Six soldiers killed in Kuwait, and Vance's offer to talk offline | The Receipts - media kit | The Receipts - Dataspheres AI

Joey Amor got an offer to talk offline. We play the tape and check it against the record: the Klinner widow, a death count that is now 23, and promises no ...

Joey Amor got an offer to talk offline. We play the tape and check it against the record: the Klinner widow, a death count that is now 23, and promises no public record shows were kept. Watch Six soldiers killed in Kuwait, and Vance's offer to talk offline (18 min), with captions The stories Joey Amor asks the vice president That is Joey Amor. His wife, Master Sgt. Nicole Amor, was killed by an Iranian drone in Kuwait on March 1, the first day U.S. service members were killed in this war. He stood up at a CBS News town hall in Michigan, moderated by Tony Dokoupil, and asked the vice president a question. A Gold Star husband asked the vice president a direct question. The other side He said the drone was the weapon, but a lot of fundamental failures led up to it, and that other soldiers know things they are keeping quiet about. His question was simple: how will this administration hold those leaders accountable? He asked who will be held accountable for failures before the strike. Vance: "continue this conversation offline" Vance said he wanted to continue the conversation offline. And he said it was literally the first time he had heard of the failures. Hold on to that line. Vance: "you live in a bit of a bubble" Then the explanation: the job is a bubble, and sometimes information does not filter up to him. He promised to take every single failure extremely seriously. Vance blamed the bubble of the job. Vance: "a huge mistake" But in the same answer, Vance said where the troops were located was a huge mistake, and that it has been changed. So he knew about the basing problem. The question is what else he knew. In memory: the six soldiers killed March 1 We remember the six soldiers killed at Port Shuaiba. Master Sgt. Nicole Amor, Capt. Cody Khork, Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens. Sgt. Declan Coady, Maj. Jeffrey O'Brien and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan. More than 30 others were seriously wounded. Six soldiers died in the deadliest single attack of the war. A survivor describes the strike That was Hicks, a reservist who survived, speaking to KSTP in Minneapolis nine days after the strike. Nicole Amor was five feet from him. The site was a trailer behind concrete walls with a thin metal roof. Troops had gone back to their posts after an all clear. Survivors described a site with no protection. In the headlines This was not hidden. The Associated Press reported the soldiers' and families' questions in early October. And Military.com covered the Klinner widow's statement in September. The failures and the promises were in the national press. What was public before Oct. 17 So was this really the first he had heard? On March 5, CBS reported the site had no drone defenses and no overhead cover. On March 7, Vance attended the Dover transfer of these six soldiers. On April 29, a congressman read the missing defenses to Hegseth on camera. And on Oct. 5, the AP reported officers had warned against the move, 12 days before the town hall. The failures were public for months. Ryan to Hegseth: "do you know who said that?" That is Rep. Pat Ryan, an Iraq veteran, reading a soldier's account of the strike to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Asked who said it, the secretary said he was not sure he knew. Ryan: "no counter drone capabilities" Ryan listed it: no counter-drone systems, no counter-rocket systems, not even basic overhead protection. And a survivor told CBS that saying one drone squeaked through was a falsehood. That hearing was public in April. The missing defenses were read into the record in April. Hegseth: "front-page news" Three days after the strike, Hegseth complained that tragic events become front-page news. He said the press only wants to make the president look bad. It is the same pattern: the defense secretary blamed the coverage, not the failures. Collins to Vance: the Klinner widow This is not the only time. On Sept. 3, CNN's Kaitlan Collins asked Vance about the widow of Maj. Alex Klinner, an airman killed in the war. Vance asked her name, and asked Collins for the widow's private contact information. Vance: "we will certainly work that on the back end" Maj. Klinner died March 12, when a refueling plane went down in western Iraq. He left three young children. Vance promised the White House would work it on the back end. Vance promised a private follow-up. What happened to that promise The next day, the Air Force said Libby Klinner's benefits had been paid, and she said a review confirmed them. No public record shows anyone from the White House ever contacted her. Trump: "small potatoes" The next day, the president called the war small potatoes. He said 18 people had died. Eighteen was the official count then. It did not stay there. A reporter: "doesn't feel like small potatoes" A reporter pushed back: 18 service members dead does not feel like small potatoes. The president answered that what matters is that Ir