John Thune's Spectacular Failure Theater | Putting the Foot Down on MN Fraud | 2/26/26

The A.M. Update

Aaron McIntire

News, Daily News, Politics

4.9 • 833 Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2026

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Thursday's A.M. Update exposes what looks like classic Senate "failure theater" from Majority Leader John Thune, who promises a vote on the SAVE Act to block non-citizen voting but sidesteps any real push like a talking filibuster amid government funding fights and other priorities. Vice President JD Vance, alongside CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, takes firm action by withholding $259.5 million in Medicaid funds from Minnesota over massive fraud concerns, giving Governor Tim Walz 60 days to outline fixes or face more cuts. A classified Gang of Eight briefing on Iran draws only a measured, non-committal response from Chuck Schumer, while 12 advanced F-22 Raptors deploy to Israel as Middle East tensions simmer. Other highlights include Democratic counterprogramming flops featuring dancing frog skits, John Fetterman's critique of his party's antics, college students hilariously reviewing a State of the Union that hadn't happened yet, a dramatic Omaha sinkhole caught on camera, and listener reactions to whether Trump's address moved the needle.

A.M. Update, Aaron McIntire, SAVE Act Senate, John Thune failure theater, JD Vance Minnesota fraud, Medicaid withholding Tim Walz, Chuck Schumer Iran briefing, F-22 Israel deployment, Democratic State of the Union counterprogramming, John Fetterman, college students SOTU, Omaha sinkhole, poll of the week

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's Thursday, February 26th, 2026, failure theater in the Senate, putting the foot down on the
0:05.3	Minnesota fraud scandal and one sound bite lost in the State of the Union shuffle next on the
0:10.9	AM update.
0:14.5	I think we're starting to see some failure theater in the U.S. Senate after President Trump
0:19.3	overtly called upon the United States Congress
0:21.9	to pass the Save America Act during the State of the Union address the other night.
0:26.8	Here's Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Fox News.
0:30.1	And if so, when?
0:32.9	Well, we will. We'll put the Democrats on the record.
0:36.1	And it's a stark contrast, I should. The Democrats, even in the chamber last night, having to sit there and try and defend allowing non-citizens to vote in American elections. That is a losing proposition for them. So we will get a vote on it. And we are right now in the middle of a government shutdown, so we've got to try and get the government opened up first but in due time we will have
0:54.8	we will get that that up on the floor we will have a vote on it we will make sure that the
0:59.1	the democrats are on the record it is a stark contrast between republicans and democrats about how
1:04.8	they want to handle elections in this country and and this is going to put them i think in a very
1:09.4	difficult position oh all that tough talk from Senator John Thune of South Dakota about, yeah, we'll make sure we bring it to vote.
1:18.8	What he's not saying there, listen to what he's not saying, he's not saying we're going to force a talking filibuster.
1:26.5	So what is he actually saying there? He's voting for cloture. He's voting for
1:30.9	cloture, which means what? He knows this is going to fail. He knows it's going to fail,
1:36.6	which means that it's also, fail your theater in the U.S. Senate. He spoke later on in the afternoon
1:41.7	as well. Your message to the Republicans in your conference who are pushing over and over again that you can do this with the talking of the Buster.
1:49.7	Well, there are a couple things about that.
1:51.3	One is once we get on, if we were to go down that path, is very hard to pivot and get back to open up the government.
1:57.9	I frankly think we ought to.
	...

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