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Start your morning with the news that matters every day and PR is up first brings you the three big stories and under 15 minutes They go into what happened and why it matters. It's short and thorough fact-based and personable with national and international news in one easy Listen to up first from NPR wherever you get your podcasts [Music] Welcome to Plates of America. I'm John Beaver. I'm John Abbott. Tommy V. Torre on today's show

We'll talk about the latest developments in the on again off again war slash p-stale with Iran Which seems to be playing its hand better than master negotiator JD Vance We'll also get into the reflecting pool drama Which is gone from farce to fascist. That's federal agents start arresting people Trump's accusing of phantom vandalism Plus the president unveils his new Katari jet bill polty officially takes over as acting DNI

It appears that the outgoing DNI might have been under the influence of a cult leader And we'll talk about the potentially criminal lobbying campaign behind Trump's decision to spring a convicted fraudster from jail then New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan talked to Tommy about their explosive new book regime change

“Which is full of fascinating revelations about Trump's second term white house. Did you think better of Donald Trump after reading?”

Yeah, I mean, it's just misunderstood Guys just doing his best. You know, he's got a moral core. This is good. No, I told the it's a really good book I really expect the day just inhaling it and even for psychos like us the fall of the stuff closely You learn a lot about the process the kind of narrative around how these decisions actually got made What it's really like in the Oval Office. It's really really good. Yeah, it's someone who doesn't read books

But it's also a sicko. I think I'm gonna read this one. You're like it. You know, like it. Yeah, it's a picture All right, let's talk about how the memo of Versailles is holding up As of this recording both the US and Iran are now saying that the peace talks in Switzerland are going well And that they're making progress though It certainly didn't seem like that over the weekend

The ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon briefly fell apart Iran announced it closed the straight again the US said that wasn't true and then Trump demanded that Iran Rain in Hezbollah or the US would resume bombing for good measure He also threatened to take over the straight of four moves and seize 20% of the oil that passes through it Which is something that he can definitely do

J.D. Vance who Trump has generously made the face of America surrender to Iran cited three points of progress on Monday One he said the US and Iran agreed on measures to keep the straight open to the agreed on a mechanism to diffuse flare-ups between Israel and Hezbollah and

Three he said that Iran has agreed to let international nuclear weapons inspectors into the country for the first time

Since Trump tore up Obama's Iran deal Though we haven't seen confirmation of that yet from the Iranians in exchange the US has agreed to wave sanctions on Iranian oil for 60 days first time we've done that in like four decades, so congrats to Iran Trump got asked about all this at a signing event in the Oval on Monday just before we recorded Where he showed off his absolute command of what's going on

If there was a virus that could cause a world wide depression as you noted in this Your president are you willing to risk economic catastrophe and strike Iran? Well not the way I'm doing it It's not going to cause depression They don't abide by it. Well, nuclear weapons supersedes depression depression's real bad nuclear weapon We'll cause depression

Well, then that's supposed to be doing that so we'll say, but this supposed to use money to buy food for their people because right now The people are very hungry as long as they respect us, we're going to be fine

Oh, yeah, and then show us nothing but respect for sure

There's nothing there's nothing to stop them from using the money to buy whatever they want with it There's that's not part of the deal. There's no deal. There's nothing He wanted to say that we're we're actually going to benefit from this because if they buy food They're going to buy food from us. It's a really the money five. That's way back to us

“That's yeah, that's what it's actually things about it. It's crazy. I'll enjoy dunk a ruse over there”

I mean, who doesn't you know what I want what I want something now Tell me what do you make of the latest developments? Are we in a are we in a better place a worse place the same place too hard to tell? I mean per that reporters question about could the ongoing closure the strator who moves lead to an economic Calamity and you know like famine in places like Africa

I think we're in a worse place because over the last week around is signaled that They are willing to happily close the strator who moves again or at least announced it's closed and I think what folks I remember is like this is not a valve that goes on and off. This is a bunch of economic decisions made by shipping companies So we're thinking to ourselves we have these giant tankers. I could send it to the strator or moves I could send it somewhere else if there's a 3% chance it gets stuck in there for a couple of weeks because the Iranians fire off ballistic missiles

Or something worse could happen. They could shot at you know like that's a that's a big capital expenditure that could go to the bottom of the ocean for them

“And so I'm worried about this is kind of bumping along in an unsettled fashion for a while”

I'm worried about ongoing high energy prices and worried about the shortage of fertilizer shipments Which are already going to show up too late to hit a lot of crops and they're going to lead to lower yields and less food for people in higher prices and more Hunger and then the like whatever this mechanism is this solve the you know flare-ups between Hezbollah and Israel I don't buy that for a second. It's like a deconflicting salad. Yeah, it's probably like a conference call But like again these really is they're not pulling troops out of Lebanon. They have like their occupying six miles of territory into Lebanon

Hezbollah is going to attack them the idea full respond and then it's going to lead to these events So I just I don't feel great about it. Yeah, I would say we're better off in peace talks than we were when there were no peace talks We're better off not being in war than we were when we were at war We are worse off than we were before the war started and we are worse off than we were when there was the JCPOA in place I all these hawks who were trying to find their way to justify

Supporting the steel or not being as critical of the steel. I'm just waiting for something to happen in which Iran has

Conceited more or given more than they did under the Horrible unacceptable worst deal in history made by Obama waiting for one thing where they've given him given up more because as of right now How different would it look if Iran had said? We are shutting the straight of our moves unless until you negotiate a better deal with us Like we are gonna like you know what I mean if like we had not launched a war

But Iran had just said we're closing the straight of our moves unless you give us a bunch until you give us a bunch of concessions I don't know how much different it would look than this right? I mean I saw that Steve Rattner Twitter said that the oil waivers could bring them ten billion dollars in sanctions relief Just from what not just oil sales right from all the yeah, right just sanctioned the 60 days sanctioned the waiver on oil sales

Those sales could be up to ten billion dollars. Well, I also

He noted that in the JCPOA we didn't give any sanctions relief until they allowed the right inspectors into Iran We have you know best and sort of posted today that there was the sanctions relief has happened Although they asked Trump about that then he's like, I'm not sure I have to check in on that And they have an allowed a single weapons inspector into the country And nor have they even confirmed what JD event said about this that they are willing to do so and the devil is the details there

“And you remember the JCPOA had lots of IA A A A access and inspections”

But the Republicans were mad that they would have to give 24-hour notice for certain sites like snap inspections Right, like he is to be able to go to wherever you want whenever you want it so you can't move shit around Yeah, like yeah, I'm like love it. I'm like glad we're in talks and glad there's not an ongoing conflict The devil is in the details here and also we're still sending like these hapless idiots like Chady Vance and Steve Wacoff and Jared Kushner and the Iranians are sending

Nuclear experts who have nothing better to do and nothing but time to grind them down And they also know that Trump doesn't want to go back to war and is giving up all his leverage Which just doesn't make me confident that we are gonna get a better JCPOA again I want the war over I'm not some hawk attacking him for the right here, but just sort of like Realistically looking at the setup now after the war started and ended and now we're here like Trump's leverage

It's just gone. He's given the sanctions relief the threat of Military action has gone. I just don't know how you get to a better deal So anyone have any catch up? Jady Vance is interviewed with the rust outfit Pieces yeah, what they talked about this and it was interesting because a lot of the things Jady Vance said is

People who don't want the war to go on like us I was like, oh, that's good. You know that's a good case

I get one point. He's like the difference the real difference between this deal and the Obama deal

“Is the Obama deal just let them have all this enriched uranium that now this deal?”

We're gonna get to take away that's like I was gonna text you about it, but I feel like I'll ask you here on the plot Like didn't didn't didn't they enrich all the uranium after he pulled out of the deal? No, in the under the JCPOA they shipped out 97% of their stockpile I went to Russia where they disposed of it under this deal

I'm talking about downblending it inside and keeping it in the country. See opposite of what he said Ridiculous Rust do not press him on that So we've talked a lot lately about how Republicans are coping with this They continue to be all over the map

From kissing Trump's ass to threatening the wars to open revolt Let's take a listen if we have inspectors going in there and if that straight is open for for business and and yet You're all this flowing then I think it's very clear the United States will look one this conflict if this deal fails President Trump is gonna take the straight of harm moves over by force The United States will control the straight of harm moves will charge a fee for all those who go through to pay for the

Operation and if Iran contest control of the straight of harm moves by the United States will obliterate them I would not support the Republican party. There's no chance. I would support the Republican party How could I or any American voters support a political party that's not loyal to the United States That puts the interest of a foreign country above those of its own citizens like so no, I'm out and if I'm out Then I think a lot of other people are out. Well, okay, so

Tucker is out Lindsey Graham's threatening to take over the straight of harm moves completely and Jim Comer The head of the oversight committee. He thinks that if the straight is open and we get inspectors in there We have one the conflict We guys think are the fractures here getting getting worse getting better. Yeah, the the straight is open as it That's a victory even though it was not something we had to worry about until they started the war inspectors back in as you had under the

Old agreement that they tore up the thing that I saw that I think is the most alarming Is the cope by the Iran hawks who are also Appararchics trying to get behind

What Trump is doing and you saw Hugh Hugh at a mark 11 doing this kind of like 40 chess basically saying the political calculus is that in order to

Prevent Republican losses and and deal with the fact that the country has not been persuaded to be in favor of this war

“You have to get into negotiations and punt because then after the election then you can get back to bombing to bombing to well”

You know Hugh Hugh had called it a clarity and then and then also said I assume if Marco Rubio is Seeing what's happening here that he would not go along with a deal that doesn't Treat the Iranian regime like the threat that it is and he would resign Yeah, usually he's pretty vocal and matters of conscience like this but I do think it points to what Some of these hawks are hoping which is that they can

Prevent the worst political blowback from the war get cost down and then go back to being bella coast regime changers once the midterms are behind us Yeah, like

Ultimately like guys like Lindsey Graham is always gonna just gonna get in line because that's what he does and you know

He's talked in articles before about all he cares about his relevance and you want to be up Trump's ass and get to play golf with him and be in the room and you know Is that naga once and just to be with Trump on everything So I think like the I think the elected Republicans will get in line I think the hawks will get in line and like kind of keep their powder dry for another day

Ironically Iran has more of a complicated system with factions that might oppose the deal Like the IRGC like they're gonna be out there loudly advocating against a deal There's a bunch of nationalists sort of like further getting whipped up

“I think they can rightly say like why make a deal with the Americans?”

They just ran egg on them. They pull out the next president will pull out anyway Tucker who knows what his incentives are these days. I mean he's got an audience that he's building and they'd be a presidential run kind of to ask why does face the nation book Lindsey Graham? He's like one of their most booked guests. He disgraced himself very close to the Iraq war He was catastrophically wrong about Iran

There in that clip he's threatening to have Trump do something militarily that we all just watch Trump fail to do Which is defeat the Iranian regime militarily and then take control of this radar removes if that was on the table We would have done that. So like why do we why do we book this man on television just like Spue this hawkish bullshit like what point do you get discredited and no longer invited onto face the nation or at least be in the penalty box for maybe a couple weeks

I imagine when they're doing their booking they're just saying okay we need We need the administration mouthpiece perspective and kind of tie on a song because before we can't get Trump or JD or something We need someone who's gonna spout that What I was about that line I guess how are the pro trump hawks feeling you know

Got a lens of Graham who's basically reposing that the US take over the strait of her moves

You're gonna use a genie out to get get through Yeah, sort of begs the question why haven't we done that already? It was on the table. We would have done it. Yeah, but now we're gonna go back and take 20% of aggregate oil revenue from the story

“What the fuck are you remember we were begging you're up to help us do something?”

We didn't need their help to do which is retake the strait of her moves, which we never did

It's just like it's so it's so fundamentally Unserious and he's such a discredited individual, but it speaks to how war is covered in Washington We're like the hawkish view is the serious view Right, so the very serious people who talk about serious things in the old office and if you're anti-war or you say like we should be pro diplomacy You are not booked on these shows or treated seriously and it just drives me nuts

Well, you know who's not buying all this shit voters. Yeah CBS the same CBS the headlines of grandma has a a new polo on Sunday Huge majority of people support ending the war roughly 80 20, but by similar margins They think we have not stopped Iran's nuclear program for good Created a better situation for Iran's people or installed a regime that's friendly or to us in other words Most voters are familiar with the reality of the situation just saying true things American voters. So what a guest got it

Big picture 70% of people say the war was not worth the cost only 30% say it was Only one poll, but lots of good data good questions in there. What jumped out of you guys one thing was just a Single a Tucker Carlson was saying there about being out and the other kind of people that would be out

You would think that the kind of America first mega crowd would be more

Skittish about continuing the conflict, but it found that among Republican 6040 want to end the conflict now Red they continue until Iran gives up more and it's a small difference, but actually you were maga reps But that yeah used used but you said America first, which is telling that's not America

“Maga is maga is whatever Trump wants I'm good with that's what I mean right that that the people that you would think would be the”

America first sort of that were against these kind of interventions because they're behind Trump It's their job to be supportive of Trump. There's no they're not broken as much to sent here I mean I'd say even the fact that 60% of Republicans want to end the conflict now even 56% of maga Republicans like does tell you how unpopular this is But I think they're striking that you don't have a bigger break among people that would have

Consider themselves more aligned with Tucker yeah 70% of the country is saying this was not worth the cost

I mean that is you don't get 70 for much you don't get 70 for much. I too love it I was kind of like struck by the the splits within maga the 56% saying and it now 44% Continued to get more from Iran keep fighting to get more from Iran But then you know they did like kind of an intro maga self identified maga pole and and 90% of like the maga people Pole to the deal is better for on 19% of all Republicans said the deal was better from Iran so it just I don't know it it

It speaks to the way The failure here has broken through to even the kind of cult members the maga cult members

“And I think it tells you something about”

Wars and how they end up being damaging for presidents. It's like presidents are actually often not You don't you don't get hurt politically if you kind of bump along But if you end a war and are perceived to have lost the war. I think voters will punish you On it seems like we're seeing the beginnings of that for Trump one number that's stuck out at me It could be a problem for them in a problem for the administration in the coming weeks and months

There's a plurality 42% think gas prices will go down in the next few weeks and There is an expectation you can tell these polls that they think it is over Yeah, now things are gonna get better financially economically and that's and Maybe that happens eventually, but I think it's gonna take a bit of time just because the price of oil is falling It doesn't mean the price of gas will as well and you know you're seeing like

I think this poll has like his approverating take up a point from last time, which is you know It's like large the error meaning this meaningless, but overall you see some you know last week It's a maybe the generic ballot got like a point closer to Republicans too So there might be some expectation around the war ending that relief is coming that I don't know If Trump is actually gonna be able to deliver on

Which is certainly something to watch for which is why I think he's getting Like this 60-day immediate license to the Iranians to sell oil and gas because they're trying to flood the zone Oh, yeah, I'm getting prices down as fast as they can I agree to open question about how quickly gas prices come down and whether they come down to where they were And then whether that's kind of how people are anchoring this in their mind, but

Yeah, but the you know gas prices aren't just determined by the amount of oil that Iran lets do this straight and by the way, it's not as if the straight is back up to where it was before There's still much less traffic through there, but if you have Iran, I think immediately saying we are going to close the straight again To sing I think purposely right to sit whether whatever the the the inciting cause to signal But at any moment we can shut this thing down again that that is our power and we plan to use it right?

How is that gonna give anybody confidence that prices are gonna be reliable that oil will be reliable? You can count on prices coming down. I just they Trump threatening them They need to kill them go shaders. I mean like we're just it's just millennial in a locker room talk

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hymns is not affiliated with or endorsed by Viatras All right, we briefly discussed this on Friday's pod, but Iran isn't the only word Trump's last lately He's also been defeated by the algae and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting pool turns out Trump's Marlaga pal who got the no bid contracts for

$14 million in counting to renovate the reflecting pool a fellow convicted criminal by the name of John Caffaro

Have you seen this guy's picture? Incredible. Yes, I recommend Everyone Google right now John Caffaro find the photo of him in the 80s wearing the double-breasted suit. Is it a comb over or a hairpiece and clear? I don't know it looks like he's trying to kill the aristicats

“He pleaded guilty of bribing James traffic in yeah, he's oh, that's what?”

Wow, I said the bribe I don't care on here violence Those guys both amazing sets of hair two convictions campaign finance bribery. Yeah, this is the guy that got the no bid contract or the He so he didn't looks like when he gets mad But his his shirt rolls up like what's that thing called when you have a tuxedo front it looks like it's That probably happened when he found out about the algae

So John Caffaro didn't do the top notch work. He's known for and now they have to drain the pool and start from scratch The president pre-usual is blaming everyone else including reporter John Carl of ABC news quote dirty cop James Comey and other alleged vandals five of whom have apparently been arrested including a former Olympic canoeer Who says he was just reaching into the pool to feel the detached liner seems like he was up the up the reflecting pool without a paddle this guy Trump threatened the rest of us with a ten-year prison sentence for the destruction or even the attempted destruction of such things

Which he said quote will be fully enforced Naturally Trump got a lot of appropriately skeptical questions on this and the oval on Monday. Oh

Here's what he said are the contractors who did the initial work with a reflecting pool. Are they to blind for the current condition?

Vandals You know we have a hundred and we have a I think two hundred ninety three hundred foot slip Right through it probably a box cutter a knife of some guy These have been all over the mall. How are with these vandals of gotten so close to do something like that?

You mean we didn't have we didn't have a lot of them then who would think that somebody would go into a pool and take a knife and start cutting it Well, let's put it this way when you have a 350. I think it's 350. I think it's 350 a 350 for a slit From one end to the other you think that's proof

“Yeah, that's what the boys have been down there today looking for that slit that you mentioned”

Well, there was what you'd have to do to see the parks to climate. They'll show it to you

We showed us pictures of what you were going to do

“Yeah, I'm one you said you had a guy who was going to do it in a week for about a million dollars. Well, it's been two months”

Okay, right Brock who's saying Obama have you ever heard of him? Yeah. He's been two years and over a hundred million dollars I spent two months maybe less and I have a better product now. I can't help but if somebody goes in with the knife and starts hacking it up And we also have pictures of it. You know, we have to release the photos

We go at the right time you'll see it. You'll see it in court So pissed you find the guy who did the slit. Oh, yeah, we did with the box cutter like it's a but I've reflecting pool. Oh, I'm at otto Also I wonder where someone could have possibly gotten the idea to use a knife to cut their reflecting pool Might have a clue here. Let's watch this will last for at least 50 years

You'll never have a link. It's very strong. You couldn't if you had a knife

I don't want to give anybody any ideas You had a knife. You can't even have it so strong. So powerful. Powerful rubber powerful rubber. Not so powerful So I feel like this went from mostly funny to fairly alarming now that they're trying to arrest

“Random scapegoats just because Trump can't admit he fucked up. What do you guys make it this whole situation?”

So you make a big deal about how you're gonna finally fix the pool because rockusano vama and Joe Biden couldn't do it You're the only one you have the ability to do it You do a no-bid contract for guy who is the crony picture in the crony entry of the dictionary You declare victory then all of a sudden the oncie's coming back and so you have your People lie about that they post pictures saying that it's better that this is not real

It's perfect. It's perfect. It's perfect. The lie draws more attention to the story So reporter start covering it. Okay, uh, because you hyped it up so much in relying the media is Making more of an issue of it so you start blaming saboteurs even though they don't seem to Exist that generates only more coverage now you're arresting random people

For for checking out the mess that you've made now you turned what was a silly and ultimately small story about a pool renovation into

Gross incompetence corruption and rising fascism So there's even more coverage and then you clear that then you declare that the media is obsessed Why is the media so obsessed with what's happening to the reflecting pool? Well, maybe You said a you went and held up a picture about who you were the one that was gonna fix it and then turned it into just a Example of every aspect like of the the the the lying the

The lawlessness the corrupt deals that you're making the incompetence you just turned it into a perfect metaphor of everything You've done wrong in this administration. So yeah, people are gonna cover. I'm still in the mostly funny camp

“Yeah, I think Jim co me at his house like”

Cultivating sea monkeys in the backyard releasing them into the reflecting pool is just that's funny like John Kofaro Having a company called green water services. That's some funny shit. It's very obviously It's bad that they're arresting this random Olympian man. It was just biking around and accusing of sabotage anything like you watch Genie and Piero ranting away on fox about this stuff and we're all used to seeing her

You know like six shard nays deep. Just kind of like doing a prime time it and then you remember Oh, wait this woman can issue subpoenas that's actually a little scary. It's bad But I think all of this will probably go away because obviously this is just algae grows because it's sunny and it's hot in the pool and there's water in it It's and it's talking about and it sounds like they just they just did everything wrong. They did a bad job

is the other thing and they spent a lot of money on it. Also Like none of these people are going to jail because not like all of this is gonna get laughed out of court TMZ TMZ DC Was down there all day today and they have all this footage of people being like arrested detained and these people are like you can see on camera they're just like look some of them are just looking down to take pictures and like seven

Like there's like park police. There's decent. They're all it's complete madness. It is just It is a lie on the level of like now we're back to like Sean Spicer and the inaugural crowd Yeah, it's like you know who cut the 300 foot slit and they're reflecting pool fucking no one because that it just It did not happen because that you you look at their fucking poop. There is no slit visible reporters have looked even since he just said that so it's it didn't happen

It's impossible to do that 300 feet. That's the size of that's the size of a football field Someone's gonna take a box cutter and cut us look the size of the football field and no one's gonna pay attention to that No one's gonna see that they're not gonna be seen also even if they did wouldn't cause the algae

When gust the problem also you spend 14 million dollars on a reno

It can be undid with a box cutter but all the what kind of renovation is that it's also not a set There's chunks of it floating up all over the fucking thing. I'll just been growing since last week

What happened? I just like obviously this is very silly, but now we're at the point where they got Federal cops patrolling the national mall to arrest people who are going to point things out that embarrass the dear leader It is that it is as you know the ballroom and now this these are perfect metaphors for what this administration has done

“I think it's the kind of thing that'll stick with people in part because it's also stupid that this is what's taking up the president's time”

And even if no one was paying attention to it probably still taking up his time Yeah, he's the reason for all paying attention Focus on that drove his ass down to the reflecting pool Like this I'll start it with him doing a drive by the thing. They're gonna build a wall around this thing too. They're gonna have to cover it. They are they're gonna cover it up So people can't take photos of it the same way they built that giant wall around the renovation of the ballroom

Because he didn't want embarrassing photos of the ballroom like this. It's not gonna go away The reflecting pool is just there. It's a big part of the national mall. It's eight acres big. It's massive and it is not gonna be fixed for a long time They don't know how to fix it and look we we know how Serious this administration is about punishing people who destroy federal property. It's just something that they have cared about for a long time Take it very seriously take it very very very very very serious. Every single person who did that on January's sex

Completely free pardoned commuted and now they're just arresting random people Which is which is fascinating. He's also now saying that he's people that dump and fertilizer in there Vandals are dumping fertilizer. That's cool. So yeah, so they got that through the straight and now Here we go. How they got now. They're dumped in in there. Yeah, the kome thing for those who didn't pay attention is someone

There was some vandalism where someone on the lawn did like an 86. 47. I'm related to the unrelated to the reflecting pool unrelated to the 486. 46 47 on in grass Right truth about it and so Trump thinks that because kome Did that with the shells or took a picture of the shells and posted it which he's now Also being prosecuted for that someone was inspired by that to to box cut his reflecting pool

One of the stupidest fucking thing. Yeah, we've covered a lot of stupid stories Yeah, this is going to be a this is a chapter. You're going to want to come back to Yeah, when the Trump story is the one that will probably forget about it by the end of the Trump administration But the reflecting pool. This is one of the Democrats. I don't know that look

“I think it's going to be in the ballroom category because this is just going to be something for months and months now”

They got to drain it again. It's not like they're planned work the first time

They got a better plan this time because apparently the shit they put down on the floor that reflecting pool didn't work It's a so I don't is it the same jack-off. It's going to be doing the next round is so are they getting a new new big no-bid Conchants and blue rubber floating New king it with chemicals. Well, so many because when the whole thing started They were like seems kind of strange. It's hiring just like a pool guy and it's like nah, he's got it

Well, it's also funny that last time we recorded I think the Department of Interior was just posting fake pictures of the pool Blue and saying everything so they thought that was their plan for other They were just going to a either way through it. I just now they're like all right the AI stuff didn't work So now we're gonna have to blame some fake mandels and now we're gonna We're not that far away from like the government posting great news everybody

Gases down to $11 a gallon you're all getting more chocolate this week your chocolate rations are up So one renovation that did go well for Trump this week the brand new Katari Force one that he'll be flying around in and ultimately Taking with him when he leaves the White House as a parting gift the government won't say how much we all paid to Retrofit the new plane that the Secretary of the Air Force said in a hearing last year that it would probably be less than $400 million

“Privately the Air Force said it would use some of its nuclear modernization funds to pay for upgrading the plane because why do we need those?”

And sure enough a month later there was an unexplained

$900 million transfer from a nuclear account to an unnamed classified project

They are calling the plane project classified, which is why they're not revealing and he if the costs Not the Trump wants to do think this thing was done cheaply. He's actually proud of how much money it cost I hear he is now this plane was Transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody's ever seen before Probably even almost outside of an airplane. It's nobody's ever seen anything like this

Nobody's ever seen anything like nobody not even it's nicer than any room outside of an airplane That's all but a very small set of roof There's also there's still another two Air Force ones on order This is just what the Pentagon is calling a a bridge aircraft. Yeah, he's gonna steal it after that This is the bridge one because this is when he takes to get this did it go one you follow this

Yeah, this is the dog this is going to take with him. How old do you think this one pulls? I mean, I talked to Maggie and Jonathan so on about this in their book they report that

Qatar initially wanted to be paid a hundred and fifty the two hundred million dollars for the plane and then suddenly the plane was a gift

And they report that the idea for making a gift was quote generated at the Podis level So it's just part of this like ongoing corruption story I think this is really become a monument to the corruption and it really broke through in the moment

I mean, it is a problem for a politically but like one of his superpowers as we all remember is the years of branding on the

“Apprentice and with the art of the deal was that he was a brilliant businessman and he was rich and he didn't need this job”

And he had all the money you wanted. This was really a sacrifice It's coming into government in this the plane the narrative around the corruption has really pierced that narrative and You would think he would care, but then we watch him do like a rollout of his corrupt gift very proud Where he does remarks and like a staged photo up so you think the Qataris are feeling like they got their money's worth Yeah, this is what's going on. You think they give this free airplane and look what they got. They got around blown their shit up and

Their economy in trouble because of the war in the Middle East the Trump cause I don't know if they feel like they got to sit there next to JD doing track changes No, no, no, we can't do that. They're not doing that. They're not doing that. That that that that that the It is like, you know It's interesting the difference between term one and term two with Trump right cuz term one like he felt like he got all the kind

He gets all the prestige and benefits of being present. He loves having that plane. He would do speeches in front of the plane loves doing that and it was always such a bummer to have Trump

You know, garnered the prestige of of the White House, right like he had that power behind him, which he which he did

“And and that included Air Force one. It was like, oh, so just so you know sad to see a”

Donald Trump Representing our country on that plane and now we're gonna have this new version of the plane that looks different and It's actually his plane that he's taking with him and so now whenever he gets off the plane We're gonna have this little symbol of corruption behind him in every shot and he's gonna still use it like he did the old one But they were behind him is the proof that he is the most corrupt leader on Earth

Maybe the most corrupt necessarily the most corrupt president in American history Right there on the tarmac what do you guys think of the right way in blue? Kind of like it. Oh, I get yeah It looks pretty cool. I mean the the old version I like the old version too. Like the robins egg blue on the bottom and like you know that was also a Little piece of history. I mean that was redesigned with by JFK in 1962. Mm-hmm

He also spent a bunch of time like personally with a designer named Raymond Lowey, like redesigning the look of Air Force one and Trump just sort of trash that as he's Trashing the Kennedy Center and renaming that and all these other monuments in the institution So it's a piece of a puzzle But yeah, I mean aesthetically. It's like it's a sick plane as far as Donald Trump being a charge of any kind of design

I feel like He didn't we didn't fuck it up too badly. It looks good. I could have had I thought it could have more we'll see what the inside looks like Yeah, we haven't seen the inside yet. I saw a few pictures. I haven't seen the I just saw the outside I think it's just bigger and bigger But I will say the one thing that is incredibly ugly is they have instead of the kind of classic

American flag on the back on the tail. They have a waving American flag. Oh, that's no good. She paint like it looks tacky and it doesn't fit with the design It does fit with his design. Yes, but just that makes it okay good at least there's some Trump on there Yes, so instead of having just sort of a classic straight American flag as you would I'm just that's not waving because it's not a Fucking flag. It's a painting of a flag So you don't need to paint it waving. They painted the cheesy waving thing on it

Which looks like ass. I'm surprised he didn't put his fucking name on it. I am too. Basically again in the Maggie and Jonathan's book

They talked there's the scene where Caroline levitt walks into the oval office and Trump is personally Supergluing some little gody gold thing onto the mantle piece. Oh my God. He's so personally engaged and invested in this stuff Because he's a board-old man. You've really just was no interest in governing. Yes, it's just like why put any going to interest in using the governing to make money For himself and his friends and to set a load scores and interior design and interior design. That's his hobby and golf. Yeah, at least like

Howard Hughes Have the decency to lock the door and fill the jars with hiss like well this guy's just got it's like just a different kind of

“Of of a kind of old craziness of like putting your name on everything putting gold on everything the question of what does Qatar think?”

They got a good deal here as an interesting one because remember in the first term Qatar was briefly like blockated by all the other countries in the Gulf Oh, yeah, and then ultimately that deal was mediated by Jared Kushner and

Interestingly, that mediation happened right around the time when the Qataries I think finally came in and bailed Jared out for like the six six six

Park-aver whatever real estate deal He had done that went terribly south because they you know did the biggest real estate investment and Manhattan history right before financial crisis So it's interesting though. He's Qatar's tiny and super isolated and pisses all at friends off Through Al jazir and it's foreign policy choices and I think they wanted to get in well with Trump, but then of course the Iran stuff kind of complicates the

The ledger here on whether this worked out well and look now they gave a plan to one president now Expectations can be that every American president gets a plane. I know here's a plane If you do as a favor and stop Causing foreign policy disasters that lead to our hotels exploding

We got a we got a rosewood on fire here We're trying to convince people that it's awesome and no big deal that we're this close to these two Iran I kind of orange those aren't doing it. We need yeah Jesus Christ You know, yeah, the gay people can't hold hands, but we got a fucking four seasons going can you help us out Trying to build an even taller building

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And you have to smalls.com/cook All right, we didn't get a chance last week to talk about the latest with the bill Pulti Saga Well, surprise this corrupt moron has now taken over for Tulsi Gabbard as the acting director of national intelligence Development that both Democrats and Republicans had tried to avoid a senator Mark Warner explained to Tommy the original plan was to Immediately confirm Trump's permanent pick for the job federal prosecutor and former SEC chair Jay Clayton

But Trump got wind of that and announced that he was pulling back Clayton's nomination until Clayton's replacement at S D N Y is approved by the Senate All but ensuring that Pulti gets at least some time on the job Why do you guys think the Trump didn't want his own pick Jay Clayton confirmed as soon as possible? He did pick him. What's hard to be inside of his mind. I think there's two things going on. One is the The machinations around Pfizer and getting

The STNY confirmed who is a former federal prosecutor, but also his personal lawyer at I think Solomon and Chris Sullivan and Crumwell. I think it's where he is So he's sort of wants to get one of his guys in at STNY fine. I think also Bill Pulti can do a lot of damage being DNI for a couple weeks get some get some good good good

“Good political prosecutions going if he wants that's what he did when he was going through the mortgage documents and trying to find ways to go after”

Komi and Tisch James and all the rest so

apparently someone a source familiar told CNN just before we recorded That Pulti is going to start carrying out firings that the deep state firings have begun and that part of it is to Yeah, get him in there so he can fire a bunch of fucking deep state people. Yeah, so Mark Warner when I talked to him was so concerned about

Bill Pulti's access to information or being in the job even for a minute that he was basically ready to unanimously

Just like confirm Clayton by UC just like push him forward and get it done

“I think that Trump's weird gambit here is like he's mad that Republicans told him know about anything”

So he's going to just freak out and decide to change the kind of up the ante I think he genuinely seems to think that he can use The bipartisan desire to pass a very important intelligence collection program as a way to shoehorn in the save act and get that done Which is their crazy build of like tackle that made up problem of non-citizen vote registration

It doesn't happen, but then with respect to Pulti like I think the question is does he want him to root around intelligence information and find stuff about identities and then refer to the DOJ or do something with it or this Trump just want a Purge of D&I employees

I don't really get why he couldn't if had tells he gathered to a poll purge of D&I employees

It also seems like Jake Clayton would be happy to do that, too Jake Clayton is not something like like he's better than Bill Pulti, but he's been very loyal to Trump He's very maga. I think he's a serious person who's you know serious prosecutor was a you know Was the SEC yeah, you know, so he's like had big jobs and Hopefully like bring some of relevant experience to this job. Pulti's obviously a clown

Speaking of tells a gathered did either if you guys read the insane Washington post story about the The the cults she grew up in that may be still controls her Why old why old story? Yeah, it's uh, it's one of those things were because it's coming out after She's gone. It's like oh well, who she shouldn't PD and I well and she's not but man you kind of the thing that I took away from it is

“One of the things about tells a gathered I think that is she's just a puzzle. She just kind of confusing figure her”

Yeah, it's like a few more pieces when it's a place after that story. Yeah, but like it was always like wait

She you know, she introduces Bernie at the convention She used to be seen as on the left. She was anti war had this strange Refusal to criticize a sod then goes in this Trump direction. It was all just confusing Hershey was ideologically confusing and then you dig into it and there's this collection of memos first of all You've never seen anything like it just a random there's there's collection of memos that seem to be from this

Figure this sort of religious leader inside of her life these kind of like Harsh like insulting directives coming all the time and in her direction What she should say on television what bills she should do is how should she talk about certain issues? They deny that it's him there's a lot of denials in the thing

But there's also references inside of these memos to his own life that don't refer to anybody else And also she said there's like they matched like what she actually said on TV in the in the legislation She introduced and they matched exactly to all these memos with his person was telling her to do these things Yes, and then on top of that you have this collection of people It's all this sort of strange bit of it's very cult it's also very like ham-fisted and and and silly and and

Amateur there they have a collection of people running dummy accounts to comment under articles on Hawaii newspaper About about Tulsi and there's the in like on Twitter and all of the rest It's this is this is a little kind of ram shackle small operation and then at one point Which I thought it spoke to the kind of I don't know what what kind of like master plan They thought they were implementing that that once Trump started running

This one of the notes has something long lines of it's a shame you're not running because he's doing what you were gonna do It's like you be president or what are we talking well she means she ran She thinks apparently thinks the DNI is a platform to run again and is wants to try and it's apparently thing that she and Trump had gotten in fights about Because you know, remember she put out that weird video After getting back to Hiroshima because of my nuclear annihilation

It was like clear the context was in the midst of both the Putin and Russia talks But also the Iran negotiations and Trump I guess he all did her about it I mean, my reaction to this story was somewhere to yours love it Which is like she's such a bizarre Character and like maybe this helps us understand this fucking weirdo

That she was just taking a literal direction from a cult leader I hope it will get her out of politics forever and that she will not run for president again apparently like

“I think was it Roger Stone or Steve Bannon wanted those guys things that she could actually”

Run but it's fucking it's crazy and this person with the director of national intelligence like just sort of Perfect to the utter failure of vetting for any of these individuals. Yeah, or the success of the vetting because it seems like this is who he wants to Sack his administration with you got RFK gene conspiracy theorists kooks. I mean John Swain wrote the story He's with his with his Washington Post colleague Aaron Schaffer. I compared Gabbard's remarks in 32 TV interviews

This the cult leader wrote although he didn't sign his name to them, but they're all from the same person

“On 24 occasions out of the 32 Gabbard use language in the memos almost verbatim”

So this is like her her entire congressional career. She's just going on TV and saying the word. I mean this is like This is like a right-wing conspiracy, but it's real You know like Democrats being controlled by global forces like here's Tulsi Gabbard just going on TV introducing legislation that this Random cult leader told her to. What's funny to is they're trying to now say they're like, oh, this is just anti-hindew bigotry When I say there's nothing there's nothing Hindu going on and he's talking to us and

There's no there one line that I thought was great is there was some line that was something this was the one

I said no matter how much you've basically to a pair of raise it don't worry no matter how much you fuck up tomorrow

I love you and Krishna loves you, which I didn't really appreciate there was one memo that I thought was very funny because it was It was very it was about some statement. She gave me the after the state of the union and it was actually had some like Very good advice which was something along lines up like hey you just gave a generic boring statement You sound like a politician if you have nothing to say don't say anything But you only have something to say if you're prepared. Let's let's get this guy in a democratic campaign

Yeah, he had to worse than a lot of the got a lot of consultants. We've got going I though the range of the advice was funny. It was like introduced this exact policy and then some emails would be like stop doing the weird I think Yes, I mean what I read that and I was like oh, she does do a weird eye thing

“Yeah, he was not something there. He reminded me there was a I remember there was a”

somebody when I was working for Hillary at some point She went to the floor to speak on the Senate floor by some issue and One of the consultants accidentally respond replied all Menting this and send the note to just one person and the email just said something like how could you let Hillary go out there Looking like shit like that

She was on there. No, no, Hillary what the whole staff us. We all know I wasn't that was early in my days I was not on a small email chain about I don't think she was I don't think she was they were person would have been vaporized. Yeah, just sort of blipped out of existence Maybe we all need like a cult leader our lives given a barner's feedback, you know that is true Way to the memo's come on. Yeah, they are you can subscribe

Speaking of corrupt guns, we should talk about the wild and infuriating New York Times story The Cheds new light on why Trump may have freed a convicted fraudster named David Gentile less than two weeks

Into a seven-year sentence after Gentile stole over a billion dollars from what the Times calls thousands of mostly

Mom and pop investors the Commutation also meant Gentile no longer had to pay as much as 15 and a half million dollars in restitution well Apparently according to Ken Vogel at the Times a couple of Trump's political appointees killed an early stage investigation by the Office that prosecuted Gentile into how the clemency came about

Including quote jailhouse communications where he discussed making over two million dollars worth of payments to secure his freedom The Times reported that one of the people who communicated with Gentile and prison and quote came under scrutiny by investigators Was Reverend Frank Man a retired Catholic priest from Queens who's friends with Trump and spoke at his inauguration last year Wild What do you think like is this the kind of thing Democrats should investigate if they take Congress or does this fall into the category of things

We can't really do much about because the pardon power is absolutely Oh, we've got it. This is some of the most brazen Corruption of the administration and by the way like again a lot of this can be a lot of people that say we shouldn't be looking backwards But one of the reasons we're going to have to look backwards to say we understand what we need to do to fix it and I like Pardon reform some kind of constitutional amendment. It's going to be on the table for how to

“Protect our democracy so I think we absolutely should be investigating this one other reason to do it is”

There is daylight here between Trump and some of the people around Trump, like if you notice the Caroline love at statement in that article It says something like the idea that people would be trying to profit off of clemency is like propagand or something to that effect and at least cut Trump Yeah, yeah, yeah, the man get his beak what all right He's got a lot of innovation. He's not doing a lot of interior decorating. He's got a lot of expenses a lot of renovation projects But so

There's also apparently in this story according to this story After the reports that this retired priest had taken cash Trump called my dad of his true because could we trump on his word had commuted this guy's sentence and There's one point in the story where it seems as though this former priest Accidentally buttile the reporter and left a message while he was talking about meeting with Trump and having lunch with him

So I do think we should be investigating this. I do think there's just an incredible amount of corruption going on around

Related to these partisans and commutations when you love to hear the conversation between Trump and the priest when he asked him if it was

Partons, but the people selling parts are not so we should absolutely investigate the hell out of it and and see if we can bring some of them to justice

And also I think stories like this where you've got this corrupt guy who went to fraud the 1.6 billion dollars worth of money from

Mom and pop investors is how it's described like this directly connects the corruption to how it's hurting you This is like the exact sweet spot of the messaging and again I thought my facts when I read this my first thought was like. Oh, this is gonna end up in a John awesome Absolutely, probably it was already there like a video. Yeah, and then you know You know this you hear about this one you read about this and then you know again

To talk to Maggie and Jonathan about this but just all the examples of corruption and John is one was like they're like they're very serious journalists Right like I'm trying to fuck around and they're just being you know telling me just the facts of the reporting and swan like looks into the camera And he's like I think we know about one percent of the corruption stories of that's actually happening here So just right. Yeah, avenues for investigative reporting

lawsuits congressional oversight like there's a million stories like this that we do not know that we are gonna have to try to find out

“And that's the only way I think that the Naga cult will ever realize that this man was taking advantage of them and harming them”

By the way, it doesn't take a leap of faith to believe these stories like oh you think that a bunch of Criminals people who were convicted of crimes including the president and This in this guy that he's who's sentenced to commute it. You don't think that he was selling He's in jail and think to himself. How do I get out? Well, I got to have Donald Trump do it who can get to Donald Trump Well, someone that maybe I can pay maybe this friend who's a Catholic priest whatever like in the in the the

Retired Catholic priest who just happens to be Donald Trump's buddy Of course this happened. Oh my god, you're talking about by the way like the story inside of this like the Retired priest cleaned up the grave site of Trump's parents then sent the picture and that's what gets him invited Right whole thing wreaks the whole thing just it's this like what are we talking about it? It is the culture of the Donald Trump Created when he got to the White House and basically it was like oh, I'm gonna just pardon anyone who I want a pardon and

Doesn't matter what kind of crime you committed January six rioters people who've defrauded people whatever A. B. Like if you can carry favor with me and you know me and you're connected to me You get a pardon. So of course an entire industry is gonna spring up of people who sell access to Donald Trump for

“Parties because I would that's why I wouldn't you if you're of course you're in jail”

You know you're being in jail for 10 years and then all of a sudden this glimmer of hope opens If you get this money to some smuck around Trump some lobbyists are consulting around Trump that that that you could potentially get out He'll you'll walk away I was just gonna say sandbanger free is like openly lobbying Trump for a pardon tomorrow is gonna be like I saw the guy who used the box cutter on the pool. I will try to use sir

But also when the president when the president of the United States takes a plane from the Katari government or Cells have another signal crypto company in a secret deal to an emirati backed investment firm Everyone around him sees that and that you know Approach to governing filters through everyone else and they're all making how do I get mine? Yeah, I also will say to you know, there's a I think there's sort of this sort of like

Fatigue and you're like wow any one of these scandals would have defined a previous administration But like Trump we had we sort of get

Glamoured by the ways in which there's always a new scandal in a new controversy, but this is all this is

Republicans in Congress because if The reason I got to this point the reason we have this level of corruption is because they have been multiple scandals which If they had marched to the podium and say this stops today, it could have stopped and they chose not to They are responsible for this they are the ones that are enabling this every day. Yeah, the corrective for this in the Constitution is of course impeachment and

You know, there's obviously going to be a question if Democrats take Congress back to going peach Trump because it's obviously not going to go anywhere There's part of me that thinks like you just do it as a matter of fact like hey look at all this corruption If Republicans actually voted to convict part of what we want to do is get some of this money back for the American people that he stole From the American Treasury and from the American people we don't expect Republicans to actually vote for this

But we want to go on record and realize that like this is the president committed a bunch of crimes stole a bunch of money from people Like you know if they make a big deal, I don't know. I'm still thinking about it like I don't it is hard to go to that path because it takes up a lot of oxygen But again, when someone when a president does kind of this kind of thing when he abuses the pardon power When he is this corrupt when he's stealing from the American people the remedy in the Constitution is to impeach the guy and if you don't do that then

You know, yeah, by the way, both impeachments were vehicles to educate the country we learned a lot in those games. Those boy did it work well Well the hearing you know the the yeah, and then even the January six hearings that came later

“I think were really important. No, they did not work”

Because here we are, but I do think like at a certain point. Yes, there will be strategic argument against it

Yeah, all right now you guys get to hear when we come back more about all of Trump's

“Machinations in the second term when Tommy talks to Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan right after this”

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Cricut or intercode cricket before check out to get 50% off your first order that's 50% off your first order by using code cricket or going to cook unity dot com slash crooked Today, I am thrilled to be joined by the authors of the new book regime change inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump Maggie here from in Jonathan Swan great to see you both Thanks for having us thank you for doing this so first of all congrats on the book and for getting this thing into the world

“I know a a staggering amount of work went into this book. I think you wrote you have over a thousand interviews”

That is remarkable and the result is just this incredible page turner that Provided level of insight into how Donald Trump operates and how this administration works that I just haven't found everywhere else And I'm a I'm a total sicko and I follow this for a living and I follow these people for a living and I was learning a lot And I know you both are sickos who follow every group of his president Maggie, I know you have the good fortune of getting to know him back in New York

a long time ago, so you as know the subject as well as anyone so my first question is just a general one which is for both of you What's the top line take away for you in terms of what you think is changed from Trump 1.0 to Trump 2.0 and then after that I was hoping you both could just sort of tell us about the experience of bringing this reporting to Donald Trump and having to interview him about it One of these are with you Maggie. Sure. I so one of the things that we tried to convey in this book And I think we did Tommy is that this is just a fundamentally different

“term then Trump 1. This is a very different presidency”

This is not 2017 anymore. This is not people who this president had never met before serving not just throughout this administration

But in his White House, this is a group of people who are deeply aligned with him who had spent many many years thinking of some of them Not all of them, but thinking about how they could use the levers of power for a specific agenda Trump himself has been thinking about various aspects of this presidency one of which she's been very open about which is retribution and you are seeing a president

Wheeled power in a way that is fundamentally changing the way people look at America Around the globe the way Americans interact with their president and Certainly not in our lifetime that we've seen this. I'm not sure there has been Something like this and we tried to show additionally to his unique qualities Never admitting defeat

Never having any shame refusing to be thrown out of the arena the various factors outside of his control that added to that

But he is coming back to what had came back to Washington with a very very different climate. It was a completely cowed Republican Congress Cowed tech leaders Cowed donors Law firms who were facing threats of executive orders

Media companies that were concerned about being targeted by the government And he has very happily wheeled at that power. I agree that everything value said it's it's really hard to Emphasize sufficiently how different this is from term one It's almost unrecognizable in the way he's he's operating his president and I'll just give you one kind of

He was quite reactive to domestic politics

“He you know the polls were down. He'll be reactive to that stock market. You know what's it doing today”

What did he last see on TV and I still think that's a lens through which people are viewing him This term. I still see a lot of kind of commentary that kind of analyzes him through that term Look, it's not binaries or black and white. It's not to say he doesn't care at all about those things in the midterms But he cares far less Donald Trump this term and we picked this up pretty early in our reporting and it became very evident when we sat down

finally across from him He it views himself and is trying to Create this for himself as a capital G great man of history as a sort of an apolyonic figure and He literally handed us this two-page document when we were there with him in the Oval Office

“Which he said was written by a historian and it compared him to what he described as the quote unquote top 10”

Mao Stalin Hitler Alexander the great Gangus Khan a tiller the hunt William the conqueror The season the season the season the season so and Okay, you know, I'm not sure that most

American presence would be happy about being included in that company. He was relishing this comparison It wasn't a moral comparison. There was actually very almost no mention of a morality of values in this talking It was it was purely comparing them on the metric of power and the assertion that this Quite a quote historian

Made was the Donald Trump is the most powerful man who's ever existed on the planet

Because he's in charge of the United States the most powerful military differ existent most powerful technology that's ever existed But that he's also that he's willing to use that power and You know as peculiar as the source of this information was it actually turned out not to be a historian It was it was a Gary player the golpes a former cat form a caddy Okay, but but setting that aside the thesis actually was not so decimilar to the reporting that we had been doing which is

This is a president now who is willing to take enormous risks enormous risks on the global stage Whether it be going in and snatching a sovereign head of state out of his bedroom in his pajamas without even talking to Congress Whether it be starting a new war in the Middle East without even talking to Congress Starting a trade war against the whole world which he did last April

He wants to put his imprint on the world and this country and build monuments to himself and he's far less concerned about Whatever the latest polls are or the midterm elections or the future of the Republican Party then he is Making Donald Trump a capital G great man of history. Wow Gary players caddy what uh, okay

Hot start guys. This is um that's an amazing anecdote. Okay, so there's so much I would ask you about I personally think

For me the the corruption has been the most shocking part of the second term We could go to the list. There's the stock trades. There's the people trading on the Maduro operation on Kelsey

“There's the secret half a billion dollar sale of the crypto business to the Emirati backed firm”

There's the partens. There's the guitarity jet the list literally goes on and on but I want to focus on the jet for a minute because you report in the book That guitar initially wanted to be paid between 150 to 200 million dollars for the plane But then suddenly the plane was a gift and you said the idea for making it a gift was quote generated at the Podis level and I was wondering if you could unpack what that means a little bit and then just Your sense of Trump's general mindset about using his office to make money and how that mindset has sort of

Extended or not to his family has staff in the people around him. It's the working backwards on that one Tommy on on the

Atari jet and that was really the first Neon sign example of what we saw with this president outside of the crypto business

Which you know came into existence in 2024 during the campaign that alone Was a norm that was completely shattered. We not seen a president do something like that before It speaks to a mindset that is across this government. It is certainly clear for this president and it is clear from members of his family that They feel like they gave up a lot. I mean they openly say this we gave up a lot Because the Trump ran we were under investigation we lost lots of money

We lost you know golf tournaments at our at our clubs and so forth and and there's no laws prohibiting this And there's there's nothing that stops this and and Trump openly said this to some of our colleagues earlier this year actually And he also said you know nobody cared that he was trying to adhere to some Guidelines there there were people who cared it just didn't violate laws And presidents are exempt as as most people know from from ethics laws in a different way so

Initially described

“But we actually I think were the first people to write about the fact that they were thinking about this jet”

Suddenly there was this memo this joint memo from the DOJ and the White House Council and it was that there was nothing That was going to prohibit the government from accepting this jet and then it being transferred over to the Trump library It is true there have been times in history of this country when the defense department has accepted Gifts right in the forms of plane or aircraft or whatever Not usually quite like this and yes, this was a an older jet that the Kattari rural oil family had used it was not brand new

They according to our reporting did initially want to sell it and then it Suddenly became a gift and Generated at the police level in our understanding was it was conversations that People close to the president were having With counterparts elsewhere as to how to acquire this

I think there is still a lot to be learned about how it happened But remember the president described this as a as a free jet that this would no taxpayer money would go to it in fact It has cost Several hundreds and millions of dollars in taxpayer upgrades to make it safe for presidents It's just got delivered in recent days

So that was that was one example that made clear that we were just in a very very different world It took months of reporting by the Wall Street Journal. It's you uncover that secret sale of a 49% stake in the Trump crypto company that they have with the Whitcloth family

“To I think it was an emirati rail backed”

Company rail family back company there are other deals that the Trump family is engaged in and again the posture has been Nothing prohibits this were allowed to it's so

Blatend and on the scale we have just never seen before there have obviously been accusations of

Self-dealing from from presidents in the past This is unlike anything that I can recall seeing and and really being written about In modern history at any rate and I do think that the public is starting to pick up on it That is puncturing something that he had been able to hang on to for a long time which was this sense that You know, he is a successful businessman. He didn't gain anything from this

There is a recurring theme and it's it's hard to ignore yeah in Jonathan. I mean staying on this corruption piece We've heard about the ballroom. We've heard about the arc to Trump the pack fundraising You guys do a bunch of reporting on the Trump presidential library fund

“You in fact you report that a comers secretary Howard Lutnik personally donated”

$25 million to the Trump presidential library fund and that this donation came

After reports about Lutnik's kids maybe making money off of administration policy in a way that was deemed unsavory in the press I'd love to hear more about that and then also can you talk about you know It sounds like Eric Trump is leading a very aggressive effort to raise money that includes individuals like Mahabha Ben Salman the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

Sovereign wealth funds in the Gulf just sort of blatant conflicts of interest I'd love to hear more about it people around Trump have described to us that they want to raise $2 billion for his presidential library and if you've seen it It's essentially a tower that looks like the freedom tower that sort of towers above the Miami skyline In no way is it a presidential library and you've seen like the the montage of you go in there

And there's like a as you it's like a gold statue of Donald Trump and restaurants and god knows what else So the reason we found that about the Howard Lutnik example is in the overall office Trump brings it up that he there was something that Howard Lutnik said and and Trump said This is in front of a group of people based something's the effect of the only reason I put up with how it's bullshit is he gave me $25 million

And you know how Trump just the way he talks and you know and at other times to say you know how it's so great I just ask him for the money and he immediately gave it to me or some version of that What we also found is that um people around Trump Eric Trump and others have been approaching and discussing with golf monarchies funding

this library and often The trailhead heads back to the golf Correct, you know this is what makes a lot of this so remarkable is you have an administration that is conducting foreign policy Dealing with the golf I mean selling chips highly advanced chips to the the Emirates at the same time as the Emirates

Putting $2 billion into the Trump and Whitcoff family

Crypto business you have the the Cotari jet That the Trump family business doing all kinds of Deals in the Middle East and then the business of state it's just one giant You know playground really with no borders between

And so that it's almost

“Impossible to cover because I truly think we only know 1%”

Yeah, maybe 5% of what's going on and we this is a story that our colleagues have done phenomenal reporting on people like Eric Lipton the Wall Street Journal and others you know we've done us you know Modest part of it that we've tried to contribute in this book, but my Lord like we have I don't think we really have a concept of the breadth and and depth of this yet Yeah, I really don't now and one thing Tommy that I would just add is that figure $2 billion It's it's double to a presidential library that I think

You might be familiar with and our understanding from our reporting is that that's not a coincidence

President Trump has never stopped being very focused on President Obama

But he was also in our reporting found Delighted that President Biden is having a very hard time fundraising and that just

“Made him want to do more but to Jonathan's point”

The models that they have for this library. It's it's a hotel is how it's conceived and They are also still planning on taking this category jet with them. I don't know what that looks like for air force one for another president in two and a half years, but Jonathan is right that there is a there is a lot more to be learned here where we we don't pretend to think we have Covered the letter front yeah, I mean that the crypto transactions

Alone are you know you can't possibly follow who is buying Trump calling or Melania Collin on any given day

I mean the the opportunities for corruption or just staggering now you one thing that that reading the book Really helped me understand in a new way was just how chaotic the management of the country and then Trump's own time when he's in the Oval Office really is you describe Trump's time in the Oval Office not really as a day that is structured with meetings But more like kind of a rolling bull session with some advisors whoever's in town visiting you guys report on the scene We're like there's some poor N.C. Goons in the corner trying to get sign off on a classified program on the other side of the office

Someone's on speaker phone from Mara Logo the fucking decorator walks in with like rug samples or something that blows up the whole cover Hey, the pavers for the roseguard

Tell us about like paint a picture of what it's like inside the Oval Office and how decisions are getting made

Yeah, look, I mean we describe as you say this this setting. It's and it's we're describing sort of an average day right and you could take Any given moment over the course of the last 17 months eight whatever a 70 and a half months and One meeting collides into the next and Trump often invites people in to take part in other meetings, you know one example of that in the book is the meeting where Laura Loomer is Listing people at the N.S.C. and elsewhere in the government who she is telling the president or against him and and

Scott Perry the congressman comes in for a separately scheduled meeting and then they start talking and then and so There there are constant scenes like this and it has just become very familiar to everybody in Trump's world It's how he functioned at Mara Logo. It's how he functioned at Trump Tower some of this was the case in term one. It is it is much more expansive now in terms of how the government is being managed

What was really striking to us and we do describe this and the reporting in the book is just how small the group of people running the government is if if they aren't there's a there's a handful of people and at their agencies at the state department at the Pentagon At the CIA At ODI and I you can go down the list and if they are not people leading those agencies are not in the room with the president if they're not in the Oval Office They often don't know what's going on. You know one of the things that that we talk about a lot is the fact that

This administration makes a a show of transparency, but they actually are quite good at keeping secrets when they want to

“And prefer it. There is a great deal that is kept secret so much so that in the lead up to the”

Iran war on February 28th The energy secretary and the treasury secretary had not been part of most of the meetings The two people who would be impacted by a global energy crisis the most in this government We're not part of it because this government is also very paranoid and we're eight about leaks and that's also why you see the situation room Here's the way it is so often yeah, and it's probably not gonna be helped by your book because

We're all reading about the big freak out about you know everyone wondering about your sourcing, which I will not ask you to comment on But Jonathan related to the kind of management question is just the picture you paint of how Trump gets information For example, you guys report the Trump was kind of largely oblivious about this massive fight Within maga that is erupted over U.S. support for Israel and that anecdote really shocked me because I mean it seemed like everyone was talking about and

Generally, which you guys I think describe as information from Fox News and then Positive news printed out by a staffer named Natalie Harp Can you tell folks who Natalie Harp is in sort of more about this information diet and whether

“Does any news break through the Donald Trump that is like factual, but bad for him at this point?”

Yeah, it's not it's quite as black and white as that, but it's it's not far off what you just described Natalie Harp is a young woman who has worked for Donald Trump for a few years Used to be an anchor on O.A.N. which is a far right network She

One story that maga and I Broken and it's mentioned in the book She's basically The most devoted let's say to Donald Trump more than anyone we've ever seen she writes in these she has written him numerous letters

That she's left for him including one that says you are all that matters to me or some some version of that Raise the eyebrows of the secret service during the campaign

“Some of these met letters that were left in some of his private quarters and she's just totally devoid him in in”

Oval office meeting she sits on the chair The side of the room with her laptop open and Trump they call her the human printer

So Trump basically just says

Natalie get me this or he's you know Google this. We have a scene in the book where During the trade War lead up to the Liberation day where he declares a trade war against the whole world Where he's just not believing the the trade nut the deficit numbers that Howard lightning is giving him and he says

Natalie Google me the real numbers so she's you know furiously googling You know and of course the real numbers don't exist because what you know Secretary liked that he had given him Whoa actually but so that's that's who she is um his information diet has constricted There's no question in term one he was scrolling Twitter a lot more which just gave him much more exposure to just Random things that were coming across

The handsome he still does watch

“MSNBC as you've noticed when he raiders against Joe Scarborough and and me care and you know he'll still watch CNN and you know”

But it's it's really fox all the time and that whole world of The Manus fear podcast he exploits that to his advantage Very effectively during the campaign But it wasn't like he was ever a consumer often like Donald Trump doesn't sit there listening to like Theo Vaughan and Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson's podcast they might as well not exist

He'll occasionally hear Joe Rogan's been criticizing you, but he's not tuned into that he's he's just watching fox And hearing largely from people who support him You know that the patio at Mara Lago is full of Flatteros who coming by a great job you're doing an amazing job Mr President And his staff are people who largely believe in him

Like him Not people like the first term who thought that he was dangerous or somebody that needed to Rained in that's just not the dynamic at all so and then he's got you know outside people like Boris Epstein who's his personal lawyer and enforcer who You know he is so positive to Trump that Trump even jokes about it. You know he'll tell a it's like Oh, I get indicted and Boris tells me it's the best news ever

So that's I mean that's the environment

You know presidents always exist in the bubble, but this is a really thick bubble

This is a almost impenetrable bubble that Donald Trump exists in he's also Much less willing to believe the bad news is the other piece frankly. I mean people will bring him Information and say things like You know we've always heard him say some version of you know To Jonathan's point to bat you know bring me the real numbers the the

Those poll numbers are fake you know the real ones are You know Trifolga or whatever something that he considers to be more in line With how he sees the world, but it is harder for people who are trying to tell him That actually there are other things happening To get through to him that way and and just want to addition to to Jonathan's point about

How often foxes on foxes um

Far less critical just in the me of him

Then it was At various points in term one not you know foxes obviously not MSNBC but uh he he he he received more criticism On certain shows then then he doesn't all now and that has an impact too. Well, so The sort brings me my next question about the the lowest moment. It wasn't a moment

It was a lowest several months which was their handling of the Epstein files and Miss handling of the Epstein files I just want to get your read on

The Trump was really good friends of Jeffrey Epstein. He was for decades. He was a total creep at the time Maybe like there's not great great way to spin that Did they misread the politics and not listen to the more online people like J.D. Vance who are warning them

And then relatedly I mean you guys have these incredible scenes in the situation room

Where Trump's team is trying to figure out how to do damage control for him But the story keeps getting worse. You know we we will see the doodle that is in the Wall Street Journal That he put into the birthday book for Jeffrey Epstein. Did anyone you talk to you say to you like You know what it was personally pretty upsetting and demoralizing to learn that This guy we work for was actually part of this cabal that we had promised to take down during the campaign

“Well, I think at the start of all of this the first thing to understand is that from a staff point of view”

You're limited in what you can do when the person you're working for the president wants it all to disappear He wanted this whole thing to disappear. I mean he didn't want transparency didn't want all this stuff to come out And and he would get

Snappy when people brought it up in his presence so what the staff did was they had these conversations largely away from doodle Trump

They had them in the situation room for secrecy You know as you know Tommy from your time in the but this is one of the most Guarded rooms in the government as a national security command center. It's essentially that they turned into Sort of Jeffrey Epstein crisis response sentiment and these are the top officials in the government sitting around the table Trying to craft a PR strategy

What was evident to we start very early on was that a Donald Trump's name was all over these files. I mean the New York Times we we found more than 38 thousand references to Trump and his Family and places like Mara Lago In these files, but it was also just a sense of not knowing Really what was out there and and not being able to have these candid conversations with Trump

I do think one thing you said is true which is early on Senior people on his team underestimated the political salience of this issue and Remember for a lot of them who've gone through all kinds of scandal and crisis with Donald Trump From their point of view, this is just another one why would we why would this be different from you know access Holywood or you know go down the list But it was and and it was very frustrating to Trump himself because he's so used to telling his base

Think this do this and it shall be done and this was this issue where Perhaps because some of his own people had helped you know whip up The hysteria and conspiracy about Epstein The base just wasn't listening the base just refused to kind of take direction on that and it just hung around and one thing We obtained in our reporting for the book is

private Focus group Research that Trump's team did

This year not last year this year almost a full year after they first tried to start dealing with the Epstein thing

Epstein was still cutting through in these focus groups to an alarming extent for Trump's team so

“You know all these meetings happened, but it was a turning point. I think we can now say”

With some level of confidence last summer is when Trump's political fortunes really started to to decline and One of Trump's advisors compared to Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan as sort of the moment in the Biden admin when you start to see you know It's not dissimilar with with Epstein and it's still a problem even to this day Politically Maggie you know you guys have reported on a bunch of folks about to report it on Trump

Enjoying to compare and publicly rank rubio versus JD events But you guys write that even early on like back in 2021. I think That Trump's aids notice he had more personal chemistry with Marco Rubio the advance now Vance obviously wages a pretty effective charm campaign He goes from calling him you know comparing him Hitler to getting on the ticket

You write that Trump was impressed by advances intellect and good looks going to take issue with the part of that, but whatever Is this an endlessly fun Parlor game and way to torture these guys or he really trying to kind of Concently focus group and figure out the future of maga. How do you view it a couple of things but but one is

“You mentioned the JD events criticism of Trump then the the Hitler comment which I think was made in a”

Text exchange was someone It's not like Marco Rubio was exactly subtle about Donald Trump. They they ran against each other and there was a whole You know Genitalia Jason whatever on on the primary debate state. It wasn't very adjacent. Oh, sorry. It was just genitalia Sorry

Just I'm just gonna leave it there with you Tommy

“So I think that a couple of things one as you know very well the second that somebody who is in office and is”

Thermal emitted which the president is Despite all of the conversation around this Once they endorse somebody They stop being quite as relevant and their lame duck status starts to increase Donald Trump is not exactly Somebody who is going to disappear quietly into that good night as we've been saying throughout this episode number one

So he's in no rush for that because He put his thesis his party in his movement for a variety of reasons. I do think it is fun for him I do think he enjoys it as long as he has been in politics he has done this he did this with Mike Pence and Newt Gingrich and Chris Christie in in 2016 In the like immediately in the lead up to when he announced so it was it was

Pence he was still leaving the idea open that it might be Chris Christie still which he'd already offered it to Pence So yes, there is the game aspect of it it's hard to look at the existing fundamentals of the modern republican party and the maga movement and not see how JD events Is still very much the prohibitive front runner now obviously lots can change

But I also don't think the Donald Trump is going to completely defy Reality if that's where it's going but again, these predictions are not not worth a whole lot. I do think we will continue to see much more of this going forward But it's totally on an interpersonal level. It's just it's totally bizarre I mean we have a lot of this in the book, but you have we have a scene in the book where Rupert Murdoch

comes to the White House for dinner. Yes, you're sitting on the same table as Trump in the blue room of the White House and JD vans and Marco Rubio are at the table and Trump right there with the both of them at the table asks Rupert Murdoch to assess each of them and Murdoch gives Marco Rubio much more hearty endorsement than vans. I mean this is what Trump is subjecting

“his vice president too. I think the only thing we can be confident of is that he's not going to make it”

comfortable or easy for him. He's just going to keep doing this. It's just who he is. Yeah, I think the quotes you have is Murdoch says I think JD has the potential to be great in a Rubio he says Marco is brilliant. Yeah, that'd be tough to hear. Johnathan, I track the Trump foreign policy closely. I just find it particularly interesting. And since the beginning I've been trying to understand the emergence of Steve Wittkov, who for the listeners is like Trump's

real estate and golf buddy, he turns diplomatic envoy for everything. This anecdote from the book blew my mind. So you have this scene where Wittkov is I believe in Moscow meeting with Vladimir Putin. The anecdote goes like this, what are you drawing sir? Wittkov asked Putin help out held up a piece of paper in thick looping pen strokes. It said three plus two, which is shorthand for the territorial framework the Wittkov had discussed with him. Three obelist Russia would keep out right and two where the

fighting would freeze in place. Quote, can you can you sign that for me and I can take it home Wittkov asked Putin signed the drawing and Wittkov brought it home where he had it framed in black with

top math. So two questions for listeners like basically what Wittkov is asking to be framed there

is a piece of paper that would memorialize the agreements that would be capitulation for the Ukrainians.

“And I think a lot of people would argue validates Putin's decision to invade Ukraine,”

which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Why would Wittkov want that in your view? And then more importantly like what do you make of Wittkov's emergence in his motivations? Because by all accounts he seems like a very nice man, one who seemingly is in over his head understandably, by the way, if anyone would be in his position. But also it's hard not to see his son's role at World Liberty Financial, the Crypto Business, and worry about conflicts

of interest and corruption. So Steve Wittkov has no, before this term had no diplomatic experience, full stop, no foreign policy experience, full stop. There is a commonality at the most senior levels of Trump world, which is a contempt for subject matter expertise and subject matter experts. Jared Kushner would often to others speak with contempt about people who've worked on

Middle East deals forever. And there's a feeling from these guys, there always has been that

they have fresh ideas, fresh answers, private sector thinking, you've heard all of this before. Trump, again, Trump feels comfortable with Wittkov, saw him as a dealmaker, thought that he could bring home a quick deal with Putin. Trump thought it would be very easy to end this war. When he was saying 24 hours, it actually in Trump's mind, I don't think was that much of a rhetorical flourish. I think he genuinely thought he could end this conflict very quickly.

And there's been quite frustrated that it hasn't, that Wittkov hasn't been able to bring

not really a sense of Putin as a villain and an aggressor and Ukraine as a victim. It's actually,

we have a scene in the book where Trump is with his inner circle in the oval office, hashing out supposedly going to hash out their Russia Ukraine policy. And Keith Kellogg, who is his original on-voys, beautifully giving this presentation, which he spent all this time on, unbeknownst to Kellogg, Trump already had a back channel set up with Wittkov. He had a told Kellogg about that. He's doing this presentation. And during the presentation, Trump is interrupting him

by saying things like the only good thing about Ukraine is the women, they keep winning mis-universe,

Zalinsky's terrible, he's destroyed his country. So the animus comes out, it's almost never

“against Putin. It's almost always against Ukraine and Zalinsky. And I think Wittkov saw his”

his job as bringing this conflict to an end, but really viewed those leaders on a flat plane without really making moral distinctions. I mean, we have another line in the book where he tells Putin that Russia's good at a lot of things, but they're really bad at PR. As if the Kremlin's

main problem was a PR problem. So that's the mindset. And he goes and meets with Putin on his own.

He really doesn't use stuff like someone in that role would normally use stuff. And as a result,

“there have been times where there, I think there's been miscommunication and misunderstanding.”

And it turns out diplomacy is complicated and this conflict was not easy to resolve. And in fact, it's still raging on. Many, many 24 hours after the initial 24 hours when he was going to solve it. Right. Well, I think, well, down the road, maybe we'll learn more about this. Whether there's a corruption piece of this to the Wittkov story. But listen, you guys have given me a lot of time on an unbelievably busy week. The book, again, is regime change inside the imperial presidency of Donald Trump.

I cannot recommend it highly enough to our audience who are desperate to try to understand.

“Donald Trump, the man, the administration, the decision-making process, and also just to, I think,”

even read things that we knew again, but in a way that puts together the whole scene and helps you understand all the different motivations and people involved. It's an extraordinary piece of work. So congratulations to both of you for forgetting the thing done and out into the world. And for talking with me today, Jonathan Maggie, thank you so much. Thanks, Tommy. Thanks so much. That's our show for today. Thanks to Maggie and Jonathan for coming on. Everybody check out

regime change. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Positive America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari with Reed-Chirlin, Elijah Cone, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefko, Jordan Canter, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pelevi, David Tolz, Mia Kalman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is probably

unionized with the writer's guild of America at East.