Episode 5212: Continued Casualties And Radicals Uniting Around The War In Iran; Cornyn Scrambles For Endorsement
Stephen K. Bannon, Matt Boyle, and Neil McCabe dissect the Sterling, Virginia attack by ISIS-linked suspect Mohamed Bailor Jalo and assess military dominance in Iran despite Strait of Hormuz risks. They debate an exit strategy for Tehran's desperate leadership while analyzing the "Save America Act" and potential talking filibusters to enforce voter ID laws. The episode concludes with Senator John Cornyn scrambling for a Trump endorsement after reportedly believing the former president can no longer win the Texas Senate runoff against Ken Paxton, highlighting shifting political alliances. [Automatically generated summary]
Having spoken to people who have reviewed the video, you know, you see the car come crashing through the door.
You see what appears to be shell casings being ejected through the driver's side window as he's firing.
And then you see the cart gets all the way down to the end of the hall, and then this fire starts.
So it's suggestive that it was a ramming attack for anybody who was in the hallway, which happened to be clear at the time.
A shooting attack for anybody who was an available target, which were the security people who shot back.
And this explosive attack, where it appears at least, he was able to initiate, ignite, and detonate some connection to these explosives that were in the back of the vehicle, which, if they didn't explode, they certainly caused that conflagration that caused that fire that blackened the hallway, filled the building with smoke.
And right now, as we're sitting here, two things are going on.
One, FBI, ATF, and the Oakland County bomb investigators are trying to figure out: is anything in the back of that car something that is still live or explosive that needs to be dealt with?
And structural engineers are coming in to see is the structure strong enough so that they can move that car out of there and process it somewhere.
Well, Anderson, we're here in this neighborhood of fairly upscale townhouses, this kind of courtyard of townhouses here in Sterling, Virginia, learning a little bit more about the suspect and the suspect's family.
This suspect identified as 36-year-old Mohamed Bailor Jalo, a former Virginia National Guard member, who, as we've been reporting, served nearly seven years in prison after pleading guilty to trying to aid the terror group ISIS.
Officials at the time saying he was trying to procure weapons for an ISIS attack.
Now, at the specific address where we believe the suspect lived, there is a sign, a paper sign, taped to the front door saying, quote, we do not wish to speak to the press, end quote.
I knocked on that door three separate times.
Twice a man answered.
The first time he just pointed to the sign and said, We really don't want to talk to you, and then closed the door.
The second time he answered, he said, I'm going to try to be as nice to you as I can about this, but we really don't want to talk to the media.
He said, you have to understand we're going through a very tough time.
I asked him if he was the suspect's father.
He did not answer that question.
And then a young lady standing behind him said pretty loudly, seriously, and then they shut the door.
Other neighbors that we spoke to here, I spoke to five different neighbors who describe a very large family living at that residence, multiple members of a family of multiple generations.
But they say the family really didn't interact with neighbors and that neighbors really did not interact with them.
One neighbor I spoke to who said he often would walk by the suspect when he would take his walks in the neighborhood, said the first time he passed the suspect, he said hi to the suspect.
He said the suspect didn't say anything.
He just looked to the ground.
He said every single time he would pass him after that, the suspect would just look to the ground.
And in the words of this neighbor, quote, something about him just didn't sit well with me.
Another neighbor said, Anderson, I'm surprised that they released him and let him come back here.
So neighbors here expressing some shock, some surprise, some frustration that he was in the neighborhood.
And as we described, CNN reporting here tonight, it was a very grisly scene inside that ROTC classroom with other students subduing the suspect and one of them apparently stabbing him to death.
Well 35 fueling tanker crashed after colliding, it appears, with another tanker, which ultimately landed safely in Israel.
But there are a lot of questions surrounding CENTCOM's statements, in which they said that this was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire because an Iranian proxy group based in Iraq has now come out and taken responsibility for downing that aircraft.
Of course, they did not provide evidence, but these proxy groups, they do have surface-to-air missiles.
And so it's possible, for example, that what happened was these tankers were trying to evade a missile, or perhaps this was just an incident of a mid-air collision of these tankers just flying too closely together.
I mean, there's so many possibilities here, but the bottom line is that four U.S. service members are now confirmed to be dead, two others.
Apparently, the search is ongoing for them.
Unclear what their whereabouts and their condition is as of this moment.
Between our Air Force and that of the Israelis, over 15,000 enemy targets have been struck.
That's well over 1,000 a day.
No other combination of countries in the world can do that.
So today, as we speak, we fly over the top of Iran and Tehran.
Fighters and bombers all day picking targets as they choose.
As our intelligence gets better and better and more refined.
Looking up, the IRGC and Iranian regime sees only two things on the side of aircraft.
The stars and stripes and the star of David.
The evil regime's worst nightmare.
Iran has no air defenses.
Iran has no air force.
Iran has no navy.
Their missiles, their missile launchers and drones being destroyed or shot out of the sky.
Their missile volume is down 90%.
Their one-way attack drones yesterday, down 95%.
And as the world is seeing, they are exercising sheer desperation in the straits of Hormuz.
Something we're dealing with.
We have been dealing with it.
Don't need to worry about it.
We're on plan to defeat, destroy, disable all of their meaningful military capabilities at a pace the world has never seen before.
They're confused and we know it.
Our response, we will keep pressing.
We will keep pushing, keep advancing.
No quarter, no mercy for our enemies.
Yet some in this crew, in the press, just can't stop.
Allow me to make a few suggestions.
People look up at the TV and they see banners, they see headlines.
I used to be in that business, and I know that everything is written intentionally.
For example, a banner or a headline, Mideast war intensifies, splashing on the screen the last couple of days, alongside visuals of civilian or energy targets that Iran has hit, because that's what they do.
What should the banner read instead?
How about Iran increasingly desperate?
Because they are.
They know it, and so do you, if it can be admitted.
Or more fake news from CNN.
Reports that the Trump administration underestimated the Iran war's impact on the Strait of Hormuz.
Patently ridiculous, of course.
For decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
This is always what they do, hold the straight hostage.
CNN doesn't think we thought of that.
It's a fundamentally unserious report.
The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.
Another example of a fake headline that I saw yesterday, war widening.
Here's a real headline for you for an actual patriotic press.
How about Iran shrinking, going underground?
You see, Iran's leaders are hiding in bunkers and moving into civilian areas.
The only thing that is widening is our advantage.
Not to mention our Gulf partners stepping up even more, now going on the offense, and have always been with us on the defense with collective and integrated air defenses.
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You said that the U.S. military has essentially aerial superiority and naval superiority over Iran, yet we're not escorting ships to the Strait of Formut.
We recognize it because ultimately we want to do it sequentially in a way that makes the most sense for what we want to achieve and ensure that we're sending the right signals to the world when we do so.
So when Chris Wright speaks or we speak, it's based on a full assessment of what we're up against, what we want to say to the world, how we want them to see and understand the conflict.
It's like this whole idea of the war widening.
That's what the press wants to make it look like, like it's widening and chaos.
No, we're actually closing in on grabbing hold of and controlling what objectives we want to achieve and how we want to achieve them.
It's called shaping operations and setting the conditions.
But when you shape the environment, you don't always tell, I mean, foolish political leaders and foolish military leaders of the past will hang an exact deadline on it.
Or here's exactly when we'll do what we're going to do, or here's how long it's going to take us.
And then if you meet that, maybe you meet it.
But if you don't, you fail.
And if you're far beyond, we know exactly what we're shaping and why.
We're sending those signals working across the interagency.
The Strait of Hormuz is something we've paid attention to from the beginning.
And the American people can rest assured we will ensure that our interests are advanced, no doubt.
Desperate and hiding, they've gone underground, cowering.
That's what rats do.
We know the new so-called not-so-supreme leader is wounded and likely disfigured.
He put out a statement yesterday, a weak one, actually, but there was no voice and there was no video.
It was a written statement.
He called for unity.
Apparently, killing tens of thousands of protesters is his kind of unity.
Iran has plenty of cameras and plenty of voice recorders.
Why a written statement?
I think you know why.
His father, dead.
He's scared, he's injured, he's on the run, and he lacks legitimacy.
It's a mess for them.
Who's in charge?
Iran may not even know.
With every passing hour, we know, and we know they know that the military capabilities of their evil regime are crumbling.
They can barely communicate, let alone coordinate.
They're confused, and we know it.
But war in this context and in pursuit of peace is necessary, which is why each day on bended knee we continue to appeal to heaven, to Almighty God's providence, to watch over and give special skill and confidence to our leaders and to our warriors.
To those warriors who this nation prays for every single day, I hear from all of you out there who pray for them every day.
Stay on bended knee and pray for them.
I continue to say to them, Godspeed.
May the Lord bless you and keep you and keep going.
Now, Matt Boyle, national political editor of Breitbar News, joins us this morning.
He's going to be riding Shotgun.
We're also going to go to the White House, the Pentagon to break all this down.
Matt Boyle, we're also going to talk in depth about next week the Save America Act.
It looks like the Senate's going to deal with it.
Don't know if that just optics is going to be real.
Boyle's going to tell us.
Also, the Cornyn-Paxton situation.
So we got a lot to cover in little time.
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A World in Turbulence right now.
Pentagon brief.
We're going to get to General Kane, Matt Boer, all next in the War Room.
We're cutting the general cane to get a death as succinct about the military operations.
You know, Pete's Pete, Bull's with me, Pete's Pete.
He's always going to lean in and be aggressive.
But I think if you, you know, they're very focused on what's been accomplished from a military perspective, and that's good.
I think you can derive from this, Matt Boyle, that we now have air supremacy.
We're over Tehran, picking targets as we want.
We can now use gravity bombs instead of the, what does Pete call it the exquisite standoff weapons?
And one of the reasons I don't, I think we're running out of standoff weapons.
But we've got air supremacy and we're doing targets and we're bombing the Revolutionary Guard and leadership and so at will, number one.
Number two is that the new Ayatollah looks like President Trump put this up on thing on True Social last night.
He may be injured in one of these raids, disfigured.
That's why everything you do, you don't hear his voice.
You don't see his face.
You just hear written proclamations.
And the third is we're working on the straits of Hormuz.
Now, I think what's most important about Hormuz is what Scott Besson said.
The Financial Times is reporting of London right now.
It's reporting that Italy and France are in direct negotiations with the Iranians to get ships that are flagged or with cargo or oil for France or Italy out.
We know the Chinese Communist Party, I think, 11 million barrels.
And Scott just said, look, it doesn't look like it's mined because certain nations are getting through.
I think that's the big takeaways from this briefing this morning.
We're going to get to Kane in a minute, but Matt Boyle, National Political Editor of Breitbart, your thoughts?
Also, you know, you kind of got to love Pete Hegseth taking, you know, a blowtorch or a nuclear weapon to the fake news, right?
Like, so maybe, you know, he's got one mode, right?
Which is destroy, right?
Like, you know, he goes in there and he lights up these losers in the establishment press.
But I mean, look, I think the big thing that people want to see right now from the Trump administration is the update on the specific progress, what still needs to be done, and, you know, where things stand and what still is, you know, what hurdles are still in the way ahead.
So I think that's the information that people are looking for.
And you're able to glean that, I think, Steve.
But, you know, sometimes maybe we get a little distracted with destroying the fake news and their fake news attacks on the administration and on the administration's efforts.
But overall, you know, as long as we get the update on the details throughout the whole thing, and I think you're able to pick that out at the press conference this morning, then that's good.
The Reuters is reporting this morning, various voices inside the administration are saying, hey, this is what we got to do.
Other people are saying this is what we got to do.
Some are stay the course and keep it going for a couple more weeks.
Others are, let's get an off-ramp.
Let's figure out this thing in Hormuz and get off.
You just mentioned people are looking for, as you see it right now, Matt, what would you discern at this moment right here?
What are the military objectives of this that, you know, once accomplished, we can then, the president can start making decisions about how much longer this thing lasts?
Well, I think the biggest question is, is what's left behind in Iran, right?
So, you know, the news that the new Ayatollah, the son of the old Ayatollah, who was killed on the first night, is disfigured and, you know, in serious, you know, medical issues, apparently, you know, hurting an attack, not even able to appear on camera or even a voice recording, is a significant development.
So is he going to lead the country or not?
Or is this a temporary thing?
Is this an oligarchy around him that's really controlling and pulling the strings?
Who are those people?
What does this look like?
So I think that, you know, what does, you know, I know that they say the goal wasn't regime change.
Well, they changed the regime because they killed the Ayatollah on the first night.
So what is left behind?
And is it any better for the American interest if and when we walk away?
And I'm pretty sure that the day is coming where we're going to walk away.
Secondly, is Iran's, or our Iran's entire military capabilities disabled and disintegrated, right?
Are they able to shoot these missiles?
You know, we've been hearing about Iran having these weapons for a long time, and then Iran proved it on the first night in response.
What did they do?
They fired at every Gulf nation, right?
So in fact, I do think that the Iranians did more to unite the Gulf countries than anything the West or the Gulf countries have done at all in the last 30 years, in just a matter of weeks here, by firing at Qatar and Saudi and UAE and Israel.
I mean, they're all kind of in the bunker together now, if you will, and responding to this together.
So I think that, you know, what does the Iranian miss capability look like?
And what remains of their nuclear program, if anything?
And, you know, are they able to rebuild it at some point or not?
And as long as that is addressed and answered, and we know what takes their place, I think it's time to figure out what does the exit look like here, right?
Like, and it does appear to be a massive military success.
Before I start with an update, I also want to address the tragic loss of our KC-135 refueling aircraft yesterday.
The incident occurred over friendly territory in western Iraq while the crew was on a combat mission.
And again, was not the result, as CENTCOM has said, was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.
We're still treating this as an active rescue and recovery operation.
As CENTCOM announced this morning, four airmen have been recovered.
And the Air Force and U.S. Central Command will provide updates as information becomes available.
Please keep these brave airmen, their families, friends, and units in your thoughts in the coming hours and days.
Our service members make an incredible sacrifice to go forward and do the things that the nation asks of them.
It's a reminder of the true cost of the dedication and commitment of the joint force.
We're also aware of a fire on board the USS Gerald R. Ford.
We're thinking about the crew there who were injured in the fire.
We believe and hope that everyone will be okay, and we're grateful for that.
And for any further questions on that, we'd refer you to NAVCENT or to the Navy.
This morning, we enter the 13th day of Operation Epic Fury, and we continue to make progress towards our military objectives.
As the Secretary said, today will be our heaviest day of kinetic fires across the operating area.
CENTCOM continues to attack ballistic missile and drone capabilities so that they are no longer a threat to U.S. forces, our bases, or our partners.
They're continuing to destroy the Iranian Navy to ensure freedom of navigation.
And this means going after Iran's mine-laying capability and destroying their ability to attack commercial vessels.
And we're targeting their defense industrial base so they cannot rebuild the capabilities that can harm America's interests or our partners in the future.
As Admiral Cooper said in his update on Wednesday, Iranian combat power continues to decline as a result of the continued strikes, as the Secretary talked about.
We've attacked over 6,000 targets, and our strike packages continue to launch every hour, and we've maintained an unprecedented number of sorties up over ahead of Iran.
CENTCOM is now persistently over the enemy, and a result, we've seen a reduction in missile and one-way attack fires, as the Secretary said.
In less than two weeks, we've rendered the Iranian Navy combat ineffective and continue to attack naval vessels, including all of their Soleimani-class warships, which were armed with anti-ship missiles and anti-aircraft weapons.
We've made progress, but Iran still has the capability to harm friendly forces and commercial shipping.
And our work on this effort continues.
But I want to make something clear.
The only thing preventing commercial traffic and flow through the straits right now, which there is some through the straits, is Iran.
They are the belligerents here holding the straits closed, although there is some traffic moving through there.
We've made it a priority to target Iran's mine-laying enterprise, their mine layers, the naval bases and depots, in addition to the missiles that could influence the straits.
And CENTCOM continues to attack those efforts.
And we continue to make progress on the industrial base to include factories, weapons, warehouses that are stored in.
And we will continue to do so in the coming days, especially today.
If we were to cut that tighter and start at day 13, Matt Boyle, that's about two minutes and 15, 20 seconds.
I think it's one of the reasons that President Trump really holds General Kane in high regard, because right there, you've got a bang, bang, bang, bang.
Here's exactly what we're doing.
We're doing it methodically.
Here are the results have been.
Here's what they got.
Your thoughts.
Give me a minute, Matt, before we go to break on Kane.
I mean, we're less than two weeks into a war, and it appears as though, you know, again, without any ground troops sent into Iran, we've basically won, right?
Like, I mean, they're talking about the final bows that they're tying here and the final knots that they're figuring out.
This is the end, right?
Like, I mean, there's a little bit left of Iran's naval capabilities.
It looks like the methodical takedown of the conventional forces of the Iranian government goes on and now with air supremacy and the ability not to use these very expensive standoff weapons, but to get in the old-fashioned way and just start dropping them looks like making real progress, according to General Kane.
And, you know, those targets are also moving into the east, which is more difficult terrain and where things are buried into the mountains.
So, you know, it was a four-week program.
It seems to be ahead of schedule.
And I think that, you know, everything on the tactical operational side is working.
The problem is with the strategic and geopolitical because, you know, you have people in the administration who are watching the midterms, watching the polls.
Like Matt was saying, I thought it was really important that this press conference got some information out because a lot of times, Steve, it's not what is said, but why it is said.
And why they had to come out this morning and put out this information was to say, hey, this is what's going on.
We're making progress.
Things are good.
Geopolitically, I was pretty concerned that France and Italy are kind of like negotiating a separate peace, but I think that'll all play out in the end.
Well, that's in I think the importance here is that we've been advocating, I don't think you can get too much of General Kane and Admiral Cooper.
I think when you talk about military objectives and what the driving force of this is, you know, Klaus Vitsian, the center of gravity of this fight is it's a military operation at the end of the day.
And where do we stand in the military operation?
We then can say, hey, these target sets, these objectives have been met.
And then obviously you're dealing with the geopolitical and the geostrategic and economic and all that.
But right now, the most important thing is still to continue to look through and see these things are being accomplished as they're accomplished.
I will say and duly note that in the objectives of General Kane and CENCOM, we have not heard unconditional surrender or we've not heard to take away the ability of the regime to do power projection on their people.
That was an objective last week.
It's not an objective now.
I think we're back to the original objectives of this military operation.
Matt Boyle, what about holding together?
Are you seeing any squeamishness on Capitol Hill?
I know there's a lot of pressure on Besant.
Eric Bowling is going to join us about how much is actually being released by the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
We've got the midterms, and obviously we have this huge issue next week of Save America, but just on the war itself, what temperature do you have of where people are?
And you're beginning to get answers to those questions from the Secretary of War, from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I think from the President.
The President keeps talking about how this thing is almost over, this thing is almost over.
And he's been saying that for the last several days, if you listen to him, right?
So, getting that from our military leaders now about what does this look like when it's over and when we're done in Iran, and what does the end strategy look like?
I know that Hegseth is saying that he doesn't want to put a time constraint on it.
That's a reasonable point, but at the same time, it's like they've got to figure out what this end looks like, what does this end game look like, and what is us leaving.
Well, the president has been saying, He has been saying, Hey, he has been saying, Hey, I want to make sure we don't leave before this is all done, right?
There are a set of objectives with air supremacy itself.
Yeah, it's what you do in that now.
The asymmetric part, the part with the uh, because Bloomberg's got charts out there, the longer Hermuz stays closed, and as we now know, Hormuz is closed to certain flags.
If you have the Chinese Communist Party flag, you get out and get the oil, which I don't understand why we're allowing that, but greater minds than mine are working on this.
Now, we know from the Financial Times that our great allies in Italy and France are in direct negotiations with the Iranians to see if they can't get into the friendly flag business, they can get their cargo and get their oil designated for them out of the Persian Gulf.
Your thoughts on our great allies, also the Arabs, I think it's pretty evident they turned out to be paper tigers in this situation.
That's why you got Lindsey Graham having a couple of bourbons and branches and then screaming at the Saudis that you got to stop double-dealing us, you got to get in this fight.
Yeah, I the I mean, look, at the end of the day, what we want to see is the open flow of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz and through all of the straits in the Middle East and throughout the world.
And so, um, if we can figure out ways to get there, that's a good thing.
So, I get it why the Italians and the French would be pushing for this, right?
Like, and why they would be trying to get their, you know, their ships through, and frankly, uh, you know, other nations as well.
Uh, but the fact is, is that again, the end of the day here, this needs to be about an exit strategy, right?
Like, they can't stay there forever, right?
Like, it's not like this is not Iraq, right?
Like, this is not, you know, we're going to be there for 10 years and we're going to have thousands of Americans on the ground.
That's not going to be the case in Iran, right?
Like, that's abundantly clear from this administration.
So, now it's, I think it's we're at the end game here, right?
Like, what does the exit strategy look like?
What does the Strait of Hormuz look like after this?
What does the current leadership in Iran look like?
What does the eventual leadership in Iran look like?
And how do we get out of there now that it appears as though our military targets are mostly taken out throughout Iran, right?
So, I think delineating what's left of military targets in Iran and then figuring out the exit strategy and then alleviating the economic pressures on the world.
And then, all of this is going to sort itself out.
And I think the president's exactly right when he keeps talking, the way he talks about this is that, okay, the oil price is going to go up a little bit because obviously, when you're at war in the Middle East and commerce is disrupted, that happens.
But as soon as it's over and it's wrapped up and the U.S. military is returned home and we're not there anymore, then not operating inside Iran anymore, then I think that when we get to that point and the end game is clear and we're out, then I think you'll see commerce basically resume as normal, right?
Please explain to this audience the kabuki theory.
Are we the president said, and I don't think they get it because they're talking about bipartisan housing bills, and there's many things that they're working on that can start to address certain of the issues about the economy.
But it's really the president's actions has the biggest impact.
President said, and correct me if I'm wrong, he said, look, I don't want to hear it.
I want the Save America Act.
I want it passed.
If you got to do the talking filibuster, do it.
If you don't have to do that, then fine.
But I want it passed.
This is essential for the midterm elections.
And you've heard nothing but Thun give every reason in the world why he can't do it, why he don't have the votes.
Now, I think is overnight.
We believe that there's going to be actually putting it forward next week in some long debate that could take many days or weeks.
So the Senate rules allow for them to do it that way rather than to have a 60-vote motion to proceed onto the legislation.
Normally, there's a number of different 60-vote margins to get on legislation, to get to final consideration of it, and then to the final passage is usually a simple majority.
But these are the Senate arcane rules.
They're very complicated.
So what they're going to do is they're going to get on the bill, a motion to proceed, basically.
But their way they're doing it is that it's a question posed by the House because the House has passed this bill, the Save America Act, and they're going to do it that way.
They haven't done this in a long time.
So that's a way to get around the 60-vote threshold on the outside of it.
The problem is there's still a 60-vote threshold on the back end, right?
Like, and this is the issue that Cornyn, Thune, all these guys are standing in the way of.
They refuse to change the Senate rules, right?
Like, so President Trump has said we should get rid of the filibuster.
That's the filibuster rule, right?
The 60-vote threshold on the back end of legislation.
So they're getting rid of the 60-vote threshold actually on the open side of the legislation to get on the bill, which is a significant development, by the way.
So that's a good step, but it's still not enough to get off the, to get, you know, to final passage of the bill and get it to the president's desk.
Are you saying by getting on the bill and doing this methodology, we're actually going to have the Democrats forced to sit there and defend why they don't want voter ID, why they don't want the cleanup of the voter rolls, why they don't want mail-in ballots, all those critical parts of the which they said is this is voter suppression.
It's Jim Crow law.
If we get it at the start, are we going to have two weeks of Tim Kaine and Murphy and these guys being forced to go to the Senate or defend their opponents?
But the problem still is, is that there's still no legislation going to the president's desk unless they eliminate the filibuster or they get through it a different way.
Some people have suggested this whole quote-unquote talking filibuster thing, which is you make the Democrats talk until they drop.
The problem for that is that the Republicans would have to staff the Senate floor with senators for just as long as that goes on for.
And I don't know if they can physically do that, right?
Like I think there's a lot of very old senators.
Like for instance, John Cornyn, who's up for re-election.
Yeah, well, I think it's abundantly clear now that in the 10 days since the Republican primary in Texas, John Cornyn has blown his opportunity to secure an endorsement from President Trump, at least as it stands right now.
All the reporting suggests that John Cornyn will not be endorsed by President Trump at least anytime soon.
Yeah, I think that it's abundantly clear that John Cornyn has blown his opportunity to win a Trump endorsement ahead of the Texas runoff.
Again, all the proper caveats here, this could change at any given moment, but it does appear as though the president, who was apparently ready to endorse John Cornyn after the primary, after all of those things came out, many of those things in that ad, which is a very brutal ad, over the last week or so, I think the president has given serious pause to this.
I have not spoken to the president, so I'm not speaking for him, but I'm just saying that all indications are that it does not appear as though the president will be endorsing John Cornyn anytime soon.
In addition to that, I think that we have now, both sides were kind of waiting to see if the president endorsed somebody for the week or so after the primary.
Now the campaign is back in full swing, right?
So Cornyn's team is out running a really stupid ad attacking Ken Paxton for supposedly stealing a pen a decade ago.
And now Paxton's out with this brutal response.
And so the campaign is back in full swing.
Both sides are now campaigning again after the primary and as we enter the runoff.
And again, I think that the edge is this is Ken Paxton's race to lose, right?
Like or win, win or lose.
Ken Paxton is the candidate in the driver's seat going into the Texas Senate runoff.
john cornyn uh it does not appear to have a clear pathway to victory without a trump endorsement and even with a trump endorsement the numbers are a little bit muddled and we don't even know if that would be enough which i think also hold it Hang on.
I've talked to Republicans around Washington a week.
I've been meeting with different folks across the party.
I won't give out names, but I'm just going to tell you: serious people inside the Republican Party understand that if John Cornyn does not win an endorsement from President Trump, he will probably not be the Republican nominee for Texas for Senate in Texas this year.
And it does not appear that such an endorsement is coming.
Best audit, second, the Warren Posse tops of a man.
They're pretty damn good.
That's Sirius XM.
Truckers on Sirius XM.
Pretty darn good.
Thank you, brother.
Matt, fantastic.
And thanks for the scoops.
Appreciate you.
You know, the interesting thing about that ad, that ad could have been written, the script pulled, and the cuts pulled by tens of thousands of grassroots, hardcore Trump supporters in the great state of Texas.
It's that all those comments are burned indelibly into their soul.
This is why they're so adamantly against Cornyn and so strongly for Ken Paxton.
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