BREAKING: Iranian Troops On Ground in Crimea

Breaking news today on secular is Iranian troops are now on the ground in Crimea.

What does it mean for Ukraine, for Russia, and of course the US involvement in that war. We'll talk about that more today on secular. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Hey, welcome to Sekulow. We are taking your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. So yesterday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, remember he was at the Department of Defense now at the Pentagon. He's done a couple of jobs there.

Now he's at the White House, the National Security Council. He told reporters that Iran has sent a small number of personnel to Crimea to assist Russian troops in launching Iranian-made drones. We already heard the reports that the Iranian-made drones were being purchased by Russia. Now we know that Iranians are on the ground based off this report from the White House and the National Security Council, assisting the Russians in utilizing what are called those kamikaze drones, which are directed missiles, piloted missiles, if you will, and so very direct. They were being used on Kiev. And the questions here, I think, are multi-level.

One, this is my first question, and again, it may be a little bit out there, but I want you to think about it for a minute. Do you think, you know, a few weeks out before the election, the reason why they wanted to announce not just that Russia was buying drones from a bad actor, that's not that shocking, Iran, but that the Iranians are on the ground there to try and sell more U.S. involvement in Ukraine? And I'm not talking about just sending weapons over, but even, you know, sending more military, sending military personnel to assist Ukrainians like the Iranians have done to assist the Russians. Do you think this is a ploy to try to get us into a conflict or more deeply into this conflict?

Give us a call, 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110, because we know the history here. I can imagine the administration saying, listen, these Iranians, they've killed U.S. troops on the battlefield. Now they're assisting Russia in a war of aggression, killing Ukrainians.

We've got to do something about it because it's really messed up. The one positive out of this is that even the White House is now admitting that the nuclear deal with Iran that they tried to restart is really a long way away, little hope for reviving that deal any soon. So that's something we can actually be excited about because Iran's showing its true colors if you believe this report that they're on the ground, but I am concerned that they will use this as a drumbeat. That's just my initial take because we already knew the Iranians were using the drones. If it's just a few Iranians and we've got all these weapons we've given the Ukrainians, why don't we tell them where they are and take them out?

I mean, why does it just need to be a report like this? And again, when we start hearing more and more about Iran involvement on the ground in Ukraine, to try and get the U.S. support, again, get more Americans behind efforts to do more in Ukraine even while we're hurting economically so bad in our country and you worry about the shape of our military while they're going through woke training instead of military training. So give us a call at 1-800-684-3110.

I want you to share this with your friends and family as well. Roya on Ravel said Iran has sent troops into Crimea to help Russia. Will Israel respond? Because if they do, it will most likely escalate. I'm not sure why Israel would respond on their own inside Ukraine. They've tried to be a broker of peace, taking that kind of Elon Musk approach to let's end this conflict. What does it take to end the conflict? Is it some of this land goes to Russia and we can stop the killing, stop the killing of innocent civilians on both sides, wherever they may live in these regions.

So many people who don't want to be fighting, don't want to have to live this way. I think that's where the Israeli approach. They're used to seeing Iran operate. It's not that bizarre again to hear that they first bought the drones from Iran.

Not weird since they're cut off from most other countries. And then second, that they've got a few Iranians there helping them utilize those drones, which is horrible. And again, another reason to condemn Iran, another reason never to go into a nuclear deal with Iran. But is it the beginning of the drumbeat to get the US more involved? Take your calls, your comments, 1-800-684-3110.

If you're watching the broadcast, again, click the plus button on Rumble, thumbs up on YouTube, share on Facebook. Now the Iranians in Ukraine now, on behalf of Russia, brought in by Russia, who's been purchasing Iranian, and this is not new, they've been purchasing these drones. That came out like last week. It was this week that we've been told by our White House National Security Council and John Kirby that there are actually Iranians on the ground assisting the Russians in utilizing these drones. Take a listen by 15.

I want to go to Wes Smith, whose military background, national security background. Wes, there's two issues here. What we knew that they were already purchasing the drones, that's not new. What is new here is that you've actually got Iranian soldiers on the ground in Crimea working alongside the Russians, which goes against a Russian talking point that, oh, they're using Russian weaponry. I do get a little concerned, though, and I want to take calls on this at 1-800-684-3110, I'm seeing people say in the chat, that the reason this is announced is, one, it's a way for them to acknowledge why they can't get the nuclear deal done, but two, the bigger picture, is it helps a little more drumbeat up support for continuing to send millions and millions of dollars in weapons to Ukraine and potentially even increasing U.S. involvement, because this is an enemy of the United States. And I get concerned, because if it's a handful of Iranians and we know where they are, why don't we tell the Ukrainians where they are, we have the weapon, we've given them the weapons, take them out.

Yeah, and that's a good point, it really is. And the intelligence on these Iranian soldiers being in Crimea came from the intelligence departments of both the United States and Great Britain. And both of them are pretty strong on more and more involvement with Ukraine, so you wonder about the strategic timing of it, perhaps, that they're trying to make sure that both of our nations stay engaged and that we won't object to more and more involvement in Ukraine. The thing about these drones, though, is that Russia is in trouble, and so there are two parts of Russia being in trouble that are at play here when we found out that Iranians are on the ground helping them. And by the way, Jordan, you mentioned, you know, why can't the Ukrainians take these missile drone batteries out since we know where they are? We have an issue there that the Pentagon is continuing to slow walk, and that is the HIMARS missile systems that we gave them, we did not give them the long range projectiles that go with it.

We gave them projectiles that can go about 50 to 80 miles, and we have projectiles that can go hundreds of miles. We would need those in order for the Ukrainians to target the Iranian drone batteries. And so far, the Pentagon, because they're afraid that Ukraine will start launching missiles into Russia proper, we have refused to give them those weapons. I personally think we should give them the weapons. We need to let them defend themselves, and we don't need to be involved, obviously, with our aircraft or with our troops on the ground.

And the best way to avoid that is to let them defend themselves. But back to the Iranians, Russia has two problems. One, they're running out of armaments. Russia is lacking a lot of the parts that go into their long range missiles because of sanctions. And so what Russia is having to do, they're turning to North Korea and Iran to rearm, especially when it comes to missiles and these types of drones. So Russia is having an equipment issue with their arms because they have spent so much in Ukraine, and they have been defeated on the battlefield, and they're running short. But in August, they bought a thousand of these Iranian drones and put them in Crimea to use them, and then they discovered that they did not know how to service the drones and weren't really good at operating the drones.

And so according to our intelligence reports, they brought in actually soldiers from the Revolutionary Guard Corps to Crimea, and they are there by all reports to be the technicians for the drones and to help the Russians as they use them and guide them. It is a simple weapon. It's a lot cheaper than the cruise missiles the Russians were using, which can run up to a million dollars apiece. And they're a unique weapon. The blast radius is small. They're deadly still, but they also can fly over a target and hover for up to an hour, and then the operator can choose a pinpoint target to launch the explosive on. So it's a unique weapon, but Iran is definitely involved.

Yeah, but we're seeing these comments on rubble. For instance, the administration has been trying to goad us into this war since the beginning. We know some of our European allies, but also feel like they want us to...

It's like they're always telling us we're not doing enough. They're trying to make Americans feel bad, whether it's Zelensky with his speeches or the other European allies. You all, the US, could be doing so much more, and in fact, I just feel like there is that goading part. I'm not necessarily saying it's goading to get troops on the ground at this point, but there was that, not too long ago, discussions about an aircraft.

And then that got scuttled. But we know that this administration, and also we're close to an election, if you get this drumbeat, if we start seeing more of this, in ways that connect to Americans in a lot more direct way, we know Iran is our enemy. We know they've killed Americans on the battlefield. If they're able to sell this message, then I think it's easier to get... I mean, this is just truth talk here. It'd be easier to get Americans behind doing more in Ukraine, whether that's just spending more money or potentially using actual US troops and airmen.

Yeah, and I would absolutely like you hate to see that happen. The Biden administration, like they do on so many things, they're doing the two-step here. We're giving Ukraine weapons and training so they can defend themselves, but not giving them all the weapons and the training that they could use to defend themselves.

And so we're sort of like two steps forward and one step back. And certainly because of that, and because of the expense of this, especially with all the inflation and the gasoline prices and whatever is going on in America, Americans have cooled off on how much we should support Ukraine. Of course, by and large, all Americans virtually are against sending troops there or even using our aircraft in that airspace. But even what we've done so far because of the economy, there is some waning of support and you may be right.

This may be a way for the UK and the United States to bolster the support from their own citizens about this war in Ukraine. Joey on Rumble writes in, I blame Joe Biden for this. He's weak on everything, but especially with Iran. He supports Iranian terrorism by propping them up through negotiations.

I totally agree with you, Joey. I think that this is why Iran feels like they can take these kind of actions. And honestly, they don't care about the nuclear deal. They knew an action like this would make it that much more difficult to get into a nuclear deal that they don't really want to be in because they want a nuclear weapon. They want it as fast as possible. So they'll keep those discussions going as long as they can. And of course, if they can get cash for it, if they can get other sanctions relief for it, great. But I think what they've seen here is that they're not unwilling to go all in with a partner like Russia at a time when a lot of the world is condemning the actions of Russia.

Not all of the world, but a lot of the world. Let's go to Chris in Nevada on Line 1. If you want to talk to us on air, folks, join us. 1-800-684-3110 is the number you call. That's 1-800-684-3110. What's your opinion on this? Do you think the administration is trying to goad us into war more directly with Russia? 1-800-684-3110. Hey, Chris.

Hi. I think the administration wants to get the American people's minds off the economy with the election a little over two weeks away, and this is the way to do it. Well, it's interesting because, one, I think that you're right, Chris, that anything they can do to distract West from the economy, war, unfortunately, has been something we've seen politicians use to distract Americans from what's going on domestically.

Yeah, yeah. And the Biden administration is trying to get us to look at anything except what is going on domestically here. I personally am tired of him referring to this, the gasoline prices, as Putin's gas hikes, Putin's pricing of gasoline. The gasoline prices have nothing to do with Putin's war on Russia. It has everything to do with Biden's war on fossil fuels in America. But, yeah, I think they're trying to put a shiny object, any shiny object, this happens to be one of them, to get our minds off of the complete abject failures domestically from this administration.

Yeah. I mean, I think, again, when you look at all of this, and, folks, you kind of take that step back, there's politics at play. They don't just make these announcements to make these announcements. They're always strategic. There's something behind it always. In my opinion, I think it's twofold.

One, I think the caller is right. I think that if they can distract and put more attention on Ukraine, less on the economy. But remember, any time we do more for Ukraine, we're spending more of U.S. resources and of our own military's resources. We're sitting over millions and millions of dollars of equipment. So it affects our economy. Second, I do think that longer term, even post-election, they want to be more involved in Ukraine. It's the American people who have been able to really stand up in almost a, not bipartisan way, but there's been a lot of talk on just people in general who just say, I don't want to go send our troops to fight this war. Like, it's one thing to help the Ukrainians push back against the Russians, but can we find some way of getting towards a peace agreement?

Is there any way to see an end to this conflict without nuclear armageddon that's been discussed? We'll continue to take your calls. 1-800-684-3110. Important news out of Israel. Jeff Balaban is going to join us. Senior Counsel oversees our office, ACLJ Jerusalem, in the next segment of the broadcast.

Don't want to miss it. Hey, welcome back to Secular. We're taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Let me take this call on the war in Ukraine that we were just discussing. Then we're going to get to Jeff Balaban and some issues involving this administration continuing to send money to the Palestinian Authority, even though they're continuing their pay-for-slay program. We'll get into that. Hey, Nick, welcome to Secular. You're on the air.

Thank you for taking my call. My question is, what do you think the Biden administration, or do you think they might change their position after the midterms? I think that they could try and build up more American support for doing more in Ukraine, whether that's using our airmen and women or just sending more resources, instead of using diplomacy to try and bring it into this conflict. You heard Biden use nuclear armageddon. That scares Americans. That makes them say, okay, maybe we need to do something before it gets to that level.

But what is it? And now they just tell us that the Iranians are on the ground there. Not surprising that Russia's working with Iran.

We already knew they were purchasing their weapons, and they've got some of their people there on the ground to teach the Russians how to utilize those weapons. But to me, it does feel like that drumbeat again, that they're using language that I don't think it'll just be through the election. I think they're thinking long-term, how do we build support? But they do want any distraction issues.

We know that as well. Anything that will distract you from inflation and economy, they're throwing it all out these next few weeks onto the table. Now, one issue I don't think they want us paying attention to is their funding of the Palestinian Authority.

That doesn't help them in election years, and they don't want us talking about it. Let me go to Jeff Balaban, because, Jeff, we have laws on the books in our country that say until the Palestinian Authority changes, no more USAID, and yet almost a billion dollars in USAID under the Biden administration has gone directly to the Palestinian Authority, yet they continue to have their pay-for-slay program. That's right, Jordan. A law was passed in the United States called the Taylor Force Act. Taylor Force was the name of an army veteran, a West Point graduate, who was brutally stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist. And it turns out that the money that goes to support this kind of terrorism, support the family of terrorists, is coming from the Palestinian Authority directly, and the Taylor Force Act says we will not use American tax dollars to pay for their Palestinian terrorism. And the Biden administration has nonetheless ignored the Taylor Force Act and has sent hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority, much of which that money goes to support, incite, inflame a culture of terrorism, a culture of murdering innocents, and to actually pay the families of those who do.

Yeah, I mean, this money goes directly to the families of the so-called martyrs who died while committing acts of terrorism against Israelis, but Wes, as Jeff pointed out, the reason why we have this law on the books is because an American was killed by one of these Palestinian terrorists, and yet they continued their pay-for-slay program. So he said no more funding to you until you stop the program. They said they would stop it. They have not. They have not stopped it, and the law is very clear. I've got a blog going up today about this and how the Biden administration is literally violating federal law by giving these monies to the Palestinian authorities there. Actually, I went, Jeff, yesterday to the White House and State Department website. They're very open about what they're doing and calculated, and the total from those two websites that they're giving to the Palestinians comes out to $988 million.

And the law could not be more clear. Other than the East Jerusalem Hospital Network and vaccinations for children, we are not supposed to be giving them anything, and yet we are doing it, and they're doing it through a lot of different avenues and agencies. Half of that total is going to them through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is—they criticize Israel at the UN continually, and they've even used some of their schools, the terrorists have, for their bases to attack the citizens of Israel. And this law says that they have to stop attacking Israeli citizens and U.S. citizens. They have to condemn the terrorist acts when they happen, fully investigate them. And also, they're supposed to not even, on their social media sites, promote violence against Israelis and Americans. In this State Department page that I read yesterday, they even note—the U.S. State Department, on their page, notes with some regret that the Palestinian leadership continues to promote violence.

So they note that on the same page where they're giving them $988 million. You know, Jeff, you oversee ACLJ Jerusalem, and we always watch what's going on at the United Nations, of course, through our special status there, through our European Center for Law and Justice. And there's a UN push to declare, quote, Israeli occupation illegal and try and get the International Court of Justice involved.

Tell people about that. So these things all work together, Jordan. The fact that we have an American administration that did a complete reversal from the Trump administration and started treating this violent anti-Semitic terrorist organization, the Palestinian Authority, as though it's a state almost, and giving it some sort of sense of sovereignty almost, well, the world sees that. And so Israel's enemies, the enemies of the Jewish people, are rising up and using instrumentalities like the UN, along a hotbed of anti-Semitism, to now try and push again to destroy Israel. This is just the push to destroy Israel, Jordan, and it's, of course, emboldened by them seeing that America is taking the lead on saying it's OK to kill Jews in the streets, you know, it's open season, it's open season on Israel. And so, of course, the world reacts this way. Yeah, I mean, what can be done, you think, Jeff, I mean, utilizing our resources, our allies, it's tougher when it comes through the General Assembly than it does through the Security Council because of the veto powers there at stake. And that anti-Israel bias at the UN is so strong. But you would think that the U.S. government, the Biden administration, they could be doing more to support Israel. They're not. Well, you know, and that's the point. They love to use the rhetoric of they're interested in a, quote, solution.

They call it a two state solution. They're not. They're very clear. They're interested in creating a Palestinian Authority state or a Palestinian Arab state in the Jewish homeland. That's their goal. Whether it wrecks Israel, destroys Israel literally physically or entirely, they're fine with that. And so they use the language of we're doing this, you know, in Israel's behalf, but actually it is a savage attack on Israel. And as far as them standing up for Israel, the UN, unfortunately, we you know, there have been some moments now in the last couple of years where they've been not terrible. But we have, unfortunately, the precedent of Joe Biden himself being Barack Obama's arm to twist some arms at the UN to hurt Israel right before they left office.

So anything's up here, Jordan. They could well use the United States power to to say one thing to the United States public who still supports Israel, but behind the scenes completely destroy Israel at the UN. I had a question, too, about where Israel stands now. Yair Lapid is in charge as prime minister. There was talks of future elections. Where does all the politics in Israel, I know we're close to our midterm elections here.

What's going on there? Yeah, so Israeli elections and American elections are almost the same week. And it's anybody's guess as to how this is going to fall out.

It's very, very close. But even again, relatedly, there's been a big push from using American Democrats, American Democrats in Congress to threaten Israelis, to threaten Bibi. If you dare form a coalition with a right wing group, we're going to not support Israel. We're going to turn us against Israel.

And it's extraordinary. They were perfectly fine supporting a government, at least not complaining about a government that had little elements of the most brotherhood in it. But they won't support a right wing Jew. All right, we're going to follow that. We're going to follow our elections. We're going to follow what's going on at the UN.

And we stand with Israel. We have an office, ACLJ Jerusalem. Jeff oversees that office for us, the senior council with the ACLJ.

Another reason, yet another reason to support the work of the ACLJ financially, if you're able to right now, donate online at ACLJ.org. Coming up second half hour, we've got Rick Rinnell joining us. Of course, a senior advisor to us, the ACLJ, former acting director of national intelligence on this Chinese move through TikTok to try and track.

Surprise, surprise, they are doing what they said they would be doing and what we thought they would be doing with TikTok. So a lot coming up second half hour. Don't miss it. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. All right, welcome back to Sekulow, folks.

We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. When Rick Rinnell joins us, you know we take calls with Rick. He's going to give us a political update. He's on the ground in Wisconsin right now, major Senate race there with our friend Senator Ron Johnson, which I think he just finished up an event with. So he'll be joining us right after that in the next segment, after this short segment.

But I do want to take some calls that have come in right away. We've been talking about this announcement by the administration that Iran is on the ground now in Crimea assisting Russians. Is this part of a drumbeat towards more U.S. military support to Ukraine? Is it a way to say, you know, hey, maybe you don't want war with Russia, but hey, Americans, we don't like Iran. So can we somehow get the American public more behind these efforts by announcing who else Russia is working with?

I think we need to watch that very closely. Let me go to Terry in Virginia on Line 1. Hey, Terry. Hi.

Thank you for taking my call. My take on it seems to me that this Biden administration would like to escalate the war. And well, well, he's taking he keeps crossing the red lines with Russia.

When Russia set their red lines, he crosses them. I believe the Biden administration is doing this, taking this action because they know that they are going to lose the elections and they're losing going to lose all three branches of government. And they would like, you know, for the the the general to take over. You know, if if the if, you know, martial law, from what I hear, martial law may be called.

I don't think it's martial law here in the United States because I don't think Joe Biden is going to have a mandate for that after this election. I think the House is definitely going to Republican. It looks like if the elections were held today, by the way, they kind of are being held today in many ways because of early voting. We're going to talk to Rick Renell about that. We've been focusing on different races as he's been around the country. We talked about with Mike Pompeo yesterday as he's been around the country, too, in different races.

But Rick is in Wisconsin right now. It's a major race, a city race there for Ron Johnson. I think it's this distraction, any issue that's not related to inflation in the economy, whether it's abortion, whether it's Iranians on the ground in Crimea. It's something that the administration is going to try to push out onto the news to talk about, because when they talk about that, they don't have to talk about the economy. It's like going on and having a Roe versus Wade event, you know, protect Roe. Well, again, you're not going to necessarily, though some politicians have tried, like Stacey Abrams has failed, to try and connect the economy to Roe and gas prices even to Roe. I mean, that's just how absurd it's getting.

But that's what happens when you get 18 days out from a major midterm election where the balance of power in Washington is at stake and it's favoring the opposition party to the current President. So I want to ask you, if you want to continue to ask questions, if you've got questions about Chinese involvement with TikTok, give us a call. We're going to talk about that with Rick Renell. If you've got questions about politics, what's happening on the ground, Rick Renell is a great resource there as well. Give us a call, 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110.

But get those calls in now. Let me encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. We're able to provide you not just the broadcast, but who's on the broadcast.

Think about it today. We had Wes Smith, who's in the studio with me. Jeff Balaban, who oversees our office in Jerusalem. Rick Renell, former acting director of National Intelligence, a cabinet member of the Trump administration.

Yesterday, it was Mike Pompeo, former secretary of state and CIA director. This team that we've gathered just for the broadcast purpose, for you, the public-facing broadcast of the ACLJ, is outstanding. And we're able to bring it to you every day to analyze it. That's part of your support of the ACLJ goes to that.

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So check out ACLJ.org, make a donation if you can. We'll be right back with Rick Rinnell. Well, we were talking about it, Ron. I wasn't going to start this way, but Rick Rinnell, who, again, works closely with us on broadcast, too, is on the ground in Wisconsin with Ron Johnson.

Just got to our producer, Will, so he can bring it to the studio with me during that break. An unearthed tweet from Ron Johnson's opponent, Mandela Barnes, who's the Democrat U.S. Senate candidate in Wisconsin, where he thanks the Ayatollah in 2015 for his tweet. He says, the first tweet of 2015 from Khomeini is, quote, is hashtag Black Lives Matter. Let that sink in.

May this be a most wonderful year for you and yours. Rick, I want to go right to you on the ground in Wisconsin. Maybe this is why we're starting to see some polling that shows Senator Johnson moving that much more ahead of his opponent. I know it's still a very close race, but this is just absurd.

This is really scary. What is going on with the Democratic Party? I mean, red alert, you have a Wisconsin Senate candidate giving aid and comfort to the Ayatollah, a man who pushes gay people off buildings, systematically denies human rights, is a Holocaust denier.

The list goes on and on. And this guy is literally giving aid and comfort to the leader. I don't understand the people of Wisconsin need to know that this is who is running.

It's outrageous. What is the Democratic Party doing? President Obama is coming to Wisconsin very soon to campaign for this guy. Somebody's got to ask him, are you serious? We want to put the Democrat nominee up for a vote of the people when he is giving the Iranian regime killer aid and comfort, complimenting him publicly?

That is unacceptable. What have we become? Yeah, because Rick, we're talking about this is not a local small race, and again, those are all important too, but this is to be a U.S. Senator, and he's trying to take out an incumbent U.S. Senator, Ron Johnson.

You're on the ground in Wisconsin today. This idea that, again, they either blatantly have this anti-American view. They also chant death to America, death to Israel over in Iran. That's very common to hear, and these very anti-American statements that come directly out of the Ayatollah and his supporters. But this idea that this is who they chose to be their U.S. Senate candidate to try and take out an incumbent tells me a lot about, and Barack Obama is still coming there, about who they're okay with putting a D next to their name. You know, look, President Obama had to negotiate with the Iranians. He saw intelligence that showed exactly who these people are, and having a former President campaign for a guy who is literally giving aid and comfort to the Ayatollah of Iran, the Iranian regime leader.

I mean, you can't make this up. The Democratic Party should absolutely distance themselves from this guy. The money should dry up. Who is giving money to somebody like this?

I need to know, because they clearly are supporting people who are un-American. This Mandela Barnes is unfit to serve in the Senate. Yeah. No, I totally agree. I mean, thanking the Ayatollah on Twitter for his remarks, as if those aren't just propaganda remarks, like he's some kind of human rights champion in the Ayatollah as we've walked through. He's absolutely not.

They're oppressing their people in the streets as we speak right now, and a wonderful year for the Ayatollah would be the destruction of America and our ally, Israel. But Rick, give people an update on the ground in Wisconsin, because everybody's following. There's a dozen or so states, and everybody's watching closely.

Wisconsin is one of them. It's a seat we need to keep. How are things on the ground? You've been with Senator Johnson in the campaign. How does it feel? Well, last night, we joined Senator Johnson for a reception with Log Cabin Republicans. This morning, we did a Veterans Roundtable.

Tonight, we're going to be at Serb Hall in Milwaukee together. I hope that people will come out. Senator Johnson is working incredibly hard.

He's not taking anything for granted. I think people in Wisconsin are very upset that this Mandela Barnes is getting so much money and support from national Democrats who clearly don't understand who he is. But I think this race has always been tight, but it looks like through the latest moves of Mandela Barnes that he's beginning to implode and people are beginning to leave him. A security issue I wanted to talk about with you as well. We've actually got calls on it, because TikTok is the number one app in the world right now.

It's the most downloaded app. There was a lot of concern in the U.S. Initially, it was almost banned by the federal government. There came in and there was some kind of solution there with a U.S. shell company. But now they're taking another look at it because they realize that there's two things at play here. One, there's a Chinese law that says any of these tech companies have to make all the data available to the Chinese government. That means any data TikTok is collecting on locations where people are. But that there was an entity within TikTok, the bigger umbrella company, that was specifically targeting some more high-profile Americans who might be using TikTok to use that data, not to serve them ads, not to serve them the content.

That's how they're trying to explain it away in their U.S. spokespeople, but to track them, to track exactly what they were doing. And so there's this now new push yet again to say, hey, do we need to take a look at TikTok and maybe removing it from these app stores? Well, I think that it should have been done a long time ago. It's a dangerous app. I'll say two points. One, as former acting director of national intelligence, I tell my nephews and nieces and everyone that will listen, do not put TikTok on your phone. I mean, there you go. I just want to stop that for a second.

I mean, there's some Rick Riddell, former acting director of national intelligence. That's a good message for our audience to tell if they're not on it, but they've got family members who are to get off of it. Look, it's a very dangerous app.

I don't want to go into great detail of what we know, but it's a very dangerous app. But let's also be clear about one thing, Jordan. The Communist Party of China, they have authority over every business, every American business that does work in China. You have to have a Chinese partner. And that Chinese partner that that American companies are working with has to pledge that they will absolutely turn over data to the Communist Party. This is known. This is a fact. You cannot stop this. And so I think it's really important that if you're going to work in China as a company, you need to understand the risks that are that you're taking. And I'm not suggesting that you don't, but I am suggesting that you take a lot of mitigation steps to make sure that you're tapping your data in every possible way. It'll never be fully protected.

But there are some things that you can do to mitigate that. You know, I want to take a phone call, Rick, on TikTok. Sarah in Maryland online one. Hey, Sarah.

TikTok videos. You certainly seem to be pretty negative and trying to scare people in this country. There's nothing positive they show. We're all falling apart. We're all going at each other. And I think that was a good I'm not on TikTok, but everything they send us everything they want us to see. It's ultimately to just stabilize us as a culture and make us fearful. That's all I have to say.

Yeah. So that's another way that they're utilizing the platform is they're serving people content, Rick, that shows the United States in disarray. Well, look, I do think that having a whole bunch of information is good.

I'm all for more information. But but there is a responsibility that we all have to take when it comes to information, whether it be recognizing that you can't get all your news from one news source, that you need multiple news sources to understand what's going on because media is a business and they're going to feed you whatever they can to make more money. We have a responsibility. Gone is the day that you get to just show up and be a sponge and assume that everything you're reading or seeing is accurate or the truth. And so the responsibility aspect of media to me is the number one rule. Make sure you're not, you know, believing everything you see and read.

Make sure you're not taking in the content nonstop and having it overleveraged you, but have balance in your life and make sure that you are the one that is controlling what's coming in and whether and making yourself skeptical about the messages that you see and read. Folks are people out there, too, and Wisconsin and people are interested in that race with Ron Johnson, a very important race to keep Ron Johnson, the U.S. Senate. Rick's on the ground there now. I retweeted that tweet so you could see how the Democrat candidate was thinking the Ayatollah of Iran and heed Rick's warning on TikTok. That's why I bring him on all these issues. He couldn't get to all the details but said, you know, take his advice. I don't have it. And make sure, you know, your kids understand who's behind it and what they're utilizing it for.

And now see the U.S. reports that they actually were trying to use it not just to serve ads, not just to make money, but to track certain high profile individuals in the country, of course, serving anti-American content. So we'll continue to take your calls. 1-800-684-3110.

I want your thoughts on that. 1-800-684-3110. What do you think about a Democrat Senate candidate thanking the Ayatollah of Iran on Twitter? We've got it. It's on my Twitter account, too, now. At JordanSekulow.

Check it out. We'll be right back on Sekulow. I want to play this sound from John Kirby again, because as we were just kind of broke this to Rick right now, he had just tweeted out this unearthed tweet from Mandela Barnes, the Democrat U.S. Senate candidate. You already got Federman in Pennsylvania that you're like, this is who you're putting up to be the U.S. Senate candidate? And now you go to Wisconsin and there, this is a guy who's thanking the Ayatollah on Twitter. Thanking the Ayatollah on Twitter. Now take a listen to Kirby about Iran and Russia. We've said this for months that Russia had plans to turn to Iran for support, and this is another sign of just how brutal Mr. Putin is willing to be and just how isolated both he and Iran are from the rest of the world. But Democrat politicians are rushing to Wisconsin, including the former President of the United States, Barack Obama, to campaign for a U.S. Senate candidate, Mandela Barnes, a Democrat, who is thanking the Ayatollah on Twitter.

Talk about things coming full circle. Russia, Iran, you want to talk more about all of that? The January 6 investigation by the DOJ, they have spent a total of 9.3 million taxpayer dollars, but they want more, a lot more. 34 million dollars. Because remember, to keep the idea up that there's this huge domestic violent extremism problem, which we've already debunked on this broadcast, that the way that they are tracking it is making it look like there's more events going on.

And in fact, it was just all people who were at one location on one day, that January 6, who again, there were bad actors there who did bad things, who should be prosecuted. Does that take an additional 34 million dollars from the Department of Justice, which already has a massive budget? They don't just have in their budget a way to conduct law enforcement.

But I think it's because they want to continue this idea that the problem is not from the outside, the problem is not the economy, the problem is those MAGA supporters, and we got to keep going after them. And in fact, the 9.3 million dollars was not enough. We need 34 million dollars.

Let me put it in perspective. You know how much Bob Mueller spent on that waste of time that we had to fight back against? And we did it personally as the President's attorneys. The Mueller investigation cost 32 million dollars to get that report, which was almost unreadable.

I mean, when Bob Mueller tried to go through it in front of Congress, he had to have an assistant just to try and figure out what pages and sentences meant because it was so poorly done. And it amounted to nothing, except for a partisan attack on our President at the time, but amounted to no legal, you know, nothing legal. And then that cost 34 million. Now they want 32 million. Now they want 34 million. And they tried to do this.

Watch closely. They're trying to do this before the end of this Congress. So they don't have to do it before the midterms because even those Democrats who are retiring or lose will still be in office until the new group is sworn in, in January. So there will still be Democrat majorities. And what we have to watch is that time between November and the end of December where a lot of lame duck Democrats who aren't worrying about their political future anymore and may really be upset at Republicans because they don't have a political future anymore, saying, you know what, I will vote to give the DOJ 34 million additional taxpayer dollars to go after Americans. I just wanted to point this out to show you, they're still trying to figure a way. They know they're going to lose their committee.

The January 6 committee will likely be done at the end of December. There will not be support for that in the House, certainly. And there's not in the Senate. And I think it's going to get that much tougher for Democrats in the Senate as well if things keep trending the conservative way, in the Republican way.

But they're still crafty. So can they get another 34 million before so they can continue to target Americans to continue this theme, which may not have worked this election cycle for them, but they are certainly going to continue. And if Donald Trump runs for President again or people who support the MAGA idea run for President, whoever carries that mantle, which I think will be the mantle that is the path to getting the Republican nomination, that we will still be able to prosecute these individuals or give us more resources so we can try and find more people and more domestic violent extremists out there that they can then try to pinpoint to a political movement. So this idea, again, they're worried they're running out of money on their investigation. I'm not even sure how that works because the Department of Justice has a huge budget. If they want to reallocate money, they can, but they want more.

They want specific money just to go after, I guess. I mean, I don't know who's left. I don't know who's left. Who else are they trying to prosecute from January 6th? We're a couple of years out from this.

What's going on with the Department of Justice? But it's just another point I think it gets to, which is they don't give up. Even when they are preparing to lose control, they've got things in their back pocket to try and push even before that we won't have as easy of a job defeating. So keep your eye on this very closely. Keep your eye on this Iran talk. As we finish out the show today, I really want you to keep your eye on what the administration is talking about with Iran. Listen, I am no fan of Iran. They're an enemy of Israel. They're an enemy of the United States. I don't want a nuclear deal with Iran. I don't support this administration trying to get a nuclear deal with Iran. And if the one good thing that comes out of Iran working with Russia, which is not good for the world but could be positive for one item, is that even this administration, the Biden administration, has admitted it's going to make it a lot more difficult to get that nuclear deal now that they're not just selling drones to Russia. They're killing Ukrainians but actually on the ground in Ukraine helping the Russians utilize the drones. So Iranian military on the ground. But I think we do have to just, you know, it's my kind of question it all and be weary when these reports pop up right around election. Is this being done to help build a drumbeat?

They have significantly, I think, lost a lot of the drumbeat. There's just a lot of confusion over Ukraine and Russia. I think how Elon Musk got attacked just for saying, can we come up with a peace solution?

Like, would that be Crimea? Maybe have the UN come in in some of these areas that they claim are disputed and let the UN run an election so we can have people stop being killed. And just the idea, which I thought was supposed to support the free flow of ideas.

You don't have to always agree or actually adopt them. But just those ideas, people come out and say, oh, he's a Russian agent now. This is a guy who was using his own satellites at his own cost to help Ukrainians be able to communicate on the battlefield to attack Russians.

And yet because he says, I'd like to see this come to an end, as would I think every person wants to see families stop being killed, the attacks on communities, the attacks on city centers to stop, for Putin to stop, to come up with some kind of solution. And at least try. At least try diplomacy.

We always talk about that with Rick Grenell. Where is the diplomacy here? So watch that very carefully and take that warning from Rick on TikTok.

I mean, he couldn't have been more clear. Don't use it. Especially out of this report that they are using it for nefarious purposes.

Surprise, surprise. Out of the Chinese Communist Party. And second, with Rick's information they shared on Wisconsin, now that I've shared on my Twitter account about the Democrat candidate there, think about supporting Ron Johnson, too, even if you're outside of Wisconsin, because, you know, Mandela Barnes, his opponent, is getting a ton of outside support from outside Wisconsin. Ron Johnson is somebody to keep in the U.S. Senate. So just think about that as you are, if you're making political contributions this time of year. I know I'm talking to some people who may not be able to make those kind of contributions right now. Share the information.

Share the information. If you are, maybe put Ron Johnson on your list for a contribution. Because think about his opponent, thanking the Ayatollah on Twitter. Have a great year, Ayatollah, on Twitter.

I mean, it's just sickening. If I was Barack Obama, I would cancel. No way to campaign for that, but if they're too obsessed with political power, they're not going to do that. Support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. Talk to you Monday.