This Is What Was 'MISSING' From Trump's Address To The Nation: Expert

Congress must pass the Save America Act. The only reason you wouldn't do it is you want to cheat. I think what he did was effectively rev up his base, you know, and set the agenda to challenge the election results in the midterms here. He's starting to get scared that they will get their ass kicked. This is a no-brainer piece of legislation, but we need to make real and substantive steps forward. Talking there about the Save America Act, after the president's primetime address, in which he laid out specific, as he called them, vulnerabilities in the U.S. election system, Reuters writes it this way, Trump puts election security at the center of Republicans' midterm fight. A lot of criticism of the speech. The president was not one of them, as you can imagine. He put on Truth Social, great reviews on speech last night, big audience, passed the Save America Act. Thank you, President Donald J. Trump. So, what about this speech, the reaction to it, the Save America Act? We'll start there with the panel. Roger Zachheim, Washington director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, Wall Street Journal White House reporter Philip Wegman, and Yamase Agbe Wale, former chief of staff and advisor to the Biden White House press office. Okay, Phil, reaction to the speech, what the White House thought, what Democrats clearly very vocal about it today. Between this and the Iran war, this is President Trump pushing all of his capital, political capital, into the middle of the table. We saw him previously delay passage of the housing bill. He said that he's not going to be signing any other legislation. And yesterday, he took his argument directly to the American people, saying that this needed to be passed. Republicans, they say it's right there in the name. The assessment of the documents, the assessment of the stuff that they posted on WhiteHouse.gov, what's the overall assessment today? We've looked at it. A number of things had been out before. The declassified documents, obviously, had not. But they are talking about threats and vulnerabilities, not specific votes that have been changed. Is that correct? And that's the key distinction here. While the president pointed to foreign malign influence and potential attempts for meddling, what he didn't show was that a single vote had changed, or that a single voting machine had been hacked. That's something that I think Democrats are going to continue to highlight. And that was something that was missing from the remarks last night. Secretary Mark William Mullen, Homeland Security, came out talking to reporters, Yemesee, and he pointed to a DHS study. Let's take a listen. We've identified 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in just four states. If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections, and they chose not to, then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time. Again, this is a DHS study. He went on, Acts got a little bit more specific. Preliminary DHS government review found over 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in four states, California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Nevada. This shouldn't be a red or blue state issue. Only Americans should elect American leaders. We put these governors on notice. States must work with us to ensure free, fair, honest elections. They're pointing to this internal study. They're not saying that all of those people voted. And that's, I mean, you can make assumptions that in different states, different things happened. But what's the reaction to that? I mean, it's a big number. It feels a little bit disjointed. I think there are two tracks here. You have the president speaking a little bit about Georgia, but mostly about this idea of foreign interference. And then you have Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen talking about this study. And as a former senator, he should know that this is going to be incredibly hard to make any motion when it comes to the Save America Act. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has already said he's not looking to the past of Georgia. He's looking forward. They've already tried last month to attach it to a funding bill. I just think no matter what arguments they make here, you're not going to move people like Senator Lisa Murkowski, who's been very clear that this disenfranchises rural Alaskans. Understanding all the criticism that's coming, Roger, the issue of election integrity is a passionate one for a lot of people, especially in the middle of the country. Absolutely, and I think the president addressed that when he said, I'm speaking to you, going over the heads of those in the Senate and the House of Representatives. It's an 80-20 issue on voter ID. The challenge for the president right now to decide is he want to get some points on the board through reconciliation, that budget process, or does he want to go zero-sum and just push this through and not get any legislation because he's in demand on the full outcome that he's seeking through the Save America Act? And I think he's probably going to go make an election issue rather than take something out of reconciliation. All right, let's turn to Iran. A lot of things happening ahead. General Jack Keane, who's always really pinpointing the heart of the issue. Take a look. Political objectives, economic objectives are real issues. Every president has to contend with them. And how you balance that against military objectives and dealing with this regime is the president's decision. And I respect that decision. But there is a means here. We can finish these guys and put them in a place where they're on the pathway to collapse. And I think we're on the pathway now. As his ending remark there, Phil, clearly the strategy has changed inside the White House, even though they're saying they're open to negotiations. This is the sixth straight day of strikes. It's the largest escalation since the ceasefire fell through. And I think that another part of that interview with the general that stood out to me is that he noted that the nature of the Iranian regime has not changed. As a result of them firing on some of these straits, and of Hormuz, and also firing on other Gulf allies, the United States has gone after their infrastructure. Each day, this conflict continues, and there's the threat of it spiraling out of control. And the hope of Vice President J.D. Vance saying that the Iranians had an opportunity to turn over a new leaf, that grows dimmer. Raj? Well, the key word the general shared with you in that discussion was the word collapse. This is not just about diplomacy, using the military to realize some diplomatic outcome. General Keynes emphasized on the point that the differences between those diplomats and the hardliners is just over tactics. But they fundamentally agree in terms of the radical outcome they seek, which is to continue to export the revolution. So General Keynes is saying, if you want to open up the straits to Hormuz, if you want to end their nuclear program, if you want to stop the terrorism from the regime, it's not going to come through diplomacy, it's going to come through regime collapse, and that requires adding military escalation on the U.S. side. And that's tough to stomach for some people that look at this in a long-term lens. All right, let's do winners and losers. Yamase, you start. Okay, well, my loser is Canada because they have poor forest management, and we are living in a city right now that mirrors that of China. And my winner is Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. There was so much hoopla about the casting decisions and people saying they were going to boycott. Well, it's having a strong opening weekend, so maybe cancel culture is a little bit dead. My son saw it, said it was awesome. I see it tomorrow. That's just one person. All right, Phil. My loser here is Taco Bell because even before we knew where the origin of the sycholespora outbreak came from, I think we all sort of knew that Taco Bell would be rolled up in the story somehow. So, come on, guys, wash your lettuce. My winner is Scott Ruskin, that heroic swimmer who saved so many lives at Camp Mystic. He won the Pat Tillman Espy Award, and what did he do? He immediately turned around and thanked and praised all of the other first responders. The guy's a class act. That is really a great story. All right, Roger, winner and loser. Well, my winner is Argentina, Messi, and Malay. Even early, you're calling a winner? They beat England, they got to the finals, and the reason why I'm with them is because Malay brought freedom back to the Western Hemisphere, supporting America, and I can't say the same for Sanchez's Spain. The losers, the 103 Democrats who voted against support for Israel. That was a big loss for the Democratic Party. They're standing with, you know, Egypt is worthy of support, but not the one democracy in the Middle East that's fighting with us that we call our model ally. It is going to be fun to see the final. This has been quite something, the World Cup. Thanks so much.