UPDATE: Trump and Iran Reach Boiling Point

On today's show, Duran gives Trump a 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. 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.

Yeah, that says 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 I 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 fourteen 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, 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, as 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.

And I'd love to hear from you. Again, thank you again for supporting the work of the ACLJ during the Double the Difference Drive. It meant a lot. Got us pretty far, got us very close, I believe, to the budget. And we will have other months and other opportunities.

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Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684. 31-10-1-800-684-3110. 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 Hermuz completely and what it would look like moving forward, as there is a lot of global pressure to get that done.

At 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 sixty 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, 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. Project Freedom 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? 1-800-68-430-110. 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. 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 do 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, and 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, the Red Star 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. It's 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 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 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 1-800-684-3110. 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 Iranian oil going along the Oh yeah. 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, 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 happened 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, what, I can't 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. 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 could 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 Rinnell's joining us in the next segment, and then we'll hop around and get some more calls from around the planet. 1-800-684-3110. 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. 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, member 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. The President wants fashion.

Right, because technically it's under the executive branch. Technically, 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.

It's Bobby Kennedy. 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's in charge of the government starts using that to go after their political enemies. We did a clap track. We had a 600-page report with the DOJ.

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, how about the head of the game? 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 is a little bit different.

It's a little bit of the President. 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 an agent. At least Colbert brought that up.

So you go, it's the people's. You easily forget. Gerald 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 am still the President's wingman.

Do it sound on the we've sounded 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.

Now, you 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 Lois Laura. We can get politically appointed jobs. We get better positions.

We'll work with the FBI. We'll 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. He's 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 a little bit of a... They want to 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 at 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 reoccurring 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 going to be 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 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 building up for over a year.

So I think 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. Where we launched the attacks into 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. Yeah, but 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, I think 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, the ACLJ Jerusalem. And when we get back, we're going to 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 Europe. But, you know, 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 there's tremendous, 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 the sane 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 JD 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 going 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 there 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, Johnny, 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 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, it 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 together, 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've described 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.

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, you know, 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. Yeah, 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 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 should 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 my domi'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, said, 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 as 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 wrote 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, 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, time at 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 through 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. Sekulow, this is a really interesting segment. Look, we all 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 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 day and kept it outrageous as a result, but that and many other things. 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 know, you weren't necessarily going to be making it to the 10 o'clock news at night every night or had just local news. Like, I finally had a place to go as a kid.

I could see what was going on in the world. And of course, one of those first things was the Gulf War, 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, but has 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 you know 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, four to five thousand dollars to attend this three-day festival for movies that were being made from the 1950s all up until you know, like Father, the Bride, 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 the time. The news, yeah, 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, 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.

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 in literally eight months now of producing these events is beyond my comprehension. You are seeing a huge, we got a couple minutes here, huge social media presence. You are seeing people talking about this more than I ever expected, Eric. And 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 RAS 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 Jamaov, 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 Matt's 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 gonna do it for today's show. We took you all around the world. I hope you enjoyed it. See you tomorrow.