ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos – in addition to deleting his X (formerly Twitter) account – failed to mention on his Sunday show, “This Week,” that ABC News was ordered to pay $15 million to President Donald Trump’s presidential library in a defamation lawsuit. The Sekulow team discusses the fallout for ABC News and Stephanopoulos, CNN helping to free a dangerous criminal from a Syrian prison, Richard Grenell’s new post in the Trump Administration as Presidential Envoy for Special Missions, the Deep State FBI’s corruption, the ACLJ’s legal work – and much more.
SPEAKER 07 :
Today on Sekulow, Trump awarded millions of dollars from ABC News and a big update on our fight for life in Massachusetts.
SPEAKER 10 :
Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 07 :
And now your host, Logan Sekula. Welcome to Sekula. We’ve got a great show lined up for you today. Obviously, we’re talking about the big news where President Trump was awarded a significant amount of money, $15 million. And we’ll talk about where that money’s going to go. It doesn’t just go into his pockets because that’s not how he usually plays it. So ABC News reached a settlement, as you may have heard. ABC News slash George Stephanopoulos, because of his reporting, had to not only issue an official apology… to president Trump. They also had to give $15 million. And that $15 million is going to go on to whether it was the Trump’s library. That’s right. Or something like that. Something nice and historical to memorialize president Trump’s, uh, Historic administration.
SPEAKER 11 :
That’s right. I envision a nice plaque that says courtesy of ABC News and George Stephanopoulos.
SPEAKER 07 :
They’ll say ABC fake news.
SPEAKER 11 :
When the Trump presidential library is completed after his second term sometime in the future. Yeah. But what this is, is this stems from reporting when ABC News had on Nancy Mace, a congresswoman from South Carolina, and George Stephanopoulos aggressively was pushing her on the issue of how she could support Trump when she had been a victim of violence in the past at the hands of a man. and trying to use President Trump in the civil cases that he had been facing in New York as kind of a bait and switch of like, well, how can you do this to support this man who has these civil judgments, but he miscategorized what they were. He doubled and tripled down on it, too. And kept going, even though what he claimed they were out of New York wasn’t indeed the truth. And therefore, the president filed a defamation lawsuit, something that is very difficult when you are someone in the public eye. Usually it’s often impossible to win something like this. And now the question that is before is ABC News felt like now after the election was the time to settle this, make it go away instead of getting to discovery or even trying to have it thrown out of court. Before it even got to those stages, they decided to settle with discovery. President-elect Trump in the tune of about $15 million, which will go to his presidential foundation and memorial library in the future. So they got out of it. George Stephanopoulos deleted his Twitter account in the wake of this. And they haven’t addressed it at all. I’m sorry. I’m still stuck in my old ways calling it Twitter. But he deleted his ex account and they haven’t addressed it, which may be some of the terms of the settlement because this was settled out of court that maybe both sides aren’t going to talk about it. But it’s a big win for the president. And, you know, the vindication here is that they settled in a case of defamation, which many times I would say most of the time when it’s against a very public figure. The person who is the defendee who has the allegations of defamation against them wins out in high-profile cases because it is so hard to prove you are acting with malicious intent.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s not just free speech and you’re having these discussions. We’re going to keep this conversation going as well. My dad, Jay Sekulow, is going to be joining us in the next segment because we’ve all had our run-ins with George Stephanopoulos over the years. And you will find and watch a very specific clip. featuring my father and george stefanopoulos from just a couple years back you’re going to find that pretty interesting in light of all of this and again he is someone who i think has been friendly to us over the years as well so i don’t want to like just disparage the guy but it is nice to see when there are moments like this where you don’t want to say justice was served but where you can’t just go on there and lie and an issue apology had a big you know sum of money And then hopefully everyone gets to move on with their day. We also have a major update in our fight for life in the pregnancy resource centers in Massachusetts. You heard about our new counter campaign last week. And on Friday, they had to respond. The state had to respond. And what they put in their letter, some of it you’re going to find disturbing, but not shocking. I’ll say that. How about that? Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. We’d love to take your calls as well. And Jeff Balabot will be joining us from Israel. And of course, we’ve got to send a congratulations to our friend Rick Grinnell. We’re going to be talking about that later on as well as he has a new appointment. 1-800-684-3110 to call in. We are in the last two weeks of our ACLJ year-end Faith and Freedom Drive. Make your donation today. Your gifts will be doubled. Welcome back to Sekulo. Thanks for joining us. My dad, Jay Sekulo, is going to be joining us here in just a moment. You can give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Of course, we’re talking about the news where George Stephanopoulos and the ABC News Department had to pay out. settlement 15 million big ones and offer an apology to President Trump over some of their false claims and again a pretty interesting win because as Will stated not always easy to win in this type of situation or to even get to that point so the fact that ABC decided let’s settle and let’s settle this before Trump takes office is very telling at the same time you have a weekend where Tim Cook is flying down to Mar-a-Lago meeting with Elon and and President Trump it’s a pretty wild time Right now, as we’re moving into just 35, 36 days away from President Trump taking office once again. My dad, again, Jay Sekulow, has joined us. I want to start this, Dad, first, because we’ve all had a bit of run-ins with George Stephanopoulos. Not necessarily a person that has been a bad guy. We’ve worked with him for years. But there was a moment, a pretty iconic moment. It goes back, back in the impeachment trial. You were out doing press. And this one still lives on because I saw many people posting this over the weekend saying, remember this? And maybe this was sort of the beginning of the end for some of the bias that’s coming out and some of the ways that the news kind of lies to the public. So take a look at this. This is my dad, Jay Sekulow. out uh you know talking to the press immediately following or right before one of the hearings one of the sessions during the impeachment trial right so so that’s happening and this is what happened live on television go ahead
SPEAKER 08 :
Because our position is you still have to meet basic fundamental constitutional obligations, and they haven’t. Next.
SPEAKER 02 :
How much more work do you think you have ahead to try and convince that rumor?
SPEAKER 01 :
And that is Jay Sekulow right there. And let’s bring in our panel to talk a little bit about that. You just saw something a little bit new from Jay Sekulow.
SPEAKER 07 :
There you go. Something a little bit new from Jay Sekulow. But of course, right before that, what they cut to was him going like this, giving the ax to cut off on your neck, basically saying, cut this off, probably because this is too good of an argument. But dad, I want to get your, obviously your initial thoughts of this, but then your thoughts on this settlement over the weekend.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, well, first of all, you know, I have a good relationship with George Stephanopoulos, and I got along with most of me. And, you know, in those days, Logan, I was doing sometimes nine, ten news hits a day, and those were right during the impeachment. So I’d come off the floor of the Senate and then go do that one. I’ll never forget that one, though, because… evidently he knew he got caught doing the cutoff sign. And I was about to say, what I was about to do was they made a major gap that morning in their argument, the impeachment managers. And I was to get into the guts of it, which was just going to be a couple of seconds, but he did not want it to go there. So look, I mean, this is the problem the media gets into. And then, of course, the accusation that ABC News and George Stephanopoulos individually said, made on air accusing the president of a federal crime and a state crime is what’s called defamation per se. So they really had no choice but to settle it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Because usually in this situation, and Will brought this up, often if it’s a, let’s say it’s a celebrity or public figure versus somebody who’s saying, well, they’re saying bad things about me on the news or saying bad things about me on the Internet. It’s often a hard case to win. I’ve been in many of those discussions where people get very upset because they feel like the news is just flat out lying about them. But sometimes there’s nothing you can do. So this is a bit of a big moment.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, so the interesting thing here is in the defamation laws in the United States, if you’re a public figure, which is clearly the situation here, that the president’s a public figure, you have a very high standard to show a defamation case. The knowledge of the false statement has to be laid at the feet of the reporter or whoever made the statement. The difference is, though… when it’s a crime that you’ve accused somebody of a criminal act, that is defamation per se. That means it is defamation on its face and the normal defenses don’t work. And that’s why they settled it for hold your breath. $15 million. Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
$15 million are probably what hurt the most. The official apology. I feel like probably too.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and, uh, we do also look at this, this fact that it is something novel. I feel like for a lot of our audience seeing the, uh, news media, uh, admit that they were wrong and having to actually pay out for things that they were wrong about uh do you think going forward in the new administration we know that that the media is not going to back off but we’re seeing the cratering numbers of msnbc that comcast is thinking about spinning off all of their cable division cnn’s numbers are low and we’ve got a story we’ll talk about there with their reporting in syria but now this almost seems to be uh A sign on the wall for many of those news organizations that maybe they will be a little bit more careful about some of the, dare I say, misinformation that they put out there during this next administration.
SPEAKER 09 :
I think it’s a couple of things. Well, one is that and I think this is part of it. They have all the media has recalibrated itself. and are trying to reset with the incoming president of the United States, who was the 45th president, will now be the 47th president. I think the perfect example of that is Joe Scarborough and his wife, Mika, who’s the co-host of Morning Joe. They went down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with the president to try to reset everything. Same thing here. This is a lot of resetting because what they had tried to do to President Trump in 2016 And that term, they’re not going to be able to pull off this time. They’re just not. It’s a different we’re in a different world. So I think the media is having to do a recalibration. I think that the liberal media, the MSNBC, the CNNs of the world are in serious, serious trouble financially. I think that you’re going to see a total redo and Fox and the others are up 12, 14 percent.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, they’re thriving, and I think you’re going to see that too. And like I said, I think for a lot of these companies, you may see it for ABC as well at some point. Now, ABC News, because it’s over-the-air network, it’s a little different than the way NBC runs, because I look at MSNBC, and I’ve always told you, I felt like MSNBC is a weird piece in the portfolio of NBCUniversal, of Xfinity Comcast, as really an entertainment brand, as a company that’s a provider of a lot of people’s internet and cable, to then all of a sudden have this… You know, very distinct leftist network on MSNBC, something that really takes away 50 percent of your audience, who is just your average customer, who a lot of them rely on you for for service. That’s why I think in NBC, it makes total sense for them to get out of that business. For CNN, it’s a little different. And for ABC, it’s a little different because ABC, like I said, has more of that crossover. They don’t have the cable news. affiliate. But you saw CNN. They lost one of their big anchors last week with Allison Camerata, left the network. And you’re going to see that happen over and over. As you said, the idea that we’ll just go after President Trump for four years so he can’t run again, obviously that doesn’t happen this time. So what are you going to have to do? They still have to figure out how to get access, how to have things happen and if he’s talking about tariffs and what does it all end up looking like i’m sure there’s a little bit of being scared there but we’re at that point where now they’re reacting and i find that to be pretty interesting and pretty fun you’re going to see like you said a shake-up uh in the news media when you have really what i believe one of the big things that won president trump the election this time was the uh it was new media where the last time The embracing of TikTok and some of these other outlets by the Democrats, I think, highly helped them. You then had the opposite effect, which is President Trump saying, forget about traditional media. Let’s go to Joe Rogan. Let’s go to Theo Vaughn. Let’s go to where there are tens of millions of people who no one else is talking to. and go to the guy that they trust the most in some ways, this audience trusts the most, and then got all these big endorsements. And that happened over and over and over again. And I think it changed. That and obviously putting together a team with people like our friends, Tulsi Gabbard or with RFK Jr. And now again with Rick Grinnell, we’ll talk about that in the next segment about how Rick’s got a new spot, but he’ll still be around. So don’t worry. We’ll talk to him a little bit later this week. Obviously he’s a busy guy, always a busy guy. But dad, as we wrap up this segment, I also want to give an opportunity. We’re two weeks left in our Faith and Freedom drive. It is the end of the year. This is the most important time. As I’ve said, 25% of our budget for the entire year comes in during this month. And right now, honestly, we’re a little down. It’s a big year to match. We got to make sure we get there. All donations are matched, but it’s a very important time. And as Christmas and the holidays all fall and New Year’s fall in kind of weird spots this year, this should be the time that you decide to give your year in giving right now.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I really want to say first a huge thank you to all the people who are supporting the ACLJ with their gifts and especially, of course, our ACLJ champions. But I also want to say, as Logan just mentioned, that we are at the last two weeks of the year here. And these are the most important two weeks for the ACLJ financially. What happens, as Logan said, 25%. A little bit more than that, actually, of our budget comes in in one month, if you can believe that. But that’s what happens at the end of the year. And that’s true for a lot of nonprofits, but for us particularly. And then what that allows us to do is then set our budgets on what we can and cannot handle next year. There’s going to be a lot of legal challenges. The president’s going to move swiftly on things. You know the left’s going to attack, and we have to be the voice to counter that attack. So your support of the ACLJ right now really does make a huge difference. And again, a huge thank you to everyone. But if you’re in a position to make a gift, I encourage you to do it today at ACLJ.org.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s right. Thank you, Dad, for joining us. And again, as he said, if you’re watching right now, also, you can scan the QR code we’ll put up on the screen right now. You’ll see it in the corner. If not, just go to ACLJ.org or if it’s easier to you, go to ACLJ.org. All gifts. You don’t have to opt in. All gifts are matched and doubled by other ACLJ members, ACLJ champions, people that support on a monthly recurring basis. We love those ACLJ champions. But some of you just give one time a year. Or maybe you’ve never given at all and you’ve enjoyed this broadcast and you enjoy the legal work and we’re there fighting for people. We got a big response from the state of Massachusetts. We’re going to talk about this a little bit later on that anti-pregnancy resource center campaign they’ve been running. We’ve challenged it in court and now we’re taking it to the streets literally with our counter campaign, Choice Begins Here. I’m going to show you a preview of that as well as give you that update coming up in just a moment. And we’re going to talk about our friend, like I said, Rick Grinnell. He’s got a new position. We’re excited about that. It’s a brand new position. Very cool. Again, though, support the work of the ACLJ. You’re going to hear me talk about it today, and you really need to. We are at the year end. I’m going to keep talking about it until I can’t talk anymore because it means so much to us right now. If you ever thought about doing it, this is the time. Go to ACLJ.org. We’ll be right back. Welcome back. Phone lines are still open for you, by the way. We got about four lines open. It’s a great time to call in as we will take all those calls coming up later in the broadcast, whether in the next segment or at the end of the show. So call in now. 1-800-684-3110. Jeff Balaban is going to be joining us from ACLJ Jerusalem in the next segment with some interesting updates from there as well. But I wanted to first lead with this. As you know, we have been for the last six or seven months. Been working on this project because I went through the streets of Massachusetts. I was hanging out in Boston and I saw these ads that said avoid anti-abortion centers. And they were very targeted specifically at pro-life pregnancy resource centers, which I’ve worked with and the ACLJ has worked with for decades. And these are places that have just incredible hearts and incredible, a lot of incredible technology. And they work with future mothers to give them real options. That’s what we say. It’s not just going in and saying abortion is your option, which is sadly what happened so many times. for women who are scared or don’t know where to go. When they walk into a Planned Parenthood, sadly, that’s the way they make their money. So they pitch it that way. But these pro-life pregnancy resources provide amazing things. Whether that’s, by the way, pre and postnatal. So you have, you know, obviously all the stuff you need, ultrasounds, everything to be taken care of before you have the baby. And then post, a lot of them have days where you go and you get free clothes. You get free formula. They take care of you. They’ll take your baby for a few hours. They’ll do a lot of things. There’s so many great things these resource centers do. So when a multi-million dollar ad campaign comes out from your own state, from your own commonwealth of Massachusetts, you can feel pretty defeated. And when I saw that, we made some contacts, realized this is what was happening in Massachusetts. They were spending millions of dollars, some with… pro-choice groups they were working with, but taxpayer money as well to do this. And the people felt horrible and defeated, the actual people of Massachusetts. Because a lot of them, even the ones that are, I guess, Democrat voters, if you will, a lot of them are pro-life. This is a large Catholic community there that you know of. Everyone knows that. And a lot of them are hardcore in terms of pro-life. So there’s some great pro-life pregnancy resource centers around there. And we said, how can we help? And there’s two ways we just determined. ACLJ, what are we known for? The law. So we took him to court. We got a response on Friday. We’re about to tell you that. And of course, the media. And that’s where I came in and said, all right, let’s work with my team, put together a really amazing counter campaign. It’s full of hope and full of joy. Where theirs is full of sadness and regret and all this stuff. Ours is going to be full of joy, hope, sadness, and what it can look like in the future. And of course they tell you in their documents, make sure you, if you see the word hope, that’s a red flag that this is a pro-life pregnancy resource center. Do not go in there. They’re not going to help you. They’re going to make sure you have a safe and healthy baby. They’re not going to make sure that you terminate your pregnancy. But we filed this.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah. And I’ll give a little bit of background on the case. So we filed a lawsuit against the governor, the commissioner of this organization within the Massachusetts government, as well as the organization that was putting the ads forward. And we allege that. There was an overt viewpoint-based discrimination campaign, including harassment, suppression, and threats against Your Options Medical and other pregnancy resource centers directed by the governor. The pro-abortion smear campaign involves selective law enforcement, prosecution, public threats, and even state-sponsored advertising campaign with the singular goal to deprive Your Options Medical and their counterparts of their First Amendment rights, voiced to freely… freely exercise their religious and political viewpoints. And we filed the lawsuit. In the steps of the lawsuit, kind of one of the first things you have is a motion to dismiss by the defendants.
SPEAKER 07 :
And very expected that this would come.
SPEAKER 11 :
So what they’re trying to say to the court is, hey, here’s why you should just throw this out. And that’s what we got. We got their first reasoning about our lawsuit on Friday. And one of the first things they say is the complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted because this government speech is permitted by the First Amendment. It does not burden Your Options Medical’s free exercise of its religious beliefs, and it does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. They also say qualified immunity bars Your Options Medical claims against Governor Healey and Commissioner Goldstein. It’s interesting. they’re using qualified immunity here because that is kind of a a bad word on the left because that is the same doctrine that covers police officers for what their actions are during the course of their duties they’re using that same legal argument here to give protection to the governor and the commissioner here for their liberal views well i’m reading this thing of course what you say sure that’s that’s what they’re doing because they’re gonna use all options because you know what
SPEAKER 07 :
Maybe the Commonwealth of Massachusetts saw the American Center for Law and Justice, the ACLJ, and said, uh-oh, this is the real deal coming for us right now. This is not some fly-by-night organization that’s going to back off and go away. No, of course we’re going to respond. And also in their text, by the way, a few statements. One, the government free speech. Sure, the government has their own speech. Who’s determining that speech? The government. So does that represent the people? From what I can tell in the state of Massachusetts, not always. There’s a lot of people who are very upset about this. But also, this is what it says specifically, and I think you should be a little worked up about this. Of course, it says, I’ll read this to you. It says, on March 22nd, 2023, the Massachusetts legislature enacted a supplemental budget signed by Governor Healey on March 29th, which provided not less than $1 million shall be expended for public awareness campaigns to educate providers about crisis pregnancy centers and pregnancy resource centers and the center’s lack of medical services. Provided further, the campaign should include information on the availability of providers across the Commonwealth that provide legitimate medical and family planning services. And then later on, earlier on, specifically says, because they don’t provide abortions, these are illegitimate services.
SPEAKER 11 :
resources and place in illegitimate places for our you know parents potential parents to go to because they do not provide the option of killing their child that’s right it says on page six of this motion to dismiss it says as the complaint alleges the department explained that anti-abortion centers provide information and counseling to individuals who are or may be pregnant some provide testing for stds pregnancy test and ultrasounds to determine how far along the pregnancy may be sounds accurate yeah Many of these centers advertise themselves as full-service reproductive health care clinics, the department noted, yet they do not provide abortion care or abortion referrals and other important reproductive health care services. So they can’t say that they’re a full-service clinic when they’re not giving abortions out.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s part of the argument here within the motion to dismiss that was filed. You have to understand the mentality that’s going on within the left on this issue right now. That if you are just… not providing one service. A service that is illegal now, by the way, in about probably a dozen states. You can’t even get one. Abortion doesn’t exist in the state of Tennessee. It is pretty much impossible. It’s only a life of the mother kind of exceptions here. It doesn’t exist. In certain states, obviously there’s a lot more. Massachusetts, it’s actually probably one of the most liberal states in the country in terms of life. So these options, pro-life pregnancy resource centers, it’s not like there’s not other options for them to go to. If you’re stepping in one of these, you probably know what you’re getting yourself into and you’re actually looking for real compassion, real care. When you hear the stories of these real people, it really moves you. You should watch our special we did for the love of God, Save Our Country, which came out earlier this year, came out in October. You should look at that because you can hear what amazing stories from Save the Storks and what they’re doing. You’ll connect with these groups. They’re doing amazing, amazing, beautiful work. But you have states that are going to do whatever they can to shut them down. And that’s why the ACLJ has to be there, everybody. We’ve got to be there two prongs. Media, and I’m going to play when we get back. Make sure you’re watching the second half hour. I’m going to play for you our first preview. You may have seen it last week. Our first preview on our Choice Begins Here campaign, which is going to start in the state of Massachusetts early next year if we get enough funds to support it. So where a mother is walking around, or expectant mother’s walking around, they see an ad that says, avoid anti-abortion centers. They’re not going to help you. We’re going to provide hope and care and push them to these incredible resource centers that are going to help them through their pregnancy and beyond. I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org to make that donation. We are trying to raise $500,000 for that campaign. It is an uphill battle. But know how important that battle is. Again, go to ACLJ.org. Support the work of the ACLJ. Donations are doubled right now during our year-end drive. Ends in just a couple weeks. Do it today.
SPEAKER 10 :
keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever. This is Sekulow.
SPEAKER 07 :
And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open. We’re going to take them coming up later in the broadcast. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. If you’re just joining us, you may have heard the story about ABC News having to award President Trump $15 million for an official apology. We discussed that in the first half of the broadcast. And then we also just talked about the response from the state of Massachusetts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, on our fight to help protect Americans. pro-life pregnancy resource centers from the state getting involved, spending taxpayer dollars, millions, the tune of millions of dollars to try to get these organizations out of business, essentially shut them down. And we believe it’s targeting. And of course, they’re going to say, oh, it’s our freedom of speech. We got a lot to fight back on. And look, we’re going to start it in Massachusetts. And if you guys all support it, we hope to take this new campaign around the country to all the states that need it the most. I’ll be honest, I came on here, we had a big ask. I said, we gotta raise $500,000 to get this ad campaign going. It’s supposed to start in March. When it gets a little warmer in Massachusetts, people are walking around, you’re gonna start seeing it in billboards, you’re gonna start seeing it on buses, you’re gonna start seeing it in restrooms. It’s gonna be wherever people are. to the tune of millions of impressions. We got to make sure we are there and you’re going to be able to see it and in the right places. We’re talking about specifically where? College campus areas, areas where Planned Parenthood and other essentially abortion centers are located. So we’re going to make sure we are hitting those spots very intentionally. But we can’t do it without you. I know you go, hey, I may not live in the state of Massachusetts. Why do I care? Because again, we want to take this to other states. And also it is how you fight back against really government overreach saying their voice is stronger than the voice of the people. So right now, support that work at ACLJ.org. I want to show you a preview of our campaign, Choice Begins Here. Most people think, oh, you’re going to do some gory, disturbing show. When I grew up in the 80s and 90s, it was a lot of that. It was a lot of imagery, graphic imageries of abortions. And look, I think that when you do see those, it does affect you. But what if we took a different look at it? What if we gave a completely different spin on it? We tried to reach people’s hearts in a different way. And our team developed this new campaign, Choice Begins Here. And I want you to take a look at the first video ad. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’ll never forget that day. Scariest moment of my life. I had just started my business and then this. Pregnant? Really? I just thought about all of my dreams falling apart. I needed help, I needed answers. Places I heard of, they seemed to only offer one option. Then I found a pregnancy resource center and they talked to me about my options. She listened, she actually cared about me. No shame, no judgment. I’ll never forget that day either. The day that I realized maybe this wasn’t the end of my dreams, but just the start of one I hadn’t even imagined. To find a pregnancy resource center near you, go to choicebeginshere.org.
SPEAKER 07 :
And that is the first look at Choice Begins Here. Again, of course, paid for by you, ACLJ supporters. Brought to you by the ACLJ and couldn’t happen without you. So we want that to blanket the state of Massachusetts to fight their anti, you know, what they call the anti-abortion centers, what they’re really targeting is people giving real choice. So I’m gonna encourage you right now, make that donation at ACLJ.org. You’re gonna hear me say it a bunch of times. But when I see that video and I see what we’re trying to do, we’re seeing the imagery that we’re going to be rolling out around the country and starting in Massachusetts. We’re doing it with the best of intentions, the best of hearts. And that’s real cold, hard dollars that have to be spent to get that advertising space. And we need your help to do that. So I encourage you again, go to ACLJ.org. Next segment, we’re going to be joined by Jeff Balaban from ACLJ Jerusalem with a critical update. I know some of you have asked specifically about Rick Grinnell because we didn’t get to that as much. We’ll have him on later in the broadcast later in the week. But he was named presidential envoy for special missions. And some of you asked, does that mean that he is off the show? No, I believe it means he will still be seeing Rick Grinnell in this broadcast quite a bit. So don’t worry about that. We are very proud, very excited for him to have this new opportunity to be, you know, being a part of the conversation in places like North Korea. And of course, we couldn’t have those amazing people on our ACLJ team because now we have him and we had Tulsi. We’ve put together an amazing crew the last few years and look where a lot of them ended up. It’s pretty fantastic. And we’re very proud of all of them. And of course, I’m sure we’ll look forward to them checking in regularly as well. Again, phone lines are open 1-800-684-3110. Next segment, we’re going to Israel with Jeff Balaban. Welcome back to Sekulow. Jeff Balaban’s joining us from ACLJ Jerusalem. We had some pretty interesting updates going on over there. And of course, we had some interesting updates, Will, coming on over here in regards to the current conflict between Gaza and Israel and what that looks like. And of course, that war that’s been ongoing. But of course, it can’t have to, you know, just as something has been positive, something negative had to come out of this, something a bit controversial, and we’re responding.
SPEAKER 11 :
That’s right. So as we told you last week, we uncovered among a ceremony, graduation ceremony of the National Academy, which is an FBI training academy for local law enforcement and some international police groups, that the day after Chris Wray announced that he would be resigning from his position at the end of the term, he was handing out diplomas. And he gave one to a man who was from an intelligence police force in the Palestinian Authority’s control. and announced him as from Ramallah, state of Palestine. ACLJ did not take that and just, hey, okay, it’s bad policy at the end of a presidency. We got a FOIA out, sending it out today. Can we play the clip of this?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, this is fight four. I think you can see how egregious it is when you just see how casual, it’s not like they said, you know, made a statement. It’s just very casual, like a graduation ceremony. Right. Take a look.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hossam Abu Aisha, Preventative Security Organization, Ramallah, State of Palestine.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, you hear that though, of course, just again, casually, nice little claps. And probably a lot of people not even thinking about it, but of course you hear that and you go, oh, this is a recognition of what they consider a state of Palestine.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and so we’ve got a FOIA request out. We’re going to get to the bottom of this. It’s going to the FBI. I mean, I’m sure that they will sit on it on this administration, but Jeff, hopefully, In the coming administration with Kash Patel at the helm and new leadership, we’ll be able to actually find out what is going on within the Federal Bureau of Investigation when they so cavalierly announce someone as being from a place that the U.S. does not officially recognize as the state of Palestine, but they are clearly dishing out statehood at the FBI here in the last few weeks of the Biden administration. What are your thoughts on it when you saw it?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, thank God that we are taking this to a foyer and trying to dig up what lies underneath this. Because, you know, from the beginning of this administration, Team Biden has done everything it could to claim it’s friendly to Israel, but undermine Israel’s sovereignty, push for the idea of a Palestinian state there has never been, and God willing, there never will be. a state of Palestine. It’s a terrible idea. It was an idea that Israel was pressured into to even go through negotiations. And the Palestinian Authority, which is legally just a successor to the PLO, a terrorist organization, has never dropped its actual behavior as a terrorist organization. And to recognize them as a state is not only illegal, it’s not only against American law. It is a way to incite violence and hostility around the world against the country that is Israel. And so, yeah, it’s a disaster. I’m very glad that the ACLJ jumped on this. And yes, people didn’t hear about it so much in Israel yet, because there’s so much else going on here. But it’s necessary to find this out. It’s necessary to uproot this.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, and Jeff, what’s so shocking to me about it, and as someone who follows this closely, when I saw the clip, I actually started digging to make sure it was, one, not AI, because it’s an announcer’s voice. And so did someone create some misinformation to try to stir something up? Or did this happen years ago and no one just saw it? No, it was when I saw it had happened the afternoon prior. And to me, it raises so many questions because we know what the Obama administration did when they stabbed Israel in the back on their way out the door when President-elect Trump was coming in 2017, where they abstained from a vote in the UN General Assembly that was trying to recognize the Palestinians as an observer state. Now you look at this, and we have been talking about what kind of bad moves are going to come out against Israel. We’ve seen quite a few, but… To me, it was more shocking that that was said from the MC, which was reading from a script. So who wrote it? And two, that there wasn’t even like a grimace on Chris Ray’s face when that was announced that way. Everyone just seemed okay with the way the language was being used. And I think that speaks to a larger problem that we need to be looking at and rooting out within holdovers, within bureaucrats that are embedded there, because the ideology is no longer we really want a two-state solution and this pipe dream that we can achieve that with peace and equal territory and whatnot. But that it appears people within the U.S. government already believe there is a Palestinian state and are okay with calling it that in official ceremonies.
SPEAKER 06 :
You’re making a very important point, William, which is exactly right. Part of this is, it could be malice, people who are trying to undermine the federal government and American law by creating a state de facto. But it could be that people just believe there is such a thing. If you go on social media, so many people talk about Israel-Palestine as though there’s such a thing as a state of Palestine. People on Capitol Hill, talk about Palestine as though it’s a country or it’s a state. It’s not. There’s the Palestinian Authority. Again, the Palestinian Authority is a successor legal entity to the PLO, a terrorist organization that has been given control over vast swaths of Judea and Samaria. And yes, there is some, there has to be some balance of security cooperation between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority. But at the same token, In Israel, what the news really is here that you don’t hear about there so much is the rash and the huge increase in Palestinian versus Palestinian, meaning Judea and Samaria, the Arabs killing each other now, as right now, including members of the same security forces, which America has been training, which America has been arming. And now apparently, which America is educating and giving awards to or diplomas to at the FBI. Yeah.
SPEAKER 11 :
Jeff, I want to bring up something you and I talked about actually before the show today is that the world looks on and they see the weakening of Iran. We see Hamas being decimated. Yes, they’re still fighting between Israel and Hamas right now, but Israel is not subject to the types of rocket attacks from Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas that they have been over the past years. And then you see the leadership of Hezbollah taken out. You see that Israel was able to go in and get rid of a lot of strategic Assad regime sites so that whatever the future of that country, failed state may be that there is a security buffer there for the Israelis. But one group that hasn’t been talked about as much are the Houthis in Yemen, which is still an Iranian proxy, which has been firing directly at Jerusalem where you are over the past several days. Could you give our audience and listeners a little bit of an update on what’s going on? Because it’s sometimes easy to forget that with all these proxies falling, that there’s still very real danger for the citizens of Israel, even to this day.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, that’s true. And, you know, people are thinking right now that they’ve really degraded the ability of Israel’s enemies to launch weapons into Israeli civilian areas, because let’s face it, the world yells about Israel, but they take for granted that it’s OK that on all these different, all these different entities and groups have been firing missiles, rockets into Israel’s population centers. And there’s always been a thesis that, well, they avoid Jerusalem, A, because of the very large Arab Muslim population, B, because some of Islam’s self-proclaimed holiest sites are here, like on the Temple Mount, where they have two major holy sites on the Temple Mount. the Al-Aqsa Moqs and the Dome of the Rock. And so people assume they wouldn’t, but that’s not true. Of course they’ll fire at this because it seems that the one religious principle for many of these groups above all else is the genocide of the Jews. And so on Thursday, I believe it was, shortly after it got off the air with you, we had alarms here in Jerusalem in my building. We were told to go to the bomb shelter. And then there was the all clear about 15 minutes, 10 minutes later. And when we first walked out, we were told what was a false alarm. And then we found out later it wasn’t a false alarm. Again, earlier today, the same thing happened. Missiles were launched from Houthi territory, from Yemen. And the alarms are actually given because Israel tries to and successfully has shot them down in air. But what that also means is that fragments can land. So number one, where they’re coming from Yemen, it’s a very long distance. They’re trying to estimate, they’re trying to be very careful when they put sirens here, which neighborhood, like within square blocks, rockets are going to land. When it comes to this, they have to do large areas. So today, the sirens were all across the center of Israel, like everywhere. But some of the fragments actually landed here in North Jerusalem. Thank God nobody was hurt. And last time, again, they blew it out of the sky. But yes, it’s still a war zone, even in the major civilian population centers in Israel.
SPEAKER 07 :
Jeff, thank you so much for joining us. I want to give you a minute also. Stick around. We’ve got one minute left here. And just a moment, as we are telling people, it’s the last two weeks of the year from fundraising. It’s the end of our Faith and Freedom year in drive. The ACLJ Jerusalem is there at a very important time. And these are the reasons, because we’re making sure we are on top of things that are even American-centered there in Jerusalem, like what we saw earlier.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, look, it’s obviously, I do this with ACLJ, by ACLJ, as ACLJ Jerusalem, because I believe that ACLJ plays a really unique role of all of the organizations that I’m aware of, in and out of Washington and out of the media for a very long time. In terms of, and you just look at the kind of people who join with us when they cycled out of the last Trump administration. The fact that we had the former Secretary of State, the fact that we had Rick Grinnell, who, by the way, is now the man with the coolest title in all of Washington. right right uh tulsi gabbard others uh the fact that they officially uh come with us and work with us it’s because this is not just uh you know it’s supposed to be a law firm but it’s so much more than that absolutely jeff thank you so much we’re gonna head to heartbreakaclj.org thanks for joining us
SPEAKER 07 :
Welcome back to Secular. We’re still taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. We’ve got a few lines open. If you’ve ever wanted to be on the show, this is a great time to call, but this is also kind of the last chance to call. 1-800-684-3110. Ronald’s calling from South Carolina. Let’s go ahead and take Ronald, who watches on Rumble. We love his calls. Ronald, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, yes. Thanks for taking my call. The question I had was about the settlement. Does Trump have to take the settlement, or could he still go through with the suit and sue for more?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I mean, Ronald, they have settled, so that puts an end to the lawsuit.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right. He could have. not taking the settlement and move forward it wasn’t imposed upon him that this is the settlement but uh the attorneys in a settlement they get together like let’s try to avoid moving forward let’s negotiate judges like it when you do that because it clears up the docket it doesn’t have to go forward with a full thing uh but so they came to an agreement and this was the agreement between the two parties 15 million that goes to the presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for the plaintiff which is by the way
SPEAKER 07 :
A typical Trump, pretty hilarious move. Right. Very funny moment to kind of be like, fine, ABC News is going to pay for my presidential library, essentially my monument to myself.
SPEAKER 11 :
And then also there is an additional million dollars in attorney’s fees. So it’s actually a $16 million settlement. But the $15 million is what the big meat of that is. And so, no, he didn’t have to take it. The attorneys didn’t have to take it. But when you have the opportunity to get also ABC to admit wrongdoing and pay a settlement and get that headline instead of continuing to pay for legal work and fighting that out i mean he’s going to be a busy man and i mean already is but coming up um yeah i feel like he was probably in the best interest of his legal team as well to be like we’re gonna have a lot of other fights everyone want to wrap it up that they’re ready to end this yeah let’s do it and go forward so hopefully that answers your question ronald it was it was a settlement between the two parties not just a imposed you have to do this that was abc news but also you flip over to cnn they had kind of an update here
SPEAKER 07 :
This one was pretty interesting and we’re going to briefly talk about it. I’m sure Jordan and the team and you will talk about it later on this week as well. Oh yeah, this is my, by the way, I’m not going anywhere. This is just my last day before my vacation, before my break. So, you know, enjoy the rest of your time with Jordan and the team. They’re going to have a great time. You’re going to have a great shows coming up. But I did want to briefly talk about this as we do discuss the media quite a bit.
SPEAKER 11 :
That’s right. And we can play a short clip of this. This was CNN’s Clarissa Ward, who is known for being kind of their war correspondent. One of the best of the best, yeah. She was in Ukraine and did great reporting there and was on the ground immediately in Syria after the fall of Assad.
SPEAKER 07 :
And so this… By the way, I take nothing away from her in this situation in many ways because you’re putting a very…
SPEAKER 11 :
uh peculiar situation but she’s clearly been a very brave journalist over the decades that she’s been working so i don’t want to to defame her in that sense but this is a very cnn moment yeah so they’re here we’ll play a short clip of it but essentially they found a secret prison they were with uh rebel escorts and found a secret prison and there was a surprise prisoner left over we’ll play this clip and then we’ll give some of the revelations that have come to light after this reporting so let’s go ahead and play bite one
SPEAKER 07 :
I can’t tell though, it might just be a blanket. But it’s the only cell that’s locked.
SPEAKER 03 :
Is he gonna shoot it? Oh, it moved.
SPEAKER 05 :
Is there someone there? I thought he thought it moved. Is someone there?
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re okay, you’re okay.
SPEAKER 05 :
Mike. You’re okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike. Okay, it’s water.
SPEAKER 11 :
So this was a prisoner in a secret prison that all the other prisoners had been let free.
SPEAKER 07 :
It claimed he had no food and water for multiple days. And red flags started to go up immediately. People started going, this feels odd. They had to shoot off the lock, but he still didn’t get stirred from that.
SPEAKER 11 :
And then also he had been in there without sunlight for months, but yet he was still kind of well-kempt in some ways. I mean, maybe not perfectly healthy, but looked fine. decently well for what you’d expect out of a secret Syrian prison well it turns out after a lot of ridicule from even like Mediaite who’s not known for being necessarily unfair to CNN Mediaite kind of was picking it apart but it turns out Verify Psy, which is a fact-checking organization that was created specifically to look at the Syrian war in 2016 is when this organization, they’re kind of vetting footage and videos that come out to kind of put a tamper on on propaganda that may come out this individual who was liberated on that day with cnn was actually a part of the assad regime so it wasn’t a rebel that was kept in captivity and it turns out that his name is salama muhammad salama He was a first lieutenant in the Syrian Air Force Intelligence, notorious for his activities in Homs, and resident of the Al Bayada neighborhood. They identified him that he was frequently stationed at a checkpoint in the area’s western entrance, famous for its abuses, including theft, extortion, coercion of residents, and torture. So CNN… put out this piece where they were almost seen as like look we’re liberating someone who turns out may have been not the type of person that they would be praising that they liberated as they were celebrating the fall of Assad best case scenario they freed someone who was doing horrible things for the other side of which they like worse or the other option is this was all performance
SPEAKER 07 :
And I think we’re going to find out more. CNN and the Daily Mail have both said they’re going to launch an internal investigation. As they should. So we got to be careful what you put on the air before you go to air. Let’s go ahead and take another call. Michelle’s calling in California on line one. ACLJ champion, you’re up.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi. Okay. So I wanted to give a congratulations to Rick and his new position. And the ad that you put out for the Pregnancy Center is wonderful. And you guys are spending my money wisely. So thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
Michelle, thank you so much. Of course, Michelle is an ACLJ champion. That’s someone that gives on a recurring basis automatically. So that means someone who’s just giving a certain amount of money each month, essentially almost like a membership program. fee if you will but it’s a donation each month the aclj you can set that up very easily at aclj.org when you’re making your donation you just opt in and become an aclj champion uh we love our aclj champions people approach us on the streets and say i’m a champion i love that so much when i hear from them uh so again thanks to michelle and so many people who are joining us uh in this journey towards the end of the year here as we are in that faith and freedom year-end drive be a part of that right now all you got to do is go to aclj.org scan that qr code and i love tracking in this hour Because we can kind of tell, what did you react to or what did you not react to? And of course we have that new pro-life campaign, Choice Begins Here. And I’ll be honest, I want to see more people show an interest in that one because I think it’s going to make a huge impact. And it’s creative and it’s a little different. So I know that. Again, we’re trying to raise $500,000 to blanket the city of Boston and the surrounding areas for this option to hopefully save these pro-life pregnancy resource centers. So do that today. Go to aclj.org. I also wanted to quickly say, Quickly say our film, our Christmas movie last year, Jingle Smells, our Christmas comedy for the whole family when we did it. And Sean Hannity was one of the executive producers as well. Stars John Schneider, Eric Roberts, Dylan Hornswoggle Postal, SNL. We’re in the SNL 50th anniversary. So we got Jim Brewer and Victoria Jackson. Of course, Ben Davies from The Daily Wire. great cast and a lot of fun will haynes is in it i’m briefly in it you hear my voice a few times it is available now brad stein incredible uh comedic actor and stand-up comedian an awesome lineup of people and it’s a really funny movie i co-wrote it with one of our team members and will also contributed a lot to sort of the funny part specifically that victoria jackson moment you’ll see during the movie It’s a great movie to watch right now around the holidays. And what’s also really cool, and we’re able to say this, is available for free right now on Tubi. That’s one of the top streaming services. All you gotta do is really, a lot of them talk in your remote. Say you want Jingle Smells, it’ll come up absolutely free on Tubi and on the Roku channel. You can rent it as well on a few different streaming options, Fandango at home, and on our platform from last year, Rumble. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.
