BREAKING: New ACLJ Senior Counsel Mike Pompeo Joins Us In Studio

Today on Sekulow, a big announcement for the American Center for Law and Justice.

Live from Washington, D.C., Jay Sekulow live. Phone lines are open for your questions right now. Call 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. We have a big announcement for you today. It's going to be happening on set too. So if you are watching the broadcast, this is not just an announcement by word, such as someone that's going to be joining us by Skype.

This is going to be happening in the studio. It's a brand new team member at the American Center for Law and Justice. Now we've got great staff and a great team at the ACLJ, but everybody doesn't get their own broadcast. But there are certain members of the team, when they join, they do get their own broadcast for the American Center for Law and Justice.

And we're going to, of course, talk about a lot of issues with them. But, Dad, just to let people know, what is this big announcement of this new member of the ACLJ team? Well, I'm really honored to report to our ACLJ listeners and members and folks that are listening on all of our social media platforms or watching that we are happy to announce that the former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is now a Senior Counsel for Global Affairs at the American Center for Law and Justice. The former State, former Director of the CIA, former member of the United States Congress, is now serving as the Senior Counsel for Global Affairs for the American Center for Law and Justice. Now, you're going to see him in a few moments on our broadcast.

You're going to be seeing a lot of him over the years ahead. And you'll be reading a lot that he produces on issues involving foreign policy. As you know, we have offices globally, having the addition of recently Rick Grenell, and now, of course, who was the Director of National Intelligence and Ambassador to Germany, now having the former Secretary of State as part of the ACLJ team and has been a friend of ours for a long time, is a real honor.

This is a big moment for us historically. And he's bringing to it the intel, like Rick Grenell does, as the Director of the CIA. So we've got that intelligence side that we're really beefing up in to the ACLJ, I mean, to really increase our capacity there, to bring you the best info on our broadcast, but then also working as a member of the team. So you're going to see, you know, the broadcast side of it mostly, but there's going to be written public work, but also behind the scenes work that you won't ever see that is conducted by Secretary of State Pompeo, by Rick, and by others who are, as they join the team. I just want to say this to all of you, we're able to put this team together right away to be able to combat everything that's going to go on with the Biden administration because of your tremendous support for the ACLJ.

Even after this new administration came in, your support has not wavered, and it's allowed us to be creative. It's allowed us to think about, you know, if we could add someone to our team right now that would be great for our supporters and would love it, and it would be substantively great. Who could we add? So we added Rick. He had already left the administration. He was available, and his insight was great throughout the election process, and continues to be. And then we thought, okay, let's think next steps. Who is now finishing out? And so Mike Pompeo was right at the top of the list.

Literally. And we reached out. This is someone who we've had on our broadcast since he was a member of Congress, and again, now he will be in the studio with us.

So if you're watching this broadcast, you don't want to miss that. This is not going to be joining us by phone, not by Skype this time. Now, in the future, it might be more like that, obviously.

We won't always all be in the same place. But I also want to let our radio listeners know, because that is the predominant amount of our listeners are on terrestrial radio and Sirius XM. This is a show you probably want to go check out on Facebook, because you get to see Secretary of State Pompeo with us on set. I'll tell you, we have worked with Secretary Pompeo when he was a freshman congressman.

You're actually going to hear later in the broadcast an interview we did with him back in 2011 or 2012. And I will tell you this, it's such an honor to see his career, just tremendous influence he's had both as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and then as the Secretary of State. And to have him now as an ACLJ Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, I just can't think of anything better. To move our issues forward substantively will make a big difference.

Well, I mean, this is so much. I remember they admitted our Director of Government Affairs when Mike Pompeo was elected to Congress. This is so we want to immediately engage the ACLJ. A Harvard Law grad, this is someone who was at West Point, first in his class at West Point, Harvard Law, editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and this was all as coming into a member of Congress.

Now as a former CA Director and former Secretary of State and now a member of the ACLJ team. We'll be right back. And we have an exceptional track record of success. But here's the bottom line, we could not do our work without your support. We remain committed to protecting your religious and constitutional freedoms.

That remains our top priority, especially now during these challenging times. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life changing work.

Become a member today. ACLJ.org Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases. How we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists. The ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later. Play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry. And what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life.

Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. Welcome back to Sekulow. As we told you in the first segment of the broadcast, we have a very special announcement. We announced who that is, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He is joining us in studio today on Sekulow. He's with us and with the team. It is great to have Secretary Pompeo.

He is going to serve as the ACLJ's Senior Counsel for Global Affairs. Secretary Pompeo, thank you for joining us today. Oh my goodness, it's great to be with you.

It's great to be with you today and it's great to be part of the team as well. Well listen, we're thrilled to have you and I want to start to get right into this because I think it's important for our audience. Obviously, with your most recent experience, I mean you served as CIA Director also of course and I remember you as a Congressman. But as Secretary of State, I want to get into kind of globally how you, obviously there's a shift in policy now. We know that shift's going to be real. We know that there's going to be implications.

How do you see the, if you're looking at a world map right now, what do you see? So the biggest challenge that our kids and our grandkids are going to change undoubtedly comes from the Chinese Communist Party. It is a atheist, Marxist-Leninist, communist organization. We know, right? We know how these work. We know what it means for people of faith. We know what it means to ordinary people who just want to live their lives. And then we now know what it is their intentions are for the world, the threat that it poses to the United States of America. You know, we can never forget the challenges from counter-terrorism.

You know, it's now 20 years on from 9-11. But make no mistake about it, the Middle East is still a place where you have an Iranian regime, a theocratic, leptocratic regime and leaders. And they too view the United States as the great Satan and haven't given up on the fact that they may be able to roll this administration. I want to go back to the situation with China for a moment and talk about that because it's not just, you know, we look at, when we're dealing with legal issues, sometimes on the international stage especially, I'll say we're engaged in lawfare. You've got these regimes utilizing the legal, international, usually international tribunals to get their way. And it's a form of warfare, but it's without bullets.

It's in the legal process. The Chinese, the threat to me as looking at it is you've got both an economic threat and then the political threat. And then there's kind of a global aspect of that is their desire, and they've been always very clear about this, is they want control.

Yeah. No, we should never forget. So the economic piece of this has an enormous national security implication because it turns on the most capable high-end technologies that the world knows, whether it's artificial intelligence or machine learning. And we've made this enormous mistake. We've allowed them to come steal it from us. And we've invited them into our universities.

We've invited them into our research institutions. We've provided U.S. taxpayer money to underwrite this research, and we've allowed them to be in places we should have never let them be. And they've used it to their advantage. And to your point about the legal system, they've pretended to comply with these legal things around the world and claim that they're a nation that wants to be part of a normal civilized world while all the while benefiting from an unequal set of rules. And the good thing about our administration is we didn't let that happen.

Every place we confronted them, every place we encountered them, we demanded that they be fair and reciprocal and they behave in a way that normal nations behave. Yeah, I think staying on China is good right now, yeah. Yeah, I mean, so this is obviously everybody is focused on China. I mean, still with COVID, we see that the Biden administration rushed to join the World Health Organization. We had the one American on the panel said we should just blindly accept their finding. But the American intelligence, even under the Biden administration who joined the WHO has said what they put out in April is still the statement from the U.S. government, even from Trump to Biden. And that is that they are still assessing and figuring out whether or not this was something that was done at that Wuhan Institute, which, by the way, we all learned receives U.S. funding.

It is still the Biden administration has not canceled that funding that they could be getting. And you can make a case for why maybe in the past, but now in the future it's tough to make that case. But I mean, those threats to people still wonder how much how much because they destroy all the evidence.

They make themselves look guilty and even whether they are not when you destroy all the evidence and then let the inspectors go in. It's pretty tough to come out in our intelligence community will not go by what the WHO said. So there's three things we know for sure about this virus with respect to China. First, that's where it began. It is, in fact, the Wuhan virus. This is indisputable in spite of enormous propaganda where the Chinese have tried to foist it on America saying this came from frozen foods or from America's laboratories. This is nonsense and propaganda. Second thing we know immediately the Chinese Communist Party knew an awful lot and refused to share that information to the world.

Your responsibility as a global player says if you've got a problem, you make sure and keep everyone safe. They didn't. They closed down travel inside of China but allowed people to travel to Milan and all across the world, spreading this virus and they knew better. They knew that human to human transmission was taking place. Finally, we know they operated this lab. And we know that they were engaged in research on these kinds of viruses. And we know that they've had trouble securing viruses in their labs before in 2003. We know they leaked with respect to SARS. So they are not world class when it comes to securing viruses in their laboratories. Now, there's a handful more pieces of evidence to wish that the Chinese Communist Party was capable of sharing this information in the world.

But you all know this, right? Just like with Chernobyl, just like with communist regimes all along, they closed down, they disappear people who have the information that could help the world solve this serious problem. You know, one of the things I said about the Chinese in relation to the virus was whether it was intentional or not, the actions they took afterwards failed, as you said, to live up to international obligations. And yet, they almost get away with impunity. Not when you all were there, but now it just seems like it's go along, get along.

I know there's still policies out there. But going back just to the kind of the bravado that China uses in their language, both in the language that they're using and in the challenges. For our audience around the country, how would you, if you were on a scale of 1 to 10, would you, 10 being the highest threat, where are they?

You know, I'd put it at a 9 or a 10. And importantly, something we're going to have to confront for a while. It needs to be a sustained effort. We need to educate people.

I'll give you another example that everyone I think that's listening can understand. You'll see Chinese officials showing up at school board meetings all across America. You'll see them at PTA meetings. They're not coming there because they're good citizens of the community. They're coming there because they're attempting to educate you about what they want to do and how they want to undermine American democracy. This is a serious threat. Everyone needs to be aware of it. And we need to be mindful that they are serious about undermining our way of life here in the United States.

These are confusing. With some of the young kids, these Confucius Institutes that we're hearing about that are all over the United States, they're trying to say, oh, this is just part of an education program. And people are seeing it. Like you said, it's in a lot of public schools across the country, wherever you are.

It doesn't matter if you're on the coast or in middle America. And so they're in our schools. We're economically reliant on them. And when something bad happens, we don't know if they intentionally did it, unintentionally did it, but they won't really get us the truth. I mean, that's a pretty tough diplomatic situation.

This is the conundrum. You add now that they conduct more missile tests than the rest of the world combined, an enormous nuclear power, have a military that is expanding throughout the East China and South China Sea and wants to be able to control all the main waterways of the world, and you have a full throttle challenge to the way of life that we have here in the United States of America. And President Trump got a lot of flak for America first.

A lot of flak. And of course, I think it was a fantastic policy. But the Chinese have no hesitation, the communist regime, of saying China first.

Oh, goodness, no. Absolutely. In everything. And they're pretty audacious. They'll talk about China first, but they'll say, we want these deals to be win-win.

This is their language. It's win-win. I hadn't seen a deal America cut for 50 years that was win-win. And you're dealing with them, because I know that they've got, it's obviously very centralized in the control factor. Was there a sense, because when you were Secretary of State, President Trump was in office, and you had the whole apparatus of government following our policies, I felt like the Chinese, putting the virus aside, were pretty much being checkmated. I mean, that there was a serious check on the Chinese. They knew you all were tough and putting our interests first. And what was the sense globally with our other partners with the Chinese?

In other words, the other countries you had to deal with that are our allies. Did they see it? They did. They did in large part because we put it in front of them.

So I spent a lot of my time, I'll never forget my first trip as Secretary of State where I traveled to Europe and was talking about the threat at this time from a particular technology from Huawei. They didn't want to believe it because it's hard. They were making money off of this.

The same way the United States was. They now have come to see it. What they need to know is that the Americans will be with them and that we'll have their back and we'll support them, whether that's the Australians, the Japanese, the Indians, the South Koreans. They know the challenge is before them. They need a strong America, America that understands America first, prepared to be their partner. Do you think that the current administration, and I know it's very early, have you seen any sense of where that policy is going to be? It's been a bit of a hodgepodge in terms of their statements, but in the end, Jay, it's not about their statements, it's about the actions. You have to be prepared to take serious actions to confront China in a serious way.

There will be costs associated with that. The Chinese will respond, but you have to be ready to walk through that fire and get it right. You know, we didn't even get a chance to talk about the threat to religious minorities or Christians and others. I mean, it's not just Christians, but that is also a real threat in China.

It is. My next to last day in office, I made a declaration, which is unusual. I declared that there was genocide taking place.

That was intentional, it was accurate, it was factually based, and it tells you the horrors that are taking place to religious minorities in that part of the country, it doesn't begin to address the ones that are happening all across China. When we come back, Secretary Pompeo continues to join us. If you're just joining us on, if you're listening, if you're watching, however you are taking this broadcast, let me encourage you to share it with your friends and family. But also, I'll let you know, this won't be the last time Secretary Pompeo joins us, but he has now joined the ACLJ as a Senior Counsel for Global Affairs. So you'll see him a couple times a week at least, maybe more so when necessary on our broadcast, and then of course there'll be all the work he'll be doing behind the scenes with the ACLJ team, both domestically and internationally.

Because I'd like to point out too, his tenure as CIA Director. We will be right back on Sekulow. I'm offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn. It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, the play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life.

Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. The challenges facing Americans are substantial. At a time when our values, our freedoms, our constitutional rights are under attack, it's more important than ever to stand with the American Center for Law and Justice. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights, in courts, in Congress, and in the public arena. And we have an exceptional track record of success.

But here's the bottom line. We could not do our work without your support. We remain committed to protecting your religious and constitutional freedoms.

That remains our top priority, especially now during these challenging times. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life changing work. Become a member today, ACLJ.org. Just in case you missed it today, I want to make sure you understand, we have a big announcement, the American Center for Law and Justice. As you know, we've been building out our foreign affairs national security team at the ACLJ. And today we can announce, if you didn't catch it earlier in the broadcast, that former Secretary of State, CIA Director Mike Pompeo has joined the ACLJ, a senior counsel for global affairs.

He is joining us in the studio today here with us. And we've been talking about China. We've been talking about, broadly, kind of the threats facing the United States, the new administration, and now getting into the Middle East. All right, I'd like to turn our attention to the Middle East.

I think, you know, obviously in the months ahead, we'll have more on China in the days ahead. But let's talk about the situation in the Middle East. Specifically, we're going to get to the Abraham Accords, but I think we have to start with the big threat. And that's been a threat that has been existing for a long time, since 1979, and that is the threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I have written a book on it. You were the Secretary of State dealing with it. We talked about the Chinese being a threat. Iran and their proxies, and they have many in the Middle East, have caused havoc, continue to try to cause havoc. What's your sense of that threat?

You know, Jay, I remember when I was a member of Congress, this is what we spend most of our time when I came on your show, talking about the risks it presented to religious freedom, and frankly, just the risk it presents to the United States. The good news is that we diminished Iran's capabilities during our four years. We put enormous economic pressure on them.

I remember too, Jay, I remember people saying, if it's just America, you can't have any effect. Well, it was mostly just America on this issue, and we had enormous impact on the regime. We convinced Gulf states, the Israelis, that if we got this right, we could diminish the threat of terror, the threat from a nuclear weapon, and we didn't need to be part of this crazy deal that was going to create a pathway for an Iranian nuclear weapon.

And we were well on our way to doing that. It looks like this administration is going to change course and underwrite this theocratic regime again. Last time they sent pallets of cash, they allowed the Iranian regime to step up its game across the world. That is bad for America. It's terrible for Israel.

It's bad for the Gulf states as well. I hope this administration will understand this isn't 2015, and this is serious business for security people and people in Kansas, like my home state, and people all across our country. I know our listeners, they're now concerned once again, and they weren't concerned about this under the Trump administration when you were Secretary of State and CIA Director at all, but that is Iran back now on a path, or will the Biden administration put them back on a path?

It seems like, again, they're rushing, they want that face-to-face again, they want to sip tea with Zarif, they want to have that conversation. Are we putting them back on that track, we being the United States government under the Biden administration, to almost legally obtaining nuclear technology so they'd have the bomb? You know, if the last four years demonstrates anything, it's that the Iranians respect one thing, strength. And if there's a second thing, it's that if you appease them, if you hand them money and wealth, they're going to continue to build out their capabilities.

It's the wrong direction. It's the direction that, frankly, Europe had wanted to go as well. We were there standing athwart this thing, no, we're not going to permit this to happen, and we had a real impact. We diminished the capacity of Hezbollah to threaten Israel, we diminished what was taking place in Iraq from the Shia militias.

We didn't put it all to bed, but we made an awful lot of progress. I want to talk about the proxy aspect of what the Iranians do, because when we talk about the threat in the region, in the Middle East, and we talk about what Iran's up to, they use proxies, even proxies that don't necessarily share their particular brand of Islam. They will cross over, so to speak, the Sunni-Shia divide because of their common interest in harming Israel. Hezbollah, Hamas, the proxy aspect of Iran, and the depth of that. You saw it firsthand, both in CIA and in the Secretary of State.

No, I did. I saw it up close, and we made a decision early on in the administration. We made a communication to the Iranians that said, we are not going to allow you to get away with using proxies. What do we mean by that? If an Iraqi Shia militiamen, underwritten by the Iranians, attacks an American soldier in Iraq, were coming to Iran to impose costs on you. That is hard to do, but we made clear that's what we're going to do.

This week you saw this. You saw what looks to have been an Iranian-sponsored attack that injured an American and killed a contractor inside of Iraq, and this administration says we want to go sit at the table and talk to them. They will interpret that as a free pass to hurt Americans. This all gets me back to this administration because you joined early with the Trump administration as CIA director.

You're tested immediately by your adversaries, and this is what the Biden administration is facing right now. China, Iran, even at this ISIS 2.0 in North Africa, they all want to see, like, are you really going to come kill us? Are you really going to cut us off? Are these alliances you made on these Abraham Accords, are those going to go through? Are you going to cancel the F-35s to these countries? So that they kind of say, well, we're not going to be in these deals anymore.

We've got to figure it out for ourselves. This is all the tests that are being thrown at the Biden administration, and I just get very nervous when I see the, well, we just want to meet face to face, and John Kerry's back in the mix, and it's that same team. It's like Joe Biden just took in the B team from Obama years and put them at the A level, and that makes me very nervous because these are the guys that wrote that JCPO, and I remember sitting in our studios going through it.

It was like these one pages with these bullet points, and that was agreed to. No one would agree to that when it comes to nuclear weapons. Jordan, you remember, it was myself and Senator Cotton who found the secret side deals that they'd entered into. It seems like a long time ago, but there were elements of that deal that they didn't even tell the American people about.

Maybe they're secret side deals already. I don't know, but we know the mindset, and that mindset is one of appeasement, and can't we all just get along? And the Iranians will never let go of their ambitions to conduct terror and to be the Middle Eastern power. The Israelis know that. The Saudis know that. The Emiratis know that.

The Americans need to support those folks, making sure that we do the right things to protect and secure our freedoms. You know, it's interesting because I'll never forget this conversation I had with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, not that long ago, and he says this publicly. Remember this, the Iranians view the Israelis as the little Satan. The big Satan is the United States. I remember during the Iranian Revolution, on the streets, the students that were involved in that, the revolutionaries actually, chanting to kill President Carter.

I mean, that was their chant. So, for our audience that's listening right now, they know we've been concerned about Iran. That threat has not, I mean, I think we've done, you all did a tremendous job, but that could turn around very quickly. Oh yes, the Iranian tensions haven't changed. And in the end, it's about intention and capacity, and the intention hasn't changed one bit. Are they, because they were diminished, how long does that diminishing hold?

Or does it depend on how much money is thrown at them? Yeah, it's all about how quickly businesses return and prop up their economy and how much cash do we generate them because we feel like we owe them something. This would be a tragic change in American foreign policy. Second half hour, I want to get into the Abraham Accords.

We'll do that when we come back from the break because that was a monumental moment in American history. Well, and this idea, too, that if we move an embassy to Jerusalem, that was going to cause the world to explode. But yet, these people, I mean, that's what makes us foreign policy-wise, Secretary Pompeo, you have a minute left here, is that Joe Biden was criticized a lot by Obama officials when it came to foreign policy. And then he brought in people like John Kerry who have been wrong, never admit that they were wrong, never will at least say, hey, I was wrong on this one. But he keeps bringing them back in, and now we've got a guy who said, this is the one guy who didn't want to go after bin Laden, didn't want to make the tough call, and that makes me nervous. It just makes me nervous.

I know it makes our audience nervous, and that's why they want to be informed by people like you. Jordan, you talked about being tested. We were tested, too. Don't forget this.

Yes. The chemical weapons were used in Syria. We said, if you do it again, we will come after you. We made a red line. We did it. Qasem Soleimani was threatening Americans. We took him out.

Such a difference. But we have to be ready now. It's everywhere we go, you have to see the influence of Iran back in the news right away again. So we come back. We're going to have a second half hour with Secretary Pompeo, who is now joining the ACLJ as a senior counsel for global affairs. We want you to know this is not just the one and only time you'll see him on our broadcast. He will be joining us weekly or biweekly throughout the week to get into all these issues that we know are going to be facing our country.

So it's great to have him as we are building out this team and join us for our second half hour coming up on Secular. This is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life-changing work. Become a member today.

ACLJ.org. And now, your host, Jordan Sekulow. Thank you for joining us, folks. We want to make sure, because there are those of you that I know you're driving in your car, you may just have turned us back on and maybe you missed the first part of the show. You say, hey, is that Mike Pompeo I hear on Secular Radio today?

It is. But more importantly, he's not just on as a guest, but he is joining the ACLJ as part of the team. Former Secretary of State, former CA Director and Congressman Mike Pompeo is joining the ACLJ as Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, so he'll be on the broadcast regularly, providing his insight into what is going on around the world, how it affects us domestically. So, again, as you know, we've been building out this team.

We added Rick Renell. We've added now Mike Pompeo to the ACLJ team. You're going to see, of course, through our broadcast – I think that is important – through our broadcast, this will be the public side of what they're bringing to the table for our organization. And then there's the work that they will be able to assist with around the world that we know we're going to be facing under the Biden administration.

Yeah, I mean, there's going to be a lot of issues. You know, one of the things when we were talking before we went on the air, I had mentioned that when we've had issues of the persecuted church, when you were Secretary of State and President Trump was in office, we had tremendous success in getting releases, and we also had a friendly audience. That, unfortunately, has not been the case in the past. I'll never forget this. One of our clients, Saeed Abedini, who was in jail in Iran – remember this one? – got out under the Obama administration only because of the $1.9 billion. The first thing he asked me when he got free – and he's an American. He was Iranian, born in Iran.

I remember that. The first thing he asked me when he got out is, why in the world did the United States pay $1.9 billion? Why didn't you just say, he's an American, let him go? And that's the, I think, the irony of all of this. But, you know, we're in a new regime now, and we've got to deal with those factors. But the Secretary's been with us before. We should go back. A little history here. Let's go back in his time in Congress as well.

He immediately was someone who was a regular on Jay Sekio Live on the radio broadcast. This is probably back – what is it, 2012? 2012. 2012.

When it was Congressman Pompeo on Jay Sekio Live. On the economy. You look at the economic situation right now, and despite the fact that President Obama continues to say what a bad mess he inherited, the reality is, four years into it, their plan has not worked. I mean, if we're just going to be blunt, the plan has not worked.

How do you think this play – you know, how's this playing in Kansas? I mean, basically, what is the sense you're getting from your constituents about the economic situation we find ourselves in? Kansas has suffered just like the rest of the country has these three and a half years. It's absolutely the case that when this President came into office, there were some real challenges. But that doesn't allow you to make it worse.

That doesn't allow you to put a set of policies in place that continue to spend a trillion dollars a year more than you take it, that have led to 8 percent unemployment for now, 40-plus months consecutively. You know, I wanted to play that because I just wanted to show that for those that are new to our broadcast or have been listening to us for a long time, Secretary Pompeo is not a new voice in one sense because when he was in Congress, he was often on our program and we worked very closely. And now, of course, he became the director of the CIA and then ultimately the secretary of state. So it's great, and as we start this half of the broadcast off, welcome you here. We're thrilled you're here. My goodness, it's wonderful to still be with you. You all have been most gracious to me for my entire time in public service and it's important work that's done here and I'm glad to be a small part of it.

No, we appreciate that. When we come back from the break, we're going to get into, I want to follow up, in the first half hour, we talked about Iran and Israel. I want to get into the Abraham Accords. That was a big, big moment. The Golan Heights, another big moment.

The moving of the embassy to Jerusalem. All of those very, very significant issues. We'll get into all of those. Yeah, let me encourage people too. If you're watching this online, if you're on Facebook, if you're on YouTube, I know we're talking to all of our 1,000 plus radio stations and Sirius XM as well live. But if you're watching this, I'd encourage you because it's unique that the Secretary of State Pompeo is in the studio with us today. So he's going to be joining us in the future.

Sometimes he'll be joined by Skype and other different ways. But this is a great show to share with your friends and family. So click that share button right now. As always, go to ACLJ.org.

There'll be new pieces up by former Secretary of State Pompeo as well now that he is with the ACLJ as Senior Counsel for Global Affairs. So click that share button. Bring your family. Let them know about this. This is the first day we're announcing this.

You're getting this news first live on the air. And as always, we encourage you to go to ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org.

We'll be right back on Secular. The challenges facing Americans are substantial at a time when our values, our freedoms, our constitutional rights are under attack. It's more important than ever to stand with the American Center for Law and Justice. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress and in the public arena. And we have an exceptional track record of success.

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Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. Welcome back to Sekulow and our very, you know, a new member of our team. That's a special guest, not a guest, a member of the team. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, now ACLJ Senior Counsel for Global Affairs. Dad, we've been talking about a lot of issues throughout this broadcast. If you missed any of this broadcast, you need to go back and watch, you know, through Facebook, through YouTube, through Rumble, through all the different ways, Periscope on Twitter, and share it with your friends and family as well because we've covered so much in this first interview where Secretary of State Pompeo is with us in studio also, which is unique as well.

But Dad, I know you want to get right into it. I want to get into the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In future programs, we'll talk about the success of the Abraham Accords, but I want to get into the ICC issue because no one knows the ICC more than a Secretary of State, and nobody has experienced the ICC more than a lawyer that's actually appeared before the ICC, which I have. So I was there, Mr. Secretary, in December of 2019. Right before the first impeachment.

Yeah, it was weeks before the first impeachment trial. I went over because the ICC had called for a general hearing on whether they could bring an action against the United States out of Afghanistan. And the United States obviously was not going to appear because the United States doesn't recognize a jurisdiction like Israel and like Russia, like China, like a number of countries. I went because our European Center for Law and Justice in Strasbourg has standing with all these international bodies, and we were able to get our legal position in. And it became a media thing because, you know, I was the President's lawyer, and I was showing up at this, and I had on the whole regalia.

I mean, you wear the robe with the little kerchief and handkerchief and whatever. It was fine. And they were very polite. The decision was awful.

They were polite. I'll say that. But that court has now got Israel and the United States in its crosshairs, and you've been very critical of the court, which I am too, because there is nothing about it that is either international or court. No, that's absolutely right.

Look, a lot of your listeners may just not be familiar with this. It's worth knowing that this is something that's this little body that sits in the Hague and has tried for years and years and years to go after American soldiers. American soldiers who were fighting in Afghanistan, intelligence officers who were just doing their job on behalf of America, Israelis who were simply doing the things that Israel does to defend itself.

We've never acknowledged that they have any authority over our people, and they still won't leave our people alone. And so our administration took this seriously. We began for the first time to sanction officials. This was, I must say, this was treated as just gauche by the rest of the world, by the Europeans, thinking, how do you sanction someone from this international criminal court?

But to your point, it's not a court. It's a bunch of countries that came together to try and solve a legitimate concern, but no country that doesn't submit to its jurisdiction should have its people at risk. A soldier who can't travel the world with his family, and so we started sanctioning people. The woman who was running the element of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda, was coming after us in a way, and so we just said no, enough, and we sanctioned her. We acknowledged that she was corrupt, that the whole institution had become politicized and corrupt. We weren't going to let them take on Americans.

We had a dual, I had a dual experience there. I represented our interests at the European Center for Law and Justice the first go-round in 2014 with the then prosecutor, different prosecutor, and he actually did not bring actions against the Israelis. The second one, it was a lost cause. I mean, it was, the writing was on the wall before it started. The irony of all this is, the court system there would not pass municipal court rules in the United States. And as the secretary said, they go after not the state, they go after the individuals, including, by the way, one of our head lawyers in Israel who also is a colonel in the Israeli Defense Force. Intelligence. I mean, this is the way they operate.

It doesn't surprise me. This was designed to handle nations that didn't take care of bad acts that their people had done across the world, but we know. Israel has a complementary system.

The United States has a complementary system. If one of our soldiers does something wrong, we have the UCMJ, we have our court system. If we're going to address bad acts by people who act inconsistent with the international law, it wasn't what it was designed to do. And you now have young American CIA officers and soldiers and Israeli officers across the world who are being threatened by them, and it's unacceptable.

Yeah, they're scared to go. You take, if you want to do the lifelong trip to a place like South Africa, which is like, and so a lot of those Israelis who are from there. But, you know, if you want to go there, they'd love to throw somebody to the ICC's jurisdiction and to The Hague. But, you know, also, they became this court of, instead of doing special courts for problems where there were two failed states and a conflict, which is what they used to do, and that was much more effective, I think. They tried to make it a permanent court, and then they had to get away from, well, it looks like we're only going after Africans and warlords because they had no legal systems and no complementary system. And so we've got to go after an American, and we've got to go after Israeli, we've got to go after Westerners. And that is their goal now, is going after Westerners, and the only Westerners really highly engaged in Kami. You know, interestingly, they didn't want to go after the UK troops in Afghanistan or, you know, the troops in Iraq. It was all about, if we could get an American, then the world will give us legitimacy. That's what I think it was for. That's why they were doing it. They were trying to get their version of legitimacy.

I think that's almost certainly right. We know this. We know that international law has a fundamental principle. You should only be subject to being prosecuted by a court if your nation has decided to be part of that system. You joined the Rome Statute.

You joined the Rome Statute. We chose clearly not to, by the way, multiple Democrat administrations and Republican administrations. Both said we weren't going to be part of this, and yet they persist. But there is talk, at least chatter, that the Biden administration may promote that. Now, I don't think that, at the end, the Secretary of State now is going to be too keen on that, but I don't know.

Boy, I can't imagine it. The risk is too great to young Americans, and I can't imagine that they would do it. Because people need to understand it's after the individual soldier. That's who they go after. Absolutely. No, I can't believe that they would do that.

I'd be very surprised. This has been a consistent bipartisan view that the ICC ought not to be applied against Americans. I hope that we stay in that good place. Yeah, we've talked about China. Obviously, everybody understands that threat. And we've talked about Israel, the ICC. We've talked about, to an extent, Iran.

Is there a place in the world where we're kind of missing as Americans? Some of it, I wonder, like North Africa, where I see ISIS kind of, these news stories start popping up about this. They use the word ISIS. I don't know if they have any form or directive.

And then kind of failed states because they've had revolutions like Sudan and others where they need to get their governments up and running. They're pro-American now, but who knows if they will be, if they can stay empowered. So, where else should we be looking? Because our audience is very informed. They care more than just what's on the news for two minutes.

Where else should they be looking? You know, your mention of Africa is a good one. We did a lot of good work there in places like Sudan and got them to recognize Israel as well. But I'd suggest, too, closer to home, we did a lot of work in Venezuela trying to help the Venezuelan people avoid the catastrophic effects of Maduro and his socialist regime.

We did work with our good friends down in Brazil who are moving in the right direction to build out their market alongside the United States. There's a lot of work close to home and certainly we talk about Mexico. You know, the President focused a great deal on securing our borders, but that relationship with Mexico is an important one. They're on our southern border. We can't permit the cartels that are there to continue to allow drugs to come across our southern border. And I worked hard with the foreign policy apparatus inside of Mexico to do everything we could to secure that southern border.

Not only against people coming here illegally, but all the bad stuff that can flow across. And the terrorists might move across that border as well. I want to briefly go back to the Middle East because it's got to be mentioned. Under President Trump, under your leadership, Jerusalem is recognized by the United States and now other countries as the capital of Israel. Of course, the Israelis have recognized that since they've had it. So the Golan Heights Declaration and then the Abraham Accords. Let's explain really quickly the Abraham Accords, how that came into being because that is a phenomenal achievement. The Abraham Accords are historic and those countries aren't going back. This is the good news for all your listeners. This can't be undone because this is a people-driven effort that recognizes that it can't be Arab foreign policy to hate Israel.

It just doesn't work. And so these nations took the big step, the bold step. Those leaders took very courageous actions to say we want to have diplomatic relationship with Israel. We want to do business. We want to come to know these people. We have different faiths. They're a Jewish state. We are Arab, Islam nations.

But we want to be their friends and partners. And it's a great historic thing. It was enabled by the fact that we took a view with respect to Iran that said we're not going to be Iran's friend.

We're going to put costs on them. And then an acknowledgment that they were under threat as well and we would help defend those countries when they were challenged. Yeah, historic moment and I think long-term historic for our country and generations to come. When it gets to a lot of the now current administration, but this idea that the caries of the world, the State Department kind of bureaucracy of the world is that if we don't solve the Palestinian issue first, we can never make any movements with these Gulf states. And then that argument crumbled. It was bipartisan consensus that absent a deal between Israel and the Palestinians that you couldn't move peace forward. And President Trump and our team said nonsense and we began to work and work and work to build it out to lead to the Abrahamic courts. More countries will join. Which also will mean you'll ultimately, I think, have peace with the Palestinians. Absolutely.

Because you have no choice. Absolutely. And then their administrations are, I mean, those administrations we've talked about before are very corrupt. Much weaker now.

But they're much weaker now. And again, big, big impact. Historic day here for the ACLJ. Yeah, and I want to just let people know, too, the reason why we're able to keep building out the team with these kind of leaders.

You know, it started with Rick Rinnell and now with former Secretary of State Pompeo, who are just leaving and now coming to you with this information is because of your support for the ACLJ. You know, that we could, with a lot more of this broadcast and to build out this team, it shows your trust in us with your resources. I encourage you, you know, continue to support us at ACLJ.org. This is why we're able to make these moves that we're making and kind of bring this to you so it's not on a one-time basis as an interview, but as members of our team at the American Center for Law and Justice, Dan.

Yeah, and ongoing. So, it is great having you as part of the team. Yeah, wonderful to be here. Jay, Jordan, thank you for having me on today. It's going to be great. We'll look forward to having you in the future and, folks, again, a historic moment. We're going to be back more to wrap things up in just a moment. Thank you, Dan.

Thank you. The challenges facing Americans are substantial at a time when our values, our freedoms, our constitutional rights are under attack. It's more important than ever to stand with the American Center for Law and Justice. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress and in the public arena. And we have an exceptional track record of success.

But here's the bottom line. We could not do our work without your support. We remain committed to protecting your religious and constitutional freedoms.

That remains our top priority, especially now during these challenging times. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life-changing work. Become a member today.

ACLJ.org. Hey, welcome back to Cinco. I think this show just showed you, and having, of course, a former secretary of state, Pompeo, now a member of the ACLJ team as senior counsel for global affairs. We wore ties for the former secretary of state. You know, we don't usually do that, but again, he is just out of, you know, that role and still very much in that debriefing portion of his phase two. And we remember when we added Rick Grenell, he was just out of the role and still in that debriefing stage. But to have them on, to think about what we've got through today, the insight we got that you don't just, you don't get on cable news. You know, we all do a lot of interviews.

So does Secretary of State Pompeo. He does a lot of those interviews too, but they're for three and four, five minutes. You don't have a full hour to talk about them. When you get into the full hour on China, when you get into the full hour on Iran, think about what he will be providing to you as a listener. And then on top of that, think about what he's going to be providing for the ACLJ that you won't see in here, that we can't just talk about on the air.

But for you, the listener, just for you alone, I think worth it because it's going to give you insight in a longer format so you can actually get down to the issues you care about. Not what the mainstream media is trying to tell you to care about that day, but what the issues are important. We talked about this rising new Islamic terror even in North Africa. We barely just touched the surface of that today, but also got deeply into China, deeply into Iran, deeply into these UN agencies, Dad. I mean, this is, and Israel, of course, and we were just, this was just a day one introduction.

But what you're seeing, of course, on the broadcast, you get to see and get to share his insights. What Jordan was just alluding to is something I want to spend a couple minutes talking about, and that is the substantive work of the American Center for Law and Justice. And our offices are literally around the globe. So, as you know, we engage at the UN at the highest levels, and it's not easy. It's a hostile work environment, so to speak.

It's usually hostile. But we've had great success also. But can you imagine now, if you're in our position as the lawyers that run this, Jordan and I, and our team, I mean, Andy Econimo, Harry Hutchinson, Wes Smith, Skip Ash.

I mean, people you see on this broadcast, they do this broadcast, but they're writing, they're drafting, they're negotiating all the time, doing legal work. But can you imagine now what's happened for us? That when we've got an issue that we're dealing with for Israel, let's say, and there's an issue with another country, that we can go to our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, who happens to be the former Secretary of State for the United States of America. Now, that is substantively for us, and that's what I want to share for a moment. Substantively for us, that's very important. Not the first member of the Cabinet that we've had on our team, John Ashcroft, all the way back in 2005, and then who was a former Attorney General under George W. Bush, and was, of course, the Attorney General during 9-11.

And then Rick Grenell, former Acting Director of National Intelligence, Ambassador to Germany, and now, of course, the Secretary of State. But also understand, substantively, it gives us a lot of depth. It does give us a lot of depth. So it's more than just what you're going to hear on the air. It's when we are dealing with opposing a Biden administration policy.

It won't just be the ACLJ statement on it, and Jay Sekul, Jordan Sekul's statement, or our experts, which has done a tremendous work in the past. But now we can add the names of the former Secretary of State, the last person to hold that position until the Biden administration, the former Acting Director of National Intelligence and Ambassador to Germany, a former Attorney General. When these issues arise that are important, and I think with this specific appointment, I think we have increased our ability to talk about national security, but also Intel. Intel, which this is a newer world for us because we lived it under Mueller, what Intel and how it can be misused.

Oh, boy. And so there is a difference between national security and intelligence. Intelligence goes with national security, but it's a big portion of it. And with adding now Mike Pompeo, who was the CIA Director before he was Secretary of State, he was leading the CIA, and with Rick Rinnell together, it's added a whole new area of practice, really, for the ACLJ. We were living it as the President's private attorneys through Mueller and the Intel world.

Well, look at the first case that we filed this year. Yes, it's about Intel. Right, so there it is. It swelled well in China and the China influence, and if you listen to the broadcast today, you know it is—I don't like using words like Cold War again, and I don't—you know, I think that we're— Yeah, but— But the idea that the former Secretary of State said that they're at a 9 or a 10 threat level to the US that China poses.

Yeah. And it's a different kind of threat than maybe military, but it could be, you know, a threat like, hey, we've had a pandemic for over a year that's brought our economy almost to its knees a couple of times. It's certainly a lot of people it has. And then we can't get these relief bills through, and it's still not—you know, we're still trying to get vaccines out.

We're still trying to get back to what is normal. We know they're responsible in some way for it, whether intentionally or unintentionally. And then you have the economic fighting, the diplomatic fighting. So I think, you know, it shifts to our thinking that it's not always about the Islamic State, so certainly they pose problems as well, especially Iran. But it's also—it's broadening out your ability to understand these larger three-dimensional issues where we economically rely on China. We do a lot of—everybody does business with China.

Everybody thinks, look at what you bought the store and see where it was made. Right. But also the way that they want to be the world's superpower.

They don't want the US to be the superpower. That's what Secretary Pompeo was talking about. And, you know, I'm correct here, because Rick Grenell served both as an ambassador and as a member of the Cabinet.

But Mike Pompeo was both the secretary of state and the director of the CIA, so he held two Cabinet positions in the President Trump's administration. So to underscore what Jordan's saying on a subject, you're going to benefit from the knowledge that he can share with us, and that's going to be significant. And we're excited about that. It's going to be a tremendous regular part of our panels at the ACLJ and our secular broadcast.

However, there's another aspect of this, and that is the substantive work that is done every day, day in and day out, by the ACLJ. And to have as a resource Rick Grenell—same thing was true with John Ashcroft, Mike Pompeo, and others, but especially though Mike Pompeo and Rick Grenell. They have their knowledge on intelligence, which, like Jordan said, we became experts in intelligence because we handled the Mueller investigation. So there's not many lawyers that have been through a special counsel investigation on international intelligence gathering and have come out the other side of it.

And we did. We were able to beat back Bob Mueller. But to have the information now and the expertise of Mike Pompeo and Rick and others, it's just tremendous. And also their Rolodexes, their contacts, their ability to reach out if we need someone to reach out all around the world into known actors and actors who are more, you know, shadowy behind the scenes in the intelligence world.

We now have that resource at the ACLJ. Now let me tell you, folks, it's all because of your support. There are a lot of groups that came out of this pandemic. They wouldn't be able to bring people on like this. They're just trying to keep their heads above water. You have been incredibly supportive of the ACLJ financially, and we wanted to do something with that. We didn't want to just say, let's sit on that. We wanted to say, let's expand the team in a way that is as substantive, that our supporters are not only going to like, but they're going to understand why we're taking the ACLJ to another level. And we're now more than ever.

And you are doing that with your financial support. Yeah. I want to tell you something. I'm just going with what Jordan said. The support that you've given the ACLJ over this last year especially with a pandemic was breathtaking. And we know it was God. We have no doubt about that. But God uses people, and you all have been incredibly generous. And this year is off to a huge start as well.

And what we thought was, how do we take those resources and best utilize them? And to best utilize them, we were able to retain for the ACLJ, for the broadcast, but also in our legal work, our new Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Because of your support of the ACLJ, that is possible and has actually happened. Continue to support us at ACLJ.org.

This is the first time, not the last time, you will see Secretary Pompeo as part of the team. They're not guests to the broadcast. They are part of the ACLJ team now, and they are working members of the ACLJ team.

I want you to understand that they are not just contributing to a broadcast, but behind the scenes as well. So support our work at ACLJ.org so we can continue to bring you the best team possible and the best info possible on Secula. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines, protecting your freedoms, defending your rights, in courts, in Congress, and in the public arena. The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life-changing work. Become a member today. ACLJ.org.