MAJOR WIN: Colorado Judge Allows Trump to Stay on Ballot After ACLJ Defense

This is Jay Sekulow. We've got a major victory, an ACLJ victory.

A Colorado judge allows former President Trump to stay on the ballot in Colorado. 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. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the broadcast. And we do have big news.

It came out late Friday and we didn't have, obviously, time to get it because it came out after air. It's a 102-page opinion. We thought Colorado was the most difficult case of the cases that we've had involving this attempt by some organizations. This particular one was by CREW, which is a group out of Washington, D.C., an election watchdog group, to remove President Trump from the ballot either from the primaries or the general election. They filed these in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, West Virginia, Virginia, Oklahoma.

We've had success in Oklahoma, Michigan, and Minnesota. But as I told you, I expected the case in Colorado to be the most difficult. The judge seemed hostile to our legal position. We had Jane Raskin, Ben Sisney, and a team from the ACLJ out there working up the trial. And I was not optimistic. I thought this was the one that was going to go to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Well, I was wrong, I'm happy to say. The judge ruled in our favor. The judge did find that President Trump engaged in activities that she said constitute an insurrection. However, and this is important to understand, that's not the basis upon which her decision was made. So she made this like extemporaneous decision, but it had nothing to do with her decision because her decision was that the President is not, which we argued, and not an officer for the purposes of Article the 14th Amendment, Section 3's removal.

Which is, by the way, what a lot of legal scholars have said, too. In my mind, the case is dead. Now, are they going to appeal it? Yes, it'll go right to the Colorado, either Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court of Collins. I don't think it's going to fare any better there.

We now set our sights on West Virginia and Virginia. Yeah, and it is encouraging. Like you said, this judge, we did not have high hopes that she was going to rule in President Trump's favor.

But she did, finding that they could not keep him off the ballot based on this 14th Amendment argument. So it is a very huge win, and the ACLJ was there arguing for this very outcome, and it's a success. It's a win. No question it's a win.

I don't like the hundred pages of, this was an insurrection, and then, oh, by the way, it doesn't matter because insurrection or not, the 14th Amendment, Section 3 doesn't apply to the President or the vice President of the United States, which is where the case should have began and ended. But the good news on this, and I think it's important for people to understand, the good news on this is that it's a victory, and that the ballot, when it comes forward, whether you want to vote for President Trump or not, is irrelevant. When the ballot comes forward, here's what it's going to tell you.

It's going to tell you that, in fact, you get to vote for the candidate of your choice, the qualified candidate of your choice. Ben Sisney did the closing argument in the case, did a very good job. Jane Raskin, our special counsel, did the trial with assistance from a number of our team, excellent outcome. Nathan Garrett were out there, our local counsel, Mike Melito, and his colleagues.

So we had a team of about six lawyers on this case. So, again, the end result of that is great. Having said that, we are in a fight for freedom. We are in a fight for liberty in ways we never really could have imagined. The fight to free the Israeli hostages continues.

Cece and I were on a phone call this morning about upcoming meetings in Europe, including meetings with the President of France and former President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. So that's going forward. We're putting a team together for that. We've had the 14th Amendment win in Colorado. We're fighting the appeal now. That's what's going to happen.

They'll appeal it. We're going to fight also in West Virginia where we're filing tomorrow and in Virginia. At the same time, our support for Israel continues as our ally faces increasing pressure to give up the fight. We had a lot of talk about that as it relates to the hostages. We're preparing, as I said, for massive meetings across Europe next month to defend the hostages and to defend the state of Israel. In order to meet these historic challenges and legal demands, we need your support. We're in the last 10 days of our faith and freedom drive.

We're slightly ahead of where we were last year, about 20%. I want to end it at 30% higher. Have your tax deductible gift doubled dollar for dollar. Go to ACLJ.org and donate today. And become a champion by making that gift recurring that you'll give it each and every month. And then you become an ACLJ champion, and that helps us even more.

Back with more in a moment. Well, we just announced the win at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Colorado, which was, excuse me, the U.S. District Court in Colorado, their trial court in the state court system, where President Trump will stay on the ballot. That now goes to the Court of Appeals. We also had a victory for a student situation. Now, the Jewish students are being harassed all over the country, and there was a significant situation in Rutgers. We've got, I think we have to talk about that coming up in the next segment of the broadcast because it really does point to the nature of the hostility that's on the campuses right now that are so severe. Do we have Jeff Balaban next segment?

Got it. Harry Hutchinson is joining us right now. Harry, let's talk about the ballot access cases. It was a constitutional case under the 14th Amendment, Section 3. The judge went out of her way to go after President Trump with the whole hundred pages of, hey, by the way, he did it.

He incited basically an insurrection, but nevertheless, the amendment doesn't apply to him. Absolutely. So I think it's clear that this was a victory. It was a victory for the American people.

It was a victory for freedom of speech and for freedom of association. Nonetheless, it's important to remind listeners that the Colorado judge did try to put her thumb on the scale without authority to do so. She did this by claiming that President Trump engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against his own government.

And I think that's nonsense on stilts. Number two, I think it's clear that she conflated two sections of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution by claiming that if he gave any assistance to any of the demonstrators on January the 6th, that that in essence meant he basically assisted an insurrection or rebellion. Keep in mind, those are two separate and distinct sections in the constitutional amendment. So the first question is, did Trump engage in an insurrection or rebellion against his own government? Obviously, that didn't occur. Second, we had to ask whether Donald Trump gave aid and comfort to an enemy. And clearly, the demonstrators on January the 6th, whether you like them or not, were not enemies of the United States government.

There was no war declared. And so again, I think at the end of the day, the judge missed the boat. I don't like the idea that the judge had to write 102 pages because if you have a jurisdictional issue up front, which is this section does not apply to, this is what we're talking about here, this section does not apply to the President and the Vice President, that really should have been the end of this.

Absolutely. And the judge could have saved herself some precious time in her life if she had adopted, I think, the smarter approach. But I also think this decision and its length, 102 pages, confirms her own bias. And so what she is really hoping for is some other jurisdiction that will overrule her analysis with respect to whether or not Donald Trump was indeed an officer within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. I certainly hope that doesn't happen. And certainly if you look at the prevailing view in each and every jurisdiction where we've litigated, it will not carry the day.

Yeah, I don't think it is. Now we've got Virginia and West Virginia we're dealing with now. And we'll take your calls on all this 1-800-684-3110, 800-684-3110. But the bad part about this is they're really trying to put the thumb on the scale. And it's an election integrity issue because they're trying to take away legitimate choices, this is during the primary, of individuals running for the nomination.

That's what's going on at January 5th. So that's why this case has to move very, very quickly. My sense is that no matter if you're for Trump against Trump, you don't want your choices taken away by a Secretary of State.

No, absolutely not. And that's the issue really that's at play here, is the 14th Amendment is not self-executing. You cannot have some random Secretary of State saying, in my opinion, I think that this Presidential candidate has committed insurrection and therefore cannot be on the ballot.

That is ridiculous. And like Harry said, it fails really on all three aspects of the 14th Amendment really argument. It's good that this judge says he is not an officer of the court, but he has not committed insurrection. And even this judge cannot declare that he has committed insurrection. He's not been charged with that. He's not been convicted of that. So again, the fact that she took 102 pages to write about that kind of shows, again, like Harry said, her bias. It's interesting to see the response of the lawyers for CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, because they're trying to spin this as, well, we lost, but we really won because they said he did an insurrection, even though he's never been charged with insurrection.

Take a listen. This judge, after hearing five days of testimony, reviewing mountains of evidence, which is a thing that had not happened in any other court in the United States, this judge found that Donald Trump incited insurrection. That is a finding that, as Secretary Griswold said, is historic. It is entitled to a great deal of deference because it is based on the evidence.

It's based on the adversarial process. So that's incredibly significant. He incredibly ignores the fact that the judge said, but nevertheless, he's not an officer under the 14th Amendment Section 3. And by the way, it's very interesting that this judge found him responsible for insurrection, a charge of which, Harry, he has not faced in a federal court.

Absolutely. And the reason why he hasn't faced a charge, that is Donald Trump, is because there's no evidence in support of such a charge. It's also important to keep in mind that this judge, as Ceci pointed out earlier, still believes that the 14th Amendment is self-executing. There's scant legal precedent in support of that particular conclusion. In addition, this particular judge rejected the Colorado Republican Party's argument that it had an unfettered right to put its candidate on the primary ballot. That is consistent with the First Amendment. So again, I think this particular judge was wrong and committed serious constitutional and jurisprudential errors, even though at the end of the day, she did reach the right conclusion.

Right conclusion, the wrong way of getting there. All right, Ben Sisney from our office made a closing argument. I want you to listen to a few moments of it. This court's heard a lot. This court's been through a lot, so has the court staff.

We also appreciate that. The petitioners and even the secretary, with due respect, have complicated things. I'd like to bring the court back to the basics. More than anything else, this is a case about the law. This is a Section 113 proceeding, intentionally and expressly limited in scope by the Colorado legislature. The only relief available is for this court to order the secretary to comply with this election code, or substantially comply. This is also about Section 1204.

We've heard some of that this afternoon. That contains a finite and enumerated list of shells, ministerial duties with which the secretary must comply. She has no discretion with that list.

The Colorado election code does not contemplate, actually it does not even allow, a discretionary role for the secretary in determining extra statutory qualifications in usurpation of the major political party's will. You did a really good job of arguing that, and the closing was basically stick to the law. And that was, I think, the key, Harry, to all of this. If you go to the law, we carry the day. Absolutely. But it's important to keep in mind that the opponents of President Trump don't want to focus on the law, they want to focus on emotion.

And I think at the end of the day, we have to avoid focusing on emotion and reach the same conclusion that Ben Sisney reached, which is the secretary of state has zero discretion on this particular matter. And Donald Trump can indeed appear on the Colorado ballot, on the Michigan ballot, the West Virginia ballot, the Oklahoma ballot, every single ballot in the United States. Yeah, and now we've got a fight in Virginia, West Virginia, and there'll be appeals in Colorado. But I'm very confident now that we're going to see victories in all these, which will be a total of eight cases that we won.

So that's great. Folks, we're going into the last basically 10 days here of our faith and freedom drive for the month of November. We're ahead of where we were last year, but we're not ahead of where our goal is. So we want to keep the fight going here. The fight to free the Israeli hostages continues. But at home, we've had an amazing win for voting rights.

As you know, we just talked about all of those. Tomorrow we're filing in West Virginia. And our support for Israel continues. We're preparing for a massive series of meetings across Europe next month to defend the hostages. In order to meet these historic challenges, we need your support.

We're in the last 10 days of our faith and freedom drive. I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org. Have your tax deductible gifts double dollar for dollar. You can do that today. ACLJ.org. And this is what I'd really like you to do if you're able. Become an ACLJ champion, which means whatever amount you donate or whatever amount you can designate, make it a monthly gift, automatically recurring. You can do it right on the website. ACLJ.org.

Become a champion. That really helps us out going into next year. Hey, welcome back to the broadcast. Everyone, if you're just watching during the break, you saw our ACLJ senior counsel, Jeff Alabon, and our student that we represent from Rutgers University. If you were listening on radio, you heard a commercial. So we're going to, Jeff, we got to make believe.

Nobody heard that that's listening on radio. That's a big part of our audience. So let's focus if we can. Let's talk about the case first, because unfortunately, this is one of many where we're getting contacts.

That's right. We have a number of students and, you know, we've also had faculty, Jewish faculty who are coming to us with a wide range of complaints about how they're being treated in schools. And it's ratcheted up dramatically after the horrible attacks of October 7th. Instead of sympathy for the Jewish students or the Jewish faculty, we're seeing the opposite. We're seeing that these universities, which are hotbeds of pro-Hama sentiment, pro-terrorism, literally, pro-genocide, and the students are suffering. And in one case, the case that we were talking about today, the Rutgers case, it's not just the students. The university itself seems to be playing a role in going after a Jewish student who is just trying to look out for his safety. What do you think, and I raise this question, Jeff, knowing the answer, what do you think happens if these students that are contacting us and others were to say nothing?

Well, that's a very important question, Jay. Look, first of all, they have to take a step back. A lot of them are saying nothing because they're terrified. We've spoken to a number of students who are just terrified to come forward, but they want us to know what's happening. In this case, our client, you know, he was brought forward, he was pilloried in public in the most horrific way, and the school stood by and then attacked him.

This is, again, I just want to put this in context. This is right the week of these horrific attacks, and students start spinning around Hamas propaganda and calling simultaneously for what they call resistance, which the Students for Justice in Palestine is saying that what happened on October 7th in Israel is resistance. So they're literally calling for murder of these students. So the students are terrified, so some of them are hunkering down, some of them are afraid, some of them can't. This has to be fought, so that's why they need people like us, that's why they need the ACLJ to step in, and actually the university thinks they can get away with whatever they want with these students.

They think they have control. They can say, oh, it's not us, it's the students. Number one, the universities have to be held accountable for what the students are doing. They're giving them a platform to do it. Number two, sometimes, as in this case, it's the university itself.

So we have to fight for them, Jay, because even when they come forward, they need our help, they need legal advice. I wonder, and I thought about this, this is, I think, an important part of this also, and that is the educational part of this, to not allow students to feel like that this is something they should have to tolerate. And, Cece, we've been looking at that internally here at the ACLJ to stand for these Jewish students, and there's also, by the way, and you know this, Jeff, Christian pro-Zionist students that are having the same kind of pushback on their campuses. Yeah, I mean, it's all over, and students do feel stifled because they have this, exactly what happened here. What's even the most egregious part is this student, our client, who decides to point out the injustice. It's not the students that are pro-hamas and causing the injustice and spreading the injustice. It's the student that simply points out, look, you shouldn't be spreading this.

He's the one that gets in trouble, not just by the Bar Association, but by the college itself. And that's where students are afraid. They're afraid to speak out and stand for what's right, and that's where the ACLJ can come in and stand with these students and get justice. Jeff, it's also, as you mentioned, it's not just the students. It's also teachers that are not being allowed to teach an honest perspective of what's going on here.

Well, that's true, Jay. They can't teach an honest perspective. If they try it, they're vilified. They could lose their job.

Tenure doesn't matter when it comes to standing up for Israel or Jews. But it's even worse than that. I know in cases we're looking at, without getting too detailed right here on the air, where faculty themselves have expressed support for these students, and they're afraid to speak out on behalf of the students because the administration will make them suffer as well. The situation is horrific. Imagine what pours out into the street calling for genocide from the river to the sea. Well, that's what these students live with every day in the colleges and the universities, and some of the professors really feed into that.

They've been training them. They've been teaching them this kind of horrific—by the way, it's not just anti-Jewish. It's anti-American.

It's pro-genocide. You can't imagine how evil this is. Well, we can, and these students are coming to us for help. These faculty are coming for us to help, and they need our help because they don't know how to navigate the law. They don't know how to protect themselves, and that's what we're doing. And we're going to continue to do that.

Let me switch gears. You're getting ready to go back to our offices in Jerusalem to check on things and to work with some leaders within the government and within other areas of the country and probably get a sense of the devastation, a firsthand account of what it is. As you know, I've been working with lawyers from Israel that are representing families. We're representing families. In fact, we'll be filing—I can announce this today—six new charges at the United Nations representing six new family members.

So that's about to happen. It'll put us up to ten individuals that we represent representing nine families because sometimes you've got multiple representatives they both file at the UN. We're working on a series of meetings right now in Europe to mirror what we did in the United States, but you're planning on going back to Israel.

What are you going to be looking for, Jeff, when you return to our office there? Well, you know, I was here for the Jewish holidays when this all occurred and would have probably gone back earlier, but this glut, this overwhelming glut of anti-Semitism here in America that we're dealing with, and now that we at least are getting a handle on intake in all these cases, it's time to go back to Israel because this is a global phenomenon. I mean, the war, the most brutal and horrific part took place in Israel, launched in Israel, but it is a global phenomenon.

You see it around the world, and that's why ACLJ, as you point out, is doing this around the world as well. So there, we need to check in with them. They need to understand what efforts we are making and how we're doing that, not just in America but around the world, and we need to hear directly from them.

And you know, you talk about this often, Jay, internally, there is no replacement for being face-to-face in a room with somebody and talk about what's actually happening, see what they need, see what we can provide, how we can help, and what the immediate future holds and how we can be of assistance. So we want to go back and take stock of what's happening on the ground there. It's not just Gaza, obviously. There's things happening all around Israel.

There's a lot of concerns. And already America is in the pressure. I mean, there are expectations that Hezbollah may engage in this in the hours and days ahead.

Another interesting aspect of this, Jeff, is the fact that when you look at the situation, it's tense on the ground, as you can imagine. We've got 400,000 reserves deployed. And then you have the entire situation of the other areas of Israel, which could be vulnerable. The West Bank, as I just mentioned, Lebanon, those cannot be ignored. At the same time, the government is hanging on by a thread, and that thread is they've got a wartime government. If it wasn't for that, I think this government would be out, frankly.

Well, that's true. I mean, there's a lot of unity around Israel knowing it needs to survive and fight this war, but there's also a lot of, you know, we're biding our time, but at some point we have to deal with the fact that there was a colossal, seems to be a colossal failure. Yeah, I was on a call last night late, and that call said this has been the greatest intelligence failure in Israel's history.

Just 10 seconds here, Jeff. Yeah, no. What you're saying is absolutely right, and we do have to go back, and what you're talking about in terms of Judea and Samaria and the West Bank, et cetera, it's all a very, very tense kettle that's boiling over. America's putting pressure on them, and we need to talk to them about that as well.

America's putting pressure on them to give the Palestinians a state when the Palestinians seem to be supporting genocide. So we really need to find out. I think the thought of a two-state solution evaporated on October 7th, to be quite frank. All right, folks, that's going to do it for the first half hour of the broadcast.

We're here for another half hour. Thank you, Jeff. Support the work of the ACLJ. It's a very important faith and freedom drive. We'll match dollar for dollar your donations, ACLJ.org. If you can make that monthly, this is really important for us, become an ACLJ champion.

Just hit monthly when you go ahead and make that donation, and that's going to impact us for years to come, ACLJ.org. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jay Sekulow. I'm glad so many of you are watching on Rumble and YouTube, because you can hardly find us on Facebook anymore. They changed their way they're doing it now again, and you're not going to get a live notice of our – well, let's explain to people briefly what's happening, if they want to watch us on Facebook, what they need to do.

So you need to go to the profile of Jay Sekulow and click the profile picture that will have a red ring around it, and that knows that there's a live video there, and that's where you can see the live broadcast on Facebook now. But it's not going to get no more automatic notifications. Unfortunate. Let's go ahead and take a phone call, 1-800-684-3110, if you're just joining us and talking about the win at the 14th Amendment challenge to keep Trump off the ballot. We won that in Colorado.

Surprising, actually. I thought that judge was going to rule against us, but that was a really positive decision. We're excited about that one. We've got two more to go, West Virginia and Virginia, and probably an appeal in Colorado. We also had a win for a student at Rutgers University, a Jewish student who was harassed.

So that's working out well. Jeff Balibon, who's heading back to our office in Israel. We talked a little bit about what may be taking place in the weeks ahead through our European efforts for the hostages. Let's go to Skip, who's calling from California on Line 1. Hi, Skip.

Hi. I was wondering if the individuals who are supporting Hamas, protesting for Hamas, or donating to Hamas, can they be charged under the Terrorist Material Support Act? I think that's USC 2329 alpha and B. Yeah, a lot of people are starting to look at that because Hamas has designated a terrorist organization, so when you're calling from the river to the sea and the destruction of Israel, is it free speech or are you aiding and abetting a terrorist organization?

That's being looked at. And it's a difficult line because First Amendment protections have to be vast, and I believe in a broad and robust First Amendment. But what we have to be able to do is paint Hamas for what they are. They are a terrorist organization, and these young people that are marching with Hamas have no idea what they are even standing for. They have no idea what they're talking about.

It's a bunch of nonsense. It's an embarrassment of what the universities are teaching. It's an embarrassment that the college Presidents will not speak out, but nevertheless, groups like ours are speaking out. So we're taking direct action on this, and we're not taking it down lightly, but the university responses so far, Cece, and you've got two of your kids in colleges right now, it's been pathetic.

I mean, really pathetic. It has, and it's because they just absolutely not only buy into but are also pushing the Hamas rhetoric, which, like you said, is completely ridiculous. They are terrorists. They have murdered and slaughtered innocent civilians. They have violated every rule, every law there is, and to have any sort of rally that supports them is really, it's criminal.

It is. And the universities are supporting this. You know, they're afraid to say anything. I mean, this is the pathetic nature of what's going on on our college campuses today. We're going to take your calls coming up.

Mike Pompeo is going to be joining us, 1-800-684-3110, 800-684-3110. Let me give you a recap of what's happened. We won in Colorado, so that was the third 14th Amendment challenge made by either an individual or a group.

This one was a group crew out of Washington, D.C. There's the opinion on the camera. It was 114 pages, most of which was why President Trump was a bad guy and why President Trump did an insurrection, and then about three paragraphs on, but nevertheless, he gets to stay on the ballot because the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to him in the first place. Instead of just saying the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to him in the first place, which is what we argued, therefore you don't get into that.

But she wanted to make a political statement, so the judge did. That goes to the Court of Appeals. We'll be successful there. Virginia tomorrow, or West Virginia tomorrow, Virginia after that.

So far, we're batting 1,000, and I believe we're going to continue to bat 1,000. Your support of the ACLJ is making all this happen, folks. Go to ACLJ.org. We're in the last 10 days of our faith and freedom drive.

That's at ACLJ.org slash faith and freedom. Also, your donation will be doubled, and if you can hit recurring or monthly, you become an ACLJ champion. And what that means is each and every month you're going to make that donation. You know what that means for us?

And this is really important, folks. You make that donation monthly, and all of a sudden we have a base upon which we can operate so that we have emergencies like the situation in Israel. We have a fund available.

You become part of that. The champions, you set up our emergency fund. So go to ACLJ.org, make that donation, and if you can, make it recurring, make it monthly.

ACLJ champions, just go to ACLJ.org forward slash faith and freedom. Back with your calls at 800-684-3110. I'm Mike Pompeo. Hey, welcome back to the broadcast, everyone. We talked about the 14th Amendment win. We talked about what our office in Jerusalem is doing, and we now are joined by our senior counsel for global affairs, Mike Pompeo, who's, of course, former secretary of state and former director of the CIA.

Let me say this, Mike. The IDF has now released proof of the tunnels, which you and I have seen those tunnels, so we know they're there. This one was beneath the Al-Shifa hospital. There's also closed caption TV footage of the Hamas fighters bringing in hostages inside the hospital. Do you think this will go far enough to silence those critics that are blaming Israel for targeting hospitals?

Is this going to be enough to do that? Jay, look, first of all, congratulations on the victory in Colorado. It's important for America. It's important for the conservative movement. It's noble and right, and the ACLJ is amazing when these important issues arise, so bless you and congrats to you and your team for that hard work.

Second, Ed Al-Shifa. Look, we've got doctors that have been lying. It appears the ICRC, the International Red Cross, you know them well, Jay. It appears they also knew this was going on and didn't tell the truth. But I doubt this will silence the critics because the critics are ungrounded in reality. They have an anti-Semitic bias.

They deeply don't like the West. They are the hate America first crowd. So I don't know that there are any facts that you can set before them that will take some of these people and say, no, gosh, turns out you were right.

It turns out this was a valid target. This was a command and control facility for these butchers, these terrorists. I doubt that we changed everyone, but I hope there's some group of people who say, gosh, it turns out I was wrong, and these facts make it pretty clear. But I suspect this challenge will continue to linger because it's not about facts. It's about ideology. You know, it's interesting, as Israel continues to move into Gaza and presses Hamas, there's been this talk of release of hostages. It has not happened yet, and the Israel government has denied that it's as close as the U.S. and Qatar say it is.

And I realize there's a lot of politics going on here, too. I was on calls last night with Israeli representatives, lawyers, and others that are saying that it's a very fluid situation. The hostages are playing a very – it's very difficult with Israel to do their job with these hostages. I mean, it is, and it's presenting quite a dilemma for them politically and militarily. No doubt about it, and no doubt that these terrorists knew that when they took these hostages. That is, they were taken for an intended purpose, which is precisely what you and I are talking about today is how is it the case that the IDF can go in and do what is necessary, the demolition, the annihilation of Hamas? And get those people back home to their families.

I pray that they can pull off each of those. We need to get them home. We need to get them home now. The whole world needs to spend more time talking about these hostages, including the maybe as many as a dozen American hostages, talk about those individuals and their families. Less time worried about if Israel might be conducting its military operations in a way that's consistent with international law. I can assure you that it's doing everything it can to make that so.

And JU and I have met with some of these families. We continue to work to try and get these hostages home. I think one of the things that makes it more likely than it would otherwise be is if Israel continues its efforts. Pressure on Hamas increases the probability that more of these hostages will come home alive and come home alive quickly. I'm absolutely convinced that's going to be the only way. If Israel backs off, we'll never see them.

It could be years or never. You know, it's interesting because we had a Zoom call this morning with Israelis, with French leaders, lawyers, with our team in Washington, D.C., about what to do with the European Union because we've got potential meetings in Brussels, France, in Strasbourg and Paris as well. A meeting with former heads of state and some current heads of state as well to keep their names up. Exactly what you talked to the hostages about, that is keeping this issue at the forefront of this because if you don't, unfortunately, new cycles change. They're doing that effective job in Israel and we're trying to do that outside of Israel. Having said that, to our audience, how important is it for our teams to be deployed globally in a situation like this, to have a global approach to handling this hostage situation and also the defense of Israel generally?

Jay, it's an absolute imperative. So you mentioned Israel, you mentioned Qatar. There'll be important actors in getting these men and women home and these infants home to their families. But the whole world needs to put pressure on their friends and allies. They need the French, the Europeans, more broadly, all have a role to play.

And so the ACLJ being connected, connected at the European Union, connected to the folks of the European court system. All of these folks have connectivity in places that can shape this story and make sure that everyone understands the imperative to get these people home now. We cannot allow it to be the case that somebody decides, hey, it turns out it's OK if you take hostages, that will protect you, it will prevent you and you can conduct rape and murder and you can take grandmothers and grandchildren and drag them off.

And if we hold them long enough, you can you can defend yourself using them as human shields. So we have to vindicate the central theme, which is we're going to get these folks home and then we're going to do the right thing and eliminate this threat when we collectively understand that and the whole world in Europe, more broadly in the Middle East, in Asia. When the whole world comes to accept that and understand it and only good work by folks like you at the ACLJ can do it, then we'll get these folks home more quickly.

And I pray we will never see another couple hundred hostages held by anyone at any time. Senator Sanders, who initially said that to ask Israel to engage in a ceasefire was ridiculous, you can't have a ceasefire with Hamas, has said this. The Netanyahu government or hopefully a new Israeli government must understand that not one penny will be coming to Israel from the United States unless there is a fundamental change in the military and political positions of Israel.

And then he listed it out. He said an end to the indiscriminate bombings, which have taken thousands of civilian lives, a significant pause in military operations so humanitarian assistance can come into the region. The right of displaced Gazans to return to their homes, no long-term Israeli reoccupation or blockade of Gaza, an end to settler violence in the West Bank and a freeze on settlement expansions, a commitment to broad peace talks for two-state solutions in the wake of war.

What planet is he reading? Hamas isn't agreeing to this, let alone Israel. You could say you're going to have a ceasefire with Hamas. Do you think Hamas is going to honor it? This is progressive insanity at its worst.

And frankly, it's most dangerous. And I think I just heard Bernie Sanders argue for a regime change in Israel. My goodness gracious, how quickly they forget that duly elected democratic governments get the opportunity to lead and then democracy will prevail. And now he's asking, he's saying the United States should change this government out and we should condition our support for Israel and the Jewish homeland on the change in the regime in Israel. That is just insane. And as for this idea that somehow Hamas is going to stand down, or for that matter in the West Bank, that the Palestinian Authority is an interlocutor on which you can rely and trust and build.

How many times do we have to be fooled? This is a failure to understand these are terrorists and the Palestinian Authority continues to pay people to terrorize citizens in Israel. To hear someone like Senator Sanders say it is disturbing, although unsurprising, but too many have this idea in their head that somehow you can negotiate with Iran, with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and it's simply not the case.

They are ideological, theocratic terrorists and there's no negotiating with them. Mike, do you think the theory we're putting over, the operating premise we're operating under the ACLJ right now is we handled the domestic side of it when we had them over. You were helping us greatly with that.

I know you're working, bringing their case to as many people as you can. We had them in the United States. Then now the shift, at least the shift in next month is going to be towards the European Union, the Council of Europe, some of the institutions including the European courts and maybe even some preliminaries with the ICC. How important is that in this battle for getting these hostages home and also for letting Israel do its job in dismantling Hamas? It's important in two fundamental ways, Jay.

I think you hit them both. The second one you spoke to is the Europeans have always been less willing to have unbridled support for Israel as the rightful homeland of the Jewish people. And so there is greater risk that they will more quickly begin to apply pressure to Israel to stop their efforts to defend their own nation. And so being there, talking to them, keeping this issue top of mind for them is an imperative. Second, they will have connective relationships that matter to get these hostages home to their families. And so the fact that the ACLJ is there on the ground talking to these people, working to explain to them this threat in a way that is rational and decent and consistent with the most basic ideas of humanity is an absolute imperative.

Europe is more likely to put pressure on Israel more quickly than the United States is and so being part of that, having the ACLJ be part of that conversation is very, very important. Mike, we appreciate it, appreciate your insight, appreciate you being part of our team here and keep talking about those hostages. I know you are as we try to get their release. Yes, sir. All right, folks, we've got one more segment of the broadcast coming up. We will take your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. We'll take your comments also coming in on Facebook, Rumble and YouTube.

More on Facebook, excuse me, more on YouTube and Rumble because Facebook's got a new thing going on we're trying to figure out. But we will take your calls at 800-684-3110. Don't forget, support the work of the ACLJ, ACLJ.org. We're in this faith and freedom drive. It's very important.

Who knew when we started this, we'd be in the middle of the situation with Israel. But here we are and your support is critical. Any amount you donate, we get a matching gift for. It's the faith and freedom drive of the ACLJ. You just go to ACLJ.org, your donation will be doubled, it will be matched. ACLJ.org slash faith and freedom and if you can make it a monthly gift, folks, and over 2,000 of you have, I don't have the current number but I think we're probably close to 2,300, ACLJ champions. My goal is to double the number of champions we have by next year.

The next 12 to 18 months I want to double the number of champions. That will have a dramatic impact on the ACLJ's ability to do things in the United States and around the globe. ACLJ.org, back with the last segment in just a moment. The last segment of the broadcast, we're taking your call at 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. We'll also take your comments as well on Facebook, Rumble, YouTube, wherever you're watching the broadcast, ACLJ.org.

But if you want to talk to us on the air, 800-684-3110, like Michelle, who's calling out of California, she's watching on ACLJ.org. Hi, Michelle. Hi, thank you. Sure. Okay, so I have a comment and a question. So my comment is that I think that the Colorado judge should be reprimanded for stating her personal opinion and that Lady Liberty should have a tear in her blindfold in her courtroom because this judge is clearly peaking. And then my question is, where are the protests calling for Hamas to surrender and to release the hostages? I don't understand. You've got a lot of good questions here.

Let me go to the first one first. The Colorado judge got one thing right. The 14th Amendment didn't apply to the President of the United States, therefore he's on the ballot. So I don't want to undersell the fact that we won that case. We did. Did I like that you put 100 pages of insurrection material when he's never been charged with insurrection? No, I thought that was ridiculous. I thought it was superfluous. I thought it was unnecessary. But nevertheless, that's the politics of a state court system. You're not in federal court there. As it relates to Hamas, listen, there were 300,000 people in Washington, D.C. supporting Israel, so let's not undersell what happened last week.

That was a big deal and that was a good result. So yeah, these protests for Hamas are being done by students who have no idea what these Hamas militant terrorists are actually doing. And if they do know what they're doing and they're supporting that, they should be ashamed of themselves and maybe engaged in criminal conduct themselves. Yeah, really these students are just regurgitating the rhetoric that they're hearing.

If you get into, I think if you've seen any interview, if you actually ask them substantive questions, they have no idea. They don't know who Hamas is. They don't understand that there is no Palestine. There is no state of Palestine. They don't understand who the Palestinian Authority is or who the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is. They don't understand any of the actors. They don't understand Israel's right under the law of armed conflict, the fact that Israel has been attacked.

They absolutely have the right under the law of armed conflict and the rule of proportionality to exterminate, eliminate the threat, which is Hamas. So they are very much clueless. Again, they are just regurgitating rhetoric that they're being fed.

They cannot back it up at all by any facts at all. Yeah, I think that the fact, the real truth of this is that they bought this line and it's been indoctrinated into them by the professors. That's who's done this.

So that's why you're seeing it this way. We've got some comments coming in on Rumble and we've got some comments. By the way, Kelly on YouTube says, I'm now an ACLJ champion.

Let me take a moment and explain this. Let me tell you what this ACLJ champion idea is. We have 15,000. We started the month of October with 15,000 ACLJ champions. That were people that give each and every month.

We realized quickly that we rarely talk about that. And if we were to ask you to do it and you were financially able, we could be having a significant impact on our revenue, especially for these emergency cases like this. This comes kind of like a building block of the organization. So our goal was then to double that, which means we need to net another 15,000.

Do we have a current? How many we've added? How many is it?

Well, I can't see it right now. Close to 2,000. Yeah. So we're just shy of 2,000 net, right?

Net. Because some people fall off because they either can't afford it anymore. We understand that. So that's 2,000 in a month and a half. If we could do that each and every month, we'd get there, folks, in the course of a year.

So we're really pushing for that and we appreciate it. Comment on Rumble. I hate to say it, but some conservative Christians are making matters worse than it is better when it comes to Israel.

Yes. I'm finding that very disheartening. I do not like the comments of Candace Owen. I do not like the comments, I'll be honest, of Tucker Carlson. I think they're naive.

I think they have no idea what they're talking about. I do not like the comments of some of the churches that are using moral equivalency as they pray for this situation. There's not a moral equivalent in dealing with Hitler. There's not a moral equivalent in dealing with ISIS. There's not a moral equivalent with dealing with Hamas. There's no moral equivalent here. So get that out of your lexicon of prayer. Okay? So you can pray for peace in the region.

We all want that. But this peace is only going to happen when you eliminate Hamas. Look, folks, read the Old Testament.

This is happening right before our eyes, okay? So, you know, I understand it, but I am dismayed with some of the conservatives that are coming out against Israel. I find it distasteful.

I find it disgusting. There's also pressure on the left on the pro-Israel Democratic caucuses getting pressure from the AOCs of their party and the Talibs. And this goes on and on. So there's a lot of pressure. That's why we've got to keep the fight up on Capitol Hill, around the globe as well. We've got another comment that came in on Rumble.

Let me see if I can pull it up here. This is, Yvonne Rumble says, all taxpayers should demand no federal funding or grants to give in to university that support this. I'm with Yves.

I am totally with you on that. If you're supporting this stuff, you should not be getting money. And let me tell you, donors, find out what you're supporting.

For goodness sake. You really have no idea. And what's happening in these university campuses, Cece, is just, it's criminal.

It is crazy. And what you said even about, you know, Christians and their positions, it's a lack of education. They do not know the facts and they're regurgitating things that they've heard without understanding really the history and the facts of the situation. And it's the same thing that's happening on these campuses. These students that are pro-Hamas, that are doing the rallies, they have no idea what the truth of the situation is. And they're literally just regurgitating and spewing rhetoric that has come from the terrorist organizations, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. That's in Iran.

They are just regurgitating those talking points and the rhetoric. Well, and then we've got another rubble comment. And this is, I'm going to end it with this because I'll talk about it. It says, the universities add to the indoctrination of the students, but the foundation of it is laid in the public schools and probably some private schools. You're right.

You're absolutely right. You've got to teach the history. And you've got to teach an accurate history. Actually, on this program, Each and Every Day, we try to give you a bit of a history lesson, too, so you understand the scope and nature of what's going on. One thing you saw today, you saw the scope and breadth of the ACLJ, whether it's an domestic case involving election integrity, which we handled in one of the 14th Amendment issue out in Colorado, whether it's getting Mike Pompeo or senior counselor for Global Affairs, who's assisting us with these hostages, to give you his insight on how to handle this as we put a strategy together. As it's our teams on Washington, D.C., that were all over Capitol Hill on this just two weeks, not even two weeks ago.

Now a team's going to Europe to handle it there. We're not stopping. Your support becomes really critical. We are in the last 10 days of our ACLJ Faith and Freedom Drive. This is really it for this month. And we need to end strong here. And I know that, folks, you've been hearing this for three weeks, but we've got to tell you. There is no doubt that with the election integrity cases we just won in Colorado, the fight that we have going on with an appeal of that, the fight in Virginia and West Virginia is real. Then we turn over to our Global Efforts on behalf of Israel.

That's not stopping. We're preparing for massive meetings across Europe next month to defend the hostages. In order to meet these historic demands, we need your support.

I'm not afraid to ask for it. You can have your tax-deductible gift doubled through our Faith and Freedom Drive. We're in the last 10 days of it, and it's double dollar for dollar. Go to ACLJ.org to donate today. And if you can also become an ACLJ champion with a recurring monthly donation, that makes a gigantic – I can't tell you what a gigantic difference that makes to us at the ACLJ. So let me encourage you right now. Join with our Faith and Freedom Drive at ACLJ.org. And if you're able to, and only if you're able, and you can make that gift a monthly gift, well, then you become an ACLJ champion. And that helps us prepare for the next battle around the corner that we don't even know about what that is yet. ACLJ.org, Faith and Freedom. That's the way to do it. We'll talk to you tomorrow.