Pod Save America - Trump Says War Is Over, Vows to Keep Fighting

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

The war in Iran enters its second week and Donald Trump declares that it's about to end — and also that it's going to last a very long time. Jon, Tommy, and Lovett react to the president's conflicting statements, the cascading global energy crisis he created, and the way Republicans — especially warmonger Lindsey Graham — are reacting to the war. Then, they discuss why some Democrats are hesitant to cut off funding for the strikes, the administration's arrests of American citizens protesting its deportation campaign, and the Trump sons' new business venture: drone warfare. Then, Tommy talks to Congressman Pat Ryan, an Iraq War veteran, about our new war and what Democrats can do to oppose it.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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a month. Welcome to PODSave America. I'm John Faber. I'm John Lovett and Tommy D.Tor. On today's show, we'll talk about the latest with Trump's war in Iran, which, according to him, is both almost over and just getting started. Great. We'll also talk about D.C.'s giddiest warmonger, Lindsay Graham, the MAGA media stars who were feeling betrayed by Trump and why some Democrats still haven't ruled out funding this war. We've got some post-nome DHS news to cover, a new war profiteering venture from the Trump kids.

And then Congressman Pat Ryan talks to Tommy about all this maddening news from the perspective of someone who's actually fought a war. in the Middle East. Also, before we start, please consider becoming a crooked subscriber if you enjoy what we do here. Friend of the Pod Subscribers get our new extra episode of Pod Save America called Pod Save America Only Friends. Other subscriber only shows like Polarcoaster with Dan Pfeiffer, access to all of our excellent substack newsletters like Pod Save America Open tabs, add free episodes of all your favorite crooked pods, and you get to feel good about supporting one of the only independent pro-democracy media outlets that the Ellison's haven't bought yet. You know what we don't do over here?

What don't we do, tell me? We don't book Lindsay Graham on our shows. Yeah, we don't. You're right. Those who wants to come on. I mean, we probably would have mom jerk himself off to talk about invading Cuba or whatever. I mean, I don't want him to do that on our shows, but I think we can't stop them. I think we can't stop them than Maria Bartoloma.

That's true. Cricket.com slash friends. Go subscribe today. All right. We are on week two of Trump and Netanyahu's war in Iran that's left nearly 1,500 dead, including hundreds of children and now seven Americans, set off a global energy crisis. and brought to power the late Ayatollah son, a hardliner who may be even more extreme than his father. Iran continues to launch retaliatory strikes across the Middle East and may be activating sleeper cells around the world, according to ABC News.

The Daily Mail also reported that the White House is blocking our intel agencies from warning local law enforcement that Trump's war has led to an elevated threat of terrorist attacks here in the U.S. Trump, he doesn't seem too concerned about any of this, and has reportedly expressed interest. in deploying ground troops to Iran, according to NBC. Then on Monday, he had more of a mission accomplished vibe. Sure did. In a pair of appearances in front of House Republicans and at a press conference at his club in Dural, Florida. We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some evil.

And I think you'll see it's going to be a short-term excursion. Short term. Short term. We had leaders and they're gone. that we had new leaders in their gun. And now nobody has any idea who the people are that are going to be the head of the country. We've already won in many ways,

but we haven't won enough. That's what a quote. Has it won enough. And yeah, he was asked about that quote and other statements at a press conference immediately following the event. We're achieving major strides toward completing our military objective. And some people could say they're pretty well complete.

You've said the war is, quote, very complete. but your defense secretary says this is just the beginning. So which is it? And how long should Americans be prepared for this war and last? We could call it a tremendous success right now as we leave here. I could call it. Or we could go further. And we're going to go further.

Clear his day. Well, like, what is happening? Then later he's asked, like, is it going to be over this week? And he's like, no, but it'll be over soon. Soon. Very soon. Two weeks? He was asked, how can it both be only just beginning?

and almost over. And he's like, in a way, both are true. Okay. Yeah, it's really, he's gone real meta here. He also was like, you know, we could have done it. He's like, look, if we didn't, if we, they're like, they asked him to define success. And he said, well, success, you know, the mission's over when the next day,

they don't go back to building nuclear weapons the next day. And then he said, look, we could have done this the easy way or the hard way. And we did it the hard way. But I actually think the hard way is the easy way. What does that mean? It really, it was wild. It's just like clearly what happened today is he woke up, he saw the price of oil going through the roof, he saw the stock market getting spooked and he was like, I got to say something to calm the waters here.

But like I don't know that that means it's actually going to end the war sooner than later. Like the Israelis are going to have a say. The Iranians are going to have a say. And by no objective measure is mission accomplished, right? Like there's 900 pounds of enriched nuclear material sitting in Iran that everybody says they're the most concerned about. Someone's going to want to get their hands on that, whether it's us or Israel. they still have a ballistic missile program. The Supreme Leader has been replaced by his more hard-lined son.

Like, I want this war to be over, right? This is why it sucks to be a Democrat. I want the war to stop right now forever. But, like, by no means have we accomplished anything. Well, in the way- I'm sure the son of the Ayatollah will be in a pretty conciliatory move now that he's murdered his family.

Yeah, USA Air Strike's killed his father, wife, mother, and son. So yes, I'm sure he'll be a big, they'll stop those death to him. America chance now. And this guy is more hard line and he's close with the Revolutionary Guards. And this is another thing. So let's take a couple of these things at a time. Number one, the new Ayatollah. Trump a couple times today now has said, we don't even know who their leadership is anymore. We, we killed off the first leadership and the second round of leadership's gone. And they don't even know who's running the country. And it seems pretty clear that there is a new leader ever on. And the president was never killed. It's the same president. It's President Peschkin.

So I don't really know what's going on there. He's just trying to make it seem like they. And they have, they asked him at the press conference as well. Does the, does the new Ayatollah have a target on his back? And Trump was very like, well, that would be inappropriate for me to say that, which makes me think that something's probably in the works already. Yeah, the Wall Street Journal said he's okay with killing the new Supreme Leader. So there's that. And then you mentioned the enriched uranium.

To the extent that Trump has, there's been discussion about sending in ground troops, it seems like Trump has. Trump has not envisioned a full-scale invasion, but it seems like he may want to, or he's contemplating sending in special forces to get the uranium? Is that? Yeah, but again, I talked to Pat Ryan about this. We're talking about 900 pounds of nuclear material that's buried under a mountain that we bombed that you'd have to get out of the country hundreds of miles. So you're putting this in your pockets and it's running away. And you have to put them in special containers so you don't die. And so this is a serious operation. You probably have to send in like the 80-second airborne to security. airfields and things to be able to facilitate this kind of transfer. So like it is an invasion. It is boots on the ground. I don't understand why the media kind of like takes at face value these claims. Like, oh, it's not boots on the ground. It's like, yes, it is. Yeah. What we just saw was the

most bizarre. Like we've never and ever seen a president talk so cavalierly and vaguely in ways that contradict itself about putting Americans in harm's way. We've never seen anything like this. Never had someone who seems to either. not be able to retain the information he's given, not want to retain these information he's given, not be honest about what he knows and what he doesn't know. We don't even right now, like, in the last, what, 48 hours, we've been told that the goal is to destroy the Navy and the missile program, but also the only acceptable outcome is unconditional surrender. We've been told that this isn't regime change, but people should rise up and overthrow the regime. We're a week in, and we still

don't, like forget knowing why we were doing this before. We don't know why they did this after they did it. We still don't know. And that was after the three of us, uh, as part of our jobs, watched the president talk about it for about 90 minutes. We have no idea. That's what we're talking about coming into this studio. We watched the president of the United States, the commander in chief, spend an hour and a half talking about, uh, national security and national interest. And we do not understand why we went to Iran, what success in Iran looks like, how we get out of it, what the goal is, any of it. That is, matter. That is. What we're dealing with is madness.

It does seem like what they want to do. You know, because whenever you listen to Rubio, he tries to be, you know, he's like Trump. Tristan, not quite as fucking stupid and crazy. Maybe it's crazy, not stupid. But anyway, he, you know, you wonder if they'll say at some point in the next week or two, we've destroyed X number of ballistic missiles and the sites that build them. We've destroyed, you know, the Navy. and we feel pretty good that the nuclear program has been obliterated and blah, blah, blah,

and then they just, and then that's it. And then they say they're done. And Iran has learned what happens if they pursue a nuclear weapon, right? They like kind of some forward-looking threat. Yeah, and then someone says, well, then what about the enrichment? Are you going to go get that, whatever? And then they just say, and then Trump does his usual, like, I'm not answering that question now. And what Iran will have learned is that until they get a nuclear weapon, they will never be safe from getting bombed by the U.S.

or Israel. That is going to be the takeaway for a lot of states from this. We can destroy their missiles. We can destroy their launch sites. We can hit the factories. They will rebuild all of that. We can destroy their Navy. They'll rebuild that. I think the takeaway will be tripling down on trying to get a nuclear weapon. Well, and nor will they ever enter into a negotiation with the United States again, which they basically said today as well, which every time the United States is like, under Trump, is like, yeah, let's negotiate. We want a peaceful into this. Then they attack us in the middle of the negotiation. So why would they ever negotiate? So there's a very, we're a no, there's no more negotiations with the Iranians after this. There's just, I guess,

you know, bombing them again when we think that they might start, you know, building another nuclear weapon or restarting the program. I don't know. It's, it just like people inside the Trump administration to consider why veto goes back to Sicily. That's all. One thing we've learned for sure is that we're all going to be paying a lot more for gas until who knows when. The price of oil spiked to around $100 a barrel over that. Then the price of gas hit an average of $3.48 on Monday. Then by the end of the day, the price had dropped. The market rallied.

Although right before we started recording, it went back over $90 a barrel again. So now it's climbing back up after it went back down. More volatility, higher prices expected as long as the war continues and who knows how long after. By the way, the war is also costing us, taxpayers, about a billion dollars a day. Trump said higher gas prices are, quote, a very small price. to pay for, quote, safety and peace. And if you disagree with him, you are, in his words, a fool. Wow.

That's a good quote. I guess the White House just assumes the prices will come down when the war is over and Americans will forget this all by November. I don't know. What do you guys think? I don't know what they're thinking. I don't really understand how they think or make their decisions. A billion dollars a day has a lot of money.

People have been pointing out that that just over the course of the year, enough to ensure 20 million Americans, provide health care for 20 million Americans with enough left over to buy Kristy Knoem one sex plane per day. That's how much money we're spending. That's a lot, like, it's a lot of sex. Yeah, for sure.

So, yeah, I just, like, I am sure they are hoping that this settles down and the oil prices come down and gas prices come down. And, like, there's not a long political hangover to what they've, done here, but they don't just need there to not be a problem. They have a problem they need to solve before this began, which is people don't believe they're focused on bringing down the cost of living. In fact, they've come to believe that Trump is doing the opposite of helping this with tariffs and now with this. And so they may not, like I don't know what the long-term political ramifications of this conflict will be nobody does because we're not entirely in

charge of when it ends, but at the very least, they've made their huge midterm problem worse. Yeah, I think they're probably managed to calm oil speculators and future sales and traders in the near term. But nothing is solved in the long term, right? I mean, again, we killed the new Supreme Leader's father, wife, mother, and son. He's probably pretty pissed off. We killed half the IRGC. We don't really know who's going to be in charge of the military. And so Iran has the say in this.

And if they want to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, they can do so. If they want to keep firing off weapons at the Saudis, they can do so. And ultimately, the producers in Iraq and Kuwait and other. places, they're running out of places to store the oil. If they have to fully stop pumping from the wells, it can take a really long time to get the wells back pumping again. And sometimes the wells never return to their original form because they get stopped up with minerals and shit and lose pressure and whatever else. And so maybe he solved the problem, but we don't really know that. Do you see the IRGC put out a statement saying that any country can now use the

straight of Hormuz as long as they kick out their American and Israeli ambassadors and a European okay guys so that's so that's happening also I mean the reason that prices are spiking because of this is like a fifth of the world's oil uh goes through the straight of the but also the producers had to stop down they had to like the Iraqi shut off 70% of their production yeah also like the and all of this is like these are not one to one like it's not like the The price of oil is not set by the exact amount coming in and out of the straight of Hormuz. It's a prediction of what oil will cost. It is based on people's expectations of the availability, of the instability, of what the future might look like.

And a world in which we're in an endless, kind of quiet, on again, off again, conflict in the Middle East is not one in which people have confidence in the stability of the system, all of which drives prices, not just for oil, but for other things like fertilizer and other things up over time. you know, fuel costs for companies transporting food, so food prices get hit. I mean, this is, and as we have seen with the tariffs, these things take a while to, like, fully work through the system. It's not just like the price of gas this week when you have supply shocks like that. Like, there's one economist, it was quite, I think, a time story that said, this, this administration is just a series of horrible supply shocks. There's meaning the tariffs, immigration, labor supply for immigration, and now oil.

just fucking up the economy. Good stuff. And we are getting, you know, it is March. The election is in November, but, you know, you start having economic effects that pile up on each other. And we still have inflation anyway. People were struggling with higher prices before this. You throw this on to the whole pile. And it's, I don't know.

They're betting on a lot. They're betting on a lot. Or they just don't know what the fuck they're doing. Or probably a little bit of both. Pots of America is brought to you by Zibiotics. Let's face it. After a night with drinks. I do not bounce back the next day like I used to.

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including a range of high-profile right-wing media stars. Nick Fuentes and Alex Jones had a conversation where they called the war a, quote, utter and complete betrayal and said that MAGA is dead. Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly have been very critical. Even Lord Ingram has been urging the administration to address the strike on the Iranian girls' school. But the Republican who apparently has Trump's ear on Iran is one of the party's biggest warmonger. Lindsay Graham, who's been taking something of a victory lap in the press, Graham bragged to the Wall Street Journal that he got briefings from Israeli intelligence to help him make the case for war to Trump

and that he coached Netanyahu on how to persuade Trump to go to war. Over the weekend, Graham unleashed his war boner on Maria Bartaromo's show. Let's listen. Which is funny because not a, not as tight. A billion dollars a day. Oil price is up 27% in a week. How are you going to answer? Best money ever spent.

When this regime goes down, we're going to have a new Mideast. We're going to make a ton of money. Israel and the United States. You just wait to see what comes in the next two weeks. The next two weeks meaning what? We're going to blow the hell out of these people. Phrasing. And then we're going to win this war.

He also at some point says Iran's down, Cuba's next. get some kind of a hat on. He said that Trump is Reagan plus that we're going to march across the world. Getting rid of all the bad guys. Get rid of all the bad guys. Unleashed a glorious new future. How does Donald Trump care more about what Lindsay Graham and Bibi Netanyahu tell him than all these MAGA influencers who he knows are closer to his voters? The way Lindsey Graham described as conversations with Trump are exactly what I thought they would be, which is it's an appeal to.

the ego. You will be greater than Reagan. You will be Reagan plus. You will be whatever it is. He says Reagan plus. Reagan plus, which is, I think, how you cook a steak. Yeah, it's, it's Reagan, but you also get Ted Lassa. Medium rare plus. The coordination with the Israelis. And so I think, look, Trump cares about his base to an extent, but he also thinks they're stupid. And you always can go back to the like, I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and they would never abandon me part. And so I think what he cares most about right now is being a historic figure, building monuments to himself, even if it's politically unpopular, the ballroom, the Iran war, or whatever else. Yeah, he doesn't have to face the voters again.

He doesn't give shit. All he wants to do is, for the rest of his life, go to the Kennedy Center, the Trump Kennedy Center when they rebuild it and with the fucking marble armrests and go to the, and then have people be like, oh, Donald Trump, the greatest president in the history of the world, who's made the world safe for freedom and peace. And even if only like his sycophants are saying that, that's good enough for him. And then he can feel good about himself.

Yeah, I also think he's learned. Yeah, because he doesn't have to face his voters anymore. Yeah, I think he's also learned from Soleimani. He learned from the previous Iran strikes. I think he learned from Venezuela that he can give the hawks what they want without pissing off the base too much as long as the conflicts end quickly. And there aren't troops on the ground. And there's not too much economic consequences.

I think to Tommy's point, why he's out there today saying it's an excursion, which, by the way, again, is a despicable word to use to describe something which, you know, you know, 175 kids were killed among many others among seven Americans to describe it as an excursion. Like, we're just sort of the, the amount of glib and un-American language coming from him as he describes this, aside. He wants to get out of this because he thinks he can give the grand people what they want without losing the people that he needs who don't want American misadventures. around the world. Yeah, an excursion is when you go on a zip line at ClubMed. It's not like multi-be bombing campaign. Yeah, it's when you get on the tender to go to, you know, St. Croix from the cruise ship. That's called an excursion. That's right. The White House propaganda machine has kicked into high gear over the last week. They've been pumping out war porn videos that cut together airstrike footage with clips from popular movies and violent video games.

They're also getting help from the OG war propagandists at Fox, who dealt with the criticism Trump got over the weekend for wearing a baseball hat during the dignified transfer of fallen American soldiers by simply showing old footage of Trump saluting different coffins with no hat on. The move was so obvious that it led to this rare apology from Fox. Before we move on, we want to acknowledge a mistake made earlier on our program. During our coverage of yesterday's dignified transfer, we inadvertently aired video from an older dignified transfer instead of the ceremony that took place yesterday. We deeply regret the error and extend our respect to.

condolences to the service members families. I don't believe him. There's no way. How do you make, how is it possible to make that mistake? You have to go find it. You have to go find the footage. The tape came in that day. Yeah, you have to go find the old footage. Like, it's so clearly, like, everyone was talking about him wearing the hats. And how, and how embarrassing and wrong it was for him to be wearing a USA hat at such a, like a somber place. Like, I both don't understand, I think they're lying, but I also don't understand how they think they could get away with that. Yeah. You know what I mean?

I'm, my take is I'm surprised that they apologize. Yeah, same. Very unusual. Because I didn't even think, like, yeah, he's a jackass for wearing the hat. He's a jackass for a million other fucking things. That's like at the bottom of my list. But like... The problem is he's the guy that would wear the hat, not that he wore the hat.

The guy that wears the hat is the problem. What do you make of the propaganda strategy so far? I think what enraged me more than the hat, these fucking White House videos that they're putting out, or they're just like, you know, they got Tom Cruise and Top Gun and... all this other bullshit in the video games and it's like it's fucking war, what are you doing? I talked to Pat Ryan about this. He said like he, from a lot of his veteran buddies

is one of the things he's heard about the most is how offensive and gross it is. Like, memeify or gamify war. It's just wrong. I mean, I think it's interesting to me that big chunks of MAGA have genuinely moved on national security stuff. Like it's not just Tucker Carlson

opposing the war because of Israel. It's like Megan Kelly, as you mentioned. It's daily wire people. It's Charlie Kirk used to talk about his opposition to the war in Iran. And then it's the fringy types, like Alex Jones and Nick Fuentes and stuff. But at Fox News, it is 2004 every single day.

It is 100% pure, uncut, pro-war propaganda. It's Fox and Friends. It's like Brian Kilmead this morning was essentially calling oil tankers who won't go through the Strait of Hormuz Pussies. You catch that? Yeah. That was interesting. And there's Mark Levin, just like pure, hardcore regime change guy.

And so. Lindsay Graham going on Sean Hannity tonight, of course, to keep up the fucking Mediator. Why not? And so, yeah, the White House is like trying to meme it twice. through the war. It's like SpongeBob, it's video games. I actually don't think it's working with the audience they needed to work with, which is these young men who are in that world. And like, normally that's how you'd appeal to them, but they feel like, this is gross. It's a war. Yeah, I would bet, too, that Fox News's audience being old looks more like those old kind of old school

Republicans that would like this kind of chest thumping stuff as opposed to the younger generation that is actually more online and consuming people that are more. more isolationist. Yeah, the propaganda video, somebody said this about Quentin Tarantino once that always stuck with me, which is that he makes movies that glorify violence from the point of view of someone who's never experienced violence. And that's what you feel when you see these videos, when you try to turn it into a game. It's not a game. It's really serious. And it's why in previous administrations you would never have anyone do anything like this. Because even if the people that are in charge of the media, the PR strategy, social media, what have you, haven't served

themselves. They would at the very least have some sort of respect or humility on behalf of those who do because they would understand how high the stakes are. But that's not what you get with these people. Honestly, these videos, to me, to me, like, forget the hat, the videos, Pete Hegseth saying that the media are putting the deaths of Americans on the front page because they want to make Donald Trump look bad, to me, throughout all this is, for me, the most despicable and revealing statement anyone has made because, hey, man, it's not all about you. It's not your Pentagon. It's not Donald Trump's Pentagon. It's like he's trying to protect Donald Trump of all people.

It's not even about Pete Hakesheth. You're fucking debasing yourself and dishonoring the memory of these Americans who gave their lives so that you can protect Donald Trump's fucking political reputation. What are you doing? Like, Hexeth fought in wars. He had friends who died. The fact that he would say that too, it's like, what happened to you? Yeah, he's a Lindsey Graham. I'm like, why doesn't someone drop Lindsey Graham off in fucking Iran?

And he can go get the enriched uranium and bring it back. Or fucking Brian Kilmead can jump on a ship and try to go through the straight of hormones. I don't understand why the people on these tankers aren't willing to die to keep the price of crude a little bit lower. Shame on them, the pussies. All right, let's talk about the Democratic response to this very dangerous and unpopular war. Chris Murphy's calling on Senate Dems to block everything they can until Senate Republicans agree to a vote. authorizing Trump to wage war. Then there's the funding angle. The administration is expected to ask Congress for another $50 billion with a B to fund this war. And what's even more infuriating

is that some Democrats are still open to supporting that request. Senator Chris Coons of Delaware said outright that he would support it, saying he wants more information from the White House, too. And presumably John Federman and some of the more centrist House members may say yes as well. even Hakeem Jeffries won't rule it out. He said I meet the press Sunday that Trump would have a quote difficult case to make but that quote will cross that bridge when we get to it. Tommy would you like to tee off on this one? Yeah. My message at Democrats is if you oppose the war in Iran, you have to oppose funding. And if you try to split the baby, you look like you either believe in nothing or you are too cowardly to vote your conscience because first of all, the Pentagon's 2026 budget is

nearly a trillion dollars. They don't need more money. They're good. They're good. Also, this is, second, like, this is not the Iraq war fights from 2004 to 2007, where you had Democrats who voted for the war, then trying to argue that they're going to vote against supplemental, right? I can understand that was tough politics. It's also not a situation where you have, you know, a bunch of Marines at a Ford base in Iran on the ground who might not get an MRAP if we don't vote for this funding. This is, we're talking about a military campaign built on lies with no clear strategy or objectives that Trump, as we just heard, could end like that, right? And so if you vote to give more money to Donald Trump and Pete Heggseth to extend this war, I think you'd have your

fucking head examines. Like, you are an idiot. And it's also bad politics. Like, Americans already don't support the war. There's a new poll today. 53% opposed the war. Seventy-four percent opposed sending ground troops into Iran. This was the number that really jumped out of me. 77% of voters think it's very or somewhat likely there will be a terrorist attack on U.S. soil in response to the Iran war. Those numbers are not going to get better as this thing drags on. Oppose the war on the merits and vote against funding. Do not try to do both. You look ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. If the president can start a war lawlessly without Congress, and then Congress feels obligated to fund it on the back end as if it had been approved. We don't

really need a Congress after that. You could just shut the whole place down. Also, Kuhn's said that They said, well, I'm going to support the troops. You know, I have questions, but I'm going to support the troops. I can't think of a, like, it is not supporting the troops to emboldened and enable Donald Trump in how he's running this military. I don't know how anybody who has just watched how Donald Trump just described this military campaign and can think it is supporting our troops to fund it to provide tacit approval for what he had done as if you had approved it in the first place. What about the next conflict? And the one after that and the one after that. If we don't have a Congress that's willing to say, or at least on a Democratic side,

because we don't know what they may need Democratic votes to do this, that says Congress has the authority to declare war, that Congress is going to reassert that prerogative. If we don't have that, then what about the people killed in the next conflict? They're already talking about Cuba. There are other places Donald Trump would like to bomb. I'm not saying there aren't, like there's no, there are tradeoffs in any decision. I can all hear the arguments, like, however it began, we have to fund the military, we have vulnerabilities elsewhere, it's hurting our interest elsewhere.

There's no good outcome when Donald Trump is president. You can either do the hard thing now and try to rein Donald Trump in now, where you can borrow against the future and push that problem down the line where it only gets worse and it only gets harder. It is so obvious to me that the right thing to do here is to say no more and to draw a line and to hold as many people to that line as possible. It has nothing to do with the troops. No one thinks that voting against this funding bill

is going to somehow lead to, you know, someone flying a plane over Tehran and then all of a sudden the fuel runs out. They run out of gas. Yeah, and so the plane crashes because the fuel ran out because no one supported the troops. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about $50 billion.

Do you want to spend your tax dollars buying more bombs and more missiles that may hit another girl school in Iran or, you know, be hit Iran and then use another retaliation against American troops. Or do you want to spend the money at home? That's it. That's all. That's the only question.

I don't know what other, what do you think if you're a Democrat? It's crazy. I'm not going to run out of the bullets. By the way, his claim on the Tomahawk missiles, the idea that the Iranians could have got a hold of one because we sell them to other countries. Is he suggesting the Iranians, like, stole the Tomahawk from, I think it's the UK and the Australians are the only other countries that have them? This is what Sean McReche reporter asked him at the press conference. It's like, are you saying that they stole it? And he was like, uh, I'm saying it's, we're investigating it.

We're investigating it. So that's all I'm saying. Dan Kane put up a map, the chairman of the joint chiefs that had a marking on it of U.S. airstrikes that included the town where this girl's school was hit. Like, there's no question. Clearly it was a U.S. It was a U.S. munition. But then he was like, then Trump was like, well, I'll accept it whatever the report says,

which is good because you know that he's thinking himself like, well, if it says that we hit it, then I'm just going to say that's what happens in war. People die. Yeah. Mistakes happen. Just even here that. There is just, we've kind of left reality behind. I remember when in Bosnia, the U.S. inadvertently had bombed a Chinese consulate or a Chinese building, I believe in Belgrade.

I believe three people died. It was a huge deal. It was a massive, massive scandal that went on for a long time. How did it happen? How did they make this mistake? Who was responsible? What were the repercussions? We're talking about a military conflict that was not debate in this country.

The goals are unclear where it seems as though. the U.S. killed 175 people, most of whom were children, and the president is riffing about how maybe the Iranians did it to themselves based on nothing? Like, the idea that anybody could, the only thing to do is to put a leash on Donald Trump. Anyways, the Congress can put a leash on Donald Trump, whatever it may be, whatever the cost is what we have to do. We're not getting through this without there being, like one way or another, America is going to have a lot of negative consequences for Donald Trump being president. The question is, do we want those to come from Donald Trump

fighting wars abroad and his misadventors, or do you want it to come from the political fights we have to have domestically now to rein him in? Pod Save America is brought you by Sundays. We all love the idea of feeding our dogs real fresh food, but the reality is that fresh dog food usually means taking up freezer space, time to thaw and prep,

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or you can use code Cricket 50 at checkout. That's 50% off your first order at Sundays for dogs.com slash crooked 50. Sundays for Dogs.com slash Cricket 50 or use code Cricket 50 at checkout. Let's talk about Trump's war against people who live in this country, which continues full speed ahead, even though Christy Noem and Corey Lewandowski got shit canned. The Wall Street Journal ran a must-read investigation over the weekend about how the government has been assaulting and arresting American citizens for peacefully exercising. their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly, and then falsely smearing them as violent agitators and terrorists from the journal, quote, of the 279 people accused by government officials on X of attacking federal officers in the past year, 181 were U.S. citizens, close to half, were never

charged with an assault. None have been convicted at trial. ICE also just arrested a couple of days ago, a Nashville journalist who had been reporting on ICE for a Spanish language news outlet. Estefani Rodriguez Flores is married to an American citizen, has no criminal record, a work permit, and a pending green card application. But they grabbed her after she and her husband said goodbye to their daughter when she was on her way to school. So, Noam, Lewandowski, Bovino are all gone. Minneapolis has faded from the headlines. It seems like ICE hasn't been as noisy about their raids and arrests. But I worry that nothing has really changed at all in terms of how they're carrying out mass deportations.

Maybe they're a little quieter now. Maybe they're not doing as much deportation porn videos from DHS now. But still happening. What do you guys think? Yeah, I mean, Christy Nome's gone. Greg Bovino was demoted. Is he back in California or something? I think so, yeah.

Still tweeting. The brutality is less on display. But I think in practice, that means maybe the tactics have changed, but the strategy hasn't. Strategy is still being driven by Stephen Miller out of the White House. Trump's base still wants more deportations. They like the harsh policy. think like ultimately like the lesson is fashionism will always come for all of us it's not just going to be the immigrants it's always going to come for american citizens and this is a good example of it

the story yeah there's one there's one example in the story uh this woman sidney lorry reed she uh uh was recording outside of a jail uh and she was accused of assaulting an officer uh she had caught it on video and her phone kept recording in her pocket after this is a lot of evidence. Because of that, it was just clear as day that this ridiculous charge. Nevertheless, they went to three grand juries, three grand juries to bring a felony charge. That didn't work, a felony assault charge. Then they went back at her with a reduced charge of a misdemeanor, took that to trial, and she was acquitted. Whether or not they believed they had any case, it is clear that they were using the process to torture this person for the audacity of filming them

as they were transferring people out of this jail. And like, first of all, she pointed out that if she didn't have the video, she would 100% be in jail herself. And there's a, because her phone was still recording, it has her kind of bravely kind of talking to the officer that grabbed her. And what the officer said is something like people can't mind their own business. And she says, I mean, isn't that what makes America great? And he responds, removal of criminals out of this country.

That's what makes America great. Yeah, I mean, you get this in the whole piece, like all these officers, clearly have been trained to arrest anyone. You can arrest as many people as you want who even touch you. That's what Bovino says directly. Bovino says that to them. Ice agents telling protesters, you should have stayed home. You should have minded your own business.

You should have all done this. They are being trained to go after anyone who, forget about like, some people might imagine when you hear these stories like protesters in the streets, screaming at ICE agents, which they can do. But also, this is just people holding up their phones. quietly recording. And they're going, Alex Pretty.

Alex Pretty. And they're tailing them and they're following them and they're threatening them. The ICE officers are these people. They're arresting them. They're trying to scare them. And you're right. We only know about the situations where DHS and ICE is blatantly lying because

it's on video. And even with all that, even with just those situations, they're lying a ton of times. So imagine all the situations out there where there's no video, which just has to happen a lot. Well, even just the, The, the, Bavino says, like, if somebody touches you, like, we're all now, I think,

we see videos all the time on our phone of, like, sort of the algorithmically, like, riling each other up of, like, two people arguing at a store or something. And somebody will have the phone in somebody's face, and then somebody will, like, swat at the phone or hit, and they'll always say the same thing. You touch me. You touch me. That's assault. You touch me.

That's assault. And, like, that's just internet nark behavior. And, but, like, law enforcement. No, if somebody, like, one example from the piece had somebody had been knocked over by an agent as the agent was going to lift him up he like swatted his hand away they tried to get this 71 year old man a 71 year old veteran they try to get him for assault that's not assault that's just not what it is and no like if somebody touches you like there's supposed to be some amount of like forbearance for understanding that like no we're not going to just grab anyone who brushes by you off the street

that's not what a government in a civil society does it's also pretty obvious that they grabbed that reporter uh stephanie in nashville because she had been reported on ICE and she'd been reporting on all their arrests and they had been following her for some time, her and her husband. And the idea that the government would detain her family and lawyers say without a warrant, they're now making up the fact that there was a warrant. But detain someone, take them away with who has a work permit, who's in the process of getting a green card, who's married to a U.S. citizen, just they did it because they can and because they're pissed and they're like, oh, well, this journalist who's writing shitty stories about us, at least she's

technically not a citizen so we can go grab her. I remember how this all started. It was like people here on student visas getting arrested for writing op-eds about in favor of Palestinian rights. This is a natural progression that should worry all of us. Well, you know, Mark Wayne Mullen, who will be the next or who's been nominated to be the next DHS secretary, the hearing for him will now be Thursday the 18th week from this Thursday. And I just hope that Democrats come ready with like a couple points that they want to make.

and really hammer home and make this tough for him. And like, I think, you know, he's probably going to get enough votes, I'm sure, if all the Republicans join in, but make it difficult and use it as an opportunity to highlight the abuses that are very much still going on at DHS. Worth pointing out that the personal chair that hearing is Rand Paul, who is no fan of Mullen, and Mullen is no fan of his. And Rand Paul has some genuine and sincere ideological beliefs. He actually, like, made this point about the Iran war that, like, saying,

is it a Congress without ambition? and is a Congress without a belief structure in defending legislative prerogatives and I hope that he brings, because that applies here too, right? That the failure to hold the administration accountable for just lying through their teeth about assaults on civil liberties,

like that's why Congress exists too. Yeah, there's some suggestion that he's going to sail through because usually, you know, senators like other senators and confirm. Comedy. Like he might be a good guy. I don't know.

I don't care. Just please ask hard questions about the policy for God's sake and just push him on stuff. Like, and I'll give like one minute speeches. Just don't use. your whole time, grandstanding. Ask tough questions. Pin them down. Get them to make commitments. Like, let's do this. Yeah. Because they're gluttons for punishment, House Republicans

held their annual retreat in Florida so they could listen to, listen to Trump today, get some in-person advice from the man who's going to cost many of them their seats. Trump spoke today at a moment when Republicans are trailing Democrats in the generic ballot by five or six points. The party is desperate for anything they can point to that would convince voters. They care about affordability concerns. They are reportedly considering another budget. bill with some goodies in it, though Punch Bowl says they have no idea what to include or how to pay for it. Off to a good start. Trump's also making their lives even more difficult by promising he won't sign any bills until the Save America Act gets to his desk, hammered that home today a couple different times, even though Senate Republicans just don't have the votes to pass it at all.

What options do Republicans realistically have to get out of this hole? They could extend ACA subsidies and reduce health care prices. and tax the rich and figure out ways to provide services to poor people, the actual working class, you know, populism. I think they'll go for voter suppression. I don't really think they have a lot of options. We don't know what's going to happen, but, like, I think they have a lot of, like, proactive options besides trying to keep people from voting.

Yeah, Trump said this to them where if they pass the Save Act, we'll win. That's the only, like, that's how we win. We win. But that's not why we're doing it. But if we pass the Save Act, we win. And if we don't, I don't know, I don't know what will happen. Yeah, there really are, you. not sure what to do.

You hear them also saying, well, we just got to figure how to sell the big, beautiful bill from last year better, which is always the... We've been there. Yeah, you can't sell the bill from last year better.

It's already been sold. Biden era concern. And this way, you don't feel the difference in your own life that things are better? Well, let a politician tell you that they are. That'll do it.

In a couple months, Trump's going to be like, I'm the guy who didn't undo August. It's a deep cut for the nerds in the audience. The other part of this is they don't just have the votes to do a lot of, to do really much of anything because this is not a, the House Freedom Congress is not going to spend money without pay for, is that's really difficult. There's this idea

that they're going to grab all the stuff they couldn't pass through the one big, big, beautiful bill and pass it now, but it's got harder to pass things, not easier to pass things. They could try to do some kind of reconciliation thing, but again, I don't even think they have the votes to do that, especially when they're about to be asked to send $50 billion to the Iran project. And I actually think they have a lot of House Republicans that won't really want that either. So they really don't have a lot that they can do. Yeah. Zero. That's what they're going to get done, I think, this year. I think they will get absolutely nothing passed. Save America Act won't get past. Thune, you know, they were, last time

we talked about this, I think they had been floating, like a talking filibuster, making the Democrats talk the whole time and filibuster that way on the floor in order to, like, tire them down and get around the filibuster that way. Thune today was like, no, that's not going to work. I've studied it just like the Democrats studied it with the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. It just doesn't really make that much of a difference. It's not happening. They're not passing the Save America Act. They're not going to get a reconciliation bill done because they barely have any majority in the

house. They have a bunch of right wingers who are not going to fucking vote for more spending and who are going to want a bunch of other shit themselves. Democrats aren't going to offer any votes to pass anything. Like, I think these people are just going to fucking sit around and hope that, you know, daddy Trump like does a bunch of EOs and sends out tariff-free funds or whatever. I don't know what the fuck they think. doesn't care about their political future. He's a selfish prick. He wants to make money off

a crypto. He doesn't want to get impeached. Get praised and launch wars from his, you know, country club. And so sure, maybe he'll annex Cuba and that'll like solve our economic problems. But I don't see anything going through Congress. Yeah, it's funny. The threat to, look, the threat felt hollow. Like, it's kind of threat he makes. Yeah, definitely. Gets himself out of it in two weeks. But the truth is, it's like, what are they going to pass without the threat? Nothing. They can't do anything. So it's like, oh, you're not going to pass any bills until I, until I remove this threat. okay, I've removed the threat, you're still not going to have any fucking bills. Exactly.

But he doesn't, it is funny. Yeah, he doesn't, in one hand, he doesn't care at all about them individually and what happens to them. But he really doesn't want to lose the election because he doesn't want to get impeached. He doesn't like losing ever, but yeah. Most presidents wouldn't want to lose the midterms because they would want to pass more legislation. No. For him, I think it's all personal.

He wants to, he wants to abuse his power unchecked, which is, which is why we got to win the house back. Also, a good time to bring up a very important new initiative at Vote Save America called Project 218. Who wants to talk about Project 218? Very secret. Project 218. Not anymore. It is Vote Save America's campaign to win the House. We are asking everybody to sign up for Vote Save America and to get five friends, family members, colleagues, coworkers, enemies, whoever, to sign up for Vote Save America.

in 2018, when we started Votesave America, we were part of that effort to win the house, and we flipped, it was like 40 seats. This is our chance to win the house again, and so we need to get to 218 seats in the house. We can do it if everybody gets involved. We won't spam you. We won't send you endless tax.

This is a way to figure out how to be the most effective going into these midterms from a team that's going to only tell you the best ways to get involved, to donate, to volunteer, to use your time wisely, and to get your friends to do the same. Sign up.

Sign up at go tovoteSaveamerica.com. Check it out. And, you know, get your friends to sign up, too, because it's March. You know, November's going to be here before you know it. And you can lose a lot. The Democrats on the ground in all these races could use a lot of help,

and they are expanding the map, but, you know, these things are still going to be close. And so it's going to be really important. Plus, you don't have many of the old ones are going to die between now and then. Exactly. And you want to get ahead of that. We want to get ahead of that for sure.

Yeah. All right. Last thing before we get to Tommy's interview with Congressman Pat Ryan, Don Jr. and Eric Trump continue to find ways to cash in on their dad's presidency. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the brothers are backing a new venture that's planning to sell drones to the Pentagon, which because of their father can no longer buy any foreign-made drones. And so we're going to need more American drones. So into the void, step Don and Eric. The specifics are that.

a company called Power Us that buys smaller drone makers is merging with a golf course company controlled by the Trump's. I read the whole piece. I still don't know why that is. It's basically a SPAC. Basically, you merge with a public listed company so that you're on the exchanges and you can raise capital by selling shares without going through like the formal process. It's just it's like a SPAC but you didn't raise money to purchase stuff with the spec. It's crazy. It's stupid. Cool. Cool. Yeah. Well, in response to the journal story, Eric Trump tweeted, quote, I happen to believe drones will be a much better investment than companies that still print newspapers.

Well, sure, Eric. I mean, he's correct. It's not going to community note that, but still. Yeah. Didn't take Nostradamus to figure that one out. Yeah, it's also like, oh, wow, a lot of bluster from a guy. Where'd you're, how'd you first make your money, my man? Where'd the money come from?

Where'd you get that first million from, you think? Like, oh, yeah, you think the newspaper business isn't great? Yeah, nobody thinks the newspaper business is great. You think you're like the, you're the, you're the Warren Buffett of your family? I don't think so. Stupid. Punk. It's also just direct, I mean, like, they're able to do this because their father made a decision.

Hey, hey, hey, what kind of thing to say? December of last year, the U.S.S. government bans these Chinese made drones that creates a financial opportunity. Then another one emerges with this war and these patriots stepped into the void, implemented an almost SPAC with a golf course holding company. And here we are. And then also last year, the Pentagon gave a $620 million loan to a startup that don't. Junior's VC firm had just invested it and the loan was more than twice the entire company's valuation. So these lucky things keep happening and we should just be happy. Hey guys.

You think the Pentagon's excited to buy the quality drones made by Power Us? Isn't it like in West Doral or something? It's like it's a brand new company like right where the Trumps live. Yeah, it's about to say if, hey guys, listen, if we just dropped all those golf clubs over Tehran. What the fuck are we dropping on Mar-a-Lago? I think we screwed up, guys. I think our golf drones

and our war drones got fucked up. I don't know you're talking about either. I like it. My idea that you got a drone is bringing your clubs around like a cat. Except in my, in this case, a catty drone. Also, the plan is to like

white label the like drone technology from Ukraine to make these drones. Well, so actually this morning for Potsy of the World on Wednesday, I talked to a technology AI and drone expert who used to work in the Biden administration about this. So we're running out of these interceptor missiles that cost like millions of dollars to pop, like the Patriot missiles and shit. And so what the Ukrainians have done because we won't give them any more interceptor missiles is invent drone technology that can basically hunt and kill these Shaheed drones that the Iranians and the Russians are using because the Iranians get the Russians, the Shiyeed drones and they've been firing them at Ukraine.

So basically now the Ukrainians are providing us this technology to take out. uh drones iranian drones in a much cheaper or at least more cost effective way so and and and and what a boon it will be for the trump boys yeah in the circle of life right ukrainians well we we hang their ukrainians out to dry we won't give them anymore like the pack threes and the patriots so dark this technology now we're getting it back from them in the in the kids trump kids profit there's no amount of money they can fix them and that's i think that's a reason to be uh i don't know i don't think they want to be fixed i know that's part of the problem that probably pretty happy.

I think that's part of the problem. It's a real generational problem. The youngest ones at Arawanas we speak. That's right. Good times. Good times for the Trumps. Oh, and also, guys, if anyone did not

see the Melania documentary in theaters, which I realize everyone probably did, but in case you didn't, streaming on Hulu. I'm going to watch tonight. I think it was always on Hulu? Was it on Amazon? Oh, sorry. Is it Prime?

Are they all? Yeah, Amazon. Amazon. I mean, it would actually be really funny just to give it the wrong plug. Because we don't like it. Streaming now on Netflix. The Melania Doc.

Anyway. When we come back, Tommy's interview with New York Congressman Pat Ryan. Pod Save America is brought you by Hymns. ED doesn't mean your love life is over. It means it's just getting started. With personalized treatment options to help you take back control and spontaneity, thanks to daily meds. Through Hymns, you can access personalized prescription treatment options for ED if prescribed.

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Actual price will depend on product and subscription plan. My guest today represents New York's 18th congressional district. He served two combat tours in Iraq and as a graduate of West Point. Congressman Pat Ryan, welcome to POTSave America. Thank you for having me. So as we speak, it's about 3 o'clock on Monday, Pacific Time. Trump has given this rambling press conference. It sort of sounds like he's trying to suggest that he's going to wrap up the war with Iran. We don't really know. As you and I were just talking, you mentioned that the Department of War had literally just tweeted a graphic that they have only just begun. So there's not a lot of of clarity. So we'll try to just talk around that. Let's start with some basics. I know you opposed Trump's war with Iran. Can you just tell listeners why? From when we knew this was coming, when he stood with Lindsey Graham and had a hat, this was two months ago that said make Iran great again, which is insane in of itself, we knew, I knew where this was going, seen this movie before. And I thought it was really important right out of the gate to be clear. Of course, there are a process. major process problems and violating the Constitution. But that is not the main argument. The main argument

that this was a bad decision for the safety and security of the American people, the region, our allies, and the world. And I think it's critical at a moment like this that everybody is saying that. Certainly those who have experienced shitty foreign policy over the last few decades from a bunch of chicken hawks who have no clue what this is about are ready to send our best and brightest young working class Americans from across the country while they've dodged the draft multiple times and their kids have no skin in the game. And I'm just sick of it. So I think it's important that we call that out loud and strong and continue to do it. Yeah. And I'm grateful that you are not focusing on the kind of process points and they should have briefed us this and that. It's like,

no, this is a bad idea for national security reasons, period, paragraph. The public case for the war has been all over the place and incoherent. You know, it's like one day, you know, it's, Chairman Kane is like we're eliminating their ability to project power in the region. Rubio is saying, oh, it's about taking up the ballistic missiles, the nukes, the Navy. Then Trump will talk about regime change. So there's kind of like all over the place. Are you guys getting more detail or clarity in a classified setting or behind the scene setting, like direct communications with the Pentagon?

Well, we got nothing beforehand, which is just, again, a violation of the Constitution. And stupid. I mean, they're actually just smart people that would ask hard questions that would make you come up with a better plan if you were to do this, not that I think we should have. Since we've gotten several, I've been in several classified briefings, one for the committee I'm on, which is armed services, which was much deeper anyway, relatively. And then a whole of Congress won, which was a joke. And they ran out the clock on us rather than giving us a chance to ask the hard questions on behalf of the American people. So we're getting a little bit more. But I mean, several of my fellow veteran colleagues

and I walked out of this classified armed services committee briefing, which was two hours last week and said, we were just blown away at the lack of any understanding of, like, yes, tactical success. We are destroying targets. Our military is exceptional at executing tactical and operational plans, but no ability to link that to any strategic or political aims. And this is where we've seen the president all over the place. Like the first night at 3 a.m., it's regime change. Then it's not. Then it's, well, maybe we just want another Venezuela and we're going to replace one horrible dictator with another, which is what happened. But then he's saying, no, actually, we want to retake the Straits of Formuz and I'll choose who the next leader is going to be. But also I killed all the choice. I mean, it's just such a mess. And it's so important to maintain focus on the fact that while that is all playing out, we're seeing it.

It's our kids. Like, it's our troops that are over there. We've now lost seven young Americans, not in Iran, but in what is a war zone. They are boots on ground in, in this case, in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. And, like, the American people need to understand. We're already boots on ground because of the way this war has escalated. And it's tragic. Yes, I totally agree.

I mean, there's a lot of Americans, both members of the military and also tourists. or business people who were stuck in a theater of war unwittingly and got no warning. And apparently the State Department was offering them basically no help getting out. So just a horrendous execution all around. So again, we don't really know what the Trump policy is. Maybe he's going to wrap up the war. Maybe not. One challenge of that is the Israelis may have a say in this matter.

The Iranians will certainly have a say in this matter. There was some, until today, Trump was refusing to rule out putting boots on the ground in Iran. and there was a report over the weekend that made me nearly lose my mind where the Trump administration said they didn't view a commando raid to secure Iran's nuclear material in Iran as quote unquote boots on the ground or an invasion. I was hoping we could just like unpack that for a minute because we're talking about a mission to get, I think, 900 pounds of nuclear material out of Iran. Some of it is reportedly buried deep under rubble because we bombed it. That material would have to be secured in these like secure containers. and then shipped out hundreds of miles.

What's your sense of like what a U.S. military plan to execute a mission like that would look like? And how is that not an invasion or boots on the ground? Like, why are we torturing the English language? Where is this coming from? Well, I think it's obviously just politics and it's just straight up lies at that point. I mean, it's just trying to deceive the American people. This would be an incredibly complex, very high risk operation.

which I imagine our special operations have been training for these kinds of contingencies, both in Iran and other places. But it would require like multiple layers of likely taking some sort of airfield or like forward operating location of some sort and staging location deep into Iran. It would require still great risk of their air defenses and other, they still retain significant, in both sort of conventional, think missiles and weapons and, and unconventional ability to strike their drones and other things like that. And I think this is where Trump, like, in a lot of ways, took the wrong lessons from Venezuela,

where that was an incredibly dangerous mission. And we almost lost an entire aircraft. And if those exceptional special operations pilots from the 160th hadn't pulled off a miracle, and rightly one of them was. given the Congressional Medal of Honor for it. Yeah. That would have been really, really bad and likely deadly. And so the risk of something like you're talking about here to get out highly enriching

would be orders, like in order of magnitude more dangerous than that. And that is just, I think, an unwise risk for us to take, especially when we don't know the locations to your point of where these sites are. And just worth saying, and I know you know this, like, we used to know. know where all this material was because we actually had an inspections regime under an agreement. And when Trump ripped that up, it's actually now harder to track where this material is. And in a week to two weeks, they have enough highly enriched uranium to make up to 11 nuclear weapons the size of what we dropped in World War II in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Yeah, so you're referencing these reports. I mean, actually Trump talked about the State of the Union that one of the lead helicopter pilots on the Venezuela operation, I think got shot in the like four times in the same. this guy still somehow managed to land the aircraft, take back off again, just like extraordinary heroism. And you're right. He was rightly rewarded the Medal of Honor. But if that goes differently, a lot of people are dead. Yeah, on this mission, I mean, we know where the three nuclear sites are.

We don't know if anything's been removed from those sites. Like, I would imagine that, you know, there were some reports over the weekend that the 82nd Airborne was told to be on standby. that is a force that you might send in to secure an airport or runway nearby. So I think we're like more likely than not talking about a mission that would involve hundreds of U.S. service members who are on the ground in Iran for an extended period of time to like get all this stuff out of the ground or the rubble versus, you know, a short commando raid like we saw in Venezuela, which, you know, was incredibly risky in its own right. So yeah, it's all quite complicated.

And I think it's important to not just look back at the most recent conflicts. Of course, this echoes Iraq and Afghanistan to a certain significant degree. But remember, Vietnam started with this low trickle of, oh, this is just a small initial mission, and we're going to do advisors. And then, oh, well, we need to take one additional escalatory step. And then each time more and more American cent, of course, we know how that went. And so Iraq started differently with a huge initial amount of, of troops. But regardless, it's so easy to get sucked into this escalatory ladder. And that's what I think we're seeing happening here. And Trump just does not know he is so far out of his depths. He does not know how to put this back in a box. And the people who pay for that are our troops, but also all of us. I mean, oil prices from $70 a barrel to over $100 a barrel. I think today's press conferences are clearly him freaking out as he understands. that the American people will not tolerate skyrocketing gas prices for a war that nobody wants. Yeah, he clearly wanted to say something to a reporter before the stock market closed to try to

chill everybody out, prevent there being a mass sell-off. But who knows what this is going to look like in 24 hours? And one thing that could happen if the war continues is Congress could face a request from the Trump administration for more money for the war in Iran. Politico speculated that it could be around $50 billion, but we don't really know. That is on top of the Pentagon's nearly one trillion dollar budget for 2026. So they got a lot of money. CNN's Jake Tapper asked Senator Chris Murphy about this request over the weekend. Here is a part of their exchange.

Let's watch. The administration is reportedly weighing Congress to approve an additional $50 billion in funding for these operations. You have said you're a hell no, not just a no, on funding the war. We have seen this movie before. We know that that vote will be cast as, especially if you're a hell no. you run for higher office, you voting against the troops? Oh, come on. I mean, the American people don't want this war. They don't want this war. They have seen what happens when American troops go into places like Iraq, places like Afghanistan.

Ultimately, we get a lot of people killed. We waste a lot of dollars. The one thing the American people are clear about is that they do not want the United States dragged into another long-term war in the Middle East. If you support the troops, then you should be voting against funding this war so that we get our troops out of harm's way. Virtually nothing good happened from sending thousands of Americans to die inside Iraq in the 2000s. And if we don't learn that lesson, then shame on every single one of us. So, you know, look, I'm a fan of Jake Tappers. He's a friend of mine. I actually don't think we've seen this movie before at all. I mean, how would you vote on a supplemental funding bill? And what is your response to this suggestion that this is like Iraq in 2004

and that a no vote would be called not supporting the troops. I agree. Absolutely hell no on a vote for whatever the amount is. And we've already, by the way, spent over a billion dollars a day up to this point, which could have gone towards people's health care, lowering housing costs, lowering food and grocery costs. And instead, we're doing more bombing around the world, which no American wants.

I agree with what Senator Murphy said. This is where I get just so, pissed off, where that is such a bad faith question, frankly, to be very candid. And having been on the receiving end of those kinds of back and force here in D.C. from a bunch of people who were in air-conditioned rooms while we were getting shot at and sweating our asses off and burying our friends, like, that's exactly backwards, 180 degrees wrong. The way to think about it is, as I think Senator Merr said, like, asking the hard question. is the most patriotic thing to do because, like, those troops trust us. They sign up and they raise

their hand because they trust us, like me as a member of Congress and all of us elected officials. And the way to honor that trust is to ask the hard questions, to push, to make the military, be accountable, to make the president certainly be accountable. And how could you have to the last week? How could any American in good faith say, yeah, it seems like we have a coherent plan. and we should just keep going with this. Like, that is crazy. And to portray it as disrespectful of our troops is one of the most cynical, cowardly political things in a city and a place full of a lot of that stuff.

Yeah, I mean, like, we also talked about this in the main show. But, like, I just hope Democrats listening realize that we are not talking about 2004 to 2007. Like, Democrats are not voting against funding for a war. They may have voted to authorize. they are not voting against funding for a war where, you know, there's thousands of U.S. service members sitting in bases in theater, you know, in Iran who are wondering if they're going to MRAP or not, right? Like the, the, we are, this war could end tomorrow. We know this because Donald Trump just suggests it as much. And I think the way you support the troops is make sure that we don't prolong it. And also the political context is entirely different. I mean, there was just a new poll that came out. 53 percent of voters opposed the war. Only 40. percent support. Seventy-four percent opposed sending ground troops into Iran. Seventy-seven percent of

people asked in the survey think it's very or somewhat likely that there will be a terrorist attack on U.S. soil in response to the Iran war. It seems like the American people writ large think this war is a bad idea and are very worried that it is going to harm them down the road if we continue it. And the American people are smart. They pay attention. They've been paying attention for the last few decades. Well, lunatics like Lindsey Graham keep beating the war drums and either bringing Trump along or lying to them, whatever the combination is. And they're smarter than that. And talking to my constituents, they feel exactly, as you said, I do think people always want to honor the sacrifice of those that are serving, especially those that we've lost. And I've said

multiple times this last week, I've been very loud and vocal much more than I normally am and said, like, I think about my friends that I lost, some of whom were killed by Iranian weapons. And I think the best way to honor them is to not send another generation of young, brave Americans to another open-ended, ill-defined regime change war in the Middle East. And I do think your point is super correct about, like, there's a lot of Iraq comparison. but this not providing any additional funding here would not pose that immediate danger in any way, because DoD has more than enough funds from the $150 billion supplemental that they jammed through as well, if needed.

Again, I don't think we should continue this another day, though. Yeah. I'm glad, look, first of all, you know, everyone should be grateful to you and everyone who served with your service. I'm sorry that you've been thinking about this horrible stories of the people you've lost. And I know that from my time and experience working in the NSC, like that a lot of veterans that I had the chance to work with and be friends with who are veterans of the war in Iraq, really, really, really hated Iran because the Iranians would provide these weapons to these Shia militias in Iraq called EFPs that were incredibly deadly. They killed a lot of U.S. service members and were able to take out American armor.

So I know this is like it's complicated, right? And there's probably like there's no, no one's crying for the Supreme Leader or, you know, or the downfall of the regime. But at the same time, I also would imagine that a lot of those same veterans are like sitting head and hands being, like, didn't we learn a lesson about the wisdom of regime change wars in the Middle East and how stupid they are and like how fraught this all seems. And I'm just wondering what you're hearing from veterans and family members and friends who are like kind of dealing with those complicated emotions and feelings in this moment.

Yeah, you put it exactly right. I actually had a town hall last night and in a rock war veteran who had actually been fired by the Trump administration. He worked at the VA, came home, decided to serve the country again, got fired. And it was a really emotional moment at this town hall where I had shared how I was feeling. He shared how heavy this was hitting for him. And he basically said, like between getting fired this year while trying to help his fellow veterans from a prior war and then. seeing us going to war again that like it really that he had had some really dark moments in this last week and I've heard that from a lot of friends and it's just it's not necessary we didn't need to be in this position and to see Trump like at his fancy beach club throughout all this by the way is just like such a split screen and I think the American people see that at this point. And they know he's just full of shit and he's about himself and he will leave anybody hanging out to drive. American soldiers in this case and the Iranian people. I mean, like, we just replaced one dictator with a younger, more extreme one. Is that what we're doing?

Yeah, with the guy's son, a more extreme version of himself. Yeah. And like, in hearing you talk about this and the thoughtfulness and the like seriousness with which you take these questions, makes me think all over again about like the messaging coming out of the White House. It's the Pentagon and the White House. They're releasing videos that are like airstrikes that are literally cut into scenes from movies or like clips with video games like Call of Duty. And it seems like they're trying to like memeify war, like make it seem cooler fun. And I'm just wondering what your reaction to that has been and whether you think like that

is something that veterans appreciate or want to see. No, in fact, actually a lot of my very conservative and Trump supporting friends veterans have specifically said that that was the thing that most infuriated them was seeing Hague Seth, who's such a joke, and Trump and others, like try to make this out like a video game. And several have actually remarked about Trump wearing the cap at the dignified transfer, which I agree was just incredibly, incredibly wrong and disrespectful to those that we lost. And those are the things that veterans notice. Like, we appreciate someone that, you know, like, cares about the country and says he wants

to protect folks and try to give them the benefit of the doubt. But when they straight up lie and then they try to, like, make light of it or do things like this, it just further roads trust. And I do think it's worth saying, like, the Bush administration tried to do the same things with, like, 20 different technology 20 years ago. But they tried to kind of, like release these tough guy macho on the surface, performative things, just like Hague says, daily press conferences have become. And it's so disrespectful and people see through it. Yeah, it is embarrassing. It really is just like, what are we doing here? Congressman Ryan, thank you so much for doing the show. Thank you for your service and trying to give Democrats in Congress some backbone

on this funding question. I hope we don't get there, but my God, this feels black and white to me, and it's just glad to get a sanity check from you on this. I really appreciate it. Everybody should vote against the supplemental. And just to be clear, like, it was pathetic that it was for Democrats that stopped the war powers resolution from passing. And I'm not afraid to say that. I think I've heard that from a bunch of folks. And we need to say that. And voting to send money would be just a further mistake. Agreed. Consulting injury. Well, thank you again. Thank you. That's our show for today. Thanks to Pat Ryan for coming on. 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

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