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