Sekulow

Will Haines: Today on Sekulow, we have breaking news as Iran fires missiles at Kuwait. 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. Welcome to Sekulow. Will Haines in studio, joined by Jordan Sekulow momentarily as well. And we've got a lot to talk about as the conflict with Iran starts to heat up more. What did we see? We saw overnight that Iran, once again, firing a barrage of missiles at Kuwait this time. Now, Kuwait is a very strategic point for the United States. We have a very large military presence there, and they have been a frequent target of the Iranians throughout this conflict. So much so that Iran has multiple times targeted the civilian airport of Kuwait. So much so that a portion of it was shut down, not just because of the ongoing conflict, but because of it being destroyed by Iranian missiles and drone attacks. But what we see is that overnight, Kuwait's air defenses intercepted the incoming missiles and drones after sirens sounded across the country, according to Kuwait's Ministry of Defense, which described the attack as a blatant Iranian aggression. The Iranians, on their part, took credit for it. Said they were doing it because of the proximity of these locations they tried to hit that were to US military personnel. All of this at the same time, you see that President Trump is going out there and making the statement that this renewed US campaign against Iran won't last long. What does that mean? Does it mean that the economic D-day and sanctions that we talked about yesterday with Secretary Mike Pompeo are working to the point that they think Iran is contained? It's no longer the threat. They've destroyed enough of their infrastructure militarily, and they've destroyed their economy successfully. We've also seen renewed calls by the President for the people to rise up. So going back to that idea that even early on we talked about of weakening the regime, weakening the IRGC, and allowing the people to take their country back. Are we at that point? The entire time we were saying it could be that is the plan all along. We don't know. We have to wait and see. We're only not even a full year into this where there's already been the comparisons of Vietnam or those that have all along been saying that we've just been doing Israel's bidding. We know that that is not the case. We know it's not true. You also can't make a Vietnam comparison to something that's not even 12 months old yet, when that war lasted for 20 years, multiple presidencies, and we don't have a single boot on the ground in Iran. So the comparisons there, not even a place you can start. But we are going to talk about this because after a month of quiet, we have seen the US and Iran trading fire. We are seeing Iran going back to their playbook of hitting Gulf neighbors instead of directly attacking the US vessels. I think that tells you something about their capabilities and what they are confident they can do. But we're also going to talk about some other things during this hour. Going to share a video with you that you can share, that we encourage you to share, as we try to flood the zone with information about Pastor Cao to bring him home ahead of Xi Jinping's visit here later this month, just a few weeks away. As well as some interesting conversation that a very famous, formerly conservative commentator, journalist, to put that in quotes, has been putting out on the internet. It's going to surprise you, and I think it tells a lot more about the story of this person's evolution than maybe they'd like you to know. We'll be right back with more on Sekulow. Jordan Sekulow will be joining me in studio as we go over all of this. But I want to hear from you, whether it's on the Iran conflict, whether it's on our work here trying to bring Pastor Cao home, or maybe even about some of these candidates like Abdul El-Sayed that's now starting to sound like he may have the backing of someone that many of us listened to for a long time. Give us a call, 1-800-684-3110 to be on air. 1-800-684-3110. We'll be right back after this break with Jordan as we break this all down on this beautiful Thursday in September. We'll be right back with more. Welcome back to Sekulow. Will Haines here, joined in studio by Jordan. And Jordan, the Iranians have decided to try to ratchet things up again. The United States did a very specific strategic strike at what looked like mine-laying vehicles, boats, craft that were taken out near the Strait of Hormuz. And then Iran decided now is the time to start launching rockets and missiles at our Gulf neighbors, as they like to do.
Jordan Sekulow: I think it, one, tells you a lot about the Iranians that they're not saying, "Let's try to hit these aircraft carriers. Let's try to hit the very strong Navy that the United States has in the region." But at the same time, they are still going after military personnel. They are still trying to hit bases and radar systems in Jordan, in Kuwait, in Bahrain, and Iraq. So overnight, they hit Kuwait. That's been a very favorable target for them to try and hit. While Kuwait does have very good anti-missile systems, they haven't had to use them as much as places like Israel. So therefore, a little bit untested. But right now, we're even looking at this and Iran seems to be weakened to the point where not even their missile attacks are able to get through at all. And we're also seeing that while they threaten these larger attacks and they put out these social media videos and you see their propaganda online that they're going to shoot off ICBMs. There's a lot of talk for those who are anti the position of the Trump administration here inside the United States, that we are somehow running out of ammunition and we can't figure out how to produce more if we need to. I don't really believe that as well, by the way. If we need to produce more ammunition, we got plenty of companies in the United States that can do that very quickly. But look where Iran is having to go. They're choosing easier targets. And like you said, Will, even then, having a tough time striking them. So while there's the economic kind of noose around Iran that continues to tighten, and that's through the Treasury Department, and we've seen a lot of talk about that the last two days, they are still, instead of trying to make friends with their neighbors in the Middle East, they are still treating anyone who works with the United States at all as an enemy. And again, you can see how long-term we are building a coalition against Iran that could prevent an Islamic Revolutionary Guard from expanding its work. Because these were countries that in the past kind of had to keep things as neutral as possible. Now they've been hit by Iran, so they can treat Iran as a real enemy, as a real threat. And so we're building a major coalition in the Middle East, and I don't think it gets enough attention, of countries, not just Israel and the US, but of most of the Muslim world in the Middle East to take on Iran. We need to make sure we at a minimum are containing their abilities to get a nuclear weapon and their abilities to carry out more violent attacks outside of Iran.
Will Haines: Well, and once again, I think that it does show the strength of the United States being the leader here. Obviously, you've had all the influencers that have wanted to say that Israel drug us into this. But I think that goes to show the cooperation between countries like Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, ones that are not signatories to the Abraham Accords at this point, have by almost by sheer necessity begun to cooperate with the state of Israel. And I think that that is something for the long term, for the world, leads to a more peaceful world. Just in and of itself, the fact that these countries have begun to have to, out of necessity, share intel, share military, not secrets per se, but just military plans so that they don't end up harming each other. They have become on the same side in this conflict. So I think even there, if it were to cease today and we contain them with the destructive economic sanctions that we have in place, as Scott Bassett says, we're going to keep adding to them every week.
Jordan Sekulow: I think if you're going to bring down the military side of the conflict, I think you've got to up the economic sanctions. Because Iran knows how to survive that, and then if you let them do business around the world, they'll fill their coffers again. And we know instead of taking care of their own people or the prices of normal goods there, they're going to get that money to their terrorist proxies, who actually what we've now seen, Will, when they can't get money to their terrorist proxies, Iran itself is not nearly as good as some of those proxy groups were at carrying out combat and military operations. So with Hezbollah without as many resources, it doesn't pose the same kind of threat. Of course, Hamas really doesn't even exist as an entity now. And yes, it's brought for those other countries who were no fans of Iran, by the way. It wasn't like the Saudis loved the Iranians or the Qataris loved the Iranians. But they're right across the street from each other, the Gulf from each other, the Persian Gulf if you want to call it that, the Arabian Gulf depending on where you are in the Middle East. But this gave them the opportunity to say, "You know what?" and to their people, "We need to be working with countries, if we're just talking about business and safety and security, that aren't going to be the type of countries that turn on us because of who we do business with and then start shooting missiles at our buildings." And that's what Iran is. And it's why it's not a good partner. It's not a good neighbor. It's why I think even the countries like North Korea, Russia, and China, they don't really ever fully partner with Iran. They sell things to Iran. So they will economically benefit and use Iran, especially when Iran has nowhere else to get its goods. So they'll buy their gas, the oil cheap. They will take advantage of the sanctions that are on them right now to kind of price gouge them. But at the same time, I don't think they're going to rely on Iran either. At the end of the day, those countries aren't, Iran isn't going to be the hill they die on.
Will Haines: No way. And we've seen that, right? In fact, Iran is going to be the first hill that dies and they'll just walk away. And that's what we've seen. We've even seen the economic support that China continues because they like being the only ones that can get the oil, and no one's going to really mess with them. I think a lot of that is going to be constrained now by these new economic sanctions. I think it also goes back to the constraints, the maximum pressure campaign that the President did in his first term with Mike Pompeo, worked to a large degree. It contained Iran. They were put in a place where they weren't able to really do much of their adventurism and exporting of terror. But what did Biden do? Started signing waivers day one that allowed them to go and do things like October 7th, allowed them to build up these missile programs. So I think that using these tools, the economic tools with the kinetic force that we have shown we're willing to do, because at the end of the day, if the economic sanctions are only that and there's still no real credible military threat behind it as we saw from Barack Obama and Joe Biden, then they are going to continue to break the rules. With a dead Ayatollah and an IRGC that is cash-strapped, I do think you could see real momentum, especially for an overthrow internally.
Jordan Sekulow: And see, that is what people have been talking about. Like, what would an overthrow look like? Even President Trump has expressed some frustration about at what point will the Iranian people take this opportunity, the best opportunity they've had in a long time, and maybe ever since the 1979 revolution? Because they've got the military, they've finally asked for the US to intervene so many times, we finally have. We did tell them to stand back for a while and we're still kind of in one of those situations where the conflict can get pretty heavy quickly. But the President has said, and this is a learning experience, I think, for the United States. Is it going to be a country that the citizens will rise up? Or is this going to be an ongoing problem that we must contain? And we can handle it either way. I'd much rather work with a friendly new Iran that is a lot more like the Iran of the early 1970s and 1960s that allows women to have the same rights, that isn't radicalized and basically being the number one sponsor of terror in the world, and could go back to again kind of becoming part of the world economy, part of a good factor in the Middle East. But if the people have been too radicalized, I think we have to be ready for option two. Option two is they're not going to overthrow this government because the resistance isn't as big as we hoped, because we're learning through this. We've never really tested it before. And because of that, we will have to go with containment. Now, containment doesn't have to be nearly as significant as what's been going on. But I think it's very important, Will, that whoever the President is in the future too, to continue that. If you have to continue that containment, is it's got to have that military threat there. And that means the bases there need to be well-armed and we need to keep this coalition in the Middle East together.
Will Haines: And we will get to your phone calls as well. Russ is calling from New York. We'll get to him in the next segment. So Russ, hang on. We'll get to you right away. But if you have questions about this, if you want to speak into this, if you wish that we were getting out now or ending that, I mean the President is saying that this renewed US campaign won't last long. What does that mean? Give us a call, 1-800-684-3110. But we've got a lot of other interesting angles on this as well. And some has to do with some very popular conservative, if you want to say, broadcasters, former broadcasters now on podcasting and their own network if you will, that are saying some very strange things that I don't think the vast majority of people who claim to be a conservative will agree with. And that person is Tucker Carlson and whom he is now deciding maybe the better candidate in a hotly contested Senate race. We'll get to that as well. So go ahead and give us a call at 1-800-684-3110 if you want to talk about any of these topics on air. Welcome back to Sekulow. And I think it's an interesting time because we talk about this economic angle of the Iranian conflict, and we know that Xi Jinping is coming later this month to meet with the President here in Washington, DC. In one of the main suppliers of funds to Iran at this point is China, as they are able to a little bit more easily negotiate around US sanctions. Smaller countries may not be willing to do it as brazenly as you see from the folks in the Chinese leadership. So I think we can tie that to this case with Pastor Cao, and we'll do that in a moment. But I want to go to Russ on line one from New York. Russ, you're on Sekulow, go ahead.
Russ: Thank you very much, Will. And I have a question for Jordan. But my question for you, Will, as a historian, is about the War Powers Act. Because I just heard that the War Powers Act was intended for an attack on US mainland when Congress can't meet and until Congress can approve it. So my question for you, Will, is should Trump be able to continue the hostilities by calling ceasefires every 60 days and then renewing it? Or is that sort of some kind of slick forever-war trick? And what I want to ask Jordan—hello, can I ask Jordan?—because Jordan, I want to ask you, do you think there'll be an overthrow or a rally-round-the-flag effect? And I want to let you know, I'm MAGA left. I'm for Medicare for all, no war, no tax cuts for billionaires on borrowed money. And the MAGA left will welcome you, Jackson Hinkle and all of us. So I'll listen to your answer, fellas. Thanks a lot.
Will Haines: First of all, if you're trying to get us to join your side with Jackson Hinkle, no thanks. I think that is the worst way that you could pitch yourself. But one, I think the War Powers Act as it's written, there weren't hostilities for over a month. The Constitution isn't meant to hamstring the commander-in-chief from immediate defense of America. So I would say that's something that's been litigated. It's been argued over ad nauseam.
Jordan Sekulow: It's not a cute move to get around the rule. This has gone through courts many different times. What the courts have said is that the President has this power. This is how it works. And so those advising the President know exactly what needs to be done, what you have to provide to Congress at different points. It has a system in place like that. And then at what point do you have to go and look for these resolutions? Which, by the way, we haven't seen a War Powers resolution act. We've seen Authorizations of the Use of Military Force. AUMFs were utilized during Iraq and Afghanistan, and even President Obama utilized those to continue conflict when they were looking for and then successfully took out Osama bin Laden, that he had that ability to carry out so he wasn't seeking a new AUMF from Congress. So I think again, the War Powers Act, it would in some instance be great, but we also know that because now all issues become these political issues, that we have to still have a country that can act and a leader that can act quickly to protect us and our allies and our interests. And remember, I say us because we have US troops all over that region and we have to be able to protect them. We shouldn't have to wait for Congress to approve that. And again, if you look back in our shorter-term history, we have not been using the War Powers Act as much as we have, I'm not sure when the last time it was honestly, because of the Authorization of Use of Military Force, the AUMF.
Will Haines: And once again, I think Russ, one, Russ has called before. And what I appreciate about Russ is that he's not, he doesn't get on and trick the phone screener even though he may not agree with us on everything. He listens and he's thoughtful. And even if it's a question coming from the other side, he's respectful in it. So congratulations on getting through and being able to have a conversation. We're not afraid of that. When people do though lie to the phone screener, yeah, you're probably going to get dropped and not be able to make a statement. But also the fact that I think he speaks for a lot of people in one way. Because there are a lot of people, he says he's the MAGA left, he's for things that are Medicare for all, he wants no wars. And once again, that is something that President Trump obviously ran on was lowering prices, no new wars. This is obviously something that we have been very vocal in support of, this conflict with Iran. But I do want to go back to that War Powers Act question once again because they also did bring resolutions in Congress that failed. So in some ways by not moving forward and limiting the President's authority as they had ability to through resolutions, they in a sense also allowed it continue within Congress. It's not as though Congress didn't have any say in this, and there are many in Congress that by not pushing for and approving these War Powers resolutions, getting through both the House and the Senate to limit it, to end the hostilities, they are allowing it to continue. So it's not as if Congress had no part in this and it's just President Trump acting alone.
Jordan Sekulow: That's right. Congress can act and we've actually seen members of Congress even on the right be defeated or leave office because of their disagreement with the President on this. And it was interesting to see I think in Thomas Massie's race that he lost after building a significant war chest and was fairly popular even though he took this line. But he had become almost a Democrat vote, like anti-Trump on everything almost. And so he lost his primary. So even the Republicans that were starting to take those views, there's less and less of them in Congress and there'll be even less of them when the new Congress comes in in January. So you've got that on top of the fact that, Will said, like no one's stopping Congress from trying to intervene. They aren't intervening. And I think because they all do understand, even if they don't like saying it publicly, that this is the right thing to be doing because Iran has become a threat to not just Israel, the United States, through their terror proxies. Enough is enough and it's time for the rest of the Middle East to come on board. And it has united the Middle East in a way that, could you imagine go back to 2002, 2003, 2004? Do you think 20 years later, 22 years later, we'd be in a coalition with almost every functioning government in the Middle East right now against Iran? So you leave out like the Yemens, which are the failed states, and some of the ones that are like Turkey, you've got these weird NATO interests there. But I mean countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the list goes on and on, not just about having military bases there, but going on airstrikes against Iran and Iran responding. And so let's keep the long term is let's keep that coalition together, which means that we it can be less US involvement. There'll always need to be some on the military and security side, but really empower that region to, if Iran and this regime does not fall, to encircle that regime with enemies. And that then tells those Russian, Russia and China, do you really want to only do business with Iran and lose doing business with Saudi Arabia and these other countries and Kuwait and all these other countries that you've been doing business with before? Because they've lost Venezuela, they may be about to lose Cuba, and then they could they are on the precipice of being in a position where doing business with Iran is too dangerous to their other financial interests. We will continue this discussion and you can call and join this discussion at 1-800-684-3110. But I can't believe the first half-hour of the show has already flown by. We'll be back with more after this very short break. So stick around. But if you want to read the work or see more of the work of the ACLJ, I encourage you go to aclj.org and just look around. We have incredible content from our attorneys, from Secretary Pompeo on a piece that just came out. We talked about it yesterday: How the US Wins the War in Iran. Check all of that rich content out at aclj.org. There's no paywall. It's all free, all because of those that support the work of the ACLJ. Check it out.
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