Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump Looks DEEPLY UNWELL In DISASTER Press Conference

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

Trump says the ceasefire is over. What's really going on with Mitch McConnell? And what comes next in the Maine Senate race? Tommy Vietor and Dan Pfeiffer break down the latest breaking news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Here's President Trump speaking earlier today. Two months ago, we had 100, I told the story yesterday, we had 111 missile shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan. Pearl Harbor 2.0, Dan, but I guess this time Japan is a Muslim country. I don't know what to make of that one. I do know what to make a bit. Japan is taking the loss to Brazil in the run of 302 quite hard, I guess. Yeah, it was a tough, tough World Cup. for Japan. Obviously, we're not actually at war with Japan. Our president is just an idiot and doesn't

know how to talk. However, the U.S. and Iran have been exchanging fire over the last 24 hours, and it seems like what is left of the ceasefire deal between the U.S. and Iran is falling apart as we speak. So here's the sequence of events. On Tuesday, Iran fired at three commercial vessels near the Strait of Hormuz. They hit a Qatari-liquified natural gas tanker. I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be less when I get hit with an airstrike than a L. NG tanker. In response, the Pentagon said it bombed more than 80 Iranian sites near the Strait of Hormuz and the Treasury Department revoked a temporary license allowing Iran to sell oil and gas, remember that was a key part of that 14-point ceasefire agreement. Then on Wednesday, Iranian state media reported that Iran fired at 85 U.S. military targets in the region, including in Bahrain and Kuwait.

So wonderful. By the way, if you guys want to listen to a podcast that will never confuse Iran and Japan, Please subscribe to POTA of America here on YouTube. We are trying to build a progressive counterweight to all the right wing crap from Fox News and others that you find on YouTube. When you subscribe to POTSafe America, you help us get good information into the YouTube algorithm and reach more people. And so please, it's free. Here's President Trump talking about Iran with NATO reporters at NATO. Is the ceasefire over? Is the ceasefire done?

Is the MOU dead? It's a very interesting question. To me, I think it's over. I don't want to deal with them anymore. They're scum. You know what scum is? They're scum. They're sick people.

They're led by sick people. And they're vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they'd use it. As far as I'm concerned, it's over. Dan, feels pretty ominous, no? Yeah, I'm glad I have you here, because I've got a lot of questions about this. Sure.

Do you have more interest than I do? But I saw this clip this morning, and I've seen the cover since then. And I know we sort of decided that we don't take, which is like we as a collective political body don't take what Trump says seriously. But he did, I mean, especially the United States declaring the ceasefire over. It seems like a big deal. It does seem like a big deal. I mean, I saw oil, I think Brent crude or one of the oils is up like 5%.

So the markets are reacting to this one. For a while, they didn't really react to anything he said because they assumed he just wanted to end the war at all costs. But this time, their ears are perking up. Why did Iran shoot at these ships? So I assume that what this was is Iran, they're trying to assert control over the Strait of Hamos. That entails charging fees on ships that transit the strait. But also, they are seemingly firing its ships that transit the strait through a passage that goes closer to the Omani coast. I think the ships were in Omani territorial waters.

And they're trying to dictate that all ships that go through the strait go through. their designated channel. So they clearly feel emboldened and they are more willing to test Trump and do things that they know will piss him off and get a response. And I think the question is, what is Trump's appetite for a renewed conflict and how worried do you think he is about oil and gas prices going up as we get closer and closer to the midterms? I mean, he should be quite worried about it. I mean, he has no short-term strategy, no medium-term strategy, so no long-term strategy. It seems a little bit like the Iranians have concluded that Trump has no appetite for conflict because he cares about gas prices. Will he ultimately care about it when the time comes?

He doesn't seem to care a lot of other things that would have impacted the midterm. So I don't, it all seems quite bad. Yeah. So the IMF had a report out today. They are projecting the global economic growth will go from 3.5% in 2025 to 3% this year, which is a pretty steep drop. They also projected inflation will rise to 4.7% in 2026 from 4.1% in 2025 because of higher commodity prices, a lot of it, oil and gas. So the impact of the closure of the strait was not spread equally. Like in the U.S., we all had to pay higher gas prices, but in terms of like the macro economy that was offset by other stuff, you know, like data center expansion, you know, AI, etc. But countries like India and China, they took a big hit on their GDP. And so the reopening

of the strait was hopefully going to ease those economic problems. It was hopefully, going to prevent a really bad global famine because fertilizer couldn't get through the Strait Hormuz and, you know, you know, track, people couldn't run tractors with diesel in parts of Africa. But now it's like, I don't know. No one knows. And I think the challenge here is like, again, the Strait of Hamoos is not like a, it's on a nozzle you turn on and off. It's shipping companies deciding whether they are going to send like a $150 million

dollar tanker back into this body of water and risk it getting shot at and, you know, sunk, the worst case, but also just like stuck there again. Like, you had ships that got stuck in the Strait of Homoos for like 100 days. And that's a huge economic hit to these shipping companies. So it wasn't all around at the summit, Dan. There was some good news for Ukraine. Trump reportedly told Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine that the United States is going to let the Ukrainians, manufacturer, Patriot Air Defense systems to protect them from.

missile strikes. Here's a quote I want to read to you. Where does this rank on the empathy meter for Mr. Trump? This way you can't complain that we're not giving them enough, he said. Who's the, who's the you in this? I think Zelensky. Yeah. He's telling the Ukrainians. Yeah, I know he's telling the Ukrainians. You've got to stop bitching because, you know, the brussels are firing hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at them every week. I mean, it is bad. It's a bad thing to say. It betrays a lack of empathy. On the scale of things Trump could have said, in a meeting with Zelensky, it's like pretty low in the list of bad. Yeah.

He's doing the, he's doing a good thing but being a dick about it, which is better than being a dick about doing the wrong thing, which happened when they were in D.C. So you know what? I'm going to take that half glass full. I appreciate that. All right, let's pivot to some domestic items. So there's been all these rumors swirling about the health of Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell.

We know that McConnell was admitted to a hospital on June 14th, but his office won't say why. Oddly, his wife, Elaine Chow, was on. a trip to China when this occurred and didn't come back early. Dan, have you seen these photos of her over there just like taking these meetings? I have. It's so weird. So right wing nut, Laura Lumer tweeted that McConnell is brain dead. Obviously, like Lumer is a horrible person. She's not at all trustworthy, but she's close to Donald Trump and close to the White House, so we have to take her claim seriously. She says McConnell was found unconscious. He was in cardiac arrest. He was

resuscitated. That would be a big deal for an 84-year-old man who is very frail. So to the politics of this. Under Kentucky law, there's a Senate vacancy before August 3rd. The state would have to hold a special election to fill the seat. I think, Dan, that the Kentucky Republicans are worried about, like, Thomas Massey winning this seat. Well, as I read it, there, the party gets to decide how they pick their nominees. And I think they can do it by convention, right? They're not going to hold a primary, which Massey could theoretically win a primary. So I've heard different theories on this. I mean, obviously, like, they stripped, Kentucky Republicans, to this power away from the governor, right?

Because they didn't want Andy Bashir to be able to name a replacement. I had thought that there would have to be a special election if it happened before August 3rd. Maybe they can change that, though. I mean, this is up to them, right? But even if they had the special election, the question is, who gets to be on the ballot? And the Republicans and the Democrats get to pick their nominees and they will do that not through a primary. So Massey could, I guess, run as an independent.

I don't know that they know what ballot access is, but he couldn't be the Republican. The Republican Party of Kentucky would ensure through whatever process they adopt that Massey can't be their nominee is what I understand. But it seems like these laws were not written with a lot of detail. Yeah. Clearly they're worried about shenanigans, for lack of a better word, and Thomas Masty messing with them because I sure he's probably in a mood to mess with the Republican Party right now. But this would only be to be Senator till the end of, until January, because there's another election happening now. for McConnell's seat. Yes, McConnell's political career is over at the end of this year either way.

I think there's just some questions about whether he's going to make it to the finish line there. So there's all these, like, rumors swirling. And then out of the blue this week, we had a bunch of people, like, tweet us some update. So we had CNN, you know, like professional asshole, Scott Jennings, Senator John Thune, Senator John Barrasso, all tweet. like I think within five minutes of each other that they had just spoken to Mitch McConnell for 20 minutes, very specific. I think Jennings suggested they had talked about Iran, NATO,

and the main Senate race, which is like, I don't know. If I had a friend who was in the hospital for like two months, would you call them and be like, what do you make of like what's happening in Ankara? Is that friend John Favro? I probably wouldn't call him. He'll talk about the main Senate race.

I don't think John would like to talk about either of those things at the moment. Maybe Ben, if Ben was in the hospital, I could call him about, like an encore. So either way, this next clip will give you a sense of the kind of range of reaction with the Republican Party. So we got Marjorie Taylor Green and then Scott Jennings himself. Shame on the Republican Party for just basically staying silent while such a powerful Republican Senator is basically laying in a hospital like a vegetable. And his wife flew to China and met with the vice president of China just days after he basically died and they brought him back

with CPR and took him to the hospital. I think it's a fair question about transparency. I think it's a fair question about whether they've done enough. But ultimately, these office holders, you know, they're in charge of their own operations. And, you know, it may be somebody around him says, let's put out a picture and he doesn't want to do it. I think, I think that's a fair observation from Al.

But all I can tell you today is all the rumors about him being dead or brain dead or, you know, being his body's being hidden somewhere. I've seen all kinds of crazy things on the internet. That's obviously not true because he picked up the phone and called me, and that was a good thing. Dan, does there exist technology where one could take a visual presentation of this phone call or an image of Mitch McConnell and then put it on the internet or something so we could see him? Yeah, you know, I guess they could use a phone, which would do that. That's an option. Like, look, the secret call, like, I'm assuming, I don't know whether he called Scott Jennings or not.

it seems like a big sort of a crazy bold face lie if Mitchell kind of really is brain dead like Larimer said that like that would blow up in his face. I assume he's calling people. The fact that there is no picture of him like somewhere says like what he must look like or where he is or, you know, or did the whole situation. Like they made a decision that photo evidence would not help their case. And I think that says something. Yeah. I mean, on the Jennings piece, I mean, the tweet was so weirdly specific. All of these tweets saying it was like 20 minutes. They did it like it was a head of state readout.

It's like we touched on the following policy areas. I'm sure. Did you see all the people tweeting the like it became a meme? Mitch McConnell called me. Like Massey did it and went through like Mitch McConnell. They said like all this is Mitch McConnell not before. Hassan Piker didn't say Mitch McConnell called me and we had phone sex. Yes, I did see that.

And that's why we should campaign. with him. I'm sure Scott Jennings was just as generous about all the conversations about Joe Biden's health and fitness for office, right? It is, Dan, it's really interesting, like, watching Marjorie Taylor Green there. It's a reminder how much the kind of nagabase of the party hates Mitch McConnell, despite him doing Trump's bidding for years and years and years now. Well, they've never really liked him, but obviously what happened after January 6 when he let it be known that he was considering. voting to convict Trump sort of became like a betrayal moment that they'll never get over. But they've hated him for 20 years. Like he's been low, even though he's done a lot for their four, obviously gave Trump his Supreme Court majority, they've longated him as an establishment. You know, Trump tried to run Rick Scott against him at least once.

Yeah, like, it just, he's obviously like a corporate Republican, but like, by God, the number of gifts he's given Donald Trump. I mean, right, he stole the Supreme Court seat. Pretty big deal. He used to help systematically strip away, you know, campaign finance law. He has raised ungodly amounts of money. He's rammed through the Trump agenda. He's rammed through, like, all of Trump's totally unqualified nominees.

You know, it's like this guy, he's just such a, like, I'm assuming he's alive, so we're not speaking ill of the dead right now. Like, I do think, like, the story of Mitch McConnell will be one of just staggering political cowardice. in the face of the Trump administration. Like he probably could have had Trump impeached and removed. He is the person singularly responsible for where we are right now because if he had followed through in his original threat, Trump would have been impeached convicted

and therefore banned from running for office ever again. Yep, yep. The other person looking for information here is Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. He sent McConnell's office a letter like a month ago asking for just like basic information, like, hey, can I get an update on his health status? and he apparently just got no answer back. So real functional system there. All right, last thing here.

So let's talk about the latest out of the Maine Senate race. On Monday, Lovett and I covered the latest extremely troubling allegations about Maine Senate candidate, Grand Platner. Dan, I know that you wrote about it in your message box newsletter that you're going to talk about all of this again with Alex Wagner on Friday's POTSave America. But I wanted to get your take specifically on this fight. we're seeing kind of explode onto the internet about how to replace Platner. Let's watch this video from Devin Murphy Anderson, the executive director of the Maine Democratic Party

and then talk about it. Hi everyone. I wanted to provide you all an update on the U.S. Senate race here in Maine. As you know, the Maine Democratic Party has been working around the clock to develop a process to replace our U.S. Senate nominee that is open, inclusive, transparent, and fair. The integrity of this process is just as important. as the outcome, and we are committed to ensuring that Democrats across our state can have confidence in both. Unfortunately, Graham Platner's team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner's team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate,

nor in determining what this process looks like. We have also reiterated that Graham Plattner must drop out of this race so that Democrats in Maine can focus on defeating Susan Collins this November. We look forward to making this process public as soon as Graham Plattner formally withdraws from this race. So, Dan, what do you make of this dispute and, you know, kind of the names getting floated to replace Plattner? Yeah, so there are reports this morning that Plattner may drop out as soon as today and that he's going to do it via video. The report I saw, I think from CNN this morning and said that video was not yet filmed. So between us saying this and you seeing it as possibly will formally drop out. We're recording this at like 9.45 a.m. Pacific time.

So a couple of things here. One, the Planoe campaign denies that they were trying to apply leverage or dictate the process. They say that they're just trying to find out what the process is. Not sure how much credibility they have at this exact moment in time. But my take is Plattner really has no leverage here unless he's going to stay in the race and ensure the Susan Collins wins, which if he did that, the people around him would never work in democratic politics again. And every, like, his campaign is over, is done.

He would have no support, no money. He has to get out of this race. And it seems like, what Plattenor seems to want in the people around, and some of the, not the people around him on his campaign, but, you know, his ideological fellow travelers believe that whoever is picked should be someone who is ideologically. consistent with Platner on a wide range of issues, but primarily Israel and Medicare for all. And it's hard to say, you know, the argument being that more people vote, more people voted for Platner than any Democratic Senate nominee in history, whoever you pick should be consistent

with that. I understand that argument. I also don't believe that Plattner, that he's doing a disservice to the next person to make it look like Grand Platter handpick that person. That would, that's a burden on the new nominee, making it harder to defeat Susan Collins. So the best thing they can do is drop out of the race, stop talking, and let the process play itself out. There are three people who are sort of at the front of potential nominees. One is Troy Jackson, who's a former Senate president.

He is a progressive. He has introduced Bernie Sanders at a rally before. There is Nirov Shah. And Troy Jackson ran for governor. Came in third. There's Nirov Shah, who was the Maine health director during COVID. He sort of became a folk hero in Maine for how he responded to COVID. sort of his public presentation. He ran for governor. He came in second, but he actually

remained in his ranked choice voting. So he actually got the most votes in the first round, but then lost to Hannah Pingree in the second round when Troy Jackson was eliminated. And then the third candidate is Shannon Bellows, who is the Secretary of State. She actually ran against Susan Collins in 2014 and lost by an ungodly sum. I don't know whether that is should. What that tells us about how she would do in 2026, but that is something here. There's a Jared Golden said he was not. running. There were some other names floating around, including Heather Cox Richardson and Patrick Dempsey. So, yeah, the outside candidate. Heather said she's not running. Patrick Dempsey would be an odd choice.

The outsider candidates are a guy named Dan Cleben, who's a brewery owner, Patrick Dempsey, the actor. Was he McDreamy or McSemey? I think McDreamy. I think he's dreamy. Thank you. And then Heather Cox Richardson, who writes a very popular sub-sac, you know, and it is a huge YouTube page. It's like very, like, a massive following in the kind of resist lib space. And I say that as a compliment. but she's shown no indication that she wants to run for public office. She said on Instagram, she's not running. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that list is interesting.

So on the platterpoint, like I said on Monday that he obviously needs to drop out of the race. I interpreted his video as him basically saying he was going to. It did seem like they were trying to sequence that process to retain some leverage. And my advice to him and to the campaign is that I just don't think that's a good idea. I don't think that's a reasonable expectation. The way I interpret it yesterday was kind of like a phases of grief thing and that he was feeling like I was so close to being a U.S. Senator potentially and now it's all ripped away and he was sort of at the bargaining phase. And like you said, Dan, the absolute worst case scenario would be some sort of big, messy fight about this that signals to the people who voted for Platiner that they're getting screwed here once again by the establishment, by the main Democratic Party, whatever. And that's just not what's happening here.

The person who let Platner's voters down is Graham Platner. And I think, like, he just needs to get out. And then the party needs to figure out a way to create a process that takes into account the feelings of his voters. And it sounds like they're trying to do that. I mean, it's like Biden again. They don't have a lot of time. They can do a convention. They have a number of mechanisms for them.

The state party delegates could just vote on this person. They could do a convention. They could do something similar. But there will not be another primary. So it will be party people making the decision. And I assume and believe the people are making the decision. Their number one focus is how to beat Susan Collins. And if you pick someone that anger,

that totally seems like a thumb in the eye of the 15,000 volunteers for a grand plan, the people who truly believed in him and what he stood for and worked so hard for that campaign, you're going to hurt your chances that help your chances of beating Susan Collins. So there are no great options here. There's no easy way to do this. There is no perfect solution. But you want to make sure that you do it in a way that gives us the best chance possible. Yeah.

Like we're in a dangerous place. The worst thing that could possibly happen to our prospects of winning this seat that hasn't already happened would be an intra-democratic party split and a bunch of angry progressives. Platner needs to drop by July 13th. he has to be replaced by July 27th at 5 p.m. I think that's Eastern time, very specific. So time is running short. Dan, it's just worth like reminding people of the political history in Maine here because there's a lot of fighting now about what like the establishment are they better or insurgent candidates better. And I was just thinking back to 2020, right? We had a Senate race against Susan Collins. The DSCC cleared the field for a candidate named Sarah Gideon, who was like an establishment

favored, elected official. And I think she lost by what? eight points. She lost by eight points on the same day that Joe Biden won Maine by nearly nine points. Yes. And so that was a terrible outcome and infuriating to a lot of people. And also, I think that race particularly antagonized a lot of folks because I think Gideon ended the race with, what, $15 million cash on hand that she just hadn't spent, right? So that resources could have gone somewhere else.

And so there wasn't a lot of faith in the DSCC or like traditional DC-based power bases to begin with. And then you fast forward to last year, I think Platner got into the race in August of 2025. There was one other candidate in the field. He immediately got a bunch of traction. Janet Mills was the Chuck Schumer DSTC pick. She waited until October to get in, which prevented anybody else really from getting into the race. And then shortly after Mills gets into the race, like the Reddit stories about Platner drop, like the tattoo thing comes out, the opophile kind of gets unloaded on him. But despite that, Mills still can't get any traction.

she ultimately suspends her campaign, and then the primary happens in June. There's all these bad stories out there about Platner, like a lot of genuinely disconcerting reporting in the New York Times and other places, and he still wins the primary with 72% of the vote. So that backdrop, I think, is just what makes this all so complicated and so fraught and what sort of animating these fights between kind of insurgents and the establishment in D.C. Yeah, that's right. It's the specter of 2020 and, frankly, a number of attempts to be,

and Collins that went quite poorly, hangs over this. And like there were, we ended up with a situation because you ended up with Janet Mills, who was a very flawed and bad candidate, and Graham Platter, who was a very flawed and bad candidate. And those were the only candidates because the DSCC told everyone else not to run because they were waiting for Janet Mills. So Hannah Pingree, Nirov Shah, all these people were just talking about who could run for Senate.

John Baldacci ended up running for governor and running for house in the second district and losing the primary. They all could have run for Senate. None of them did because they were waiting for Janet Mills. And Platner gained traction while everyone was waiting for Janet Mills. Right. So it has been a big motley mess and one that is unresolved. All right. Well, that's it for us for today. Hopefully sometime later today or soon, we will figure out an answer to what's happening in Maine. But thank you for watching this episode of Pod Save America on YouTube. And please subscribe. We'll talk to you soon. Bye, everyone.