Elon Musk: “The Public Deserves to Know What Really Happened.”

Today on Sekulow, Elon Musk tweets that the public deserves to know what really happened at Twitter and Twitter censorship. We'll talk about that more today on Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. All right, welcome to Sekulow. We're taking your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. This White House, the Biden administration, they always need a boogeyman. They always need somebody to paint as the bad actor for the right, for conservatives in America. And right now, their go-to is Elon Musk. And it is to the point where they are planting questions at the White House press conference so that they can say something about Elon Musk. Which again, one, it makes Elon Musk a bigger figure. But two, also it's so that we discuss it. So that it's even a discussion. Why do we keep talking about Twitter?

Why are we talking about this new – it's really a new platform in many ways. Kind of going back to the original idea of what Twitter was about, which was a free speech platform. Of course, the job of their actual moderators is to look for the criminal content to take down.

The stuff that shouldn't be there, but not to police speech or police thought. But listen to this preset question by – I think it was Reuters? I mean, it's like they're reading the – you know – Karim Jampir. Yeah, KJP now. The KJP, the White House press secretary. Yes.

Take a listen. It's a long question. A question about Twitter. You know, there's a researcher at Stanford who says that this is a critical moment, really, in terms of ensuring that Twitter does not become a vector for misinformation. I mean, are you concerned about – you know, Elon Musk says there's more and more subscribers coming online. Are you concerned about that?

And what tools do you have? Who is it at the White House that is really keeping track of this? So look, this is something that we're certainly keeping an eye on. And look, we have always been very clear that when it comes to social media platforms, it is their responsibility to make sure that when it comes to misinformation, when it comes to the hate that we're seeing, that they take action, that they continue to take action. Again, we're all keeping a close eye on this. We're all monitoring what's currently occurring. And we see – you know, we see it with our own eyes of what you all are reporting and just for ourselves, what's happening on Twitter. But again, social media companies have a responsibility to prevent their platforms from being used by any user to incite violence, especially violence directed at individual communities, as we have been seeing, and the President has been very clear on calling that out. He'll continue to do that, and we're going to continue to monitor the situation. She usually doesn't have that much to say about anything.

She had a full speech ready to go. You know, the big concern of this, and I think why people are also – why they're scared of this, is Twitter has been the hotbed, the place they could go to, their safe space. And now you're taking away one of their biggest messaging services. You're not taking it out, but you're making it maybe a little bit more even-handed. You really do – And they still use it with all of their people. Yeah.

I mean, no difference. The problem is a lot of people have left, and they've been replaced. They're saying that. However, Elon Musk says it's bigger than ever. What you do have, though, is historically – we know this just with numbers and data – like Facebook is still a very large center for conservatives. Regardless, if you think otherwise, when it comes to the content being shared on Facebook, some of the biggest – no, period. The top 10, 20 things other than occasionally something there is usually coming from us, from Dan Bongino, from Ben Shapiro.

It is still pretty dominantly conservative. Then on Twitter, you had what had become just a leftist cesspool, where it was just an echo chamber in, really, a very hateful place to be, now going through its own reformation, and they're scared. They're scared they're losing one of their number – probably their number one way to access their audience.

Yeah. And this is what I think, too. Remember, they used to have the war on talk radio because they could not figure out talk radio. Then they thought they could figure out the podcast world, and then they really didn't figure that out either. They broke into those and then The Daily Wire is number one. Because even if it's not conservative speech that's winning out, it's free speech advocates, and that's what, really, Elon Musk has been about. Not that you'll like everything he says, but freedom of speech, which is what we fight for at the ACLJ.

We'll be right back. Maybe this is why the White House and the left is so worried about it, because Elon Musk tweeted out yesterday that the Twitter files – that's what he's calling them – on free speech suppression are soon going to be published on Twitter itself. So we're going to know how Twitter was canceling people, taking people off, suspending, why even parody accounts couldn't get free – like Babylon Bee, which is a joke, just like The Onion, which is the liberal version. And they're both funny, and both sometimes offensive. But they're also – they're parody. And some of the most protected speech. Right.

So this idea, again, that the left is freaking out over free thought, freedom of speech, it just tells you – I think that they don't win out when people can just speak freely. Look, there is a big concern, and then we're going to talk about this, which is whether the App Store for your iPhone – when we first brought it up this morning, I'm like, they're not going to do this. They're not going to take Twitter off the App Store. Now, I don't personally even use the Twitter app, so I'm not necessarily affected. I am a browser person for Twitter. Interesting.

And I have some reasons why. But I'm a browser person for Twitter. But most people are in the app. And we do know once they start removing apps, it does really affect your reach and your numbers. And I think they – Elon Musk was tweeting back and forth about what they call digital MAGA, which is Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Amazon, and how they have so much control over really the voices that get heard.

And it is a problem. And now, where I originally said they're not going to remove Twitter – because Twitter does still, I can attest to myself, have some moderation happening right now. The reason that something like Parler got removed was their lack of moderation and really what became hate speech, what became – I think there was even a lot of illegal activity. There was drugs and sex trafficking and things happening through that portal was enough for them to shut it down.

Even if it was conservative leaning, there was that. Where Truth Social has actually been able to keep themselves on is they have some moderation. And if Truth Social exists, my assumption is Twitter will still exist on those app platforms. However, Apple has – look, I'm an Apple device user. Apple has kind of signaled that some sort of restriction may be coming. And Elon said that they had reached out to him about the potential of it being removed.

And you saw some things that happened. Apple pulled all their advertising. And then the head of the App Store has deactivated – so Apple's actual guy who's the head of the App Store deactivated his Twitter account. So there are actions being taken.

We were talking about this at the meeting today. What happens when an app that you have downloaded is removed from the App Store because of these purposes and eventually the app can't update? Yeah, that's what happens. You'll have it on your phone for a while, but when the phone updates or you get a new phone, you're not able to get it. It doesn't exist anymore. I think it would spark a whole new wave in the tech world of almost like the free speech phone, which he's saying he might create.

Yeah, he did. Because I'm not sure the Android world would be so much better. No, and they do the same. So it's Google. They're doing the same type things through their software and systems.

So there's not all that much difference. However, when you look at what he's done, could he create a new phone? Sure.

Could all of that stuff exist? Like I said, I don't think we're going to get there. I haven't looked at the App Store, but I assume Twitter in the social category and probably in general is still a pretty high downloaded app. I don't like that the head of the App Store deleted his account because you go, hey, you're the head of the App Store.

This is one of the biggest apps out there. You probably should be monitoring what's going on, whether you like it or not. Right. You don't have to advertise on it. That's fine.

But essentially causing a little hissy fit. That's ridiculous. Yeah, I want to go to the phones.

1-800-684-3110. I want to hear from folks too. We've asked this question. But the more you keep hearing about Twitter, have you reactivated an account or have you gone back on Twitter?

Maybe it was kind of dormant for a while. I will say I went from letting our team really manage my account to much more getting much more active again on Twitter, following a lot more closely. I had a friend say something funny today. We'll get into it later because in this press conference with the U.S. players, the Iranian media was attacking the U.S. national team, by the way. That's at 2 p.m. Eastern time today if you're listening to us live.

U.S. versus Iran in the World Cup. And they made fun of the way he said Iran. And I had a buddy tweet out today, and I think this takes freedom of speech. And he's a provocative guy. I won't name him, but I don't think he would even care.

And he tweeted out, how do you say Iran because I want to make sure I'm saying it the wrong way. Yeah. I mean, it's the day of a game. That's funny.

It's just kind of, again, it's not to criticize the players. It's just goofing around. So I looked up the app store. It says that, again, it's not on the must-have apps, but TikTok is, number one, the must-have. The Chinese tracking app. And a bunch of dating apps.

Those are the top must-have apps. But if you look at actually the top free apps, Twitter's number 12. Still. Still, yeah. I mean, think about that. It's still the number 12 most downloaded app, and it's been out a long time.

17 years. Which means everybody who's buying a phone is still basically putting it on their phone. Yeah, exactly. It's still a must-have.

It's a must-have for most people on their phones. And that means new people are joining. Yeah, look, I think I did the same thing. I was very, I was completely, like, I'd shut down my Twitter account for years because they'd have gotten so hostile and really just, I would just go on there and be... Well, I always felt like I was going to get kicked off, so it's better just to use it for ACOK and keep it safe.

I just kept it locked down. But then I have kind of like dipped my toe back in the water over the last year, really when the Elon stuff conversation started happening. And now I'm fairly back on there. I'm having interesting conversations, very interesting people, and most of them are pretty middle of the ground.

They're people who are, I'm retweeting someone like Mike Pompeo and then getting a response from a celebrity artist that I don't even really know, and we're having an interesting open discussion. That is the kind of thing I hope happens on this platform once again, to actually have those less hateful discussions. But, you know, we'll see what happens in a few months. We'll see what really happens. If it gets removed from the App Store, that's going to be a big problem.

I really don't foresee that happening. Let's go to the phones. Lisa in Georgia, online one. Hey, Lisa.

Good afternoon. I've never belonged to Twitter. I am so proud of this rocket man, this hero, this satellite man. I am so proud of him that he is going to take this stand, the richest man in the world, for our freedom, for America to continue to have free speech or get it back.

I am going to go ahead and download the app, and I would willingly pay $8 a month, even if I didn't use it, just in principle, to see I can't imagine a better place to give my money today. What I think about that is you're probably not going to agree with everything Elon Musk has to say. He has very controversial opinions. But he allows you to have yours. Yeah, but he wants to put the neuro link in your brain.

There's a lot of things that could happen with Elon Musk. However, what I've said, and I've said this before, and I will keep saying it, is it feels good to have someone who feels like they're on your side. We need billionaire centrists on the side of free speech. We need our Willy Wonkas, and he is that.

And the left has tons of them. Yes, and I like that he has said, you know, there's some weird arbitrary rules he's thrown in there, but like, I'm not going to allow this person because of this personal beef I have with them. I kind of like that because we need that sort of eccentric character. I think the world needs it. You need, essentially, if you have one that's on the free speech side, I enjoy it. I like it. I like the fact that you have this discussion.

Again, I like that sort of Willy Wonka-esque person he comes up with. The electric car, as you said, you love the fact that when you see now a Tesla on the road, it used to be a sign of, oh, yes, I'm helping the environment. I am an electric car. I'm a wealthy liberal.

Yes. Now it's the sign of, I am a wealthy liberal. I'm happy to drive around what they consider probably like a hate wagon. Yeah, and I like the Lissimo Lotto thing where she goes, I got rid of my Tesla and I got a Volkswagen because they've got no history. And again, I drive a Mercedes. It doesn't, the history doesn't really matter, but it's a, when you make it an issue. You're putting your, making your statement about it.

And Volkswagen was created by the Nazis. And we said, you know, Tesla, let's get some new models out there. Maybe we'll consider it.

I've thought about it too. I have that, that Cybertruck, that crazy looking thing. That's what got my attention because it had the bullet. Well, hopefully he was going to have the bullet. The way he threw the rock and through the window.

You see, that's the kind of stuff that's interesting is he is an eccentric guy. It's not all perfect. He threw it, right.

It's, it's not. But I'm not sure if he was supposed to do that yet. He's not afraid to fail, to kill a project. I mean, remember all the rockets that didn't launch?

Yeah. And people thought SpaceX wasn't going to work. And now. And lots of they were blowing up right on the, right on the launch pad. And now it's, it's, it's the new NASA. It's so much better.

I mean, NASA took months to launch Artemis one, or I think it was like, it was like over a month. It looks so much more streamlined and safe. Yeah.

For the passengers, maybe the passenger part. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see what happens.

I know there are a lot of people who have. It's so much better looking than the Bezos one. Yes, that's true. The blue origin. Yeah. I think it's a, it's a better looking thing. I've seen SpaceX.

Still looks serious. I've seen SpaceX launch. I've seen Boeing do something to launch. I'd go on a SpaceX launch. I'd go.

Would you trust it? Would you get off? Would you get off a failed launch? Would you get on a SpaceX launch?

I don't know. I don't know if I would, I want to go to space just yet. I would like to. I'd like to get there. Yes. I'd like to see what's going on up there.

See, let's say I want to find the truth. Exactly. Like we've talked about many times. Yeah. Give us a call. Not about that.

What are we really orbiting around? 68430. It is giving Tuesday. We don't want to forget that as well.

And we've got a matching challenge. You can double the impact of your donation to the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. We know a lot of people this time of year.

They utilize this day after all these big spending days and Cyber Mondays and Black Fridays to say, you know what? I want to give back to charitable organizations that provide services to people at no cost. Remember, we're about to talk about that with Frank Maynard, senior counselor with ACLJ. A case we've been working on since 2017 for a pro-life sidewalk counselor. That hasn't cost that pro-life sidewalk counselor a dime because of your support to ACLJ. We've been able to fight that case for free speech for life.

Go to ACLJ.org. Be part of Giving Tuesday. Donate today. And again, you can be part. Your donation will be matched.

So double the impact. ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Secula. I want to take Diane's call and we're going to get to Frank Maynard on a life case we've been working on since 2017. But Diane's been on the phone in Nevada online too. Hey, Diane. Hey, how you doing? Thanks for taking my call.

Thanks for joining us. I just felt compelled to call because I believe, you know, people go out and they protest for all kinds of reasons and they do things in the streets. But here in America, these big moguls think that they own everybody and they can tell us what to do. Well, we showed them with Facebook, we showed them with Twitter, and we showed them with Disney.

And it's time that you break the bank. If you have an iPhone and you're just wed to that iPhone, but you like free speech better, go get yourself an Android. Well, what we're figuring out though now is, is Android really safe either? And what we've seen is that usually their app stores kind of follow the same. Yeah, they're usually kind of, I mean, really you have, like you said, the digital magnet or whatever it was called, which was Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, all kind of end up usually following the same.

So if I take a Tesla phone. Yeah, they all kind of end up following the same track record, which is because they get pressure from corporate sponsors or all of that. But we don't just bow down to it.

You fight back and you push. And look, I really do, unless something crazy happens and Twitter really becomes some sort of violent, you know, cesspool of crazy, which it was already, by the way, but let's say it gets worse. I don't see them pulling the trigger on this. They're just putting out stuff that was already there. Yeah. A lot of this. And look, there's still crazy amount of bots they're trying to stop and that stuff's happening.

Yeah, it's going to take time. I think he put up in some of the data of the bot usage based on when they said there was just like a lot more hate speech that was happening. It's like, yeah, a lot of that's all combined. You'll see when all of a sudden, even if they're humans, they all start using very similar words. We've had it happen to our own where all of a sudden one tweet has 800 responses. You look at it and they're all like, there's some key words within like three words that are very similar.

And you're like, oh, none of this is real. Let me go to, I want to go to Frank Manion and see your counsel with the ACLJ because I think on this Giving Tuesday, we were asking your financial support for the ACLJ. It's important to point out the cases and the time that these cases take. And Frank, I want to point out cases up at ACLJ.org, but it's a case that we've been fighting since 2017 for a pro-life sidewalk counselor.

Tell people about it. Right. Jordan, we've talked about this case before.

It's been around and it's continuing to be litigated. Gerald Turco is a sidewalk counselor in Englewood, New Jersey. She's one of these folks who's not a protester. She's not out there with a bullhorn. She's not out there blocking people trying to go in the building. She's simply trying to talk to women and girls at the very last minute and second as they go into the clinic and tell them about alternatives.

Tell them that they can choose life, direct them to people who will help them, who will help them with the pregnancy, help them with the baby thereafter. The city of Englewood back in 2014 decided that they had a problem because there were more aggressive actual protesters who occasionally were blocking the door and bumping into people and that sort of thing. But instead of going after those people, the bad guys, they passed a law that creates actually six buffer zones on the public sidewalk in front of this building. They're interlocking semi circles and rectangles, it kind of looks like a basketball court, so that people like Gerald can't just walk up to somebody on the sidewalk.

They've got to navigate an obstacle course, occasionally even walking out into the street. We filed a lawsuit against this back then. We were initially successful at the district court level.

We went on summary judgment. We went up to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019. They reversed that decision saying that the trial court needed to make factual findings, but also relying on a case that you're very familiar with. In fact, most of you were probably in the courtroom the day your dad argued it, Hill versus Colorado. And the Third Circuit relied on that case, sending it back to the district court. Earlier this year, we tried the case at the district court in New Jersey and the district court this time around reversed her original decision and said, I have to also rely on Hill versus Colorado, and therefore you, Gerald Turco, are still banned from the public sidewalk and the obstacle course remains.

Just this week, we appealed that decision, obviously, and just this week we filed our initial brief. We see this as a case that could end up at the Supreme Court, and my hope, and it has been all along, is that this will be the case where Hill versus Colorado finally gets overturned. Yeah, again, the idea that you just said, Frank, she's banned from the public sidewalk. This idea that we were just talking about freedom of speech with Twitter and this idea of these actual public forums, but individuals who are with a pro-life message because of that message are banned from being on specific parts of a public sidewalk. And you're also going to be in court next week, right, Frank?

That's right. We have another buffer zone case in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. Similar situation, it's another buffer zone law, this time out of Louisville. And as you know, it's advantageous when you're trying to get a case before the Supreme Court to have multiple cases coming up through the pipeline because you get a split between, say, the Sixth Circuit and the Third Circuit, and that's just the type of case the Supreme Court likes to pick up and run with. And it's my hope that that's what's going to happen with one or both of these cases, I suppose. Folks, the blog is up from Frank Mannion at ACLJ.org, fighting the abortion distortion in federal appeals court even after Dobbs to defend pro-life sidewalk counselors, defending pro-life free speech. Frank, I appreciate you joining us and appreciate, again, the dedication these cases take.

It's a good example, Logan. This case started in 2017. It may ultimately have to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. You can't be a fly-by-night organization with no resources to fight a case for six years. Yeah, exactly. I think people need to understand that this court system does not work fast, but that's why we have to deploy resources.

Look, when this case started, we're a very different time in the country, very different President pre-COVID. All of those things have happened in the time it took to actually fight this out, and it still could be a bit till we get there, but things are actually starting to shape up. I know that sometimes feels discouraging when you are looking at that, but we are in it for the long haul, been doing this at the ACLJ for 40-plus years, and that is why we are here. So, we really would appreciate your support right now. Kind of double, it's Giving Tuesday, which is a big day, kind of coming off of Black Friday. It's a big day for charitable donations.

It's one of our biggest days of the year. Plus, bonus, we're in the middle of a matching challenge, which means if you donate today, it's effectively doubled. There's another donor, another group of donors who said, hey, we'll effectively match, we'll match any donation that comes in the month of November.

So, if you're like, hey, things are rough, I can only give $5, that's okay, go ahead, $5 becomes $10, $10 becomes $20, so on and so on and so on, and that is right now during this matching challenge. Again, this work is not short. This work takes a lot of resources. If you could, again, if I always say, if you could flip around the cameras and see the people who are working just in the media center, you'd see just an incredible group of creative and innovative people. Then you take that camera and you go worldwide and you see what we're doing.

It is wild, the work of the ACLJ. We have a lot coming up. You're going to hear a lot about international work now. Now that the COVID kind of lockdown stuff around the world has started to kind of be a little bit relieved, we're able to get back into some of these countries. We already had offices there, but us personally are able to get back in these countries and really see what's happening, and that is going to take resources. Yeah, our director who oversees our office in Pakistan from the U.S., which just in Pakistan was able to bring back footage and stories, so we're preparing that right now as we speak for you so that you can see basically what we've been doing there for a decade.

And it was finally safe enough there to do the stories. We never want to put our clients in jeopardy also. These are serious cases where you've got rape, death.

We have a new case up where we're fighting for a teenager at the time who has been sentenced to death by hanging for blasphemy in Pakistan. That's the kind of work we're doing. It's the kind of work you're supporting at the ACLJ, and you allow us to continue to do that work.

And it continued through COVID, which is a little bit harder to tell the story. Like you said, the staff that was there was in place, whether it was in France, whether they were in Pakistan, whether, again, we were talking about Jerusalem, and of course all of our U.S. offices that focus here domestically, which is the number one focus of the ACLJ. We want you to support our work on this Giving Tuesday at ACLJ.org. Be part of this, again, matching challenge on Giving Tuesday where you can double the impact of your gift.

It's not some goofy thing that we're saying it's 300 times match. We have donors that will match your donation today. So it's a great time, if you can, to donate to the ACLJ. Donate today.

ACLJ.org. Be right back. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now, more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

All right, welcome back to Sekulow. We're taking your calls too, on Twitter, to free speech. We just had Frank Manion on, because so much in the heart of our pro-life cases is ultimately the freedom of speech and fighting back against abortion distortion. This idea that you can treat someone differently on a public sidewalk, legally, because they have a pro-life message, that someone who either is selling something or has a different message that's not pro-life, they get treated differently in the United States.

And we fight back against that. One thing to remember is that case started in 2017. It may make its way onto the U.S. Supreme Court, ultimately.

May. Think about everything that's changed and what we've gone through. But Roe vs. Wade has been overturned. So, I mean, there's been huge shifts in our country in these battles.

And, again, you're a part of that because you support the work of the ACLJ. We're talking about free speech today because, again, the White House seems, and the left, they love to make Elon Musk. I mean, I think what they're trying to do is put him on a pedestal so high that he's easy to knock down. We're very careful on this broadcast to say he's not a politician. He's not running to be a Republican. He's not even, I would say, a traditional, by any means, conservative. He's a citric billionaire who supports free speech.

An inventor. And that's good. And that's good. Yeah, there's good things about him. He certainly is more on our side than isn't. But also, he's someone who has historically, and he's said this, been a Democrat voter.

He's more recently become more conservative as the party has gone more left. And, sure, there are the funny things we always tell you. He opened a cabinet and found an entire selection of Stay Woke Twitter merchandise that he had, and he's like, what do we do with this? And then he put us his own version that just said, stay at work. And that's what they were getting so upset about. They're going after him for saying, people got to get back in the office.

They got to pay for their food. And then Bob Iger does his big conference yesterday, is the new head of Disney, once again, and said, what's the first thing he said? People need to be working next to each other again, so we're going to be working back against away from the remote working. He doesn't get any blowback. Only the eccentric, loud Elon Musk, who's willing to say offensive, look, offensive things to a lot of people, but have some fun with his own platform.

Great. If anything, at least we have an insight to the person running it. He likes to troll people. Because like Jack Dorsey, I think we've actually probably learned in the last year. He wasn't as bad as- He wasn't necessarily this crazy, evil guy that we kind of felt like he was.

He got taken over by the woke. But, so now you have one of these guys out there, one of the eccentric geniuses, as you said, who's so active, we kind of know what's going on in his brain. It's not unlike Donald Trump and the fact of- He tells you.

He was saying, in real time, you could find out what this guy was feeling, what his emotions were. It's kind of nice. Yeah. It's kind of nice to know. Welcome to Barry Allen, Illinois on line three. Hey, Barry Allen.

Hey, how are you all? Thank you for taking my call. First of all, I used to listen to you, Jordan, or watch you or follow you on the Twitter and loved it. But after the censoring, forget it. But listening to your press conference clip, I noticed there was no mention of free speech or first amendment right in that language she used.

Only misinformation, disinformation, and that tells me they believe they're the voice of truth and don't want others to have access to our ideas or us to have access to their ideas. I think that's what you just talked about. You just brought up a good point. It's ideas. You can have ideas that are not always- turn out to be right. That's why you have ideas. You have to- we wouldn't be able to create new things in our country if you didn't have mistakes and sometimes fail. We talk about that a lot in the United States. It's a part of our country's greatness is that you can fail and fail and fail and then finally succeed.

It doesn't mean you were bad at the beginning. And again, that happens with ideas and ideology and also policies that you want to try. This idea, there's only one policy that's right. And if you have a pro-life policy, well, that's misinformation. If you're a pro-life pregnancy center, you're putting out misinformation.

We don't have time to play the bite. The follow-up question to KGP, maybe we can play it when we come back, was who's doing this at the White House? And I would like to know that. Who is it- what are they even doing? What are they, going on Twitter? So, you know, there's lots of people on Twitter. Yeah, exactly. And by the way, lots of liberals still on Twitter putting out very liberal policies that I disagree with. Yeah. If anything, they should be on there to be the voice for their side.

They're coming to hack us. No, I don't- don't say that. I don't want- I'm not advocating for that.

On our ideas. Not personally. Sure. Have a discussion. Yeah. Be civil. Ish. It's really- I feel like they can't be civil.

They get so enraged when they see, like, a pro-life statement that they have to, like, go nuclear on you. All right, welcome back to Second. I want to take David's call out of South Carolina on Line 1. In fact, before I do, let me play this sound bite, because this is the follow-up to KJP. You know, why is she- who's doing this at the White House? Who's keeping track of this? I don't even know what this means when you're talking about Twitter and free speech. Take a listen.

What tools do you have? Who is it at the White House that is really keeping track of this? So, look, this is something that we're certainly keeping an eye on.

And, look, we have always been very clear that when it comes to social media platforms, it is their responsibility to make sure that when it comes to misinformation, when it comes to the hate that we're seeing, that they take action, that they continue to take action. So, there you go. Let me go to David in South Carolina on Line 1. Hey, David. Hey, guys. How you doing today? Good.

Thank you for taking my call. I only heard about y'all yesterday, but to the woman who was talking about Elon Musk giving the freedom of speech, and it was almost like he's a national hero, yes, that's a good thing he's doing that. I'm not denying that. But, to me, it's more like a safety net. In other words, if he says something wrong, then he'll also take the fall with it just like everybody else. Yeah, I think there is important, David, to not set someone up on a pedestal that they can't reach. He's not asking to be on that pedestal.

And, by the way, again – Not running for office. Yeah, and he posts very kind of comedically profane things. He's a bit out there. Look at his personal life. He's a very different – he's an interesting character, for sure. But I think it is good to have someone who is in that free speech category. And, like I said, I don't think – what I really enjoy about his activity on Twitter has been that we know the CEO, and you can say, here's what he's thinking right now.

Here's where we're going. You don't usually get that by some of these big tech guys. They're kind of secretive. Even if you're a Bill Gates or you're a Mark Zuckerberg, maybe you show up because you have to testify. But, beyond that, you're not doing a lot of real-time talking.

And this gives you an opportunity to have someone like that. Yeah, I think Jack Dorsey was more of a libertarian than we realize. But he came across as this guy who was, like, living in the middle of nowhere, hidden location. You only see him pop up, beard, nose ring. You're like, who is this guy? And he talked about it as crazy.

He would only, like, eat things. And you just realize they were, like, living in some different world. They kind of played into, like, oh, he must be a liberal. But when you actually see the discussion, he was pretty excited about Elon taking it over and getting Twitter back to what it was supposed to be. Now, when you talk about freedom of speech, there are protests going on in Iran continuing to go on for two months. We're going to talk about the Iranian soccer team playing the United States today. And, of course, we want the U.S. to win and beat Iran. But at the same time, too, those soccer players, their lives are at risk now.

They're Iranian soccer players. Yes, because many of them didn't sing the national anthem during the first game. They did during the second game because their families all got a visit saying they could be arrested, killed, or in prison if they don't. So understand when you're watching those games, yeah, it's win and lose. We want our country to win. But these players, including the captain, who criticized his own country after their first game.

I want to bring in Wes Smith because, Wes, at a time where in the world we're looking at all these different issues going on, Iran has been taking some dangerous steps when it comes to their nuclear program. Yeah, they actually, the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has now officially confirmed that Iran is going to enrich in uranium up to 60 percent level. We think they've already been doing that, but they have two different facilities, one at Natanz, one at Fordow. And what they're doing now, which is unusual, they've been enriching at 60 percent for a long time at Natanz, which is buried underground. But still, you know, it's vulnerable to our bunker busting bombs, as they call them.

But Fordow is in a mountain. And so the IAEA says they are now enriching at higher levels there. And that particular nuclear facility is almost impenetrable.

It's 260 feet underground. And of course, the real fear for experts around the world, and should be for all of us, too, as far as Iran getting a nuclear weapon, is that at 60 percent level, they are so close to the 90 percent level, which is weapons-grade enriched uranium, that they say that the breakout time, the time to go from where they are now to actually possessing one nuclear bomb, has gone from months to now probably a matter of days. So this threat is real. The IAEA issued a warning to them. Iran, of course, is not not heeding that warning. They've been violating the JCPOA, the so-called Iran nuclear deal, for a couple of years. And the Biden administration wasted valuable time trying to negotiate with them to re-enter the agreement and actually lifted some of the sanctions on Iran, which was the one thing that was really holding them back as far as their weapons development.

We got a statement from John Kirby, who's now at the National Security Council, the White House, saying there's no diplomacy right now underway with respect to the Iran deal, that we're an impasse and we're not focused on that. So, I mean, some of that's the protesting going on there, the human rights abuses. But we saw, just to put it in perspective, Iran was supposed to cap their enrichment 3.6 percent. At that point, you can have an energy program that's peaceful. So there's no purpose to go to 60 percent unless you're just trying to threaten the world.

We might go that next step. All commercial production of electricity, for example, that 3.76 percent was perfectly able to do that. You do not need 60 percent.

There is no use for a 60 percent level except as a stepping stone to get to weapons-grade enrichment at 90 percent. Meanwhile, Jordan, what do we do at this point? Israel has vowed that they will not allow this to happen.

The Biden administration has vowed the same thing, although I'm not sure that the administration is as resolute as Israel is. But at this point, with the Fordow facility 260 feet inside of a mountain, probably the best bet would be either sabotage or a cyber attack. Experts that talk about this say that if you tried an air attack, it is very complicated. You have the issue of overflight permissions over various countries. If you go around those countries, the U.S. would have to provide the refueling tankers for Israel's aircraft. It would take, they say, even if it worked, multiple strikes on the mountain with these bunker-busting bombs because you'd have to hollow it out one strike at a time. Multiple strikes, which means you run the risk of our pilots getting shot down and captured in Iran.

It's a real complicated issue. It sounds like the new Top Gun movie. Yeah. That's basically the way that they had to take out that – again, I don't want to give it away – but this nuclear site, this undisclosed enemy country in a mountain.

It took multiple perfect, precise weapons to basically be able to get through how deep it is. So again, high risk. Yes. So we might see, though, more – I would imagine – and again, we don't know – but more of these kind of cyber attacks on Iran.

Right, right. I think Israel really is serious about saying they will not allow it to happen. Their intelligence agency is, you know, better than anyone else's in the world. I'm sure they're looking at it.

And again, as you just said, probably a cyber attack or even sabotage might be the preferred way to go. Iran is a dangerous country. They're oppressive. They have vowed to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. They also see us as the great Satan, Israel as the little Satan. This is a serious issue because unless something really happens, and we don't know all that's going on behind the scenes, both with our government, our military, and Israel's, but unless something changes, it is likely that in the very near future Iran will be a country with a nuclear weapon, and they already have the ballistic missiles that they are perfecting in order to carry that weapon. That changes everything in the Middle East. I mean, you'd have an arms race in the Middle East in the Gulf states, countries that would want nuclear weapons to protect themselves. And again, you've got a government there who has a religious ideology to bring about the end times through a major action.

And so it is, again, not a trustworthy nation to have that kind of power either based off just their rhetoric. It would be so dangerous for the world. Not like we did after someone wrote in on Rumble since it's a matching challenge month, will there be a Jay Sekula Band concert tomorrow night, and there will be? Yes, there will be a Jay Sekula Band concert tomorrow night. It will be at 8 p.m. Eastern on all the social media platforms on YouTube and Rumble and Facebook.

You can find it there. We've got new music. I've heard some of the new songs. They'll be great. It's a really fun night, so tune in tomorrow night, 8 p.m.

They're going to have a great show. And make sure, again, this is the middle of the matching challenge. It's the end of the matching challenge now in the month of November. Also, it's Giving Tuesday, one of our biggest days of the year, so we don't want to just harp on fundraising.

But look, you're getting all the emails from everyone else. This is it. This is one of those big days here at Giving Tuesday. Yeah, so we encourage you to go to ACLJ.org, be part of Giving Tuesday, be part of our matching challenge. So it just so happens on this Giving Tuesday, we already had a matching challenge in place where donors set aside, we had a group of donors set aside saying, we'll match those donations that come through in the month of November. Now, you have to make the donation to trigger the match. So, again, the donor who pledged to match your donation, that donation doesn't come through unless you make your donation.

We have to hit the goal. So go to ACLJ.org, donate today. If you donated $20 to the ACLJ, that's the equivalent of $40 for us because it triggers a $20 match. Again, the website is ACLJ.org.

You'll see Matching Challenge, Luke, right on the homepage. It's a great place to go. You can do it in a couple minutes. It's safe.

It's secure. And you can support us today. Yeah, go to ACLJ.org. And as I always say, not just to support the work, that's obviously what we're asking you to do today. However, the amount of content, people like Wes, that is on this website really need to be diving into the incredible blogs, the news stories, the videos, and all the great free content that we provide on ACLJ.org and on the ACLJ app. So find us there. We'll be back.

One more segment coming up for the day. All right, welcome back to Cinco. We can start chanting USA, USA, USA. I want the USA to beat Iran. By the way, not because they're players, because their players have been very brave.

And so I think this is the cool thing about America. I can say this on a show where we were just talking about the dangers of the threat of a nuclear Iran, the horrible government there. And you can even question their soccer players because they put on the uniform, they decided to play for their country. But one, the captain of the soccer team has gone on the record after the first game and said, things are not good in our country.

It's very bad what's happening. They didn't sing the national anthem the first game. What did the Iranian Revolutionary Guard do? They showed up at their family's homes in Iran and said, you better sing the national anthem.

And guess what? Game two, they were. They've also sent their reporters in to press conferences not to talk about the soccer match. Or the football. Yeah, for political unrest. But to, again, to grill our players about how they say Iran or racism. They tried to get America kicked out. Yeah, they tried to get us kicked out because of a flag incident, which was such a small picture. I don't even know if it was one.

It was like they were searching for it. Yeah, I want to play this bite because, again, the Iranian reporter says, basically, you can't support us if you don't know how you pronounce it. Do we have the pronunciation from our player?

Just take a listen to Bite 14. You say you support the Iranian people, but you're pronouncing our country's name wrong. Our country is named Iran, not Iran. Please, once and for all, let's get this clear. So, again, something that, by the way, so many people, they're currently playing in a country, by the way, that the actual commentators cannot get straight. There are some people that say Qatar, and there are some people that say Qatar.

And I'm not talking about, this is like the mainstream people. It's because they're not English words. It's not English words.

So there's not really a word. Sometimes they spell it with a Q. Sometimes they spell it with a C. Yes.

Yes, the Brits spell it with a C. They do. Yes. Why? Because they're a nasty reporter.

Yes. And then they follow it up. First of all, the athletes, their job is not to perfectly pronounce some foreign countries.

Their job is to be a good athlete on the field. If they want to get into social comedy, all they were trying to say was, I'm not anti-people. Iran or Iran, I mean, that is like the most, everyone makes that mistake.

Yeah. It has nothing personal about the country. There's a lot of other reasons not to like Iran. Iran. So they asked him, do we want to hear the actual response back?

There's more as well from this Iranian reporter and then their response. Are you okay to be representing a country that has so much discrimination against black people in its own borders? And we saw the Black Lives Matter movements over the past few years. My apologies on the mispronunciation of your country.

Yeah. That being said, you know, there's discrimination everywhere you go. You know, one thing that I've learned, especially from living abroad in the past years and having to fit in in different cultures, is that in the U.S. we're continuing to make progress every single day. I grew up in a white family with obviously an African American heritage and background as well.

So I had a little bit of different cultures and I was very easily able to assimilate in different cultures. So, you know, not everyone has that ease and the ability to do that. And obviously it takes longer to understand. And through education, I think it's super important.

Like, you just educated me now on the pronunciation of your country. So, yeah, it's a process. I think as long as you see progress, that's the most important thing. Tyler Adams, who's our captain, did a great job.

Did a great job answering a question that was a gotcha question that had nothing to do with him, nothing to do with the sport he plays. Don't you hate your country because it's racist? I mean, this is coming from a national government paid for reporter by Iran that snipes, uses diapers to shoot protesters in the street because they force women to wear head covers. Yeah. And he's asking, how do you feel? I mean, it's a country that is discriminatory by nature. I do think there is that thought process because you kind of put together, you know, they don't see the national anthem and it kind of draws back to people kneeling for our national anthem.

What does that look like? You know, we live in a very different world. We live in, this should also be proof to America.

We live in a pretty great place. Yeah, no one kills you. Right. Exactly. You don't have to deal with that sentiment. It might affect your economics.

But they're not showing up at your door threatening your family, the US government. Right. It could affect your career. It could affect your endorsements because you have freedom of speech, but you don't have freedom of endorsements. Consequences.

Yeah. There are consequences to speech and actions. And in America, that's okay, but what you don't write, it's not the government. The government doesn't come in and knock on your mom's door because of what you did. First of all, we don't do that anyways.

Even if you did something really wrong. But for your speech, just think about how blessed we are that our players can go. They can say what they want. Again, he did a great job.

I want the US to destroy Iran today on the pitch, but I also have a lot of, again, I feel for those players. Yeah. Well, because look, it's not unlike what's happening in China right now. And you see that what's happening in China, the sort of uprising and the protests that are happening. I never thought you'd see, because you do kind of, the way China's propaganda machine works, it sounds bad to say this, but you do kind of assume the people are kind of down for the way their government runs.

They don't necessarily seem like they're pushing back very often. But what you see is there is actually, when you get outside of the world of the propaganda news, that's coming out of China and coming out of these countries, coming out of Russia, coming out of wherever, that there are groups of people, legitimate protest movements that are happening in all of these countries. The difference is in America, we showcase them for the world to see. We showcase our protesters on the street. We showcase when there's unrest against our own government. You see those things broadcast worldwide. But if it's coming out of China, it's coming out of Iran, they try to keep the speech in. They try to not let the media showcase this, but sometimes it gets too overwhelming. And that's a good thing that we're now seeing some of these moments happen. And like you said, this is not, we're not here blaming the players of the Iranian national football team.

That's a ridiculous thing. However, it will be an interesting sign. We'll see later on as the game progresses, it will be an interesting match. It's important for both, because for the US to advance to the knockout stage of the World Cup, we have to win. Yeah. Iran to advance only has to tie. Yeah. And look, as we've said, the US is obviously, the like of soccer and the World Cup has grown, but there are much dire circumstances actually for the Iranian team probably to lose today.

But I do hope the US goes out and wins. We'll find out in a couple hours. Yeah. And I think a lot of their circumstances have, I don't know if it's about winning and losing.

It's just about like, did they sing that actually at the right? Are they big? But yes. Sometimes I feel bad for these countries' players. It's like North Korean players. And you see stuff in the Olympics and you're like, you know what's happening. Yeah. You know what's happening to some of the gymnasts and those kinds of things. Yeah.

It's nothing good. But again, that doesn't mean that we don't support USA number one. Of course. And it would be a nice victory over Iran.

It would be a great way to, I'd love to- Move it to the group, out of the group stage. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. At least baby steps for the US men's national team. If we don't win, it's really, it's not the end of the world because it's soccer. Which are you saying that just because it's a sport and it's just fictional points and it's something we've created? You're saying because it's soccer and we're in America.

It's a little bit of both. But mostly because it's a game. It's a game. Yeah.

Just to enjoy these- For entertainment. These are the most incredible athletes in the world all coming together. I think it's really cool with the Iranian team. Flop it all over the place. Yeah, a lot of diving.

A lot of just falling. We're not good at it. The US, which I'm proud of our team for not being good at it. For not being good floppers.

We're horrible. When we played England, those guys- Oh, it's drama. They could take a pinky and make it into their ankle and then they jump back up. Yeah, I was watching some old red cards from old World Cups and I was like, I don't think any of this should happen.

When somebody's on the ground hurting, they're hurt. Oh yeah. Well, maybe we should learn. All right. Learn how to- K.O.R.G. support the work matching challenge Tuesday.