BREAKING: SCOTUS Decision Could Demolish Jack Smith’s Case Against Trump

Today on Sekulow, the Supreme Court hears a case that could do major damage to Jack Smith's charges against Trump as Israel sets its sights on Iran. Alright, the case today is Fisher v. Department of Justice. Again, this is a case which could have serious implications on Jack Smith's case against President Trump out of Washington, D.C. So, Fisher v. the United States.

Fisher was one of the people who did enter the Capitol. He was charged with a number of crimes, seven different counts, but he is challenging one of those counts. And that is obstruction of official proceeding under Section 18 of the U.S. Code 1512. And that's because there's a debate that goes back and forth between even courts now, the district court which agreed with Fisher, the appellate court which did not, which said that when you're talking about that code provision, that criminal code provision, you're actually talking about tampering with evidence. You're not talking about tampering with an actual procedure, like they had to slow down to have their procedural vote on the electoral college counting.

You're actually talking about tampering with evidence. And so there's this disagreement between the district court and the court of appeals. It's very significant that the Supreme Court has decided now to take this case up, and here's why. President Trump, unlike Fisher who was charged with seven different counts, and he's only challenging one is unconstitutional, President Trump was charged with four, but two of those fall under this category. So if you erase those two of the four charges from Jack Smith, which are the conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and the obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, all you're left with is very generic, which the Supreme Court and federal courts don't love, conspiracy to defraud the US, how, and then conspiracy against rights, whose.

So that's all Jack Smith would be left with, Logan, if Fisher is successful in this challenge, and I will say this. Usually you would say with these defendants who are usually found guilty, when they pick out one that they want to challenge in court, the fact that it's made it all the way to the US Supreme Court means there's at least four justices on the US Supreme Court who believe that the court of appeals is wrong, and they're overbroad in their interpretation. I think you need to kind of clear that up so people understand that. To get accepted for this to happen, it's not like, oh, you just work your way up. No, no, no.

You work your way up to a certain point, and then they make the decision whether they want to hear it. Right. If the majority of the Supreme Court, I'd say four of the Supreme Court justices at least, felt like this was 100%, that they were right at the court of appeals level, that it is broader than just actually going in and tampering with evidence. They weren't going to take their time to take another case high profile with President Trump involved because of how it would affect his January 6th case.

But they have decided to. They're doing it today as we speak, and the ramifications are gigantic, because if the court finds that those charges are wrong, that they cannot be used in this context, then you can argue with President Trump that they also are wrong and cannot be used in this context, which takes Jack Smith's case from four charges down to two, and it takes his two strongest charges, the conspiracy to obstruct an official government proceeding, which is the counting of those electoral votes, takes those out, and you're left with some pretty weak federal charges, which, again, we can't predict where the Supreme Court's going on in, but what we do know, Logan, is that they were not satisfied with where the court of appeals came down on this, so that's huge. We're going to take your calls about this topic, and also we're heading over to Israel in the next segment. We're going to be joined by CBN News' Chris Mitchell, so stay tuned for that. 1-800-684-3110, I'm curious what you think the Supreme Court will do. Do you think they will side? Who do you think they will side with, knowing now what you know from Jordan of what it takes to get to this point?

Where do you think they're going to go with this? I'd love to hear from you. 1-800-684-3110, if you're watching right now, although a lot of you are and you're brand new, hit that subscribe button. If you're used to watching and you're on YouTube or on Rumble, hit that thumbs up, get a comment in there, and vote in the poll if you're on YouTube, because all of that helps more people see this and get our point of view shared.

Go to ACLJ.org also to support the work of the ACLJ, and we just launched a brand new petition I think you're going to want to be a part of. We'll talk about that when we get back as well. Welcome back to Secula. We are joined by a great friend of ours at the ACLJ, of course ACLJ Jerusalem, and that is Chris Mitchell from CBN News, who is their senior Middle East correspondent. Chris, you spend your time in Israel and the surrounding area. I want to ask you first a more of a personal question about being there during this unprecedented attack, you know, on October 7th and then this unprecedented attack over the weekend by Iran, shooting both ballistic missiles and drones from Iranian territory into Israel.

What that was like for you, for your family, and for your friends. Well, it was kind of a surreal experience, Jordan. I happened to be up in the Galilee. I was planning a day videotaping in the Galilee on Sunday. About 1130 at night everyone was getting the news that Iran had launched drones and ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.

So I left the Galilee and I drove down to here in Jerusalem. We had a live stream on CBN News that night, and it was a surreal experience because you felt, because the drones took several hours to get here, everybody was anticipating where they would hit, how they would hit. We felt like it was going to be perhaps a massive, you know, destruction or death here in Israel.

And so that was a bit surreal. In fact, I got onto the live stream, Jordan, and the host asked me, well, where are these drones coming? And literally moments later we got the, we heard the explosion here in Jerusalem. They were shot, this stunning video, I'm sure you've seen it, over the Temple Mount. Many of these look like fireworks.

They were all shot down, thankfully, and we heard the explosion and then the air raid siren. I would say that it's a lot different now in a sense because we're anticipating Israel's response and then Iran's counter response with the possibility that this is going to get much, much bigger. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of one of our themes and one thing that we are kind of perturbed with the world and specifically our government here in the United States is to, you know, they basically said, well, Israel, since we were able to shoot these, you were able to shoot these down and other partners were able to, you know, keep people relatively safe with minimal deaths caused by Iran, that you really, really shouldn't respond with any kind of military action inside Iran. And, you know, you think about, Chris, this happening to any other country in the world.

Even if you, you know, the U.S., you can use an example, but any other country in the world. If they came under that massive attack and their defenses and their allies' defenses, yes, were that good, they still, I don't think, would just respond with, hey, let's put some sanctions. Now, I know Israel's in a different spot. They're not one of the biggest countries in the world, so we'll leave it to Israeli leaders to decide what's best for Israel. But the idea, the immediate world reaction is don't hit back.

Exactly. And, you know, I think President Biden put it this way, you know, you've got to win, take a win. And, you know, so many nations are urging restraint, but as to your point, what other nation would allow 350 drones, missiles, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles to be fired at them? And even though it was a great success, you have to fight back.

Jonathan Conricus, we've had him on our show as well. He made the point, you know, the rules of engagement here in the Middle East, if you get hit, especially from your own, somebody else's territory, you've got to hit back. So Israel has to have a response, and it has to be likely on Iranian territory. When's that going to happen? Remains to be seen.

I'll tell you one possible scenario, and actually I just got off the phone with Jonathan Conricus. He thinks maybe Israel's going to take a bit of time to allow this coalition to build with the Arab nations and the United States. Almost let Iran stew for a bit, you know, whenever Israel's going to respond, so maybe it's after Passover.

Passover starts next Monday night for about a week, celebrating the Israelites' deliverance from Egypt. And I would add this, Jordan, a lot of people believe it was miraculous what happened the other night, that 99% of these 350 drones and missiles were shot down. You know, even I was talking the other night or listening the other night, one of the men who actually developed the Iron Dome anti-missile system, he thought it would be successful.

He had no idea it would be this successful. No, I mean, it's amazing when you read the stories about how much was being launched in Israel, then you read the next day about how defensively, not just Israel, the United States, other countries like Jordan, Egypt, even Turkey, passing along information to try and limit the casualties, understanding that Israeli response to Iran could be very dangerous for Iran. But I think you said it best is that if we can get to that point again, Chris, where we can start putting together that coalition that existed maybe four and a half years ago with the Gulf states and Israel to say, you know what, combine together, we can take Iran on and we can scare Iran into stop trying to take these aggressive steps, whether they're groups that they're affiliated with or shooting missiles into Saudi Arabia or the Houthis or Hezbollah or Hamas, is that together we can really isolate Iran with that plus sanctions. And I think that idea of keeping Iran on its toes, not knowing how Israel may respond, is probably the best strategy. But I would imagine, again, any other country that faced this, Chris, I just can't imagine the world coming out and saying, please don't do anything.

You can go back even before October 7th, Jordan. If it happened to the US, Chris, we would flatten the country that did this to us. And if you cut all the rockets from, say, 2007 when Hamas took over Gaza, you're talking about 14,000 rockets. What other nation in the world would have accepted that?

And it really became a bit of a lifestyle. People accepted the fact that rockets would eventually come, but what other nation would actually accept that? And to your point about the coalition, Jordan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia and Jordan all sort of stepped out of the shadows. They say this was a 45-year shadow war with Iran and Iran stepped out of it and into the light to a direct war with Israel. But I think also you had Saudi Arabia saying that they apparently passed on intelligence.

The UAE and Jordan itself shot down some of these drones flying over their airspace. And so this coalition could be one of the brighter lights, the civil linings, to stand against Iran's ambitions to literally take over the region. We have seen the world, Chris, try to create some political division within Israel.

We've seen our own President, our own majority leader, Chuck Schumer, going after Netanyahu, going after various members of his government. Inside Israel, is this a uniting moment? I mean, it's been a lot for the Israeli people to take on. I mean, from October 7th and still dealing with that and the conflict in Gaza and IDF troops are being killed there each day fighting back against Hamas to this unprecedented attack by Iran.

This is something we have not seen. Iran crossed this kind of red line. I mean, it's a lot for Israelis to, again, to kind of just accept as a country that is pretty good about life goes on. This has been a very tough stretch over the last six months. Very, very tough stretch.

I've heard somebody say Israel really needs a hot bath and a good night's sleep. But more than that, you could almost call it, I think we're at 190 days. They almost feel like time has stopped on October 7th. You know, the Israel of October 6th is not the same as October 7th. You know, October 6th and before that, it was very divisive with this whole idea of judicial reform.

October 7th was a uniting aspect to this country like never before, I think, the unity. And unfortunately, there have been attempts to sow discord, like Senator Chuck Schumer and women reporting and others have reported on trying to undermine the Netanyahu government. But I just saw a poll yesterday or the day before that really Netanyahu leads in the polls right now. And I think Israelis, first of all, don't want any foreign power, even the greatest ally, the United States, to interfere with their own politics. And I think they agree with the goals of the war and that Netanyahu is advising that they want to eliminate Hamas, they want to destroy Hamas, and eventually, and then the next thing is going to go to Hezbollah.

And as we know, maybe in a day, two days, two weeks, to go around itself. Chris, we appreciate you joining us live from Jerusalem. Chris Mitchell, senior correspondent with CBN News in the Middle East. And we appreciate all of your insight, Chris. I also, Logan, we've got a brand new petition up at ACLJ.org. We were writing this yesterday.

I was out sick yesterday. But I said, you know, one thing I want to do is make sure we've got a brand new petition up about letting Israel decide how to defend itself. Yeah, when you have President Biden saying... I don't want to hear from Biden.

I don't want to hear from Schumer. I don't want to hear from the UN. I want to let the Israelis decide if they want to move to the path of sanctions, if they want to wait a little while and build a coalition, let them do it. Stop putting this world pressure on them after these unprecedented attacks of October 7th and now over the weekend by Iran. And this petition says, let our ally decide how to respond to Iran. And that's what you're signing on to. That's right. You can do that at ACLJ.org when you hear people like President Biden telling Benjamin Netanyahu, take the win.

Your defenses worked. That's not how it works. Be part of that right now. ACLJ.org to sign that petition. You'll see it right now live.

You'll see it on the right-hand side of your screen if you go there. Do it right now. We just launched it. It's only 50 people have signed it so far. But the goal is 50,000. So go do that.

It costs you nothing. Go to ACLJ.org and support the work. Also, Jordan, just quickly for those tuning in, when we get back from the break, we are going to be joined by Danny Denone. But I do want to give them just give me five seconds on what happened in the Trump situation. So in the Trump situation, we're on day two. And of course, this is that the Supreme Court is hearing the January 6th, one of the charges with the obstruction of official proceeding.

If the Supreme Court says that has to go from this other defendant to the four charges Jack Smith brings against Trump, fall. We'll talk about that a little bit later. Welcome back to Secio. It is great to be joined by a great friend of ours, former ambassador to the UN of Israel, Danny Denone, who is also a member of the Knesset now and Israel Ambassador Denone. First, let me ask you, because something that's got me upset as an American is seeing so many world leaders, whether it's at the UN or even the U.S. President, basically trying to tell Israel how it should respond to this unprecedented attack by Iran. And I just want you to know that our team at the ACLJ and our supporters at the ACLJ are coming together to make it clear that we believe that Israel should be able to respond the way that you choose, the way that you believe is best to respond to this unprecedented Iranian aggression. Well, I agree with you completely. You know, we appreciate the support that we receive from different countries.

But let me ask you that. Do you really think that if the attack was on London, for example, Prime Minister Sunak would have said the same, you know, show restraint? Or President Macron, if France was under attack from Iran? So I think we should be polite, tell them that we respect their opinion. But at the end of the day, we have to do what's important for our security. And that's why I don't see any other option only to retaliate to this aggressive, unprecedented attack.

And I believe it will happen. I don't think we have any choice. Yeah, I mean, it does seem like without a response, this is what concerns me, Ambassador Danone.

I know you're an MK as well, member of the Knesset. Is that if this becomes the new norm for Iran, well, they can fire as many drones as they want. But if they tell enough other countries and enough of them get shot down and it doesn't cause as many casualties or deaths, that this is OK. If this becomes something normal that Israel has to put up with from Iran, that is not a way to live as a country. A country can't live that way.

You can't flourish that way. You can't, I mean, especially after what happened on October 7th. Now that's what's happened over this weekend with Iran. You've got to push back in a way that shows, no, we are not going to accept this kind of action towards the Jewish state of Israel. And we are going to respond in a way that prevents those countries to make them think twice that this becomes like an international norm.

That's what I'm concerned about. Like somehow, like President Biden said, taking this is a win. It's great that your defenses worked and you were able to work with other countries whose defenses worked.

I think that's wonderful. But that doesn't always happen 100 percent. It did this time and that's wonderful. But this cannot become the norm with Iran and Israel, where Iran gets to fire off whatever they want at Israel, including ballistic missiles, and Israel can't respond. It's not a win. It's a win for Tehran, but it's not a win for Israel. It's not a win for Western democracies because the Iranians wanted to create a new equation that they actually decide when to start and when to end the conflict. And next time, you know, who knows what will be their excuse to target Israel again.

That's why I think we shouldn't accept the idea of calling it a day and move on. We're going to retaliate. We don't want to start a full war with Iran, but we will have to send them a very clear and painful message. Don't mess with us. Don't mess with Israel. Don't mess with the IDF. And if you think that we are weak because we are busy now fighting Hamas and Hezbollah, you are mistaken.

The same way we showed our defense capabilities, we will be able to demonstrate also our offensive capabilities. It feels at some sense, Ambassador Danone, that Iran must – it's like they knew the world was going to take their side. I mean, it's kind of sick that you would think a country taking this aggressive action so recklessly, but that they somehow didn't fear the reaction because they knew the world. They take a look at the U.N., they take a look at some of the other countries and they say, you know what, none of them are really going to support Israel hitting back at us. So ultimately, Israel will look like the bad guy in this situation. And I think that's what our job is here, like the American Center for Law and Justice, is to be clear to Americans and our supporters who support Israel, that you as a country, an independent country, a sovereign nation, have every right to respond to Iran however you feel is necessary.

And that's it. That should be where the discussion stops. You've got leaders, you've got your military, you've got your capabilities, and I would hope the United States would be there standing with you. But regardless, it should be up to the Israeli government and military on how to respond, not up to world organizations. Moreover, if you look at history, you can see that whenever we took the decisions ourselves without the U.S., at the long run, it was the right decision. Take, for example, the decision to attack the nuclear reactor in Iraq.

President Reagan was not happy about it, but when the U.S. invaded Iraq, the U.S. admitted that it was a very good decision for the U.S. Same when we attacked the reactor in Syria, the U.S. was not happy about it. So I think we should look at what's good for Israel. For the long run, it will also serve the U.S., because when Israel is strong, the U.S. is strong. And that's why I think the U.S. should give us the support and tell all the countries in the world, read more clarity. And if you have a sovereign state attacking another sovereign state, we can defend ourselves and we should do that. Ambassador, I think you've done an incredible job of taking Americans around, showing the aftermath of October 7th.

And I think you've got a new job now, which is, as Americans come and news agencies come, to see what was done here to prevent massive casualty as well. If you had that one message to the American people, and you're talking to the American people who support Israel, what would you ask them to do today? First, I would ask them to continue to pray and support us, to convince the elected representatives to stand with Israel, and to realize that those drones can get to the U.S. Today, they have the capability to come to our shores and our cities, but it's only a matter of time until they will have the capabilities to reach the U.S.

Same goes for the ballistic missions. So it happens to be that we are in the front line against Iran, but we have no conflict with Iran, we have no border with Iran. It's pure hate, the same hate they have against us, they have against the American values, and that's why we encourage everybody to stand up and stand with Israel. Ambassador Danone, who's also an MK, a member of the Knesset, we appreciate you so much joining us live from Israel with that update. We hope you'll join us more in the future as Israel decides how to respond to this unprecedented Iranian attack.

I know the ACLJ and ACLJ Jerusalem stands with the people of Israel and the government of Israel. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you very much.

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Do that right now. I'll give you an update on that number as well when we get back. Just a short one-minute break. We'll be right back. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow.

And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. There's a major case up at the U.S. Supreme Court today. It is Fisher versus the United States, and that's because Fisher is one of the people who was part of the riots, January 6. He was charged with seven different counts. He's only challenging one of those counts at the U.S. Supreme Court.

He's made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He won at the lower court, lost at the Court of Appeals. It's the provision on obstruction of an official proceeding, which is 18 U.S. Code, Section 1512, because there is a difference between how it's being interpreted. The lower court said that would be tampering with evidence. The appellate court said, no, it's broader than just tampering with evidence.

It's actually the proceeding itself. So that means there are at least four justices on the U.S. Supreme Court who believe that the Court of Appeals is wrong, that the district court might have had it right, that it was more about actually some kind of tampering with evidence, and it was too broad to assert this against this defendant, Fisher. Well, if that's the case, if the Supreme Court were to find that, two of the four charges that Jack Smith is bringing against President Trump in the D.C. federal case could fall, because two of them are connected to that charge, the conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, an obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, which would leave Jack Smith with only two weaker charges, a conspiracy to defraud the U.S., and a conspiracy against rights, which, again, those are kind of broad. The Supreme Court doesn't love those. So, again, this case has big ramifications, not just for Fisher himself, but for Donald Trump in the future as this case progresses.

Logan? Yeah, let's go ahead and take a phone call related to it. Let's go to Ralph who's calling in Louisiana, listening on the radio.

On line two, Ralph, you're on the air. Yeah, I happen to be a human being, and if people come and try and attack me, just like those justices on the Supreme Court, they are human beings too. When you show up to someone's house and you try and do their family harm, if they're a judge, do you honestly think you can stand before them and get a favorable ruling any time after that?

I dare say that they will ever see a favorable ruling again in the Supreme Court of the United States because they have unwittingly biased the judges by going to their homes and trying to attack them and stuff. We obviously saw that a lot. And, Ralph, thank you also for clarifying that you're a human being. I think that is something that we need to make sure our callers, not extraterrestrials.

We appreciate that. But, Kevin, I will tell you these judges go to great extent when they get into those chambers to divorce that personal life from the law. And that is how they make it there. They make it there by having that ability to do that, by taking their personal biases and putting it aside. Now, does that always mean that it won't inform them, of course, how they grew up, how they live, and experiences they have?

No. And, of course, I think you're right to an extent that that's going to also come into play. But when they interpret laws about, you know, is it a conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding by just going in and shouting? Or did you have to actually tamper with some kind of evidence? That's pretty cut or dry if you believe one or the other.

And then I don't think you have to get into the violence so much or the knocking down doors. You just say, is it enough to go in there and scream and shout and where they have to delay it? Or does it take another step, a step where you're actually, again, are tampering with legal evidence to try and obstruct an official proceeding? And that's the issue up before the U.S. Supreme Court today. And it will have huge ramifications on Jack Smith's case against President Trump out of the D.C. prosecution.

I always almost call it persecution, but prosecution out of D.C. Because that one, again, is going to be looking clearly at where the Supreme Court comes down, because two of the four charges against President Trump are charges related to this section of the U.S. code. I want to let everyone know that's on hold. We're going to try to get to as many as you can.

And next time we got Rick Rinnell. And then after that, we're taking as many calls as we possibly can. So stay on hold or give us a call at 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110.

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Again, that's at ACLJ.org. All donations are doubled throughout the month as we head into the final two weeks of this life and liberty drive. We'll be right back with Rick Rinnell. All right, folks, welcome back to Secchio. Rick Rinnell, senior advisor for foreign policy and national security, is joining us now.

Rick, I want to get right down to it because we've got a couple of things going on in the House. First, House Republicans voting to enforce stricter Iranian sanctions and stopping China from purchasing their oil. We've seen a call from Israel as well to put significant financial sanctions on Iran. I don't know if it's their attempt to say, hey, world, if you do this, maybe we won't respond as aggressively militarily, but you've got to put on very serious sanctions on Iran. Do you see that actually moving through the entire Congress and the Biden administration actually signing off on sanctions that are that strong against Iran? Well, it certainly would be an admittance that they were wrong about changing the Trump policy on Iran sanctions.

Remember, we had them completely squeezed. I took a lot of heat from the German media for being too strong on telling German companies that they shouldn't be doing business with Iran. I think most of the German media now realize that was the right policy. Donald Trump was right to squeeze the Iranians. And we saw when Joe Biden switched the policy and decided to engage with the Iranians and sometimes engagement works. But I think the evidence had shown that engagement with the Iranians does not work. And yet the Biden administration and Democrats engaged with Iran, gave them sanctions relief, gave them credit and cash to the tunes of hundreds of billions of dollars. And then we had a war. You shouldn't be surprised when you fund the Islamic radical regime in Tehran that you're going to get terrorism and war. And they did it throughout the whole region.

So this is one of those things that just defies common sense. They took the Houthis off the terrorist watch list. All of these things, you've got to ask yourself, Jordan, what was Biden thinking?

Because this radical, woke left ideology has consequences and Israel is the first one to realize it. Do we have the bite from Jake Sullivan that goes back early in the Biden years about how great the Middle East is? Not early in the Biden years. I think it was like six months ago.

It was September. Feels a long time ago now. Yeah. Do we have it? Yeah, we do.

Let's just take a listen. The Iranian attacks against U.S. forces have stopped. Our presence in Iraq is stable.

I emphasize for now because all of that can change. And the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades. That was in September, by the way. September of 2023. A month before October 7th, a couple of months before the Houthis start shooting out at the Red Sea and causing major shipping concerns.

And six months from eight. Six months from Iran deciding to cross a major red line and fire directly from Iran into Israel. And the Biden administration trying to sell Israel well since the defenses of Israel and the U.S. and some of our partners in the region work so well.

Just take it as a victory. Now, in a sense, I see why it could be embarrassing to Iran to an extent that none of their weapons did any damage. But we also now are learning that they were giving a lot of warning to countries that they knew would likely pass that information on. And so what I'm concerned about, Rick, is that if Israel doesn't respond the way they believe is going to be most effective. And that may be through very tough sanctions economically, that may be through a mix of tough sanctions and some military strikes inside Iran. That if they aren't allowed to do that, this becomes a norm from Iran. That Iran can, whenever they feel like it now, fire from Iranian territory and feel like the world's going to rush to their side and say, well, as long as too many people didn't get hurt in Israel, that it's okay that you did that.

And then, of course, the Israelis aren't able to build back society, aren't able to build back business, tourism, and get back to a normal way of life. It's like keeping people almost in that sense of terror that they have felt since October 7th, keeping them in that kind of emotional state. Look, I think we're in a dangerous territory in that the Iranian regime is playing the international community quite well.

And your concerns, I think, are very real and justified. Let's go back to what Jake Sullivan was saying. If Jake Sullivan was being truthful in that moment, then he obviously either wasn't getting an intelligence briefing or Avril Haines, our DNI, didn't understand what was happening in the intelligence. Because now we're told that the Iranians have been planning it and there was all sorts of chatter. Why didn't our intel know that this was being planned? I see the American intel leaks that are trying to blame this squarely on Israel. But make no mistake, this would be a disaster for the American intel if we knew that October 7th was being planned. Or I should say, if we didn't know that October 7th was being planned. That would be a total disaster. If Avril Haines in the war room, in the situation room with Joe Biden yesterday, I would like her to answer more questions.

I think Congress needs to push her more and the media need to push her more. Because the intel that we're receiving has been very inconsistent and very inaccurate and not helpful. And so we've got to fix this.

We still have an intel problem. Rick, the position from the United States right now has been Israel, and when I say US, it's the Biden administration. It's been Israel, don't react with military, take it as a win that you didn't have a lot of casualties.

Your defense systems worked, we worked with you, other countries worked with you. So Iran, really they're kind of a laughing stock that they try to do this. But again, I would go back to that idea of if this is just round one of what Iran is going to try.

Again, you can't live that way. And so the message, what is the message that should be coming from the United States to Israel? I mean, our message from the ACLJ to Israel, from our supporters in this brand new petition we've launched, is that they support whatever Israel decides is the best option.

To let Israelis and their government decide. If the best option is to pursue really tough sanctions and limited military strikes, so be it. If they believe it's more military strikes and less pursuers of the sanctions, that's okay too, because Israelis will make that decision. Look, I think our only pressure right now should be on the hostages. We have Americans being held by a terrorist organization inside Israel. What we need to be able to do is focus on this and make sure that our entire priority is getting the hostages returned. All of these other discussions can come later, but no one should be telling Israel how not to get the hostages back. They are the ones who are dealing with this, and the rest of the world should simply be supporting Israel, telling them that we can do everything possible to help them get the hostages returned.

That should be the focus, diplomatically as well as militarily. Rick, as always, we appreciate your insight as part of the ACLJ team with their foreign policy experience, your national security experience. I know we'll be calling on you more after this unprecedented attack to get your thoughts as Israel decides how they will respond and how the U.S. will react to those responses and how the world will react to those responses. Thank you, Rick, as always. All right, let's go ahead and take a phone call. Let's go to Julie, who's calling in California on a similar topic. She's watching on ACLJ.org, which we appreciate. Thank you during this life and liberty drive. It's always great to have people watching on our website. Julie's calling, though.

Like I said, California, she's on the air. Go ahead. Hi, Logan and Jordan. I completely appreciate your analysis of this and all situations. It's so educational, and I am a monthly supporter, and I'm glad to be doubling our support this month. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Okay. I have a question. What if the missiles from Iran had actually hit the Dome of Barak, which is what they call it, above the Temple Mount, which they deliberately built on top of the Jewish site centuries ago? What if it had actually hit and destroyed the Temple of the Mount? How would the Arab world, the Muslim world, respond?

You know, I think it'd be – they'd have two responses. They would either blame Iran – and listen, there's not a lot of love in much of that Islamic world for Iran and for many of their actions. So I'm talking about the Gulf states and Egypt and some of North Africa. But they have done a better job lately because the Biden administration has kind of moved out of the region in building friends in that region.

So that's one you look at. You'd say, okay, well, they give Iran a pass because they've been selling cheap oil. The second is that they would – and I think – I hope more likely would be is that Iran was so reckless that they end up destroying one of their most important religious sites and that this is what happens when you deal with a reckless, radical regime that doesn't think through their actions and fires ballistic missiles over holy sites without knowing whether those missiles are going to do damage to those holy sites. And so that's what I would hope. It didn't happen this time, but it came very close. Well, it was a win. It was a win, according to President Biden. I guess that was a win, too, because, you know, the Temple Mount could have been destroyed.

Yeah, it was a win, according to President Biden. Hey, in the next segment, we are going to be talking to you, our listeners, as you've called in. We have one line open right now because we just took her call.

1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110. Oh, it's ringing now, so hopefully we'll get to as many calls as we can in this next segment. As we are halfway through our Life and Liberty drive, we could use your support. While you're at it, if you're brand new to us on YouTube or Rumble or Facebook, however you're watching us right now, I encourage you to subscribe, to like, to comment.

All those things matter. Hey, if you're watching right now in the comments, in the break, I want to see where everybody's watching from. Put in your home city, state, country.

Maybe there's international viewers. I'd love to hear from you in the comments right now on YouTube and on Rumble. And we'll be back in just a minute with all your calls coming up on Sekielo.

All right, welcome back to Sekielo. This last segment, we like to take as many calls as we can. And there's a lot of you who've been holding for a half an hour or so, so we're going to take to as many of you as we can. Dustin's calling. Colorado, I'll tell you, Dustin, you are almost on the air. You're on the air.

Go ahead. Hey, Dustin. Oh, he hung up. He got nervous and hung up. Hey, Dustin, if you're listening and you aren't nervous and it's just a problem, oh, we lost two there.

What just happened there, guys? Okay, I think we just picked up and hung up on two people. So if those were your two people, call back, please. We'll get you back up here real quick. Let's go ahead and go to Annabelle, who's calling in California on Line 5. Annabelle, welcome. Hi, Jordan and Logan.

I just want to say to Sekielos, what a fabulous gene pool. Okay, let me get to my comment. There's no greater pain than a child being abused or neglected by his or her parents, who are supposed to be protectors. I'm an adult, but as a citizen of the United States of America, am I wrong to expect that the President and branches of government are not there to protect us, not there to target us as enemies simply for our faith or love of country?

This is going on while simultaneously they chastise our great ally, Israel, and then Obama's footprints enrich and appease the terrorist nation, Iran. I'm a child of God, but even so, in a natural world, we need an advocate, whether we're eight months old or 98 years old. I rely on the brilliant and dedicated analyses and actions on freedom on behalf of the ACLJ. The whole team, including Secretary Pompeo and Rick Grenell, soothe my soul. I'm a grateful champion, and I pray for the ACLJ daily.

Please join us. Thank you, Annabelle. We always appreciate your calls.

You know, some people will comment. They always love when you call in and have your statements to make, so we appreciate that. And as an ACLJ champion, if you don't know what that is, if you're brand new, an ACLJ champion is someone who just decides, I'm going to support the ACLJ on a recurring monthly basis. So when you make your individual donation, you can opt in and become an ACLJ champion.

And, hey, we do sometimes some special things. A new ACLJ prayer guide just went out, which is something we provide absolutely no cost, but there is one that's a little bit more deep, has a little bit more weight to it, gets a little bit more granular, and that is for ACLJ champions. We provide that at no additional cost as well.

So that's at ACLJ.org. We can also sign that new petition. Let's keep going with some of these calls. Let's go to Mike, who's calling in New Hampshire. Mike, you're on the air.

Okay, yeah. Oh, we're having some sort of problem here, guys, because I can see now Bob's on right now. Bob, no, okay, yeah, we got to figure out.

We're having a technical problem here. Please call us back if you can, because we had a full bank of calls, and I think we hung up on all of them. So maybe we'll get to you guys later on in the show. But, Jordan, maybe break down while we figure this out, break down this new petition. Okay, so this new petition we've got up at ACLJ.org. I don't want you to get confused with past pro-Israel petitions.

Obviously, we had a very large one coming out of October 7th with over half a million people on that petition. This petition is directly in response to the world's response to the attack on Iran by Israel, and the U.S., the U.N., and other organizations and countries coming out and saying, Israel, don't respond militarily. And you're like, you know, if this was any other country, there is no way this is what you'd be telling the country to do. And if it was your country, if it was the United States, it wouldn't have even taken this long. We would have responded by flattening the country that did this to us. And even if our defenses worked well, because we're not going to live under that constant threat, because we know if you live under that constant threat, what doesn't work, Logan? Your education system, your business, your way of life, you can't get back to normal if you're always fearing a massive Iranian attack.

Israel is also one of the largest things in tourism. Obviously, if you're a tourist and you look up and there's rockets heading your way or missiles heading your way, not exactly going to encourage that. Let's try. Anyway, go to ACLJ.org, you can sign that petition right now. Yes, you can sign that new petition and it says this very clearly. Let Israel decide how to respond to Iran. If Israel wants to decide that they wanted to do it mostly through sanctions and small military actions, that's up to the Israeli leaders and the Israeli people who put them there. If they decide they want to go with a more full scale military attack, that is up to the Israeli leaders and the Israeli people who put them in those positions. Let Israel decide and stand with them against this attack by Iran that is totally illegal under international law. Absolutely.

ACLJ.org. We're going to try to take calls one more time and if this doesn't work, we've got another plan. Let's go to Dustin who called in. We accidentally hung up on him.

Dustin, you there? We got you. Go ahead. I could shed the light cause you know, you've been talking about Biden and everything. Uh, you know, how could he possibly, you know, say not to retaliate? Tell Israel not to retaliate.

This is the same guy that sent the FBIs on non-woke parents for speaking at school boards. You know what I mean? Absolutely. It's because they don't want anything that mess up what they're trying to, what they think they can do with Iran when they have, as Rick Grinnell says there, that when they have their espresso together in Geneva and it's an election year and it makes them look rough.

And I, you know, and instead of an election year where he wants to go to war with Iran, it's obvious that President Biden wants to be seen as some kind of peacemaker, but it's very hard to be seen as a peacemaker when this kind of violence has broken out all over the world, specifically in the world's, I'd say the hotbed of the world, the Middle East. All right. Thank you, Dustin, for calling.

Let's try Ronald now in South Carolina. You're on the air. Hey, thanks for taking my call. One thing I would comment is the fact that the attack that Iran had done against Israel was, I believe, a ploy that would lead to a bigger assault in which they're just causing them to expend their weapons and ammunition. And then realizing that the bill is being held up in our Congress that's supposed to supply them and everything.

So maybe it's a ploy while they're preparing for a frontal assault that would leave them weakened. We can't hardly do anything because I think Professor Hutchinson already spoke about that we're not in a wartime mode for our ammunition manufacturing. Listen, I think, Ronald, you bring up something very interesting, which is that we think that it's a victory for Israeli defenses and for the region that they were able to stop mass casualties from occurring from this Iranian attack. That is great.

It's wonderful. At the same time, to prevent those mass casualties cost billions of dollars of military equipment spent, like you said, and resources. You've got to then replenish those resources immediately because Iran could do this at a moment's notice. Yet again, it's a much bigger country than Israel. So you've got to make sure that Israeli funding, which now Speaker Johnson has got separately, will be voted on so it won't be voted on together with Ukraine. Hopefully that makes its way through the House and the Senate and gets bipartisan support so that Israel can begin to rebuild the weapons it needs to make sure that the Iron Dome and David's Arrow and these other devices that were utilized to protect Israeli citizens, that they are replenished because I think you're absolutely right. One of the victories of these terror groups is to deplete your resources. It's to tire your people out, deplete your resources, and for people to think of you as a dangerous place in the world, Logan. Like you just said, Israel is a major economic power. Israel is a major tourist power.

Right now, it's hard to think of Israel as either of those because of what's happened on October 7th and what happened this weekend. You only got a couple of seconds, Mike. I'm sorry. Let's go to Mike in New Hampshire. Mike, I think you can take us home with this statement.

You're on the air. Yeah. I do not think this is a win for Israel. If anything, it's a win for Iran. What this demonstrated was that no matter how effective the Iron Dome is and the air forces of the British and the Americans and the Israelis and the French are in keeping out 99% of the missiles, a few still got through.

It only takes one with a nuclear warhead to wipe out maybe hundreds of thousands of Israelis and to do who knows what kind of damage with respect. Mike, what we know, this was a test. Did Iran fail most of the tests? Yes. But did they get the answers they wanted?

Probably. Which is what do we have to do to get past these Israeli defense forces and their allies so that we could deliver a bigger blow while we get the world to say to Israel, don't shoot back at those military installations that shot off these missiles at you, Israel. It's why our petition is clear. Let Israel decide how to respond. Let our ally decide how to respond. You sign that petition at ACLJ.org and make a donation of the Life and Liberty Drive. Double the impact your donation. This is the time to do it, folks. Go to ACLJ.org. Support ACLJ Jerusalem right now on ACLJ.org.