Strait Up War Crimes

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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Fabro. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. Welcome back, Tommy. Great to be here. I missed you guys. You didn't miss much. Oof, man, a lot of weird stuff happened. Were you able to unplug a little bit from the news? I unplugged, but not from my 3006.

That I travel with everywhere. Really tough that you missed that. I was thinking about you. Isn't that a weird thing? I was like Tommy would really love talking about this story. Beautiful Bazinga stuff. Bimbo fication. And you said that you would just And you've been slowly making your way back? I was in the Waffle House with the three thousand C C breasts and I was like, How did I get here? I must have I'm on vacation. Record scratch.

All right, sorry. I noticed I noticed Tim Miller wore some himself on the bulwarks. Tim's doing prop comedy. Love it where you l you letting Tim do that and you're not sure. Only the fag has to wear the boobs on the show. Wear your tits. I mean I was thinking more of the person who likes to be at the center of all the comedy.

Oh yeah the court jester's our political gallery. You're right, you're right. I honestly I reacted defensively. Smash a watermelon on this table next week. Anyway, we're moving on. We have a lot of other things to talk about. On today's show, we're going to talk about Trump's Easter threat.

to commit war crimes against Iran if they don't quote open the fucking straight Uh, the press conference he held to congratulate himself on the rescue of the downed American pilots, new warning signs about the war's economic damage, and why the White House is asking for a$1.5 trillion defense budget for next year, paid for by cuts to nearly everything else.

We'll also check back in on the mass deportation campaign, which is continuing at full speed, uh, even though it's fallen out of the headlines. Then Congresswoman Sarah McBride stops by to talk with Lovett about her first year in Congress and how Democrats are preparing for the big fights coming up. Can't wait to hear what they're doing. Yeah.

Remember them? I d I do. I do, fortunately. Quick reminder, please consider becoming a Crooked Media subscriber if you haven't already, so you don't miss out on any of the great content we're putting out. For our friends at the pod. Subscribers get our new extra episode of Podsave America called Podsave America Only Friends, other subscriber-only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, access to all of our excellent Substack newsletters like Podsave America Open Tabs.

Written by Reed Churlin, who's here with us in studio today. Wow. What a uh what an appearance. Uh and then also you get ad-free episodes of all your favorite crooked pods. uh and you get to feel good about supporting one of the few independent, proudly pro democracy media outlets left in Trump's America. So head to Crooked dot com slash friends and subscribe today. All right, let's get to the news. Week six Of Operation Epic Fury and there is no end in sight.

The energy crisis is getting worse. Iran is shooting down US military jets. Negotiations are going nowhere. Uh, and Trump has become so desperate uh that he's threatening to commit war crimes against Iranian civilians and destroy the entire country in one night. Maybe tonight. By now you've probably seen the president's Easter message to the Iranian regime, quote, Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Praise be to Allah.

On Easter. On Easter. I believe the holiest of the Christian holidays. Yes. Yeah, it is. It is the holiest of the Christian holidays. Uh he thought that was a joke, but do you think the fundamentalists in either of the other religions did? Christians or Mercury. Or anyone. Yeah. Or anyone. I thought it was a joke when I saw

I thought it was a fake tweet. It was the f because it was Easter morning. I actually didn't open Twitter because my kids were up early with the with their Easter baskets. Um not not for any religious reasons, don't worry. Um and my brother sent me a text and he's like, I can't fucking believe Trump.

Truth, did you see it? And he sent it to me. I'm like, Andy, did you fall for some misinformation somewhere? I thought some people got caught too. I did too. And then I started looking, I was like, holy shit. I really th takes a lot to surprise me. It's it was it was shocking. It was shocking. I think it was also the capitalizing of F and fucking straight, which also maybe that's not important, but I thought that was funny. Uh quite a quite a post for sure.

Is do you remember the two thousand two Mike Tyson press conference when he was promoting his fight against Lennox Lewis of course before he said, I'll fuck you till you love me all praise to Allah. I forgot he added all praise to Allah. I don't remember. The fuck you till you love me, really. That was that stood out. That took all the attention. Yeah, no, I know. I know. Lennox Lewis. I don't know. I don't really remember that well, but anyway, back to the war crimes.

They're bad. If Iran doesn't open the uh fucking strait by eight PM Tuesday, the president says he will order the destruction of all the country's bridges and power plants. He took questions on all of this Monday morning at a press conference uh at the White House. Let's listen. The entire country can be taken out in one night.

And at night might be tomorrow night. You said Iranians would be mad if you stopped these attacks. But why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime? be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. We've had Numerous intercepts. Please keep bombing. Bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing. Do it.

And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding from moving the other. Who are you with? I'm with the New York Times. Zullen from the New York Times. Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amount to a little bit of a messaging on the war has moved from the war is coming to an end to So which is it? Are you winding this down? I don't know. We're giving them till tomorrow, eight o'clock Eastern time, and after that

They're gonna have no bridges. They're gonna have no power plants. Stone Ages, yeah. Stone Ages. Trump also started that press conference off by saying, militarily, it's been one of the best Easter. Really interesting adverb that he's turned out. Yeah. Militarily it's been one of the Really getting into that Easter spirit. Yeah. That famous Easter spirit.

He thinks that Easter's Monday. He said a couple times, Happy Easter. Happy Easter. It's a great Easter today. I'm like, it is Monday, sir. He kept referring to Easter Monday. I think what he meant was it was the day of the Easter egg roll. Right. Which is probably the only Easter that really counts. Right.

All right, lots to unpack here. Uh let's start with the war crimes, uh which the administration is already trying to argue would not actually constitute war crimes. A White House official told the Wall Street Journal that power plants are quote, legitimate military targets. Because destroying them could foment civil unrest, complicating Tehran's path to a nuclear device.

Seems like a bit of a stretch to me. What do you think, Tom? Yeah, I I agree with that. I ran that quote by uh Ona Hathaway, who's a professor of international law at Yale Law School. No big deal. She's been on Podsay of the World. Uh she said they gave they gave JD Vance a degree, so yeah, and I think all the classes are pass fail, but yeah, go on. Anyway, sorry. I'm sure she's wonderful. She said it would be a war crime to carry out those threats, destroying civilian infrastructure to foment.

civil unrest is clearly unlawful. And then but on Monday, as you mentioned, I mean it gets worse. He threatened to bomb all of the bridges and all of the power plants in Iran by midnight on Tuesday. Um, and explicitly threatening to bomb all of the power plants serving a country of ninety million people, that's about as clear cut of a war crime as I could.

think of. I mean, i in case anyone still cares, the Geneva Conventions want um an international humanitarian law. They want you to distinguish between military and civilian infrastructure. So like don't hit a power grid, don't hit uh water systems. And attacks are also supposed to be proportional. So you could say, okay, take out that power plant that fuels that base over there, but taking out all of them, it's just collective punishment. Same with the verdict.

Yeah, if you bombed the Eiffel Tower, it would screw up production of the next season of Emily in Paris. And even if that's a worthy goal, we would all say that it was uh uh An inappropriate use of force. Yeah, the the whole thing is it's all ludicrous. Nailed it.

Like nobody believes we would be bombing civilian infrastructure because we were trying to foment unrest so that the nuclear program is disrupted. But they really backed them look like it's just worth Why are they saying something so stupid? And I and it is because, well, they can't say they're fomenting arrest because they want the regime to change,'cause either the goal of the war is not regime change or the regime change has already taken

place. They can't say it's because they have a military necessity to conduct the the the the bombing missions that they're sending peop sending the military on because they claim they have total dominance of the skies and there's never been a more effective military campaign in the history of warfare. So they have to come up with some cockamame justification for doing this. When we all know why they're doing it, he would be bombing civilian infrastructure so that the threat.

To do so before the bombing uh would have been true. They were real threats for whatever future horrible things do to you. What did Lily Collins do? What did Lily Collins do to you? Is that someone involved in the star of Emily and Paris? I don't I've actually never fan here. I'll be honest, I've never seen Emily in Paris and I just thought it'd be I just couldn't think of a show. I thought but I I'll tell you to be honest, if you want to get behind the scenes. I thought Me too.

What would bombing what would bombing Paris dis disrupt? Emily of Paris. That's hard to argue with that. So that's all. So if you really if you really want to interrogate it, own a halfway about that one. There might be there is a justification for the threat he's issuing. He is trying to The threat is a war crime, actually.

The threat of the threat of the threat to like bomb all of civilians. He's putting political pressure on them to try to to get to some kind of a deal when as we talked about last week, he's on this sort of ratchet of False threats and assurances and he each one has to keep being backed up. He does this threat, then he carries it out. Then what's the threat after that if the regime holds together? But the the like once the threat once he's acting on it, there is no Yeah it's sort of uh darkly.

Funny and ironic that the uh administration official, the White House official that talked to the Wall Street Journal was like, Oh, it's to foment civil unrest, to topple the regime. When it's like, That specific thing in the in the Geneva Conventions and in the DOD war manual is against the law. to say that like you are going to target civilian infrastructure in order to foment unrest, in order to stop with the dream. But you know what, like

we get into like, is it a war crime, is it not a war crime? I and the reason we're talking about this is I saw on on Fox News this morning John Roberts, uh uh on Fox was like, Gonna be hard for the Democrats to argue this is a war crime because uh They they did this in Kosovo uh and they they took out the power lines there in that war and we did it in in the first Gulf War and it's like yeah.

What we learned after doing it in the first Gulf War is that uh taking out uh the Iraqi power grid in the first Gulf War ended up leading to countless, countless civilian deaths. And horrible yeah, consequences for decades. I mean that's just a stupid. It's like stupid stupid strategy.

War crime debate aside, like you want the population to overthrow their leaders and be a new friendlier US aligned Iran. So you're gonna bomb them into submission, take out all their infrastructure, destroy the country for a decade. And then you know, Trump's response on the I I I C stuff is like We're not a party to it as a country. And also like, okay, Hague, come and fucking get me if you want to arrest me for war crimes.

But the his bigger problem is gonna be when the Iranians respond by hitting desalination plants in Kuwait and Iraq and all these places. And then you have a genuine humanitarian catastrophe throughout the Gulf. Yeah, and I think people hear like, Oh, so a couple of bridges go away and power plants like that's not great, but You know, the the power plants go down in a country. That means that every hospital where someone's on a ventilator, someone's in a dialysis,

k little kids in incubators, insulin is spoiled. Like all of people die in hospitals right away, uh if there's if all the power's gone. Um it it hurts water treatment before you even get to the bombing of the desalination plant. There's water pumps that that uh clean the water. So you get when you bomb power plants, you get water that's contaminated that people drink, then that causes all kinds of disease.

food access, the food a whole bunch of food spoils. I mean, like, it is a humanitarian catastrophe just bombing the power plants. And and never mind anything else that he wants to do. Never mind any of the people who are gonna die, civilians who are gonna die in all of this. I mean it's just fucking nuts. What what are we talking about here? We're

No, we should not be doing World War II style total combat against the country of Iran, a place we are have not declared war against, that Congress has not authorized a conflict with there's no even mention of any kind of imminent threat. We are still

in a place where he needs to be saying there's an imminent threat to the United States in order to justify there can uh any kind of military action. No, bombing the bridges of Iran is not preventing any kind of imminent threat to the country. It's it's i we're like The idea of like, oh, is it a war crime? Is it not a war crime? Like sometimes it can be justified to bomb a power plant. Like all of that is predicated on a rational

set of goals you're trying to achieve in a military campaign that you're weighing against the cost to the civilians, how could it be proportional when we don't want the fuck we're doing it? Like we don't even know what we're doing it for.

Well the strategy's also kind of uh the logic's a little bit uh faulty in that uh the regime is made up of a bunch of lunatics. But somehow who who who kill their people, but somehow if you hurt their people, that's gonna pressure them to make a deal. Like that's not usually how it works. Here's here's one um reaction to Trump. He has gone insane and all of you are complicit.

Rep meaning Republicans. Our president is not a Christian and his words and actions should not be supported by Christians. This is not making America great again. This is evil. Marjorie Taylor Green. Marjorie Taylor Green. Uh speaking some truth. Probably one of the strongest responses. Yeah. Um on uh on Easter Sunday there.

So on the rescue,'cause we don't want to gloss over that, obviously an incredibly heroic, impressive operation by the military, um, which Trump spent a lot of time talking about at the press conference. Probably a little too much. Uh judging by this exchange with uh General Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. How many men did you send altogether, approximately?

Uh for the operation. I'd love to keep that a secret if you're not going to be able to do it Okay well we are But I will tell you the number I'll keep it a secret but it was hundreds Sir that's not how a secret works uh Sir Hutter Cold, uh one hundred fifty two very much um uh the the the the person who reported this was anonymous but but goes by either Lisa S Or L. Simpson.

In front of Mike Johnson's like, Sir, that was not supposed to be public information. I mean, just for what it's worth, like I I watched a little press conference we all did. Like I'm very skeptical of anything that comes out of Donald Trump's mouth or Pete Heggs' mouth. Dan Cain, I think, is more of a like just the facts kind of guy. The stories are amazing. This person climbing seven thousand feet, the p the pilot or the uh the the bomber person uh

The airmen, sorry, um, to avoid getting captured. The A ten Warthog pilot who got hit continued to fight. flew out of the country and then had to eject. Like it's amazing stuff. There will be medals of honor awarded for this. But it I I kept hearing the my N S C staffer head uh was was screaming, Shut up, why are you guys doing this the whole time?

Because like what happens if another pilot gets shot down and they want to conduct a similar mission and they've just talked about all the ways they did it? Like the CIA is bragging about creating a disinformation campaign to help the pilot get out of Iran? Feels like those assets or tools would be useful as it's an ongoing conflict.

Um Trump is uh the worst offender obviously about talking about sensitive details because you have both John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, and then Dan Cain, the chairman, started their remarks by saying, like, I know you guys are gonna want a lot of details, but we're not gonna give them to you and then Trump just Lays out all the details. Like you keep reading examples in news reports to the CIA's uh exquisite technologies or something like that, that's the way they're fuzzing it up.

Trump seemed to all but confirm that it was a drone or a satellite capability that was able to spot the pilot on a mountain from forty miles away at night with some sort of specific new lens.

That sounded to me like a lot of a lot of detail I might not want out. Uh he was again bragging about cyber operations to take out weapon systems in Venezuela. And the irony of it all is they're also bitching about a a a leak, which is a really bad leak that uh I think the the news outlets were reporting that Um, the US had identified the pilot, but the other crew member was still missing in Iran, and that obviously is a big tip for the Iranians. Um, but so they're gonna

Do a leak investigation. They might even prosecute media outlets that reported on it. But I think this was first reported by someone in Israel, a Israeli reporter who was really close close to Netanyahu, which makes you wonder what if Netanyahu is the source on this? Then what happened? So that was an interesting wrinkle in all this. But I think this this whole thing was very ill considered.

The fact that the military can achieve the goals that the president sets, whether in the rescue, which was extraordinary or in being able to complete the objectives of the bombings of Iran, like that that is uh we have an extraordinary military with incredible capabilities. But the reason they were doing this today is they want the respect and glory and plaudit to redound to them.

But this administration doesn't get any of that credit. This is not something that they did. This is something they put the military in a position to have to execute. And I'm glad that they did, and I'm glad we have a military that's capable of this. But all of the

Everything that they're describing, all the the the the techniques and capabilities that may have been revealed, what our enemies learn from this, the uh incredible cost of it, the risk of it, all of it is not an argument that like s that makes this administration seem more impressive. Uh all the more

an example of how absurd it is that that we've put this incredible capabilities in the hands of this person to be deployed in this haphazard and dangerous way in this campaign. So like they are doing this because they think it makes them look good, but it just does

Yeah, the whole thing pissed me off'cause like I you know, my my first reaction when I saw the news that they were rescued is like, Oh, thank God and then it was like, Wow, I can't believe the the military pulled this out. This is incredible. And then my next reaction was being so fucking pissed at Donald Trump for putting them in this position. And, you know, it's funny, I started thinking about all the times we had to listen to fucking uh, you know, uh, war crime Dr. Seuss, Pete Heggseth.

Over the last week, be like, we control the skies. We fly over Tehran. No one can touch us. We do and then even today at the fucking press conference. Heg Sath goes, We control the skies, you see, we flew for seven hours in daylight over Iran to get the first pilot, and Iran did nothing about it. Well they did shoot down two of our planes.

So I guess they did something about before that and you keep telling us that the whole military's destroyed, that their navy's destroyed, that whatever I mean, it's just a it is indicative of their larger how fucked up their larger messages on this whole thing, which is like we won the war But also we're gonna bomb them back to the Stone Age because we haven't won the war yet. But there was um uh we were there was somebody that we thought was like generally pretty smart, but they were like

Uh and we're talking about how like, oh, people's insecurities will always get in the way of their of their even their even the intentions that they have. Like even if they know what's best, their insecurities will always get in the way. Like who is this performance of domination of Iran for right now?

Right like who is it for? Like the that Fox News is he's got the people on Fox News. The country's against this. Not a lot of people are gonna be persuaded by Pete Heggseth at the podium talking about how we dominate the skies at this point when gas prices are gonna

uh hit like movie theater popcorn prices soon. And and it's certainly not helpful when clearly we're in this sort of fucking like contest with a bunch of people in o of leaders in Iran that are putting their own interests ahead of their peoples every single day and who have their own need to have protect their egos more than they do uh protecting the people.

of Iran. So what is the value at this point, right? Like why are you not speaking softly and carrying a big stick? Why are you not creating this space where if you really do believe that there should be a deal, where you are talking about how much you want that kind of a deal rather than like the endless

domination language, the endless kind of hitting of this story. Like I don't even know who it's for, other than just for themselves to make themselves feel like big big guys, big big boys. Yeah. Right. But it's Trump too. Like I I like m watching yeah. I was reading I was I was off last week I was reading the stories, like seeing that these guys were downed and then they were rescued. My reaction was thank God also and all and

There were all these people online who were like, Oh, you you know, you you're probably unhappy that they got saved or you know, this makes Trump look good. That's such such a crazy thing. It's like my reaction was thank God both for the missing airmen and for the people involved, the Americans involved in the rescue effort, but also for this broader war effort generally, because I want it to be over and I thought the worst thing possible.

was if Iran suddenly had a bunch of hostages, yeah, like the escalation that would have occurred from that, the way this thing could get protracted, the way you could see ground forces going in for some sort of like I It would have been awful. Like, thank God these guys were out for every single reason imaginable under the sun. Yeah. I had the same thought too is that like if there's Yeah, God forbid there's like a a mash casualty event of American troops or hostages and footage broadcast like

Y you think that's going to like bring us closer to some kind of end of the war or diplomatic like that's exactly how these things escalate and get out of hand and when you have bloodthirsty warmongers who are barbaric, like Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth, then it's even fucking worse.

So who knows what the state of the negotiations will be by the time this episode is out Tuesday, but as of right now they are not great. The U.S. reportedly tried for an immediate 45-day ceasefire to give more time for negotiations that would hopefully lead to a permanent deal. Iran wants the permanent deal first. Trump thinks uh threatening to destroy the entire country might change their minds. What do you guys think?

Did does a forty five day ceasefire mean that Iran de facto reopens the Strait of Hormuz for forty five days? I think that's what they a they wanted and that's what I I read somewhere that was part of what they wanted in the forty five day ceasefire. Because what like what scenario would Iran do that? Just sort of like

give up all your economic and political leverage that is built and is building on Trump to end the conflict. I d I don't see the logic of this for them in any way. It seems like they've rejected the ceasefire. It seems like their rejoinder was a p n set of maximalist demands. I don't s have any hope for a deal. again, Trump is like, We're just gonna bomb you more'cause the people want us to bomb you. I mean, he's crazy. Um, and so uh meanwhile like the Iranians are learning and adapting and

They're starting to use like clustered munitions on their uh ballistic missiles that are hitting civilian areas in Israel and could be very effective against US bases. So I I just I feel like Both sides seem to think they have the upper hand in different ways. It does feel like a very Trumpian offer, which is like Let's get just a a quick ceasefire now.

And then we'll just punt everything, you know, forty five give just give me another forty five days. Yeah. Because everything is short term, everything is tomorrow. Let's see how the markets are. Let's see the everything will calm down. And then in the forty five days, at the end of that, you know, maybe we'll push another forty five days if we don't get a deal. And another forty five days.

And it's that so and I I think the Iranians know that. Obviously, why would they trust uh how are they trusting them at this point? Yeah, the the like I don't we also don't know what kind of information Donald Trump is getting, obviously reports that he's not getting like the full picture of of Of like the implications of the war, but presumably someone inside the White House is talking about what happens to oil prices if.

if we uh escalate and Iran escalates, if the region is further destabilized, that that this will have l immediate and then kind of sustained terrible economic consequences. I'll just say like I I hope that's not. that that that Donald Trump's threats do lead to some kind of a a a a a ceasefire of some kind, even if it seems unlikely, even if it even if where we're at right now as we record this, uh, it it seems like both sides aren't willing uh uh to give because

the best case scenario right now is that he does not go through with what he is promising to go through with. And the fear, whether it's because a a plane is shot down over Iran or because he feels obligated to carry out This threat is we are now on this endless ratchet where, okay, he carries out this threat. The regime doesn't fall and doesn't capitulate. What's the next group of threats?

That comes after this? What happens in the next week after he's destroyed the country, and yet the country still exists and the regime is still in power? Like I don't know that they're thinking three days ahead, but I suppose the rest of us ought to at least remember that there is a next week that will continue to be after he goes through with this on Tuesday.

It's just ridiculous that we're talking about this right now when right before the weekend after he gave that primetime address, remember when he was like Uh the straight? We don't need the straight. The straight after the after we after we leave, the strait will just open naturally. It's like and then now it's

Open the strait or we'll bomb you back to the stone age. Also you keep saying it's Europe's problem when like eighty percent of the oil and gas that goes through the Strait of Hormuz is going to Asia. And it's screwing everyone there.

Meanwhile, the uh the war keeps getting more unpopular by the day uh here in America. Good news, Trump seems to know that. Bad news doesn't seem to care. Uh here he is telling reporters at the White House Easter egg roll that he'd like to take control of Iran's oil, only if the rest of us Would let him enjoy the music in the background. Because it's there for the

Unfortunately the American people would like to see us come home. Are you listening to Paul? Well I tell you what, I'm pretty good at this stuff and I go around and I like to see us win and come home. And everyone saying, oh losing MAGA. No, I'm not losing MAGA. MAGA loves what I'm doing. And CNN did a poll of MAGA voted, a big poll, very important poll, Harry. And he uh went on, he said this is amazing. Support They're foolish

I always quote from the book of Harry on Easter. Harry. There's a big poll from CNN. It's a Harry pole. Harry got a Harry pole. Uh oil's the oldest resurrection story, sir. Quite a message for the midterms there. You think Republicans are gonna run on that? You think like is he just Uh Is he just impervious to bad polling?'Cause he cle it's funny, he he did the Harry, the Mag is with me poll, but he he clearly knows

Yeah, every day I'm more convinced that Trump does not give a shit about the midterms, does not give a shit about the future of the Republican Party, does not give a shit about J D Vance. This is a political

smash and grab job for him, his cronies, his family, to make as much money as possible and then do things to burnish his legacy. There's just no other explanation for why Uh you would talk like that for why you'd build the ballroom, like the monument to himself in Virginia, uh start a war with Iran that sends oil prices to the moon, and then do it all before the midterm. And it's politically like he's not even trying. Like he didn't go to CPAC.

But that because he said he was too busy, but that week he went to the Saudi investment conference down in Miami. Hmm. Wonder what w wonder which entity can pay him more. I know. Over the long run. So like that I heard that foolish quote and my my brain went to every single attack ad I would run linking members of Congress to the war in Iran that kick off with that quote and then it's just like image after image of death and destruction and

you know, skyrocketing energy prices, et cetera. We we are like running out of Trump quotes to fit in a sixty second adjustment I I feel like uh like once every couple episodes now we're like this is the this is the line that's gonna be in all the midterm ads. And I and I still think they're all very ripe for this. I mean w the Easter Remember the Easter uh

Do you think I do you think this is gonna ruin the affordability tour? Do you think he's still do you think it's real damp right now? Do you think he's still gonna be hitting the road once a week for Susie Wiles that she wants him to do that to sell his economic agenda? Eggs only, omelets only because if he's proud of those that price. Yeah, I will say the the one thing you can also take away though from what he's saying there is

He believes there is political pressure to get out of this, right? Like his version of I need to end this war and declare victory is the American people want me to win quickly and leave. Now, the American people don't not want to be in this conflict, but they certainly don't want boots on the ground. or for us to invade Iran to take the oil and he does seem cognizant of that. I think the I think what there's a kind of story they're telling themselves, which is

This is still short. We will get this quickly. The effects will s will will will recede and it will go into memory as the time we decimated the Iranian military for the good of the Yeah. And unless then they bomb all the power plants. And and everything else. Alright, he's he's probably looking for some kind of face saving thing where you can say like

I threatened them. Yes. They decided to give me this, which they probably didn't give him, whatever he's gonna say they gave him. But no, I'm gonna say like you could it is totally possible that in the like w while we're recording this.

He says, we got a deal. Iran says we don't have a deal, but but there's some some some uh r story about how much they've given and the gifts they've given and the fact that he's not gonna do the bombing this week, but he could do it next week. Like that is so possible. And I I genuinely like

Like fuck this guy and fuck these people, but man, I really hope that they can pretend, like pretend they have some kind of a win because this neck what they are promising and what comes after, like it it just It it's it's so clear that they're being cavalier, but but I like I would rather Trump be able to walk out in the rose garden tomorrow and say, I did it, I achieved everything I said I was, uh everyone was wrong about me than have him go through.

I really not me. I want him to go through. No, I want a catastrophic war when it kills. I'm not saying you do, but I would rather be I'd rather me personally be wrong. That's The best outcome is end this war tomorrow for sure. And it's gonna involve him spinning some bullshit. I just think that the

the chances of that are so much less than they are with all the other bullshit he's done, right? Which is like, you know, it I keep thinking and making this comparison, it's like the tariffs, you know, and you're like, well the tariffs You d Erin did the taco thing and you're like, Oh, he backed off, it's fine, and then p it's saving face'cause it's a treaty about fucking tariffs, you know? Like this is you're dealing with like I think that the people on the other side of this

Maybe if if if they get a vote. Yeah. They get a vote and they're crazy too. They're I'm not gonna say that they're completely crazy because I'm sure they're doing things in their self interest, but they certainly don't care about the people of their country. Right. All that much. They care about the regime and the regime's survival. So it's like you're dealing with people who aren't fucking

Trump wants to end this to get like to deal with the near term political challenges. The Iranians don't want to get bombed again in six months or twelve months or eighteen months, right? They're they're thinking longer term. They want to deal where the US can force the Israelis not to keep bombing them too. Like they're playing a longer game.

Yeah. They apparently like want the end of the war in Lebanon as well as part of the deal. They want the end of the war on all th all the fronts, which then also includes Iraq.

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Regardless of what the polls say today, uh it's becoming pretty clear that they're uh gonna get worse. Uh and that's because even if the war does end today, the economic damage will last for some time. Mark Zandy, chief economist at Moody's, told Politico quote I don't think we're going back to the pre-war prices for the foreseeable future. Certainly won't be this year, won't even be next year.

Woof. Uh and uh and then we got Jamie Diamond who was on Fox last week just cheerleading the war. What was that? I was shocking. That was another one. I was like, Tommy should be here to yell about Jamie Diamond. He was an asshole. Went out of his way too. What a what a like what a kiss didn't need to appear on Fox. Didn't he was like hello to all the Fox viewers. I'm Jamie Diamond and I'm here to say that like uh

The the Iranians The Iranians caused uh October seventh and Americans died and it was just the w he sounded like fucking Netanyahu. Oh bizarre. So he he warned in his annual letter to shareholders. Because that's important to him, uh, that there could be more oil price shocks in the coming months and that the war could keep inflation and interest rates high. But you know, the American.

People might have to pay more. He said this on Foxy. People might have to pay more, but you know, it's uh the economy is resilient. Thank you, Jamie Downs. Right now people feel worse about the economy and inflation that at any time since the post COVID inflation surge. I just saw that uh gas prices have now uh surpassed

Uh in in AAA records like the gas prices and tracks the gas prices higher than at any time since right during COVID with the supply shock for COVID in history. In history. So n that's where we are with gas prices now. Um, I am having a hard time imagining that people don't feel worse about the economy than they do today on election day. Like I don't know how this

I I don't I I don't think this gets better by election day at this point. I think we've pa even if the war ends today, I think we've pass the point of no return about things getting worse in the next couple months. But I don't know. Does anyone disagree? No. I mean I like so you're right.

Gas prices are what, like four hundred twelve today is the national average. I think that goes up before it goes up down and it could go up dramatically. Similarly, natural gas prices, especially in Europe, are up and will be up for a while, especially as they go into the winter. So that energy shock is like the initial

uh thing we're feeling, but it's far from the only implication because fertilizer prices are way up, right? That's gonna lead to higher prices, lower yields, potentially food shortages. Um countries in Asia are rationing fuel. They're shutting down factories. So like the economic impact is across the economy. They got like work from home going in uh in Asia. Yes. And like like flights are grounded, like people can't get jet fuel.

And then so it's like developing countries are getting hit now. Then it hits major economies in India and Japan and South Korea. They start to slow down. You guys talked about helium apparently and and ripped some helium on an episode, right? We did. We did some whip hits here. That would impact semiconductor uh manufacturing, which you know that that's happens to be propping up the entire uh US artificial intelligence bubble, the availability of all these semiconductors.

The Gulf is gonna take like a multi hundred billion dollar hit to GDP. and all the various industries, their gigantic sovereign wealth fronts are propping up, will be impacted. So like I just there's a way this will ip ripple out in ways we're not seeing now. It will last for a long time. None of it is good. What I the fact that Jamie Diamond can like Be blase about this is crazy. Trump has failed to address

People's concerns about prices before he started this war in Iran, everything he's done, tariffs have made matters worse. He's rested on the resilience of the American economy to protect him from the bad policies. he's pursuing, but gas prices will be going up as we head into the summer. Even if there's some recovery months from now, people will have experienced months and months of the economy uh of prices going up. Uh by the time you get to November, that will be

additive that will aggregate and as people kind of come to their conclusions as we head towards November. And like we'll get to it in a minute, but it's not as though Trump is out there doing his affordability tour. We've just gotten a window into his uh uh priorities for next year and I don't think they're gonna

Answer the mail. Yeah. So the the the budget's out. Um and uh lest anyone thought that the uh what he said at the Easter lunch was just a gaff. Uh it was not. Again, remember he said uh he th he said we're gonna all have to start paying higher taxes uh via state taxes. Right. The states are gonna have to raise taxes if we want childcare.

Then he added, Medicaid and Medicare, because the federal government is busy, quote, fighting wars and quote, we have to take care of one thing, one thing, military protection. So then they released the budget. The but the official budget request for uh twenty twenty seven, they're asking for one point five trillion dollars for the Department of Defense. That is an increase of four hundred billion dollars. And that doesn't include the rumored two hundred billion dollars supplemental for the war.

Trump proposes paying for all this new war spending with huge cuts to just about everything else, health programs, medical research, education funding. One big exception, uh White House renovations. The budget says there were three hundred and seventy seven million dollars in improvements last year, uh, and they're estimating another one hundred and seventy-four million dollars in spending for next year, which includes both the ballroom and other renovations.

Apparently they told political. I thought the ballroom was gratis. Some some White House official anonymously told Politico like i i th some of the the private money is included, but like that doesn't really add up, so I don't know what the hell they're talking about there. Axios mused that, uh quote, the most powerful populist of this century is at risk of becoming what he ran against, a deficit spending interventionist asking working class Americans to shoulder the cost of war.

Perhaps a sign that maybe he was never actually uh a populist in the first place. I don't know. Wow. I'm just Perhaps he's a hypocrite. Yeah, I just can't think of anything uh uh uh m m like Just uh on a a democratic consultant's ketamine journey, I don't think you'd come up with something better than not just a one point five trillion dollar defense budget to cut health care and other social spending, but also uh

about you know f north of five hundred million on a Trump home reno. Like that is an extraordinary uh message for us. Frothing at the these these consultants, these striders could be frothing at the mouth. A lot of frothing. And then and then they look at the news and everyone's like, Hassan Piker. Let's relitigate Gaza. We've been showing this pretend This pretend message for a decade that they wanna they wanna cut your health care to pay for tax cuts for the rich in his ballroom.

And this fucking war that no one wants and now it's happening in real life. I want a third way summit on streamers. Um it's just like it is so clearly the least America first policy platform you could design. Like I like voters are not stupid. They know that Trump promised to Invest at home, to take care of Americans first, to avoid foreign wars and Is this the thing he said last week when he said he bragged about telling his O and B director

We're fighting wars we can't take care of daycare. Yes. Yes. That's a bad quote. That's a bad quote. And Medicare and Medicaid. He throws those in at the end. He didn't know the he didn't know the the cameras he didn't know it was being live streamed. Yeah, being streamed every. And and before so the one point five trillion dollar Pentagon proposal, uh budget proposal was floated before the Iran war. And afterwards there was a Washington Post story

about how the Pentagon literally couldn't figure out how to spend all the extra money. They were like, what bullshit weapon systems do we need to acquire with? Like they don't know Who's ask who's paying who's asking for this then? I don't know. Nobody was. And so now like I guess you could Fill that need with All the interceptor missile stockpiles and shit will be replenish, but that will that's not a

A money problem, that's a supply problem. That will take decades to fix. So it's just i all of this again makes me think this guy does not care about politics anymore, just doesn't give

It's also great. It's you know, all these are big defense contractors that make a lot of money. There's every every every dollar in the defense budget goes to some district. All that is this is saying yes to everybody, every Republican member who he needs, every contractor, every every every executive coming through, this is money that gets To their pockets one way or another. Although I I did see that some Republicans already in Congress are like, I don't know about this budget.

But then of course they can't have like a like a full throated uh, you know, critique of the budget. You got I think Susan Collins's quote was like uh Well, Congress does have the power of the purse. Oh, really, Susan Collins? Go ahead. I dare you to vo I dare you to vote for this.

Yeah. It's it's it's funny to think like when we first started having the conversation about a supplemental funding request coming down the pike to pay for the Iran war, initially the reports were it was gonna be like maybe fifty billion, then it was two hundred billion and the framing was Oh no, what a tough vote for Democrats. They could be accused of being, you know, not supporting the troops. And now it's like, oh, this is the most politically devastating thing for Republicans.

I could possibly draw up in my brain if I tried. Yeah, Marjorie Taylor Greene's out there calling him evil. Right. And everyone's like, oh, are we gonna support the troops with the budget? Nancy Mace is like, I'm a hell no on this.

Stupid budget stupid budget. A forty percent increase in the largest Pentagon budget in history, as time points out, that they don't know how to spend. But that is not enough to do the kind of military conflicts he wants to do. So really they need one point two trillion this year, go up to one point four.

trillion next year to w but in part by the way. Well because Cuba's on the back burner now. So we gotta yeah we gotta we gotta be able to do that. But maybe but one lesson they've learned, right, is that if Donald Trump is going to become a a a a interventionalist Uh regime changer, you need a bigger baseline because you can't go back to Congress to ask for more money. But and like a lot of it, I think, is for the Golden Dome Missile Defense System, which is like

Probably doesn't work. He thinks it's a magic force field around America. Yeah. He's trying to make a play on the Iron Dome system, which is Israel's short range rocket system, which works very well, but those are like little like Katusha rockets that are flying in from Lebanon, not intercontinental ballistic missiles where you're hitting a

You know, something going Mach seven with a bullet, basically. Yeah, I don't yeah, I do think if we start to face um uh uh missile barrages from like Quebec and Toronto, I think we've got bigger fish to fry. That could happen. Yeah.

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Let's talk about immigration and mass deportations. So Noam, Lewandowski, Bovino have all been fired. ICE and CBP uh have drawn down from Minneapolis and other cities.

And the DHS shutdown will likely end uh when Congress gets back without Democrats having voted for any new funding for immigration enforcement. Uh and yet there was a big story in the Times this weekend about how the only lesson Stephen Miller has learned from all this is to pursue his purge of immigrants, uh including those who are here legally, more quietly.

Uh sure enough, the Times also had an absolutely heartbreaking story about Annie Ramos, a dreamer who just got married to an active duty Army staff sergeant who is preparing for deployment. So she's been in America since she was almost two years old. Uh, she's 22 now, a few months away from getting her college degree. She teaches Sunday school at her church.

And she just showed up with her new husband at his army base with her birth certificate, passport, marriage license, so she could get her green card. And then when they got there, I showed up, shackled her, took her away, and now she's facing deportation. And this is all after the wife of another army reservist was finally released from ICE custody last week after four months in detention.

I want to get your takeaways from both the the Miller piece, very long piece about Stephen Miller, but had a lot in it about sort of the im uh the Trump administration's larger immigration strategy and and the Ramos story, um, just uh in terms of like where all this is headed.

Yeah, th the the way the administration talked about Ramos I thought was Revealing too because they say uh uh basically uh she tried to enter a military base and she has a lawful deportation order and it's like with her husband and that and order forms and that order and and that order was from when she was a baby. It's an order from when she was a literal twenty two months old.

So uh that's who they're going after and uh everyone acknowledges this is the like under no previous administration, under no one's understanding of how the law should be applied was a person like this ever gone after in the past. Nope, there's just simply no justification for it.

whatsoever, but I think it does speak to the larger point about what Stephen Miller's trying to do here because he is not uh uh look humbled at all. He has the same mission and the same goals. They're trying to just do it more quietly. And the two things that jumped out about To me in the Miller.

talking about how to go after immigrants who apply for credit cards. And the other was his work with uh uh local legislators in Tennessee to require state or local officials to report people who receive services at hospitals, social service agencies and some public schools despite

uh being in the country illegally. And so it is more of an effort to weaponize the the financial system, the the the information we gather about people, the way people have to access services and care to try to do more with a scalpel what uh drew such attention when they did it with Like an axe. Yeah. Those things jumped out at me too. And then the only other one was um they're trying to uh for legal immigrants, any legal immigrant here who happens to ever get public assistance.

Medicaid, anything like that. He wants the they he and and the new frauds are JD Vance and the rest of them want to go after that and try to prove that they somehow illegally obtain their benefits. Not so they can just take the benefits away, but like then deport the legal immigrant. Boy, really spoiling the end of this book about what he learned from Catholicism.

Not not not not uh not really internalizing what the wafer's supposed to represent, I get through the communion, but militarily it was one of the best Easter. Um yeah, the the time piece of Stephen Miller uh It's my favorite kind of story in that it validated my priors. Oh. Uh which is he's calling the shots.

He Trump has outsourced immigration policy to him. Um, he's the worst of the worst when it comes to pushing cruel, racist policy ideas, but he's better at playing politics than the other goons, the Bovinos or the Christine Gnomes or the Lewandowski.

Probably because he's closest to Trump and can whisper to him and blame others for when he gets in trouble and step away, right? Yeah, blame all of them. Um the other thing that was really important about that Stephen Miller story that relates to the other uh articles you mentioned was It just showed that the ICE and CBP abuses in Minnesota had a huge political impact. Yes. And the communities push back.

brushed back Trump and Steven Miller in a significant way. And I think it just shows you the power I mean, obviously like ICE murdering, C B murdering someone on camera is like horrific in ways that I hope will never be repeated, but Uh stories like these, you know, the anecdotal evidence of

these innocent people caught up in a cruel system, treated in a cruel, bureaucratic, heartless way and punished for something they when they did nothing wrong. I think like people react to that strongly and and it uh shows the importance of lifting up these examples and like

Just speaking of people's humanity. And I think why it's important to keep up that pressure and not to see the firings and the drawdown of ice in the cities and everything else is like, all right, we won this chapter, on to the next fight, you know, because all this is like we just seen that with Amy Ramos. um and all these other stories. I just saw C B S too interviewed um

Liam Ramos, remember the five year old in Minnesota and his dad and they're they're still um being threatened with deportation. There's this part in the story where Liam is now you know, he's a five year old kid, he's now seeing a psychologist. because he's like dealing with such trauma and all I mean he's this five year old boy and he's like I'm more than anything I'm just scared of ICE. I'm scared of immigration. I'm scared of what might happen. And like, yes, that's Liam, but think of

How many children out there are in the exact same spot? Think of how many children are in detention right now. Right. Like they're if you've been in detention, if you're still there, like the the trauma that like it's just fucking up these kids' lives and

And Miller is uh uh the other thing from the story, Miller's focused on ramping up deportations of non citizens to faraway countries with the hopes of encouraging immigrants still in the United States to leave voluntarily. So that is a, you know, a nice way of saying that like He wants to send them to third countries that they've never been to.

For any other reason but to send a message to other immigrants, to leave now yourself or we are going to send you to somewhere where you're probably gonna die or just be in slight. Yeah, exactly. It also it does an evil person. It does connect.

I think too to like what we're seeing with how they're conducting the war in Iran. It connects to like oh you know, people try to say, Oh, you know, don't You know, Trump says crazy things online, he says terrible things about whatever, Rob Reiner, his enemies and their and and and their and their spouses who died. It's all a lack of Proportionality, all of it, right? Like there there is no there's there's no empathy. It's there's no like there's no like

recognizing of someone's humanity and how they're conducting these policies. It is just zero forbearance, like all attack, do as much damage as you can regardless of the consequences to like achieve whatever ends you've set.

out. And so like when they try to dismiss Trump when he's like ranting and raving online, like, no, that's the person making these policies. That's the connection between the threat to bomb a power plant in Iran and willing to go after our military spouse in the US. Like these people lack character and it will affect And it will it will be it will be infused in everything that they do. That reminded me of just the the one other nugget in that story is uh

Again, we could talk about confirming your prior, something I had suspected, but I think it was it was news in the story. Remember that like a long time ago, I think it was last September, there was that video of um uh in a New York City immigration courthouse. And that ICE officer tackled that woman who was just there for her husband. And like shockingly, the next day ICE was like, Oh, that person's been fired And I was like, Wow, that's like they've they finally backed off.

And it says in the story that the state that Ice doing that, like fucking made Steven Miller so angry that he w like got involved, reversed it, and then made them hire the guy back. Yeah. And it's just goes to show like exactly like This is it's it is all like from the top from Steven Miller to try to send m like he's using he he is using like torture and cruelty to send a message to immigrants. Like that is the whole thing. Yeah, you are unleashed. It's it's fucking

All right. One last thing before we get to Levitt's conversation with Sarah McBride. Uh Donald Trump decided to do Democrats a huge favor uh in the California governor's race. Don't don't say he's never done anything. Eastern miracle. Yeah I know. Resurrected the California Democratic Party. So as we've discussed, because of the so called jungle primary format here, um

we have been in danger of seeing two Republicans advance to the runoff because so many Democrats are in the race, it's splitting the vote. So you have all these polls with with Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco, the two Republicans is one and two, which means that the Democrats would be locked out of the general election. Well on Monday morning.

Trump took to Truth Social to endorse Republican Steve Hilton, and I'll just quote politico here, quote, dealing a potentially fatal blow to GOP rival Chad Bianco's campaign. and to Republicans' hopes of locking Democrats out of the runoff. It's so funny, Lov, I think you and I talked about this and I was like, How have other Democratic campaigns not elevated one of the two Republicans by now? Because that's the way

Shift got it done. That's the way Newsom got it done before and like no one's done that yet. Turns out they didn't need to. Trump did it for them. Well, and they were they were planning to, and by the way you do that is by spending like tens of millions of ads.

supporting Republicans. So that was the position they were about to be in. Like every every California par like Democratic Party activist or uh operative I know are just ecstatic and they literally can't believe it's happening to the point where they're all looking for conspiracy theories because Like he do you think he's too stupid to know this was a a political disaster for California or like

He just doesn't care. He wanted to do a favor for Steve Hilton. Steve Hilton said he didn't ask for Steve Hilton said he never talked about the race with Trump. He didn't ask for an endorsement. Like maybe Trump is so delusional that he believes his own bullshit about like if not for the illegal votes that he would have won. One other theory I heard is that Trump wants Hilton in the race because he's actually a good spokesman and will spend six months attacking Gavin Newsom.

in California and like soften Gavin up. I like I don't know, interesting theory. But I think Occam's razor that he's a dumb lazy asshole and he just did something stupid. Occam's razor is he like saw some segment on Fox News and was just like And by the way, that word Hilton That's a good that's a that's a hotel word for him. Yeah. But yeah, look, I Democrats have wanted to elevate a Republican so that there would be just one Republican so that they didn't have to face a Democrat. Right.

In the current situation, Democrats need to elevate one Republican so that it's not just two Republicans, which is like a different kind of a problem. I think the truth is, like it is a genuine risk. that uh Democrats uh could be shut out of having a candidate in the uh uh in the general if more people don't drop out and the thing doesn't coalesce, but even if both of the two Republicans were were sort of not were splitting the vote more evenly.

Any kind of coalescing will probably result in one Democrat getting above the other. So i it I think like it's a little too cute by half to think that Donald Trump that Donald Trump's action is gonna result in something that is likely different than what would have happened anyway. But You think so? Why?

Because I think it is still likely even if the two Republicans were splitting the vote that there will be a coalesc among the Democrats and one would rise to the top. Like I Oh oh I'm on the Democrats. You're saying not on the Republicans. No, no, not on the Republicans. I'm saying that like if the two Republicans continue to split the vote, right? What is more likely? Is it more likely that Democrats

Truly remain completely divided and those two move on? Or is it that two Republicans splitting the vote might keep their numbers low enough that two Democrats could get through? I think it's

uh right now I think it was it would probably be more likely that two Democrats would would get through. And so you might like if you were thinking about this in terms of all right, they're gonna Democrats are gonna start dropping out, you would want one Republican to rise to the top if you want a Republican to be I think that's another that that is I think a reasonable way to think.

I think the reason that uh everyone was so freaked out about this is like Whether or not the the party establishment uh coal finally coalesces around one Democrat, California's just a big fucking state and there's so many voters and it's been so hard to get attention for this race because We're all talking about Trump all the time and everything's nationalized. That like you could see I mean, we're getting down to it. You could see towards the end, even like

you know, important political figures deciding to back w one candidate or the other. And then the voters are just sort of like, I don't know. And just going into it. And it's just like of all the political figures who could make a statement in this race, like we've been thinking, well, Newsom endorse or Kamala or even Barack Obama or someone like that, it's like, no, actually, the person, the the political figure who could make the biggest difference is Donald Trump.

Yeah. By endorsing one of the Republicans. Yeah. I still think that like one of those we've talked about this before, but like Steyr, uh, Porter or Swalwell Like those are probably your th one of those three candidates is gonna end up being governor. Yeah, very likely. I I still think look, candidates have a a week or two

And then I think they need to decide to drop out and endorse other people. If you're not at five percent in the polls by like April fifteenth, When ballots are getting mailed to people, when this thing is really getting into the the Final stages, like you're not gonna win. Yeah. Early vote starts what, May fourth? Yeah. Is that right? Early vote is soon. You like everyone needs to be big boys and big girls and realize that like if you're still at five percent or less

A month before the primary, you're you're it it's not happening for you. So get out of the race, endorse someone else. like, do something good for the party here because my God, if if there were some version of this where two Republicans make it through and we are locked out of the general election, that is a catastrophic disaster. Is it a good thing? Especially especially now, now that we had Donald Trump help us out here. Yes. I I did see that um

So you see CNN's doing a debate, a holding debate for this, and it's gonna be in May May 5th, I think. Um it is weird to me that their criteria is uh you have to hit three percent in two polls.

I would have I would have made that a little tougher. They're probably avoiding some of the political challenges that USC got into. Yeah, but the but but the other problem here too is la yes, some of these candidates that are polling really low, uh they need to drop out. But if we still are getting close to

uh uh like mid May and you have three Democrats that are kind of can all claim to be something like the front runner, kind of vaguely evenly splitting, like that is when it actually Trump jumping in as being helpful because then you could still end up with two Republicans. But the harder challenge, right, is What happens when we need one of those three? To decide but like like when they're splitting all the votes and they each have a justified reason for being in the race.

And we're heading towards the election. And then you go to the tribal council and it's like who's gonna Yeah, and I know a thing or two about unjust results at a tribal council. You're like, I've been home for five weeks. Yeah. Oh anyway, so that was uh you know, ending on ending on some good news too. Yeah, yeah, I like that. Thank you, Donald Trump. Thanks for your help, buddy. Uh when we come back, Sarah McBride.

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Congresswoman Sarah McBride, welcome back to the pod. Thanks for having me. You've been in Congress a year. What do you know now that you uh wish you knew a year ago? Well I don't know that I I don't know that I know things now that I didn't know then. I think I know them more deeply. Okay. Um I I think one I know that there is still a chance for us to get things done.

Two, I know very deeply the stakes of this moment and the cowardice of Many of my Republican colleagues, most of my Republican colleagues, almost all of my Republican colleagues to obviously the stakes of of the administration. But you know actually one thing that is interesting that I know we talked about last time that I have come to realize over the last year.

I know we talked about the reality TV show nature of Congress. And I used to think that the antics we saw from folks in Congress who were taking up a lot of oxygen was the politics of reality TV in pursuit of a rational goal. Attention for the sake of power, for the sake of influence, what I've come to realize over the last year. is that for many of the folks that you see taking up oxygen on the other side of the aisle in particular, it's not in pursuit of a rational goal.

It's actually an addiction. Interesting. And I think that's one of the things we actually don't talk a lot about. It's not pursuit of attention to win the competitive attention economy. One of the things you most frequently hear about these people when they get to Congress is they were so normal when they got there. And granted there are people who ran for office, so I I doubt they were that normal, but by congressional standards that they were relatively normal.

And then what happens is, with all of the best intentions, they go viral. And they're not doing it in pursuit of that, but they just find themselves going viral for something they've done. And we know that social media is addictive. And when someone posts a picture online and it gets a couple hundred more likes than usual, it's a dopamine hit. It's a puff of a cigarette. But when you go viral nationally

It is like the most instantly addictive drug. And I don't mean that as a a a trite throwaway line. I don't mean that as a metaphor. I mean literally. It is addictive. And one of the things that we don't talk a lot about is that much of the behavior you're seeing in Congress is from people who are struggling themselves.

they find themselves going viral. And as the is the case with many addictions, they will debase themselves and inflict collateral damage on anyone else in pursuit of that next tie. And it's the same strategy that I employed before, but it's a different understanding because in the context of people coming after me early on, my job was not to take the bait. It was not to give them the response that they want.

And in this case it's to be essentially a clogged bong, like just to not give them the high that they want so that they will go and chase it elsewhere. But in so doing, what I don't think I realized was just how much opportunity that would unlock for me in not taking the bait. I knew it was what I needed to do to get them off of me. I knew I think it's what I needed to do on behalf of my constituents.

But what happened after those first few months when I didn't take the bait, when I wasn't that effective high, was I had a number of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle come up to me. And not only say, Welcome to Congress, not only say, I'm so sorry with what they're doing, it's not very Christian. But to have a number of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle come up to me and say, let's find opportunities to work together to show people that not everyone here is like that.

Because they saw that I was willing to work across disagreement. They saw that I was willing to be a serious substantive legislator, not someone who was simply there to chase the high of attention. And it's now resulted in me being able to introduce more bipartisan legislation than any other freshman this Congress.

So you make lemonade out of lemons. On the yeah, it's interesting,'cause on the other side of that, uh You know, specifically, y your time in Congress began with Nancy Mason, Lauren Boebert, you know, chasing you around uh the Capitol in case uh you had a bill in the chamber, as it were. Uh

And they've both you know Lauren Bobert has had a series of of public humiliations. Nancy Mace had that incident at the airport and is uh largely despised, it seems, by her colleagues and and it also reportedly members of her staff. Is there something about the way those people treated you. and what has happened to them sort of publicly, politically, that that kind of fits in this analogy of uh

I I would say it's actually more like you know, uh um I don't know if it's about a bong thing, it feels more like a stronger drug they're hitting, but is there a connection you think between the ways in which they've unraveled and the ways in which they went after you? Yeah.

I mean I I I think that goes directly back to what I was saying. Uh and I think it's particularly true for some of the folks, which is that As is the case with any addiction, if you are someone with real pain or trauma, if you're someone who's not well. you are more likely to fall into addictive behavior. and fall prey to addiction. And I think that that is what we saw from some of the folks who come came after me. They were not doing well. And and in the case of

Nancy Mace, I I I wish her well in her campaign, all the best in her campaign for governor. I think it's time that Republican voters in South Carolina choose someone who came into Congress standing up to Donald Trump. um denouncing the insurrection, someone who came into Congress and proclaimed their support for not only gay rights but trans rights.

Um I think that's the type of person that Republican primary voters in South Carolina should choose to be their next governor. Such an important point. Such an important point. So Lauren Boebert actually has come out against In a pretty strong way, Trump. proposed supplemental. He's out there seeking a two hundred billion dollar supplemental. A lot of Democrats have come out against it. You're part of the congressional progressive caucus that has come out against it.

At the same time, there are some Democrats in the Senate, including uh Delaware's Chris Coons. uh who have not been who have been more equivocal on whether to suppl to support funding the military because of the Iran war than a Republican like Lauren Boebert. Is that disappointing to you? Do you wish that that all Democrats were more emphatic in saying that we will not vote to provide military funding to kind of in effect go back and authorize the war?

Well I think m my understanding is that one comment maybe got taken out of context and he came back and I think was Pretty clear and unequivocal. Clearer. For sure. But yes. a supplemental to fund this war would be both in perception, but also probably in reality. a validation retroactively of the administration's reckless and illegal war in Iran, which is

clearer today than than ever, but was always clear that it was going to be a failure. And I don't anticipate any Democrat, but maybe one obvious one in the Senate, and I I don't know about any in the House voting in favor of of a supplemental, no matter whether it's fifty million dollars, a hundred million dollars, or two hundred million dollars.

And I think this is a moment where we should be absolutely clear and unequivocal that we will not give one dime to this president's war, not just because of the process that he didn't go through, but because this war is stupid, it is dumb and it is making us less safe. Um, we are more than a month into this war.

I think the president's going through different stages of grief right now. I think the press conference we just saw from him is a mix of of negotiation and denial in the process of grief because a month and a week in We have a new supreme leader who's by all accounts more extreme and more pro nuclear than before. Everything we have destroyed can be rebuilt and can probably be rebuilt with the billions of dollars that Iran now has because of

the easing of sanctions and their closing of the Strait of Or moves, which was entirely predictable and predicted, but the president thought we would have won long before they would have the chance to do it. And now our adversaries in Russia and China Russia is swimming in revenues that they didn't have, which will make peace in Ukraine that much harder, and China is not only accessing oil in a way that much of the rest of the world is not, they also now understand our

military and operational capabilities far better today than they did two months ago, which means they would be per better prepared to potentially invade Taiwan. All at the same time, we're further alienating our allies in Europe and costs including the cost of gas are going up here. So I I I don't anticipate any Democrat save for maybe one. voting for such an ill thought out war by validating through the appropriations process two hundred million dollars to continue down this path.

As someone who's tried to find places to reach out to Republicans, I I talked about this with Tim Miller from the Bulwark. Trump is in terrible political territory. This war is uh was a a war of choice that we should never have pursued. Gas prices are through the roof. Most of the countries against this. We should be on offense, and that includes trying to talk to Republicans, whether it's

in the House to to try to get as big of a coalition together that opposes uh the war, funding the war, supporting the war. Are are you talking to are re is there a conversation between Democrats and Republicans about making sure that that

That there isn't a supplemental that gets through because they don't have a lot of margin and and a bunch of Republicans have expressed, if not outright opposition, skepticism. Aaron Powell Yes, there are absolutely conversations going on. There are conversations routinely. I was on the bipartisan bicameral delegation that went to Denmark during the height of the Greenland crisis. We came back and the first thing many of us did is we went to our Republican colleagues.

I I think in that instance, as is the case in in many instances, we do find opposition to this president among our Republican colleagues, but either a hesitation to push back publicly for fear of the political ramifications or a hope that the situation will resolve itself by the president's own actions. I mean I think they they will often say to us, he'll stand down, he'll pull back, it's rhetoric, it's bluster. Um But when you're talking about war.

when you're talking about a president as unhinged and divorced from the reality of what's going on as he is, uh a president who cannot handle things going well and respond rationally. It's incredibly dangerous and irresponsible for any Republican who does oppose this war to not.

meet that belief with any kind of public action or even rhetoric. I will say too, to your point, this is a moment where I think we have to reinforce that if you are a Republican voter and you are watching what's going on and you don't like what you are seeing if you are a Republican voter who voted for this president because you thought, well, the Democrats talked a lot about democracy and we survived his first term and prices were lower and you feel like he has broken

either one or both of those sort of promises that democracy will be fine and costs would be would be lower. If you feel like he's broken his promises, welcome to our coalition, welcome to our cause. You don't have to agree with us on a hundred percent of things, but join us to stop forever wars and to bring down cost.

So uh I wanted to talk to you about the ways in which you've been working with Republicans in the House. You know, in December The House passed that Marjorie Taylor Green bill that was her swan song criminalizing certain kinds of medical treatment for trans minors. The vote was along party lines, except y you were part of an effort to get four Republicans to join you in voting no, which they did. Uh one Republican who opposed the bill, Brian Fitz Fitzpatrick, said

The same theory could be used to say that if parents don't vaccinate their kids, they could be committing a crime. So the parent-child relationship, doctor-physician relationship, we have to always presume that these are sacred. It it feels like that is the strong that argument of just freedom. Freedom between, you know, parents to to make decisions about their families, for for doctors to be able to provide what care they think is best is our strongest argument.

But at times it also seems like Let's say when the Supreme Court rules that parents have a right to be notified if their kid socially transitions or If a law in Colorado providing conversion therapy violates, uh potentially violates the First Amendment. I think liberals. In part because they don't trust this court, their first reaction is to go to the outcome of that, which are policies we might not necessarily agree with.

Uh but is there value in simply saying when the court is doing these kinds of things, it's actually standing up for a principle we believe in, even if it's applied in a way where we don't like the outcome? Absolutely. I mean I think in this moment with the stakes as high as they are, not just for trans people, but in in so many instances.

Um one, we have to recognize the way well intended policies or rhetoric that we have done in the past could be used against us in the future. I think the last year and a half. have brought that possibility into stark relief for us. And I think it's something that we have to be mindful of moving forward.

But what do you mean by that? I I mean I I do think that there is something to be said for it's harder to say government shouldn't interfere with the healthcare decisions of a parent and their child when there was a spate of efforts to ban what is bad abusive quite frankly, healthcare in the form of conversion therapy. Um

that that's that's being used as a precedent here. And I think that I'm not saying that I don't think those bills or ideas are are wrong, but I do think we have to be cognizant of how the right can coopt precedent in order to do really harmful things on a wide scale. And I think we do have to keep the main thing the main thing in the fight for equality for LGBTQ people. I think there was a after marriage, there was sort of a search for

what's the n what more can we do, what more can we do, what more can we do? And there was a lot of basic necessities that we had not actually protected for portions of our community, including the trans community. And I think that we are seeing that sort of chasing of the next best idea on gay rights m maybe resulted in us k taking our eye off the ball for for trans people to some degree. Um But I also think that that

Sometimes freedom means sometimes democracy means that people make choices that we don't like. Families make choices that we don't like. And I think right now in this moment we have to be clear that The best place for decisions to be made around the healthcare of a child is between the parent. the child and their provider. And that is not always going to result in parents making the decisions that we would make for our own children.

But it also means d government doesn't get to come in to those individual decisions and stop parents from making decisions that we believe are in the best interest of their child. And so I I I do think that we have to be firm in that conviction and that means taking some of the not so good with the the good. Yeah. Well it's it's

uh uh sort of right wing activists and like really press them, right? I think they there is a sincere belief that the L that that not even just on uh LGBT issues or trans issues, but across the board that what liberals had argued for was something about freedom and access, but actually became rules that everybody had to live by or else. And let me just be clear. Again, I'm not saying that conversion therapy bans are bad. I just I do think that we should be cognizant.

of precedents that are established that can be used against us when we are in power, just to be clear too. Right, no of course. And by the way, like you know, w uh uh conversion therapy as sort of free speech versus medical care that we are allowed to regulate, there are like technical and important distinctions to be made between

sort of freedom of speech and what medical what a medical provider can can can offer. Like th those are distinctions to be made. But just a couple of years And and there's a difference between using I mean there were some FTC ideas that people were pushing in the Biden administr or people were thinking about in the Biden administration as it relates to conversion therapy.

that the right is now trying to use around gender-affirming care. So I mean there's just there's also the way you go about it and the way you do it. And that also makes a difference in terms of precedent too. Aaron Powell Right. Well like in the case of California, uh Both the right-wing judges and the liberal justice judges seem to acknowledge that parents have some rights.

But uh children should be protected from harm and from abuse. But the law in California was written as if the Supreme Court didn't really exist and certainly wasn't right wing. And Uh like I I can't tell if what we're talking about here is an effort just to save some ground because we're under attack from right wing judges, or are we trying to assert a principle?

I I I think it's I th I think it's a a principle. I mean I think I think Look, there are strategies, tactics, policies that I might have thought were great ideas ten years ago and over time I've since evolved on or learned, well, it's a well intended policy, but it could have it could lay the precedent or the foundation for this kind of policy that I don't like. Um and I I think that that the politics of backlash that we're experiencing right now I think should

sober all of us to that potential, to that risk. And it doesn't mean changing your positions all the time, it does mean one, being more cognizant of of that. And and I do think that that's a principle, right? I mean I think there are a lot of things in a liberal democratic society that

some people on our side would want to forbid, but if you forbid it in this context, it means that they can forbid it in that context. And I and I just think that there is a a return to an understanding and appreciation of freedom and that means taking the good with the bad that

I think all of us have learned some hard lessons on over the last couple of years. Um, but I think was an understandable and well intended um approach a decade ago that was in part a byproduct of sort of Perhaps an arrogance or or a sense sense of unending cultural momentum that we didn't have to grapple.

with that messiness of liberal democracy and freedom that we could across different issues sort of tamped down different approaches because we didn't like them, when I think that that's one perhaps a violation of the principle of freedom, but two, I think just counterproductive in a modern digital society where you can't suppress

differing thought and approaches as much as you may disagree with them and often seeking to suppress them only makes them more attractive and only gives some degree of credibility among people that maybe there's a truth. in them because you're trying to suppress it. And I think all of us would do well on our side to learn both of those lessons, both the practical and the principled lesson of the last couple of years. I wanna ask you about the Democratic Party and

What we are trying to do now to signal to people in the midterms and beyond that we're not just a a party that opposes Trump, but we have a real kind of mission around the kind of economy we want to build. Specifically, there's been a series of proposals. I talked to Senator Corey Booker last week about one that he introduced. Senator uh Chris Van Hellen has another. Katie Porter here in California has one that's about kind of just basically raising the standard deduction, getting income tax.

Off of as many people's plates as possible because the economy is so stacked against working people. And I'm wondering what your I feel like you have thoughts about. I have no doubt that those proposals poll well, and I have no doubt that there are people who would benefit from a change to the standard deduction or a holistic change to the tax code. And and I do think that we should make our tax system fairer and and more progressive.

I think that as a matter of both principle and frankly pr practicality. that we do better by creating solutions that actually solve the source of the problem that families are facing. I think out of principle, one, we should address the problem, right? We should address the the housing shortage and the cost of housing that is a byproduct of that. We should make sure that people have access

to childcare that is capped at ten or fifteen dollars a day. We should have a higher minimum wage in this country nationwide. We should have paid family and medical leave nationwide. And I think that those are the right solutions. One, because I think they change the structures of our economy that even if we change the tax code.

The pre-existing inequities in our economic structures will persist and will be so poor that they will still find ways to create inequities, even if you change the tax code. And so I think one, you need to solve the problem as a matter of principle. Two, as a matter of principle, I do think that making sure that all of us feel a sense of buy in, that all of us feel a sense of ownership in our society, in the policies of government is a good thing.

But then from a practical standpoint, even if in the short term the Tax changes that people have been proposing pull really well. I just don't think people remember that. two, three, four years after, right? People don't remember I'm not saying we shouldn't do a tax cut, but people don't remember Who created the standard deduction at thirty thousand, right? They do remember who created social security and Medicare and Medicaid.

Who created the Affordable Care Act? When there is a tangible policy, a program that people are interacting with, that's not just good politics on the front end. I think it's better politics. In the long term as well, because people will see our party as the party that's not just lowering costs, not just making the American dream more affordable and accessible for them. They'll know

when they access that ten to fifteen dollar childcare. They'll know when they take paid family and medical leave. They'll know when they're able to buy into Medicare. that individual action was made possible by Democrats. On the other side of this, we have Donald Trump. He said this. last week at the end of last week that seemed like quite a um uh revelation here. The United States can't take care of daycare. That has to be up to a state.

We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We've got fifty states. We have all these other people. We're fighting wars. We can't take care of daycare. You gotta let a state take care of daycare and they should pay for it too. They should pay. They have to raise their taxes. But they should pay for it. And we could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up for but we it's not possible for us to take care of daycare.

Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal we have to take care of one thing, military protection. We have to guard the country. So Trump just put out his twenty twenty-seven budget. It has a massive boost to military spending, ten percent cuts to uh domestic policies like public health and scientific research, housing education. He also uh has

uh proposed three hundred seventy seven million dollars this year for a White House renovation and a hundred seventy four million for next year. I I can't think of worse politics than cutting social spending to fund the war and do a a gut reno. How do Democrats make the most of this? And do Republicans understand how bad the politics of this is? I mean y you'll have to ask them as to whether they understand how bad the politics are. I I mean d Donald Trump

It's no it's it's it's no wonder that the White House deleted that video. Um when I I saw it, I immediately pushed it out. I mean, that should be part of our ads and our message in the midterms. And he's just saying the the quiet part out loud. I mean, everyone knows from the policies of the last year and a half that this was the Republican agenda. That the Republican agenda was a massive increase in spending for forever wars and massive tax breaks for Donald Trump's wealthy donors.

And everyone else has to pay the price in cuts to health care or in the failure of the federal government to address the very issues you and I were just talking about, like child care. I I I mean There is always money, it seems, from Republicans to cut taxes for the wealthiest and to invade other countries. And yet they clutch their pearls. when a Democrat proposes paid family medical leave or universal child care paid for, mind you, not even adding to the deficit.

by making the tax system fairer and increasing taxes on the wealthiest. So I I think we not only should be elevating that message, but we also have to have a very clear agenda that runs contrary to that. It's why I think Whether it's a fifteen or twenty dollar minimum wage nationwide, universal childcare, paid family medical leave. I think that should be at the heart of our agenda because I know

how much it meets the needs of my constituents. I know how popular it was in Delaware when we passed many of those policies during my time in the state senate. And I know how necessary it is for our nation to compete globally. I mean, there is a reason why every other industrialized nation has past paid family medical leave and provides meaningful support for families who are trying to send their kid to child care.

It's because they know it's not just compassionate policy, but competitive policy. We have a 1950s care infrastructure for a 2026 workforce. And if we're going to tap the potential and skills of everyone, no matter their gender or family situation, We need to have policies that allow them to start a family, to have kids, to fulfill their obligations to their own health and to their family without having to sacrifice their job or their income.

It's a good place to leave it. Congressman Sarah McBride, thank you so much. And you were telling me before we started that um you're you're training uh uh in the breaststroke for the twenty twenty eight Olympics. Yes, yes. I'm I'm I'm

A little controversial, but I think it'll be exciting. I'm I I want to be the face of trans participation in sports because I know you'll sink like a stone. Exactly. I always say if you want to prove trans women don't have a competitive advantage in sports, throw me in. But you know what I'm really focused, my daughter. What are you focused on? I'm focused on recruiting you uh for traders. Oh I yes. I would look

I think if you think that I perform poorly on Survivor, boy, Survivor with food, I could probably only do better. I I mean I think you'll be like a season four Dorinda, not a season three Dorinda. You'll make it about halfway. You should pick John Lovett for the next

Season of Traders, celebrity or non celebrity. They can pick. Right. Yeah. No, I see why and I and I appreciate that. And I appreciate that. So I'm I'm leading that effort right now. Wow. And that means the world to me because you know what? You build coalitions, you can get things done, you know, defy expectations. Uh and uh that's that's why we love talking to you. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me.

That's our show for today. Thanks to Sarah McBride for coming on. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. If you want to listen to PodSave America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to Cricket.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review. That helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket.

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