BREAKING: Deal to Release Israeli Hostages Imminent

This is Jay Sekulow. We've got breaking news, a deal to release the Israeli hostages imminent. 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. Welcome to the broadcast, everyone. And late, early this morning, I should say, late later in the afternoon Israel time, I got word that there was the negotiations for a hostage release, at least for some of the hostages, had gotten much more serious. In fact, I was provided information about what the deal would look like and the way the Israeli War Cabinet is meeting right now, as well as the government that's, they have a separate government cabinet. So you've got a war cabinet, which is certain individuals. You've got the regular coalition cabinet.

They're all meeting. There was a tense meeting yesterday between hostage families and the government because obviously there's this issue of what is priority one? Is priority one defeating Hamas or is it getting the hostages back? I view it one and the same.

I think they're the same. But Israel's leadership is making clear that job one here is to end and eradicate Hamas as a threat to Israel, period. But on the hostages, it looks like, at least here's what they're saying at this point, if 53 hostages are roughly, and that, by the way, that number could go up to 90, would be released.

That would be the women, children, elderly, and some that are also individuals that are sick. So those would be the ones released and the Israelis would be leasing hostages. And it's about, is it a three to one about, what did they say, 150?

150 for the 53 to 100. That's not unusual in that part of the world because of the nature of the way that hostage negotiations go. Israeli's view is one is Jewish life is worth that, multiple of anyone else because of the size of the state, frankly. But it's a process and it hasn't been decided yet. There will still be over a hundred hostages more than likely, but this would at least be CC, a framework of a starting point. And we've been, by the way, CC and I have been working on this with our team. Literally every morning at nine o'clock, we have a major call with leaders from all over the world, lawyers from all over the world, policy people from all over the world working on this situation.

Yeah. I mean, it is encouraging that some of the hostages, and I do hope that it's up to half of them, are going to be released. Obviously, then there's still a concern with the hostages that are left as they've taken about 250. But this is definitely a start and if they release the women and the children, those are the ones that really we do care about their health and safety.

I mean, there was a baby that was nine months old, now 10 months old. For Hamas to be taking care of a child, you do worry about the safety. So I hope that this is just the beginning of the negotiations and that every single hostage is ultimately released. Of course, politically, and this is what's interesting, Logan, politically, I'm looking at it, I just got an alert. Politically, something's just happened with the European Commission.

So let me tell you what it is. The European Commission, this is bad, was going to defund Hamas. That was on the table to defund Hamas and they say there is no evidence to justify a defunding of the Palestinian Authority and its relationships with these entities. This is where the European side of this is very, very complicated. Yeah, absolutely. We'd love to hear from you too. We have just one minute in this segment left and we'd love to get your thoughts on this. Give us a call, 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. We've got a packed show today. We'll have obviously CC's on with us.

We have Rick Grenell joining us later. We're going to keep this discussion going. So be a part of that as well. You can also be a part of our faith and freedom drive right now. Go to ACLJ.org. Join the ACLJ.

Join us in the fight right now. Be part of the faith and freedom drive. Go to ACLJ.org and consider becoming an ACLJ champion. When you do become a champion, that means you donate each month to the ACLJ and that's made a huge difference. By the way, we are up to 17,500 champions. My goal next year would be close to 30,000 by the end of the year. That would be a huge impact for the ACLJ. All that means is you're donating monthly. So this month you donate, it's matched in our faith and freedom drive and if you can give monthly, you become an ACLJ champion.

The word is that the European Union has done an investigation and has said that Hamas is not diverting the money to ill-gotten activities. This is where we've got to be very cautious folks about any of these things. We'll be back with more. We'll take calls.

800-684-3110. We are taking your phones. 1-800-684-3110 also is a big part right now of our faith and freedom drive. We are obviously talking about the imminent deal that looks like it's going to take place with the hostage releases. Obviously, Dad, we just make sure people know this will not be everyone. This could potentially be a massive amount of hostages. And look, it's a miracle that 100 are potentially still alive. Frankly, the fact that there's going to be a hostage exchange should be a good sign for all the families, including our clients, because that means they're alive. By the way, part of this is also to get a list from the Red Cross as to who the hostages are. And for one of our clients in particular, that's important. Let me read you what the deal is. I got this early this morning.

Here's what it is. Hamas will release at least 53 hostages. We now think that's 90. And there may be more added later. The two cabinets and the government will meet tonight, that's the Israeli government, to approve the deal under which Israel is expected to accept at least 53 abductee, children, elderly women, and mothers, and release about 150 Palestinian women and children. Hamas will receive a four-day respite during which it will try to locate 20 more abductees.

There are 20 that they're saying that they don't have custody of. We think they're with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is not good news. The key is the three Palestinian prisoners for every Israeli abductee and the days of respite, will that give them time to regroup? Look, when you're dealing with a military operation, stopping is very difficult. But I'm sure there's been an assessment made by the military that this is something they can do, or at least they think they can do, Logan, in order to proceed on this.

Yeah, I think that's right. And I think that there are comments coming in, maybe one from government from Rumble from Comfort said, how do you make a deal with a terrorist organization and trust them when there is this sort of situation? How do you even know that they're going to live up to their end of the bargain? You don't?

And Cece smirked at that, and I'll let her talk about that. But you have to just operate with your eyes open here. As if they are a legitimate, you have to deal with them as if they're a legitimate government. You got to deal with them as if they're a legitimate negotiating power. They are the authority in Gaza. Qatar is the intermediary, but they are terrorists. So nothing they say you should believe.

Yeah. And that's really my smirk is because every time any of these deals kind of come to the table, my initial statement is, well, we'll see. We'll see what's happened. Because we actually have, there have been days previous that they said there are deals on the table.

So we'll see. I pray that Hamas does do the right thing and they do release these hostages. And just like Logan said, it is encouraging that they have 100 that are still alive to be released. It's also important for people to understand, we filed up on these people at the United Nations just last week.

Yes. So we filed a communication with working group on enforced or involuntary disappearances and their mandate is to find any citizen who's abducted. They are under a mandate to try and find their location and work with the forces that actually abducted these victims. And so we are actively, we have several cases there and we're adding several cases more. Six more that we're going to add this week, including one with women and children. So we're going to get on that right away. Logan, we got calls coming in.

We'll take calls on this 1-800-684-3110. Obviously this is unfolding. So, you know, things can change drastically in the next 24 hours, 48 hours.

We had plans that we were working on for overseas for Europe. You don't know now if that's going to actually happen. I mean, it's not going to happen the same way because of this kind of situation.

Yeah. And I was just in New York City over the weekend and you have to say there was a bit of hope on the streets, if you will, because I was in some of the more Jewish areas and to see that it wasn't this. The TV kind of portrays it as New York right now is under complete assault by Hamas sympathizers.

And yes, there's some of that. You see some of the posters torn down on the streets everywhere. We all see a lot are still up. You see a lot of people who are there in support. You see a lot of Israeli flags flying.

So, you know, it shows that America has not necessarily forgotten, even if the media has made us felt that way. And these are some positive movements. Yeah. Let's go ahead and take some calls. Let's go to Deborah, who's calling in Illinois online to you're on the air. Hi, Deborah.

Hey. Yeah, I was just saying that or thinking that it's kind of there. The European seems like they're supporting both sides there. It's not really much different from the Biden people who they're so their state say they stand with Israel, but yet they're funding Iran who's supporting Hamas.

So, so look, here's a, it's an interesting dynamic at the European Union and that's where we were planning on going next actually. And that is they came out initially and said they condemned Hamas. They told Hamas to stop utilizing hospitals as a launching pads. It made them legitimate military targets under international law. And they were back and they backed Israel completely. There was a lot of concern expressed to Hamas, to EU about money they're giving to Gaza, which goes in the hands of Hamas. And they said they did an internal review.

I just got that information sent to me minutes ago and they found that there was no misuse of funds. You know that's not correct. Money is fungible. It does free up money for them to do terrorist activities. The European Union is conflicted. There are countries within the European Union that are supportive of Israel.

There's some that are not. We will be dispatching a team regardless of whether Americans go or not. We will be dispatching a team from the European Center for Law and Justice, they're already working on this, to Brussels and probably Paris in the next probably in about two weeks, unless everything changes again, which it could. Yeah. This is changing minute by minute. Literally we wake up in the morning and what we decided the last thing last night has totally changed. And here again, with this potential hostage release, that does change some of the items that we had on the table.

Well, it was interesting because we were planning on a major, we were going to probably have 10 or 15 ACLJ, ECLJ folks both in Brussels for the European Parliament and also in Strasbourg and then in Paris for meetings. What's happening now is a lot of that dynamic is going to change. So this is where flexibility in these negotiations, we know this, we do a lot of hostage negotiations, is part of it. But the Qataris, obviously, if they are able to broker this, Qatar then has made a major move, Logan, here that maybe they've got a window open to continue whittling this down. This is a process of getting, you know, the more you hit the targets in Gaza, the more likely it is Hamas is going to need a reprieve, the more likely it is we will get hostages released.

Sure. And there are comments going in, obviously it's a positive move, that hostage is getting free, but I guess there is just that concern of what does that mean in terms of the ongoing conflict and the potential for what you consider Israeli win. Israel's goal is the elimination of Hamas. That is the military target. That is priority, for a lot of them it's priority one, priority two is the hostage relief, for some it's the same.

It's all the same. I think, look, Hamas has to be eliminated. Gaza cannot be turned over to the Palestinian Authority. That's where the Biden administration has us totally wrong. That will not work.

It doesn't work. Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the PA yesterday said that Israel was responsible for the massacre at the concert, that it was some drone that went awry. And this is absurd. But of course he denied the Holocaust too. You know, Mahmoud Abbas got his PhD from a university in Russia.

And you know where these, and the old Soviet Union. So you know where these people are coming from. So they're not a trustworthy partner. We've got a comment coming in on Rumble saying, hey, Hamas is a terrorist organization. How do you trust a terrorist organization? And the answer to that is you don't trust the terrorist organization, but you work as, but they are the authority.

I hate even saying that. So you have to work with them at least to try to secure the release of some of these. Yeah. And Gaza right now, it is Hamas who is the governing authority there. And yes, they are terrorists and yes, you cannot trust them.

That is all true. But when you're trying to negotiate the release of hostages that Hamas is in physical control of, you have to, you know, really just trust that they will do the right thing. And I think that's where international eyes and international pressure helps because Hamas, I think maybe feels more pressure that they need to honor their word when the world is watching them. Well, this is what we've got. This is Joy on Rumble said, how do you make a deal with a terrorist organization and trust them?

You don't trust them. You could still possibly make a deal. I mean, does that, does that make sense?

Yeah, I think so. Look, we're headed into a break here. I do encourage people to call 1-800-684-3110, but we are headed towards the end now of our faith and freedom drive, but we are hopeful that the hostages will be freed, but there's going to be a big fight up ahead. Well, they're not going to free all the hostages because that's, they'll lose their entire leverage. So it's going to make our job actually more difficult once the women and children are gone, because that's the empathy, that's the sympathy, that's the emotion, but we're going to have clients that we represent that are still going to be held by Hamas, but we're also going to find out if they're alive because they're going to produce a list. That is critical. Some of our clients were wounded when they were taken in.

So that, that becomes part of this. I want to say this to our, our donors. We are, as Logan said, we've got about 10 days left, a little bit less on our faith and freedom drive. And we are, it's hard for me to describe for you the amount of work that's going into on the hostage situation in defending Israel. We are literally on zoom calls every morning with lawyers and advisors and government affairs people from all over the world. We do it through CCs on it.

We do it every morning, usually six days a week, to get ready for what's the kind of the day messaging points. And obviously a lot of things changed in the last 24 hours and may change more tonight. This is all happening because of your support for the ACLJ.

None of this would happen, whether it's the hostages getting freed, whether it's six new UN filings that we're about to do, major meetings in Europe next week, that'll be conducted by our ECLJ team and others. And at the home front, we've got a new thing, which we're going to get into maybe later today or possibly tomorrow, the IRS targeting conservative groups again. All of that's happening. We're in our matching, our faith and freedom drive. Any amount you donate is matched. And if you can make that gift monthly, you become an ACLJ champion.

And that drastically changes how we can engage these things. So I encourage you to become part of the faith and freedom drive at ACLJ.org forward slash faith and freedom. Any amount you donate will be doubled. We'll be back with more, including your phone calls at 800-684-3110 right after this. Welcome back to the broadcast, everyone.

Taking your calls at 800-684-3110. One of the things we talked about this morning on our call, because if you're just joining us, it looks like upwards of at least 53 hostages, maybe as high as 100 may be released, which would be a good start. It's going to shift very much to where we've been doing a diplomatic aspect of it. That's why we're in Washington.

That's why our teams are in Europe. But it also looks like it could be shifting, Logan, to our clients. We just showed this in a break to our people watching on our social media platforms. One of our clients was on Fox and Friends this morning. The question there is, it becomes a media campaign to keep it in the forefront.

We've done a lengthy, what do you call it? Not a documentary, I guess, but a special presentation that we'll reveal at some point here soon. It's changing each and every day.

Each and every hour, there's so much more. I do think that you may be seeing it as a perspective a bit different than I think Americans will, which I think most Americans will still see that there's 100 plus hostages. I understand where you think there may be a diplomatic legal reason why these are different kinds of hostages. I don't think, though, the American people really feel any different between whether it's a woman or a child or a 20-year-old man.

No, but it's going to affect the sympathies of the world community because they're going to try to... And you make a really good point. These are not enemy combatants. So the fact that these are military-aged, and they may or may not be in the military, they're probably in the reserves, but they were not taken as a prisoner of war. They were not taken as an adversary combatant, which would put in a whole different framework. They're still civilian hostages. Everyone is a member of the military in Israel. So it's a bit different.

To age about 50 and sometimes older. So it's different when the situation may think, well, these guys are all military guys. Well, everyone is. It's a bit different. We've got to keep it in the forefront politically until every one of them are home. But let me tell you this, Israel has got to eliminate Hamas. That cannot be a condition that we stop the war. The ceasefire thing is this is a reprieve for four or five days.

It's mostly you get the hostages out, I'm sure, and you get supplies in. I do want to say, President Biden made a statement. This is not an audio statement. This is a written statement that came out.

I believe he was speaking during a meeting at the White House and they released this. I'll read it to you now. But we're now very, very close.

Very close. We can bring some of these hostages home very soon, but I don't want to get into the details of all the things because nothing is done until it's done. And if we have more to say, we will. But things are looking good at this moment. So that's a very positive sign. Yeah. And we know also that Israel's war cabinet and their government cabinet are meeting right now. It's evening in Israel time to see if they will accept it. If they do, they believe the hostage release will be starting as early as, could be as early as tomorrow. So there is a lot of, it's a lot of moving parts and you've got to be flexible here and respond at the speed of relevant at the same time and realize you're dealing with people that the day that you think the release is going to happen could just say, no, we're not going to do it.

Yeah. And really, I think that what has helped get to this point is the international pressure that we have seen the Council of Europe, that we have seen the European Union, that we have seen the United States State Department, we have seen Congress come out, condemn Hamas and support Israel's right to self-defense. And that needs to continue. And like you just said, the European Union is also already trying to kind of backpedal a little bit of saying, oh, we're tracking the funding. And we don't really think that the funding that we're giving to Gaza, which is Hamas, is really going into the wrong hands, which we know that's wrong. We know it's being used to attack Israel.

So we just need to keep the international pressure on. Let's take a phone call. All right. Let's go ahead and go take Chandler first, actually, because it's a question that a lot of people have about very specifics. And we can at least answer that. Sadly, probably we don't know.

But Chandler, go ahead of your question. So Baby was born sadly into the hostage situation. And I was just curious to know if there was any mention of a maybe four-day-old infant and his mother or her mother being released. If this does come to fruition, if the arrangement comes to fruition, I believe that those are exactly the type of hostages that will be released. And there's two reasons for this. Number one, that's the agreement that has been worked out. Number two is, logistically, I'm telling you another reason Hamas is doing this, logistically, caring for these children, caring for the elderly, which are bargaining chips for them. And it's very difficult for them logistically because they are moving. They've moved into, by the way, they've moved south. They say they've moved into the south portion of Gaza as of now because they're pushing out of the... So there's going to be some activity down there. That's what I think it is. But I would be optimistic.

I won't be optimistic until I see them released. But I think, yes, the baby and the mother should be in that group. And that's what we've heard so far is the deal is women, elderly, and children.

So you would assume, again, we don't make any assumptions, but if you are making an assumption that it would be this mother and her newborn child. But understand that the ACLJ, we're really on top of this. I mean, we've got about five lawyers, six lawyers in the United States working on this. We've got our, really our office in Strasbourg right now, four of our team there, this is what they're doing until these hostages are home, are working on this. Like I said, there's a major thing happening in Europe on the 5th of December. So it's moving as far as who's going to participate right now because of the situation's moving.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's go ahead and take another phone call. Let's go to Cheryl who's calling in New York online for it.

You're watching on Facebook. Thank you, Cheryl. You're on the air.

One of the few on Facebook. Hi, thank you. Go ahead, Cheryl. Thank you for watching. Hi. Hey. Sure.

Thank you. So I love Netanyahu. I pray for him all the time. I think that this is to me like reminiscent of what happened with Gilad Shalid, if you remember, many years ago. And he was being held hostage by Hamas for like five years. And Netanyahu kind of, you know, gave in and released all of these Palestinian prisoners. And many of them went back to the battlefield. And many of them were involved in this terror attack. Yes, you're right.

And I worked on the Gilad Shalid matter. So I understand exactly what you're saying. Let me tell you what the difference is going to be this time. There's going to be no battlefield for them to go back to. Israel's going to eliminate Hamas.

It's going to be done. I mean, the military goal here is the elimination of Hamas as an operating entity and threat. And Gaza is not going to be run by Hamas.

It's not going to be run by the Palestinian Authority. The world, that part of the world, Logan, is about to change drastically. Yeah. And I think that unless something major happens, a major change, I think that's what people are curious about with stuff like the negotiations that are happening right now. Just does that put a halt to those plans? No. And I think that there, you know, I think there'll be some that, you don't even hear the peacenix in Israel calling for that right now. So no, I don't think so.

I just don't, I don't just, I don't think so. Let me say this. We only got two minutes left of this segment. We got another half hour of the broadcast. We are opening our phone lines for your calls at 1-800-684-3110.

That's 800-684-3110. The fight to free the Israeli hostages continues. And now it's entered, about to enter, we hope, a new phase where we may have as many as 50 to 100 released. That would be a big win. It's not the end of the game.

Yeah, it's not a game. It's not the end of the battle, but it is a, that will be a significant move. We are also in the last 10 days of our Faith and Freedom Drive, and we want you to participate. This is the ACLJ Faith and Freedom Drive. We hope the hostages are free to at least a group of them, but there's going to be more to fight for. We are filing six new UN meetings this week.

Our teams are going to be in Europe next month for major work on this issue. We also have an old fight that's resurfaced. The IRS continuing now to target conservatives. We are going to be representing, it looks like one of the people that have been, one of the groups that have been targeted on that. We have our FOIA lawsuit.

We're getting this on tomorrow's broadcast. We have a lot of interesting information about that through our litigation. In order to meet these really historic challenges that we're facing right now, we really need your support. Any amount you donate is doubled. So when you donate and it's go right to ACLJ.org forward slash faith and freedom, it's doubled. So if you donate $20, we get a matching gift. We've had people that have donated more. We have people that donate less.

Whatever it is is fine. If you can donate monthly, you become an ACLJ champion. And the report that I got today is when we started this campaign, Logan, six, I guess six weeks ago, we were 15,000. We now have 17,500. That makes a huge difference. I think it was actually closer to 14,000.

I think it was 15,000. So yeah, we've added a lot of new people and we couldn't do it without you. So become an ACLJ champion right now.

Go to ACLJ.org. Obviously, all donations made are effectively doubled right now and we appreciate all of that support as well. So if you can just make a one-time donation, that's fine.

Do it right now or become an ACLJ champion. Again, a reoccurring donor. We'll be right back with the second half hour of Secular. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Secular. And now your host, Jay Secular. Welcome back to the broadcast, everyone. Let me get you up to date. So here's what's happened.

I'm going to read it verbatim. This is what I got this morning from our colleagues in Israel and this is what is being proposed. It is significant because it is at least a sign that we are close to a release of hostages.

This is what it would look like, at least phase one of this would look like. Fifty-three hostages will be initially released and that could go up as high as 90 or 100. The Israeli cabinet, both the War Cabinet and the Government Cabinet is meeting tonight to approve the deal under which Israel is expected to accept 53, at least 53 abductees. This will include children, elderly women and mothers and release about 150 Palestinian women and children. Hamas will receive a four-day respite in the fighting during which we'll try to locate at least 20 more abductees. It's thought that those abductees may be with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

So that's where probably they are. We'll know tonight, we'll know within hours, actually, if the Israelis are going to accept it. What's interesting about this and I think important, and this is important, these things, you've got to be very flexible because they could change on a moment's notice. Absolutely, and we've seen that, like I said earlier, that we go to bed on these calls and these texts and we have one cause of action or plan of action in place and by the time we wake up, it's all changed early in the morning. So we do have to be able to kind of just turn on a dime and just keep hoping and praying that the hostages are released however that happens.

Yeah, so look, it's a process. Like I said, we've got our European team working on the EU portion of it right now. We did it here in the United States. We're looking at the international laws that will apply in this. Remember, they're not prisoners of war.

And of course, Hamas isn't going to apply by international law of the armed conflict or the Geneva Convention. This is a very good question that's coming in. Can we go ahead and do we have time to take it, Logan, or should we hold it for the next time? Yeah. Yeah, we can go ahead.

We got time. Let's go to Susan of Maryland on Line 3. Hi, Susan.

Thank you. First of all, Israel cannot accept a list or pictures of hostages that they negotiate for because AI capabilities could falsify those images. Israel must have a visible hostage corridor provided by the Red Cross that Israel can visibly verify 240 citizens in leadership to see the bodies verified or cease fire that they're negotiating. Otherwise, they have no idea what they're dealing with. Listen, you're correct.

I will say this. Our colleague, Kalev Myers, a lawyer that we work closely with in Israel, who's part of our coalition here that we're working on this, has met with the head of the International Red Cross in Geneva. And I expect that part of this is going to be exactly what you said, independent third party going in and verify. Some of our clients want to know if their kids or brothers and sisters are alive.

I mean, that's a big part of this right now. That's a lot of their concern is just we just want to know that our brother, our sister, you know, whatever it is, that they're even alive because they have heard nothing, 45 days and they've heard nothing. They've heard nothing from the Red Cross. They've heard nothing from the international community.

They've heard nothing from Hamas. All right, we're gonna take calls when we come back from the break. 1-800-684-3110. Rick Grenell is going to join us.

You know, I was thinking about this yesterday, Logan. I had sent something late last night to Israel and they wanted to know who we're working with. And when you put that list together, the people that we're working with, and I did it last night, you know, it started with Attorney General John Ashcroft back after 9-11 when he left the Bush administration in 04. It's Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State and Director of the CIA.

It's Rick Grenell, former Director of National Intelligence and Ambassador to Germany. We've got, of course, Tulsi Gabbard, a member of the United States Congress that works with the broadcast. So it's an unbelievable team that we've assembled, but none of that happens without the support of our donors.

That's right. You can become one of those ACLJ supporters right now during the Faith of Freedom Drive, which is for the month of November, which we appreciate right now. Obviously, we are working nonstop to get the hostages free. We are working on also the potential new IRS targeting that's coming up. There's so much happening in the world of the ACLJ.

And we've got a brand new feature film coming out this week. We couldn't do any of that without your support. We're in the last 10 days of the Faith and Freedom Drive. Make your tax deductible gift today and it will be doubled dollar for dollar.

Go to ACLJ.org. Again, donate today. Donations will be doubled.

You can also check that and become an ACLJ champion, which is someone who said a dedicated, becoming a reoccurring supporter each and every month, which helps give us a great baseline budget. We'll be right back. Thanks and happy birthday.

I appreciate it. And your son texted me last night. I love that I get texts from Riker. What did he just remind you? By the way, tomorrow. Yes, that's what he did.

He said, you know, tomorrow is my dad's birthday. Don't forget. So do something. So there we did it. Rick, welcome. Welcome.

It's good to have you. Let me say this. I want to get your comment on the hostage situation first, that there's a possible release of at least some of the women and children. Get your reaction to that.

In Israel. Well, first of all, happy to say Logan. Thank you.

I hope you have a great day today. Look, I think my reaction is we should not be advocating that hostages into groups. We need all of the hostages. At least we don't have all of the hostages. At least then we shouldn't give any deal. Once you start separating these hostages, you are creating a system where the remaining hostages have a higher bounty on their head. This is a really bad precedent. We should be demanding that Hamas release all of the hostages.

They don't need a long pause for this. They just need to have political will to release them. I think it's important that our Secretary of State be camped out in Qatar and putting the pressure on Hamas leaders who are comfortably ensconced in Doha.

And they are calling the shots inside Gaza in a comfortable place where they're counting their money. And I think this is unacceptable. So that's our position.

I mean, they think they should just all be real. First of all, we need to be accounted for first. We don't even know who they are. I mean, we say there's 243. There's been no list. There's been no verification. There's been no Red Cross.

No one's gone in and checked anything. The government there in Israel is under unbelievable internal pressure, as you can imagine. And you would understand it better than anybody. So this is a process. Hamas has to be eliminated. Job one is the military has to eliminate Hamas. Job one, A, with that is get the hostages back.

I don't think they have to be distinct. I wanted to get your sense, though, on the split that's emerging between the Biden administration on the attacks on U.S. troops as to how to handle that. Well, look, you know, first of all, I'm frustrated with some of our House leadership, and especially committee chairman, because we don't know what the intel showed. We don't know the intel failures of Afghanistan. We don't know the intel failures of Israel and Gaza. We literally are in the dark, but we don't have our chairman who are pushing for Avril Haines and others to come forward and to be transparent about what's happening. I think that there is discussion within the U.S. government, within our allies' conversation about what to do next. But first we should start with what do we know and what were the failures, if any? Did we just miss the analytical part?

We knew the raw data, but we just didn't put it together with the analysts. But we need to know the facts before we figure out how to move forward and what to do. Lastly, I'll just say, you know, on behalf of the governments that have to deal with hostages, it's a very difficult situation because you don't want to encourage new hostages, so you have to think about those issues. But at the same time, you want to be sensitive to the families who undoubtedly want their loved one back no matter what. There was a meeting yesterday between the families and the war cabinet and also the Knesset. It was very heated because the concern the families were having is that the priority one should be the hostages. And some of the leadership of Israel said priority one is the elimination of Hamas. We also want to get the hostages back.

And they did not like the order of which the priorities are. But like you said, Rick, these are really complex. We've done hostage negotiations. You've done them. We've worked together on some. And these are very complicated. And you got to think nine dimensionally in these things. And I don't like separating the spheres either because what it's also going to do is once you get, let's say, they say maybe up to 100.

Let's say you get 100 release. And the only people that are holding then are Israelis, right? They let the internationals go. I'm assuming they do that eventually in this first five, is the Israelis, mostly males that are, and some females that are military. And everybody says, well, now it's an Israel military problem. It's really not a world problem anymore.

I am very worried about that happening. Look, it's very difficult for governments to make policy in order to find the individual hostages. I get that the families need to make this a priority and they need to keep pressuring.

And let's all pray for peace for those families and for safety for the hostages. But at the end of the day, the government is responsible for protecting the group, for protecting all of their citizens. And they cannot make short term decisions as hard and as difficult as it is.

You need government officials who are very confident that they are focused on protecting the citizenry and not making dramatic emotional mistakes. There was comments yesterday in a lot of the Israeli media, and I had this discussion with my wife yesterday, and that is the job one has to be here, the survival of the state of Israel and the elimination of these threats. That means right now it's Hamas, then it's Hezbollah and ultimately it means Iran. And if that's not done, if that's not priority one, and listen, we're advocates for the hostages, Israel is in real jeopardy. United States is also in a very unusual situation here, Rick, with these 61 attacks on our basis. And the response from the Biden administration is muted at best and conflicting. It's totally conflicting. Remember, we go back to John Kirby two weeks ago saying that they did not have specific intelligence that showed attacks on Americans.

That's just not true. We've seen 61 attacks, and clearly we have enough intelligence to do some pinpricking as a response. There is a difference between a credible threat of military action and just a threat of military action, because right now what we have is the US military and the White House are on defense. They are trying to figure out how to pinprick and do some little things while we have multiple attacks on US government personnel and US government property.

We need to be able to push back in a very serious way and send the strong message that you should not be shooting down our drones, you should not be attacking Americans or American bases. And yet this continues, so they are not getting the message. Houthis aren't getting the message. Iran is not getting the message.

Hamas is not getting the message. Somehow the messenger is not breaking through, and the messenger is Anthony Lincoln and Joe Biden. Let's go ahead and take a phone call. Logan at 800-684-3110. Julie's calling in California, line one. You're on the air.

Hi, Jay and Logan. My comment, first of all, is about donating to the ACLJ. I'm so happy that for once you are calling us champions instead of victims.

I'm so sick of getting points for being a victim. And we're champions when we donate to the ACLJ every month. So that's great.

And during the faith and freedom, you double it. And I'm just all for that. And I'm going to give as much as I possibly can this month. My question is, I'm not clear, even though you've talked about it, what exactly the ACLJ can do to convince Hamas to release prisoners, because it's not like you can sue Hamas, and they're going to care. So let me let me let CC do it, and then Rick will respond as well.

Go ahead. Yeah, and real quickly, the ACLJ, they are able to, our European Center for Law and Justice, they're able to lobby at the Council of Europe and the European Parliament, and we've helped with resolutions that condemn Hamas and absolutely support Israel. We also are able to file with the UN working group on enforced or involuntary disappearances. And that's on behalf of specific clients, Israeli family members that have hostage members.

We're about to have six more of those. And Rick, you worked the UN for, you know, it's a it's a rough place, and I don't like it. But you got it. I believe in the ministry of presence. You got to be there.

You were there for a decade. Look, you got to be there. You got to be able to pull the levers to be very specific about what you're asking for. And for Julie's question, what I would also respond is ACLJ does a great job through all of our partners to be able to put pressure on people like Jake Sullivan who are making these decisions. Once you articulate a very serious and thoughtful position about making sure that pressure Qatar, for instance, having experts that understand what levers to pull is exactly the type of pressure that ACLJ needs to be doing.

And I would say they're in a very unique position to have the team members that we have to be able to push on those issues. Rick, appreciate it. As always, glad you're part of the team.

Thank you for your comments and your assistance in so many of these important matters. Folks, we're getting ready to go to the last segment. We'll take your calls. We're going to talk about our upcoming movie.

Excited about that. But also, you could support the work of the ACLJ. We are in our faith and freedom drive, as the caller mentioned. Any amount you donate is doubled. If you can do it monthly, you make a monthly gift, then you're an ACLJ champion. And we're at over 17,500 of those ACLJ champions right now. My goal, our goal, I should say, the team's goal, is by next year we have 30,000. So we're working on that. Your support makes a huge difference. ACLJ.org.

It's faith and freedom drive. And any amount you donate is going to be doubled. So that's great for us.

And November, December are our biggest months of the year. We're going to take calls coming back. We're also going to talk about a brand new movie, Logan. You got seven seconds to promote it.

That's right. jinglesmells.movie. Brand new Christmas movie coming out on Thanksgiving. Welcome back to Sekulow. Wrapping up today's broadcast, talking about a new project that we have going on at the ACLJ. I think what's been very important to us is how we can make sure our message is heard on all forms of media. So whether that is on traditional terrestrial radio, whether that is on podcasts, whether that's being live on something like Rumble or on Facebook or YouTube, we're available everywhere. But we also know that you have to be in the courtrooms.

We have to be fighting for you from a legal perspective. But also one of the biggest things that we can do to affect culture is to get involved in the space of entertainment. And that is exactly what we're doing right now with one of our first ever feature films. We have partnered with Sean Hannity. Sean and I are executive producers of a brand new movie that is coming exclusively, premiering exclusively on Rumble on Thanksgiving Day.

It is called Jingle Smells. It is a Christmas comedy without the Hollywood agenda, but with messages that are going to be important to you and your family. A lot of the important topics we talk about here at the ACLJ are covered in this, what is a fun packaging.

We've said, silly package. You unwrap it to find that it has a lot of heart, whether that's standing up to cancel culture, whether that's supporting our military and what that looks like. And honestly, it's just a great story about redemption and hope and about Christmas spirit. And it is an incredible piece. I'm very proud of it.

One of the co-writers of it. And I hope you guys will all join me. It's my birthday. I'm going to ask you for my birthday. What a birthday present. What I would love you to do is go buy Jingle Smells. It's coming out on Thanksgiving.

We did that intentionally. So Thanksgiving night, you have something to do with your family. I know a lot of you will be sitting around, not sure what to do. Well, this is a completely funny and also family centered film. While it's not necessarily a kid's movie, I don't want to make you think if you don't have kids that you're not going to enjoy it. It's a comedy. More like in the 90s Christmas, 90s Christmas comedies we grew up with, whether that is A Christmas Vacation or Home Alone.

But we stay kind of like the TBS version. Great cast. You have John Schneider, obviously from the Dukes of Hazzard. You have Academy Award nominee, Eric Roberts. You've got James Storm. You've got Brad Stein.

You've got Ben Davies, our lead, who you may know from The Daily Wire and from Courageous and War Room. We have so many great people in this film, Victoria Jackson, Jim Brewer. Two SNL films. Yes, and it feels like an SNL moment that happens with them. They share the screen and it is a terrific movie.

It's just over an hour and a half. Great time to sit down and watch this film. It's available for $19.99.

And once you do that, you can watch it as many times as you want. But we encourage you to pre-order it right now, and it'll be available for you on Thanksgiving. And it is a project of the ACLJ. I want to make sure people know that.

So when you do support that, a large percentage of the revenue goes straight back to the organization. Can we go ahead and run the trailer and then I'm going to do a pitch here? Sure, absolutely.

Go take a look. Here is the official trailer to Jingle Smells. That's it premiering on Rumble on Thanksgiving Day. And look, there are, just on Rumble right now, there are almost 2,000 of you watching.

I'm just going to encourage you. Go over to, you're at Rumble right now. As soon as this is over, type in Jingle Smells. It'll come up. It's the first thing and you can watch it and buy it right now. I'm going to ask people to do that exactly when the program is over. They can do it now if they like, but I'd like you to listen to the rest of the program. You have five minutes left. You have five minutes left.

We're going to have you, especially in Rumble, because there's, like you said, it's over almost 2,000 people watching on Rumble and that'll be quadrupled many times tonight. That's just live. So this movie hits a lot of the topics we deal with at the ACLJ.

Cancel culture, First Amendment, big faith component to it. Absolutely. It's funny. It's a heartwarming movie. It's real.

It deals with the military and some of what the military deals with. Like we said, great cast. So you go to jinglesmells.movie and you could download it from there. People love the video you put together. I don't know if we have that we could play.

I don't think it's worth playing on air because it's quite a bit, but we know that some of you asked, well, how do I watch Rumble on my TV? How do I get this? How do they?

Tell them right here. The easiest way, the easiest thing, we give you a five steps. We take what should be two steps and break it down to five. You can find that video on all our social media pages. That's from me and your mother's age.

Exactly. We break it down step by step on how to do it, but essentially the Rumble app is available on most smart TVs and almost all smart devices. So if you have an Apple TV or if you have a Fire or Roku, it's available there. If you have an iPhone, it's available on there. If you have a Samsung TV or a Sony TV that's relatively recent in the last decade or so, it's available there. So all you have to do, buy it on our website, log in on your, download the app, log in like you would a Netflix or whatever, and it's available right there. You just type in Jingle Smells, pops right up. And that's it. If you're on Rumble right now, just type in Jingle Smells. It'll be the first thing that pops up.

You'll see click buy access since 1999. Again, it's executive produced by us and by Sean Hannity. So you know what you're getting in terms of messages and you know it's free of all Hollywood agenda. We're saying it's the number one heartwarming, humorous, and free of Hollywood agenda movie. And our goal, and I'm being honest, the lofty goal for Hollywood is to take on Hollywood, not to just take, we're not saying take down Hollywood. We want to be there and be part of that conversation. We believe Jingle Smells can be the number one new Christmas movie this year.

And we can do that with your support. It is more than just a silly fun comedy. It has a lot of heart, a lot of message, but also it sends a message to Hollywood. We've seen that happen. We've seen it start to happen this year. You can be a part of that now in the world of family comedy. There are some incredible movies that have come out this year. Maybe they're not the ones you can sit around with your kids and watch.

This one, you can. You're gonna be entertained. And obviously not only is that incredible cast in it, I make a brief cameo. Jordan makes a brief cameo.

The Jay Sekulow Band makes an appearance. Yeah, an appearance, not just a cameo. Yeah, like no, you got a full blown appearance.

And then a lot of the faces you've seen here make little pop-ups. And Governor Mike Huckabee even plays a very creative role. So you have to keep your ears peeled. That was very nice of Mike to do that.

Yes, it was. So keep your eyes out. We have that coming. It comes out on Thanksgiving Day. It is really a fun movie, but really it's important to be a part of that conversation. And I'm super excited about it.

As a mom who's always looking for something that's family friendly, and I know my kids are even older, but I want something that's just fun. And especially on Thanksgiving, I wanna see something after we've eaten the big meal. I wanna go and do it. I cannot wait to watch it Thanksgiving. Yeah, if you're tired of Hollywood, this is the perfect movie to really re-engage with what's happening and still have something to be entertained by.

I was gonna say that. We did this, this is an ACLJ film. So portion of the proceeds goes directly to the ACLJ. So that's a big part of this. We're trying to make a stand on so many issues, whether it's on this broadcast, whether it's in the courts, whether it's in the legislature, international, but also in Hollywood.

That family-friendly movies with messages actually work, and we wanna make this a success. So those of you that are on any of our social media platforms right now, I encourage you to do this. Type in, go to Rumble, rumble.com. It's that simple. If you're on Rumble, just type into the search bar, right?

Right now. You can just go to also rumble.com slash jinglesmells. It'll take you right to the page. Okay. So that's an easy way to do it, but an easier way, probably if you're trying to figure it out, jinglesmells.movie. There's a big giant button that says order on Rumble.

Just click that, follow the instructions. We do wanna have as many people. It's gonna come out on Thursday, but we want as many pre-orders as we can because then we're gonna really go into a... Logan and I are hosting Sean Hannity's broadcast tomorrow, which is gonna have a lot of... We're gonna have some of the guests, the people that started the movie. That's right. You're gonna have Ben Davies, who's the lead again for the Daily Wire.

You are from Courageous at War Room. You're gonna have John Schneider on as well. And John Schneider, I believe, is gonna come in the studio next week to keep talking about the movie as well. Great. So he'll be here next... I believe next Wednesday to talk about it in person, but we're also gonna have him on the Hannity broadcast tomorrow.

Yeah, we're looking forward to that. So it's jinglesmells.com... .movie..movie..movie. jinglesmells.movie. To be clear, jinglesmells.movie.

And if you're on Rumble right now, which many are, all you do is type it in the search engine, jingle smells, and there it is. Please order it today. We'd love to start off with being ahead of the curve here. Yeah, we'd love to have a big opening day. That's very important in terms of movies, and we couldn't do it without you. Over 400,000 on just Rumble. 420,000 have watched the trailer. Which is amazing. So we are very encouraged. That's over 800,000 or so across platforms. So be a part of this movement. jinglesmells.movie. We'll see you on Thanksgiving with it.