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Senate To Continue Marathon SAVE Act Debate Through Weekend; Republicans Have "Beef" With Old Talarico Comments On Veganism; Maine Gov. Janet Mills Goes Negative Against Graham Platner; Senate GOP Releases Ad Trying To Tie Georgia Dem Sen. Jon Ossoff To Long TSA Lines At Atlanta Airport; Netanyahu: America Is The Leader, Israel Is The Ally; U.K. Sends Deployment Of Military Planners To Work With U.S. On Reopening Strait Of Hormuz. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired March 20, 2026 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[12:30:48]
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. Senate is in day four of debate over the SAVE America Act. There is no sign that they are going to stop any time soon. The bill currently requires strict proof of citizenship to register to vote, a photo ID to vote, and it also adds new requirements for local election administrators. Now, GOP senators also plan to offer amendments that contain additional Trump priorities, severe restrictions on mail-in ballots, a ban on transgender women in sports, and a ban on some gender-affirming care for minors.
My smart panel is back here. This is so fascinating that the President -- maybe not surprising when you really think what we're talking about here -- that the President has said -- told me when I talked to him, I don't know, I guess it was two weeks ago and has made very clear since -- that this is his number one legislative priority, to change the way in a federal law, people vote across the country, even though some of these aspects of this law are questionable, even among his fellow Republicans, which is why they're staying all weekend.
ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT & ANCHOR, THE STORY IS WITH ELEX MICHAELSON: Yes. Well, and of course, trans people in sports has a lot to do with voting, too.
BASH: So much.
MICHAELSON: I mean, that's a clear part of it.
BASH: Which is why he changed the SAVE America Act and not just the SAVE Act, but never mind.
MICHAELSON: Yes.
BASH: Go ahead.
MICHAELSON: But, I mean, yes, there is no path for victory for this. So everything that is happening this weekend is performative. Everything that's happening this weekend is about ads that both sides can put up there in terms of their future re-elections, because this thing is just never going to get through.
But to the President's point, and he made this point during the State of the Union when he sort of taunted the Democrats, be careful when you fight against some of this stuff. I mean, a lot of the voter ID stuff is like in the 80 percent approval.
BASH: Yes.
MICHAELSON: And so to strongly push back against that is not necessarily where most voters are.
BASH: And if it were just the voter ID, the Democrats would have a bigger problem.
MICHAELSON: Right, by adding all these other things, which --
BASH: Yes.
MICHAELSON: -- are poison pills for Democrats, it makes it impossible for them to vote for it.
BASH: Yes, including the idea of having to prove citizenship, which poses a lot of questions. I want you to listen to Lisa Murkowski. She gave a floor speech on this yesterday. She's not happy with it. And John Fetterman, who often these days crosses party lines to vote with Republicans, but not on this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R), ALASKA: Again, these are people who are eligible to vote. They're citizens of our country. But if they're looking at a situation where I'm going to have to spend $1,000 to get me to where I can present my documentation to vote, they're not going to do it.
While disenfranchisement may not be the intent of the SAVE America Act, and I don't think that it is, I think that that we will see that.
SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D), PENNSYLVANIA: It's a shame that they didn't make it more about just ID to vote. They turned it into other things. They turned it into kind of a Christmas tree, and they're hanging all these things on it. But, no, that's where we are.
Two things must be true. It's not outrageous to show ID to vote. But voting by mail is an honorable, safe, and secure way that Republicans across our nation have been doing it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SABRINA RODRIGUEZ, POLITICAL REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: I mean, it's not surprising to see President Trump pushing this kind of legislation. I mean, he is still trying to relitigate 2020 and the election and calling out what, you know, is alleged fraud that, you know, has proven -- been proven time and time again to not have taken place in 2020.
So the things he's asking for here are not surprising necessarily, but it does put Republicans in this uncomfortable position to have to come out and say things like Murkowski is saying. And the fact that, you know, when you look at what is in this bill, there is a lot of evidence that shows that some of this could very much backfire for Republicans.
When you're talking about mail-in voting, that is something that can affect folks in rural areas that do tend to gravitate toward President Trump and Republicans. When we talk about, you know, proof of citizenship, the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan organization, they found that more than 9 percent of U.S. citizens do not have readily available proof of their U.S. citizenship.
[12:35:08]
So this would cause a lot of, you know, red tape and issues for folks who might very well vote for President Trump and the Republican Party -- the Republicans.
MICHAELSON: And a reminder that, like, a place like Alaska --
BASH: Yes.
MICHAELSON: -- is very different than Washington, D.C. or California --
BASH: And --
MICHAELSON: -- in which is why elections are usually run by localities. That's the point of the Constitution.
BASH: That's the part of -- point of the Constitution, exactly. And just real quick, I mean, they need 60 votes to get this passed unless the filibuster is changed, but there isn't votes to change the filibuster --
EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Right.
BASH: -- in order to change the law.
DOVERE: But, look, on a political front, one of the things that I think is surprising to a lot of people is that the Democrats have not figured out how to take a proactive approach to this issue. It is, as Elex was saying, something where you see huge majorities --
BASH: Right.
DOVERE: -- in support of photo ID. The Democratic response on this and on so many things continues to just be no and not a plan of their own, not figuring out some way to make the argument, even the -- having Lisa Murkowski make that argument --
BASH: Yes.
DOVERE: -- for them. She's a Republican senator.
BASH: That's right.
DOVERE: You don't see Democrats saying, here would be our plan to take care of this.
BASH: All right. Up next, it is Midterm Madness. You heard me right, Midterm Madness. The brackets are in. The final buzzer, though, won't sound until November. We'll explain.
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[12:40:38]
BASH: Some might be glued to March Madness. I know a lot of people here are. But at Inside Politics, we are also glued to Midterm Madness. The Senate map is our bracket, and a handful of key races could tip control or bust.
It's been a very busy week, so my panel is going to get you up to speed on all the campaign news that you have missed. And, Sabrina, I'm going to start with you. Let's talk about what's going on in Texas. And I'm going to start by playing the National Republican ad against the Democratic nominee, Talarico, and then Talarico's response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES TALARICO (D), U.S. SENATE NOMINEE: Our campaign has officially become a non-meat campaign. So we have -- we are only buying vegan products from our local vegan businesses.
I want to say this definitively and categorically, that I deny all accusations of veganism. And, you know, our campaign basically runs on barbecue these days.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: I mean, you know, stuff's getting real in Texas. They're fighting over what they eat. But obviously, this is -- it's about more than that. It's about whether or not he's a true Texan. And --
MICHAELSON: (INAUDIBLE)
BASH: -- just to add to his statement, the picture of him, you can see he's holding a whole plate of beef and eating it.
DOVERE: With the right shirt on.
MICHAELSON: With the correct shirt, yes.
BASH: With the correct shirt.
MICHAELSON: Yes, that could be --
BASH: He's got it down.
MICHAELSON: -- like a Trump thing. Yes.
RODRIGUEZ: I was going to say, we can't talk about this without that photo that his campaign came out with. But, I mean, I think what's interesting here is, of course, Republicans have turned their ire on Talarico now that he has won the Democratic nomination.
They're trying to focus on how he is, you know, a radical leftist and how he is out of step with the state, while the Republican primary is not resolved yet, while it is still heading to a runoff between incumbent Senator John Cornyn and Attorney General -- State Attorney General Ken Paxton. And that's not going to be resolved until late May, potentially.
Now, what's interesting, this week, they blew the deadline for if someone was going to remove their name from the ballot in May. This comes after President Trump, right after the primary, had said very vocally on Truth Social that he was going to issue an endorsement and that it would be coming very soon and that he expected that the person who he did not endorse would step aside.
You know, we've seen reporting the White House and White House officials have said, you know, he's been a little distracted. There's --
BASH: Yes.
RODRIGUEZ: -- some other things going on in the world. But that certainly raised questions. This is not the scenario that Republicans want to be in. They do not want to have to put more money into Texas --
BASH: Yes.
RODRIGUEZ: -- to have a more bruising battle between Cornyn and Paxton as we head to the midterms. You know, Texas is supposed to be a safe Senate seat for them, and they find themselves more and more vulnerable.
MICHAELSON: But could there be more of a progressive caricature SNL sketch --
BASH: I know.
MICHAELSON: -- than wearing a mask and talking about veganism? I mean, that's worse than losing on policy. I mean --
BASH: It would have been campaign malpractice not to put that in an ad if you're a Republican.
MICHAELSON: Right.
BASH: You're exactly right. You're exactly right. You are -- you're focused on -- no, I'm going to go to you next.
DOVERE: OK.
BASH: You're Isaac, right?
DOVERE: I think so.
BASH: You're watching Maine. And I want to play what is happening in Maine. And it happened a couple of days ago, but we haven't been able to really sort of sink our teeth into it. And that is Janet Mills, a sitting Democratic governor who is running in a primary against Graham Platner, ran a pretty tough ad against Platner. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you know Graham Platner wrote that women worried about rape need to, quote --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not get so fucked up they wind up having sex with someone they don't mean to.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's disgusting.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Platner wrote to avoid rape, women should, quote --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Act like an adult for fuck's sake.
LYNN B., SOUTH PORTLAND: Graham Platner, seriously.
BRENDA G., ROCKLAND: We blame the victim.
JILL B., SOUTH PORTLAND: That's a horrible thing to say.
PEGGY S.: Disqualifying.
GRAHAM PLATNER (D), MAINE SENATE CANDIDATE: When I read through my old internet posts when they resurfaced six months ago, I was horrified. I did not recognize in them myself or the man that I am today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: That was Graham Platner --
DOVERE: Yes.
BASH: -- and he's actually in D.C. trying to raise money on Chuck Schumer's turf.
DOVERE: Yes. This is -- it's not just these posts from Platner, it's the Nazi tattoo that he's had a variety of explanations about what's going on there. And he keeps saying, look, that's what I did. I'm not that guy anymore. That's what I said. I'm not that guy anymore. That's what I wrote. I'm not that guy anymore.
[12:45:16]
And Mills is hoping that she can play into that for voters, and importantly in Maine, it's a state which does not have as left leaning an electorate as a Platner type candidate usually runs with. It also has an older electorate. Mills herself is older, that's been used against her, maybe not as much of an issue there for her, but she has certainly struggled to seem like she has the verve and the energy to, politically, not an age comment on that, to go up against what Platner is talking about.
And it becomes a question of how much of this is being fought on the internet and how much of it is about the policy issues. We did just see, I think importantly, another case this week in Illinois of a race that turned out really differently in a Senate primary than people were expecting.
BASH: The point (ph).
DOVERE: And it didn't work out the way it looked like it was working on on Twitter, with Juliana Stratton winning by -- not only did she win, which a lot of people thought she wouldn't, but she won by seven points. We'll see if that is a premonition of things to come.
BASH: I want to quickly get to Georgia, which is what you're looking at, and also watch what the National Republican campaign arm did in an ad against the Democratic Senator, Jon Ossoff.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This delay is courtesy of Senator Jon Ossoff. While you wait, take a moment to thank Senator Ossoff for blocking funding for the Transportation Security Administration and the United States Coast Guard, putting Americans at greater risk, both in the air and here at home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Elex?
MICHAELSON: As we've seen, the lines are worse in Atlanta than they are in most places in the country. All politics is local, and that could be something that really works against him. I mean, it's interesting. Last night I talked with Nancy Pelosi. She told me she thinks the Democrats are going to win 30 seats in the House.
It looks like the Democrats are going to win the House, and we don't know if it'll get that far. But --
DOVERE: Nancy Pelosi also said that they were going to win the House in 2014.
MICHAELSON: OK, but the reason -- but the reason it -- but in order to win the Senate, the Democrats basically have to sweep March Madness, or Midterm Madness, or whatever you said. You've got to win every bracket --
BASH: Yes.
MICHAELSON: -- in order to get there. They can't lose Georgia, they've got to win Maine, and they've got to win Texas. BASH: So good to talk to you. Happy Friday. Thank you so much for being here. Safe trip back. I hope those lines stay short for you, Elex.
MICHAELSON: Thank you. Yes.
BASH: A carefully crafted mea culpa. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says President Trump, not Israel, is the leader in the war in Iran. What's behind that and what it really means? Dan Senor will be here next.
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[12:50:48]
BASH: I'm with him, and he's with me, that was the message from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and what's what he wanted to get across when he was talking yesterday about his relationship with President Trump. It's a relationship that was publicly tested after Israel attacked one of Iran's largest gas fields, something President Trump has since told Netanyahu, please stop doing that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: I don't think any two leaders have been as coordinated as President Trump and I. He's the leader. I'm, you know, his ally. America is the leader. Israel is, as the National Security Memorandum described us, I think a month ago, six weeks ago, I think, something like that, they called Israel the model ally.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Joining me now is Dan Senor, host of the "Call Me Back" podcast, and also the chief spokesperson for the U.S.-led Iraq coalition. Dan, thank you so much for being here.
Can you just start with that Netanyahu statement? Can you parse it? Why it was necessary to preserve a relationship with President Trump at this time? Why was it necessary for him to say that the way he did?
DAN SENOR, HOST, "CALL ME BACK" PODCAST: Well, for one, the administration basically said Israel had acted on its own in South Pars, so there was this sense of some kind of disagreement or divergence in approaches to the war. I think it's important, though, to take a step back.
This relationship between Trump and Netanyahu in wartime is -- I can't think of another alliance between an American president and the leader of another government, another ally in modern history. I mean, some have compared it to Reagan and Thatcher at the peak of the Cold War.
In terms of their strategic objectives, A, B, the complete trust that they have inculcated between the respective militaries and intelligence agencies working together, totally integrated in operational terms, I mean, it's -- it really is like a joint command of operations, particularly on the air operations over Iran.
The Israelis now, the Israeli military operators refer to this war for the first time in Israeli history as, quote, the war in English. Because they -- in order to operate in this war, they have to do everything in English, not in Hebrew, because they are so synced into the American military system. That said, even Reagan and Thatcher had disagreements from time to time.
The test of the relationship is not about whether or not two Democratic leaders in wartime have disagreements. It's about how they deal with those disagreements. And, by and large, there have been some disagreements, one of which came to air. It sounds like yesterday, but there have been others that haven't gotten attention.
They're usually held behind closed doors. And as you see there with Prime Minister Netanyahu, he's clear that --
BASH: Yes.
SENOR: -- there's one superpower in this relationship, and he's deferring to the President of that superpower.
BASH: Yes, he metaphorically fell on his sword. I should also say that CNN has reporting that the U.S. did know ahead of Israel bombing those oil fields --
SENOR: I think it would be hard to -- it would be hard for Israel to have done what they did without the U.S. being fully in the loop. Whether the President knew or didn't know, I don't know, but I'm just saying there's no way something like of that complexity could have been done without the U.S.'s knowledge.
BASH: OK, so Iran's most successful counter-operation in this war is an economic one, making the Strait of Hormuz virtually impassable, leading to global oil price spikes. The President didn't get all that far with requests for help from allies. The U.K. has now sent a group of military planners to help come up with something to reopen the Strait.
You were the spokesperson for and senior adviser to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. Coalition being the key word here. Should this have been done on the front end?
SENOR: You know, I think it would have been very complicated. The majority of the military operations here and the intelligence operations are really being carried out by the U.S. and Israel. And the same will basically be the case in the Strait of Hormuz.
So, in order to have built a broad -- keep in mind that with the lead- up to the Iraq war, as you remember, Dana, there was no surprise effect, right? The U.S. had gone to the U.S. -- U.N. Security Council. There was this buildup. We not only moved the comparable naval and air assets that the U.S. now has in the Middle East, but we moved almost a quarter of a million troops. It was months and months and months.
[12:55:14] So there was no surprise. There's no question that what we saw at the end of February when this war started was one big surprise and the element of surprise to the point that the Iranian leadership still -- from what we understand from reporting, they were not certain, including up until the morning that they all met those 40 top officials in person, no Zoom for them, that the U.S. and Israel were going to conduct this military operation.
So, of course, there's always trade-offs when you don't broaden the coalition. But given the surprise impact they wanted to start this war -- and I -- while there's clearly setbacks and twists and turns like what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz, by and large, the progress is extraordinary. And I think a big reason for the progress and the success is the element of surprise, which means you're informing and hopefully recruiting allies once the -- while the plane is in the air rather than before it takes off.
BASH: You know, Israel wants to change the Iranian regime. They're very clear about that. There is a new supreme leader who is purportedly even more hard line than his father. On your podcast, your great podcast, "Call Me Back", your experts and reporters this week were saying that Israel is hoping to weaken the Iranian regime enough to create conditions for a new government. How is that even remotely possible when the opposition has no guns and no money?
SENOR: Well, the key is before the opposition have -- has guns and funds is they need communications, internal, intracountry communications. They need internet access. The internet is all but shut down in most of Iran. So the average Iranian citizen can't communicate with the other average Iranian citizen if they want to start organizing, a.
B, you'll recall earlier this year the protest movement was methodically shut down. Over 30,000 Iranians, to our understanding, at least, were slaughtered in that repression. And the principal tool, the principal instrument of Iranian repression is the Basij military force domestic. It's like it's domestic militia.
Obviously, the IRGC, while it's more focused in the region, also does a lot in the -- in suppressing domestic revolts. And what Israel and the U.S. are doing right now, that's what my guests mean when they refer to the conditions. They are -- especially now you see them taking out both the personnel, the senior leadership of the Basij and the IRGC and taking out their assets, their facilities, their headquarters.
So, at some point, it's not to say that the leadership of Iran isn't going to become more strident, they might. It's not to say --
BASH: Yes.
SENOR: -- they're not become more dug in. They might. But what they will be is weaker. They will be more brittle. And as we've seen in the history of uprisings around the world, it's very hard to predict the timing and kind of get the flywheel right, really. You just look at the CIA, it's consistently missed these things with no fault of their own.
But when the public believes that it's worth taking the risk because the principal tools of repression within the country look wobbly, that's often when there's action. And so I think what the U.S. and Israel is doing right now in that sense is very important.
BASH: Yes. Dan Senor, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.
SENOR: Good to be with you. Thanks, Dana.
BASH: Thank you. And be sure to join me tonight for a special CNN Town Hall, "The War with Iran." I'm going to moderate a conversation with U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, alongside a panel of experts. They're going to take questions from a live studio audience hearing directly from Americans on the impact of this conflict. That's tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern only on CNN.
And then join me Sunday morning for CNN's State of the Union. I'll be talking to House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Leiter. That's 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon on CNN on Sunday.
Thanks for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.
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