Latest / Pod Save America / Trump Desperate for Strait Allies

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Trump Desperate for Strait Allies · Pod Save America

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we're going to talk
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: about all the latest developments in Trump's war. The energy
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: crisis he's created. J.D. Vance's courageous opposition via anonymous leaks.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: The president accusing media outlets of treason and his FCC
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  Speaker 1: chair threatening to take away their broadcast licenses. Trump fundraising
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: off of the death of American soldiers. And finally, what
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  Speaker 1: Holding into the hottest new trend in D.C., cold calling
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  Speaker 1: slash friends and subscribe today. All right, let's get to
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the news. As the Iran war enters its third week
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: with no end in sight, Trump said a few words
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: about the conflict at the top of his remarks during
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: a White House event about the Kennedy Center renovations... where
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: it was clear the president had one thing on his mind.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: We are pounding that area, that coast. Pounding. Pounding. Pounding. Pounded.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: Pounding it hard.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: They took the pounding from Rick. He knows what it
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: is to pound people. He's a little rough with a
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: couple of the people, but that's okay. They've survived.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I didn't watch that beforehand on purpose. That was great work.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Just a masterful supercut there. There was a lot of pounding.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: A lot of pounding.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: You know what else is getting pounded? New Supreme Leader
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: of Iran, apparently. According to the New York Post.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Allegedly. Allegedly. We don't want to slander him. What do
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: you get, a lawsuit? Look, he could pound the new Ayatollah.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I don't care.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: I gotta say, we gotta be low down on that
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: guy's priority list at this point.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That was the joke.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we wanna wake up. We wanna wake up first,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: I think. Yeah, a lot of talk of pounding. Do
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: you think he remembers that Rick Grinnell is gay when
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: he's talking about this?
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when he was saying Rick there, he was talking
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: about Rick Grinnell, who was running the Kennedy Center and
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: then just left.
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: Rickard L is a human, a Twitter troll that became
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: a human, worked in the intel world for a while,
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: was ambassador to Germany, was the DNI for a while,
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: acting DNI in the last administration, wanted to be secretary
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: of state, didn't get it, became the head of the
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: Kennedy Center and then got fired from that. Because he
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: was pounding artists.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, he is an asshole. As Trump said. Pounding too
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: many artists at the Kennedy Center.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Doesn't seem like he's a people person in that role.
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: No.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: So Trump did address the latest developments in Iran, which
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: he claimed has been literally obliterated before browbeating other countries
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: for not helping the U.S. reopen the Strait of Hormuz
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: by sending warships, even though he said, quote, we don't
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: need anybody because we already won, even though he just
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: sent 2,500 Marines to join the 50,000 U.S. troops deployed
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: in the region. Here's more on all that from our
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: very focused commander-in-chief. They have been literally... Obliterated.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: Numerous countries have told me they're on the way.
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: Some are very enthusiastic about it, and some aren't.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: And what we want to know, do you have any minesweepers? Well,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: we'd rather not get involved, sir. Who's that?
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: You mean, for 40 years, we're protecting you, and you
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: don't want to get involved in something that is very minor?
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: We attacked Cargill Island and knocked it literally destroyed everything
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: on the island except.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: For the area where the oil is. I call it
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: the pipes. We left the pipes.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: Just one simple word and the pipes will be gone too.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: See Trump Kennedy Center?
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: It's been let go to hell.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: The bones are potentially something that could be unbelievable. There's
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: never been a paint.
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: I said someday I'm going to discover a paint where
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: you don't have to actually use gold leaf. Gold leaf
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: is a very, very big and expensive process, but It's
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: a beautiful thing, but not when you use paint.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: So week three of the war, we are doing a
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Monday morning events about the, uh, the Kennedy center renovations and, uh,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: said a lot more about the renovations than he did
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: about the war itself.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: His impression of our allies.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: So he later talked about like how there's, we have 45,000
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: troops and he said, uh, in Japan, defending Japan, South Korea,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: defending South Korea and Germany. So which of those leaders
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: of those three countries do you think he was doing
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the impression of?
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: He definitely didn't want to do, he stopped himself from
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: doing any kind of an accent, which I think is positive.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: I thought he was talking about Europe and NATO, but
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I think
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: they have some mind sweepers, but it doesn't really matter.
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: I think Chancellor Mertz came out today to say like
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: NATO's not For this, it's a defensive alliance. Why would
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: we send troops to help you with your war of choice?
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: So maybe he was talking about the Germans, but it
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: could have been Japan. It could have been South Korea.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: So basically what's happened is, you know, reportedly the Iranians
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: have begun to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: although Trump today said, we don't know. They might have.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: We don't know. We can't tell. We haven't seen anything yet.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: They're obviously still firing at ships. And so not a
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: lot of, no ships are going through basically right now.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: And energy prices, I think oil closed at still around
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: $ 100 a barrel today. And so that's the situation right now.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: And so Trump wants to open the Strait of Hormuz,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: but apparently the U.S. military can't do it ourselves. And
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: so he is begging all these countries to join, but
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: then not begging them. No one has really said yes yet.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen. Have you seen any, Tommy? No, not yet.
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, and he's doing impressions of them that are
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: not very nice. I think the Iranians are letting through
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: oil that are in their tankers or maybe even Chinese-owned tankers.
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: So they're letting some oil through. Yeah, I'm sure most
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: of these groups that he's making fun of, they're pissed
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: that Trump started this war, didn't consult them. And now
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: he's saying, hey, can you help us out? And he's
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: also being a dick about it. I mean, again, like
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: yelling at NATO, like this is not what NATO is for,
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: their defensive alliance. It's also incredibly dangerous. I mean, he
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: says in that press conference that all you need is
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: one Iranian missile or rocket or mine. and you have
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: a catastrophe. And so why would anyone want to participate
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: in that? I mean, we're not escorting ships through the
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: Strait of Hormuz yet. Why would the Japanese or the,
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: you know, Germans want to help us out?
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Trying to build a coalition of straight allies. Yeah, exactly.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good. Yeah, that's what the S is for. Yeah,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: it's hard to figure out where the mines are famously.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: You have to hover both of the mice button over it,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: and you'll literally only know if there's one, two, three
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: around you. I just want to, this is beside the point,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: but it is... The idea of Donald Trump, one of
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: the people of the sort of worst taste you'd ever
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: could imagine, suggesting that the Kennedy Center has great bones
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: when it's one of the most beautiful buildings built in
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: like probably the last hundred years, beautiful thing that he's
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: planning to destroy. Again, not high on the list of
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: reasons to be bothered by Donald Trump, but I do
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: think it's worth mentioning, especially because it is inconceivable, even
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: a couple of years ago, maybe even in the first
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Trump term that you would be you know, about a
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: week or so into a war and have unrelated press
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: events related to interior design, you would not typically do that.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: It would be actually something that I think you'd be
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: kind of a bipartisan uproar about that a president could
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: possibly think it was worth his or her time to
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: be focused on architecture of local landmarks during a time
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: in which we've just lost, we're now over 13 members.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Of the armed forces. We bombed a school, killed over
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: 175 people, but this is the world.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: We live in.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Did you see that he's also considering getting rid of
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the ionic columns? Yes. In front of the White House? Yes.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: He prefers Corinthian. He prefers Corinthian.
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: It's a little more flair.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Well, they're gaudier, right? And I think he doesn't really
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: appreciate the kind of story that the different kinds of
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: columns tell. But I don't think he took Art History
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: 101 at Williams College in 2002. So I guess that's
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: probably why.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Well, look at us now. We're distracted from the Iran war.
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: Anyway, imagine being one of these countries that he wants
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: to get involved in the war. Like today, he said
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: they hit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait. Nobody expected that.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: We were shocked. They fought back.
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: Everyone expected that. What the Iranians are doing is what
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: everyone expected them to do, which is to fire at U.S.
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: military bases in these places to close the Strait of Hormuz.
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: And I don't think most experts I talked to figured
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: that Iran would view this as existential and they would
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: punch back as hard as they possibly could, which probably
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: meant creating an economic cost. And now there's all this
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: reporting that Trump was high on his own supply after Venezuela,
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: and he either dismissed or ignored warnings about how much
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: more complicated an Iran operation would be. And now we're
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: in this mess. And Axios described his staff as having, quote,
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: buyer's remorse, but he refuses to back down. So every
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: step is escalatory. And you're telling, like, nato or the
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: philippines or japan to jump into this situation send your troops.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: I gotta say too from just a pure political perspective
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: can't reflect too well on donald trump with the american
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: people that we put out a call for our allies
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: to help us and no one wants to help us.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Maybe because he has browbeat all of them, not just
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: in the run-up to this war, but on tariffs, on NATO,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: on everything else. He has basically spent an entire year
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: and many years before that just attacking all of our
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: closest allies and now he's somehow surprised when they don't
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: come to our aid for his crazy fucking war plans?
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he didn't tell us why he was doing this.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: He clearly didn't tell them either. Yeah, to Tommy's point,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: maybe the most predictable outcome, like I think you can
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: go back and find papers that say, well, in the
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: event that the supreme leader is killed, Iran would view
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: it as an existential threat and therefore might resort to
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: closing the Strait of Hormuzan, firing upon other neighboring countries.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Like it's sort of just, And the exercise of what
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: would happen, this is what people said would happen, but
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: he completely unprepared for it and going around to talk
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: to allies about how they could help after the fact
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: rather than before. Do you guys know about Leroy Jenkins?
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: When I say Leroy Jenkins, does that mean anything to you?
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: That's what he's doing. It's actually a pretty Leroy Jenkins
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: going to war with Iran. And he ran in there
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: and everybody's like, what's he doing? Like, no, we're not.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: And so he's expecting everybody to come in behind him.
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: Google it, YouTube it. I know he gave no context
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: for you, listener. Just YouTube it for one second.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He mentioned Karg Island. Karg Island is where something
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: like 90% of Iranian oil exports go out of, right?
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: And so he talked about bombing the island, all the
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: military installations, not the oil refineries there. So hasn't yet
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: secured any of Iran's nuclear material. It's talked about potentially
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: seizing Karg Island, deploying another 2,500 Marines to the region.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: It seems like either to take Karg Island or to
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: seize the nuclear material, you would need ground forces, ground troops.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Are we getting close to a war, do you think, Tommy,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: that involves ground troops?
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: If we take Karg Island, they have to have a general...
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: who's from Boston and has a really big- We got CAG.
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: We got CAG Islands. That's beside the point that you
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: were asking about. I find it very hard to believe
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: that the US and Israel, especially the Israelis, would not
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: do something to get the uranium stockpile out of Iran.
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: And I imagine that Trump would prefer the Israelis take
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: the lead on that operation, but I think it would
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: be a major operation that would probably involve both of
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: us because we're probably talking about two different nuclear sites
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: I've seen experts estimate that you'd need about a thousand
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: personnel to secure and conduct the operation at each. You'd
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: need like a commando team that's trained in digging up
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: and handling nuclear materials themselves to do the actual removal.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: You would need maybe like an excavator or other earth
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: moving materials or machines to get at the stuff because
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: it's under rubble because we bombed it. And then you'd
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: need like a bunch of troops to secure a perimeter.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: You'd need to provide defense against missiles and drones.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: You would need either.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: To seize a runway or to create a runway to.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Get the shit in and out.
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: And then you would probably have people like in theater
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: for a considerable amount of time. This wouldn't be Venezuela,
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: like swoop in, swoop out. It would probably be boots
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: on the ground for a while. So that is very,
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: very dangerous. I think Cargill Island is probably a little
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: simpler in the short term, just like to seize the thing.
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: But then you're just sitting there 15 miles away from
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: the Iranian shore and can get fired at.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Also, how long are you occupying Karg Island at that point?
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: What's the goal?
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: Is the goal just to cut off all oil and
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: gas revenue in the short term? Is it to just
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: own their oil and gas in the long term? I
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: don't really know. So I imagine like there's a, I
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: think there's like a hundred, 99% chance that Netanyahu does
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: something to get the HEU out.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Now, letting the Israelis do it alone. HEU is the
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: highly enriched uranium.
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: The highly enriched uranium, sorry. But what happens if, you know,
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: An Israeli commando is captured or taken down like there's
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: ways this gets more complicated So.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: I do think this shouldn't be a problem if whether
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Israel or the US leads because according to Trump We've
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: killed all the Iranian leaders anyway, so what do you
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: think's going on there, too? He they keep saying the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: administration and Trump like insinuating that maybe the new Ayatollah
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: is injured that he might be dead and They don't
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: even Trump's like, I don't even know who we would
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: negotiate with. There's no leaders there anymore. Like, it doesn't
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: seem like that's exactly on the level. But yeah, it's weird.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: Like, they're trying to kind of run him down and
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: suggest weakness. But I don't know what to what end.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: And they clearly leaked this suggestion that the new Supreme
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: Leader is gay to the New York Post because they
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: were then tweeting about it and like kind of taking
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: a victory lap on the story. But again, what's what's
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: the point of this? So we want a diplomacy and
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: have an off ramp.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: It's really hard to know who's telling the truth because
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: like you obviously know you expect the Iranians to lie
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: because it's like a regime that that might lie but
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: also everything the Trump administration says is there was also
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: this Axios story that like there'd been a there's a
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: diplomatic channel now between Witkoff and the Iranians that has
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: opened and then the Iranians were like no that's a
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: complete lie what are you talking about and the administration's
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: like no they're lying they're complete liars and you're like
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know you know.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: It's funny to think that that Kamala Harris and the
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Trump administration agree that that neither country is ready for
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: a gay leader. Do you think that sort of, but, but,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: but even though that's, but that, I'm sorry, that's not
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: what she was saying, even though it is what the
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: words meant, but it's not what she was saying.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Apparently Iran may be ready. Right.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Do they? Yeah.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: That, that, that Iran, Ayatollah Buttigieg. So I, I'm realizing
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: that I'm gonna have to, Moving the honeymoon from Strait
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: of Hormuz to Karg Island was probably a mistake.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Anyway. Yeah. Who knows? They're all liars. It's a real rub.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I also saw the administration officials told Axios that U.S.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: involvement could continue until September.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: That is insane.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: They don't know.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: Trump talks about this war like he can turn it
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: off and on. The Iranians have a say. The Israelis
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: have a say.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: There are 50,000 troops in the region, American troops in
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: the region right now, all of whom are in some
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: way exposed. Some of whom have been killed. Like it's
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: just– it's not up to him.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: They also– they're like, well, maybe in a week or
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: two we can get the Navy. We can start escorting
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Like that doesn't seem
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: like an easy mission either. No, that feels very expensive
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: and time-consuming and maybe feasible. But they're also– the stories
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: about the U.S.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: Navy escorting ships through the Strait say they'll start after
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: the end of hostilities.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah. What's the point? Yeah, how are the hostilities ending?
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: So the war isn't getting any more popular here in America.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: And one way you can tell without even looking at
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: a poll is by this well-timed and very courageous leak
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: to Politico sourced to two senior Trump officials, one of
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: whom texted, that in the lead up to striking Iran,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Vice President J.D. Vance made his opposition known is, quote, skeptical, quote,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: worried about success, and quote, just opposes the war. Vance
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: was asked about this while standing next to Trump in
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: the Oval on Monday. Here's what he said.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Are you completely on board with the current war in Iran?
• 17:21
  Speaker 6: I know what you're trying to do, Phil. You're trying
• 17:23
  Speaker 6: to drive a wedge between members of the administration, between
• 17:27
  Speaker 6: me and the president. What the president said consistently, going
• 17:30
  Speaker 6: back to 2015, and I agreed with him, is that
• 17:32
  Speaker 6: Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: So there's no hesitation given your past statements with the
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: current operation?
• 17:39
  Speaker 6: Well, I think one big difference, Phil, is that we
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: have a smart president, whereas in the past we've had
• 17:43
  Speaker 6: dumb presidents. And I trust President Trump to get the
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: job done.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: So that should do it, huh?
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: It's... Too cute by half, I would say, from J.D.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: Vance.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Agreed.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Too cute by half. And there's been, you know, a
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: series of stories about people gunning for Rubio, the real
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: kind of behind the scenes jockeying, people who want to
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: draft Rubio. And I don't know how plausible that really is.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: But what I take all of it to mean is
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: just discomfort with Vance and the way Vance is just
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: such a kind of like sleazy and like sleazy operator.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Trump is a sleazy operator, but not in a way
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: that you like him at the end of it. the
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: way the others do. And so they look to Rubio
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: as an alternative just because like Vance is just so
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: full of shit.
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: First of all, Phil knows what he did there.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Phil knows what he did.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: You know, Phil was being pretty divisive. Like every time
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: Vance gets this question, he has to whine and cry
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: about the question itself and the questioner. He's like, I
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: know you're, I know what you're trying to do here, Pablo.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: It's like, first of all, that was not convincing. Like
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: I don't, like you could watch Trump's face. I don't
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: think it convinced Trump in that moment that, that Vance
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: wasn't trying to put some distance between himself and the policy.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: The idea that Vance thinks he can run away from
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: a policy that's consequential when he's the vice president is
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: insane to me. Maybe he thinks he can position himself
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: in 2028 as being less hawkish than Marco Rubio, but
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: you're not getting any love from the isolationist wing of
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: the party.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Rubio has just as much stink on him, if not more.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: than J.D. Vance for this war, for any foreign policy adventure.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Rubio's the National Security Advisor and the Secretary of State.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: He's been one of the public faces, one of the
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: few public faces. No, that's what I'm saying.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: I think maybe J.D. could argue that Rubio's more hawkish
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: than he is.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, I thought you were saying, sorry, no, no. You
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: were saying that maybe they turned to Rubio.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Not because of any kind of policy difference, but because
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: they don't like J.D. Vance. He's just not a likable guy.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: He's just so full of shit. Rubio is smart enough,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: to your point, to know that there's no way to
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: run away from being tied to this. He's embracing it
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: fully because it's his job to embrace it. I think
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: he's more prone to being, he has a sort of
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: neocon instincts more than Vance does. But he knows he's
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: got to own this, so he's owning it 100%. The
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: idea that J.D. Vance is going to be reluctantly the
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: face of the war in Iran, it doesn't make him,
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: to use an old joke, it doesn't make him a
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: better person, it just makes him a worse prostitute.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: So the broader, like the The broader setup here is
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: there's all these stories that Trump is polling everyone about
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: who they like better. Is it Marco or is it J.D.?
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: And it's like he did it to a bunch of
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: donors down in Mar-a-Lago. And I think all the donors
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: in Mar-a-Lago preferred Rubio. And maybe that's because they're in Florida.
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: Maybe it's because they're rich guys. Maybe it's because J.D.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Vance is a prick.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: Maybe it's because Rubio has been around longer. But, yeah,
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: I think they're both covered in the stink of this war.
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: And this opens up a real, like, isolationist wing in
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: the Republican primary next time that could be filled. by
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: someone like a Tucker Carlson or like, I don't know,
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: Rand Paul suggesting he might run.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: The Tucker thing seems to me the most plausible result
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: of this, right? Because you, so let's say the war
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: ends next week or a couple weeks, right? And, you know,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: it is obviously destabilizing for quite a long time, but
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: like there isn't any giant catastrophe with, you know, more,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: a ton of U.S. casualties and we're, you know, we're
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: not there for like a year or whatever else. Then J.D.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Vance thinks, okay, well, when it comes time for the primary,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: it's not really going to get brought up that much
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: anyway and maybe if i get asked about it i
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: can say well i think everyone knows for sure back
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: then i got some shit for it that i wasn't
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: exactly yeah uh for the war and then that's fine
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: but in any scenario where this is still a problem
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: or there are like real consequences for this war i
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: think that like there is no way that jd vance
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: or marco rubio are ever going to be able to
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: run away from this and it's go and all the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: energy even if Even if some donors like Rubio and
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: some of the party establishment decides to like Rubio, which
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: you could see, whatever's left of the establishment, or Vance,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: all the energy in a Republican primary is going to
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: be for these, the Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, anti-war, calling
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: themselves America first, Marjorie Taylor Greene, whatever it is, that
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: side of the party, that's going to be energy in
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: a primary. And like J.D. Vance is going to get killed.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: And so is Rubio.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't, I don't, even if, look, let's hope
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: this is not something that is sort of dominating the news, whatever,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: a year from now. I still think this has such
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: a big, like, I don't know how these, how J.D.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Vance is going to go around saying he's not for
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: wars in the Middle East after this, because they did,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: they ran that. That was exactly what they said. And
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: now we're in the middle of it. And I think
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: it's a genuine conviction on the part of a lot
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: of the, not just like the Megyn Kelly's of the world,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: but the podcast, like the kind of big influencers, like
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: a lot of voices on the right. And they're just
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: not going to, forget this. It's not going to be able.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: To walk back. And by the way, political opportunity is
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: just so great.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: And J.D. Vance is not going to be able to
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: walk it. Like Donald Trump is going to be around.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: You think J.D. Vance is going to be able to
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: successfully run away from Donald Trump? I find that hard
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: to believe.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: I do wonder there, like the way that Trump was,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Trump was like, seemed completely fine there. It didn't seem perturbed. Like,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: I wonder if Trump was like, well, I made the
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: decision and if you need it for politics to just,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: I wonder if Trump is okay with that. is what
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I was wondering.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: It's hard to tell. I can't tell either. I was
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: trying to watch his face and it was not clear
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: to me whether he was annoyed or not. I mean,
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: as this thing goes, continues and gets worse, I'm sure
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: he'll get increasingly angry at everyone around him. But if
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: I ran against him, I would say, JD, you can
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: tell us now that you were opposed to this war,
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: but when the chips were down, you were feckless and
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: then you were silent.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Did you agree with it or were you just
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: weak and ineffective inside of the administration? And by the way,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Like Rand Paul is one thing. If it is someone
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: like Tucker Carlson, Tucker Carlson is going to rip him
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: to pieces because he's not going to be able on
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: a debate stage to get away with the kind of
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: hemming and hawing that he's doing in this room over
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: and over again. Were you for it or not? Were
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: you against it or not?
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Now, the smart politics for Trump would be to let J.D.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Vance like have that other position, you know? I mean, honestly,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: even what even what Trump did there was better to J.D.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Vance than what fucking Joe Biden did to Kamala Harris
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: on Gaza. Right.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: According to all the reporting?
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: Privately, yes. Privately telling her no daylight certainly wasn't great.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. Like she could have staked out
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: a position where she voiced her honest criticisms about Gaza.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: And now we've seen from all the reporting that he
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: didn't want her to do even that.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Which, just to be clear, was both, you know, Kamala
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: had agency there too.
• 24:09
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden didn't make Kamala Harris.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: No, that is true. It was interesting to me that
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Trump has like let this go and not had a
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: big problem with it.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: I have the same thought, which is that it is.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Are we going to be in a situation where Donald
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Trump gives more space to his VP to operate than
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden did?
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I think it's possible. So the political blowback over the
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: war is clearly getting to Trump on Sunday night. He
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: falsely accused U.S. media outlets of working with Iran to
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: amplify fake news about Iran and said that those outlets, quote,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: should be brought up on charges of treason. This was
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: after FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who was with Trump at
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Mar-a-Lago over the weekend, threatened to cancel television broadcasters' licenses
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: over their war coverage. Trump then spent his flight home
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: to D.C. attacking reporters for asking even the most basic
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: questions about Iran. Let's listen.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: Can you explain why we're sending 5,000 train trailers?
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Can you explain why?
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: You're a very obnoxious person.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: Go ahead. Is that that we're nowhere near sending ground
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: troops to the Middle East? I don't talk to people like.
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: You about that. Why would I tell.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: You I'm sending or not sending?
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I don't talk about military strategy. Who would talk about it?
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: I don't answer a question like this.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: Because our media companies, who have no credibility whatsoever, putting.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Out information that they know is false.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: And it's a.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Very dangerous thing for the country.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: I think it's, I think they.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Could be in serious jeopardy. I didn't say it's all
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: EU and EU.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: I think it's maybe the most corrupt news organizations.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: So, I mean.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: It's barely in the news today, but, you know, it
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: does seem like the president threatening to shut down media
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: outlets and charge them with treason. Kind of a big deal. Yeah,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: it seems bad. Yeah, sort of.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: He does that, so it doesn't lead to... No, but
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Trump does that. He calls people he doesn't like treasonous
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: and says he's going to bring them up on Charges.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: I think the Carr stuff is more important because the
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: threat itself is enough to try to intimidate people into
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: kind of hesitating, right? Like he's, even if he never
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: acts on it, right? And people knowing that the FCC
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: chair is like watching this closely, like maybe just like
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: worry about a headline a little bit more that seems
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: to be antagonistic to the administration. I think it's really dangerous.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Even Brendan Carr said that the that the government shouldn't
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: censor speech. It doesn't like that the FCC does not
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: have a roving mandate to police speech in the name
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: of the public interest. And the idea that he has
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: now made himself the kind of assignment editor and national
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: ombudsman of the media while kind of posting AI meme
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: slop from the White House, that to me is really
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: dangerous and more dangerous than Trump being in a bad
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: mood because his war is going poorly and he doesn't
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: like the coverage because Bernie Carr is thinking about this all.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Day, every day.
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's worth remembering how bad the media
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: coverage was in the run-up to the Iraq War and
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: how anti-war voices were censored. Thinking back to then, the
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: structural setup was, for example, NBC is owned by GE,
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: which is one of the biggest contractors of the Pentagon.
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: Then you have reporters embedded with the U.S. military and
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: their networks booking current and former military guests. So you're
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: constantly getting the pro-military perspective from that little silo. Fox
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: News is branding anyone who opposes the war as anti-American,
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: but even MSNBC was canceling their number one show with
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: Phil Donahue because they were worried he was too anti-war.
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: Then you have Judy Miller at the New York Times
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: laundering intelligence for the Bush administration. And it's like a
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: bad setup. It's very easy to be pro-war. It's very
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: hard to be against these wars. And the natural instinct
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: is to be patriotic. And there's limitations in coverage that
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: come from logistics and the nature of the Pentagon and
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: how these things work. So You don't need to have
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: Brendan Carr running around for the media to be tilted
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: in a pro-war way already. But adding that on top
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: of it, I think is a really big deal and
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: a pretty dangerous development and a sign that he's really
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: flailing and he knows things are going badly.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Well, it's also worth pointing out how absurd the complaints
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: are with the coverage here, which is like, first of all,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: what Trump was talking about is that there was like
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: an image of you know, Iranians celebrating the new Supreme
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: leader in the streets. And it turned out that it
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: was AI and it wasn't that many people. Now, like
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: that was a, I don't even remember, like, there's not
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of us media outlets that were making that
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: a huge thing.
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: He's famously cares about accurate crap.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: That's going to say like that was, that's that. So
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: that's his complaint. The other, the real complaints are that
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the media is what reporting as, as Pete Hegseth said,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: The other week that it's front page news that Americans
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: died in a war. That's the complaint now. We're talking
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: about American deaths in war and we're asking things like, hey,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: how long is the war going to ask? And are
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: you going to send men and women into Iran on
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: the ground and risk their lives? Just like basic questions
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: like that.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: And he was angry about a headline about a Wall
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Street Journal story about a number of planes that were
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: damaged by an Iranian bomb and how damaged they were.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: He's like sort of dancing on the head. of a
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: pin Hegseth, on the end of last week in sort
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: of petulant, childish way was like, I can't wait for
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: David Ellison to take over CNN.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Like they're all just petulant.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Like with Donald Trump, like in that moment, what he
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: really is saying is you're also fucking negative. You're asking
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: me about all, you're just being negative. You're supposed to
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: have negative, you're not talking about all the good stuff
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: we're doing. You're bringing up all the stuff that I,
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: that is both terrible, but also wounds my ego, the
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: fact that Americans have died. That's an insult to me
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: because it makes me look bad because I'm the one
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: who caused those Americans to die, which he did, right?
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: By launching this war, he invited that we're going to
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: be a response and now Americans are dead because of it.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: He doesn't like to be confronted with that. That's what
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: this is really about.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's also worth pointing out that like,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Brandon Carr's threat is completely empty. I mean, he can try,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: but from a legal standpoint. First of all, he only
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: has oversight over broadcast licenses for local television networks. And
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Brian Stelter and some others looked into this. You start
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: to try to threaten to take away a local broadcaster's
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: broadcasting license because of what? inaccurate, you know, just made
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: up inaccurate coverage, which he can't cite. It's just not
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: going to happen. Now he can still threaten them. And
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: as we saw with the Kimmel thing, like you threaten
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: the local broadcasters and then maybe you get the parent
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: companies like the ABCs and NBCs to worry a little bit.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: But like it's the whole thing is just like crazy
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: fucking bluster, but it's meant to intimidate, you know, and
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: it's like and I think that's the Trump treason thing
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: is too, because like, yeah, Trump's not going to bring
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: them up on charges of treason, but like, you know,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: the DOJ has been charging people left and right or
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: trying to charge people left and right. And he also
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: has sued a bunch of people personally.
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: I was like, it is, I think it's more than bluster.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Like Trump is threatening people. He's threatening people with DOJ prosecution,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: but then they kind of, you know, we just saw
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: that the, that the, that the prosecution against the fed
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: chair got thrown out by a judge. Like they've running
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: into the sort of the, the brute incompetence of his DOJ.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Like Brendan Carr can, can, tie things up. He can
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: get all the affiliates to be worried, get the affiliates
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: starting to be worried that the parent company is going
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: to cause a problem. Like this can be, like we
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: saw that with Kimmel, but like we can, he has
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: a lot of, just the threat I think is really dangerous.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: And yes, obviously you don't need to be like a
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: constitutional scholar to know that the FCC can't decide what
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: the news is on behalf of these organizations, but that
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean he can't do a lot of damage and
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: get the network lawyers to become a little bit less permissive.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden they have had an
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: impact on on what we're seeing without us ever even
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: knowing it.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my only argument is that it's not that it's
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: just bluster. It's that Brendan Carr's threats and Donald Trump's
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: threats are the same level of dangerous. Because I think
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: that legally, Brendan Carr doesn't have as much power as
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: he thinks he is, but the threat from Carr and
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: the threat from Trump, the goal is intimidation and it
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: probably can work. So Trump isn't just targeting mainstream outlets
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: over there around coverage. He's pissed at Trump-friendly pundits too.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: One of his deranged Sunday Night Posts was a lengthy
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: defense of right-wing warmonger Mark Levin against the right-wing pundits
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: who criticized him over Iran, like Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Candace Owens. Trump called Levin's critics, quote, jealous and angry
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: human beings who, quote, are not MAGA and, quote, will
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: quickly fall by the wayside. The feud heated up over
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: the weekend when Kelly hit back at Levin, calling her
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: evil and diabolical. And so Kelly tweeted back at Levin, quote,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry you have a micropenis, but don't drag the
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: rest of us into your drama. Very importantly, Marjorie Taylor
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Greene jumped in to say that, quote, MAGA has been
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: destroyed by micropenis Mark Levin. Is she right?
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: So where did micropenis come in? Like what?
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: It's just a question.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Well, well, we know, you know, we know where, you know.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: We know where it ends, we just don't know where
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: it begins.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: I feel like the whole feud's been inching towards that
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: for a while now. Right, right.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Obviously, we're not going to dive too deep into it,
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: but Megyn Kelly just as Mark Levin as a micropenis.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Not a grower or a shower. Just the tip of
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: a much smaller iceberg.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: No, I know.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: And it's just creating a surprising amount of motion in
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: the ocean.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Very little friction, though. She tried to explain it. in
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: a lengthy video.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you watched that whole video.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: I did too. I did as well.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: I started and I got out.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's great.
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: Well, the short version, the TLDR is Megyn Kelly was
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: mean to Mark Levin.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Well, there is no long version.
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: So Levin called Daddy Trump to send a tweet defending
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: him against the mean woman who was not nice to him,
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: was Megyn Kelly. I think this fight dates back to
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: the last buildup to the Iran war. if we want
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: to get into that. I mean, like Levin is very hawkish.
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: He's in favor of bombing Iran. He's very favor of
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: Israel and Netanyahu in particular. Mark Levin, do you guys
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: know that Mark Levin went and sat in the audience
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: at Netanyahu's trial in Israel? Like that's how much of
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: a buddy he is. And then Tucker Carlson at the time,
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: this is last June or the run-up to the June war,
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: was very against the war. Also not a big fan
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: of Israel. Also not a fan of Netanyahu. He converged
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: into anti-Semitism. And then, so the two started going to
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: war over this policy. And then Charlie Kirk gets dragged in.
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: Megyn Kelly gets dragged in. You sprinkle in like a
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: tablespoon of Candace Owens. You got a dash of Ben Shapiro,
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: you know, like a little bit of Nick Fuentes. And
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: now this is just a full on MAGA media war.
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: And there's some polling that shows that MAGA is for
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: whatever Trump is for. And I think that is generally true.
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: But Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson, they are attuned to
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: their audiences and they know what is getting downloads. and
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: attention and they watch the data. So I don't think
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: they go down this path that they didn't feel like
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: there was an audience for it. And there's also polling
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: that shows that U.S. views towards Israel have changed dramatically
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: since 2023.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Dramatically.
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: Including among Republicans, nine point shift in favorability among Republicans.
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: I think there's things happening under the surface. So Trump
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: might be MAGA and that might be the case for now.
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: But I think this is a fight for the future
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: of MAGA. And there are major shifts happening under the surface.
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: Some of it is foreign policy, like we talked about
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: with J.D.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Vance.
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: Some of it is support for Israel. but we get
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: to enjoy the fruits of it in the form of
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: a micro penis.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Under the surface and, you know, under, under Mark
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Levin's pants.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: It's really, it's really, it's, it's actually like really been
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: popping off, but the, yeah.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: To your question, love it though. Basically she says, uh,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: so he like tweeted about her a hundred times and
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: said all these vile shit about her. And she said like,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: you know, I, I sent a few brushback tweets, uh,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: as she has wanted to do. And, um, Then she said,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: you know, and I just then I just decided to
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: just reveal that he has a micropenis. Not that she's
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: not that I've seen it myself, but clearly we've all
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: been exposed to it because someone who acts that hawkish
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: and tries to overcompensate clearly has a micropenis. Like, that's
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: just something that, you know.
• 36:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: She said, thankfully, I've never had to look at it firsthand,
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: but you can just tell. Then she goes, when they
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: go low, we go micropenis. And then she said, so obviously,
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: Trump's truth social post was drafted by Levin and Levin's
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: post thanking the president. is equally long. It was the
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: only thing that is.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Wow. That's good.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: When they go low, we go small. That's good.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: That would have been, yeah.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: And, and I know, and like Ben Shapiro has been
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: basically challenging Megyn Kelly and others to like denounce Candace Owens,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: which I don't think she has done.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Uh, or, uh, at least not to his satisfaction. And
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: so like, there is like this, it's a real, like, yeah. And, and,
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: and it, it is, um, I always say like, nothing
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: is more upsetting than to a right-wing figure than to
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: be treated like a Democrat. It's like the most horrible,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: like they can't understand what's like, what, why are you
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: talking this way about me? I'm not one of those people.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: You're not supposed to talk this way. And like, they can't,
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: it's a, it's a shocking experience.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. Speaking of Tucker, did you guys see that?
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: He said he thinks that the administration might charge him
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: with under a fair violation, acting as an agent of
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: a foreign power for talking to people in Iran before
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: the war, which he claims they knew he was doing
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: because the CIA read his texts. Yeah.
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: So I didn't watch the whole episode Tucker did on this.
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: He did like a five-minute clip that I watched. It
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: is certainly possible, if not quite likely, that if Tucker
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: was emailing with some Iranian officials, that gets picked up
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: by the NSA or somebody, and maybe that can get reviewed.
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: I find it very unlikely that the government would then
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: tell him that or that he would have committed a
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: crime in the process. I don't get how that's a
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: FARA violation or any kind of violation.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: And there's been some other anonymous sources batting it down, saying, no, no,
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: no one's going to charge Tucker, which is obviously, you know,
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: I don't want to see Tucker Carlson charged with a
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: crime for simply talking to people and doing journalism. I
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: don't want that to happen.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Candace Owens said that if it happens, we ride at dawn.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: But where? So I guess, are we joining that as well?
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: First Amendment protect Tracy Towne.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the Ben Shapiro feud with Megyn Kelly
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: is that Ben wants Megyn to denounce Candace for saying
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: that Erica Kirk got charlie kirk killed right and she
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: won't yeah the candace stuff on that is real bleak
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: over there she's she's a disturbed individual believe it or
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: not uh since it involves trump there's also a corruption
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: angle uh to the iran story uh last week and
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: we heard some of this in the clip, a PAC
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: affiliated with Trump called Never Surrender Inc. sent out a
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: fundraising email featuring a photo of the president in front
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: of a flag-draped coffin at the dignified transfer of six
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: soldiers who were killed during the war's first week. The
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: email presented readers with the opportunity to sign up for a, quote,
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: national security briefing membership, which, for the price of a donation,
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: would send them the president's personal private, quote, national security
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: briefings and unfiltered updates on the threats facing America. That
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: news came after The New York Times reported that Jared Kushner,
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: the president's second choice son-in-law and one of the United
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: States' lead negotiators in the Middle East, has been asking
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: governments in the region to fund his private investment firm.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Isn't that nice? Kushner's firm reportedly recently met with Saudi's
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: sovereign wealth fund, which already contributed $ 2 billion to the
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: fund at the beginning of the Trump administration and is
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: planning to seek funding from the sovereign wealth funds of
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: the UAE and Qatar. Where do you guys all want
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: to start? Fundraising for your PAC off of the death
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: of American soldiers or fundraising for your investment fund off
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: of your alleged role as the diplomat tasked with ending
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: two wars? What's worse? What do you think? I....
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: Really one of the most disgusting images I think I've
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: ever seen. Actually shocking. He's there in that white hat.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: There's a literal coffin in the image. They're using the
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: coffin of a dead service member to raise money. Unconscionable
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: in any other era would be a massive ongoing scandal
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: if the president were asked about it. He would immediately
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: say it was a terrible mistake that the person who
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: was responsible would be fired, it would still be a
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: big scandal. There would be apologies. There'd be across the
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: board condemnation from Democrats and Republicans. But this is just
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: a blip because it's Donald Trump.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I had the same reaction.
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: I mean, it was genuinely shocking how tasteless it was,
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: but also how politically stupid it was. I mean, I
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: can't fire that person. That's criminally stupid. And by the way,
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: as this is happening, there are GoFundMes going around for
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: the families of these dead service members that I don't
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: think Donald Trump is supporting. So it's, yeah, shocking.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Anyone want to tee up on Jared?
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: I'm going to take the over on it, all right?
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Because Jared Kushner and Witkoff and maybe the other Bozos,
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: real sons, potentially making money on this is the only
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: way I can see to war in Iran ending with
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: the most recent living Ayatollah in the Oval Office with
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Trump talking about how beautiful the Strait of Hormuz is,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: and like what a beautiful property it's gonna be. And actually,
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: I didn't know until Jared showed me how beautiful it is.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: It's a beautiful place. All I think about is, you know,
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: remember we were talking about the mines? All was all
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: about the mines. The mine's gonna be beautiful. It's gonna
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: be a fantastic place. And we're so grateful to the
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: new Ayatollah for recognizing Israel. It's going to be a
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: beautiful property.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: The new head of the Palestinian Authority will be there
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: too to talk about all the new high rises in Gaza.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: Well, that's Witkoff, so that makes sense.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: So the younger.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: So yeah, that to me, I'm going to take the
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: over on that one. I think the corruption is good.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: So Jared left the administration, started this investment fund, and
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: he raised a bunch of money from the Saudis, billions
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: from the Saudis, a bunch of money from the Qataris
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: and the Emiratis. And that to me felt like kickbacks
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: for services already rendered. And there was all these reporting
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: at the time that, you know, the professionals at the
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: sovereign wealth funds did not want to invest with Jared,
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: but they were overruled by like MBS and other political actors.
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: Jared then went into the wilderness for a while.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Now he's back.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: He's doing negotiations with the Russians, with Ukraine, with he's
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: doing stuff in Gaza. Now he's part of the Iran talks.
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: And he said that he would not be making any
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: money off the board of peace. He would not be
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: raising money from the Gulf countries that he's working with.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Of course, that was a lie. To avoid conflicts, he
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: said that too. Use the words.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: And now he's trying to get more money for, I guess,
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: for future favors. Also, at the same time, I mean,
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: there's all this reporting that the Russians are providing intelligence
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: to the Iranians to help them kill U.S.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Service members.
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: I saw that the guy who runs the Russian Sovereign
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: Wealth Fund was back down in Miami. for meetings with
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: Jared and Wyckoff, presumably at one of their homes.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: Also, we're removing sanctions on the oil, which is going
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: to give them more money. So we're ostensibly funding now
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: both sides of this conflict, not only, and also strengthening
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Russia and Ukraine at the same time.
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: And the Emiratis bought 50% or 49% of the crypto
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: company that the Trump family started. So the corruption in
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: the rot is just so deep that I almost wasn't
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: surprised by Jared raising this money, but it's just, it's
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: so frustrating because this man doesn't have a government job.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: He has no official role. There's no oversight. There's no nothing.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: But he's like out there briefing reporters as a senior
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: administration official. Yep.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Even though he's supposed to not be having an actual
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: role in the government, except his role is apparently to
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: cosplay making peace and then raising a bunch of money
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: for his fund.
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: Good for Jared.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Like over the weekend, I just was hearing from different
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: people and I have friends with family in Iran, and
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: they were talking about how they just are waiting for
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: regular updates when the member of their family can get
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Wi-Fi just to say that he's safe, right? That's what
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: they're living in between. Thankfully, some members of the family
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: got out before, but now they're always really nervous. They
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: hope everything's okay, and they just wait for when the
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: internet's working to get a regular update. And then at
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: the same time, I was hearing from family friends about
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: an elderly relative in Israel who is infirmed, and so
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: it is difficult to for her to get in and
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: out of shelters when there are bomb sirens that are
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: going off. And that's happening all the time. And it's
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: just really difficult. It's hard on the health. And you
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: just like the real world consequences of this are just
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: nowhere for these people. Like there's the actual day-to-day, the
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: sheer scale of what they've unleashed, right? The amount of
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: people impacted by this, the number of people who are
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: getting killed and whose lives have been upended, like the
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: chaos they've unleashed. It just feels so abstract to them
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: even now two weeks into it. For Kushner, obviously, for Wyckoff,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: but for Trump, which is why when he's asked about
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: the dead service members or anything like that, he's almost
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: angry to be confronted by the actual reality of what
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: he's done because he wants to only live in the
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: fun story version that he's telling himself. But as Orwell
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: had said, famously quoted by Christy fucking Noem, war is
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: the one thing that intercedes on an authoritarian, right? The
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: reality of a war, you can't pretend it's not happening.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: And that's what's happening. And the Pentagon's been hiding the
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: true casualty count. We don't really know. But I saw
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: today the Washington Post, I think, reported that 200 service
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: members have been wounded as well. So there's a lot
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: of people getting hurt.
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: And also, like, add to your list of real human
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: beings impacted by this war the 800,000 people who have
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: been evacuated from their homes in Lebanon because the Israelis
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: are basically telling everyone who lives within, like, 25 miles
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: of the border that.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: They have to leave. Do you see the Israelis announced today, too,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: that they're not allowed back?
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: I think what's happening here, I think this is going
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: to go, I think what's happening in Lebanon is going
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: to go on a lot longer than what's happening in
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: Iran and that it's going to end with Israel trying
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: to permanently occupy a lot of Lebanese territory. Sounds like
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: they want to if they're not going to let fucking 800,000
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: people return to their homes. They're another, just learned it
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: in Gaza and so now they're evacuating like.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Major swaths of Beirut, which is a huge city.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Just using the opportunity of the conflict to pursue their
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: larger purposes in the region, which Trump is totally fine
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: with and Huckabee is totally fine with. There's no breaks.
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: Hezbollah, obviously, terrible organization, kills indiscriminately, kills Israelis, kills Druze,
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: kills Christians in Lebanon as well. But yeah, I mean,
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: the idea that it's strategically smart to undertake this massive
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: operation as you're in the midst of a war with Iran,
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: it feels like a bad idea. And it's just more
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: of a cynical way to use everyone being distracted to
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: do things you always wanted to do.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: So speaking of corruption, the Times also published a piece
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: over the weekend about the stock trading habits of Senator
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: Mark Wayne Mullen. Trump's pick to replace Kristi Noem at DHS.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Mullen reportedly bought shares in Chevron, the only U.S. oil
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: supplier with an active operation in Venezuela, five days before
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: the United States attacked the country and later vowed to
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: take over oil operations. According to the Times, Mullen has
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: become quite the trader, reporting at least 130 trades last
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: year and outperforming the market by 8%. Sure, it's just
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: a coincidence. After selling his company, this is from the
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: Times story too, After selling his company in 2021, Mullen
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: reported fewer than 30 stock trades in 2022. In 2023,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: his first year as a senator, that jumped to 100.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: So suddenly, he just is trading a lot of stock
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: these days. And, you know, his assets originally when he
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: got to the Senate were between $ 2. 8 and $ 9 million
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: when he first got to the House. Now it's between
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: $ 29 million and $ 97 million.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: Jesus.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Guess he did some good trading, huh? Yeah, it's good work, dude.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think about Mark Wayne Mullins? He's
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: got a confirmation hearing this Thursday. It is very tempting,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: I imagine, for Democrats to focus on this story in
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: the hearing. But what do you guys think? Divide and conquer.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, this should be a part of it.
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: Someone should dig in on this because Donald Trump in
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: the State of the Union, one of his biggest applause
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: lines was banning stock trading. And he wants to make
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: it all about Pelosi and her preventing that from happening.
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: And frankly, Pelosi has not been good on this issue.
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: And it really sucks because it makes Democrats look bad.
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: But members of Congress should not be allowed to buy
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: and sell individual stocks. It is an absolute no-brainer that
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: they should have their assets in a blind trust or something.
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: They should not be buying and selling crypto. They shouldn't
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: be selling futures or using polymarket or calci to bet
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: on events. I mean, like, I will never believe it's
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: a coincidence that this guy bought a bunch of Chevron
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: stock five days before we toppled the dictator in Venezuela
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: and installed a much more oil-friendly dictator in Venezuela.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: It was a third party. It was a third party. Yeah, sure.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: And if you read that statement, even if you take
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: the statement as being accurate, which I don't know that
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: necessarily you can, there's plenty of room inside of that
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: statement for him to be doing whatever he wants. Yeah,
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: they should not be trading individual stocks. None of us
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: should be trading individual stocks because we're not stock traders.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: And the only reason it would make sense for members
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: of Congress to be trading stock is because they have insider.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: Information.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Even an example they were proud of in the story,
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: there was a member of Congress who was on a
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: board and was bragging about the company to everybody on
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: the committee. So that's one of the reasons people were
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: buying stock in that. What are we doing here?
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: Chris Collins.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: And he went to jail. Well, he went to jail.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Well, not for that specific thing.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: He goes to jail for insider trading. For insider trading,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: for not that, not the one he was most proud of.
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: And Trump pardoned him.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: And Trump pardoned him because he doesn't believe in insider trading.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: He thinks that's just good trading. And we also have all,
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: by the way, God only knows what these people are
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: doing on the betting markets, which we don't have any
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: insight into, where they're trading with insider information, because the
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: only way it makes sense is because these trades on
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: like Kalshi and Polymarket are because of insider information. So
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: of course it should be banned. And by the way,
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: the disclosure rules should be better. Why on earth do
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: we have ridiculous ranges where we find out how much
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: money they have between nine and 90 million? That is
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: a ridiculous space set up by members of Congress to
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: make it kind of confusing how much money they have
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: and how much money they've made. We should have more
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: disclosure for them more frequently. There's a whole bunch of
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: reforms that would make this less of an issue.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: So one kind of fun, kind of pathetic story before
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: we go. You may have noticed the recent trend of
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Trump just giving random interviews to any reporter who calls him.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Turns out there's a reason. Everyone now has access to
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: the president's personal cell phone number. The Atlantic reported over
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: the weekend that And then Semaphore followed up as well
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: that Trump's number has become the biggest open secret in Washington,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: with journalists openly trading it among themselves. So many now
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: have access to it and have been using it to
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: regularly call the president that White House advisors have stopped
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: keeping track of who's calling. And according to one White
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: House official, as many as, quote, 10 reporters will call
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: in a matter of two hours. Trump, unsurprisingly, loves the attention.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: He apparently has gotten into the habit of keeping his
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: phone screen face up during meetings to just watch the
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: notifications roll in. Let them roll in. Loves it. Trump
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: aides have said that at the moment they have no
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: intention of changing the number and have no plan to
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: stop more people from getting a hold of it. You
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: guys have it yet? Yeah, yes, actually. Should we give
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: him a call? I got it. You got it? Yeah,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: I got it from a reporter. Let's call him. I'm
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: going to call him now. Do we have a plan?
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: What are we going to say?
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: I was just going to call and say, Tom Vitor
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: from Pod Save America calling on a recorded line.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: How are you? Great. Recorded line. Oh, that's important. West
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Palm Beach number.
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: It'd be so awkward when he calls me back after
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: we're not recording.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: You think he calls back? No, he's just a receiver
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: of calls.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: This could be the last call.
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: Didn't we prank Rudy Giuliani once?
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: Sean Hannity. And boy, did he get the last laugh.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Sorry, guys. Didn't deliver on that one. You think he's
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: checking his voicemails?
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm sure what happened with me today was I
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: sent two texts to people who I thought might have
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: the number, and one of them gave me the number.
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's been a bunch of news reports about
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: how easy it is to get it.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: So maybe today was the last day, and now he's
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: finally going to have to change his number whenever his
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: emails were in that Sony hack.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes.
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: Because it sounds like there was one... Someone wrote a
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: piece on this. The Atlantic piece on this made it
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: sound like I think one reporter kind of figured this
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: out early. It was like Garrett Hawk or somebody and
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: got Trump's reaction to something about Biden really dropping out,
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: Biden dropping out really early on and had a scoop.
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: And then every other reporter was like, oh, this dude
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: is just taking calls from press now.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Also, I think maybe next time, love it or I
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: should try because we have 202 numbers. And so he
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: probably sees 202 and says, oh, it's DC and you
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: don't have a 202. I'm going to let it rip. Well,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: we'll try again. We'll try again. We'll try it once
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: an episode. Okay, great.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: I like that. I like that.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: Uh, Just to see.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: Remember when Biden would do an interview every six months?
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: Tell us what we should ask, everyone. Send in your ideas.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: Send in your questions. When to ask the president. In
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: case we get him on the horn.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: Get him on the blower.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: You know? What gives you hope? I have to... There's
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: a whole story about... This person, three bucks. Yeah, right.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: How do I convince my relative who loves Trump to
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: not vote for him anymore?
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: Where's the climate pod, you fucks?
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: So apparently like CEOs and crypto bros are offering money
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: for the number. This is in the story. Sure, yeah.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: There's a couple other funny parts to it. One of
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: them says the administration, so like everyone's calling, you know,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: they're like not just the big outlets, but like the
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: smaller outlets, us now, you know. But then it says
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: the administration officials say sub stack authors have started to call.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Forcing White House staff to look up names they don't recognize.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: That's so funny. Oh, no, the subs.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: We didn't talk about this, that today in twice, it
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: is two different press events today. He made reference to
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: a former president who he likes, who said he was
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: right to go in. to Iran.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: And then he's asked, I wish I had done that.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: I said, wish I had done that. And then he's
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: asked by a do see later that day, who are
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: you referring to? Was it George W.
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: Bush?
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: No.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Was it Bill Clinton? I'm not saying, but you know,
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: it's from these endless from him being on the fucking
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: phone all the time.
• 54:39
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: Well, I assume that Donald Trump, uh, probably called Bill
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: Clinton to commiserate about being unfairly.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Treated over Jeffrey Epstein. A hundred percent. I feel like
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: that's 99%. I mean, it's not Barack Obama. I have
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: a hard time believing because he also said he's like
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: someone I actually like, but it wouldn't be good for
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: their career. Well, they don't have much of a career
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: anywhere at this point.
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's for former presidents.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying.
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: So we think it's got to be.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Or, as he often does, he's just lying. He could
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: be making it up.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: But I mean, Clinton, Biden, Obama. I do not think
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama is talking to Trump on the phone saying
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: he wished he had bombed Iran. It's not Obama. Don't
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: think it's Obama. So I think it's Clinton, Biden or Bush.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Doesn't make sense for it to be Bush the way
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: he's talking about it. probably not biden so.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: You're really the clinton people are saying it wasn't him
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: i mean which.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: They may not know they may not know i don't know.
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: If they're jimmy carter well that's that's huge news was
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: there was there a window where jimmy c might have
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: said i wish i'd gone into i'm not before this
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: current operation what did jimmy carter die Was it before
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: or after Midnight Hammer?
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: It was before Midnight Hammer.
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: Do you think peace advocate and Nobel Peace Prize winner
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: Jimmy Carter in his hundredth year got on the phone
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: with Donald Trump and said, God damn it, I wish
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: I fucking bombed Iran? I mean, it did fuck up
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: his administration.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: It did fuck his whole presidency up.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: He died in 2024. Yeah, it's tough to be.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: I bet he had a conversation with Bill Clinton where
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: he mentions Iran. And in Trump's mind, Clinton said that.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: And in Clinton's mind, if you ask Clinton about the conversation,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: Clinton didn't say that. Well, that's what I would.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: Two guys that are famously great at remembering what they said.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm getting at. That's what I'm getting at.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: We have just a serious thing about how accessible Donald
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: Trump is, because this goes to what we were talking
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: about earlier, which is like, oh, he's calling people treasonous. Like,
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: he is incredibly accessible, and I do not think a
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: Democrat needs to be as accessible as this. But, like, man,
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: there is value to having Donald Trump, like, in there
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: every day communicating nonstop. And whoever we use is going
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: to be somebody that represents us. Like, man, how much
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: space he has to move because he's out there time
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: after time after time. Just sort of new layer of paint.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: You know, like, just new layer of paint. New layer
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: of paint. And, yeah, sure, the windows don't open anymore
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: because they're sealed shut from fucking paint. You can't access
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: the outlets because there's so much paint. But man, do
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: we think it is? Do we think it is?
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: It's certainly better for freedom of the press, for sure.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: It's probably better for the public to have the president
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: be more accessible. I think that the next Democratic president
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: should obviously be much more accessible than Joe Biden was.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: Do we think it has been good for Trump to
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: be this accessible in this in this administration with his
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: sub 40, his 40 percent approval rating?
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: I think that he definitely gets a lot of flexibility
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: and leeway for doing so many reps. I think he's
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: figured out how to make scandals go away a little
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: bit faster. Not all of them. Epstein didn't go away.
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: It was alive for months and months. It's still alive.
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: I think in this instance of Iran, he's taken like
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: 30 phone calls from reporters and given 30 different messages.
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: So that part has not helped him.
• 57:37
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: I also think that.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: Part of his ability to control the narrative is not
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: his choice to be accessible, but his choice to kick
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: out most reporters and not sit down for challenging questions
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: or interviews from many people?
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: Yes and no. We just watched him get the four
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: hardest questions he could have gotten in any interview. His
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: approval rating is 40%. He's the worst president in American history.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: I think it does inure him to what the coverage
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: would look like if the space were filled by a
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: voice other than his. And I think in ways that
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: are subtle, Him being so accessible kind of takes the
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: teeth out of the Democratic argument that he's like a
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: raging authoritarian looking to squash the free press and destroy
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: American democracy. Like being around him all the time, seeing
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: him all the time, I think kind of blunts that
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: a little bit, both for reporters and for Americans.
• 58:28
  Speaker 6: I do.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: I think we don't know what it would look like
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: for him to not be doing this much, but I
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: don't think the fact that his approval rating is so
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: low is because this doesn't work.
• 58:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: I think that there's a difference between accessibility and– I
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: think that because of Donald Trump, the expectation now among
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: both journalists and probably a lot of Americans is that
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: their president will be constantly communicating about everything that happens
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: all the time. And so I think that if you
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: do not do that as a president, you will get
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: yourself into trouble. Like I think his constant style of
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: communication is probably helpful. I think like, you know, being
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: more accessible to reporters here and there is like, I
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: think for him, it might be okay because he's lying
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: about everything anyway. and he's screaming at them all anyway.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: But like, I feel like the next Democratic president doing
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: a million, 30 interviews a day by phone is not
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: going to redound to their benefit.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: No, I would say, well, we don't, we just don't
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: have a counterfactual because it was, you know, Joe Biden
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: was Joe Biden. And before that was Barack Obama, who
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: had more of a traditional kind of relationship with the press.
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: I think the answer is somewhere between it's not between
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Obama and Biden, it's between Trump and Obama as to
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: how much access you'll want. And because I think the
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: Obama style and someone who is as disciplined as Barack
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: Obama being more accessible and being a little bit looser
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: is probably the answer.
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, look, I think him freewheeling it is probably a
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: net benefit. That said, just like in the Iran context, again,
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: like he is a big shit right now because despite
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: all this access, he did not prepare the country for
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: what he was going to do, right? He didn't use
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: the State of the Union to, lay out a plan.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: He hasn't really delivered a speech about what we're going
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: to do in Iran. So I think it has harmed
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: him in that he has come away as being unserious
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: when he's doing an event with the MLS soccer team
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: about casualties in Iran and then telling Lionel Messi that
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: he looks hot.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: That literally happened.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: It was the guy next to Lionel Messi who told
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: him he was hot.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: I forget his name.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: And I've noticed that the quality of the questions he
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: gets is just lower because he doesn't face all the
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: best reporters. A couple of good real reporters.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: And then you'll have like Lindell TV or whatever.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: Like the way that Sean McCreesh asked that question, I
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: think last week about the school in Iran and just
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: like the way that he, not just the fact of
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: the question, but the way that he phrased the question,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: you never hear that.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: Well, I would just say, I thought it was a
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: great question. That is the hardest question I've ever seen
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: a president asked Like, I don't think you've ever seen
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: a question phrased exactly like that. Cause if we've never
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: had a president that.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: We've never, we never, well, that's the point.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: It's because he taught that is the right, that is
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: the right way to ask a question of someone so
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: despicable as Donald Trump, but it's hard to find that balance.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: But to your point, like what was that Friday, Thursday, right? Like,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: so we're just saying that like, Oh, it's been a
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: weekend since he was in a full press conference where
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: half the questions were real and serious and tough questions.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: And half of them were full of shit, dumb questions
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: from like, if you just took the serious questions he's getting,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: he is taking probably far more serious questions. Forget Joe Biden.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: Then what Barack Obama took when Barack Obama was what
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: we considered a very accessible president.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's true. Oh, I serious questions. Like
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: I were, I can remember from Trump, like you can
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: remember the interviews where Trump sitting down with Tapper, Trump
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: sitting down with Savannah Guthrie, Trump sitting down with 60 minutes.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: Like those are tough, real difficult interviews. He like, Peter
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: Doocy is maybe one of the better ones when he's running.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: And Caitlin Collins, when she's allowed in there. But he
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: does it with a light touch. Right. Caitlin's probably the
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: best one in the press corps.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: There are some real reporters sprinkled in with some very stupid,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: ridiculous people. Look, I think Sean McCreesh's question was great
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: and good on him for asking it. I think that
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: used to be the norm.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: Like, I remember my uncle was a political reporter. And
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: I think it was George H.W. Bush said that the
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: United States should, like, be okay with assassinating foreign leaders.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: And he and his buddy ran around every event and
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: asked him who he would kill first and why, and
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: just ruin his whole like rollout event. And like, that
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: should be where we're at.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: Well, yes, those were when, when Barack Obama or Georgia W.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: Bush or someone did a press conference, remember it would
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: be like, you would set up the East room or
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: you'd set up a space. It was outside of the
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: normal room. It was like, you made a moment of
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: it because it was like kind of less frequent. And
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: then the questions were all very serious hitting on all
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: the major news topics like Trump breaks that up and
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: and like i don't you'd have to you know do
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: the actual math on the give and takes but the
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: the fact that he is he is just that he
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: is as accessible to the mainstream media as any president
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: we've ever it's the truth all.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: Right well we'll uh including to us hopefully yeah call
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: me back sir okay should i text him oh yeah
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: just text him just a pic of me i can
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: text him all right guys that's our show for today
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: dan and i will be back with a new show
• 1:03:07
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