As seen on “The 700 Club,†Aug 9.: Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired more than 150 rockets in one of the largest escalations by the terror group; Lessons of Love, Life, and Death from Inside the Reagan White House; Cyber Attack on ... ...
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- Well welcome folks to thisedition of The 700 Club.
Well, it seems to be a never-ending story.
The terror group knownas Hamas talks peace
to the whole world while itcontinues to wage war on Israel.
More than 150 rocketssoared across the border
just on Wednesday, sendingIsraelis to the hospital,
and thousands more into bomb shelters.
- Israel is striking back, taking out more
than 100 Hamas strongholds in Gaza.
As John Waage explains,this all comes after weeks
of negotiations for a long-term ceasefire.
(screaming)
(explosion booms)
- In the streets ofSderot panic once again
as the sirens signalincoming rockets from Gaza.
Hamas says the barrage is retaliation
for Israel's earlierkilling of two Hamas snipers
who were said to be in training
and not firing at Israeli troops.
The terror group's response sent
stressed-out Israelisheading for shelters,
and Israel's militarypounded Hamas targets
in the Gaza strip withstrike after strike.
This wave of bombardmentcomes after days of debate
here in Jerusalem aboutwhether Israel should agree
to a five-year Egyptian-brokeredceasefire with Hamas.
Now with roads, and beaches,and summer camps closing
in Southern Israel, and wearyresidents sick of sirens,
the talk has turned to military strategy.
At least one Knessetmember, a retired colonel,
is calling for the headsof the Hamas leadership.
And U.S. Middle East negotiatorJason Greenblatt tweeted,
another night of terror,and families huddling
in fear as Israel defends itself.
This is the Hamas regime's choice.
Hamas is subjecting its people
to the terrifying conditions of war again.
Meanwhile, UN leaders warnthat Gaza residents face
impending disaster, withsevere fuel shortages
already plaguing the city, but with more
than 100,000 Israelis underfire, the fuel problem may not
be Gaza's greatestworry in the days ahead.
John Waage, CBN news Jerusalem.
- Well, it was anamazing when the Israelis
who had control of theGaza strip pulled out
of it in supposedly a peace effort.
It was ill-considered, andit looks like every time
they make an overture of peace, Hamas,
or one of those radical groups,
comes in to steal the peace away.
Well, that's what's happening,
and they control that partof the Palestinian Authority,
and the Palestinian Authority really
has no control over Gaza.
It's a shame, it really is a shame,
but that's what's going on.
Well, in other news, we'vetold you how cyber attacks
could leave millionsscrambling in the dark.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry tells CBN news
his number one priority isprotecting the power grid.
Efrem Graham has morefrom our CBN newsroom.
Here's Efrem.
Well, Pat, from banking to transportation
to communications, major industries
are connected by the Internet.
That technology can pose a grave threat
to our national security.
In an exclusive interviewwith the Energy Secretary,
he tells CBN's Jenna Browder some of
the best minds in America are working
to protect America against cyber attacks.
- There's perhaps no more serious threat
to the United States thana crippling cyber attack
on the country's power grid.
Just ask Secretary of Energy Rick Perry.
It's what he says he and his department
are largely focused on.
How vulnerable is theUnited States' power grid
from a major cyber attack?
- It's of great concern because
we're not where we were 10 years ago.
This is a completelydifferent world we live in
from the standpoint ofhow it's interconnected.
- [Jenna] Perry says one factor
is old infrastructure, andit's not actually all bad.
- So in one way that kind of protects it,
because you've got some old technology
in there, some old analog equipment.
On the other hand, all the digital,
the new types of technology that's there
is vulnerable to a cyber attack.
- [Jenna] Another factor.
- The Russians havesome thuggish behavior.
There's not any doubt about that.
- [Jenna] Russia, and other countries
like Iran, and North Korea, and China,
looking to infiltrate everything from
our power plants to elections.
In the case of Russia.
- So I think we're findingthe right balance between
if you cannot be a citizen of the world,
and act in an appropriate way,
there's gonna be some real punishments.
But if you do, then we can find some ways
to work together, to tradetogether, to help each other.
- When it comes to NorthKorea, how much of a role
is the department of energy playing
in talks with Kim Jong-un,and in denuclearization?
- I think the president is spot on.
I think he's verycourageous to step forward,
and carry on these conversationsand carry on this dialogue.
- [Jenna] And if the administration
can achieve that goal, Perry says
the department of energywill play a key role
because of its technical expertise.
- If the President andSecretary Pompeo and others
are successful in gettingNorth Korea to agree
to denuclearize, the Department of Energy
will play a substantial rolein the verification side of it,
of the deconstructingof any of the weapons,
and then the decommissioning,and the disposal of, as well.
- If there's a silver lining to the threat
our power grid faces,Secretary Perry says it's this.
- We're vulnerable, but every place
in the world is vulnerable.
The good news is that our national abs,
some of the smartest menand women in the world,
are working on ways todefend, working on ways
to both defensively andoffensively deal with
these individuals whowould attack our grid.
- [Jenna] In Washington,Jenna Browder, CBN News.
- And Pat, you've warned ofthis danger for quite some time.
- A whole lot about it.
You know, I appreciate whatSecretary Perry was saying,
but I sure wish he would said,
here's one, two, threefour, what we're gonna do,
not we've got good minds studying it.
We've studied it long enough.
The threat is absolutelyreal, and you've got, again,
a thermonuclear blastat about 1500, 2000 feet
in the heartland of Americawould cripple the grid
all across this nation, that's number one.
A solar flare, and they're not unheard of,
suddenly you've got a blast from the sun
of solar energy that comes out,
and that could knock our grid out.
And when that happens I'm talking about
it's tragedy, and millionsof people will die.
I don't want to havepeople studying it anymore.
I want them to fix it,and I think the thing
we need to do is a major,major governmental thrust
to make sure that thisgrid is safe and hardened,
and we've got to get allthose nodes taken care of.
I know that some of them are cyber,
and, I mean, are theold-fashioned, or less interesting,
and then some of them arenew and on the Internet,
and that's good, too, but we've got to
fix them so they all work together.
It is a crisis that'sgot to be dealt with,
and the money involvedis minuscule compared to
the damage that can be donewith one of these cyber attacks.
Well, Efrem, what you got?
- Pat, President Trump'sattorneys are saying no
to an interview with specialcounsel Robert Mueller.
Mueller wanted an in-personinterview covering
several topics, includingpossible obstruction of justice.
The President's team will notaccept those terms, saying
they'll take written questions,
but probably won't answer anyabout obstruction of justice.
Now Mueller can make a counter-offer,
or try to force the President to testify.
The President's attorney saysthat would be unprecedented.
- [Rudy] So long as he'smaking his decision voluntarily
and not submitting to a subpoena,
then that's not inconsistentwith what other presidents did.
There's no question thePresident would resist
any kind of an attemptto force him to testify.
- Rudy Giuliani also repeatedhis calls for Mueller
to wrap this Russia investigation,
saying there should be areport by September 1st, Pat.
- Well, Rudy's also said thatthe scandal is going to be
the special prosecutor and his team,
and the fact that they didn'tgo after Hillary Clinton.
There's one fact thatwe've learned just recently
is that the FBI notifiedSenator Feinstein that she
had a Chinese agent working in her staff,
and she immediatelydismissed this individual.
They should have done the samething for President Trump,
but they didn't, yet theyhave brought charges against
some of these people, butthey've said they didn't notify
the candidate that he hadsuspicious people working
with him, and if therewas anything it looks like
the only charge they've got is
this Christopher Steeledossier that was paid for
by the Democrats, andthe whole thing has been
a fraud from the beginning,and it's said that
the American people are gonna be
absolutely horrifiedwhen all this comes out.
But in the mean time Mueller keeps
dragging, dragging, dragging, dragging,
and I had Alan Dershowitzon the other day,
and we were talking aboutthe Whitey Bulger matter
when the so-called specialprosecutor was then
running the FBI office of Boston,
and Bulger was hiding out in plain sight,
and the FBI couldn't catch him.
It was just ridiculous,so these people are not
the sharp watchdogs of oursafety that they purport to be,
and the FBI has had a terriblestain on its reputation
because of the misconduct of people
like Peter Strzok, and LisaPage, and others like that.
It's just horrible to see it happening,
but the fact that he might try to...
I don't know if they want togo to war with the President
on this one, to force him to testify,
because what is obstruction of justice?
Leading legal experts say that a president
in a fulfillment of his Constitutional
mandated responsibilities cannot
be held guilty of quoteobstructing justice.
You just cannot obstruct justice
when you're following outyour Constitutional duties,
so in any event I hope this thing...
It's weighing on all of us,it needs to be wrapped up,
we've had enough of it,it's cost a lot of money,
and it's not doinganybody any good at all.
It really isn't, they aren't.
Alan Dershowitz said soclearly some years ago,
and he said it again, we should have had
a commission study this matter.
If there is Russianinfluence, then it ought to be
dealt with on a dispassionate level
by a blue-ribbon commission,not by some prosecutor.
All right, Efrem, what's next?
- Pat, despite high level negotiations
between Turkish and US officialsin Washington Wednesday,
American pastor Andrew Brunson
remains under house arrest in Turkey.
He faces another hearing
on espionage-related charges in October.
Many call the proceedingsa kangaroo court,
and until now Brunson's supporters
have had no idea what's happening.
CBN's Jennifer Wishon brings us
this first-hand accountfrom inside the courtroom.
- A courtroom designed to makePastor Brunson feel defeated.
Bogus witnesses bribed by the prosecution,
and the power of forgiveness.
An eyewitness takes usinside Pastor Brunson's
persecution in Turkey.
- The court used to belike a basketball court,
or some sort of sports court,that has been turning to
a courtroom right nextto a very large prison,
and a way up front there arethree judges in a raised dais,
and very low is Pastor Andrew Brunson,
witnesses for the prosecution,and Pastor Brunson's lawyer.
There over 500 chairsbetween him and the area
where observers like me andhis wife are allowed to seat.
- [Jennifer] KristinaArriaga of the US Commission
on InternationalReligious Liberty attended
Pastor Brunson's most recent hearing.
Seated beside his wife Norine,she watched in disbelief.
- Because Pastor Brunsoncannot see very well
from far away, any time helooks back towards his wife
she stands up and putsher hand over her heart
so he knows he's not alone.
Pastor Brunson sat there while he heard
former church members, peopleprobably that he baptized,
people that he had teawith testify against him,
and the judge at one pointturned to him around noontime,
and asked Andrew Brunson tospeak for himself, and he said,
"My faith teaches me to forgive,
"So I forgive those whojust testified against me."
There was a chill in the room.
I know his wife, who isgraceful and extremely strong,
probably found that tobe a natural answer,
but I was stunned and movedto tears when he said that.
- Why would his church members, people
that he was intimatewith testify against him?
- I imagine these people wereunder tremendous pressure
to keep their jobs or feed their families.
We don't know what kind ofthreats they were under.
- [Jennifer] Brunson has been transferred
from prison to house arrest,
but Arriaga fears that puts him at risk.
- But he's in a terriblydangerous situation
because the Brunsons areportrayed in the Turkish press
as people who are againstthe state of Turkey,
and I have great fears there's gonna be
an increase of incitementto violence against him,
and no one will be ableto stop someone, a mob,
that tries to go and kill him.
- [Jennifer] Armed withsanctions, and the power
to withhold F-35 fighter jetsTurkey wants to purchase,
U.S. officials from the WhiteHouse to Congress continue
to pressure Turkey's president,
Recep Erdogan, to release Brunson.
His next hearing is October 12th.
Jennifer Wishon, CBN News.
- An amazing account, Pat.
- Well, the Turks are strong allies.
They're members of NATO, but Erdogan
is clearly trying to move Turkey
into a Islamic dictatorship, a theocracy,
and this thing he talkedabout the clash between
the mosque and the church and so forth.
He really wants to fight with Christians.
Brunson had a little Church,I think in North Carolina,
a little evangelical church, like Baptist
or something like that.
He had a small little church,and that was in Izmir, Turkey,
and he wasn't doinganything to hurt anybody,
and to claim that he's somehow
an enemy of the state is just outrageous.
But in Turkey they supposedlyhave religious freedom,
and we've had a lot of people in Turkey,
we have a very robust program in Turkey,
and thousands of thosepeople have come to the Lord.
They're good people, but this Erdogan
is not one of the peoplewe want to support,
and we put sanctions already.
President Trump has sanctioned a couple
of his officials, and itlooks like more is coming.
Withholding, we certainly shouldn't
have them doing F-35 high-powered jets
to build up theirmilitary because they want
to use them against Israel, but again,
read the book of Ezekiel, chapter 38,
and you'll find somebodyin there called Gomer.
Well, what is Gomer?
Well, that is Turkey, andif you read Revelation,
the churches of Revelation, all the way
through Thyatira and Laodicea,
and all those churches in Revelation.
They're all in Turkey,every single one of them.
Turkey is, you know, theycall it the churches of Asia,
but the Asia Minor was Turkey,
and it's very prominent in the Bible,
and from what I readit's going to be part of
a coalition againstIsrael, so this time for us
to come to put the screwsto Turkey's right now,
but they have a major airbase, the Incirlik Air Base
in Turkey, and it's avery import transit point
for our troops when we're doing activities
in the Middle East, andTurkey can withhold permission
for us, our planes, to take off and land.
It's a bad situation thatwe're in with Turkey,
and we need a deal with Erdoganbecause he is a bad actor.