Episode 5205: Iran Lays Mines In The Strait Of Hormuz; Warmongering Graham Wants To Send Your Family To Iran
Bannon's War Room Episode 5205 details Iran's mine-laying in the Strait of Hormuz and praises U.S. Navy crews on the USS Ford while condemning Senator Lindsey Graham as a foreign agent for advocating ground troops in Karg Island. The host frames Trump's military response as essential against Iranian nuclear ambitions, critiques Senate Republicans like John Cornyn for blocking voting rights, and links mass deportation policies to broader political instability, ultimately suggesting that domestic obstruction fuels international warmongering. [Automatically generated summary]
I want to thank the men and women of the Ford Carrier Strike Group and their families and let all of them know how grateful I am for their leadership and service.
The crews on board this strike group have already been endured months at sea only to get their deployment extended.
These exceptional Americans, Rogered Up, all supported by their families, continue to stand the watch, taking the fight to the enemy over and over again, night after night.
Aboard ships like the USS Ford and the Abraham Lincoln are a special group of sailors I want to highlight today.
These are the men and women, the sailors up on the roof running operations on the flight deck.
With an average age of the early 20s, these are the unsung heroes of naval aviation.
These young sailors, known for wearing yellow shirts, are in charge of the catapults, taxiing jets around on the flight deck, shooting jets off the front end and recovering jets off the back end.
They are literally involved with every single movement on the roof on an aircraft carrier.
They are the last ones that a naval aviator sees before getting shot off the front end and the first one that a naval aviator sees after safely trapping on the back end.
And just for a minute, imagine you're standing on that aircraft carrier flight deck.
There's 30 knots of wind in your face.
The deck is slippery, covered in grease, it's noisy, there are propellers spinning, there's jet blast everywhere, helicopters are running, your head is on a swivel, and you're trying to direct a multi-million dollar fighter into a one-foot square box so that those naval aviators can be shot off into the black of night to go do America's work.
Those jets are fully loaded with missiles and bombs, and they are a world-class team combined with the Naval Aviation and the aviators in those jets.
It is a good thing to wipe out terrorists who indiscriminately target civilians and attempt to hold the global economy hostage.
And President Trump should be commended for doing so.
But ultimately, the operations will end when the Commander-in-Chief determines the military objectives have been met, fully realized, and that Iran is in a position of complete and unconditional surrender, whether they say it or not.
Well, when President Trump says that Iran is in a place of unconditional surrender, he's not claiming the Iranian regime is going to come out and say that themselves.
What the president means is that Iran's threats will no longer be backed by a ballistic missile arsenal that protects them from building a nuclear bomb in their country.
I could make an empty threat, but if I have no actions to back it up, then it's an empty threat.
And so President Trump will determine when Iran is in a place of unconditional surrender, when they no longer pose a credible and direct threat to the United States of America and our allies.
I emerge from this briefing as dissatisfied and angry, frankly, as I have from any past briefing in my 15 years in the Senate.
I am left with more questions than answers, especially about the cost of the war.
My questions have been unanswered, and I will demand answers because the American people deserve to know.
And I guess I am most concerned about the threat to American lives of potentially deploying our sons and daughters on the ground in Iran.
We seem to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground in Iran to accomplish any of the potential objectives here.
And there is also, as disturbingly as anything else, the specter of active Russian aid to Iran, putting in danger American lives.
Literally, Russia seems to be aiding our enemy actively and intensively with intelligence and perhaps with other means.
And China also may be assisting Iran.
So the American people deserve to know much more than this administration has told them about the cost of the war, the danger to our sons and daughters in uniform, and the potential for further escalation and widening of this war, a war of choice made by this president, not chosen by the American people,
with potentially huge consequences to American lives.
Is looking at this every single day based on intelligence, based on facts, and based on intelligence that he himself and his negotiators have consumed based on their negotiations with the rogue Iranian regime over the past year.
And the president and his team tried in a good faith way to reach a diplomatic deal through peaceful means with the Iranian regime.
And Iran chose this path to death and destruction.
Iran wanted to attack the United States of America, and the president was not going to sit back and allow that to happen.
He was not going to sit back and allow that to happen, and everyone in this room should be grateful for it.
unidentified
There was a briefing on the Capitol Hill today, and some senators came out and said they were more convinced than ever that there were the U.S. boots on the ground.
Look, I would say that Democrats on Capitol Hill are clearly being quite disingenuous.
Three years ago, not a single Democrat voted for the against the resolution condemning Iran as the world's leading state sponsor of terror.
Yet now, with President Trump as commander-in-chief, finally taking the action that so many Democrats have called on the Commander-in-Chief to do for many, many years to wipe out the threat of a rogue Iranian terrorist regime, now all of a sudden Democrats are playing politics with this long-standing bipartisan policy of the United States.
And 53 of them in the House recently voted against the resolution condemning Iran as the world's state sponsor of terror.
So I wouldn't take Democrats at their word.
As for boots on the ground, the president has talked about this repeatedly.
Wisely, he does not rule options out as commander-in-chief.
So again, I would hesitate to confirm anything that a Democrat on Capitol Hill says right now about the president's thinking.
unidentified
Where would you be if they sent up a supplemental?
And did they give you any indication this morning that a supplemental is on its way to Capital?
This is not a war the American people want us to engage in.
This is not a war supported by this country, and this is not a war that makes us safer.
For the Trump administration to say over and over: there's no money for health care, there's no money for child care, there's no time to pay attention to how families are paying more,
but there's a billion dollars a day to go to the Middle East and drop bombs on Iran for military purposes that no one can describe and that no one can explain how merely from dropping bombs from the air we will accomplish those ends.
No, no more money.
The one thing Congress has the power to do is to stop actions like this through the power of the purse.
The military already has a trillion dollars.
The military already cannot pass a simple audit on where that money is.
And for the Trump administration to come back and say shovel billions more into a war in Iran that is not supported by the American people and does not make us safer makes no sense at all.
So I will be a note.
unidentified
Caroline.
The president said yesterday for the first time that he had to strike Iran because he believes that Iran was going to strike U.S. targets within seven days.
And then he then bumped that down later to three days.
Well, that's not the first time the president has said that he chose to launch Operation Epic Fury because he felt as though Iran was going to strike the United States and our assets in the region first.
Again, I addressed this in the last briefing.
This was a feeling the president had based on facts, facts provided to him by his top negotiators who had been engaged with the Iranian regime in a good faith effort.
The Iranian regime was lying, deceiving the United States of America, clearly trying to continue their nuclear program to create a bomb that would, of course, threaten the United States of America.
Again, their ballistic missile arsenal, they were rapidly and aggressively increasing that by the month to a place where they would essentially build immunity for themselves, where a future president or President Trump would not be able to launch this incredibly successful operation.
And so the president, again, as I have reiterated and he has said, was not going to sit back and allow the Iranian regime to threaten or to attack the United States of America any longer.
unidentified
There are no U.S. leaders or Israeli leaders who are making those same claims.
So is he making this up to justify his decision to go to war now?
He is looking at this every single day based on intelligence, based on facts, and based on intelligence that he himself and his negotiators have consumed based on their, again, negotiations with the rogue Iranian regime over the past year.
And the president and his team tried in a good faith way to reach a diplomatic deal through peaceful means with the Iranian regime.
And Iran chose this path to death and destruction.
Iran wanted to attack the United States of America, and the president was not going to sit back and allow that to happen.
He was not going to sit back and allow that to happen.
And everyone in this room should be grateful for it.
I couldn't say I don't know the good senator very well.
But what I can tell you is what you are seeing is an example of jester gooning for the war.
See, that's what this is, is that he gets out there and he jester goons for a wider war, no matter really where it is, whether it's in Ukraine, whether it's in the Middle East, whether it's in Latin America.
There's no point in trying to understand whether, you know, the strategy, whether U.S. interests or walking through the difference of it.
Can you help me out with my young staff who's not the kids refer to this as jester gooning?
So it's when you, when you sort of, you know you, you kind of, you kind of act, you know, in a, in a, clowning around, you're trying to impress people, you're trying to, you're trying to, you know, dance around a little bit, you know, open up your bag of tricks for to get what you want.
I think we got seven or eight, I think we have eight now.
Official KIAS.
People are in harm's way.
We're sending another carrier we're we're we're, we are flooding the zone now with more and more uh equipment and more and more assets, uh and and the i'm gonna get to the mining in a second, but the, the Iranians, not only am not backing down, they're doubling down, sir.
And there's no question that when American troops are on the line and when America's best of the best are on the line, if we are going to send anyone anywhere, we have to do so with the full force and backing of the United States military, not just, you know, not just some clown show on TV.
I mean the real muscle, the real might.
And to do so, to only use that sacred responsibility when it is absolutely necessary.
Now, the president has said that this operation is necessary, but if he's talking about boots on the ground, because we keep talking about this Karg Island operation over and over, they say, oh, we're going to go to Karg Island.
You are within artillery range of the Iranian army at that point.
That is so close to you.
You've got long-range artillery that could strike.
You're certainly within range of missile batteries.
You're within range of everything that Iran has to come to bear.
So you drop a couple, three units or divisions on Karg Island, you're looking at another Khe San, and you're going to see Khe San all across TikTok.
Now, I'm sure, by the way, United States military, whether you're talking about the 75th Rangers, you're talking about Tier 1 assets, you're talking about 82nd Airborne, they could do it and they will do it.
U.S. Marines, they will do it.
But if we are going to do something like this, we cannot be glib about it and we have to be serious, unlike the unserious senator here.
You need to take it seriously and understand that that is going to spark a wider and longer conflagration.
And I heard my president, the president of the United States yesterday say this is a short-term conflict, a short-term pain for long-term gain.
That's what we heard from the U.N. ambassador.
That's what we heard from Caroline Levitt.
And that's what we heard from the president as well.
So, you know, I would just, I'd ask the senator to check with them.
And there's talk about the 82nd airborne, a combat team or a combat brigade from the 82nd Airborne doing maybe an airdrop in there or others delivery assistance.
They will definitely be sons and daughters of South Carolinians when the 82nd goes from Fort Bragg.
That's why he's also saying something disturbing that ought to be out in the open.
The Arab, quote unquote, our great Arab allies in the region are all running for cover and telling people, hey, we got to stop this or double dealing us.
We now know that all the financial assets of the Iranians are in the pirate COVID Dubai, yet they haven't been frozen yet.
So it's like America's fighting and protecting these monarchies, and I'm not so sure they're in the fight, sir.
Well, Steve, and I've said this from the beginning, that Iran made a strategic move and certainly rolled the dice.
The same way the president made a strategic move in ordering the operation.
Their counter move was not to only go directly against U.S. bases when you look in terms of Saudi, when you look in terms of Al-Adid, when you look in terms of Kuwait, but also to go against the U.S. allies that make up the GCC at the Gulf Cooperation Council.
These are the Arab nations, the Sunni Arab nations around the rim of the Gulf, the Persian Gulf.
And so in doing so, they make them have to choose.
Will you choose your alliance with the United States and potential regional hegemony over all of your economic gains?
And by the way, when it comes to Dubai, think about the past 15 years that Dubai specifically has invested in their reputation management and their ability to say that we are the jewel of the Middle East, that we are a place where people can come and it's a pleasure palace.
It's the Las Vegas of the Gulf where people can come from all over, the elite of the world, the rich of the world can come and have a playground.
That is shattered the minute the Shaheed drones begin flying in unimpeded through the airspace or making short work of enemy air saturation and going directly through your air defenses start slamming into these towers.
Like, you know, obviously they've been targeting the Burj Khalifa, but you look at some of these other incredible and impressive skyscrapers, which Dubai has.
That is the challenge that Iran is putting up against to say, hey, you want to go one-on-one?
The president would say, hey, don't hit the Arab allies.
They hit them.
The president says, I'm going to have Navy combatants escort people and put up $20 billion to make sure there's free flow in and out of Straits of Hormuz.
They come out and say, we're going to mine it.
We're going to shell it.
The president of the NSA says, you better watch out your new son that's the Ayatollah.
Some important breaking news, and that is that CNN is learning Iran has begun laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz.
This is according to two people familiar with the matter.
It's another major complication as the world's top oil exporter warns there could be, quote, catastrophic consequences for oil markets if the conflict keeps disrupting ship and oil tanker traffic through the strait.
He says, beyond upending shipping and insurance, the ongoing disruption could snowball, threatening aviation, agriculture, and other industries.
A short time ago, the White House repeated President Trump's promise to provide government-backed insurance as well as naval escorts to keep tankers moving.
So far, those shipping companies are resisting traveling through the region while the fighting goes on.
What it shows clearly is how relatively, note I use that word, easy it is for Iran to cause absolute mayhem, havoc and chaos with the global shipping.
You see, they threaten whether they actually lay the mines or not.
We'll only have to wait and see.
You've got the perspective of the drones and or missiles.
You've got an entire choke point that you're looking at.
And all that the West can do or that President Trump and others can do is offer these rather poor substitutes, insurance, escorting of vessels.
I spoke to the CEO earlier of Maersk Shipping, the largest in the world.
And he basically said, look, you can give me all the insurance you like, but if it's not safe, I ain't sending my ships, my container ships through the strait.
And he said, and as for escorting, it's just too difficult.
Now, they've got 10 ships stuck in the northern Gulf.
They've got many more on the way.
It gives you an idea of why what the president said yesterday might sound good in sound bites, but is very difficult to actually put into play and terribly easy to overturn.
This trade is very easy to mine, specifically those shipping channels when you're only looking at a deep sea channel of about two nautical miles each, the eastbound, the westbound, and then there's a buffer zone of about two nautical miles in between.
So you're talking a very short, very narrow distance whereby in these deep-hold vessels can transit.
And at the same time, Iran has the ability to put, or by the way, create the perception of having put these asymmetric sea mines into the strait itself by running their small boats out, by using freighters, by using DAOs, by using, I mean, you could use a dinghy to be able to put one of these mines out.
You know, that's actually what we saw in the USS coal situation over in Aden.
I was just a small boat.
And so they have the ability to shut down so much of the world's trade, which, by the way, shuts themselves down as well.
But it's always been the ultimate card that Iran can play.
And then, of course, there's no ship captain that's going to drive through there.
John Conrad says that he would do so, but even he might have, might want to pump the brakes if he saw some Iranian miners out there.
Jack, the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth laid out the military objectives this morning.
Today, more bombing, going through those objectives, particularly the degradation of their military capabilities, either nuclear weapons capabilities, air defense capabilities, missile, ballistic missile building capabilities.
Pretty concise, but going to take a while to do it.
I don't see what Pete was saying and then what our action has been today in the counteractions by the Iranians to potentially mine the Straits of Hormuz.
Well, Steve, you know, if we're talking about actual mining of the Strait of Hormuz, and keep in mind that this was not stated by the Iranians, this was stated by American media reporting based on intelligence.
And if Iran were going to mine the Strait of Hormuz, they would be doing so at great harm to themselves as well as to their customers, their chief customers, the Chinese Communist Party, because that is who receives the bulk of Iran's oil when it is removed.
Now, they are already feeling the hurt because of the current de facto closing of the Strait of Hormuz that we've seen.
But mining, I mean, you're talking about a shock to the oil system that is a game of essentially brinksmanship.
It's petrol brinksmanship, whereby they're trying to see if China can hold out longer than the United States, the Gulf allies, and everyone else.
And look, Steve, as they say, as we like to say in the Navy, any ship could be a minesweeper once.
So it would only take a few to head out there.
And certainly there are unmanned options that are available.
But at the same time, when you're talking about the sheer quantity of these super tankers, the amount of oil, with the cost going up already as it is, what insurance company, what reinsurance company, what shipping, you know, what shipping firm is going to go out and take that risk if you know you could lose your entire cargo with oil prices the way they are.
And this, of course, is the ultimate asymmetric effect that the Iranians are looking for.
Before I go, it seems like President Trump, with the Secretary of War and General Kane and Admiral Cooper, they're going through, as we say, targeting packages very methodically, very professionally, and they're relentless.
It seems like Netanyahu maybe has another strategy, another set of objectives.
But I want to go back to Lindsey Graham when he said gesture gooning.
Is he gesture gooning for the deep state?
I mean, the deep state gets a vote here too, because as we know from John Solomon's reporting, we're going through a 10-year, 10-year counterintelligence investigation of President Trump on four separate times.
And these were named operations.
Treating Donald John Trump as a national security issue against the United States of America four times from 2016 all the way up to the day before he was took the oath of office for the second time on his third victory.
I mean, Lindsey Graham is gesture gooning for the deep state.
The deep state thinks they've got to say so here too, and they're kind of running this thing the way they want to run it, at least part of it, sir.
Steve, I read that report from Justin News this morning as well.
John actually sent it to me.
This is the main fight, and it needs to be the main fight because there's all this talk about right now, 2028, Rubio, JD Vance, et cetera, all the different, but it's all going to be for naught.
If this project was for anything, then what has it been for?
It's been for the restoration of America first policies on the board.
It's been for the interests of the American people being put front and center with the American public.
That means the forgotten man and woman that Donald J. Trump talked about every single day for the last 10 years.
That means mass deportations.
And yes, I said mass deportations, not some, not partial, not just the worst of the worst, not the violent, mass deportations.
That was the slogan all throughout 2016, 2020, and 2024.
And of course, it involves shutting down the deep state rod, rod and stern, root and stem.
That is the goal that has always been the goal.
And anyone standing in front of that, whether they're gesturing for the deep state, whether Lindsey Graham is doing that or anyone else, you are in fact.
But this, by the way, Steve, this is why Jeffrey Epstein became such an issue for Donald Trump and for Pam Bondi.
This is why it became such an issue because the files just should have come out.
That's why they should have dropped the files.
That's why they should have come out early on when we went in and we said back February last year, said just put them all out, just put them all out.
And then it was this and this.
It was stopped and come up because it was a proxy for the broader issue of deep state secret corruption and secret control of the United States.
That has been the issue and that has always been the issue.
If we don't achieve accountability now, we never will.
They will kick this can down the road every single time, and then they'll say, vote for me because will we the one to release the files?
And then the files never actually came out.
No, they eventually got where they needed to with the DOJ.
And I applaud that.
I think everyone has seen the fruit of that.
But at the same time, we need to be honest about what the deep state has done to this country, what they've done to the MAGA movement, what they've done to so many great patriots, people who were thrown in jail like yourself, Steve, and Dr. Peter Navarro, people who were indicted four times like Donald Trump, and people who had investigations against them like General Flynn, who ended up spending millions upon millions of their own personal wealth, all because they wanted to stand up for the American people.
And just say, and just so Jack teed up, Mike Howe is coming.
He was there this morning.
He's coming back because the White House, a huge story in Axios, and Caputo's name's on it, and they're totally dialed into the White House.
White House, they're saying now they don't want any discussion, no mention of mass deportations.
How's going to join us as six to get that?
But Caroline, I've got you on because this whole thing is like proxy wars in the Cornyn Paxton grassroots versus not just the DC establishment, but a guy who was basically the legal brain to help the deep state.
I mean, Cornyn, you know, Lisa Monaco was it Rosenstein, all of them, right?
And we're going to have some, but we're not even the Save America Act.
Like, who knows?
This thing's kind of in limbo.
And one of the reasons it's in limbo, it's not taking some symbolic vote of 51.
You got to roll your sleeves up.
And you've got to, if you're going to be leader like John Thunton, you got to go find the votes to make sure that we can get to a the standing or talking filibuster.
It's not going to work otherwise.
People actually want it passed.
They just don't want some symbolic effort, ma'am.
It seems like we're hung up now on because to save Cornyn politically, right, and try to thwart Paxton and really and thwarting Paxton is the MAGA grassroots.
They're looking like they want to have some symbolic votes.
MAGA doesn't want symbolic votes.
The grassroots down, the folks in Virginia, they're all day.
We talked about them this morning.
I got tremendous feedback from the chairman of the GOP about how enthusiastic the grassroots are going to work.
The same thing in Texas.
These people are on fire and they're President Trump's most ardent supporters, ma'am.
He has been on fire about it for two or three months.
He has been yelling at everyone, pass the Saving America Act, use whatever means necessary, nuke the filibuster, use the talking filibuster.
And it's just wild.
Apparently, who doesn't read True Social is U.S. senators and their staff, which no surprise here, because they seem to be blindsided by this.
President Trump is not an overly mysterious guy.
He tells you what he wants.
And he has been not just telling it, he has been demanding it for months.
And the Senate has been ignoring it and kicking it down the can.
And it is all coming to a head right now.
And, you know, it really exploded to a head thanks to Kenton Paxton and Kenton Paxton taking his own political future, you know, and throwing it to the side and saying, I'm willing to follow the sword here, but let's call these people out.
And he gave Trump the leverage that Trump needed to go to these senators.
And, you know, right now, Fuda saying, well, we don't have the votes.
And then today he says that he's going to bring it to a vote next week.
I think that's just performative theater.
They're bringing it to a vote next week, knowing they don't have the 60 votes and knowing they're not going to use the filibuster.
And instead, they're going to bring it to a vote just so that John Cornyn can vote yes.
And then they can go run to the White House and say, oh, Mr. President, Cornyn voted yes.
Let's go get that endorsement.
And I think President Trump is much smarter than that.
And he should and will, I think, see right through a performative vote like that.
But explain to this, because this is what they say.
Well, Cornyn's great because he votes for President Trump 99.3% time.
That's not relevant.
It's all processed like this.
This is just performative.
It's not about getting to 51 on the Save America Act itself.
It's about actually doing some hard work and thinking through.
And we're going to play a clip here in a minute.
I'll do it after the break.
We're going to play a clip here in a minute.
The Democrats thought it through, and we got bigger brains than the Constitution and the customs, traditions, and procedures of the Senate to make this work.
All of Thun comes to the microphone.
It's so hard.
You got to do, you know, you're going to have to have everybody in the room.
They're going to do amendments.
I don't give a damn.
The American people don't give a damn.
Your job's supposed to be hard.
You're in the most exclusive club in the world, only 100 people in the United States Senate.
And all they do is whine about so they can get their Thursday flyout.
Yes, the standing filibuster is hard.
Somebody's going to have to stay going to stand up there, fight it.
And we got them to basically make the pitch as you saw Tim McCain or McCain in, excuse me, in the senator from Virginia today says, no, this is a repressive, Tim Cain says this is repressing the vote in the United States.
If that's the argument we want to make, why wouldn't we want to make it in the Senate for two or three weeks on national TV?
And all Thun and these guys is whine about, and they want to do these performative process things to go to the president and say, well, Cornyn supports us.
President Trump came out and said that he will not sign any bill, any bill, until this passes the U.S. Senate.
This is why I love Donald Trump.
He is not messing around.
And so, good, you know what?
You know what, President Trump?
You should not endorse any GOP senator until this bill passes.
What type of message would that send?
If you're saying that you will not sign a single bill until this bill passes, yet you're endorsing the same senators that are obstructing this process for a decade and been trashing you.
He cannot endorse Corn.
And how would it?
It doesn't even make sense to do that.
And frankly, if I were President Trump, I would rescind my endorsement of every GOP senator until this bill passes.
I'm sorry, but President Trump's endorsement is the most powerful endorsement in the country.
It is a privilege to get that endorsement.
It's something that you should earn.
It's not something that should be just handed to you because you are an incumbent.
And these senators right now are not endorsement, not earning Donald Trump's endorsement.
And they need to work for it right now.
And I hope that President Trump, he is clearly putting the pressure down, throwing the gauntlet down here, and he should not, not, not let up.
If the Senate cannot protect the right to vote, which is the cornerstone of our democracy, then the Senate rules must be reformed.
Must be reformed.
If the Republicans block cloture on the legislation before us, I will put forward a proposal to change the rules to allow for a talking filibuster on this legislation, as recommended by a number of our colleagues who have been working on this reform for a long time.
Historically, changes to the Senate rules have been necessary to adapt to changed circumstances.
Even Senator Byrd, a traditionalist, said just that.
To address voting rights in a timely fashion, there's an opportunity to do exactly that, to change the Senate rules, to promote a public debate that is restorative of the Senate's long-standing two-speech limit.
We feel very simply on something as important as voting rights.
If Senate Republicans are going to oppose it, they should not be allowed to sit in their office.
They got to come down on the floor and defend their opposition to voting rights, the wellspring of our democracy.
And there's broad, strong feeling in our caucus about that.
Once members of the minority party have exhausted all of their speaking rights and defended their position on the Senate floor, the debate will have run its course and the Senate will move to vote on final passage at a majority threshold, which has always been the threshold for final passage.
I hope every senator will embrace this practical reform.
Dr. King said to us, keep fighting.
They tried to pass voting rights bills year after year after year.
1964, they couldn't get it.
They kept fighting and they got it in 1965.
This process today is another step forward in the march to voting rights.
We ain't giving up.
You're going to hear from us plenty as we continue on this issue.
And again, to anyone who says, oh, well, you may not win, don't do it.
Look at history.
Look at history.
If you keep fighting, the cause of justice, as Dr. King has said, will be renewed.
He used to quote Amos, let justice flow down like the mighty waters.
Well, I was confused because yesterday Senator Thune came out and said, basically, we don't even know what the talking filibuster is.
We're not really sure where Mike Lee came up with this thing.
We have no example in history of it ever passing.
And so, you know, this is kind of too far out there.
And so that made me think, like, is that true?
I mean, I've barely heard of the talking filibuster.
Maybe this is accurate.
And so I just went and looked up, you know, has Schumer ever said something about the talking filibuster?
And then I found that video.
And it actually goes on for 10 minutes of Chuck Schumer as the majority leader, you know, talking about the exact same thing that we are talking about here.
They have a very different version of their voting rights bill, right?
But I remember it was in 2021 and when they had all the all three chambers of government, their number one thing was HR1.
That was their, you know, voting rights bill that had passed out of the House.
And Nancy Pelosi was putting a ton of pressure on the Senate, saying, get rid of the filibuster.
People couldn't believe she was saying that.
The base of the Democratic Party got unbelievably spun up.
I mean, they were, if you remember how angry they were about this and started pressuring and pressuring the Democrats, they started calling out by name everyone until Schumer decided, you know what?
This is like not only what my base wants, it's what my president wants, it's what the House wants and sent me.
And so, you know, screw the institutions.
I'm going to go out here and do it.
And I may fail.
This vote's probably going to fail because he knew he didn't have the votes.
There were two holdouts, Mansion and Sinema.
But he still went out and he gave that speech.
And they forced what they did.
They smoked out all the Democrats, forced them to take a position on this.
Two senators voted against them.
They are no longer senators because of it.
And, you know, Manchin, you could argue, maybe like that vote wouldn't have affected it.
Cinema could not even run for reelection because of that vote.
She couldn't even attend a wedding in her own home state without being run out by people screaming at her about it.
The country does not care about this filibuster, like these dinosaur Senate procedural rules.
The Democrats already had this battle.
They came out of it firmly on the side of the next time we take power and we get these two problematic senators out, we are lifting the filibuster to pass every single thing that we want done in our agenda.
And that, so that speech right there to me is critical because then we have Senator what all I'm now asking with Senator Thune is, you know what, you're telling me you don't have the votes.
I want to know who they are.
I want you to name names because then maybe they should not be in office again.
Maybe Republicans, you should put your name next to a position like that and stop saying that the Save America Act has 51 co-sponsors.
We don't need a performative bill.
We know who's voting on it.
There are 51.
There are two holdouts, and that is Lisa Murkowski and Tom Tillis.
There we go.
Mystery solved.
So, but like there are obstruction.
I mean, there are others that will say, oh, I will co-sponsor, vote for this bill, but I'm not going to change the procedural rules in order to get it done.
And I think it's time we say, enough is enough.
Bring the vote on the talking filibuster to the floor, Senator Thune.
I would like to know because I don't think that they deserve Donald Trump's endorsement ever again.
I think they deserve probably a primary challenger.
That'll be up to the voters in their state.
But I know if I were living in that state, I would work for a primary challenger of someone who is not willing to vote and pass what is Donald Trump's number one priority.
He won the popular vote and won the presidency saying that we are no longer going to allow cheating to happen in our elections.
You have to be a U.S. citizen to vote.
And if we cannot lift the filibuster to at least have that one vote on record of we want U.S. citizens to vote for our representatives, then what are we even all doing here?