MAJOR UPDATE: Rubio Declares 'Operation is Over'

to Claire's Operation Epic Fury is done.

Keeping you informed and in game. Now, more than ever, this is Secular. We want to hear from you, Sharon Post de Commons, for call 1-800-684-3-1100. And now, your host, Logan Secular.

Welcome to Secular. This is Logan Secular, Jordan Secular, in studio as well. We've got a packed show for you today. We are leading with the news of Marco Rubio. He took over the press briefing yesterday.

“I have the key to keep making a joke that”

that Marco Rubio takes over every job and he's leaning into it, certainly going out there now. I host you the press briefing. Had a lot of fun with it, but also made some pretty big remarks in terms of where we are with the war and Iran.

And President Trump responded to those this morning. So again, doubling down a little bit of where we are in terms of the current situation in Iran. And one of the big statements was--

and I quote, well, play it--

the operation is over and referring to epic fury. Now, of course, that could mean a draw-down situation. There's reports, obviously, coming out that we are getting closer and closer. Even axioms put out a report.

Fox News is covering it right now. It does feel like maybe closer than ever that we are headed towards a wrap-up of this. Let's actually hear to kick this conversation off. Let's hear from Marco Rubio, again, this was just yesterday

discussing this fight, too. The operation is over. Epic fury is a present notified Congress. We're done with that stage of it. We're now on to this project of freedom.

As far as a negotiation is concerned,

“I think the president's been clear that part”

of the negotiation process has to be not just the enrichment, but what happens to this material that's very deep somewhere that they have still have access to if they ever wanted to dig it out. That has to be addressed.

And that's being addressed in the negotiation. I'm not going to go further on what progress has been made on that topic because I don't want to endanger the negotiations, but suffice it to say that the president and this entire team

is aware of the centrality of that question. And of course, there's a lot more from that. We'll break that down. Enjoying President Trump to respond as well. He did, he said that assuming that Iran agrees

to give what has been agreed to him, we'll walk through that. We'll come back. That is an interesting statement, just saying. Yes. Agrees to what has been agreed to.

This is wise, because this is a 14-point plan to end the war that gives a 30-day time period to finalize a full agreement. So this is an agreement to finalize an agreement.

“But during that, you would have an end of a cease”

to hostilities for at least those 30 days or until one side breached in the other's mind. Usually that would be us saying that they've done something they were not supposed to do. I think we also learned that last time

you have to be so specific with Iran, because they will continue other military operations. Let's say, well, you didn't say we couldn't hit it this, so you didn't say Hezbollah couldn't fire at this U.S. base or Israel or that, or this.

So I would expect that, but you could see that Marco Rubio doesn't want to get into more of the details than we'll go through. Well, because the post goes on from President Trump. It doesn't end with the agreement.

It ends with a typical President Trump kind of said. No, he says, listen, if the blockade of the state of our moves is not open to all, which means Iran also, he does say that so it's not just-- it's not like we'll still be trying to blockade Iran,

but they stop having both them and their proxies fire on commercial vessels. If they don't agree, the bombing starts. And it will be sadly at a much higher level and intensity than it was before.

So this is still a moment where we have not yet gotten 100% that they've agreed to the 14 point plan to in the war that would lead to the 30 day negotiation to finalize a plan on things like nuclear materials, how to imagine the strain of hormones.

What does Iran need to do with those nuclear materials is that we give them to you if you actually want nuclear energy and the medical research that things like that, but you can't have be enriching your own, which

they've never created a nuclear power plant.

They've never done medical research. All they've done is the high-level enriching right. And what does that mean? And of course, we know what that means. Phone lights are over for you.

What do you think? This is a good messaging. And we're having a lot of statements from Marco Rubio. And look, we are, you want to start thinking about it. We are about a year away from when you're going

to have a real beginning of an election season. You'll only probably about 12 months before you start seeing it for presidential runs. And Marco Rubio is certainly one of those voices that people have discussed.

What does this look like to you? Like the way he's coming out, he's making these statements. He also had took some humor. And of course, discussed, the fact he was DJing over the weekend. We'll get that and more coming up.

We also have former Turner executive current head of RAF of Fox Nation Eric Bishop, joining us about the passing of Ted Turner. We're going to discuss that little bit later. We'll be right back.

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We were talking about Marco Rubio's press briefing yesterday. Of course, sitting in for Carolina and Levin, as she is out on maternity leave. But this happened. Marco Rubio kind of put up a pretty strong statement

saying that the operation in Iran, the first operation, Operation Epic Fury, is over. The president had notified Congress that it was over. And now they were moving into a new phase of this. At the same time, President Trump put out a statement this morning

saying, hey, we believe that we have come to an agreement. Of course, he threatens that if that agreement doesn't stand.

He wants to assume that when the Iran, you never

can really be sure that all bets are off at that point. If this agreement doesn't pass, but this agreement would get the straight of the move fully open, even to Iran, and would get a deal on the table. Jordan, you brought up in the break.

“And I think a lot of questions and comments”

are going to come through about this, which is we've heard this talk already a few times of its sounding like it was coming to an end. This may be the closest. But when does it really feel like the end for the American people?

Yeah, for the American people. And I'm not talking about those who've got family necessarily who are serving overseas. That's the different. I think that doesn't come into an end until this

calms down to where it was before, which is always kind of at a heightened level if you're in that part of the world.

But certainly not at the heightened level that we've

seen since the beginning of Epic Fury. And even really over the summer, when I was over in Europe and that strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, this has been pretty hostile with the hootie rebels. Hezbollah's leadership being taken up,

but still firing back the war in Lebanon Israel, and of course, Gaza since October 7th, and getting two and a half closer to three years. Since that, and of course politics coming into play, midterm elections, primary is going on right now,

as we speak, in states across the country. But I would think that for the American consumer, this is all wonderful when prices start going back down especially at the pump. Because when people can rethink maybe we can take the vacation

in the summer that we didn't think we could take because the plain ticket prices were getting so high and so many flights were getting canceled. Maybe we can make the road trip that we thought, that was going to be double what we were budgeting for.

Maybe we need to do something closer to home or just be at home for the summer.

“I think that's when, for the American people,”

that impact is, okay, it's over, we're no longer taking the negative impacts of a conflict. And then the spin is, is reopening a straight of hormones that was open before this conflict began, what else are we getting?

And what we don't know through this plan is exactly where Iran's nuclear enrichment goes in the future. We do know that if they agree to the 14 point plan that they have to pause nuclear enrichment for 30 days. That's the 30 days where it's a window to finalize

if it's a cease-fire, cease-nuclear enrichment. Which I don't know how much they can even do right now because like Marco Rubio said, most of that is very short under ground. We would lift some sanctions so that their economy

would not be on the edge, well, it already has been of just totally crumbly, which on the one hand keeps the current regime in place, which is really a regime that is, if you're gonna be the most honest about

as a regime led by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard

is not a regime led by the, the IITO anymore because that IITO is still, you know, in a coma, it appears. - Yeah, Matt Rubio did. - This is straight and supposed to be open. And the uranium stock pile is supposed to be,

that would be the, this is the most key provision for me. In that 14 point plan, they have to agree to removing their uranium stock pile from Iran. And can that be completed in 30 days? When you talk about what Marco Rubio said,

which is that some of it is buried underground. - The idea, physically, I don't think we can even really picture what the boss says to remove it. - To remove the party that goes in, is that the IITA is some international body.

I don't think we want American engineers there on the ground in Iran, messing with their nuclear equipment and just the danger there. But what does that look like?

“And then again, I think that what would help”

is putting some names to, nothing everybody's gonna remember these, the Far Sea names, but who are we to go to? - Who are we talking with? - Like who in Iran can agree to this today? - Yeah, 'cause President Trump has even questioned that.

- That means that the Irish you see is not gonna be firing in our ships, you know, the moment we think that this is something. - You can't just remember, maybe a week ago, President Trump said I'm not going to negotiate because I don't even know who I'm negotiating with.

- 19 hour flights to pass it. - Yeah, and I'm certainly not gonna do it. - This changed in the last week and who are we actually talking to? I think Jordan's right, that would be a very interesting move

to let the American people in on some more information of what it actually looks like in the current. I, RGC, I do think we should see-- - That's gonna be someone there. - Yeah, I think we're not dealing with them.

- You're not dealing with reality, because the regular military in Iran and the regular political leadership in Iran knowing that the current I had told it peers, they haven't really pushed back on it all. - Is it a medical coma?

- Yes, something like that. And it's not able to lead, and so it's the RGC.

naming this person is that that would put a target on them

within the RGC by radicals, except for the fact that this, they've gotta be strong enough to agree to something like this and actually get it done. If they're worried that that person would be assassinated or taken out of leadership because they're negotiating

with us, how on earth would they be able to handle the removal of uranium stockpile from Iran or guarantee that the straight will be open and in a peaceful way for commercial missiles? - Yeah, I would like to actually play another bite

from Mark and Ruby, I think it's good to hear from him

“and himself, and look, I think why don't we do this?”

We are posing that question, which is, do you feel like this conflict is over until you see it at the pump? That is something that we are all dealing with right now. I started to do a friend just trying to sell his car. It's a big gas-guzzle at SUV, and he said look,

in a normal time, especially when the use cars he'll start thriving again. He's like, I thought I would've sold this in days

and weeks, and all of a sudden, no one's interested

in this SUV because we all are dealing with what we're dealing with at the pump. All of us are trying to fill up our cars and going, wow, this is the highest in our lifetime, probably we see. - It doesn't really matter if you're in a lower gas,

tax, state, or a higher gas state, it's way higher than it's been in a long time. - Yeah, if you look at the average of where we are, let's say in Tennessee, it's triple. - What it was, probably the mid to low point,

it is nearly a dollar plus more than it has been or two dollars more than it has been sort of in the average. Let's hear from Mark or Rubio discussing this, but if you feel that way, I want you to call in, 1-800-6-8-4-31-10.

A lot of you are watching right now. If you can't call in, let me know in the comments. If you're watching on YouTube or rumble, I'd love to hear from you about those specific questions. Is that really where you're going to see the sort of box

you get checked that the war in Iran, the conflict in Iran,

has come to an end. Therefore, you can now kind of move on with your life.

“As Jordan said, take vacations, do what you need to do.”

But let's hear from Mark or Rubio discussing the economy, actually, and not only here, but in Iran, let's go to bite 20. - They are facing real catastrophic destruction, to their economy, generational destruction,

to their economy, generational destruction to their wealth of their country, and post on themselves by the actions that they're taking. They should check themselves before they wreck themselves in the direction that they're going.

So look, the time's come for Iran to make a sensible choice. And it's not easy for them to do that, obviously, because they have a fracture in their own leadership system. And apart from that, I mean, the top people in that government

are to say the least, you know, they're insane in the brain. And so we need to address that. - Again, does say insane in the brain, which is a funny reference there. But he's bidding a very serious conversation,

which is there is a big destruction happening right there. Now, they do want to see some turnaround of their economy. Of course, we want to see some turnaround economically, as well. But Marco Rubio, clearly also, he's been out there, Jordan, making these sort of rounds.

“He is, of course, a very high level official.”

You know, not expect him to see. - Well, this is when you move from Secretary of State, when you're talking negotiation. So he exists to move its back because you're trying to say, "Look, this is not about the ongoing military operations."

Those have come to an end as of right now. He would, of course, come back again, what kind of center stage, if, as President Trump said, Iran is not able to move forward on this 14-point plan. And I'd say this, the biggest sticking point for me

is not their pause, they're nuclear enrichment, because I think that's probably paused. - Whether they like it or not. - Yeah. - It's removing the uranium stock pile.

What do we mean by that under in 30 days? And then, of course, again, like you said, "Look, at some point, we have to know as the American people." I mean, yes, gas prices start coming down that to be the straight of what moves opening,

reopening to commercial vessels, making it safe once again for that to travel. Even though most of our oil and gas doesn't come through there, it affects the world economy. Only about 20% of our industry does,

but it all comes into play. - Yeah. - And it's making jet plane tickets a lot more expensive and they're cutting flights and, you know, people, people, you can already see it, starts affecting the whole economy.

People with rental properties, road trips that you decide, you know what, not this year. - Yeah. - You used to be able to fly through your drive. Now you can't drive.

- Right, right. So it's just one of those things where you go back and forth. I mean, it takes a little longer, sometimes on the flights button, it's caught up now. And this is because they pre-biage at fuel.

So the pre-bodge at fuel has now been to wear out. - Yeah, it's starting to wear out and they're having to plan that these plans aren't going to go through. And then, remember, at the end of this, it is not as if the US is taking military action off the table

in the next, like, very, within the next 30 days. - Yeah. - And at any time, within the next 30 days, that Iran doesn't come to and meet these terms, I do want to know how they meet,

removing your right, uranium stockpile from Iran. That's not something I don't think you can do in 30 days. But, you know, what does that mean exactly?

And who's going to check that box?

“- Well, we also have conversations now starting again.”

Of course, you have the midterm elections coming up and you have what could someone like Marka Rubio do for a presidential run? But you also have to look at, he needs to wrap this up.

He needs to have a success on his story to do that. So what does that look like over the next year? Really, that he would need to get that done to have, probably a successful run. But at the same time, who else is making the media rounds

to talking about this? Former president Barack Obama, he was on the late show. Yesterday, one of the final late shows, he has been showin' up. Obviously, he is promoting the opening of his new presidential library.

So we're going to talk about that. It's a very interesting comments he made last night talking about the future of the Republican Party. So stay tuned for that. We'll be right back with more on secular.

(upbeat music) Yeah, welcome back to secular. We are going to be taking your calls and comments about this at 1-800-684-3110. And as I teased, also, back half of the show,

“which some of you don't get on to your local,”

if you have some interest or radio,

you can be finding us always on aclj.org

on YouTube, or humble, however, you get your podcasts, where they are live streaming each and every day, 12-1 PME, Stern Time. And of course, archived later on, if you're listening to this, there's a second half that runs.

And that show is gonna be, that second half is gonna be very interesting. Jeff Balabaud is joining us. The head of ACLJ Jerusalem. He is back in Jerusalem, so we're gonna discuss

how things are looking actually from a standpoint in Israel right now. And then following that, we're going to have on former Turner executive currently the chief media officer for a real American freestyle, Eric Bischoff,

who you may know from his time in the WCW and the WWE, but is currently has a show that runs on Fox Nation. But we do want to talk about the passing of Ted Turner, 'cause whether you probably agree or disagree with him on his politics, any gigantic impact,

and probably, there's at least an argument to be made that we wouldn't be doing this show. And this kind of content, if it wasn't for people like him, so we're gonna discuss that a little bit later on the second half.

That being said, you also have speaking of media. You have President Barack Obama, former President Barack Obama making the rounds, talking about the current conversations that are happening. He's of course promoting his big giant Obama Center

and is in Chicago, yes, in Chicago, it's a pretty cool look and structure, very interesting, he's doing a lot.

He's finally doing press.

You don't see him out there all that much. Now he's doing that show a lot for nothing but none of him. And he's out there talking about this. And he's starting to really have that conversation of what a future relationship with the Republicans

look like, what the future looks like with conservative media and other, it gets very political as you'd expect. - Yes, I mean, he starts getting into the proper role of the Attorney General, member Eric Holder.

I mean, his wingman. - Let's hear that, let's hear that. This is, again, this is Barack Obama. Just last night on Stephen Colbert, against Stephen Colbert show wrapping up,

“by the way, any day now, I think it's the end of the month.”

But he's having some big guests on, one of them former President Obama, take a listen. - We're gonna have to do some work to return to this basic norm and we probably now have to codify it. The White House shouldn't be able to direct

the Attorney General to go around prosecuted. (audience applauds) - The political in the past year. Like he's talking to his own executive plan. - Take that place.

- The norm is that it's independent. - The norm, the idea is that the Attorney General is that people's lawyer, it's not the President's considerably area. - Right, even when it's Bobby Kennedy.

(audience laughs) That's Bobby Perry. And so, two of the core principles of a democracy. We can survive a lot. Bad policy, funky elections.

There's a bunch of stuff that we can overcome. We can't overcome the politicization of the criminal justice system. The awesome power of the state. You can't have a situation in which

whoever's in charge of the government starts and using that to go after their political enemies. - We just have to extract 100 page report with DOJ on how just under the Biden administration's four years. Not as effective as the Obama administration's eight,

but under just their four years, how the criminal, how do they, they politicize the justice system to go after their political inequality. - It happened to be pro-lifeers

and religious people and people of faith cases that we're still taking all the way to the U.S. The Supreme Court, as we speak. And so, again, it's all the same as the president's. - When you had Eric Holder as the attorney general,

this was a guy who, again, you couldn't have, it's not much closer than Bobby Kennedy being. - I do hate to say. - At least, Colbert brought that upside down. It's the people's, you're usually forget.

- John, John of Kennedy, put his brother. - It's not, it's not, the people's attorney, but it's still the executive branch, which is run by the president. The president chooses the attorney general.

- And again, the way they characterize this, you shouldn't be able to just,

just because the president wants to, that's not right, what they, what but, the president can certainly have input because the people elected the president. They didn't elect the attorney general.

The attorney general got confirmed by elected Senate. So if the president thinks there was wrong doing it anyway, he can certainly recommend that the attorney general have one of their massive investigations team, at least take a look.

And I don't think that's an abuse of the system. And by the way, when you have statements like this, come in at an error, hold a reminder, people. Way back, this is 13 years ago. He had no problem making a statement like this.

- Yeah, he said, I'm still the president's, we man. - We man. - Do we have sound on them if we sound of that? Do we have that? I don't know if it's a bite, we do, okay, we have a bite.

- Okay, yeah, let me know when we have that. But again, saying those famous words, and that's, so to reframe it as if historically, these roles have not been what President Trump, or like the President Trump has remade these roles,

is kind of factually inaccurate.

“- Yeah, I think that it's just President Trump talks”

about it more openly. - So like, whereas Barack Obama's not gonna be the one,

we always said this during the IRS investigation

of the Tea Party groups. We always said, you Barack Obama's not gonna go up there and say, I ordered this. Are you never gonna get an email saying from Barack Obama? And get email from other officials saying,

let's do this for him, let's do this. So we can get jobs inside the administration. We saw that from lowest level, so we can get politically appointed jobs, we get better positions, work with the FBI,

work with the DOJ because they will like that we are doing this. But you're never gonna get him on the record saying, go and do this. The difference is President Trump hides nothing behind closed doors. So he literally tells the American people

exactly what he's thinking of doing. And so instead of hiding it, - Let me just come to his detriment. - May be, because the way you-- - Because the truth is, as we proved

that 600 page report on the Biden administration, they politicized the DOJ, we know the Obama department, DOJ was heavily politicized. And again, and they were kind of the start of that coming back where we had a gap period where, honestly, yes,

there's always been the impeach with this talk that talk.

But where, again, certainly you would have DOJs with different priorities, based off who was in charge, that you could agree with and disagree with. But they really hypercharged the politics behind their DOJ. And the fact that he wasn't just saying it

in a press conference makes no difference. And it doesn't mean it's necessarily illegal. You can disagree with it, say it's wrong. But you see how they're trying to codify what they mean there. - Is it what they mean there?

- That's a very specific way. - They want Congress to pass a law that the President signs to restrict presidential power when it comes to the Department of Justice. What President would not veto that?

And by the way, what Congress does Barack Obama

“honestly see in the future is going to agree to do that?”

- Hey, phone lines are open for you, and we're going to take your calls actually in the next segment. We usually hold off, take calls towards the end, but we got a packed second half of the show. So if you aren't joining us online

or you're not joining us in a way that gets the full broadcast. But like Siri Sexam does, Salem News channel, YouTube, brother, I'm going to get your podcasts. That's the full hour. Some of you more traditional,

to rest your radio stations, they may not care in the full hour, they may split it up.

You can always join us live 12 to 1 PM East or in time

on all those different platforms. And of course, you can find us archived, however you get your podcasts. We are there. The second half is going to be packed.

We got three lines open right now. 1-800-684-3110. It's going to be a really interesting back half of the show. We're going to move a little bit more to the conversation back to Iran in the next segment

'cause we have three calls lined up. All are about that. We'll try to take as many as we can.

“A couple of my ACLJ champions, ACLJ champions,”

are people that give on a monthly reoccurring basis. So I really appreciate ACLJ champions and they get bumped to the front. So there's two. So they'll go first.

Liz, you'll be up first, then we'll move to Mike. And then Tony, you'll be after that. So stay on hold if you're on hold. We will do our best to get to as many of you as possible in the next segment.

Then after that, we're going to talk about ACLJ Jerusalem. As the head of ACLJ Jerusalem, Jeff Ballabon, we'll be joining us live from Israel. And then, we're going to discuss the impact and the legacy of Ted Turner, who just passed away.

Of course, a lot of you may have disagreed with a lot of his political statements, but there is no doubt that a lot of what we get to do here today. And a lot of, in really 24 hour news or any of this kind of, none of that existed

before Ted Turner really changed the game. So we're going to join by Eric Bischoff, former Turner, Executive, head of WCW, was Executive of the WWE Hall of Fame. He's the WWE Hall of Famer. And now is the head of the American Freestyle

on Fox Nation. We're going to talk all about that in this coming half hour joinus at ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. Keeping you informed and in game. Now, more than ever, this is secular.

And now you're host, Logan Secular. Welcome to Second Half Hour Secular.

As well, we are going to be joined a little bit later

by Jeff Ballabon, ACLJ Jerusalem. And head of Real American Freestyle,

“a great broadcast wrestling show that is on.”

It's real wrestling, not professional wrestling. But done with some of the best, you have C Fighters. And it's really worth a watch. It is on Fox Nation, Eric has been a long time friend. But before that, he was an executive at Turner with Ted Turner.

So we're going to talk about that. And of course, the passing of Ted Turner, what that means because the impact of his legacy will be 24 hour cable news. I mean, that will be something that no one will ever escape. Then the endless news cycle and how that evolves.

And you can probably start with an origin story that leads with Ted Turner. There are a bunch of calls right now. So many of you are calling in most about Iran. And the situation that is unfolded with what looks to be,

once again, possibly, in the end of the road

for the war in Iran, according to Marco Rubio, President Trump.

But what does that really mean? We've been discussing that. Let's go ahead and take some phone calls. ACLJ champions are on hold. They get to go first.

So Liz is calling line one in Florida. Thanks, Liz, you're on the air. Hey, Liz. Hi. I don't think we can use gas prices to determine

when the conflict is over because I don't trust the gas companies to lower the prices just because the war is over. Well, I mean, in your mind, what is the kind of point where the war is over, where you feel like the US has gotten done what it needs to get done?

Is it the nuclear enrichment out of Iran? Is it it, right now on the list is not a political leadership change. So for you, Liz, what would be getting that finishing the job be?

“I think when we start pulling our carrier groups back out,”

which I don't think Trump will do until the nuclear enrichment stuff is solved. So when we start pulling our carrier group out, then we can say it's over. Yeah, I mean, I think that's been building up for over a year.

So I think that's looking at a very long-term strategy. And I think that's almost like saying kind of resetting to pre-last summer, where we launched the attacks into-- and they were very strategic, strategic. But then we have been over time since those attacks

been building up and building up and getting those ships in place. So that's a longer-term move. I do think gas companies do not want gas prices so high that you don't drive or you, and of course,

decide not to fly. So they have an interest in getting it down to a level where the consumer feels comfortable enough. If it was spending a little more, but when you're talking about double in some places,

that's when it's hurting them, too. I want to quickly get to Mike, who's also an ACLJ champion. We'll do our best to get some of those later on. May not be able to stay on hold, though. Mike, line three, you're on the air.

Yeah, I'm very disappointed that we're not finishing the job. We haven't involved an enemy. Now, wants to destroy Israel, wants to destroy us. And, you know, it's a fastest growing Christian company country in the world who's a ran.

“Yeah, but I think they're going to keep telling people.”

Yeah, I think there is frustration for a lot of us who thought regime change meant freedom for the people, people, people. To have successful regime change, take the U.S. has learned this.

We can't force that on you. So we can make it easier. We can take out leadership. We can take out their weapons of war. But you still have to put your life on the line

if you want to change governments in most countries in the world. Like, it's not going to be a bloodless for the most part. That's pretty rare. It doesn't happen in our history.

And then you kind of have to fight over it again a few times. So that takes the people. We can put the pieces in place. And then the people have got to make the decision to make that move.

Right now, that doesn't seem to be on the table. I think, listen, in Iran without nuclear enrichment capability is a very different threat than in Iran with that is trying to get a deliverable nuclear weapon that could hit at least Europe

and eventually the United States. When you're talking about Iran, of course, who else is leaving this charge has been Israel. And we have our offices in Israel, the ACLJ Jerusalem. And we get back, we're going to be joined by Jeff Balabon

live from Jerusalem.

First time back in Jerusalem in a little bit of time.

So we're going to get some on the ground coverage of what it's like, how it's going there. And of course, it directly involves, we have the safety and security of Israel and their whole economy as well, to have this war happen.

So we're going to discuss that. And then later on, we join by Eric Bischoff. So you don't want to miss that. If you are on hold, we'll do our best to get your calls.

No guarantees will try our best, though. And we'll be right back on Secular. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome back to Secular. Again, we may take some calls and comments,

but we've got a packed second half of this show. We're now going to be jumping over to ACLJ Jerusalem

You back in Jerusalem, let's discuss that.

“Of course, we've discussed the first half of this show.”

A lot about what's happening in the war in Iran. I'm sure that is still having a major impact on what's going on in Israel. But let's just start there. Let's just start with kind of getting us the land,

how is the tone, how are things going? Sure. So just to paint a little color, see what it's like here. On the way at the airport in New York and then on flight, including in the Arab before we landed,

there were all kinds of rumors. Because now that you have engineering flights, you can pay attention to what's going on that the airport until it was going to be closed down because of dangerous potential of ratcheting up

again from Iran. So even in the last couple of hours,

there were some concerns that the flights

would be turned around and send someplace else. And then the question is, where do you go? Because Iran strikes a lot of places in the region. So maybe you're, but we landed it was fine. And in terms of the overall picture of what's happening,

I'd say that the one interesting discussion that I've had since I've been here about what's happening now, this breather, this hold-off, whatever it is, is that there's tremendous intelligence on the people in Iran

and has for many years because they are approximately existential threat. And so the targeting of the leadership has been such that the ones who are left behind are the ones that Israel at least hopes.

I mean, obviously the greater hope would have been for there to be a regime change. But in the meantime, at least hopes that these are not as Mark Ruby would say is the same in the brain, perhaps. And that you can have some dealings with them

at least in the short term to figure out some kind of a way forward. Not that there's a huge belief that it's a long term strategy, but at least for now, that's the hope that they left a cadre of people specifically

that can be dealt with to try and work things out right now. - Yeah, I mean, Jeff, we still don't exactly know who those individuals are. It hasn't been clear.

“I think the President's talked about that.”

You know, it's not going to keep sitting over JD Vance and Marco Rubio and 19 hour flights to Pakistan to sit down with people who don't have the ability to agree to anything or even these interim deals. And I think, again, to get to this 14-point plan

and to kind of 30-day ceasefire, opening of the strait, lifting of some temporary relief or sanctions, is this full removal of Iran's uranium stockpile. I mean, if you were going to look at the biggest possible potential victory out of this,

if Iran feels like they have to agree to this, that is a big win for not just the United States, but for Israel and the region, because it would imagine that even Iran's hardliners who may be still in charge to it with the IRGC

realized that they cannot withstand a continued US action. I mean, to me, that's the kind of sticking point I'm most interested in to seeing whether they agree on this. - Look, you know, journey your mings and very interesting points. And what's also a reason, and it's important to look back

over the last couple of months,

what's a reason has been extraordinary in that for the first time,

and this is entirely thanks to Donald Trump's presidency and the first instance, that the UAE being attacked by, a Muslim Arab country, being attacked by a Muslim Persian country, calls in Israel and Israel sends over troops and technology and weapons to help them fight.

This is extraordinary. We're not just talking about peaceful trade, we're talking about actual real time, more defenses, among countries that until Donald Trump came around, wouldn't even talk to each other,

or they wouldn't talk to Israel. And now they're relying on Israel to help them.

“So the truth is, there is still tremendous room for hope here.”

Iran still is sort of the destroyer of the region, and I personally believe that we do see need to see some kind of regime change for this to be safe, but nobody can make that happen. It has to be the Iranian people.

All that can happen is that the allies of the Iranian people can set up the circumstances as well as possible, as far as getting, yeah, but we're gonna do this. - These new allies. I mean, I think that's important, as you said, Jeff,

it's one thing to do business with each other, that was the Abraham Accords. It is another step to when you start working with each other in military defenses, sharing technology, sharing iron dome, technology, and because it kind of, it just unifies your countries

that much more when you are standing side by side fighting and enemy. So one thing that's come out of this certainly is that you have a much stronger allegiance of allies than it's not the US just having to cobble together,

because we have the allegiances independently with those Gulf states, with Israel on its own now being able to work so directly, that Iran, and it's surrounding Iran, certainly now, you've got a region of allies who working together

and coming together have the resources to really be a check on Iran. I mean, they may not individually be even close to the size of Iran, but when you put their economies and where their militaries are technologically,

certainly they can be a huge, not just buffer anymore, but a real threat to Iran. So that's right, and people are looking at the negatives

but the positives are just as we described right now,

and there's a term that came into power

“in the first Trump administration, also called Pax, Silica.”

And the idea that, they called Pax America, so the post-World War II generation where America was the world's cop. Well, there are other forces that are competing and in the new world where we're not paying,

we don't, America doesn't want to be the police for the whole world, the idea that there can be other countries that because of new technologies or able from a distance to really take control and keep things safer and more secure

for our American interests globally, that's happening, and Israel seems to be at the core of that, and this is one expression of that. - One of the things Jeff also that keeps coming up, and if you're in sort of the zeitgeist

on social media and seeing it is also what's currently going on or not going on with the war in Gaza. And it's kind of become a afterthought for a lot of people, but then there's still a lot of conversation of what that actually looks like right now.

Of course, in terms of ceasefires, we know that that is somewhat still standing that that exists, but we also know that that's not a conflict that is completely resolved by any means, but let's give a little bit of some color on that as well

of how that feels. That's obviously even a little closer to home locally. - Well, yeah, that's a great point, Logan,

“and it's not just Gaza, I mean, it's Lebanon and Syria, right?”

Syria is still waiting to be sorted out, right? That's in northern border. Lebanon, northern border. That is still waiting to be sorted out, and there's still troops, it's really troops there

because they're finding massive tunnel systems, massive weapons problems. You know, again, these, all these countries have been for decades, have been run by, or these territories, countries have been run by Iran

through proxies, who had won gold, the totally eradication of the state of Israel. Those wars are still going on, but thanks, and again, this is sort of what Trump has been saying. The really epic, the work that was done by Israel,

first on its own, then together with America, really has set back their causes, but we're far from, from out of the woods. These are generational problems that have been building for just decades and decades and decades,

and it's gonna take a long time for them to actually find some kind of safety and security. - We have to now start discussing, again, sort of getting Israel back on the good PR train because they have taken a lot of hits here in the United States

and seemed to continue to, it feels like, look, and we can see worldwide, and how it has obviously spread to not just Israel or Israelis, you now have just the Jewish community, and really see what happens in the golders' green,

and the UK just a few days ago. These attacks keep happening, and somehow, again, rationalize, normalized, and you could discuss,

I've always said, we could discuss,

or do you think that the actions of Israel have gone on too long what it could be, the political side of Israel, that's totally different than the conversation of what's happening right now, which is now just fails like,

excuse violence, just due to an ethnic connection. - Yeah, let's not, I don't know if you saw what happened in New York, these events happen all the time. People Jews in America, especially in religious Jewish communities, like to have retirement homes, or a place to be in Israel,

maybe for their kids or whatever for their lives, and so they real estate comes to shows in synagogues, and people come or Jewish community centers. Anyway, there was a huge massively violent attack against one of those in New York.

Now, my mdani didn't help at all, by the way, before I left, I was speaking to a New York police officer who was complaining to me just terribly, have un-supported, they feel, in general, by my mdani, and so it became a free for all,

and it is pure anti-Semitic hate and violence, against the idea that a Jew shouldn't be allowed to buy a home in Jerusalem. Why shouldn't the Jew be allowed to buy home anymore? Would we ever say about any other religion or race or ethnic group?

“You should, it should be illegal for you at all,”

at home someplace. We'll let alone a Jew in Jerusalem, and yet it's every excuse to just attack Jews, and I don't know, I don't know how we roll that back, because as we keep on talking about here,

it's not just one side anymore, it's really seeping around the fringes all over. - I saw my nabby statement, of course, he called it out, did say that it was an anti-Semitic attack, there was no place for it, and I saw two different responses.

Of course, one of them was not, of course, agreeing with him, condemning it. The answers were either, how dare he now count out to the, the anti-Semitic crowd calling for anti-Semitism, saying this anti-Semitic, or the other one was saying,

he didn't write this, this was AI-generated. So he was either, and his apology was fake, or his apology was offensive, or not apology, but his response saying that it was even anti-Semitic. So his own people, even when he knows is the mayor of New York,

he's going to come out and make some sort of statement, and that statement may be like he said, not far enough. It doesn't matter 'cause the people on social media are going to say either, how dare you condemn Jewish hatred, or the other one is, you clearly didn't write this,

this was AI, he never, he really got a couple seconds here.

- Yeah. - Everyone gets you on the wrong side of this, no one takes him, no one takes him seriously,

- Absolutely, look, we gotta thanks Jeff for calling in,

we appreciate it, it's always great to hear from Jeff

and the ACLJ Jerusalem getting back going. We'll have Jeff on, I'm sure next week, to discuss even further what he's up to. Hey, we get back in the next segment, we are joined by Eric Bishoff, a former Turner executive,

of course, time at the passing of Ted Turner, and the impact that he had on, what all of us do, each and every day here in New's media, as well as real American freestyle, great new show, that's available to sports league,

that is on Fox Nation, we're gonna discuss that. Coming up, stay tuned, it's gonna be a great segment, we'll be right back with more on secular. (upbeat music) - Second yellow, this is a really interesting segment.

Look, we all saw this morning, the breaking news, the passing of Ted Turner, a, you know, I mean, look, President Trump just put out

“one of the greats of all time, and I think that that”

is something that we could all agree on, is it least? You may not have agreed with everything, Ted Turner stood for politically, whatever may be, but there is a very good chance, we wouldn't be doing what we're doing today.

If it wasn't for some of his vision in the early days of CNN, of course, the early days of media in general, we're joined by Eric Beshoff, it was an obviously a former Turner executive with WCW, of course, later on,

WWE Hall of Famer, and now, Chief Media Officer at Real America freestyle, which is on Fox Nation RAF, which is just an absolute blast, we're gonna get to that. But Eric, I wanted to start just with you just to check in, of course, this is sad day for a lot

of people in America, but really the impact, and you had the, I guess the luck if you will, or the ordination to be able to work directly with a very eccentric, interesting figure who really shaped the modern landscape of media.

- I mean, he really did, when you think about it, the change that Ted Turner brought to the media landscape, and he did it in such a outrageous way, and of course, came across the game,

“Captain Outrageous as a result, but that many other things.”

But, you know, he saw things so far into the future beyond what most visionaries in entrepreneurs would see. You know, the idea of a 24-hour global news platform at the time was absurd, and people thought he was out of his mind, you know, the superstations strategy.

It's just so many things, you know, when Ted Turner went out and bought the MGM Film Library, everybody, all the business experts in financial experts in the country, you know, thought he had lost his mind and was gonna go bankrupt as a result.

And it turns out, Ted knew early on what others learned is, it's one thing to be a great distribution of content. It's another thing to create own and distribute your content. Ted was really a leader in that regard, and just he was an entrepreneur's entrepreneur, man.

It's just so fascinating to even have a glimpse into what working with Ted Turner was like. - Yeah, and hearing those stories from you, Eric,

is always so fascinating, and it gave you a different light.

And there was a great documentary they put out on him a few years ago, but Jordan and I grew up in Atlanta,

“and really he changed the city in the state.”

- Eric brought up like the superstations, so like TBS, the Atlanta Braves becoming America's team. I mean, which, again, was a strategic move to put the Atlanta Braves on kind of like how you'd see the Chicago Cubs at the WGN, and kind of rival that.

But the same time for me, someone who grew up and said, you know, I want to go right into politics. If you hadn't had seen in, you weren't necessarily going to be making it to the 10 o'clock news at night, every night or at just local news.

Like I finally had a place to go as a kid. I could like see what was going on in the world, and of course, one of those first things was the Gulf War. It was 24 hour coverage of the Gulf War in real time, not getting reports, 24 hours later,

but journalists who were on the ground,

and people always saying, you know, what the next move.

I was just in a film festival last week for Turner Classic Movies, because my father-in-law was a child actor in one of the movies that they play all the time. Because Turner Classic Movies now is owned by Warner Bros.

- Yeah. - But it has all-- - You'll bought all those notes about that. - But all of those catalogs though, and it still goes under that name. I was just thinking about it, as we were sitting here,

there I am with the red carpet for the Chinese theater, and we are under the Turner name. And it's still a network, and it was its fans who would pay, I think, four to $5,000 to attend this three-day festival for movies

that were being made from the 1950s, all up until, you know, like, father of the bride, those kind of movies that run uninterrupted, still on network, but also are streaming. So you've got, I just think, again, buying those catalogs,

things that we now see happening all the time. - The legendary, in all of that. - But news, the news, for all of us, none of us would exist in these realms without seeing in first-starting,

and really just, you know, going 24 hours, putting people all around the world, and making that investment, which was very expensive.

and even the world of podcasts,

and we're going to get into RIF here in just a second.

I mean, that, you could find sort of the nucleus there that it all kind of started, you know, early on, with what became a 24-hour news, and all of us getting used to hearing people talk as entertainment.

- Yeah, and I'm with you guys, you know, the first Gulf War was really, it was so, it was the first time you could immerse yourself on something that was so significant that had global implications, but you could,

“I mean, I was, I think I must have watched”

see it in 20 hours of day when that was going down. I could not get myself away from it, and that's the first time that our culture was really ever exposed to that, and look where we are now, you know, news is such an important commodity

before it was a public service.

Now it is a commodity, and I think a lot of that has to do it's in turn here. - I wanted to give you enough time also, 'cause one of the great things that you have come out with here in the last year is, you're right in the shirt,

Real American Free Style, RIF, we've been watching it at home, my son's a big, mixed martial arts fan, of course we all grew up big, professional wrestling fans, and this is sort of a combination of the reality of sports, with some of the pageantry of professional wrestling,

and it is a lot of fun, it's on Fox Nation, and it's a big event coming up, I know, at the end of May, but even people who may be, our audience maybe doesn't know about RIF, we've got a couple of minutes here, I think we need to be pitching this.

- Yeah, I know, I mean, Real American Free Style, it was really Hulk Cougan, Chad Bronstein, Izzy Martinez came to me and said, hey, we've got this vision, we want to take freestyle wrestling, if the Olympic level, you know, in the world class level,

we need to lead athletes, and we want to create a professional link, because it didn't exist, nobody had been able to figure it out, and they tagged me in, because I, you know,

“I think they believe that I could bring the entertainment”

to the sport, everybody knew what freestyle wrestling was, it comes around once every four years, me, Olympics, so you know, okay, great, or the NCAAs, but we wanted to bring it into the mainstream and make it entertaining, we've been blessed,

there's no other way to say it than that, the amount of growth and success we've experienced, and literally eight months now of producing these events is beyond my comprehension. - You are seeing huge, really got a couple of minutes here,

huge social media presence, you're seeing people talking about this more than I ever expected, Eric, it's really great to see, it's really great to see this again, it's on Fox Nations, if you're a Fox Nation member, you get to watch these shows, and it's gonna be expanding,

and there's an event coming up May 30th, and it's coming in Texas, like I said, these are names from the UFC, this is names from the Olympics, your cable Stevenson, you've got all these people that are coming on board, so if you're a UFC fan or MMA fan,

“you're gonna find a home here, but also,”

if you're one of those families, it maybe you're like, this is maybe, you know, UFC's not quite accessible for me and my family to sit down and watch yet. What I like about RAF is that it's still incredibly entertaining, of course, it's all there, but it's not quite to that level

of like I should say hardcore violence that comes from an in-language thing. - We like to infer to ourselves as family friendly, combat sports, and I know that sounds a little bit, you know, like it doesn't really fit well together,

but it does, because if you look at MMA, the greatest athletes in MMA right now, as my, as a matter of fact, just signed with real American freestyle, and it's gonna be big weekend coming up with a striclet. So if you look at the very best MMA fighters,

they all have wrestling backgrounds, that's their foundation. So we've got that kind of sweet spot between MMA and the very foundation of MMA freestyle wrestling, and we just believe that we could make it entertaining, and we have, and it's that saying,

man, if you build up their common, they're coming in droves,

and it's such a great opportunity, it's really amazing.

- It's a blast and look, Eric's been a long time friend, so you know when you're watching RAF also, you are enjoying a great people that are behind this. So I couldn't be more excited to support you guys who're doing here, and again, thank you for coming on.

I know that it's somewhat of a heavy day for all of us and for you specifically, but again, we are happy to have that discussion with you today, and again, if you ever need to come, and look, we're kinda come out to an RAF event.

I'm making it out there, we're gonna make the trip, and hopefully you make one in Nashville, we'll be there a matchside, I guess, if you will, but thank you so much, Eric, for joining us today, I really appreciate it.

And with that, that's gonna do it for today's show. We're talking all around the world. I hope you enjoyed it, see you tomorrow. (gunshot)