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Tulsi Gabbard threatens lawsuit with CNN. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now, more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you.
Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow. This is Logan Sekulow, Will Haines in studio as well. We're also going to be joined later on by ACLJ senior attorney, CeCe Heil, as well as a member of the ACLJ team and Sekulow broadcast team. Of course, special envoy for the Trump administration as well as a former director of national intelligence.
That is Rick Grenell. And speaking of directors of national intelligence, the current director of national intelligence, some news broke that they'll be threatening, she'll be threatening CNN with a lawsuit. As you may have heard, obviously we're talking about our friend and former colleague Tulsi Gabbard, who was on the show for a number of years until she was confirmed to her position as director of national intelligence. Because now, Will, it seems like CNN, they really care about voter integrity and making sure people have proper ID when voting. Because this is another kind of unfounded claim that they're going to throw at someone like Tulsi to try to just take him down another peg.
That's right. So as you mentioned, they tried to take Tulsi Gabbard down by saying she was a puppet of Putin, a puppet of Assad, friendly with terrorists, you know, they've been spewing what we would consider defamatory things, trying to defame her. But when you're a public figure, that bar is very high. So it's not unusual or shocking that these news agencies would come after Tulsi Gabbard and say things to try and discredit her or make her look bad. CNN is going to publish a story that is inferring she's no longer a resident of Hawaii, does not have residency there and is in fact a resident of another state. And therefore, when she voted in Hawaii, committed something which I thought was a myth, according to CNN and the left, or something that sparks an insurrection, that she may have committed voter fraud if she voted there. Now, the letter details why these allegations that they are reportedly going to report are false, why they are wrong on the law, and why she is in fact a resident of Hawaii and did not violate any laws by voting there. In the report it said, you know, if you had to choose between being a resident of Texas or Hawaii, you'd probably go with Texas just due to, I don't know, the taxes being a lot lower, it actually being a little bit more of a swing state, if you will, as Hawaii is pretty much blue and has been blue forever.
So, again, what are the benefits of being a Hawaiian over being a Texan? Now, of course, a lot of this was for her own security, her own safety, and that's even what is stated in some of these comments and quotes. She wanted to make sure that it's protected, obviously, as someone who's threatened a lot quite a bit, and we don't do a great job in this country at protecting people's personal and private information. It seems like that is easily found and shared, and we know it's been shared for nefarious reasons.
That's right, and we'll get into some of these reasonings, some of the facts that the attorneys present to CNN, why they should not publish this when we get back from this break, but it is quite shocking to learn that there are journalists at CNN, alleged journalists, that are pursuing a story where they're going to claim that someone may or may not have committed voter fraud when, once again, that has been pushed on everyone, that that is just a conspiracy theory, Republican talking point, and a dangerous thing to even allege in this country, but we'll get into some of that when we get back. Yeah, we'll keep this conversation going. Again, we're going to be joined by C.C.
Howe. We've got some updates on some ACLJ matters, as well as Rick Rinnell, who'll be on the show in just a little bit. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. Of course, a lot of you showed up yesterday, and I want to say thank you, but today we're continuing on. It's still the life and liberty drive for the month of, what month are we in, Will? April? We're in April, Logan. We're in April.
I had a brain fart there for a minute. April. Donations are still double right now. Scan the QR code on your screen right now and give. There's a great group of ACLJ donors and supporters ready to unlock their donation. Again, phone lines are open for you. Six lines available right now.
1-800-684-3110. Get in line. Get your voice heard. Welcome back to Sekulow. I did want to say congratulations to Mike Huckabee.
There's a lot of comments going on. Mike Huckabee confirmed as ambassador to Israel. I couldn't think of a better person to do that job. He's obviously been a friend of our show and a friend for many years. He was actually even in our movie, Jingle Smells. If you watch our Christmas film, there is a kid's cartoon parrot that is also puppeteer. He's a puppet, and if you look at the voice of that, that is now ambassador to Israel. If you look at the voice, if you listen to the voice, you can tell. Okay, I'm having lots of problems today, Will, clearly.
It's all right. You know why? Because you got Tulsi Gabbard, and they're going after her, and I don't like that. She's a friend. That's right, and we've seen already that there were not only the issues of them trying to say that she's a Russian asset, that she's a puppet of Assad.
They put her on the domestic terror watch list, the Quiet Skies program, where having her surveilled on every flight she went on. Did you think that... Mike Huckabee, actual puppet in our movie. That's true. This is not a real puppet. But not a puppet of like a foreign autocrat, just a puppet of a... No, a puppet of a pirate. Of a puppeteer, yeah.
Okay, go ahead. But here's what the deal is with this. Her attorney sent a letter to CNN because they have been notified that CNN was planning on publishing a story that they say falsely asserts or implies that Tulsi Gabbard committed voter fraud and suggests that she had abandoned her longstanding Hawaii residency. Director Gabbard was, is, and intends to remain a Hawaii resident. That is where she lives, pays taxes, and of course, votes. And just anecdotally, we've connected with her many times when it is very early in the morning because she is in Hawaii. Obviously, she travels a lot and now is in Washington, D.C., primarily, I would assume.
Part of the gig, part of the gig. But it is interesting because what it seems like they're trying to harp on here is that there is property she owns in Texas and that there is a homestead exemption that was claimed in Texas and where she, they refute this saying, Then they go on to say, and this is where the teeth of this letter come because it's not just don't publish it. And normally when you are a public figure, it is hard to get to that bar of defamation, but that's exactly what the attorneys here are threatening CNN with. The proposed publication of these allegations constitute defamation under applicable law. Defamation involves the publication of a false statement that injures a party's reputation. They go on to say that if they do proceed with publication of these allegations, we will not hesitate to pursue all available legal remedies to protect Ms. Gabbard's rights.
This may include initiating a defamation lawsuit, seeking substantial damages, and requesting injunctive relief to mitigate further reputation harm. It's not for someone who wants to censor the press and thinks that we should be in there. And look, I think we've had a lot of those calls that call in and say, well, why aren't we going after CNN? Why aren't we going after MSNBC? It's not only about your political differences. I think that is fair game.
And look, everyone kind of spins it in their own direction. However, these kinds of egregious claims are really hurting people's safety. And hopefully they'll take this seriously. I want to go to Rob who's calling online too. Rob, you're on the air. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, sir. Yeah, when I, as I told your call screener, when I discovered the book called The Naked Communist, which was written by an FBI agent, and he had a list he called that goes to the communist. I started realizing communist news network and Marxist state Nazi Bolshevik channels, their allegations are actually confessions.
Yeah, I think that look, and I need to clarify what you're saying. Obviously CNN and MSNBC is what you're talking about here. There is news that is particularly aimed at certain audiences. There's no way to watch MSNBC and not see the slant. CNN tries to hide it a little better. But even we, I remember that time it was a Caitlin Collins or someone was on Colbert and she said, you know, we're always trying to be, you know, neutral and the crowd laughed. And then she was like, that wasn't a joke. I don't know if it was her. I don't want to make sure that.
And you saw that response from an audience, a actual gunneral native laugh, a real laugh, something you can't fake because they know that that's not true. And you can look at the lineup of hosts, of course, Fox's lineup stacked with conservatives, but as Quentin Tarantino once said, they have Jessica Tarloff. Who does MSNBC have? Michael Steele? When was the last time he was actually a Republican?
I mean, it's like no one really pulls weight there. Well, but what you are starting to see is a trend where a lot of times, because of the First Amendment and the freedom of press, which we are adamantly supportive of, have started to see a shift. And NBC News just settled with a 30 million dollar defamation case with a Georgia doctor. There have been CBS came to a settlement with President Trump over issues he had with them during the campaign.
This is now starting to be a pattern where people are calling their bluff. So while you look at the statements previously against Tulsi, which are arguably meant to defame her, calling her a puppet of Putin or having commentators on to express their opinion that she may be too cozy with Assad, that they can get away with. But when you start trying to cite that you committed a crime, a statute violation that would harm your reputation when they are showing the law where this was not the case. And if they still go forward with that, that is where you could see the jump for a public figure of publishing something that then at that point they know is false and then are still trying to do that to harm the reputation. If you could go after people for defaming a public figure, then every corporation that is a major broadcaster would be bankrupt because of how many times they called President Trump Hitler or a fascist.
Those are not true statements, but you get away with a lot of rhetoric when it is a public figure. I see a lot of conversation happening right now on our YouTube channel. And look, thousands of you join us, by the way, each and every day, thousands live and then hundreds of thousands later on. 470,000 of you have subscribed to this channel. I think it's 469.
Let's get that up to 470. How about you help us out and subscribe? I know about half of you are not subscribed right now. There's a lot of comments going, well, don't they have broadcast things? They have your rights in the FCC. Well, these are cable outlets, so the rules are a lot less. These are private companies. These are not over the air broadcasts. Look, is it archaic maybe that we have those different rules? Yeah, probably in 2025. Do I think the FCC should exist?
Yes. Do I actually think they should be a little looser than they are a lot of times? Also, yes, I think some of the rules and regulations are, like I said, very archaic. But remember, you're dealing with a different situation when you're watching your local news or even NBC News on the weekends, whatever, than you are in MSNBC or you are a CNN or a Fox News for that matter. There's a lot less regulation.
There's still some, but a lot less regulation. Phone lines are open for you, by the way, right now at 1-800-684-3110. I did want to move us a little bit, because obviously Tulsi is a friend. She has been on this show for a number of years, obviously had to leave the show due to, I don't know, being confirmed as the director of national intelligence. But you know what? It doesn't mean we can't have other directors of national intelligence.
That's why we got Rick Rinnell joining us a little bit later on the show. But that being said, there's been a lot of conversation around the tariffs, a lot of conversations as the stock market. Your liberal friends two days ago said it was the end of the world and Donald Trump had to destroy the economy. Then yesterday, the stock market roared back. Then today, it's kind of evened out. You know what?
That's the volatility of investing. That is part of the game. It is also, though, a direct indication that people are coming to the table, and we've seen that now. We've even seen China say, you know what?
We're willing to talk, which is what this was all about. That's right. So the U.S. economic advisor to the White House economic advisor, Kevin Hassett, has said that there are more than 15 countries that have made explicit offers that they're studying in concerning offers of a deal. They have reached out.
That's right. So you're looking at a large portion that are coming to the table with, as they said, explicit offers, like here is the deal that we can make. And that prompted the pause. There is also the bond market was a little topsy turvy. And that also the White House reacted to that, seeing that the bond market was in a bad place, which is a different situation because that's leveraged debt around the world that could also.
And so they were like, look, these people are coming with good faith offer. Let's pause these and keep moving forward. And also, China, you're up to now 124 percent, something like that.
Yeah, something wild. And look, I know that's hurting a lot of people, too, a lot of small businesses. So hopefully this can get taken care of shortly.
I don't want to laugh that off. By the way, we're going to continue this conversation. We're also going to be joined by C.C. Heil, one of our senior attorneys here at the ACLJ, to give you an update on a few things the ACLJ is doing around the world. Of course, here at home and of course, at our European Center, because remember, when you support the work of the ACLJ, you also support the European Center for Law Justice, ACLJ, Jerusalem and other offices around the planet. We are there for you, spreading your values, and we can't do it without you. So I encourage you right now to go to ACLJ.org, make your donation, scan the QR code. We've got about a minute break coming up, so it's a perfect time to make that donation and have your donation impact doubled right now.
Welcome back to Sekulow. Stay on hold if you're on hold because we are going to get to your calls a little bit later in the show. So stay on hold if you're Ken, Victor, Bill.
We've got a couple lines open at 1-800-684-3110. I did want to talk about some work the ACLJ is doing. You may not be thinking about the next election already, and look, if you aren't thinking about it, that's probably good.
It's probably good for your mental health, that that is not on your mind, that we're not an election year every five days, it feels like, because, man, there are stuff happening right now that the ACLJ is getting involved in, and this comes out of Oklahoma, of all places. You wouldn't necessarily expect that to be where things can get hairy. Now, look, this gets a bit in the weeds, so I want you to stick with us, and C.C. Hiles is joining us to explain it all, because this really has to do with what qualifies you to be a member, not even a member, but to be the nominee for your specific party. And why that's important, we'll break that down, because you may say, hey, Logan, it's freedom of whatever, I want to be able to just say I'm this, I'm that, there shouldn't be these qualifications. Well, the problem is, is you can have a lot of nefarious things happen. A lot of disruptors come in who are not there for the proper reasons. Let's break this down.
C.C., start us from the top. Yeah, so Oklahoma has an initiative petition, which basically is saying that you don't have to be or gain approval from a political party, so if you're a Democrat or if you're a Republican, you don't have to have approval from the Democrat party or the Republican party to have your name on the ballot as a Republican or a Democrat. And that is an initiative that is in Oklahoma, so we filed yesterday with the Supreme Court of Oklahoma saying, you know, that violates, and we represent the Oklahoma Republican Party, that violates our clients' First Amendment rights. They get the right to choose who their person is that gets on the primary. They get to choose that person, and that also tells the voter that this person that's on the ballot aligns with the morals and the values and the beliefs of the Republican Party or the Democrat Party. So you can't just go on, and if you're a Democrat, run as a Republican. And C.C., as we see in many states, that even a lot of times the Democrat Party and the Republican Party, the parties run the primary even differently. We saw that very much alive in the 2024 election with the Presidential nominees, how some states were doing things differently, even the timelines were different of when the primary was hold for the party. And the concern here is that because this is the initiative petition for those of you watching, citizens can get together, get signatures on a petition to get a ballot initiative placed on the ballot to try and propose a law or amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution. Oklahoma being a red state traditionally, a lot of times the primary is the general election because it is historically one of the most conservative states in the country. So once again, as you think about even the lawfare around the 2024 Presidential election, groups try to get in early and sneak things in to try and disrupt future elections. While you may not be thinking about the midterms here in 2022, where control of the House of Representatives will be on the table, you better believe that the Democrat Party and the left are trying to find ways to disrupt, to cause havoc. And that's why we are representing, once again, we represented the Oklahoma Republican Party when they tried to get President Trump thrown off the ballot. We're representing them again before their state Supreme Court trying to preserve the freedom of association under the First Amendment to allow the party to define what a Republican is. That's right. And to pick their person who's running.
Yeah, absolutely. And when you look at the forecasting for elections, I do want to make sure you all understand that someone that's been involved and we've been kind of deep in it, in the weeds, who's going to be running? What those nominations look like often are decided years and years and years before. Trust me, the conversations for the next Presidential election started happening before the last election was over.
Four years is not a long time. Think about the Olympics. You know, you got to think about that way.
Think about the World Cup. Those things are announced how many almost a decade plus in advance. The same things happen in politics. Obviously, the media frenzy around it and things change and there's a lot of disruptors that can come in. But don't think that this is not an active discussion of what's going on, of course, in the midterms, because that's in some ways politically around the corner. You know how the government works. Tell me you got a two year wait.
That sounds like nothing. But you have the midterms around the corner and then the Presidential election right behind it. And these things are going to start piling up. And if they pile up in Oklahoma, it can really start happening around the country.
Yeah, absolutely. If you see it in Oklahoma, you know that they're trying it every place that they can try it. And we're going to be there to fight it every step of the way, too. But, Cece, not only are we working on this domestic issue, which when you support the ACLJ, you are fighting to preserve the integrity of our election system, but also we are fighting for the persecuted around the world. And if you get the ACLJ emails, you got an email about this very issue and many of these issues today.
And if you don't get them, go to ACLJ.org and sign up to get those. They keep you informed on many topics we don't even have time to get to on this broadcast. But, Cece, we've made some major filings at the U.N., our universal periodic review filings, just within this last week. Can you tell us a little bit about what we were doing with these?
Absolutely. We try to file with the UPRs, like you said, the universal periodic reviews. And that's basically, they're just documents that show the human rights record of each member state of the United Nations. And in a five-year period, we will review all 193 member states at the U.N. And so this one, it's three times a year that we submit this. It's 14 countries. And we focus, like you said, on their human rights records, specifically Christian persecution, but we also target abortion, pro-life issues, human trafficking, and child marriages. And so in these 14 reports, we highlighted that. And what's interesting is, Belarus, Maldives, Honduras, and Libya, those were the countries that had Christian persecution issues.
But the United States of America was in this round as well. And although our UPR, five years ago, we were able to commend the United States on its human rights record, this year we were able to show that under the Biden administration, and I'm going to go through these quickly, but it was, you know, 14 TSA employees could not attend church, and you had libraries that wouldn't let Bible studies, and senior living centers that wouldn't allow Bible studies, and the DOJ going after pro-life demonstrators, and you had 436 instances against churches in 2023 alone. You had a schoolteacher that couldn't pray before a flagpole, military laboring pro-lifers as terrorists, FBI asking banks to bring up information on those who purchased a Bible or who, you know, had MAGA associated with them, FBI targeting Catholics, and hospitals requiring healthcare providers to promote abortion. Those are just a few of the things that we were able to point out on the Christian persecution that's happening, that was happening under the Biden administration, and how it has now changed. Also, we were able to commend, again, the Trump administration coming in and correcting all of those human rights violations. And Logan, one other important thing is that, as Cece mentioned, we do review each and every country. Not every group does that, and when we do that, it gives us credibility at the UN that we are paying attention, and we are filing in these, so our credibility also gets raised, and it allows us to do more work to help protect the persecuted around the world because of that credibility.
Yeah, and that's absolutely because of you. I'm going to ask to throw up that QR code right now because we are headed to a break, and some of you may lose us here if you do find us broadcasting live on ACLJ.org or YouTube. Right now, though, the left is clearly in a relentless attack on our constitutional republic, and that's why we're continually battling numerous fights to defend our life and liberty here and abroad. Of course, you just heard what we're doing at the UN. You heard what we're doing in Oklahoma.
Again, we can do things on a worldwide scale, and we can do things on a local scale. You can support that church, and you can support a President of the United States. Scan the QR code, make your donation double. We'll be back in just under a minute.
Perfect time to make that donation. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Second of Hour Sekulow coming up right now. Rick Rinnells is going to be joining us in the next segment. We're also going to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. I like to say it a little slower that time because people say, Logan, you say it too fast. Well, you know what? You've been saying it for 25 years.
Sometimes you say it a little too fast. Will Haynes is joining me in studio right now. We're all going to take some of those calls.
Some of you called related to the Tulsi Gabbard situation where she is pushing to potentially sue CNN for releasing some information and really defaming a lot of her character. Let's go ahead and go to Bill in Wyoming on Line 3. Bill, welcome. All right.
Thanks for taking my call. Well, actually, I've got two comments. First of all, if you wouldn't mind doing me a favor and passing this on to Tulsi Gabbard is the fact that my first boss that I worked for, he had something to say on occasion like this.
He said, you know what? Jealousy is a serious form of flattery. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And also concerning the people scared about the worldwide recession, I think what they need to do is get together and see what they can do to improve things and get mine.
That would take care of the problem with the recession. Well, and once again, I think you're right there on jealousy being the most sincere form of flattery. But I also think that they don't like that she's an independent thinker. I don't think they're jealous of that. I think they are concerned. They don't like when someone can use rational thought and realize, oh, this party, this group think that's going on.
I'm not a part of anymore. That's when she became a threat to the left. And that's why she has been targeted by them in every way.
It's a lot of these people that came together with a different point of view. Look, RFK Junior, they went after this week for saying that the measles vaccine was good. He said, that's one that we need to keep doing because it's proven, it's tested, it's eradicated this virus. That is a concern that we have.
And now they're going, how dare he? This anti-vax guy now says he's... Well, it's like, again, independent thinking. It's not all or nothing for a lot of people. Okay, that's what we have to get rid of in this country is this idea that you can't have any differences of opinion. You have to fall in line with your party.
If you don't fall in line with your party, then you're out. It's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. And of course, and you're out meaning we're going to smear you in the press.
We're going to try to take your legs out from under you because that's the only way we know how to work here. It's ridiculous. It's uncalled for. It's unnecessary. And it's just not how we should be doing things in this country.
We need to be having good conversations, arguing well with people, having debates, thinking about different concepts and ideas, and not just maybe she voted in the wrong state because Tulsi Gabbard's vote's worth the exact same as yours. Exact same as Will's. Rick Grenell's may be worth more. I don't know. I feel like it because he's just got some kind of a toss. We're going to have him joining us in the next segment.
Of course, this isn't, but you know what I'm saying. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. Let's quickly, I know we only got a minute. Let's go ahead and take Victor real quick in California. Victor, you're on the air. God bless you guys.
God bless you guys. So many of the parables of Jesus deal with the separation of the weak from the chaff, which is exactly what we see going on right before our eyes. For example, at the State of the Union address, the Democrats sitting down looking like death warmed over, that's the chaff. God is using abortion as a means of separating the weak from the chaff. God is even using Elon Musk to separate the weak from the chaff.
So, in view of that, we shouldn't get upset. We should remember all things work together for good for them who love God. So, let's just stay the course, relax, praise God, and persevere. Somebody say Amen to that.
Victor, absolutely. Thank you for calling. I loved your comments, and I think we all need to have that mental point of view, a little bit of a reset here, to always remember that all of this is part of God's plan. And it's going to work itself out. Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. We know how the story ends. This is how we get there.
1-800-684-3110. Rick Grenell is going to be joining us, and we're going to continue the talks about what's going on with Iran, maybe a little tariff talk, maybe talk a little Tulsi, maybe a little Kennedy Center. We're going to have some fun with Rick Grenell coming up in the next segment.
Support the work of the ACLJ. It's a very important time. Do it right now. You've got a minute before Rick is on. This is when you need to make your donation, right now.
Welcome back to Sekulow. Joining us from the Kennedy Center, it seems like once again, Rick Grenell is joining us. And of course, we've got a lot to cover there, Rick, but I was looking at the Kennedy Center lineup this week. We were talking earlier about some of the great things you are doing there. But Will, I was going to let you take the lead on this one here for this because there is more movement happening in those negotiations with Iran.
That's right, Rick. There's this kind of surprise announcement that President Trump gave earlier this week when he was meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu that the U.S. would be negotiating directly with Iran. And these talks are expected in Oman this week. We know that there was a deadline imposed by President Trump early in his administration of them getting their act together on this. But what we've seen now is this new report out of a D.C.-based think tank, Institute for Science and International Security, that is talking about what appears to be an extreme ramp up by the Iranians since President Trump took office to try and increase their nuclear threshold capabilities. One, I think we have to take this.
This is an outside group. But what are we looking at? What is the reality of kind of the Iran situation? We've been so focused on the international negotiations on trade and tariffs and things of that nature, but we can't forget this very important issue which President Trump has been so strong on. Look, first of all, let's remember that what we've been talking about for years since the first Trump administration is squeezing Iran so that they don't have money to try to foment war, terrorism and programs for a nuclear weapon. So what we did in the first Trump administration is really squeeze Iran.
We had worldwide sanctions and that worked. When President Trump left and Joe Biden came into office, we were shocked to find out that Joe Biden was funding the Iranians to the tune of $6 billion in a trade and then more money, if you count the sanctions relief, debit and credit and all sorts of issues that they put together to somehow please the Iranians. The Joe Biden administration believed that they could talk the Iranians out of a nuclear weapon with money.
And what we're now seeing from this report is that not only were the Biden team completely wrong, but the Iranians were lying about their pursuit of nuclear weapons. They had the money. The Iranians got the money from Joe Biden. What did they do with the money? They're racing towards a nuclear weapon.
No one should be surprised. This is why the original Trump idea of sanctions on Iran, squeezing them, squeezing them, constantly squeezing them was the right policy because they didn't have money to race towards a nuclear weapon. And guess what else they didn't have money for? A war in Gaza, a war in Yemen. So you look at what's happening in Lebanon, Yemen, Israel, and you see this is because the Biden team funded the Iranians and the Iranians went out, started to get programs towards a nuclear weapon, and they funded their proxies to start wars. Rick, I wanted you to, you've talked about this before, but I think it's important to remind our audience because I'm looking at some of the comments and obviously there's all points of view that come in terms of sitting down across the table, if you will, from a country like Iran, where you are dealing with funding terrorism and you're dealing with a lot of these situations. But the Trump administration, specifically, even you with your dealings in Venezuela and other places have said, just because you're sitting across the table from the person doesn't mean they're now your best friend. You can have this diplomatic relationship.
You can go in as a diplomat, sit down and try to protect the American people, that it's important, even with people who are unlikely or truthfully and honestly, maybe promoting evil and destruction. But sometimes these conversations have to happen. I'd love for you to kind of explain that to our audience when they get concerned.
And I think it's understandable they get concerned when you hear we're sitting down with these people. Well, look, I think if you're concerned about talks with Iran, then you're assuming immediately that somehow it's a reward for Iran to have talks. And I think there's an assumption in there that somehow Iran is getting something just simply because a delegation from America shows up. But I can assure you that if a delegation shows up and they're Trump diplomats, what Iran is going to hear is not stuff that they like. And so talking is the tactic.
It's not the reward. I think it's incredibly important if you just look at what what's happened in the war in Ukraine. Joe Biden didn't speak to Vladimir Putin for more than three years. Donald Trump did. And when Donald Trump spoke to Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Putin didn't hear all these niceties. He heard you better end this war.
There are going to be consequences. He heard directly from Donald Trump that America wants an end to this war. I think that that talking to someone directly is just simply a tactic. And what you have to do is you have to focus on what is said. What is the message from the messenger? Don't focus just on the fact that there's a messenger, but focus on the message. What is being said? Because if it's tough talk, if it's saying you've got choices here and there are going to be consequences and you're very clear eyed, then it's absolutely a good thing.
I'll just finish with this. All parents know that talking is a tactic. You can look at your child and say no. You can look at your child and just try to give an evil eye.
You can ignore your child, but nothing works better than actually grabbing them, getting their attention and telling them the consequences. Yeah, Rick. And I think what people don't understand is that idea of not talking to Vladimir Putin was as much political propaganda as it was some sort of, you know, big statement. It was, we're not going to talk to him. Well, what that ended up being was just a talking point for when they go on the campaign trail, because it doesn't help anyone. And Will, that is something that President Trump has always done with his previous administration, with people like Rick, with even people sitting across the table, Mike Pompeo sitting across the table, Kim Jong-un. You know, it wasn't like, again, these aren't friendly relationships, but it's also not playing politics above the country's safety. Well, and I think when you look at recent history, you had eight years of an Obama administration and four years of a Joe Biden administration compared to four years of a Donald Trump. So what we are now conditioned for the most recent history is when talking with an adversary is the Jake Sullivan style capitulation to an adversary. And within those 12 years out of 16 that I'm referencing, it most of the time ended up in the United States giving the adversary money. And so what we have to now retrain ourselves is that diplomacy is a good thing. Talking is a good thing because it's powerful when it's not caving to your enemy.
And I think that's what we're talking about here. Let's give our listeners a specific example. So under the Biden administration, there were three people who went down to speak to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Three diplomats went down, spoke to him, and they didn't bring anybody home. They didn't bring any hostages home.
They didn't have a deal. And yet in the Trump administration, I went down and I fully give credit to Donald Trump because, you know, the threat of Donald Trump is really what moves people. And so diplomats who work for Donald Trump have this incredible gift to be able to go down there. And when we talk and when we say, here are the consequences and this is what we think you should do, there seems to be action. So I went down by myself and returned home with a flight deal for the Venezuelans to pick up individuals that were here illegally and they were going to pick them up and pay for them to go back home. And we got six American hostages returned.
That is because Donald Trump is willing to talk to people and he's got a credible threat. Rick, thanks so much for joining us today. I did want to encourage everyone to give me a call. We got two lines open right now.
1-800-684-3110. As we head to the break, I always like to hear from you. I always say we hear from incredible people like Rick Grenell, we hear from Cece Heil, we hear from Will Haines, from me. We've got tomorrow another stacked lineup of people coming in, including some celebrity guests that will be on, which is going to be a lot of fun. So stay tuned for that tomorrow.
Just a little tease. But we do have two lines open because the most important voices, as I say, are yours. 1-800-684-3110 to have your voice heard. But I did want to take this minute and a half right here to tell you that we are smack dab now in the middle of our life and Liberty Drive for the month of April. We extended it for the month because we need your support. And the ACLJ donors and champions that said, hey, I will unlock my donations, they are still ready to unlock their donations.
So any donation you make is matched right now. You heard about us filing at the Oklahoma Supreme Court challenging a measure that would violate the First Amendment rights of political parties and their members across the state. You've also heard about Massachusetts, our fight for life for those pro-life pregnancy resource centers. We know next month because the judge finally said it after our ad campaign started running that you guys all supported our ad campaign together. Our choice begins here campaign. The judge said, now it's time to take a listen to this case because I don't know, I think we're getting a little bit of attention and a little bit of fires happening right now. Be a part of that. You can clearly see those attacks on your life and Liberty that are happening in this country and really around the world.
And we can beat it back together. So I encourage you go to ACLJ.org or scan the QR code right now and have your gifts doubled during this life and Liberty Drive. Again, phone lines are open for you. 1-800-684-3110. Stay on hold if you're on hold. We'll do our best to get to as many calls as we can in this next segment. But I want you to think about it, pray about it.
Go to ACLJ.org and support the work today. We'll be right back with your calls. All right, let's do it. Let's get to your phone calls and comments at 1-800-684-3110. Last chance to get your voice heard on the air because we got two lines. We'll do our best to get to everybody we can. 1-800-684-3110. Let's just go in order of which they came in. Ken's calling in Louisiana.
You're watching on the ACLJ app. You've been on hold for a long time, but I appreciate it. Go ahead, Ken.
Yes, how are you today? I've got a question. I wonder why we don't follow Attorney General Schmidt from Missouri's lead. He filed suit against China, I believe, over the COVID issue and prevailed. I think if Trump were to do so or at least negotiate with that threat, a lot of countries in this world would follow suit and perhaps we could even eliminate our debt, declare it null and void if we prevail on that case. I know there are international norms that have to be considered, but if he wins that, it should open us up to a really good bargaining position. So, Ken, the case that you're referencing for those of you that haven't been following this is that the Attorney General of Missouri had sued China over the damages from the COVID-19 pandemic and won in a court a $24.5 billion award from this case.
Now, here's where the real problems come. It's like you won it in court. China is not going to pay the $24.5 billion.
Is it just a show? They are claiming that if there are assets within the state of Missouri or things of that nature, they will try to go through court to collect on that. But when you're talking about how large the trade deficit and situation is with China, there's no way that even the assets that we would recover in the United States would cover that. So, for a national policy, I think the state took a very novel idea and pursued it in court and they were able to win a judgment, and now China doesn't recognize that judgment. I don't think that is the way for national policy to play out. I don't think using the court in the United States, especially when the foreign government is not going to recognize it, it's not going to settle anything. When you have the power of the presidency and the foreign policy power of the United States doing things like a trade war, negotiations, those type of things are going to make a much bigger impact long term and be able to get that economic adversary to the table more efficiently than trying to do a novel claim through the court system and then try to force them to pay it. So, I like where your head's at.
I like the creative thinking, but as far as for the United States government, it wouldn't put a dent in it and could actually harm things even more so than doing it through these levers that the President has the power to do, the attorney general of the state would not have the power to do. All right, let's continue on. Thank you so much for calling.
Let's go to Carolyn, your next stop, calling from Idaho, listening on the radio. Welcome. Yeah, thank you. I just, with this, Kelsey Gabbert and a lot of the other issues that are going on that the Democrats are making false statements and such, I just wanted to say something that I thought that the end of Republicans, it says I can and the Democrat has a rat on the end and that speaks for itself.
Thank you. Carolyn, thank you so much for calling in and sorry for those listening if they had some connection problems there, but I think your statement is right. A lot of people, look, you heard Tulsi over the last couple of years on this broadcast. You saw her move from being a Democrat that was running against President Trump to seeing really behind the curtain and working her way towards the center and then towards the right.
We saw that with Elon Musk. You've seen that with a lot of people when they were exposed to really what was going on. They changed directions, especially with their own party, when their own party started going after them because they weren't left enough and that's really what even this CNN claim is doing. They're trying to just de-credit somebody. That's right and for all the left claims of being the tolerant party, the inclusive party, in reality, they are only accepting of you if you follow their party platform and ideology to a tee. If not, you are cast out and if you are a public figure within that movement, they will say the worst things in the world about you and end up putting you on the quiet skies terror watch list or saying that you commit voter fraud or say that you are a puppet of some of the worst adversaries the United States has. And that's just, that is what we have seen play out.
That is the reality of where the party and the way that they dictate, you have to stick with their ideology every step of the way. All right, let's continue on. Let's go to William who is calling in North Carolina, watching on Rumble, one of our favorite free speech platforms. William, welcome. Trump is sending the DOJ after Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs.
I thought he was only a dictator for a day and can you guys tell me what remotely, illegally did those guys do? Okay. I'm not even sure what you're talking about. Again, you lied to our phone screener of what you did, which is fun. We can respond to that at some point, but you know what, William, I don't respond when people tell the phone screener something else because you're just trying to trick them and that's not fun. Right. So if you say what you want to say and if it's something we would talk about, then even if you disagree, yeah, just tell the truth. Just don't lie.
But that was a straight up lie. Yeah. We see you, William. That's your fellow William.
No, not my William. Let's go to Nancy who is calling on Line 4. Nancy's watching on ACLJ.org. Thanks Nancy for watching. Thank you for taking my call. You were so hip the other day about the dire wolves and I imagine the scientists who are working with these would like to raise a tack and reintroduce them, but would you like these things introduced into your neighborhood? I mean, Nancy, first... I'm on Nancy's side on this, but you go ahead. Do I want them released into my neighbor? What I love that you called.
Thank you so much for calling because I needed something else to talk about right now. Would I want dire wolves released into my neighborhood? No. But would I also want, I don't know, tigers released into my neighborhood that are also bred in captivity? A lot of these things are happening. There's a lot of zoos in this world with a lot of crazy animals. So I mean, I've been to Gatorland, Will and I have wrestled alligators.
So when you're asking us about exotic animals, I've had monkeys climbing all over my house. That happened. Okay. You know what? The wrong person asked this question, Nancy, but I understand what you mean. The consequences could be there. Well, and that is kind of the question is though is to what end? When you reintroduce something that went extinct and maybe there was a reason it went extinct, this went extinct along before the left could claim that it was the carbon issue that forced them to go extinct. So cute. But to Nancy's point, it's like, yeah, what's the point?
What is the next step? And I looked it up. I mean, they are considering studying the behavior, creating packs and trying to reintroduce them to tribal land. But once again, we've seen Jurassic Park, Logan. I keep going back to that. It didn't end well in the film.
I don't know that, well, the film did well, but that was a film. All right. Well, we got a minute left and Nancy, thank you. We needed that. We needed a little bit of a, after that first fake call and look, you did tell the phone.
I want to make sure people know this. You did tell the phone screeners you were going to talk about dire wolves and we said, you know what? Let's do it. Let's keep it up there.
Cause you know what? Sometimes you got to have a little fun here towards the end of the show, I want to thank you all for listening. I want to thank you all for supporting. I know that's a interesting way to now go into a segue to say support the work of the ACLJ, but you know, we have a little fun here as well on this broadcast, got to keep it entertaining. What does it say at the beginning? We got to keep you informed and engaged. Well, what is more engaging than a talk of bringing back a 10,000 year old species with that? I want you to support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org.
It's Life and Liberty Drive. You've heard about all the serious cases that were involved in. You've heard about what's going on in Massachusetts and Oklahoma and around the world, and then we can have a little fun. We can joke around a little bit here towards the end of the show. You know that that is real and that our ACLJ team is in action and we can't do it without you. So right now, let's help beat back together. Go to ACLJ.org, have your gifts doubled. That means if you give $10, there's another ACLJ champion ready to give a $10 and match it. So do that right now. At that time, ACLJ.org.
