening in America. We know that there’s the government shutdowns and there’s all of that. But this is life or death here, people. This is what’s actually happening in the streets. This is what happened to your brothers and sisters. They are under attack. Christians we know are under attack. Jewish people are under attack around the world right now, and it’s being stoked, and the fermentation of it is strong, whether that’s from Americans or the West in general. Of course, at the heart of it is what’s going on in Israel. We’re going to take calls and comments about it. We’re also going to hear from the Prime Minister of the UK, of course, Starmer, who you’re going to hear from. Of course, he made a couple of different statements, made a statement today, of course, saying how horrible it was. But we can’t not forget that just a week or two ago, they were pledging their support behind a Palestinian state and what that could look like. And that was even before you had the deal in place or the deal potential that President Trump and benjamin netanyahu and now even members of the palestinian authority have said they want to go with this was uh a really hard time and this is what happens um when you don’t take these kind of moments very seriously and again you may go uh this isn’t uh you know our breaking news this isn’t what’s happening in america it’s not that far away people this is uh a short flight away for most of us to understand this very western society this is manchester uk this is uh You know, working class areas. These are areas where people, lots of Jewish people there, too, a thriving Jewish population there. And now they are under attack on their holiest of holy days. Not shocking that something could happen today, sadly, because that is the track record. People attack on these days that they know are very important. A lot of people may not even go to synagogue. They may not even find themselves religious, but find themselves at their local synagogue today out of tradition, out of honoring their families, or maybe out of a call from God. I saw some people say that too, saying, you know what, maybe it’s the two days of the year where the Jewish people feel like they can be themselves. So we need to talk more about that coming up on the third segment of the show. So next time we’re going to break this down, you’re going to hear more from Starmer. But we’re going to have a friend of ours, Steve Wiggins, who runs a great ministry, but is also a really great almost apologist on biblical Israel and its impact on modern Israel and what we really need to be doing to get around and support our Jewish brothers and sisters. Let’s talk about that coming up in the next segment. Check us out, aclj.org. You can give me a call at 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Seculo. I need to restate some of the facts. Of course, we are talking about the attack on a synagogue in Manchester in the UK. This is an area, like I said, has a large Jewish population. This is the Heaton Park Synagogue, Hebrew Congregation Synagogue, Manchester. It’s northern England this morning. The attack took place, again, of course, on what is today, which is Yom Kippur, the holiest of holy days in the Jewish calendar. I know a lot of people, obviously my family, that celebrate. are celebrating that honor today. It’s the day of atonement, the day you get right with God. A lot of people who follow Judaism, this is the day that they are in the synagogue. So think of this as sort of the Easter and Christmas of your church service in terms of the crowds that arrive. Many of these synagogues actually have movable walls to expand during these high holy days. This happens in the UK where the growing anti-Semitism is happening there like it’s happened here. And I love it there. It’s one of my favorite places in the world. And when this kind of attack happens, we need to think globally, not just what’s happening locally. Look what happened to our brothers and sisters also in the LDS church just a week ago. This is becoming all too common that we are dealing with these attacks. that we are dealing with true life and death scenarios just by attending your place of worship. And maybe that we don’t have the details of specifically why this person did what they did, but there’s also reports that they had alternate weapons on them, maybe bombs, maybe other ways. We know that they were currently trying to clear the area and to clear the body because they know that they were able to isolate it, take him down. This is something that was still being addressed the last time we looked. I do want to give you a little bit of a flashback and what’s going on this morning. So this is from Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has had a lot like when I was back, I was in London, I guess it was back in July. was under a lot of stress. There was talk right then that his administration was about to crumble. In the UK, it’s parliamentary. They switch people out very quickly, very easily. It’s very unlike what happens in America. So it wouldn’t be uncommon for him to have been ousted. And that talk seemed to have calmed down a little bit over the last few months. I mean, it was at a peak over the summer. But I want you to hear from him, of course, saying all the right things just this morning. Go ahead.
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The attack in Manchester this morning is absolutely shocking and all of our thoughts are with those affected. I’m on my way back to London. When I arrive, I will chair an emergency Cobra meeting. I’m already able to say that additional police assets are being deployed to synagogues across the country and we will do everything to keep our Jewish community safe. I’ve spoken to Mark Gardner of the CST and Andy Burnham, mayor of Manchester, and I want to thank the emergency services for the speed of their response.
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Okay, so he does want to thank the emergency service for the speed of their response, and I said that earlier. I say the same thing. This could be a much, much worse situation. Still ends, not just with bloodshed, but with death of innocent people trying to just practice their faith. And whether that’s your faith or not shouldn’t matter. Of course, we pray for the salvation of all people, including all of the Jewish people. We’ve been involved with Jews for Jesus and all of those type things since our founding. So you know what? We obviously pray for all of our friends and family around the world, people that we want to come to the Lord. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to practice how you worship, especially on these kind of days. These days where even people who are Christians may visit their local synagogue, may respect the tradition that they grew up on, Many of you maybe know it from things in pop culture. How many times Yom Kippur is mentioned in pop culture? The scenes out of movies like The Jazz Singer with Neil Diamond. You may remember those moments. of them in synagogue. Of course, I’m by myself today, so I understand this show is going to be a little different. But in the next segment, I’m going to be joined by my friend Steve Wiggins. You remember him from the band Big Tent Revival. For the last 30 years, 20 years or so, post Big Tent, he has been spending his time as a pastor, as someone building ministries. And he is someone I go to quite a bit in this conversation. He also has some Jewish background and heritage, so it’s close to home for him. where right now we’re seeing a pretty big spin. And look, I was watching a lot of it last night. I can’t help but hate watch sometimes. And that’s, you know, maybe today when the day you’re supposed to be fasting, maybe today’s the day I fast from, from watching Candace Owens. Maybe today’s the day I fast from watching, uh, some of these people who are just fermenting hate, uh, for the Jewish people. And I’m not talking about people that are going after, uh, Israel, the country, and are saying that they disagree with the politics of it. I’m talking about how clearly that they are stirring up, uh, incidents that now involve life and death. And again, I can’t help the fact that sometimes my Instagram feed or my ex feed shows me these clips and I send them to my friends. Can you believe this is what they’re saying? How do we talk about this? How do we fight back against this? Well, it’s a lot easier when you have Keir Starmer out there saying, you know, we need to, you know, we need to, you know, this is all horrible. We’re going to, we’re going to spend money and put assets in front of synagogues. Well, this was just two weeks ago. From Sturmer, this was obviously in that moment when a few of the countries in Europe got together and said, you know what? Now’s the time. Now’s the time, two years almost after the October 7th attack where thousands of people were murdered, thousands of Jews were murdered for going to a music festival or living on a kibbutz by Hamas. Now’s the time. Just say, let’s start the pathway to a Palestinian state. Again, remember this was before the deal President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu put out just a couple days ago. And look, I tell you, I question a lot of all of those things. It’s not like I’m sitting here blindly supporting anyone. But let’s hear from Keir Starmer. You just heard from him from this morning. Let’s flash back to September 21st, just a couple weeks ago.
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In the face of the growing horror in the Middle East, We are acting to keep alive the possibility of peace and a two-state solution. That means a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state. At the moment, we have neither. Ordinary people, Israeli and Palestinian, deserve to live in peace, to try to rebuild their lives free from violence and suffering.
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And of course, that sounds good. Why wouldn’t we support that? Well, because these are the moments that happen when you start down this very dangerous road. Now, the new plan President Trump has put in place and Benjamin Netanyahu, there is an eventual down the road securing of an area that could become a Palestinian state. Now, that is after you have someone like Tony Blair and some of these other people come in and kind of remake what that entire region looks like and have to spend a lot of time reeducating people. Because, of course, I believe that Israelis and Palestinians should be able to live in peace. And you know where they have lived in peace for a long time? Israel, where there’s plenty of people, plenty of Christians, plenty of Muslims, plenty of Jews, all living, the majority of them. Of course, there are fringe groups on all of these faiths and plenty of atheists as well. all living together in the only Western society, I’d say, in the Middle East, the only place that you would probably feel at home walking around. Sure, it has its own feeling and emotions, a lot of politics tied to it as well, but it’s one of the few places that you would feel connected to. You cross a border on any other side and you will feel like you are transported, not necessarily in a good way. You’re gonna be sitting there covering up your tattoos. You’re gonna be sitting there hiding your cross or your Star of David. This also comes with, I told you that my wife and I went to the premiere of The House of David season two. And of course, you got to spend hours watching some pretty bold Jewish people fighting back. And when you have these moments like this morning, the most important part is to pray, is to pray for the Jewish people, pray for the people in Manchester right now and in the UK, as they are dealing with a lot of anti-Semitism, as much if not more than what we’re dealing with here. I’d say you see it more in the streets there than I have here. I never felt unsafe when I was there, but you see more of the Palestinian rhetoric on the streets of… on the streets of London and those areas, just purely based on the way the city is set up. You may not live in a population like that where you’re spending a lot of time walking around, talking to people. But I also know a lot of great people there and they don’t stand for this. They are not here. You saw the hundreds of thousands of people that took to the streets to support even the rights of the people of the UK, their freedom of speech. And it’s tough to talk about the UK because it They’ve made it kind of tough. When people are getting arrested, of course people get arrested here. We represent them for preaching on the streets. Of course that happens in the UK. But they’re getting arrested for saying things that would be laughably controversial here. So we have to be real cognizant of this is not all the same. It’s not all the way things are in America. But when you have somebody ram through, and look, that happens more in Europe than the UK, where you feel these cars were set up to ram areas. Also, again, a lot more population on the streets. The Christmas markets that are about to open up in just a few weeks, we’ve seen the attacks on those as well. And don’t think that those attacks are not attacks on your faith, too. Of course they are. Of course they are. Phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110. In the next segment, we’re going to shift gears a little, not on topic, because this topic is still one we need to talk about. This is what I planned before this, you know, last night. And that was to bring in my friend, Steve Wiggins, who again was from Big Ten Revival, now is Groundworks Ministries. He’s going to walk us through a little bit. We’re going to talk to him about the importance of biblical Israel and why that still is in play with modern Israel. Remember Israel itself. This morning you may wake up and go, that’s that big old question of why would God let some of these things happen and happen to these people, whether it’s in our church, in synagogues, at the LDS church. But Israel alone, even the name, is to struggle with God. So we’ll struggle with those questions a lot, but it happens. Go to ACLJ.org also right now to look at some great content. We’ll be right back with Steve. Welcome back to Secular. Still waiting on Steve. We’re going to try to connect with him. May have some connection issues going on right now. Again, as we’re talking about the brutal attack this morning at a synagogue in Manchester in the UK, this happened, left multiple people dead, and including the attacker who was taken out very quickly, I have to say. The police force there did a good job when the fact that you had, it ended up just being, sadly, it’s so crazy when we have to say, it just ended up being two people. Two innocent people who are just trying to attend their local house of worship on the holiest day of the year end up dead. Plus, of course, the person who was attacking them. Now, this happens because it’s the holiest day of the year, because anti-Semitism is running wild, because there feels like there needs to be defense. As I talked about last week, there was an attack at a wedding here. I think it was like in New Hampshire, Connecticut, somewhere. None of the headlines read the truth. I sent it to Will, our producer, and I said, hey, look at this. This person ran into this service, this wedding party. This was an after party during the first dance. Targeted someone, yelled to the crowd, your children are safe, free Palestine, and then killed someone in cold blood. And that barely made any attention. That happened in America. Now you have the highest of holy days… For the Jewish people, the day of atonement, the day where you’re supposed to be going to get peace with God. Many people fast. There’s a lot of different traditions. Fasting is usually not enough or fasting is a option for you. It’s really to just, like I said, to have some, it’s kind of like a lint, if you will. I guess it’s an easy way to put it for a couple of days, for a day, 25 hours or so. We are about to be joined by Steve Wiggins, my friend and founder of Groundworks Ministries. Steve, obviously we are waking up to what is another attack on a synagogue. This happened in Manchester, UK. I mean, we haven’t even spoken this morning. But what I wanted to do with you today, someone who’s kind of a bit of a biologist, a bit of someone that I’ve spent time talking about scripture with, is to walk people through a little bit Not just historical Israel, but how that ties in to the modern day Israel, as we’ve seen now, especially coming even from the conservative side, even from sort of that far conservative side that are now seemingly trying to not only lose support for Israel, but they seem like they’re trying to rewrite the scripture.
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Well, I mean, that’s exactly right. And it’s a trend and it’s a real issue that’s going on in the world today, especially among evangelicals. I was recently invited to go to Israel in December. I think it’s the 1st through the 8th to be a part of a conference that’s put on by the State of Israel. And the purpose of that conference is to discuss ways to fight anti-Semitism. And maybe for the first time that I’m aware of, it’s not fighting anti-Semitism in the world. It’s fighting it within the evangelical community. And there are arguments, as we know, where I’ve heard even members of my own family say, well, we support the Jewish people, but we don’t support Israel. And then you start asking them, well, what are you talking about and how can you separate these things? And they say, well, you know, the state of Israel shouldn’t even exist. And and really the church is Israel. And I just stop and I think, what are you talking about? And and they say, yeah, I mean, the church is Israel and there is really no Israel there. And I say, so everybody that’s a Christian is now Jewish? No, no, God doesn’t have a plan for the Jewish people. And what happens is, is that people that don’t know the Bible are being led by people who don’t know the Bible well enough to teach it truthfully. And yet they’re teaching as if it is truth, things that are not biblical. And if you want to go through what some of those things are, obviously we can do that now.
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I think we absolutely should. Because I’ve sent you clips and just been like, my mind being blown from people who I would have never guessed, and we’re not calling anyone out, never would have guessed would have started to fall into this trap. Like I said, members of your own family, members of my family as well, that send me messages saying, you know, what about this? What about this? You know, what about this clip that went viral? And when I talked to you about it, you said, yeah, but they’re wrong and here’s why. And then I think I got a text that was like, you know, a page and a half long of exactly leading me through many different reasons. So I say, let them have it, Steve.
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Well, I don’t know that I’m here to let them have it as much as we’re just here to bear witness. What does the Bible say? And, you know, I suppose I just sort of jumped off into the question that you had asked, but I think it’s important to just identify as you have already and to just say that you know, how tragic that it was to learn what was happening in Manchester, England today, and to realize that this is not an anomaly, that more and more, especially throughout Europe, it’s becoming a baseline activity that people would hate Israel. And not just hate Israel, the state. This is the problem with this whole argument, because it comes out like, you know, we love Jewish people, but we don’t love the state of Israel. But in the end, the people who fight against, you know, people in Manchester, they don’t just take the state of Israel. They don’t want Jews to be alive. They don’t think they should exist at all. And so when you have within the church these arguments which come up, which are really anti-Semitic arguments. They’re just spreading Jewish hatred within the church by saying that there is a difference between Jewish people and the state of Israel. And all that that really does is it just stirs up anti-Semitism. And so one of the arguments that we see and that we’ve discussed, and personally, I prefer, instead of just trying to grab them out of the sky, personally, I prefer to… you know kind of somebody asked me a question i said well here’s a biblical answer to that but oftentimes we come back to the covenant between god and abraham and so a christian would say well this this covenant between god and abraham well this is just that’s from a long time ago this has nothing to do with the nation of israel Well, the issue that we run into is that in Genesis chapter 12, when you see this covenant where the Lord’s speaking to Abram all the way back from the Lech Lecha, you know, the great, you know, get yourself out and follow me. It just starts and it says in chapter 12 of Genesis verse one, it says, now the Lord said to Abram, get out of your country, from your family, from your father’s house to a land that I will show you. and I will make you a great nation. So the first thing that the Lord says in this covenant is that I will make you a nation. So you can’t say from that point on that when he says, and I will bless those who bless you, you can’t say at this point, well, he’s just talking to Abraham. If people bless Abraham, then God will bless him. No, he says there is a There is a nation which is going to come forth from you. So now the blessing now comes back to a nation of Israel. He says, get out of your country, from your family, from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you, meaning you being a great nation. And I will make your name great and you shall be a blessing. I think if you just look at the evidence of that right now, and you look at all of the great benefits of the world, which has come from and through the Jewish people, the world is blessed because the Jewish people have existed and that they continue to exist. You look at advances in medicine, advances in science, art, literature, motion pictures, music. I mean, you keep going through it all. For a people that really occupy a very small percentage of the world population, we have such a great enormity of blessing. Right. So how can you attribute that blessing to anything other than God’s continued blessing upon the people of Israel, whether they’re part of the nation of Israel or whether they’re outside of the Israel?
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Steve, I want you to stick around, stick around for a minute. We have to go to a break right now. But when we get back, I want you to kind of wrap up. And then also Steve’s going to tell you a bit about his organization and what they have going on at Groundwork. So we only take a break here for one minute. It’s just one minute. Then we’ll come back. Steve’s going to be joining us, and we’ve got other guests coming on later on. So just stay tuned with us. We’re back in one minute. Go to ACLJ.org. If you don’t get us on your local station, be right back.
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Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Seculo. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
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Welcome back to Sekulow. This is the second half hour of the broadcast. If you are just tuning in right now, I’m going to encourage you, when we’re done here, go back and listen to the last segment that we just did. The last segment of the first half hour we had with Steve Wiggins. Steve’s still joining us right now. Steve, to kind of wrap up the conversation, Steve is a great resource, by the way, for biblical truth and for someone who I trust. And you have Groundworks Ministries, which is launching and growing really significant new projects coming up in just a few months. I know we’ve been talking about it. I wanted to give you a minute to not only wrap up what you were saying, but to also just give you time to plug, because I think it’s really important for our audience who may tune in primarily for news, politics, culture, to really understand still the backbone of why we believe what we believe.
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Sure. Well, let me just start out by saying groundworksministries.com. That’s our website, groundworksministries.com. Does this groundwork? Yes, it works. Is it one ministry? No, it’s ministries. So groundworksministries.com. What we do is we lead people day by day, chapter by chapter through the Bible. And like you said, we have a lot of things that are growing that we’re developing even now. The Bible says that we should be prepared always to give reason for the hope that is within us. Not just human reasoning, no. Biblical reason for the hope that is within us. Because what’s interesting is that oftentimes opposition that you find toward the Word of God doesn’t come from the world. It just comes from worldliness within Christianity. So it’s important for each of us to walk closely with the Lord and to be taught by His Holy Spirit as we’re reading the Word so that we can give reason, not just so we can debate, just so we can argue with people, The biblical truth ends debates, and that’s exactly what we’re headed for. You know, in Romans chapter 11, speaking of this anti-Semitism which is growing within the church, the apostle Paul even said, he says, I say then, has God cast away his people? Certainly not, for I’m also an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew. And I think what a lot of people don’t understand is, number one, how many Americans are living in the nation of Israel today. It’s incredible. Hundreds of thousands. How many American citizens live there? It’s amazing how many Christians live there. How many Jewish believers, Jewish people, Israelis, Israeli citizens who believe that Jesus is the Messiah. And they also live there. In the end times, when you look at the book of the Revelation, you know, the world’s not being drawn to Cleveland. You understand that, right? It’s all going down. It’s all headed toward Jerusalem. He’s driving the whole world to one place. And there is a reason why this nation has been established. And the last thing that I’ll say is this, when considering people who say the nation of Israel shouldn’t exist because they’re not Christians, and as if you have to be a Christian to earn being in that land. In the days of Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 29, the Lord said that… There’s going to be 70 years of exile because of sin within the people, the land. And there was 70 years of exile. And then he says, after 70 years, I’ll cause it so that you can return. And sure enough, through a miracle of God, a pagan king says, hey, you Jews, if you want to go back to the land of Israel, rebuild your temple even. You can go. It’s a miracle of God that it was happened. You understand there’s no spiritual revival that happened prior to that. It’s when God says it’s time to turn the lights back on in Israel. That’s when the lights come back on. There wasn’t a revival among the Jewish people until over 100 years after the Babylonian exile started returning. And that happened when Ezra showed up with the word of God. And when they read the word of God to all of the people, then the people understood the truth of the word. Then you saw repentance. Then they’re seeking the face of the Lord. Then they’re humbling themselves. Israel’s only been a nation again, right? After a long, almost 2000 year exile. It’s only been a nation again. since 1948. So according to the Bible, I mean, if you just look at biblical history, there could be another 20 to 50 years before revival happens. So don’t think that it can’t happen or that it won’t happen, but definitely don’t get into the business of cursing and not blessing the people of Israel.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely, Steve. Thank you so much. We are just out of time, but go to Groundworks Ministries. We’re going to link it all. Steve does incredible work. I hope you enjoyed it. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow, packed back half of the show. Rick Grinnell’s joining us right now. Rick, obviously we’re in the middle, or middle of day two, I guess, of government shutdown. And look, we’ve been talking a lot. The first half hour, really, up until right now, has been all about Israel, the holy days, of course, this attack that happened in Manchester. But I did want to pivot, because last night, I got a text even from you, and that we are in the middle of this government shutdown. I… We actually spent a good portion of the last segment talking about the arts and how the arts have majorly made a comeback at the Kennedy Center. There’s been a bit of a change of tone, even coming from the mainstream media. You have seen, you were on CBS to announce, I loved that, on CBS this morning, announcing honors, and that cast of people on the couch was like, man, I’ve been wanting George Strain in this forever. They were so glowingly excited. Obviously, it’s on their network. They’re not going to like, But, you know, when there’s the words President Trump involved, you never know what they’re going to say. And they seemed largely very excited about this. And now you even have other content returning. You people who have been going after you, been going after the Kennedy Center say, well, you know what? We got to give it to Ambassador Grinnell when he is able to pull off some pretty big wins.
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Yeah, we were pretty excited over the last, I’d say, two or three weeks. We’ve had some really big wins. We’re bringing back the Vienna Philharmonic, which hasn’t been in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center in 14 years. And we brought them back. We’re bringing Sougar Ballet. You know, they haven’t been here in decades. We’re bringing in the Glenn Miller Orchestra. And then this past weekend, we had the gala, the Kennedy Center Gala, Black Tie, big fundraiser for the National Symphony, and we almost tripled the amount that we’ve raised literally breaking every fundraising record we’ve had for the gala and had 50 of the crowd brand new people so i think that people are beginning to say you know when you do big common sense programming as president trump wanted us to do you’re going to get big support and we’re finding that whether it’s les mis or the sound of music which is on till sunday we’re just bringing back the big common sense uh programming And I think it’s really popular. This is what you’re looking at right there is the Library of Congress. The young von Trapp singers who sing every night at the Kennedy Center utilized the foyer there and the acoustics. And so the kids got together and sang a little rendition. And it’s glorious. I mean, it’s really beautiful, especially in that room with all those acoustics.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely. And I’m so thrilled that you’re doing this. I’m also thrilled that the arts are thriving. Like you said, when you do programming that can reach the masses, all of a sudden they show up, as you said. I think that’s something that shouldn’t be poo-pooed or laughed at or anything. And look at the content. It’s not like you’re bringing in things that anyone should be. This is what’s coming to a lot of major cities, a lot of major theaters. And of course, the Kennedy Center should be providing that great content. Now, this does come at an interesting time. You’re in the process of redoing the Kennedy Center, spending time raising money for it as well. But we are in the middle now of day two of this government shutdown. You’ve lived through these shutdowns before. I think we spent about an hour yesterday, Jordan and I, just breaking down, people, what this looks like. Because I think a lot of people who have never been… They’ve been through a government shutdown. They maybe just never knew they went through a government shutdown because they were not politically attuned to what was happening. And a lot of us over the last eight years, you could say 10 years, got a little bit more attention being paid to what was going on in the news. I even received texts from people who, you know what, maybe last time they were in their early 20s and now they’re in their mid 30s and they’re going, what does this mean? What does this mean? As someone who’s lived through it, I want to give you that opportunity as well.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, newsflash, it’s like a government shutdown every weekend, right? The government is shut down all weekend. Sometimes if you’re looking at the Senate, it’s usually a three or four day weekend every weekend. And so I don’t think that this is going to be missed very much if it doesn’t go on for that long. But, you know, one of the things I saw Bernie Moreno, my friend from Ohio, talk about how members of Congress, both the House and the Senate, should not get paid And what we’re talking about is back pay once all of this is settled. You know, this is the kind of trickery that the government does, is that government bureaucrats are furloughed. They don’t have to show up to work because it’s a shutdown, but they all get their money back when this is done. So we at the Kennedy Center, we have a small portion of our staff, which is federal employees. bureaucrats, and that’s federal employees who work on the Kennedy Center as a monument, because it’s a monument to John F. Kennedy. So a small portion of our individuals are federal employees. I’ve told them, we’re just going to keep paying you. We’ll figure out the pay, but you got to show up to work because I know what’s going to happen. And a week or two, they’re going to figure it out. And then they want me to pay everybody back pay after they didn’t show up. So I just said, show up. We’re going to keep paying you. We’re going to figure it out. But no one at the Kennedy Center is going to be furloughed.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s good to hear that the furloughs. But we do know this affects people. And like we said, and you brought up is for the mass majority of people. People, they’re not feeling the effects of this yet. They aren’t going to feel the effects of it. Likely, it’ll get done before they do. Now, obviously, there is a group of people who their jobs have been furloughed, and President Trump this morning even kind of put out a statement going, well, this does give me the opportunity, and I think, look, this has been a bit of what people voted for with President Trump, is to look at these departments and go, okay, what is actually necessary? What are we doing here? Have we overbloated a lot of these departments? Now, I’m not for anyone losing their job. I think we need to be very clear about that, especially in these really tough times for a lot of people. But if the door opens, you’re able to go, OK, now let’s see who’s really doing what needs to be done. It gives that opportunity to President Trump and his team to start making those cuts.
SPEAKER 07 :
Look, I view it slightly a little bit differently in that the American taxpayers have a group of people, public servants, who work for them. And if we need to constantly right-size the government and make sure we don’t need that many public servants, then they go find work somewhere else. I I don’t feel bad about that at all because the reality is we’ve got a lot of people working really hard and the federal government and the state government and the local government is taking a lot of money. If it’s not producing, then I would say let’s right-size the government, not feel bad about it, We haven’t done this in decades. We keep adding people. I can tell you just from my little perch at the Kennedy Center, we had massive numbers of people in different departments that hadn’t been looked at. We have rooms that haven’t been touched since 1973 inside the Kennedy Center. No revamping. And it’s just outrageous that leaders allow themselves to just sit in seats and let things completely unfold without taking hold and asking the tough questions so i hope our politicians in washington are constantly saying and cabinet officials are saying what are we doing is this the appropriate number of people and when you let people go thank you for your service um this is all of our tax dollars let’s not feel bad about it yeah
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, that’s a good point. And I think that maybe I don’t feel bad. We had a couple of callers call in that were like, you know, I’m President Trump’s one of the biggest supporters. However, I’m furloughed right now and I’m nervous. And I get that. I get that understanding of being like, I’m nervous for my job. But you are right. It’s a country where there are a lot of opportunities where people who are qualified for these jobs can go find other places of employment. You’re right. Sadly, it had to come to this point. It wasn’t that you had someone minding the shop, if you will, making sure that we were staying on track, that we weren’t over-bloating these things. Like I said, you had rooms in the Kennedy Center that haven’t been touched since the 70s. I think people would be appalled by that when it comes to what their funding is going to.
SPEAKER 07 :
Look, I don’t think our forefathers ever envisioned that Washington, D.C. would be a city that is untouched by the economy or layoffs. It’s supposed to be the capital city. It was supposed to be a city that you were never really from. You went there for a short period of time and then you went home. That was the whole vision. And now we have Washington, D.C. as a big, bustling city that never gets budget cuts. And so that wasn’t the vision. to have a permanent bureaucracy, people who work for the federal government for 25 years. I think we’ve got to move a lot of these agencies outside of Washington, move them to the rest of the country, have different types of people who have the headquarters. I’m talking about the headquarters not being in Washington, D.C., and moving them outside. I think that would really benefit all of the taxpayers, and we need to make decisions for all of America.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s not just so you don’t have to spend less time in D.C. I feel like that’s the you’re like, we got to move these departments out of here. Why? Because Rick is like, oh, we got you muted.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hold on. Go ahead. Manhattan Beach would be a great place to put one of those agencies.
SPEAKER 03 :
Fantastic. And Nashville, too. Yeah, absolutely. We’ll take it. We’ll take all the people coming in. Rick, thanks for joining us today. I am really excited about what you’re doing with the Kennedy Center. Of course, that’s something, the arts is near and dear to my art, so it’s always nice to have that connection. But I am very excited for new programming and for the… the tone to finally come down a little bit. People were going after you, were going after what was happening there, but I think they’re at least even seeing the writing on the wall that you may have had a couple people say, we’re not doing this, but for the mass majority of the people, and the mass majority of performers, they want to be involved in what you’re doing at the Kennedy Center. We’ve got like 20 seconds, but go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
Look, I appreciate that. It’s a testament to all of the individuals at the Kennedy Center who are trying to get big, beautiful programming, things that are popular, the people that want to come see. Everyone is welcomed. Everyone should be coming.
SPEAKER 03 :
Awesome. Thanks, Rick, for joining us. When we get back, I want to hear from you, whether you want to respond to what Rick had to say about the shutdown or… the arts but of course we’re going to continue our conversation about the attack in Manchester the synagogue the high holy days here that we are right now your support of Israel maybe the rights move away from supporting Israel what do you think is cause of that do you believe any of it’s true give me a call 1-800-684-3110 now’s the time to call in 1-800-684-3110 got a few lines open give us a call right now support the work of the ACLJ by the way you’re not going to hear this kind of show anywhere else by going to ACLJ.org and making a donation today. Welcome back. Last segment of the day. We do have about four lines open right now. We had a few calls, but some of them dropped off in the last segment. So right now I’m going to encourage you to give me a call at 1-800-684-3110 before I take calls. We spent three-fourths of the show talking about what was going on in Manchester and really the growing rise of anti-Semitism around the world and what it’s leading to. We saw the aftermath after October 7th, which was the immediately condemnation of Hamas and then how quickly, and we predicted it on this show, unfortunately, saying, hey, in a week or two, that’s all going to change. You’re going to have people like Bono and you two go from, we know who the bad guys are to a year later going, yeah, maybe we don’t know. Maybe Israel is also one of the bad guys here. And look, no one wants to see death and destruction. No one wants to see war. No one wants to see bloodshed. I would much rather this war come to an end. The deal’s on the table. It’s been on the table now for a couple days. Hamas has yet to respond. There were some good movements early on. Now we are in the middle of Jewish high holy days. Silence is deafening right now, even with the push from other Palestinian leadership and a lot of the Arab countries, the Muslim countries that surround the Palestinian areas of Israel. They’re pushing for this deal to happen. They want not only a permanent end to the war, they want this plan to move forward. But it’s not what’s happening right now. Why is that? Let’s just see. I want to remain hopeful. I want to remain hopeful that this deal can get done. We can see it end to the war, at least for now. Because as we know, and as Steve said, this is a war that’s been going on for thousands of years, and it’s not going anywhere. But maybe we can bring it down for a little bit. Maybe it’s going to be okay to travel with your friends and family to Israel. No, look, a lot of people are doing that. We have our offices there. We have the ACLJ Jerusalem. So I don’t want to pretend like there aren’t people going. I haven’t gone personally since the attacks. I would love to. I’d love to take my kids. They need to see it. If you’re a Christian, by the way, and you’ve never been. You have to. I would say it’s not a mandatory for your salvation, but it will change the way you look at scripture. It will change the way you believe. Because when it’s right in front of you, it’s pretty hard to deny. It’s pretty hard not to be able to picture all of it that went down. Of course, you have the high-tech cities of Tel Aviv, but then you have the old city of Jerusalem, and you have the areas that surround it, and it’s all right there. Not in black and white on your pages, in living color. It’s amazing. So let’s take some calls. We have Warren who’s calling in. Warren is a ACLJ champion. That’s someone that gives on a recurring basis. They give essentially like a membership fee to be part of the ACLJ. They don’t do anything else. They don’t give a lot of perks. They do it because they just want to make sure that their support is always here for us. And what we do mainly is to try to keep all of our content outside of a paywall. We want to make sure you can share this with your friends. Warren, go ahead. Thanks for taking my call.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I wanted to comment on this replacement theology we’re seeing in the right moving away from Israel. It’s of the devil, obviously, because God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He has not changed his mind. I believe the church is his bride, and Israel is still the apple of his eye. He won’t turn his back or replace them with anybody.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, Warren, I couldn’t agree more. And look, I have to say that the conversation coming out of the right. And, you know, I’ll let some of these, you know, I would say the comedian bases, the Rogan bases that have come out and started questioning. They didn’t grow up in this. They didn’t grow up with this sort of support of Israel because it’s obviously biblical as well. So though I don’t like their position, I can at least understand why they’re having this internal crisis. When you do see the imagery out of Gaza, it does break your heart. It should break your heart. But remember where this all started. However. When you see people who have been in the Christian conservative movement and proclaim the name of Jesus so aggressively, maybe to the point of where you start questioning sincerity, and I don’t want to question anyone’s faith or anyone’s belief ever, whether you are a Christian, whether you’re Jewish, whether you’re Muslim, Buddhist, whatever it may be, whether you’re an atheist. I’m not here to question your heart and your beliefs, but it’s very hard for me to see people proclaiming the name of Jesus to love one another, to love your brothers and sisters. And then, of course, to spend this moment to not just blame Israel. But to take it out on the Jewish people, to start stoking fires of tropes that have been around for thousands of years, and even in this country for 100 plus years, including what happens in the entertainment industry. There’s just so many things that we have fought so hard against, but still come up because of these very, very strong influencers that have millions and millions of people. And you start losing a lot of people on the conservative side when you start moving away. But there’s a whole other group ready to take over. And that group, I’ll be honest, is a little scary to me. Let’s go ahead and take another call. Let’s go to Ann, who’s calling in Pennsylvania. This will probably be your last call, four calls. Last time you can call in, 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Call real quick with a quick comment. I’ll try to get you in. Ann from Pennsylvania, go ahead.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you so much. You really touched my heart because I am dying to go to Israel, but for all the reasons that you pointed out. And so quickly, I wanted to say, you know, Israel, first of all, has been the one negotiating peace for years. Just ask the Jews in the Iron Dome. And then to jump here, because as Christians, we are descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And this is what you talked about for two segments. Thank you for the two greatest segments that I’ve listened to on the ACLJ. There’s a spiritual aspect. for supporting Israel. Our alignment with Israel and the fact that the Arabs and the Americans and the Christians living side by side in Israel, and the fact that churches and synagogues, here we go again, continually being intact, well, I guess that proves there is something so special and spiritual between the two. OK, of Israel and America, Christians and Jews. And I guess all the Jewish contributions that your guest so eloquently pointed out. And now we have conservatives. And thank you for because I’ve been feeling this. And now the conservatives who are everything, all the aforementioned. Right. And now are even insisting that a Jew, that Israel killed Charlie Kirk. Yep. This is blowing my mind. Thank you guys. Love you guys.
SPEAKER 03 :
I feel the same way. And I’m not going to lie and say that I haven’t spent a lot of time watching some of that content just with my mouth agape going, I can’t believe this is what people are listening to and falling for. And look, thankfully that letter, you know, I don’t want to trivialize the Charlie Kirk assassination. Um, Or pretend that I knew the guy. We’ve been in the room a couple times, a few times, emailed back and forth a few times. That was about it. We represented him here at the ACLJ, but I didn’t know him. So I don’t want to ever claim that. Because I see people who do claim that, and we see what happens. And what happens is you say, he wrote this letter to Benjamin Netanyahu. That letter comes out and it says everything we’ve been saying here. Which is that Israel, as much as I love and support Israel, they often fail in the PR side of things. And you’d think, by the way, if they were controlling the media, as those people say, that they wouldn’t. But they don’t do a great job. There is something lost in translation. We’ve been trying to fight that fight for decades. And Anne, I appreciate your call so much. that gives me hope and i hope it gives some of you hope who are listening today maybe woke up with that terrible news i’ve been in a funk uh all day kind of like i have as well go spend time with your family tonight go spend time with your friends pray for our friends in israel pray for the jewish community around the world pray for your christian friends pray for everybody by the way then they come to jesus but pray in general because we are in some dark times uh but there is hope and i see revival coming And as Steve Wiggins, who came to the show, I’m glad you liked that segment. I told Steve we’re going to give him a whole show coming up soon. I’d love to have him on a lot more because he brings that biblical side to this that we desperately need. That being said, you can’t hear a show like this anywhere else on the planet, and I really believe that. So I encourage you. We’re not supported by major sponsors. We are supported exclusively by donors like you, people that give. Go to ACLJ.org. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.
