In this engaging episode, we delve into the intricate geopolitical dynamics as President Trump and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince engage in historic discussions about defense treaties and the Abraham Accords. Explore the significance of a trillion-dollar investment and unpack what this means for both nations as they navigate international relations and internal policies. Witness the shifting landscape of Saudi Arabia’s global image as they strive for modernization amidst lingering historical complexities. Beyond geopolitics, we also provide insights into the convergence of New York’s political scene with the intriguing election of its youthful new mayor and the socio-political narratives that
SPEAKER 05 :
On today’s show, President Trump making major deals with Saudi Arabia, and we’ll dig in.
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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 Sekula.
SPEAKER 05 :
Welcome to Sekula. We got a great show and a packed show today for you. Of course, we are discussing the big meetings that were happening yesterday and will happen today as well between the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, MBS, and President Trump. These feel like unprecedented times. Of course, they were celebrating being a non-NATO ally. with the United States for a long time and now have declared their investment will go up from $600 billion up to a trillion-dollar investment from Saudi Arabia. We can discuss the good and bad of this. Of course, I’m sure a lot of you here in Saudi Arabia, maybe you’re excited about this or maybe you cringe. I know there’s probably a mix of both. Obviously, it’s been a very… different two decades, I say, with Saudi Arabia. Of course, a lot of us start thinking about the September 11th attacks, and you can’t not think about that. Of course, the role that maybe Saudi Arabia played in some of that. It’s a very different time, as we have seen the last decade, as they have started to try their best at modernizing, at westernizing a bit of their culture, and of course, major investments in the world of entertainment and sports. And we’ve seen that time and time again, whether that was through Live Golf, whether that was through their investments in the WWE. You’ve seen that with UFC always being there. It has been a time where they have tried to show the world what Saudi Arabia can be. They’ve had major events, major conventions. They have theme parks being built. And of course, you’ve probably all seen that it’s the Riyadh season and all of those things that we have seen over the last year. What does that look like? I can flash back to even just a few years ago. few years ago when they were uh actively marketing to the wwe audience in the first year i don’t believe women were allowed to wrestle i don’t even believe women were adult women were allowed to be there and then within a few years and now is where women are wrestling there are people in the audience they’re running commercials saying look uh you know we’re working towards equality here women can now drive of course this is all pr propaganda marketing doesn’t mean it’s not actually happening of course we can’t also forget about what happened the kashogi situation just a few years ago. They brought that up even with President Trump. President Trump kind of brushed it off a little bit and said, you know, things happen. And now, though, we have this meeting and this meeting said, I mean, this was one of the quotes that came out from MBS. He said, I want to thank you because you’ve agreed to invest is from President Trump, agreed to invest $600 billion to the United States. And because he’s my friend, he might now make it a trillion. But I’m going to work him on that. They also talked about what their relationship would be like with Israel and the Abraham Accords. I found that to be one of the more fascinating parts. Of course, getting Saudi Arabia on board for something like the Abraham Accords is a little easier said than done. They both actively seem to want it to happen. But then they obviously have their own issues where President Trump sees Israel one way. Saudi Arabia maybe wants to move towards more of a two-state solution. But if that was to happen, of course, we’re talking about the current state of affairs where that would be controlled by some of these other Middle Eastern countries that have become a little bit more westernized throughout the last decade. I know people that have traveled to Saudi Arabia. I know people that worked in Saudi Arabia. Obviously, again, they are investing a lot of money into the United States. There’s rumors and thoughts right now in Hollywood that they are going to be the purchaser of Warner Brothers, the They have denied that, or I believe Paramount or whoever it was that currently is in control of some of that, having that negotiation together with them, said that didn’t happen. The Variety article was inaccurate. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t that serious conversation happening right now. And of course, we all need to be aware of the influence of Saudi Arabia on our country. But overall, this seems like a pretty major positive. I would love your thoughts on this. How do you feel? about our relationship with Saudi Arabia. Of course, they’ve been one of the biggest buyers of weapons. It says, I know they want to get planes. They have all the different things they want. But MBS even said, we want to be part of the Abraham Accords. But then he said, but we also want that to be with a secure, clear path to a two-state solution. So again… a bit of a different conversation here than just creating a travel, maybe, or some kind of vacation destination for Israelis in Saudi Arabia, like a lot of the other countries have really wanted. With that being said, we are in the middle of our Freedom Drive, and I want you to support the work of the ACLJ. I’ll talk to you about that a little bit more when we get back, because right now our donations are doubled. Not going to take calls today, so if you want to comment, I would love you to do it. Put it in the comments if you’re watching on YouTube or Rumble. And we’ll monitor those and we’ll get back to you if we can. Again, that’s at ACLJ.org. Great place to watch and, of course, to donate. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Seculo. Again, we are in the middle of our Freedom Drive. It’s actually hard to believe we are starting to wrap up our Freedom Drive. Here we are on the 19th of November. A month has flown by. You know, I’ll just say I was in New York City over the last four days, and it was a very interesting time in New York. Obviously, they are all still talking about that historic election of Mamdami as the new mayor. And I have to say, I mean, there was part of me that I went out and was looking over the city and thought, man, this is going to be run by someone in their mid thirties. And that’s pretty wild. to think of looking at how vast that city is and to think the person who’s going to be running this city is quite a bit younger than me. But you know what? There was actually some very interesting movements that happened while I was there. Some that the conservative audiences were maybe more excited about and the liberal audiences were not so excited about. The conservatives maybe were a little bit more relieved of the fact that he did not let go of the head of the NYPD and said she was actually going to stay and is doing an excellent job. This comes at a very different time, a very different point of view Because this is not someone who is a radical who wants to see a dismantling and rebuilding of the NYPD. This is someone who is very much on board with their current trajectory. So what does that look like for the more left side, the hard left side of the Democratic Party who wanted to see a very socialist vision of democracy? of the nypd i don’t know the news was certainly happy to report about it and discuss it and of course the other one was that he wants to meet with president trump and president trump wants to meet with him and say we need to get what’s best for new york uh these are positive signs maybe it’s a positive sign that he ran a little bit more left than maybe he actually is on the other hand While I was there, he was on the news saying, of course, if Benjamin Netanyahu comes to town, I’m going to arrest him. I’m going to have him arrested because, you know, we’re an international city and the International Criminal Court has ruled him, you know, has put a warrant out for his arrest. Therefore, we should obey international law, which is not something we do really here in America is follow the International Criminal Court and their laws. However, however, it’s not to be not taken seriously. Yet we all know. That is not something that even the mayor of New York City can do, along with a lot of the promises he’s given. But look, I think there were some positives and some negatives that came out of that, but it was interesting to see the city’s reaction. The city felt alive. I was at the UFC 322 over the weekend. That is a very interesting group because you had a lot of people, a lot of conservatives, a lot of Charlie Kirk merchandise. You saw a lot of people like that walking around. On the other side, I don’t know politically on the other side, but it felt very much almost like a world event because you had people cheering for China. It almost felt like the Olympics. You had the Dagestani group and the Russians that were there. You know, it felt kind of good. It felt kind of good to be in a room full of people from all over the world, all there for one reason and to kind of celebrate these incredible athletes and to cheer for your country and to cheer for people that you didn’t necessarily agree with the politics of their country. but you could still respect them as athletes. That was pretty wild to watch, and I’d say I had a great time seeing that. The first time I’d ever been to one of those events in person, and it was a refreshing event to have, and that was at Madison Square Garden. At the same time, President Trump is having these very active meetings, very active meetings now with the crown prince, Saudi Arabia, MBS, talking about all the different ways that Saudi Arabia wants to invest in America and vice versa. We know this has been controversial. I know I see some of the comments. I’m sure there’ll be comments coming in saying, I like this and I don’t like this. Obviously, most of us have seen the advertisements to come to Saudi Arabia, again, to see all the different… All the different options. They did a big comedy festival that was very controversial. There’s a Riyadh season they’re promoting. There’s theme parks. There’s all these things happening right now. I mean, there’s a Mr. Beast theme park that opened there this week. I mean, this is a different Saudi Arabia, or at least they’re trying to make you believe it’s a different Saudi Arabia. I think we should hear… from both. You’re going to hear from the press. You’re going to hear a little bit of the conversation back and forth between President Trump and MBS. I just kind of want you to get a feeling of the way they’re talking. The conversation’s very friendly. It’s very open. Of course, we know we’ve had a good relationship with Saudi Arabia in general for at least the last decade. They’ll say the last hundred years. They kind of ignore a few of those major things. Again, we have to, you know, can’t forget about their involvement in the September 11th attacks and what that looked like. But let’s hear from President Trump and MBS just as from just yesterday.
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Have you reached an agreement on a U.S.-Saudi defense treaty today? And are you going to bring up the Abraham Accords in your discussion? I already brought them up. What did you say? I think I got a positive response. Would you like to respond?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, so definitely. We believe having a good relation with all these new countries is a good thing. And we want to be part of the Abraham Accord. But we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path of two-state solution. And today we have a healthy discussion with Mr. President that we’re gonna work on that to be sure that we can prepare the right situation as soon as possible to have that.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think we’re, you know, I don’t want to use the word commitment, but we’ve had a very good talk on the Abraham Accords. We talked about one state, two state. You know, we talked about a lot of things in a short period of time. We’ll be discussing it further, too.
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But I think you have a very good feeling toward the Abraham Accords. Yes, definitely, Mr. President. We want peace for the Israelis. We want peace for the Palestinians. We want them to coexist peacefully in the region. And we will do our best to reach that date.
SPEAKER 06 :
And the defense agreement, have you reached agreement on that? We pretty much have. Some questions for the Crown Prince, if I could just finish. We have reached agreement on that.
SPEAKER 05 :
They have reached an agreement that, of course, not about the Abraham Accords, just to clarify, because I know it was a little hard to hear what they were talking about there. That was a defense agreement, which, of course, was talking about training of arms and all of the different things that have come into play. It was, you know, the fact that you have, this is where you’ve got to give it up to the Crown Prince here, who is at least playing the game. Saying, you know what, we want peace for the Israelis, peace for the Palestinians. I don’t know that that is a term. I don’t know if peace for the Israelis is something you would have heard from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia a handful of years ago. At least maybe 10, 15 years ago. So the guy is trying to at least show a positive view of his country. I’d love to hear what you think about this. Again, I know for a lot of you, probably those of you who are a little bit older, who did not grow up in Riyadh season exclusively, maybe don’t understand our relationship with Saudi Arabia or maybe haven’t followed it. But it does seem like a country that is wanting to work with us and willing to work with us. And like you said, seems very, like I said, very, very friendly in these conversations. And they are a highly technological company or company. country as well with so much tech coming out of the middle east we know it comes out of israel significantly a lot of the ai technology a lot of things you’re working with is israeli based of course that’s also true with saudi arabia because they kind of have unlimited funds that is the weird part about it when you say a trillion dollars they can invest just think about that idea they have a trillion dollars to invest because they kind of can have as much money as they would like to say they have It’s a different kind of economy. You’re talking about a kingdom here. You’re talking about a country that is not necessarily run like America in terms of currency. They can throw ridiculous amounts of money at something like a Warner Brothers potentially and outbid everyone. But again, then that comes with influence. And what does that influence look like on the world? I’ll be honest, when there was that bid of whether they were going to take over some of these top sports, when Live Golf and then you had the WWE and the UFC, all of them were talking about potentially selling, there was part of me to go, these are American companies. Warner Brothers built by Americans. I don’t… necessarily want to see it. The electronic arts sold significant portion of their company to a company controlled essentially by the Saudis. What does that look like? What does that look like for the future of the way our entertainment is now positioned to our kids and how our sports are presented? Now, again, if they can be in good faith, I’m not going to just besmirch them because of their country of origin. I would never do that. But you do obviously want to be careful as well. I want to talk a little bit more about that investment. I want you to hear another clip from President Trump and MBS. Let’s hear a bite, too.
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many areas in technology, in AI, in air materials, magnets, etc. That will create a lot of investment opportunities.
SPEAKER 06 :
So you are doing that now.
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You’re saying to me now that the $600 billion will be $1 trillion. Definitely, because what we are signing, it will facilitate that. I like that very much.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, that’s great. I appreciate that. That’s great. No, we’re doing numbers that nobody’s ever done. And in all fairness, if you didn’t see potential in the U.S., you wouldn’t be doing that. You don’t want to lose money.
SPEAKER 05 :
You don’t want to lose money. Of course, money does talk. But also… Potentially the U.S., they also see potential of influence in the U.S. So you got to make sure where that investment of that trillion dollars, like I said, is going. President Trump, very confident it’s going to create a lot of jobs for Americans. A lot of people are, again, you have to then discuss what’s it going to look like when you’re working for a Saudi Arabian company. And look, a lot of people, like I said, that maybe are working on some of the top-leaning entertainment, they’re already dealing with that. Live Golf, obviously, you’re dealing with that. Of course, they end up having to essentially swallow up the PGA and everything that happened there. The money is off the charts in the ways that they can handle things. So we got to be careful, too. We got to make sure that we’re investing in the right ways. And of course, your kids are going to be watching, go, yeah, I want to go to Mr. Beast’s World. Why would I not want to go to Beastland? Riyadh season for everybody. So let’s just be careful here as we monitor what’s going on. But again, I’m always happy to see any sort of positive talks in terms of the Middle East and the United States of America. If we can create peace, that would be fantastic. But let’s not forget, again, about all of the issues we’ve had over the years. Some of them more recent than not. With that, hey, we’ll be back in just a moment. I want you to go ahead and put a comment in if you can. Let me know where you’re watching from. I appreciate it. If you’ve got a comment, like I said, I’m not going to take calls today. But phone lines are not open for you. But you know what is open? ACLJ.org we are in the middle towards the end now of our freedom drive where all donations are effectively doubled that’s right there’s another ACLJ champion ready to unlock their donation today you just got to go to ACLJ.org go to ACLJ.org right now any donation you make will be effectively doubled so you can double your impact and I encourage you to do that support our media work support our legal work do it today that’s at ACLJ.org we’ll be right back Welcome back to Sekulo. Phone lines are jammed right now. We got one open, actually. 1-800-684-3110. I want to bring in CeCe Heil, Senior Counsel here at the ACLJ, to give you a bit of an update. Obviously, our eyes were on the election last night across the country, but now we are looking towards what’s happening in Nigeria. There’s an update there, and I want to give you an opportunity to share that.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, we’re all still very much celebrating the fact that President Trump put Nigeria back on the countries of particular concern list for their persecution of Christians. And like we’ve talked about, you know, for this past week, Nigeria has more Christians killed for their faith than all of the other countries combined where Christians are killed for their faith. And so it was very important for Nigeria to be put back on this list. And in fact, it’s about 32 people, an average of 32 Christians a day that are killed for their faith. But I did want to give an update because we have contacts directly on the ground there. And I wanted to just encourage all of our listeners to keep praying for Nigeria because yes, You know, putting Nigeria back on the CPC list was great. And in fact, on Monday, got a text that, hallelujah, just to let you know, 24 Christians were freed in southern Kaduna. A military ambush amidst exchange of open shooting rescued 24 kidnapped believers, but three victims and four soldiers were killed. We are grateful for the saved, mourning the loss. Amidst escalating violence, we urge you to keep praying for our team and the displaced victims. And so, What is happening and what our people on the ground right there are telling us is that a lot of these terrorists now, I think, are digging in. And it’s not even though, yes, the Nigerian military is now being more engaged and they have actually taken some action. Christians are still being killed. The rescue team that we’re in touch with still on the ground there. And actually, it seems like the efforts, the terrorist efforts are escalating, almost like to see how many people they can kill before maybe they’re kind of pushed out of this area.
SPEAKER 09 :
And when you look at also the complexity of the situation in Nigeria is because it is the government itself is not the one being the persecutor. They are not going in and conducting this genocide against Christians. It is Boko Haram and the terrorist groups and the ISIS affiliated groups. However, the. nigerian government hasn’t necessarily had the will to save the the people of nigeria whether it be they don’t want to have losses in their military they have things they consider more important or more strategic areas but that’s where the pressure to put on the nigerian government to then take on these terrorists is what the country of particular concern designation can help with However, it’s not as if that designation then is an immediate direct effect on the persecution because the government, it’s not like those being persecuted just stop. In this case, Boko Haram and the terrorists, the jihadists, will, as you’re saying, it appear, try to do more before they are stopped. So that’s also where our other work comes in as well. because we worked very hard in the United States. But as we said the other day, we’ve been working on this issue of persecution in Nigeria for the past 15 years. This is some of the stuff that you started working on when you first came on. ACLJ as senior counsel to take on this international role and to help fight against this persecution. But this work at the UN that we do, that’s the other factor. When you put pressure on other countries that give aid to Nigeria, that are partners with Nigeria, that may just be trade partners and things of that nature, the work at the UN is just as important as the work we can do here. And we’ve been able to get victories here, but our work at the UN continues.
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely. And just like you said, I mean, even though it’s not the government that is doing the persecution, they are absolutely complicit in it because they allow it to happen. And when you have the Fulani herdsmen attacking the Christians and Boko Haram attacking the Christians, the Nigerian government has traditionally said, hey, this is not really just an attack against Christian. This is more, you know, tribal and it’s not as as the United States is declaring that it is. However, again, on the ground, we have our sources. Everyone there knows it is a direct attack on Christians to wipe out Christianity from this Islamic terrorism side. So what we do at the UN is very important because we’re able to say the same thing to the international bodies that we say and update the United States with, that this is absolutely an attack against Christians. It’s an attack by Islamic extremists to totally wipe out Christianity. Nigeria is basically 50-50 Muslim, Christian. The North is majority Muslim. The South is majority Christian. This is happening in the North where Christians live as the minority in the North. And so again, It is very clear that Nigeria needs to step in and protect their Christians. And I think the CPC designation has helped that. I think every time we go to the UN and every time I’m before the Human Rights Council and doing oral interventions and written submissions, we keep bringing this forth that Nigeria is absolutely killing Christians at a rate that is not acceptable because any rate is not acceptable, but they are the major target place, country that kills Christians.
SPEAKER 09 :
70% of Christians that are killed for their faith are killed in Nigeria. And one other thing that you brought up was that the government will try to downplay it as though it’s tribal fighting skirmishes. That’s actually a playbook that we see all over the world. Whenever we see Christians specifically targeted for their faith, the government, when they don’t want to step in, when they don’t want to do their job to protect their minority citizens, or in some cases, the majority citizens, but because it’s religious based, they try to play this card of it’s just tribal warfare. It’s really nothing. I mean, it’s been going on thousands of years. There’s not much we can do. They try to play this card to wash their hands of it, absolve them of their responsibility to take care of their citizens. And that is another thing that we consistently at the ACLJ point out on the global stage to not let these governments get away with that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. In fact, I think you’ve heard statements now from Nigeria, even in response to Trump’s putting Nigeria back on the CPC is no, no, you’re you’re getting this wrong. it’s land grabs it’s tribal it’s it’s not christian persecution and again we are not getting this wrong we have the facts on our side so we just keep pushing the facts telling the truth and we’ve seen success like you said we’ve literally been doing this since 2010 december of 2010 was i think one of the first attacks we brought to the european union before their eyes um in january of 2011 And so we’ve been fighting for this. And that shows you the ACLJ, we will not stop fighting until we see justice. And with the CPC designation, I think we’re on that path.
SPEAKER 05 :
doing that the team of the aclj i mean when you hear about this i mean we’re going to talk about like i said the news of the day you’re going to get that on this show um but the primary focus on this show the reason why our broadcast even exists the reason it was founded you know at this point nearly 30 years ago the organization 35 plus years but this show itself was not only give you legal help and give you a place you can go and listen to if you had legal concerns whether it’s in your home or whether that is at your church or whatever it may be But it was also for you to understand the work of the ACLJ. As time has changed and things have evolved, we understand a lot of you tune in to us for your news source. So we’re going to talk about those things. And that’s totally fine. But the core of what the ACLJ does is legal work and our media side. And you hear CC and all these teams, these people working 24 hours a day around the world. And all we get to do, our clients get all of this for free. Just like you get this show for free. If you need legal help, you get it for free. I try to remove all paywalls from anything. That only happens if people like you support the work of the ACLJ. And as we head into the end of this first half hour, some of you lose this here. If you don’t, or if you do lose this, find us broadcasting live on all our different social platforms, ACLJ.org and YouTube. But you can find us archived later on. I know a lot of you don’t even watch live, and that’s okay. But if you do watch live, I’m going to encourage you right now because we can track it to really scan that QR code or go to ACLJ.org. We know when it comes into this hour, it’s because you enjoy this show. You want to support the work that you heard about in this show. So do it right now. Have your donations doubled at ACLJ.org.
SPEAKER 10 :
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. Here we are. Of course, the breaking news of the day is the Department of Justice, Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice, has filed a lawsuit, started to sue Gavin Newsom in the state of California over their redistricting. We got a lot of questions coming in about that. Let’s clear and make sure Peter is good to go. If he’s good to go, I want to go ahead and take his call. I want to kick this off with a call. Hey, by the way, Phone lines are completely open after Peter, so give me a call right now, 1-800-684-3110. I want to hear from you about this or any of the topics we’ve talked about this week or anything that’s on your mind. If it’s a little bit within our scope, we’ll do our best to get to it today. 1-800-684-3110. And we are going to be joined by Jeff Balaban, head of ACLJ. Jerusalem ACLJ in Israel we have our office there he’s gonna be joining us in the next segment to talk about is he was he there now or is he back in New York currently okay but he was over in Poland so we’re gonna talk about that coming up in the next segment but until then I want to hear from you and of course we’re gonna wrap up the show always taking your calls and comments let’s go to Peter in Virginia who is an ACLJ champion which I really appreciate Peter go ahead I appreciate what you guys do.
SPEAKER 11 :
So, details between California and Texas. When Texas first talked about redistricting, my understanding is it was a fight about, well, the 14th, 15th Amendment, voters’ right, all that, is you can’t make zones according to race. So they said, and it used to be, so we’re just going to break it up. Then California seemingly comes along and says, we’re going to make it about race. Do I have that correct? Do you know the detail on the difference between the two?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, Peter, I’m going to kick this over to Will Haynes because Will knows all about redistricting. You know all the details. You get deep diving in the minutia of the maps.
SPEAKER 09 :
So the map that was drawn by Texas after the last census and then adopted by their legislature was challenged in court. by people saying we think that these districts are illegal based off of the provisions that you mentioned, Peter. And it actually had a trial that it was going to fight over these districts in May of this year. So it’s been a court battle that’s lasted for a while. As well as Harmeet Dhillon, who is the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice lead, she sent a letter. She’s Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights to Texas saying, There’s four districts that the DOJ has concerned may run afoul of the 14th Amendment as well as the Voting Rights Act because of race-based gerrymandering. So what did they do? They called for a mid-decade redistrict. And that’s what the result is of this. Now, obviously, we know what happened with that. We know that the Democrats all fled the state. They tried to stop them from getting a quorum. Then they finally got it passed. California… Peter, it sounds like, according to the allegations by the DOJ, not only were they going to say we’re going to fight Texas by redistricting, but the methodology they used indeed is what so many people would criticize Texas for doing. They found districts and did it based off of racial voting blocks that would favor the The Democrats, which is illegal. So that is what the DOJ is arguing. I have a feeling, especially with all these other states you’re talking about. Maryland’s talking about it. Indiana’s talking about it. Florida has thrown it out there. You’re going to see these cases be fast-tracked to the Supreme Court if they indeed all have these lawsuits. There’s going to have to be some sort of figuring this out, but also the details may be so different, it could be a really messy legal fight ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, we only got a minute left in this segment. Our next segment, we’re gonna head to ACLJ Jerusalem, head of the ACLJ Jerusalem, Jeff Balaban, who will be joining us. I wanna know in the chat, if you’re watching right now, of course you can call in. You know, things have been fairly quiet in terms of coverage. of what’s going on in Israel and Gaza. Of course, there was a ceasefire that kind of failed. It went back and forth. It’s still going. But you don’t hear as near as much about it in the news anymore. The topic seems to have quieted down here. But we know that’s not the case necessarily around the world. Where are you right now? Because, of course, what we hear a lot more is about Americans and American conservatives and their lack of support of Israel and the Jewish people. Where do you stand right now? I want to hear from you. Put it in the chat if you’re brave enough. Put it in the chat where you stand. And give me a call also at 1-800-684-3110. Again, we’re going to have Jeff Balaban, ACLJ Jerusalem. We believe we need to be there, and it is our calling to be there as well. And thank you when you support the work of the ACLJ. You also help support the ACLJ in Europe and the ACLJ in Jerusalem. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Secular. Like I said, phone lines are open for you. Nobody called me during the breaks, Will. 1-800-684-3110. I guess I got no questions.
SPEAKER 09 :
I wasn’t as compelling enough. When you say call me, you say it with conviction.
SPEAKER 05 :
Call me.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
And I’ll tell them. There’s six lines open. This is the perfect time to call in. It’s the perfect time if you’ve got something to say. Say it nicely. Say it without profanity so you can make it actually on the air. Be kind to our phone screeners. Sometimes you call in and you’re not, you won’t make it. They get the, look, they’re the decision makers in there, the phone screeners. So be nice to them when you call in at 1-800-684-3110. Of course, for those of you who are just joining us right now, you may have seen the headline on our YouTube channel saying, Breaking News, the DOJ files lawsuit against Gavin Newsom. Of course, the ACLJ, you may remember, also taking action. That’s right. Gavin Newsom to court. So you know what? He’s going to be spending a lot of time in court soon. But the Department of Justice will say you can’t do the redistricting like they want. Of course, you have Pam Bondi making these statements going on. Even Sean Hannity last night discussing this at length. That’s right.
SPEAKER 09 :
So what the DOJ is arguing here is that the plan that they put in through Prop 50 mandates racially gerrymandered congressional districts in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, as well as some Voting Rights Act issues as well. So they are saying that this plan in this redistricting map cannot be used in 2026 and beyond. They’re seeking an injunction early as well, but they’re going to have to fight this in court as it goes forward. Now, I think you should hear from Pam Bondi because… This is Byte 9. She was on Sean Hannity’s broadcast last night talking about this. They just filed this yesterday. It hasn’t really made a ton of news yet, but this is what I know even our callers have been wondering. Can the federal government step in? Can there be a lawsuit? We knew that the Republican Party of California had already sued, but is there anything that the national government can do? Because they were blatant about what they were doing. They weren’t saying… We think our districts have shifted so drastically, even though maybe they have because so many people are fleeing California, that we need to redistrict early. What they were saying is, no, we are doing this to fight Trump. We are going to redraw our map so we can have more power to fight the president and Republicans. So hear what Pam Bondi had to say last night, the attorney general on Sean Hannity’s show, Bite Nine.
SPEAKER 01 :
It wasn’t even illicit. They are flat out publicizing what they’re trying to do and why they’re trying to do it. They’re trying to create seats based on race, and they can’t do it, and we’re going to hold them accountable just like any other state. I mean, they’ve very publicly said, Sean, what they’re trying to do, and it’s illegal gerrymandering. They cannot do it. So, yeah, we sued them today. We’re going to continue suing California until they start complying with the laws of our country.
SPEAKER 09 :
And when you look at also this problem, not just in California, but around the country, it makes you wonder if there’s going to be outcry on both sides about the way that these congressional districts are drawn.
SPEAKER 05 :
Other states potentially answering back in some ways, too, for good or bad. I think not necessarily for good, but for a response. There’s got to call about that. Maybe that’ll help inspire you to call in as well. Dave’s calling in Indiana online, too. Dave, go ahead. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
So I’m, I’m wondering, should we be calling our representatives asking them to
SPEAKER 05 :
redistrict indiana you’re saying locally in your area should you be saying hey if california is doing this why shouldn’t we of course you know two wrongs don’t make a right but some of the response of this was also coming from some response from republican states that were presenting similar options like in texas and other places that were considering things like this so dave you know all bets are kind of knocked off when this happens i unfortunately it’s the way politics works and i am sure i am sure other states are now going oh well you two can play at this game
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and to Dave’s point, there are already members of the Indiana legislature that are looking to do this.
SPEAKER 05 :
I don’t know much about it.
SPEAKER 09 :
It has set off a firestorm, as you’ve said, where Texas redistrict. And they were saying that the entire purpose of their redistricting was saying that the census that took place. counted too many non-citizens because the way representation and how many seats in congress you get are based off the population of your state and then they allocate them that way texas was basically saying that because of the way that the census took place that there were too many non-citizens that were counted in certain areas and that messed up their maps in their previous allocation of congressional seats so they were trying to correct what they saw was an improper allocation based off the previous census so they were doing it early and now different states have different laws about when you can and if you can do that California had a law saying you cannot Texas had different laws that were available to redraw the maps But what did California do? What did Gavin Newsom do? They decided, okay, we don’t like the law that we passed, that we passed actually to try and protect independent districting, even though it’s still very lopsided there in that state, as everyone knows. And what did they do? They said, we want to go around the independent commission. We want to do it our own way to combat Texas. Now, it is kind of set off a chain reaction of other states. Now, Indiana currently has a seven to two Republican to Democrat map. So there is Democrat representation in what is a very red state. It’s a very conservative state. The heartland people don’t think of Indiana as being their neighbor, Illinois, that is very blue.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s very blue, but has very red pockets.
SPEAKER 09 :
But what their new map would do is make it nine to zero Republican. So it has turned it from being supposed to be representative to everyone is going to be over gerrymandered into a way that is really unable to dig yourself out of that hole.
SPEAKER 05 :
Your state will be controlled by a… political party and do you really want that that’s a whole another question give me a call 1-800-684-3110 and we do want to talk about of course when you talk about gavin newsom you also got to talk about the work of the aclj and we are out there fighting against gavin newsom right now that’s right it seems like gavin newsom is uh doing all sorts of fun things out in california right now trying to uh correct messes or or go further into messes as he continues one thing that we are fighting directly
SPEAKER 09 :
is they are still trying to enforce.
SPEAKER 05 :
This is wild, everyone. You got to hear this because look, okay, it’s not 2020 anymore. It’s not 2021. It’s not 2022. We are actually quickly approaching 2026. Like it or not, believe it or not, six years since 2020 when everything, the whole world got turned upside down with the COVID pandemic. But six years since the start, and you could easily say a good four years since really the end at this point of like the major restrictions and the things that were going down. California lasted about a year and a half, two years that you had there. Of course, different states had different approaches. But they are still, Will, trying to collect on some debt. And that debt’s coming from the church.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. They are going after the tithes of the members of Calvary Chapel San Jose. in the tune of $1.2 million for violating the edicts of Gavin Newsom and San Jose when it comes to COVID restrictions.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, whether it was gathering or mask rules or whatever it may be. And look, we understand at the time there was panic. Everyone’s going, there should have been a lot of real concern there. Lots of people lost everything, lost their lives. So we’re not joking around about that. But the fact that we can’t look at something six years later and go, you know what? You know, we were all in a state of shock. We were all dealing with very different ways to deal with things. Maybe that church, we could, you know, let them off a little bit, but instead they’re saying, no, pay up, give to your government, you know, what is owed to them plus, and that is over a million dollars.
SPEAKER 09 :
And what is also crazy about this too, is that the orders that they are alleging they didn’t comply with. were later found to be unconstitutional. So they are still fighting, so much so we have to take this to the Supreme Court of the United States. And we’ll be filing that brief very soon. Our lawyers are hard at work on this to defend this church, Calvary Chapel San Jose, because the governor of California and the city of San Jose want to take the tithes and offerings of the members of that church to the tune of $1.2 million. Think about your church. If all of a sudden the government says, I know at a time when there’s been SNAP benefit issues and there’s been a housing crisis, that money that normally would go to the work of the church, God’s work in the community, blessing your neighbors, Ah, that’s ours now. That’s going to be the state to go to our budget deficits and all these sorts of things.
SPEAKER 05 :
And we’re able to do that, by the way, and represent that church at no cost, as well as all our clients, including that Jesus Club moment you heard about this week where they said you got to have that kid. We’re going to have a big update on that in the next segment. Again, you’re going to like it. It’s the end of grandparents week. This all happened last night, so I’m excited to share this news with you. But remember, none of that happens. No one gets representation. A lot of them can’t afford it, could never afford it. Without organizations like us here at the ACLJ who provide these legal help and lawyers and incredible team, by the way, the best of the best, best young minds, best seasoned minds, people have been around forever and brand new graduates who are just coming out of law school, who we are recruiting all the time, including incredible media team as well, who come from all over. the spectrum in terms of media experience. It’s really amazing the team we’ve been able to put together here at the ACLJ. None of that happens without you. And as we wrap up this segment, I want to give you an opportunity to think about, pray about, and of course, if you feel moved to, support the work of the ACLJ financially. It is our freedom drive. Your gifts are doubled today. And as we wrap up Grandparents Week, as we not only celebrate our grandparents who are listening right now, the grandparents that want to impact future generations, like these students you’re going to hear about in the next segment, or those who just want to do it in tribute to their grandparents and, of course, to the future. With that, make a donation today. Scan the QR card you see on the screen if you’re watching. If you’re listening, go to aclj.org or aclj.org slash freedom. Make your donation today and have your donations doubled. It’s really simple. We have somebody ready to match your gift. They’re ready to unlock their pledge. Do it today. Give me a second. aclj.org Welcome back to Seculo. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. We always want to give you a little bit of the news of the day, but I also want to tell you about one of our new clients here at the ACLJ. We talk about it’s Grandparents Week. It’s our Freedom Drive. It’s happening right now. It’s been a big first week, by the way, our week of Grandparents Week. I’ve been excited to see the reaction, to see so many of you comment, call in, and say you’re a part of it, whether you’re a grandparent or you’re celebrating your grandparents. I love it. I think it’s a lot of fun. It’s been a great way to celebrate what’s going on. But we have to really look at what’s happening around the country here and what’s going on in our churches and our school. And I want us to turn our attention to Colorado. You know, this has been an interesting thing. Right now, of course, the government shutdown ends. But before that, we had a lot of people who were dealing with, of course, they’re still, I’m sure, dealing with it. We’re having to get everything reopened with the food crisis that was happening. Of course, people that needed special services, needed SNAP benefits, those kind of things. And of course, as Christians, we are called to obviously feed the hungry as well. And we know that the churches have been doing that nonstop for decades and decades. People are calling out the churches. The churches have been on top of this. Quietly in the background, they have been feeding people through its existence. And we’re defending right now, and this is a brand new client, four church members. Again, this is in Colorado City. Includes two pastors who were criminally cited. Criminally cited. in this park. Why? For feeding the hungry. Feeding the needy. They’ve been doing it for years. You see some photos if you’re looking at us visually, if you’re watching on ACLJ.org or YouTube. Before the police shut the whole thing down, they said, you know what? You can’t be here. You can’t be feeding the hungry. The city has tried to make this about whether there’s too many people in it. We’re gonna talk about that. Let’s break this down, Will, because we are not gonna stand for this.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s right. So this is a gathering that would take place on Tuesday and Thursday in a public park. And it was three different churches that would be a part of this. And they would gather, they would have worship, they would share the gospel, they would feed the hungry. It was an outreach program. This is not something, this foreign concept in America of a church worshiping God and helping those in their community. And they know what they’re called to do. Exactly. And they’ve been doing this for years and had never had complaints or an issue with But the city in Colorado decided that they did all of a sudden have an issue with it four years after they started this. And so they passed a city resolution to limit the amount of people that can be a part of a recurring use at an outdoor pavilion or public space. This also isn’t something where they were owning the space and no one could ever use it, but they did this specifically because they knew that they could shut these church groups down. You had police coming, citing them, telling them they have to shut this down. They were even asking how many people here are a member of your church, trying to separate basically how many people are being reached from this. The people that are coming here that are hungry and many are homeless and those that are a membership of the church. So this is a case of discrimination, clear and cut. It’s a violation of the First Amendment rights of our clients because at the same time, there’s even a senior fitness program that meets regularly sometimes three days in a row at this pavilion that is outside the the number of participants limit that they put on no issue there this was specifically the city trying to target this church and shut it down because they were doing god’s work in this community jordan and we’re filing a lawsuit because of it i mean the fact that again during these shutdowns people you know they say step up help your neighbors
SPEAKER 04 :
And this is a church who does it all the time, not just when there’s a shutdown. They always want to help their neighbors. And you don’t know if five people are going to show up, 20 people are going to show up. But we have these kind of like parking lot, public park settings so that if the bad action they’re taking is there’s too many people picking up food because their kids are hungry and they’re hungry. And this is where the city focuses on because they have this much dislike of Christians actually carrying out the true mission of Christ. I mean, think about that. No, no, it’s absurd. If this was a liberal group, by the way, of a bunch of people dressed up in weird outfits and uniforms, do you think this would happen to them?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, and look, we know from some of our friends who are even right now gearing up for the Thanksgiving events that are being held where you’re giving out turkeys and that kind of thing, and they’re seeing the demand rise. rise significantly this year because obviously there was a lot of concern we talked about that i’m sure this is what happens when you have these kind of issues uh more people show up than ever before because people start looking where can i find food where can i find food affordable i brought it up the other day and i i it’s one of those shocking ones that cc’s pizza i said cc’s pizza decided we’re gonna do a promotion where it’s two dollars for a buffet hundreds where’s the closest one close one to us pretty close i may have taken my kids there before recently two dollars it $2 is pretty good. No, they cut it off because hundreds of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands signed up for this. That is not a sign that people are just dying to eat CeCe’s pizza. No offense to CeCe’s pizza. I like it. I’m a fan. What I’m saying is what that shows is there’s a lot of people searching for ways to get food right now and they’re in need. and they’re looking for the best deal or free possible. So when a lot more people show up to a public park, what Jordan said is right. You should be celebrating that they’re showing up and talking to people in the church and in the community instead of now you are criminally charging them.
SPEAKER 04 :
Criminally charging them. Not just saying disperse, not just saying, here’s how you get the permit, which by the way, they’d probably deny. If they really think that they need a permit, what they should have done to them is come to them and say, you’re doing a great thing. Keep feeding the needy. Just fill this out. Here’s the process. Yeah. Not criminal charges. If you feed people who are hungry.
SPEAKER 05 :
So what do we do now? What happens here? We represent.
SPEAKER 09 :
We sue. We are preparing a federal lawsuit to challenge this ordinance and what the city’s actions have been.
SPEAKER 05 :
Is you suing the city?
SPEAKER 09 :
As of right now, they have paused enforcement, but they still have these active citations against this church. We’re going to fight for their First Amendment rights, as well as, I think it goes to a deeper problem that we’ve talked about, and we’ve talked about what comes out of these shutdowns, where as soon as the government’s not able to provide, then many people are like, oh, we should be helping the needy. But it’s groups like this that do it all the time. That is a very conservative… amazing work that they’re doing, and yet the city wants to shut it down because it’s not the government taking care of the people, it’s the Christians.
SPEAKER 04 :
This is why you have to support the work of the ACLJ. It’s so critical right now, because I want you to think about this, especially our grand champions out there, the grandparents out there. Logan and I both have three kids, so if… both of our families got together, we’d be violating this order. We’d be criminally charged. By five. I mean, double what you need for the permit. If our parents came, you’re at 12. If then maybe you brought another friend, family member. What is… This doesn’t make… Public parks. I mean, the idea, again, I know if you’re going to take over the park or you need the whole pavilion for yourself for… multiple hours but if you’re just handing out food kind of quickly as people come and we do it during these hours this time of week you think the city would say thank you here’s some more food to hand out even if they did something incorrectly there are ways to handle this that doesn’t involve criminally charging them like right there yeah or said hey here’s the process let’s work on this so in the next week you’ll be fine help you with it you’re helping people that are in need but of course not because the left only wants the government providing. They want people needing SNAP. They don’t want you relying on your community, your name. They say, oh, it takes a village. No, no. To them, it takes a bureaucracy. It takes a government. It doesn’t take the church. And when the church does step up and do what we’ve been told to do, and usually the churches don’t make a big deal about this at all. Many of you, you might go to a church and never even heard about all of the different soup kitchen programs they are funding 100% of and running with their own volunteers. That happens at churches all over, but the left doesn’t want that. They want people reliant only on the government.
SPEAKER 09 :
And just take this quote as we leave here. After doing it for four years, the pastors were informed by the chief of police. that he had been, quote, tasked with shutting down their weekly gatherings. Once again, the city could have done a lot of things, but this was discrimination against them because of their work and because it was religious.
SPEAKER 05 :
We’ve got other big topics to talk about, too, including that Jesus Club that’s happening. Of course, your grandchildren are going to be in need of your children. Again, this is Grandparents Week. And again, we’re not only celebrating grandparents that are listeners and viewers. We are also celebrating the grandparents that are with us still, and those are no longer with us. Be a part of that right now. Leave a legacy here at the ACLJ. Go to ACLJ.org. Have your donations doubled. ACLJ.org. Donate today. Have your donation doubled. ACLJ.org slash freedom.
