Latest / Pod Save America / Trump Blasts "Third Rate Podcasts"

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Trump Blasts "Third Rate Podcasts" · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 1: There it is.
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  Speaker 2: You know, you don't be afraid of a break in
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  Speaker 2: You want to make sure the only thing the only
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  Speaker 1: And will people remember that story by next Friday? Oh, yeah,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: they will.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
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  Speaker 1: I hope so.
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  Speaker 2: For sure.
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  Speaker 1: Well, if not, you just brought it back. Okay. We've
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  Speaker 1: by visiting simplisafe.com slash crooked. That's half off at simplisafe.com
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  Speaker 1: slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
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  Speaker 1: On today's show, we'll talk about Trump trading genocidal threats
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: for a chaotic ceasefire that hasn't changed all that much
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: in Iran. Vance heading to Pakistan for negotiations with an
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  Speaker 1: eye on his 2028 politics. The prominent MAGA stars calling
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: for Trump's removal. Republican fears that they've already lost the midterms.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: DNC drama over Israel. And Melania Trump's bizarre attempt to
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: distance herself from Jeffrey Epstein. What a day. Then Rahm
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  Speaker 1: Emanuel stops by the studio to talk with Tommy about Iran, Israel,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: and his widely rumored presidential ambitions. Quite the show, Dan.
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  Speaker 1: Quite the show. Quick reminder for all of you, please
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  Speaker 1: slash friends and subscribe. Alright, let's get to the news.
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  Speaker 1: After a week where the president backed off his threat
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: to eradicate an entire civilization based on a last-minute ceasefire
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: agreement with Iran, we are basically back to where we
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  Speaker 1: were The last time you and I recorded a week ago.
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  Speaker 1: The Iranian regime is still in power, still controls the
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Strait of Hormuz, and still has its nuclear material. War
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: is still raging in the Middle East between Israel and Lebanon.
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  Speaker 1: Oil and gas prices are still high. And Trump is
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: still declaring victory while simultaneously threatening more war. One of
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: his latest posts says that our military is, quote, looking forward, actually,
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  Speaker 1: to its next conquest, and, in the same post, said
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  Speaker 1: that if Iran doesn't agree to all his demands, quote,
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  Speaker 1: then the shooting starts, for some reason shooting starts is
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: in quotes, bigger and better and stronger than anyone has
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: ever seen before. And, Dan, while you might be mocking
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Trump's decision to pull us all back from the brink
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  Speaker 1: of catastrophe, like some silly resistance lib, The folks at
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Fox News know what's up.
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  Speaker 2: Democrats are already saying that this is taco.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Trump always chickens out. Let me give you another acronym.
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  Speaker 4: Nacho.
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  Speaker 3: Never avoids confronting hard obstacles.
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  Speaker 1: It's a nacho, Dan.
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  Speaker 3: It's a nacho.
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  Speaker 1: Is it a taco or is it a nacho? No,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: don't answer that question. How would you assess Donald Trump's
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: diplomatic prowess over the last week?
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  Speaker 3: I think the.
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  Speaker 1: Would you call it a quesadilla? A chimichanga? An enchilada?
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  Speaker 3: Anything from the Taco Bell menu.
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  Speaker 1: Okay. Supreme Gordita?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, a Supreme Gordita of diplomacy.
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  Speaker 1: I haven't been to Taco Bell in years, so I
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  Speaker 1: don't know, but go ahead.
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  Speaker 3: Don't brag about it.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Chipotle guy. Are you? Just derailing us right at the beginning.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, okay. Let's get into the actual questions here. It
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: has not been a stellar 36 hours or so of
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  Speaker 3: diplomacy for Donald Trump, I would say. It really hasn't
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  Speaker 3: been a very good month, hasn't been a good decade,
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: but I think the Iran war has... brought to bear
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  Speaker 3: for the public, something that we always knew to be true.
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  Speaker 3: I think even some of Trump's supporters suspected to be
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  Speaker 3: true but suppressed that, which is that Donald Trump is
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: an erratic, capricious idiot who is in so far over
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  Speaker 3: his head that he cannot see straight. When you go
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  Speaker 3: through what is happening here, one day it is we're winning.
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  Speaker 3: The next day, we don't need the straightforward moves at all.
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  Speaker 3: Then we're going to blow up– we're going to send
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  Speaker 3: Iran to the Stone Ages. We're going to blow up
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  Speaker 3: every bridge and power plant because we need the Strait
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  Speaker 3: of Hormuz. He agrees to a ceasefire negotiation. He has
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  Speaker 3: no idea what's in it. According to the reporting, he
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  Speaker 3: did not even know that he thought Lebanon was in it.
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  Speaker 3: It turns out it was– at least Israel thought it
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  Speaker 3: was not or it wasn't originally, and then Bibi Netanyahu
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  Speaker 3: got on the– the red phone he has directly into
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  Speaker 3: the white house and had it taken out. There is
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  Speaker 3: huge confusion.
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump probably has no idea where Lebanon is and
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  Speaker 1: couldn't point it out.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: He has no ceasefire agreement.
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  Speaker 3: He has no idea. He's not steeped in the details.
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  Speaker 3: He has no core policy ideas. He doesn't understand how
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  Speaker 3: the global oil market works. He doesn't understand what the
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  Speaker 3: street of Hormuz is. He doesn't understand how, uh, your
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: enriched uranium matters or where it could be or how
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  Speaker 3: it's used. He knows nothing. And it is, it's sort
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  Speaker 3: of a miracle, uh, that Donald Trump has been president
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  Speaker 3: for five years now. And for most of that time,
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  Speaker 3: he's been able to dance through the raindrops of his
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  Speaker 3: own incompetence to avoid things like this. Like we always
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: would say, particularly in Trump's first term, he's going to
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  Speaker 3: tweet us into a war, stumble us backwards into a war. Well,
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  Speaker 3: he did that. And he has no way of getting
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  Speaker 3: out of it.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, we can't check. We stumbled our way into a
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  Speaker 1: once-in-a-generation pandemic, mismanaged that.
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  Speaker 3: That's the other example, right? The two times reality.
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  Speaker 1: Came to bear. We're incited a violent riot in the Capitol.
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  Speaker 1: Did that. Check. Yeah, he didn't have lead us into
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  Speaker 1: a dumb war yet.
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  Speaker 3: So he's... Yeah, it's just for most of the time, pandemic...
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  Speaker 3: And this war aside, for most of the time, particularly
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  Speaker 3: in Trump's first term, his incompetence didn't end up mattering
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  Speaker 3: that much. He got very lucky. There weren't a lot
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  Speaker 3: of crises. The ones he got into, he was able to,
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  Speaker 3: he stumbled into them, he was able to stumble out
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  Speaker 3: of them quickly. Now he's stumbled into something he cannot
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  Speaker 3: get out of. And he is just truly the worst
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  Speaker 3: person to try to lead us out of this.
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  Speaker 1: Also, the Times had a sort of a tick tock
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  Speaker 1: of the 36 hours when the ceasefire came together. And
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  Speaker 1: It was interesting because, and I think this was reported
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  Speaker 1: at the time, but when Donald Trump posted his genocidal
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  Speaker 1: threat that a civilization will die tonight, the negotiations had
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  Speaker 1: apparently been going somewhat well. And then when he posted that,
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  Speaker 1: the Iranians became so enraged that they broke off the
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  Speaker 1: negotiations and the Pakistanis and then ultimately China had to
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  Speaker 1: try to put it all back together last minute. to
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  Speaker 1: get a deal, which Donald Trump wanted because Donald Trump
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  Speaker 1: was looking for an exit ramp because he knew the
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  Speaker 1: war was unpopular. So what he thought was going to
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  Speaker 1: get a deal by making a genocidal threat actually almost
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  Speaker 1: tanks the entire thing.
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  Speaker 3: I am shocked to find out that a threat of
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  Speaker 3: genocide did not improve diplomatic prospects. So in that story,
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  Speaker 3: it's also funny that story is 36 hours because, you know,
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  Speaker 3: the Times most famous travel feature is 36 hours in Paris,
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  Speaker 3: 36 hours in New York. And so when you Google
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump, 36 hours, Iran, You get some strange results.
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  Speaker 3: But in there, it's kind of the opening anecdote is
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  Speaker 3: Trump is sitting at his desk as the clock is
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  Speaker 3: ticking down to his 8 p.m. genocide deadline. And he's
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  Speaker 3: looking at pictures and video of Iranian civilians surrounding the
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  Speaker 3: bridges and power plants that Trump has promised to bomb.
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  Speaker 3: And his basic response seems to be, well, that'll be
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  Speaker 3: Iran's fault.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: If I have to bomb them and they die.
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  Speaker 1: And he was like, In a bunch of meetings about
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: other topics, just like bragging about how many bridges and
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  Speaker 1: power plants he was ready to bomb that night and destroy.
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  Speaker 1: There had been some reporting, too, and I couldn't tell
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: if it was like a negotiating tactic or not. May
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: have been. But that said that of all his advisers,
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has been the most bloodthirsty of any of them.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: He's been like the biggest warmonger. um, which is, uh,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: not something that's going to make me sleep well at night, Dan. Um,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: so there, he also did right before we recorded, he
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: was like, I, I hear that Iran might be charging
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: now on the straight of Hormuz. They better not be.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: And it's like, what, what that that's been reported for,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: for days now. That was like, Again, but part of
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: the agreement was that the IRGC was going to run
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: the street. So what did you think was going to happen?
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: And then someone asked you about it yesterday. You said
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: we might charge tolls as well. You also talked about
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: in a post how it's a great day for world
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: peace after the ceasefire agreement. And now everyone's going to
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: make money. It's going to be the golden age in
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: the Middle East. Like what? Does he have no idea
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  Speaker 1: what the fuck's going on? Clearly.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: Yes, you are correct, John. He has no idea what
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: the fuck's going on. Wait till he finds out that
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: one of the ways in which the IRGC is accepting
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: payment is in cryptocurrency. And one of the acceptable methods
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: is the World Liberty Financial USD1 stablecoin.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Wait, is that part true? The second part?
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: That has been reported. That has been reported. I cannot
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: verify that to be the case. But I think it
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: has to be in stablecoins. And that is a stable coin.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Amazing. Amazing. So there's been a lot of stellar reporting
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: in the last week about what's been happening in the
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: White House during this war, since, you know, we can't
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: trust the public comments of anyone who works in the
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: White House. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan had quite a
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: detailed story about the Situation Room deliberations that led to war,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: which apparently included an in-person presentation by Bibi Netanyahu. What'd
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: you make of that piece?
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  Speaker 3: Like the diplomacy piece, just a wild expose of incompetence.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: It seems very clear that Trump was persuaded to go
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: to war by Bibi Netanyahu. It seems that Trump gave
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: it very little thought as to what would happen next.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: He took the word of Bibi Netanyahu, according to this report,
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: and the Israeli intelligence service. Bibi is in the sit room,
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: and they've handed over the keys to the technology of
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: the sit room to the Israelis. And so on the
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: screen is the Israeli military... the Mossad to walking through it.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: And Trump apparently seemed dismissive of the concerns raised by
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: General Dan King and others on our side and took
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: what the Israelis had to say as more accurate or
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: more or better, more predictive. And even though if Trump
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: had half a brain, he'd know that Bibi has been
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: pushing for this war for decades.
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: And obviously, it's not an unbiased presenter of information here.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what I got from that was, first of all,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: stunning that you had a head of state in the
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Situation Room, even an ally, pressing for making the case
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: for war in the Situation Room. I don't think that
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: that has ever happened. I certainly don't remember it ever happening.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: That said, I also, you know, the pro-Israel folks will say, well,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has agency and he made the decision himself
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: and it wasn't necessarily just Bibi. And I think the
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: piece bears that out for sure. I think he he
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Bibi definitely made the case and definitely influenced him. But
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I think Donald Trump wanted to hear a pro-war case
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: from Bibi Netanyahu. And I guess there was like, you know,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: there was four four potential objectives for the war. And
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the piece says that first was decapitation, killing the Ayatollah.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Second was crippling Iran's capacity to project power and threaten
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: its neighbors. Third was a popular uprising inside Iran. And
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: fourth was regime change. with a secular leader installed to
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: govern the country. And basically the military, Cain tells Trump,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: he thinks the military does have the capacity. He wasn't
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: even saying he was for it, but he said the
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: military does have the capacity to do one and two,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: killing the Ayatollah and crippling Iran's capacity to project power.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: And then basically everyone in the room, except for, this
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: was after Bibi Netanyahu left and the Israelis left, but
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: all of his staff was like, All the rest of
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the senior officials in the White House were basically said
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: that three and four, the popular uprising and installing a
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: secular leader were crazy. Ratcliffe, the CIA director, called it farcical.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: And then Rubio interjected, that means blasphemy. It's bullshit, I
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: assume because Trump didn't know what farcical meant. But even
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: as General Keynes said he believes the military could achieve
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: one and two, he also warned about the Strait of
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Hormuz and how it would be very difficult to reopen
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: and how the Iranians could gain control of it, which
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: has happened. Trump seemed to dismiss that because he thought, oh,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: the regime will have fallen by then. Um, and warned about, um,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: depleting munitions that we are going to like use a
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: lot of our weapons and defensive weapons, offensive weapons by
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: doing this. And Trump didn't seem to care about that. Um,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: and then there was even an anecdote in that story,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: how Tucker Carlson, uh, who had been calling Trump and
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: warning him not to do this and pleading with him
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: not to do this. He basically said, uh, he had
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: a call with the president right before Trump said go. And, uh,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Trump said to Carlson, I know you're worried about it,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: but it's going to be okay. And then Tucker said, well,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: how do you know? And Trump said, because it always is.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: I think there's, that is a very, very telling anecdote.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Me too. Me too.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Everything's going to go great.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: It always has for him, right? Go bankrupt, get rich again.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Right. And I think especially since he survived the assassination attempt,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: he does have this, he has like a little bit
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: of a little bit Messiah complex here where he thinks like,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: you know, God has sent him to be president again. And,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: He thinks it's, I think he, he saw Venezuela go
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: off without a hitch for him at least. Um, and
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: he saw the, you know, in the 12 day war
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: when they bombed Iran, like that went off relatively easily
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: without a hitch as well. And so he just thought
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: this would be the same. And he also sees it
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: as a legacy item. He thinks, oh, well, no president's
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: done this in 47 years. There's also a good piece
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: in the Atlantic today, um, Jonathan Lemire wrote about how
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: for Trump, like it's 1979 again, and he's sort of
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: like stuck in the 80s and 1979. And in 1979,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: you know, the popular political thing to say was like, oh,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Carter was too soft on Iran. And and, you know,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: we would have if he had just bombed Iran, then
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: it would have been better. And so like and because
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Trump's always frozen in time, he's still thinking that it's
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: like the 80s and that he's going to be the
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: guy who couldn't do what presidents could try to do
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: for 47 years. and changed a theocracy in Iran.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's all right. Like, he has a
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: messiah complex. He also just has been, this goes to
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: sort of his idiocy, is to not understand the difference
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: between a handful of directed strikes at Iran as part
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: of Midnight Hammer, or sending in the Delta Force into
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: Venezuela to abduct one person, from launching a war with
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: Iran in the Middle East with the Strait of Hormuz
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: there like did not understand those differences is so it's
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: galling really like it's stunning to be that sort of
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: ignorant of the whole thing but since he does all
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: these things in the military they do what they're supposed
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: to do every single time without flaw without loss of
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: life and he just thought he could get away with
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: it it's still I think the 80s thing is a
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: really interesting point because Like, it is his mentality about cities,
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: about crime, about everything is that New York, 1980s, I
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: think 1979. He sees how that ended Carter's presidency, the
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: attempt to rescue the hostages, the inability to rescue the
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: hostages in the embassy. But it still is strange that
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: he has picked regime change as his legacy items.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I know, because he also watched Iraq unfold. And, you know,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, he claims to be opposed to that now,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: but what he was opposed to was when it all
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: went south, he wanted to be on the side of saying, yeah,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: this is bad and what a catastrophe. And also, oh,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: you should have taken the oil. His lesson in Iraq
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: is like, don't send in a whole bunch of ground
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: troops and take the oil. And so, which I guess
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: is why he hasn't sent in ground troops yet to Iran,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: but who knows, because the war continues. It's a very
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: fragile ceasefire that has almost fallen apart numerous times. It
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: may yet fall apart by the time they get to
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Islamabad this weekend.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: By the time you're listening to this on Friday, it.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: May fall apart.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: Right, right, right.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Because Israel continues to just bomb the hell out of
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Lebanon and Beirut, a densely populated urban area. Hundreds of
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: civilians have died, women, children, medics. And I guess finally...
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Trump called Bibi and said, like, you've got to pursue
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: some kind of diplomatic negotiations with the Lebanese government, which
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: had been trying to disarm Hezbollah before this latest war
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: and had been also trying to negotiate since Israel began
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: bombing them, had been trying to negotiate with the Israelis
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: some kind of a diplomatic solution because so many Lebanese
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: who have nothing to do with Hezbollah are dying in
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: this war and millions have been displaced. So I guess
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Trump has got Bibi to agree to pursue some kind
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: of diplomatic negotiations, though Netanyahu also said there will be
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: no ceasefire while negotiations go on. And the Iranians are saying, like,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: absolutely not. We don't want to negotiate if this is happening.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Who knows if they'll stick with that or not. But
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: that's sort of where we are right now.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: It does show the weakness of Trump here, which is
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: Trump wants a ceasefire. He wants this over. The thing
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: preventing this from being over is Israel bombing Lebanon. And
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: he is unable to convince or force or use leverage
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: on Netanyahu to get Israel to stop bombing Lebanon. And
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: Israel is going to keep bombing Lebanon because they want
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: the war with Iran to keep going. They want the
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: United States to keep bombing Iran. So they're going to
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: keep bombing Lebanon. And we were just in this like
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: It is a circular argument that Trump cannot figure out
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: how to get out of because he does not have
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: the guts, the courage, the strategic sense to figure out
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: how to get Netanyahu to do the thing he wants,
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: even though Israel is dependent on the U.S. for so much,
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: particularly in this moment.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: And, you know, he also doesn't understand, or maybe doesn't care,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: like what Netanyahu's thought process is on this, which is
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: not dissimilar to his thought process in Gaza, which is
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: They're not just like taking out senior Hezbollah commanders. They
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: are taking out like mid-level Hezbollah, you know, operatives who
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: are embedding themselves in civilian populations. The Israelis don't seem
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: to care. They're bombing the civilian populations anyway. They are
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: basically occupying southern Lebanon at this point. And they may
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: not have and it doesn't seem like they want to
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: give it up, just like they are occupying Gaza. And
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: basically their view is we're just going to keep pushing
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: the boundaries outward from Israel and we're going to keep
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: calling them buffer zones. But what they really are is
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: just taking land and occupying more land, thinking that somehow
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: this is going to be enough to eradicate Hezbollah or
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Hamas or any of the other terrorist groups they think
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: are threats. And it's continues to be proven wrong over
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: and over and over again. And I wouldn't expect Trump
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: to understand that, but maybe someone in the government might, um, So,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: in the last few days, Trump has turned his attention
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: toward another sworn enemy of the United States, NATO. The
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal reports that the White House is considering
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: a plan to punish NATO for not going along with
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Trump and Netanyahu's war by removing U.S. troops from NATO countries.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Trump has also been ranting about NATO, posting, quote, NATO
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: wasn't there when we needed them, and they won't be
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: there if we need them again. Remember Greenland, that big,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: poorly run piece of ice? Okay.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: You would think all this might have made for an
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: awkward meeting between Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday, but not so, according to Rutte. Is the
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: world safer today than it was before the war was started? Absolutely.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: Because, and this is thanks to President Trump's leadership. Do
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: you still consider him daddy after yesterday?
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: I was not calling him my daddy, but saying.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: But of course, daddy has also a special connotation.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: And I now have to live as this the rest
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: of my life. Dan, do you still consider Trump daddy?
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: I don't really know how to answer that question, John.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: It's like a trap, is what it seems like.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: That guy... Go ahead. You defend Mark Rutte. As you
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: did in our morning meeting.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: What I was shocked by was the way in which
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: you just dismissed the importance of NATO to the global alliances.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, here's the thing. Obviously, Ruta has a strategy
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: of appeasement that is incredibly embarrassing for him, for NATO,
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: for those of us who even have to consume him.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: It's embarrassing. I don't know how he sleeps at night.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: The problem for Ruta is NATO does not exist without
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: the United States. And they are staring down a face
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: where we have Russian aggression headed towards the European continent.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: And if the United States pulls out of NATO... they
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: lose the most important military part of NATO and the
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: biggest threat to Turin to Russia. And so he like,
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: I don't applaud the way he's doing this. I'm embarrassed
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: for him. I'm embarrassed for his family that this happens,
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: but he is, he is trying to keep NATO together
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: because like, you'd love to just say, fuck you and
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: walk away. But if he does that, then NATO, which
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: is the thing he's in charge of, collapses functionally, at least.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Even if Trump, Doesn't formally pull out of NATO, which,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: you know, you need to go to Congress for anyway,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: or who knows, maybe in a true social post, he'll
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: do it. Maybe he doesn't do that. If you're Vladimir
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Putin and you have eyes on potentially invading a NATO country,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: do you really think the United States is going to
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: come to the defense of NATO militarily or even otherwise
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: if you go ahead and invade at this point? Probably not.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: And that's the whole alliance right there.
• 24:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: That's the whole point of NATO. Now, Trump, Trump seems
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: to think in these posts, Trump seems to think NATO
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: is like, um, like you, because you're in NATO, whatever
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: one country wants to do in NATO and whatever wars
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: they want to pursue and invasions and bombings they want
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: to do, then everyone else has to join too. But
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: you're like, come on, we're NATO. You got to help me.
• 24:51
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: He thinks they're all part of the same gang and
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: they can go.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: He doesn't realize it's a defensive alliance.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Once again, a basic principle learned in, you know, European history,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: you know, 101 or whatever else that Trump, this has
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: eluded Trump till his 80s.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Completely embarrassing.
• 25:20
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• 27:50
  Speaker 1: the ceasefire doesn't completely fall apart, J.D. Vance is headed
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: to Islamabad this weekend for negotiations with the Iranians. So
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: I hope they're ready to say thank you. They've got
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: to be meeting J.D. Vance with a lot of thank
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: yous or else he's going to be very angry. Vance's
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: team has seemingly been leaking to every reporter who'll listen
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: that the vice president has been the senior Trump official
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: most opposed to the war in Iran. This comes up
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: quite a bit in the Times piece we talked about.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: When the ceasefire came together this week, Vance happened to
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: be out on the campaign trail in Hungary.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: As one does.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, one does, holding a rally for the country's pro-Putin
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: authoritarian incumbent, Viktor Orban, where he just, as a nice touch,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: accused the Ukrainians of election interference.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: J.D.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Vance accusing the Ukrainians of election interference as he, a U.S. official,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: was in Hungary campaigning for the authoritarian incumbent in that country.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: and apparently lacks self-awareness. Very normal. But America's best hope
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: for peace in the Middle East did make some time
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: for Iran questions on the tarmac in Budapest. Here's how
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: he handled it.
• 28:59
  Speaker 8: I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon,
• 29:03
  Speaker 8: and it just didn't. We never made that promise. We
• 29:05
  Speaker 8: never indicated that was going to be the case. First
• 29:07
  Speaker 8: of all, He said that there are a few points
• 29:10
  Speaker 8: of disagreement before the negotiation. Well, that must mean that
• 29:13
  Speaker 8: there's a lot of points of agreement because there's a
• 29:15
  Speaker 8: 15-point plan floating around. There's a 10-point plan floating around.
• 29:19
  Speaker 8: If he's frustrated about three issues, that actually means that
• 29:22
  Speaker 8: there's a lot of agreement. That's point number one. Point
• 29:25
  Speaker 8: number two, to respond to each of those issues, and
• 29:28
  Speaker 8: I read it very closely, let me just say this.
• 29:31
  Speaker 8: I actually wonder how good he is at understanding English
• 29:35
  Speaker 8: because there are things that he said that frankly didn't
• 29:37
  Speaker 8: make sense in some of the, in the context of
• 29:39
  Speaker 8: the negotiations that we've had. The second thing Ghalibaf said,
• 29:42
  Speaker 8: which again, I found fascinating as he said, we refuse
• 29:46
  Speaker 8: to give up the right to enrichment.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: And I thought to myself, you know what?
• 29:50
  Speaker 8: My wife has the right to skydive. But she doesn't
• 29:55
  Speaker 8: jump out of an airplane because she and I have
• 29:57
  Speaker 8: an agreement that she's not going to do that because
• 29:59
  Speaker 8: I don't want.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: My wife jumping out of an airplane.
• 30:01
  Speaker 8: We don't really concern ourselves with what they claim they
• 30:04
  Speaker 8: have the right to do. We concern ourselves with what
• 30:07
  Speaker 8: they actually do. And I think the president's been very
• 30:09
  Speaker 8: clear on the enrichment question. Our position on that has
• 30:12
  Speaker 8: not changed.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: I tell you, the my wife really came out of nowhere.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Did not expect... him to reference his wife jumping out
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: of a plane. But it really is interesting to see
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: how J.D. Vance grapples with these foreign policy issues. You
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: can tell he's really giving it thought and definitely not
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: sort of just making it up on the fly.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: He is such a pedantic, obnoxious high school debater.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Actually, I think the misunderstanding, it couldn't be us, I
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: think the misunderstanding is you not speaking English very well.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Does he think their translators don't exist? What does he
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: think this is?
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: He's like, actually, it really depends on what you mean
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: by right.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Like, I have an idea. I have a way to
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: get out of this because I was really thinking about
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Usha and skydiving.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Like, do they have it? Is the agreement that she
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: won't skydive or do they have a mutual non-skydiving pact?
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: If I was her, I'd be like, yeah, sure, I
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: won't do it. But if you want to jump out
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: of a plane, anytime.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure she probably wants to jump
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: out of almost any moving vehicle that she's in with
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Janie Vance.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: I will fly you myself. So if Vance does get
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: a primary challenge in 2028, how far do you think
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: he'll go in trying to communicate that he was always
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: against this war and will it work? Because they are
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: out there, someone from his camp, if not Vance himself,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: did some real leaking to the New York Times about
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: him in that meeting. They have to Politico before. It's
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: been quite a few places now that the Vance team
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: has been out there just making sure everyone knows how
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: opposed to the war he is in private.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: If you think Joe Biden was tough on Kamala Harris
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: for trying to find areas of disagreement, how do you
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: think Donald Trump, the guy who threatened to hang his
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: last vice president, is going to be in the course
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: of this election?
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I can't tell. I mean, I
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: think he will be a complete dick, but like, I
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: do wonder if on some issues he'll give him a little,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: he'll give him a little leeway. I don't know.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, it would be funny and not funny. It's
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: not the right word. Sad.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: If he's darkly, darkly funny, darkly funny.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: If he's more malleable than Joe Biden was on this
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: crucial issue of electability.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: Here's the thing though.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Sonny Hosen, get the question ready. You know, I.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: Don't think we're going to see JD Vance on the
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: view at any point. A couple, a couple of things here. One,
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: JD Vance is not going to have a lot of
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: success running, in the Republican primary away from Trump. Like
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: the way these things typically work when a vice president
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: is running to succeed a president, a two-term president, and
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: we have two modern examples, George H.W. Bush and Al Gore,
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: is there is a continuity candidate and there's a change candidate.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: And J.D. Vance, by definition, is the continuity candidate. And
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: the continuity candidate almost always wins, like George H.W. Bush
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: and Al Gore did, because Even if Trump is unpopular,
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: fading from the scene, he still will remain very popular
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: with Republican voters and popular enough that it would push J.D.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Vance.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: So he's going to own everything Trump does. And his
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: worst strategy, which is the strategy I suspect he would
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: do because he is all short-term ambitious and not a
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: lot of long-term strategic thinking, his worst strategy would be
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: to try to distance himself from Trump because he's going
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: to own everything Trump did.
• 33:41
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be interesting. It's going to be
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: something that I enjoy watching.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is because.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Because he's also a bad liar.
• 33:49
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: He loves to lie. I'm not saying it's not his passion,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: but he's not very good at it because he's also
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: not very charismatic. And so I don't think he can
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: pull it off that well. And I don't think he's...
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: He thinks he's clever enough to sort of split the
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: baby on this, but he's not.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the gap between how clever JD Vance thinks he
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: is and how clever JD Vance actually is Yeah, that's like.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: The gap where the negotiations stand between the U.S. and
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Iran right now.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: And he just is so politically maladroit. He's just like
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: a lumbering oaf knocking things over as he works his
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: way through this. And so he's going... You always see
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: the cards up his sleeve when he is talking. And
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: it's going to be... If he is trying to do
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: anything other than just be Trump 3.0 or whatever it
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: would be, it's going to be... So embarrassing and so
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: easy to poke fun at. I honestly will consider unretiring
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: from politics if J.D. Vance is the nominee because that
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: would be the most fun campaign to work on. You
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: could have– like actually.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Just– I think we probably have more fun just doing
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: it from here. We don't want some fucking– some fucking
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: lame candidate being like, no, that's too mean.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: Fuck that. I'm not a candidate. I am on the
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: make fun of J.D. Vance Super PAC side.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Super PAC. Okay.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: I think you can do to J.D. Vance what the
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: Republicans definitely did to Gore and just make him an
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: absolute caricature of himself.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Well, let's just start a Super PAC. We don't need
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: to join one of these. That's perfect. We'll just start
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: one here. Okay.
• 35:20
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: We'll get on that. We launched it right here.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: We have a plan. See you guys in two years.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad that the guy who You can always
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: see the cards up his sleeve. He's our man in Islamabad.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: He's there to take the fall.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: You think so?
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's unclear exactly why. I think one reason
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: why he's there is no one, the Iranians and all
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: the other interlocutors do not trust Wyckoff and Kushner because
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: they're complete dopes.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: And then they think the people who aren't those two
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: are like bloodthirsty warmongers and they do. And I think,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: you know, with, with some legitimacy, they think that J.D.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Vance is the most opposed to this war and probably
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: will be easier to talk to about potential peace or
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: some diplomatic agreement, um, than anyone else in the administration.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's probably true.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: You know, I think they probably trust him a little
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: bit more. Their mistake. Um, So one thing's for sure,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Vance must clearly be aware that the outrage among MAGA
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: elites who opposed this war has now reached a fever pitch.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I know we've played a lot of these clips in
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: the last month, but they just keep getting better and better.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: So here you go.
• 36:31
  Speaker 6: A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought
• 36:39
  Speaker 6: back again. That is the definition of genocide.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: How do we 25th Amendment his ass?
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: Can't he just behave like a normal person?
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Human.
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: I mean, honestly, like the president, 3D chess, shut up.
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: Fucking shut up about that shit. His negotiation tactic is
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: to kill an entire country full of civilians, men, women,
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: and children. An American president so that the Strait of
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: Hormuz will be opened? It's just wrong.
• 37:09
  Speaker 10: The American people have to open their eyes and deal
• 37:13
  Speaker 10: with reality and deal with truth. And the truth is, look,
• 37:16
  Speaker 10: you may have supported President Trump for 10 years like
• 37:18
  Speaker 10: I did and like you have, but this is not
• 37:20
  Speaker 10: the same man. This is not the same man that
• 37:23
  Speaker 10: we supported.
• 37:24
  Speaker 7: Those people who are in direct contact with the president
• 37:29
  Speaker 7: need to say, no, I'll resign. I'll do whatever I
• 37:34
  Speaker 7: can do legally to stop this because this is insane.
• 37:36
  Speaker 7: And if given the order, I'm not carrying it out.
• 37:39
  Speaker 7: Figure out the codes on the football yourself.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Dan, this is breaking. We do have a response from
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: the president to all this. And I'm just going to
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: read this presidential statement. And it is lengthy, so I
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: will try to go quickly. And my emphasis will be
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: only where there are all capital letters.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: So thank you. Thank you for your service.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I know why Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens and
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years, especially
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: by the fact that they think it is wonderful for Iran,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: the number one state sponsor of terror, to have a
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: nuclear weapon because they have one thing in common. Low IQs.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: They're stupid people. They know it. Their families know it.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: And everyone else knows it, too. Look at their past.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Look at their record. They don't have what it takes
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: and they never did. They've all been thrown off television,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: lost their shows, and aren't even invited on TV because
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: nobody cares about them. They're nutjobs, troublemakers, and will say
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: anything necessary for some free and cheap publicity. Now they
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: think they get some clicks because they have third-rate podcasts,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: but nobody's talking about them and their views are the
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: opposite of MAGA. Or I wouldn't have won the presidential
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: election in a landslide. MAGA agrees with me and just
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: gave CNN a 100% approval rating of Trump. Not hand-flailing
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: fools like Tucker Carlson, who couldn't even finish college. He
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: was a broken man when he got fired from Fox
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: and he's never been the same. Perhaps he could see
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: a good psychiatrist, or Megyn Kelly, who nastily asked me
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: the now-famous only Rosie O'Donnell question, or crazy Candace Owens,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: who accuses the highly respected First Lady of France of
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: being a man when she is not, and will hopefully
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: win lots of money in the ongoing lawsuit. Actually, to me,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: the First Lady of France is far more beautiful than Candace.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: In fact, it's not even close. Or bankrupt Alex Jones,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: who says some of the dumbest things and lost his
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: entire fortune, as he should have, for his horrendous attack
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: on the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, ridiculously
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: claiming it was a hoax. These so-called pundits are losers,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: and they always will be. Now fake news CNN, the
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: flailing New York Times, and all of the other radical
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: left news organizations are hailing them and giving them positive
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: press for the first time in their lives. They're not MAGA,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: they're losers. They're just trying to latch on to MAGA.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: As president, I could get them on my side anytime
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I want to, but when they call, I don't return
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: their calls because I'm too busy on world and country affairs.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: And after a few times, they go nasty, just like
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Marjorie Trader Brown. But I no longer care about this stuff.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: I only care about what's doing right for our country.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: MAGA is about winning and strength in not allowing Iran
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: to have a nuclear weapon. MAGA is about making America
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: great again. And these people have no idea how to
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: do that, but I do, because the United States is
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: now the hottest country anywhere in the world. President Donald J. Trump. Okay.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: A few things here. First, I want our listeners to
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: know There's no editing. John did that in one take flawlessly.
• 40:23
  Speaker 10: Yeah, I did.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: I didn't practice at all.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: No, it was a very impressive. Also just a couple
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: of swerves in there. The, uh, deep bunking, just the,
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: when you read it, it's all kind of, it begins,
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: you kind of, you kind of know where it's going, right?
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: They're losers are not on TV, which to Trump is the, uh,
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: pinnacle of success is cable television. Then we swerve into
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: a vigorous defense of Brigitte Macron, including a testament to
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: her beauty.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so he is in the no-penis camp.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: Yes. Then he debunks Sandy Hook conspiracy theories, which was nice.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: And then we're back down the rabbit hole.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: And also, you know why he doesn't return their calls?
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: Because he's too busy on world and country affairs. Yes, he's...
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Which is evident.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: But he definitely does not care. He definitely does not care.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: There's nothing about that that suggests caring.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: He is not mad online. Not at all.
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: Make sure everyone.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Knows he is not mad online. I no longer care
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: about that stuff. He doesn't care about it. And that's
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: why he doesn't usually talk about it. And that's why
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: he can barely speak about it. Just fire it off
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: an op-ed-length post about this. So, in addition to... those
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: people getting under his skin. There's also a great New
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: York Times story about the most MAGA of MAGA fans on,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: of all places, Truth Social, which is where that lovely
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: speech I just read was first posted. And apparently, there's
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: all these people on Truth Social, which has got to
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: be all the people on Truth Social, because I don't
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: think there's that many people on there in the first place,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: but they're all posting that they're ashamed to have voted
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: for Trump, that he's gone off the deep end, etc., etc.,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: I think like 50% of the replies to his Easter Sunday,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: I'm going to kill you all post, whatever the fuck
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: it was, were negative. Only like 20% were supportive, something
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: like that. The New York Times analyzed like 40,000 truths.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: I'm just, I'm hoping they used AI on that. What
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: do you think about all this? Do you think... You
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: think it'll start showing up in polls of Republican voters?
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Because it hasn't already.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: It is showing up in polls of Republican voters, right?
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is. Yeah, like.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: It's happening on the margins.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: More so, sorry, yeah.
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, Trump's approval rating among Republicans, you know,
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: about around the same last year was low 90s, high 80s,
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: which is kind of where he's always been. Now it's
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: low 80s, high 70s, depending on what you look at it.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: It's in the 70s in the PRI poll, similar in the...
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: Pew poll. What is notable is it's mostly from non-MAGA Republicans, right?
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: His prorating has dropped most significantly among them. That's very
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: Iran war related. He's getting 80 some percent of MAGA
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: Republicans and some polls as high as 100 percent, according
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: to his fake Carrington poll, among self-identified MAGA Republicans. The
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: Iran war is basically almost even. I think it's like
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: plus eight with non-MAGA Republicans. And I think we tend
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: to think of non-MAGA Republicans as like people just to
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: the right of the bulwark. And that's not actually the case.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: It could be people who are– have pretty conservative views
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: on some issues, who supported Trump this time but didn't
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: support him previously, who got in the process because of him.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: They're just not– they're just like probably less engaged Republicans,
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: but they're pretty conservative.
• 43:54
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, I bet Marjorie Taylor Greene would consider herself
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: a non-MAGA Republican at this point.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: Because MAGA doesn't, MAGA is not, we've talked about this before,
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: it does not mean you're adherent to a specific philosophy.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: It means you're a diehard supporter of Trump. And so
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: people who are non-diehard supporters of Trump can span the
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: ideological spectrum within the Republican Party.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: We do have another post from Trump. Iran is doing
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: a very poor job, dishonorable, some would say, of allowing
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz. That is
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: not the agreement we have, President DJT.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: Okay, so we're doing this in real time. Things are
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: going great, it seems like.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: We talked about the toll one, and now he just,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: it's like he's learning, yeah, he's just learning about things
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: in real time. And I guess it probably took him
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: a while to draft the post about Tucker and Megan Kelly.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: So maybe he hasn't been paying much attention to the news. Yeah.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, so this is exactly right. You know, this
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: as a former speechwriter is that you would go into
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: your office and you just start writing. You, sometimes you got,
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: you got to turn the wifi off on your computer
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: so that you can draft. You got, you can't be
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: checking social media. And so he finishes that.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: He did say he's been very busy with world and
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: country affairs.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: He came out of the world and country affairs meeting,
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: check the internet and like, holy shit, the straight is
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: still closed.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: It's like a course you take in college.
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: Yes. There is another thing about the Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly,
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: all these folks breaking with Trump is one, it's a
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: real problem for him politically for a couple of reasons. One,
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: like that has been his strength is he has had
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: unanimous Republican support among elected officials and mega media. And
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: now that we have these high profile people breaking from Trump,
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: that just, that is bad for him. It's like he's
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: lost his superpower. And the other way to think about
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: this is I think people tend to think that these
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: are quote unquote MAGA shows and the people who watch
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: it are MAGA Trump Republicans. And obviously the majority of
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: them voted for Trump and like Trump, but they are
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: not fully MAGA. This is not Fox. This is not
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: the Fox News audience, right? The Fox News audience are
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: hardcore Republican supporters of Trump, mostly over the age of 70.
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: The people who consume Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: tend to be younger and They tend to necessarily engage
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: less in politics. But it's not also just not the
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: audience of those shows every day people tune into that matters.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: It's that these clips are going viral everywhere. And so
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: people who may have voted for Trump but do not
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: engage in politics, they're seeing critique from in-group allies of Trump.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: And that is very, very damaging. These are trusted voices
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: among a certain set of voters. And now they are saying,
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: the same thing about Trump that they are hearing on
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: Pod Save America. And that is the worst possible place
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: for Donald Trump to be.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: And Trump aside, because, and you know, we'll talk about
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: the midterms in a second, but like, um, this is
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: also going to depress, like people who are cross pressured,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: who might like a lot of things that Trump has done,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: don't like Iran or are hearing all this criticism about
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: him on Iran. Um, like, are these people going to
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: make sure they go out in the midterms and vote
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: for Republicans? Are these people going to, like, sign up
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: to join J.D. Vance's campaign when he announces in 2028? Like,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: it is doing damage far beyond Trump, what is happening
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: And far beyond what the polls show right now.
• 47:21
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: So a common thread with the Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: line of critique is some conservatives specifically calling for invoking
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: the 25th Amendment in which, if you recall from earlier
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: seasons of The Trump Show or the spinoff series Sleepy Joe,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: involves the vice president and the cabinet deeming the president
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: unfit to serve and removing him from office. A lot
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: of Democrats have also called for invoking the 25th Amendment
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: and or impeaching Trump. I think it's of Wednesday. We're
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: at around 70 Dems in the House and a handful
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: of senators. You had a whole message box about why this...
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: isn't exactly a simple process or even a feasible one.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Go ahead.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: I love an organic message box plug. So thank you
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: for that. This one got me very exercised because like
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: we've all sort of come to the conclusion that Trump
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: deserves impeachment and removal, but that is not a realistic
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: way to get rid of him. If the Senate was
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: not going to remove Trump after he sent a mob
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: of his supporters to murder them, it's hard to fathom
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: the scenario in which they will. So now people have
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: started calling for the 25th Amendment because the behavior that
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: Trump has exhibited really every day, but particularly in the
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: last few weeks here, particularly in these truths starting on Easter,
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: is that of someone who really shouldn't, is not mentally
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: fit to be in office. And so Democrats are calling
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: for it. Members of Congress are calling for it. It's
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: seen a lot of this online. And here's the problem
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: with this, is the 25th Amendment is actually a more
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: challenging to execute than impeachment removal by a large degree.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: So first, it begins, as you point out, with the
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: vice president, a majority of a cabinet that includes Pete Hegseth,
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: RFK Jr., Trump's personal defense attorney right now, Steve Witkoff
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: is apparently a member of the cabinet. A majority of
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: them have to send a letter to Congress saying that
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: Trump is unfit. If they do that, J.D. Vance becomes
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: the acting president. What happens then is Trump gets a
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: chance to tell Congress he's fit, which he would obviously do.
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: Then Congress has 21 days to reconvene, and then you
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: need two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: to vote to keep J.D. Vance as acting president. So
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: it's like, how is that going to happen? That is
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: not going to happen. Let alone just getting a member
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: of Trump's cabinet of flunkies to say he's unfit and
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: then getting two-thirds of the House and the Senate, which
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: is a higher bar than impeachment. And here's my problem
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: with this strategy, is it puts the onus on the
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: wrong people. The people who are responsible for Trump being
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: able to act this way, execute this war, act without
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: any sort of accountability are Republicans in Congress. The cabinet
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: does not have to face the voters in November. Republicans
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: of Congress do. And so our focus should be putting
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: the blame for where we are on the people that
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: we can vote out. Because the best way to rein
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: Trump in is not to appeal to J.D. Vance in
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: the Republican cabinet. It's to elect a Democratic Congress. And
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: I think this distracts from that. End of rant.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. I even, like, on impeachment, like,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: are we going to get J.D. Vance? First of all,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: the idea that Republicans have come this far And now
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: they're going to impeach Donald Trump when they when they
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: took a flyer on it after January 6th. Like it's
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: just none of it's going to happen. I get that
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: this is a stand in for why aren't Democrats doing more?
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: More Democrats should call for impeachment or 25th Amendment. We
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: got to do something. We got to do something. It's
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: just not how the system is set up right now.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: And the best way to, you know, end Trump's presidency is.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: is to elect a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: and then elect a Democratic president in 2028. That's just
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: the way it is right now. And on issues where
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: you might be able to get just enough Republicans to
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: have a working majority in Congress, then maybe you can
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: do stuff there. But even then, Donald Trump has veto power.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: Like Donald Trump has tremendous power as president right now.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: And he has that power mainly because the Republican Congress,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: at least enough people in the Republican Congress, most of them,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: 90 something percent of them, go along with literally anything
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: he tells them to do. And they need to be
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: held accountable for that. That's what the next election is for,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: holding Republican politicians accountable for never saying no to Donald
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Trump about anything.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: My other beef with this is, it's like a cheap stunt.
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: You're getting all these text messages that are like, sign
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: our petition that Trump should be to call the 25th Amendment.
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: It's a way to get online engagement. and raise grassroots dollars.
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: And when we treat our voters, without telling people the
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: true context of how this works, there is a penalty
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: for treating our voters like idiots time and time again.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: And this is one of those examples.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: Pushing this, pushing Democrats, and look, I'm all for pushing
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: Democrats to do things that they are too afraid to do.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: A hundred percent. We have a long record of doing that.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: But like pushing Democrats on this and like yelling about Democrats,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: like that is treating voters like idiots.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: Some of the pushback you get from people is that
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: you want to make the case that Trump is unfit.
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: If you want to make the case Trump is unfit,
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: you do it this way. Donald Trump is unfit for office.
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: I see it, you see it, and the Republicans in
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: Congress see it. The thing is, they are afraid to
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: do anything about it. So if you want to rein
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: in Donald Trump, we have to get rid of the
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: people who allow him to act this way. Go to votesaveamerica.com.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Or even, so some House Democrats today, because they're all
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: on recess, first of all, most Democrats, especially all the
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Democratic leaders, said it's crazy that we're on recess still.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is threatening genocide. Congress should come back into session.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: Republicans have refused to bring Congress back to session. Democrats
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: have no power to do that, but they called for it.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: A bunch of them went to the Capitol today, Democrats,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: and were like, all right, we're going to try to
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: force another vote on the War Powers Resolution. Republicans, again,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: blocked that. That would be another thing that, you know,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Congress could do is to rein him in on the
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: war itself. And again, Republicans refused to do that. Again,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: like you just you can't make up the numbers. Right now,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: like we just don't have we don't have the majorities
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: right now. If we have majorities and then we're not
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: doing things with the majority, then you should definitely blame
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: Democrats for sure.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: And the one and the one that we don't have
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: the majority of for sure. Trump's cabinet.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: Hence the problem.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No kidding.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: Pots of America is brought to you by Sundays. We
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: all love the idea of feeding our dogs real fresh food,
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: but the reality is that fresh dog food usually means
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: taking up freezer space, time to thaw and prep, then
• 54:03
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• 54:05
  Speaker 2: good and leave the hassle with Sundays. Sundays was founded
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: by a veterinarian and mom, Dr. Tori Waxman, who got
• 54:09
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• 54:15
  Speaker 2: in a human-grade kitchen using the same ingredients and care
• 54:18
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• 54:20
  Speaker 2: bite of Sundays is cleaned and made with real meat, fruit, veggies,
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• 54:25
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• 54:29
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• 54:35
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• 54:37
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• 54:42
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• 55:01
  Speaker 1: All right, here's some good news. It seems like Republicans
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: who will be on the ballot this November are starting
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: to become, as the White House likes to say, panikins.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: I guess it's their version of bedwetters. I don't know.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: They're both kind of stupid, but it's fine. On Wednesday,
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: Politico published a story with the headline, We lose the midterms.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: Republicans worry Iran might have already cost them Congress. The
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: title of which quotes a source described as, quote, close
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: to the White House. It's not just the polling freaking
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: them out. Earlier this week, Democrats notched another pair of
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: huge over performances in two big elections. The Wisconsin Supreme
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: Court will now have a 5-2 liberal majority after Chris
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Taylor crushed her conservative opponent by 20 points. which was
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: an over 20 point swing from Kamala Harris's 2024 performance
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: in the state, a 10 point over performance from the
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: last time in 2025 that the liberal candidate won a
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin Supreme Court election. And down in Georgia, even though
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: the Republican candidate did win the special election to replace
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Democrat Sean Harris beat Kamala Harris's performance
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: in that district by 25 points, the largest overperformance in
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: any special election by a Democrat since Doug Jones won
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: the Alabama Senate seat way back a thousand years ago
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: in 2017. What was your reaction to the elections this week?
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: Great.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Great. I mean, good.
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: Great.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: Next.
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: All good. No, like these are all small sample sizes,
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: but the margins in elections since the war on Iran
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: started are better than the average Democratic overperformance in both
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: in 2025 and earlier in 2026.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, now we're getting into the 20s. You and I
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: talked about this a couple episodes ago, and it was
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: like teens, high teens to low 20s. Now we're in
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: 20s to mid 20s.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: It was about, I think it was 12 and a
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: half points through early 2026. And the last couple have
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: been very impressive. Democrats are very good at winning Supreme
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: Court seats in Wisconsin. I think we've run four in
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: a row now, which is a credit to the Wisconsin
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: Democratic Party and the way they've trained Democratic voters to
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: understand the value of these. winning the Waukesha mayor's race,
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: first Democratic mayor in 15 years, incredible. The turnout in Georgia,
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: but we're just seeing it all over the place, which
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: is Democrats are fired up, Republicans are unenthused, and swing
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: voters are moving to Democrats. And you're seeing in Wisconsin,
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: small sample size again, and in Georgia, you're seeing huge
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: swings among Hispanic voters in Hispanic precincts, like massive swings.
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: That's all very positive news.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: I know. I'm trying not to... get too high on
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: our own supply here, but some of these results are just,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: it is, it's the perfect storm of like all the
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: things that could go wrong for Republicans with voters, right?
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Which is that they, in the higher turnout elections, they
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: are losing because voters are switching. People who voted Republican
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: are voting Democrat. And, and then in other elections, the
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: GOP turnout is collapsing. So you have Republican voters either
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: not showing up, they're both not showing up and switching
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: their vote. And in like deep red places, blue places,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: all over the place, all different types of districts.
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: The dark linings or the things to watch out or
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: just be aware of is there are caps on how
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: well Democrats can do because the House map is so gerrymandered.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: We've talked about this before. There are only four Republicans
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: in districts that Kamala Harris won. I think there was
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: something like 19 or 20 of them Republicans in districts
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: that Hillary Clinton won. I mean, we had seven of
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: them in California alone in 2018. But this environment is
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: actually much better for Democrats than 2018 was at this point.
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: And there's a world in which a lot of seats
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: that would not otherwise be in play are in play.
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, the Cook Political Report moved the Iowa governor's
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: race to a toss-up today.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: I know. Go Rob's hand. And again, and this is
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: This matters a lot for the House, which we were
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: talking about, but it it starts to get me thinking
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: about the Senate even more.
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is, this is really, the Senate is in
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: play with a margin like this. It's a narrow, like
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: if it really is like 12, 13, you really have
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: to nail it exactly because Trump won a lot of
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: these states that we need by 11, 12, nearly 13 points.
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: But we're, we're in the game right now. And that's
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: something that seemed impossible six months ago.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: Uh, not to get ahead of ourselves, but it does
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: seem like the 2028 democratic primary has already begun. A
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: bunch of potential candidates showed up to speak at Al
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: Sharpton's National Action Network event in New York City this week.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: And down in New Orleans, the DNC's spring meeting kicked
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: off on Thursday, where one of the first headlines was
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: about how a non-binding resolution criticizing AIPAC's influence was voted down,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: while two other relevant resolutions were kicked to something called
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: the Middle East Working Group. DNC Chair Ken Martin explained
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: that the AIPAC resolution was merely shelved in favor of a, quote,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: blanket repudiation, quote, condemning the corrosive influence of all dark
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: money in Democratic primaries, which so then the idea is
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: that that resolution included AIPAC among other organizations or other,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: you know, dark money organizations. This is all on the
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: heels of new Pew polling this week that shows roughly
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: six in 10 Americans now have unfavorable views of Israel,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: including an all time high of roughly eight in 10 Democrats,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: which is up from 69% just last year and 53%
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: in 2022. Uh, interesting detail on the, on the DNC
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: thing in a Politico story before the vote, an anonymous
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: DNC member said that they received direct calls from two
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: quote presidential aspirants who would have to answer for the
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: DNC's positions on Israel and APAC if they run. Now
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: I read a couple of times. I'm still curious if those, uh,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: presidential candidates wanted the resolution to pass or not pass. Um,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: but they called about it. Um, What's your guess? And
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: how do you think this issue of Israel plays out
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: in the 2028 primary?
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: Maybe one on the other side of the issue?
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, maybe. Who knows?
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: But I just, if you were thinking of running for
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: president in 2028, and in April of 2026, you were
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: calling DNC members about a resolution, a non-binding DNC resolution
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: that you are focused on the wrong things. Also, not
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: for nothing, but I'd like to hear a compelling argument
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: for why we need non-binding DNC resolutions.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: It seems like it's the same reason for why we
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: need questionnaires from interest groups that presidential candidates fill out. Yeah,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: it's just, that at least, that at least has- Let's
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: all cause ourselves some trouble.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 5: Well, that one at.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: Least has a purpose from the group's perspective, which is
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: to get- The group's perspective. Yes, from the group's perspective.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: To get candidates- to lay out a position on things
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: because they're going to make endorsements. And so you want to,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: you should have to answer some questions. You want to
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: make endorsements. We can go long on the, on the
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: role of groups. I know you have a lot of
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: thoughts on it. We don't agree on all of them.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: So it'd be a fun debate one day, but the here,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: I don't even know. It doesn't serve a purpose for anyone,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: the DNC or anyone else. So maybe we should just
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: give it.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: Look, I do think that when it comes time for
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: the 2028 democratic party platform, we should also get rid
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: of that. I know, I know, but at least there
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: you can say, okay, what is the party stance on Israel,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: party stance on any number of controversial issues, and then
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: everyone can fight it out. It is like, what is
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: the non-binding resolution of the DNC going to do right now?
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: It's going to give you politico stories. That's its sole purpose,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: is for there to be politico stories about it.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: The other two resolutions, by the way, were one, recognizing
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: a Palestinian state, and the other, conditioning military aid to Israel.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: And I think the Middle East working group is a
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: place where these resolutions are supposed to go die.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's the point of it. Yeah. You
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: haven't heard a lot about the Middle East working group
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: with the DNC?
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: I assume that, I mean, it's not an unclever solution
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: to the problem of just like, this is a place
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: where you're not killing them. You're not enacting them. You're
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: sending them to some other place, right? You're referring, they're
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: just simply being referred. The whole thing is, The whole
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: thing is dumb. It builds a lot of trust with
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: the voters in the party.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: Well, also, the path to establishing a better Democratic Party
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: policy on Israel is not through the DNC committee process.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: That is correct.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: It is through the candidates.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: Who maybe should be coming up with the position as
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: opposed to calling the DNC.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: Yes. It's just a bizarre use of time and energy
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: from that candidate or those two candidates. And look, it's hard,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: you know, you have eight in 10 Democratic voters who
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: have an unfavorable view of Israel. You have even fewer
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: who trust Netanyahu. It is, you have, you know, majority,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: huge majorities whose sympathies are with the Palestinians as opposed
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: to over the Israelis in Gallup polling. Just there's been
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: a dramatic shift on this issue among Democrats since 2022.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: Just massive.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: I cannot imagine the next Democratic nominee winning the the
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: primary with a position that says we should continue giving
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: the military and other aid to Israel that we give
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: No one would run on that. That wouldn't even be...
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: I feel like.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Even conditioning aid at this point is the moderate position.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: That's table stakes. I imagine that most of them will
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: get to ending aid to Israel.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: Offensive aid or.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I think there's an argument
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: to be made, right? Which is like, we, we should
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: treat Israel from a perspective of the taxpayer funding that
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: we are providing the same way we treat any other ally,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: any other country. And to me, it's a question whether, um,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: it's a real alliance right now, because I think that
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: the government there is a, an authoritarian government, which yeah,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: we have one too. Uh, But I think that the
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: government there is not one that I certainly want to
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: support with my tax dollars, as they have what they
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: did to Gaza, are still doing to Gaza, are doing
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: what they are to the West Bank, are doing what
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: they are to Lebanon right now. And so, and it
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: is a wealthy enough nation that they should be able
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: to provide for their own defense. And, like, I think that,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: to me, and look, these are treated as, like, fringe
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: lefty positions for some reason still, but You know, over
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: 60% of Americans support getting rid of all aid to Israel.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: And you just saw that it's 80% of Democrats at
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: this point. You go to 18 to 49-year-old Democrats, it's
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: even higher. 18 to 49-year-old Republicans, it's like 57, 60%.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think that people who really care about
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: Israel and who are much more pro-Israel should really think
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: long and hard about... why it is that they have
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: lost the public battle over this, the public opinion war
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: over this so badly and why it has shifted so
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: dramatically over the last couple of years. And the answer
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: is not because of TikTok.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: I was going to say, yes.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just not. And at this point, it's
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: insulting to tell people that. And I think if you
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: really care about Israel, then you need to think long
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: and hard about like why this has happened and and
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: whether fighting so hard to continue the U.S. relationship with
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: Israel as it is right now with the aid that
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: we're giving it is really worth what has happened to
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: public opinion because of it.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: One thing I'm confident of is that this is going
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: to be a point of great discussion during the Democratic primary,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: be a lot during the debates will be on this
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: issue for sure. It's going to come up in town
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: halls and interviews will come up on interviews on this
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: podcast and everywhere else. So we're going to get to
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: know how all the candidates feel about it. I imagine
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: that APAC will through its super PACs try to influence
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: the process in some way. I'm quite confident that their
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: desire to do so will be counterproductive to their aims
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: and the candidate they support. And it will backfire as
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: it did in Illinois, as we saw recently. Just one
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: other thing that I think is just something people should
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: flag in their head as they're listening to the conversation
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: on this is The way in which the DNC switched
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: from not taking APAC contributions to not taking any contributions
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: from dark money groups is a rhetorical device a lot
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: of Democrats are using right now to not answer the
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: APAC question. Where they'll say, well, yeah, I'm not going
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: to take it from anyone. But without getting to the
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: heart of the question about APAC and the role that
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: APAC specifically plays. You could ask that about other special
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: interest groups and you should.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: AI, right?
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: We have these AI super PACs. who are putting their
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: thumb on the scale for some Democrats in primaries. You
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: saw the crypto super PACs come in and try to
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: influence the Illinois Senate primary. So we should talk about
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: all of those interest groups. But people who do not
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: want to take a specific, don't want to specifically answer
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: the APAC question because they feel like it's fraught, will
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: then turn to this, well, we shouldn't have any stark
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: money in politics as opposed to dealing with this specific question.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: And what I would say is, don't avoid this question
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: because it's fraught.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: And that's a, that's good advice generally.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: Just, you know, and it's like, if, if, if you
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: don't know enough about it, learn more about it and
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: decide first, you know, always decide, forget about the polls,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: decide what you believe about this issue, just as you
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: should decide and have a real thoughtful response and ideas on,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: you just mentioned it, artificial intelligence or any number of
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: controversial issues that will be, or non-controversial issues that that
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: will be debated in 2028. Figure out what your position is.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: Figure out where you would go. Figure out how you
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: would answer these questions. That's the most important thing from
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: like a, what do you believe moral perspective? But I
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: should just say, and we went through this in 2020,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: there are some positions that in a primary are argued
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: about and Democratic candidates worry because they're like, oh, well,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: I'm pushed to the left in a primary and I'm
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: taking these little lefty positions. Then I got to worry
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: about what happens in a general. And this, this whole
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: issue about Israel and AIPAC, this is not one of
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: those issues because this is not only like, like the,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: the views on Israel are very clear within the democratic party.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: It is overwhelming.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: We're talking 80% same with military aid to Israel, same
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: with AIPAC and, and, it's also a like 60% issue
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: in the general election. So, um, now if you genuinely care,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: like just are very pro Israel, then like, you know,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: don't take the position just because it's, you're, you're looking
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: at the polls, like, you know, go and fight the
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: position and say, if you don't agree with me, you
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: don't agree with me, but this is where I am.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: And this is what I believe. But like, don't pretend
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: no one should pretend this is some lefty issue, um,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: that people are getting pushed on in the primaries that
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: is going to then cause them trouble in the general.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: Cause that's just bullshit. All right. One last thing before
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: we get to Tommy's conversation with Rahm Emanuel. As we
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: were getting ready for today's show, we looked up at
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: the TV and suddenly Melania Trump was making a statement
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: at the White House denying that she had any substantive
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Let's take a listen.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 9: I have never had any knowledge of Epstein abuse of
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 9: his victims. I was not a participant, was never on
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 9: Epstein's plane, and never visited his private island. My email
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 9: reply to Maxwell cannot be categorized as anything more than
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 9: casual correspondence. Several individuals and companies have been legally obligated
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 9: to publicly apologize and retract their lies about me. such
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 9: as Daily Beast, James Carville, and HarperCollinsUK.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: Not HarperCollinsUK.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: The end was magical. Everyone in the office was like,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: what the fuck is happening right now? Do you have
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: any idea?
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: No one seems to. Maybe we'll get an answer as
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: an answer has come while we're recording this, or one
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: will come between now and tomorrow, but None of the
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: reporters can have any idea why she did it, what
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: the context was. A lot of times, there will be
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: rumors going through D.C. or politics about a pending story.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: I've been looking everywhere for it.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: And everyone knows it's coming. Even if it hasn't been printed,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: but everyone in politics knows it's coming. And then you
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: will see politicians do things, and they make sense if
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: you know that story is coming. This is not one
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: of those times. It doesn't seem like anyone.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: Knows what she is talking about or why she picked
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: today to offer this out-of-context statement of protesting way too
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: much about her relationship with Epstein.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: Also, apparently Trump told CNN he knew that she'd be
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: making a statement. And then Jackie Alimany from MSNOW called
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: him and he told her he had no idea she'd
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: be making the statement. And that's also what Jackie Heinrich
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: from Fox heard as well, that he had no idea.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: So there's conflicting reports of whether Trump did. I did
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: notice in one of the playbooks, either in the morning
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: or p.m., at the bottom, there was a New York
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: Post story before the announcement where an associate of Melania
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: Trump said she'd be making a, quote, big announcement today
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: that would, quote, spread internationally.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: Well, congrats.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: For people who don't know, the email she was referencing
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: was in the Epstein files. It was to Ghislaine Maxwell.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: She said, Dear G, how are you? Nice story about J.E.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: in New York Mag. You look great on the picture.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: You look great on the picture. Those are her words.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: I know you were very busy flying all over the world.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: How was Palm Beach? I cannot wait to go down.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: Give me a call when you're back in New York.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: Have a great time. Love, Melania. That was from October
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: of 2002. The New York Magazine piece about Jeffrey Epstein
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: she was referencing was the piece where her husband is
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: quoted as saying he likes the girls really young. So
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: that's cool. I don't know, man. I don't know. Is
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: that your advice you would have given Melania Trump as
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: a White House communications director to randomly go out to
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: the cameras on a Thursday afternoon in the middle of
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: a war in Iran to just say, hey, I don't
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. I don't know Jeffrey Epstein.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 5: Bye.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 3: Yes, I think that's the exact right thing to do,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: to go out there and deny... No questions.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: No questions. I will take no questions about this. I
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: do not know Jeffrey Epstein.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: While I have your time, I just wanted to briefly
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: deny involvement in any illegality that you did not ask
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: me about.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, bye. And if you think that you can connect
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: me to Jeffrey Epstein, just ask James Carville or HarperCollins
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: how that went for them.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: HarperCollinsUK.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: I will see you at the next premiere of Melania.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: It's just amazing. She's a weird one.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: She is a weird one. Okay, when we come back
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: from the break, you will hear Tommy's conversation with the
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: former mayor, ambassador, and White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.
• 1:14:51
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  Speaker 11: My guest today is a former member of Congress, White
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 11: House Chief of Staff, Mayor of Chicago, Ambassador. Sure seems
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 11: like he's running for president in 2028. Rahm Emanuel, great
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 11: to see you again.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 5: Nice to see you, Tommy.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 11: Welcome to Los Angeles. You have a more of a
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 11: casual LA chic, I see.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: You have like a glove.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 5: It's the only thing clean.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: Just rip it off your brothers.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 5: Going to Harry's closet. Too bad he's too big.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 11: We all saw the shirtless photos of him and Elon Musk.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 11: He's been working out.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 5: Or the meds are working either way or both.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 11: It's a hell of a drug.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 11: We're joking because we're breathing a sigh of relief this
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 11: week because our president decided not to go through with
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 11: his threat to destroy the entire Iranian civilization.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: So that's nice.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 11: That's what counts as a win in the Trump 2.0 era.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 11: But the debate over why the war started is raging.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 11: Have you had a chance to read Maggie Haberman and
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 11: Jonathan Swan's long piece in the New York Times?
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 11: So they report that on February 11th, Prime Minister Netanyahu
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 11: met with Trump in the Situation Room. The head of
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 11: the Mossad zooms in. They make this pitch. Yeah, who
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 11: I'm sure you know. And they give this presentation about
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 11: the case for war. It includes a bunch of assumptions
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 11: about how easy it'll be that are now catastrophically wrong.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 11: You could tell they were at the time, but now
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 11: we know they were.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: Can you remember a foreign.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 11: Leader meeting with the president in the sit room during
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 11: your time?
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: Is that weird?
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think, well, two things I want to, one
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 5: thing about last week, I want to go back to
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 5: because I was thinking about this more. You have the
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 5: president of the United States, the president of the United States.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 5: This is not a speech in which you do the
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 5: arsenal democracy. We're going to destroy civilization, the Persian civilization.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 5: At the same time, the vice president is in Budapest
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 5: saying we're going to save the Christian civilization. And then
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 5: you have a secretary of defense who's calling this a
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 5: Christian crusade. What could go wrong when you have those
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 5: kind of brain power working? Now I feel better. I
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 5: got that off my chest.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 11: And the president tweeted, you know, praise Allah or whatever.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 5: Or destroy and offend everybody. Which is the cry of
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 5: a terrorist. So we're both destroying and saving one civilization
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 5: and the other. So nobody, I'm thinking of both my
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 5: Clinton time, six years, and Obama time. I do not
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 5: remember a single, not only a single foreign leader in
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 5: the situation where anybody themselves or their staffs ever even
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 5: given access to that room. So, or any one of
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 5: those rooms or et cetera. So I don't ever remember
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 5: that happening. And I don't think it would ever happen.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 5: It's very weird. So what happens in that room is
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 5: also weird. Not only that they're in that room, but
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 5: what happens in that room.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 11: So obviously Trump decides to go to war. He and
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 11: he alone is responsible for his decision. But there is
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 11: this debate. And a ton of reporting now about the
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 11: pressure campaign by Netanyahu and lobbying Trump to go.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: To war with Iran.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 11: What is the appropriate way to talk about that in
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 11: your view? Because I'm sure you've seen the folks I've
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 11: seen who argue that it can veer into a conversation
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 11: that is anti-Semitic, that leans into tropes about Israel controlling
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 11: the United States or foreign policy.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: What's the right way to talk about it?
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 5: It's going to lead into that. And also given what
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 5: the Secretary of State said six weeks ago, it's only
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 5: going to kind of layer that. I think depending on
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 5: how conversations go in Islamabad, you're going to go from
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 5: that conversation to, I think this president may scapegoat. Now,
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 5: you and I both worked for President Obama, but I
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 5: want to say this is the prime minister has been
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 5: shopping this to four, possibly five. I can't remember Clinton,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 5: but Bush, President Bush, rather, 43, President Obama, President Trump,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 5: first term, President Biden. Everybody rejected this. Because when you
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 5: looked at it, the equities versus the liabilities just didn't
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 5: pan out. So I don't give the President of the
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 5: United States, who has agency here, any pass. But this
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 5: will go into a very bad place. I think in
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 5: the sense of the Prime Minister saying, made an argument
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 5: to the president. I don't absolve the president and anybody
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 5: on his team. But I also read the story, the
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 5: flip side of this, Tommy, which is also nobody in
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 5: the president's administration, they're all, they don't have their hands
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 5: on the bloody, they're all leaking on each other.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 11: Yeah, they're saying they opposed it.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, they opposed it. You know, this is all crap,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 5: you know, other words that they use to describe their position.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 5: So everybody's trying to make sure that they were not
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 5: seen at the scene of the crime. And I'm sorry,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 5: so I don't absolve any of them. The prime minister
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 5: said what he said to the president. But this argument
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 5: is going to, given the context also in America and
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 5: given the context of anti-Israel or anti-Semitism, it's going to
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 5: lead to a very bad place. And I do think, though,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 5: and I will say this, I mean, President Obama was
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 5: presented a similar plan. That's how the Olympic Games, I
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 5: think that was the term that was used for the
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 5: cyber attacks on Iran's capacity. Nobody took kinetic energy. the
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 5: decision to go into the deep end on the kinetic effort.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 5: This president did, and it's on him. No pass.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 11: It's certainly on him, but it also just seems like
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 11: self-evident based on all this reporting, based on what Netanyahu
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 11: himself says when he's back in Israel. There was a
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 11: tape release in 2001 where he was kind of bragging
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 11: about his ability to manipulate leaders in Washington, or move them,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 11: I think was the term he used. Let's just lobby them,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 11: do politics.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 5: Well, look, let's go back. He runs for re-election with
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 5: the message, oh, I think I'm getting the exact word,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 5: but I'm getting the sentiment right, which is a leader
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 5: at a different class. That was the message, and it
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 5: had pictures of him with Putin and pictures of him
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 5: with Trump. So that was actually what he campaigned on publicly.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 5: So you don't have to kind of, we don't have
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 5: to be archaeologists or, you know, anthropologists here. That's what
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 5: he campaigned on, that he could play at a level
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 5: that nobody else played. So it's in his own words.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 5: But again, you know, Only the president of the United
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 5: States can order American servicemen and women. Only the president
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 5: of the United States can order resources that are pulled
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 5: out of the Indo-Pacific, pulled out of different theaters to
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 5: that theater, pulled THAAD weapons out of South Korea, pulled
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 5: patriots that were supposed to go to Ukraine. Only the
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 5: commander in chief can do that. And so, you know,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 5: the prime minister made his case. Doesn't mean you have
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 5: to buy it.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 11: Tucker Carlson, speaking of things only the president can do,
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 11: Tucker Carlson is very worried about Trump using a nuclear weapon.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: In Iran.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 11: Has that fear occurred to you? And if yes, can
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 11: you talk a little bit about the process and how
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 11: that actually works and how few checks there would be?
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 5: I don't believe, look, I mean, it's a theoretical discussion
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 5: or hypothetical rather. I don't think the president of the
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 5: United States would do that. And while I have zero
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 5: confidence in the people around him, and I mean that
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 5: from the cabinet to the White House, I actually think
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 5: they would hit the pause button. They would find some
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 5: nerve of character to step up and say what they
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 5: didn't do here, meaning here being the lead into the
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 5: Iran war. They would know that this would have to
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 5: be stopped.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 11: The pause button would mean convincing him though, right? I mean,
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 11: there's no like, you can't take the nuclear button and
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 11: throw it into the ocean so we can't press it, right?
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 5: No, there's no way. Look, head of the Joint Chiefs,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 5: there's the rest of the military. I think there would
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 5: be I'm just betting on human character, there would be
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 5: a massive pushback on this. I don't know what got
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 5: Tucker Carlson, he's not like a horse whisperer, the great
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 5: whisperer to Donald Trump, to say that. But this would be, well,
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 5: I don't mean this cavalier, so I want to be
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 5: very clear. You can definitely take the Nobel Peace Prize
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 5: off the table. That's not happening. So I don't mean to,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 5: I said that as you, this, I don't believe that
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 5: would happen. Okay.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 11: I'm glad to hear you.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 5: I just think there's a lot of other things that
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 5: I think that are worth spending intellectual energy on to
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 5: analyze what are the repercussions, things that they never do.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 5: Even an impulsive person like this would not do that.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 5: Let's hope so.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 11: JD Vance, the vice president, is now going to Pakistan
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 11: to lead these talks on Saturday. He'll be joined by
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 11: Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 5: Oh, I'm so comforted.
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 11: Trump's son-in-law and his golf buddy.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 5: Isn't this just a real estate deal? Isn't this just
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 5: real estate?
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 11: So look, I'm not a big fan of Dumb and Dumber,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 11: Kushner and Wyckoff. I think they're just like, it's a
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 11: very technical negotiation, right? The JCPOA negotiation took 18 months.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 11: That's how long it took to cut a nuclear deal.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 11: The wishlist on the Iranian side that they're demanding from
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 11: the US is far more vast than that. It's like,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 11: get all your troops out of the Middle East, things
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 11: of that nature. Does Vance getting involved give you any
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 11: more confidence or hope that they can get some deal
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 11: or maybe another ceasefire?
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 5: This is reading tea leaves. Only in the sense that
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 5: the Iranians think He was negative about the war. They
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 5: believe that they may have a slightly better confidence to
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 5: deal with him. Obviously, any credibility, and I believe zero
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 5: for Wyckoff and Kushner. The idea that you had no
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 5: experts said it's very clear from the UK who was
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 5: in the room in Geneva. They didn't even know what
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 5: they were being offered pre the war from the Iranians.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 5: Zero confidence. So I have some sense that maybe Vance
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 5: will have a different level of respect. It gives you
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 5: somebody new they can interlock. But remember, they've been burnt twice,
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 5: once in June, this time in negotiations. So they're going
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 5: to come in with, appropriately, heavy, heavy cynicism. Let me
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 5: say one other thing, which is, and take this slightly
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 5: different in the sense of Vance. One, you can't unring
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 5: this bell. But you can say, okay, how do you
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 5: kind of make lemonade out of this lemon that we
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 5: have created? That's A. B, the Iranians went in, we
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 5: went into this war trying to degrade Iran's nuclear capacity.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 5: They discovered they had the nuclear option, the Strait of Hormuz.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 5: The other thing, C, Iran since 79 has wanted to
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 5: get the United States out of the Gulf and they
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 5: become the Persian Empire again. That is their task. So
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 5: how do you kind of undo this knot in some way?
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 5: My One view is on the short term, on the
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 5: Strait of Hormuz, either all ships are out or no
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 5: ships are out. And you're going to cut off Iranians'
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 5: money and China's energy. Everybody's out or nobody's out. And
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 5: it's easier to close something, as the Iranians have proven,
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 5: than for us to try to open it. So reverse
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 5: the score. Second, medium term. The Iranians want a fee.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 5: I think we go to the UN's International Maritime Entity.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 5: They run it. There is a fee charge, but it
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 5: goes to Iran, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, everybody who got suffered
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 5: in this process, not just Iran. And the dollars or
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 5: the resources are split that way among all the countries.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 5: And it's managed by the United Nations Maritime Association. Third,
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 5: long term, use the Abraham Accords beyond what it is
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 5: as a peace agreement that we're a party to. it
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 5: now finances a pipeline for Kuwait, for the UAE, for Bahrain,
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 5: et cetera, either to the Gulf of Oman or to
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 5: the Red Sea. So there's alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 5: I would, in addition, say to anybody who's part of
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 5: the Abraham Accords has zero tariffs. And I would also
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 5: say anybody in the Abraham Accords gets front of the
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 5: line on U.S. military equipment. It would double down on
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 5: America being a trusted ally to our Gulf partners. But that,
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 5: to me, short-term, medium-term, and long-term is the best way
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 5: to navigate what is a big giant lemon.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 11: It's a, it's a nightmare. Let me, let me offer
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 11: you what I think might be some pushback to the plan.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 6: Sure.
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 5: You know, if we, I'm, I'm open to anything.
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 3: That's just my idea.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 11: Uh, if we join me.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 5: This is more sophisticated than the situation. And the first
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 5: meeting between the prime minister and the president, much more
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 5: sophisticated and thorough analysis.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 11: Beer can on his head or something. Um, If we
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 11: jointly close the Strait of Hormuz with the Iranians, wouldn't
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 11: that make a sort of a party to all the
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 11: potential famine that could happen if no fertilizer.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 5: Is getting- There's no doubt about it, but here's the
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 5: other thing. Their economy is devastated. The only lifeline they have,
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 5: or the IV they have, rather, is what they're selling
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 5: to China. We do know now, you and I sitting
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 5: here today, China was a party to pushing Iran to
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 5: say yes. There are elements that then ruled, okay, we're
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 5: going to do that for the ceasefire. So if you
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 5: shut off where China's getting their major energy, you say
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 5: it will be, I'm not saying this is pretty, but
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 5: we have never, ever the United States in 250 years
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 5: gone to war and allow the other country financial security
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 5: where our allies suffer. And I say enemies or opponents
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 5: or whatever term you want to use both Iran and Russia.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 5: This is insane.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 5: And so you're literally keeping whatever prop you have to
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 5: Iran and China, people that are trying to hurt you,
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 5: you're actually giving them economic benefit. So to me, yes,
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 5: it would be chop. There's no perfect here.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 5: But we're going to shut it. We're not going to
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 5: shut it with you. We're going to shut you down.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 5: You shut everybody else down. We're shutting you down.
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 11: At least at levels of playing field.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 5: I mean, I also worry- You're looking for leverage here.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 11: I mean, we currently, clearly the Iranians have shown us
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 11: we don't have much.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 11: I mean, and I think that's why Tucker's worried if
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 11: we get to a nuclear option, because there's no conventional
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 11: military way to open the Strait of Hormuz from the air.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 11: You can't bomb it open if they're laying mines or
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 11: just firing off one missile. I mean, the other thing,
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 11: going forward, when you look at like Trump's goals here,
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 11: like first of all, the highly enriched uranium is still
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 11: sitting in Iran. It doesn't sound like we're going to
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 11: get it back or get it out unless there's some
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 11: deal cut. Two- The big concern, right, they clearly degraded
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 11: Iran's military. They bombed the shit out of a lot
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 11: of stuff. The other consideration was cutting off their support
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 11: for proxy groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, et cetera. My concern
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 11: is if they are now able to charge this toll
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 11: at the Strait of Hormuz, that is going to.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 5: Be a massive windfall. That cannot stand.
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 11: That will go back to rebuilding their military, funding Hezbollah,
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 11: funding all these proxy groups, right? I mean, it seems like, again,
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 11: this is Trump's problem he created.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 5: It just seems like There was always an implied pressure
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 5: that implied that Iran could do this on the Strait
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 5: of Iran, but it never was tested. It's now been tested,
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 5: and they discovered, look, I got an 800 on my SATs. Okay?
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 5: Never before did everybody believe this. It was always an
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 5: international order. The second thing, I mean, I want to
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 5: go to the class at the War College. Ukraine and
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 5: Iran have no navy, and they've controlled the waterways. I
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 5: want to go to that class. I want to study this.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 5: I'm serious about that. I think, you know, you and
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 5: I have sat there, but we have a doctrine to
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 5: fight two wars on two fronts simultaneously. Capacity to do that.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 5: We're going to have to change the doctrine to be
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 5: able to say we're going to fight two wars, one
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 5: conventional and one unconventional. And we're not set up that way.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 5: Neither our military, our industrial base, or the capacity. Both
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 5: of these theaters, meaning what's happened in the Iran war
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 5: and what's happened in Ukraine-Russia war or Russia's war on
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 5: Ukraine has taught us an exponential lesson that we are
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 5: not ready for the unconventional asymmetric war and we better.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 5: That's the second war. Now, March of 2025, a year ago,
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 5: I wrote a piece for the Post, which is don't
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 5: ask for Ukraine's minerals. Ask for their drone technology. That's
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 5: where they're experts at. Now, not only did we not
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 5: ask for it, we rejected it when they offered to help.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 5: The president doesn't know friend from foe. And we are
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 5: now stuck where our Gulf allies are buying weapons from Ukraine,
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 5: but we stiff-darmed them. And they have no navy, and
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 5: they've destroyed the Russian navy in the Black Sea. We
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 5: can claim, which appropriate, we have destroyed the navy of Iran,
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 5: but they control the Strait of Hormuz. No navies, and
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 5: they control waterways. That tells you where the future is.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 11: A lot of tactical victories and strategic losses there.
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 5: Somebody said the other day, I read this, I can't
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 5: remember who, America's won every war, every battle, but has
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 5: lost each war.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 11: Sounds about right. Since World War II.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 11: Let me shift gears. So you've been crisscrossing the country.
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 11: You did a recent stop in New Hampshire. You're still
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 11: not ruling out a 2028 presidential run. Any more definitive
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 11: answer today?
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 5: No, but I'll whisper it to you.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: Exploring? No. Okay.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 5: I went there. I went three places recently, which is
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 5: La Crosse, Wisconsin, into Franklin, New Hampshire. And then I've
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 5: been in Spartanburg. the Corridor of Shame in Abbeville, Piedmont area,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 5: the black counties, and then Columbia, and then Charleston. And
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 5: that was all about looking at community colleges and what both,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 5: all three cities are doing, which I think incredibly innovative.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 5: Things that we also did in Chicago between community colleges,
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 5: you know, leading into the future economy, but also linking
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 5: up with high schools. Something that I think is the
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 5: fundamental thing we have to flip the switch on.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 11: And the top issues, I assume, are whether Democrats should
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 11: talk to leftist Twitch streamers is kind of like up here.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 11: Then it's like the economy and then education.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 5: Well, I wouldn't go down there, but I would just say.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: That was a joke.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 5: I understand that. I would say I did a town
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 5: hall in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and a podcast there. Met
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 5: with 10 teachers, educators, parents, 10 kids up in Franklin.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 5: I did a, in Manchester, the eggs and politics thing.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 5: I did at Wofford College. Craig Martin interviewed me there
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 5: in front of the college. We went to a community college.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 5: I did 400 people in Charleston. Nobody asked me about.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 11: Hassan Becker.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: No, nobody. Nobody.
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 5: They asked me about how do they get ahead. They
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 5: asked me how they get an education. Now, you know,
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 5: the ticket to the middle class and getting ahead is
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 5: through education. And, you know, we live in a period
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 5: where you earn what you learn. Nobody's asked me that question.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 5: And I took close to about 50 questions from people.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 11: Yeah, it's the billionth reminder that the conversation in D.C.
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 11: and the media sometimes doesn't match what the country actually
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 11: cares about.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: Sometimes? Yeah, often.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 5: I would say close to 90% does not match. It's
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 5: a parallel universe.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 11: So you did a recent appearance on The View. You
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 11: said D.C. needs a power washing because of all the corruption.
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 11: You also wrote a Wall Street Journal column. talking about
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 11: how Democrats could use a majority, and you said the
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 11: Democrats should steer clear of the gotcha politics and excessive
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 11: focus on Trumpian slime. Is there a tension between those
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 11: two things?
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 5: No, so I appreciate this. Maybe this is on me
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 5: for not writing clear. I think I wrote in that piece,
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 5: not I think, I know, there's a difference between corruption
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 5: and him being untruthful or a liar. I'd go 100%.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 5: I've said this as soon as I came Back from Japan, 2024, December,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 5: I said, go after the corruption. I built, when I
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 5: was chair of the DCCC, the house that Tom DeLay built.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 5: The corruption, what's going on with the protection markets, what's
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 5: going on with Wyckoff's kids, Lutnick's kids, them, and people,
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 5: and the president's kids, 100%. When Nome's done at the
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 5: DHS and the contracts that they provided, 100%. There is
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 5: a difference between that corruption, which matters to your wallet,
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 5: and our playing to type, which is a retribution, vindictive politics,
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 5: that then they say, eh, Washington, and they break the sound,
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 5: and they turn it on mute right when we should
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 5: be turning to our agenda. There is a two-sided here.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 5: Hit them on the corruption and offer a proactive agenda.
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 5: I actually think, given where I've been, not only the
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 5: states I just talked to you about, but other states,
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 5: Washington does need a good power washing. Absolutely. Not just
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 5: trading stocks in Congress. Did you ever think you would
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 5: ever see Investor Day in the Oval Office?
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 11: Or yeah, or bets on invasions of a country.
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 5: Or did you ever think a member of the court,
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 5: not just Supreme Court, be taking gifts from people who
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 5: have cases in front of them or trips? Okay, so
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 5: the whole place needs to be cleaned.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 11: So what does that reform agenda look like?
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 2: What do we propose?
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 5: Well, I'll give you my thing. One, I would raise
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 5: the minimum wage. So that's number one. Two, Well over
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 5: September 2025, August, I wrote, and I believe, there should
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 5: be a ratepayer bill of rights. Three, I would do
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 5: acts on healthcare cost control, specifically around the insurance companies,
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 5: gouging people, breaking them up. Four, I would do a
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 5: ban on social media for kids under 16. I've called
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 5: for this before. First, on prediction markets, no federal employee
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 5: or their family can participate.
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean like reforming for Washington. So like something
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 11: like that, banning CalSheep, banning stock trading.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 5: Banning all that, but also stocks, companies that you've been in.
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 5: If you have X of, let's say your net value
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 5: is north of, just I'm totally going to number out,
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 5: a million dollars, it has to go into a blind trust.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 5: That's true for all federal employees. Second, not just the
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 5: Supreme Court, but any court, you're not allowed to take gifts.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 5: And be very specific on the ethics package that Roberts
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 5: thinks he has but doesn't enforce. Make it, codify it.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 5: And that's also true for the President of the United
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 5: States and family members and the cabinet. Now, the other
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 5: thing I said for, and when you hit the age
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 5: of 75, get pre-TSA because you're out of here.
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: Done. Finished.
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 5: Basta. You're not hitting your prime at 78.
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 11: I like that a lot. Let me try to annoy
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 11: you now. So you bought and sold some individual stocks
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 11: when you were ambassador to Japan. I know the American
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 11: prospect wrote a piece criticizing the timing of one of
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 11: those purchases because it came before a government announcement that
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 11: they said could benefit the stock. Was that a mistake?
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 11: Are there other things you would do differently?
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 5: If I did, it's definitely a mistake. I don't know
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 5: what that is, but definitely. Look, I did a blind
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 5: trust when I was chief of staff, when I was mayor,
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 5: when I was congressman. Also did it there as ambassador.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 5: So if anybody did it, I have no idea.
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 11: Oh, it was a blind trust.
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: It wasn't your ambassador.
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 11: Why doesn't everyone just do a blind trust? It seems
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 11: so easy.
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 5: That's what I just said. I'll give you a funny,
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 5: not a funny story.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 11: I guess to trade on inside information.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 5: I get elected to Congress and I'm going to set up,
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 5: I'm going to get on financial service. I said, I'm
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 5: going to set up a blind trust. Chairman Oxley comes
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 5: to see me and says, I don't want you to
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 5: do this. I said, well, I'm doing it because I'm
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 5: a bare knuckle politician. Something's going to happen one day
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 5: on a hearing that we're going to do in financial service.
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 5: I don't know what they're going to do. So forget
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 5: about it. And I did it for them. I did
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 5: it also, Norm, I was going to tell you, did
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 5: it when I was chief of staff, and I did
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 5: it when I was mayor, 100%.
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 11: It seems like a no-brainer. I don't know why it's
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 11: not law.
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, I.
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 5: Listen, David, in 2007, I was a sponsor of a
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 5: legislation that was related to exactly this, which is stocks
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 5: traded in front of committees, in front of your committee.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 5: You can't have, be involved or investor or trade stocks
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 5: in committees, at their interests that have any, any company
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 5: that has interest in front of the committee. It's insane.
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think this is an issue, but it's
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 5: all Washington. That's also includes the executive branch.
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah.
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 11: And I think this is an issue that kind of
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 11: drives people crazy because like, it's a, it's a no brainer.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 11: Of course, members of Congress or the president's family or
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 11: cabinet shouldn't be buying and selling individual stocks. Everyone should
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 11: put their stuff in the blind trust, but it's in,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 11: in like the president of the United States will go
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 11: before the State of the Union, and say that, and
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 11: say we're going to pass legislation, ban it.
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 5: And everyone stands up.
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 11: But he only said it by Congress.
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 5: He didn't talk about the executive branch, and he didn't
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 5: talk about the judiciary.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: Well, of course.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 11: I guess what I'm getting at is he says that,
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 11: but then people are also well aware that Nancy Pelosi's
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 11: husband has made a shitload of money trading individual stocks,
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 11: and there's a lot of people that track that index
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 11: and feel like he's getting it.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 5: Tommy, that's why I've said the whole Washington. Look, there's
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 5: no individual... or no one of the three branches of
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 5: government that you're gonna get without a blemish. The only
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 5: way to do it, everybody.
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: Do them all.
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 11: Before that, I'm just gonna ask you a couple more issues.
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 11: I think progressives will push you on if you do
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 11: decide to run for president in 2028.
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 5: It's no different than me pushing myself.
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 2: Good.
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 11: So you were mayor of Chicago when a young man
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 11: named Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by a police officer.
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 11: Your administration had a video of that, of his killing
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 11: for over a year until a court ordered it released.
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 11: You didn't release it until the court order. What do
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 11: you say to people who are angry, not just about,
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 11: you know, the Chicago PD killing this kid, but also
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 11: what they feel like was a cover up.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: To evade accountability?
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 5: So there's not a day or a week that goes
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 5: by that I don't think about this. What I could
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 5: have done different. Number one, a young man lost his
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 5: life innocently. Third is I thought I had a year earlier,
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 5: two years earlier, fixed the system. And I acknowledge when
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 5: I said it to this whole city spoke. I thought
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 5: I fixed something and the problems were much deeper than
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 5: I appreciated. Might have wanted to think I thought I
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 5: fixed it when the gulf between the community and the
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 5: police department and the culture in the police department was
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 5: much deeper. And I said, that's on me. I have
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 5: to fix this. I own that. Now, you know this.
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 5: Chicago's not alone. No city's alone, given what's happened on
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 5: police departments across the country. And I did go about
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 5: fixing it. But as the inspector general said, actually, the
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 5: problem is I followed the rules. Because the last thing
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 5: you want is a mayor involved in making a political
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 5: decision when the FBI... what's IPRA, which is the police
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 5: department's independent body. Everybody's investigating. You don't want the mayor
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 5: involving themselves. Then you say you're politicizing a criminal investigation.
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 5: The FBI was involved. The U.S. attorneys was involved. There
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 5: were four entities investigating. So if you don't involve yourself,
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 5: you're part of covering up. If you do involve, you
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 5: politicize an investigation and endanger the prosecution. In Chicago, the
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 5: police officer actually was prosecuted and convicted. That doesn't change anything.
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 5: That's on me.
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: I own it.
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 5: As you know one thing, the difference between a legislator
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 5: and somebody who's a mayor, it's lessons learned going forward.
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 5: And so you have to make changes.
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: I did it.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 5: And in this process, Tali, his uncle, who's a pastor
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 5: on the west side, Laquan's, he and I have become
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 5: really good at solid feathers. There's not a week that
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 5: goes by that we don't talk or communicate in one way.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 5: But did I screw up?
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 5: If you're looking for perfection, I'm not that guy. If
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 5: you're looking for a person that knows how to learn
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 5: from mistakes, 100%.
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 11: Another sort of big fight within the party has been generational.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 11: I mean, you said a minute ago, you, I think,
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 11: want to get your TSA pre-checked because you're getting out
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 11: of here at 78, right?
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 2: 75.
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 5: 75, sorry.
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 11: So I love that. I think we need a new generation.
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 5: I think when I first said it, you texted me
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 5: and said, great.
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, fuck yeah, man. Good for you.
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 11: I don't think that people in DC are internalizing your message, right?
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 11: I mean, there's this, this fight is playing out most
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 11: clearly in Maine where Chuck Schumer is really thumbing the
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 11: scale on behalf of a former governor, Janet Mills. Um,
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 11: the grassroots seem to be behind Graham Platner. God knows
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 11: who will win, but you know, this, it doesn't seem
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 11: like Schumer is concerned about the whole conversation we just
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 11: had about Joe Biden's age. Um, How do we fix that?
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 11: And what do you say to like, you know, young
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 11: activists who you might meet in Iowa or New Hampshire
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 11: or whatever, who are like, well, look, you know, you
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 11: worked in the Clinton administration. What is like, what does
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 11: the next generation look like?
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 11: Are we paying lip service to this or are we really?
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 5: So the way I look at it is a couple things.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 5: One is there is a generational piece to that. But
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 5: as you know, all your strengths are your weaknesses. After
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump, I'm not sure who he can afford as
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 5: a country on your job training. I say it jokingly,
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 5: but I'm serious. You got to be good in the
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 5: family room. You better be good in the classroom. You
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 5: better know the boardroom, the break room, the situation room,
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 5: and not just the bathroom, which is something we really
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 5: get experts as a party. Now, I also think also
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 5: one piece of change with a party that's known as weak,
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 5: there's nothing as you know. When it came to fighting,
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 5: the insurance companies get 10 million kids health care. One
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 5: person got that assignment. When it came to making sure
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 5: we got health care for people with pre-existing condition, one
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 5: person had to lead that effort. When it came to
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 5: making sure we took on the financial industry and the
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 5: banking industry to do fundamental reform, one person got that
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 5: call to lead that effort and take on the gun
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 5: lobby and the NRA. Nobody's ever gotten in the ring
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 5: with me, didn't walk out without a bloody nose or
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 5: a broken nose. Ask the Republicans when they saw Nancy
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 5: Pelosi become the first female speaker. So I make no more,
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 5: and I will say this otherwise. I don't need another title.
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 5: I got 20, yeah, I'll sell you one for cheap
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 5: on eBay. I got 20,000 kids that got free community
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 5: college because I was willing to take on a failed system.
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 5: I got kids that used to have a 56% graduation
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 5: rate and 84% of them now graduate high school with
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 5: a degree and college credit and have a mandatory letter
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 5: of acceptance from either college, community college, branch of the
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 5: armed forces, or vocational school. 98% of our kids in
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 5: Chicago achieve that.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 3: I have.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 5: Took on a bureaucracy where we didn't have kindergarten or
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 5: pre-K throughout the city. And I made a Republican, finally
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 5: increased the funding to the city of Chicago, which has
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 5: been every mayor's desire. Got something done that hadn't happened before.
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 5: Do I take on failure? Damn right, because I'm a
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 5: lucky guy. I grew up in a family, an immigrant family,
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 5: that had love and education. The question is, are you
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 5: willing to sit there and husband your political capital or
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 5: spend it and take it on? So nobody who's walked
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 5: in the arena with me did not walk out without
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 5: having a broken nose. More than willing to say that.
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 5: And if you want just generational change, I'm not. You
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 5: want somebody that knows how to take on a fight
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 5: and win? That's a different battle.
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: That's a good pitch.
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 11: Last question for you.
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: Last?
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 5: I was just getting kind of into this.
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 2: You know, this is fun.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 11: 2006. Things went really well for Democrats in the midterms.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 5: You noticed.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 11: You were leading that effort in the House. I was
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 11: sitting on my ass in the Senate working for Barack Obama.
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 11: I was watching what you were doing.
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 5: So you were the scheduling problem.
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: Sorry, he's got to write a book.
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 3: Chapter one.
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 11: Democrats keep overperforming in these special elections. The most recent
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 11: one and the biggest overperformance or biggest swing to Democrats
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 11: just happened in Georgia, Georgia 14, Marjorie Taylor Greene's district.
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 5: I would say Wisconsin. I'll give you a different view.
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 11: Well, we literally racked up Bashar al-Assad numbers in Madison
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 11: in this most recent Supreme Court race.
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 5: No, I'll tell you why. No, it's just something different.
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 5: Do you want to finish the question?
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: No, the question is just like, I feel better.
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 11: I feel increasingly bullish.
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 11: I think the question is, how do you close the deal?
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 11: Is it about Democrats getting out and making an affirmative
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 11: case and fighting?
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: Or you see some.
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 11: Other people that say, crouch up, hide under the table
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 11: until the day after the election.
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 5: What do you think? Neither one is right. First of all,
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 5: 90% of this race is a referendum on the president
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 5: and the rubber stamp Republicans. That was true in 1994.
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 5: It was true in 2006 about Bush. It was true
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 5: in 2010 about President Obama and the Democrats. And it's
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 5: true in 2018 about Donald Trump and the Republicans. This
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 5: is a referendum election, and I can tell you, having
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 5: gone all over this country, it's building a head of steam.
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 5: This is going to be level five type hurricane. Two,
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 5: side note, why I think Wisconsin. One, of the last
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 5: three Supreme Court, biggest win was just the other day.
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 11: Yeah, monsters.
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 5: Second, we've now 14 for 14 in statewide elections, haven't
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 5: lost one. Third, we picked up the suburban county outside
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 5: of Milwaukee where the Republicans used to balance against Milwaukee.
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 5: We picked up the county exec seat. Fourth, in the
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 5: third district, which is the southwest corner where La Crosse is,
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 5: where I went in for Rebecca Cook, where the Republican
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 5: member of Congress is, the Supreme Court candidate, our candidate,
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 5: took 57% of the vote there. Donald Trump won that
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 5: county overwhelmingly. It used to be where Rod Kind was congressman.
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 5: The Wisconsin numbers in a battleground state were not just
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 5: good on the Supreme Court. You go two, three layers down,
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 5: They were unbelievable.
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 5: And I think what I would say is keep the
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 5: focus on the Republicans. Keep the focus on the fact
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 5: that they've been complicit with Donald Trump. I do have
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 5: argued this before. I would present a 6-in-26. Not because
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 5: anybody remembers the 6-in-06 or the contract with America. You
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 5: should have it. A, it helps you focus in 2027
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 5: what your priorities are. It creates a disciplined dialogue inside
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 5: the party what we're going to stand for. And It
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 5: will not just help in 2026. 2027 will be the
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 5: seminal year that will decide for us who we are
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 5: and what we're defined for in 2028. And when we
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 5: ran health care, children's health care, the renewal, helped negotiate
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 5: it for President Clinton, led the effort in the House
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 5: with Speaker Pelosi, forced Bush to veto it, 60 Republicans
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 5: were with the Democrats, it sets up Obama in no way.
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 5: When George Mitchell in 1990 gets Bush 41, to sign
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 5: a tax increase, it breaks up the Republican Party. Pat
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 5: Buchanan challenges a sitting Republican president and it sets up
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 5: Bill Clinton in 1992. So I believe do the work now,
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 5: both not only for 2026, but for the discipline of 2027.
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 5: One of those is going to break through and get
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 5: to the president's desk. If he signs it, You want
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 5: it to be something that divides the Republicans from him.
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 5: If he vetoes it, you want to make sure it
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 5: also divides the Republicans from him. The goal there then
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 5: says who we are and who they are.
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 11: Yeah, I agree. I think running against Trump is important
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 11: and we should continue to do it. I still think
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 11: we have a massive problem as a party of people
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 11: not knowing who we are or not knowing who we
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 11: stand for and maybe not liking.
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 5: It as they do. Tommy, there's three or four layers here.
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 5: not knowing who we stand for, not knowing whether we'll
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 5: fight for who he thinks. The reason I'm going around
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 5: on these community colleges, 40% of the people in America
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 5: go to community colleges that go to higher education. These
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 5: are the unseen, unheard, unrespected folks. I know what I
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 5: did to reform the community colleges of Chicago and what
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 5: we did to make sure that people that went there
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 5: can walk in and say, I went to Malcolm X
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 5: and get that nursing job at Rush Presbyterian Hospital. Or
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 5: the guy I met in Spartanburg who's working on mechanical
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 5: stills and he has a $ 33 an hour plus benefits
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 5: job waiting at GE for him on May 11th. To me,
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 5: you can't just say these things that sound great in
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 5: faculty lounges or papers. You actually have to feel the
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 5: people that are under the intense pressure. Not only have
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 5: an agenda for them, but they're willing to take on
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 5: and break some eggs to get it done. And our
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 5: party hasn't. Just hasn't. It's not just about clicks. It's
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 5: about calculus. It's not just about social media posts. It's
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 5: actually about social studies. And we haven't prioritized the right things.
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 5: We just haven't. And we have to be acknowledged about that.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 5: And we got ourselves caught, I've said this before and
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 5: I'll say it again, in a cultural cul-de-sac going around
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 5: in circles. We were off. The American people, when their
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 5: back's against the wall, they expect Democrats to show up.
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 5: They don't think Republicans will show up because they know
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 5: they're in the boardroom cutting up the pie. They expect
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 5: us to show up. And we did not show up
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 5: for them. We deserve the spanking.
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 11: And we got one.
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 11: Rahm Emanuel, great to see you again.
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 5: Great to see you, Kelly. Thanks for coming in. Yeah,
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 5: we solved all the world problems.
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 11: Yeah, we got it.
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 5: We're good.
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: Hormuz, wide open.
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Rahm for stopping by.
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: And I'll be back in the feed on Sunday with
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: a conversation with none other than Hasan Piker. That's right.
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: Rahm Emanuel was here today. Hasan Piker will be here tomorrow,
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: and then I will be closing all of my apps
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: for the weekend.
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to be closely monitoring your social media
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 3: usage starting Sunday at 6 a.m.
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: Yep, nope, you can complain all you want, because I'm
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: sure the clips can be everywhere. Much like Melania, I
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: will not be taking any questions about my relationship with
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: Hasan Piker.
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 3: Who is this Hasan Piker fellow? I've never heard anything
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 3: about him recently.
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I think he's something about Twitch?
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 3: Twitch, oh, Twitch, Twitch, Twitch.
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: Anyway, have a good weekend, everyone.
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 3: Bye, everyone.
• 1:54:45
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• 1:54:47
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• 1:54:49
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• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save
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• 1:55:03
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• 1:55:06
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