Breaking News from Pod Save America - Republicans TURN ON Trump Over Reckless War Spending

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

Republicans TURN ON Trump Over War Spending Trump faces backlash from MAGA and Republicans over his $200 billion war request. Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor break down the growing divide between Trump and Republicans. CHECK OUT OUR SPONSOR: ZIP RECRUITER - http://ziprecruiter.com/CROOKED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, John, we're about three weeks into this war. The entire world is trying to figure out how the war in Iran ends, when it's going to end, if it'll end. Unfortunately, Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu, and the Iranian regime all seem hell-bent on escalating, not ending the war. There's a lot of evidence for that. We've got the White House requesting $200 billion from Congress to fund the war. Crazy. And then there are these comments today from Netanyahu about sending ground troops into Iran.

What conditions for Israel need to be satisfied for you to recognize? a transitional leader, formerly recognize, a new leadership in Iran? No, you want a transitional leader that will have a transition. You don't want to replace one Ayatollah with another. You don't want to replace Hitler with Himmler. So I think the question is, will the conditions be created for such a change? I think it's too early to say. And I think in the final account, as I said, it's up to the Iranian people to show that

to choose the moment and to rise to the moment. We can create the conditions, but they have to explode those conditions at a certain point. It is often said that you can't win, you can't do revolutions from the air. That is true. You can't do it only from there. You can do a lot of things from the air and we're doing, but there has to be a ground component as well. There are many possibilities for this ground component and I take the liberty of not sharing

with you all those possibilities. I think there is almost no chance to Netanyahu. ends the war without launching some sort of mission into Iran to capture and remove the highly enriched uranium. But those comments made it sound like he was thinking about a ground invasion in the context of regime change. And the question is, is the U.S. going to get, be a part of that? I mean, also, what the hell is he talking about? He's actually sounds crazier than Trump there because he's like, oh, well, we're creating the conditions on the ground for potential revolution. It's like, no, what conditions are you creating that the Iranian people would rise up when

you continue to just, like, bomb them nonstop? The irony here is where he's doing exactly the opposite of what he's saying. Like the conditions existed before the war. Back in December and January, there were massive protests against the current regime. That led to a giant crackdown by the government, by the IHGC, by the Basij militia, this sort of paramilitary force. But since that time, the Israelis have killed the Supreme Leader, who was 86 years old and pretty close to death, you know, judging by an actuarial table.

And now we've replaced him with his son, who is even more hard line, but decades younger. So I'm not sure how that gets you closer to a good regime. Well, and he's doing the Iranian people need to rise up. It's up to them. But, like, as I never thought I'd say this, as Donald Trump said, like, they don't have the guns. They don't have any guns. And the IRGC has all the guns. So there's no organized opposition groups right now.

And the whole country's in disarray because they're getting bombed constantly, which means, which, you know, goes to, and you see this reporting too. It doesn't seem like Netanyahu or a lot of Israeli officials really care, whether there's a more democratic government or whether Iran is in complete chaos in a failed state, they'd probably rather there be a stable democratic government. But if there's not, they don't really care. They just want to kill the people that they can in the regime. Yeah, I think, ironically, this war has hardened the resolve of the people left in the regime. There's like 20% of the country really supports the Iranian regime.

20% despises them. The rest of the people just want to be left alone and live and have economic opportunity. I think there was some hope that were the Supreme Leader to die and there was a leadership transition, the folks who just wanted better economic opportunity would unite with the 20% that despise the regime to push for something new and better. But now it seems like there is a chance that everyone will rally around the flag and this will become about regime survival and things will just get worse. And then the question still remains like, is the U.S. going to get pulled into a ground operation in Iran? I mean, there's a Reuters report today, Friday morning, that the U.S. military is deploying thousands of additional Marines and sailors to the Middle East. It's according to three sources, talk to Reuters.

There was a senior official who told Axios, quote, we've always had boots on the ground in conflicts under every president, including Trump. I know this is a fixation in the media, and I get the politics, but the president is going to do what's right. That sounds like a man preparing to send U.S. troops into Iran. Yeah, Dan and I were talking about this yesterday. on Ponce of America, which is like, they're trying to find a loophole here where it's like, well, if it's Karg Island, it's not technically ground troops or ground invasion.

Of course it is. You know, it's ground, but it's surrounded by water. So it's not really, we're just taking the shoreline. We're not going into the interior of the country. So they're already trying, this is why you think, I mean, I imagine he's probably wanting to do this. Like, this is why he's sending all these Marines there. Yeah.

He thinks he could take the island or thinks he could take the coastlines. Yeah, look, I think Trump knows that he is in a really bad situation because the Iranians have shown that they can close and keep closed this trade of Hormuz. And some Saudi officials today told the Wall Street Journal that oil prices could go above $180 a barrel if the straight is closed through April. So Trump is desperate to figure out how to fix this problem. Now, on Twitter, he's lashing out and he's attacking NATO. But NATO's not really going to help solve the problem. The Belgians don't have a lot of minesweeper boats so we can borrow. Well, also, the idea that they're going to take Carg Island and then you're going to.

use it now as a bargaining chip with the Iranians. Like, what if the Iranians just say, like, you can be on Karg Island if you want, but we're going to continue. Like, I get that the thinking is that the Iranians would want Karg Island back because otherwise they wouldn't be able to export any of their oil, but it seems like they're already finding alternatives to getting their oil to market without Kargai Island. They're just going to lash out. Yeah, I'm not totally sure, like, how what they would do were the Kargai Island seized. It seems like Trump and the military is viewing and Carg Island is sort of the lynch pin or like the launching point for their defensive positions. Because Trump, like, read an article about it in the 80s.

It's literally what happens. But like, you know, look, in the meantime, one under-discussed piece of this is that really poor countries are getting hit the hardest and earliest. Like, there's some reporting today. All these countries in Southeast Asia are running out of gas. Prices are through the roof. Fishermen in places like Thailand or the Philippines, they just can't go out because they can't afford to run their boats. In Laos, 40% of gas stations had to close because the fuel, no fertilizer, was getting through the straight of poor mood.

So per usual, people in the global south, the poorest countries are going to starve to death and suffer the most in the near term. Also, this press conference, we just watched from Netanyahu was funny. He had to start by telling everyone that he was still alive because there's been all these internet rumors that he died in an air strike where that. It was totally baseless. I hadn't heard this until last weekend. My in-laws were in town and my father and I was like, did you hear these rumors online that

Netanyahu is dead or something? I was like, what? And then I started looking. I'm like, what is this? Yeah. And we can get into the. details if you want but you know you know this press conference went well because Netanyahu later tweeted let me be clear I did not denigrate Jesus Christ at my news conference

of this evening yeah he talked about how like you know Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan and people thought that meant that meant he was rooting for Genghis Khan and he he wasn't he was quoting Will Durant but it's still an incredibly dark view of the world which is basically that the universe doesn't really care between good or evil and so you just have to stand up to people like Iran and just be stronger and more powerful than them. It is a it's a survival of the fittest attitude that might makes right that the only thing that matters is power and strength in the world. It is exactly what we hear from Stephen Miller and some of

the people in the Trump administration and when you're fighting a war instead of saying like we are we are just and just cause will prevail and you're just saying well the universe doesn't really care between good and evil then you're going to end up in a cycle of escalation like B.B. Netanyahu has been for many many years now. Yeah I mean look you can do this you know You can have this worldview where you describe this sort of Hobbesian reality that we, us plebs, we don't get it. But in practice, man, you're just, you're killing a lot of innocent people right now. And like, I don't want to hear this bullshit.

And you probably shouldn't invoke Jesus Christ if you don't want to offend a lot of people. Well, and it's like, it's like, you can't find that in, that idea in Judaism, in Christianity, and Islam and none of the major religions is the idea that like, no, you just got to be really strong and kill people. And that's the only way to survive. And John, you know who else who will not denigrate Jesus Christ at a news conference? POTSave America. please subscribe to Potta of America here on YouTube. There's so much right-wing crap and pro-war propaganda on YouTube.

When you subscribe to Potta of America, you help us get good information into the YouTube algorithm. You help more people find the show and you help us displace Fox News and Ben Shapiro and all this bullshit. So thank you. The politics of sending ground troops into Iran are awful for Donald Trump. There was a Reuters poll out yesterday that found 7% of voters supported putting boots on the ground in Iran. I'm pretty sure all Democrats oppose, even the squishy ones. Nancy Mace, I saw just tweeted, that she opposes U.S. troops to Iran. And then we saw these comments from Lauren Bobert, congresswoman from Colorado that caught our attention.

Let's watch. I will not vote for a war supplemental. No, I am a no. I have already told leadership. I am a no on any war supplementals. I am so tired of spending money elsewhere. I am tired of the industrial war complex getting all of our hard-earned tax dollars. I have folks in Colorado who can't afford to live.

We need America-first policies right now. and that I'm not doing that. Yes, Lauren Bobert. Go Lauren Bobert. I mean, first of all, like, I don't know her. I don't want to, like, do be theater critic here. That seems like a person who's actually very angry and passionate about the position she's taking. This is not like a calculation.

She's like, fuck no. $200 billion for war? Honestly, because a lot of these representatives, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, when you represent districts and states where there's a lot of people who are struggling, working class people who are struggling, as they have been for the last several years, because of high prices and now high gas prices. and now high gas prices on top of it and also losing their health care

because they fucking cut Medicaid and she voted for that. Yeah, people are going to be angry. And now you're asking for $200 billion for a war that doesn't seem to be getting us anything. It's great. The initial reports on this supplemental request were that it might be $50 billion.

Then it ballooned to $200 billion. And then you have Pete Heggs out there saying, well, that's a moving target. It could change, which suggests it could go up again. And this could be the first of many requests. But we're talking about a number, $200 billion, that is larger than the amount, the aggregate amount of spending Joe Biden did in Ukraine, which Republicans were super mad about, which makes you ask a lot of questions. How long are we talking about here? Right.

Because this is like more than like a year's outlay for the war in Iraq back in the day. Like, why do you need $200 billion? They're going to, I was going through in my head, like, what their arguments are going to be. And they'll probably say this isn't, this is mostly backfilling munitions. Yes, and this isn't about this war. This is about the wars that we've already fought, making sure that we're prepared in the future. So if we get attacked, we defense. This is all about our defense.

It's not about, that's what their messaging will be, and it'll be complete bullshit because they had a, you know, a trillion dollar Pentagon budget under Donald Trump. They have a trillion dollar Pentagon budget, but also, yes, there will be a cost to replacing these munitions. But the challenge is not going to be the money. It's the capacity to make them. We do not have, like, there's a 30. 37, there's a, one of the best, like, missile defense interceptor systems is called the FAD system. 37 interceptor missiles are slated for delivery in 2027. That's six years after they were ordered. So that's how long it takes to make these things. And we are just firing them off constantly.

We fired them off during the 12-day war. We lot, like, a quarter of our stockpile of, like, Patriot missile interceptors, I think. Now we're filing off a ton more. Like, no one really knows what the stockpile is, because obviously that's a classified detail because you don't want your enemy to know, like, when you're going to run. run out. But we're running out of interceptors. The Israelis are running out of interceptors. The Gulf countries are running out of interceptors. The Ukrainians gave up on us giving them interceptor missiles a long time ago. So they created these new drone technologies to take out missiles and drones. But like, again, they can ask for $200 billion. It's not going to solve the fucking problem. Yeah. Well, sick people in this country are going bankrupt, but I want to, I want my tax dollars to go to more interceptor missiles. Yeah. Like, again, like this is the easiest

vote in the history of votes. Like the American people absolutely do not want to spend a $200 billion to drop on people in Iran. No, period, paragraph. Pod Save America Breaking News is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. What's the latest trend in hiring? It's skill-based hiring, which emphasizes capabilities over education and direct experience.

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Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. Finally, John, it's just, it's worth hammering home what a betrayal this decision was to go to war in Iran with big parts of the Trump base. We've talked about some of the bigger names in the MAGA world, like the Tucker Carlson's and Megan Kelly, et cetera. But I wanted to play this clip from Sean Ryan. He is not a political guy. He's a former Navy SEAL who now hosts a podcast. It's usually about like veterans affairs and military stuff. He had Trump on his show.

He endorsed Trump. And now he really, really regrets it. Get Gavin on. Yeah, he had Gavin Newsom on pretty recently. He's an absolutely fascinating guy. Definitely leans like pretty hard, right? But this is what he's now saying about Trump. Here's what they said on the campaign trail.

Trump advisor, Stephen Miller on X. Liz Cheney is Kamala's top advisor. Liz wants to invade the whole Middle East. Kamala equals World War III. Trump equals peace. Tulsi Gabbard, October 28, 2024. A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for Dick Cheney in a vote for war. War and more war. A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to end wars, not start them.

Miller also wrote, Kamala will send your sons to war, J.D. Vance, 2023, on the Wall Street Journal. Trump's best foreign policy? Not starting any wars. He has my support because I know he won't recklessly send Americans to fight wars overseas. The Republican National Committee promoted Trump Vance is the pro-peace ticket. Trump on October 30th, 2024. They're all war, warhawks when they're sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, in quote, oh, gee, let's send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy. Pete Hegseth, December 2025 speech, our department will not be distracted by democracy-building interventionism.

Undefined wars in regime change. Every single one of these things is a complete lie. Don't forget, during the Biden administration, Trump said, this president is going to drive us into war because he doesn't know how to negotiate. Well, here we are. Here we are. The entire world is worried that we're going to go into World War III here. For good reason.

I think there's like a crowd that's like young men and Joe Rogan types who aren't necessarily like politically obsessed and voting every midterm cycle who are now completely disenchanted with the entire system. And I think that it's like, you know, who are you going to believe me or your lying eyes? like Trump is trying to do the peace through strength thing and I actually ended all these wars and he's always lying in it. It just doesn't work because when you're watching the bombs drop and you're seeing the headlines and you're watching the scenes of war on television, like the bullshit that he's spouting just doesn't actually get through and people are not fucking dumb. They don't, you can blame a lot of those people who supported Trump last time for not paying close attention to politics for their whole lives, but they're not stupid. Yeah, I think this is like such an important point, which is he is the ultimate like fake it till you make it talk.

into reality marketing guy. Like, is this the greatest golf course we've ever seen? We've got the hottest economy ever. And like, to a shocking extent, that works, especially economics stuff, right? Because you can watch people's views of the economy just like flip based on who's in charge. Though even there, I would say he's not. Right. He's struggling there.

But we've seen it work for him. With this, when he goes out to the microphone and he says, we're winning, the war is basically over. And then people turn on the TV and they see like the biggest gas field and Qatar in flames. He looks like an insane person. This is why I think the polling is just going to get worse. I think that the polling hasn't scratched it. Like, I think it's going to be a lagging indicator on this. Yeah, listen, I am loathe to predict because we have not historically been very good at it.

But, like, I feel like this is the beginning of the end of this man's presidency. Like, he has done something. He's started something that he cannot fix. He cannot solve this problem. He cannot end this war tomorrow because as we saw there, Netanyahu is not going to end it. And the Iranians, they're going to try to just exact as much pain from the entire region as they can to make sure this never happens again. And Donald Trump is just in a fucking box here and people are furious. And in worse shape is the Republicans who are running on the ticket in the midterms.

Because the midterms are coming soon. And they're going to have to be answered to voters. Yeah, that is not good for them. Well, that's it for us today. Thank you for watching this episode of Pod Save America here on YouTube. Please subscribe to Pod Save America on YouTube. It means a lot to us.