Latest / Pod Save America / How Trump Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Bombing Iran

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How Trump Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Bombing Iran · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 1: So go ahead and listen to The Best People with
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  Speaker 1: Nicole Wallace now. New episodes drop Mondays. Welcome to Pod
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  Speaker 1: Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
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  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
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  Speaker 4: I'm Jon Lovett.
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  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor.
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  Speaker 1: Dan is our special Middle Eastern war correspondent. Thanks for
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  Speaker 1: flying down for this.
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  Speaker 3: I'm the Richard Engel of this podcast.
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  Speaker 1: That's what we always say. Later in the show, we're
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  Speaker 1: going to talk about the latest on Trump's deportation regime,
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  Speaker 1: as well as our final thoughts on Tuesday's big primary
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  Speaker 1: in the New York City's mayoral race. But obviously, we'll
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  Speaker 1: start with Iran and By the way, you should all
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  Speaker 1: check out the excellent Pod Save the World bonus episode
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  Speaker 1: on this topic that Tommy and Ben recorded Sunday.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, thanks.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good primer. Here's my take on where
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  Speaker 1: we are as of late Monday afternoon, and then you
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  Speaker 1: guys can all jump in. On Friday, Trump ordered the U.S.
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  Speaker 1: military to bomb Iran without consulting Congress, which the Constitution
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  Speaker 1: says is the only branch of government that can declare
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  Speaker 1: war without consulting our allies who are in the midst
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  Speaker 1: of pursuing a diplomatic solution with Iran. and without making
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  Speaker 1: any case at all to the American people, most of
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  Speaker 1: whom have been telling pollsters they're against military action, and
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  Speaker 1: many of whom voted for Donald Trump based in part
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  Speaker 1: on his promise to end forever wars in places like
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  Speaker 1: the Middle East. Trump ordered the attack anyway, saying it
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  Speaker 1: was to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, even
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  Speaker 1: though his own intelligence director testified that there was no
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  Speaker 1: indication Iran was building an actual nuclear weapon, so there
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  Speaker 1: was no imminent threat of attack to the U.S., But
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  Speaker 1: on Saturday night, we learned that American B-2 bombers and
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  Speaker 1: submarines struck three of Iran's nuclear sites. Though after Trump
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  Speaker 1: spent a week posting about how he might bomb Iran,
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  Speaker 1: it appears the regime may have removed a few bombs
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  Speaker 1: worth of nuclear material from the sites before the attack.
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  Speaker 1: So it's still unclear how far Iran's nuclear program has
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  Speaker 1: been set back. On Monday, Iran launched a retaliatory strike
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  Speaker 1: on the U.S. military base in Qatar. But thankfully, the
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  Speaker 1: missiles were intercepted and there were no casualties, partly because
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  Speaker 1: the Iranians notified Qatar about the attack ahead of time
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  Speaker 1: to avoid further escalation, which Trump thanked Iran for in
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  Speaker 1: a Truth Social post after calling the response, quote, very
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  Speaker 1: weak and urging Israel and Iran to end the war.
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  Speaker 1: All that said, U.S. military bases throughout the region are
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  Speaker 1: still on high alert, and the Department of Homeland Security
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  Speaker 1: has issued an advisory warning of a, quote, heightened threat
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  Speaker 1: environment here in the United States.
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  Speaker 2: All right.
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  Speaker 1: Let's stop there for a minute. Tommy, what's your reaction
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  Speaker 1: to Iran's attack on our military base in Qatar and
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  Speaker 1: to any of the developments since you guys recorded on Sunday?
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  Speaker 2: Well, there's some literal breaking news happening right now. Apparently,
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  Speaker 2: Trump just tweeted that Iran and Israel have agreed to
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  Speaker 2: a ceasefire that will go into place six hours from now.
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  Speaker 2: So it's 3.09 p.m. Pacific time. And then I guess
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  Speaker 2: after like 24 hours, there will be an official end
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  Speaker 2: to the conflict. So that would be good news. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: That's a big deal. The strike we saw today in Qatar,
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  Speaker 2: it did seem like designed in a way to allow
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  Speaker 2: us Iran to save face and hopefully deescalate, which I
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  Speaker 2: think is backed up by this Trump news we just learned.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, they reportedly gave Qatar a heads up that
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  Speaker 2: the strikes were coming, which allowed the base to be
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  Speaker 2: evacuated and also made sure the missile defense systems were ready.
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  Speaker 2: It reminded me of the Qasem Soleimani strike response, which
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  Speaker 2: was back in 2020. Trump ordered the assassination of Qasem Soleimani,
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  Speaker 2: the head of the IRGC, which is a big, powerful
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  Speaker 2: military intelligence organization in Iran. And the Iranians fired 12
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  Speaker 2: ballistic missiles at a base in Iraq. It was pure
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  Speaker 2: luck that no one was killed, but 100 service members
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  Speaker 2: got brain injuries. But Trump basically used that as a
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  Speaker 2: moment to de-escalate. Someone I was talking to today who
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  Speaker 2: recently left the Pentagon said he thought this war was
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  Speaker 2: likely to end soon because both the U.S. and Israel
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  Speaker 2: were running very low on the interceptor missiles that are
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  Speaker 2: used to knock down Iranian ballistic missiles. And so the
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  Speaker 2: Iranians are also running low on their weapons stockpile. So
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  Speaker 2: it's kind of in everybody's interest to wind this thing down.
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  Speaker 2: That doesn't mean that Iran won't conduct terrorist attacks down
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  Speaker 2: the road. It doesn't mean Hezbollah won't do something or
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  Speaker 2: the Houthis do something on their behalf. It doesn't mean
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  Speaker 2: they won't mess with oil supplies. It doesn't mean they
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  Speaker 2: won't conduct cyber attacks or in the long term go
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  Speaker 2: for a nuclear bomb. But it seems like good news
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  Speaker 2: that this conflict might be ending.
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  Speaker 1: Dan, love it. Initial thoughts. Are you guys ready to
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  Speaker 1: give Donald Trump, the Nobel Peace Prize?
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  Speaker 3: I mean, who among us isn't ready to give him
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  Speaker 3: the Nobel Peace Prize?
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  Speaker 1: Pakistan and us so far.
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  Speaker 3: That's right. I think Tommy's right. This seems to be
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  Speaker 3: a response designed to avoid escalation. And you can see
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  Speaker 3: how everyone in the political conversation is going to look
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  Speaker 3: at this and say, see, Trump was right. He was
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  Speaker 3: able to launch these attacks. We don't have a full
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  Speaker 3: damage assessment, but he clearly did damage to their nuclear program.
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  Speaker 3: And therefore, no American service members lost life. This was fine.
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  Speaker 3: You can't judge these things in the short term. When
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  Speaker 3: you launch an attack on a Middle Eastern country based
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  Speaker 3: on faulty intelligence, you open Pandora's box. This is going
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  Speaker 3: to have consequences down the line. It could be a
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  Speaker 3: terrorist attack. It could be the use of their proxies
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  Speaker 3: somewhere around the world. It affects our relationships in the world.
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  Speaker 3: It affects U.S. standing in the world. We know that
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  Speaker 3: their program is not destroyed. It's delayed. And when eventually
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  Speaker 3: you're going to have to go back to the table
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  Speaker 3: with Iran, what impact are these strikes going to have
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  Speaker 3: on our ability to get a deal? Why would Iran
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  Speaker 3: trust us to make such a deal? Because we came
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  Speaker 3: out of the last deal and we launched these strikes.
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  Speaker 3: So before anyone either hands him the Nobel Peace Prize
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  Speaker 3: or says that Trump was right or everything worked perfectly,
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  Speaker 3: you have to judge this over the medium and long term.
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  Speaker 3: You can't do it like a 48-hour Politico playbook news cycle.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Donald Trump, someone with zero credibility as a negotiator, He
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  Speaker 4: has terrible judgment. He has no attention span, no curiosity,
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  Speaker 4: surrounded by sycophants and kooks. And then he's going to
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  Speaker 4: be the one that cuts the Gordian knot of the
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  Speaker 4: Middle East. And so it's not dissimilar to the cycles
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  Speaker 4: we've gone through where they all claim victory when they
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  Speaker 4: get some sort of trade deal after putting on and
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  Speaker 4: then removing tariffs, claiming, oh, there's Trump again getting another
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  Speaker 4: great deal. And there's no... First of all, there's no
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  Speaker 4: sense that, hey, did we pay any price for the
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  Speaker 4: credibility we lose? Does it matter going forward that the
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  Speaker 4: president said, you have two weeks, we won't do anything
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  Speaker 4: for two weeks, and then apparently already decided to go
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  Speaker 4: through with this?
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  Speaker 2: What is the U.S.
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  Speaker 4: 's word worth in the future? What is the cost
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  Speaker 4: of just occasional bouts of American chaos in the world?
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  Speaker 4: What happens when someone doesn't want to de-escalate? What happens
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  Speaker 4: when Trump's TV-based image of how the world is meant
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  Speaker 4: to work doesn't go according to plan in the short term?
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  Speaker 4: What happens then?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like it also encourages other countries to
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  Speaker 1: lie too. Like, why would we believe Iran if they're like, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: we're agreed to a ceasefire, we're done. If from their
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  Speaker 1: point of view, if they just saw Donald Trump lie
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  Speaker 1: to them and to the world about this. Let's talk
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  Speaker 1: about the back and forth over just how much damage
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  Speaker 1: was done to Iran's nuclear program. So Trump said on
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  Speaker 1: Saturday night that all three nuclear sites had been, quote,
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  Speaker 1: completely and totally obliterated. which is an opinion apparently not
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  Speaker 1: shared by the military or intelligence services in the U.S.
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  Speaker 1: and Israel, who've said the facilities have been heavily damaged
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  Speaker 1: but not totally destroyed. Trump is very mad about the
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  Speaker 1: coverage on this. He posted on Monday that, quote, the
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  Speaker 1: fake news won't admit that the sites have been totally
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  Speaker 1: destroyed because they're trying to, quote, demean him, which he
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  Speaker 1: blamed on, quote, Alison Cooper of fake news CNN, dumb
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  Speaker 1: Brian L. Roberts, chairman of Concast, and Johnny Carl of
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  Speaker 1: ABC Fake News. Tommy, what do we know so far
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  Speaker 1: about the damage to the facilities and whether Iran may
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  Speaker 1: have moved any of its uranium stockpile before the attack started?
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  Speaker 2: It's funny these Mattit reporters were accurately quoting his secretary
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  Speaker 2: of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs and his
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  Speaker 2: entire team.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, like there was some like background quotes from officials
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  Speaker 1: to the Times on this, but also just a very
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  Speaker 1: public statement by his.
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  Speaker 2: They all were like, hey, it's going to take some
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  Speaker 2: time to assess it. We don't know yet. Like that
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  Speaker 2: was what the chairman in Texas said.
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  Speaker 4: It's sort of this like strange situation where like you
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  Speaker 4: have Iran's leadership wanting to seem for a domestic audience
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  Speaker 4: to claim to have done something to push back on
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  Speaker 4: what the U.S. did, even if what they did wasn't to,
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  Speaker 4: you know, something that actually no sort of negative consequences.
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  Speaker 4: At the same time, Trump just wants for his domestic
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  Speaker 4: audience to hear that it was obliterated regardless of what
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  Speaker 4: actually happened. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, what we know is like anything that was
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  Speaker 2: above ground is decimated. Anything that was below ground, we're
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  Speaker 2: just not going to know for a while or maybe
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  Speaker 2: ever know. A lot of the infrastructure they were targeting
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  Speaker 2: are these things called centrifuges that you use to enrich
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  Speaker 2: the uranium to like a level of purity that can
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  Speaker 2: be used for a weapon. Many of those were at
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  Speaker 2: the Natanz site. It sounds like the Israelis were able
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  Speaker 2: to take out most of those because people think that
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  Speaker 2: if you cut off the power supply to Natanz, it
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  Speaker 2: would cause them to spin out of control and just break.
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  Speaker 2: But then they had thousands, like 3,000 centrifuges at the
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  Speaker 2: Fordow facility, which is the one that's buried deep underground
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  Speaker 2: and required the bunker busting bombs. We just don't know
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  Speaker 2: if the bunker busting bombs were able to take those out.
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  Speaker 2: And then on top of that, there's reports that Iran
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  Speaker 2: moved some of its uranium stockpile from some of these
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  Speaker 2: sites before the bombing happened. So they have 408 kilograms
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  Speaker 2: of uranium, which is 60% purity, which is very close
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  Speaker 2: to weapons grade. You need 90% to be weapons grade.
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  Speaker 2: That's all unconfirmed, but like you're seeing all these background
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  Speaker 2: quotes from Israeli and U.S. intelligence saying we don't know
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  Speaker 2: where that material is. I assume like the Mossad clearly
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  Speaker 2: has the entire Iranian government wired, right? So like those
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  Speaker 2: guys were watching these sites to see if stuff was
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  Speaker 2: getting moved around.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely. It's a short straw who's driving that truck
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  Speaker 4: out of Fordow.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
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  Speaker 2: But like, you know, they say you can fit, you know,
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  Speaker 2: this kind of material in the trunk of a car. So,
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  Speaker 2: you know, like that gets you to the longer term
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  Speaker 2: fear with this way to go after Iran's nuclear program,
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  Speaker 2: which is that I suspect that Iran will withdraw from
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  Speaker 2: the NPT, the treaty that prevents the spread of nuclear weapons.
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  Speaker 2: They'll likely kick all weapons inspectors or nuclear inspectors out
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  Speaker 2: of the country. And then they could use that nuclear
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  Speaker 2: material that we no longer know where it is to
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  Speaker 2: make a bomb. And you're also seeing people say, again,
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  Speaker 2: in background quotes, like we maybe need boots on the
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  Speaker 2: ground to verify whether the stockpile was destroyed. And that
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  Speaker 2: would be a big deal.
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  Speaker 1: It feels like misplacing a stockpile of highly enriched uranium
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  Speaker 1: is probably something that we want to keep an eye on.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I think that some officials said that there were trucks
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  Speaker 1: spotted outside Fort Odris like a couple days before the strike,
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  Speaker 1: which is why people think that they moved the enriched uranium.
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  Speaker 1: Any of you uranium enrichment experts want to offer a
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  Speaker 1: take on what might happen to that loose fissile material?
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  Speaker 3: I would just note that obviously they tried to move it.
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  Speaker 3: Trump told them that he was going to bomb there
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  Speaker 3: for like two weeks.
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  Speaker 4: It's like, why?
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  Speaker 3: And if you can move it in the trunk of
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  Speaker 3: a car, you would try to do that. You would
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  Speaker 3: not just leave it and just wait for the bomb
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  Speaker 3: to fall on it.
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  Speaker 1: I also saw that there's another nuclear facility that the
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  Speaker 1: inspectors haven't been in because, uh, The Iranians were telling
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  Speaker 1: them it's not open yet. It's not officially open yet.
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  Speaker 2: It's not ready.
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: Well, you want to do an official opening. We're in previews.
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: We're in previews. We're still making some changes to the
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: second act.
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  Speaker 2: Well, the chef's got to get the menu really.
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  Speaker 1: We're just doing a soft opening. Friends and family.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: There was a U.S. official quote in the New York
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Times saying the biggest threat to operational security in this
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: whole operation was Donald Trump's tweets. Yeah. Obviously.
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  Speaker 1: Well, so bigger picture, Tommy, what would success look like
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  Speaker 1: for a strike company?
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  Speaker 2: Like this? I mean, what probably happened is that the
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  Speaker 2: strike set back Iran's nuclear program a few months to
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  Speaker 2: a few years, meaning they blew up a bunch of
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  Speaker 2: infrastructure that'll take a while to rebuild. But we just
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  Speaker 2: don't know, because if we don't know where this 60%
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  Speaker 2: enriched uranium stockpile is, or if they have covert enrichment
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  Speaker 2: facilities somewhere, or whether they blew up Florida or not,
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  Speaker 2: it's just really hard to judge success. And there's also
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  Speaker 2: just the fact that Trump has never articulated a goal
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  Speaker 2: for himself, right? Like, J.D. Vance says we're at war
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  Speaker 2: with Iran's nuclear program, but not at war with Iran,
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  Speaker 2: much like Japan was at war with Pearl Harbor in 1941.
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  Speaker 2: The Trump lackeys were out on the Sunday show saying,
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  Speaker 2: this isn't a regime change. And then Trump's tweeting, why
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  Speaker 2: wouldn't there be a regime change? Netanyahu seemingly does want
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  Speaker 2: regime change, although maybe this ceasefire indicates otherwise. But he
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  Speaker 2: was picking off military and political leaders and encouraging the
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  Speaker 2: Iranian people to rise up and throw off their government.
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  Speaker 2: So there's all this uncertainty around it, which again is
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  Speaker 2: why you want a diplomatic solution to these problems over
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  Speaker 2: the military, because under the JCPOA, Iran was prevented from
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  Speaker 2: getting a nuclear weapon and there's a verifiable inspections regime
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  Speaker 2: to ensure that was the case. And that will likely
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  Speaker 2: not be an option anymore.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 1: And that's not an option. And so if that's not
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  Speaker 1: an option anymore, then you have to ask yourself, and
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  Speaker 1: I know you guys made this point, Tommy, on Sunday's pod,
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  Speaker 1: why wouldn't Iran at this point race to build a
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  Speaker 1: nuclear weapon? Because now there's no inspectors, there's no cameras,
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  Speaker 1: there's no inspection regime. And they know that if they,
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  Speaker 1: you know, go the diplomatic route, they can't trust the
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  Speaker 1: United States. They can't trust Israel. We might go in
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  Speaker 1: there and bomb them again. So to protect themselves, you
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  Speaker 1: would think that it's in their best interest to try
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  Speaker 1: to race to build a nuclear weapon with the enriched
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  Speaker 1: uranium they have, trying to get new centrifuges and whatever else.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, look, Muammar Gaddafi and the Libyan government gave
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  Speaker 2: up their nuclear program and he ended up getting bombed
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  Speaker 2: by the U.S. and NATO. dragged out of a drainage dish,
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: sodomized with a knife, and then murdered. So you look
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: at that example.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: A lot of details there, Tommy.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, then you look at North Korea and how it's
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: going for them, and you think, hmm.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Ukrainians also gave up their nuclear program, and look what
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: happened to them. So yeah, the incentives are not great
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: on this. So when Dan and I recorded Friday's show,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the White House had just announced that Trump was going
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: to take two weeks to decide whether to strike Iran
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: based on the hope that a diplomatic solution might be
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: reached before then. As we've talked about, that was just
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: a ploy to trick Iran, apparently. The Times has a
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: detailed story about how Trump had already arrived at a
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: final decision to strike. Per usual, the president was, quote,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: closely monitoring Fox News, which was airing wall-to-wall praise of
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Israel's military operation and featuring guests urging Mr. Trump to
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: get more involved. The Times also reports that then he
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: was telling people, he's like, I just keep getting calls
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: from people saying the Israelis... operations going so great, you
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: got to get more involved. Everybody's telling me I got
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: to get more involved. So that led him to start
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: publicly musing about bombing Iran, which is apparently one of
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: the reasons the Air Force had to send a decoy
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: mission of several B-2 bombers westward over the Pacific, even
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: as the real mission was about to take off. And yeah,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the one military advisor said the biggest threat to OPSEC,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: which is the plan's operational security, was the president of
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: the United States.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Good stuff.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: What should it look like when an American president makes
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: a decision like this? Is it usually just you watch Fox,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: you get sort of jealous that the Israelis are getting
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: praise for their operation, you jump in, you lie about it,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: you don't really take your intelligence director's testimony to Congress
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: very seriously, and then you just do it without consulting
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Congress or seemingly any lawyers in the White House or allies.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: It's easy to laugh about the things in the story
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: that like Trump's watching Fox News. He's meeting with Steve Bannon.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: He's just getting calls from like random Palm Beach real
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: estate developers with advice on what to do here. But
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: what's kind of stunning by that story is what's not
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: in it, right? There is no discussion of Trump or
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: his advisors meeting with the lawyers to figure out the
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: legal basis for this is. There's no gathering of his
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: allies to try to build an international coalition to do this.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: There's no like game planning what happens if things go wrong.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: There's no discussion of the economic consequences if Iran were
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: to close the Strait of Hormuz, right? It's just, it's
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: really just like fly by the seat of your pants governing.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: And it's like, we've all come to accept that as
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: somehow normal way of doing business when it's absolutely fucking insane.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: And it's sort of like, we don't know what's going
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: to come next, as we said, but the fact that
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: we're here and like this has not yet spun out
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: of control based on Trump's process for getting here is
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: kind of stunning.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: And then, and then their public rationale, right? Like, look,
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: I don't know how much better it was to have
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: presidents who were going to step beyond their constitutional authority,
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: but have very, very smart lawyers create the rationale to
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: justify it by like bending the meaning of words, which
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: both Democrats and Republicans have been doing for 50 years.
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: But at least there was some assertion of a rationale
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: or a sense that I have authority as president because
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: there is an imminent attack. And here you have some
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: claim that the threat was imminent, but then they're basically
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: also saying at the same time that the reason they
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: decided to do this is because they hit some arbitrary
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: negotiation mark and the Iranians weren't negotiating in good faith.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: And so we decided to act, which is basically admitting
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: that there was no change in the program itself to
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: justify it. And so we can debate the particulars of
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: this and the result of this. But to me, when
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: I first saw all this unfolding over the weekend, to me,
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: I put it in the context of Donald Trump taking
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: what has become a job that is already way too
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: powerful and finding ways to push the bounds of presidential
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: authority even further in ways that are dangerous, not just
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: because he's Donald Trump, but because this job has become
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: one in which they can justify or rationalize any use
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: of presidential authority. now, both domestically now and internationally. That
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: to me is what is so scary about this, because
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: they're not even pretending to have a real justifiable presidential
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: authority as commander in chief for doing this.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: It seemed like there was no process for a debate.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: It was like old school crossfires, like Mark Levin from
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Fox News is pro, Steve Bannon is con, Tulsi Gabbard,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: the head of intelligence, is iced out because she tells
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Trump the truth and not what he wants to hear.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: And Pete Hegseth is iced out because he used Signal
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: one time.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: Literally iced out.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: And like, it sounds like it was the chairman of
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: the Joint Chiefs, Raisin Cane, the head of CENTCOM, J.D. Vance,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: John Ratcliffe, and Trump just kind of like deciding whether
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: to bomb or run. It's just like, we're not going
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: to Congress. We're not going to the UN. We're not
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: doing anything.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Like, yeah, the fact that they don't go to, that
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: he didn't go to Congress at all, didn't consult. And
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: then apparently the gang of eight, uh, didn't brief them yet.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Didn't even brief the gang of, or didn't brief the, uh,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: the Democrats on the gang of eight. There's some reporting
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: that they briefed some of the Republicans.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: Afterwards though, right?
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think they briefed him afterwards. And then I
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: saw Seth Moulton, a Congressman from Massachusetts say on TV
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: that he has heard that Fox news was briefed ahead
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: of the Democrats, uh, as part of the committee.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: And I don't even think– like I haven't heard any
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: of them make the case that there was an imminent
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: threat of attack, right? Like they're saying there's an imminent
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: threat because the uranium has become highly enriched. But as
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Tulsi Gabbard had testified, our intelligence showed that the supreme
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: leader had not authorized the actual weapons program from being–
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: to be restarted, that there was no intelligence there actually
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: building a weapon because there's a difference between highly enriched
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: uranium and actually turning it into a weapon. So when
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: is the last time a president has ordered strikes when
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: there was no imminent threat, even in Libya, right? There
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: was an imminent threat. Or consulted with allies. I mean,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I guess we consulted with Israel, but the Europe part
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: of this is also kind of crazy that our European
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: allies were literally trying to do diplomacy while this was happening.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: In part based on the president's word.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: It certainly seems like a violation of the UN Charter.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: And I know.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: Shut up your ass, nerd.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, forget about the international community, international law. It also
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: seems like it might run afoul of U.S. law and
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: war powers of the president.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, look, there's no effort to go
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: to Congress, no effort to go to the U.N., no
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: effort to sell the American people on the necessity of
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: the war. I mean, look, we know the U.S. intelligence
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: assessment is that Iran has not made a decision to
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: get a nuclear weapon. They have in 2003. Now, there's
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: some reporting or rumor that maybe the Israelis passed along
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: some new intelligence, but no one's seen that. They've not
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: described it to us. The last time a US president
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: made the case for war based on intelligence passed along
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: from a foreign government was the yellow cake that came
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: from Niger that ended up in Bush's State of the
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Union speech, which was total bullshit. That came from the
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Italian Intelligence Service, and it was also based on an
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: assessment by the British Intelligence Service, and it was just wrong.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: It was all based on forged documents. So we just
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: don't know. That's a crazy thing. This moment has such
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: 2003 vibes, like Indie Club is on and Hey Ya
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: is on the radio. We're all intrigued by this MySpace thing.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: But in that case, at least Bush tried to sell
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: the case for the Iraq war. He did it in Congress.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: He went to the UN. The Trump people just skipped
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: that part.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's obvious what happened here is that there
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: are people within the government, and both parties, frankly, have
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: been wanting to bomb Iran for a very long time.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Forever, yeah.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: And this was the best time to do it. Right.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, the headline in Shane Harris' piece is exactly right,
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: which is Trump didn't change. The intelligence didn't change. The
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: situation just changed. This was the opportunity to do it
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: because Iran was weaker than it has been in any
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: time recently, so they did it.
• 23:54
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• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Aran might do to retaliate. And hopefully, you know, based
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: on the news of this ceasefire, Hopefully nothing. But there
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: are a few big concerns out there still. Terrorist attacks
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: against Americans abroad or at home. Cyber attacks against the U.S.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Closing the Straits of Hormuz, which would disrupt global oil supply. Trump,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: at least this morning, seemed concerned about this last possibility.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: On Monday, he directed the Energy Department to, quote, drill, baby, drill.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: And then posted the following. Everyone, keep oil prices down.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I'm watching. You're playing right into the hands of the enemy.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Don't do it. Um, aside from the fact that the
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: small thing, but the energy department doesn't drill the interior
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: department drills, nor do they drill oil immediately.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah. The energy, everyone get their hard hats out. They
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: get out there.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: The, uh, yeah. The, so it's so, God, it's just
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: amazing how stupid this all is. Like everything is so
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: stupid and so dangerous, but it was like to Dan's point,
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: they'd make this decision to do this.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump cares about what things look like on television,
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: but the world exists and continues, and he's not in
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: charge of what happens after. He's not in charge of
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: the macroeconomic forces that happen. You can't bully Adam Smith
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: into keeping oil prices down or from individual traders from
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: assessing risk and volatility based on this. He's not in
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: charge of that. He does this based on images and
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: what the images are going to look like. But war
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: is the thing, even autocrats can't control. They are not
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: in charge of what happens because he's not in charge
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: of whether it's what Iran does in response or what
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: an oil trader somewhere does looking at the futures market.
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: So it's like this incredibly silly thing of like, I'm
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: watching you. What are you watching exactly? People responding in
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: the world to what you're doing. You're not in charge
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: of them. You can't threaten them. It's a bunch of
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: individuals making decisions. Yeah.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Tommy, why do you think that Iran didn't try to
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: just close the Straits of Hormuz?
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, it hurts them as much as it hurts
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: anybody because they're trying to, uh, move oil through the
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Strait as well. I also think like, let's say that
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: the Iranian Navy started mining the Strait of Hormuz. I
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: think that, you know, our Navy would blow them out
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: of the water. So it probably wouldn't last very long. Um,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: who knows? They still might try to do it. Yeah.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: And of course the, the risk of the cyber attacks,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: the risk of the terrorist attacks is, is still very much, uh,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: live here. One of the big questions of course, is
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: what the actual goal of American involvement is and whether, uh,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Trump wanted to go full John Bolton and demand regime change.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Trump's advisors were out in force on the Sunday shows,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: assuring everyone this isn't what we're in it for. Let's listen.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: This mission was a very precise mission.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: It had three objectives, three nuclear sites.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: It was not an attack on Iran.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: It was not an attack on the Iranian people. This
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: wasn't a regime change move.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: We're not at war with Iran. We're at war with
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Iran's nuclear program.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: This mission was not and has not been about regime change.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: So then, as he always does, Trump undermined all of
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: these statements a few hours later by posting, it's not
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: politically correct to use the term regime change. But if
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: why wouldn't there be a regime change? And then MIGA, MIGA, MIGA,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: what do we think?
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: I think it's MIGA.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: MIGA, we're going with MIGA. That's his new thing there.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: So obviously, Trump seems to.
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: Have- Make Iran great again.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Right, right, right. Cool. Got it. Yeah.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, he spelled that. He did say that. He did
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: say that in the statement.
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Trump seems to have backed away from this statement with
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: his latest post calling for an end to the war,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: potential ceasefire now. But what do you guys make of
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: all this? Like, was he just trying to say that
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: he hopes the Iranian people will overthrow the Iranian regime?
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Or is that too generous a reading for me?
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: I did not take it honestly as him undercutting what
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: people were saying. I took it as his kind of
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: negotiating over countertops style, saying to the Iranians, I will
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: go this far. I took it as just trying to say,
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: who knows? I'm crazy. I'll go all the way to
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: regime change. If I have to, I don't want to.
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: It's not politically correct. Nobody's going to want it. But hey,
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: if that's what it takes, that's what it takes. I
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: took it as bluster in the middle of this moment,
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: hoping that it would deescalate. That was my honest reading
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: of it this morning.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: I read it like you read it, which maybe probably
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: is too generous, but sort of this idea like, ha,
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: what if I could use my powers of immense persuasion
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: to convince the Iranian people put on some red hats
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: and overthrow their leaders.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Because without any of their internet access, they're waiting to
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: hear what Donald Trump has to say. And when he
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: tells them to rise up, they're going to be like, Trump.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Told us, let's do it.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: It's not a well thought out notion, I will admit that.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're looking for videos from BB Net Yahoo and
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Trump before they decide what to do. I also suspect
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: that he's susceptible to arguments From people about how historic
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: it would be for a regime change in Iran. It's like, sir,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: this is just like Reagan taking down the Soviet Union, sir, blah, blah, blah,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: shit like that. The counterargument is like, okay, you have
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: regime change that leads to chaos, that leads to civil
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: war in Iran and a migration crisis that would make
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Syria look like nothing. Do you want that? That's probably more.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: Like what are the odds what you get is better
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: than what you have?
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Pretty low.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: No, we have a good track record of bringing democracy
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: to places.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: Maybe this will be the one.
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: This will be the exception that proves the rule. We
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: have trouble bringing it to America.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, that came back
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: to bite us. So we spent a lot of time
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: last week talking about the intramargin rift over Trump getting
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: us involved in another war. But so far, the anti-war
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: wing of the Republican Party, as it may be, your
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Steve Bannon's and your Tucker Carlson's, have been mostly quiet
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: in response to the strikes over the weekend. People like
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz have been leveling most
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: of their frustration at the pro-war faction, not Trump himself.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk posted a poll on Sunday asking what his
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: followers think. No results as of this recording, but we
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: will certainly keep you updated. So far, the only Republican
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: in Congress who criticized Trump's decision to strike was Kentucky
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Congressman Thomas Massey, who told Fox News on Sunday, I
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: feel a bit misled. I didn't think he would let
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: neocons determine his foreign policy and drag us into another war.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Trump responded with a lengthy diatribe on Truth Social where
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: he called Massey a grandstander and a bum. and then
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: promised a primary challenge against him, which one of Trump's
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: super PACs is now helping to make happen. How serious
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: do you think the super PAC thing is in scaring
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: off other potential defectors?
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: I think that the billionaire fund to Trump's super PACs
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: to fund primary challenges to anyone who votes against him,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: that thread has been there since the beginning. It's one
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: of the reasons why Joni Ernst flipped on Pete Exeth.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: And so I don't think this is any different. Massey
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: is probably more politically insulated than others. He has an
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: independent political identity. But this is what is keeping a
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: lot of people in line today. you know, on the
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: nomination votes will be key people in line on the big,
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: beautiful bill going forward. So I don't think this is new.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: This is unique to, it's a new way to do.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: It's like David Hogg with more money, you know? Yeah, sure. Sure.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: No, I'm sure he appreciates that comparison. Just put that
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: in his marketing materials.
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: It wasn't surprising to me to see Trump go so
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: hard against Massey, not just because I think Trump is
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: genuinely annoyed by the fact that he's got this guy
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: criticizing him on this and being a vote against the bill.
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: But Massey's problem is that he's been alone, right? Like
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: why not go after Massey? He's not bringing anybody with him.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: right now to go after the big, beautiful bill. And
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: so he's like, you know, it's not just that he's opposed,
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: that he's weak.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: He's going to make an example out of him too.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: I do think it's like, you all, look what I
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: can do to this guy. So no one's, no one
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: step out of line either on this or on the
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: bill in Congress or anything else.
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: But what's ironic about it is that he's already consolidated.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: Like what two people voted against the bill in the house.
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: One of them was Massey, a couple of present votes.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: He's already got it.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: They're all already scared shitless of a Trump endorsed primary challenge. Yes.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: A super PAC like ups the stakes, but I think
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: like the Trump endorsement would be the problem. I like
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: don't really expect the Trump kind of MAGA pundit political
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: class to leave him. Like I suspect that Tucker Carlson,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: MTG and Steve Bannon, while they sincerely oppose the war,
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: we'll find something new to be mad at Democrats about
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: and just focus on that. I think the question is like,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: what about the first time voters in who voted for
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Trump because they watched him on Joe Rogan, and now
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: they listen to Dave Smith, the comedian who said he
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: should be impeached, or Theo Vaughn, who had Ro Khanna
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: on the other day making the case for why the
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: war was bad, or watch Tucker's content about what a
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: bad idea this would be. Will those people decide they
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: don't like Trump over the policy? Will they decide they
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: were lied to? There's kind of two pieces of this.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: There's the policy is bad, or hey, this guy lied
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: to me.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: I think it's the latter more than anything else, which
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: is if you are a lesser engaged person first time
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: Trump voter, how you get to voting for Trump is
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: a relatively complicated calculus. You need, cause you're not an idiot.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: You know that Trump is kind of a moron. You know,
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: you probably, you probably don't love his insurrections. You don't
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: love the fact he's been convicted of crimes, but you,
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: you made a couple of, you made some rational choices
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: of reasons why I support him. One of them is
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: you thought it'd be better in the economy. Maybe you
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: have concerns about immigration and the border. And the other
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: one is that he is quote unquote anti-war, like Donald
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: the Dove and Maureen Dowd's very infamous column from 2016.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: And when you violate a core part of your political identity,
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: you turn those voters off. And those voters either step
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: out of the electorate because they felt they were lied to,
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: or they become people who will vote for a check
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: on Trump in 2026.
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: I think it really depends on what happens from here on, right?
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: If this ends with these strikes, I think a lot
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: of those people will come back to Trump and say,
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: you know what? He said he was going to do
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: targeted strikes. That's what he did. Caused the whole situation.
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: to deescalate after and there's no boots on the ground.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: I think one lesson- You could even get some of
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: them being like, I was wrong.
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: I was wrong.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: I thought it was going to be a drag dead thing,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: but Trump's right again. We should always know that Trump's
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: always right.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: I think what Trump, look, there's always this debate about
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: is it a war or not? And I think in
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: Trump's mind, he looks at the last few conflicts we've
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: been in and war means boots on the ground to people.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: And I think he took from the Soleimani- strike and
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: what happened after. I think he's trying to make that
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: happen here, which is as long as it's target, as
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: long as it's short, as long as there's no boots
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: on the ground, you pay no political price and you
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: look kind of tough and people move on and forget
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: about it. And I think that's right.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: I also noticed today that Fox is softening up the
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: ground to absolve Trump of any responsibility should there be
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: a terrorist attack in the United States because of this.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: They were talking about how the Department of Homeland Security
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: has issued a warning and there's been Some talk of
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: like sleeper cells, Iranian sleeper cells here being activated. And
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: then Bill Megulin, who's the immigration reporter for Fox, said, well,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: there's also been something like 750 Iranians who were released
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: into the country under Joe Biden. So you can tell,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: even if something like horrible happens, God forbid, you can
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: see they're immediately going to go, oh, no, that wasn't Trump.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: That was Joe Biden's immigration policies. Pod Save America is
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• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Democratic response to Trump's strike has been predictably more negative.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Many Democrats in Congress are upset they weren't consulted or
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: given any notice that Trump had decided to launch an attack.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: They're pointing out that Congress has the authority to declare war,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: not the president. There are different legislative efforts to rein
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: in Trump's military action, including one by Thomas Massey and
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Ro Khanna. Chuck Schumer is trying to get a vote
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: on the issue as soon as this week. So we'll
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: see where that goes. AOC, among other Democrats, did write
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: on Twitter that Trump's move was, quote, grounds for impeachment. Obviously,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: that's not going to happen anytime soon. What do you
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: guys make of the way that Democrats have responded so far?
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, I think some Democrats have been great.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: I think Ro Khanna has been great. Tim Kaine has
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: been a really principled leader on this kind of set
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: of issues for a long time. He's trying to repeal
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: the AUMF. I wish AOC didn't say the impeachment thing.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: I think it just kind of like muddles the debate
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: and gives them something to caricature. I think the congressional
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: leadership has been terrible. Before the war started, Chuck Schumer
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: was accusing Trump of tacoing on Iran, basically calling them soft.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: Hakeem Jeffries was asked about Ro Khanna's bill today, and
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: he said, quote, haven't taken a look at it. The
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: bill is three pages long, pretty big font. So there's
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: kind of two categories of response from Democrats. One is
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Congress should have voted on this first. And I think
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: that's great. That's important. And everyone should make that case.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: And I realized I'm a hypocrite for working for Obama
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: and the Libya conflict was not something that was congressionally authorized.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: But I think more generally, what I want to see
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: from Democrats is to forcefully argue that diplomacy was a
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: better way to solve the problem. The Iran nuclear deal,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: the JCPOA worked. It was working when we pulled out
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: of it. When Trump pulled out of it, Trump's own
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: staff wanted him to stay in the JCPOA. They said
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: it was in our national security interests. They testified before
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Congress that Iran was in compliance. And then he pulled
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: out of the deal. And then Iran started enriching uranium
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: and funding more money for their proxy forces. And that's
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: why we got to the war. And so a diplomatic
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: deal is how you permanently solve the problem. Bombing Iran
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: is a temporary solution with all kinds of secondary and
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: third order impacts that we just can't predict. And I
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: think we need to make the case that diplomacy is
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: better and fight for those agreements when we cut them
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: like Obama did in 2015.
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: I went back and looked at some of the votes
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: that the Republican House led. when President Obama announced military
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: involvement in Libya and started the bombing campaign in Libya.
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: And you had all these South Republicans say that the
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: president had no right to do this without congressional authorization.
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: You also had 70 Democrats join in that vote, right?
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: One of whom was Chris Murphy. Another was Tammy Baldwin,
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: who was, I think, really consistent on this. And I
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: want to hear more from Democrats who are willing to say, hey,
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: we have allowed presidential authority to go way too far.
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: The problem with Donald Trump being president is not just
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: because of his flaws and criminality is because he's in
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: a job that is way too powerful and that both
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: parties contributed to making more powerful. When President Obama sought
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: congressional authority for military strikes in Syria, he said, I
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: don't need to do this, but it's just something I
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: want to do. And that was wrong. It just was.
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: It was the wrong thing to say because it made
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: it as if that there's this sort of, we live
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: in this perpetual gray area where what the president can
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: or cannot do is a kind of complicated and divine thing.
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: bit of religion that only the lawyer priests can help
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: us figure out and they can disagree. But now it's
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: like we need to start having a kind of clear
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: position about the need to limit presidential authority over time,
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: even when there are moments where Democratic presidents have not
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: wanted to cede that control. And I think it starts
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: with Democrats who have been consistent all along, and even
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: some maybe that who haven't been, being willing to say
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: the president cannot start wars with without first going to
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: Congress for approval, unless there is a clear imminent threat
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: that Congress has been notified of.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think you've got to lay out sort
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: of conditions for that, because you can see, forget about
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: which party does it, or like, the president does need
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: to reserve some ability to act quickly.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: Of course, and that's what the War Powers Act is.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Right, I think then the question is like, what is exact,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: what under what exact conditions, what are the, you know,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: what are the exceptions here and there? But like, yeah,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: the fact that we just have just been just dragging
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: this along without clarifying it since 2001, at least.
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: Well, and before, but by the way, also the other
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: side of it is true too. The, all these Republicans
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: that were in Congress were like, Barack Obama is exceeding
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: his authority. They voted no, but what they didn't do this,
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: I think this kind of speaks to the problem and
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: the way in which Congress has become so feckless and
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: useless is after House votes to say Barack Obama doesn't
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: have the authority to do this or shouldn't have the authority,
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: or we don't approve of this. They then had a
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: vote on funding, but they didn't want to do that, right?
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: They didn't want to actually go the next step of
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: actually asserting their power. And Congress is afraid to assert
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: its power, which is dangerous when the president isn't Donald Trump.
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: It's even more dangerous when it is.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Dan?
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: Tommy, you said it feels like we're in 2003. And
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: some of the members of the Democratic Party have been
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: in 2003. For 22 years now, because there is this
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: learned helplessness on national security issues. This idea that if
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: it's national security week, so we must begin every sentence
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: about this with this long winded caveat about how Iran
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: is bad and can have a nuclear weapon as if,
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: if you don't spend upwards to 30 seconds making that point,
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: you will be declared a member of Hezbollah tomorrow. And
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: it's just like, be forceful and strong and unequivocal about
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: why what Trump is doing is wrong. Why the process
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: under which he is doing it is wrong, why he
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: is rushing into military conflict in the Middle East based
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: on manipulated intelligence. We have been down this road before.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: There are consequences to it. And just make that case.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: It's not as hard as we are making it every turn.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, under the War Powers Act, the president can authorize
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: the use of force if the US faces attack or
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: an imminent attack. And in this case, that's just clearly
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: not what was happening. That's not the context. And I
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: agree with you, Levitt. I mean, the president should have
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: to go to Congress. And what is so hard about
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: this is often the Congress doesn't want the vote.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: They do not.
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: That's the problem.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: They don't want to try to get a vote on Syria.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: And they were like, no, we don't want that on
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: our record.
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: They don't want this vote. They don't want to be
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: on it. But it's like, that's the politics. That's why
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: the president shouldn't be able to do this because the
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: Congress doesn't want to get behind it because they don't
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: want to lend it democratic legitimacy because they know the
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: American people won't have their back if this thing goes
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: south because American people don't want to be involved in
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: foreign wars.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: They're also cowards because it's not just that they don't
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: want to help. There is partisanship there as there was
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: with the Syria vote, But they're so afraid of being
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: wrong because if you're wrong on a war, it defines
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: your career, right? There were a bunch of people who
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: wanted to run for president in 1992 who had voted
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: against the first Gulf War who thought they could not
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: run because of that. A bunch of people in 2003
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: who wanted to run for president in 2008 voted for
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: the Iraq War even though it was a wrong idea
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: and ended up being wrong there and paying a price
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: for it.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Well, there's also the, you know, and it's applied to
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: domestic politics here too, but the Bill Clinton line, like
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: it's better to be strong and wrong than weak and right.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: And I think especially in matters of foreign policy, national security,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: that is on the minds of Democrats.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: I don't even think- That's a misread even of what
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: Bill Clinton said too.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: I know, I know.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: But that's how Democrats have thought since 9-11, right? But
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: I even think that you don't need the throat clearing of,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: we all know the Iranian regime is dangerous and blah, blah, blah.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: I think it's like, we don't want them to have
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: We don't.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: That's a goal that we share. what's the best way
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: to do that? And this is to your point, right?
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: The best way to do that is to have a
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: bunch of inspectors in there to make sure they're not
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: enriching more uranium or moving stuff around. Now we don't
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: have fucking inspectors in there. Now they're going to have
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: a chance to, uh, because we can't bomb them. We
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: can't like bomb the knowledge of how to, uh, create
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon out of Iran. It's a country of
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: 92 million people. Uh, we can kill a bunch of scientists.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: We can bomb a bunch of facilities, but like at
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: some point these people are going to keep trying to
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: build a nuclear weapon. So what is the best way
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: to prevent a nuclear weapon? Diplomacy is the best way.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: War is a stupid way to, bombing is a stupid
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: way to solve this problem long-term.
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: I think they don't believe that. I think the reason
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: that part of why, to Tommy's point of why they're not,
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: I don't think they believe that. I think they are
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: conflicted on the policy. They don't want to talk about it.
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: They don't want to take a position, but I think
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: they are conflicted on diplomacy versus, well, maybe these strikes
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: could help. And maybe that, I think that like there's,
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: a genuine lack of assuredness about the policy.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: I even think there though, it's, it is a, it's short-termism,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: which is a big Trump problem, but I think it's
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: also a, a Democrat, it's a political problem, right? Which
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: is they can convince themselves that, yeah, the strikes can
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: help in the short term, which by the way, they may,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: but long-term solution, like if you really believe that, then,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: then come out and say, fucking great. Strikes are the
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: way to go. And this is for the next 10, 15,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: 20 years, this is going to protect us.
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: There are three possible results here. One is Iran ends
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: up with a nuclear weapon. The second is we have
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: a diplomatic deal to prevent that from getting in. The
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: third is a war of regime change in Iran. So
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: the people in charge of Iran are not people who
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: want a nuclear weapon. Those are the three options. And
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: what happened here didn't change those three options. It may
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: even made it the diplomatic solution harder in the long run.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, definitely.
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: 100%.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: There's no diplomatic solution. Who are the Iranians going to trust? Us?
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: The Israelis? The international community?
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Nobody.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: And also just a big picture on the Democratic Party.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: For a long time, we were viewed as the anti-war party.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Now we are not. That's partly because of votes on Iraq.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: It's partly because of Joe Biden's handling of Gaza. It's
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: partly because of Joe Biden's support for Ukraine, which I
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: think was the right thing to do. But we have
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: to get back that mantle. And I think We're in
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: this moment where there was a lot of consternation, including
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: on the far right, about Trump going to war with Iran.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: We have to provide a clear alternative. We can't just
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: be like the wishy-washy silent people in the middle or
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: else the pro-war people are the only ones making argument.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: And that's why I think politics or policy, you've got
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: to make the argument for diplomacy first and war is
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: a last resort, which is a very simple argument that
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Democrats have used to make all the time. The other
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: thing that happened in Iraq is... you had a lot
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: of democratic politicians voted for the authorization to go to
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: war in Iraq. And then when things went South would say, well,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: you know, I, I voted for authorization because I thought
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: George Bush would handle this well, but then he just
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: didn't handle it well. And like, don't, I don't want
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: to hear this now where they're gonna be like, well, Trump,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: the strikes were fine. The initial strikes were fine. And
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: so I supported that, but then, you know, Trump prosecuted
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: the war wrong. And then all this stuff went South afterwards.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: And so I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to step
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: away from that. Like, no, no, no, no. If you don't,
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: if you don't speak out now, you fucking own it.
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: Well, that's the worst thing is that other than Fetterman
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: and maybe a couple of handful of others, no one's
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: actually supporting the strikes. They are just like in the
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: mushy middle of good. They're going to be wrong no
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: matter what the outcome is. Cause they didn't pick either way.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: They just, unless there's a vote, unless there's a vote
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: in Congress on the, uh, unless one of these resolutions
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: gets a vote in Congress, which we'll see.
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: But that was, I mean, that's even a, that's even
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: an afterwards thing. Cause we're not in a real war
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: power situation because you have, you have 60 days of conflict.
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: And then you have 30 days to get out. Unless
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: there are more ongoing strikes, we're not going to be
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: in that situation. It'd be over one strike that happened.
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: But like in 2003, a lot of the argument the
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: Bush administration was making before the vote for authorization is
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: you need to give me this authorization so that I
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: have negotiating power, right? And I think, look, I think
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: some people knew they were voting for war. I think
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: some people genuinely convinced themselves that they needed to give
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: Bush that authority leading up to it. I think you
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: could see the same thing happening here, right? With a
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: bunch of people voting but claiming it is because they
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: want the U.S. to have the strongest negotiating posture. But
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: by the way, I don't even think we're going to
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: get to that because at this point, they're going to
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: all claim the vote's moot if Trump isn't pursuing long-term
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: military action, which means Donald Trump will have shown that
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: you can just bomb a country. You do not need
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: to claim the threat is imminent. The president has this
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: kind of limitless, he is an imperial president abroad, and
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: then he is an imperial president at home.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Speaking of which, let's turn to Trump's other military campaign,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: the 4,800 troops who are still deployed here in Los Angeles.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: ostensibly to protect federal buildings from unruly protesters who haven't
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: been seen on the streets for over a week. The
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: military also has been supporting ICE agents who are still
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: out there arresting, assaulting, and detaining anyone they deem suspicious,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: including undocumented immigrants with no criminal record. legal residents, even U.S. citizens.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: In just the past week, we've seen videos of masked
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: agents tackling and arresting an American citizen who had been
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: filming ICE agents dragging a man out of a truck
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: after smashing his window with a baton. We also saw
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: graphic footage of ICE violently assaulting a landscaper in Santa Ana.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: who turns out to be the father of three U.S. Marines.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: There's another Marine veteran whose wife was detained while she
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: was still breastfeeding their newborn. There's a six-year-old girl in
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: Chicago who has essentially been orphaned after her mother was
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: deported to Honduras. A guy was mistakenly arrested and detained
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: twice in the same week. Twice in the same week,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: detained and then released, despite having been granted asylum years ago.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: It was just a mistake. And the list goes on
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: and on. ICE's own data shows that less than 10%,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: less than 10%, of the nearly 200,000 people who've been
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: detained this year have been convicted of violent crime. The
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: director of one immigrant rights group told The New Yorker
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: that his organization has received around 4,000 calls just this
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: month in June about friends or loved ones who've just disappeared.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: No idea what ICE has done with them. Do you
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: guys think these stories are breaking through or are we
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: in a situation where people are getting numb to this
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: and we've just moved on?
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: They are breaking through. Right. And there is evidence that
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: in the polling data using a G Elliot Morris's approval
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: tracking on June 5th, Trump's approval rating on immigration was
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: five points above water today. It's two and a half
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: points underwater. What is what happened in LA? The protests,
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: these video, what there's the true success of the mostly
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: peaceful protests in LA is people paid attention to what
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: ice was doing. These clips are going viral. People are
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: seeing them. This is supposed to be Trump's best issue.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: and he's underwater on it. And there's been a pretty
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: hard shift over the last couple of weeks. So this
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: stuff is breaking through.
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: You saw like a clip going around of Joe Rogan
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: talking about the fact that they're going after people at
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: Home Depot, that they're going after people that are just
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: trying to work on construction sites and saying that that's
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: not what we voted for, right? That's not what people
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: thought they were voting for. That's not what he said
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: he was going to do. And then you see kind
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: of two responses to that. Some people say, actually, this
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: is what you voted for. And then other people, I
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: think more helpfully saying, You're right. You thought he was
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: going to deport criminals, but he's not. He's going after
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: people that are just trying to earn a living. And
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: I do think that matters.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: It's another example of an issue where Democrats, I think,
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: were scared at first. Maybe they still are scared. But
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: when we made an argument, it seems like we're actually
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: having some success here. And yeah, I think the Rogan
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: thing was important. I mean, that is this conversation breaking
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: through to an influential audience, an influential person who has
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: a huge audience and saying, I don't think anyone would
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: have voted for this. And to all the progressives out there,
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: don't scold people like that.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: You did know.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: Like, don't do that shit. Like, let's create a context
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: where we welcome people back into the fold and we
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: don't make them feel stupid for voting for Trump last time.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Like, come on.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: Let's build a coalition here.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Well, also, like, they were, you know, Trump lied to them.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: And he said all he talked about, right? Like, yeah,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: if you went into his policy page somewhere, you'd find
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: that he was going to just deport everyone. If you
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: knew about Stephen Miller, if you knew anything about Stephen
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Miller and that he was going to be in the administration,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: you'd know that he was going to deport anyone they could.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: But if you just listen to fucking Trump on the
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: stump throughout 2024, you'd think it was just the worst
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: of the worst, violent criminals. And he's going around saying
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: that he wants to protect dreamers and he wants to
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: staple fucking green cards onto people's diplomas and all that
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: kind of shit. So, like, yeah, people were lied to.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: Should they have, you know, thought better of it because
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: they shouldn't have trusted Trump?
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, of course.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: But whatever. We're trying to build a fucking coalition here.
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: And for the most part, this didn't happen in the
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: first term.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: Well, the other part, too, is Trump didn't just lie
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: throughout the campaign. He's lied in the last week and
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: a half. He's been posting every kind of position he
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: could possibly take. Gets a call from his ag secretary
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: telling him about the problems this is causing. Next thing
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: you know, he's saying, oh, we don't want to go
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: after people that are just working hard. The next day,
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem are back at the sticks.
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: And all of a sudden, the deportations are back on.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: I do think that the fact that people are filming
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: some of these deportations is what's going to help a lot.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: They're horrifying.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: It is horrifying. And the guy they arrested at the
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: Home Depot, right down the street from here in Hollywood—
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: which is the one they raided. And he was in
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: American cities, 37 years old. And they thought he was
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: an undocumented immigrant who was just another day laborer at
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: the Home Depot. And he was working at Home Depot,
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: but he's getting his doctorate.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Based on his skin color, they thought.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, at a college right here. And he was like,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: what the fuck are you doing? As you can see him,
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: he's filming it. And also the guy that they dragged away,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: who probably wasn't an undocumented immigrant, sitting in his truck,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: smashing the window. and frightened at his face and then
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: dragging him out. And then when the guy's filming it,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: then they tackle him. And then they're bragging about how
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: many they got today. How many bodies do we get today?
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: 31?
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's amazing. We got 31 today. And then he's, oh,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Trump's really riding us on this. So like, this is
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: the fucking incentive here.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: I want to see Democrats make a bigger deal about
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: ICE agents wearing masks. I know there's a bill in
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: the California legislature that would ban mask wearing ICE agents.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: The fact that in this country, plainclothes cop can run
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: up to you with a mask on, tackle you, and
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: throw you in its unmarked van is insane.
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: With no warrant, no identification.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: And we were talking about this on Friday's pod, and
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: I was like, there's going to be, you know, how
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: do we know it's not just some criminal with a
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: mask on pretending to be an ICE agent? And then
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: after we recorded, CNN said there's actually been a rise
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: in impersonations, people impersonating ICE officers and just trying to
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: round people up.
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: And then on top of that, you can't trust the
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: Department of Homeland Security to tell you accurately what they're doing,
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: when they're doing it. They're lying all the time. The
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security just lies. And
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: on your constant basis, Kristi Noem lies. Kristi Noem's boss lies, obviously.
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: So these people show up. They're wearing masks. Then they
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: drive off. Then the department claims they were never there
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: to begin with. It's on fucking video that they were
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: at Dodger Stadium.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: So the guy in Santa Ana, the landscaper, it was
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: interesting watching how this unfolds with the Department of Homeland Security.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: So- There's video of him getting just the shit beat
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: out of him. They're tackling him. They're pepper spraying him.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: And then a bunch of right-wing accounts start saying, oh,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: they didn't show the whole video. He was actually attacking
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: the federal agents with a weed whacker. Well, what was
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: actually happening is he was weed whacking the lawn, doing
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: his job. Then they started chasing him. First, they also
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: asked him to answer their questions. He didn't have to
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: because you don't have to. That's part of the law.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: So then they start chasing him. He's running away with
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: the weed whacker. And then they're like, see, see, this
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: is proof that he was attacking with the weed whacker.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, these crazy fucking right wing accounts. What
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: is this? Then I see today, Department of Homeland Security
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: tweets the same thing. And they're basically just basing their
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: explanation for their arrest and detention off random right wing
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: Twitter accounts. That's what we're doing now.
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: Then you have Stephen Miller posting something like, oh, there
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: are more undocumented people in L.A. than we ever thought possible.
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: Getting all these free services and, you know, parasites on
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: our economy or whatever way he's saying it when What
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: you're talking about are people that just work in this city,
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: just working every day, really hard fucking jobs, often with
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: paying into Social Security and paying taxes that they can
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: never recoup the benefits of because they're not citizens. And
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: then they're being like kind of chased down the street
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: in this terrifying way. And so the ramifications for Los
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: Angeles is like most people are going about their days.
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: Everything seems normal. But these immigrant communities, especially communities with
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: a lot of undocumented people, they're terrified. They're afraid to
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: go to work, but they have to work. They don't
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: know what to do. They don't know how to live
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: day to day because there is this capricious threat looming
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: over the city, all so that Stephen Miller can hit
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: some imaginary quota set by Donald Trump to hit a
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: number about criminals of which there are not nearly enough
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: to capture to hit these numbers.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that tweet that you mentioned was in response
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: to a post by the city of Pasadena that they
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: were canceling public programs because people were too afraid to
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: leave their houses in Pasadena. And so Stephen Miller takes
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: that as like, well, there must be more illegal aliens
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: than we thought. So there was a development this weekend
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: in the deportation story that's probably gotten the most national attention.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: On Sunday, a federal judge denied the Justice Department's request
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: to hold Kilmer Obrego Garcia in custody while he awaits
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: trial in his federal human smuggling case. Judge Barbara Holmes's
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: order was pretty forceful in its criticism of the administration,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: basically like, the case that they've brought, the criminal case,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: it's got contradictory evidence. Some of it seems like not
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: even possible that it's true at all. Of course, we
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: know that a prosecutor in Tennessee resigned because they didn't
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: think that this case should be brought. The judge also
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: acknowledged that Abrego Garcia will likely stay in custody regardless
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: of what she rules, either because of the Justice Department's
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: appeal or because the Department of Homeland Security will just
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: launch new deportation proceedings against him to keep him in custody. So,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: You know, there's a difference between immigration court and immigration
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: legal system and then the criminal legal system. So he
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: can't be held by the criminal justice system, but he
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: can still be held in detention and immigration detention. DHS spokesperson,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: the one that lies all the time, Tricia McLaughlin, reiterated
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: in a post on Twitter Monday, quote, we have said
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: it for months and it remains true to this day.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: He will never go free on American soil. And then
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: on top of that, just before we started recording, the
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court issued a 6-3 order allowing the Trump administration
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: to deport migrants to countries other than their own, including
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: extremely dangerous places like Libya and South Sudan, at least
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: while the case is still being heard. This could come
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: back to the Supreme Court later, this case.
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: Why would you want to stop grabbing people and then
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: sending them to South Sudan and Why would you need
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: to put a hold on that while the case is
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: running through the system before they even ruled on the merits?
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: Why would you want to put a stop to that?
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: What could go wrong doing that? What's the difference?
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: South Sudan and Libya, a place that's famously easy to
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: return from.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and safe.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: What do you guys make of all these legal developments,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: aside from them being fucking awful?
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was interesting. The judge just shit all
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: over the government's case and the Abrego Garcia case. I mean,
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: they said they have little weight to hearsay testimony. especially
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: hearsay testimony from currently detained people that are cooperating to
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: get an early release from prison, which was obviously the
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: case when we first read the indictment. And then the
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: judge pointed out, as you mentioned, that the testimony provided
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: by the cooperators said that Abrego Garcia would drive from
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: Maryland to Houston and back three to four times a
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: week with his kids in the car to smuggle people.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: which is, she said, borders on being physically impossible. That's
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: what it was. It's like 120 hours a week.
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: A lot of coffee to be driving thousands of miles
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: all the time.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it didn't make sense. Yeah, so it's like the government,
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: like they're obviously prosecuting Abrego Garcia because they view his
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: case as kind of like the marquee case underpinning the
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: credibility of their entire sending people to El Salvador gulag
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: nightmare policy. And clearly it's unraveling. And I think they
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: understand that that would sort of unravel their whole argument
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: around immigration.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: Well, and they're trying to make a public case here, right? Because,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: so the government had some options with Garcia, right? Abrego Garcia.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: They could have said, okay, well, we can deport him
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: to any country but El Salvador. So we're going to
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: try to deport him to a third country. They decided
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: not to do that. They could also say, we want
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: to go back to immigration court and undo the protection
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: of or try to fight to undo the protection of
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: deporting him to El Salvador and then see if they
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: could win that case and then deport him to El
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: Salvador again, their argument would be the gang that they
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: were worried about attacking him no longer exists in El Salvador.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: They didn't do that. What they did is they just
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: made up an entire case calling him a sex trafficker,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: a drug smuggler, all this kind of shit because they need,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: in the public's mind, to have people believe that he
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: is a really, really bad guy. They can't just say, okay,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: you know what? We made a mistake sending him to
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: El Salvador, putting him in prison. We'll just deport him
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: somewhere else, which they could have tried to do, but
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: they are trying to prosecute a fucking phony case just
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: to make people believe that he's an awful person.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: And to make everything that Trump, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, J.D. Vance,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: Marco Rubio said be true when it's obviously not true.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: It is just, as we live through it, remarkable how
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: much of what is... How much of fascism is a
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: group of fucking assholes using ad hoc rationales to cover
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: their mistakes and previous incompetence? How much we're living in
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: this sort of doom loop of them being kind of
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: feckless and cruel and then coming up with some new
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: ridiculous power grab or criminal complaint or stretching of the
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: law to justify it in hindsight over and over and
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: over again.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, because they know that they don't have a
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: legal case to stand on on a host of things.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: And so all they care about is trying to prosecute
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: their case in the court of public opinion. That's just like,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: that's what they've learned. That's what Trump learned when he
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: was charged himself criminally.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and then just to bring it back to like
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: what we watched over the weekend with Iran is you
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: have J.D. Vance go on television and say, yeah, no,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: I know people don't want conflicts in the Middle East,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: but previously we had dumb presidents. And now we have
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump, infallible, God sent Donald Trump.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Now we have a president who's going to make a
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: decision on war and peace based on what he saw
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: on Fox News.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: So everybody makes fun of Mike Huckabee for sending that
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: insane and unhinged text message to his daughter about Donald
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: Trump being God's chosen one, saved at Butler so that
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: he could, I guess, bring about the rapture. But like J.D.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: Vance is doing an intellectual version of that, basically saying
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: that we need to trust Donald Trump because he has
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: this wisdom. And like so much of what the administration
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: does is basically try through legal means, illegal means, lying, deception.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: This ridiculous case, they deported someone and then decided to
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: charge him criminally ridiculous, is to kind of continue to
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: kind of create the image of Donald Trump as this
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: perfect God sent figure. And like the scary thing is not,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: obviously it's scary that they're doing it. I think they're
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: starting to believe it. I think J.D. Vance is starting
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: to believe it.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: Nobody sold his soul for power more thoroughly than that guy.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, J.D. Vance in 2015 would despise J.D. Vance
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: of 2025. Like he knows damn well that it wasn't
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: an issue of dumb president sending people to dumb wars.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: It was dumb wars being waged for dumb reasons.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Church, I'd be much more kind of dumb.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: He was, of course, dumb. Two things can be true.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: We didn't even get to talk about J.D. Vance's trip
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: to L.A. on Friday when he came here to LA
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: to do an RNC fundraising retreat and then tacked on
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: a photo op at the federal building that the Marines
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: are guarding for no reason because of protests that were
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: gone a long time ago and then kicked out local press.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: Never let him in.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: Didn't let local or state California press in there and
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: then called Senator Alex Padilla, Jose Padilla, and accused him
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: of theater, accused him of theater. J.D. Vance, who came
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: to LA to throw on a photo op so he
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: could yell about, you know, ICE raids and protesters that
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: don't exist, called him fucking Jose Padilla, the guy he
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: served with the entire time J.D. Vance was in the Senate,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: one of 99 other colleagues of J.D.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: Vance.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: Un-fucking-real, that guy. Yeah, J.D.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: Vance, man, theater. That was his calling. That's really, you know,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: theater is what he's doing. Theater is what is in
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: his heart. Theater makeups was on his face.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: I also, I mean, Jose Padilla was post 9-11, accused
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: of having a dirty bomb, held as an enemy combatant,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: denied a trial. So yeah, pretty, pretty insulting mistake beyond
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: just getting the name wrong. Ridiculous.
• 1:05:19
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• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: One last thing before we go. Tuesday is Election Day
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: in New York City. The mayor's race has been pretty
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: fascinating a lot of abundance discourse a lot of interesting
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: conversations about anti-semitism about gaza rank choice voting um socialism
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: andrew cuomo.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: Uh yeah those are the topics.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: Was there anything else uh so we've got four uh
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: non-new york residents sitting here love it i like to
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: think i know you like to think that you know
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: in my heart at some point who wants to weigh
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: in any uh Any final thoughts on the race? Lovett,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: what about you? You talked to Mamdani and Brad Lander.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I came away from the conversation with Mamdani being
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: really impressed. You know, a lot of the debate and
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: public debate has been around the kind of the top
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: level sentence on these policies, free buses, public grocery stores,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: freezing the rent. When you talk to him, he's just
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: really smart and has, I think, sophisticated views on how
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: to answer some of the critiques from the right. or
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: even from the center left of those policies. And you think, well,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: how could somebody who's 33 succeed as mayor? Well, he's
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: really fucking smart and, you know, can build, is clearly
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: able to build a following and build a campaign. So
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: that to me was really interesting. Then talking to Lander,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: what jumped out at me is, first of all, Brad
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: Lander's also a really smart guy and really interesting to
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: talk to. But Lander made this really persuasive case about
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: why Andrew Cuomo would fail As mayor. And I realized
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: in hearing it. It was like the most persuasive case
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: I'd heard. And actually the only time I'd heard it.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: Because Cuomo is this. He has the controversy around the
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: nursing homes. And writing a book during the pandemic. He's
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: a sexual harasser. His decisions may be. Basically personally responsible
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: for it. Democrats don't have the house. He's a bully.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: He doesn't seem to want the job. Maybe he wants
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: to run for president. There's a lot of corruption around him.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: And it's all these different reasons. To not like Andrew Cuomo.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: But a lot of them don't really get at the
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: core of whether he will succeed or fail as mayor
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: in doing the things he has claimed he was going
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: to do. And it kind of it's a similar we
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: were talking this before the show that it's a little
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: bit like the Trump problem of like when somebody got
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: so many problems, did anyone really drill down into the
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: cleanest case for people that are open to Cuomo? And
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: the fact that Brad Lander's case was the best version
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: of it I heard made me nervous.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: I think if you look at this race from afar,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: like we, as you said, we are not New Yorkers.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: We don't live there. We don't have to live the
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: consequences of decisions. We don't have a vote. We're not
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: like dialed in on like policies around trash containerization and
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: all the other things that really matter when you live
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: in this state, which is what a mayor's job is.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: This race has been about all these big things, she said.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: I just saw a clip where they asked Mamdani and
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: Andrew Cuomo their response to the strikes in Iran, which
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: is interesting, I guess, but totally, it's never going to
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: be part of their job. And I watch what's happening there,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: and whether you like them, you don't like them, you
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: agree with this policy, you don't agree with this policy,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: you're concerned about democratic socialism, you love democratic socialism, you
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: have to admit that what Mamdani has done is to
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: build a very inspiring campaign that has energized young people
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: for a mayoral race in a way in which no
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: one has seen in a very long time. And people
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: are excited about politics. And while that's happening, to have,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 3: like you have seen this panic among the Democratic establishment,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: not just in New York, but outside of New York.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: You have the, you know, there was a headline in
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 3: Politico over the weekend, which is centrist Democrats freak out
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: about New York mayoral race. You have all these centrist
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: Democrats saying, you know, this is going to cost us racism.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: We can't have a democratic socialist and our friends who
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: we like and respect work with a third way, put
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: out this memo about how radical democratic socialism, they're taking
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: position on the race, but they're saying how bad democratic
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: socialism is. Jim Clyburn, who's reaching down from South Carolina
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: to endorse Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton, who is a New
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: York resident endorses Andrew Cuomo.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: And you have a former HUD secretary.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: Who's former head secretary, but you have that we are
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: creating once again, the democratic establishment is circling the wagons.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: you have a super PAC funded.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: Around the worst candidate.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: I'm going to get to that. I'm going to get
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: there circling the wagons. They have a super PAC funded
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: by billionaires, including Michael Bloomberg has put in more than
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: $ 10 million in the super PAC running just nonstop negative
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: ads against mom Donnie. They had a mailer that did
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: not go out, but leaked out where they darkened his
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: beard to make him look more nefarious to do that
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: to the, the potential first Muslim mayor in New York city.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: And if you're a young person and, you know, we're
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: all having this conversation. Like, how do we get young
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: people to like, to be stick with Democrats? How do
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: we win them back? And then every single time there's
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: a candidate they get excited about the democratic establishment, some
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: members of democratic establishment and billionaires get together to try
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: to torpedo that candidacy. Like this is not exactly how
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: history went, but imagine you're a 30 year old in.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: This country, right?
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: In 2016, you supported Bernie Sanders. The entire establishment supported
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: Hillary Clinton, including the people who worked at the DNC
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: during the primary in 2020. Bernie, support Bernie Sanders again.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: He is on the cusp of victory. Everyone else drops
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: out and endorses Joe Biden.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: Everyone goes and vote.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: They all go and vote for Joe Biden to get
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: him elected. In part because they believe that Joe Biden
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: will be a one-term president. They are begging someone else
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: to run against them or for Joe Biden to step down.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: He doesn't do that. And then here, once again, they
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: are inspired by a candidate and people from the Democratic establishment.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: If you live in New York and you want Brad
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: Lander or someone else, that's fine. But to do that
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: is bad. To do it for Andrew Cuomo... is really unforgivable.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: You're not doing it for another good Democrat. You're doing
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: it for someone that the entire Democratic Party leadership, including
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: the president of the United States at the time, wanted
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: to resign from the governorship because he sexually harassed 11 women.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: He abused his power, involved in this nursing home scandal,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: and everyone's getting behind that. The idea that we are
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: more scared about a Democratic socialist than the mayor of
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: New York than Andrew Cuomo with his record of corruption
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: and sexual harassment is insane to me.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: DOJ, Biden's DOJ, found that, like, he was accused of
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: sexually harassing 13 women. This was in a Department of
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: Justice report. After there was an Attorney General report about it.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: He doctored... A report about nursing home deaths, then they
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: later find out that he undercounted them by 50%. Like,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: this is not some, like, oh, is he a little skeezy? No,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: this is, like, bad shit. I mean, one of Cuomo's
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: former top aides, Howard Glazer, you see this tweet? A
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: grim and joyless campaign as befits a battle for a
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: prize never wanted. one long viewed with disdain and contempt
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: as a trifle that only lesser men would debase themselves
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: to see.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 4: I asked ChachiBT to give me some Yates.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a little overwritten, but it got to
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: what is bothering me a lot about the Cuomo thing
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: is the guy didn't really campaign because he feels so
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: fucking entitled to the job. Like, you don't like Mamdani, then,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: you know, make a case about his policies and how
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: they would affect people's lives. Andrew Cuomo didn't do interviews.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: You know, we reached out. Everyone reached out. He wasn't
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: doing interviews for this campaign. Didn't really campaign. Then you
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: see Maundani just like literally walking the length of New
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: York City trying to talk to voters and meet people.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: All the other candidates trying to take campaigning seriously. And
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: Andrew Cuomo is just like, no, I have the name recognition.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: I got the money. People know me. I'm owed this job.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: It's a step down from governor, but whatever, I'll take it.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: That's the kind of person you want. Hasn't lived in
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: the city of New York for 30 years. That's the
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: person you want fucking running your city?
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: It's the definition of entitlement. I look as a general matter,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: I opt out of New York City politics because I
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: live in Los Angeles and every other reporter lives in
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: New York and they talk about it all the time.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: And I feel like... They got it covered.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: We got enough issues.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: That said, yeah, we got some issues here. That said,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: I like watching that Mamdani video this morning of him
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: walking across Manhattan. Like it gave me Obama 2007 kind
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: of feels and brought me back to what it was
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: like to be young and inspired by a politician. I
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: was talking to someone who works on the campaign who
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: told me that they just like decided to do it
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: one day and then did that the next day. You know,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: it's like a campaign that's nimble and fun. It seems exciting.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: It's like a group of people you want to be
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: a part of. But I share Dan's utter disdain with
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: the established coming down on behalf of Cuomo. Like of
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: all the people to pick, he's such a scumbag, he's
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: such an asshole, he's such a bully, to rally around them.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: I think if Mamdani loses, it would be valuable for
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: folks who are in the DSA to look inward and
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: evaluate policies that maybe didn't work for them electorally. But
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: they will absolutely have every right to be furious at
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party for backing someone who is actively shitty,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: not an alternative, just like a bad guy.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, I think, I think they will
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: say democratic party. It is worth saying that like, you've had,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: you know, Lander and, uh, Mamdani crossing doors. You have, uh,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: you've had Adrian Adams and established.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And like, and it's disgusting.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: It's disgusting.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 4: I do think that like, this was something that came
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 4: up when I talked to Mamdani is I said, like
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 4: what he said at the beginning of his campaign is
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 4: because Cuomo jumps in rockets at the top. Mamdani is like,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: the more people get to know the myth of Andrew Cuomo,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 4: the better I'll do. And I think that's like been
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 4: totally true. He's been proven absolutely correct about that. And
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 4: there's like a lot of misinformation, a lot of propaganda,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 4: a lot of like hateful stuff that has nothing to
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 4: do with the job that is going to cost Mamdani
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 4: in one way or another and could cost him the race.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 4: But I also think sometimes like, okay, there's a myth
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 4: that people are enamored of with Cuomo, right? Something about
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: toughness and competence and like what it means to, that
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 4: what you want in a leader, right? And And it's
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 4: absolutely true that a lot of that's a myth and
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: a lot of his toughness is bullying and shit that'll
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: make him a worse mayor and unable to do the job.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 4: But at the same time, I think sometimes we don't
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 4: do enough to say, hey, what is it that people
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 4: want in that myth? And how can we be sure
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 4: that we're convincing people who want that version of leadership
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 4: that we have that toughness, even as we have more
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 4: compassionate and generous and empathetic policies? And I sometimes think
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: we don't do that. I think sometimes On the left,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 4: there's a little bit of the left can't fail, it
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 4: can only be failed. And that's not to say if
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 4: Cuomo wins, that that's not a despicable outcome of a
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 4: lot of unfairness in this process. But I do think
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 4: I want that too, because I don't want Andrew Cuomo
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 4: to be the next mayor of New York. I think
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: it's fucking awful.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: There's a fundamental question electorally for candidates like Mamdami is,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: can they do well enough with black voters to win?
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 3: The core of the Democratic primary, the most important electorate,
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: in every Democratic primary, around the presidential primary, and particularly
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: in New York? And can he do well enough to win?
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: And increasingly, Hispanic working class voters as well. I mean,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: just working class voters in general. And it has become
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: this irony, right, that more progressive candidates, DSA candidates, you know,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: their policies are fighting for the working class. But in
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: this country, the working class Americans, first white, then now
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: black and Hispanic, are, you know, voting more conservatively. So yes,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: I totally agree.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: It's within the context of a Democratic primary, obviously. And
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: Bernie had shown some success with Latino voters. We didn't
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: get a full test of it, but it shows some
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: success with it. AOC obviously has. We'll see how this
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: plays out. And it's going to probably matter a little
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: bit borough by borough for Mamdani. But the thing that
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 3: is prevented, if Bernie could have done just a little
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: bit better with Black voters in 2016 and a lot
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: better with them in 2024, he could have been the
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: Democratic nominee. And that has been just for progressive candidates.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: That's why Obama succeeded, was the first progressive anti-establishment candidate
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: to win a Democratic primary because he could get the
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: college-educated support that is very important in Iowa and New
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: Hampshire and also do very well with black voters.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: Well, just for the purposes of a thought experiment here,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: I do think it's worth separating out the style of
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: politics from the policy, right? Because we could have a
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: whole debate about what issue positions and policy positions can
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: win a general election. Like, do I think a DSA candidate...
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: could win a national election or an election in a
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: purple state? Maybe, but I don't think so, right? But
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: if you have, like, I think that our party, you
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: have to have people running for office in our party
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: who campaign like Mamdani has been campaigning, who run a
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: campaign like that, who are, like, meeting people all over
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: the place, who are speaking to people's concerns, who are,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: like you said, love it. Like, the strength I think
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: people are looking for is fight unilaterally. behalf of people
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: who need a fighter, right? And to constantly be making
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: about the people that you want to represent. And I
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: don't think we've seen that. Like if there is a,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: you know, non-DSA in some purple states or even nationally,
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: like center-left candidate who campaigns like Mamdani's been campaigning, that
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: person could be president. And if there are people, if
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: there are schmucks like Andrew Cuomo out there who the
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: party is going to continue to coalesce around because, you know,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: on paper they might be, you know, highest name recognition
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: and have these, you know, moderate credentials or whatever else,
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: but they suck, then, you know, we're going to keep losing.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 3: I could scream about this for an hour. On my
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: flight here, I pounded out a message box that'll be
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: in your inboxes tomorrow on this thing because I'm so
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 3: mad about it. It's just It's so stupid for people,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: anyone outside of New York, to panic about who the
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: mayor of New York is politically. We had a lot
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 3: of problems because Eric Adams has been under indictment for years.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 3: Was that a huge problem for House Democrats in 2024?
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: But also, there's something so... There are other candidates, right?
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 4: There's Brad Lander, Adrian Adams, Eleanor Myrie. They had platforms.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 4: They're between them, basically, progressive-wise, right? You had a range
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 4: of options, and somehow you ended up with this super
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 4: polarized vote, right? And the fact that all this money
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 4: decided to get behind Andrew Cuomo because they were so
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 4: afraid of Mamdani when they could have supported Adrian Adams, right?
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: They could have done it. There's a lot of things
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 4: that could have been different about this. So there's a
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 4: way in which it's sort of like a unique situation,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 4: a uniquely frustrating situation for voters who maybe aren't as
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 4: far left as Mamdani but don't want to have a
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 4: sexual harasser bully in their job.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. But one reason I think it concerns
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: all of us, even though we're not deep in the
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: New York City mayor's race, and like you said, I
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: don't think this one mayor's race has an effect on
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: the party writ large, a similar dynamic is what I
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: worry about heading into 2028 again. And it's not necessarily
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: going to be like Cuomo, right? But just these candidates
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: that either look good on paper or the establishment feels
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: comfortable with or who have name recognition or for some
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: reason they think is like, that's the safe choice. And
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know that that's necessarily the best way to
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: try to win an election anymore. So we'll see. All right,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: that's our show for today. If you live in New
• 1:21:04
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• 1:21:06
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• 1:21:09
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