Celebrating Our Independence Fighting For Freedom

Happy Independence Day for the ACLJ.

Let's celebrate and defend our freedoms. We're still celebrating the tremendous victory in the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in the Dobbs case. And as I said, our case, Brave versus Alexandria, served as the basis for that, where the court held an opinion by Justice Scalia that opposition to abortion was not discrimination against women. Our media teams have been putting together multiple documentaries on the abortion industry, because you have to understand that it is, in fact, an industry. And we've got some very, very unique interviews that you're not going to have, really probably couldn't get again on some of these, that really shows what the abortion issue is.

Because as it goes to the states, we still have to educate people about what that means. Yeah, and there's still this big business there. And it is essentially the pro-abortion lobby going after this.

They've done actually four or five different documentaries on the life issue, some historical, some about the future. I do find it ironic that you have someone like Planned Parenthood who proclaims only 3% of what we do is abortion services. And now this weekend, you see they're closing nationwide. They're having to close because why? It may be 3% of the services provided, but it's certainly not 3% of the income they produce.

Yeah, that has been an interesting phenomenon, by the way. They talk about all these prenatal services they provide and breast cancer screenings they provide and ultrasounds and all of this. But when it comes to actually staying in business, once Roe was overturned, they immediately said, oh, the clinics are closing.

We have no business model that'll make this work. And our broadcast has never been about talking to talk. We've tried to continually make the broadcast more about something that even if you just tuned in for five minutes, from that five minutes, you can take something away that's different than talking heads on cable news or three-minute discussions. You know, one of the things we sat down at the beginning of the year, we always evaluate at night and we said to our team and we had a big meeting with our production team and our folks that are on our broadcast and said, when you speak, have something that you say that when it's over with, our listener says, I didn't realize that or that I've never thought about it that way.

And that's what we're trying to do each and every day in this broadcast. So we bring you our expert analysis. We bring you our expert team.

What you see is a really nice studio and cameras and lighting. What you don't see behind the screen is six or eight people managing this broadcast for an hour to get it on the air. And then another group of people that are helping put content together as well. And then the social media department that gets us out into bites so we can get it on social media platforms all over the country. Some of our pieces end up in the top 10 of Facebook shares.

I mean, we know that. Even with the difficulty we've had dealing with free speech with Facebook. And that tells us that we're, or what it shows is our ability to get a message out. And then you hear from Thann Bennett and we're taking direct action in Capitol Hill or Jeff Balaban, who's heading right back to our office in Jerusalem. So, you know, understand the scope and nature of what's happening. And we are in our matching challenge campaign. So this is where you come in. And I'm going to emphasize what Jordan said. This is only if you're able to do this.

If you're not in the financial position to do it, please don't. Pray for the ACLJ. Pray for our team. Encourage others. Side petitions. Share the broadcast. Engage on our social media. I know everybody can't afford it with the price of gas and food and fuel and everything else. But if you can, we really would appreciate your support for the ACLJ.

We're in a matching challenge month. Jordan's going to let you know how to do it, folks. Yeah. It's very easy to do. You go to ACLJ.org.

That's ACLJ.org. Right on the homepage there. You can do it on your phone. You can do it on your tablet. You can do it on your computer.

Very quick though. I mean, by the time we, again, we come back from this break, you could have easily made the donation. And you see, you'll see matching challenge or donate either one of those. Take you to the right page, put in your info, choose the amount you want to donate. You can also choose if you want to make it a recurring monthly donation. That will still be part of the match.

People ask that all the time, and that will be part of the match. So you go to ACLJ.org. This is a great time to support our work. As you said, we're grassroots. A $25 donation is a big deal for the ACLJ.

All right. Welcome back to Secular. We are joined now by Congresswoman Nancy Mace, South Carolina. And the Congresswoman, as we've been talking about these attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers, she serves as part of the government committee on oversight and reform, but specifically the subcommittee on civil rights and civil liberties.

And Congresswoman Mace, let me welcome you to Secular. But first say, you are calling on the subcommittee chair, Jamie Raskin, to hold hearings on this violence against pro-life pregnancy centers that we have seen, whether it's spray painted vandalism, whether it's fire bombing. We saw another attack last night in Michigan, which included vandalism. And you said so far, as we've heard, it's just been like silence from the Democrats on this issue involving attacks on the pro-life pregnancy centers.

Yeah. And we've had several hearings on right-wing violence, but none on left-wing violence. And I will tell you, having been in a few of these hearings and having the FBI come and testify, they don't categorize these groups like Jane's Revenge or Antifa. They aren't even keeping track of that as a category of violence within the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And I'm someone who's been attacked by extremists. My house was spray painted last summer.

I've had my car keyed. Having been a victim of political violence, we've got to look out for both sides of the aisle. And there've been over 40 attacks over the last couple of months of this kind of domestic extremism. And we ought to be having hearings about it. This should be equal opportunity to look at the kind of violence that we're seeing across the country. And then this week with the advent or oncoming potential Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court, we're seeing signs and threats of violence for people to act on those threats. And so this is something that's got to be nipped in the bud by both sides. And they got to do it. They need to do it immediately. Congresswoman, one of the things that I've been very concerned about here, and I've articulated this a couple of times, and you're right. When you add the churches to the list of places that've been attacked for pro-life positions, we're closer to 63.

In fact, three that just got added in the last couple of days. But what I've been very, very concerned about, very troubled by, frankly, is the lack of action by the United States Department of Justice, by the Attorney General Merrick Garland. Has anybody on the Hill hearing anything from the DOJ on any of this? Attorney General Merrick Garland No, we're not. It's been dead silence like on every other important issue and crisis of Joe Biden's own creation that we've seen over the last several months.

It's been very quiet. And that's not where we should be right now. We're seeing, you know, violence increased across the country over the last two years. And every city and every state has seen some sort of violence.

We're seeing shootings increase in my home state of South Carolina. And, you know, what are we doing about it? And how are we holding these people accountable? And it's churches, it's synagogues. I sat in on a briefing, security briefing two weeks ago for one of our local synagogues in Charleston. These are real issues facing real Americans, and they're not being addressed by this administration or this Department of Justice.

I mean, to me, it's ignoring, you know, Americans. Like, the pro-life pregnancy centers are so demonized, Congressman Mace, by the left. I feel like that's part of why this is a group, you know, in New York right now, three were fire-bombed.

And, you know, real vandalism, though, not just the spray painting. And at the same week as this Jane's Revenge group was putting out the message and claiming they're going to do this, also calling for riots in D.C. the night that Dobbs' decision comes out and the flyers are all over Washington. But, Congressman Mace, the night, the day that that was all occurring, they released a press release saying how they're going to try and shut down those pro-life pregnancy centers at the state level. We've seen them called horrendous names by some of your colleagues in Congress, calling them a miss and disinformation centers. So they're not being treated just like any other American's organization, lawful business, that is under attack.

No, and you've seen Jane's Revenge claim responsibility for over 15 of the attacks that we've seen and brag about it. You have a President, Joe Biden, who won't condemn protesters showing up on the lawns of our Supreme Court justices because of the impending Roe v. Wade decision, which, by the way, is illegal to do. And, you know, more or less encouraging that kind of protest. And so, you know, we aren't following the law like at all in any of this because they have a different perspective. And if women want to protect their baby or give their baby up for adoption or have family planning resources that doesn't kill their child, they ought to have access and safe access to those churches and faith-based communities who are providing those resources for those women.

They should be equally protected as anyone who's showing up at any other Planned Parenthood or whatever. And that's not what's happening. And that's only further causing division in this country. You know, you write in your letter to Jamie Raskin that the preservation of our democratic society demands that we take action to root out violence no matter where it occurs and whatever its motivation is. You say we must be united in our efforts to preserve our civil society and condemn all violence.

My question is this. We've had inaction by the Department of Justice. We've had no action by your colleagues in Congress.

And we don't even have local action by the local police departments. You've got an organization like you said, this Jane Revenge, which is calling for, quote, you said you'd riot. And crickets out of the Department of Justice on this. So I applaud you, we do, at the American Center for Law and Justice for taking the initiative to get this back front and center because you're right, this is violent extremism targeting a viewpoint, which is unconstitutional.

Your thoughts? Well, when Republicans get in the majority later this year, we've got to make sure that we have these hearings, that we subpoena folks when they don't show up, we hold them in contempt to get to the bottom of it and to bring our officials in the Department of Justice accountable for not addressing this issue. I want to know how they're going to address it, how they're going to protect our communities and keep them safe and keep women safe, no matter what their political viewpoints or their viewpoints are on life.

And so it's going to be incumbent upon us to do that moving forward and to hold ourselves and each other accountable for getting this administration and the DOJ to get them to do what they're supposed to be doing, which is follow the laws in this country that were created. I mean, it's like they love doing the hearings on domestic violent extremism. And I think that the only way that those become legitimate fully to the American people, as you've heard, you've sat through those hearings and there aren't legitimate concerns there. But when you ignore an entire half of that domestic violent extremism that comes out of the left, Congresswoman Mace, the American people don't take seriously the other side of the extremism either, which isn't good.

And so if you're not going to look at it as a holistic approach and it's going to be all partisan, then people ignore it. And that's not good for America. No, and it's both sides too. And you can have one side holding one accountable and then you ignore the left altogether. That is not what we should be doing in this country. And that's one of the reasons that we have so much division within our communities is how partisan this has been. And it's not been done in an equal way.

And I think that at the very minimum is the low bar, right? Is to hold everybody accountable. You break the law, you should be held accountable no matter what, no matter what your political perspective is.

And that's not what's happening in this country. And it's going to be coming upon Republican leadership and people like myself to move that ball forward and to do the right thing no matter what. Congresswoman, we appreciate the stand you're taking on this.

Thanks for being with us today. Very important. Please keep us engaged on this and informed. We're working on it too.

Thank you for your help. Thank you. That's Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina. I want to go to the phones 1-800-684-3110. We've got some calls coming into on the gun safety laws too. So let's go to Bob in Virginia on line one. Hey Bob. Hey Bob. This is Bob in Virginia.

I'm retired police officer. And one of the things in Virginia we have is this red flag law. And what is disturbing is it denies you due process. My question is, do you think these laws will be challenged in court?

Yes and I think it depends on the language. Some of the laws, Florida has, listen people talk about Florida as being you know this super red very conservative state. It has the red flag laws.

Yes it does. So you have to look at I think state by state. You know what does Virginia's red flag law look like? What is the, you say it doesn't have due process. I mean if it has no due process it wouldn't have upstand at all. So it must have some but does it have enough to to survive scrutiny in light of the fact that we've gotten yet another very clear opinion out of the Supreme Court.

I don't know how many times they're going to have to do it but they sure did it. But it's because there's they're all the anti-gun world is always trying to come up with a new way to keep you from being a legal law-abiding citizen with a firearm. You know that's their focus and every time they do that they are expanding the Supreme Court's interpretation of the second amendment.

You know it's interesting in this one Andy. But I do think there's going to be a lot of a lot of legal challenges to any of new legislation. There's going to have to be any legislation including red flag laws are going to be very specific and narrowly tailored is what the Supreme Court says. Yeah that's exactly what the court is saying. It's giving a very loud and clear warning six to three that when you draft these laws you don't have to give a good reason or just cause why you can why you have to exercise a constitutional right.

Whoever heard of that as a preface to the exercise of the Bill of Rights you have to show just cause or a good reason and then that's whether it is to carry a gun whether it is to have a speedy trial whether it is the right to speak on a street corner or sidewalk or to hand off leaflets you preface it by having to show good just cause and you give the public official the discretion to determine whether the cause is just enough. That's not the American way that's not what the framers said and the Supreme Court of the United States hammered down on that today. I will tell you like we're not like a lot of organizations in that we don't have you know we don't get a we get some and we're appreciative of everything we're not we don't get regularly 10 million dollar grants and million dollar grants that's very rare for us but it's because of people like you lots of people like you. Thank you without your support it doesn't happen and as we said we're in a matching challenge campaign.

Jordan's gonna let you know how to do it makes a big difference. It's very easy to do you go to aclj.org that's aclj.org you'll see matching challenge or donate either one of those take you to the right page so you go to aclj.org this is a great time to support our work as you said we're grassroots uh you know a $25 donation is a big deal for the aclj. Phone calls later on so give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. We're still talking about the border crisis but we're going to be shifting in this segment to talk a little bit more about obviously a historic week for life historic week as rows overturned but now as we expected it's going back to the states as the supreme court ruled and that is going to be 50 new battles. Literally in states that you know we initially people thought well the states that have kind of a pro-life majority are going to be fine and then the states that don't you got to work in but Frank Mann your senior counselor the aclj Frank you and I've been doing this work for you know I don't want to date us but let's say 40 years that's a good number we're thrilled with the decision in row but right there in Kentucky where your office is you've got a challenge there there's been one in Utah and Louisiana and in Utah and Louisiana the courts have issued temporary restraining orders not allowing the pro-life legislation to go in effect even after the Supreme Court decision. Yeah Jay and we're not shocked by that I guess and I don't hold out a whole lot of hope that the court in Kentucky will do anything different than the court in Louisiana and Utah. You know Kentucky is generally considered a very conservative place the Supreme Court justices are elected but in the past and they've never confronted an abortion issue directly because it was a federal matter until Friday so they we don't really have a track record but I have to say that as you know these cases are filed on the basis that the state constitution does protect the right to abortion even if the federal doesn't after dobs and and there is a significant amount of right to privacy case law in Kentucky already which is what the ACLU is banking on they've already sued they sued yesterday they've obviously been waiting for this because you know the filings that they they filed yesterday are you know they're from the ACLU national this isn't the local Kentucky ACLU.

Okay. Changing the name of the states you know and the case law that they're citing so they're ready to go. Frank I've said that a lot of this is going to ultimately come down to the state supreme courts so like take Kentucky for instance I don't know what the situation there is how does your court view these issues? I think I I'm not that optimistic with the state supreme court because of their long history of sort of mimicking what the supreme court has done with privacy and you know bodily integrity and all that sort of thing I could easily see them siding with with the ACLU on this but the good news in Kentucky is the issue is on the ballot in November. In November we already have a referendum which will decide whether or not there is a right to abortion in the Kentucky Constitution so in a sense the court matter here the litigation is a bit of a a sideshow because the voters are going to decide this in November and Kentucky voters historically have been extremely pro-life so I'm much more optimistic about winning there than I am about winning at the courts but we'll see. So you also have a very liberal governor in Kentucky a lot of our comments a lot of people from Kentucky that are listening so that does put a weird count about you think of Kentucky as a very conservative area you know elected officials you think would be representative but Kentucky is kind of one of those anomalies where it can kind of go go either way. But Frank we raised the point of the legislative initiative and ACLJ action our 501c4 is going is looking at these states because we came to the same conclusion that you're not going to just be able to rely on the state supreme courts here that it may take constitutional amendments in the state legislature to get through that the people actually vote on on these issues.

So what does the fight look like in your view here? I mean are we talking about 50 states probably or possibly? It's quite possible and yeah I mean this is exactly what what Dobbs said you know people are freaking out about it banned abortion well no it didn't it gave it back to the people that's what you know the conservatives on the supreme court have been saying for decades as you know this is a matter that should never have become a federal judicial matter it's a matter for the people to decide and people in places like Kentucky I suspect are going to decide in a very pro-life way other states would decide differently and you know that's the way it is. I will point out that Logan makes the point that we have a liberal governor but we have a very conservative attorney general who's completely at odds with the governor so he is vigorously defending this particular law I did with Cameron he also happens to be running for governor so you know we've already reached out to his office and told them you know contact us if you want to make his support anything else we can do but I am very confident that this law is going to get a top-notch legal defense from the attorney general's office you know sometimes attorney generals when faced with laws they don't like kind of put up a half half-hearted effort in defending these things but that's not going to happen here in Kentucky. Yeah like you said Laura on YouTube said Kentucky is a very liberal governor what is his role in this so what about the conflict between the governor Frank and the attorney general? Well it's interesting because our current governor used to be the attorney general right and when we had Matt Bevin as governor so those two went at it all the time and we're seeing sort of the reverse thing now with Bashir as governor and Cameron. Cameron is already announced and I'm sure they're in the process of filing today that they're going to vigorously defend this law so I don't have any doubts but yeah the governor doesn't have much to say about it at this point. So the ACLJ action just so everybody knows is looking at it legislatively constitutional amendments ACLJ is looking at it from a litigation standpoint Frank Mannion senior counsel with the ACLJ appreciate your comments on this but and being with us but I'll tell you this Logan this is exactly what we said was going to happen now it's happening quickly so but we we have been prepared too the decision the Supreme Court was great it returns it to the states and I think the fight's going to be in the states. Yeah and actually I'd be interested to hear from people who are more pro-choice in the fact that I feel like they're putting their money and their time in the wrong places you see people supporting Planned Parenthood you see people putting their time and protesting when really it's the Supreme Court decision it was what it was and now it's where litigation is going to take place it's where they're going to go to the courts to battle this out and inevitably go to the elections and upcoming elections when this happens so that is to me an interesting part of this I think people's natural reaction on either side is take to the streets and protest and donate to these organizations they really can do nothing even if you're a pro-choice person they can't do anything right now Supreme Court has ruled so now it takes it to the court and now it's going to get interesting I hope people get more educated on actually where they need to be putting their support. Well I think that's right and there's going to be a lot of there's a lot of talk right now but we and and people are trying to rush statements out and we're saying we have to do this thing very strategically very wise very smart you look at a state like Kentucky is a perfect example Republican AG Democratic Governor conservative legislature looks like a pretty liberal Supreme Court of Kentucky so then you got to look and say okay well we could go with that challenge up to the Supreme Court of Kentucky but also we may need something else legislatively and that's what that's where it's going to take real analysis and we've got teams of people working on this right now I mean literally teams of people in our office in Washington in our office in Kentucky around the country to deal with these precise issues so again I want to be clear that these are big issues we're prepared we're just being really strategic on how we engage us none of this happens without you and it's because of people like you lots of people like you that make a difference that was what we decided to do 35 or 40 years ago when we started that it was going to be more of a we now call grassroots model but it was really going to be supported by everyday citizens the people that wanted to protect religious freedom religious liberty and protect our freedom and liberty as American citizens and we have been blessed beyond anything we could imagine we have facilities that we can't even when I'm wearing these facilities I still can't believe we're in these facilities but that doesn't happen without you but I just wanted to stop and say thank you from all of us there's a lot of people working behind the scenes as you know in that we don't have a camera back there we should really get one and around this entire office in our offices around the globe thank you without your support it doesn't happen and as we said we're in a matching challenge campaign Jordan will let you know how to do it makes a big difference on how we can proceed ahead yeah it's it's very easy to do you go to aclj.org that's aclj.org around the home page there you can do your phone you can do your tablet you can do on your computer very quick though and you see you'll see matching challenge or donate either one of those take you to the right page put in your info choose the amount you want to donate you can also choose if you want to make it a recurring monthly donation that will still be part of the match people ask that all the time and that will be part of the match so you go to aclj.org this is a great time to support our work as you said we're grassroots uh you know a 25 donation is a big deal for the aclj at the american center for law and justice we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad for a limited time you can participate in the aclj's matching challenge for every dollar you donate it will be matched a ten dollar gift becomes twenty dollars a fifty dollar gift becomes one hundred you can make a difference in the work we do protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family give a gift today online at aclj.org keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is secular and now your host jordan secular now you know about the huge victory for life the overturning of rovers his way by the u.s supreme court big victory for religious liberty at the u.s supreme court that for the coach a case that took way too long a coach a high school football coach public school coach who after the game would go to part of the field and pray this became a constitutional crisis because of someone claimed that their student was an atheist or even that was questionable because it wasn't the family it was about the student but okay the student wasn't being asked to pray the student wasn't the coach didn't say you must pray and the student coach didn't use those terms like if you don't pray if you don't show up to this you're not playing next week or you're running laps nothing like that so the supreme court clearly in favor of the coach's free exercise of religion rights but also first amendment rights and i think that is getting pretty clear on where the court is when it comes to religious liberty involving at least uh young people so i know that some people in high school are starting to become adults at 18 but mostly they're looking at minors here yeah and it importantly i think for this is there was a legal test that was being applied for the establishment clause it was called the lemon test and it was a disaster it was this three-part test she had to determine what was the secular purpose was there entanglement and what the court has replaced it with is history and basically a coercion test if there's not coercion involved in other words if the coach were to say listen i'm going to do this prayer and if you participate in it you're going to play football next week if you don't participate i'm not going to let you play that would be unconstitutional but if the coach just wants to pray or if the students want to get me together and pray they have the right to do that and that's what the court said you can't use the mechanism of the government you're not going to let you use the pa system but you can the students can the entire stance could get up and say uh the lord's prayer which happened in santa fe in the case involving prayer football game but you could not use the mechanism of the state constitutional i'll tell you what i think would still not be constitutional a minister a rabbi priest coming in before at the graduation ceremony and offering an invocation now after the town of greece case it's a little bit suspect i think there may be some wiggle there but the court in this opinion did not indicate that that anything where you've got compelled attendance for students would be problematic but the court acknowledged that students themselves have the right to do that kind of activity for instance valedictorian of the class once give a speech and talk about their particular faith journey they're going to be allowed to do that under this test yeah that's right so again we're taking calls on that 1-800-684-3110 people still have questions honestly and i think fairly we're going to be answering a lot of those questions for for weeks on the um what it truly means now that over that row versus weight has been overturned and how that's going to impact your state so i mean you could go through literally 50 different broadcasts focusing on 50 different states we're going to be doing it as needed as your questions come in but we're also going to be focusing in aclj action and utilize the aclj's legal team on some states that are kind of right in the middle that need a little help they need a constitutional amendment at the state level they need to change some law so it's not just that they don't just have a trigger law in place and they're ready to go they need a little bit more work they've got the votes they've got the pro-life support of their their state but they've got to do a little bit more work and we're going to be involved in those states very directly firsthand whether through advertising lobbying through aclj action of course utilizing our legal team to put together those constitutional amendments that may need to be moved forward in your state but a lot of questions a lot of calls about that at 1-800-684-3110 this was interesting i think we can answer very quickly lori out of arizona online too hey lori hi thanks for taking my call um i want to ask you with royal wade being overturned does that mean that there will be no federal funding of planned parenthood no that's a different battle because planned parenthood technically can't use those funds to pay for abortions now it's an accounting gimmick because it frees up another dollar for them to use to pay for abortions i will tell you like we're not like a lot of organizations and that we don't have you know we don't get a we get some and we're appreciative of everything we're not we don't get regularly 10 million dollar grants and million dollar grants that's very rare for us but it's because of people like you lots of people like you thank you without your support it doesn't happen and as we said we're in a matching challenge campaign jordan's gonna let you know how to do it makes a big difference it's very easy to do you go to aclj.org that's aclj.org you'll see matching challenge or donate either one of those take you to the right page so you go to aclj.org this is a great time to support our work as you said we're grassroots uh you know a 25 donation is a big deal for the aclj all right welcome back as a secular we do want to update you on some of what's going on in the world too and of course we've had these major domestic court decisions which by the way put us in line especially roe versus wade with the rest of the world so we're not an outlier country when it comes to infanticide like north korea and china which we used to be in that group used to be the united states north korea and china that the federal national level had basically no restrictions on abortion we're no longer in that bad uh group if you will that club and we return now to really where most states and most of the restrictions we're talking about will be in line with where europe is including a lot of predominantly catholic countries including even latin america uh so again it puts us it's more mainstream for the united states actually instead of being this extreme uh country that is associated with the worst human rights abusers when it comes to the abortion issue but i want to go to rick crudell our senior advisor for foreign policy and national security because there's two big meetings one is the g7 again about economics but of course ukraine as well yeah these are big issues that are on the plate for the g7 obviously uh the ukrainians would like to see the g7 do a lot more um we clearly have seen the germans talk about doing some more but they haven't really it's it's been shocking how little europe has done led by the germans they did this phony thing where they said oh we're gonna put the ukrainians um into the application process to join the eu and then the germans quickly thereafter uh said we would like to have more power on who becomes members of the eu and therefore they will shut it down so they're playing a little games they're never going to let the ukrainians into the eu but they've announced that they get to at least fill out an application on the on the ukraine situation with regard to russia and the conflict we we talked before we went on with our military analyst colonel wes smith and wes said that you know ukraine is suffering some real damage right now i mean there were more attacks in kiv which has pretty been pretty quiet for the last four months how do you see that right now that whole situation you know vladimir putin is watching exactly what we're watching with the americans getting distracted with an abortion debate and a ruling and i think that there's no question that the russians and putin will amp up will go on the offense when they think that the west is distracted you've got a g7 meeting you've clearly the germans have sent a very loud message that they're not going to provide uh immediate weaponry to the ukrainians they're talking about doing it at the end of the summer they're talking about delivering tanks that they really uh the ukrainians didn't request so uh they see the distractions from the united states and from germany and the rest of the west and i think he's doubling down and going on the offense and then you know after the g7 we you know we move into nato uh the nato summit in uh spain and i know you talked already about this idea of playing like will ukraine become part of nato will it not become part of nato but honestly what i'm hearing rick which i think is something too that the united states and the american audience is hearing when we do cover this issue is that it's months and months and months in advance now it's like well in two months this will happen in maybe six months in like a never-ending war is basically what i'm getting to is it sounds like we're at least on a path for many more months of bloodshed no one is better at bureaucracy and slowing down the process than the europeans they love to talk about this and that's one of the frustrations i think that many americans and others are having is that there's a lot of talk but there's not a lot of action when it comes to nato um you know i'll just reiterate it again i just don't think that members of nato who aren't paying their two percent aren't paying the obligations that they signed up for those members should not be voting on expanding the membership of nato why are they getting to to a vote to expand the responsibilities of the defense um shield when they're not paying the current uh requirements and the current obligations that they have i just until every member of nato is paid up and doing their fair share i just don't think that we should be talking about expanding the alliance the other thing i wanted to move to rick is the situation with iran and there was talk over the weekend that the administration wants to get back into this dialogue with the iranians the russians have i think been kind of putting up a little bit of a kink in their wheel there so that the biden administration hasn't been able to move forward but it seems like that President biden and his team are committed to this idea of a deal with iran which is absurd to me but it seems like where it's going look uh foreign minister lavroff was just in tehran i think this is a sign that they're pressuring the iranians to move forward with the blessing of the russians they're going to try to jam the americans once again while the americans are distracted look the russians as you know jay they want some help in syria they want to get out they are fully responsible but they want to dial back they clearly are feeling overextended between ukraine and syria and so they're trying to get another country to take over their responsibility their role in syria they'd like the iranians to do it obviously that's not what the israelis or the americans want and i hope that the biden team is laser focused on making sure that no one takes advantage of us while uh we're being distracted at a high political level you know rick uh you just texted me but there was a lot of talk and i think you can answer it because people are wondering why President biden's uh ambassador to germany was not there when he arrived and people are speculating all this you've done some work on this to to be able to answer that question yeah unfortunately the u.s ambassadors of germany has tested positive for covet and she wasn't able to join the President i know she's got to be greatly disappointed that the President of the united states comes to germany she's not able to be there uh it's kind of one of those shining moments and a lot of work gets done between the germans and the americans if you have an ambassador that's kind of driving things forward so uh she was not able to be there and uh you know our hearts go out and i hope that she's going to be okay so rick i wanted to ask you i want to follow up on on a portion of that and that is you served as the u.s ambassador to germany germany is a power the most powerful economy in europe and give us a sense of what it was like dealing with the your counterparts and and the chancellor what was your sense of that i think it'd be very important for our audience to understand the nature of what goes on first of all on a personal level i loved chancellor marco she was very friendly very nice has a great sense of humor and we could talk pretty openly and casually and i enjoyed that but there's no question that the germans i believe and i articulated this very clearly moved away from the western alliance over the last 15 or 20 years they want an alliance without it being western facing they want to sell cars and all the capitals they want to be everybody's friend they want to be switzerland when it comes to foreign policy and one of the things that i tried to push and President trump tried to push is to say you don't get to do that you're you're germany americans have made lots of sacrifices for germany and we expect the germans to be western facing not some of the problem countries in in europe and so that relationship i think was always trying to be one of reminding the germans that they have responsibilities to the west and you know sometimes we had members of the german cabinet that were really supportive that encouraged me to be stronger and and more potent and then other times they would say no you know we want to just be europe and uh we're done with this kind of western alliance of picking fights i think the war in ukraine has changed them i think that there's a flipping of the policies and they realize that they have to be more western they haven't quite said donald trump was right but i hear it yeah a political question for you rick to finish up uh today and that is the democrats seem to be seizing on the row versus wade over being overturned as like they're saving grace for the midterm elections i i have my own thoughts on that but your your kind of reaction to that that that will somehow uh people will ignore inflation uh this foreign kind of insecurity uh for row versus wade well first of all i don't think anyone's going to ignore inflation or gas prices but to the extent that the democrats want to make abortion the issue republicans have an opportunity to make abortion the issue and show the world that the democrats are radical you look at other countries around the world and nobody wants late-term abortions it's very unpopular governor newsom here in california is making a move to enshrine it into the california constitution i've made it clear if he tries to do that we will fight him hard because i don't believe pro-choice californians want to see late-term abortions let's have that debate and i think that they lose this when we are able to talk about the issues and what they're trying to put forward let's be very clear with what they're trying to do rick as always we appreciate it both the the international insight the foreign policy insight and the political insight as always thanks ricks for uh for joining us and rick of course is part of our team at the aclj i will tell you like we're not like a lot of organizations and that we don't have you know we don't get a we get some and we're appreciative of everything we're not we don't get regularly 10 million dollar grants and million dollar grants that's very rare for us but it's because of people like you lots of people like you thank you without your support it doesn't happen and as we said we're in a matching challenge campaign jordan's gonna let you know how to do it makes a big difference it's very easy to do you go to aclj.org that's aclj.org you'll see matching challenge or donate either one of those take you to the right page so you go to aclj.org this is a great time to support our work as you said we're grassroots uh you know a $25 donation is a big deal for the aclj broadcast everyone taking your calls at 800-684-3110 we're going to go right to jerusalem where our leader of our jerusalem office jeff balaban is right now and jeff there's a lot in the news i i there's a lot to talk about let's kind of unpack it one at a time we just had a report for those that were watching on our social media platforms about what is going on with iran and their nuclear capabilities and this big concern that they have advanced significantly yet at the same time we're finding out that the united states is in these sort of talks with the iranians in dohar cutter about still trying to get into this iranian nuclear deal what are you hearing on the ground now that you're in jerusalem people are absolutely stymied they're trying to figure out and they're asking me as an american uh what on earth this administration can be thinking you know if you wanted to stabilize the middle east destroy all of america's interests side with brutal dictators over their people encourage massive global terror and ultimately give nuclear weapons to the enemies who declare that america is the great state and israel is the small state this is exactly what you would do so why are they doing it and that's what people are asking they're asking me for the answers they don't see the answers yeah so here's the question though of course the united states not doing these directly right jeff i mean this is the this is the subterfuge of all of this they're doing this through what do they call it you know intermediaries third-party governments um but why would you put i mean it makes no sense to me with all the progress that was made in the middle east with the abraham accords and so many other issues you and i were there for the embassy move uh from tel Aviv to Jerusalem these were historic moments and the middle east did not explode in fact to the contrary things got much better and much more stable but now you got you give iran this kind of rope and then you have saudi arabia who now has relations with israel jordan egypt uae a lot of the other gulf states are saying iran with the nuclear weapon will wreck havoc in the region and will be deadly literally and they are the largest state sponsor of terror look okay i don't want to play amateur psychologist here but all i can think of is and this is what i'm telling people to ask is this is consistent not with america's interests but with the left's utopian vision of themselves as masters of the universe it's the same thing as pretended they're going to change the climate and defeat a virus and you know they're it seems to be their ideas wouldn't it be great and demonstrate how godlike we are if we could rehabilitate the muslim brotherhood and the mullahs in iran and the palestinian authority and make them not terrorists but peaceful statesmen and we're going to solve the world okay that's great except what it actually causes in real life is massive destruction bloodshed death and it destroys america's interests as well as any of our allies and you're right jay we just saw spectacular success with the abraham accords and yet they seem to want to walk exactly in the opposite direction so you got this shift going on you had the previous talks with the iranians were mostly done by the europeans and russia as an intermarry go figure that one out and now uh and those were in vienna now they're using cutter as the intermediary how dangerous do you think this is jeff i think it's it's on a road to disaster exceptionally dangerous look and i said this the last go-around when the obama biden administration was moving in this direction you know forget about the nuclear warheads for a second the fact that iran already has intercontinental ballistic missiles icbm they don't need them to reach israel they can use them to reach chicago and we need to recognize that iran openly states its desire for our destruction all the time and we have more and more evidence thanks to israel by the way thanks to israel and their and their missions their dangerous missions to reveal what iran actually how they've been cheating etc we have evidence of how much they've been lying and cheating throughout so why do we want to go back in there again yesterday it is dangerous and besides the ultimate danger for us in america of course this means massive increase of funding of terror and destabilization especially in the middle east but often around the world all right so i want to go to the domestic situation politically in israel because obviously big news last week with um the government falling so to speak what is the latest development there maybe we need to actually explain to people how the government works i think that is real because i think that we hear the headlines and look sometimes i'm confused so maybe we need to break it down a little bit because we're so used to american politics it's not a constitutional republic uh in in israel jeff so i think it's logan actually is right let's start from the beginning here and describe this coal it's more like the british system this coalition government how does it work so here you don't vote for like the two major parties and you don't have direct elections for a party there are numerous parties and people vote for numerous parties and then the parties have to see based on how many mandates or seats they have to be in the knesset and the parliament try to group together to get a majority of 61 okay and that's where the fun begins because the coalition building is then becomes a lot of horse trading for me it always resembled the most in american politics what uh the appropriations committee looks like where the democrat republican matter is a lot less than deal making and so it's the ultimate deal making and for the first time the last government or this present government was formed and then the government was formed by a couple of groups on the right breaking in in completely new direction and actually forming a government with arab parties now there have often been arab members of of parliament that's not a surprise in israel but these are parties that are not pro-israel parties these are parties that actually side openly with hamas a terror group muslim brotherhood parties and so it was a shocker when supposedly extreme right-wing zionist parties formed the government with them and people thought it wouldn't last and for a year it lasted with a lot of tension and then it looked like things were beginning to collapse and bb netanyahu who has been the opposition leader because he couldn't form a majority government last time uh looks like he was gaining power because the right was realigning saying they don't like the current situation we know that it could fall like on a moment's notice right i mean it could just literally fall apart which it did because some of the coalition partners pulled out where is it now there's a lot of talk that netanyahu may be coming back and trying to put his own coalition together does that look realistic or not so realistic right now what does it look like you're there it looks it looks highly realistic a lot of the schisms existed among the rights which is to say that the national religious parties the zionist parties the secular zionist the the pro-israel parties i guess we would call it even though a lot of the other side here may call themselves pro-israel they uh they don't like what they've seen in the last year they think certain red lines were crossed and so even though some of them may have issues with bb netanyahu's dominance and he's been a major dom the major dominant political figure for decades it seems they may be aligning and that's the hope and that's actually but it's by no means clear that that will happen because there are a lot of personality issues and there are a lot of uh personal political futures at stake so it's it's a race against time to see if bb netanyahu can put together a coalition of majority and that's actually why the current government are the one who called for this government to stop so that they have a chance to quickly re-establish it and not allow bb to have a little more time to call for the government to end so that he could have already established this coalition people are on the right generally are hopeful that bb will be able to pull it together again but it is by no means when do you think we'll know oh i don't think we'll know for for quite a while uh i look i wouldn't be shocked and that's also what i'm talking to people here including i talk to some of the best well-known uh political analysts uh on both sides of the political spectrum and they are up in the air with this it could happen anytime it could happen quickly or it can drag out possibly for a month three or four months your support of the aclj makes a huge difference any amount you donate to the aclj this month we get a matching gift which means as we've said before if you donate twenty dollars we get 40 you donate 100 we get 200 we encourage you to do it yeah and as you said you know i think the overturning of row obviously was a massive victory that a lot of us never thought we'd see nope in our lifetime however what that does is open up likely 50 plus actually territories all that 50 plus cases uh that could happen and that will be part of in each individual states even in pro-life states yes oh absolutely because there's always you know a lot of these states for synodiles as it can go either way yep all right again support the work of the aclj we are part of our matching challenge right now be a part of it at aclj.org any donation made is effectively doubled by a member who is ready to match your funds