BREAKING: NUCLEAR DEAL IMMINENT

Breaking news today on Sekulow, a nuclear deal is imminent. 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, Jordan Sekulow.

Hey, welcome to Sekulow. We are taking your call today as well. It's a great day to be part of the broadcast at 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Of course, we continue to monitor the situation in Ukraine, but there's a lot else happening in the world. Some of it's all kind of tied together.

You can't divorce any of it from one to another. But one thing we don't want you to miss, which maybe the Biden administration and the world is hoping most people aren't paying attention to right now. I'm not talking yet about Taiwan being invaded by China. That's one concern. What I'm talking about is that this week, it's very likely that the United States, along with the P5 plus one, is going to announce the re-establishment of the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the two pages of bullet points, better known to all of you as the Iran nuclear deal.

Yes. In the midst of Ukraine being invaded by Russia without provocation, we have Russia bartering our deal with Iran right now. And so we're about to, in the situation that the world is in right now, give Iran the green light and the world the green light, one, on their nuclear program, but two, it would lift sanctions on items like their oil and it would allow them to re-enter the world's economy. So it would be a huge boost to Iran, whether or not we're sending them packets of cash or not, which we're not sure about. They keep putting on the table 11 billion US dollars for them to re-enter this deal. But I want you to understand who's brokering the deal between us and Iran right now.

Russia. Yeah, and Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said on Saturday that Moscow wanted a written US – listen to this now, folks – a written US guarantee that its trade, investment, and military technical cooperation with Iran would not be hindered by Western sanctions imposed since it invaded Ukraine. In other words, as a precondition of this nuclear deal with Iran, which is a disaster to begin with on 100 different levels, including you're providing actual cash to the largest exporter of terrorism in the world. The Russians are saying no deal with Iran unless we approve it, and we want written assurance from the United States that our trade, investment, and military technical cooperation with Iran will not be hindered by Western sanctions being imposed on Russia right now. So you're talking now a trilateral aspect to this that wasn't anticipated, and yet the Biden administration is running to the door to make it happen. Let me encourage folks, too, if you're watching the broadcast right now, we're on Facebook, we're on YouTube, we are on Rumble as well.

We didn't do that special five minutes for Facebook. So if you want to join us over at Rumble, you can. You know how to go there.

For the last couple weeks we've been showing you how to do that. You know the show will be uncensored. It won't get any flags. It won't be taken down.

And you can share it with your friends and family and be part of the conversation over at Rumble as well. Let me just ask this question to our audience. I want you to call in and put your information in the chat. You realize that this administration, and this is kind of a big part of the show today, we're going to be talking to Rick Rinnell about it.

We're going to do some updates on some ACLJ cases as well. But this administration, to alleviate the gas prices right now in the U.S., which are hovering from $4 to $7 depending on where you are in the country and the taxes that you have at your state level and local level. They want to buy Iranian gas and Venezuelan gas. These are countries that work together to undermine the United States.

They are enemies of the United States. Do you want the solution to your lower gas prices to fund the Ayatollah and the dictator in Venezuela? Give us a call. 1-800-684-3110. It gets worse too because we might be sending Joe Biden out to Saudi Arabia to beg for oil as well. Why can't he just pick up the phone? They rely a lot on us.

Why does he need to fly to Riyadh as well? Give us a call. 1-800-684-3110. If you want your gas prices to come down because of Iran, it deals with Iran and Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

Take part in our Matching Challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. We're 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 Planned 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 Secula. We are taking your phone calls as well.

1-800-684-3110. And as we ask you to weigh in, this idea that we're going to alleviate the gas prices here, if you want to call it a crisis here, the inflation here, when it comes to gas and oil. We are going to do that by announcing this week, and it's likely, that we've re-entered a nuclear deal with Iran.

Yes, you're hearing this right. While Russia is at war with Ukraine and an unprovoked war, which is now entering second week, you've also got a situation where Russia is the broker between the US and Iran. You know, we won't sit at the table together. So Russia has been the go-between. So if you ask yourself, why have the Biden administration and Jake Sullivan and those advisors refused to really cut Russia off from the world by cutting off their gas and oil? Which, by the way, our prices are already skyrocketing here, so it's not like you couldn't figure out.

There's two reasons. One, they want so bad back into that disaster nuclear deal with Iran, and they can get it this week, and they needed Russia for that. We are utilizing Russia for that as we speak. While Russia is shelling civilians in Ukraine, we're using Russia to negotiate for us with Iran. And then second, they've got the Green New Deal Democrat problem. So on top of that, even though, as Lindsey Graham told us, and you saw with Joe Manchin, there's 75 US senators ready to cut off Russian oil and gas and restart the oil and gas programs here in the US, which would affect the futures market, which would bring the price of oil down immediately because countries like Saudi Arabia would have to start pumping more right now because they'd be concerned, wait, it's not going to be worth as much in a year.

So again, it would alleviate the prices. But instead, we sent a delegation to Venezuela, a failed communist dictatorship state, another place where its people live in total decrepit, it's disaster and disgusting. And it's rich with oil, and yet their people live in, it's totally crumbled their infrastructure. But now we're going to prop up Maduro in Venezuela, a ruthless dictator. So we can keep gas under $6 a gallon. Instead of doing something about it here. American solutions, American jobs. No, no, it's Venezuelan jobs and propping up Venezuelan dictators and Iranian ayatollahs. Because we're not going to open up our own pipeline. But it's so interesting to me, Wes, Colonel Wes Smith, retired army, that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, we've talked about him a lot on this broadcast over the years, said this on Saturday.

And I said it earlier, I'm going to repeat it. Moscow wanted a written U.S. guarantee, a written U.S. guarantee that its trade, investment, and this is the most important part, military technical cooperation with Iran would not be hindered by Western sanctions imposed since it's invaded Iran and I underscore military technical cooperation, Wes. Yeah, which they've had for a while. This falls in the category J, not of diplomacy, but of blackmail. And the Biden administration, as Jordan said, they are so interested in putting a checkbox in the win column for their legacy diplomacy. They're willing to risk everything just to say they signed an agreement with Iran, even though it is a horrible agreement.

Let me point out four quick things about the difficulty with the Iran deal. You know, first, we don't know where they are in their enrichment program because it's been two plus years since we've had any inspectors there. They were at 60% enrichment last time we knew. For all we know, they're already at 90%, which is weapons-grade enrichment. Secondly, and this is the most astonishing thing, J, in light of the fact that Biden is working so hard on this. It was signed in 2015, the original JCPOA. It's designed to start going away 11 years after it's been signed, which is in three or four more years, it'll start going away. And then also, this agreement that the IAEA director signed with Iran over the weekend in Tehran, it still exempts all military site from any inspection. All military sites are inspected. And on top of that, listen, this is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, this is a requirement that the Iranians are saying to be removed from the terrorism list.

Take a listen. One of the reported demands of the Iranians is that this administration reverse the policy of the last one and remove the IRGC from the list of foreign terrorist organizations. What's the U.S. position on it? We are close. We are making progress, but there's still more work to be done and I'm just not going to negotiate from here. I hope she didn't listen to the question, Jen Psaki. I hope that she just had a pre-planned response. I'm not going to talk about negotiations because if we are close and we are making progress, and there's still more work to be done, and that work is going to be including removing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard from the Islamic Republic of Iran off the global terror watch list, the largest exporter of terrorism in the world, to remove them from the list as a precondition. What is she talking about?

I hope she heard it wrong. I want to make this clear to everybody. We talk about Venezuela. This is where they operate. This is how they get close to the U.S. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is active there because, again, that's an ally of Iran in Venezuela. This weekend, the Biden administration, these last two days, sent a delegation to Venezuela to start negotiating the U.S. purchasing again, which we have not done in a very long time, Venezuelan oil specifically, because the gas price is here. So they understand, they acknowledge the problem they're dealing with domestically. The issue is they want to solve the American problem, the inflation with oil and gas, by changing U.S. policy and then propping up other bad dictators. So it'll be Maduro in Venezuela, Ayatollah in Iran. And by the way, saying all this, they didn't cut off the Russian oil and gas either.

So who else? So it's Putin, Maduro, and the Ayatollah who are benefiting from this the most because they are unwilling to unleash America's own power, which would create American jobs, use American energy. And this, to me, is what is the most disturbing. Not that they can't figure out who else to buy oil and gas from, because there's a lot of bad actors who have it that we have not bought it from in a long time. But that should not be our solution in America. We should look to what Germany has done. The Green Party in Germany. Why don't the Green New Deal Democrats here look at the Green Party in Germany?

Their entire platform is environmentalism, is now reopening coal, coal plants in Germany because they said you've got to make pragmatic decisions when the world is in chaos. Let's go ahead and take Israel's calling on Line 3. Israel, welcome to Broadcaster on the Air. God bless you guys.

Thank you for taking my call. I kind of have a comment and at the same time a question. You see, with everything that's going on, it is so reluctant to keep helping our enemies. I can only see them empowering the enemies and uniting the enemies instead of America against Israel. I really see that before the Biden administration is gone, they're going to be focusing on Israel with all this power they've given to our enemies.

Well, it's very interesting to me that Naftali Bennett, the prime minister of Israel, flew to Moscow, had a three-hour meeting with Vladimir Putin and then a three-hour phone call with Vladimir Zelensky. So Israel is fully aware of what's at stake for them. But there is this concern, Wes, especially with the Iran nuclear deal, that the Israelis are very concerned that Iran will end up with nuclear power. The military sites are exempt and it puts Israel in a very difficult – and the Gulf region – in a very difficult place. Yeah, the whole region, it puts them in a difficult place, at risk, basically.

And here's the thing, Jay. Going forward, if the Biden administration insists on lifting sanctions and going forward with this flawed Iran nuclear deal, that will involve totally ignoring what Israel's Mossad discovered in 2018. And that is, in 2018, Mossad discovered – keep in mind the JCPOA was signed in 2015 – three years later, Mossad discovered that Iran secretly had continued to work on a very robust research and development program for a nuclear weapon.

They did this three years after that original flawed agreement was signed. Going forward, we have to ignore not only Israelis' national security concerns, but what their intelligence has told us. You know, the idea – every time I read this quote from Lavrov where he says, we want to make sure that the United States gives us written agreements, written confirmations, that there will be nothing that interferes with our military technical cooperation with the Islamic Republic of Iran. And then Jen Psaki says, well, we're negotiating that.

Pretty dangerous. And the potential of removing the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps from the foreign terrorist organizations list, which, by the way, is what enabled the Trump administration to take out the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, which has weakened them significantly because he was a powerful leader, Soleimani. And it was one of the moves that probably defined the Trump administration best when you say, okay, Putin was so aggressive under Obama that he pulls back so much under Trump and then gets re-aggressive right again. That single move by taking out Soleimani, the head of a military branch – well, what Iran considers to be the head of a military branch, but what the U.S. defined as the head of a terrorist organization. So it'd just be like taking out the head of ISIS or killing bin Laden. And when they made that move, ordered by President Trump, that is what scares people like Vladimir Putin back into their own territory. And they don't start their aggressiveness because they have no way to predict if they're next, if they're next on the list.

I mean, if you heard what these phone calls that President Trump is talking about now with Putin, he said he would be on these calls and tell them, listen, I know where you're sitting right now. So no games here. We're taking your phone calls 1-800-684-3110.

We'll be right back. 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. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad, whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith. Uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support. Take part in our matching challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family.

Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Listen, we're going to get back into all of this in the second half hour. Rick Rinnell is going to be joining us to talk about the Iran deal. This is real again, folks.

I just want to make it clear to you. This is not a replay of an old broadcast. It sounds like it's not the Obama administration this time, but it's Joe Biden again. Trying to re-enter at all costs, literally, the Iran nuclear deal. It could happen this week. That doesn't mean it would necessarily start this week, but they could announce the re-entry, the agreement already this week. This is their solution, folks, as we'll get into later in the broadcast.

I want to take your calls to that later, too. Their solution to lower your price at the pump is to go beg the Venezuelans, which they did this weekend. Literally, a U.S. government delegation by the Biden administration went to Venezuela, which is a world pariah, a failed state led by a vicious dictator. So we're going there to beg for oil and gas.

Remember SITCO? That's them. At the same time, we're begging to get back into the Iran deal. Russia is bartering it for us. So do you think there's a reason why we haven't sanctioned Russian oil and gas?

Because they're the ones putting together the whole Iran nuclear deal, which, by the way, they want all these sanctions that the world's put on them when it comes to Iran. So we'll get into that with Rick Grenell, but we do have an update, too. We're part of a matching challenge. We talked to you about what the ACLJ is doing to outside this broadcast, and it's not always stuff that's breaking news. But the fight for life is still very strong in the ACLJ, and that includes the right for pro-life speech.

And we have been defending this since literally the 1980s. Jeff Surtees, the senior counsel for the ACLJ, just came back from a trial in New Jersey defending a pro-life sidewalk counselor. You arrived there, Jeff, back into your offices, and what did you find? We get a denial of a preliminary injunction from the federal court in Louisville, where we have filed a lawsuit on behalf of two long-time sidewalk counselors challenging that city's abortion buffer zone.

So, yeah, you go through one trial, come back, and you go up on appeal in another circuit court of appeals. So describe this one, Jeff. Describe this one.

What was the nature of it? So this one, actually, it was a purely political decision. I mean, because what you have is Louisville's only abortion clinic has been yelling and clamoring for an abortion buffer zone for years. They finally got it last year, and the ordinance says that you cannot go within 10 feet of the entrance of an abortion clinic store. Actually, the ordinance says all healthcare facilities, but the abortion clinic is the only entity in town that's requested that these zones be put out there. Well, now, 10 feet might not seem like a big deal to many, Jay, but ask any sidewalk counselor, and you're going to get the same response.

Every second counts. You know, and sometimes a woman thinking about whether or not to have that abortion is going to change her mind at the very last second. So that 10 feet is an important public space where sidewalk counselors need to be able to go, counsel women, let them know about other options that are available, that abortion is not their only choice. But because the abortionists are in cahoots with the city council, they get their no-speech zone, and there we are in federal court. So this was a political move.

It's interesting because we had the same thing happen many years ago, Jeff, and Andy Akon was sitting right next to me. He did these cases with us in the city of Atlanta, where they decided that the only place there'd be stand-away zones would be in front of the abortion clinic, as if the abortion clinic gets its own sense of rules and regulations on free speech, but everybody else is treated differently. Well, that's exactly right, Jay.

We want that, by the way. We did, we did, but these cases that you are referring to, Jay, that you and I were involved in, were as late ago as in the 1990s. So we have been fighting for free speech in these areas.

88, actually, to be specific. Okay, well, that's good. That's a long time ago to have been fighting for free speech and the ability of these counselors on the streets of Atlanta or Louisville or in New Jersey to counsel women who are going in to have these horrible procedures performed and to perhaps desist from doing so and not from doing so. But these fights that we have fought have gone on for decades, let's say, 80s, 90s, 2000s, and are going on today, and these are homicide hospitals. That's what they are.

Let's just call them what they are. That's what they are, killing fields, and we have got to be vigilant in our fighting for the ability to proclaim life in these areas, free speech in these areas on public sidewalks, which are traditional public forums, and to fight the battles in federal courts and in state courts all over, Jay. So, Jeff, where does this one go now? U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit? U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit. Our opening brief is due on April 11th. It's been expedited because this was a denial of a preliminary injunction. Our reply briefs will be due in May. Oral arguments shortly thereafter.

Folks, this is what we expect to see. We talk about the same case of the 1980s and 90s. If the case from the Supreme Court, you heard Joe Biden's rhetoric at the State of the Union on this issue. Even with everything else going on in the world, he made sure to talk about abortion rights and protecting abortion rights from his administration. This will be part of their plan, is that if the Dobbs case goes for life, in a sense, opening the door for states across the country to put an end to most abortions.

Just be honest about it. And about half the states in the country have state legislatures and governments ready to do that. The other states and municipalities, by the way, you might live in a red state, but I bet your large city in your state is not run by Republicans.

There's only a couple in the whole country that are. So the municipalities and the cities are going to respond to state action with, I think, what will be even more aggressive and more outrageous restrictions on pro-life speech, on pro-life pregnancy centers. Those battles will all be re-fought. People think that this case could be the end.

It will be the beginning. It's just the battlefield might change from federal court to state court for some of these cases. But ultimately, they all involve constitutional rights. They all end up at the federal court. So if that door opens, you will see Planned Parenthood's still got a billion dollars a year. Their industry is not going to just back down and roll over.

No way. They're going to aggressively try to shut down pro-life speech, and that includes the sidewalk counselor. It also includes the pro-life pregnancy centers.

You know, Jeff, I look at it. It is the sidewalk counselor. It is the pro-life crisis pregnancy center. It's also doctors and nurses who don't want to engage in these procedures. Those are the three fronts of the abortion battle right now.

That's exactly right. And we are aggressively moving forward on all three of those counts. You know, we had the case bout in the Ninth Circuit, went up to the Supreme Court in defense of crisis pregnancy centers. We now have the issue of one those. We have the sidewalk counselors that would do you know, that we're fighting for in New Jersey and here in the Sixth Circuit. And we're looking ultimately, Jay, with our sidewalk counseling cases to get up to the Supreme Court to have it overrule and renounce Hildy, Colorado.

A case that, you know, very well. I think this court would do it. I think this court would do it.

Yeah, and I think it will. Justice Barrett, when she was on the Seventh Circuit, joined an opinion saying that Hildy, Colorado has been radically undermined by subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court. But that only the Supreme Court can overrule it. That's why, folks, one of these cases may get up there, and that's why we're taking them, and that's ultimately where it goes.

Jeff, we appreciate the update. Look, as it becomes standing for life, the American Center for Law and Justice, front and center on all of these fronts. Your support for the ACLJ allows us to do just that. In federal court in New Jersey, now at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, getting ready for the cases going all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States. If you are part of the ACLJ, you get our emails.

There's an email today about this case. We are in our matching challenge right now where you can double the impact of your donation to the ACLJ. We are much more than a broadcast with attorneys across the country and the world fighting on issues like life, free speech, constitutional rights, your liberty.

And we need your support. This is a great time to support the work of the ACLJ because you double the impact of your donation during a matching challenge. If you donate $25 right now at ACLJ.org, we have a group of donors that are going to match that throughout the entire month of March. So it's like $50 to the ACLJ. Donate today. ACLJ.org.

We'll be right back. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow.

And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Folks, I just want to remind you too, because if you just joined us that last segment of the broadcast, we're talking about an ACLJ case specific to life and free speech. How we started the broadcast today is a nuclear deal imminent. Now you may ask yourself who we're talking about there. Are we talking about Russia and Ukraine? Are we talking about the U.S. and Russia? Are we talking about – no, no, we're talking about Iran again.

That's right. This week, a Russia-brokered reentry of the U.S. So if you question why the Biden administration will not actually put real, full sanctions on Russia with their oil and gas, it's not because of your gas prices here. It's because Russia is negotiating the reentry of the U.S. and Iran back into this two pages of bullet points.

Literally, two pages of bullet points. The JCPOA. So in the midst of the chaos in Ukraine, the world trying to figure out how to deal with Vladimir Putin, and also the concern about China taking Taiwan in the midst of all this chaos, and the inflation, and the gas prices, what's your U.S. government doing to alleviate it for you? Well, they sent a team to Venezuela to start negotiating with the dictator Maduro there, a country which has been a failed state, which its people live in squalor, and those who haven't left, and who has been propped up in the past by Russia, China, and Iran, but because of sanctions on Russia right now and Iran, maybe they'll sell us some oil and gas. Which, by the way, that means you're propping up a ruthless dictator. And guess who else they want gas from?

Take a listen to this from Jen Psaki. They don't want just a nuclear deal to try to prevent Iran from a nuclear weapon, even though they already have the nuclear material necessary. We don't know if they have the deliverable weapon yet.

Take a listen to what you might get out of this deal, though. Does the potential for an Iran deal factor into supply considerations at this point? I would say that the biggest priority with the Iran deal is having visibility into and preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Obviously, as a part of that, if you go back to the implementation of the JCPOA, would be the availability of oil, but I would say that our first and foremost priority focus is on preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. After that, we can't just pick up the phone to our ally, Saudi Arabia. No, they're thinking about sending President Joe Biden to Riyadh to have him beg and kiss the ring for OPEC to release more oil onto the market. And they don't want to produce more oil because they're afraid that as soon as Iran starts putting their oil back out, it's going to lower the prices.

And the U.S. longer-term policy is to basically cut off oil, so they're not very happy about that. So, and on top of all of this, and I said this at the beginning of the broadcast, Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister from Russia, said that Moscow wants a written U.S. guarantee, Andy, that its trade, investment, and military cooperation with Iran will not be hindered by the Western sanctions imposed since it invaded Ukraine. Well, from the Biden administration, he may very well get it, Jay. From the Biden administration, he may very well get it. As Jordan pointed out in his survey, we've gone hat in hand to a dictator in Venezuela, which makes the Venezuelans in Florida, who have fled there, very happy.

You know that. And we've asked for oil. We have gone now to Jenzak, who said, yes, we don't want the nuclear weapon to be had by Iran, but a little side deal of that would be to get their oil.

And then we're going to go to bin Salam, the crown prince, who is the effective ruler of Saudi Arabia, and who the President of the United States hat in hand going over there begging them to give us oil. Why don't we start drilling in the United States? Why don't we open federal lands? Why don't we open the Keystone Pipeline? Why don't we become more energy independent like we were in the Trump administration? Because they're so bound to the left of their party, right, Jordan? Yes, it's all about the Green New Deal Democrats. And by the way, they love going to Maduro, the far left, propping up these communist regimes. And anything to prevent this from being about U.S. jobs, U.S. gas, U.S. oil. Welcome back. We're joined by Rick Grenell, our senior advisor for foreign policy and national security, talking specifics on this Iran nuclear deal, listening to people. Rick's had the jobs of the people in the administration now, who this is their top goal has been to get back into this Iran deal.

And they're using the crisis in Ukraine, the war there, to try and justify it. We'll be right back. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad, whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith. I'm covering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress. The ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

Take part in our matching challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at 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, 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 2 Secular. We're joined now by our senior advisor for foreign policy and national security, Rick Rinnell. And Rick, I want to go right to you on this because in the midst of the war in Ukraine and the Russian aggression there, there's a lot of other moves going on around the world and one that could be announced this week, which again, a lot of our listeners, it has, you know, it's not taking the forefront in any news, but it is, it is there buried. And is the Biden administration could announce this week that we have come to an agreement to reenter the Iranian nuclear deal, the two pages of bullet points in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or the JCPOA. And they are admitting that this would be to one of those secondary issues would be that, well, this will unleash Iranian oil for the US market. Look, there is no possible way that we can have an Iran deal without cutting a deal with the Russians.

Now think about that. The priority for the Biden administration has to get is to get any deal in Iran. And in order to get a deal in Iran, you have to deal with the Russians and you have to make sure they're not too angry with you. What does that mean? That means that when the Russians are doing their offensive moves in Ukraine and the Biden team cares more about an Iran deal, they are literally letting the Russians get away with murder because they're more focused on an Iran deal.

Where is the DC media? I want to call out people like Julie Pace from the Associated Press who fails every time to keep the pressure on the Biden administration. She's the one who's constantly saying we don't have a problem with supply issues when it comes to energy because she's more concerned about climate change and she puts forward arguments about climate change that are somehow a higher priority than gas prices that Americans are having. She's dismissed the idea that buying oil from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or possibly Iran is a better idea than the American government allowing Americans to supply our energy.

We have the ability, as Senator Manchin said, but we are not supplying the energy that we need because somehow we're afraid of the environmentalists' claims that it's going to harm climate change. You know, Rick, I pointed out early in our broadcast and I want to get your sense of this because to me this is a really troubling statement that came out of the foreign minister for Russia, Sergey Lavrov, regarding the Iran nuclear deal. And this is what he said.

This has been reported on Saturday. He said that Moscow wants a written U.S. guarantee that it's very important here that its trade, investment and military technical cooperation with Iran would not be hindered by Western sanctions imposed by its invasion of Ukraine. That is what the Russians are demanding from the United States as a precondition for this horrible Iran deal. Rick, your sense of that? Okay.

All right. Well, let me give you my sense of it while Skype froze. This is not only horrible negotiations but sets a weakness, Andy, for the United States from a strict negotiating standpoint that we're dependent upon.

We're allowing Russia to set a precondition. Go ahead, Rick. You heard me? Did you hear what I had to say?

I did. And, you know, Jay, this is the problem when we're negotiating, when the Biden administration is negotiating and not putting America first. We're putting consensus with the Europeans first.

We're putting consensus with others at the U.N. first. Biden cares more about having a deal where other countries say, yes, we are with you and we're going to sign off on this agreement rather than protecting America. You cannot be negotiating an Iran deal right now with the Russians because the Russians obviously have a whole other offense going on in Ukraine. And you're not, it's not, it's literally not something that Americans are going to benefit from if our government is trading policies between Iran and Ukraine with the Russians. And that's exactly what's happening.

And the foreign minister, Iran's foreign minister, said he would not allow any foreign elements to undermine its national interest. And he was waiting for further explanation. So this has gotten very complicated very quickly.

Yeah. Rick, one thing I want to ask you about, which is specific to knowing this, we now know a U.S., the Biden team, sent a delegation to Venezuela. And just to kind of isolate that for a second. Venezuela, we stopped buying oil and gas from Venezuela. They've been isolated. They've had to rely on Russia and Iran and China. And it'd be one thing, I think, if we were trying to reengage Venezuela and say that maybe this will cause political change.

People there are living in squalor. It's been, it's almost become like a failed state. But we're coming to the, it seems like instead what's happening is we're coming and begging to come up with a deal which is not going to change Venezuela politically. It's not going to provide more human rights to Venezuelans or really improve the day-to-day life of the Venezuelan people. Look, there's been a lot of reports about President Trump sending me to Mexico to negotiate a secret deal that we were having with the Venezuelans, a conversation that we were having.

I haven't really ever confirmed that publicly, but it did happen. And I flew to Mexico to negotiate a deal where the Maduro team would leave in order to continue with a bilateral relationship with the Venezuelans and move the Venezuelans forward and clean up the mess that Maduro has put in Venezuela. We felt like we needed to move on. This is a opposite policy from the Biden team where they're engaging with Maduro and there's even been some senior officials at the White House who say our policy is different than Trump because we are going to engage with Maduro and, and we're going to negotiate with him. Again, I go back to why are we buying oil from Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and possibly Iran when we have the ability to supply energy ourselves here in America?

Let's do it ourselves. Andy, I was going to ask you historically, when our leader of the United States government goes to the extreme of going to dictators to get what is an energy for the United States, energy we actually have, but historically when leaders have done that, it does not end well. No, I mean, and what Ambassador Grinnell I think would agree with me, this brings back Munich 1938, Chamberlain going to Hitler and saying, let's work it out, eat up the Czechoslovakians, give them the Sudeten land, and he comes back waving that stupid piece of paper saying peace in our time, or was it peace for a time?

There is some question about that, but that's not what you do. You don't go sucking up the dictators coming back with concessions that dictators make, which are no good. And what did it get us ultimately? War.

Well, I mean, go ahead, Rick. I was going to say the reality is, is that we've had these conversations in the 70s and 80s because we were trapped. We were not able to provide enough energy ourselves. We needed to import energy and we had to deal with a whole bunch of bad actors.

I didn't like it then, and I certainly don't like it now, but something fundamental has changed. And that is we can supply our own energy. We can become an energy exporter. This is unbelievable. It happened under Donald Trump.

It's not like we're talking about pie in the sky. It's not like we're talking about something that hasn't happened. We did it. As Donald Trump says, not only were we an energy exporter, but we were dominant in it.

We were able to really change the whole game of foreign policy. What Joe Biden is doing is laying down for the environmentalists and instead of supplying here, looking the other way as the oil pumped in Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, all of these other places, they still have the same environmental concerns that our environmentalists have here. But Joe Biden isn't looking at that.

He's pretending that somehow we have to buy oil, buy energy from dictators, and we don't have to. Rick, as always, we appreciate you joining us on the broadcast. So check out ACLJ.org as well. People like Rick and Mike Pompeo are writing weekly for ACLJ.

It's all there at ACLJ.org. And so we get into the details about the discussion we have here so that you're able in another way to share it with your friends and family, to read more, to learn more about these issues. I mean, Rick just let us know on the air, the Trump administration's engagement with Venezuela, which was done, which said basically you want to reengage with us, you're gone. You as a regime are gone, but that will save your people because we'll reengage with you. And ultimately the Venezuelan Maduro government was not willing to do that.

But you're not, you weren't going to get that anywhere else today. Instead, though, what we do know publicly is that the Biden administration is down there begging. And that's how the Venezuelans are seeing it for political, somehow to politically win this fight with rising gas prices. So they're willing to make a deal with Iran and Venezuela. And they're hoping that you just don't care because it might keep your price from hitting five and six dollars a gallon in the U.S. in most states.

It is higher than some places where you've got very high state and local taxes already on oil and gas. That's what they're hoping is that you will look the other way if they can bring your prices down. So they're begging the world, begging the world's dictators to do that for them. We'll be right back on secular. Give us a call. We'll get to your phone calls.

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Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Secular. We're going to take your phone calls, too, on this idea. I wonder if you even would want this. Would you rather pay a dollar more per gallon or fund the Iranian regime? Would you rather pay a dollar more per gallon or fund a communist regime on our back door, Venezuela?

Is it worth it to you, really? Or would you say, you know what, I'll pay the $5 a gallon from $4 right now. I'll pay the $5 not to fund the Ayatollah in Iran. Because the game that the Biden administration is playing is that they think that $1 a gallon will be the reason why you don't care that they re-entered the Iranian nuclear deal. And that you'll give them a pass on that. And you'll give them a pass, unless you're a Venezuelan immigrant who fled these regimes, you'll probably give them a pass.

So out of South Florida it won't make a lot of news. So you give them a pass on that. Now, again, the $1 a gallon adds up. That's almost $20 extra every time you fill up. But would you say, I really want to fund the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the number one state sponsor of terrorism, to save my $1 a gallon? That's their equation right now.

1-800-684-3110 to talk to us on air. Karen on Rumble asked this question, what would it take to convince Biden to open up the Keystone Pipeline? I think it's maybe the midterm elections.

Unfortunately, I think that's too long. Because right now, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer can prevent these votes from happening on the floor. The votes are there. I mean, I think the House would be closer because there's not as many mainstream voters. There's a lot more, I know that our audience might not love it here, but there are a lot more pragmatic Democrats in the Senate than there are in the House. And that's just kind of the way the House is.

You could say that about both sides, probably. But I still think the votes would be there. But right now, Biden's got his leadership on lockdown so that Schumer and Pelosi won't bring this up for a vote, knowing that it would end up on his desk. And it looks like there's enough votes in the Senate to override a veto.

No, yes. The problem is, the way I see it, is he is so beholden to the left part of his party that he will not let it happen. Yeah, that's exactly right, Jay. He is so beholden to the leftists that have taken over the Democratic Party that even with Pelosi calling, and I heard her say that we ought to do this in putting pressure, and I never thought I would agree with Nancy Pelosi on anything. And I think Schumer sees the same thing. But the left has got such control of the Democratic Party right now, and this green agenda, and this climate change business, and these ridiculous statements that John Kerry is making, hoping that the war in Ukraine does not affect climate change in some oblique way.

All of these combine to just basically cause them paralysis. They're not going to do it. But listen to the Secretary of Energy. This tells you what all of this is about.

Take a listen. We're working through an energy transition, and we've got to start by adding energy. And the reality is, we have to take some time to get off of oil and gas. We recognize this.

This is a transition. This sounds really high and mighty, except you're in the middle of a war with Ukraine and Russia, so you've got a whole pipeline issue. Iran is about to get some free pass from the United States, with Russia asking for guarantees from us that we won't interfere with their military operations with the Iranians. So, you know what? I would be drilling in the United States if I were them. But they're not going to do it.

That's, by the way, elections of consequences. That's one of them. Let's take a call. Barbara at Utah Online, too. Hey, Barbara. Welcome to Secular. You're on the air.

Thank you for taking my call. I'm just wondering why the states can't do something to stop or to interfere with the executive order shutting down the Keystone and also shutting down our oil fields. Well, the state can't go in and tell the federal government what to do on either federal lands or federally controlled infrastructure. And then you've got Supremacy Clause issues.

If there's a conflict between the states and the federal government, the federal government wins. So the problem is that it's not the political will right now to do it. Here's the question. You asked the right question, Jordan. Are the American people willing to pay $5 a gallon for gas, another dollar, to not be in business with the Ayatollahs and to not let the Russians dictate our arrangements in the Middle East?

That's really the question. And it's a serious question, and I know it has economic consequences. The Biden team thinks that you're going to give them a pass on all of this if they could get your prices down. And they're not going to do it by investing in America. They're not doing it by investing in U.S. jobs. They're doing it by propping up a dictatorship in Venezuela. They're doing it by propping up the Ayatollah in Iran and by reentering a deal brokered by the Russians. The third part of this, you don't like the imagery out of Ukraine. The reason why the Russians can continue these offensive for weeks at a time is because of all the sanctions that were placed on them, the one thing that we didn't touch was a third of their economy. Oil and gas.

It's flowing to the world, including right into your car here in the United States. So you're propping up the Russians to carry out their war on the Ukrainian people. You're going to then prop up the Iranians, which, again, will be an influx of cash for them. And guess what happens usually after they get an influx of cash?

They start getting a lot more adventurous, too, in their region of the world. Remember Syria and their involvement there. And the Russian engagement with them in Syria.

Those towns like Aleppo, which are starting to look like the towns in Ukraine. All funded by you. And on top of that, add in a South American dictator who works with Iran and China and Russia to survive.

This is what would be going into your car. This is what they think you'll be okay with if they can bring down the price a dollar. But they won't invest in the U.S. and they won't invest in the U.S., either in U.S. oil and U.S. jobs that that would bring. They're going to keep that Keystone pipeline shut.

But they will prop up dictatorships for you. Let's go back to the phones. Roger in Minnesota, online3. Hey, Roger.

Hey, thanks for taking my call. I would pay the extra money so that a dictator would not get profit from it and that. But what's to say it's not going to turn bad anyway because the way the administration is just caving to everything. For one example, solar cells are, um, China has the dominance in producing solar cells. Well, this is the big issue. And again, I appreciate your support. They're standing up saying, you know, if I knew it would actually be a policy decision for these, that it would be clear as a country that we're going to stand up and say, no, we're not going to support you, Iran. We're not going to support you, Russia. We're not going to support you, Venezuela, while you're a human rights abuser, while you're starting wars with countries that didn't do anything to you, while you're exporting number one exporter of terrorism around the world. I mean, it really shouldn't even be a debate that we're having on the broadcast right now, but yet that is what they hope to do. They not only hope to do it, the fact of the matter is, again, so beholden to the left side of their party, they will do anything they can in this regard to do it. And if that means getting that, listen, and the left side of that party doesn't have any problem dealing with Maduro. No, not at all.

Of course not. They welcome him. He is a comrade.

He's part of their socialist agenda here in the United States, so they want to deal with him. It doesn't matter. That is why, as our producer Will Haynes said, keeping this maxim in mind, America first was so important and continues to be so important today, but we've lost that.

We're not doing it anymore. It's let's be consensus and funny and happy with the Europeans that have spent. They have different goals than we do and different objectives than we do, but we refuse to recognize that in the Biden administration. Now, folks, this is why it's so important for you to support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice. On all these issues, we are fully engaged with analysis, with information, working in Washington, working around the globe. I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org. We're in a matching challenge campaign. Any amount you donate, we get a matching gift for.

We're a little bit behind last year, so we need to start making up some ground. Go to ACLJ.org. If you donate $10, we've got a donor that's matching it. So again, ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org to support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice, especially in the month of March and our matching challenge campaign. That does it for the broadcast today. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org.