Latest / Pod Save America / Trump Says War Is Over, Vows to Keep Fighting

Transcript

Trump Says War Is Over, Vows to Keep Fighting · Pod Save America

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: On today's show, we'll talk about the latest with Trump's
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: war in Iran, which, according to him, is both almost
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: over and just getting started.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Great.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: We'll also talk about D.C. 's giddiest warmonger, Lindsey Graham,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: the MAGA media stars who are feeling betrayed by Trump,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and why some Democrats still haven't ruled out funding this war.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: We've got some post-gnome DHS news to cover, a new
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: war profiteering venture from the Trump kids, and then Congressman
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Pat Ryan talks to Tommy about all this maddening news
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: from the perspective of someone who's actually fought a war
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: in the Middle East. Also, before we start, please consider
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: becoming a Crooked subscriber if you enjoy what we do here.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Friend of the Pod subscribers get our new extra episode
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: of Pod Save America called Pod Save America Only Friends.
• 1:05
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• 1:08
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• 1:11
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• 1:15
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• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the only independent pro-democracy media outlets that The Ellisons haven't
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: bought yet.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: You know what we don't do over here?
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: What don't we do, Tommy?
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: We don't book Lindsey Graham on our shows.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: No, we don't.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: You're right.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Unless he wants to come on.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, we probably would have mom jerk.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Himself off to talk about invading Cuba or whatever.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want him to do that on
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: our shows, but.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: I think we give him a tougher time than Maria Bartiromo.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Cricket.com slash friends. Go subscribe today. All right. We are
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: on week two of Trump and Netanyahu's war in Iran
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: that's left nearly 1,500 dead, including hundreds of children and
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: now seven Americans. set off a global energy crisis and
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: brought to power the late Ayatollah's son, a hardliner who
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: may be even more extreme than his father. Iran continues
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: to launch retaliatory strikes across the Middle East and may
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: be activating sleeper cells around the world, according to ABC News.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: The Daily Mail also reported that the White House is
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: blocking our intel agencies from warning local law enforcement that
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Trump's war has led to an elevated threat of terrorist
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: attacks here in the U.S. Trump, he doesn't seem too
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: concerned about any of this. and has reportedly expressed interest
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: in deploying ground troops to Iran, according to NBC. Then
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: on Monday, he had more of a mission accomplished vibe.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Sure did.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: In a pair of appearances in front of House Republicans
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: and at a press conference at his club in Doral, Florida.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: We took a little excursion because we felt we had
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: to do that to get rid of some evil.
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: And I think you'll see it's going to be a
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: short term excursion.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Short term.
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: Short term. We had leaders, and they're gone. Then we
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: had new leaders, and they're gone.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: And now nobody has any idea who the people are
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: that are going to be the head of the country.
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: We've already won in many ways, but we haven't won enough.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: That's what a quote.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Hasn't won enough. And he was asked about that quote
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: and other statements at a press conference immediately following the event.
• 3:09
  Speaker 6: We're achieving major strides toward completing our military objectives.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: And some people could say they're pretty well complete.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: You've said the war is, quote, very complete. But your
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: defense secretary says this is just the beginning. So which
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: is it? And how long should Americans be prepared for this.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: War to last?
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Well, I think you could say both.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: We could call it a tremendous success right now as
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: we leave here, I could call it.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Or we could go further. And we're going to go further.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Clear as day. What are we doing?
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Then later he's asked, like, is it going to be
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: over this week? And he's like, no, but it'll be
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: over soon.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Soon. Very soon.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: Two weeks. He was asked, how can it both be
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: only just beginning and almost over? And he's like, in
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: a way, both are true.
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's really, it's gotten real meta here. He also
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: was like, you know, we could have done it. He's like, look,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: if we didn't, if they're like, they asked him to
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: define success. And he said, well, success, you know, the
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: mission's over when the next day they don't go back
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: to building nuclear weapons the next day. And then he said, look,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: we could have done this the easy way or the
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: hard way. And we did it the hard way. But
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I actually think the hard way is the easy way.
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: What?
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: What does that mean?
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: It was wild.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: It's just like clearly what happened today is he woke up.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: He saw the price of oil going through the roof.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: He saw the stock market getting spooked. And he was like,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: I got to say something to calm the waters here.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: But like, I don't know that that means it's actually
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: going to end the war sooner than later. Like the
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Israelis are going to have a say. The Iranians are
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: going to have a say. And by no objective measure
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: is mission accomplished.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Like there's 900 pounds of enriched nuclear material sitting in
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Iran that everybody says they're the most concerned about. Someone's
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: going to want to get their hands on that, whether
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: it's us or Israel. They still have a ballistic missile program.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: The Supreme Leader has been replaced by his more hardline son. Like,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I want this war to be over, right? This is
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: why it sucks to be a Democrat. I want the
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: war to stop right now, forever. But like, by no
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: means have we accomplished anything.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm sure the son of the Ayatollah will be
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: in a pretty conciliatory mood now that he's murdered his family.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:12
  Speaker 6: U.S.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Airstrikes killed his father, wife, mother, and son. So yes,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: I'm sure he'll be a big, they'll stop those death
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: to America chance now.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: And this guy is more hard line and he's close
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: with the revolutionary guards. And this is another thing. So
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: let's take a couple of these things at a time.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Number one, the new Ayatollah. Trump, a couple times today
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: now has said, we don't even know who their leadership
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: is anymore. We We killed off the first leadership, and
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the second round of leadership's gone, and they don't even
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: know who's running the country. And it seems pretty clear
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: that there is a new leader, Everon.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: And the president was never killed. It's the same president.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: It's President Bezeshkin.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: So I don't really know what's going on there. He's
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: just trying to make it seem like they– and they
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: asked him at the press conference as well, does the
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: new Ayatollah have a target on his back? And Trump
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: was very like, well, that would be inappropriate for me
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: to say that, which makes me think that something's probably
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: in the works already.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Wall Street Journal said he's– okay with killing
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: the new Supreme Leader. So there's that.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: And then you mentioned the enriched uranium. To the extent
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: that Trump has, there's been discussion about sending in ground troops.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: It seems like Trump has not envisioned a full-scale invasion,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: but it seems like he may want to, or he's
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: contemplating sending in special forces to get the uranium. Is that?
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: But again, I talked to Pat Ryan about this. We're
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: talking about 900 pounds of nuclear material that's buried under
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: a mountain that we bombed that you'd have to get
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: out of the country to hundreds of miles. So you're
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: putting this in your pockets and it's running away. No,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: and you have to put them in special containers so
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: you don't die. And so this is a serious operation.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: You probably have to send in like the 82nd Airborne
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: to secure airfields and things to be able to facilitate
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: this kind of transfer. So like it is an invasion.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: It is boots on the ground. I don't understand why
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: the media kind of like takes at face value these claims. Like, oh,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: it's not boots on the ground. It's like, yes, it is.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: What we just saw was the most bizarre, like We've
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: never ever seen a president talk so cavalierly and vaguely
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: and in ways that contradict itself about putting Americans in
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: harm's way. We've never seen anything like this. Never had
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: someone who seems to either not be able to retain
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: the information he's given, not want to retain these information
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: he's given, not be honest about what he knows and
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: what he doesn't know. We don't even right now, like
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: in the last, what, 48 hours, we've been told that
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: the goal is to, uh, destroy the Navy and the
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: missile program, but also the only acceptable outcome is unconditional surrender.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: We've been told that this isn't regime change, but people
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: should rise up and overthrow the regime. We're a week
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: in and we still don't, like, forget knowing why we
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: were doing this before. We don't know why They did
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: this after they did it. We still don't know. And
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: that was after the three of us, as part of
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: our jobs, watched the president talk about it for about
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: 90 minutes. We have no idea what we're talking about
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: coming into this studio. We watched the president of the
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: United States, the commander in chief, spend an hour and
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: a half talking about national security and national interest. And
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: we do not understand why we went to Iran, what
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: success in Iran looks like, how we get out of it,
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: what the goal is, any of it.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: That is madness.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: What we're dealing with is madness.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: It does seem like what they want to do. If you,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: you know, cause whenever you listen to Rubio, he tries
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: to be, you know, he's like Trump, not quite as
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: fucking stupid and crazy, maybe as crazy, not stupid. Um,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: but anyway, he, you know, you wonder if they'll say
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: at some point in the next week or two, we've
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: destroyed X number of ballistic missiles and the, and the
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: sites that build them. We've destroyed, you know, the Navy and, um,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: and we feel pretty good that the nuclear program has
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: been obliterated and blah, blah, blah. And then they just,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and then that's it. And then they say they're done.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: And then Iran has learned what happens if they pursue
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: a nuclear weapon, right? They like kind of some forward-looking threat.
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: And then someone says, well, then what about the Mediterranean?
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Are you going to go get that and whatever? And
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: then they just say, and then Trump does his usual, like,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not answering that question now.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: And what Iran will have learned is that until they
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: get a nuclear weapon, they will never be safe from
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: getting bombed by the US or Israel. That is going
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: to be the takeaway for a lot of states from this.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: We can destroy their missiles. We can destroy their launch sites.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: We can hit the factories. They will rebuild all of that.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: We can destroy their Navy. They'll rebuild that. I think
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: the takeaway will be tripling down on trying to get
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: a nuclear weapon.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Well, and nor will they ever enter into a negotiation
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: with the United States again, which they basically said today
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: as well, which every time the United States is like
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: under Trump is like, yeah, let's negotiate. We want a
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: peaceful end to this. Then they attack us in the
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: middle of the negotiation. So why would they ever negotiate?
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: So there's no more negotiations with the Iranians after this.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: There's just, I guess, bombing them again when we think
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: that they might start building another nuclear weapon or restarting
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the program.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: It's it just like people inside the trump administration to
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: consider why veto goes back to sicily that's all.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Uh one thing we've learned for sure is that we're
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: all going to be paying a lot more for gas
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: until who knows when uh the price of oil spiked
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: to around 100 a barrel over that then the price
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: of gas hit an average of 3.48 on monday And
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: then by the end of the day, the price had dropped.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: The market rallied. Although right before we started recording, it
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: went back over $ 90 a barrel again. So now it's
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: climbing back up after it went back down. More volatility,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: higher prices expected as long as the war continues and
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: who knows how long after. By the way, the war
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: is also costing us, taxpayers, about a billion dollars a day.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Trump said higher gas prices are, quote, a very small
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: price to pay for, quote, safety and peace. And if
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: you disagree with him, You are, in his words, a fool.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: That's a good quote.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I guess the White House just assumes the prices will
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: come down when the war is over and Americans will
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: forget this all by November. I don't know. What do
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: you guys think?
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: I don't know what they're thinking. I don't really understand
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: how they think or make their decisions. A billion dollars
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: a day is a lot of money.
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: People have been pointing out that just over the course
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: of the year, that's enough to insure 20 million Americans,
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: provide healthcare for 20 million Americans with enough left over
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: to buy Christine Ohm one sex plane per day. That's
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: how much money we're spending. That's a lot.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of sex.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, I just, like, I am
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: sure they are hoping that this settles down and the
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: oil prices come down and gas prices drop. come down
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: and there's not a long political hangover to what they've
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: done here, but they don't just need there to not
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: be a problem. They have a problem they need to
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: solve before this began, which is people don't believe they're
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: focused on bringing down the cost of living. In fact,
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: they've come to believe that Trump is doing the opposite
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: of helping this with tariffs and now with this. And
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: so they may not, like, I don't know what the
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: long-term political ramifications of this conflict will be. Nobody does
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: because we're not entirely in charge of when it ends.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: But at the very least, they made their huge midterm
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: problem worse.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they're probably managed to calm oil speculators
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: and future sales and traders in the near term. But like,
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: nothing is solved in the long term, right? I mean, again,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: we killed the new supreme leader's father, wife, mother and son,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: he's probably pretty pissed off, we killed half the IRGC,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: we don't really know who's going to be in charge
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: of the military. And so Iran has a say in this.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: And if they want to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed,
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: they can do so. If they want to keep firing
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: off weapons at the Saudis, they can do so. And ultimately,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: the producers in Iraq and Kuwait and other places They're
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: running out of places to store the oil. If they
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: have to fully stop pumping from the wells, it can
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: take a really long time to get the wells back
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: pumping again. And sometimes the wells never return to their
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: original form because they get stopped up with minerals and
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: shit and lose pressure and whatever else. And so maybe
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: he solved the problem, but we don't really know that.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Did you see the IRGC put out a statement saying
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: that any country can now use the Strait of Hormuz oil?
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: as long as they kick out their American and Israeli
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: ambassadors and European.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, guys.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: So that's happening. Also, I mean, the reason that prices
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: are spiking because of this is like a fifth of
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: the world's oil goes through the straight.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: But also the producers had to stop down. They had
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: to like, the Rockies shut off 70% of their production.
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: Also, and all of this is like, these are not one-to-one. Like,
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: it's not like the, The price of oil is not
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: set by the exact amount coming in and out of
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: the Strait of Hormuz. It's a prediction of what oil
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: will cost. It is based on people's expectations of the availability,
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: of the instability, of what the future might look like.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: And a world in which we're in an endless, kind
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: of quiet, on-again, off-again conflict in the Middle East is
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: not one in which people have confidence in the stability
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: of the system, all of which drives prices not just
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: for oil, but for other things like fertilizer and other
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: things up over time.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: You know, fuel costs for, uh, companies transporting food. So
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: food prices get hit. I mean, this is, and as
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: we have seen with the tariffs, these things take a
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: while to like fully work through the system. It's not
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: just like the price of gas this week. Um, when
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: you have supply shocks like that, like there's one economist, um,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: it was quite, I think in a time story that
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: said this, this administration is just a series of horrible
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: supply shocks, meaning the tariffs, immigration, labor supply for immigration,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: and now, uh, oil just, just Fucking up the economy.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Good stuff.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: And we are getting, you know, it is March. The
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: election is in November. But, you know, you start having
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: economic effects that pile up on each other and we
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: still have inflation anyway. People are struggling with higher prices
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: before this. You throw this on to the whole pile
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: and it's, I don't know. They're betting on a lot.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: They're betting on a lot. Or they just don't know
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: what the fuck they're doing. Or probably a little bit
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: of both. Trump's war is already quite unpopular with most
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Americans and a portion of his base, including a range
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: of high-profile right-wing media stars. Nick Fuentes and Alex Jones
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: had a conversation where they called the war a, quote,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: utter and complete betrayal and said that MAGA is dead.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly have been very critical. Even
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Laura Ingraham has been urging the administration to address the
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: strike on the Iranian girls' school. But the Republican who
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: apparently has Trump's ear on Iran is one of the
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: party's biggest warmongers, Lindsey Graham. who's been taking something of
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: a victory lap in the press. Graham bragged to the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal that he got briefings from Israeli intelligence
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: to help him make the case for war to Trump
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: and that he coached Netanyahu on how to persuade Trump
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: to go to war. Over the weekend, Graham unleashed his
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: war boner on Maria Bartiromo's show. Let's listen.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: Which is funny because not as tight. A billion dollars
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: a day.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Oil prices up 27% in a week. How are you
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: going to answer?
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Best money ever spent.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: When this regime goes down, we're going to have a
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: new Mideast.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: We're going to make a ton of money. Israel and
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: the United States, you just wait to see what comes
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: in the next two weeks.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: The next two weeks meaning what?
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: We're going to blow the hell out of these people. Phrasing.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: And then we're going to win this war. He also
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: at some point says.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: Iran's down, Cuba's next. He had some kind of a
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: hat on. He said that Trump is Reagan plus and
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: we're going to march across the world.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Getting rid of all the bad guys.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: Get rid of all the bad guys.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Unleash a glorious new future.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: How does Donald Trump care more about what Lindsey Graham
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and Bibi Netanyahu tell him than all these MAGA influencers
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: who he knows are closer to his voters?
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: The way Lindsey Graham described his conversations with Trump are
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: exactly what I thought they would be, which is, it's
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: an appeal to ego. You will be greater than Reagan.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: You will be Reagan plus. You will be whatever it
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: is he says. He says Reagan plus? Reagan plus, which is,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: I think, how you cook a steak, actually. Yeah, it's Reagan,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: but you also get Ted Lasso. Medium rare plus. The
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: coordination with the Israelis. And so I think, look, Trump
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: cares about his base to an extent, but he also
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: thinks they're stupid. And you always can go back to, like,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and they would
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: never abandon me part. And so I think, What he
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: cares most about right now is being a historic figure,
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: building monuments to himself, even if it's politically unpopular, the ballroom,
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: the Iran war, whatever else.
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: He doesn't have to face the voters again.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: He doesn't give shit.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: All he wants to do is for the rest of
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: his life, go to the Kennedy Center, the Trump Kennedy Center,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: when they rebuild it and with the fucking marble armrests
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: and go to the end and have people be like, oh,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, the greatest president in the history of the world,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: who's made the world safe for freedom and peace and
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: even if only like his sycophants are saying that that's
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: good enough for him and then he can feel good
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: about himself.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I also think he's learned.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because he doesn't have to face his voters anymore.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he's also learned from Soleimani. He learned
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: from the previous Iran strikes. I think he learned from
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: Venezuela that he can give the hawks what they want
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: without pissing off the base too much as long as
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: the conflicts end quickly and there aren't troops on the
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: ground and there's not too much economic consequence. That's why
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: I think to Tommy's point, why he's out there today
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: saying it's an excursion, which, by the way, again, is
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: a despicable word to use to describe something which, you know,
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: 175 kids were killed, among many others, among seven Americans,
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: to describe it as an excursion. We're just sort of,
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: the amount of glib and un-American language coming from him
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: as he describes this aside, he wants to get out
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: of this because he thinks he can give the Graham
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: people what they want without losing the people that he
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: needs who don't want American misadventures around the world.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, an excursion is when you go on a zip
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: line at Club Med.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's when you get on the tender to go
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: to St. Croix from the cruise ship. That's called an excursion.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: The White House propaganda machine has kicked into high gear
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: over the last week. They've been pumping out war porn
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: videos that cut together airstrike footage with clips from popular
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: movies and violent video games. They're also getting help from
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: the OG war propagandists at Fox.com. who dealt with the
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: criticism Trump got over the weekend for wearing a baseball
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: hat during the dignified transfer of fallen American soldiers by
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: simply showing old footage of Trump saluting different coffins with
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: no hat on. The move was so obvious that it
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: led to this rare apology from Fox. Before we move on,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: we want to acknowledge a mistake made earlier.
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: On our program.
• 19:51
  Speaker 7: During our coverage of yesterday's dignified transfer, we inadvertently aired
• 19:54
  Speaker 7: video from an older dignified transfer instead of the ceremony
• 19:58
  Speaker 7: that took place yesterday. We deeply regret the error and
• 20:01
  Speaker 7: extend our respect and condolences to the service members' families.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: I don't believe him. There's no way– how do you
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: make– how is it possible to make that mistake?
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: You have to go find it. You have to go
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: find the footage.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: The tape came in that day. Yeah, you have to
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: go find the old footage. Like, it's so clearly– everyone
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: was talking about him wearing the hat.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: And how embarrassing and wrong it was for him to
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: be wearing a USA hat at such a– like a
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: somber place.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Like, I both don't understand– I think they're lying, but
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: I also don't understand how they think they could get
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: away with that.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know what I mean? I'm– My take is
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised that they apologized.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, same.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: It's very unusual. Because I didn't even think, like, yeah,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: he's a jackass for wearing the hat. He's a jackass
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: for a million other fucking things. That's, like, at the
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: bottom of my list.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: The problem is he's the guy that would wear the hat,
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: not that he wore the hat. The guy that wears
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: the hat is the problem.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: What do you make of the propaganda strategy so far?
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I think what enraged me more than the hat, these
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: fucking White House videos that they're putting out, they're just like,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: you know, they got Tom Cruise and Top Gun and
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: all this other bullshit in the video games. And it's like,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: it's fucking war. What are you doing?
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: I talked to Pat Ryan about this. He said like
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: he had from a lot of his veteran buddies, this
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: is one of the things he's heard about the most
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: is how offensive and gross it is. Like meme-ify or
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: gamify war. It's just wrong. I mean, I think it's
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: interesting to me that big chunks of MAGA have genuinely
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: moved on national security stuff. Like it's not just Tucker
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Carlson opposing the war because of Israel. It's like Megyn Kelly,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: as you mentioned, it's daily wire people. It's Charlie Kirk
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: used to talk about his opposition to the war in
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Iran and And then there's the fringy types like Alex
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Jones and Nick Fuentes and stuff. But at Fox News,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: it is 2004 every single day. It is 100% pure, uncut,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: pro-war propaganda. It's Fox and Friends. It's like Brian Kilmeade
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: this morning was essentially calling oil tankers who won't go
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: through the Strait of Hormuz pussies.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: You catch that?
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: That was interesting. And there's Mark Levin, just like pure,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: hardcore regime change guy.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: And so Lindsey Graham going on Sean Hannity tonight, of course,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: to keep up the fucking media tour.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Why not? And so the White House is like trying
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: to meme its way through the war. It's like SpongeBob.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: It's video games. I actually don't think it's working with
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: the audience they needed to work with, which is these
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: young men who are in that world. And like normally
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: that's how you'd appeal to them. But they were like,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: this is gross. It's a war.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: I would bet, too, that Fox News's audience being old
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: looks more like those old kind of old school Republicans
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: that would like this kind of chest thumping thing. stuff
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: as opposed to the younger generation that is actually more
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: online and consuming people that are more isolationist. Yeah, the
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: propaganda video, somebody said this about Quentin Tarantino once that
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: always stuck with me, which is that he makes movies
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: that glorify violence from the point of view of someone
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: who's never experienced violence. And that's what you feel when
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: you see these videos, when you try to turn it
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: into a game. It's not a game. It's really serious.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: And it's why in previous administrations, you would never have
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: anyone do anything like this. Because even if the people
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: that are in charge of the media, the PR strategy,
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: social media, what have you, haven't served themselves. They would,
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: at the very least, have some sort of respect or
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: humility on behalf of those who do because they would
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: understand how high the stakes are. But that's not what
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: you get with these people. Honestly, these videos, to me,
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: forget the hat, the videos, Pete Hegseth saying that the
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: media are putting the deaths of Americans on the front
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: page because they want to make Donald Trump look bad,
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: to me, throughout all this, is, for me, the most
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: despicable thing And revealing statement anyone has made because, hey, man,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: it's not all about you. It's not your Pentagon. It's
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: not Donald Trump's Pentagon.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: It's like he's trying to protect Donald Trump of all people.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: It's not even about Pete Hegseth. You're fucking debasing yourself
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and dishonoring the memory of these Americans who gave their
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: lives so that you can protect Donald Trump's fucking political reputation.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: What are you doing?
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Like Hegseth fought in wars. He had friends who died.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: The fact that he would say that to us is like,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: what happened to you?
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Here's a Lindsey Graham. I'm like, why doesn't someone
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: drop Lindsey Graham off in fucking Iran and he can
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: go get the enriched uranium and bring it back? Or
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: fucking Brian Kilmeade can jump on a ship and try
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: to go through the Strait of Hormuz.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: I don't understand why the people on these tankers aren't
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: willing to die to keep the price of crude.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: A little bit lower.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: Shame on them, the pussies.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's talk about the Democratic response to this
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: very dangerous and unpopular war. Chris Murphy's calling on Senate
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Dems to block everything they can until Senate Republicans agree
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: to a vote authorizing Trump to wage war. Then there's
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: the funding angle. The administration is expected to ask Congress
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: for another $ 50 billion, with a B, to fund this war.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: And what's even more infuriating is that some Democrats are
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: still open to supporting that request. Senator Chris Coons of
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Delaware said outright that he would support it, saying he
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: wants more information from the White House, too, and presumably...
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: John Fetterman and some of the more centrist House members
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: may say yes as well. Even Hakeem Jeffries won't rule
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: it out. He said on Meet the Press Sunday that
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Trump would have a, quote, difficult case to make, but that, quote,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Tommy,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: would you like to tee off on this one?
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just my message to Democrats is if you
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: oppose the war in Iran, you have to oppose funding.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: And if you try to split the baby, you look
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: like you either believe in nothing or you are too
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: cowardly to vote your conscience. because first of all, the
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Pentagon's 2026 budget is nearly a trillion dollars. They don't
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: need more money. They're good. They're good. Also, this is second,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: like this is not the Iraq war fights from 2004
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: to 2007, where you had Democrats who voted for the war,
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: then trying to argue that they're going to vote against
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: the supplemental, right? I can understand that was tough politics.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: It's also not a situation where you have, you know,
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: a bunch of Marines at a Ford base in Iran
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: on the ground who might not get an MRAP if
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: we don't vote for this funding. This is, we're talking
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: about a military campaign built on lies with no clear
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: strategy or objectives that Trump, as we just heard, could
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: end like that, right? And so if you vote to
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: give more money to Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth to
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: extend this war, I think you'd have your fucking head examined.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: It's like, you are an idiot.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: And it's also bad politics. Like Americans already don't support
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: the war. There's a new poll today, 53% opposed to
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: the war, 74% opposed sending ground troops into Iran. This
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: was the number that really jumped out at me.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: 77% of voters opposed.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Think it's very or somewhat likely there will be a
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: terrorist attack on U.S. soil in response to the Iran war.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Those numbers are not going to get better as this
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: thing drags on. Oppose the war on the merits and
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: vote against funding. Do not try to do both. You
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: look ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: If the president can start a war lawlessly without Congress
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: and then Congress feels obligated to fund it on the
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: back end as if it had been approved. We don't
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: really need a Congress after that.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: You could just shut the whole place down.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Also, Coons said that he said, well, I'm going to
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: support the troops. You know, I have I have questions,
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: but I'm going to support the troops. I can't think
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: of a like it is not supporting the troops to
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: embolden and enable Donald Trump and how he's running this military.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: I don't know how anybody who has just watched how
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump just described this military campaign and can think
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: it is supporting our troops to to fund it. to
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: provide tacit approval for what he had done as if
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: you had approved it in the first place. What about
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: the next conflict? And the one after that? And the
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: one after that? If we don't have a Congress that's
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: willing to say, or at least on a Democratic side,
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: because we don't know how, they may need Democratic votes
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: to do this, that says Congress has the authority to
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: declare war, that Congress is going to reassert that prerogative.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: If we don't have that, then what about the people
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: killed in the next conflict? They're already talking about Cuba.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: There are other places Donald Trump would like to bomb.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying there aren't, like, there's no, there are
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: trade-offs in any decision. I can all hear the arguments, like,
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: however it began, we have to fund the military, we
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: have vulnerabilities elsewhere, it's hurting our interests elsewhere. There's no
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: good outcome when Donald Trump is president. You can either
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: do the hard thing now and try to rein Donald
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: Trump in now, or you can borrow against the future
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: and push that problem down the line where it only
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: gets worse and it only gets harder. Like, it is
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: so obvious to me that the right thing to do
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: here is to say no more and to draw a
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: line and to hold as many people to that line
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: as possible.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: It has nothing to do with the troops. No one
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: thinks that voting against this funding bill is going to
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: somehow lead to someone flying a plane over Tehran and
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: then all of a sudden the fuel runs out.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: They run out of gas.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so the plane crashes because the fuel ran
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: out because no one supported the troops. That's what we're
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: talking about. We're talking about $ 50 billion. Do you want
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: to spend your tax dollars buying more bombs— And more
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: missiles that may hit another girl's school in Iran or,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: you know, be hit Iran and then used another retaliation
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: against American troops. Or do you want to spend the
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: money at home? That's it. That's all. That's the only question.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know what other what are you thinking if
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: you're a Democrat?
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: It's crazy. By the way, his claim on the Tomahawk missiles,
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: the idea that the Iranians could have got a hold
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: of one because we sell them to other countries. Is
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: he suggesting the Iranians like stole a Tomahawk? I think
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: it's the UK and the Australians are the only other
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: countries that have them.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: This is what Sean McCree's reporter asked him at the
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: press conference. It's like, are you saying that they stole it?
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: And he was like, we're investigating it. We're investigating it.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: So that's all I'm saying.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Dan Cain put up a map, the chairman of the
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Joint Chiefs, that had a marking on it of U.S.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: airstrikes that included the town where this girl's school was hit.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: There's no question.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Clearly it was the U.S. It was the U.S.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Munition. Unbelievable.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: But then Trump was like, well, I'll accept whatever the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: report says. Which is good because you know that he's
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: thinking to himself like, well, if it says that we
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: hit it, then we hit it. Then I'm just going
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: to say that's what happens in war. People die. Mistakes happen.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: Just even here... there is just, we've kind of left
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: reality behind. I remember when in Bosnia, the U.S. inadvertently
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: had bombed a Chinese consulate or Chinese building in Belgrade.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: I believe three people died.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: It was a huge deal.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: It was a massive, massive scandal that went on for
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: a long time. How did it happen? How did they
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: make this mistake? Who was responsible? What were the repercussions?
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: We're talking about a military conflict that was not debated
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: in this country. The goals are unclear where it seems
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: as though the U.S. killed 175 people, most of whom
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: were children. And the president is riffing about how maybe
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: the Iranians did it to themselves based on nothing. The
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: idea that anybody could be the only thing to do.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: is to put a leash on Donald Trump. Any ways
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: that Congress can put a leash on Donald Trump, whatever
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: it may be, whatever the cost, is what we have
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: to do. We're not getting through this without there being, like,
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: one way or another, America's going to have a lot
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: of negative consequences for Donald Trump being president. The question is,
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: do we want those to come from Donald Trump fighting
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: wars abroad and his misadventures, or do we want it
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: to come from the political fights we have to have
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: domestically now to rein him in?
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Trump's war against people who live in
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: this country, which continues full speed ahead, even though Kristi
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Noem and Corey Lewandowski got shit-canned. The Wall Street Journal
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: ran a must-read investigation over the weekend about how the
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: government has been assaulting and arresting American citizens for peacefully
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: exercising their constitutional rights to free speech in assembly and
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: then falsely smearing them as violent agitators and terrorists. From
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: the journal, quote, of the 279 people accused by government
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: officials on X, of attacking federal officers in the past year,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: 181 were U.S.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Citizens.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Close to half were never charged with an assault. None
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: have been convicted of trial. ICE also just arrested a
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: couple days ago a Nashville journalist who had been reporting
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: on ICE for a Spanish-language news outlet. Estefania Rodriguez-Flores is
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: married to an American citizen, has no criminal record, a
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: work permit, and a pending green card application, but they
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: grabbed her after she and her husband said goodbye to
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: their daughter when she was on her way to school. So, Noam, Lewandowski,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Bovino are all gone. Minneapolis has faded from the headlines.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: It seems like ICE hasn't been as noisy about their
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: raids and arrests. But I worry that, like, nothing has
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: really changed at all in terms of how they're carrying
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: out mass deportations. Maybe they're a little quieter now. Maybe
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: they're not doing as much, you know, deportation porn videos
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: from DHS now. But still happening. What do you guys think?
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Kristi Noem is gone. Greg Bovino was demoted.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Is he back in California or something?
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: I think so, yeah. Still tweeting.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: The brutality is less on display, but I think in
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: practice that means maybe the tactics have changed, but the
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: strategy hasn't. The strategy is still being driven by Stephen
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Miller out of the White House. Trump's base still wants
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: more deportations. They like the harsh policy. And I think, like, ultimately, like,
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: the lesson is fascism will always come for all of us.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: It's not just going to be the immigrants. It's always
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: going to come for American citizens in this way. Good
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: example of it, this story.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's one example in the story. This woman, Sidney
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: Laurie Reed, she was recording outside of a jail and
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: she was accused of assaulting an officer. She had caught
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: it on video and her phone kept recording in her
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: pocket after, so there's a lot of evidence. Because of that,
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: it was just clear as day that this was a
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: ridiculous charge. Nevertheless, they went to three grand juries. Three
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: grand juries to bring a felony charge. That didn't work.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: A felony assault charge. Then they went back at her
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: with a reduced charge of a misdemeanor, took that to trial,
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: and she was acquitted. Whether or not they believe they
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: had any case, it is clear they were using the
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: process to torture this person for the audacity of filming
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: them as they were transferring people out.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: Of this jail.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: And first of all, she pointed out that if she
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: didn't have the video, she would 100% be in jail herself.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: And because her phone was still recording... It has her
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: kind of bravely kind of talking to the officer that
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: grabbed her. And what the officer said is something like,
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: people can't mind their own business. And she says, I mean,
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: isn't that what makes America great? And he responds, removal
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: of criminals out of this country, that's what makes America great.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you get this in the whole piece. Like,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: all these officers clearly have been trained to, you know,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: arrest anyone. You can arrest as many people as you
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: want who even touch you. That's what Bovino says directly.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Bovino says that to them. ICE agents telling protesters, you
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: should have stayed home, you should have minded your own business,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: you should have all done this. Like, they are being
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: trained to go after anyone who, forget about like, some
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: people might imagine when you hear these stories, like protesters
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: in the streets screaming at ICE agents, which they can do.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: But also, this is just people holding up their phones,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: quietly recording. And they're going, Alex Pretty. Alex Pretty. And
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: they're tailing them, and they're following them, and they're threatening them.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: The ICE officers are these people. They're arresting them. They're
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: trying to scare them at any rate. Like, we only
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: know about the situations where DHS and ICE is blatantly
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: lying because it's on video. And even with all that,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: even with just those situations, they're lying a ton of times.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: So imagine all the situations out there where there's no video,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: which just has to happen a lot.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: Well, even just where Bovino says, like, if somebody touches you. Like,
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: we're all now, I think, we see videos all the
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: time on our phone of, like, sort of It's the
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: algorithmically like riling each other up of like two people
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: arguing at a store or something. And somebody have the
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: phone in somebody's face and then somebody like swat at
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: the phone or hit. And they'll always say the same thing.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: You touch me. You touch me.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: That's assault.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: You touch me.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: That's assault. And that's just.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: Internet narc behavior. But like law enforcement. No, if somebody.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: Like one example from the piece had somebody had been
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: knocked over by an agent as the agent was going
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: to lift him up. He like swatted his hand away.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: They try to get this 71 year old man, 71
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: year old veteran. They try to get him for assault.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: That's not assault. That's just not what it is. And no,
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: like if somebody touches you, like there's supposed to be
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: some amount of like forbearance for understanding that like, no,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: we're not going to just grab anyone who brushes by
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: you off the street. That's not what a government, a
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: civil society does.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: It's also pretty obvious that they grabbed that reporter. Stephanie
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: in Nashville because she had been reporting on ICE and
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: she'd been reporting on all their arrests and they had
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: been following her for some time, her and her husband.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: And the idea that the government would detain her family
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: and lawyers say without a warrant, they're now making up
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: the fact that there was a warrant, but detain someone,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: take them away with who has a work permit, who's
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: in the process of getting a green card, who's married
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: to a US citizen. Just they did it because they
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: can and because they're pissed and they're like, oh, well,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: this journalist who's writing shitty stories about us, at least
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: she's technically not a citizen, so we can go grab her.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: I remember how this all started. It was like people
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: here on student visas getting arrested for writing op-eds in
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: favor of Palestinian rights. This is a natural progression that
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: should worry all of us.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, Mark Wayne Mullen, who will be the next,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: or who's been nominated to be the next DHS secretary,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: the hearing for him will now be Thursday the 18th,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: a week from this Thursday. And I just hope that...
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Democrats come ready with like a couple points that they
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: want to make and really hammer home and make this
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: tough for him. And like, I think, you know, there's,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: he's probably going to get enough votes. I'm sure if
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: all the Republicans join in, but make it difficult and
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: use it as an opportunity to highlight the abuses that
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: are very much still going on at DHS.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: Worth pointing out that the person that will chair that
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: hearing is Rand Paul, who is no fan of Mullen
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: and Mullen is no fan of his. And Rand Paul
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: has some genuine and sincere ideological beliefs. He actually like
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: made this point about the Iran war that, that, like saying,
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: this is a Congress without ambition. This is a Congress
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: without a belief structure in defending legislative prerogatives. And I
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: hope that he brings, because that applies here too, right? That, that,
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: that the failure to hold the administration accountable for just
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: lying through their teeth about assaults on civil liberties. Like
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: that's why Congress exists too.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: There's some suggestion that he's going to sail through because usually,
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: you know, senators like other senators and confirm comedy. Like
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: he might be a good guy.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: I don't care. Just please ask hard questions about the
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: policy for God's sake and just push him on stuff. Like,
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: and I'll, Give like one minute speeches. Just don't use
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: your whole time grandstanding. Ask tough questions, pin them down,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: get them to make commitments. Like, let's do this.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: Because there are gluttons for punishment, House Republicans held their
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: annual retreat in Florida so they could listen to Trump today.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Get some in-person advice from the man who's going to
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: cost many of them their seats. Trump spoke today at
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: a moment when Republicans are trailing Democrats in the generic
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: ballot by five or six points. The party is desperate
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: for anything they can point to that would convince voters
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: they care about affordability concerns. They are reportedly considering another
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: budget bill with some goodies in it, though Punchbowl says
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: they have no idea what to include or how to
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: pay for it. Off to a good start. Trump's also
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: making their lives even more difficult by promising he won't
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: sign any bills until the Save America Act gets to
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: his desk. Hammered that home today a couple different times,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: even though Senate Republicans just don't have the votes to
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: pass it at all. What options do Republicans realistically have
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: to get out of this hole?
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: They could extend ACA subsidies and reduce health care prices
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: and tax the rich and figure out ways to provide
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: services to poor people, the actual working class populism. I
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: think they'll go for voter suppression. I don't really think
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: they have a lot of options. We don't know what's
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: going to happen, but like, they don't, I think they
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: have a lot of like proactive options besides trying to
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: keep people from voting.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Trump, Trump said this to them where if, uh, if,
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: if they pass the save act, we'll win. That's the
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: only big, like, that's how we win. We win by passing,
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: but that's not why we're doing it. But if we
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: pass the save act, we'll win. Uh, and if we don't,
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know what will happen.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: They really are. Um, not sure what to do. You,
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: you hear them also saying, well, we just got to
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: figure out how to sell the big, beautiful bill from
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: last year. Better. which is always the.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: We've been there.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: You can't sell the bill from last year better.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: It's already been sold. Biden era concern.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Well, you don't feel the difference in your own life
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: that things are better? Well, let a politician tell you
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: that they are. That'll do it.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: In a couple months, Trump's going to be like, I'm
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: the guy who didn't undo August. It's a deep cut
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: for the nerds in the audience.
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: The other part of this is they don't just have
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: the votes to do a lot of... to do really
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: much of anything because this is not a... The House...
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: Freedom Caucus is not going to spend money without pay-fors.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: That's really difficult. There's this idea that they're going to
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: grab all the stuff they couldn't pass through the one big,
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: beautiful bill and pass it now. But it's got harder
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: to pass things, not easier to pass things. They could
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: try to do some kind of reconciliation thing. But again,
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: I don't think they have the votes to do that,
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: especially when they're about to be asked to send $ 50
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: billion to the Iran project. And I actually think they
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: have a lot of House Republicans that won't really want
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: that either. So they really don't have a lot that
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: they can do.
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Zero.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: That's what they're going to get done, I think, this year.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: I think they will get absolutely nothing passed. Save America
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Act won't get passed. Thune, you know, last time we
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: talked about this, I think they had been floating like
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: a talking filibuster, making the Democrats talk the whole time
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: and filibuster that way on the floor in order to
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: like tire them down and get around the filibuster that way.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Thune today was like, no, that's not going to work.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: I've studied it just like the Democrats studied it with
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. It just doesn't really
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: make that much of a difference. It's not happening. They're
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: not passing the Save America Act. They're not going to
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: get a reconciliation bill done because they barely have any
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: majority in the House. They have a bunch of right
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: wingers who are not going to fucking vote for more spending.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: We're going to want a bunch of other shit themselves.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Democrats aren't going to offer any votes to pass anything
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: like I think these people are just going to fucking
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: sit around and hope that, you know, Daddy Trump. like
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: does a bunch of EOs and sends out tariff refunds
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: or whatever. I don't know what the fuck they think.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: And he doesn't care about their political future. He's a
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: selfish prick. He wants to make money off of crypto.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: He doesn't want to get impeached. Get praised and launch
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: wars from his, you know, country club. And so sure,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: maybe he'll annex Cuba and that'll like solve our economic problems.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: But I don't see anything going through Congress.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny. The threat too, look, the threat felt hollow.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: Like it's kind of threat he makes and gets himself
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: out of it in two weeks. But the truth is,
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: it's like, what are they going to pass without the threat? Nothing.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: They can't do anything. So it's like, oh, you're not
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: going to pass any bills until I, until I remove
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: this threat. Okay. I've removed the threat. You're still not
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: going to have any fucking bills.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: But he doesn't, it is funny.
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: He doesn't, he, on one hand, he doesn't care at
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: all about them individually and what happens to them, but
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: he really doesn't want to lose the election because he
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to get impeached.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: He doesn't like losing ever, but yeah.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Most presidents wouldn't want to lose the midterm because they
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: would want to pass more legislation.
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: No.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: For him, I think it's all personal. He wants to,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: He wants to abuse his power unchecked, which is why
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: we got to win the house back. Also, a good
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: time to bring up a very important new initiative at
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Vote Save America called Project 218. Who wants to talk
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: about Project 218? Very secret.
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: Project 218.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Not anymore.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: It is Vote Save America's campaign to win the house.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: We are asking everybody to sign up for Vote Save
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: America and to get five friends, family members, colleagues, coworkers, enemies, whoever,
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: to sign up for Vote Save America. In 2018, when
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: we started Vote Save America, we were part of that
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: effort to win the House and we flipped, it was
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: like 40 seats. This is our chance to win the
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: House again. And so we need to get to 218
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: seats in the House. We can do it if everybody
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: gets involved. We won't spam you. We won't send you
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: endless texts. This is a way to figure out how
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: to be the most effective going into these midterms from
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: a team that's going to only tell you the best
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: ways to get involved, to donate, to volunteer, to use
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: your time wisely, and to get your friends to do
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: the same.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Sign up. Sign up at, go to votesaveamerica.com. Check it out. And,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: you know, get your friends to sign up, too, because
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: it's March. You know, November's going to be here before
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: you know it. And you'll lose a lot. The Democrats
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: on the ground in all these races could use a
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: lot of help, and they are expanding the map. But,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: you know, these things are still going to be close.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: And so it's going to be really important.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: Plus, you don't know how many of the old ones
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: are going to die between now and then.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: And you want to get ahead of that. You want
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: to get ahead of that for sure.
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: All right. Last thing before we get to Tommy's interview
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: with Congressman Pat Ryan. Don Jr. and Eric Trump continue
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: to find ways to cash in on their dad's presidency.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the brothers
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: are backing a new venture that's planning to sell drones
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: to the Pentagon, which, because of their father, can no
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: longer buy any foreign-made drones. And so we're going to
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: need more American drones. So into the void step Don
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: and Eric. The specifics are that a company called Power
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Us that buys smaller drone makers is merging with a
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: golf course company controlled by the Trumps. I read the
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: whole piece. I still don't know why that is.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: It's basically a spec. Basically, you merge with a public
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: listed company so that you're on the exchanges and you
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: can raise capital by selling shares without going through like
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: the formal process. It's like a SPAC, but you didn't
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: raise money to purchase stuff with the SPAC. It's crazy.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: It's stupid.
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: Cool. Cool.
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Well, in response to the journal story, Eric Trump tweeted, quote,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: I happen to believe drones will be a much better
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: investment than companies that still print newspapers.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: Well, sure, Eric.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's correct. It's not going to community note that,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: but still.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: Didn't take Nostradamus to figure that one out.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: It's also like, oh, wow. A lot of bluster from
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: a guy. How'd you first make your money, my man?
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: Where'd the money come from? Where'd you get that first
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: million from, you think? Like, oh, yeah, you think the
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: newspaper business isn't great? Yeah, nobody thinks the newspaper business
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: is great. You think you're the Warren Buffett of your family?
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: I don't think so.
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: I don't think so. Punk. Unbelievable.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: It's also just direct. I mean, like, they're able to
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: do this because their father made a decision.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: Hey, hey, what kind of thing to say? December of
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: last year, the U.S. government bans these Chinese-made drones. That
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: creates a financial opportunity. Then another one emerges with this war.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: And these patriots stepped into the void, implemented an almost
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: SPAC with a golf course holding company, and here we are.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: And then also last year, the Pentagon gave a $ 620
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: million loan to a startup that Don Jr. 's VC
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: firm had just invested in, and the loan was more
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: than twice the entire company's valuation. So these lucky things
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: keep happening, and we should just be happy.
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: Hey, guys.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: You think the Pentagon's excited to– To buy the quality
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: drones made by Power Us.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: Isn't it like in West Doral or something? It's a
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: brand new company right where the Trumps live.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was about to say, hey guys, listen, if
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: we just dropped all those golf clubs over Tehran, what
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: the fuck are we dropping on Mar-a-Lago? I think we
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: screwed up, guys. I think our golf drones and our
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: war drones got fucked up.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know what you're talking about either.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: I like the idea that you've got a drone that's
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: bringing your clubs around like a caddy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Except in this case, the 360 is like a caddy drone.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Also, the plan is to white label the drone technology
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: from Ukraine to make these drones.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: Well, so actually this morning for Pod Save the World
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: on Wednesday, I talked to a technology AI and drone
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: expert who used to work in the Biden administration about this.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: So we're running out of these interceptor missiles that cost
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: like millions of dollars to pop, like the Patriot missiles
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: and shit. And so what the Ukrainians have done, because
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: we won't give them any interceptor missiles, is invent drone
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: technology that can basically hunt and kill these Shaheed drones
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: that the Iranians and the Russians are using, because the
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: Iranians get the Russians the Shaheed drones and they've been
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: firing them at Ukraine. So basically now the Ukrainians are
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: providing us this technology to take out drones, Iranian drones,
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: in a much cheaper or at least more cost-effective way.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: So And what a boon it will be for the
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: Trump boys. Yeah, in the circle of life.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: Poor Ukrainians.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Well, we hang their Ukrainians out to dry. We won't
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: give them any more like the PAC-3s and the Patriots.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: So dark. Now we're getting it back from them and
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: the kids, Trump kids profit.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: There's no amount of money that can fix them. And
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: I think that's a reason to be. I don't know.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think they want to be fixed.
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: That's part of the problem. I'm probably pretty happy.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: I think that's part of the problem.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: It's a generational problem. The youngest ones at Erewhon as
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: we speak.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: Good times. Good times for the Trumps.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, and also, guys, if anyone did not see the
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Melania documentary in theaters, which I realize everyone probably did,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: but in case you didn't, stream it on Hulu. It's
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: on Hulu now? I think it was always on Hulu.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: Was it on Amazon?
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, sorry.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Instant Prime?
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Are they all?
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Amazon. Amazon.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, it would actually be really funny just to
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: give it the wrong plug because we don't like it.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: Streaming now on Netflix. The Melania doc.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Anyway. Anyway. When we come back, Tommy's interview with New
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: York Congressman Pat Ryan.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: My guest today represents New York's 18th congressional district. He
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: served two combat tours in Iraq. and is a graduate
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: of West Point. Congressman Pat Ryan, welcome to Pod Save America.
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: Thank you for having me.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: So as we speak, it's about three o'clock on Monday,
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: Pacific time. Trump has given this rambling press conference. It
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: sort of sounds like he's trying to suggest that he's
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: going to wrap up the war with Iran. We don't
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: really know. As you and I were just talking, you
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: mentioned that the Department of War had literally just tweeted
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: a graphic that they have only just begun. So there's
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: not a lot of clarity. So we'll try to just
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: talk around that. Let's start with some basics. I know
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: you opposed Trump's war with Iran. Can you just tell
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: listeners why?
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: From when we knew this was coming, when he stood
• 49:34
  Speaker 5: with Lindsey Graham and had a hat, this was two
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: months ago, that said, make Iran great again. is insane
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: in and of itself. We knew, I knew where this
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: was going. I've seen this movie before, and I thought
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: it was really important right out of the gate to
• 49:50
  Speaker 5: be clear. Of course, there are process, major process problems
• 49:53
  Speaker 5: in violating the constitution, but that is not the main argument.
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: The main argument that this was a bad decision for
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: the safety and security of the American people, the region,
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: our allies, and the world. And I think it's critical
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: at a who have experienced shitty foreign policy over the
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: last few decades from a bunch of chicken hawks who
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: have no clue what this is about, are ready to
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: send our best and brightest young working class Americans from
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: across the country while they've dodged the draft multiple times
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: and their kids have no skin in the game. And
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: I'm just sick of it. So I think it's important
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: that we call that out loud and strong and continue.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: To do it.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm grateful that you are not focusing on
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: the kind of process points and they should have briefed
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: us this and that. It's like, no, this is a
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: bad idea for national security reasons, period, paragraph. The public
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: case for the war has been all over the place
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: and incoherent. You know, it's like one day, you know,
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: it's the Chairman Kaine is like we're eliminating their ability
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: to project power in the region. Rubio is saying, oh,
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: it's about to get their ballistic missiles, the nukes, the Navy.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: Then Trump will talk about regime change. There's kind of
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: like all over the place. Are you guys getting more
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: detail or clarity in a classified setting or behind the
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: scenes setting, like direct communications with the Pentagon?
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: Well, we got nothing beforehand, which is just, again, a
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: violation of the Constitution and stupid. I mean, they're actually
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: just smart people that would ask hard questions that would
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: make you come up with a better plan if you
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: were to do this. Not that I think we should have.
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: Since we've gotten several, I've been in several classified briefings,
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: one for the committee I'm on, which is armed services,
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: which was much deeper anyway, relatively, and then a whole
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: of Congress won, which was a joke. And they ran
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: out the clock on us rather than giving us a
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: chance to ask the hard questions on behalf of the
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: American people. So we're getting a little bit more, but
• 51:46
  Speaker 5: I mean, several of my fellow veteran colleagues and I
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: walked out of this classified armed services committee briefing, which
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: was two hours last week and said, we were just
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: blown away at the lack of any understanding of like, Yes,
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: tactical success. We are destroying targets. Our military is exceptional
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: at executing tactical and operational plans, but no ability to
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: link that to any strategic or political aims. And this
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: is where we've seen the president all over the place.
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: Like the first night at 3 a.m., it's regime change.
• 52:21
  Speaker 5: Then it's not. Then it's, well, maybe we just want
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: another Venezuela and we're going to replace one horrible dictator
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: with another, which is what happened. But then he's saying, no, actually,
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: we want to retake the Straits of Hormuz and I'll
• 52:35
  Speaker 5: choose who the next leader is going to be. But
• 52:37
  Speaker 5: also I killed all the choice. I mean, it's just
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: such a mess. And it's so important to maintain focus
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: on the fact that while that is all playing out,
• 52:46
  Speaker 5: we're seeing it. It's our, our kids, like it's, it's
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: our troops that are over there. We've now lost seven
• 52:53
  Speaker 5: young Americans, not in Iran, but in what is a
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: war zone. They are boots on ground in, in this
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: case in Kuwait And Saudi Arabia and like the American
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: people need to understand we're already boots on ground because
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: of the way this war has escalated. And it's tragic.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, I totally agree. I mean, there's a lot of Americans,
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: both members of the military and also tourists or business
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: people who are stuck in a theater of war unwittingly
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: and got no warning. And apparently the State Department was
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: offering them basically no help getting out. So just a
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: horrendous execution all around. So again, we don't really know
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: what the Trump policy is. Maybe he's going to wrap
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: up the war, maybe not. One challenge of that is
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: the Israelis may have a say in this matter. The
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: Iranians will certainly have a say in this matter. Until today,
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: Trump was refusing to rule out putting boots on the
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: ground in Iran. And there was a report over the
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: weekend that made me nearly lose my mind where the
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: Trump administration said they didn't view a commando raid to
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: secure Iran's nuclear material Iran as quote unquote boots on
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: the ground or an invasion. I was hoping we could
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: just like unpack that for a minute because we're talking
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: about a mission to get, I think, 900 pounds of
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: nuclear material out of Iran. Some of it is reportedly
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: buried deep under rubble because we bombed it. That material
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: would have to be secured in these like secure containers
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: and then shipped out hundreds of miles. What's your sense
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: of like what a U.S. military plan to execute a
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: mission like that would look like? And how is that
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: not an invasion or boots on the ground? Like, why
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: are we torturing the English language? Where's this coming from?
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: Well, I think it's obviously just politics and it's just
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: straight up lies at that point. I mean, it's just
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: trying to deceive the American people. This would be an
• 54:41
  Speaker 5: incredibly complex, very high risk operation, which I imagine our
• 54:48
  Speaker 5: special operations have been training for these kinds of contingencies,
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: both in Iran and other places. But it would require
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: like multiple layers of likely taking some sort of airfield
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: or like forward operating location of some sort and staging
• 55:05
  Speaker 5: location deep into Iran. It would require still great risk
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: of their air defenses and other, they still retain significant,
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: both sort of conventional, think missiles and weapons and unconventional
• 55:21
  Speaker 5: ability to strike their drones and other things like that. Um,
• 55:25
  Speaker 5: and I think this is where Trump, like in a
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: lot of ways took the wrong lessons from Venezuela, where
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: that was an incredibly dangerous mission. And we almost lost
• 55:35
  Speaker 5: an entire aircraft. And if those exceptional special operations pilots
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: from the one 60th hadn't pulled off a miracle and
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: rightly one of them was given the congressional medal of
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: honor for it, that would have been really, really bad
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: and likely deadly. And so, um, the risk of something
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: like you're talking about here to get out highly enriched
• 55:56
  Speaker 5: uranium would be orders like an order of magnitude more
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: dangerous than that. And that is just, I think an
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: un unwise and a risk for us to take, especially
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: when we don't know the locations to your point of
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: where these sites are. And, and just worth saying, and
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: I know you know this, like we used to know
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: where all this material was because we actually had an
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: inspections regime under an agreement and, When Trump ripped that up,
• 56:22
  Speaker 5: it's actually now harder to track where this material is.
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: And in a week to two weeks, they have enough
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: highly enriched uranium to make up to 11 nuclear weapons
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: the size of what we dropped in World War II
• 56:34
  Speaker 5: in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're referencing these reports. I mean, actually, Trump talked
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: about at the State of the Union that one of
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: the lead helicopter pilots on the Venezuela operation, I think,
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: got shot in the leg four times. And this guy
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: still somehow managed to land the aircraft, take back off again,
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: just like extraordinary heroism. And you're right, he was rightly
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: rewarded the Medal of Honor. But if that goes differently,
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: a lot of people are dead. Yeah, on this mission,
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, we know where the three nuclear sites are.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: We don't know if anything's been removed from those sites. Like,
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: I would imagine that, you know, there were some reports
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: over the weekend that the 82nd Airborne was told to
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: be on standby. that is a force that you might
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: send in to secure an airport or a runway nearby.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: So I think we're more likely than not talking about
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: a mission that would involve hundreds of US service members
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: who are on the ground in Iran for an extended
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: period of time to get all this stuff out of
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: the ground, the rubble, versus a short commando raid like
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: we saw in Venezuela, which was incredibly risky in its
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: own right. So yeah, it's all quite complicated.
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: And I think it's important to not just look back
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: at the most recent conflicts. Of course, this echoes Iraq
• 57:48
  Speaker 5: and Afghanistan to a certain significant degree. But remember, Vietnam
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: started with this slow trickle of, oh, this is just
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: a small initial mission and we're going to do advisors.
• 58:00
  Speaker 5: And then, oh, well, we need to take one additional
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: escalatory step. And then each time more and more Americans sent,
• 58:05
  Speaker 5: of course, we know how that went. And so Iraq
• 58:09
  Speaker 5: started differently with a huge initial amount of troops in
• 58:13
  Speaker 5: But regardless, it's so easy to get sucked into this
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: escalatory ladder. And that's what I think we're seeing happening here.
• 58:20
  Speaker 5: And Trump just does not know. He is so far
• 58:23
  Speaker 5: out of his depth. He does not know how to
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: put this back in a box. And the people who
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: pay for that are our troops, but also all of us.
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: I mean, oil prices from $ 70 a barrel to over
• 58:34
  Speaker 5: $ 100 a barrel. I think today's press conferences are clearly
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: him freaking out as he understands that the American people
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: will not tolerate skyrocketing gas prices for a war that
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: nobody wants.
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he clearly wanted to say something to a reporter
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: before the stock market closed to try to chill everybody out,
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: prevent there being a mass sell-off. But who knows what
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: this is going to look like in 24 hours. And
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: one thing that could happen if the war continues is
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: Congress could face a request from the Trump administration for
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: more money for the war in Iran. Politico speculated that
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: it could be around $ 50 billion but we don't really know.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: That is on top of the Pentagon's nearly $ 1 trillion
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: budget for 2026. So they got a lot of money.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: CNN's Jake Tapper asked Senator Chris Murphy about this request
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: over the weekend. Here is a part of their exchange.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: Let's watch.
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: The administration is reportedly weighing Congress to approve an additional
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: $ 50 billion in funding for these operations. You have said
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: you're a hell no, not just a no, on funding
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: the war. We have seen this movie before. We know
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: that that vote will be cast as, especially if you
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: run for higher office, you voting against the troops.
• 59:46
  Speaker 6: Oh, come on. I mean, the American people don't want
• 59:48
  Speaker 6: this war. They don't want this war. They have seen
• 59:51
  Speaker 6: what happens when American troops go into... places like Iraq,
• 59:55
  Speaker 6: places like Afghanistan. Ultimately, we get a lot of people killed.
• 59:59
  Speaker 6: We waste a lot of dollars. The one thing the
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 6: American people are clear about is that they do not
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 6: want the United States dragged into another long-term war in
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 6: the Middle East. If you support the troops, then you
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 6: should be voting against funding this war so that we
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 6: get our troops out of harm's way. Virtually nothing good
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 6: happened from sending thousands of Americans to die inside Iraq.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: In the 2000s.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 6: And if we don't learn that lesson, then shame on
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 6: every single one of us.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: So, you know, look, I'm a fan of Jake Tapper's.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: He's a friend of mine. I actually don't think we've
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: seen this movie before at all. I mean, how would
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: you vote on a supplemental funding bill? And what is
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: your response to this suggestion that this is like Iraq
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: in 2004 and that a no vote would be called
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: not supporting the troops?
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 5: I agree. Absolutely. Hell no on a vote for whatever
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 5: the amount is. And we've already, by the way, spent
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 5: over a billion dollars a day up to this point,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 5: which could have gone towards people's health care, lowering housing costs,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 5: lowering food and grocery costs, and instead we're doing more
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: bombing around the world, which no American wants. I agree
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 5: with what Senator Murphy said. This is where I get
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 5: just so pissed off, where that is such a bad
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 5: faith question, frankly, to be very candid. And having been
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: on the receiving end of those kinds of back and
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 5: forths here in DC from a bunch of people who
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 5: were in air conditioned rooms while we were getting shot
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 5: at and sweating our asses off and burying our friends.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 5: Like that's exactly backwards, 180 degrees wrong. The way to
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: think about it is, as I think Senator Merz said,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: like asking the hard questions is the most patriotic thing
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 5: to do because like those troops trust us. They sign
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 5: up and they raise their hand because they trust us,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: like me as a member of Congress and all of
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: us elected officials. And the way to honor that trust
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: is to ask the hard questions, to push, to make
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 5: the military be accountable, to make the president certainly be accountable.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: And how could you after the last week, how could
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 5: any American in good faith say, yeah, it seems like
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 5: we have a coherent plan and we should just keep
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 5: going with this. Like that is crazy. And to portray
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 5: it as disrespectful of our troops is one of the
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 5: most cynical, cowardly, political things in a, in a city,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: in a place full of a lot.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: Of that stuff.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, like we, we also talked about this in
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: the main show, but like, I just hope Democrats listening,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: realize that we are not talking about 2004 to 2007.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: Like Democrats are not voting against funding for a war.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: They may have voted to authorize. They are not voting
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: against funding for a war where, you know, there's thousands
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: of us service members sitting in bases in theater, you know,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: in Iran who are wondering if they're going to an
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: MRAP or not. Right. Like the, the, the, this war
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: could end tomorrow. We know this because Donald Trump just
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: suggested as much. And I think the way you support
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: the troops is make sure that we don't prolong it.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: And also the political context is entirely different. I mean,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: there was just a new poll that came out. 53%
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: of voters opposed the war, only 40% support. 74% opposed
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: sending ground troops into Iran. 77% of people asked in
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: the survey think it's very or somewhat likely that there
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: will be a terrorist attack on U.S. soil in response
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: to the Iran war. It seems like the American people
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: writ large think this award is a, is a bad
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: idea and are very worried that it is going to
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: harm them down the road if we continue it.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 5: And the American people are smart. They, they pay attention.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 5: They've been paying attention for the last few decades. Well,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 5: lunatics like Lindsey Graham keep beating the war drums and,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 5: and either bringing Trump along or lying to him or
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: whatever the combination is. And, um, they're smarter than that. And,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 5: you know, talking to my constituents, they feel exactly as
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: you said. You know, I do think people always want
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: to honor the sacrifice of those that are serving, especially
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 5: those that we've lost. And I've said multiple times this
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 5: last week, I've been very loud and vocal much more
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: than I normally am, and said, like, I think about
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 5: my friends that I lost, some of whom were killed
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: by Iranian weapons. And I think the best way to
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: honor them is to not send another generation of young,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: brave Americans to another open-ended, ill-defined regime change war in
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 5: the Middle East. And I do think your point is
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 5: super correct about, like, there's a lot of wreck comparisons,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 5: but this not providing any additional funding here would not
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 5: pose that immediate danger in any way because the DOD has,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 5: more than enough funds from the $ 150 billion supplemental that
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: they jammed through as well, if needed. Again, I don't
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 5: think we should continue this another day, though.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm glad, look, first of all, you know, everyone
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: should be grateful to you and everyone who served with
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: your service. I'm sorry that you've been thinking about these
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: horrible stories of the people you've lost. And I know
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: that from my time and experience working in the NSC,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: like that a lot of veterans that I had the
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: chance to work with and be friends with who are
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: veterans of the war in Iraq, really, really, really hated
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: Iran because the Iranians would provide these weapons to these
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: Shia militias in Iraq called EFPs that were incredibly deadly,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: that killed a lot of US service members and were
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: able to take out American armor. So I know this
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: is like, it's complicated, right? And there's probably like, there's no,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: no one's crying for the Supreme Leader or, you know,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: or the downfall of the regime. But at the same time,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: I also would imagine that a lot of those same
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: veterans were are like sitting head and hands being like,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: didn't we learn a lesson about the wisdom of regime
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: change wars in the Middle East and how stupid they
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: are and like how fraught this all seems. And I'm
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: just wondering what you're hearing from veterans and family members
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: and friends who are like kind of dealing with those
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: complicated emotions and feelings in this moment.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you put it exactly right. I actually had a
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 5: town hall last night and an Iraq war veteran who
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 5: had actually been fired by the Trump administration. He worked
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: at the VA, came home, decided to serve the country again,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: got fired. And it was a really emotional moment at
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 5: this town hall where I had shared how I was feeling.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 5: He shared how heavy this was hitting for him. And,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 5: you know, he, he basically said like between getting fired
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 5: this year while trying to help his fellow veterans from
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 5: a prior war, and then seeing us going to war again,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 5: that like it really, that he had had some really
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 5: dark moments in this last week. And I've heard that
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: from a lot of friends who, Um, and it's just,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 5: it's not necessary. We didn't need to be in this position.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: And to see Trump like at his fancy beach club
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 5: throughout all this, by the way, is just like such
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 5: a split screen. And I think the American people see
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 5: that at this point and they know he's just full
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 5: of shit and he's about himself and he will leave
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 5: anybody hanging out to dry American soldiers in this case
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 5: and the Iranian people.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, like.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 5: We just replaced one dictator with a younger, more extreme one.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 5: Is that what we're, is that what we're doing?
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: With the guy's son, a more extreme version of himself.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: And look, in hearing you talk about this and the
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: thoughtfulness and the like seriousness with which you take these
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: questions makes me think all over again about like the,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: the messaging coming out of the white house. It's a,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: it's the Pentagon and the white house. They're releasing videos
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: that are like airstrikes that are literally cut into scenes
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: from movies or like clips with video games, like call
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: of duty. And it seems like they're trying to like
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: memefy war, like make it seem cool or fun. And
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: I'm just wondering what your reaction to that has been
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: and whether you think like that is something that veterans
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: appreciate or want to see.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 5: No, in fact, actually a lot of my very conservative
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 5: and Trump supporting friends, veterans have specifically said that that
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 5: was the thing that most infuriated them was seeing the
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 5: who's such a joke and Trump and others like try
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 5: to make this out like a video game. Um, and,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 5: and several have actually remarked about Trump wearing the cap
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 5: at the dignified transfer, which I agree was just incredibly,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 5: incredibly wrong and disrespectful to, to those that we lost.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 5: And those are the things that veterans notice. Like we
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 5: appreciate someone that, you know, like cares about the country and,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 5: says he wants to protect folks and try to give
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 5: them the benefit of the doubt. But when they straight
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 5: up lie and then they try to like make light
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 5: of it or, um, do things like this, it, it
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 5: just further roads trust. And I do think it's worth saying,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: like the Bush administration tried to do the same things
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 5: with like 20 different technology 20 years ago, but they
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 5: tried to kind of like release these tough guy macho
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 5: on the surface, performative things, just like Hegsess daily press
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 5: conferences have become. And, um, it's so disrespectful and people
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 5: see through it.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. Um, it is embarrassing. It really is
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: just like, what are we doing here? Um, Congressman Ryan,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for doing the show. Thank you
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: for your service. And, uh, trying to give Democrats in
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: Congress some backbone on this funding question. I hope we
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: don't get there, but my God, this feels black and
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: white to me. And it's just, I'm glad to get
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: a sanity check from you on this. I really appreciate it.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 5: Everybody should vote against the supplemental. And, and just to
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 5: be clear, like it was pathetic that it was for
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 5: Democrats that stopped the war powers resolution from passing. And
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 5: I'm not afraid to say that. I think I've heard
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 5: that from a bunch of folks and we need to
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 5: say that, um, And voting to send money would be
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 5: just a further mistake. Agreed.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: Insult to injury. Well, thank you again. Thank you.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Pat Ryan for
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: coming on. Dan and I will be back with a
• 1:10:05
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