We've got breaking news.
A new war breaks out between Pakistan and India with nuclear threats on the horizon. 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. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. Will Haynes is joining me in studio.
Rick Grinnell will be on later on. As well as Cece Heil will be joining us to give us an update in our pro-life case in Massachusetts. It's a big week for that and I definitely would appreciate any prayers for our ACLJ team, our ACLJ family.
And of course, look for the unborn in the state of Massachusetts. So I appreciate you doing that. It's a big week for that. But of course, the big news that was breaking overnight is this war that has broken out in Pakistan and India and it has some really big global impacts. We're going to break all that down of why it's important to you, why you should know about it. Will was kind of explaining to me all the ins and outs, how the U.S. is involved, how China is involved.
And we'll get into that soon. Of course, there's all the breaking news coming out of Israel where Israel is manning up, if you will, and having a really different take. Now, they've always said they're going to remove Hamas, but now it looks like the plan is to really remove Hamas. And what's that going to look like for the people there? What's it going to look like for the Israelis? And how does this really bring it into the war as well?
As the other breaking news item, obviously, for those in our Catholic friends, is that the vote in the first round to elect the next pope, the conclave, if you will, has begun. So that's going right now as they await the smoke, if you will. Now, Will, let's turn our attention back to what is going on in India and Pakistan. Obviously, this is something we need to be taking a close look at because of the global impact and because they are both legitimate and capable of a really intense war. That's right. So both Pakistan and India are nuclear powers.
And so that raises the stakes automatically when you start to see escalations. Now, the Kashmir region that is situated kind of in between both Pakistan and India, there's disputed territories. Now, all of this came out of the 1947 end of the British colonialism there, and they separated a partition which became Pakistan, which was for the Muslim population.
And then there was obviously India, which was the Hindu population. And Kashmir was a disputed region. There's part of it that is controlled by Pakistan. There is part of it controlled by India. There's even a small sliver that China has control over.
And so it's kind of one of those hotbed areas where there's a lot of dispute over territory. Well, on April 22nd, there was a terrorist attack in India-controlled Kashmir, which killed 26 mostly Hindu tourists. And the Indian government blames the Pakistani government for that terror attack. Yeah, let's break that down a little bit because I brought this up to you. I go, okay, well, what's the definition, what's the difference here between the word terrorist act or a terror act or maybe a military act?
Right. So this was conducted not by Pakistani military, like in uniform, and it was against tourists. It was a gunman that massacred individuals that it wasn't a military conflict. It was pure terrorism, which we know there's a lot of extremist terrorist groups within Pakistan. But the Indian government holds them responsible. And actually, a lot of these groups receive arms and financial backing by the government of Pakistan. And that all boiled up to yesterday when India attacked Pakistan. Look, I'm seeing a lot of your comments right now saying, does the U.S. really need to get involved in this?
Why are we always sticking our neck into these wars? There is a reason why the U.S. could be directly involved in this. We will break that down when we get back.
All the details, we were able to spend a lot more time on the details of what is going on. Of course, that, again, can be found here on ACLJ.org. We're also putting up new content because, look, we have teams in Pakistan.
We have lawyers who just got back right before this all broke out. So we are worldwide and we are there because of you at ACLJ.org. I'm going to encourage you, if you haven't yet, become an ACLJ champion.
That's someone that gives on a recurring basis. You can do that at $5, you can do that at $500. I appreciate it.
Just scan that QR code and become an ACLJ champion. Again, we really would appreciate it. Of course, this all has signs pointing to a potential world war. We're going to talk about why the U.S. is involved coming up in the next segment. Welcome back to Sekulow.
Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. Again, covering all the breaking news of the day and the work of the ACLJ. In the next segment, CeCe Hiles is going to be joining us to talk about our pro-life campaign that's happening right now and a big update. Again, we could really use your prayers as our team is in court tomorrow in Massachusetts. We're going to talk about that. Of course, it all comes down to this in some ways and we could use your support. Of course, right now I'm just asking for your prayers.
Once again, later on in the broadcast, Rick Renell will join us. We're going to talk a bit about what's going on with this conflict in India and in Pakistan. Now, a lot of you have commented saying, Logan, we don't want to be involved in this.
I understand. But, Will, you broke it down for me earlier of why the U.S. at least has to keep their eye on what's happening. Because the global implications and the implications from China are something that we need to be alerted to.
That's right. So the concern here, one, is that these are two nuclear armed states. That India has nuclear weapons and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And whenever you have tensions or skirmishes or war breaking out between two nuclear armed states, there is that potential that it could lead to a nuclear war. That is why they have those nuclear weapons, is that if they have to use them, they could. The problem that we have here is that this isn't such as the Russia Ukraine issue where there's this kind of broader proxy war where Russia maybe wants Ukraine, but also doesn't like the idea of Ukraine and NATO.
So it's kind of this global entanglement that stems from that. And Russia has nuclear weapons, but Ukraine doesn't. So that's one of those more complicated, more geopolitical wars. This is a territorial dispute between two nuclear armed nations and that are always having issues back and forth. There's terror attacks that go on and there are things that cause them to not get to a resolution. Now, when you have it start to break out again, what you need from the world is not we're going to stand by you in war.
That's not what we're talking about here. What you need is leadership from the United States to step in and try to get them to talk, come and de-escalate it quickly so that it doesn't become a nuclear war. Because a nuclear war drags the rest of the world into it. It causes all the other conflicts to somehow combine into one. And so that is what we're talking about when we say how it implicates the United States is that, one, the relationship with India under President Trump has gotten very strong.
You've seen the way that they have been communicating, the visits, J.D. Vance going to India. All of these things are pointing to signs also that the trade issues between the United States and India could actually see better days. India puts massive tariffs on anything American-made that is being sent to India. So there is positive movement and a good relationship with India. Now, Pakistan is also an ally of the United States.
Mostly that was during the Cold War. We relied heavily on Pakistan for a lot of things to combat Russia. But Pakistan has a very, very good ally, and that's China. China hates India.
And that's where it gets a bit hairy. And China helped Pakistan develop their nuclear weapons. So at this time where there's tensions between China and the United States, and now there is a brewing conflict between Pakistan and India that could escalate, what we do not want is this crisis to escalate into a broader war where India is sided with the United States, and China and Pakistan are sided, and it becomes a proxy war and becomes something much worse. And that's why I think what Senator James Lankford said was really strong about how American leadership can, unlike previous administrations, that when a skirmish broke out, it became a broader conflict. If you're looking at Russia and Ukraine, let's play bite six about how real American strength and leadership can see a better way forward so that we don't end up in a situation like that.
Bite six. This has been a long, simmering issue on this. Now, Pakistan, just in the past couple of weeks even, has reached out to India and said, hey, we want to be able to resolve this. Obviously, military leadership there of Pakistan, but they've been very engaged trying to figure out how do we actually bring tensions down. What do we need to do? President Trump, President Modi have a close relationship there, but this is a phone call that President Trump's got to be able to make to be able to say, how do we de-escalate this situation? How quickly can we do it? Hey, phone lines are open for you.
I'd like to hear from you. What do you think the United States should do in this situation? How do you feel like we should get involved or not get involved? As Will said, this could very well later on down the road as we do have President Trump having a good relationship and China having a good relationship with the other side. This turned into a, you know, you say, quote, unquote, proxy war at some point.
What does that look like? Is this the brewing stages of a World War III? You know, I always kind of said, I don't know we're going to know we're in World War III until we're well into it. And when you see all these wars breaking out, you see the wars breaking out, obviously, we're still dealing with Israel and Hamas. We are still dealing with Ukraine and Russia. Now you're dealing with India and Pakistan. And they're all getting a little closer and a little closer and a little closer to the global community having to pick a side. What do you think?
1-800-684-3110. Hey, if you're watching on YouTube again, I know I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here. But every day we have had some issues that is stopping people from seeing this in their feeds with some technical issues. So I encourage you right now, if you're watching on YouTube, I would really appreciate you hitting that thumbs up, that like, putting in a comment, hitting that subscribe button, all those things, not just for our numbers. Our numbers are doing great. It's also just to make sure people who want to watch this show actually get to see it. And the people that have never seen it before get to see it in their feeds because we saw, you know, the numbers were doing really well. Then we had this glitch and it kind of hurt the numbers overall. It really helps us out because it gets things back rolling.
So if you could do that for me, that would be great. We appreciate that. But also coming up in the next segment, we're going to talk about our pro-life work. As you know, we've had in the state of Massachusetts a almost yearlong battle where they were going after pro-life pregnancy resource centers. The state was with their ad campaign. We said, hey, we're going to take this two different ways.
Our ad campaign, which I just saw some of the new imagery from the ad campaign that is running all throughout the state, but also in some pretty high traffic areas in Boston, including some of the most important even tourist spots, but not just tourist spots, but spots downtown that people will see it. We really are targeting exactly where they need to be, whether that is where our clients are or whether specifically that is where the abortion clinics are or universities, people that need to see this because our Choice Begins Here campaign, funded by all of you, really is putting the choice back in the hands of those in Massachusetts who are getting attacked for just offering another option. And of course, that option for us is life. So with that, we are in court tomorrow and the court can decide, hey, we're going to dismiss this. It's not going to proceed. Of course, we have at the ACLJ a plan if that happens, but prayerfully, that's not what happens and we move forward.
But there are a lot of options. Nothing ends tomorrow, but we will have at least the next step in the journey. And that is all we're asking about right now is for your prayers and for your support. And if you can become an ACLJ champion, great time to do it. You can do it. I think the lowest is five dollars a month.
And it's only that because of the processing fees and all that that goes into it. We need you in this fight. You can play a vital role in this case in Massachusetts, but so much more all year long. Become an ACLJ champion.
You can scan that QR code right now or go to ACLJ.org slash sign. Know how important it is even these times when you were having these issues on YouTube and glitches are happening. We're trying to rebuild somewhat of an audience and we need you to be there for us. Well, that's right. And we're going to get into that as well. What was CC Heil about what those steps look like, how you can be praying for our attorneys, as well as how you can support us during this time, because it is a strong fight. And when you look at what the state of Massachusetts is doing, they are targeting pro-life resource centers with taxpayer money, discriminating against a viewpoint, if you will. And also a center that provides care to mothers, to the unborn by saying that they are fake clinics because they don't provide abortion. And I just want to point to this as well, because the New York Times just a few weeks ago ran this article, botched care and tired staff plan parenthood in crisis. And it talks about patients reporting failed abortions, inadequately trained staff, just rampant issues. Can you imagine how quickly the ACLU would be in court if Tennessee or Florida were running an ad with taxpayer dollars saying beware of inadequately trained Planned Parenthood facilities or beware of Planned Parenthood.
They fail at providing abortion care. They would be there so quickly and they would be citing the New York Times. They would be starting press releases and press reports of how the care is going. But they would be in court so fast in probably a forum shopped jurisdiction where they could find a place that they would find a friendly judge to get an injunction against the state running that. That's not happening. Those states aren't running those ads against Planned Parenthood, even though they may be in many cases they are funding Planned Parenthood because of Medicaid dollars. But this is a state using taxpayer dollars to go after pro-life centers because they don't provide abortion.
That's what they hate about them. And tomorrow is the next very important step. Our team is there. They're ready to enter the court. They're ready to hear the results, plead their case. And of course, if it's a good result, we move forward. If it's not the result we're looking for, by the way, we move forward.
That's what we do in the ACLJ. We keep going until all options are exhausted for our clients and for the cause. Phone lines are open for you right now. 1-800-684-3110. I'd love to get you on the air. CeCe Hyles is going to be joining us in the next segment to talk more about this as well as the updates in the war. And Rick Grinnell will join us also as well. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110.
1-800-684-3110. CeCe Hyles joining us, senior attorney here at the ACLJ. Because tomorrow is a very big day. And as I said, I encourage you right now to take a second, pray for us, pray for our team, pray for our legal team who is in court tomorrow. This is the next step in our fight for life and fight for our pro-life pregnancy resource center friends in the state of Massachusetts who have been under attack now for the better part of a year. Now, CeCe, explain what this next step is and what's going to happen.
Sure. So, both of the defendants in this case, the state of Massachusetts and Reproductive Equity now, have filed a motion to dismiss, which basically says they want to dismiss our case, it goes no further. And we are in court tomorrow in an oral argument, doing an oral argument to defend our position that this case should go forward, that we should go into discovery, and we should be able to see this case through to the end. And that's what we are going to be arguing tomorrow, so it is a very important time. Now, if the judge would grant their motion to dismiss, there are some different avenues that happen depending on what that opinion says.
We could have a chance to amend our complaint, we could have a chance to refile, or if it gets rid of it totally, then we will appeal and we will take this case all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. And the ACLJ team is there. Now, that answer may or may not come quickly. Correct.
Usually, they don't decide from the bench. That just doesn't happen as much anymore. So, could it happen? Yes, it could. But we aren't just, you know, relying on that. And then it's just, it can be in the next week, two weeks, three weeks, we'll get an opinion on this. Well, and CC, one thing that I brought up right before the break is, when you think about what Massachusetts was doing here, using taxpayer dollars, saying it is for a public health campaign, that it is a fraudulent clinic, you shouldn't be visiting these pregnancy resource centers, that's their defense, if you will, is that this is a public health campaign that because they don't provide abortion, they're not real clinics.
It's kind of the logic here. If you were to think about, and we talked about the other day when you were on that New York Times article that talks about botched care and tired staff and failed abortions and inadequately trained staff at Planned Parenthood, if the state of Florida or Tennessee or a red state that, or Texas even, that, you know, kind of launched the entire path to overturning Roe vs. Wade, if they were to launch a public health campaign going after Planned Parenthood saying, there's reports in the New York Times that they've had, at places, failed abortions, so avoid these clinics, how quickly the ACLU would be in court just slamming this, saying you're just, because you're anti-abortion, you're going after us, that's discrimination, has nothing to do, you can't say that what the New York Times report is happening at every clinic. It would be in court so fast, but yet, here we are, because this is a state, now, those ads aren't running, you know, even though these are real reports of terrible things happening at abortion clinics. But a center that wants to provide hope, which is something they warn you against, if they say they're providing you hope, you can't go there, they're trying to provide hope. They're providing options, real choice, potential life-changing options here. That is what the state of Massachusetts and the organization that they have partnered with in this cannot stand and therefore decided, we're going to use taxpayer money to try and censor, to scare people away from these places, and ultimately, their ultimate goal causes them to go away. Right.
Absolutely. It's an unconstitutional smear campaign that is going on, and they're targeting a viewpoint, it's viewpoint discrimination, because they're targeting a viewpoint that they don't like. They don't want any organization to talk about the real choices you have when you're pregnant. They don't want that. They want the one choice. Abortion distortion, as we talk about all the time here, is still very much alive and well. When they say they're pro-choice, they're only one choice.
That's it. It's abortion. So if you're any organization that says there are other choices to be had, that provides compassionate and caring help, they're going to shut you down.
And this is what this campaign is. Again, it's an unconstitutional smear campaign that's targeting pregnancy resource centers. It's viewpoint discrimination. They have selective prosecution.
They're not going after any abortion clinics the same way. So we feel very confident that we will survive this motion to dismiss, and if not, we will continue to take this case all the way up. Yeah, the ACLJ doesn't just stop if you get a motion to dismiss and go, okay, tail between your legs, go home.
That's not how it works here. There is a next step, even in defeat, if you will. And the ACLJ team is all over that. We're all over that, by the way, because we have people who are ACLJ champions. Those are people that create a great baseline for our organization. So every month we know there is 20,000-ish right now of you that support the work of the ACLJ on a monthly recurring basis. I'd love to see that number be higher.
I'd love to see more people say, yeah, I'm dedicated. Obviously, you can cancel any time, but it's still tax deductible and all of that. But you can do it. You can just say, hey, I'm going to set it, forget it, if you will. Five dollars, ten dollars, fifty dollars.
You do as much as you want or as little as five dollars a month. You can become an ACLJ champion. All that saying is, hey, you know, I'm standing up for all the beliefs of the ACLJ. I know that they're representing me. And I've had many people come up to me and say, Logan, hey, I'm a champion. And it's just heartwarming to have those moments, to have that stamp that you can say, hey, I am a champion, a champion of life, liberty and freedom.
I'm going to ask you to give on a monthly basis. And again, you can set that up where it automatically recurs. And you use a couple of little perks.
If you call in and you tell our phone screener, hey, I'm a champion, you get bumped up to the front of the line. Now say, be honest. They can check.
So make sure that you are honest with them. But also, there's a couple of little things. If you have the ACLJ app, you're going to get a specialized version of that app, but a different skinned version with the Champions Insider and a lot of other things you're going to get. It's not, though, the reason I ask you to support is not for the perks. It's really to create that baseline. So when we have these moments come up where, again, walking down the streets in Boston, Massachusetts, and I see these ad campaigns, we can jump into action immediately. We can always find a way to represent these causes without having to do, hopefully, major fundraising because we already have that great baseline. Yeah, the champions absolutely help us. And like we said even the other day, you know, we were on the air the other day when we got somebody who was a protester in front of an abortion clinic and we were on the air and we were able to get on the phone and talk to the police right at that very minute and stop that arrest from happening.
And that is because of our champions. Yeah, exactly. We're able to actually just jump right into action. No waiting around.
No, OK, do we need to find a lawyer in that area? What do we need to know? We have a full time team that's ready to go, action oriented, that can get things actually done. Look, this is the end of the first half hour of the broadcast, but we have a second half hour coming up. If you're watching online, on YouTube, on Rumble, on ACLJ.org, stay here. We got another half hour. If you listen to the radio, some of your stations may not have us. One, they should.
But if they don't, it's OK. Join us on ACLJ.org. We are live every day from 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern Time. You can figure out your own time zone from there.
12 to 1 p.m. Eastern Time. We are broadcasting live. We also put up great content throughout the day. So make sure you're following us on all your favorite social media platforms. And of course, on YouTube and on ACLJ.org. None of our content's behind a paywall.
All of it's available to you. Because we want you to share all of this. We want you to tell your friends about it. OK, this isn't something where you have to support the work of the ACLJ financially. We encourage you to.
But if you don't, it's OK. You can do it with as simple as subscribing to our YouTube channel. And as of yesterday, over 480,000 of you have done that. Let's get that to 500,000 here. Can we do that by the end of the month?
It's only a couple of weeks. It'd be pretty cool to see. Maybe you can help us crest that 500,000 on the way to a million. Do that for us today. Again, second half an hour coming up. Rick Grenell is going to be joining us.
Talk about India, Pakistan. If you're on hold right now, stay on hold. We're going to get your calls as well.
You can give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. We'll be right back. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
Welcome back to Sekulow. Second half hour coming at you right now. Rick Grenell is going to be joining us in the next segment where we talk about the ongoing conflict, the new conflict that now has just happened in India and Pakistan, as well as how China and US, the US are involved.
And of course, the continuing battle between Israel and Hamas and what it looks like Israel's plan is now for Gaza. Again, phone lines are open for you. We got about two lines open, three lines open right now. 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110 to be on the air.
Make sure that you do that. Get in line. I know some of you have been holding for a little while. We can go ahead and take one of these calls. Let's go to James who's calling in Kentucky on line three. Watch it on YouTube, which has had some issues, James. We appreciate it. Again, if you're watching on YouTube, hit that thumbs up. Throw me a comment in the chat. That would really help us out.
James, you're on the air. Yeah. What is Harvard scoreboard? What have they discovered? What are they cured? And we do that.
I'm a cancer patient. Maybe James, we need to give a little bit of background of what you're talking about, Will. So James is basically asking with the federal funding with the, that the administration is pulling, and we know that they get upwards of $9 billion from the government that basically saying, you know, they need to start pointing. What have they actually done with that money? Where is the return on investment, if you will, from the American taxpayer dollars? And in reality, I mean, they, they have large medical facilities. They have these things. They've done research.
I'm certain they could provide a list of things that they feel like they have contributed to, that they have used these grants. Don't get anything about something safe. Do five things. Tell us the five things you've done this week.
In the last week. Yeah. So Doge will contact them and say, but in reality, that, that kind of is the problem with a lot of government grants to, to scientific research and things of that nature is that it can be grants for years and years and years on end. Many science research projects go nowhere. I mean, that is the reality of science, of experimenting, of having a theory and working through it.
And a lot of times you don't even get anywhere with it. But what we're seeing now is how much universities, not just in scientific grants, but in all sorts of grants have been taking from the federal government and that when they are, are institutions, especially like Harvard that are private institutions, that they are really quasi government institutions when they're even saying like, we don't even know if we can survive on our $52 billion endowment because we take so much from the taxpayer. That is the real problem and the brokenness of education. And when you look at the fact of how much it costs to go there at the same time, when how much money is being given by the government, then you start to really sit there and be like, okay, yeah, maybe the student loan situation is a real scam to some degree, because how much money the federal government's giving these institutions and what is the return?
The education system, higher education is severely broken in this country right now. Yeah, I think we've talked about that before, which is, look, the student loan forgiveness programs as much as obviously we think if you have a loan, you are obligated to pay it back and all of that. But were a lot of these done to very young people who are not fully understanding what they were getting themselves into? Yeah, probably.
Okay. Same with mortgages and a lot of houses that people went into. It's a lot of people going into severe debt without the understanding of what the interest looks like, what that actually breaks down to. That is also a problem. And by the way, our middle schools and high schools is spending the time on the wrong things. They should be giving a lot of fair warning to a lot of these students of here's what's coming, here's what you need to invest in, here's what you need to look at, instead of wasting their time with a lot of what goes on in these institutions.
And I'm talking about even at the high school level. Phone lines are open for you. Rick Rinnell is going to join us. We're going to talk about the US, China, India, Pakistan, how it's all involved. And of course, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Gaza. Is this the makings of a world war when you hear all of those players put together? It starts to feel that way. And again, as I said, I don't know if we'll know we're in a World War three until we are well into it. At least keep our eyes on what's happening right now. And of course, there's other news as we see all the feeds right now are showing the first vote to elect a new pope. Will it happen today?
We shall see. I know all of you are on the edge of your seats. 1-800-684-3110. Get in line to get on the air.
This is after Rick Rinnell. I'm going to take as many calls as I can. We've got a full bank open right now. This is the perfect time to call. 1-800-684-3110. Well, my trouble for you also at 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110 to have your voice heard on the air. Rick Rinnell is joining us live right now.
Well, before we get to Rick, we probably need to restate what's going on because a lot of people are just joining us. Maybe they heard us talking about our pro-life work, which is great, but there is a battle brewing right now. War has broken out. Of course, this is in Pakistan and India, and there's also movement in China and the U.S. That's right. So when you look at the situation, India launched Operation Sindor yesterday, and that was in response to an attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir back on April 22nd, in which 26 mostly Hindu tourists were killed.
This was a military strike by India on Pakistan, and now Pakistan's National Security Council is authorizing a military response. Rick, we wanted to bring you on because it's all over the news, and many people may wonder, do I even need to pay attention to something like this when, you know, it's nothing, no big deal, two nuclear-armed states that are having a skirmish against each other with longstanding hostilities, not the greatest relationship. But I wanted to get your take on, one, where it is and how American leadership can be present in this to try and avoid an escalation that leads to a nuclear conflict.
Yeah, look, I mean, I think you said it right. We've got two nuclear powers, very powerful countries, that America has good relations with both. And so we, of course, care because this is about war and peace and death and life and safety. So, of course, we care. I think President Trump hit it on the head when yesterday when asked about this, and he said, you know, we're watching it. We hope it de-escalates, and we hope that this is over quickly. And that's a signal that we are, as Americans, our government is there to help diplomatically. We're not rushing in with, you know, some sort of a Pentagon response or hardware response. What I think is important is that we provide leadership to bring the parties together to demand that they sit in a room and talk this out. President Trump is one of the greatest Presidents for peace while not looking weak.
And now think about that. When usually politicians talk about peace, they signal that they are very weak and unable to use the military in any way. And so it's this dove messaging that, oh, can't we all just get along and hug it out? And that's not President Trump. President Trump has successfully used the military with military strikes. He understands the power of what the U.S. government has. And part of that power, besides just being the greatest country militarily, is the power of the bully pulpit if you have strong diplomats. President Trump has allowed our diplomats to be strong, and it's such a great combination, so unique in a President.
And we're really lucky to have somebody who is so strong and shows the world that he's strong but is willing to embrace peace and peaceful negotiations and diplomacy. I think that has to be preached pretty loud from this administration about how different they are in terms of Republican and Democrat administrations that we've had before, which, like you said, it's peace through strength, but a lot of times it's peace through warfare or peace through getting involved in situations the American people don't want to get involved in. And I see that on YouTube, people saying, why are we getting involved? Why do we care what's going on?
Caring and understanding and being a part of the conversation, getting those sit-downs and having those moments of diplomacy is way different than getting involved militarily. And of course, look, there are times when war is sadly inevitable. War is happening. And as much as I would love for there to be no war across the world, that's not the reality that we live in. In fact, it feels like there's a lot more conflicts breaking out than we even know about and that we've had in recent years. But it's also because the world is smaller.
The media is smaller. We're able to actually see what's going on on the other side of the planet in real time. And sure, you see these pockets of war happening and America is having to figure out how they play into that. And the Trump administration has a lot of very different points of view. And I think that's something that they also need to talk about is you have people who go in and are in that cabinet that are fiercely anti-war. And then you have maybe something a little bit more hawkish, but at least you're getting both sides to consider.
Yeah, totally. And I would add one point to this, which is really remarkable. I spent 12 years working at the State Department. And I understand intimately that we have Foreign Service officers paid by American tax dollars that are committed to helping bring peace around the world. They're already being paid by the American taxpayer to monitor our embassies to make sure that America is strong.
And they're super committed to finding ways to bring peace about in every single situation. So what I would say is we should empower our currently employed State Department employees who are at our embassies in Pakistan and India to get involved, to be on the front line. I've always had this vision of having a crisis cone at the State Department of people who are really comfortable going to the front lines of a conflict, knowing it's dangerous. I'm not suggesting it's not, but who are employed at the State Department because they're brave and courageous, creative, and for diplomacy. And so now is the time for our embassies to get involved. Now, we've never really had a President that allows them to do that. Usually the State Department has embassies that just sit quietly, take instruction, and really don't do much. We have to empower these people. We already have American employees in these embassies in the region.
Let's let them work. Rick, there is another angle to this as well. There's kind of the China X factor. China, obviously big rivals with India, very close with Pakistan, helped them develop their nuclear program. And we also know that the U.S.-China relationship is adversarial, but we are going to meet with the Chinese counterparts in Geneva for the start of some trade talks.
It's kind of the talks to talk about what they can talk about is kind of the way it's been described. But China has influence over Pakistan in this as well. Could there be almost a way to bring both those issues together for kind of a big world moment where there's trade deal and de-escalation, where everyone can kind of look like a hero in some way to their own respective constituents? Yeah, I think it's a good point. It should be on the agenda for Scott when he's meeting with the Chinese to say, hey, what can you do to help calm this situation down? Bringing attention to it is really good.
I think you're right that China can play a role, and I think they would want to play a role. So it should be wrapped into these discussions. All right, Rick, we appreciate your advice and your feedback here.
And look, we're able to do this and get involved in many different ways and have your expert point of view, because when these kind of moments happen, Will, these kind of moments happen throughout the news, we need to be able to have team members like Rick who we can call upon and say, hey, give us your expert opinion. You've been there. You've lived this.
You know what it is. That's what makes our show a little bit different here. It's what makes our organization different here. It's not only, I know, Rick, you always talk about the ACLJ taking action.
It's true. But also we've put together a group of people that are certainly not just talking heads. We've put together a group of people like yourself. Of course, we've had former directors of national intelligence. We've had current directors of national intelligence. We've had so many different people who are involved in every kind of facet, if you will, of not just politics, but global world events. And we can't do that without people who support the work of the ACLJ. We've already done our big fundraisers, but right now we're asking people to become members of the ACLJ, which is what we call ACLJ champions, people that give on a monthly basis.
Whether they do it for $5 or $500, you can do it whatever you want to do, whatever you feel comfortable at, and you can cancel anytime. Because the ACLJ, we are dedicated to defending life, liberty, and freedom around the world with our ECLJ, with our ACLJ, ACLJ Jerusalem. And of course, Rick, when you are looking at this from a global standpoint, it's not just Pakistan individually, India individually, China, US. And of course we have now updates going on in Israel right now, and Israel and Gaza.
Sorry about that. That's right. And when we look at the way that Israel even has that plan going forward, and the way the ACLJ has an ACLJ Jerusalem office, that we are involved in those places as well as an organization, with experts, with work that really is world changing. And we've been doing it for a long time here, and we're not going to stop anytime soon. I'm going to just be honest with you right now. A lot of phone lines open. So usually I want to turn to the most important voice in the room, which is you, but I can't do that right now.
Because we don't have any phone calls right now. So this is your opportunity. I'm going to wind it up in a little bit.
We're going to talk about this topic, you got other topics on your mind, as long as it's kind of in scope. Give me a call. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110.
I want to see those lines light up as we head into this break. This is the time to do it. Give us a call right now.
Give a very short question or comment so we can get as many people on the air as possible. Again, that's at 1-800-684-3110. Check out all the incredible work we do at ACLJ and ACLJ.org. All not under our paywall.
Available for free for you right now. We'll be right back, hopefully, with your calls. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are lighting up right now.
You still have an opportunity to be on the air. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. We're going to kick this off with a lot of calls. Some of you are calling about student loans.
I see a lot of those comments breaking out in our chat right now. If you have a question about that or comment about that, Will probably can answer it for you. You were a student once. Do my best. We've both been students.
So we have the ability to comment on this. On education and being students. And you have a finance degree.
That's true. As well as a master's degree. And journalism. So let's just go through your CV. When I was in high school, I worked at a smoothie shop.
First call of the day. He did work at a smoothie shop. And you know what? He makes a good smoothie. A good smoothie and doesn't make too much. Because some of these smoothie people, they go too far. You see their smocks are all covered.
It's because they're not doing it right. Precise measurements. Costin will make sure his business was efficient. Not a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse there at the smoothie shop in high school. Exactly. Alright. Back on track. Lily's in Virginia. She is on Line 1.
Lily, go ahead. Okay, so I am a 64-year-old parent with three college graduate kids. But one of my kids decided to go to an outside state. And the college basically held me hostage because my kid couldn't keep going to school if I don't pay all these bills. So they gave me a parent plus loan.
They opened an account for me and they keep pouring money in it. So my kid graduated 10 years ago and he ended up with $36,000 in student loans and I ended up with almost $200,000 in parent plus loan. Okay, so 10 years later, this $200,000 is $249,000 now. I've been paying every single month.
I mean, $500,000, $800, $1,400. Yeah, you're making payments. I think that's what, Lily, and I understand that. People are saying that. They're going, hey, we know what we financed. But the way the interest rates run on a lot of these student loans, it does feel abusive.
And honestly, it is abusive. Right. Because you're not sure what you're signing and maybe you are. Maybe you're in Lily's case where you're trying to help your kid out and you end up with a quarter of a million dollars in student loans because they wanted to go to an out-of-state university. Now, thankfully, there are some states that do a better job at that than others. Tennessee's got a good program for our in-state tuition.
But if you go out of state, that changes everything. And it also changes it to the tune of an insurmountable amount for most people to ever overcome. Well, and this is where you start to peel back the layers of how higher education has become a very large business. Then you have the business's ancillary to it, like the loan companies and the government, and all of these things added together. And then you find out because who would have ever thought that the government was funding $9 billion to Harvard and a lot of those are for specific research grants and things like that. But these are wealthy universities that are nonprofit, but they have lots and lots of money. And yet they charge still to students that don't fall within specific categories, extreme amounts of money, and it keeps going up.
And I don't have the answer on how to fix it. So to even our caller, I don't have the answer on that. That being said, we do actually think that there's some bipartisan support here when you have saying, hey, there is the general theory if you took out the loan, you're responsible, deal with it.
I get that. I'm not even necessarily saying that's wrong. But I do think a lot of these were done under false pretenses. I think a lot of people did not know what they were doing.
And they were sold essentially a timeshare with a crazy interest rate. Right. And when you also think about, and we've got other callers we'll get to, but you also think about it because I am passionate about this because I love education. But when you also think about at higher education, how much of it has become degrees that are genuinely worthless. But then you can't get a job if you don't have a degree, even if the degree is in basket weaving and you paid $200,000 to get it.
And then you can get the job even though you have no extra qualifications. That's become a scam in our society. And you know what it is? It's very anti-capitalistic. It's very anti-merit based, which is what we need to get back to in this country. And that's very frustrating. And it's criminal what many universities and things have done.
And like I said, I don't have all the answers on it, but I'm passionate about it and we need change on it. I saw a billboard that said get a master's degree. Our master's degree comes with a job. I didn't do a digging into what that means, but I do think that was that university saying, hey, by the way, what you're going to get here is not worthless.
And I think if you have more universities doing that, more power to them. Let's continue on this conversation. Let's go to Steven who's calling on Rumble on line two. Steven, welcome.
I'm a first time caller. Thank you so much for your work. Appreciate you. Thank you, Steven.
I appreciate you calling. My concern is the imbalance of funding toward elections from foreign money. What can we do? Well, Steven, technically foreign money is not allowed within our- Not something directly you can do. Right, exactly. Now, when it comes to PACs and the way things are obscured and things, there is definitely foreign money that probably gets introduced into our elections. If it's going directly to a candidate, that is not going to happen because they can return it- Look, there are different state and county laws with a lot of that. I tried to give money to a campaign. They gave me my money back and they're like, hey, that's not within your district, therefore you get- Now, I mean, I didn't know all the ins and outs of the rules for that county.
I was just trying to support a friend. But there are a lot of rules and regulations getting direct to that. But yes, of course, there are ways that money can be funded in. And maybe talking about foreign money as much as the aggressive amount of money coming from different organizations, different PACs. But of course, you also don't want to be playing this game of controlling where people can put their money. I've never felt good about the caps and how much I can give to a campaign.
Right. And as well to Steven, some of that goes into where, quote, foreign money could be going to a PAC or something, even if it's not supposed to be. There is also First Amendment issues. If you start saying, well, now this organization, even though it's not a candidate, has to tell everyone exactly who the donors are, I don't necessarily think that is a good thing. I think that runs afoul of the Constitution and things as well. So it's a tricky one.
But I think transparency in the federal government and the way the elections are run is the key to keeping it free and fair. All right. Let's continue on. Let's go to William, who is calling in Nevada on Line 4.
You're on the air. Yeah, I'd like to know if all these liberal activist judges that are ruling against Trump on the immigration issue, is that going to get challenged? And if so, and if it goes to the Supreme Court, what do you think the odds of the Supreme Court overturning their rulings against Trump? William, actually, the ACLJ is representing the state of West Virginia on that very issue about these nationwide injunctions from district court judges. It is at the Supreme Court now, specifically on the injunction issue. So our brief is in at the Supreme Court, and that's going to move pretty quickly. Yeah, you never want to guess how they're going to vote, because guess what? We've all been surprised before. And judges may be protecting other judges in that sense.
You may say, hey, they want this more. Maybe it goes the other way. Hopefully it goes in our favor.
So I don't want to ever estimate whether we have a win or a loss in one of these cases. But we are taking it up, and we are doing it right now. That is another big issue. You should go back and listen to last week's show with the Attorney General of West Virginia on. We are taking that up right now.
We're going to be joining with other states as well. Go to ACLJ.org. You've got to support the work of the ACLJ to make sure we're able to get in those fights. Colleen, I'm sorry we weren't able to get to you today. Call us back tomorrow. I'll do our best to get to you. I would love for you right now to go and become an ACLJ champion if you can. Go to ACLJ.org. You heard about our vital work in the Pregnancy Resource Center battle in Massachusetts. That comes to a head tomorrow. And we need you. Stand up for life right now at ACLJ.org.
