UNDER PRESSURE: Biden Administration Scrambling

Today on Sekulow, the Palestinians threaten the U.S. and Israel ahead of Joe Biden's visit. We'll also be joined by Senator Marsha Blackburn and Senator Ted Cruz. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Hey, welcome to Sekulow.

We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. We got a packed first half hour of the broadcast. Joining us the next segment of the broadcast, Senator Ted Cruz, then Senator Marsha Blackburn. Of course, you've got Joe Biden going overseas. We're going to be talking about some of that and this threat by the Palestinians. Let me tell you something, folks. We put this in our chat yesterday.

We were preparing the show today. Anytime a Palestinian, weak Palestinian, old Palestinian leader who has stolen so much money from his own people, foreign aid, at this point in his life decides he's still going to threaten the United States and Israel if they don't get their way. The Palestinian Authority we're talking about specifically says the West Bank governing authority, that they are going to take some actions against the United States and Israel. The only time they would ever do that is when they knew they could say it to a President who's so weak, even if they don't take any actions, they can puff their chest out and act tough to the United States of America because our President and this current administration is seen as so weak worldwide. We saw that at NATO. We saw that at the European summits.

Now we're seeing it already play out in the Middle East before he's gotten there. Well, you got a list of demands. I mean, you got the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the PLO that is only stays in power only because the Israeli security forces allow it to happen. Because if the Israeli security forces were to withdraw, which is one of the things that Mahmoud Abbas says, he will cancel the security agreement, he would be out of power because Hamas would take over just like they did in Gaza. Here's what they want. They want to shut down the, they want to reopen the U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem. That was because we moved the embassy to Jerusalem, which serves all Israelis, but that's not good enough. So they want that reopening of this U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem. They want the reopening of the PLO representation in Washington. They had an office like a diplomatic outpost and they want the removal of the PLO from Congress's list of terror organizations. These are the demands from Mahmoud Abbas to the President of the United States as he's about to meet with them. So this is, look, there's been a total reshaping of the Middle East and here's the problem. Rather than building up on the Abraham Accords, which changed the whole dynamic, what you have happening is President Biden's going back to failed policies again. Don't placate the PLO.

It has never worked. They are a terrorist organization. They are only their limited power is only there because of Israeli security. And they, oh, by the way, and the PLO is saying, if all these things don't happen, they're going to remove the Israeli security pact agreement.

Like, and as I said, they'll last about 15 minutes when that happens. Yeah, exactly right. I mean, so we're going to take your calls through your thoughts, but we're going to talk about this with Senator Cruz. We're also going to talk about the border. We're going to talk about the President meeting, President Biden meeting with the President of Mexico today on that. So of course, it's a Senator from Texas.

You don't want to miss that out. And of course, the economic issues as well. In the second half hour of the broadcast, we'll have the live report from our director of ACLJ Jerusalem on this upcoming visit by President Biden, not just to Israel or the Palestinian territories, but also to Saudi Arabia as well. Let me remind you, you know, we talk about the two US Senators coming on right away in the broadcast, back to back, and we have our office in Jerusalem. This is all because your support of the ACLJ, that we're able to be involved in all of these issues, economic issues, national security issues, issues involving Israel, issues involving our border. We're able to always expand and continue to expand our expertise and work because of your financial support of the ACLJ.

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If you're financially able to do it right now, it's a great time to support the work as you double the impact. Be right back with Senator Ted Cruz. All right, welcome back to Secio. We're about to be joined by Senator Ted Cruz, and we'll talk about a lot of these issues we just talked about in the first few minutes of the broadcast. Right away, of course, what's making the most news, of course, is President Biden heading overseas to visit the Israeli leaders, which is in flux, an interesting point there because it's kind of an interim prime minister in Israel, Lapid. But then the big me, the me is getting a lot of attention because he called, said he was going to make them a pariah state and punish the Saudis. Now he's going to Saudi Arabia in the middle of an oil and gas crisis, an energy crisis in the U.S., trying to say it's everything, it's about everything but oil and gas.

Right. It's about security, it's about this. I get that there's other issues they got to talk about, but securing your energy supply is actually your top, one of your top national security issues for any country. And so I think, again, there's going to be a lot of eyes on, does he have the one-on-one with Mohammed bin Salman? Do they show that with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia? Is it a group meeting?

I mean, you know, what do we actually see visually? Because the criticism of President of President Biden is very high right now inside the Democrat party. It sure is. I mean, they're using, and I think that's to try and distance themselves as much as possible from his policies leading into, or him in general, leading into the midterms. So they're acting like we're going to replace this guy, don't worry about him, elect us, we'll find a new President. Reminds me very much of when Jimmy Carter was running for reelection and Ted Kennedy ended up running against him and almost beat him in the primaries because the country was in a very bad state politically and economically too, honestly.

And I think that the reality was that it's a very similar feeling and sentiment. I mean, here he's going to turn Saudi Arabia into a pariah state. Instead, he's going over begging for oil. We were energy independent 19 months ago.

We're totally energy dependent now. We've got the highest inflation in the world, one of the highest inflation points in the world. And I just think that we've got to realize that the fact is that we're in a very dangerous spot right now politically, economically. And then you got Mahmoud Abbas's statements, which tells me that the rest of the world recognizes how weak we are or how weak they perceive us to be. That Mahmoud Abbas could start issuing demands. Then you've got the crisis on the border.

So put it all together and what do you have? A disaster. Now, let me tell you what we're doing at the ACLJ, because I think this is important for people to understand. So on these issues, like in the Middle East, we have an office in Jerusalem.

In fact, as Jordan said, later in the broadcast, you're going to hear from Jeff Balaban. He's our director. He runs the office in Jerusalem, in the heart of Jerusalem too. And so we're influencing policy right where the policy is developing, and that is in Israel. So we work in Judea and Samaria.

We work throughout Israel. So you've got that aspect of the work of the ACLJ. Our government affairs team has been working on multiple issues, whether it's the codification issue of Roe versus Wade that we talked about yesterday, or if it's border security.

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Yeah, I want to play, this is from Jake Sullivan. They're proud of the Biden administration. I want to put this into context, because leading up to this trip, President Biden is saying, President Abbas is saying about President Biden, if you don't do what we want, we're going to take actions against the United States. But yet the Biden administration is saying all the great things they've done for the Palestinians. By the way, the Palestinians are not acknowledging, as usual, bite 16. We've reestablished diplomatic ties with the Palestinians that had basically severed under our predecessor. Working with Congress, we've restored approximately $500 million in support for Palestinians. And we've reaffirmed unequivocal U.S. support for a two-state solution, which had come into question over the previous four years.

And under President Biden's leadership, we helped end a war in Gaza, which easily could have lasted months, in just 11 days. Well, I mean, what policies are they talking about? And the policies that the Palestinians care about either. I think that's a big part of the problem.

They're so out of touch with what's really going on that their statements are not even accurate as to what is taking place on the ground right now. I want to focus for a moment. I want your calls on this. We've got a situation right now where, and you're feeling this at the pump, you're feeling this in the food costs, that these policies are having a direct economic impact on you, on us, everybody. I want to know how that's impacting you.

1-800-684-3110, that's 800-684-3110. And for those of you that are concerned about the situation in the Middle East, which impacts oil, I mean, look, the Iranians are preparing to put drones into the hands of the Russian army. And Jake Sullivan says, and that's not going to affect our negotiations for an Iranian nuclear deal. I mean, that's literally what they're saying. Take a listen to this bite.

Is this the Jake Sullivan bite? Yeah, here it is about the drones. The Iranian government is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred UAVs, including weapons-capable UAVs.

Initial training session slated to begin as soon as early July. This is just one example of how Russia is looking to countries like Iran for capabilities. Yeah, and then John Kirby, do we have that bite? Now listen to what John Kirby, this is the spokesperson. John Kirby, Admiral Kirby works in the White House. You just heard what Jake Sullivan said. They're giving drones, armed drones, from the Iranians to the Russians.

Here's what Admiral Kirby says. How is this going to affect efforts by the U.S. to potentially revive a nuclear deal with Iran? Well, I don't know that this necessarily has any effect on our efforts to try to get a nuclear deal with Iran. It certainly is going to affect our efforts to continue to support Ukraine. We have to see exactly how the Russians move forward here with the Iranians on these UAVs and what they get, how many, and how they use them. So we're watching that closely. You realize what he said? It's not going to affect, this doesn't necessarily have an effect on our efforts to try to get a nuclear deal with Iran.

Really? Well, what does have an effect on getting the nuclear deal with Iran? By the way, by the time they get the deal, the Iranians will probably have very close to nuclear capability.

So that's what's the fallacy of all this, Jordan. Yeah, I think, again, when you go to this whole issue of where they are looking at that, you know, Iranian drones being sent to the Russians, oh, we're just going to pay attention. We're going to watch that. We're going to pay attention to see how many they use and we'll watch it very closely. What it shows to me is that the Iranian military is that much in sync, that much in sync with the Russian military to where they can easily transfer this kind of technology. And you remember we talked about that with the beginning of the war in Ukraine and Russia was that Ukraine and the issue was Ukraine was not really trained on a lot of US systems. So it didn't matter if we could send them a bunch of US systems, we'd have to train them. So their immediate need was actually Soviet era systems and Russian made systems. That's what they knew how to use.

They didn't know how to use. But if the Iranians can send drones to Russia and they can use them, that means that they are in sync. So the question is, are Russia, Iran, and China in sync? Okay, so we've got Senator Cruz is joining us.

I know he's in a hearing. Senator Cruz, let me just ask you right off the bat, we've got President Biden heading to the Middle East. What do you think is going to come out of this? Well, I assume he is going to grovel and beg the Saudis to produce more oil. And it's because the White House has realized they've got a political problem. They spent a year and a half attacking US energy production.

They spent a year and a half driving up gas prices and suddenly they discovered with an election coming up in November that people don't like paying five, six, seven dollars a gallon for gas. And so the President is reduced to begging the Saudis. He's also begging the Iranians and he's begging the Venezuelans to produce more gas. He wants everyone to produce gas and oil and gas on planet Earth, except for Americans producing American jobs. You know, another issue, Senator, that is obviously very significant is that the economy, the Americans are really hurting right now.

It's not just the cost of gas, it's cost of food, it's cost of fuel, it's the cost of living. And it seems like we're going, I feel like we're in the Jimmy Carter days again. That's where it's a flashback for me.

Well, you're exactly right. And, you know, there's an old saying that history doesn't repeat, but sometimes it rhymes. And the parallels between Biden and Carter are staggering. You and I are both old enough to remember double digit inflation, to remember rising unemployment, to remember gas lines going around the block, to remember our hostages languishing in Iran for 444 days while a weak and impotent President wrung his hands. And the encouraging thing about that analogy, because on every front, Biden is following the same pattern, but doing it worse. And the encouraging thing is it took Jimmy Carter to give us Ronald Reagan. And I think Joe Biden is setting up what is going to be a tidal wave victory for Republicans in November of 22. And I think he's setting up for a tidal wave victory for Republicans at 24 as well. You know, Senator, we appreciate you jumping on.

I know you had a busy day. You just came out of a committee here and we're hitting a hard break, but I appreciate your time with us. Folks, again, you're hearing from the people that are making the policy decisions right here in this broadcast. Yeah, in the middle of the policy decisions while they're being made. So appreciate Senator Cruz joining us. Senator Blackburn is going to be joining us the next segment of the broadcast. And again, get your calls started to come in 1-800-68-431-10. President Biden's trip to the Middle East. Your thoughts on that.

Your thoughts on, again, his meeting with President Mexico as well. 1-800-68-431-10 to talk to us tonight. We'll be right back.

All right, welcome back to Secular. We're joined now by Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Senator Blackburn, I want to go first to something about that. It's really shocking, actually, this even occurred that the President sold his report, one million barrels of oil from the nation's strategic reserve to a Chinese gas giant linked to Hunter Biden. And you said it's a China first policy instead of America first policy. And it's like as if Hunter Biden is negotiating these deals at a time when Americans are still being punished at the pump. Why on earth are we sending a million dollars worth of a million barrels of oil from our strategic reserve, Senator Blackburn, to China? Well, it is a good question.

Why would they do this? Because when you are filling up your car and you are paying near $5 a gallon for gas, you're looking at what Joe Biden has done. And he hasn't done anything that gets down the price at the pump. Not one not one thing is lowering the cost of a gallon of gas at the pump.

So you have to ask, is this being done for Hunter Biden? Why are we sending part of our strategic petroleum reserve over to the Chinese? You know, we're drawing this thing down at the rate of about a million barrels a day for no other reason than we will not produce this domestically. Joe Biden continues to say, oh, I'm going to go see Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and I'm trying to do a new Iran deal because I need to get more fuel here. Well, how about a Houston solution and going to Houston, Texas, and talking to the oil companies? Go down to Louisiana, talk to some independents, talk to some wildcatters, talk to people that are actually working in the oil and gas industry. You know what's so ironic, Senator, is that 19 months ago we were energy independent. Now we're totally energy dependent. Then the President sends this letter to the petroleum and oil and gas companies saying, hey, you've got to produce more oil and gas. You've got to pump more.

And at the same time, I want to know how much money you made last year and the year before. And the policy of the administration is basically to put these fossil fuel developers out of business in the next three to five years. So the message they're sending is a message of unbelievable hostility and they still refuse to own the fact that it's their policies that have created this mess. It is totally their policies and this is chaos that they have made.

You know what, you look at this White House, Jay, and you want to say, I've never seen such an inept group of people. But then you realize what they're doing is intentional. And they have intentionally caused this inflation spike. And they're very insensitive to the American people about this. They have intentionally caused this hike in gas. They've said for years, $5 a gallon gas wouldn't bother them because you would use less. And they all believe in climate change as their religion. They feel like that the way to practice this religious fervor they have is to implement the Green New Deal and force everybody out of oil and gas and gas powered vehicles rather than having some common sense and saying, you know what, we need an all of the above energy policy.

We need some of everything. And whether it's coal, if it's coal, it needs to be clean coal. If it is oil, there are clean processes.

If it is natural gas, which by the way is one of the cleanest burning fuels that there is, you want to make certain that we are taking good care of our natural resources in our environment. Now there's a way to do that, but they don't want that because they're into punishing people. And they're all interested in the government having control over your life 24 seven. That's the other point too, this idea of that this is intentional.

I want to go back to this. We've said this a lot on the broadcast, Senator Blackburn, that they act inept. And a lot of people will say, ah, and if you look at the polling, even it's, I don't like the job that they're doing. I don't like what they're doing. And yet they, you truly believe what I believe, which is that this is intentional. This is an intentional pain on the American people. I do think that it could, it should politically backfire come November and even in future elections. But the idea that we are going to punish the American people to ultimately get to, um, you know, electric cars and, and, and, and which again, our grid could not even put up with right now.

Well, no, you're correct about that. Our grid could not support an all electric feet fleet. And when you talk to our electric power generators and also our distributors, they will each tell you they're at least 10 to 15 years away from having the infrastructure necessary to support it. And right now they can't get the towers and the, uh, the boosters, everything they need to even repair existing grid.

And that's because of supply chain issues. Now had Joe Biden not declared war on the oil and gas industry, which he did when he was campaigning, which he did day one by eliminating the Keystone pipeline, then taking Alaska offline offshore drilling was taken offline, ended fracking, uh, no new leases, no new drill permits. Then you look at the compilation of all of that and you say, yeah, the Keystone pipeline could have been finished. It would have been finished this fall.

We would be a couple of months away from Keystone being finished. That would be 830,000 barrels coming in per day. Right now, we are releasing a million a day from the SPR.

The SPR only holds 750 million barrels. We're at the lowest level since 1983, and we're drawing it down and we're sending it to people that are not our friends. China is building up their reserves. They're buying everything brush has got right now.

And then we send them a million barrels of oil. This is outrageous, outrageous. Not one thing this administration has done gets the price down at the pump. Let me ask you one last question. We've got about a minute and a half left Senator, and that is the codification of Roe versus Wade on a federal level. Big decision out of the Supreme Court of the United States, the right decision. Uh, but now there's this talk of this codification to federalize an abortion right statutorily. What is the status and how do you think this goes in the Senate? Yeah, you know, I just finished in the hearing that is going on in Judiciary Committee right now. And what we know is that what the left is pushing, whether it's the Berkeley professor, the lieutenant governor of Illinois or the legal counsel for Planned Parenthood, what they are pushing is late term abortion.

It goes much further than Roe. And we also know that what they would do is continue to use taxpayer money to push this late term abortion. Most of the American people are opposed to that.

There are greater numbers of the American people that want their legislators to make this decision, rather than Congress or rather than the court. Senator Blackburn, as always, we appreciate you joining us on Sekulow. So much great insight both on what's going on internationally, what's going on with our oil, what's going on domestically here with Roe versus Wade, a champion for life, and a great friend of ours at the ACLJ, Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Thank you for joining us. Second half hour coming up, folks.

You can be part of the show. Give us a call, 1-800-684-3110, Joe Biden's trip to the Middle East. I think it'll be a success.

I think it'll be a failure. It's a pretty simple question. It's not a wrong answer. 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Keep you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Hey, welcome back to Sekulow. We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. So we're joined by Senator Cruz, Senator Blackburn. We talk, of course, about President Biden tomorrow. He's heading to the Middle East. That's important to us. The ACLJ, we know that's important to you as an ACLJ supporter or a Sekulow listener. And that's because, of course, the first visit he's making is to Israel.

Now they're in a bit of a flux. We're going to be joined by Jeff Balbon, who directs our ACLJ Jerusalem office with a live report from Israel on this trip tomorrow by President Biden. He'll be meeting with the current interim prime minister of Israel, Prime Minister Lapid. Remember, the current government has fallen in Israel, so that's an interesting time to be there with the US's ally. And you're always wondering what Biden might announce, what he might announce about a Palestinian consulate, which has basically been reopened, but not officially. And it's on one of the Palestinian demand lists. It's at a time when the head of the Palestinian Authority sees us as so weak.

Think about this. And then imagine how the Saudis are going to utilize that relationship. Palestinian Authority, not very strong on its own, like we talked about on the show, but they have made a demand. And they've said that if Joe Biden's visit fails to meet the demands of the Palestinians, we will take decisions or actions against Israel and the United States. They demand the removal of the PLO from the congressional list of terror organizations, which by the way, President Biden can't do. That's the congressional list of terror organizations. The reopening of the PLO office in Washington.

I mean, any of those things though could be potentially done by President Biden. And I think that's why you have to watch very carefully what we might be giving back to the Palestinians because of their threats. Have you heard much from Hamas? Have you heard much from the Palestinian Authority? Yes, there's been some stabbing attacks.

Yes, they've increased some of those small, smaller scale attacks. They did get a gun in in one of the attacks. But the truth is that these governments are at a very weak point right now because of the Abraham Accords.

They've been isolated in the world. But it'll be Biden, let me guarantee you. I mean, I'm asking you that question, 1-800-684-3212, but I think Joe Biden's going to roll out the red carpet for the Palestinians on this visit. And he's going to meet, I don't know if he can meet all their demands because some, the executive branch can't do alone, but others, he can. And so I get very concerned when you got a very weak President and very liberal advisors who would love to please the Palestinians.

Well, here's the problem. And you said it exactly correct. We've gone from a situation where we had a total reshaping of the Middle East. You had countries in cooperation with Israel that you never would imagine, including Saudi Arabia, including the Gulf States, Jordan, Egypt. And they recognized that the Palestinian situation, which never changes because the leadership will never let it change, their goal is always to do the same thing and that is harm the Palestinian people. So now they put these threats in place to the United States saying, hey, if you don't do this, you know what's going to happen here? We're not going to, they're not going to have a security agreement with Israel.

Now here's the problem. If the Palestinian Authority got rid of the security agreement with Israel, let me tell you what happens. Palestinian Authority lasts about, you know, a couple of days because Hamas would take over. Now Mahmoud Abbas knows this. Now the question is, does President Biden understand this? Does the administration understand this?

And why are they not building up on the Abraham Accords? Coming up in the next segment of the broadcast, you're going to hear from Jeff Balaban, our Senior Counsel in our office in Jerusalem. You're going to get a live report from Jerusalem.

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You're part of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. Back with more in a minute. Welcome back to Sekulow. So it's been a trip that's been on the calendar, off the calendar, discussed a lot. Not so much the part about, by the way, should President Biden President Biden visit Israel. It's what's going to happen in Saudi Arabia later. But he is visiting Israel at a time when the government fell. So you've got kind of this interim prime minister and talk of potential more elections.

So you've got those issues. You've got Palestinian demands, demands from the Palestinian Authority. So this is not Hamas, but from the West Bank Palestinian Authority, saying if you don't do what we say, Joe Biden and the US, we are going to take these actions against Israel. We're going to take actions against the United States. By the way, that alone only happens when you have a very weak US administration, a very weak US administration with an old man in the Palestinian Authority who has stolen so much money from his own people, is willing to make a threat like that against you instead of just kind of sail off into the sunset, if you will. But no, he's continuing those demands. And then of course you have the later on the meetings with how will Joe Biden botch the Abraham Accords is the bigger question.

Well they're certainly not building upon it. Because he certainly didn't help that when he was saying when makes Saudi Arabia pariah a state. They're now working more closely. I think you can now travel between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Riyadh to Jerusalem directly. So all this historic positive work is happening for peace. Take the politics out of it for peace for the average folks who live there, for everyday people. And yet they won't even acknowledge that. Jeff Balbon is the Senior Counsel for the ACLJ in our office in Jerusalem.

He's there now. And Jeff, there's a poll and you sent this that a majority of the Israelis don't trust Joe Biden, the administration on the critical issues. You've got a situation, as Jordan said, where the government of Israel right now is not stable because it's basically the coalition fell apart.

Give us your assessment. You're on the ground there, both of what's expected on this trip and the kind of Israeli sentiment. Well, Israeli sentiment reflects a lot of what you've said now on the show, which is a sense of bewilderment at what Joe Biden and this administration may think they're doing here. I mean, what Jordan just pointed out, you have Mahmoud Abbas, who's basically an unabashed terrorist who seems to demand only the right to murder innocents constantly, has now threatened in the most obnoxious terms, the President of the United States. What self-respecting President of the United States would give him a visit, let alone come here and to all appearances, throw open the doors, create new diplomatic links with a continued terrorist organization that has refused to really make any kind of peace come to the table in any serious way. So Israelis are literally perplexed and I'm getting calls nonstop to try to explain this American administration because they're saying, even if Biden doesn't like Israel and we don't know if he likes Israel or not, doesn't he care for America?

Doesn't he care for America's interests? It's extraordinary that Abbas feels empowered to be this obnoxious and yet Joe Biden seems to be going. And by the way, Jay, that poll was, I think it was 80% of Israelis or more did not trust Joe Biden to have Israel's interests at heart. You know, what's interesting to me about that is also the fact that the threat connotation coming from Mahmoud Abbas. He threatens by saying, hey, if you don't give us what we want, the new embassy in East Jerusalem, opening up the PLO offices in Washington, their diplomatic offices, here's what's going to happen. We're going to cut off our security agreement with Israel.

And we all know Jeff, if they did that, he would be out of power in about 15 minutes. He would be out of power. The very thinly veiled subtext to this is he's basically threatened renewed violence of the worst possible kind against Israelis. And I'm pretty sure that the translation of what he said seems to indicate against American interests as well. So he's going back to threatening violence. And as you say, Jay, I mean, this is against the backdrop of an extraordinary normalization and warm peace among Israel and its Arab, many of its Arab neighbors.

So it is, it's very hard to understand why Joe Biden or anyone in his administration would think that what seems to be coming down the pike is good for America, good for Israel, good for anyone in the region. I want to continue to take calls on this too. 1-800-684-3110. We've got another segment coming up too. We'll take even more of your calls. So way in here, what do you think this meeting, this Presidential trip to the Middle East, how nervous are you about what President Biden may do, the concessions he might make to the Palestinian leadership, the way he could botch all of the gains made during the Abraham Accords, which they've been doing the entire ministry by basically ignoring that those gains have been made.

But now he's the beggar. Remember, it is the U.S., Rick Renell is talking about this, is relying on foreign aid for baby formula. It is the U.S. heading over to beg the Saudis and kiss the ring for more oil.

When we were just a year and a half ago exporting and selling oil and natural gas. But let me go to the phones, Robert in California on line three. If you want to be on the air, 1-800-684-3110, give us a call now. That's 1-800-684-3110. Hey, Robert. Hello.

Thank you for taking my call. I believe this visit to the Middle East by Joe Biden is going to be an absolute failure for America and a great compromise for our enemies. Every policy and everything he has put in place has been an absolute failure. And I believe that if it hadn't been for the stable Trump policies that gave us a strong economy, that right now, all the things that he put in place, we would be in bigger trouble than we are now. And if we don't get him out of there, we want to be here.

Here's the problem. The dismantling of the policy, and I appreciate your call, Robert. The dismantling of the policies, Jeff, come incrementally, right?

I mean, it doesn't have to come in one meeting. So you got this, they've got two and a half more years of power. And the incremental change will send us back to a pre-Abraham Accord relationship.

And that is ridiculous. And I don't know why the Biden, I do know why. They don't want to build on anything the previous administration did. But you got to be honest and said that work in the Middle East by Mike Pompeo, obviously it was under President Trump, but Mike Pompeo and others really made a difference. Oh, historic difference, Jay. I mean, we have not seen, I think it's safe to say that people were shocked to see the warmth, the true human warmth in terms of the relationships that are growing between Israel and countries that have been its outright enemy for decades. And now there's business, there's tourism, even on social media, Arabs and Jews from different countries, well, from Israel and these other countries are relating with tremendous warmth.

All of this because of the Abraham Accords. And it's so toxic that they seem to want to go back and focus on essentially America's enemies, the enemies of peace, and coddle them while those enemies directly threaten America, as Mahmoud Abbas did. And as we saw this week, now actually the U.S. just acknowledged that Iran seems to be teaming up with Russia in ways that are hostile to regional interests, including Saudi Arabia and Israel. And I think as a direct counterplay to what President Biden is doing this week, it's starting tomorrow, you got Putin heading to Iran next week, and you've got Iran providing Russia with drones, which, Jeff, to us raised a lot of concerns because, not just because it's Iran providing Russia with drones and that's bad enough, but it means that they're on the same operating system or they are working to get to the same operating system so that their militaries can interchange their weaponry and be able to utilize them. And that was an issue that the Ukrainians had actually with American-built military equipment was that they weren't really trained on that, they were trained on Soviet-era and Russian-built military equipment. So if the Russians can take in Iranian drones and use them, that means they're working together very closely.

That's right, Jordan. This is extremely frightening and it's also curious, and I haven't really heard a good explanation, and people here in Jerusalem have been asking me, is why did the United States put this news out just now? Why today? Maybe there's some positive reason, maybe they're trying to back off from the very unpopular Iran deal, or maybe, and more in keeping with what their approach seems to be, they're trying to send the message not so much to Israel but to Saudi Arabia. Sort of a veiled threat. We need you to up your production and you need us because the other side, meaning Russia and Iran, are more dangerous to you directly now. So it could be that they're responding by threatening what should be their allies. You know, I go back to this and I said this earlier, I mean this whole idea that they're negotiating with the Iranians, Jeff, and you're in the region right now in our office in Jerusalem, and yet at the same time the Iranians are reportedly giving hundreds of drones, armed drones, to the Russians. And yet, Admiral Kirby says, hey, that's not going to impact the way we do business with the Iranians on this nuclear deal. Shows me how disconnected this whole thing really is. Exactly right. And we keep on talking, you and Jordan keep on talking about the disconnect between America's interests and goals, directly by the way, and of course indirectly through our ally Israel, and the behavior of this administration. And not just if we had no prior experience, but this is in the middle of tremendous growth of regional normalization for Israel after decades and decades of war.

And it's almost like they're trying to break it apart and it's unclear what their possible interest could be. And it's unreal. Jeff, we appreciate it. Jeff Balibon, Senior Counsel for the ACLJ in our office where?

In Jerusalem. So we appreciate Jeff's insight and comments. Folks, we're going to the last segment of the broadcast. We want to take your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110 on any of the topics we discussed today.

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That's ACLJ.org. All right, welcome back to Secula. Let's go right to the phones. If you want to call us on air, call now 1-800-684-3110. Let's go to Lewis in Colorado on line two. Hey, Lewis.

Hi, thank you for taking my call. I want to know how is it that somebody can threaten us when we're sending taxpayer money to them? How's that work? Because one, they know they can make the threat because the administration is so weak. They know that this administration wants things from them. It wants concessions from them. It needs their help to get to things like the nuclear deal with Iran. It wants their help. They also want to remake in their image what they thought that Donald Trump messed up, even though it's led to all this peace, which is their consulate reopened. So the list of demands, I think it's kind of a game, Lewis, they're playing, which is they've got a lot of allies inside the government who want to give them their whole wish list. Joe Biden is being advised by a group of individuals who would give them that entire wish list if they could right now. Yeah. So here's what the articles are saying.

I mean, if you look at what the media is saying about all this. So this is what the Palestinian media operation, the PLO's media operation is getting out to the press, that they are angry and they're frustrated with America. They have threatened that if the visit fails to reduce any breakthrough or create any political horizon, and if none of their demands are met, they will be forced to implement decisions taken by the PLO central council in February of this year. These decisions include suspending the PLO's recognition of Israel, revoking all of its agreements with it, with Israel and halting security coordination with Israel, among other measures.

Now, let me just go through those for you. Let's start with revoking the recognition of Israel. It was great that the PLO recognized Israel, but you know what? Israel's legitimacy is not dependent upon what the PLO decides to or do or not to do.

That's number one. Number two, the revoking all of its agreements. Some of those agreements are trade agreements. They're not revoking trade agreements.

Their people would not be able to eat. Number three, halting the security coordination with Israel. Now, if you've been there and we've done trips with a lot of you who've come with us in the past, come with us in the past, we take you inside some of these areas. But let's be very clear here. Okay, really clear. If the security agreements stop, you know what happens? The PLO falls as a government, period.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, but they are willing to put all these threats out there. Now, Lewis asked, you know, what kind of threats can they make? They can increase violence substantially inside Israel. They do have the power to kind of tamp that down. They can incite their people. Right, or incite people. And remember, they can even target Americans.

Taylor Forsack. Don't forget that. As the world is coming out of a pandemic and travel and tours and things like that, that Israel was an important part of their economy, is still an important part of the economy that hasn't fully recovered yet, because those are usually planned out trips. People don't just say, all right, next week we're going to go to Israel, even though you can from the United States.

But, you know, do you want to go on to visit all the places, biblical places? If they increase the violence there, of course, that then has a direct effect, of course, on Israelis, Israeli loss of life, security. It's also when Hamas usually decides that they'd like to take some action as well. But I think that I want to, let me take Gwen's call next, because this, I think, is the bigger issue, which is the, will the Saudis and other Gulf state nations finally push the administration on the Abraham Accords, celebrating those accords?

The idea that you've got a flight between Israel and Saudi Arabia now is just outstanding and unbelievable, really. Let's go to Gwen. Hey, Gwen, welcome to Secular. You're on the air. Thank you for taking my call. Thank you, Gwen. I just wanted, thank you. And I just wanted to know if Biden can really interfere with the Abraham Accords.

And is there anything that can be done about that? You know, Gwen, that's a really good question. And let me tell you about the interference. The interference is, I think the biggest interference issue would be not building upon them. So the Abraham Accords set in motion a momentum that was a game changer in reshaping the Middle East, totally looking at it differently. So you have all these alliances that formed because of the reshaping of the Middle East.

So you had coalition partners now, like I said, Jordan, Egypt, even Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, recognizing Israel, training with Israel, having economic partnerships with Israel. And those Muslim-led countries, Arab countries, recognize that the PLO leadership cannot be the big stumbling block for peace in the region because their job is to do what? The PLO seems to just exist to cause problems. Now, having said that, and let me take it a step further, how do they harm it? Well, you don't build on the momentum and then that momentum stops and then you start giving concessions to the PLO.

That's where you can cause some real problems here. Yeah, because what the Abraham Accords did was said, we don't have to deal with, we don't have to solve every problem the Palestinians have with Israelis and vice versa to work together, to have the Israelis work together with their Arab neighbors. And specifically, you know, focusing a lot on the Gulf states and North Africa. And you know what these North African and Gulf state nations said is, thank you because it's been the US policy and John Kerry's policy that if you don't have, if you don't solve the Palestinian issue, which is their own, you know, do they get to an independent country? How does that work when you've got two different governing bodies and have a terrorist group in charge of one and a former terrorist group in charge of the other?

And so how do you move forward? And so it's just a stalemate and that kind of not good relations between, at least openly, between Israel and the Gulf states. You know what the Trump administration said is, just don't involve the Palestinians in this. Let's put the Israelis directly with some of these Emiratis.

And guess what worked? They talked business. They talked economies. It wasn't about religious differences or even military conflicts. And they do have a unified enemy in Iran. So they have a unified enemy. They should have a unifying force as the United States.

That is why I think you were saying as that is what they're lacking now is the force to keep them going. Because listen, inside Israel and inside some of those Emiratis, you've got pressure groups who don't like these relationships, who would like to see this go off the rails. And unfortunately, see that the Biden administration wants to see it go off the rails. I think that's within the state department. Let me tell you what I hope we've showed you today, the scope and breadth of the American Center for Law and Justice. We didn't talk about our offices in Strasbourg, France, which is where the European Union is.

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