Speaker 1: It is Thursday, June the nineteenth. This is the morning.
Speaker 1: The entire exchange you're about to see is remarkable. Michigan's
Speaker 1: completely normal and superb freshman senator at least. Lock In
Speaker 1: is going to ask the Secretary of Defense a fundamentally
Speaker 1: important question, and it's about whether he would give an
Speaker 1: order that would allow America's soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines
Speaker 1: to open fire on the American people. The question is
Speaker 1: asked so he can say no emphatically, directly and on
Speaker 1: the record, under oath. This matters because it's been well
Speaker 1: documented that during his first term in the Oval Office,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump asked his Defense Secretary Mark Asper, in the
Speaker 1: presence of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Speaker 1: about the possibility of opening fire on peacefully protesting Americans.
Speaker 1: Though be reassured Donald just wanted to shoot in the legs.
Speaker 2: What specifically was he suggesting that the US military should
Speaker 2: do to these protesters there?
Speaker 3: He says, can't you just shoot them? Just shoot them
Speaker 3: in the legs or something, And he's suggesting that that's
Speaker 3: what we should do, that we should bring in the
Speaker 3: troops and shoot the protesters.
Speaker 1: Stephen Miller on the other hand, in the Oval Office
Speaker 1: wanted the US Navy to destroy boats full of migrants
Speaker 1: off of San Diego. And there's a word for what
Speaker 1: that would have been, and that word is murder. But
Speaker 1: let's watch this incredible exchange.
Speaker 2: Do they have the ability the uniform military to arrest
Speaker 2: and detain protesters? Currently? Today? It's a yes or no
Speaker 2: thing authorit.
Speaker 3: It's it's seat of amusing the extent to which the
Speaker 3: speculation is out there. These troops are given very clear.
Speaker 2: Orders, and what is the order? Then list it out
Speaker 2: for us be a man listed out. You authorize them
Speaker 2: to detain or arrest? That is a fundamental issue of democracy.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to be a snot here. I'm just
Speaker 2: trying to get the actual did you authorize them to
Speaker 2: do that?
Speaker 3: All of these orders there and what they're sent there
Speaker 3: to do are public the.
Speaker 2: So say it, so say it yes or no. I'd
Speaker 2: like to please yes or no.
Speaker 3: As I've said time and time again through interruption, they're
Speaker 3: there to protect law enforcement.
Speaker 2: They have the ability to Y're.
Speaker 3: Trying to do their job deporting illegals who have were
Speaker 3: allowed in by the previous series.
Speaker 2: So they cannot arrest and detain citizens of the United
Speaker 2: States the uniform military, as.
Speaker 3: We've stated, if necessary in their own self defense, they
Speaker 3: could temporarily detain and hand over to ice. Resting going on.
Speaker 3: And you know this better than.
Speaker 2: You authorize political military. There's no arrest of the US
Speaker 2: military against members of the protest. Have you authorized US
Speaker 2: military cyber tools to investigate people participating in these yes
Speaker 2: or no?
Speaker 3: Certainly, in no way that i'd be aware of.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's good. I love that answer. That's great. Have
Speaker 2: you given the order for to be able to shoot
Speaker 2: at unarmed protesters in any way? I'm just asking the question.
Speaker 2: Don't laugh like the whole country, and by the way,
Speaker 2: my colleagues across based.
Speaker 3: On what evidence, would you have a favor.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump giving giving that order to your predecessor, to
Speaker 2: a Republican Secretary of Defense, who I give a lot
Speaker 2: of credit to because he didn't accept the order. He
Speaker 2: had more guts and balls than you, because he said,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to send in the uniform military to
Speaker 2: do something that I know in my gut isn't right.
Speaker 2: He was asked to shoot at their legs. He wrote
Speaker 2: that in his book. That's not hearsay. So you're pooh
Speaker 2: poohing of this. It just shows you don't understand who
Speaker 2: we are as a country, who we are, and all
Speaker 2: my colleagues across the aisle, especially the ones that served,
Speaker 2: should want an a political military and not want citizens
Speaker 2: to be scared of their own military. I love the
Speaker 2: military I served alongside my whole life, So I'm worried
Speaker 2: about you tainting it. Have you given the order? Have
Speaker 2: you given the order that they can use lethal force
Speaker 2: againstnor I want the answer to be no. Please tell
Speaker 2: me it's no. Have you given the order?
Speaker 3: Senator? I'd be careful what you read in books and
Speaker 3: believing it except for the Bible.
Speaker 2: Oh my God, so your former predecessor, I guess that's
Speaker 2: not enough for you.
Speaker 1: The incredible part about the Bible that elicited the oh
Speaker 1: my God is precisely the correct reaction. And I have
Speaker 1: a suggestion the next time that Pete Hagsath testifies, he
Speaker 1: should be seated next to the uniform chiefs of the services,
Speaker 1: and that question should be put to all of them,
Speaker 1: and they should answer it directly to the American people
Speaker 1: whom they serve, not Pete Hagseth. Meanwhile, Donald who ran
Speaker 1: on a platform of peace is now puffing out his chest.
Speaker 1: Just days ago, Donald recited the lesson of the last
Speaker 1: twenty five years, and it was about the invincibility of
Speaker 1: America's armed forces, an unconquerable force of Pete Hegseth's warriors,
Speaker 1: who have never been defeated and who've never bled. Trump
Speaker 1: doesn't like that seeing the visual reminders of the cost
Speaker 1: of war, He said, no one wants to see it.
Speaker 1: When he was confronted with a wounded warrior in a wheelchair.
Speaker 1: But yet Donald Trump says, trust us, trust me, trust
Speaker 1: Tulsea Gabber, trust Pete Hegseth. A man with no shame,
Speaker 1: a man with less judgment, a man of profound incompetence,
Speaker 1: an extremist, a yes man, a person with no self
Speaker 1: awareness whatsoever, a clown wrapped inside the skin of a buffoon,
Speaker 1: a performing monkey on a string. That's what Pete Hegseth
Speaker 1: is the most unfit man ever in the history of
Speaker 1: the United States to ever be in command of the
Speaker 1: armed forces. And Donald Trump says of the parents of
Speaker 1: the American soldier, sailor, airmen, and marines, many of them
Speaker 1: are scumbags, and they're vermin and he sent massed agents
Speaker 1: to arrest them and their neighbors in the cities that
Speaker 1: he says must be occupied by the military to be
Speaker 1: liberated from the democratically elected officials that the people in
Speaker 1: those cities voted for. And this man wants to take
Speaker 1: the United States to war. Here's the deal, MAGA doesn't
Speaker 1: go to war. The United States of America goes to war.
Speaker 1: Nations go to war. And what Donald Trump is saying,
Speaker 1: trust me, There is no evidence to suggest that he
Speaker 1: can be trusted. How can the word of a man
Speaker 1: who denies the result of an election that he lost
Speaker 1: be trusted. How can the word of a man who
Speaker 1: said that January sixth was a beautiful day be trusted?
Speaker 1: How can the man who has made billions of dollars
Speaker 1: through corrupt acts be trusted? How can the man who
Speaker 1: has lied thirty thousand times be trusted? How can the
Speaker 1: man who ran as a peace president promising that there
Speaker 1: would be no foreign entanglements be trusted? And of course,
Speaker 1: the answer to the question is Donald Trump cannot be trusted.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has never been trustworthy, and so though he
Speaker 1: may have the statutory authority to order the US Air
Speaker 1: Force to Bollob a target. He certainly lacks the moral authority,
Speaker 1: and so does Pete Hexath, and so does Tulca Gabbrick,
Speaker 1: and so does the entirety of the Rowen Maga enterprise.
Speaker 1: That has divided the nation, that has sundered the American people,
Speaker 1: that has put them at their throats, that has abused
Speaker 1: its power, that has broken the law, that has desecrated
Speaker 1: military service, desecrated the military, erased the history of service
Speaker 1: from Black Americans, from Hispanic Americans, from the record of memory,
Speaker 1: and now Pete Hegsath and Donald Trump want to put
Speaker 1: on their field Marshall uniforms. Ted Cruz has asked a
Speaker 1: question that's elementary of Iran, what's its ethnic makeup? Might
Speaker 1: after the experience of Iraq, there be some wisdom accrued
Speaker 1: about invading societies where delusional people in Washington say, we're
Speaker 1: going to be greeted as liberators. Ted Cruz, his arrogance,
Speaker 1: his ignorance, It is appalling. He is, like Pete Hegsath,
Speaker 1: a yes man, and so surrounded by yes men who
Speaker 1: tell Donald Trump that he's a god, that he has
Speaker 1: a divine purpose and he has the power to fulfill it.
Speaker 1: The American people have been yoked to another misguided adventure,
Speaker 1: at the edge of another season of disaster by a
Speaker 1: president who cannot be trusted, surrounded by sycophants who cannot
Speaker 1: be trusted. What an appalling moment. But thankfully there are
Speaker 1: senators like Elise Slocking who are on the case, on
Speaker 1: the job, who represent American normalcy, in American decency and
Speaker 1: American grit and toughness and smarts, and who will not
Speaker 1: stop answering the call of the American people to keep
Speaker 1: asking the questions that must be asked in a moment
Speaker 1: that nobody thought possible but has arrived because of the
Speaker 1: fecklessness of an opposition, because of the malice of Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: and because of the indifference of the American people. And
Speaker 1: so we stand in this new era at its beginning days,
Speaker 1: looking for leaders, and be grateful that Elise Slocking is
Speaker 1: in the United States Senate because she's a leader, she's
Speaker 1: a leader of the opposition, and she's fighting for you,
Speaker 1: and she's on your side. This is the warning, and
Speaker 1: I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning. I invite you
Speaker 1: to join this community, where I promise to be honest,
Speaker 1: blunt and direct about what is happening in this country.
Speaker 1: America is in crisis. Follow and subscribe to this channel
Speaker 1: and on substack. Thank you.