On today's show, details emerge on the Iran ceasefire agreement. Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.
And now, your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow. It's Wednesday. We're halfway through the week. It doesn't feel like it, but somehow we are here.
It feels like we should already be at the end of the week with the amount of crazy chaos that has happened.
Now, look, when we went off the air yesterday, we all were talking about the looming threat coming from President Trump to end the civilization in Iran.
Now, we discussed at length whether this was a negotiation tactic, whether President Trump was going to have to go ahead with these attacks, what would it look like a few hours later? I think around 6, 7 p.m., somewhere around then there was finally. An announcement that a plan had been put in place for a ceasefire. with Iran two weeks Two weeks' ceasefire, and including what would look like the opening of the Straits of Hermus.
However, Just how it seems to be. A few hours later, we know that there were attacks still happening in Israel. People were confused. We're going to break all that down, as well as some of the information and some of the misinformation that is coming out about what this potential peace plan, if you will, or what this potential agreement with Iran looks like. And maybe there are going to be some pieces in this that you're not going to be too thrilled with.
But again, all of this is starting to come out from various sources.
So certainly be checking your facts. But we're going to try to give you the most reliable information we have over the next hour. That's right. And what I would say to people and caution people: if you're going on X right now or on Facebook and you see someone post a 10-point plan and calls it a deal with Iran, go ahead and disregard it because neither the United States nor Iran has released the official reply from Iran.
So the way this worked is that we put in 15 points that we wanted Iran to agree with weeks ago. That is part of the reason President Trump was pushing them and finally got to yesterday that he will see the death of a civilization. Iran finally last night before the deadline released their 10-point reply.
So this isn't an Iran deal in any sort of fashion. This is a we're doing a two week ceasefire now that the two sides have put out what they think they want out of this and they can negotiate that forward.
Now There are reports from even legacy media that differ about what those 10 points are because they're getting it from secondhand sources. I will say that Iran's 10-point reply Is not something the United States should accept. If they did, it would be very dangerous, I think, for the world. But we will get into what some of those that are coming from legacy sources, some sources that maybe have better connections. But I would caution everyone, Jordan, if you're seeing a 10-point plan on X posted by even someone you trust, I would not trust that that is what is being negotiated at this point.
No, there's bits and pieces that are being reported by mainstream news outlets, like Will said, but even some of those conflict, like this $2 million fee to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. And just to remind you that before this conflict began, and this was even after the attacks over last summer, Iran was not like imposing a fee to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. They weren't in, technically, they were not in control. They weren't operating. It's not the Panama Canal.
They weren't the country in charge.
So they weren't implementing any kind of fee. Obviously, there was always concern about being attacked, not just by. Iran, but by its proxies. And so you always look to whether or not that was going to be safe passage for 70% of the world's oil.
Now, it's only 20% of the U.S. oil. And I think we could quickly, if we needed to, based off our own stockpiles and what we have here in the United States, not be relying on any of that. But we purchased that from some of our allies and friends in the Gulf states to keep those relationships moving. You want the Strait of Hormuz open.
But I do want to remind people, it was open until this began. And that was not the issue of why we went to war this second time or the air campaign in Iran was not to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. It actually closed the Strait of Hormuz and has now put Iran in this position where they say we want to be in charge. The U.S. is saying through President Trump that it could be a joint operation between the U.S.
and Iran where we will split the fees.
So, I mean, that's one thing that President Trump has said. We haven't gotten a response back from Iran on that. But yet, the big picture issue is still the nuclear issue. Hey, phone lines are open for you. I want to hear from you.
1-800-684-3110. We're going to keep it going. Just a minute. Be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow.
If you're just joining us, which I know a lot of you are, we are gonna break down. At least the current structure of what we know about this deal with Iran. This obviously happened if you're just tuning in. Late in the evening yesterday, before the, let's say, the countertown expired. As President Trump announced that a deal had been made with Iran, the details of that deal have just come out of different sources.
So we have to be very, very careful with what we report, what we tell you about, and understand that a lot of this is just current information that is getting itself out there. And there was a deal. put in place or presented by Iran. that we have seen. That deal, at least for collectively from us, feels like there are many goals.
And many points in that plan which we can address. Which are really should be deal breakers.
Well, and to be clear on that as well, we are seeing reports about what the Iranian 10-point thing is. Take everything, even from legacy media, even though they have editors and legal departments, they feel comfortable putting this out. It is still reports because we have not seen the actual document that was presented to the U.S. negotiations. We may not, because as President Trump said on True Social last night, we received a 10-point proposal from Iran and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate.
So he sees this as the back and forth of negotiation.
Now, we also know that some of the things being reported have, in a way, been confirmed by the President that it's at least similar because one, The Strait of Hormuz issue, which a lot of people came out and were like, Iran has put in their proposal that they will control the Strait of Hormuz, which would be different than it is now, as Jordan pointed out. That would be a win for Iran. There was conflicting on whether they would control it and there would be this $2 million per ship toll to go through that some reports are saying Iran would split with Oman. Which is on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump told Jonathan Carl, reporter, longtime reporter from ABC, that he asked him if he's okay with the Iranians charging a toll for all ships that go through the Strait of Hormuz.
And the President responded with: We're thinking of doing it as a joint venture, a way of securing it, also securing it from other people.
So that's different than the report of Iran and Oman. That would be Iran and the United States, which also raises some concerns of having some sort of business relationship with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Right, because this is the Islamic The Islamic state of Iran, right? I mean, so you're talking about Doing business not with a new government, not with new freedoms for its people. The President's been saying new regime, but all that really means is a new group of people in the same government.
In the same regime. Right. They're the same regime, new people because they killed some of their top leaders, and other leaders then rose up from that. From the religious side, the political side, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard side, and their military.
So, what we saw was that Iran did not crumble because of leadership, top leaders being taken out. I mean, there might be an Ayatollah who's not even in conscience, and they're still operating and able to get this done. At the same time, I mean, I don't think President Trump ever wanted to carry out what he threatened to carry out, knowing President Trump. I think he was pushed. He knew that with Iran, you have to push them as hard as you can with the toughest language possible.
He did that over the last few days and finally got to an agreement he felt like he could at least be comfortable with for hopefully two weeks while they negotiate. Here's what we'll see. Is the Strait of Hormuz actually going to be open? How safe will that passage be? And uh why is Iran continuing to attack Are allies who have also endorsed this deal, including Israel, but not just the Jewish state of Israel, the UAE, and Kuwait.
So Iran is saying, no, this was just a deal between us and the U.S., we can still fire at these other places.
So Israel was being fired upon after the 8 p.m. deadline Eastern Time, and they had that in Tel Aviv from Iran, not just from Hezbollah. And so you've got a situation which is, again, always very complicated in the Middle East. But do we actually get to a real Middle East ceasefire? Then does the Strait of Hormuz actually open?
And does this last for even two weeks? What makes me nervous, I had the team printed out, is that we end up with another one of these. Remember this? The joint comprehensive plan of action, the JCPOA from the Obama administration, they got called the Iran nuclear deal, July 14th, 2015.
Okay, so just about 11 years ago. Unsigned. basically bullet points of goals that President Trump immediately Immediately left and said the U.S. is no longer part of when he became President the first time and when he became President again. Yeah.
To get an actual deal. I mean, are there going to be signatures? Is this just a play for a ceasefire to see, again, what we can get done for our allies? Because at this point, What we see in just as if you pause it right now. The Islamic Republic of Iran and their regime is still very much in charge of the 90 million people in Iran.
And actively bombing Israel. Actively bombing Israel, the UAE, and Kuwait, where a lot of American military is.
Okay, so that's part one. Part two, they are now controlling the Strait of Hormuz. They were not in control of the Strait of Hormuz before this campaign began. They, of course, could disrupt ships passing through and have done that before, but they were not in control. And no one was ever negotiating to say, hey, you can ultimately be in some kind of control or power-sharing agreement.
Would you actually be comfortable, I want to ask this question to our audience. With the United States of America. Doing a business deal on the Strait of Hormuz. with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which killed 30,000 of its citizens just in the past six weeks because they were rising up against the regime because we were urging them to do so. And I do want to add to this as well, Jordan, a couple of points along those lines of where it differs from something like a JCPOA.
Iran reportedly is requiring this or wanting this to be done through a joint resolution, binding resolution at the UN. Yes, more serious than the JCPOA, but at the same time, binding at the UN. You have wiggle room there. But they are trying to make it where it wasn't just what Obama did with them, where the next President could pull out. Two, some of the points that are being reported that should be non-starters are them wanting to continue enrichment of uranium to a certain level, much like the JCPOA, as well as a withdrawal of U.S.
military forces from the Middle East, not just what we have built up, but that would be all our bases. That would be a non-starter for the United States, as well as... This issue of whether or not they then control the strait of Hormuz going forward. There is also reports now that. That uh Iran is kind of trying to move the goalpost because uh of the Lebanon issue with Hezbollah.
That they are trying to say, we want for this ceasefire to hold it to include Hezbollah. Uh that would be them trying to move the goalpost already while they are still hitting people like Kuwait and the UAE.
So even if you take Israel out of it, which you shouldn't, they are hitting the members of the Gulf states that have traditionally been more neutral towards them. Continuing. They are doing this. When their ceasefire, their biggest problem was the fact that those countries had the U.S. bases, and that is where attacks were coming from in many cases.
The fact there that they are continuing to hit these Gulf nations isn't going to make this easier to get to a deal. I think what our job to do is to come out clearly, and that's why I asked that question: Would you really be comfortable? And I want to hear your thoughts on it. At 1-800-684-301-10, would you really be comfortable with the US in a business relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran? Basically, splitting tolls through the straight of hormoose.
I guess it would be what, 50-50, we get a million dollars per ship, they get a million dollars per ship, because then you are just entrenching. The Islamic Republic of Iran and its worst actors for the time, for as long as that deal lasts. I mean, when would that come to an end? I mean, It'd be very difficult to get out of a deal like that if things were running smoothly for economic purposes. But then, how does Israel defend itself if under this deal, Hezbollah is allowed to continue to grow as a military?
Are they allowed to continue to shoot at Israel, but Israel can't fire back? I mean, is that part of this deal? The whole reason this we're here is to prevent Iran from a nuclear weapon. And in everything they've said, they're saying we're going to continue to enrich uranium. They've never given that up.
Yeah. And phone lines are open for you. We do want to hear from you today. That may be the reason it never gets through. I hope.
I did want to jump in there. I'm hoping we don't get a deal like that because I cannot see the U.S. agreeing to a deal where Iran is allowed to enrich uranium.
Well, I think we need to discuss going, you know, in the next segment you brought up, you know, that the Strait of Hermoose was open, this was not one of those talking points.
Now it's become really the deal maker. And this is something that honestly our government did not expect to be something they were willing to risk as Iran. I would say, though, that was always the calculus that Iran could. Close the Strait of Hormuz because of where they had military wood. It was always in the calculus, and I think it was not necessarily a surprise in the way we feel it.
It seems like it's become the one thing people have talked about. It's the one big moment here. And like you said, it wasn't closed beforehand. Even asked last summer's serious. Yeah, yeah, let's keep talking about it.
The phone lines are starting to fill up: 1-800-684-3110. Rick Rennell will be joining us, but later in the show, so we have some time even in the next segment to hear from you. And hey, we haven't spent a lot of time talking about it because of the news of the day. But the ACLJ, we're in the middle of the double the difference drive. Be a part of it right now.
Make your donation today, and your financial contribution will be doubled, matched. By an ACLJ member or champion. In the next segment, also I'll break down some of the key things that are happening right now as we speak that the ACLJ team is working on.
Some for the individual, some for as big as nations. We'll be right back with more on Sekulow. Welcome back to Secula. We are going to take your calls in this segment. A lot of you are calling in right now, still one line open at 1-800-684-3110.
Look, I think there's a call right now we should take right off the bat because Alex is calling on line one with a question I think a lot of people are asking. Alex, go ahead. Hi guys, glad you're there. Thank you for the show. Um I'm very concerned.
I mean, I would hope that the framework of this peace agreement, if it does happen and it ends up being something solid, that The military excursion that we've embarked upon, are we still going to get the benefit of taking the oil? To get repaid for, you know, repaid back for that.
Well, here's one thing I know about Iran, Alex. Money's only ever gone one way. From the U.S. to Iran. And that is, you know, whether we were trying to get back Americans who were held hostage or facing the death penalty, or to try and make other deals because of their nuclear program.
So we released funds that we had under a seizure here in the United States that were Iranian funds.
So I've never seen funds go from the Islamic Republic to the United States.
So that would be something new.
Now, what is proposed by President Trump this morning is that the possibility that we split.
Some kind of tollage fees in the Strait of Hormows that did not have a toll before.
So this would also include, by the way, not just the US working with the Islamic Republic of Iran. And we don't know how much of this is bluster. We don't. I mean, and I will give that to President Trump. He is the master of that.
And so even this two weeks, we have no longer how I don't want to make too many judgments yet. What we can talk about is what we know, and that's about it. Everything else is speculation. I mean, you look down on Twitter, and people are writing things that there's no way we'd agree to, there's no way Iran would agree to, so it couldn't be the actual points. But, but, Would the world accept?
The U.S. and Iran charging $2 billion of vessel. I mean, it's not like we could just say that, sure. And yes, they need the oil, but that is a bizarre. Business relationship for the U.S.
Because under that kind of agreement, is Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran, going to allow any more freedoms for its people? Or is it going to stop funding terror groups that kill Americans? We're doing an equal deal with that leadership. Yes, how does that all. Work out in two weeks.
The fact is That would take an actual regime change. And a regime change means it's no longer the Islamic Republic of Iran. I do see a lot of conversation because those clips are going around where there are still, obviously, attacks happening within Israel. And people are questioning: well, doesn't that violate this ceasefire?
So we have some clarification on that. According to the ceasefire, it is between the United States and Iran. And then Iran continued to strike places. Even though Israel was for this ceasefire, it was explicitly not covering the other parties that are involved in this at this point. Iran decided Israel was still striking.
Hezbollah in Lebanon, not Iran, as a part of this. And Iran still was striking Israel, but not just Israel. They were striking the UAE. Kuwait had one of the largest incursions since the start of this from Iran, which is curious why they would still be trying to provoke even their neutral parties in the Gulf historically. We're used to dealing with them.
Exactly. And yet they have. And Candy, I know I'm going to go to Candy Online too. I know I kind of beat you to the punch here on this question, but you also have a follow-up.
So if you have anything else, I'll let you go there. Candy and Georgia, go ahead. Hey. I'm personally against the ceasefire. Number one, because they shot down two of our pilots.
Fortunately, we were able to rescue them. And they already broke the ceasefire. They're shooting missiles. Yeah, again to clarify, they are shooting missiles not at the United States of America. Supposedly, under the Iranian interpretation, I don't know if the U.S., by the way, has accepted this interpretation yet.
So that's got to be clear too. But under the Iranian interpretation, Candy, they, because I asked this question last night too, which is, are they doing their final barrage like before 8 p.m. Eastern Time? Right. Yeah, before the DOE ended.
And it continued. And it continued into Israel and it continued into the UAE and they continued into Kuwait and they have continued.
So right now, Iran's official position is this is just between the U.S. And Iran, that we're not firing at U.S. bases or U.S. personnel in the region, and that the U.S. is not going to be firing on Iran, you know, mostly air campaign that we've been launching.
So that I don't think can last two weeks if war is basically continuing, except between us and Iran, because we can't let our allies like the UAE and Kuwait get blasted by Iran and we're not helping to respond to those attacks. I mean, we got them into this, and we're not going to fire back to protect them in their interest when they are the ones who host our military bases. I don't care for that.
Well, and once again, there's new reporting coming out about this. This is from the Wall Street Journal literally moments ago that. Israel was informed late about the ceasefire deal and wasn't pleased with it. Once again, though, for all those crazy people on the right that say Israel controls us, how did we do this without them giving the stamp of approval? But once again, this also goes to show from the Wall Street Journal reporting that Iran has told the mediator, so those are the Pakistanis in this case, that their participation in the upcoming talks with U.S.
officials in Islamabad are conditional on a ceasefire in Lebanon as well, warning it might also reverse its decision on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. People familiar with the matter said. The Iranian mediators have also warned they would continue to carry out attacks on regional countries, including Israel, if attacks on Lebanon and Iran by Israel continue.
So. This is a fragile ceasefire as it was already, but you're starting to see them move the goalpost. It wasn't agreed upon that it would include places like Lebanon, where probably at this point their most valuable proxy is, even though it's been greatly decimated in Hezbollah. But once again, this could fail quickly. This is why this is not a deal, this is just a ceasefire, is something to keep reiterating.
Because remember what we heard yesterday morning from the detractors of the President: President Trump is a war criminal. Today, he has surrendered to Iran. And so, the fact that they are so willing to politically spend something that is as fragile as a ceasefire, it's like they want the United States to fail in general, just completely across the board. Midterm election year, it's the politics of war. And, like you said, one day you are going to be a war criminal if you continue this.
The next day, you are weak. Because you have gotten into a two-week ceasefire to try and negotiate with the Islamic Republic of Iran. I'm going to keep calling them the Islamic Republic of Iran because you keep hearing regime change from the administration, and that's just not how I define, or I don't think really anyone defines regime change. A regime change means it's no longer the Islamic Republic, it may still be Iran, but it's not being run by Islamic authoritarians and religious leaders who are Twelver Shia Islamists. And so, like the Ayatollah and these supreme leaders in these guardian councils.
That has not occurred. And the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is in firm control of. Again, they may not have the capabilities they had. Three, four weeks ago. It's still using words creatively.
It's still saying a regime change to the American people with an assumption of what that means, and it simply is not what it means right now.
Now we'll see how everything plays out. We do have a second half hour coming up. We want you to be a part of that as well. Stay on hold if you're on hold. A lot of you are called in, phone lines are jammed.
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Keep this free. Keep this a part of everyone's world at aclj.org today. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Seculum.
Welcome back to Sekulow, second half hour of the show. Phone lines are mostly jammed, one's open, 1-800-684-3110. If you're just joining us right now, we are going over what happened overnight and since then. When we left you, Yesterday, President Trump had issued that statement saying that we are going to bring the end of civilization to Iran at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.
Unless a deal is struck, and a deal was struck, we said. Maybe this is a negotiation. Likely, that's what it was. President Trump pushing them as far as he possibly could to get a deal.
Now there is a deal. The details of that deal Are starting to come out, but are not necessarily 100% accurate.
So we've been walking you through the last hour what we know, what we've heard. And what we think could be true.
Some of it good, some of it not good. We're just being honest with you. I think that is the difference between us and a lot of shows that you're going to listen to. A lot of organizations, we tell you the truth. We don't fall on a party line.
We tell you if we think that there is something that is good in this, we'll tell you if there is something bad in this. And there are quite a few on both sides here.
Well, and I think, Logan, it's important when we say deal, the deal was a ceasefire for 12 days. And what was given, the agreement to negotiate. Along with that, Iran attached a 10-point proposal. That is not the deal. That is the proposal from Iran.
The deal is a two-week ceasefire while they negotiate. But, Jordan, the details of that proposal: one, the United States will not accept as it is, especially with President Trump putting on truth, there will be no enrichment of uranium in whatever deal comes out. If they get to a deal, And there is some sort of loophole for Iran to continue enriching uranium, continue a nuclear program. That is not a good deal for the United States. No, it's not.
I mean, I'd say right now, all that has happened is that President Trump has decided, based off the Iranian response, that there was enough there. to try and put in place the ceasefire. to have two weeks to negotiate. That doesn't mean that we've accepted any of the points, and it doesn't mean Iran has accepted any of the points. What we've been trying to go through and say, these would be kind of non-starters.
So, Iran continuing to rich uranium, Hezbollah being able to continue to arm itself without anybody ever being able to fight back. You know, does it stop Hezbollah from firing on Israel? It hasn't yet, but would that be part of the deal?
So, Hezbollah is just a domestic military force and is no longer concerned about the state of Israel. That would be a big shift for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Doing business with Iran, you know, sharing the toll in the Strait of Hormuz while they shout, are they good? You know, they still chant death to America, death to Israel. How does that work?
So, again, what we're saying is these are what the two sides have been putting out that have been reported. And I think there are some non-starters here. President Trump believed that there was enough starters. Within what they sent back to hold off on the complete destruction of civilization in Iran. If we ignore, though, the plight of the people in Iran, is this a failure?
I mean, I think there is part of you going, I know that wasn't necessarily always the goal, but for a lot of us, it was. Yes, I think if you don't stop their nuclear program, And they have any control over the Strait of Hormuz, and the Islamic Republic is still entrenched in power. I'm not sure why we went to why we started this conflict this time. And certainly, this was not what Israel was proposing either to the U.S. We could have done something more limited, like we did last summer, which was continue to make their nuclear facilities inoperable.
And we could do that. For ever and ever. You know, we showed we had the ability to do that. No US troops were injured. We get in, we get out.
So we could continue to do that. This, I thought, was a much bigger goal of seeing a different Iran. And now, you know, it's been walked back. And look, the two-week thing also, there is a concern that the American people two weeks from now are no longer paying attention to this, and it all just. Dissolves.
It goes away. In two weeks from now, you're not even thinking about Iran. There's no more war. Close to summer. Yeah, exactly.
And we've just moved on. And that's not unlike the American people. It's not unlike the American news media.
So let's keep that conversation going. Phone lines are open for you: 1-800-68-430-110. Rick Rinnell is going to be joining us, obviously, with a different perspective. We'll see what his views are on this, as things have changed so rapidly since we spoke with him just 24 hours ago. We'll be right back with more on Sekulow.
Stay tuned. Go to aclj.org also and support us during the Double Difference Drive. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you.
We're going to take them in the next segment. Rick Rinnell's joining us right now. Rick. A lot has changed in 24 hours. We want to obviously get your point of view.
There was obviously a lot of talk within this show, even, that whether this was going to be a negotiation point, what President Trump was saying on Truth Social. And of course, that ended up being the case as a deal was somewhat, I know Will's wanted me to reframe it. And I don't want to say a deal was struck, but a plan was made. The only deal that happened was an agreement to a two-week ceasefire to negotiate. There was a proposal by Iran that was submitted that none of us have seen the.
Well, I don't want to speak for you, Rick, but none of us have actually seen the text of. There are just a bunch of reports.
So. We do want to caution people. That's what they read online, or even from the mainstream legacy media, may not be reality when we're talking about what is happening here. May not be reality. Yeah.
Let's just say that there are a lot of. Reporters pretending to know they don't know the details. But let's talk about what we do know. What we do know is that Donald Trump is somebody who is very clear-eyed about bad deals. He's not interested in doing bad deals.
He's pointed out all the bad deals that Obama did, that President Biden did. We can't have a situation where the Iranians lie to us, we get duped again, and then suddenly we're giving money. Donald Trump is not going to be that guy. He's very clear-eyed. J.D.
Vance is very clear-eyed and skeptical. And so, what we have is a big celebration of an agreement in principle. And now the hard work begins because you can sit around academically and talk about how to come to an agreement, which is what we did and that should be celebrated. But it's quite a difference when you start to implement those deals and real-world politics takes over. It's one of the reasons why Jake Sullivan, the academic national security advisor in the last administration, couldn't forge real peace agreements because it was all an academic exercise to him.
He doesn't have real world diplomatic skills. I know that when you're sitting across the table doing diplomacy, One of the greatest things for Trump Diplomats is that we have behind us a guy who has a credible threat, and that's the President of the United States, Donald Trump. A very credible threat, not just a threat to say no, but a credible threat. And that helps us when we're negotiating. Because if you're sitting across the table from me, I get to say to you: look, we're trying to forge a diplomatic peace deal here.
But make no mistake, you know, if we fail here, I have to go back and turn this over to the President of the United States. And he has got a credible threat to not negotiate, but to actually take action. And so that helps diplomats. And that's one of the reasons why I think we're in this celebratory phase of a ceasefire. But now the hard work begins.
Rick, one thing I wanted to ask you about is yesterday morning, after we saw the threat from the President, That a civilization will die tonight, that he was called by many a war criminal. Uh and in seeking genocide. Then a ceasefire is reached, so, no more hostilities for a period of time. And those same voices, many of them, elected officials, United States senators. have now said he surrendered to Iran.
How can you have it both ways? If you continue the hostilities, we're criminal. If you stop hostilities to try to get to a better world, you're now a coward and you surrender. Help me make sense of this one.
Well, it's called Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Everybody's a hypocrite, and you have to make sure that you understand that people will just do things for partisan political purposes. And that's not Donald Trump's. He's somebody who has taken on the conservative movement, the Republicans, when appropriate. And he is somebody who we know wants peace and it does serious diplomacy.
Again, not just like chicken diplomacy where you just meet in the middle and cut everything in half. Uh, and you claim a win. No, Donald Trump is pushing for real diplomacy for the protection of Americans. And so I think we should celebrate this ceasefire clearly, but now the real work begins. I saw Pete Hegseth come out and say, Look, we are going to make sure that we hold them to their word.
There will be consequences if they don't meet those words. And so, you know, let's wait and see how this is implemented because that's the seriousness that we now have to look at. But let's celebrate an agreement in principle and let's now hold them to account to those words. Rick, what I've tried to tell our audience today is that, listen, you can see things that you don't agree with in lots of statements that are coming out about what might be in the U.S. side, what might be in the Iranian side.
And at the same time, probably everybody who isn't involved in this directly. uh has to take a s uh uh kind of sit back. and wait to see what comes out of this Ceasefire and the negotiations, because, or else, you could drive yourself crazy by trying to figure out what's said on this X, what's posted here, what's posted there, this comment this morning, who's in control now. And so, while it's okay, I think for people to say this seems like it would be a non-starter for the U.S. for the Iran to continue to enrich uranium, and it seems like it would be a non-starter for Iran to somehow no longer fund Hezbollah, but Israel can't strike things like that if necessary.
I mean, it's just very messy. And I think to hear from you, the beginning of ceasefires. In history, we see they are kind of messy. Yeah, look, it's academic versus real world politics. And that's exactly where we are: is that you sit around a table, you academically come to an intellectual agreement.
Yes, you'll do this, we'll do that.
Okay, great. We both want this peace deal. But it's quite different when you leave that room and then you have to control both sides, you have to control things, third parties, you have to control. real world politics that unfold for you and against you, and you have to now become a leader and implement this.
So the President Trump and his diplomats understand very clearly that sitting in a room and getting agreement is just the beginning. I was going to ask you that, Rick, you know, before we end this segment, is there's a lot of expect the unexpected kind of moments right now. But what should the American people be thinking? The ones who were maybe, you know, stressed out over yesterday's post and concerned of what's going to happen, and then obviously see 24 hours how quickly things have changed. Things are moving rapidly, more so than they maybe ever have.
Or we have seen a change in news cycle, if you will, what feels like every few hours.
So, what do you think is the next step? What should the American people be expecting? And how should they feel right now in terms of even their own safety and security?
Well, I'm not going to be the best on giving advice about feelings because a lot of times we have to ignore the feelings and just go with results.
So here's my advice. Judge politicians, judge leaders, judge the President, judge President Trump. on actual results. Make sure that you are having the barometer of saying, did we achieve results? I think already we can say that President Trump is unlike.
Any other President, and he has been able to achieve results in Iran already. But now we have to hold that barometer and just make sure that we get results. It's going to be messy in the short term. Whenever you try to fix a problem, it's not always comfortable and easy because you're taking on the status quo. This is Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C. politicians are much better at just wanting to kick the can down the road and have what appears to be peace, but it's just really a bland, stable positions. And that bland stable. Position continues to cause problems for decades. And most people are just afraid to go in and try to fix the problem.
Donald Trump is fixing it. Hold him to that process of saying, did you achieve results? And just remember the critiquing of the style. Is only done on Republicans. We never critique the style of Democrats.
We certainly, I don't see the mainstream media critiquing Barack Obama's conciliatory style, which gave them the Iranian regime billions of dollars in tax, I mean, in credit and in sanctions relief and in cash. Rick, thank you so much for joining us today and coming back on just 24 hours later to give us a big update. With that being said, there's a lot of you on hold right now. Marty, Roland, Phil, another Phil, Ray, and Edward, stay on hold. I'm going to try to get to at least as many of you as possible.
If you've been on hold for 20 plus minutes, I'm going to get to you. And I'm trying to try to get to everybody. With that being said, we only got about a minute right now to go to break, and I haven't done a big push yet. I'm just going to tell you, if you enjoy the commentary you hear on this show, of course, there's all the legal work that we do here at the ACLJ, and we can dive into that. Maybe we'll have to dive into that another day.
But if you like even this broadcast, understand we do this absolutely at no cost to you, the user. You're watching it for free on YouTube or on Rumble, not within a paywall. You're watching on ACLJ.org. Maybe you're listening on terrestrial satellite radio. You may hear advertisers in your market.
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So go to aclj.org right now. Welcome back to Sekulow. Fund lines are jammed. We have some actual breaking news, though, that we need to cover. I mean, this is the ongoing, and this is happening real time, folks.
So, again, we're just reporting what we're being told. We're being told that as of right now, it looks like there has been another closure in the Straits of Hormuz. Yeah, this is the headline for the Daily Mail: Iran halts ships in the Strait of Hormuz. There were supposed to be two ships that were going to pass through. They've actually stopped that.
They are saying that is because Israel continues its attacks on Hezbollah and Lebanon, and that if it does not cease those attacks, the Strait of Hormuz will continue to be closed.
So, the Strait of Hormuz opened for a moment. No ships. It doesn't appear actually able to fully pass through. It looks like the two tried. No, two were granted permission and they weren't paused.
And this happened earlier today before this new update.
So, two oil tankers have gotten through. But now, that was the big open Hormuz. Blame is firing at Hezbollah because Hezbollah is firing at them. Rockets landed all night long. But of course.
Who are we gonna blame? We're gonna blame Israel, stoke some more anti-Semitic rhetoric even here in America.
So that's gonna be real fun to deal with over the next couple of days. With that, though, I wanna take some calls. I know some of this is going to now go.
Well, maybe my call is irrelevant now, but it's not. Let's continue on. Let's go to first fill. Line three in Pennsylvania. Phil in New York.
Hold on. Phil in Pennsylvania. You're up. Yes, sir. Just an observation.
After 47 years of Iran threatening to annihilate our civilization and Israel's civilization, President Trump gave them a taste of their own medicine, and they folded like a lawn chair. I was there on day one in November 79 in Marine Corps boot camp when the trash can came down to squad bay. They rolled out the TV. They showed us the flag being burned and the hostages being taken into death to America. And for 47 years, we had to put up with that stone in our shoe.
He needs to finish this job one way or another. That's just my opinion. Phil, I think a lot of people feel that way. And I think a lot of people who are with you in that fight. Understand the gravity of this situation.
And honestly, the people you are dealing with. When President Trump did make that statement yesterday, like I told you, I didn't love it. It put a pit in my stomach in some ways, but I also understood if it's a negotiation tactic because you kind of have to talk their language. And I get that. I don't like it.
But it doesn't mean I don't understand it. It doesn't matter to understand that you sometimes have to do these kinds of things.
Now, it's whether we can actually accomplish the goal.
Well, and to Phil's point, also, Phil, thank you for your service. But when you think about the term civilization, if you're referring to the Islamic Republic, yeah, I want that civilization to be gone. I want the leadership in that government, in that entire structure of a country to end in something better to rise out with the great Persian people that are there. Yeah, I want to pop over now. Let's go to Marty, who is watching on the ACLJ app.
Similar thoughts. Marty, go ahead and Florida. I'll try to be quick. I too was a nineteen year old Marine. at Paris Island in nineteen seventy nine.
And we should be calling for the unconditional surrender of these terrorists. And if we didn't have so much so many anti-Americans in our own country. opposing Donald Trump at everything he does, we would all be together and we'd all be going in and killing these terrorists. Marty, thanks for your time. Marty, I appreciate it.
Thank you for holding for so long and thank you for your service as well. Marty, I think a lot of people who Went into this idea of a war with Iran, were hoping for the, yeah, what we were hoping was the uprising of the people, and then our help was going to issue in a new Iran, an Iran that was more reminiscent of what we've been told about historically, this amazing place. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be right now even in the carts.
Well, and I think also it could have a negative effect. We saw people cheering. For what the Americans were doing on the streets of Tehran when the bombs were first falling. If you have just something that almost makes it worse for them. For anyone who did stand up later because the same people are still in power, that could have an opposite, more polarizing effect as well.
So that also needs to be thought of in the way that this plays out. All right. Four calls left, four minutes. We'll do what we can. Let's pop over to Edward.
That's our longest call on hold. And after that, you guys all called in at the same moment. Edward, go ahead. Yeah, I'm just worried about uh that today uh the Iranian ambassador Said he's going to go visit with Putin, and I don't know if we should stay in NATO at all with our aegis and our. naval and our air support.
And troops if we President Trump could reallocate everything back to different places across the globe that. would establish better alliances And NATO is now our friend. Um but Well, Edward, I'd encourage you to go back and watch yesterday's broadcast if you didn't, when we had Rick Rinnell on kind of previewing what could come out of this. And we talked about NATO specifically because you're seeing this divide within NATO. The Eastern European countries are with us and are stepping up their defense because they're right there on the border with Russia and they actually know the threat and they're nervous.
Then you have the Western European countries that are in NATO that are just leaving us hanging out to dry. And yet we know that they have intermediate ballistic missiles that can hit London and Paris and Munich and these countries and Barcelona and Madrid. All of these major European capitals could be targeted by Iranian missiles, but yet they are doing nothing to really help us.
So I agree. I almost think there needs to be some sort of reform or restructure of NATO. Yeah, and look, there's two more calls. They're both very similar, but we'll try. Ray, Pennsylvania, go ahead.
Yes, I just wanted to say that Iran has already started their game.
Now they want Hezbollah to be part of this. Enough is enough. It's just time to go in, take care of what needs to be taken care of, just take out Iran and take the oil and just stop there's no negotiation here, none whatsoever. I've been weak. It looked like that's where things were going, even until possibly 8 p.m.
Eastern Time last night, that not to take out all of it, that there would be an Iran, but in Iran, like you said, Logan, that was more reminiscent of what we knew of the Iran pre-Islamic revolution. Clearly, President Trump or someone in his team said, we've done enough in terms of the regime change. We've done enough in terms of bringing in new people. They took out enough leaders and realized nothing was going to change. That's not going to change unless we went in and went out full-scale war and we're not ready to do that.
And they're not going to do it. Roland, California, last call of the day. Go ahead, Roland. Yeah, I just wanted to say thanks for taking my call. And I agree with these people that have been calling in.
I mean, they're right on. I don't see how we're going to avoid groups on the ground to get the results we need. We got the results we needed in Iraq. Things were going great until Obama sabotaged the whole thing that Bush did. And then Obiden did the same thing in Afghanistan.
He just sabotaged what we had going there. We could have kept. A maintenance force in there. I mean, it's great. Roland, I think we all agree with you on Afghanistan that looking back, you know, hindsight could be 2020, but I think we all could anticipate that that was going to be chaotic.
And I think the political impact of that, by the way, the political impact of Iraq and the political impact of all of that is not or is on the mind of this administration. Right. So they're thinking about what it means for a political future for a Republican Party at this point.
Well, and I think once again, the entirety of this operation has been conducted in a way that is much more in line with letting the military call the shots instead of the politicians. I think that that is what has been kind of a breath of fresh air, if you want to say that about a military operation, but it has been conducted much more professionally and less politically. There's still all the political commentary from the armchair generals here at home that are going on on all of the various outlets. But I think that is what was so encouraging about this operation is that it was different than we had seen in our lifetime. All right, that's going to do it for the show today.
Take a breath, everybody. I know that was a lot of information packed into the last hour. We need to as well. Go relax. Have a moment to yourself.
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