Meet the Press Showdown w Tom Cotton plus DOJ Uncovers 260,000 Dead Voters
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Summary
Sen. Tom Cotton says everyone on a Venezuelan drug boat was a target, and the Washington Post slanders our men and women in the military. Also, in a story that no one's talking about, the federal government is now fighting hundreds of thousands of dead people on voter rolls.
Transcript
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And I'm here to represent our country in a different sense,
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I need to save lives, and we're saving a lot of lives.
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and the United States right now is the hottest country
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anywhere in the world, and one year ago was dead.
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You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.
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It's nice to have you with us on the 47 Morning Update,
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First up, Tom Cotton coming out saying everyone on the drug boat
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and the Washington Post slandered our men and women in the military.
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He takes on the press and wins with the facts big time.
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the federal government is now fighting hundreds of thousands
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of dead people on voter rolls around the country.
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And why are Democrats doing everything they can
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That's right, the invasion that sealed Hitler's doom.
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You're going to discover the sacred patch of sand with me.
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and fully escorted by America's leading expert on France
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You're going to stand at General Patton's gravesite,
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Bastogne, Pointe du Harte, and Mulberry Harbor.
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Dial pound 250, say the keyword, Conservative Tours.
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It's the 47 Morning Update, and it starts right now.
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The media went all in on a story that we now know is a total lie.
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Senator Tom Cotton coming out on Meet the Press
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and saying that everyone on the drug boat was a valid target.
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The Washington Post now being accused of slandering the military.
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Now, let me remind you about the backstory of this story.
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Two weeks before this story broke, you had Democrats in the House and the Senate come together
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and encourage an insurrection against the President from military leaders,
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encourage a coup, telling them to defy orders of the President,
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clearly in reference to the attacks on the narco-terrorists running drugs to America
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We know that the number one killer of people under the age of 40 in this country is fentanyl.
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And we know that hundreds of Americans are killed every single day
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by accidental overdoses from drugs laced with fentanyl.
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Well, on Sunday on Meet the Press, Tom Cotton of Arkansas said that all the people
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on a Venezuelan drug boat were subject to the Trump administration's crackdown.
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And joining me now is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
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who was in those briefings this week, Republican Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
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Senator Cotton, welcome back to Meet the Press.
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Thank you so much for being here after a very big week.
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NBC News is reporting this morning that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,
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his order was to kill all 11 individuals on that boat
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because they were on a list of narco-terrorists
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who intelligence and military officials determined could be legally targeted.
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Was Secretary Hegseth's order to kill everyone on the boat
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because they were on this target list, Senator?
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The order, like the entire operation, Kristen, is to destroy these drug boats,
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which are running drugs into our country from foreign drug cartels and traffickers
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that are killing hundreds of Arkansans every year and hundreds of thousands of Americans.
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Now, of course, before our military conducts such a strike,
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they have multiple sources of intelligence that give high confidence that everyone on that boat
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is a foreign drug trafficker, not an innocent civilian who's being human trafficked, for instance.
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And therefore, Secretary Hegseth said, and I agree, they're all valid targets.
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Now, this controversy, let's remember, all started with a Washington Post story about nine days ago
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that said after the first strike, there were two survivors that were helpless,
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and then they were ordered to kill these helpless survivors.
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They were not floating in the ocean on a wooden plank or in life jackets.
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It was entirely appropriate to strike the boat again to make sure that its cargo was destroyed.
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And I think the Washington Post owes Secretary Hegseth, and especially Admiral Mitch Bradley,
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a highly decorated career Navy SEAL, an apology for that slander.
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This story is a story just like the Russian hoax story.
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The Steele dossier, a total fabrication by the Democratic National Committee that paid for that dossier,
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and a fabrication by the Hillary Clinton for president campaign.
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They gave legs and life to that story to the point where they impeached the president of the United States of America.
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There is a story that has been put out there by the Washington Post.
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I wouldn't be surprised if this story was put out there in conjunction with Democrats,
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the same Democrats that said defy the president's orders.
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It is obvious this was to undermine and to even imprison people in and around President Trump.
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It was also a story that has been put out there to put fear into the minds of our men and women in uniform,
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with the threat that the Democratic Party, when they gain power again one day,
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will come after them for war crimes and lock them up for life or even give them the death penalty.
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to make sure that people that are in our government would not follow the orders of the sitting president.
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Senator Tom Cotton, after what he had to say there, was pressed by Welker.
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And I want you to listen carefully to what he says in this next moment on the show.
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Okay, and we're going to get to what you saw in the video momentarily,
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but I just want to be very clear because what you're saying is significant, Senator.
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It sounds like you're confirming, did Admiral Bradley brief lawmakers that in fact
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all of the people on that boat were on a military target list?
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I did not hear him personally say anything about a military target list.
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Now, he had several briefings throughout the day.
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I wasn't in the briefing, for instance, with Mark Warner, my counterpart on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
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He said they had high confidence based on multiple sources of intelligence
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that everyone on that boat was part of a foreign terrorist organization
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They could be legally and legally targeted, he argued.
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Both before the first strike and after the first strike.
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Was Admiral Bradley acting on Secretary Hexer's orders, Senator?
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Well, anytime you have an operation like this, there's an operation order.
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I think because this was the first strike, Secretary Hexer and Admiral Bradley both wanted
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As you heard Secretary Hexer in the opening say, he initiated the first strike.
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I'm sure Secretary Hexer had many other matters that he had to attend to, and he trusts Admiral Bradley.
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Once the smoke had cleared, once the cloud cover had cleared, it was clear that the first strike
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had not destroyed the boat, or Admiral Bradley made the decision for the second strike.
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Now, in subsequent strikes since then, because there's been more than 20, obviously it's
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no longer Secretary Hexer or even four-star generals making that decision, nor should it
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But on the first strike, I believe they both wanted to be present and be observing it.
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Let me ask you about the aftermath of that first strike.
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The Pentagon's law of war manual, which you're familiar with, having served in Iraq and Afghanistan,
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says, quote, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.
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And I want you to just listen to how they continue to undermine and disparage and fish for a controversy.
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Did you notice how she's like, let me just go to these orders.
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And they are refusing to admit that the story is inaccurate, that the story is slander, that
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Because they want people that work for the president of the United States of America to
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be afraid to do their job, to be afraid to follow orders from the president of the United
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And this is why it is so important that we stand with this president and that conservatives
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in Congress stand up to these radicals on the left.
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I want to bring up a quick, important story for you, and it's one that's getting no coverage
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And it's a very important story after the assistant attorney general, Harmeet Dillon, who leads
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the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, announced new findings in the department's
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nationwide effort to clean up voter rolls, revealing massive vulnerabilities in states' election
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According to Dillon, federal investigators have identified 260,000 plus dead individuals still
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More than a quarter million dead people, along with thousands, I'm going to say this slowly
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because I want this to really stick with you, along with thousands of registered non-citizens.
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They found thousands of illegal immigrants registered to vote.
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First, in a post on X, she said the department's review has already prompted major action.
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Fourteen states have now been sued for failing to comply with federal transparency requirements,
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while four others have voluntarily turned over voter data and begun the cleanup efforts.
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Many of these states, by the way, knew this was a problem before the government got involved
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One of the most serious problems, they said, is in a swing state, North Carolina, where officials
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are now removing more than 100,000 outdated or invalid voter registrations.
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Dillon emphasized the stakes of the cleanup effort, saying even a single improper vote undermines
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every one, every one person voting who shouldn't have voted is one too many because every citizen
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The assumption that their vote is being counted equally and only with another American citizen.
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We will not rest at the DOJ until we complete this project and provide confidence to all American
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voters that the rolls are clean and the elections are free and fair.
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The department on Tuesday escalated its campaign by filing lawsuits against six additional states,
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Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington for what is described as their failure
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as a state to provide statewide voter registration lists and other data required under federal law.
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Justice Department officials say the information is critical to assess compliance with election
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Well, I think it's pretty clear you can say they're probably pushing back for one main reason,
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because they feel like this is an advantage for them.
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Democrats say that they're warning about how the voter data can be used and they're raising
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questions about the department's handling and privacy protections.
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That, of course, being dismissed by those in charge, saying that the transparency and accuracy
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are essential to public trust and that the department's efforts are aimed solely at ensuring
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the integrity of future elections, saying, quote, our elections are crooked and rigged.
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That's how President Trump put it on Wednesday after this data was revealed.
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And it starts, the president says, in all caps, with voter ID.
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Now, if you go back to what the president said in his tweet, this echoes what he's been saying
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We have a problem in this country with the ability to cheat and the ability for someone
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who is not actually who they say they are to vote in an election.
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It is simple and it's easy to fix this problem.
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Voter ID laws are a great step in that direction, like a phenomenal step in that direction.
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The problem is you have Democrats who say, no, we refuse.
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It is incredibly frustrating when you witness this.
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It's incredibly frustrating to watch a government that is trying to give us transparency and
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Why would Democrats not want to clean up the voter rolls?
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Is it because they know the majority of cheating that's done is done by Democrats and not Republicans?
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I think it's an incredibly important question to ask.
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And I hope all of you will start asking that question, most importantly, to our men and
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Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.
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Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast right now.
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