Trump Blasts "Third Rate Podcasts"
2026-04-10 07:05:00 • 1:55:42
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Welcome to Potsayv America. I'm John Favreau.
I'm Dan Fifer.
On today's show, we'll talk about Trump trading genocidal threats for a chaotic ceasefire.
It hasn't changed all that much in Iran.
Vance heading to Pakistan for negotiations with an eye on his 2028 politics.
The prominent magas stars calling for Trump's removal,
Republican fears that they've already lost the midterms,
DNC drama over Israel, and Melania Trump's bizarre attempt to distance herself from Jeffrey Epstein.
What a day.
Then, Rahm Emanuel stumps by the studio to talk with Tommy about Iran,
Israel, and his widely rumored presidential ambitions.
Quite the show, Dan. Quite the show.
Quick reminder for all of you, please consider becoming a crooked media subscriber if you haven't already done so.
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Subscribers get our new extra episode of Potsayv America called Potsayv America Only Friends.
Tommy and I did it this week. It's great. You should check it out. Become a subscriber.
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Alright, let's get to the news.
After a week where the president backed off his threat to eradicate an entire civilization
based on a last minute ceasefire agreement with Iran,
we are basically back to where we were the last time you and I recorded a week ago.
The Iranian regime is still in power, still controls the straight-of-formos,
and still has its nuclear material.
War is still raging in the Middle East between Israel and Lebanon.
Oil and gas prices are still high,
and Trump is still declaring victory while simultaneously threatening more war.
One of his latest posts says that our military is, quote,
looking forward, actually, to its next conquest.
And, in the same post,
said that if Iran doesn't agree to all his demands, quote,
then the shooting starts, for some reason,
shooting starts as in quotes,
bigger and better and stronger than anyone has ever seen before.
And Dan, while you might be mocking Trump's decision to pull us all back,
to pull us all back from the brink of catastrophe,
like some silly resistance lib,
the folks at Fox News know what's up.
Democrats are already saying that this is taco.
Trump always chickens out.
Let me give you another acronym,
Nacho, never avoids confronting hard obstacles.
It's a nacho, Dan.
It's a nacho.
Is it a taco or is it a nacho?
No, don't answer that question.
How would you assess Donald Trump's diplomatic prowess over the last week?
I think the...
Would you call it a quesadilla, a chimichanga?
An enchilada.
Anything from the Taco Bell menu?
Okay.
Supreme...
Supreme Gordita?
Yes, Supreme Gordita of...
I've been talking about it in years, so I don't know, but go ahead.
Don't brag about it.
Chipotle guy.
Are you?
Anyway, this thing here and on there, we'll have to...
Just a railing.
Just right at the beginning.
Yes, okay.
Let's get into the actual questions here.
It has not been a stellar 36 hours or so of diplomacy for Donald Trump, I would say.
It really hasn't been a fair deal.
It's not a fair deal.
It's not a fair deal.
It's not a fair deal.
It's not a fair deal.
It's not a fair deal.
It's not a fair deal.
It really hasn't been a very good month.
It hasn't been a good decade.
But I think the Iran War has brought to bear for the public something that we always knew
to be true.
And even some of Trump supporters suspected to be true, but suppressed that, which is that
Donald Trump is an erratic, capricious idiot who is so...
In so far over his head that he cannot see straight.
It's just...
When you go through what is happening here, one day it is we're winning.
The next day we don't need the straight-of-formers at all.
Then we're going to blow up.
We're going to send a ramp at the Stone Age.
We're going to blow up every bridge and power plant because we need the straight-of-formers.
He agrees to a ceasefire negotiation.
He has no idea what's in it.
According to the reporting, he did not even know that he thought Lebanon was in it.
Turns out it was...
Israel thought it was not, or it wasn't originally, and then BB Netanyahu got on the red phone
he has directly into the White House and had it taken out.
There is huge...
Make sense that Donald Trump probably has no idea where Lebanon is and couldn't point it out.
He has no...
He has no...
He has no...
He has no idea.
He's not steeped in the details.
He has no core policy ideas.
He doesn't understand how the global oil market works.
He doesn't understand what the straight-of-formers is.
He doesn't understand how...
In rich uranium matters or where it could be or how it's used.
He knows nothing.
And it is...
It's sort of a miracle that Donald Trump has been president for five years now.
And for most of that time, he's been able to dance through the raindrops of his own incompetence to avoid things like this.
Like we always would say, particularly Trump's first term, he's going to tweet us into a war, stumble ass backers into a war.
Well, he did that.
And he has no way of getting out of it.
Yes, we can't just check.
We're not up the button.
Yeah, he...
We stumbled our way into a once in a generation pandemic, mismanaged that.
That's the other example.
It's right to the two times trail of the Kimber where he incited a violent riot in the Capitol.
He did that.
Check.
Yeah, he didn't have...
He didn't have lead us into a dumb war yet.
So he's...
Yeah, it's just for most of the time, pandemic and this war aside, for most of the time, particularly Trump's first term, his incompetence didn't end up mattering that much.
He got very lucky.
There weren't a lot of crises.
The ones he got into, he was able to...
He stumbled into him, he was able to stumble a lot of them quickly.
Now he's someone that's something he cannot get out of.
And he is just truly the worst person to try to lead us out of this.
Also, the times had a sort of a tick-tock of the 36 hours when the ceasefire came together.
And it was interesting because...
I think this was reported at the time.
But when Donald Trump posted his genocidal threat that a civilization will die tonight, the negotiations had apparently been going somewhat well.
And then when he posted that, the Iranians became so enraged that they broke off the negotiations and the Pakistanis and then ultimately China had to try to put it all back together last minute to get a deal.
Which Donald Trump wanted because Donald Trump was looking for an exit ramp because he knew the war was unpopular.
So what he thought was going to get a deal by making a genocidal threat actually almost tanks the entire thing.
I am shocked to find out that a threat of genocide did not improve diplomatic prospects.
So in that story, it's also funny that story is 36 hours because the Times most famous travel feature is 36 hours in Paris, 36 hours in New York.
And so when you Google, Donald Trump 36 hours Iran, you get some strange results.
But in there, it's kind of the opening anecdote is Trump is sitting at his desk as the clock is ticking down to his 8 p.m. genocide deadline.
And he's looking at pictures in video of Iranian civilians surrounding the bridges and power plants that Trump has promised to bomb.
And his basic response seems to be, well, that'll be Iran's fault.
Yeah.
If I have to bomb them and they die.
And he was like in a bunch of meetings about other topics, just like bragging about how many bridges and power plants he was ready to bomb that night in destroy.
There were there were there had been some reporting to and I couldn't tell if it was like a negotiating tactic or not may have been but that said that I've all his advisors Donald Trump has been the most bloodthirsty of any of them.
He's been like the biggest warmonger, which is not something that's going to make me sleep well at night, Dan.
So there he also did right before we recorded he was like I hear that Iran might be charging.
Exactly.
Now on the straight of hormones, they better not be and it's like what that's been reported for for days now that was like again, but part of the agreement was that the IRGC was going to run the street.
So what did you think was going to happen and then someone asked you about it yesterday and you said we might charge tolls as well.
You also talked about in a post how it's a great day for world peace after the ceasefire agreement.
And now everyone's going to make money. It's going to be the golden age in the Middle East like what he has.
He has no idea what the fuck's going on clearly wait.
No, yes, you're correct. He has no idea what the fuck's going on.
Wait until he finds out that one of the ways in which the IRGC is accepting payment is in cryptocurrency and one of the acceptable methods is the world Liberty financial USD one stablecoin.
Wait, is that part true? The second part?
I do it that has been reported that has been reported. I cannot verify that to be the case, but I think it has to be in stablecoins and that is a stablecoin.
Amazing. Amazing.
So there's been a lot of stellar reporting in the last week about what's been happening in the White House during this war since we can't trust the public comments of anyone who works in the White House.
Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan had quite a detailed story about the situation room deliberations that led to war, which apparently included an in person presentation by BB Netanyahu.
What did you make of that piece?
Like the diplomacy piece, just a wild expose of incompetence.
It seems very clear that Trump was persuaded to go to war by BB Netanyahu.
It seems that Trump gave it very little thought as to what would happen next.
He took the word of BB Netanyahu according this report and the Israeli intelligence service.
Like according to BB is in the sit room and they've handed over the keys to the technology of the sit room to the Israelis.
And so on the screen is these really military, the mason to walk in through it.
And Trump apparently seemed dismissive of the concerns raised by General Dan Canaan others on our side and took what these really had to say as more accurate or more or better more predictive.
And let even though if he Trump had half a brain, he know that BB has been pushing for this war for decades.
Right. And obviously it's not an unbiased presenter of information here.
Yeah. What I got from that was, first of all, stunning that you had a head of state in the situation room, even an ally, like pressing for making the case for war in the situation room.
I don't think that that has ever happened.
I don't, I certainly don't remember it never happening.
That said, I also, you know, the pro-Israel folks will say, well, Donald Trump has agency and he made the decision himself and it wasn't necessarily just BB.
And I think the piece bears that out for sure.
I think he, he, BB definitely made the case and definitely influenced him.
But I think Donald Trump wanted to hear a pro war case from BB Netanyahu.
And I guess there was like, you know, there was four, four potential objectives for the war.
And the piece says that first was decapitation, killing the Ayatollah.
Second was crippling Iran's capacity to project power in threat in its neighbors.
Third was a popular uprising inside Iran.
And fourth was regime change with a secular leader installed to govern the country.
And basically the military, McCain tells Trump, he thinks the military does have the capacity.
He wasn't even saying he was for it, but he said the military does have the capacity to do one in two killing the Ayatollah and crippling Iran's capacity to project power.
And then basically everyone in the room, except for what this was after BB Netanyahu left and the Israeli's left.
But all of his staff was like, all the rest of the senior officials in the White House were basically said that three in four, the popular uprising and installing a secular leader were crazy.
Radcliffe, the CIA director, called it a farcical.
And then Rubio interjected, that means it's bullshit.
I assume because Trump didn't know what a farcical meant.
But even as General Kain said, he believes the military could achieve one in two.
He also warned about the straight-of-form moves and how it would be very difficult to reopen or how the Iranians could gain control of it, which has happened.
Trump seemed to dismiss that because he thought, oh, the regime will have fallen by then.
And warned about depleting munitions that we are going to use a lot of our weapons and defensive weapons, offensive weapons by doing this, and Trump didn't seem to care about that.
And then there was even an anecdote in that story, how Tucker Carlson, who had been calling Trump and warning him not to do this and pleading with him not to do this.
He basically said he had a call with the president right before Trump said go and Trump said to Carlson, I know you're worried about it, but it's going to be okay.
And then Tucker said, well, how do you know? And Trump said, because it always is.
I think there's a very, very telling anecdote.
Me too. Me too.
Trump is assumed everything's going to go great.
Yeah, it always has for him.
Go bankrupt, get rich again.
Right. And I think especially since he survived the assassination attempt, he does have this.
He has like a little bit of a little bit, Messiah complex here, where he thinks like, you know, God has sent him to be president again.
And he thinks it's, I think he saw Venezuela go off without a hitch for him at least.
And he saw the, you know, in the 12-day war when they bombed Iran, like that went off relatively easily without a hitch as well.
And so he just thought this would be the same.
And he also sees it as a legacy item.
He thinks, oh, well, no president's done this in 47 years.
There's also a good piece in the Atlantic today.
Jonathan Lamire wrote about how for Trump like it's 1979 again.
And he sort of like stuck in the 80s and 1979 and in 1979.
You know, the popular political thing to say was like, oh, Carter was too soft on a run.
And, you know, we would have, if he had just bombed Iran then, it would have been better.
And so like, and because Trump's always frozen in time, he's still thinking that it's like the 80s.
And that he's going to be the guy who couldn't do what presidents could try to do for 47 years and changed a theocracy in Iran.
Yeah, I think that's all right.
Like he, it's like he has a Messiah complex.
He also just has been, it's good.
This goes to sort of his idiocy is to not understand the difference between a handful of directed strikes at Iran as part of midnight hammer or sending in the Delta Force into Venezuela to abduct one person from launching a war with Iran in the Middle East with the straight of four moves there.
Like did not understand those differences is so it's going really like it's stunning to be that sort of ignorant of the whole thing.
But just he does all these things in military.
They do what they're supposed to do every single time without flaw without loss of life.
And he just thought he could get away with it.
It's still I think the 80s things a really interesting point because like it is his mentality about cities, about crime, about everything is that New York 1980s and the 1979.
He sees how that ended Carter's presidency, the attempt to rescue the hostages, the inability to rescue the hostages in the in the embassy.
But it still is strange that he has picked regime change as legacy items.
I know because he also watched Iraq unfold and you know, I mean he claims to be opposed to that now.
But what he was opposed to was when it all went south, he wanted to be on the side of saying, yeah, this is bad and what a catastrophe.
And also, oh, you should have taken the oil. His lesson in Iraq is like don't send in a whole bunch of ground troops and take the oil.
And so which I guess is why he hasn't sent in ground troops yet to Iran.
But who knows because the war continues.
It's a very fragile ceasefire that has almost fallen apart numerous times.
It may yet fall apart by the time they get to Islam about this weekend.
By the time you're listening to this on Friday.
Right, right, right.
Because Israel is continues to just bomb the hell out of Lebanon in Beirut, densely populated urban area.
Hundreds of civilians have died. Women, children, medics.
And I guess finally Trump called BB and said like you've got to pursue some kind of diplomatic negotiations with the Lebanese government,
which had been trying to disarm Hezbollah before this latest war.
And had been also trying to negotiate since the Israel began bombing them.
Had been trying to negotiate with the Israelis some kind of a diplomatic solution because so many Lebanese who have nothing to do with Hezbollah are dying in this war.
And millions have been displaced.
So I guess Trump has got BB to agree to pursue some kind of diplomatic negotiations though Netanyah who also said there will be no ceasefire.
While negotiations go on.
And so and the Iranians are saying like absolutely not.
We don't want to negotiate if this is happening.
Who knows if they'll stick with that or not.
But that's sort of where we are right now.
It just it does show the weakness of Trump here, which is Trump wants to cease fire.
He wants this over.
The thing preventing this from being over is Israel bombing Lebanon.
And he is unable to convince her force or use leverage on Netanyahu to get Israel to stop bombing Lebanon.
And Israel is going to keep bombing Lebanon because they want the war with Iran to keep going.
They want the United States to keep bombing Iran.
So they're going to keep bombing Lebanon.
And we were just in this lit.
It is a circular argument that Trump cannot figure out how to get out of it because he does not have the guts, the courage, the strategic sense to figure out how to get Netanyahu to do the thing he wants.
Even though Netanyahu is dependent on the US for so much, particularly in this moment.
And he also doesn't understand or maybe doesn't care what Netanyahu's thought process is on this, which is not dissimilar to his thought process in Gaza, which is they're not just taking out senior Hezbollah commanders.
They are taking out like mid-level Hezbollah operatives who are embedding themselves in civilian populations.
Israelis don't seem to care. They're bombing the civilian populations anyway.
They are basically occupying southern Lebanon at this point.
And they may not, and it doesn't seem like they want to give it up just like they are occupying Gaza.
And basically their view is we're just going to keep pushing the boundaries outward from Israel.
And we're going to keep calling them buffer zones, but what they really are is just taking land and occupying more land.
And thinking that somehow this is going to be enough to eradicate Hezbollah or Hamas or any of the other terrorist groups they think are threats.
And it continues to be proven wrong over and over and over again.
And I wouldn't expect Trump to understand that, but maybe someone in the government might.
So in the last few days, Trump has turned his attention toward another sworn enemy of the United States, NATO.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House is considering a plan to punish NATO for not going along with Trump and Netanyahu's war by removing US troops from NATO countries.
Trump has also been ranting about NATO, posting, quote,
NATO wasn't there when we needed them, and they won't be there if we need them again.
Remember Greenland, that big, poorly run piece of ice, okay?
You would think all this might have made for an awkward meeting between Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta on Wednesday, but not so according to Ruta.
Is the world safer today than it was before the war was started?
Absolutely, because, and this is things to present Trump's leadership.
Do you still consider him daddy after yesterday?
I was not calling him my daddy, but saying, but of course, daddy has also a special connotation.
And now I have to live this day, so that's all my life.
Dan, do you still consider Trump daddy?
I don't really know how to answer that question, John.
It's like a trap, is what it seems like.
That guy, go ahead, you defend Mark Ruta.
As you did in our morning meeting.
I did.
I did.
What I was shocked by was the way in which you just dismiss the importance of NATO to the global alliances.
I mean, here's the thing.
Obviously, Ruta has a strategy of a piece meant that is incredibly embarrassing.
For him, for NATO, for those of us who even have to consume him, it's embarrassing.
I don't know how he sleeps at night.
The problem for Ruta is, NATO does not exist without the United States.
And they are staring at a face where we have Russian aggression headed towards the European continent.
And if the United States pulls out of NATO, they lose the most important military part of NATO
and the biggest threat to turn to Russia.
And so he, like, I don't applaud the way he's doing this.
I'm embarrassed for him.
I'm embarrassed for his family that this happens, but he is trying to keep NATO together
because, like, you'd love this to say, fuck you and walk away.
But if he does that, then NATO, which is the thing he's in charge of, collapses functionally at least.
Even if Trump doesn't formally pull out of NATO, which, you know, you need to go to Congress for anyway,
or who knows, maybe in a truth social post, he'll do it.
Maybe he doesn't do that.
If you're Vladimir Putin and you have eyes on potentially invading a NATO country,
do you really think the United States is going to come to the defense of NATO militarily or even otherwise
if you go ahead and invade at this point?
Probably not.
And that's the whole alliance right there.
Yeah.
That's the whole point of NATO.
Now, Trump seems to think, in these post-Trump seems to think NATO is like,
because you're in NATO, whatever one country wants to do in NATO
and whatever wars they want to pursue and invasions and bombings they want to do,
then everyone else has to join too.
And you're like, come on, we're NATO. You've got to help me.
Yeah, he thinks they're all part of the same gang.
And they can't go.
He doesn't realize it's a defensive alliance.
Once again, a basic principle learned in, you know, European history, you know,
101 or whatever else that Trump has eluded Trump till his 80s.
Completely embarrassing.
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and fees extra, see Mint Mobile for details. So, if the ceasefire doesn't completely fall apart,
JD Vance is headed to Islamabad this weekend for negotiations with the Iranians. Uh, so I hope
they're ready to say thank you. Got a lot of, they got to be meeting JD Vance with a lot of
thank yous or else he's going to be very angry. Vance's team has seemingly been leaking to every
reporter who listened that the vice president has been the senior Trump official most opposed to
the war in Iran. This comes up quite a bit in the times piece we talked about when the ceasefire
came together this week, Vance happened to be out in the campaign trail in Hungary. That's what
yes one does holding a rally for the country's pro-Putin authoritarian incumbent Victor Orbán,
where he just as a nice touch accused the Ukrainians of election interference. JD Vance
accusing the Ukrainians of election interference as he a US official was in Hungary campaigning for
the authoritarian incumbent in that country and apparently lack self-awareness. Uh, very normal.
But America's best hope for peace in the Middle East did make some time for Iran questions on the
tarmac and Budapest. Here's how we handle it. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire
included 11 on and it just didn't. We never made that promise. We never indicated that was going
to be the case. First of all, he said that there are a few points of disagreement before the
negotiation. Well, that must mean that there's a lot of points of agreement because there's a 15
point plan floating around. There's a 10 point plan floating around. If he's frustrated about three
issues, that actually means that there's a lot of agreement. That's point number one. Point number
two to respond to each of those issues and I read it very closely. Let me just say this. I actually
wonder how good he is at understanding English because there are things that he said that frankly
didn't make sense in some of the in the context of the negotiations that we've had. The second thing
Goliath said, which again I found fascinating as he said, we refuse to give up the right to
enrichment and I thought to myself, you know what? My wife has the right to skydive but she doesn't
jump out of an airplane because she and I have an agreement that she's not going to do that because
I don't want my wife jumping out of an airplane. We don't really concern ourselves with what they
claim they have the right to do. We concern ourselves with what they actually do and I think the
president's been very clear on the enrichment question. Our position on that has not changed.
I tell you, the my wife really came out of nowhere. Did not expect the him to reference his wife
jumping out of a plane but it really is interesting to see how JD Vance grapples with these foreign
policy issues you can tell. He's really giving it thought and definitely not sort of just making it
up on the fly. He is such a pedantic obnoxious high school debater. Actually, I think the misunderstanding
it couldn't be us. I think the misunderstanding is you not speaking English very well.
Does he think their translators don't exist? What does he think this is?
He's like, actually, it really depends on what you mean by right.
Like, I have an idea. I have a way to get out of this because I was really thinking about
Usha and skydiving. Like, do they have it? Is the agreement that she won't skydive?
Or do they have a mutual non-skydiving pact? If I was her, I'd be like, yeah, sure, I won't do it
but if you want to jump out of a plane any time. I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure she'd probably
have spent so much time jumping out of almost any moving vehicle that she's in with JD Vance.
I will fly you myself. So, if Vance does get a primary challenge in 2028, how far do you think he'll
go in trying to communicate that he was always against this war and will it work? Because they are
out there, someone from his camp, if not Vance himself, did some really leaking to the New York Times
about him in that meeting. They have to political before. It's been quite a few places now that the
Vance team has been out there just making sure everyone knows how opposed to the war he is in private.
If you think Joe Biden was tough on Kamala Harris for trying to find areas of disagreement,
how do you think Donald Trump, the guy who threatened to hang his last vice president,
is going to be in the course of this election? Yeah, I don't know. I can't tell.
I think he will be a complete dick but I do wonder if on some issues he'll give him a little,
give him a little way. I don't know. I mean, it would be funny and not funny, something
I would say. Darkly funny. If he's more malleable than Joe Biden was on this crucial issue of
flexibility, here's the thing, Sunny Hoeson, get the question ready. I don't think we're going to
see JD Vance on the view at any point. A couple of things here. One, JD Vance is not going to have
a lot of success running in the Republican primary away from Trump. The way these things typically
work when a vice president is running to succeed a president, a two-term president, and we have two
modern examples, George H. W. Bush and Al Gore, is there is a continuity candidate and there's a
change candidate. JD Vance by definition is the continuity candidate. The continuity candidate
almost always wins, like George H. W. Bush and Al Gore did because even if Trump is unpopular,
fading it from the scene, he still remains very popular with Republican voters and popular enough
that it would push JD Vance and stuff. He's going to own everything Trump does and if he's
worst strategy, which is the strategy I suspect he would do because he is all short-term
and ambitious and not a lot of long-term strategic thinking. His worst strategy would be to try
to disinsel from Trump because he's going to own everything Trump did. It's going to be interesting.
It's going to be something that I enjoy watching. It is because he's also a bad liar.
Yes, he loves to lie. I'm not saying it's not his passion, but he's not very good at it
because he's also not very charismatic. I don't think he can pull it off that well. He thinks
he's clever enough to split the baby on this. The gap between how clever JD Vance thinks he
is and how clever JD Vance actually is, that's massive. The gap in the where the negotiations stand
between the US and around right now. He just is so politically maladroit. He's just like a
lumbering oaf knocking things over as he works his way through this. He's going, you always see
the cards up his sleeve when he is talking. If he is trying to do anything other than just
like be Trump 3.0 or whatever it would be, it's going to be so embarrassing and so easy to poke fun
at. I honestly will consider unretiring from politics if JD Vance is the nominee because that would
be the most fun campaign to work on. You could have, like, actually, just, I think we probably
have more fun just doing it from here, you know. We don't want something. I mean, but some fucking
lame candidate being like, no, that's to me. I'm not candidate. I am on the, the main fund of JD Vance
Super PAC side. Super PAC. Okay. Now we're talking about that. I think you can do the JD Vance,
whether Republicans definitely did the gore and just make him an absolute caricature of himself.
Well, let's just suck a group of pack. We don't need to join one of the us. That's perfect.
We'll just start one here. Okay. All right. We'll get on that. We'll get on that. We'll
get on that. We launched it right here. We have a plan. See you guys in two years.
Well, I'm glad that the guy who you can always see the cards up his sleeve. He's our man in Islam
a bad for the good. He's there to take the fall. You think so? I mean, it's unclear exactly
why I think one of the one reason why he's there is no one, the Iranians and all the other
in Alakoros do not trust with Kofin Kushner because they're complete dopes who and they think all
the, and then they think the people who aren't those two are like bloodthirsty war mongers and they do.
And I think, you know, with with some legitimacy, they think the JD Vance is the most opposed to
this war and probably will be easier to talk to about potential peace or some diplomatic agreement
than anyone else in the administration. Yeah, I think that's probably true. You know, I think they
probably trust him a little bit more. Very mistake. So one thing's for sure. Vance must clearly be
aware that the outrage among Maga elites who opposed this war has now reached a fever pitch.
I know we've played a lot of these clips in the last month, but they just keep getting better
and better. So here you go. A whole civilization will die tonight.
Never to be brought back again. That is the definition of genocide.
How do we 25th Amendment is asked? Can he just behave like a normal human? I mean, honestly,
like the president, I, 380, she asked, shut up. Fucking shut up about that shit. His
negotiation tactic is to kill an entire country full of civilians, men, women and children,
an American president so that the state of Hormuz will be opened. It's just wrong.
The American people have to open their eyes and deal with reality and deal with truth.
And the truth is, look, you may have supported President Trump for 10 years like I did,
and like you have, but this is not the same man. This is not the same man that we supported.
Those people who are in direct contact with the president need to say no. All resigned.
I'll do whatever I can do legally to stop this because this is insane. And if given the order,
I'm not carrying it out. Figure out the codes on the football yourself. Dan, this is breaking. We do
have a response from the president to all of this. And I'm just going to read this presidential
statement. And it is lengthy, so I will try to go quickly. And my emphasis will be only where there
are all capital letters. So thank you. Thank you for your service.
I know why Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, Candace Owens and Alex Jones have all been fighting me
for years, especially by the fact that they think it is wonderful for around the number one state
sponsor of terror to have a nuclear weapon because they have one thing in common. Low IQs,
they're stupid people. They know it. Their families know it. And everyone else knows it too.
Look at their past. Look at their record. They don't have what it takes and they never did.
They've all been thrown off television, lost their shows, and aren't even invited on TV because
nobody cares about them. They're not jobs, troublemakers, and we'll say anything necessary for
some free and cheap publicity. Now they think they get some clicks because they have third-rate podcasts,
but nobody's talking about them and their views are the opposite of MAGA. Or I wouldn't have won
the presidential election in a landslide. MAGA agrees with me and just gave CNN a 100% approval
rating of Trump, not hand-flailing fools like Tucker Carlson who couldn't even finish college. He
was a broken man when he got fired from Fox and he's never been the same. Perhaps he could see a
good psychiatrist or Megan Kelly who nastily asked me the now famous only Rosie O'Donnell question
or crazy Candace Owens who accuses the highly respected First Lady of France of being a man when
she is not and will hopefully win lots of money in the ongoing lawsuit. Actually to me,
the First Lady of France is far more beautiful than Candace. In fact, it's not even close.
Or bankrupt Alex Jones who says some of the dumbest things and lost his entire fortune as he should
have for his horrendous attack on the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims,
ridiculously claiming it was a hoax. These so-called pundits are losers and they always will be.
Now fake new CNN, the flailing New York Times and all of the other radical left news organizations
are hailing them and giving them positive press for the first time in their lives. They're not MAGA,
they're losers. They're just trying to latch onto MAGA. As president, I could get them on my side
anytime I want to but when they call, I don't return their calls because I'm too busy on world
and country affairs. And after a few times, they go nasty just like Marjorie Trader Brown.
But I no longer care about this stuff. I only care about what's doing right for our country.
MAGA is about winning and strength in not allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon. MAGA is about
making America great again and these people have no idea how to do that but I do because the United
States is now the hottest country anywhere in the world. President Donald J. Tron.
Okay. A few things there. First, I want Arles Ersa now. There's no editing. John did that in one
take flawlessly. Yeah, I did. I didn't practice at all. No. It was very impressive.
Also, just a couple of swerves in there. The Deepunk Key.
A couple of swerves in there.
Well, just when you read it, it's all kind of, it begins, you kind of know where it's going.
Right. Yeah.
Their losers are not on TV, which to Trump is the pinnacle of success is cable television.
Third, then we swerve into a vigorous defense of Brigitte Macron,
including a testament to her beauty.
Yeah, so he is in the no penis camp.
Yes. Then he debunks Sandy Hook conspiracy theories, which was nice.
And then we're back down the rabbit hole.
Then also, you know what he doesn't return their calls because he's too busy on world and country
affairs. Yes, he's, which is, which is evident. He definitely does not care. He definitely does
not care. There's nothing about that that's just caring. He is not mad online. Not everyone knows.
He is not mad online. I no longer care about that stuff. He doesn't care about it.
And that's why he doesn't usually talk about it. And that's why he can barely speak about it.
Just fire it off a op-ed length post about this.
So in addition to those people getting under his skin, there's also a great New York time story
about the most mega of mega fans on of all places, truth social, which is where that lovely speech
I just read was first posted. And apparently, there's all these people on truth social,
which is gotta be all the people on truth social because I don't think there's that many people
on there in the first place. But they're all posting that they're ashamed to have voted for Trump
that he's gone off the deep end, etc. etc. I think like 50% of the replies to his Easter Sunday.
I'm going to kill you all post to whatever the fuck it was. We're negative,
only like 20% were supporters, something like that. The New York Times analyzed like 40,000 truths.
I'm just I'm hoping they use AI on that. What do you think about all this? Do you think
you think it'll start showing up in polls of Republican voters? Because it hasn't already.
It is showing up in polls of Republican voters, right? It is. Yeah, like it's happening on the
Morgan's. Sorry. Yeah. I mean, Trump's approval rating among Republicans, you know,
about around the same last year was low 90s high 80s, which is kind of where he's always been.
Now it's low 80s high 70s, depending on what you're looking at it. It's in the 70s and the PRRR
poll similar in the Pew poll. What is notable is it's mostly from non-magger Republicans,
right? His approval rating is most definitely among them. That's very a run war related. He's
getting 80 some percent of mega Republicans and polls as high as 100% according to his fake
carry-in tin poll. Among self-inified mega Republicans, the run was basically almost even and
then it's like plus eight with non-magger Republicans. I think we tend to think of non-magger Republicans
as people just to the right of the bulwark. That's not actually the case. It could be people who
are pretty conservative views on some issues who supported Trump this time, but didn't support
him previously who got in the process because of him. They're just not, they're just like probably
less engaged Republicans, but they're pretty conservative. I bet Marjorie Taylor Green would
consider herself a non-magger Republican at this point. Because mega doesn't,
mega is not, we've talked before, it does not mean you're adhering to a specific philosophy.
It means you're a die-hurt supporter of Trump. So people who are non-die-hurt supporters of Trump
can span the ideological spectrum within the Republican Party. We do have another post from Trump.
Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable, some would say, of allowing oil to go through the
straight of four moves. That is not the agreement we have, President DJT.
Okay. We're doing this in real time. Things are going great. It seems like we talked about the
toll one and now he's just learning about things in real time. I guess it probably took him a while
to draft the post about Tucker and Megan Kelly, so maybe he hasn't been paying much attention to
the news. You know this as a former speech writer. You would go into your office and you just
start writing. Sometimes you got to turn the Wi-Fi off on your computer so that you can draft,
you can't be checking social media. He did say he's been very busy with world and country affairs.
Yes, he came out of the world and country affairs meeting, checked the internet, and like, holy
shit, the straight is still closed. It's like a course you take in college. There is another thing
about the Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, all these folks breaking up Trump is one, it's a real
problem for him politically for a couple of reasons. One, like that has been his strength is he has had
unanimous Republican support among elected officials and mega media. Now that we have these high
profile people breaking from Trump, that is bad for him. It's lost his superpower.
And the other way to think about this is I think people tend to think that these are
quote unquote, mega shows and the people who watch it are mega Trump Republicans and obviously the
majority of them voted for Trump in like Trump, but they are not fully mega. This is not Fox,
this is not the Fox News audience, right? The Fox News audience are hardcore Republicans,
appores of Trump mostly over the age of 70. The people who consume Megan Kelly, Candace O'Hent,
Tucker Carlson tend to be younger. They tend to necessarily engage less in politics and what
and but it's not also just not the audience of those shows every day, people tune in to who
that matters. It's that these clips are going viral everywhere. And so people who do not, who may
have voted for Trump and do not engage with politics, they're seeing critique from in part, you know,
like in group allies of Trump. And that is very, very damaging. These are people, these are trusted
voices among a certain set of votes. And now they are saying the same thing about Trump that they
are hearing on Pots of America. And that is the worst possible place for Donald Trump to be. And
Trump aside, because, and you know, we'll talk about the midterms in a second, but like
this is also going to deprive like people who are cross pressured who might like a lot of things
that Trump has done don't like Iran or her hearing all this criticism about him on Iran.
Like are these people going to make sure they go out in the midterms and vote for Republicans?
Are these people going to like sign up to join JD Vance's campaign when he announces in 2028?
Like it is doing damage far beyond Trump. What is happening right now? And far beyond what the
polls show right now. Yes. So a common thread with the Alex Jones Tucker Carlson line of critique
is some conservative specifically calling for invoking the 25th Amendment, which if you recall
from earlier seasons of the Trump show or the spin-off series, sleepy Joe involves the
involves involves the vice president and the cabinet, deeming the president unfit to serve and
removing him from office. A lot of Democrats have also called for invoking the 25th Amendment and
or impeaching Trump. I think it's of Wednesday or at around 70 Dems in the House and a handful
of senators. You had a whole message box about why this isn't exactly a simple process or even a
feasible one. Go ahead. I love an organic message box plug. So thank you for that. This one got me
very exercise because like we've evolved sort of come the conclusion that Trump deserves impeachment
in removal, but that is not a realistic way to get rid of him. If the Senate was not going to
remove Trump after he sent a mob of supporters to murder them, it's hard to fathom the scenario in
which they will. So now people have started calling for the 25th Amendment because the behavior
that Trump has exhibited really every day, but particularly in the last few weeks here, particularly
in these truths starting on Easter, is that of someone who really shouldn't is not mentally fit
to be an office. And so Democrats are calling for it. Members of Congress are calling for it. It's
seeing a lot of this online. And here's the problem with this is the 25th Amendment is actually a
more challenging to execute than impeachment removal by a large degree. So first it begins as you
point out with the vice president majority of a cabinet that includes Pete Higgseth, RFK Jr.,
Trump's personal defense attorney right now. Steve Woodcoff is the apparently member of the
cabinet. A majority of them have to send a letter to Congress saying that Trump is unfit. If they do
that, JD Vance becomes the acting president. What happens then is Trump gets a chance to tell Congress
he's fit, in which he would obviously do. Then Congress has 21 days to reconvene. And then you
need two thirds of the House and two thirds of the Senate to vote to keep JD Vance's acting president.
So it's like how is that going to happen? That is not going to happen. You keep that letter
alone just getting a members of Trump's cabinet of flunkies to say he's unfit and then getting
two thirds of the House and the Senate, which is a higher bar than impeachment. And here's my problem
with this strategy. Is it puts the onus on the wrong people? The people who are responsible
Trump being able to act this way do execute this war act without any sort of accountability are
Republicans in Congress. The cabinet does not have to face the voters in November. Republicans
of Congress and do. And so our focus should be putting the blame for where we are on the people
that we can vote out. Because the best way to rein Trump in is not to appeal to JD Vance and the
Republican cabinet. It's to elect a Democratic Congress. And I think this distracts from that.
End of rant. I couldn't agree more. I even at like unimpeachment. Like we're going to get JD Vance.
Is that but first of all, the idea that Republicans come this far and now they're going to impeach
Donald Trump when they when they took a fly around it after January 6th. Like it's just none of
it's going to happen. I get that this is a stand in for why are Democrats doing more, more
Democrats should call for impeachment or 25th Amendment. We got to do something. We got to do
something. It's just not how the system is set up right now. And the best way to, you know, end
Trump's presidency is to elect a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate. And then
elected Democratic president in 2028. That's just the way it is right now. And on issues where you
might be able to get just enough Republicans to have a working majority in Congress, then maybe
you can do stuff there. But even then, Donald Trump has veto power. Like Donald Trump has
tremendous power as president right now. And he has that power mainly because the Republican
Congress, at least enough people in the Republican Congress, most of them, 90 something percent of
them go along with literally anything he tells them to do. And they need to be held accountable for
that. That's what the next election is for holding Republican politicians accountable for never
saying no to Donald Trump about anything. The other my other beef with this is it's like a cheap
stunt. You know, you're getting all these text messages that are like sign up petition that
Trump should be to call the twig of the amendment is a way to get online engagement and raise
grassroots dollars. And when we treat our voter without telling people the true context of how
this works, there is a penalty for treating our voters like idiots. It is time again. And this is
one of those examples pushing this pushing Democrat and like I'm well for pushing Democrats to do
things that they are too afraid to do 100%. We have a long record of doing that. But like pushing
Democrats on this and like yelling about Democrats and like that is treating voters like idiots.
Some of the pushback you get from people is that you want to make the case that Trump is unfit.
If you want to make the case Trump is unfit, you do it this way. Donald Trump is unfit for office.
I see it, you see it. And the Republicans in Congress see it. The thing is they are afraid to do
anything about it. So if you want to reign in Donald Trump, we have to get rid of the people who
allow him to act this way. Good votes of America.com. Or even so the House somehow is Democrats
today because they are all on recess. First of all, most Democrats, especially all the Democratic
leaders said it's crazy that we are on recess still. Donald Trump is threatening genocide.
They, Congress should come back into session. Republicans are refused to bring Congress back to
session. Democrats have no power to do that, but they called for it. A bunch of them went to the
Capitol today, Democrats, and we're like, all right, we are going to try to force another vote on
the war power's resolution. Republicans again blocked that. That would be another thing that Congress
could do is to reign him in on the war itself. And again, Republicans refused to do that. Again,
you just, you can't make up the numbers right now. Like we just don't have, we don't have the
majorities right now. If we have majorities and then we're not doing things with the majority,
then you should definitely blame Democrats for sure. And the one, and the one that we don't have
the majority of for sure, Trump's cabinet. Hence the problem. Yeah, no kidding.
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Why stop at one flavor? The Rita's Gelati Sunday brings Italian ice, frozen custard and toppings
together in one cup. Find your closest treat as an order on the app. Let's get a free small
ice after downloading and signing up. All right, here's some good news. It seems like Republicans who
will be on the ballot this November are starting to become, as the White House likes to say, panicans.
I guess it's their version of bedwaters. I don't know. They're both kind of stupid, but it's fine.
On Wednesday, Politico published a story with the headline, we lose the midterms. Republicans
worry Iran might have already cost them Congress. The title of which quotes a source described as
quote, close to the White House. It's not just the polling freaking them out. Earlier this week,
Democrats notched another pair of huge over-performances in two big elections. The Wisconsin Supreme
Court will now have a five-two liberal majority after Chris Taylor crushed her conservative
opponent by 20 points, which was an over 20 points swing from Kamala Harris's 2024 performance
in the state. A 10 point over performance from the last time in 2025 that the liberal candidate won
a Wisconsin Supreme Court election. And down in Georgia, even though the Republican candidate
did win the special election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene, Democrat Sean Harris beat Kamala
Harris's performance in that district by 25 points. The largest over-performance in any special
election by a Democrat since Doug Jones won the Alabama Senate seat way back a thousand years ago
in 2017. What was your reaction to the elections this week? Great. Great. I mean, good. Next.
I mean, all good. Now, like, these are all small sample sizes, but the margins in elections since
the war on Iran started are better than the average. But Democratic River performance,
both in 2025 and earlier in 2026. Yeah. Now we're getting into the 20s. You and I talked about
this a couple episodes ago, and it was like teens, high teens to low 20s. Now we're in 20s to mid 20s.
It was about, I think it was 12 and a half points through early 2026. And the last couple have
been very impressive. Democrats are very good at winning Supreme Court seats in Wisconsin. I think we
run four in a row now, which is a credit to the Wisconsin Democratic Party in the way they've
trained Democratic voters to understand the value of these. Winning the walk a shot,
mayor's race, first Democratic mayor 15 years incredible, the turnout in Georgia. But we're just
seeing it all over the place, which is Democrats are fired up. Republicans are unenthused,
and swing voters are moving to Democrats. And you're seeing in Wisconsin, in a small sample size
again. And in Georgia, you're seeing huge swings among Hispanic voters and Hispanic
precincts, like massive swings. That's all very positive news. I know. I'm trying not to get too
high on around supply here, but some of these results are just, it's the perfect storm of like
all the things that could go wrong for Republicans with voters, right, which is that they in higher
turnout elections, they are losing because voters are switching, people who voted Republican or
voting Democrat. And, and then in other elections, the GOP turned out as collapsing. So you have
Republican voters either not showing up, they're both not showing up and switching their vote.
And, and in like deep red places, blue, blue places, all over the place, different, all different
types of districts. The dark lining sort of things to watch out or just be aware of is there are
caps on how well Democrats can do because the House map is so gerrymandered. We talked about this
before. There are only four Republicans in districts that, um, Kamala Harris one. I think there
was something like 19 or 20 of them Republicans in districts that, uh, Hillary Clinton in one. And
maybe it's seven of them in California alone in 20, in 2018. So, but the, this environment is
actually much better for Democrats than 2018 was at this point. Um, and like you can,
there's a world in which a lot of seats that would not otherwise be in play or in play. I mean,
the Cook political report moved the Iowa governor's race to a toss up today. I know. Go,
Rob's hand. Um, and again, and this is, this matters a lot for the House, which we were talking
about, but it, it, it starts to get me thinking about the Senate even more. Yeah, this is, this is,
this is really the Senate is in play with a margin like this. It's a net, like, if it really is like
12 13, you really have to nail it exactly because Trump won a lot of these states that we need by
11 12 nearly 13 points, but we're, we're in the game right now. And that's something that seems
impossible six months ago. Uh, not to get ahead of ourselves, but it does seem like the 2028
Democratic primary has already begun a bunch of potential candidates showed up to speak at L.
Sharpton's National Action Network event in New York City this week. Uh, in down in New Orleans,
the DNC spring meeting kicked off on Thursday, where one of the first headlines was about how a
non binding resolution criticizing Apex influence was voted down while two other relevant, uh,
resolutions were kicked to the something called the Middle East work in group. Uh, DNC chair Ken
Martin explained that the Apex resolution was merely shelved in favor of a quote blanket
repudiation quote condemning the corrosive influence of all dark money in Democratic primaries,
which so then the idea is that that resolution included Apex among other organizations or other,
you know, dark money organizations. Um, this is all on the heels of new Pugh polling this week that
shows roughly six and 10 Americans now have unfavorable views of Israel, including an all-time high
of roughly eight and 10 Democrats, which is up from 69% just last year and 53% in 2022. Uh,
interesting detail on the on the DNC thing in a political story before the vote. An anonymous DNC
member said that they received direct calls from two quote presidential aspirants who would have
to answer for the DNC's positions on Israel and Apex if they run. Now I read a couple times,
I'm still curious if those, uh, presidential candidates wanted the resolution to pass or not pass.
But they called about it. Um, what's your guess and how do you think this issue of Israel plays out
in the 2028 primary? I guess I maybe want one on one on one other side of the issue. Oh maybe.
I guess enough. But I just, if you were thinking running for president in 2028 and in April of
2026, you were calling DNC members about a resolution, a non-binding DNC resolution. You were
focused on the wrong things. Also, not for nothing, but I'd like to hear a compelling argument for why
we need non-binding DNC resolutions. Uh, it seems like it's the same reason for why we need questionnaires
from interest groups that presidential candidates fill out. Yeah, it's just that at least that at least
has it has it has ourselves in trouble. Well, that one at least you are has a purpose from the
groups perspective, which is to get the group's perspective. Yes, from the groups perspective,
to get candidates to lay out a position on things because they're going to make endorsements. And so
you want to, you should have to answer some questions. You want to make endorsements. We, we can go
along on the, on the role of groups. I know you have a lot of thoughts on it. Um, we don't agree on all
of them. So it would be fun to debate one day, but um, the here, I don't even know it doesn't
serve a purpose for anyone, the DNC or anyone else. So then we should just hear it. Look, I do think
that when it comes time for the 2028 Democratic Party platform, we should also get rid of that.
I know. I know. I know. But at least there you can say, yeah, that's a different, that's everything.
Like what is the party stance on Israel party stance on any number of controversial issues and
then everyone can fight it out. It is like, what is the non binding resolution at the DNC going to
do right now? It's going to give you political stories. Like that is, that's its sole purpose is
for there to be political story, political stories about it. The other two resolutions, by the way,
were, um, one recognizing a Palestinian state in the other conditioning military aid to Israel.
And I think the Middle East working group is a place where these relatives supposed to go die. Yeah.
I think that's you, but yeah, you have, you haven't heard a lot about the Middle East
Middle East working group at the DNC. No, I assume that, I mean, this is, it's like, uh,
it's not an unclever solution to the problem of just like, this is a place to send,
well, you're not killing them. You're not enacting them. You're sending them to some other place.
Right? You're referring, they're just simply being referred. The whole thing is, the whole thing
is done. It builds a lot of trust with the voters in the party. Yeah, it's well, also, they path to
establishing a better Democratic Party policy on Israel is not through the DNC committee process.
That is correct. It is through the candidates who made what they,
something up with the position as opposed to calling the DPS. Yes. It's just a bizarre use of time
and energy from that candidate, um, or those two candidates. And look, it's hard. You know,
you have eight and ten Democratic voters who have an own favorite, we'll view of Israel.
You have even fewer who's trust Netanyahu. It is, you have, you know, major, huge
majorities who sympathies are with the Palestinians as opposed over these rallies in Gallup polling.
Just there's been a dramatic shift on this issue among Democrats since 2022. Just massive.
I cannot imagine the next Democratic nominee winning the primary
with a position that says we should continue giving the military and other aid to Israel.
That we give right now. No, no one would run on that. That wouldn't even be.
I feel like saying, I feel like even conditioning aid at this point is the, um,
like the moderate position. That's, that's, that's two. I think I think I imagine that most of them
will get to ending aid to Israel. Offensive aid or... I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
I mean, I think there's an argument to be made, right, which is like we, we should treat Israel
from a perspective of the taxpayer funding that we are providing the same way we treat any other ally,
any other country. And it's, to me, it's a question whether it's a real alliance right now because I think that the
government there is a authoritarian government, which, yeah, we have one too. But I think that the
government there is, is not one that I certainly want to support with my tax dollars as they have,
what they did to Gaza are still doing to Gaza are doing what they are to the West Bank or doing
what they are to Lebanon right now. And so, and it is a wealthy enough nation that they should be able
to provide for their own defense. And like, I don't, I don't, I think that, to me, and look, these are
treated as like fringe lefty positions for some reason still. But, you know, over 60% of Americans
support getting rid of all aid to Israel. And you just saw that it's 80% of Democrats at this point.
You go to 18 to 49 year old Democrats, it's even higher. 18 to 49 year old Republicans, it's like
57, 60%. I mean, I think that people who really care about Israel and her much more pro-Israel
should really think long and hard about why it is that they have lost the public battle over this,
the public opinion war over this so badly. And why it has shifted so dramatically over the last
couple of years. And the answer is not because of TikTok. I was going to say yes. And, you know, it's just,
it's just not. And it's, it's, at this point, it's insulting to tell people that. And I think if you
really care about Israel, then you need to think long and hard about like why this has happened.
And whether fighting so hard to continue the US relationship with Israel as it is right now,
with the aid that we're giving it, is really worth what has happened to public opinion because of it.
One thing I'm confident of is that this is going to be a point of great discussion during the Democratic
primary, be a lot during the debates will be on this issue for sure. It's going to come up in
town halls and interviews, come up on interviews on this podcast and everywhere else. So we're
going to get to know how all the candidates feel about it. I imagine that APEC will through its super
packs try to influence the process in some way. I'm quite confident that their, their desire to do so
will be counterproductive to their aims and the candidate they support. And it will backfire as it
did in Illinois, as we saw recently. Just one other thing that I think is just something people should
flag in their head as they listen to the conversation on this is the way in which the DNC switched from
not taking APEC contributions to not taking any contributions from dark money groups is a
rhetorical device a lot of Democrats are using right now to not answer the APEC question.
Will they say, well, yeah, I'm not going to take it from anyone, but without getting to the heart of
the question about APEC and the role that APEC specifically plays. You could ask that about
other special interest groups and you should AI, right? We have these AI super packs who are putting
their thumb on the scale for some Democrats and primaries. You saw the crypto super packs come in and
try to influence the Illinois Senate primary. So we should talk about all of those interest groups,
but people who do not want to take a specific, don't want to specifically answer the APEC question
because they feel like it's fraught. We'll then turn to this while we shouldn't have any
dark money in politics is supposed to dealing with this specific question. And what I would say is
don't avoid this question because it's fraught. That's good advice generally, yes.
And it's like if you don't know enough about it, learn more about it, and decide, first,
always decide, forget about the polls, decide what you believe about this issue just as you should
decide and have a real thoughtful response and ideas on, you just mentioned it, artificial intelligence
or any number of controversial issues that will be or non-controversial issues that will be debated
in 2028, figure out what your position is, figure out where you would go, figure out how you would
answer these questions. That's the most important thing from like a what do you believe moral perspective?
But I should just say, and we went through this in 2020, there are some positions that in a primary
are argued about and Democratic candidates worry because they're like, oh well, I'm pushed to the
left in a primary and I'm taking these lefty positions. Then I got to worry about what happens in
a general. And this whole issue about Israel and APAC, this is not one of those issues because
this is not only like like the views on Israel are very clear within the Democratic Party. It is
overwhelming. We're talking 80% same with military aid to Israel, same with APAC, and it's also a
like 60% issue in the general election. So now if you genuinely care, like just are very pro-Israel,
then like, you know, don't take the position just because it's, you're looking at the polls,
like, you know, go and fight the position and say, if you don't agree with me, you don't agree with
me, but this is where I am and this is what I believe. But like, don't pretend, no one should pretend
this is some lefty issue that people are getting pushed on and the primaries that is going to then
cause them trouble in the general because that's just bullshit. All right, one last thing before we
get to Tommy's conversation with Rahm Emanuel, as we were getting ready for today's show, we looked
up at the TV and suddenly Melania Trump was making a statement at the White House denying that she had
any substantive relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Let's take a listen. I have never had
any knowledge of Epstein abuse of his victims. I was not a participant, was never on Epstein's
plane and never visited his private island. My email replied to Maxwell cannot be
catarassed as anything more than casual correspondence. Several individuals and companies have
been legally obligated to publicly apologize and retract their lies about me, such as Daily Beast,
James Carville and Harper Collins UK. Not Harper Collins UK.
He was magical. Everyone in the office was like, what the fuck is happening right now? Do you
have any idea? No one seems to. I have maybe we'll get an answer between, an answer is come,
we're recording this or we'll come between now and tomorrow. But none of the reporters can have any
idea why she did it, what the context was. Some, a lot of times, there will be rumors going through
DC or politics about a pending story. That's what I've been looking everywhere for.
Everyone knows it's coming. Even if it hasn't been printed, but everyone in
Paltrow says coming and then you will see politicians do things and they make sense if you know
that story is coming. This is not one of those times. It doesn't seem like anyone
knows what she is talking about or why she picked today to offer this out of context
statement of foretesting way too much about her relationship with Epstein. Also apparently Trump
told CNN he knew that she'd be making a statement and then Jackie Elmany from MS now called him
and he told her he had no idea she'd be making this statement and that's also what Jackie
Heinrich from Fox heard as well that he had no idea. So like there's conflicting reports of
whether Trump did. I did notice in one of the playbooks either in the morning or PM at the bottom
there was a new post story before the announcement where an associate of Melania Trump said she'd be
making a quote big announcement today that would quote spread internationally.
Well congrats. For people who don't know the email she was referencing was in the Epstein files.
It was to Golan Maxwell. She said, dear G how are you? Nice story about J.E. in New York Mag. You
look great on the picture. You look great on the picture as her words. I know you were very busy
flying all over the world. How was Palm Beach? I cannot wait to go down. Give me a call when you're
back in New York. Have a great time. Love Melania. That was from October of 2002. The New York
magazine piece about Jeffrey Epstein. She was referencing was the piece where her husband is quoted
as saying he likes the girls really young. So that's cool. I don't know man. I don't know. Is that
your advice you would have given Melania Trump as a White House communications director to randomly
go out to the cameras on the Thursday afternoon in the middle of a war in Iran to just say
hey I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know Jeffrey Epstein. Bye.
Yes I think that's the exact right thing to do to go out there and deny. No questions. I will
take no questions about this. I do not know Jeffrey Epstein. While I have your time I just wanted to
briefly deny involvement in any illegality that you did not ask me about. Okay bye.
If you think that you can connect to me to Jeffrey Epstein just ask James Carville or Harper Collins
how that went for them. I will see you at the next premiere of Melania. Yes just amazing.
She's amazing. She is a weird one. Okay when we come back from the break you will hear Tommy's
conversation with the former mayor ambassador and White House chief of staff. Rahm Emanuel.
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My guest today is a former member of Congress, White House Chief of Staff, Mayor Chicago Ambassador.
Sure seems like he's running for president in 2028. Rahm Emanuel. Great to see you again.
Nice to see you, Tommy. Welcome to Los Angeles. You have a more casual L.A. Sheik.
I see. Yeah. It's the only thing clean.
Just rip it off your brothers. Yeah. Go into our his closet. Too bad he's too big.
Yeah. Yeah. We all saw the shirtless photos of him and Elon Musk. He's not working out.
Or the meds are working either way or both. He's a hell of a drug. All right. We're joking
because we're breathing a sigh of relief this week because our president decided not to go through
with his threat to destroy the entire Iranian civilization. So that's nice. That's what counts as a
win in the Trump 2.0 era. But the debate over why the war started is raging. Have you had a chance
to read Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swann's long piece in New York Times? Okay. So they report that
on February 11th, Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Trump in the situation room, the head of the
massage zooms in. They make this party. Yeah. Yeah. Who I'm sure you know. And they give this
presentation about the case for war. It includes a bunch of assumptions about how easy it'll be that
are now catastrophically wrong. We're probably you could tell they were at the time. But now we know
they were. Can you remember a foreign leader meeting with the president in the sit room during your
time? Is that weird? Yeah. I think well, two things I want to one thing about last week. You're
I want to go back to these. I was thinking about this more. You have the president of the United
States, the president of the United States. This is not a speech in which you do the arsenal democracy.
We're going to destroy civilization, the Persian civilization. At the same time, the vice president is
in Budapest saying we're going to save the Christian civilization. Right. And then you have a
secretary of defense who's calling this a Christian crusade. What could go wrong when you have those
kind of brain power working else or something? Now I feel better. I got that off my chest. And the
president tweeted, you know, we're saving all of whatever. We're destroying which is the cry of a
terrorist. So we're both destroying and saving two to one civilization and the other. So nobody
I'm thinking of both my Clinton time six years. I know bomb a time. I do not remember a single
not only a single foreign leader in the situation. Anybody themselves or their staffs ever even
given access to that room. So or any one of those rooms or etc. So I don't ever remember that
happening. And I don't think it would ever happen. It's very weird. So again, what happens in that
room is also weird. Not only that they're in that room, but what happens in that room. So obviously
Trump decides to go to war. He and he alone is responsible for his decision. Yeah. But there is this
debate in a ton of reporting now about the pressure campaign by Netanyahu and lobbying Trump to go to
war with Iran. What is the appropriate way to talk about that in weird view? Because I know
I'm sure you've seen the folks I've seen who argue that it can veer into a conversation
that is anti-Semitic. It leans in tropes about Israel controlling the United States or foreign policy.
Like what's the right way to talk about it? It's going to lead into that. And also given what
the Secretary of State said six weeks ago, it's only going to kind of layer that. I think
depending on how conversations go in Islamabad, you're going to go from that conversation to
I think this president may scapegoat right now. Now you and I both worked for President Obama,
but I want to say this is the prime minister has been shopping this to four possibly five. I can't
remember Clinton, but Bush, President Bush, rather 43, President Obama, President Trump 40,
you know, the first term, President Biden. Everybody rejected this. And because when you looked
at it, the equities versus the liabilities just in pan out. So I don't give the president of the
United States who has agency here any past, but this will go into a very bad place.
And a very, I think in the sense of the prime minister not made an argument to the president,
I don't absolve the president and anybody on his team. But I also read the story of the flip side
of this, Tommy, which is also nobody in the president's administration. They're all, they don't have
their hands on the bloody. They're all leaking on each other. Yeah, they opposed it. You know,
this is all crap. You know, other words that they used to describe their position. So everybody's
trying to make sure that they were not seen at the scene of the crime. And I'm sorry. So I don't
absolve any of them. The prime minister said what he said to the president, but this argument
is going to give in the context also in America and given the context of anti Israel or anti-Semitism.
It's going to lead to a very bad, bad place. And I do think though, and I will say this, I mean,
President Obama was presented a similar plan. That's how the Olympic games, I think, that was
the term that was used for the cyber attacks on Iran's capacity. Nobody took kinetic the decision
to go into the deep end on the kinetic effort. This president did. And it's on him. Yeah, no pass.
It's certainly on him, but it also just seems like self-evident based on all this reporting,
based on what Netanyahu himself says when he's back in Israel where he's been, there was a tape
released in 2001 where he was kind of bragging about his ability to manipulate leaders in Washington
or move them, I think, was the term he used. But let's just like lobby them, do politics.
Well, look, I mean, let's go back. Basically, he runs for reelection with the message
Oh, I think I'm getting the exact word, but I'm getting the sentiment, right? Which is a leader at a
different class. That was the message and it had pictures of him with Putin and put his
pen with Trump. So that was actually what he campaigned on publicly. So you don't have to kind of,
we don't have to be archaeologists or, you know, anthropologists care. That's what he campaigned on
that he could play at a level than nobody else played. So it's in his own words. Yeah, but again,
I, you know, only the president of the United States can order American servicemen and women,
only the president of the United States can order resources that are pulled out of the Indo-Pacific,
pulled out of different theaters to that theater, pulled bad weapons out of South Korea,
pulled patriots that were supposed to go to Ukraine. Only the commander-in-chief can do that. And so,
you know, the prime minister made his case. Doesn't mean you have to buy it. Yeah, exactly. Tucker
Carlson, speaking of things, only the president can do. Tucker Carlson is very worried about Trump
using a nuclear weapon in Iran. Has that fear occurred to you? And if you ask, can you talk a little
bit about the process and how that actually works and how few checks there would be? I don't, I don't
leave. Look, I mean, it's a theoretical discussion and a hypothetical rather. I don't think the
president of the United States would do that. And while I have zero confidence in the people around
him, and I mean that from the cabinet to the White House, I actually think they would hit the
pause button. Even they would find some nerve of character to step up and say, what they didn't do
here, meaning here being the lead into the Iran war, they would know that this would have to be
stopped. Really? The pause button would mean convincing him, though, right? I mean, there's no like,
you can't take the nuclear button and throw it into the ocean so we can press it, right? No,
there's no way. Look, head of the joint chiefs, the rest of the military, I think there would be
a met. I'm just betting on human character, there would be a massive pushback on this. I don't know
what God Tucker Carlson is not like a horse whisperer or the great whisperer to Donald Trump to say
that. But this would be, well, I don't mean this cavalier. So I want to be very clear. You can
definitely take the Nobel Peace Prize off the table. That's not happening. So I don't mean to,
I said that as you, this, I don't believe that would happen. Okay. I'm glad to hear you. I just
think there's a lot of other things that I think that are worth spending intellectual energy on
to analyze what are the repercussions, things that they never do, even an impulsive person like this
would not do that. That's all so. JD Vance, the vice president is now going to Pakistan to lead these
talks on Saturday. He'll be joined by Steve Wickoff and Jared Kushner. Oh, I'm so comforted.
I'm well, Trump's son-in-law. He's golf buddy. Is this just a real estate deal? Is this just real
estate? Yeah. So look, I, I'm not a big fan of, um, Dhamma Dhamma Kushner and Wickoff. I think
they're just like, it's a very technical negotiation, right? The JCPAOA negotiation took 18 months.
That's how long it took to cut a nuclear deal. The wish list on the Iranians, either they're
demanding from the US is far more vast than that. It's like, get all your troops out of the
Middle East, other things of that nature. Does Vance getting involved give you any more confidence or
hope that they can get some deal or maybe another ceasefire? I was, this is reading T-laves.
Only in the sense that the Iranians think he is, uh, was negative about the war. They believe that
they may have a slightly better confidence to deal with him. Obviously, any credibility, and I,
I believe zero for Wickoff and Kushner. The idea that you had no experts said it's very clear
from the UK who was in the room in Geneva. They didn't even know what they were being offered
pre the war from the Iranians. Zero confidence. So I have some sense that maybe Vance
will have a different level of respect. It gives you somebody new they can interlock. But remember,
they've been burned twice. Once in June, this time in negotiations. So they're going to come in it
with appropriately heavy, heavy cynicism. Let me say one other thing which is and take this
slightly different in a sense of Vance. One, you can't un-ring this bell. But you can say, okay,
how do you kind of make lemonade out of this lemon that we've created? That's a B,
the Iranians went in, we went into this war trying to degrade Iran's nuclear capacity. They
discovered they had the nuclear option, the straight-armus. The other thing, C, Iran since 79
has wanted to get the United States out of the Gulf and they become the Persian Empire again.
That is their task. So how do you kind of undo this knot in some way? My one view is on this,
on the short term on the straight-armus, either all ships are out or no ships are out. And you're
going to cut off Iranians money and China's energy. Everybody's out or nobody's out. And it's
easier to close something as to the Iranians to prove it than for us to try to open it. So reverse
the score. Second medium term. The Iranians want a fee. I think we go to the internet, the UN's
international maritime entity. They run it. There is a fee charge, but it goes to Iran, Bahrain,
Oman, Kuwait, everybody who got suffered in this process, not just Iran. And the dollars or the
resources are split that way, among all the countries. And it's managed by the United Nations
Maritime Association. Third long term. Use the Abraham Cords beyond what it is as a peace
agreement that we're a party to. It now finances a pipeline for Kuwait, for the UAE, for Bahrain,
etc. Either to the Gulf of Oman or to the Red Sea. So there's alternative to the straight-armus.
I would in addition say to anybody who's part of the Abraham Accords has zero tariffs. And I
would also say anybody, the Abraham Accords gets a front of the line on US military equipment.
He would double down on America being a trusted ally to our Gulf partners. But that to me,
short-term medium term and long-term is the best way to navigate what is a big giant lemon.
Yeah, it's a nightmare. Well, let me offer you what I think might be some pushback to the plan.
Sure. You know, if we... I'm open to anything. That's just my idea.
A spitball in here. If we join... Trust me, this is more sophisticated than the situation.
In the exact conversation. And the first meeting between the Prime Minister and the President.
Much more sophisticated than third announcements. Exactly. I trust the beer can on a set of something.
If we jointly close the straight-armus with the Iranians, wouldn't that make a sort of a party to
all the potential famine that could happen if no fertilizers can be made? There's no doubt about it.
But here's the other thing. They are... their economy is devastated. The only lifeline they have or
international... the IV they have, rather, is what they're selling to China. We do know now,
you and I sitting here today, China was a party to pushing Iran to say yes. There are elements
that then ruled, okay, we're going to do that for the ceasefire. So if you shut off,
we're China's getting their major energy. You say, I'm not saying this is pretty.
No. But we have never ever, the United States, in 250 years, gone to war and allowed the other
country financial security where our allies suffer. And I say enemies or opponents or whatever
term you want to use, both Iran and Russia. This is insane. And so you're literally keeping
whatever prop you have to Iran and China, people that are trying to hurt you, you're actually giving
the economic benefit. So to me, yes, there would be chop. There's no perfect here. But we're going to
shut it. We're not going to shut it with you. We're going to shut you down. You shut everybody
else down. We're shutting you down. Yeah. At least that level is a playing field. I mean,
I also worry. You're looking for leverage here. Right. We currently clearly the Iranians have
shown us we don't have much. No. I mean, I think that's why Tucker is worried we get to a nuclear
option because there's no conventional military way to open the state of her moves from the air.
You can't bomb it open if they're laying minds or just firing off one missile. I mean,
the other thing going forward, you look at like Trump's goals here. Like, first of all, the
highly enriched Iranian is still sitting in Iran. Doesn't sound like we're going to get it back or
get it out unless there's some deal cut to the big concern, right? They clearly degraded Iran's
military. They bombed the shit out of a lot of stuff. The other consideration was cutting off
their support for proxy groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. My concern is if they are now able to
charge this toll at the straight of her moves, that is going to be a massive. That cannot be the
can that stand that will go back to rebuilding their military funding Hezbollah funding all these
proxy groups, right? I mean, it seems like again, this is Trump's problem he created. It just
seems like it was always an implied pressure that implied that Iran could do this on the straight
of it, but it's never was tested. It's now been tested and they discovered, look, I got an 800 on
my SATs. Okay? They've never before did they everybody believe this? It was always an international
order. The second thing, I mean, I want to go to the class at the War College. Ukraine and Iran
have no Navy and they've controlled the waterways. I want to go to that class. I want to study this.
Yeah. I'm serious about that. I think, you know, you and I have sat there, but we have a doctrine
to fight two wars on two fronts simultaneously, capacity to do that. We're going to have to change
the doctrine to be able to say we're going to fight two wars, one conventional and one unconventional.
And we're not set up that way. Neither are military or industrial base or the capacity.
Both of these theaters, I mean, what's happened in the Iran War and what's happened in Ukraine,
Russia War or Russia's War on Ukraine has taught us an exponential lesson that we are not ready
for the unconventional asymmetric war and we better. That's the second war. Now, March of 2025, a
year ago, I wrote a piece for the post, which is don't ask for Ukraine's minerals.
Ask for their drone technology. That's where their experts at. Now, not only did we not ask for it,
we rejected it when they offered a help. The president doesn't know friend from full and we are now stuck
where our Gulf allies are buying weapons from Ukraine, but we stiff-darm them. And they have no
Navy and they've destroyed the Russian Navy in the Black Sea. We can claim, which appropriate,
we have destroyed the Navy of Iran, but they control the straight-of-homeroos. No Navy's and they
control waterways. That tells you where the future is. A lot of tactical victories and strategic losses
there. Somebody said the other day I read this. I can't remember who. America is one every battle
that has lost each war. Sounds about right since World War II. Yeah, for sure. Let me shift here.
So you've been cross-crossing the country. You did a recent stop in New Hampshire. Still not
ruling out a 2028 presidential run. Any more definitive answers today.
No, but I'll whisper. Exploring. Okay. I went there. I went three places recently, which is
LaCrosse, Wisconsin, into Franklin, New Hampshire. And then I've been in Spartanburg, the corridor
of shame in Abbeyville, Piedmont area, the Black counties, and then Columbia, and then Charleston.
And that was all about looking at community colleges and what both all three cities are doing,
which I think incredibly innovative things that we also did in Chicago, between community colleges,
you know, leading into the future economy, but also linking up with high schools. Something that
I think is the fundamental thing we have to flip the switch on. In the top issues I assume are
whether Democrats should talk to leftist Twitch streamers is kind of like up here,
and then it's like the economy and education. Let me go down there, but I would just say,
that was a joke. I understand that. I would say I've done a town hall in LaCrosse, Wisconsin,
and a podcast there. What's somebody like? Did it in Met with 10 teachers, educators, parents,
10 kids up in Franklin, I did a in Manchester, the Ex-M politics thing. I did a at Woffer College,
Craig Martin interviewed me there in front of the college. We went to a community college. I did
400 people in Charleston. Nobody asked me about...
To sound better? No, nobody. Nobody asked me about how do they get ahead? They asked me how they
get an education. Now, you know, the ticket to the middle class and getting ahead is through education.
And you know, when we live in a period where you're earning when you learn, nobody's asked me that
and I've had close to about 50 questions from people. Yeah, it's from, you know, the
billionth reminder that the conversation in DC and the media sometimes does match what the country
actually sometimes. Yeah, often. I would say close to 90% is not match. It's a parallel universe.
Yeah, it is. So you did a recent appearance on the view. You said DC needs a power washing because
of all the corruption. You also wrote in Wall Street Journal column, talking about how Democrats
could use a majority. You said the Democrats should steer clear of the Gacha politics and excessive
focus on Trumpian slime. Is there a tension between those two? No, so I appreciate this.
Maybe this is on me from not writing clear. I think I wrote in that piece.
Not I think I know. There's a different corruption and him being untruthful or a liar.
I'd go 100%. I've said this. As soon as I came back from Japan, 2024, December, I said,
go after the corruption. I built when I was chair of the DEECCCC, the House of Tom Delay built.
The corruption, what's going on with the production markets, what's going on with Wicoff's kids,
Lutnik's kids, them and people and the president's kids, 100%. When, when Nome's done at the DHS and
the contracts that they provided, 100%. There is a difference between that corruption, which
matters to your wallet and our playing to type, which is a retribution, vindictive politics,
that then they say, eh, Washington and they break the sound and they turn it on mute right when
we should be turning to our agenda. There is a two-sided here. Hit them on the corruption and offer
a proactive agenda. I actually think, given where I've been, not only the states I just talked
to you about, but other states, Washington does need a good power washing. Absolutely. Not just
trading stocks in Congress. Did you ever think you would ever see investor day in the Oval Office?
Or, yeah, bets on invasions of the country. Or did you ever think a member of the court,
not just Supreme Court, be taking gifts from people who have cases in front of them or trips?
So the whole place needs to be cleaned. What does that reform agenda look like? What do we,
well, I'll give you my thing. One, I would raise the minimum wage. So that's number one. Two,
well over September, 2025, or August, I wrote, and I believe there should be a rate payer bill
of rights. Three, I would do X on healthcare cost control, specifically around the insurance
companies, gouging people, breaking them up. Four, I would do a ban on social media for kids
under 16. I've called for this before first on prediction markets. No federal employee or their
family can participate. I mean like reforming for Washington. So like something that banning
Calhche, banning stock trading, banning all that. But also stocks, companies that you've been in,
if you have X of, let's say your net value is north of, just I'm putting the number out,
a million dollars has to go into a blind trust. That's true for all federal employees. Second,
not just the Supreme Court, but in court, you're not allowed to take gifts and be very specific
on the ethics package that Robert thinks he has, but doesn't enforce. Make it codify it.
And that's also true for the president of the United States and family members and the cabinet.
Now the other thing I said for and when you hit the age of 75, get pre TSA because you're out of here.
Done. Finish. Basta. You're not hitting your prime at 78. I like that a lot. I'm going to try to
annoy you now. So you bought some, bought insults of individual stocks when you're ambassador
to Japan. I know the American prospect wrote a piece criticizing the timing of one of those purchases
because it came before a government announcement that they said could benefit the stock. Was that a
mistake? Is there other things you do differently? If I did, it is definitely a mistake. I don't know
what that is, but definitely. You know, I look, I did a blind trust when I was chief staff,
when I was mayor, when I was congressman. Also did it there when it is ambassador. So if
anybody did it, I have no idea why I was blind trust. Yeah. Why doesn't everyone just do a blind trust?
It seems so easy. That's what I just said. I'll give you a funny, not a funny story. I guess
to trade on inside. I get elected. I get elected to Congress. And I'm going to set up, I'm
getting on financial service. I said, I'm going to set up a blind trust. Chairman Oxley comes to see me
and says, I don't want you to do this. I said, well, I'm doing it because I'm a bear knuckle
politician. Something's going to happen one day on a hearing that we're going to do in financial
service. I don't know what they're going to do. So forget about it. And I did it for that. I did it
also normalizing and tell you, did it when I was chief of staff and I did it when I was mayor.
100%. It seems like a no brainer. I don't know why it's not law. I mean, I, I,
listen David, are you in 2007? I was a sponsor of a legislation as related to exactly this,
which is stocks traded in front of committees. In front of your committee, you can't have
be involved or investor or trade stocks and committees, either interests that have any, any
company that has interest in front of the committee. It's insane. Yeah. I mean, I think this is an
issue that's all Washington. That's also includes the executive branch. Well, yeah. And I think
this is an issue that kind of drives people crazy because like, it's a, it's a no brainer. Of course,
members of Congress or the president's family or cabinet shouldn't be buying and selling individual
stocks. Everyone should put their stuff in the blind trust. But it's in, like, the president
of the United States will go before the state of the union and say that and say we're going to pass
legislation. But he only said about Congress. He didn't talk about the executive branch and he
didn't talk about the judiciary. Of course. I guess what I'm getting at is he says that, but then
people are also well aware that, you know, Nancy Pelosi's husband has made a shitload of money
trading individual stocks. And there's a lot of people that track that index and feel like, you know,
that's why I said the whole Washington. Yeah. You can't look. There's no individual or no one of
the three branches of government that you're going to get without a blemish. The only way to do it.
Everybody. Go on. Before that, um, just going to ask you a couple more issues. I think progress is
we'll push you on if you do decide to run for president in 2028. So no different than me pushing
myself. Good. So you were mayor Chicago, uh, when a young man named McLean McDonald was shot 16
times. So I had police officer, your administration had a video of that, uh, uh, of his killing for over
a year until a court ordered it released. You guys didn't release it until the court order.
What do you say to people who are angry, not just about, you know, the Chicago PD killing this kid,
but also what they feel like was a cover up to a van accountable. Yeah. So there's not a day or
week that goes by that I don't think about this. What I could have done different. Number one,
a young man lost his life innocently. Third is I thought I had, but you're earlier, two years
earlier, fixed the system and I acknowledge what I said to this whole city spoke. I thought I
fixed something and the problems were much deeper than I appreciated might have wanted to think I
thought I fixed it when the golf between the community and the police department and the culture
and the police department, which much deeper. And I said, that's on me. I have to fix this. I own that.
Now you know this. Chicago's not alone. No cities alone, given what's happened on police
departments across the country. And I did go about fixing it. But as the inspector general said,
I've actually the problem is I followed the rules because what the last thing you want is a mayor
involved in making a political decision when the FBI, the what's Ipro which is the police department's
independent body. Everybody's investigating. You don't want the mayor involving themselves. Then
you say you quit. You're politicizing a criminal investigation. The FBI was involved. This US
attorneys was involved. The states are there are four entities investigating. So if you don't
involve yourself, is your part of covering up. If you do involve, you politicize an investigation
in danger, the prosecution in Chicago. The police officer actually was prosecuted and convicted.
That doesn't change anything. That's on me. I own it. As you know, one thing the difference between
a legislator and somebody who's a mayor, it's lessons learned going forward. And so you have to
make changes. You have to make changes. I did it. And in this process, Tali, his uncle who's a pastor
on the West side, Laquan, he and I have become really good at self-reliance. It's not a week that
goes by that we don't talk or communicate in one way. But did I screw up? Yeah. If you're looking for
perfection, I'm not that guy. Do it. If you're looking for a person that knows how to learn from
mistakes, 100%. Another sort of big fight within the party has been generational. I mean, you said
a minute ago, you I think want to get your PSA pre-check because you're getting out of here at 78,
75. 75. Sorry. So I love that. I think we need a new generation. I think what I first said,
you texted me and said great. Yeah. I don't think that people in DC are internalizing your
message. This fight is playing out most clearly in Maine, where Chuck Schumer is really thumbing
the scale on behalf of former Governor Janet Mills. The grassroots seemed to be behind Grand
Platner. God knows who will win. But it doesn't seem like Schumer is concerned about the whole
conversation we just had about Joe Biden's age. How do we fix that? And what do you say to like,
young activists who you might need in Iowa or New Hampshire or whatever, who are like, well, look,
you know, you worked in the Clinton administration. What is the next generation look like?
Are we paying lip service at this? Or are we really... So the way I look at it is a couple things.
One is there is a generational piece of that. But as you know, all your strengths are your weaknesses.
After Donald Trump, I'm not sure who he can afford is a country on your job training. I say
joking, but I'm serious. You got to be good in the family room. You better be good in the classroom.
You better know the boardroom, the break room, the situation room, and not just the bathroom,
which is something we really get experts as a party. Now, I also think also one piece of change
with a party that's known as weak. There's nothing as you know. When it came to fighting,
the insurance companies gave 10 million kids health care. One person got that assignment. When it
came to making sure we got health care for people with pre-existing condition, one person had to
leave that effort. When it came to making sure we took out the financial industry and the making
industry, they do fundamental reform. One person got that call to leave that effort and take on the
gun lobby and the NRA. Nobody's ever gotten in the ring with me. Didn't walk out without a blood
of nose or broken nose. Ask the Republicans when they saw Nancy Pelosi become the first female speaker.
So I make no more and I will say this otherwise. I don't need another title.
I got 21 for cheap on eBay. I got 20,000 kids that got free community college because I was
willing to take on a failed system. I got kids that used to have a 56% graduation rate and 84%
of them now graduate high school with a degree in college credit and have a mandatory letter of
acceptance from either college, community college, branch of the Armed Forces or vocational
school. 98% of our kids in Chicago achieved that. I have took on a bureaucracy where we didn't have
kindergarten or pre-K throughout the city and I made a Republican finally increase the funding
to the city of Chicago which has been every mayor's desire. Got something done that hadn't happened
before. Do I take on failure? Damn right because I'm a lucky guy. I had to grew up in a family,
that an immigrant family that had loved an education. The question is are you willing to sit there
and husband your political capital or spend it and take it on? So nobody who's walked in the arena with
me did not walk out without having a broken nose. More than willing to say that. And if you want
just generational change, I'm not. You want somebody that knows how to take on a fight and win?
That's a different battle. Good bitch. Last question for you. So. Last I was just getting kind of
into this. You know this is fun. Oh 2006. Things went really well for Democrats in the midterms.
You noticed you were leading that effort in the house. I was sitting on my ass in the Senate
working for Barack Obama. I was watching what you're doing. So you were the scheduling problem.
Sorry he's got a ready to book. So. Chapter one. Democrats keep over performing in these
special elections. The most recent one and the biggest overperformance or biggest swing to
Democrats just happened in Georgia. Georgia 14. Marjorie Taylor Greene's district. I'm
in Wisconsin. I'll give you a different view. Okay. Well that what we took literally racked up
Bashaar al-Assad numbers in in Madison in this most recent Supreme Court was. No I'll tell you
why why no just something different. I'll let you want to figure out the question is just like
I I feel better. I feel increasingly bullish. I think the question is how do you close the deal?
Is it about Democrats getting out and making an affirmative case and fighting or you know you see
some other people that say crouch up hide under the table until the day after the election?
Neither one is right. First of all 90 percent of this race is referred to the president and the
rubber stamp Republicans. That was true in 1994. It was true in 2006 about Bush. It was true in 2010
about President Obama and the Democrats and it was true in 2018 about Donald Trump and the
Republicans. This is a referendum election and I can tell you haven't gone all over this country.
It's built in a head of steam. This is going to be level five type hurricane. Two
the side note why I think Wisconsin one of the last three Supreme Court biggest one was just the
other day. Yeah. Monsters. Second. Second. We've now 14 for 14 is statewide elections having lost one.
Third we picked up the suburban county outside of Milwaukee where the Republicans used a balance
against Milwaukee. We picked up the county ExFC. Third fourth in the third district which is a
southwest corner where LaCrosses where I went in for Rebecca Cook where the Republican member
of Congress there. The Supreme Court candidate, our candidate took 57 percent of the vote there.
Donald Trump won that county overwhelmingly. It used to be where we're out of kind to his Congress.
The Wisconsin numbers in a battleground state were not just good on the Supreme Court. You go
to three layers down or unbelievable. Yeah. And I think what I would say is keep the focus on the
Republicans. Keep the focus on the fact that they've been complicit with Donald Trump. I do have
argued this before. I would present a six and twenty twenty six not because anybody remembers the
six and oh six or the contract with America. You should have it. A, it helps you focused on
twenty twenty seven what your priorities are. It creates a discipline dialogue inside the party.
What we're going to stand for. And it will not just help in twenty twenty six. Twenty twenty seven
will be the seminal year that will decide for us who we are and what we're defined for in twenty
twenty eight. And when we ran health care, children's health care, there were a new all help
negotiated for President Clinton led the effort in the House with Speaker Pelosi force Bush to
veto it. Sixty Republicans were with the Democrats. It sets up Obama in no way. When George Mitchell
in 1990 gets Bush 41 to sign a tax increase, it breaks up the Republican party. Pat, you can't
in challenges a sitting Republican president. And it sets up Bill Clinton in 1992. So I believe
do the work now both not only for twenty twenty six, but for the discipline of twenty twenty seven.
One of those is going to break through and get to the president's desk. If he signs it, you want
it to be something that divides the Republicans from him. If he vetoes it, you want to make sure
it also divides the Republicans from him. The goal there then says who we are and who they are.
Yeah, I agree. I think running against Trump is important and we should continue to do it. I still
think we have a massive problem as a party of people not knowing who we are or or they
don't know where we stand for and maybe not liking it. There's three or three or four layers here.
Not knowing what we who we stand for, not knowing whether we'll fight for who we think. The reason
I'm going around these community colleges, 40% of the people in America go to community colleges that
go to higher education. These are the unseen, unheard, unrespected folks. I know what I did to
reform the community colleges of Chicago and what we did to make sure that people that went there
can walk it and say I went to Malcolm X and get that nursing job at Rush Press,
Presbyterian Hospital or the guy I met in Spartanburg who's working on mechanical skills and he has
a 33-buck an hour plus benefits job waiting at GE for him on May 11th. To me, you can't just say
these things that sound great in faculty lounges or papers, you actually have to feel the people
that are under the intense pressure, not only have an agenda for them willing to take on and
break some eggs to get it done and our party hasn't. It's not just about clicks, it's about calculus.
It's not just about social media posts, it's actually about social studies and we haven't
prioritized the right things. We just have it and we have to be acknowledged about that. We got
ourselves caught, I've said this before and I'll say it again, in a cultural cul-de-sac going around
in circles. We were off the American people when they're back against the wall, they expect
Democrats to show up. They don't think Republicans will show up because they know they're in the
boardroom cutting up the pie. They expect us to show up and we did not show up for them. We deserve
this bank and we got one. Rob Maniel, great to see you again. Thanks for coming.
Yeah, we solved all the world, Bob. Yeah, we got it. We're good. We're almost wide open.
That's our show for today. Thanks to Ram for stopping by and I'll be back in the feed on Sunday
with a conversation with none other than Hassan Piker. That's right. Ram Maniel was here today.
Hassan Piker will be here tomorrow and then I will be closing all of my apps for the weekend.
Yeah, I'm going to be closely monitoring your social media usage starting Sunday at 6am.
Yep, nope. You can complain all you want because I'm sure the clips can be everywhere,
much like Melania. I will not be taking any questions about my relationship with Hassan Piker.
Who is this Hassan Piker fellow? I've heard anything about him recently.
I don't know. I think he's a little bit twitch. Twitch.
Oh, twitch. Twitch.
Anyway, have a good weekend, everyone. Bye, everyone.
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