On today's show, Weekend of Chaos Leaves the Mainstream Media Floundering.
Okay. Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.
And now, your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow. It is Monday. I think it's June 8th. Is that right, Will?
That's correct. June 8th. In the year 2026, welcome to Sekulow. We're going to be taking your calls at 1-800-684-30-110 Wills in Studio, Jordan's in studio. And we've got a packed show.
Jeff Balabon, Macy LJ, Jerusalem is going to be joining us. Of course, if you've been following what's going on in Israel, the rockets and missiles have returned. War has essentially restarted, it feels, after what was months of relative quiet. Israel had kind of gone back into normal business. Like, I was looking at a trip potentially.
We were all kind of looking, all right, maybe things are going to finally calm down. And of course, they began once again.
Now, thankfully, the Iron Dome did its job. And we can talk about that with Jeff a little bit later. Same time, you had a couple different instances in the mainstream media where it feels like the chaos and the meltdown is occurring. And look, it's also occurring, I want to say, not just because you have President Trump in the White House and someone who can be a little more aggressive, it's also. Remember, we're we're in a new day.
This is 2026. You're going to see a lot of shakeup in the news, and not just with the CBS situation, not with just Barry Weiss, not with just conservatives. You're going to see it across the board because they are in a bit of chaos to figure out what the future looks like. For mainstream news media, for network news. President Trump was on Meet the Press.
And after a pretty extensive interview, but you probably didn't see that. A little bit rough. We'll play that in just a little bit where he stormed out and maybe rightfully so, maybe not. I want your thoughts on that. Do you think it was professionally done?
1-800-684-3110. And on the other side, you had Scott Pelley, former, now 60 Minutes. He was with 60 Minutes for decades. You know, after going on what was allegedly a pretty long tirade against his new bosses, he was fired. Shocking that that's something that can happen.
And then now is Saying it's similar? to the murder of his spouse of how bad it is at CBS News right now. That that's what it feels like. You know, that it comes in waves. And it's absolutely absurd.
I mean, look, I think we are in a moment of. Media consolidation. We're in a moment of. a completely restructuring of how news media is going to run. And though you may agree or disagree with how CBS and Paramount and all of them have handled, Maybe sort of there, you could say, maybe there's a bias there from one political party or another.
Not that there hasn't been on all sides of the news for decades and decades, and now they're just getting a little taste of what it's like. But you are also seeing them finally have to respond 2. The Age of New Media After decades of being, you know, intentionally, it feels like, with their head in the sand. And here we are. As chaos is starting to erupt in the media, remember, most of the people who are probably complaining about the death of 60 Minutes probably haven't watched 60 Minutes and in.
decades themselves, if not ever.
Well, it's important to break this down, and that's exactly what we're going to do. We're going to play some shocking sound for you. But once again, what you're seeing is the self importance of these journalists, that they believe that without them, That this country will fall away. And in reality, we know that they have let their biases creep in. That they have let their agendas creep in, and they are not this fourth estate that they believe that they are anymore.
And when they are called out on that, then they have epic meltdowns. And we're going to show that because it's important, because there are people that are trying to change the way that the legacy media operates to make it relevant again. And whenever you start to push against that, you're starting to see these meltdowns.
So it's important to lay this out, not just from Scott Pelley at 60 Minutes, but also. Kind of the way that it's being spun and lied to you about President Trump walking out of an interview, it's not exactly what they're portraying. And we're going to show that when we come back. Yeah, and also, look, like we said, it's a new day in media. The reason you have even your Fox News is saying, hey, we should launch more digital media options.
We should have podcasts. All of our hosts now have to have a more chill, relaxed, casual podcast with Sean Hannity or Shannon Bream or any of these hosts who you've known for years now having to have sort of alternate programming. Why? They see where media is going, honestly, a little late. Let's talk about that when we get back.
Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-68-430-110. What do you want from your news media in 2026? We'll be right back on Sekulow. But hey, in the meantime, I want you to become an ACLJ champion. That's ataclj.org/slash champions.
Um Welcome back to Sekulow. We do have some phone lines open for you at 1-800-684-3110. We addressed sort of the big media elephant in the room dealing with not only President Trump walking out of that meet the press interview that happened over the weekend as well. Scott Pelly going on and making his statement of why he feels so upset about being fired from 60 minutes. And again, 60 Minutes has created great content for decades.
I don't want to pretend like they haven't been a mainstay. in mainstream media and have done a good job. But what has happened is you have new ownership. You have new people in charge, and you know what? It's 2026.
It's okay for these things to change.
So we're going to go over that and we also are going To hear from Scott Pelley himself. Do you want to start with Scott Pelley or President Trump? Will where you want to go? I actually want to start with President Trump here, and then we'll get to the Scott Pelley because it feeds into this narrative: the self-importance of these journalists that think they are what's keeping this country together. This is actually the walkout moment from President Trump with Kristen Welker.
And I'll give you a little bit of background here as well, because. There has never, I think, been a President that's more accessible to the people that hate him the most, the press. than this President, right? President Trump has been on Meet the Press as President three times, once back in his previous term with Chuck Todd. And now this is the second Meet the Press appearance with Kristen Welker in his second term.
What you're seeing with the headlines, walks out after he gets pushback, contentious interview, et cetera, is only showing the end. And we're going to show that too because he was, I thought, did a great job. But what they're not showing you is the 38 minutes. That's the interview. That they aired before this moment.
The frustration that led to this. He gave a full interview. They're making it seem like he showed up, did five minutes, and said, this is a waste of my time, and walked out. In the rain, where it's on a metal roof on a farm in rural Wisconsin. And they have to keep pausing and moving the times and saying, hey, can we wait?
He gave them more of an hour of content. They aired 38 minutes of it. And this is the clip they're showing you. This is bite one. It's the end of it.
But they're not saying that he He sat down and fully cooperated. Let's roll bite one. Evidence than ever presented. Let's talk about this. Your elections in this country.
We're like a third world country. Your elections are crooked, and you're crooked, and meets the press is crooked, and so is ABC, and CBS, and CNN. But Mr. President, your one-sided crooked network.
So let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good day. Mr. President, let's please.
I traveled all the way to Wisconsin. I've stopped. I've traveled all the way. I know. I've traveled all the way to Wisconsin.
On and off in the rain, and I've given you enough time. You ought to straighten out your press because you know what? A country can never be great with a dishonorable. Listen, we traveled all the way to Wisconsin for the primary. That self-importance of we traveled all the way to Wisconsin.
Yeah, and he gave you the interview. He gave you a full hour of content. You aired 38 minutes. It was almost your whole show. As normally in Meet the Press is.
You brought up a good point. How many times did Joe Biden do that well? Zero. Joe Biden sat with Meet the Press during his presidency zero times. Yeah, I mean, they're making it out like he's the.
It's just the nasty questions, which is what she was doing.
So she pivoted to the gotcha questions after she went through the serious questions. And he said, no, we're not doing this. I'm not going to re-litigate these things. I'm not going to re-litigate them with you specifically.
So we've had enough here. And they play it like he didn't give them an interview. But in fact, he gave them more of an interview than any President usually does time-wise. They did travel to Wisconsin. They got about an hour of an interview.
They played, like Will said, about 38 minutes of that. And then at the end, they say, oh, see, he got up and just left. Yeah, that's the clip. That's false advertising about what actually happened. That's the truth.
And that's become pretty common when it comes to President Trump trying to engage. Mainstream media is that they just can't tell the truth. They didn't say, Hey, before he got up, he did spend nearly an hour with us on the record that we've got, you know, for you that we're going to show later today. It was like as if he sat down, got one question, and stormed out. Yeah, and that's what I, honestly, that's what I thought had happened because I had not seen the whole, I do not watch Meet the Press every week.
I was not aware of anything other than that clip that was going around.
So, to see that, also, you're right. The self-importance: if we traveled all the way here, that is what you do with Presidents of the United States. You're also from Washington, D.C. to what, Milwaukee, or wherever this may be. That's an 80-minute flip.
That's your job. Your job is to go cover this. And if you get now, your second sit-down with the President, maybe don't go back to the same old tired lines of with no evidence, with no evidence. You didn't even get the opportunity to speak to the previous President of the United States because he was unable to give interviews. But I think it also, this self-importance, it goes to the Scott Pelley thing.
This is where he's talked.
Now, with the New York Times, lamenting about his firing, where he said nasty things about his boss in a meeting with multiple people, and they said, You know what? You're not going to work here anymore. And here's how he said. Anyone who's listening to this, try that with your boss and see what happens here. You know, right, literally say, You have murdered my job.
That's what he said in the meeting, and he reiterated that later. But this is him, this is bite two, because This goes to that self-importance factor because he was responding to President Trump saying a litany of things about Scott Pelley as well as saying, like, they don't even care about this country. And here's where the self-importance shines through. Here's how Scott Pelly sees himself. Bite two.
Uh I've never worn the uniform. But I've been in combat for this country. In Afghanistan. And a rock. Kuwait.
been shot at. Spent nights in foxholes filling up with water in the desert. I'm not aware. that the President of the United States has ever done any of those things for his country? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
You become a journalist. Because you love the First Amendment. You become a journalist because you love the country.
Okay. And while all the other descriptions that the President used about me might be applicable. Not that one. And again, that was from Scott Pelley doing an interview about obviously being fired from his long-standing job. And look.
The idea of I've been in combat for this country is a bit odd to say when we really know what you mean. Look, I have full respect for the journalists that do put themselves in the press, war reporters that go into harm's way to get us the information. More respect than you possibly know to all those people, including Scott Pelly in that situation.
However, Do not pretend also you are a soldier. Do not pretend you are fighting for the country in that way. That is a very different thing. You start really getting into the stolen valor kind of warning. You could be voluntarily being in that.
Obviously, we have a volunteer military as well, but it's a different situation than being the one who are the actual targets. And to then say, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know if the President has ever done that, the commander-in-chief of the country. Right. He's been the commander-in-chief multiple times now. He's been re-elected after the 2020 debacle.
And so he is now President again, commander-in-chief, a constitutional position, right? I want to hear from veterans. Is this offensive to you? I would be offended if I had actually worn the uniform and gone to combat for this country and hear someone say, I've never worn the uniform, but. I have been in combat for the country.
Also, you become a journalist, he said, because you love the First Amendment, because you love this country. Um I don't know if that simply applies. Anymore. There are plenty of people, by the way, in the history of journalism That we're what? Propagandist.
I mean, let's just not let's not be beat around the bush here. I mean some of the most legendary Journalists of our time were not always on the up and up.
So let's not just give some blanket. You want to be a journalist because you love the First Amendment. I don't know. There are a lot of journalists who are doing double duty, who have always been people who are against the First Amendment, are against the government, against, or working on behalf of other governments.
So let's make it a little less like it's this, you know, I mean, like, I would consider ourselves journalists to some extent. And I also think there need to be checks and balances.
Well, I think if you work for the American Center for Law and Justice, you truly love the First Amendment. That is kind of the core of what the work is here. It's not just going on 60 minutes, having a very long, comfortable career, as he has. And supported. And all of a sudden, you get fired because you go trash your boss in a meeting.
And we'll play when we come back how he compared getting fired at the end of his career because it's absurd. It goes back to, no, he's saying he does it because he loves the First Amendment. In reality, he loves himself. And that is the way that he is putting that forward. It's the same with Kristen Welker saying, I traveled all the way to Wisconsin.
Yeah, normally, because that's what they called flyover country. They didn't care to stop. Yeah, and look, the ACLJ continues on in this fight as well. You know, we have our current case up at the Supreme Court of the United States, and there's probably some updates going on with that too, as well, in terms of our lawsuit against CNN. Why?
Because we want to protect. people who are being lied about. on mainstream media. That's what's currently happening in this country. That's what the ACLJ is involved in.
I want you to get involved in it too.
So right now, Once you go to aclj.org/slash champions, become a champion if you can. Today, we do have an update. We'll get to that coming up. We also are going to take things over to ACLJ Jerusalem. We know that the fighting with Iran has Come back pretty strong as Iran has attacked.
And now we will see a return from Etanyahu and the Israeli government. And again, kind of feels a little bit back to square one, but we'll see where we're going with that. We'll continue that coverage in a little bit. But again, I want you to go to aclj.org. And if you can't, become a monthly champion today.
Just scan the QR code, opt in. Again, aclj.org. We have a couple lines still open, not many. 1-800-68-430-110. Welcome back to Sekulow.
We have a bunch of calls coming in, and I want you to call in too.
So keep this going. 1-800-684-31-10. We're talking about Scott Pelly's comments. We're also talking about President Trump storming out of that Meet the Press interview. What the.
The really the The landscape is of the mainstream media in 2026, as we have seen such a shift over the last few years that really their relevancy, at really any sort of Um Claim they can even have to shifting people's thoughts and minds. I don't think that exists near as much as people. Maybe th maybe not as much as they think they hold. I mean, when was the last time you seriously watched any of these programs? We live in a very fragmented society now.
Sure, they have their audience. And again, legendary broadcast, 60 minutes. I got nothing but respect for a lot of the people who've been working on that show for. Decades and decades and decades. I like that we have some of those long-standing things, but it doesn't mean things don't change.
Scott Pelley, though, is so upset and he started comparing himself to not only a widow or a widower, someone who thought like their spouse was murdered based on him losing his job after having an outburst at work, plus. You had him saying, essentially, he's been in the foxholes with soldiers, and not only that, started to almost. Act like he was a combat veteran. And though I understand and I respect wartime journalists who go and put themselves in harm's way. It is very different to me.
Than someone who is an active duty soldier, an active duty Marine, some part of the Navy, Air Force. Let's take a call. We got a lot of calls coming in. I want to start with Dave. Who's calling on line three?
Dave, go ahead. Yes, I got to say that Scott Pelly's comment is completely insulting to anybody who actually wore the uniform, who volunteered to put their life on the line for the freedoms that we benefit from. Yeah, I I have never heard a comment like that that that Sets me off like I am right now. Yeah, Dave, I understand that. I mean, look, I'm not going to.
Stand here and take stolen valor as they have any sort of way other than to say thank you for doing what you've done. Thank you for your service to the country. And thank you to all the people. And again, like I said, thank you to the journalists, the wartime journalists that do go into war zones and actively do it. But let's not pretend it's the same thing.
And the holier-than-thou journalistic integrity that is coming upon these characters, and I wouldn't even put Scott Pelley on blast. It is sort of the nature. Of that era of journalism.
Well, here's also where I want to draw this little experiment out a little bit more about the self-importance versus them saying, you know, we are the most important thing. Like, this is, we love the First Amendment and we go into this knowing that all these things could happen. We are the last line of defense of democracy. There's lines like that as well from his interview. But here's the problem.
Because the Kristen Welker line of questioning that prompted the end of the interview was when he mentioned something about the mayoral race in Los Angeles with Spencer Pratt, where what did we see? We saw a very statistically anomalous situation where the person who was the third amount of votes getters, Karen Bass, who was the leader, all of a sudden stopped getting votes from the mail-in ballots. At least not in en masse, it was all going to the person in third place, which has now gone ahead of Spencer Pratt in the mayoral election. You know what true journalism is? Why does this happen?
Asking the question. about our elections. Why does this happen? Why does it seem that these only happen to benefit one ideology. When there's a big push of ballots that come in after the fact.
That's real journalism, asking the question, not yelling at the President, you've never presented any evidence. You've never presented any evidence. Curiosity is the core of journalism and the First Amendment. Right. If those election results had come in during the first night, we would not be having the, you would not have the chaos that is ensuing right now.
Right. It is, you have once again created a question mark that the American people don't want. Which is, do our votes actually get counted? Do our votes actually matter? And the answer is it's starting to get more and more unclear if they do.
And that is not good for future elections because, as conservatives, we need conservative and independent voters to come out and elect conservatives. They have to believe that their vote will matter. If we fall into the trap that our vote doesn't matter, guess what happens? We never win if people don't go and vote. Because it could be that everything is on the up and up and that all those votes are accurate and that there was nothing foul play involved, but it doesn't matter because you have planted a seed.
You've planted a seed for days. That we've already lived through a couple times.
Well, and once again, in that interview that led to the President saying, I'm done here because she kept pushing, you have no evidence, she kept saying, That's just how it works in California. The officials are saying they're trying to count as fast as they're going to be. No, they're not. They're slow. It's California.
Supposed to be the most advanced culture, the most advanced technology. That's where all the tech firms until they started leaving were based. That is California. And you're going to tell me your excuse is and you as a journalist, the defender of the First Amendment, the defender of democracy in this country are going to take it at its word from local officials that, yeah, we're slow. When it keeps happening to the same individuals that all of a sudden get these statistical anomalies, it makes no sense.
So try and make it make sense. Do real journalism instead of going to the President of the United States and saying, You always say this, but you have no evidence. Maybe if you did your job, there'd be actual evidence one way or the other to come back with that line of discussion.
So, yeah, after an hour, I can understand probably when your producer's in your ear saying, hey, we've got enough for a show, maybe push him now, that he's going to walk out. Yeah, and they do that, by the way. That is how the media works. Let's go quickly, if he's still there, to Tim, who is calling on line for Tim, you there? Yeah, I'm there.
Yeah, I just wanted to say, you know, This stolen valor thing, the Mike Wall of in Minnesota and this Pelley guy. My wife's grandfather was in Nor Storm Normandy and watched his buddies drop like flies. The guys that probably was You know, to his left and to his right, making thousands of dollars while he's making millions, are protecting him. And to to steal their Valard? It's just pitiful.
Yeah, I mean, Tim, that's what I was saying. It's like, remember, this is someone who's claiming this. You do it for the First Amendment. You also do it because you were in an ad-supported business, you know, brought to you by the way. Right, you were the king of a storied broadcast.
You had a career, you thought you were untouchable. You thought you could go in there and say whatever you want about your boss, your new boss, and get away with it. And so much so, when here's bite four. When he found out he was being fired, let's roll it. I can Hear how much this has hurt you.
Okay. Yes, it's like your spouse being murdered. And I don't care about me. It's not about me. Ugh.
I am not emotional about this because I have lost this job. I've done it for a long time. I've had the greatest experiences. But the people I leave behind treated in this way. Uh that Breaks my heart.
And it's going to take me a long time to get over it, to be perfectly honest. I mean, that is. It's almost a comedy routine. It is a board, it's a job.
Okay, you lost a job and you are. Let's talk to anyone who's actually... had their spouse murdered. And let's see if you feel the same way. about losing any job.
How pretentious and ridiculous. I like Scott Pelly for his historical impact on journalism. I like 60 Minutes, but it's these kinds of things that make you question. All of it, and everyone involved in these media outlets. We got a second half hour coming up.
I want you to be a part of the show too. Join us on aclj.org on YouTube, Rumble, Facebook, however you get your podcast, and then later on archived immediately when the show is over. Always catch us live, though, noon to 1 p.m. Eastern Time. That's at aclj.org and opt in, become a champion.
Make a donation today. Uh Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Bone lines are open for you.
Welcome to the second half hour of Sekulow. I want you to be a part of the show. We are talking about sort of the media meltdown that happened over the weekend. You can kind of say it's two-handed. It's Scott Pelley over on Meet the Press, you know, or not Meet the Press.
You had Scott Pelley doing an interview, talking about his 60-minute run. And then on the other side, you had President Trump walking out of Meet the Press after an extensive interview. But of course, we've all just seen the clip where he storms off, actually steps on the microphone unintentionally, it looks like, but hilariously, making these big claims. And we've seen sort of the mainstream media have this big meltdown. There's a question coming in on line five, and I actually want to take it off the top because it is a question I think a lot of people have when they see President Trump continuing to do these things.
Go ahead, Richard. Oh, yeah. Hi, thanks for taking my call. Yeah, I was just wondering why he keeps giving interviews to.
So obviously bias. Left-wing media all the time. Yeah, I think there's a few reasons, Richard. I think, number one, I think he kind of likes it. I think he likes having the media operation actually have access to him.
He has been, if not anything, one of the more accessible Presidents to the press. Whether it's antagonistic or not is very different. Think about how often you saw Joe Biden. Make a statement, even much less do a sit-down interview. Very rarely in his entire presidency.
So, Trump has always been someone who, you know, love him or hate him, like what he says or doesn't have to say. He's never been opposed to sitting down with people he disagrees with and having these interviews.
Now, somewhat, do I think he knows they're going to go off the rails and he's going to have these kind of reactions? Of course. Does he know his people are going to like that? Yes, he does.
So, I think there is a couple reasons, though. You can bounce back and forth and go, why does he keep doing it? I think precisely for this reason, because it exposes what's really going on.
Well, and once again, they have to try and make up this headline that he stormed off as if he didn't give the interview.
Meanwhile, they ran cover for the previous President who would refuse to do like, yeah, he's just busy. He's just the President. This is the President of the United States who is nothing but available to the press. And I think, once again, I think he also knows that too. If he were to be like, I'm just done with these, then they'd make the headline: President Trump shuts out media, shuts out the press, refuses to do interviews.
Once again, He likes the banter. He likes the back and forth, the contentiousness. But I think he also knows that he's playing a game. That's right. And phone lines are open for you.
I'd like to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. A lot of you have called in, so I've been trying to get to as many calls as we can, even early on in the show. When we get to the next segment, though, we're going to head over to ACLJ Jerusalem. You may have noticed that there was a big uptick. Just in the last 24 hours, of what's going on in Israel, as what was months of true, you could say, at least a mild ceasefire.
where there wasn't rockets being uh shot at the country. All of that changed over the weekend, whereas hundreds of rockets now have rained down on Israel once again. And of course, Netanyahu is saying, well, we're going to respond. And then the war. Yeah, because it goes back from what was a relatively cold war to now back hot.
Well, I think this is important to know.
So, what happened here was that Hezbollah and Lebanon didn't accept the ceasefire.
So, Hezbollah has continued to fire on Israel. Israel has then had to respond. At no time did Israel carry out the first strike in this new course of action. They were responding to two strikes: one from Hezbollah because they say they won't have anything to do with the deal. And then, second, missiles came in from Iran in response to Israel retaliating against Hezbollah.
So, Israel then responded.
So, I want to make it clear here that Israel was never the aggressor in this uptick in the violence. In this conflict, it was always, always the outside groups or countries, so whether it's again, Hezbollah or Iran, they fired first. Israel then responded. And a sovereign country has the right to respond to attacks on its citizens and on its borders and on its sovereignty. And of course, both sides of this will have their versions.
They'll say, hey, It's because this one lone soldier did this one lone thing, and that, of course, reignited this war. We know that's not how things go, even in our own country. Phone lines are open for you. I'm going to take as many calls as I can in the last segment of the show.
So, next up, we're going to hear from Jeff Balabon again, ACLJ Jerusalem head. And then we're going to take your calls and comments. We do have a bunch of lines open. Not a bunch. Three, one, eight hundred, six, eight, four, thirty-one ten.
Be kind to the phone screener, and you'll make it on the air today. We'd love to hear from you. I always like to hear from our listeners, our viewers. Be a part of the show today at aclj.org as well. And become an ACLJ champion if you can right now.
We're at the Supreme Court right now. We have so many things happening. You hear about the Roblox situation, a lot of things over on aclj.org. Welcome back to Sekulow. We do have one line still open.
You can give me a call because we will take calls in the next segment at 1-800-684-3110. I did want to check in with the head of the ACLJ Jerusalem, Jeff Balabon. Jeff, obviously, overnight, in the really last 24 hours, there's been a large uptick in what has been going on as what. I mean, I guess we can kind of say would be an end of what was not really a ceasefire, but was a ceasefire as we have rockets and missiles now raining back down on Israel. This always seems to come when things have finally almost felt like we are getting back to a sense of calm, a sense of normalcy.
I started looking at travel plans, talked to some tour group people that I were going. They said things were kind of all starting to feel a little bit normal. And then this happens. And not to say that this hasn't been normal life for Israelis for the last, I don't know, decades upon decades upon decades at this point.
Well, let's even say the last 20 years where it was this. There was a relatively calm few months. And now it feels like we're back to square one. I think it's fair to, you know, we talk about Israel being engaged in wars. There's the 48 War of Independence and the 67 War.
It's only been one war since even before the State of Israel was created, which was to snuff out the Jewish presence in the land of Israel. And so there are times of relative, you know, there are times of relative quiet. And certainly, relative to what we'd seen a few months ago, it was. Quiet in Israel. People weren't running to bomb shelters in Jerusalem.
People up north were still getting shells lobbed at them from Hezbollah and still drones coming through and killing them.
So there's still been a problem going on, but it was much far reduced in terms of the shooting war from Iran. And that did ratchet up.
Now, it looks as though, and it feels as though, that, you know, Iran here is trying to protect Hezbollah. What Israel has done is they've gone into southern parts of Lebanon. They're finding, once again, as they found in Gaza, massive, massive cities worth of tunnels underneath terror tunnels and all kinds of weaponry, etc. And now Israel, we saw last week, had its first face-to-face meeting, again, thanks to the Trump administration, with the Lebanese counterparts to talk about how together maybe they can push Hezbollah at least away from its consistent attacks against Israel. Lebanon itself may not be strong enough yet to completely outdo Hezbollah because Hezbollah has basically been an internally occupying.
Terrorist government for Lebanon for too many decades. But this ratcheted up. Iran's trying to keep the linkage going to protect Hezbollah and to also hand the anti-Trump people an endless war narrative in the upcoming election.
So it's necessary to finish Hezbollah. It has to be finished. Completely on Israel's terms right now, or Iran wins this diplomacy war and ends up damaging even our elections with this narrative. We have to separate out what's happening to Hezbollah from Iran. Iran's trying to link them together.
Well, Jeff, I feel like, and we'll get to this in a moment, if we had an honest press, which could continue the narrative and discussion from earlier in the broadcast, you would see headlines that this is a historic moment, the fact that Israel and Lebanon are even talking. This is history in the making. But instead, it is all about the other narratives and the forever war narrative that they would prefer at this point. You were supposed to be traveling back to Jerusalem today, but are actually staying in Washington. You're headed to Washington for some important ACLJ Jerusalem work.
Could you give us a little bit of a heads up of what you've got going on this week? Because it's very important. No matter what, the ACLJ continues our work. Yeah, I was supposed to head back today. That's true.
I've delayed it now. We're hoping that. Ben-Gurion doesn't, the airport doesn't shut down in Israel, and this Iranian series of attacks hopefully is limited. They have not yet shut down the airport, so I'm hoping to go soon back to back to Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, the reason I extended my stay here in America was there was, I wouldn't say last minute, but there's a get-together in Washington, they're limiting it, invitation only to talk about all these significant issues as it reflects attacks on Judeo-Christian culture, Judeo-Christian civilization, and in America politically, and using politics to create an entirely anti-American narrative. But now, as we've talked about here, uh on ACLJ, you know, coming from the right as well as from the left. And so this has emerged, and there's a meeting to try and figure out how to push back the narrative. On all sides, because it is profoundly against the entire founding of the United States' ideal of individual rights and liberties coming from God and therefore being inalienable. And that's what's at stake now, whether it's from the right or the left.
So that's the function that's happening this week. And because it's invitation only and it's not being streamed or Zoom, that you have to be there in person. And there will be some people there from the administration, from Congress, and then there are others who just do this work in leadership roles as advocates. And then in addition to that, once I'm there, we have meetings on Capitol Hill and with the administration as well on this subject, but also many other subjects that we deal with. Can't run through the whole list, but it's everything ACL deals with, from religious liberties here and First Amendment issues here to the issue of anti-Semitism and also how we deal with the UN and issues going on at the UN.
Well, and Jeff, another angle, and I kind of want to continue this discussion from earlier in the show because we're normally having you on about the work of ACLJ Jerusalem. But you were head of communications for CBS News. Very timely to have you on today as Scott Pelley makes the rounds at New York Times, you know, talking about his time in combat for this country and just the self-importance that he put forward. But you have been calling out the crisis as you've seen it from your experience, even with things like 60 Minutes and the culture at CBS News way before it was across the headlines of every news outlet that we see now. Yeah, listen, I was voluntarily at CBS News.
They offered me a job and I took it. And my job, I feel, is not to broadly bash CBS News. I will say that I did. Published something a while ago, specifically about 60 Minutes, when Pelley had his meltdown. And what you were talking about earlier, the colossal.
Ego of this. The colossal, you'll pardon me, but the chutzpah of this to really the. to pretend that he was in combat. Uh, and to compare it to those who are fighting for our country, and honestly, the CB 60 Minutes is renowned as spectacular storytellers, they tell great stories, but the The self-importance level of people like Scott Pelley is problematic because it even changes the way they approach. I think talking about the news, which comes through their particular construct of what's right and what's wrong, and what's true and what's not true.
And it tends to be. highly dominant at 60 Minutes, at least when I was there. There's been some changes lately with new leadership at CBS. You know, a one track, very narrow set of ideas. And the stories are built to protect and forward that set of ideas as opposed to simply tell the truth.
You know, Jeff. One thing I wanted to pick up on, too, is how the news isn't really reporting correctly what has happened in Israel these last 12 hours.
So when Israel responded to Lebanon and Hezbollah, it was because Hezbollah first fired on Israel. They were the aggressors in these last 24 hours, and Israel responded. And because of Israel's response, Iran then fired ICBMs at Israel.
So again, Iran, the aggressor. Israel responding in a defensive way to show that they are a sovereign state who cannot be fired upon from out of two different countries and you don't expect any kind of response. And I think that statement alone is not in contradiction with the discussions that Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump have had about not escalating this, if possible. And sometimes you want it to be like that, and the other side escalates it, and you still have to respond. And I think that's actually what we saw in the last 12 hours.
I don't think it was Israel defying the United States. I think those phone calls happened before there was incoming from Iran. And most of things were limited to what was going on with Hezbollah to the north of Israel, the south of Lebanon, into parts of Beirut. I think that's 100% right, Jordan. Look, there's another piece of this which I didn't raise and therefore you didn't respond to, which is look, the Gulf states wavering here is also an important domestic issue for us here in America, which is if Gulf states publicly distance themselves because they keep on getting incoming missiles from Iran, then that creates political pressure.
broadly speaking in the region and here in America as well. And so, yes, this was entirely Israel responding. Israel is more than in its rights to respond much more aggressively than it's doing. Israel is being, as it always is, an excellent ally of the United States of America. And, you know, while it's trying to protect its civilian, again, Israel attacks military targets.
Its enemies attack civilian targets. And the first thing it should be doing is protecting its civilians. But taking the long view and knowing that its relationship with America is so important, Israel is just trying to finish the job with Hezbollah. Also, it's interesting that Iran stepping in to protect Hezbollah gives the lie to the idea that Israel's attacking Lebanon. Is an Iranian proxy that it attacked Lebanon.
It took over Lebanon and turned it into a hellhole, what had been a magnificent, primarily Christian state, and it turned it into a miserable place. And so, hopefully, the end result of this will be a better Lebanon and a reduced and diminished Iran. Look, thanks, Jeff, for joining us. I always appreciate hearing your thoughts. And look, when we talk about the Middle East, let's want to make sure we have an ACLJ Jerusalem.
You're getting first-hand knowledge of what's happening there again from a perspective that you can trust. That's why I hope you enjoy not only this broadcast, but what our legal team is doing all over the world. You can be a part of that today. Why don't you go to aclj.org? We're dealing with domestic and international cases, domestic and international law, all the time.
And of course, even the media side. As now, these shows can be translated in multiple different countries. There's multiple different languages available in all different countries around the world because of all the digital outlets that we're now on, only because people like you support the work.
So, go to aclj.org. We get back. We're going to take your calls and comments. Phone lines are completely jammed right now, but some will open up.
So, give us a call if you can and stay on hold. If you're on hold, we'll be right back. All right, phone lines are completely jammed, and that means we're going to take calls for the rest of this segment. We're going to hope to get to all of you that on hold for 15 minutes. I'm going to for sure get to you.
If you're going to hold over 10 minutes, I'm going to do my best. If I'm on hold less than five, I'm going to try.
Okay, but let's just see where we can go. Let's just kick it off in order of what it came in. And happens to be Elaine in New York, who is an ACLJ champion. She always gets first priority, but she also been on hold longest. Elaine, go ahead.
Landy there. That jur, are you still there? Yep, we're here.
Okay, I just want to remind that journalist that the President already paid his dues. He was shot. I don't think people remember that. You know, that he has paid a price already, and he's paying a price every day when they're out to kill him and, you know, even assassinate him with their words. The other thing is, I have two grandsons, 19 years old, that are at boot camp right now.
They're the kind that are laying down their lives through our country. And I'm going to make this a thing so you can get to those other callers, but I just needed to say that. No, Elaine, I appreciate it. Obviously, I appreciate it to your grandchildren. Thank them for doing that from us here, even just the act of going to boot camp and trying.
To become someone who could serve is already a big deal.
So, thanks to them. I do think there is a lot of that thought process, too. It's, you know, when you do start bloviating yourself and talking about all of this, and then you don't forget that how much anyone, like, I'll say this: let's say you're not a President who's been shot at. Let's say you're not a President that's been shot. A lot of them have been.
Um You are dealing with a very different world than you ever lived in when you decide you want to even run for President of the United States.
So. To take that away from somebody is ridiculous.
Now, I don't think President Trump also would go out there and pretend that he has served in the same way as someone on the front lines of a military, nor should he, but I don't think he would be, even as the commander-in-chief of the country.
Well, and it also, what you start to see is this pattern of people like Scott Pelley. You remember Brian Williams? He was saying he was shot down in Iraq in a helicopter. It's actually what took him away. He was the star of NBC.
Yeah, kind of our most trusted newsman. And got relegated to MS Now. I mean, that was what happened to him's career because of putting this almost stolen valor that seems to be a thread with these highly paid. career journalist That try to make themselves out to be the same thing as what our caller Elaine's grandsons are doing. Which is actually serving the country in our military.
And you know what? People in boot camp are not making the same money that Brian Williams or Scott Pelley are. I actually want to play just, well, maybe we can cut off half of this, but also the condescending tone of Scott Pelly towards his new staff, Barry Weiss and the Free Press. Remember, these are people that have changed the way we have interpreted news, how we have brought. You may not even like Barry Weiss.
You may not like the free press, but there's no doubt the free press has been very successful. And then he belittles her and pretends that somehow she is completely unqualified, though as one of the people that has changed the way we consume media. Let's just hear bite three very briefly of uh this again, Scott Pelley talking about his new bosses before they got fired. She's a lovely person. Uh And her free press organization that she founded has been very successful.
She's proven that. Great for her. But television's not her thing? Yeah. She brings an ideology into CBS News where that is just anathema.
And so it's a terrible fit. It's probably not her fault. But it's just a terrible fit. She doesn't know television. She doesn't understand how it works.
She doesn't have management experience for a large organization like CBS News.
So, yes, I do think that we would be far better off without her. Maybe she goes to that. He goes on and on and on again, belittling Barry Weiss, who, again, you may not agree with or disagree with, or you may agree with, disagree with from her political standpoint or from her news standpoint, but to be like, she doesn't know television. You know, who doesn't know television right now? Anyone, because you know who's watching television, just about no one.
All right.
So some things have to get shaken up. And I'm sorry, Scott Pally, you ended up being one of those people that did. Let's continue on in the phone calls. Dave's calling. Dave in California has a question about California.
Let's pivot that real quick. Dave, go ahead. Hi. I wanted to go back on the first question, and that was: I would think it'd be great if Trump. would get would someone give statistics when he said the they're all corrupt, uh talk about the tough loads of ballot That are being split.
Yeah, you're talking about the California election. I think that they are not going to go quietly. I think there will be something that comes up with this. I don't know about how it will be handled, but you have President Trump, and I don't think you're going to, I don't think Spencer Pratt just disappears. I think that he's someone who is going to be a national figure from here on out.
So, whether that is a federal investigation into the election, I don't know, but I do think that we have to answer these questions and we do have to get better at it. Thank you, Dave, though, for calling. I'm going to try to get through a few more of these. We'll do our best. Let's go ahead and go to Bill in Wyoming.
Bill, go ahead. All right, thanks for taking my call. I think you guys are leading into my phone call 'cause like uh Jeff Balbant said, uh the press attacks anybody they consider an enemy. And the fact is is that I agree with you. This is stolen valor because of the fact that these guys, when they're up there on the front, they can leave a firefight any time they Very well, want to.
But these guys, these heroes, and I'm talking about my heir, these guys have to stay there and hold the lines.
So it's still a valid. He has no right talking that way. Because I have talked to some of these guys. Yeah, there's very easy ways, Bill, to reframe that and say, I was there with these people who are risking their lives. I want to be their representative in the press.
There are ways you can say those same things without pretending you are the victim. And as a war correspondent, even if it's not your normal routine gig, being dropped into a place and there's a firefight, I'm sure, is traumatizing. Horribly. But when you start to make it your identity, And as Bill said, you're volunteering to go, but you can't leave. If you are in the military, the difference is someone like Scott Pelley volunteers to go, but he can leave anytime he wants.
I want to go quickly now, but Michael, line three, go ahead. Michael, you there? All right, go ahead quickly. We're running out of time.
Okay, quickly. Um Israel gets attacked by uh um Lebanon and then Iran answers.
Well my question is. The Democrats are going to be upset no matter what happens.
So why don't Why don't we put Feet on the ground in Iran and get in there and find out who the perpetrators really are. Michael, I actually, this is one of those things where I don't think this is political for President Trump. I think he doesn't want another boots on the ground war. He did mention that if we disrupt Iran's military enough, if we have to go in and keep striking at Iran's military, then at a certain point we would send in U.S. officials to go and destroy the uranium.
So he is not against when it is safe. To sending in both our engineers from the military as and scientists, as well as troops to protect them, if it is safe. And I think that is key. That has to be the key here. He does not want to put troops in to carry out a regime change war on the ground.
What he has said is, we will go in when the military is disabled enough, if we have to, to remove the uranium. I want to go very quickly, Michelle. We only got a minute left on the air, but you can take us home here. I wanted your statement to be how we wrap this show up. Go ahead.
Hi there.
So I am a veteran. I've been to Iraq twice. And what Kelly said was So condescending to me. He acted like he was some big bad person and fucked told blah, blah, blah. No, he could have left whenever he wanted.
The media has no business in war. They need to stay here because my Command Sergeant Major almost lost his retirement over giving an interview. And the only reason that he kept it was because he recorded what he said. The media sliced it together and lied about all of the things that he said. The media is ridiculous.
They think they own everything and they need to stop because they're nothing but a bunch of liars. All right, Michelle, a good way to wrap up this show. Thank you so much for calling and thank you for your service to this country. And with that, that's going to do it for today's show. I'd love you to be a supporter of the ACLJ.
Go to ACLJ.org. Become a champion if you can. That's a monthly donor. We'll talk to you tomorrow.
