All Episodes Plain Text
March 18, 2026 - Bannon's War Room
48:22
WarRoom Battleground EP 970: Massive Throw Down In Senate Over SAVE ACT Cont; Joe Kent Resigns

Senator John Thune and the host clash over the SAVE Act, a "Trojan horse" bill requiring passports for voting that Democrats like Alex Padilla oppose via filibuster to prevent election nationalization. While Trump claims the measure secures Republican dominance, the episode details Joe Kent's resignation from the National Counterterrorism Center due to Israeli pressure on Iran, signaling MAGA fractures. Trump's subsequent confrontation with NATO allies refusing Strait of Hormuz deployments suggests the death of the rules-based order, all underscored by tributes to fallen soldiers Master Sergeant Tyler Simmons and Captain Seth Koval amidst conspiracy theories linking the pandemic to Chinese biological weapons. [Automatically generated summary]

Participants
Main
j
james lankford
06:04
s
steve bannon
r 19:26
Appearances
a
alex padilla
sen/d 02:55
c
chris jansing
01:14
d
donald j trump
admin 01:52
i
inzamam rashid
01:01
j
john thune
sen/r 01:37
j
jon husted
sen/r 03:08
m
mychael schnell
msnow 02:01
n
neil mccabe
redstate 03:30
Clips
k
katy tur
msnow 00:17
|

Speaker Time Text
Trojan Horse Voter ID Bill 00:15:00
alex padilla
And misinformation and misrepresentations repeated over and over again by our Republican colleagues.
So let me make a few things very clear.
First of all, no, this is not a simple voter ID bill.
The latest version of the SAVE Act is the Trojan horse, actually.
It's a voter suppression bill filled with poison pills and designed to change the rules of the election as we're in the middle of primary election season already and the November election on the horizon and for what?
For partisan political gain?
The president himself has said that if this bill passes, Republicans, quote, will never lose a race.
For 50 years, we won't lose the race, end quote.
The lead sponsor of this bill in the Senate has stated, quote, Republicans will lose power, likely for a long time, if we don't get the Save America Act passed, end quote.
Colleagues, it doesn't get any more obvious than that.
And here's how it works.
steve bannon
Okay, you're in the war room for the 6 o'clock hour.
Alex Padilla of California is their fourth Democrat in a row, actually fifth Democrat in a row.
They are trying to bring the heat against the Save America Act.
We're going to watch and listen in.
We've got some guests.
We're going to play some clips.
Let's go back to the Senate floor, Alex Padilla, California.
alex padilla
Use their driver's licenses or common IDs to register to vote.
The Save Act would require a passport in order to vote, something that half of Americans don't have.
Not to mention the $165 it costs and afford a six-week wait time to get one.
And if you're one of the 148 million Americans who does not have a passport, but you're otherwise eligible to vote, you'll need to, what, maybe dig through the attic or call your parents to try to find your original birth certificate.
That's if you still even have it.
According to one survey, there's an estimated 21 million people who lack access to these documents.
That's a big chunk of the electorate.
And if you're one of the 69 million married women who chose to change your name when you got married, tough luck.
Your name doesn't match your birth certificate anymore, even if you can find the birth certificate.
So now you have to jump through additional hoops and bring your birth certificate and your marriage license to the election office.
That is your recourse.
Because just to make this even more of a burden, the SAVE Act mandates that you bring these documents, and let me quote from the bill, in person to the office of the appropriate election official and sign an affidavit.
That's what the text of the bill says.
And as a result, millions of women are going to face additional barriers to the ballot than their spouses have to face.
Why does anybody have time for that?
Some evening after work?
Maybe on a weekend?
That's assuming elections offices are open in the evenings and on weekends.
steve bannon
Election Takeover Act, that's what they're calling.
So we see their angle of attack on this already.
Maybe we'll get some more Republicans up here in a while, but it's been Patty Murray, Amy Kobitscher, Andy Kim, Mark Warner, now Alex Padilla.
Have stepped into the in the second hour of this and taken over, and they're letting you know in no uncertain terms that they, although many of these people believed it before, they don't believe it now.
Let's go ahead.
We've got a clip of from of an interview earlier in the day, just right before the start.
Let's go ahead and play that.
neil mccabe
Why is the filibuster more important than stopping illegals from voting?
john thune
Well look, I mean, I think that the um, there are many ways in which you can stop illegals from voting.
A lot of states have some of those measures already in place.
But I do think the filibuster, or maybe more specifically, the concept that the founders had for the United States Senate was that it would be one body that was majoritarian and one that wasn't.
And so they divided power in a way that enabled the United States Senate, which we have six-year terms, staggered terms, more of a methodical way of going about solving the country's problems, and generally in ways that ensure.
that there are bipartisan majorities in which to accomplish that.
So um, and and frankly, I mean I think most of I can't say speak for all my colleagues, but a lot of our colleagues believe that um, many of the things that Democrats want to do, uh and and when they tried to nuke the filibuster a couple years ago uh, were all things that we don't want to have our fingerprints on, whether that's adding Dc and Puerto Raco estates or expanding the Supreme Court, you can go right down the the laundry list of uh nationalizing elections.
You can go right down the laundry list of things that I think there are a lot of my uh myself and my colleagues have grave concerns about if the Democrats ever have that power handed to them.
steve bannon
Uh Thune, I just you could feel the body language he's going to have to step up here to get this done, to actually turn it into a filibuster or grind this through for the next couple of days, because i'm hearing hey, they may want to have a hearing tomorrow and Mark Wayne Mullins confirmation, which to me is not a priority.
I mean, we got to get him in his DHS, but DHS not even funded and if you're weak on this, they're not going to fund DHS.
So um yes, it's important to get um Mark Wayne Mullins confirmed, but in the priority.
This is everything.
It should be treated as everything.
President Trump has said it's everything.
And we had these converging forces finally, after years of fighting this and to me, you kind of I judge one of the ways I judge people of how serious, how really MAGA they are is not simply the fact, were they with us early and are they populist nationalists?
And have they held tough, particularly in 16 and during the first administration when they were coming at president Trump, and then right after us in the 2020 with the pandemic, and then the, the big steal, and then the horrible years of 21 and 22 before he took back the house.
You look at that and where are they on the vital, vital um issues of the day and never was a vital issue the Middle East or Israel just wasn't after we took out Isis.
It's a sideshow and should remain a sideshow Show, and now it's kind of front and center.
That'll be a topic for later.
But what's always been front and center is stolen elections, the stolen 2020 election, which is the railhead of everything.
It's the railhead of the financial destruction of the country.
It's the railhead of 20 or 25 million illegal aliens in the country.
Henceforth, we're having this debate right now.
It's the railhead, really, of the problems in Ukraine and in Gaza.
None of that would have started if President Trump had been allowed to close on his victory in 2020 and not had it stolen.
And so now three massive things are happening simultaneously.
We have a real investigation going on in Fulton County, and the Justice Department is not folding on that.
There's arbitration kind of mediation kind of fell apart.
And the Democrats, what are they doing?
They're trying to get the ballots.
They're trying to get the evidence.
What's happened in Maricopa County?
Something along the same lines.
Then John Solomon's breaking massive blockbuster after massive blockbuster.
And we know this because the intelligence community, controlled by political appointees of President Trump, don't want to really step forward and push it.
Now, we do understand that John Ratcliffe, the director of the CIA, has been quite helpful to John.
And I think they're actually going to release some documents over the next couple of days.
But the White House, John Solomon's words, not mine.
The White House told him, hey, can you tamp this down?
Just hold it for a while.
We don't want to upset Xi.
And, you know, we want to make sure that we can have this state meeting at some time in the future, the China meeting.
But we have now evidence of what we always thought, that during the pandemic, the Chinese Communist Party, who started the pandemic because it was a biological weapon from the Wuhan lab, they started the pandemic because they couldn't defeat Trump.
In May of 2019, they had declared a people's war against us because they said we're never going to sign the Lighthouse deal after we negotiated for two years.
We're never going to sign it.
We're never going to become part of the economic order driven by the Americans, the foreign devils.
We're not going to do that.
And they declared a People's War News.
And what did they do?
They let off a biological weapon.
I don't know, summer of 2019, fall of 2019, at the military games, and then pushed it out into January, February, March of 2021.
And we now know that the Chinese Communist Party, excuse me, in 20, the Chinese Communist Party, January, February, March of 2020, we now know in April 2020, because John Sama's brought it out, and Glenn Beck's done a tremendous job.
I'll play that Glenn Beck clip in a minute, that they went and got not ballots.
They went into the voter rolls and got people's information.
Your addresses, your social security numbers, everything they needed, everything they needed to steal an election by mailing ballots, which they knew were coming because they knew to put the pandemic out there.
A very well thought through plan.
And what's so shocking about John Solomon's discoveries is that the intelligence community and DHS knew about it and suppressed the information, suppressed it now for what, five years, going on six years, suppressed the information.
Now you know why they didn't want to look in too much into the laptop from hell in that same timeframe.
And it's starting, they had the laptop from hell in November, December of 2019.
They made a conscious decision to try to thwart us when we start bringing forward revelations on it in September of 2020 after Ruli Giuliani got his hands on it, started going through it and called me up to go through the Chinese Communist Party of it, which was unreal of the Biden's involvement in that.
Let's go ahead.
We do have a cold open.
We've got Padilla.
I think we have a couple more Democrats.
We're definitely going to make sure you hear what they have to say, but let's say this.
They're not fans of the Save America Act because their business model is predicated upon those 20 million illegal alien invaders in the country.
Look at Mandami.
Mike Davis said it very well.
Mamdani up in New York City.
We have a cold open.
We're set to play.
I don't want to jump the gun here.
We're good?
We're good?
Okay.
It's the six o'clock, guys.
Let's go ahead and let it rip.
katy tur
The problem that is facing the globe right now, beyond the war itself, it's the Strait of Hormuz still being closed, not getting reopened, and the president clearly unhappy that NATO and other allies are not going to come to the aid to reopen it.
inzamam rashid
Yeah, it's the problem that's facing the world, Katie, but clearly it's the problem that's facing the president now as well.
Because as you mentioned there, NATO allies, countries aren't standing with him on this decision to essentially bring warships to this water behind me to try and take back control of it.
Yes, they do need to take back control of these waters from Iranian military because we've seen the devastating impact that oil prices have had over the last couple of weeks whilst the Strait of Hormuz remains relatively shut and oil can't transfer through.
We've seen the knock-on effect that it's had on everyday people.
Fuel prices have gone through the roof.
We've seen in some countries food prices doubling because fertilizers can't get through as well.
But clearly there are many countries like Australia, like Japan, like Germany, all that you mentioned, who don't feel as if they want this to escalate.
And that would happen if they were to stand by the president and send warships to this part of the world.
unidentified
Escorting those oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
donald j trump
Well, we don't need too much help, and we don't need any help, actually.
In fact, we just put out a notice.
I was watching over the last couple of weeks, and all of our NATO allies were very much in favor of what we did.
They thought it was very important.
We were just discussing it, actually, very important that we take out the nuclear threat from Iran.
And we've done that very strongly, very powerfully.
We've wiped out their Navy, wiped out their military in every aspect.
Their Air Force is now decimated.
They have no Air Force, no Navy.
They have no radar.
Their radar is entirely gone.
They're anti-aircraft.
unidentified
Are you rethinking the United States' relationship with NATO possibly getting out?
donald j trump
Well, I'm disappointed in NATO that we spend trillions of dollars on NATO.
Think of it, trillions over the years, many trillions of dollars.
It's one of the reasons we have deficits and we help other countries.
And when they don't help us, I mean, it's certainly something that we should think about.
I don't need Congress for that decision.
As you probably know, I can make that decision myself.
I'd work with some very smart people, and I'd always deal with Congress anyway.
But I don't need Congress for that decision.
But, you know, when you say rethink, I'm not, I have nothing currently in mind, but I will say that I'm not exactly thrilled when we help them with Ukraine.
Look, Ukraine would have been over in one day if we didn't help.
Frankly, Ukraine would have been over the first day.
They had the best equipment in the world.
It was our equipment.
mychael schnell
Right now, we have two Republicans who are on the record saying that they plan to oppose this procedural vote.
That is set to happen really within the next hour.
That's Lisa Murkowski and Tom Tillis.
Murkowski in particular, not such a surprise.
A few weeks ago, she had put out an op-ed saying that she was opposed to the Save America Act.
And let's remind viewers what exactly this is.
It would require proof of citizenship to vote in addition to voter ID.
Now, some Republicans and virtually all Democrats have raised concerns that maybe all Americans don't actually have access to those documents they would be needed to verify their citizenship and the voter ID.
For example, everybody may not have a driver's license.
Everybody may not have a copy of their birth certificate.
Elongated Legislative Process Ahead 00:07:18
mychael schnell
That was one of the chief concerns.
Also, married women, there was concern that maybe they would run into some issues at the ballot box if their married name does not match the name on that identification.
So this is all set to come to a head finally, right?
After weeks of President Trump calling this his number one priority, urging Republicans to vote on it, we are going to see the Senate barrel towards that.
So later this afternoon, there's going to be this initial procedural vote to kick off this process.
It requires a majority vote.
Now, if there is one more Republican who votes against it, it would be 50-50, and that means that Vice President JD Vance would be needed up here to break that tie.
One person we're paying close attention to, Senator Mitch McCono, we'll see how he votes on that.
If this procedural vote is successful, whether with Republican votes or with the tiebreaking vote from the vice president, we would then see what could end up being a days or weeks long debate over the SAVE Act.
We expect this to be an elongated process.
We're in a bit of uncharted territory right now, so we don't know how long it's going to be.
But at the end of the day, let's not forget this has no chance of becoming law.
It would require 60 votes in order to pass through the Senate.
And there just are not enough Democratic supporters, really any Democratic supporters, who could get this behind this legislation.
But still, President Trump using it very much so as a litmus test of support within the Republican Party and as a way to rev up conversation about what he's calling his number one priority.
neil mccabe
So illegals voting and the other things that are in the Save America Act do not approach an existential threat to our democracy.
It's just something that can be casually dealt with, not worth losing the filibuster.
john thune
I don't think it's being casually dealt with.
We're going to have a spirited debate on the floor here.
And as I said earlier, states have the authority to do this already.
My state has those requirements in place.
So this is a way of ensuring at the federal level that we have a requirement that if you want to vote in this country, you have to register and you also have to have an ID to vote.
But that's something that's done in some fashion in 36 states already.
unidentified
Because the Iranian regime has told Sky News, if you put boots on the ground in Iran, it will be another Vietnam.
Are you afraid of that?
donald j trump
No, I'm not afraid of, I'm really not afraid of anything.
steve bannon
Okay, welcome back.
No one, it's open right now.
We'll see if it's a Republican or a Democrat.
They've had five Democrats in a row.
Have you enjoyed that?
Let's go to Neil McCabe.
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Neil is up.
Neil McCabe at the White House.
Neil, you've been covering this on Capitol Hill all day.
What do you got for us?
neil mccabe
The word I got, not from McConnell's office, but people are sort of doing a whip count, is that McConnell will vote with leadership because it's considered a procedural.
A procedural vote is basically a party loyalty vote.
Obviously, when other issues are at play, not so much, but you're expected to vote with your party on procedure.
And then we have to see what the Democrats do.
The Republicans have some amendments.
Will they start filibustering the amendments or will they let them pass with the simple majority?
People are just waiting to see how the Democrats are going to play it.
But certainly, Thun and the leadership are working with conservatives and MAGA to try to get this thing done and play it out.
steve bannon
How do you think it's going to go?
How do you think it's going to go through?
How do you think it's going to go through the evening or for the next couple of hours?
Because the Democrats, the battle lines are drawn.
We already know Murkowski and Tillis are no's.
So we're down to 51.
Even if McConnell said no, we'd still get to 50.
And you have, if Collins hangs in there, you've got the vice president JD Vance could come down and vote.
But one thing that struck me about that, because you asked the question to Thun coming out of the lunch, and it looked to me, and of course, I'm observing this from half the country away, that they had a lot more piss and vinegar before they went, before they had the lunch.
And then around the table, it looked like we went back to sad Thune, the slumped shoulders, the no energy, the no urgency, being very professorial, just telling us some basic stuff, no fire that this is actually going to get done.
What MAGA doesn't want to see in the President Trump's base is just some kabuki theater performance art.
They really want to see this thing hammered out and pushed through.
They don't care how long it takes, but they want to see it really push through a real fight to get this done.
They get it back to the House, to get it figured out, and they get it to the president's desk, get it signed, then have the lawsuits come, take it all the way up to the Supreme Court, I think before their June exit, take it to the Supreme Court, argue it, win it there, and then execute on this to make sure that we have free and fair elections in the fall.
Neil McCabe, you were there.
Your thoughts that Thune seemed like he was breathing fire of a leader you would like to be jacking people up on St. Patrick's Day about this?
neil mccabe
I almost dozed off during his answer.
It was just hoo-ha-ha about the founders and the deliberative body.
And he just started droning.
And the two guys I'm watching are Mike Lee, who's sort of the behind-the-scenes strategist, and Barrasso, the whip, who, to my mind, seems absolutely passionate about getting this thing done.
I was under the impression, certainly on the floor speeches he was making this week, that Thune had come home to Jesus and he was making it happen.
But at that presser, I really want to wonder if it's not so much what happened at the presser, Steve, it's what happened in that luncheon, like you said.
And that's where people said, whoa, John, we're not really sure we want to do this.
steve bannon
Okay, let's go.
We got Lankford of Oklahoma.
He's always been kind of a, I think, a weak sister.
Let's go ahead and hear what Lankford has to say.
Elections Define Our Nation 00:06:07
james lankford
Decide for our own future, decide for our own families without having foreign interference coming across an ocean to be able to affect us.
We determined that we wanted to run our own nation.
Now, 250 years later, we still run our own nation.
We want to make our own decisions without foreign interference, without anyone stepping in and telling us as Americans who we're going to be and what we're going to do.
We disagree with each other enough.
We don't need individuals from the outside coming in and expressing their opinion.
We handle this as Americans.
And the way that we do that is with elections.
Elections have been routinely done through the history of our country since our Constitution was ratified in 1789.
It has been a distinguishing mark of the United States.
We're the oldest functioning constitutional democracy in the world.
And in our republic, we choose representatives.
Those representatives speak on our behalf.
And if we decide we don't like them for whatever reason, we choose different representatives.
But we as Americans choose our own path through our own elected officials.
That's what we do.
And we do it on a regular, consistent basis.
Now, in the earliest days, it was literally a wooden box and slips of paper.
We've improved that over the years.
Step by step, decade after decade, we've done elections a little bit differently.
Now, they're done differently all over the country on it, but we have some basic foundational rules that also guide us.
We choose our own leaders, but we do it the right way.
It wasn't always that way.
But as we've improved, we make our elections more transparent, better, faster responses, giving more trust.
Many folks in my generation will never forget the photograph of staring at a hanging Chad from the Bush election with a person in an election board closely staring through a magnifying glass to try to figure out if there was a dimple on a piece of paper.
There's no election system in the country that does Chads anymore because we all determined that's a terrible idea.
It's just a bad way to be able to try to prove the intent of a vote.
And a whole younger generation has no idea what a hanging Chad would even be because we no longer do that anymore.
We protect the right of all individuals to vote, every American citizen.
Because in the middle of the 1960s, we as a nation passed the Voting Rights Act, determining that every person in America has the right to be able to vote and that would be protected, that if there'd be any jurisdiction in the country that would violate that, that a federal court could literally step in and say, no, every single citizen of the country would have a protected right to vote.
In fact, if you want me to read it to you, the Voting Rights Act actually begins with this simple statement.
All citizens of the United States who are otherwise qualified by law to vote at any election by the people in any state, territory, district, county, city, parish, township, school district, municipality, or other territorial subdivision shall be entitled and allowed to vote.
But this simple statement that the Voting Rights Act begins with all citizens.
What's interesting is the Voting Rights Act protected the ability of a court to step in and say if some citizen is not being allowed to vote.
steve bannon
We're going to take a short commercial break.
We're going to come back to Senators in a couple of minutes.
Senator Langford, we'll come back to that.
Not too shabby.
And Neil is with us at the White House.
I've got some other issues about the war that's being fought and want to make sure everybody understands.
President Trump right now has had NATO come back to him and say, hey, look, we understand it's the Red Sea.
We understand it's Hormuz, but your Navy's got to take care of it.
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The eighth free edition is coming out.
Hopefully it'll come out before CPAC or around CPAC online.
You can get a hard copy.
The Patriots edition of the first seven installments, there's a lot to chew on there.
We're trying to teach you what a hedge is against times of financial and geopolitical turbulence where we are right now.
Short break back to the Senate, back to Capitol Hill when we return.
james lankford
The instant the election was done that night at 7 p.m., so that it's public information immediately how many votes were taken in this area.
So if at some point it shows up later, it was a different number, everyone could see it.
We have full verification through the entire process.
In Oklahoma, we have voter ID at every single location in every single vote.
How do we do it?
If you vote in person, you show up to vote on election day, you pull out an ID and you show an ID, every single person.
If you vote early, absentee.
We have that all over our state in county election boards, everywhere.
As you walk up, you have to pull out an ID and to be able to show that ID to vote.
And if you're going to mail in your ballot, we welcome that, but you've got to show ID when you actually do it.
That means actually going to a location where you can get a notary that before you put your ballot in the mail, it shows your envelope.
You show the ID.
It shows on the envelope who the person is on it.
And you actually have a notary to do that.
We have voter ID at every single stage.
We don't allow ballot harvests.
steve bannon
I'll come back to Lankford in a second.
I want to go to Neil at the White House.
European Allies Say No 00:13:13
steve bannon
Neil, today, one of the most, I think, dramatic things was the European allies telling President Trump no.
You know, France is kind of saying, well, we may be, and he's saying England's saying that, but they're not saying that over in England.
Italy, other nations were a hard no.
And particularly where the Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf, Red Sea, the Suez Canal, that's all going out of Hormuz, I realize a big slice of it goes to Asia, but a big hunk.
I think 40% of the energy from Europe comes out of there.
And in Suez, it's like 90%.
And you've got multiple carry battle groups.
And President Trump does say, yes, we can do it ourselves, but we do have other obligations, like in the South China Sea.
I mean, we had to take a Marine ready group, a Marine amphibious ready group, the Tripoli, from Japan and take it to the North Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Oman, potentially for a potential takeover if President Trump so orders CENCOM to take Karg Island or maybe other activities.
We've now taken, I think, that and Patriot missiles from South Koreans, and the South Koreans are very upset about it because they understand what a tough time they had last time to put in it, particularly since there's a CCP kind of aligned party now in charge.
These are major strategic issues for the United States.
Your thoughts, sir?
neil mccabe
Well, it's always disconcerting when your allies are seeking a separate peace with the people that you're at war with.
I think another sort of the unspoken dirty secret is that these NATO allies have not invested in their military.
And so, you know, their radios, their trucks, their equipment, it just isn't up to speed.
And so, yeah, they're also making geopolitical decisions based on their oil supply.
But it's also true that they just don't have navies and air force and armies like they used to.
During the Cold War, these allies had an obligation to sort of keep up with us.
But that's all fallen by the wayside, Steve.
And everybody talks about working with other nations, cooperating, right?
But it's like when we need them, where are they?
And I think this is really the death of NATO.
And I think it's really the death of this rules-based order or however the FDR set up the world to be, I think it's now broken apart.
steve bannon
No, you make a great point.
First of all, they committed to 5% of GDP, but nobody's spending it.
I've also said, you know, France, you bring up a point.
I just want to make sure people understand.
It was reported and not refuted that both France and Italy over the weekend, and I think continuing into yesterday, were trying to have direct conversations with the Iranian regime because they are letting out certain vessels.
We know they're letting out anything that is flagged with the Chinese Communist Party or one of these great zone ships with oil going to China that they're going to get cash for.
Look, I'm of the opinion they ought to stop everything coming out of there.
It'll bring this thing to a head much quicker.
But France and Italy, we're having sidebar conversations directly.
I also think, and you're 100% correct, they've wanted, I think this is going to have a huge impact on this Ukraine situation because they want us to stand up for an American security guarantee.
Remember that?
And they're going to all this big talk.
They're going to put in troops at the line of control and all that.
It's not going to happen.
And I think the American people now are going to be outraged because President Trump put out feelers to say, hey, look, we may need some assistance here, particularly with the Houthis down the Red Sea, which is 100% the Suez Canal.
I was bitching and moaning about that last summer, when our carrier battle groups were attacked by the Houthis and they got off a couple of, they took down an aircraft or at least got enough in an aircraft that had a mechanical problem and had to crash.
And we had other situations.
So these guys right here, I think they're treading on thin ice, particularly when it comes to the Ukraine situation, Neil.
neil mccabe
Well, I'll just tell you, it is a fact that when I was serving in the new Iraq, when U.S. forces took over an area that was controlled by the Italians, they basically were confronted with the sheikhs who said, hey, the Italians paid us to keep this area quiet.
What are you going to pay us to keep this area quiet?
And that was all over the theater.
Wherever the Italians were, they just paid to make it quiet.
And so everyone knows that's how they do business.
They've been doing business that way for 2,000 years.
And so now it's confronted.
It turns out that sometimes we need them.
Like they always needed us.
Now we need them.
And so where are they?
steve bannon
President Trump's on, but we could do it ourselves.
It's not a question whether we can do it ourselves, not particularly the military operations.
It's a question of we need burden sharing here because this could be longer.
It could be more complicated.
You may have vessels under attack in Hormuz, all types of things.
And they've just said no.
And the German merch said, it's not our war.
Well, yo, Ukraine's not our war, right?
Defense of Western Europe.
World War II is over.
The Cold War is over.
Anyway, I think it's going to bring up all types of, it's quite intense, though.
And how brutally they were in President Trump's face should not be lost on any American.
Neil, where do people go?
Great job, Daniel, Capitol Hill and the White House.
A lot going on.
Where do people find you for your reporting?
neil mccabe
Steve, they can find me at Reporter McCabe on all the socials.
Good to be with you.
steve bannon
Thank you, sir.
Let's go back.
Do we have, let's go back to Lankford.
Senator Lankford of Oklahoma, he was describing the Oklahoma message, the way they do it there.
Let's go back to the center of the way for it.
james lankford
Heading through Jericho.
And as he approached Jericho, there was a tax collector there.
His name was Zacchaeus.
He was up in a tree because he was a little guy because he wanted to see Jesus come by.
Now, he was a wretched guy who'd stolen from a lot of people in town, and everybody knew it.
When Jesus saw this wretched guy, he looked at him and said, why don't you come down?
I want to spend some more time with you.
And the one person in town that everybody thought Jesus would ignore, Jesus actually pointed him out and said, I want to spend more time with you.
And at the end of the conversation, everybody looked at him and said, why did you spend time with that broken, depraved person?
And Jesus responded, because I came to seek and to save what was lost.
That's why.
Just a personal privilege.
If we're going to talk about saving America, maybe we should start with our own souls.
But in the meantime, as we contemplate that as individuals, why don't we just do the most basic thing?
Why don't we verify that only American citizens are voting?
Because we all know it's happening.
I just told you stories from my own state.
Why don't we just verify as we go through the polls to increase the trust of all Americans for our election process?
Looking forward to the debate on the floor this week and for folks to have the opportunity to be able to talk this through.
This is something important that we need to be able to finish.
And it's something strongly the American people are supportive of.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
steve bannon
Okay, Senator Langford, we're in the third hour.
I think we're going to get some Republicans, or maybe we'll go back and forth.
We've had an hour of Republicans, an hour of Democrats are now in the third hour.
This is the preliminaries.
He just talked about the debate that is to come.
And President Trump has made this a priority.
I'm hearing now there may actually be, they may try to slip in the confirmation hearing for the other Oklahoma senator, Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, to take over DHS.
I think if they can do that and do it appropriately tomorrow morning before this thing really kicks off for the seizing the floor and holding it, maybe that could work.
I think they've got to show that this is a priority.
The president said nothing else is going to happen until nothing else is going to happen.
He's not going to sign anything.
He's not going to push for anything until this is done.
While we had this break, some big breaking news today, Joe Kent, of course, this audience knows Joe Kent and loves him.
Big announcement from Joe Kent today, stepping down as the joint terror, the head of the joint terror.
Senate confirmed position.
Tough to get him through.
Joe's there, but resigned today.
He said he couldn't serve, continue to serve where he thought Israel's interests was being pushed.
White House immediately pushed back.
Let's go ahead and play it.
chris jansing
The head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, announced just hours ago that he is resigning immediately over the war in Iran.
And we just heard from the president, who essentially dismissed it.
What's so striking here is that Kent is an ultra-Trump loyalist, someone who supported the president through all three of his campaigns.
But now, as someone who knows the threats the U.S. faces, perhaps more than almost anyone, is saying straight out that the president was duped by a misinformation campaign and that Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.
donald j trump
Well, I read his statement.
I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security.
I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy.
But when I read a statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat.
Iran was a threat.
Every country realized what a threat Iran was.
The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it.
chris jansing
In a letter to the president that he released online, Kent wrote, It's clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
His final message, clear, quote, as a veteran who was deployed to combat 11 times and as a gold star husband who lost my beloved wife, Shannon, in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people.
This is just the latest sign of a massive split inside Trump's base over the war, and it comes as the U.S. grapples with the limits of its military dominance.
steve bannon
Now, there's some confusion about how Joe wrote that letter, but how it was delivered.
And the understanding now it's been out that he met with the vice president.
He and Tulsi Gabbard together met with the vice president on Monday.
And the vice president recommended he go see the chief of staff and the president, which I think in this situation would have been quite appropriate, given Joe Kent is a guy that's highly revered.
Like I said, the chief warrant officer Kent was 11 combators, valor and courage and dedication to country beyond question.
His wife, his beloved wife, died, I think, in the Syrian operation, leaving him as a widower with two young, I think, two young boys.
So Joe Kent's dedication to his country is unparalleled.
And this letter, being as controversial as it is with the content that it has, I think it would have been very appropriate maybe for the vice president to get him to the chief of staff and get him to the president of the United States so that he could share with the president why he was considering resigning.
In fact, why he had drafted a letter.
I think that would have been very important.
And now this is going to get played out, obviously, in the media.
But the charges are very coming from a guy like Joe Kent.
To me, you're going to have to investigate this.
There should be an immediate investigation of the facts of what he's talking about.
We've got to get, we can't, these are the type of things we can't kick down the road anymore.
And I've had many, many questions about the 12-day war and about this whole imminent threat, exactly what's there and why things have to go at the time.
As I've also said, hey, now you're in it.
We got to win this thing and we must win it.
And it's not a good sign when people that owe their security to the United States of America, and not just their national security, keeping the Russians and other bad guys away, but when they owe their economic security, goods and services, products and oil that go through the Straits of Hormuz, but also through the Red Sea and up to the Suez Canal.
The United States Navy's protecting all that.
And so these questions have to be answered.
And for a guy like Joe Kent to put it out, it's not going to go away.
It's going to be very serious.
Let's go back.
We've got Asaf, I think, of Georgia.
This is a very tough race down in Georgia.
Honoring Fallen Service Members 00:03:46
jon husted
Sergeant Simmons has been posthumously promoted from tech sergeant to master sergeant.
He was a musician and played both the viola and violin.
Amazing talent.
His family says he loved to roller skate.
Tyler loved his family, but was particularly fond of his grandmother, Bernice, who at 85 years old is described as his confidant and workout buddy.
Tyler's smile could light up any room.
His strong presence would fill it, his family says.
His mother said he loved serving in the military and that he was born for it.
We mourn today alongside Master Sergeant Simmons' entire family.
See them pictured there.
You can see his smile.
Can tell what they mean.
I talk about his smile.
Third individual I would like to honor is Captain Seth Koval.
He was 38 years old from Mooresville, Indiana, and he was an aircraft commander with 19 years of service to our country.
He graduated with a bachelor's degree in aviation operations from Purdue University in 2011.
He was a KC-135R Stratotanker instructor pilot.
See Captain Soval there.
Captain Captain Koval first enlisted in 2006 as a machinist with Indiana's National Guard's 122nd Fighter Wing and transferred to the Ohio National Guard, which we were welcome and loved to have him in 2017.
He flew a total of 2,076 hours, 443 of those in combat.
His wife said he grew up dreaming of being a pilot, a dream that his hard work may come true.
He was a man of devout faith in Jesus.
He was a man of devout faith in Jesus as his Lord and Savior.
He was described as loving, generous, selfless, kind-hearted, smart, devoted, and a fixer of all things, and a real outdoorsman.
His loss is one mourned by many, but most of all by his wife Heather, his son, and countless other close family members and friends of Captain Seth Koval.
See our three heroes right there.
Mr. President, these service members, alongside their three other brothers and sisters in arms, gave the last full measure of devotion to their country last week.
I thank my colleagues for hearing their stories this evening, for honoring their service, and for celebrating their lives, and for mourning their loss alongside a grateful nation.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate observe a moment of silence in remembrance of Captain Curtis Angst, Master Sergeant Tyler Simmons, and Captain Seth Koval.
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james lankford
Without objection.
steve bannon
Okay, that was Husted of Ohio.
We're still here.
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And of course, tomorrow we're going to have Wynton Hall.
The book is already a runaway bestseller.
And you got folks in the Senate, Tom Cotton and Senator Blackburn, talking about it.
It's Code Red.
The left, the right, China, and the race to control artificial intelligence.
The great Wynton Hall, a longtime colleague, also a partner over at Government Accountability with the great Peter Schweitzer.
This book is out today.
We're going to have him as a guest tomorrow to talk about artificial intelligence and the race to control artificial intelligence.
So that will be a blockbuster.
Listen, artificial intelligence, home title, hometidaloc.com.
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I want to thank everybody.
I want to thank Real America's Voice.
I want to thank the Denver crew, everyone, for making this additional hour possible.
We'll be back here at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.
I want to thank our sponsors like Home Title Ock, HomeTitleLock.com, promo code Steve.
Talk to Manley Dominguez and the team today.
Show is going to be lit tomorrow.
Got a lot to go through.
We got Joe Kent to go through.
Overnight Developments of the War A Cost the Save America Act.
We'll be following it nonstop.
Be streaming it.
Grace and Moe will be streaming it throughout the evening.
I may dip in there.
Got a bunch of meetings that got to take place right now.
But also we have Wynton Hall on Code Red.
Not going to miss it.
10 a.m. tomorrow morning, Eastern Dayton Time.
We're going to be absolutely packed.
unidentified
We'll see you then.
steve bannon
Thank you very much.
unidentified
Night and day, only one.
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