BREAKING: Major Victory In Free Speech Case for Trump Supporters

This is Jay Sekulow breaking news a major victory in a free speech case for Trump supporters. 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 we thought we'd start the day off with a win which is kind of nice for a Thursday I feel like it's Friday but it's Thursday. Yeah. And it's a case that we worked on out on the West Coast for a person that worked for the Interior Department Parks Department and was also a Trump supporter and he had a simply had a Trump bumper sticker on his car. Yeah yeah bumper stickers on his car and after a job that he had done for years and years and years I guess a couple complaints if they're even really considered complaints were enough to have him lose his job or lose his rights. No he lost his job too. Just having his car parked in a parking lot it wasn't like he was out there doing anything crazy but because it was a quote unquote political message just really I mean what most people have which is a bumper sticker a few bumper stickers of their car of who they're supporting that was enough to be it and we were able to get some finality to this.

Yeah which is good so we got a victory here Ceci what do we have? Yeah so it was great this this gentleman had worked at the Parks Department for 10 years he was actually awarded the award of excellence and volunteer of the year for his services above and beyond the call of duty his integrity and his courteous and kind manner with everyone who meets him. So this was a stellar employee and he gets fired because of one complaint that he has bumper stickers on his car.

Nothing that he actually said or impacted his work or anything like that. Was it going up to people making political statements this was just parking in a parking lot. Nope and the policy was very broad and so we brought and we settled this and they've changed their policy and we have a really good win on this. Yeah they issued him back pay and and all of that and it's a good time to actually see specifically we're going into a political season we know about that we're out to have a very crazy year. You think so? I think so.

May have a crazy couple weeks coming up right here. Couple weeks but it's certainly a 2024 and you need to know what your rights are and where we can help you out as well on whatever political side you're on or whoever you're politically supporting that they can't just come in and do this. Well here's the guy who just had the bumper sticker on his car doesn't say anything gets fired we end up getting his back pay too but just put that back on the screen again.

How many of these do you see every hour during political season? I mean this is you know he's got his mill he was also obviously was in the military was a sergeant in the military which we know from the litigation. Anyways the case has been resolved successfully and that is good news for our client and good news for free speech. Talking about free speech there is we mentioned this yesterday on the broadcast and this is going to become I had a chance to really study it last night and this is going to become a very big deal and that is the Supreme Court granting review on one of the January 6th protesters claims that utilizing the obstruction of Congress statute interfering with an operation of a congressional act was actionable under these indictments that came under Jack Smith and the DOJ. And as a great judge Katzas was also in the White House counsel's office so you know he knows what's at play here wrote an excellent dissent. I think that dissent is what got the case granted review and I think there is a realistic chance that they curb significantly what constitutes a violation of what's called section 1512 and because you have to carve out free speech protections especially when you're dealing with court political speech.

Yeah and I think that's again what we're seeing is speech is what is has been targeted we've seen that from the Biden administration a lot and here this is a case that's going up with Trump and this case of the insurrection or what they say is an alleged insurrection and is free speech going to be targeted by that. We appreciate your gift doubled but to become a monthly recurring member right now during our end of the year drive we really appreciate we will break down a lot of the details of that coming up in the next segment we also love to hear from you 1-800-684-3110 that's 1-800-684-3110. Every gift makes a real impact here whether it's five dollars or as yesterday we received a gift for five thousand dollars and they're all doubled so if you could do that this is the weeks that count folks ACLJ.org and if you can make that a monthly gift and become recurring that's great.

I want to start by saying first I thank you to the thousands and thousands of you that have supported the work of the American Center for Law and Justice let me talk specifically here to those of you that have joined the ACLJ as champions. We started this program off in October and well I'd like to get the current number as of right now we started this off in October and we had around 15,000 or so those are people that were donating monthly and this was actually something Logan had been talking about for years that we needed to focus on because a lot of ministries do a lot of organizations do. Yeah I think that's one thing that we have never really asked for at the ACLJ we have been reliant on single donations there's been a lot of you 10 plus thousand of you that are monthly donors and it's always been an option and we appreciate it we've never come out and just said we'd love you to do this.

And since we did and since we sort of rebranded and changed the way that you can even take on your own brand as an ACLJ champion we have really seen it change we've really seen it change how we're able to budget and forecast for the future that's something that you know as a organization that has been reliant on single donations. And again if you can make a single donation we're not shunning that or discounting it's the massive majority of people who donate we appreciate that and that's why we never asked we thought what would happen if we asked and we did and people are showing up. You know it's interesting we started with about 15,000 or so we are almost we are just 80 shy let's get there today. We've got 17,920 people that are now donating monthly we started with 15,000 in October so basically we've added almost almost 3,000 people thousand a month it's a lot and we could see it in the daily reports we get the difference this is making so we are 80 shy from getting to 18,000 I think the goal for the year is to be at 18,500. So if you're able to donate we'd appreciate it this is our most important month and I want to take some time to explain what that means to people. This is when we're doing the budgeting for all of next year. So what comes in is then allocated and then you have reserves because you have situations like Israel which have taken I don't know we probably have had what CC 12, 13 lawyers.

European office, American office, US offices, Jerusalem office been working on they just finished yesterday in their Brussels Paris-Grossberg meetings. Yeah you never know when these kind of situations are going to come up and with the ACLJ we have to be ready to take action immediately so it can't be just a fundraising drive that goes okay we need to obviously we're going to ask we're going to talk about it. We have to be able to go and you know drop of the hat and that's what we're able to do now that we have this sort of baseline champions group who are able to come in and say yes we are dedicating this every month. Obviously you can cancel anytime you it's not like you're locked in and there's no there's no contract here but we encourage everyone obviously to stay on and support because we're able to say okay we know we have this budget we can allocate towards even just travel. You got to think of the cost of just getting to these places is you know absurd it's you know probably to do one of those trips is as much we raise in a day.

You know I mean that's what I think or at least a full day or full week even because sometimes it's just travel costs. We were moving five lawyers around Europe to multiple locations we had we had how many of us were we had you me Andy we had plus our team we had seven in in DC. So I mean it's it's a lot so here's the things folks your support makes this possible for us to do all that whether that is like Logan said a one-time gift. You know if you donate it we did we got a donation last night $5,000 came in right before midnight.

We're not expecting that person be able to donate $5,000 a month but we got a $20 gift and I don't know if that person can donate you know every month either but if you can it makes a huge difference becoming an ACLJ champion. I want to go through some of the things we're looking at right now just the cases. We have 15 challenges on 14th amendment cases we are waiting with bated breath they keep saying it's coming from the Colorado Supreme Court. That's the one I think that will go to the Supreme Court of the United States trying to get Trump off the ballot and as I've said whether you're for Trump against Trump it doesn't matter. The idea that a secretary of state or a board of election supervisors just remove somebody from the ballot is absurd.

I mean without a trial I mean it's and first of all even under the even under a trial the 14th amendment doesn't allow it under section 3. So we've been successful in all of those cases we're about to intervene and file in another one. But the Colorado case where we are a party is going to go to the Supreme Court of the United States and it will go on an expedited basis. So I expect that work to go in September so listen to what's coming in September just at the Supreme Court. Logan this is what people need to understand just at the Supreme Court you've got the Colorado removal from ballot election integrity case. You've got the what constitutes and obstruction of an act of Congress case that we'll be filing in at the Supreme Court of the United States. What constitutes executive Presidential immunity and privilege at the United States and folks we've done more of that litigation than anybody in the country.

Because we represented the former President for four years and litigated those issues at the Supreme Court of the United States. Then the Supreme Court also took CC the abortion mandate pill. That's right and that's one that we've been following from its inception.

Tell people what that one involves because it's confusing. So the Mifepristone is abortion pill that is the medical medication abortion and really accounts for the majority of abortions are now medication abortions. And since 2016 the FDA has just dropped a lot of safety regulations without any really administrative procedure doing that. They violated their administrative procedure. So before you could only prescribe this pill if you were up to seven weeks now it's 10 weeks and that you used to have to have a doctor and an in-person visit. You don't have to have that anymore.

And in fact you can actually get these prescribed through you through telehealth and sent to you in the mail. So there have been a lot of downgrades of just the protections for women and we have followed that and we will continue to follow that and it's now at the Supreme Court. So we're going to be following in that one.

I mean this just gives you a sense. We talked about the Christian persecution case of the Shazad case at the Pakistan Supreme Court. And then the Israel Lawfare Hamas situation is going to bring all this ICC work. And they're putting together a global legal task force which we're going to be a big part of. And they may be having a meeting on that in London, Madrid in January or February.

I mean this gives you a sense of why we are talking about the importance of standing with the ACLJ. So every gift you make has a direct impact. And I said whether it's $5 or $5,000. And the good thing about this month is it's doubled. So whatever you donate we get a matching gift for. We're behind our annual goal right now because I'll be honest with you we had a slow start. And Logan we look at this every day.

Our whole executive team does. We had a slower start to the beginning of the year. It's picked up significantly. Yeah it's just it was the nature of the year for a lot of people as well not just the ACLJ. It's just what we were dealing with.

Everyone dealing with sort of an economic crisis obviously that was happening. But thankfully we were able to continue to move, continue to grow and things are coming around here towards the end of the year. I'll tell you exactly what the gap is. The gap is $1.2 million.

That's the differential of where we want to be to where we are right now. So every dollar, every donation helps. Many of you have been as one of our callers said reporting for duty as an ACLJ champion. And those of you are making a really big difference. Every donation makes a big difference.

Let me tell you that folks because 95% of you are not able to give each month and we understand. But those of you that are and it's now almost 17,920. I'll get an update on that a little bit later see if we added more. I'd love to be at 18,000 by the end of the broadcast. We broadcast multiple times today so we'll see how that goes. Garrett from Virginia said the reason we support the ACLJ is the decades worth of wonderful victories. And the truth is we've been doing this for four decades.

It's hard to believe sometimes that we've been doing this for 40 years but we have been. And so I'm going to ask you to join Garrett and all the others that have called in and said we're standing with the ACLJ. If you can become a champion, a monthly donor, that's great. If you could do that today that is great.

That really makes a big difference. So go to ACLJ.org forward slash champions. There's ACLJ.org there's a donate now button right on the website and we encourage you to do that. Also sign up for all of our social media. We put a lot of content out Logan. People need to understand and it's free. We don't put it behind paywalls.

No and that's one of the main focuses here is make sure we have the option to give you all the content. And all of the really the ammunition if you will to tell your friends about what we do here. And why they should support the work that we do.

And get behind the issues and why not only do you should you care. Why it's important and we do this multiple times a day. There is incredible amount of content being put out. This is just one hour of content. There are so many videos, so many blogs, news articles, social media posts, memes, images. All that has to be made also by a team of people.

You got to understand that none of that is just created out of nothing. There's an incredible team putting all of that together. Like I always say there's three of us here right now on set.

There's ten people I'm looking at right now through the window here. Can we get a camera back there for next year? Maybe so but it's a big operation.

They don't want to be on camera is that it? It's a big operation and the scope of it is very large and we need your support. And that's why you can do it right now at ACLJ.org. And again all the gifts are doubled right now.

And you can become a champion and get in that program as well. And by the way we're going to be doing a year-end concert for the Jay Sekulow Band for the end of the year. And I also want to remind everybody that the movie is out.

And what a great success this has been so far. Sure that's right we have our new Christmas movie Jingle Smells. It's a big Christmas comedy with a lot of heart and a lot of really important messages and ACLJ messages. And when you support that movie not only are you sending a message to Hollywood. The content they're producing is not the content you want. You are also putting your money back to the ACLJ.

Because a large portion of those proceeds go straight back to the organization. So you can do that by going to jinglesmells.movie. You can watch it now on Rumble on Vudu which is Fandango which is available on most TVs.

And DVDs are available as well you can do that right now. Again at jinglesmells.movie. Great Christmas movie that's produced by us here at the ACLJ.

By the way I've watched it both on Rumble and on Vudu. Well that's good. And it's great.

It really is great. Am I biased that I say my favorite scene is my favorite scene? Well I mean don't spoil it though. It's further into the movie.

So you don't want to ruin everyone's adventure here when they go through this movie. No it's a great movie. It's an incredible cast. Unbelievable cast.

Take a look at it. Two SNL alums. Great SNL alums. Got John Schneider our friend and we're going to talk to him tomorrow.

So much great stuff jinglesmells.movie. And we're hosting Hannity tomorrow. We'll talk about that coming up.

Alright. Welcome back to Secula. We are going to take your calls also at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. So if you want to call this is a great time to call. Tell us why you support the work of the ACLJ.

You can do that as well by giving us a call. Alright I want to go to talk about all of the Supreme Court activity that we've seen on what I will call the Trump related matters. Because there's been significant developments in Washington DC on the Trump case. The one that was actually scheduled for March 4th trial.

I see no way. We just played during the break a montage of a piece that our team put together where LA Honing the CNN legal analyst said he doesn't see any way now that this case can move forward March 4th. And that's because two things have happened. The Supreme Court is asked to brief the need for expedited review of the Trump executive privilege claim. That's what we argued and immune and Presidential immunity. That is that a sitting President when he does actions in the scope of his authority. He can't be sued for those things. And then when he's out of office under a Nixon versus Fitzgerald case.

The answer is still you can't be sued. But they're trying to take a different view here at the Department of Justice. And then at the same time I mean shockingly yesterday the Supreme Court grants review in one of the January 6th cases. And it happens to be a charge that involves the also been charged against the President which is the obstruction of an act of Congress.

So Harry you've had a chance to look at it. And Judge Katzas, Greg Katzas who I know is a very good judge issued a very, very well reasoned dissent. And that's I think why the Supreme Court's hearing it.

I think that is precisely correct. And also it's important to keep in mind that Jack Smith's approach to the law amounts to nothing less than what the French call the ensavagement of the law. That is using the law as a cudgel and using the law if you will as a battering ram. So Jack Smith has a reputation for overcharging defendants and for disregarding justice.

And I think that is perhaps going to come home to roost in this particular case. Importantly the Supreme Court will hear a dispute over an obstruction law used to prosecute the January 6th defendants. And the case has direct implications for Jack Smith's indictment of Donald Trump. So keep in mind there are four counts to the indictment. And two counts are related to section 1512. And a second count would be blocked by Trump's claim of absolute immunity if those decisions go in Trump's favor then I think the case against Donald Trump collapses. And this will create momentum in Trump's favor I would argue with respect to other litigation. Well even the state litigation which is not technically affected by it. But they are all using these rather bizarre theories of law.

In Georgia it is the RICO statute which for this is insane. You mentioned that Jack Smith is overcharging. That was exactly what happened in the McDonald case. I was involved in the McDonald appeal to the Supreme Court which we won 9-0.

Jack Smith lost 9-0. No justice of the Supreme Court took Jack Smith's view of the bribery statute. And the Supreme Court has taken another bribery case too.

So I mean you've got just a lot of moving parts here. But I just when you read the order from Judge Chunkins who she says now she doesn't even have jurisdiction over the case pending this. There is no way this case goes to trial in 14 weeks. I mean as defense lawyers you're not going to even have the evidence presented to you. The exculpatory evidence.

Absolutely. It's pending before the Supreme Court. We don't know how long that's going to take. We're hoping expedited. Well no I think actually what should have happened was the Court of Appeals the full it should have been all these should have been reviewed en banc.

They should have gone through the normal process. But Jack Smith is he's expediting. And we'll see but that expediting you're right may bite him in the back.

Yes and if and it's going to take time. So March 4th is quickly coming up. And so just like the judge is saying she doesn't have she no longer has jurisdiction.

It's very hard to see a March 4th date staying true. She says in her order considering at the time whether to retain or continue the dates of any future deadlines and proceedings including whether I can schedule the trial for March 4th. The court emphasizes that these are all held in abeyance right now. The arguments on immunity and the arguments on the January 6 obstruction are very different Harry. I mean one's a First Amendment case right. Because Katz's was concerned about the overbreadth of the interpretation impacted free speech.

Your ability to hold a sign and a protest or petition the government for redress of a grievance. On the on the immunity case that is an article 2 case. Absolutely and so if we take the First Amendment issue initially. We find that part of the problem with any section 1512 case particularly a case brought by Jack Smith. Is that there is a distinct danger that it will impinge upon the freedom of speech rights.

Of individuals who are subsequently charged to make allegations that they truly believe. Notwithstanding the fact that perhaps 90 to 95 percent of Americans disagree with the claim. And so I think one of the things that we have to keep in mind is Jack Smith seems to be insufficiently concerned. About violating the Constitution.

That's number one. Number two he seems to be insufficiently concerned about violating the constitutional rights of a serving President. This serving President has to have discretion has to have latitude. You and I could disagree with the decision taken by President Trump.

But nonetheless that does not amount to criminal activity. I'm actually surprised here that the Department of Justice has taken the view that this would not qualify for Presidential immunity. Because they've got it there's a Democrat in office you've got a Democratic administration.

The same rules will apply to him. And the idea that you can start filing suits or bring criminal cases against Presidents because you didn't like the policies they implemented. Or the words they said in a speech or their activities about the election. Which is all core what they do as commander in chief and chief executive of the United States is really scary.

It is absolutely scary and if we take for a moment the situation in Ukraine. It's very possible that the facts on the ground will later prove that many of the statements that President Biden made in support of Ukraine were indeed untrue. Can we now then criminalize those statements once he's out of office. And our answer to that would be no.

Because I don't think he could function as the President. You're going to report on things that aren't right. Facts are going to change.

I mean I got a lot of flak when I said that years ago. Facts develop. Facts evolve. But facts do evolve. What was a fact may not two years later look like it was correct. It could have not been a fact.

But at the time it seemed relevant. Just to say the amount of work that's going to go on between right now and say the end of January for the ACLJ is at a record number. And folks that's where we need people to support the work of the ACLJ.

That's right. We got a minute left in this half hour. We still got another half hour coming up. So if you're listening to local radio you can find us broadcasting live on Rumble, on ACLJ.org, on YouTube. Thousands of you watch on those platforms. We appreciate it.

Of course people listen later on on radio and podcasts and all those different outlets. We want to make sure we're always available in those outlets for you. We can't do that without your support. Whether that's in the law, whether that's in the media, we're going to be there.

Whether that is, again, talking about the 14th Amendment, whether it's defending the Constitution, life, religious freedom, all the different topics. Obviously Israel, which is on the front of everyone's mind. We're heading to the final night of Hanukkah. Every gift makes an impact whether it's $5 or $5,000 and is doubled today at ACLJ.org. We are behind on our annual goal right now. We need each and every one of you this last couple of weeks of the year to support the work here. A lot of you have joined in. We want more and more people to say, hey, I not only want to support the work of the ACLJ, I can become an ACLJ champion. So if you want to make a one-time gift into the year, we know a lot of you do that, ACLJ.org.

But also you can become an ACLJ champion at ACLJ.org slash champions. We'll be right back with second half hour coming up. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jay Sekulow. Everybody, welcome back to the broadcast. Logan, have you caught your breath in the first half hour?

Yeah, it was a fast half hour. You know, obviously we're talking a lot about the work of the ACLJ as we are heading into this final weeks of the year. It's always important for all nonprofits to really be out there talking about it because it's the time of the year where most people make their charitable giving.

I think we need to explain that. Maybe you're not one of those people. Maybe you're one of the great people who individually makes a donation all the time throughout the year. But we see such a major uptick in the months of November and December. Really December, really the last few weeks of December as people are making those decisions on what they're going to do. And with so much financial uncertainty for the mass majority of the year, now having a little bit of stability, a lot of people are seeing that we're able to hopefully talk to you about all the work we're doing here.

Whether that's overseas, whether that's in Israel, or whether that's here in the States. And I know some of you have called in. We're going to try to get to some of those if you want to call in.

We still have a half hour coming up. Rick Rinnell is going to be joining us in the next segment. 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110. I want to hear from you. Haven't had a lot of calls today, so this is a great time to call in. We are hosting Sean Hannity's broadcast tomorrow. Radio.

Yeah, his radio broadcast tomorrow. So that'll be fun and we'll look forward to that. I do need to say that we are, as is not unusual for us, at the end of the year, not only do we have a financial need, but the legal work is mounting up. And that's because the Supreme Court has granted an abortion case, have granted a January 6th case involving Section 1512 of the Criminal Code, which has huge ramifications for free speech and for the Trump litigation, has granted the executive immunity claim of President Trump's. That will be possibly expedited review.

They're going through that now. I am the one who argued that the first time at the Supreme Court of the United States, and we argued it as it related to Congress, too. So we're involved in all of this. We've got, of course, the abortion pill mandate case. So just look at the Supreme Court work alone, which is about a six-lawyer team that works on the Supreme Court issues.

It's gigantic. A bribery case was taken that we think merited our involvement because it interpreted bribery in such a way that government couldn't function. Well, we take cases on such a large scale in terms of, they could be a case that needs 20 lawyers, an international team, or it could be sending a young lawyer to the streets to protect a street preacher, or to say, yes, you can put up your nativity scene.

Or have your Trump bumper sticker on your part when you work in the State Interior Department. Yeah, if you're just joining us on social media, you may have seen that headline. That's something that we won. There is so much happening on such a big scale at the ACLJ. I think it's hard for people to really fathom. You hear from a handful of people on this broadcast. And that's, you know, it's a television show. It's a radio show. You hear from the same voices often.

It gets you familiar with it. But there are a team of hundreds of people across the world, not just in this country, working on ACLJ, either legal or media, at all times, 24 hours a day. One of the things we're trying to do is build up our, what we call ACLJ Champions Group. These are people that are standing with us monthly. We started today with 17,920. We are at, at last count, and that's already been a half hour, 15 minutes ago, 17,941.

So we added 20 new champions. It's a big difference for us folks when you have these people. Every month it really builds. So whether you can give, as Logan said, $5,000 or $5, it's double this month. That's number one importance.

So donating, if you can only do it once, great. If you can do monthly, that helps us on our ACLJ Champion Program. It allows us to do all of these cases that we're involved in. And then there's so many more that we don't even have time to talk about on our broadcast, which is another reason why you need to be following us on all the social media that we're at. Yeah, absolutely.

You can do that. I mean, whatever platform you're on, we're pretty much there. So you can find you personally, Jay Sekulow, Jordan Sekulow, I'm on there as well. And you can find other people as well, but the main ACLJ pages on all social media platforms, YouTube, Rumble as well. We broadcast that live there each and every day.

So if you are listening to this right now, you can actually see us in studio Monday through Friday doing this live. You've got a cool jacket on. I do because you put a fan on me. I'm very cold over here. I wear sweaters on hot. I've got to keep myself, you know, regulated. Also, it's winter.

It's Christmas time. Okay. It's just, it was time.

So it is what it is. We're going to take some calls coming up in the next segment as well. Rick Grinnell's going to be joining us. As hearing from Rick Grinnell, who, again, couldn't have people like Rick on our team without your support. We have Rick Grinnell, Mike Pompeo, Tulsi Gabbard, all part of the ACLJ team.

Think about that for a moment, folks, the scope and nature. We're looking for additional folks that we can bring in. So a lot going on. Yeah. If you have any suggestions, put them in the chat.

Who would you like to see join the ACLJ team in 2024? That'd be pretty interesting. Put that in the chat on Rumble. All right. We'll be right back with more. We'll look at that. I will. You can call in and ask us.

1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to the broadcast, everyone. By the way, our team in Strasburg just finished up two weeks of working with Israeli family hostages. They were in Brussels. They were in Paris.

They were in Strasburg. And that work is just completed. That was an outflow of the work that we did in Washington, D.C. the week before that. So our team has been, there's a picture of our group, have been out for three weeks standing up for Israel and standing up for these hostages. Rick Rinnell is joining us right now. Rick, of course, was the acting director of national intelligence. He was our ambassador to Germany and has had vast experience at the United Nations. So, Rick, you got the national security adviser is heading to Israel to meet with Netanyahu.

What's your thoughts on what that's going to be like? Well, it's a little crazy because the President of the United States went, didn't get our hostages back. The secretary of state went, didn't get our hostages back. So now we're sending Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser. I'm not sure that this is the best negotiations when you go lower to try to get the hostages back.

This seems pro forma. It seems like they're just trying to look like they're doing something. But I don't understand why Anthony Blinken is not parked in his plane in Doha and just saying, I'm not leaving until we bring American hostages home from Hamas. So I was going to ask you this question, Rick. If you were in that situation, you've been in this kind of situation before in government and I've negotiated hostage releases. You're right.

This is like, it's like the opposite way we do it. We used to call it the ministry of presence with hostages negotiated. You just had to be there because you never knew when a break was going to take place. Remember when we did Brunson, you were the ambassador to Germany. You were working with us. We had your counterpart in Turkey helping us. The President of the United States himself, President Trump, was on the phone with Erdogan. I was in the Oval Office when all this was going on. I was working with you, Mike Pompeo.

I mean, we had the full battery of government from the highest level to those that run policy to get the release of that pastor. And we've got 10 Americans, it looks like, 8 to 10. Hopefully they're still alive.

Who knows? But they're being held captive by Hamas. And Hamas, when they released the Thai, the individual citizens of Thailand and the Russians, they did not release the Americans.

What would you be doing? Well, just on a side note, if you remember, it was Jeff Hovenir who was in Turkey who used to work for me. And he's now our U.S. Ambassador to Kosovo. So things really come all around. Look, the reality is, Jay, you know this, you get the President of the United States involved.

It's not about staff. What we had is Donald Trump calling Erdogan and saying, this is what I want and this is what's going to happen if I don't get what I want. You've got to be able to have the President of the United States put the leverage forward.

And that's what we don't see. I mean, one, Biden is not the one who's calling the Qataris or others to, say, get our hostages home. And two, I'm not sure he has the credibility to say, you know, we're going to bring down your economy.

We're going to increase the barriers on trade. I mean, there's a whole bunch of tools in the U.S. government tool shed. But you've got to be able to have a President that can use them. You know, one of the things I remember with Brunson specifically, I was in the Oval Office. I think the President had you on the line and Erdogan.

I may be getting that part messed up, but it was he said, the President said, you don't let this guy go. It's going to cost you a billion lire a week. And when we did it for one week, go ahead. I will ruin your economy. Yes, that's what he said.

I'm going to ruin your economy. And this pastor that nobody heard of is going to be more famous than Billy Graham. Who else would say that but Donald Trump, right? And lo and behold, four days later, you're at the airport in Berlin, I believe, meeting him at two o'clock in the morning.

He was out. Look, it's the credibility of the messenger, right? When the messenger says I'm going to do this and you believe that that person is actually being truthful, that they just might do it. That is the whole elixir. That is how you solve these problems. Is having somebody who has a credible threat that is going to absolutely fulfill that threat or you believe that he's going to.

And that's how you solve problems. So with Brunson, I remember this. It was a billion dollars of lire a week. And then I remember this distinctly that I think you and I were on a call or maybe you and I and the President and it looked like we were going to get Brunson out.

I mean, like it was like momentarily. Remember, they moved him to his house. I remember what happened. They took him out of the jail, which was unexpected, moved him to his home.

They put a lot of security there. We knew something was moving. I got on this broadcast, Rick, sitting in this chair. I was in this chair and I said, well, we may be twenty eight, twenty four to forty eight hours away from the arrival of Andrew Brunson and it'll be a successful conclusion to an American hostage pastor upheld.

It's going to be great for the country, great for his family, great for religious freedom. And the Financial Times wrote an article saying the lire went up that day because secular on his broadcast said it looked like Brunson was going to be released. And like, lo and behold, as I said, 24 hours later, you were meeting him at the airport. Yeah, well, I on the other side in Germany, I was in Berlin and I actually met him at Ramstein Air Force Base. So I had like a more than a four hour car ride to get down. And so I remember getting a call from a very senior military person who said it might happen.

You better get to Ramstein right away. So we start driving in the middle. Do we have that photo of Rick giving the flag to Brunson?

We used to have it. Let's see if we've got. OK, so, Rick, on this with the hostages, going back to the United States situation here, we got eight to ten US hostages.

Hopefully they're still alive. You think this is being handled by Team B instead of Team A? You know, look, I think the President of the United States has got to go all in. The secretary of state needs to be parked in Doha. And we need to send the message that this is important.

This is our top priority. When you send Jake Sullivan, you know, he's an academic. He's going to have some white paper. He doesn't have any leverage. And so, you know, he's not going to meet with top officials.

He's going to meet with his counterpart. And that's not enough. Are you optimistic that we will see a release of these hostages if they're alive?

With every single day I get less optimistic. I'll say it that way. One of the things that I tend to, and I agree, that every day that goes by, we got a report on one, and I cannot go into the details that we thought was not alive is alive. I'm not going to say who.

But that report's now two weeks old. So in the conditions that they're in, in these tunnels in Gaza, and now maybe in Gaza City, but past Gaza City, and maybe now in Hanyounas, I'm with you. I think every day that goes by makes our job more and more difficult, both for the Americans and the Israelis. Look, I think also the media in Washington, D.C. are just being shameless. They are not helping the situation. They're not pressuring Joe Biden and the secretary of state.

Believe you me, if we had American hostages under the Trump administration, they would be camped out, out front of the offices and homes of U.S. officials demanding more action. And now we have a celebration that Jake Sullivan is going to go to the region for two days. I thought that was such a comedown, to be honest. Absolutely.

Yeah. It's anticlimactic. This is how I'm praying it ends for our American hostages.

Let me put this picture on the screen. This is a picture of Rick as the ambassador to Germany with Andrew Brunson and his wife. You handed him an American flag. I know it was very emotional for everybody that was on that flight. It was certainly emotional for our team. That's the way I'm praying, Rick, that this ends. You know, Jake, when I looked up and I was at the bottom of the stairs and I could see Pastor Brunson coming down, as you know, it was a very emotional couple of weeks. America was watching, and as he descended down the plane on an American base, he knew he was safe. I was praying the whole time. I knew that he needed to see strength from American officials. It was very difficult for me in that moment, but I was just praying that God would give me the strength to share with Pastor Brunson and his wife that the American people never forgot about him.

It was an incredible moment. Which is the greatest fear that these hostages have. Every time we've talked to them after we've gotten them out, Rick, I know you have too, is they worried about they were being forgotten. And that's why you've got to keep it front and center.

Yeah, go ahead. My first words to him when I handed him the flag was, Pastor Brunson, I want you to know that Donald Trump and the American people never forgot about you. There wasn't one day that we weren't negotiating for you.

This is a celebration, and praise God. You know, it's interesting. I remember the President telling me, this was one area he was great at.

I mean, the hostage release stuff was great. I remember him telling me, he called me up, I think I was in Atlanta on a meeting, and he called me up. It was late at night, and he said, I'm getting your pastor out.

We got it pretty much worked out. And he said, but I want you to call up Pastor Brunson. Because he was at home, at that point they moved him to home confinement, and just tell him to be strong for these next 24 to 48 hours.

Because he knew that the Turks could be tough and try to play something at the end, and Brunson did that. And when we celebrated that, I am praying that that picture we are showing you right now is a picture we see with 8 or 10 American hostages coming out of Hamas control. That's what we need to be praying about. I want to add one quick point.

I've gotten to know the Erdogan people pretty well, and a very senior person on the Erdogan team recently told me, like at the UN this year, told me that they realized that they did not handle the Pastor Brunson case very well, and that it should have been handled differently. And I thought that that was a real lesson for the strength of Donald Trump. Absolutely. Thanks, Rick. We appreciate it as always. Rick's a part of our team because of people like you supporting the work of the ACLJ.

And look at the results we were able to get. So I want you to support. It's a very important time for our faith and freedom year-end drive. If you can donate monthly and become an ACLJ champion, but if it's a one-time gift, whether it's $5 or as Logan said, $5,000, it makes a huge difference at ACLJ.org. And any amount you can do, we really appreciate it. Again, ACLJ.org.

If you become a champion, that means you'll donate monthly. ACLJ.org forward slash champion. Welcome back to Secular. We're going to lead off with a call. Annabelle is calling from California on line two. You're on the air. Hi, Annabelle.

Hi, Jay and Jordan. Annabelle, champion reporting for duty. You know, we've all heard and maybe even said, oh, persecution, that can't happen to me.

Tell that to the victims of the lowest learner scandal. It was ACLJ's masterful success for your clients in that case that prompted me to become a champion. These are spiritual and hopeful times, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year.

God provides many pathways to walk through, choices to help us navigate life. I truly believe God's grace has equipped us with the passion and expertise of the ACLJ. ACLJ, please join thousands like me who avail themselves of this protection from evil through their support. We can win if we stick together.

God bless you. Yes, thank you so much, Annabelle, for that call. It means a lot to all of us here.

It sure does. And it's encouraging because, look, the work is intense. I mean, we're in an intense period of time.

We've got our teams. You know, we're working late at night trying to figure out who's going to do what, who's going to cover what cases. And the fact is that there is a rush at the end of the year here. It happens. It's happened again. And this time the rush is focusing in on Supreme Court work. So we're still waiting for that Colorado Supreme Court decision.

I expect it this week. Who knows now? I'm not going to stop guessing. On the 14th Amendment, we won at the trial court despite thinking we were not. And then we'll see what the Colorado Supreme Court — that's going to end up at the Supreme Court. So we've got four Supreme Court cases here at the end of the year. So that makes a big difference on how we allocate our resources.

And that's really where you come in, folks, at ACLJ.org. I don't know what our current number of champions are. You know, we were up to 17,941. I wanted to get to 18,000 by the end of today with our rears.

I think we'll get there. But that makes a huge difference. But I want to change the topic to get off the heavy legal for a minute. And let's talk about something fun. That's right.

And something fun also, though, is still an important thing. One of the things the ACLJ has always been dedicated to over the last 25-plus years of the organization. The organization has been around for, you know, coming on 40 years in some form or fashion.

And really since the very beginning, since our beginnings on TBN or on Pat Robertson, the 700 Club, however it was, was always to impact media, get into your household in a different way than maybe the traditional legal law firm kind of way. And with that, we've had to change with the times. You've seen us grow into doing this live streaming. And things have been said, this is the 10-year of us doing some form of live streaming, whether that was on the original Periscope where we would literally run in with a phone and a camera being the first, some of the first people, I think, on the first day of Facebook Live. We had a lot of people watching those days, too.

Yeah, Facebook Live. That was before the big social started to really kind of tamper down and reason we're on platforms like Rumble now. We were probably one of the first people ever on Facebook Live or organizations.

And we were able to do that and continually innovate. And one thing that we knew that we weren't hitting were families who were getting fed a lot of messages that didn't exactly align with their values and the values of this organization. So how can you impact that? How can you be part of that?

How can you be a part of that cultural shift? Well, what we could do is present, take the incredible team we have here, present this daily broadcast, present a weekly television show, create podcasts, create broadcasts, create social media posts. And then now we've gone into feature filmmaking and we decided what would not have been the easiest thing. The easiest thing would have been to do a drama on one of our key topics. And that's our focus. We know that you would like it and we go for it. Not to say we won't do that down the road. We decide what we do first is something that you can put on with your kids, with your grandkids.

Watch something with your family that's going to be infused with a lot of the messages you hear here at the ACLJ, but in a clever, creative, comedic way. And that's why we decided to launch with a big Christmas comedy is called Jingle Smells. You've heard me talk about it for the last three or four weeks. And we are coming towards a big weekend. Obviously, you can only promote these movies during the holiday season till January 1st. So this is kind of you know, we're headed towards halfway through our promotional schedule for this. And we are doing really well. Talk about your cast. Our cast is awesome. But before I do that, movies available right now, you can watch it, stream it on demand on jinglesmells.movie. You can either watch it on rumble or voodoo and DVDs are available on Jon Schneider's platform. But you can find that just all of it.

It's three big buttons. We made it pretty easy. But the cast is incredible. Like you said, we have Jon Schneider from the Dukes of Hazzard and Smallville and I mean so many other things. He's just an incredible talent. And I believe he'll be on Hannity on Sean Hannity tonight as well as other platforms.

He'll be out tomorrow on Hannity radio as well. You have Ben Davies, who's our lead, who's like our young lead, who again, he plays a soldier that's come back from Afghanistan from the withdrawal in Afghanistan. It's sort of the impact that that's had on him and his life moving forward over the last couple of years. Again, it's all wrapped in a big comedy, but there's a lot of heart, a lot of messages in that movie, a lot of redemption. And then, of course, we have some really fun cast members like Academy Award nominee Eric Roberts, who plays sort of the head of this big toy company.

We've got a couple of pro wrestlers with Dylan Postel, who's Hornswoggle, as well as James Storm. Both of them are excellent. And then we decided to really pack it since it is a comedy with some big comedic forces like Brad Stein, who, you know, has been one of the top Christian comedians for the last 15, 20 years. He does a great job in the movie.

He does a great job. He's really amazing in it, as well as SNL alums Jim Brewer, Victoria Jackson, as well as all of us that are in it, too. So we all make cameos. You're in it. The J-Secular Band is in it. I make a cameo.

Jordan does. All of our family makes appearances. And it's a beautiful story, beautifully shot by our director of photography, Isaac, as well as Daniel, our director, who really did a terrific job making this movie really shine. You know, there is a different world happening right now. And with your support of the ACLJ, we're able to impact culture in different ways. This one, we think, is a major way we can start shifting how people feel and how they feel about certain issues. So this was our first attempt at that.

Here's what I know. The people who love this movie, they love it. And exactly the people you thought would hate this movie, they hate it. And that is something you should take with pride, because if you are triggering the right people, then maybe that means we have done our job a bit because they're the ones who are nervous. They are nervous when these movies do well. They are nervous when you platform with someone like Rumble, who can go direct to the source.

You don't have to go through the big Hollywood system to do it. And it is really amazing to see it. The turnout, again, we launched on Rumble. Now it's available because of the demand that happened on Rumble. It's now available on Vudu, and we're getting offers for next year already because there is a cultural shift happening right now for faith movies and for movies that have conservative messages in them.

And we've done that here. And again, even if you are not religious, even if you're honestly not even conservative, at the end of the day, you're going to find this movie funny, enjoyable, something you can watch with your family and really love it. And again, it's part of the ACLJ. It's an ACLJ film.

So a large portion of the proceeds that come in will go back to the ACLJ. So we appreciate all of that. So go to jinglesmells.movie, and you can figure out the three ways to get it. And I've watched it on all three. It's great. Very simple.

Can I ask you a question? When was the last time, do you think, two SNL alums, Victoria and Jim, were on the set together before this program? I'm not sure if they ever have been. They were slightly different SNL years. So Victoria came in, she was in the late 80s to the early 90s, and Jim came in sort of that early to mid 90s. So I think they were not there.

This was probably the first. I think they met at the 40th anniversary of Saturday Night Live about eight or nine years ago. And again, they've both been really outspoken people, not just on politics. In general, I'd say that Jim, who has put out a new comedy special, it's not necessarily about politics for him. It's about not isolating your audience. It's not about picking sides necessarily. Though I think his audience has leaned more conservative.

If you watch his specials, you'll certainly get his point of view. It is about creating comedy for the masses and understanding that 50% of your audience is not incredibly left-wing liberals and knowing that there is a huge audience there. And our goal is to make this the number one Christmas movie of the year. And you can do that. You can be a part of that movement right now by going to jinglesmells.movie.

Again, we're going to continue the promotion for the next few weeks. We want you to see this. It's a big, fun family comedy with a lot of heart, a lot of humor. Sean Hannity, executive producer, and he's also in the movie as well. So that's a lot of fun. And you'll see a lot of other cameos and appearances.

Governor Mike Huckabee appears in some ways. It's a great piece. We're very proud of it.

And you should go to jinglesmells.movie. And of course, support the work of the ACLJ. And Will just told me, we are now up to 17,951. So we're 49 shy of getting to our goal for today of 18,000 ACLJ champions, people that are standing with us monthly. If you could do that, go to ACLJ.org forward slash champions. If you want to make a one-time gift, ACLJ.org. Talk to you tomorrow.