What the Left Wants You To Think About America

This is Jay Sekulow. Today's broadcast, we're going to talk to you about what the Left wants you to think about America. 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.

Welcome to the broadcast. We want to take today as a bit of a chance to reflect, I think is the way to say it, Logan. A lot of people are walking around like we don't have hope, even though we had this great week at the Supreme Court last week. But people are discouraged. And I'm wondering, this was Logan and Will's idea, to give a little bit of a history lesson. Because I think it's important for people to understand, we have been through this literally as people like to say, this is not my first rodeo.

Yeah, it almost feels ridiculous when you look at it. I was looking at an article that you were on the cover of, of the American Lawyer from 1991. So now we're talking about 31 years ago. And who was on the cover? I mean, obviously there's you as Randall Terry and What's It About.

It's about protesting against abortion at different abortion clinics. And then you look at the bottom of this and the two people on the bottom. Again, 31 years ago are Joe Biden and Clarence Thomas, currently the heroes and villains to the perspective right and left.

And still, if you could have think this article could have been written today or this magazine would have come out today. Because who do you see most on social media or on the news as again, either hero or villain would be President Biden, Supreme Court Justice Thomas. And it just shows you that not only history repeating itself, that nothing is new and certainly nothing is new in politics. Maybe that needs to change sometimes. But you look at it and go, one, we've been in this fight for an incredibly long time, but so have most of the main characters in this. So for them, and I love it says on there, Biden's spineless.

Again, 31 years ago, already saying that. And that's just ridiculous. Well, I'm actually holding the magazine in my hand. I mean, I know they're showing it on the cover, but I've got it in my hand too. So it's a huge magazine. American Lawyers, the lawyer's magazine, still around.

It's now more online, digital. So everything is, yeah. But what's interesting about this to me is you're right. You look at the cover of it and it's when I was defending Operation Rescue. Which on the case, actually, that became the predicate for overturning Roe vs. Wade. So it was a great decision that what came out of this case, this one was out of Wichita, but it was Wichita, New York and Alexandria in Virginia. But what I think is really, like Logan said, is encouraging is this is not the first time we've been through this. I've been doing this for 43 years.

And then you were going state to state and doing those things. Exactly. Which is what essentially we're going to have to do now.

It's nothing's changed. I mean, but it is important to note that besides me, that the main players in all of these issues, it's the same group. Yeah, besides you. Okay. You can say that. All right.

Well, I don't want to like be gloating, you know, bragging. No, but it's definitely the same topic. Same topic, same people. Yeah. So, you know, Jay Sekulow, the lawyer, advocating for the pro-life position. Clarence Thomas, the justice. Yeah, which they're already calling, like in this, you know, saying offensive things about him, I'm sure.

Yeah. But my thing is, from Wichita to the Supreme Court, Jay Sekulow fights for Operation Rescue's right to protest against abortion. I mean, the tone certainly has changed in America in the sense of that would not be the headline. No, they would never do that now. And they would never call it the new civil disobedience. No, the headline would be- That's why the documentary of that movement needs to be done. Jay Sekulow, Devil, you know, is what it would be. It would not be, oh, fighting against civil disobedience.

That is where it's changed, is that people's tone has changed, but the people are still the same. I mean, sometimes it's why people get mad, because it feels like, the fact that Biden is on a cover 31 years ago, he was relevant enough 31 years ago to be the cover star. He was chairman of the judiciary committee.

I know, it's just wild, though, to think about. But there's Clarence Thomas, who, you understand, assigned the opinion to Alito, because Clarence Thomas is the senior justice. Roberts wasn't going to sign the majority opinion, so he went to Clarence Thomas. Clarence Thomas assigned it to Sam Alito. So it's, folks, we know how to do this.

We're going to get into great detail. People say you look younger now, though. No mustache. No mustache helps. It helped you then, because 31 years ago you needed to look older. I looked like a kid. I also didn't have to wear glasses then, either.

Probably had contacts, maybe. A lot of hair, though. Same hair.

Yeah, that's pretty good. No wig. No wig. People say that on social media. Not true. People say wig.

Your grandfather had dark hair until the moment before he passed. I mean, that's the way it is. All right, we're going to have fun today. We're going to be uplifting. We'll be back. We'll take your calls, 800-684-3110. We'll be back with more in just a moment.

Welcome back to Secula. We are taking your calls. A lot of people are calling in right now.

1-800-684-3110. Kind of resetting your mind as we've had roughly a week since a row has overturned. Less than a week. It feels like it's been a month or two months because people have short attention spans. That is sort of the good and the bad with America right now, is when there is something that people get up in arms about, often it disappears very quickly. And not that the row has disappeared, but certainly it's not as massive of protests right now that are happening. That people thought it was going to be.

They thought they'd be over the weekend. But what we wanted to do is come here today and we're going to talk a lot about the history and the future of the pro-life movement, but also some other topics today. Yeah, yeah. And Andy Cahn was with us, of course, as our senior counsel. And Andy and I have been practicing law together since the mid-1980s. And all of these cases we talk about, including the one on the front cover, I was in Wichita.

Andy was in Atlanta getting the briefs ready. And we've been doing this for a long time. And I do think it's, for those that are just joining, I know we always get people joining, on the cover of this magazine are people that are still the main players in all of this.

Go ahead. One person did just say on YouTube, does this bring up the question of should there be term limits? And part of you goes, well, it does feel crazy that these are the people, but especially for Supreme Court justices, it's kind of the point. I like the lifetime appointment on Supreme Court justices.

You can't have this big sway. No, because then it becomes way too political. So you have on the cover of the magazine, Clarence Thomas, Justice Clarence Thomas, President Joe Biden, who was then Senator Biden, and advocate Jay Sekulow. So Andy, we've tried, you know, literally hundreds of these cases around the country. It looks like that's what's going to be happening now in the post-Roe world. We've got lawyers today, Frank and Jeff are in, or I think Frank is in Kentucky at the court fair as that argument is going forward, and we're working on that. Utah and Louisiana already put stays in place.

I think Texas put a stay in place as well. So we expected this, though. And like I said, Andy, this is not our first rodeo by any stretch of the imagination. And it's the same players. You know, the amazing thing, Jay, is the French have an expression, plus a change, plus c'est la même, as much as things change, as much they stay the same.

And that's exactly the same here. We have been fighting this battle for over four decades. As you pointed out, Senator Biden, then Senator Biden, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Justice Clarence Thomas, who concurred and joined the opinion of the court, written by Justice Alito, you as the lead advocate. And you haven't changed that much except for the mustache, I may say.

And I believe that's Randall Terry on the cover along there with us. But we continue now the battles then. We fought in state courts around the country. Operation Rescue represented concern women of America in those battles. We now move to the state forum around the country.

Kentucky, Utah, Texas, other states where the laws are going to be attacked. So it's really the same thing. New wine and old bottles, old wine and new bottles. But nothing really changes, even though it appears to. We still fight for life. We still fight against the killers. We still fight against the abortion industry, Planned Parenthood. We've done this today.

We did it yesterday and we're going to be doing it tomorrow. That's exactly right. And obviously you always hoped for the win.

Yes. For the overturn of Roe. But there was times over the last 30 years where it felt like mainly due to some Presidential picks and who were. It just didn't work out. It just wasn't going to happen. Well, here's what happened.

We talked, I talked about this with a friend of mine a couple of days ago. So you have, you know, George H.W. Bush made two picks.

One really good. Clarence Thomas. The other was David Souter, who became a member of the left immediately.

Immediately went to the left of the court. Which is always a concern that you're not getting. Ronald Reagan, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Anthony Kennedy, the moderates at best. Then you had Donald Trump. I mean, you have George W. Bush.

I mean, there's another example, OK? Alito. We got Sam Alito. Then John Roberts, who didn't join the opinion but concurred in judgment. Then Donald Trump comes in and you get Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. I don't think anybody questions whether they're conservatives at this point. Would you say that's fair?

I'd say that's probably fair, yeah. So, but like Logan said, and the reason we showed the American Lawyer Magazine is, and what Andy just said, is we've been through this before. And we're totally prepared for the state court litigation. I do think it's interesting that still, though, even though there is conservative justices and more liberal leaning justices, there are still cases, not this one, obviously, that go 9-0. Oh, yeah. There are still cases.

I think people need to know that, too. The Supreme Court is not this like, it's not like an election where it's almost always now at this point 52% to 48. There are times this time where it was 8-1 or 9-0. This case was 6-3, and there were conservative liberal justices that went with us. But I just mean right now, even the court right now.

Oh, yeah. A lot of the cases are unanimous. It's not always politicized. And sometimes there was a case on Native Americans and jurisdiction today, which everybody thought was going to actually be an opinion written by Justice Gorsuch, who wrote the dissent. Right. But there is a lot. Listen to this. The left wants you to think it's a crumbling system, the Supreme Court.

It isn't. I mean, so many of our cases have been 9-0. 9-0 on the religion case. Including justices that a lot of people on the right would probably be like, there's no way. You could get Justice Ginsburg, who ruled with us 72% of the time. Justice Breyer, I think, 81% of the time. But we had a lot of unanimous cases.

Now, look, and Andy will tell you this, one of the things I do is I'm very careful on what we take. And there are free speech advocates, a lot of those people, too. Yes. Traditional, real free speech advocates. When you had a free speech case, we always work for reaching all of the court, if possible, Andy. Well, I have a vague recollection of a case called Jews for Jesus versus the Board of Airport Commissioners of Los Angeles. Your first case. Yep. What was the decision in that case, Jay? 9-0.

9-0. Right. On the basis of overbreadth, which is a doctrine that said you're covering both protected speech and speech that can be regulated and that is not protected. So to say that things have changed drastically in these years is not an accurate statement. I'm a historian. I'm a trained historian.

I go back and I look at things that happened before and I look at change through time. And I can tell you that things have not changed that radically through time. It is, as Logan said at the beginning of the program, the tone, the tenor, the civility, or the lack of civility is what has changed and made things differently. And that is a terrible thing to be able to say because in the profession of law, we need to be civil and to exercise civility and to say respectfully when we say that and to say sincerely when we believe that. And not to have these rabid, raging tenors of violence. We didn't have this in the past, but unfortunately the tenor has changed in the present. But you know what's interesting, Logan? You talked about 9-0.

I just clicked off of my list. Murgans versus Board of Education. Prayer clubs and Bible clubs in school.

You would think how much more controversial can you get to that decision? 8-1 in our favor. How about this? A church using school facilities for its services, for film series, for community outreach. 9-0 in our favor.

How about this? More recent. Election law. Minors participating in political campaigns.

9-0. So that, now, now we're fighting a state, I'm going to take, let's take this call from Bill. We're fighting in the state courts on the, exactly, listen, Roe returned it to the states. We had to know, and of course we did, that the states were where the battle was going to be.

They weren't just going to say, okay, that's it, we're done. And those first cases were, you know, still... Thurgood Marshall. And people who are, who are thought of as these like, you know... Liberal icons.

Liberal icons. Thurgood Marshall. Byron White Brennan. Yeah. Justice Brennan. Justice John Paul Stevens. Yeah.

I mean, these were not justices you normally think you would reach. And we had great success, by God's grace, in doing that. So that's why we are prepared for the next phases of these battles.

We've got a great team in place. And by the way, we didn't have the capability to do what we're doing today in 1991 when I did this. We were relying on, you know, TBN helped us a lot. Yeah. CBN helped us a lot. That was about it. Our coverage in the ABCs, NBC, and CBSes of the world were hostile. There was no real... They were hostile then. CNN was not much of a player. It was just happening. There was no Fox.

No Fox. There was no options for... It wasn't as hyper politicized on those. It was still politicized.

So people don't want to remember... I was on Nightline on that one. Right. With Barbara Walters. And that's what people were watching.

It was a different time. All right. Should we go to the call? Take it.

All right. Let's go to Bill who's calling. And, Oregon, Bill, you're on the air. Hey, Bill, you there? Nope. Bill's not there. Bill, I'm... Oh, there you go, Bill. Go ahead.

Sorry about that. I was just contemplating that the next step in this victory, and it is a victory, is what about the children's rights, unborn children, but children's rights and offering them protection, equal protection under the law, under the Constitution? You know, it's interesting you said that because I don't know if we have that bite available. Justice Alito, we played it, I think, in the opening or during one of our breaks. Justice Alito said that. I mean, what about the right of the child?

And that language made its way into the opinion here. So look, the next step in this battle may well be the personhood issue on a state level. It's not gonna be federalized, it's gonna be on a state level, but we should be prepared for that. We should be optimistic about that. I am.

I think we're gonna do... Look, folks, I'm not surprised you got a couple of temporary restraining orders, 80, 30 seconds here. We're not shocked at this. This is what we expect.

No. No, we expect these. We expect these to happen because this is the give and take and the punch and shove of litigation. So it's, you know, one up, two down, but we always come up standing up, Jay.

Exactly right. All right, folks, we'll be back in a moment. Take more calls.

Yep. Taking your calls. 1-800-684-3110. If you want your voice on the air, that's open lines, 1-800-684-3110.

Check out the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. Make sure you're following us on all your favorite social media platforms. We'll be right back. Hey, welcome back to the broadcast, everyone. We're gonna switch gears here.

We are taking your calls, 800-684-3110. By the way, you can call on any of the many topics we're calling on today. Google has come under fire because its algorithm apparently unfairly targeted conservative content across all of its services and that its Gmail service filters more Republican fundraising and campaign emails to spam. Yes.

This is a report that came out that earlier this year, a nonpartisan study found that Google's algorithm marked nearly 70% of emails from Republican campaigns during the 2020 election as spam compared to only 8% of emails from Democrat campaigns. There's a lot to be said about that. There's a lot to think about on that. Are you shocked? I'm not shocked, but it also, you know, we'll talk to Than about this, says a couple different things. One, are they censoring conservative messages? I mean, it's hard to really argue when it's 70% to seven or 8%, whatever it is. Does it also mean that we've got to do better and that the conservative machines better figure out what they're doing?

Because what it also means is that the Democrats not only are getting it served better, they're getting served better because they also know how to work the system. They know that, look, we have to deal with it here every day. We have a team of people that decide what the title is going to be for social media, for Facebook, for YouTube, for all the different outlets.

Rumble's the only one that we know is pretty much safe for whatever. Because we know now with our analytical data and our social media team breaking down each time we go live, each time we put out a video, each time we put out a title, you mean look, Facebook will tell you, here's how many people got it served. Well, we know if there's a word that now we strike from the list and we can't use that word anymore. It's a ridiculous time to live in, but they have people who are doing that. We need, as conservatives, need to make sure that we are doing the same thing. However, it is a large margin, a larger margin than maybe seems like it could even be at all fair and balanced.

Okay. So Republican leadership has now introduced a bill fan that would require platforms to share how their filtering techniques work and make it illegal to put campaign emails into spam unless a user asks, what is the status of this and how serious of a problem is it? Well, first of all, Jay, it plays so directly into the conversations you're already having with Logan because this debate over the issue of life, where is that going to take place of the most frequently going forward? In addition to the court of law, like you've been talking about that debate in the public space, Jay, it's going to take place online. So this discrepancy that Logan is talking about that NC State, you know, not exactly a conservative outfit found this vast discrepancy that is going to be very, very important. The bill, Tim Scott and John Thune, and by the way, Jay co-sponsored by every member of the Republican leadership in the United States Senate.

So very significant. It would do two main things. Number one, it would require big tech companies to transparently show how their filtering techniques work. So how they were filtering emails out and putting them into people's spam accounts. The other thing, Jay, it would actually make it illegal to put campaign emails into a spam folder unless the user proactively asked for it. So that's the status of the legislation.

And Jay, we can maybe get into this if you want to, but it's interesting. The legislation drops. What happens? Google runs to Washington DC and says, oh, wait a minute, let us do something voluntarily to try to fix this. They're asking for a pilot program to be approved. So Google's response though, Thanh, from my understanding is only because the pressure started getting on them. So it's not like Google was dying for legislation here. But it does say it was interesting that they asked the FEC to green light that program you were just talking about.

Yeah, and only because of pressure, Jay. And that's really the point. How many times do we talk about this? This is why we engage in FOIA. This is why we engage in public advocacy.

Because sometimes you just have to shine a spotlight to get a company to do the right thing. The pilot program that Google is now asking the FEC to green light and to implement, it falls well short of the legislation that's put forward. It basically says that it wants to make campaign emails exempt from their spam filter as long as they meet certain policies. And then it does say we want to give the users, the receivers of those emails, a very prominent notification the first time they receive it and give them the option for the how they want to handle that going forward.

That's a step in the right direction because of course you want the receiver of the email to be the one that is directing whether or not it's something they want to receive. But look, we got to call it like it is. This is also big tech trying to keep the hand of regulation from Washington, DC. It's not like they came forward with this on their own, Jay. This is from the NC State study. This is a quote.

We further observed that the percentage of emails marked by Gmail as spam from the right wing candidates grew steadily as the election date approached, while the percentage of emails marked as spam from the left wing candidates remained about the same. Okay, so that's not just an algorithm word thing. That's an intentional... Doesn't sound like it. Yeah. So here's the thing we got to understand.

When it comes to these major platforms that we're dealing with, we have to understand that we've got to be, it's what you said, really creative on this, really on top of this. And should there be... Here's the question for you. Gmail is a free service that they offer. No one pays for Gmail unless you have the premium packages and things. So is it within their purview to say, you're using our free service. I mean, I'm just a PlayDevils advocate. You're using our free service, we'll give you what you want.

You can go use someone else if you don't like that we filter out conservatives. That's the argument they're making. And I've been one that's wanting to keep hands off the big tech. I think they will probably say, well, they're not doing that.

This is just someone not getting their algorithm. Right. But I think the problem is this, they've almost become like a utility. They're so big and they control so much data that by doing this, then in my view, what they're doing is begging for regulation. They don't want it, but they're trying to take preemptive measures to stop it, but their actions beg for regulation.

That's what they got to fight. They don't usually like regulation. I do not like regulation. And I don't like censoring speech.

It feels weird. But I don't like them censoring speech either. I don't like that either. Yeah. I think all three of us would probably agree on that. I mean, we don't probably want to trust the federal government to make decisions for consumers, but you don't want big tech companies to make decisions for consumers either. I think you've got to look for a solution where it's the end user, it's the person receiving the email, it's the person using the platform, it's the person receiving the service that has an option to make a choice. And so, look, do I trust Washington, D.C. to come up with that solution?

No. But, you know, Logan, I think it is up to all of us to say we want a product that looks like this and letting the competitive marketplace provide that product for us. At this point, it's very difficult to do that because you don't have a whole lot of transparency into what services are actually being blocked before they get into your inbox. Do you find – I mean, you're having – because you run that department, that whole aspect of the ACLJ, is how – to be creative and not get spammed and blocked. Oh, it's very difficult. You have to make sure – and look, some of it is – especially when campaigns come around, you know how many emails you get, you know how many text messages you get.

There is a point where even me, someone who wants to stay abreast of what's happening, goes, I can't take it anymore. You've sent me 40 emails today and they're all the same. There is that point where that's just knowing your base and understanding how it works and why they're emailing you at a certain frequency, but a lot of it's that. It's frequency. It's title.

It's what? Images are in there. You'll see a lot of our emails come with just text. Sometimes there's an image. There's a format. Why?

Because what we've learned over time, if we send certain things like an image or a video and not necessarily – this is not necessarily a political portion of this or something we have to worry about like saying the word abortion, it's understanding that it may not get as delivered if there's a graphic that's eight megabytes. There are weird things you have to learn as someone who's in this industry to go, what is it? How do we use it?

How do we best use it? And again, sometimes it's not necessarily the best people up for the job in some of these positions, but it also means this wide of margin, it's – Our team does a great job, but it's real work. It's an everyday, multi-person department.

You know what's interesting though? Email is – and email, look, if we're being honest, let's be honest with our viewer. Email is one of the best ways to reach people still. Actually, it's our number one way to reach people. I mean, this broadcast and those kind of things as well, but you're talking about you can go directly to somebody opposed to having Facebook or any of these that are sometimes serving, sometimes not.

You know, when they compared Google to Outlook and Yahoo, of course, Google's blocking and spamming of Republican fundraising emails and other emails was much higher than Outlook and Yahoo, which means it's more than just random. All right, we've got a lot more ahead. Stay tuned. Give us your calls. We're talking about a variety of subjects.

800-684-3110. We'll be heading back with more in a moment. You know, we showed at the beginning of the broadcast the cover of American Lawyer Magazine. We did this when the opinion came out in Dobbs, which overturned Roe, but we put the cover up because it shows that everything changes and nothing changes.

On the cover is Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court justice, Senator Biden, now President, Jay Sekulow, then Supreme Court advocate or advocate for the pro-life movement. Not a lot has changed, but we're prepared to move forward and we're excited to move forward. And we've already got calls coming in and we're taking calls at 800-684-3110. So let's do that. Let's take some calls.

Rick Grenell coming up in the next segment. Let's go to April in Pennsylvania on line three. April, you're on the air.

Hi, April. I just want to thank you guys so much for everything that you've done for the pro-life movement. I've been a supporter for decades and I never thought we would see the day that Roe would get overturned. But if it hadn't been for you guys being the people like behind Moses holding up the arms of President Trump as he got those conservative justice confirmed, this would have never happened. So I give you guys great kudos for everything you've done and may God bless you because you have certainly done a wonderful work.

Well, April, I appreciate your kind words, but let me say this. The select of the Supreme Court nominees was the President's. We were honored to work alongside him. And let me say this, I will say this, and I think this is fair to say, Brett Kavanaugh came under unrelenting attack. More than Clarence Thomas in one sense, and the allegations were very aggressive. A lot of Presidents would have pulled the nomination.

The 45th President of the United States did not. And Brett Kavanaugh has proved to be a very good justice. And I think the allegations against him were not fair and it wasn't fairly adjudicated, but he got confirmed and he's on for the life appointment.

But I appreciate it. But you know, look, we worked closely with the former President. We got great results, but he made the picks and stood with these nominees when things got very aggressive. And they've all, I think it's a totally different court now. A lot of people are saying John Roberts has lost control of the court. I don't think that part's true.

John always is looking for a middle ground. Hey, listen, he voted to affirm the law. He thought the Mississippi law was constitutional and viability wasn't the option. He just didn't think he had to overturn Roe. I think he's totally wrong on that. But he was my co-counsel in the case that served as the basis for overturning Roe for the government. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. He's been in it as long as a lot of people.

In fact, if we can find on the website, I think Oya is one of those, and just get the clip. It says, Mr. Roberts will now hear from you. It was after I finished.

Thank you, Mr. Secula, Mr. Roberts will now hear from you. Of all of them though, it's not those situations though where you put in someone, you advocate for them. You think it's going to be great. And it wasn't what you thought.

And it really wasn't what you thought. Yeah. I mean, he's made good. Look, on a lot of our cases, he's been good on some of them.

Not so good. I mean, you go to Obamacare as the one that everyone turns to. Well, I think he was totally wrong on that. He turned it into attack.

I mean, they were denying it was a tax and he made it one. But yeah, it was another one of those, like he figured out a way to vote for it. Yeah. And kind of, sort of like he did with this. Yeah. You know, it's kind of like he said he was going to be an umpire and call balls and strikes, but then you kind of become a cheerleader for the other team coming up, or a coach for the other team coming up with new plays. But having said that, I've worked with him for a long time. We don't always agree, obviously, but he also got a lifetime appointment. So there it is.

You got to work with the bench you got. All right. Should we have time to take this call? Sure. Should we take it?

Let's go to Todd in Atlanta. Hey, gentlemen. Now that Roe's been overturned, it took 1989, the case determined when life began. Now that it's gone back to the state, is the fight going to be over whether or not abortion is an act of murder, a violent act of murder? That's how it's going to be fought?

I don't think so. I don't think that's how it's going to be fought. It's going to be fought that the unborn child's life is worthy of protection now under state constitutions. The states are going to say certain, about a week, some are going to say all or nothing.

Some are going to say heartbeat. Some are going to... I don't see a lot of states doing an outright ban.

I mean, I think there's one. Tennessee is pretty close. Heartbeat. Tennessee is going to be... Tennessee is going to be a heartbeat.

I think those are good, actually. I mean, look, I believe life starts at conception, but I also am practical in what's going to happen. It's not... It's going to... It returns to the states. We're waiting for Frank Mannion, who I believe is in court right now, and Will's telling me he must still be in court right now, because he was going to try to call us. Maybe he could step away and call us, but probably not, to find out what's going on in Kentucky.

All right. We'll take calls when we come back 800-684-3110. Rick Rinnell joining us next. Welcome back to Sekulow, we are joined by Rick Rinnell today on... We're shifting topics, and we've been talking a lot about life issues, we've talked a lot about- Google.

About Google. We're moving kind of forward today. We're joined by Rick. Rick, thanks. Yeah, why don't you stop for a moment. All right.

Rick, thanks for being with us. So Turkey agrees to lift its opposition to Sweden and Finland, so Sweden and Finland are going to join NATO, or at least the process is now well underway. What's your thought about where this is and what this means? Well, first of all, I think we have to remember that Turkey had a condition which was individuals who they find to be opposing their government need to be sent back from Finland and Sweden, certainly for prosecution. And so people need to understand what that means is that Turkey has said unequivocally, we want certain individuals back to prosecute. And in order to get into NATO, Finland and Sweden said, yes, sir, we will do that.

And that's very troublesome to me. Look, I've been very clear, we don't need to be adding countries to the umbrella, the security umbrella that American taxpayers pay for, because the current members aren't paying their obligations. Why are we allowing members who are not in good standing at NATO to vote for the American taxpayers to pay more and expand the safety net?

I just don't think we should be talking about expanding NATO when the current members aren't paying their bills. Rick, I want to go back to the comment you made, because I think it's very important, about the requirement or the condition of membership being sending individuals back for prosecution. You and I have personal experience with this because you worked very closely with us when you were the ambassador for the United States to Germany, and we had Andrew Brunson, an American citizen, in jail, and this is where people need to understand.

When they talk about prosecution, and Rick and I can attest to this, they're not playing games. I mean, this pastor of a small church was sentenced to multiple year prison terms for being an enemy of the state. We had a congregation, I think, of 35 people in Itzmir, and it took President Trump, Ambassador Grinnell, Secretary of State Pompeo, Jay Sekul, and the American Center for Law and Justice to get this over with, and they were still pushing us until the very end. Now, the President lowered the hammer with sanctions, and that sprung these people loose, but when you're talking about Finland being required and Sweden to send people back, Rick, that's a very... We know what that... You met Brunson at the airport when he flew in.

This is not going to Club Fed, as people like to call minimum security. These were real jails in Turkey for people that were engaged in speech activities. Look, first of all, I want to say very clearly, thank God for our ACLJ supporters for allowing ACLJ to fight the Pastor Brunson fight. Thank God for Jay Sekulow. Thank God for Donald Trump.

Those are really the two entities, the two individuals that really deserve all of the credit for this, but you're exactly right. We know the ways of Turkey. I'm very concerned about the individuals that will be sent back. We have very few reporters. I actually haven't even seen a single reporter talk about the individuals that are going to get sent back.

Jan Stoltenberg, the head of NATO, just did a press conference and celebrated the idea that Finland and Sweden are going to join because Turkey dropped their opposition, but the details are troublesome. Turkey only dropped their opposition if they can get individuals back to prosecute. We should not gloss over this.

This is something that's very concerning and more attention needs to be given to this. Let me ask this, Rick, because we had... I'm relating to this, the Andrew Brunson thing, because we had direct dealings with Turkey for so long. I was in the White House when calls were made.

I know what happened here. Turkey was a NATO member, true. They were on paper a NATO member, but they don't act like a NATO member and they're buying missile defense systems from Russia, clearly not part of NATO, the enemy of NATO. Turkey in and of itself has been very difficult as a partner and I wonder, and I don't know, there was talk that Erdogan was losing political grip and power, I don't really buy that, but I wanted to get your sense in that they've always been a very tepid partner at best. I think two things can be true. I think Turkey is very troublesome under Erdogan.

We're seeing signs of rolling back. Certainly their relations with Israel are not great. They've been very difficult on a lot of issues, but the second thing I want to be very clear, I'm somebody who believes that Turkey should be a part of NATO. They've been a member of NATO since 1949.

It's very important. They usually have been a very good member of NATO. It's important for this part of the world to have Turkey as a member of NATO. It's just under Erdogan we've seen some concerning rollbacks and I have to say though, Donald Trump was very direct and had the situation under control. Joe Biden does not, and so we've seen kind of a clap back from the Turks.

I will finish by this, Jay. All of the offices in Brussels at NATO will tell you that the Turks, the military Turkish individuals assigned to Brussels, assigned to NATO have been very good and helpful, that they're a part there. The problem is more in Ankara.

All right, so switching topics. Emmanuel Macron tells President Biden yesterday on a hot mic that the UAE and Saudis are at or near capacity on oil production right now. And he's about to go over there to talk to them about oil production and capacity while our gas prices continue to go up. Was that a, was that a, it's hard to read their minds, but they knew there were reporters around.

What do you think's going on here? Well first of all, to see Macron have to school Joe Biden and then, you know, really as he's talking, he's looking at Jake Sullivan the whole time. That would never happen under a Trump administration. When you're standing with the President of the United States, a head of state talking to a staffer, it would be very concerning to President Trump. But Joe Biden just stood there and really Macron had the tutorial and the finger wagging for Jake Sullivan and they both just looked like students of Macron. I have to say though, as US ambassador to Germany, I was struck by the Germans not being a part of that conversation at all. The French are really controlling what's happening. Macron is flexing his muscle.

I got to think that if that situation was going on and Chancellor Merkel was in power, she would have been right there making sure that Macron didn't get the full ear and the full attention of President Biden. You had Jake Sullivan actually say, how about we take this inside? He actually said that. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. Yeah.

So he actually said, how about we take this inside? Which tells you that, that number one, totally out of control, but out of control is something that really, Rick, and I got to say this, it's really impacting the American people. I know you're out talking to people like we are. It is really impacting the American people. If I said right now, open up the phone lines and said, our phone lines are open at 800-684-3110. How is this energy crisis and oil and gas prices affecting you? In fact, I'll do it right now. I'm opening up the phones, 800-684-3110.

How is the gas situation impacting you and your business? The phones are going to light up here in about 20 or 30 seconds. There's a little bit of a delay from when we broadcast.

Go ahead. I would say this is that I was pleased that this conversation was out in public because within the foreign policy world, we've seen very concerning signs. We've seen the trouble, but now that it's out in the open with Macron doing this publicly, I think the world is beginning to see that Joe Biden is not in charge. All right, last thing I wanted to talk about, and that is as it relates to now, the United States is negotiating not in Vienna, but now in Doha, Qatar with the Iranians, again, through intermediaries, Qatar being the intermediary or UAE. Was it UAE?

Yeah, it was UAE. What's your thought on that? I cannot even believe we're back at the table with the Iranians in any capacity.

I don't care how far away from the table you're sitting. Well, look, the Russians are the ones who are really leading this and pushing the Iranians and pushing everybody else to sit down and talk. You've got to think, you know, if you're the Emirati President, you just had to deal with the Houthis trying to bomb your country, which is directly to blame. The Iranians are directly to blame for that. But now they're being forced to sit down and have a discussion about this.

This is an upside down world. I've got to think that Joe Biden is going to get an earful from the Saudis on this issue. The Saudis know what the Iranians are up to. They know the terrorist organizations. They've had trouble with their own terrorist organizations within their borders.

They know that this is a complicated issue. They know countries can't look the other way. But also, I think the Russians would like some help in Syria, so they're pressuring the Iranians to do something more.

It's clear to me that the Russians are saying we can't do Syria and Ukraine. We need a little help here. We're overextended.

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. All right, Rick, we appreciate it. As always, by the way, as I predict, the phone started lighting up as soon as we said it.

This energy thing is a huge issue for the American people. It really is. Rick, thanks for being with us. Thanks for your insights and information. You know, folks, I keep saying this. We've got Rick Grenell, who's a member of the cabinet, director of national intelligence, former ambassador to Germany. Mike Pompeo, former secretary of state.

That's because of your support of the ACLJ. I just want to say thank you to all of them. Yeah, absolutely. We're going to take some of these calls in the next segment, and a couple lines still open 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110. We get back again. We're going to take as many calls as we can to wrap up today's show.

Again, if you want to be on the air, 1-800-684-3110, support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. We will also have some additional content available throughout the day. If you want to get that additional content, it's on all your favorite social media platforms, whether that's Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Truth.

We are everywhere. Rumble, obviously, we broadcast this show each and every day, put up great content. Our team puts together amazing content, and sometimes you may think it's just the hour. No, we put up great stuff all day long, seven days a week.

Make sure you're supporting the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. We'll be right back taking the calls. Welcome back to Sekulow. We're going to take some of your phone calls. We have one line open, 1-800-684-3110, if you want to get on the air.

I'm going to play something for fun. We did this little flashback. Let's put the American Lawyer back on the... This is to encourage you, the American Lawyer magazine back on our... People that are watching our social media platforms, to say we've been through this before on the state challenges on Roe and all of this, and it's the same players. Clarence Thomas is on that cover, Senator Joe Biden, now President Joe Biden's on that cover, and yours truly. We've been through this rodeo before, but I also mentioned to you that the case that served as a basis for the overturning of Roe, or one of the bases, was Bray versus Alexandria Women's Health Clinics, a case I argued in 1991, and again in 92.

My co-counsel representing the United States government, as the Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, was none other than John Roberts. He was on the same side as we were. I just asked our team to find the little audio. When I'm done with my segment, you'll hear...

This can only take 10 seconds, but a little trip down memory lane here. Mr. Chief Justice, I'd like to reserve the rest of my time for rebuttal. Very well, Mr. Sekulow. Mr. Roberts, we'll hear from you.

Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court. We do all sound a little different, I will say, 32 years later. Wes Smith is with us, and I wanted to get your comments. First on the NATO, we were having... Because we had a lot of calls we had to do. The NATO comment, we had a good conversation with Rick. He's very concerned... First of all, he thinks Turkey should still be part of NATO, but he's very concerned about this condition they put on about sending back these individuals for trial in Turkey that spoke out against the government. Yeah, that was the most troubling part of it for me, and we don't really know the details. That condition, this agreement they signed after a three-hour meeting with Turkey is pretty vague. We don't know all that's in it, but on the other hand- I can tell you a trial in Turkey will not be good for those people. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But you said there's a strategic reason for having Sweden and Finland in.

Yeah, there really is. At this point, we've got to worry about not provoking Vladimir Putin, but placating Vladimir Putin. And Finland, which has an 830-mile border with Russia, really feels the threat, but Finland has the largest and most modern military in Europe, and they just increased their military budget by 70% after the invasion in Ukraine, so they'll be at the 2% minimum. Sweden has promised to be there soon.

They're about at 1.5%. I think enlarging NATO now as opposed to waiting to one of these countries or one of the former Soviet republics gets invaded is a good thing, although there are concerns, and I understand Rick's point of view as well. Yeah, I think, look, we're giving you multiple points of view. You got a piece up, Wes, on aclj.org that says, President Biden's long list of self-inflicted wounds to his legacy and to the American people, and you said there's been this whole comment about flipping a switch.

Explain what you mean, what they're trying to say, and what you're actually proposing. Right, right. You know, the war on energy, the first shot in that war was fired from the Oval Office on his first day in office when he not only canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, but he put all these restrictions on any oil exploration or production on federal lands and waters. And so now what we are witnessing is literally the highest price in gasoline ever and the highest inflation in 40 years. And earlier this week, President Biden was talking about this, and he said, I cannot flip a switch to lower gas prices and the cost of food. And it did not begin with him flipping a switch. It began with his pen sitting at his desk in the Oval Office.

And so this article that's up on aclj.org is basically assessing his leadership style and some of the mistakes and missteps that he continues to make, and he makes them, Jay, apparently with not a lot of self-awareness. Well, that's what that's the American people as we're getting calls at eight hundred six eight four thirty one are showing. Let's go right to them. Yeah, let's just go in order.

They came in. Let's go to Agnes is calling on line one. You're on the air. Hi, Agnes.

Hello. Am I on the air? Yes, you are. Oh, OK. I was calling about Biden saying that it was a constitutional right to for women to have to do abortion and to do it even up to all nine months. But we had this thing has been in the news for over 40, 50 years. And there was a I think the first female justice forget her name, Justice O'Connor.

Yes. Look, I mean, here's the here's the issue the Supreme Court held that there is not a federal constitutional right to abortion. That was the holding. They said Roe is wrong and is reversed. Planned Parenthood and Casey versus Casey is wrong and is reversed. And there's no federal constitutional right to abortion. But it does return the issue of abortion to the states. So that's where the challenge will now be.

But I mean, said that and you really haven't had much of a chance to talk about this. That was a monumental decision, de-federalizing that constitutional purported constitutional right. That was a big deal.

Yeah. So many on the left said they really, really believe in democracy. But whenever we take this issue and we send it back to the state so that the people can vote with their elected representatives at the state level to decide this issue, suddenly the left, they're not so keen on democracy after all. This was a good decision. It was constitutional decision.

And it puts the issue back where it should have been all along for the last 50 years. All right. Let's keep going.

Let's go to Mary in Louisiana online, too. You're on the air. Hi.

Thank you for taking my call. You had asked about how gas prices are affecting people. And I just wanted to say, and I've been thinking this since day one, I'm a teacher and I have a master's degree and I have a stable income. I'm not affluent, of course, because teachers don't make a whole lot of money, but I mean, my income is steady. And I actually commute about half an hour to work every morning. So that's about an hour I'm on the road every day.

And I struggle with paying for gas. Now you're in Louisiana? Yes. Yes.

Yeah. What is it costing per gallon roughly? Is it about five? It's got almost to five. We actually just yesterday I noticed it went down to $3.97 at Sam's, which is usually a good price. That is crazy. We would have never said that was a good price before, but it is now.

Go ahead, Logan. I was going to say, my children have tutoring they go to and typically our tutor goes, especially during school year, goes like house to house, goes to people and does private tutoring. This year she actually rented out a space for the summer. So she didn't have to pay for gas prices to have people come to her. Isn't that something? So that just shows you these little things that you think of because it's not like that again. It's a very high paying position.

Just doing summer tutoring for kids who need it, but it's cheaper for her to rent out an office for the kids to go to and for the parents to have to pick up that bill, which understandably we're happy to do it, then to go place to place. That's the practical consequences of this. People literally are having to decide, okay, I need gas to drive to work, but if I go to work to make money to buy the gas, I won't have enough money to buy groceries for my family. We're in America.

This should not be the case. Let's take the last call. Last call. Betty on line three in North Dakota.

You're on the air. Yes, this is Betty and I don't understand the oil crisis because in Western North Dakota, you drive by pads that maybe have 20, 25 pumpers on them and none of them are pumping. Hardly anything is coming out of North Dakota and it's like our oil boom, which we had like in 2010 or whatever, it's done. Because the President has attacked the oil and gas production companies and by the way, that doesn't just mean Shell and Exxon, it's the independents and that's what you're talking about, Betty. And then he sends this nasty letter to the oil and gas company saying, hey, you got to produce more and they say, wait a minute, you just told us you're closing us down. And so if you're a small company, it's even harder because you know, you're not going to be in business.

You're not going to open up that well. We've got to get energy independence back. ACLJ Action is working on that, our 501c4 organization, so there'll be more about that in the days ahead. I think it's a great program today. We got to look back and folks, what we're giving you is hope. We're going to do fine.

We just got to keep persevering. Yeah, absolutely. You can support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. Not only support the work there, check out the amazing content that's put out. I know I say that a lot, but it's just true. There's incredible content, blogs and articles that are written every day. That's why I had Wes in here, but that go up video that goes up on our YouTube and our Rumble channels. You need to take a look at all of it and really see the content we're providing you.

All of it available at ACLJ.org. Talk to you tomorrow.