00:00:34.840It's Wednesday, March 4th, 2026, and this is your AM Update.
00:00:39.560Texas voters casting their ballots in the U.S. Senate primary on both sides of the aisle.
00:00:44.960Who carried the night? We'll have the details.
00:00:47.580We expect exceptional leadership, and you've demonstrated anything but that.
00:00:52.980Secretary Kristi Noem faces friendly fire in a contentious Senate judiciary hearing.
00:00:58.400Let me explain to you guys this in simple English, okay?
00:01:02.060Iran is run by lunatics. Religious fanatic lunatics.
00:01:05.520The conflict with Iran intensifies as new polling finds most Americans still do not understand our objectives.
00:01:12.840And Virginia's Democrat governor refusing to cooperate with ICE in removing an illegal immigrant arrested for allegedly stabbing a woman to death after more than 30 prior arrests.
00:01:24.040All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM Update.
00:01:27.760Our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition, says Washington politicians are always getting in your wallet, and now they're messing with your credit card.
00:01:40.800They say your credit card and the security it offers are under attack, and that Senators Dick Durbin and Roger Marshall want to change the nation's payment system
00:01:48.720to benefit corporate megastores like Walmart and Target at the expense of everyday Americans.
00:01:54.660Credit cards can keep your payments secure and provide rewards that families use to help make everyday purchases more affordable.
00:02:01.340The Electronic Payments Coalition says the Durbin-Marshall mandates would let corporate megastores cut corners on credit card processing,
00:02:08.900routing transactions over cheaper, untested networks with weaker security and fewer protections.
00:02:13.720Find out more at guardyourcard.com and consider telling Congress to guard your card.
00:02:22.160Texas voters heading to the polls yesterday in a closely watched Senate primary,
00:02:27.060a race many see as a bellwether for the 2026 midterms,
00:02:31.280one that became the most expensive on record anywhere in the country,
00:02:35.240with more than $125 million spent on advertising.
00:02:39.280On the Democrat side, a sharp contrast in style and energy.
00:02:42.860Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett leaning hard into identity politics and red meat messaging aimed at energizing the core Democrat base.
00:02:51.780State Representative James Tallarico opting for softer rhetoric, but with progressive policies underneath.
00:02:58.440Crockett risking her safe, albeit drastically changed due to redistricting, House seat to run statewide.
00:03:05.300Talarico surging in the final weeks of the campaign, coming to election day with a 10-point lead according to the RealClearPolitics polling average.
00:03:14.780The night ending with the race too close to call.
00:03:17.860Confusion in Dallas County over polling sites leading a judge to extend voting by two hours,
00:03:24.180only for the Texas Supreme Court to then block that order.
00:03:27.860Jasmine Crockett addressing supporters last night.
00:04:31.340If it comes in and I'm losing Dallas County, then we know kind of where this thing is going.
00:04:35.980NBC News' Steve Kornacki saying on his live stream earlier in the evening, even if the rest of the vote in Dallas County came in, she would still be well short in Dallas of that margin that Tallarico has built.
00:04:49.920As that mess is sorted out, no Democrat victor is yet declared.
00:04:54.860Tallarico speaking to his supporters last night.
00:04:57.260Tonight, our campaign is shocking the nation.
00:05:01.220We are still waiting for an official call, but we are confident in this movement we've built together.
00:05:53.480On the Republican side, a bitter showdown between incumbent Senator John Cornyn, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Congressman Wesley Hunt.
00:06:02.860Cornyn first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002, facing the most serious primary challenge of his career.
00:06:09.720Paxton entering Election Day leading in several recent polls.
00:07:19.600I want to thank everybody who voted for me, and we now head into a 12-week primary runoff.
00:07:25.880Elections are about choices, and the choice in the Republican race for the U.S. Senate is crystal clear.
00:07:34.060I refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered, and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton risk everything we've worked so hard to build over these many years.
00:07:48.020There is simply too much at stake in this midterm election for our state and for our country.
00:07:54.540The final two years of President Trump's agenda hangs in the balance.
00:08:02.020That runoff election set for May 26th, and it is expected to be brutal.
00:08:06.700Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, taking heat from both sides of the aisle.
00:08:16.120Democrats largely focused on Secretary Noem's role in Operation Metro Surge, the federal government's immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota's Twin Cities, deploying thousands of agents to target illegal immigrants.
00:08:27.740The operation drawing intense public backlash, with highly organized activists tracking federal agents through the city, confronting officers during enforcement activities, and blowing whistles to harass the officers and warn potential targets of the Fed's presence.
00:08:46.920Some of those confrontations turning deadly.
00:08:49.100Two agitators, Renee Good and Alex Preddy, shot and killed by federal officers in separate incidents earlier this year after inserting themselves into ongoing law enforcement operations.
00:09:00.280In the immediate aftermath, Secretary Noem publicly describing both incidents as acts of domestic terrorism.
00:09:06.900During yesterday's hearing, Democrats repeatedly pressing the secretary on that characterization.
00:09:12.000Here, Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Peter Welsh of Vermont, and Adam Schiff of California.
00:09:19.100Do you retract these statements identifying these individuals as domestic terrorists?
00:09:23.780We're relying on reports from the ground and from agents that are there and working to be transparent.
00:09:30.060Do you have anything you want to say to Alex Preddy's parents?
00:09:34.040We were relying in the hours after that incident that was so horrific on information we were getting from the ground from our agents.
00:09:42.840Do you want to apologize for that characterization that they were domestic terrorists?
00:09:46.880I will continue every day to get up and to work hard to give everybody factual information and do all that I can to portray it.
00:09:56.120How do you imagine you're going to gain the trust of the American people if you're pushing out false information about the shooting of American citizens?
00:10:05.000I work every day to get factual information to the American people.
00:10:08.420Well, on that day, you didn't on the day that Alex Preddy was shot, and you certainly didn't on the day Renee Good was shot.
00:10:14.560You weren't getting out good information.
00:10:16.620You were making a spurious claim that that has caused endless injury to the victims' families.
00:10:23.880Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana pressing the secretary on reports of behind-the-scenes tension inside the administration following those deadly encounters.
00:10:32.980In January, Axios reporting that a blame game had erupted inside Team Trump over the early public messaging.
00:10:40.340Specifically, DHS's initial claim that Preddy had been seeking to massacre law enforcement.
00:10:46.280The report quoting Secretary Noem telling a source, quote,
00:10:49.580Everything I've done, I've done at the direction of the president and Stephen Miller.
00:10:53.440What got my attention was that you blamed those statements on Mr. Stephen Miller at the White House.
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00:14:52.160The conflict with Iran now widening across the region, raising new concerns about the risk of the U.S. being pulled into a broader Middle East war.
00:15:02.480The State Department now urging Americans in more than a dozen Middle East countries to depart ASAP.
00:15:08.580Any U.S. citizens in Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen urged to leave, quote, due to serious safety risks.
00:15:24.440Retaliatory attacks from Iran hitting several U.S. targets, including a strike yesterday on the U.S. consulate in Dubai.
00:15:30.640Officials saying no one was injured and the fire was quickly contained.
00:15:34.940On Monday, Iranian drones striking the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia.
00:15:39.120Other civilian targets in Saudi Arabia also struck by the Iranian military.
00:15:43.820Fox News reporting Saudi Arabia is getting, quote, very close to allowing its own air force to strike inside Iran in response.
00:15:51.120Sources inside Iran reporting at least 787 have been killed so far in the ongoing operation, though some say those numbers go much higher.
00:16:01.200The Pentagon releasing the names of the first four U.S. soldiers killed in action.
00:16:05.780Captain Cody A. Cork, age 35, of Winterhaven, Florida, Sergeant First Class Noah L. Teegens, age 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska, Sergeant First Class Nicole M. Amour, age 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota, and Sergeant Declan J. Cody, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa.
00:16:27.240Two other service members killed in the strike, their names set to be released 24 hours after their families are notified.
00:16:33.700More than four days after the start of the conflict, new polling suggesting many Americans are still unclear on the administration's objectives.
00:16:42.360A CBS survey released yesterday finding 62 percent say the Trump administration has not clearly explained its goals, while 38 percent say it has.
00:16:51.580After days of muddled messaging, a visibly frustrated Secretary Rubio yesterday spelling it out to reporters on the Hill.
00:16:58.800Let me explain to you guys this in simple English, okay?
00:17:02.460Iran is run by lunatics, religious fanatic lunatics.
00:17:05.800They have an ambition to have nuclear weapons.
00:17:08.460They intend to develop those nuclear weapons behind a program of missiles and drones and terrorism that the world will not be able to touch them for fear of those things.
00:17:16.800And this is the weakest they've ever been.
00:17:19.860The president made the decision to go after them, take away their missiles, take away their navy, take away their drones, take away their ability to make those things so that they can never have a nuclear weapon.
00:17:29.560That's why the president made this decision.
00:17:32.360And the world will be a safer place when these radical clerics no longer have access to these weapons.
00:17:37.680Secretary Rubio clearly on the defensive after his statement the day before, admitting the reason we attacked Iran was because of Israel.
00:17:46.200Here's the secretary on Monday stating why we attacked.
00:17:49.100It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States.
00:17:58.560We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.
00:18:01.120We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces.
00:18:04.260And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.
00:18:10.660There absolutely was an imminent threat.
00:18:12.100And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believe they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us.
00:18:19.100A reporter then asked the obvious follow-up.
00:18:22.000Are you saying the U.S. was forced to strike because of an impending Israeli action?
00:18:26.520Secretary Rubio first says that no matter what, quote, ultimately, this operation had to happen.
00:18:32.980He then says, quote, obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us.
00:18:39.640The remarks blew up, with lawmakers and the press all taking the words for their clear meaning.
00:18:45.760We did it because Israel was going to attack, with or without us.
00:18:49.180We anticipated a retaliatory response by the Iranians against us, and we preferred to hit them first.
00:18:55.680Left unsaid was why we didn't just tell the Israelis, don't.
00:19:00.140By Tuesday, Mr. Rubio was suggesting he'd been taken out of context.
00:19:14.140We are not going to put Americans' troops in harm's way.
00:19:16.360If you tell the president of the United States that if we don't go first, we're going to have more people killed and more people injured, the president's going to go first.
00:19:23.020So, when he said on Monday that we knew there was going to be Israeli action, which would precipitate an attack against American forces, so we felt we had to act,
00:19:31.760what he really meant was, we knew there was going to be Israeli action, which would precipitate an attack against American forces, so we felt we had to act.
00:19:41.500Yesterday, Israel expanding its military campaign, sending ground troops into southern Lebanon as it exchanges strikes with the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah,
00:19:50.540which has been launching attacks from across the Lebanese border.
00:19:54.280Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, seeing the expansion of the war, has an opportunity for more U.S. involvement.
00:20:01.920One thing to President Trump, in case you're watching.
00:20:04.560In 1983, Ronald Reagan sent Marines and sailors to try to police and deal with the Lebanese Civil War.