BREAKING: Bolton Surrenders to Authorities

We got breaking news! John Bolton surrenders to authorities after his federal indictment. Keeping you informed and engaged.

Now more than ever. This is secular. 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 Haynes joining me in the studio. We got some special guests joining us later on. And it's going to be a packed show, but we want to hear from you. As we said, phone lines are open at 1-800-684.

We're actually not open. Let's open up those phone lines.

Okay, so let's see. Can we do it? There they are. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110.

Have your voice heard today on the show. Of course, we are talking about some of the big breaking news. President Trump, by the way, is about to host Vladimir Zelensky at the White House.

So we will follow that. As you know, he has made so much success in Gaza.

Now, eyes are turning to what's going on in Russia and Ukraine. We'll keep the update if there's anything. We know yesterday he had a call with Vladimir Putin, and maybe this is headed towards another conflict resolution. We will see. But that is not the breaking news we want to start with today.

The big breaking news, of course, that John Bolton has surrendered. To now face charges of sharing classified information, and some of this on an AOL account, which look. No, no, no, uh, you're not going to throw shade at the end. No shade.

Some of us still have our AOL accounts, you know, active. Not going to say who, but.

Some of us, maybe you're looking at one of them. You know what? It's okay. A lot of deep history there. You got to do it.

But with that being said, Will, why don't you give us a bit of an overview of what led to this moment?

So we'll remember that there was that raid of Bolton's office and home just a few weeks back.

Now he has been charged with 18 counts of mishandling classified materials. Eight of those counts are related to transmission of national security information, and 10 of them are. Are related to retention of classified material, all of this falling under 18 USC, Section 793. That was a part of the Espionage Act, and that is the code section in the US Code, gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information. He surrendered to authorities this morning, was processed, and then already had his first appearance before the judge, who explained the charges, asked if he understood them.

And just moments ago, he entered a not guilty plea before the court. Oh, that's really breaking down. That's right. And so, what we're looking at here, though. He's a third critic of President Trump that has been now indicted federally.

We remember James Comey and Letitia James. While the media would love for this one to be another look, retribution, you're already seeing headlines like this from CNN. Why the Bolton indictment is different from the Comey and James cases. In this one, this is a 26-page indictment. Uh, it's what they call a speaking indictment, where it really lays out the narrative of what they found.

And it appears that this investigation actually began under the Biden administration. The prosecutor here, Thomas Sullivan, is a veteran U.S. prosecutor. He's out of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland and has dealt with national security-type cases over his career.

He's seen as a nonpartisan person. This isn't a new U.S. attorney that was put in by the Trump administration. But we're going to get into some of the allegations because they are kind of shocking, especially when you think about how critical John Bolton was of President Trump during that classified documents case. Of course, we got to back up a little bit.

Remember, he was working. Exactly. President Trump.

So, again, this is not necessarily someone who's unfamiliar with the situation. Of course, John Bolton has been a voice that people have known for years. If you go back far enough, you'll probably find him in some of our documentaries, some of the works that we've done before. Used to be on this broadcast, so it's not like someone who hasn't been around. But of course, things change, and Trump kind of changed it all.

What do you think? Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-30110. Look, our legal team has been working hard. And today we'll be filing 16. Our filings will make sit today's filing, we'll make 16, not just today.

Amicus briefs defending President Trump's executive authority. If you want to be a part of that, you can take action with us. I encourage you right now. Become an ACLJit. Become an ACLJ supporter, ACLJ champion.

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Mm, with no paywall, all available to you for absolutely free. Be right back. Welcome back to Secular Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-31-10. Let's restate what's going on.

And that is, of course, right now, There is the current breaking news what's going on at the White House right now as President Trump is about to greet Zelensky. Remember, he had a call with Putin yesterday, and this is, of course, heading to what could be another potential peace deal. We hope that that's where it's headed. It'd be nice to have that war wrapped up as well. But the topic of the day is that John Bolton has had to surrender.

And Will said, just pled not guilty. Right. In this moment, of course, as you said, this sounds political, but of course, John Bolton. John Bolton had been around President Trump for a very long time and then kind of flipped on him, turned on him. And then you had the Biden administration actually open up this original investigation into John Bolton.

So, someone who is on not necessarily the good side of either. Political parties. That's right. So what we're looking at here as well is 18 counts of mishandling classified materials under 18 U.S.C. Section 793, the gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information.

And it appears from the indictment that what John Bolton was doing was he was sending Diary entries that he would memorialize classified information, some including attack plans.

Sources and methods, human intelligence sources, and things about our allies as well. That he was sending this through an AOL email account, a Gmail account as well. And he would send them to what, according to the indictment and according to the reporting on it, was his wife and daughter. There was even conversations back and forth where he would say, We didn't talk about this. And someone would respond with, shh.

As if they understood that this wasn't material that should have been transmitted in this way. He makes reference that he's going to use it for a book in one of the messages, not just memorializing it. Exactly. And even in that case, because the Trump administration tried to block the publication of that book, a lot of because there was national security information that was classified, not for public release in his book. And the judge, in that, which ended up letting the book be published, did chastise Bolton by saying in the ruling that he likely jeopardized national security by disclosing classified information in violation of his non-disclosure agreement obligations.

So even a judge noticed and was saying the judge sided more with the First Amendment with his right to publish, but was pointing out it was also a civil case. There wasn't a criminal angle to that. That, look, you likely jeopardize national security by even writing this.

So. That has been the pattern. We also know that this apparently was a case that was started under the Biden administration. The Department of Justice attorneys started looking at this in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland.

And they went forward. It is just coming to a culmination now. When you look even at the left media that has been trying to frame all this, even with Cash Patel talking about, you know, you will see more indictments. We're looking at people in positions of power that have abused that position in criminal ways. He even said the ones you'll see coming aren't even the end of it, it's just the beginning.

But the media has been trying for so long to frame this as political retribution. And even CNN is having to, who a frequent person on CNN is John Bolton, are having to frame it like this. We're going to play bite four. This is from one of their reporters that has been following this and reports on these things. And this is Caitlin Palance.

Here's how even she framed it. when talking about this indictment that came forward this morning, byte four. And that is the sort of thing that the Justice Department does say frequently, not just in the climate of a Trump administration, that that's something that you should not do. We have seen many charges like this before of other high-ranking officials. And that also with John Bolton in those search warrants.

And what we're very likely to see in court going forward is that the Justice Department saying he should have known better. And I think that also, when you look at Logan the way he likely did.

Well, and one, he did know better, and clearly, in some of the messages, it seems like. That intent And knowledge that this wasn't okay seemed to be present in even some of these messages back and forth. The other thing is that the AOL email account also was allegedly and apparently hacked by Iranians.

So it wasn't just that most of our AOL accounts. That is probably a fair statement, but he wasn't taking the necessary care when sending and transmitting all this information by making sure it couldn't fall into the hands of foreign adversaries that then had, like we've already talked about. Future attack plans, human intelligence sources, things that are, as other commentators have said, could get people killed. It wasn't just like, oh no, they know that we're going to, you know, spend more here in the Department of Defense. No, these were very real things that related to our national security that our adversaries even gained access because he wasn't using secure channels.

He had an accredited SCIF in his home. He could have, if using this for work, could have taken it and done what he needed to do in the proper channels, but that wasn't the point. The point was, he was trying to use it to write a book, to make money off of his service in government, to use this national security secrets in a way that would benefit him to the detriment of the country. And I think that's where you're starting to see the difference. And this is the guy that was out there so loudly.

Talking about the President of the United States in that entire special counsel investigation retaining classified documents. It was saying, this is the worst thing ever. This is the end of President Trump's career. He needs to go to prison for this. This is terrible.

How reckless, how careless. But yet there's a very key difference between John Bolton and President Trump. One is the President of the United States that has power to one that's a key difference, but also has the power to declassify. The classification is with the President, not an advisor. That's not even a position that's not even confirmed by the Senate.

This is just a national security advisor that gets to be a part of this process, but then acting as if you are the supreme authority in the United States government and able to do whatever while then criticizing the President for something that he actually has the power to do. It is just so rich because it always seems to be. The things they criticize you for are the crimes that they are actually committing. We got a call related to that. It's going to Michael in Florida.

I was watching on YouTube where thousands of people watch each and every day. Michael, go ahead. I don't know what I think sometimes I Really, we need to kind of sit back and kind of understand just how blessed we have been. Given someone like President Trump. He is legitimately a force of nature.

And Just as Charlie Kirk even once said, look, I'm not a Trump minion by any means. I mean, Maybe eight, nine, ten times out of I agree with him, but there are certain things that I don't necessarily. But he's just He's a man of our of our culture. Who's who's just made Tremendous difference.

Well, Michael, I think that's true. I think you can look at it and go: look, I've been very vocal in my thoughts on President Trump, the stuff I agree with him on, the stuff I disagree with him on. There are many times where that has happened.

However, When you look at something like what happened in Gaza. Uh Honestly, his Middle East plans. First term and this term. No one's done it better. No one has done it better, and you can't take that away from him.

You can't take away what happened with the Abraham Accords, and you can't take away what happened now with the current peace plans that are hopefully going to continue on, but at least the freeing of the hostages. In Gaza, because those moments are incredibly difficult. And we see, you know, they're sort of the blessing behind the curse of having the Biden administration for four years. We got to see how quickly that can fall apart. When you have an administration that is not staying up on what's going on in the Middle East, who does not care as much, who does not have as much tact, or as much trust, or.

As much fear. Does it put as much fear into his opponents?

So you have to say for President Trump, there are things that I agree and disagree on, but there are moments that you have to you do have to look at and go, you're right, he's a force of nature and completely different than any other President that we've had in our lifetime. That being said, phone lines are open. I'd love to hear from you and more conversation like that. Because, look, it is a. They're going to spin something like this, Will, with John Bolton, as this is political retribution.

Of course, we saw what happened under four years of Biden. We know what that looks like firsthand.

Well, and we saw a lot of political retribution, but not to big names under the Biden administration. That's how they got away with. Actual political retribution by chilling the speech of their opponents, of conservatives, of voters, by going after parents that wanted to advocate for their children at school board meetings, to want to go after those that were standing up for the unborn, that were pro-life advocates. That was a much more political retribution regime because they went after everyday Americans that weren't gonna be talked about on the news, whose name you didn't know. And they did that to silence their speech, to get them to back down.

And this is a different era.

Now it's also going after people that are bad actors. That according to the indictments, Committed crimes.

So, therefore, they will have their day in court. Unlike a lot of people who are spied on, surveilled, and put as a threat tag as a domestic terrorist to try and chill the speech. That's what was happening under the prior administration. All right, we'll be back in just a moment. Before we do that, though, I want to encourage you to go to aclj.org, spend some time on there, and take action with us if you can.

That means supporting the work financially, not just our legal work, but also this show and the media work we do here. We can't do it without you. Go to aclj.org. Great way to also be a part of it, sign our petitions. That's an absolutely free way to do it.

Or becoming ACLJ champion today will be right back with special guests. Welcome back to Sekulow. We have a special guest on today, Craig Bouchon, is joining us. He is not only just a media host, someone who has his own show, entrepreneur, and founder, executive director of Unified America. He is also, like I said, Creator and host of the Craig Bouchon Show.

And look, there's been a topic that has come up. We've been talking about it for years, but thankfully, it is finally making news.

Well, of course, this is the persecution and genocide of Christians that's happening around the world. You know, I'm not talking about what's going on in our country necessarily. You know, we hear a lot about the issues that happen with Christians in our country, but there is so much bigger happening. And finally, it's starting to work its way into the mainstream media. Thankfully, people like Craig as well.

That's right. And there's a piece up at CraigBouchon.com that's titled The Silent Genocide: Why the World Ignores the Slaughter of Christians. And it's an important piece for people to read. I encourage everyone to go read it at CraigBouchon.com. But it goes through these nations like Nigeria, Syria, the Congo, Pakistan, as well as others, that there is a, as titled in the piece, A Silent Genocide.

This is a systematic Purging of Christians in these nations, and the world looks away. And so, Craig, we wanted to bring you on today to talk about this piece and really what prompted you to publish it and what you've learned in looking into this silent genocide.

Well, you know, thank you so much for having me on today. And I wish I was on for a better subject for sure, but. The fact is that ACLJ has been covering this subject for many years, and I wish it was. Harder for us when we were doing our digging. We didn't have to dig too far.

to put this information together. It should be top of mind. And it is really an atrocity that's happening across the globe. It's a full-spectrum scenario that. We need to discuss and Specifically in this country, we are still a majority Christian country.

Of course, there are many other religions here as well, but we are a majority Christian country, and it's just not spoken about, and it is a real problem.

So we were trying. To put together something that was simple enough for people to understand, not get too deep into the weeds, but the fact is that more and more. News agencies Podcasts, churches, political leaders need to speak about this because it is happening every single day.

Well, and as we've seen recently, one, we know what makes headlines. We know the conflict between Israel and Gaza has obviously taken over for years now, the headlines. But this is something that when you look at a nation like Nigeria, where they have the most persecution of any country in the world, and they're systematically killing Christians with Boko Haram and other Islamist groups that attack them there. But we are, fortunately, one, this piece is digestible and it's shareable and it gives you a primer and also allows folks that, once they read that, to dig deeper to find out more information about these nations that you may not have been top of mind thinking about the persecution that's going on. But you are starting to see, to some degree, alternative voices start to bring this up more.

We spoke about a couple weeks back on the show where Bill Maher even brought up on his show that. Listen, everyone should be talking about what's happening in Nigeria. This should be something that the UN is writing resolutions about all the time. Because of how devastating it is, and how many people are being massacred, and churches burned down, and lives destroyed. But once again, it's taking people, even like Bill Maher, who's very proudly an atheist, does not love organized religion, to call out these atrocities because our mainstream media just won't touch it.

Yeah, it's a fact. And, you know, again, the whole goal of this. Piece that we did is to make it digestible, bring it top of mind, let people know what's happening, start asking more questions, make sure that we're focusing in on the protection. Of Christians around the world. It is a, it can be a controversial conversation for some.

But the fact is that it is a genocide that is happening. There are particular leaders around the world that they're doing it on purpose, and it needs to be showcased. And you're right, there are people, I think, because there's more than mainstream media now, we have a tremendous amount of. Ways to get information out, just like this show, for example, that we need we're. More and more people are talking about it.

But it needs to be broadened. It needs to be top of mind. We should be seeing statistics data. Yes, Nigeria, Syria, the Congo, Pakistan, there's a whole lot of data there. And we're doing some updates, as a matter of fact, because we did another post called Follow the Money: Why Global Christian Persecution is Met with Silence.

And then we're, so the next thing we're working on is we're following why, who's stopping this information from getting out? Because there are those people as well. Look, we're all in this together. I'm a huge fan of what you do with your show and with the ECLJ and the bigger picture. And we're proud to be a part of that messaging, get the information out.

And so we're going to stay on the subject, and it's important. Me as a Christian, I think it's also my duty. To do it. Absolutely, Craig. And I wanted to, maybe it'll be the last question that we get to today.

But as you stated in your article, it feels like evil isn't hiding anymore. Do you think this is more of a spiritual battle, a spiritual warfare than anything else? You brought up your faith, and I think that is something we look at. We go, of course, this is a targeted Christian.

So it feels like that this is something much, much bigger than some sort of political violence. Yeah, absolutely. We are And I've said for years, you know. Many years ago, when I was on air in Austin, Texas, I was even talking about this.

Now that I've come back on the air after a hiatus, I'm talking about it again. We are in a holy war. As a Christian, it goes back all the way to Genesis. This is a biblical fight. This is at some point, we have to start having the real conversation about what we're doing, why we do it.

What does it mean to be a Christian nation? What does it mean to be an American? What is our relationship with Israel? Explained in more detail from a biblical standpoint so people understand and just kind of get it, right? I personally believe that we are in a holy war, but it's not a new war.

It's a war that's been going on for. Generations, thousands of years. There's a lot of great content in your article and so much more. I want to give you a second. We only got about a minute and a half here to plug, though, how people can follow you and check out this article and hear your show.

Yeah, go to CraigBouchon.com. We are. We have articles up every single day. We're also partnered with the Spreely Network as well, where we're going to have, you know, where our audio, excuse me, our video podcast. We have our audios up right now.

Again, go to craigbouchon.com and We're excited about getting re-engaged in the conversation because you know the The First Amendment to the Constitution is That's important. And we talk about that. The motto on my show is: the truth is not hate speech. And so we coin that phrase every single time because the truth is what sets us free. And it's, and look, we got to talk about it every single day.

So I thank you so much for having me on. Keep up the great work. Please go to CraigBouchon.com. We read between the lines. We just don't follow the top stories.

We actually read between the lines of what's driving those stories so we can hopefully find a solution to some of these issues that we're facing in our society. Craig, thanks for joining us. We really appreciate it. Always good to hear from you. Again, you can check out Craig's work.

Hey, we do have a second half hour coming up on this broadcast right now.

So if you don't get us your local station, find us broadcasting live each and every day, 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern Time. That is on aclj.org, on YouTube, Rumble, however you get your podcast. We're there. Of course, you can catch us on archived on all those platforms as well.

And support the work of the ACLJ while you do it. We only got about a minute break, but it's a great time to go make a donation, support the work, become an ACLJ champion. If you can. That's someone that gives on a monthly basis automatically, like a membership. Do that today helps create a great baseline.

Join the tens of thousands of you that have already done that at aclj.org. Opt in, become a champion. We're back in less than a minute. Keeping you informed and engaged.

Now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now, your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow. We got a second half hour for you.

It's just Will and I for this half hour. It is.

So what are we going to talk about, Will? We're going to talk about a lot of things. We're going to talk about this Bolton indictment. You said that like a beat, we're going to talk about a lot of things. A lot of things.

A lot of things. John Bolton, yes. We're also going to talk about that wonderful. Like, had to watch debate last night. I watched the highlights.

Highlights, he had Mamdami. You had Cuomo and you had the Guardian Angel. What's his name? Curtis Liwa. Curtis Liwa.

It was, you know, which of all the CWAs. My favorite is Curtis. It was an interesting debate. We'll discuss it. If you watched it, I'm curious because a lot of it was not about New York City.

I think we had a discussion about that. Half of it, I'd say, was about New York City. If that, half of it was about President Trump and about other things in national politics. What do you think about it? Obviously, Cuomo kind of came in a stride to be almost.

A Trump conservative in some ways. Those signs, President Trump will listen to him. He'll back down if I tell him to back down. Of course, you had on the other side, and Cuomo comes off like the most. I mean, if you want to look at who would be, if you're casting a movie to be the mayor of New York, it is.

Andrew Cuomo. I mean, he's just exactly the character you think he should be. He had a lot of good things to say. That's like he was in Ghostbusters. I mean, he really does feel like that.

And then you turn, because, I mean, their dad kind of was, right? Their dad's basically character. And then you go over and you look at Mondami, who have to say, Came off super slick. Had. Though I think he dodged a lot of the answers, he had good dodges for those answers.

Well, that's what the New York Post front page was. I couldn't even read that. Mom Dodger. Mom Dodger. Mom Dodgy.

Yeah. Mom Dodgy. Dodging. Not their best work. Love it.

Pretty good. That one, they boned it in. Yeah, I mean, look, I think that the polls are showing that he's running away with it right now. And if you watch that and say that you are a liberal Democrat who is voting in the mayoral race in New York, I think your answer is pretty clear, even though I think it could end up being an absolute disaster for the city. As someone who loves New York City and has seen what it looks like under Republican control, under Democratic control, under Independent even control, what it can look like.

And I think you could flash back 20 years, then flash back 10 years, flash back five years and see how different New York City has gotten. You know, as what you'd say is the capital of the world, you would hope it is a place that people want to travel, visit. The crime is taken care of, that things are under control. And look, President Trump has talked about doing what he's done now in Chicago, doing what he's done now in Memphis. And Memphis, look, you got to give it up.

President Trump, it's a little scary. We've said, you know, when you bring in the National Guard and those things start happening, you have to start going, okay, where is federal control come in? Forty-five children, missing children, were located in Memphis, Tennessee. Uh in the first few days Of this campaign, 45 missing children.

Some of them runaways, some of them runaways that ended up being, uh, getting involved in trafficking just because they ran away and had to have something to do.

So, you have to say, those are the kind of stats and the numbers where you go, all right, you know, there's something to this right now. And really, it's saying there's something to what's going on locally in these areas that they can't control this themselves.

Well, even at that point, we have to give credit to one, the governor of Tennessee for requesting and working with the President, but also Senator Bill Haggerty, who worked very closely with the President to make sure that happened. And in the two weeks that the National Guard and the Federal Task Force was in Memphis, they made 854 arrests and seized 180 illegal guns. And they took violent criminals off the streets, as well as you mentioned the children that were rescued. But just think about that. 180 illegal guns were seized by the Federal Task Force.

In a city that is just uh It has so much rot with crime in it. The fact that this isn't being celebrated by the left, taking illegal guns off the streets, this should be New York Times' front page headline of look at what is success to bring down and combat gun violence in this country. We're here in Tennessee. We're here in Tennessee, and I love Memphis. Memphis is my favorite places here in the state.

However, the last few years, it's gotten out of control. I took my family there just about a year ago, and look, they'll tell you some stories. Those stories aren't the most flattering for what happens in Memphis, and I would love to see. a better place to visit, a better place to live for those who live there as well. Uh and look because it's a great city great culture great food With that being said, we got two more segments coming up and I want to hear from you.

Give me a call at 1-800-684-3110. We're going to play some bites also from that debate. And so much more coming up in the next segment of Secular. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-68-431-10.

Wasn't gonna spend a whole lot of time. On the debate, but I do see a lot of comments coming in. Clearly, a lot of you did watch that. New York, Mayoral A debate between Andrew Cuomo, Mom Donnie, and Curtis Lewa. And it was an interesting one.

Look, I have to say. You have to take your political blinders off and go, look, there are a lot of things I disagree with. Almost, I would actually say. Almost everything that I disagree with with Mom Dami. But what you can't take away from him is he is a very gifted speaker.

And as someone who comes in as a young man, this is a guy we got to keep our eyes on because he is someone who could take it further and further because of his charisma, the way he's able to speak. Even if he's dodging a question, it comes off a better answer. He had rebuttals to almost every gotcha moment. It was pretty impressive.

Now, of course, he is competing against Uh two old guys who've been around forever. And I don't mean that in a mean way. But they're d certainly not the next generation of New Yorker. These were two classic New Yorkers, one of which was Andrew Cuomo, who had a pretty. Rough ending to his career after COVID and all the things.

He's had to go and apologize. He made an apology to the Jewish community for the way he treated them during COVID. There's so many things he's had to do to try to make up for it. It's honestly, if it was anyone else, I think he would have a much better chance. But the fact that it is someone who New Yorkers have a love-hate relationship with already isn't going to go over super well.

And the poll numbers are really saying that Mamdani is running away with it. That's right. So the polls that came out before the debate have among registered voters a 21-point lead with Mamdani at 49%, then 28% to Andrew Cuomo, and 13% to Curtis Sliwa. But then when you go to the likely voters, it's 52% for Mamdani, and then you have 28% for Cuomo and 14% for Sliwa.

So J. Just based off those numbers, it's not an overcomable margin there for someone like Cuomo, even if Sliwa were to drop out or vice versa. The other problem with the Republican candidate Sliwa is that he, one, has been around a long time. He was a fixture in old New York, you know, helping clean up the city, which I think he was. He's tried this multiple times running for mayor.

I think that this he's thinking, okay, we're at that time where everyone's talking about cleaning up New York. This is my moment. But it doesn't play the same way. I feel like the nostalgia for the Guardian Angels probably just isn't even there in New York anymore. As well, he has a contentious relationship with President Trump.

When President Trump became President, he left the Republican Party. He said, I don't want to be associated with him.

So it's not as if he can even play off that and try to reach a base in New York that maybe a silent majority or something, or old school, you know, blue-collar populist New Yorker, that's not who he's necessarily going to win over there.

So then you take all that when you're up against a charismatic candidate like Mamdami, you have to think he has higher aspirations. Obviously, he cannot be President. The United States based off the Constitution. He was born in Uganda, but senator, congressman, governor of the state, I mean, those are options that he has to gain more power. Although, being the mayor of New York is a very big position.

But he did have some issues. You know, he's talking with their, you talked about dodging and everything. But then he was even asked by the moderator about making things free. This is bite 10 we should play because it shows how quick he can be, but also that, I mean, there's not a ton he can do. You can run on these campaign promises, but also as mayor, he doesn't have the authority to raise taxes by himself.

It's either through the city council or through the state legislature. Let's go ahead and play bite 10. But the question is how you'll make them free? We will fund the revenue that would have otherwise been brought in from fairs. And that's something that we would do in partnership with Albany.

And I've put forward two proposals. The first is to raise taxes on the top 1% of New Yorkers by 2%. That would raise $4 billion. The second is to raise the state's top corporate tax rate to match that of New Jersey, which would raise $5 billion.

So right there, he's saying he wants to raise the state's top corporate tax rate. As mayor of New York, this isn't something he can do.

So you can offer these things and run on these campaign promises, but it's also very slick. Because then he can blame Albany. He can blame the governor. He can blame the legislature of saying that. No, I ran on this.

The people want it, but they won't give it to me. Throw them out of office. And then what's he doing? He's running for governor next. I mean, you see the trajectory there because his promises are not something he, as mayor of New York, has the authority or capacity to even pull off.

Yeah, I think that it's an interesting time for New York City. I would have not thought this is where they would have gone. after Eric Adams and after all the issues they've had. To then go this way, but it does feel like they want a new fresh face. And look, there are times they've called him out for his rhetoric around Israel, because obviously the largest Jewish community outside of Israel is in New York City.

You know, it accounts for about 10, 12% of the residents of Manhattan, which is a lot. And in that area. And whenever he brings that up, he quickly dodges it, says, of course, he agrees that Israel should be a state. He definitely doesn't think it should be a Jewish state. He's been pretty clear about that.

It should be a state for all people. And of course, Israel already does that, but it is founded in the. Jewish homeland.

Now, they've also brought up tweets he's stated, and you had him going back and forth with Cuomo. I think you should hear this to kind of hear how he kind of could speak the language of both sides here.

So, let's take a listen. Byte 11. I have been clear time and time again. That as much as Andrew Cuomo wants to bring up tweets from 2020, which is around the same time that he was sending seniors to their death in nursing homes. I am looking to work with police officers, not to defund the NYPD, looking to ensure that officers can actually do one job when they're signing up to join that department.

Please do not. Not the many jobs we're asking them to do today. And I think that's a lot of comments you made. We will come back to that, but we're asking male candidates and racists. We're moving on.

That's what you said. Your words, your words. We're moving on. See, they're moving on. They're moving on.

He was saying that your words were racist, trying to talk to him. And of course, like an interesting moment, as I said, Momdami plays about three conservative talking points right there. Talks specifically about not defunding the police, giving the police more authority to do the job that they were hired to do. Talks about the nursing home situation that happened during COVID under Andrew Cuomo. Again, another talking point that is largely being presented by conservatives.

This is someone who is certainly understanding how to talk to the masses. And we need to keep an eye on it. Because as you said, New York City, though it is not a city that most of our listeners probably live in, there are consequences, just like what goes on in California, just like what goes on in some of our major states, Texas, Florida. There's ripple effects that happen when you elect somebody. like this.

In again, one of our biggest cities. That's right. This isn't just someone that's like, I'm a Democrat, and you look at their policies, and you say, oh, these are socialist policies. This is someone who says he is a democratic socialist. This is someone that will then lead one of the largest economic centers in the country.

Based off socialist policies. And it's been having a rough go at it. And it's a very dangerous thing when you start to bring that in.

Now, to some degree, There are people on the right that are like, okay, let him get elected and see the failure of those policies. In a place that's an economic center. But that does do damage to the rest of the country, but it also makes it more attractive to other places. It normalizes democratic socialism. This is the same party that was criticizing the Hamas-Israel deal because it said just last week that no, it doesn't give back all the stolen land that Israel has, meaning all of Israel.

So this isn't uh a group that Has normal mainstream thought that's just a little wonky on economics. This is a very anti-American. Ideology that he's going to bring forward and lead the city. I mean, it's anything can happen in politics, but he has a very clear trajectory to being the next mayor of New York. Yeah, I think it's if you're a betting person on it, the odds look very much in that favor.

Hey, I want to hear from you coming up in the next segment. We got a few lines open at 1-800-684-3110. We can talk about John Bolton. We can talk about what's going on right now. President Trump meeting with Zelensky after having that conversation with Putin and looking like he's going to have a meeting with Putin here coming up.

I believe in, I forgot what they said it was going to be. We'll look up where they said it was going to be a neutral playing ground, another neutral playing ground with Putin. Of course, the last one didn't turn out as well as maybe they had hoped, but we'll see what that is. Maybe you have a thought process on that's me and Hungary. That's right.

Phone lines again are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. 3110, that's 1-800-684-3110. I did want to take a minute right now. Look, we have been working hard here at the ACLJ. It's not just our media team.

These kind of shows we come in, we kind of give you some breaking news items. We discuss what we're working on a little bit. But behind the scenes, Not just on this show. Since President Trump's inauguration, our legal team has been filing amicus briefs in cases where the President's executive authority is under relentless attack. We heard about what's going on in all these areas, the good and the bad, and of course, all the rogue judges.

And today, We file in Trump v. Slaughter defending President Trump's authority to remove federal trade commissioners according to his policy agenda today. Today's final mark 16. Briefs defending President Trump just this year. We have had two big wins on this issue with executive authority, so we're hoping for another one.

That was with Planned Parenthood being defunded. Uh and take action with us right now. You can help us. Really, right now. There's a great way to do it.

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Last segment of the day, welcome back to Sekulow. We are going to take your calls. We got four lines open right now. This is a good time to call in at 1-800-684-3110. Let's go to Jim in Ohio on line two.

Go ahead, Jim. Yes, hi. Good afternoon. Yeah, thanks for taking my call. Um I I just have a question.

Um Does President Trump have an avenue that he can go down to be financially reimbursed from all of the privilege lawsuits that were brought against him.

Well, Jim, one, these were most of them would have been the federal government in some ways. They were not all lawsuits. They were criminal cases in many cases. When you talk about the special counsel, you think about there was that civil lawsuit in New York where the judge actually threw out the $500 million judgment against him in that appeals court.

So. As far as that goes, in the criminal cases, no, there was. Charges. They were dropped in most cases.

So it wouldn't be something that they'd be being an avenue of a frivolous lawsuit. Although we look at them and say these are frivolous lawsuits, it wouldn't necessarily be to that standard. As well as, I think the President isn't looking to necessarily get reimbursed. I think he's doing okay and is just more focused on leading the country at this point. Yeah, thank you, Jim, for calling.

We do have some lines open again, as you said, 1-800-684-2. 3110. We are following. President Trump still has not greeted Zelensky. It has not happened yet.

They've been talking about like it was going to happen in any second. Of course, this has been multiple meetings that have happened now with Zelensky over the last few months. After that, the one we kind of think of is the one that was very contentious. Then, after that, it seems to have been a friendship that has blossomed a little bit. Specifically, after the end of the war in Gaza.

Now, of course, there are still updates going on. What's happening in Gaza? President Trump said: if they don't pretty much quit killing their own people, we're going to go in and take care of them. That has been some of the threats coming from President Trump over the last 24 to 48 hours. Of course, we're all monitoring that to see what that looks like.

But. I'm sure he sees. Look, if something like this is going to happen, it's a different kind of scale war when it comes to Ukraine and Russia, but in some ways, I don't want to say it's a different kind of dispute, but it is a different kind of, you know, it's not religion necessarily. There is some religion involved. They'll certainly say that there is a religious backbone to it, but it is more of a, I don't want to say a traditional land war, but there is some of that.

Well, yesterday we spoke with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about this and talked about some of the momentum that the President has by even getting Hamas to that first step, like getting them to agree to the terms, even if they don't live up to it, was such a monumental task that it shows the difference in the strength that President Trump projects instead of just telling the adversaries don't. Don't go forward. Don't attack your neighbors. And that's what the previous administration was.

So while the first rounds may have not been successful, just like the first rounds of him trying to end the Gaza conflict, didn't necessarily get that far. We also are only seven months into this presidency at this point. I'm sorry, no, nine months into this presidency. Starting with January. That's wild.

But when you look at what has happened in that time, is that we're not even a year in. You're like, calendar, man. It's walking to this point where he's having these summits with Putin. And I think Putin sees what he was able to pull off and actually praised what he's able to pull off in Israel. That it starts to show that, okay, the President has these economic tools that he can use.

He has these military tools. They said in that phone call, he joked about, would you mind if I sent a couple thousand tomahawks to Ukraine? Like, that's how he's talking to Putin, showing that he can be almost like whimsical about it, but also I'm dead serious about what's more. How do you scare somebody? I think President Trump has known that really that's maybe one of the only answers for dealing with Putin and dealing with Russia is to give them that 10%.

Of maybe you'll do something crazy. But that's also what a lot of this discussion with Zelensky is supposed to be today. It's talking about increasing what the United States gives to Ukraine. It's not sending more troops or more advisors, as the Biden administration liked to call all the special forces units that he had stationed in Ukraine. But what it really is, is going to be: hey, we're going to give them weaponry.

We could give them arms that could really make a difference. And Tomahawk is an escalation of what the armaments that we would be giving to Ukraine would be that would allow them to hit targets a lot further into Russia, a lot bigger targets. This is a different phase of that. And then if you couple that with putting more economic pressure on the trading partners of Russia, it really could bring about a Hamas Israel style agreement that comes out of it.

Now one other thing. The people on the left aren't going to be happy with that either. Because when you look at what the Hamas-Israel agreement was, if you are Israel. You had to give up a lot. There's a lot of things that take it out of Israel's control, such as the presence in Gaza, pulling back, the releasing of thousands of Palestinian prisoners.

On the face of it, there are a lot of. I think we have to bring that up because I keep saying hostages. I keep seeing the tourism.

Well, it's because you have so many leftist friends logos. It's also because they don't understand the difference. They'll say hostage release for hostage release. And of course, what we're talking about is here. We're talking about who got released.

From Israel back into the Palestinian territories, back into Gaza. You're talking about people who were arrested for crimes, not hostages in war. Murders, murders, terrorists, people that involved mass murders, people that planned the bus bombings, all those things in the early 2000s that they were dealing with.

So don't think that Israel didn't give up anything. They weren't giving up hostages. They were giving up hostages not innocents, which is what was going on. In Israel, which were the ones who were running a soundboard at a music festival. I mean, that was one of our clients.

That's the type of people. People that were the real hostages, and then you're talking about terrorists on the other side.

So, and that's my point to that. If you are an Israeli or even a die-hard Zionist, that deal on paper. There are some things that we even talk about that we didn't love because you look at it and you're like, oh, this is an actual deal negotiation. I think the same thing is what is likely to come out of if President Trump is able to broker something between Ukraine and Russia. It will look like that.

So people on the left will have a lot to be upset about, they will have a lot to say. How dare he force Ukraine to do this? But if there's a resolution, I think that is more what it would look like rather than a Russia go home, Ukraine gets all the land back. I mean, I think the hope is that you come to a solution where both Ukraine and Russia also can get back open to trade with the United States and all of those things. I know that that's kind of controversial.

People are like, how dare you? It's like Russia. The import-export business, what was going on in Russia, that being shut down, that's a whole other show we could talk about. But man, you're talking about an economic boom that would probably happen in some ways if. You are able to reopen Russia to trade.

So, hopefully, there can be an end-of-war scenario here. And if President Trump could broker it in Gaza, I'm pretty confident he could probably figure out how to deal with it with Ukraine and with Russia. And I think that's what's interesting about his approach to all these wars: what he leads with: I just want people to stop dying. It's a very humanitarian approach, which a lot of people may criticize because it isn't a very geopolitical approach. It's not the whose politics do I like better.

He's just like, I just want these people to stop killing each other. Whether it be Gaza in Israel, whether it be Russia and Ukraine. And I think that is what makes it such a novel approach because everyone else is colored by all the geopolitical baggage that they have when they approach these things. All right, that's going to do it for today's show and for the shows of the week. I believe we made it.

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