SOUND OF FREEDOM: Man Behind Movie Discusses Box Office Hit

Today on Sekulow, our guest Neil Harman, CEO of Angel Studios, talks about the hit movie, Sound of Freedom. 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, Jordan Sekulow. Hey, welcome to Sekulow. Thanks for joining us today on the broadcast. We've got a special broadcast for you today, too. We talked about Sound of Freedom, and we have on today the CEO of Angel Studios, who produced this movie. Neil Harman's joining us for two segments of the broadcast to talk about the movie, how they got it made, the importance of going to see it, kind of like how this process started, and now that we're at this point where it's become, I think, a cultural phenomenon. Yeah, absolutely. It's probably one of the biggest, if you even want to put faith-based in quotes, films to ever be released.

I think if they are not surpassed, they will be surpassing that record here very soon. It is an amazing movie. It's absolutely worth seeing.

But we wanted to bring on Neil because it will give you a little bit of a different perspective. This movie has been on the shelf from Hollywood for five years. They shot this movie in 2018.

It is just, yeah, years before, has been just sitting there as mergers happened, business structure happened, and this movie essentially was shelved until Angel Studios came and found it. Now they have a bona fide hit on their hands in a movie that is really changing a lot of people's lives, including myself. I watched it. This movie is wonderful. It is worth watching. It is an important movie for people to see, to actually be a bit exposed. This is kind of what happens when media can get a hold of some of these big, important topics.

It's a little bit easier to understand when you can see it. Within the first five minutes of this film, it changed my mind. Not even changed my mind. It opened my eyes to the way, honestly, as a parent, this could happen to you and to a way where the way that this unfolds, nothing I would ever even think of. Now, seeing it on the big screen, it changed everything. We are bringing in Neil, again, who is the CEO of Angel Studios. They also produced The Chosen among many other films and projects that they have put out over the years.

It will be a really good time and a really interesting time. We are going to talk about the actual movie, but we are also going to talk about sort of the whole surrounding and how it got released. Yeah, so we would love to hear from you in the chat if you have seen the movie, if you have bought tickets to share with others. Get that in the chat. Get that in the comments. Give us a call.

1-800-684-3110. I would also say that we are going to cover the NATO meetings that are occurring right now. President Biden is over there.

Zelensky showed up at the NATO meetings. President Biden has made this big pledge to Ukraine. We are going to talk about that with Rick Renell, but basically the pledge of it doesn't matter how long it takes. We are going to rebuild your military. We are going to rebuild your air force, sea forces, navy. I mean, the list went on and on. I think on the one hand, it would be great to be talking about rebuilding Ukraine and getting it back to where it was, but there is no end in sight yet for the conflict.

It just seems like it has become the world's favorite war. Again, we are going to talk to Rick about that. There was a weird part of that meeting where he meets with Erdogan and Biden sits down. It is almost visual, but we can play it maybe on the show later. He takes out his note cards and literally the note cards were to say, thank you for being here, Mr. President.

It is good to meet with you. Not saying Erdogan even. Not even trying to do a name.

Just the very basics. Literally, thanks for being here, Mr. President. So he didn't know that. I mean, he spends time. Erdogan is sitting there. This is a world strong man, but a NATO ally who is looking at the President very closely because this is the country that kind of pushes them around. And the guy had to take out a note card to say, thank you for being here.

Just the very basic understanding of what's happening around him. It is sad, but we're going to talk about that for sure later on, and we're going to talk about that with Rick Grenell coming out in the second half of the broadcast. Again, coming up in this next segment, Neal Harmon from Angel Studios.

We are joined also in the middle of our match here at the ACLJ midway through the month. Yeah, that's right. We're going to talk about when Woke goes wrong. I'll leave it at that for right now, but just another interesting tidbit of where the Woke left is taking us even when it comes to home security.

So I'll leave it at that because I don't want to give it away. It's just amazing how absurd it's getting. That's why we're fighting back at the ACLJ and all these issues. You know, when it comes to trafficking, we've been in that fight for over a decade, making sure that women, especially who were trafficked, could go to the police without fear of being prosecuted for prostitution.

And that was how the laws were really twisted against those who were being trafficked, and it protected the traffickers. The ACLJ was able to get those laws changed, so it's something we've been fighting for over a decade at the ACLJ. We want you to support that work. Double the impact your donation. Be part of our matching challenge. That's at ACLJ.org. And there on that home page you can see all the different work that we're doing.

I think these shows show it as well. But double the impact your donation. Donate today at ACLJ.org. We'll be right back with Neal Harmon from Sound of Freedom. Welcome back to Secula.

We've got a very special guest. We've been talking about this week through our radio broadcast on Secula, through our podcast, the Secula Brothers, the Sound of Freedom. We've been talking about the work ACLJ has done on trafficking, specifically on getting laws changed in the United States to make sure that when women are able to get to police or people that are being sexually trafficked, that they are not going to end up being charged for prostitution, which is something actually traffickers hold over their head. And it was a whole legal effort took about 15 years ago to change the laws in about 50 states. But you could see how this was another pressure point where women were told, hey, even if you do go to law enforcement, you're going to be in trouble.

You're going to go to jail. And so you better keep your mouth shut even when you're around someone that you would think could help you. We are joined right now by Neal Harmon, who is the CEO of Angel Studios, which is behind the new movie Sound of Freedom, which is sending earthquakes around the country. Angel Studios is the leading alternative to Hollywood. It's also distributed crowdfunded hits like The Chosen, The Wing Feather Saga, The Tuttle Twins, and Dry Bar Comedy.

And it's got this unique funding model as well that has made it, I think we'll talk about it, the community video on demand model. Yeah, I've been really excited to talk to you, Neal, as a filmmaker, as a podcaster, broadcaster, and honestly, someone who enjoys your content and has had my family be able to enjoy your content. It's been really exciting to see what's happening with Sound of Freedom. I was a fan of The Chosen. I'm a fan of a lot of the work that you all have done, even back to the original VidAngel days and everything that's come out of this. But I have never seen a reaction quite like what's happening right now. And I mean that genuinely. As someone who has not easily won over, especially the things that would be considered your traditional faith-based movie or whatever it would be, I'm usually one of the harshest critics, I feel like.

And all of a sudden I'm seeing that every other post on social media legitimately is Sound of Freedom. And I was able to see the movie just a few nights ago. My wife and I were able to see it. Me and my wife, who was pretty sensitive to these kind of films, it wasn't something that she would probably actively jump in and say, this is the movie I want to go see. It's about child sex trafficking.

And even though she cares about the issue a lot, just not necessarily something she wants to put in her brain. We both, when this film ended, left changed, emotionally moved. We cried multiple times in this movie.

It also has an adventure action element, but mainly I know a lot of people have seen it. We've seen, even yesterday when we did our broadcast, we weren't talking about Sound of Freedom. And I'm looking at the comments going through.

People are talking about the conversations happening. So I wanted to talk to you as not only someone who obviously is instrumental in getting this movie out there. But let's talk a bit about that journey. Because obviously at the end of the film, if you've seen it, and I had done my digging before, this was shelved. This movie has been sitting on a shelf for five years. And Angel Studios, due to really a very cool process, was able to unearth this and show that this is something the audience really wanted. Yes, and it's one of those stories where I think it might even be a once-in-a-century type of a moment with all the cultural elements of things that are happening right now. The zeitgeist of society, how close children are to people's hearts, the fact that this movie was released on July 4th.

So we're thinking about our freedoms and the lack thereof for these children. It really has taken on a life of its own. And we expected this to be somewhat of a powder keg, but we didn't know that it would be this big. That's something that's pretty clear. You had the success of The Chosen coming out of that. And what I've liked is you've almost seen Angel Studios, what I feel like has doubled down in the sense of The Chosen became what it was. And I felt like, wow, that's incredibly impressive for an independent studio. And now to come out and have a theatrical release, I mean, you had The Chosen theatrical specials and those things have happened. But to have this kind of momentum being probably one of the bigger, if you even want to put it as, I don't even know if you'd consider this really a faith-based movie. There's obviously faith elements that are in it.

But it's a movie everyone needs to see. And that's what I really liked, actually, in the comments when I posted about this. And this will tell you something. I posted about this on my private social media account.

A thousand shares happened on that. And I go, wow. And all I put was, you need to see this movie. And I've seen comments. Some people, though, have come out and been the ones that were saying, oh, I don't like how they made it.

They are negative towards you guys or towards the agenda of the film that they're putting. And it's really disturbing, too. I've seen it. I read an article. There's a lot of good reviews in this movie. There's maybe a misnomer than the fact that majority of even the mainstream reviewers have given Sound of Freedom a massively positive review. But then you have these really slanted reviews that are coming in that are really kind of disturbing and disgusting to look at.

I read one. I'm not even going to give them the credit where they put, you know, like the child sex trafficking epidemic in quotes. And they really were selling a notion that this is some overblown crisis that some manufactured studio. It really kind of twists at you and gets at you. This is not what this movie is at all.

No, absolutely not. This movie is a true story and it's based on true events. And Alejandro Montaverde and Rod Barr, they actually interconnected multiple operations that Tim Ballard conducted into a single storyline thread. That's a very beautifully told film. Like if you just watch this for a film's sake and to see a story. I'm reminded of screening this film in Santa Monica before it came out and a couple came to the screening a couple minutes late. And so they didn't see based on a true story at the beginning of the film. And then when it was over and it becomes very apparent when it's over because it cuts to real footage.

Not not the film's footage. And they were stunned. They were absolutely stunned. And they had only planned on staying for part of the movie just to just to do a favor for a friend for this screening. They stayed for the whole thing and then they stayed for an hour afterwards talking to everyone. And I just heard this happen.

I was talking to somebody from Nashville. And after the Sound of Freedom yesterday, they they said there were hundreds of people that were in the theater congregating and discussing and talking about Sound of Freedom with a line of people waiting to get into the next showing and a line of people coming out from the previous showing. And what's so unique about Sound of Freedom, we've had 20 years of what I'd almost call empty calories, superhero movies that are, you know, they're fun stories, but they're these make believe superhero movies.

And now we have a real superhero movie and the reviews that come out against it rarely talk about the film. They're usually talking about peripheral things. They're talking about political things.

They're talking about now they're even going so far as to talk about conspiracies. But the people who actually just watch the film and and critique the film for the film's sake. This film is touching people.

It is moving people. It is creating conversation. There's there's impromptu standing ovations multiple times in the credits.

There are people who are hugging each other, who are complete strangers after watching this film. And it it taps into something that our culture needs so desperately, which is to unite around something as important as our children. And and that's the reason I think that it's launched a cultural conversation that that we just haven't seen in a decade. You know, something you do at Angel is is how the audience and we represent when you're doing your bio, how the audience determines what is released.

I mean, it's very different than the normal like Hollywood model. So explain that to people, because, again, I think that those who have seen it already see kind of the grassroots behind it at the end of the movie. And maybe they've heard about it at church or their place of worship about how to share it, how to get people to go and purchase tickets for other people. But I want to go to the front end where you actually go to people and say, hey, what do you want us to do? You want us to make this?

You want us to put this out? That's a great question. The Angel Studios North Star is to tell stories that amplify light. Those are stories that are true, honest, noble, just, authentic, lovely, admirable and excellent. And we believe that we're not the best ones to make that determination. The reason for this is we have a history as a company ourselves. We were sued by the by Disney in our infancy and we survived that lawsuit and settled in 2020. But we learned because when we were young, we grew up hearing these wonderful stories about Roy and Walt Disney and how the entrepreneurial dream and the American dream and what they had done for the country and for media.

And we heard these stories from our mother and we just love them. And they were they were our heroes. And so when we had this run in with the Disney company and and realized that once those guys were gone, that it had become a different thing altogether. We said, how do we make a company that that captures the spirit of what of what Walt and Roy were trying to do or what we're trying to do for our children and grandchildren, but that it maintains it even when we're gone? And so the the best way for us to do that, by our judgment, was not to hold the power of who gets to decide what's greenlit. We feel like that Hollywood, the gatekeepers in Hollywood have become out of touch and their their choices don't match what people want.

And so if we let the people be the gatekeeper, that'll be much more powerful. We're going to keep this conversation going with Neil Harmon again, as you know, the CEO of Angel Studios that has Sound of Freedom out. We will be right back with more with Neil.

Welcome back to secular. We're continuing our conversation here with Neil Harmon, CEO of Angel Studios, you know, currently has out Sound of Freedom. So what we have is it's the Angel Guild. It's a group of over one hundred thousand people who have invested in previous projects that get to decide they watch Sound of Freedom, for example, or they watch The Shepherd and in the case of The Chosen, or they watch His Only Son or Tuttle Twins or whatever it is that would like to be part of Angel Studios.

They watch it and they decide whether it amplifies light, all those principles that I just described, and whether it's really well made. And their decision is the greenlighting process at Angel. Yeah, I believe that you guys have done that.

We've seen that happen now over and over again with Angel. And I think one of also the things that I'm most always impressed by is just the quality of content, is that you're putting out stuff that looks and can compete and is visually just as good as whatever or better than what we're seeing. If you will go to see a Sound of Freedom review of Saw the Chosen or some of the stuff you guys actually produced, it does have that different spin than a lot of faith-based stigma that kind of has happened over years. You brought up sort of the origins of Disney and the Disney Company.

Obviously we hear a lot about them in the news. And as someone who's same, who grew up and has made movies about, you know, Walt and Roy and sort of the history of that company and what it really meant to see people who are trying to keep that legacy alive. I think it's very important for a lot of us who want to make movies that, like I said, it's not like Sound of Freedom is a movie you're going to be taking your child to. But I also know that, or your small young child, but I also know whatever's coming down the line, there will be stuff coming out of this studio that does exemplify what's happening. There is a big portion of this, and I would be remiss if we leave before we talk about it, which is this Pay It Forward campaign that essentially happens towards the end of the film. At the end of the film, you'll see it and you've seen it now probably on social media. And I want to give you the opportunity to talk about this because, look, I have friends who are promoting this movie. These are not your conservative Christians.

These are not your, you know, people who are out there, your typical churchgoer. And I had one of my friends who used to be an executive at Turner who sends me a text and says, hey, did you see Sound of Freedom? I said, yes, I did.

I thought it was crazy. I just bought 40 tickets on the website or something like that because I was so moved by this film. Again, this is coming from guys who were executives from the major media corporations in the world, and they love what's happening here. So, but everyone can get involved in this Pay It Forward campaign. I assume a lot of our audience has seen this film already, but if there are those who haven't, obviously we encourage you to see it. But if you have seen it, there's also ways that they can get involved.

Absolutely. So right now you can go to angel.com slash freedom, and there are three or four options there. You can Pay It Forward, you can buy tickets for others, you can claim a free ticket if you wouldn't watch the film otherwise.

Like anybody who's on the fence about Sound of Freedom, just pick up a ticket and go check it out. You can share the already available free tickets with your friends, and then you can track your progress in helping us build awareness of the plight of these children. So what we believe in here is that Angel actually stands for angel investors.

It stands for all of you who are helping support the shows that are coming out at Angel. And this is a way that you can be part of these stories, that you can help amplify the very best stories in this world. And Sound of Freedom is one of those stories, and we're so grateful. There's been hundreds of thousands of people who have stepped up and paid it forward so other people can go and see this film for free. When I was a kid growing up in Idaho, our family couldn't afford to go to the theater. The time that I remember, we went to the Dollar Theater, but we couldn't afford to go to the expensive theater. And when I went to the Dollar Theater, even though it was a cheaper screen and everything, and the sound wasn't as good, it left an indelible impression on me.

And they gave me a report the other day that 40,000 tickets were given away in a single day for Sound of Freedom, where people are having the kind of experience that you're describing, even if they couldn't normally go to the theater. And I think that people get involved in storytelling because they want a better world for their children and for their grandchildren, and this is a technology and an opportunity for you to be part of it. Well, thank you so much, Neil, for coming on and talking about Sound of Freedom. I think that we're going to continue talking about it. We're going to continue talking about whatever's next for Angel.

And we obviously know this is just the very beginning of this story. I know you guys have been at it for a long time, so have we, but to kind of track the origins of VidAngel to Angel Studios and everything that's happened over the last few years. And really, I've got to give it up to also your PR team, who we've worked with directly, some of them for decades also, who are just doing an absolutely phenomenal job. I am blown away by it, and I've been sending everyone on our group thread for the broadcast, the variety articles and everything about how impressive this is, even if it's a tinge of jealousy looking at it going, man, they figured it out.

It's so cool to see. The topic's important, like you said, there's always room for fun, entertaining movies, but to have such an important topic become a consistent now box office hit is just phenomenal. In a packed summer, in a summer where you didn't release this at a time where there was no competition, releasing at a time when you're up against an Indiana Jones, up against big tentpole franchises, to have Sound of Freedom being consistently now in the top two or three.

If not number one, as like we saw in the Fourth of July, it has been just a phenomenal experience. And again, we encourage everyone to go see it. Neil, thank you so much for taking some time to chat with us, and we hope to continue to promote this film. I want to say this, and I've said it clearly before because people have said that we're not making a dime off this movie. There's no, this is not an ad.

This is not a sponsorship. This is us wanting to be a part of what is happening right now. And after seeing the movie, I have a feeling you're going to want to as well. So Neil, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. So folks, go to angel.com slash freedom, and there again, you can pay it forward so you can purchase tickets for others.

You can buy your own tickets, but if you need to, you can claim a free ticket. So don't feel bad doing it, as Neil said, like just do it. Like that's part of the process. Part of the process is getting people to see it, because that's part of the process of understanding the issue, and bringing attention to the issue, so that more and more people know this is real, this is happening, and that there is something we can do about it. Sometimes these issues feel like it's almost too big, and the problem is so big that there's nothing we can do as individuals. This is something we can do as individuals. Literally, you go to angel.com slash freedom, and you can either purchase more tickets, which again, allows those free tickets to be available, or you can buy your own ticket, but if you need to, like Neil said, if you're in that situation where again, a regular priced movie ticket is just going to hurt you too much financially, they want you to see the movie.

So much so that you can get one for absolutely nothing. We just encourage everyone to take a look at what's going on with not just Sound of Freedom, but all of what's happening at Angel. Thank you again, Neil, for coming on, and send anyone else our way. We are happy to keep the promotion rolling, and we can't wait to see. I mean, I can't even imagine where this box office ends up, but we're praying and hoping that it exceeds and exceeds and exceeds all expectations and continues to grow.

Thank you so much. You know, as I mentioned before, the issue of sex trafficking has been something that ACLJ has been working on for over a decade. I mean, 15 years ago, as we were talking about with Neil from Angel Studios, we made sure that the laws were changed in all 50 states with this big project. That in all 50 states, the laws were changed to protect women who are involved in sex trafficking so that they were not being prosecuted. If they got to law enforcement to try and get out of the trafficking, that they wouldn't be prosecuted for prostitution. This would end up behind bars, and some of them even have children and have their children taken away.

The legal system needed to be reworked and remodeled because it was used as a way to keep these folks under control who are being trafficked. You can't go to the police because you're the bad person. You'll be punished. We're not going to help you. You'll spend your time in jail.

They'll take everything from you. So again, support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org because you can double the impact to your donation. It's very important.

Support our work, ACLJ.org. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow.

We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. I thought it was very cool to have Neil on joining us about, again, a movie which is, I mean, it's everywhere. You see the discussion, but I think every time we get closer to a midweek and then closer to a weekend, people start talking about going back again and kind of buying tickets for people. So it's not stopping online. It actually ended up being, yesterday, the number one movie in the country.

Yesterday. Again, for the second time that's happened so far. So it's crazy.

Yeah. It just shows you the power of the grassroots. In the United States still, people who, they will go to a theater. It's tougher to get people to go to a theater now if they actually believe in what they're going to see and feel like there's a purpose in going to see.

That they're learning something and they're also maybe helping by bringing awareness to it. So very cool that we had Neil on. We'd love to have other folks on from Sound of Freedom as well and heard from you in the chat about it. Seems like a lot of you have seen it, which is great, and are planning to go see it. So that's very cool.

And even a lot who bought tickets for other people. We've got Rick Rinnells coming on next. You may have seen, I mean, the NATO Summit. It's been a little embarrassing with President Biden, to say the least.

Just the whole trip started off with a very weak-looking walk across the palace with King Charles. But now he's meeting with real heads of state, the real leaders, including Turkey's Erdogan. And he's literally looking down at his notes to say stuff like, it's good to see you, Mr. President. I think we have the video.

Do you want to play it for people? Let's see. Mr. President, it's good to see you again. I'd like to be with you. And you know, we're in this historic summit meeting. We're resolving a lot of things, I hope. And we made all the more historic by the agreement you reached yesterday and the addition of Sweden and how you're going to proceed. I want to thank you for your diplomacy. Just understand, when he's looking down, he tries to hide them.

If you weren't watching, by the way, maybe we can explain. President Biden pulls out notecards sitting there with Erdogan. And the notecard is just like, hello, Mr. President. You know, something like that. We made a lot of positive things. And the big news was that Turkey has stopped blocking Sweden from joining NATO, which is a move that was going to upset Russia because, again, that goes to Russia's, near Russia's other borders. But Turkey has stood out of the way. Sweden is going to join. So there was some actual big news.

It's a big moment that Turkey has removed that block on Sweden joining NATO. And yet, I mean, literally, he's just trying to read notecards just to get through the niceties of a meeting. And what I want to talk to Rick about, which is, you know, he's been in all these meetings, is the world watches these meetings. And how you act at the meetings is almost more important than what you say. Like, your demeanor, when you look weak, it is real.

It's a real problem for the United States. I'm not just trying to make fun of a guy because he's old or he's looking a little bit feeble. It makes the country, he's the standard bearer, like it or not, for our country abroad.

He's the commander in chief, the President of the United States. That weight that comes with that, it's supposed to bring a little bit of, I think, a little bit of gravitas with it. Like, whether you like the gravitas or not, it's usually someone with a very strong personality. And now they're putting out these stories. Well, behind the scenes, he's a real jerk. He's real nasty to his staff behind the scenes. He's Uncle Joe to you, curses like a sailor to them.

Yeah, it's almost like they're putting that out to be like, he's cool. We promise he's with it. He curses. He can yell and curse at his crew, just like everybody else. It's very odd. I mean, that's an odd, almost puff piece to be like, we promise you he's with it enough to yell at his staff. Yeah.

It's very odd. Hey, we're going to take some phone calls too in the last segment. So give us a call at 1-800-684-3110 and support the work of the ACLJ because we're in the middle of our matching challenge. And we're going to support that work by just going to ACLJ.org. Any donation is effectively doubled by another donor who is just ready to have their donation unlocked.

So all you got to do is donate and $10 becomes 20, 20 becomes 40, so on and so on. And that is the backbone of the whole ACLJ organization, not just this broadcast that you see each and every day. Of course, that's what pays for this as well. But all of our legal work, all the work we do throughout the world, and it can't be done without you. So visit ACLJ.org and look at the great free content that we provide.

That's right. So we encourage you to go to the website and donate today. Be part of the matching challenge. That's at ACLJ.org. We come back.

See your advisor, the ACLJ Rickerdale. Welcome back to Sechter. We're taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Turning our attention overseas. Our President is overseas.

The administration is overseas. The NATO summit that's occurring. Of course, a lot of attention on that summit is on Ukraine.

I wanted to bring in Rickerdale, our senior advisor to the ACLJ. And Rick, just kind of right off the bat, there's been this back and forth at this NATO summit. Zelensky and the Ukrainians aren't happy that they're not on a current path to becoming a member of NATO. But NATO did come out with kind of this joint statement saying that Ukraine's future is in NATO.

So there's this kind of back and forth. NATO's been pretty supportive of Ukraine. Just kind of your reaction to this initial – the main focus, obviously, is the war that's in Europe.

Well, look, there's a war going on. And so adding Ukraine to NATO membership means that all of NATO then would have to send troops and treat it like an attack on the United States or Great Britain or Turkey. So I think nations are being hesitant to immediately say, okay, you're a part of us and we're going to war.

Because it is a call for war and a call for troops, American troops and other troops in Ukraine to help them fight. That is the obvious move and decision if you add Ukraine to NATO. Look, my position is that we only have eight out of 31 countries in NATO that are paying their 2% obligation. In 2014 in Wales when NATO met, they agreed to all get to 2% of their GDP spending on defence. That gave them 10 years from 2014 to 2024 to get their act together and start spending.

They gave them a 10-year slide to prepare for the 2%. We still aren't seeing countries do that. Not only, you know, I think Americans know now that Germany is not paying the largest economy in Europe. But where's Canada? Canada is not paying. Why is it that Canada isn't paying their fair share? They're a very wealthy nation. This is something that really irks, I think, Americans when you extend the security umbrella and you add more countries to NATO when the current ones aren't paying their fair share. What you're doing is asking the American taxpayer to pay even more.

And this idea of burden sharing is not real. This doesn't get a ton of, you know, we kind of get attention on it in our media for like the two days that it goes on. And then you hear a couple of headlines, the media moves on. Because sometimes the US, just the attention span on it or the understanding of the importance of it or the seriousness of it isn't there. And so the news doesn't spend the time on it necessarily. What do you make of Turkey deciding to drop their objection to Sweden joining? Which was another one that Russia was heavily objecting to. And now Turkey's dropped that objection. So there is news out of NATO that there is a new country, like you said, that is joining in the midst of the conflict. They're not in a conflict, but certainly it's one that is, I guess, somewhat provocative to Russia. But Turkey decided, even though they've got a pretty good relationship with the Russians, that they weren't going to object anymore. Look, they've been in negotiations with the Swedes for a while trying to ask for different things and assurances.

So I think this took a while. And they finally came around to saying that they're not going to object. Turkey is an important member of NATO. They've been a member of NATO since 1952.

I think a lot of people are surprised by that. But the Turks have a very serious military and they need to be able to step up and pay even more because they're a serious member and they're a long-term member. I'd like to see greater burden sharing. And I know that Erdogan, the President of Turkey, has said that, articulated that.

It remains to be seen how Turkey is going to view these additional members that are being talked about, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Ukraine, and others. Look, I think that we should stop adding new members right now and concentrate on getting the current members up to speed. Funding up to speed first. It is one of those things I think what Americans need to understand is the brunt of this we are paying through our economy, through our taxpayer dollars. And so we shouldn't shy away from paying close attention to what happens. Also, Rick, there's always fair criticism of how our leaders look at these meetings. Because I think that's very important to the world that does view these meetings. I mean, we might not spend as much time on it as in our media, but we know that these images of these world leaders together all over world news this week and especially these couple of days. President Biden started out this trip fairly weak with King Charles, just kind of sad-looking, honestly. And then with Erdogan today, I mean, he's literally reading notes to say not even any details, nothing real specific, just to say thank you for being here, Mr. President. It's good to see you again and to start a meeting.

And literally the whole time he's looking down at his legs and he's got his notepad, his notecards there. And I would just like, you know, your reaction, how the world reacts to that, not just how we react to it as Americans looking weak, but the world must also see like this is not, this just doesn't seem like he's in charge. Look, I've traveled the world these last couple of years, met with individual leaders of countries pretty consistently. And the reality is, is that they do complain about the weakness of Biden and they make fun of them. And that is irritating for an American to hear.

It's frustrating. The fact is, Jordan, that Joe Biden can't have a real time discussion. He can't go back and forth and respond in real time. He can only read statements, one way conversations, which is why he skipped the dinner when it gets to be late night and all the leaders are at dinner. And that's where a lot of real work is done because there's a lot of back and forth without cameras. Joe Biden can't do that. He's either tired or too old or incapable of actually responding in real time.

And so he skipped the dinner. I think that has great consequences for the United States. That's an important point. I mean, even that note, just those kind of things that might be off camera, like you said. But we all know, I mean, in any kind of real deals, it's not going to happen when the media is in the room. It's going to happen off camera, behind closed doors, in a different kind of more casual maybe setting where you can actually speak your mind, talk and know that the cameras aren't there. And he's not even there. I mean, that just shows you we're the country paying for all of this for the most part, putting the most money in and our leaders not even with the other leaders.

I want to go to something domestic too. We have Christopher Rice testifying today on Capitol Hill. It always gets a lot of attention. He's kind of doing what we've gotten used to him doing as head of the FBI, which is basically saying, listen, the FBI is great. This time it was interesting. He kind of said, he started his opening statement, Rick, with, listen, we do all this other work, so don't judge us over the two things that you may pay a lot of attention to. But I mean, if they're the two most important investigations you're doing, one of maybe a former President and a current President, of course, you better be getting those right. Yeah, look, some of the big stuff he's not getting right. The leadership of the FBI, I think, are not serving the individuals of the FBI who many are great Americans and want to see their agency protect America without partisan investigations. And I think that they've failed. Chris Wray needs to understand that the credibility of the FBI falls on his shoulders and when he stumbles, I think he should resign.

I think that the leadership should resign for the good of the Bureau. I mean, that's the thing I take away, Rick, is that ultimately here, we know that the FBI is full of people who are doing good work and we've seen from whistleblowers, I mean, they're complaining about how they're being treated to try and do good work. But if your most high-profile investigations, like you said, look, so partisan and so, like, we start talking about two-tier system of justice like that's normal in the United States of America or something we've got to accept, that your whole institution will be judged by that.

You can't really tell us, well, there's all this other great work that we're doing, but the two things that are going to get the most headlines, we screw up every time. That is not a good answer, but that is his entire testimony today, basically, is you're focusing too much on how we investigated Donald Trump or Mar-a-Lago or how we investigated Hunter Biden and not about the other work that they're doing. I think the issue hasn't been the other work that they're doing. It's that they're maybe not focused enough on the other work and too focused on politics.

Look, I think that Director Wray misses so many moments and misses opportunities to give the public the assurances that they are credible and not partisan. Today, for instance, when Republicans were really pressing hard, he failed multiple times to actually step up and say, look, I take your criticism. I'm trying to be transparent here, but we are working hard to not be partisan.

He doesn't say that. He fights with the Republicans. He pushes back and then he sits there while Democrats really complement the work of the FBI leadership as they weaponize their power against the government. Well, I think against the people, I think we've got to make it perfectly clear that government right now, big government, is supported by Democrats and they don't want to push back. They don't want reform. They like the aggressiveness, the partisanship that DOJ and the FBI are giving. That is scary for anyone who's listening to us who feels like they want a check and a balance on the system. You're not getting it when you vote for these Democrats. The head of the FBI is sitting there testifying and being praised by one party in the hearing and the other party is saying how horrible the work you're doing. The other party is saying, oh, we love that work because you're going after our opponents.

I mean, that's what you say, OK, that whole system, it doesn't work. We need major reform. Rick, as always, we appreciate you joining us. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Secchia. We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Let's go to the phones, actually. We were talking about NATO. We were talking about obviously these are very important meetings. Sometimes we kind of get glimpses of them sometimes because the time difference is off and also because it's a little bit European dominant. But, of course, this is extremely important when we have a war in Europe going on that we're not only the number one funder of NATO, but we're the number one funder of this war going on in Ukraine.

So all the movings around in parts are very important. So let's go to the phones about it. We're going to go to Dee in Colorado on Line 1. And, Dee, welcome, but also if you do want to call in 1-800-684-3110 about the U.N. or about Sound of Freedom, we'd love to hear from you on your thoughts on that as well. Give us again a call 1-800-684-3110. Dee, you're on the air.

Hi, thank you for taking my call on everything that you do. I have one comment, and that's before we start funding and supporting and building up other militaries, we need to focus on our own and build ourselves up. Well, listen, I think it was very troubling when President Biden let out in that statement, in that report that we played on the broadcast, that not only are we – one of his justifications for sending cluster bombs to Ukraine was that we're running out of regular ammunitions, and that we're not just running out of ammunitions to export or to send over to our allies, but our own stockpile is down. And then Secretary Pompeo came on the broadcast yesterday and said, yeah, it's not that – by the way, the war in Ukraine has exacerbated that, but we do not have the kind of weapons necessary to sustain a long-term conflict right now in the United States of America. We don't have the weapons – let me repeat that again – the weapons necessary. We have – men have the people, and you know where a lot of those weapons parts come from?

China, which has got, you know, issues as well. So there is a real, I think, coming-to-Jesus moment that the country has to have on our own protection, and it's great to help other allies in the world and be – if we can be the head of NATO and be the leader in that sense, I think that's wonderful. We want to make, you know, America the leader of the world. At the same time, we better be leading at home.

You've got to lead at home. You've got to – it's like the American First Agenda. It's not anti the rest of the world, but it's saying let's build up America to make it stronger, better, and safer, because that actually makes the world a stronger, better, and safer place, a place that Russia doesn't invade Ukraine, a place that China doesn't invade Taiwan, because they're too afraid of what the United States might do in response.

And then you don't even have to – you use your weapons, but they know you've got plenty of them. And right now, our President, our commander-in-chief let the world know we don't. I mean, that's just a bottom-line, actual, factual statement from the President of the United States. Yeah, and there's a lot more of that. It seems like it's happening on and on with this situation, whether that is, like I said, admitting that we're not as strong as maybe we thought we were and what that looks like.

Again, I think we saw that in Afghanistan. We saw sort of the situations that happened, the rollout. Now we learned there's so much more that came out of that, because some of the ACLJ's FOIA requests that we had last week, we found out so much was put into the green side of this and not put into actually the military side of it. These are the kind of things that we work on here, and we make sure that if it's not even direct legal action, a lot of times it's exposing what's happening.

I want to apply to, so Christopher Wray is testifying on Capitol Hill, the FBI director, and listen, we know there's going to be a lot of criticism from conservatives. He usually just pushes back and says, I can't talk about it. I can't say anything. And he was asked about FISA from Matt Gaetz. I mean, he was just asking him again, kind of just information's been reported. So it's like, hey, prep for the hearing. You know you're going to get asked.

Take a listen to this exchange, just kind of infuriating. Let's go from the uncurious to the downright nosy. How many illegal FISA queries have occurred under your leadership of the FBI? Well, there are reports that have come out with different numbers about compliance incidents. More than a million illegal ones? Because that's what the inspector general said. The inspector general said that in the 3.4 million of these queries, more than a million were in error. Do you have any basis to disagree with that assessment by the inspector general?

I'm not sure. Actually, that's a correct characterization of the inspector general's findings on that. Well, the internet will remind you of that in moments. But let's now go to what the court said. The court said it was over 200,000 that have occurred on your watch. Do you have any basis to disagree with that assessment? Again, I don't have the numbers I sit here right now.

What I can tell you... It seems like a number you should know, how many times the FBI is breaking the law under your watch, especially if it's like over a million. Yeah, see, this is the part, I mean, the frustration level is like a court found out that you did this and I don't have the numbers. The inspector general said it. Well, I don't agree with our inspector general.

That's the inspector general of the FBI. Every time one of those illegal FISA queries happen, that's illegal, unconstitutional, really, I mean, criminal action, illegal action by the FBI, an unconstitutional search or seizure of an American. Which FISA is not supposed to be used for.

It's supposed to be used for foreign individuals and we're supposed to be blocked from that. But again, I think what we have to realize with these bureaucrats and this group is you're not going to be happy with anything they say. The left loves them. I mean, he's getting praised the entire hearing. It's easy to just say, I don't know. And then all of a sudden you said people love him on one side and the other side goes, well, how do you not have this basic number that you know you're going to get asked?

Because he knows he can get away with it. He knows he can say, I don't know. Is it over a million? Ah, who's to say?

They said it was at least 200,000 during your time. I don't have that number. I don't know. Maybe you're right. But I think what's weird is he doesn't say no.

No, he doesn't say no because he doesn't want to be on the record saying a misstatement that he then has to go correct. So instead it's the, I don't know, I have no idea what's going on. The whole idea is, oh, we're doing a lot more important work. Don't worry about that work.

Don't worry about the Mar-a-Lago raid that the news pumped down on you for three months. Just know that we're doing other good work. I think most Americans know that a lot of FBI agents are doing good work. There are some FBI agents who are spies at Catholic churches in Richmond, Virginia and putting out memos about radical traditionalist Catholics. There is a problem at the FBI and it's not just with going after conservative leaders or the former President of the United States but making deals with Hunter Biden. It's the whole culture of the FBI. Why is the left, I mean I think this is what we have to ask ourselves. I thought liberals were supposed to be the ones. They're very anti-law enforcement at the local level. We can talk about, we'll talk about maybe on a podcast, they don't like your cameras at your house. Oh yeah, we didn't even get to that.

We'll have to do that later on. So all these cameras everybody's got at home which are affordable now. You can keep security and know who's coming to your door.

And most people are utilizing them and working with their security systems have made home security a lot less expensive as well. They're opposed to that. It's always when it comes to the local law enforcement, the people who are putting their life on the line every single day to keep our neighborhoods safe. There they want to defund. I haven't heard them ever say they want to defund the FBI which used to be their great enemy. No feds, no feds can get defunded.

Yeah they love, I mean they love the feds. So check out the Secular Brothers podcast later today because they are making your door camera, depending on what brand you have, you might be a racist. Yeah or you're part of the problem because they're too affordable now to have this security and you're targeting people by being able to look at who's at your front door and who's on your property at three o'clock in the morning.

Who cares who's at your door for you? And don't be sharing that with the police. That's the main thing too. They don't like that.

We'll get into that. This legit article from a legit news source discussing about pretty much why we should be shamed for having a video doorbell. Yeah. It's insane. It's gotten to this point. It's insane. Yep.

1-800-6843. You know what, when we asked them why are liberals not care so much about the crime in their cities, they kind of get to that point because they don't want to demonize the criminals. Well we don't want to demonize that group who's, we can't do anything about the homeless encampments.

It's not drug addiction, it's a problem. So the cities rot from the core. They defund the police locally. Lord, they love the feds and they love bringing charges against the former President. Support the work of the ACLJ. Be part of our matching challenge at ACLJ.org. Check out the Secular Brothers podcast later today. Wherever you get your podcasts, you can get the Secular Brothers podcast. We'll talk to you tomorrow.