The David Pakman Show - MAGA’s Texas nightmare begins, prices spiking hard

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

-- On the Show -- James Talarico wins the Texas Democratic Senate primary and will face the winner of the upcoming Republican runoff between John Cornyn and Ken Paxton in the general election -- Democrats flip seats in Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana amid collapsing approval numbers for Donald Trump, signaling early signs of a potential 2026 midterm wave -- Donald Trump stumbles through comments about succession in Iran and makes erratic claims about Spain during tense public appearances -- Donald Trump acknowledges that escalating conflict with Iran could raise oil and consumer prices despite campaigning on lowering the cost of living -- Donald Trump and Marco Rubio give conflicting explanations about evacuation planning after strikes on Iran, raising questions about whether Americans were protected before military action -- Republican Senator Thom Tillis publicly rebukes Kristi Noem over her book remarks and challenges her responses about immigration enforcement -- Marco Rubio defends Donald Trump’s strike on Iran with shifting explanations and denies prior statements as reporters confront him with contradictory video evidence -- Donald Trump posts on Truth Social blaming Barack Obama and Joe Biden for Iran policy while his administration scrambles to evacuate thousands of Americans after launching military strikes -- On the Bonus Show: Minnesota launches investigations into ICE officers, SCOTUS considers a law barring marijuana smokers from owning guns, Elon says Tesla robotaxis are coming to California despite doing nothing to get permits, and much more... 🏠 American Financing: Call 866-891-7848 to get started or visit https://americanfinancing.net/pakman 🌍 Haven Social: Check out their Kickstarter at https://davidpakman.com/havensocial 🐟 Wild Alaskan Company: Get $35 OFF at https://wildalaskan.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Books: https://davidpakman.com/echo -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Start(01:20) Talarico wins Texas primary(07:44) Democrats flip key red seats(17:35) Trump stumbles on Iran succession(23:59) Trump admits rising costs possible(30:10) Trump and Rubio conflict evacuation(35:40) Tillis rebukes Noem publicly(45:49) Rubio shifts Iran strike explanation(53:55) Trump blames Obama and Biden   American Financing: NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org – APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-891-7848, for details about credit costs and terms, or https://americanfinancing.net/Pakman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You don't need AI agents, which may sound weird coming from Service Now, the leader in AI agents. The truth is, AI agents need you. Sure, they'll process, predict, even get work done autonomously. But they don't dream, read a room, rally a team, and they certainly don't have shower thoughts, pivotal hallway chats, or big ideas. People do. And people, when given the best AI platform, they're freed up to do the fulfilling work they want to do. To see how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. It was election night last night and the results are fascinating.

Republicans are starting to realize, I believe, something that could completely reshape American politics. The myth that Texas is permanently read is cracking and the election results are making Republicans nervous. We're going to talk about it as Democratic turnout doubled in Texas compared to 2022. That is not the only problem for Republicans. We have a bizarre moment where Donald Trump suddenly realizes something. something about Iran that maybe he should have considered before the bombing started.

And Marco Rubio may have accidentally revealed something they don't want anybody noticing. I will tell you about it. Meanwhile, Trump is now saying that higher prices are fine as a result of what he's doing in Iran even after running on lowering the cost of living. And in Congress, something you almost never see anymore, a Republican senator absolutely destroying a Republican cabinet secretary. Her name is Christy Noem and a Republican called for her resignation. I love it.

Plus plenty of spiraling on truth social today. Something is happening in Texas right now and Republicans do not want you paying attention. They don't want you to notice because if you did, you might say to yourself, hey, we might be able to turn Texas blue. Maybe I'll get involved in phone banking. Maybe I'll get involved in donating. to a candidate down in Texas. We are going to talk about exactly what is going on.

But I believe that that myth that Texas is permanently read is certainly starting to crack. Democrats have won in Texas. It's been a while, but it is not the impenetrable political fortress that some Republicans make it out to be and a lot of the cracks are showing. Now, one of the people talking about it most clearly is Texas state representative James Talarico. James Tallerico won his Democratic Senate primary yesterday defeating Jasmine Crockett, who conceded. Tala Rico believes that what is taking place there is proof that Texas is changing.

Let's hear from the primary winner, James Tallerico. Scores the gravity of this moment. This, this movement is about whether the people will hold the power in this state and in this country. We launched this underdog campaign six months ago in my hometown of Round Rock, Texas. And since then, and since then, tens of thousands of Texans have shown up to rally with us in every corner of the state, from Beaumont to El Paso, from Amarillo to Brownsville, and everywhere in between. We have recruited more than 28,000 volunteers who are organizing in every community across this state. And we have shattered grassroots fundraising records all without taking a dime from corporate packs. This is a people-powered movement to take on this broken, corrupt political system.

This is truly a campaign of, by, and for the people. We are not just trying to win an election. We are trying to fundamentally change our politics. And it's working. The number of young people who showed up to vote in this election is unprecedented. The number of Texans who have never voted before but showed up in this election is unprecedented. And all of that is true.

Now, there is a question as to who James Talariko is ultimately going to be up against. Why is that? Well, the Republican Senate primary was also last night. John Cornyn is the incumbent Republican senator. His main challenger is Ken Paxton. Wesley Hunt also in that race. Because it was a three-way race, Wesley Hunt got enough of the vote, about 13 percent, that neither Cornyn nor Paxton got the required 50 percent of the vote.

to avoid a runoff. So now the incumbent senator, John Cornyn and the challenger Ken Paxton are going to go to a runoff. There is speculation that Tala Rico has a better shot at defeating Ken Paxton. The downside, of course, is that Ken Paxton is even more radical than John Cornyn. So if ultimately it will be a Republican, do we want the wackier one? This is a question that ultimately Republicans are going to sort out in terms of who will represent them. Now, let's talk about the bigger picture. Politically, Hope can be a dangerous thing, especially if you're the party that has been relying on voter apathy and structural advantages to stay in power. And that's exactly what Republicans have relied on in Texas and in much of the country. In Texas, however, it's been shifting for a while because the population has grown.

The suburbs of Texas have changed. Young voters are a lot more progressive than the older Texas voters. And every election cycle, the margins get a little bit tighter. Now, there's no question that Republicans still have an advantage there. But when you have a midterm election in which turnout is generally lower and you have a candidate like James Talarico who is built really a national name for himself and has gone beyond the borders of Texas, it starts to push back against the idea that Democrats simply cannot win in Texas. Now, the other aspect of this is, and I know that I've said this before, you never want to go, oh, well, I don't know if he can win. If Tala Rico doesn't win, he could force a race that is tight enough that Republicans are going to have to dump a lot of money into Texas in order to keep it. And even that is a victory of

sorts because every dollar that goes into Texas is a dollar that doesn't go somewhere else. Now, if you look at the details of what's happening, you look at the suburbs in Houston and Dallas. They used to be solidly Republican. They've been drifting towards Democrats. You look at young voters. They look nothing like the older generation of Texans that voted for for Republican after Republican after Republican. And on some level, Republicans understand because they are trying to do all sorts of things to win without ultimately winning the will of the people. They want to change voting laws to win. They want to redraw districts to win. They want to tighten control over elections to win. The demographic trends they know are not in their favor.

And that's why they panic. And that's why they're doing all of these things. Texas has a lot of electoral votes, if Texas ever flipped in a presidential election, the Republican path to the White House is essentially dead in the water. And that is the nightmare scenario for the Republicans before shifting blue in a presidential, presumably we would see a shift blue in a Senate election or in some prominent right-leaning congressional districts, for example. So these small shifts in Texas, the record turnout for Democrats in this primary, this is a is sending serious shockwaves into Republican circles. I'm not saying Texas will be blue tomorrow,

but something is happening. And as James Talariko puts it there, a little bit of hope can be a dangerous thing. And if Texas becomes competitive, boy, oh, boy, does that change the map? Now let's zoom out and look at the bigger picture of what has been happening in the last 13, 14 months as far as special elections go. When you look at the numbers, they are getting more and more difficult to explain away as mere flukes. Maga and Trump again got destroyed last night. And it seems clear that they recognize 2026 has the potential to be a brutal political bloodbath. And we're going to get to that polling and betting market data in a moment. Let's take the big picture of what's going on. Election after election since November of 2024 when Donald Trump was elected, even in deep red states, Democrats

are suddenly winning or they are at least dramatically overperforming prior elections. And the swings are really impressive. Now, we've already talked a little bit about Texas earlier in the show. Democratic turnout yesterday has doubled compared to 2022. That's a major shift. That level of enthusiasm can flip districts and maybe it can even flip a Senate seat we will see. Now, combine that with Donald Trump's approval numbers collapsing nationally. And that is a combination of factors that is the sort of recipe for a midterm blowout, just a massive blue wave. And I would argue we already see the signs of it. You look at Arkansas. Democratic candidate Alex Holliday just flipped a Republican seat by double digits.

That's Arkansas. It's not, oh, it's Connecticut. It's it's Gavin New Scums, California. No, this is Arkansas. In Texas, we saw Democrat Taylor Remitt flip a seat after a 32 point swing towards Democrats. In Louisiana, we saw Democrat Chastity Verrett Martinez flip a district with a 37 point swing, not normal political back and forth that you might see from. one year to the next. This is like the sort of movement where something is happening in the electorate.

The broader trend is even worse for Republicans because since Trump was elected in 2024, Democrats have flipped 27 seats in races all over the country. Republicans have flipped 0.0. Not a single one. Now, of course, Republicans have their talking points ready for this. When I was on CNN recently, one of the Republicans, that was on with me used this exact talking point. And what they say is some version of, well, these are local elections, special elections, unusual circumstances. The numbers are always kind of weird. They're different. Doesn't say much about a midterm election. The problem for them is that we often see this sort of thing before a massive midterm wave. It happened in 2006 under George

W. Bush. It happened in 2010 under Barack Obama. Right. It happened in 2018 under Donald Trump where you started seeing these early special elections and they showed a big swing and they saw a turnout spike and they saw seats flip that were unexpected. And then the midterms hit and you see that the party in power gets brutalized, just crushed. And so inside the Republican Party, the reporting is that things are very very, chaotic right now. Do we align with Trump? Do we denounce Trump? Do we just not mention Trump? And another little detail tells you a lot about where the MAGA base is. Republican congressman, Dan Crenshaw, had a primary last night. He lost his primary. Dan Crenshaw is being sent packing.

But the sort of critical detail is Dan Crenshaw didn't lose to a moderate. Dan Crenshaw lost to somebody even more extreme. So even as Republicans are losing, are losing ground politically, their internal response is not let's moderate, it's let's radicalize. Let's move further to the right. Let's double down. Let's put in place more purity tests. History tells us that in these scenarios, that is not the strategy that wins elections. And the betting markets are noticing the trend.

Now, this is pretty fascinating. On Calci, which party will win the House? The odds of Democrats taking the House have spiked now up to 80% after being down in November, the odds on in the betting markets of Democrats taking the house were as low as about 55%. Now they are at 80%. In the Senate, I mean, listen, we knew the Senate was going to be more of an uphill battle, but the numbers are shifting there as well. We see that on Cal She, which party will win the U.S. Senate? 43% believe that it will be the Democratic party. Now, if you go back to early 2025, less than one in five believe that Democrats

were going to take the Senate. If you looked at late 2025, it was like around 28 30 percent. Democrats have fought their way all the way up to what the betting markets believe is a 43 percent chance of taking the Senate. Now, a lot can change between now and November. Things happen quickly. Scandals develop. But the warning signs are here. We're seeing the massive swings. The turnout surges among Democrats. Trump as president at the head of the party extremely unpopular. And now we're going to get to this later in the show. Trump is straight up saying, So what if prices go up because of what I'm doing in Iran? It's worth it.

Trump is now telling Americans he has determined it's worth it for them to pay more, for us to pay more for Trump to get his war in Iran. So we may be on the way to a brutal backlash against Republicans in November, but and this is the caveat, and you're going to hear me say this a lot, only if we get out the vote. The negative approval for Trump, negative favorability. It's interesting, but if you dislike Trump and stay home, it's not really going to accomplish very much. And so Republicans know it.

They are trying to figure out how they can take the election even without winning the will of the people through manipulation of the elections, closing, polling places, purging voter roles, putting in place partisan actors who can say, I don't believe these numbers are accurate. All of that stuff. have a plan to win despite unpopularity. We need to make sure that we understand that our opinions and our feelings don't become an electoral factual reality unless we actually get out and vote. So after the break, we will talk about Republican fallout as a result of these elections.

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five-star rating and follow or subscribe free on those platforms. It really helps us a lot. The right is making a huge push to take over the podcast space completely. We don't want to let them do it. So rate and follow on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, if you so please. Donald Trump had another terrifying moment where he suddenly realized I may not have properly planned this Iran thing. And he seemingly forgot where his own father was born in a scary cognitive of. event. Donald Trump was asked by a reporter, what if after everything you're doing in Iran,

someone terrible takes over? And this is, of course, something I've brought up. The 86-year-old Ayatollah was a terrible theocratic extremist. But he was 86 and the Iranians had done succession planning. So how likely is it that someone just as bad or worse is going to take over? Trump is asked about this and he reacts almost like this is the first time he ever considered it and he goes, I guess that could happen. Yeah, maybe. Mr. Mr.

What's the worst case scenario that you have planned for in Iran? Well, I don't know if there's a worst case. We have them very much beaten militarily from the military standpoint. They're still lobbying some missiles at some point. They won't even be able to do that because we're hitting all of their carriers. We're hitting all of their missile stock. You know, they built up all these missiles over the last few years. They had a lot of them.

They've shot a lot of them. And we're knocking out a lot. I guess the worst case would be we do this. And then somebody takes over who's as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don't want that to happen. It would probably be the worst. You go through this.

And then in five years, you realize you put somebody in who was no better. That's right. That's exactly right. You see the gears grinding the rust off of themselves because it's true that the Ayatollah was horrible, terrible, vile. If you have progressive values, if you have democratic values, if you have values of secularism, which doesn't mean you're against religion.

It just means you're for separation of church and state. You could not possibly see the Ayatollah as anything but a terrible, terrible influence on the country of Iran. But the Ayatollah was 86. And we know that there was a succession plan in place. And I like how Trump goes, well, I don't know. I mean, I guess it could happen that we do all of this and like someone takes over and they're really not any better. Did no one bring that up before you did this? Did it is? Is this the first that you're hearing about this unfortunately quite likely possibility? And it seems that it is. Trump sort of talking himself into that possibility. Now, here is an unbelievable moment. Donald Trump. appeared to forget where his own father was born. Trump is sitting next to German Chancellor Mertz and Trump starts going, my father was born in, my father was born there.

And he seemingly forgets the word Germany, but also forgets that his father was born in New York City. This is a terrifying cognitive fail. It's a shame. It's, uh, and, and that country, UK, and I love that country. I love it. My mother was born there. I love it.

My mother was born there. My father was born like he knows all about my father. My father was, uh, born there. So, you know, very places. My father was born there. And he points to the German chancellor. Clearly, Trump seems not to know or remember. or care that his father was not born in Germany. He was born in the United States.

Yet another little peg in the Trump really isn't doing well cognitively category. In another totally hairbrain moment, Donald Trump seems to say that we are now on bad terms with Spain and our military will use Spanish airports even against the desires of Spain. That doesn't sound particularly logical. But some of the European, like Spain has been terrible. In fact, I told Scott to cut off all dealings with Spain. Spain, first of all, it started when every European nation, at my request, paid 5%, which they should be doing. And everybody was enthusiastic about it, Germany, everybody. And Spain didn't do it. And now Spain, uh, actually actually said that we can't use their bases. And that's all right. We don't know. We could use

their base. If we want, we could just fly in and use it. Nobody's going to tell us not to use it. Wow. We don't have to. But they might makes right in Trump's world. They were unfriendly. And so I told him we don't want to. Spain has absolutely nothing that we need other than great people. They have great people. Right. They don't have great leadership. And as you know, they were the only country that in NATO would not agree to go up to five percent. I don't I think they wouldn't agree to go up to anything. They wanted to keep it at 2% and they don't pay the 2%. So we're going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don't want anything to do with Spain. Look at that on a whim because Spain goes, yeah, we don't really want you launching

attacks on Iran off of our soil. Like we're not stopping you from doing it, but we just don't want to be involved in that. And Trump goes, that's it. Cut off all trade. Cut off diplomatic relations. And by the way, we will use your basis to launch attacks if we want to and you're going to do nothing about it. This is, of course, not diplomacy. This is not sensible foreign policy. But there are people, you know, we look at this and we're horrified and embarrassed

by it. There are a lot of MAGA people who go, might makes right. We'll do whatever we want. We don't give a damn what the Spanish think. We will just do it. And this is what makes Trump's makes Trump so great. As terrifying and and hairbrained as this is. And we see it and we go, what a, what a horror on the magicide.

A lot of them love this crap. But do they like, do they like prices going up and Trump going, it's fine? I've decided it's fine. That's the question. That's what we're going to talk about next. Trump just said something out loud that cuts through like a hot knife through butter. One of the biggest promises that he ran on. For years, Donald Trump has been saying, I am the affordability president.

I'm going to lower the cost of living. We're going to lower gas prices. We're going to lower grocery prices. We're going to lower energy prices. This was the pitch. This was the promise. And he said it would happen quickly and right away. And of course, it hasn't happened.

Inflation has been more than zero since Donald Trump took over. If inflation is more than zero, prices are going up. It's a mathematical, arithmetical reality. But now that Trump is attacking Iran, is it a war or not a, don't call me war, right? Trump is now admitting something completely different. He is saying, you know, prices might go up for a little bit. We might have high oil prices for a little bit. But that's okay.

He has decided for you that bombing Iran is worth higher gas prices, which by the way, lead to higher prices on so many different things. Here is Donald Trump. See if you can find any empathy. in his voice. I'll tell what, I have never had more compliments on something I did. People felt it's something that had to be done. So if we have a little high oil prices for a little while, but as soon as this ends, those

prices are going to drop, I believe lower than even before. Right. Right. This would be bad enough even if Trump hadn't explicitly run on lowering prices. This would be bad even if Trump hadn't explicitly promised gas prices are going to be lower than ever. But now Trump is running on raising prices and saying it's going to be absolutely and completely fine.

Take a look at this gas price chart. We have just seen the fastest three day increase in gas prices in at least five years where gas prices have surged just this month from around $2.90 to $3.21 cents. It's just three days, four days. So is he lowering gas prices or is he raising gas prices? Either way, he wants you to believe that he's doing the right thing. Now let's kind of reset here. Trump's talking about oil prices going up.

Oil prices are spiking dramatically. When oil prices go up, not only does gas get more expensive, everything gets more expensive. Because as gas prices go up, the cost to ship stuff goes up, airline tickets go up, food prices rise because they are brought on trucks. Energy is built into the price of almost everything in the economy. So when Trump flippantly goes, well, oil might be more expensive for a while, but that's okay. What Trump is saying is your cost of living is going to get more expensive, but that's okay. I want you to really think, especially if you're one of the MAGAs in the audience, do you feel that this is worth it? Is what Trump is doing in Iran a good trade for you paying more

for gas, groceries, everything that gets shipped to you, airline tickets and and whatever else goes up as a result of this. Do you feel that that's worth it? Look into yourself and say, I like it, even though I'm going to have to pay more. Now the message with Trump has done a 180. It used to be elect me and prices will go down. Didn't happen for 13, 14 months. And now it's thanks to my decisions, prices are going to go up, but it's a good thing.

It's a good thing and we should be happy about it because what I'm doing is so good. Geopolitical conflict in oil producing regions is known to be a volatile thing, but sometimes there is a degree of inevitability or at least it's not the United States proactively responsible for gas prices going up. But this time it's just Trump and Trump is insisting he's getting compliments. I'm getting high marks. I'm getting compliments. Everybody that talks to me about this thinks this is just the greatest thing in the world.

Meanwhile, the average American is getting saddled with more economic pain. Drivers will have to pay more at the gas pump. And it'll be because of Iran. Families will pay more for groceries. And it'll be because Trump wanted to go into Iran. Businesses will pay more to ship goods because Trump decided to go into Iran. So the campaign was I will lower the cost of living. And now Trump is saying what I'm doing is going to raise the cost of living.

But that's a good thing. It's worth it. He decided it's worth it for you to struggle to pay for. for stuff. So my question is, especially to the magazine, the audience, is it worth it? Leave me a comment wherever. Send me an email info at David Pakman.com. A lot of people assume all seafood is just seafood until they taste something that is on another level. Our sponsor, Wild Alaskan company, is my go-to because their portions cook beautifully. The flavor stands out. I've been a fan. for years. So we reached out to them about becoming a sponsor. What wild Alaskan company does

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Go to wildalaskan.com slash Pacman for $35 off your first box of premium wild caught seafood. The link is in the description. Why did this administration not arrange and plan to get Americans out of the Middle East before Trump's bombing campaign started? This is getting really awkward, very, very awkward. And now it's everybody pointing fingers at each other. is saying, maybe this is a question for my secretary of state, Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio is saying, I don't really know.

We're kind of trying to do it now, which means they didn't do it before. And this encapsulates the chaos inside the Trump administration perfectly. We're going to put two clips together. When you watch them back to back, something becomes obvious. Thousands of Americans are stranded in the Middle East because Donald Trump launched military action against Iran. He seemingly, as we are learning did it haphazardly without a proper plan. Why was there not an evacuation of Americans before the strikes began?

Well, let's start with Donald Trump's answer to the question. And he very quickly goes to, well, maybe we should ask Marco Rubio about that. Right now is a pure and restrictions in the thousands of Americans are stranded. Why wasn't there an evacuation plan and who you send things to get people out? Well, because it happened all very quickly. We thought and I thought maybe more so than most, I could ask Marco, but I thought we were going to have a situation where we were going to be attacked. They were getting ready to attack Israel. They were getting ready to attack others. You're seeing that right now. And a lot of those missiles

that are hitting in, those are stationary. Those were aimed there for a long period of time at these other countries. So I think I was right about that. We attacked first. And if we didn't, it could have been, you know, look, we're really. All right. So now Trump just dissembles into a completely impenetrable world's word salad. But the point here is Trump's answer to why didn't you get the Americans out before this all started is it moved very quickly. And maybe Marco Rubio knows, which is not really a reassuring answer when Americans are stranded in a conflict zone. So then reporters also asked Marco Rubio essentially the same question.

Was there a plan in place to evacuate Americans before the attack? And Marco goes, well, we're trying, we're making the plan and we're doing it now. But if you're doing it now by definition, you didn't do it before the attack. Was there a plan in place to evacuate Americans before the attacked? Well, that's the plan we're trying to carry out. The problem is, or the challenge we are facing is airspace closures. If a country closes their airport, for example, in some cases, the airports have been hit. So the airport in Kuwait was hit.

So if an airport's been attacked or the airspace is closed, then we can have the planes lined up to go, but we can't get them to land because we don't have the permissions to land there. So that's the challenge. But rest assured, we are confident that we are going to be able to assist every American As I torture right now, we have a little over 1,500, maybe closer to 1,600 Americans requesting assistance. And we know that we're going to be able to help them. It's going to take a little time because we don't control the airspace closures.

That said, there may be more people out there than need help. We need to know who you are. So please, I'm asking the media. In other words, the evacuation plan is happening now. Why didn't you evacuate people before the hostility started? Well, we're trying to evacuate them now. Yes, but it's been three days. It's been four days, five days, however long it's been.

In other words, there wasn't such a plan before the attack. This is the sort of logistical planning that you would normally do before the military action begins to say, well, we're doing it now, therefore we are kind of doing it. No, the before is really the key part. You secure the airspace, you move civilians, you prepare evacuation routes. It's basic crisis planning. And what we're seeing now is completely different. They bombed first and now they're scrambling to try to figure out how do we get American

out safely. And the contradiction between Trump and Rubio is fascinating. It makes it even worse. Trump says it moved too quickly, but Rubio says we're doing the evacuation plan right now. You put it together and it's a very obvious implication. The conclusion is they launched these attacks before a plan was in place. And it's like a little detail, but it's sort of the key thing. And the question that it raises is if thousands of Americans were still in the region, did you not think to move the bout because ultimately you didn't come to believe it was the most important thing? In other words, starting the bombing sooner was more important. It smothered as a priority getting Americans out or is it not even something that Trump thought about or cares about. And the bigger picture is that this is an incompetently run

short-sighted plan. As we talked about yesterday with Senator Ruben Gallego, you can look at the situation and say, of course, the Ayatoll is a disaster. You believe in democracy and the rule of law and civil rights and human rights. How could you possibly look and go, oh, yeah, the Iatoll is great? But you do have to ask the question once it comes to American involvement. Was it in the interests of the United States right now to do this thing? And is it actually likely or well positioned? to solve the problem of the Ayatollah and the regime. And increasingly, the answer kind of seems like no. And then, of course, there's like, is it legal?

Which seems like such a quaint question at this point in time. But some of us do still care about that. On every single level, incompetence is the thing that reigns supreme. There is an absolutely fascinating video of a Republican senator, Tom Tillis, a viscerer. rating secretary of Homeland Security Christy Noem and calling for her resignation. People clapped for Tom Tillis. Now remember, remember Tom Tillis is quitting. And one of the themes that we have seen under Trumpism is that Republicans will go scorched

earth on Trump or his his cabinet once they don't have a dog in the fight or a stake in the game for lack of a better term. check out this is a republican okay check this out of those people and i want to detain fewer of the others and mr president or mr chair in my remaining time i have a lot to go but i want to submit this letter from the office of the inspector general that cites 10 different instances under miss thome's leadership where they've been misled and not allowed to pursue investigations that they think are critically important does anybody have any idea how bad it has to be for the in this agency to come out and do this publicly, that is stonewalling.

That's a failure of leadership, and that is why I've called for your resignation. And if I don't get an answer to these questions, I don't want to applause. Please don't do that for me. If I don't get an answer to these questions, if I don't get an answer that you've had a month to respond to, and the remaining ones, as of today, I'll be informing leadership that I'm putting a hold on any odd-block nominations until I get a response. And in two weeks, if I don't get a response, I'm going to deny quorum and markup in as many committees as I can until I get a response.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is a Republican senator. Now, it would have been nice to see this kind of push back a few years ago and also from Republicans who weren't already retiring or quitting or whatever the case may be. But this was just blistering stuff. He actually brought up the dog killing. He brought up the puppy killing. This is just something else.

Now, Secretary, I read your book last week. And honestly, some of the parts of it impressed me, but some of it distresses me. And I'll give you a good example of one that does. The passage where you talk about killing a dog that was 14 months old, I trained dogs, all right? And you are a farmer. You should know better. You should know that if you're going out to a hunting lodge and you're putting pheasants out and you're putting dogs out, You don't take a puppy out there.

A 14 month old dog is basically a teenager in dog years. You decided to kill that dog because you had not invested the appropriate time and training. And then you have the audacity to go into a book and say it's a leadership lesson about tough choices. It's in your book. It's really an anecdote about incompetence. We could play it if we had time. At that same lunch hour, you killed a goat.

And you killed the goat because you said it was behaving badly. You are a farmer. You don't castrated goat. They behave badly. You should have probably done that before, but my point is those are bad decisions made in the heat of the moment, not unlike what happened up in Minneapolis. I expect we're an exceptional nation. And one of the reasons we're exceptional is we expect exceptional leadership.

And you've demonstrated anything but that in the time that I've seen you responding to the emergency in North Carolina and across the southeast and acknowledging when mistakes are made and speaking too soon for the expedient of social media or whatever it is. This is spot on. Spot on from a Republican senator. Christy Noem has gotten mileage from couching these grim anecdotes about killing a puppy and killing a goat as I can make tough choices. I can make decisions that are difficult and I can carry them out and then we move forward with me as a leader.

But what Tom Tillis points out is that these weren't really big leadership moments and tough choices. These were the results of bad planning and incompetence. She ended up in a position of killing this puppy because she did something that didn't make any sense. She ended up in a position of killing this goat, I guess because she didn't cast straight the goat. I don't know. Tom Tillis seems to know a lot more about that than I do. And she frames it all as I'm awesome because I did this stuff. Now, one other moment from this hearing.

Our friend, Senator Alex Padilla, check out the interview I did with him not long ago, starts saying, hey, if Trump or Stephen Miller tell you to send ICE agents to polling places, would you say no? And Kristine Homes what I call the John U, which is she answers a different question. Check this out. I'm trying to ask a question here. Thank you. Trump advisor, Steve Bannon, among others, close to President Trump, has called for ICE agents to, quote, surround the polls, unquote.

However, acting ICE director, your acting ICE director, Todd Lyons has said, quote, there's no reason for us to deploy to a polling facility, unquote. And just last week, your Deputy Assistant Secretary for Election Integrity, Heather Honey, told a bipartisan group of state election officers on a call that ICE would not be present at polling places. I know this question came up earlier, but I have two specifics. One, which is it? Do you, Secretary Nome, agree with Steve Bannon or your acting ICE director and your deputy assistant secretary? There are no plans to have ICE officers at polling locations. I'm not certain, Senator, if you're indicating that your parties,

planning on facilitating illegal aliens voting in our elections. So I respect that you're saying there's no current plans, but obviously plans can change. No plans is the right answer, but not definitive enough. Sending ICE agents to the polls to intimidate voters is illegal. And so I want to ask you explicitly, if President Trump or Stephen Miller directed you to do it anyway, with or without a bogus. emergency declaration, would you say no? Sir, there is no plans to send ICE officers to polling locations. And we're not planning on doing that.

Are you planning on sending illegal aliens to vote? No, that's already illegal to do. And extremely extremely rare. But people have done it in the past. That's amazing, Mr. Chairman, that we even. Let me tell you what this reminds me up. This is going to be, this is one of my favorite clips. For some of the younger people in the audience, this is maybe something you haven't seen

before. Years ago, then Congressman John Conyers questioned Bush administration lawyer, John U, about this was around enhanced interrogation techniques, aka torture. And the question was, if the president wanted to, could he order a suspect buried alive? And John U pulls the, I know the president. The president would never do that. This is the, this is where this technique comes from. Is there anything, Ms. Professor, you that the president could not order to be done to

a suspect if he believed it necessary for national defense. Well, I, Mr. Chairman, I think that goes back to the quote you just read because. No, I'm just asking you the question. Maybe it does it doesn't, but what do you think? I think it's the same question that I was asked. Well, what's the answer? First, can I make clear I'm not talking about... You don't have to make anything clear.

Just answer the question, counsel. I just want to make sure I'm not saying anything... You don't have to worry about not saying... Just answer the question. Okay. My thinking right now... Yes, right now. My thinking right now...

This moment. Yes. This moment, Mr. Chairman, is that, you know, first, the question you're posing... What is the answer? Mr. Chair, I'm not trying to make you all... I get it, okay. Let me answer the question. No, you're wasting my time.

Look, counsel, we've all practiced law. Hold it. Could the president order a suspect buried alive? Mr. Chairman, I don't think that I've ever... I'm asking you that. Given the advice that the president could bury somebody alive. I didn't ask you if you ever gave him advice. I asked you, do you think the president could order a suspect?

This is an absolute classic. It's back buried alive. Mr. Chairman, my view right now is that I don't think a president would, no American president would ever have to order that or feel it necessary. Oh, it's the absolute epitome of not answering the question you're asked and answering other questions. Could the president order someone buried alive? I don't know of any reason a president would would would want to do that. Okay. But could the president order someone buried alive? I've never

suggested to a president that they could or should do that. Right. But could the president order someone buried alive? Rinse rinse, rinse repeat. In his defense, John U was better at this than Kristineau. That's for sure. Every family tree holds extraordinary stories, especially those of the women who shaped who we are in honor of international women month, Ancestry invites you to shine a light on their legacy. Until March 10th, enjoy free access to over 4 billion family history records and discover where they lived, the journeys they took, and the legacy they left behind. Start with just a name or place and let our intuitive tools guide you. Visit Ancestry.ca to start today. No credit card required. Term supply.

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kind of a reality, if you work for an incompetent, unhinged guy, you're going to end up in positions that are really difficult to justify because there really is no justification for them. And the way that this Iran war is being prosecuted is exactly one of those examples. Now, yesterday, Marco Rubio took questions from a bunch of reporters. And the questions mostly all kind of got to the same underlying point, which is, did you guys think about this? Was there any forethought given to why and when And how with this entire operation? Now, we looked earlier already at this issue with the lack of evacuation of Americans from the affected countries and the fact that they didn't really make it a priority.

And now Marco Ruvio is going, well, we're trying to do it now. But in a moment of frustration, Marco Rubio goes, guys, Iran is run by lunatics, which of course is true. But it doesn't really answer any of the questions. The Congress are not a notification. Listen, let me explain to you guys this in simple English. Iran is run by lunatics, religious fanatic lunatics. They have an ambition to have nuclear weapons.

They intend to develop those nuclear weapons behind a program of missiles and drones and terrorism that the world will not be able to touch them for fear of those things. And this is the weakest they've ever been. Now is the time to go after them. The president made the decision to go after them, take away their missiles, take away their navy, take away their drones, take away their ability to make those things so that they can never have a nuclear weapon. That's why the president made this decision.

It was the right decision and the world will be a safer place when these radical clerics, no of them have access to these weapons. Now, you know, a lot of what he says there is true. Iran is run by radical people. Iran would love to have nuclear weapons. Many countries would. It's in their interest, certainly. But they are the weakest they have ever been and that's why we're going in.

The initial argument was they've already rebuilt their nuclear capabilities even though we supposedly obliterated them in over the summer in July or whenever it was. So we have to go in. And in a moment of frustration, again, Marco Rubio just lashing out and going, guys, Trump did it. Just let them do it. That's it. We don't want to be accountable. Another one of these Kafkaesque lines.

Remember the other day it was we went in proactively. We went in proactively defensively. That was the line two days ago. Now it's we went preemptively in response to an opportunity. Mr. Secretary, their criticism was on the timeline. They said that Israel is dictating the timeline for the United States. As you know, several people on the right have also agreed with that.

How would you respond? Both. The United States made a decision under the President of the United States made a decision. This is intolerable. Iran cannot have these missiles, cannot have these drones, cannot threaten the world. The president said this is the weakest they've ever been. If we don't hit them now a year from now or a year and a half from now, no one will be able to touch them and they'll be able to do whatever they want.

And he made a decision to go. And he made a decision to go in a joint operation because it gave us the highest chance of success. And he made the decision to go first because he concluded that we were not going to get hit first. We were not going to absorb a blow from them. We were going to go first. He was not going to run the risk that they could attack us before we could hit them. Because in addition to costing lives, it would undermine the effectiveness of our operation. All right, guys, I got to go.

There you go quick. I gotta get the hell out of here. We went in preemptively in response to an opportunity. Now where it really got dicey for Marco was when a reporter said, okay, yesterday you said, Israel was going to strike Iran, which is why we needed to get involved. And Rubio gets upset and he goes, that's not what I said. Your statement is false, except we have the video. All right.

Yesterday you said, yesterday you talked about Israel, Mr. Secretary. Please, guys, I can't hear them all of us. Yes. Yesterday, you told us that Israel was going to strike Iran and that that's why we needed to get involved. Today the president said that Iran was going to get. Yeah, your statement is false. So that's not what you. I was asked very specific. Were you there yesterday?

Yes, I asked the question. Okay. No, did you, were you the one that? Because somebody asked me a question yesterday, did we go in because of Israel? And I said, you were asking, are you from that follow up? And I said, no. I told you this had to happen anyway. The president made a decision, and the decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program,

that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ability to conduct these attacks. That decision had been made. The president systematically made a decision to systematically destroy this terroristic capability that they had, and we carried that out. I was very clear on that answer. This was a question of timing of why this had to happen as a joint operation, not the question of the intent. Once the president made a decision that negotiations were not going to work,

that they were playing us on the negotiations, and that this was a threat that was untenable, the decision was made to strike them. That's what I said yesterday, and you guys need to play it. And if you're going to play these statements, you need to play the whole statement. We're going to play it. And here is Marco Rubio the day before. The second question that been asked is, why now? Well, there's two reasons why now.

The first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States. the orders had been delegated down to the field commanders. It was automatic, and in fact, it bared to be true, because, in fact, within an hour of the initial attack on the leadership compound, the missile forces in the south and in the north, for that matter, had already been activated to launch. In fact, those already been pre-positioned. The third is the assessment that was made that if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties.

And so the president made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher. Listen, the additional context doesn't really change the gist of it. The reporter accurately laid it out. The reason for the timing was Israel was going to strike Iran and Trump determined that the

U.S. needed to be involved. Really pretty straightforward. Finally, on the question, I'm going to play this again. We looked at this earlier, but I want to include it here. What about a plan to get Americans out of there? And he goes, well, we're working on it now, except now is too late, unfortunately. Was there a plan in place to evacuate Americans before the attack? Well, that's the plan we're trying to carry out. The problem is, or the challenge we are facing is airspace closures. If a country closes their airport, for example, in some cases, the airports have been hit. So the airport in Kuwait was hit. So if an airport's been attacked

or the airspace is closed, then we can have the planes lined up to go, but we can't get them to land because we don't have the permissions to land there. So that's the challenge. But rest assured, we are confident that we are going to be able to assist every American. As I told you right now, we have a little over 1,500, maybe closer to 1,600 Americans requesting assistance. And we know that we're going to be able to help them. It's going to take a little time because we don't control the airspace closures. That said, there may be more people out there than need help. We need to- All right.

So a lot of words to say, no, we didn't have a plan to evacuate them beforehand. We're trying to do the plan right now. It's interesting how even when you find marginally less incompetent people than Trump, and I would consider Rubio marginally less incompetent than Trump, Trump's lack of planning, foresight and thoughtfulness really does trickle down to everybody around him. And Marco Rubio now panicking to try to explain how is this all going so disastrously wrong. Donald Trump stroked out again on truth social as he looks around and sees that it is all coming crashing down. The Iran war, of course, is looking increasingly chaotic by the hour, now concerns about thousands

of Americans stranded in the Middle East. And instead of explaining the strategy, the barometer, the goalposts, the definition of success, Trump is sort of regressing to blaming Barack Obama and Joe Biden, which is what he always does. What is fascinating about what he posted the truth social is that not only is he slightly off, he gets it completely backwards with regard to why we're in this position in the first place. Let's put up on the screen what he said. Quote, if I didn't terminate Obama's horrendous Iran nuclear deal, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon three years ago.

That was the most dangerous transaction we have ever entered into. And had it been allowed to stand, the world would be an entirely different place right now. You can blame Barack Hussein Obama and sleepy Joe Biden. Thank you, President Trump. This is not slightly off. is the opposite of reality. And I sort of walked through it yesterday. The nuclear deal that Obama signed with Iran was designed to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Now, it's possible that Iran was violating that agreement and moving full steam ahead on nuclear development.

But there's no evidence of that. There is anecdotally some statements that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu made at the time. They were completely unsubstantiated. And there There is no serious assessment that Iran, while in the Obama nuclear deal, was violating the requirements of that deal. In other words, the deal, we, the Ayatollah was still an extremist. Iran was still run by radicals. They were still in places chanting death to America. But we have no evidence that the Iran nuclear deal wasn't working.

Trump came in and tore up the deal. He said it's because the deal wasn't working. But the reality is he tried to just rip up anything that Barack Obama did. That's why Iran restarted their nuclear program. You don't have to want Iran to have a nuclear weapon to recognize that if Trump rips up a deal you were adhering to, you would go, well, I guess I'll go back to developing nuclear weapons. Why wouldn't you? Just about any country would.

That's what caused Trump to need to go in to quote, obliterate the nuclear program last summer, which I guess he did, but it's back again. And now he needs to go in, except Marco Rubio is saying the reason we went in is not because Iran's nuclear program was developing. It's because Iran was particularly weak. So which is it? Trump also panicking as everyone realizes they didn't arrange to get Americans out of the region before the bombing started posting to truth social quote, since the launch of Operation

Epic Theory, more than 9,000 Americans have safely returned home from the Middle East. If you are a U.S. citizen in the Middle East and you want to come home, register with the state Department at step.state.gov. The department will identify where you are, provide travel options. We are chartering flights free of charge and booking commercial options, which we expect will become increasingly available as time goes on. So the state department is now scrambling to help thousands of Americans get out of the Middle East. And essentially the message is if you're an American in the region and you want to come home, register and we'll try to get you out as we are now five days into this thing. The war started before an evacuation plan was in place.

More than 9,000 Americans have already had to leave since the operation started. And this is the sort of failed logistical planning that a lot of other administrations would have considered. But Trump doesn't really care. You know, Trump, forget about Trump doesn't care if gas prices go up because of what he's doing. He didn't even care enough about getting Americans out to make the plan before the bombing started rather than after.

Now, on the bonus show today, we are going to talk about the new investigation in Minnesota that is fascinating into Gregory Bovino. We will talk about the Supreme Court considering making it a crime for any user of cannabis to own a gun. And Tesla is touting robotaxies in California. But they never got the permits. What is Elon Musk doing? All of those stories on today's bonus show.

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