Today on Seculo, explore the multifaceted dynamics of political intrigue in Washington as we discuss the latest challenges facing Tulsi Gabbard amid accusations of being underqualified for a national security role. This episode dives into the historical precedent of using letters signed by political operatives as tools for character assassination. We unpack the opinions of commentators and legal experts on how these actions may backfire. Rick Grinnell provides an in-depth analysis of foreign policy, specifically the delicate situation in Syria. Understand the interplay of international diplomacy and the potential strategies that might be employed under a new administration to
SPEAKER 09 :
Today on Seculo, the deep state’s latest political target revealed. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever. This is Seculo. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome to Sekulow. Phone lines are actually not open. I’ll tell you that if you’re listening right now. We’re having an issue with our phone system. So if you have a comment or question, put it in on YouTube or on Rumble, and we will do our best to get to some of those. Maybe we can collect some of those throughout the show. Send that to our social team. If we could collect some of the best questions, we’ll take some of those towards the end of the broadcast. Now, today’s big news. I don’t know if you saw this. And of course, you know, when you get over 100 followers, You’d say, quote unquote, national security advisors, quote unquote, deep staters coming out and saying there’s a problem here. Maybe that means we’re doing something right. And of course, who are they coming after? One of our own in many ways. Someone you’ve heard on this broadcast over the last couple of years, many times, multiple times a week. One of our secular broadcast partners. Of course, I’m talking about Tulsi Gabbard. And this letter says, I mean, here it is right here, has 100, almost 100 people essentially saying you can’t pick Tulsi Gabbard. She is a national security issue, has all these problems. And of course, Will, this comes out of the latest one of these as they keep trying to chip away at President Trump’s picks.
SPEAKER 10 :
that’s right we know that they’ve already come after matt gates and now pete hegseth and now it seems like the deep state’s latest target is tulsi gabbard this letter which is logan you mentioned is signed by nearly 100 former national security officials do you remember the last time we had a letter signed by over 100 national security officials when was that oh yeah the hunter biden laptop uh they said this has all the trappings of russian disinformation nothing to interfering in our election don’t look at it now we get another letter from national security experts that say Tulsi Gabbard has too close of ties or ideology to Russia why is it that the only thing that these national security experts can do is try to create Russia hoaxes This is another one. We’re looking at it and we’re not going to stand for it. But it also, like you said, does tell us maybe he’s picking the right people. If the deep state is so freaked out that they have to write a letter to John Thune, the majority leader elect, and Chuck Schumer, the current majority leader. really pressuring them to scrutinize her they all but say that she’s a russian asset in this they use very diplomatic terms and it makes sense there’s many ambassadors and former ambassadors on this list of people but it’s led by wendy sherman and we’re going to get into some of the parade of horribles of wendy sherman in the next segment because once again When the lead author and the lead signatory on this letter is Wendy Sherman, you have to look at her record and try to figure out, hmm, is this the person you really want to be taking advice from about who should be the director of national intelligence? I say no, and we’ll tell you why coming up.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, we’ll break that down in the next segment. I mean, if you look at this list of people that signed it, you’re probably not going to recognize many of the names. But as we know, pressure does mount in Washington, D.C. So we gotta make sure we stay on top of it and support where we can because it is a little too easy to turn the tide. It’s a little too easy. We’ve seen it already with people getting replaced and things happen. It’s a little bit harder to stay true and support your friends. But this is a friend. This is a genuine friend who we’ve had on this broadcast, like I said, for years. This is somebody that we support and that we’ve known very well and has been so involved in our broadcast here that it’s really sad to see. She actually shared a message on her Instagram. This is not from her. This is someone else who wrote it. They put, this letter from national security leaders is nothing more than a petty character assassination attempt against Tulsi Gabbard because she’s a threat against the failed national security status quo. And I could not agree more. I can’t stress enough also that we are right now headed towards the middle, which is crazy, of our year end faith and freedom drive. We are facing immense challenges and you’re hearing these attacks and they’re increasing. And what we raise in December, I just wanna be clear, it makes up a quarter of our annual budget. So just this month, we raise a quarter, 25% of our annual budget, and we are falling behind right now. So we encourage you right now from our goal, Make that donation today. Your gifts are doubled. Donate today. We have another ACLJ supporter, ACLJ champion, ready to unlock their donation at any level. You can do that right now. Go to ACLJ.org or scan the QR code on your screen. Welcome back to Secular. Once again, we’re going to take your comments through social media. So if you’re watching on YouTube or Rumble, put your comments in or on Facebook. We’ll get some of those pulled and we’ll try to take some of those on the air a little bit later. We are talking about this letter that was sent to John Thune, basically bashing Tulsi Gabbard, one of our colleagues here, saying that she is not fit to be the new director of national intelligence. You know, I really do want to call out the fact they said that she would be the least experienced person in this. This is someone who has been serving our country for two decades now. who has been actively serving in the military for 20 years, who has been deeply involved in politics, has been one of the top names, has been the vice chair of the Democratic Party, who has done a lot. This is not like someone brand new that they’ve never heard of. This is not a favor. This is someone who has extreme amounts of actual background in history, so much so that you can really dig in and look into it. Of all the things, that’s the one that I go, wow.
SPEAKER 10 :
Why are we playing that card? That’s right. And I want to go into Wendy Sherman for a little bit.
SPEAKER 04 :
To clarify, Wendy Sherman is like the lead writer of this letter.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, she is the top name on here, honestly, compared to the Hunter Biden laptop national security letter. That had a lot more… recognizable names on it this most of them not really known except for Wendy Sherman and even to many of you listening you may be like I’ve heard that name who is Wendy Sherman I don’t even really let you know Wendy Sherman served under Hillary Clinton and John Kerry as undersecretary of state for political affairs in that role from 2011 to 2015 So she is a creature of the deep state. She also worked under the Clinton administration. She’s a longtime swamp creature that has been in D.C. pushing Democrat foreign policy at the State Department for decades. Now, she was the lead negotiator for the Obama Iran nuclear deal. That should tell you a lot. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t like someone like Tulsi Gabbard. Joe Biden nominated her to serve as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, so she serves as the deputy to Anthony Blinken. Now, we also have a lot of writing on ACLJ.org about Wendy Sherman because a lot of things pop up in our FOIA request, in our work, where her name is littered through the documents we find. One specifically, Rick wrote a piece about the failed Afghanistan withdrawal, calling out her and Anthony Blinken. for effectively doing nothing to push back against the Biden plan to abandon the air base, abandon the area as the Taliban was closing in. And actually, Rick was calling on congressional committees to require Blinken and Sherman to answer why they allowed their employees to be stranded in a hostile zone. They weren’t prepared for that. So her fingerprints are all over that Afghanistan withdrawal and many of the public servants and the Foreign Service of the United States that were stranded there. She also, we uncovered that she knew that the State Department was funding an organization run by Mahmoud Abbas’s son of the Palestinian Authority. that was interfering in the Israeli elections. So our State Department was funding this NGO that had a benign name, one voice, that was trying to do humanitarian work, but what we knew was it was Mahmoud Abbas’s son, And they were actually buying ads and doing things to interfere with Bibi Netanyahu being reelected as prime minister. This is also under the Obama administration. We uncovered documents that she was on email chains that knew that this was going on, even though the State Department told Congress they had no idea this was going on. So she is a swamp creature. She is not a friend of conservative foreign policy, America first foreign policy. She very much is a globalist and has that mindset of appeasement to many of these people. And just the fact even the Iran nuclear deals chief negotiator alone should tell you, one, why she’s maybe afraid of someone like Tulsi Gabbard getting in there and disrupting The the intelligence state that spies on Americans, that enables the military industrial complex. Yeah, I would probably say Wendy Sherman wouldn’t like that. But that’s exactly why Tulsi Gabbard should be the next DNI.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, absolutely. When you look at that list and you see those names, sure, you may not recognize them. And what I want to make sure is clear, though, is they can make waves. They can make news. We have to take this seriously. It’s easy to kind of laugh off people like this when you look at who’s on that list. And clearly they’re not going to be any friend of any conservative, but they’re going to specifically go after ones that they feel like they have an opportunity to take down. And we have to make sure we stay vigilant on that because it’s easy to kind of turn the tide. You turn a few people against them, all of a sudden you’re having to adjust who’s in this cabinet.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, that’s right. And it should come as no surprise to our audience that one, I mean, you have to get at least 50 senators because J.D. Vance would cause the tie-breaking votes. You can only lose three Republicans for any given nominee. Now, There are still many Republican senators that are more neocon leaning, more hawkish is another way you can put it, towards our foreign policy. Tulsi Gabbard is kind of a refreshing turn away from many of those ideologies. And that’s where the concern could be. If more people like Wendy Sherman push this and try to influence some of the more establishment hawkish Republicans, you could end up having a real fight.
SPEAKER 04 :
But we can’t let that happen. Right. And early in this letter, they try to try to make it less partisan. They actually do. And again, sort of insulting to Tulsi Gabbard and her history. It starts with we welcome the intention to nominate Senator Marco Rubio, an experienced public servant for secretary of state, however. We are alarmed by the announcement that the president-elect intends to nominate Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence. So they’re trying to sway you a little bit already in the first part, being like, oh, we’ll give you Marco Rubio. But this Tulsi person, we need to back off.
SPEAKER 10 :
You know what the swampiest line of this letter to me is, is that down towards the end of it, it’s it talks about you already mentioned they’d say she’d be the least experienced director of national intelligence. That’s also ignoring that she was working in currently still served in an intelligence role within the Army Reserves. But it says prior directors had executive branch experience working on intelligence matters or served on a congressional intelligence committee. So they’re saying an elected member of Congress that works on an Intel committee someone that would be very much inside an establishment would be much better at this role. Because you know why? They feel like they can control those people.
SPEAKER 04 :
They control them, right, of course.
SPEAKER 10 :
Exactly. They don’t feel like they can control Tulsi, and that’s exactly what terrifies them about her being in this role.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s what’s put together when they say, like, the Avengers that were assembled, when you have a Tulsi Gabbard and an RFK Jr. and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, you have that group of people that are traditional outsiders. that are not the commonplace Washington people. And we know when they get into those positions, there’s either two ways they can go. They can either stick to their guns and make a lot of people mad. You have to be strong in Washington, D.C. to not fall for all of that. It is not easy. Because the entire system, look, we saw some of the issues with the first Trump presidency. When you don’t know that system, Things can go wrong. You can pick people that are not the best for the job because you’re trying to take advice from people who don’t have your best interest at heart or they have just their interest at heart and they don’t want to see this change because they’re very happy. They’re very happy with how they’ve been living and the whole situation in Washington, D.C. when we know how it actually relates to normal human beings and you have people that are going in wanting to shake things up. Sure, do I think there’s going to be controversial moments that come out of Tulsi Gabbard as the DNI or RFK Jr. in his position? Yeah. Is it going to make everyone comfortable all the time? Absolutely not. But good. That’s what we need right now. Something actually new and refreshing. There was a referendum vote that said we don’t like the way the country is headed. So if you don’t like the way the country is headed, we’re putting in charge people who are new and fresh and exciting.
SPEAKER 10 :
You know, yesterday, Speaker Johnson gave a statistic, and I think this plays into this whole thing about kind of where our government currently is broken in many ways. And we’ve talked about that statistic that people throw around that only 17 percent of the federal workforce reports regularly to the office. And Speaker Johnson revealed that it’s actually probably closer to 1% to 6% of the workforce because what makes up the bulk of that 17% are either security or maintenance of the building workers. So not even the people necessarily doing the government work, just the people maintaining the offices themselves make up the vast majority. So when you look at that and then you think, About how many people just want status quo, how bloated some of these bureaucracies are, especially even in our intelligence agencies. And then you start to wonder if only one to six percent of them are showing up to work. Yeah, that should scare these people because change is coming.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. And later on in the broadcast, I’m going to show you a segment from our ACLJ film special for the love of God. Save our country with Tulsi Gabbard. She did some amazing work. with hurricane relief. And I think it’s important to see the character of these people that they’re going after. They’re talking about character assassination. We’ll look for the people that are actually standing up and doing something about it. So we’re going to play that much later in the show, you know, towards the very end. So stay tuned for that. Coming up next, Harry Hutchinson’s going to be joining us and Rick Grinnell will be joining us a few segments later. But right now, again, I’m going to tell you, support the work of the ACLJ. I can’t tell you how important it is right now as we head into the end of the year. As we said, I mean, it is not, I’m not overselling it, this is the most important month for fundraising this is our biggest month of fundraising it needs to be at least because it sets our entire budget 25 of our annual budget comes in in december be a part of that help set the standard right now as we take on the deep state as we take on a supportive life and we defend israel If your support matters so much, be a part of this faith and freedom year-end drive right now at ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Secular. Just a reminder, if you keep calling in, you’re not going to be able to get through because our phone lines are down currently. So if you have a question or comment, throw it in the chat on YouTube or on Rumble or on Facebook, and we’ll do our best to get to some of those comments later in the broadcast. Maybe one of the most bizarre turns, the unsung hero of the left, John Fetterman, who, of course, you remember years ago was sort of becoming a big issue when he was running against Dr. Oz and the whole thing that was happening, and he had his medical issues. now has become one of the most uh coherent members of the democratic party in a number of years he has become someone who is uh standing up and look there are times where obviously you’re going to disagree with him on most political decisions but he does seem to shoot pretty straight in terms of when he talks about political corruption he’s obviously been a big supporter of israel and And he’s not letting party control his messaging. And we have seen this now with the statement he made yesterday about Elon Musk saying, oh, yeah, he’s a smart guy. He’s someone that I don’t care if he’s on the other side of the other team. I’m going to hope to work with him. He’s done so much good for us, SpaceX and Tesla. And which is like the worst thing you can say right now for the left, because they obviously made Elon into the boogeyman. But he also stepped on the view.
SPEAKER 10 :
right just yesterday yeah so john fetterman senator from pennsylvania was on the view and they were asking him his thoughts on president biden’s pardon of his son hunter and he gives a statement but then takes it further in a way that i don’t think the hosts of the view were expecting let’s go ahead and play by two for everyone
SPEAKER 01 :
It is his son, after all, and people do have sympathy for that, but a lot of people are angry with him about it. What do you say?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I think it’s undeniable that the case against Hunter Biden was really politically motivated. But I also think it’s true that the trial in New York for Trump, that was political as well, too. And in both cases, I think a pardon is appropriate. And I really think collectively, you know, America’s confidence in these kinds of institutions have been damaged by these kinds of cases. And we cannot allow these kinds of institutions to be weaponized against our political opponents. And it’s very clear both trials were politically motivated and weaponized that on the other side.
SPEAKER 04 :
I mean, talk about a strong statement coming out of John Fetterman, really selling the points that many of us have been saying for years, that these are all politically motivated. You may agree or disagree with the Hunter Biden pardon, but he at least says if you’re going to say that this was politically motivated, you can’t ignore the President Trump’s situation. Harry Hutchinson is joining us. I want to get your feedback.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I think your preliminary analysis is absolutely dead on. Fetterman offers an example of supreme coherence. So if you actually look at the facts, if you look at the prosecutions of Donald Trump, from the New York City civil trial where there were zero victims. If you look at the trumped up charges brought by the Manhattan District Attorney, where again, no one was harmed, no federal violation was proved, but yet he was convicted. If you look at the Jack Smith trial in Florida, you look at the Jack Smith indictment in Washington DC, and if you look at Fannie Willis’s case brought in Georgia, It is all trumped up, if you will, but at the end of the day it has backfired and now it has begun to backfire even more because you have individuals like Fetterman, Bill Clinton, who are suggesting that we need to stop the weaponization of the political system and we need to return to political debate. without bringing judges, lawyers, and basically federal agents involved. So I think this makes a ton of sense. And who would have thought that Fetterman would be an example of coherence 18 months, two years ago? No. And he’s so much more coherent than the people who basically populate the view, who basically contradict themselves day after day and make zero sense. And I hope the show disappears.
SPEAKER 04 :
I think there’s a lot of people who feel that way and including a lot of former hosts some of which I know who feel like that that has become I mean no and the numbers are dwindling they’re not doing as well as they used to but a lot of people watch now they kind of hate watch it which is always kind of fun but when you have a situation like John Fetterman who comes out I think this is very good for America. It’s very good to have people on the other side so it doesn’t always feel like some sort of political hit job from one side or the other. When you look at that letter that came for Tulsi Gabbard, when you look at who signs it, you’re like, yeah, of course, this is all politically motivated. So when you have moments, whether that’s a John Fetterman or a Jared Moskowitz or any of these people who are willing to reach across the aisle, even if they disagree and just be common sense politicians, if you will. It’s a breath of fresh air and it’s something that we all need. We could use a little common sense even on the other side.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, and what’s so funny is that, you know, this is seen as reaching across the aisle when in reality it’s just him not demonizing everything one side does or calling it like it is when it’s like it’s political on both sides. Like even with his comment on Elon Musk, he said just because he’s on a different team doesn’t make him my enemy. Right. That is so far removed from the entire discourse of the American politic right now that it sounds weird to hear it.
SPEAKER 04 :
I think he’s smart enough to know that that’s a big reason why they lost. Yeah. It’s a big reason why there was a referendum vote where people said, you know what? We’re not going to do that. We’re not demonizing half the country. And we also know that some of these extreme state things that people are saying doesn’t represent mainstream Democrats even. It really only represents the online feedback from social media, the loud voice that is really not very big at all.
SPEAKER 10 :
And I do want to ask Professor Hutchison here right at the end, because you brought up the Fannie Willis case in Georgia. There has been a move by the president’s attorneys to have that case dismissed. They filed a motion to dismiss now that he has won. What do you think will happen there? And do you think we’ll hear anything out of that district court judge soon?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I’m not sure about the district court, but I really believe that the Court of Appeals will gradually move toward dismissing all of the charges. Secondarily, I would point out that the district court judge may have an opportunity to review his judgment. I hope he will, because he suggested that Fannie Willis’s case brought against Donald Trump was in fact Infected by what? The odor of mendacity and the appearance of impropriety. I would argue it was actually infected by impropriety. She profited from this case because she earned money, quote unquote, from her boyfriend. And so I think at the end of the day, all of these cases should disappear, and we should move forward, and we should focus on political debate as opposed to legal debate.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s always great to have your analysis. Thank you so much for joining us. We do have a second half hour coming up. If you’re listening on local radio, some of you don’t get the full hour. We broadcast live for a full hour on ACLJ.org, on YouTube, on Rumble. You can just find us. Just search ACLJ or Seculo. We’ll be right there broadcasting live. That is from noon to 1 Eastern time. And then you can find us later on, if you’re listening later on, on the podcast feed or on YouTube or Rumble, archived later on in the day. Full hour coming up, half hour coming up after this with Rick Grinnell. He’ll be joining us. We’re going to play some of those clips, like I said, from Tulsi Gabbard, some of the great humanitarian works. You can see the true character of the people that the deep state is attacking, that the swamp is attacking. And be a part of that conversation as well. Get your comments in if you’re watching online. And support the work of the ACLJ right now as we head into the end of our Faith and Freedom year-end drive. We need your support.
SPEAKER 09 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. Second half hour coming up right now. I’m going to encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ during this Faith and Freedom year in drive. For those just kicking off the show, I encourage you to support the work. This is a great time to do it. 25% of our annual budget comes from the month of December. And we can’t do that without you. We can’t have incredible guests on. We can’t have the best legal team, the best media team. without you so support the work of the aclj you can scan that qr code if you’re watching right now and you’re going to hear this through the month of december because it’s a very important time probably the most important time for the organization so i encourage you right now and you’re going to hear more about some of the work the aclj is doing a bit later in the broadcast if you’re just watching you just tuned in you just clicked over on youtube or rumble you may have seen that headline of who the latest political target is and of course happens to be one of our friends one of the friends of the show of our colleagues on this broadcast and that of course is tulsi gabbard who has been up for the new director of national intelligence we’re going to be joined in the next segment by former director of national intelligence rick grinnell who’s going to be breaking down a lot of different things including that support from john fetterman and some of the news coming out of syria but will We should give people a breakdown. This letter came in. If you’re just now tuning in this letter, I’m holding it up. Are you seeing it on the screen right now with over 100 or nearly 100 signatures of people you’ve never heard of saying this Tulsi Gabbard person is inexperienced. Let’s forget about her 20 years of military service. Let’s forget about her time serving our country is insane.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s right. So nearly 100 signatures. A lot of people with the title ambassador. It doesn’t specify for most of them which country they were ambassador to, but all of them retired. And then the real one name that sticks out is Wendy Sherman, as we talked about earlier. She is a deep state swamp monster that has been around since the Clinton presidency, but really rose to power within the Obama administration when she was the lead negotiator on that failed, flawed Iranian nuclear deal, which gave away billions to the Iranians and allowed them to really build up to what we saw even with October 7th. The chaos that is happening in the Middle East right now can be traced back to the Iranians getting relief from sanctions and pallets of cash from the Obama administration. Now, they were faced with the very forceful sanctions and no nonsense from the Trump administration, but when Joe Biden was in power, and the weakness returned. You saw things like October 7th happen. You see the civil war, which was mainly dormant in the Syrian nation of Syria, which is a failed state has revived. You’re seeing Hezbollah attacking Israel. So all the chaos can be traced back to people like Wendy Sherman, whose policies were so failed and reckless That it led to this. And that’s who’s the lead author and top signature on this letter trying to push Tulsi Gabbard aside and trying to get the Senate just to do their job, give good advice, reject this candidate. Really, it’s the kind of Washington thing that disgusts you. It’s what America voted against. This is not some allegation that they dug up of impropriety or anything of that nature. They’re just saying she’s not qualified. She’s inexperienced. She wasn’t on a congressional committee on intelligence. So how dare you put her forward?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and I’m sorry that we’re disregarding a list of 100 people, including, like you said, a bunch of no-name people we’ve never heard of. Right. A few ambassadors on there, a lot of retired ambassadors. And as Darth Vader once said, this is a consulship. Where are the ambassadors? Right. So this is the message I want to send to you right now. We have to support people like Tulsi Gabbard who have come up and are changing things and are making things new. And again, she was part of our team for a number of years. You’ve heard her on here. You’ve seen her character. But this is what they call a character assassination attempt. Later on in the broadcast, you’re here for Rick Grinnell next. And in the end, I’m going to show you some of the incredible work that she’s doing when the government doesn’t. when humanitarian aid is needed. And you’re going to see that. It’s a segment from our special, For the Love of God, Save Our Country, which is available now on all of our YouTube channel. On Rumble, you can find it all there, our ACLJ films. So take a look at that. Coming up later, Rick Grinnell is going to be joining us in just a few minutes. We’re going to talk, as Will said, a little bit more, get you educated here on the Syrian Civil War and so much more. Support the work of the ACLJ as you can. Right now, it’s a great time to do it. Got a couple minutes till we’re back. So make your donation during the break. Welcome back to Seculo. Rick Grinnell is joining us via phone. We’re going to have him on in here in just a second. And Will, we were talking about in the last segment, sort of the brewing return to the Syrian civil war. That’s right.
SPEAKER 10 :
And what we’ve seen is something, Rick, that was mostly dormant for the last handful of years in Syria. But now in recent days, we’re seeing that civil war ratchet back up. Rick, what’s currently happening in Syria as the rebel groups target the overthrow of Assad?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, you know, I’ve been watching this, Will, for decades from my time inside the UN Security Council watching the chaos in Syria. It’s really a sad situation. And I think as most people know, Bashar al-Assad is the leader in Syria. And even the United Nations has said that he gassed his people multiple times. He’s committed very grave human rights abuses. And yet he’s been able to stay. And he’s been able to stay as the leader. I think it’s a failure of the region to deal with Assad. The Russians have gone into Syria and they control a lot of what’s going on in the protected Assad. You’ve got the Iranians who have been all over the Syrian capital and other parts of Syria. You’ve got the Turks, which border Syria, very concerned about the humanitarian crisis over the last many years. And I do believe that what’s happening there with the rebels against the Assad regime rising up and taking territory. I believe that they did this because they saw that Donald Trump was coming in and Donald Trump prioritizes peace. And he tends to go into situations and calm the situation down and take control. And he does this in a very peaceful way, not in the past where the United States has sent in troops, but to actually use diplomacy and leadership and talking to individuals. And so I think that all the players, the Turks who are our NATO allies since 1952, the Russians who we’ve had really difficult relations with because of Ukraine over the last several years, the Iranians who we’ve had incredibly difficult relations with, I think everyone now realizes that with Trump coming back, Donald Trump coming back into the White House, that Syria is going to be a focus and we’re going to try to calm the situation down. So I think the rebels have launched an attack. We don’t know exactly where Assad is. Is he actually still in power? Is he still in the country? I think there’s differing reports. The Russians this morning… were fighting back a little bit, which has surprised some people that they have the ability to fight back, but they’ve been bombing some parts to help the Assad regime. So there’s a lot of chaos going on. And I think the United States needs to use its diplomatic pressure, its leadership to make sure that we try to calm the situation down and find some solutions. I would argue using Turkey, our NATO ally, as one of the leaders in this region right now.
SPEAKER 04 :
Rick, I think one of the big questions that probably our audience has or people maybe are just tuning in who never heard us before is why does this impact us? Why does this impact America? Why do we really care what’s going on? From a global perspective and someone who’s been there and has been a part of this for a number of years, Rick, I know that you probably can explain that a little bit better of how all of this, the chaos in the Middle East, how it can really impact what’s going on in our own country. And to follow that up, how does these new developments that are happening right now, whether it’s in Syria or whether any of the things you went over, affect an incoming Trump administration?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, those are great questions. And I would say a couple of things. First of all, we have many Syrian Americans who live in Michigan and other places that care deeply about this. So that’s one reason to care. Two, we’ve got a lot of U.S. troops in the region. We have troops in Syria. So we have to make sure that we’re protecting our troops. We have allies in the region, certainly Israel. And we are, as a country, focused on the problems inside Iran. Iran wants to destroy America and wants to destroy Israel. It’s the number one funder of terrorism around the world. Certainly, we have been impacted by the Iranian terror. And the regime inside Iran is a brutal regime that systematically denies women their rights, gay people, their rights. It’s a brutal regime. And we have a lot of Iranian Americans who care very deeply about what’s going on. So I think in summary, it’s for the protection of our people, certainly national security issues. We know that the Iranians have targeted us. The Iranians have tried to make killing Donald Trump a priority. And so we’ve got to deal with this regime. And this regime is all over Syria and has had protections in Syria. Isolating Iran, pushing them out of Syria should always be an issue. And lastly, let me just say, I am clear-eyed about making sure that America doesn’t send troops and we don’t use American money. We have to use our power to get others in the region to step up and to find the solutions. We are the only country that can call together a meeting and mandate that everybody do their part. And that’s the power of peaceful diplomacy that Donald Trump has been very good at doing.
SPEAKER 10 :
Rick, I want to bring up, because you mentioned all of the players that are kind of on the periphery of this conflict that has been going on for a long time now. But I mean, you mentioned Turkey, you mentioned Russia, you mentioned the Iranians. And it almost seems like this conflict, which is boiling up at the end of the once again, at the end of the Biden administration, after the failed Obama red line and all of the things that kind of created this snowball effect. It seems that this is almost the perfect melting pot of all the conflicts that have heated up because of the failed foreign policy of President Biden. And whenever that happens and there’s all these touch points that the Americans have interest in, the concern with the type of foreign policy that came before is that leads to the Americans getting into war. You mentioned you’re clear-eyed about not wanting boots on the ground from America. Yeah. That’s also what I think the American people mandated with this last election. But you see people like Wendy Sherman that are trying to weigh back in and try to force her views on Trump cabinet picks now by sending letters to Senator Thune and Senator Schumer. Is it time to turn the page on that foreign policy that has led to such disastrous results around the world?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, let’s be very clear-eyed about Wendy Sherman. Wendy Sherman has been at the forefront of most every single failed foreign policy that we’ve had. Her reputation is called What Do You Want, Wendy? Because when she goes into negotiations, she gives everything away. She’s been duped by North Korea. She’s been duped by Iran one too many times. She is literally the symbol of weak foreign policy. She helped create this global chaos, and then she left the State Department. Wendy Sherman should be completely dismissed from American foreign policy. She’s proven to be a failure and a weak negotiator over and over. She’s made us less safe. So that should be the end of the Wendy Sherman tenure. The reality is, is that unless you have tough diplomats and a State Department that’s willing to do diplomacy— you have the situation in Washington where the Pentagon and all of the individuals who believe in power tend to be the ones who drive the solutions. And so I think that it’s important for President Trump to have a very tough senior diplomat who’s talking about all of the peaceful solutions. At the same time, I recognize you’ve got to have a very prepared Pentagon But what I would say to Marco Rubio, what I would say to Michael Waltz and to Pete Hegseth, you must give the president peaceful options, not just military options. I’m very concerned about that, and I will be very vocal about that. We can do sanctions. We can do isolation. Tariffs are another peaceful way. There are tools here, and I’m confident that Donald Trump will be looking for those peaceful tools.
SPEAKER 04 :
Rick, thank you so much for joining us. Your insight’s obviously incredibly important and we appreciate all the work you’ve done here with us over the last few years. And again, your expertise is so incredible. You’ve a way of making it easy to understand for a lot of our audience and for myself even. So first I just want to say, thank you and we couldn’t have people like rick grinnell on this broadcast as part of the aclj team without your support and you may say logan you’ve been doing these pitches i’m gonna keep doing it because it’s the month of december 25 of our budget comes in just in the month of december for the year so we need your support right now i’m gonna encourage you To take a moment, scan the QR code or go to ACLJ.org because all gifts are doubled today, by the way, and tax deductible. Have your gifts doubled. That’s right. There’s another ACLJ supporter or ACLJ champion ready to match your donation. Have your gift doubled and our faith and freedom year-end drive right now. And if you’re able, become an ACLJ champion. That is someone that gives on an automatic recurring basis. You can do that. You just opt right in at ACLJ.org or ACLJ.org slash ACLJ. champions we’ll be back in the next segment again as they go after tulsi gabbard your character assassination of someone of our team you’re going to see the real work that she is doing for the american people to secular i told you before i wanted to get right to it if you want to see sort of the character that someone like tulsi gabbard is and who she is and what she does for the american people even when she doesn’t have to take a look at this from our special for the love of god save our country
SPEAKER 06 :
I made a choice early on in my life that I would dedicate my life in service to God, do my best to love God and to serve God. And really, what better way to be pleasing to God than to be of service to God’s children? That’s taken me in a lot of different directions. I served in Congress representing Hawaii’s second district for eight years. I was a Democratic candidate for president in 2020. I currently serve as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army Reserve and a battalion commander. I started this nonprofit called We Must Protect. Really, it’s kind of based on what I think are some of the warrior ethos of being protectors and how it’s up to us as people to look out for each other. And it exists to help bridge that gap in the failures of government to respond to the immediate and emergency needs of the people. There are a lot of different awesome organizations that are out there. A space that I think we’ve been able to fill in the wake of some of these extreme disasters is to be able to connect directly with people on the ground and their neighbors and friends who are helping them and immediately mobilize the resources to get them what they need. But a lot of the issues that people have in the wake of these major disasters have to do with infrastructure, has to do with access to power. Perhaps you’ve got destroyed roads or roads that are blocked that make it so people can’t get in and out in order to get the supplies and the basic needs that they have met. Water is essential to all life. Government institutions have a responsibility to make sure that that access to water exists. These are some of the most fundamental needs in the wake of a major disaster. Obviously, there are longer-term needs like this, like we saw in Lahaina on Maui and West Maui, as we’ve seen in the wake of Hurricane Helene and Milton. When you have homes and communities that are destroyed, the government uniquely has a capability to be able to deploy resources, whether they be military resources or government resources, to get water filtration systems out, to be able to get temporary shelter out, to be able to meet these extreme emergency needs in a way that perhaps most nonprofits simply lack the capability to do. There’s not one single right answer to this. The fundamental need is we have leaders at every level who have a responsibility to be prepared in the event of these disasters occurring and to care enough to mobilize all available resources immediately to meet the needs of the people. I activated my nonprofit, We Must Protect, and really mobilized it in response to the tragic and historic fires that occurred on Maui. It was something that none of us had ever seen before. So many lost their lives. We saw homes, businesses, an entire community razed to the ground in just minutes. So we issued a call for help and a call for support. The needs that people had in the west side of Maui were basic but essential, and they were not being met by government institutions. I went there to the west side of Maui just a couple of days after the fire. And it was shocking to me to see how many people were still without communications capabilities, were still without power, without clean water in some cases, without access to food. They couldn’t get out to the other side of the island in order to get the resources that they need. And so immediately we kicked into gear and started to deliver specific things that these residents needed and asked for bridging that gap between the failure in the government response at every level and meeting the needs of our neighbors and our friends.
SPEAKER 02 :
The devastation from Helene spread across the South.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, North Carolina was hit with flooding it hasn’t seen in a century. Some calling it biblical.
SPEAKER 01 :
Countless residents stranded crews and neighbors going door to door to help the most vulnerable. Many residents growing desperate cell service and portable water out for days just touched down.
SPEAKER 06 :
We were able to get on a helicopter so we could get a bird’s eye view of the Lake Lure and Chimney Rock area. This is the whole team right here for the town. It’s hard to put into words what that devastation is and what it’s going to take for them to even begin to start thinking about rebuilding. It’s going to be a long road ahead.
SPEAKER 08 :
So this is the operation. We’re so fortunate to be so loved by everybody. We haven’t had a natural disaster like this in Western North Carolina. very long time so the outpouring is amazing and as you can see volunteers galore and it’s just you know so heartfelt.
SPEAKER 07 :
But anything you can do to keep us alive. We need help building this road back. We need a big retaining wall. We need the park reopened. We need this road all the way up. That’s the kind of help we need. We got chainsaws. We got water. We need structures.
SPEAKER 06 :
Getting out there into the mountains of Western North Carolina a few days after Hurricane Helene swept through left me speechless and heartbroken. To go and literally have boots on the ground, walking through some of these small towns and small communities who’ve lost everything. and to see how they were doing their best as neighbors, as friends, as volunteer firefighters to not even begin to put the pieces back together because the devastation was so extreme that the next steps were hard to comprehend. It reminded me a lot of what we saw in the wake of the fires on Maui, where one of the biggest concerns was, yes, there were very immediate needs that they had, everything from chainsaws to generators to, you know, fuel and propane tanks, water filtration systems. But the road is long. They recognize that and we recognize that. On Maui, it’s been over a year and no one’s been able to even begin to start to rebuild their homes yet. And the number one thing that I heard from people there in Western North Carolina was very similar to what I heard from the people on Maui, which was don’t forget about us. In every one of these cases, they asked, please don’t forget about us because they know very well that as the headlines move on, unfortunately too often they are forgotten about. It’s the most beautiful thing to see in the midst of such tragedy and death and destruction, to see how our fellow Americans stand up and step up for each other. Even people who have lost everything, and I saw this on Maui, I saw it in Western North Carolina, even people who lost everything, their vehicle, their home, they have nothing but the clothes on their back. are picking up shovels and moving debris. They are helping those who are in need even though they themselves are in extreme need. And how each of us, in whatever small or large way that we can, also do the same to extend those blessings, to do our best to be of service to others, especially during these times of dire need.
SPEAKER 04 :
So that is Tulsi Gabbard from our special For the Love of God, Save Our Country, which is available on ACLJ Films, ACLJFilms.com. I want to encourage you to look at that. That’s the true character of what they’re going after. That’s the person they’re saying is unfit for this job. And you see what she did, even when not called upon, even when the government doesn’t say you got to go help. She was there to help. So obviously we are in support of our friend Tulsi Gabbard. Again, this is the end of our broadcast for today. And we are in our Faith and Freedom year-end drive. If you like the show we do here, if you like the media we put out, if you like the legal work of the ACLJ, we encourage you to support the work right now. ACLJ.org or become an ACLJ champion. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.
