Stock Market Tanks As Democrats Ignore Real World Issues

This is Jay Sekulow. The January 6th Committee has its second hearing.

Meanwhile, the stock market tanks in Washington, D.C., almost in a lockdown around the Supreme Court. 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, Jay Sekulow. Hey everybody. We've got a lot of news to talk about today and we're going to cover a variety of topics. Our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, Mike Pompeo will be joining us later in the program.

Our Senior Counsel, Jeff Balaban, who heads up our Jerusalem office, will be joining us in the next half hour. So there's a lot going on there. And of course, there were some Supreme Court decisions today, not the ones that we would normally be commenting on. But there's also a lot of people in Washington, D.C.

I mean, the numbers are staggering and basically blocking. We couldn't even open our office today. Our staff is working remotely because of the number of people in Washington, D.C., where they were going to, quote, shut down the Supreme Court. By the way, despite shutting down the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court issued opinions and carried on its business. The same time across the street from our office in Washington and across the street from the Supreme Court is the Capitol, which is having the second round of January 6 hearings.

That's interesting. But what is concerning, frankly, is while they're having hearings and they're entitled to have whatever hearings they want to have, here's the problem. The stock market is down as we're on the air live almost 700 points, which means in the last two sessions it's down almost 1,500 points, which is close to 4%. Gas prices are at its all-time high. You're talking about some places have gas now at $7 and $8 a gallon out west. I mean, in where our studio is located, it's almost 6.

You still have the baby formula shortage. You had an assassination attempt on Brett Kavanaugh, which, by the way, Cece, you pointed this out, or Ali, I think, pointed this out, one of our producers. Never made the lead story, make sure I get this right, never made the lead story on any of the nightly news that there was an assassination attempt, Andy, against the Supreme Court justice. Here you have a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, a person lurking outside his house armed with a weapon walking down the street who says that I'm going to kill the justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who's been charged with attempted murder and the left doesn't want to call it an attempted assassination. Well, I'd like to know if that's not an attempted assassination, what is, Jay? We're going to get into this later in the broadcast, but there's actually a statute on the books, 18 U.S.C., Cece, in the criminal code that says you cannot do these kind of activities around, of course, for assassination attempts, but there were protests immediately within hours of the assassination attempt being foiled. They had a protest series going on, and there are laws to prohibit that if it's trying to influence an opinion. That's right. It's Title 18, federal U.S. Code, 1507. It states that any individual who pickets or parades with the intent of interfering with obstructing or impeding the administration of justice or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer near U.S. court building residence, they're guilty of this offense. Which is a felony, by the way.

Yes. But Merrick Garland hasn't enforced it yet. So, you know, let's think about that. So you got the theater going on across the street on January 6th, and meanwhile, they still haven't enforced a criminal code on the book designed to prohibit exactly what's going on. I mean, what's the priorities here in Washington, D.C., talking about something that happened in reality and literally ages ago, or getting gas to a reasonable level and having baby formula and having people who can buy food at a grocery store and not go home and be absolutely broke? It's a mess.

I mean, it's a mess. All right, we're going to take your calls at 1-800-684-3110. As I said, we got Jeff Balaban coming up in this half hour, next half hour. We're going to be joined by Mike Pompeo. We've got a lot of material to cover. We're going to get into this gun proposal that's out as well. That's something that we want to talk about in the next segment.

So there's a lot to talk about. We'll take your phone calls as well at 1-800-684-3110. Also, don't forget to support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice. You could do that at ACLJ.org. And also, sign up for all of our socials. We're on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Truth. I'm leaving something out, I'm sure.

But if you go to our website, you can do that at ACLJ.org. All right, we'll take your calls coming back to 800-684-3110. All right, here's what's happening in Washington, D.C. Day two of the hearings on January 6th was focusing primarily on what the President, who he was listening to, what he was told, whatever. You know what? Here's the problem with this. They could have all the hearings they want. Meanwhile, it's like Rome is burning.

And I say that because you had an assassination attempt against a sitting Supreme Court justice. You have the stock market today, as we're on, is down 650 to 700 points and looks like going lower. You have gas at an all-time high. You have the inability for parents to get baby formula.

And the cost of food is also gone out of sight. Now, our government affairs office is working with Congress to try to fix some of this. Now, all of this is going on and all the networks are running to the I don't know if they're doing that today, actually. Some of the news channels are covering it. But the January 6th hearings, which you want to have hearings fine.

But it was 18 months ago. Right now, we've got a crisis in this country. And, Cece, you told us something before we went on the air. That is a real crisis. And this is what I'm concerned. We're trying to and we've been doing this on the broadcast regularly. You know that.

And you all have said you appreciate it. And that is real stories from real Americans that are really struggling. So that's what this administration should be focusing on. But they're not because they're trying to do distraction methods.

But, Cece, you had a really heart-wrenching story. Yeah. So, again, instead of focusing on what's really going on, like you said, they're focusing on these hearings. But I have a friend that works for a nonprofit. And she recently posted that they have a client who's a recent widow and she's going through chemotherapy and she has to drive to get those treatments. She's also trying to work. But her water was recently shut off. So now she's choosing between gas to get needed medical help and getting her water, paying her water bill and getting her water back on. And this is what Americans are facing. Rising gas prices, rising food prices, and they cannot make it. And, again, here it's heart-wrenching that you have a widow, recent widowed lady who is just trying to get chemotherapy and she has to choose between having water or gas to get to her appointments. Because that first thing we said when we heard this was, what can we do to help? But this is what's happening.

You go to eat. It's breathtaking for people. I mean, it's mind-boggling. And as I look up then in, you know, what's on TV and I'm watching these hearings, I'm thinking, first of all, you know, this is kind of like impeachment three. Our colleague Jane Raskin just sent us a note. And Jane did a phenomenal job during the impeachment with one of my colleagues and Andy's during the impeachment proceedings. And you're looking at this and saying, I get they want to have hearings, okay? That's the politics of Washington.

But my goodness, the country's in a mess right now. I mean, hearings are wonderful things. Go ahead and have hearings. But I'm not having hearings on the question of gas and opening the pipeline and having leases and having drilling to take place in the West and on the Great Plains. How about having hearings on the food prices and the fact that you're paying $8 and $9 and $10 a gallon for diesel?

How about having hearings on things that matter to the American public? How about having a hearing, Merrick Garland, who is talking about dereliction of duty? Here's a person who has, as Senator Cotton said, basically a partisan hag who should resign in disgrace for dereliction of duty when there's an assassination attempt on a Supreme Court justice.

Will that have happened? Would he just be sitting in Washington doing nothing if it was Justice Sotomayor or Justice Kagan? Is it because Brett Kavanaugh is a conservative justice? Let's have hearings. Let's have things that make a difference. Let's not have hearings on something that basically we've been through, it's old, and I'm hearing it over and over again, and frankly, I'm tired of it.

Well, look, with good reason. And the lack of enforcement is an issue. So the Supreme Court's on this kind of like lockdown protest. Do we have a picture of R Street?

I'm going to put this up right now. In Washington, D.C., you cannot get down R Street. These protesters are there. Is there any indication they're permitted or are they just protesting?

Well, you don't get a permit to block the street. Laurie's calling from North Dakota on Line 2. I'm going to take her call. If you want to talk to us, 800-684-3110. Laurie, go ahead.

Yes. Thank you for taking my call. In my frustration and listening to the protesters being out there in front of the Supreme Justice in their homes, I don't understand why they're allowing them to be there. If they're breaking the law, where's law enforcement?

Well, I'll tell you the reason why, OK? I'm going to play for you what Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary, said when she knew they were picketing out in front of their homes. Here's what she said. So I know that there's an outrage right now, I guess, about protests that have been peaceful to date, and we certainly continue to encourage that outside of judges' homes, and that's the President's position. So the President of the United States is encouraging protests in front of the Supreme Court justice zone, by the way, and then we have this assassination attempt, to influence an opinion, which, Andy, is a violation of federal law. The President needs, or one of his White House counselors, somebody in authority needs to read him Title 18, Section 1507, that says if you are trying to obstruct, impair, or influence, and don't tell me that's not what it is, any judge near a court of the United States or residence occupied by the judge, then that is a federal crime. Where is the attorney general of the United States?

Where is the United States attorney for the District of Maryland? Why aren't they prosecuting these people for protesting and trying to influence the opinion of Judge Kavanaugh in an opinion that hadn't even come out yet? We don't know what he's going to say, but trying to pressure him. Yeah, well, and they picked Kavanaugh.

It's interesting. The opinion is authored by Alito, but the assassination attempt was against, and by the way, there's some on the left saying you shouldn't call that an assassination attempt. And when you hear the reason why, well, because it didn't go far enough. The guy had a loaded weapon in front of Justice Kavanaugh's house, and yes, there were 16 armed U.S. Marshals protecting him, but the guy called in and said, I'm going to kill Justice Kavanaugh.

So, I mean, what else do you have to do? That they don't want to talk about. They don't want to talk about the grandmothers are driving around for their grandkids to go get formula, try to find it anywhere. We had those calls last week.

And then, like, she gave the example of her friends. So there's a problem with all of this in Washington right now. And of course, our office is the one that's put the picture back up there. You can see our office kind of in the background there. And it's, we have it up.

Yeah, let's get the picture up so everybody can see it. And so if you look on the left, you see where the white building is in the red building. The white building that you're seeing there is one of ours.

We have a couple there. Right by the Supreme Court, as you see, our home is on fire is what these people are protesting. It's about reproductive freedom, and that means, you know, pro-abortion groups. But they're blocking a street that already has to have blocks up to keep protesters away because they're causing harm. This is what's going on. It's ridiculous. And, you know, I look at that banner that says our home is on fire.

Well, it is, but not for the reason that they're saying. Our home is on fire because of the gas prices, because of inflation, because we have an assassination attempt on a Supreme Court justice, and we do nothing. In fact, we have the Biden administration encouraging people to go and picket in front of their houses. So, yeah, our home is on fire, but not for the reasons that they're saying.

No. We're taking your calls at 800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110, and here's the President's explanation for why all this food's out of control and all of the gas prices are out of control. Blame Vladimir Putin. We've never seen anything like Putin's tax on both food and gas. America should also understand our economy has unique strengths that we can build on. The job market is the strongest it's been since World War II, notwithstanding the inflation.

He's right that there's jobs. The problem is they can't keep up with inflation. And blaming this, Andy, on Putin — fair follow, you study history — why did we let ourselves get into this situation when we were energy independent two years ago? An exporter of energy, now we are begging OPEC, begging the Saudis to get more oil production into the United States. And the Saudis are telling us, we don't want to talk to you. We sent a delegation secretly to Venezuela. They didn't want to talk to us, so they called the President of the United States, called Saudi Arabia, and they say, we're not taking the call. He says he's going to go over there to try to beg him hat in hand to produce oil in greater quantities through OPEC, and they said, we don't want to see you.

Why are we doing this? Venezuela? I mean, Venezuela, not exactly an ally. Not exactly an ally. Russia, not an ally. Not an ally. And those are the countries we're dependent on.

They had a pipeline that the President of the United States shut down as soon as he got into office to pander to the hard left of his party. I'm going to go ahead and talk to Rebecca very quickly. You're on the air. Rebecca, go ahead.

Thank you for taking my call. I really believe that the American people are ready to vote in November and to vote out many of these people. I think we're ready and awake and activated. But do you feel like we will have a fair and free election? I do. I do.

I do, Rebecca. I think there's been procedures put in place to ensure election integrity. And the fact of the matter is, they just had a – you're having primaries around the country that are taking place.

There's more tomorrow. There really has not been a report of irregularities. So I think it's fine. I think it's good to have election integrity laws in place. But, Andy, it does not – that should not be a reason for people not to vote.

No, absolutely. Let me tell you, there was – the President of the United States said there was voter suppression in Georgia. Oh, what a terrible thing. There was voter suppression in Georgia. The Georgia legislature passed a law with respect to this. And at our last primary in Georgia in May, it was the biggest turnout in the history of Georgia politics. Is that the suppression of voting with a new law?

No, it's not. The President needs to wake up and stop making statements like this statement, which I don't understand. We should understand our economy has unique strengths that we can build on. What do you mean by that?

What does that statement mean, have unique strengths you can build on? It means nothing, Jay. All right. Well, coming up, we've got another issue, and that is over in Israel. Remember that embassy in Jerusalem?

How about the Biden administration not so wild about that? We'll talk to Jeff Balibon, our director of our office in Jerusalem, when we come back from the break. 1-800-684-3110. We'll take your calls.

ACLJ.org. Back with more in a moment. All right.

We're talking, and we're giving you a – this is a jam-packed program, so we're covering a lot of issues. You remember the excitement when President Trump announced the move of the embassy of Israel, the American embassy in Israel, from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. There was the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995.

That was – the previous President was the first one that put that into play. I was there. Jeff Balibon was there. Andy, you were there.

It was a momentous day. The concern when you have elections is there's consequences. One of the consequences that I'm very concerned about – Jeff is running our office in Jerusalem now, just got back from Jerusalem – is, Jeff, this move now to open up a Palestinian consulate, American consulate for Palestinian affairs in Jerusalem, so basically going back to this kind of divided Jerusalem mentality.

Jay, it's a disaster. Jay, this is quite simply the American government now essentially saying, we no longer care about the sovereignty of the Jewish state. We don't care about Israel's sovereignty. Israel is sovereign. This is their capital. It's the only country in the world that's being treated this way.

And even the clip that we just heard in showing the segment, you'll hear the framing of it. Occupy this Jerusalem. It's not occupied. It was occupied briefly by the Jordanians after they launched a war against the nation state of Israel. But since then, it's been reunified and it's Israeli. So this whole framing and treating Mahmoud Abbas as the reasonable spokesman, he is a thug and a terrorist. He is not an elected official.

There was an election a long, long time ago, and since then, he's refused to hold elections. And this administration seems dedicated to giving them at a minimum equality, which is outrageous, but actually preference over our ally, the liberal, democratic, modern state of Israel. Well, Mahmoud Abbas has hosted a U.S. delegation led by the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, Barbara Leff, ahead of an expected visit by President Biden. What's interesting to me about this is there was unbelievable changes happening in the Middle East.

I mean, incredible changes happening in the Middle East, exciting changes happening in the Middle East, including, and this, I think, Andy, was so significant. You had the Gulf states all of a sudden part of this Abraham Accords, where you had the Gulf states partnering with Israel and the Saudis, although not part of the Abraham Accords yet, have already increased their relationship. These are tremendous steps that President Trump had taken through his staff and through the initiative that he employed in the Abraham Accords. And yet what we have done in the United States under President Biden is turned our back on those, Jay, and we have rejected those. We have not fostered those. We have not promoted those. We have not worked to achieve the goals of those accords, which would have given economic opportunities and peaceful opportunities to Palestinians, to Israelis, and to the Gulf states.

We just rejected them and walked away from them. It's a really huge mistake. I'm not going to just say it's a tragedy because that's not fair.

It's a huge mistake. Now, interestingly, at the UN, where we're very active and Sisi does a lot of work in our UN work, the anti-Israel initiatives that come up in the UN are more than any other country in the world, including China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela. Israel is always the one that's attacked, yet they are the most, quote, liberal in the right way, democracy in the region.

Absolutely. And we just did a review. The UN has a commission of inquiry. It's a fact-finding mission.

And, of course, they aimed it at Israel once again. And we just reviewed that report. And it's ridiculous.

We point out that it's clearly biased and it should be seen for what it is. It's anti-Semitism and a distortion of facts. And that's all you get from the UN, even including when they talk about Palestine as a state.

That is not something that is – that is not a true statement. The UN does not recognize them as a state. And even Palestinian leaders acknowledge becoming a state is only an aspiration.

And that's their own leaders. But, Jeff, going back to – you were just in our office in Jerusalem – but going back to that, what's the sense on the street now about the situation? How concerned are people in Israel about this move with the Palestinian consulate coming back?

It's catastrophic. First of all, across the board, with the exception of really an extreme, extreme far left, the Israeli populace as a whole understands they would have loved and they would still love for there to be real peace. But the only peace they've seen has happened when there's strength and when Israeli sovereignty is recognized. And then it's actually a better life for everyone in the region, the Jews and the Arabs, in Israel and outside. And they see that there seems to be a push.

Let me tie all these things together. There was a news report today on Palestinian television that the Palestinian prime minister, Mohammad Shtaya, he said that there's no Arab country that continues to give support to the Palestinian authority except for Algeria, which means the entire Arab world understands that the Palestinian authority is nothing but a platform for terror and the destruction of Israel. And it's the West.

It's the liberal West in Europe and in America that seems to be propping up these terrorists. And that's what the feeling is in Israel. They know what their society is. It is a peace-loving society. It is an integrated society with Arabs and Jews. And around the world, there are people like at the UN and in America and in Western Europe that seem to be trying to bring it back into a state of war. You know, I will never forget those on the left saying, oh, if the United States recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, we're going to have a war in the Middle East like you've never seen. Meanwhile, what did you have in the Middle East? What took place? The largest peace process, more so than Camp David, more so than the Oslo Accords, because you had countries actually signing onto it and supporting it. And then you ask yourself this question.

How in the world did this happen? That in one election cycle, so much can change. But the reality is to understand the Middle East, you have to think nine-dimensionally. You have to think a lot of step moves ahead. And I will say this. We're going to be joined by Mike Pompeo. I'm going to ask him this. Adding a question to our list of questions I already have. We had so much progress and it seems like we are stepping back so aggressively and putting us in a much more vulnerable place as a country. So, Jeff, the question that I want to end with here is we always want action. We're taking action in Washington. We've got a petition up, by the way. We've got an email out today. If you don't get our emails, folks, go to ACLJ.org and sign up today. It's the UN just unleashed a brand new attack on our ally Israel, the Human Rights Council meeting today.

Just released a commission report vilifying Israel for defending itself. We're responding. And Jeff, it is critical that we respond.

It is absolutely critical that we respond. And, you know, that's part of what I do daily in Jerusalem is the Israelis, again, it's not just the street. It's the officials. It's from the government. It's from the Knesset. It's the advisers. They want to understand why America is doing it when it's so obviously counterproductive. They don't understand. And, you know, listen, it's very difficult for Israel to speak up, say anything negative about what America is doing. Of course. But what's happening across the board is causing the worst kind of consternation. Peace seems in the grasp.

And for some reason, this administration seems dedicated to pulling it away and sending them back to war. All right. Thank you, Jeff. We appreciate it, Jeff. Al Monson, your counsel, heads up our Jerusalem office.

Let me say this. We've got an email out today. We've got a petition up on that email at ACLJ.org. Sign it. We'll find out how many have signed it so far. Let's take a look at that. I'd like to know where we are on that. But we want you to sign it today.

Just go over to ACLJ.org. By the way, Mike Pompeo coming up on this next half hour. So if you're on any of our social media platforms, share this feed with your friends right now. Really important that you do that so we get more people involved. We made a lot of progress on the Israel front. We're going to continue to fight for Israel. It's also fighting for the United States when you do that. I've appeared at the International Criminal Court on behalf of Israeli issues and positions.

So believe me, we understand this. ACLJ.org. Back with more in a moment. Please stand with us at ACLJ.org where you can learn more about our life changing work. Become a member today.

ACLJ.org. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow.

And now your host, Jay Sekulow. Well, a busy day in Washington, D.C., frankly around the world. We just heard from Jeff Valabon from our Jerusalem office. He's heads up our Jerusalem office about what's going on there. I'm going to talk about that in a minute. By the way, 473,000 of you.

Let me say that number again. 473,000 of you have signed our petition to stand with Israel. Israel's being attacked today at the Human Rights Council in the U.N. The ACLJ's already filed responses. We will be filing more responses and intervening. So we encourage you to go to ACLJ.org and sign the petition right now to stand with Israel.

As I said, we're approaching a half a million people. So that is great. It's entitled Defend Israel from Anti-Israel Tax Across the Globe. This one coming from across the globe in the form of the United Nations. We have a shutdown going on.

I'm going to put the picture up on the screen. This is our street right behind the Supreme Court of the United States there. The protesters are not being moved away, of course.

If they were pro-life protesters, they might be. And our building's on one side and the Supreme Court's on the other. And the protesters are there because they said they were going to shut the Supreme Court down.

Interestingly, they tried, but the Supreme Court was able to issue its opinions today. At the same time, across the street, we have the January 6 hearings going on, which is fine. Except instead of focusing on that, somebody should be focusing on gas at $6 a gallon, begging Venezuela of all countries and Saudi Arabia to produce more so that we don't have it get even higher, which it's going to. Inflation's at 8.6%. The stock market is down still, as we've been live for an hour now, 665 points, 2%.

It was down 2% on Friday, so you've lost 4%, 4.5% in two days. That they're not focusing on in Washington. They're having hearings on what happened 18 months ago, which was terrible.

So prosecute the people that did it, but don't stop the functioning of government, which unfortunately is happening now. There was also some bipartisan gun legislation being proposed that actually looks like, of course, we haven't seen the bill, but it looks promising. It was common sense measures we've talked about before, and there's a lot of Republicans supporting it. We'll go into that in the next segment of the broadcast.

We're going to get up to that. But I don't want to go off for a moment the fact that we had an assassination attempt last week against Brett Kavanaugh. Some on the left are not calling it an assassination attempt, Andy, saying it didn't go far enough. Yeah, you have to kill them in order to have an assassination attempt. That's what you're saying.

That's basically what it is. It's got to succeed in order to be an assassination. You know, President Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was the subject of an assassination attempt in Miami after he was elected President in the 30s. And the mayor of Chicago was killed in his place by accident. Was that not an assassination attempt? You've got to be a public official holding a public office, exercising your public duties, and someone has to try to kill you.

Doesn't have to succeed in killing you. That is a federal crime, okay? It's also a crime under state law, a crime under the law of Maryland where Justice Kavanaugh lives. And he wasn't even the one who drafted the leaked opinion. It was Justice Alito. So what are you after Brett Kavanaugh for? But meanwhile, there is laws on the books that say you can't pick at a judge's house to influence an opinion, which is exactly what they said they would.

And I'm going to play this again. The Biden administration encouraging it. So I know that there's an outrage right now, I guess, about protests that have been peaceful to date. And we certainly continue to encourage that outside of judges' homes. And that's the President's position. Yeah.

Peaceful to date until 9 a.m. in a session. By the way, no network led with that story. Now, if it was one of the other justices, liberal justices, you'd think they might. But there is law, Cece, we mentioned this earlier, there's laws on the books that prohibits this, but Merrick Garland has to actually enforce them. Right. So what's interesting to me is she literally says, we want these protests, we want those to continue. Yeah. And that's the President's position. Right. So he is advocating breaking the law.

And I think what we're doing at the January 6 hearings, isn't that the same thing, a President advocating breaking the law? Well, that's what they're alleging. Right. It's an allegation. They do this. It's black and white.

She said that is what that is. They want them to protest, want them to protest, want them to protest in front of the House to influence an opinion, which is exactly what the law prohibits. But Merrick Garland, Department of Justice, isn't doing that. He's putting, you know, he's whatever he's doing.

Maybe they'll prosecute the guy that tried to kill Justice Kavanaugh. All right. We'll take your calls when we come back, 800-684-3110. We'll get into some of this gun issue next. All right. Welcome back to the broadcast, everyone. We're taking your call, 800-684-3110. Mike Pompeo coming up with us in the next segment.

All right. So there was agreement between Republicans and Democrats on some gun legislation, bipartisan working group. What is interesting is, let me give you the ratings of the 10 senators so far that were in this group, this working group, the Republicans. John Cornyn, who is an A-plus rating, and he's from Texas, A-plus rating from the NRA. Roy Blunt, A-rating from Missouri, Missouri, if you want to be correct, got as an A-rating from the NRA. Richard Burr, North Carolina, A-plus. Bill Cassidy, Louisiana, A. Susan Collins, Maine, B. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina, A. Rob Portman, Ohio, A. Mitt Romney, Utah, A. Thom Tillis, A.

The only one that has a lower rating, a C-rating, is Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania, and he's leaving. So let's talk about what they're doing because I think some of this makes sense, but we will not know if it makes sense until you see the legislation, but I don't think it interferes with the Second Amendment. The first thing is, and this is, I think everybody agrees, is what they call red flag laws, provides resources to states to create and administer laws that help ensure deadly weapons are kept out of the hands of individuals whom a court has determined to be a significant danger to themselves or others consistent with state and federal due process and constitutions. And constitutional protections. So it has to be, Andy, a court procedure. That I think is very important. We have to ensure that that person has been held to be a danger to himself or herself or others consistent with federal due process and constitutional protections, which means after notice and a hearing. In other words, it's not an arbitrary cessation of the right to possess a firearm, but after you have been given notice of what it is that the reason for you not being allowed to do this and an opportunity to be heard by a judge. Those are important constitutional safeguards, notice and hearing.

And Andy, you were a U.S. attorney and you were also a district attorney. Right. Bad people can get guns and there are, we can do some things to help that become less.

Oh, yeah. Bad people do get guns. They get guns and we have to take that and make sure, as this particular provision says, that the court has determined they're a danger to themselves and others consistent with due process protections that are afforded to people. But bad people do get guns.

I mean, people that I've prosecuted for murder cases had guns and shouldn't have had them. Right. So this goes to that, but it also protects second memorized. So I think this is a common sense approach. There's also an investment in children and family health services because so much of this, Cece, we're seeing is there were mental health issues involved.

Yes. And I think we see that over and over, especially in school shootings, the mental health issues. And that's one of the things that the NRA actually agrees with as well.

In their statement, they want to encourage elected officials to provide more resources to secure the schools, fix our severely broken mental health system and support law enforcement. And those are common sense, you know, steps that can be taken. And actually, some of those common sense steps are taken in this agreement.

Yeah. So the agreement is not legislation. So we have to see what the actual legislation, but there is something that we have been advocating at the ACLJ, and this has been our official position, and that is hardening the target. Hardening the target at the school.

This is number five in the, we're going out of order here. Number five in the proposal that will hopefully have the legislation, here's what it says. Invest in programs to help institute safety measures in and around primary and secondary schools, support school violence prevention efforts, and provide training to school personnel and students.

This will provide money. And I think it needs to be more specific. So I think the language needs to be a little bit more specific here for school resource officers. That is armed police trained law enforcement in the schools. And to me, that should be priority one, harden the target.

Now, I want that to, this is just their summary, so it may have already been there. I want that, Andy, to be clear legislatively, we're going to go to work on that, that it provides money for school resource officers. We need school resource officers. The news is full of shootings and killings that have taken place at schools. The children are being sent to schools to learn to be educated. Their teachers cannot provide them with guns and ammunition to the teachers to do this job of safety prevention. We need to have school resource officers, we used to call them school policemen, whatever you want to call them, people who are trained to protect the children who have gone to school to learn from the efforts of people who go crazy in these schools to try to kill them and to annihilate them. And we need to do that.

And as you say, Jay, we want to see what the text of the legislation is, but that is a good idea investing in those programs for safety measures around schools and to provide for an increase in school safety officers trained personnel. Very significant. I think the most. This was interesting. Is this from Dana Bash?

Yes, sir. All right, Dana Bash, a friend of mine from CNN, here's what she said and asked. Something I got from a Republican aide involved in these negotiations who said this agreement is in principles, not legislative texts, meaning in English. We don't have the details of this. And this aide says the details will be critical for Republicans, particularly the firearms related provisions. One of more one or more of these principles could be dropped if the text is not agreed to. So it's very delicate still.

That's right. There's a lot of work still to do to take this framework agreement and reduce its legislative language. I totally agree, and I think Dana's question was really well put. I will say this, and this is where I think it becomes very important. What's a key here, and I think this is a key, is to make sure the language is right.

And that's one of the things we're looking at, especially as it comes to the school resources officer. They're also going to do, this is an interesting one on 18-year-olds being able to, there's not going to ban on assault weapons here. But they're saying under Proposal 8, for buyers under 21 years of age, requires an investigative period to review juvenile and mental health records, including checks with state databases and local law enforcement before someone under 21 can get a particular kind of weapon. Andy, I think that's another common sense approach. It is a common sense approach.

It makes sense. So many people that I prosecuted for murder, there was in a community in South Georgia a gun that was used and stashed in a mailbox somewhere, and it was the community gun. And when you wanted to go after somebody and kill them, you knew where to go to pick up the gun. 15-year-olds, 14-year-olds, 12-year-olds, people of minor ages like that would simply go there, take the gun, it had ammunition in it, go and do their crime, and put the gun back. Those are people who should not have access to guns. All right, and this one's very important because this is a big problem, and that is crackdowns on criminals who illegally straw purchase and traffic guns. We know the trafficking trade, whether it's sex trafficking, drug trafficking, weapon trafficking, comes through the border, goes up the expressways, it's a huge problem. There needs to be stronger penalties for what's called a straw purchaser.

Someone buys, they say they're buying it for themselves, Cece, but they're really buying it for somebody else. So then the background checks become meaningless. Yeah, so, you know, cracking down on criminals getting guns, I think everybody would be for that. The problem is it's the criminals that really do know how to go around all the laws to get the guns.

So, you know, that's going to be interesting to see how they can structure the language and enforce it. All right, I'm going to take a call because we're talking, while we're talking about weapons, unfortunately, a question came in about Justice Kavanaugh. Diane from Nevada on Line 2. Diane, go ahead, you're on the air.

Hi, Jay. The reason I called is I just, I noticed that you had mentioned about where's the Attorney General, you know, when these crimes are being committed or suggested by our President. What is it that any of us can do or that Judge Kavanaugh can do about this circumstance? Even the Senate, is there anything they can do about these? Not really, because the, under separation of powers, the executive branch is separated from the legislative branch, does not, Andy, have the authority to prosecute?

No. So even if you had a majority in the Senate saying, this is terrible, let's do something, they can't send out the marshals. The prosecution is part of the executive branch of government, the Department of Justice, headed by Mayor Garland, who should be out there doing something drastic with respect to this assassination attempt of Justice Kavanaugh. It's not something the House or the Senate can do, and certainly not the judiciary. You shouldn't have to ask a person who has been the target of an assassination attempt, that person shouldn't have to go hat in hand to the Attorney General of the United States and say, will you please prosecute this person who tried to kill me? The process should be public outrage, that's what should happen. The public should be so outraged about this that Garland doesn't have an option but to go after these perpetrators and prosecute them.

And I think voting is another way to show your outrage, so make sure every election people get out there and vote, because it makes a difference. I'd like to see some common sense measures put in place here, that's been our position. We're going to make sure the language there, I want to make sure on the number five, funding for school safety resources, that that includes school safety resources officers.

And maybe it does, or maybe the language will have that, but we want to make sure, and that's what our ACLJ Government Affairs Office will do. Coming up, our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs Mike Pompeo will be joining us, we've got a lot of talk about globally with him, including the situation in Nigeria, which is a mess, but I'm also going to talk to him about Israel, and also about inflation. So a lot ahead, share this feed with your friends, don't forget, support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice, you can do that at ACLJ.org, that's ACLJ.org. Support our work, allowing us to continue this fight, just go to ACLJ.org, that's ACLJ.org, become part of our team, share this feed with your friends on social media, we'll be back with the last segment in just a moment.

Welcome back to the broadcast, boy it's been a jam-packed one too, and we're now joined by our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, by the way he's going to be in the studio with us at the end of this week, which will be great, looking forward to having you in here Mike. You have a brand new piece up, the Biden administration must act on Christian persecution in Nigeria, under your administration, and we were working on this with you, Nigeria was listed as a country of primary concern, CPC. The Biden administration takes it off, meanwhile we've got horrible cases of religious tyranny going on, persecution in unbelievable ways, what's your sense of where we are on this right now? Thanks for being such an important part of making religious freedom and the problems of the persecution of Christians in Nigeria top of what the ACLJ does, it was very helpful to me when I was Secretary of State to have the backs of folks like you Jay. Look, they've gone backwards, and we identified a factual observation that this is a country that we should be very concerned about its religious freedom, and the administration came in for reasons unknown, and lifted that designation, and that makes an awful difference, it tells the leaders in that country that America is not watching anymore, and so we've seen it right. Fifty Nigerian Catholics killed while attending mass this past week, tragedies across the space, Fulani herdsmen terrorizing and extorting Christians there, it has become a more dangerous place, a less tolerant place, a place where people practicing their faith are being persecuted in ways that are far worse than they were during my time in office. I regret we've gone backwards, we've taken this step back away from exerting what America's influence can be for protecting humanity and religious freedom around the world.

Mr. Secretary, C.C. Hall, our Senior Counsel is here who does a lot of our international work, and on this issue in Nigeria we've been involved in for a long time, we were stunned when this administration made that change, and we've represented clients in these countries, this is a very difficult situation down there. So you have Nigeria where Christians killed for their faith every two hours, where more Christians were killed this past year in Nigeria than any other country, and all the Christian deaths worldwide, 80% of them occur in Nigeria, and why this country is not on the CPC list is ridiculous. Okay, so Mike, that's a question I want to ask you, why did they take it off?

It's so difficult to know, I can't find a good reason for having taken them off as a factual matter or a moral matter. I will say for a long time the State Department walked away from this issue, they wanted to treat this as an inter-tribal fight that was disconnected from faith. You've seen this for many, many years at the State Department, they'd rather characterize it as just can't we all get along than deeply, deeply intolerant, deeply in the case of Israel anti-Semitic here, anti-Christian activity being persecuted because of people's use of their own faith.

Because people stepped forward and said, I am a Jew, I'm a Christian, that's what's going on here. I think inside the State Department they'd rather avert their gaze from that, and that's much to America's shame. So you brought up Israel, I want to jump to this for a moment because I was there, you were there, Andy Economo, my colleague here, was there when the embassy in Jerusalem was opened up, it was a historic day. The left was screaming, this is going to bring war, it's going to bring disaster, the Middle East is going to explode. Meanwhile, we had more peace accords. If you put Camp David and Oslo together, they didn't equal the Abraham Accords.

So you had all of this. So I go back to this question, Mr. Secretary, and that is why in the world in that situation then would you put in place another, you know, they're talking about rolling back the embassy recognition, and they're also opening up now a consulate, which you all had closed, for quote Palestinian affairs, because the embassy should handle all Israeli's affairs. Why are they doing that and how bad of a move is that? It's a tragic move, it's a dangerous move.

I happen to think it's an illegal move under the 1995 law. But more importantly, we don't have consulates and embassies in the same city anywhere else in the world. The ambassador, the United States Ambassador to Israel can manage the affairs of all Israeli people, including those that are living in Judea and Samaria, close to other parts of Israel.

There's no doubt that that set of issues can be managed by the embassy itself. They're moving back because this is the traditional left wing policy of failing to acknowledge that the challenge here is the Palestinians and not the Israelis. It's an equivocation, it's a moral equivocation between the two.

It's a really dangerous move. War did not break out when we moved that embassy. War did not break out when we withdrew from the JCPOA. War didn't break out when we struck Qasem Soleimani. When America does the right thing to protect its own citizens and to recognize the fundamental reality that Israel is the rightful homeland of the Jewish people. When we get that right, Jay, good things flow from that to go back and put a consulate there that says, no, somehow we're going to deal independently with the Palestinians apart from the rightful holders of that real estate, the Israeli nation and the Jewish people.

That is really dangerous for the United States of America. You know, Andy, you and I walked by the old Palestinian affairs, what was then the consulate. And what's interesting to us is we're also at the event, we've done a lot of work in Israel, and it's like this administration doesn't understand that with Israel you've got to think of the Middle East generally, nine dimensionally. Well, that's right. I wanted to ask Secretary Pompeo, what sort of signal does this send the world when you've got an embassy and a consulate in the same city?

Within a mile of each other. And, you know, striking distance, walking, I should say, distance, and you're bifurcating the work of the United States with respect to Israel on one hand and Palestine, Palestinians on the other. What sort of signal does that send to the world about how America feels about Israel?

Yes, Andy, it's the very message that I think, frankly, the leadership of the United States has been sending since they took office back in January 2021. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the nation of Israel and its importance to the United States of America, and in fact, the people of every Abrahamic faith, Muslims, Christians, Jews alike. You're right, a couple hundred yards apart to establish a consulate somehow signals that this is an independent nation, wholly apart from Israel. And I was there just a couple weeks ago, I was in Judea and St. Mary, traveled from Nazareth down to Bathsheba, to Shiloh, Hebron.

Those are places that are inside of Israel, and to have a consulate that is separate from your embassy sitting inside of Jerusalem is a tragic signal to the world, and it will discourage others from making peace with Israel rather than promote peace and stability in the region. All right, last question, and it's the one I'm sure we're going to talk about more when we see you this week, and that is the economy. I mean, the January 6th hearings are day two are going on, meanwhile the stock market's down 665 points, 1,500 points in the last two days, and gas is almost $6 a gallon here. It's much more in the West and in other major cities, and parents can't find baby formula. Failed policies, you know, I say elections have consequences, Mike, this is exactly what happens when you have an election with consequences. This is evidence, if anybody needs to view just the transition that's taken place and how we think about the American people and American families, and how the United States government, when it sets policy it drives outcomes, we are living that nightmare today. Food is expensive, I was with a group of folks last week, whose kids played on travel soccer team, half the games have been Catholic because they can't afford to drive to the away games for their kids.

These are intentional policies, this didn't happen randomly, this isn't Putin's inflation, this is President Biden's inflation. 100% correct, Mike, thanks for being with us, look forward to seeing you this week. Folks, your support of the ACLJ allows us to have experts like Mike Pompeo as part of our team, Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, former Secretary of State. We encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ, ACLJ.org, your gift's of course tax deductible, you can do it at ACLJ.org, also sign that petition, we're at $473,000, we really need to get it to $500,000 in support of Israel, that would be very helpful as our team is at the UN working on this and, excuse me, some other issues.

1-800-684-3110 is always the number to have in your, written down somewhere when you want to ask us a question, some of you did today, and we'll talk to you tomorrow, but again, ACLJ.org for updated information. Music