SHOCK IN LA: Celebrities Learn What ACLJ Has Known for Years

This is Logan Sekulow.

After a shocking demonstration, celebrities finally learn what the ACLJ has known for years. 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. Welcome to Sekulow.

We'll be taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. And we're going to start off with some of the news that happened over the weekend and really over the last couple weeks as it's been brewing. As we've seen, finally, after years, millennia if you will, thousands of years, hundreds of years, all modern times, a lot of us have been out there talking about the fight against anti-Semitism. Whether that was in Israel or in America. Whether that was for Zionism or whether it was for American Jews.

However, finally, after all the different kinds of protests and things we've seen over the years, finally, celebrities started this weekend to post their support for their Jewish friends and their Jewish family members and really started to take a stand. And look, here's what I wanted to say at first. Good. About time.

About time someone actually started talking about this. So I'm happy in some sense. I'm happy that it's part of the conversation. Now the catalyst to this I find to be pretty disingenuous.

And I'm just being honest. I felt like it was almost shocking to me that this is what got you there? You know, when you think about what happened with the Black Lives Matter movement, what got people there? The George Floyd situation. That was sort of the final thing where a lot of people broke and said we have to do something, we have to say something. And whether you like the way they said it or what they said after, that was the catalyst. The catalyst to the movement against anti-Semitism, was it something to do with hate crimes that have happened? Thousands of hate crimes or attacks on synagogues over the last decade? Was it the fight that all these people have had and the Jewish people have had for years in different communities? Or the fight in Israel where the only progressive country, the only country that really has true freedom, where those people are attacked simply for existing? Was that what finally turned you to being someone who is going against anti-Semitism, fighting to end anti-Semitism?

No. What the catalyst was, was really started with Kanye West, yay. Yay.

Say it right, yay. Going on rants first on social media and then on all your favorite political news shows that were anti-Semitic. That was the start. Then, over the weekend, it bled into I guess what you would consider to be a protest of three or four, it looks like, individuals with banners saying that he was right, hanging them over an L.A. freeway. So it came to L.A.'s front door, it came right there, a few protesters. Look, whether these protesters were able to incite violence or whatever they were doing wasn't good.

Again, I'm glad there was a wake-up call. And then the big fight, so you say, what is going to be the action item here? What's the action item to end anti-Semitism? Is it to support really your Jewish friends and family, support Jewish-backed businesses?

What is it going to be like it's been for some of these others? No, it's to get Adidas to cancel their contract and to drop Kanye. That is the end goal. Look at what was number one trending, hashtag boycott Adidas.

Of all the things that they possibly could have picked to support Judaism, Jewish people, American Jews, Jews in the world, they decided that the answer was to say, we don't like that Adidas is working with Kanye West. Does that feel genuine to you? It doesn't feel to me. And look, I'm happy if these things happen. I want people to wake up to see what's really happening in the world. I got no problem with it.

But my problem is this shouldn't have been the catalyst. We've been talking about this and working on this in the ACLJ for decades, and we're going to talk about that coming up. We also have Jeff Balaban, we got Rick Grenell. They're all going to weigh in on this and other topics as well. We're only two weeks away from the midterm elections. Tonight, I think Governor DeSantis has his debate. So we'll see that, see what he's like on the debate stage. We'll talk about that and so much more, but I'd love to hear from you.

1-800-684-3110. We'll be right back with more on Secula. Welcome back to Secula. Again, starting this discussion about the wake-up call over the weekend against anti-Semitism. Whether that came from Hollywood, whether that came from a few protesters, or from Kanye West. Finally, people are speaking out. And Will, you have a quote that I think we should talk about because we've talked about this a lot, which is sort of the anti-Semitism being one of the last things that is cool in society.

That you can kind of come up with ways. You swap the word Jewish with Zionist, all of a sudden it's fine to be anti-Semitic, but read that. Yeah, so this is from Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon.

Many of you know him because he was the District Attorney of San Francisco, ruined San Francisco, and then moved down to LA to continue his work down in Los Angeles in Southern California. But he tweeted on Sunday saying, We cannot tolerate the anti-Semitism that was on full display today on the LA freeway. White supremacy is a societal cancer that must be excised. This message is dangerous and cannot be normalized. I stand with the Jewish community in condemning this disgusting behavior. Well, those are the right words. It is right to condemn it.

Of course. What I have a problem is where he says this message cannot be normalized. Because what we've been arguing and seen across the country, whether it be at the universities, whether it be in cities, whether it be the left pushing for the BDS movement to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel, that anti-Semitism unfortunately has become normalized in America. It has become something that you can be at the highest levels of business or government or in media and get away with to a degree by saying not, I hate Jewish people, but I hate Israel. Or calling Israel an apartheid state. Or going after the State of Israel in all these different colorful terms that mean the same thing and it's all rooted in anti-Semitism. Or just using anti-Semitic tropes and stereotypes.

That happens a lot. And we've seen that from members of the Squad. The most popular, I'd say, I mean they may not be our favorites by any means, but probably the most popular political movement inside the government over the last decade is probably the Squad. Rashida Tlaib, AOC, all your favorites.

Ian Omar. And what have they been doing for the last few years? Have they been the ones speaking out against anti-Semitism? Have they been the ones stoking the fire? Finally, you're going to see them now have to shift a little. They're going to have to change their tone because guess what? Hollywood decided this weekend it was cool to fight anti-Semitism. We've been doing it for decades, as Will said here at the ACLJ. Next segment we're going to have on Jeff Balaban.

He's going to talk about some of the stuff that we're working on right now that has been fighting this battle. It's nothing new. And look, again, I'm filled with a lot of mixed emotions about this because there is part of me that looks at it and goes, I've been waiting for this moment.

I've been waiting for Hollywood to wake up. And it feels ridiculous because of how many friends and family members I know in the Jewish community that work and live. And when I say Hollywood, I'll just say celebrities or even just pop culture figures because they've tolerated a lot over the last few years. And even your friends, I will say this too, even people that you would consider your friends who have maybe shunned you for being anti-Israel, maybe shunned you for being pro-Israel because they stand against Israel's right to exist. The only Jewish homeland smaller than New Jersey. Then you have your friends who maybe went after you just because you decided that that was one of those key issues. Or maybe you went a little bit more right when they went left because you saw the leftist hate against the Jewish people.

Maybe you actually saw that already. Where are those people now? Where's the progressive church now that decided that Israel was no longer something worth value? I want to hear from you. I want you to give me a call.

1-800-684-3110. And look, the fringe on both sides of this are bad. They have been sometimes the loudest voice in the room, but I don't believe they represent the mainstream, not the mainstream, the actual voter or the American people. So you have the far left of the squad who are making jokes like, it's all about the Benjamins related to the Jewish people.

Then you have the other side, the far fringe right who have problems with the Jewish people and some of the conspiracy theories that they want to provoke. Because look, I posted what I wanted to say, my statement, across platforms. Did some on Twitter, did some on Instagram, did some on Truth Social. What I found is on Instagram, there were some people in the middle. On Twitter, there was mostly silence and a few people who didn't understand or a few people on the left who said, you know, maybe you went a little too hard. I found out on Truth Social, if I'm being honest, got a lot of likes, got a lot of retweets. All but one comment was spewing anti-Semitic rhetoric directly at me. All but one comment.

It was one of our most lively posts that I've done. And this was me saying that the leftists, a lot of leftists and a lot of people in the progressive church have much more blood on their hands than Kanye or Adidas could ever. Because they've been spouting this for years. Kanye has been saying it for a couple weeks, okay?

It's been a couple weeks. Four protesters over at LA freeway does not do the damage that mainstream politicians and religious figures have done for decades. And what I see as part of the problem with the outrage right now is that it's almost as if they just discovered this.

And we can't normalize it. In 2020, there were 2,026 incidents of anti-Semitic, either assault, vandalism or harassment targeting Jewish communities. That's 2020. During a lockdown, 2,026 incidents. There was an increase in 2021 last year, a 34% increase to 2,717 reported incidents. Those are just ones that are tracked. That they are saying this was based off of targeting the individuals or the community center or whatever because of... These were hate crimes.

Right. They were specifically targeted incidents against Jewish peoples and that there was an anti-Semitic incident. The fact that this is increasing 34% year over year and all of a sudden it's a banner over a freeway, that isn't vandalism, violence or harassment. That's pretty shocking. Yeah, exactly.

And there's an account that I follow and they posted this on Twitter and on Instagram and it said, If someone only speaks up for Jewish people when it's socially and politically convenient, they are not an ally. And I can't agree more with that. Look, again, I'm okay with a wake-up call. I'm okay with that being, find it odd that this is the wake-up call. I find it odd that it's not the 2,000 hate crimes.

The mass shootings we've seen in synagogues around the world or the violent displays against the Jewish people or AOC and them going on anti-Semitic rants. Because what it was, was a guy, one of the most prolific entertainers in our lifetime, going on consecutive interviews, talking about Jewish people in a negative way. Then again, it was, he said, you know what, I could say whatever I want because Adidas can't drop me. Probably means there's some sort of contractual segment of his contract that says what he says in his personal life does not affect the business operation of his brands. That's probably what it is, okay? But now you've decided that the results of this have to be, well, Adidas has to quit working with him. That's how we solve anti-Semitism. That's it. And I find that to be very disingenuous. Though I want to believe, I want to believe that all these people are posting are going to stick up for the next forever on this topic.

It's just hard to get there. I was about to say there's also an irony in that, is that they're saying we want Adidas to drop the business relationship with Kanye. Because what the left does to Israel, that is a big portion of the active element of the anti-Semitism that's throughout the world, is boycott, divest, and sanction the state of Israel, the Jewish state of Israel by, we've seen it in stories like the Ben and Jerry's ice cream story. We've seen it with the sparkling water dispenser that was such a big thing, it was made in Israel, created in Israel, and SodaStream.

SodaStream, the name was escaping me. But all of these things, what is their tactic is if you're connected to Israel, the Jewish state of Israel, then we have to go after your business. We have to boycott the businesses that do business there. We have to divest if we have investments or any sort of state funding that may have investments in the state of Israel, we have to divest there. And then they want sanctions. They want the United States government to sanction the state of Israel over false claims of apartheid. And that is at the root of anti-Semitism, which has been normalized in this country, which is disgusting and needs to be rooted out.

But when district attorney George Gascon says that it cannot be normalized, it already has been by the left in this country, and it's happening every single day. Yeah, absolutely. Look, we're going to take some phone calls. We've allowed you calling in 1-800-684-3110 in the next segment. We have Jeff Balabon calling in.

He's going to give us sort of an update on what the ACLJ is doing. It has been doing. Again, we're not jumping on the bandwagon over the weekend. We've been doing this for decades, people. We've been talking about this.

Again, a referendum is here. You seize the opportunity. I'm not opposed to it. But what I'd like to see is actual action.

What I'd like to see is people actually respond, not just reposting a meme from Jerry Seinfeld's wife. Which, again, great. No problem with that. But now we've got to keep moving forward. Now you've got to remember that this is not just a cyclical thing that goes away over the weekend.

These are thousands of people who are under attack every year, and we treat it just like it's a social media crisis. Okay, give us a call. 1-800-684-3110. I do want you also to spend a little time on ACLJ.org. There's great content there. Really excellent content.

Not just this daily show. Blogs, news stories, videos. Check out all our social media platforms. If you're watching on YouTube right now, hit that thumbs up. If you're watching on Rumble, hit the plus or the thumbs up.

Comment, share if you're on Facebook. And check out the Sekulow Brothers podcast, new episode dropping later this afternoon, SekulowBrothers.com. Welcome back to Sekulow. We are joined by Senior Counsel for the ACLJ for International Government Affairs, and he runs our Jerusalem-based office.

That is Jeff Balbon. Jeff, thanks for joining us today. I know it was last minute to call you in.

We've been discussing for the last 20 minutes or so the weekend that kind of happened. Finally, you saw Hollywood wake up a little bit to what's happening to anti-Semitism. Does it feel disingenuous?

Maybe a tad, but at the moment, I do feel like people need to pounce on this and go, okay, if you're going to say this, if you're going to make statements and say, I support my Jewish brothers and sisters and I stand up for them, that there's actual action to be done that doesn't just say, we don't like Kanye and Adidas should drop his shoe line. As much as do whatever you want with that, I'm not saying that they shouldn't, but I'm saying, though, is that's the smallest part of the problem. When we've had for decades and decades, well, for thousands of years, really this rhetoric that has gotten in society. And what people don't understand, and maybe you can break it down with some of the stuff we're doing right now, and what we've done in the past, is that the ACLJ, we've been fighting against this for a lot longer than the last week. This has been something that we've been doing for decades.

That's right. I mean, I really joined the ACLJ first doing a project with you years ago and then coming on board precisely for this reason. I mean, we just had a promo now where it's fighting to protect people of faith, fighting to protect our fundamental freedoms as Americans. And specifically, I feel that as someone who has spent my entire life privately and professionally, wearing a yarmulke and therefore being an obviously Jewish person, I've become a lightning rod for good and for bad.

We live in a wonderful country, and it's extraordinary how many Americans have come to me to express their concern for the Jewish people and their love for the Jewish people and their solidarity, and that's wonderful. By the same token, there's never been a part of my life that has been free from anti-Semitism, whether it's been just threats or literal violent attacks or just even sidelong comments. And so what we're seeing now coming out of the left is interesting. A few years ago, I wrote a piece where I described that with the rise of Black Lives Matter and other such organizations, that the right rejects white supremacism because it's supremacist, whereas the left seems to reject it because it's white, because they seem very happy to embrace other forms of identitarianism, of focusing on externalities to define people. So we've worked on this, as you say, Logan, for many years at ACLJ.

Here's a perfect example. During the Trump administration, we worked very closely with the White House to protect Jewish students on campus before this became headlines, when we knew this was a problem because we're in touch and we represent so many Jewish students and faculty who are having a hard time in these woke arenas. And so now, thanks to the Trump administration, the President's executive order, which we helped advise on, Jews are protected for the first time. For the first time, Jews are protected on campus by civil rights laws, which we had not been before.

That's just one example. And Logan, as you know, the messages that you put out there in terms of the media, but also to get people to understand, this problem, as you say, it's been here forever. I don't think it's ever going to go away. We need to have clarity. The problem we have now is that in the most accepted areas of the left, whether it's academia, media, and politics, culturally, anti-Semitism was normalized. So yes, we have to capitalize on the realization that things have gone too far, stop them from pointing a finger and saying, it's only the right wing, but it's very rarely the right wing, and actually address the issue on its substance.

Jeff, this is Will. One angle I wanted to point out, and you just brought up the term normalized, and this is from the tweet over the weekend from the Los Angeles district attorney, George Gascon, and part of his statement said, this message is dangerous and cannot be normalized. The problem of that statement is while the words are correct, the timeline is wrong. It already has been normalized, and that's what we're seeing, and I wanted to point to the case of the Title VI complaint we have against the City University of New York, where part of the entire complaint is building the timeline and showing that it was normalized, that it was systemic at this university system, and unfortunately, the City University of New York isn't the only place in academia where this is the problem. So, I just kind of wanted you to contrast what the district attorney is saying, where it can't be normalized, and unfortunately, how it has become normalized in so many different halls of our society.

Well, that's a fantastic point. Look, we represent a number of faculty members at the City University of New York using this Title VI that, again, we worked at the White House, and now there's actually some kind of a teeth to it, because now institutions of higher education or institutions of education that take federal dollars can lose those federal dollars if they actually promote antisemitism or tolerate antisemitism. And what we're seeing at the CUNY system across New York City, many of the colleges, there is an inherent antisemitism that's been there for years now, and at the very top, they're not only tolerating it. If, God forbid, someone attacks a student for their race or their religion other than Judaism, CUNY will react very strongly, but if it's Judaism, or if it's being supportive of Israel because you're a Jew, it's fine to attack you, and CUNY doesn't support that. In fact, CUNY supports BDS, which itself is antisemitic, and they support it at the highest levels. So, they're saying one thing, and they're trying to redefine antisemitism, and you know, for literally hundreds of years, for thousands of years, people didn't want to say, I hate Jews.

They had excuses. I hate capitalists. I hate communists. And that meant Jews are capitalists or Jews are communists. Today, it's I hate Zionists.

Well, we know what they mean. Martin Luther King famously said, when you say you're anti-Zionist, you mean you're antisemite. Yeah, absolutely, and that is something that we, again, have been preaching here for decades, and I hate that it's common to this. I'm glad that there was a breaking point. Again, I find it odd, and you bring up BDS, and then you're talking about the number one trend on Twitter yesterday. It wasn't end antisemitism.

It was down the list. Number one was boycott Adidas, and it's like, again, that can't be the final goal. The final goal can't be you're responding to Kanye West. The final goal, actually, should be responding to people on the fringe right. And I would say, and I'll be honest, look, I try to call and say, there's the fringe right, and I'd say there's a pretty mainstream left that has been pretty anti-Israel and antisemitic, whether that's the Squad or whoever you want to label it as. On the fringe right, sure, there is plenty of people who will say horrible things.

I caught a lot of them thrown at me last night on social media. But on the left, it's become permeated, and I think people, they don't even maybe know what they're saying or what they're agreeing. The comments, the private messages I got from some of my more liberal friends were somewhat shocking to what they believed to be the case. Almost spewing racism in guides of progressivism is very bizarre. Listen, I saw something, and I want to write about this.

I haven't seen people write about this. Randi Weingarten, one of the most powerful figures on the left today, and she has one of the most powerful unions today, the Teachers Union, she was justifying antisemitism. Now, she is a proud, open Marxist. I think she's certainly a socialist. That's what she is. And she says, well, Jews today are the ownership class.

That is, the concept is amazing. Every Jew, all Jews, so no Jews are poor, all Jews are now the oppressor, which is an extraordinary concept. It's worse than white privilege. And she openly said this in an interview as though it's an acceptable thing. And as you say, Logan, the tipping point really became when, you know, Elon Omar and Rashida Tlaib and the other members of the squad became members of Congress, the Democrats had a choice then what to do.

They couldn't stop them from running, but they didn't have to embrace them. And there was a big push to say, well, you know, Elon Omar is saying insane antisemitic things like Israel is hypnotizing the world. That's a sitting member of Congress, and she's on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Maybe she should be removed from the Foreign Affairs Committee?

No. Instead, she's on magazine covers with Nancy Pelosi hugging her. So, yes, that's the mainstream of antisemitism. And that's exactly what the problem is today. Not that it exists, but that it's being normalized and mainstreamed. And it starts and it's exclusively on the left.

You do not see them on the right at all. Alright, we'll fight for it. Thank you, Jeff, for joining us.

Again, thank you for all the work you do for the Jewish community and all the work that you do in Israel for the ACLJ. We really appreciate it. When we get back, we're going to reset, talk a few other topics, but continue this conversation as well. And Rick Rinnell will be joining us for also a bit of an election update.

We are just a couple weeks away, two weeks from Election Day. We're going to discuss that and what it's going to look like and how things will shake out. Make sure you listen and watch the rest of Sekulow on ACLJ.org, YouTube, Rumble, and Facebook. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow. It's Logan Sekulow. We're continuing the conversation about antisemitism out of the wake of the last week or two in media, in the weekend of social media kind of finally waking up to the rise of antisemitic content that's been happening.

Maybe they're sincere. We're going to find out. We have some calls coming in.

I want to take some of those. And if you want to call in yourself, 1-800-684-3110. And Rick Rinnell joins us in the next segment. Let's go to Tammy, who's calling in the great state of Florida. You're on the air. Hi. Hi, everybody. Thank you for the show.

It's very important. I just want to say I grew up in New York, in the city of Brooklyn, and I had never really experienced antisemitism until I moved out of the city. And my first move was to Ulster County in a small town called New Paltz in New York. And I hired a contractor to build an accessory garage for me. And this guy's name is Carmine. He brought a guy to work with him one day. And it was in the middle of the summer.

And I come home. Both guys have their shirts off, you know, which is not okay. That's, you know, not another here, not there.

But one of them had a tattoo across his whole chest of his wasp sticker. And I was in shock. Tammy, I think that that's something that people do experience. I've experienced that myself, especially in smaller towns and areas of, look, in Tennessee.

I've spent some time out in, you go out into more East Tennessee and some of those areas in the mountains. Guess what you find? You find a lot of antisemitic tattoos and behavior. It's just sort of, it's a sad fact. And one of the comments I know that you were going to say is, where is the ACLU?

You commented that to our phone screen. Where is the ACLU on these hate crimes towards the Jewish people? The answer is, it's not cool anymore for the ACLU to do this. Now, maybe coming out on this weekend, we'll see a change.

Maybe it will be cool. But that's why we're here. That's why the ACLJ is here. That's why I've been here for 30, 40 years now. To fight for people of, by the way, for Christians, for Jews, people of all faiths. Where there's persecution, we'll be there to help support the people who are being persecuted.

First, talk to the people who are going through the problems. That's maybe my big problem with what happened over the weekend. You went to Kanye and you went to Adidas. You didn't go talk to any of the actual Jewish people, the 2,000 plus hate crimes that happened over the last year.

That didn't do it for you. What did it was a guy going on news, spewing anti-Semitic rhetoric, and it is. Look, I know some of you in the comments are like, well, we don't know how Kanye is.

Like, I don't know Kanye personally, but there is no doubt in my mind, as much as I'm a fan of his music, that what he said is inherently anti-Semitic. There's nothing redeemable about it. No, and quit trying to like soften that. I'm not saying it's not interesting television. And I'm not saying I'm not thinking of praying for the guy and hope it gets turned around. But for that to be the catalyst, and then again, for the people just tagging Adidas, is just, it's mind numbing to me when we allow, look, if you're going after Adidas, but you have no problem with the atrocities happening, if you're doing that from your Chinese made phone, maybe that's a big different problem that we're having here. And look, I understand, I'm not saying that I'm happy that they haven't said anything. Of course, I would like to hear a statement, but this is not one in the same here. What should have woken you up was the 2,000 hate crimes.

How about that? That's not the thing. Not what's going on in Israel. Not when Israel, the only free country for Jews to live in, but in the Middle East, surrounded by people. It's surrounded by governments.

We'll say that. Surrounded by governments, because I don't want to stereotype all people. Governments that literally want to destroy them, destroy anyone of a different faith or a different sexual orientation. But Israel somehow gets targeted to be the bad guy. That's just what happens. That's the story from the left. And that's why I said that there's a lot more blood on the hands on the left than there will ever be.

Or ever could be on Adidas or on Kanye. Because they've been doing this for decades. And for really the last few years have just ramped it up to where it really since the Obama era. It's just ramped up every year. Are we at a tipping point? I sure hope so.

And I would love to see some genuine, genuine responses. Give me a call. 1-800-684-3110. Rick Grenell joins us in the next segment. We'll talk some more election stuff coming up.

Welcome back to Secular. We're joined by Rick Grenell. We're going to discuss a few topics with Rick. Rick, we just came off of about a half hour, 35 minute conversation about sort of the weekend it was in terms of celebrities in Hollywood finally turning their attention to anti-Semitism. And of course that catalyst being not the 2000 hate crimes against Jews, not the squad spewing racist rhetoric or anti-Semitic rhetoric over and over for years and years. It was that Kanye said some things, there were three protesters and they want to boycott Adidas. And when I look at that and I look at it on a grand picture and you think about what's happened the last few years, that now all of a sudden it's the cool thing over the weekend for the response.

It does, you're in California, it does make me curious. Obviously I'm not supporting the words of Kanye, I'm not supporting the work of whatever Adidas does or doesn't do and frankly it's such a minute problem in terms of the big picture of Israel and anti-Semitism and everything. But really, and I'm sure you have seen it, we've all experienced it, that's why the ACLJ has been here, this has been something that the, not the fringe right, I mean yes there's been some fringe right, certainly have said some things that are not great, but this is something the mainstream left has been pushing now for years. So why are all of a sudden Hollywood surprised?

Yeah, I mean if your point is there's hypocrisy in Hollywood, you all know that to be true. The BDS movement has been a huge problem. Anti-Semitism has been on the rise. Really attacks on religious liberty have been on the rise and a lot of this stems from just the woke culture of you know demanding that everybody think alike and we've seen this in Europe, you know I can't not talk about this subject without talking about what happened in Europe. Really replacement of religion, Christianity, Judaism, all of the religious push and religious beliefs were really replaced by the government and secularism in Europe. There's a mocking of anyone who is religious in Europe. We don't want to go down that road. We have a first amendment that guarantees us the absolute right to speak out and to have any religion that we want and to be able to embrace any religion that we want.

I am fearful that the cool kids crowd, the big tech universities, Hollywood, the media are all beginning to go down that road of Europeans where we begin to mock anyone who's religious and that's terrible. Yeah, I agree with that and look we're going to move on from that topic. We've talked about it for 40 minutes now.

Folks you know my feelings towards it. There's a lot going on in the world two weeks away from election will and there's a lot of other stuff happening. Yeah Rick, there was kind of a bizarre show at the end of the Communist Party Congress in China that just ended which led to the third term, third consecutive term of Xi Jinping but at the close of the ceremony all of a sudden someone approached the former President who was the predecessor of Xi Jinping and led him out of the room and he was at the front near Xi and it just kind of created this whole spectacle. What's your take on that and what is being projected when something like this happens? Look there is a cleaning of the house so to speak that it's my way or the highway that's happening in the Communist Party of China. No one should be surprised but to have Hu Jintao completely escorted out, embarrassing as it might be was also a real big symbol for President Xi.

He wanted to show that he is in charge and that there should be and could be no dissent and that's what is the scary part about this is the idea that you have governments that crush dissent. Look I'm very fearful that our government, the Biden administration, Democrats are beginning to go down this road and it's a very scary thing to think about but just look no further than January 6th in an investigative committee of Congress. You cannot get more serious and more effective than an investigative committee of members of Congress but this January 6th committee did not have a single dissenting voice.

Every single person agreed with exactly the outcome and the research and how this should be conducted and that to me is scary. It's Chinese, communist Chinese tactics to think that you're going to have an investigative committee without a dissenting voice that's un-American and I get nervous when I see things like this. Another angle out of that show in China was the lack of response from both the State Department, the Ambassador to China. You see a show of power by the current leader of China, both embarrassing and making a big statement for the world to see as they escorted his predecessor out and there's crickets from the United States. What's your concern from our State Department and our diplomacy?

What is that showing to China if we have no response to some sort of authoritarian move like we saw? When you bend to somebody like Xi and you don't call him out, you really teach him that the United States is not going to stand up or be in the way of any of his other bad decisions. We got to call out our current US Ambassador, Nick Burns. He's a career guy who left the State Department to go to Harvard.

He couldn't be more woke. He's completely failed at every job he's ever had. He wants consensus with the Europeans above what's best for America. He rejects this kind of America first mentality. He's mocked anyone who's been a tough diplomat. His beliefs are that diplomats should actually be dining at fancy restaurants and talking about the other country. He doesn't ever defend America. He's unwilling to create a point where he sticks up for America.

And look at this case. He's tweeting about the Celtics, the Boston Celtics. He's from Boston. So he's tweeting about his hometown rather than tweeting about what he just saw unfold in the country where he's supposed to be representing American values.

He's totally failed to represent American values. Well, that does kind of shift us a little bit and I want to talk to you while we still have you about what's going on. We're obviously two weeks away now from the midterms and a little bit different outlook than we saw a few weeks ago. We've seen maybe the Republicans and the conservatives have a bit of a surge maybe in the polls. Obviously, you know, polls are what they are, but do you think the Democrats should get piqued too early?

Do you think that this is our good signs ahead? Look, I have a little bit of a different perspective on this because I don't think that the Republican red wave was ever in doubt. I think the media tried to crush it. They tried to talk about the Democrats surging or all of this stuff. I just don't believe that people change their opinion so fast. I mean, if you watch what the media says of what people are doing and saying, you think we're all just wishy-washy going back and forth.

I don't believe that. I think the red wave was always coming. I think it was always going to be huge. And now we just see the media scrambling to kind of pretend like, oh, yeah, now there's a surge. And they're trying to give a reason why on the day after the election that there will absolutely be a huge Republican red wave surge.

But everybody should get out and vote and participate in that surge. Yeah, I'm excited to see what happens. Obviously, this is a pretty interesting midterm season. You have the western states actually having some difference. You're seeing the more conservatives are on the rise there and that's happening.

And I don't know, I'm excited to kind of just see how things shape up. I think you're right. There was a big talk maybe three or four weeks ago, even for President Biden, where I felt like they were like, we're putting on the cool glasses again. We're going to say this guy's got it. He's back at it.

He is going to be our candidate in two years. And then all of a sudden in the last week, even the NBC News pieces are coming out being like, maybe we need to rethink that once again. We are seeing the media have to scramble when you see states like, again, some of the western states having this kind of response. When you're talking about winds in Oregon and Washington and California, you know it's a big red wave coming. So get out and vote and participate.

Go ride this wave. Yeah, absolutely. All right, Rick, I appreciate you coming on and talking about all these issues. It is going to be an interesting few weeks.

I can't wait to hear from you more. And obviously Rick is out making the rounds everywhere, but he's obviously got great stuff happening also in the state of California. We talk about this all the time. I'm one of those people who doesn't just write off these states, doesn't write off something, a wonderful state like California, that sure has been overtaken by really horrible policies. And there are people like you, Rick, though, that are out there that are not just writing off parts of the country that actually do want to fix what's happening in California. Yeah, there's no question.

I will tell you this. We are currently up to registering 11,000 conservatives a month in California through FixCalifornia.com. It is really going well. Our donors have stepped up. Think about that. 11,000 new conservatives every month. That's wild. So those are just people who just thought it was a lost cause, I guess, and now hopefully see a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel.

They can't take what's happening to their state. So thank you, Rick, for doing that. Thank you for being a part of the ACLJ team. When we come back, we are going to be joined by Wes Smith, I believe, in the next segment, and we're going to discuss a lot of what's going on even in Iran.

So now that's been a pretty controversial topic, so you're going to hear that. If you want to call in, we will take some calls at the last segment of the broadcast. That is 1-800-684-3110.

1-800-684-3110. I'm going to ask you to do a few things. If you're a podcast listener, if you'd like to be, I'd love to have you as part of the subscribers on the Sekulow Brothers podcast. Subscribe to us on Rumble, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, write and review. We'll see you later today on that. Be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow.

We're going to wrap up today. We have Colonel Wes Smith joining us in studio to talk about what's going on. More Democrat silence, I think, is what should be kind of pointed out here.

Will, I want you to break down what's happening. A lot of people talked about Iran for the last, I don't know, 10, 20, 30, 50 years, 100 years, but really the last few years. Because it does sort of flip flop as you have a Republican in office or a Democrat in office, but now you have a bill that, of course, could really do some good potentially. And is there a single Democrat to support it?

Of course not. So this bill is called the Masa Amini Act. This is named after the woman in Iran that was killed brutally by their morality police because she was not properly wearing her hijab and has sparked millions of people in the streets across the nation of Iran, protesting her death and the morality police itself. Even in America there were protests as well.

Maybe not as much as I would have liked, but it did happen. So this bill, what it would do is it would actually impose sanctions on the supreme leader and the President of Iran and other high up government agencies and entities because of their human rights abuses and their support of terrorism. So this would be another layer of sanctions. We know that the Trump administration was very strong on sanctioning Iran, but this would be a direct response to their human rights abuses and their support of terrorism. We've seen them increase their presence in Ukraine, having troops there as well as these suicide kamikaze drones, as they call them, that they're helping the Russians go after the Ukrainians with. This bill would really start to clamp down on some of those entities in Iran. We know that sanctions have worked in the past.

This is always a good thing. This was written by Congressman Jim Banks as well as Michael Waltz from Florida. He was in the Afghanistan documentary that you hosted.

Yeah, Revenge of the Taliban. Wes also is in an episode of that, so take a look at that. It's on YouTube. As well as authored by Mike Gallagher from Wisconsin and 19 other Republicans have co-sponsored it. It's being championed by the Republican Study Committee and it's also being widely supported within conservative circles. Now it was circulated to every Democrat office in the House and told what it is, how it would help, and there has been zero support from Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives for this legislation.

And I guess the question, Wes, is why? Why has there been no Democrat support on what seems to be a logical decision? You would think so. You really would. And not only are there no Democrats supporting this particular proposed legislation, the Biden White House has been completely mute on this issue.

And there's a reason for that. The Biden administration is now still in negotiations with Iranian officials over trying to renew the Iran nuclear deal. This is deja vu all over again because in 2014 the same thing happened. They had the Green Revolution and all the demonstrators in the streets of Iran trying to protest abuses and election fraud and demand human rights and freedom. They were mercilessly put down by the Ayatollah and the President of Iran at the time and the Obama administration stood silent. They did nothing because at that time in 2014 they were negotiating with Iran on the first Iran nuclear deal. Now the same thing is happening in this administration and they are silent and the Democrat allies of the President are silent, refused to help co-sponsor the bill because again there is this unrealistic pipe dream that somehow or other Iran is going to be a good faith partner in negotiations. In actuality what's happening, Logan, is that they are on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon. Yeah, of course you can't do anything to upset the Iranians, especially not now, Will. I think you have a clip you want to play. Yeah, this was from last month when these protests first began and this kind of gets you into the mindset of the Biden administration a little bit. This is Jake Sullivan talking with Margaret Brennan on CBS's Face the Nation Sunday show and she's asking about how are you able to do this at the same time? This negotiation which would include sanctions relief and things of that nature while these protests and you're saying you're not going to turn a blind eye like you did in the Green Revolution. Take a listen to Byte 18. I have to ask you about Iran and these protests led by women after the death of this 22 year old woman who didn't have her hair covered properly in the view of the morality police.

She died. How significant is this and is it making you reassess the offer you put on the table to lift sanctions on Iran in regard to its nuclear program? Well first, Margaret, the fact that we are in negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program is in no way impacting our willingness and our vehemence in speaking out about what is happening on the streets of Iran. They are going to support protests. They are going to support what is going on in the streets of Iran.

So now you have the opportunity to do it. We have a bill to actually say something and of course that was a lie. Well I would probably actually give him a little bit of credit for parsing his words well. He said... By the way, Jake Sullivan is the National Security Advisor so I want to clarify that people don't know. So he says the fact that we are in negotiations is in no way going to impact our willingness to speak out. He didn't say it's going to affect our actions.

It's definitely going to impact their actions. They are negotiating on lifting sanctions, not putting more sanctions on the table for Iran. So of course he didn't say it is in no way impacting our willingness to punish Iran for human rights abuses. He just says our willingness and our vehemence in speaking out about what we see. So to his credit he did use the right words but they are empty words and they are hollow because they aren't going to do anything to stop the Iranians from being brutal exporters of terror across the world and continuing to oppress their people as they try to get this deal. Human rights only matter to a certain extent. Yeah, it's amazing that the Ayatollah and the President and their inner circles are not already sanctioned.

How did that happen? But what a lot of people don't realize is over the last almost two years that the Biden administration has been negotiating with Iran, they've already silently lifted some sanctions. I read parts of this legislation and here's the thing. How can anyone in either one of the parties be against this? This bill says at the end, the sense of the Congress, this is the sense of the Congress that the United States shall stand with and support the people of Iran and their demand for fundamental human rights.

That's the bottom line plea of this bill and the President is not behind it nor is the Democrat party. We only have a couple minutes left. I'm going to actually encourage you to do a couple things. One, support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. You can do that financially or just by going, reading, getting informed, sharing that content with your friends. If you're watching right now on one of our social media platforms, make sure that you are following it, liking it, subscribing. If you're on YouTube right now, there are thousands of you that watch this show live and then later on. Click that subscribe button right now to make sure that you are part of this. The more people subscribe, the more it gets into more people's feeds.

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