Join Logan Sekulow and his guests as they navigate through a whirlwind of recent events, from President Trump’s impactful discussions with international leaders to compelling insights from top experts like Rick Grinnell and CeCe Heil. This episode shines a light on the critical issues facing society today, including the complex relations in the Middle East and the often overlooked persecution of Christians globally. Gain valuable perspectives as the team reflects on a week filled with engaging content and deep dives into the stories that matter.
SPEAKER 07 :
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 09 :
Welcome to Sekulow. We got a great show lined up for you today. All this week, we’ve had some incredible content. I just wanted to make sure that none of it got lost, that if you weren’t part of the show through Monday through Thursday. So some of this content is some of the best of this week. So I’m glad you tuned in. We are obviously President Trump. stated he was going to give Hamas two or three days to have an agreement with Israel to finalize the end of the war. We are really approaching on that day three. So we will see how things play out later on in the day. But in the meantime, I wanted to go through a couple really good segments. Today, you’re going to hear stuff this week from Rick Grinnell. Rick, you know, has been a member of our show for a long time. He runs the Kennedy Center. He was a former ambassador to Germany, former director of national intelligence, really someone who is invaluable in terms of his point of view here at the ACLJ because he has such incredible insights, also a special envoy currently for the Trump administration. We are also going to dive in to that letter that came out from Trump. Charlie Kirk to Benjamin Netanyahu. A lot of people were thinking this was going to be the letter that was going to say it all. That was going to say how Charlie Kirk turning point had been at the moment where they were going to say we are disavowing ourselves from Israel. And of course that letter comes out and it says quite the opposite. It actually says what we’ve been saying here for a very long time. which is Israel does a very poor job at the PR game. They do a very poor job at getting their message across. They succumb very easily to the press that comes out of the left. And unfortunately, that has now seeped in to a lot of the right. We are combating that. I don’t know if you heard our show yesterday. You should go back and listen to that with Steve Wiggins, who really gives you a great breakdown of even the biblical reasons why you should be supporting the modern state of Israel. I think there are plenty of non-biblical reasons as well. But let’s just start with those. I mean, the modern state of Israel, by the way, is the only really Western culture in the entire Middle East. The only American-style culture. It was closer that you’re going to find to being at home is going to be there in Israel. But, of course, that’s too much, too much for the surrounding nations. Now, the surrounding nations have shown support for President Trump’s concept here, so we’ll see where that goes. We’re also going to have CeCe Heil on. CeCe Heil is one of our senior attorneys here at the ACLJ. She has been for many, many years. And we have been discussing, obviously, the incredible and horrifying persecution of Christians in Nigeria and around the world. And finally, that is starting to get some mainstream attention. Bill Maher brought it up on his broadcast on Realtime. That is, again, he has become oddly enough. I mean, I think people are pretty shocked. Bill Maher has been one of those sources that now will speak up for those, for Christians and those that are being persecuted around the world. When you have probably the biggest, the most devout atheist who maybe now is wavering a little bit. Now he says he doesn’t believe in God, but now he says that kind of an I don’t know. We pray for him and pray for everybody involved. But he is the one bringing this up to the mainstream media. So we’re going to talk with her about that. And that report on Quiet Skies, you remember that program that our friend, former colleague Tulsi Gabbard was put on, essentially a terror watch list. uh where you get extra screen screening they had people on planes very uncomfortable situation for her uh that she was put under and now the details have emerged of course most of those people if not all of them that were targeted were those who were either republicans conservatives or supporting president trump so it’s a very interesting time as all of those details are unveiled so we’re going to go through all of that but we will be back next week as well with brand new content i want to make sure you know we’re not going anywhere i just wanted to make sure you saw This great show that we put on all week. It’s very easy. When we put on a daily show, you may skip some, but you may not be able to catch all of it. So this is a bit of a best of this week. And I also encourage you to go back and listen to yesterday’s show because there’s some great content there as well. That being said, I want you to support the work of the ACLJ. We are hard at work each and every day, though this show may be a bit of a best of. Know that our crew is right now in the studio working on our show. Our legal team right now is in the courts right now. And none of that happens without you. So if you want to take a moment, I encourage you, go to ACLJ.org. Become a supporter, become a donor, or become an ACLJ champion. You can easily subscribe for free on YouTube. You can give right now at ACLJ.org. Opt in to become a champion. Some of the gives on a monthly basis. And here you go. We’ll be right back with more on Sekulow.
SPEAKER 1 :
Sekulow.
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome back to Secular. We do want to take your phone calls also at 1-800-684-3110 right now. Of course, we’re also talking about President Trump and Netanyahu were meeting yesterday. We did pretty much most of the show on that. But they released what would be their plan and their plan, and we talked about it. And it seems to be getting more traction than maybe we were going to potentially give it credit for. It seems like we’re headed towards some form of deal.
SPEAKER 10 :
Big news out of the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority is welcoming this deal. And part of this deal requires the Palestinian Authority to basically stand down as well. Now, Mahmoud Abbas, who leads it, is 89. We looked it up. Looks decent for 89. He’s billions of dollars in corruption. He can go to Dubai. He could probably stay in the West Bank if he wants. But what they’re saying is new leadership. after that international community remember tony blair’s been doing this for two or three decades so he’s got a lot of trust on both sides he’s not a young man either and they’re saying although it’s not going to be much of an israeli component it’s going to be most all all arab countries yeah so uh the citizens of gaza the people in gaza and the west bank are It isn’t like Israel’s going to be… It’s the opposite. Israel’s going to immediately withdraw if you accept these terms. And all they really have to do is stop fighting, give us back the people who are alive and the bodies that you’ve got, and you’re not going to be killed, you’re not going to be arrested, and the prisoner release… is an unbelievable concession by Israel. So if you don’t think that Prime Minister Netanyahu, all those people say he’s a warmonger, and all those conspiracies about Jews, if he’s willing to release that many hardened killers to get to peace for the children of Gaza… that’s not a hardened hater of Eric.
SPEAKER 09 :
I saw a lot of people posting yesterday, and I’m pretty connected to that world, sort of the Zionist influencers, if you will. And a lot of them were just sort of like, you know what? If this is what it takes, this is what it takes. And most of them were not happy with a lot of the concessions, including me. That’s concessions. But they go, if this is what it takes to end it and to get the hostages home. What they were showing a lot was a lot of people saying… Say no to this. They’re showing the other side saying, say no to this deal. This deal is not a good deal. You’re not getting what you want here. It’s like, oh, so really it wasn’t about the children. It really was about, you know, Hamas and destroying Israel.
SPEAKER 10 :
You can demilitarize Gaza. and the West Bank, which has some still pockets of very radical… I mean, areas where if you went in as an Israeli, it’s different terror groups, but they’re there and they kill you.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, in the last couple of days, they actually found a munitions factory in the West Bank that was owned by Hamas. But once again, that’s under the control over the oversight of the Palestinian Authority.
SPEAKER 10 :
Kind of, because Janine and some of those places, I think Hebron as well, like… The Palestinian Authority basically can’t even go in. The times I’ve been in the West Bank when Hamas was coming up, when they took control of the Gaza Strip, the police in the West Bank for the Palestinian Authority, who have a good working relationship with Israeli police forces, they were all masked. because of the same concerns like our ICE agents have here right now, which is that there’s enough Hamas operatives walking around that if they’re unmasked, they’re going to be killed in their place they’re protecting. So I know there are very good… and great Palestinian people because I’ve worked with them my entire career. And I’ve been praying for a moment like this. I wish it didn’t take so much loss of life and horrible attacks on October 7th and then the war that followed to get to even this discussion. But the fact that the Palestinian Authority is saying this looks pretty good, I mean…
SPEAKER 09 :
What happens, though, to the Hamas? I mean, they’re saying, yes, they have to say, I’m not going to be violent.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, there’s going to be an international force there of Arabs.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, true. It does feel a bit pipe dreamy.
SPEAKER 10 :
But remember, that international force is there until they’re demilitarized. But it won’t be Jews or Israelis, IDF, fighting back Hamas. It will be…
SPEAKER 09 :
arab countries it’ll be kind of like a un peacekeeping mission made up only of uh of people who speak the same language and follow the same faith and i’m hoping that this is a moment where the tide turns uh when you have the letter from charlie kirk coming out that kind of debunks the narrative that was out there saying that he was uh pressure being pressured to uh really turn on israel now your pressure to the he wanted to turn on israel uh which is what they were saying that he was getting pressured not to uh when you have this full-fledged letter which i think we can break down even more and then you have this uh really a very moderate agreement coming out of the of israel uh one that you could say is uh like i said has a lot of concessions in it um it kind of starts changing that narrative and i was like i was watching the house of david last night i was watching that it’s like man this has been going on You know, for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, you know, in the fight for Israel’s safety. And I know some people will argue with me and say different Israel, different time. But you know what? When you look at the struggles that were going on even then, not so different, not so different at all.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well. And when you go back to this letter, one, it debunks what some of the conservative influencers like Candace and Tucker have been lying about or making up about that one that, you know, he was changing his mind. No, this entire thing is actually how to combat the rhetoric coming from some of these influencers that have turned their back on Israel and play into these wild thousand-year-old anti-Semitic tropes and conspiracy theories.
SPEAKER 09 :
The best thing is they haven’t just turned their back on Israel or said, you know what, that’s not an issue I care about anymore. I’m America first. I don’t care about what goes on in Israel and the Middle East. That is one thing. And I’m not for that either, but I can at least say that’s it. That is saying I no longer want to be affiliated with this political issue, war, and these kind of things. It’s when they start adding in all of the tropes and all of the conspiracy theories. and all the things that don’t just loop in Israelis. They loop in the Jewish people as a whole. And look, and I will tell you, from just the content I’ve seen, and I’ve seen quite a bit from them, it’s not that, we’re not, you know, bloviating here, that the right, this sort of extreme right, was starting this process. And looping it in, lumping it in with a lot of their issues with immigration, a lot of issues with a lot of things, support of Israel started coming in.
SPEAKER 10 :
Benjamin Netanyahu had to come out and say, we didn’t kill Charlie Kirk. And in fact, Charlie Kirk, how many visits he had made, he talked about this letter, the support, how he was trying to help Israel. And people said he was trying to steal the moment. No, he only had to do that because a bunch of people with huge microphones in the US were blaming Jews for killing Charlie Kirk and specifically Netanyahu.
SPEAKER 08 :
And then gaslighting the American people or their audience when, oh, why would he say that? Why would he have to come out and say that? No one was saying that. It’s like, yes, you actually were inferring that. You directly were. And this is a part I think, once again, it goes to what you and Jordan and everyone at the ACLJ has said for a long time on this broadcast and in our work with ACLJ Jerusalem about Israel needing to find a better way to present themselves to the world, especially to the American audience. But this even pushes back that, you know, the Israelis were trying to buy him. That’s been a narrative that’s been pushed disgustingly after his death and assassination. But it says he gives some examples of things he’s hearing at his events from conservatives that are coming to his events. And then he says above are just a sampling of the negative Israel Jewish comments and questions I confront on college campuses. I am accused of being a paid apologist for Israel when I defend her. Does that sound familiar? However, if I don’t defend Israel strongly enough, I’m accused of being anti-Semitic. I know you’ve got a seven-front war, and my kvetching pales in comparison. Are you serious? But I’m trying to convey to you. Dennis Prager played a huge role in his life. And he mentions that. He says, but I’m trying to convey to you that Israel is losing support even in conservative circles. This should be a five alarm fire. And then instead of saying, so you deal with it, I’m out of here. He gives, this is a seven page letter. examples and plans like here’s some i know these are unsolicited recommendations but my team and i suggest this to you if you’re open-minded about a communications reset starts giving him a playbook of how to speak to american conservatives because as you mentioned sometimes it gets lost in translation when you’re trying to speak to an american conservative audience and unfortunately some people with big platforms and big microphones as jordan said are going to tell lies to get their point across in their dollars people think
SPEAKER 10 :
APAC does this? APAC plays very down the middle. It’s a bipartisan group to just try and keep U.S. support from Israel by both Republicans and Democrats. They’re not the right group to be doing this for a specific conflict. What he’s saying is we need, which conservatives, we’ve always known this is why we have CPAC. It’s why we have the Leadership Institute. Prager is doing the education. He was saying you need to put together these surrogates who aren’t you.
SPEAKER 09 :
yeah and educate us on and so we can educate you too on messages that will actually resonate to the people we’re talking to in America understand we’ve been on those calls and emails with people in Israel for decades about this conversation this is an ongoing conversation because Israel somewhat knows they lose this battle it is does get lost in translation because a conservative Israeli is very different than a conservative uh American They have similar political views, but it’s definitely not one-to-one. It’s not one-to-one culturally. It’s not one-to-one socially. There’s a big difference. So you have to figure out how to talk to people about these issues. I am going to address something real quick as we go to break. There’s some people in the YouTube chat saying they want to super chat to help support this channel and everything. What I’m going to encourage you to do is actually go to ACLJ.org. and make a donation we’ll know that if it’s coming in in this hour that it was because of this show and know that we appreciate that that’s tax deductible that helps us out a lot more more money gets to the right people if you make that donation through aclj.org you can cut out youtube as a middleman you know google takes their cut and all that if you do super chat nothing wrong with doing a super chat we appreciate it but if you’re just looking to financially support the organization and this show go to aclj.org if you do it today know right now if you’re doing it during this show we’ll know it’s for this we’ll know it’s for this reason and look for all the other people who are on there the haters on there we understand too you know what you’ve been brainwashed a little bit we’ll do our best to help fix that call in 1-800-684-3110 either side i’d like to hear from you yep very back Welcome back to Steculo. We are going to take your calls and comments on this because we had a lot of people calling in. Do you want to give an update on the Quiet Skies situation?
SPEAKER 10 :
We had our team, obviously, you know, we not only Tulsi Gabbard worked with us here before. Again, her job is DNI. And of course, we have Rick Grinnell, who was the former DNI. But we also represented her. as she was working at ACLJ with us as part of the time period when she was out of elected office and really kind of explaining to people her full move out of the Democrat Party, why she felt like she had no place left and kind of actually didn’t just feel like she needed to be independent, but felt like the Republican Party was her new home.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, it was two steps. She went independent, released the book, and then said, you know what?
SPEAKER 10 :
And then, of course, while that happens, she travels a lot. She’s fairly high profile, doing a lot of speaking and events. And she’s noticing she keeps getting that designation on her boarding pass. I’ve gotten it before. My wife has gotten it before. It’s supposed to be random. Random. And again, to get it over and over again, to have agents on the plane, And it was getting kind of personal too, like going through her personal belongings in front of people. So you would go through security, and then oftentimes she would have to do it again at the gate. And sometimes they would take her to a back room. But again, this is just, it’s personally, you feel like, listen, I didn’t do anything wrong, so nothing’s going to actually happen to me. But I’m being actively spied on. Mm-hmm. And then we find out three more Republican members of Congress, only Republican, this was happening to also. So you have the government using a power that is supposed to protect us from terrorists to surveil and kind of, I think, kind of make life tougher, just like, you know, kind of show them, hey, we’re the ones in charge. Using power in the worst way. because of people’s politics. And again, when the government ever faces any moves like this over politics, Logan, I mean, that’s the worst of the federal government. And so what I love about the hearing and the ACLJ’s work on this, and let me thank our donors again, because these are tough, complicated cases, especially we took it on in the administration that was in charge. And Rand Paul said, Senator Paul said, this was only uncovered because of Tulsi. And we uncovered it with her right here on this broadcast. And now that we uncover it, we fought back and represented her.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, absolutely. We actually have a bite from earlier this year. So this is from January this year of Tulsi Gabbard speaking about this, speaking about specifically the Quiet Skies program. When was this and where was this? Just so I know, so I can give people information. This was during her confirmation hearing. Okay, so let’s take a listen to Tulsi Gabbard.
SPEAKER 03 :
Biden, the FBI abused its power for political reasons to try to surveil Catholics who attend traditional Latin mass, labeling them as quote unquote radical traditionalist Catholics. Personally, just 24 hours after I criticized Kamala Harris and her nomination, I was placed on a secret domestic terror watch list called Quiet Skies. Sadly, there are more examples. The bottom line is this. This must end.
SPEAKER 09 :
Remember, this is what we were living through. I mean, I think it became very normal for all of us. And maybe you’re very quick to forget. You’re very quick to move on. It’s why, you know, we’ve always had to say the only thing difference is like when we start talking about the FBI now or the DNI and those kind of things. I have to reframe my mind to not immediately think of corruption and it’s like, what are we talking about? Because so much in so many years, I mean, really, even during the first Trump presidency, we were dealing with a lot of it’s just the beginning of draining the swamp.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah. I mean, so much of what, when you talk to Rick Grinnell, I mean, he was basically brought in as DNI after Ambassador to Germany to say, you know what, we’ve got to kick this off because even the first people put in place were not tough enough to fight the bureaucracy. What was already built in, yeah. And so it started with Rick and then now Tulsi, someone who has seen the abuse of this, is in charge. So they have a massive job of not only the main job of DNI, which is to keep us safe and to make sure our intelligence agencies are working together to keep us safe from terrorism, protect Americans, protect American troops. using it the most effective way it’s also about not letting people use this for the unconstitutional in illegal ways because of politics or because of views that you have and so the fact that it was not just Tulsi which we assumed it would not be but because she was brave enough to come and speak out about it we now know three other people they said wait this is that this was happening to me too sir and again that doesn’t mean that tomorrow if you fly and this is on your it does happen Randomly to people. But if after every flight, and if you start noting that there’s air marshals sitting next to you or behind you, yes.
SPEAKER 09 :
Go to our website. Go to aclj.org slash help. Especially if you’re someone who’s very active on social.
SPEAKER 10 :
That helps people. Like Tulsi, it helps the people inside the Trump administration. There’s thousands upon thousands of people here with this kind of power. So they want to route out the bad guys, the bad operators. Sometimes they’re able to do that on their own. But again, it always helps if you have people come and say, this is happening to me.
SPEAKER 09 :
And this is who’s doing it. Absolutely. We’re looking right now, if you’re watching any of the news, they’re showing live shots of the floor right now. I just want to say, tell me those people look like they’re panicking and it’s the end of the world. No, you got people giggling and laughing in the corner. All of your bureaucrats and your senators and congresspeople are all… Don’t feel like this is the end of the world the way they make it feel. It’s uncomfortable. It’s not great. But you can see the seriousness on there. Look at their faces. Their faces tell me it’s not, you know, is there anything they’re playing cards with you? They’re not playing cards with themselves. Let’s go ahead and take another phone call about this. Let’s do the government shutdown. We can talk more about Tulsi as well if you want to call in. Let’s go to Brian who’s calling in Virginia. Brian, go ahead.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey, guys. I’m just so upset. Just so upset about what’s going on with this government shutdown. I’m actually at the hospital now in the emergency room, and I’m getting treated for government shutdown-itis, which is actually a real thing.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I mean, did they not? There’s no one there to see you, right?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, well, it wasn’t a government hospital I had to go to. It was civilians, so I’m good to go. I mean, this is the thing.
SPEAKER 10 :
For most Americans… will not feel an impact. I’m not saying that no one will. Of course people will. They said 25% of the federal government. They will get back pay. Yeah, furloughed. So if they were supposed to get their paycheck next week and they were still shut down, that paycheck is coming. And they’ve been through it before if they’ve worked for the federal government in the last five years. So they know that the check is coming. Now, President Trump did say this. You want me to fire more people? Because the American people are about to see that we could probably keep all this going without at least 25%.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I think that’s what happens. Look, it happened, sadly, a lot during COVID. I think a lot of people realized their businesses were bloated. Unfortunately. I mean, it cost a lot of people jobs. But you realized, oh, we have gotten a bit in an American culture where we are… overstuffing a lot of our organizations. Obviously, the government has been for years. We don’t want to cause anyone to lose their jobs, but it becomes a little bit more of a reality.
SPEAKER 10 :
No, right. It’s not like the person who’s just a good civil servant should be punished here. At the same time, if your bureaucracy is so bloated that your debt and the spending is out of control, that that civil servant, even if they lose their job, ultimately that might be better for them financially and their family. In a few years, even, they might be recovering better because of what else happens if we don’t get the spending under control.
SPEAKER 09 :
First half hour flew by. We want you to continue being part of this conversation. We do have a second half hour of the broadcast coming up. It’s me and Jordan. We’re talking it all out, talking government shutdown.
SPEAKER 10 :
to be able to answer to your friends too. Use this broadcast because we’re here. We’ve got the info. So 1-800-684-3110. And don’t feel bad about any question.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, we can walk you through the next.
SPEAKER 10 :
I’ve been walking through my mind saying, okay, which one does get, which one doesn’t, because I want to be very clear to you. So call us.
SPEAKER 09 :
And we’ll also walk through what the Democrats want and why, of course, it’s a non-starter for a lot of Republicans. We’ll talk about that coming up and so much more. But as always, support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. Catch the second half hour. If you don’t get it on your local station, on all our social platforms, ACLJ.org. And of course, on YouTube and however you get your podcasts.
SPEAKER 07 :
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome to Sekulow. We got a great show lined up for you today. All this week, we’ve had some incredible content. I just wanted to make sure that none of it got lost, that if you weren’t part of the show through Monday through Thursday. So some of this content is some of the best of this week. So I’m glad you tuned in. We are obviously President Trump. stated he was going to give Hamas two or three days to have an agreement with Israel to finalize the end of the war. We are really approaching on that day three. So we will see how things play out later on in the day. But in the meantime, I wanted to go through a couple really good segments. Today, you’re going to hear stuff this week from Rick Grinnell. Rick, you know, has been a member of our show for a long time. He runs the Kennedy Center. He was a former ambassador to Germany, former director of national intelligence, really someone who is invaluable in terms of his point of view here at the ACLJ because he has such incredible insights, also a special envoy currently for the Trump administration. We are also going to dive in to that letter that came out from Trump. Charlie Kirk to Benjamin Netanyahu. A lot of people were thinking this was going to be the letter that was going to say it all. That was going to say how Charlie Kirk turning point had been at the moment where they were going to say we are disavowing ourselves from Israel. And of course that letter comes out and it says quite the opposite. It actually says what we’ve been saying here for a very long time. which is Israel does a very poor job at the PR game. They do a very poor job at getting their message across. They succumb very easily to the press that comes out of the left. And unfortunately, that has now seeped in to a lot of the right. We are combating that. I don’t know if you heard our show yesterday. You should go back and listen to that with Steve Wiggins, who really gives you a great breakdown of even the biblical reasons why you should be supporting the modern state of Israel. I think there are plenty of non-biblical reasons as well. But let’s just start with those. I mean, the modern state of Israel, by the way, is the only really Western culture in the entire Middle East. The only American-style culture. It was closer that you’re going to find to being at home is going to be there in Israel. But, of course, that’s too much, too much for the surrounding nations. Now, the surrounding nations have shown support for President Trump’s concept here, so we’ll see where that goes. We’re also going to have CeCe Heil on. CeCe Heil is one of our senior attorneys here at the ACLJ. She has been for many, many years. And we have been discussing, obviously, the incredible and horrifying persecution of Christians in Nigeria and around the world. And finally, that is starting to get some mainstream attention. Bill Maher brought it up on his broadcast on Realtime. That is, again, he has become oddly enough. I mean, I think people are pretty shocked. Bill Maher has been one of those sources that now will speak up for those, for Christians and those that are being persecuted around the world. When you have probably the biggest, the most devout atheist who maybe now is wavering a little bit. Now he says he doesn’t believe in God, but now he says that kind of an I don’t know. We pray for him and pray for everybody involved. But he is the one bringing this up to the mainstream media. So we’re going to talk with her about that. And that report on Quiet Skies, you remember that program that our friend, former colleague Tulsi Gabbard was put on, essentially a terror watch list. uh where you get extra screen screening they had people on planes very uncomfortable situation for her uh that she was put under and now the details have emerged of course most of those people if not all of them that were targeted were those who were either republicans conservatives or supporting president trump so it’s a very interesting time as all of those details are unveiled so we’re going to go through all of that but we will be back next week as well with brand new content i want to make sure you know we’re not going anywhere i just wanted to make sure you saw this great show that we put on all week. It’s very easy. When we put on a daily show, you may skip some, but you may not be able to catch all of it. So this is a bit of a best of this week. And I also encourage you to go back and listen to yesterday’s show because I think there’s some great content there as well. That being said, I want you to support the work of the ACLJ. We are hard at work each and every day, though this show may be a bit of a best of. Know that our crew is right now in the studio working on our show. Our legal team right now is in the courts right now. And none of that happens without you. So if you want to take a moment, I encourage you, go to ACLJ.org. Become a supporter, become a donor, or become an ACLJ champion. You can easily subscribe for free on YouTube. You can give right now at ACLJ.org. Opt in to become a champion. Some of the gives on a monthly basis. And here you go. We’ll be right back with more on Sekulow.
SPEAKER 08 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. Will Haynes here, joined by Jordan Sekulow in the studio, and also joined by Rick Grinnell, as always. Rick, thanks for joining us today. Before we get to the James Comey talk, I have to ask you, you were in the lion’s den yesterday. I saw you at CBS News. You were in person. It wasn’t a remote, but you were talking about the good work of the Kennedy Center, and I will say, they were very respectful of you. What’s changing in big media, Rick? I don’t understand it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, as you know, CBS has been purchased and there’s a new set of owners. And so I think they’re reading the room, as we say. But you’re right. I mean, I sat there with Gayle King and she was lovely. She came into the green room beforehand to talk with me and she couldn’t have been nicer. And I thought that they were very respectful and we had a good back and forth. And they asked tough questions about the Kennedy Center and allowed me to answer. And I think that’s You know, that’s what’s crazy about today’s world is that some people still believe in critical thinking to be able to sit, listen, and then lo and behold, find your own opinion and your own belief. And so we got to get back to that.
SPEAKER 10 :
Something I wanted to ask you actually with the Kennedy Center was, as someone who lived in D.C. for over a decade and still is there a lot, obviously with our office there, is that, you know, it did get, it felt like for a while, like, again, like those family kind of friendly, the ones I’d want to take my kids to just weren’t there. They might have been in other theaters in Washington, smaller productions, but they weren’t at, you know, in our capitals, a premier theater. facility and now they’re coming back and tickets are selling because I think families can go again it’s not just going to be kind of whatever again the arts community is interested in which Kennedy Center has lots of different theaters for different size events that’s fine but also bringing back some of these like you said like Sound of Music and things like that that have brought back and honoring some of the people from the Kennedy Center honors that mainstream America really loves
SPEAKER 04 :
Look, President Trump’s vision was always to make it more accessible and less elitist. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. I think President Trump was once again ahead of the curve because the New York Times this past week did this big, huge profile of how Broadway is dying. And when you look at between the ticket price for Broadway, the content that they’re pushing, it’s just not appealing to the masses anymore. And so they’re struggling, but I don’t think it’s anything more than a supply and demand. You have to supply something that a huge crowd wants if you’re gonna run a theater. And so what we’re trying to do here at the Kennedy Center is first of all, say everyone is welcome. Two, we’re going to have programming that appeals to the common folk so that we can fill seats and not make this place elitist. I don’t want people coming into the Kennedy Center who get booed just because they happen to be a Republican. And I certainly don’t want it. On the other side, I wouldn’t want someone walking into a theater who’s a hardcore Democrat and getting booed either. What we want to be able to do is sit and watch shows that are inspirational. And there’s so many genres of dance, music, spoken word, lecture series, all sorts of different arts genres that can really inspire. And that’s what we’re going for. That’s what President Trump asked us to do. And it’s making us get on a better financial path. And as we see so many arts institutions struggling, I think this is gonna be the path they need to follow.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I can’t believe the New York Times was shocked that people didn’t want to pay seven, eight hundred dollars to get preached at for three or four hours in New York. But Rick, we got to go to this other issue of the day. James Comey has been indicted by a federal grand jury.
SPEAKER 10 :
It’s a lovely man.
SPEAKER 08 :
He is. He’s responded. What is your fresh take on this, that now James Comey has been indicted for false statements to Congress and obstructing proceedings?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I was hoping that this whole bloviation from James Covey about walking on the beach and finding these shells in a formation, which is clearly a lie. And he stood there and pretended like we believed it. The funny part is that he’s so gullible, he thinks people believe him. This is a man that has consistently, consistently created a whole alternative universe for himself. And he aggressively does it and he’s confident in his lies. And I’m just glad that we have a system where no one is above the law and there are a whole bunch of people who manipulated the public who lied to congress who who certainly did uh some injustices to our system that need to be held to account and that doesn’t mean that they go straight to prison it means that we have a trial and the prosecutors put forward their arguments the defense gets to put forward their arguments And let’s see what happens. It’s exactly what the left kept telling us about President Trump when President Biden was in charge. That’s all they wanted to see was the process work. And so here we are. Let’s let the process work.
SPEAKER 10 :
You brought up, too, how Comey creates this alternative universe like he did in the video even that he released in his first statement about this. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on some of those morning shows, too, or evening maybe with Jimmy Kimmel, as I said earlier tonight, because he kind of lives in this own world where he forgets, too. Unfortunately, many on the left forget. his election interference you might want to call it when he reopened the Hillary investigation three days before an election and it ended up being the same information there was nothing new there made a big deal of it and the Clinton campaign and the Clintons and the left then were outraged at who? Jim Comey and then he did similar kind of things to Donald Trump he was living in this world where it wasn’t even about he’s gotten a little bit more partisan now I wish the left didn’t let him back in. I wish they remembered kind of, Rick, what he did to think that law enforcement and the FBI should be really running Washington, D.C., not elected politicians.
SPEAKER 04 :
Look, these elite individuals on the left have enjoyed decades of controlling the institutions of America, whether it’s government or academia or NGOs. They have enjoyed this small group that cater to just a portion of the country. And they forget the rest of us. They forget the masses. They forget the rule of law. They got together and they created this idea of sanctuary cities, for instance, which is an undermining of democracy, a ridiculous concept where people ignore federal law, but they were immune from prosecution because they created this nice name. These are the types of things that the elite left do. And I have to say, Thank God that we won the election. Elections have consequences, people. Get out, get involved, vote, get more people registered to vote because otherwise this small elite try to control us and they give us people like James Comey. When we’re in charge, when the people are in charge, when we try to take over institutions and bring common sense back, then we have real rule of law. And that’s what James Comey has seen, and I’m glad for it.
SPEAKER 08 :
And in James Comey’s video, he did say, my family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump. We can’t let people forget what he thought standing up to Donald Trump was. It was weaponizing intelligence. It was going along with a rival campaign’s made-up dossier to try and smear him, leaking to get a special counsel. When he got fired because he had already done these things, sending FBI agents into the White House to spy on members of the incoming team. This isn’t standing up to a president. This is subverting the duly elected president of the United States. We can’t let people forget that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Such a good point, Will. But, you know, they don’t believe that they’re doing anything wrong. This is the whole elitist mentality where they believe that by any means necessary, they should be able to to to make sure that Donald Trump fails, that they stop him. And by any means necessary, we’re now finding ourselves in the place where violence is what mentally unstable people are doing because they think they have permission from the elitist left. When people like Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff and some others come forward and call people Nazis and fascists. Nazis and fascists are the people who kill other people by tens of thousands and millions. And so the idea that we are like that, that a whole other political party that you disagree with is like that, you’re giving permission to unstable people to go kill them.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes, and we’ve seen just unlimited violence. Even today, there was a rioting somewhere, again, against ICE officials and just preventing them from doing their job. And we saw that out of California, they have to take their mask off by January, which most law enforcement, again, when you are in the process of actually going in and doing the job, you’re going on to the mission to make the arrest. Many times are masked, many times. different kinds of protection levels, none of which is because they’re being photographed a lot of times on camera, even with their own cameras, and just their personal security and their families’ personal security as well, and the security of those that are being apprehended. That’s also on camera for our legal system, which is the best in the world. Rick, thank you for being on with us, folks. When we come back, we’ll take your calls on this 1-800-684-3110. You want to be part of the show.
SPEAKER 09 :
Welcome back to Secular. Phone lines are completely jammed. We’re going to do our best to get to as many of those as we can, specifically in the back half hour, but keep trying, keep calling. We’ll do our best to get to all of them we can. CeCe Hiles joining us in studio, senior attorney here at the ACLJ. I did want to pivot a little bit. We’re going to continue talking about Israel, and CeCe’s been to Israel more recently than any of us here, so she can comment as well as we are seeing this maybe historic moment. as bb net yahoo now i feel like you could have probably played this back uh episodes of this show over the last year and heard a very similar uh thing including talking points including the big deal points now these again i think they’re controversial i think when i see the comments coming in a lot of you are not thrilled with some of these plans I do think we need to lean a little bit on President Trump and lean a little bit on Bibi Netanyahu that they are doing what’s best for their people. And hopefully that is the case. But it is a bit concerning, some of them, for sure. I understand that. We’re going to address those. I did also want to talk… But some of the work of the ACLJ is we’ve been working on issues involving the persecution of Christians throughout the world, including in Nigeria and other places for many years, for decades now. It’s been part of really the DNA of the ACLJ. It’s been our work internationally. As we know, Christian persecution. Now, look, we saw what happened over the weekend. In the LDS church, where you saw right here in our country, we saw many people murdered, the church burnt down, all these horrible things that happened to Christians. So I don’t want, now I have to say that it feels like a rising tide that’s happening right now. But I think what we can do also is turn to what’s happening in other countries and go, we’re not there yet. We got to make sure we don’t get there. as americans we got to make sure that we don’t start treating religious institutions the way that happens in other parts of the world and it’s starting to bubble up on some mainstream news where you’re actually hearing people talk about it this is a clip i want to play for you this is from bill maher a real time of bill maher this just happened he had nancy mace on again you may go logan you’re playing bill maher now of course we know bill maher has uh he said he hasn’t moved politically but the left has moved significantly from him he has been someone that’s been fairly critical of a lot of, especially the, he’s been very critical on people who are supporting the Palestinian situation, the Hamas situation over Israel. He’s very pro-Israel. But he also wants to make sure people are actually noticing what’s happening around the world in terms of persecution of people of faith. Let’s hear from Bill Maher. Can’t believe I’m saying that. Real time with Bill Maher from just over the weekend.
SPEAKER 06 :
The fact that this issue has not gotten on people’s radar… Right, no one’s talking about it. It’s pretty amazing. If you don’t know what’s going on in Nigeria, your media sources… You are in a bubble. And again, I’m not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria. They’ve killed over 100,000 since 2009. They’ve burned 18,000 churches. This is so much more… These are the Islamists, Boko Haram. This is so much more of a genocide attempt… than what is going on in Gaza. They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country. Where are the kids protesting this?
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you. No one will talk about it, so thank you. Absolutely. It’s Africa, that’s why. No one’s talking about it, and they should be. You can’t read about it on mainstream media. It’s sad, so thank you for bringing it up.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, because the Jews aren’t involved. That’s why. It’s the Christians and the Muslims.
SPEAKER 08 :
Who cares? It’s just… And CC, this is an issue that we’ve talked about here for a long time. If you’ve watched this show for a long time, you’ve heard us bring this up. We fought to get Nigeria listed as a country of particular concern under the first Trump administration. And one of the first acts of Secretary of State Blinken under the Biden administration was to take them off that list. But it was because of this persecution. And as you know, you’re hearing truth from Bill Maher on this, not someone who’s normally like rah-rah for standing up for Christians, but it’s the truth and you’re not hearing about it. And just talk a little bit about that and the work that we do to raise this.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and first I’m going to say you’re hearing about it if you listen to the ACLJ. You’re hearing about it if you go to our website. You’re hearing about it if you listen to this radio show because we have talked about it since he says, you know, kind of started in 2009 escalating. And that’s true because since 2009, 12 million Christians have been displaced. But we talk about this constantly. I am at the UN constantly talking about Nigeria because as far as Christian persecution goes, more Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than all of the other countries combined. And in fact, this year, in 2025, the first 220 days, there have been over 7,000 Christians killed for their faith. That is phenomenal. 32 that’s an average of 32 christians killed per day and there’s over 8 000 people that have been abducted that’s an average of 35 people a day abducted now you think just like they said if there are 32 christians being killed every single day because of their faith you’d think we’d hear about that Again, ACLJ talks about it all the time. We point to it all the time. But I’m thrilled that we do now have some mainstream media and people that are paying attention to this because this is a huge concern and it needs to be fixed. And you’re exactly right, Will. We were on it because Nigeria, under the last Trump administration, was a country of particular concern. And that is from the State Department. It’s a designation from the State Department. And it’s specifically for religious freedom violations. So if there should be any country in the world that’s a CPC… It should be Nigeria. And then there are there are punishments that come along with that. That’s why it’s critical that it is a CPC. And again, we won’t stop talking about this. And I’m thrilled that other media outlets are picking it up.
SPEAKER 09 :
It’s one of the things is completely independent media here at the ACLJ. What we do here on our media side is we are able to bring up stories that are not going to get the attention of the mainstream media. But one of the goals is obviously to break through to the mainstream media. is to make sure that our clients, that anything we’re supporting, makes it through. It’s not just on here. We can be the constant voice yelling, but we understand we are going to be a smaller percentage of people that maybe get their news from some of these mainstream outlets. However, that’s growing, that’s shifting, that’s changing, which is great. However, we couldn’t do that without your support because we’re able to do this. We’re able to go to court. We’re able to go to the UN. We’re able to do all of these things, take action as well as report. A lot of people can’t do that. So I want to encourage you, of course, to support the work of the ACLJ while you’re at it. But it’s true. We all live in sort of little bubbles. I send Will all the time because I’m very connected in sort of the, I guess you’d say the Israel Zionist side of this. I send Will news stories all the time where he’s like, this wasn’t even on my feed. It’s like, yeah, it’s not necessarily that you’re doing anything to keep it off your feed. It’s just, you have to get so plugged into such a niche audience that, That sometimes these things that are big stories or are big portions of stories aren’t reported.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, even that point that there was that madman that ran into a wedding at a country club in Connecticut and or New Hampshire, one of the two, and had a shooting. My feed was only headlines of mass shooting at wedding in New Hampshire. Nowhere in the headlines that I was being fed was it that the gunman cried free Palestine before committing his murders. Right. Once again, the narrative changing before you, you are being manipulated. Yeah, you have to be really careful. And you’re being manipulated by a lot of people on the right right now when it comes to Israel.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, absolutely. I think you’ve got to make sure you’re staying tuned in. Now, I’m very happy to report that it looks like a lot of our people are awake to it. You know what I think is good is that you’re seeing a lot of the people who have been the most trusted sources. for decades now, including even your senators. Those are the ones whose voices are loud and have been calling out some of this. And at least you are trusting some of these voices you’ve trusted for years. Now, that being said, there obviously is not. It’s the most I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. where the conservative audience, if you will, has not been supportive of Israel until the last couple months. But you know what? Maybe today things change as President Trump meets with Benjamin Netanyahu. Hey, we get back. We got a second half hour coming up. Support the work of the ACLJ. I need you to go to ACLJ.org right now. Whether it’s CeCe’s incredible work she’s doing at the UN, whether we’re supporting Christians in Nigeria that are being persecuted for their faith, or what we’re doing just around the world. The ACLJ doesn’t exist within the borders just of America. We’re doing work around the world. Go to ACLJ.org. Be right back.
