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DEVELOPING: Trump Reveals Details of High Stakes Meeting.
SPEAKER 03 :
President Trump reveals he plans on meeting with Vladimir Putin as early as next week.
SPEAKER 04 :
Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Seculo. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekula.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome to Sekula. Will Haynes is joining me here in studio. Jeff Balaban, is that right, is going to be joining us? That’s right. That’s right for ACLJ Jerusalem. Obviously, there’s some big news heading out of Israel right now with a lot of comments coming in from Benjamin Netanyahu, who doesn’t seem to be on the path that maybe America wants him to be on right now as there is conversations happening of whether he wants to end the war. by essentially taking over gaza which has always been his plan and it’s always been what they said they were going to do now you’ve had america wanting to push back on that have a little bit of a discussion where are we going to land on it we’re going to find out that also ties in to what’s been happening in russia obviously the war in ukraine now has progressed to how many years now three years uh roughly in in the war in ukraine between ukraine and russia And just yesterday, there were some meetings between American dignitaries and officials and Vladimir Putin, and that looks to signal, and President Trump has at least said that he wants it to happen, that he plans on, and they’re intending, I’m going to use all the words properly, to meet with Vladimir Putin and Zelensky very soon. Some reports say as early as this weekend, and some are saying sometime next week to hopefully… create a path to the end of the war. This has been something that President Trump ran on. He obviously ran on maybe a bit more of a, I get it done in 24 hours. Then he realized what he was dealing with with Vladimir Putin, this time around a very different Putin. But it is a time where hopefully we will see some progress happen. Now, I feel like, Will, we’ve had this sort of, I don’t want to say stalemate, but we’ve had this happen a few times now where it felt like we were headed towards some sort of resolution and it just kicked back up. And I will say that both with Israel and with Russia. It feels like both times there has been an almost end to this war and then one side doesn’t live up to the bargain or doesn’t do what they say they’re going to do and chaos ensues.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right. So the presidential envoy, Steve Witkoff, went to Moscow to meet with President Putin yesterday. And that’s what a lot of this stems from. And apparently the Russian side was very eager to have this bilateral meeting between President Trump and Vladimir Putin yesterday. And the president said that he’s open to it, but he wants it to be a trilateral meeting. He wants it to be President Trump almost mediating a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Zelensky. So adding another wrinkle to that, having the three of them in the room would be must see TV. Hopefully there’s cameras available. I assume there will be portions of it. That is not for the public to see, but you know that there will be a lot of imagery, a lot of discussion about that if this happens. They’re saying it could happen as early as next week. That is a lot of moving parts to get in place for something to happen that quickly. But Russia obviously is eager to make this happen for many reasons. That deadline that President Trump set went from 50 days down to 10. We’re quickly approaching that 10. And the envoy meeting yesterday apparently was constructive. Both sides said it was constructive. And now we will see if they move forward with this before the United States puts some more economic pressure on Russia.
SPEAKER 03 :
President Trump has never had a problem jumping on a plane to go have these negotiations. He has never had that issue. It seems like where other presidents would refuse to even go sometimes to our own southern border, you would have President Trump who was willing to get in a plane, fly across the world, because likely this would happen in some sort of middle country like Saudi Arabia.
SPEAKER 05 :
They’re saying UAE is the most likely place I think that both Russia would be okay with as well as the United States.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, when we get back, I want you to hear from President Trump himself. He spoke today on a White House press conference. Obviously, yesterday there were some big announcements coming out as well as President Trump announced that Apple would be moving all of the glass that is on your iPhones, manufactured for your iPhones and your Apple Watches, will be moving back to America with a giant investment. I believe in Kentucky. So, I mean, this is a big moment. We know that Tim Cook at Apple has actually been very for this his entire run. This is something he has wanted to happen. So now you see some positive movement in American manufacturing right in Kentucky, right up just a few miles from where we are right now. So these are big deals. We should make sure that get their proper due as well. You don’t want to only talk about war. Talk about the successes that are happening. We are going to, though, be joined later on by Jeff Balabon, ACLJ Jerusalem. And I want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. Call in now. and be a part of the ACLJ’s 35 years of victory. I’ll tell you more about it in just a little bit. Welcome back to Secular. We are going to take some phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. I see some of you calling in about Israel. We’re also talking about President Trump likely to meet with Vladimir Putin and Zelensky, potentially in the next few days. They’re saying as early as this weekend, and when they’re saying how late it could be, just some point next week. So we’re talking about very soon we could see some movement. Now, I don’t want to give anyone’s hopes up, because as we have seen, this moment has happened a few times. Not necessarily the meetings. The President Trump has met with Vladimir Putin in group settings, I guess you could say, you know, when you get all the world leaders together. In his first term, he did have that bilateral discussion with him. Since the war, we know that he was completely iced out by Joe Biden during his term. So there was no chance at any kind of strategy to end the war. And we’re at the point where we’re multiple years in. And I think most people, even President Trump, sees that Ukraine was certainly the ones being invaded. They certainly see that they’re the ones being, at this point, still trampled upon. But how do we come to a conclusion? That’s going to be something that hopefully we’ll find out here in the next few months. And again, you may be putting the chat now, how dare you say that? Look at President Trump’s words. I think a lot of people, once they get involved with what you’re dealing with, Vladimir Putin, you see it. Look, I’ve spent a good bit of time in Russia as a kid. I don’t think we’ve really talked about that a lot. Beautiful place. beautiful place that i love and i really hope that there’s a point where my kids can go back and see it i mean somewhat is our homeland uh it is a place where a lot of my family has came from ukraine and russia i would love for them to experience the history that’s there um now even then 20 plus years ago maybe more uh it was already a pretty different part of the world It didn’t feel like your mainline Europe. It had a different structure. Now, it didn’t feel unsafe. There were obviously attacks and things that would happen. But there was a lot of movement, a lot of positive movement coming out of Russia from the 80s through really the mid-2000s, where you actually saw… some of American values being exported to Russia. You saw these major concert events happening. You saw people being able to have some what felt like elections. And then you had what Vladimir Putin has put in place, which definitely feels a little bit more like the old times. And so much so that we’re experiencing this now for the third year in a row. hopefully president trump could do something about it and look i’d say the same with israel obviously we are very supportive of israel we are seeing the issues that have come out of it president trump wants to see into this war in israel you have you have netanyahu now saying look my plan is still to essentially take over gaza so what is that going to look like i’m not saying that either one is right but we are seeing a little bit of a divide in what america wants for both of these wars and what the leaders of these countries want
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and as we talk about this meeting that hopefully happens as soon as next week between President Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, there’s a lot of optimism that can go around it unless you’re on the left. They’re already starting to put out there their talking points that he’s just falling into Putin’s trap. He’s going to use his KGB tactics on President Trump and he’s just stringing him along. You do have to be careful. Well, 100 percent. But that’s why there is a intelligence apparatus around him. That’s why these are two world leaders going to meet. And as we talked about even yesterday with Rick Grinnell, talking is not a bad thing. That is what the president before President Biden never picked up a phone. to talk to Vladimir Putin and try to see a way out of it. The only answer was to endlessly send more money and more weapons to Ukraine to ensure that the war continued. This is a different tactic. This is talking with people. And it’s not President Trump just saying, okay, fine, I’ll go talk with you. He’s saying, you want to have a talk? Let’s bring Zelensky in. These are negotiations. That is what he does best. That’s what we have seen. That’s why many people supported him is because of his negotiation skills and being able to get the people in the room that can make the decisions about ending the war. That is something that we have not seen. This happened in February of 2022. While Joe Biden and his national security team had had plenty of time to prepare for something like this, we were even talking about it the entire time leading up. Like, it seems like Russia is probably going to invade Ukraine. And they did. And it was interview clips, I remember, of Joe Biden saying, don’t. Things like that. That was the strongest he could do. But now we’re seeing a different sea change. And the left can’t just say, oh, maybe it’s good for world leaders to sit in the room and talk together. Maybe that’s something that we can do to try and achieve some peace here. Just stop the killing, as President Trump talks about. But instead, they want to go ahead and find a way to tear it down. And just they cannot accept anything could potentially be good, not just for the United States, but for the world. The economy globally has a lot to do with what’s going on in Russia and Ukraine right now. The entire, all the sanctions on Russia that has to do with their energy, any manufacturing, any of their leaders, that affects a lot of our even trading partners. You see, yesterday, President Trump said he’s going to raise the tariffs on India because they are defying sanctions and continuing to buy oil and gas from Russia. These are things that would affect the entire world. And seeing leadership and actually getting in a room to talk is something that should be celebrated. Even if you go into it cautiously and cynically even maybe that nothing will change, you still have to say this is a good thing that world leaders are willing to sit down and talk and potentially even the president of Ukraine.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, we’ve had that. We’ve talked with Mike Pompeo and other people about it. This sort of liberal media skew that if they disagree with you, you are somehow an idiot. And they say that about Vladimir Putin all the time. They really throw off the intelligence behind that operation. If you were able to take over that big of a country, I’m not saying you’re a good guy, but it doesn’t mean you’re not a smart guy and you don’t know how to work a meeting. You don’t know how to work a crowd even. Okay, you probably go to Russia, there’s a lot of people who support Vladimir Putin. Okay, it’s not exactly how the media portrays it. So you gotta remember that when you go into these meetings, that this is a very different situation. This is a very different war and Russia is a very different place. With that being said, I wanna hear from you. Because look, the ACLJ has been involved. Look, we had a office in Russia for many years. OK, because there was actually movement happening for religious freedom in Russia. Now, all of that changed, obviously, when the war broke out. A lot of it had been running independently for many years, but just that alone changed everything because all of a sudden we couldn’t even be there in any real capacity. I want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. I see a few of you who are calling in right now about topics we talked about yesterday, the day before. Stay on hold. We’ll get to some of those. I’m happy to take those. But right now we’re sticking on topic. And then when we get back in just a little bit, we’re also going to move our topic a little bit here because I know that it’s very important to you. We also have an update from the group Moms for Liberty. You may remember them really during those first years of lockdown and everything that may have happened. And all of the issues that have come along with them, man, they have been labeled once again, just like a lot of the pro-life groups, egregiously. And we’re going to talk about some of the updates there. And of course, we are going to move with Jeff Balaban over to ACLJ Jerusalem. That’s our office in Jerusalem and discuss the current plans that Netanyahu has and what that’s going to look like for the future. But for a moment, I do want to encourage you. We are already a week in. Two, the ACLJ’s 35 years of victory drive. I was talking to some of the people who our earliest days were those clients who got those victories, who were teenagers at the time. When my parents, who were running this organization, were only in their early 30s, younger than I am now. and how it still impacts their life, and not just their life, but how it impacts the world. So as this month we celebrate 35 years of victory, I also want you to look forward. We’ve had landmark victories for life, for churches, for liberty, and we’ve even had the same people that have worked with the President of the United States. Now it’s time to fuel the next 35. We’re in court right now battling Planned Parenthood, which seems like has been an ongoing battle for 35 years. But you know what? There’s been some remarkable movement, stuff we never thought would happen, like the overturning of Roe versus Wade. You prayed for it. You fought for it. But I can’t believe it happened in our lifetime. I really am surprised. But we’re fighting back also against all of those radical state governments. You’ve heard us talk about Massachusetts for over a year now as they’ve tried to shut down these pro-life centers. We’ve taken that case and we have expanded it into over. 800 cases in the last year because your freedoms are under attack but we can’t do it without you every dollar you give right now is doubled during our aclj 35 years of victory drive stand with us i want you to defend liberty defend life and you can do that it’s the perfect time to give it’s at aclj.org you can scan the qr code if you’re watching on the screen or just go to aclj.org victory to learn more about our victories But any donation made, including if you decide to become an ACLJ champion, that’s something that gives on a monthly basis. Your first donation will be matched and doubled by another amazing ACLJ member that’s ready to unlock their pledge. So do it right now as we head into this break. While you’re thinking about how you can get engaged with what’s going on in the world right now, know that the ACLJ is involved at the top levels. whether it’s in Washington, D.C., whether it’s in the courtrooms, whether it’s here in this media operation that we can’t do without you, not funded by major sponsors, not funded by any of this, funded by you. And we would not be here without you. We’ve had 35 years of legacy here. So you can trust us, and I hope you do. We’ll be right back with your calls and comments coming up. Welcome back to Secular. We are going to take your phone calls coming up. I’ve seen a lot of comments come in, Will, because I said that my parents were younger than me when they were doing this. A lot of people are saying, you’re old. You’re old, Logan. Look how old you are. I can’t believe it. Then my favorite comment was, Logan, you’re old? Ha! I work with 100-year-olds. I mean, I’m not that old.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. I mean, this is a factual statement.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
You are indeed not 100. Not even half. Not even half. Not yet. Not yet. All right. Should we take some calls? Some comments? What do you want to do here? We should. Yeah. I think this can all tie in as well. Let’s go to Dan, who’s calling on line two from California, watching on the ACLJ app. Dan, you’re on Sekulow.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hi. This is Dan. Yes. Yes. Sorry. Is it? I got a question. Listening to your program yesterday and you were saying how this judge ruled that Planned Parenthood now gets funded, even though the funding has been removed from the budget. I know something about the congressional, but about the budget, there’s normally a line item for everything. You can’t just. So I’m wondering where the funding is going to be coming from.
SPEAKER 05 :
So, Dan, the way that it works for Planned Parenthood, they got government money through two primary ways. There was originally they got it from Title 10 funding, which is family planning funding, which is a pool of money that different grants and government funding to different organizations specifically to provide family planning health care, if you want to call it that, which in the case of Planned Parenthood, It helped supplement their abortion business. And earlier this year, when President Trump came back into office, they made a change in the way that those grants would be given out. and said, if you are promoting abortion, when you are giving this healthcare, you can no longer receive title 10 funding. So that already, they just amended the way that they give that money out originally. And that’s not what happened to the big, beautiful bill. I’ll get to that in just a second. But so earlier they took that funding away because Planned Parenthood would refuse to stop, uh, telling people you can have an abortion, you should have an abortion. And so that is one of the ways that they were stopped receiving funds. Now, those funds, the Title 10 funds still remain, but for organizations that don’t advertise for abortion. And then second is Medicaid reimbursement. So because Planned Parenthood operates medical clinics and facilities with very specific purposes, they would be able to bill Medicaid for reimbursement of services. And we know one of the main ways that Planned Parenthood is able to skew their numbers and say that abortion isn’t that much of their business is they count every point of contact as a service. So when you check in, when you get your blood pressure taken. And then a lot of those services would then be charged to the government through Medicaid reimbursement. They would submit all the paperwork and do all that, and then the government repays Planned Parenthood for services rendered to patients that come in that are on Medicaid. So that is kind of their parlor game of how they got funding. They wouldn’t get reimbursed for abortion services, but everything up until… They would be getting reimbursement from. So what the Big Beautiful Bill did was it made it so that Medicaid reimbursements could not go to clinics and organizations that provide abortion, as well as they had to meet a reimbursement threshold, which I think was $800,000 a year in Medicaid reimbursements. And now Planned Parenthood was the largest of those type clinics, but it wasn’t the only one. And that’s why we’ve also filed in Maine, where a different organization that was an abortion clinic that would do the exact same thing that Planned Parenthood would. They were above the $800,000 in reimbursement threshold, but also provide abortion. So they were no longer eligible for that money from the government, this Medicaid reimbursement. And so they sued as well. And we filed a brief there just on Friday. So we’re fighting back, but I hope that clears it up. There were two ways they received money, both as of right now had been taken away and legally have been taken away, except there is this preliminary injunction. on the big beautiful bill portion so they are still able to get those medicaid reimbursements for all the services they provide except for abortion procedures all right hope that clears that up for you dan thanks for calling we do a couple lines open now 1-800-684-3110 that’s 1-800-684-3110 well we got a couple minutes here do you want to save this topic you want to
SPEAKER 03 :
I think we can give a brief overview because this is something… This is another big movement that’s happening in the United States we need to keep an eye on.
SPEAKER 05 :
This goes basically at the heart of what we already fought last year and actually we’re able to get that great letter from the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of Defense where the military was training in terror awareness training members of the military that groups like Operation Rescue and pro-life pregnancy centers were potential domestic terrorists. Now we see in Massachusetts, surprise, surprise, we’ve got a lot of legal fights going on in Massachusetts. All things lead back through Massachusetts. Is that they were training as a part of a state-run in-service training for that was run by the Municipal Police Training Committee, which is a part of the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. They had this in-service training on freedom and hate, speech, crimes, and groups. And one of the groups that was listed and went over by the trainer right after Antifa was Moms for Liberty. So we know what Antifa does. We’ve seen the destruction across major cities in the United States. Moms for Liberty goes and advocates for their children at school boards. Now that the Biden era is over and the FBI is no longer investigating parents at school boards. Some of the liberal states in this country are taking up the mantle and championing this horrific program where they’re going after conservative speech and advocates. And so I can tell you also that our team has reached out to Moms for Liberty. We have worked with them in the past, and so we have great connection with them. And we are now looking at ways that the ACLJ can get involved to help Moms for Liberty right this wrong, because… Whether it’s the pro-life resource centers that we are now in court fighting the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for trying to target them with this deceptive campaign, trying to get them shut down in their state. We also know that they’re training their police to look out for Moms for Liberty as effectively domestic terrorists. And they even say they are designated an anti-government extremist group. These are moms that are passionate about their children, what their children are being taught, conservative values. And if you are a mom for liberty and a part of their group in Massachusetts, they’re training their police, their law enforcement to be on the lookout for you.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, hey, we’ll be back in just a moment. If you don’t get the full half hour, second half hour of our show that we do live each and every day from 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time, some of the local radio stations, if you’re listening on terrestrial radio, some of those don’t carry the full hour. They should, but sometimes they don’t. But you can find us broadcasting live always on YouTube, on Rumble, and of course on ACLJ.org. It’s probably the easiest way to go. And while you’re there, make a donation to our 35 Years of Victory podcast. drive all donations made right now are doubled i’m not gonna keep pounding it over you and tell you you need to do it but you do need to do it it’s a great time if you can financially afford to do it uh this is a great time to do it if you’re brand new by the way and you’ve never seen this before maybe you’re watching on youtube got served this i’m not asking you to donate I’m going to ask you to subscribe. We do this show each and every day. You can be part of that team, a team that watches over 500,000 people that subscribe to our YouTube channel. Millions that watch each and every week on that channel. It’s amazing. And we have some phone lines open at 1-800-684-3110. But I’m asking you again, if you like what you see here, you like what we’ve been doing here for a long time, give if you can. And of course, support by subscribing. We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 04 :
keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. Second half hour coming up. Will Haynes joining me in studio. In the next segment, we’re going to head over to Jerusalem Live as we talk to Jeff Balaban, who runs ACLJ Jerusalem. He may be in Jerusalem, he may be in New York. In New York, actually. He’s in New York, but he runs ACLJ Jerusalem. He goes back and forth, so you never know where he may be at any time. We’ve got a lot of calls coming in because we are discussing the topic at hand, which of course is both the end… The hopeful end of a war that’s been going on for multiple years, of course, that’s in Ukraine and Russia, and a war that’s been going on in Israel and Gaza. Now, both of them are very different. Both of them have very different leadership structures. Go to Russia, you’re going to see a very different group of people than you do if you go to Gaza. Same if you go to Ukraine, if you want to flip it. Ukraine and Gaza, very different. You can’t combine those two. Just because the media presents a good guy, bad guy scenario a lot of times, even when we disagree, it’s not the same. Those are two very different governments, very successful governments in ways, even Russia itself, Ukraine itself. They have been standing alone for a very long time. And of course, this war breaks out. Now we have the opportunity for President Trump to do what he said he was going to do. And look, one of his campaign promises was to finish these wars. And of course, he at the time, maybe with a little, you know, ego said, hey, I think I can get it done in a day. And mainly what I think I always lead to is I don’t think these wars would have happened with President Trump. So I think you can kind of go back to that because they wouldn’t have had the gumption, if you will, to take on these battles. And when it comes to Israel, and that would be starting with October 7th as well. And I don’t think that would have gotten to that point of escalation to where all of a sudden it’s a no holds barred war that’s been going on in Israel for the last few years. Both of those have pathways to ending, but they are very different paths. First up, looks like it’s going to be with Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky. Those meetings could happen with President Trump, and we’re talking about in person with President Trump, potentially, I think you said the UAE, or potentially in a country that is sort of a middle ground. Right. And those meetings hopefully are productive. That could happen as early as this weekend. And they’re saying just as late as next week. So, sure, do you go in doe-eyed and act like this is going to be the end of this war? I don’t think so. But you can at least go in with a little bit of hope that both sides and the United States are able to structure something. Structure some kind of deal. Now, when it comes to Israel and Gaza, you have Netanyahu still pushing forward with a full occupation of Gaza. uh president trump doesn’t seem to oppose that but he certainly doesn’t seem to think that’s the only way to wrap this up uh and i think you have president trump who i gotta give it to him um really ran on a no more bloodshed uh candidacy said i don’t want anyone else to die and i’m gonna do what i can to make sure that happens It’s a brave statements to make. Hopefully they can move forward with them. Again, I think that there’s a lot more to the Israel Gaza situation. Of course, we’ve been getting into for the last few years. And we’ll talk about that more with Jeff Balaban coming up. I do want to take, let’s take a quick call because I’ve been holding for a long time. Which call you want to go to?
SPEAKER 05 :
I mean, I think we’re running short on time here. We’re not that short. And by the time they get there and you say, I’m only cutting you off because we’re running short on time. I’ve seen this movie before.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sorry, Michael. We’ll get to you. We’ll get you. We’re going to head over to the head of ACLJ Jerusalem in the next segment. I want you to think about and pray about supporting this work. I know I’m going to be talking about it a lot. These are important months. The way the ACLJ is structured, there are months where donations and different people are ready to unlock those matching donations, those double donations. I know it seems sometimes like I’m selling something, like this is some, you know, not a real thing, but I assure you this is how this works, how it works for a lot of organizations. And ours is very simple. It’s not a 10 times match, not 100 times, it’s doubled. So when you give $10, it unlocks another $10. And there you go, your donation is essentially worth $20. We are built on the backbone of that $25 to $75 donor. That is what this organization is built on. So don’t think your donation is too small. Don’t think it’s not making an impact. If I turned around the camera, all the people you’d see here, all of them are here because of you, not because of anyone else. or any big entity, or any big organization. They are here because you decided you are going to put your money where your mouth is, and you want to support the work of the ACLJ. And know how important that is to us. We’ll be right back with Jeff Balaban. Welcome back to Sekulow. Again, I want to hear from you. We lost some of our calls over that last segment because Will was, you know, a little aggressive.
SPEAKER 05 :
I know. I read the comments. People were like, exactly, Will. Glad you said that. But then they hung up. Well, they did, but these people didn’t. They’re still watching.
SPEAKER 03 :
Different people. Phone lines are open. You know how many lines? Five. 1-800-684-3110. If you want to be on the air today, perfect time to call. Get in line right now. 1-800-684-3110. Whether it’s all the topics we discussed today, whether we’re about to talk about with Jeff Balaban or anything else. Jeff’s joining us right now. Jeff, head of ACLJ Jerusalem in New York City right now. But Jeff, I wanted to get your thoughts and feelings right now. We have seen once again, some movement happening not just in we’ve been talking about the war in ukraine and the war in russia we’ve seen some movement now with netanyahu being a little bit more vocal being a little more out there of his plans and what it’s going to look like uh in terms of how gaza potentially could be taken over and that president trump uh who we know has gone a little bit back and forth on this because it’s an aggressive plan uh seems to at least have an interest in it
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes. Well, look, Israel, I think, often plays defense not understanding what’s available to it. That Israel thinks that if it only gives it a little more, you know, if it only says it will negotiate and tries negotiating, then maybe there’ll be some resolution. And they’re willing to give up even parts of the Jewish homeland for that purpose. But after October 7th, Israel realizes that it cannot. What it doesn’t know is how open the United States of America as its strongest, most important ally is to what really needs to happen, which is Israel needs to control Gaza completely. And frankly, there’s a very hostile population there that’s more than just Hamas. We know that of the thousands of people who came over the border on October 7th, only a small number of Hamas. And the truth of it is, this should no longer be Israel’s problem. There is a very violent, very large Arab population that wants to destroy all of Israel. Frankly, when Donald Trump first became president, his first trip to the region, his first trip outside America, was to react to the Saudis and to all the Arab world. And he said, you need to stop the terrorism. And then he went to Israel to celebrate Jerusalem’s reunification. That has to be the model. This problem must be resolved by the Arab Muslim world, not by the American world, not by Europe, and certainly not by the Jews in Israel.
SPEAKER 05 :
Jeff, we’re going to talk shortly about kind of the work you’re doing both in New York as people hear you on the phone today, as well as in D.C. over this last week. But I also wanted to bring up as we hear now from Prime Minister Netanyahu there, he’s He was very clear, told Fox News, we intend to control all of Gaza. We don’t want to keep Gaza. We want a security perimeter. We want to hand Gaza over to Arab forces that will govern Gaza properly. One thing that I think the kind of danger zone here is, is that how long it’s taken to get to this point. Is that one, during the Biden administration, saying that outright would have been almost a death sentence for the state of Israel. That, okay, you’re going to go in and do that when we are cutting off all aid, all cooperation. I feel like that would have been the Biden response to something like that. But you’ve also had this where it has now gone on for far too long. And the world is unfortunately and wrongly, in many cases, turning against Israel in some ways that we haven’t seen like this before. At that same time. You had something completely new, and that’s where the Arab League signed on to Hamas, a statement where Hamas needs to be gone. It means to lay down their arms and be gone from Gaza. So at one… You’re seeing the West. You’re seeing new factions within the West that could be potentially more vocal when Israel does this move of going into Gaza. But you’re starting to see the Gulf region actually start to get in line. I’m sure they will not approve of that directly, saying Israel go in, but that Hamas needs to be gone. I just kind of wanted to get your read on that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, look, the Arab world is playing a game. because it needs to control its streets. And its streets have been trained, really, to be very, very hostile to Israel’s very existence. But, you know, thanks really to Donald Trump and its first administration, there’s a new path charted for the leaders of the countries that want to move forward into the future, that wanted to be protected against Iran, that understood that working together with Israel would be better for their nation. So, yes, you’re right. There’s this pivotal moment now where we’re crossing over. Plus, they see a huge amount of support for the terrorists which would actually destabilize all of those regions. They see that in the West and it frightens them as well. I think it’s time for Israel to be very aggressive and really solve this entire problem, which didn’t start with Hamas. It started with, honestly, with Oslo, when Israel agreed against its better judgment Under pressure from the West to negotiate with the entire Palestinian concept, Palestinian Authority, or rather the PLO, as though they were statesmen and not genocidal. All of this has changed, all beginning to change now. And honestly, the window is while we have Donald Trump in office, because he does not want to keep on revisiting everything that fails over and over for decades. He wants to chart a new course.
SPEAKER 05 :
Jeff, as people hear, you’re in Manhattan today. You’re on your way to more meetings, which is why you didn’t join us by video today. You’re on your way right now to more meetings. You had meetings in Washington last week. And I wanted you to tell our audience kind of what… what you’re doing, what the work of ACLJ Jerusalem is doing right now in the U.S., as we do see this really troubling rise in areas we haven’t seen it before. We’ve seen it now coming from leading conservative voices. I almost want to put that in quotes, but you’re also seeing it in churches as well, where this departure from a faction that used to be some of the greatest friends of Israel and understand the importance of Israel’s history and understand the importance of a Western style democracy in a region that is completely void of that. But in the Logan wants to add to that as well.
SPEAKER 03 :
I think what’s very interesting with us is a lot of those voices. And I don’t mean this pejoratively because I understand that they’re new are people who have just come to faith and we’ve just become Christians or just become religious in the last few years. I’ve seen that a lot with these influencers, the ones who’ve just started proclaiming the names of Jesus. What I have actually seen, and I’ll give it up to them as well, the ones who are very anti-Trump, very anti-current MAGA Republicans, a lot of them are still on board with Israel. because they understand the long-term implications, not just biblically, but what we’ve all been through. It’s these people whose eyes were opened the last few years to what politics looks like and also to what faith looks like. They’re the ones who feel like they’re a bit more easy to influence. And you see those images, and we know some of those images, I mean, it happens over and over again. It’s hard when you are being taught the words of the scripture to not immediately want to turn to help the least of these, to do all of these things. It feels like what you’re called to do. But Jeff, I’ll let you answer that as well, because it is an ongoing discussion. And you don’t want to say fight within churches, but to fight within the influencers and a fight within sort of the modern churches.
SPEAKER 01 :
So what we’re seeing now is it’s a generation later exactly what happened to Democrats and the left. The language of being progressive, the language of being liberal was taken over by people who were the exact opposite. They could not be less progressive, and they could not be less tolerant or liberal. We’re having the same problem on the right now. People are taking over language of Christianity and of patriotism. America First and MAGA, honestly, they came to the fore because of Donald Trump. And now these people are saying Donald Trump is anti those concepts. No, he’s not. He defined those concepts. And what you’re seeing across the board, from progressives to Islamists, and now to this new, what they call woke right, that claims to be Christian nationalists, came to the American first. They’re using the same language, which is they’re waging open war on Judeo-Christian civilization, on Judeo-Christian America. All three groups. And so I would say to those who are first finding their way to belief, the reality is that America was made unique and great, and really the greatest country ever devised by man. has been you know an american exceptionalism was that people came running from a european form of christianity that was brutal that was really paganism people fought each other killed each other and they claimed they were doing it in the name of the bible or jesus but in truth it was for country or for blood or for things that were not and it’s happening here in america And that’s the problem. They’re using a language that sounds good, but that’s not what founded America. What founded America was people running from exactly centuries and centuries of that ugliness that claimed to be in the name of Christianity, but never really was. And they’re trying to recreate that here in America. And it’s very popular, but I say, if you look at what they argue, if you look from the woke right to the progressive, to the Islamists, they’re all saying the same thing. They’re saying Judeo-Christian is a lie. Well, Judeo-Christian is the greatest thing that ever happened to Western civilizations.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Jeff, it’s always why we have you on our team. It’s why we have a team in Jerusalem that goes even back and forth. So you’re making sure that you know what’s going on here and there, and it’s why the ACLJ is so important, why the ACLJ Jerusalem team is so important. I want the people to hear when we get back from the next segment. We’ll take some phone calls at 1-800-684-3110, but we have some brand new audio bites or video bites from the conversation that’s going to be airing later on with Bill Hemmer and Benjamin Netanyahu, and we also have some from President Trump from earlier today. Again, these are… pieces that are just coming out as we are live so when we get to the next segment not only are we going to hear from you I want to make sure you actually hear it from the people who are making these decisions President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu You’re going to hear from both of them in comments they made just today. Stay tuned for that. Phone lines are open for you, like I said, at 1-800-684-3110. That’s 1-800-684-3110. I want to hear you. I want to see you on our phone banks. We’ve got four lines open for you right now. It’s a perfect time to call in. And of course… If you enjoy this show, enjoy what we do in the courtroom, enjoy what we do in Israel, I want to support it. You can do it today during our 35 years of Victory Drive, which is through the month of August. Again, sort of our gold drive. I really love it. I think it’s something we need to celebrate. And you’re going to hear from some of the people impacted very soon. Welcome back to Secular. I do want to hear from you at phones. Lines are open at 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110. Let’s go ahead and take a phone call right off the top. Let’s go to Jeff, who’s calling in Ohio on line one. Jeff, go ahead. Hey, how you doing? Good. Thanks for calling.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, uh, yeah, a couple of things. One, you know, I think Netanyahu needs to go even further. He should not only cut, take and annex the, uh, Gaza strip, but also the, uh, Judea and Samaria, what the secular folks call the West bank. All that is historical Israel. Okay. That just needs to be settled once and for all land for peace doesn’t work. And, uh, On the other issue you touched on about supposed conservative Christians, becoming more anti-Semitic. I’ve seen it online myself on Facebook, supposedly at a Reformed site. The thing is, a lot of the Reformed crowd do not believe that the promise to Abraham, you know, I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who curse you. They believe it doesn’t apply. They don’t believe it applies to the modern state of Israel. Well, my observation, though, and even though I am Reformed, I noticed, one, God has sovereignly raised it up in 1948, and in the wars of 1948, 1967, and 1973, there were more than a few episodes or incidents of what could only be described as divine miracle interventions. Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely. I will say this, is that you can look through the history of the modern state of Israel and see how history repeated itself. Bit from the Bible times. Where in no world should they have been able to be victorious and they were victorious in a very short amount of time. Or they were victorious in a way that was unprecedented. So of course you can look that there is some sort of biblical blessing on that physical space. There’s a sacred space there of that physical land that is in Israel. Now when it comes to your biblical interpretation of I bless those who bless those who curse those who curse these. Here’s what I can say. I don’t frankly think that matters in this situation. If you actually do your digging and let’s just say you think the current state of Israel and the modern state of Israel and the biblical state of Israel are completely different and they shouldn’t be treated as completely different things. I don’t think that reframes what Israel is doing, which is to be the only Western leaning state country in the Middle East, the only one in the Middle East where you can actively believe whatever you want. can have whatever sexual orientation that you want, can live a lifestyle of which you choose, have freedom of speech. The only one in this small area that is dealing with this And you look at the fact that they’re being attacked and murdered for decades and decades and decades. And now they are fighting back. There are times when I look at it and go, sure. Do I love that we are two or three years now into this war and the children are suffering? And look, I don’t, as much as I know a lot of the imagery, they say, well, that imagery was this and that and the other. I don’t really play that game because you know what? I do believe the people of Gaza have been suffering. Now that’s not to say that that is exclusively the fault of Israel, right? But that is why I do hope there is an end to the war sooner than later. And I do hope President Trump can come in and meet with the Netanyahu government and figure out what that ending truly looks like. And if that ending looks like a complete takeover of Gaza, just go ahead and do it. Like, get there. We don’t need this war to continue. So again, that’s my pitch there. I know it’s a bit, I did tell you also, I wanted to hear from those people, President Trump, we’re going to hear from a second and Benjamin Netanyahu.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I just wanted to echo kind of what you were saying, Logan, is that I do have a problem when the support of Israel is exclusively theological.
SPEAKER 03 :
Exclusively biblical.
SPEAKER 05 :
exclusively theological I’m not gonna because one people read different things they have different takes on theology you it goes hand in hand though with also that the modern state of Israel is the only Western democracy that it is the only one that supports the rights of their citizens in the style of the United States and Europe and is the only one that has shown that that works in the region as well looking for biblical proof of why you support Ukraine And if you only exclusively go the theological route, as you mentioned, a lot of people that are newer to the faith or things that they’re just learning as they dig and they’re influenced in different ways, or if there is something that then makes them question their theological assumption. Yeah. As soon as they question that, it has the ability to almost make it, well, I was wrong theologically. Therefore, maybe this is evil. The seesaw back and forth could even go further. And then I think that is in some way how you start to see anti-Semitism creep in. Because they think this is different. This isn’t what the Bible is talking about.
SPEAKER 03 :
I think a lot of people were not even raised to understand that Israel… uh was a a no longer a country happening just a hundred years ago sure i think that they just kind of always assume there’s biblical israel of course that’s the same israel uh it’d be like reading about uh you know the king of england of course that’s the same now that being said i do want you to hear before we wrap up specifically from president trump and from Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s important to not just hear from us, but from the people who lead this. Let’s first start with President Trump as he discussed this just earlier today during a White House press conference.
SPEAKER 07 :
We had some very good talks with President Putin today, and there’s a very good chance that we could be ending the round, ending the end of that road. That road was long and continues to be long, but there’s a good chance that there will be a meeting very soon.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s obviously talking about he’s looking forward to an ending. Of course, he’s very, unlike President Trump, I think he’s being very careful with the words he’s saying. He doesn’t want to give any false hopes or promises. Hopefully, there’s a lot of talks of we had a very good chance we could be ending the round or ending the road, a very long road. It continues to be long. There’s a good chance they’ll be meeting very soon. He is putting a lot of caveats on that because I think he learned his lesson a little bit saying we’re going to end this in a day. Now, let’s also hear from Benjamin Netanyahu. This is with Bill Hemmer, again, just this morning.
SPEAKER 06 :
You will go immediately into a meeting with your security cabinet. Will Israel take control of all of Gaza?
SPEAKER 02 :
We intend to, in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza, and to pass it to civilian governance. That is not Hamas and not anyone advocating the destruction of Israel. That’s what we want to do. We want to liberate ourselves and liberate the people of Gaza from the awful terror of Hamas. And you were in the Gaza Strip today. You met Palestinians who are fighting Hamas because finally they see that they have a future. They can rid themselves of this awful tyranny that not only holds our hostages, but holds two million Palestinians in Gaza hostage. That’s got to end.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, so that was Prime Minister Netanyahu, again, just a few hours ago. I’ll make sure you’re hearing from the voices that are making these decisions, and you can then form your own opinion on where you think we should be headed. That being said, we got a minute left. It is Thursday. It’s a great time to give. nothing more I can say other than we have been winning for 35 years and we plan on with your hope, with your help and with God’s blessing to have another 35 years of victories of landmark victories, whether that’s for the unborn, it’s for your freedom of speech, freedom of religion, for churches, even for, uh, you know, people who are speaking out against their own governments when they need to, we’re going to be there for you. And now it’s time to help fuel the next 35 years. Whether we’re in court battling Planned Parenthood, which feels like we have been eternally, but you know what? We’ve seen some big victories. We have seen the overturning of Roe versus Wade. We’ve seen so much happen, but it opened up so many more cases. And we can’t do that without you. You heard from my brother this week. The amount of work that they are doing right now, the legal team is building out in Washington, D.C. is bigger than they’ve ever done it before. But we can’t do it without you. You set the budgets. You set the terms. ACLJ.org. Scan the QR code right now. We’ll be right back.
