Bannon's War Room - WarRoom Battleground EP 972: Republicans Call Democrats Bluff With SAVE AMERICA ACT Aired: 2026-03-20 Duration: 51:05 === Ground Component Needed (05:32) === [00:00:10] It is often said that you can't win, you can't do revolutions from the air. [00:00:14] That is true. [00:00:16] You can't do it only from there. [00:00:17] You can do a lot of things from the air, and we're doing, but there has to be a ground component as well. [00:00:23] There are many possibilities for this ground component, and I take the liberty of not sharing with you all those possibilities. [00:00:32] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [00:00:33] Jordan Conradson with the Gateway Pundit. [00:00:36] So with the strike yesterday on South Bar's gas field, 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. [00:00:51] 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. [00:00:57] As you said, the U.S. avoided this on Carg Island. [00:01:00] Oil is nearing $120. [00:01:02] Why are we helping Israel prosecute this war if they're going to pursue their own objectives? [00:01:07] We hold the cards. [00:01:09] We have objectives. [00:01:11] Those objectives are clear. [00:01:13] We have allies pursuing objectives as well. [00:01:15] And the truth speaks for itself. [00:01:17] I mean, President Trump was very clear about that. [00:01:19] Iran has weaponized energy for decades. [00:01:23] Israel clearly sent a warning, and POTUS has made it clear, very clear. [00:01:27] Iran knows when you hit Carg Island and you hit military capabilities on Carg Island, which is the only thing we hit, we can hold anything at issue. [00:01:37] Anything. [00:01:38] The United States military controls the fate of that country. [00:01:41] Iran has the ability to make the right choices. [00:01:44] It should not, going forward, target Arab allies, Arab countries, trying to create pain, the pain that they created themselves. [00:01:53] Thank you all very much. [00:01:57] Okay, welcome back. [00:01:58] It's Thursday, 19 March, Urvaler, 2026. [00:02:00] Khlita's with us. [00:02:01] Neil McCabe's with her. [00:02:03] We're going to go back to the Senate floor. [00:02:05] Philip Patrick Scott Coburn also here momentarily. [00:02:09] I think we're going to do some jujitsu tonight and maybe actually force a vote or see drama on the Senate floor. [00:02:16] Jordan Conradson joins us from Gateway Punt. [00:02:19] I got another little package too. [00:02:20] They're going to tell me what's right. [00:02:21] So, Jordan, you asked a question, and I keep telling Jim Hoff, your time at the Pentagon has been great and over at the White House because you always ask straightforward, great questions. [00:02:32] Explain to me the Secretary of War's answer to you, sir. [00:02:36] Steve, thank you for having me. [00:02:38] Thank you for the compliment. [00:02:39] You know, Secretary Hegset's answer was: we hold the cards. [00:02:43] We're in control of this war. [00:02:44] This is our war. [00:02:46] But, you know, it's really not clear that that's the case, especially to a lot of MAGA voters. [00:02:51] I'm not talking about the Mark Levins of MAGA or the Lindsey Grahams of MAGA, the new MAGA, but I'm talking about Trump's day one supporters who don't like this, who don't like getting entangled in these foreign conflicts, especially when you've got people like Marco Rubio, John Ratcliffe today saying, oh, well, we only struck because Israel dragged us into this war, because a strike by Israel was imminent, [00:03:18] and we knew that Iran was going to strike us immediately in retaliation. [00:03:23] So we got ahead of it. [00:03:24] So, you know, it's really not clear what the message here is because, you know, on one hand, you've got Secretary of Boer saying, well, we're in charge. [00:03:34] On the other hand, you've got Secretary of State saying, hey, Director. [00:03:36] But Hegset said, I think the thing of your question, because it was straightforward, he said, we hold all the cards, but they have their strategic objectives and we have ours. [00:03:46] I was like, hang on for a second. [00:03:49] Hang on, but I want to then play. [00:03:51] Go ahead. [00:03:53] Well, and he kind of admitted this last week, too, after Israel struck Iranian oil depots when President Trump was like, no, we're not targeting the infrastructure. [00:04:04] And obviously, Israel went after that objective. [00:04:08] Now Jordan gets to the heart of it. [00:04:10] Yes, that was two sources ago. [00:04:13] We had another incident that blew up today in capital markets all over the world, commodity markets all over the world. [00:04:20] There was this incident last night where the Israelis struck this kind of joint gas field between Qatar and Iran that's essentially, I think, managed by Qatar mostly. [00:04:33] The Iranians own part of it. [00:04:35] They struck, as President Trump said, a sliver that is the Iranian part. [00:04:40] And then the Iranians struck Qatar. [00:04:43] Qatar then said we're going to have to go maybe to force Major on five-year contracts, which sent the gas markets in a turmoil and would lead to major dislocations if it had to happen. [00:04:56] Then later, okay, and then President Trump came out with a scathing true social that said, hey, they did this. [00:05:03] I didn't know about it. [00:05:05] And then they said, well, he did know about it, that President Trump was briefed. [00:05:09] I think they said he was briefed by Netanyahu and other senior people. [00:05:12] The president then came or said, hey, look, if Iran ever hits Qatar again, we're going next level. [00:05:19] So then later today, there was both a discussion, I think President Trump in the Oval when the Japanese prime minister was there, and then Bibi at his press conference. [00:05:27] Let's go ahead and play him. [00:05:29] You talked to Prime Minister Menetanyahu about attacking the oil and gas fields. [00:05:34] Yeah, I did. [00:05:34] I did. [00:05:34] I told him, don't do that. [00:05:36] And he won't do that. [00:05:38] We didn't discuss. [00:05:38] You know, we do, we're independent. [00:05:41] We get along great. === Calling The Shots (08:59) === [00:05:43] It's coordinated, but on occasion, he'll do something. [00:05:46] And if I don't like it, and so we're not doing that anymore. [00:05:50] Fact number one, Israel acted alone against the Slawiyah gas compound. [00:05:56] Fact number two, President Trump asks us to hold off on future attacks, and we're holding out. [00:06:03] Prime Minister, given the escalation of attacks on U.S. allies across the Gulf, given the spiraling energy costs, the high costs in general that the U.S. service personnel killed in this war, many Americans are asking that question, whether you misled their government into starting this war, and for how long should Americans keep paying the price? [00:06:24] Well, I misled no one, and I didn't have to convince President Trump about the need to prevent Iran from developing its nuclear program, putting it underground, and being able to launch nuclear-tipped missiles at the United States. [00:06:39] He understood that. [00:06:40] He explained it to me. [00:06:41] I didn't explain it to him. [00:06:43] And I think that our partnership is the only way to avoid this catastrophic development. [00:06:52] Okay, partnership. [00:06:53] Now, look, I've said a million times, right? [00:06:56] You know, we're not how we got here and the imminent threat, that's all going to get worked out over time. [00:07:01] We're in a shooting war now. [00:07:03] We just had six American heroes from the KC-135 tanker return. [00:07:09] Our honored dead returned yesterday to Dover. [00:07:13] Coach Tuverbill, Senator Tuberville, in the very opening segment of the 5 o'clock show said he went up with the president and Secretary of War Hegseth, and he went up with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Kane. [00:07:25] He went up there because one of the heroes was from the great state of Alabama. [00:07:30] So we're in a shooting war. [00:07:31] We've got to win. [00:07:32] But you talk about the partnership. [00:07:33] Let's just put a pin in the imminent threat and all that. [00:07:36] But we've got to go to something that is absolutely essential, Jordan Konradson. [00:07:42] And that is who's running the deal? [00:07:44] Pete says we hold all the cards. [00:07:47] If in any joint command we've ever had, including in World War II, the United States calls the shots, okay? [00:07:56] It can't be separate strategic objectives, maybe long-term, but for the fight, you got one. [00:08:03] And it couldn't have been more blunt. [00:08:05] The president of the United States told them on that Saturday and that Sunday morning, hey, we didn't authorize this. [00:08:12] We are surprised about this. [00:08:14] This is not to happen again. [00:08:15] Why is it not to happen again? [00:08:16] Well, Bibi talks about a revolution. [00:08:18] Oh, and now you got to have combat. [00:08:19] Now you got to have ground troops. [00:08:21] That's a surprise. [00:08:22] Didn't hear that before. [00:08:23] But the thesis, the theory of the case here was quite straightforward. [00:08:27] That was going to be a massive air campaign that would lead the Iranian people to take to the streets, take to the streets and overthrow this theocratic group of demons. [00:08:39] That has not happened. [00:08:40] One of the principal reasons it has not happened because that Saturday night shifted this war from a war of potential liberation for these people to overthrow it to they are now, they have consolidated around Persian nationalism to say, hey, if the Americans and Israelis are going to come at us, then we got to come together as a country. [00:09:00] And we got this demons running us, but these guys are worse demons because they firebombed us like Dresden. [00:09:06] And they obviously are not going to leave any oil resources for us to deal with. [00:09:10] This is why this attack last night, they've already been warned. [00:09:13] And then they lied about it. [00:09:15] They said, oh, no, President Trump authorized it. [00:09:17] President Trump said right there, I didn't authorize it. [00:09:19] And Bibi said right then, oh, well, upon further review, yeah, we just kind of went, no, no, no. [00:09:25] He says, President Trump said, no, you got that order a week ago. [00:09:28] You got that order a week ago. [00:09:31] And we got to have a come to Jesus as we go through and say exactly, because Dan Sr. walked through it on CNN a week or so ago. [00:09:43] This is a joint targeting exercise. [00:09:45] They're actually in CENTCOM's targeting. [00:09:47] I think we're in theirs. [00:09:49] There can be no mistake. [00:09:51] This is where they're absolutely doing things that are outside what we feel is necessary to prosecute this war from a military's perspective. [00:10:01] And this ought to be at the highest level. [00:10:03] We have to understand we're calling the shots. [00:10:06] They're not calling the shots. [00:10:07] And I'm not talking about how we got in here and whose intelligence being given, et cetera. [00:10:11] I'm talking something that we're now dragging the center of gravity of this war has shifted to the Gulf radically. [00:10:18] And now we're upending capital markets. [00:10:20] And quite frankly, you could see the fall of Qatar. [00:10:23] And I'm no fan of Qatar. [00:10:24] They're financing the Muslim Brotherhood. [00:10:25] I can't stand Qatar. [00:10:27] But in this war, President Trump has deemed, and the American high command has deemed that they're an ally. [00:10:34] Jordan Conradson, your thoughts, sir. [00:10:37] Yeah, exactly, Steve. [00:10:38] You know, you would hope that America is in charge of the objectives of this war. [00:10:43] You know, you look at Israel. [00:10:45] You really think they're going to take on the Iranian regime without U.S.'s support? [00:10:50] I mean, that's like the state of New Jersey going against a landmass the size of Alaska. [00:10:56] And the fact that they're kind of acting in their own objectives and interests, it just shows that they, you know, it just seems like they really don't have any respect for us. [00:11:05] And then you've got Netanyahu talking about ground troops. [00:11:08] You've got Lindsey Graham cheerleading for that while Netanyahu goes after Hezbollah in Lebanon. [00:11:18] And it's just very confusing. [00:11:21] Is our goal Iran? [00:11:22] Is it Lebanon? [00:11:24] Is it attacking Iranian military bases? [00:11:27] Is it securing the Strait of Hormuz? [00:11:28] Or is it going after different targets in Iran like Israel has been doing? [00:11:34] Jordan, you're following this. [00:11:35] I mean, you're over the Pentagon. [00:11:36] You're at the White House. [00:11:37] You're following this very closely. [00:11:39] Maybe I missed it. [00:11:41] Is that the first time when we heard about the uprising in the streets and the people that he talked about? [00:11:47] Oh, yeah, well, you can't have a revolution just by the air. [00:11:49] You have to have ground troops. [00:11:51] Is that the first time you've heard that? [00:11:53] Because it's the we follow this pretty damn closely here. [00:11:55] And that's the first time I've heard that now that we're in this for a couple of weeks. [00:11:59] Is that the first time you heard that? [00:12:01] That is the first time I've heard it from Netanyahu. [00:12:04] But just the other day, I'm seeing reports from Reuters saying that four U.S. officials, including two intelligence officials, are saying that Trump is considering the deployment of thousands of ground troops along the Strait of Hormuz in Carg Island. [00:12:18] And, you know, Lindsay Grant. [00:12:20] Hang on, full stop, full stop. [00:12:25] Whether it's getting the nuclear material or whether it's taking Carg Island, the military, and even some of the coastline, which I'm saying, hey, is an expeditionary force. [00:12:34] Those are additional things people are talking about. [00:12:36] I disagree with putting combat troops in there, but that's what Netanyahu's doing is the bait and switch. [00:12:44] He ain't talking about that. [00:12:45] That's not talking about Carg Island and it's not talking about the, he's saying to support a revolution, nobody's ever done it from the air. [00:12:52] You need ground troops. [00:12:53] Yo, dude, that's the first time I've heard this. [00:12:55] You've been cheerleading for this thing, which a lot of people think is kind of remote because they're not going to be that excited about Israel as Pete Hex has said, looking up and seeing the American flag and the Star of David flag flying over them, dropping bombs. [00:13:10] They may not be running in the streets. [00:13:11] No, no, no, no. [00:13:12] Carg Island, the coast, the nuclear material, whereas agree or disagree, those are separate items. [00:13:21] Now he's running up the flagpole and see who salutes. [00:13:23] So then Lindsay can get a couple of bourbon and branches in him and run down to the floor of the Senate and start talking about Israel. [00:13:30] Yes, we need for a revolution. [00:13:32] We're going to need ground troops. [00:13:34] This is a first, okay? [00:13:36] This is how this thing's playing. [00:13:37] They're trying to, it's a psyop. [00:13:39] They're going to throw it out there. [00:13:40] And the next thing you know, of course we said that. [00:13:42] We talked about that a long time ago, didn't we? [00:13:45] Jordan, where do people go and get you doing yeoman's work over there? [00:13:48] I told Jim Hoff today, your questions are just point blank and require answers. [00:13:53] I'm not so sure we got an answer today. [00:13:55] We didn't get an acceptable answer. [00:13:57] Where do people go to get your writing at Gateway Pundit and where they go to find you on social media? [00:14:04] Thanks, Steve. [00:14:05] You can find me at the Gateway Pundit. [00:14:06] That's where all my articles are under Jordan Conradson on social media. [00:14:11] Jordan Conradson at Conrads and Jordan, every platform. [00:14:17] Jordan, you know why I'm so proud of you? [00:14:18] It wasn't that many years ago that you were hassling election officials in America. [00:14:23] Katie Hobbs. [00:14:24] When they're trying to go through the Katie Hobbes, you're now the governor when you're shaking her down. [00:14:31] Great work, sir. [00:14:33] You've really leveling up all the time. [00:14:36] So fantastic. [00:14:37] Good to have you on here. [00:14:38] Thank you, Steve. [00:14:39] Thank you for having me. [00:14:41] It's so great to see that generation. === Gold As Financial Insurance (07:41) === [00:14:43] They've been in the trenches fighting, and you just see them getting better and better and better. [00:14:47] Philip Patrick, the Qataris, and I'm no fan of the Qataris. [00:14:52] They're the railhead of the Muslim Brotherhood. [00:14:54] But hey, whether you like it or not, they're on our side of the football. [00:14:59] When a country like that, with that gas field that supplies so much to Europe, says the words force majeure comes across their lips, the world, and they're talking about we may not, we're talking about contracts five years out. [00:15:13] Does that get the world's attention, sir? [00:15:16] Yeah, I think the world is certainly waking up at the moment. [00:15:21] Financial markets are going crazy at the moment. [00:15:24] We saw Brent crude go over $119 a barrel today, briefly, and then I think it settled back down. [00:15:31] But this is the game the Iranians want to play, right? [00:15:34] This is asymmetric warfare. [00:15:36] They are very good at it. [00:15:37] They have no ability to affect us militarily. [00:15:41] So they're waging economic warfare. [00:15:42] They're dragging in our Middle East partners. [00:15:45] They know exactly how to hit us. [00:15:47] And so far, it's been effective. [00:15:50] I have to say, it looks like we are waging a very efficient and effective military campaign. [00:15:56] Their economic warfare is now shaking global markets. [00:15:59] And we're starting to see the ripple effects. [00:16:04] So they're asymmetric. [00:16:05] Look, our military and what they call the defanging decline, what Captain Finnell tells us. [00:16:10] I don't think could be going better. [00:16:12] And you've got to remember, folks, every time they come on, every day is more intense than the day before. [00:16:17] This is how hard they're hitting the Iranian military in command and control. [00:16:22] People would think in this situation, we say flight to quality, go to the dollar. [00:16:26] They're talking about inflation now about what Powell said yesterday. [00:16:30] And people should know. [00:16:31] I think Powell's hanging on there. [00:16:33] I think he's dug in and he's going to grab a governorship. [00:16:36] He's going to grab a governorship and he's going to be a nightmare over the Federal Reserve because I think he's got a vendetta now against President Trump. [00:16:44] When you've got a flight to quality of the dollar in a global situation like this, people naturally think gold is going to go through the roof. [00:16:50] Walk to me. [00:16:51] You know, it's not about the price of gold any one day, but the converging factors with gold as a hedge. [00:16:58] What's your assessment right now? [00:17:00] It's been very interesting. [00:17:01] And as you rightly point out, the initial response from financial markets was a flight to the US dollar, which is actually very good news. [00:17:09] It shows us that the US dollar still has reserve currency instincts or reflexes. [00:17:14] The flip side is borrowing rates on debt also went up. [00:17:18] And historically, they moved together. [00:17:21] So that's sort of the quirk. [00:17:22] On the back of that, we've seen over the last week, obviously, gold prices getting hit fairly hard. [00:17:28] That typically happens, by the way, when the dollar strengthens, right? [00:17:32] Gold and the dollar are inverse. [00:17:34] That's a two-way street. [00:17:35] Today was a rough day. [00:17:36] Gold down about 4%. [00:17:38] And that's the seventh straight daily decline. [00:17:41] Investors, I think, broadly are fearing that central banks are going to turn more hawkish. [00:17:45] We're seeing that with the Federal Reserve's decision to hold rates yesterday, I think. [00:17:50] And the dollar, as I mentioned, has strengthened slightly since the start of the year. [00:17:54] It's up 1%, but we have to get perspective and we have to zoom out. [00:17:59] Since January 1st of this year, gold's up 7.4%, but nobody really wants to talk about that. [00:18:06] Of course, the instinct naturally is to talk about why it's down today. [00:18:10] And I think the short-term movement says more about positioning, it's profit taking, it's higher real rate anxiety than it does about the longer-term case for gold. [00:18:20] Now, I want to go into a little bit more detail there, but before I do, I want to just touch on something very important, maybe the single most important thing when it comes to investing in financial markets. [00:18:32] And that is that short-term price action is a distraction at best and misleading at worst. [00:18:39] And I think in this case, it's the latter. [00:18:41] I think it was legendary investor Ben Graham that said in the short run, markets are voting machines. [00:18:47] And in the long run, they are weighing machines. [00:18:50] I think today's sell-off is happening because investors fear that inflation rising and the Iran war is certainly inflationary, are going to mean that rates are going to be higher for longer. [00:19:00] Ironically, though, it's exactly that kind of policy trap that supports gold prices longer term. [00:19:07] But longer term is key, not day by day. [00:19:11] Look, I get asked the question all the time, why did gold drop today, right? [00:19:16] And my response is always this. [00:19:18] What has changed fundamentally in the world? [00:19:22] Did debt levels go down? [00:19:24] The answer is no. [00:19:25] Did geopolitical risks disappear? [00:19:27] Of course, the answer is no. [00:19:29] Did central banks gain room now to cut rates and normalize the financial system? [00:19:34] The answer is also no as well. [00:19:36] In fact, the opposite is happening. [00:19:39] We've seen oil prices surging. [00:19:40] We see inflation risks worsening. [00:19:43] And central banks today are more trapped, not less. [00:19:46] So I think the recent price moves in gold and silver come amid a sort of broader risk-off sentiment. [00:19:53] And what I want to tell people is the case for gold is not that it goes up every day, right? [00:19:59] That's not how it works at all. [00:20:01] The case for gold is that in a world of unimaginable debt levels, sticky inflation, questionable economic prospects, and geopolitical uncertainty, gold remains one of the very few assets outside of the debt-based system that we can rely on. [00:20:17] So, you know, to quote Steve Forbes, this isn't a momentum trade. [00:20:21] This is a sort of financial insurance. [00:20:23] And I think the biggest mistake people make is to judge a strategic hedge by a week's tape. [00:20:30] Gold's job is not to win every news cycle. [00:20:33] It's to be a foundation regardless of the headlines. [00:20:36] And I think it's going to continue to do that longer term. [00:20:39] So I just want to tell people, stay calm. [00:20:42] The long-term prospects are strong. [00:20:44] We're going to see some volatility broadly, but I think this is to be expected. [00:20:51] I want to give the how people get in touch with you and talk to you and your team. [00:20:56] One thing, there was either a rumor or maybe there's a news blip that Saudi Arabia having to shut in some of their facilities may be forced to sell some of the kingdom's gold to pay for operating expenses for the kingdom. [00:21:09] Have you heard anything like that? [00:21:10] And if that happened to be true, what impact would that have? [00:21:15] Look, I mean, I think it's just a reflection of just how tough things are. [00:21:20] The Saudis selling gold to sort of free up cash reserves. [00:21:25] Just, I mean, first of all, it's doubtful. [00:21:28] I haven't heard the reports myself, but if they are, it just shows us how tough things are broadly. [00:21:33] But like I said, fundamentals for precious metals haven't changed at all. [00:21:38] They're strengthening every single day, but nothing's going to go up in a straight line. [00:21:42] There's a lot of confusion. [00:21:43] There's a lot of uncertainty. [00:21:45] As you were saying before, nobody really understands the extent of this conflict, how long it's going to drag on. [00:21:51] And I think the longer it does, the better it'll be for gold prices long term. [00:21:58] No, Bibi, I mean, one of the positive things came out of Bibi's press conference. [00:22:02] He said, hey, I think people have misread this. [00:22:04] I think this conflict will end much more quickly than people think. [00:22:09] And he was pretty adamant about that. [00:22:11] I want people to be able to get to you now more than ever and understand why gold has been a hedge in times of financial turbulence and also why it's turning into more of a financial asset like it was in the 19th century. === Debunking False Accusations (04:52) === [00:22:25] Where do people go, Philip? [00:22:26] Because really want everybody to make sure they get access to you. [00:22:31] It's very simple. [00:22:32] It's birchgold.com forward slash bannon. [00:22:35] Again, birchgold.com forward slash bannon or text Bannon to 989898. [00:22:42] Just get the information. [00:22:45] Read it, learn, educate yourself, and go from there. [00:22:49] It is compelling. [00:22:50] It is educational. [00:22:52] It is informative. [00:22:53] And I think everyone will just be a little bit smarter after reading it. [00:22:57] So birchgold.com forward slash Bannon. [00:23:02] And go talk to Philip Patrony. [00:23:03] Thank you very much, Philip. [00:23:04] Mike Lee has just, Senator Mike Lee has just returned to the floor of the Senate. [00:23:08] Let's jump over there right now. [00:23:10] It's already required by a whole host of other laws. [00:23:13] Most familiar to most Americans would be in the labor and employment context where every time you start a new job as an American citizen in the United States as an employee, you have to fill out an I-9 form and you have to provide a very specific set of documents to establish citizenship. [00:23:32] You may do so with a U.S. passport establishing citizenship. [00:23:35] If you don't have a U.S. passport, you may do so with a birth certificate together with a photo ID, a social security card can also come into play, but it's a fairly limited set. [00:23:49] What we have established in this bill is far more flexible than that. [00:23:53] We've added a bunch of other documents. [00:23:56] We've tried to be as expansive and as inclusive as humanly possible in order to do that. [00:24:01] And then we've provided a fail-safe, a fail-safe that I have yet to hear. [00:24:05] Any of my colleagues across the aisle refer to when making these very aggressive accusations that this is a poll tax, this is Jim Crow 2.0, that this is going to disenfranchise women or people of particular racial minorities. [00:24:16] It's just not true. [00:24:17] They're ignoring the existence of the provision that begins on line 22, page 12 of the bill and continues on to the next page, which says that if for any reason or no reason at all you don't have the necessary documents, [00:24:33] any of them or all of them, you have none of them, you can still handle this by an affidavit that you can write out, thus putting the burden on the state to confirm or refute the underlying facts establishing your citizenship, whether through citizenship, through natural born citizen status by virtue of the circumstances at your birth, at the time of your birth, making you a citizen, or the circumstances that led to your naturalization, if you're a naturalized citizen. [00:25:03] That does not cost anyone a single dollar, and it puts the burden on the state to track down the necessary background so that the state can certify you. [00:25:11] So these arguments are not only missing the point, they become aggressively wrong, to the point of just being flat out false, demonstrably false. [00:25:26] And so we can hear this over and over and over again, but it doesn't change the fact that in the bill, nobody's charged a thing to vote, not one person. [00:25:36] And so when we hear about this being constantly, that just isn't true. [00:25:41] Likewise, another comment was made by my colleague from Delaware referring to a vote by mail provision, referring to some more sweeping changes that are made in a separate amendment that are not part of this bill right now. [00:25:59] This bill has two principal provisions. [00:26:01] One deals with establishing proof of citizenship at the time of voter registration. [00:26:06] The other deals with photo ID at the time of voting. [00:26:10] This one doesn't do that. [00:26:12] Yes, one or more amendments have been filed that would expand that to include some significant restrictions on mail and balloting, but that is not what's being debated on the floor right now. [00:26:20] I've got no objection to anybody wanting to raise those now, given that amendments have been filed. [00:26:25] And there's been some talk of this, but just to be clear, the bill on the floor doesn't contain those. [00:26:31] I also need to respond to a couple of more egregious points that were made by the preceding senator, the senator from Michigan. [00:26:40] Among other things, she repeated some of the same false accusations that this would somehow disenfranchise married women. [00:26:49] It absolutely emphatically would not. [00:26:52] In addition to making it very easy for somebody who's got all the other documentation but maybe doesn't have a marriage certificate backing up the name change, or maybe they're missing all of them. [00:27:03] Again, you go back to page 12, line 22. [00:27:06] Any person, whether they change their name or are missing some of their documentation or all of it, may establish it by affidavit, putting the burden back on the state elections official. === Citizenship Verification Rules (09:01) === [00:27:17] The Senator from Michigan also made some curious claims with regard to the Constitution, with regard to federalism and the relationship between states and the federal government. [00:27:29] Among other things, she insisted that the founding fathers, those who wrote the Constitution and those who ratified it, were emphatic about the fact that they did not want, as she put it, the federal government running elections. [00:27:43] Well, there is some truth to that, but her ultimate conclusion is 180 degrees opposite of what the Constitution says and what they did and what the words say. [00:27:56] So it's very important for us to do this to make sure that we're talking about the same things. [00:28:02] So if you go to the Constitution, go to Article 1, Section 4, Clause 1. [00:28:08] It doesn't talk about it because it doesn't need to talk about the states conducting their own elections for state offices. [00:28:16] That goes without saying that the states are in charge of that. [00:28:19] But it does talk in Article 1, Section 4, Clause 1, about the fact that the state governments will be in charge of setting up rules and regulations governing the conduct of elections for federal officials. [00:28:34] And it also says, right after that, in the very same sentence, quote, but the Congress may at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations. [00:28:45] And that is what we are doing here. [00:28:49] Because these involve federal offices, we have the authority to set important terms and conditions specifically for federal offices. [00:28:58] It's not that we are encroaching on any constitutional power. [00:29:01] This is our power. [00:29:03] It may lay dormant insofar as we choose not to exercise it, but it's not currently dormant. [00:29:08] And in fact, we've legislated on a number of occasions. [00:29:11] And there are at least four, five, maybe six major pieces of existing federal law that deal specifically with the state's conduct of federal elections, separate and apart from another very serious federal criminal penalty that makes it a felony for a non-citizen to vote in a U.S. election. [00:29:34] So in all these respects, the Congress can, it may, it is expressly authorized to legislate, and it has indeed legislated. [00:29:42] Among other things, it's legislated with the NVRA passed in 1993. [00:29:47] It is the NVRA specifically and the manner in which it's been interpreted by the Supreme Court and implemented that necessitates these provisions, specifically the citizenship provisions of the Safe America Act. [00:30:00] Because but for the Supreme Court's ruling in Arizona versus Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona in 2013, a case decided some 20 years after the NVRA was enacted by Congress in 1993, the court in that case said the states may not even inquire into someone's citizenship, may not require proof of it, even where they suspect that some voters might be non-citizens. [00:30:26] Now, that interpretation was wrong. [00:30:28] It was contrary to the text, to the structure, to the original public meaning of that statute. [00:30:33] It was wrong, but it's nonetheless conclusive. [00:30:35] It's a majority opinion of the Supreme Court. [00:30:36] It hasn't been overturned. [00:30:38] And that's why this is necessary. [00:30:40] So to call this a federalism problem, to call this an overreach by the United States government into the exclusive domain of the states is literally not true. [00:30:50] Why? [00:30:50] Well, because in the first place, the Constitution itself makes it federal. [00:30:55] And it's necessarily federal. [00:30:57] I would add to that that that's even more important here because this bleeds into another one of the federal government's exclusive powers and exclusive abilities, namely the ability to identify and ascertain the citizenship of any American citizen. [00:31:14] That is not the role of the states, nor do the states have the comprehensive databases that the federal government does have. [00:31:21] The federal government has the ability conclusively to determine whether or not somebody is a citizen. [00:31:26] The states do not, and that's yet another important reason for us to make that determination. [00:31:31] It's also relevant that this is where we get into trouble with a number of these blue states, the Democrat governors and Democrat legislature states that are refusing even to talk to the federal authorities who run the save database within the Department of Homeland Security. [00:31:48] Remember, it is against the law for a non-citizen to vote in a federal election. [00:31:54] And that's why we have these laws and these systems and this database, the saved database, already set up. [00:31:59] And yet a number of these blue states, a whole lot of them, are refusing even to talk to federal authorities, even to share with them what, if anything, that they're doing to make sure that non-citizens are not voting in U.S. elections. [00:32:13] This has become a problem of especially great concern in recent years, given that in some states, a handful, at least four or five states in the District of Columbia, now have in place systems where in some local elections within their state's jurisdiction, non-citizens are openly, by state law, allowed to vote in those elections. [00:32:32] Therefore, when they register to vote, they have a voter registration file. [00:32:36] Basic questions have been asked to them. [00:32:38] How do you differentiate those who are non-citizens, who have registered to vote in your state, and how do you make sure that they don't get ballots to vote in a federal election, for example, for a U.S. House of Representatives race or a U.S. Senate race? [00:32:52] They have refused to answer the question. [00:32:54] They have refused to cooperate. [00:32:55] They have hidden these details. [00:32:56] These are important details. [00:32:58] Details that we have constitutional authority, a moral obligation, and a legal obligation to look into to make sure that our laws are faithfully executed. [00:33:06] And they refuse utterly to cooperate. [00:33:09] If that's not chilling, I don't know what is. [00:33:12] My friend and colleague from Michigan also implied that there is a, I don't know, some sort of a de minimis marginal concern about, in her state and in every other state, about non-citizens registering to vote. [00:33:25] Oh, it happens every once in a while. [00:33:27] Somebody gets in there, we remove them. [00:33:28] Well, let's remember, I mean, I looked up some articles on this, and I've got one right here from a publication called The Michigan Bridge. [00:33:38] One of the ways that they found a handful of non-citizens registered to vote was in a sort of haphazard way. [00:33:45] They found 15 just by doing something very simple. [00:33:49] They compared a list of people who had gone into court after being summoned for jury duty. [00:33:54] Jury duty, remember, typically turns on what they call the wheel, a random selection from among registered voters in the jurisdiction. [00:34:02] You're called up if you're a registered voter randomly to serve in jury duty. [00:34:06] Periodically, in Michigan and in many other states, people will show up for jury duty. [00:34:12] There are all kinds of tricks that people use to try to avoid jury duty if they don't want to. [00:34:16] This one may or may not be a trick in some circumstances, and in many circumstances, it wasn't. [00:34:21] People were truthfully saying, I'm not a citizen, therefore I may not, must not, cannot, will not serve as a juror. [00:34:28] So somebody came up with the idea, let's compare, I think there were a list of, I don't know, 250 or so who happened to have made that argument. [00:34:36] Then they compared them against Michigan's voter registration database, and they found that at least 15 of those individuals were non-citizens who had registered to vote. [00:34:45] That is a far cry from saying that there are only 15 non-citizens registered to vote in the state of Michigan. [00:34:50] When you consider the haphazard, random way in which they found this out, one would suggest that not only that there could be more, but that there likely are a lot more, because most people aren't getting called in for jury duty, and most who are aren't necessarily invoking this defense of, I can't serve, I won't serve, I may not serve because I am not a U.S. citizen. [00:35:11] Finally, with regard to the federalism point, I find it very curious that this argument continues to surface, and it surfaces in particular from our Democratic colleagues. [00:35:21] And the reason I say that is that all of a sudden they're very concerned about federalism, about maintaining the sanctity of the distinction between that which is state authority and that which is federal. [00:35:30] That's important to me. [00:35:32] I focus on a few things more than that. [00:35:34] I think the core structural provisions of the Constitution, the vertical protection that we call federalism, and the horizontal protection that we call separation of powers, are as important as any other feature in the Constitution. [00:35:45] And when we deviate from those, we cause all kinds of ripples downstream. [00:35:50] So I'm very sensitive to these issues. [00:35:52] I want to avoid any semblance of trampling on state sovereign authority. [00:35:56] This, sir, is not that. [00:35:58] And especially when we hear this from those who, just a few years ago, during the Congress ranged between January 3rd, 2021, and January 3rd, 2023, in which both chambers in Congress were controlled by Democrats, and we had a Democratic president, President Biden. === Federal Takeover Concerns (12:19) === [00:36:19] During that time, they supported legislation known as H.R. 1. [00:36:22] Now, if you want to see a federal takeover of elections, H.R. 1 was that. [00:36:27] It was vast. [00:36:28] It was sweeping. [00:36:29] It covered all sorts of things that the federal government has no business taking over in elections. [00:36:34] Among other things, it would have designated every single voting jurisdiction and the entire United States of America, regardless of what part of the country they're in, regardless of what, if any, history they may have had with past de facto or de jure discrimination or segregation of their state, subjected them all to pre-clearance, meaning anytime they passed any law affecting the way votes were cast, precincts were drawn, or otherwise, they would have to go to a political appointee, [00:37:01] a Democratic political appointee inside the Department of Justice, to seek a mother may I, an advance blessing from the federal sovereign before they could make those changes. [00:37:11] That, Mr. President, is a violation of federalism. [00:37:14] And that is something that last I checked, every Democrat who now serves in the Senate, who was here at the time, supported. [00:37:21] So I'm sorry, count me surprised that they would make the federalism argument now in reference to a bill that focuses solely, exclusively, on powers that the federal government does, in fact, have. [00:37:35] And in fact, the only reason this bill is necessary, Mr. President, is because of existing federal law, the way it's been interpreted, and the way that it's being implemented. [00:37:44] That's the only reason we need any of this. [00:37:46] That is not a federalism problem. [00:37:49] That, Mr. President, is an appropriate exercise of federal power. [00:37:53] We do just as much violence to federalism when we deny to the federal sovereign the ability to exercise federal power as we do when we do the same to the states. [00:38:03] Thank you. [00:38:08] Chairman. [00:38:08] Okay, let me go to Cleta Mitchell. [00:38:12] Cleta. [00:38:14] That was 6:30. [00:38:16] Is that actually putting the bill on? [00:38:18] What are they talking about now, ma'am? [00:38:21] Well, I just was texting with Senator Lee's staff, and there are a couple of more speakers, but they're supposed to be putting this Houstead bill on the floor in the next little bit. [00:38:36] But, you know, two or three speakers in the Senate can be a lifetime. [00:38:43] So we're just tell us what's up. [00:38:46] Explain to the audience what's happened. [00:38:48] Who's that's going to put it up? [00:38:49] But it's calling the bluff of Schumer. [00:38:52] Knowing that they've gone for just a couple of days, and already, because of the Warren Posse and others being forced multipliers and taking clips and putting them out there on social media, the Democrats understand they don't have a good argument on any of a particular thing that jumps off the page. [00:39:09] They have no argument about voter ID. [00:39:15] And so What Mike Lee and Thune and these strategists are thinking and who said is going to come up. [00:39:21] Let's carve out that part of it and put it up. [00:39:24] Now, Tommy Tuberville told us that he thinks they're five or six votes short of the 53. [00:39:31] He doesn't think they get to 50 to even have a JD break it because he says a bunch of these guys just don't think there should be any federal involvement in these elections. [00:39:41] Your thoughts, you're an expert on this, man. [00:39:43] What's your answer to those senators that may be a little jiggy about getting on top of this bill, this new one? [00:39:51] Well, if those senators, and I see Lisa Murkowski speaking, please don't turn up. [00:39:55] I can't bear to hear her. [00:39:56] But she'll say that. [00:40:00] So, okay, how long have you been in the Senate, Senator Murkowski? [00:40:03] Why don't you introduce a bill to repeal all five of the federal laws that control our elections? [00:40:10] How about repealing the Federal Election Records Act? [00:40:13] You want to repeal the National Voter Registration Act? [00:40:16] Senator McConnell voted against it in 1993. [00:40:19] Where's his bill to repeal the NVRA? [00:40:22] It's the one that keeps us from being able to claim voter rolls. [00:40:25] It's the one that requires that when you go to the DMV, you get asked to register to vote. [00:40:31] And now they're just using that to just dump everybody who shows up to the DMV into the voter rolls, whether they ask you or not. [00:40:39] And you read the fine print in the NVRA, and there you have it. [00:40:43] That's what it says: an application for a driver's license shall be deemed to be an application to register to vote. [00:40:49] I didn't know that. [00:40:50] Did you know that? [00:40:50] I thought they had to ask. [00:40:51] They don't have to ask. [00:40:53] That's a federal law. [00:40:54] Why are they not trying to repeal that? [00:40:56] So I'm not buying this wham, wham, wan about this is the federal government encroaching on the states because it's the federal government's already been encroaching on the states. [00:41:05] How about after the 2000 presidential election, the 2000 presidential election, when Congress came in and in a bipartisan bill, because the Democrats were so mad about Al Gore losing, they introduced and passed a law, the Help America Vote Act. [00:41:22] You know what that did? [00:41:23] That told every jurisdiction in America, you cannot use punch cards for voting. [00:41:30] You cannot use the old lever machines. [00:41:33] You know, you pull down the lever. [00:41:35] And the Congress appropriated billions of dollars and told the states, you got to have these electronic voting machines. [00:41:42] That was Congress that did that. [00:41:43] That was not the states. [00:41:44] That was Congress that did that. [00:41:46] All these problems we have. [00:41:48] You have Garland Fevarito, who comes on to Warroom often. [00:41:51] Garland was not ever even involved in elections. [00:41:54] He was a computer expert and he saw what was happening and he said, oh my gosh, that is totally insecure. [00:42:02] That is a terrible thing to do over elections. [00:42:05] He started worried about that back in 2003, right when the Help America Vote Act was passed by Congress. [00:42:11] So don't cry me these crocodile tears about how this is encroaching on the states. [00:42:16] This is trying to repair the damage that Congress has done and has not corrected for many decades. [00:42:25] So, you know, look, we have 50 commitments, commitments from 50 United States senators who are publicly on record as saying they will support the Save America Act. [00:42:37] Now, they may be lying and they may say that they are going to support it. [00:42:41] We don't have that many who've said they support the talking filibuster, but we do have 50 commitments who've signed on to support the bill. [00:42:47] Well, but here, but okay, but here's, I think, what hang on. [00:42:50] I think what Tuberville's talking about, correct me if I'm wrong, if they strip this out and put it up, this is actually a real vote because even the ones said they were 50, if they know that it's not going to go to the talking filibuster and that they're not going to break closure, it's a free vote. [00:43:07] They're not really stuck with it, right? [00:43:08] It's just, it's just impressionistic. [00:43:10] It's not real. [00:43:11] This one tonight could be real. [00:43:14] This tonight is real. [00:43:16] I mean, he senator hosted is going to put on the floor a bill. [00:43:19] It's called, I learned about this this afternoon. [00:43:22] I'd never heard of this. [00:43:22] They're going to hotline a bill, which means they're going to take a provision of a bill that's on the floor, offered as an amendment as a freestanding bill. [00:43:31] It's going to be introduced as a freestanding bill. [00:43:33] It's going to take the entire section on voter ID, just exactly the way it's written, which is really important because it cleans up a lot of mischief where states have what they call ID and it really isn't. [00:43:45] But it would put that on the floor and he's going to ask for unanimous consent and see if the Democrats object. [00:43:50] Who will object to that? [00:43:52] That's going to be very interesting. [00:43:53] And they'll have a vote and we'll see how many Republicans. [00:43:57] It's a way to find out how many Republicans and how many Democrats we have who will vote for and who'll vote against it. [00:44:04] So it's an important step and it's only happening because of people who watch War Room, the posse, people who are paying attention, people who landed all over the Republican leadership and said, don't you dare call a fast one. [00:44:21] We're watching. [00:44:22] We know we want a real debate. [00:44:24] We want you to really talk about this. [00:44:26] And they're doing that. [00:44:28] So I think that's really important. [00:44:30] And it gives us the opportunity to say, let's see who's for it and against it. [00:44:36] We're going to, we're, we're, we're, this is, I think, great. [00:44:39] And Husted's going to put it up from Ohio. [00:44:41] We're going to stream. [00:44:42] We're going to stream the entire time. [00:44:45] Hang on for one second. [00:44:47] Home title lock to make sure I get my reads in. [00:44:49] HometitleLoc.com, promo code Steve. [00:44:52] Now more than ever with advances in artificial intelligence. [00:44:56] And Joe Allen is going to be with me. [00:44:58] He's going to do it tomorrow afternoon. [00:44:59] We're going to have Joe back tomorrow afternoon. [00:45:01] He's got so much he's working on to talk about AI and cyber, the combination of that in the rudimentary system out there to protect your title at kind of the county level. [00:45:12] You can't count on that. [00:45:13] For pennies a day, you can get protection. [00:45:15] HometitleLock.com promo code Steve. [00:45:18] Check it out today. [00:45:19] Natalie Dominguez and team. [00:45:21] And of course they give you, because you remember the war and posse, a 14-day free trial on the $1 million triple lock protection. [00:45:28] Ask her what it is, get into the details. [00:45:30] We know you love the receipts. [00:45:33] I've got, do I have Neil McCabe? [00:45:35] Is he fired up? [00:45:35] Neil McCabe, is Neil at the White House, Capitol Hill? [00:45:38] Where are you, Neil McCabe? [00:45:41] I'm at the executive mansion, Stephen. [00:45:46] Tell me, give me your thoughts. [00:45:48] You've been following this all day. [00:45:49] You were up there for a while. [00:45:51] Where are we? [00:45:52] Just heard Cleta Mitchell breaking a scoop here that they're going to do a put up or shut up with Schumer. [00:45:58] They're saying, oh, yeah, well, of course we do, you know, voter ID, but the rest of the stuff you got in here is crap. [00:46:02] We can't do it. [00:46:03] They're going to do a put up or shut up. [00:46:05] Senator Husted of Ohio, what have you been hearing up there all day? [00:46:12] Right. [00:46:12] So this afternoon, I heard that there was a hotline. [00:46:16] And a hotline is when the senators basically call around, they make 100 phone calls and they see if they can get unanimous consent on a bill before they actually file it. [00:46:28] And so that's what they were doing today. [00:46:30] So when you're hotlining, that's basically short-circuiting the whole process. [00:46:34] And you're just going to say, hey, can we just slip this thing and get it done? [00:46:38] And Hosted from Ohio, as you said, he's been leading that effort. [00:46:43] And, you know, now I think it's a go. [00:46:45] I mean, Schumer opened the door last night when he told a gag of reporters that Democrats don't oppose voter ID. [00:46:53] Frankly, Dick Durbin told me the same thing just off the Senate floor, Steve. [00:46:59] So, Clita, you just heard about the hotline and what they're doing. [00:47:03] Why would the Democrats do the all team all come in, given that they've done not just months and months, but for the last 48, 72 hours, they've done nothing but trash. [00:47:16] You know, this is handmade's tale. [00:47:18] Half the women are not going to vote. [00:47:20] You're not going to have anybody that had a foreign parent be able to vote. [00:47:23] They have gone out of their way to bring up every thing against a voter ID. [00:47:29] How can they just flip so quickly and sign on to this, ma'am? [00:47:34] Well, because they've been doing it not for the last 48 hours, they've been doing it for the last 20 years. [00:47:41] They have fought photo ID. [00:47:43] They fought voter ID. [00:47:45] They lost in the Supreme Court. [00:47:46] They've lost over and over again. [00:47:48] And no matter how many times they say all these things, the people still keep saying, yep, we want photo ID for voting. [00:47:58] So I think that they think that if they do that, if they do this voter, this photo ID, that maybe they won't have to answer questions about the rest of it. [00:48:08] As far as I'm concerned, let's just keep doing it. [00:48:10] Let's just keep, let's get this, and then see what else we can get. [00:48:14] Let's get what the president wants on absentee voting and let's get the rest of it. [00:48:19] We're not going away, but this will be a big win. [00:48:22] It's already a big win. [00:48:25] Oh, this will be a huge win. [00:48:26] And even to get those guys to admit, it's a win. [00:48:28] Tuberil said by Saturday afternoon, they're going to put the amendment up for the No Men and Women's Sports. [00:48:34] He said he thinks it's going to go through Sunday at least. [00:48:36] We're going to be here for the entire time to cover it. === Election Integrity Watchdogs (02:26) === [00:48:38] We're streaming now starting at seven o'clock. [00:48:41] Cleta, particularly your social media, where do people keep up with you tonight to get all the breaking news on this? [00:48:49] The place to go for the breaking news is go to at EI Watchdogs. [00:48:54] That's at EI Watchdogs on X. That's the Election Integrity Network social media X account. [00:49:03] So go on Facebook or at most EI Watchdogs. [00:49:06] Do that. [00:49:09] And folks, be pulling this content and putting it up on your Twitter feed. [00:49:12] Cleta, I got to tell you, I got a couple of texts this afternoon while you were on. [00:49:16] People want Cleta Mitchell in the U.S. Senate. [00:49:19] Just saying, ma'am, I'm just reporting with the Vox Populi. [00:49:23] Thank you, ma'am. [00:49:24] Appreciate you. [00:49:25] Neil McCabe. [00:49:25] He wants me to be parliamentarian. [00:49:31] Not a bad, not a bad. [00:49:32] Start there and then start there and then go to the Senate. [00:49:36] At the executive mansion is Neil McCabe. [00:49:40] Neil, where do people follow you tonight, sir? [00:49:44] On all the socials at Reporter McCabe, sir. [00:49:49] Thank you, brother. [00:49:50] See you tomorrow. [00:49:51] Great job. [00:49:52] We're going to be streaming this all night. [00:49:54] I might dip in and out. [00:49:55] You never know. [00:49:57] Definitely will be back at 10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. [00:50:00] Our show is already packed. [00:50:01] 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock Shari, already packed Saturday. [00:50:04] We're doing our Sunday special this Sunday. [00:50:08] The boys in Denver, man, they're just crazy about that Sunday show. [00:50:11] I want to think they're your patriots standing up, stepping up our own team here at the war room. [00:50:17] Patriot Mobile, we had Scott. [00:50:19] Scott's going to be back with us, I think, on Saturday. [00:50:22] He had to bolt. [00:50:23] Scott Coburn, the head of marketing. [00:50:24] 972 Patriot, go right now. [00:50:27] Talk to somebody with the East Texas accent. [00:50:29] Why this company is a Christian company based on Christian values and supports all of your endeavors, including they've been on their political side, been very active in Prop 10 in Texas. [00:50:43] In fact, they're one of the big initiatives that are just great people. [00:50:46] Glenn and Jenny Story, Patriot Mobile, 972 Patriot, go talk to them today. [00:50:51] Back. [00:50:52] I'll be in and out tonight on the feed on Getter, particularly. [00:50:56] See you tomorrow morning, 10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. [00:50:58] Maybe we're going to have a bill, Husted's bill. [00:51:00] Stick around. [00:51:01] Check it out. [00:51:02] See you tomorrow morning at 10. [00:51:04] Getting help from the boss.