J.D. Vance and Tim Walz meet face to face for the only time before the election, and Walz's performance was utterly shameful. A question to everyone.
Give us a call at 1-800-684-3110. Did you watch the VP debate? That was probably the last debate we're going to see before.
I mean, people are already starting to vote in early voting in some states around the country, but it does not look like we're going to get another debate either at the Presidential candidate level or the VP level, so this was it. And for many of us, probably your first chance to see at least Walz, maybe J.D. Vance as well, in that kind of setting.
Even if you had been a J.D. Vance supporter, if you were outside of Ohio, you didn't watch his Ohio Senate when he was running for Senate, like any of the debates like that. And the same thing with Walz. Even if you kind of knew who he was as Governor, as a member of Congress, it's a different level when you're on this stage when every network is covering it.
I will say this. I do think the network's CBS this time, not great. I mean, it was bizarre how they fact checked and... I think that was one of those moments that you remember, which is you said you weren't going to fact check, and then you did fact check, and then you had to cut off J.D. Vance's microphone, both their microphones. I watched a pretty big highlight reel again this morning, and that one seems to be one of the ones that sticks out. There's three or four moments.
That's one that people keep going back to. Just the fact that they weren't supposed to be there to do that, that was the job of the other candidates to say, hey, wait, what he's saying is not correct, or what they're saying isn't accurate, and we're going to stay out of that. They did not stay out of it.
In fact, they mocked J.D. Vance at one point too, saying, thanks for explaining what the law is. That's so bad for Americans to hear how a law works.
I got a little upset with that one, because it was like he just wanted to get in there and say, listen, this is how... Explain it....people who are illegal immigrants can file this piece of paperwork, and all of a sudden it takes them from being an illegal immigrant to not an illegal immigrant. Right. I was actually unaware of how that works, and it was a fact check himself, and I found that to be very interesting of how they were able to, what their terminology means, what the Democrat terminology means.
So when you see that, I think, yeah, there was moments ago, uh-oh, we can't allow this. It was probably the most civil of the debates we've had, maybe the last decade. The two of them spent most of the time not attacking each other.
I think, yeah. They spent even time when they were attacking the President or the Presidential candidate. Vice President Harris or Trump, they spent more time on that. They spent very little attacking each other.
Even the numbers, actually. Waltz attacks Vance for about a minute and 20 seconds, and Vance attacked Waltz for about two and a half, two and 43. They both did almost exactly equal time, right at both about 40 minutes, 41 minutes for Waltz, 39, 36 for Vance. They got to speak out at the same amount of time. Yeah, so it felt one of the more cordial debates. They were shaking hands. They were talking to each other. They were apologizing. It did have moments of civility.
I think people probably liked that more than they've liked other shows. Or other shows, other debates in recent history, but it also still felt very one-sided. It felt, again, like the conservative candidates are debating the moderators.
Right. Even when they're not supposed to be, even when the moderators are just supposed to be throwing the questions out, we're not going to do any fact-checking, don't worry. It's like they keep all of their nastiness to aim at the conservatives. Yeah, I'd say the one pushback, finally, was when Waltz—sure, we'll play in a little bit—the whole Tiananmen Square situation. That was probably one of the bigger gaffes of the night, because, of course, when Tim Walz pushed on one of his now historic lies, what happens is he completely diverted. And at least I can give credit to the moderators for going, now, hold on, though, what exactly happened here? Were you there or not? Were you there or not?
And he still didn't really answer the question. I think there's some bizarre things with Waltz, Tiananmen, Tim. I mean, I think that, again, why were you— I prefer that name.
Yeah, the other ones are fine everywhere, too. Listen, the truth is, these bizarre things you make up that you're part of history, that could kill you. I mean, there are people's other careers in the news. Brian, what was his name? Brian Williams, yeah.
He's now on Amazon Prime News, I believe. Yeah. Give us a call. We'd love to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. And obviously, we are deeply following what's going on in Israel. We're going to discuss that later on. Both Rick Grenell and Mike Pompeo are joining us in the broadcast, so stay tuned for that.
And stand with Israel, as well, by going to aclj.org slash stand. A lot of you did yesterday. We appreciate it. Do it right now or scan that QR code on your screen. We'll talk about that more when we get back.
Just take it low. We are taking your calls, too. 1-800-684-3110.
That's 1-800-684-3110. We're, of course, talking about the VP debate. We're also watching very closely Israel, as it's—again, there have been eight IDF soldiers killed in Lebanon. They are slowly moving into Lebanon, it seems, on foot, through tanks, that the air campaign is not going to be the end of that. And, of course, we'll watch that very closely, as well. You've seen a lot of Hezbollah leaders be removed from the battlefield by the IDF before this on-the-ground conflict began, but we will be watching that very closely.
Netanyahu says that Iran has made a big mistake with attacks that they have been supporting against Israel. Logan, through the debate, we've also been watching, as well, about just kind of what topics would come up with Walt and J.D. Vance, that they would really stick out to people. I did not know that, if I was kind of guessing the day before, that Tiananmen Square would be such a rule. That it would even come up. I wasn't aware even of this story, and it was the story of Tim Walz claiming to have been there during the events. I mean, those would have been events to, like, you know, those are... Yeah, you remember it, and it's also very clear, and it's one of those things where we know he's had a relationship the way he talks about China, that he loves China and always is discussing China.
He went on his honeymoon to China. Yeah, and then there was pushback, I guess, from... That's weird, people. That's weird. Yeah, whatever.
I mean, people wanted to do it. You want to get a communist China for your honeymoon? No, I don't. I went the American way to Las Vegas, Nevada.
That's where I went. But, you know, I don't know if I'd make that decision again now, either. You know, both of those, maybe not the best.
I love you, Las Vegas, but I don't know. Well, it's not obvious. It's true.
It's the opposite, maybe. Now, listen, though. He brought this up, and I guess Minnesota Public Radio pushed back and said, from what our digging has shown, you were not there during those events, that you did not show up until much later in the year.
When they pushed him, if you missed it, here's the conversation. My commitment, whether it be through teaching, which I was good at, or whether it was being a good soldier or always being a good member of Congress, those are the things that I think are the values that people care about. Governor, just to follow up on that, the question was, can you explain the discrepancy? All I said on this was, is I got there that summer and misspoke on this.
So I will just, that's what I've said. So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protests, went in. And from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance. I mean, kind of a Biden feeling moment. It really had that sort of- I don't even know where he was going with that. It had that sort of, we beat Medicare feeling at the end of it. You know, it did have that- Yeah, we beat Medicare to death. Yeah, it did have that vibe. Unfortunately, he couldn't really have a good answer for that. And that was like the shortened version we played for you.
The real version, especially the initial part, it was a long drawn out story about how he grew up in a town of 400 people and the values, and then eventually got itself around to that. Again, I appreciate the civility that came out of this. I appreciate some of the vulnerability. I think you had J.D. Vance coming out to be the most likable he's been in the entire run, because I think there was conversations of that. The point for Vance was to try to hammer home, or for Walt to Vance was to try to hammer home the whole, Vance is weird.
It's going to be weird. And I think it actually was the exact opposite. You had that moment where Tim Walz comes off as kind of, you know, awkward, strange, has weird stories that don't add up.
And then you had J.D. coming off as a pretty likable normal dude, something that I don't think was expected, but of course, very well educated guy, has been in these kind of debates probably before, and I think the experience was shown. Yes, and I think Tim Walz thought, you know, when you're on the left, you can make up a lot of these stories, and people don't fact check you, except when you get to this level of politics.
And even the Democrats want to catch you lying, even the Democrats want to catch you with a misstatement, and this bizarre statement that you're there for Tiananmen Square is just like I took fire with U.S. troops in the Afghanistan, and Brian Williams paid the price for that. Will Tim Walz pay the price for this? We don't know at this point. I don't know if it's big enough to decide who people are going to vote for, because these are the VP candidates, and ultimately, people usually vote for who's at the top of the table. Yeah, and at the end of the day, he did say, hey, I misspoke on that.
I mean, when really pushed, he finally came out against it. Look, there was another gaffe later on in the show we'll talk about, but there are some good calls coming in. I think we should go ahead and take one. Let's go to Jeanette, who's calling on line two. Jeanette, in California, you're on the air. Hi.
I just had a comment. I noticed last night that Governor Walz didn't really notice that he was, he didn't know that he was on a split screen, and he was nodding his head in agreement to just about everything. Well, Jeanette, I think that was on purpose. I don't think it was yet, because actually, if you look at what they said, and you are right in this, maybe the big takeaway from this was Walz and with Vance saying, hey, we actually agree on a lot more than we disagree. When we disagree, I think the quote was somewhere like we're miles apart in terms of maybe the 2020 election, those kind of things.
But when we agree, we actually can get some stuff done. There was some real human conversations there when it was, you know, my son had witnessed or my daughter had witnessed a shooting, and then there was that conversation there where they actually had a moment of going, oh, that's so horrible. I can't believe that. And they had that kind of real, again, human moment. I just think, Jeanette, you're not used to, we're not used to seeing that anymore. This is how the debates used to be. They were this, if you go back to a Romney Obama, they were tough, but they were never, they weren't going to shake hands.
You didn't get that vibe that there was ever going to be this moment of let's just call each other names for two hours. That is really a moment that's changed the last decade. So you think it's Donald Trump? I think it was probably Donald Trump, and then the Democrats decided we have to play by those rules and where they wouldn't have before. And I think you can see that in the original Republican debates in 2016. 2016 original Republican debates for Republicans, it was like five guys playing by the rules and Trump going out there and saying stuff about Ted Cruz and saying stuff about Marco Rubio and really throwing like weird haymakers that no one expected because it's just not how you play the game. Now, I think that's what attracted people to Donald Trump is not how you played the game. Haymakers that you could never forget.
Yeah, stuff that sticks with you forever. Now, I think you're like, okay, well, can we counter-program that? And I think they counter-programmed that because they knew with Harris and Trump, they had to do it.
They had to play by Trump's rules. You had to be a bit more hard edge. You had to be a bit more insulting, if you will. But I think you had probably a breath of fresh air from a lot of people. Even I saw Democrats posting that was very nice to see at least some civility. And I do think that. I think in the highlight reel again that I watched this morning of it, I was like, oh, yeah, I forgot this was largely nice even when they said you're lying. It didn't have that disdain as a part of the conversation.
And people may not like that. I think we had that call saying he seemed like he was agreeing with him. And I think maybe that's the point was to show that we're a little bit closer together than we are apart. Definitely where Tim Walz would like to go. He would like to go and say, listen, you think we're so different from the Trump and the J.D.
Vance guys? We're not. They just try to make it sound like we're so bad compared to.
We're really, you know, on a couple issues we might disagree strongly, but on basically everything else we're the same. And I think that's where they wanted people to go. They're trying to convince people that you don't have to vote for Donald Trump. You can still vote for us, and you're going to get about the same thing.
Yeah, the idea that, hey, you don't have to. And I think that, again, don't forget the debate between Harris and Trump, because that really did show the differences. And then Harris saying, remember, that you don't have to leave your faith or whatever it is to vote for me. And look, you have a lot of the more left-leaning evangelicals saying that, or even the ones who are more conservative who just hate Trump saying you don't have to leave your faith to do that.
And we have a call coming in that we're going to take actually in the next segment here about the life discussion, because it did come up. And look, there's been some debate in that. Trump put out a statement yesterday saying, I'm 100% not going to sign a federal abortion ban.
What does that mean for the country and for the pro-life movement? I think there should be some division there. Some people should be—maybe there's some that feel that that's good.
Maybe some people feel that that's the wrong way to go. But I know there's some discussion about that. But there was a moment within this debate of where at least what should be noncontroversial conversation on late-term abortion came up.
We're going to talk about that in the next segment. But we also don't want to forget what's going on in Israel as we went off the air yesterday. Obviously, it felt like the war escalated to a point of no return, if you will, when it comes to the rocket attacks that were coming in, the terrorist attacks that were happening on the streets. And we want to make sure that you're standing up for Israel and standing with us today. So right now, after hundreds of ballistic missiles were fired at Israel—and thankfully Israel knows what they're doing, and there was not much damage, much civilian casualty. But we need you to stand with Israel as we mobilize our offices in Jerusalem in the face of this unthinkable war. I know a lot of people said those images yesterday kind of evoked the war on terror, evoked 2003, 2002 in Iraq.
It did feel that way where you saw the bombs going in, but of course it was going in to Israel, to some of the biggest areas in Israel, areas that usually aren't targeted, like a Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. But the ACLJ, we're taking action right now. Within hours of the strike, we delivered a critical demand to the UN Security Council.
We have a lot going on right now. We're preparing to send a critical demand letter to the UN General Assembly on these attacks, their biased attacks on Israel. But these efforts require a lot of resources, and the attacks on Israel are growing from all sides, whether that is coming from a geopolitical standpoint or the actual attacks that are going on in the country. We've become a champion for Israel by making a monthly recurring donation right now. Go to ACLJ.org, ACLJ.org slash stand, and that will stand with Israel. This is a time when Israel needs us to be standing with them. They've got multi-front wars now with Iran. Let's do it, folks.
ACLJ.org slash stand. Welcome back to Sekulow. Abortion obviously took center stage. It's going to in every discussion that we have.
I think, though, this was the last debate. We're probably going to see, we know that the abortion issue is front and center with a lot of voters, especially in battleground states. They're putting up abortion ads all over the country.
Look, I was in Texas. It was a lot of ads about Senator Cruz. Every ad against Senator Cruz was OBGYN.
It was all abortion. Yeah, and I think we're seeing that on the news as well from both sides. I think that that's just universal in states where there are big Republicans that they are trying to take down.
I think they have a chance to take down. The issue that they're going with is abortion. We've got callers asking about the way that's even got into the issue. Let's go to Ken who's calling in California on Line 1. Ken, welcome.
Hi. Yeah, my question is what is his position on it because it wasn't clear from the state. Can you clarify what he said? I know it was a reference to the individual states having a say now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned. Mr. Trump brought that up, but what is Mr. Vance's position now about the abortion itself?
I'll pull up J.D. 's exact opinions and thoughts on abortion specifically, but I do think when you were talking to the caller, you said, did he shy away from it? Last night, actually, it came up multiple times, and I think in a pretty strong way. It somehow had to do with the Minnesota laws. Now, again, I feel like anyone, any rational person, even if you're pro-choice, should find that these late-term, post-birth abortion laws are absurd and are disgusting, but it's sadly where some of these states have landed. So let's hear that conversation.
This is J.D. Vance on the current law in Minnesota. You're free to disagree with me on this and explain this to me, but as I read the Minnesota law that you signed into law, the statute that you signed into law, it says that a doctor who presides over an abortion where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide life-saving care to a baby who survives a botched, late-term abortion. That is, I think, whether you're pro-choice or pro-abortion, that is fundamentally barbaric, and that's why I use that word, Norah, is because some of what we've seen. Do you want to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions against their will? Because Kamala Harris has supported suing Catholic nuns to violate their freedom of conscience. We can be a big and diverse country where we respect people's freedom of conscience and make the country more pro-baby and pro-family, but please. Yes, Governor, please respond.
Look, this is one where there's always something there. This is a very simple proposition. These are women's decisions to make about their health care decisions and the physicians who know best when they need to do this. Trying to distort the way a law is written to try and make a point, that's not it at all. What was I wrong about, Governor? Please tell me, what was I wrong about?
That is not the way the law is written. Look, I've given this advice on a lot of things, that getting involved, that's been misread and it was fact-checked at the last debate. But the point on this is, is there's a continuation of these guys to try and tell women or to get involved. I used this line on this, just mind your own business on this. We knew that was going to be the line, always mind your own business, that's the game trying to push that he's weird for wanting to talk about this, for it being a discussion point. Ken, but I hope that answered your question, which is I think he took a pretty strong stance on life.
Actually, J.D. historically has been very pro-life, has been someone who has pushed maybe beyond President Trump's own standpoint. Now what you do when you become the Vice President, and a lot of times Vice President candidate, you back your President's angle, their view, their point of view. So I would assume right now what you're saying, even when they disagree, you will probably have this, if Donald Trump says, hey, I'm not going to sign a federal abortion ban, you'll probably have similar rhetoric coming out of Vance. Does that mean that's where he would have stood if he was the candidate, if he was the Presidential candidate?
Maybe not, maybe not. But we know that that's sort of, again, how it works, is you bring someone along, your Vice President typically is not going to go rogue in terms of the differences. You've got to be okay with where the candidate is willing to go on the issue and how far they're willing to go when they see this as a huge issue that could stand in the way of them becoming President. And I think there's so much mis and disinformation out there about abortion that other than our show, and maybe some on the left, I don't think anybody else talks about it, Logan. Yeah, I think it's a hard discussion to have. Look, we even have to, we talk about it, but we have to be well aware that when we do, we know there's a certain group of people who are listening. Maybe you're listening with your kids in the car. You're not going to want to hear this conversation. You're not going to want to have that hard conversation with a kid.
Or you're not going to want to listen to it on your lunch break. Sometimes we know that's how it is, but you know what? It's too important of an issue to just ignore.
And we are taking real proactive. You think about the Roe versus Wade, you think about these cases that we're now in 2024, and it's still one of the top issues. Yeah, I think it will be always.
I think it will always be. The idea of when life begins and when we are taking another human life versus, again, these cells that they'll try to sell you on. It's just, it's not a human life, it's cells.
And the science that keeps picking up with us keeps showing that we're right and they're wrong. Yeah, I mean, I think you have the last time when you had a person in Georgia saying, hey, I think that the fetal heartbeats, those are fake, those are manufactured. Stacey Abrams saying, you know, that's just a noise that this machine makes.
That's not real. Also an election denial. Those are the discussions that happened over and over again. We have a good call coming in from Cindy. If you want to call in 1-800-684-3110, because she has maybe a different point of view on the sort of nice nature of this debate. Cindy, North Carolina, go ahead.
Hey, I hope I'm not going to lose you through the mountains. Yeah, I'm from JD's hometown of Middletown, and I have two points. One, I think you should have knocked Tim Walsh out. You should have fact checked him more. I know they were trying to make JD seem nice and appeal probably to women, but Tim Walsh was lying.
And so he needed to correct them, especially on things like the immigration when he said it was 1400. But on this issue of abortion, I think JD did a great job talking about why his view had changed. And he talked about because in Ohio, a very conservative state, they were not even able to pass a heartbeat bill. And I think JD's point, which maybe you have to be a little bit more aware of the situation to understand, was simply that a national abortion ban is not what the United States as a whole is ready for.
If in states like Ohio, they can't even pass a heartbeat bill. So I think his point was they're representatives. They are representative of our we are the elect. We elect them to represent our views, not their view.
And that's what JD was saying, which is my view is X. But even in Ohio, my own constituents didn't go where I wanted to go. And I think he did an excellent job and he should have been harder.
You know, I think you can always look in hindsight, say it could have punched harder here, could have punched harder there. But remember, you have a top of the of the ticket candidate who punches very hard and is very aggressive. I think they want to show that this is that JD Vance, this is who is going to be alongside President Trump. And while he agrees with President Trump on the issues, he's going to bring about he's going to talk about him in a different way.
And that means, Logan, that he can also explain it differently to the American people. Yeah, I think like I said, I understand Cindy's point of view, not feeling like that it represented him well. But I think for a lot of people, it could have been a breath of fresh air to actually have those moments where it felt like you weren't just watching two people scream at each other. I you know, again, I feel that way. I enjoyed hearing an actual debate, going back and forth, talking about their differences and issues. And sure, did it feel biased? Of course, it's always going to when you're talking about these networks and they have an agenda.
And I understand. And look, JD Vance was smart enough to know that going in. I think Donald Trump's smart enough to know that going in. They probably take it a little differently where Trump may hit a little harder. Vance may come away to be a little swaver even in his response.
He may be a little bit more used to a debate, used to these kind of conversations. So look, we have another segment coming up. We actually have another half hour coming up is what I meant. If you don't get us on your local station, find us broadcasting live every day from 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern Time.
You can work your way back from there. We are on YouTube. We're on Rumble. We're on ACLJ.org live across the world. You can be a part of it. Just go to ACLJ.org. You can find us later on archived on the ACLJ or the secular podcast on all your favorite podcast players as well.
Again, of course, YouTube and Rumble. I did want to take a minute. If you are losing us here to encourage you to stand with Israel and support the work of the ACLJ today. You know, we are about to be a Rosh Hashanah tonight. Jewish New Year begins. So be a part of that as well.
It's a great time to stand up for Israel, obviously about to be in the one year anniversary of the original attacks. Do it right now. These efforts need immense resources. We need your help. It's K the QR code. We'll be right back. Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.
Welcome to Sekulow. We are taking your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110. That's 1-800-684-3110. We have a lot to talk about. We've got a lot of people called in too. So I think we actually start taking more calls. I feel like more people called in for this than they did for the Trump debate, which is pretty interesting. A lot more people maybe tuned in because, like you said, this was maybe the first time they had seen Waltz. And they've seen Vance.
I don't think they're as afraid of critiquing Waltz as they are of Trump. Yeah, and even Vance in the sense of they're looking at maybe this is the future of the party. Because if Trump is to win, that's a one-term presidency.
We know that. Or one term. And then who's right behind him would be J.D. Vance.
So what does that look like? I think he showed himself very well last night. Better than he has, I think, in this entire run.
So I think he knocked it out of the park. Let's go ahead and take some calls about that, about the debate. We've got a lot.
Let's just go in order. Let's go to Clay, who's calling in North Carolina. And again, a lot of our calls are coming from North Carolina. We're still obviously continuing to pray for everyone in western North Carolina and Tennessee and all those affected by this hurricane going to a benefit tonight for that. So Clay, you're on the air.
Brother Jordan and Brother Logan, I would like to deeply and appreciatively give my thanks to the Lord for you guys doing what you're doing. You know, I didn't watch the whole entire debate. I watched part of it. And all the way to where I'm eating lunch, I stepped outside because you're taking the call, and I deeply appreciate that. I'm just – I mean, I'm a former – I was in the military. I'm a veteran.
And I know Walls is, too. So I know that there was some stuff that he did that – I don't know the whole thing, and I don't care about that. But, you know, y'all were talking about how – what the state of Minnesota said about what, you know, they in a way disowned him about, you know, some of the stuff that he was laying out. And I watched it, and I'm like, okay, so we've gone through deception and we've gone through the lying again. And I'm like, okay, so how can people be all right with this? You know, I'm a proud supporter of you guys.
I give thanks to the Lord that y'all were doing what you're doing. But, I mean, how can people be drawn into deceiving and lying? That doesn't shit well with me because – Clay, I think a lot of people feel that way. I don't mean to cut you off.
I think that people feel that way when they hear these ongoing – I mean, the ongoing fairy tales that are happening is very bizarre. You know, it is one of those things where that means he was making these promises probably, like Jordan said, during a run for whatever it was he was running for at the moment. Are you talking about Mr. I was at Tiananmen Square? I was at Tiananmen Square or I, you know, used those weapons in battle. Those are things that you say and you don't probably expect someone to actually do the digging. But then when you become the vice President or the vice Presidential candidate, they're going to start doing the digging.
And who did the digging for Tiananmen Square? Minnesota Public Radio. You know, it's not exactly like some hard right – you didn't hear Town Hall found this discussion or, you know, this came from the Daily Wire or this came from us.
Now, this came from MPR, who did the digging and found that out about Waltz, his own home state's public radio, which meant it wasn't that hard either to find that out. Thank you so much for your call. We're going to take more calls coming up. Rick Grinnell is joining us also in the next segment, so stay tuned for that. Again, give us a call.
Phone lines are completely jammed right now at 1-800-684-3110. We're also going to discuss that very bizarre statement he made in regards to gun violence and school shootings. It is, again, in a moment where you could easily say, hey, I just – I meant school shooting victims, families, easy to recover from. Never did. Not only never did, you'll see what happens post-debate when everyone else was headed to the spin room. Sean Hannity had on J.D. Vance. Why didn't he fix that?
And, of course, you had Governor Tim Waltz head to a pizzeria in town. I think someone's telling him, don't respond if they ask you about this. But the difference is, I think a lot of politicians would – and this is my theory. A lot of politicians here don't respond, and they'd go, okay, I'll figure out my way out of it without actually answering the question. Instead, it's not what he did. He just flat out, you'll see, doesn't respond to the question.
Gets kind of scared, as it seems to be his deer in the headlights look that continues on for Tim Waltz. We'll be right back again with Rick Grenell. And then later on in the broadcast, Mike Pompeo will be joining us as well. Oh, yeah, that's right. Go to ACLJ.
Yeah, probably not. ACLJ.org. Again, to Stand With Israel and support them today. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Rick Grenell is joining us. Rick, obviously we wanted to get your thoughts on not only what's going on in the Middle East right now because it has just illuminated and become, you know, maybe that point of no return that we're all concerned about.
But that's happening. But of course, political analysis, we want to get your thoughts on the debate last night. You had a maybe everyone, all the callers say even a shockingly cordial conversation debate between Governor Walz and J.D. Vance.
But we do at least have to say it was pretty clear the differences. Yeah, look, I was struck this morning thinking, who is the shooter? Who is the school shooter that he knows? I mean, this is a simple question. Right now, I think we've got the media who won't ask a simple question of who's the school shooter and which McDonald's did Kamala work at?
I think these are really two simple things. If they're lying, then they need to just come clean and say that I'm sorry that that was, you know, hyperbole or it was a made up story or whatever it was. I feel like these are just simple questions that the media should be able to ask if we had a media. But, you know, every single day we wake up, Kamala isn't doing interviews. Tim Walz isn't doing interviews. And clearly, Tim Walz not doing interviews was a strategic blunder because he was so ill prepared last night. You know, he was doing these fake notes. I don't know if you saw that, but he would all of a sudden dart over to his little pad with his pen. And you clearly see that he didn't write anything down, but he pretended to write something down. And I think that he was very nervous because he hasn't been in front of the media. And when you haven't done media in the beginning, you're in your head and you can't quite articulate information.
If you do it a while, if you do it and you get roughed up and you learn to think on your feet and articulate your point rather than just answer their biased question, I think then you see the value. And we saw that from J.D. Vance. He was incredible and calm and focused and was able to articulate. But look, J.D. and President Trump are doing hostile interviews constantly. They're not afraid to do them.
And, you know, Kamala is doing Oprah. It's really pathetic. Yeah. You can feel the rust on them when they don't have the time. You know, the professional wrestling terms, they call it ring rust, which is you've been out of the ring for a long time.
When you get back in, you a lot of times need a little bit of time to recover, get back at it. But when you've never had that experience, when you've never been in front of those crowds, when you've never seen that, you've never had anyone push back. And even when you have people who are probably on your side, but they're still going to fact check you a little maybe, or maybe they're going to make sure you answer that question a little bit, just one or two, the deer in the headlights moment happened.
Now, I wanted to play, for those who didn't know, maybe you didn't see it, I see some of the callers and some of the comments saying, yeah, I didn't even watch it. When he's talking about the school shooting moment, this was a odd, I guess you're going to call it a gaffe. But again, given an opportunity to fix it. So first I want you to see the moment in the debate.
And then after that, I'm going to give you a follow up of when pushed on it later on. So first here is that moment in the debate. Senator, thank you. Governor, you previously opposed an assault weapons ban, but it's only later in your political career. Did you change your position?
Why? Yeah, I sat in that office with those Sandy Hook parents. I've become friends with school shooters.
I've seen it. So again, you'd think, okay, he said, I've become friends with school shooters. That's going to be a gaffe that everyone will remember forever because it's just probably the worst thing you could possibly say.
Now you would think, let's go in and clarify this. Clearly he meant I sat with Sandy Hook families. You'd hope at least I sat with Sandy Hook families.
I have become friends with the school shooting victims families. That's what you're hoping he really meant by that. And it was just a gaffe, but then pushed on it. This was later on post debate last night. He was in a pizzeria at a pastry shop and he was asked about it. And here was the answer.
What do you think your strongest moment was tonight? Oh, just I think it was a good debate. The public got to see a contrast.
And I think the ending sums it up. The democracy issues. Governor, you said you become friends with school shooters during the debate. Can you clarify what you meant on that? Can you clarify what you meant when you said you'd be friends with school shooters? And totally doesn't respond.
Basically just turns a blind eye like they didn't ask this question. Demi Drake, that could have been it. That moment could have been said. Of course I didn't say, that's not what I meant to say. And that would have been it, but yet he wouldn't. Look, I think that we could be wrong here. I think that he could be friends with school shooters. I think that he has this incredible inability to see crime and punishment the way the rest of us do. And I think that there is a chance, you know, he's now been given the opportunity to clarify he chose not to. But I think that he realized when you say I become friends with school shooters and I'm sympathetic to them being bullied.
Or I don't know what he's thinking. But I do think that there's a chance that he is trying to say it's not the fault of individuals who find themselves in a mess. That it is the gun. I believe that he is focused on the problem is the gun and someone who becomes mentally ill is going to lash out. And so therefore you've got to get rid of guns because it's inevitable that people are going to be troubled. Kids are going to be troubled. And so therefore we should not have any access to guns.
I actually believe that that's his line of thinking. And it's a terrible excuse to say because people have mental illness that somehow you've got to take away guns. I mean, you're going to take away cars. Are you going to take away knives? No, you combat mental illness. And that's the focus because, you know, a gun just doesn't pick up itself and walk in.
It has to be attached to a person. Everybody knows that that's common sense. But I would like to know the answer because it does seem to me that Tim Walz is saying that he is friends with school shooters and he has dived into the politics of this when it comes to guns. He was talking about, you know, getting rid of guns and blaming guns in the debate. So it makes sense to me. If that's the case, and the answer is truly I've become friends with school shooters and here's what it is, I think we need to demand answers for that one. That one is one that, Rick, if that's and I look, I don't discount your opinion.
I think you I hope you're wrong, but I think you're probably right. And if that's the case, he had that chance right at the pizzeria or whatever to say. Yeah, that was, of course, a misstatement. I was with the Sandy Hook families. That's what I was talking about.
I was with the Fridja school shooters. Obviously that was just said, but he didn't. But he didn't. So there is that concern. That's what it is. Look, there's obviously the escalation also going on in the Middle East.
And I wanted to get someone who has been very involved in foreign policy and everything. Rick, I want to get your point of view. When you saw the war escalate so aggressively overnight, really since we were on the air, it started happening on the air yesterday.
When you started hearing reports of the rockets coming into Israel, the terrorist attacks on the street. The unrest seems to be bubbling sadly to what feels like a point of no return for this kind of war. Maybe it's something we haven't seen in a very long time.
Well, I certainly hope it's not a point of no return. We've got to try. We've got to have diplomacy.
We've got to have leaders. I will say this. I have a lot of friends who are Arab Americans and Muslims. I have a lot of friends who are evangelical, pro-Israel or Jewish and care very deeply about the region. And everyone is united in two points.
And it's remarkable to say this. As much as we think that there's this huge conflict, there are two points that everyone agree on. And one is Donald Trump brought Arab-Israeli peace. Both Arabs and Israelis and Christians want to see peace. And they recognize that someone like Donald Trump can bring in Bibi Netanyahu and Arab leaders and wrestle through the tough negotiations of doing peace.
Peace is much harder than just letting conflict go with emotion and going into war. So that's the first point. The second point is that everybody agrees that when you fund Iran, you're going to get terrorism. Arabs know that. Jews know that. Evangelical Christians know that. The one group that doesn't know that are White House staffers. They have no idea that when you fund Iran, that you're going to get chaos. We see this.
There's a 2019, I've talked about this, and I think we've linked to it on the ACLJ Facebook page. There's a 2019 New York Times article lamenting the fact that Donald Trump's sanctions policies with Iran are causing chaos because Hezbollah fighters aren't getting their paychecks. In 2019, they weren't getting their paychecks.
Today, they're getting bonuses and mileage reimbursement because there's so much money. It's truly outrageous. All right. Well, thank you, Rick, for joining us.
I agree. I remember being on this air, being emotional at the Abraham Accords and everything that would happen. And I told everyone four years ago, you're going to forget about Islamic terror. You're going to forget that this is all happening once you have President Trump in there doing that.
But then if you don't, you're going to be quickly reminded of it again. And here we are four years later. We're going to take your phone calls coming up in the next segment. And Mike Pompeo is joining us. So stay tuned. And again, support the work of the ACLJ. Stand up for Israel at ACLJ.org and support our offices in Jerusalem. We'll be right back.
Welcome back to Secula. We are joined now by Mike Pompeo. Secretary Pompeo, we're going to get your thoughts on the debate because the Middle East, though, was front and center last night during the debate. But we didn't really hear anything about the different wars going on, whether it's Russia or Afghanistan.
It feels like the Democrats are running away from their own foreign policy in this moment. We've spent a lot of time talking about Israel and we should because Israel maybe had one of the most horrific moments in this entire conflict happen yesterday. Obviously not compared to October 7th, but then later on, having all these rockets come in, having the terrorist attacks on the street, the unrest that we're feeling right now. But we can't forget of what the policies that have led us here have led to that. We had peace, relative peace, maybe the most peace we've ever had in the Middle East while you were serving in the administration. To the point where I talked about in the last segment that I got on the air and I remember during the Abraham Accords being emotional, emotional on the air. And I said that I never thought I would see this in my lifetime.
And here we were having them celebrating Hanukkah in Dubai and having Israeli families being able to visit all of these countries and there not be this just continual sense of unrest. And then I said when President Biden was elected, you all are forgetting. And look, I have to say, I wish it was a bigger topic.
And thankfully this time it is. You're all forgetting about Islamic terror and you're forgetting about it. But guess what? I know when I'm talking to you in four years, we are not going to be forgetting about it. And here we are, Secretary Pompeo, here we are on the brink of maybe one of the biggest wars, what feels like in our lifetime in the Middle East. You know, exactly right.
Here we are. Here we are with an American leader who is occupying the presidency today, but only nominally. Who the heck is making decisions while Vice President Harris is out on the campaign trail?
It's a really dangerous four months and you can see the net effect. You opened your question by speaking about the fact that last night's debate, as best I could tell, had no mention of Afghanistan and only a cursory discussion of anything more broad, including the Russian aggression in Ukraine. These are all symptomatic of failed American leadership.
It's not political. It's just the bad guys feel free to move about the cabin when America abandons the global stage. And when American leaders refuse to defend the things that matter, when they don't put America first, you get this kind of risk. And the Middle East is now ablaze. Chinese Communist Party is certainly making waves. And we, of course, know that the effort of Vladimir Putin in Ukraine continues.
And we have 13 dead Americans in the summer of 2021 in Afghanistan. Today, President Biden is saying he's taking phone calls from leaders. He's telling them don't. But don't isn't a foreign policy. It's not a strategy.
It is a plaintive cry. And our friends don't trust us and our adversaries don't remotely fear us. Yeah, that feels like the common thread that's happening right now.
I think that there could not be a better way to put it. And you've seen, whether it is our adversaries or we've seen Israel's adversaries, really, like I said, not take it seriously that America will get engaged in a way that's sufficient. Now, we're not saying we're not calling for troops on the ground in Israel, anything like that. But the response from Israel is going to be what seems to be pretty historic. We don't know what that will look like, but what do you expect over the next few days?
Is there any hope that this gets deescalated or do you think that we have hit that sort of point of no return? It's a fool's game to try and predict precisely how this will unfold. But we know this much that the Israelis have clearly decided two things.
One, they can't rely on the United States. They didn't tell us about these things they've done in advance. That's pretty darn unusual for them to not at least not seek permission, but they notify us in advance saying, here's what we intend to do. They were worried that somebody, Jake Sullivan's team or somebody in Secretary Blinken's office would link it to the Washington Post. And so they don't trust us. And second, they have concluded that they have no choice but to take down this risk themselves. And if they don't get help from us, they don't get help from the Europeans. That's a risk they have to take because you can no longer live when you have 80,000 people that can't return to your homes in the north. You can't live with an adversary on your border either from Syria or from the north in Lebanon or from the west in Gaza or even in the West Bank that is armed to the teeth with precision-guided munitions. They've got to take that risk down.
And I have every confidence that they intend to do that until they believe they have created for themselves the classic case, self-help. They have for themselves eliminated this risk to the greatest degree they possibly can. Secretary Pompeo, thank you so much for joining us. I would encourage everyone to go to ACLJ.org to read a new piece by Secretary Pompeo, the Biden-Harris administration's fatal and foolish foreign policy.
We're just over a month until election day, and it really kind of highlights the dangers of this policy on the world stage. Secretary Pompeo, thank you so much for joining us. I didn't want to take a few of your calls if we can. I know a lot of you have been on hold for a while, but it's been a packed broadcast. Let's go to Melissa first, who's an ACLJ champion, and they get first right. Let's go to Melissa on Line 4.
You're on the air. Hey, Logan. I just wanted to say, first of all, that I thought that the debate was great.
I think that J.D. Vance's character and demeanor brought the debate to actually be a debate as opposed to an ongoing attack of character. I completely agree with Rick and Mike on the issues with our world at this time, but I thought it was a great debate. Walls was Walt. It's who he is. I don't think he was any different than he ever has been.
Melissa, I couldn't agree more. Actually, I think it was the first time. I have no real feelings one way or the other towards J.D. Vance before. I liked his speech.
I had no ill will towards him by any means, but last night he kind of won me over as someone who actually I really enjoyed his performance. So thank you so much for calling and always thank you for being an ACLJ champion. That's someone that donates on a monthly, recurring basis. Let's quickly get a few more if we can. Tricia's calling from Texas on Line 6. Tricia, you're on the air.
Thank you so much. And I did not get to watch the debate, but I've listened all morning to your show. Wouldn't it be great if what we've lost in our nation is intellect and all of the short video clips where President Reagan, you know, was with Mondale and the guy just lost it. You know, he smiled.
He knew that Reagan was right. Dick Cheney, when he was with Bush, he I can't remember who he was debating. But, you know, the American public needs to see strength, but not assassination of character strength. Their mind shows.
And I think that something like that, if somebody went back into the past and grabbed all those short clips, then we would begin to figure out the puzzle. Tricia, I think that's an interesting point of view. Cheney would have debated. John Edwards would have debated. Also, Joe Lieberman.
So those would have been the two there. But we appreciate your feedback. I want to get and I think that's a good idea. Let's get to one more call. Let's go to Ross. Very quickly, Ross. I know you're on hold for half hour, but we are just we have one minute left on the broadcast.
So just give it to me about 30 seconds. OK, Jordan. Thank you. You know, it was just a great debate. I was really impressed with J.D.
Vance. He did a masterful job and he really, really won me over to him. I thought he might be arrogant and a boy, kind of like, you know, a junior Trump. But he was masterful and it really impressed me. And he is our future. I hope he's our future President for us.
I appreciate it. I think we won a lot of people over last night. I think that happened. I think something that maybe the even the campaigns were concerned about that maybe they lost some people with J.D.
Vance. But I think last night proved otherwise. And I think all our callers today proved otherwise. I appreciate everyone for calling in and supporting the work of the ACLJ.
Look, it is on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Jewish New Year. So please join with us and stand with Israel. Go to ACLJ dot org slash stand or go to ACLJ dot org in general.
Scan the QR code. Support the work. Become an ACLJ champion if you can. That's someone who supports on an ongoing, recurring basis. Pray for our friends in Israel. Talk to you tomorrow.
