WE ARE AT WAR!’ Stephen A. SOUNDS THE ALARM on Trump’s Iran Strikes!

Straight shooter with Stephen A. [music] What's up everybody? Welcome to the latest edition of Straight Shooter with yours truly, Stephen A. Coming at you as I love to do every Wednesday night from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time over the airwaves of SiriusXM POS radio channel 124. Number to call up as always is 866-9676887. That's 866-9676887. That's 86696 PO POTUS. I will get into Representative Jasmine Crockett losing her bid for the United States Senate seat based out of the great state of Texas in just a minute. But I think it's appropriate to start off today's show with some breaking news because it just came down like literally literally minutes ago and I think that everybody needs to know about exactly that. Um the United States Senate rejected bids to scale back Trump's power with the uh the war in Iran in Iran. According to the news reports reading straight off of Politico right now, the Senate rejected an attempt to reign in the war in Iran, handing President Donald Trump what amounts to an endorsement of his five-day military campaign. The 47 to 53 vote split largely along party lines with Republican senators united to defeat a measure that would have required congressional approval to continue the operation. Republican Senator Ran Paul of Kentucky, a co-sponsor, was the only Republican who supported the resolution, while Democratic Senator John Federman of Pennsylvania, broke with his party in support of the strike. So, you had one Democratic senator in Federman who supported Trump and we had one Republican senator in Ran Paul who obviously opposed Trump. Either way you slice it, here's the bottom line. We could slice it any way we want to. It's we're at war. We're at war. When you go about the business of destabilizing another nation, I mean, somebody put it simple and plain. And a lot of times I get really ticked off and I get frustrated because of of of the lack of focus on the questions and the probing that are necessary. Not all of this lip service that you're giving to, oh, the you know, the the president didn't consult with Congress. The president didn't consult with anybody. We're not supposed to be declaring wars. Congress only has the right to do that constitutionally. Blah blah blah blah blah. Hell, even I was caught up in it. And then suddenly the news came down that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had actually informed the gang of eight that listen, this is what we're intending to do. And here is why. And by the way, that's constitutionally correct. And I had to make sure that I looked this up because I wanted to make sure that I was accurate. And it says in the United States government, the gang of eight refers to a small bipartisan group of senior members of Congress who are briefed on the most sensitive national security and intelligence matters. Often issues so classified they are not shared with most lawmakers. And what does this gang of eight consist of exactly? Speaker of the House, Minority House Leader, Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Ranking Member, Top Minority Member of the House Intelligence Committee, and in the Senate, the Senate Majority Leader, the Senate Minority Leader, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the vice chair, ranking minority member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. So essentially the top four figures from each party period they were informed and we're making all of this noise about what was constitutional and what's not constitutional. What you should be worried about is the fact that Trump is a bit loose, that Trump doesn't seem to have all his ducks in order. Because last time I checked, wasn't it just months ago, if not weeks ago, when he joined and collabed with Israel in bombing Iranian nuclear sites? Didn't he say they were obliterated? Didn't he say they were completely stripped of any power? We stopped them. Well, IF YOU STOPPED THEM, WHY WOULD YOU NEED TO STOP THEM AGAIN? What are we missing? So, these are the kind of questions that you have to ask. Listen, this is what I'm talking about. This is what's so damn frustrating about all of this. And then on the Democratic side, you got everybody, you got pundits all over the place. You got everybody going off. You got Tim Kaine and everybody else talking about, hey, it's unconstitutional. Well, evidently, it's not. Article two of the Constitution stipulates that the president does indeed have the right to act if he considers it a national security issue. So he was never really in any trouble. He was never really in any danger of being stripped of his potency as the commanderin-chief to make such a decision. WHY ARE WE ACTING LIKE HE ISN'T? WHY SHOULDN'T WE instead have just focused on what are you doing? Why are you doing this? We should have focused on that, but we didn't do it. Now, needless to say, Trump has his interpretation of things while others have theirs. Listen to Trump. Go to cut a please with Trump talking about how out of control Iran is. Play that tape, please. >> You see the tremendous progress that's being made. Their missiles are being wiped out rapidly. Their launches are being wiped out. They're attacking their neighbors. They're attacking their in some cases allies or not so long ago allies and you know it's really a nation that was out of control and they would have used it on us if we let him if we waited any longer. A big uh a big factor was Solommani, the killing of Solommania in my first term. And maybe the biggest factor was the rebuilding of the military in my first term. And then the B2s hit the uh and I use the word obliterate because it really was it was a complete obliteration of their nuclear potential. And that set them back very very seriously. If we didn't hit within two weeks, they would have had a nuclear weapon. And if we didn't do the B2 attack a number of months ago, they would have a nuclear weapon. And when crazy people have nuclear weapons, bad things happen. You can't touch them on this, ladies and gentlemen. Constitution. Article 2, section two, clause one of the United States Constit Constitution declares the president to be commanderin-chief of the army, navy, and state militias. Presidents often cite this power to justify unilateral military action without immediate congressional approval specifically to defend US citizens or respond to threats. Period. Period. Now, do I think that he's somebody that was looking for an excuse? Sure. They did try to kill him after all. We're talking about Iran. They tried to kill him. We understand that. And we understood that they probably weren't going to stop trying to kill him. So he took out an enemy. The question is whether it was his enemy or it was that of the United States of America. And everybody, including Democrats, have acknowledged that Iran was an existential threat. And there's no way on earth that they should ever be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. But then we go back to what Trump said when he said they were obliterated weeks ago. Weeks ago. So why do this? Go to cut um go to cut seven, please. Trump, I won't put America in any wars. Listen to this. I will expel the war mongerers from our national security state and carry out a muchneeded cleanup of the military-industrial complex to stop the war profiteering and to put always America first. She said, "Look at him. Listen to him. He's going to start a war. Listen to his rhetoric. he's going to start a war. I said, "No, no, no. My rhetoric is going to keep us out of wars." >> Really? We now know that was a lie. The problem is that even though it was a lie, flagrantly so, I might add, we've heard one politician after another on the left, especially the clips they play of Hillary Rodm Clinton when she was running for office talking about we will we will we will obliterate Iran because they're crazy and they're evil and they must never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. You're not going to win this argument with Trump. Now, it doesn't help Trump, by the way, when you're always talking about fake news, fake news, fake news. And now you have a puppeteer courtesy of the Secretary of Defense and Pete Hegith, Mr. Fox News, on the weekends saying stuff like this. Please play cut D. Sure, Iran will still be able to shoot some missiles and still be able to launch one-way attack drones at civilian targets, and their proxies will attempt to attack our embassies, bases, and soft targets. They are terrorists after all and they need to target civilians because they can't fight toe-to-toe. But we will find them and we will kill them. This is what the fake news misses. We've taken control of Iran's airspace and waterways without boots on the ground. We control their fate. But when a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it's front page news. I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad, but try for once to report the reality. The terms of this war will be set by us at every step. >> So, the country has attacked Iran and we all know how evil Iran is. We all know that they don't need to have a nuclear weapon. We're not talking about Iranian citizens. We're talking about the leadership Ayatollah Kmeni who was killed according to numerous reports. He is dead and now his son uh is scheduled to take over. At least that's what the rumor mill is stating. We know that they have proxies all over the place. Even though Hezbollah and Hamas and the Hoodis and Yemen and others have have are perceived as being drastically compromised because of decisions made by Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel along with President Trump. The bottom line is it's still a palpable fear that we all have to deal with. And because we all have to deal with that, that makes everything up for grabs. It puts everything in the air right now. A matter of fact, the only voice that you really really want to hear from the Republican side at this particular moment in time is Secretary of State Ruby Marco Rubio because he repeatedly seems to be the only adult in the room. We'll get into all of that as the show progresses right here. Straight shooter with George Truly Stephen A over the airwaves of SiriusXM POS radio channel 124866967 6887 is the number to call up. That's 8669676887. Um, there's no way that I could go through an entire opening monologue without transitioning to Representative Jasmine Crockett. Um, she lost she lost her her pursuit for the United States Senate seat to James Telerico 52.4% to 46.2%. She lost this election this election bid trying to win and unite one of those two US Senate seats in Texas where she would have gone from a representative representing about 766,000 constituents to over 31 million people. Ladies and gentlemen, we have to discuss why it would have been nice to see Jasmine Crocki win. Personally, I would have liked to see her going up against the Republican candidate, whether it was John Cornin, whether it was Ken Paxton, whomever. Wesley Hunt was a marvelous guest last week on this show. It would have been nice to see her go up against one of them for the US Senate seat, but that is not to be. She called earlier and sent out this tweet uh regarding James Terico saying, "This morning I called James and congratulated him on becoming the Senate nominee. Texas is primed to turn blue and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person. This is about the future of all 30 million Texans and getting America back on track. With the primary behind us, Democrats must rally around our nominees and win. I'm committed to doing my part and will continue working to elect Democrats up and down the ballot." End quote. That still doesn't get us to why she lost. Ladies and gentlemen, James Telerico and Jasmine Crockett essentially were very very similar in policies and their ideology etc. One wanted to focus a little bit more on terrorists than the others. Both of them were opposed to Trump's immigration policies and tactics. We all know this. But why did Jasmine Crockett lose this election? They want to tell you that she lost because she didn't ingratiate herself with Hispanics because they have over 6 and a half million Hispanic voters in the state of Texas and she didn't endear herself to them nearly as well as she should have. She was critic, you know, she's been criticized for comments perceived as alienating Hispanic voters leading into the election. remarks stem primarily from a 2024 Vanity Fair interview where she discussed Latino support for Donald Trump and immigration views. She described some Latino immigrants attitudes towards undocumented immigrants as reminiscent of quote unquote a slave mentality. She went on to say, "It almost reminds me of what people would talk about when they would talk about the kind of like slave mentality and the hate that some slaves would have for themselves." In the full context, she elaborated, "The immigration thing has always been something that has perplexed me about this community. It's basically like, I fought to get here, but I left y'all where I left y'all, and I want no more of y'all to come here. If I wanted to be with y'all, I would have stayed with y'all, but I don't want y'all coming to my new home." It's almost like a slave mentality that they have. It is wild to me when I hear how anti-immigrant they are as immigrants, many of them. Perhaps the most damaging thing was when Jake Tapper questioned her about an exact quote that she gave. It was at a church event in April of 2025. And she received backlash for implying racial stereotypes about labor and immigration. Quote, "So I had to go around the country educating people about what immigrants do to this country and the fact that we are a country of immigrants. The fact is ain't none of y'all trying to go out, go and farm right now. You're not. You're not. We're done picking cotton. We are. You can't pay us enough to find a plantation. Critics, including Latinos, called it racist and dismissive. This is not about me. This is not about Jews. It's not about anybody. This is about the voters in Texas and what they're saying ultimately had an impact in deciding how this election went. You got a guy in James Telerico who's is a who's a seminarian and a teacher who believed in compromise and pulling folks over to his side and working across the aisle and doing stuff like that. That was his style. and he was focusing on Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for the United States Senate, who's an attorney general in Texas, and was focusing on him because it's widely believed that he will beat John Cornin eventually, particularly in their runoff, whereas she was focused on Trump and not giving him an inch to breathe and being all up his you know what, for every little thing that he did. And what did Texas say? You see, this comes back to what I was trying to say months ago, weeks ago, days ago. That's Texas. It's a little bit different down there. Ladies and gentlemen, I was in Austin, Texas nearly two years ago and I was watching an episode of Martin at 1 in the morning. And this has never happened to me in my life. In the middle of the program, it shut down. It went to commercial. And the commercial was the American flag over the television screen and the national anthem was playing over the airwaves. That don't happen in New York. That don't happen in DC. It damn sure don't happen in LA. But it happens in Texas. A little bit different. Little bit different. And when we talk about all of these things, what it came down to Telerico versus Jasmine Crockett was style. Nothing else. That woman smart as a whip. licensed to practice law in the state of Texas, Arkansas, and federally. She's been in the House of Representatives for years. TRUMP IS SPEWING her name. SHE'S GOT A NATIONAL PROFILE. SHE WAS FAR MORE KNOWN THAN JAMES TELERICO. HE HAD TO be introduced by members of the Hispanic community WEEKS BEFORE THE ELECTION. THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHO HE WAS. So Heidi Bea styles make fights and his style worked for Texans. Slice it any way you want to. It worked for Texans. Now, Jasmine Crockett has her own beliefs as to why she lost this election, but she was still class personified and congratulating James Telerico and calling him and ultimately putting out that tweet, and she deserves a lot of credit for that. She also can't help the fact that James Telerico was was on uh Stephen Cobear's show on CBS February 16th and CBS according to Steven Coar wouldn't allow him to air that interview. So they put it on YouTube. It accumulated over 5.5 million viewers and bumped his campaign dollars up an additional $2.5 million in a 24-hour period following what he called his quote unquote censored interview. So understand there are certain things that transpired that were completely and totally out of her control. But in the end, what it came down to was strategy and tone. While he positioned himself as a teacher in the Senate, injecting progressive Christianity and focusing on education, compromise, and building coalitions. She positioned herself as a street fighter who thrives on confrontation, viral clashes with Trump and other Republicans, etc. She emphasized her national name recognition from congressional fights and argued criticism of her was rooted in racism and sexism. No doubt it worked with a lot of black voters. No doubt it worked with some women. But in the end, was it enough to beat the fellow Democrat who was a novice compared to her for United States Senate seat representing 31 million people out of the great state of Texas? No, it was not. That is a fact. As I've said on many occasions, you don't have to be extra when Trump gives you all the ammunition in the world. Just sit around, you know, treat him like the Dallas Cowboys. Be patient. Just wait for it. They won't let you down. Somehow, some way Trump won't let you down. I was saying this I was saying this countless times and in the end what it comes down to before I go to break is this. One could easily make the argument that Jasmine Crockett and frankly Kla Harris ran into similar issues. both leaning a lot, perhaps too heavily into emotional arguments and outrage over Donald Trump instead of focusing on a clear plan for the country, a plan. James Telerico had a plan. And you know what his plan part of his plan was? I barely need to mention Donald Trump. That ain't who I'm running against. I'm running against John Corn and I'm running again against Pen Kim Paxton. I'm going to have to run against one of those two for the United States Senate seat. I'll deal with Donald Trump when I get to the United States Senate. Right now, this is what I got to deal with. I had somebody tell me earlier that criticizing Trump might energize people who already agree with him or people already agree with you. And of course, that's to be expected because a lot of people don't agree with him. But when you're trying to win, you got to strategize. James Telerico, learned pretty quickly what it took to win. Jasmine, who's a sensational political talent, who has her share of supporters. She had a different strategy, one that could potentially work against Trump someday. The problem was that ain't who she was running against. It was James Telerico. And that's why he's the Democratic nominee for the Senate seat for the great state of Texas and she is not. 8669676887. That's 866-966-967-6887 86696 pus. You're listening live to Straight Shooter with Stephen A right here on PUS radio channel 124. Up next, longtime Democratic strategist, the one and only James Carville is coming up next. Can't wait to speak to him. It's a lot to discuss, no doubt. And he has a lot to say. James, don't cuss me out, man. I'm just a messenger, my brother. I'm just a messenger. He's up next with yours truly right here on Straight Shooter with Stephen A. Back with more in a minute. >> [music]

“We are at war.” Stephen A. Smith doesn’t hold back as he reacts to breaking news that the Senate rejected an attempt to limit President Trump’s military actions against Iran. In this explosive opening monologue, Stephen A. questions Trump’s claims, the role of Congress, and what this escalating conflict could mean for America. https://sxm.app.link/YouTubeSAS Connect with me on social media: Twitter: https://x.com/stephenasmith Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephenasmith/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@stephenasmith Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stephena/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-a-smith-763b31194/