Pod Save America - Trump Desperate for Strait Allies

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

President Trump calls on U.S. allies to send warships to the Middle East to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but no one seems interested in answering his call. Jon, Tommy, and Lovett discuss the United States' decreasing global standing, the deployment of an additional 2,500 Marines to the region, and Trump's interesting word selection at a Kennedy Center turned Iran war press conference on Monday morning. Then, the guys discuss Trump and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's threats against the media over its Iran war coverage, the vicious fight happening on the right over the war, and check in on corruption coming out of the administration, including a shocking Trump fundraising email, Jared Kushner's investment fund, and Sen. Markwayne Mullin's suspicious stock trading. Finally: the guys jump in on the latest trend taking over the political media — cold-calling President Trump.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

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Welcome to Potsave America. I'm John Favre. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we're going to be able to. going to talk about all the latest developments in Trump's war, the energy crisis he's created, J.D. Vance's courageous opposition via anonymous leaks, the president accusing media outlets of treason and his FCC chair threatening to take away their broadcast licenses, Trump fundraising

off of the death of American soldiers, and finally, what would you trade to get the president's personal cell phone number, holding into the hottest new trend in D.C., cold calling Donald Trump. Also, please consider becoming a subscriber if you haven't already. so that you don't miss out on any crooked content. Friend of the pod subscribers get our new extra episode of Pod Save America called Pod Save America Only Friends. Many people are saying it's the greatest new show on the air right now. Pod Save America Only Friends. Yeah, it's just for the subscribers.

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All right, let's get to the news as the Iran war enters its third week with no end in sight. Trump said a few words about the conflict at the top of his remarks during a White House event about the Kennedy Center renovations where it was clear the president had one thing on his mind. We are pounding that area, that coasts, pounding, pounding, pounding, pounding at heart.

They took a pounding from Rick. You know, he knows what it is to pound people. He's a little rough with a couple of the people, but that's okay. They've survived. I didn't watch that before. I had it on purpose. That was great work. Just a masterful super cut there.

There was a lot of pounding. Yeah. A lot of pounding. You know, we else getting pounded? new supreme leader of iran apparently allegedly allegedly i guess allegedly we don't want to slander him what do you get a lawsuit well look he could pound the new iotaota i guess we we gotta be low down on that guy's priority list at this point yeah that was the joke yeah we'd want to wake up we'd want to wake up first i think

uh yeah a lot of a lot of talk of pounding do you think he remembers that rick ronnell is gay when he's talking about this yeah when he was saying rick there he was talking about rick ronnell who was uh running the Kennedy Center and then just left. Rick Redel is a human, a Twitter troll that became a human. Worked in the Intel world for a while. Was ambassador to Germany? Was the DNI for a while acting DNI in the last administration?

Wanted to be Secretary of State. Didn't get it. Became the head of the Kennedy Center. Then got fired from that. Because he was pounding artists. He's an asshole. As Trump said, pounding too many artists at the Kennedy Center.

It doesn't seem like he's a people person in that role. So Trump did address the latest developments in Iran, which he claimed has been literally obliterated before browbeating other countries for not helping the U.S. reopen the Strait of Hormuz by sending warships, even though he said, quote, we don't need anybody because we already won,

even though he just sent 2,500 Marines to join the 50,000 U.S. troops deployed in the region. Here's more on all that from our very focused commander-in-chief. They have been literally obliterated. Numerous countries have told me they're on the way. Some are very enthusiastic about it and some aren't. And when we want to know, do you have any minesweepers? Well, we'd rather not get involved, sir.

Who's that? You mean, for 40 years, we're protecting you and you don't want to get involved in something that is very minor? We attacked Cargoyle and knocked it, knocked it literally destroyed everything of the island except for the area where the oil is, I call it the pipe. We left the pipes. Just one simple word and the pipes will be gone to. See, Trump Kennedy Center? It's been let go to hell. The bones are potentially something that could be unbelievable. There's never been a paint. I said someday I'm going to discover a paint where you don't have to actually use gold leaf. Gold leaf is a very, very big and expensive process, but it's a beautiful thing, but not when you use paint.

So... Week three of the war, we are doing... Monday morning events about the Kennedy Center renovations and said a lot more about the renovations than he did about the war itself. His impression of our allies, like, do, do, do, do it. So he later talked about like how we have 45,000 troops and he said in Japan, defending Japan, South Korea defending South Korea and Germany. So which of those leaders of those three countries do you think he was doing the impression of? He definitely didn't want to do, he stopped himself for doing any kind of an accent.

which I think is positive. Yeah, it is good. I thought he was talking about Europe and NATO, but I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I think they have some minesweepers, but it doesn't really matter. I think Chancellor Mertz came out today to say, like, NATO's not for this. It's a defensive alliance. Why would we send troops to help with you with your war of choice?

So maybe he was talking about the Germans, but it could have been Japan. It could have been South Korea. Yeah. So basically what's happened is, you know, reportedly the Iranians have begun to lay minds in the Strait of Hormuz, although Trump today said, we don't know, they might have. We don't know. We can't tell. We don't, you know, we haven't seen anything yet. They're all obviously still firing at ships. And so not a lot of, no ships are going through basically right now. And energy prices, I think oil closed. It's still around $100 a barrel today. And so that's the situation

right now. And so the Trump wants to open the Strait of Hormuz, but apparently the U.S. military can't do it ourselves. And so. he is begging all these countries to join, but then not begging them. No one has really said yes yet. I haven't seen. Have you seen any time? No, not yet. I mean, and he's doing impressions of them that are not very nice. I think the Iranians are letting through oil that are in their tankers or maybe even Chinese own tankers. So they're letting some oil through. Yeah, I'm sure most of these groups that he's making fun of, they're pissed that Trump started this war, didn't consult them. And now he's saying, hey, can you help us out? And he's also being a dick about it. I mean, again, like, it's yelling at NATO. Like, this is not what NATO is for, their defensive alliance. It's also incredibly dangerous. I mean, he says in that press conference that all you need is one Iranian missile or rocket or mine, and you have a catastrophe. And so why would anyone want to participate in that? I mean, we're not escorting ships through the straight over moves yet.

Why would the Japanese or the, you know, Germans want to help us out? Trying to build a coalition of straight allies. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, that's what the, that's what the S is for. Yeah, it's hard to figure out where the mines are famously. You have to hover both of the mice button over it, and you'll literally only know, if there's one, two, three around you. I just want to, this is beside the point,

but it is the idea of Donald Trump, one of the people of the worst taste you'd ever could imagine, suggesting that the Kennedy Center has great bones when it's one of the most beautiful buildings built in like probably the last hundred years, beautiful thing that he's planning to destroy. Again, not high on the list of reasons

to be bothered by Donald Trump, but I do think it's worth mentioning, especially because it is inconceivable, well, even a couple years ago, maybe even in the first Trump term, that you would be, you know, about a week or so into a war and have unrelated press events related to interior design, you would not typically do that. It would be actually something that I think you'd be kind of a bipartisan uproar about that a president could possibly think it was worth his or heard time to be focused on architecture of local landmarks during a time in which we've just lost, what, now over 13 members of the armed forces. as we bombed a school, killed over 175 people, but this is the world we live in. Did you see that he's also considering

getting rid of the ionic columns in front of the White House? Yes, so he prefers Corinthian. He prefers Corinthian. He's a little more flare. Well, they're gaudier, right? And I think the, yeah, he doesn't really appreciate the kind of story

that the different kinds of columns tell, but I don't think he took Art History 101 at Williams College in 2003, so I guess that's probably why. Well, look at us. Now we're distracted from the Iran war. Anyway. Imagine being one of these countries that he wants to get involved in the war. Like today he said they hit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait.

Nobody expected that. We were shocked. They fought back. Everyone expected that. What the Iranians are doing is what everyone expected them to do, which is to fire at U.S. military bases in these places to close the Strait of Hormuz. And I don't think most experts I talk to figured that Iran would view this as existential and they would punch back as hard as they possibly could, which probably. meant creating an economic cost. And now there's all this reporting that Trump was high in his own supply after Venezuela, and he either dismissed or ignored warnings about how much more complicated an Iran operation would be. And now we're in this mess. And Axios described his staff as having, quote, buyer's remorse, but he refuses to back down. So every step is escalatory. And you're telling

like NATO or the Philippines or Japan to jump into this situation, send your troops? I got to say, too, from just a pure political perspective, can't reflect too well on Donald Trump with the American people that we put out a call for our allies to help us and no one wants to help us. Maybe because he has browbeat all of them, not just in the run up to this war, but on tariffs, on NATO, on everything else. He has basically spent an entire year and many years before that just attacking all of our closest allies. and now he's somehow surprised when they don't come to our aid for his crazy fucking war plans? Yeah, he didn't tell us why he was doing this. He clearly didn't tell them either. Yeah, to Tommy's point, maybe the most predictable outcome.

Like, I think you can go back and find papers that say, well, in the event that the Supreme Leader has killed, Iran would view it as an existential threat and therefore might resort to closing the strait of Hormuzin firing upon other neighboring countries. Like, it's sort of just an exercise of what would happen. This is what people said would happen, but he completely unprepared for it and going around to talk to allies about how they could help after the fact rather than before. Like, do you guys know, Leroy Jenkins is? When I say Leroy Jenkins, does that mean anything to you? Of course.

Like, that's what he's doing. Like, it's actually a pretty, Leroy Jenkins going to war with Iran. And he ran in there and everybody's like, what are, what's he doing? Like, no, we're not going. And so he did, yeah, and he's expecting everybody to come in behind him. Google it, YouTube it. I know he gave no context for you listener, just YouTube it for. wouldn't have go ahead.

Yeah. He mentioned Karg Island. Carg Island is where something like 90% of Iranian oil exports go out of, right? And so he talked about bombing the island, all the military installations, not the oil refineries there. So hasn't yet secured any of Iran's nuclear material. It's talked about potentially seizing Karg Island, deploying another 2,500 Marines to the region. it seems like either to take Carg Island or to seize the nuclear material, you would need ground forces, ground troops. Are we getting close to a war, do you think, Tommy, that involves ground troops?

If we take Carg Island, they have to have a general who's from Boston and has a really big accident. We got Cagg. We got Cag Island. That's beside the point that you were asking about. I find it very hard to believe that the U.S. and Israel, especially the Israelis, would not. do something to get the uranium stockpile out of Iran. And I imagine that Trump would prefer the Israelis take the lead on that operation, but I think it would be a major operation that would probably involve both of us because we're probably talking about two different nuclear sites. I've seen experts estimate that you need about a thousand personnel to secure and conduct the operation at each.

you'd need like a commando team that's trained in digging up and handling nuclear materials themselves to do the actual removal. You would need maybe like an excavator or other earth moving materials or machines to get at the stuff because it's under rubble because we bombed it. And then you'd need like a bunch of troops to secure a perimeter. You'd need to provide defense against missiles and drones. You would need either to seize a runway or to create a runway to get the shit in and out. And then you'd probably have people like in theater for a considerable amount of time. This wouldn't be Venezuela like swoop in, swoop out. It would probably be boots on the ground for a while.

So that is very, very dangerous. I think Carg Island is probably a little simpler in the short term just like to seize the thing. But then you're just sitting there 15 miles away from the Iranian shore and can get fired at. Also, how long are you occupying Carg Island at that point? What's the goal? Is the goal just to cut off all oil and gas revenue in the short term? Is it to just own their oil and gas in the long term? I don't really know.

So I imagine like there's a, I think there's like a hundred, 99% chance that Nanyahu does. something to get the HEU out. Now, letting the Israelis do it alone. H.U. is the highly rich uranium. Sorry. But what happens if, you know, an Israeli commando is captured or taken down? Like, there's ways this gets more complicated. I do think this shouldn't be a problem if whether Israel or the U.S. leads, because

according to Trump, we've killed all the Iranian leaders anyway. So what do you think is going on there, too? They keep saying the administration and Trump, like, insinuating that maybe the new Iotone, is injured, that he might be dead. Trump's like, I don't even know who we would negotiate with. There's no leaders there anymore. Like, it doesn't seem like that's exactly on the level. Yeah, it's weird.

Like, they're trying to kind of run him down and suggest weakness, but I don't know what to what end. And they clearly leaked this suggestion that the new Supreme Leader is gay to the New York Post because they were then tweeting about it and like kind of taken a victory lap on the story. But, again, what's the point of this? So we wanted diplomacy and have an off-ramp. It's really hard to know who's telling the truth because, like, you obviously know,

you expect the Iranians to lie because it's like a regime that might lie. But also everything the Trump administration says is there was also this axiostory that, like, there's a diplomatic channel now between Wittkoff and the Iranians that has opened. And then the Iranians were like, no, that's a complete lie. What are you talking about? And the administration's like, no, they're lying. They're complete liars. And you're like, I don't know.

It's funny to think that that. Kamala Harris and the Trump administration agree that that that neither country is ready for a gay leader do you think that sort of but but but but but that's sorry that's not what she was saying even though it is what the words meant but it's not what she was saying apparently Iran may be ready right do they yeah yeah that that Iran i atoll a buddhajajajic so I I'm realizing that I'm going to have to... Moving the honeymoon from Strait of Hormuz to Kark Island was probably a mistake. Anyway.

Yeah. Who knows? They're all liars. It's a real rum. I also saw the administration officials told Axios that U.S. involvement could continue until September? Yeah. That is insane. They don't know.

Trump talks about this war like he can turn it off and on. The Iranians have a say. The Israelis have to say. There are 50,000 troops in the region, American troops in the region. right now, all of whom are in some way exposed, some of whom have been killed. Like, it's just, it's not up to him. They also, you know, they're like,

well, maybe in a week or two, we can get the Navy, you can start escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Like, that doesn't seem like an easy, easy mission either. No, that feels very expensive in time-consuming and may be feasible, but they're also, the stories about the US Navy escorting ships

through the strait say they'll start after the end of hostilities. So what's the point? Yeah, when is the, how are the hostilities ending? Pod Save America is brought to you by Hymns. Hymns can't help you fold a fitted sheet, but it can help you with your performance in bed. Take control of ED with personalized treatments made with doctor-trusted ingredients

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sourced to two senior Trump officials, one of whom texted that in the lead up to strike, Iran, Vice President J.D. Vance made his opposition known, is, quote, skeptical, quote, worried about success, and, quote, just opposes the war. Vance was asked about this while standing next to Trump in the Oval on Monday. Here's what he said. Are you completely on board with the current war on Iran? I know what you're trying to do, Phil. You're trying to drive a wedge between members of the administration between me and the president. What the president said consistently, going back to 20, And I agreed with them is that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon. So there's no hesitation given your past statements with the current operation?

Well, I think one big difference, Phil, is that we have a smart president, whereas in the past we've had dumb presidents. And I trust President Trump to get the job done. So that should do it, huh? It's too cute by half, I would say, from JD Vance. Agreed. Too cute by half. And there's been, you know, a series of stories about people gunning. for Rubio, the real kind of behind

the scenes jockeying, people who want to draft Rubio, and I don't know how plausible that really is, but what I take all of it to mean is just discomfort with Vance. And the way Vance is just such a kind of like sleazy and like sleazy operator, Trump is a sleazy operator, but not

in a way that you like him at the end of it, the way the others do. And so they look to Rubio as an alternative just because like Vance is just so full of shit. First of all, Phil knows what he did there. Phil knows what you did. You know, Phil was being pretty divisive. Like, every time Vance gets this question, he has to whine and cry about the question itself and the questioner.

He's like, I know you're trying to do here, blah, blah, it's like, first of all, that was not convincing. Like, I don't, like, you could watch Trump's face. I don't think it convinced Trump in that moment that Roop, that Vance wasn't trying to put some distance between himself and the policy. The idea that Vance thinks he can run away from a policy this consequential when he, he's the vice president is insane to me. Maybe he thinks he can position himself in 2028 as being less hawkish than Marco Rubio. But like, you're not getting any love from the isolationist wing of the party. Yeah.

Rubio has just as much stink on him, if not more, than J.D. Vance, for this war, for any foreign policy adventure. Rubio is the national security advisor and the secretary of state. He's been one of the public faces, one of the few public faces. No, that's what I'm saying. I think maybe J.D. could argue that Rubio is more hawkish than he is. Well, I thought you were saying, sorry, no, no, no, and you were saying that maybe they turned to Rubio. I think only, not because of any kind of policy difference, but because just, they don't like J.D. Vance. He's just not a likable guy. He's just, like, so full of shit they want to, like, Rubio is smart enough to your point to know that there's no way to run away from being tied to this.

He's embracing it fully because it's his job to embrace it. I think he's more prone to being, like, he has a sort of neocon instincts more than Vance does. But, like, he knows he's got to own this, so he's owning it 100%. The idea that, you know, J.D. Vance is going to be reluctantly the face. of the war in Iran. Like, it doesn't make them, like, to use an old joke, it doesn't make him a better person. It just makes him a worse prostitute, you know? So the broader, like, the broader setup here is there's all these stories that Trump is polling everyone about who they like better. Is it Marco or is it JD? And it's like, he did it to a bunch of donors down to Mar-a-Lago, and I think all the donors in Mar-a-Lago preferred Rubio. And maybe that's because they're in Florida. Maybe it's because they're rich guys. Maybe it's because J-D.

It's a prick. Maybe it's because Rubio's been around longer. But yeah, like, I think they're both covered in the stink of this war. And this opens up a real, like, isolationist wing in the Republican primary next time that could be filled by someone like a Tucker Carlson or, like, I don't know, Rand Paul suggesting he might run. The Tucker thing seems to me the most plausible result of this, right? Because you, so let's say the war ends next week or a couple weeks, right? And, you know, it is obviously destabilizing for quite a long time. But, like, there isn't any giant catastrophe with, you know, more a ton of U.S. casualties and we're, you know, we're not there for like a year or whatever else. Then J.D. Vance thinks, okay, well, when it comes time for the

primary, it's not really going to get brought up that much anyway. And maybe if I get asked about it, I can say, well, I think everyone knows for sure back then. I got some shit for it that I wasn't exactly for the war. And then that's fine. But in any scenario where this is still a problem, or where there are like real consequences for this war, I think that like there is no way that J.D. Vance or Mark or Rubio are ever going to be able to run away from this. And it's going and all the energy, even if even if some donors like Rubio and some of the party establishment decides to like Rubio,

which you could see whatever's left of the establishment or Vance, all the energy in a Republican primary is going to be for these, the Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, anti-war, calling themselves America first, Marjorie Taylor Green, whatever it is, that side of the party, that's going to have the energy in a primary, and, like, J.D. Vance is going to get killed, and so is Rubio. Yeah, I don't, even if, look, let's hope this is not something that is sort of dominating the news,

whatever, a year from now, I still think this has such a big, like, I don't know how these, like how J.D. Vance is going to go around saying he's not for wars in the Middle East after this, because they did, they ran that. That was exactly what they said, and now we're in the, the middle of it. And I think it's a genuine conviction on the part of a lot of the, not just like the Megan Kelly's of the world, but the podcast, like, the, the, the, the, the, the, the like the kind of big influencers, like a lot of voices on the right. And they're just not going to forget this. It's not going to be able to walk back. And by the way, political opportunity is just so great. And J.D. Vance is not going to be able to walk it. Like,

Donald Trump is going to be around. You think J.D. Vance is going to be able to successfully run away from Donald Trump. I find that hard to believe. I do wonder there, like, the way that Trump was, Trump was like seemed completely fine there. It didn't seem perturbed. Like, I wonder if Trump was like, well, I made the decision if you need it for politics to just. I wonder if Trump is okay with that is what I was wondering. Like there's a possibility that may be. It's hard to tell. I can't tell either. I was trying to watch his face and it was not clear to me whether he was annoyed or not. I mean, as this thing goes, continues and gets worse.

I'm sure he'll get increasingly angry at everyone around him. But if I ran against him, I would say, JD, you can tell us now that you were opposed to this war. But when the chips were down, you were feckless and then you were silent. Yeah. Were you, did you agree with it or were you just weak and ineffective inside of the administration? And by the way, like Rand Paul is one thing. If it is someone like Tucker Carlson, Tucker Carlson is going to rip him to pieces because he's not going to be able on a debate stage to get away with the kind of hemming and

highing that he's doing in this room. Definitely not. It's going to be over and over again. Were you for it or not? Yeah. Were you against it or not? Now, the smart politics for Trump would be to let J.D. Vance, like, have that other position, you know?

I mean, honestly, even what Trump did there was better to J.D. Vance than what fucking Joe Biden did to Kamala Harris on Gaza. Right? And on, according to all the reporting? Privately, yes. Privately. Privately telling her no daylight. certainly wasn't great. That's what I'm saying. Like, she could have staked out a position where she

voiced her honest criticisms about Gaza. And now we've seen from all the reporting that he didn't want her to do even that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Which, just to be clear, was both, you know, that Kamala had agency there too. So it's not, that Joe Biden didn't make Kamala Harris. No, that is, that is true. It's interesting to me that Trump has like let this go and not had a big problem with it. I have the same thought, which is that it is, it is, are we going to be in a situation where Donald Trump gives more space to his VP to operate than, than Joe Biden did? I think it's possible. So the political blowback over the war is clearly getting to Trump on Sunday night. He falsely accused U.S. media outlets of working with Iran to amplify fake news about Iran and said that those outlets, quote, should be brought up on charges of treason. This was after FCC chair Brendan Carr, who was with Trump at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend, threatened to cancel television broadcasters licenses over their war coverage. Trump then spent his flight home to D.C. attacking reporters for asking even the most basic, questions about Iran. Let's listen.

putting out information that they know is false and it's very dangerous thing. I think it's, I think they can be in serious Japanese. Your fact about fundraising emails, you think, the official white has been able to do it by transfer? You think it's appropriate emails and your credit card saying that your fundraising... I didn't say it's all. Do you? I think it's pretty the most corrupt news organizations.

I think that's terrible. I don't want any more from here. Do you have a rumble to six service my person? Who else, too? Testy. So, I mean, it's barely in the news today, but, you know, it just seemed like the president threatening to shut down media outlets and charge them with treason. Kind of a big deal.

Yeah, it seems bad. Yeah, we sort of, he does that. So it doesn't lead to it. No, but Trump does that. He calls people there isn't like treasonous and says he's going to bring him up on charges. I think the car stuff is more important because the threat itself is enough to try to intimidate people into kind of hesitating, right? Like even if he never acts on it, right? And people knowing that the FCC chair is like watching this closely, like maybe just like worry about a headline a little bit more that seems to be antagonistic to the administration.

I think it's really dangerous. Even Brendan Carr said that the, that the government shouldn't censor speech doesn't like that the FCC does not have a roving mandate to police. the speech to police speech in the name of the public interest. And like the idea that he has now made himself the kind of assignment editor and national ombudsman of the media while kind of posting AI meme slop from the White House. That to me is really dangerous and more dangerous than Trump being in a bad mood because his war is going poorly and he doesn't like the coverage because Brenny Carr is doing thinking about this all day every day. Yeah, I just think it's worth remembering how bad the media coverage was in the run-up to the Iraq.

war and how all the anti-war voices were censored because thinking back to then like the structural setup was for example NBC is owned by GE which is like one of the biggest contractors of the Pentagon then you have reporters embedded with the US military and their networks booking like current and former military guests so you're constantly getting the pro military perspective from that little silo Fox News is branding anyone who opposes the war as anti-American but even MSNBC was canceling their number one show with Phil Donahue because they were worried he was too anti-war. Then you have Judy Miller at the New York Times, laundering intelligence for the Bush administration. And it's like a bad setup. It's very easy to be

pro-war. It's very hard to be against these wars. And the natural instinct is to be patriotic. And there's limitations and coverage that come from logistics and the nature of the Pentagon and how these things work. So you don't need to have Brendan Carr running around for the media to be tilted in a pro-war way already, but adding that on top of it, I think is a really big deal in a pretty dangerous development and a sign that he's really flailing and he knows things are going badly. Well, it's also worth pointing out how absurd the complaints are with the coverage here, which is like, first of all, what Trump was talking about is that there was like an image of, you know, Iranians celebrating the new Supreme Leader in the streets.

And it turned out that it was AI and it wasn't that many people. no, like, that was a, I don't even remember, like, there's not a lot of U.S. media outlets that were making that a huge thing. He famously cares about accurate crowd counts. That's going to say, like, that was, that's, so that's his complaint. The other, the real complaints are that the media is what reporting, as Pete Hegseth said, the other week, that it's front page news that Americans died in a war. Right. That's the complaint now. Yeah.

We're talking about American deaths in war, and we're asking things like, hey, how long is the war going to ask? And are you going to send men and women into Iran on the ground and risk their lives? Just like basic questions like that. And he was angry about a headline about a, I believe, Wall Street Journal's story about a number of planes that were damaged by an Iranian bomb and how damaged they were. He's like, he's like sort of dancing on the head of a pin, Heggseth on the end of last week, in sort of his petulant childish way. I was like, I can't wait for David Ellison to take over CNN. Like, they're all just petulant. Like with Donald Trump, like in that moment, what he did he?

really is saying is you're also fucking negative. You're asking me about all. You're just being negative. You're just supposed to have negative. You're not talking about all the good stuff we're doing. You're bringing up all the stuff that I that is both terrible, but also wounds my ego, the path that Americans have died. That's an insult to me because it makes me look bad because I'm the one who caused those Americans to die, which he did, right? By launching this war, he invited that we're going to be a response and now Americans are dead because of it doesn't like to be confronted with that. That's what's what this is really about. Yeah. I think it's also worth pointing out that like Brandon Carr's threat is completely empty. I mean, he can try, but like from a legal standpoint, first of all, he only has

oversight over broadcast licenses for local television networks. And, you know, Brian Stelter and some others looked into this. Like you, you start to try to threaten to take away a local broadcaster's broadcasting license because of what, you know, just made up inaccurate coverage, which he can't sight. It's just not going to happen. Now, he can still threaten them. And as we saw with the Kimmel thing, like you threaten the local broadcasters and then maybe you get the parent companies, like the ABCs and NBC's to worry a little bit. But like it's the whole thing is just like crazy fucking bluster, but it's meant to intimidate. And it's like, and I think that's the Trump treason thing is too, because like, yeah, Trump's not going to bring them up on charges of

treason, but like, you know, the DOJ has been charging people left and right or trying to charge people left and right. And he also has sued a bunch of people personally. Yeah, I, but like it is, I, I think is more than bluster. Like Trump is threatening people. He's threatening people with DOJ prosecution. But then they kind of, you know, we just saw that the, that the prosecution against the Fed chair got, you know, thrown out by a judge. Like, though they've running into the sort of the brute incompetence of his DOJ. Like, Brendan Carr can can tie things up. He can get all the affiliates to be worried, get the affiliates starting to be worried that the parent company is going to cause a problem. Like this can be, like we saw that with Kimmel, but like we can, he has a lot of. of just the threat, I think, is really dangerous. And yes, obviously, you don't need to be like a

constitutional scholar to know that the FCC can't decide what the news is on behalf of these organizations, but that doesn't mean he can't do a lot of damage and get the network lawyers to become a little bit less permissive. And then all of a sudden, they have had an impact on on what we're seeing without us ever even knowing it. Yeah, my only argument is that it's not, it's not that it's just bluster. It's so that Brandon Carr's threats and Donald Trump's threats are the same level of dangerous because like I think that legally brennan car doesn't have as much power as he thinks he is but the threat from car and the threat from trump the goal is intimidation and you know it probably can work so trump isn't just targeting uh mainstream outlets

over their iran coverage he's pissed at uh trump friendly pundits too one of his uh deranged sunday-night posts was a lengthy defense of uh right wing warmonger mark levin against the right wing pundits who criticized him over iran like mckelie tucker carlson Candice Owens, Trump called Levin's critics, quote, jealous and angry human beings who, quote, are not MAGA and, quote, will quickly fall by the wayside. The feud heated up over the weekend when Kelly hit back at Levin calling her evil and diabolical. And so Kelly tweeted back at Levin, quote, I'm sorry you have a micro penis, but don't drag the rest of us into your drama. Very importantly, Marjorie Taylor Green jumped in to say that, Quote, Maga has been destroyed by micro penis Mark Levin. Is she right? So, where did micropenus come in? Like, what, Mark, it's just from...

A loaded question, yeah. Right. Well, well, we know, you know, we know where it ends. We just don't know where it begins. I feel like the whole feud's been inching towards that for a while now. Yeah. Right, right. I mean, obviously, we're not going to dive too deep into it. But, but, uh, Megan Kelly just just as Mark Levin has a micro penis.

Not a grower or a shower. This is just the tip of a much smaller iceberg. Right, right. No, I know. And it is, and it's just creating a lot of surprising amount of motion in the ocean. Very little friction, though. She did, she explained, she tried to explain it in a lengthy video. Yeah, you watched that whole video.

I did too. I did as well. I started and I got out. Oh, it's great. Did you want to? Well, the short version of the TLD is Megynne Kelly was mean to Mark Levin. Well, there is no long version. So Levin called Daddy Trump to send a tweet, defendant.

him against the mean woman who's not nice to him, who's Megan Kelly. I think this, this fight dates back to the last buildup to the Iran war, if we want to get into that. I mean, like, Levin is very hawkish. He's in favor of bombing Iran. He's very favor of Israel and Netanyahu in particular. Mark Levin, do you guys know that Mark Levin went and sat in the audience at Netanyahu's trial in Israel? Like, that's how much of a buddy is. And then Tucker Carlson at the time, this is last June, or the run-up to the June war, was very against the war, also not a big fan. of Israel, also not a fan of Netanyahu, he converge into anti-Semitism. And then, so the two started going to war over this policy. And then Charlie Kirk gets dragged in, Megan Kelly gets dragged in.

You sprinkle in like a tablespoon of Candice Owens. You got a dash of Ben Shapiro, you know, like a little bit of Nick Fuentes. And now this is just a full-on MAGA media war. And there's some polling that shows that MAGA is for whatever Trump is for. And I think that is generally true. But Megan Kelly and Tucker Carlson, they are attuned to their audiences. And they know what is getting downloads and attention and they watch the data. So I don't think they go down this path that they didn't feel like there was an audience for it. And there's also polling that shows that US views forced Israel have changed dramatically since 2023. Dramatically. Including among Republicans, nine point shift and favorability among Republicans. I think there's things happening under the

surface. So Trump might be MAGA, and that might be the case for now. But I think this is a fight for the future of MAGA, and there are major shifts happening under the surface. Some of it is foreign policy, like we talked about with JD Vance. Some of it is support for Israel, but we get to enjoy the fruits of it in the form of a micro penis. Yeah, under the surface and, you know, under, under Mark Levin's pants. It's really, it's actually like really been popping off. But the, yeah. To your question, Leavitt, though, basically she says, so he like tweeted about her a hundred times and said all these vile shit about her. And she said, like, you know, I sent a few brushback tweets. as she has wanted to do. And then she said, you know, and I just, then I just decided to just

reveal that he has a microp penis. Not that she's like, not that I've seen it myself, but clearly we've all been exposed to it because someone who acts that hawkish and tries to overcompensate clearly has a micro penis. Like, that's just something that you know. Yeah. She said, thankfully, I've never had to look at it firsthand, but you can just tell. Then she goes, when they go low, we go micro penis. And then she said, so obviously Trump's truth social post was drafted by Levin. and Levin's Post thanking the president is equally long. It was the only thing that is. Wow, that's good.

It was just a runner from Megan Kelly. That's good. That would have been, yeah. And I know, and like, Ben Shapiro has been basically challenging Megan Kelly and others to, like, denounce Candace Owens, which I don't think she has done. Yeah. Or at least not to his satisfaction. And so, like, there is like this, it's a real, like. Yeah.

And it is, I always say, like, nothing is more upsetting to a right-wing figure than to be treated like a Democrat. It's like the most horrible. Like, they can't understand what's like, what, why are you talking this way about me? I'm not one of those people. You're not supposed to talk this way. And like, they can't. It's a shocking experience. It's amazing.

Speaking of Tucker, did you guys see that he said he thinks that the administration might charge him with, under a Farah violation acting as an agent of a foreign power for talking to people in Iran before the war, which he claims they knew he was doing because the CIA read his texts? Yeah. So I didn't watch the whole episode Tucker did on this. He did like a five-minute clip that I did watch. It is certainly possible, if not quite likely, that if Tucker was emailing with some Iranian officials, that gets picked up by the NSA or somebody, and maybe that can get reviewed. I find it very unlikely that the government would then tell him that or that he would have committed a crime in the process.

I don't get out that's a Farah violation or any kind of violation. And there's been some other anonymous sources batting it down saying, no, no, no one's going to charge Tucker, which is obviously, you know, I don't want to see Tucker Carlson charge with a crime for the. for simply talking to people and doing journalism. I don't want that to happen. Candice Owen said that if it happens, we ride at dawn. But where? So I guess are we joining that as well?

Yeah. First Amendment protect Tracy Town. Yeah, I think that Ben Shapiro feud with Megan Kelly is that Ben wants Megan to denounce Candace for saying that Erica Kirk got Charlie Kirk killed. Right. And she won't. Yeah, the Candace stuff on that is. It's getting real bleak.

over there. She's a disturbed individual. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Spring is in the air and while you're checking off organizational tasks on your spring cleaning to do list, it's important not to forget about yourself. Therapy offers a space to slow down and stretch out when your mind feels

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get the extra space they need now with access storage. Canada's number one self-storage solution, affordable, convenient, and Canadian. Access storage. Canadian, store Canadian. Try four weeks free, plus students save 10% on continued rental. Details at access storage.ca. Believe it or not, since it involves Trump, there's also a corruption angle to the Iran story. Last week, and we heard some of this in the clip, a pack affiliated with Trump called Never Surrender Inc. sent out a fundraising email featuring a photo of the president

in front of a flag-draped coffin at the dignified transfer of six soldiers who were killed during the war's first week, the email presented readers with the opportunity to sign up for a, quote, National Security Briefing membership, which for the price of a donation would send them the president's personal private, quote, national security briefings and unfiltered updates on the threats facing America. That news came after the New York Times reported that Jared Kushner, the president's second choice son-in-law, and one of the United States lead negotiators in the Middle East, has been asking governments in the region to fund his private investment. firm, isn't that nice? Cushner's firm reportedly recently met with Saudi sovereign wealth fund,

which already contributed $2 billion to the fund at the beginning of the Trump administration, and is planning to seek funding from the sovereign wealth funds of the UAE and Qatar. Where do you guys all want to start? Fundraising for your pack off of the death of American soldiers, or fundraising for your investment fund off of your alleged role as the diplomat tasked with ending two wars. What's worse? What do you think? Really one of the most disgusting images I think I've ever seen. Shocking. Actually shocking.

He's there in that white hat. There's a literal coffin in the image. They're using the coffin of a dead service member to raise money. Unconscionable in any other era would be a massive ongoing scandal that the president were asked about it. He would immediately say it was a terrible mistake that the person who was responsible would be fired. It would still be a big scandal.

there would be apologies. There'd be across the board condemnation from Democrats and Republicans, but this is just a blip because it's Donald Trump. Yeah, I had the same reaction. I mean, it was genuinely shocking and how tasteless it was,

but also a politically stupid it was. I mean, I can't fire that person. It's criminally stupid. And by the way, as this is happening, there are go-fund means going around for the families of these dead service members that I don't think Donald Trump is supporting. So it's, yeah, shocking.

Anyone want to tee off on Jared? I'm going to take the over on it, all right? Because Jared Kushner and Whitkoff and maybe the other Bozo real sons, potentially making money on this is the only way I can see to war in Iran, ending with the most recent living Ayatollah in the Oval Office, with Trump talking about how beautiful the Strait of Hormuz is and like what a beautiful property it's going to be. And actually, I didn't know until Jared showed me how beautiful it is. It's a beautiful place.

All I think about is, you know, remember we were talking about the mines? Always all about the mines. The mine's going to be beautiful. It's going to be a fantastic place. And we're so grateful to the new Ayatollah for recognizing Israel. It's going to be a beautiful property. New head of the Palestinian Authority will be there, too, to talk about all the new high rises in Gaza. Well, that's Witkoff, so that makes sense. So the younger. So, yeah, that to me, I'm going to take the over on that one. I think the corruption is good. Yeah. So Jared left the, it. administration started this investment fund and he raised a bunch of money from the Saudis,

billions from the Saudis, a bunch of money from the Qataris and the Emirates. And that to me felt like kickbacks for services already rendered. And there was all these reporting at the time that, you know, the professionals at these sovereign wealth funds did not want to invest with Jared, but they were overruled by like MBS and other political actors. Jared then went into the wilderness for a while. Now he's back. He's doing negotiations with the Russians, with the Ukraine with, he's doing stuff in Gaza, now he's part of the Iran talks. And he said that he would not be making any money off the Board of Peace. He would not be raising money from the Gulf countries that he's working with. Of course, that was a lie. To avoid conflict, he said that too. Yeah. Use the words. And now he's trying to get more money for a guess for future favors. Also, at the same time, I mean, there's all this reporting that the Russians are providing intelligence to the Iranians to help them kill U.S. service members. I saw that the guy who runs the Russian sovereign wealth fund was back down to Miami for meetings with Jared and Wickoff, presumably at one of their homes.

Also, we're removing sanctions on the oil, which is going to give them more money. So we're ostensibly funding now both sides of this conflict, not only and also strengthening Russia and Ukraine at the same time. Yep. And the Emirates bought 50% or 49% of the crypto company that the Trump family started. So the corruption in the rot is just so deep that I almost wasn't surprised by Jared raising this money. but it's just, it's so frustrating because this man, he doesn't have a government job. He has no official role.

There's no oversight. There's not nothing. But he's like out there briefing reporters as a senior administration official. Yep. Yep. Even though he's supposed to not be having an actual role in the government, except his role is apparently to cosplay, making peace, and then raising a bunch of money for his fund.

Good for Jared. Yeah, like over the weekend, I just was hearing from different people. and I have friends with family in Iran, and they were talking about how they just are waiting for regular updates when the member of their family can get Wi-Fi just to say that he's safe, right? Like, that's what they're living in between. Thankfully, some members of the family got out before,

but now they're always really nervous, they hope everything's okay, and they just wait for when the internet's working to get a regular update. And then at the same time, I was hearing from family friends about an elderly relative, in Israel who is infirmed and so it is difficult for her to get in and out of shelters when there are bomb sirens that are going off and that's happening all the time and it's just really

difficult it's hard on the health and it and you just like the real world consequences of this are just nowhere for for these people like there's the actual day to day the sheer scale of what they've unleashed right the amount of people impacted by this the number of people who are getting killed and whose lives have been upended like the chaos they've unleashed it just feels so abstract to them even now two weeks into it for for Kushner obviously for Wickoff but for Trump which is why when he's asked about the dead service members or anything like that he's like almost angry to be confronted by the actual reality of what he's done because he wants to only live in the fun story version that he's telling himself but as you know Orwell had said I was famously quoted

by Christie fucking gnome like war is the one thing that intercedes on an authoritarian right the reality of a war you can't pretend it's not happening and that's that's that That's what's happening. And the true, the Pentagon's been hiding the true casualty count. We don't really know. But I saw today, the Washington Post, I think, reported that 200 service members have been wounded as well. So there's a lot of people getting hurt.

And also, like, add to your list of real human beings impacted by this war, the 800,000 people who have been evacuated from their homes in Lebanon because the Israelis are basically telling everyone who lives within, like, 25 miles of the border that they have to leave. Do you see the Israelis announced today, too, that they're not. allowed back. I think what's happening here, I think this is going to go, I think what's happening in Lebanon is going to go on a lot longer than what's happening in Iran and that it's going to end with Israel trying to permanently occupy a lot of Lebanese territory. Sounds like they want to if they're not going to let fucking 800,000 people return to their homes. And neither they're

just evacuating it in Gaza. And so now they're evacuating like major swaths of Beirut, which is a huge city. Just using the opportunity of the conflict to pursue their larger purposes in the region which Trump is totally fine with and Huckabee is totally fine with. There is no breaks. Yeah. Hesbla, obviously, terrible organization, kills indiscriminately, kills Israelis, kills Jews, kills Christians in Lebanon as well. But, yeah, I mean, the idea that it's strategically smart to undertake this massive

operation as you're in the midst of a war with Iran, it feels like a bad idea. And it's just more of a cynical way to use everyone being distracted to do things you always wanted to do. So speaking of corruption, the Times also published a piece over the weekend about the stock trading habits of Senator Mark Wayne Mullen. Trump's pick to replace Christy Knoem at DHS. Mullen reportedly bought shares in Chevron, the only U.S. oil supplier with an active operation in Venezuela, five days before the United States attacked the country and later vowed to take over oil operations. According to the Times, Mullen has become quite the trader,

reporting at least 130 trades last year, and outperforming the market by 8%. Sure, it's just a coincidence. After selling this company, this is from the Times story, too, After selling his company in 2021, Mullen reported fewer than 30 stock trades in 2022. In 2023, his first year as a senator, that jumped to 100. So suddenly, he just is trading a lot of stock these days. And, you know, his assets originally when he got to the Senate were between $2.8 and $9 million when he first got to the House. Now it's between $29 million and $97 million. Jesus.

Guess he did some good trading, huh? Yeah, it's good work, dude. What do you guys think about Mark Wayne Mullins? He's got a confirmation hearing this Thursday. It is very tempting, I imagine, for Democrats to focus on this story in the hearing. But what do you guys think? Divide and Conquer. I mean, this should be a part of it. Someone should dig in on this because Donald Trump, in the state of the union, one of his biggest applause lines was banning stock trading. And he wants to make it all about Pelosi and her preventing that from happening. And frankly, Pelosi has not been good on this issue. And it really sucks because it makes Democrats look bad. But members of Congress should know. be allowed to buy and sell individual stocks. It is an absolute no-brainer that they should have their assets in a blind trust or something. They should not be buying and selling crypto. They shouldn't be selling futures or using polymarket or Kalshi, the bet on events. I mean, like, it is, I will never believe it's a coincidence that this guy bought a bunch of Chevron stock five days before we toppled the dictator in Venezuela and installed a much

more oil-friendly dictator in Venezuela. It was a third party. It was a third party. Yeah, sure. Well, and if you read that statement, there's definitely, like, even if you take the statement as being accurate, which I don't know that necessarily you can, there's plenty of room inside of that statement for them to be doing whatever he wants. Yeah, they should not be trading individual stocks. None of us should be trading individual stocks because we're not stock traders. And the only reason it would make sense for members of Congress to be trading stock is because they have insider information. Even an example they were proud of in the story, there was a member of Congress who was on a board and was bragging about the company to everybody on the committee.

So that's one of the reasons people were buying stock. in that what are we doing here Chris Collins and he went to jail and well he went to jail was part of him by jail for not for that specific thing I know he goes to jail for charged with insider trading for insider trading for not that not the one he was most proud of and Trump pardoned him and Trump pardoned him because he doesn't believe in insider trading he thinks that's just good trading and we also have all by the way God only knows what these people are doing on the betting markets which we don't have any insight into no where they're trading with insider information because the only way it makes sense is

because these trades on like Kalshi and Polly Market are because of insider information So, of course, it should be banned. And by the way, the disclosure rules should be better. Why on earth do we have ridiculous ranges where we find out how much money they have between $9 and $90 million? Like, that is a, that is a ridiculous space set up by members of Congress to make it kind of confusing how much money they have and how much money they've made. We should have more disclosure for them, more frequently.

Like, there's a whole bunch of reforms that would make this less of an issue. FOTSafe America is brought to you by Haya. Some children's vitamins on the market today contain up to 7 grams of sugar per serving and are stuffed with artificial additives and petroleum-based eyes. Haya took the opposite approach. Zero sugar, zero gummy additives, just clean nutrition. Working alongside pediatricians and nutrition scientists, Haya created a superpower, chewable vitamin.

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and then they send refills every month. Tommy, you have children. You know, I was over at the Fabros house yesterday, and Charlie had just solved Fermat's last theorem. Oh, it turns out the previous proof was wrong. So he really actually is the first one ever to solve. Oh, that's great. I'm glad they finally cleared that up.

What is, what is, I can't even remember what formats last for me? What is this about? A to the end plus B to the end. Oh, oh, yes, because obviously we all know A squared plus B squared equal C squared, but it turns out there are no integers for which anything above two can be solved. But the question is, is that true? It wasn't an elegant proof until Charlie started taking Haya vitamins, which he loves. And I think the Farras are struggling to get him to eat those green vegetables.

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Try four weeks free, plus students save 10% on continued rental. Details at accessstorage.ca. So one kind of fun, kind of pathetic story before we go. You may have noticed the recent trend of Trump just giving random interviews to any reporter who calls him. Turns out there's a reason. Everyone now has access to the president's personal cell phone number. The Atlantic reported over the weekend and then semaphore followed up as well, that Trump's number has become the biggest open secret in Washington with journalists openly trading it among themselves.

So many now have access to it and have been using it to regularly. call the president that White House advisors have stopped keeping track of who's calling, and according to one White House official, as many as, quote, 10 reporters will call in a matter of two hours. Trump, unsurprisingly, loves the attention. He apparently has gotten into the habit of keeping his phone screen face up during meetings to just watch the notifications roll in. Loves it. Trump aides have said that at the moment, they have no intention of changing the number and have no plan to stop more people from getting a hold of it. You guys have it yet? Yeah, yeah.

Should we give him a call? I got it. You got it? Yeah, I got it from a reporter. Let's call him. I'll call him now. Do we have a plan? What are we going to say?

I was just going to call and say, hey, Tom Bitor from Potsay of America, calling on a recorded line. How are you? Great. Recorded line. Oh, that's important. A West Palm Beach number. It'd be so awkward when he calls me back after. We're not recording.

You think he calls back? No. He's just a receiver of calls. This could be the last call. Didn't we prank Rudy Giuliani once? Sean Hannity. And boy, did he get the last laugh? Sorry, guys.

Didn't deliver on that one. You think he's checking his voicemails? Well, I'm sure what happened with me today was I sent two texts to people who I thought might have the number and one of them gave them me the number. Right? I mean, there's been a bunch of news reports about how easy it is to get it. So maybe today was the last day. And now he's finally got to change his number like whenever his emails were in that Sony hack. Yes, yes.

Because it sounds like there was one. someone wrote a piece on the Atlantic piece on this made it sound like I think one reporter kind of figured this out early as like Garrett hawk or somebody and got Trump's reaction to something about Biden really or dropping out Biden dropping out really early on and had a scoop and then every other reporter was like oh this dude is just taking calls from press now also I think maybe next time love it or I should try because we have 202 numbers and so he probably sees 202 and says oh it's DC and you you don't have a 202 no let a rip well we'll try again we'll try We'll try again. We'll try it once an episode. Okay. Great. I like that. I like that.

Just to see. Remember when Biden to do an interview every six months? Tell us, tell us what we should ask, everyone. Send in your ideas. What to ask the president in case we, in case we get him on the horn. Get him on the blower. You know? What gives you hope? I have to. There's a whole story about so. The story is, in three books. Yeah, right. How do I, how do I convince my relative who loves Trump to not vote? vote for him anymore. Where's the climate pod, you fucks? So apparently like CEOs and crypto bros are offering money for the number. This is in the story. Sure, yeah. Like there's a couple other funny parts.

There we go. One of them says the administration, so like everyone's calling, you know, they're like not just the big outlets, but like the smaller outlets, us now, you know. But then it says the administration officials say, substack authors have started to call, forcing White House staff to look up names they don't recognize. That's so funny. Oh, no, the subs stick off. Well, we didn't talk about this that today, in twice, it is two different press events today.

He made reference to a former president who he likes, who said he was right to go in to Iran. And then he's asked. I said, wish I had done that. Yeah, I said, wish I had done that. And then he's asked by Ducey later that day, who are you referring to? Was it George W. Bush? No. Was it Bill Clinton?

I'm not saying. But you know it's from these endless. It's from him being on the fucking phone all the time. Yeah, well, I assume. that Donald Trump probably called Bill Clinton to commiserate about being unfairly treated over Jeffrey Epstein. 100%. I feel like that's 99%. I mean, it's not Barack Obama. I have a hard time believe it, because he also said he's like, someone I actually like, but it wouldn't be good for their career. Well, they don't have much of a career anywhere at this point. Well, I mean, it's four, it's for former president. So we think it's got to be it. Or as he often does, he's just lying. He could be making it up. But I mean, Clinton, Biden, Obama, I do not think Barack Obama is talking to Trump on the phone saying he wished he had bombed Iran.

It's not Obama. Don't think it's Obama. So I think it's Clinton, Biden, or Bush. Doesn't make sense for it to be Bush the way he's talking about it. Probably not Biden. So you're really lucky with Clinton. The Clinton people are saying it wasn't him. I mean, which I may not know.

They may not know. I don't know. Jimmy Carter? Well, that's huge news. Was there a window where Jimmy C might have said, I wish I'd gone into it. Not before this current operation. When did Jimmy Carter die? Was it before after Midnight Hammer?

It was before midnight hammer. Do you think peace advocate and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jimmy Carter, in his 100th year, got on the phone with Donald Trump and said, God damn it, I wish I fucking bombed Iran? I mean, it did fuck up his administration. It did fuck his old presidency up. Hey, listen, put him on the list. Yeah, it's tough to be. I bet he had a conversation with Bill Clinton where he mentions Iran.

And in Trump's mind, Clinton said that. And in Clinton's, if you asked Clinton about the conversation, Clinton did that. I didn't say that. Well, that's a two guys that are famously great at remember what they said. That's what I'm, that's what I'm getting at. That's what I think. Can I just, we have just a serious thing about how accessible Donald Trump is because this goes what we're talking about earlier, which is like, oh, he's calling people treasonous.

Like, he is incredibly accessible and I do not think a Democrat needs to be as accessible as this. But like, man, there is value to having Donald Trump, like, in their everyday communicating nonstop. And whoever we is going to be somebody that, that represent us to learn, like, man, man, how much space he has to move because he's out there time after time after time, just sort of new layer of paint, new layer of paint. And yeah, sure, the windows don't open anymore because they're sealed shut from fucking paint. You can't access the outlets because there's

so much paint. But man. Do we think it is, do we think it is, it's certainly better for freedom of the press, for sure. It's probably better for the public to have the president be more accessible. I think that the next Democratic president should obviously be much more accessible than Joe Biden was. Do we think it has been good for Trump to be this accessible in this, in this administration with his sub 40, his 40% approval rating? I think that he definitely gets a lot of flexibility in leeway for doing so many reps. I think he's figured out how to make scandals go away a little bit faster, not all of them. Epstein didn't go away. It was alive for months and months. It's still alive. I think in this instance of Iran, he's taken like 30 phone calls from

reporters and given 30 different messages. So that part has not helped him. Yeah, I also think that part of his ability to control the narrative is not his choice to be accessible, but his choice to kick out most reporters and not sit down for challenging questions or interviews from many people. But see, I don't, yes and no, he's still like, we just watched him get the four hardest questions he could have gotten in any interview. Like, his approval rating is 40%. He's the worst president in American history. I think it does inure him to what the coverage would look like if the space were filled by a voice other than his. And I think in ways that are subtle, him being so accessible kind of takes the teeth out of the democratic argument that he's like a raging authoritarian

looking to squash the free press and destroy American democracy. Like being around him all the time, seeing him all the time, I think kind of blunts that a little bit, both for reporters and for Americans. I do. I think we don't know what it would look like for him to not be doing this much, but I don't think the fact that his approval rating is so low is because this doesn't work. Yeah, I think that there's a difference between accessibility and

like I think that because of Donald Trump, the expectation now among both journalists and probably a lot of Americans is that their president will be constantly communicating about everything that happens all the time. And so I think that if you do not do that as a president,

you will get yourself into trouble. Like, I think his constant style of communication is probably helpful. I think, like, you know, being more accessible to reporters here and there is like, I think for him, it might be okay because he's lying about everything anyway, and he's screaming at them all anyway. But, like, I feel like the next Democratic president doing a million, a 30 interviews a day by phone is not going to redown to their benefit. No, I would say, well, we just don't have a counterfactual because it was, you know, Joe Biden was Joe Biden. And before that was Barack Obama, who had more of a traditional, what kind of relationship with the press?

I think the answer is somewhere between is not between Obama and Biden, it's between Trump and Obama as to how much access you'll want. And because I think the Obama style and someone who is as disciplined as Barack Obama being more accessible and being a little bit looser is probably the answer. Yeah, look, I think him freewheeling it

is probably a net benefit. That said, just like in the Iran context again, like he is a big shit right now because despite all this access, he did not prepare the country for what he was going to do. He didn't use the Save the Union to lay out a plan. He hasn't really delivered a speech about what we're going to do in Iran. So I think it has harmed him in that he has come away as being unsurious when he's doing like an event with the MLS soccer team about casualties in Iran and then telling like Leonel Messi that he looks hot.

That literally happened. It was the guy next to Leonel Messi. He told him he was hot. I forget his name. Yeah. And I just, I've noticed that the quality of the questions he gets is just lower because he doesn't face. All the best reporters. A couple good real reporters.

And then you'll have like Lindell TV or whatever. Yeah. Like the way that Sean McRish asked that question, I think last week about the school in Iran. Yeah. And just like the way that he, not just the fact of the question, but the way that he phrased the question, you never hear that. Well, I would just say, I thought it was a great question. That is the hardest question I've ever seen a president asked. Like, I don't think you've ever seen a question phrased exactly like that.

Because we've never had a president at that. Yeah, we never. We never. Well, that's the point. It's because that is the right, that is the right way to ask a question of someone so despicable as Donald Trump, but it's hard to find that balance. But to your point, like, what was that, Friday, Thursday? Right.

Like, so we're just saying that like, oh, it's been a weekend since he was in a full press conference where half the questions were real and serious and tough questions and half of them were full of shit, dumb questions from, like, if you just took the serious questions he's getting, he is taking probably far more serious questions. forgot Joe Biden. Then when Barack Obama took, when Barack Obama was what we considered a very accessible president. I don't think that's true.

Serious questions? Like, I can even remember from Trump. Like, you can remember the interviews where Trump's sitting down with Tapper, Trump's sitting down with Savannah Guthrie, Trump sitting down with 60 minutes. Like, those are tough, real difficult interviews. He, like, Peter Ducey is maybe one of the better ones when he's running and Caitlin, and Caitlin Collins when she's allowed in there. But he does it with a light tush.

Right. Peter does it like Caitlin's, like, Caitlin's, probably. the best one in the press corps. There are some real reporters sprinkled in with some very stupid, ridiculous people. Look, I think Sean McRish's question was great and good on him for asking it. I think that used to be the norm.

Yes. Like, I remember my uncle was a political reporter. And I think it was George H.W. Bush said that the United States should, like, be okay with assassinating foreign leaders. And he and his buddy ran around to every event and asked him who he would kill first and why. And just ruin his whole, like, rollout event.

And like, that should be where we're at. Yeah, well, yes. Those were, when Barack Obama or Georgia, W. Bush where someone did a press conference, remember, it would be like you would set up the Eastern, or you'd set up a space. It was outside of the normal room. It was like, you made a moment of it because it was like kind of less frequent. And then the questions were all very serious hitting on all the major news topics. Like Trump breaks that up. And like, I don't, you'd have to, you know, do the actual math on the give and takes.

But the fact that he is, he is just that he is as accessible to the mainstream media as any president we've ever. It's the truth. All right, well, we'll, including to us, hopefully. Yeah, call me back, sir. Okay. Should I text him? Oh, yeah. She's a text on.

Just a pick of me. I don't know I can text them. All right, guys, that's our show for today. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcast. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and every

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