In this episode, we delve into the unexpected suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live, brought on by a controversial statement from the host. Join us as Logan Sekulow and Will Haynes discuss the implications of this network decision, dissect the ongoing battle for free speech, and contrast it with the intricate, sometimes absurd standards and practices governing television.
SPEAKER 04 :
Today on the show, The Hollywood Reporter releases a shocking conversation that left Jimmy Kimmel Live suspended indefinitely.
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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.
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Welcome to Sekulow. Logan Sekulow here. Will Haynes is joining me in studio. We’ve got a packed show. Later in the broadcast, Jacqueline Stapp is going to be joining us. She is on the panel for the Make America Fentanyl Free campaign that is run by the Trump administration. She’s going to be on joining us to talk about that. We also have Rick Grinnell and Mike Pompeo to wrap up the show. So you’re not going to go anywhere. It is going to be jam-packed. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. As the fight for and the definition of free speech continues on today, as there have been some reports now from the Jimmy Kimmel Live situation. Of course, we’re talking about Jimmy Kimmel, a late-night talk show host, really the second of the big three to be taken off the air. This one due specifically… to a comment he made regarding Charlie Kirk and Charlie Kirk’s shooter, referring to it being as sort of one of the conservative group, one of the MAGA kind of people, a lie. Now, that opens up a whole can of worms because there has been some push from the FCC, and obviously there’s push from a few different groups, Nexstar and Sinclair, which both own a large amount of affiliate stations. Remember, ABC is a broadcast. This is an over-the-air broadcast. These are not cable stations. They’re obviously available in your cable stations, but these are specifically run that way. I have to say, I come at it from a very unique point of view. I not only hosted a late night talk show for a while on Christian television, I actually was thrown off the air for something I said on one of the major networks. Or not for something I said necessarily, but maybe for something I didn’t say. They didn’t like that our show, I’ll go into specifics on it, they didn’t like our show, didn’t have like a preaching and teaching segment. It was a comedy late night talk show that featured Christian musicians. We thought we were going at a very different angle to approach people differently. The network disagreed. Who do you think won in that situation? The network. Now, did I leave bitter? Do I still think there was more things at work there than necessarily what was put on there? Sure. But you know what? That was 20 years ago. I can look back on it and go, it was their network. They had the decision, the right to make it. And they did. And they decided that what I was presenting was not fit for their network. I also spent time working at Nickelodeon. And I will tell you, especially working in children’s programming, but in general, Nickelodeon Though the FCC is not necessarily involved. There’s some Children’s Commission things that are involved. But that aside, the standards and practices that you have to go through to get things cleared is absolutely absurd if you actually read it. If I could show you the notes, there was one character that laid an egg on the air. And they had to make sure very clearly that we did not show where that egg came from. That was one of the things. And this was a mascot chicken. I think it was a mascot cow, actually. That is how in detail though they get when you’re working on standards and practices. Jimmy Kimmel then, all reports are leading to this in both Wall Street Journal and the Hollywood Reporter. And the reason I say Hollywood Reporter is because you’re talking about an industry trade. You’re not talking about anything that’s coming at you from a political agenda necessarily. Said we have details of what happened and those details were that Jimmy Kimmel had meetings with the top brass at Disney. We’re talking about the top of the top. Bob Iger and friends. And What he wanted to say on air to what they thought would be to clear the air was not enough, not suffice. And what they essentially said was enough to essentially double down on his claims. And Disney said, well, we’re going to put you indefinitely on hiatus. And that is what has happened right now. The fight for free speech continues. People keep talking about that. You see that in these comments. And look, I think it’s a slippery slope. I think we have to be careful. I’m not saying that I’m happy that this has happened to Jimmy Kimmel. But of course, now the ironic part of seeing my social media feed show up with cancel Disney Plus from all of my leftist friends. I mean, it’s a little hilarious. It’s a little hilarious after the years of that coming from my far right friends. We’ve seen this movie before.
SPEAKER 06 :
I know.
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I’ve always just somehow ended up in the middle of it. I’ve just been like, I’m going to keep it and I’m going to find the commentary here to talk about it. I want to hear from you on this issue at 1-800-684-3110. We’re also going to dive into the very important discussion on the fight against humanity. fentanyl distribution in the United States of America. Jacqueline Stapp, who is a part of that campaign, the Make America Fentanyl Free campaign, is going to be on the air today. And I look forward to talking to her. She’s a good friend and also someone who is doing the good work here, spreading that word. We’ll be right back with more on Sekulow. Welcome back to Secular. Look, of course, this is a topic of the day, the Jimmy Kimmel situation. And, of course, it doesn’t hurt Disney that this probably cost them, I would assume, upwards of $50 to $100 million a year to run Jimmy Kimmel Live, a daily broadcast out of the heart of Hollywood. And it had slipped to number three in the big three ratings. And… had been plummeting over the last five or six years. This was nothing new. This is a good moment for Disney to have an out. And their out was probably, I would say likely, though I haven’t seen contracts, likely, at least indebatably, debatably violates some clauses within Jimmy Kimmel’s contract. So it’s not like he has to just get paid out forever. There’s a good chance that if they wanted to, they could have just straight up terminated it. That is not what’s happened so far.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. And what we’ve seen, especially of the reporting over the last day, one, we know that his contract negotiations wouldn’t have ended until next year. So this would be an early exit from that. But we have also seen that, they gave him the opportunity to basically tone it down to to lower the temperature and if the hollywood reporter they say that the executives including bob eiger the top of the top in disney wanted to they wanted kimball to address the situation in a way that would take the temperature down but what he had planned was going to fan the flames with the maga fan base that’s a quote This is a quote from the Hollywood Reporter. So he wasn’t going to go forward. And to be fair to Jimmy Kimmel, his tweet after the assassination of Charlie Kirk was very, had a lot of humility to it. It was what you’d expect to see from people. The statement he made, which wasn’t about Charlie Kirk directly, it was about conservatives trying to say that the assassin was a part of the conservative base, is what causes Firestorm. And Disney, as we’ve seen them kind of course correct from going full on in defeating what the left tribe really wanted from media, back into… And making amends with Gina Carano, settling that lawsuit, saying she can come back and work with us. They are trying to course correct. And one of their hosts that has a prime spot and was making news all over the world because President Trump even addressed it from England. He wasn’t going to do what his bosses thought was necessary to set it up for success in the future.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and I think when you look at that show and that network and whatever that Disney has been going through the last decade, bringing back Bob Iger, as Will said, all the things they’ve done to try to course correct. Of course, they knew they were going to take some heat from this. They were getting some flack for this. Did they think that there was this much? Probably. But they anticipated taking that risk. Was it worth that risk? And they think it is. That’s what you got to remember. They think it’s worth that risk. Obviously, Nexstar was the first one to make the call. And then Sinclair, you got those affiliates. Disney could have said, you know what? We’re going to move it to Disney+. We’re going to move it to somewhere else where you can get this show. because we have access to millions of people. There’s more people that watch Disney+, truthfully, than watch over the air at 1130 at night.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, he only had 220,000 viewers in the demographic in quarter two of this year. That how is a show profitable? It’s not. We know it’s not, but there’s no way to make enough advertising revenue to pay, just his salary was 16 million. You think about the staff, the live band, the location, all of that. Like you said, $50 to $100 million. We know that Colbert was $100 million to produce. The Kimmel numbers aren’t as public.
SPEAKER 04 :
The real estate alone, where the Jimmy Kimmel Live studio is, alone has got to be worth way more than that. Right. Right there on Hollywood Boulevard. The truth is, this show is… Disney made a corporate decision. They are beholden to who? The stockholders. And the stockholders were about to have an advertising backlash. And what happens then? Your stock plummets once again, and Disney’s stuck in another situation. Do I think that we need to be going on there and making an example of this for Jimmy Kimmel? No, I don’t. I have no feelings one way or the other towards him. He’s said some really nasty stuff before, but who hasn’t? I think… In some ways, these shows are just made to get connections with celebrities still. It’s still good for The Tonight Show to exist for NBC because they then have this relationship with Hollywood they don’t necessarily have. I feel that way kind of true with all three of them. CBS just decided it’s not worth it for us anymore. We don’t need it. You saw the way that the reviews came in from the clean Emmys this week where Nate Bargatze hosted. And the reviews were, this was the worst thing people had ever seen. When everyone I know who’s watched it actually really enjoyed the show because Hollywood is out of touch. The difference is you have Disney trying to course correct. Now that being said, what does this look like moving forward? What does it look like for this battle of free speech? No one, By the way, who’s on your social media screaming out free speech clearly understands how any of this works. And that’s maybe been one of the more enlightening moments is going, okay, the freedom of speech doesn’t mean ABC slash the Walt Disney Company doesn’t get to decide what’s on their networks or who works for them. And I’m going to go to a call real quick. Tamara is calling on line one. Tamara, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, thanks. So, you know, this isn’t unique. Disney does this all the time. My son used to work there in the theme park, okay? And he had one of his best friends who had done a little bit, dabbled in stand-up comedy. Disney found out about some of the jokes that he made. They didn’t like it. They terminated his employment. A couple of years later, my son posted something on social media. Disney didn’t like it. And they terminated his employment.
SPEAKER 04 :
He was working in the theme park. A lot of times, minimum wage kind of employees, they are watching that closely. They are watching that closely to make sure that they are, if you’re going to publicly say you work for this company, that you align with the values of the company. And things got out of whack. And when you have one of your big hosts go on there, lie to the American people. about a tragic murder. And look, we said this. To me, this is not, this is not that, reminds me of October 7th, which is what we told you. There’d be a few days of unity and then what would happen? all of a sudden Israel will be the bad guy. What’s happened here? Not only is Israel the bad guy, it seems like in this Charlie Kirk situation, because all of a sudden there’s all of these nuts coming out, these conspiracy theories that really are bothersome. But in the same way, now all of a sudden they’re trying to turn it on. You’re the problem, conservatives, because you canceled Jimmy Kimmel Live. Like that was the big, you know, straw that broke the camel’s back for all of your liberal friends. They can’t take it anymore. I have a feeling none of them watched it. I can’t tell you the last time. I hosted one of those shows and I can’t tell you the last time I watched it. I’ll actually give another example because you know what? I don’t have an NDA or anything about this. Last year, Ambassador Mike Huckabee had a late night talk show on TBN, Trinity Broadcast Network, one of our friends. They were discussing what they were going to do when he became the ambassador. I was up, in theory, to host that show. And you know what they decided to do? End the show. Now, I can’t tell you the reasons why or not. My assumption is it’s a lot of money to run one of those shows, and they decided it was not worth it. I had Ambassador Huckabee behind me. I had the band behind me. I had a lot of people wanting this to happen. I was very excited to potentially do it. But when it came down to it, it was a business decision. And it wasn’t even one that they thought about for very long, if I’m going to be honest. It was one where they decided this is a gigantic expense, probably with little payoff. moving forward that is what’s happening in these networks but they have some of these legacy brands and they don’t know what to do because they’re stuck in these 10 year 20 year you know contracts and now they’re having to see what the real ramifications are not only the streaming services but the ramifications of podcasting ramifications what we do here why there’s more people that watch this show every week than watching the demo on jimmy kimmel live right that should be a wake-up call to a lot of the networks
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and I also think I kind of want to contrast what’s happening here where the left is outraged and going after saying, oh, this he lost his job or any any of the people that were saying nasty things on the Internet that are losing their job. Meanwhile, we’re representing a new client. This is someone who was fired from a defense contractor. And what was his entire issue? What was the reason for being fired? He wore a cross necklace, something you’re not wearing today, but wear almost every day on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
I ran out the house too quick. But he was wearing a cross necklace. I feel like I just got called out. I’m getting like, you know. You call me out all the time, Logan. I got canceled. I got my shows canceled twice insofar as this, and I forgot my way of my cross.
SPEAKER 06 :
But he wore a cross necklace to work, and he had a Bible on his desk. He wasn’t preaching to people. He wasn’t getting into these discussions or things where he was causing disruption. He had a Bible on his desk. Other employees had non-work related books on their desk. So he was violating no policies, but was told he couldn’t do it. Then he was told he could. And then they fired him as retribution for him saying, why can’t I do this? And one person told him that the cross was not inclusive and unprofessional and lectured him saying that a real Christian should wear it in his heart instead of openly. And so that’s a violation of the Civil Rights Act. That is something that you can’t be fired for. But when you’re a television host and you’re going on there and this isn’t a comedian in a comedy club. This is on broadcast television. And all of a sudden they’re trying to say the ABC is kowtowing to the government. It’s ridiculous.
SPEAKER 04 :
Look, I’ve been to venues and comedy clubs where a comedian got banned for life. for some of the stuff they said. Do I believe that comedians should be able to say what they want? I feel like they’re the last bastion of hope a lot of times. Yes, but sometimes there’s jokes. Sometimes there’s not. This wasn’t a joke. Look what Jimmy Fallon did last night. He lampooned President Trump’s UK trip. But you know what? It was joke after joke after joke. And the main joke was that his dad texted him apologizing, saying he was so sorry he heard that the show got canceled. hilarious, because that’s a joke. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. We are going to change topics in the next segment. We’re going to bring in Jacqueline Stapp. She is part of the Make America Fit Me Free campaign, something that a lot of us here are very passionate about. We’re going to get into it coming up in the next segment. And then Rick Grinnell and Mike Pompeo are going to be joining us, and we’re going to take your calls. Welcome back to Secula. We are going to be taking your calls in the next segment at 1-800-684-3110. Like I said, we have a packed show. We’re going to pivot right now to a segment that I’ve been looking forward to having our guest on. I mean, it’s obviously been a very chaotic few weeks, so things have really obviously taken an interesting turn in this country. But there is one thing that is very important to me personally, something that I believe every family has been affected from right now, and that, of course, is is the leading cause of death in America right now from the ages of 1845. And that, of course, is the fentanyl crisis that has been happening. And Jacqueline Stapp is joining us because there’s a wild stat. But Jacqueline, you have been a part of this new campaign that I think is very important. It was one that when President Trump started really talking about this crisis, I was encouraged. It obviously comes after a lot of us have experienced personal loss from this, but at least steps are being made.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, thank you for having me. This is a very serious crisis, and our president could not turn away from this very big issue of children dying. And as you just said, between the ages of 18 to 45, this is a leading cause of death. And on day one of his presidency, he had a mission to save American lives. He could not turn away of these mothers coming to him crying of, you know, I found my son dead in the bedroom. Um, you know, these kids often don’t know that these are counterfeit pills. You know, this is often accidental overdoses. Um, you know, taking these, these pills, they think are a Xanax or an Adderall and, um, you know, laced with grains of fentanyl and instantly they die. They stop breathing and die.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it was important for you to join this and how did that happen as well? Because I think it’s, um, It’s great that this commission is happening, that this whole campaign is happening. You’re out there, I’ve seen you on the road doing this because it is so important. But why is it, is it personal to you? I know you have kids, you have people that are dealing with a lot of situations where it’s just, It’s really tough. You walk around some of these major cities and you see half the ads are, you know, make sure to test your drugs. You know, like they’re promoting things like this. And sadly now that’s become the norm. But hopefully what you are all doing is going to be reversing the course completely.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. You know, I’m a mother of three. You know, any parent, you know, wants to make sure your kids go off to child. I think I read somewhere that they have these actual test kits. They’re giving kids at colleges. Some of the parents were sending their kids off to college, giving them a test kit to check for fentanyl in their drugs. And you’re hearing about this so often. And any parent wants to make sure your kids goes to school and gets an education is not going to accidentally overdose. I’ve had friends and family pass away. I’ve had parents telling me, you know, I had to resuscitate my son in the front yard as he’s vomiting. And it’s just these horrific stories. And it’s happening too frequently. And President Trump, under his amazing leadership, is, you know, doing exactly what he said he was going to do, you know, control the border, you know, Hold these drug dealers accountable. But this campaign is intended to spread awareness to the dangers of to these children, the dangers of fentanyl and how easy it is to to overuse. overdose. What you think you’re taking is not, and no drugs are good for you, but these drug dealers have really gotten very shrewd and clever with ways of getting this cheap drug out into the streets. So he’s working really hard. There’s still a lot of work to do, but if we could just start talking about it in the schools and churches, everyone knows about the opioid crisis and knows someone directly or indirectly that’s been affected by it or has passed away from it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and I think that’s maybe one of the big misconceptions that are out there is that a lot of people have heard about how lethal fentanyl is, but they still kind of think of it maybe as something that happens in a big city. On the streets. similar to like the heroin crisis where yes they understand that these very powerful drugs exist and that people can overdose from that but that it’s not affecting what high schoolers may experiment with or do things that they shouldn’t be doing but it’s They’re not realizing that this crisis is affecting suburban high schoolers and people in college. It’s not in the seedy underbelly of the urban centers of our country. It affects everyone and can affect everyone lethally.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, that’s right. And exactly what you said. It’s not that stereotypical person you see on the side of the streets that’s struggling. Yes, they matter. But these are children that are going to these house parties or buying a pill from a friend. They don’t intend to take their lives. This is accidental and they don’t know. And, you know, also children. On social media, there’s these new ways on Snapchat. These kids are learning this type of secret code word and languages where they’re buying pills from these dealers on the social media. And so we’ve got to put a stop to this. These lives matter. And our president is really trying to tackle this issue. It takes a village and there’s a lot involved in this. And we’re grateful for this privately funded multimillion dollar campaign, Make America Fentanyl Free. And, you know, there’s resources on the website, but we’ve got a lot of work to do. And I thank you guys for helping us get the message out there.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, whatever you need from us, we’re all on board because this is very important to us specifically. And we’ve talked privately about that. And this is something that I really want to make sure that our audience gets behind, understands the seriousness of it. And it’s not, Will, as you said, just an issue that’s happening, like you said, in sort of downtown areas, happening with the unhoused homeless population. This is happening online. everywhere like you said the number one cause of death and it can be easily stopped maybe not easily but with people like you involved it can i have to say also the ad campaign that’s running is phenomenal uh the ads if you haven’t seen them they are incredibly powerful maybe we can pull one up and show one a little bit later uh this week on the broadcast because or next week because they really are um Hitting home for a lot of people. So, Jacqueline, I just want to say thank you. We’ll make sure we link everything to promote this campaign. This is one of those moments, Will, where I’m excited when we have President Trump taking action on something that we’ve known for years was a problem.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. This is something that has been talked about, but I feel like the action… to one, to explain to the people of our country about how it can affect them personally has been lost. There was that disconnect, but this is kind of a new way to one, reach the people, as well as make everyone aware, whether it be grandparents all the way down to people that are in school, be able to understand the real dangers of this. And while we are doing things on the border to try and stop it coming in this country, we also know how much is already here and how real that danger is. That’s right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Go check out those ads. Check out all the great content. Jacqueline, I believe it’s just at makeamericafitnallfree.com is where you can find everything.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you so much. Yeah, but we’ll make sure we get that out there. Hey, when we get back, we do have a second half hour coming up on our broadcast. I want to make sure you’re joining us for that. If you don’t get us on your local station, find us broadcasting always on ACLJ.org, on YouTube, on Rumble. We are there broadcasting to millions of people each and every week. Be a part of that team there. Again, the easiest way is to go to ACLJ.org or download the ACLJ app. We are live Monday through Friday from noon to 1 p.m. Eastern time. You can work your way back from there. You can figure it out, whatever time zone you’re in. And, of course, you can watch us or listen to us later on, however you get your podcasts, however you get your video content. We’re there. You can follow us on all the social media platforms. But why me? The most important thing, and we’re going to take some of these in the next segment, is we want to hear from you. So we just heard from Jacqueline Stapp, who was part of President Trump’s Make America Fit and All Free campaign. We’re going to hear from Rick Grinnell coming up, head of the Kennedy Center, former ambassador to Germany, former director of national intelligence, currently also serving. And of course, we’re going to hear from former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. No other show has this kind of expertise, has people who have been through it or are currently living it. And that only happens because people like you support this broadcast and support not only the media operation, but the legal operation of the ACLJ. So I’m encouraging you. We only have a minute break here to make a donation of any kind at ACLJ.org. Stand up today. We couldn’t need you more. We need you right now. back to secular we are going to have a packed second half hour of this broadcast right now of course we’re talking about the jimmy kimmel situation we just got done by the way if you didn’t hear it uh go back and listen later on with jacqueline steph she is part of the make america fentanyl free campaign uh another incredible um moment that’s happening from this administration taking this head on uh one an issue that is near and dear to a lot of our hearts especially those of us uh who have been affected by it directly which is just about everyone uh in this country at this point So I encourage you to go look at that. That being said, I do want to take some phone calls because we’re going to run out of time for calls if we don’t. So let’s jump to it. Let’s go to Al because he’s an ACLJ champion. Gets bumped up to the front. Watch it in California. Al, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, yes. Isn’t it obvious that the reason these networks are backing off in light of the tragic death of Charlie Kirk and the firing of news anchors and some of these journalists is because Charlie Kirk’s wife, He’s going after these networks with a massive lawsuit that have misaligned, mischaracterized, and defamed his name.
SPEAKER 04 :
I don’t know about those specifically, if that’s really the case. But what I would say, and Will can chime in here, is that I believe a lot of these networks also, they do have a line that they’re not willing to cross. Because that line hurts. Let’s just say it has nothing to do with morality. Hurts your advertising revenue. Hurts your audience share. Hurts your credibility. And so far, everyone you’ve seen that’s been fired, that’s what’s happened. It’s the person saying, oh, maybe it was friendly fire. Maybe it was someone celebrating. It was someone going on air and saying the shooter was part of the conservative agenda. These are the kind of things that are happening. Lies, inaccuracies, and incitements. And if you’re Bob Iger and you run Disney, or you’re one of the heads of NBC, or you’re any of these organizations, there is a line you can’t cross. And it doesn’t have to do, and it does somewhat have to do with morality, because the morality of it will cost you your broadcast. It happened to Tucker Carlson, by the way. If you remember, he was the number one show on Fox News and got canceled. Why? They couldn’t sell any advertising. They couldn’t sell any advertising around his show. Didn’t mean there weren’t the most eyeballs on it. But the eyeballs didn’t matter when you couldn’t get someone to put an ad dollar behind it. He was saying things that made advertisers too uncomfortable. Whether you agree with that or not, by the way, is a totally different situation. But it made them uncomfortable enough to where he lost his show.
SPEAKER 06 :
And that’s something that actually Jimmy Kimmel celebrated on his show. Those clips have been resurfacing. They celebrated when Tucker Carlson lost his show on Fox because they weren’t able to sell the ad dollars, even though it was performing better than some of these late night shows. So there is a little bit of that. But also, I think we should be clear… I don’t know that ABC was necessarily concerned about a lawsuit from the Kirk family. Also, the statement that was inaccurate wasn’t actually anything per se negative about Charlie Kirk himself. It was more against conservative movement saying that the shooter was a part of their movement. So I don’t think that there would even be grounds for a lawsuit from the Kirk family on something like that. Yeah. that that’s beside the point at this point, because I agree with you wholeheartedly that it was a business decision by ABC, not necessarily because of the threat of a lawsuit, but because of the threat of advertisers pulling their dollars and them not being able to make money at all.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely. Let’s go to another call. Let’s go quickly. We’re going to go to Don in California. Don, you got about a minute.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, thank you. Thank you. Bless you for what you’re doing. God bless Charlie Kirk and his memory. Um, You know, I’m really worried a little bit about, you know, this. I mean, I understand the Kimmel firing thing, but I really worried as a conservative. I’m worried about precedent and what’s the next Democrat going to do when they get in? and they think, well, gee, look what Mr. Trump did. Of course, their hands are not clean. You know, look at all this.
SPEAKER 06 :
Don, I’ll cut you off because unfortunately we’re running out of time. Don, and actually, I mean, we agree with that a lot. And if you go back and watch yesterday’s show, I talked about we don’t want to go back to the fairness doctrine, things that ACLJ has fought against that. Yeah, there does need to be some carefulness here and that we do support robust free speech.
SPEAKER 04 :
And right now, though, there has to pushback from the FCC all we know is the actual decisions being made are being made by corporate being made by Nexstar Sinclair and therefore ABC slash Walt Disney Company so it wasn’t being run we’ll talk about that actually with Rick Grinnell coming up in the next segment he’ll be someone who could definitely weigh in on that as the current head of the Kennedy Center so much more we’ll be right back with more on Sekulow thanks Tom for calling Welcome back to Secular. We are going to take some phone calls potentially later on in the broadcast. We have a packed rest of the broadcast. Rick Grinnell is joining us right now. Rick, I do have to leave with this. It’s been a very interesting and wild time. But yesterday, Pastor, you were on the air with Will. He didn’t say anything. But you know what, Rick? I’d say happy birthday. Happy belated birthday. Your birthday was yesterday. So I want to make sure we got that out of the way. Congratulations and happy birthday, Rick, which is obviously coming. Thank you. This has been an interesting day. There’s been a lot of conversation breaking out about the First Amendment, what it looks like. A lot of people clearly don’t even understand how the First Amendment applies to corporations, private businesses. And it should be something they’re pretty familiar with after the last five years or so that we’ve had to work on this type of issue when it comes to people speaking their minds, saying something, and then, of course, the consequences that have come from it. But this is obviously a direct reference to what is happening over at ABC News. with the Walt Disney Company with Jimmy Kimmel Live. And I want to get your thoughts on this of really what’s next. I was telling Will, you know, I’m actually in a very unique situation where we hosted, or I hosted a late night talk show that got thrown off the air once from a network, a Christian network who didn’t like what we were saying, didn’t like what we had to do. And you know what? As much as I didn’t like it at the time, it was well within their right to do it. Because again, though I was saying what I wanted to be said, It was not, the networks, they didn’t feel like it aligned with their mission, and therefore my show was taken off the air. That is the consequences that comes when you’re dealing with either advertiser-driven or donor-driven broadcasting.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, look, I think we’re dealing with two different issues here. First, let’s take the First Amendment free speech argument. I think Republicans have been very consistent to say we are not for policing people’s speech. We’re not for policing people’s mean speech, even, you know, the protected speech is speech that we don’t always like and that is uncomfortable. But there’s a fundamental difference between violence celebrating violence and then, you know, being, being at a corporation or a job where it is, has become a problem because you’re celebrating violence. And so you’re, you’re free to say that, but your corporation, the business that you work for is also free to say, this isn’t a good look for us and we’re going to let you go. Um, we, we have been consistent, uh, that free speech is absolutely protected by the Constitution. And yet there are consequences when you say certain things. Now, the left, I think, has not been consistent because they’ve switched the argument. First, it was, you know, your words are a problem and words are what needs to be policed. And that’s how we led to the cancel culture. And now what they’re trying to say is, no, we embrace the First Amendment suddenly when there are consequences for their words. So I think that’s the first argument. When it comes to Jimmy Kimmel, I think it has nothing to do with his First Amendment rights or the words that he’s saying. I think it has everything to do with the fact that the affiliates have made a calculus that it just is financially ruinous for them to be associated with Jimmy Kimmel. He’s losing money. He’s losing millions of dollars. Advertisers don’t want to be a part of his show. And so like Logan, like what you were outlining, there are consequences when you can’t have broad appeal. If, if you’re so niche in your programming, in your words, You can’t be shocked that suddenly advertisers don’t want to be a part of it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I don’t think that that should be even uncommon. When you look at the ratings slipping, when you look at how much it costs to run these shows, and that’s something that I don’t think anyone really takes into consideration, the location of that studio, he is broadcasting essentially from Hollywood Boulevard. This is a massive financial undertaking that is really just a PR move and really is only being used as PR almost internally within these companies. Make sure you have an access to a celebrity or whatever you need them to promote their new thing, even though we all know it’s not reaching near the amount of people that it used to reach. So when that becomes a problem and an issue, like you said, and a Nexstar says we’re out and Sinclair says we’re out. And of course, you know what? You find out that these companies are not run, especially these ones that have affiliates in the middle of America or are running out of areas. They’re not all run by the craziest of left-wing activists. These are independently run individual markets. So guess what? They’re going to be appealing to whoever’s in that market. And you’re going to have a very different audience in the Midwest and in the South than maybe you were going to have out of your big corporate in Hollywood.
SPEAKER 06 :
I know it’s not like a hot take to point out, look how hypocritical the members of the left are being, but here’s what I want to know, because I’ve saw Eric Swalwell wearing a Jimmy Kimmel live hat, which if he already had that, I mean, that’s bizarre. But then also Elizabeth Warren, you know, preaching about freedom of speech and all this. Where were all these elected Democrat officials when the Biden administration a few years ago was putting together a disinformation governance board in the Department of Homeland Security, creating the Ministry of Truth, as we’ve called it? Or where were they when they were… pushing to de-platform people from social media because of things they were putting out there. I just don’t understand how they can go to bed and sleep well at night knowing that… Rick, do you understand this? I don’t get it.
SPEAKER 08 :
Look, I think that the people, politician types, that make these arguments… clearly are not responsible for the bottom line for the finances. Because I can tell you as president of the Kennedy Center, we have had to make some very tough decisions really along the same lines. If we don’t have enough seats being sold and the shows aren’t making money, then we have to make adjustments to our shows and to our programming. We need to be able to pay the bills. And if you can’t pay the bills, then you’ve got to adjust the supply. And it’s a simple supply and demand. I think corporations have to go through it, and certainly theaters have to go through it. But also, anyone who’s interested in ratings, our show here, our show right here. on, on ACLJ, um, if, if we didn’t have viewers, if we didn’t have people to support us, we wouldn’t be able to do the show and, and people support us because they like the content. We make it interesting. We make it actionable. We have people who are, are listening and then filing, you know, lawsuits according to the outrage. This is about being accountable and being able to supply something that people want. And I think Elizabeth Warren and Eric Swalwell, they are from districts and states where they don’t have to be accountable because it’s just completely far left blue, and it really doesn’t matter what they’re saying or supplying, they’re going to get the votes.
SPEAKER 04 :
Rick, thanks so much for joining us today. I think that this is an important topic. It is not the most important topic, though. If what’s keeping you up at night is Jimmy Kimmel Live being canceled or not even canceled right now, just indefinitely suspended or whatever the words are they’re using it. And you need to really look at what’s going on in the world because in the grand scheme of things, this is nothing. We all know that. We all see what happened in the last week. We all know what’s going to be going on this weekend. And to say that a late night talk show getting canceled is somehow, you know, the point of no return for society is where you’ve really, really lost touch with what’s going on in the world. You’ve really lost touch with society in general. You know, I could say that for many of the comments that I’ve seen pour in. I get being concerned about your first amendment rights. I get being concerned. but what you’re going to say and what you’re not saying. Some people have said, I’m sure I’ve said bad things and things that are stupid the day after something horrible happened and I misjudged or I made a decision. But what we saw also was that Jimmy Kimmel, according to The Hollywood Reporter, according to The Wall Street Journal, not only was not going to apologize, was going to somehow double down on this being the fault of conservatives. And That is where the Disney Corporation, the Walt Disney Company said, this is too far for us. You’ve pushed us over a line. As I said, if you really got to see the standards and practices that go in to making sure every word that comes out of most people’s mouths is pre-scripted and they know what’s going to happen, it’s pretty, pretty extensive. And I worked in live television before for mainstream networks. And the oversight for a lot of them is major because they are reliant on not making an advertiser mad. And not making an advertiser mad means not making your audience mad. And that’s precisely what was happening. What remains of those audiences are not ready, are not willing to do this. I think you’ll have some that will stand. I think Jimmy Kimmel very well could come back. I think you could have a Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel duo show. I mean, I think that’s very likely. I think those are the kind of things you’ll see. It’ll be on some fringe cable network or maybe on Comedy Central. It’ll be somewhere.
SPEAKER 06 :
Did Al Gore have that network? That went away though, right? I don’t even remember that happening. He had a network. What was it called? Don’t remember. But he had one. I think it folded.
SPEAKER 04 :
I don’t think anyone watched it. You got 42 seconds, Will. You can find out. You got a Google machine in front of you. Al Gore Television Network. It was called Current TV. There you go. That’s the one. Yeah, maybe it’ll be as successful as CNN Plus, which I think was canceled before day one, on day one that happened. All right. Hey, phone lines are open for you. We may take some calls. Mike Pompeo is going to be joining us in the next segment. But look, this is an important time here at the ACLJ. You know these issues are near and dear to our hearts as we head into the weekend. The battle for free speech and religious liberty never stops. When I mean that battle, I don’t mean whether a guy can have a late night comedy show. I mean the free speech of Christians and people around the world, some of which are being murdered for their faith. I’ll be right back. Welcome back to Seculo. Phone lines are open. We’ll see if we get to them. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to get to your calls today because in this segment now we are joined, told you it would be a packed show, we’re joined by Secretary Mike Pompeo. Secretary Pompeo, it has been a very busy week. The United Nations Security Council, Will, is at it again.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right. So the UN Security Council has now rejected an effort that was brought by South Korea to try and delay the snapback sanctions that would fall on Iran after violation of agreements under the nuclear deal. But this was actually brought up and kind of put forward by the United Kingdom, France and Germany because they were saying that Iran had breached agreements, not normally those that we would see be aggressive on Iran at this point. But I wanted to get your take on what this move does and why this may be a big deal to put pressure and help contain Iran.
SPEAKER 03 :
So I don’t want to get too far down in the weeds on the legal technicalities, but suffice it to say, yes, the United Kingdom, Germany, France should have done this a long time ago. There was a provision in the nuclear deal, the JCPOA, from which we rightfully withdrew back in 2018. There was a provision that said if the Iranians violate certain provisions, then all of the sanctions that were in place, prior to the entrance to the JCPOA would come back into effect. That’s what they did. I wish they had done it in 2018 and 19 when we wanted them to do that. I think the world would be a safer place today. And, you know, the United Nations tried to stop them from reimposing these sanctions. And now now here they are. This will have some material impact. The Iranians have already said that they’re going to respond in some way. But the efforts that were taken by the Trump administration and Israel to go after the Iranian program now combined with the reimposition of these sanctions, I think will have a material benefit to the Iranian people, giving them the space they need to get a government that looks more like what it is they would really like to have. And there’s less risk from an Iran with enriched uranium as well.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I also think the fact that our allies were the ones to make these moves for so long, it felt like the only nation in the world that was, or maybe two nations, but the only permanent member of the Security Council that was willing to take these steps to really push back against the Iranian regime was the United States of America. Does it help? uh, the credibility of these efforts when our allies are supportive and even instigating these moves at the UN?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, absolutely. No, it has been for a while. It’s been America trying to push this. We’ve been leading. They, the Europeans were resisting us, uh, for a host of reasons. So yes, this, this makes it, uh, much more likely that the entire world will see this as legitimate. And that’s a, that’s a great thing. Having said that, I know we’re This week at the UN, those same three countries are going to take a step backwards on this same file, the same Middle Eastern file, by asserting that Palestine should be recognized and somehow become a legal sovereign state, which, frankly, emboldens Hamas and emboldens the Iranian regime. So one in the plus column, one in the minus column for the European nations.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and that that leads us to our next kind of topic here. And you’re seeing actually Democrats in the Senate pushing the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, that we need to now almost. build up and support the Palestinian Authority. They have not been receiving a lot of tax revenue from both Israel and United States has issues with the Palestinian Authority, mainly over things like pay to slay, where they offer incentives for terrorists to kill Jews, kill Israelis, and even Americans have been killed by people that were backed by the Palestinian Authority and therefore their families If they are martyred in their terms or if they are imprisoned, they receive a salary and they receive funding from the Palestinian Authority. But the reasons that they may not be getting financial support are plenty. But now Democrats want to ensure that the United States props them up to help prevent the collapse of the PA. I mean, this is a big topic we could spend a lot more time on, but… But what are your thoughts on this push from the Democrats? Is it something that the administration should be doing and tie that in as well to the UN move that we’re seeing?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, the good news is that I don’t believe Secretary Ruby or President Trump will remotely do anything to support the terror organization that is the Palestinian Authority that has repeatedly rejected reasonable peace offers for decades from Israel and from the West. So I don’t think that’s going to happen. What you’re seeing is the Democrats responding to their Islamist left base. Right. They have a group of folks that are radical Islamists and they think they’re the Democrats are worried that they are politically influential. So that’s that’s what you’re seeing. You’re seeing the same thing in London and in Paris today. And in Berlin, but the Palestinian Authority should not be propped up. It should it should be disbanded. It’s an illegitimate governor. Their government, their the Abu Mazen, its leader stood for election about I think it’s not 15 nine years ago, but hasn’t submitted to democratic rule. He lost the campaign against Hamas. We have to start from scratch as as we figure out what governance is going to look like both in Gaza and the West Bank. The right place to put the foundation is not the Palestinian Authority. That will that will not work. They’re too close to Iran, too close to Islamist and too close to the Muslim Brotherhood as well.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I did want to bring up while we’re on, we’ve spent time on the region. It’s not something that is getting a lot of press right now because of everything that is happening domestically or even with that state visit from the president. But the U.S. government, the Trump administration actually went a step further. in kind of trying to go after these Iranian proxies by designating a group in Iraq that has directly targeted American soldiers, that has attacked our embassy or consulate there, and that’s putting more pressure through this terror designation that is to help rein in that Iranian regime. So we are seeing moves not just at the UN, but also
SPEAKER 03 :
through our power uh through the state department to try and push back against the terror that the iranian regime tries to sow in the region yeah that’s that’s absolutely right look this is all good news that probably should have designated that terror organization years ago under president biden uh that organization is a terrorist group under president biden but here’s a takeaway from this what you are seeing is increased unity and resolve in the region the gulf arab states israel the united states all working to do the necessary, which is to take down the problem child, which is the theocratic leadership in Iran. So it’s a little bit in the weeds. But these Iraqi militias are Shia militias that are largely funded by Tehran, largely funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran. They report to the IRGC, the Republican Guard of the revolutionary forces for Iran. The fact that we designated them terrorists is a good thing. It will take continued pressure. I see the Israelis now taking out Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, again in southern Lebanon, still working in Gaza and in Gaza City to take down Hamas. All of these things will lead to a more prosperous, more peaceful Middle East. And that is amazingly good for America. We’ve sent far too many of our kids to fight and die and risk their lives there. If we get this right with respect to Iran, we can have a 25, 50 year good run in the Middle East with a lot more peace.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, that sounds like a good plan, Secretary Pompeo. We always appreciate you coming on, sharing your advice and your opinions. Again, this show has been packed with just experts on all of these issues, people that are involved or have been involved on the highest level. So thank you again, Secretary Pompeo. That’s going to do it for today’s show and for the week. We’ll be back on Monday. Again, today we actually have two critical – I didn’t get to spend time on this – two critical free speech religious liberty cases, and we talked a little about it. And Christians continue to have their liberties suppressed, even in the workplace. This was, as Will brought up, the story of a guy who just had a Bible on his desk and a cross necklace. We’re representing him. He’ll be a part of something as small, what feels like small, you know, has global impact and global reach. Right now, take action. I need you to donate. I need you to support. None of this happens without you. We’ve got no major sponsors, no corporate overlords, theaclj.org. It is fully independent because of people like you. So go to ACLJ.org, share all the great free content. None of it’s on a paywall because people like you say it’s important for people to spread it and see it and not create echo chambers. Talk to you Monday.
Kimmel Returns: Was it a PR Stunt?