BREAKING: Alec Baldwin to be Charged with Involuntary Manslaughter

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Alec Baldwin to be charged with involuntary manslaughter. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you.

Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Is Logan Sekulow breaking news? We have our legal team of experts in here.

We have a dad, Jay Sekulow, and a kind of a Wes Smith. Let's make sure that we're, you know, that's not just me covering this big legal case that's happening right now. As actor Alec Baldwin, as you know, last year or maybe it's over a year now, there was an on-set issue, a death that happened during the shooting of the film Rust, where he was allegedly given a gun to use as a Western and ended up killing one person and shooting another person. And this has been breaking news that came out this morning after about a year and a half. There are now charges to be had with for involuntary manslaughter with Alec Baldwin. I thought having a legal team of experts, we should talk about this and cover it.

We will. Okay, let me ask you a question first. You've been on a lot of movie sets. Live ammo on a set is supposedly never happens. Yeah, I mean, I think never.

I wouldn't say never say never. This has happened before. It's not like this is the lone time someone has been killed on a movie set. Now, often it's not by live rounds. Often is by a issue that happens even with the blanks.

Being a problem if you're close enough range and things could still happen, shards, stuff like that gets caught. So this does happen from time to time, very rarely, where there are deaths on movie sets that aren't in the sense of like a stunt person. That happens actually, sadly, fairly regularly. That's why you have stunt people.

But when it comes to a situation like this, it rarely happens. But these are low-budget movies. As someone who's worked on plenty of low-budget movies, I know costs are cut.

You do take a lot of liberties. A lot of people are guerrilla filmmakers. They go in, they get the shot, they do what they need to get done. But in this situation, you had obviously enough money to pay Alec Baldwin, a very popular actor, and not have the people properly in place.

Not just him. It's also, we saw the charging of the armorer, which if you want to know what that is, that's essentially the person in charge of the weapons on set. There are voluntary manslaughter cases, and murder and manslaughter are not the same, but it's a serious charge.

No, let's talk about that for just a second. You've got homicide, the killing of a human being. This is not a murder case, so there's three kinds of murders. There's murder with malice of forethought, there's voluntary manslaughter, and there is this case, which is involuntary manslaughter. Involuntary manslaughter is manslaughter, which is an unlawful killing of a human being without malice, without malice of forethought. Involuntary manslaughter consists of manslaughter committed in the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to a felony, okay?

Or in the commission of a lawful act, which might produce death in an unlawful manner. So that's how you break this down. All right, now let me ask this question. Wes Smith, Colonel of the United States Army, you know weapons, retired obviously. Wes, the armorer, what is that person's job? The armorer is in charge of the transportation, storage, and the safe use of any weapon on a movie set to include firearms. Not all the weapons are necessarily firearms, but they're in charge of that. And I went and looked at the website today for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, and on their site it says an armorer specifically has to make sure the actor is competent, the actor knows how many blank rounds there are each time they shoot a scene, and where to aim the weapon. And it seems like in this case, a lot of those requirements were not met. Each state's different, but each state does require a licensed armorer on the set.

Sometimes it's called an entertainment firearms permit, but you cannot have weapons on a set without a licensed armorer there. Yeah, I mean I think that's accurate. Again, costs are cut, things happen when you're making these independent films. But then people are home responsible when it does. What you're going to have, and this is what's happening right now in Hollywood, is not only no live rounds, there will be no actual weapons that will be allowed, and you'll be doing a lot with CGI and so on, which hurts independent films in some ways because it's difficult, it's more expensive. However, for the safety of it, I think it's okay.

I think that's an okay rule to have. When you don't want to have accidents like this, they not only disrupt, obviously kill people, but also disrupts people's lives. You can think about the hundreds of people that probably worked on this movie and now have no job. So you're going to have to go think about all of that. We're going to keep covering it though. Coming up, if you have a question or comment, give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to SiteKiller. We are taking your calls and any questions related to currently what topic we're talking about is that breaking news came out just before we went on air.

The Alec Baldwin actor, who obviously you know from the controversy surrounding the Rust production last year or a year and a half ago, who unintentionally, according to this, charged with involuntary manslaughter, shot and killed a member of the crew as well as injuring others. And this is something that's just breaking and we thought the fact that we do have legal experts on this, we could talk a little bit more about what this means. Andy, CNN is reporting, I'm looking at it right now, that he could face 18 months if convicted. That's happening.

I feel like that's probably a bit heavy handed. That's what the statute says. That's what the statute says, right. Yeah, I don't think that, you know, here's a man who has no prior criminal record whatsoever. He has done, he may get community service, he may be put on some probated sentence if he's found guilty, of course, and the guilt has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt. And with no prior criminal record whatsoever, and at his age, you've got to consider that as a considering factor that the court will consider the likelihood is that he's going to get some kind of probated sentence with community service and maybe a fine. Although there have been cases that I've prosecuted, same thing, no prior criminal record, involuntary manslaughter, and they've gotten the latest one that I did that he got a year in prison.

Yeah, I mean, it does happen. And if you look at, I mean, he may not have it like this kind of criminal record, but he obviously has been someone who has been controversial over the years, getting involved in the press, punching members of the paparazzi, you know, involved in these things, been not necessarily greatest with some of his relationships with children. You know, he comes up not necessarily as a great figure to have this happen to, don't know him, don't know anything about him, never met him. I don't want to pretend that we do, you know, the members of the Baldwin family who we have had relationships with that are great people. So I don't want to be out there disparaging anyone in this.

I think we need to keep this to sort of in the news. I mean, I know a lot of you follow him because he has obviously very outspoken politically. So there's a lot of feelings towards him. That's more what I mean.

There's a lot of feelings towards this person. And you have a actual potential no one really expected, which was that he'd be charged and at some point likely, you know, essentially convicted of involuntary manslaughter, which knowing what happened here on the production, it's a horrible tragedy. Can't think of anything worse happening during a movie. But like you said, it has happened before. People have died while making films, whether that is by accident.

Usually it's not this direct. It's not usually someone is handed a gun, it is loaded and they fire and they kill someone. Usually it is a big giant accident that happens. Yeah, a set to something comes out.

Yeah, something breaks. You're using a helicopter in a scene and something goes wrong. But those actual, in this kind of situation, though, on the sets that you do use real weapons, usually it's just usually they keep the ammo separate. So what was the weapon here? It was a.45 caliber revolver and that's a big round. But, you know, a.45 caliber revolver, there's only one way to fire it and that's to pull the trigger. And what Mr. Baldwin was saying early on was, I didn't pull the trigger. I didn't pull the trigger. This weapon cannot fire. It's not like a semi-automatic weapon that's easier to accidentally fire. This is a revolver.

You have to cock it and pull the trigger or just pull the trigger. And the FBI said that, in fact, that did happen. They examined it and they said this weapon is not faulty. So Andy had a different case, but not that. It may nationally use a number of years. Probably even, what, seven, eight years ago, I guess.

Yeah, probably now, yeah. And it involved a documentary that was being done on the Allman Brothers, the band. What happened there?

Well, in that case, it was in Jessup in Wayne County, Georgia, which is extreme southeast Georgia. They were filming a scene where one of the Allman Brothers was lying in a bed. The idea was to lie in a bed on a railroad track while some song was being played. They went to the railroad company. They said, no, you can't put that bed on that track. That's a live railway. Well, they said, we're going to steal the scene. In other words, do it illegally. And they put the bed on the track and here comes the train around the bend.

The train hits, they all scatter, but the train hits the bed and decapitates one of the stage hands. So in addition to a civil case that was brought, you brought criminal charges. We brought criminal charges against the people, the producer, the executive producer, and the people, and they pled guilty and served one year in prison. Not likely here, probably, in this kind of case. I don't see that in this case.

When I first heard about this- Because you had another step there. They were told not to do it. They were definitely told not to do it, but I saw this- It was a little bit different. This was the armor-handed actor, what he thought was a potentially prop.

How do you not clear the chamber? Well, exactly. And that's the armor's responsibility. And according to reports, the armor- That's going to be his defense. Yeah, the armor, according to Baldwin, the armor told him, this is a cold weapon.

A cold weapon is one that does not have rounds in it. Yeah. So he was told that apparently. I don't really doubt that.

No. I think that this was an inexperienced crew in a very, in a fairly low budget movie. Time is of the essence. This is what happens. You have very, very strict timelines on getting your shots. Especially if you're shooting something like a Western.

You have very limited sunlight. There are a lot of things that happen that lead to mistakes being made. Mistakes happen on every movie. As Andy brought up, stealing shots is not unheard of.

We've all done it. It's whether you're doing it illegally in the sense of that. Whether it's- There's an interest in not getting a permit and taking a camera down to Times Square. There's a difference between taking someone and handing them a loaded weapon.

This is also important to point out, Andy, here. And you said it earlier, but I think it's worth repeating. This is not a murder case.

No. When I first thought about this, I thought this is what we call in the law an excusable homicide. Not a justifiable homicide, but an excusable homicide. In other words, no one had any intent. No one was acting with any negligence. I'm rather surprised that the decision was made to charge him with two counts of involuntary manslaughter. I don't know all the facts, but that rather surprises me because I expected something far less than that.

Because, you know, just from what I think, I'd much rather be defending this case than prosecuting it. It was certainly for him. For Baldwin. Now, the armorer evidently did not do what they're supposed to do. Absolutely not. Based on what we're hearing.

Yeah, I think the inexperience seemed like it went into play. Was this a well-known armorer? Do we know?

I don't believe so. I think it was someone who was pretty new. I have to go back and look at the original facts. I believe it was related to a famous armorer. And when there were some reports that the crew was using the weapon to do target practice. I never heard that. Early on, and I did not know that.

I don't know if that was accurate. But you're not supposed to have live rounds on the set unless you're like the security guard. Yeah, I don't think that there was, there's not many excuses that that person could have, but you're pushed.

There's a lot of things. I don't know what kind of union rules they were using or not using in this kind of film. As someone who's not a big fan of those unions, I do understand why sometimes they need to be in place. And that's where, for situations like this, when you have a live... But you're not supposed to have live rounds on the set. Not typically.

Not typically, no. No, no, no. So, Andy, what do they have to prove to get him? I mean, because I'm thinking, okay, if I'm the defense lawyer here, right? The first thing I'm going to do is blame the armorer. Hey, you gave me a weapon. You said it was, as Wes said, a cold weapon. They were charged also.

Yes, they were. But the defendant here, if you're representing Alec Baldwin, is going to look at what's his defense. That's got to be one of his defenses. Yeah, my defense is that I had absolutely no reason to believe that the armorer was handing me a weapon that was loaded. I was a prop, and I used it as a prop. I had no intent to commit anything, which you don't need involuntary manslaughter, but I had no intent, and it was not negligent. I was not recklessly negligent. I was not simply negligent. I didn't do any of those. So I just simply took what I believed to be a prop and used it as the script told me to. That's it.

Very simple. Yep. All right. Well, I just wanted to talk about that, give you some more information as it is breaking. I do see some comments coming in, and we can keep the discussion going. But a lot of people are saying, well, let's make sure that this story doesn't become the distraction and we don't talk about what's actually going on in the big pictures. Well, we've got a whole 40 minutes of that coming up.

That is true. We wanted to make sure that we covered this. It is breaking news. A lot of people are following this story, and we wanted to mix it up a little, give you some different... We have legal experts here.

We have people who worked on film sets all the time. So we can give you a bit of expertise on a lot of other outlets when it comes to this situation. So I want to make sure we did that, but we are not taking the eye off the ball.

Oh, no, no, no. And we're going to get into, listen, coming up on the broadcast, we're going to, how about this one? Are you an envoy to Hezbollah, from the United States? And think about this for a moment. A terrorist organization, we've got tweets going back and forth saying, thank you for showing me the horizon of activity for Lebanon.

Think about these kind of things for a moment. And then you've got Talib sending out emails, text messages saying, I'm outraged that the State Department is moving forward with plans to build a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem on land stolen from the Palestinians. Taking your calls on all of this, 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110. We are getting calls also starting to come in on the Alec Baldwin story. We gave you the kind of an analysis there on what we think is happening. It's a big story. Again, criminal case in this, I don't think so easy, at least as to Alec Baldwin. I don't know about the armor.

I haven't followed that aspect of it closely. I'm sure they're going to, you know, they'll have a defense, I guess. Now, your case that you had, they pled out. Yeah, they pled guilty. No, they did not go to trial.

And they served an agreed sentence of one year in the county jail, not even in the prison system. Yeah. So these are serious things. So we're going to deal with that issue.

We've got the economic forum in Davos where the climate change issue is, I mean, becoming hysteria. So we got that one. By the way, Wes, quickly for you, with less than 48 seconds here, your reaction on these, you know, this idea of the UN envoy to dealing with Hezbollah? Yeah, an envoy going and visiting a terrorist training camp, talking about their mission, and then sending them a thank you tweet for the walkthrough at a terrorist group. That is unheard of. But from the UN, not a total surprise. This is the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, tweeted her thanks to the head of international relations for Hezbollah.

You can't make this up, folks. We're taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110, 800-684-3110. Support the work of the ACLJ.

Do that at ACLJ.org. Back with more in just a moment. Go ahead. Yep, we're good. Hey, Will, coming up, we're going to put your comment in there. Make sure you get us a call at 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Secula. We're going to be taking your calls on some of the topics we're bringing up today.

We are going to pivot a little. We were talking about the Alec Baldwin situation, but we have some news coming out related to our office in Israel. Yeah, well, since it's our office in Israel, it's a whole Middle East situation, and I want to start with this. Talib, Congresswoman, this is what she tweets out. I'm outraged that the State Department is moving forward with plans to build the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem on land stolen from the Palestinians.

This is what she's putting out. By doing so, the U.S. is complicit in the illegal confiscation of Palestinian property. POTUS should reverse this Trump-era policy immediately. That's part one of this. Then part two, we're going to talk about a U.N. envoy meeting with Hezbollah's international representatives and thanking them for showing them the terrorist training camps. Jeff, I want to go to you first on the Jerusalem issue. We were there when the move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem for the embassy was done. It was a historic moment in American relations with Israel, but also internationally.

It was received. Other countries have done it, but it tells you where this part of the – I don't want to blame the whole Democratic Party. I don't think that's fair. It's this Tel Aviv AOC wing of the party where they are. Well, Jay, you're a lot more generous to the Democrats than I am because I haven't heard anybody from that party speak out against this outrageous tweet.

She did a series of tweets, which frankly are – they're all lies. I mean, it's been American policy for decades to move the embassy to Jerusalem. Finally, it was done, and yes, we were there, and now she's declaring that this is confiscating Palestinian land.

You know, Jay, this is part of – this administration has been tolerant of this, has been allowing this to be their tone of voice, and this is happening around the world. People see it, and so, for example, they're trying to deny Jewish history. They're trying to deny that Jews had Jerusalem, which the whole world knew, and now – We may have lost Jeff. I've written an entire book on Jerusalem being the – is the Jewish state. See, we also have at the same time – this is happening, like, simultaneously.

You can't – this is where I said you can't make this stuff up. And that is the UN now has an envoy, and this UN envoy is the special coordinator for Lebanon, and she tweeted her thanks to Amir Moussawi, who's the head of – ready for this? International Relations for Hezbollah, for giving her a tour to horizon – tour of the horizon of Lebanese issues. Yeah, and I think that just points to the fact that the UN really does not have any credibility in what their mandate is. The UN is created basically to maintain international peace and security, and yet you have this UN envoy who speaks directly and represents directly the secretary-general of the UN, and she's giving thanks to a terrorist organization for basically giving her an overview on Lebanese issues, which is absolutely ridiculous. So you got the person giving the briefing to the UN envoy is part of a terrorist organization, and the United States is funding – we're the largest funder of the United Nations. If you think about these two things simultaneously, Tlaib – oh, the Israelis stole the Palestinian property, which is both factually incorrect and legally incorrect and politically wrong. And then at the same time, I've got a UN envoy saying thank you to the – I mean, they put a tweet thanking Hezbollah's representatives from taking them around and talking about these issues.

This is the world we're living in right now. Yeah, honestly, it seems insane, and I'm glad you're highlighting this. It's so important, and it's so important that we amplify this, because the Israelis also had that reaction, and it's important that Americans understand how terrible the situation is becoming. By the way, at the same time, if I could add this, the Europeans are funding – by the way, thanks to leadership from the White House here, the Europeans are funding now the destruction of another holy site, a biblical site, which is Joshua's altar in Samaria on Mount Ebal, and part of it's already been destroyed and paved over, and they're moving to destroy the entire site. They're trying to eradicate all of Jewish history, all of biblical history, and assert this all belonged to the Palestinians. Yeah, and honestly, destroying biblical history and historical sites seems like something that has been going on for hundreds of years at this point, thousands of years. Yeah, well, this is not one that's been moments of operandi. This seems like history repeating itself.

But it's interesting here. So, Jeff talked about the Israel's reaction, and the Israel's reaction from Joshua Zarco, who's the head of strategic affairs for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and we've done a lot of work with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs over the years. This is what he said, is this real?

Yeah, absolutely. Is this real? And the answer is yes, it is. An official senior U.N. representative thanks the terrorist organization responsible for the murder of a U.N. peacekeeper for a tour de horizon, basically the overview of what's going on in Lebanon. It is ridiculous. It's unthinkable that she would talk to the terrorist group to find out, when she has a peacekeeping mandate, to find out what's going on in Lebanon. You know, I want to follow up on what Logan just said, Jeff, because the idea of destroying the Jewish historic sites, it could be the Christian historic sites, too, because the Muslim terrorist groups, that's what they want to do. They want to destroy the evidence of Jewish presence in the homeland, in Israel, which you can find from biblical. Like I said, I've written an entire book on this, and this is not new, but they're doing it right now again. That's right, and they're being funded to billions of dollars by the Europeans to pave over Joshua's altar. Do you know why they didn't do this 100 years ago or 20 years ago? It's because Joshua's altar was just recently discovered and verified at the site, and so now they're destroying it. Yeah, of course, and now that they've found that they can verify a site, all right, now we can take a doubt. I mean, it does feel like what you heard about in your history classes, which was, here's what happened, they came in, they dominated, they took over this region, the Jewish people came back, this happened, and then the Crusades happened, and this happens again.

It just feels like we're a bit on repeat, but it's not the old history. This is happening right now, and it's government funded, and it's somewhat celebrated. Yeah, well, let's go back to the UN thing for a moment. I mean, I would tweet the same thing. My first reaction was, is this real? Were the UN envoys tweeting out thanking Hezbollah for assisting them?

Jeff, I mean, this seems so bizarre. This is why it's so important that we are on the ground in Jerusalem, in Washington, and at the UN. I mean, because the truth is, the world is collaborating to wipe out the existence of all of Jewish history so that they can claim that the PLO, a terrorist group, is the true stakeholder in Jerusalem, in Samaria. Yeah, but don't worry, because they're going to have Hezbollah handle their public relations, apparently, because that seems to be working out very good for the UN. And that's why we have such a presence at the UN, that we're always engaged there, because we are able to give the other side of the story and point out the ridiculousness of, like this UN Special Coordinator, how she can thank a terrorist organization for giving her, basically, an overview on Lebanon. And we will point it out. Every time we encounter something like this, we engage at the UN and point out the ridiculousness of these kind of statements. No, folks, and we're about to expand that work drastically.

I cannot get into the details yet, but we are about to go through a major expansion of our work internationally, and it is a very exciting project. Jeff, last comment here, but we've got to take these seriously, because we know what they're up to. It's exactly what Logan said. Is history repeating itself? We've got to interrupt the history here.

That's right. And you know, it does come from the top down. The fact that the United States government, the top levels, is attacking Israel for allowing Jews to go on the Temple Mount. It's outrageous. Why shouldn't Jews be allowed to go on the Temple Mount? Why shouldn't Jews be allowed to live anywhere in Jerusalem they want?

Well, once that's America's policy, it emboldens the enemies of the Jews, and that's what we see. All right, Jeff, we appreciate it. Folks, your support of the ACLJ allows us to expand our work, continue the work, but expand it.

You're here. You've had a great analysis of what we've covered today. We've been able to give you insight on a breaking news story that's unrelated to what we really do, but we have the expertise, so we used it.

Then we're talking about the United Nations, and then we're talking about our office in Jerusalem. Your support of the ACLJ is critical. Let me encourage you to go to ACLJ.org. You can donate online, ACLJ.org, and follow us at loganSekulow, at jordanSekulow, at jSekulow, at ACLJ. Wherever you use your social media, we're there. We'll be back with more in just a moment. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.

Welcome back to Sekulow. We do have some calls coming in. On the first topic we brought up, which was the breaking news that Alec Baldwin will be charged with involuntary manslaughter for his negligence on the film Rust. Alleged negligence.

They've got to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Yeah, so we'll see what happens. That's something that we talked about, but we've been moving into other topics as well.

Yeah. You can't let the Hollywood news distract you from the big stories that are happening. Not when the United Nations is sending envoys to the Hezbollah terrorists and thanking them for talking to them about Lebanon, coming from the terrorists. Or that Tlaib, Congresswoman Tlaib, is saying, you know, the Biden administration needs to cut off the Israelis because the Israelis have taken Palestinian property for the embassy of the United States of America. And, of course, we also covered the Alec Baldwin thing. We're going to take your calls at 1-800-684-3110. We're going to talk about the Davos Economic Forum.

Rick Grenell is going to be joining us. So there's a lot going on right now that we're going to talk about. But we've got calls coming in.

I want to take them. 800-684-3110. What's your call on Line 110? Yeah, let's go to Deborah, who's calling from the state of Florida. Deborah, welcome. Hey, Deborah.

Hi. Listen, I have something that's been bothering me. Why was live ammunition allowed anywhere near a movie set where guns were used as props? Also, someone had mentioned that they were target practicing earlier in the day. Yeah, we haven't been able to verify that.

There's been some reports on that earlier. But go ahead, Logan. Live ammo on a set.

Sure. It's certainly usually not the case. However, and not that it's an excuse, the job of the armorer is to control this. A lot of times they are using real weaponry. They are using real guns, real armor.

Blanks usually. When these kind of scenes, there are circumstances where some kind of ammunition is used, usually under very extreme situations. Think about what you've seen in a movie.

Sometimes that's not all CGI, especially if there's not necessarily another actor involved or so on. The reason they said, he said, they handed him, he said, this is a cold weapon. Well, that meant there's a chance that it was a hot weapon.

So you think about it that way, because that means they were at least discussing that. It's not that often. It's certainly not going to be the case now. You're going to see, you're already seeing, you've seen last year, industry-wide changes in the terms of the way guns are used. You're seeing guns, using guns in Hollywood, used a lot less in general for obvious reasons. But even with these kinds of movies, you're going to see a lot more props that are fully created, fully manufactured, and CGI being used a lot more.

And that puts a stress on some independent filmmakers who are trying to make some movies. But you can't have these kinds of things happen, though it is extremely rare. I think we need to look back on that. I can think of a handful of times in my lifetime where you've heard about a death on a set that was something like this.

And a lot of people saw how Alec Baldwin, whether you, I know almost everyone who listens to this show dislikes his political opinions, but a lot of people looked at him as someone who had to go through something fairly traumatic. And then you have the other case where people were saying, well, he was very negligent. That doesn't mean that those are necessarily one and not one the same. You could be incredibly negligent. And also he obviously, there was not intent to kill someone. No, it's not a murder case.

It's not a homicide case. I'm glad we're able to clarify that. Let me tell you this other thing, though, what's going on. So the UN envoy, special coordinator for Lebanon, tweets her thanks to Hezbollah, the terrorist group that the United States recognizes as a terrorist group, while we're funding the United Nations, by the way. And the head of international relations for Hezbollah, thanking her for a tour of the horizons of Lebanese issues. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization in the United States and in Europe.

It's recognized. And this tour to horizon on the issues of priority for Lebanon, including the election of a new President, the functioning of state institutions, the impact of regional and international development on the country. She's talking to Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, the UN thanking them. Then the Israelis respond, is this real?

Question mark in a tweet. Why in the world would a UN representative think a terrorist organization who's responsible for the murder of a UN peacekeeper for a, quote, tour to horizon? Then to leave, the congresswoman is blasting off saying, hey, the United States needs to not be building its embassy in Jerusalem, should not have an embassy in Jerusalem. It's stolen Palestinian land. That's why we're engaged at the UN.

That's why we're engaged with an office in Jerusalem and we're expanding our work globally. Your support's critical. ACLJ.org.

That's ACLJ.org. Back with more in just a moment. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the broadcast.

We're taking your calls at 800-684-3110. Joining us now is Rick Connell, senior advisor for national security and global affairs. Rick, I want to, before we get to what's going on in Davos, this is, you know, you were at the UN for 10 years and we're active at the United Nations and we've intervened on a lot of matters at the UN. But now you've got, and this to me is incredible, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon tweets her thanks to Omar Moussaoui, who is, quote, the head of international relations for Hezbollah for giving her a tour to horizon of Lebanese issues. Now Hezbollah, of course, as you know, and we all really know, is a terrorist organization. And we've got a U.S. envoy thanking the terrorist organization for giving them this discussion about Lebanese issues while they were touring them around what, terrorist training camps?

I have no idea. But, Rick, the fact that this happened is outrageous in my view. Yeah, it's outrageous. And to be honest, during Republican administrations, we make it very clear to the UN that they cannot have this bifurcated view of Hezbollah. There are some countries that view Hezbollah as a service organization in addition to being a terrorist organization.

It's actually laughable. It's something that common people, normal people with common sense would never separate a terrorist organization from them giving money to people. This is part of their process to convince people to join their movement. And so the UN treating them like a humanitarian organization, like a social service organization, thanking them for the tour. This is such a problem because at the UN, they don't see this as a problem.

And the U.S., which is the number one funder for the United Nations, our government needs to make it very clear that we will not be funding programs or people who view Hezbollah as a good organization. I want to take this call coming in from Dan out of New York. It's got a contrary view, but I think it's fair to take it. Dan, go ahead. You're on the air. Welcome to the broadcast.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. I beg to differ with you. I mean, this person is an envoy. That in itself describes her mission as a peacemaker of some type or a communicator. And without information, they can't make any kind of a sound judgment.

Dan, let me ask you a couple of questions here. Let's put this in perspective. She's a UN envoy on Lebanese issues. She's not a UN envoy to Hezbollah. The League of Nations didn't have a League of Nations envoy to Hitler if they were in existence.

So the fact is you can get information from wherever you want. You don't thank a terrorist organization for anything. Well, you know, I mean, our FBI tried to designate mothers as terrorists.

Oh, okay. We said the domestic terrorism program was, Rick, this is my point. This is how it's infiltrating regular thought that someone, oh, okay, thanking a terrorist organization is okay. Let me give you a bottom line rule, Dan, of our view, and I'll let Rick comment. Thanking a terrorist organization is never a good idea.

Rick? Yeah, look, if the point is that we need to gather information from enemies or bad people, I totally support that idea. But Jay, you're exactly right that this is an envoy for Lebanon. You don't thank them, but you don't thank them publicly. Right. Never. You should call out Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and you should say that any humanitarian outreach that a terrorist organization is doing is clearly designed to recruit more terrorists, not to somehow help the general population.

All right. I want to turn our attention to, you got this, you know, the big event in Davos, the World Economic Forum. Rick, I've never been, but I've always questioned what it really is because I think it's a propaganda tool for the left and they've made a very good job of getting a lot of attention on it. What's your thoughts on what's happening out of there? I mean, mostly it's climate and they're going hysterical on the climate change issue.

But what's your thought? Look, it's I think the capital of woke. It's the capital of globalism. It's very rich, wealthy, powerful people that come together and say, let's collectively push global issues. They hated Donald Trump. They hate any country that that takes care of itself first. They want to they want countries to share their wealth and share their borders.

But let's also be very clear. They're all flying in on their private jet. They're not sharing their wealth. They are they are saying these public things so that more people buy their products, buy their ideas so that they get wealthier. The whole concept of them giving away their money or opening their home for people who who don't recognize borders that doesn't exist.

They are about making other people do the work and they collect the money. But if the media is captivated by Davos, the whole World Economic Forum, every break on every news network, there it is. Yeah, it's an interesting topic. I think there's a lot of theories. There's a lot of people who have questions. You could see on the Internet any sort of version of what is happening in these sort of all of those sort of world meetings that happened beyond just even Davos.

And yeah, people are captivated by it and maybe rightfully so. There are these issues that come out of this and they're not to just be taken lightly. Rick, I want to move to Ukraine. The reports are today that the Ukrainians are saying they're worried about Russia incursion at a pretty large level, assuming that the winter chill starts coming in there.

They move their troops easier when it's cold because the land is frozen. So there's also this talk of a peace plan. You've been involved in these negotiations at the highest levels at both an ambassador at the U.N. and as your work as director of national intelligence on the President's cabinet. What's your view of this right now, this peace plan issue with Ukraine? Well, certainly the President of the United States should have in front of him a military plan and a peace plan.

And the President gets to decide when to implement the plans. But what I see from the Biden team is nothing but Pentagon military planning and spending. And that concerns me because I don't see the State Department and our secretary of state coming forward with his plan. It was pretty outraged, Jay, to see yesterday the State Department spokesman give a briefing and his entire briefing on Ukraine was talking about armor, explosives, military equipment, bombs, missiles. This is coming from the man who is speaking for diplomacy in the Biden administration.

I'm outraged by that. We have a Pentagon that can brief on on war and military issues. We need a State Department that is pushing and briefing on peace plans. It is absent from the Biden administration.

There is no talk of peace plans. And I'll finish with this. Remember, Joe Biden's first policy on Ukraine after dropping the sanctions that Trump had in place.

His first policy was to offer Zelensky a ride out on a plane to get out of the way of Russia because he messaged to the world that Russia was coming to start a war. You know, you're right. You know, people forget.

Seems like it was a lifetime ago, but a little bit ago. Last question. We got the document issues with President Trump has his document issues. President Biden has his document issues.

I mean, I always in a situation like this, you know, I think at this point resolve the document issues. But to make these criminal cases, I think it's ridiculous on both of their cases. Having said that, though, we've talked about these weaponization of these agencies and the way in which they're treating one one way and one the other way. And the FBI was asked about maybe going in and looking for the Biden documents.

And evidently, the attorney general's office said no. That's the double standard in this. You know, the double standard is, is that we're talking about documents actually from only one President and one vice President.

That's true. Because these these documents were Vice President Joe Biden. And I'd like to know and the media should be focused and maybe we at ACLJ should start pushing. Did Barack Obama receive a request from Joe Biden to declassify those documents? Because if Joe Biden didn't declassify those documents, then he should be in a heap of trouble. Let me jump in here, because to that point, you'll be glad to know this. We just found out last night, we sent that when we were talking to you about getting that FOIA together to send to the National Archives.

Shockingly, and I will say I am shocked. We're going to talk more about this next week on the broadcast. We got an agreement on expedited processing from the National Archives.

I think the pressure was so high on them. It was one of your when I talked about doing this was the right idea. And Ben Sisney from her office came up with targeting the National Archives, but they've authorized expedited review.

We got less than a minute. I thought that's that's a big development. Well, it's a big development.

It's a big benefit of being a part of ACLJ. I'm extremely proud of this. We take action. We deliver. And we do it in a way that puts pressure on organizations in a way where they feel the pressure. So congratulations to the whole team. Well, we appreciate it. Rick, thanks for your insight on all of this, folks.

We got another segment coming up. We'll take your calls. 1-800-684-3110, 800-684-3110. Whether it is dealing with document issues in Presidents and vice Presidents, ACLJ there. Israel, ACLJ there. United Nations, the ACLJ there.

And then like in the Middle East, an office in Jerusalem. Your support of the ACLJ makes all that possible. I want to encourage you to go to ACLJ.org.

That's ACLJ.org and support the work of the ACLJ. And there's also a lot of ways to connect with us also, Logan. Yeah, you can find all of our social media outlets and platforms. We're everywhere. If you want to find us, subscribe.

If you're watching right now on Rumble, if you're watching right now on YouTube and you don't know about us, we're brand new to you, click that subscribe button, thumbs up, and comment. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Cykilo, wrapping up today's show with a little bit of a different take. I'm going to play John Kerry at the World Economic Forum in Davos. I want you to listen to what he said. Harry Hudson, our director of policies here, we're going to comment on this, but I want you to listen to really Kerry carefully to what he says. John Kerry. And when you stop and think about it, it's pretty extraordinary that we, a select group of human beings, because of whatever touched us at some point in our lives, are able to sit in a room and come together and actually talk about saving the planet.

I mean, it's so almost extraterrestrial. And if you said that to most people, most people, they think you're just a crazy tree-hugging, lefty, liberal, you know, do-gooder, whatever. Exactly. Exactly. He just throws in do-gooder at the end.

Like, you know, crazy, lefty, democrat, do-gooder. It is an ego trip. Ego trip.

I want to break this down. Harry's with us. And when you stop and think about it, it's pretty extraordinary that we, a select group of human beings, because of whatever touched us at some point in our lives, get to sit in a room and talk about saving the planet. It's extraordinary. But what we are witnessing is the arrival of a new pagan religion. And they are weaponizing climate change to achieve ultimate power over the lives of middle-class Americans.

So the World Economic Forum is now coming for your gas stove, for your cars, your food, and indeed your life as they now demand that average Americans eat beetle burgers in order to save the planet. Well, that's because they get to sit in a room and decide all this. Absolutely.

Like a Hollywood movie set, Davos, looks like. Absolutely. And at the same time, they are rejecting the God of Abraham, Jacob, and Moses in favor of some type of gnostic religious experience that goes back two, three, four thousand years, well before the arrival of Christianity on the planet. And they really see God as a demiurge, a demon, and they can reimagine the world basically from an abstraction or an abstract religious perspective.

Yeah. And then they say, I mean, Logan, this is what they put in there. I mean, they said, I mean, it's almost extraterrestrial. It does make every conspiracy theorist that's online that you've been joking about and you've been commenting on it goes, oh yeah, they're probably right. Because when you say stuff like that, like you said, in this beautiful room, it feels like something out of a movie and it feels almost laughable, but then you realize, oh no, there's no joke in this.

There's no comedy in this. They really think of themselves as a select group of human beings selected by whatever touched them in their lives to then move on to save the planet. I mean, it does sound so theatrical. And then the same time you have Al Gore out there, he's out there yelling and screaming about climate change as he has for the last 30 years, whatever it's been since the original film that he came out with. And this time though, admitting of course, what we've all been saying the whole time. So you know what, give it to Al Gore. Cause he admitted the truth here, which was about the inflation reduction act.

Let's hear what he had to say. In my country, we pass the inflation reduction act, which is primarily a climate act, 369 billion, which will actually be much larger than that because the heavy lifting is done by tax credits that are very long term. Some of them actually open-ended funny open-ended tax track, but you heard what he's called it. The, the, the act, the inflation reduction act is really a climate act, which we said, and people were mocking conservatives for saying it to Harry, but in reality, Al Gore admits it and people clap and they applaud and they love it.

Absolutely. And President Biden is absolutely committed to this destructive agenda. So essentially the climate change agenda means you need to give up your cars, your gas stoves, basically anything that depends on fossil fuels.

Why? Because these elites now worship the planet. And so I think for average Americans, this makes no sense. Average Americans are dealing with explosive inflation rates, eggs up approximately a hundred percent. Electricity prices for bakers in France up 10 a full, that is a thousand percent.

And so the beat goes on for average Americans who have essentially seen the greatest transfer in wealth from the middle class to elites in human history. I think a lot of people specifically, let's say before the biggest economic disaster in the last few years said, you know what, you know, the electric vehicle, if we're going to do something, if we're going to try to do stuff, that's better for the environment. There's a lot of people, even the conservative side. And I disagree with them saying, you know what, maybe this is the time we don't need to like, we're not just sitting here going, let's destroy our planet. However, in times of chaos and in times when, when Harry said, when there's in these inflation problems and they go out there and they say these kinds of things and it doesn't feel at all sincere and you have what feels like mock arrests and fake things happening throughout.

When your electric vehicle went to work, if you were in the, in the hurricane's past, because you create a lot of that stuff starts unraveling very quickly. Even the people who want to do good and want the planet to survive, obviously, as we all do get politicized weaponized. And then you have these situations where it's, Oh, really this is because it's a tax credit that are going to be going.

Obviously we're all going to be paying for it. Really. It's because of these extraterrestrial beings that they claim to be themselves that are controlling everything in terms of the way the environment is taking place.

There has to be some sort of existence, but what do people not care about right now is they care about the environment and in totality, we all do to some extent, but that is not the number one topic right now. No, but to have a group of people and then John Kerry say this publicly is pretty extraordinary that we select group of human beings, by the way, who selected them. I'd like to know that nobody they're not elected who selected these extraordinary that the select group of human beings because something touched them in their lives. Well, no one selected them. And if you actually look at the resume of these particular individuals, they are simply intellectual and moral mediocrities who basically have assumed power over the lives of ordinary people.

Why? Because they have a commitment to a new pagan deity. So one of the individuals who spoke at the World Economic Forum yesterday has basically called upon faith leaders to get together to heal the spirit of the world.

What does that mean? It means nothing to average Americans, except it's a demand for conformity and it's a demand for uniformity. And so if you look, for instance, at the Biden administration, when it created the so-called Ministry of Truth, the disinformation board, that is a step in the direction of complete and utter control of our lives. And one of the other speakers at the forum suggested that in the United States, we will have to create a hate speech law that will basically eliminate and eviscerate the First Amendment. They are globally pushing this misinformation disinformation campaign.

You know what we used to push in the United States? The way you counter speech you disagree with is more speech. That is the principle underlying a constitutional republic and freedom of speech.

Speech I disagree with, I respond to with my speech because we live in a society that says, you know what, sometimes you hear speech you may get offended by, you may not like, but that's the price of freedom and liberty. But that's not what they want. These extraordinary human beings, almost extraterrestrial, they want a different world.

It's not the world we live in. So that's why we address these issues here at the broadcast. Absolutely. We'll always keep you informed and we'll always keep you up to date. You can also follow us, like you said, on all social media platforms. We're available. Just look for ACLJ, Jay Sekulow, Jordan Sekulow, Logan Sekulow. All of us are on there. You can also find us directly at ACLJ.org or on the ACLJ app where you can make your donation, but also find incredible content written by our team, produced by our team, great videos.

Find it all movies, ACLJ.org. We will talk to you next time.