Today on Sekulow, Biden's $350 million fail ahead of the first Presidential debate. 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. So we are only a week out from the first Presidential debate. That's next Thursday, June 27th, between Joe Biden and, of course, Donald Trump.
And there will not be an audience. That's the CNN debate. So we're only a week out. And we've got some interesting news to cover. We're going to have Mike Pompeo joining us in the first half hour of the broadcast. Tulsi Gabbard in the second half hour of the broadcast.
Both members of the ACLJ broadcast team. And, of course, let's get into this first issue. The U.S. has now admitted that it spent $230 million on that broken pier in Gaza. And, by the way, they had to spend another $25 million after it broke. So it's about $250 million.
It worked for 10 days. So about $25 million a day for how long they were able to actually use the pier because the water was too rough for this size, this kind of project. And now the Biden administration is looking at dismantling it next month. And the question is, did this do anything for the Gazans who actually needed assistance, who actually needed aid, or was anything that came through this pier taken immediately by Hamas? I'm not even sure how much got through the pier, to be honest with you.
But it just shows you kind of like unnecessary fails by the United States of America and putting our military in a difficult situation. If you remember when they started talking about building this pier, many in Gaza had questions about what the U.S. military was really up to and should they even trust the pier. Well, the question was they shouldn't trust the pier as a place to be able to get aid because it didn't work.
We knew it wouldn't work. The military who had the plans knew it wasn't the right kind of structure for that situation, and yet they continued to build it. This is, again, a $250 million cost to the American taxpayer, and, Logan, we can't point to a single person or single child that got food because of this $250 million. And when it's all said and done, that was $250 million. They believe another $100 million has now gone into it for even the repairs and to fix it, to keep it up. So we're talking now even a number that's looking towards $350 million. And yeah, according to this article from Town Hall, they said that they did not believe, the Pentagon did not believe any, that was the words, any of the 569 metric tons worth of aid delivered to Gaza in the early days had made it into the hands of residents whom it intended.
So they don't believe anything happened. It was just a waste of over a quarter of a billion dollars, and you had it attacked. You had storms break this thing up. We can go to flashback bites upon flashback bites of us talking about this, how early on we said it's going to get attacked and it's never going to work. And guess what?
Here they are. It operated for just 10 successful days. 10 days. And now they're going to have to take this pier down as it is a big giant failure as we expected. It would be, it was just a State of the Union ridiculous promise that we knew would just waste money and never work.
Never worked. I mean, they said it worked for 10 days, but as Logan said, they never, they don't believe any aid got to any Gazans during those 10 days where it was even working. So again, all of that would have been taken by Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Listen, Biden is refusing to give weapons and ammunition to Israel while wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on a disaster of a pier to deliver aid to Hamas. It's outrageous and we're taking urgent action, but we need your support at ACLJ.org. Today we're sending a legal demand letter to the UN Commission of Inquiry to stop their lawfare against our ally Israel. We just filed a FOIA against the Biden administration for funding that pro Hamas climate organization and three written submissions to the UN to defend Israel. To learn and share the truth, go to ACLJ.org slash defend Israel. That's ACLJ.org slash defend Israel. And we need your tax deductible contribution today. Make that donation at ACLJ.org. We'll be right back.
Welcome back to Sekio. We are taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. I am in Washington, D.C. still this week. Logan and our production studios will have Mike Pompeo joining us and then Tulsi Gabbard in the second half hour of the broadcast.
So you don't want to miss that. We want to take your calls as well at 1-800-684-3110. I mean, Logan, we talked about the idea that they've tried to repair the pier. Again, this just seems like a gigantic waste of U.S. resources that did nothing to help average Gazans, kids, women who may be pregnant, who may need some of this food aid. They didn't get it. And so far we don't think any of it got delivered. No, they don't believe all the press report.
They don't believe anything actually made it to the people. What's interesting about this, for those who know, this pier was actually never planned to be anything permanent. In fact, they assumed that it would get so significantly damaged by September that it would become fully inoperable. However, they were able obviously to speed those up because why you had a tax on it.
Why? Because the storms happened. Stuff really kept pushing this thing sooner and sooner. Again, it only lasted about 10 days. The fact that we were even going to spend $250 million, $350 million on something that was just a very quick Band-Aid and the amount of people we had to put even in risk, in harm's way, from terrorist attacks of Hamas, knowing this could only be a very short stopgap. Hopefully they thought maybe by September that the war would be over and maybe there were still a few months from that. That could happen, but this was always meant to be temporary.
However, not this temporary, not 10 days worth of temporary. And of course, again, that was $250 million then plus at least a $22 million repair bill plus more that has come in since then. And again, reports as of late May, which just a couple of weeks ago was the fact that the pier in its early days was not able to get any humanitarian aid into the people who actually needed it. The residents of Gaza, of course, it probably all went to Hamas. I love your thoughts on this when you know we are dealing with this, your taxpayer dollars are going to this.
What are your thoughts heading into, as Jordan said, a week before the first Presidential debate that it looks like it's actually going to happen? Give us a call right now. 1-800-684-3110.
That's at 1-800-684-3110. If you're watching on YouTube or on Rumble, I'm going to encourage you to put your comments in as usual, but if you could give us a call, I would love to take your calls. Specifically, in the back half of this broadcast, as Jordan said, in the next segment, we have Mike Pompeo. Later on, we have Tulsi Gabbard.
It's going to be a packed show, but always your voice is what's the most important. So we're going to take more of those calls coming up. But I mean, Jordan, we predicted this very early on that this was going to be a failure.
And of course, you never want to be the person, and in some of these situations, maybe you want to be wrong. You want to be proven wrong that, you know what, we can build something like this. The infrastructure can happen. We can throw up this pier.
It will work. But instead, it just seems like time and time again. It's Mediterranean. It's the ocean. It's also an unfriendly territory. I mean, you were trying to build this around Hamas. Hamas actors who would love to steal this aid and get it only to those, like a present, to those who are supporting their terror attacks and their conflict and their war against Israel. And of course, the keeping of hostages of Israeli and even American citizens who are hostage still being held by Hamas.
And every time we think, are there any hostages still alive? Then we saw, you know, just a couple weeks ago, hostages released, Logan. I mean, I think when that happened, you see the address from Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday.
He's coming to the U.S. as well in July. The first debate, I mean, it will be very interesting to see how both President Trump and President Biden handle this. But what's also interesting, Logan, is what Biden said back in March 7th. I mean, this is how far back this goes. We're talking about, you know, we're getting into July soon.
He's talking about this March 7th. Tonight, I'm directing the U.S. military to establish a temporary pier on the Gaza coast that can receive medicine, food, and shelter. To Israel, I say humanitarian assistance cannot be secondary.
Protecting and saving innocent lives must be a priority. And yet we spent over $300 million of our taxpayer dollars, and not a single humanitarian bit of assistance was able to get from this pier to people who actually needed it. And I think it's just kind of, it's funny in this, only in the sense of how sad their policies are towards Gaza and towards trying to deal with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Yeah, it's funny in a tragic sort of way because you knew this is what was going to happen. If anything, the only mouths you were feeding at best, if they even got to there, are the mouths of Hamas terrorists. I mean, that's the only, the only outcome likely of this was that it went to go feed and fuel more terrorism. So yes, does it all sound good?
Do you understand why the Biden administration at this point, when they see they're far left of their party, especially when we're headed towards a campaign, headed towards an election, you see them saying, oh, we have to do something because the images coming out of Gaza are bad PR for us. We've got to figure out something. Okay, we're going to come up with this idea for this pier. We're going to build it.
It'll destroy itself by September, so we'll just pollute the ocean, whatever it is, and it will be fine. But no, what actually happened is what was predicted, which was, it was just a moment. It was a stunt. It was a stunt that risked a lot of lives and caused nothing but, again, at worst, it cost potential lives of our armed forces.
At best, it ended up, you know, like I said, feeding and fueling Hamas. Yeah, let's take a call, Logan. All right, let's go to Jeff, who's calling on Line 1, North Carolina. Listen on the radio. And again, if you want to be on the air, we've got three lines open right now. 1-800-684-3110. Go ahead, Jeff.
Hi, guys. I'm just curious, do we know that all that $250 million or in excess of $250 million has all been spent in those 10 days, that short amount of time? Well, okay, the $250 million, to clarify, that was those construction costs. It took, it did take months to get it built. Yeah, then plus the $100 million of excess fixes and all of that. So, Jeff, you can continue on.
That was after it got damaged because of the waterways in the Mediterranean. Yeah, but, Jeff, you have another follow-up. I just want to clarify that. Yeah, okay, I understand that better now, but my second question is, how do you track this money? How is it tracked to make sure that every dollar of our tax money is going to that? Well, I think, listen, this was going through the U.S. military. Yeah, we were budgeting it. So, the U.S. military cost, I'm not so concerned that Hamas was able to get their hands on any money here. That what they were able to get their hands on, likely, Logan, was aid so you could feed their terrorists. Right.
I think that's what you make sure that... That's the problem. Not the actual, the big, big budget item to build this pier. In fact, do you remember, Logan, when we did build, when we started building the pier, a lot of Hamas actors questioned whether they even trusted the U.S. military taking on this task and thinking that they were actually doing something that would hurt the people there.
So, they were already kind of bad-mouthing this pier as something not to trust. Yeah, I think we got another good call about that. Joe in South Carolina, go ahead and take Joe on line two.
Joe, go ahead. Yeah, I was just calling because it seems that most everything the Democrats do is just for show. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, they spend money. Every time they spend it's to buy a boat. They really don't care about the average American. Well, that's what we said, Joe, early on, which was this pier was purely a political decision because I think they're not... Look, they may be dumb, but I don't think they're dumb enough to know that this was going to fail because we all said it. Even people on the other side said, this is not going to work. You're not going to be able to build a pier into Hamas, into the Palestinian territories because they were like, look, we're not going to have any... Remember, that was when they were saying, we're not going to have any American troops on the ground, so we're just going to have them, you know, right off the coast and that's how we're going to get humanitarian aid. And everyone said, this is not going to work and it didn't work.
Clearly, their people involved also said this isn't going to work, but they did say this could be good PR. Yes, they wanted to have this for him to be able to talk about, for him to be able to speak about, but Logan, as we know, we're going to talk about it with Joe Biden. I'm with Mike Pompeo, is that Joe Biden is now becoming the major problem for Democrats. I mean, there's a new article out that says why Democrats think Biden's problem is Biden and that other Democrats are doing pretty well in special elections, in polling, but that it's Joe Biden who is kind of bringing down the party.
We talked earlier in the week about kind of how he looked. I think the debate is going to be very important for Joe Biden and I say that because his imagery along with these kind of failures like we're talking about today and the fact that it looks like he's just not with it, Logan, I mean, I think that when you combine those two, the debate is going to be very important to see if Joe Biden is actually in assistance to Democrats running for office or is hurting Democrats running for office. I think maybe for the first time in modern politics, I've seen this in this reporting, which is, in fact, the local, they're almost betting on local elections to helpfully secure a win for President Biden.
Usually it's the opposite. People aren't even that engaged. They don't even know who's running. They just know, I'm going to go in, I'm going to vote for, let's say, Joe Biden, and therefore I'm going to vote for all the other Democrats.
I'm going to vote for a Republican, I'm going to vote for Donald Trump, and I'll vote for all the Republicans down ballot. Now, the tide has turned and it's flipped, which is let's get local elections some publicity because we know we're not going to be activating people to go out and vote specifically for Biden, but maybe we'll get the falloff. That is the exact opposite, Jordan.
We only got a minute. I know you're going to talk about that with Pompeo because that is the exact opposite of kind of campaigning 101. Yes, it is. This is not where we want the world to be. We need you to support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. It's how we have team members like Mike Pompeo. It's how we have team members like Tulsi Gabbard and Rick Renell as part of our team at the American Center for Law and Justice, along with the legal work that we do at the ACLJ. And of course, you can see all of that work at ACLJ.org, just on Israel, ACLJ.org slash Defend Israel. But today we need you to make that tax-deductible donation, that financial contribution to the ACLJ so we can continue to do this work, continue to do this education about the truth about Israel, the truth about the United States and its role here and the Biden role here.
ACLJ.org. Donate today. We'll be back with Mike Pompeo.
All right. Welcome back to SECIO. We are joined by former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, a member of the team at the American Center for Law and Justice. And, Secretary Pompeo, I want to go first to you about this news between North Korea and Russia fortifying their partnership. How concerned are you about this?
How concerned should the American people be about this as we head into the first debate next week and an election this November? We have Pompeo. We're having a connection difficulty here real quick. One second. We'll get back with him in just a second, Jordan, because I think we're just making sure his phone line, I think it just dropped off. So obviously someone who is traveling and is on the move as we all are right now.
It's a very busy time. Like you said, as we are only a week from this debate. And I think we didn't discuss it, Jordan, in the last segment.
I just briefly brought it up. What does it mean when you have that election kind of, like I said, flip-flopped here where you have now the hope is that local candidates can drive a Presidential election? Yeah. They're actually saying that House and Senate races could benefit Joe Biden more than Joe Biden could benefit House and Senate even more, like you said, Logan, more local races.
That is not the norm. Usually you talk about coattails. Are there going to be coattails from the President?
How long will those coattails be? Sometimes they're not the entire, they're not going to carry every Democrat across the line, but certainly they would carry like national Democrats across the line if Joe Biden was doing very well across the country. And it looks like it's a flip-flop here of ideas. I want to go, though, I think we've got Mike Pompeo now, connected. Secretary Pompeo, I saw this in the news.
I really want your thoughts on this. North Korea and Russia are fortifying their partnership. I want to know for our audience and from you, how concerned are you about this?
How concerned should our audience be about this? Well, Jordan, it's certainly jarring to see Vladimir Putin kind of deal with North Korea. We've seen the North Korean shipping weapons that are helping destroy Europe.
So we've seen that side of it now. Is this a payback time where Putin's going to pay back this guy who holds 25 million people in debt to poverty, who has held Americans, who has done so much harm to his own nation. And this just fortifies this alliance between this group of evildoers, the Iranians, the Chinese Communist Party, now the North Koreans and the Russians, all working together to undermine the United States of America. For the Biden administration to have allowed this to happen, to allow them to become this close on their watches, one more failed set of policies from a very weak and, frankly, failing administration, the next six or seven months are going to be incredibly dangerous time for the United States of America. Biden essentially has no relationship with Russia right now.
I mean, we've said there's been no phone calls, been no talking. So do you think that the Biden lack of leadership is what's led to Russia, Putin looking for places, even making these very public deals, these very public displays of support with North Korea? Like if we were still in diplomatic talks, if we still had a relationship or some dialogue that maybe Putin would think twice before partnering this publicly with North Korea.
Jordan, I think that's undoubtedly true. And you'll recall too, this administration, I don't think has any conversations with the North Koreans either. We had, as you well know, I traveled there several times, President Trump held three summits with Chairman Kim.
And while we didn't get everything we wanted, we kept these kinds of relationships from happening that you could see. Now the Russians are busting the very sanctions that they voted for. In the Trump administration, we put the Trump sanctions on North Korea, the Chinese and the Russians at the UN Security Council actually voted for them.
And now you can see they've upended this, but there is more risk everywhere in the world. And what we saw take place in Pyongyang over the last 48 hours is simply more evidence of that Jordan. Well, that's what we were about to talk about is we have China eyeing Taiwan.
We've got Russia in Ukraine and partnering with North Korea and Iran has all of its proxies aimed at Israel. Is this really the state of the world when Joe Biden has to defend this, starting with debates next week, that he envisioned when he entered the Oval Office in 2021? I think it's the state of the world we could have guessed could have ended up this way if they would have implemented every one of their bad policies. And unfortunately, Secretary Pompeo, they have. It's like they've taken every bad potential policy we've warned them about and they've implemented them or even gone further. It is the darkest thing.
It's so true. And add to that the risk that's inside of our country because of a dastardly failed border policy. Not only we're seeing crime rising, but the risk of terror is enhanced, too. That's a deep national security failure.
Think about this. This feels very much like it did when we showed up in January of 2017. You had terrorists on the right. It was ISIS in Syria at the time. You had an open border with people flooding across into our nation. You saw China rising. All of the very same that you saw Crimea having been taken. A fifth of Ukraine was taken during the Obama administration. It feels like we've got right back to that place and are blowing past it.
And the only thing that can stop it is a real leader who's prepared to defend the things that matter most to the United States of America in a way that I know that President Trump will do if he's reelected again. We've been following the humanitarian aid peer. We've talked about it with you, that the U.S. built in Gaza. It didn't work very long. I think it was operational for 10 days. It's cost now over $300 million, and it should be taken apart sometime next month. They don't think any aid ever got to any actual Gazans, maybe some aid to the Hamas fighters, but that's it.
These reports, again, that it will shut down as early as next month, but it was done. Secretary Pompeo to try and satisfy these student protest movements that we saw happening across our country. And so Biden, it goes back to as early as March, came out and said, you know what, we're going to build these piers. And yet we knew that these piers were not made for the situation they were being installed in.
Jordan, it was destined to fail. Some of us spoke about it at the time, said this is completely unworkable. You'll recall this was photo op national security.
This was at a time where they were trying to appease voters in the state of Michigan from the radical pro-Habas left. There was no military or humanitarian justification for trying this. There was no chance this was actually going to get to the people of Gaza that so desperately needed the food at the time. This was just a show and it has failed and cost American taxpayers half a billion dollars and is a deep embarrassment to the United States and did nothing. It didn't even accomplish the basic mission it was set out to achieve.
Yeah. I don't think this gets Biden even something, anything like politically, I don't think he gets the political points from the left on this one. It was a total failure.
Like we said, it would be a secretary Pompeo and you were right. And the experts were right that this kind of structure was not made to be used in the ocean. It wasn't going to last long and that we had to trust that Hamas was going to let this get to the people. And of course, for the few days that it did operate, they didn't.
Crazy. We're doomed from the outset, clearly just to tell a story. And you know, this is, this is a, this is an example. Remember they came out and told us that the Afghanistan, uh, pullout was a success. They came out and told us that the Hunter Biden laptop was, uh, likely Russian disinformation. These are, these are knowing falsehoods that were told to the American people on important national security matters. This isn't about politics.
This isn't left or right. This is about how is it we protect the things that matter most to Americans and their families each and every day. And the Biden administration continues to tell us lies and wolf tales and decimate the capacity for America to build friends in places we need to and deter our adversaries where we must. I think what you said, secretary Pompeo doomed from the outset to tell us a story.
I mean, Logan right there, uh, secretary Pompeo, we appreciate you joining us, but Logan right there, it says it all from the outset to try and tell a story. We could have predicted it. We did predict it.
And of course it came true. Hey, we are going to be taking your calls and comments coming up in the next half hour of secular. So get in line right now. 1-800-684-3110. We have some phone lines open.
I'd love to hear from you. Also, if you lose us here, make sure you joining us on all of our different social media platforms or at ACLJ.org full second half hour coming up. We want you though to support the work of the ACLJ right now. We can't have these legal experts on.
We can't have people like secretary Pompeo or Tulsi Gabbard later on without your support ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host Logan Sekulow. Welcome to the second half hour of Sekulow.
This is Logan Sekulow. I'll be joining you as well. Tulsi Gabbard will be joining us for the next half hour.
I'd love for you to give me a call right now. We are discussing off the top. We were discussing that $350 million blunder from the Biden administration. Of course, we're talking about the pier, the offshore pier that we knew was not going to work to allegedly get humanitarian aid in to Gaza.
Of course, what happened? It operated successfully for just about 10 days. And we're not even sure if that's a success because as of late May, reports were coming out that no humanitarian aid actually made it to anyone who needed it.
Instead, it was a political promise made for political gain. We knew when this was announced that this could not work, that it would get attacked by terrorists. It did.
That the seas would damage it. It did. They said hopefully it would last till September. Here we are midway through June and it is going to be dismantled again after 10 successful days of operation. But $350 million of your taxpayer money just flushed down the toilet, essentially. How does that make you feel?
How does it make you feel that that was obviously supposed to be humanitarian aid to go to people in need during a war of which it somewhat is a backhanded way to not support Israel, as we know that they have continually withheld weapons or withheld ammunition to Israel. President Biden has threatened saying, you know, a lot's going to happen. A lot's going to happen. They know that if they go any further. How does that make you feel? I want to hear from you.
1-800-684-3110. We are also heading into just a week outside of the debates, so we're going to have a lot of good debate coverage leading up next week. If you want to make sure you are subscribed to our channels here, whether you're watching on YouTube, hit subscribe. If you're watching on Rumble, subscribe or follow.
Whatever it is, X on Facebook. Make sure you are paying attention to what we're doing here because it is going to be a very busy upcoming week. This week, it's kind of calm. It's kind of quiet, if you will, in the world because we know next week everything gets upended. It's going to be turning up.
It's going to be crazy. You're going to want to be involved in the conversation, so give me a call right now. I'd love to hear from you. 1-800-684-3110.
That's 1-800-684-3110. We'll be taking your calls and also your comments coming up. We're also going to be talking with Tulsi Gabbard not only about the peer in Gaza. Obviously, she's active duty. We are also going to be discussing not only the debate because she has been on that stage with Joe Biden before, pretty interestingly.
She has been on the stage with Joe Biden debating him. We can discuss that. We can discuss that, and we can have a really big conversation about what it means.
I do think this is so odd. I've been involved in some sort of way in politics my entire life, whether I like it or not, but I know how this works. Historically, when a President is running, everyone knows a President. If I'm looking at you right now, maybe you're very politically astute, but there may be a lot of you who go, I don't even know who my local representatives are. Now, you're seeing Democrats flip that and say, typically, they say you vote down ballot. You start with who's going to be President. You know who's running for President. That's the most important thing to you.
Now, I don't know if it should be. I believe local elections and local politicians, they're maybe some of the strongest that you need. You need great representatives for your state or for your city or for your county, but that's not how it goes. Usually, people then vote for the top ticket, vote Republican, vote Democrat, and then vote down whoever it is, the Republican or Democrat. Maybe you have one of those situations where they don't align with the party, but for the most part, that's how it is. So you have, oh, well, if Joe Biden or let's say President Trump is going to win, likely he'll win Tennessee, one of the reddest states in the country, or Alabama. Well, then likely, the person running, the Republican running for Senate, will probably also win. Now what they are hoping is that there is goodwill towards the local Democrats that are running. So now money is being flooded into local races to then hope, well, if they go out and they're actively ready to go support their Democratic congressperson, maybe then while they're there, they'll vote for Joe Biden.
That is a weird state to be in politics. We're going to be talking about that coming up. I did want to encourage you right now.
We are heading towards the end of this week, and it is June. It is a quiet time traditionally when it comes to what we do, not necessarily our work, but when it comes to audience, people are on summer vacation, people are on break, but you can still get involved, and we really could use your support during these quiet times. We actually could use more of the active support than even usual. So go to ACLJ.org. Please make your donation if you can, a one-time donation, or become an ACLJ champion. Over 21,000 strong are ACLJ champions. Those are people that give on a monthly recurring basis.
Again, go to ACLJ.org. Do that today. I'm looking at some of your questions. We'll answer some of those coming up as well towards the end of the broadcast. Be right back.
Welcome back to SetKilla. We are going to be taking your calls in the next segment. So I encourage you to right now go ahead and call in, get in line, get through the process of getting your comment ready. Give us a call, 1-800-684-3110. I actually want to try to take some extra calls in that next segment. So if you ever want to be on the air, this is the time to do it.
We got a few lines open at 1-800-684-3110. We're now joined by a member of the secular broadcast team and someone who's been on that debate stage. As we discussed, we're only one week out from the debate.
Tulsi Gabbard, Tulsi, welcome back. I did want to actually start with that. Then we'll also discuss the Gaza peer being dismantled.
We'll talk about some other topics as well. But we are seeing now the debate. It's actually happening in one week. I think a lot of people do not even think this could happen between President Trump and President Biden. First time probably two Presidents have done it. But you've been on that stage.
You've felt the pressure of what it is. We know that they are currently prepping. You have Joe Biden and Camp David. You have President Trump apparently having sort of these policy panels, discussions, having deep prep. Maybe more prep than previously the Trump campaign has even said. So taking it seriously, and I think that's important going into it because it's going to show a lot as we have seen what's been going on in the Biden administration and obviously in the Trump campaign, in the courts and everything else. But these are important times and I think you're going to have some record-breaking numbers. But for someone who's been there, I'm just curious your thoughts.
Yeah, I agree. I think there's going to be a lot of people tuning in to watch because this is an unprecedented Presidential election in our lifetimes where we for the first time, for a country, in a long time at least, have two Presidents who actually have records of what they did and didn't do during their first term in office. President Trump obviously from 2016 to 2020 and now President Biden from 2020 to 2024 where we are today. And so I hope that there is an opportunity for voters to compare and contrast those records. Having stood on that debate stage a number of times, I can tell you my expectations of the moderators is fairly low because we know very well that for them it's about ratings and it's about political theater.
And I think they're going to try to create as many of those clickbait type moments and gotcha questions. I think President Trump will be primarily their target given the host of the debate. I think his quote that I saw on CNN was that he knows he's not just debating one person, he's debating three people, including the moderators.
And so he's quick on his feet. I imagine he will have quick responses no matter what comes his way. With President Biden, it's going to be very telling to see how he engages in this setting. I just saw a clip this morning, I think he was on the Tonight Show or one of those late night shows, and he was talking about how the problem is that his administration isn't doing a good job of communicating all the great work they're doing to the American people.
But then as he went on to try to communicate that work, he was not able to do so, even in that very, very friendly setting. So we'll see what happens. I think these kinds of things would be more productive if we had a longer form podcast type conversation with both of these people who are asking to be our President. But given the format, I expect political theater and a lot of eyes watching because this is an unprecedented moment. For you, I was just curious.
I mean, obviously it was a bit different. You were running in the primaries and some of it was just a fight for time, was to just see if you could get yourself out there. But is there anything, again, this maybe is more of a podcast kind of question because it's not directed by any policy, but is there anything that our audience should know what it was like to actually be up on that stage?
Lights are on, the pressure is on, very limited amount of time. Like you said, in a world where we have this broadcast, obviously you're frequent on Rogan, which can go three and a half, four hours long. That when we were used to that, honestly, as a community, but for you, and I'm sure for even, even when it's split between President Trump and President Biden, they're going to be fighting for a very limited amount of time.
And what was your experience like that maybe, again, from that point of view? Yeah, you know, it is, we had 10 people on the stage at every time that I participated in the Presidential primary debate. And the rules for this debate between President Trump and President Biden are different than they were for us.
And these are rules that they both agreed on, foremost of which is the moderators have the power to turn your mic off as soon as your time is up. You know, the thing that's frustrating often for the audience is when someone has asked a question about a specific topic or a specific question, very often because of the limitations on time, the person on the debate stage doesn't really answer the question. I know it can be frustrating for the viewer, but I can tell you from my standpoint, with those limitations on time that I experienced, I had to take the opportunity to say what I wanted to say and talk about the issues that I wanted to get across to the American people, regardless of the question that was asked.
Again, different circumstance on average. I had about seven minutes of talk time in every debate that I participated in. Many other candidates had more.
Again, the bias of the moderators really comes through. We'll only have President Biden and President Trump on that debate stage. They will still have limited time.
I have a feeling that time limits are going to benefit President Trump more than President Biden, but they are both going to have to try to make the best use of that time available. Well, it's going to be interesting. It's just one week away. I know a lot of eyeballs will be on it. I know mine will be. I do have a birthday party I have to attend that night. If they look at me in a restaurant quietly over in the corner, I'll be like, what are you listening to?
I have to distract. I don't want to cause any political chaos at our dinner table. That being said, I did want to also move a bit to someone who has obviously served our country, has been part of this for a long time. We talked earlier months ago about this sort of pitch to have a humanitarian peer built outside of Gaza that would be a floating peer that could bring humanitarian aid where needed to help families, to help people that are in need. Obviously, we knew and we predicted that this would be a failure. Of course, it is north of $300 million spent on this. And the White House now has to come up with some sort of spin because what we've recently learned is what it looks like is that no or very little actual humanitarian aid got out of this.
They're dismantling it after only 10 days of successful operation. When you hear that, as someone who we knew this was going to put our military in harm's way, we knew that they were attacked, that those kinds of situations were happening. This is a political stunt, but a political stunt that not only costs the taxpayers so much money, it also put our service people in harm's way. Yeah, there were so many red flags that you and I spoke about when they first talked about their plan to put this temporary humanitarian peer in place. It just seemed like such a fantastical idea that in the real world would not only fail, but as you said, would put my brothers and sisters in uniform at risk.
What hasn't been reported much in kind of the mainstream news is there are a lot of social media accounts that report on the conversations and the text messages that soldiers who are working on that peer shared and what horrible conditions they were working in. And frankly, from their standpoint, literally the quote unquote boots on the ground standpoint, what a failure of an idea it was from conception through execution. And this is unfortunately exactly what we've seen carried out. To say it's a failure of leadership puts it lightly. It is once again another example of how the Biden-Harris administration are using our taxpayer dollars to try to gain more votes. This is ultimately a political stunt.
It did not have anywhere near the effect that they claimed it would have. And who pays the price in the end? It is my brothers and sisters in uniform who are put into harm's way and it is us as taxpayer dollars. We are seeing the same thing with President Biden's stroke of a pen and forgiving billions of dollars of student loan debt. Who's paying for that?
We as taxpayers are paying for that. Over and over we're seeing him circumventing our legislative process to try to gain more votes from people as we head into this election. Where President Biden knows he's in hot water and there's a great potential that he won't be able to win this election. So we've got to remain very vigilant. Unfortunately the fact that they're willing to use our troops and put their lives on the line, I don't think this is the last move that they may make. And we have to make sure that we continue to watch, be vigilant and speak out against that atrocious type of decision. Well Tulsi, thank you so much for joining us and we encourage everyone, your book For Love of Country Leave the Democrat Party Behind is available wherever you get books. But I appreciate you coming in. If you just heard that from Tulsi, you heard her thoughts on where your taxpayer funding is going, that we are putting our military in harm's way for political gain.
I want to hear from you. How do you feel about that? What are your initial thoughts and what are you going to do about it? That's the main thing. With ACLJ we can obviously get involved in a lot of different ways, whether that's in legally or whether that is through media. That is what we do here.
They both go hand in hand. So whether you support our work because you like this show, you like the broadcast, you like the incredible voices like Tulsi you just heard, or you support our legal work, or likely you support both, I encourage you right now to go to ACLJ.org. Make a donation if you can. Help us defend Israel as well as they are under such egregious attacks, whether that is in the media or whether that is in reality, sadly, still what's going on. You hear about atrocities coming out of that part of the world each and every day, but I'm going to be taking your phone calls coming up.
Again, that's at ACLJ.org. You know that. Go make that donation today. We really would appreciate it. I want to hear from you. As we've said, we've heard now from Mike Pompeo, from my brother Jordan, we've heard from Tulsi Gabbard.
Now, the most important voice is always the voice of the people. So give me a call at 1-800-684-3110. If you're watching on YouTube and you're brand new to our broadcast, maybe you don't have anything to say, hit that subscribe button. You know what?
If you're not used to being on our YouTube broadcast or our rumble broadcast, I'm not even going to say what the comments are about to do, but you guys know what to do. Freak these people out a little bit. Go to ACLJ.org right now. Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. Send them in. Welcome back to Secular. I like that. That was from my old show.
Shout out to, I believe, Rudy Lando wrote that song. Very cool. We're going to be taking some phone calls.
1-800-684-3110. I see the clowns filling up the chat on YouTube. I didn't even have to say it this time.
You all just went at it. A couple of people are like, look at all these bots. Those are not bots. These are our most active listeners. This happens about once a show, and it all goes back to Governor Hochul of New York said that if you were going down and you were going to support the Republican candidate for President, you didn't belong in New York. Also, she called them all clowns. She said all these clowns are going to be sent in. Of course, our people took that and ran with it, and we've been having fun with it ever since.
What that really means is they are an active supporter of this broadcast. We appreciate all the clowns who comment. Let's go ahead and take some phone calls. Hopefully, I'll have some answers for you. Let's go to Latina in New York listening on the radio.
Also, maybe a clown as well. You're on the air. Hello. I want to thank you for all you do.
It is so appreciated. My question is one my husband brought up. What department will take the blame for what happened with the Gaza Pier? Who's going to take the blame for this? Well, I think they're going to just sweep that under the rug. I think they're going to try to pretend that it never happened. You don't hear about it.
It wasn't the number one story. Because it was such a massive failure, though, they're going to not try to bring it up. I encourage President Trump to bring it up in the debate. If he's listening right now, if he's watching right now, his team is, I encourage them to do that. I think the Middle East doesn't get enough attention.
It does affect everyone. I would encourage them to bring it up, bring up this massive failure, this $350 million. Now, they don't say $350 million is like a drop in the bucket, but we all know that's all coming out of your pockets. Now, it comes to who designed it. Will, one of our producers here, said the Pentagon used military contractors to design and build the pier. The United States then sent the humanitarian aid, which was received by the Palestinian authority, and it's supposed to be given to civilians in Gaza. That was from our producer. So he gave me that answer there.
Fact check him if he's wrong. But the way that it ran was that it was supposed to all be funneled in, no boots on the ground, just get the aid where needed, and unfortunately, but as expected, it did not go that way. So I appreciate you calling. Let's continue on. Let's go to Carrie in Montana, who's watching on YouTube. If you're one of our YouTube's new viewers, because we found out about 60%, 40, 60% every day are brand new people, hit that subscribe button. We appreciate it.
We've seen that grow from under 300,000, under 250,000, to now well over 400,000 people who subscribe to our YouTube channel, which is just amazing. Carrie, go ahead. Yes, I want to follow up on the woman's question just right before me. I am a clown.
I am a champion. And who is responsible for that? It's not my question. But how can we get our $350 million back as taxpayers? But my main observation is my concern for this upcoming debate. Is it going to be safe for President Trump and President Biden? Because if President Biden would have a nosebleed, President Trump would be blamed for it. Oh, I think that they did not anticipate that President Trump would say yes to all of these rules and regulations.
I think the Trump campaign, masterful move here, I would give them all the props, said, you know what? We don't care what rules they start throwing at us. We're going to do it. We're going to show up and be there.
Because they know there's a chance that they show up and be there. They do what the Biden administration did not expect. The Biden administration expected President Biden to go out there and go, you're on, let's do a debate. And then they put out their list of rules. And our executive producer, Will Haynes, gave me that list and he was like, he's never going to agree to this. Because it had to be on CNN or ABC. It couldn't be on a friendly network, if you will, or even a more unbiased network.
There were a lot of little rules. And President Trump said, I don't care. I'll do it. I'll be there. So yeah, is there a chance that this goes haywire as did sort of the, let's just be honest, the first debate of the last go round, 2020?
Okay. That was the one that was pure chaos. I think it drove a lot of people away from the polls. A lot of people that had some concerns.
Yes, I think there's a chance that that will happen. Could Trump be blamed for it? Yeah, but I think what you're going to see is that you're only fighting for such a small percentage of people. There's such a small percentage of people that are not going to vote for the party that they already are predisposed to. And I think President Trump is a bit of a wild card there because I think he can bring in people who aren't used to being brought in. Because he can appeal to a different base. Whether you like him or not, that's just the facts. We're seeing the numbers rise in black and Latino voters.
That was not expected. We have seen CNN have a freak out because we've seen 20%, 30% more in their polling of people who are not traditionally conservative voters coming out to support President Trump. Because you know what? They see what's going on. We all see what's going on.
You all go to fast food and you see what the prices are of everything. Everything's a concern. Let's continue on to take some more calls though. Let's go. Let's go to Melissa in South Carolina.
She's got a similar feeling. And hey, if you're on hold and we're running out of time, stay on hold because I may be taking some extra calls for a future segment. So stay on hold and we'll do our best to get to you.
Melissa's calling in South Carolina though. Watch it on Rumble, our favorite free speech platform. Go ahead. Hey, I wanted to say number one that I am upset about all the money lost in Israel with the pier that is ridiculous spending and I could use that money for good things. And number two, I am not watching the debate. It's a waste of time.
I know Trump won it. I'd rather go out and enjoy myself than watch it. So that's interesting, Melissa, that you would say that you're not going to, I mean, I understand the wasted money on the pier. I think we all feel that way. But that money's gone.
I understand that, guys. There's not really, you know, unfortunately, you know, vote your conscience at that point. And if you feel like that that money was wasted, there's ways to answer back hopefully in the polls. But as far as not watching the debate, I think that's going to be interesting. I do think the numbers are going to be gigantic.
I think it's going to be the biggest CNN ratings in maybe the last decade. I could see that being the case. Now, I think there are people like Melissa and maybe like myself who, you know, I am going to be living my life. I know I have an event that night I have to go to. So while I've been watching it live, I wish I could. But unfortunately, I mean, I guess unfortunately, unfortunately, I have other things to do.
But I am obviously someone who reports and comes on the show. I am going to watch it. And I do look forward to it. To me, I always, I really missed the debates, the primary debates.
I really did miss them because obviously you had them, but you did not have them with the leading candidate that swept the entire thing. So I'm glad we're at least getting something as just a fan. Like it's a fan of that form of entertainment, if you will.
Not even necessarily as a fan of President Trump or President Biden, just as someone who enjoys watching a debate. I look forward to it. My wife, I'm sure, will walk out and leave the room as she traditionally does and can't take it.
So maybe she's more like Melissa. Let's go ahead and see. We've got two minutes. Let's go to Michael in New Hampshire. You're on the air and everyone else stay on hold.
We're going to try to get to you. Yeah. I've, maybe you've answered some of my concerns, but I wanted to know if you were really confident in Trump's performance, upcoming performance in this debate. Because in the debate in 2020, and I'm a supporter of Trump, I thought he did pretty lousy. He was pretty lackluster against Biden.
I should have been a knockout and it was like a split decision and you could probably ask five different people, you get five different opinions as to who won the debate. And I'd like to know if you're confident it's going to be different and if so, why? No, I think your concerns are real, Michael. I think a lot of people feel that way. I feel that way. As someone who thought those debates in 2020, you know, they became chaotic.
They became, they went haywire, but maybe we could reopen those lines just in case people want to call at 1-800-684-3110. But I am not saying that I'm fully confident in it. What does give me a glimmer of hope though, is that they do seem to be taking the prep work a bit more serious this time. There are reports that he's having these long, not necessarily, they're not doing like dummy debates with a fake Biden, but what they are doing is these very intensive, hours-long policy discussions and meetings. So maybe going into it, knowing it's going to be different, because it's not as much of a show, because there's not a live audience and all of that, that there will be some hope that he'll do better this go round. And maybe it'll be a bit more structured and a bit more focused on his policy and a bit less name calling.
We'll see though, President Trump, you never know. Hey, we're going to take some more phone calls. The show's wrapping up right now.
We're going to record an additional segment. So stay on hold if you're on hold right now, or if you're online right now, or give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. We're only taking them over the next few minutes, so again, stay on hold.
Don't go anywhere if you're online. But thank you for supporting the work of the ACLJ. I encourage you to go to ACLJ.org right now. Become an ACLJ champion if you can, someone that supports the work each and every month on a recurring basis. Make your one-time donation today. Talk to you tomorrow.
