BREAKING: Iran Gives Trump a Shocking Ultimatum

We got breaking news. Iran gives Trump a new and shocking ultimatum. 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 is Monday. It is May the 4th, 2026.

Welcome to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-68-431-10. I did want to take a minute to thank everyone who supported the ACLJ during the Double the Difference drive, the Double Your Impact Drive, all those double drives.

Now you get a little break as we can just say thank you. It was a great month. And again, to all the members and all the new champions. Thank you again so much. Months like this make the whole organization possible.

And really, it's because of you.

So thank you again so much. Phone lines, like I said, are open at 1-800-68-430-110. As we weren't sure what we're going to talk about, more news is coming out of Iran, and it seems like we may. Be re-entering another conflict. Will the war in Iran resume?

Of course, this comes after the ceasefire for a number of weeks now, as the new demands have rolled in. From Iran to reopen the Straits of Hormuz, and they are far from ideal. That's right.

So the Iranians have now sent a 14-point proposal to end the war to President Trump. It has a 30-day deadline on it.

So they're giving the President and the American government, the administration, 30 days to respond to this and to make this happen. And it has no mention of the nuclear program, which is the key sticking point for the United States. That is one of the reasons that this entire conflict began, over the nuclear program.

So this main point that they make in this is that both sides will lift the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. The United States will withdraw its forces from the Middle East, end all hostilities in the region, including Israel and Lebanon, which is currently in a ceasefire as well. And All sanctions on Iran will be lifted. Oh, the Iranians now seem to think they have the upper hand. This may be because they're starting to see Democrats in Congress say, Hey, War Powers Act, you're up on this 60-day deadline, which is creating a little bit of a pushback from the administration.

We'll get into that in just a little bit because the President and the administration has sort of doubled down on what could be the resume of this war, or is this a new conflict? We'll debate that coming up in the next segment. As we, you know, you think there's probably, you could probably go both ways here. You could have that conversation either way, but certainly President Trump has decided which way he is going to go. Again, Iran's 14-point plan, really just saying.

Give us everything we want. In the war, we'll reopen, but also you're not going to get anything in return. Exactly, especially with the sanctions part as well, saying, Hey, you have to lift all sanctions on us. The majority of those sanctions are because of their nuclear program.

Now, there's others for human rights, for supporting terrorist organizations, et cetera, but a vast majority are due to their nuclear adventurism. And I want to clarify: in this, also, had no mention really of any sort of nuke program or uranium or any of the things that are happening. They said actually the opposite. Their foreign ministry spokesperson said. That will not be a part of any deal to end this conflict.

So clearly they're thinking they have some momentum here or whatever that may mean, maybe because of the political wins. Maybe they're reading some of the polls that are out.

So what comes next? There we go. What comes next? Where is the move for the Trump administration? What is the move for Iran?

If Iran is not in the business of essentially surrendering, does this war kick back off? What do you think? What do you hope happens? 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110.

This after a confusing few weeks has the President even had to cancel some of his plans on meetings, saying, we don't even know who we're meeting with. Are we meeting with low-level officials? What is it? What do you think? Phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110 to be on the air today.

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And again, even if you don't get the full hour on your local radio station, hopefully you're watching us anyway online at aclj.org or any of our live streaming options. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lights are open for you at 1-800-684. 131-10-1-800-684-3-110. I see a bunch of you are just joining us right now.

President Trump has been given a list of demands, maybe if I think that's the best way to describe it, from Iran, that is to reopen the strait of Hormuz completely and what it would look like moving forward, as there is a lot of global pressure to get that done. The same moment we are in the middle of a ceasefire. It's probably easy to forget that, that that has happened. And we've been in a ceasefire for a number of weeks now. What does that look like moving forward?

And I feel like President Trump is at least laying out, I wouldn't even say the breadcrumbs, he is laying out the plan that essentially says, you know, we're about to go back in action.

Well, and there's reports that he's frustrated at the inaction on both sides, either get back to the operations or get to the table. Clearly, the Iranians have taken some sort of step back with this latest proposal, also giving a 30-day deadline, now starting to dictate the timeline to the U.S. It does seem that maybe that has stepped back. But I think it could also show us that when the President decided to remove the United States from talks just a few days ago, really a little bit over a week, that when he said we don't really even know who we are negotiating with, that clearly is a signal that things like this were going to start happening.

Now, on the other side of that, The U.S. started an operation helping ships traverse the Strait of Hormuz, especially some American flagged vessels that have shipping containers that are going through that Strait of Hormuz. Then Iran had struck with a drone attack. Targeting both a UAE tanker.

South Korean government is saying they are investigating what appears to be an attack from the Iranians.

So Iran is attacking vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States is saying through Scott Bessant that we actually control this.

Now there will be some time to let this unfurl and put this back into perspective.

Now, I think what you're going to see is what he's referencing is maybe. Hostilities getting back up to speed, especially with what we're seeing from this type of demand and timeline.

Now Back here at home, you have Democrats saying, listen, War Powers Act, you hit 60 days. Yeah, let's back up.

So people don't know with the War Powers Act. President Trump and the administration really had the ability to go and do this without any sort of. Confirmation, any sort of vote, any sort of authority, given they had the authority to do it temporarily. It's a 60-day essentially window where if you need to go get something done, you can go get it done. and handle it and get out.

Now 60 days is almost up. President Trump's got a bit of a caveat to that, and I don't think he's ill-willed or ill-intentioned. I think it's actually probably somewhat accurate, but it may depend on how you read the act itself, how you want to describe it. But 60 days are up from the first day of the engagement, but it's been a number of weeks since there has been.

So that one ended.

Well, exactly.

So the 60 days, and then you have an additional 30 days, 90 days total where you can wind down hostilities. The Democrats that are detractors of this operation in Iran are saying, listen, you hit 60 days. We better see this wrapping up now.

Now, The administration Has the opposite take. They're saying, no, that operation, the Operation Epic Fury, for all intents and purposes, ended when we started a ceasefire. And didn't they give this one a new name?

Well, exactly.

This is the specifically the shipping route one, I believe, is Operation Freedom of something. Exactly. We'll pull it up. But when you start to look at this, you're talking about: did someone find it for us? Did that happen?

Did when a ceasefire happen, even if you don't withdraw everyone, the United States, it seems, did not conduct. Operations. We did see Iran violating that, shooting drones at Gulf states, at Israel. Project Freedom is the is specifically focused on the Strait of Hormuz.

So once again, who's right?

Now with a Republican majority, I don't think It matters that much because who is going to be the ones that would hold an administration accountable? You see all these resolutions they keep trying to pass, they keep failing. If for some reason you start to get poll numbers for people that are nervous in the midterms, you could see people start to peel off and get a resolution passed that is saying the President has gone too far. We need to wrap this up. Yeah, and it's certainly not as popular as it once was to have this kind of ongoing conflict.

Again, a lot of people thought when day one. You had essentially the destruction of the top leaders in Iran. This could go very quickly.

Now, in general, it really still has only gone a couple of months here. We're not talking about a very long-term engagement, but there is hesitancy heading into midterms. As we've seen, sort of the polls started to really show where things are going to be heading.

So, who knows? You may have some Republicans that also decide this is not worth it. The juice is not worth the squeeze. We're not going to. Maybe we'll hold the President's foot to the fire at this point.

What do you think? 1-800-68-4-30-110. We got a phone call coming in. Let's go to Dale in California. Dale, you're on the air.

Let's give Dale a second here. Dale, you there? Nah, put Dale on hold. Let's see if we can get back to him. I think he's just listening on the radio the old school way, Will.

I hear that. Speaking of old school way, You've got a villain on your shirt today. Oh, yeah, I got to do it. I want to bring that out. I got to do it.

It's May the 4th. And you know what? I have a few Star Wars shirts. This is a very 90s-looking one of Darth Vader. You know, he's the bad guy.

Right. Maybe in your version of the story. I mean, I think that's everyone's version. I don't know. You know what I mean?

The Rebel Alliance are liberals. Is that what you're saying? He's a strong leader, is from what I'm told. You know, at the end of the day, he is the hero of the story.

Well, he does, yes. There is redemption. Yeah. Yeah. People always say that.

They're like, you know, he's the hero. I was like, yeah. At the end of the day, Tony Soprano loved his son, too. Like, you know, after a lot of genocide, actually, I mean, he was blowing up whole planets. Whole planets.

And then he was like, you know what, I don't want you to do is do something to my son. And I kind of could get, you know, get that. But it is Star Wars Day. I'm excited. We have my kids dressed up.

Everyone dressed up. It is fun to celebrate something. But you remember President Trump? He talked about the leader himself. Let's take a listen.

President Trump. This is a flashback bite to just a few months ago. It was October, yeah. Yeah. We have Darth Vader.

You know Darth Vader, right? Darth Vader is a man. Who I think is sitting right. Is that Darth? Stand up, please, Darth Vader.

I mean, they call him Darth Vader, but he's actually a very nice person, Russell Vogt. Oh, see, I wish we didn't reveal. I like the idea of just. I love that he says Darth Vader, stand up. That is the most President Trump thing.

Who was he talking about? It's the head of the. Mr. Russell Vote. He's the director of the Office of Management and Budget for the administration.

Stand up. Darth Vader's here. Darth Vader. All right. We're having a little fun here.

Phone lines are open at 1-800-684-30110. We got Dale back. Is he good to go? Dale, California, go ahead.

So I wanted to ask why we're having a ceasefire. When there's tinkers of Irmanian oil going along the Okay. coastline of Iran and Pakistan, and they're dumping their oil into a refinery either in India or Pakistan. Which allows them to get money, which will allow them to build more things.

So during a ceasefire, They have money to build more things, they would have money. to build a ballistic missile and I find it hard to believe that they were so dumb that they didn't isolate refined rhinium so they could have a nuclear bomb someplace really secretive that no one knows about.

So, I'm just concerned about that. And you let your guard down a little bit, and things really happen bad.

So, well, Dale, I think to that point, according to the administration, that is not happening. That the Iranian ships are not getting through. They're not going through the coastline. They're not getting to secret places to offload their oil. As a matter of fact, some of the reporting is that they're actually about to be in a bit of a bind because their refineries are about to hit capacity of all the storage that they can have.

And then they're going to have to stop production, which causes a whole host of issues when they want to restart that production.

So there has been a lot of propaganda out there. One, you saw even, I think it was Senator Murphy that said something to the effect of like awesome when that report that 26 ships had gotten through and people called him out for that. And he's like, whoa, can you be sarcastic anymore? It's like, no, but also that story wasn't even true. It came out later that it was just a Iranian propaganda.

And I think that goes back to a lot of what we've talked about here. And this entire Conflict. is how well The propaganda machine from Iran has permeated the entirety of American society. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I mean, I think it's. We're living in a very different time, everyone. I mean, I'm looking at comments on social media, Instagram, TikTok, everywhere that we are, you know, everywhere that people are chatting. And it is very interesting to see.

Now, somewhat. Of course, you can say that's bots. That's not real. I can see the ones that are real, though. You can feel the ones that are real.

You can feel how society is reacting. And look, I think there is a reason to question.

Something like a military conflict of this scale. I understand that. I have no problem with debating. Whether or not we need to be at war with Iran. I believe that originally we were positioned this.

We talked about regime change and all of that. That's where I was more leaning. and then it became a little muddier as time went on.

However, that's not really what's happening. You are having, as Will said, Iranian-backed propaganda. seep its way in to the mainstream media. You are having the conspiracy theories take over me. I was even watching CNN on the way in.

I flipped through all the channels, and CNN was saying how the conspiracy theories have taken over the right and the left. and how they're even sitting there going, we don't know what to do. And this was coming from CNN. And I kind of want to go, well, you're part of the problem. But you know what?

It is what it is. Phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Ann and Gene, stay on hold. We'll get to you.

Rick Renell's join us in the next segment, and then we'll hop around and get some more calls from around the planet. 1-800-684-3110. Uh Welcome back to Sekulow. We'll have Rick Rinnell here in just a minute. Let me know where we're good to go.

All right, we are good to go. Rick is joining us. Rick, thanks for hopping on here. It's been a busy day already. We are really talking about a few different things.

A lot of it still seems to be centered on Iran, but one of the others will is that the President Trump has announced a reduction of numbers of troops in other places. That's right.

So, at one place in the world, he's getting flack for having troops, and that's where our conflict with Iran is. In other parts of the world, he's getting flack for removing troops. Rick, try to explain this one to us where it's kind of caused some uproar in Europe that President Trump is withdrawing 5,000 troops that are stationed in Germany and also said that he may be considering a further drawdown of U.S. service members stationed there. And if anyone knows Germany.

It's the former ambassador to Germany, Rick Grinnell.

So explain why people are upset that he may be bringing troops out of Germany.

Well, first of all, I can't give you the reason why they're upset because it's ridiculous that the Europeans would be upset about this. But let's just give a little bit of history here. If you count the rotational troops, In Germany, and that's troops that go in for a little while and then come out. We're talking about US troops. If you count all of the US rotational troops, There's over 50,000 American troops in Germany.

If you count the civilians that go along with and that work. As part of the civilian force, American civilians paid by the Pentagon in Germany. It balloons even higher to more than 55, 57,000 Americans in Germany. That's too high, especially when you look at what the plan is for US troops in Germany. It was always based on the idea of a land-ground game, a military game of an invasion somewhere and us trying to get troops across into Poland or further.

To be able to blunt the Russians who were invading just long enough to be able to get air power in. That was the whole theory in the 80s and the 90s. We haven't really rethought our force posture in Europe since then. And we need to. When I was ambassador to Germany, Georgette Mossbacher, who was the ambassador to Poland and I, wrote a memo to President Trump in the first term and said, let's just rethink this.

We think that there should be a lot fewer. And I think the number, I'd have to go back and look at our memo, but I think the number that we said was somewhere between 10 and 15,000 troops should be removed. And I still believe that you can do that. I think at the time we said move 2,500 or 5,000 or 4,000, something like that, into Poland. Take them out of Germany and move them into Poland so that they had kind of a forward advantage already if that was the strategy.

But I think that when you look at unmanned vehicles and drones and the new technology, that we have to rethink what we need in Germany. I don't think that this is just simply about the Chancellor, the new New Chancellor in Germany, Chancellor Mertz, being anti-American or not paying his fair share. I think this is about America and it's about our best strategy going forward. I think we need fewer troops in Europe. Yeah, and I think when you've been there and you've visited, by the way, these areas, again, 5,000 doesn't sound like all that many.

When I've been to those areas, I've been in those areas on the 4th of July, fireworks celebrations. You're eating it at, you know, they have American restaurants. It feels like you are in America in some of these areas, which was fun. I have to say, it was a good time. I had a good time with all the troops and all the troop families, amazing people that have been stationed there.

But I understand that maybe a little bit of a scale down. Again, when you're saying 5,000, it sounds like a lot. Considering the amount of people that are there and the families, like you said, all the independent contractors that are involved that are Americans, you know, this was back probably 15, 20 years ago now, but it felt, like I said, like a little mini enclave of America. Look, one of the things I'll be honest with you: when I was U.S. Ambassador to Germany, one of the problems that we had is that we had too many American service members going over to be stationed in Germany and then asking for extensions, multiple extensions, instead of a three-year tour.

Which you should have a two to three year tour and then come home or move somewhere else. That's the theory. Instead of that, they were extending, and some people were there 10, 12, 14 years. And they were buying homes and asking for permission from the American government to buy homes in Germany, and even in some cases, requesting to use their housing allowance to go on their mortgage payment of a home in Germany. I said, no, we're not going to have this.

I denied all extensions, and I was not very popular for doing that. But my theory was, let's not get too comfortable in another country. Let's not set up shops so that your family is there for 10, 12 years, and then it's hard for your kids to leave a school that they've been in for 12 years. The theory, when you sign up, whether you're in the Foreign Service of the State Department or military service at the Pentagon, the theory is that you do two or three years and you move somewhere else and you bring some fresh ideas. That's the system.

And I think that that system is much better than having people who extend and stay for these long periods of time. I don't think it's healthy.

Well, and I think this in and of itself shows the Trump doctrine when it comes to the use of the military, the purpose of the military, as compared to everything that has come before him. And when he has talked about America first, no, these long-term engagements, we remember why we are in Germany. And why these bases started there and was World War II and then the Cold War that followed. By showing, look, we can modernize and we can update at the same time that there is a conflict going on, I think. proves to the detractors that he has all of a sudden fallen in love with military force, that that still that doctrine holds true of the long term and modernizing of our military is still ongoing, even in the midst of a conflict when there is a very real threat to the United States.

Well, look, I think nothing brings about change more than frustration when you see the system not working and you say, wait a minute, we got to change this. It's not working. But also, I would say, is no one should be surprised that President Donald Trump is someone who questions the process on everything. He doesn't go in and think, oh, it's always been this way, so we've just got to go along with it. He goes in and says, this doesn't make sense to me, and we should look at it.

I love that about the President. I love that he gets impatient with the bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., because I can tell you from my experience. The bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. just kind of goes along as seat warmers because they're tired, they're out of ideas, and so they just show up to work and work nine to five and then go home and they just want their pension. And it needs a refreshing.

People need to be able to be in different jobs. Otherwise, you really become stale, especially in government service.

Well, Rick, that's why we have you here. Such a unique voice and a unique perspective being a former investor of Germany to come and have these conversations with us. Really appreciate it. Hey, we only have about 55 seconds left here in this segment. I do want to tell everyone, if you do lose us here.

We broadcast the whole show. Live 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern Time. On every social media platform, you get the aclj.org, YouTube, and Rebel, we're there. But also, You can catch us archived however you get your podcast later on.

If you're even listening to this first half hour later on, you can find the rest of the show. Just go to aclj.org, find all the options, search Succulo, it'll pop right up. With that being said, second half hour is coming at you right now. We have two lines open still at 1-800-68-430-110. I did want to say just another thank you to everyone, our members, our new ACLJ champions, for your generosity during our double drives that happen throughout March and April.

That will give you a little break. That doesn't mean the ACLJ slows down.

So go to ACLJ.org today. Look at all the incredible content that we give you because you support us. We'll be back in less than a minute. Yeah. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever.

This is Sekulow. And now, your host, Logan Sekulow. Second half hour of Sekulow coming at you from May the 4th. That's right, we're celebrating Star Wars Day here, but we're also talking about. President Trump and the move towards maybe the reinstitution, I guess of what you'd say, or the start of a brand new engagement, depending on how you want to define these actions.

You know, we said war for a lot of it, even though the President and the administration never said war. She can't say war.

Well, that also becomes a talking point that people on the left are like, well, you said war. How dare you not go? That's what said we have to say war because it's just easy to understand. Once again, there are semantic arguments for all intents and purposes for casual conversation or analysis. War is not an inappropriate term, but for the purposes of declaring war, declaring a war.

That is what Congress does. A conflict is cumbersome to say, and it is fighting between countries on the colloquial level War, but not a declared war by Congress. I love how people think that's a gotcha. When it's like, no, everyone understands the difference of what we're saying, that this is not a war in the sense of declaring. I think you have to keep explaining.

I think you got it. I think I got it. All right, Darth Vader. Yeah, exactly. I just got, I got to throw around my power here right now.

My power says they know what you're saying. Do they, though? But do they? What is it good for?

Well, absolutely nothing if you ask me. Yeah. Say it again. Rush hour. All right, let's continue on.

Let's take a quick phone call. Let's go to Ann in Pennsylvania. She smelled for a little while, watching on YouTube. Ann, go ahead. Oh my God.

Hey guys. The ACLJ, you guys deserve an award because you're changing the country. You're bringing it back to its roots. Really quickly, I want to say there's a couple of things and a couple of reasons as to why we're in Iran. We're in Iran because, first and foremost, more Americans have been killed by Iran than any other terrorist regime on Earth.

True. And Trump put out a statement on March 2nd, 2026. Just go to the White House and you'll see that very importantly, all of the years, 1983, 1985, 1989, the years of Americans being killed, but now it's not just Americans, it's Iranians. No other country has its own people been fighting for their freedom, fighting for their lives. They've been hung in the streets.

They are really one of the only countries besides Israel in the Middle East. To stand up for themselves after being brutalized for years and years and years.

Now we have a President, President Donald J. Trump, the commander-in-chief. He is communicating with God. We can have differences of opinion on that. But the bottom line is, it's obvious.

And here's the thing: he is doing exactly what every other President says. That they were going to do, should have done, but never did do what they said and assured the whole world that they were going to do, including Democrats, including Democrats.

So now President Trump is doing this war, and he's doing it brilliantly. He's doing it strategically. The reason why we're having such a hard time is because of the leadership in Iran. The leadership is so evil, so profoundly evil, that for all these different reasons, I see a pattern here. In 2016, when Trump was elected and nobody, even people on our own side, guys, believe that, oh, he could never be President, oh, he's not conservative enough, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Well, some of these same people are pretty much coming at Trump as to why this is a forever war. This is not right. This is not America first. You know, and then of course, you know, fast forward to today, a few weeks later, and we're kind of still hearing that same argument by with the war experts that come on their shows. You know, here we have a President ceiling.

I love you guys. I really appreciate it. You did it, that was a great call.

So, you covered a lot of ground, and I really do appreciate it. We got 30 seconds left in this segment, so I'm not only cutting you off because of time. But thank you so much for calling in. We always appreciate all of our listeners, especially ones who come in and have a lot to say and a lot to say. This really solid material, great, you're great on the air.

Always love having Ann on. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-30-110. Ann's a longtime supporter, and I appreciate that. Again, I want to thank everyone who has supported the ACLJ this year, specifically over the last eight weeks during our double drives.

And right now. I'm just going to encourage you to call in and be a part of the show. We'll be right back. Yeah. Welcome back.

segments left what should be a part of the show. 1-800-684-30-110. There are a lot of little breaking news items that we keep seeing pop up. We'll go through some of those and see if there's anything. Really happening here.

And of course, there is some updates, Will, in the James Comey situation. We know people love talking about those seashells. Right. Comey sells seashells. This is something that's interesting, especially in light of our conversation last week, because even we were saying, you know, if you're indicting James Comey just based off the one Instagram post, even though it may rise to the letter of the law threat, it's probably going to be hard to convince a jury that James Comey meant that as a threat.

Right. So we were trying to caution. Physical threat. Right. We were trying to caution people to not get your hopes up on that one.

Will throw the yellow flag. I did. I did. But I do want to play this because I feel like it's important to add to that conversation. This is Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, on with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press talking about this.

And it's pretty interesting what he has to say. Let's go ahead and play it.

Well, part of what the government would have to prove is intent. James Comey deleted the post the same day, and he wrote, quote, I didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me. But I oppose violence of any kind, so I took the post down. How do you prove intent, Mr.

Blanche, when Mr. Comey himself said he didn't understand that some people would look at that and think about violence? You prove intent like you always prove intent. You prove intent with witnesses. You prove intent with documents, with materials.

So again, this is not just about a single Instagram post. This is about a body of evidence that the grand jury collected over the series of about 11 months. That evidence was presented to the grand jury. And it's not the government. It's not the Department of Justice.

It's not Todd Blanche that returned an indictment against James Comey. It's a grand jury.

So saying it wasn't just about this single Instagram post. And to clarify, this is Todd Blanche. That's right.

So Todd Blanche is. Is the acting attorney general. He took over that acting role after Pam Bondi left the Department of Justice. And what you hear him saying here is what's interesting about this because we won't know what was presented to the grand jury. We will never know specifically what was presented to the grand jury in order to get to an indictment of James Comey here.

But what he's inferring is that. We didn't walk in with just one Instagram post and say, look, here's the law. Here's the Instagram post. Please give us an indictment that there was multitudes of evidence over the 11 months of this investigation that led to this indictment. At least inferring we are smarter than that.

Right. And good, good for them. And I would hope that they are. But once again, when you saw that and we were trying to bring caution, I still would caution that it is always easier to get to an indictment than it is to a conviction. But what we will see.

Is at least some, if not all, we won't know what was given to the grand jury specifically. But when they bring this case, we will know what that evidence is to a significant level that, hey, we are trying to convict him. We are trying to prove intent. They will lay that out whenever this ends up going to trial. If it makes it to that level, I know that James Comey and his attorneys will try to have this thrown out before then or try to find some way.

I don't know. He loves the TV, so you never know. And I do have to say, look, good for Todd Blanche going on Meet the Press. You know, we're seeing sort of an acting attorney general take this kind of role. Certainly doesn't have to, is not required, I don't think, to necessarily make these PR rounds.

Sure. But is doing it when he's being pressed. And I think he's being pressed. And from just that clip alone, seems like has some decent answers. That's right.

And so I'm happy that he went and did this, as well as, you know, like you said, we're smarter than that, you know, kind of laying it out there because when we saw that indictment come down, especially since that was the second attempt at. Indicting James Comey. They indicted him originally over lying to Congress, and that had more directly to do with the Russia investigation. When you saw that, and then it was thrown out of court by a judge saying that the U.S. attorney that brought it was illegally appointed, therefore, that could not stand, and they didn't go right back to that.

Then they pivoted to this. It felt like almost like, is this the consolation prize indictment? Is this the, we didn't get him the first time? Let's find the second time. That gives me more assurance that they're not walking in there just trying to say, look, you got to hand us this indictment.

Look what he did. And we will find out more as this progresses through the court system. Yeah, of course, that was Todd Blanche, acting attorney general of the United States. Blanche, also Will's favorite Golden Girl. Let's go ahead and take phone calls.

But they are not the same person. The acting attorney general, I believe, is no longer with us. Right, but I'm saying that is clearly not Blanche from the Golden Girls. If you were watching on one of our video streams, both seem truthful, they both speak their minds. Here for it.

I got a lot to say. Both love cheesecake. That's what I've heard. All right, let's go back to the calls. Let's go.

We're going to take these things back to Iran. We have a lot of conversations happening about Iran. Phone lines are up. You want to talk about any of these: 1-800-68-4-31-10. Let's go to Gene, who's calling in Illinois.

Gene, go ahead. We're having some calls today, man. Let's go put Gene back on hold. I'm not sure if it was a man, Gene, or Lady Gene. They were on hold for half an hour.

I want to make sure that we can get to them if we can. Let's hop over to Ross, Ross in Florida. Ross, go ahead. Hey, I just wanted to make a very quick comment and ask a question, and that is: at first, it seems like. Uh Iran's main R return uh com things are saying, I'll gladly talk to you Tuesday for a hamburger today.

Yeah, I mean, once again, what they're saying is: hey, you got to open the straight. With both of us, you gotta not sanction us anymore. You gotta take all the military out of the region. You got to do everything we want. But we're not going to talk about really the one thing That you started this operation against us.

We're not going to talk about that at all. Maybe one day. Maybe we'll talk about it. I don't know. But you got to get all of this war, non-war wrapped up first, and then we'll talk.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. I don't think that it's going to go very far. I think that the President will say, no deal. I'm sorry. Your 14 points, I will throw out because it's ridiculous.

It's shocking that they think this 14 points. We know Iran, but do we know who we're talking about here?

Well, this foreign ministry spokesperson made comments about it.

So we know that the foreign minister has been one of the lead negotiators.

So that is their equivalent to a secretary of state has been one of the lead negotiators on this. But the spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry also gave commentary about it.

So I assume it came from that office. But we don't know who's also making the dictation. Of this is what we will present at this point. Let's try to go back to Gene. Gene in Illinois, you there?

Yes, thank you, and God bless you for all you do. Thank you. I I just get concerned when politics starts to get involved in possibly any decision making when it comes to war or conflict. It really I wonder why the American people have not learned from previous episodes like this. you know, like when was the last time we really out and out won a war?

You know, politics got involved with Vietnam so much so that we didn't win. And I just. Believing the Iranian propaganda. I think one of the problems is, and you can stay on holding me, we'll get back to you. One of the problems is, I guess, the good and bad of it, is what is defining a win?

Finding a win becomes very difficult when you have the country so polarized. You know, we can look back pre most of us being born and go, well, World War II was clearly a win. If this was America in 2026 and we were in the middle of World War II, I don't know. That you would declare that a win.

Well, I mean, if you listen to some people on even the right in the podcast sphere that are like, you know, who was the real villain? Was that Winston Churchill? That's what I'm saying. He should have never gotten involved. It's sure, history is sort of told by the winners, you know, is rewritten by the winners.

We know this, but also. Uh history has sort of shifted as the way we have A large culture of people who are very politically split. I agree when politics and wars start to get intermingled, but they kind of always have been. I don't really can't really think of a time. Maybe you could probably find some sectarian wars that maybe, but even those were political in nature, if you will.

Sure. And once again, when you have the checks and balances that are built into our constitution on the executive branch. When you have members of Congress that have an authority to declare war and a check on the President's power as commander-in-chief. Then you're going to naturally start to see politics play into this. But even to your point, Gene, I mean, we saw the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and who's in charge of Afghanistan now?

The Taliban. I don't think anyone would say The United States won that war. We may have won some objectives along the way. But I don't think anyone would say that. We would have won the first decade of it.

And then just sort of again, how do you declare victory? There's not really a roadmap to declaring victory. in a politically a divided country.

So let's keep that conversation going. What do you think about that? I really like that.

Sort of spin. Let's discuss it. 1-800-684-3110. If you're on hold, stand hold. We got a few lines open, though.

1-800-684-3110. We'll take some calls. Really, if you want to call in right now, it's a great time to call. The last chance to get on air today. If you call in right now, likely you're going to make it up.

1-800-684-3110. Be right back and more on Sekulow. Go to aclj.org for more information. This is it, folks. We made it here into the show on Monday, but that means it's time to hear from you: 1-800-684-31.

Before we get to that, you know, we had this discussion earlier. I was saying you have the bad guy on your shirt, you have Darth Vader. We talked about the redemption story, but then, yeah, was he just doing it because he loves his son? I think you may have, over the course of this broadcast, you know, changed my mind a little bit because I just saw posted on X. that for the Obama Presidential Library President Obama, former President Obama, did a video with Mark Hamill.

Who played Luke Skywalker in front of that dystopian-looking Presidential library that everyone is saying it looks hideous. You know, for Star Wars Day. That was the most Trump thing you've ever said. Everyone says it looks great. Everyone does.

I've never single person that said it looks great. Glad you put this up. I don't. I haven't looked at it that closely.

Well, anyhow, it's for Star Wars Day, Luke Skywalker joined forces with Barack Obama to do this video.

So maybe I like your Darth Vader shirt.

Well, yeah, I mean, Mark Hamill, notoriously, pretty liberal guy. But you know what? I like Luke Skywalker. Do you, though? Because in that final one, awful.

Yeah, he would say that too, though.

Well, I don't agree with him.

So he was great. Yeah, he did a great job. He says, I think of that as like Eric Skywalker. I can't even think of it as the same person because he thought it was so. off character.

Okay. We got to get back back on track, guys, right? I think so. No, everyone's saying no. It's good banter.

Yeah, I mean, look. If we're gonna Never mind. Who's your favorite Star Wars character? Star Wars character. I like Chewbacca.

Oh! That's a very politically neutral one. I know. I mean, probably hand solo is my favorite, but Chewbacca is great. You got a good chew.

Uh flip that. Giving people what they want on Monday. I can't take Marsha's call just yet because it would be so inappropriate to go from what we just did to this. I apologize. I didn't think you'd take the bait, but you know what?

They sometimes do things for you. People are getting very mad about the Star Wars in the chat. People are saying that it holds no weight towards the. Compared to the Bible.

Well, and yes, I think we agree. I do love the Star Wars films. even some of the books. But I've never thought of it as um My canon, my religion. Right.

Sure, there's some people that do. I like the Obi-Wan Kenobi. You know why? Because he was sort of... He's kind of a trickster.

Yeah. He was a good guy.

Well, no. I just meant like he'd be like, everything was, you know, from a certain point of view. Sure. You didn't tell me your father, well, he. Did kind of kill your father.

Right. From a certain point of view. Yeah. That's my allegiance. Pretty good.

All right. Uh We are going to continue to take your phone calls. I would love to hear from you at 1-800-684-3011. There's only five minutes left, so if you want to call in, we have covered a lot of ground here today, one of which is that we're speaking of wars, that Iran it's actually the star conflict. What do you call it?

The Presidential election. The Imperial Senate never declared war. Never declared war. It was just an ongoing. They keep saying war.

The news keeps saying war. It's not a war. But. There are a lot of people who are interested in us continuing that conversation, and I'll let them win this war. Let's go to Marcia in California.

Marsha. Take it from here. My feeling is that this operation in Iran. should have started On october eighth, Perhaps it was in some circles. By October.

On october seventh, At a music festival. I don't know if you've ever been to a music festival. Oh, I have. But here's people enjoying music and they flew in and rode in and slaughtered people. Yeah, Marsha.

I mean, I've been to plenty of music festivals and I've been to some since. And I have to say, that does creep in the back of your mind, the fact that something like this could happen. I don't even say it creeps in. It was like going to, there's always reminders now. It's like going to a movie and you get the reminders of, you know, if there's an emergency, you need to be able to find the exits.

And you know, they're not necessarily referring to a fire. You know, there are conversations that are leading to that. And look, Marsha, we've seen a lot that's happened even over the weekend. And the last week in the UK with anti-Semitism on the rise, we've seen so much happening. But yeah, of course, we know Iran backed Samas, and we know that had a large impact on what they were able to accomplish on October seventh.

uh you had, like we said, that sort of forty eight hour window. It felt like where Israel was uh the world felt like it was okay for them to fight back, and then all of a sudden they no longer could without the wrath of um really political Non-neutrality.

Well, and to Marsha's point, the fact that it should have started on October 8th, I actually would say it should have never happened. October 7th should never have happened. We know that the Iranians helped conduct that. They helped plan it. They helped carry it out with Hamas, which is their proxy that they fund.

And that is the reality of it. Because when every President since the Iranian revolution has said, you know, we have to push back against Iran. Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. They must stop their terrorism that they export globally. And no one did anything about it except sanctions.

then you see where that got you. It got everyone nowhere. It got everyone to in October 7th.

So. I want to see the job finished here. I would like to resume Operation Epic Fury or whatever 2.0 is named because I also like the way that this has been carried out. It has been surgical, it has been overwhelming for the Iranian air defenses. I want to see the end of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I want to see the people take back their country and their history and once again join the community of nations that aren't throwing people in prison and beating them and killing them for not having their head covering on perfect. That is what this. terrible regime does. And they have gotten stronger and stronger by weak foreign policy of Presidents all the way up until today. And so, what I want to see is this continue.

I wish that they had been taken care of a lot. Many years ago, so that something like an October 7th would have never had the opportunity to even happen. And look, we only got a minute and a half left before this show closes. I want to say thank you to everyone who called in. Thank you for letting us kind of hop around topics today.

Whether that was talking about Iran, whether it was talking about Star Wars, we were able to discuss a lot. Hey, the President in the White House, they put up a Star Wars. We're not the only ones celebrating them. That's right.

So, do we have that image? Can we throw that up there? Look at this. President Trump, I'm sure the nerd internet is exploding right now, I'm sure, in fury right now. Right.

I also love when there is the popular character, he ruins it for people that hate him. Yeah. It's like, oh, he's going to be the Mandalorian. He's the Mandalorian Grogu holding an American flag. Here's the other thing.

That's really the most egregious part because that totally breaks the universe. This was probably 30 to 32 years ago. We did a radio ad. that talked about Star Wars. In the audience didn't like us talking about Star Wars 32 years ago.

They still don't. And they still don't.

Some things never change. Yeah, and Star Wars is going to be celebrating 50 years next year.

So, guess what? You'll get some more discussion about that. Look, I'm seeing a lot of clowns in the comments. I don't know if you're calling us clowns. We may be today.

Are we the clowns? But the bad kind of clowns? I don't know. We look a little bit like clowns. Bill likes clowns.

With that. I want to say thank you so much. And it'd force me with you. But not too far with you. Not as my religious.

Uh my religion of choice. I want to thank you all for supporting the work of the ACLJ. Go on to ACLJ.org, spending time with us each and every day. Meant a lot. Look, our double drives are over for right now, but they went really far because of you.

We're able to keep not only this show going, but our incredible legal work. Things will get a little more serious, I'm sure, as the week progresses.

Meanwhile, it's Monday. We want to have a little bit of fun here with you guys each and every day. We stream this show live, noon to 1 p.m. on all your favorite social platforms: YouTube, Rumble, ACLJ.org.

However, you get your pods. We're there. Talk to you tomorrow.