BREAKING: Major Vote Ends in Chaos on House Floor

Major chaos erupts on the house floor. 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, Logan Sekulow.

I want to hear from you. We do have some breaking news, though, Will. We'll play the clip. This happens, obviously, on the heels of President Trump's speech. And you had Al Green, who kind of made his statement, who caused chaos and ruckus early on in the speech.

It actually felt like it was going to set the tone for the speech, where you eventually had to have Mike Johnson kick him out, officially get someone to take him out. Now, there are consequences with this. This is not uncommon because I even asked those questions myself. I said, hey, well, what happens in this situation typically? What happened when the guy yelled, you lie? And you said this was the same thing. But the difference is, is the way the Democrats are acting, unlike the way Republicans are acting, which is just to take your consequence, which is barely anything for that matter, barely anything, but and deal with it. Instead, you had a politically motivated show that happened on the floor.

That's right. So there are three punishments the House of Representatives has for their members when they have bad behavior in their opinion. Expulsion, which is what happened to Congressman George Santos, kicked out of the Congress. You have censure and then you have reprimand. This was a censure vote. It is where there is a resolution passed that basically shames you for your behavior.

They basically just go bad. And then afterwards, you're supposed to, if it passes, you stand in the well and the speaker reads it publicly into the record when you stand in the well. That's the upfront part of the House of Representatives.

But I think we should play it here. What happened after it passed when Speaker Johnson was about to play to read the censure resolution? On this vote, the yeas are 224, the nays are 198, with two answering present. The resolution is adopted. Without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. The House has come to order.

The House has come to order. Will Representative Green present himself to the well? By its adoption of House Resolution 189, the House has resolved that Representative Al Green be censured, that Representative Al Green forthwith present himself in the well of the House of Representatives for the pronouncement of censure, and that Representative Al Green be censured with public reading of this resolution by the speaker.

Singing there, and of course, Will, you put in that the vote was 224 to 198 to Senator Al Green. Again, this is sort of the standard. You may say, hey, freedom of speech, you can do what you want. And look, there are moments where I also think you've got to play politics, and was this the best move politically? I'm not sure for the Republicans.

Maybe move on. But I get that this is sort of industry standard. This is the practice that they do.

It is a very minimal amount of scrutiny, if you will. And of course, they turned it into a moment, and that is something you always have to be thinking about. When you also are working in the media, and you're working with something, it's become the number one story now on television. It's become the number one story that we're talking about today. Was that the best move, or was the best move to show the successes that were happening from President Trump, show the successes that were happening around the world, or even what's going on? I want to hear from you.

What do you think about this moment? 1-800-684-3110. Again, 1-800-684-3110. We're also going to continue our conversation, and our rollout of our Choice Begins Here campaign, because we have uncovered also a similar program happening now in the state of California. And speaking of California, coming up next, our friend Rick Grenell, great special envoy, former Director of National Intelligence, former Ambassador to Germany, and of course, a member of the Sekulow broadcast team for a number of years now.

Again, he's going to be joining us as well, so feel free to put in your questions or comments for him. But support the work of the ACLJ. We are in the middle of our Life and Liberty Drive, actually just the very beginning of our Life and Liberty Drive. And you can be a part of that. Of course, our focus is life right now as we roll out our new campaign in the state of Massachusetts. And now it looks like we maybe need to take it to California.

We can do that with your help. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines, as I said, are open at 1-800-684-3110. Rick Grenell's joining us.

Of course, a member of the ACLJ broadcast team, part of Sekulow here. Rick, I just wanted to get your thoughts on this. We just had a bit of chaos break out, which seems to be now becoming more common and common.

And of course, this was over the censuring of Al Green after the outburst and the removal of him during President Trump's speech. We just played the clip. People just saw it.

Just wanted to get your thoughts. Look, I think what we're recognizing here is that the Democrats have no plan. They don't know how to respond. They're actually making it easy for Republicans right now because their messaging feels old.

It feels ineffective. And I think the attacks on Elon, the attacks on President Trump publicly at the State of the Union, all of these things are really making the Democrats just look like whiners and people who are being forced to defend massive waste at USAID or massive waste in the federal government. And I think that they're rudderless at this point.

They've got to figure out what their message is. There are certain Democrats that are beginning to try, whether it's James Carville or Seth Moulton. People are getting frustrated with the Democratic leadership. Remember, too, though, that they just picked new leaders a couple of weeks ago for the Democratic Party.

And the reality is, is they picked people who are in that same woke cancel culture mode. So they haven't learned their lesson yet that America looks at Washington and says we want progress. We want you to cut the budget. We want more power to the people. And the Democrats are left to kind of do videos about kickboxing.

And it's truly, I think, ineffective. Well, and, Rick, what we said yesterday was that the Democrats my entire life kind of had a corner on the market of being the cool party. They had Hollywood behind them, celebrities, and, you know, they would go to the Met Gala and make a splash. So they for a while were kind of the cool party for decades.

But the Republicans were the ones that had good policy and that were wanting to move the country in the right direction. But it seems like they've lost even that the one thing that maybe they had a corner on the market on because you saw the behavior at the address, the joint address before Congress, and then even the way that they disrupted the proceedings of the Congress today, which would have been called an insurrectionist move, I believe, if it were Republicans that tried to stop the business of the House in that manner. But you look at this group and you can't help but think it's like they've lost any of the swagger that they may have been able to have.

That President Obama, when he was able to be a celebrity President, to some degree, because he appealed to people, he was a good speaker, he had that kind of you wanted to hang out with him sort of vibe. They don't have any of that left. And it really brings the question, how would they even be able to rebuild from this? Look, I think when you look at the representatives in Congress for the Democrats or in the Senate, they are having a problem in that there's a lot of long term older representatives that have not been able to keep up with the hip brand that the Democrats had in the past. It's not the party of Bill Clinton anymore.

I don't think Bill Clinton could actually get the nomination for the Democratic Party. But you do have senators like Jon Ossoff, for instance, who is young, who is trying to be hip. But when you look at his voting record, he has voted with the far left every single time. He hasn't been able to step away from the Chuck Schumer demands of voting far left. And I think that's their problem. Look, someone like Seth Moulton from Massachusetts has tried.

He's tried to step out and say, you know, I don't think that we're going down the right road. You get Rahm Emanuel has said the same thing. There are people trying, but they're not the power base of the Democratic Party in Congress. The power base of the Democratic Party is Al Green.

It's people who are doubling down on the cancel culture and the ineffectiveness. And so there needs to be a reckoning of the Democratic Party leadership. They need to figure out what their messages they need to figure out who the messengers are.

But one thing, you know, I'm old enough to know that we went through this as Republicans a couple of times after Mitt Romney's loss to Obama, we had a real come to Jesus about who we are and who's going to be the messengers. And one of the problems that the Democrats face is that the media doesn't demand that they do this. The media was demanding every day that the Republican Party needs to change or it's going to go away.

They pounded us. They talked about how dodgy and old and ineffective we were. The media are not doing that to the Democrats. You watch MSNBC, you look at The New York Times, and they are protecting this ineffective Democratic machine. Again, I go back to what I said in the beginning. It's helpful to Republicans when we see this ineffective messenger and message from the left.

I'm not, you know, too mad about it. I think it's one of those things that's really helping Republicans and helping Donald Trump. You'd think, though, that the consumer, honestly, if you want to count the voter as like the consumer would eventually drive this. But we've seen it even in Hollywood where we know that the consumer is saying this is not what we want, but there are people entrenched who are just making the decisions that are deciding we are going to side weirdly as big corporations, we are going to side with ideology or pushing something over what our base wants. I mean, we've seen it with family entertainment specifically. You'd think that would kind of play back into politics as well.

Now you have people trying to shake that up and change it because they see eventually their bottom line getting lower and lower and lower. You'd think that would happen in Washington, D.C., too, where, sure, maybe the people that are making the most noise, the people that were part of the squat, all of those names, sure, they may be your people you put up on the media side. But when everyone has to fall in and agree with some of the more radical nature of this, you're going to lose people. And at some point, do you not have to just go, this is not what our voter wants, therefore we should not be doing this? Yeah, I think, look, the Republicans figured that out. They figured out that Washington, D.C. is the problem and they're running against Washington, D.C., and they're running for the rest of America.

And the Democrats haven't done that. The leaders of the Democratic Party are all Washington experts. You don't have a lot of the governors in the Democratic Party rising up. There's not individual mayors or people outside of Washington saying, you know, we want Washington to be smaller. Remember, the Democratic Party message is Washington, D.C. is the best, the biggest and the brightest, and it should control your lives. Republicans are the ones that are saying, let's make Washington smaller.

Let's let people decide their own future and their own lives. And that's more popular outside of D.C. We were having this conversation yesterday. I was talking with Will and some other members of our team here, and it just feels like that weight that a lot of these elected officials or even some of the appointed positions, it feels like a lot of that weight has changed. And I mean that in a good way in the sense of no longer are everyone who is in Washington, D.C. held up as heroes or icons or as, you know, above superheroes, if you will.

Now we're actually able to see a bit behind the curtain. And I think it's good for the American people to do that. Maybe it also encourages more people to get involved because you go, oh, if they can do it, then certainly I could try. I think there's no question that what's happening in Washington, D.C., what happened at the State of the Union is proving to the American people that Washington, D.C. is out of touch and not what they want.

Remember, people want a budget that is small. People want to make sure that politicians aren't supporting waste, fraud and abuse. It feels like the Democrats are defending waste, fraud and abuse right now. They're talking about trans mice and whether or not that that's a good program.

The rest of America just thinks that's a waste and they can't believe someone's defending it. Well, Rick, thanks so much, obviously, for joining us. Again, we always appreciate your analysis and thoughts.

And I wanted to take another moment as we head into a break to encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ. Because in the next segment, you're going to hear about our new campaign that we're running in Massachusetts. And hey, with Rick, they're all seeing similar efforts happen in California. We're going to break that down as well. We are running an ad campaign right now in the state of Massachusetts that you helped fund.

We only have the budget to run it for a few months and we are fighting against their campaign, the state, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts state, their aggressive multimillion dollar smear campaign against pregnancy resource centers. We are also seeing how A.I. is playing into that. We'll get into that as well.

And how A.I. is telling you to avoid these, what they call anti-abortion centers, pro-life pregnancy centers, crisis pregnancy centers, whatever you want to call it. But that's why we launched our Choice Begins Here campaign because it's going to spread hope and provide resources for women in need. It's going to save lives. And we think it's already done that because we can see the traffic going to that website from the state of Massachusetts and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people have. And that's amazing. That's not a website you go to to make a donation.

That's a website you go to to get information if you are in need. And I'm glad we were able to provide that. And hopefully we continue to grow that across the country. But right now we need your financial support and all donations are doubled. So go to ACLJ.org. Again, ACLJ.org and have your gifts doubled during our Life and Liberty drive. Again, we are battling this with a first in the nation approach. We are taking it very different than we've ever done before and we can't do it without you. So right now, help join us in the fight.

Go to ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Secula. We are going to continue our discussion also on the current moment that happened right now, as you saw Al Green be censured and the protest against it that happened. We have a phone call on that. I want to take that real quick and then we're going to move on and talk a little bit about our pro-life campaign. If you want to call in and talk about any of these topics, 1-800-684-3110, we're also going to talk about the ultimatum that President Trump laid out to Hamas. Could not have been stronger. Pretty amazing moment if you have been a supporter of the state of Israel.

But Joel, you're on the air. Hey, how y'all doing? I appreciate what you're all doing too, man.

Thank you for your hard work. I think I heard a comment earlier that you're not sure if it was a good look to go after Al Green or reprimand him or whatever that they do as far as a protocol. I think it is. I think it is definitely something that you should pay some sort of penalty for whatever was in the realm of their of their rules.

Because only so it's so often, it seems like people would do things and nothing would happen to them and get away with it, which involves them to even do more. You know, and I challenge people, I said, tell me one thing positive that the Democrats have accomplished. Just give me one and we'll have a conversation. And that's kind of where the conversation stops. Anyway, that's my thought. Absolutely. I don't disagree with you. I was posing the question. To me, I look at everything from the media point of view. And I look at everything from, if you want to say, a marketing point of view. And is that the story that you wanted out there today?

Is that the number one story? Because the Democrats, as Will said, though they have come off as sort of the, you know, I don't want to say this, the nerds in the room, they've come off a little bit more lame than they used to. And we have the biggest names of podcasting, it seems like on our side here.

And you have people who are maybe the biggest influencers, like a Joe Rogan or you have the Paul brothers or whoever it may be that actually are influencing the younger generation for the first time in a long time. What I more say is, do you really want, I think that the centering is standard practice. It should happen. But the show that went on because of it is the detriment because you're giving another clip. You're creating another clip for them to use and honestly paint it as a racial moment.

Painting it when you start saying we shall overcome and you start having these moments, it starts to create the narrative that it's just another easy thing for them to point to. And that's my concern with it had nothing to do with the actual procedure. I think the procedure should happen.

It's more thinking five steps ahead. Well, and I think this is where you and I, I agree with your analysis, but I agree with Joel as well that I think it was the right thing to do. Ten Democrats also believed it was the right thing to do because they voted with the Republicans on the censure. I think that there are people within that party that realize it wasn't a good look. That is the first time a member of Congress has been removed from a joint session like that and that it doesn't need to become the norm. And so you do need to show the repercussions that when you take that now, I also think there should be a censure vote for every one of those that tried to disrupt the proceeding that that got up there and stood around him and sang loudly so that they couldn't move on with the people's business. But, you know, you're also seeing that there were people like David Axelrod who was saying what Al Green did was deplorable or despicable, that he should not have done that.

And then you see John Fetterman, he's tweeting out a sad cavalcade of self-owns and unhinged petulance. It only makes Trump look more Presidential and restrained. We're becoming the metaphorical car alarm that nobody pays attention to and it may not be the winning message. That was responding to the behavior of the entire House Democratic caucus, the way they behaved during the speech. And so, wow, I understand your concerns about giving them a media moment again.

I also think there's a large portion of America when we talked about 76 percent in that CBS poll that approved of President Trump during that message. It's also going to be a reminder of how poorly the Democrats came across and then they doubled down on that bad behavior two days later. So I think there's also that angle you could look at that they're not doing themselves any favors trying to make it be like they are the righteous warriors standing up.

Because protesting during a speech like that and not honoring the decorum, that's them rejecting the democratic norms that our country is founded upon. Yeah, maybe we need a little bit of that. Maybe we need a little bit of shaking it up.

Maybe we need to actually make this a bit more of a spectacle. I sat there and when that moment happened, it made me nervous, especially coming off of two assassinations attempts of President Trump. When there starts being chaos erupting, that got to me and I felt uncomfortable watching it. But I'm also okay with our elected officials actually going in there representing their people and doing what needs to get done. Sometimes that's getting everyone a little worked up. Sometimes that's rabble-rousing a little bit. Sometimes we need to take a little cue from our friends of the United Kingdom where things get a little crazier in the parliament. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but I saw a lot of you cheering that on when there was the whole Speaker of the House situation. When that all went down a few years ago with McCarthy and of course there was Matt Gaetz and all of them causing a stink and I'm like, I don't think this is very nice.

And a lot of people said to me, we don't want nice anymore. So you know what? Pick your poison here.

Which one are we going to do? Are we going to get into the point where this is old school America? Where you're like, you know what I mean?

Old school. I mean, like hundreds of years ago now where, you know, we're going to write some real, real mean papers that we're going to release. And someone will have a different pin name, but we'll all know it was you, Hamilton. We'll know it was you, Benjamin Franklin. Man, we need to get back to that. Give me a call.

I want to know. 1-800-684-3110. We were supposed to talk about our Choice Begins Here campaign. I'm going to bump that to the next segment.

That feels a little inappropriate to move from here to there. But I do want to hear from you. There are thousands of you watching right now. And when I know when I see thousands, that means there's a lot of people that have never seen me before. Hello.

Welcome to secular. Will Haynes is joining me. He's our executive producer. We had Rick Grinnell on earlier. We're going to have one of our senior attorneys.

That's right. We also have an entire legal side to this, not just a show. We actually take care of business. We actually get stuff done.

So if you're new here, I'm going to ask you to hit that subscribe button. We have four hundred sixty seven thousand plus on YouTube alone. Some of you are watching on Rumble. Some of you are watching on the Salem News Channel. We do this show each and every day from noon to one p.m. Eastern time. You work your way back from where you are.

And of course, you can watch it later on, archived on the ACLJ app, on ACLJ.org, on YouTube, on Rumble, on any of the platforms you get podcasts. You could find us there. But I'm encouraging you right now. Three lines just filled up. We got three lines still open. Some people think this is a rerun. This is not a rerun today. They think it may be this is where it gets confusing because we're talking about the censure of Al Green.

Right. Which is based on what happened a few days ago at that not State of the Union address. OK, even Rick said it was the State of the Union. I think we should just get away with it not being the State of the Union. Let's just any time you join session of Congress and the President speaks, just call it the State of the Union. It's so much less complicated.

S-O-T-U. So, too. So, too.

Man, this is going to be a fun second half hour coming up. I want you to join us, but I also want you to support the work of the ACLJ while you're at it. If you like this show, if you like what we do here, maybe you've been around for a while.

You know the incredible work that our team does, our legal team, our media team. Or maybe you just like this show. And that's OK, too. Maybe you just like us showing up in your Instagram feed. That's great.

But you know what? We're not funded by major sponsors here. We're not funded by a bunch of, you know, fat cat billionaires who make humongous donations. If you are one of those fat cat billionaires, please send me an email.

We'd be happy to talk about it. But we are funded by individual donations in ACLJ Champions. Those are people that give $25, $45, $75 and allow you to give on a monthly basis. And I encourage you to do that right now.

Scan the QR code on your screen. Donate during our Life and Liberty Drive. If you become an ACLJ Champion, that's a monthly recurring donor. Your first donation is doubled.

And not you. You don't get charged double. Someone out there, another ACLJ supporter or champion, has pledged to match that donation. So that's how that works.

Again, that's at ACLJ.org. We have a second half hour with the broadcast coming up. We're going to talk about Israel. We're going to talk about life and continue this discussion as well. We'll be right back.

Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Logan Sekulow. This is Logan Sekulow. Welcome to the second half hour of Sekulow for today. Will Haynes joining me in studio. C.C.

Heil will be joining us later on. Rick Grinnell already was on, so you can go back and watch that later on. He did a great analysis of what's going on in Washington, D.C. I did want to take a minute here as we kick off this show to tell you about our campaign, Choice Begins Here. It is our new pro-life campaign inspired by my trip to Massachusetts where I saw these ads running specifically against pro-life pregnancy resource centers, or as they call them, anti-abortion centers. They're running these ad campaigns saying, you can't trust. Don't go in there. Avoid them.

They'll mislead you. And of course, when I looked at it closely, I realized it was coming from taxpayer money. It was coming from a mass.gov website. It was shocking and disturbing, and I immediately got our team into action. We filed lawsuits, were in court over it.

But I said, that's not enough. We got to take this to the streets just like they did. So we have an ad campaign.

It has rolled out over the last week, and we have seen hundreds and hundreds of people go. And again, this isn't to go after the state of Massachusetts. This is to also target the mothers in need, the future mothers in need with no shame. As it says in the ads, no shame or no pressure. And we're encouraging people to go to these pro-life pregnancy resource centers instead of going to abortion clinics because they give you the real choice. And they provide a lot of options, including food, including diapers, clothes. We had a caller yesterday who said they paid for their child's first birthday.

A lot of these are volunteer run by the sweetest people you've ever met. And of course, this smear campaign by the state has really taken its toll on them. They have seen a 30% decline in people coming in through their doors and a 30% rise in abortions throughout the state. So I want to play you our brand new ad. I've been rolling out an ad each and every day. So let's see today's choice begins here ad.

Again, these are running throughout the state right now. My baby boy, I want you to know that I love you because I love you. I made the hardest choice I could ever imagine. You'll always be in my heart. I promise.

I just want you to have every opportunity in the world. I'll always wonder where you are, what you're doing. I know you'll be really smart.

I can tell. I'm already so proud of you. And no matter what, you'll be carrying a piece of my heart. Hug your mom and dad for me every day. Love you forever, Mama. I owe my birth mom everything. And because of her, I have a life.

I love you, Mom. To find a pregnancy resource center near you, go to choicebeginshere.org. The ad campaign. And of course, that is not running to you as the consumer. That is running to people who are in need.

People who are pregnant are trying to make that important decision. But we can't fund that ad campaign. It's not like it's a marketing campaign that we have a return.

Like, you know, we're putting out a product and therefore people go get to the product and we make some sort of financial revenue from that. That's not how this one works. This is purely just a counter campaign to counter what the state is doing. And that is all funded by you, the ACLJ supporter. So I'm going to encourage you right now. Be a part of this Choice Begins Here campaign.

Make a donation during this life and liberty drive. And we get to do these life and liberty drives a couple of times a year and we're really able to show whether this is an issue you still care about. You know, we know the overturning of Roe, the Wynn and the Dobbs case made a lot of people just go, we won. Finally, it's over. But we know that's not the case.

It was sent back to the states and some of your more liberal states or those who are those are even just controlled by liberals or far leftists. We know what they're doing. And we also found out that this is happening in the state of California. And Will, maybe you can go over briefly before we get to break what that is. That's right. And we've been talking about how we expected to see this other places.

Our launch point was Massachusetts. But the Department of Justice of California has put out a consumer alert about pregnancy warning. Pregnancy centers do not provide comprehensive, reproductive health care. They often advertise full range, but they do not provide abortion.

And it goes on and on. That's not from the Health Department of California from the attorney general of the state of California. We also have found out that Google through A.I., if you ask, just Google crisis pregnancy centers. It is all biased. Say that they peddle in misinformation and false advertising. So we have a big fight ahead, folks.

It's not just Massachusetts. It begins there. But we're going to keep going. Donate today. aclj.org slash life and liberty.

Welcome back to Secular. We are going to take your calls coming up in the next segments of 1-800-684-3110. We may take them in this segment, too. You never know.

C.C. Hiles joining us, senior attorney here at the A.C.L.J. We do have an update in the fight for Israel. Of course, this is in Gaza and Hamas has been going on now for the millennia.

But maybe it's also been going on specifically for the last couple of years after the October 7th attack. President Trump has made a pretty declarative statement. This came out last night.

I'm just going to read it to you because it's pretty hardcore. But you know what? It's the verbiage that we all have been thinking and we've all been hopeful for. And finally, you have a President willing to say it now. Again, I'm going to hope this means the end of the war. But we will see. This is the statement, again, something that only President Trump could post on social media.

It says, Shalom, Hamas, which means hello and goodbye. You can choose. Release all the hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered. Or it is over for you.

Only sick and twisted people keep bodies and you are sick and twisted. I'm sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job. Not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don't do as I say. I have just met with your former hostages whose lives you have destroyed. This is your last warning. For the leadership, now is the time to leave Gaza while you still have a chance. Also to the people of Gaza. A beautiful future awaits, but not if you hold hostages. If you do, you are dead.

Make a smart decision. Release the hostages now or there will be hell to pay later. And that is from Donald J. Trump, President of the United States. Now, again, a pretty intense statement, but clearly it is time for this kind of rhetoric.

That's right. And that is what people voted for when they voted for President Trump, a strong leader who will make statements like this and mean business. And it has gone on for far too long. And when we see more and more come out about how aid is misused in Gaza or the way that they have treated the hostages, the mind games they've played with the world when they release prisoners' bodies instead of living hostages.

And then to add insult to injury, they don't return the mother of the children and then quickly do it 24 hours later. It's all psychological warfare that they are perpetuating on the Jewish people and the people of Israel. And, C.C., I think the American people have had enough. I know the Israeli people have had enough. But seeing statements like this from President Trump is very refreshing to see when you're talking about a terrorist organization. Yeah, it's very encouraging to me because, you know, working and defending Israel for as long as we have, you're very aware of Hamas and the PA and the PLO and all of their tactics. And the fact that, you know, you're renegotiating a second phase yet again, it's because they do negotiations and Israel does them in good faith. And Hamas always reneges on what they agree to.

So we see that here again. And, you know, it's believed that there are 24 hostages that are still alive that Hamas has. And I would reiterate that we actually have, we actually represent two of those hostages, Ziv and Gali Berman, their twins. And back in February, for the very first time, we actually, the family did get notification from some of the hostages that were released that they were alive.

They were not being held together, but they were, as you can imagine, in mortal danger. So, you know, I would just request that prayers just keep coming in for the hostages that they do remain alive, that we can have, nobody else dies in captivity while they're being held by Hamas. And we're still going to be fighting for them and praying for them. And it's very refreshing, like you said, that our President, President Trump, would make such a bold statement because that's what needs to be done.

Hamas needs to be told, you're not going to get by with this anymore. And clearly he met again with some of the hostages that were flown into Washington, D.C. He was able to actually see it firsthand.

And I think for a lot of people, not unlike just visiting Israel in general, that it changes the way you see the whole war, changes the way you see biblical history, changes your life. And I feel like that's probably a moment that happened. And like President Trump seems to do, he's not going to let those emotions just, you know, get swept under the rug.

You actually have a moment where he's like, you know what, enough is enough. Now, again, we have to see what that really means because Hamas is already saying, yeah, we'll kind of brush it off. We'll see what happens. Well, and this was supposed to be a time because phase one of the ceasefire ended that they were negotiating during that for a phase two.

And that has not happened. Obviously, there were violations by Hamas during the ceasefire with those mind games they played. So I don't know that we will see Hamas coming to the negotiating table.

But if they don't either come to the table and just give the hostages back, I think that President Trump typically means what he says in these types of statements. But, C.C., also, you were in D.C. yesterday meeting. You handle so much of our international work here at the ACLJ. And we talked yesterday with Jeff Balaban about the work he was doing in Israel yesterday. And you were in Washington working on some of the work we do for Israel. You will be going in just a week or so to Geneva at the U.N. and then to Israel with more of that work. Can you tell our audience a little bit about it and what they are supporting when they support the ACLJ, the great work you do?

Sure. So yesterday, we met in D.C. with the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. And basically, they are a global embassy for national security and applied diplomacy for Israel. And so just being able to work with these groups and strategize, you know, again, you said I was going to the U.N. and I am the Human Rights Council of the 58th session. I'll be going mid-March and we'll be doing oral submissions on behalf of Israel, supporting Israel, defending their right really for existence, for being able to defend themselves and to exist peacefully as we always do. And then after our trip to Geneva, then we will go on to Israel and be attending an anti-Semitism conference there. And so, again, working with, you know, like organizations and other Israeli officials to see how we can best just, again, defend Israel and support its right to live peacefully within its defensible borders.

I think this is a really important time and you need to support the work that we are doing there because, as you saw, the ACLCC is headed to take care of business here at the ACLJ, make sure things are still going to get done and we can still support these hostages. I mean, when you have Hamas, I mean, I saw one of the articles that just came out. It's like, well, Israel has stopped sending their humanitarian aid.

This is the third day that they've stopped. Well, yeah, no kidding. I mean, in what other world are you expected to send humanitarian aid into a country that is holding your people hostage? And the thing is, Israel has been doing it.

Yes. They've been doing it because, as I've said, they value human life and even value the human life of the people that want them dead. That is the craziest part about this. But, of course, that has to be the negative is Hamas says, you know, they're not even sending us any more food anymore.

It's like, no kidding. Why would they take care of your own people if you can? But, of course, in this moment, that's going to be held against Israel. They haven't done it when we know what happened with, I mean, again, the tragedy of the Bebas family and we saw all of that play out.

How can you just expect? And that's been the problem. Look, it's somewhat with the problem with America. It is somewhat the problem with Israel. When you have people with compassion who are actually running a country who actually can see humanitarian issues and try to take care of it, even when, even when things are against you, even when those people want you dead.

You tell me who the good guy is in that situation. But now when they actually have a few cards, which is humanitarian aid, that's one of the cards they have is sending food and things into Gaza saying, no, we're not going to do that anymore until you free the remaining hostages. But then somehow, of course, the media will spin it that they're the bad guys.

That's exactly what we talked about yesterday. It was the whole thing of and I'll be very quick, is that Israel goes above and beyond what any other nation would do, even including the United States. You're exactly right. They're providing food. They're providing provisions for literally their enemy. While their enemy is holding their own citizens captive, even when they are defending themselves, they will literally give, they will send leaflets and tell the area where they're going to be attacking when they're defending themselves. No other country does that. No other country gives the enemy an update of, hey, we're going to be attacking you so any civilians get out of there.

No country does that. Israel goes above and beyond and they're always painted as the enemy. And we are here at the ACLJ to stop that and change that narrative. Absolutely. And you can be a part of that change as well. So I encourage you, we are just kicking off our life and liberty drive.

We've had a great first week, but we need more support. You've heard about our Choice Begins Here campaign. You now heard about what we're doing in Israel.

Of course, what we do on this broadcast each and every day. None of this is free. All of it, it's all free for you, but it's not free for those of us that work on it every day. So I encourage you right now to make that donation because all donations are doubled. You're going to hear about it a lot this month and you know what?

That's just what it is. Because right now it's a really crucial time because only a few times a year are we able to unlock those double donations. Unlock those matching donations.

But right now is the time. ACLJ.org to do it or scan the QR code on your screen. We're going to take phone calls coming up in the next segment. If phone lines are completely jammed right now, they will probably open up. So do that today again.

Go to ACLJ.org. You can give us a call. 1-800-684-3110.

If it's busy, keep calling. And we will get to as many calls as we can. Because we've heard from incredible lawyers like C.C.

Hile. We've heard from Rick Grenell, former director of national intelligence and a special envoy right now. Hearing from Will Haines, our executive producer. And of course, you've heard from me. But now we get to hear from the most important voice in the room. You.

Because you help dictate what we do as an organization and where we take things. So right now, give us a call. We'll be right back with your calls and comments.

Welcome back to Sekulow. It's time to hear from you. We've got a couple lines open at 1-800-684-3110. Again, stay on hold because it's going to take a minute to get through everybody. Let's go ahead and kick it off with Michael, who's calling from the state of Florida. The great state of Florida, what they call the free state of Florida.

You're on, watching from YouTube. Michael, go ahead. Gentlemen, I just wanted to call and say that it's unfortunate that we're dealing with crazy. And crazy continues to double down. And what's really bad about it is the fact that they're not voting in a different point of view of what's best for America. They're simply voting against Trump to try and either stop or slow his agenda. And so I think what we need to do is we need to continue to expose how these people are voting, actually even on both sides. And continue to amplify what's happening during the primaries and during the midterms.

Michael, we saw that yesterday. I mean, look, think about the response from MSNBC to maybe the, you could at least say a unifying moment that happened during that not state of the union. When a little boy, a 13-year-old boy, wanted to be deputized because he has brain cancer.

And they've been getting him deputized throughout the country, honorary deputizers, because he wants to be a police officer. And they, of course, they showed President Trump, said, guess what, we're going to make you a member of the Secret Service. Beautiful moment, everyone cheered and applauded. Not everyone, only about half the room. Some of them quietly clapped, didn't stand.

Couple stood on the other side of the room. And then you had Nicole Wallace go on air and go, I hope he doesn't become one of those police officers that eventually will have to protect himself against President Trump. And, you know, hopefully he doesn't commit suicide because of it. This is what you're dealing with here. And you're right, it is only because it's President Trump. That is what's happening. But, Michael, I think you're right. They can keep doing this and keep doing this.

The media can keep doing it, but the American people aren't taking it. Thanks for calling, Michael. Let's go to Whitney, who is an ACLJ champion, of course, champions. She's been on hold the least.

But because she's an ACLJ champion, she gets bumped to the front of the line. Whitney, you're on the air. I appreciate it, Logan.

Thank you. I totally support the censure. In fact, I'm glad to see it. Like Will and other callers have said, bad behavior without consequence leads to more bad behavior. But I also think that the Republicans, whether they are the minority or the majority, have a tradition of self-censure. When one of their members misbehaves, they do censure them. And when the Democrats are in the majority, they never discipline their members.

Antisemitism and all kinds of terrible things and lack of decorums have gone unchecked. And so I think this is Mike Johnson's way of sort of showing his bipartisan evenhandedness to say, hey, you misbehave you're going to be censured, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. This just happened to be a Democrat.

Yeah, I agree with you, Whitney. And, you know, to the detriment of the majority, the Republicans expelled George Santos. They were the ones that led that effort and had him removed from the Congress. That's it wasn't the Democrats that were in control and move that forward. It was Republicans.

But you are correct. We've seen so much misbehavior, bad behavior by people of the left that if it continues to go unchecked, it will continue to grow. And to also bring that back up as well, I think it's still going to grow, even with the punishments, because they are trying to make it seem as though they are a martyr for the cause. They this is the first time a member of Congress has been removed from a State of the Union or joint address. And it's going to continue to grow, one, because we know that members of Congress love to be on television. And when they can be the one that gets a little bit extra bookings on CNN, on MSNBC, and they get to tell their sad story about how they stood in the gap to defend democracy, instead of respecting the traditions and the institutions, they're going to keep doing it.

And that's a problem. Absolutely. Let's continue on and take some more calls. Let's go to Doug, who's watching on YouTube in North Carolina. Doug, go ahead. Hello. You can hear me? I can hear you.

Thank you. I was thinking about how Democrats and Republicans traditionally have voted, that you see in the country that usually you have more Republicans and in the cities you have more Democrats. And you can picture this by a guy on a farm, he goes outside the door and he looks and there's a board falling off the barn. And he's got to take care of it.

He doesn't depend on the government to. But a person in the city, he walks out the door and there's a crack in the sidewalk. And who's going to fix that?

Well, it's going to be the government probably. So traditionally, the cities, you have big government. In most states, there are blue spots and red states even.

And a lot of times those are, of course, your major cities. What I'm trying to point out is what traditionally used to be the difference between Democrats and Republicans. But the only thing that makes sense right now is that the Democrats have gone to be globalists, Marxist globalists.

And when you look at what they do, that's the only thing that makes sense. And so we've got two parties. They're not Republican and Democrat anymore. They've got globalists, Marxists and Americans. Well, and Doug, I think that to your point, I mean, that's why we have seen a shift in the people that have joined the Republican Party, people that were traditionally Democrats like Bobby Kennedy or Tulsi Gabbard, that saw how ridiculous that party had become. And I agree, when you look at the opposition to cutting government, they are making each line item seem like it is life or death. If we don't spend this money or don't have this control over it, even when it is the most nuanced, but still millions and millions of dollars, but project in a foreign country through USAID, they are trying to pinpoint that as though it is life and death and that America has to be there no matter what.

And that does seem more like a globalist Marxist point of view than an American big government, small government argument. Hey, I want to quickly get this last call. You've got to hold for a while. We only got about a minute and a half till this show ends. So you've got about 20 or 30 seconds.

I'm sorry. But Scott in Nevada, you're on the line. Hi, I'd just like to say that I think that we should call out the Democrats for their antics, but I can see the ad in next year's primaries where they show all the antics that the Democrats are doing right now. And then they cut to President Trump, J.D. Vance, Kristi Noem with their speeches and agreements going on and just ask the public, which do you prefer? Yeah, and I think that that's an interesting point of view, too.

Can we flip it on them in that sense and actually use these moments of chaos that they're causing to be a rallying cry for conservative values, for Christian values? It's a good thought. Scott, as we wrap up today's show, I did want to give you one last opportunity to support the work of the ACLJ.

And scan the QR codes about to pop up on your screen. There it is. There it is. During our life and liberty drive, we're also going to talk maybe tomorrow a bit about the astronauts.

I would like to do that because it's been a whole debate whether they are stranded or not stranded, whether Elon Musk tried to send a earlier ship to get them to bring them back home, and whether it was politically motivated to not, as it seems, as if the astronauts themselves think that's what maybe what happened. And guess who was there to watch them take off? You would never guess it.

But me. I was there. I watched that ship take off and I turned to my son and said, they're going to be returning home in six days, seven days. Isn't that going to be cool? Here we are. We'll talk about that tomorrow.

I thought that was a fun fact. You can put that in there, Wikipedia entry. Support the work of the ACLJ. Do it right now. This is it. Ten seconds left. And in this ten seconds, scan that QR code right now. Go to ACLJ.org. Support us during the Life and Liberty Drive. All donations are doubled.