Failure After Foreign Policy Failure

Today on Sekulow, we break down the ACLJ's impact on foreign policy. 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. Welcome to Sekulow. You know, one of the things we knew, when the Biden administration came into power, President Biden, we know elections have consequences. It was a mess of an election, but ultimately President Biden's there. And where the President is most powerful, where they have the most unchecked power, constitutionally and throughout the courts through court precedent, is in the realm of foreign policy.

And we knew that the Biden administration's foreign policy would not just be bad, but dangerous. Dangerous foreign policy, begging the Iranians, which so far they have not been successful in doing, but they're still trying, begging the Iranians to let the U.S. back into their bullet point JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. They're still begging that. No response to China on the fact that COVID-19 is likely their responsibility. You look at the situation in the Middle East, they're against the fact that Jerusalem has been recognized as the capital of Israel. They've talked about trying to reopen a separate embassy in Israel just for Palestinians. And that was an embassy that's had a lot of problems because it was basically a pro-Palestinian U.S. outpost, which is not how any of our embassies should be. Now we knew, again, whether it was Russian aggression, Chinese aggression, Taiwan, Ukraine, again, COVID, the Iranian nuclear situation. We knew that this administration was going to be a disaster.

They have proven that to be the case. Now they've been pretty ineffective, but at the ACLJ, we took a direct action by beefing up our team at the highest level. So we brought on former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

We brought on Rick Renell, former acting director of national intelligence and ambassador to Germany. We were able to bring both of them on because we were in a financial position to do so. So they are a part of our team. They are not just guests on our radio broadcast. And I always want to encourage people to think past just the hour they see us a day on air or watch us or listen to us.

They're not just coming on like guests of the broadcast. We are working with them behind the scenes. We're utilizing their expertise, their context, their knowledge in FOIA filings, for instance.

We'll have them review to make sure we're not using the right language, taking it to the next level, if you will, at the ACLJ. But we were able to do that because even with COVID, even with the uncertainty surrounding the last election, people supported our work. They knew it was important to continue to support our work financially.

So I thank all of you who did because we were able to make those moves. So this broadcast today, we're going to dive into all the foreign policy work that the ACLJ and our international affiliates is directly engaged in and how we've taken it to a next level. And so your financial support allows us to not just—again, it's not just about bringing in Rick and Mike Pompeo. And again, I want to let you know they are not just contributors to a radio broadcast.

It's a senior council position and a senior advisor position. But also, the work that goes into that, too, through our team. There's more people that you don't see on the broadcast who support that additional work and expertise that we're able to bring in. So I encourage you, if you can, to support our work at ACLJ.org today. You can double the impact of your donation. We have a matching challenge at ACLJ.org. And if you're listening to the broadcast, I think you'll be encouraged as well. This is a critical time at the ACLJ to support our work financially.

This is a matching challenge month. And I know that you've heard me say that before. If you're a regular listener to the broadcast, you watch the broadcast. But let me just tell people why who are thinking about making a financial contribution to the ACLJ or—and to the work that we do. Where that goes—well, you know, obviously, to do this broadcast every day, to get this out, costs resources. But of course, most of our resources go to fighting the battles.

Of course, using our broadcast is important to that. But it's fighting the battles in Congress. It's fighting the battles in Congress. It's fighting the battles in international courts. So all of our international work that we do all over the world for religious liberty, for freedom of speech, protecting your constitutional rights. And again, at a time when we believe the ACLJ is needed now more than ever. So in a matching challenge month, we have a group of donors that is ready to match every donation that comes through. You double the impact of your donation. Donate online today at ACLJ.org. 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. 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. Mike, one of the things that I am increasingly concerned about and I think the country is increasingly concerned about and that is the situation as it relates to China. In a couple of different avenues, one is it seems like the Chinese Communist Party has been emboldened since Joe Biden's been President.

They have consistently rebuffed efforts on the COVID-19 investigation. And it seems like the policies that you had in place as Secretary of State have pretty much been, I wouldn't say nullified, they're just not following up on it. What makes no sense to me is that you had such, we had, as I say you, but we as a country had such great success.

What? Is it just anything that's a previous administration they don't want to touch? So it may be that.

I've certainly seen that in other places as well. But with respect to the Chinese Communist Party in particular, I think they're just viewed differently than we did. They view it the same way that the foreign policy establishment had viewed it for 40 years before the Trump administration as well, right?

It is, if we just sell them some more trinkets, we've got to figure out how to get along. They're a big country. We can't upset the Chinese Communist Party. Our view was they have destroyed millions of jobs in the United States of America. They've stolen billions of dollars in wealth.

They've now foisted this virus that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans upon us and covered it up. They're committing genocide in the western part of China. They want to take over an independent nation of Taiwan. They destroyed freedom in Hong Kong. This collective set of activities makes the Chinese Communist Party, if you add it to their military capability, the singular greatest threat to our freedom here at home. We were serious about responding to that.

And while they've said a few things that are good in the Biden administration, there is no evidence they're prepared to execute on those things. One of the things that I found fascinating on the Hong Kong situation was Hong Kong, which was a beacon of freedom, basically, in the metric of dealing with China, because of the way the legalities were set up, where China was able to reassert control, was there anything that could have been done, do you think, to made that transition where it would not have foisted, basically, the Communist Party's control directly on Hong Kong like it has? So it was a very difficult proposition, different than Taiwan.

There are many more tools available for Taiwan. This was an internal negotiated agreement that had been made. The Chinese clearly walked away from their part of the agreement with the United Kingdom and, frankly, with the world. So it was a difficult problem. We tried to support the freedom-loving people there. We tried to support Jimmy Lai. You all did good work on religious freedom there.

Here at the ACLJ, that was an important part of what you were doing. So we tried to provide the underpinnings. But in the end, when Xi made the decision that he was going to use force and political power to overtake that and make it, frankly, Hong Kong now just another Chinese Communist city, the tools that we had in our arsenal were pretty limited. We know now, I mean, both administrations agree that the Chinese are committing genocide.

There's no mistake about that. That's one agreement between the Trump administration and the Biden administration. But the question, I think, for a lot of people is, have we gotten to the point of no return when it comes to holding the Chinese Communist Party and their leaders actually accountable for these actions?

Can we do that? Is it possible to turn back this clock, if you will, with a new set of political leaders and a new set of policies? Jordan, it's a really important question. Everyone who's watching this today needs to understand that the magnitude of what is happening there rivals what happened in Europe in the 1930s. This is a problem of epic scale and a set of human rights violations that is, well, it's hard to even talk about, right?

Forced sterilizations, women being forced to have abortions in term of taking families apart on a scale of millions. So that requires a global response, certainly an American led global response. There are things we can do. We can sanction leaders. We can we can convince them that commerce coming from that part of Western China is not going to flow not only to the United States, but to any place in the West. So impose a real economic cost on the Chinese leadership.

There are a series of tools we could take, none of which require new laws. I think there'd be bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for this. But in the end, President Biden's got to make a decision. Does he want to just accept genocide as the standard practice for the Chinese Communist Party?

Or is he going to take real actions that can convince them that they can't continue to do this? You know, I want to switch our focus a little bit to the Middle East, because it's interesting that we're dealing with China in significant ways and have been. And then we have the situation with Iran and then the greater Middle East issue. I have said that Iran is the greatest exporter of terrorism in the world because they will support Hezbollah and they will support Hamas. When we look at Iran, we had this horrific joint comprehensive plan, JCPOA, that was not even an agreement to supposedly slow down Iran's nuclear ambition. At the same time, I will never forget this, we had a pastor that was in jail.

His name was Saeed Abedini. They finally got released. The first thing he told me when he got released when he came to the United States was why in the world did the United States pay one point eight billion dollars to the Iranians? This literally I'm on a conference call, you know, to this regime, because, of course, he's looking at it as just this is more money for for terrorism, more money for repression of freedom. So you look at the nuclear deal that the Biden administration seems to be bent on getting back into. Then there's these reports that the nuclear activities have been increasing.

And on top of that, while the United States withdrew from the agreement, the rest of the European Union stayed in it. And the Iranians acknowledged they have not been following it. So why would they why is this deal so important to this administration when we know the end result of it's going to be not followed? Why do they is this an Obama legacy issue for them? Yes, 100 percent. This has become an article of faith for the left inside the foreign policy establishment.

This was the greatest achievement of President Obama's second term. That's their term, not mine. So when we walked away from this was this was heretical. Getting back in it is absurd.

I chuckle when you talked about Pastor Aberdeen. It's not funny. I chuckle because it is so absurd to think that we're going to buy our way out of the problem set with these mullahs in Iran. Just just look at the binary change in Iranian behavior. We withdrew from the JCPOA and began to take down the capacity of the regime to conduct terror around the world and build their nuclear program. We had them to their last four billion dollars of foreign exchange reserves. The new administration comes in and makes clear we're going to pay any price, bear any cost to get back into this deal. And the Iranians reject them.

They continue to extract. So they've now received permission to receive some seven billion dollars from the frozen assets from Asia. They have conducted missile launches from Gaza Strip through their proxy terrorist Hamas into Israel.

They're now hijacking ships off of Jara in the in the open waters and international water space. The Iranian regime knows that they have a friend and the Americans are sitting at the table begging them to come back into this poorly constructed deal. It is. It's an article of faith. There is no logic to it unless you believe the core proposition that Iran as a balancing actor. And I've heard some Democrats say this. We need Iran to be more powerful. So they'll balance out the bad actors in Saudi Arabia and in the Emirates and in Israel.

I think this is crazy. It's not in America's best interest and yet I think there are some on the left to hold this view. It's by the way, that's thing to say it borders on any Semitic. No, I think it does because of the support for the most anti Semitic regime in the Middle East. The Iranian regime endangers Israel makes it more likely that they have to actually attack the Iranian nuclear program and puts at risk the Jewish homeland. It was interesting as we were isolating Iran when you were secretary of state and we saw the benefits of that and at the same time we saw the Abraham Accords. So you had this significant development of Middle East, the progression of Middle East peace with the Palestinian issue not resolved because the Palestinians leadership has to want to resolve it.

And as we've seen in Oslo, as we've seen in the Camp David Accords, in the Y agreement, in all of these, at the end of the day when the Palestinian authority is offered everything they've asked for, they still turn it down because this is a business enterprise for them. But we saw the success of the Abraham Accords. How significant do you think that is?

Very significant. I don't think it will unravel because I think the people in Bahrain and the Emirates and the other countries too, Jordan, Egypt, the places that have recognized Israel, Morocco, Sudan, I think they're all going to conclude this is in their best interest. But I will say this, the policies that are being put in place are back to the same Obama policies that threaten the Jewish right to their own space. The Abraham Accords and our Iran policy were deeply linked. We'd love to resolve the Palestinian issue but in the end the Palestinian leadership has to make the case to their own people.

This is where too the ACLJ has been very important. Remember, Israel is the one nation where Christians, Jews, Muslims can all worship. The Israeli's right to these lands is pretty clear. They are not an occupying nation. This BDS movement, stuff that the ACLJ has been working on for an awfully long time.

We have to stay after this. This administration will not defend these issues and not protect America and Israel. I'm so glad that you all are engaged on these issues. This is going on right now.

You would think, how could this be an issue? Ben & Jerry's the ice cream company. Ben & Jerry's cancels, basically says if you're going to sell in the settlements, by the way, these settlements have 60,000, 70,000 people in them. These are not tents pitched.

These are villages and towns and cities. We represent Gush Etzion Foundation and it's got a storied history. It's amazing to me that they, I call it the ice cream diplomacy going on in Israel right now.

Jordan, go ahead. It's interesting, Secretary Pompeo, you recently said, if America is not strong, the world will be at the mercy of tyrants and enter an era we dare not imagine. Look, that statement was both historical and predictive. Historical, we know when America is weak, what happens? We watch the Anschluss. We watch Sudan land. We know what happens when we allow tyrants to roam free.

If America is not leading, in fact, they'll have a lot of room to take away freedom here at home in the United States. This is a critical time at the ACLJ to support our work. So in a matching challenge month, we have a group of donors that is ready to match every donation that comes through.

You double the impact your donation. Donate online today 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, 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. 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. The UN, they do these inspections, they call them reports, they're like investigations, on religious liberty. So we were asked, because our European Center for Law and Justice is an NGO with the UN, so we have status. So they asked us to help put together the Israel dossier, basically, the report. It was being done by their people, and they wanted to meet and have us help set up meetings. They had other groups do it too, but we played a large role, interestingly. They wanted to meet with Christians in the West Bank or Gaza. This is part of what they wanted to do. So they said, we just want to go there and interview them. I said, wait a minute, you don't just go there and interview them? They're not openly practicing their religion in the West Bank and Gaza, especially in Gaza, but the West Bank too, because Hamas is pretty much taking over the West Bank, as you know.

So we had to meet with pastors on an olive grove outside of Bethlehem. So when we look at the issue of religious freedom and religious persecution, which we've handled globally, I want to start again with China. You said it, we've said it, we continue to say it.

They are practicing religious persecution at a level that we cannot imagine. I went to, we've been to China. I spoke at a conference supported by the Chinese government and the Peking University, Chinese government basically, and it was on religious liberty, first amendment. They had judges come in, US judges come in, court of appeals judges. It was a very well done event. The attorney general and his staff, there was probably 1500 people in attendance, but what was interesting was I met with some of the leaders of the house churches, which people don't have an understanding what those house churches, it's not 10 people in a room underneath.

I mean, there may be two floors in an office building, but they're not openly do it. They do have the three self patriotic Christian church, which is the official Christian church. What was so incredible to me was they said, well, where do you want to worship that Sunday?

And I said, let's go to the three self. I want to see what it's like at the three self patriotic church. So we go there and the pastors, songs you'd recognize being sung, obviously in Chinese, but you know the hymns and pastor starts a sermon. It seems like a pretty regular sermon. I mean, it was a decent sermon that stops in the middle of it and says, of course, none of this would exist. I'm talking about, he's talking about salvation.

He's talking about faith. None of this would exist without the main goes into the whole Chinese communist party discussion. So when you look at, you said oppression, persecution, genocide, the religious persecution in China is real. It's real and growing.

Yes. I know many folks who have gone to China over the last 30 years as missionaries, as pastors to try and build up faith communities, to take Bibles to, they will all tell you that today is worse than it was five or 10 or 15 years ago. The room for freedom to practice faith is now grossly limited and dangerous. We've seen this happen to young people who come to the United States and who just want to go back there and preach the Lord. Or we've had folks who wanted to go over there and talk about Islam inside the country.

No opportunity to do so. It is as repressive a regime when it comes to religious freedom as any place in the world. And I'd add one thing. We need every person of faith working on the set of issues. The ACLJ has an important role there, but the churches themselves, including the Catholic church, needs to bear witness to this horror.

You know, one last thing on that. We've got a case right now involving a Chinese pastors, pastor John Saul. He is, has American green card. He was living in the United States going back to China, doing basically mission work, gets picked up, charged, put in prison.

I think it's going on year four now. We've taken it to the UN's arbitrary detention panel. They said that he's being detained unlawfully. Of course, China doesn't respond to that. We got involved in the case, right as the kind of towards the end of the administration.

Your administration, the previous minister, your administration as secretary of state was very, very helpful. And then of course now we're basically stone silent with the current one. I mean, you talk China and Christians and religious persecution.

It's like they're out. So it's, that's just part of the problem that we're seeing. No, I mean the, the idea that the religious freedom is central to human rights, that if you don't, you can't have a country where there's real human rights without religious freedom and religious liberty. It is a core belief of mine. It was a core piece of understanding of the state department under President Trump. It was work that we were doing to acknowledge that America is better off, right? We always talked about America first. America is better off when nations around the world permit their people to practice their faith in the way that they want to. The nations are more stable.

Their people are happier, economic growth, all this data sets revolving around allowing folks to practice their faith. And so we worked diligently on it. We had a big team. We had minister, we brought people all across the world.

It was a real priority. The President Trump was the first President ever to go to the United nations, general assembly and talk about religious freedom. This is an important part of who we are as Americans.

And it's, it's, it's both moral and correct, but it's also a good thing for American freedom and safety. You know, I reflect sometimes on what it took for us to get our European center for law and justice accredited with the United nations. Well, it was, it was a multi-year process with multiple hearings. And I'll never forget when we finally got it, we were before the general assembly that approves this and every conceivable group with the strangest things were being approved as NGOs. And it was us. And I believe it was us and the Jewish national fund that both were, you know, abstains denies, you know, of course, part of the problem was we had, we had sued Turkey. We had sued Russia. We had, you know, we brought litigation in international tribunal, so they weren't friendly. We finally got it, but we got it by force. I mean, we went in there and I told the, the, the, whoever was the presiding President at that particular time that we're not leaving without it because there's no justification for this none, none. You're approving all these other groups and it's starting to look like it's a little bit of antisemitism because we have an office in Jerusalem. Finally, we got it. I'm going to turn it to a case that you worked on with us very closely.

I mean, a miracle case passed for Andrew Brunson. So here we have an American citizen been practicing his faith, feels called to the mission field. He goes to Turkey, starts a church and it's mere 23 years.

No problem. All of a sudden pick gets picked up by Turkish forces, jailed in prison trial starts. We're working with Turkish lawyers on the trial.

We're working very closely with you and your team and the white house for his release. Turkey was a NATO ally without disclosing things we can't disclose. He was a political pawn. That's what my, my sense of it is because I was on some of the calls was that they were using Brunson as a negotiating tool with the United States, the Turks. So we had many complex issues with the Turks. They were NATO ally, but they were also engaged in activities that we didn't want them to be engaged in. I think the President, Erdogan knew that. And so yes, he was looking for points of leverage where he had a capacity to impact how we were thinking about our decision making process. So it's a, it was most unfortunate they were, they picked him up because they knew he would be important to the United States of America. And God bless President Trump. We got this right. We made, we made clear this was unacceptable and we began to sanction to do the things that I was just talking about.

You have to use the tools of power that the United States has. And President Trump was prepared to do that by sanctioning senior Turkish officials to convince President Erdogan that he needed to allow pastor Brunson to come. I'm chuckling a little bit because I was, I was on one of those calls with when the President was talking to her President Erdogan, he tells her to one who you know, doesn't know who this person is. He goes, I want you to know if he's not released by the end of this week, this will be the most expensive pastor you've ever detained. And, and he'll be more famous than Billy Graham, which I don't know if that relate to Erdogan, but I remember the economic impact financial times runs an article that says, I mean, like a release that says we just in J secular indicates a possible release of a pastor Brunson is imminent.

Turkish lira increases in value. This is a critical time at the ACLJ to support our work. So in a matching challenge month, we have a group of donors that is ready to match every donation that comes through. You can double the impact, your donation, donate online today at ACLJ.org 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 is 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. 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. You know, one of the things we knew when the Biden administration came into power, President Biden, we know elections have consequences. It was a mess of an election, but you know, ultimately President Biden's there and where the President is most powerful, where they have the most unchecked power in constitutionally and throughout the courts through court precedent is in the realm of foreign policy. And we knew that the Biden administration's foreign policy would not just be bad, but dangerous, dangerous foreign policy begging the Iranians, which so far they have not been successful in doing, but they're still trying, begging the Iranians to let the US back into their bullet point JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

They're still begging that. No response to China on the fact that COVID-19 is likely their responsibility. You look at the situation in the Middle East, they're against the fact that Jerusalem has been recognized as the capital of Israel. They've, they've, they've talked about trying to reopen a separate embassy in Israel just for Palestinians. And that was an embassy that's had a lot of problems because it was basically a pro Palestinian US outpost, which is not how any of our embassies should be. Now we knew again, whether it was Russian aggression, Chinese aggression, Taiwan, again, COVID, the Iranian nuclear situation. We knew that this administration was going to be a disaster.

Okay. They have proven that to be the case. Now they've been pretty ineffective, but at the ACLJ, we took a direct action by, by beefing up our team at the highest level. So we brought on former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. We brought on Rick Renell, former Acting Director of National Intelligence and Ambassador to Germany.

We were able to bring both of them on because we were in a financial position to do so. So when they're, they are a part of our team, they are not just guests on our radio broadcast. And I always want to encourage people to think past just the hour they see us a day on, on air or watch us or listen to us.

They're not just coming on like guests of the broadcast. You know, we are working with them behind the scenes. We're utilizing their expertise, their context, their knowledge in filings, in FOIA filings, for instance.

We, you know, we'll have them review to make sure we're not using words that would, using the right language, taking it to the next level, if you will, at the ACLJ. But we were able to do that because even with COVID, even with the uncertainty surrounding the last election, people supported our work. They knew what was important to continue to support our work financially.

So I thank all of you who did because we're able to make those moves. So this broadcast today, we're going to dive into all the foreign policy work that the ACLJ and our international affiliates are, is directly engaged in and how we take it to a next level. And so your, your financial support allows us to not just, again, it is not just about bringing in Rick and Mike Pompeo. And again, I want to let you know, they are not just contributors to a radio broadcast.

They, it's a senior council position and a senior advisor position. But, but also the, the, the, the work that goes into that too, through our team, we're allowed to, you know, there's more people that you don't see on the broadcast who support that additional work and expertise that we're able to bring in. So I encourage you, if you can, to support our work at ACLJ.org today, you can double the impact, your donation. We have a matching challenge at ACLJ.org. And if you're listening to the broadcast, I think you'll be encouraged as well to support our work as you hear all of, all of what we're able to directly engage in. This is a critical time at the ACLJ to support our work financially.

This is a matching challenge month. And I know that you've heard me say that before. If you're a regular listener to the broadcast, you watch the broadcast, but let me just tell people why, who are thinking about making a financial contribution to the ACLJ or, and to the work that we do, where that goes. Well, you know, obviously to do this broadcast every day to get this out costs, costs resources. But of course, most of our resources go to fighting the battles. Of course, using our broadcast is important to that, but it's fighting the battles in courts. It's fighting the battles in Congress. It's fighting the battles at international courts. So all of our international work that we do all over the world for religious liberty, for freedom of speech, protecting your constitutional rights.

And again, at a time when we believe the ACLJ is needed now more than ever. So in a matching challenge month, we have a group of donors that is ready to match every donation that comes through. You double the impact, your donation donate online today at ACLJ.org 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, 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. When you said all the tools in the arsenal, was that the kind of global approach you took in dealing with these persecution cases? It was. We did this everywhere. I'll say two things that that reminds me of. First, it was always so important for us to be connected to groups like the ACLJ who had feet on the ground, who knew things, who had nuanced understandings of the situation that sometimes we didn't have in government. Sometimes we knew things that that you all didn't know, but working together collectively, we could present to these nations the demands that the American people rightly expect their leaders to do. So we did this. In Pastor Brunson's case, you described it as a miracle.

I certainly consider it so. We used the tools that the United States has and in its arsenal to successfully deliver an American home to freedom back to his family, back to his ability to practice his faith. I've seen the good work he's out there doing. I'm really proud of the work that President Trump and our team did. The moment in the White House when Andrew Brunson prayed for the President, you were there, C.C. Howe from our office was there.

What was that like? It was one of the highlights of my time in my four years serving the administration, to know that the work that went into that, my team on the ground and the embassy, they were good. They did very, very nice work all along building, building, building. And then the work that we did with the private sector, the public language that was taking place. You talked about whether he knew who Billy Graham was or not. His team knew that there would be moral harm to their nation if they didn't let him go. That collective power brought this man of Jesus to the Oval Office that day and to get the chance to be there as he prayed for the President was remarkable. The power of social media, we see the power when it's shut off, but also the power of social media, both times those were made publicly by the President, too, as a tweet to the world saying first it's going to be sanctions. He named the officials and they were sanctioned the next day.

Then he said the next day would actually be by tweet the entire country. So whatever was going on also behind the scenes, publicly, we had a very strong stand from our President who was putting out this stand in his own words, saying this is how much it's worth to me and our country to see, one, get our American citizen home, but two, to stand up for religious liberty. We were always very careful, too. No tweet went out, no Demarche was issued, no red line drawn on us. We were prepared to deliver on it. One of the things I've watched this administration do is say we're going to do X and then the other team runs through the line and they don't do X.

This is really dangerous. We were very clear. We were measured. We were thoughtful.

But when we said we were going to do something in the event that there was some condition that wasn't met, President Trump always followed through. I want people to understand, though, that are watching this, especially our ACLJ members, that while we don't have Mike Pompeo as secretary of state and Donald Trump's not the President and we've got another administration in there, the fact that these people are still being persecuted means we still have to be working on this. We have to use different avenues. But the issue of religious persecution, religious liberty is so central to mankind and to freedom and liberty.

Because you've worked inside the government and outside, so when the government's not your friend, so to speak, you still have to do the work. Yeah, now more than ever, right? This is the central thesis that the work required has to be redoubled. This administration has people inside of it who want to work on this. We need to enable them to. We need to encourage them. We need to prod them. And when they get it right, we need to applaud them.

But it's the case. It's going to require more private activity. We created these religious freedom ministerials. I referred to building religious freedom. We now brought it outside to civil society.

They weren't going to follow through on this inside the government. So we brought it out, held the first big event now two months ago. This work is required. The need for religious freedom didn't go away when the Trump administration ended. And so we'll now take even more effort, more resources, more energy to promoting this cause.

Yeah, I think you're right. Maybe even more so when you've got to use different avenues to get the job done. One of the issues that's key to the ACLJ, Secretary Pompeo, is the defense of the unborn. And you've made that comment that we went from the most pro-life administration in our nation's history to the most pro-abortion and extremely hostile administration. It's not just President Biden saying he's pro-abortion and putting in some actors that have come from that world. He has put in activists from the pro-abortion world, from the world of Planned Parenthood, especially Becerra at HHS and Health and Human Services, who have taken an actual hostile view to pro-life Americans. And we recently just saw a nurse in Vermont, a client of ours, didn't want to file the civil lawsuit because she wanted to maintain her job, but utilized a new vehicle that was set up under the Trump administration at HHS to file a complaint because she was forced to perform an abortion procedure even though she was on the list of people at the hospital with conscience protections. Department of Justice was actively engaged in a legal fight.

They're about to file the lawsuit, and now they've pulled out and asked to... I mean, that's the difference between just one example of the previous administration and the current administration, not even standing up for an American's individual rights to have that pro-life conviction. These folks on abortion are radical. This isn't just going back from where we were radically pro-life.

This is not back to the middle. This is absolute hostility used exactly the right word, whether it's denying this person to exercise their own conscience rights, promoting and funding and underwriting. They're trying to get rid of the Hyde Amendment, the Hyde Amendment that's been law for years, that prevented taxpayer money from going to abortions. They want to repeal the Hyde Amendment.

Frankly, it was largely bipartisan for all of these years. They want to undo that. They are now actively taking U.S. taxpayer dollars abroad and using them to support groups who are promoting abortion all over the world. We were talking about what's happening in the Chinese Communist Party, right, where they're forcing women to have abortions. We now have an administration that is actively promoting the destruction of human life in a way that is so antithetical to, I think, what most Americans' common sense would tell them. This is dangerous.

It is a radical shift. That's why the work that has to be done by groups like the ACLJ today is so imperative. We have to protect every unborn life. Jordan mentioned Becerra, the HHS secretary, so we took him to the Supreme Court about a year and a half ago. I remember that.

He was fighting. This was so absurd. It wasn't on Roe versus Wade. It was he had mandated as attorney general that warning statements be placed inside pro-life crisis pregnancy center, women's centers, saying we don't give abortions. Here's the place to get your abortion. We don't give abortions.

It's called compelled speech, which the Supreme Court for 150 years says you can't do that. So we take him to the Supreme Court of the United States. We win. And his reward for taking that position is he's the HHS secretary. It is incredible. It's remarkable warning. We have a dangerous HHS secretary. Yeah, that's what we should be.

That's what we should be posting. We do see the importance of the judiciary as it relates to the life issue, which means the consequence of an election for President is the appointment of Supreme Court justices. And that fundamentally is one of the lasting legacies of any President.

It is. And I pray that the three that President Trump got, we were very blessed to get three. Not many Presidents get that. I pray that those three come to deliver on the constitutional commitments that they made during their confirmation hearings. If you listen to them, they were all deeply respectful of the Constitution. If one respects our Constitution, then Roe can't stand. Yeah, Roe, you know, even there are liberal scholars that have said Roe's underpinnings were constitutionally suspect. It's a horribly decided case.

As a Constitution matter, wholly apart from the life issue that it surrounds. I hope that they'll do this. I hope they'll be thoughtful. I hope that they will deeply consider that we've been living under this now for decades.

It's wrongly decided they should go fix it, just as in the great historic cases have been fixed before, and then return this. What Roe will do is return states the power to decide what they want to do. This would be a huge step forward for both our constitutional jurisprudence and for the protection of the unborn. It also would reduce the number of abortions because the numbers of abortions were being significantly reduced in the last several years.

The trend line has been that way. Little known fact with Harry Blackmun in the writing of Roe vs. Wade, I've argued enough abortion cases up there that I've studied Justice Blackmun. Harry Blackmun spent the summer preparing for his opinion, knowing the case was going to be on the docket.

I think he actually may have been in the fall. He went up to the Mayo Clinic to the medical library. Now that's a dangerous move when a justice of the Supreme Court starts reading the medical literature, the peer-reviewed journals. And then he came to this three trimester approach to it, which has no constitutional underpinning. But again, as we've said, the lasting legacy of a President is the Supreme Court justices. It doesn't predict how they would vote in a particular case.

Of course. We never ask, and I've been involved as a lawyer advising Presidents on Supreme Court justices, including these Supreme Court justices. But the fact of the matter is this. We never ask how they would rule in Roe vs. Wade. The Democrats always ask how they're going to rule.

No, the hypocrisy is crazy. Two things that you made me think of there, Jay. If you went to the medical literature today, no one disputes that these are lives. The science, our knowledge has grown so much. Because of the imaging.

Because the imaging is 45, 50 years. No one could go to the Mayo Clinic today and not walk away saying that these are lives that deserve to be brought from the womb alive. You know, the second thought, your point about how we approach the court, we approach the court from an understanding of our American history and our founding.

If these justices will simply return to that, our constitutional documents, Roe will vanish and these babies will be born. This is a matching challenge month, and I know that you've heard me say that before if you're a regular listener to the broadcast, you watch the broadcast. But let me just tell people why, who are thinking about making a financial contribution to the ACLJ or into the work that we do, where that goes. Of course, most of our resources go to fighting the battles. Of course, using our broadcast is important to that, but it's fighting the battles in courts. It's fighting the battles in Congress. It's fighting the battles in international courts. So all of our international work that we do all over the world for religious liberty, for freedom of speech. And again, at a time when we believe the ACLJ is needed now more than ever.

So in a matching challenge month, we have a group of donors that is ready to match every donation that comes through. You double the impact, your donation donate online today 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 were 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. 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. One last issue on the life issue is that we know that there are a couple of cases that the left is watching very closely and they're watching them to see, could this be the way we make the move to get rid of the filibuster and put in place, pack the court. And a lot of, we've been doing a lot of education on this because people think, well, that's really got to take a constitutional amendment.

And it doesn't. It's an act of Congress. We have a divided Congress right now, right on that line, but they are looking to these cases.

I mean, to me though, that is an excuse as an excuse as a way to say, I don't even know if they care with the outcome so much as a reason to even have this discussion, but it's a real discussion happening right now. You know, I check all, I remember I was reading the New York Times, the Washington Post almost every day, the Trump administration is tearing down American institutions. They have no respect for the constitution, no respect for our history and our tradition. These folks come in and want to add a state, destroy the filibuster, right? Pack the court.

Pack the court. I mean, the list is endless of institution destruction that's being put under the guise of the left or because, because COVID whatever the storyline of the day may be, these, these folks that aren't respecting our tradition, you're right about the courts. They are so powerful, so important and elections matter because President Trump was able to put a whole bunch of judges on district courts and appellate judges across America too. This will have a profound impact on our country. Jefferson said he thought the end of the judiciary was going to be the weakest branch of government. Well, it didn't work out that way, but the, but what's interesting about the court for just a moment is that in a lot of the, of course it's been an unusual two years of argument.

I did three of them on the phone. I mean, it's because of the pandemic. And when I look at the court now to compare where it was even, you know, five, six years ago, it's a very different court. I mean, you've got your administration got three Supreme court justice, countless courts of appeals and district court judges, and all those matters. Most cases don't go to the Supreme court, but let me just ask you this. What would, what would, if you were the President of the United States and you were interviewing a Supreme court, just potential nominee, what is, what is the key thing that you don't ask on a particular case, what would you be asking them? I want to make sure that they shared my understanding of our constitution and the courts. Role in interpreting that constitution and frankly, an understanding of the things Congress has permitted to do and not do as well. We've allowed so much of the administrative state to rise up because we've deferred somehow to this idea that we can have elected officials engaged in activity that impacts privacy and freedom and Liberty all across the United States of America.

It has diminished our country. So a deep understanding of the constitution, enough intellect to make sure that they can smell a phony story when they get one presented by a very talented lawyer who's sure to come before them. And then the last thing would be a courage, courage to know, great, this isn't a, this is not a, a court that should be deciding based on what the United, what the people of the United States are thinking at any given moment or what the Washington Post is writing or what the rally on the steps of the courthouse is.

Those are small but loud voices. They need to go back to their original understanding. If we get that piece right, these justices will serve us well. Secretary Pompeo, you led the CIA state department. You understand running massive bureaucracies where it's not always that the bureaucrats working there have the same idea and sometimes they are even working against the, the positions of the administration that they are supposed to be serving. We certainly have saw that under the Trump administration where it seemed like people were trying to undermine constantly, but that it was always a Washington problem, but it seemed like it was just exploded under the Trump administration. There's the idea that these bureaucrats feel like they could be leaking to the press, classified information just to undermine. And I know that's not most probably people working there, but there were certainly enough and they're still there today.

While politician, we come and go and elected officials come and go, they, they remain in Washington and they feel like they run it even though that they are not the chosen people to run these. So what was that like that just that play coming in, knowing that there's a lot of these people were pretty hostile to the policies you wanted to put in place? Yeah, it was tough.

There are no doubt about it. Your, your, your points will take, and there are good people working at the state department who are trying to execute the President's mission, but there were an awful lot who were resistant to most everything we were trying to do. I think it was especially true of the Trump administration.

We were breaking a lot of glass. We talked about the middle East. We talked about our policy in North Korea a little bit, but we were taking positions that were at odds with a 40, 50 year Washington DC foreign policy establishment.

And if there's any place in the world that is the DC establishment, it's state department. And so it was a, there was enormous resistance. And so they tried to undermine in so many different ways. My, my mission set every day was just to make sure that I understood the President's command and intent clearly, and then to make the machine go perform that function. So we tried to get everyone on that page. That's our responsibility, right? The President was elected. He was the duly elected President. Our responsibility is to execute the foreign policy that he lays out. And I tried to remind everyone that we are just, we are there for a moment in time that this is our place and we are to do what the people have asked our leadership to do.

It's a real challenge. And talking about foreign affairs, you know, we often talk about these governments having, we'll say in Turkey, there's volumes written on the deep state, the state that runs the underlying bureaucrats that run Turkey, that you may have an agency saying one thing, but here's, what's really happening. But we kind of have a little bit of a deep state situation as some agencies in the United States. And I, and I'm not talking about conspiracies. I'm talking about reality.

You call it whatever you want, but I'll give a per for instance. So we file a freedom of information act request on the Obama white house. The issue was the negotiations with Iran relating to the nuclear program and the fact that they had initially had a video up that the edit was so obvious of what they took out that all of our team here said that that wasn't a glitch.

That was a white flash edit on purpose. So I, you know, because we have really smart people in our media teams. So we sent out, we took these, the intelligence of our video teams and sent out a FOIA request to the state department, how to go to court, how to fight them.

We won. We get an email that shows what happened, what you knew would happen was of course somebody intentionally edited this piece out, which would have disclosed the whole, what was really going on. But they also, we found an email that said that they were trying to quote, this is from Jen Psaki, who's now the white house press spokesperson, shut down and battening down the hatches on any public discussions of negotiations.

Now, while you have individual negotiations, I understand those can't be public, but they were parroting one story to the public that we've got a more moderate President coming in and that's why we've started this when in fact they started the negotiation with the previous President. So issues that the ACLJ engages in like freedom of information act litigation. How important is that?

Yeah, it's really important. And to get the machine to respond to these things, you said how many years it took you. I saw this time and time again. I was, I was in charge of the state department to get the state department to respond to things, right? We, the team beneath me and say, yes sir, we're working on it. And then weeks would go by. And so you just had to continue to hammer this, this idea that we have bureaucrats operating in ways that are disconnected.

By the way, full transparency. I want the state department to do what President Biden wants them to do. This is their mission. It's not to execute my mission. It's the President's mission, but it's Republican administration is to suffer this because the people who will be career people, they'll stay there all the time, tend to be left of center, tend to have come there.

And they have taken over these machines in ways that really undermine what the American people deserve. Folks, let me take a minute of your time here because this is a really critical month for the ACLJ. These are our most critical months of the year. And we like doing this way so that we don't have to spend a lot of our broadcast doing a fundraising pitch to you most of the year.

But these months, we really do have to tell you how we bring you the broadcast, how we bring you all the experts, how we have team members like Mike Pompeo and Rick Rinnell, how we're planning on the fight for life. Even after the Supreme court case, it's all because of your financial support. Be part of our matching challenge at ACLJ.org today.

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.