MAJOR UPDATE: Rubio Declares 'Operation is Over'

On today's show, Marco Rubio's bombshell press briefing declares Operation Epic Fury. is done. 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. This is Logan Sekulow, Jordan Sekulow in studio as well. We've got a packed show for you today.

We are leading with the news. Marco Rubio, he took over, you know, the press briefing yesterday. You keep making the joke that Marco Rubio takes over every jobs and he's leaning into it. Certainly going out there now, hosting the press briefing, had a lot of fun with it, but also made some pretty big remarks in terms of where we are with the war in Iran. And President Trump responded to those this morning.

So again, doubling down a little bit of where we are in terms of the current situation in Iran. And one of the big statements was, and I quote, we'll play it. The operation is over and referring to Epic Fury.

Now, of course, that could mean a drawdown situation. There's reports obviously coming out that we are getting closer and closer. Even Axios put out a report. Fox News is covering it right now. It does feel like maybe closer than ever that we are headed towards a wrap-up of this.

Let's actually hear, to kick this conversation off, let's hear from Marco Rubio again. This was just yesterday discussing this bite too. The operation is over. Epic Fury is a President, notified Congress. We're done with that stage of it.

We're now on to this project of freedom. As far as a negotiation is concerned, I think the President's been clear that part of the negotiation process has to be not just the enrichment, but what happens to this material that's buried deep somewhere that they have still have access to if they ever wanted to dig it out. That has to be addressed, and that's being addressed in the negotiation. I'm not going to go further on what progress has been made on that topic because I don't want to endanger the negotiations, but suffice it to say that the President and this entire team is aware of the centrality of that question. And of course, there's a lot more from that.

We'll break that down. And, Jordan, President Trump did respond as well. He did. He said that assuming that Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, and we'll walk through that when we come to the United States. That is an interesting statement.

Just say agrees to what has been agreed to. This is why, is because this is a 14-point plan to end the war that gives a 30-day. Time period to finalize a full agreement.

So, this is an agreement to finalize an agreement. But during that, you would have an end of a cease to hostilities for at least those 30 days or until one side breached in the other's mind. Usually, that would be us saying that they've done something they were not supposed to do. I think we also learned that last time you have to be so specific with Iran because they will continue other military operations and say, well, you didn't say we couldn't hit at this. You didn't say Hezbollah couldn't fire at this U.S.

base or Israel or that or this.

So, I would expect that, but you could see that Marco Rubio doesn't want to get into more of the details and that we'll go through and the post goes on from President Trump. It doesn't end with the agreement. It ends with a typical President Trump kind of stuff. He says, Listen, if the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is not open to all, which means Iran also, he does say that.

So, it's not like we'll still be trying to blockade Iran. But they stop having both them and their proxies fire on commercial vessels. If they don't agree, the bombing starts. And it will be sadly at a much higher level and intensity than it was before.

So this is still a moment where we have not yet gotten a 100% that they've agreed to the 14-point plan to end the war that would lead to the 30-day negotiation to finalize a plan on things like nuclear materials, I would imagine, the Strait of Hormuz. What does Iran need to do with those nuclear materials? Is it the... We give them to you if you actually want nuclear energy and medical research and things like that, but you can't be enriching your own, which is they've never created a nuclear power plant. They've never done medical research.

All they've done is high-level enrichment. You're right. And what does that mean? Of course, we know what that means. Phone lines are open for you.

What do you think? Do you think this is a good messaging? And we're having a lot of statements from Marco Rubio. And look, we are, you want to start thinking about it. We are about a year away.

From when you're going to have a real beginning of an election season, you know, only probably about 12 months before you start seeing it for Presidential runs. And Marco Rubio is certainly one of those voices that people have discussed. What does this look like? Do you like the way he's coming out here, making these statements? He also took some humor in it, of course, discussed the fact that he was DJing over the weekend.

We'll get that and more coming up. We also have former Turner executive, current head of RAF of Fox Nation, Eric Bischoff, joining us about the passing of Ted Turner. We're going to discuss that a little bit later. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow.

Just to reset a little bit. We were talking about Marco Rubio's press briefing yesterday, of course, sitting in for Carolyn Levitt as she is out on maternity leave. But this happened. Marco Rubio kind of put up a pretty strong statement saying that the operation in Iran, the first operation, Operation Epic Fury, is over, that the President had notified Congress that it was over. And now they were moving into a new phase of this.

At the same time, President Trump put out a statement this morning saying, hey, we believe that we have come to an agreement. Of course, he. Threatens that if that agreement doesn't stand, and he wants to assume that with Iran, you never can really be sure that all bets are off at that point if this agreement doesn't pass. But this agreement would get the straight of Hermuz fully open, even to Iran, and would get a deal on the table. Jordan, you brought up in the break, and I think a lot of questions and comments are going to come through about this: which is, we've heard this kind of talk already a few times of it sounding like it was coming to an end.

This may be the closest, but when does it really feel like the end for the American people? Yeah, for the American people, and I'm not talking about those who've got a family necessarily who are serving overseas. That's a different thing. I think that doesn't come to an end until this calms down to where it was before, which is always kind of at a heightened level if you're in that part of the world, but certainly not at the heightened level that we've seen since the beginning of Epic Fury. And even really over the summer, when I was over in Europe and that strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, this has been pretty hostile with the Houthi rebels, Hezbollah's leadership being taken out, but still firing back.

The war. Lebanon, Israel, and of course Gaza since October 7th, and getting it two and a half, closer to three years. Since that, of course, politics coming into play, midterm elections, primaries going on right now as we speak in states across the country. But I would think that for the American consumer, This is all wonderful. When prices start going back down, especially at the pump.

Because when people can rethink Maybe we can take the vacation this summer that we didn't think we could take because the plane ticket prices were getting so high and so many flights were getting canceled. Maybe we can make the road trip that we thought, you know what, that's going to be double what we were budgeting for. Maybe we need to do something closer to home or just be at home for the summer. I think that's when, for the American people, That impact is, okay, it's over. We're no longer taking the negative impacts of a conflict.

And then the spin is. is reopening a Strait of Hormuz that was open before this conflict began. What else are we getting? And what we don't know through this plan is exactly where Iran's nuclear enrichment goes in the future. We do know that if they agree to the 14-point plan.

that they have to pause nuclear enrichment for 30 days. That's the 30 days where it's a window to finalize the agreement. Cease nuclear enrichment, which I don't know how much they can even do right now because, like Marco Rubio said, most of that is buried somewhere underground. We would lift some sanctions so that their economy would not be on the edge, well, it already has been of just totally crumbling, which, on the one hand, keeps the current regime in place, which is really a regime that is, if you're going to be the most honest about, is a regime led by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. It is not a regime led by the Ayatollah anymore because that Ayatollah is still in a coma, it appears.

Marco Rubio did. The strait is supposed to be open. And the uranium stockpile is supposed to be that would be the most key provision for me. In that 14-point plan, they have to agree to removing their uranium stockpile from Iran. And can that be completed in 30 days?

When you talk about what Marco Rubio said, which is that some of it is buried underground. The idea physically, I don't think we can even really picture what the process is to remove. Who's the party? That goes in. Is that the IAEA?

Is it some international body? I don't think we want American engineers there on the ground in Iran messing with their nuclear equipment and just the danger there. But what does that look like? And then again, I think that what would help. is Putting some names to not that everybody's going to remember these the farsie names But who are we negotiating with like who in Iran can agree to this today?

Yeah, because President Trump has even questioned that and he's standing that means that the IRGC is not going to be firing at our ships You know the moment we think that this is signed you can't just remember maybe a week ago President Trump said I'm not going to negotiate because I don't even know who I'm negotiating with 19 hour flights to Pakistan and I'm certainly not going to do it well then what has changed in the last week and who are we actually talking to I think Jordan's right that would be a very interesting move to let the American people in on some more information of what it actually looks like in the current IRGC I do think we should hear you're not dealing with them You're not dealing with reality because the regular military in Iran and the regular political leadership in Iran, knowing that the current Ayatollah, it appears they haven't really pushed back on it all, is in a medical coma. Yeah, something like that. And it's not able to lead it. It's very, you know, not able to lead. And so it's the IRGC.

The only reason I could imagine that they are not naming this person. Is that that would put a target on them within the IRGC by radicals? Yeah. Except for the fact that this, they've got to be strong enough to agree to something like this and actually get it done. If they're worried that that person would be assassinated or taken out of leadership because they're negotiating with us, how on earth would they be able to handle the removal of uranium stockpile from Iran or?

guaranteeing that the strait will be open and in a peaceful way for commercial vessels. Yeah, I look, I would like to actually play another bite from Marco Rubio. I think it's good to hear from him himself. And look, I think while we do this, we are posing that question, which is do you feel like this conflict is over until you see it at the pump? That is something that we are all dealing with right now.

I was talking to a friend just trying to sell his car. It's a big gas-guzzling SUV. And he said, Look, in a normal time, especially when the used cars started thriving again on it, he's like, I thought I would have sold this in days and weeks. And all of a sudden, no one's interested in this SUV because we all are dealing with what we're dealing with at the pump. All of us are trying to fill up our cars and going, Wow, this is the highest in our lifetime, probably we've seen.

It doesn't really matter if you're in a lower gas tax state or a higher gas state, it's way higher than it's been at the long time. Yeah, if you look at the average of where we are, let's say in Tennessee, it's trust. Triple what it was at probably the mid to low point. It is nearly a dollar plus more than it has been, or $2 more than it has been, sort of in the average. Let's hear from Marco Rubio discussing this.

But if you feel that way, I want you to call in 1-800-684-3110. A lot of you are watching right now. If you can't call in, let me know in the comments. If you're watching on YouTube or Rumble, I'd love to hear from you about those specific questions. Is that really where you're going to see this sort of box get checked, that the war in Iran, the conflict in Iran, has come to an end?

Therefore, you can now kind of move on with your life. As Jordan said, take vacations, do what you need to do. But let's hear from Marco Rubio discussing the economy actually in, not only here, but in Iran. Let's go to Byte 20. They are facing real catastrophic destruction to their economy, generational destruction to their economy, generational destruction to the wealth of their country, imposed on themselves by the actions that they're taking.

They should check themselves before they wreck themselves in the direction that they're going.

So, look, the time's come for Iran to make a sensible choice. And it's not easy for them to do that, obviously, because they have a fracture in their own leadership system. And apart from that, I mean, the top people in that government are, to say the least, you know. They're insane in the brain. And so we need to address that.

Again, it does say insane in the brain, which is a funny reference there. But he's been taking a very serious conversation, which is there is a big destruction happening right now. They do want to see some turnaround of their economy. Of course, we want to see some turnaround economically as well. But Marco Rubio clearly also has been out there, Jordan, making these sort of rounds.

He is, of course, a very high-level official. You don't not expect him to see well. This is when you move from Secretary of War to Secretary of State when you're talking negotiation.

So Hag said to move back because you're trying to say, look, this is not about the ongoing military operations. Those have come to an end as of right now. He would, of course, come back again, you know, kind of center stage if, as President Trump said, Iran is not able to. Move forward on this 14-point plan. And I'd say this, the biggest sticking point for me is not their pause, their nuclear enrichment, because I think that's probably paused whether they like it or not.

It's removing the uranium stockpile. What do we mean by that under in 30 days? And then, of course, again, like you said, Logan, at some point, we have to know as the American people, I mean, yes, gas prices start coming down. That'd be the Strait of Hormuz opening, reopening to commercial vessels, making it safe once again for that to travel. Even though most of our oil and gas doesn't come through there, it affects the world economy.

Only about 20% of ours does, but it all comes into play. And it's making jet plane tickets a lot more expensive and they're cutting flights. And, you know, people are, you can already see it. It starts affecting the whole economy, people with rental properties, road trips that you decide, you know what, not this year. Yeah, you used to be able to fly, so you drive.

Now you can't drive. Right, right. I mean, so it's just one of those things where you go back and forth. I mean, it takes a little longer sometimes on the flights, but it's caught up now. Uh and this is because they pre-buy jet fuel.

So the pre-bought jet fuel has Yes, it's starting to wear out and they're they're having to p Plan that this is not that these plans aren't going to go through, and then remember. At the end of this. It is not as if the US is taking military action off the table in the next, like very within the next 30 days. Yeah. And any time within the next 30 days that Iran doesn't come to and meet these terms.

I do want to know how they. Meet removing uranium stockpile from Iran. That's not something I don't think you can do in 30 days. But, you know, what does that mean exactly? Who is going to lead that effort internationally and who's going to check that box?

Well, we also have conversations now starting again. Of course, you have the midterm elections coming up, and you have what could someone like Marco Rubio do for a Presidential run? But you also have to look at, he needs to wrap this up. He needs to have a success story to do that.

So, what does that look like over the next year, really, that he would need to get that done to have probably a successful run? But at the same time, who else is making the media rounds to talking about this? Former President Barack Obama. He was on the late show yesterday, one of the final late shows. He has been showing up.

Obviously, he is promoting the opening of his new Presidential library.

So we're going to talk about that. It's a very interesting comments he made last night, talking about the future of the Republican Party.

So stay tuned for that. We'll be right back with more on Psychula. Yeah, welcome back to Sekulow. We are going to be taking your calls and comments about this at 1-800-684-30110. And as I teased, also, back half of the show.

Which some of you don't get on your local, if you're listening to terrestrial radio, you're going to be finding us always on aclj.org on YouTube, Rumble, however you get your podcast. We're there live streaming each and every day, 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time. And of course, archive later on if you're listening to this, there's a second half that runs. And that show is going to be, that second half is going to be very interesting.

Jeff Balabon is joining us, the head of ACLJ Jerusalem. He is back in Jerusalem.

So we're going to discuss how things are looking actually from a standpoint in Israel right now. And then following that, we're going to have on a former Turner executive, currently the chief media officer for Real American Freestyle, Eric Bischoff, who you may know from his time in the WCW and the WWE, but is currently has a show that runs on Fox Nation. But we do want to talk about the passing of Ted Turner, because whether you probably agree or disagree with him on his politics, it had a gigantic impact. And probably there's at least an argument to be made that we wouldn't be doing this show, this kind of content, if it wasn't for people like him.

So we're going to discuss that a little bit later in the second half. That being said, You also have speaking of media, you have President Barack Obama, former President Barack Obama, making the rounds talking about the current conversations that are happening. He's, of course, promoting his big giant Obama Center in Chicago. Yes, it's in Chicago. It's a pretty cool-looking structure, very interesting.

He's doing a lot. He's finally doing press. You don't see him out there all that much.

Now he's doing that. He's a shell a lot, but not him. And he's out there talking about this. And he started to really have that conversation of what a future relationship with the Republicans look like, what the future looks like with conservative media and other, you know, it gets very political as you'd expect. Yes, I mean he starts getting into the proper role of the Attorney General, remember Eric Holder.

I mean his wingman. Let's hear that. This is again, this is Barack Obama just last night on Stephen Colbert. Again, Stephen Colbert's show wrapping up, by the way, any day now. I think it's the end of the month.

But he's having some big guests on. One of them, former President Obama. Take a listen. We're going to have to do some work to return to this basic norm, and we probably now have to codify it. The White House shouldn't be able to direct the Attorney General to go around prosecuting whoever they are.

because they want to cost you. Right, because technically it's under the executive branch. The norm is that it's independent. The idea is that the Attorney General is the people's lawyer. It's not the President's concigliere.

Right, even when it's Bobby Kennedy. That's Bobby Carr. And so Two of the core principles of a democracy. We can survive a lot. Bad policy, funky elections.

There's a bunch of stuff that we can overcome. We can't overcome the politicization of the criminal justice system, the awesome power of the state. You can't have a situation in which. Whoever is in charge of the government starts using that to go after their political enemies. We saw the clap tracks.

On how, just under the Biden administration's four years, not as effective as the Obama administration's eight, but under just their four years, how they Criminal, again, they politicized the justice system to go after their political enemies. And it happened to be pro-lifers and religious people and people of faith, cases that we're still taking all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court as we speak. And so, again, Eric Holder said when you had Eric Holder as the Attorney General, this was a guy who, I mean, again, you couldn't have, it's not much closer than Bobby Kennedy being, at least Colbert brought that up.

So, you know, it's the people's. You usually forget. John F. Kennedy put his brother.

Well, and it's still, I mean, it's not the people's attorney, but it's the people's attorney. Still, it's the executive branch, which is run by the President. The President chooses the attorney general. And again, the way they characterize it is you shouldn't be able to just criminally investigate whoever you want just because the President wants to. That's not right.

But the President can certainly have input. Because the people elected the President. They didn't elect the attorney general. The attorney general got confirmed by an elected senate.

So if the President thinks there was wrongdoing in any way, he could certainly recommend that the attorney general have one of their massive investigations team at least take a look. And I don't think that's an abuse of the system. And by the way, when you have statements like this coming out of Eric Holder, remind people way back, this is 13 years ago. He had no problem making a statement like this. Yeah, he said, I'm still the President's wingman.

Do it sound on the sound of that. Do we have that? By the bite? I don't know if it's a bite. We do?

Okay, we can pull it up.

Okay, yeah. Let me know when we have that. But again, saying those famous words, and that's.

So to reframe it as if historically these roles have not been what President Trump or like the President Trump has remade these roles is kind of factually Inaccurate. Yeah, I think that it's just President Trump talks about it more openly.

So, like, whereas Barack Obama is not going to be the one, we always said this during the IRS investigation of the Tea Party groups. We always said, Barack Obama is not going to go up there and say, I ordered this. You're never going to get an email saying from Barack Obama. They get an email from other officials saying, Let's do this for him. Let's do this so we can get jobs inside the administration.

We saw that from Loislaw. We can get politically appointed jobs, we get better positions. We'll work with the FBI, work with the DOJ, because they will like that we are doing this. But you're never going to get him on the record saying, Go and do this. The difference is, President Trump hides nothing behind closed doors.

So he literally tells the American people exactly what he's thinking of doing. And so instead of hiding it, sometimes to his detriment. Maybe, because the truth is, as we proved in that 600-page report on the Biden administration, they politicized the DOJ. We know the Obama Department, a DOJ, was heavily politicized. And again, and they were kind of the start of that coming back where we had a gap period where, honestly, yes, there's always been the impeachment, this talk, that talk, but where, again, Certainly, you would have DOJs with different priorities based off who was in charge that you could agree with and disagree with.

But they really hypercharged the politics behind their DOJ. And the fact that he wasn't just saying it at a press conference makes no difference. And it doesn't mean it's necessarily illegal. You can disagree with it, say it's wrong, but you see how they're trying to codify what they mean there is. They say that word.

That's a very specific word. They want Congress to pass a law. that the present sides To restrict Presidential power when it comes to the Department of Justice. What President? would not veto that.

And by the way, what Congress does Barack Obama honestly see in the future is going to agree to do that? Hey, phone lines are open for you, and we're going to take your calls actually in the next segment. We usually hold off, take calls towards the end, but we got a packed second half of the show.

So, if you aren't joining us online or you're not joining us in a way that gets the full broadcast, but like SiriXM does, Salem News Channel, YouTube Rumble, however you get your podcast, that's the full hour.

Some of your more traditional terrestrial radio stations may not carry the full hour, they may split it up. You can always join us live, 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time on all those different platforms. And of course, you can find us archived however you get your podcasts. We are there.

The second half is going to be packed. We got three lines open right now: 1-800-684-3110. It's going to be a really interesting back half of the show. We're going to move a little bit more to the conversation back to Iran in the next segment because we have three calls lined up. All are about that.

We'll try to take as many as we can. A couple of them are ACLJ champions. ACLJ champions. Are people that give on a monthly recurring basis?

So I really appreciate ACLJ champions and they get bumped to the front.

So there's two, so they'll go first. Liz, you'll be up first, then we'll move to Mike, and then Tony, you'll be after that.

So stay on hold if you're on hold. We will do our best to get to as many of you as possible in the next segment. Then after that, We're going to talk about ACLJ Jerusalem. As the head of ACLJ Jerusalem, Jeff Balabon will be joining us live from Israel. And then we're going to discuss the impact and the legacy of Ted Turner, who just passed away.

Of course, a lot of you may have disagreed with a lot of his political statements, but there is no doubt. That's a lot of what we get to do here today, and a lot of in really 24-hour news or any of this kind of thing, none of that existed. Before Ted Turner really changed the game.

So we're even joined by Eric Bischoff, former Turner executive, head of WCW, was an executive of the WWE Hall of Fame, or is he a WWE Hall of Famer, and now is the head of Real American Freestyle on Fox Nation. We're going to talk all about that in this coming half hour. Join us at aclj.org. We'll be right back. Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever.

This is Sekulow. And now, your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome to the Second Half Hour Sekulow. This is Logan Sekulow, Jordan Sekulow, in studio as well. We are going to be joined a little bit later by Jeff Balabon, ACLJ Jerusalem, and head of Real American Freestyle, a great broadcast wrestling show that is on.

It's real wrestling, not professional wrestling, but done with some of the best UFC fighters. And it's really worth a watch. It is on Fox Nation. Eric has been a longtime friend. But before that, he was an executive at Turner with Ted Turner.

So we're going to talk about that. And of course, the passing of Ted Turner, what that means, because the impact of his legacy will be 24-hour cable news. I mean, that will be something that no one will ever escape than the endless news cycle and how that evolves. And you can probably start with an origin story that leads with Ted Turner. There are a bunch of calls right now.

So many of you are calling in, most about Iran and the situation that has unfolded with what looks to be, once again, possibly. An end of the road for the war in Iran, according to Marco Rubio, President Trump. But what does that really mean? We've been discussing that. Let's go ahead and take some phone calls.

ACLJ champions are on hold, they get to go first.

So, Liz is calling line one in Florida. Thanks, Liz. You're on the air. Hey, Liz. Hi.

don't think we can use gas prices to determine when the conflict is over because I don't trust the gas companies to lower the prices just because the war is over.

Well, I mean, what so in your mind... What is the kind of point where the war is over, where you feel like the U.S. has gotten done what it needs to get done? Is it the. The nuclear enrichment out of Iran is it a political because right now on the list is not a political leadership change.

So for you, Liz, what what would be getting the j finishing the job be? I think when we start pulling our carrier groups back out, which I don't think Trump will do until the nuclear enrichment stuff is solved.

So when we start pulling our carrier groups out, Then we could say it's over. Yeah, I mean, I think that's been you know, been building up for over a year.

So I think that that's looking at a very long-term strategy. And I think that's that's almost like saying kind of resetting to pre Um last summer. And they were very Strategic. Strategic. But, you know, then we have been over time since those attacks, been building up and building up and getting those ships in place.

So that's a longer-term move. I do think these gas companies do not want gas prices so high that you don't drive or and that you, of course, decide not to fly.

So they have an interest in getting it down to a level where the consumer feels comfortable enough, even spending a little more. But when you're talking about double in some places, that's when it's hurting them too. I want to quickly get to Mike, who's also an ACLJ champion. We'll do our best to get some of those later on. May not be able to.

Stay on hold, though. Mike, line three, you're on the air. Yeah, I'm very disappointed that we're not finishing the job. We have an avowed enemy. that wants to destroy Israel, wants to destroy us.

And uh you know, it's a fastest growing Christian company Country in the world is Iran. And they're going to keep killing the people. Yeah, I think there is frustration for a lot of us who thought regime change meant freedom for the Iranian people. To have successful regime change, take the U.S. has learned this.

We can't force that on you.

So we can make it easier. We can take out leadership. We can take out their weapons of war. But you still have to put your life on the line if you want to change governments in most countries in the world. Like, it's not going to be bloodless.

For the most part, that's pretty rare. It doesn't happen in our history, and then you kind of have to fight over it again a few times.

So that takes the people, we can put the pieces in place. And then the people have got to make the decision to make that move. Right now, that doesn't seem to be on the table. I think, listen, an Iran without nuclear enrichment capability is a very different threat than in Iran. That is trying to get a deliverable nuclear weapon that could hit at least Europe and eventually the United States.

When you're talking about Iran, of course, who else is leading this charge has been Israel. And we have our offices in Israel, ACLJ Jerusalem. And we get back, we're gonna be joined by Jeff Balabon live. From Jerusalem, first time back in Jerusalem in a little bit of time.

So, we're gonna get some on-the-ground coverage of what it's like, how it's going there. And of course, it directly involves the safety and security of Israel and their whole economy as well to have this war happen.

So, we're going to discuss that. And then later on, we'll be joined by Eric Bischoff.

So, you don't want to miss that. If you are on hold, we'll do our best to get your calls. No guarantees, we'll try our best, though. And we'll be right back on Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow.

Again, we may take some calls and comments, but we've got a packed second half of this show. We're now going to be jumping over to. ACLJ Jerusalem ahead, Jeff Balabon. And Jeff, you've returned. You're back in Jerusalem.

So let's discuss that. Of course, we discussed the first half of this show a lot about what's happening in the war in Iran. I'm sure that is still having a major impact, what's going on in Israel. But let's just start there. Let's just start with kind of getting us the lay of the land.

How's the tone? How are things going? Sure.

So just to paint a little color, see what it's like here. On the way at the airport in New York and then on flight, including in the hour before we landed, there were all kinds of rumors because now that you have internet and flights, you can pay attention to what's going on that the airport in Tel Aviv was going to be closed down because of dangerous potential ratcheting up again from Iran.

So even in the last couple of hours, there were some concerns that the flights would be turned around and sent someplace else. And then the question is, where do you go? Because Iran strikes a lot of places in the region.

So maybe you're, but we landed, it was fine. And in terms of the overall picture of what's happening, I'd say that the one interesting discussion that I've had since I've been here about what's happening now, this breather, this holdoff, whatever it is, is that Israel has tremendous intelligence on the people in Iran and has for many years because they are a proximate existential threat. And so the targeting of the leadership has been such that the The ones who are left behind are the ones that Israel at least hopes. I mean, obviously, the greater hope would have been for there to be a regime change. But in the meantime, at least hopes that these are not as Mark Ruby would say is insane in the brain, perhaps.

And that you can have some dealings with them, at least in the short term, to figure out some kind of a way forward. Not that there's a huge belief that it's a long-term strategy, but at least for now, that's the hope that they left a cadre of people specifically that can be dealt with to try and work things out right now. Yeah, I mean, Jeff, we still don't exactly know who those individuals are. It hasn't been clear. I think the President's talked about that.

You know, he's not going to keep sitting over J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio on 19-hour flights to Pakistan to sit down with people who don't have the ability to agree to anything or even these interim deals. I mean, I think, again, to get to this 14-point planned and kind of 30-day ceasefire, opening of the Strait, lifting of some temporary relief of sanctions, is this full removal of Iran's uranium stockpile. I mean, if you were to look at the biggest. A possible potential victory out of this.

If Iran feels like they have to agree to this, that is a big win for not just the United States, but for Israel and the region. Because it would imagine that even Iran's hardliners, who may be still in charge with the IRGC, realize that they cannot withstand a continued U.S. action. I mean, to me, that's the kind of sticking point I'm most interested in to seeing whether they agree on this. Look, you know, Jordan, you're making some very interesting points.

And what's also arisen, and it's important to look back over the last couple of months, what's arisen has been extraordinary in that for the first time, and this is entirely thanks to Donald Trump's presidency in the first instance, that, you know, the UAE being attacked by, you know, a Muslim Arab country being attacked by a Muslim Persian country. calls in Israel and Israel sends over troops and technology and weapons to help them fight. This is extraordinary. We're not just talking about peaceful trade. We're talking about actual real-time war defenses among countries that, until Donald Trump came around, wouldn't even talk to each other or they wouldn't talk to Israel.

And now they're relying on Israel to help them.

So the truth is there is still tremendous room for hope here. Iran still is the sort of the destroyer of the region. And I personally believe that we do need to see some kind of regime change for this to be safe, but nobody can make that happen. It has to be the Iranian people. All that can happen is that the allies of the Iranian people can set up the circumstances as well as possible as far as getting everything else.

These new allies. I think that's important. As you said, Jeff, it's one thing to do business with each other. That was the Abraham Accords. It is another step to when you start working with each other on military defenses, sharing technology, sharing Iron Dome technology, and because it kind of just unifies your countries that much more when you are standing side by side fighting an enemy.

So, one thing that's come out of this certainly is that you have a much stronger allegiance of allies. That it's not the U.S. just having to cobble together because we have the allegiances independently with those Gulf states. With Israel on its own now being able to work so directly, that Iran and right or surrounding Iran, certainly now, you've got a region of allies who working together and coming together have the resources to really be a check on Iran. I mean, they may not individually be even close to the size of Iran, but when you put their economies and where their militaries are.

Technologically, certainly they can be a huge, not just buffer anymore, but a real threat to Iran.

Well, that's right. And people don't necessarily are looking at the negatives that, of course, happen in any war. But the positives are just as we describe right now. And, you know, there's a term that came into power in the first Trump administration, also called Pax Silica. And the idea that they called Pax America, so the post-World War II generation where America was the world's cop.

Well, you know, there are other forces that are competing. And in the new world where we're not paying, America doesn't want to be the police for the whole world. The idea that there could be other countries that, because of new technologies, are able from a distance to really take control and keep things safer and more secure for our American interests globally, that's happening. And Israel seems to be at the core of that. And this is one expression of that.

One of the things, Jeff, also that keeps coming up, and if you're in sort of the zeitgeist on social media and seeing it, is also what's currently going on or not going on with the war in Gaza. And it's kind of become an afterthought for a lot of people, but then there's still a lot of conversation of what that actually looks like right now. Of course, in terms of ceasefires, we know that that is somewhat still standing, that that exists. But we also know that that's not a conflict that is completely resolved by any means. But let's give a little bit of some color on that as well, of how that feels, because that's obviously even a little closer to home.

Locally. Sure.

Well, yeah, that's a great point, Logan. And it's not just Gaza. I mean, it's Lebanon and it's Syria, right? Syria is still waiting to be sorted out, right? That's a northern border.

Lebanon, northern border, that is still waiting to be sorted out. And there's still troops, you know, Israeli troops there because they're finding massive tunnel systems, massive weapons problems. You know, again, these, these, all these countries have been for decades have been run by, or these territories, countries have been run by Iran through proxies who all had one goal, the total eradication of the state of Israel. Those wars are still going on, but thanks, and again, this is sort of what Trump has been saying. The really epic, the work that was done by Israel, first on its own, then together with America, really has set back their causes.

But we're far from out of the woods. These are generational problems that have been building for just decades and decades and decades. And it's going to take a long time for them to actually find some kind of safety and security. And we have to now start discussing again, sort of getting Israel back on the ground. Good PR train because they have taken a lot of hits here in the United States and seem to continue to.

It feels like, look, and we can see worldwide and how it has obviously spread to not just Israel or Israelis. You now have just the Jewish community in general. You see what happens, Golder's Green in the UK just a few days ago. These attacks keep happening and somehow, again, rationalized, normalized, and You could discuss. I've always said we could discuss whether you think that the actions of Israel have gone on too long, what it could be, the political side of Israel.

That's totally different than the conversation of what's happening right now, which is now just feels like. Excused violence just due to an ethnic connection. Yeah. Listen, I don't know if you saw what happened in New York. These events happen all the time.

People, Jews in America, especially in religious Jewish communities, like to have retirement homes or a place to be in Israel maybe for their kids or whatever, for their lives. And so real estate comes to shows in synagogues and people come or Jewish community centers. Anyway, there was a huge, massively violent attack against one of those in New York.

Now, you know, Mamdani didn't help at all. By the way, before I left, I was speaking to a New York police officer who was complaining to me just terribly how unsupported they feel in general by Mamdani. And so we became a free-for-all. And it is pure anti-Semitic hate and violence against the idea that a Jew shouldn't be allowed to buy a home in Jerusalem. Why shouldn't the Jew be allowed to buy a home anywhere?

Would we ever say that any other religion or race or ethnic group, it should be illegal for you to own a home someplace, let alone a Jew in Jerusalem? And yet, It's every excuse to just attack Jews. And I don't know. I don't know how we roll that back because, as we keep on talking about here, it's not just one side anymore. It's really seeping up around the fringes all over.

I saw Madami's statement. Of course, he called it out, did say that it was an anti-Semitic attack. There was no place for it. And I saw two different responses. Of course, one of them was not, of course, agreeing with him, condemning it.

The answers were either: how dare he?

Now, kowtow to the, you know, the anti-the crowd calling for anti-Semitism, saying there's anti-Semitism, or the other one was saying, he didn't write this, this was AI generated.

So, you know, it was either his apology was fake or his apology was offensive. Or not apology, but his response saying that he was even anti-Semitic.

So his own people, even when he knows is the mayor of New York, he's going to come out and make some sort of statement. And that statement may be, like you said, not far enough. It doesn't matter because the people on social media are going to say either, how dare you? Condemn Jewish hatred. Or the other one is: you clearly didn't write this.

This was AI. He never writed it. We only got a couple seconds here. Jeff. Everyone gets he's on the wrong side of this.

No one takes him seriously when he says he supports Jews. Absolutely. Look, we're going to thanks, Jeff, for calling in. We appreciate it. Look, it's always great to hear from Jeff at the ACLJ Jerusalem getting back going.

So, we'll have Jeff on, I'm sure, next week to discuss even further what he's up to. Hey, we get back in the next segment. We are joined by Eric Bischoff, a former Turner executive. Of course, talking about the passing of Ted Turner and the impact that he had on what all of us do each and every day here in news media, as well as Real American Freestyle, great news show that's available in Sports League that is on Fox Nation. We're going to discuss that coming up.

Stay tuned. It's going to be a great segment. We'll be right back with more on Sekulow.

So, Sekulow, this is a really interesting segment. Look, we all just saw this morning the breaking news, the passing of Ted Turner, a, you know, I mean, look, President Trump just put out one of the greats of all time. And I think that that is something that we could all agree on. Is at least, you may not have agreed with everything Ted Turner stood for politically, whatever it may be, but there is a very good chance we wouldn't be doing what we're doing today if it wasn't for some of his vision in the early days of CNN, of course, the early days of media in general. We're joined by Eric Bischoff, who's obviously a former Turner executive with WCW, of course, later on, WWE Hall of Famer, and now chief media officer at Real America Freestyle, which is on Fox Nation RAF, which is just an absolute blast.

We're going to get to that. But, Eric, I wanted to start just with you, just to check in. Of course, this is a sad day for a lot of people in America, but really the impact. And you had the, I guess, the luck, if you will, or the ordination to be able to. work directly with a very eccentric, interesting figure who really shaped the modern landscape of media.

I mean, he really did when you think about it, the change that Ted Turner brought to the media landscape. And he did it in such an outrageous way, and of course, came across the name, Captain Outrageous as a result, but that and many other things. But You know, he saw things so far into the future beyond what most visionaries and entrepreneurs would see. You know, the idea of a 24-hour global news platform. At the time, it was absurd, and people thought he was out of his mind.

You know, the superstation strategy, just so many things. You know, when Ted Turner went out and bought the MGM Film Library, everybody, all the business experts and financial experts in the country, you know, thought he had lost his mind and was going to go, you know, bankrupt as a result. And it turns out, Ted knew early on what others learned is it's one thing to be a great distribution of content. It's another thing to create, own, and distribute your content. Ted was really a leader in that regard.

And just he was an entrepreneur's entrepreneur, man. It's just so fascinating to even have a glimpse into what working with Ted Turner was like. Yeah. And hearing those stories from you, Eric, is always so fascinating. And it gave you a different light.

There was a great documentary they put out on him a few years ago. But Jordan and I grew up in Atlanta. And really, he changed the city and the state. Eric brought up like the superstation.

So like TBS. The Atlanta Braves becoming America's team. I mean, which, again, was a strategic move to put the Atlanta Braves on, kind of like how you'd see the Chicago Cubs with WGN, and kind of rival that. But at the same time, for me, as someone who grew up and said, you know, I want to go right into politics, if you hadn't had CNN, you'd have to have a lot of people. You know, you weren't necessarily going to be making it to the 10 o'clock news at night every night or just local news.

Like, like I finally had a place to go as a kid. I could like see what was going on in the world. And of course, one of those first things was the Gulf War. It was 24-hour coverage of the Gulf War in real time, not getting reports 24 hours later, but journalists who were on the ground and people always saying, you know, what the next move. I was just at a film festival last week for Turner Classic Movies because my father-in-law was a child actor in one of the movies that they play all the time because Turner Classic Movies now is owned by Warner Brothers.

Yeah, but has bought all of those. Everyone knows about that part. Bought all of those catalogs, though. And it still goes under that name. I was just thinking about it as we were sitting here.

There I am with the red carpet for the Chinese theater. And we are under the Turner name. And it's still a network. And it was its fans who had paid, I think, $4,000 to $5,000 to attend this three-day festival for movies that were being made from the 1950s all up until like Father, the Brian. And those kind of movies that run uninterrupted still on network, but also are streaming.

So you've got, I just think, again, buying those catalogs, things that we now see happening all through. It's not visionary in all of them. But the news. The news for all of us. None of us would exist in these realms without CNN first starting and really just.

You know, going 24 hours, putting people all around the world and making that investment, which was very expensive. And for Eric, like for even what you do in the even the world of podcasts, and we're going to get into RIF here in just a second. I mean, that, that, the, the, you can find sort of the nucleus there that it all kind of started early on with what became 24-hour news and all of us getting used to hearing people talk as entertainment. Yeah, and I'm with you guys. I mean, the first Gulf War was really, it was.

It was so, it was the first time you could immerse yourself on something that was so significant that had global implications, but you could, I mean, I was. I I think I must have watched CNN. 20 hours a day. When that was going down, I could not get myself away from it. And that's the first time that our culture was really ever exposed to that.

And look where we are now. You know, news is such an important thing, it's a commodity. Before it was a public service, now it is a commodity. And I think a lot of that has to do with Ted Turner. I wanted to give you enough time also because one of the great things that you have come out with here in the last year is you're wearing the shirt, Real American Freestyle RAF.

We've been watching it at home. My son's a big mixed martial arts fan. Of course, we all grew up big professional wrestling fans. And this is sort of a combination of the reality of sports with some of the pageantry of professional wrestling. And it is a lot of fun.

It's on Fox Nation. And there's a big event coming up, I know, at the end of May. But even for people who maybe, our audience maybe doesn't know about RAF, we've got a couple minutes here. I think we need to be pitching this. Yeah, no, I mean, real American freestyle.

It was really Hulk Hogan, Chad Bronstein, Izzy Martinez came to me and said, hey, we've got this vision. We want to take freestyle wrestling at the Olympic level, world-class level, lead athletes, and we want to create a professional league because it didn't exist. Nobody had been able to figure it out. And they tagged me in because I, you know, I think they believed that I could bring the entertainment to the sport. Everybody knew what freestyle wrestling was.

It comes around once every four years in the Olympics and okay, great. Or the NCAAs. But we wanted to bring it into the mainstream and make it entertaining. We've been blessed. There's no other way to say it than that.

The amount of growth and success we've experienced and literally eight months now of producing these events is beyond my comprehension. You are seeing a huge, we've got a couple minutes here, huge social media presence. You are seeing people talking about this more than I ever expected, Eric. It's really great to see. It's really great to see this again.

It's on Fox Nation. So if you're a Fox Nation member, you get to watch these shows and it's going to be expanding. And there's an event coming up May 30th and it's coming to Texas. And like I said, these are names from the UFC. This is names from the Olympics.

You're Gable Stevenson. You've got all these people that are coming on board.

So if you're a UFC fan or an MMA fan, You're going to find a home here. But also, if you're one of those families that maybe you're like, this is maybe, you know, UFC is not quite accessible for me and my family to sit down and watch yet. What I like about RAF is that it's still incredibly entertaining. Of course, it's all there, but it's not quite to that level of, I guess you'd say, hardcore violence that comes from it in language and things. We like to refer to ourselves as family-friendly combat sports.

And I know that sounds a little bit, you know, like it doesn't really fit well together, but it does. Because if you look at MMA, the greatest athletes in MMA right now, Osman Jamayov, as a matter of fact, just signed with Real American Freestyle and has got a big weekend coming up with Strickland.

So. If you look at the very best MMA fighters, they all have wrestling backgrounds. That's their foundation.

So we've got that kind of sweet spot between, you know, MMA and the very foundation of MMA, freestyle wrestling. And we just believe that we can make it entertaining and we have. And it's that saying, man, if you build it, they'll come. And they're coming in droves. And it's such a great opportunity.

It's really amazing. It's a blast. And look, Eric's been a longtime friend.

So you know, when you're watching RAF also, you are enjoying great people that are behind this.

So I couldn't be more excited to support what you guys are doing here. And again, thank you for coming on. I know that it's somewhat of a heavy day for all of us and for you specifically. But again, we are happy to have that discussion with you today. And again, if you ever need to come, hey, look, we're going to come out to an RAF event.

I'm making it out there. We're going to make the trip. And hopefully you make one to Nashville. We'll be there match side, I guess, if you will. But thank you so much, Eric, for joining us today.

I really appreciate it. And with that, That's going to do it for today's show. We took you all around the world. I hope you enjoyed it. See you tomorrow.