BREAKING: Trump Probe Investigation Expands to D.C.
SPEAKER 05 :
We got breaking news.
SPEAKER 03 :
The DOJ expands its investigation into John Brennan. Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 05 :
Welcome to Sekulow, packed show in studio. And guests, we had Jordan’s in studio, Will’s here, of course. And then we got Mike Pompeo joining us a little bit later. And we want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110 as we let people start to log on to our live stream. Which, by the way, if you don’t watch us, know that if you’re just listening, you can watch us full television-style broadcast. That’s at ACLJ.org, YouTube, Rumble, however you get your ACLJ app, however you get your podcasts. Essentially, we are there, whether that’s live 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time. every day Monday through Friday and of course you can work your way back and then archived as soon as the show is over you can get it on demand on any of those platforms and we’d love for you to be there when you do it live though on YouTube and Rumble and Facebook you get to be part of the live chat which is always fun get into some lively discussions and debates but we do have some breaking news Will let’s break it down
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. This just came out this morning. We’re finding out that the acting Attorney General Todd Blanch is moving forward and expanding the investigation into those individuals in the intelligence community that may have engaged in a conspiracy to undermine The first presidency of Donald Trump. This is something we’ve talked about. This is something we’ve seen even frustration of why can’t we get there? Why can’t we see real accountability? We know the evidence that’s been laid out about this. But what we’re finding out now is that the the investigation is no longer just happening in Florida. There was a grand jury impaneled in South Florida where they were hearing evidence about, namely, John Brennan, the former CIA director, which we know pushed forward this Russia narrative even when other individuals in the CIA were telling him, this is not credible, this does not live up to our standards as the CIA. And he said, well, doesn’t it just ring true? But we’re also finding out it is expanding to Washington, D.C., that a grand jury is impaneled there as well and that there are cooperating witnesses that are going before that grand jury giving testimony. So we know now that former senior intelligence and FBI officials are cooperating with the DOJ on this Jordan.
SPEAKER 06 :
you look at this and you realize again that these investigations you got top individuals here like former CIA directors you’ve got to have a serious team on it and obviously what happened when the acting attorney general came in he saw that you know this career prosecutor had been on this but there wasn’t someone who had you know come from the outside or maybe a specialist and going after individuals that high ranking that’s not your average just CIA agent that you’re investigating for crime this is your CIA director and And if you truly believe that the criminal investigation is warranted, the speed at which this one has gone has been very slow. And I feel like you’d either find you should know what you’re looking for when it comes to criminal acts. And either you find the evidence that is going to be strong enough to bring to a court, to a jury, to a grand jury, or you’re going to have to come out and say, listen, there were things that we think were wrong along the way. That’s different than building a court case and actually sending someone to jail.
SPEAKER 05 :
That was one of the questions I had is what is the end game of all of this when you have this so many years later and we’re dealing with situations that feel at this point, based on everything we’ve gone through, almost like ancient history. I know it’s not, but what’s the end game of these investigations?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and I think once you look at also what Tulsi Gabbard released even last week. That’s what I mean. The ongoing issue of this conspiracy, how it even tied in with that impeachment over the Ukraine phone call was really perpetrated by the same people that pushed this hoax on the American people. The end game is accountability. The end game is for the DOJ is obviously to try and bring about a prosecution.
SPEAKER 05 :
Alright, hey, with that, we are going to keep this conversation going. We’ll have to reset it coming up in the next segment, so stay tuned. If you want to be on the air about this, we do have a bunch of lines open right now. They just opened up. 1-800-684-3110. It’s April 21st. We only got nine days left here in our double… The Difference. I’ll make sure I got it right. Double the Difference Drive. I want you to be a part of it right now. Go to ACLJ.org and have your donation doubled today, whether it’s to fight for life, to fight in support of Israel, so many things that are very important to us that we want to make sure that we have the resources to continue on these incredible battles that our team puts forward. Be a part of it at ACLJ.org and have your gift doubled. Have it go twice as far at ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Secular. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. I just noticed that a lot of you have just popped on and are joining us on all our different platforms. If you’re watching right now, let me know where you’re watching from. We always like to see that in the comments. It’s a great way to show the worldwide impact of the ACLJ and the worldwide reach. of this show that we do here whether that is on youtube or rumble or any of the platforms we’re on but i think we need to reset what’s going on because there is obviously confusion when we start talking about these investigations that start stemming back a decade uh with the amount of time uh that has elapsed the amount of things that have happened that this is still important and it’s good look i think it’s important to know that your doj cares To still be following up on these things and not to sweep them under the rug.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and I think that is part of the frustration is that almost many of these people think if we can just extend this out long enough or we can win enough elections, I’ll never be held accountable. What you see here is specifically related to. a deposition that John Brennan gave to Congress in 2023, where it was the Judiciary Committee, it was Jim Jordan, also asking questions about this, doing congressional oversight investigations, and still pushing the lies that we now know were lies. We have the evidence from the intelligence community themselves that was released by the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, that showed that they knew what they were saying wasn’t true. and they were still pushing this Russia hoax on the American people for one reason one reason only and that is to bring down a sitting president it was an internal coup this was the deep state in conjunction with former people in those offices still pushing a narrative that’s why President Obama said you have to do a new intelligence community assessment ICA as quick as you can now that he’s won the election They didn’t expect it to happen. They thought they’d done enough damage. But when President Trump won, they had to change the entire script and they knew that things they were basing it on were false or erroneous or not up to the standards of the CIA and our intelligence community. And so Jordan, when the oversight continued, even into 2023, Because of the makeup of Congress and then the presidency changing hands after the COVID era, what we see is that they were still trying to get at the truth, even though we know that it appears the intelligence community had all the documentation.
SPEAKER 06 :
we also know what Jim Jordan said that back in 2023 that it’s clear to him now and this is his opinion and view that John Brennan when he was under oath and testifying before the judiciary committee and sometimes those are done behind closed doors that when he said the CIA had nothing to do with it they had evidence to show that that was that was untrue And it, it would have been at the levels of a John Britain type. It wouldn’t have been at low level officials that John Britain wouldn’t oversee if they were helping to write and then distribute the Steele dossier, which they used to say, uh, president Trump was not qualified to even run for president, the United States. uh or be the president united states and even after he was president you know muller impeachment impeachment non-stop and uh and i think even still to this day the russia ukraine war you know people question is he really on the right side while we’re we’ve been supplying the number world number one supplier of weapons to ukraine in the world has been the united states of america president trump has been doing that and yet still he has to deal with every day oh he’s a puppet of putin somehow the question is To me, it’s almost not anymore about how much the CIA was involved. It’s, at what level were they lying to Congress? And then can you connect those crimes there? Yeah. What were the crimes that were committed? Because John Brennan wasn’t writing the Steele dossier with Christopher Steele. There’s a lot of people that would have to be involved in a conspiracy like this. And then if you go into a conspiracy to take down a president of the United States after they were elected, as well. So they didn’t stop. They didn’t say, oh, you know what? He beat us. We’re going to leave this behind. They kept it going. And then they did an impeachment.
SPEAKER 05 :
So I guess if they keep going, then we might as well keep going against the other sides, what the DOJ is thinking.
SPEAKER 04 :
And I think what’s also important to point out here is that While we look at these things and we think, oh, man, that now this has been going on 10 years. Will anyone ever get held accountable? There are a lot of big stories in our news cycle that are wanting accountability for things that have happened a long time ago and realizing that just because something started 10 years ago and clearly the conspiracy continued on. It doesn’t mean that there should get a free pass and that we should not think this is important. Remember, they were trying to take down, this is the party of democracy, of saving democracy, someone that was elected by the people. They were trying to get out of office, not by waiting four years and running a clean campaign and trying to win at the ballot box, by trying to find ways to tarnish the reputation and bring it down internally. That shouldn’t have a statute of limitations in my opinion.
SPEAKER 05 :
I do wonder if, and maybe the audience can tell me this, is it something though that when that election happened in 2020, I’m sorry, 2024, and it was a fairly what you consider a modern landslide for President Trump winning the electoral and the vote. Popular vote. Popular vote. It doesn’t end the corruption, but is that the answer to the corruption? Do you care after that? I’m curious if you care. Like, look, I understand why it’s important. I understand why they should be doing this. Does the American people find it to be worth their time to invest in this story when, as you said, so much has happened in the meantime? And look, a lot of you are asking about Virginia. We’re going to get to that in the next segment here. So if you tuned in also wondering about the redistricting situation going on in Virginia, don’t worry. If you want to call in on that, you can at 1-800-684-3110. It’s going to be a topic we hit coming up.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I think personally, this all ties back to even stuff we talked about yesterday when we talked about the mayor of New York and pushing his agenda. And we brought up that speech by Clarence Thomas that was given at University of Texas about the foundational documents, the Declaration of Independence, and how the progressivism… that we are seeing that he referenced, started with Woodrow Wilson and has permeated, it has uneasily coexisted with American founding documents, but it is not something that can live forever, coexist forever. And when you look at even this battle, It’s not just about President Trump. It’s not just about the deep state or these bad actors that were within it. It is really a clash between foundational constitutional republic and our founding documents and everything we’re based on and the way that the deep state is trying to completely subvert our American system of government and try to be the only thing that matters and that tilts the scales in elections, in policy, in everything.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think that they don’t like that under the Trump administration, while the CIA plays a very critical role in our national security, they’re not put forward as like people to go on TV every weekend. They sometimes do, but every weekend to push a political narrative. and that’s what the Obama intelligence world was kind of weaponized into doing right which they weaponized it into just another part of the political machine I think they did a very good job of doing that in the sense of saying listen you can’t question the president I’m the head of the CIA so if he’s telling you this and I’m telling you this and I gave him the information we’re the CIA but when you realize how politically active they all were then when they realized oh Donald Trump may actually win this election what could we do to make him ineffective We’ve got to tie him to Russia directly. So first we’re going to say that we think Russia wants Donald Trump to win. Okay, that’s already again. Look at the situation now and decide whether or not you wanted Donald Trump to win if you’re the situation involving Russia and what we’ve done to one of their biggest allies to keep things cheap. in Russia, Iran, and China. Do you really think they want to deal with Donald Trump again, really? The second part I would say to that is then they had to craft this dossier, go out, put their names on it, and say it was completely true, thinking that because it was Donald Trump, No one would ever scratch the surface and think, you know what, this sounds a little ridiculous and over the top. And then you realize it all crumbled. It all crumbled. And they had to move to a phone call about Ukrainian prosecutors and Joe Biden saying, if you don’t fire someone, we won’t give you a billion dollars.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, we do have some calls coming in. We’re going to get to in the next segment. We are going to move a little bit of this topic. We’re going to come back to it, though. So if you have a question or comment related to this, Feel free to call in. But we are going to move in the next segment, Will, to what’s happening in Virginia. Of course, a lot of people, this has become a bit of a national news story. Right. And this is not the first one. This is the third or fourth states that have started messing around. uh with their districts for purely political gain and we’ve seen some very creative maps over the last few years with that i want to hear from you i just lost a caller from virginia so if you’re in virginia i definitely want to hear from you 1-800-684-3110 because this is going to remake your state, a state that all three of us have lived in at some point or another. So give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. Also, nine days left. That’s it. For our Double the Difference Drive, I want you to be a part of the Double the Difference Drive. You know, there’s a lot going on right now, even in the fight for life. Pro-life Americans, we know, are being targeted for their beliefs. It’s been happening around the country. Today, we’re filing a major federal complaint against Massachusetts officials for targeting a pregnancy center and its medical director getting back to Massachusetts. And even though Even after this pro-life center was cleared for work, Massachusetts officials shifted tactics using another agency to continue these same attacks. And you don’t want, you want to make sure our team is there. We’ve got a great legal team. Really, the team in terms of life, there is no one that’s had more experience than the ACLJ. We have been at this since the birth of the pro-life movement. And you need to be a part of it as well. And right now, you can unlock a donation ready to be made with any gift. It’s going to go twice as far as it ever has in this fight for life and for the fight for our freedoms. Go to ACLJ.org right now. Again, ACLJ.org. We asked for Virginia callers and they lit up the phone lines. So stay on hold right now, Virginia. We’re going to get to as many of you as we can throughout the next few segments. So stay on hold. We do need to give, though, for those who don’t know or maybe haven’t been following very closely, really what is going on in the state of Virginia. And what I’m seeing, because again, it’s always a game of politics. People who I respect or have respected before saying, you know what? I’m always against this. I’m always against the gerrymandering and the redistricting and all this. But since it’s essentially against Republicans now. And Trump is the leader of the party and so on and so on. All’s fair. And that is the state of America of which we live in, which your convictions are only tied to whoever is in the White House and making sure that they are stopped, that your political opponents go above even your own convictions. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. But Will, let’s set up what’s happening in Virginia.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right now, Virginians are going to the polls. They’ve also had an early voting period where 1.4 million Virginians have already voted. Today is the final day. They are going to the polls today. They close at 7 p.m. Eastern time. What are they voting on? A redistricting plan. And this is one of the more bizarre plans that I’ve seen come out of any of these states because there is no even thought that this looks fair. It’s just bizarre. this is where the state already the people of virginia had voted on an independent commission and all of that that went into that yielded a map that had six representatives that are democrats and five representatives that are republicans now obviously those could be competitive in some areas but as of right now six to five split in favor of Democrats. This is in a state that Kamala Harris won by 52%. So you look at the congressional representation and you looked at the presidential race, looks like it’s pretty on par, a little bit more in favor of Democrats. This new plan will remake the congressional map to be 10 Democrats to one Republican member of Congress, Jordan. That is one of the wildest gerrymandering scenarios I have seen.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, in Virginia, I mean, for a big portion of Virginia, it’s a highly populated area. is Northern Virginia. This is basically, it is a suburb of D.C., and maybe even not a suburb of D.C., but almost part of D.C. when you start looking at not just the people who live there, but also the major companies that are headquartered. As you go out to Dulles Airport, you see… This is the only way to work in D.C. All the mega companies, all the biggest companies you’ve ever heard of have got towers there in Washington, D.C., whether they’re the aerospace, whether it’s the tech companies, everyone is there. And so… For these voters, again, and we talk about the bureaucracy being 90% Democrat, and it shows you, if you draw the lines right, and you’ve got a lot of federal workers in the state, especially bureaucrats, and Virginia does, so people that go into Washington, D.C., if they actually do show up at the office anymore. I know President Trump’s put some emphasis on that again. Right. um is that you know what these are these are democrat voters that’s why you already saw they most the time they’re leading the state occasionally we get a glenn yunkin a clake occasionally you get a governor in they get their five-year term but it doesn’t really lead to long-term republican dominance in their legislative branch or the next election as we saw with uh with uh with abigail spamming it was easy she was it was she blew her opponent away right right
SPEAKER 05 :
I think we should take a call. I want to go to Peter in Virginia, who is an ACLJ champion. Look, we know we have a lot of support in Virginia. Virginia is where the ACLJ was hubbed at one point, of course, from Washington, D.C. That’s where our legal headquarters are now. But, of course, Virginia plays a big history with not just the founding of this country, but even with this organization. So, Peter, go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, hey, guys. I’m an ACLJ champion, but I am driving home right now from the poll. I just went and voted. I am in the more southwest section, Lynchburg, a big Christian area. Sure. You know, there was a turnout there. I’ll tell you what, though. I really fear what’s going to come of this. It’s been so commercial. They run commercials like crazy, including Obama and others. We got to make elections fair. Things are so unfair. And every now and then they’ll flat out say we got to stop Trump. But most of us, we got to make elections fair, fair, fair, fair. How is 10 to 1 fair? I mean, like you all just said, I mean, you tell me there’s 10 percent Republicans in this state or less. It’s outrageous. And it’s the lying that gets me. Say it straight up. We’re going to make it from 6-5 to 10-1. Who’s in favor? Because there’s a lot of independents, right?
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s a state that has shown Republicans can win. The former governor… Glenn Youngkin is a Republican. And again, the congressional seats under the current map were about split. Democrats had a little advantage, six to five. You know, and I think if it was like redrawn and it was maybe like seven, four, you would look at something that you say, OK, maybe that’s not as controversial when you shift it and say. You know what? We’re going to make 10 of these Democrat and one push all the Republicans into one seat and effectively nullify the Republicans left in these other 10 districts to make it impossible for them to ever put forward a candidate that could win. You are trying to turn a purple state. a state that is truly kind of very independent in who they may vote for for governor in presidential elections and for Senate, and you’re trying to say as Democrats, not worth your time here, not worth spending your money here, because just by numbers alone, you don’t have a chance against us in 10 of the 11 seats, and that 11th seat, we’ll give that to you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and here’s the other problem as well that people aren’t really bringing up. Just last week, so this was on April 14th, The governor, the new governor, Abigail Spanberger, signed into law a bill that adds Virginia to the National Popular Vote Compact. That is something we talked about years ago. It kind of lost some momentum, but this is a group of states that is trying to pledge together that if they can reach 270 votes combined by the states that sign on, then it completely redoes the way that our elections are decided. It gets rid of the electoral college. It circumvents the Constitution. These states say that, hey, if we get to 270, we control the election. So a group of states will say that if we get to 270, we won’t care what our state votes. So a purple state like Virginia, no longer could be a purple state they will only assign their electoral college votes based on the national popular vote they’re disenfranchising their voters consistently in Virginia this is happening last week signing a bill into law national popular vote compact this week they’re trying to get rid of any conservative voices in their congressional delegation This is really scary stuff.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, hey, phone lines are still open. We have a couple more calls for Virginia. I’m going to get to Scott next. Not yet. We’re going to get to him in the next segment. So stay on hold, Scott, because you have a really important question. A lot of people are asking about this, of anything that can be done. But when you have this kind of election, we’ll talk about this when we get back. So if you’re curious of what the next steps may or may not be able to be, stay tuned. We’ll get to it. With that, second half hour of the broadcast. If you’re not watching online, some stations don’t carry the full hour of the show, but we do this show every day for an hour. I want you to be a part of that community. Go to ACLJ.org. Watch us on the Salem News Channel. Watch us on YouTube, on Rumble, on Facebook, wherever it is that carries the full hour. Because next segment, we’re going to keep this discussion going. Mike Pompeo is going to be joining us in the following segment, and then we’re going to take your calls and comments, as many as we can, at the end of the show. So stay tuned for that. Also, last few days. of our Double the Difference Drive. I need you to be a part of this today. Look, we’ve talked about a lot of the work here of the ACLJ, and the ACLJ, as much as it is the American Center for Law and Justice, it’s a worldwide effort. We have the European Center for Law and Justice. We have the ACLJ Jerusalem, so many other places, offices around the country, lawyers around the country, our media headquarters here. We can’t do any of this without you. We’re not funded by major donors. We’re not funded by major sponsors. We are funded almost exclusively. by individual donors that give a few times a year maybe 50 maybe 75 and during these special months and this one’s over in a few days and we’re not going to have another one for a number of months you can double the difference today be a part of it right now have your donation doubled it’s matched ready to go and unlocked as soon as you give at aclj.org
SPEAKER 03 :
keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 05 :
Second half hour of Sekulow. We are discussing right now at Jordan Studio, Will in Studio. Mike Pompeo is going to be joining us in the next segment. We’ve got a lot of calls coming in about the Virginia redistricting vote that’s happening today. And, of course, we’ll change the entire landscape of Virginia if it passes, which right now it feels like there’s a very good chance that it will, which will take it from what is historically a very purple state, a very split state,
SPEAKER 04 :
you could say maybe one of the few in the country that votes in sort of a bipartisan way and is going to change that completely can i read something for you that’s kind of shocking and tells everything sure this is from the current minority leader in the house of representatives hakeem jeffries he told reporters last night it’s going to be close because virginia is a purple state So they want this strategy. And he’s admitting it’s going to be close because it’s a purple state. It’s basically 50-50. It could go either way. Meanwhile, what it will do if they win is completely erase it being a purple state. It will turn it into a congressional delegation of 10-1 instead of 6-5.
SPEAKER 05 :
I want to go ahead and take a call about this. Scott’s calling from Virginia. A lot of you are calling from Virginia. Keep calling. 1-800-684-3110. Scott, go ahead. Scott, you there? All right. Unfortunately, Scott. Scott, there you go. Go ahead. Feels like we don’t have him. I’ll read the question for him. He said, I haven’t seen enough information on this redistricting from Republicans. If this doesn’t go well, will it be disputed at the Supreme Court of the United States? I think a lot of people are asking, is there any kind of legal ramification when it comes to a vote? Even if it was unfair, we feel like it’s unfair.
SPEAKER 06 :
You know, there were protected classes. The Voting Rights Act used to do this and Most of that has been nullified now because we’ve said, OK, we’ve dealt with that long enough and courts overseeing. But yes, courts do look at redistricting in this way. I mean, it would almost be that it was done to favor one political class over another. So one political view over another. So viewpoint discrimination and making it impossible for what used to be at least almost an even split in Virginia politics. and where democrats okay they get a one seat lead that’s a that’s a fair fight in a purple state that makes sense that sometimes republicans win the top uh the top level government positions the president right with the votes for us right and so there are ways to look at it it’s different in the past what’s been more successful for the left is to try to use race And other protected lines of class, they’re even more protected by Supreme Court precedent. But usually when you take, if it’s as kind of as absurd as this one sounds, where you’re literally going 6-5 to 10-1, it does raise the question of… court intervention being appropriate even though they usually don’t like getting involved when people have had a chance to vote but and i think the next call is about the confusing language we should take that because i’m going to read it for everybody and it’s pretty confusing let’s go to tom in virginia tom you’re on the air oh yes thank you very much um my question i’ll be real quickly i voted this morning and i don’t know
SPEAKER 02 :
hearing this a long time and of course a lot of publicity so I knew pretty clear to vote no but the way the thing was worded I was really concerned because the way it was worded it would lead people to misunderstand and vote yes I think we’ve all been there Tom we’ve all been there in the ballot box going wait a second it’s only I think it’s even got about a minute it’s about a it’s one sentence it’s a long sentence
SPEAKER 06 :
Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census? That’s usually when states do redistricting is every decade when we do a new census based on where the voters are in their state. Of course.
SPEAKER 04 :
And it’s even biased language saying to restore fairness. Restore fairness. Everybody wants that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Temporarily restoring fairness.
SPEAKER 06 :
But, you know, there’s a few election cycles, including a presidential race in there.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, in just a few years. With that, hey, Mike Pompeo is going to be joining us in the next segment. But after that, we want to hear from you. 1-800-684-3110. He had a pretty cool event happen yesterday. We’re going to discuss that coming up again. Phone lines are open for you, and I want to hear from you. at 1-800-684-3110. I’m going to keep telling you to support the work of the ACLJ. It’s how you get this show for free. It’s how these clients get all their legal work for free. It’s how when you need it, we’ll be there for you. Go to ACLJ.org, make your donation today. It’s ready to be doubled, unlocked, that match right now at ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Seculo. Secretary Mike Pompeo is joining us right now. And what a day it was, Secretary Pompeo, for you yesterday. So I got to start that as I unveiled your portrait. It was very cool to see the photos from this event. So just got to get your reaction. Feels pretty like a pretty special moment. There you go. It’s up on the screen right now for those who are seeing it. You with the current secretary. Pretty, pretty amazing to see the history being made in real time there.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, it was pretty special for me and for my family. It was so lovely of Secretary Rubio to be there. He’s a longtime friend. For him to take time out of his busy schedule to be with us was pretty remarkable. And you’re right. You know, my son and I joke, you know, Jefferson, Adams, Webster, Pompeo. I don’t think so, you know. And it was really something that a lot of State Department folks who worked with me on behalf of President Trump were there, and it was a pretty fun day.
SPEAKER 04 :
That looked amazing, Will. Well, I want to shift topics away from the fun stuff. Logan gets to take the fun question. I’ll go to this. I knew that. Good portrait, too. You look great. It was a very good portrait. The senator from Connecticut, Chris Murphy, put out a post on X. Logan would criticize him for saying Twitter in his post, but he put out a post in response to what turned out to be Iranian propaganda. Wasn’t even a true story about ships getting through the blockade that were Iranian. And he responded with, awesome. Now, he further has gone and tried to correct and say, what, people can’t be sarcastic? Like, it’s appropriate for a sitting senator to be sarcastic about a serious matter like war. But I just wanted to get your take on this. This is a sitting U.S. senator, someone who’s been very critical of the war, and his decision to go forward is just be sarcastic and call it awesome that a fake Iranian propaganda story broke through and he believed?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I can’t tell you if he was actually being sarcastic or not, but that’s not the way anyone read it. It was read exactly as written, which was to say, isn’t that great that these ships made it through? When it turns out, A, it wasn’t true, and B, had it been true, it would have been awful. Awful for the Americans’ security, for the region’s security. Now, Senator Murphy has behaved throughout this as if he wasn’t putting America’s interest ahead of others’ interests. He has literally made this political when it should be about American national security. And to see that, to see A, that he was fooled as a senior United States senator, and B, that he would engage in this while we’ve got American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines in harm’s way is truly indecent.
SPEAKER 04 :
I think what’s so concerning, even beyond all of that, is how those that are opposed to this conflict, this mission from our military against Iran, how lightly they’re taking it. They would consider sarcasm, whether it is sarcasm or not, or at worst case scenario, outright cheering for the success of our enemies. They tell us that this is going to put us in World War III. This is going to destabilize the economy. It’s hurting everyone at home. But yet their actions and their words seem to not take it very seriously at all. When they do this, I’m having a hard time figuring out if they really do think this is that serious or if they are so comfortable in D.C. playing politics, they don’t think it’s very serious at all.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, sadly, I think it’s the latter. I think they’re making this very political. They are trying to win an election, a midterm elections by talking about high gas prices and what a calamity this is. When, in fact, this was created by President Obama and Secretary Kerry, who set up the conditions to allow Iran to have a clear pathway to a nuclear weapon. And some president was going to have to do this. And President Trump boldly decided this was the moment that will only get harder from here and took it on. It’s not it’s not an easy task. It’s not a riskless task. We’ve already had Americans killed. But this was necessary. This was not a war of choice by any means. The Iranians have been trying to wipe Israel from the map for decades. They want to destroy the United States of America. And they were getting closer to having the ability to do that. And so for a senator to take it this lightly and politicize this in this way. Not only puts our military folks at risk, but undermines the central thesis that is America is going to deter our adversaries through the use of power in a way that protects Americans. And so I’m troubled by that. I’m troubled by the way the media has covered it as well. We have made enormous progress. More work remains, but I’m confident President Trump will achieve the ultimate end objective.
SPEAKER 05 :
think we want to talk about that look for those who want to see that clip we’ll play it in the next segment so you can see specifically from uh senator murphy but i did want to talk about uh vice president vance headed back to pakistan like if it call me skeptical at this point it just feels like when you have a now second bite of the apple if you will for these peace plans for negotiations uh can we be taking these seriously at this point when i feel like we have already had so many if you want to say false deals or false starts where The Strait is open. It’s closed. It’s open. It’s closed. Never going to close again. And then we have these conversations that feel like they’re a bit at loop and we’re taking people by the word. But you have clearly a very serious Vice President Vance making these trips. But should we be taking it seriously as this war progresses?
SPEAKER 08 :
Now, I’m probably even more skeptical than you are, if it’s possible. Sounds like you’re pretty skeptical, too. By the way, I don’t fault the president for trying to exhaust the diplomatic possibilities. Fair enough. But the Iranian regime now, I don’t know that there’s anybody that can actually speak on behalf of them. I don’t know who’s going to sit across the table from him, nor who it is that could actually speak on behalf. You’ve seen them be at cross-purposes between their foreign ministry and the IRGC and the active military. These folks have decided, I think, to take this all the way through. And I think that means that the United States is going to have to do what President Trump talked about. is continue to put pressure on the regime. The blockade is absolutely doing that. They will relatively soon miss payroll and continue to put that pressure on until there’s something that is akin to surrender. I think we can get there. I think we can do so with absorbable risk. And I think that’s what President Trump’s going to be stuck with, because I don’t see anybody showing up there in Islamabad to say, yeah, we’re happy to get rid of our nuclear material, happy to stop our proxy fighting. Those don’t seem likely.
SPEAKER 05 :
That seems to be the sort of, like I said, rinse and repeat moment where this is happening over and over again. I do want to hear from the people who are calling in. We’re going to take calls next segment. So 1-800-684-3110. Go ahead and get on hold right now. We’ll take your calls the next segment.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, Well, one thing I wanted to follow up on, because as we talked about the politics that people are playing over this entire conflict, you’re seeing it kind of manifest in bizarre and unsettling ways in the politics of the country. And I think it goes back to there was a speech that got shared widely by Justice Thomas over the weekend talking about the principles of America. It was at a celebration of the Declaration of Independence at University of Texas. And He talked about the principles that come out of progressivism. It’s not possible for the two to coexist forever with the principles of the Declaration of Independence. And when you’re starting to see candidates for high offices in the United States, like this primary candidate for Senate in Michigan, that was expressing that the reason for terrorism is largely to blame the pain that Americans have put on people. It’s completely flipping the script of what America represents what our founding principles are and whether it be Senator Murphy who’s going to mock the United States through a tweet that happens to be based off false propaganda from the Iranians or it be someone who’s running for office and is trying to blame the United States for terrorism it seems like we are at kind of a crossroads politically as Justice Thomas referenced between progressivism plowing forward and our core principles that we should be reminded of almost daily in this 250th year celebration that we’re about to have in July.
SPEAKER 08 :
The I think Justice Thomas nailed it. The progressive extremism we’re seeing on the radical left today is inconsistent with America’s founding and tradition. Period. Full stop. That’s the reality of it. When it comes to foreign policy, they do blame America first. They think they think we’re decadent. They think we’re indecent. They think we’re the problem when, in fact, all we’ve done for 250 years is our level best. to make sure we put America first, but to defend freedom, religious freedom, property rights, human rights all around the world for decades in a way that is noble and decent like no other nation ever has. And so I think this progressivism will ultimately have to ride its moment. But the tide will turn because I think Americans understand that that’s inconsistent with who we are, the most fundamental values that we hold dear as we celebrate 250 years of America.
SPEAKER 04 :
Mr. Secretary, thanks for joining us. One thing you said, they do put America first on their blame list. So really, it is a division between America first as we honor our principles and stand on them, or if you are on the other side, who you’re blaming first. I liked your turn of phrase there.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you. Have a good day.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right. With that, we got one more segment coming up and I want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. That’s 1-800-684-3110. We’ve covered a lot of ground here today. We started off talking about the expanded probe into John Brennan, the situation happening there. We moved on. We discussed the Virginia redistricting. We move to Iran. Discuss that. All of these are on the table if you want to call in. 1-800-684-3110. If you’re in Virginia, you want to talk about that. I know a lot of you do. It’s okay. Call in. Voice your thoughts, your feelings, your concerns, whether you’re voting, whether you’re not. And of course, around the country and around the world, if you want to call in as well, we can take calls on any of those topics at 1-800-684-3110. As we head to break. I do want to encourage you to double your difference. That’s right. You’ve heard me say it. You’re going to hear me saying it for the next nine days. Be a part of it today. Help unlock all of the pledges that have been made. Whether you’re giving $5, $50, $500, the value is doubled. It goes twice as far. So whatever you donate, understand you can double the impact of your donation today.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome back to Sekulow, final segment of the broadcast here in Jordan. Right before we went to break, we saw some breaking news happen about the vice president going to Pakistan.
SPEAKER 06 :
We’re talking to Secretary of State Pompeo, former Secretary of State, who’s part of our team here on Sekulow. A new report that J.D. Vance’s flight to Pakistan did not take off as scheduled. He’s actually going to be at White House policy meetings tomorrow. today and there is not travel to Islamabad on a new schedule yet. And it’s currently unclear if there will be a trip by Vance at all. That’s what sources have told. So the vice president is currently now not on the way to Pakistan for a new round of talks with Iran and has not rescheduled. It’s not a scheduling issue. It doesn’t look like. and appears that there are some high level meetings going on which they are all the time but that J.D. Vance needed to be at the White House so you’ve got that happening in just the last few minutes and again it just shows you because we were talking about it with Secretary Pompeo the fact is that you can go to the negotiating table as much as you want but if you don’t have people that you’re negotiating with that one even have the authority to say okay we’ll concede on this we’ll concede on this if you don’t have that clear line of command you don’t really know who you’re negotiating with or if what they’re even telling you is true so even if uh one part of the iranian delegation said okay we we will take back to the our our you know our leaders uh the money that you’re offering to unfreeze for the containment by the United States of our enriched uranium. And so we’ll take that back. But then another side of it says, never. That’s not even… It can never be on the table. So if… uh, the enriched uranium is never on the table. The 20 billion is never on the table. Those have been the only two things we’ve talked about is possibly maybe peaking the Iranian interest at this moment. And, and we were concerned that the money would go before the uranium. Well, now, now it’s, uh, no talks at all. And you have to wonder, is that because even in the lead ups to this would have been a second round of talks, there had just been no motion by those who claimed to represent Iran, uh, to get any closer to really, uh, coming to any concessions when it comes to enriched uranium and of course the situation was it worth sending our vice president yet again halfway across the world to sit down with Iranian government officials and military officials none of which were sure if they could actually make a decision together or on their own. We still don’t know. No one can point to a person like former Secretary of State Pompeo said and say that person really does have the authority to make the decision and it would be respected by all those different branches within the Islamic Republic of Iran. I don’t think that person exists right now, and that’s why it makes the negotiating so difficult. And it’s going to, I think, continue to be, the U.S. has got to continue to be tough on Iran, try to keep the Strait of Hormuz open as best as possible. If Iran is going to fire on vessels even out of India, they’re flagged by the Indian flag, then we need to engage other countries in realizing how out of control this regime is, that even some countries that do financial work with Iran are being shot at as they try to criminalize
SPEAKER 04 :
the Strait of Hormuz that’s right and remember the the ceasefire deadline expires tonight yeah so tomorrow could be a very interesting day if they have decided not to to go and have negotiations what happens yeah I mean I would imagine the U.S.
SPEAKER 06 :
is preparing um a major if when the ceasefire falls and they’re gonna and obviously this was a kind of last chance The president’s phone is always available. If there is someone in Iran who could make a deal, we still don’t know if there is. But his phone will be available until that last moment. But I have a feeling that the U.S. military, the Israeli military is going to be ready to respond the moment that ceasefire ends. And let me tell you on the flip side, I don’t know how much Iran has left. They claim things. They have used weapons that we didn’t know they had that were actually operational yet. But we don’t know how much is left. But I have a feeling they are, too, preparing for what to do at the moment that a ceasefire does, in fact, if it’s not extended again through some kind of deal. And the way things look… Is it maybe this meeting in Pakistan could have done that? Well, maybe that’s something they could have gotten as an extended ceasefire to continue the talks and maybe figure out a way to keep the straightforward moves safely open. And you could make that kind of a short win. But it looks like as of right now, the ceasefire is going to fold. And that means that you’re going to see a return to at least air warfare.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. All right, let’s go ahead and take a phone call. This is back on the Virginia issue as the state of Virginia, Commonwealth of Virginia votes today on this redistricting plan. Let’s go to line three. Tamara, you’re on Seculo.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hello. So I heard another program where an elected official in Virginia was talking on this very subject of whether there would be a legal challenge. And he said that they had years ago a constitutional amendment regarding redistricting. and that there were certain procedures that had to be followed, and this effort had not followed those. So they pretty much have their legal challenge ready to go should this measure pass today.
SPEAKER 04 :
Tamara, here’s the complication with it. One, 100% someone is going to file a legal challenge. Yes, absolutely. But here is the problem, is that this is another amendment. They actually are doing it the… The more safe way to not get something overturned, they are putting an amendment to the people. And what does this amendment say? That’s where it’s clever. This isn’t having the people vote on the new map. It’s having the people vote on whether or not the law will be suspended that they have voted on for such a period of time to allow the assembly in Virginia to make a new map until 2030 so it’s very clever it doesn’t say do you approve this map it lets the democrats in the assembly make a new map and that’s why we know what the map is It’s a two-step process. It’s that they will allow this to go forward, and then the assembly can quickly redraw this until 2031. So I think, Jordan, yes, there will be legal challenges. It’s not a shoo-in, though, because at least while we disagree, and the people of Virginia probably disagree to at least 50%, they are doing it a clever way to minimize the risk of a court overturning it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right, so they’re saying, listen, this is not forever. This is just kind of, get things right we think that is more correct for right now we think that we’re a much more blue state even though they did yes just elect a democrat governor they had five years of very conservative republican governor who won i mean so these are states that republicans win for president that democrats win for president as well so i mean you’ve got a basically i’d say it’s a 55 60 at most favoring democrats if their turnout’s great But Republicans have shown they can win statewide there. They can win all the way up to governor. And the presidential candidates still can win, Republican presidential candidates. So this, like Will said, doesn’t tell you in the text that we read out that before we get to do this again after the 2030 census, which would not be redrawn until 2031 for the 2032 elections, is that they have figured out a way to take their 11 districts and turn 10 of them into safe Democrat seats and then throw one district to the Republicans. And right now it’s divided kind of the way you would think. 60-40s, six Democrats, five Republicans in the 11 districts.
SPEAKER 04 :
And that one district that will go to Republicans, it’s the district that borders West Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina to the south. So yeah, it’s very much where you’d expect them. Okay, they can have that. Many of these Democrats would probably rather break up into middle Virginia and leave that part of the state behind as well.
SPEAKER 06 :
We do a lot of that through ACLJ action as well. But, Will, this is why when you get to these amendments, turnout’s going to be huge. We’ll see what happens today. I think the greatest chance conservatives have of winning today against this move by the left is turnout. And we will see if the millions of dollars spent by the left get people to turnout to vote on a referendum on redistricting.
SPEAKER 04 :
Folks, we’re up in the final days of our Double the Difference drive here in April. Go ahead and support the ACLJ at ACLJ.org.
