Senate Passes Save Act In Test Vote; Israel Terminates Iran's Top Command | NTD Newsroom (March 17)

Welcome to NTT Newsroom. I'm Don Ma. Our top stories. President Trump declaring that Iran has been decimated from every standpoint. This as the president insists that the risks of biased media coverage are graver than ever amid Operation Epic Fury. Israel says it killed Iran's top security chief and a commander in overnight airstrikes. It comes as Iran renews attacks on US Gulf allies and oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz. A lengthy floor debate is shaping up in the Senate as pressure is building to pass the Save America Act. Some lawmakers are pushing to match the two-month-long debate that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act. A federal judge blocks the health secretary's changes to vaccine policy, including on child vaccinations. The health department indicating it will appeal the ruling. President Trump saying he will be doing something with Cuba very soon. His latest comments as the nation struggles with nationwide power outages. This is NTV Newsroom, live from our global headquarters in New York City. Thank you for joining us. President Trump declaring Iran decimated from every standpoint while responding to the death of Iran's top security leader. This coming as President Trump insists the risks for biased media coverage are graver than ever amid Operation Epic Fury. In his words, it's not fake news anymore. It's corrupt, criminal, and with huge ramifications for national security. We now go live to NTD's Washington correspondent, Mari Otsu. Mari, good afternoon. How is the president responding to Larijani's death? Hey Don, good afternoon. Yeah, that's right. And President Trump is responding to the death of the Iranian regime's top security official as he's touting the progress on day 18 now of Operation Epic Fury. The president saying that the U.S. has now, quote, wiped out the Iranian regime's navy, its air force, its radar, and its anti-aircraft machinery. He says that the U.S. is, quote, way ahead of schedule and that things are moving along fast, adding that the U.S. has taken out all of the regime's top leaders, including Larijani, but also the commander of the main repression operations in Iran, the man who led the use of force against civilian demonstrators. Take a look. Leaders are gone. I guess one of the top person was, they say, a lot of people say their actual top was killed yesterday, along with somebody else who was responsible for the killing, the man that was responsible for the killing of 32,000 people over the last two weeks. He was in charge of the killing of protesters. It's an evil group. Meanwhile, Don, as the administration continues to condemn a wide range of media narratives about Operation Epic Fury, both at home and abroad, President Trump is declaring that the coverage is undermining the U.S.'s decisive wins against the Iranian regime. He's also saying that the risks for biased media coverage are greater than ever amid this operation with ramifications for national security. Take a look. The reporting of the war was unbelievable. We have decimated that country. And if you watch BBC, it's almost like they're fighting us to a draw. They're not fighting us to a draw. It was very inaccurate news. It was fake news. So I'm very proud of the term fake news because it was my term. I came up with it. But it's no longer accurate. It really is. It's corrupt, fraudulent news. It really is. It's fraudulent. It's not just fake. It's beyond fake. It's really criminal what they do. Meanwhile, Don, as Cuba Monday was plunged into darkness by an island-wide electricity blackout that affected all 11 million of its residents there, President Trump says that the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has been in negotiations with the island nation and that the Trump administration will be doing something, quote, very soon with Cuba, although the focus is now on Iran. Take a look. It used to be very successful. Now it's a country run by Cuba right now is very bad shape. They're talking to Marco and we'll be doing something with Cuba very soon. It's a non-functional economy. It's an economy that has survived. It's for 40, that revolution, it's not even a revolution. That thing they have has survived on subsidies from the Soviet Union and now from Venezuela. They don't get subsidies anymore. So they're in a lot of trouble. And the people in charge, they don't know how to fix it. So they have to get new people in charge. And Don, on the coalition to open the Strait of Hormuz for commercial shipping, President Trump is saying that he's, quote, very disappointed in NATO countries, saying that he's had, quote, essentially no support from them. Meanwhile, he says that the support from Middle Eastern countries has been, quote, absolutely great. Back to you. All right, Mari, thank you. The Senate has just passed a test vote for the Save America Act. It's a procedural vote to start debate on the bill itself. The Save America Act would require photo ID to vote in federal elections and proof of citizenship to register to vote. The test vote required a simple majority. The vote was 51 to 48. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski voted no and Senator Tom Tillis did not vote. Here's Senate Majority Leader explaining why he thinks the floor debate is important, even if the bill may not pass and why he is against removing the filibuster for it to pass. But I think it's an important debate to have because it is an issue that is at the very core of elections in this country. And I think this is something that the American people care about, something that we've obviously heard a lot about from constituents across this country. And I think it's an important debate to have. So how it ends remains to be seen. And TSA agents have officially missed their first full paycheck. Joining us now to discuss the shutdown of the DHS is Mike Leon, host of the Can We Please Talk podcast and director of strategy for the Free and Equal Elections Foundation. And we have Tony Kinnett, national correspondent for The Daily Signal and host of the Tony Kinnett Cast radio show and podcast. First of all, good afternoon to you both. Always great to see you. Tony, I'll start with you today. So here's what President Trump said about the shutdown yesterday. The Democrats aren't paying the Democrats. We have a deal. They just said we're not going to pay. We're not going to do anything. And it's terrible. The Democrats are terrible. You know, it'd be nice to get along, but for years this has been going on, not just with me, the years has been going on different ideology, but also different tactics. It's crazy. The Democrats don't want to pay. These are bad people. These are not people that love our country. Okay, Tony, your reaction. Well, I mean, the man's got a pretty decent point here. I mean, and when you see four Islamic terror attacks in the last three weeks, you see even Elisa Slotkin from Michigan making it perfectly clear. It's time to fund the Department of Homeland Security. It's not time to do little piecemeals and carving it up like a turkey because this one little group that's again already funded through 2027 to 2029 based on the funding model. They don't like that ICE is enforcing the law. They said, we don't want Kristi Noem. Okay, Kristi Noem is gone. We want body cameras. Okay, you can have body cameras. Okay, well, we want no administrative warrants. Sorry, the Supreme Court of the United States has already upheld administrative warrants alongside judicial warrants. So there's no reason for this holdup other than that they're grumpy. And their grumpiness is costing Americans their safety. It's costing, of course, those serving and for example, the TSA, their pay, and it's also reducing their effectiveness to operate at capacity. And this is going to cause Americans a lot of heartburn as we're already seeing some of the polls bear out. So again, when the president makes that claim about Democrats, it's pretty easy to see where he's coming from. Okay, Mike, please respond. Yeah, thanks, Don. I mean, that's one way to look at it. This is what I was thinking about earlier today. First off, good to see you guys as always. You know, if I was constructing as a defense counsel, let's say, for example, and I was constructing an argument, I would say, Tony's going to come on here and give you the conservative opinion, right? He's going to repeat something that Donald Trump said about the Democrats are radical, and they're causing this government shutdown. And you think I'm going to give the Democratic position, but I'm not a Democrat, not a registered Democrat. I'm not a liberal. So those of you in the comments on NTD's webpages, I'm not a liberal. What I am going to give you is numbers. I'm going to give you data of TSA agents. And the last time this happened, over 1,100 or so that didn't return to work. So we're going to have true impacts of this when this does happen. But at the end of the day, unfortunately, the Republicans control the House, the Republicans control the Senate, they control the executive branch at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and they control the judicial branch. And unfortunately, right now, we have had two American citizens that have lost their lives because of what happened with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Tony is semi-right about the judicial and administrative warrant part. The point is the enforcement of administrative warrants, they are not the same as judicial. And what we have seen, like I said, play out in Minneapolis in respect to some other cities, what we saw in Nashville with this reporter from Univision over there, there are some things with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement that need to be reformed. Now, does that mean we need to hold the government hostage, especially TSA, during spring break weeks and peak travel seasons and kind of risk airport security? No, it doesn't. But that doesn't change the fact that Republicans do control the levers. And if they know that Democrats want this certain thing piecemealed out, and Democrats like Patty Murray from Washington have already outlined ways to fund the TSA, ways to fund other areas of DHS, especially FEMA and things like that as we head into hurricane season, those things should be already looked at, should be talked about on the Senate floor, and there should be some type of compromise. To blame Democrats only for this mess is what's wrong with this country right now. We shouldn't be blaming one party that is in the minority. We use the words majority and minority for a specific reason, because it's based on numerical data. One party is in the majority, that is the Republican Party. They control the levers of government. So they are the ones that are supposed to lead from the front on this, because I was told throughout 2024 that the American people voted on this and wanted to change to a more conservative style of government. So if that's the case, it's time to get along, play ball with each other, because I'm flying on Monday to New York, Don, and I don't want to be impacted by all this. You have skin in the game, Mike. So Tony, let me get your response here. What's Republicans' responsibility here? Well, I think that I really do agree with Mike on the both-party share responsibility for this, and if we're going to play a simple majority and minority style response, you're fine. Filibuster be damned. Let's go ahead and cut it loose. Let's just go ahead and push everything through, 51 to 49, and just go ahead and shove those things through. And if the Democrats want to win a majority, they can win a majority. Again, words like cloture are also rather important when we look at the rules set up in the Senate. But I think that if, again, as Democrats have promised to do in every single campaign, except for the now no longer in the, well, for some in the Democrat party, if we're talking about Joe Manchin, but Kyrsten Sinema as well, no longer in the Senate, more moderate approaches from the left are not coming. Again, James Tallarico putting on a moderate face and bringing forward as radical a policy suggestion as he can possibly push out. If Republicans are going to fend that off, then all right, fine, pass it with a 51 to 49 majority if that's the way forward. But again, I think that more importantly right now is getting the Department of Homeland Security open. This is a time when America is under national security threats. This is a time when, of course, the inconvenience of having to wait at the airport is frustrating. I understand that. That's not something to be taken lightly. But again, TSA, their primary responsibility is to ensure that travel safety, especially through airports, doesn't fall into horrible terror attacks. They're to keep us safe from those specifically. And they're not operating at their full capacity. And regarding the Patty Murray legislation, when you poison pill your own legislation, it often doesn't pass. Republicans are just as guilty of that as Democrats. But a partisan theater is going to be partisan theater. It's as obnoxious as seeing two representatives or senators argue outside an Austin airport. So, Mike, Republicans are in the majority, but it's a slim majority. Republicans don't have the votes. Yeah, no, they don't. And by the way, to Tony's point, I am not big. I shouldn't say I'm not a big opponent of nuking the filibuster and having simple majorities, because, again, if you were duly elected to those numbers, you should be allowed to enforce the legislation that you want to, because elections should have consequences at the end of the day. So I'm I'm you're not going to see me if tomorrow John Thune changes course and says, you know what? I've got the votes. We're going to nuke this puppy. And now we're going to start passing legislation and get, you know, the last few years of the Trump administration, things that are going to get passed through, depending upon obviously what happens in the midterms. And he decides to do it because that's the other part. That's the other part of the reason why he's not doing it, Don. He knows that in November, well, January of next year, this could all come back, you know, a full circle. And now Chuck Schumer would be in the majority and not the minority for keep using those terms. So but I'm not I'm not that big of an opposition person to that. I didn't like when Sinema and Manchin wanted to keep the whole and I'm using like stuffy language right now of like the back in the 1700s of when this all started, like if you got voted into the majority, that means that the majority of Americans, even if it's the simplest of majority, 77 million to 75 million, you still won based on that total. So you should be able to get your legislation through. But to your point, Don, they don't have the numbers, which means that outside of that Austin Airport exchange, what they should be doing is back in D.C. talking about, OK, meet me halfway on this, because we have, like I said last time, eleven hundred or so TSA workers that didn't come back to those roles. That means you've got a backfill. Look, my brother in law is a TSA agent. He moved over to a different agency over the last year. So I know about this firsthand because every time there's been a government shutdown, he's the first person I text. And so I know how this impacts them. And I know that the rigorous work that they go through, I live right here by Miami Airport. Like I said, I am flying Monday, an early flight. And forget about the travel impact that it has. To Tony's point, it's the security impact that it has. And we've already seen threats, different places in this country, whether it be a synagogue in Michigan or, you know, a church, whatever it was like. There's other threats that have happened. Mom, Donnie and the attack that happened in New York City. This country right now is on high alert in a lot of different areas. And the last thing we want to be without is resources to one of the agencies that's meant to protect us in the air. Tony, where do you see Democrats and Republicans meeting halfway? What is the path that you see to overcome this deadlock? Well, I think that you're going to see more individuals like Elisa Slotkin in the cave. Because again, to the point, Republicans don't have the numbers to beat cloture. So therefore, it is Democrats who are saying we are not going to fund the DHS. And then they have a list of reasons that they're playing hardball on. And those list of reasons better be good enough for the American people to agree with you. According to the polling data, it's not. Currently, what you see in the general congressional ballot are numbers starting to drift away from the Democrats' exciting lead in the beginning of the year. That's getting closer and closer. Now, I actually think this is going to play out as the most unenthusiastic midterm of all time, because guess what? Congress sucks. But in that particular frame, the Elisa Slotkins who want to portray themselves as moderates, well, you don't get to say you're a moderate and then again, amid a record number of Islamic terror attacks in two weeks, when the mayor of New York City is just encouraging all of the Islamic terror that he can. And then the rest of that radical wing whitewashing the terror, saying that you stand alongside these people and keeping the DHS shut down. That's not going to play. And that's not only just going to not play well in North Carolina and in Michigan, that's going to really start to eat into some of their more contested races in what are supposed to be lean blue districts. So they're going to have to make the decision. Is the reason the reasons good enough? Is it strong enough to keep DHS closed? I doubt it. I think Fetterman and Slotkin are going to convince more to probably join them in flaking. So, Mike, can I get your reaction to this? Senator Eric Schmidt said that Democrats are more focused on defunding ICE than keeping the American people safe. Yeah, that is a very good point. Let me see. How do I handle this? I'll give you a specific race just because I happen to know one of the persons running it. So Representative Seth Moulton, who I've mentioned on this show, is a friend of mine. He's challenging Ed Markey, right? Ed Markey is about not defunding ICE. We need ICE in some form or existence, whereas Seth Moulton is all about abolishing ICE, right? So you do have right now a wing of the party that wants to abolish it and remove it operations wise. I think I mentioned this recently because we had Senator Ruben Gallego on from a border state who's like ICE as constituted should be reformed. He's like, it doesn't make any sense to say the words abolish ICE because we need somebody that's actually enforcing immigration laws. This is not a Republican or Democrat thing. This is like, we need these people. It's kind of like if you fire somebody in programming and then you fire the whole department, then you realize, wait a minute, who's going to schedule all this stuff? We need somebody here in programming. So whether you call it programming or you call it something else, you still need somebody in the department physically. So should Democrats be saying that or stuff like that with respect to, I mean, if we're going to talk about the midterms and the broader outlook, probably not. But I think there are bigger issues right now because the candidate who is now president at 1600 Penn ran on no new wars, and I'm going to bring prices down. Prices are higher, gas is high, and we're at a war. So those are things. Tony said it's going to be uneventful. I wouldn't say all that, Tony. I think this is going to be one of the most watched events. With respect to the midterm, if we keep going in this trajectory, because like I said, we've had higher prices and we're currently at war. We don't seem to have an end in sight unless we do something similar like we did in Venezuela, where we just say, oh, well, we took out the leader and now we're just going to leave it there. It creates a vacuum. It creates a trickle back effect. And then all of that, plus rising prices at the pump, things like that, that's going to come home to roost for one political party in this country. So I don't think it's going to be as uneventful as maybe Tony. Maybe that's not what he meant. Maybe he meant something else, Tony. I'll let you clarify. But I think that Democrats abolishing ICE is probably a little bit further down the totem pole than it was two months ago, three months ago when Tony and I were talking because of what's happened in the Middle East. OK, Tony, would you like to clarify? Yeah, sure. So when I say that the Democrats bring the circus and Republicans bring excuses, people aren't going to come out to vote for that. The rebuke that is expected is not bearing out in the polls. And I think that maybe you'll see a slightly more excited primary. Maybe the data has not necessarily shown it so far. But when you actually get into the general election, I'm not seeing the masses come out in favor of reelecting or electing new Democrats who, again, are not proposing anything to cut costs, not proposing anything, nothing at all, no plan put in place. Republicans aren't doing that either. They're just saying just trust the plan. So at the end of Q2, I think we'll get a clearer picture. But if not, then you're just going to see, again, excuses versus the circus. And as we've seen in every Arizona election, that doesn't really play well for turnout. OK, Mike, let me let me give Tony one more comment here because I want him to respond to something, Tony. So. There was a there was a proposal yesterday, Democrats proposed a partial DHS funding bill to reopen the TSA, FEMA and the Coast Guard. Why didn't Republicans vote for that? So from my understanding, and there's been about five of these particular bills, some on the House side, some on the Senate side, a few of these did have poison pills in them. So this is a constant stream of expectations when it comes to the House or the Senate in which you say this is the Save All Puppies Act. And then about three paragraphs down, there's and we're going to kill all the kittens. This was not just a clean only funding these particular measures style bills. There were other things in them. I don't have that list in front of me. I can gladly bring that up for our conversation next week. But a series of poison pills is what kills these particular things before you heard Cornyn alluding to that when he was questioned by Cesar in that video at Austin Airport. Again, I don't I don't have that list of poison pills because there's been five of these bills, some on the House side, some on the Senate side, and they all contained different poison pills. None of them were just clean. Here you go. Presto. It's funded. Mike, do you have anything to add to that? No, no, Tony's right. And this is part of the reason why people hate politics, because what happens is from a messaging standpoint, the Democrats will run and say, there you go, Republicans, you know, we had five different times to pass this and it was clean. And to Tony's point, it wasn't clean. What does clean actually mean? And now you can easily go out and campaign and say, look, we're trying to fund the government. We don't want you know, we don't want this shutdown. And this is how we introduced it. Like I mentioned about Patty Murray. And then you have the same thing with Donald Trump saying that Democrats are obstructionists and they're taking the whole thing down with them, which, like I said before, they're the minority party. So how can they do that? So there's a perfect example. I don't have anything to retort or add to Tony's thing. He's he's right about that. There were some things about it that were Eric Schmidt of Missouri is attempting to do a poison pill thing on behalf of Republicans that Democrats are going to reject. So it goes both ways all time. OK, Tony, how do you feel about some of the Democrat demands like identification? You mentioned no masks, judicial warrants, but what about operations, no operations at schools and churches? So as far as operations at schools and churches, again, I want to see what the reason and the rationale behind these things are judicial and administrative warrants. If the individuals again are being arrested, which commit extremely violent crimes, if you can run into a school and trespass, which is we've seen in two cases, one in Wisconsin and one in Illinois. Well, that's a serious security issue. And state law in Illinois technically forbade that. But then federal precedent carried over due to kind of the imminent threat law that it cuts into. When you start issuing those kind of restrictions, law is not written like clean blocks. It's written like spaghetti, one noodle weaves in and out of all other different kinds of things. It'd be very hard to push that into an effective policy, no matter what law enforcement agency or group of people you're talking about, especially given that in immigration, we didn't even have immigration originally set up for a court system. You were shown here to be illegally and then you were shown the door. So to kind of set that up at this way, it would take an entire college full of legislative writers to finagle something around in that way. As far as the mask and identification thing, there was an argument that yes, law enforcement needs to be identifiable and they need to be clearly marked, but also given the 8000% increase in violent attacks, given the doxings that do result in political assassinations and attempted assassinations, the ICE facility, of course, in Texas, the eight terrorists who were just convicted, that's also a significant concern. And when we see people's families that are come after because there might have someone or their church come after because they say, oh, this pastor is an ICE guy. We're going to storm the building. You're not really making a good case as to why those that are enforcing federal law enforcement need to show their face identity and home address to everyone walking by. So Mike, I asked Tony this, but I don't think I asked you, but what do you think is the path to reopening the government or the partial shutdown, lifting the partial shutdown, opening the DHS, the path for Democrats and Republicans? Well, I think it's a little bit of what Tony and I have been mentioning in this segment, but I also think it's, Don, how do I put this? Common sense. So common sense lives in the fact that to Tony and I's both points, right? We need these agencies to be able to do their job. We're going to be coming into a peak travel season with respect to TSA. Airports and airport security should be a top priority. You see FEMA here in the B-roll that's playing. Obviously when disaster strikes, this is the agency that's in charge of helping these things. So how do we keep those properties funded while also talking about the certain things that immigration's custom enforcement should be doing that are akin to what local, state, or even other federal police forces that we have, FBI agents as an example, even though they don't carry body cameras and things like that, depending upon situation. How do we mirror those things and either table those things so that way we can extend this out, you know, 45 days, 60 days, whatever it is from the resolution standpoint to be able to make sure that even though we're kicking the can down the road, there's a light at the end of the tunnel where the can's going to go through. And I don't think we have that in American politics because what you just played at the beginning of this segment was from 1600 Penn saying that Democrats are everything to blame. What you've seen from Tony and I are there are some ways that we can concede about certain things. And yes, Republicans do this. Oh yes, by the way, Democrats do this. And it goes back to my whole, you know, analogy about roughing the kicker and running into the kicker. So how do we get common people like Tony and I with R and supposed D's next to their name to come together to vote in that majority that you need to pass something? I don't know how that comes to fruition unless, to Tony's point, there are some more Dems that cave and say they make some backroom deals that we've gotten some assurances about ice coming down the road, and we'll be able to tackle that once we get this prioritized in terms of funding the TSA and DHS overall. I don't know how we come to that common road because Tony and I, throughout the duration of the two of us doing this segment, we keep coming here where there's continuing resolutions, there's the government being shut down to some measure because of some department and agency. And because there's no common road, or how do we have a win-win here so we can both go out to our constituents base and say, okay, we've got government funded, and now we've got those employees that are funded. Oh, by the way, and Democrats, we've got a compromise on ice and they're going to do X, Y, Z. We haven't had that in the duration and the long time that Tony and I have been doing this segment. So I don't know how it comes to a Well, all right, let's leave it there for today. Very intelligent conversation. Thank you. Thank you both and happy St. Patrick's Day. Great to see both of you. See you guys. Israel confirming it killed Iran's top security official in an overnight strike. Ali Larijani was one of the most powerful figures in the regime. The Israeli military also killed the commander of the Basij forces, the regime's central tool for repression. The IDF saying the unit employed severe violence, widespread arrests, and the use of force against civilian demonstrators. Here's your Israel's defense minister making the announcement. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have instructed the IDF to continue hunting the leadership of the terror and repression regime in Iran, and to repeatedly sever the head of the octopus and not allow it to grow. U.S. President Trump spoke about the high turnover rate of Iran's leadership. When morning breaks, Washington time, we will update him that the high turnover rate continues and is even increasing following the elimination of two of the most senior figures who remain. I was just updated by the chief of staff that the secretary of the National Security Council, Larijani, and the head of the Basij, the central repression body of Iran, Salimani, were eliminated last night and joined the head of annihilation program, and all the eliminated members of the axis of evil in the depths of hell. Ali Larijani served as the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, and was appointed to advise Khamenei during nuclear talks with the Trump administration. A social media post from the IDF reads, quote, during the most recent wave of protests against the Iranian terror regime, Larijani personally oversaw the massacre that was carried out against Iranian protesters. Here's Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We are undermining this regime in the hope of giving the Iranian people a chance to remove it. It will not happen all at once. It will not happen easily. But if we persist in this, we will give them a chance to take their fate into their own hands. At the same time, we are helping our American friends in the Gulf. I spoke at length with President Trump yesterday on this issue. There is cooperation between our Air Force and Navy, between President Trump and I and his people. We will help with both indirect attacks, which create tremendous pressure on the Iranian regime, and also with direct actions. The U.S. and Israel are continuing targeting operations. The IDF today releasing a video showing strikes on the Iranian regime's infrastructure in different areas. A new CENTCOM video also shows strikes on Iranian targets. The IDF also saying more troops have joined ground operations in southern Lebanon. The goal is to expand Israel's forward defense and to create an additional layer of security for residents of northern Israel. Meanwhile, Tehran is still carrying out strikes on its Gulf neighbors. A new wave of attacks targeting energy facilities in the United Arab Emirates today. Here's more. A report from Britain says a tanker anchored near the Strait of Hormuz was struck by an unknown projectile. The vessel sustained minor structural damage and the crew is safe. It was the first strike in or around the vital waterway in five days. A separate strike triggered a fire at Fujairah Port. It sits on the Gulf of Oman just outside the Strait of Hormuz. The port is a vital export hub for regional oil supplies. And the UAE briefly closing its airspace today due to incoming missile and drone threats from Iran. It was the second straight day of aviation disruption after a drone attack near Dubai International Airport caused a fire yesterday. Authorities say flights have returned to normal after the temporary closure. The director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, saying he is resigning. In a post on X today, he says he cannot support the war in Iran, saying Iran posed no imminent threat to the U.S. Here's how Speaker Mike Johnson reacting to Kent's statements. That proposition at the end is clearly wrong. I'm on the Gang of Eight. I got all the briefings. We all understood there was clearly an imminent threat that Iran was very close to the enrichment of nuclear capability and they were building missiles at a pace that no one in the region could keep up with. The House speaker says he was briefed on Iran's threat to America with U.S. intelligence showing that Iran planned its fire to fire its ballistic missiles at Americans. He says he believes that if President Trump waited, Iran would have damaged U.S. installations in the Middle East and caused mass casualties of Americans. Johnson notes that the president made a difficult decision to prevent those mass casualties. In his post, Kent says his resignation is effective immediately and calls it an honor to have served in the administration. White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt also reacting to Kent's statements about the Iran war. Leavitt says Trump had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the U.S. first. The press secretary calling the Iranian regime evil and the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. She says the president determined that this military operation was necessary for national security and would greatly reduce Iran's risk to American lives. President Trump also speaking on the issue during his meeting with the Irish prime minister this morning. Let's take a listen. Well, I read his statement. I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security. I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy. But when I read his statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat. Every country realized what a threat Iran was. The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it. And many people, many of the greatest military scholars are saying for years that presidents should have taken out Iran because they wanted a nuclear weapon. They were if we didn't do the attack or if I'll go a step further, if I didn't terminate the Iran nuclear deal given to us, one of the worst deals ever made by Barack Hussein Obama. Remember when they said Boeing 757s over there loaded with cash? Hundreds of millions of dollars. You would have been very happy. This was a wonderful. They said hundreds of millions. People forget that. Does anybody remember? Right. You remember hundreds of millions of dollars in a Boeing 757. I think that two of them loaded. They took the seats out and they put cash. And it was so much that there wasn't a bank in Virginia, Maryland or D.C. that had any money left. They stripped them of all their money, put it into place, sent it to Iran almost as ransom. That's not going to happen with Trump. And nobody ever did anything about it. Nobody ever said anything. Can you imagine if I did that? So they've been a threat for a long time, but they've really been a threat. If I didn't terminate Obama's horrible deal that he made, the Iran nuclear deal, you would have had a nuclear war four years ago. You would have had nuclear holocaust. And you would have had it again if we didn't bomb the site. So when somebody is working with us that says they didn't think Iran was a threat, we don't want those people. Some European leaders saying they're not opposed to helping the U.S. in the current situation. Iran's effective closure of the Hormuz Strait is raising oil prices across the globe. NTD's international correspondent Ariane Pasdar has the latest. We are willing to also invest in our relationship in the transatlantic partnership. The foreign policy chief of the European Union saying the bloc is open to strengthening ties with the U.S. This after President Trump called on NATO allies to assist with operations in the Middle East. Some European leaders now saying they're willing to help while adding that they need more information. We're a small nation, but also we have some maybe specific capabilities we will be ready to offer if there is a need for any kind of support to the U.S. or to free world countries as a coalition. The Estonian official added that similar to the European Union, they're not opposed to helping if more information is provided. Meanwhile, other European leaders are saying they won't get involved. The prime minister of Poland says his country won't send troops to Iran as the conflict does not directly affect Poland's security. Officials from Germany, the U.K. and others made similar remarks. One of the main concerns at the moment is Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz where 20 percent of all global oil trade flows through. The closure raises prices across the globe. Members of the International Energy Agency agreed to use 400 million barrels of oil stored in reserves across the globe. This is an important measure because it seeks to cushion market tensions in the face of this temporary situation. The European Union's foreign policy chief suggested a deal similar to the one reached in the Black Sea in Ukraine, where fighting was ongoing, but international forces managed to reach a pact, allowing global trade to continue. Ariane Passar, NTD News. President Trump says most NATO countries have rejected his calls to join U.S. operations against Iran. The president took to Truth Social to criticize the alliance's reluctance. President Trump posted, quote, I am not surprised by their action. However, because I always considered NATO, where we spend hundreds of billions of dollars per year protecting these same countries, to be a one-way street. The president continued, quote, we will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need. President Trump also said that the U.S. strikes have largely destroyed Iran's military and killed its leadership. Trump adding, quote, we no longer need or desire the NATO countries' assistance. We never did. The president also criticizing Japan, Australia, and South Korea. Here's the president speaking during a meeting with Irish Prime Minister at the White House. We don't need help. That war has been long prosecuted, as far as I'm concerned. Almost from day one, we knocked out many of these things. We knocked out the Navy, essentially, in a couple of days. But I was surprised to see that NATO, while they agreed that it was a very important thing to do — they agreed fully, nobody said, oh, you shouldn't do it — they would have had a nuclear weapon within one month of when we had the B-2 bombers bomb the nuclear potential, the — I call it the nuclear dust. So I think NATO is making a very foolish mistake. And I've long said that, you know, I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us. So this was a great test, because we don't need them, but they should have been there. Clemson University's media forensics hub uncovered a coordinated influence operation tied to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that's using fake social media accounts to spread anti-Israel and anti-U.S. propaganda. Joining us now to talk about this is Will Biagini, Assistant Editor of Campus Reform. Will, good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today. Can I just start off by asking you, how extensive is this network of fake accounts? What do you know about this? Right. Thank you so much for having me on. It's great to be here. So we got this crazy story today where researchers at Clemson University have uncovered this political ploy being used by the IRGC to utilize over 60 fake social media accounts across platforms like Blue Sky, Instagram, and X to push anti-Israel and anti-American narratives. Now, what we're seeing is that these accounts are pretending to be individuals from places like Texas and California, as well as places in Europe, too, like Scotland and Ireland, to push these anti-Israel, anti-American narratives onto our social media feeds. Now, what this shows is that Iran's propaganda machine isn't just operating in Tehran anymore. No, it's made into our own social media feeds, and it's infiltrating American public discourse on campuses. Okay, Will, can you talk to us about what the stakes are then? What impact can such influence operations have on the public in America? Right. So these operations can have massive impacts, especially on our young minds who are eating this up. You know, young students in America are kind of conditioned in leftist-dominated higher education institutions to be super anti-America, super anti-Israel, and we see that a lot with the protests that they're holding. So we had one protest that we covered here at the Leadership Institute's Campus Reform at Arizona State University, where both socialists and pro-Palestinian students joined forces to oppose President Trump in a protest. But interestingly, that protest was challenged by Iranian students, who said that Iranians have lived under a dictatorship for over 40 years, and they actually support pressure on the regime responsible for widespread human rights abuses. So you said that the younger generation potentially is eating this up. Is there any way to differentiate this? You know, how can we tell that some social media posts are actually part of a foreign influence operation? It's kind of hard to tell, but thankfully a lot of these accounts have been either suspended or banned. That's a great thing that we're seeing. But what we also have to realize is that places like X and Instagram are often treated like the public square where the free ideas of exchange happens. That's actually not the case. These platforms are influenced heavily by foreign propaganda. That's what we're seeing. A lot of this also took very specific approaches by the IRGC. So for example, a lot of these accounts were pretending to be Latina women or European activists. So they're very strategically designed to spread misinformation and anti-American narratives on these social media platforms. So we as Americans have to be very careful. So of course this can influence opinion. It's way public opinion. But do you think there could be actual security threats, physical risks? Could these social media campaigns contribute to real world security risks? 100% it can contribute to security risks, especially considering how online our society is. We have a lot of young minds who spend the majority of their free time online, but it is not just limited to young people or college campuses. We're seeing people in the workforce. They spend a lot of their time online as well. So we have a whole society that's spending most of their time online. And then you have countries like Iran who are foreign adversaries who are spreading all kinds of anti-America, anti-Israel narratives on these platforms. And so it's very easy to see how these narratives can make their way and influence the American education and American people at large. So Will, by us just talking about this, we're raising public awareness, potentially helping reduce the effectiveness of these operations. But in your view, what are some efforts that we can do? How do we counter these operations? We absolutely got to be aware every time that we go on social media, we will be bombarded with some kind of propaganda, either it be foreign propaganda or it be a lot of these leftist groups that are using various left wing issues as rallying cries. Most recently, it's been the no war in Iran protests. But we also see them joining forces with the socialists and with the communists and the pro-Palestinian students. They're all joining together because they hate America and they hate everything that America was founded on. And what's crazy is that these protesters are actually protesting in support of a regime that is famous for killing protesters. And so they don't even know what they're talking about. So what we need to continue to see and what we need to continue to do is be very mindful whenever we go on to social media that our foreign adversaries are using those platforms against us and are attempting to divide the West with these narratives. So Will, can I ask you, do you think, in your opinion, is there a role that the government could play in this? I don't know, social media companies as well. What do you think? I think we need to be very careful whenever we go on social media and we see, we can be duped into thinking that it's just a free exchange of ideas. But it's really not. A lot of these, so we saw X got bought by Elon Musk, right? That was great. Great win for free speech. So a lot of these accounts have been suspended or banned, but there's undoubtedly more out there. And we have to realize is that something that we might think might be a bot, it's not. It might actually be an IRGC agent pretending to be a Latina to bombard anti-American propaganda into your social media. That kind of stuff happens all the time, as we just see from this study at Clemson University. So we have to be very, very careful whenever we go on social media that it's not just the free flowing exchange of ideas. There might actually be hostile foreign propaganda at work. Okay, just one final question, Will. What is Iran's broader goal here? What is its endgame? How do campaigns like this fit into Iran's broader geopolitical strategy? Their goal is to cause division in the West. Specifically, their goal is to take weaknesses in Western countries like the United States and exploit it for their own political gain. Because they know that if they can take an issue that divides us in the West, that if they know that they can take it and exploit it and it'll cause us to crumble, a house divided against itself cannot stand, then they will do it. They will take issues that they know are hot button issues here in the United States, hot button issues in Western countries elsewhere, and they'll take these issues and they'll exploit them because they want to divide us, because they know that we are stronger together. And if we are not stronger together, then they can do what they want. So they'll try to tear us apart. Well, all right, Will. Well said. Good to speak with you today. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed Britain's parliament today amid U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran. Speaking to British lawmakers, Zelensky said Ukraine's battlefield experience combating Iranian-made drones was an asset to its allies. There are 201 Ukrainians in the Middle East and Gulf region, and another 34 are ready to deploy. These are military experts who know how to help, how to defend against Shaheed drones. Our teams are already in the Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and on the way to Kuwait. We are working with several other countries. Agreements are already in place. We do not want this terror of the Iranian regime against its neighbors to succeed. A British base in Cyprus and British forces have been hit by Iranian drones since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran late last month. Four years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv has become a world leader in drone and anti-drone technologies. Today, Zelensky said Ukraine was capable of producing around 2,000 drone interceptors per day and can supply half of that amount to its allies. He added that Kyiv is developing a number of drone systems. Those include underwater drones and others capable of operating in ocean conditions. In Berlin, a tiger cub at the Tierre Park Zoo is finally getting a name. She was born on New Year's Day 2026. The zoo has decided to name her Lily. Here you can see her exploring her enclosure and playing with her mom. The director of the zoo says he is very happy about this new addition to the zoo. Lily is the third litter of her mom, who is an Indonesian tiger, a critically endangered species. The director says this is the most endangered species of all tigers. There are only 600 to 800 of them left in the world. He says that's why it's important to realize that Lily and her mom carry vital genes.