FIRST GOP DEBATE: Without Trump, Will You Watch?

This is Jay Sekulow.

The first GOP debate is tomorrow without the former President, Donald Trump. Will you watch? 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, Jay Sekulow. Well, tomorrow night is the first Republican debate for the primary.

There's just one problem. The leading candidate for the debate is not going to be there. Donald Trump's calling it the Vice President's debate, but it is the first GOP debate. We're going to open up our phones here early, Logan, because we really want to hear from our listeners.

What do you think about this? Are you going to watch the debate? Who are you backing?

What are you looking for? What are the issues that matter most to you? And again, Donald Trump's not going to be there. Or are you skipping the debate? Yeah, or are people not going to watch it? Did Jordan say he's not watching it? He definitely inferred that he'll watch some highlights. He said he would watch it because he feels obligated to watch it. Because of the broadcast.

Of the work, but I don't think he felt like if he was just a normal person. What do you think? I will likely watch it. It comes on a little early, right? So 8 p.m. Eastern time, is that right?

8 p.m. Eastern, so that's where we are at 7 o'clock, getting my kids to bed. That may be a little harder and some of the topics it brings up, not necessarily always kid-friendly. But I look forward to watching some of it.

I will watch it because I've been saying on the Secular Brothers podcast a lot, which is, this is the part that I really enjoy. I enjoy watching the debates. I'm bummed that Donald Trump is not doing it. I understand completely why he's not doing it, but as a fan of this part of the process, it's a bit of an underwhelming experience to know your leader, by such a large margin, is not participating. He's up 35 to 40 points.

That's a lot. He's a former President of the United States. He's in a bit of a war with Fox. The host, by the way, so it's being hosted on Fox News, moderated by Brit Baer and Martha McCallum. Here's who's in it. Governor Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Vice President Mike Pence, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. I'm surprised he made the stage, but he did.

I didn't even know his name until three days ago. Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson. So will you watch, and what do you want the candidates to address? We're opening our phone lines for you at 1-800-684-3110.

That's 800-684-3110. So part of this debate process is to see how everybody addresses the issues, and there's some big issues that are happening right now. We're going to get into this a little bit later. Vivek Ramaswamy, who's gotten a lot of attention, has called for a de-escalation of financial support to the state of Israel once things, quote, stabilize in the Middle East.

Let me give you a breaking news alert. It's never going to be stable in the Middle East. It will be more stable at times, but when you're talking about stability, stability in the context of no conflict, not likely in – it's not been that way since the Bible. Yeah, and I don't think you start – if you want to be the leading Republican candidate, I don't think the first thing you start doing is talking about your withdrawing support for Israel. Sure, there may be a portion of sort of even the more America first group that may find that a little intriguing, may find that interesting, but I think you're losing a lot of people. And then when you are – But when we were the American first group, Donald Trump was the biggest Israel supporter that we've had in the White House. And if you're Vivek Ramaswamy, you also know you have a history that's not super clean in terms of being a conservative Republican.

You've endorsed and even donated to Elizabeth Warren. You have done a lot of things that should bring red flags up, and I think they're going to hit him tonight on those things. I'm sure he's got answers. Well, Nikki Haley surely is.

Yeah, I'm sure he's got answers. Tomorrow night, yeah. Nikki Haley's going to hit him, I think.

She's already done it. The debate's – Tonight. Is it tonight? The debate – it was tomorrow night?

Yes. Logan, tonight is not the debate. Oh, why are we doing this show? Give me a call.

1-800-684-3110. I thought it was tonight. No, the debate's tomorrow.

Not near as fun. But support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice. We're in our life and liberty drive. Hey, folks, we are – we have 10 days left. So we're ahead, but not by like – I mean, we're doing great, and I'm very appreciative of the generous support, but we need to make up some ground from the beginning of the year, quite frankly. So you've seen the cases that we're involved in, whether it's whistleblowers, whether it's students' free speech on campus, whether it's fighting for life across the country.

Go to ACLJ.org. Join our life and liberty drive. Your gift will be doubled. That's the life and liberty drive. Look, these folks need us, and we need you to be able to help them. So we do this as a team. ACLJ.org. Phone line's open.

800-684-3110. Back with more in a moment. All right. Will you watch the debate tomorrow night? And what do you want the candidates to address? Donald Trump will not be there. Why is Donald Trump not going to be there? We're going to get into that, too.

We're taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110, and we really do want to hear from you as to what you want to see discussed and will you watch. Now, Donald Trump, I think, is not coming for three reasons. Number one, he's not willing to sign a pledge saying it will support whoever the Republican nominee is. That's number one.

Number two... Which was a requirement. It is a requirement. So the requirement by... The RNC. Those are set by... Not Fox.

Yeah, we need to clear the vibe. There was like four requirements for the Republicans of the Republican National Committee. It was a certain amount of percentage. It was a certain amount of donations, I believe, or people who donated. And then this pledge that you would publicly... And Jordan said, you didn't ask them to campaign.

You just have to say, I endorse them. And that's something that, honestly, I don't love. I talked about this with Jordan, too, because I feel like if you're confident enough that you're saying I should be President and you shouldn't be President, well, I shouldn't be forced to say I'm going to endorse you. Well, the Republican Party's trying to coalesce the party.

That's what's happening here. All right. And then you don't end up with your top person at the debate. Well, your top person... And the third reason is he's up by 30 and 40 points, so it's like, what's the point? And you're the former President of the United States.

He's not just a candidate. Right. All right. We're taking your calls at 800-684-3110. Let's go right to the phones. We said we would take your calls. Phone lines are open.

1-800-684-3110. Let's go to Britt, who's calling in Nevada, I believe, on line one. You're on the air. Hey, guys. Just want to say thanks for everything you guys do.

You guys are the best. Thank you. Yeah.

Okay. You know, I had to chuckle when I heard what Donald Trump had said. I thought it was pretty funny about the debate being the vice Presidential debate. You know, and I don't think he has anything to gain, quite frankly. I mean, he's got all this other stuff going on. His plate is obviously full times 10. He's a pretty busy guy right now.

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. And I kind of wonder, the thing I do wonder is, you know, and give me your feedback if you feel like it, why is Chris Christie still in this thing? Well, Chris Christie's there to be the anti-Trump candidate. I find it interesting that he is the anti-Trump candidate because of somebody that was in the White House a lot.

You know who I saw there a lot? Chris Christie. Yeah, I think it's interesting as well.

So this is to me kind of ironic. I also don't mind the fact, as much as I'm certainly not endorsing anyone, I like that he at least is going a different path than the other candidates. Because the other candidates are coming off a bit like Trump tribute acts, as Bill Maher said.

Bill Maher said, why would you go see a Rolling Stones cover band when the Rolling Stones are still on the road? And that's his definition of why would you go vote for Ron DeSantis when Donald Trump is still there. I do feel like at least Chris Christie, I don't agree with a lot of the things he's saying, but at least he's trying something different where everyone else on that stage is kind of, that's going to be curious tomorrow night.

Whether they all line up and have sort of the same mega-light type response. Well he left the least, I think his approval rating in New Jersey was 7%. So it's not like he had this rousing support. So anyways, we're here to answer questions. We asked our folks to call and we won your comments. 800-684-3110. Who's next, Logan? Let's go to Jesse in New Mexico on Line 3. Jesse, you're on the air.

Thank you. So I don't watch preseason football because the starting quarterback and all that stuff is not playing. To me, this is a bunch of scrubs that aren't going to make the team.

I'm not going to waste my time. So Jesse, here's the thing with me. Baseball, I don't start watching until after the All-Star game for kind of the same reason. It's like, okay, now it gets serious. And sometimes I don't even watch until September. Oh, season. Then I watch it every night.

I'm watching all the different ones on the TV. That's probably true. Listen, I think a lot of people are thinking like Jesse. I think there's a lot of people who would never have watched a Presidential debate to begin with. They usually catch up in a year from now. A lot of people probably are not going to watch anything Presidential related, if we're just being honest, until the primaries. And maybe after the primaries. They may not care until there is a Trump v. Biden, if there is, by the way, debates. There's a lot of talk that there will not be. I think both of them don't want to debate. Well, I mean, if you saw the way that President Biden had so many flubs in Hawaii in just a few hours, you can't blame him for not wanting to debate.

And in conversations I've had, even people I know that are not big Trump supporters, it is interesting that they all see the same reason of, well, why would he do this debate? All you're asking for is for someone to try. It's just going to be a barrage of hate on you.

So what benefit is it, except for you can defend yourself? Well, Kathy's going to watch it. Let's go to her.

I mean, I'll watch it probably too. Kathy's calling online for you on the air. Hi, Kathy. Hi.

Good day. So with Donald Trump, he has always said what he was going to do and what he was not going to do. And he is 100 percent on target with that. So when he said he wasn't going to do the debates, there was no debate about whether he was going to do them because he wasn't going to do them. And you can't change his mind unless you're a subversive in the government thing there, you know, trying to move him around for their own benefit.

That's number one. And number two, I don't believe that a voter has a bigger obligation than to watch the debates and be informed. Uninformed voters do nothing for anybody. There are no better really than the people who don't vote or the never Trumpers.

I tend to agree that I think you got to what first of all, you don't know how you never know how these things are going to shake out. And it is early in this process still, although you say that by October, it's not so early anymore. You're a year out from the election. If you remove Donald Trump from the equation, it would be very interesting because you don't have any I mean, you have DeSantis clearly with the lead and the people who are actually debating. Right.

But beyond that, it's not like by gigantic numbers. No. So you would actually if you would remove Trump from the situation, you actually would have had a very interesting debate in terms of who could pop out.

If Donald Trump wasn't a candidate. Yes. That's what I mean.

Oh, yeah. I think people would be watching. Because all of a sudden you'd have six or so very viable candidates.

Right. And again, maybe four years from now, we're talking about a lot of these same names again. We'll see. I'm sure some of them we will be.

But unfortunately or fortunately, have you want to look at it? President Trump is running. Joe Biden is running.

And I don't care if you're RFK Jr. or if you're any of these other GOP potential, the odds probably for it to be Trump v. Biden are probably are getting close to insurmountable. I think that's right. I mean, look, I'm not trying to be a shill for anyone. Things can change. Oh, things can change. I'm not being a shill for anyone. I'm just talking about like if we were Vegas betting odds here, you know, you wouldn't even get a return. Trump Biden. Yeah.

You wouldn't even get a return because it's like the odds are so much stacked in your favor. So I'm not sure we can maybe maybe we could find out. All right. Hey, we got a comment coming in. This is one that comes in from Kathleen on YouTube. She said, I want to see Nikki Haley. I want to see her talk circles around these guys.

That's interesting. Pro Nikki Haley. She is definitely taking on Vivek Ramaswamy. And I think his he reminds me of the Andrew Yang of the Democrats.

He's having his moment. I'm not sure I could crumple that it lasts very long because there's a guy that's talking about a 57 percent estate tax. He's talking about lowering support of Israel, which is means you totally do not understand the Middle East, by the way. So, I mean, I could kind of go through the list. And, you know, he may do really well in the debate tonight. Yeah, I think I mean, these are all smart people.

These are all mostly these are Ivy League educated groups of candidates. But when I look at it and go, do I think she could do a good job? Yeah, I mean, she was in our Afghanistan documentary we did two years ago. Great. I mean, just a fantastic interview.

You should go listen to that. So are a lot of the other people who are who who are on this stage. It's not that I dislike any of them particularly.

Vivek is the only one that I need some answers from because I think he has a he was a Democrat until an hour and a half ago. So was Donald Trump. Yeah, right. That's, you know, like people change.

Yeah. So, like, I'm not opposed to saying people change. But if you don't have it, he's not acting like Donald Trump would kind of tell you, yeah, I was a Democrat. I really didn't even know.

Like, it wasn't really even a thing from New York. He's a business guy. Business guy that shifted. And he took a very I mean, he almost carved his own political party. Well, that's pretty much has to reshape the GOP. Yeah. I mean, really, Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson are the only two that that don't fit that sort of somewhere in the MAGA universe.

I think that's right. Nikki Haley. Nikki Haley.

I put Tim Scott in there. Pence, of course. Pence is one of the founders like him or not. I mean, he's one of the founders of it.

So, yeah, it is what it is. We have two minutes. Yeah, we'll take off quickly. Mary Ellen, Illinois. You're on the air. Oh, hi.

Thank you. My main reason, although I have a couple others, is because President Trump, we know what he's done. We know what he will do.

I trust that he will clean out the swamp and all the others will have to do on the job training for four years before they figure it out. Are you going to be watching the debate? Nope. Because he's not in it? No, because of what Fox did in 2020 and what they did not allow that case to go forward. They settled and didn't get the evidence out there.

That's my opinion. Well, let me tell you about that one for a moment here, okay? Okay.

Carefully, Logan's giving me eye contact. I was involved in defending Fox in that case. It needed to settle.

That's all I'm going to say. All right, Mary Ellen, thank you for your call. We did want to take a minute here. I got the hint.

Yeah. We got a bunch of calls. We got some of these coming up because I think we've got a lot on hold.

We'll discuss how we're going to continue on. But I did want to take a minute and tell you we are heading towards the end just in the last nine days of our life and liberty drive. This is a perfect time to support the ACLJ.

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Your gifts will be doubled. ACLJ.org. Back with more in a moment.

Welcome back to the broadcast, everyone. We're joined now by our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And, Mike, you've got a brand new piece up at ACLJ.org entitled Biden's Bad Deal. Paying Iran a $6 billion ransom for American hostages turns the American passport into a bullseye. I was helping get a pastor out of Iran. And there also was Washington Post columnist being held. And I think the payment there was $18 billion. You know, the first thing the pastor asked me when he came back to the United States, why in the world did they pay that kind of money? I mean, it was because this was a guy, obviously, that was opposed to the regime in Iran and has seen it firsthand and giving them $18 billion.

He knew what was going to happen with that. I mean, I understand that we want to get Americans out, but this paying Iran just seems to embolden. This is their other form of business now. Yeah, Jay, you've lived this. You've experienced it.

You just described the example you had. This is basically creating a market for Americans to be taken. This is nothing other than a ransom. It is a business model for the Iranians when they're broke.

Take a few Americans. We've seen this before, too. Remember the pallets of cash?

It seems like a long time ago. But this is multiples of the pallets of cash that's going to be provided. It's certainly the $6 billion. I understand there may be another $9 or $10 billion funds going to be released from Iraq. I mean, the Iranian GDP will quadruple as a result of this money going to the Iranian leadership. And, Jay, here's the thing.

When I talk about this being something we've seen before, we'll see it again. It hasn't been that many years ago when that money was taken, pallets of cash. They'll just take more Americans. It is something that they know how to do. They know how to extract. They know how to use the American media. And while we are terribly, terribly happy for the families when these folks get home.

Yes, of course. We know that there are hundreds of families across America, indeed thousands, that are put at risk by this very same set of actions. That's the danger.

That's the bad practice. The last thing, you know, we know how to get Americans home without doing this. We brought Americans out of Iran without paying a single penny during the Trump administration. It's about using American power in the right way, not creating an incentive for them to take even more Americans hostage.

Yeah, I wanted to follow up on that because I had the privilege of working with you on getting a pastor, Andrew Brunson, out of jail in Turkey. And we did the exact opposite. When I say we, you're the Secretary of State, as you as Secretary of State, and President Trump, and the legal team, my legal team, we did the exact opposite approach. What we did instead, we didn't offer Erdogan money. We didn't offer him, we said if you continue to hold this guy, I'll never forget President Trump saying, you continue to hold this guy, he's going to be the most expensive pastor you have ever put in jail.

He'd be more famous than Billy Graham, quote unquote. I heard the phone call. The next thing we know, I know you were in the room and we put those sanctions in there.

It was billion dollars a week, I think. Amazingly, Andrew Brunson was released. Yes, it was quite a surprise, huh? Look, this is the best of American power. When we are treated improperly, when American citizens are treated harshly, we ought not reward that behavior.

We should punish the bad actor. That's the flip the switch thing that I think the Biden administration just misses. And you saw it.

You saw it with Pastor Brunson. We saw it with the three Americans that I had the privilege to bring home from North Korea. Used properly, American power can get these folks out of detainment.

And, you know, that brings up another important topic. It won't just be the Iranians that observe this billion dollar price tag. It will be bad actors in Venezuela. It will be bad actors in North Korea. The Chinese are beginning to hold people with more frequency. This will only replicate the business model for other countries.

And it's a really dangerous path to walk towards. So, Admiral Kirby, who in my mind, and I'm not trying to be disparaging here, I appreciate his service to the country, but he's not exactly a confidence builder from that podium, to be blunt, when he gets up there and speaks. He said, don't worry, the six billion dollars could only be used for humanitarian purposes. Now, do we really believe, does the Biden administration really believe that Ayatollah is going to say, oh, that's six billion dollars, don't use it to send rockets for Hamas in Hezbollah, only use that to feed our people?

No, I don't think they believe it either. That is a song and dance of the most extraordinary proportions, trying to obfuscate the fact that these are ransom payments. And they will be used to threaten our friend, our partner, the nation of Israel. It'll be used by Hamas and Hezbollah and the militias in Iraq. It will be used to conduct terror campaigns and assassination campaigns around the world. Jay, we've seen this again.

We don't need to pretend we don't know how this ends. If the six billion dollars gets to them, it'll be six, and they use it for medicine. It's six billion dollars they didn't have to spend on medicine.

Money is fungible. But second, second, we saw it with food for oil when we did this with Iraq back in the, before the turn of the century. We know precisely what happens. The medicine arrives and they reship it somewhere at a higher price. The medicine arrives and it goes only to the regime.

The food arrives and all of a sudden it turns out that that food is now, oh, it turns out there's firearms in the boxes. We know exactly what will happen here. The Iranians have said as much. An Iranian leader said the other day, oh, no, we're going to use this money for whatever the heck we want to use it for. And we will be creating wealth through the regime. The money won't go to the Iranian people. It will instead go to the regime's continued grip on power and the destruction of a glorious, wonderful people in Iran. Yeah, no, the people of Iran are great.

Let me ask you this. Iran's meeting with Russia this week about ground troop coordination. I wrote a book a couple of years back called Unholy Alliance and it talked about the Russia-Iran link. How dangerous is this? Bad and getting worse.

Yes, deeply unholy is absolutely true. The Iranians have weapons. The Russians need weapons. The Russians have money.

The Iranians need money. This is this is magic. And we've seen this. It is it's been the darndest thing to watch. I darndest is my adult word for this.

Yeah. To watch the Biden administration negotiating with the Iranians on the nuclear file, while the Iranians are sending drones that they built inside of their country to Russia to kill Ukrainian innocent civilians. It's unexplainable to me how we would now give another six billion to Iran.

It's unexplainable to me how we would tighten the relationship between Russia and Iran, the unholy alliance to which you referred. I try often to give the benefit of the doubt. I'm no longer in government service. I can't explain this one, Jay.

Let me turn. You've got a piece going up later this afternoon on ACLJ.org about the debate tonight. Of course, President Trump's not. She's calling it the vice President's debate. What are you looking to hear from the candidates? It's an interesting mix, that's for sure.

Yeah. You know, I hope it'll be a serious conversation. I hope it's not about name calling or owning the libs or I hope create a viral moment. I hope instead it's about the things that really matter to the American people. How are you going to make sure that kids get a good education and parents get to decide it, that they'll address the issues that seriously confront us with respect to the Chinese Communist Party as well? What are they actually going to do? It's not enough to say China bad.

Think about how it is. If you were the President of the United States, how would you secure American freedom for the next 250 years? And then finally, I hope they'll also take on the fact that we're we've watched we've watched the radical left begin to move in ways against families and children. And what is it that they would do?

What tools of American power were they prepared to use to make sure that we protect every innocent human life, that we build a capable military and we educate the next generation on the things that really matter and that the glories of America and its exceptional nature? I hope that's how the conversation proceeds. We'll all sit around and see if that's how it rolls. Very good.

Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for your insights. Thanks for being part of the team here at the ACLJ.

All right. We have a second half hour coming up. If you don't get us on your local station, make sure to find us broadcasting live right now on all your favorite social media platforms, whether that's Rumple, YouTube, Facebook.

We are all over those platforms right now. And of course, on ACLJ dot org and go to ACLJ dot org, because this is the last 10 days of our life and liberty. Try focusing on what you told us. We've gotten those emails, those texts you told us are the most important issues, the most important cases you want us to take. So that's why we are focused this month on our life and liberty drive.

Go to ACLJ dot org. Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Jay Sekulow.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the broadcast. If you missed the first half hour, of course, we just had on former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talk about a host of issues, including Iran.

We've got the first GOP debate tomorrow night, and that is going to be without the leading candidate right now in the GOP, Donald Trump. We're taking your calls on this. We said we would. We're going to continue to do that at 1-800-684-3110. That's 800-684-3110. We want to know, are you going to watch and what are you looking for?

Mike Pompeo said he wants to have serious discussions on the issues. We'll see. We'll take your calls at 800-684-3110. Let's go right to the phones. Let's go to Rachel in Texas online, too. You're on the air. Yes, sir.

Thank you. No, I will not be watching the debates because Donald Trump is not there. And I don't think that those other candidates should be there. They should be supporting Donald Trump because the election was stolen. It has been proven. The election was stolen in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona.

Here's the question, okay? Whatever your views are about the election stolen, not stolen, whatever it is, that is done. That is three years ago now. So now you've got to look forward. And so the argument, Rachel, is that even though Donald Trump's not going to be there, and I understand why he's not showing up. I mean, if I was up 30 percent and was the former President of the United States, I'm not so sure I would either. But you never know what's going to happen in politics, and that to me means at least take a look.

And one of these candidates may actually be vice President. But that's just my view. Let's take another call. All right. Let's go ahead. We'll keep it going.

Let's go to Joe in New York watching on YouTube. Joe, welcome. Well, thanks for taking my question. First and foremost, thank God you guys are there to solve the injustices around the world. We appreciate that.

Thanks. And my question is, would President Trump not showing up at the Republican debate? Could he still win the exit poll after the debate, even though he's not participating in it? Interesting. Interesting dynamics going to be because they do that, you know, after polling.

Who won? You know, he's doing a countermeasure with Tucker Carlson that's been prerecorded already. So it's really not. Logan, you're not wild about that.

Yeah, I was bummed about that. I thought we'd get a true response, almost like you have the Democrat response or whatever it would be to one of the state of the unions. I thought we'd kind of get that from President Trump. But I think what more he's signaling is he probably isn't watching it either. Do I think he's watching it?

Of course I do. But I think that's probably going to be the vibe they're going to put off, which is it's also unimportant to us. It should be unimportant to the American people. We have a clear front runner.

Don't even bother with it. I also think, though, the Tucker Carlson numbers have been doing very well on Twitter and other social media outlets he's been posting on. There is something to be said about speaking to the American people beyond the echo chamber.

And when you just put yourself in a Tucker Carlson situation, though his numbers are huge and I understand that, it's hard to break into maybe your casual voters, your casual Republican voters that aren't watching Tucker Carlson on Twitter. I assume this is going to be on Twitter. I mean, yes, it is on X. Yeah.

Or on X, excuse me. Yes, I'm the old man. I'm the old man. But we'd have to look into that and see how it's going to play. It'll be interesting. All right, we've got a ton of calls coming in and we're going to keep taking them. 1-800-684-3110.

The only people I'm passionate about. Let's go to Roger who's calling in Oregon on Line 5. Listen on the radio. Thanks, Roger. Hey, Roger, go ahead. Yeah, thanks for taking my call, guys. Will we watch?

The answer is yes. Only by watching and hearing will we know what was truly said and in what context. And we also get to see how the candidates respond under fire. But what's really interesting and I think really more important is that we'll clearly see how the pundits and newscasters from the other news sources actually frame the content to their audiences.

In other words, how they spin it. I think that may be the most interesting aspect of this is what happens afterwards in the spin room. I don't know if Donald Trump's representatives I do not think are going to be there. I don't think they're allowing them in there. That's my understanding.

The Fox said no because you're not participating in the debate, which I also understand too. All right, we're taking more of your calls. 800-684-3110. We are 10 days left in our life and liberty drive. We've got 10 days left. This is it, folks.

I mean, these are the big 10 days, too, by the way. You've been very generous. We appreciate it.

Any amount you donate is going to be doubled, which is great. But I need to tell you that right now we really need your help. We've got a lot of requests for assistance coming in and more coming in every day. Students, pastors, leaders, people on the streets handing out life literature.

ACLJ.org. Welcome back. We're going to change focus for a few minutes here and talk about some international matters, specifically Israel. But before we do that, we said we're going to take a call. So let's do the call first, Logan, then we'll go right to Jeff Balbon. Yeah, Bill's calling in South Dakota on Line 1. You're on the air.

Thank you. Talking about the debate, I think that Fox has become a rhino hack, and I'm afraid that they're going to bait everybody into Trump bashing rather than stick to policy. But you know what the truth is, Bill? Here's the truth.

I mean, you say that, that they're rhino baiting, but let me tell you the truth. There's no network that gives Donald Trump more airtime than Fox News. Laura Ingraham defends Donald Trump. Sean Hannity defends Donald Trump.

Then you want me to go through the list of the others? I mean, so let's be fair. Jesse Waters does too. There's no network that's giving him more cover than Fox, Bill. In terms of the main.

Yeah, as far as in the main networks that people are actually watching. So I didn't mean to cut you off there. Go ahead and finish, Bill. Look, to be clear, I represent Sean Hannity and I've also represented Fox.

So it's not like they have not given him a lot of coverage. Go ahead, Bill. I understand what you're saying, but it just becomes a sad testament to me that political debates become more about personal bashing than policies that help the American people. I totally agree with that.

Go ahead, Logan. Yeah, I mean, I agree, Bill, too. But I mean, no, in a sense of that's really I feel like always been the case and really ramped up the last few times. And I would say that I mean, look, I'm not saying it is a negative, Bill, but if there's someone who's really added to that conversation of beginning things personal and down and dirty, it's President Trump.

And I'm not saying that necessarily that I don't enjoy the entertainment value of it. But remember what he said about whether, you know, Ted Cruz's wife or Ted Cruz's father or little Marco or all the nicknames that really had nothing to do with policy. There were always just personal attacks.

So while I agree with you that I wish that wasn't how the debates are, sure, the entertainment value is there when that happens. Did the Ron Decent, the sanctimonious one stick? It definitely did. It definitely did. The first one did not, but the second one did. Well, I think people took a while to understand what he was saying and then, you know, he put off the vibe.

Now, there have been some that have been in some truth social posts. We talked about that and I'm like, no one really understands. So they've been like, Asa Hutchinson, we have no idea. Yeah. Why would you even waste, I mean, nothing wrong with Asa Hutchinson as a person, but I mean, really, I mean, just from, he's not going to be the President of the United States.

It's some like deep Broadway reference. All right. So let me go to Jeff Albon. Jeff, you're headed back to her office in Jerusalem tomorrow. Iran's going to be getting more money from the Biden administration, by the way. People need to understand the funding that they do through proxies.

I mean, a lot of people do not understand that, but that is a big problem. And we don't have Jeff's audio. Stand by.

Stand by. You got me now? You got you, Jeff. Sorry. I apologize.

This is my end. Yeah, Jay, it's a huge problem. And Israel is at this point being caught between pincer movements of terrorism. It's a wave of terrorism that Israel hasn't seen in years and years, largely generated by Biden's policies. I mean, you talked about that they're Iranian proxies. Iran is emboldened more and more.

We've unleashed billions of dollars to Iran now. We know that their stated intention is to wipe Israel off the map. They've never been shy about it. They want another Holocaust. They want a genocide. They're very proud of that fact. And we in America, apparently our government has decided to send them billions. At the same time, Fatah, the ruling power in Judea and Samaria, known as the Palestinian Authority, they just took credit proudly, proudly for murdering a 42-year-old preschool teacher in front of her children. They were in a car and terrorists affiliated with the Palestinian Authority cut her off, sprayed 20 bullets into the car, wounded the driver, killed this mother of three for the sin, for the crime of being a Jew.

Yeah. So, meanwhile, the United Nations comes out with more policies and referendums and resolutions against Israel than pretty much any country, well, not pretty much, than any country in the world. C.C. Heil is with us. We have just filed our document at the United Nations. I'm holding it in my hand right now, supporting Israel.

I suspect, C.C., we're going to be lonesome on that. There's not going to be a lot. Like you said, about a third of the resolutions and the special sessions that the Human Rights Councils hold are against and condemning Israel each year, a third of them. So, Israel gets the attention in a bad way from the United Nations, and we consistently step in and support them and actually commend them for their stellar human rights record, which is never reported on the opposite side at the U.N. And so we've done this.

This is the 54th session of the Human Rights Council, and we will be submitting our written submissions supporting Israel. They have the strongest human rights record of anybody else in that region. Absolutely.

It's stellar. I mean, it's not even a close call. Yes, it's absolutely. And we point that out. We point out that the rights of their Arab citizens are absolutely respected. They have absolute equal rights. Again, that's not what you hear from the U.N. reports. They skew the facts and we're absolutely able to come in and give the facts in black and white of the stellar record of Israel for their human rights. Jeff, the Biden administration raised concern about Palestinian aid boosting Hamas, yet they went ahead and funded it anyways. That's right. There seems to be no stopping the Biden administration.

Look, it's hard to know if it's intentional or ineptitude, but it kind of feels intentional. This seems like the third term of the Obama Biden administration where they really just flipped everything, went against Israel as though Israel was the problem. And the terrorists were the good guys. The mullahs of Iran are the good guys. And these are not just Israel's enemies. These are America's enemies.

These are our direct enemies. And for some reason, this administration seems to be sending funding and support in every possible way to the people who want to kill Jews in Israel. Jeff, I kind of have a bit of a concern and we're talking about the debates and obviously there's a discussion about the sort of backed off nature of Ramaswamy and some of these other people. And there has been sort of a systemic problem in America and even in the evangelical church over the last 10 years or so, 15 years, where Israel has started to lose the PR war, if you will, in terms of even with the most loyal people standing up, which has usually been evangelical Christians who have stood up for Israel.

My concern is we start to see that trickle into sort of the American conservative movement where it is a pushback of them. Well, we don't want to give money to Israel because we don't want to give money to anyone else because we become very isolated in that. When there starts to become a lack of understanding of what the relationship between America and Israel is, and you start to have political candidates that are rising and rising, that maybe don't have the interest of Israel at heart or can see it as a talking point that maybe they can differentiate themselves from the other candidates. Because there is a narrative that we're locked in this relationship and that it's not a good one and that this has been a bit of a mirage.

And I'm concerned when mainstream candidates start talking this way. Well, it's a super complicated situation here, Logan, and I see this both in Jerusalem and in Washington. The issue of aid to Israel is extremely fraught. And there are people starting with Bibi Netanyahu back in the 90s said we need to we really want to wean Israel off of American aid.

But there's been pushback against that. And the problem is that aid comes with a lot of political friction. And so it's a separate conversation, I think, what and how aid should be dealt with.

And you know that the people don't realize this right now. Israel did wean itself off foreign aid. Israel just gets military assistance, all of which gets spent in America. It's almost like America is writing an aid package to support the American defense industry because the money comes to us, comes to America.

But go ahead. Sorry, Mike. Mike, you say my concern is not actually of the aid. My concern is of the talking point and that the talking point is an anti-Zionistic, anti-Israel messaging.

And this is just dipping your toe in the water. I think that's my concern. Yeah, that is a major concern, which which we hear this all the time. And that is one of the fundamental issues that I deal with in Jerusalem and in Washington at this point, back and forth, because there's there's a lack of understanding one side of the other in Israel. It's obvious, look, it's a small country. It relies heavily on American support or has for decades. And there's been this illusion that this has been bipartisan support. Well, it hasn't really been bipartisan for decades.

There's been a huge yawing gap between Republican support and Democratic support. Well, Israel has been playing to this idea of, you know, quote, two state solution, unquote, even though it's really not its agenda anymore. But they feel as though they're being pressured by America to say that it is their agenda. It's certainly not the Republicans agenda, not and it's not the Israeli government's agenda. Their agenda is not to support a terrorist state. Their support is sovereignty, security. And as Sisi and you all said earlier, Israel remains in terms of its Arab citizens and even non-citizens, even the Arabs living in Judea and Samaria who are not citizens. Still, they have more rights than literally any other nation in the region. No, there's no question about that. And we've we've we've raised that multiple times with the UNCC. Absolutely. We we do not miss a time to stand up for Israel at the United Nations, because, again, I think it's important to point out, a third of the resolutions and the special sessions at the Human Rights Council are aimed against Israel, at condemning Israel. So it's very important for us to stand up for Israel and point out their stellar record for human rights. Logan's right. The evangelical church is waning in support. I mean, it's it's a real problem.

And that's, I think, a PR war more than anything else. Jeff, we appreciate it. Hey, folks, we're coming to the last segment. We're going to take your calls at 1-800-684-3110. That's 800-684-3110. When you're supporting our Life and Liberty Drive, you're also supporting our work in Jerusalem. We have an office in Jerusalem. Jeff's on the way back there tomorrow.

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Are you watching that debate tomorrow? 800-684-3110. Welcome back to Sekulow. We are taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. We'll take as many as we can in this segment. Do you want to go call? Let's go to the call first.

Let's start with something people have been holding for a while. Let's go to Harry in West Virginia, watching on ACLJ.org. In line three, you're on the air. Hello. Thank you for taking my call. Well, I guess I'm going to have to say I won't be watching the debates. I get very upset when I hear people lie to me, whether it's the newsmen or whether it's the candidates.

And most of them are going to be trying to get people to come out and attack someone else. Let me ask you this. If Donald Trump was at the debate, would you watch it?

No. I know what he says and stands for. And like I said, I like him. But when I hear these people lie to me, whether it's news, whether it's politicians, Trump is the only one that wants to clean the swamp. And most of those people have come up through either the Republican swamp or a Democrat swamp, but they still came up through the swamp.

I think Harry brings up a good point, which is just, is there sort of fatigue? I think we'll know that. I think we'll actually know a lot, because Trump's not on it, what the ratings are when they actually come in on Fox. I don't know if they're going to be very low, but they certainly are not going to be unless we're all shocked. And if we're all shocked, by the way, if the numbers come in and they're historically high. Well, then it tells Donald Trump's got some vulnerability. That's interesting.

That is going to be the most interesting story. If the ratings come in huge, that means some of this polling that we're saying with these massive leads, giant leads are actually a little fungible because you would say, OK, how many of these people are voting in the primary who are saying Trump? There may be a large portion that are not your primary voters. Those primary voters are the ones that watch the debates. Will pointed out that in Iowa, because of the way they do that two-tiered first and second choice, that the actual differential between Trump and DeSantis could be 2%.

Well, I mean, then it starts to get interesting. And then we all of a sudden have maybe Trump having to jump. He already said it will not be in the debates with an S. Well, Harry, you know, from a policy perspective, because you know Donald Trump's policies because you saw him as President. I understand why he's not doing the debate. You think it hurts him, though, down the road?

Well, it could hurt him down the road, but I think initially it's unlikely to hurt him in part because you've got to winnow the field. Keep in mind that even though they have certain criteria to enter into the debate, the first one, that there are a ton of individuals who are going to be on that stage that the American people know nothing about. And so I think personally I will need a scorecard in order to keep track of some of the minor candidates that are going to be on the stage. I think individuals like Chris Christie are going to try to rough up Ron DeSantis.

Whether or not that's going to be successful or not, I'm not sure. I think an individual like Vivek Ramswamy, he's going to be an interesting candidate, and he's less likely to be ruffled on the stage than DeSantis. And keep in mind, Vivek doesn't have a policy record to defend, whereas DeSantis does. And I also think DeSantis is not necessarily either a great retail politician or a great politician on the stage, particularly when he's under sustained attack.

I agree. I think so. And I think that, actually, because Ron Swamy's doing well, he's got like an average of 10-ish percent. I think he's going to be the one who's under fire tonight or tomorrow night.

I think that's right. I think because though DeSantis has such a significant lead, I think they can see 8%, 9%, 10% that's vulnerable. And if they can kind of knock out his candidacy before it gets going, then all of a sudden you have 10% who can go to DeSantis. Or to whoever. To someone else who can fill that void.

I think though DeSantis is the obvious target, I think it will be Vivek. Let's go on to line 5, Sue's calling. Sue, go ahead, you're on the air.

Hi. I'm going to listen, and I really want to hear what Tim Scott and Nikki Haley have to say. Initially, I was really Ron DeSantis, but it's Tim Scott that I am most curious what he has to say, and I also want to watch Chris Christie embarrass himself. And then the issues that I'm most concerned about are the economy, the border, energy independence, and cleaning up our two-tiered system of justice. Would you say, Sue, the number one issue though is the economy for you? I think that is for a lot of listeners.

Yeah, yeah. So Harry, you're a director of policy, how does the economic situation, like I've noticed gas prices creeping back up to $5 a gallon, mortgage rates now at 8.2% and maybe rising. How does that play into all of this? Well, I think a large portion of the populace comprised of the working class are basically disconnected from both political parties and justifiably so because the elites in both parties, they are not enacting policies that basically benefit the working class individuals that we have in this country. So I'm seeing on the internet, in internet magazines, more and more stories by individuals who are very well educated and they're pointing out the fact that a large portion of our populace is disaffected.

So we live in a country, for instance, wherein illegal immigrants can come to this country and receive up to $2,200 per month from the United States government, whereas an individual who's paid into Social Security for 20, 30, 40 years receives on average $1,400 a month in Social Security benefits. I don't believe that type of gap is sustainable. And you look at President Biden, his policies in East Palestine, Ohio, in Hawaii, he is putting the Ukrainian interests first. He wants to secure the Ukrainian border, and he doesn't seem to care about the United States border. Keep in mind, the Biden administration recently sold something like $300 million worth of border wall materials for something like $2 or $3 million. That's getting one or two cents on the dollar.

Many Americans are upset with that, particularly given the fact that gasoline prices are up, mortgage prices are up, et cetera. All right, Susan, you go ahead. Susan, Marilyn, really quick run out of time.

Thanks for holding. Hi. Comment on the debate. I see it as apprentice 2.0. These candidates are going to, it's going to be hilarious, and the cream is going to rise to the top, the stones will sink to the bottom, and you know Donald Trump will be watching from the comfort of his home, and he will be using all of this debate production.

And feel more, we're more and more confident. Is the President, has President Trump announced whether he is going to watch it yet, Will? Has he said he was definitely going to watch it?

I'm sorry. No, I don't think he said it. Yeah, I don't know if he's going to watch it or not.

I suspect he will. He calls it the Vice President debate. Yeah, he said Rodney Santos is crashing like an ailing bird. That's pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty good. An ailing bird?

An ailing bird? All right, folks, you got a little of the secular brothers there at the end. All right, we're going to be, we're done. We're not taking any more calls.

The program's over. All right, we do want you to support our Life and Liberty Drive at ACLJ.org. It's the Life and Liberty Drive. We've been listening to the comments and reading those comments, and we know the two issues that matter most to you, and it's life and liberty, and we're representing a lot of people. And they need our help, which means we need your help so that together we can help these folks.

It makes a huge difference. Go to ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org, and support the work of the ACLJ during the special month of our Life and Liberty Drive. That will do it for the broadcast today. We'll talk to you tomorrow.