BREAKING: Iran Can Produce Nuclear Bomb

We've got breaking news.

A senior advisor to the Ayatollah says Iran can produce nuclear bomb today on Sekulow. 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, Logan Sekulow. We are broadcasting a bit from all over the country today. So my brother is in the Washington DC studio. We're here in the media center. West Smith is here.

We're going to have lots of guests on later today. But the big breaking news that we are covering is out of Iran. And they've said, this is, I'll read it for you directly. This is the advisor said they're capable of building a nuclear bomb.

And they haven't necessarily decided whether or not they're going to, but they have the ability to. And Jordan, this is a big news for obviously a host of reasons. Specifically, coming out of just right now, the Middle East trip that President Biden just made. This is deeply concerning.

Yeah, absolutely. This is why he was meeting with our second part of the reason why he's meeting with our allies in the Gulf, not just to beg for more oil for the United States, but also to hopefully continue to build the alliance of countries against Iran and to build that alliance. But what we know now is that Iran is at a point which we were all feared was coming very soon, where they've got all the capabilities they need. What they are doing is trying to extort something out from the world. Likely that's cash and sanctions relief. They also want the Iranian Revolutionary Guard removed from the foreign terrorist organizations list that is put together by the United States. So we get a sanctions issue as well. But I think what they're trying to do clearly by announcing that we've got all the parts, we can ramp up the enrichment, we've got what we need.

We've got the ICBMs, the missiles capable both in a short range to target Israel, Saudi Arabia, but also that we've got the ICBMs that can target you in the United States. There could be two issues, though, that arise from this, and we'll talk about it more the next segment of the broadcast. I want to take your phone calls about it. 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. One is Iran will try to extort, and I think what we saw from the Obama administration we might see from the Biden administration, which is at least a willingness to consider the Iranian extortion, Logan, which could be the pallets of cash again, so a cash influx, but also sanctions relief. I mean, to me, to put in that Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps even considering taking them off of the foreign terrorist organizations list is just absurd and dangerous. But this puts the world in a very dangerous place. The nuclear deal, we said from the outset, would put Iran on a path where they would have a nuclear weapon.

That deal is expiring in three years, so it's been in existence for seven. The U.S. pulled out of it under the Trump administration. Guess where Iran is? In a position where they are publicly flexing that they have the capability to put together the bomb.

But don't worry, world. We haven't decided whether to do it yet or not. Here's the quote that came from one of the advisors directly from Kazari. He said, in a few days, we are able to enrich uranium up to 60% and we can easily produce 90% enriched uranium. Iran has the technical means to produce a nuclear bomb, and there has been no decision yet by Iran to build one. But certainly discussing it, it's part of the conversation and a bit of a threat. As this is both predictable and it's been predicted, the IAEA is reporting in connection with this that Iran right now has about 95 pounds of highly enriched uranium.

It takes 65 pounds to produce one nuclear weapon, so they already have more than enough uranium, and they can actually go to 90% and construct a bomb, the IAEA is saying, in about three weeks if they chose to do it. This is really alarming. We're going to keep talking about that as well. Some other topics today. We're going to cover what's going on with the Crisis Pregnancy Centers. We're also going to talk about that fist bump hurled around the world. We're going to discuss that as well. Some Gallup polls that have come out on people's media confidence. Guess what? Not very high.

And a lot more. We're going to discuss that throughout the next hour on Sekulow. If you want to be on the air, talk about any of those topics, but specifically Iran over the next few segments. 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. We are in the middle of our matching challenge right now in the month of July. We encourage you right now to go to ACLJ.org, check out the great content, but also support, as all donations are effectively doubled. Welcome back to Sekulow.

We are taking some of your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110, so call us now and those on hold will get you in a minute. But I think we need to reset, Jordan, for those people who are just joining us now because people obviously on terrestrial radio are just getting in their cars, they're hearing what's happening. And maybe they clicked on a push notification they got from one of the social media platforms and saw the big news that Iran says they are capable of building a nuclear bomb. And why is that important to us? I think why it's important, obviously, to the Middle East and Israel in general.

It's something we need to break down a little bit. This is one of the advisers who said in a few days we were able to enrich uranium up to 60 percent and we can easily produce 90 percent enriched uranium. Iran has the technical means to produce a nuclear bomb, but there's been no decision by Iran to build one. So Wes Smith is here in the studio, but Jordan, maybe give people a bit of a breakdown and then we'll hear what Wes has to say.

Sure. So what we now know is that Iran, which they're publicly stating, which, again, you don't always have to believe the Iranians or believe these dictatorial regimes, but we know that they have been on a path towards getting the materials necessary to put together a nuclear weapon. And they are now saying that they have that right after the President of the United States leaves the region meeting with one of their top enemies, the Saudis and, of course, the Israelis.

And there's two issues at play here. One, they're saying that they've got the uranium at the level they need it to create the weaponry. We also know that they've got the deliverable capabilities that Iran at least has claimed to have. Not just, remember, for Israel's sake and for the region, they don't need ICBMs. They don't need intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver. They just need short-range missiles that you can deliver, again, these devastating weapons. Remember, this is in the hands of a regime that believes that you've got to act in a way to somehow bring back the 12th hidden imam.

I just want to remind people about their religion that they rely on and the extreme version of their religion. And they believe that the 12th imam, the hidden imam, is no longer hidden if you do something dramatic like a nuclear attack on Israel or the Great Satan, a nuclear attack on the United States. These are not rational actors. This is not India and Pakistan with nuclear weapons pointing at each other. It's not a Cold War situation.

You have to treat them much differently. Look at the terror that they've exported around the world. Look at what they're willing to do and engage in around the world. So we now know they're at this point.

So where do we go next? I think what we have to look for in this administration is Iran is trying to blackmail, they are trying to extort money and sanctions relief. Right now, they're playing with the idea of, we have this, but we haven't built it yet, so what will you give us in return for not building it? And of course, you didn't have to trust them that they're actually not building it. Remember, we don't have access.

The IAEA has never had access to most of their facilities where this would be built. But again, I think we're at an unfortunate point. I want to play this sound too, Logan. I think this is important. Between Israel's interim prime minister, Yair Lapid, and President Biden, because there was a direct disagreement on how to deal with Iran. And this was before that news.

Take a listen. I continue to believe that diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome. Words will not stop them, Mr. President. Diplomacy will not stop them. If they continue to develop their nuclear program, the free world will use force.

So I think that's another part, Logan, that has to be important, is that the rest of that region. And I would put Israel in line with the rest of the Gulf states, and I'll go to West on this, but they do not want Iran to put together this weapon. And what you heard from Yair Lapid, who's the interim prime minister, is we will go to war before that happens. So are we on the cusp of yet another conflict in the world, another major world conflict? We already have one going on in Europe. Are we about to see one in the Middle East?

Yeah. And, you know, there are bipartisan members of Congress that have warned President Biden about continued negotiations and the possibility of lifting sanctions on Iran. As you said, Jordan, the Israel and the Arab Gulf states are totally against what's going on there, including Prime Minister Lapid. And we know that in 2015, the last time we relieved Iran from sanctions, they got about $100 billion when we did that under President Obama. They used that money to deliver over 10,000 rockets and missiles to Hezbollah and Hamas. And in addition to that, they armed up the Houthi rebels in Yemen. And the Houthi rebels, because of that Iran deal in 2015, were allowed to overthrow the government in Yemen. And so they will use the money for that and for continued work on their nuclear weapons program. And yet and yet and this was a surprise to me, and I follow this pretty closely, President Biden and Israel said that they had actually delivered their final offer to the Iranian government that essentially was on their desk.

And that if they signed it, they would go forward with the agreement. And yet in that agreement there, it allows Iran to have access again to billions and billions of dollars with no restraints on their ballistic missile system. This is this is bad diplomacy. It's bad for the world. You know, it's bad for the United States of America. And yet he is insisting on going forward with this.

The only thing that's holding us back right now is Iran has not signed it. Tim is calling in California online to Tim. Welcome. You're on the air.

Thank you for taking my call. Why is the Biden administration blinded to the fact that Iran has the technology to destroy the world? Jordan, do you think that this is blindness or you think this is just what happens when you have this administration in office?

It's a weak, weak leadership. They Iran wants something from the Biden administration. I don't think they want a war yet. I don't think they want to launch a nuclear weapon yet.

I think they want to see what they can get. And what does that mean? Well, that means economic relief, sanctions relief, the removal of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is unbelievable to even say. But we know that this administration is has considered it at certain points is from the foreign terrorist organizations list. I think they are trying to blackmail, which is typical of Iran, or try to extort something from the world by putting this information out.

The question is this. The U.S. right now may not be posed to strike. But there are other countries, not just Israel, who are going to be very uncomfortable after this statement is out now by a top adviser to the Ayatollah, the supreme leader of Iran, who put his name out.

This isn't an unnamed person. So put his name out with it and who are who are not going to be so patient with Iran. And I think, unfortunately, we could be on the cusp of another conflict and a major conflict because take out their nuclear capability. They have massive weapons capabilities, a large military.

And this is a region which, again, there's a lot of unity against Iran, but that unity has not been tested in military action before. Let's keep going and take some more calls. We have another call coming in. Ronald from South Carolina on Line 1. Ronald, you're on the air. And hey, if you want to be on the air too, 1-800-684-3110. We're going to move on from this topic after this segment. But we may if you have a question or comment about it, we'll be happy to take it. Ronald's calling in South Carolina. You're on the air.

Thank you very much for taking my call. One of the questions, as Jordan had put it so eloquently, is the fact that they're irrational. And yet this Biden administration consistently wants to make deals with someone that's completely irrational. And what I think the whole trip to the Middle East was, more or less, I think they already knew that they goofed because I think he was going there to try and convince the Middle East that, hey, it's not our fault that Iran is this far along. We tried to do what we can, but nothing that they do is anything positive for what the Middle East is going through right now.

Yeah, Jordan. Well, listen, I think that we've been put on a path by the Obama administration that was not good because we dealt with Iran. We gave them the deal that allowed them to get to the point they're at now. Believe them or not, we know that their nuclear program has advanced significantly in those seven years since the deal. And we know that the deal has only got a few years left.

We know that the Biden team would like to still sign that deal. This is, I think, where we have to watch very closely in the next few days. Are we about to hand over pallets of cash and sanctions relief to a radical terrorist regime that is threatening not just Israel, not just the Gulf states or the Sunni states, but is threatening the United States directly? We cannot see Iran with a nuclear weapon, and I think that Israel has pledged, you know, never again will our people be able to be annihilated.

They will go in. If this statement is that true and they're able to get the intel that this is correct, there will be conflict. This will not be handled with sanctions relief. It does feel like, Wes, we treat Iran differently, and it's always the topic point. It's always sort of, I don't really have a minute left. But this becomes an issue every time. It became an issue with the Obama administration, then obviously the Trump administration came in, undid some things, and now it's back. Iran always the talking point, and they're always making these threats, but we treat it like they don't.

Yeah, exactly. Under the last two Republican Presidents, sanctions had so crippled the Iranian economy, it has slowed down their research and development of nuclear weapons. But because of the deal in 2015 with President Obama and then Biden, you know, coming in now, giving them hope, allowing things to happen, we're at the point, Logan, where probably, and this is most unfortunate, the only thing that's going to stop them from acquiring a nuclear weapon is some sort of military action. Hopefully, if Israel carries it out, the United States military will enable them with refueling and targeting and other things.

But I'm not hopeful that we can stop them any other way. Yeah, hey, we're going to be taking calls coming up, 1-800-684-3110. We're also going to be talking about the attacks currently happening on crisis pregnancy centers around the country. We're going to discuss that with C.C.

Heil, who will be joining us in-studio. Coming up again, we are in the middle of our matching challenge at ACLJ, which means all donations are effectively doubled. Another donor is there waiting to donate alongside of you.

If you give $10, they're ready to match that and make it $20. That's at ACLJ.org. Be right back. Welcome back to the Sekulow.

C.C. Heil is joining us in-studio right now. There's a brand new blog that's available on ACLJ.org you need to check out. It's right on the homepage. It is, Biden's new executive order aims to protect abortion while attacking pro-life pregnancy centers.

What's new? And that is the title of the blog. Again, it's available on ACLJ.org. It seems like the pro-life pregnancy centers always end up being, oddly, in the crosshairs for these kinds of situations when really they're out there doing amazing work. Whether you are pro-life or not, they're doing some amazing work and they provide a lot of the services Planned Parenthood pretends they offer.

Right, exactly. And like I say in the blog, the executive order's goal was to expand access to abortion care and medication abortions. But no pro-abortion action is ever going to be complete unless they include an attack against these pro-life centers.

And so right in the executive order, in section 4B4, it says in the executive order, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Chair of the FTC, consider options to address deceptive or fraudulent practices related to reproductive health care services, including online, and to protect access to accurate information. And we see that this is the language that they use over and over again. We've defended pregnancy resource centers, also crisis pregnancy centers, also known as CPCs.

We've defended them for decades, and this is exactly the language that they use to go after them. We've seen that even in New York, New York trying to go after and investigate whether pregnancy resource centers limit access to abortion, they use this exact same language. So every time you see a pro-abortion push, you're going to see an attack against pregnancy resource centers. They exist all over the country.

Jordan, I know you've done a lot of work with them. Yeah, and I think what you have to understand here is, remember, for the left and for the Biden administration, when they use language like the misinformation or fraudulent information, what they don't like about the pregnancy centers is that they are pro-life. So they're going to take a pro-life position, which means, guess what, they're not going to try and tell a woman who is pregnant the great virtues of having an abortion. They're not going to go and say—in fact, they're going to talk about the negatives. It's called freedom of speech. There's no Roe vs. Wade.

This is an executive order without teeth. Now, the states are where the issues are, but you see how they're setting up this debate that these pro-life pregnancy centers are putting out fraudulent information. And, Logan, what they mean by that—so for our audience to understand is being pro-life means you're being fraudulent. Say that there are—that women struggle post-abortion with issues. And these are experts in the field, whether you—like you said, whether you're pro-life or not, they've been working in this field for decades. We get those calls all the time on our broadcast about people who had abortions in the 60s and, you know, the 70s and 80s who are still dealing with that today and that decision they made today, a decision they made when they were a young woman. And so, yeah, they talk about those things at the pro-life pregnancy centers, and they don't shy away from that, the truth. But that is what they're—that's why Elizabeth Ward says they've got to be shut down, that you've got to—that they're somehow torturing women by not providing abortion. This is what we saw in California when they said, if you want to continue operating, you've got to also advertise for the local abortion clinic. Yeah, and there are things like even Google—I know you put in your blog—that is kind of making adjustments to their algorithms to make sure that if you search for one thing, you're not getting the other. And, you know, you're not getting a crisis pregnancy center or pro-life pregnancy center.

Right. So, there are congressmen and attorneys general that have gone after Google, written a letter to Google basically saying, when someone searches for abortion, you can't have these, you know, fake clinics again show up instead of an abortion clinic. And so, they're so concerned, just as Jordan rightfully said, of a pregnant woman going to a pregnancy resource center and getting the accurate information about the life inside of her and what her options are. When she gets that information, and obviously when she sees her baby on an ultrasound, it's overwhelming. The majority of women choose to keep their babies, so that is why crisis pregnancy centers, pregnancy resource centers, they are at the center of attack always for the pro-abortion group.

Yeah, it's a bizarre thing. I think that, again, Jordan, we've talked about this many times, and in this blog—by the way, check out the blog. You can read in detail all the stuff that CC is saying on ACLJ.org. Right now, if you do it during our broadcast, it's on the right-hand side of the page, but if you look later on, it's one of our—I think it's our most popular article right now, and it's called Biden's New Executive Order. Yes, aims to protect abortion while attacking pro-life pregnancy centers.

What's new? And you can find that there. Make sure you share that as well as reading it.

It's a really good read. It gives you a lot of detail about what exactly is going on. And with that, I wanted to also talk about the work of the ACLJ, because people were in the middle of our fundraising push, which is our matching challenge, which is every donation that is made. There's someone on the other side ready to match that donation, and there's incredible content. We do incredible work in court, and we talk about that all the time.

CC Jordan, both legal experts, both lawyers, we talk about that all the time. But you also have to just imagine. I always like to say, look beyond the glass here. Look beyond on your—whenever you're watching or you're listening to this, and imagine the hundreds of people that are currently working on this incredible content, whether it's our video content, whether it's our daily radio broadcast. We try to hire the best of the best to make sure you get the highest level of production possible, and we get the highest level of work. And we cannot do that without you.

And you can support the work right now during our matching challenge at ACLJ.org. But Jordan, this is nothing new for us. We've been a part of this fight for 30, 40 years at this point.

Yeah, that's right. I'm with our team in Washington, D.C. We launched ACLJ Action, a C4 to even counter in a post-rho world what this would be like. We know that there's always been this animosity. And they've tried to use the political, legal, and legislative, usually at the state and local level. We've seen it in New York City.

We've seen it in California. But now they've got a President pushing it at the federal level. They've got U.S. senators like Elizabeth Warren pushing it at a federal level to criminalize pro-life pregnancy centers. Now, this isn't a time when they just lost the biggest abortion case in history. They lost that protection that somehow abortion gets treated, the abortion distortion. So their first effort is to take out the pro-life pregnancy centers. Think about how we talk about them.

We're not hiding what they are. We're calling them pro-life pregnancy centers. They are there to protect the life of the unborn. These are women who can make decisions about where they want to go. And in most states, as of right now, abortion is still legal.

It's not everywhere, but in most. And so these decisions, again, the fact is they show you an ultrasound, they tell you the truth, and they get to have their freedom of speech. But they want to shut these groups down because they are the front line. They are the answer to the question, Logan, of what are you going to do with all these children? And what the abortion industry doesn't want everybody to know is we already have that answer.

I've been doing that for decades. There is no rush about that because we already have these institutions in place. Now, if they shut them down, then you create a void because they are the conduits to adoption.

They are the conduits to helping maybe someone who is in need economically or whose family is not helping them to provide them the resources they need. We've been on the front lines with them. We'll continue to be on the front lines with them. Support the work of the ACLJ because this war is just starting. We told you, take some time to celebrate the win overturning Roe vs. Wade. But the war is ongoing as we speak. We're about to start our first advertising campaign, Logan, through ACLJ Action next week on a state constitutional amendment.

We'll get into more. Support our work. ACLJ.org. Donate today. Double the impact your donation. Be part of our matching challenge so we can not only continue to do the work that we do, but we can continue to expand the work that we do as well at the ACLJ.

That's ACLJ.org. Donate today if you can. We'll be right back.

Second half hour coming up. I'm talking about freedom. I'm talking about freedom.

We will fight for the right to live in freedom. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.

Welcome back to Sekulow. We're going to be taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110 just to reset the show a bit. We're going to be talking a lot in the second half hour.

We'll also be joined by Rick Grenell later on. One of the things we're going to be discussing is the media confidence ratings. I know we're coming out of just having a discussion about pro-life pregnancy centers. Some people are calling about that. We'll take those calls. Some people are calling about Iran and the nuclear bomb announcement. We're going to be talking about that as well. So if you want to discuss any of those topics, we'll do our best to get to them at 1-800-684-3110. And we'd love to hear from you. I think this is a great time. It's a great time of the year also to hear where you're at as an ACLJ supporter, as a Sekulow listener.

I'd love to hear where you guys are on this issue. We also have President Biden obviously going overseas, having his whole trip and the fist bump heard around the world. A lot of people have some issues with that. It's kind of the bowing of 2022. If you don't remember, that's what happened when President Obama was on his apology tour throughout the Middle East. And now you have this fist bump moment that a lot of people are discussing, Will. Just to kind of show the lack of seriousness that some of this is being taken or essentially that we're bowing down to people because of these situations.

That's right. There is even analysis by CNN's Chris Saliza about the fist bump and he says why Joe Biden's fist bump with MBS was such a disaster. Now, the entire trip, President Biden said he wasn't going to be shaking hands because of the resurgence of some variants of COVID. But when he got to Saudi Arabia, he got out of the beast, out of the Presidential limousine and walked up and MBS walked out of the palace and they immediately fist bumped.

And the optics, and that's something consistently that the President's administration, this Biden administration gets wrong, are the optics. And that because there was no handshake and because there was this fist bump, it almost made them look like buddies. Like, hey, bro, how you doing, man?

Good to see you. Do the fist bump. When he was saying he was going over there to be serious, he was going to talk about the human rights issues.

He was going to do all these things. But the first image you see is Mohammed bin Salman walking out the crown prince and boom, fist bump. And so that's why some are calling it the fist bump heard around the world, because it completely undercut the message that he's going to the pariah nation, who he called that.

And that now all of a sudden he's best buddies. Yeah. And I think that, look, I don't want to be hypocritical. I think having these conversations, having these meetings is important. I think they should be meeting. I thought it was important when President Trump met with Kim Jong-un. I think that these are big issues happen, not even to compare the two, by the way. I mean, that's massively different because of Saudi Arabia and what's going on in North Korea. I don't want to compare those two, but it is a conversation to have of how we're looking on a global stage. And I think this is a big problem with this presidency. It's not just who he's meeting with, how he's meeting with them.

It's how things are presented, what kind of unforced errors are happening continually. And this is just sort of that that trajectory of feeling like chaos. It's why you see the percentage of support for Joe Biden, even amongst Democrats, to be so low they don't even want him to run again in just two years. We're close.

I know it sounds crazy. It feels like we used to live pre, maybe pre social media, live in a world where election cycles ended. It doesn't feel like that anymore, does it? Feels like you have a year or two in between each election. Doesn't feel like you have four years because now we have midterms and then they announce quickly. And we're probably a good, you know, we're not very far away from people really starting. You already can tell who is going to be running for President on both Republicans and the Democrats.

That's right. Maybe you've seen Gavin Newsom running ads in the state of Florida. Maybe you've seen that already start to happen. Why?

Because these are the likely candidates that will be running for President. So I don't want to ignore this and pretend it's not happening. And we have some interesting, interesting feedback amongst Gallup, put out a new poll about the immediate confidence rate ratings. And guess what? It's at a record low. We'll discuss those numbers.

I know it's shocks tall, shocking to all of you. I'm sure you're listening right now and going, I can't believe people don't trust the media. Give us a call and hear your thoughts on the media right now. Maybe the far right, far left. Let's hear your thoughts on all the media. One eight hundred six eight four thirty one ten.

That's one eight hundred six eight four three one one zero. Again, Rick Grenell be joining us towards the end of the show as well. Live from Israel's will be discussing a lot with him on how his trip is going and all the things that they're doing there. Support the work of the ACLJ part of a matching challenge right now. ACLJ.org. All donations are effectively doubled matched by another donor. So we appreciate your support specifically right now in the month of July.

Be right back. The secular we are discussing some fun news that's coming out of Gallup Research Center, do a lot of polling. Maybe you've gotten their calls before they have a new poll out. Well, and it's discussing the media confidence rating. And guess what? It's at a record low.

That's right. Let's go through the numbers here. Just 16 percent.

I like the way they spin this because it sounds like nice. Sixteen percent of Americans have a great deal, quite a lot of confidence in newspapers. Eleven percent have the same degree in confidence in television news. Democrat confidence is low, but higher than even Republicans and independents. So what they're saying is even I do love that they just presume that Democrats have much more trust in the media. It's almost showing the bias there alone.

Right. But even amongst Democrats, it's significantly low. And you're talking about 11 to 16 percent of people that have really any trust in the mainstream news. And that is honestly such a disturbing number.

I know it's not a shocking number, but it really is a disturbing number for where we are as a society, where if you flip on the news, whether you're conservative, whether you're liberal, you don't feel like you are getting the facts, doesn't feel like you're getting the truth. And, you know, I even saw an ad this week for Shepard Smith has a new show. And it's like the whole concept of the show is you will not hear our opinions. But that opinion of that news is coming from Dan Abrams is even doing a whole news network trying to do similar where the news nation. Yeah. News Nation exists.

But there's still opinion journalism in there. Look, Dan Abrams, he's got some good stuff. His whatever version of live PD is coming back in the next couple of weeks. I look forward to that.

It comes out the end of this week. But the problem is, is you have Shepard Smith, who historically was fairly biased, now saying, trust me, I'm not going to give you my opinion. And I think we all look at that and go, this is sad where we're at. It's sad that we don't only not only do not trust the media, but we are getting fed the idea of you can listen to us and hear the straight news from people who are historically not the most straight and narrow when it comes to giving you just the news.

Right. And in this poll, it also found they did a ranking of of 16 other major institutions. So not just media. They did, you know, businesses, the military, criminal justice system, etc.

And television, news and newspapers ranked nearly at the bottom of the list of institutions. The only institution that got less confidence from the American public was Congress. So that kind of tells you where we're at when it comes to how people see the brokenness of Congress, the really that they're not looking out for their constituents in many ways. They're just putting the party above all else, but also that the media is kind of locked in right there with it, that the the seven percent confidence rating in Congress in general, not specific Congress people to the 11 percent for television news is really telling about where people are right now.

Yeah, I wonder where I mean, does it say in here kind of where people were beforehand? Like, is this new? Is this new that the support is so low? It's a five percent drop from last year.

Just last year. So the media, we obviously know media took a big hit through the the pandemic, but within a five percent drop in confidence in television news in just one year is a very significant dip. That's not within even a margin of error. Typically, when you do a poll like there is a number in here, it says confidence in television news has never been higher than in 1993, which around you got to think about that's around the start of CNN.

Right. That's 24 hour news, 24 hour news kind of just becoming a thing. And at that point, it was at forty six percent of people were confident in it.

And then obviously there was other numbers that came out. It's just been slipping ever so much as things have gotten more partisan. Well, there's more options to whenever you have a general poll like this, I feel like it's always going to be hard to get a positive over 50 percent rating because it's not. What is your confidence in The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal or Fox News? It is what is your confidence in newspaper media?

So because, like you said, there are options. It's always going to kind of skew probably a little bit more negative when you think of a general institution. But the fact that it is so low, I think in the last couple of years, it's also that a lot of the mainstream news stories that weren't even being allowed to share because at the time were called fake or were called false information or partially false or misleading. And all of a sudden, a year later, two years later, you have mainstream news outlets sharing the same news that we all knew all along.

Things that would get you banned from social media platforms and and red flags against your posts and things of that nature are now able to be reported because the trusted institutions are now doing it. Right. And stuff that we knew all along. And I think that is a big problem.

Sure. We want to make sure that there are people who are checking the facts, making sure that some of these news sources are sourced well and all of that. Look, I've worked with some of them. Some are incredibly well-sourced and they are working a lot to make sure they are giving you confident information. Doesn't mean it doesn't come without a bias, but at least information from their point of view.

And it's backed up. Problem is, you had a lot of distrust in the news when people, individuals were being taken off of social media because of really their point of view, not only their point of view, just because they get their news from a different outlet than, say, Facebook does or say Twitter does or Instagram. That you got your news from maybe an alternative source and therefore it made it invalid. And then, oh, look what happened. A couple of years pass, a year passes and all of a sudden we're allowed to discuss this. All of a sudden you're allowed to discuss the creation of covid. All of a sudden you're allowed to discuss the Hunter Biden laptop. All of a sudden you're allowed to discuss side effects that happen from even from the vaccine, something that, you know, again, we were very pro vaccine on this show. But there was stuff you had to make sure you said and could not say, or they would bounce you immediately.

It's pretty wild. And to see that change in the news media, even this weekend, go look at what was reported this weekend and stuff like the New York Times. Stuff that you would have been removed from the Internet, essentially not only shadow banned, like locked out, but you're allowed to say it now because now a trusted institution can say it. And I think that is where people start losing extreme trust in the whole concept of mainstream news.

Do you think, you know, you brought up the Shepard Smith example. Do you think that people in the more mainstream media are getting the wrong idea? Because I don't see people wanting no opinion in their news. I think they want people to be honest about their opinion in the news. I think that that's why you see the what you maybe refer to as an alternative source, but maybe conservative media that isn't a television network that gets, whether it be blogs or shows like this, where people come to for their news because they want to hear the analysis of the news. Sure, you can you can give the bullet point of the facts, such as the Iranians today saying, you know, we have the capability to build a nuclear bomb. They don't just want necessarily a Associated Press style bullet point.

What they want to hear is someone with military expertise, with analysis of that, that, yeah, there's an opinion to this. I think the rise of someone like a Tulsi Gabbard is the proof of that, which is someone that a lot of conservatives, I have a huge amount of respect for. We've worked with her directly and I had her on my special Revenge of the Taliban, which you can watch about the Afghanistan, the botched Afghanistan removal. I have a huge amount of respect for her. Obviously, she has a military background and served our country in many different ways. Now, am I going to line up with 100 percent of her opinions on some of her political leanings? I mean, she ran against President Trump as a Democrat.

Obviously, things have shifted a little maybe since then for her politically, so I can give her a little bit of respect for that. But I do look at that and go, why do people like listening to her? Why can she go on the conservative talk shows?

Why can she speak at CPAC? Because at least people believe that she believes what she's saying. People just want people who actually believe what they're saying. It doesn't even matter if you agree with them, but at least you know that they believe it, that they're not just giving you a political point of view that is locked to a party or anything like that. And people respect that. And I think that is proof in her rise and people like Russell Brand on social media, people who are not even Joe Rogan, not exactly the highest Republican conservatives, but people who at least are not only speaking their mind, are giving you an intelligent, backed up version of why they feel that way. And you can agree or disagree, but you can respect it. That's what we need in media right now. We need at least people that you see on TV and you read in the newspaper, you can at least respect. They are giving you their point of view, even if at least they're telling the truth to themselves.

And I don't think you have that everywhere. Hey, in the next segment, we're going to have Rick Grinnell joining us, right? That's right. He's live in Israel. So we're going to discuss what's going on over there in the Middle East and a whole lot more. We do a few calls. We'll do our best to get to you in the next segments. We'll see what we can do about that.

And we almost went to you in one minute left. But let's check in on that. Make sure they're doing OK. Give us a call if you want to be on the air 1-800-684-3110. But right now, I need you to support the work of the ACLJ.

And I'm sure Rick will tell you that you need to as well. We'll be discussing that with him. It's all the incredible work we're doing all over the world. Again, you see this sort of small lens of here's our studio with the things that are going on outside these walls, physically right here in the studio. And what's going on in our media center, what's going on in Washington, D.C., where my brother is right now.

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I think you'll really enjoy it. Coming up in the next segment, Rick Grenell. We'll be right back with more on secular.

Welcome back to secular. Last segment of the day, we are joined live from Israel by Rick Grenell. Rick, first, why don't you give our listeners a bit of update of why you're there and what's going on? Well, I am part of the delegation for CPAC Israel.

It's very exciting. We'll be spending a couple of days here. I'm at the King David Hotel, so I'm sure you know exactly where I am. And the sun has set and it's a beautiful, beautiful night in Jerusalem. Awesome.

That's so great to hear. I haven't been back to Israel in a few years, but I know exactly where you are. You're kind of there an interesting time when President Biden, you know, he ends his trip to the Middle East coming up.

And we talked about earlier in this show, you had a senior adviser to the Ayatollah in Iran saying, you know, we have the ability to build a nuclear bomb. Do you think, though, based on what you've seen and obviously we've talked about the fist bump, we've talked about all the issues that have happened in this trip. Do you think that's a direct response to sort of the the weakness that we're seeing from this administration in the Middle East?

Yeah, look, you know, we're here for a little bit of Republican response, I guess, here in Israel. And it's clear that the trip was not good for President Biden. He made fundamental mistakes the whole time. He is not well received in the region. Certainly the Saudis remember that he wanted them to be a pariah state. His administration has worked really hard to really ruin relations with with Saudi Arabia.

And then, you know, basically he showed up with gas cans begging for some help. And I think he needs to be a little bit more strategic if you're going to somehow make Saudi Arabia a pariah state and expect to come back and get favors. And I think whether it's the Emiratis or the Saudis, they're all now correcting the record.

They started correcting the record pretty fast once Joe Biden got in the air. And so I would just say to the White House, you've got to be much more strategic about your language and what you're trying to do. Certainly we know the Iran deal is in trouble.

And what is the Biden administration's response going to be now that their premier focus for an Iran deal is falling apart? Well, and as the Iranians now are kind of promoting this, they hadn't in the past been open, saying that they had the technological capability of building a nuclear bomb and things. But we see this out of the senior adviser to the Ayatollah now there.

Strategically, I would feel like releasing this information, saying, you know, we haven't decided if we're going to build a bomb, but we do have the technical capability. Do you think that we always thought that Iran had much more capability than they were being open about? But do you think that now this pivot is a new challenge that we see when facing the Iranians, especially as the Biden administration still tries to push for a diplomatic response? You know, I've been working on this issue with Iran since 2001, since I started at the United Nations. And I have to say the one thing I've learned over 20 plus years of working on this issue is we can always count on the Iranians to completely mess up the situation. And so we have, you know, a frustration in the U.S. with Iran.

I think the Europeans are frustrated with Iran. But for the Iranian regime now to come out and say that they're close to a nuclear weapon or they're going to get one is really remarkable because it's exactly what we thought all along. We know from the very beginning that the Iranians have lied about the number of centrifuges and the weaponization and that we know they've lied about the heavy water amount that they have accumulated. So there's all sorts of evidence showing that we cannot trust the Iranians. I'm not sure why the Biden administration has decided to trust them and start a negotiation again, but it seems to be the pattern that the Biden administration keeps trusting what these people say. And yet we have so much evidence that they they've lied from the beginning. I'm actually pleased that they're coming out and now confronting what the Biden team has said that they they weren't close.

They weren't right there at the limit. And now the Iranians are admitting that they are. And so we're being saved by the Iranians here. Interesting, interesting perspective on that. Let's take a phone call.

I think a lot of people have a lot of these issues. Nick in D.C., Nick, thanks for holding. You're on the air. Thank you for taking my call. My my quick question is why on earth would the Obama and Biden administration negotiate and give Paris so much? And why what I what is their excuse and why? What do you guys think the real reason is?

Rick, I'll punt this over to you. What do you think the real reason is? Yeah, you know, it's a great question, but I think I've said this a number of times. The opposite of America first is consensus with the Europeans. Joe Biden has placed a priority on having consensus with Europeans. And what that means is, is that you take the European position and you take the American position and you somehow meet in the middle.

And I don't think that that's a smart diplomatic move. Both sides don't get what they want. Some people would argue compromise is good in this situation. I would argue that it's the lowest common denominator of what we both agree.

And it's actually terrible all the way around. So the long answer is, is that Joe Biden cares more about keeping all of Europe together, Europe applauding the the policy position. And he's not he isn't necessarily looking at what's best for the American people or the Europeans or people around the world.

Final question here. When we see Iran going in one direction and we know that Biden is still going to pursue the diplomatic way to try to resolve this. In a sense, when you started under the Trump administration with others, the Abraham Accords, which brought Israel closer to the Gulf states than they ever had been before. Do you think if the Biden administration continues down the wrong path in dealing with this, it will only encourage Israel to continue to foster those relationships with the Gulf states and even Saudi Arabia to confront the threat of Iran? I do, and I think not only is it going to empower the Israelis to continue trying to find common ground with some of the Arab states, but I think it also compels the Arab states. You know, what what we have to remember is that Iran is wildly unpopular and no one knows the the bad behavior and the lives of the Iranian regime more than those who live in the neighborhood, the neighbors of Iran.

And so I think that it's very, very clear that they're pushing the Iranians out and we're trying to get the Israelis in the Arab state to find a way forward with these. All right, Rick. Well, thank you so much for joining us again. Live from Israel. We have a great time. Jealous. Wish I was there. Thanks again for everyone for listening to the show today, watching it on social media platforms. Make sure you follow us everywhere you could possibly imagine.

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