JD Vance and Tim Walves meet face to face for the only time before the election. 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. 10, 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 Waltz, maybe JD Vance as well in that kind of setting. Even if you had been a JD Vance supporter, if you were outside of Ohio, you didn't watch like his Ohio Senate when he was running for Senate, like any of the debates like that. So, and the same thing with Waltz, even if you were 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 that was one of those moments that you remember, which is the, you said you weren't going to fact check and then you did fact check and then you had to cut off JD Vance's microphone, both their microphones. It was sort of, 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. Right. Just the fact that you were not, 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 is inaccurate. And we're going to stay out of that. They did not stay out of it.
In fact, they mocked JD Vance at one point too. Thanks for explaining what the law is. Like that's so bad for Americans to hear how a law works. Like I got a little upset with that one because it was like, you know, he just wanted to get in there and say, listen, this is how 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, 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 had, maybe the last decade. You know, the two of them spent most of the time not attacking each other. 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.
Yeah. So it felt one of the more cordial debates. They were shaking hands. They were talking to each other.
They were apologizing. Uh, 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, uh, 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 check.
Don't worry. They, it's like they keep all of their nastiness to aim at the conservative. Yeah. I'd say the one pushback finally was when, uh, Waltz will, we'll sure we'll play in a little bit, the whole Tiananmen Square situation. That was probably one of the bigger gaffes of the night.
Cause of course when pushed, Tim Waltz pushed on one of his now historic lies, uh, 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, uh, Tiananmen Tim. I mean, I think that, uh, again, why were you, why were you there? The other one?
Um, yeah, the other ones are fine everywhere too. Listen, the truth is these bizarre things you make up that you're, you're a 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. 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. We are taking your calls to 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, uh, Israel as it's, uh, again, uh, there have been eight IDF soldiers killed in Lebanon. Uh, they are slowly moving into Lebanon. It seems on, on foot, uh, through tanks, um, that, uh, the air campaign is not going to be the end of that. And of course we'll watch that very closely as well. Uh, you've seen a lot of Hezbollah leaders, uh, be removed from the battlefield, uh, uh, by the IDF before this, uh, on the ground conflict, uh, began. Uh, but we will be watching that, uh, very closely. Uh, Netanyahu says that Iran has made a big mistake with attacks that they have been supporting, uh, against Israel. Uh, Logan, through the debate, we've also been watching as well about, uh, just kind of what topics would come up with Walt and, 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, you know, I wasn't aware even of this story. And it was the story of Tim Walz claiming to have been there during the events. Uh, I mean, those would have been events to like, you know, those are, 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 want to do what they want to do. You want to get a communist China for your honeymoon?
No, I don't. In the 1980s? 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, he's not communist. 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, we have no... 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 was 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? No, just 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.
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 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, 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. And at the end of the day, he did say, hey, I misspoke on that.
But when really pushed, he finally came out against it. Look, there was another gaffe later on in the show we'll talk about. There are some good calls coming in.
I think we should go ahead and take one. Let's go to Jeanette, who's calling online too. 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 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 a 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 did 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. I think that's exactly where Tim Walts 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, 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, saying, 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 percent 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 in 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. I did want to move on and continue this conversation about Israel and their attacks on Hezbollah and their attacks on Hamas, obviously taking out really the top leadership in Hezbollah over the weekend. But of course, our own officials couldn't waste a moment to not, of course, were they celebrating? We took out 30-year terrorists? No, of course, they're putting out statements like this, and this is from Rashida Tlaib. It says, the Biden-Harris administration continues to allow Netanyahu and the Israeli government to operate with impunity as they carry out war crimes. After facing no red line in Gaza in an attempt to remain in power, Netanyahu is now expanding his genocidal campaign to Lebanon using the same tactics the Biden-Harris administration has endorsed. We've already seen indiscriminate acts on civilian infrastructure. We've seen Israel officials falsely declare that Lebanon isn't a state and that Israel has a right to invade and occupy it. The U.S. weapons being used to kill innocent civilians in Gaza have already claimed the lives of over 500 people in Lebanon, including over 50 children, thousands more civilians. It goes on to say President Biden must implement an immediate arms embargo to end the slaughter and de-escalate the risk of a wider regional war. That, again, is coming from one of our own elected officials.
That's right. Rashida Tlaib, the congresswoman from Michigan, is now deciding that this is the time to really stand up for the terrorist organizations, as we've seen terrible language from them ever since, really, a couple weeks after October 7th, whenever Israel started to respond to that horrendous attack that was conducted against the Israeli people. Now, when you hear something like that at a time also when you're just, you know, days away, really, from an election, we're just under almost at a month, we'll be at a month in just a few days from the general election, knowing the problems that Joe Biden had with the community in Michigan that is represented by Congresswoman Tlaib, you have to wonder what pushback she's getting within her own community right now to put statements out like this. You'd think that something that hypercritical of an administration would not be stated at this exact time, basically claiming that the current sitting vice President and President of the United States, their policies are furthering genocide.
With less, almost a month to go from a general election, you'd think that maybe you'd phrase it a little bit less harsh against the sitting administration of your party. But no, she's going there, she's calling for an immediate arms embargo. You wonder also what kind of communications they're giving to the Harris campaign, and if we will see, as Kamala Harris has tended to do in this general election campaign that she's run for just a few months now, if she'll come up with a new policy or strategy to try to appease a certain voting group, this one being the area of Michigan represented by Rashida Tlaib. Right, exactly, so she's talking to her own people here, but of course if you don't support Israel at all, which they do not, if they have no feelings or support of them being able to defend themselves, of course they're not going to like the most recent actions, which really doesn't escalate, of course it's escalating, but it's escalating to the point of now, it's a point of no return. You have your head of Hezbollah being taken out, you have Hamas very weak. This is time for Benjamin Netanyahu's Israeli government to probably finish the job, to go in there and take care of what they've needed to take care of for decades.
I think he believes he is the person to do it, their administration is the one to do it. Look, I'm not saying it's not even controversial in Israel, there's some people in Israel who have problems with this, there's just as many, it's like the same as here, it's like half and half of liberals and conservatives, but a lot of them do believe in fighting for their own country, because even we could see in the New York Times, the obituary I guess you'd say, for the head of Hezbollah, Nasrallah, they put on there a statement that talked about how, you know, he was actually pretty, you know, though he was pretty conservative in his views, he did seek for a peaceful country where all people could live together. Of course, that country could not involve the state of Israel. That's right, this is from the headline, protesters mourn Nasrallah's death around the world. Meanwhile, I'm seeing celebrations around the world at Nasrallah's death. Maybe one of the most uplifting moments was after he was even presumed dead, before they even had confirmed it, there was uprisings in the streets, in Syria, in Lebanon, in the UK, in front of the Israeli, in Canada, in front of the embassies thanking Israel for doing this because they've been under extreme rule for decades. And this is from that third paragraph of that article, protesters mourn Nasrallah's death around the world. Over his 32 years leading the organization and with the support of Iran, he built Hezbollah into a domestic political force and one of the most heavily armed non-state forces in the world. Mr. Nasrallah was opposed to Israel, which he called the Zionist entity, and maintained that there should be one Palestine with equality for Muslims, Jews, and Christians, a powerful orator.
He was beloved among many Shiite Muslims and historically marginalized group in the Arab world and created a state within a state in Lebanon that provided social services. What a great guy, according to the New York Times. I don't understand why we're doing this. I don't understand why every time a terrorist leader is taken out or a dictator is taken out, there's this weird apology from it feels like the mainstream press, whether that's the AP, whether that is the New York Times.
It happens over and over again to a point where you do start looking towards them. Glad we exist. I'm glad other broadcast exists because that wasn't even the mainstream view of this. As you said, well, this is the mainstream view of this was the world is lucky to be rid of him. The President, President Biden, put out a statement essentially saying that, of course, they don't say thank you to Israel, but they do say, you know, he was a horrible guy who murdered the endless amounts of people of his own people, that even people of the Muslim faith disagreed with because of the way that they're sectioned, that certain Muslims were not even, they were even celebrating this moment. This wasn't just a moment for Christians and Jews to be excited. This is a moment their own people felt liberated. But of course, our own press, our own New York Times has to go out there and start making these kind of statements. Really sad. You do start looking for alternative media sources.
I know there's the New York Sun that's existing right now. I start reading a lot of their content because you want to see other places that hopefully are providing similar style content, but actually from a point of view of truth. I do believe if you've ever visited or anyone's ever visited is the biblical homeland of our faith, of the Christian faith, the Jewish faith, and even in the Muslim faith. It has significance for the three major Abrahamic religions. But when you are there and you feel it, you experience it is also the homeland to the Jewish people. And they are surrounded by countries that don't want them to exist. So you push them over the edge. A year ago, you push them over the edge when you went all of a sudden 2000 ish people are murdered at a music festival. And what happens now is the gloves came off and now Israel, who has probably the most strategic military force in the world, as we saw those pager attacks where thousands of people were injured.
They were all Hezbollah actors. Of course, there's some there's always going to be sadly in war. There's going to be civilians who get in the way.
And that is an unfortunate truth. I hate it. No one wants that. No one wants war. Israel does not want war. They may you may feel like they do from the news, but they do not. What they want is peace for their own country. And they've been fighting for it, as Tori said, since the times of the Bible. And they've certainly been fighting for it over the last 65 years. It is just a sad place to be in when we don't feel like we even have that support here in America. When these should be moments of, you know, you don't want to rejoice over someone's death, but you do want to celebrate when evil is being thwarted from areas. And you see it when you see their own people on the streets celebrating. But then our elected officials in America and our leadership is not.
They're saying, how dare they look to the people who are actually affected, those that were under these dictatorships, that were under the rule of someone who was bringing extreme laws that really impacted and hurt thousands and thousands and thousands of people the opposite of freedom. 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. We have a lot to talk about. A lot of people have called in too. So I think we can 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 you have who's right behind him would be J.D. Vance. So what does that look like? And 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.
Thank you. You know, I didn't watch the whole entire debate. I watched part of it.
And on 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 you know, I know walls is too. So, you know, I know that there was some stuff that, you know, he did that, you know, 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 disown 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 alright 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 a lot of 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.
No, this came from NPR is 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'm at school shooting victims, families, easy to recover from. Never, 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 this is my theory. A lot of politicians here don't respond and they go, OK, 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 Walz. We'll be right back again with Rick Grenell. And then later on the broadcast, Mike Pompeo will be joining us as well, too. Oh, yeah, that's right.
Go to ACLJ. Yes, probably not ACLJ.org again to stand with Israel and support them today. We'll be right back. And I believe that's why God has sent Jordan Sekulow to speak to all of us. His message is going to be on page number 26. Let's go to page 26 in our book, Why Israel Matters to You. On Sunday at Prestonwood Baptist Church and all of our services, we prayed for the peace of Jerusalem. Jordan Sekulow, the executive director of the American Center of Law and Justice.
Good morning. Thank you all for inviting me here today to discuss a topic that I think we all know is of immense significance if you turn on the news even this morning or last night. Israel and why her safety and security are not only relevant to the Jewish people, but to the entire world, even those that don't realize it. Now, on a personal level, Israel, it matters to me because I am a Christian and it is a sacred land of profound significance in our faith.
Because I'm of Jewish heritage and very proud of it, it matters to me that much even more as a place of safe haven if it was ever necessary for me and my family. In the book of Genesis, God says of Israel, I think many of you have heard this verse, but we have to always remember it. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse.
Pretty straightforward. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Not all the Jewish families of the earth shall be blessed. But in you, all the families of the earth who stand with Israel will be blessed.
But let's just get blunt for a second. I actually find the question of whether or not Israel matters to be completely ludicrous. Why? No one ever asks why Belgium matters. Anybody ever ask you why Sweden matters or any other country in the world? And yet the validity of the state of Israel has been debated, discussed, defended since the country's modern founding in 1948. And yet Israel, a nation born of an ancient past, earlier than most of today's world powers, and Israel yet today in 2024 remains a key player in the modern world.
And its importance can be viewed through many lessons. Israel holds deep religious, obviously, significance for millions. Not just Jews, but Christians and Muslims and Druze. But Israel also serves as a bastion of democracy in a very volatile region. It's interesting that it's the most censured country by the United Nations because it's the only country in the Middle East that follows the UN Declaration of Human Rights. And provides those rights to its citizens, to choose their faith or have no faith at all. To choose their partner in life, whoever they may be.
To have freedom of speech, freedom to choose who to vote for, freedom to leave, freedom of travel. So it stands in this bastion of a very difficult region of the world. And yet the world doesn't see it as a testament of freedom. But instead we see it as this resilience after centuries of persecution. It's worth noting if we look back through history there's a clear pattern.
Any group that has attacked Israel or seeks to destroy her people, whether it's the Nazis and Adolf Hitler, or all the way back to ancient Egypt. These were much larger armies, much stronger armies. But yet they all suffered as a great result. Some are still suffering today.
We see that in Europe. It would be no surprise if the same fate befalls her current enemies. Of course that will depend greatly on those of us in the United States and in the United States government.
And you may say, well why? Israel needs allies and the United States needs allies. More so than ever in a world where there are increasingly countries with powerful nuclear weapons, with expanding technology, who can turn those weapons, not just on Israel, but on the United States. We need allies and intelligence, security, front lines of terrorism.
And I think we all who lived through 9-11 and the Islamic terrorism that followed through ISIS and other groups have realized that. Israel is on the front line of that fight, but that fight has come to the United States multiple times before. You can't set aside Israel's significance to our Christian faith though. It's essential to everything we believe. But I want to examine a little bit of its historical and practical importance to all people, not just people who are believers. And so to understand why Israel matters, we must first take a look at the long arc of history. Israel's history is undeniably crucial to the history of our entire world.
Its story begins thousands of years ago for Jews. Israel is not simply a homeland established after World War II by a stroke of modern diplomacy. Returning Israel to the Jewish people was just a fulfillment of the promises that stretch back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
It is the land where King David ruled, where the temple stood, where laws were made, before there was a Europe, before there was an America, and before there was even an idea of a, quote, Palestine. Israel thrived as the ancestral home of the Jewish people. And the Jewish connection to Israel is one of the most unique and steadfast in possibly all of human history. Throughout centuries of exile, following the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in A.D. 70, the Jewish people maintained a spiritual connection to their homeland. For two millennia, prayers for a return to Zion and Jerusalem have been central to the Jewish religious life, expressing the collective longing for return to their ancestral homeland.
No other people have maintained such a deep and enduring connection to a land over such a long period of time. But the establishment of the modern state of Israel was not just a fulfillment of spiritual learning. It was also a response to centuries, centuries of persecution, from targeted mass killings of Jews in Eastern Europe to the Holocaust.
Jewish suffering has been a constant, unfortunately, in modern history. The establishment of Israel in 1948 provided for the first time in centuries a place where Jews could go, live as free people in their own land, be able to defend themselves against the threats of anti-Semitism. The Zionist movement, which began in the late 19th century, was born of the understanding that Jews could not rely anymore on the goodwill of other nations to protect them internally.
Instead, the movement was led by visionaries, Theodor Herzl, who thought to create a Jewish state where they could guarantee the right of Jews and others and that they would be able to defend themselves and it would be their responsibility. So when the creation of Israel happened in 1948, it was monumental. And the continuance of Israel is monumental to our culture. It is the only Jewish state in the world, a place where Jewish culture, language, and traditions thrived for nearly 2,000 years. Jews lived as minorities in foreign lands, forced to assimilate or suppress our heritage. But in Israel, Jewish life is free to flourish in ways that are impossible elsewhere. Hebrew was once a language that was only spoken for prayer. So it was Jews at the establishment of Israel who spoke a lot of other language, but no one spoke Hebrew.
In fact, they had to come up with the idea and rewrite Hebrew into a modern language. Jewish holidays, music, and customs are celebrated as part of the nation's cultural heritage. And as a true democracy, like in the United States, other faiths are not suppressed.
They're free to worship and pray and live peacefully and fight alongside, join, run for office, political office. Not enough attention likely in museum colleges and universities and even in the media were given to the fact that in Israel, Jews, Muslims, Christians, atheists live side by side, often share tables together. They work in the military together, they serve together, and Israel has always shown a willingness to try and work with its neighbors.
Through the Abraham Accords that were brokered by President Trump, we saw these new trade agreements with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, even Sudan. But moreover, Israel's also a center of technological and scientific innovation. So sometimes we don't realize how we benefited from a fairly small country population-wise. How it benefits us in ways, we'll go through a few just so you know.
Because we focus so much on the conflict. Tel Aviv is dubbed the Silicon Wadi, the silicon in the desert. It's home to a thriving startup culture, technologies are born. Israeli scientists developed the technological breakthroughs that most everyone in this room has benefited from. From the PC microprocessor, the USB flash drive, flexible lightweight solar panels, and Israel created robotic exoskeleton so that people who were paralyzed and paraplegic could move around again, even walking up stairs. Lifesaving medical devices, agriculture in the desert, the list goes on. Support the work of the ACLJ, we're defending you.
ACLJ.org, donate today, 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.
I'm 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.
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 bandits 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.
The 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 cannot 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 de-escalated, 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 the things they've done in advance. That's pretty darn unusual for them to not at least, not seek permission, but 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.
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, and 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.
Yeah, 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. Trisha's calling from Texas on Line 6. Trisha, you're on the air.
Thank you so much. And I did not get to watch the debate, but I'm listening 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 was with Mondale, and the guy just lost it.
He smiled. He knew that Reagan was right. Dick Cheney, when he was with Bush. 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.
Trisha, 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. I appreciate your feedback. 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 an hour, but we have one minute left in the broadcast.
So just give it to me about 30 seconds. Okay, Jordan. Thank you. No, 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 bully, kind of like 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. So thank you. I appreciate it, and I think he won a lot of people over last night. I think that happened. I think something that maybe 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.org slash stand or go to ACLJ.org in general.
Scan the QR code. Support the work. Become an ACLJ champion if you can, someone who supports on an ongoing, recurring basis. Pray for our friends in Israel. Talk to you tomorrow.
