CNN Admits: Jack Smith’s Trump Prosecution Timeline ‘Political’

Today on Sekulow, CNN admits the Jack Smith's Trump prosecution timeline purely political. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Hey, welcome to Sekulow. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Eli Honig on CNN, one of their legal analysts throughout the, I guess now it's been going on six, seven years of all the ups and downs with President Trump and President Biden. And he kind of actually was honest, dad. I mean, he said with all these latest moves by Jack Smith, that it's obvious he is trying to get a case tried before the election and that is political. Now, what you would add to that is the DOJ and these special counsels, the one thing they are not supposed to be doing is taking into account politics. Now, they can look at it and say, we're not supposed to be influencing politics, so we should wait. Or because we took too long to bring this, so now we've got to wait until after the political season. But they certainly are not supposed to do it so it affects the political season.

They are supposed to be apolitical. So this is the problem with the entire way in which Jack Smith's conducted this investigation, besides the judicial overreach that he's- Crazy raids. The charges that he's put forward that are now subject to Supreme Court review.

We'll get into that in a little bit. But if you look at the timing of all of these cases, there's one goal in mind and that is to impact the coming election. Now, Jack Smith is doing exactly what James Comey did to Hillary Clinton, engaging it right before the election. The Department of Justice has a longstanding policy to not allow the administration of justice to be deemed political.

In other words, to avoid the appearance of impropriety. But listen to what Ellie Honig honestly said on CNN about this very topic. First of all, if Jack Smith is trying to get this case tried before the election and he clearly is, look, that is political. I mean, that's from Ellie Honig's mouth, no friend of Trump's. The answer to yourself then is, why is the DOJ being allowed to do political prosecutions?

Yeah. I mean, you realize it's that worst of the worst thoughts about that this DOJ has picked their winners and losers in each election. And this time they want to do as much damage like they did before to Donald Trump. They'd rather have a Joe Biden than a Donald Trump. It's not necessarily, by the way, they love Joe Biden. It's that they like to pick who they think they're going to get to operate most freely under. And they know whoever Donald Trump picks as AG is coming in to clear house. They know that Joe Biden's team is going in there to make nice, like Merrick Garland. So they'd rather operate under Merrick Garland, who basically has let them, I mean, it's like, doesn't seem like he runs the Department of Justice. When they do get in trouble, he kind of says, I didn't even know about it.

I'm sorry. We didn't know. You got, again, the FBI messes with the going after the Catholic churches. All of it, I think what we have to see that is that this is targeted at how can Democrats use the legal system to damage Republican candidates in the next election cycle, which is very- It's basically a form of lawfare.

Yeah. So, and it's political lawfare. Now, here's what I want you to understand, and this is really important, folks. We are in the last literally 12 days of the month here at the ACLJ. These are the most important days financially for the ACLJ. We're in our faith and freedom drive.

It's a year-end drive. Your donation will be doubled. So any amount you donate is matched, but this is it. And look at the cases we're involved in. Your right to vote, whether it's for the candidate of your choice, whether it's your right to petition the government for redress of grievance, whether this bizarre application, as I said, of the 14th Amendment, now you've got the whole approach going on on the abortion issue that's now up at the Supreme Court. We're defending Israel on a global scale.

It's taking a lot of resources to do that at the UN, at the ICC, at universities. Today, as we enter the Christmas week, your support of the ACLJ will make a tremendous impact. Many of you have been, quote, reporting for duty. Join the fight today.

Every gift you give is tax deductible. We've doubled throughout our year-end drives. We encourage you to go to ACLJ.org and donate today. If you can make it a monthly gift, if you can make it monthly, you become an ACLJ champion. Our goal is, what is the goal?

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ACLJ.org. Back with more in a moment. All right, welcome back to Sekulow. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110.

It's this month, it's rapidly approaching the Christmas holiday. But this week, again, I think is a week you've got to pay close attention to because it's a lot of times when a lot of these political moves, courts are open. We're still waiting to see that case out of Colorado, which involves the 14th Amendment out of the Colorado Supreme Court there. Because that would be the one that would be very telling about, will there be the first appeal to the US Supreme Court out of these cases? I mean, the Michigan case could go up. I do expect that in Colorado, if we win, it'll go up, they'll take it up. Crew, if we lose, we'll take it up. So you've got that issue going on right now, the attempt to keep the former President off the ballot.

But it could be applied to any candidate that some government leader doesn't like. Then you have, so you've got these 14th Amendment challenges all over the country right now. And at the same time, you've got Jack Smith on like rapid fire trying to get these cases up. Now, we played the L.E. Honing Bite earlier.

I want to play the full bite here. This is a CNN commentator, and they're starting to understand how political these prosecutions are. And that is interfering with the election. That is election interference. Before we play it, do you think this is because they see what's happened to Hunter Biden too? They're starting to get a little more fair in their coverage? I think they're realizing that the Department of Justice shouldn't be doing any of this stuff. Whether it's Hunter Biden, whether it's Donald Trump, whether it's anybody else that's in the political realm like this, this close to an election, they shouldn't be involved in either of these cases.

None of this stuff with Hunter Biden is new. It could have been done four years ago. It could have gone a year before. It could go a year from now if they could extend this natural limitation.

Yeah. I mean, it just seems like the DOJ asserting itself, the bureaucracy. The DOJ's politicization is the problem here, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat.

It really is having an impact. That's the FBI that they oversee. So you think about, they're both the law enforcement and they are the investigators of the illegality. So they put together the report and they give it to the lawyers to say prosecute it. Don't ever forget what James Comey did weeks before an election.

Oh yeah. I don't. I remember- I'm opening an investigation of Hillary Clinton, like three or four. I closed it. And then four days before the election, we had to reopen it again. It was over nothing. Over emails. Something they did not have to even announce.

Correct. But this is when the FBI and Department of Justice gets politicized. It puts all of our constitutional right to vote in jeopardy. And that is actually what's happened here. But when you got Ellie Honig from CNN admitting it, then you really got something. Take a listen longer, buddy.

Take a listen. First of all, if Jack Smith is trying to get this case tried before the election, and he clearly is, look, that is political. I mean, the counter argument would be, well, Jack Smith just wants the American voters to have resolution before they go to the ballot box.

And I understand that as a voter, I would like to know, but here's the problem with that argument, Michael. Jack Smith doesn't just want to get this trial done and let the chips fall where they may and let the consequences be what they can be. He's the prosecutor. He believes this case. He wants this case to result in conviction. And so his position isn't just, well, I want this case tried before the election. His position really, as a practical matter, is I want Donald Trump convicted before the election. I have no problem with the first part of that.

It's his job to want and try to convict Donald Trump now that he's indicted. But the second part of that before the election, that's where it crosses the line to the political, in my view. This is coming from CNN, folks.

I think what, Jordan, what you said is right. People are starting to realize what's really at play here. So if you look at the 14th Amendment cases, it's the same kind of thing. Here you've got the, in what Ellie Honig's talking about, is the political cases that are being brought by the Department of Justice. So you've got this both state and federal court proceedings going on right now, trying to remove a candidate from office, a candidate that was not charged with insurrection, a candidate that's leading in the polls. And at the same time, and I do think you were right, the reason they're saying all of this is, all of a sudden Hunter Biden's in the news and it's right before an election too. And if they're trying, if I'm Joe Biden, I'm thinking they're using, that the Democrats are using that to push Biden off the ballot.

Right. I mean, so you've got the internal politics of the Democrat party at play there. And then you have externally this idea of, can we ensure it's not, you know, Donald Trump. So can we make it where you can't even vote for him? That's the 14th Amendment. Can we tie him up in so many legal cases that all you're hearing about while people are going to vote in the early states and even Super Tuesday in March, all you're going to be hearing about is Donald Trump's legal trials when you're casting your vote.

So it makes you think twice. Does he, is he going to have the time? Is he going to have the ability?

Is he going to be too distracted? I mean, we know their playbook here, folks. And now you're starting to see liberal commentators agree because it's starting to affect their candidates. And we've said this, dad, since Hillary Clinton, we've been preaching this message that the people like Jim Comey needed to go. And yet when I take people back to when Jim Comey was finally let go by President Trump, the liberals went nuts.

Right. They forgot that Hillary Clinton said, blame Jim Comey for her election loss. But she blamed him for the election loss. That was probably the biggest damage in those final days of the election was the Jim Comey surprise. And, and listen, folks, I mean, Donald Trump did something about it and then he took all of that incoming.

That's when the incoming started. Remember the leaked memos through the law professors? I mean, I just think if we are preparing ourselves for another tough election where it's very divided, what we have to all realize is what Eli Koenig said is this DOJ is out of control. It has to be reformed. We have to support that reform. It's why so many people were upset about FISA being renewed the way it was renewed.

When we knew that it was being used to spy mostly on Americans and political, even staffers with inside government agencies, not a foreign spies. But think about this for a minute. There, I just counted in my head, and this is not the exact count. There are close to 16 cases right now between Trump and Biden. Okay. Cause you got the Delaware and the California.

That's right. You've got all the state cases against Trump. You got the federal cases against Trump. You got the 14th amendment cases that involve Trump. So the entire legal system right now is, and that includes the Department of Justice and then includes state prosecutors on the other, on the state charges are all bent on one thing, impacting your right to vote.

Now, again, I don't care if you before Donald Trump against Donald Trump, it doesn't matter because he could do this to anyone. They believe they can do this without any judicial recourse, that you don't even really have to go to court for this. We'd like to have the imprimatur of the court, but you don't have to do that. There doesn't have to be a charge of insurrection to incite that, to utilize the 14th amendment section three, which is the clause that says, if you, you know, interfere with these things, you know, interfere with these things, you're disqualified. And then at the same time, the Supreme Court of the United States takes up a case involving the interfering with an official act of Congress, which is the main part of the case against January 6th against Donald Trump. And I don't think the Supreme Court took that case up, to be quite honest, to affirm the lower court because they could have affirmed the lower court and the charge would have stuck. Instead, at least four justices in the Supreme Court thought the case had merit for review. By the way, that particular case is some other January 6th protesters not involving Donald Trump, but it's interesting that the court's taking it. And then the court is taking a case involving executive privilege or Presidential immunity, something we argued at the Supreme Court in 2020.

So I want you to understand the entire scope of what's going on here. Our elections, our right to vote, the way in which these things are going forward right now, are being handled by a state district court judge, a state superior court judge, a US district court judge, a Fulton County DA, a US attorney that's now a special counsel, and also at the Supreme Court of the United States. All of this less than four weeks before the Iowa caucus. Yeah, when things really ramp up.

And I mean, Jack Smith knows this, every one of these other attorneys knows this too. Once that begins, once these people start winning and losing from the caucuses to the New Hampshire to South Carolina, and then the buildup to Super Tuesday in March, that is where the media goes. I mean, it is very tough to get through anything else on the cycle other than war. So, I mean, basically it's all politics. And what is interesting about the ACLJ is we're ready to go. We're either fighting every one of these battles, or even in like the January 6th overreach case, we're ready to go on that if necessary. We're finally a brief on that. I want to make that clear to people.

Yeah. We're finally a brief on that because I think it interferes with core first amendment privilege. A lot of the cases we argue to the Supreme Court years and years ago, decades ago, will be impacted.

But folks, this is it. We are at the last two weeks of our faith and freedom year in drive. It's the biggest month of our year. This could shape up to be the busiest December at the Supreme Court ever, because you've got the January 6th case up there already. You've got an abortion case up there already. One of the 14th amendment right to vote, you know, these taking Trump off the ballot cases, either Colorado or Michigan is going to end up there. So three Supreme Court cases before you start. And then the fourth one is the immunity, the Presidential immunity case, which we're finally on, obviously, because let's face it, folks, we did the predecessor cases at the Supreme Court. At the same time, our teams are defending Israel on a global scale.

It's at the UN, it's at the International Criminal Court, it's at the universities, on and on it goes. We can't do this vital work without your support. And folks, we are exactly even with last year for this month. I want to get ahead. We want to get ahead. It's very important that we get ahead. So we want you to do the best gift you can make to keep this vital work going. Today, as we enter this Christmas week, your support for the ACLJ will make a tremendous impact. And folks, it already is. So many of you have been using the phrase, I'm a champion, or I'm reporting for duty, or I'm a champion, and reporting for duty.

Join the fight. Every gift you make to the ACLJ is going to be doubled by a match by another donor and will be, of course, tax deductible. And if you're able to make a monthly recurring gift, you become an ACLJ champion.

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Also, Twitter X, we're on there. There's a series of cases we've been involved in for many decades, and that is the attempts to regulate out women's health centers, resource centers, as we call it, crisis pregnancy centers, out of existence. And this has been an ongoing battle that we've been involved in. Literally, I've been litigating these cases for three decades. And a recent case came out.

We're going to get into that in a moment. But these centers are literally on the front lines on the fight for abortion. And we've got Olivia Summers, one of our senior lawyers on this topic. And this has been something we've been passionate about for many, many decades, but the left keeps coming and coming. They will not stop because they know how important these crisis pregnancy resource centers really are. Yeah, I mean, Olivia, basically a lot of what you do at the ACLJ is working with these pregnancy centers. And whether it's California or you move here into Illinois, where we finally got a good resolution, these states and localities in pro-abortion states, or when you've got pro-abortion state leaders, they do everything they can through the legal system to try and make it impossible for these pro-life pregnancy centers, which run off donations, their nonprofits, to even operate.

Yes, exactly. And we've seen an increasing attack ever since Roe was overturned. We expect there's probably going to be a whole slew of these similar laws being passed in pro-abortion states across the country next year.

And we saw a whole lot of them pass this year. So we know that the pro-abortion side knows that these pregnancy centers are important, and as Jay said, on the front lines. You know, let's focus on the frontline aspect of this. You know, it started out years ago, I was representing the pro-life protesters that were handing out leaflets or sidewalk counseling on the sidewalks, and then you had Operation Rescue. And then you had these pregnancy resource centers sprung up all over the country. And Olivia, take someone inside there for a moment on what these centers do for women in distress.

Right. So as you mentioned, these sprung up in taking, you know, on the needs of women in crisis who are needing an alternative, a real choice. And they've increased their access to women by increasing their services. It started out with handing out diapers and maybe providing ultrasounds. Now they have childcare classes, parenting classes. They have medical doctors actually involved in being able to give women prenatal care, which we know is not provided by Planned Parenthood.

Helping women through their pregnancies and even after pregnancy, giving them diapers and clothes and follow-up appointments so that they can make sure that these women and babies have the best support possible. So in this case out of Chicago or out of Illinois, what was the state trying to stop? So the state is basically trying to shut down pregnancy centers from being able to access pregnant women at all because they are targeting them by saying that they advertise false services and they're using consumer protection laws in order to try and shut them down and shut down their speech. So what's interesting here is we're going to talk about the fact that the case came out successfully, but last thing I wanted to ask you, Olivia, was you talked to a lot of these, as Jordan mentioned, you talked to a lot of these centers and we have told them at the ACLJ, we will stand with them literally from coast to coast.

Yes, absolutely. We've seen centers in California, Colorado, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois attacked and targeted by these kind of laws. And I spoke recently to a group about 50 pregnancy centers and let them know that we are at the front lines for them. Like we have their backs and if they need to contact us because they're being targeted, we'll be there to help them immediately. Very good.

Olivia, thanks for taking time to talk to us and appreciate your work on this issue. Yeah, I mean, you see the positive out of Illinois. Ultimately, Illinois, very pro-abortion governor, very pro-abortion attorney general, they've been trying to fight it out there as we were talking about trying to make... But a great district court judge.

Yes. Can I read this order? You can read it because this was trying to use consumer protection and say, you know, these are fraudulent actors, these pro-life pregnancy centers. So, and this is, he starts out with a Scalia quote, which is actually is very true. I remember when he did this and it says this, Justice Scalia once said he wished all federal judges were given a stamp that read stupid, but constitutional. Then he talks about, but SB 1909, which was the legislation that was challenged here, which used the consumer protection to go after the crisis pregnancy center, is both stupid and very likely unconstitutional. It is stupid. I don't like using the word stupid, but the judge did.

It is stupid because of its own supporter admitted it was unneeded and unsupported by the evidence when challenged. It's unlikely unconstitutional because it's a blatant example of government taking the side of whose speech is sanctionable and whose speech is immunized on the very same subject no less. SB 1909 is likely classic content and viewpoint based discrimination prohibited by the first amendment. I argued at the Supreme Court in the United States, the seminal viewpoint discrimination case, it was the Center for Riches Union Free School District versus Lamb's Chapel or Lamb's Chapel versus Center for Riches Union Free School District. There a church was denied utilization of facilities open to everyone else. And they were denied it because of the content, the viewpoint they were saying, which was a Christian message. And nine justices of the Supreme Court said, no, you can't do it.

So here's what you've got. A case literally from 1992, that line of cases, is the basis in 2023 that this judge appointed by former President Trump struck down SB 1909 and now a permanent injunction is in place and it looks like the government has completely caved in. Yeah, they have. And I mean, I think this is, again, this was part of abortion distortion, but we're starting to see in the federal judiciary the impact of those Trump nominees.

Again, it takes like a few years and you realize how important those nominees are at every level. And they, again, they were kind of growing up in law school reading those cases because before that, these religious groups were shut down, these pro-life groups were shut down. And then they started fighting back and say, wait, you can't mistreat us differently than everyone else. And that's all these cases are really about. When it comes out to it is they're following the rules, they can have their pro-life pregnancy center.

You can't shut them down. All right, folks, we are in the last two weeks. I mean, not even the last two weeks, we're in the last 12 days of our faith and freedom year-end drive. And this is going to be our busiest December at the Supreme Court.

You've got the cases we already talked about, the election cases, the Presidential immunity case, the abortion case, all of those are at the Supreme Court of the United States. So it is jammed. At the same time, we've literally put our global resources behind the defense of Israel and the hostages and trying to get them free.

You know, we've had tragic news in those cases every day as the war continues, but urban warfare is horrible. And this is what we're having to deal with. But we had our European Center for Law and Justice Office for 12 days from Brussels to Paris to Strasbourg working with hostages.

Now there's another group they're talking about bringing after the first of the year to London and to Madrid. So our teams are fully engaged. This is where you come in, folks. We really need your support.

These are the busiest financial days of the year for us. This is when we make up our budgets, really. So we encourage you to go to ACLJ.org and support our work. Yeah, there's two ways you can do it through the faith and freedom drive. You can, again, we know many of you, you're making your year-end donations. So you'd like to make a larger donation. This is the time to do it for the ACLJ because up to a million dollars is matched in your donation. So, I mean, you can make a big donation to the ACLJ. If you set up, and I haven't given all year, but I want to give $500 now, that $500 is going to be matched. But you can also say, hey, I can give $100 a month to the ACLJ or $50 a month to the ACLJ, and you can become a recurring donor. And those are ACLJ champions that are so important. And this month, that gift will be doubled.

So you'll still have double the impact this month. So whether you want to make that big donation or that recurring donation, you can do it online right now at ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

All right, welcome back to Sekulow. As we talk about all of those cases heading to the Supreme Court and all that is happening really around federal courts and state courts around the country that the ACLJ is engaged in and the rapid fire that came really the last week and a half of cases that are heading to the Supreme Court, whether it's life cases, speech cases, protest cases that are going to impact some of the Trump cases. We saw the Jack Smith asking for a quicker review by the Supreme Court on post-Presidential immunity, on Presidential acts while you are President. So, I mean, a whole host of issues that we are engaged in at the American Center for Law and Justice. On the 14th Amendment, we're waiting for Colorado. We've seen victories at the highest courts in Michigan. Colorado is outstanding and we will see how those groups will decide whether or not they're going to make those appeals from those state highest courts to the US Supreme Court.

But I will say that I don't think those groups are ready, including large groups like CREW, were ready to face the ACLJ all over the country and they didn't realize we were going to come hit back so aggressively and not just file amicus briefs in some states, but actually intervene in some of the toughest states and in front of some of the tougher judges because of who they were appointed by and beat them. Well, we took a very aggressive position because fundamentally what's at stake is your right to vote. You talk about election interference, I can't think of anything more of an election interference than removing people off the ballot because you don't like what they tweet. Partisan secretaries of state. Yeah, and by a partisan secretary of state. So that to me was a tremendous violation of the right to vote, the fundamental right to votes at stake. And then they started filing, there was one guy who started filing these suits and we started filing, intervening in all of them and he just stopped, I think.

I think, well, is that right? That guy, I can't remember his last name, don't need to. He stopped. It was Oklahoma or one of the states. He filed, we filed, he withdrew. But in some of them, we've got a decision out of the Michigan Supreme Court. So that one, they could, we won. They could, to the other side, could take that to the Supreme Court.

I suspect Colorado because it is CREW and they're a bigger organization that is more likely to go to the Supreme Court. I guess no decision today. We were expecting decisions at 10 o'clock, nothing yet.

I don't know how to read that. We may be in the position we're taking a petition of certiorari up. So we're going to have to beat folks. We didn't even have that on our list. When I gave you the list in the last segment of the broadcast of Supreme Court cases, that didn't include that one because that one, I think, is Colorado is going to be coming up. So we do have the 14th Amendment case out of Colorado. We've got the Presidential immunity case already at the Supreme Court, possible expedited review on that. We've got, the court has granted a January 6 obstruction of Congress case that has broad implications for the First Amendment's freedom of speech, freedom of association, and petition the government for redress of grievance, First Amendment claims. So we're involved in that. They took one of the abortion cases as well in the abortion bill. And at the same time, as I mentioned in the last segment, we've got this massive defense we've got going on right now for the state of Israel. Am I talking about massive?

Let me tell you what it means. We're already filing at the United Nations on behalf of hostage families. We filed already documents at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, including communiques with the prosecutor, the office of the prosecutor of the ICC. At the same time, we've sent letters to university Presidents around the country.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, we made sure, you saw those hearings and you saw one university President reside because of the anti-Semitism they are allowing on their campuses, the fact that they would not condemn genocide publicly or the call for genocide. And so we got letters to all of those Ivy League institutions that they should be on notice. And we are prepared to go even further if necessary, as we have seen and as you have seen, these protests continue throughout the holiday season. I think we actually are going to see an uptick in some pretty nasty anti-Israel protest around the Christmas holidays. This has been the busiest December that I can remember. And that's where you come in, folks.

We are in the last 12, 13 days of the month here. This is when it counts. Your donations will make a huge difference. Any amount you donate is doubled.

It's tax deductible. It's our faith and freedom drive. And if you can make that a monthly gift, you become an ACLJ champion. And the reason that we're even with last year, we want to pull ahead, is because of our ACLJ champions. But as Jordan said, if you want to make a one-time gift, a larger gift, we understand that, expecting that monthly.

So any amount you can donate, we really appreciate it. It's at ACLJ.org. Again, if you can do that monthly, you become an ACLJ champion. And those champions are already having a dramatic effect on our work here at the ACLJ. Back with more, including Rick Rinnell in a moment.

All right, welcome back to Secula. Rick Rinnell, who's a team member with us at the ACLJ, former acting director of national intelligence, a cabinet position, and ambassador to Germany, is joining us now. And we want to focus some attention, of course, on what's happening in the Red Sea and specifically in Yemen. I mean, Rick, right to you, we saw the US responding to 14 drones that were sent up by the Houthi, used to be called like the Houthi rebels group. But when you see them now take any positions in the media, they've gotten a lot more formalized in the last few years.

They've got uniforms on. They are addressing the Yemeni nation, I mean, which is basically kind of a failed state at this time with the Houthis in control of a lot of territory there and of the government. But it has shut down most of the shipping inside the Red Sea, which can have huge implications for shipping all around the world. So do you see this escalating and the US seems to be at the tip of the spear on this one? Look, I'm very concerned because it's not only a diplomatic concern and a political concern and a national security concern, but it's bled now into a business and commerce. We have very innocent businessmen, entrepreneurs who are being impacted by what the Iranian backed Houthis are doing. This is a signal that the Biden administration's policies have been a disaster.

They've been weak everywhere. Remember, it was Joe Biden who took the Houthis off the terrorist watch list. That sent a very powerful message. It was Joe Biden who funded the Iranian regime to the tune of billions of dollars, whether it was through credits or sanctions relief or outright paying them. Remember, we paid them, the United States government paid them for hostages.

This has been a disaster all along. And we should always start and finish every broadcast with the more than 100, 100 people being held as hostage by Hamas in Gaza. I'm not sure why anyone is telling Israel to let off the gas when they're trying to find hostages. We have a load of Americans who are hostages.

We don't even know the numbers. We don't even know the exact numbers of how many people are being held hostage, but we do know there are American hostages, 72 days in captivity by Hamas. Rick, the situation with the shipping now, I mean, becomes a big issue. So the major shipping lines, because of their insurance, and understandably has said, we're not gonna ensure, stop the shipping lines there. The United States has moved in two additional battleships into the Red Sea region.

We've got a lot of, we've got a lot of Navy right now in that region. The problem here is all of this is stemming from, and people need to understand this, the Houthis, yeah, Hamas terrible, Hezbollah terrible, but they're all funded by one country and that's called Iran. And if we don't deal with Iran at some point here, aren't we just ignoring the inevitable?

Yeah, look, Jay, as you know, I'm a long-term diplomat and I like to talk about diplomatic solutions. And in the Trump administration, we had a good diplomatic solution. We had isolated Iran.

They were isolated by the international community. There were sanctions on Iran and it was the Biden administration that let those sanctions lapse. Now, look, to the Biden administration's credit, they were trying engagement.

I think it was a poor judgment call because we had tried engagement. It didn't work with the Iranian regime. Remember, Donald Trump did engagement. He tried engagement and it worked with the North Koreans.

And so we're not afraid of engagement. But the reality is, is that we need diplomatic solutions. Donald Trump was somebody who tried diplomatic solutions. He took out Qasem Soleimani, the lead terrorist in Iran. So he was able to pull the trigger on military options as well. But this mix of being tough is really important.

I'll finish with this. We have more than 80 attacks on American assets in the Middle East through all of these Iranian-backed groups. And there's been very little pushback from the Biden administration.

What do you think that the Houthis and others are learning when they get to escalate the situation and then escalate the situation and there is no pushback from the Biden team? You know, I mean, Rick, that I think is the issue, right, is that if there's not enough pushback and the shipping gets closed and then ultimately we've got ships, though, they're there in place that are having to shoot down drones, the escalation could happen over. I mean, we can wake up and we see again, because the U.S. has been, for the most part, not directly engaged in a lot of these conflicts. We've been on kind of the periphery. And this could put us right in the middle of it.

Look, let's be really clear. When the Iranian-backed groups attacked the American assets one time under the Trump administration, President Trump reacted. We're now more than 80 attacks on our American assets. And that means hardware or our bases or our drones or American individuals. This is going to get worse. And we are encouraging this weakness from the Biden team is encouraging more attacks.

I'm very concerned about it. What would you do if you were in office again, if you were back to deal directly with Iran, what would be the next move? Well, you immediately impose all of the international sanctions and you rally the world to say no more dealing with Iran. You have to freeze all of their financial assets. You have to demand that anyone doing business with them, anyone buying oil, that includes China and others, to stop immediately.

You have to squeeze them. And there's a couple of other things that I can't talk about that I think that we would do. We certainly were moving in that direction in the Trump administration. Let me follow this up with this situation, go back to the Israel for a moment here. The Israelis have said, and it's understandable if you know the region, of course you do, and we've all, you and I both been there a lot. This rooting out of Hamas, I mean, really eliminating Hamas as a threat, not just like, you know, tampering it down and taking two years to rebuild, but getting rid of Hamas, which is the goal, which even to the Europeans are saying should happen, get rid of Hamas, is not going to take a week or two weeks.

It's going to take, it could take a year. It's going to be, it's a real war. What it's good, they're still launching rockets, not near as many, but they are still. You've got the secretary of defense over there today, and who knows what he's saying. I'm sure nothing helpful to the Israelis. You've got a war cabinet in Israel that is under a lot of pressure from its own citizens, to be honest, understandably. There's a lot of angst in Israel right now. What is your, what would your message be to the Israelis right now as it relates to this conflict with Hamas? I don't call this a Israeli Arab conflict. I don't call it an Israeli Palestinian conflict. This is an, this is Israel Hamas conflict, which is really Iran. What would you be telling the Israelis? Look, I think that we would be responding to whatever the Israeli government needs. There are more than a hundred hostages, including Americans who are being held. This is a crisis situation. We should not be critiquing armchair quarterbacking how Israel is trying to get the hostages back and deal with those people who took hostages and who murdered people, innocent people.

We have to remember that. They are trying to fix this problem. And so I would just be standing by asking Israel, what do they need from America? We certainly, while we have hostages, are not going to tell them to back off. They're trying to find hostages, including Americans. And remember now we've had the President of the United States go over and return home without hostages. We've had our secretary of state go over multiple times, return home without any of the American hostages. The same thing with the national security advisor today, the secretary of defense is there. Is he coming home with our hostages?

I sure hope so, but I don't see any evidence. And lastly, Jay, our CIA director is in Europe trying to cut some sort of deal. I hope that the deal is to get the hostages home. We have Americans for 72 days that are being held against their will.

This is a disaster. Get to work and focus on bringing Americans home. That is again, and Rick, we always appreciate your insight and it's something we haven't heard very directly from this administration, but we're going to continue to push on. I mean, as everyone knows where this, I remember I was where I was with a group of senators when this attack happened. Then I was on the West coast as it started to kind of the build up to war began and the hostage situation got clear. And then by the next week, we were with hostage families in Washington, DC with the leaders of Congress on both parties. So we've been on the top of this, really on the tip of this the entire time we continue to do so, as you said, through our European team, even this week, maybe in Washington.

And I want people to understand that we're by supporting the ACLJ, you're standing with Israel. Absolutely. Rick, we appreciate your comments.

Appreciate your insights. Thanks for being with us. Yeah. And so folks, again, this issue, which, which goes up and down kind of in media coverage, you have to understand is, is going full scale and there are Americans still being held hostage by Hamas. We are working on that. We are working on the legal defense of Israel as we speak. We know that will be coming. I just got, I just got a text from our colleagues in Israel, the lawyers tomorrow morning, nine o'clock zoom call.

It's back. Yeah. The legal work. The legal work is back.

So again, support the work of the ACLJ. It's the most important month of the year. We're getting down to the most important couple of weeks of the year for the ACLJ financially through our faith and freedom drive. You can again, make that one time larger donation that year in donation. And we appreciate those just as much.

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ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. So of course we can't ignore, of course, is what some people be talking about. How far away are we from people voting? It's three weeks, about three weeks. Iowa. And so it's Iowa first. The New Hampshire. New Hampshire is how long? Six days later or not even? It's a week later. Then you get... South Carolina.

South Carolina. And then you get Super Tuesday, March 5th. Do you think... I think it's over with before then personally. Yeah.

I mean, I think, listen... Unless something weird happens. The big news today is that Nikki Haley has made a bigger jump in New Hampshire. The most recent New Hampshire poll from CBS, and this is the one that showed the big jump, had Trump at 44% and Nikki Haley getting up to 29%, which is big for her campaign, that New Hampshire is January 23rd.

So again, like two weeks after Iowa. So let me ask you this, but remember in that Chris Christie is still at 10% and DeSantis 11%. So those voters, even if the... First of all, not all of them are gonna drop out.

And if they did, let's say DeSantis said, you know what? I can't... I'm not gonna be able to pull this off. His whole 11% is not going to Nikki Haley. Yeah.

So let me ask you this. So Iowa, if Trump wins Iowa and Nikki Haley were to win New Hampshire, which doesn't seem like... Right now it looks like Donald Trump's gonna win New Hampshire, but let's just hypothetically speaking here. What does that do if you're Ron DeSantis?

I mean, I think it effectively almost takes you out fully of the campaign. What about Ron and Chris Christie out? Same, because New Hampshire was his... Which then leaves two candidates. Yes.

And she then has to go into her home state, which is very friendly to Donald Trump. She'd have to win South Carolina or else she's done. Don't you think? That's all before... Yeah. I mean, I think... When is South Carolina, Will?

February 3rd. So this is... You're talking about a month, about five weeks, this whole thing could be wrapped up. Yes. Because again, let's do the opposite. Let's say Donald Trump runs that table in Iowa, New Hampshire. And then in South Carolina, does Nikki Haley look at the polls and say, I don't wanna get beat by Donald Trump... Which is what Jeb Bush did and did not go forward to Florida. Right.

And you'll see that by... I think you can see it by DeSantis as well, is that he might stay around through South Carolina, but then you see on Super Tuesday, you're gonna get destroyed, and that includes one of your home states. For Nikki Haley, it's tougher because her home state is even earlier. And so she's gotta say... She's got to over-perform, and I think that means win. She has to beat Donald Trump in New Hampshire. She's gotta go up from 29%, so she's somehow gotta take all the DeSantis and Christie vote, and they're still in the race as of right now. And by the way, if you read the news yesterday, DeSantis is... They started a new 527 just to go after Nikki Haley. Yeah. So... They view her as a real threat.

So if they still have that kind of money to go after her, and yet your votes don't necessarily go to DeSantis, I think your votes are going more likely to Donald Trump if you're picking between styles there. Yeah. Interesting. Well, take your calls, by the way. Also, strange things start getting... Strange new relationships can build in these final weeks when you get to this close.

What do you mean? I mean, Trump and DeSantis have been very much at it, right? But if DeSantis takes out the ads that take out the only person who's even polling close to Nikki Haley for Donald Trump, I mean, Donald Trump might acknowledge that and the campaign. Now, he's less of a traditional campaigner. I think people saw him over the UFC. I think Rick was there. I mean, he's got this kind of ability to walk into a room that's different than all of them. He's doing events in New Hampshire that are 10 times the size of anybody else does.

Than anybody ever did. Iowa, same thing. You couldn't even get these people out because they're used to you coming to their house, as we know. And yet they understand with Donald Trump that's not gonna happen, and they'll come and wait for three hours. So it will be very interesting, though, until people actually vote. The caucus thing is weird. If you're not in a caucus state, I don't even have enough time right now to explain it to you how commit... It's not like you wait in line for 45 minutes and vote, and that's like a long time in a primary.

I mean, it's hours of commitment. Some people expecting a surprise in Iowa, especially people that are some of the old grassroots social conservatives. They think that it will not be Donald Trump. They think that it's gonna be Ron DeSantis is gonna pull it off.

Listen, I mean... Could it happen? Ted Cruz technically beat Donald Trump in Iowa. But the way it's... You have to figure out those caucus numbers. It was so close that they were already in New Hampshire. It was effectively a tie, and then Donald Trump won New Hampshire big, and that was it. So Ted Cruz never really got the bounce. That also happened to Rick Santorum. So it's happened to two candidates in a row. Huckabee. Yeah, Huckabee as well. So you've got to kind of have... You gotta win it that night or else. If you're running close to the guy who was expected to win and Donald Trump, that's the best story you're gonna get.

And then you get into a state like New Hampshire, which is very different than Iowa. Put in your comments. Those are you're watching by Facebook or YouTube or Rumble or X or whatever you're on. And by the way, make sure you're subscribing on all of those including YouTube and Rumble, of course. Put in who you're leaning towards right now.

Just stick it in the comments and we'll take a quick little tally. I mean, it's a little bit late in the broadcast, but I'm curious. And Nikki Haley is coming on stronger than... I mean, it's conceivable where Ron was thought to be the contender, that he may end up coming in third. Yes. I mean, third in some places, maybe even fourth in others. I mean, so Ramaswami doesn't seem to... His poll numbers have seemed to drop significantly.

Yes. So in those early three states, he's behind all of the... Does he survive past those? Only if he wants to... Getting into if there are any more debates becomes much tougher and so probably not. Are they still... Well, the last time we checked, they're still doing two debates, right?

Two more. I don't know if people are... Well, I think they're all hoping that eventually this gets so narrow that Donald Trump has to get in. That if it comes down to Donald Trump... Well, what do you think about that? I mean, how close does it have to get for the former President to have to do it? I think it'd have to be... I think you'd have to see Christie and maybe Ron drop out before New Hampshire if these numbers are right about Nikki Haley and so it's basically... A New Hampshire debate.

Trump versus Nikki Haley and it's a New Hampshire debate, yeah. Yeah. And then maybe he jumps in. I mean, that's not 100%, by the way.

That would be the only way I see him even thinking about it. Yeah. Because so far, the strategy has worked. His poll numbers keep going up every time they have a debate and the others are beating each other up.

Well, the fact that you're Ron DeSantis, you're taking out a new PAC to take down Nikki Haley shows your allegiances are still closer to Trump. Yeah, it's interesting. And we're friends with all of them.

Yeah, but it does show that. All right, folks, let me tell you what we... That's interesting. I'm glad we're able to give you a little political insight today, but let me tell you what we're... Yeah, we'll do more as we get closer to everything.

Yeah, yeah. But after Christmas, we'll get into it much more. But let me tell you what we're looking at. We're looking at three Supreme Court cases this month that we're dealing with. We're looking at the situation in Israel, Tuesday, 9 o'clock in the morning, conference calls, back to the morning calls, which means we're back to the evening call because of the legal work side of the Israel matter.

That's in addition to the hostages, the kind of law of armed conflict, the law of engagement. So this is where you come in. We're in a matching challenge campaign. We're entering Christmas week. Your support of the ACLJ will make a tremendous impact. Many of you have been, as the callers have been saying, reporting for duty, join the fight.

Every gift you give is tax deductible. It's gonna be doubled, which is important through our year-end drive. So we ask you to donate today at ACLJ.org. Now, many of you have become ACLJ champions that are people that are donating each and every month.

Let me tell you the interesting thing there. We started our campaign for champions with 15,000. We now have about 18,100, just shy of that. We wanna end the year at 18,500. I will tell you that next December, I wanna be over 30,000 ACLJ champions because the reason we're even for the month is because of our champions. So if you can donate monthly, we appreciate it. But if you're making a one-time gift, whether it's $5 or $5,000, whatever you can afford, that makes a huge difference.

It's tax deductible. Go to ACLJ.org and support the work. We've got a very busy December here. It's busy domestically. It's busy internationally. And you know what else? When you're supporting the work of the ACLJ, you're supporting all of our media outreach too, which includes our new movie, Jingle Smells, which is out jinglesmells.movie, supports this radio broadcast, all of our videos that we put up. Subscribe to Facebook and YouTube and Rumble and Twitter. Stay engaged. Back with more tomorrow.