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This episode also kicks off the ACLJ’s 35th anniversary celebration, where we reflect on decades of advocacy and justice. Learn about the organization’s global footprint, with particular attention on its European counterpart, the ECLJ, and the pivotal role it’s playing in nurturing conservative movements abroad. From pushing back against governmental overreach to curtailing international funding against domestic allies, the ACLJ continues to combat challenges at home and abroad. Tune in for a comprehensive rundown of these pressing issues urgently shaping today’s political and social landscapes.
SPEAKER 03 :
As the big, beautiful bill now heads to the House, could rogue Republicans threaten President Trump’s agenda?
SPEAKER 02 :
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…
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome to Seculo on Wednesday before the 4th of July. I’m Will Haines, and I’m joined in studio by Jordan Seculo, Executive Director of the ACLJ, back from his world travels, and we’re going to get into a lot of that. But Jordan, what everyone’s focused on right now is the Senate yesterday passed President Trump’s big, beautiful bill. Yes. Had to call in the Vice President for the tie-breaking vote. Right. But he also apparently was able to convince Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to side with the bill, losing a few Republicans there as well. But now it heads to the House.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
And you’ve been in politics a long time. We know that in order for this to get done, the House can’t change anything to what the Senate gave them or gets kicked right back.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
We’re now hearing that there are some Republicans that are saying that their no’s right now, some accounts as many as 15 to 20. When you know that members of the House are saying no, most of these big Trump supporters. Yes. What do you think ends up happening here?
SPEAKER 01 :
I think phone calls are starting from the president directly saying, I need you on this. And obviously that number of 20 is not sustainable. So if that number is true, this would be a failure before the votes begin. So I don’t think they would even call for a vote if that number is true, which we’re going to know very soon because the president and the goal is to get this done before the July 4th holiday so things don’t revert back. But the idea, what you said, Will, is they can’t ask for more concessions. So that’s the difference. This is a pressure campaign now. I heard it this morning just coming into the office here. We’re in Tennessee. A couple of members of Congress locally here who have said that they may not vote against it. Those ads are already running saying call and tell them to vote for President Trump’s. landmark legislation I think that’s what this is up to is in the next 24 hours is President Trump able to convince the American people this is really about his agenda this is really about what you voted for and that these Republicans are actually standing in the way of what President Trump won on and why he won was making these promises like the tax cuts being permanent to the American people but it’s still I mean it’s still uphill until you cross over you saw with J.D. Vance having to come in that’s up until the last moment if again Republicans can’t get concessions so they’re not going to get more out of this by holding out the question is what can they get in the future what other deals can be made about other legislation that I don’t think we’re going to necessarily know what we will know is if this vote occurs we will know that it’s not up to 20. now do you sometimes start these votes and you’re still a couple votes short because you want to put the pressure on
SPEAKER 03 :
absolutely absolutely are any of these republican rogues willing to be the one vote by themselves that actually killed the president’s landmark piece of legislation in second term and we’ll get into more of that also what a recap of what reconciliation is why it looks like this all that in the next segment as well as we’ll talk with jordan about all of the events and things that he was doing all the work for over a month in Europe with the ECLJ and what that means both domestically here, what it means for the future of that office and the work we do abroad and how it all impacts you. As we mentioned yesterday, we are now in July and we are kicking off the 35th anniversary of the ACLJ. Started 1990 with landmark cases before the Supreme Court. And we have been able to accomplish a lot here at the ACLJ, working both here at the Supreme Court, protecting individuals who are being discriminated against for their faith, being silenced for their faith, protecting the unborn, exposing corruption in the government. And we’ve been doing that for 35 years, but we know that the fight is not over. It’s just intensifying. And so today, your donations are doubled as we kick off this 35 Years of Justice campaign. Every dollar you give is matched. Go to aclj.org slash 35. That’s the number three and five. aclj.org slash 35. Have your donation doubled today. Support us in this battle for the next 35 years. We’ll be right back on Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow. And we are taking your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. If you have questions about the big, beautiful bill, the process in the legislature, or if you have questions about Jordan’s trip to Europe. And when I say trip, hard work that you did for over a month in Europe at the ECLJ, meeting with leaders from around the world that share stories. for the first time really, an American-style conservative value system that we’re starting to see in Europe. And so if you have questions on any of that or anything, it’s the week before 4th of July. We can be a little wide with the topics if you want to call us at 1-800-684-3110. But I think we should lead off with this call as we talk about this process because it can set up – why this has to happen this way yes why the uh the entire system why the agenda of president trump which they’re saying is 85 of what he ran on he’s trying to get passed legislatively through this bill uh so let’s go ahead and take jimmy calling online too he’s calling from california jimmy you’re on seculo yeah i’m here i can hear you um yeah no i i was just um i’m actually uh
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m extremely disappointed in, in all of this, to be honest with you. And main reason why is because of, uh, you know, all the waste and the fraud and the abuse and all this stuff that we’ve been, they’ve been uncovering millions and billions and billions of dollars that have been being stolen from us. And then the Congress and the Senate and all these people that are trying to pass this bill, they want to fight it tooth and nail every inch on it, send it back and forth and this and that. And it’s not even that good. It’s not even as good as it really should be, in my opinion. And everybody keeps saying, oh, well, you know, it’ll get better. This is just the first thing and this and that. No, there’s no excuse for it at this point with where things are. There is no, absolutely no excuse, in my opinion, for these people to be fighting any of this. And in my opinion, every single one of them should be fired. Every one of them has failed us. Every one of them needs a pay cut, if anything. They don’t deserve the money that they’ve been getting out of us either. Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER 03 :
I definitely hear your frustration. Actually, I don’t disagree with the frustration, especially what was revealed through Doge, seeing all the waste, fraud, and abuse. Yeah, it was criminal at many of these agencies. As a matter of fact, I mean, the HHS and the FDA just unveiled all this criminal fraud that was going on under the eyes of the…
SPEAKER 01 :
think we’ve seen yet really the the full outcome of what’s going to occur with some of those cuts i think we’re just starting to get to the the beginning of that where we’re starting to see a little bit less politicized a little bit more about the actual ways fraud and abuse that they found in these agencies and actually getting those cuts made but i think it’s important to know why we are in this situation the filibuster So this is a budget reconciliation process, which means you are never going to get to 100%. Now, it’s up to you and the American people to decide, you know, does 70% of what you want, is that enough for you? Or would you still vote no? And what would you encourage your member of Congress to do? They’ll ultimately have to own this vote. It’s very tough to say right now when you still have the number at 20 that this is definitely going to pass. But in the Senate, we saw this come down to literally the vice president’s vote. I would imagine if you look at the history of Mike Johnson as speaker, he’s been able to move these through. Now, the negotiating is, like you said, slow. Over. We played a bite during the break that I thought was very telling from Speaker Johnson, and that was, listen, the Senate did their thing. They did a little bit more than we wanted to, but he’s not saying we’re going to go and change that, because if you do, you’re just restarting this process. You’re looking at potentially not funding the government correctly. I think what… The White House and now Speaker Johnson needs to do in these 24 hours or less is start explaining to the American people about why they vote yes. Why do you tell your member of Congress who might be one of those 15 holdouts? Why do you pick up the phone like the ads are asking you to do in red states? You’re probably hearing these ads right now. Why pick up the phone and do that? And I think that’s been I’ve been overseas for a month. But I remember this process had started a couple weeks before I left. I was in a meeting with Speaker Johnson when the big, beautiful bill was announced, the name was announced, and they have stuck with that name. But ultimately, they knew then, so this is more than six weeks ago, how difficult this would be coming up on the July 4th holiday, and now we’re here. And so this is a time, I think, where do you go with the present? who many of you support very vigorously and say, you know what, he’s telling you, vote for this, trust me on this, or you’re going to go with a member of Congress, may not even be your member of Congress, in the House who potentially just didn’t get what they wanted in this. You know, sometimes it’s there’s 435 members of congress you’ve got to convince the republicans and maybe these some of these republicans didn’t get exactly what they wanted in this in this piece of legislation not to say that’s the best way to legislate is have 200 something odd people put in what they want then say vote on it but that is how the reconciliation process works there’s a lot of limitations as well you saw the parliamentarian strike some of the amendments down that is just uh dealing with reality so long as we have a filibuster
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, and to the caller’s point about that not enough was done, I think also people widely may be conflating the budget reconciliation process with like the omnibus and appropriations bills that we see that are where all the spending goes. That’s where you see all those like pork project line items that you’re like, how is this still being in there? And then the omnibus, they’re just keeping funding levels the same way because our Congress can’t come to an agreement on anything. But what budget reconciliation can do is actually very limited. So the waste, fraud, and abuse that we want to really tackle is more found in things like appropriations bills, discretionary funding. There’s really only three things that budget reconciliation can, one, to avoid the filibuster, of which we know there is not enough Democrats that would allow it to move forward for a real non-budget reconciliation, process of anything you’d want to support and the only things that you can address in budget reconciliation are mandatory spending which is not even defense spending defense spending is considered discretionary spending so mandatory spending that’s why a lot of the focus is on the more entitlement programs medicaid medicare and then you can only uh you can raise revenues or decrease revenues through taxes which is why the tax cuts are a big thing And then you can affect the debt limit through it. So really only three things here. Now, what can be done of the agenda of President Trump, about 75% to 85% of what he ran on, he can get new policies and things in place. But a lot of the cuts to the programs that we most desperately need to root out waste, fraud, and abuse can’t even be touched by budget reconciliation. No, that’s not happening through this process. But also… the things like Medicare fraud, Medicaid fraud can be addressed. And that is part of the reason why there is a big welfare reform angle to this, which is very similar to what Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton were praised for coming together on in the early 90s. Is now the Democrats couldn’t even see what their past leadership came together with Republicans on because it is so taboo to even go anywhere near President Trump that they’re saying that this is going to end the lives of people.
SPEAKER 01 :
Of course. So you can’t you can’t buy the politics we heard about. I think it’s every five, six years that. some kind somehow piece of legislation you know we’re gonna push grandma off the cliff this is the the same story once again is that you know people are not gonna be able to get food or people are not gonna be able to services we’re gonna people are gonna get their services this is about again whether or not and this is this will be the politics of this um we saw this leading up to the vote i mean we saw this kind of fringe movement who has been anti the iran strikes They’re taking on this mantle as well. So this will be a lot of test to see is when they ultimately has to get to a vote. And I’m not saying if you can be one of the votes that doesn’t matter, that’s easy to kind of write off. But if you have to be one of the two members of Congress and you ran on basically being a MAGA Republican or a Trump Republican, and maybe President Trump coming to your district or coming to your state is really what got you over the edge, are you going to be able to vote no on this? When as Will said, it gets you 80% of the way there. And in politics, usually you take 75% or 80% as a win. And you move on to then to fight that other 20%. You fight it out. And you could fight that out with Democrats. And you’ve got to move that through other pieces of legislation. Why is the timing of this so significant? I think the timing is significant because the closer we get to midterms, And every time you get through a summer, it’s going to get tougher and tougher to pass legislation like this. So this is really that one opportunity to pass major legislative reform through, through this process of reconciliation that allows you to get to that 75%. It’s not perfect. We know Washington is far from perfect. There are reforms that are necessary to make Washington even get closer to where we all like to see it. We have not yet seen and we have not yet honestly seen enough of a Republican majority willing to stick together through those fights. It is such a fragile majority. And we’ve seen that play out through a couple of issues unrelated to this bill in just the last couple of weeks leading up to this.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right. And we’ll get into more of this in the next segment. We have phone calls that are already pouring in. If you want to join us on air, if you have a question for Jordan on a range of topics, whether it’s what we’re talking about here, about his work in Europe, and how you can also join the ACLJ as we continue these fights. But we are celebrating the 35th anniversary of the ACLJ. And this isn’t a party. This is doubling down. This is saying that we know liberty, life, justice, all of these things that we hold dear are under attack. and we have to double down now, and we need you to join us. Your donations will be doubled during this 35 Years of Justice campaign. You can go to aclj.org slash 35, that’s three five, or you can scan the QR code on your screen if you’re watching on YouTube or Rumble or any of our platforms there. But join us today. Make a donation. It’s doubled during our 35 Years of Justice campaign. We need you now as we look at these fights ahead. We’ll be back with more on Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow. Will Haines here, joined in studio by Jordan Sekulow, Executive Director of the ACLJ, who has been traveling in Europe with our European Center for Law and Justice, as well as doing a lot of other things. You’ve seen him Multiple times from Europe on the broadcast, one time from the UN. But Jordan, I wanted to get a quick update, especially as we talk about this in light of this 35 years of justice campaign that we’re in, where donations are doubled to the ACLJ as we redouble our efforts here, knowing the attacks we’re seeing. And also, I wanted to kind of tie that in because when you donate to the ACLJ, it supports all our work. It supports this broadcast. It supports the European Center for Law and Justice, our work at the UN. But how important the next 35 years are looking ahead in light of what you were able to accomplish and see while you were in Europe? Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
I think we have some very unique opportunities right now in Europe. And this is, obviously, you’ve seen some successes of political movements that really we have not seen the likes of in Europe in the modern conservative movement. I mean, so to have allies, I mean, maybe you go back to Margaret Thatcher. I mean, maybe to make some kind of comparison to how close we could see some of these political movements work with the United States. They are There are a couple that have been successful. We’ve seen it in Italy. We’ve seen it in Hungary. We were in Hungary first. That’s where we started our trip with Viktor Orban. But we have also seen right on the edges of victory in places like France, Spain, Poland, Romania. I mean, the list kind of goes on and on. And you’re seeing these movements, Germany as well. Europe doesn’t really know what to make of them, especially the European Union. And so there is a concern now that the movements that have been successful, that this is the key test for their survival, whether it’s not what we saw in France and trying to take Marine Le Pen off the ballot there so she can’t run for president in two years. We’ve also seen a lot of concern out of Hungary with the EU’s involvement potentially in their next election, which is in another year as well, because if they could get rid of Viktor Orban and get rid of Hungary is this example of what it means to have secure borders in Europe. And then honestly, how shockingly different Budapest would feel to other major European capitals right now because of what they’ve done on immigration in Hungary and the criticism they take. But no one is kind of sitting on their victories. They know that the mass force against them, a lot of this is the Soros money, and a lot of American leftist groups, that are going to come in and test these movements to see if they can shake up enough of their support. Most of them get around 30 to 40% of their support and then they coalition with another part of the government. Can they beat them once and for all? And what I mean once and for all is can they beat them for another couple decades? So where we have to seize on this for us and for why it’s so important for the work that we do at the ACLJ and the ECLJ is I don’t know when we’ll have another opportunity like this to have such close relationships with European elected officials and European political movements that are not afraid to be associated with American political movements. And in the past, you know, you might see the word conservative used in France. You might see it in England, in the UK, some of their elections as well. And it does not mean the same thing. It might mean that we’re more similar than maybe the left. But when you actually start looking at the politics of it, groups like us, if you care about issues like the family, if you talk about life at all, if you talk about immigration, those are fringe movements. Right. like they were kind of in the United States in the 70s and 80s, they’ve now built up to becoming in the mainstream. And I think what we can do and what we have to do, it’s so important that we do, is make sure that we’re providing enough support to those groups to make sure they stay within the mainstream of the political battles. It doesn’t mean you’re going to win every election. We don’t do that here in the United States. And we know that’s not realistic. But it’s that you stay within the mainstream. So to have one day movements that are friendly to the United States leading these European nations.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, and you even bring that up, the issues that we care about and have fought for in the United States for 35 years as the ACLJ are things that took 35 years to fight back against. And even think about the pushing back against Roe versus Wade, how long that took. Sure. If you almost look at the European conservative movement that has some mirrorings of those early social conservative American-style movements, they are in the early stages. And how great would that be for the United States, for policy, for our allies, the way that we interact with them, if we’re able to see real freedom in in the European countries that we haven’t really seen. I mean, you think about what you see about how free speech is being limited in these countries because they are afraid of these movements. And that’s why it is important. If we can have allies that uphold American values, which are really human values, human rights, really, like these are things that shouldn’t be considered American conservative values. But if we can really help fight for that and find allies there, even back at home that helps the american people because the foreign policy isn’t at odds even if it is a democrat in office that is against our values that we have to fight here at home there could be pressure from european partners like we don’t like what you’re doing uh future unnamed democrat that is trying to silence conservative christians free speech because of that we can actually have effect even here at home by working through this it
SPEAKER 01 :
how long have we in the United States had to say, okay, we have the foreign policy relationship with the country. We have an economic policy, but we know they think we’re crazy. I mean, that’s kind of, you know, and if you go to their media, you will see their domestic media, while they respect the United States power at these global meetings and summits. And of course, when it comes down to actual negotiations and support, whether it’s foreign policy or economic policy, at the end of the day, these are not great friendships right now. And they are kind of looking down on the United States and our politics, and especially the politics of the right. But that is because, I think the reason there’s such disdain is because inside their own countries, it’s brewing to a level they’ve never seen before. So when these movements are now… It’s tough to wrap your head around as American, but understand that a movement in a European country that’s getting 40% of the vote, where Emmanuel Macron’s party in France probably averages about 25% of the vote. Now, he’s able to put together some bizarre coalition partners to remain as leader of the country. And what the conservatives now are looking for is who will be that leader. more mainstream political group that will join and give us that extra 10%. I think what our job is to do is make sure legally they’re not being interfered with. One of the things we’re watching very closely, again, I think leading up to the next election in Hungary, is how much outside money. And when I say outside money, most of it’s coming from the United States of America, is going to elect far left socialists to overrun a conservative movement that is happening naturally and locally and domestically. And yet our own dollars, and listen, a lot of this was coming through USAID before, are going to try and defeat these political allies that we have.
SPEAKER 03 :
And that also goes back to the agenda of President Trump, things like cutting USAID, because we found out at the ACLJ that the Obama administration was funding groups in Israel to try and overthrow Bibi Netanyahu. Imagine if it were Kamala Harris, the president right now, what USAID would be doing at upcoming elections today. for their political adversaries abroad in places like Hungary, you better believe that it wouldn’t just be NGOs in the United States that would be funding it. It would be NGOs in the United States funding that, but with your taxpayer dollars. These are the things that we have to uncover. We have to fight back against. That’s why it is so important that we have an office in Europe, that we have offices around the world in Jerusalem, that we have offices here around the country. Because the ACLJ While it may have not sought to be this global, impactful law firm, because of you, it is. We were fighting for individuals 35 years ago that couldn’t have Bible clubs, that couldn’t pray in front of an abortion clinic, but they can because of your support, and that mission is now global. So join us today as we double down for another 35 years at aclj.org slash 35.
SPEAKER 02 :
keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever. This is Sekulow.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to Sekulow’s second half hour. Will Haines here, joined by Jordan Sekulow, Executive Director of the ACLJ, in studio with me today. And we led off the show, and we should reset here, is that now the big, beautiful bill has been passed by the Senate 51-50 with J.D. Vance as the tie-breaking vote. The House, there are members of the House rushing back. They’d already started their vacation thinking it wasn’t going to get there in time. Having to get back to D.C. to potentially vote on this within the day. They are trying to get this across the finish line. But Jordan, some of the other things that are not being talked about, because everyone’s talking about how it doesn’t go far enough. It doesn’t do enough cuts. Not necessarily even understanding the full reconciliation process that they’re stuck with. But The other angle of it is what will happen if they don’t pass anything. And that is reverting to pre-Trump 2016 tax policy, economic policy, things that were put in place during his first term that lasted through the Biden term and now are up for going away.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, I mean, one of the things that we’ve talked about at ACLJ.org and at ACLJ Actions, the child tax credit. In the House version, that tax credit went to $2,500 temporarily and then begins to index again for inflation at $2,000. The Senate took that up to $2,200, so they brought that up a little higher. There were some members of Congress that wanted it to be bigger. But I think the fact that we’re even there with what we took a credit from $1,000 to over $2,000 is very important. I mean, this is a child tax credit that supports, again, putting families first. And this is something, again, that this would go away. So if this is not supported, I don’t think we’ve talked about it enough, these policies would fall. They would fall back to their initial spending levels of $1,000. So people were used to the $2,000 plus. Now they would have to get used to maybe $1,000. So it would cut in half the impact of the child tax credit at least. And so in the final Senate bill, you’ve got this up to $2,200. This is so important for working families. It’s so important for middle class Americans that these credits either remain at or are made larger. Because when you start cutting them, really any of the benefits you may have seen or things you got used to, these become tax increases. You’re now paying more. You’re getting less out of your federal government. You’re not getting the reward you might have in the past for making sure that we have robust families in the United States of America. So this is just one piece that I think is so important, Will. Again, child tax credit, not something that gets – it’s not really – something that’s highly debated about whether or not it’s good or not. It’s almost how high should it be. We’ve got it up to over $2,000 here per child. I think this is so important for working families. And this is something, again, that if this legislation doesn’t pass, reverts back to pre-Trump era. So it goes, instead of being indexed in inflation for $2,000, We’re talking about a $1,000 tax credit. It’s not nothing. I don’t want to say that it means nothing at all, but that’s a significant cut to, again, something to reward people for having children in the United States of America during times that were tough economically, during times that can be better economically. You talked about this being all about President Trump’s signature economic reform. It’s so interesting to me right now. And we’ll see where the grassroots is, because I really do think that’s what this is going to come down to is, is the grassroots pressure really gotten to the point where they want to defeat what President Trump is calling his most important legislation?
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right. And Jordan, as you mentioned, also an index is for inflation so that tax credit can grow because of in one of the biggest problems is that tax credit became less valuable under the Biden administration because of the out of control inflation. Another thing the bill does is something we’ve been fighting for at the ACLJ for decades. Defunding Planned Parenthood federally is taking that money away from them. And one of the reasons that can happen is because reconciliation happens. deals with mandatory spending. Medicaid, Medicare is where Planned Parenthood gets its funding from the federal government, and they are able to take that away because of the budget reconciliation process. That is a big victory for the American people, for the ACLJ, as well as coming off the heels of the case we won last week at the Supreme Court.
SPEAKER 01 :
Let’s double down.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, double down because we won. We’re states. We’re allowed to defund Planned Parenthood within the state. This is a big time to seize the momentum. Support the ACLJ during our 35 years of justice campaign. Your donations are doubled. Welcome back to Seculo. I’ll be joined by Ambassador Rick Grinnell very shortly. And it looks like we’ve got him connected. They’re going to check his levels, make sure we’re all good on that. But what we’re going to talk about here is something interesting because of the way that President Trump is using diplomacy as a tool in ways that we haven’t seen American foreign policy be used maybe in my lifetime. as a way to get done things that seem impossible without warfare, which is what the Democrat Party has always used warfare to try and get regime change and things across the finish line. But Rick, we’re hearing that Bibi Netanyahu will be making a trip to the United States next week. This wasn’t something that was on the books already. This is after Ron Dermer came and met with the president this week. And now we’re seeing that the prime minister himself will be coming to the United States. And a lot of this is centered around ending the war in Gaza. And we’ve seen the president already do great things with diplomacy. But what is your take and what’s your read on what we’re seeing and what could potentially come out of Prime Minister Netanyahu coming to D.C. next week?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, obviously Israel is a great ally and having the head of state for Israel come to meet with the head of state for the United States is a very big deal. President Trump and Bibi Netanyahu will talk about a variety of issues, not just trade, but the important issues right now, the urgent issues are the multiple wars. You’ve got conflict with Iran, you’ve got a conflict going on in Gaza, And these are two issues that President Trump wants to see an end to, that he wants to make sure that the peace agreement that he was able to forge between Iran and Israel and America holds. And in addition to that, we’ve got the conflict going on in Gaza right now. And that’s got to come to an end. President Trump is a peacemaker. He’s someone who pushes peace deals, but he does it in a way where he’s strong. He’s not weak. He’s not looking like Jimmy Carter begging for peace. He’s looking more like Ronald Reagan demanding peace. And I think that’s a big difference and something that President Trump is really proud of. We will see this play out next week when he meets with Bibi Netanyahu at the White House.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Enric, I think the doctrine of peace through strength got lost for several decades, and it became peace through war, that we will bomb you into peace and then send an infantry in and occupy and continue this protracted long war, which is in the name of bringing about peace. It seems very much like the pure Ronald Reagan doctrine is returning to the forefront again, where… Yes, we are not afraid to use our military might, but it doesn’t mean that we’re just going to completely wipe out cities and send in the Marines and infantry and sit there and make sure you’re on your best behavior, that we can show you how strong we are, what we have the capabilities to do. But then we’ll still talk with you. We’ll take your phone call and we’ll make sure that you continue to play nice and we will keep an eye on you. That really seems to be for the first time since Ronald Reagan that we’re seeing that play out. And it’s very refreshing for the American people.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, look, I would say it slightly differently. I would say that President Trump is somebody who doesn’t want to do regime change, doesn’t want to try to export democracy, but will act when it’s in the best interest of the national security for the United States. we feel threatened in any way. President Trump feels responsible for defending American bases and Americans to make sure that our security is guaranteed. And so he’s going to use the military appropriately, strategically. And I would point out that, you know, all of the attacks that President Trump did on the nuclear programs in Iran. He made it clear that he was attacking the nuclear program, not the people, not the government. He was attacking these programs that were out of control, that the intelligence showed were getting close, and we cannot have Iran with a nuclear weapon. I would point out that I didn’t hear a single person in Iran that was killed because of those attacks. The program was killed. And that’s the difference. And I think that’s a Trump doctrine, something that he’s very proud of. And he said, I’m not going to do regime change. I want to have peace talks. But you just simply cannot have a nuclear weapon.
SPEAKER 03 :
And once again, as we look ahead to the 4th of July, I want to take this a little bit lighter tone. We talk a lot about the conflicts abroad with you, with your expertise, but we’re approaching, this will be the 149th birthday of the United States. We’re just shy of just over a year from the 250th anniversary birthday of the United States. And From your perspective, as you have your hands in a lot of places, whether it be the Kennedy Center, the special envoy work that you’ve done for the president, the ACLJ, what hope are you seeing in the American people as we head into – What will be a year, and I truly believe should be a year of celebration for the American people as we head towards this landmark anniversary. But that all kicks off this weekend as we approach July 4th for the 249th time.
SPEAKER 04 :
Look, the 4th of July is my favorite holiday. It’s a family holiday. It’s a time that we celebrate our freedoms, America. And it is a patriotic moment for so many people and for me and my family, especially. We’re hosting a big celebration here at the Kennedy Center. We can see the fireworks that are done on the mall here in Washington, DC. And the National Symphony Orchestra, which is based here at the Kennedy Center, is the entertainment for the 4th of July. So we’re going to pipe that in from the mall just less than a half a mile away to the Kennedy Center. And we’re going to be celebrating the birth of this nation, the independence of America here at the Kennedy Center. If you’re in town, Will, or anybody who’s in town, you should come by. It’s open and we’re going to have a great time of celebrating. But I think the more important part is that we get to celebrate this year because President Trump has given us incredible freedoms. He’s fixing our country. Our credibility is back on the world stage. And I had dinner last night with four ambassadors from the Middle East. And they were all saying to me that they are so proud that the president of the United States is pushing for peace and trying to end these wars and that his strength is the reason why they believe all of these wars will be ended. So there’s an optimism in the Middle East like never before.
SPEAKER 03 :
And if anyone has never been to DC for the 4th of July, I know, Rick, you try to stay out of DC because of the swamp creatures that abound there. But one of the greatest things you can do is go to a 4th of July celebration in Washington, DC. I’ve had the honor to do it several times. It is unbelievable in the sense of pride you get as an American standing there with your fellow Americans in that city watching and celebrating what is the greatest country on earth together is just it’s something you can’t even describe with words so rick i won’t be there this year but i wish i was going to be there because i would stop by the kennedy center something i have not done on the 4th of july but i know that you are going to have a great time celebrating this country and and that sense of pride in the united states has returned to the american people after four years of embarrassment on the world stage.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, we’re so excited to be celebrating it. It’s I got to be honest with people. The weather is not Southern California weather. So that’s one of the big negatives about being in Washington, D.C., in the swamp is that it’s swampy weather, hot and sticky. But that’s part of summer. And it’s not going to stop us from celebrating America. And we’ll have a great time in Washington, D.C. And I know people across the nation, small towns. I’m going to miss my small town of Manhattan Beach, California, for the first time, where we do an amazing celebration. I know small towns across this country love to celebrate the birthday of America and freedom. And it’s one of the greatest holidays. So I hope everyone has an amazing holiday this year.
SPEAKER 03 :
Rick, thank you so much for joining us. Have a happy 4th of July, and we’ll be talking with you soon. But folks, as we wrap up this segment, I want to remind you we’ll be taking your phone calls in the next segment. Jordan will be back in here as we go through all these calls. So give us a call at 1-800-684-3110 if you want to be on air to talk about whether it be the agenda, of the president, whether it be about the big, beautiful bill or any other topics, ACLJ related, the 35 years of justice that we’re celebrating this year, give us a call, 1-800-684-3110. But while the 4th of July is a big celebration and a big party, Our 35 years of justice isn’t just throwing a party. It’s not just celebrating, look what we’ve accomplished over 35 years at the ACLJ, which is a lot. It is a lot of things to celebrate. but our eyes are looking forward. We know the battles ahead. We know what we have to be prepared for, and we’re good at it. We win when we fight, but we need you to join us to fight for the future of liberty and justice in this country. We need you to stand with the ACLJ as we look at 35 years more. Go to aclj.org slash 35 and have your donation doubled during this 35 years of Justice Drive. Join us today and we’ll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow, final segment of the broadcast. And Jordan, we’re going to take some phone calls here. Let’s go ahead and go to Dion calling from Seattle on line one. Dion, you’re listening on the radio and you’re on the air. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you. Welcome back, Jordan. I hope you had a good listen. I should look. This is going to be a major, major Democratic propaganda thing if they come out saying that, you know, we failed. To all those people that are worried about the entitlement type things, well, you know, they’re talking so many over like 11 years. Well, you don’t know that. That is not some reason to halt a bill that can really get the country going. Right now, I think the country is really anxious and looking for something that’s going to, you know, improve the country. So either Trump should go on next on TV tomorrow night and explain it to those and people should call those rogue Republicans and say, hey. We’ve got to get something through now. We can work on the other later.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I think we are seeing that. So, Dion, on my way in today to the broadcast this morning, those campaigns to put those phone calls into those rogue Republicans is already happening in their congressional districts. So that checkbox is done. I think check two would be, listen, if this vote is very, very close, We might see something like that from the president, or at least from the house leadership, like speaker Johns of a little bit more of a breakdown. Now, have they done this for people 20 times already? Yes. But this is when the American people are starting to pay the closest attention is when the actual vote is going to come about. And unfortunately, people are going to pay close attention to this because I think Dion’s right. If this gets close, but doesn’t get over the line, it will be seen as a major failure by the Trump administration and by president Trump.
SPEAKER 03 :
And it also will hurt the American people when their taxes immediately shoot up to pre-2016 levels.
SPEAKER 01 :
There’s a reason why Democrats aren’t supporting this. Always remember, when there’s a 100% Democrat unity against this piece of legislation, anytime there’s a 100% Democrat unity on a piece of legislation, I’m inclined to support it. Right. That’s where I go on. If they’re that lockstep that they believe this is going to help… republicans that this is going to help conservatives why are they so lockstep because this will hurt them in their midterm election so this whole talk by them oh they pass this this is going to be it’s horrible for the country you know this is going to hurt republicans so bad they wouldn’t be this lockstep in unity against it anytime they are they are this much in line and the democrat party is not in line on much right now To me, that tends for me to say, you know what, this is probably better than it is bad. And unfortunately, with legislation, sometimes that’s how you have to look at it. Is the better that’s in this legislation outweigh the bad that’s in there? And that’s just part of dealing with reconciliation and dealing with we don’t have a 60-vote majority in the Senate right now to get through the filibuster, the legislative filibuster.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right. And also, I mean, Jordan, you’ve mentioned how they are mobilizing. I’ve gotten three phone calls while we’ve been on air that doesn’t say spam call. It’s notifying me it’s a political call. Yes. And I know that’s because I live in a district where there is a member of Congress who is trying to restore the bill back to the original House version. which will just completely set this on fire.
SPEAKER 01 :
You can’t do that through reconciliation. So to start that process, you’d have to start over. And again, it’s very tough to get here. You’ve already gotten here once where you got it through the Senate barely because of Vice President Vance’s vote as president of the Senate. Listen, I don’t want to say that you only got one shot at it, but it’s very difficult to get back here again.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, especially the reason that there is a July 4th deadline. Members of Congress want to go on their recess. If they are able to, if they adjourn without getting this done, it becomes an infinitely harder lift once they get back from their districts. Because you know what their eyes are on then? When you get back from the 4th of July recess, they start looking at their election next year. And then it gets a lot harder. Let’s go ahead and take Rob calling on line two from South Carolina. Rob, you’re an ACLJ champion and you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, Rob.
SPEAKER 03 :
Howdy.
SPEAKER 1 :
Go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, I would want to say that I was a missionary in Russia three years after the fall of communism. And I can tell you what, communism… will not help this country out. They still walked around like a bomb went off in that country. They couldn’t think to or be anything they wanted to be because of how they were controlled by communism. If you don’t pass this bill, it’s another step towards communism.
SPEAKER 01 :
This is kind of the clarity that has been lacking recently. Looking at this from – usually I’m here 24-7 in these political moments, so the fact that I was kind of overseas and you’re getting the highlights, you’re getting our reporting on it and our specifics on it, what I think has – kind of led up to this moment is you’ve got a group of Republicans thinking this is their moment to outshine President Trump that they are somehow building a movement that they can take on and take away from him and so I think we saw that with the decision on Iran even though so far the negative repercussions from that are null I mean I haven’t seen any yet Iran has not been able to respond through proxies we didn’t see Hezbollah enter the conflict and right now we’ve got a ceasefire that’s holding so However you want to look at it, Iran’s nuclear program has been delayed. I think the second point though is here. is who did you vote for? Now, you might have voted for one of these rogue Republicans, and you might have voted for President Trump. What really motivated you to get to the ballot box? And who do you actually trust? So do you trust President Trump saying this is so important to him and his legislative priorities? Or are you going to trust a member of the House that may or may not represent your constituency or you, but is really down to about, you know, out of the… Republican majority, you’re down to about 20 of them. So it’s a pretty small group saying they think this is bad. What motivated you to vote the last election cycle? And what is going to motivate you to vote the next election cycle? And likely, if you think back on that, it probably wasn’t one of these House members. It was probably President Trump.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right. Jordan, as we wrap up here, I want to give you an opportunity as well. As we enter this season of this 35 years of Justice Drive where we look back at the history but it’s really about looking forward. It’s really about what the ACLJ is mobilized and what we can do in the fights we know we have ahead and how important it is for our members and our champions to stand with us in this 35 years of victory.
SPEAKER 01 :
It’s so important. I mean, one, you’ve been there with us and we appreciate all of you who have been with us. Whatever part of that 35 years you came along to support the ACLJ, we thank you. And I’m talking to a lot of people who have been there the entire time since I was a teenager. But then we look forward and we take on, how do we take these victories? and expand them, their reach, both here in the United States and around the world so that the impact it has, whether it’s the persecution of Christians and continuing to highlight that, but also continuing to isolate the countries who allow that kind of persecution and to make sure that they are seen as the pariahs that they are at the international stage. We’ve talked about a nuclear Iran getting to the point where we’ve seen those facilities finally come under the full fire of the United States military. We’ve been talking about that for decades. We’ve been talking about defunding Planned Parenthood. Now we have an opportunity to do it federally and at the state level. And we’ve got the green light from the U.S. Supreme Court to do it. So let’s make sure we take these opportunities, support the work of the ACLJ, ACLJ.org slash 35. Again, building on those 35 years of success, building on those 35 years of getting the ACLJ to where it is today and our global partners to where they are today. Let’s make sure not to sit on our hands, but to realize we have moments to make great impact. This is one of those moments. So do it at ACLJ.org slash 35 today.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’ll do it for today on the broadcast. Once again, donations are doubled at ACLJ.org slash 35 as we look ahead to 35 more years of justice.
