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We also provide in-depth coverage from Geneva, where CeCe Heil reports on international efforts to support persecuted communities and advocate for human rights at the UN Human Rights Council. With expert insights and live interactions, this episode highlights the multifaceted nature of political influence in both space and terrestrial arenas, keeping you informed about current and future dynamics shaping our world.
SPEAKER 08 :
Happening now, the SpaceX rescue of the astronauts the Biden administration left behind. And guess who was there to see them take off?
SPEAKER 10 :
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 08 :
Welcome to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. We’re going to be talking a lot about the news of the day, including what’s happening in Israel. And of course, even more so as our CeCe Heil is in Geneva right now working with the ECLJ. We’re going to talk about that a bit later. She’s going to join us live. Rick Grinnell’s going to be here. And Will Haynes is in studio with me right now. And phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. I wanted to first, though, talk… about those stranded astronauts that are now on their way back to Earth after a very long mission, one that was supposed to only last a handful of days. that lasted over, what, nine months? They were supposed to be back a week into June when they started. It was Butch and Sonny, Butch Wilmore, right here from Mount Juliet, Tennessee, and Sonny Williams, and they are finally headed back to Earth again after nine months being stranded in space. There is a lot of debate right now because they are coming back on a, of course, SpaceX manned ship. And they, of course, went up in a Boeing ship. And a lot of people thought that this could have happened earlier. And the astronauts themselves have even inferred that they don’t believe that it was politically motivated. They do believe that what Elon Musk said was true, which is it could have happened a lot earlier if the Biden administration had just approved them to send a mission sooner to the International Space Station as they were stuck due to issues from the craft that got them there. Now, fun fact, I was there when that ship took off, the rocket took off. I was there, me and my son. So I had that morning, my son woke me up. We were in Orlando, Florida. My son woke me up and he said on YouTube, he’s like, they’re going to do a rocket launch. We should go see it. It’s a manned rocket launch. And I, stumbling out of bed, said, all right, let’s do it. And we jumped in the car, drove an hour or so over to the Kennedy Space Center, and we watched this wonderful launch. It was a great experience. Everyone loved it who was there, a lot of cheering. And I said, you know what’s going to be cool, buddy? In seven or eight days, I believe, whatever it was, they’re going to come back and you can experience what that’s going to be like. Seven days turned into a month. Month turned into two months. Two months turned into nine months. And of course, there was a lot of medical issues that happened because these astronauts, as brave and as strong as they are, just weren’t prepared to be there that long. I think that’s mainly a lot of people have today talked about. Oh, well, Kelly was there for over a year. Yeah, they trained to be there over the year. There are some people who have been stuck. I mean, that has happened before. It’s not uncommon for not this long or for this long. That has happened before. But usually there is a different prep when you’re going up for. Maybe you got stuck there for an extra month. Not you got stuck there for nine months. You’re only supposed to be there for a week. And of course, I look forward to them coming back today. Everyone’s watching it. All eyes are on. I watched the detachment last night. They were like, okay, they’ll be landing in the Gulf of America. My son got a good kick out of that. He laughed at that. Not laughing at it, but just the fact that even they’re having to say that. NASA has to say that. We have to go, OK, so where that’s going to be. But pretty interesting, Will. And I know that this is a topic that’s on a lot of people’s minds because of the political side to this. And of course, the technological side, which is that you never give Elon Musk the credit when his things work. But when you have Boeing, this was this was happening to during when all the Boeing issues were happening.
SPEAKER 11 :
That’s right. And we want to hear from you. Call 1-800-684-3110. Do you think that they were stranded up there for nine months for political purposes? Yes, there are a lot of technological challenge of getting a craft into space to bring people back. Yeah, stuff’s going to happen. But do you think that the Biden administration refused to send up the SpaceX rocket earlier because it would have given Elon Musk a win and President Trump by de facto a win during the contentious political season? Call us 1-800-684-3110. We’ll talk about it more. We’ve got some sound for you in the next segment. Stay tuned, folks.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yep. And we are two weeks from our Life and Liberty Drive for the month of March deadline. So you need to be a part of that right now. Our legal team needs your support. You’re going to hear from CeCe Heil live from Geneva in just a few minutes. You want to stay tuned for that. She’s working at the UN Human Rights Council. It’s really fascinating stuff. Of course, we’re going to continue to talk about the war in Israel, which has sadly taken a turn. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow again. In just a few hours time, I think early evening on the East Coast, we will see the landing of Butch and Sonny after nine months being stranded in space. And of course, there is that big debate right now. A lot of you are joining us right now, whether that was politically motivated that they were stuck in space. They were up there for nine months after only supposed to be up there a little over a week ago. And again, I was there when the shuttle launched, or not the shuttle, the rocket launched. I was there for the Boeing Starliner that went up. And it was an amazing experience to be there at Kennedy Space Center. You’re looking at my video right now that I took on my phone to watch this happen live from Kennedy Space Center. Like I said, I turned to my son and said, in a week, they’re going to come back and maybe we’ll go see them speak. A lot of times they do those tours. And you can be like, I was there. You can get them to sign a picture of you standing in front of the rocket launching. And of course, that turned into months and months and months. And now the debate has turned political, as all things seem to, because even Butch, when being interviewed, did not necessarily downplay the political involvement. As we know, Elon Musk has said he sent a potential or sent an option to the Biden administration to go get these astronauts earlier. And they were turned down. And a lot of people are curious if that was politically motivated. What do you think? 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. We’ll have a clip in a little bit even from Elon Musk talking about this directly on Joe Rogan’s, the Joe Rogan experience.
SPEAKER 11 :
But we also have it from when Sean Hannity interviewed both Elon Musk and President Trump and also brought this up. About a month ago. And let’s go ahead and roll bite two.
SPEAKER 05 :
You’re committed to getting to Mars. You’re committed to rescue. You’re going to help rescue next month two astronauts that I think were abandoned. They dispute that in an interview. At the president’s request or instruction, we are accelerating the return of the astronauts, which was postponed kind of to a ridiculous degree. They got left in space. They’ve been there. They were supposed to be there eight days. They’re there almost 300. Biden. Yes, they were left up there for political reasons, which is not good.
SPEAKER 08 :
So left up there for political reasons, which is not good. Of course, then they started questioning the actual astronauts through interviews they were doing because a lot of people are concerned. Look, they’re also concerned about their health, their safety. We know that they had some nutrition issues, specifically with Sunny, and they seem to get that back on track. But a few months ago, it was looking good. Very concerning. But they interviewed and they talked to Butch.
SPEAKER 11 :
I think we have that bite. That’s right. Yeah, they do press conferences periodically when they’re up there, especially there was a lot of eyes on this one because of the situation where these astronauts short mission up there for almost almost a year. And this is what Butch Wilmore said when asked about these comments that Elon Musk had been making as he’d made the rounds and saying it was delayed for political reasons. Let’s go ahead and roll bite seven.
SPEAKER 13 :
My question relates to Elon Musk has said that he made the offer to bring you guys back earlier and that it was denied. My first question is, is that true? And if so, what would that have looked like? Was he offering to make another flight, push seats on another flight? Could you give us some background there?
SPEAKER 01 :
I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says is absolutely factual. We have no information on that, though, whatsoever. What was offered, what was not offered, who it was offered to, how that process went. That’s information that we simply don’t have. So I believe him. I don’t know all those details, and I don’t think any of us really can give you the answer that maybe that you would be hoping for.
SPEAKER 08 :
but he at least believes him and i believe later on another one he said yeah i have no reason to question uh what he’s saying as true and of course they’ve spent a lot of time thanking elon musk and thinking thanking president trump now of course you would typically thank the president united states when you’re a astronaut you’re stuck in space and they’re sending a rescue mission but the fact they even called out directly elon musk is they know what they’re dealing with here And look, Elon is a highly divisive figure right now in society. But the one thing we can at least say is the guy, whether you like the way he, it’s kind of like President Trump, whether you like his candor, you like the way what he does. And look, sometimes I do. Sometimes I’m taken aback by it. I’m having to really look at it. Of course, you always have to look at it from a different perspective when you’re dealing with someone who is also a billionaire genius. don’t get that way from just being like the most normal dude you’ve ever met these are very interesting unique people so yeah does he said stuff that’s ruffled feathers for sure but there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that with his success with tesla with spacex even when there’s failures the cyber truck breaking or the you know initially or a a rocket exploding You look at it and go, we need those people who are willing to take that risk and are willing to make these big efforts and take these huge swings. Because if not, they would have just been stuck. They would have been stuck up there for who knows how long. They were already stuck there for nine months. But if there was no SpaceX. There was no alternative. This is what would have happened.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and when you look at this story and take a step back, because on the face of it, it’s like, okay, there were astronauts, a mission in space didn’t go the way that they originally planned, and therefore there’s a delay. I mean, that’s… Typical of NASA’s history. I mean, Apollo 13 or disasters that you’ve seen that sometimes you have to make adjustments because it’s a very complex environment and it’s a very… It’s space. Yeah, it’s space. But I think that when you take a step back from it just being a story about astronauts in space, Logan, it’s the night and day. This is the perfect… contrast between the biden administration and the trump administration the biden administration would do things that were politically expedient for them that made them look good or that did not help their opponents they would not do something so they were the most perfect washington dc political creatures in that administration you also look at the failures of the afghanistan withdrawal the And all of the many things that they did that they thought were politically expedient and in turn ended up either embarrassing, bringing shame upon the nation or costing people’s lives. And then you have the immediate contrast that just two months in to the Trump administration, they are bringing these astronauts home because it was possible. It wasn’t necessary to leave them up there for nine months in reality. The reality was they were doing it for politics. But you also look at this once again, this wasn’t the first planned launch because it’s space. They had a scheduled launch a couple of weeks back, but weather patterns change things of that. It delays. So a delay of a week and a half.
SPEAKER 08 :
normal a delay of nine months politics at its core i mean when i went out there we watched that launch i had to tell my son over and over again hey it may get down to five four three two one and then they scrub it because that happened will and i grew up in that area right that would happen All the time. That’s very normal. And it isn’t disappointing if you’re out there in the blazing heat, which we were in June. So I had to tell him, look, we’re going to go out there and there’s a good chance this is not going to happen. I want you to be ready for that. And he was. Now, fortunately, we got to see the launch. It was amazing. Again, it’s beautiful to see. When you’re out there in Florida, I encourage everyone who can see one to go see it because it is visually stunning and it really kind of puts into perspective the work of our American genius. Whether that is Boeing or SpaceX or Blue Origin, whatever it may be, or NASA itself, it is a fascinating experience. experience a lot of times you can go it sounds like an ad for the Kennedy Space Center but you go and you can do that just as part of your day it’s very cool a lot of you have called in let’s try to get some of those screened because there is a lot of people on hold right now and we’re going to try to get to them as many of you can at 1-800-684-3110 in the next segment we’re going to head over to Europe and you’re going to hear from Cece Heil who you know usually sitting in that chair right now but right now she is in Geneva and At the UN Human Rights Council, we’re going to talk about what the work she’s doing there and how the ECLJ, which is the European Center for Law and Justice, our European affiliate, how they are getting directly involved. And of course, when you support the work of the ACLJ, you are also supporting the work of the ECLJ. You are also supporting the work of the ACLJ Jerusalem and our many different affiliates around the world. Globally, the ACLJ is there. Whether you hear us talk about it or not, know that you’re expressing your views. That is all. because you’re able to support the work that we do here and because you support the work financially, we’re able to have these offices around the world. I was up in the office in Strasbourg, France, our European center. I was there back in December. I plan on going back this summer and spending time there and really talk about what we can do to even have a bigger influence on what’s happening in Europe. A lot of you are watching what’s happening in Europe and the UK on the news. Maybe you saw even what’s happening in Ireland with a lot of the rise, a lot of similar issues we’re having here. Conor McGregor at the White House, probably coming off like the president, making his statements and speeches, because you know there’s a lot of turmoil happening and there’s a lot of similar responses. As America goes, often so does the country, or so does the world. That also happens in a flip. Look what happened with Brexit. Originally when Brexit happened, to me that was my big indicator that President Trump was going to win in 2016. I remember the night that it happened, I turned to my friend and I said, That is a big sign. And he said, yeah, I think so, too. All right. We’ll be back in just a few seconds. We’re going to take as many calls as we can. Coming up, Rick Grinnell is going to be joining us and CeCe Heil in the next segment. But this is just two weeks left in our life and liberty drive for the month of March. We know last night we saw Israel having to restart their fight against Hamas. We know that there are a few remaining hostages. We pray for them. But we’re also taking action. And our fight to defend Israel before the UN and the ICC and Capitol Hill requires a lot of resources. You’re going to hear from Sisi in the next segment in Geneva, just those flights alone. Imagine the price point that we have to raise just to cover her airfare. These are not free. These are not inexpensive. Give us a call. Also, if you can, 1-800-684-3110. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Cece Hiles joining us. She is currently in Geneva. Usually used to sing her right here on the third seat here, but no, right now coming to you live from Geneva. Also spending time with our colleagues at the European Center for Law and Justice. So Cece, as you’re joining us again, this is a connection via phone, but we can see you. Hopefully it sounds great. Looks good for everyone who’s watching and listening. But why don’t you explain why you’re there?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, so we are here at the in Geneva at the 58th Human Rights Session. There’s three sessions that the Human Rights Council holds each year in Geneva. And so we try to come personally at least for one of those. And while we’re here, we have so many meetings and side events. And I will be giving hopefully two oral interventions, one for sure defending Israel and, and then hopefully another one on blasphemy laws in Pakistan. But we have already had good meetings. I met this morning with the working group on arbitrary detention. I also met with the working group on enforced and voluntary disappearances. And as you know, we still have two clients, the Berman brothers, that are still being held hostage in Israel. So I was able to talk to them about that. We, again, will have, I think… seven meetings with special rapporteurs here and the special rapporteurs are just independent experts um that report and inform the council and we will be meeting and they are um experts on themes and they’re experts on countries. And so the themes are things like freedom of religion and arbitrary detention, the peaceful assembly, freedom of expression. And so we have seven of those meetings with special rapporteurs and We’ll also be meeting with one of the delegates from Pakistan and talking about our cases in Pakistan. So it’s really a week just full of very important meetings defending the rights of persecuted Christians across the world and also defending Israel.
SPEAKER 11 :
And Cece, we talked last week on the show about some of the issues that the ECLJ is handling when it comes to persecution of Christians in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo or Syria. And then you’ve also had meetings. such as with the Syria issue, since you’ve already been there. So our advocacy isn’t just limited to standing up for the state of Israel and even clients that we have now, but also finding ways that we can stand up for Those that may not be persecuted yet, but we understand with the shifts in power dynamics that those are going to be issues we will have to already be up to speed on and address as they arise.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right, we were able to attend a side event on Syria and really dealing with the transition. And so you have human rights experts that participate in a side event and were able to go up and talk to them. And what was really encouraging is that these experts were really pushing for every single religious group to be a part of this transition that’s happening in Syria, which was very encouraging, especially Christians, because they are a minority. But, you know, what’s great is once we get to know these people, then we can reach out to them and see how we can help. They’re usually there are international attorneys, international rights attorneys. And so it was that was a very interesting side event on Syria. And we’ll keep a watch on it very closely.
SPEAKER 11 :
while we’ve got you is that we think of the United Nations here in the United States as what it is, and the good and the bad, mostly bad when you see it from a national level, but that we see ways we can work there. When you’re working with these other NGOs or these experts or these special rapporteurs that are with the U.N., How receptive are they to what we advocate for? I know it’s always a fight at the UN, but we have had success through the UN in the past. So how receptive are they and how important is it for the ECLJ and ACLJ to be there with that ministry of presence?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, it’s extremely important. And what’s interesting is these independent experts are really very receptive to us. You know, we are very methodical on our presentations and, you know, we make sure that we develop good relationships also with these special rapporteurs and these different working groups. And they’re very receptive. I think where we come into issues is when you have the member states that are voting. And that’s when you kind of see the bias against Christians or the bias against Israel with the different member states. And so But as far as the special rapporteurs and these independent experts, they’re very receptive to our work. And it is very helpful. I’ll go back to like the working group on arbitrary detention. If everybody remembers Pastor Brunson’s case, that was a case where we got a very good opinion from the working group. And it was a very important opinion for us to be able to use even with our own government. Because at one time, the State Department didn’t believe that Pastor Brunson was being held because of his religious beliefs. And so when you get an opinion from the United Nations saying, yes, it’s an arbitrary detention and it is because of his religious beliefs, it was very, very helpful. And so we try to develop relationships. And again, I agree, sometimes the UN is not, you know, well-liked, but it’s an international stage where we need to be there and we need to be representing Christians that are being persecuted and Israel.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you, Cece, for joining us again live from Geneva. It’s part of our work we do at the European Center for Law and Justice, which, again, is an affiliate of the ACLJ, direct affiliate. When you support the work of the ACLJ, you are supporting the backbone also of the ECLJ. And it’s just as important to make sure we are represented around the world. And by we, I mean all of you listening as well, not just we, the ACLJ, but you, your values, your point of view. is being spread all over the world. And we can do that multiple different ways. We can do that through what CC is doing in Geneva or what we’re doing in the European Center. You can also do it by just simply subscribing to our YouTube channel. You can do that by subscribing to our Rumble channel, to following us on Facebook or Instagram, because that helps more people see this content. When you share it, when you get involved, sure, if you want to give financially, I encourage you to do so. But when there’s over 468,000 people just on our YouTube channel, understand how much that reach can be. And that’s just subscribers. Half the people who watch our show, our channel are not subscribing. There’s millions that watch each and every week. So if you’re brand new, welcome. I encourage you to hit that subscribe button. If you’ve been around a while, we are halfway through our life and Liberty drive. And I want you to support our work. We need it many different ways. You’ve seen the work we’ve been doing now all around the world. And last night, a lot of you, including myself, maybe got up in the middle of the night. I got up around two o’clock in the morning. Phone was buzzing, seeing what was going on. And it was really that the war in Israel and Gaza, sadly, had progressed. And the war really had kicked off in a much stronger way once again. And we saw Israel really going after Hamas as they feel like is necessary. What I want to encourage you is if you want to defend Israel’s right to exist, you can be a part of the ACLJ because we have ACLJ Jerusalem. Now, you may say, Logan, look, it’s hard. Even for me, I was watching last night. My heart was breaking because you do know what this all means. And what it means is that hopefully we are getting a step closer to peace. It felt like we were getting steps closer to peace. And sadly, it looks like we have taken a pretty massive step back. So I encourage you to pray. Pray for our friends in Israel. Pray for your fellow Christians in Gaza who need your support. And be a part of change that’s happening around the world as your gifts are doubled right now during our Life and Liberty Drive. Have your tax-deductible gifts again doubled. That means if you give $50, there’s another ACLJ member ready to match that for another $50. You give $5, same thing, you give $5,000. same thing we are taking immediate action right now on so many of the issues that are just the top topics that are happening around the world and we have another half hour coming up if you don’t get us on your station find us broadcasting live on aclj.org or later on archives on the podcast or youtube keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is seculo And now your host, Logan Sekula. Welcome back to Sekula. We are going to take your calls. A bunch of them opened up. We had a full bank, but I think because of the segments and the breaks, a lot dropped off. So we have four lines open. You can call in right now and get in line 1-800-684-3110. We are continuing our conversation about the astronauts who have been stranded in space, but are now on the way back to Earth. And of course, the big debate on whether it was political that they were left up there for over nine months. Let’s go ahead and take a phone call. Trent’s calling from Texas on line one, who’s watching on Rumble. Trent, go ahead.
SPEAKER 09 :
train you there was definitely political yeah it was definitely political musk is amazing though do you think musk could find a way to get trump and his gay lover okay i felt that was coming i recognized that voice i knew it was coming but you know what sometimes that happens
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s live. It’s live, folks. But you know what? Who cares? 1-800-684-3110. We’re going to get better at that one day. You think so? That guy’s going to clip that now. He’s going to talk about it. He’s real proud. Real proud of himself. He’s so excited. Good job there, Trent. We’ll move on. I want you to give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. That threw me a little bit. That’s what happens. Let’s go ahead and take another call. Let’s see how it is. You know what? Someone in there in the control room, this is on you, Jason in Indiana, you’re on the air. Hi guys.
SPEAKER 03 :
I just wanted to say as a, as a young law enforcement officer, I was tasked with having to decide whether I would hold someone in a political position accountable or if I would protect my job. And as we’re sitting there in the dispatch area, trying to decide what we’re going to do, one of the dispatchers wise says, Hey, no matter what you do, 50% of the people are going to like it 50% or not. You might as well do the right thing. And that’s what we did. And I think that that’s what we need to be doing in politics today, whether it’s Republican. Whether it’s Democrat, we just need to do what’s right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Jason, I agree with you. And I think that this is a big issue that we’re having right now. I was talking to one of my friends who’s maybe a more recent liberal turned. He was a more conservative guy before, moved to California. And guess what happens? No, I’m just kidding with him. But that is what happened. He was under some sort of belief that the 50% of the country that voted for President Trump thought President Trump was bluffing, is what he told me, in the promises he was making. And now that all of his friends who are somewhat conservative were appalled that he was doing what he said he was going to do. And I told him, I don’t think that’s right, man. And we went through the polling yesterday and you may have seen those. We probably can pull some of that because we were going to do it yesterday. We didn’t do it where the polls are showing the exact opposite. The people that voted for president Trump overwhelmingly are excited. People that didn’t also not, not dissimilar 48%, something like that supported president Trump’s decisions on a national basis. Those are pretty wild numbers right now. But of course the conversation we had was also, can you get back to that civility? I don’t know if you can. I would love it. You’ve heard me preach about that all the time. I hate the name calling. I hate the cursing. I hate those things that happen in politics now. And it really bothers me. But a path back is not clear because Republicans are to blame and Democrats are to blame. Both sides have now gone low. And how do you work your way up from there when the other side is still continuing to go low? And you are right. Is it a political decision for what happened for the astronauts? Very likely it was. And that is such a shame because these are American heroes. These are people who train their whole lives to risk their lives to go to space. And we treated them like political pawns. I want to hear from you. 1-800-684-3110. We’re also going to continue the discussion about what’s going on in Israel, as well as that doctor you may have seen that was deported for some pretty interesting reasons. Her phone was filled with some interesting photos. She maybe was going to the funeral of, I don’t know, terrorist leaders. We’re going to talk about that with Rick Grinnell coming up as well again of what’s going on as we know that President Trump and Vladimir Putin of Russia are either currently talking or have just wrapped up. We’re not sure how long they’ve been on the phone, but they’ve been together talking on the phone for hours at this point. We’ll discuss what that can mean for a future end to the war in Ukraine. As much as I pray for an end to the war in Israel, I also pray for the end of the war in Ukraine, pray for the end of all wars. That’s what we should be hoping for here in this country. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you. Maybe you. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Our last call talked a bit about the popularity right now. of this administration and how there is sort of this narrative going along, especially from your sort of left friends who are going, clearly this is not what a lot of conservatives wanted. Clearly this is not what people voted for, including one of my friends who said that they thought President Trump was bluffing in his campaign. I mean, this was a conversation I legitimately had. Again, very cordial, nice guy. We have great conversations about the world politics, faith. And he’s like, man, I can’t believe that people would even be supporting this. How could they? And I kind of had to say, hey, man, 50% of the country plus voted for this. And again, his response was, well, maybe they thought he was lying. I don’t know why you’d think that. He said, you know, the media overblew the issues with Biden. Of course, now we’re seeing today the return of the astronauts. And it’s pretty clear that politically motivated, they were kept in space much longer and their lives were at risk much longer due to politics. They didn’t want to give a win to Elon Musk slash President Trump before the election. And we know there was a push from the Biden administration to say, hey, we’re going to do it in February. Got pushed to March. But now we know the reason that was those dates specifically was because they wanted to wait until after the general election. If that’s true, which again, it’s a theory right now, if it’s true, you should be disgusted. Because that is not the way we should be treating, again, our American heroes who are risking their lives for research, risking their lives by going into space to and risking their health and their families. These are people that thought they’d be home in eight days, had to miss birthdays, Christmas, holidays, had to have supplies get to them, delayed, had a lot of health issues. And we’ll see what happens when they land. And we know that they try to get them up and moving pretty quick and try to get the blood flow going because nine months at zero gravity is quite an extreme nature. But if you want to know if people really do care or not, People really are approving of the job the Trump administration is doing. I want you to look at this clip. This is really from NBC News. This is from NBC News breaking down, this was just a couple days ago, breaking down the current polling. on how the temperature is in the country right now. When you hear this, I want you to call me and tell me your thoughts at 1-800-684-3110. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 12 :
Let’s just start with Trump himself, that 47% job approval rating. Two ways of looking at this. First of all, if you compare Trump to every recent president, this point after coming into office, Trump’s number here is the lowest, significantly the lowest of any of his modern predecessors, except the Donald Trump in his first term, he was at 40 percent at this point in 2017. So this for Trump is actually better at 47 percent than he’s done. And what that reflects is it’s not that he’s built a lot of new popularity since the election, but that coalition that elected him, you’re not seeing that disappear from him at least yet. And there’s some things driving that. First of all, the mood of the country. This really jumped out. We asked folks, is it on the right direction? or the wrong direction. That 44%, you say right direction, that’s up since November. And if that doesn’t seem like a lot, the last time it cracked 40%, you got to go back to 2012. The last time it actually hit 44 or higher, January of 2004. So a lot of this is Republicans, but independents, that number is also up since the election on the direction of the country. Also just Trump and his base. We monitor this among Republicans. Look at this. Basically, three out of four Republicans say it’s a very positive view they have of Trump, not just positive. Again, at this point in his first term, it was only 50. It’s just the strengthening of that base, the tightness they feel in terms of their connection with him. And then there’s the Trump agenda. There are some popular elements of it here. Handling of border security in the immigration issue. 55% approval. That goes beyond his base, you see right there. You hear about Doge there in the setup. Broadly speaking, people do think this is a popular idea here. A good idea, 46%. Bad idea, 40%. Look at it this way. When you ask folks what should Doge be doing going forward, a third say much more. 28% say Doge is needed, just needs to slow the pace down. But that’s 61% total who seem to say that Doge is basically a good thing and necessary. thing right now.
SPEAKER 08 :
Understand that. And I got to give some props. You know, you got to give props to the mainstream media occasionally. You got to give props to NBC News for Meet the Press for airing that and for really showing what’s happening, what the temperature is in the country right now. Because you would not get that from your friends on social media. You would not feel that on mainstream news. You wouldn’t. You would not get the idea that people are excited about what Doge is doing. Of course, you may ask your friends and they may all be excited, but the media is not presenting it that way. Of course, same with immigration and what’s going on at the border. People want border security. Whether you agree with the deportations or not, people wanted something different than what they had with the Biden administration and the numbers don’t lie. And that happened over and over again, including even that President Trump, this time in 2016, was at 40%, is now at 47%. Again, these are polls. Things can be skewed. But trust me, NBC News did not want these to be the numbers.
SPEAKER 11 :
That’s right. And as you would also, the converse of that, you would think, oh, there’s so much resistance that clearly the majority of the country is really happy with the Democrat Party. But that same NBC News poll found that the favorability generally, so that’s people that are either very favorable or somewhat favorable outlook on the Democrat Party, historic low, 27%. And of that 27%, Those that see the Democrat Party very favorably, only 7%. That’s lower than Congress’s approval rating, and you never get that low.
SPEAKER 08 :
They’re going to need a rebuilding year.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right. And that is, I think, indicative of reality. but not what you’re being fed on, even in your algorithm, in the articles you may read, in what people share with you about how bad everything is going, because that’s not truth. And the news business got out of truth a long time ago.
SPEAKER 08 :
Now look, here’s the deal. Last night when I was up at two o’clock in the morning and I was looking at my phone and watching the attacks happening in Gaza that Israel had to feel like they needed to respond, the ceasefire had officially ended. the war had restarted my heart sank as it should for everyone you can be on the side of israel and still want the war to end and actually want to challenge that to president trump and the trump administration remember some of the promises that you made you said we’re going to come in and we’re going to end the war in ukraine we’re going to end the war in gaza we’re going to stop the death And whether that is by destroying Hamas completely and rebuilding, or whether that is through some sort of diplomatic way, I’d still encourage that to be the end result. The end result needs to be the end of war. Now, that’s easier said than done when you’re dealing with that part of the world, and we know this. It’s easier said than done when you’re dealing with people like Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky. Putin has been on the phone with President Trump for hours now. There’s no indication that it’s over. That’s a positive sign. Now the end of the ceasefire, not a positive sign because I want Israel to be back to thriving. I want to be able to book a plane ticket and feel comfortable taking my family again. So let’s not lose sight of that. Let’s not lose sight that when these wars happen and this happens around the world, you can be very cognizant of what’s happening and conscious of what’s happening in your own country. I think that’s very important. We need to make sure we are focused on what’s happening in our country, but it affects us in a major way. And if those campaign promises were, The wars are going to end, and they’re going to end swiftly. I really want to push them to actually make that happen. I’m going to take some phone calls. We’ve got two lines right now open. Give me a call at 1-800-684-3110. We’re going to talk a little about the astronauts. Both of these calls come from the Salem News Channel. Let’s go from John in Indiana on line two. You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I just have a comment about the astronauts returning. I think it’s sad that a businessman… send his rocket to return them i don’t know who dropped the ball whether it was nasa or what whether it was a political ploy i’m sure that’s what it was well that’s off to elon and trump yeah absolutely john yeah i mean they went up in a boeing uh pretty much all rockets at this point
SPEAKER 11 :
Are privatized. Yeah, because President Obama actually dismantled the NASA program. Terrible. Which was one of the government spending areas, I think, that produced a lot of technology and created so much progress in the real sense, not in the progressive political sense. Technology and movement forward. was a great tool of the country where you saw progression in technology that was really helpful and actually President Obama was the one who dismantled NASA that it turned out to have to be the private sector building rockets.
SPEAKER 08 :
But you do have these moments where yeah we could have relied on them because Boeing was having a lot of issues and I believe there’s even some conversation that Boeing would not work much like a lot of the electric cars would not work with tesla to make their suits compatible so that was a huge part too was making sure they had the proper suits to then be able to get back on a spacex rocket because they went up in a boeing and they didn’t make them universally compatible it’s like your iphone you know before they switch to the usbc in a very simplistic way phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110 if you’re on hold we’re going to try to get to you but give us a call and rick grinnell is going to be joining us in the next segment So stay tuned for that, but we will try to take as many calls as we can. Support the work of the ACLJ while you’re at it, as we are just two weeks away from the wrapping up of our March Life and Liberty Drive. Can you believe we’re over halfway through the month of March now? It’s wild. It feels like it flew by. Be a part of the conversation. Have your voice heard. And we need your support. Have a tax-deductible gift right now. If you give it right now at ACLJ.org, during these special times of the year, we are able to say those donations are doubled because of incredible people who are ready to match. So do it right now at ACLJ.org. We’ll be back with Rick Grinnell coming up right after this.
SPEAKER 07 :
back to seculo i want to jump right into phone calls because we got a full bank right now actually we got a couple lines open but you can give us a call but deborah is calling right now watching on the salem news channel in georgia deborah you’re on the air thank you i’m calling in regard to the astronauts that were left in space as they were up there to serve our country to learn and to educate i’m sad about this actually i do believe it’s political But it’s nothing new. After all, we send our service members overseas to fight for our allies. And many of them have died. While our own country sends money. to those that we’re fighting that are killing our soldiers.
SPEAKER 08 :
So is there anything new? Debra, I think a lot of eyes are opening to what is happening, whether that is what’s going on in wartime. And I think you saw that with the new administration. You saw people like Tulsi Gabbard get a position because they took a different approach than most people have to war. and to the fighting that’s happening. And of course, you have what could be a politically motivated moment right now, but you do hopefully see movement happening and that tonight, if all goes plan, we will see those astronauts return to Earth. Now I want to switch over. Rick Grinnell is joining us. Rick, welcome. There’s a lot going on right now, including President Trump on the phone currently, it seems like, or maybe just recently with Vladimir Putin. This is, again, a push to hopefully end that conflict going on in Ukraine.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, look, I’m struck by Deborah’s call in where the public is really frustrated with Washington, D.C., not delivering what the American people want, whether it’s through money or through foreign policy. And I think what we’re seeing right now is President Trump comes in after multiple years of wars in the Middle East and wars in Europe, and he’s having to solve these problems. he’s going straight to Vladimir Putin, who is the invader in Ukraine and who did cause this war. And he’s going straight to the guy, Vladimir Putin, and saying, stop this. We need to be able to have peace. And it’s remarkable how many people are attacking Donald Trump for trying to solve the wars and bring about peace. And they’re, they’re attacking him by saying you’re too weak. It’s almost as if the people in Washington want war and conflict. And to me, that’s the big message of the Trump administration is a Republican president embracing peace. That’s remarkable.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. Rick, you talked about that a lot. We’ve talked about this show. I mean, last night, again, as the war in Gaza kicked back up, sure. We believe Hamas needs to be eliminated that, Israel is on the right side here. But it was a bit of a gut punch, if you would, to see the war kicked back up. Because I know, as you said, the plans are, and President Trump, one of his things he talked about when running was to end these wars, to end the war in Ukraine, to end the war happening in Israel. And of course, for Israel, they want to do that in many different ways than they would do with Ukraine. What you also brought up, though, and I think it’s important people understand, There was not any conversations between President Biden and Vladimir Putin during the entire extent of the war, which was nearly three years. President Trump comes in and we’ll have these conversations. As you’ve said, as you’ve gone to places like Venezuela, just because you’re having a conversation with someone, you’re meeting with them, you are having these intense dealings with them as a diplomat, as someone who is trying to protect our country. That doesn’t mean you’re their friend just because you’re having a phone call with them. In fact, it could be exactly the opposite.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and I always say that talking is a tactic. It’s not the goal. It’s not success just because you’re talking, but it is the way that you try to bring about peace. And so we should celebrate the fact that somebody wants to go in and talk. You can go in and talk to somebody like Kim Jong-un or Nicolas Maduro and have a very strong pro-America message. and not be viewed weak. Actually, I would argue that going in and looking at power and speaking truth to power is a form of courageous diplomacy. It’s not weak diplomacy.
SPEAKER 11 :
I agree. I agree with that completely. And one other subject I wanted to get your thoughts on, Rick, is this doctor and professor at Brown University that was here, had a visa, H-1B visa. And it turns out this professor at an Ivy League institution, while she was in Lebanon, maybe… went to the funeral of the late leader of Hezbollah. And even when questioned by CBP agents, admitted that, and went to the funeral of Nasrallah, and also… listened and agreed with his teachings. She tried to distinguish between the religious teachings and his political actions. But the left has now fired up the outrage machine that someone here on a visa, their visa was canceled and they were sent back because of their support and to some degree following the teachings of a horrible terrorist leader. The outrage is not shocking, but what’s your take on this whole scenario?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, look, first of all, I have run a visa program, visa services out of an embassy and consulates in Germany, a very large footprint of consulates and an embassy. And I can tell you that the foreign service officers, American employees, U.S. government employees, the first year or second year tours of a foreign service officer are spent on the visa lines. And what that means is that they constantly are meeting people who interview for visas and you have very quick, uh, decisions that have to be made. You look at someone’s background, you look at the information they present and these young foreign service officers are making the best choice that they can with the information available. But many times, The individuals on the other side of the glass that are applying are not truthful. And it’s hard to figure out if someone is completely authentic or truthful. So I don’t really blame the young foreign service officers who give people visas. I also would say there are people who work for DHS. Homeland Security that are making some of the same judgments when someone reenters the United States. And so as human beings, we get things wrong now and then. And if we somehow give a visa to somebody because we didn’t have full information and we’ve made a mistake on that, I think it’s OK for people higher up. U.S. officials higher up to fix that problem and say, you know, we shouldn’t have given this visa. You’re not a U.S. citizen yet. We’re going to pull that back because we found your behavior to be different than what you presented at the window. And I find that to be completely okay. We’re working with limited information. When we get more information through the visa process, process, which is one of the reasons why it takes so long is we want to make sure that people are legitimate, authentic, telling us the truth. And if we find that they haven’t, then we can pull that visa back because they’re not yet a citizen and we can make adjustments according to how they behave and what they do inside the United States. Remember that American citizens have rights And others have responsibilities if you’re trying to become an American citizen.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you so much, Rick, for joining us. Sorry to the calls. We’re able to get to any more calls today. Call us tomorrow early. We’ll do our best to get to you. I do want to encourage you in the last 30 seconds to support the work of the ACLJ. We can’t have brilliant minds like Rick Grinnell on this broadcast without you because we want the best and the brightest here, whether that’s in our media, whether that’s in the law, whether that’s in all aspects of the ACLJ, our work around the world, Europe, and so much more. And of course, pray for peace in the whole world, whether that is in Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Gaza. Go to ACLJ.org. Have your donations doubled right now.
