Palestinian President Threatens Terror Attack At “Any Time”

Today on Sekulow, breaking news is the Palestinian President threatens terror attacks at any time.

We'll talk about that and more today on Sekulow. Well, back at it again because they need the world's attention on them every once in a while. Hey, don't forget about us. The World Cup's going on in Qatar and the world can come together and have a peaceful event there.

We can have these Abraham Accords. We can work together with Israel and the Gulf states, but don't forget about us, the Palestinians. And by the way, their Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, who's enriched himself with billions of dollars instead of distributing that money to those in need in the Palestinian territories. And if you visited those Palestinian territories, you would know that they do need those resources, but he uses them to enrich himself and his family. He's one of the richest people in the world.

Isn't that interesting enough? He's a refugee. This is one of the richest people in the world. He said right now that the Palestinian Authority, that there is a chance that the Palestinian Authority will return to an official policy of terror in the near future. If Israel continues with its actions, I will cancel the security agreement with it.

Why continue? Why am I committed to security coordination? And we can breathe without security coordination. Before that we were breathing and our people were fighting the occupation. Abbas went on to say that terrorism is still on the table.

I do not endorse armed resistance at this moment, but I may change my mind later, and this is so classic Middle East, and I may change my mind tomorrow or after tomorrow or any time. Because that's how they started. I mean, the whole Palestinian resistance movement, the whole Palestinian Authority was based on, and people forget this, the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Army, Yasser Arafat. And that's a name like, it seems like it's in ancient history now, but they have long memories in the Middle East.

I mean, that's kind of the culture. And we have a look. We have an office in Jerusalem, and we're advocating aggressively on Israel's national security interests.

But let me tell you something. It affects the United States' national security interests, too. Because of the Abraham Accords, you have the Gulf states, the Saudis, even though they haven't officially signed it yet, but they're all part and parcel of it. Jordan, the countries surrounding Israel, and like I said, the Gulf states, are having trade relations with Israel. That's a plus.

That's a real big plus. Then you have this Palestinian Authority that's, well, they got kind of locked out of all this because all these accords took place, even though the PLO still doesn't have statehood for Palestine, as they call it, which is not a legal entity. I just actually, yesterday, we had a meeting, and I pulled out a, getting ready for the meeting, I pulled out a memo pad that had in it, when we went and argued on Israel's behalf in 2010 or 11, the International Criminal Court, the Hague, at the office of the prosecutor, about Israel's right to exist. And Andy Cahn was here, but it was also that the PLO was not recognized as a state. And I just happened to pull it out yesterday and had the order.

In fact, during the break, I'll go get it so I can show it to people. But it shows you that the fact is, Andy, that, again, the Palestinian Authority not getting attention threatened terrorism. Well, that's the default provision, isn't it, Jay? The default position is that if you don't do the things that we want done in the way that we want them done, we simply default back to our old ways, and our old ways are terrorism. Mahmoud Abbas, 87 years old, hasn't been elected any time recently to his position as President, just arrogates that to himself, says that, you know, I don't think I really need to be in this security thing with Israel because I'm not getting anything out of it. So tomorrow or the next day or maybe a few days after that, typical Middle Eastern talk, as Jordan said, typical way of putting things in a vague context, decides that maybe I'll go back to my old ways of terrorism.

Well, he's never really abandoned those old ways. All right, so here's what we've got. We have an American Center for Law and Justice office. Guess where? As you know, Jerusalem, because we are fighting. We have the Ministry of Presence.

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ACLJ.org, matching challenge campaign, back with more in a moment. All right, welcome back to Sekulow. So I want to quote this from Mahmoud Abbas again because it's such a Middle Eastern kind of statement, such a Palestinian kind of statement. I don't even want to say the entire Middle East, but it's very Palestinian to say, quote, I do not adopt military resistance at this time, but it is possible that I change my mind tomorrow or after tomorrow or any time. So the threat looms that at any moment he will launch a third intifada carrying out terrorist attacks against innocent Israelis. I mean, dad, and it seems like he's trying to get the Middle East attention, Arab world attention to say, and I think he's trying to test to see, would they back him?

And I'm not sure they would. Because for the first time, those guys in the UAE are able to visit their holy sites. Correct. Yes, you have the religious component to it within the Muslim world.

The Dome of the Rock. Right. So here's what you... Al-Aqsa Mosque. I mean, those are important places to Muslims and they're able to travel there freely now. So here's, I think, what we have to put in perspective.

I pulled out yesterday, and I'm holding it up for our TV and social media audience. This just says, legal challenges in Israeli policy and advocacy. This was a conference that we participated in in Jerusalem when I was preparing, our team was preparing for our first presentation between the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

I just pulled this out yesterday for a meeting, had nothing to do with this, but I needed a pad. And lo and behold, inside the binder or the portfolio was the opinion of the court and the Office of the Prosecutor, actually, basically like a motion to dismiss. And in it, they said, Andy, that the Palestinian Authority was not a state, thus could not be under the Rome Statute, which governs jurisdiction for the International Criminal Court. They said that exactly the Rome Statute provides no authority for the Office of the Prosecutor to adopt a method to define the term state under Article 12-3, which would be at variance with the established purpose of Article 12-1.

Which means they're a non-member state, like we're a non-governmental organization recognized by the UN, but we're not a member state. So we had a complete victory, and this was April 3rd of 2012, it was 10 years ago, 10 and a half years ago. But now what's happened is, between that decision 10 years ago, subsequent decisions that we've had from the ICC since then that we participated in, the Abraham Accords and the realignment of the whole entire Middle East, so now the Palestinian Authority basically, as Jordan said, using Middle East language, I'll call it that, that's being kind, by the way, the veiled threat of we're going to go right back to terrorism, which by the way, they blew up at a bus station two weeks ago, so it's not like they haven't been doing it, it's just not at the level during Intifada. But they're threatening it again.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that they ever really abandoned it, Jay, quite frankly, because as I said earlier, it's their default position whenever they get pushed into a corner or feel that they're being pushed into a corner. And Abbas, who is an old terrorist in the mold of Yasser Arafat, he's no different from that, during elections when he had him, he would lock up his political opponents, he would win and then he would let the political opponents out. So it's the old thing of, well, I don't think I like what's going on right now, the United States is showing weakness towards supporting Israel, the Biden administration has got a special representative toward to the Palestinian Authority, this is a good time for me to take out the saber that I have been holding under my bar news here for a while and rattle it a little bit and say in vague terms, I may go back to terrorism, you never left it, but I may go back to it today or tomorrow or the next day, I haven't decided when. But this is just simply Abbas and the Palestinian government, if it has a government or authority, if it is an authority, which the ICC says no, to do what they do best and that is engage in terrorist activities to the detriment of their own people. But I think that's also, Jordan, because I think Andy's 100% right, it's what you said, and that is right now, they are not getting the world, forget the world attention, they're not getting the Arab world attention. The regional attention that they're so used to receiving, whether it's the financial aid, and you have to wonder, so are they looking to do something provocative or at least test something provocative so that they see where do we stand right now in the world with the UAEs, with the Gulf states, with the cutters of the world that are hosting the World Cup. Do we, are we going to get the same kind of support from the Saudis?

I would think not. And so you make the threat, and then I think what Mahmoud Abbas is going to do is say, okay, what kind of phone calls came into Mahmoud Abbas, and I have a feeling it was a lot of princes and crown princes saying, what are you doing right now? We're in this new arrangement with Israel, we have security agreements with Israel, yes we know your concerns, let's work on them through constructive matters rather than you threatening to go to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens.

You're exactly right. You have to understand something, in the Middle East, the Israelis said this, you've got to think nine-dimensionally, and he was right, even back in the 1870s. It's true today, and we've done those negotiations, where you have trilateral negotiations, and it's very complex. Having said that, I've got to tell you, we've also had great success, because when you look at the Abraham courts, and Mike Pompeo is coming up, I'm going to ask him a question about this, our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs. Again, you know why we have a Senior Counsel for Global Affairs?

Because you, our donors and supporters, support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice. So we have Mike Pompeo handling our Global Affairs as our Senior Counsel. Now, he's the former Secretary of State in the United States and CIA Director, and he is our Global Affairs Senior Counsel.

Think about that for a moment. So we've got our office in Jerusalem. We have access to the top thinkers in the world on this, and you've had this realignment in the Middle East that has been really, Andy, very significant in reshaping how the Middle East is operating. And then you've got this, like you said, the Palestinian Authority's looking at this grab for attention, so he threatens terrorism.

People forget. We have filed a series of lawsuits. We're in federal court on this.

Right now, in multiple, actually three separate proceedings, folks, we are in court. One of them, we're defending a portion of Israel, what they call the territories. This is Judea and Samaria, and there is a lawsuit that was filed where the other side, the Palestinian lawyers, are asserting that the court, Andy, should declare the Palestinian Authority a state and that they should also declare that the Israelis are operating basically with genocide and terrorism as an occupier.

Andy? Well, they're not going to get anywhere with that because the court has no authority to declare what is or is not a state or whether a nation is engaged in genocide or not in this context. These are things that are fabrications of lawyers who are pro-Palestinian, who support the Palestinian cause covertly and in some ways overtly. But the point that was made, I think, by Jordan and you is the Palestinians have been in the background, the Abraham Accords, thanks to President Trump, has created a peaceful situation between many of the governments in the Middle East and in this powder keg that is the Middle East, and the Palestinians have kind of been pushed to the side. And Abbas now says, I don't like that anymore.

You're forgetting about me. I'm 87 years old, I'm still of power, and I'm still in authority in this PLA, and I want to be heard. And so I'm going to rattle my sword a little bit and say that tomorrow or the next day, I don't know when, but I may begin terrorist activity yet again. This is a grab for power and attention.

And at the same time, they're trying to say they're a state, so they're a part of the international community threatening terrorism against their neighbors. I'm holding in my hand again, let's put it up on the screen, but for our radio audience, I'm holding in my hand the decision of the International Criminal Court, the Office of the Prosecutor. We made this presentation. It was actually in a film on the prosecutor's office. They actually filmed a portion of our discussions and dialogue when they had a – there was a documentary on the International Criminal Court and this particular prosecutor. And we actually had a good rapport with the prosecutor because we provided very serious legal analysis. We participated in what they called a roundtable, which is all these lawyers and representatives from all these different groups. And then we had individual meetings with the prosecutor, so we presented our case.

We had Francois Briard that we work with in France. We had a very, very good team. Well, the end result of this was that the prosecutor's office said there is no jurisdiction here, which is what we were arguing, because the Palestinian Authority is not a state. And it's in this opinion.

Again, I'm putting it back on the screen. I'm holding for our radio audience the actual opinion from the prosecutor's office that we were able to obtain. It came on the heels of a conference that we were the participants in in Jerusalem as we got ready for this. And we were the lawyers that had the experience of actually going to the ICC.

We've done it multiple times, both the full chamber and proceedings before the prosecutor's office. So I say all of that not to boast, but to just say, you know, we have an office in Jerusalem. There's a reason we have all that there. We have an office in Washington that works on all of this. We're expanding in other areas right now.

This is why we do it. You brought up Washington. You know, the Biden administration restarted the aid to the Palestinian Authority, even though they did not remove the Pay for Slay program through their laws. Second, they've elevated that special representative to this Palestinian Authority as well. So Washington's playing a role now where this message from, again, a boss did resonate with Joe Biden.

Yeah, it did. So, I mean, the truth is you've got to be aware of that. And that's why our office in D.C. is now fully involved. I encourage you to support our work.

You see the scope and nature of it. These are live controversies right now. ACLJ.org.

That's ACLJ.org. We're in a matching challenge campaign. Any amount you donate, we're getting a matching gift for.

We had a great day yesterday, so I want to thank those that donated yesterday. But we need to keep this pace up going through the end of the month. ACLJ.org matching challenge campaign. Coming up next, our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, Mike Pompeo, 70th Secretary of State, our Senior Counsel of Global Affairs. We're going to talk to him about this. And China, when we come back.

Welcome back to Secular. We are joined by our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, joining us on the broadcast, a senior member of our team. And, Dan, I know you've got questions right away.

I do. And, Mike, we're going to get to the situation with China. But we've been talking about this news that broke that Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, is basically threatening terrorism again because he's not getting his way. And he's being ignored by his Arab neighbors. He calls it ignored. The fact is, you had a total realignment of the Middle East with the passage of the Abraham Accords.

And he feels like he's left out. I raised the point that I actually found yesterday, we were going to a meeting and I needed a pad of paper, and I grabbed a portfolio. And in it was the opinion we got from the International Criminal Court in the Hague office of the prosecutor back in 2012, where I had argued that the Palestinian Authority was not a state, so they're trying to avail themselves of these international tribunals was inappropriate. And the office of the prosecutor agreed and would not bring the case. And I'm thinking now, they fall back to this let's threaten terrorism model as their way forward. And I don't think their Arab neighbors want that at all. What's your sense of this?

Okay, I think you're right. I think I think it was remarkable what the ACLJ and you accomplished 10 years ago now third belief. But in some ways, the Palestinian leadership, the terrorists, including Abu Mazen, haven't changed. But the world changed. The Middle East changed dramatically. I think they are still living in I think the Palestinian leadership is still living in a world where they believe that if they throw a temper tantrum, right, watch Molotov cocktails run to the wall, conduct terror campaigns, that the Middle Eastern countries will come alongside them and support them. I think the Middle Eastern countries could see that they are not serious about delivering good outcomes for their own people for the Arabs that live in the land that they control. And I think I think those days are behind them. It doesn't mean doesn't mean for a second Abu Mazen is going to stop doing what he's done.

He only knows one model, a steel thief and terror. He'll probably continue that way until he passes from the world stage. But make no mistake about it. The world change Israel's position has changed. I hope the United States will continue to support Israel in its efforts to keep that the area under Palestinian control secure and peaceful. And we won't let this threat of terror impact the way we interact with not only the Israelis, but the Arab countries in the Gulf states as well. Secretary Pompeo, you've got a new piece up at ACLJ.org titled the CCP is America's adversary.

Biden and Apple must stand against it. Does the way the U.S. government and business interact with China reflect the reality that they are an adversary? I mean, it feels like that just every day they're becoming more and more of like an enemy to the United States. No, unfortunately, Jordan, too many in the business community and the Biden administration continue to adhere to an idea that may have been true in 1972 when we opened relations China. But just as fundamentally untrue today, Xi Jinping views himself as an adversary of the United States. He wants global hegemony. And the Biden administration and big corporate America still continue to do what they've been doing for the last decades. Engagement as a theory of making China less risky.

That's just not going to work. The rest of the United States is too great. And we must continue to confront them in the technology space, in the diplomatic space, in the broader economic world, and certainly be prepared for what is clearly a Chinese military aggressive campaign in the South Pacific. We have to be prepared in each of those realms. And if we do that well, we will push back against the threat the Chinese Communist Party presents to us today. And America will get another 250 good years. If we don't, Katie, bar the door. Mike, is China right now, country-wise, the greatest threat to the United States?

Undoubtedly. The singular external threat to the United States. If our lives are going to change materially by someone from outside, it will be Xi Jinping and his communist fellow travelers that do that.

Let me ask you this. Senator Brasso sent a letter to President Biden's energy secretary demanding answers surrounding a $200 million grant to a lithium battery company that operates primarily out of China. Senator Brasso claims that the DOE is acting in a manner that, quote, undermines and endangers our national security. Do you think that his warning, the senator's warnings, will be heard by this administration?

I doubt it. They are all they are working on. That's part of their climate change green agenda. The fact that the Chinese Communist Party is controlling the business that we're giving US taxpayer dollars to, which is what I think Senator Brasso is suggesting, is nuts and dangerous all at the same time. I suspect they're not going to change their way. This one feels very dangerous to me. And in the effort to build out a lithium product that goes into batteries and EV vehicles, they're prepared to sacrifice American security. That is an enormous mistake. You know, I want to point out that when you write a piece for ACLJ.org, that is just for ACLJ.org.

It's exclusive content for our supporters that go to our website. And in this case, it's the CCP is America's adversary. Biden and Apple must stand against it.

I want to turn to Apple. You point out in the piece that Apple made changes to its devices that only affected China to the detriment of the protesters ability to organize and share information. And we saw some of the questioning Tim Cook was ignoring when he was on Capitol Hill. Are you concerned that American companies are complicit in strengthening the CCP and its put down of basic human rights? Oh, they clearly have been many of them, whether it was what Disney did and filming and john john, what it what Apple did and denying protesters the basic ability to use the Apple product that they sell everywhere in the world to share information amongst themselves. They would say, boy, we just conforming with local laws, but you and I both know when when something happens here in the United States, they are the first ones to the ramparts to push back against it to the wall wall, they'll comply with American law, the first one say we think this is a just and they don't do that. If they'd complied with Chinese law, but told the Chinese Communist Party, this is indecent, unethical, and these protesters have the freedom to protest, that would be one thing, but they've not done that they comply and go silent.

And that is in fact, complicity with the Chinese Communist Party's attempt to oppress its own people. Mike, we appreciate your insight and appreciate your wisdom and all of these issues. Thanks for being with us.

Mike Pompeo, of course, Senior Counsel for Global Affairs for the American Center for Law and Justice 70th Secretary of State. And he's part of our team. And I want to take this time as we get ready to end the first half of the broadcast. Encourage you first, if you're watching on our social media application, share this with your friends. Very important to keep that information. We of course appreciate our very large radio audience and growing, which is great.

We're able to have people like I think about this, I think about this. We right now have two cabinet members of the former administration on our senior team. Two cabinet members on our former senior team. We still work very closely with another cabinet member from the George Bush administration, John Ashcroft, who's teaching our students at Regent University School of Law and works with our Law and Justice Institute. So I'm just telling you, your support makes all of this possible. We always say we could show you a camera into our production room where there's six people in there working to make sure this broadcast goes on the air right now.

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ACLJ.org. 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 phone calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. And again, folks, taking your phone calls too. We're having some interesting feedback in our studio just for you guys to know. Sorry about this, folks. We're having a little bit of trouble on our end. I'm sure we'll get – there we go. All right, there we go. I think we got it. Do we have it? We're good? Yeah. Okay, there we go. So we're taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. We're kind of resetting the broadcast right now because we're going to be looking at some economic issues this month as well as an FBI lawsuit that we are going to be filing today through the ACLJ. And up at ACLJ.org you'll see a blog because it's a very typical old school ACLJ as I like to say.

Student told not to talk about the Bible on school property because of, quote, separation of church and state. So we're going to get into all of that, especially as we get closer and closer to the holiday season. And kids don't have that many more days left at school.

No, you know, it's interesting because we also had – I was going through the – we get these weekly reports that our team puts together. They all start coming in right now. And they are – you know, you think 40 years later are you still having to fight over a nativity scene in the town square?

And let me tell you what the answer is. In Ohio, yes. In Colorado, yes. We've got them resolved. It used to be we had to go to court. Now it's basically we say we're the American Center for Law and Justice. We're representing this particular group. You're denying them access to a public forum.

That's not the way the law is. 99.9 percent of the time on those we carry the day. But it's interesting to see. I'd like to know from our audience as you're getting ready for the holiday here, for Christmas, what's going on in your town square?

Are the menorahs and the nativity scenes up? And kind of what your reaction is. We're going to open up our phone lines. Let's do that. 1-800-684-3110. We want to hear from you from coast to coast.

You can also get your comments in on Rumble or Facebook. In your town squares, in your areas, are the nativity scenes up? Are the menorahs displayed? Because the law, of course, allows that. And that's, again, part of what the ACLJ does and continues to do. And like I said, we are handling intake on that right now. You know, you would think after doing this so many years with so many successful Supreme Court cases, you wouldn't have to. You still do. But we'd like to know what's going on in your neighborhood.

1-800-684-3110. And that Ocala case that we have up at the Supreme Court could put an end to a lot of this. I think it's the most significant religion case. A lot of these people say, I just don't like looking at the menorah.

I don't like looking at the... That's what they say. Yeah. So this case, actually, the case that comes out of Florida, could affect every, what they call legal standing, of every one of these people that are filing a lawsuit because they're merely, quote, offended. Knowing that the menorah is there, knowing that the nativity scene is there, knowing that a prayer was given at a vigil for community violence issues that they were dealing with. And that case is now... We filed our brief yesterday to the Supreme Court. It was docketed on the docket sheet of the Supreme Court.

There it is, for those watching on our social media apps. It was docketed on the Supreme Court's website yesterday. So it could go to conference as soon as... I mean, the earliest, I think, would be the first conference in January.

It could be delayed, because sometimes these get delayed. But we have fully briefed it now. The briefs are in. So the next we're preparing for what happens next.

And this could be a huge outcome for the ACLJ. All right. We're going to take your calls at 1-800-684-3110. That's 800-684-3110. What are you seeing in your communities as the holiday season is here?

800-684-3110, don't forget, support the work of the ACLJ. Yeah, we also are going to talk a little bit about inflation as it has to start to cool off in November. But are you seeing that when you're buying Christmas presents for your kids, relatives, if you cut down on that, if you cut down on maybe a Christmas vacation because of that. We have seen gas prices come down somewhat. It's less than 100 bucks to fill up an SUV now. Wow.

I mean, that's the kind of, like, reality we're living in. But support the work of the ACLJ. You can double the impact your donation. So a $20 donation, if that's what you can give right now, we appreciate it.

That's matched by another $20. So it's effectively $40 to the ACLJ. Donate today at ACLJ.org.

That's ACLJ.org. We'll be right back on Secular. Welcome back to Secular. We're going to take some of your calls right off the bat at 1-800-684-3110. I think we should go first to, you want to do a nativity scene call and then go to the economy?

That's what I was thinking. Okay. So let's go to Sylvia in Texas on Line 3. Hey, Sylvia. Hi, and thanks for taking the call.

Sure. Yes, we definitely celebrate in this little town of Hondo, Texas. We are in Medina County, close to San Antonio, and it's a little more conservative, a little more Republican. And we have Christmas cards lining the main drag from all the different businesses. That's great.

And we had a festival last weekend, so we definitely celebrate the birth of Christ here. You know, these used to be major issues. The reason I raised it was I was surprised yesterday in what is going through our weekly reports that we started getting serious, I mean, serious enough inquiries from people in towns and city councils we're calling for advice on this. So I'm glad that you called. I appreciate that.

We're taking your calls on that at 800-684-3110. We want to know what's happening in your community, in your town. But let me tell you what's happening to everybody right now, and that is, this is interesting. They're saying inflation, Professor Hutchinson, is cooling a little bit, which could be good if it is.

I think that'd be good for everybody. What's your sense? Well, I think inflation rates are, in fact, slowing down. So the rate of increase has declined significantly from close to 9% down to 7%. Secondly, it's clear that the stock market is responding positively to a slowing inflation rate.

Why? Because stock analysts believe that this will signal that the central bank will not raise interest rates at the same current high level, but keep in mind, they will likely raise interest rates even more. So if you look at the United States, the central bank interest rate was around 0% on January of 2022. Now it's around 4.5%, and it will likely rise above 5% by the first quarter in 2023. So, Harry, if the inflation rate is slowing down, is that in part because of the rise of the interest rates?

Absolutely. Explain that to everybody how that works. So higher interest rates basically are designed to fuel, they will not necessarily admit this, a recession. And so we've seen a slowdown in construction, household construction, we've seen a slowdown in terms of house sales, and we've seen a slowdown with respect to the sales, particularly of used cars, but also, I believe, of new cars. So the rate of economic growth is indeed slowing down, and this may allow the Fed, for instance, to slow the rate of interest rates going forward. You know, you look at this, and the reason we discuss this is because economic issues, Jordan, have a direct impact on the family, because when inflation is high and it was going to record rates of inflation, it impacts every family in the United States.

Yes. I mean, inflation does not just impact the poor or the businesses. It impacts everybody.

It impacts, again, the moms dropping their kids off at school because you've got to fill up the car and go into soccer practice, go into football practice, go into all the holiday events of the year. And it's still sticker shock to me that I filled out my car and I'm just under $100. That's still sticker shock.

Yes. I mean, it's better than $104, but it's certainly not great. And food cost. This is when the middle class gets hit, I think, the hardest. We're used to, especially during COVID, where you could order basically everything you needed, and it was delivered pretty quickly to your home. And even now with some of the concerns with the respiratory viruses going around and the flu, it's kind of easier to order that way, but the costs have just gone up, I mean... Exponentially.

Incredible. For just the basics. We went to a local... Ketchup is like double the price. We went to a local restaurant.

I'm talking about like a local neighborhood restaurant where you got like a hamburger steak and grilled onions and a little salad, and I think Pam ordered chicken with some wild rice. It was $60. And that is not surprising because we should keep in mind that although the overall inflation rate is slowing down, food and fuel prices remain high. Secondly, we should note that the impact of inflation will be felt unevenly throughout the United States. So if you look at northeastern states, they are expecting heating costs to jump almost exponentially. Indeed, in the United States alone, we expect heating costs for fuel to rise at around 67%. And we also expect high inflation, particularly in California, where you have lots of headwinds coming from the Newsom government. In addition to all of that, of course, if you turn to Europe, fuel, heating costs, natural gas, those prices are going up 400% year over year.

Now, many consumers are not paying that cost directly, but the governments are capping the price to consumers, but that also means the governments have to borrow money to basically pay down the energy costs for consumers. We had Mike Pompeo on, our Senior Counselor of Global Affairs, and we were talking about a lot of things in the Middle East, but also China, and the economic ties between the United States and China, although he thinks China is the greatest threat to the United States country-wise. But the economic intersection, Harry, there's no other country where we're so entwined in their economies and vice versa.

I think that is true. So we, in many respects, are incredibly dependent on China, particularly in the pharmaceutical areas, particularly in terms of high tech. So for instance, if you look at cell phones and the like, we are very dependent on China. China is beginning to slow the rate of growth in part because they've had or they've introduced a zero COVID policy, which literally welds people into their apartments.

So some Chinese Americans, Chinese people, sorry, they're burning to death because they cannot literally get out of their apartment. And so I think there are huge problems and we do not have leadership in Washington. I want to set the stage a little bit here when we're talking about all these issues because the economic issues is something that we are starting to really focus on as an organization because it affects every family. Economic policy is a policy that impacts everyone that's listening to this broadcast, whether you're watching it on social media, watching it on TV, or listening to us over the air. It affects the economic consequences. And I think for a long time, organizations, and there are some that we're covering it, but the economic impact of decision-making really has an impact on our way of life. And economic policy affects liberty and freedom. And when you've got a situation with, you know, it's easy to say we're just going to pull out from working with China, but do you know the reality is?

Then let me tell you this, okay? If that's the case, you're going to pull out just working with China, here's the problem. They control, I think it was 80 or 90 percent of the medications coming into the United States.

Absolutely. And so demand for medicine tends to be highly inelastic. That means that the Chinese have leverage to raise their prices at higher than the inflation rate. Meanwhile, the American population is aging, so we become more dependent, if you will, on medicines from China.

And we do not have individuals who are forward-looking, leading American economic policy in Washington, D.C. What we have are cultural elites, a neo-technocratic, neoliberal group who are totally isolated from what working class and middle class Americans are experiencing on a day-to-day basis. That's number one. Number two, and more importantly, they don't care. I'll tell you something, folks, that's the ACLJ front and center on all these issues, and that's where you come in. We're getting ready next segment of the broadcast. We're taking your calls, 800-684-3110.

We want to know how Christmas is being celebrated in your community. We're going to talk about a couple of other cases. A new lawsuit filed today, you know, we told you when Secretary of State Pompeo was on, we had the lawsuits involving what's going on in the Middle East. We're in federal court in three separate cases.

We had Professor Hutchinson giving you an economic analysis where we are. All of this takes place at the ACLJ because of your support. Now, we're not quite at the 15th of the month yet, but that's when we know we're at our countdown. We are two days away from that. But we are in our countdown for fundraising, and what happens is this.

Look, at the end of the year, it's our biggest month of the year by a lot. And what happens is we determine our budget and our spending based on what comes in in the next two weeks to the ACLJ, and that's where you come in. As Jordan said, if you're able to support the work of the ACLJ, there is not a better couple of weeks to do it than right now because any amount you donate to us, we're getting a matching gift for. So if you go to ACLJ.org right now and donate $100, we're getting another $100, so that $100 becomes $200.

So you're not being charged the extra $100, but we have a group of donors that say, we will match these gifts. So what I want to encourage you to do today is support the work of the ACLJ here in the United States, this broadcast, but also our work around the globe. And you do that by going to ACLJ.org.

That's ACLJ.org, making that online gift today. When we come back, your calls, your comments, 1-800-684-3110. Call us, we want to know what's going on in your community.

Welcome back to Seccio. We're taking your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. ACLJ taking action against the FBI as well, so we get into that as well, but we want to take some of your phone calls.

We're dealing with the FBI and we're dealing with the nativity teams in the town squares. We've got Daniel calling from California on Line 1. Daniel, welcome to the broadcast. You're on the air. Hello, Jay Secco. This is Daniel.

Hello. I want to thank you guys for all the good work. You guys do make a difference right here in California and it's now a purple state, so thank you guys. I'm here calling regarding the nativity scene.

The two areas that I'm from, the City of Ontario right here in Southern California and downtown Riverside, they have the nativity scene up, Christmas trees up, it looks really Christmas-like. You know, this is a great change. You mentioned the California changes, which have been significant. Five House seats picked up in California, five House seats picked up in New York. If those weren't picked up, the Republicans, by the way, would not be in majority leadership in the House of Representatives, but it is great to see that this is happening.

Yeah, that we're starting to see positive reports of the nativity's up, that they're following the rules, the Christmas tree's up, maybe some reindeer up as well, a menorah's up as well, and it should be inclusive that way, and that's the best way to do it. And I think that, you know, again, with this case that we've got that potentially the Supreme Court, it could put it into any of the questions about this whatsoever, so I think that while it sometimes feels like this fight is done, we still get the cases coming in saying, hey, they're not letting me put it up here or there. We had a couple of those already yesterday, and now we've got the situation, we've got a case, it's a victory report.

Normally, this would not even come to your attention, normally, because we handle these and we're done, but it is the Christmas season, so we figured, you know what, we should share. Even these are basically easy victories for us in the sense that we're the American Center for Law and Justice, and when we respond to something, people on the other side know it's for real. Cece, what happened in this particular case? Yeah, so just like the nativity scene cases that you're talking about, this is a case where a little boy in elementary school was told on multiple occasions that the separation, and I'll put little fake quotation marks around this, separation of church and state did not allow him to share his faith with other students or bring any religious items to school with him.

And he was told that on multiple occasions. So we stepped in, sent a demand letter, and really educated the school on what this little boy's constitutional rights were that, you know, the Supreme Court has said, when you cross, when teachers and students cross, you know, the gate of the schoolhouse, you don't shed your constitutional rights. So we were able to send a letter, and this little boy is able to now bring his religious items, Bibles, to school and share his faith without any problems. So that was another situation where we're just able to step in and let, you know, the offending school know you're doing something wrong, and they've actually complied, and now this little boy's able to share his faith with other students. We do have a section of our website called Knowing Your Rights.

If you've got questions that you're having in your local community, you can just email us right away, and then if it's something that we handle, we get right back to you. And a lot of these are handled by phone calls and information. Having said all of that, let me say that we also are handling very complex matters, including one involving that we mentioned yesterday on the air about the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And we have initiated a lawsuit dealing with that situation, and that is being filed today.

Today. So we are filing, we issued a Freedom of Information Act request against the, or to the FBI regarding interaction they had with social media platforms. And we're hearing all about that with the release from Elon Musk and Twitter of what was going on and what kind of information was going back from the FBI and to these social media platforms to limit information coming out on social media. So we did a FOIA request, and this time, I mean, we usually get FBI sending us back documents that are heavily redacted, or we negotiate on what we're sending back and forth. But this time, they literally just shut us down and basically denied the entire FOIA and closed the case. They said the case is closed.

Like, if they have the authority to just say, we're not going to respond. The case is closed. So we're now in federal court. We filed a lawsuit in federal court today. Now we sue. They don't get to close the case.

Judges close cases, not the FBI. So we now will sue. Unfortunately, that's the kind of modus operandi when it comes to the FBI, is having to sue. Though CC says sometimes you get documents that are heavily redacted, at least something.

This time around, nothing at all. So again, we are going to sue, and we are going to get to the bottom of this. You know, you hate that you have, you know, the idea that you've got to file a federal lawsuit on this stuff. But you have a federal statute that allows you to get this information. But I need to say this. This is, and he keeps calling it the needle in the haystack.

You go through tens of thousands of pages sometimes in these documents to find the one thing. What I want to find out is, as we close this segment of the broadcast out, this section of the program today, just think about this for a moment. We were able to determine when all of the stuff was going on with the FBI and the collusion and all of that. We were determined that the key player in a lot of this was a guy named James Baker.

You would have never heard of this guy. Who was James Baker? He was the general counsel for the FBI.

Big position, huge position, but not something the typical person would know who James Baker is, but we find out. And then we trace all the emails, and sometimes I say the most important thing you find on the email is who's it from and who's it to. And we had one that was from James Comey.

You can look at the date, the time, and you can start putting everything together. Exactly. So we get to do, exactly right, we get to do timelines from James Comey to James Baker and Andy McCabe was then the assistant director of the FBI. Then Baker, his name starts popping up again, talking about a couple years later, and in what context? Twitter. Why would he be involved in Twitter? Well, he's the deputy general counsel of Twitter when he left the FBI.

And as Elon Musk made the determination to release this information about what Twitter was basically throttling, what happened? Who was the clog in the wheel? James Baker. The James Baker. He was just called then, there, Jim. And I think Elon Musk's senior team that Elon brought in said, who is Jim? Jim is James Baker. And then people said, you mean the James Baker? Like the FBI general counsel James Baker who was telling us in 2016 and 2020 what to throttle and what to not throttle? That James Baker?

Yes. And he's on both sides of the transaction. And the only reason we know all of that is because our team went to court on this to get these documents. So what I'm telling you this, when you support the ACLJ, it's whether they want to have a nativity scene in their town square in Colorado or Ohio, wherever it might be. Or whether it's dealing with the Federal Bureau of Investigation or our office in Jerusalem handling international negotiations and international criminal court matters before the ICC in The Hague. Or in Washington, D.C., working with members of Congress.

In all of those situations, your support of the ACLJ, including this broadcast on the air, five days a week, 52 weeks a year, with a knowledgeable team both on camera and behind the camera. And then add to it our senior counsels. Who are they? Former Secretary of State.

Former Director of National Intelligence. That's who these people are. That's who we're affiliated with. They're working with us.

That's because of your support of the ACLJ. So I want to ask you this. To me the big date's coming up in 48 hours. That's when we hit the 15th. That last two weeks is sprint to the finish.

A sprint to the finish. But that's where you come in. We have a matching challenge going on. And what we do is during the year we work with our donors and they will say we will match this.

We'll say to them, are you willing to match a gift that comes in during these particular months? And those donors get together and they do it. So that means when you donate $50 to the ACLJ, we're getting another $50. So we get $100. It costs you $50, which we appreciate, but we got someone else that's matching it. And that really affects how we do our budgeting for next year. So go to ACLJ.org. ACLJ.org. Forward slash donate. It makes a huge difference. We'll talk to you tomorrow.