Verdict with Ted Cruz - Meet the Press Showdown w Tom Cotton plus DOJ Uncovers 260,000 Dead Voters

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.680 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.960 And I'm here to represent our country in a different sense,

00:00:09.320 but I can tell you I did settle eight wars,

00:00:12.400 and we have a ninth coming,

00:00:14.360 which nobody's ever done before.

00:00:16.840 But I want to really save lives.

00:00:18.440 I don't need prizes.

00:00:19.380 I need to save lives, and we're saving a lot of lives.

00:00:21.560 I've saved millions and millions of lives,

00:00:23.300 and that's really what I want to do.

00:00:24.920 And I also want to run a great country,

00:00:26.940 and the United States right now is the hottest country

00:00:29.280 anywhere in the world, and one year ago was dead.

00:00:31.880 You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.

00:00:35.940 Good Monday morning.

00:00:36.720 It's nice to have you with us on the 47 Morning Update,

00:00:38.800 and we've got two major stories for you.

00:00:40.660 First up, Tom Cotton coming out saying everyone on the drug boat

00:00:45.120 was a valid target,

00:00:47.000 and the Washington Post slandered our men and women in the military.

00:00:50.840 He takes on the press and wins with the facts big time.

00:00:54.920 I'll have that for you in just a moment.

00:00:56.760 Also, in a story that no one's talking about,

00:01:00.360 the federal government is now fighting hundreds of thousands

00:01:03.600 of dead people on voter rolls around the country.

00:01:07.920 Why are they still on the list?

00:01:09.500 And why are Democrats doing everything they can

00:01:11.380 to protect dead people to vote?

00:01:14.860 Operation Overlord.

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00:02:14.980 It's the 47 Morning Update, and it starts right now.

00:02:18.480 Story number one.

00:02:19.600 It is a disaster.

00:02:22.120 The media went all in on a story that we now know is a total lie.

00:02:27.920 Senator Tom Cotton coming out on Meet the Press

00:02:31.240 and saying that everyone on the drug boat was a valid target.

00:02:37.360 The Washington Post now being accused of slandering the military.

00:02:41.740 Now, let me remind you about the backstory of this story.

00:02:44.560 Two weeks before this story broke, you had Democrats in the House and the Senate come together

00:02:49.900 and encourage an insurrection against the President from military leaders,

00:02:54.880 encourage a coup, telling them to defy orders of the President,

00:02:59.300 clearly in reference to the attacks on the narco-terrorists running drugs to America

00:03:04.800 in the middle of the ocean.

00:03:06.340 We know that the number one killer of people under the age of 40 in this country is fentanyl.

00:03:11.760 And we know that hundreds of Americans are killed every single day

00:03:16.000 by accidental overdoses from drugs laced with fentanyl.

00:03:22.240 Well, on Sunday on Meet the Press, Tom Cotton of Arkansas said that all the people

00:03:27.360 on a Venezuelan drug boat were subject to the Trump administration's crackdown.

00:03:32.020 And joining me now is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee,

00:03:59.440 who was in those briefings this week, Republican Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

00:04:04.300 Senator Cotton, welcome back to Meet the Press.

00:04:06.320 Thanks for having me on, Kristen.

00:04:07.420 Thank you so much for being here after a very big week.

00:04:10.500 I want to ask you about our new reporting.

00:04:12.640 NBC News is reporting this morning that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,

00:04:16.880 his order was to kill all 11 individuals on that boat

00:04:20.660 because they were on a list of narco-terrorists 0.80

00:04:24.280 who intelligence and military officials determined could be legally targeted.

00:04:28.580 Was Secretary Hegseth's order to kill everyone on the boat

00:04:32.780 because they were on this target list, Senator?

00:04:35.440 The order, like the entire operation, Kristen, is to destroy these drug boats,

00:04:40.920 which are running drugs into our country from foreign drug cartels and traffickers

00:04:46.740 that are killing hundreds of Arkansans every year and hundreds of thousands of Americans.

00:04:52.900 Now, of course, before our military conducts such a strike,

00:04:57.600 they have multiple sources of intelligence that give high confidence that everyone on that boat

00:05:03.520 is a foreign drug trafficker, not an innocent civilian who's being human trafficked, for instance.

00:05:09.100 And therefore, Secretary Hegseth said, and I agree, they're all valid targets.

00:05:13.520 Now, this controversy, let's remember, all started with a Washington Post story about nine days ago

00:05:19.080 that said after the first strike, there were two survivors that were helpless,

00:05:24.040 and then they were ordered to kill these helpless survivors.

00:05:26.500 That is simply not the case.

00:05:28.320 They were not floating in the ocean on a wooden plank or in life jackets.

00:05:32.860 They were on the capsized vessel.

00:05:34.620 They were not incapacitated in any way.

00:05:37.000 It was entirely appropriate to strike the boat again to make sure that its cargo was destroyed.

00:05:42.340 It is in no way violation of the law of war.

00:05:46.920 And I think the Washington Post owes Secretary Hegseth, and especially Admiral Mitch Bradley,

00:05:52.020 a highly decorated career Navy SEAL, an apology for that slander.

00:05:55.420 An apology for that slander.

00:05:58.700 This story is a story just like the Russian hoax story.

00:06:03.260 The Steele dossier, a total fabrication by the Democratic National Committee that paid for that dossier,

00:06:08.960 and a fabrication by the Hillary Clinton for president campaign.

00:06:13.440 And what did the media do?

00:06:15.140 They gave legs and life to that story to the point where they impeached the president of the United States of America.

00:06:23.520 This story is no different.

00:06:26.340 There is a story that has been put out there by the Washington Post.

00:06:30.260 I wouldn't be surprised if this story was put out there in conjunction with Democrats,

00:06:34.900 the same Democrats that said defy the president's orders.

00:06:38.540 It is obvious this was to undermine and to even imprison people in and around President Trump.

00:06:45.640 It was also a story that has been put out there to put fear into the minds of our men and women in uniform,

00:06:51.840 with the threat that the Democratic Party, when they gain power again one day,

00:06:56.680 will come after them for war crimes and lock them up for life or even give them the death penalty.

00:07:04.200 That is exactly what this story was all about,

00:07:06.840 to make sure that people that are in our government would not follow the orders of the sitting president.

00:07:14.040 Senator Tom Cotton, after what he had to say there, was pressed by Welker.

00:07:18.540 And I want you to listen carefully to what he says in this next moment on the show.

00:07:23.360 Okay, and we're going to get to what you saw in the video momentarily,

00:07:26.620 but I just want to be very clear because what you're saying is significant, Senator.

00:07:30.600 It sounds like you're confirming, did Admiral Bradley brief lawmakers that in fact

00:07:35.560 all of the people on that boat were on a military target list?

00:07:39.940 I did not hear him personally say anything about a military target list.

00:07:44.220 Now, he had several briefings throughout the day.

00:07:45.820 I wasn't in the briefing, for instance, with Mark Warner, my counterpart on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

00:07:50.160 I can only say what he told me.

00:07:52.140 He said they had high confidence based on multiple sources of intelligence

00:07:55.280 that everyone on that boat was part of a foreign terrorist organization

00:08:00.780 and been designated by the U.S. government.

00:08:02.780 So they could be legally targeted.

00:08:04.480 They could be legally and legally targeted, he argued.

00:08:07.380 Yes.

00:08:07.920 Okay.

00:08:08.520 Both before the first strike and after the first strike.

00:08:10.680 Was Admiral Bradley acting on Secretary Hexer's orders, Senator?

00:08:14.120 Well, anytime you have an operation like this, there's an operation order.

00:08:17.840 It's written down.

00:08:18.640 It's got very detailed instructions.

00:08:21.520 I think because this was the first strike, Secretary Hexer and Admiral Bradley both wanted

00:08:25.680 to be present and be making the decision.

00:08:27.960 As you heard Secretary Hexer in the opening say, he initiated the first strike.

00:08:33.020 You've seen the video.

00:08:34.040 There's a lot of smoke.

00:08:34.860 It takes a long time to clear.

00:08:36.080 I'm sure Secretary Hexer had many other matters that he had to attend to, and he trusts Admiral Bradley.

00:08:40.620 Once the smoke had cleared, once the cloud cover had cleared, it was clear that the first strike

00:08:44.720 had not destroyed the boat, or Admiral Bradley made the decision for the second strike.

00:08:48.860 Now, in subsequent strikes since then, because there's been more than 20, obviously it's

00:08:52.580 no longer Secretary Hexer or even four-star generals making that decision, nor should it

00:08:57.120 be.

00:08:57.340 But on the first strike, I believe they both wanted to be present and be observing it.

00:09:00.540 Let me ask you about the aftermath of that first strike.

00:09:04.000 The Pentagon's law of war manual, which you're familiar with, having served in Iraq and Afghanistan,

00:09:09.780 says, quote, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.

00:09:16.200 I want to pause there.

00:09:17.740 And I want you to just listen to how they continue to undermine and disparage and fish for a controversy.

00:09:27.500 Did you notice how she's like, let me just go to these orders. 0.98

00:09:31.140 Let's talk about these orders.

00:09:35.220 Let's have a conversation about these orders.

00:09:40.060 They do not want to stop here.

00:09:43.180 They want this to continue to be a thing.

00:09:47.780 They want it to continue to be a story.

00:09:51.420 And they are refusing to admit that the story is inaccurate, that the story is slander, that

00:09:59.340 the story is a lie.

00:10:01.140 Why?

00:10:02.180 Because they want people that work for the president of the United States of America to

00:10:07.960 be afraid to do their job, to be afraid to follow orders from the president of the United

00:10:15.760 States of America.

00:10:17.400 And this is why it is so important that we stand with this president and that conservatives

00:10:25.580 in Congress stand up to these radicals on the left.

00:10:30.160 Full stop.

00:10:31.400 Now, story number two.

00:10:32.400 I want to bring up a quick, important story for you, and it's one that's getting no coverage

00:10:39.580 at all.

00:10:40.280 It deals with the integrity of our elections.

00:10:43.360 And it's a very important story after the assistant attorney general, Harmeet Dillon, who leads

00:10:50.560 the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, announced new findings in the department's

00:10:55.820 nationwide effort to clean up voter rolls, revealing massive vulnerabilities in states' election

00:11:02.740 systems.

00:11:03.780 According to Dillon, federal investigators have identified 260,000 plus dead individuals still

00:11:14.780 listed on voter rolls across the country.

00:11:16.900 More than a quarter million dead people, along with thousands, I'm going to say this slowly

00:11:24.220 because I want this to really stick with you, along with thousands of registered non-citizens.

00:11:34.460 Let me translate that for you.

00:11:36.460 They found thousands of illegal immigrants registered to vote.

00:11:41.600 First, in a post on X, she said the department's review has already prompted major action.

00:11:48.080 Fourteen states have now been sued for failing to comply with federal transparency requirements,

00:11:54.700 while four others have voluntarily turned over voter data and begun the cleanup efforts.

00:12:02.820 Many of these states, by the way, knew this was a problem before the government got involved

00:12:07.320 for the transparency.

00:12:08.280 One of the most serious problems, they said, is in a swing state, North Carolina, where officials

00:12:16.900 are now removing more than 100,000 outdated or invalid voter registrations.

00:12:27.960 Dillon emphasized the stakes of the cleanup effort, saying even a single improper vote undermines

00:12:34.360 the core promise of American democracy, quote,

00:12:39.260 every one, every one person voting who shouldn't have voted is one too many because every citizen

00:12:46.160 is entitled to one person, one vote.

00:12:49.400 The assumption that their vote is being counted equally and only with another American citizen.

00:12:57.240 We will not rest at the DOJ until we complete this project and provide confidence to all American

00:13:04.240 voters that the rolls are clean and the elections are free and fair.

00:13:10.560 The department on Tuesday escalated its campaign by filing lawsuits against six additional states,

00:13:19.100 Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington for what is described as their failure

00:13:30.060 as a state to provide statewide voter registration lists and other data required under federal law.

00:13:39.380 Let me say that again.

00:13:40.880 Under federal law.

00:13:43.020 Justice Department officials say the information is critical to assess compliance with election

00:13:49.120 security statutes.

00:13:51.560 But Democrats say officials are pushing back.

00:13:54.540 Why?

00:13:55.560 Well, I think it's pretty clear you can say they're probably pushing back for one main reason,

00:14:00.200 because they feel like this is an advantage for them.

00:14:03.400 Democrats say that they're warning about how the voter data can be used and they're raising

00:14:08.120 questions about the department's handling and privacy protections.

00:14:11.180 That, of course, being dismissed by those in charge, saying that the transparency and accuracy

00:14:17.400 are essential to public trust and that the department's efforts are aimed solely at ensuring

00:14:22.020 the integrity of future elections, saying, quote, our elections are crooked and rigged.

00:14:28.500 The voters know it.

00:14:30.040 That's how President Trump put it on Wednesday after this data was revealed.

00:14:34.320 Must bring integrity back to voting.

00:14:36.540 And it starts, the president says, in all caps, with voter ID.

00:14:42.800 And I couldn't agree with him more.

00:14:45.200 Now, if you go back to what the president said in his tweet, this echoes what he's been saying

00:14:50.920 for a long time.

00:14:52.540 We have a problem in this country with the ability to cheat and the ability for someone

00:14:58.380 who is not actually who they say they are to vote in an election.

00:15:02.560 It is simple and it's easy to fix this problem.

00:15:09.020 Voter ID laws are a great step in that direction, like a phenomenal step in that direction.

00:15:16.960 The problem is you have Democrats who say, no, we refuse.

00:15:24.040 We will not do this.

00:15:25.880 We are saying no to it.

00:15:27.660 And that's the biggest problem of all.

00:15:29.980 It is incredibly frustrating when you witness this.

00:15:34.020 It's incredibly frustrating to watch a government that is trying to give us transparency and

00:15:40.100 Democrats get in the way.

00:15:41.880 Why would they not?

00:15:43.320 Why would Democrats not want to clean up the voter rolls? 0.97

00:15:47.220 Is it because they know the majority of cheating that's done is done by Democrats and not Republicans?

00:15:52.100 And it gives them a big advantage.

00:15:56.020 That's a question that everybody should ask.

00:15:58.620 I think it's an incredibly important question to ask.

00:16:04.700 And I hope all of you will start asking that question, most importantly, to our men and

00:16:10.600 women who serve this country in Congress.

00:16:13.600 Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.

00:16:18.080 Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast right now.

00:16:23.100 And for more in-depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson podcast, and we will see you

00:16:28.900 back here tomorrow.

00:16:31.540 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:16:34.440 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - December 08, 2025

Meet the Press Showdown w Tom Cotton plus DOJ Uncovers 260,000 Dead Voters

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