SCOTUS Nominee: Pro-Lifers Are “Hostile, Noisy, In-Your-Face”

Today on Sekulow, the Supreme Court nominee calls pro-lifers hostile, noisy, and in your face. We'll talk about that more today on Sekulow.

Hey, welcome to Sekulow. Folks, if you're watching our broadcast, as we often say, you know, you could be on Rumble, you could be on Facebook, you could be on YouTube. We encourage our Facebook audience to go over to Rumble. Facebook, you know, is still, through their fact-checking program, going after everything. I would imagine that even today, oh yeah, by the way, it's a quote of a brief she wrote, the words I used.

It was not even using different words, but the exact quote she used in a brief, the nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Jackson. And I just want to be clear, so you've got the link right there. You can head over to Rumble. You can comment how you want in Rumble. We can say what we want. We know it's not going to be taken down. It's not going to be flagged later.

And it's great also to share with your friends and family. They've got the same kind of comment section where you can be interactive throughout the broadcast. It's so obvious, although I want to say this about the Facebook situation, Mike King, is that, you know, this happened last week. So, you know, they flagged this the second time in like three weeks. We've had an issue with that.

And both times, by the way, the fact-checker comes back and says, oh yeah, we shouldn't have done that because there actually was hearings on this pro-life legislation. But I can look at the Facebook numbers right now and tell you what's going on on Facebook, okay? Here's what's going on. They're suppressing the feed.

Why? Because the feed is about the pro-life issue. And Jordan quoted her brief, which we were involved in because we had, and we'll put it up on the screen, we filed a brief too in that case involving pro-life protests and these buffer zones. And we'll put it up on the screen now if we've got it.

We'll have it in a moment. And so that's where it came from. So before the fact-checker starts with where did Jordan come up with that language and context from the brief, the nominee filed. Now she has the right to do that. She's a lawyer representing her client, but there it is. Yeah, here's the brief from 2001. This is what she said.

This is about the buffer zone. So trying to suppress pro-life free speech. This is not when she was a judge. She was on the side of the abortion industry.

So if you're wondering who she is, because she doesn't say a lot in a lot of these hearings so far, she has worked on behalf of the abortion industry in private practice before she was a judge. But she said this, few American citizens who seek to exercise constitutionally protected rights must run a gauntlet through a hostile, noisy crowd of in-your-face protesters. Now, what they don't say there is that that's on a public sidewalk where you do in America sometimes have to go through and hear people you don't like, see things you don't like, people who might be expressing their view. I think that we all know now, at a time when free speech is under attack in many different ways, and the groups who used to support real robust freedom of speech, there's ACLU-type groups who would sometimes side with us too. They're not partisan. It's only speech that they agree with.

You know, defund the police, they agree with that. Pro-life speech, they don't agree with. When we win cases for speech, it's for everybody's speech. You know, it's for everybody's speech, for both sides. It's like when you win a case for religious liberty, it's for all religious groups. This idea, again, that she would use this kind of language to say, well, in America, you shouldn't have to hear things you don't like. Which, by the way, is contrary to what the Supreme Court has said.

Let me say this. Her position on these buffer zones and these bubble zones was rejected by the United States Supreme Court in 2014, 9-0. So the position she advocated was to the left of Justice Ginsburg.

So, again, this is just so you know what we've got. Justice Breyer agreed with our position in that case that, in fact, this law in Massachusetts was unconstitutional, the buffer zone. We're litigating those now. Breyer agreed with us. Justice Ginsburg agreed with us. Justice Kagan, Justice Sotomayor, they agreed with us.

This nominee, we probably will be confirmed, but I have very little doubt of that. This nominee takes a position to the left, legally speaking, of these justices. That's why your support of the ACLJ is so critical, because we talked about it. We filed a brief in that case.

We argued the cases at the Supreme Court of the United States. Stand with the ACLJ in our matching challenge campaign. Let me encourage you to support our work. This is a critical month for us, the month of March. Donate online at ACLJ.org.

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Donate today. We've been involved in all these battles, including with this judge, with this nominee, 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.

All right, welcome back to Sekulow. Folks, we responded to Judge Jackson when she wrote this brief calling again pro-life protesters, supporters of pro-life speech, and this is the language she used directly, so I think it's important for everybody because they love to censor us on social media. Few American citizens who seek to exercise constitutionally protected rights must run a gauntlet through a hostile, noisy crowd of in-your-face protesters, which of course is also a constitutionally protected right in America is that you can voice your opinion, as she calls them hostile, noisy, and in your face. Again, just zealous support for your belief and your view on public streets and public sidewalks. This is what we wrote back.

This was in 2001. We said this statute is silent concerning prohibition of harassment, violence, obstruction, or any of the other purposes described by the defendants and their meekie in the brief. The fact alone counters over 90 percent of what defendants and their meekie have to say in their briefs. The statute is an example of draconian overkill pro-life speech. Counseling to women seeking abortion is being bludgeoned by this legislation, not merely burdened. No other movement for civil rights has been treated in such a harsh Orwellian manner by the state.

I mean, this is true. Would you ask Judge Jackson then, I mean, was the Civil Rights Movement a peaceful protest when it was also, by the way, civil disobedience? The question about these was, is it even that? These were people on a public sidewalk speaking. Yeah, and the Supreme Court, since a case called Hague v. CIO, which was a union case, said the sidewalks are quintessential public forms, traditional public forms for free speech. But what you have to understand here, and this is what's critical, is this is the abortion distortion factor. And this nominee is not only taking that position, she actually advocated for that position in a brief to the Court of Appeals.

C.C. Hiles joining us, senior counsel for the ACLJ, does a lot of work on the pro-life issues. This is not only out of the mainstream, C.C., the interesting thing here is nine justices, most recently in 2014 in the McClellan case, said that those kind of statutes, and this was one out of Massachusetts, too, were not narrowly tailored. Then they presented a significant burden on the petitioner's First Amendment rights by denying the petitioner's the ability to engage in conversation, leaf-leaning on the sidewalks.

The law prevents petitioners from engaging in exactly the transmission of ideas the First Amendment is meant to protect. So maybe it wasn't an accident that when asked about what is a, name your fundamental rights, she didn't say the First Amendment freedom of speech. Right, because First Amendment freedom of speech, then she'd have to say, well, you can speak against abortion. And like you said, there's abortion distortion.

You can speak about pretty much anything you want to speak about, but don't speak up about protecting the life of an unborn baby. And that's why she wouldn't want to admit that. And she argued against it. Yeah, I mean, so look, does that mean she's not going to be confirmed?

Nope, she's going to be confirmed in all likelihood. But nine justices of the Supreme Court rejected the position that she advocated. So, you know, this is not, and including Justice Breyer. So Justice Breyer sided with us on that free speech argument that those sidewalks around the abortion clinics were open for freedom of speech. And she took a position, at least in a brief that she filed, that she's not disowned, and took a very different position. She basically said silence around the abortion facilities, no First Amendment activities.

Right, so left of Breyer. So she is actually left of Breyer, you know, arguing again, you know, that ruling said, the law prevents the petitioners from engaging in exactly the transmission of ideas the First Amendment is meant to protect. But she is totally going against that, that the First Amendment does not protect it.

Again, if you're talking about protecting the life of a baby or talking against abortion. Yeah, I mean, she's way out of the mainstream here. I mean, totally. I mean, this is not, look, is she going to get nominated? Is she's been nominated? Is she going to get confirmed?

Yeah, in all probability, but we just need to know. All I'm doing is pointing out the facts. I'm not talking about whether she's qualified or nominated. Here's the position, she has a paper trail. This would be like, you know, nominating me for the Supreme Court.

You've got, you know, 40 years of work at the Supreme Court in the United States. She doesn't have that much, but this was, you know, this is aggressive position she was taking. And then she didn't answer the fundamental question about fundamental rights, including the right to freedom of speech. And like you just said, Cece, and now you know why.

Right. And, and she repeatedly says she'll follow the law, she'll follow precedent, but then when you hear her answers, it seems like she actually says the exact opposite of that. Well, she'll follow the law maybe as long as she agrees with it, or she'll follow precedent again as long as she agrees with it. You know, I want to play, this is Senator Blackburn, who's going to be on the broadcast tomorrow. She's on the Senate Judiciary Committee and she brought up this question.

It was late last night. This is the first statement. This is about what we're talking about with the idea of this hostility towards people who happen to be pro-life by 11.

I want to go to you on something you said when you were in private practice. You made your views on pro-life and the pro-life movement very clear. And in fact, you attacked pro-life women. And this was in a brief that you wrote, you described them, and I'm quoting, hostile, noisy crowd of in-your-face protesters.

End quote. And you advocated against these women's First Amendment right to express their sincerely held views regarding the sanctity of each individual life. And I'm a pro-life woman. 79% of the American women support restrictions of some type on abortion. And so, I find it incredibly concerning that someone who is nominated to a position with life tenure on the Supreme Court holds such a hostile view toward a view that is held as a mainstream belief that every life is worth protecting. And this is going to become really relevant when the Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs case, which could well overturn Roe versus Wade, comes out in the next probably 12 weeks. So what you've got here, and I think Senator Blackburn is going to be our guest on our broadcast tomorrow, really laid this out well.

I think she laid it out, Cece, very well of what the real distortion here is and the position here is. And as you said, this is this idea that you could treat abortion speech involving abortion as second-class speech, or you can close down the Crisis Pregnancy Center or require that the Crisis Pregnancy Center advertises on where you can get abortion services. Yes. And you've handled those cases.

That's continuously been the abortion distortion, that there are rights, there are fundamental rights, but somehow they disappear when you start talking about abortion and protecting the life of the unborn. Yeah. And then again, it was interesting because then she was asked directly about this.

Again, let's play bite number seven and listen to Judge Jackson's response. When you go to church and knowing there are pro-life women there, do you look at them, thinking of them in that way, that they're noisy, hostile, in your face? Do you think of them? Do you think of pro-life women like me that way? Senator, that was a statement in a brief made an argument for my client. It's not the way that I think of or characterize people. All right.

Thank you for the clarification. Again, I think that if this was just like a normal criminal case or something like that, where you get like your white collar firm, that's one thing. When you take on an industry, an activist group, the abortion industry, as your client, and we represent the pro-life groups, that's like us going up there and saying, no, I don't actually believe in those pro-life pregnancy centers.

I was just working on it. Because it's different than normal cases. These are high profile. They're very important because they involve these issues, which if you're going to be a nominee one day, as she's been, that are going to be front and center, and they are front and center. We still see these cases.

We're going to talk to Frank Mannion next segment. We have these cases right now out of New Jersey. We have on pro-life speech and buffer zones. We have the Dobbs case at the Supreme Court right now. These are top cases where you cannot just get away with saying, well, that was just my client.

You might be able to say that a normal criminal case that somebody who- But this was an amicus brief also. Right. So this wasn't where they- She's advocating for a position. She is advocating for a position. Right.

And the language is very specific. I mean, the fact that they use hostile, noisy crowd of in-your-face protesters. There's a way to make that point without using that degrading type of language. You know, of the women, pro-life women are these hostile, out of control people instead of I'm a pro-life woman and I choose to treat people in love and kindness. So that doesn't, you can't group me into this crowd, which is what they're trying to do.

And the Supreme Court said that, as you pointed out already, that by denying the petitioners the ability to engage in conversation and leaf blowing on the public streets and sidewalks, the law prevents the petitioners from engaging in exactly, this is what's fascinating, exactly the transmission of ideas the First Amendment is meant to protect. So there you have it. Crystal clear.

Now, Jordan just said it. We are actually in court on these cases right now. I mean, I've argued these buffer zone cases for three decades at the Supreme Court. So, I mean, obviously we know a lot about this.

We filed briefs in this case that she filed a brief in. We can put it up on the screen right now. Your support of the American Center for Law and Justice makes all of this possible.

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We'll be right back. 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, 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. Welcome back to Sekulow. Again, we're taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. If you've got questions about this nomination process, which has been wedged in between, of course, the news out of Ukraine and Russia and the threat of, which we're going to do in the second half hour. And you've got the Putin's spokesperson, long-term spokesperson, justifying the use of nuclear weapons in an interview yesterday. So we're going to talk about that in the second half hour of the broadcast. But this issue, which came to light late last night, and it was because of, again, Marsha Blackburn, Senator Blackburn, is going to be on the broadcast tomorrow. And the idea that she brought up a specific case, so it wasn't just a hypothetical, is a case Judge Jackson was involved in, where she takes this position that the pro-life protesters are hostile, noisy crowd of in-your-face protesters. Which, by the way, what if she said that about civil rights protesters with her background? What if I said that about civil rights protesters? I said, as a white man, I said, you know, I don't want to deal with these noisy black protesters. That's what she said about pro-life protesters. I mean, that's America, isn't it? Sometimes you're going to see protesters you agree with, disagree with, support.

It's all around. I had one of our long-term staff, Rodney from our office in DC, sent me a video yesterday of all the protesters going on around the Supreme Court right now in Capitol Hill because of the nomination. It's a lot of pro-abortion groups. Pro-abortion groups have a right to be there too. I wouldn't argue that they don't. And it's up to the pro-life groups to let their voice be heard.

But think about that for a moment. Of all, like the Black Lives Matter movement, which I think you can separate out civil disobedience and all, okay, there's that. Then there's your speech you don't like on a public sidewalk, which is different as well. And then there's, again, there's the violence that we saw with some of these movements and riots. So violence and riots and crime is one thing.

That's illegal. If you engage in civil disobedience, you can be arrested. But when you're talking about a public sidewalk and just speaking your mind, just because people don't like it.

That's too bad. So you can apply this to so many others. What we said in our brief responding here is, why is it pro-life speech that gets treated this way? Same way with, it's religious people that gets treated this way. But if you happen to be civil rights, if you're the speech of the day, if you're the Black Lives Matter movement of the day, people don't care if you're burning down cars.

They're burning down the neighborhood. But this is not, these people are engaged in pure speech. Now, we just came out of trial on this. Frank Mann is joining us, Senior Counsel for the ACLJ. You were just in court on this very type of legislation, prohibition on speech activities around abortion clinics, that the nominee was on the other side of in the brief she filed in 2014.

Yeah, Jay, you can imagine how my ears perked up when I heard about this exchange yesterday in the hearings. Since for weeks, Jeff Surtees and I have been buried in the McCullen case and the Massachusetts buffer zone case for a long time now. And we just tried a case in federal court in New Jersey a month ago today.

We started it involving these issues. And we've got another case in Louisville, Kentucky. I mean, the Kentucky case, we're actually in the sixth circuit already because the court denied our motion for preliminary injunction. We've got a brief due in two weeks. And in the Kentucky case, we've got our proposed findings affecting conclusions of law due in two days.

So we're up to our next and buffer zone issues. And it's honestly a little concerning to hear a nominee take that kind of a position where she describes basically what our clients as hostile, aggressive, in your face. And that's concerning. We don't know where she would come down in an actual case, but it does seem to be different than the approach taken by all nine justices in the McCullen case, including the most liberal members of the court. Well, Frank, that was my point.

I mean, if you look at McCullen, it's nine to zero. She's replacing Justice Breyer. Justice Breyer and McCullen was on our side on free speech rights of protesters around abortion clinics. You see, this nominee, we don't know, as Frank said, we don't know what her judicial decision would be, but her advocacy position, and by the way, she represented Abortion Access Project of Massachusetts, NARAL, which was then the National Abortion Rights Action League, the Massachusetts National Organization for Women, and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. So if you have any question on where she is on this issue, I don't think there's much question. But having said that, she is not in line with the most liberal members on the Supreme Court on the speech issue.

Right. Not acknowledging that the First Amendment right of free speech, which like we have all said, you can say whatever you want to say, whether people agree with it or not, but judges, activist judges, don't want you speaking if it has to do with the life of a baby, protecting the life of an unborn baby, or abortion. And we see that over and over again, that the First Amendment applies, except for, again, an unborn baby or abortion. She filed the brief, by the way, that we're talking about in 2001. And I'm putting up on the screen our brief that we filed in response to that case, which took, obviously, the opposite position. And then ultimately, all these cases percolated for a long time. And when the Supreme Court next reviewed, Frank, a case out of Massachusetts, all nine of them, the most conservative and the most liberal said that law was unconstitutional. And we won.

Yeah. And the McCullen case was such a breath of fresh air, Jay, because it's true. And in most abortion cases, as you know better than anybody else, we deal with the abortion distortion factor. And for once, in the McCullen case, all nine members of the Supreme Court agreed that pro-life speech, sidewalk counseling specifically, is entitled to the highest protection under the First Amendment as of any form of speech. And that's what we're trying to apply in these cases that we're currently litigating, at least one of which is ticketed for the Supreme Court, in my opinion.

And so it is obviously concerning when you hear this kind of rhetoric being used by a potential member of the Supreme Court. Let's go to Angie in Idaho online too. Hey, Angie, thanks for calling in. If you want to talk to us in there, it's 1-800-684-3110.

Hey, Angie, welcome to Sekulow. Thank you for taking my call. My comment is simply that Judge Jackson's agenda is so obvious and her need to color pro-life individuals, it's just completely offensive. The pro-life women are abundant in this nation, and they provide a wonderful service.

I'm affiliated with two pro-life pregnant centers in Idaho. Great. And we welcome all women in any kind of circumstances that walk through the door.

And we take care of them, we love them, there's no rabid dialogue. Of course. But let me tell you what she said.

Of course. But let me tell you what she said. The words exactly are, this is in her brief, few American citizens who seek to exercise constitutionally protected rights must run a gauntlet through a hostile, noisy crowd of in-your-face protesters. Now, a lot of these protesters are women around these abortion clinics, not exclusively, but a lot of them are. And the idea here that you would characterize people this way in a brief, it's a free country and she's advocating, she can do that. But right now, if you went to the Supreme Court, there's a lot of advocacy and it's noisy and it's running gauntlets and it's protected speech.

She just doesn't believe it is. That's right. And this is the only speech that she's going after. And Jordan made a great point that, you know, for the Black Lives Matters, those kind of protests, you saw the First Amendment being pushed out there every single time. And then yet, the First Amendment doesn't protect your right if you want to hand a pro-life leaflet to a woman walking in to make the most important decision she's ever going to make, whether to keep that baby or kill that baby. Yeah, I mean, I think it's got to a point where it's the right in America that actually supports freedom of speech. And the left, which has always had this kind of tinge of silencing what they don't like and keeping out that speech. They've been fighting for these buffer zones for decades to make these speech-free zones. I want to live in a country where you can just say what you want and deal with it. And if you can't deal with it, you shouldn't be living in America.

It's not the country for you. Because you should just be able to hear. You should be able to hear the side you don't like, the side you do like. And we can be able to debate that and discuss it, like it or not like it. If you've got to walk by it, you've got to walk by it. If you've got to explain it to your kids, you've got to explain it to your kids. It's America. And if you start going down a path where you don't like, you start picking and choosing speech based off the content of it, it's the most dangerous path.

And we're in a worse place now than we were before. Support our work. ACLJ.org. Donate today. Double your impact.

Second half hour coming up. 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. Welcome to Sekulow, folks. We're going to take your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. Second half hour of the broadcast. This nuclear threat from Russia.

It's real. I mean, they're putting out their spokespeople to make the case, not to deny that they would use nuclear weapons, but that they have a right to use nuclear weapons. And they're not limiting their comments, by the way, to these tactical nuclear weapons. So obviously they want the threat, America, which I feel like they've been successful at so far in keeping America out by saying, you know, you might use nuclear weapons.

But then they're going on the record in English talking about using nuclear weapons. We're also, so we're getting into that, we're getting into the church's role, unique. I mean, depending on what country you're in, of the Orthodox Church in Russia, which is separate from the larger Greek Orthodox Church, but they want Ukraine back. Ukraine was granted its independence from the Russian Orthodox Church, and you have their leader calling for annihilating people.

Says it's because of sin. Yes. I mean, so you see how Putin and others are utilizing different tools than the Soviet Union did, which was of course banned all religious belief, but how they're using some of this religious belief and also to divide the country. So we'll talk about that as well. Also, just to kind of explain to you all this work that we're doing, and this was because of COVID, we've been still actively engaged with the United Nations and we've been able to do it remotely, but it's still happening in the hearings. I want to play this for people. This was one intervention we did at the United Nations Human Rights Council on the situation for Christians in Afghanistan. Take a listen or watch, and if you're watching the broadcast, all the ambassadors saw this at the UN when we intervened.

Take a listen. And now I give the floor to the European Center for Law and Justice. The ECLJ would like to address the extremely dangerous situation currently threatening the lives of Christians, religious minorities, and women in Afghanistan under the harsh rule of the Taliban. While the world is understandably focused on Russia and Ukraine, the Taliban continues to commit brutal human rights abuses. Since it sees control of Afghanistan, the Taliban has begun a campaign of violence and terror against Christians and other religious minorities, as well as atrocities against women. Afghanistan has now been rated as the worst place in the world for Christians by a leading human rights organization. Many Christians rightly fear they'll be hunted down, abused, and even killed because of their faith.

We know from history that this is only the beginning. Swift action must be taken now to stop the violence, loss of life, and human rights violations committed at the hands of the Taliban. Christians, religious minorities, and women in Afghanistan are running out of time.

Therefore, the ECLJ respectfully calls upon this council to take whatever action is necessary to protect Christians, religious minorities, and women in Afghanistan, and to stave off any impending human rights abuses and bloodshed now before it's too late. So that, again, that goes out to the entire audience. And while there's COVID issues at the UN, that's for the UN in Geneva, the ambassador staff of the country, they are there and they're participating in these meetings. And so, and we'll be back there, I'm sure fairly soon, hopefully, in person where we have our team from France do it, occasionally we'll be there doing it, but it's because of this unique setup. And of course, we have the resources to where you have to time that. I'll go behind the scenes for people. That's not just me off the cuff.

That has to be timed exactly under 90, it has to be 90 seconds or less or else they will not, it can't be considered. And, you know, if you were in person, they would just cut you off if they needed to. But when you're doing it this way, so we have our production team, we put the script together so we get out everything exactly the way we want it said for on the record at the United Nations. Our team puts it up, we put it together. Sometimes it takes one time, sometimes it takes 15 times to get it all said so that we can deliver that message to the UN. That's another part of our work that takes more than just me in front of a camera. It takes a team to put the script together, to put it exactly together in less than 90 seconds to run through it, then deliver it to our team in Europe who then delivers it to the UN system. And then what you see is the influence of the ECLJ is they don't have to always air, they can just put it in the record. But more times than not, I'd say the majority of the time, our message is aired.

And so I just did one today. It'll be for the UN, it's for tomorrow at the UN on Nigeria. So I did that before our radio broadcast today, similar message to the UN. Support our work at ACLJ.org. You see the breadth, you see the scope. We're involved in everything. Go to ACLJ.org.

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So when you hear this, this is not being dubbed. This is the head spokesperson for the Kremlin. He's been Putin's guy for decades. Putin's been in power. Dmitry Peskov, again, he runs the entire Kremlin press operation. He's a Putin ally.

He went on to Christiane Amanpour succeed in international to do an interview, not in his native language in Russian and be translated, but in English. On the question of utilizing nuclear weapons, do you really believe that you have, you're in a situation where you could justifiably use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine? Take a listen by 22. We have a concept of domestic security and, well, it's public. You can read all the reasons for nuclear arms to be used. So if it is an existential threat for our country, then it can be used in accordance with our concept. And he believes and they believe that Ukraine by saying that they wanted to join NATO, that alone was the existential threat to their existence. So the question is, of course, the President's on his way to NATO. So Colonel West Smith is with us. And Colonel Smith, my question is the President's on the way to NATO. That's going to be a show of unity, I guess, but what really can be accomplished here? What should be accomplished? Well, we need something that we haven't had enough of, and that is clarity and conviction regarding all this going on. The United States under President Biden's leadership and influencing NATO decided out, decided early on, we would take actions, mainly sanctions to deter Vladimir Putin. What is happening now, Jay, is the table has been reversed. Vladimir Putin is using his rhetoric, just like what we just heard, to deter NATO, to deter the United States from taking any meaningful action that would stop his aggression and get him to stop attacking Ukraine.

So we're in a serious situation. Decades of peace in Europe are at stake. The established borders in Europe are at stake. And Vladimir Putin is playing the better cards right now because of a fear of provoking him and having a wider war.

I don't know what the answer is, but we can't keep doing this. What do you think they come out with? I mean, I'm trying to figure out, it's probably wise that the President's going. I think that's probably, a statement needs to be made. But the question is, we know where they don't want to put troops on the ground. And I think there's very little support for that. But I think the question becomes, NATO comes out and says, what, this will be really bad?

I mean, what do they say? I think if Putin were to use, and most analysts are saying, people smarter than me, that he's not likely to use even tactical nuclear weapons initially, that if he escalated this- What if he gets desperate? Because it looks like to me right now, I'm just being honest, looking at what you're saying is, the weather's going to start changing.

It's going to get warmer there. His stuff's going to get stuck. It already is munitions, his armaments, the vehicles. And I mean, he has destroyed some cities though. I mean, it flattened them.

Absolutely. Russian doctrine, and they've used this multiple times before, is that if they can't win on a tactical battlefield, they bombard their enemies into submission. They even did this in Syria. That's why 500,000 people are dead in Syria today.

So that's what he does. He could escalate. Most people think he would escalate to chemical weapons first before tactical nuclear weapons.

To answer your question, Jay, if that happens, I'm with you. NATO is not going to put troops on the ground in Ukraine to fight Russian soldiers. However, I think if that happened, in addition to increased rhetoric, what NATO would do would be increase the military support for Ukraine to include perhaps giving them those big 29s they want, as well as anti-ship missiles and anti-aircraft batteries. I think NATO would react to this.

Well, there's another dynamic in all of this that's going on. You got the NATO dynamic, and then Professor Hutchinson, you have the Israel dynamic. And I say that because Israel's taking a very nuanced position on this because they've got relations with Russia. And now you see kind of a focus shift to where I think the administration is going to start blaming Israel for the failure to get this moving.

I think that is true. Lee Smith has a great article in Tablet Magazine, and the subtitle is, The President, that is President Biden and his people are trying to seal a new Iranian nuclear deal by hanging their appeasement of Putin on Israel. And I think it's a very carefully thought out article because if you look at the background, Putin has been massing troops on the Ukrainian border since March of last year. In 2008, Putin announced that if NATO troops are placed on its border, that is the reddest of all red lines.

That is an assessment that is shared by Biden's CIA director, Bill Burns. And then President Biden said, we will only impose sanctions if Putin attacks rather than imposing sanctions as a deterrent. So I think at the end of the day, Lee Smith has a lot to say about the possibility that first, the Biden administration will put pressure on Israel to negotiate with Vladimir Putin. And if that fails, we blame Israel.

And if it succeeds, guess what? The administration would then be able to achieve its paramount objective in Ukraine. It is not NATO, in my opinion. It is the Iran nuclear deal. Which I was about to bring up because Russia, they just confirmed again today that Russia is still placed on its border. They're playing this intricate part of the negotiations between the United States and Iran. I think it's the only reason that it actually hasn't been announced that the US is back in is because of the carve-outs that Russia wants. While they are being sanctioned and they acknowledge those sanctions, they don't like them, they want the Iranian nuclear deal to exclude them.

So when they're dealing with Iran, there would be no sanctions on them. But I want to go back to the nuclear issue again because Dmitry Peskov, this is Putin's, one of his right-hand men. I mean, so he's more than just a press secretary. He's more than a ginsaki. This is a senior advisor who's been with him throughout decades.

So this is not just someone who's there for a few years. And he gets a follow-up question about Putin trying to scare the world with nuclear weapons by 25. I want to know whether Putin intends the world to be afraid of the nuclear option.

Would he use it? President Putin intends to make the world listen to and understand our concerns. We've been trying to convey our concerns to the world, to Europe, to the United States, for a couple of decades. But no one would listen to us. And before it is too late, it was a decision to start to launch a special operation, military operation, to get rid of entire Russia that was created next to our borders.

What? To get rid of Russia? And anti-Russia.

Because Ukraine, actually Ukraine started to be, it was formed by the Western countries, anti-Russia. Okay. This is the problem.

Okay. I mean, you see that, listen, he's that he's giving their view. It's whether you believe it or you like what he's saying, this is the doctrine, as he called it, of the of the Kremlin right now and of Putin. And it is, when he's asked about nuclear weapons, he said, they want the world to listen, understand. The world certainly pays attention to you when you invade a country in mass, a land mass, and also hang over the world's head the threat of using nuclear weapons.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and he is using the vagueness of that doctrine because the Russian doctrine is a little bit big. What it says is we can use nuclear weapons if our country, our territory, if our country is our territory is actually invaded, or if there's a threat that our government is going to fall. That last little part that he talked about, that Ukraine is a part of Russia, that we, it was created by the, by the West is the justification they might use. I still think, though, because mutually assured destruction, Jay, is still a real thing. I cannot see them wanting to launch a nuclear war. But do you see them wanting to not win in Ukraine? No, they want to win, which is why you and I have talked about trying to give him an exit ramp.

And they've given him exit ramps and he will not take it. That's the thing. It's very uncertain. So, you know, the policy issue here, Harry, and I know we've only got a minute left, is, is very, it's, this is very complicated because Russia is not, I mean, they're annihilating cities, but they haven't gone into the capital.

They have not. And I think at the end of the day, Putin will likely prevail. It's going to get messy. It's already messy in major parts of the Ukraine, but I think it will continue. 10 million people displaced, which is also what he wants. He wants that because that's empties out the cities and depopulate.

That's how you're able to go in. It's also, I mean, they think that they've lost upwards of 10,000 Russian troops, but this is a country that, I mean, remember that's, that's nothing. Now it's a lot of people. And in America, we would take that as a serious loss. We haven't had those kinds of losses in Iraq. So even Iraq and Afghanistan combined, but in their viewpoint, you just keep sending people forward, keep sending people forward. You look at their history, how they fought in World War II. They lost a lot more troops than the Germans.

Yes. But they ultimately won by, by saying, we're going to keep going. We're going to keep pounding you, keep coming at you, nonstop, another wave of people. You can gun some of them down and we'll get another wave of people down. And it seems like that's exactly what they're doing in Ukraine.

And so it makes some people say, well, maybe they're not winning the way they want to do it. Sure. They wanted to waltz in, but that doesn't mean they can't ultimately, they don't have the weaponry or the people to carry this out. So long as Putin is able to maintain his political power domestically in Russia, and we're going to discuss that coming up next, give us a call.

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Now you're listening. And yeah, we might use nuclear weapons. But all of that to be said is that yes, could Russia ultimately, if things were to maintain the way they do, carry out an invasion of Ukraine even though it's been tough on them and they've had a lot, yes, they can ultimately win that. But you have to maintain your domestic power. That's the key here is what's going on domestically in Russia when you've got all these sanctions on the economy and things are getting tough for average Russians. But you also have this interesting move here which is unique.

It's unlike the Soviet days where religion is being used directly and the Christian faith directly to not only divide but justify the conflict in Russia. Now there's also some breaking news too, just to get out there, that one of the oligarchs, probably the most high-profile oligarch from Russia, Abramovich, who was the owner of the Chelsea football team, has massive yachts all over the world including in the Caribbean which you can see. I saw one of them once before on a vacation.

I mean they are some of the biggest. He's the largest sailing boat vessel. I mean it's independently owned in the world and that has been seized. That's called Sailing Yacht A. He's trying to unload the soccer team in the UK.

His ex-wife is held up in a $50 million mansion in London. They don't know what's going to happen. But he's now what we found out. The reason why the US didn't sanction him directly is because he is the go-between between Russia and Ukraine in these talks where they've tried to come up with a solution. So that's breaking now.

It just shows you again how complicated this is. It's complicated and there's another dimension to it and that is Putin has taken on this mantle of this being a religious war that he's justifying this out of his faith and you've got this conflict between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Church which is really under the auspices of the Greek Orthodox Church. Andy Kahn was here with us who's a historian also in addition to being a lawyer. But Putin is playing that very aggressively right now and he's getting participation from the Patriarch in Moscow.

Yes he is. His cohort in arms if you will is Patriarch Kirill who was made Patriarch of all the Rus, all of Russia in 2009. Patriarch Kirill recently preached a sermon in which he said we have entered into a conflict which has not only physical but metaphysical significance. We are talking about human salvation, something more important than politics.

Let me submit that that is a nonsensical statement because what Kirill is doing is pushing the agenda of Putin in the Ukraine and there and requires just a little bit of background. A couple of years ago the Ukrainian Orthodox Church which is the biggest church in the Ukraine was under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Moscow of Kirill okay. They became they were an independent country and they said we want to be able to elect our own bishops. We want to be able to run our own church. We don't want to be under Moscow. We are a separate country and in order to do that they went to the head of all Orthodox communions in the world.

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople who happens to be Greek in Istanbul and he gave them what they called a what is called a Tomos of autocephaly. In plain English you are an independent church. You're not under Moscow. You can elect your own bishops. Well Kirill went crazy literally over this, ceased to recognize the Ecumenical Patriarch and said you are schismatics. That is you in Ukraine who go with the new bishop that has been appointed are not any longer Christians. You are heretics.

You're out of the mainstream of the church. What Kirill is doing is supporting Putin's invasion of the Ukraine Jordan and Jay so that he can get the Ukrainian church back under the jurisdiction of Moscow. It appears that Putin is using that Jordan also as justification with his own people. Yeah that's right. So this is a way to sell to your own people because again you got the majority of the population is Russian Orthodox and so if you combine the political leader, the religious leader and say you know this is a just war.

This is something you know it's by our faith and it's important. This was early part of the narrative too was remember uniting these two countries. The message has changed from Russia like we said the message from Kirill has changed. The message from the Kremlin has changed. Now the Ukrainians are the enemy. They are not to be unified anymore. It's about destroying the idea. Dimitri Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson said that Ukraine is a western entity. That's not really what they were saying you know two three weeks ago they were saying that Ukrainians are part of us we're trying we're brothers and sisters that technically they are but they've they've changed the viewpoint now to say well okay if you're going to fight back this way which the Ukrainians have valiantly done we're going to annihilate you which is the kind of language that yes they are wiping I mean you get to a certain point in these kind of conflicts where you start saying in a country like Ukraine which is has a shorter history uh what are your soldiers fighting for now you're just fighting to try and get people out safely I mean is that because the cities are gone uh the infrastructure is destroyed people can't return it's like if the war ended tomorrow they can return to these cities no and the last one that remains kind of intact is their capital and I think that the only reason that remains intact is because the Russians would like to be able to take it without it being totally destroyed so the utilization here they're utilizing a religious faith to justify what they're doing at the same time you have the patriarch of the Russian church agreeing with Putin which he has to but you said something Andy before we were on air and that is the symbiotic relationship between the here the leader of the church and Putin is very very in sync it is in sync and it is in depth and it goes back a long way I am not going to make the statement that patriarch Cyril was an agent of the Soviet Union I'm not going to say that because I have no evidence of that but many Russian Orthodox priests during the Soviet era had to cooperate with the Soviet authorities in order to keep their churches going and that developed this concept in Greek we call it symphonia the union of church and state for a common goal and in this case in Cyril's eyes it is to bring back the schismatic urom a your Ukrainian church and bring them back under Moscow and in the eyes of Putin it's to bring back the Ukraine the heartland of where Russia was baptized in 988 and they're working together to achieve this goal hand in hand I just don't see and I what is the exit ramp here for Vladimir Putin other than total destruction of Ukraine that's what's got me concerned right now and I'm sure there's people in the Pentagon thinking through this but boy it seems very difficult yeah I think that what he would accept is if you if installing his own government there which again would mean that Zelensky leaves the Ukrainian government is folded and it just becomes a puppet state which is a lot of what people thought and what the Putin thinking was going in is that they would be able to quickly do that quickly install a puppet government but that offer has been on the table to the Ukrainians they've had the offer to say we'll stop the the bombing campaign you give up your country I mean it's a pretty big decision to say we're going to give up our country but it has been made and so far the uh Ukrainian people have not been supportive of the decision to have their government step aside let me look at what we've covered today folks we covered the senate confirmation hearings of a supreme court justice including the positions on pro-life issues we've covered NATO we've covered the historical aspect of what's going on in Ukraine and Russia all of this interventions at the United Nations all of this because of your support of the work of the American Center for Law and Justice Jordan's letting you know how to do it we're a matching challenge campaign folks we need your help you go to aclj.org you donate today matching challenge means you you make a 50 donation right now at aclj.org group of donors going to match that 50 so you take that initial step and initial action they match it to it's like a hundred dollars force the ACLJ donate today to aclj.org it's a critical month for us we'll talk to you tomorrow 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 ten dollar gift becomes twenty dollars a fifty dollar 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