Bannon's War Room - Episode 5228: Democrats Continue To Fight Against Saving Our Elections; State Attorney General's Continue Fight Against Live Nation
Aired: 2026-03-19
Duration: 48:54


=== Vote Called and Witnesses Move (01:49) ===

[00:00:00]  Time has expired.
[00:00:00]  I would advise the members that a vote has been called.
[00:00:03]  It's a single vote.
[00:00:05]  And if members want to shuttle back and forth so we can maintain the continuity of the hearing, we'll do that.
[00:00:10]  So if you start to see it, just to our witnesses, you know how this works.
[00:00:13]  They'll be moving in and out to go address that vote and then returning to their seat.
[00:00:17]  But at this time, I recognize Mr. Scott.
[00:00:20]  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[00:00:21]  Mr. Chairman, for the record, I would like to submit an article from Politico dated February 24th, 2026.
[00:00:29]  And the title of it is, Head of State of the Union, Dems Demand Trump Make Iran Plans Public.
[00:00:35]  I think most Americans understand that if the President of the United States makes those plans public, then the enemies get to see them without objection.
[00:00:44]  So order.
[00:00:45]  And that was the date of the State of the Union.
[00:00:46]  Director Patel, I'm going to come to you very quickly, and then I'm going to move on.
[00:00:51]  But I listened closely to Senator Langford's testimony yesterday about fraud and the other things that are going on.
[00:01:00]  And I want to bring your attention.
[00:01:04]  This was in March 25th, 2024.
[00:01:07]  An unsuspecting Uber driver named Lalitha Tolanda Hall drove to a house near Columbus, Ohio to pick up a package.
[00:01:13]  She had no idea that the 81-year-old man who lived there had just received a series of phone calls from scammers who had threatened to kill him if he did not give the woman coming to his house $12,000 in cash.
[00:01:27]  He killed the lady, so she's dead.
[00:01:29]  He now has a life sentence.
[00:01:31]  Are you aware of any action or investigation that the Justice Department has taken to pursue justice to bring the scammers and put them and make them pay for what they did?
[00:01:42]  Okay.
[00:01:43]  I think that's the conference scamming Thursday, 19 March, Year of Our Lord, 2026.

=== Wealth Derives True Social Power (03:36) ===

[00:01:50]  We're going to this morning be just as packed as we were yesterday with live events.
[00:01:56]  Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe, and Kash Patel are before the House intelligence, and they are getting, and Tulsi is getting a little bit lit up.
[00:02:06]  We've got some polls from that because this started earlier.
[00:02:10]  We're also going to dip in and out of the live coverage.
[00:02:12]  Also, the Prime Minister of Japan at 11 o'clock will be at the White House.
[00:02:16]  It looks like if it starts on time, the President is going to meet with her for a few minutes privately and then bring the press in for a bylat and then take questions.
[00:02:30]  My understanding is that she's got real issues, and so it may be later.
[00:02:34]  Anyway, we're going to be juggling, but we've got a full absolute pact agenda today, including a cold open that we're going to do in the B block.
[00:02:42]  Mike Davis is going to join me here momentarily.
[00:02:46]  And on top of that, Pete Hegseth and General Kane had a press conference this morning, a press briefing.
[00:02:57]  Our own David Zier got a good question in Real America's Voice, but there were some really terrific questions asked and some terrific information.
[00:03:04]  Overnight, I don't know if you've got the tweet.
[00:03:07]  I mean, we've got the true social.
[00:03:09]  The president, this is going to get back to an issue that we're going to delve into this morning and also this afternoon when I think we'll have more time.
[00:03:19]  There's an incident yesterday in which there's this massive gas field, natural gas.
[00:03:26]  In fact, Qatar's is kind of unique, I think, among the Gulf remarks is that they're not really that much oil.
[00:03:33]  It's natural gas.
[00:03:35]  I think they're the largest in the world.
[00:03:37]  It's where their wealth derives from and their power derives from.
[00:03:40]  Their power derives from their wealth.
[00:03:42]  It's a joint field, kind of co-managed.
[00:03:44]  I think really managed more than them, but in some part of it in joint ownership with the Iranians.
[00:03:51]  Part of that was hit yesterday by the Israelis, and President Trump went off.
[00:03:58]  We can get that true social up and put it up.
[00:04:01]  President Trump went off.
[00:04:03]  The Iranians hit back.
[00:04:04]  Mike Davis is up.
[00:04:05]  Let me get to Mike in a second.
[00:04:08]  Then the Iranians hit back and the president went off on true social about this.
[00:04:14]  And it can't happen again.
[00:04:15]  It did expand.
[00:04:16]  Gas through the roof.
[00:04:18]  Oil, I think, went to $119 a barrel.
[00:04:20]  I'm going to get bowling on here later.
[00:04:22]  We'll fit it in.
[00:04:22]  We'll figure out somehow when he's available to fit in.
[00:04:25]  Also, in addition, yesterday, we talked to you about the pipeline across Saudi Arabia going to the Red Sea.
[00:04:31]  That was hit.
[00:04:32]  As we told you, in all likelihood, they're going to start targeting this because this is the one way the Arabs, the Saudis have to get around the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:04:41]  More developments on this expeditionary force.
[00:04:44]  It looks like it's coming together potentially to give the President of the United States another era on the quiver to be able to take Karg Island and maybe part of some coastal facilities inside the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:04:59]  Anyway, we're going to get to all that, including Tulsi's testimony.
[00:05:04]  Quite as heated today as it was yesterday when she's in front of the Senate.
[00:05:09]  Right now, I've got, is Mike Davis with me?
[00:05:11]  Mike, so I want to go through.
[00:05:13]  And if we've got the clip from Mullins, do we have that clip, that short clip?
[00:05:17]  Is that ready to go?
[00:05:19]  It's not ready to go.
[00:05:20]  Thank you.
[00:05:22]  Mike Davis, we have a host of things to go through.

=== Voter ID Pressure Mounts (05:20) ===

[00:05:26]  The one I want to talk about is that the Save America Act.
[00:05:31]  Now, today, the Senate's coming back at noon.
[00:05:33]  We covered it last night on our six o'clock show, and we streamed it until its conclusion.
[00:05:39]  And Mike Lee came on the floor.
[00:05:41]  But the second part of that pivoted away because the Democrats just don't have a great answer for this.
[00:05:47]  Chuck Schumer then goes to the sticks and says, yeah, of course we support voter ID.
[00:05:52]  They pivoted in about the six o'clock hour to talk about war powers.
[00:05:57]  I mean, they totally changed the conversation and then Cotton and Lindsay had to come down and you had a big, you know, a big throwdown on war powers.
[00:06:04]  They put up another, what, quorum vote and they lost, I think, you know, 5347.
[00:06:11]  It wasn't even close.
[00:06:13]  Can you just walk us through what you think the strategy is right now?
[00:06:16]  Because they're going to reconvene at noon.
[00:06:17]  They're supposed to talk about Save America.
[00:06:19]  Do you just walk me through your understanding of where we are in this?
[00:06:23]  The Save Act has the support of over 80% of Americans, including a super majority of Democrats and even a super majority of minorities, because it is commonsensical that you have to have an ID to vote like you do in just about every other civilized country around the world.
[00:06:44]  It's commonsensical that you don't have foreign invaders, illegal aliens and other foreigners voting in your elections.
[00:06:52]  We want Americans to decide American elections, and we need to have that verified with voter ID.
[00:07:00]  The Democrats have pretended that the voter ID is somehow racist because apparently, according to the Democrats, Black Americans don't have the wherewithal to get an ID.
[00:07:13]  And they also think voter ID, or they pretend voter ID is sexist because apparently married women are too stupid to change their name and get an ID like everyone else, according to the Democrats theory.
[00:07:26]  This is collapsing on the Democrats, as we saw with Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democrat leader, who is pivoting rapidly because he sees the poll numbers and the pressure, including from the war room posse lighting up these Senate offices through our actions.
[00:07:45]  One of the reasons, Mike, help me out here.
[00:07:47]  Their reasons is that their arguments, because we've been in this now for two days, their arguments are very scattered, very weak.
[00:07:54]  Is that what's also driving?
[00:07:55]  I mean, some people are watching this.
[00:07:57]  They're putting the clips out.
[00:07:59]  And the Democrats are just not, you know, the thing about 50% of women are going to not be able to vote.
[00:08:04]  They're not sticking the landing on anything.
[00:08:06]  Is that why Schumer is now saying, of course, we support voter ID?
[00:08:10]  Is that the reason?
[00:08:12]  Here's the real reason the Democrats are fighting like hell to stop the passage of the SAVE Act that has the support of 80% of Americans, including a super majority of Democrats and even a super majority of minorities, because Democrat politicians know that illegal aliens are illegally voting in our elections, right?
[00:08:32]  And the Democrats are increasingly reliant on the illegal alien vote or the foreigner vote like we saw in New York City with Mamdani.
[00:08:42]  If illegals are not voting, why are the Democrats so concerned about voter ID?
[00:08:47]  Why are they so concerned about birth, you know, proof of citizenship when you register to vote?
[00:08:54]  These are common sense proposals in this SAVE Act.
[00:08:58]  I want to commend senators like Mike Lee.
[00:09:02]  He has been the tip of the spear on this.
[00:09:04]  There's also been other senators like Eric Schmidt in Missouri, but these guys are warriors.
[00:09:09]  One of my good friends is Rachel Bovart at the Conservative Partnership Institute, and she is an expert on Senate procedure.
[00:09:18]  And I talked to her last night, and I would strongly encourage Senate Republicans to lean in and lean in strongly.
[00:09:27]  We do not need 60 votes to pass legislation in the Senate.
[00:09:32]  That is a myth.
[00:09:33]  It takes 60 votes to short-circuit debate in the Senate.
[00:09:39]  So to file for cloture, to invoke cloture, to short-circuit unlimited debate in the Senate.
[00:09:45]  But if you just force these Senate Democrats to stand on their feet and debate, they're going to wear out.
[00:09:52]  And we have 80% of Americans behind the passage of the SABE Act.
[00:09:58]  So let's not play any games.
[00:10:00]  They're building what's called the tree in the Senate.
[00:10:04]  Let's build that tree with real amendments that's going to ultimately lead to the debates and passage of the SAVE Act and not bright, shiny Christmas ornaments that are a distraction.
[00:10:16]  Keep your eye on the prize, which is the passage of the SABE Act.
[00:10:21]  The Democrats are going to cave.
[00:10:23]  It has 80% support of Americans, including a supermajority of the Democrats and minorities.
[00:10:29]  The Democrats will cave on this.
[00:10:30]  We're already starting to see Schumer cave by saying, after opposing voter ID for many, many, many years, all of a sudden the Democrats pretend like they support voter ID.
[00:10:41]  The political pressure is working.

=== Judicial Warrants vs ICE Orders (04:01) ===

[00:10:46]  Perfect.
[00:10:47]  Okay, let me play.
[00:10:48]  I want to play something for a hearing.
[00:10:49]  I know you're pressed for time.
[00:10:50]  We're pressed for time.
[00:10:51]  Let's play this hearing.
[00:10:52]  I want your response, Mike Davis.
[00:10:54]  A clothing at a local church when she came across agents in an unmarked car.
[00:11:00]  Agents sideswiped her car.
[00:11:02]  Three mask agents in camouflage stormed out, and one of them pulled out his gun and fired at her just moving vehicle, hitting her five times.
[00:11:12]  Thank you, guys.
[00:11:13]  Let's get the right clip.
[00:11:15]  Anyway, Mike, because of time constraints, we had the witness yesterday, Mark Wayne Mullins, trying to be there, trying to become the head of DHS, said, was very blunt and said under his watch that he will require judicial warrants to go into any business or any home in which they're not actively chasing a criminal.
[00:11:38]  This is 1 billion percent against any logic, anything that the Trump administration has ever stood for, and anything the president of the United States has ever stood for.
[00:11:48]  He pleased, and you're the guy that used to prep all the The big time confirmations we had to do fell to you working for Grassley, particularly when it came to Supreme Court and others.
[00:12:04]  Was that a slip of what Mark Wayne Mullins thinks, or is that signed off by the White House, sir?
[00:12:11]  I presume that Senator Mullen must have been misspeaking there because that's not what the law is by any stretch of the imagination.
[00:12:18]  He's not a lawyer, so it's understandable if he got tripped up a bit on the differences between a judicial warrant where you go to the Article III judge in a criminal proceeding with probable cause versus an ICE warrant where it's a civil proceeding to expel illegal aliens is civil in nature, not criminal in nature.
[00:12:42]  So I presume he just got tripped up on the difference between a judicial warrant and an ICE warrant because that's just not what the law is.
[00:12:50]  And if we actually require judicial warrants for immigration, there's no chance in hell we would be able to expel the tens of millions of illegal aliens who have flooded into America and are replacing American workers and American voters.
[00:13:08]  So President Trump's broad electoral mandate was to secure our border and expel illegal aliens, starting with the worst of the worst, like Trendy Aragua and MS-13.
[00:13:19]  And you certainly don't need an Article III judicial warrant to do that.
[00:13:25]  It would take us how many thousand years?
[00:13:28]  If there's President Trump says 25, I think war rooms are like 20 or 15 to 20, but let's say there's millions and millions and millions.
[00:13:36]  Real quickly, I'm going to hold you through the break.
[00:13:38]  I got another question.
[00:13:39]  But how many decades would it take us if we had to have judicial warrants?
[00:13:43]  And also, the system would totally clog up.
[00:13:45]  You couldn't move anything else.
[00:13:47]  It'd be beyond a nightmare.
[00:13:49]  How can this be a slip up?
[00:13:51]  How can this be a slip up?
[00:13:52]  This guy, how is he nominated?
[00:13:54]  He's got to know something about this part of it.
[00:13:56]  I mean, Holman, I think, was on TV and said, look, he's not an expert in immigration law.
[00:14:02]  This is not something for an expert.
[00:14:03]  This is not something you need to be an expert, is it, sir?
[00:14:07]  Look, I would just say this: just think of what D.C. Obama judge Jeff Boesberg would do with an Article III judicial warrant for any illegal alien to get expelled out of our country, including a rapist or a murderer.
[00:14:21]  He would throw it right in his garbage can.
[00:14:24]  So that's just not the law.
[00:14:26]  It's not practical.
[00:14:27]  It would make it impossible for President Trump to do his job and carry out his broad electoral mandate to get these illegal aliens the hell out of our country.
[00:14:36]  Perfect answer.
[00:14:37]  Think about it if we had to go to.
[00:14:38]  And there's hundreds of Boesbergs out there.
[00:14:42]  He's the worst, but there's hundreds of them.
[00:14:43]  Mike's exactly right.
[00:14:44]  You'd never get any warrant.
[00:14:46]  Anyway, Mike Davis is going to stick with us.

=== Imminent Threat to Freedom (03:45) ===

[00:14:48]  We got so much to go through, and we're going to get it all done this morning in the war room.
[00:14:52]  short commercial break the viceroy on the other side yes there are reporters in front of me but they are not our audience today It's you, the good, decent, patriotic American people.
[00:15:11]  You, the hardworking, taxpaying, God-fearing American patriots.
[00:15:18]  The media here, and not all of it, but much of it, wants you to think, just 19 days into this conflict that we're somehow spinning toward an endless abyss or a forever war or a quagmire.
[00:15:34]  Nothing could be further from the truth.
[00:15:38]  Hear it from me, one of hundreds of thousands who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, who watched previous foolish politicians like Bush, Obama, and Biden squander American credibility.
[00:15:53]  This is not those wars.
[00:15:57]  President Trump knows better.
[00:16:00]  To the patriotic members of the press, nobody can deliver perfection in wartime.
[00:16:06]  This building knows that more than anyone.
[00:16:09]  But report the reality.
[00:16:12]  We're winning decisively and on our terms.
[00:16:18]  With our team here, Director Gabbard told your colleague Senator John Ossoff that it's not the intelligence community's job to determine whether a country poses an imminent threat to the United States.
[00:16:29]  She only said the president can do that.
[00:16:31]  Does that come as news to analysts at the 18 agencies under her control, including the CIA?
[00:16:38]  Well, that comes the news to all of us who thought we still had a constitution and the requirement that a president going into a war of choice, you have to react quite quickly.
[00:16:49]  We give the president the deference, but this was a war of choice.
[00:16:54]  And the idea that he alone gets to determine what is imminent, I always thought imminent was actually a factual determination.
[00:17:02]  Many times the intelligence community says, you know, there's an imminent threat here or there.
[00:17:07]  There was never that indication from all the reports that I saw and read.
[00:17:13]  And I'm a little bit flabbergasted by Director Gabbard, but I guess not surprised.
[00:17:19]  That is overwhelming force applied with precision.
[00:17:21]  And again, today will be the largest strike package yet, just like yesterday was.
[00:17:27]  As I've said from day one, our capabilities continue to build.
[00:17:30]  Iran's continued to degrade.
[00:17:33]  We're hunting and striking death and destruction from above.
[00:17:39]  Their core industries, not steel or agriculture, tourism.
[00:17:44]  Their core industries are state-sponsored terrorism, proxy militias, underground networks, ballistic missiles, and a violent, messianic Islamist ideology chasing some sort of apocalyptic endgame.
[00:17:59]  A regime like that refusing to abandon its nuclear ambitions is not just a regional problem.
[00:18:07]  It's a direct threat to America, to freedom, and to civilization.
[00:18:12]  My 13-year-old son popped into my office last night while I was editing these remarks.
[00:18:18]  He asked about the war and the families I met at Dover.
[00:18:22]  And I looked at him and I said, they died for you, son, so that your generation doesn't have to deal with a nuclear Iran.

=== Hunt Deepens into Iran (02:52) ===

[00:18:34]  It's the truth.
[00:18:35]  And they did.
[00:18:38]  So to the families who said, finish this, we will.
[00:18:42]  And I say the same to every American who wants peace through strength.
[00:18:48]  May Almighty God continue to bless our troops in this fight.
[00:18:52]  And again, to the American people, please pray for them every day on Bendin Dee, with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ.
[00:19:07]  U.S. CENTCOM remains on plan to achieve our military objectives and remain unrelenting in our pursuit of Iranian missile capabilities, UAV capabilities, and their Navy, and as the Secretary said, their industrial base.
[00:19:21]  Each day we continue to attack deeper into Iranian territory.
[00:19:27]  As reported by U.S. Central Command yesterday, the U.S. military dropped 5,000-pound penetrator weapons into underground storage facilities, storing coastal defense cruise missiles and other support equipment.
[00:19:40]  These weapons are bespokely designed to get through concrete and or rocks and function after penetrating those barriers.
[00:19:52]  We continue to hunt and kill mine storage facilities and naval ammunition depots.
[00:19:57]  We continue to hunt and kill afloat assets, including more than 120 vessels and 44 mine layers, and the pressure will continue.
[00:20:06]  We're flying further to the east now and penetrating deeper into Iranian airspace to hunt and kill one-way attack garrisons, destroying Iran's ability to project power outside of its borders.
[00:20:18]  The A-10 Warthog is now in the fight across the southern flank and is hunting and killing fast attack watercraft in the Straits of Hormuz.
[00:20:27]  In addition, AH-64 Apaches have joined the fight on the southern flank, and they continue to work on the southern side.
[00:20:35]  And that includes some of our allies who are using Apaches to handle one-way attack drones.
[00:20:42]  In Iraq, AH-64s have been striking against Iranian aligned militia groups to make sure that we suppress any threat in Iraq against U.S. forces or U.S. interests.
[00:20:56]  And we remain focused on pursuit of any platform that Iran could field to harm Americans or our partners.
[00:21:04]  Last Friday, Admiral Cooper and the CENTCOM team conducted precision strikes against more than 90 targets on Karg Island, which included all of their military-only infrastructure, which included air defenses, naval base, mine storage, and deployment facilities.
[00:21:20]  And as the Secretary mentioned, we continue to strike against Iran's defense industrial base and will continue.

=== National Security Momentum Builds (08:05) ===

[00:21:27]  Good morning, Mr. Secretary.
[00:21:28]  David Zea, Real America's Voice News.
[00:21:31]  What countries have been the most cooperative with us, including the Gulf states as Europe hedges?
[00:21:37]  And I also wanted to ask you the internet blackouts by the regime.
[00:21:41]  It's been shut down for weeks.
[00:21:42]  Is the U.S. military playing a role in fighting against the regime, blocking VPN networks and satellites and other things?
[00:21:53]  Is there a role for the U.S. military there?
[00:21:56]  Obviously, on the allies and partners side, Israel from day one has been an incredible and capable partner, willing and able.
[00:22:04]  There's nothing like capabilities and partners that are able to use them.
[00:22:08]  The Gulf states have stepped up incredibly.
[00:22:10]  In fact, Iran's sort of reckless attempt to strike civilian infrastructure and other things has brought countries who maybe would have not been as all-in as they are today squarely into our orbit.
[00:22:23]  And we're proud to be defending with them, standing with them, you name it.
[00:22:28]  UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and others who have been right there.
[00:22:33]  And we're grateful for that kind of support.
[00:22:35]  Jerry, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[00:22:36]  Given the updated degradation in strike target numbers you laid out, how close would you say we are towards achieving the president's objectives and what is the end game of the operation without divulging any sensitive battle plans?
[00:22:48]  Well, we wouldn't want to set a definitive timeframe on that, but as we've said, we're on plan.
[00:22:52]  So we're looking at those metrics very closely, relaying that to the president and the national security team.
[00:22:57]  But feel confident that as, again, we're more stand-in means we're over the top, even further in, and we have even more of an exact sense of what we're striking and why, and even more dynamically, meaning because the intelligence improved, we're able to more quickly identify targets when they, let's say, they come out of an underground facility where they've been hiding and able to strike it before it strikes or right after it shoots.
[00:23:21]  But we are very much on plan, and that's why I want to speak to the American people here.
[00:23:25]  You hear a lot of noise about widening or new missions or speculation about what we should or should not be doing.
[00:23:32]  This is a clear set of objectives.
[00:23:34]  The President has given us every capability we need to accomplish that.
[00:23:37]  We've got the best in the world in uniform executing it on the ground.
[00:23:41]  They believe in and are invested in this mission.
[00:23:44]  And it will be at the president's choosing, ultimately, where we say, hey, we've achieved what we need to on behalf of the American people to ensure our security.
[00:23:53]  So no time set on that, but we're very much on track.
[00:23:56]  The Vice President has often emphasized that the goal of this war is to denuclearize Iran while also avoiding a larger quagmire.
[00:24:05]  I know that you touched on this.
[00:24:07]  I'd like you to expand on how do you do that?
[00:24:09]  How do you denuclearize the country while also avoiding this forever war?
[00:24:15]  And then there was a report last night that the Pentagon asked the White House for $200 billion for Iran war supplemental.
[00:24:22]  Can you confirm this and can you explain why a package this large is necessary?
[00:24:29]  Well, first of all, none of this would have been possible without Midnight Hammer, without that audacious mission with very clear goals that did obliterate their ability to enrich and the capabilities they have in those facilities.
[00:24:38]  So it created the conditions for Iran to step forward and say, okay, you can reach out and touch us like that and our nuclear ambitions.
[00:24:45]  You can see that we're still trying to do this.
[00:24:47]  Let's make a deal.
[00:24:48]  And President Trump put our two best folks on it, Steve and Jarrett, and they worked diligently, earnestly.
[00:24:54]  I watched it to try to pursue that deal.
[00:24:56]  And ultimately, I think the whole time, Iran sort of said, well, we'll talk as we build more missiles and as we build more UAVs and we create this conventional umbrella so that if we chose to, we could try to reconstitute the program and sort of naively thinking that President Trump wouldn't do something about it.
[00:25:14]  And that's why, as Secretary Rubio has said, and I've said, it's the conventional umbrella that was growing and growing and growing that was meant to protect that nuclear capability.
[00:25:23]  So you had to address both what happened with Midnight Hammer and what happened with that as well.
[00:25:28]  As far as $200 billion, I think that number could move, obviously.
[00:25:35]  It takes money to kill bad guys.
[00:25:37]  So we're going back to Congress and folks there to ensure that we're properly funded for what's been done, for what we may have to do in the future, ensure that our ammunition is, everything's refilled, and not just refilled, but above and beyond.
[00:25:52]  I mean, President Trump, as he said, rebuilt the military in his first term.
[00:25:55]  Didn't think he'd use it as dynamically in his second, but he had.
[00:25:58]  So thank goodness he did that.
[00:26:00]  And an investment like this is meant to say, hey, we'll replace anything that was spent.
[00:26:04]  And now that we're reviving our defense industrial base and rebuilding the Arsenal of Freedom and cutting deals like our great deputy secretary is here is doing, long lead times on exquisite munitions.
[00:26:13]  We're going to be refilled faster than anyone imagined.
[00:26:17]  And I think, you know, we're also still dealing with the environment that Joe Biden created, which was depleting those stockholds and not sending them to our own military, but to Ukraine.
[00:26:31]  Okay, I'm going to get Mike Davis hopefully back up this afternoon.
[00:26:34]  We're going to talk about the Save America Act.
[00:26:38]  I think there is some momentum.
[00:26:39]  We'll talk about that more.
[00:26:41]  Also, this press conference, what's going on, capital markets, all of it.
[00:26:45]  You're in the war room on a Thursday, Japanese prime minister en route to the Oval Office.
[00:26:50]  Short commercial break.
[00:27:02]  Okay, so the intelligence group, just like yesterday with the Senate.
[00:27:09]  And remember, this wasn't called because of the war.
[00:27:12]  These are scheduled that they have to, I think it's twice a year, that they have to update on the intelligence situation.
[00:27:24]  ODNI, Tulsi Gabbard, submits a report to people to look at.
[00:27:29]  Now, the report itself, we will get into more of that, I hope, on probably won't have time tomorrow, but on Saturday, go through the report.
[00:27:39]  Remember, we went through the national security strategy memo and then the national security defense memo that comes off of it.
[00:27:45]  Those are all required by statute to actually get done.
[00:27:51]  This is also by statute.
[00:27:52]  She has to deliver it as the overseer.
[00:27:54]  She kind of over kind of manages at a top level all 17, although DIA, Defense Intelligence, and CIA run totally on their own.
[00:28:06]  And I know they do report up her, at least in some aspect.
[00:28:10]  The interesting thing about this is I believe as I read through it, there is, first off, it's about the borders, about internal security.
[00:28:18]  It's about intelligence, about the homegrown nature of some of this all-radical to Islam.
[00:28:26]  It's one of the reasons that Sharia law is so important, the Texas proposition that we passed overwhelmingly.
[00:28:32]  But then they get to Iran, but then I have an issue.
[00:28:35]  There's an issue with the Director of National Intelligence about the rise of China and particularly regarding Taiwan.
[00:28:43]  We're going to have obviously our top experts from the Committee on the Present Danger, China, probably going to break that down on Saturday.
[00:28:51]  But let's say this.
[00:28:53]  I think in the intelligence report, it's quite different than what we've had over the last couple of years and even different than the national security memorandum that was submitted in the national defense memorandum submitted by the Secretary of War about China and the threat in the South China Sea, the Straits of Taiwan, and particularly with a potential planning by the CCP and the People's Liberation Army and Navy for an invasion of Taiwan.
[00:29:17]  We'll get to all that later.
[00:29:20]  One thing I want to say, Mike Davis had to bounce, but about the Save America Act, you can see the pivot by the Democrats because the last two days we've had wall-to-wall coverage of this.

=== Live Nation Antitrust Case Logic (15:24) ===

[00:29:32]  You haven't seen their arguments from not sticking.
[00:29:35]  That's why Schumer, I think, is looking for some running room.
[00:29:37]  They keep flipping back to these war powers discussions, as we covered last night.
[00:29:42]  Another failed vote by the Democrats.
[00:29:45]  This afternoon, Mike Lee, I think they're going to pick this up starting at noon.
[00:29:48]  Like I said, we're going to go to the White House for the prime minister's visit in a bylap.
[00:29:52]  President Trump is inviting the press in, I think, around 11.15, 11.30.
[00:29:57]  Mike Lee's back up on the Senate.
[00:29:59]  We're going to have people up on Capitol Hill.
[00:30:01]  And it looks at now we're on the bill.
[00:30:04]  It's now to get to the standing filibuster and all that.
[00:30:08]  That I think the next 48 hours will play through.
[00:30:10]  But I do think there is some momentum here because you see the Democrats starting to fold, particularly on the idea.
[00:30:16]  I'm sure they're doing the overnight polling and seeing this when Schumer says that.
[00:30:21]  I want to now go to Ohio, the Attorney General, Dave Yost.
[00:30:26]  Mr. Attorney General, thank you for joining us.
[00:30:28]  While everything else is going on, one thing I keep telling the audience we've got to continue to focus on is this is the concentration of power, corporate and really governmental power in the United States.
[00:30:39]  You are one of these, I would say, heroic attorney generals that have stepped into the breach in this situation with Liveint.
[00:30:48]  And I tell people it's not simply about an entertainment entity.
[00:30:52]  This talks the bigger issues about corporate power.
[00:30:55]  Now, you're one of the attorney generals, like in Texas and other states, that have taken this up on this antitrust suit.
[00:31:00]  Can you just walk us through your logic, given everything else is going on, why you consider this an important issue for you to focus on as an age state AG, sir?
[00:31:11]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:31:13]  Although I'll say, if I were a federal officer, this wouldn't be probably at the top of my list with everything that's going on in the world.
[00:31:21]  But it is important, and your point on the concentration of power is absolutely important.
[00:31:27]  That's what we're seeing right now in America.
[00:31:31]  It is the suppression of ingenuity and innovation when concentrated power protects its own position.
[00:31:38]  That's what's happening here with the Live Nation lawsuit.
[00:31:41]  It's an antitrust lawsuit.
[00:31:43]  It had been between the federal government and the state attorneys general were cooperating to sue them.
[00:31:49]  What they've done is they have vertically integrated and created a monopoly that, for all intents and purposes, strangles the entertainment industry.
[00:32:00]  You play with Live Nation or you may not get to play at all.
[00:32:04]  They own the venues.
[00:32:06]  They own Ticketmaster and the sales.
[00:32:09]  They own the promotion company.
[00:32:11]  They own everything from top to bottom except the artists.
[00:32:15]  They only rent the artists because they're disposable.
[00:32:19]  So this lawsuit seeks money damages as well as disvestiture of the Ticketmaster portion of the enterprise.
[00:32:29]  It's kind of the linchpin of their ability to control the entire ecosystem to allow free and fair competition, which markets are how we allocate resources in a free society, but there's no free market when there's a monopoly.
[00:32:47]  So I've known these guys for years.
[00:32:48]  And Live Nation, they went about, you know, I was in the merger and acquisition department at Goldman Sachs for many years.
[00:32:54]  I had my own firm did MA.
[00:32:55]  They did a logical, and I was part of a management company in the music business, but they did a logical consolidation of the venues from the sheds, the amphitheaters, all of it.
[00:33:07]  But it was during the Obama administration that then they merged and the Obama administration approved this.
[00:33:12]  Their Justice Department, an antitrust division, approved the merger into Ticketmaster.
[00:33:16]  That's when it became a different entity.
[00:33:18]  I mean, that's when they really had pricing power control, as you said, everybody but the artists, which they rented as rent seekers.
[00:33:26]  Are we making the argument enough that this is what Obama and the Democrats are all for, these oligarchs?
[00:33:34]  And that's what you guys are trying to break up.
[00:33:36]  I mean, the Justice Department came up with a solution.
[00:33:38]  You state AG said, that's still not good enough.
[00:33:41]  We want to be tougher on this.
[00:33:42]  We want to really back entrepreneurs.
[00:33:45]  Are we putting a highlight to make sure people understand this is how so many of these industries during the Obama administration had the concentration of power around these oligarchs, sir?
[00:33:57]  Yeah, that's a great point.
[00:33:59]  The beginning, the turn of the century is when we really started seeing discussion about oligarchy here in America.
[00:34:07]  And the state attorneys general have been focusing not just on this, but we look at some of the things that's happening in big tech.
[00:34:15]  The attorney generals are in court, and we're concerned, and I think properly so, about the aggregation of unchecked power.
[00:34:28]  What do you, what the state AGs right now, it's kind of, and you guys don't have the staffs, I think, really do this, but now the case has been put to you guys.
[00:34:37]  You're trying to prosecute this or take it forward.
[00:34:43]  What are you looking for?
[00:34:44]  You had a settlement with the U.S. government.
[00:34:46]  I think a lot of people would say, well, Live Nation would consider that a massive victory.
[00:34:51]  And here, we're hardcore neo-Brandeisians.
[00:34:54]  I mean, we want the breakup of the whole thing, is the breakup of big tech and all of it.
[00:34:58]  What do you think the objectives are of you guys collectively as AGs right now in this live-in situation?
[00:35:07]  Yeah, I think that there's a number of my colleagues that want to see it completely broken up.
[00:35:13]  At the minimum, I think that everyone agrees that there needs to be more guardrails around the way they use their scale and their integration in the marketplace.
[00:35:30]  Look, I'm not a Brandeisian or a neo-Brandeisian for the simple reason that I doubt the government is wise enough to make decisions about businesses, and it concerns me.
[00:35:44]  But putting guardrails around unfair competition is a century-old accepted practice, part of the fabric of our legal system.
[00:35:54]  And while the Justice Department may, from a macro level, be satisfied with the settlement that they've negotiated, we out in the states have very different priorities.
[00:36:07]  We have direct consumer issues that we want to deal with that aren't addressed, in our view, adequately with the federal settlement.
[00:36:15]  And frankly, the different venues are dispersed differently among the states.
[00:36:21]  So while nationally the DOJ might be happy, the states are rightly concerned about things that are maybe a little bit more localized than a national market.
[00:36:34]  I know it's always tough to predict on these trials, the length of it, but when do you see this playing out, both the trial level and then whatever deal that you state attorney generals come and fit into the model in your own state that you're comfortable with?
[00:36:50]  How long do you see this playing out?
[00:36:53]  Well, right now, the trial is going forward, and I like this case.
[00:36:58]  This is about as strong an antitrust case as I've seen during my professional career.
[00:37:05]  And we've got really egregious behavior here.
[00:37:10]  There's a message between a couple of executives talking about charging $250 a slot for VIP parking at a Kid Rock concert.
[00:37:21]  And one of them says, I almost feel bad, I almost feel bad about taking advantage of them like this.
[00:37:31]  That kind of hubris, I think, is not going to sit well with the court.
[00:37:37]  At the end of the day, I don't know if we win disvestiture.
[00:37:42]  That's going to depend, and the law disfavors it.
[00:37:45]  But I think that we can get a lot more on the table than what we had with the federal settlement.
[00:37:53]  And that's why Ohio is sticking to its guns at the moment.
[00:37:59]  Well, that's the question.
[00:38:01]  Of course, we would love to see divestiture, but I agree with you that that's a, I wouldn't say a long shot, but it's not, you know, it's not going to be easy.
[00:38:08]  But how did the Justice Department, given you just reiterated what we think?
[00:38:13]  This is a very strong case.
[00:38:15]  Of course, the company fought like crazy not to have these conversations put into the record, but people kind of knew about them.
[00:38:22]  Once they were put into the record, you know how that's going to play in front of a jury.
[00:38:26]  Given the hand that you had, do you have any idea?
[00:38:29]  Understand the Justice Department is overwhelmed with the deep state and what they're trying to do on immigration and everything to implement President Trump's policies.
[00:38:38]  But do you have any idea why the Justice Department essentially took a pass on this and the guys, the men and women at the state level had to then take it on their shoulders?
[00:38:49]  Well, look, we each have our own portfolio.
[00:38:53]  The Justice Department, to my knowledge, is tremendously understaffed.
[00:38:58]  They've got limited bandwidth, and that's directly at the hands of Chuck Schumer and his pals blocking the president's nominees to do justice.
[00:39:13]  So I'm not sure that there's that much of a disagreement between Ohio and the DOJ.
[00:39:19]  We just simply have different things that we're looking for.
[00:39:23]  I don't blame them for not prioritizing this particular fight any further than the concessions that they were able to get that matter at a national level.
[00:39:34]  Attorney General Dave Yost, there's tremendous focus on this.
[00:39:38]  How do people keep up with you?
[00:39:40]  What website you got to go to?
[00:39:42]  People are really a big part of our audience is quite focused on this case for many different reasons.
[00:39:48]  Where do they go to keep up with your activity on this?
[00:39:52]  Well, I personally tweet on or post on X, and of course, we're on all of the platforms.
[00:39:59]  If you just search for the Attorney General's Office of Ohio, you'll find us everywhere.
[00:40:08]  Attorney General Yost from the Warren Posse, thank you very much for pursuing this.
[00:40:12]  Really appreciate it.
[00:40:13]  We will keep up to speed, and if anything happens, we'd love to have you back on.
[00:40:16]  Appreciate you, sir.
[00:40:20]  Thank you for having me.
[00:40:23]  Dave Yost from the state of Ohio, one of the central states of our MAGA movement right there, pursuing that.
[00:40:35]  This is going to be a tough one.
[00:40:36]  He's right.
[00:40:37]  The divesture, the breakup of Live Ent, which I am 1 million percent for, particularly the ticketmaster part of it.
[00:40:44]  If you want to get back to free market competition, you've got to do that.
[00:40:48]  Short commercial break.
[00:40:49]  We're going to be back to the war and the rumors of war next in the world.
[00:40:54]  We rejoice when there's no more.
[00:40:56]  Let's take down the CCP.
[00:40:59]  The president has stated that his objectives are to destroy Iran's ballistic missile launching capability, their ballistic missile production capability, and their Navy, the IRGC Navy and Mine Lang capability.
[00:41:17]  So the death and destruction continues.
[00:41:20]  The economic cost of the United States to Israel, to the Gulf states, and to the world continues to increase.
[00:41:26]  So I want to ask you, to the best of your knowledge, do you know whether Israel is supportive of the president's call to make a deal with Iran?
[00:41:36]  I don't know the answer to that.
[00:41:38]  I don't know Israel's position on that.
[00:41:41]  And to what do you attribute Israel's decision to strike Iranian energy infrastructure, despite President Trump's call to keep those facilities off limits?
[00:41:51]  I don't have an answer for that.
[00:42:01]  So they ignored the president.
[00:42:03]  Do you agree with that?
[00:42:06]  I'm not privy to any of their deliberations or what went into their calculus in launching this or other attacks.
[00:42:18]  We are not involved with the operational element of this.
[00:42:21]  We're providing continuously on a daily basis the intelligence assessments of the events that are occurring.
[00:42:28]  And I guess I know the FBI can't because they're domestic, but can anybody else at the table provide any insight into that?
[00:42:40]  I guess I'm not sure what the question you're asking, Congressman Castro.
[00:42:46]  I guess a couple things.
[00:42:48]  The goals that the president set out are clearly defined.
[00:42:50]  The DNI related those.
[00:42:53]  What was not included is a goal of the U.S.
[00:42:57]  Well, Director, let me start with the pain list of this question.
[00:43:00]  You asked what my scheme changed, which let me reclaim my time, Director.
[00:43:03]  Come on.
[00:43:05]  Do you know why Israel decided to strike that infrastructure despite the fact that the president said it should be off limits?
[00:43:12]  I wouldn't speak for Israel.
[00:43:15]  And what do you guys know?
[00:43:17]  We're at war.
[00:43:18]  What do you guys know?
[00:43:19]  We'll have to take that for the record.
[00:43:22]  Yes, let's hear.
[00:43:22]  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[00:43:23]  Jordan Conradson with the Gateway Pundit.
[00:43:26]  So, with the strike yesterday on South Bar's gas field, you know, if the U.S. didn't know about it or didn't approve of it, it kind of seems like a trend of Israel apparently pursuing their own objectives over U.S. objectives.
[00:43:41]  I'm not sure if you agree with that, but the president has said he doesn't want to hit Iran's oil infrastructure right now.
[00:43:47]  As you said, the U.S. avoided this on Karg Island.
[00:43:50]  Oil's nearing $120.
[00:43:52]  Why are we helping Israel prosecute this war if they're going to pursue their own objectives?
[00:43:57]  We hold the cards.
[00:43:59]  We have objectives.
[00:44:01]  Those objectives are clear.
[00:44:03]  We have allies pursuing objectives as well.
[00:44:06]  And the truth speaks for itself.
[00:44:07]  I mean, President Trump was very clear about that.
[00:44:09]  Iran has weaponized energy for decades.
[00:44:13]  Israel clearly sent a warning, and POTUS has made it clear, very clear.
[00:44:17]  Iran knows when you hit Karg Island and you hit military capabilities on Karg Island, which is the only thing we hit, we can hold anything at issue.
[00:44:27]  Anything.
[00:44:29]  The United States military controls the fate of that country.
[00:44:31]  Iran has the ability to make the right choices.
[00:44:34]  It should not, going forward, target Arab allies, Arab countries, trying to create pain, the pain that they created themselves.
[00:44:43]  Thank you all very much.
[00:44:47]  Okay, and by the way, Jordan Conrads and over at Gateway Pundit, great question and very succinct.

=== Iranian People and War Plan (03:57) ===

[00:44:56]  Let's rewind on this for a second because this is quite important.
[00:44:59]  And it's very important that the Warren Posse think this through and make sure that you come to your own conclusion.
[00:45:10]  But in alliances, and particularly in alliances in war, you have you don't all go in as kind of equal partners.
[00:45:22]  You have an entity that kind of leads and other people follow, but you have joint war aims.
[00:45:29]  This is not a small thing.
[00:45:31]  This is a big thing, a very big thing.
[00:45:36]  Let me go back.
[00:45:37]  As you know, watching the show, an inflection point in this war took place, what is it, two Saturdays ago, when the Israelis, against a standing order from the commander-in-chief of the United States military, that would be Donald John Trump, that no oil infrastructure was to be hit.
[00:46:02]  This was not a marginal thing.
[00:46:03]  This was central.
[00:46:04]  Why?
[00:46:05]  Because a predicate to this entire operation was an uprising of the Iranian people against a murderous dictatorship, Islamic theocracy.
[00:46:19]  That it was part of the war plan, and it was stated very succinctly at the start that that is one of the many elements that would bring this war to a conclusion and what would be a successful conclusion for those that think that freedom for the Persian people is central to this.
[00:46:39]  And as you know, the war room doesn't believe that.
[00:46:41]  But if that can end this and end it quicker, of course we're for it.
[00:46:46]  That line was crossed directly.
[00:46:49]  And Axios, which is essentially part of the comms department of the White House, let's be blunt, and for the IDF between Rabat and Mark Caputo, said the military command was in shock.
[00:47:02]  And then the next day said, hey, told the Israelis under no uncertain terms, that cannot happen again.
[00:47:09]  We cannot touch any of the Iranian infrastructure because we want to be, first of all, we want something there to be post-war.
[00:47:17]  Plus, we want the Iranian people not to kind of organize around a Persian nationalist response, that it's the West and the Arabs against the Persians.
[00:47:28]  That's the last thing we want.
[00:47:29]  We still want to help overthrow these theocratic Shiite demons.
[00:47:36]  Yesterday, the President of the United States came out and said point blank that he didn't, you know, he was shocked about this, very upset about it when the Israelis, again, now way out of their kind of zone into the Persian Gulf, attacked this kind of joint field controlled by Qatar and the Iranians.
[00:47:59]  And I think actually the Qataris actually run it in some sort of joint ownership because of where it actually fits into the Persian Gulf.
[00:48:08]  And then the president came out and said, you know, they had this thing where they went back to the Iranians.
[00:48:12]  He said, under no circumstance can you touch, attack anything around, but particularly Qatar.
[00:48:19]  Then it came out that he had approved the mission.
[00:48:23]  They came back and said, oh, no, no, we talked to you.
[00:48:25]  You approved this.
[00:48:26]  You approved this mission.
[00:48:27]  I don't think that's something that the commander-in-chief is going to miss.
[00:48:31]  I just don't believe that.
[00:48:34]  And you saw we didn't exactly shroud ourselves in glory at the intelligence committee.
[00:48:41]  Look, the nation's at war and we have operational security, but we have to deal with the American people in a very blunt manner here.
[00:48:51]  Short commercial break.
[00:48:52]  Back to the worm in a moment.