BREAKING: Biden Admin Strikes Houthis in Yemen over Red Sea Attacks

Breaking news today on Sekulow as the Biden administration strikes hooties and Yemen over the Red Sea attacks. 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. Last night, 73 strikes on 60 targets at 16 Iranian backed Houthi rebel militant locations in Yemen. These are in retaliation for the attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea that began by the Houthis group on commercial vessels as well as US military vessels, UK vessels and other countries vessels. In response to, they say they are standing with the Gazans in response to the Israeli response to the attack on October 7th.

So there is that connection all the way back to what happened in Israel and Israel's ongoing response to the Hamas atrocities of October 7th. But they were not, again, just firing at Israel. They were firing at commercial shipping, some US shipping, some other international shipping. We talked about how drones have been shot down.

I think they were 18 a couple days ago. We talked to Secretary Pompeo that the one US military vessel had to shoot down. So a major strike ordered by the United States and President Biden's administration along with the UK and a couple other partners.

And this doesn't necessarily mean that's the end to this. It could be the beginning of a much larger conflict. So who are the Houthis?

I want to give you a little bit of an education on who we're dealing with here. The Houthis are also known as Ansar Allah, which means supporters of God. It's an armed group that controls most of the populated areas of Yemen. It's only about a third of the landscape. If you see the map that's on the screen, it's about a third of the property that is controlled and part of Yemen.

But it's all of the major areas where there are populists. Interestingly, the armed group controls those most populated part, including some of the western and northern areas closest to Saudi Arabia, who's been engaged with the Houthis for a long time. The Houthis emerged in the 1990s. At that time, they had just a couple of thousand members, but rose to prominence in 2014 when the group rebelled against Yemen's government. So it was an internal civil war that was going on there, causing the government to step down and sparked a huge humanitarian crisis.

The group then spent years with Iran's backing. Again, folks, this is all coming out of Iran, fighting a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia in the Yemen civil war. So the Houthis and Saudi Arabia have been in conflict. In recent week, the Houthis have deployed, this is not all their troops, this is what they've deployed, 50,000 troops around Marib, which is the internationally recognized Yemeni government's last stronghold. They claim to be currently fighting on behalf of Hamas, even though, by the way, they're 1,400 miles away from Hamas.

So think about that for a moment. All right, now, by the numbers, the Houthis are the only proxy of the Islamic Republic that have both land attack cruise missiles and medium range ballistic missiles. So that means their munitions are much higher than the other groups backed by Iran.

I won't get into the particulars on what they have. They have drones, which they're using as well. The standing army, and there's no direct number on this, but it is estimated to be between 50,000 and 150,000 soldiers. So this is a sophisticated military that has been doing these actions against the United States, Jordan. Yeah, and they've continued to expand. I mean, when they were initially a rebel group of 1,000 who was against the Yemen government, the Yemeni government, and Yemen has basically been a failed state and is still in a civil war. The civil war is not yet over. They have a separate governing body of the territories that the Houthis don't control.

But this time around, rather than focusing their attention internally, they have decided to go external. Again, to use the term that Mike Pompeo used, these are just, again, contract terror groups for Iran. And again, this time trying to impact commercial shipping in the Red Sea, which is important to the entire world and why you were able to build an international coalition very quickly. Though it caught a lot of members of Congress off guard, we'll tell you why when we come back on Sekulow.

If you've got questions about it, 1-800-684-3110. All right, welcome back to Sekulow. So you've got, again, some congressional surprise. Most of the commentary comes from congressional Democrats and backed by the Progressive Caucus. Rep. Jaipel, who said this is an unacceptable violation of the Constitution, Article 1, requires military action be authorized by Congress. If you go to the War Powers Act, though, and if these shipping vessels, which some of these were U.S., the President pretty much has clear power to act without having to go to Congress. He has to notify Congress.

You get 60 days plus 30 days before you actually need an authorization of use of military force. Or else you could never—a President could never respond quickly to an attack. Right, and it will always be politicized. And this is an attack. Yes, this is an attack on commercial shipping, so it's not just affecting, like, Israel.

This is affecting the entire global world, including the prices you pay, ultimately, for these goods and vessels that are owned by American companies and our allies. So I think you make an easy case that they have the authority to do that. These members of Congress throwing that out, I think they're doing that because it's easier to say that than the fact that they actually support these groups. Well, here, let's go back and talk about what they've done. Seventy-three strikes on 60 targets at 16 Iranian-backed Houthi militant locations in retaliation for the attacks.

That's what we've done. They have done over 100 attacks against U.S. positions, including wounding service men and women. So the strikes were joint between the United States and the U.K., was supported also by the Netherlands, Canada, Bahrain, and Australia. So this is an—it's an interesting coalition because, really, if you look at the history of the Middle East, there's been a realignment. And I think that's the biggest thing that comes out of this is the realignment of the parties.

Yes, it does. And I think that is precipitated by the fact that we see the danger that Iran poses ultimately behind this because the Iranians are really supporting the Houthi rebels in Yemen. And so now we have a coalition of the United States.

It's really interesting because it's the Western powers and Australia, of course, the English-speaking peoples coming together, the U.S., U.K., as you mentioned, Netherlands, Canada, and Australia, because these are American and British interests that are being jeopardized by these attacks. And I think the President was correct in doing it. And the Republican leaders, Senator McConnell, I think the speaker, support the President in this. And the interesting thing is that it's his Democrat supporters, Jay Powell, Ro Khanna, and Tlaib, who are calling him out on it. Oh, they don't like it because he didn't get authorization, which he didn't have to have. I'm backing up President Biden here. Listen to what Senator Graham had to say. It was strong, it was the most significant to date, but it won't change the problem.

It won't change the equation. The Iranians could care less how many Houthis die, how many people from Hamas die. You'll never get Iran through their proxies to back off until you hit Iran. You know, I was watching I24, which is Israeli news, yesterday, and they had one of the generals on, and Jordan, he said the same thing. He said, the only way you're going to really deal with this, at a significant level of where you can get something accomplished, is by going after Iran.

And until you do that, it's not going to happen. Yeah, as long as those groups, Iran has the money and the weapons to supply to these groups. They go from rebel groups of 1 to 2,000 to militaries and movements of 200,000 plus that are governing, you know, half of, actually the majority of the population in Yemen is under almost their control. They've gone from wearing kind of shepherd clothing to having full military regalia and spokespeople and making threats, which they did right away to the attack, and said, again, that the Americans and the British should not believe that they will escape the punishment of our heroic armed forces. The joy of the aggressors will not be long, and our hand will be the upper hand, God willing.

So again, they can make those statements all they want. The only way they can carry out actual significant attacks, like they had started to this last couple of weeks, is with Iran's support. So as long as Iran can keep, as long as there's enough Houthis alive that Iran can send the missiles to to fire, they're going to do that.

And I think that's right. It doesn't matter how many of them are killed, it's whether or not the resources are there for them to continue to fire. And again, talk about escalation. One of these hits a U.S. vessel, and you lose three or four service members or more, then you are getting into a conflict which you can't ignore who is in charge. It is Iran. The Houthi rebels are not making the decisions.

Even if they're making the day-to-day decision of when to shoot the rockets, they would not have these ballistic missiles without Iran. The Houthis have been in a conflict with the Saudis. So this is an Iran proxy war.

The Houthis actually live in, are part of their religious group, which they're an offshoot of Shia Islam, that live in Saudi Arabia. Right. But it's interesting, Andy, when you look at who's backing us in this, besides the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, it's Bahrain.

Yes. I think that's because of the Abraham Accords. Yeah, I think that, and also the fact that most of the Sunni governments looked at what happened in Yemen, which is a Sunni-majority country, but saw that this significant minority, backed by Iran, could quickly overthrow a government and send a country into complete chaos.

And that is what it has been since their civil war began, and the civil war is still ongoing. Let's talk about the escalation aspect of this. We're joined later in the broadcast by our senior advisor, actually, next segment, Tulsi Gabbard.

We'll talk to her about this as well. But Andy, the escalation potential, I mean, the reality is, this is all Iran. But let's take a listen to what Mike McCaul had to say and get a comment on that.

Okay. It's all about deterrence, about projecting strength, not weakness. We've been projecting weakness ever since Hamas invaded Israel with respect to the Iran-backed militias, Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels, in addition to Hamas. The Houthi rebels, with impunity, have hit commercial ships in the Red Sea, causing them to go around Africa, increasing prices over 250 percent.

So as we talk about inflation back home, think about the price rise that we're going to see from this Middle East conflict, in addition to the energy prices as well. I do commend the administration for finally hitting back. Yeah, so they finally hit back, but the question really is here is the cost factor of this is the Chinese have not taken the side of the Houthis and the rebels here, because it's a lot of their goods that are getting caught up in the Red Sea.

That's right. The Chinese have taken an interesting position, and that is the position of silence in this. I have not seen any news reports of the Chinese having said anything. Erdogan, our good ally for Turkey, says that we were disproportionate in our strikes, so you can count on the Turks a lot, as you usually can.

That's, of course, tongue in cheek on my part. But the Chinese, knowing that most of the stuff – a lot of the stuff that is being shipped through the Red Sea, now having to be diverted around the Horn of Africa, is their stuff, Jay. Yeah, right. So, I mean, it's affecting their trade, which will affect world trade, which will affect world prices. I understand what's happening in the Red Sea in the Middle East could have an economic global impact that is disproportionately large to the size of the area you're fighting over.

Absolutely. I mean, again, you cannot just limit this to the Houthis. And, of course, when you're talking about Hamas now, you can't limit it to the Gaza Strip. I mean, it's not – it is – again, it goes back to Iran, and then it goes back to who's Iran backed with, you know, whether it's China or Russia or North Korea, and then who is backing – who is standing in the way. You know, it's interesting that Russia called for an emergency meeting at the UN Security Council immediately. What do you think that is? It's not quite a formal backing of the rebels, but they are one of the only countries outside of the region, other than North Korea, that has worked with them, that has also kind of played a relationship and kind of acknowledged them as a legitimate government force and military force.

And I think, again, that's because they know that disrupting Red Sea shipping disrupts the Western world. I want to take a moment here and thank our ACLJ members for your financial support. We're able to give you this expert analysis because of our ACLJ team. We also have out our first for 2024, our brand new ACLJ 2024 prayer guide. About 6,000 of these have already been downloaded. The last prayer guides we sent out had 65,000.

I'm sure that number will get as well. And this gives you something to pray for us on some key issues, but it really is a good way to stay engaged with us, and we really appreciate you doing that. I also want to let you know how much we appreciate our ACLJ members, donors, and especially our ACLJ champions, those of you that are standing with us each and every month. And I say that because as we get our daily sheets of how we're doing financially, we're seeing this growing number of people that have become ACLJ champions that are really having a direct impact on our work. And if you look at what we're dealing with, Andy and I will be reviewing, it's probably gone through three drafts already at least before it goes to us.

But the first substantive draft of our brief to the Supreme Court of the United States on the election case, that brief is due next week. We're engaged in multiple fronts defending Israel. We filed those briefs around the world yesterday in those cases, so we're fully engaged at the ICG. I was on the phone with our Israeli colleagues and our ACLJ today.

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Again at ACLJ.org. We'll take your calls. Tulsi Gabbard will be joining us as well. 1-800-684-31.

Welcome back to Sekulow. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110, and we are joined by Tulsi Gabbard, a member of our team and an analyst for the broadcast. Tulsi, I want to go right to you as a former member of Congress, a Presidential candidate, and a member of our armed forces. The attacks that we are now learning about on the Houthi group in Yemen after a major provocation in the last few weeks that have been talked about more and more in the Red Sea, but also going back to where the Biden administration early on in this administration reversed course on even labeling the Houthi movement as a terrorist movement. So it's kind of, again, this idea that they started there and now look at where we are today in this, not a full-scale war yet, but a major conflict, certainly, and a major response to their attacks on this very important shipping route. Jordan, I think that's a perfect place to start is that this attack that was just launched by the U.S. and the U.K. has the risk of pushing us into a greater conflict because this administration is incapable and inept and they don't put the interests of our country's security and the American people first. So if we go back to 2021 when the Biden administration took the Houthi terrorist group off of the terrorist list, you look at the Biden administration gifting Iran with over $6 billion, claiming that, oh, they're only going to use this for humanitarian interests when everyone knows that Iran was using that money and is using that money to continue to fund these proxy groups like the Houthis and Hamas and others. And you look at the way that this administration forecasted this attack over the last few weeks, putting it out there in broad daylight that they were going to be launching this attack, which gave the Houthis the ability to go and stockpile and put their sensitive systems and their weapons systems in a place where the administration would not be able to actually achieve the kinds of effects that they claim to be trying to do, which is to damage the Houthis' ability to keep attacking these ships and attacking global commerce, essentially, in the Red Sea. So where does this put us now? The important questions that we've got to be asking is of this administration and the war hawks in Washington who are supporting this move without really thinking it through is what is your objective?

Well, they say, hey, we need to do something. We need to deter the Houthis. We need to stop the Houthis.

And this is an important step in doing that. That is such a naive statement because look at the past. Saudi Arabia, with a lot of U.S. support, and by the way, with no authorization from Congress, worked with Saudi Arabia in their war against the Houthis, which started in 2014. That war was waged for over 10 years. Guess who won? The Houthis won. Sadly, with the cost of hundreds of thousands of innocent Yemeni civilians' lives, but it ended only recently in a ceasefire that the Houthis negotiated with the Yemeni government and Saudi Arabia. My point is for leaders in Washington to think that going and launching attacks against the Houthis, as happened yesterday, is going to deter the Houthis. I don't know.

Maybe they believe Santa Claus is real. The worst thing that could happen is that this even unintentionally sparks a greater conflict that this administration will push all of us, the American people, our taxpayer dollars, and our troops into, once again, without any clear idea of what the objective is, what the cost is, and whether it actually ensures our national security. You know, it's interesting. Our friends at Fox News just had up a Tulsi map of the Red Sea area with Yemen. And the number of battleships now in that area, I don't know how you could get transport through. I'm not kidding.

It looks mammoth. But you've got to—you said something very important early on here, and I think we've got to focus on this. And I'd like to find—I don't know if we could do a Freedom of Information Act case on this or not, because I'm not sure.

It may be covered by an exemption. But the Houthis were taken off the terror list by this administration. I'd like to know why. You and me both.

You and me both, Jay. What were they trying to do? What backroom conversations were they having? Who were they trying to please?

That's my question. Yeah, I mean, Tulsi, to this point, I mean, the American people wake up to this. This has all happened in, like, the last two weeks that they've even really heard again about the Houthis because, again, it was mostly an internal civil war. Now, they get more aggressive because they say they're doing this in light of Israel's response to October 7th. We know that they would not have the weapons that they have and the abilities they have without Iran. So this idea that you can just take, again, pretty strong steps against them, that they'll somehow stop, as long as Iran can get them the weapons, they're going to keep firing.

I mean, I don't see any – until Iran thinks that's going to actually impact the Islamic Republic of Iran directly, if they've got their, again, proxies ready to go right along the Red Sea, they'll get into this kind of shooting conflict. In fact, it might actually be what they wanted. I mean, we just – the American people didn't get the speech. They didn't get the notice yet of exactly why are we doing this. And it explained – a lot of people are probably waking up to this saying, who are these people?

Who is this group? Because, again, it wasn't in the top of the news until maybe just a week ago. Yeah, you're exactly right. There's no reason for anyone to think that the Houthis are going to stop because of this. There's also no reason for anyone to think that the Biden administration has a real strategy in mind to make them stop. Working with all of the other countries who are being – whose economies are negatively being impacted by this. I just saw that Tesla in Europe is shutting down production, at least for the next two weeks, because they can't get their materials there to be able to continue.

There are many other businesses that are making those decisions right now are being forced to. The Biden administration, it appears, is too busy trying to cozy up to Iran to take this threat very seriously and to come up with a strategy on how do we secure our country and our interests. They are sending more and more money to Ukraine. We saw again just yesterday that over a billion dollars of sensitive weapons systems that we have sent to Ukraine, the Pentagon says, have been improperly tracked.

In real English, that means they're lost. We don't know whose hands those weapons are in. And those are the only ones – Nobody's hands that are good, I'll tell you that. They're not tracking the over a hundred billion dollars that we've sent them for other weapons systems and materials. Well, you mentioned the thing about – you know, I did that impeachment on Ukraine, and I said, look, to argue that there's not corruption in Ukraine is insane.

Of course there is. But when you say, you know, we can't track it, whose hands did they end up? Nobody with clean hands, I can tell you that, okay? Last thing, we only got a minute and a half left here. This is what I'm concerned about. One mistake, and we've got a powder keg that is already affecting our global economy.

One mistake here, and we can have a mess. So is this the lack of a – like you said, the lack of a plan from them, from the Biden administration? It is a lack of a plan.

It's lack of foresight. It's being reactive, and it's putting our troops' lives at risk. I have friends who are stationed there in some of those places that the Houthis have been attacking.

Once American lives are taken, this administration will push the American people into a war that they have not planned for or thought through. Thank you, Tulsi. We appreciate it. We appreciate you being part of the team here on a secular. And, folks, I think that is, again, it takes us into the next half hour, which is stepping back and saying, okay, you respond this way. What happens next? And you see the Houthis, they didn't back down in their response.

No. Because they know that they got what they wanted. Iran will now resupply them with – like we said, they're the only terror group linked to Iran that has these intercontinental ballistic missiles. Tulsi is exactly right. If you don't have a plan going into a battle – and she would know better than any of us – if you don't have a plan going into a battle, it does not end well. And I think you put that on steroids when it's the Middle East.

We know the President isn't talking to the secretary of defense. That's for sure. All right, back with more next half hour of secular. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

All right, welcome back to Sekulow. It's great to have Tulsi Gaver as part of our team on here to break this down. She's not only a former member of Congress and Presidential candidate, she is a member of the armed forces. And you see, again, this idea that when 73 strikes on 60 targets are fired by the U.S. and our allies at Houthi rebels, which we know is part of Iran's proxy network, that, you know, that might be effective in a sense of for a day, though they've already started firing back the Houthis. Not at the scale they were because, of course, they were massively attacked by the U.S. and U.K. But that this doesn't end, you can't have just a proxy battle with the Houthi rebels because there's 200,000 of them. And so long as there's enough of them alive to fire those weapons and Iran can get them the weapons, then Iran is going to continue to get those weapons to them. And they're taking their orders from Iran. They would not be firing at the Red Sea ships if Iran told them not to. So I think you see this provocation by Iran of how far can we go, whether it's working with Hamas, whether it's Hezbollah in the north who has played kind of this careful move since October 7th. How far can we go in our attacks on the western world without them touching us?

That's what Iran's playing right now. Let's go ahead. We're going to go to the phones at 1-800-684-3110. Is that Renee?

North Carolina on line one. Renee, go ahead. I hope and pray that you all endlessly remind people of this fact that prior to 1230 p.m. January 21st, 2021, Iran had neither the financial resources to conduct this kind of stuff. And at the same time, we had no risk to our energy system. And that is three syllables in explanation, Joe Biden. Well, look, I mean, the Biden policy – I couldn't agree with you more. The Biden policies have led to this. Elections have consequences, Andy.

We talk about it often. This consequence has been a disaster in this region. That's exactly the word that I was going to use, Jay, disastrous. The consequences of what the Biden administration has done vis-a-vis Iran. The consequences of what Blinken has done with respect to the policy that he's implemented by the President with respect to Iran. All these things bode very well, very badly for the future of the United States, in my opinion. And it does represent a radical change from the prior administration for the worse, as far as the United States is concerned, because we are funding the Iranians who are in turn funding Hamas, funding Hezbollah, funding the Houthis.

How far do we have to go before we realize this and say it? It's always Iran. Yes, and there was just the bizarre move, you know, by the administration very early on, and still we don't get an answer. I play this from John Kirby because he keeps getting answers like, why did you take these guys, this organization, off the terrorists? I mean, was this just a move because you didn't like the fact that Trump was able to put together the Abraham Accords and that administration had that moving, so you had to start dismantling it by taking these groups off the list, which then impacts their financing and impacts their ability to move around the world.

And also conduct diplomacy around the world. And then the answer is, well, we'll review it. You can listen to it. This is yesterday after we've gotten into this conflict, which the President has not come out and addressed the American people to say the end goal here, because they don't want to say, they never, at least right now, they don't want to say that the ultimate goal here is that we have to stop Iran, because they know that would mean full-scale war. But take a listen to Kirby.

It's pretty wild. Does the President have any regret over delisting with these as a terror organization? Is he reconsidering that at all? I've already said that we are going to review that decision.

We are. I said it a couple of weeks ago that we were going to take a look at that decision, and we still are. I want to see if our government affairs team can get out a FOIA request on everything related to the delisting and decertification of the Houthis as a terror group. The only part they would connect to is that this was part of their approach to Iran to try to start the nuclear talks again.

That this was one of the conditions Iran had. But none of this happens without your support, folks. So go to ACLJ.org, become a champion for life, liberty, and freedom. That means you're a monthly donor, so we can do these cases and bring you this information. ACLJ.org forward slash champions.

That's ACLJ.org forward slash champions. More when we come back. Welcome back to Seculars. We take your calls. If you have questions about this, 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. You're going to hear from political leaders very different comments about what happened with this strike on Yemen from different Republicans, different from Democrats, inside the parties. Some are about does the President have the authority to do this?

I think those, again, that's a pretty easy one to explain. And that's a way to try to cover for the fact that some of these more progressive members of the House of Representatives actually support these radical Islamist groups who are standing in solidarity with Hamas. But you've also got a trial ongoing accusing Israel of genocide by South Africa. That's at the International Court of Justice. Yesterday it was South Africa presenting their case on genocide. Today Israel was able to respond. And I want to say yesterday we distributed globally, when I say globally, around the globe to governments a very extensive legal brief on why Israel, A, did not commit genocide, and B, was engaged in pure self-defense under the international law of armed conflict. Our team both in Washington, in Jerusalem, and in Strasburg worked on this, and in Virginia Beach where we have a big staff as well at the offices with Regent University put this together.

We distributed across the board. And, Ron, we're going to take you inside the courtroom. We're going to hear from Tal Becker who's the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' lead lawyer on international law. Do we also have one from Malcolm Shaw?

Okay, let's play Tal Becker first. The applicant has regrettably put before the court a profoundly distorted factual and legal picture. The entirety of its case hinges on a deliberately curated, decontextualized, and manipulative description of the reality of current hostilities.

South Africa purports to come to this court in the lofty position of a guardian of the interest of humanity. But in delegitimizing Israel's 75-year existence in its opening presentation yesterday, that broad commitment to humanity rang hollow. And in its sweeping counterfactual description of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it seemed to erase both Jewish history and any Palestinian agency or responsibility. I thought that was, Andy, a very powerful statement by Tal Becker.

I have to tell you, I was very impressed. The way he put it, the language that he used, the fact that what South Africa did was to attempt to delegitimize the Israeli state, 75 years founded in 1948. The commitment to humanity is supposedly of Hamas and of the South Africa championing it. I thought the statement was brilliant.

Harry, what was your reaction? Well, I agree with Andy. I think South Africa not only sought to erase Jewish history, it sought to erase the Jews. After all, the Jews have been around for at least four or five thousand years. The Jews have been around and have pre-existed the area of Palestine. The Jews have been around before Islam was created, and it's also imperative to remember that Hamas has firmly established an objective.

Its objective is to eviscerate Israel and to eviscerate and destroy Jews and then Christians worldwide. So I think South Africa got it exactly backwards. Yeah, I think, again, it'll be interesting to see because you look at the way this court is set up right now with 17?

Yeah, 17 judges. Yes, so you get one from Israel gets added, one from South Africa gets added, and again, they don't have an enforcement mechanism. It's a UN court. But it certainly, again, it's a try to stain, you know, tries to, again, if they come down with a finding of genocide against Israel, all of Israel's enemies will use it.

Oh, will go. Including in the Western world. Of course. So we, one of our former colleagues, Malcolm Shaw, who we worked with the first go-round at the UN when we were representing Israel in Operation Cast Lead, same kind of thing, before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This one's before the International Court of Justice. He spoke yesterday as well representing Israel.

Here's what he said. South Africa casts its net widely in its application, it uses the word context many times. In particular, it declares that it is important to place the acts of genocide in the broader context of Israel's conduct towards the Palestinians during its 75-year long apartheid. Leaving aside the outrageous nature of that statement, why stop at 75 years? Why not refer to 1922 and the approval by the Council of the League of Nations of the British Mandate? Or 1917, the proclamation of the Balfour Declaration? Maybe also include the entry into the land of Israel, of the Israelite tribes, some 3,500 years ago.

No. There you go. I mean, I think those are two really perfect statements. And a lot of the arguments are marrying what we have put in our legal brief that's been, again, submitted around the globe. Numerous countries, UN officials, agencies, foreign ministries, this was a well-done product of our team. It was a 13-page single-spaced legal brief that our team put together on this to make our point.

Yeah. And I think, again, it's very important for everyone to know that on these issues, we've been front and center at the ACLJ on this. It's another attempt to try and delegitimize Israel and also try to take them off guard while they're involved in a current conflict. There's still hostages, you know, inside Gaza. There's still an ongoing war, and yet you're having to defend yourself and your actions before an international tribunal, before the conflict is even over. Well, and this is, I think this was intentionally brought by South Africa, Harry, to change what actually, to try to erase what actually happened on November 7th, as if it didn't happen. In their 84-page document, there were two paragraphs on what Hamas did, and they never called it genocide or even murder.

Absolutely. So on October the 6th, 2023, there was indeed a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Hamas, after all, seeks to destroy Israel, to destroy the Jews. They launched this attack. Israel has a right to self-defense under international law that's clear beyond question, and Israel has responded.

And guess what? Hamas does not control the Israeli response. And so Hamas is a clear and present danger to the existence of Israel. They're an existential threat, and Israel has responded appropriately. It was interesting, Andy, because in the way the whole lead-up to this situation, yesterday the leadership of Hamas thanked South Africa on Arab-run television for bringing this case against Israel.

Yeah, why not? They're their pals, they're friends, they're cohorts, they're allies, and they thanked them for this. Thank you very much, Hamas, for what you did on October 7th. We praise you and we glorify you for that, and that is the attitude that South Africa has taken. With respect to Israel, I agree with Professor Hutcherson, totally, and with what Malcolm Shaw said before the ICJ, and I think a brilliant statement, Israel has a book that is its deed to the land it occupies.

It's called the Bible. Yep. Here's Debbie in Texas on Line 1. Hey, Debbie, welcome to Sekulow, you're on the air.

Hi, good morning. You know, when I heard your radio yesterday, your program, about how it's South Africa, and I'm South African, it is no accident whatsoever, as far as I'm concerned, that it's South Africa bringing this complaint, because South Africa, with the apartheid era, you know, with Mandela, it is the only country in the world that actually has the weight to be able to do this as efficiently and effectively as they are. And, you know, I remember right after the Floyd death, I went and looked up Black Lives Matter, and I read their demands, and in there, there was about supporting the Palestine against the apartheid state of Israel, and I thought, well, that's really weird, because that's not an apartheid situation. But the whole narrative has been crafted to make it seem like an apartheid situation, and then South Africa is coming in as the bona fide past apartheid nation to lodge the complaint, because they have the weight to do it. And it's all the same playbook over and over again with these people.

Yeah, Debbie, they've taken this mantle on for years. This, again, they're getting a lot of attention this time, but South Africa specifically and the government there, which, again, I think is so opposite from so many of the people there. If you went to most churches and places in South Africa, you'd see a flag of Israel flying. You would not see a Hamas flag or a Palestinian flag flying. But the government there and these, what they call, you know, solidarity moves have sided with these movements, including terror movements, and this has been their opportunity to try and, like you said, recast what this word apartheid even means, and then they can go around the world and say, well, it happened to us, so if we say it's happening somewhere else, that must be true. And that's certainly not the case here, a very different situation, but it is the lot they've cast.

They certainly want to be the world leader outside of the Middle East to go after Israel. I'm hoping you're getting the information that we're providing you. That's why we do this broadcast, and your support of the ACLJ keeps this broadcast coming to you, whether you're watching on digital platforms or listening on terrestrial radio or satellite radio. Become an ACLJ champion today, which means giving monthly. You become a champion for life, a champion for liberty, a champion for freedom.

We encourage you to do that at ACLJ.org forward slash champions. A little domestic attention? Yeah. A little work to do this weekend. You've got cold fronts across the country, but there is some work that the ACLJ is working on this weekend to finalize briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court. So first brief is due from us and from the Trump team, so we represent the Colorado GOP. Our briefs are opening merits briefs. When we say merits brief, this is the brief on the actual legal arguments. We're now past the stage of please take the case. They have taken the case.

This is why we should win. So our first brief is due on February 18th. Today, as we're on the air, I got a note from some of our staff that the draft that is now available for me, Jordan, and Andy to review has been reviewed by three or four of our lawyers now is ready for our review. That's probably really – this is probably phase two of the drafting process. It'll hit four phases before we file on next Thursday.

That's right. We're prepared this afternoon to begin our review of the various drafts that have been prepared by senior members of our staff, and Jay and I are going to look at that this afternoon and take a look at what they said. This is, as Jay said, the merits brief. This is the brief that says why we ought to win. We've already gotten certiorari, which is a review by the Supreme Court of the United States of the Colorado Supreme Court decision, and now we're into the blood and guts of it, Jay. Yeah, the briefing stage on the merits.

We'll have one other one due at the beginning of February. Yeah, and I think, again, for everyone to understand here with this case and the briefing on this, these are merits briefs, so we will file a brief and then also get to file a reply to the, again, the crew-backed individuals, plaintiffs, the voters in Colorado who brought this. And this is the case that can end this issue not just for this election cycle but for the future as well. Okay, this was this novel theory thrown out by some law professors and even Republicans who were with other campaigns and want Trump off the ballot. And if this just gets settled, I think for voters and for state parties and for, whether you're Republican or Democrat, for campaigns in general, this will likely no longer be an issue because if it is, then this would be the norm. If the norm in politics, I was talking to a friend who is a Democrat elected official, and we are closely getting to the norm in politics of criminalizing being a Republican or criminalizing being a Democrat elected official and that it's the norm to file criminal state charges, federal charges, investigations. You must be a criminal if you believe in these politics and that is not a place we want America to be, where either side is using that and they both will if a court says go ahead with it. I mean there's this ridiculous situation that's going on in Atlanta right now with the district attorney who brought all these cases against Donald Trump and all the lawyers and all the witnesses and you find out, and Andy you practice in Atlanta, you find out that she hires her boyfriend and pays what appears to be an exorbitant amount of money.

She's never tried a felony case. No, and she paid him $654,000. I looked at his timesheets, two of them. He met with White House counsel on two occasions for eight hours and billed the state of Georgia for that. What does this mean for political incentive of the case? Why are you, you're investigating Donald Trump, you're going to the grand jury, but you're meeting with White House counsel?

Who's behind this? Is it Joe Biden in the White House counsel's office? Well, in any event, let me tell you what we've got. We've got to get our merits briefing. Let me tell you what the merits briefs mean.

This is when you talk about the legal arguments and here they are. The President is not an officer under the United States Constitution. He's not an officer under the United States or of the United States because we don't elect officers. We vote for Presidents and vice Presidents. We don't vote for officers. So that's argument one. Number two, the 14th Amendment section three itself doesn't have anything to do with running for office.

It's being seated. You cannot hold office if you're disqualified. That disqualification can be removed by the United States Congress, which tells you the authority of this lies in the United States Congress. Number three, there is no self-execution here.

There's no law at play here. That's why the trial that they took place, they were making up the procedures as they went along. It's important, though, and I think it's the most important election case in the country because the ramifications are incredible, Jordan. If we do not get this overturned, any sitting secretary of state or board of election supervisors, for whatever reason they want, I don't like this policy, we think they're insurrectionists, we're taking them off the ballot. Yeah, and that now becomes the norm at multi-levels of politics. And again, the idea here is that politics should be won based off ideas, policies, and even personalities. You like the people you vote for, you trust the people that you vote for at all levels. Not, we're going to put this person, we're going to file this charge now, ten years later, or we're going to use any novel theory possible to prevent other people from voting for this person in a primary or the general election. It's again, you can have very tough political campaigns without having to criminalize the political process in America. Because if you do, you start becoming, you are a third world country. Because politics, as a sense of that it's really in the hands of the people, it's not. It's taken away from you and it's now in the hands of unelected judges and it really depends on what court system you're in, what jurisdiction, who's got more at the courts. And it's talking about the exact opposite of what you want your legal or justice system to be, which is equal justice under the law.

And so I think again, there's always the temptation. You want to demonize your political opponents. We've gotten to the point now where the demonization on issues has led to criminalizing speech, criminalizing ideas and policies that people might not agree with, or impeaching over foreign policy you disagree with. So on Monday, we are then, what, where are we with the caucus? Well, I mean, you know, of course it's going to be horrendous weather and that's even for Iowa, for the caucus, which you see out there the images like that. It's normal to have snow, it's normal to have very cold weather, but they're looking for some of the coldest weather ever during a caucus. Which could affect turnout. It certainly affects turnout of people who are not as committed. So if you don't 100% love your candidate and you've got to go spend three hours at a community center, make a drive that could be somewhat dangerous, you know, it's going to be dark.

You're older. What's your prediction right now? You know, the weather has thrown it into, because people have had to cancel events even the last 24 hours. I think that the Trump team is putting out right now that any kind of victory above 13, 14 points is a huge win. Now the polls show he's up 30, 40 points, but usually that shrinks. Yeah. Just because caucus, again, it's easy for people to do those polls. A caucus is not like, if you haven't been part of this, it is not like waiting in line 20 minutes and voting.

It can be a three-hour process. Yeah. Every campaign needs to speak. We know that night. We know Monday night. You know, in the last two, we have not, we have not, because there's been two people that have been too close to call. And I think by the time they were actually voting in New Hampshire, I'm not sure we had a declared winner, which it was Ted Cruz. I'm not sure he, just by a few votes over Donald Trump. If Trump wins by 13% and Ron is- If he gets a win on Monday night, that's huge.

Okay. If by, if the win is taking two or three days, that changes the entire race. Really? Yeah, because that means he didn't have a 10 or 12-point lead, unless there's some problem with the calculation because of the weather. But the Iowa Republican Party said that, you know, that they have weather like this, they can handle it. But you think he needs a significant double-digit win?

And his teams put that, they're not shying away from that. They're saying 13-plus points. And if Ron DeSantis is 14-15 behind, 14-15, and is he 14-15 behind Nikki Haley? No, I don't know. Right. I mean, that's the big question.

Where do they actually fall? Are they in the teens? Well, analysis Monday. Yeah. All right, folks. Have a good weekend.