Tulsi Silences the Left in Intense Senate Vote

We've got breaking news.

Tulsi Gabbard confirmed as Director of National Intelligence. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you.

Share and post your comments. Recall 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow.

Yes, it's an exciting time. I'm Logan Sekulow. Will Haines is joining me in studio. Rick Grinnell is going to be joining us. A former Director of National Intelligence. And now we can say, sadly and excitedly, in a good way, our former colleague, as of about 10 minutes ago, Tulsi Gabbard has now been confirmed as the Director of National Intelligence. And I wanted to say thank you to everyone who signed that petition, who got behind Tulsi. As you know, she has been our friend, our colleague, our broadcast partner here for the last number of years. And we really are pushing hard because we knew this is very important for the country and we believe that she's going to do a great job as the Director of National Intelligence. And hopefully, down the road, you'll hear from her again on this broadcast in maybe some time.

But know that we are in touch with her and it's just been, and we're making sure that she knows that you had all that support from you at the ACLJ. All of you supporters, all of you donors, all the ones that signed on to those petitions. This is an exciting time because it seems as if even the ones that maybe were quote-unquote controversial are making their way through. Well, there was no real surprises on the votes. It seemed like the Republicans that were going to vote no did vote no. No one really flipped, but it was pretty smooth sailing other than a few minutes of kind of semi-filibustering.

That's right. The Democrats did try to prolong it as long as they could. When they were trying to do a quorum call, they tried to get some extra time in there, but they eventually moved on to the vote. The final tally, 52 to 48, losing only one Republican.

Take a wild guess who that is. The former Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, voted no. He put out a lengthy statement as to why that is saying that, you know, the Senate's power of advice and consent is not an option.

It's an obligation and one we cannot pretend to misunderstand. I would love to go back through Senator McConnell's yes votes on some of the worst of the worst deep state actors that got elected to nominations. Where did he put that statement out? So Chad Pergram from Fox News has the statement.

I assume it's probably on his website, but quickest way to get it was from Chad Pergram over at Fox News. But putting out a statement on why he opposed her and saying that when a nominee's record proves them unworthy of the highest public trust and when their command of relevant policy falls short of the requirements of their office, the Senate should withhold consent. Fun, fun for Mitch McConnell.

I have to say, again, as we head to the first break here, I want to hear from you. How do you feel now that really your friend, our friend Tulsi Gabbard, is now Director of National Intelligence? We're also going to be joined by Rick Grenell a little bit later in the broadcast. He's going to be talking about also that wrongly detained teacher in Russia. And then after three and a half years of being imprisoned in Russia, you have a Trump presidency. Within a few weeks, he is released.

I want to hear your thoughts as well. As we know, Will, because Tulsi is now confirmed, they move to the next one. And the next one is just as controversial, if you will, because you have R.F.K. Jr., the two former Democrats, back to back. R.F.K. Jr. is going up right now because they're voting for cloture now, right?

That's right. As we are on air, they are having this cloture vote, which, if you'll remember, limits the debate to 30 hours after. Meaning that tomorrow, probably late afternoon, they could vote for full confirmation for R.F.K.

Jr. to lead HHS. As we speak, the vote is at 29 to 23 in favor of invoking cloture. So still probably 20, 25 minutes away from that vote being fully closed out. We'll bring you updates as we're live.

Yeah, we'll absolutely let you know. There are some people asking about why it didn't happen last night. Like we discussed on air, what happened at midnight. There was a massive snowstorm, I believe, in Washington, D.C.

I'm going to put massive in quotes. There was a snowstorm, enough to cause some issues. They decided to delay it to this morning. No big deal. It happened. She is now the Director of National Intelligence. Very cool.

It's been confirmed. So phone lines are open for your calls. 1-800-684-3110. Again, we couldn't put together such an amazing team without your support. And though she has now gone on to become the Director of National Intelligence, she was part of our broadcast team for many years. You got to hear firsthand from some of the leaders and the future leaders in Washington, D.C. I'd love for you to give us a call.

What do you think? But support the work of the ACLJ still. We've got ACLJ.org. Donate now.

Do it right now. Back to secular. We've got a few lines still open at 1-800-684-3110 for those just joining us. Yes, we're very excited to announce that right before we went on air, minutes before we went on air, Tulsi Gabbard, our friend, colleague, and now former colleague, I guess, former member of this broadcast team. And yes, I know that that's sad for a lot of you, sad for us, but it's great for the country. Because now you have Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence.

It's pretty wild. And we're congratulating her and saying thank you. We'll make sure she knows she had the prayers and the support of you, the ACLJ donors, the ACLJ champions, and the viewers and listeners of Sekulow.

We really appreciate all that you've done and continue to do. And hey, got any suggestions of who should replace Tulsi Gabbard on this broadcast team? If they're not currently serving in an active role that we can't get them in, let me know.

Put it in the comments. Who do you think should join us? I'd love to hear that. We're always putting together new people to be on this broadcast team. And as you've seen, we've had some changeovers over the last few months, so this gives us an opportunity. There's a lot of you that called in as well, but I do want to say right before the vote happened, and this will be the last day, I hope, that we have to hear from people like Chuck Schumer, really complaining about our friends, if you will. This is Chuck Schumer.

Just minutes before the vote began, he decided to get up on his high horse and make a statement as BIPE 3. I think most senators would agree there are better choices to lead national intelligence. You know what my guess is? If we had a secret ballot, Gabbard might get 10 votes and 40 against her from the other side. People know. That's why they raise so many questions. And 25 minutes later or so, she was confirmed, or maybe 35 minutes later, as director of national intelligence.

That's right. And what Chuck Schumer seems to forget there is that it's advice and consent, not nomination, by the Senate. So just because a senator thinks they may know someone who they would like better in that role, that isn't their job.

Their job is to give advice and then consent if they go through the hearing process. And unless it is something egregiously disqualifying, and typically the nominee withdraws their name before it even gets that far, they should move forward. That's even why the statement from Senator McConnell rings so hollow when you think about he is one of those rubber stamp type senators when it comes to approving nominations. Now, he did hold off and not move Merrick Garland through as Supreme Court justice at the end of Obama's term. That's probably the one good thing that I can point to immediately that he did on nominations. But he is of that old guard that was very traditionally just rubber stamping nominees through. And he all of a sudden decides that he doesn't like Tulsi Gabbard and decides to be the lone Republican no vote.

Fortunately, it wasn't necessary. All of the ones that we were concerned about through the process decided that through the process of advice and consent, of having the meetings with the nominee, having the hearings, follow up questions, the background checks, all of this, that even if they had early concerns or disagreed on some policy, that at the end of the day, they shared a vision with Tulsi Gabbard on how to lead the department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It's a great day for America.

It's a great day for the viewers of this broadcast, the members of the ACLJ. Because in what world did you think, Logan, or myself even, that a colleague on the broadcast or someone that our audience has gotten to know very well, even though she was a national name within the conservative movement, our audience really got to start to know her very early on compared to everyone else. So you have seen and heard from her. You've been almost conducting hearings on her worthiness for years now by hearing what she has to say.

And it's just a remarkable moment. And it also shows that the Democrats, especially in the Senate, were so freaking out about what's going to happen next, because they can't contain themselves, that Chuck Schumer is having to get up there and say, I bet only 10 people would actually vote for her if it was a secret ballot. Fortunately, it's not how it works.

It's a roll call vote. And I don't believe him at all on that as well. That is just hyperbole and him trying to make a last-ditch effort of getting her not confirmed. It didn't work. He failed. The left failed.

All of the smear campaign that she's a puppet and a Russian agent failed. 52 to 48, Tulsi Gabbard is your next director of national intelligence. We have a comment coming in, a question on Line 6.

I want to go ahead and take this call. Jerry in Rhode Island. Jerry, I think you have a statement that a lot of our longtime listeners and longtime viewers will agree with. Yeah.

Hello, team. And anybody who's been listening to this show for 10 years, there's a short list of people in office, remarkably. Anything they say we don't listen to, Schumer and Schiff are two of those names. I think that's probably right.

Maybe you won't have to hear from them for all that long, but they're still going to be around. I'm sure whether it's in the press, we know that Adam Schiff has greater plans. But yeah, you know that if it's coming out of the mouth of one of those two, then unfortunately we just don't really take it with any validity.

That's right. And what you also have to remember here is that there are still two other controversial nominees that I feel like Adam Schiff and Chuck Schumer will now triple down on their efforts. I think these are somewhat, and I'd say with RFK Jr., easier to kind of pick apart because the views, I mean, Tulsi Gabbard, look at her background. Look at how much she's served this country.

She has risked her life for this country for decades now to say that she is not trusted after she'd been through five FBI clear, everything that she had done, security clearances, all the work that she has done before. Now you get to an RFK Jr., which is happening, you know, the closer vote is happening really as we speak, which means tomorrow he could be confirmed. That one is a little bit easier for both Republicans and Democrats to question, poke holes in, because some of his views, look, whether you agree with them or not, some of his views previously or currently are quite controversial. Whether you agree with them or not, they are controversial points of view.

That's right. And as you mentioned, as far as the ease of the Democrats to try to pick apart a record, Tulsi should not have been easy for them and wasn't easy for them. And they didn't sink her nomination.

But I agree, RFK probably is a tougher sell in that world, but I don't think that he's going to get a hiccup here at the end. As we speak, the cloture votes at 44 to 39. So we're about, let's say, seven away from invoking cloture. And then we could move forward. You see a live view of it there in the Senate as they're going forward.

And as soon as that happens, then 30 hour clock starts tomorrow afternoon. The other one is Kash Patel. And I think because there's so much vested interest with the Democrats in the deep state, that's why Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel have scared them as far as their nominations. And now the Democrats are, they knew they had lost on the Tulsi battle last night. So they started to push out new smear campaigns against Kash Patel. Senator Durbin is trying to accuse him of perjury within his hearing, saying that he's actually been coordinating the FBI the entire time, even though he's not confirmed yet. So strong words coming out of the Democrats trying to derail him at the last minute. Tomorrow is supposed to be a committee vote for him out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Yeah, and a lot of you are calling in.

We're going to get to as many of those as we can. If you have questions or comments about Tulsi being confirmed or later on in the broadcast, we're going to Rick Grenell. Rick was involved with that detained American teacher, Mark Vogel, who, again, was just released after three and a half years, Mark Vogel from Russia. And of course, there's also a confirmation right now that President Trump did have a conversation with Russian President Putin. We know that this was not something that President Biden would do.

He would never get on the phone with President Putin. And you could agree or disagree with that. But I think what we're seeing now is a lot of changes happening. And that doesn't happen unless you're willing to talk to people, get on the phone, negotiate. This is how things actually get done. None of this political grandstanding where you just say, well, they're the bad guy, so we can't talk to them.

That's not how it works on the world stage. And we saw four years of failure with that. Now we've seen a month of what people are calling what they call constitutional chaos.

Yeah, constitutional crises. I saw even Patricia Heaton after our broadcast started tweeting and posting. Well, I don't say tweet. You say tweet.

Posting on X. Look out for the words constitutional crisis, because all of a sudden, as of the last two days, it has become the weird of 2025. Well, and as someone that studies the media, follows it very closely, the trends and the like, the art of crafting a narrative that the left loves to do, the deluge of information has been coming at them so quickly, they haven't had time to craft a narrative. We talked about that last week on the show. So now they're having to resort to very broad, 30,000-foot view, catch-all terms that they're trying to get to land. And constitutional crisis is the one. You saw Caitlin Collins bring it up.

We played that earlier in the week on CNN. Now they're all running with it. So they think maybe they've got the narrative now, and they're going to make you think that America is in chaos and the Constitution is about to crumble. It's false.

It's misinformation. That's right. Hey, we'll be back in just a moment. We're going to take as many calls as we can coming up, because so many of you have called in.

I want to open up some lines so more of you can call in. Again, we are celebrating right now, as Tulsi Gabbard has been confirmed as Director of National Intelligence, as of 25 minutes ago, our former colleague Tulsi Gabbard, someone who's been a member of this team for a few years, and we are so thrilled. So congratulations, Tulsi. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to Set Kill Low. Again, some phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110. We'll be celebrating the confirmation of Tulsi Gabbard as your new Director of National Intelligence. Rick Grinnell is going to be joining us also coming up in just a few minutes to discuss a lot of different topics, but specifically going to talk about Mark Fogel, the teacher that was detained and arrested for years in Russia, and he was released. Of course, this comes now on the breaking news that President Trump has confirmed that he had a phone call with President Putin. I'm not surprised on this.

He actually said yesterday that he was hoping this begins the end of the war, that this can start that process, that we can move forward, and you could see the Ukraine war end. This is how diplomacy works. You don't have to go there and be their best friend, but sometimes you do have to pick up the phone. Let's go ahead and take some phone calls. Let's go to Robert, who's calling from Maryland on Line 1. Robert, welcome.

Yeah, I wanted to ask a question. Do you believe that President Trump's nominees are getting speedy consideration, his cabinet members, for being put in their cabinet positions by the U.S. Senate, or are they being deliberately delayed? Yeah, Robert, it is part of the game, I feel like, in some ways. I don't feel like it's been egregiously delayed. There's been a few that have been pushed a few weeks. Kash Patel's probably the one right now that felt like this should have been a done deal a week and a half, two weeks ago, and then we saw that one get delayed. I think there was thoughts within Democrats and with some of the moderate Republicans, let's put it that way nicely, that you would have more pushback on Tulsi, more pushback on R.F.K. Jr. and some of these other appointments, even a Pam Bondi. Really, the only one that they were sure of and felt like it was Rubio.

Obviously, Pete Hexis, I think they thought they would have much more of a pushback. So I think once Pete got through, and now once Tulsi is through, I feel like it's a snowball effect. Well, and to your point, Robert, yes, I believe they are using as many procedural tricks as they can to delay as long as possible. Remember, when they're not getting these people confirmed, it's also delaying other business of the Senate and other business of the administration. So they are trying to slow roll the agenda of President Trump as much as they can, but I think two things are happening here. And one, there is like a graph that shows President Obama in his first term had twice as many people confirmed at this point than President Trump does now.

There's a lot of those type of things you can see, but two things are happening. One, the Democrats are in such disarray as a party. They had an internal meeting that things were leaked out of that the party itself is split right now. Equally angry at the outside liberal groups. One side thinks they are putting too much pressure on us and won't let us reform and figure out what's going on. And another side of the party that thinks they're not putting enough pressure on. But even the Democrat congressmen and women and senators were having their phones flooded by people on the left telling them to oppose Trump's agenda. Something they are going to do already, but it was hampering them from getting other work done. They were having to field so much incoming.

And that was funded by groups like MoveOn.org, which are far left and on their team were pressuring their own members of congress that they like. But then two, because of the fact that President Trump is still getting so much done without all these people confirmed, I think some of the Democrat senators may think, maybe we do need more of these nominees in to almost have a check on the President. Because if they're not in, he is the executive and is going to continue to do what he wants. But almost like, wait a second, maybe we do need the cabinet member in there that's working with the department instead of it just being President Trump. So I think it has backfired a little bit on them there.

They weren't expecting to have basically a geyser of things happening all around them at all times that they're trying to figure out. And that's what does seem to be happening. Yeah, but again, this is just work.

The work is getting done. And it's exciting. I'll be honest, I'm excited as an American. I know that there are people on the other side who feel like this is chaos. And look, there are probably conservatives that think this is chaos just purely based on the amount of information, of content. Look, if you look at President Trump, I don't know how he's doing it because he was up at, what was it, like 11 o'clock last night with that freed American teacher, Mark Fogel.

And we'll talk about that. Rick Grenell's outside the White House in the snow. And he's texting me about the Kennedy Center. And at the same time, I'm looking at images and videos on his ex-account where he's sending violent criminals back to Venezuela. It is chaos, but it's a good kind.

It's fun. We're actually seeing real movement from our government, something we're not used to. Like I said, you're used to the DMV. No offense to you DMV workers, but we all know what that means. We're used to the DMV version of the federal government.

We are not used to this kind of strength and this kind of active momentum. Well, and to your point, the Department of Government Efficiency, the key word there is efficiency. What they're trying to do is make the government work better for the American people. And what the left is calling chaos is just that they're not used to the swamp creatures in Washington getting things done. They're used to them not doing anything and the President not going out and talking and not doing action.

And to them, they're saying this is chaotic because they're actually having to work hard once again. I think that's really interesting. Yesterday, Elon Musk was in the Oval Office with his son answering questions from the press. You're right in the fact that I feel like this is the kind of access the press has always wanted to be able to talk to the people who are actually running the show, not just a press secretary. No offense to press secretaries. They do a great job. They have a very important position. But we saw when there was the first chaos with the plane crash that happened, you saw all of a sudden everyone started showing up. You heard from the director of transportation. You heard from the vice President, the President.

Everyone was there on the ground working. You saw the head of Doge, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world hanging out in the Oval Office taking press questions. This is not normal. But that doesn't mean it's wrong. That actually means we are shaking things up in a good way. Let's go ahead and take one more call before we head to break. Let's go to Ann in Pennsylvania. Ann, you got a great comment.

Go ahead. Oh, we just lost Ann. Oh, we lost a couple lines there.

Ah, it's okay, guys. Ann, call back. If you just got dropped, please call back. Ann had a great comment. I wish I could take her. Oh, she's right now. She's on. Can we put her on?

Just clear her. Let's go. Ann, you're on the air. Hi. Hi, guys. I just wanted to thank you guys. I want to make a couple comments. Tulsi getting through.

You guys really have such stick-to-itiveness, and I appreciate you guys so much. I mean, she's just a wonderful woman. Trump picked her for a reason.

And I also wanted to make a quick comment. You know, our dollars that have been egregiously spent, right, this has been going on for years and decades. We've been talking about the pork. We've been talking about, oh, my gosh, our tax dollars are paying for this and paying for that. And now we have President Trump, who is doing the job of what Congress actually should have done years ago.

This is my very strong opinion. Congress has dropped the ball over and over. This is why their approval ratings are below, what, 17 percent? Ann, I think you're right in the fact that this is the talk we've always heard.

We've always heard about how bad things are, but never any solution and certainly very little action. And to Ann's point, I think it is shocking for everyone, including me, that the lavish New York billionaire is the most fiscally conservative President maybe we've ever had. And he's putting literally every fiscally conservative Republican elected official to shame at this point, because I know there are a lot out there that preach it. And there are those that actually don't vote. But those are few and far between of the Republicans that are supposed to be of the party of fiscal conservatism, that haven't done anything to actually be fiscally conservative when it comes to our national policy.

President Trump, though, is getting it done. All right, second half hour of the broadcast coming up. Support the work of the ACLJ by going to ACLJ.org. If you don't get us on your local station or you want to enjoy us in a different way, go to ACLJ.org. Find us on YouTube, find us on Rumble. If you're watching right now on one of those platforms, I'm going to ask you to subscribe. Do it right now.

Subscribe on YouTube. We'll be back in less than a minute. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow. Rick Grenell is going to be joining us in the next segment.

So if you have a question or comment, you can go ahead and get it in. There's three lines open right now. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110 celebrating today as our friend and former colleague as of the last hour, Tulsi Gabbard, is now your new Director of National Intelligence. We're excited for her and we are, you know, like I said, on this broadcast, we're going to miss having her on here. But hey, I said put in the comments, who do you think we should join the team? You know, we got a free space now on the roster, if you will. We could try to fill that.

Let me know who you think. Put that in the comment if you're watching on YouTube or Rumble, you can call in and tell us too. 1-800-684-3110. I do want to update our viewers and our listeners and ACLJ members of another action that's happening right now today. What our lawyers have been hard at work on is that we've filed three briefs in cases where the left or the liberal states are going after President Trump's funding freezes. One is out of the District Court of Rhode Island. That's New York et al.

versus Donald Trump et al. And that's the one where the judge put in the temporary restraining order, but it wasn't just about the specific OMB memo. It went much broader and put a temporary restraining order on all funding freezes. So things that are normal when Democrats or Republicans switch parties, like the Mexico City policy saying no funding for taxpayer dollars for abortions abroad, even that could be implicated. He went very broad and said you can't freeze a dollar of this.

You have to keep paying for all this. We have filed a brief in that case. Another one, which we will be filing in this week, is out of D.C. Very similar, different plaintiffs there.

We're currently in the drafting phase of that. And then two about Doge specifically, and that's about the access to the Treasury. And one that we filed in, this is in the D.C. circuit, specifically the ACLJ position, argues for a unitary executive that the President needs to be able to run the executive branch. This is something that our ACLJ lawyers have a lot of expertise about because we've been filing and fighting cases about executive power for years now. And so we are primed to get in there, file this amicus and let the court know what the ACLJ thinks about how the executive should be run when it comes to the President having oversight within his own branch of government on the activity there.

So I want to let you know we have three filed, one in D.C., one in New York and one in Rhode Island, and we have a fourth coming soon in D.C. as well. But that's your ACLJ at work. When you give to the ACLJ, this is the legal work that you are helping get out there to fight back against the left's agenda of trying to shut down President Trump.

And shut down making America more efficient, stop wasting your taxpayer money, stop paying for abortions abroad or even domestically. It all comes back to this, and that's what we're fighting for. So donate today to continue this work at ACLJ.org.

Yep. In the next segment, we're going to have Rick Grenell joining us. He's going to go over some of that work. He's been doing some amazing work, not only on behalf of the ACLJ, but of course on behalf of President Trump as one of his special envoys.

And we've now seen him now be the head of the Kennedy Center, and there's even more. We're going to talk about that coming up. We've got about a minute and a half here. Let's quickly go to Keith, who's calling in New Hampshire on Line 1. Keith, go ahead.

Hi. Yes, I would like to congratulate Tulsi Gabbard for her nomination. I was a Democrat prior to her running for President, and I voted for her at that point. And I'm glad that she switched parties, as many of us could see the writing on the wall.

Sure, Keith. And I hope she does a good job in her. Absolutely. We are just running out of time. And yes, I think that a lot of people feel that way. You could see and feel the tide turning even here within our own people. When you saw Tulsi Gabbard on that stage for the first time possibly as a contender to be the Democratic nominee for President, you thought, oh, here's someone who actually isn't towing a party line. It's actually at least telling the truth from her point of view.

She at least believes what she says. And that was refreshing. That was refreshing enough that in just four years, she went from running to be the Democratic nominee to then joining our team. And then become our team, being the ACLJ and Sekulow, the Sekulow broadcast team, and then ended up as the director of national intelligence under President Trump. What a story arc.

That's a hero's journey. We'll be right back with Rick Grenell. Welcome back to Sekulow.

Phone lines are completely jammed right now, but they'll open up, so keep calling. Rick Grenell's joining us. Rick, again, I'm going to keep saying the hardest American man in Washington, D.C. and around the world, whether we're talking to you about getting people onto planes to Venezuela, whether we are talking to you about the Kennedy Center. And then last night, another big moment happened, a late night event, as President Trump met with Mark Vogel, or Mark Vogel, excuse me, the wrongfully detained prisoner in Russia, the schoolteacher.

And Rick, I just want to get your thoughts and give us a little breakdown of what happened here, because this was another big moment, three and a half years delayed. Yeah, look, it was a really big moment, and I think really the benefit of what we're watching here is how talking and representing America really works. Remember, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin didn't speak for three and a half years.

Imagine what could have been done if they were actually speaking. You can avoid wars when you speak. You can avoid hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money going to a war.

You can bring people home. There are a variety of things that can be done when you actually push forward and talk. Talking is a tactic. President Trump is a great negotiator. And I think what's real is we have an amazing moment here where countries understand that Donald Trump means business.

They're offering up ideas to increase the relationship. I'm watching this in real time. I was with the President yesterday in the Oval Office. He was telling me about the strategy of what's happening going forward. It's just really amazing how focused he is going back to the White House here in a couple of minutes to be with the President again. And I think what we see now is his ability to negotiate is going to end this war.

I'm really excited about it. It feels that way, Rick. Absolutely. I was watching that press conference that happened in the Oval Office last night as they were meeting, and it was really wild to see it. Because, like you said, all you have to do sometimes is open up this line of communication. That's not all.

You have to have someone who can really respond and know what they're doing. But this happens so quickly during this Trump presidency. We didn't even know. I think a lot of people didn't even know that these people are detained, whether that was you going down and getting the six out of Venezuela, whether that's this happening in Russia. Because if it's not our number one news story, we don't know what's going on. And of course, we saw it with Pastor Brunson that we were highly involved in during the first Trump presidency.

A lot of ways that we connected with you, Rick, and spent a lot of time with you working on these kind of matters. And now you're seeing it get, like you said, they know they have business to deal with with President Trump. And the idea of doing a political stunt, if you will, and that's really to me with three and a half years of no communication during a time of war from President Biden.

That's all that was. That was just trying to like feed a talking point that we don't talk to bad people and the thought process that you can't get things done. I put bad people, you know, that was sort of the narrative of we can't talk to them because they're doing things we disagree with. It's like, well, that's not how it works on the global stage.

No, it's not. And what I can tell you when it comes to diplomacy is that I've said this before, I think it's worth repeating every single day is that there's a difference between a threat and a credible threat. Countries know that Donald Trump just may do something. They know that he's focused.

They know he's working. And so what is amazing is, you know, as we're speaking, the White House is announcing three more Americans released, decaying Americans from Belarus. And so what's happening, I think now our countries are realizing they can't mess around with the United States because Donald Trump is President.

And Rick, now we know as well that, you know, President Trump put out a truth post about a phone call with Vladimir Putin. And it goes back to even what you've said many times on this broadcast, that diplomacy is a tool and a tactic that must be used and also with that credible threat as well. That they have to take you seriously, something that clearly world leaders didn't do during the last four years. But whether it's bringing Americans home or trying to advance towards peace, it totally destroys the left's narrative about President Trump. So they're going to have to come up with something now that, oh, look, we have the constitutional crisis at hand, and now he's calling his buddy Putin so clearly, what are they actually talking about? They're going to come up with some smear or some lie.

But in reality, we see what leadership is, and it is such a stark contrast when the executive of the United States, the President for four years was showing zero leadership skills, not able to do full cabinet meetings, not able to pick up the phone and have conversations with these world leaders. And now we're seeing transparency, diplomacy, action. And the fact that detained Americans are coming home, I think there's really no way that they can actually spin this to be a negative. Because who is against these things? Yeah, it's so true, Will. It's common sense, right? We all know that it's common sense. And what we're asking for is for politicians, people who represent us, they have common sense. Not Washington sense, but common sense. And that means picking up the phone and talking to people. It means saying we don't want waste, fraud and abuse in our tax dollars. It means saying to countries, wait a minute, you're holding an American against their will as a hostage, return them or face consequences.

These are just really practical things. And I grant you that Washington DC and the left is melting down because they like to control the process. They want it slow. So a lot of lobbyists and lawyers can be involved and get paid. But the reality is, is that we are the Trump team. We are here to bring common sense and cut through the bureaucracy and work for the American people. Rick, there's obviously a lot of movement also on Capitol Hill right now, as we saw just this morning, just right before we went on air, the confirmation of Tulsi Gabbard as the director of national intelligence, a role that you know pretty well. And then we have now the movements of RFK as they have a vote cloture.

So we're moving towards having a legit cabinet ready to go for President Trump. I think there was a lot of talk of pushback. And what we've seen is, of course, there have been the Democrats trying to get in the way. But I think even the ones that were quote unquote controversial, we're seeing that I think because of a lot of the action that President Trump has taken, because of the movements we're seeing, we're seeing a lot more.

Maybe you'd say the Republicans are more in the middle saying, no, we like what's happening. We're moving forward and we have a good time. Four years ago, if you could have thought that Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. would be in the cabinet for President Trump's second presidency, I don't think any of us really predicted it that you'd have such a massive move, even from two former Democrats at this point, moving towards being part of this administration. It really shows where things have moved. Yeah, look, congratulations to our colleague Tulsi.

She's going to be amazing director of national intelligence. I think the more people that just sat with her again, people that were willing to talk, not just read the newspaper, but when you talk to Tulsi, you realize she's an amazing, thoughtful, smart person who cares about the United States. And so when you move beyond the filter of the media and you get to know someone, or you listen to their point, I think everything changes. The control that the media wants, the control that the bureaucracies want, the control that Washington DC types want is to limit the information and accessibility to the actual people. They want to be the filter. The more they're the filter, then they can dupe the American people.

We have a system right now where we're going straight to the American people. Rick, thanks for joining us today. I really appreciate it. Now, you've got a busy schedule, and we'll follow along on social media to see where in the world is Rick Grenell next. It's always an adventure for you, and we are obviously thrilled to still have you here on Secula each and every week. We appreciate it, Rick.

Thank you so much. I want to encourage you all to call in as well. Phone lines are open.

We've got two lines open at 1-800-684-3110. Today is a little different tone because we are celebrating our friend and now former colleague, Tulsi Gabbard, going on to now be the director of national intelligence for the United States of America. Very cool. A really great moment for all of us, and we'll make sure that she knows. I mean, she knew before, but she knows how much you all supported her and got behind this effort to get this done. Thank you to the ACLJ champions. Thanks to ACLJ supporters. And look, now we've got to move forward. What's next? There's a lot on the horizon. We are fighting still in the courts each and every day.

Great, we've got Tulsi Gabbard. We've got to get in there and root out a lot of others that are in there right now, and we are filing cases, it feels like, in federal court all the time. So you need to get involved right now.

Go to ACLJ.org, make a donation if you can. It's a great time to do it. If you make a donation, it's tax deductible, and we really could use it. During some of these cycles, it goes up and down with fundraising, and you don't want to be the person who's just continually asking for money.

But there are times where we need to ask you, because you know what? If we don't ask, I know a lot of you will just take this as a radio show, a television show, and understand we are supported by you in the ACLJ community. We are not supported by major sponsors. We are not supported by some sort of outside giant corporations that give money or even grants or anything like that. That is not the bread and butter of the ACLJ. The ACLJ, of course, if you want to be one of those people who wants to give a large sum of money, we'd be happy to talk to you.

But we are run on the back of you who give $10, $20, $30, maybe even $100 a month. And you can do that, become an ACLJ champion at any level right now, and we're going to take your calls coming up at 1-800-684-3110. Two lines are open.

Welcome back to Sekulow. A couple lines still open for you at 1-800-684-3110. We'll try to get some answers for your questions. Let's go to Diana, who is calling from Arizona on Line 3, who is an ACLJ champion.

If you're an ACLJ champion, get bumped to the front of the line. So, Diana, you're on the air. Thank you, sir. Two comments. First, I think Putin and Belarus are releasing prisoners because they think still that President Trump will do what they want in Ukraine. Second comment is on your Elon Musk news conference. If the rest of the government continues to be as open as they have started out, I think it's going to turn the press from the left, because I said so, to free and fair coverage because they are getting real-time answers to their real-time questions. Absolutely, Diana. It's not just opening a book and saying, okay, here's what my verified statement that I have to say is from Corrine Jean-Pierre, who, you know what, I've given some props to because she had sort of the insurmountable price of trying to get over this situation at hand, which was to be the voice of the Biden administration.

It was pretty tough sometimes, I feel like, for her job. But now, you have Elon Musk hanging in the Oval Office with his son, taking questions, whatever it is. You have President Trump showing up, Vice President Vance, you have all of the cabinet, and they're all appearing. And, of course, today, we have the confirmation of Tulsi Gabbard, our former colleague, as of a few hours ago now, or an hour ago or so. And Jordan, my brother, Jordan Sekula, wanted to join us.

He just texted and said, hey, can I hop on for a minute to comment about this because, you know, hard at work getting things done. But, Jordan, welcome. Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. And I just want to say, you know, we've been following and working with Tulsi as long as our listeners know. We brought her on to the broadcast, but she also is, you know, helping us behind the scenes. I think where she is, her views are where a lot of our folks have kind of moved to as they've gotten more involved, not just in politics, but also in the policy and rethinking our role in the world and using diplomacy again instead of missiles first. And we're seeing all that, you know, coming from Russia now that we're going to have negotiations to end that war. And people like Tulsi are at the lead of those issues.

That's the criticism she gets from the left. But the second part, and I think is really key to our donors, is that a former colleague now of the American Center for Law and Justice and a close former colleague is now the Director of National Intelligence for the most powerful country in the world with an intelligence agency that need reform more than ever before. And so that relationship, literally texting right now as she moves into that role, I just hope our listeners really kind of think about that for a moment, think about these Rick Renells and the ability for the ACLJ to get things done, whether it's behind the scenes or public.

Yeah, absolutely. And we've been telling you that all broadcast is you've seen this amazing team that's been put together. And sometimes there's a little bittersweetness, which was right now a member of our broadcast team has now moved on to become the Director of National Intelligence, someone you've gotten to know for the last number of years. As Will said, you got to be vetting this person for a number of years in hearing from them each and every week on this broadcast.

We provide that when a lot of places do not. That's why I said, put in the comments, who do you want to see? Who do you want to join the next generation of ACLJ team or next generation of Sekulow team?

Obviously, they need to not be a currently appointed, elected or confirmed position, but they could be somebody. So let us know what you think in the comments. But Jordan, we got some other calls we want to get to, but I did want to give you the opportunity because we are all celebrating today. But this is why the work of the ACLJ is so important. And that's why people need to support, continue to support because we're able to not only put together a great broadcast, we're also able to get involved in the highest levels.

Yeah. I mean, Rick Rinnell in his current role, he also gets to stay as part of our team. So he's a special envoy. He even has work to do with the American release from Russia.

So he's already back to those issues. People remember him with the pastors in Turkey and being the first one that he met on the tarmac when he was ambassador to Germany. So he stays with us to give us that insight. And I think probably it's unusual for a director of national intelligence, but I think she will be able to come onto our show and still talk to everybody, obviously in a careful way. But I also know that she wants to be on and to just tell so many of our listeners and the ACLJ how much she's appreciated all the work she's done with us.

All right. Thanks, Jordan, for joining us. Let's go ahead and take a couple calls as we try to wrap up. Let's go to Barbara, who's been on hold for a while. Barbara will try to answer your question in Utah. Watch it on YouTube.

Utah on YouTube. Go ahead, Barbara. Thank you.

I appreciate so much all that you guys do. And I am so excited for Chelsea. My question is, is Pam Bondi going to be able to do something about the loudmouth Democrats that are calling for going to the streets and shutting the town down? I would say she will not be bringing charges against members of Congress for their rhetoric, although we may disagree with it. And it is dangerous rhetoric many times. I think that that is what the Democrats are trying to bait them into to say, like, look, they are trying to silence the voice of a co-equal branch of government. Some of the rhetoric definitely crosses the line is could be seen as inciting violence. But you've seen this all the way back from Chuck Schumer when he threatened Supreme Court justices on the steps of the Supreme Court if they were to overturn Roe v. Wade, saying you will you the whirlwind will come for you. And it's unfortunate that our politics is at this.

But I don't believe the attorney general is going to be pursuing charges against members of Congress for rhetoric. That being said, people that I would not want to mess with or get on the bad side, I would put Attorney General Pam Bondi at the top of that list, as well as now Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. These are people who mean serious business and are great people. Like I saw a report, I don't know if it's accurate, that Pam Bondi saw large photos still framed of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Merrick Garland. She said this is ridiculous and went and physically pulled them down herself and put them in the corner.

That's the kind of people we got involved in Washington, D.C. right now, and that's pretty fun. Let's continue on. Mary's calling, Mary in Oklahoma. Try to keep it a little quick, Mary, because we're going to try to get one more call in. Go ahead. Okay.

Thank you for taking my call. My question, I tried again yesterday, but I couldn't get in. When we the people vote for our senators and our congressmen and whatnot, can we put a term limit on how long they can be in? It does not really work that way, Will. Well, actually, she's asking about states specifically, and that was decided by the Supreme Court that that cannot happen, that the states cannot enact laws over the term limits. It would actually need to be a constitutional amendment at this point.

So, unfortunately, no, states can't put the term limits on their own representatives that they're electing. Sorry, Mary, but thank you so much for your support. Cynthia in Missouri, last call of the day. Go ahead. Hi.

Thanks for taking my call. My question is, we are so done with hearing Adam Schiff's mouth. Who can quiet? I mean, at what point does it enter into slander and defamation? Very tough. Very tough in the United States of America when you're a public figure for slander and defamation to ever really happen, unless it is talking about things that are very illegal. But when you're a public figure, it is very tough.

And you would have to prove that Adam Schiff didn't believe to be true the lies that he's spewing, which is very tough because, unfortunately, Democrats do believe a lot of lies. Yeah, I guess that's the double-edged sword of living in a world with free speech, living in a country with free speech, is sometimes you don't like what they have to say. You know what they're saying is not true.

That's why you got to have discernment. That's why you got to have voices like ours as well here at the ACLJ to let you know and help you stay engaged and informed. I think it says at the beginning of the show, keep you informed and engaged, now more than ever, because we have to do that to make sure people like you, Cynthia, have the tools to represent on that stage.

Well, that's going to do it for today's broadcast. I appreciate it. Congrats to our friend Tulsi Gabbard. Again, thank you to all your support of her and, of course, of the ACLJ. And we encourage you right now, last second, go to ACLJ.org, make that donation today. We'll talk to you tomorrow.