SEKULOW

Logan Sekulow: Welcome to Sekulow for today. Will Haynes is joining me in studio. This is Logan Sekulow. We're going to be taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110, reporting on a lot of the news that's happening and the work of the ACLJ.

From yesterday, we had that discussion about that panel that ended up turning into what felt like a setup anti-Semitism panel, going after a lot of the pro-Israel conservatives that were sitting there. We're going to discuss that as there are some big updates.

A lot of you probably woke up, as I did, to news alerts that there had been a full airspace closure over the West Texas town of El Paso. Again, phone lines are open for you. What does it look like? Why did this happen? Originally, this was announced to be a 10-day closure of airspace. This doesn't really happen much at all in America. I don't think this has happened since September 11th, when all airspace was closed temporarily. Now, they have already lifted it.

Why did this happen? We're going to break that down. A lot of it has to do with border security. We get a little convoluted in terms of the difference in immigration reform, what ICE is doing, and the border.

One of the things that we have conflated over the years is what border security looks like and what it looks like for drug traffickers who are bringing drugs into our country. In our brains, it may always seem like it's people trying to cross the border with their jackets and pants full of drugs, sneaking over.

That is not how it operates. It operates on a much more technological and significant way. These aren't small operations. These are large drug traffickers. These are rich individuals funding different ways to get drugs into our country. We believe that this is what it had to deal with.

Will Haynes: According to the FAA, they put a 10-day ground stop on all flights and a temporary airspace restriction for that El Paso area for special security reasons. There was shock by a congresswoman from the area who said they had no prior warning of this and that a 10-day air stop is unprecedented. She was saying she was going to continue to get answers on this.

It was reopened a few hours later, but then it was told that there was a drone incursion from Mexican cartels and that the Department of War had taken action and neutralized that threat. Drone incursions from the cartels is actually not something new. They use drones to smuggle weapons and drugs, to surveil, and to understand the movements of Border Patrol.

For some reason, this led to a lot of speculation. It was seen to be something much bigger than just a normal, everyday run-of-the-mill cartel drone going over the border because of this 10-day special security reasons ground stop. The Department of War neutralized that threat and they reopened the airspace. We're going to get into that, what this quasi-war with the cartels looks like, and what it means for the immigration debate.

Logan Sekulow: With that debate, there are some new findings coming from sources like CNN. You wouldn't think they necessarily would want to be giving a Trump administration any praise, but the data and the information about the decline in crime are pretty staggering.

We need to make sure that we are not forgetting that some of these tactics are chaotic. Some of the tactics, though, are working. Let's break that down when we get back. Phone lines are open for you. When you get this push notification that says airspace closed in America, how do you feel about that? There's a lot of other news breaking around the country as well. We'll keep you updated on that as needed.

Logan Sekulow: Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open at 1-800-684-3110. A lot of you are just joining us right now, so we have to restate what's going on. A lot of you probably woke up this morning to a push notification on your phone from a news service saying that there has been an air closure over El Paso, Texas.

Why did the airspace close? Originally, they had said this was going to be a 10-day closure. This was one of the biggest closures since September 11th of 2001. Now, we are only a few hours later and that airspace has reopened. It starts to open up and beg those questions of why this happened and what this has to do with whatever's going on in West Texas.

Will Haynes: The Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, put a post on X that said the FAA and the Department of War acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion. The threat has been neutralized, and there is no longer danger to commercial travel in the region. The restrictions have been lifted and normal flights are resuming.

As we mentioned before, the cartels use drones to smuggle drugs across the border. They have IEDs that they can drop from drones. They can smuggle weapons. They even just use it for surveillance tactics, finding new places to mule people across the border for their coyotes. They also use it to track Border Patrol.

There are also many ways that the US combats this, whether it be through technological ways you can take down a drone by disabling it with a directed pulse that will disable the technology, causing the drones to collapse to the ground. There's also this situation here where people are speculating.

Because this happens all the time, was there something else going on? We know that it is near Fort Bliss. We know that there's a lot of new technology that the United States has been trying out in places like Venezuela. Was there a concern that if they were testing out new technology on the drones that has not been previously tested in the radius of commercial airlines, is that a situation?

There's a lot we don't know and a lot of speculation because, in and of itself, a drone incursion across the border traditionally is not cause for a complete ground stop, especially for 10 days. We know that this is over, but there are a lot more questions, especially for members of Congress that represent these areas. I think we will find out more about what's going on, but it doesn't seem that the superficial story of it being an everyday type of drone is the whole truth. There is another reason why the FAA decided that a 10-day ground stop was necessary for a time.

Logan Sekulow: Maybe they thought it was something stronger and bigger than what it was and they were able to go in and investigate this situation and realize it was not a threat or was a minor threat. However, that doesn't change the fact that the news always seems to be changing. As I've said here on this show, it feels like we can only focus on one story at a time. Right now, the only thing being covered is the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be a top story. It is horrific, and we are praying for that family and hope she gets home safely. But again, I feel like the American people can balance a few stories at once. You can balance what's going on in Minnesota, in Iran, and with Nancy Guthrie, and then also have situations like this where we can discuss the framing of immigration reform and what that looks like.

I did feel like some of those moments with ICE in Minnesota made you go, "I think there's a difference." You can hit this broad with what immigration looks like, what border security looks like, and what going into a city and starting to deport people and the chaos that could bring to a city.

That is not necessarily always the same as what's happening directly at the border. A lot of people are at least on the side of there being some kind of border protection and, hopefully, most of them on the side of there not being drug cartels or human trafficking cartels being able to run amuck in our country. We have seen some of these changes in the way crime is treated in America provide some significant decreases in numbers.

This was coming from CNN. If they're biased, they certainly are biased against giving any credit to a conservative administration. Let's actually take a look at these numbers. This should stir you to call in because here is what's going on. This is the most recent Major Cities Chiefs Association survey, which is made up of statistics compiled from 67 of 68 responding law enforcement agencies.

It shows that homicides were down 19 percent last year, the first year of the Trump presidency part two. That's in homicides. Reports also show that robbery was down almost 20 percent. Sexual assault was down 9 percent, and aggravated assault was down 10 percent last year compared to 2024.

That shows you how actual change in some of these laws and leadership can affect the safety on the streets. You may get scared because you're looking at the news and you're seeing chaos in Minnesota and the situation with Nancy Guthrie. Let's not forget that the statistics show that we're actually headed in the right direction.

Logan Sekulow: Welcome back to Sekulow. We are taking your calls at 1-800-684-3110. Again, we were talking about what's happening in El Paso, Texas. There was a lot of confusion this morning as the airspace was closed. It's being closed for 10 days after a drone incursion. Now, they have lifted that after just a few hours.

It opens up a lot of questions for the American people that this would even happen again. I think it was scheduled to be the longest since September 11th. Why did this happen? A lot of thoughts on it having to deal with border security and drug trafficking. The technological ways that drugs can be brought into the United States through our southern border isn't always on a human body.

These are highly technological, sophisticated drug-running groups. It is a 13 billion dollar industry in 2022. Remember, there were two more years of the failed Biden-Harris policies after that report came out. I can imagine that with the amount of illegal immigration coming across the southern border, that number has drastically been cut down.

At the same time, President Trump is currently meeting with Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu. They are discussing what the future is with Iran and how Israel will be supported. We also remember what we talked about yesterday, which was the rise in anti-Semitic rhetoric and anti-Zionist rhetoric that has started to come out of the right. The alt-right, this influencer right, has decided that that is going to be the sword that they die on. We need to refresh everyone of what happened at this Religious Freedom Summit.

Will Haynes: This was a hearing of the Religious Liberty Commission where their entire goal, which was created out of an executive order last year from President Trump, involves people like Franklin Graham, Dr. Phil, and Cardinal Dolan, well-known figures in the religious world. They are supposed to be having hearings and hearing about the status of religious liberty in this country and making policy recommendations to the President.

Yesterday's was on anti-Semitism. It had members testify that experienced anti-Semitism at universities in the United States post-October 7th. You had this commissioner, someone who was on the board until today, Carrie Prejean Boller, who decided to hijack the hearing and turn it into an interrogation of these individuals about anti-Semitism.

We can now announce, and we called for it yesterday, that she needed to be removed from this commission. Dan Patrick, who is the Lieutenant Governor of Texas and the chair of this commission, has announced now that Carrie Prejean Boller has been removed from President Trump's Religious Liberty Commission. No member of the commission has a right to hijack a hearing for their own personal and political agenda on any issue.

This was an individual who was saying things like, "You would call me anti-Semitic for not being a Zionist and believing that Jews killed Jesus." Also, she was speaking with authority about Catholicism. She's been a convert to Catholicism just since last April. Meanwhile, there was an actual Cardinal of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Dolan, that was sitting near her, and she was lecturing how no Catholics are Zionists and they don't believe in the issue of Zionism.

She went on to say things about how Candace Owens is labeled an anti-Semite and she listens to her daily and has never said anything anti-Semitic. She asked the members of the commission, "I've been keeping notes. You've mentioned Israel 17 times. Will you now condemn Israel for their war in Gaza?" It was an interrogation. She was wearing a Palestinian flag pin to this commission. She wanted to be an antagonist, and now she has been removed.

That was a great move from the commission. However, the rift within conservatism exists because now you are seeing Marjorie Taylor Greene post "I'm with her" and a clip of her going after these individuals on the panel. You see Candace Owens rushing to her defense with a statement on X that spews some of the same lies and anti-Semitic tropes talking about child sacrifice to Baal. Those are the thousand-year-old slanders against Jewish people that are being regurgitated. That's her defense of this individual.

Logan Sekulow: If you have a problem with the political state of Israel, you don't like what they're doing, you don't like the war in Gaza, I understand. I don't necessarily agree with you, but I understand you're allowed to have that opinion. When you start peddling tropes, like Marjorie Taylor Greene has been peddling those tropes for years and years, it became something that conservatives almost had to put out of their minds.

They had to kind of forget about it, saying she didn't really say that about the space lasers or about them controlling the weather. Now, there's no more having to defend it because you see through the lies. That's the one thing that I've always been very happy with this show. For this one hour a day, we don't lie to you and we don't pander to you.

I don't tell you things because it fits a party platform. If I wanted to do that, I would probably have a much more successful show. That's what a lot of these people are doing. They are pandering to you, they are giving you the information they think you want even if they don't believe it themselves. Do I think Candace Owens believes it? I do think she believes these things.

I do think Marjorie Taylor Greene believes these things because if they didn't, they actually would have probably had a much more successful mainstream career. The version of Marjorie Taylor Greene that now shows up on The View, after being the person who is going after Israel and going after the Trump administration, doubles and triples and quadruples down. It's people who are hungry for the attention.

But we never do that here. We are consistent, but we are consistent but honest. I've had issues with Israel before. They have not always had someone that I agreed with running the country, just like people have issues with America and they don't always agree. Flashback a year ago, you probably didn't agree with a lot of what was going on in this country. There's nothing wrong with that.

But when you start peddling these tropes is when all of it starts to unravel and it just becomes pure hatred. We have to fight back against that on the conservative right and on the liberal left, that this demonization of anyone based on just their blood is something that we are okay with or are comfortable with. We're willing to come up with these really ridiculous ideas and regurgitate nonsense.

That has sadly become more and more creeping into the mainstream. It happened in the left and no one said anything. It's happening in the right and at least you have some people pushing back. But I need those voices to be louder. I need your voice to be louder as well. We get back, we're taking calls on that. We're taking calls and questions. Of course, we are happy that person was removed from that panel, but just that they were there in the first place is a concern. We'll be right back with just a moment. Second half hour of Sekulow coming up.