We got breaking news. Representative Omar blames the FBI in the massive Minnesota fraud scandal. 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 another Monday Sekulow. I'm here. Will Haynes is here.
We're going to have CeCe Heil, Senior Attorney at the ACLJ, and Jeff Balabon from ACLJ Jerusalem give us an update of what's going on over there as they enter round two, what looks like to be the second phase of the ceasefire in Gaza. Of course, it is more quiet there than it has been in a long time, at least from press coverage, but we'll get an update of really what's going on. A lot of my friends are in Israel right now, so it's been a clearly a time where they have started to reopen as much as they can and to try to get Americans back on board. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. The major story coming out this morning, of course, over the weekend, there were still discussions of that big scandal out of Minnesota where there was a billion-dollar scandal of fraud where money that was supposed to go, of course, to help people in need, to help people who had food shortages or issues with hunger and were on the streets.
And this is during COVID, massive COVID fraud that was uncovered. Of course, the blame game started to come out, and now we have Representative Omar. You know, someone who I don't usually say I agree with a whole lot, but saying, you know what, we should be blaming? We should be blaming the FBI. And of course, when you really start looking at it, what FBI are we talking about?
We're talking about a 2021 FBI. We're talking about an FBI that was being run out of the Biden administration. And you know what? For the first time in a long time, I could say I may, at least partially, even if it's a deflection. Agree with Representative Omar.
Can you believe I said that? That, of course, this was under a time where the FBI had their eye off the ball, were going after the wrong people. And now you have these billion-dollar scandals that are really making big, big headlines. Of course, there's a huge conversation about whether that was going from the large Somali population there, which it is a large population. Let's, you know, no if, fans, buts about it.
It's got to be the largest in America. If probably one of the largest, out largest outside of Somalia, I would assume a lot of it happens to be in Minnesota. If you go and you walk around, I mean, it's not unlike going to London now. And I'm not saying it's dangerous. I'm not saying that there's any issues with that.
I'm just saying if you're there, it's very clear. It's very open and honest. And that's why the representation is even Representative Omar. I mean, you have people who are representing the area. Saying, okay, but some of this money looked like it could have been going to terrorism through al-Shabaab.
And now that investigation begins. Where do we point the blame? Do you point the blame at the Somali people? Do you point the blame at the people who've immigrated to the state mostly legally? Um to the state of Minnesota.
I think they said the last majority of the people that are there are United States citizens legally immigrated to America. Or do we point the blame where likely it should go where she's pointing as well, which is to a failure in the FBI, once again, finding out that their eye was off the ball? I want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. And between that and the January 6th bomber being caught, alleged being caught, you have a new FBI who is ready to get to work. That's right.
And we'll play the sound from Congresswoman Omar in the next segment where you can hear her tone. And you mentioned it was a deflection. It clearly is. It's certainly directed still towards President Trump. Let's not pretend it's a fairly far.
And I think that's what also needs to be dissected here because whenever someone throws out like, oh, it's a failure of the FBI, you always think in current terms, not necessarily when the crime happened. And this would have happened under the previous administration. Clearly, she didn't say we need to blame Joe Biden's FBI and Department of. Of justice on this, but we will get into it and we want to hear from you as well. You agree to some degree with Congresswoman Omar that this is a failure of the FBI, but we'll also get into some of the reasons why this scandal isn't going away for politicians from Minnesota and why it also could be expanding elsewhere.
She was no fan of President Biden, I feel like towards the end, because of his support of Israel, though it was maybe the most wavering, waffling support ever. That was too much for the squad, if you will. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Christmas is drawing closer.
And we need your support right now as we are headed towards the end of the year. When you're thinking about your end of year giving, the fight for faith, life, free speech. It's not slowing down, it's intensifying. This is one of our busiest months ever at the Supreme Court of the United States defending your freedoms. Go to aclj.org.
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Do it today. Welcome back to Sekulow. We got a lot of you joining us right now, so we gotta restate some of what's going on. We've had a breaking news item. It's always fun to start on a Monday with a breaking news item, give a big update of what was going on in Minnesota during that whole Minnesota fraud scandals we've heard about, whether Tim Waltz was involved, whether Representative Omar was involved, who was involved that got this money that should have been going tax dollars to public assistance programs somehow.
Looks like it could have made its way to the Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Shabaab based in Somalia. And Senator Representative Omar was doing the rounds on a lot of the Sunday morning shows talking about this. Let's play a clip from it so you have a good idea of what the conversation was, the tone was. This is, I believe, this is from Meet the Press, Facebook Nation. With Margaret Brennan, let's go ahead and roll bite five.
House Republicans and the Treasury Secretary just now talked about a link to terrorism. A possible link. He said they're just now beginning to look into it. How confident are you that that's a false claim? I'm pretty confident at the moment because there are people who have been prosecuted and who have been sentenced.
If there was a linkage in the money that they had stolen going to terrorism, then that is a failure of the FBI and our court system in not figuring that out. basically charging them with with these with these charges.
So, not only so, we gotta kind of piece that off.
So, say, okay, she blames the FBI here, but really, what she's doing is blaming the court system, saying, hey, if there was alleged terrorism, they missed it because some of these people have already been sentenced.
Now, If it wasn't uncovered and it wasn't discussed by that FBI, she's right that in 2021, when all of this was happening during COVID, that this would have been something they could have prosecuted, gone after. But you have a new FBI in charge, one that's actually looking at a lot of these facts and finding out that, yeah, you probably can blame a lot of this on an FBI who wasn't paying attention. But of course, as you can tell in her voice, this is a deflection from what's going on there.
Now, look, President Trump took some pretty big swipes at the Somalian community. that is in Minnesota. Look, they didn't pop up out of nowhere. You know, we got to remember how people immigrate here, how they ended up here, how they ended up taking over. Yes, true.
Lots of this area. I mean, I think, again, that's undeniable. And I don't believe even the Somali population, the Somali American population would tell you that's not true. If you go to that area of Minnesota, it's abundantly clear. It's not unlike going to certain areas in London right now.
I'm not saying that makes it dangerous. Again, I'm not saying that's even a bad thing. It's just true.
So, when you talk about what this looks like, and there are some swipes that are taken, you do have to take a step back and go: okay, beyond the normal, you know, what seems to be online rhetoric, which is often. It often hurts the the conversation. Because it doesn't get back to the point. We can at least start pointing back to the fact that there was a lot of failure going on. Uh within the state under Tim Walsh.
Under Omar, and of course uh Under the Biden administration.
Well, and that is one of the reasons why this story is still going on: we heard about this billion-dollar fraud, which was so widespread. It wasn't just the one program, the Feeding Our Future and other COVID money programs. There was also Medicaid fraud extensively throughout Minneapolis and throughout the state of Minnesota, that the whole fraud. On the people of Minnesota and on the US taxpayer as well, because a lot of these are federally funded programs, was over a billion dollars.
So they are still having to go out there and do these interviews to try and spin it because. Who was the author of the bill in U.S. Congress, the Meals Act of 2020, which funded in states this $250 million of the fraud that happened? It was Ilan Omar. She wrote the bill and introduced it into Congress.
It passed bipartisan because it was a COVID relief bill trying to get food to needy families. But $250 million of the billion-dollar fraud went through that program, the meals program, from her legislation.
So, of course, she's going to try and take the blame and not say, oh, I didn't have safeguards in the way that this money would be distributed in my legislation. I have to blame somebody else. Who am I going to blame? The FBI, but not say which FBI, just the FBI and courts generically, as if the courts themselves are the one that bring the charges. But in reality, it's also a little bit more layered.
Because it doesn't necessarily mean that the investigation is if an individual in Minnesota was writing a check to al-Shabaab and handing it over. It's investigating the systems that we have in place that can protect against sending money to a place like Somalia, because these people have family there. A lot of them still have families that are there. If you remit money to Somalia, their entire economy. Is captured by al-Shabaab.
So therefore, they are skimming money off the top. It may not have been intentional funding of terror. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't happening.
Well, you also could flip it and go, this wasn't also COVID fraud as a get-rich-quick scheme, it seemed like for necessarily, if this is where the money was headed, if the money was headed overseas to Somalia, to different areas. It wasn't just the, you'd say, normal level of fraud always. I mean, sure, I'm sure a lot of people's wallets did get thicker in this, and I think that was part of it.
Well, and I think to that point, that's why being able to deflect on one program or the other, it was so widespread that the governor and the regime of Tim Walsh was unable to control fraud on many levels. Within the Feeding Our Future fraud, That one may have the least likelihood of having money that's traced back to al-Shabaab because the people there, there have been 87 people charged with fraud in the state since they've looked into this. And a lot of those people were buying houses, were buying cars. One person had a $9,000 a month shopping budget just going to clothing stores.
So, some of that was keeping it within the community, but some of it also, it wasn't just the Feeding Our Future COVID fraud. There was the Medicaid fraud, false billing, all of these things where money was coming. I do want to clarify, some people are actually in the chat thinking this is a rerun. This is not. I know this is a topic we covered last week, but we are live.
It is Monday. It is December 8th. We are doing this show live today. I know that you may go, oh, I think they talked about this last week. We did talk about this last week, but this is a new development that comes from it because you had Omar making the rounds on the news and kind of starting to throw blame around.
And where does it end up? Of course, it became a top story. I would like to take a call. Let's go to Roy, who's calling from the state of California, listening on the radio. Roy, go ahead.
Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my call. I appreciate that. Appreciate your program. But I do take opposition to the victim being freed.
some of their responsibility to pass on to the FBI. Thing is, is that I was a recipient also of the PPE and there was so much work the banks couldn't even keep up with it, much less the legal enforcements. And there was a lot of fraud going on above and beyond the Somali. Department.
So there's a lot of fraud there.
However, To blame the FBI, I think, at a moment whether it was so difficult, regardless of whose. uh party it was underneath Uh I think would be incorrect. in my mind, a bit deceptive of the victim to throw blame. The next thing is, is that Governor Walls was well funded by some of these individuals. And he held it quite quiet.
Matter of fact, if I understand the news correctly and if the news is, reporting correctly. He kind of put the the squish on any. Anybody that would bring this information to the forefront.
So, Roy, that's exactly what we're hearing is that there were members of the state that were involved in their Department of Human Services that were trying to bring this to the attention of the governor. And many of them, they say, faced retaliation. from the governor and from the governor's office at trying to expose this.
So, yes, I do think that the executive in the state has a lot of culpability here as far as even political repercussions should come out of this. But I partially agree with you on the blaming the policeman for someone running a red light. It was the analogy you used. One, yes, there are fraudsters, and I do think also the mechanisms within the state made it a lot easier. I think you're also right.
We are going to see this start to happen as it gets examined in a lot of other states. We're already hearing a whistleblower in Maine is being reported that similar things happen. Happening in that state. I think a lot of places where you have had Democrat-led governments. In the states that were tasked with distributing funds that come through, they had a lot less safeguards than they should have.
And I'm sure it affected red states as well. It was a time when fraudsters. It was like open season. They decided to go for it.
So we'll continue talking about this, but I do think. As she's saying, that people were charged with fraud. And if there weren't links exposed then, it could be a failure of the FBI. We know that the Biden FBI was not looking into things that would keep America safe. They were going after parents at school board meetings.
They were going after our whistleblower clients. They were going after pro-life advocates. They were fully distracted by what could bring them some popularity amongst their base. Not actually what was happening. We know this.
This is something that is not. I mean, look, again, go to the January 6th pipe bomber that was just arrested a week ago after five years. And it didn't take this current FBI all that long to figure it out. That person was 30 miles away from these sites. When we get back, Cece Howell is going to be joining us.
We'll give you a big update on some of the work of the ACLJ as we are at the year-end drive for the ACLJ. But look, it's important for you to know all the details of what's going on with our work. Of course, we'll be an update coming out of Massachusetts as well on our pro-life cases. You know, we're working there for years now. We got a big update and a lot going on.
Coming up later, we also have. Jeff Balabon joining us from ACLJ Jerusalem. All of your money that you go and support the ACLJ goes to support all of our causes. That's at aclj.org, whether that's here in America, whether that's our ECLJ, or our ACLJ Jerusalem. We'll be right back.
Welcome back to Sekulow, Senior Attorney ACLJ Cece Howells, joining us right now because we have some updates on a lot of our issues. Because right now, We are headed towards, can you believe it? We're on the 8th of the month, I believe, right now.
So we have not that many, we've got two or three weeks left in the month here in our year-end drive. And look, December is a big month for all organizations that are based on donations. You know, this, you're probably getting hit up by everybody right now. It's their year-end big push because we know this is when a lot of you decide when you're going to make your donations. This is our year-end drive.
And the ACLJ work doesn't slow down. It's not just about getting a bunch of emails out to asking you for money or having you respond to website pushes or Instagram pushes or whatever it may be, or even be telling you right here, the work of the ACLJ. Even beyond this show continues on. As Christmas draws closer, it always feels like it gets hotter and hotter here at the ACLJ in terms of the work that we're doing. And a lot of these cases, even the ones that we've been working on for years, and Will can address this, and Will can bring up some of the ones we're talking about here.
Some of these ones we've been working on for years and years, some of what we would start two summers ago. There are big moments happening as we speak. That's right. And there's a lot of things going on on the life front here at the end of the year where ACLJ attorneys are fighting hard to protect the unborn and against states that want to shut down anyone that wants to speak the truth. One thing is that defunding of Planned Parenthood.
Now, we saw that there was that one judge in Massachusetts that found a way to get around the nationwide injunction ban and cobbled together several different injunctions based off of providers and their listing in that law. But now this same judge has issued another injunction based off state suing in Massachusetts, asking for an injunction against the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Cece, this just happened. This is district court. It's being appealed to the First Circuit.
Yes. And the ACLJ is expected to file as soon as we can, both on a motion for stay. The injunction, as well as a merits brief, when that time is that, as well. Yeah, we're talking about the Budget Reconciliation Act. And in that act, Congress rightfully, with the power, and they rightfully have this power to do so because they have the power of the purse, they cut all funding, Medicaid funding, to any entity that provides abortion.
And we saw immediately Planned Parenthood come out of the shoot and fight because they basically were saying, Well, we're entitled to those funds.
So that's this judge in Massachusetts says, I think they are entitled to those funds because she's very much pro-abortion. You can tell in her, you know, opinions that she is.
So we fought that and filed an amicus brief. It went to the First Circuit, and the First Circuit rightfully stopped her injunction.
So then it let the funds again be stopped to these abortion providers. I know this is kind of convoluted, so I'm trying to explain it.
So in the meantime, so right now in that case, the Planned Parenthood case, there is a state. on that injunction so funds cannot go they are not going to planned parenthood parenthood is defunded as we speak as we speak based off of that that's exactly right but in the meantime 22 states led by california shockingly yes filed in massachusetts so here we go with forum shopping because it's california it's California and 21 other states file in Massachusetts. And lo and behold, get this same judge. And their complaint now is this section 7113 of the 2025 Budget Reconciliation Act, which stops, that's right, which stops the funding to abortion providers, Medicaid provortion. They're saying this is too, we can't understand it.
It's too burdensome and too vague for states to administer.
So lo and behold, in another 45-page opinion, this same judge in Massachusetts says, yes, I agree with you, and basically once again, gives this injunction for these 22 states, which really is basically a nationwide injunction. Junction because these are the only states that don't want to enforce that provision.
So basically, it is once again allowing funds to flow into Planned Parenthood. And I think we'll see, hopefully, we'll see this go to the First Circuit. And the First Circuit once again tell this judge, you are wrong. Congress has the power of the purse and they can do this. And we will file yet another amicus brief supporting Congress's right to do so.
And once again, this is at a time when we, the lead story today, Logan, was about fraud within Medicaid programs that it was to the tune of a billion dollars. And the American people want to know that their taxpayer dollars are being used appropriately. In Minnesota, you have huge fraud. In this case, we're talking about Medicaid dollars, taxpayer dollars, going to Planned Parenthood, something that a large portion of America, if not the majority of America, has said, You know what? Maybe that's not what our money should be going to.
But instead, you see the states fighting back, you see the abortion provider fighting back because they want that federal taxpayer dollars. And why wouldn't they? You know, it helps their business. They get money. And why would you not fight for it if you were them as well?
But like Will said, the American people have even largely said that's not really where our money should be going. I think when you have something like a government shutdown and you realize how many things that your government does fund, whether that's, of course, all the SNAP benefits that we talked about.
So it feels like, you know, it feels like that was years ago, that everyone was trying to feed their neighbors.
Now all of a sudden, we're letting the government go back to feeding the neighbors. We don't have to do that anymore. You know, that feels like the... the ethos that now has come upon America. And I feel like same thing.
Maybe you should be learning about what your government's actually paying for and what you want it to be paying for.
So that is one thing that we are fighting for right now, Cece. But another update that I wanted to give, also out of Massachusetts, also on the life front, and this is what Logan alluded to earlier, that campaign that Logan saw in Massachusetts where the government of Massachusetts was funding an ad campaign telling people to not trust pregnancy resource centers, calling them fraudulent clinics. This is now a year and a half near headed towards. It was two summers ago. You know, this was happening.
So, again, these things take time. Yes. And we have a federal lawsuit against the state of Massachusetts. We're fighting there. We overcame a first motion to dismiss, but now we have a second motion to dismiss hearing oral argument on January 29th.
So while our attorneys are getting ready for that, there's also been a positive development out of the Second Circuit.
So this is a different court. And if it were to go on appeal to the First Circuit, it could set up either two circuits kind of agreeing or a split, which could take it to the Supreme Court. But the Second Circuit granted an injunction asked for by pregnancy resource centers that stopped the state. In this case, from restricting the speech of pregnancy resource centers. Today, because of this new ruling, this new injunction that's been granted, the ACLJ is filing a notice of supplemental authority ahead of our oral argument, basically showing: look, There's new precedent on this.
There's new decisions out of a court saying, hey, you got to stop limiting the speech of these PRCs. And so that is a big positive development for our attorneys getting ready for this oral argument. It is. To have a Second Circuit decision like this come out right before we're about to argue the motion to dismiss, it's great to say, hey, the Second Circuit has decided a case that is very similar to this and has granted injunctions stopping the state from going after PRCs.
So it is very helpful. And it goes to Logan's point that our work does not stop because it's the Christmas holiday or a New Year's holiday. It continues on. The courts continue on. Our filings continue on.
Our due dates continue on. And so, yes, we're very excited to have this Second Circuit opinion to show to the First Circuit: hey, this has already been decided and it's decided in our favor. And with that, none of this happens without you. And as we head to the end of this first half hour, no, we have a second half hour coming up. You'll get us on your local station.
We broadcast live each and every day, 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern Time. That's today's. ACLJ.org, on YouTube, on Rumble.
However, get your podcast at We Are There or live streaming. You can find that also on the ACLJ app. But I'm going to ask you right now: none of this happened. Supreme Court work, none of it. The show without your support.
The truth is, We don't have like billion-dollar donors ready to throw down. We have people like you, individuals that give somewhere between $25, $50, $75 to support the work of the ACLJ, either once a year or maybe you give monthly as a champion. But either way, your donation is doubled today. That's at ACLJ.org. Do it today.
We'll be back. Second half hour coming right up. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now, your host, Logan Sekulow.
Welcome back to Sekulow. Second half hour coming up. We do have a few lines still open at 1-800-684-3110. I'd love to hear from you. It's been a good show so far.
We just had Cece Hyle on one of our ACLJ senior attorneys talking about our updates about our ACLJ cases in this country.
Now, we're going to head over in the next segment to ACLJ Jerusalem, where there's a big update going on, as our offices there are always there in talks and negotiations and part of the conversation, making sure American values are being represented in Jerusalem as well. Of course, we have Jeff Balabon there as we are about to head into the second phase of the Israel and Hamas ceasefire. What does that look like? What does it really look like on the ground there right now? Again, I got a lot of friends who've been traveling to Israel.
Seems like things are finally starting to settle in a little bit. We'll discuss that coming up. Of course, when you support the work of the ACLJ, one of those things you support is ACLJ Jerusalem, which I feel like is needed more than ever right now. To make sure, again, that your voice is being heard in places like Israel and in the Middle East. With that, I did want to also, if you're just joining us, you know that our story today, our kind of our big lead story, is the massive scandal that was going out of Minnesota, COVID relief scandal that billions of dollars seemed to be mishandled and maybe handled directly or indirectly to al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-linked terror organization.
And that was for money that was supposed to go, again, to humanitarian relief during COVID.
Now, we know there's a lot of COVID scandals. You know, a lot of people got rich during that. A lot of people found ways around or took advantage of what was going on and some of the handouts that were happening and figured out ways to defraud the government.
However, this one goes beyond that. We actually have statements. They said this seems like it's one of the biggest that would have come out of this. I believe that was what even their own government said. They said this would have been one of the biggest welfare schemes ever.
Actually, let's listen here. This is bite two. This is from, again, this is from Meet the Press or Face the Nation.
Well, you always get whichever one. Brennan. It's Brennan. Margaret Brennan's Face the Nation. Face the Nation.
I'm sorry, I'm not as up to date on my Sunday shows as maybe I used to be. She was talking to Representative Omar, who is now deflecting, placing blame on the FBI. And look, you know what? Maybe she's right, but I don't think she's right for the same reasons that we would probably say it. Let's take a listen.
Bite two. The Binary Justice Department called it the largest COVID fraud scheme in the country. And this was pocketing COVID era welfare funds, more than a billion dollars in taxpayer money that was stolen. It was pretty, pretty shocking. Of the eighty seven people charged, all but eight are of Somali descent, and that has added to the spotlight being put specifically on your community.
Why do you think this fraud was allowed to get so widespread? Yeah.
Well, I want to say, you know, this also has an impact on Somalis because we are also taxpayers in Minnesota. We also could have benefited from the program and the money that was stolen. And so it's been really frustrating for people to not acknowledge the fact that we're also, as Minnesotans, as taxpayers, really upset and angry about the fraud that has occurred. Look, again, this is from Representative Omar. I think what I mainly wanted to point out was, again, that the Biden-era Justice Department even called it the largest COVID fraud scheme in the country.
Again, that was from the Biden administration, and now you have the Trump administration really taking a bitter look at what was going on there and going after it when you have Representative Omar also saying, sure, it's frustrating to them. I bet it is. Uh, look, the communities there, Somali communities, like I said, that is a huge percentage of the people that live there. I'm not saying that everyone that lives there and is a Somalian immigrant was part of this scheme to get money to al-Shabaab or to whoever. Of course, that wasn't necessarily the case, but again, it's a deflection.
And do I like when people go on and start yelling specifically about the Somali community? No, I think that that's a low blow and unnecessary right now. I think we need to look at what was really going on, where the fraud is coming from, where the money is coming from, where it's going, and how it was not taken care of, and how we were not. Taking care of this, and I said from the FBI, I think that's probably true. But now you have a new FBI in charge, and that's what happens.
When we get back, we are going to head over to ACLJ Jerusalem for a big update of what's going on in Israel. You're not going to want to miss this. I want you to still stay engaged in what's happening in Israel. I know it's easy to get exhausted with it or to feel like it's over, but we are still in the midst of it. We are only now heading into what looks to be the second phase of this ceasefire.
But we'll get a big update. Jeff Balabon, we're going to wrap up the show a little bit later with your calls and comments.
So, stay on hold if you're on hold or give me a call at 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Secula. We are now heading over to Jerusalem to ACLJ Jerusalem, and that's Jeff Balabon, who leads our team over in Israel. Make sure that your voice is heard there, the voice of the ACLJ supporters and champions, people that give people that support, whether that is financially or just through your prayers or through commenting online or just being part of the team and being supportive of what we do in Israel and around the world.
Now, Jeff, I did want to give people an update because, again, it's not necessarily making the top news stories here in the States right now. And again, sometimes that's good, sometimes it's bad. But we have Benjamin Netanyahu now saying, hey, we're about to head into the second phase of the ceasefire. Let's give me an update on what that really means and where things stand in the war.
Well, the second stage of the ceasefire is supposed to be under the twenty stage plan. It's supposed to be that Hamas fully disarms the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip. And so far, most of the noise coming out of Hamas and the people in Gaza is that it's not going to happen some I think we may have lost Jeff temporarily. Of course, we're talking about a connection to Jerusalem.
Sometimes that fails. Let's see if we can get him maybe on the phone. With some of these issues.
So, again, we'll get an update of what's going on there. I think it is important as you see people start to open up travel, you see people start visiting Israel to know that it's a thriving community. There's a lot going on. You know, I see a lot of people mixed in the comments right now. I know your support of Israel.
Look, I would encourage you not to listen to, or not to leave. You can listen to whoever you want, but remember to keep your eyes open to a lot of the people who have been saying things that have come off as very anti-Israel. It is okay to challenge. To have conversations about any sort of political parties in Israel or around the world, just like we do here. It's a very diverse country.
You know, you're seeing people celebrate major holidays right now. I think I've seen videos of the celebrations of Hanukkah, the celebrations of Christmas, the celebrations of Muslim holidays, of other holidays that are happening, specifically in the streets of Israel, especially in sort of the more tourist areas where that is happening right now.
So remember that when you're thinking about what it's like over in Israel right now. But, Jeff, I wanted to get back to you now that I believe we have you via phone. Jeff, give us an update. We only heard about five seconds of that. Where are we with this second phase of the ceasefire?
Higher is the demilitarization of Gaza. which means Hamas laying down its arms, actually having its arms cleared up. And it's not just Hamas. I mean, what's notable both in the south, meaning Gaza, and in the north, meaning Lebanon and also Syria, is the territory that borders on Israel, all along Israel. Basically, the reports are that literally every single home had caches of weapons.
Many homes had terror tunnels digged down, some of them all the way through to Israeli territory. And so this is a very sticky phase. Whatever is going to be required to make Israel an Israeli citizen feel remotely comfortable, I think it's going to be very difficult to achieve. Jeff, when you talk about the difficulty of that, one, this I feel like is the sticking point of the deal. This is the one that no one really thought Hamas was going to live up to the first part of the deal, and in many ways they didn't fully.
But if this can happen, then there could genuinely be a transition away from Hamas in Gaza, but that is yet to be seen. We're also seeing a lot of things in that. Portion of the world that is a little troubling. We've seen That a lot of the rhetoric coming out of the Doha Forum, out of Qatar, that is not friendly to Israel, even though many of the attendees have normalized relationships with Israel over the years. You're also seeing many of the American influencers that have become so popular on the right for their anti-Semitic hate they've spewed pop up all of a sudden at the Doha Forum.
When you couple that with also these reports that Israel and the Qataris are meeting secretly talking about maybe bettering the relationship, we know obviously that Israel struck Hamas leaders in Doha and that set tensions pretty high between the two nations. What is your read on kind of the current situation between the Middle East, the neighbors of Israel, and the Israelis right now?
So I think it depends if we're talking about the streets or we're talking about the leadership. And the leadership is a lot of this has to do with the United States and where our leadership is coming from the White House. And if the leadership in the White House leans more towards Israel, then the others will follow. If the leadership means more the other way, then Israel will follow. It's just the way it is.
But Israel does have an existential bottom line. And one of the things that's also striking was last time I was on the air with you, we talked about some of the. uh travels it took to the border areas this past week. Was speaking to the people who are doing security on the border who also live along the border. Their families live there.
And they absolutely live in horror about what happened on October 7th down south, recognize it could happen any time at any of the other borders. They recognize that the people controlling Syria now a minute and a half ago were ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Lebanon, Hezbollah, which was weakened severely by Israel. Nonetheless, all the houses they're finding along the border of Israel, I can't say every single one, but throughout the houses they're finding caches of weapons and terror tunnels. And even last week, while we were down at the border, there was there were reports of Israel finding a fully loaded multiround missiles aimed at Israel.
So this is still a very hot zone no matter what. Israel needs as much of a buffer as owner it can get. And it's very hard to get trust with the Arabs in Gaza. And it's very hard to get trust with the leaders in Doha. You mentioned that Israel struck some Hamash leaders in Doha.
It did take advantage to try and strike them, but Doha, they were hosting the leaders that were literally launching the genocidal attacks against Israel for years. Yeah, Jeff, and I think that that is something we need to make sure that our audience is always staying up to date with in terms of Israel in general, as we have seen. The normalization of a lot of the concern that we've had. Look, look, every Jewish person, anyone with Jewish family, has always had in the back of their head some sort of concern that it could bubble up to the point of absurdity. And it seems like that has happened.
Now, we've seen big rejections on the right as well. You have a Senator Cruz, you have people like that who are not just playing the game, aren't just being quiet, or actually specifically saying we need to be calling out a lot of these so-called conservative voices. Because they are being either funded by, or they are having these conversations that are well beyond just normal complaints or issues with.
Someone's political party. And I think that's where it always gets strange with Israel. I always try to explain to people, they consider it to be a very just conservative area of the world for some reason, just due to the current administration. It would be like saying that everyone in America is a Trump supporter. We know that's not true.
And actually, probably the loudest voices in media are not. It's not that dissimilar, obviously, in a smaller scale, but it's not that dissimilar in Israel, where you have a very diverse political population. They may be more military-friendly in general, just due to the fact that everyone has to serve and all of that. But this is not some sort of, you know, everyone is this hard, right, right-wing person. It is a very diverse, whether that's politically or if it terms of people's faith.
Well, just to really break that down, in a country where everyone has to serve, Military friendly means that they are afraid of war and terrified of war because it means every family is broken up.
So they're military family and there's huge support to the Israel Defense Forces and to the soldiers because everybody's kids and parents. but it's not a warlike country at all. It really it really wants to only live in peace desperately. Anybody who's here sees it, everyone who just wants peace. Unfortunately, it's surrounded by a sea of a billion people who want to eradicate it.
That's Israel's reality from the beginning, and it continues.
Now that's on the one hand. On the other hand, what you're talking about domestically in America, yes, I agree. What we're seeing now in the Republican Party and the Conservative movement is exactly what we saw in around 2018. on the left and with Democrats. Then they sort of in order to get some more support, they reached out to the extremes and they brought in people like Elon Omer and Rashida Tlaib and the squad, AOC, with hyper socialist ideas and hyper Islamist ideas.
And that party, instead of saying, well, listen, ninety percent of us are normal and this is a ten percent fringe, but all the energy went to service that fringe. The problem now having among Republicans And the conservatives is that we're saying, well, listen, we're still 90% normal, and that's 10% fringe.
Okay, but you gotta make sure everyone recognizes they're fringe, and some of the loudest voices. Are saying the most insane fringe things and they're being mainstream. Yeah, absolutely. And we're seeing the exact same thing happen. And we cannot have it happen because, you know, it's hard enough for America to support with one party that's lost its mind.
It's impossible if both parties lose their minds. Totally agree. Look, we just heard an announcement that Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to meet with President Trump in the United States on December 29th.
So that's only about 21 days away to discuss the plan for Gaza's future. And they announced that today. I guess that's a good sign, right, Jeff? As we're about to head into a break?
Well as long as the lines of communication are open and the Prime Minister is able to explain clearly to the President what it is Israelis believe and think their future holds. But yes, we should be optimistic about that. All right.
Well, we'll keep an eye on that as well. Look, you never know. President Trump's certainly someone who's been pushing for peace in all these areas. Whether that sometimes is the right move or not, I guess you could discuss it. Of course, he's a peace kind of guy who wants to get a lot of deals done.
Sometimes those deals. Represent his party.
Sometimes they don't necessarily, but he is certainly about ending as many wars as possible, which I think can overwhelmingly be a good thing. Thank you for calling for being a part of this, Jeff. When you support the work of the ACLJ, you're also supporting ACLJ Jerusalem. You're also supporting the European Center for Law and Justice because it's our year-end drive. When we get back from the break, I want to hear from you.
That's at 1-800-684-3110. But again, I'm going to keep that QR code up on screen for right now, which is scan it or just go to aclj.org. This is a big moment. You've heard about our Supreme Court cases. You've heard about so much.
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Do it today during our year-end drive at ACLJ.org. We'll be back with your calls and comments coming up. Four lines open at 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Sekulow. Now it's time to hear from you, and I want you to call in.
We do have a few lines open still at 1-800-684-31-10. Hopefully, everyone had a great weekend as we head now into one of the last weeks of the year. I can't believe we are already at this point in the year where we are talking about our year-end drive. We were talking about December. It is December 8th.
We are talking like 15 days away from Christmas, something like that. 18 days. It's wild. I know that that's something that a lot of people say, but time moved very fast this year. And we really could use your support during our year-end drive.
So we're going to encourage you to do that if you can. Let's go ahead and take some calls. You know, I saw some comments, Will. People were like, this is clickbait. I saw that too.
Saw a clickbait. They put in the headline that this is about Omar and the FBI. And they're talking about the Middle East. You know what I'm going to say to you, person of interest? We did 51 minutes of show so far.
Probably 47 of those was on that topic. We diverted briefly. And I'm sorry that when you decided to click on, we had moved on, but we said we'd get back to it and we're going to. I like to call out just the one individual part. It makes them feel great about themselves, really.
Should, really. And I know that we're reading your messages.
So let's go to Curtis, who's calling in Hawaii. On line two, Curtis, go ahead. Yeah.
I like this. See Elon O'More investigated 'cause she wrote the program and she got enriched Her bank account went up during this period.
Well, so Curtis, I don't know about the allegation there at the end, specifically if that relates anything to what's going on here. But what I do know is that, yes, it is correct. She did write the bill in Congress, the 2020 Meals Act, which opened up the door where the fraudsters took action and went after her, and went after the money that was being given from the federal government to the state and stole it. And so she, back in 2022, was one of the first people to actually call out the fraud, and she did return donations that were given to her campaign. By people that were charged with a crime.
So at least I feel like this is our strange Omar apologizing.
Well, I'm just saying, one, if there was just because you write a bill, even if it's a poorly worded bill and ends up being ripe for fraud, the rest of the Congress also voted for it. It was a bipartisanly passed.
So therefore, I don't think just because someone writes a bad bill means that they are. actually a part of the crime.
However, I do think it is important that All of it be investigated by the treasury to find out if money was going back to terrorists because that is the more important part to me: is that if our taxpayer dollars were going to fund terrorism, even inadvertently, because of the way it's not like you call Western Union and go directly to Somalia to wire money in the way that you could many other places in the world, their economy is run differently, it is not as sophisticated, and it is controlled by the terrorist in many ways where they skim money off the top.
So, you're doing a lot of Western Union in these days? No, I'm just saying that is if you know how to wire money, I think that's one place you can go. Yeah, pulling down the wagons. No, that's Wells Fargo. I feel like the same thing.
Is it? Maybe it is. I don't know. I don't know a lot of people doing a lot of Western Union. I mean, it's the Western Union.
Hey, but Curtis is calling from Hawaii. Will do you know how to say Merry Christmas in Hawaiian? I think you know. What is it? I can't say it.
It's, you know, Malakaliki Maka. It's a good thing to say on a bright Hawaiian Christmas day. But, Curtis, thank you so much for calling. Wendy in California. Yeah, you say Merry Christmas in California.
Happy holidays. Oh, Wendy. Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't even know that that's a joke, I guess. Wendy, go ahead.
You're on the air. Yeah.
Oh, Merry Christmas. There you go. Merry Christmas. And I'm I'm wondering if the hire up politicians and people that um Will it get proven they were involved? And if so, will they be prosecuted?
And my second question is if Ilhan Omar is proven to be involved because she became very wealthy over a short period of time. But as you said in your previous comment about her, But I'm just wondering if there's that possibility of getting any of these monies back. Yeah, well, Will is the ultimate Omar defender.
So, Will, I'm going to have to say that. I'm not defending anyone. One, I think it's interesting, Wendy, you are bringing up part of the reason many members of Congress get so wealthy so fast is what people like Tim Burchett out of Tennessee is trying to stop. And he actually is with Jayapol. They have co-sponsored legislation to try and end the stock stock trading issues.
And that is where you see, because when you are on many of these committees and you know something's coming in advance and you happen to buy stock, that's legal for them to do currently. And they're trying to ban that.
Some members of Congress are. But that is the big way that many of these members of Congress get wealthy is they are able to know the future, so to speak, when it comes to some of these companies. But as far as will anyone go to jail for this, one, we know that 87 people have been charged in Minnesota for fraud. That's a lot of people.
Some people, according to, have gone to jail for this. There have been people who've been sentenced already. But now we are seeing that the fraud was beyond, just like I said, get rich quick schemes or things like that. We are seeing now that the funding was going to, again, now potentially funding terrorism through al-Shabaab. That changes a lot of this.
And I haven't seen any direct allegations other than uncomfortably close to these politicians. People that owned a restaurant that Ilon Omar had a victory party at, happened to be one of the fraudsters, things like that.
So by relation to the community. Being in a room alone with politicians is uncomfortably close. I mean, and some would say maybe you're close to criminals. It depends on the politician and the way you go. It's a good joke, Logan.
I like it. You're very jokey today.
Well, you know, it's Friday. I would also say, though, that there haven't been allegations of direct wrongdoing by these politicians other than the fact that they had the mechanisms in their state that made it so easy for fraud to happen. There should at least be political consequences. These people. We are grateful that the Vice President of the United States is not Tim Walls because we see how great his administration did at stopping waste, fraud, and abuse in his state.
Imagine that on a national scale. People like that, if they can't control the budgets and the fraud in their own state. I want to quickly take this last call. Josh in Pennsylvania online three. Josh, go ahead.
We only got about a minute. Go ahead. Yes, I saw you put that clip of Omar Jillham on the Face of the Nation. How more how much more smug and offended Shakia she could have could have looked? By that question.
Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. If I just stated what she said, it doesn't come off very egregious at all. It comes off as, hey, not unlike some of the conversations we've had here. It's why when we're talking about it, hey, we may agree with her on the substance of it. But when you hear it, you hear the deflection.
You hear the nature of it. Again, the smugness of it saying, how dare you think this? And this, of course, is what it is. I think you're right, Josh. A lot of it is in tone.
A lot of it isn't messaging. And that has been the case for members of the squad really the whole time, which is this tone of self-righteousness. But with that, we do need to start wrapping up the broadcast for today. I appreciate Josh for calling in. And a lot of you called in.
And I knew we need to clarify it is Monday because now people are like, I knew it was a tape. It was not a tape. I was a joke, okay? I'm just trying to make people laugh, whether it's you here at home, listening online, whether it's a podcast, whether it's the people in the studio, because when they laugh, I feel vindicated. Yeah, because they have no sense of humor.
Yeah, and because they can't. You can't hear them, but I can see them laugh.
So I don't know if they just mime it for me. But it is what it is with that. I want you to support the work of the ACLJ. It's not all fun and games here, it's not all jokes.
Okay. got serious work to do. You heard from C.C. Hil, our ACLJ attorney, senior attorney. You heard from uh ACLJ Jerusalem, Jeff Balabon.
You heard from some great callers all the way from Hawaii. and other places. None of that happens without you. and your support.
So I'm gonna ask you right now, if you enjoy this show. Let people know about it.
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