Strait Up War Crimes

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Great to be here. And this too, guys. You didn't miss much. Man, a lot of weird stuff happened. Is it really able to unplug a little bit from the news? I unplugged, but not from my 3,000 C.C. boobs that I travel with everywhere. Really tough that you missed. I was thinking about you, and that's a weird thing. I was like Tommy would be talking about this story. Beautiful. And you said that you had just suddenly appeared in that waffle house.

“I even slowly making your way back. I was in the waffle house with the 3,000 C.C.”

breasts. And I was like, "I gotta get here." And I said, "I'm on vacation." Records-gratch. All right. I noticed Tim Miller wore some himself. That didn't work. Tim was doing prop-com/curkey. I love it. You let Tim do that. Oh, you're not. Only the bag has to wear the boots on the show where you're in touch. I mean. I was thinking more of the person who likes to be at the center of all the comedy.

Oh, yeah. That's right. You're right. I react to defensively. Next week is a question. Smash a watermelon on this table next week. We're moving on. We have a lot of other things to talk about on today's show. We're going to talk about Trump's Easter threat to commit war crimes against Iran if they don't quote "open the fucking straight." The press conference he held to congratulate himself on the rescue of the downed American pilots,

new warning signs about the war's economic damage, and why the White House is asking for a $1.5 trillion defense budget for next year paid for by cuts to nearly everything else. We'll also check back in on the mass deportation campaign, which is continuing at full speed, even though it's fallen out of the headlines. Then Congresswoman Sarah McBride stops by to talk

with love it about her first year in Congress and how Democrats are preparing for the big fights

coming up. Can't wait to hear what they're doing. Yeah. I don't know them. I do. I do. Fortunately. Quick reminder, please consider becoming a quick and media subscriber if you haven't already. So you don't miss out on any of the great content we're putting out for our friends at the pod. Subscribers get our new extra episode of Pots of America called Pots of America Only Friends. Other subscriber only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Feifer. Access to all of our excellent

sub-stack newsletters like Pots of America Open Tabs written by Retailant who's here with us in studio today. Wow. Wow. What an appearance. And then also you get ad free episodes of all your favorite crooked pods and you get to feel good about supporting. One of the few independent proudly pro-democracy media outlets left in Trump's America. So head to crooked.com/friends and subscribe today. All right. Let's get to the news. Week six of Operation Epic Fury and there is no end

in sight. The energy crisis is getting worse. Iran is shooting down U.S. military jets, negotiations are going nowhere. And Trump has become so desperate that he's threatening to commit war crimes against Iranian civilians and destroy the entire country in one night. Maybe tonight. By now, you've probably seen the president's Easter message to the Iranian regime, quote, "open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell, praise be to Allah."

Yes. Yeah. It is. It's the holiest of the Christian Holidays.

Oh, he thought that was a joke. But do you think the fundamentalists and either of the other religions did Christians or anyone? Or anyone? Yeah. Or anyone. I thought it was a joke when I saw I thought it was a fake tweet. It was the because it was Easter. Yeah. Morning. I actually didn't open Twitter because my kids were up early with the with their Easter baskets. Not for any religious reasons. I don't worry. And my brother sent me a text and he's like,

"I can't fucking believe Trump's truth. Did you see it?" And he sent it to me. I'm like, "Andy, did you fall for some misinformation somewhere?" I thought some people got caught too. I did too. And then I started looking and I was like, "Holy shit." I really, it takes a lot to surprise me. It was shocking. It was shocking. I think it was also the capitalizing of F and fucking straight, which also maybe that's not important, but I thought

that was funny. Quite a, quite a post for sure. The closest thing, what it reminded me of when I

read it out loud is, "Do you remember the 2002 Mike Tyson press conference when he was promoting his fight against Lennox Lewis?" Of course, he said, "I'll fuck you till you love me." Oh yeah, all praise to Allah. Why forgot he added all praise to Allah? I don't remember, all this for made him. The fuck you till you love me, really. That's true. That's true. That's true. That's true. That was your 10-quarter. Yeah, no, I know. Lennox Lewis. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

“remember that one, but anyway, back to the war crimes. They're bad. If Iran doesn't open the”

fucking straight by 8 pm Tuesday, the president says he will order the destruction of all the country's bridges and power plants. He took questions on all of this Monday morning, at a press conference at the White House, let's listen. The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night. You've said Iranians would be mad if you stop these attacks, but why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to cut off their power?

Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime? They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. We've had numerous intercepts. Please keep bombing. Bombs that are dropping near their homes, please keep bombing. Do it. And these are people that are living with a bombs are exploding. We're opening attacks on civilian infrastructure by way that you've been even

in the conventions and interviews with. I'm with the New York Times, Seoul and from New York Times. Are you failing? Are you just a circulation way down at the New York Times? Are you going to assert that you're threat to bomb power plants and bridges? No, no, no, no. The more messaging on the war has moved from the war is coming to an end,

the war is going to be bombing around to the Stone Age.

“So, which is it? Are you winding this down? Are you asking?”

I can't tell you. I don't know. We give him them to tomorrow, 8 o'clock Eastern time, and after that they're going to have no bridges, they're going to have no power plants, stone ages, yeah, stone ages. Trump also started that press conference off by saying, "Militerally, it's been one of the best easter's."

That's just so funny. Really interesting adverb that he's turned out, yeah. Militerally, it's been one of really getting into that Easter spirit. Yeah, that famous Easter spirit. I also think he thinks that Easter's Monday, he said a couple times, happy Easter. Happy Easter. It's a great Easter today. Yeah. It is Monday, sir. He kept referring to Easter Monday. I think what he meant was it was the

day of the Easter egg roll, which is probably the only Easter that really passed and right. I'm celebrating him. All right. Last time, Peck here, let's start with the war crimes, which the administration is already trying to argue would not actually constitute war crimes. White has official told the Wall Street Journal that power plants are, quote, "legitimate military targets because destroying them could foment civil unrest,

complicating tear-hounds path to a nuclear device." Seems like a bit of a stretch to me. What do you think, Tom? Yeah, I agree with that. I brand that, quote by, "On a half a way is a professor of international law at Yale Law School, no big deal." She's been on Potsay the world. She said, "If they gave JD events a degree,

“so." Yeah, and I think all the classes are passed fast. I think I go on.”

Anyway, sorry. I'm sure she's wonderful. She's like the smuggest person. Yeah, she said it would be a war crime to carry out those threats destroying civilian infrastructure to foment civil unrest is clearly unlawful. And then, but on Monday, as you mentioned, I mean, it gets worse. He threatened to bomb all of the bridges in all of the power plants in Iran by midnight and Tuesday. And explicitly threatening

to bomb all of the power plants serving a country of 90 million people, that's about as clear

cut of a war crime as I could think of. I mean, in case anyone still cares, the JD of conventions want an international humanitarian law. They want you to distinguish between military and civilian infrastructure, so like don't hit a power grid, don't hit water systems, and attacks are also supposed to be proportional. So you could say, okay, take out that power plant that fuels that base over there, but taking out all of them, it's just collective

punishment. Same with the bridges. Yeah, if you bomb the life of a tower, it would screw up production of the next season of Emily and Paris. And even if that's a worthy goal, we would all say that it was an inappropriate use of force. Yeah, the whole thing is, it's all ludicrous.

stop that production. It's all ludicrous, right? Like it's not a, it's not a, nobody believes we would be bombing civilian infrastructure because we were trying to foment unrest so that the nuclear program is disrupted, but they really backed them. Like it just worth, why are they saying something so stupid? And it is because, well, they can't say they're fomenting on rest because they want the regime to change because either the goal of the war is not regime change or the

regime change has already taken place. They can't say it's because they have a military necessity to conduct the bombing missions that they're sending, sending the military on because

they claim they have total dominance of the skies and there's never been a more effective military

campaign in the history of warfare. So they have to come up with some cock-a-may-me justification for doing this. When we all know why they're doing it, he would be bombing civilian infrastructure so that the threats to do so before the bombing would have been true. They were real threats, whatever future horrible things do to you. What does it really mean? What does it really mean? What does it really mean? What does it really mean? What does it really mean?

Is that someone involved in the star of Emily and Paris? I don't, I have actually never been here. I'll be honest, I've never seen Emily and Paris and I just thought it would be, I just couldn't

“think of a show. I thought, what I, I'll tell you, to be honest, if you want to get behind the scenes,”

I thought, I'd say, what would bombing Paris disrupt? Emily, Paris. Well, that's what I argue with that is. So that's all. So if you really want to interrogate him, what would it just about that one? Like, there is a justification for the threat he's issuing. He's trying to, the threat is a war crime, actually. Well, the threat of the bomb. Yeah, I mean he, I, yes, but the threat has a purpose. The threat, look, he's pressure politically. He's putting political

pressure on them to try to, to get to some kind of a deal when, as we talked about last week, he's on this sort of ratchet of false threats and assurances. And each one has to keep being backed up. He does this threat, then he carries it out. Then what's the threat after that at the regime holds together? But the, like, once the threat, once he's acting on it, there is no purpose, because it only existed so that he could try to get some sort of a deal to end the conflict.

Yeah, sort of, darkly, funny and ironic that the administration official, the White House official, the talk to the Wall Street Journal, was like, oh, it's to foment civil unrest to

“topple the regime. When it's like, that's specific thing. That's how it is. In the, in the,”

in the Geneva conventions, and in the DOD, war manual is against the law, to say that, like, you are going to target civilian infrastructure in order to foment unrest in order to top of the room. But you know what, like, we get into, like, is it a war crime? Is it not a war crime? And the reason we're talking about this is I saw on Fox News this morning. John Roberts on Fox was like, "You're going to be hard for the Democrats to argue this is a war crime, because they did this in

Kosovo, and they took out the power lines there, and that war, and we didn't, and the first

Gulf War, and it's like, yeah, what we learned after doing it in the first Gulf War is that taking out the Iraqi power grid in the first Gulf War ended up leading to countless countless civilian deaths. In horrible, yeah, consequences for decades. I mean, I mean, it's just, it's just stupid. It's like, yeah, it's just a strategy. War crime to be excited, like, you want the population to overthrow their leaders and be a new friendlier U.S. aligned Iran. So you're going to bomb

them into submission, take out all their infrastructure, destroy the country for a decade, and then Trump's response on the ICC stuff is like, we're not a party to it as a country,

“and also, like, okay, hey, come and fucking get me if you want to arrest me for war crimes.”

But that his bigger problem is going to be when the Iranians respond by hitting desalination plants and Kuwait in Iraq and all these places, and then you have a genuine humanitarian catastrophe throughout the Gulf. Yeah, and I think people here, like, there's a couple of bridges go away and power plants. Like, that's not great, but, you know, the power plants go down in a country. That means that every hospital, where someone's on a ventilator, someone's got dialysis, little kids and incubators,

insulin, spoiled, like, all the people die in hospitals right away if all the power is gone. It hurts water treatment before you even get to the bombing the desalination plants. There's water pumps that clean the water, so you get when you bomb power plants, you get water that's contaminated, the people drink, and that causes all kinds of disease, food access, food, a whole bunch of food spoils. I mean, like, it is a humanitarian catastrophe, just bombing the power plants,

and never mind anything else that he wants to do, never mind any of the people who are going to die,

civilians who are going to die and all of this. I mean, it's fucking nuts. What are we talking about here? We're, no, we should not be doing World War II style, total combat against the country of Iran. A place we have not declared war against. The Congress has not authorized a conflict with, there's no, we even mentioned of any kind of imminent threat. We are still in a place where he needs to be saying there's an imminent threat to the United States in order to justify,

there can any kind of military action? No, bombing the bridges of Iran is not preventing any kind of imminent threat to the country. The idea of, like, oh, he said at war crime, is it not a war crime? Like, sometimes it can be justified to bomb a power plant. Like, all of that is predicated on a rational set of goals you're trying to achieve in a military campaign that you're weighing

fuck we're doing it? Like, we don't even know we're doing it for. Well, the strategy's also kind of

“the logic's a little bit faulty in that the regime is made up of a bunch of lunatics,”

but somehow, who, who kill their people, but somehow if you hurt their people, that's going to pressure them to make it to you, like, that's, no, usually, how it works. Here's one reaction to Trump. He has gone insane and all of you are complicit. We're putting Republicans. Our president is not a Christian and his words and actions should not be supported by Christians. This is not making America great again. This is evil. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

So you can some truth. Probably one of the strongest responses on, on Easter Sunday there. So on the rescue, because we don't want to gloss over that, obviously an incredibly heroic impressive operation by the military, which Trump spent a lot of time talking about at the press conference, probably a little too much, judging by this exchange with General Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Money might deduce and all together, approximately, for the operation. I'd love to

keep that a secret. Okay, well, we have a secret. But I will tell you, the number, I'll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds. Sir, that's that. That's a secret works. Sir, Hunter Colt, 152. So it's just very much the person who reported this was anonymous, but goes by either Lisa S. or Ell Simpson. It's like just a couple of weeks ago. Remember when he

“divulged the member of Congress who had a terminal illness that he believes he saved?”

Yeah. In front of my Johnson's like, sir, that was not supposed to be public information. Oh, my god. What do you think about Trump divulging all these all these details about a very, very highly secret of operation? I mean, just for what it's worth. Like, I watch a little press crumbs we all did. Like, I'm very skeptical of anything that comes out of Donald Trump's mouth or Pete Hegzestmouth. Good day and can, I think, is more of just the fact. Send a guy. The stories

are amazing. This person climbing 7,000 feet, the pilot or the bomber person, the airman. Sorry,

to avoid getting captured. The A10 War Talk pilot who got hit, continued to fight, flew out of the country and then had to eject. Like, it's amazing stuff. There will be medals of honor for this. But I kept hearing the, my NSC staffer head was was screaming shut up. Why are you guys doing this the whole time? Because like, what happens if another pilot gets shot down and they want to conduct a similar mission? And they've just talked about all the ways they did it. Like,

the CIA is bragging about creating a disinformation campaign to help the pilot get out of Iran. It feels like those assets or tools would be useful. It's an ongoing conflict. Trump is the worst defender, obviously, about talking about sensitive details. Because you have both John Radcliffe, the CIA director, and then Dan King the Chairman started the remarks by saying, like, I know you guys are going to want a lot of details, but we're not going to give them to you. And then Trump

just lays out all the details. Like, you keep reading examples and news reports to the CIA's exquisite technologies or something like that. That's where they're fuzzing it up. Trump seemed to all but confirm that it was a drone or a satellite capability that was able to spot the pilot on a mountain from 40 miles away at night with some sort of specific new lens. That sounded to me like a lot of detail I might not want out. He was, again, bragging about cyber operations

to take out weapons systems in Venezuela. And the irony of it all is they're also bitching about

“a leak, which is a really bad leak that I think the news outlets reporting that the US had”

identified the pilot, but the other crew member was still missing in Iran, and that obviously is a big tip for the Iranians. But so they're going to do a leak investigation. They might even prosecute media outlets reported on it. But I think this was first reported by someone in Israel, Israeli reporter who was really close to Netanyahu, which makes you wonder what if Netanyahu is the source on this than what happened. So that was an interesting wrinkle in all. But I think this whole

thing was very ill-considered. The fact that the military can achieve the goals that the president sets, whether in the rescue, which was extraordinary or in being able to complete the objectives

of the bombings of Iran, that is, we have an extraordinary military with incredible capabilities.

But the reason they were doing this today is they want the respect and glory and plodits to redound to them. But this administration doesn't get any of that credit. This is not something that they did. This is something they put the military into position to have to execute. And I'm glad that they did. And I'm glad we have a military that's capable of this. But all of the, everything that is describing, all the techniques and capabilities that may have been revealed,

what our enemies learned from this, the incredible cost of it, the risk of it. All of it is not an argument that makes this administration seem more impressive. It is all the more kind of like an example of how absurd it is that we've put this incredible capabilities in the hands of this person to be deployed in this haphazard and dangerous way in this campaign. So like, they are doing this

because like, you know, my first reaction when I saw the news that they were rescued is like,

oh, thank God. And then it was like, wow, I can't believe the military pulled us out so incredible.

And then my next reaction was being so fucking pissed at Donald Trump for putting them in this position. And, you know, it's funny. I started thinking about all the times we had to listen to fucking, you know, war-crime-doctor suits me, egg-seth over the last week. Like, we control the skies. We fly over terrain. No one can touch us. We do it in it. And then even today at the fucking press conference, eggs have to go to, we control the skies. You see, we flew for seven hours in daylight over

Iran to get the first pilot and Iran did nothing about it. Well, they did shoot down two of our planes. So I guess they did something about before that. And you keep telling us that the whole military is destroyed, that their navies destroy, that whatever, I mean, it's just a, it is indicative of their larger, how fucked up their larger messages on this whole thing, which is like, we won the war. But also, we're going to bomb them back to the Stone Age because we haven't won the war yet.

“There is a, remember, we talked about this. I'm not going to get even close to who it was,”

but there was, um, uh, we were, there was somebody that we thought was like, generally pretty smart,

but they were like, and we're talking about how like, oh, people's insecurities will always get

in the way of their, of their, even their, even the intentions that they have. Like, even if they know what's best, their insecurities will always get in the way. Like, who is this performance of domination of Iran for right now? Right. But who is it for? Like, the, that Fox news is he's got the people on Fox news. The countries against this, not a lot of people are going to be persuaded by Pete Higgs at the podium talking about how we dominate the skies at this point when gas prices are

going to hit like movie theater popcorn prices in. And, and it's certainly not helpful when clearly we're in this sort of fucking, like, contest with a bunch of people and of leaders in Iran that are putting their own interest ahead of their peoples every single day and who have their own need to have, protect their egos more than they do, but projecting the people of Iran. So, what is the value at this point? Right. Like, why are you not speaking softly and carrying a big

stick? Why are you not creating a space where if you really do believe that there should be a deal where you're talking about how much you want that kind of a deal rather than, like, the endless like, domination language, the endless kind of hitting of this story. I don't even know who it's for other than just for themselves to make themselves feel like big guys, big big boys. It's just who they are. Yeah. Right. It's like, but it's Trump too. Like, like, watching, yeah,

I was reading, I was, I was off last week guys, reading the stories like seeing that these guys were downed and then they were rescued. My reaction was thank God. Also, and there are all these people online who were like, oh, you, you know, you, you're probably unhappy that they got saved or, you know, this makes Trump a little bit. That's sick to crazy thing. It's like, my reaction was thank God both for the missing airmen and for the people involved, the Americans involved in the

rescue effort. But also for this broader war effort, generally because I wanted to be over and I thought

“the worst thing possible was if Iran suddenly had a bunch of hostages, like the escalation that”

would have occurred from that, the way this thing could get protracted, the way you could see ground forces going in for some sort of like, it would have been awful. Like, thank God these guys are out for every single reason, imagine London's on. Yeah, I have the same thought too, is that like, if there's, you got forbid, there's like a mash casualty event of American troops or hostages and footage broadcast. Like, you think that's going to like bring us closer to some kind of end of

the war or definitely like that's exactly how these things escalate and get out of hand. And when you have bloodthirsty warmongers who are barbaric, like Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth, then it's even fucking worse. So who knows what the state of the negotiations will be by the time this episode is out Tuesday, but as of right now, they are not great. The U.S. reportedly tried for an immediate 45-day ceasefire to give more time for negotiations that would hopefully lead to a permanent deal

Iran wants the permanent deal first. Trump thinks threatening to destroy the entire country might change

their minds. What do you guys think? Does a 45-day ceasefire mean that Iran de facto reopens the

“state of foreign moves for 45 days? I think that's what they wanted and that's what I read somewhere”

that was part of what they wanted in the 45-day US fire. Because what like, what scenario would Iran do that? Just sort of like give up all your economic and political leverage that is built in his building on Trump to end the conflict. I don't see the logic of this for them in any way, it seems like they've rejected the ceasefire. It seems like their rejoinder was a set of maximalist demands. I don't have any hope for a deal. Again, Trump is like, "Well, just gonna bomb you more

because the people want us to bomb you." I mean, he's crazy. And so, meanwhile, the Iranians are learning and adapting and they're starting to use like cluster munitions on their ballistic missiles that are hitting civilian areas in Israel and could be very effective against US bases. So, I just feel like both sides seem to think they have the upper hand in different ways. It does feel like a very Trumpian offer which is like, "Let's get just a quick ceasefire now

and then we'll just punt everything, you know, 45. Just give me another 45 days

let's see everything will calm down and then in the 45 days at the end of that,

you know, when we will push another 45 days if we don't get a deal and another 45 days.

“And so, I think the Iranians know that, obviously, why would they trust, how are they trusting”

them at this point? Yeah, I don't know. I don't, we also don't know what kind of information Donald Trump is getting, obviously reports that he's not getting, like the full picture of the implications of the war, but presumably someone inside the White House is talking about what happens to oil prices. If we escalate and Iran escalates, if the region is further destabilized, that this will have immediate and then sustained terrible economic consequences, I'll just

say, like, I hope that Donald Trump's threats do lead to some kind of a ceasefire of some kind, even if it seems unlikely, even if we're right now as we record this, it seems like both sides aren't willing to give because, like, the best case scenario right now is that he does not go through with what he is promising to go through with. And the fear, whether it's because a plane is shot down over Iran or because he feels obligated to carry out this threat is we are now on this

endless ratchet where, okay, he carries out this threat. The regime doesn't fall and doesn't capitulate. What's the next group of threats that comes after this? What happens in the next week after he's destroyed the country and yet the country still exists and the regime is still in power? Like, I don't know that they're thinking three days ahead, but I've suppose the rest of us

“ought to at least remember that there is a next week that will continue to be after he goes through”

with this on Tuesday. It's a sort of ridiculous that we're talking about this right now when right before the weekend, after he gave that prime time address, remember when he was like, the straight, we don't need the straight. After the, after we leave, the straight will just open naturally. It's like, and then now it's open the straight or we'll bomb you back to the stoning of the hell. Also, he keeps saying it's Europe's problem when, like, 80% of the oil and

gas that goes through the straight arm moves is going to Asia and this growing everyone there. So yeah, meanwhile, the, the war keeps getting more unpopular by the day here in America. Good news, Trump seems to know that bad news doesn't seem to care. Here he is telling reporters of the White House easter egg roll that he'd like to take control of Iran's oil. Only if the rest of us would let him enjoy the music in the background. I had my choice. What would I like to do? Take the oil

because it's after the taking this kind of thing they could do about it. Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us come home. When you say the American people don't want that, how do you know that? Are you listening to? Well, I tell you why. I'm pretty good at this stuff and I go around and I check they'd like to see us win and come home. And everyone's saying, oh, he's Trump losing maggot. No, I'm not losing maggot. Magga loves what I'm doing.

And CNN did a poll of Magga voters, a big poll. Very important poll. Harry.

And he went on these areas. This is amazing. 100% support.

They're foolish. Hmm. I was quote from the book of Harry on Easter. Harry. There's a big poll from CNN. It's a Harry poll. He got a Harry poll. Oil's the oldest resurrection story, sir.

“Quite a message for the midterms there. Wild. You think Republicans are going to run on that?”

You think... Is he just impervious to bad polling? He did the Harry the Magga's with me poll, but he clearly knows that it's not popular with other people. Every day I'm more convinced that Trump does not give a shit about the midterms, does not give a shit about the future of the Republican Party, does not give a shit about JD dance. This is a political smash and grab job for him. His cronies, his family, to make as much money as possible. And then do things that burnish as legacy.

There's just no other explanation for why you would talk like that for why you'd build a ballroom, like the monument to himself in Virginia, start a war with Iran that sends oil prices to the moon, and then do it all before the midterms. And it's politically like he's not even trying. Like he didn't go to CPAC, but that busy set he was too busy, but that week he went to the Saudi investment conference down in Miami. What would an enemy can pay him more? I know. Over the long run. So that I heard

that foolish quote in my brain went to every single attack at. I would run linking members of Congress to the warner on the kickoff with that quote. And then it's just like image after image of death in destruction and skyrocketing energy prices, etc. We are like running out of Trump quotes to

fit in a 60 second ad, because I feel like once every couple episodes now, we're like, this is the

line that's going to be all the midterms. And I still think they're all very ripe for this. I mean, the Easter, remember the Easter lunch that we can't afford Medicare, we have a war to pay for. Yeah, right. We had that just last week. And there's just, do you think this is going to ruin the affordability tour? You think he's still, he's still going to be hitting the road once a week for Susie Wiles that she wants him to do that to sell his economic agenda? Ex only, I'm what's

only because he's proud of those. That press. Yeah, I will say the one thing you can also take away

right? Like his version of I need to end this war and declare victory as the American people want

me to win quickly and leave now. The American people don't want to be in this conflict with they certainly don't want boots on the ground over us to invade Iran to take the oil and he just

“seem cognizant of that. I think that I think what there's a kind of story they're tying themselves,”

which is this is still short. We will get this quickly. The effects will, will, will receive and it will go into memory as the time we decimated the Iranian military for the good of the region. Yeah, and unless then they bomb all the power plants and everything else. All right, he's probably looking for some kind of face saving thing where you can say like I threaten them, they decided to give me this, which they probably didn't give him,

whatever he's going to say they gave him. But now I'm going to say like you can it is totally

possible that and then like while we're recording this he says we got a deal. Iran says we don't

have a deal, but there's some some story about how much they've given and the gifts they've given and the fact that he's not going to do the bombing this week, but he could do it next week. Like that is so possible. And I genuinely like like fuck this guy and fuck these people, but man, I really hope that they can pretend like pretend they have some kind of a win because this neck, what they are promising and what comes after like it just, it's so clear that they're

being cavalier, but I would rather Trump be able to walk out in the Rose Garden tomorrow and say I did it. I achieved everything I said. I was, everyone was wrong about me, then have him go through with this. I really don't think I want him to go through it. No, I'm not sure what I mean. I'm not sure what I want to catastrophic war. I'm not saying you do that. I'm not saying you do that. I'm not saying you do that. I'm not saying you do that. I'd rather leave personally

for sure. Of course. I want the best outcomes in this war tomorrow for sure and it's going to involve him spinning some bullshit. I just think that the the chances of that are so much less than they are with all the other bullshit he's done, right, which is like you know, I keep thinking and making this comparison. It's like the tariffs, you know, and you're like well, the tariffs, you're into the taco thing. You're like, oh, he backed off. It's fine. And then it's saving

face because it's a treaty about fucking tariffs, you know, like this is you're dealing with like

“I think that the people on the other side of this are maybe if they get a vote. Yeah, they get a vote”

and they're there. I'm not going to say that they're completely crazy because I'm sure they're doing things in their self interest, but they certainly don't care about the people of their country. Right. All that much. They care about the regime and the regime's survival. So it's like you're dealing with people who aren't fucking Trump was it end this to get like to deal with the near-term political challenges. The Iranians don't want to get bombed again in six months or 12 months or

18 months, right? They're thinking longer term. They want to deal where the U.S. can force these railies not to keep bombing them, too. They're playing a longer game here. Yeah, they apparently like want the end of the war and Lebanon as well as part of the deal. They want the end of the war and all of the fronts, which of them also includes a rock. Pasev America is brought to you by article. Article makes it effortless to build a home that lasts without the boutique markup.

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with or endorsed by Viatras. Regardless of what the poll say today, it's becoming pretty clear that they're going to get worse. And that's because even if the word does end today, the economic damage will last for some time. Mark Zandy, chief economist at Moody's told political quote, I don't think we're going back to the pre war prices for the foreseeable future. Certainly won't be this year. Won't even be next year. Might not be ever.

Woo. And there we got Jamie diamond was on Fox last week just cheerleading the war. What was that? I was not. That was another way. It was like Tommy should be here to yell about Jamie. Dick has. What does he, he was an asshole? When I was way too. What, what, what, like, what, what did he do? He did need to appear on Fox. Didn't he was like, hello to all the Fox viewers. I'm Jamie diamond and I'm here to say that like the, the Iranians. Love war with Iran

in a major world. Yeah. There's basically like the Iranians caused October 7th that Americans

died. And it was just the, he sounded like fucking Netanyahu. Good. So he, he warned in his annual letter to shareholders. That's that's important to him. That there could be more oil price shocks in the coming months and that the war could keep inflation and interest rates high. But you know, the American people might have to pay more. He said this on people I have to pay more. But you know, it's the economy is resilient. Thank you Jamie. Does it? Right now, people feel worse about

the economy and inflation that at any time since the post COVID inflation surge. I just saw that gas prices have now surpassed in in AAA records like the gas prices and tracks the gas prices. Higher than at any time since right during COVID with the supply shot from COVID history. And history. So that's where we are with gas prices now. I'm having a hard time imagining that people don't feel worse about the economy than they do today on election day. Like,

I don't know how this, I don't, I don't think this gets better by election day at this point.

“I think we've, even if the war ends today, I think we've passed the point of no return”

about things getting worse in the next couple months. But I don't know does anyone disagree? No, I mean, like, so great. Gas prices are well. Like, for 12 today is the national average. I think that goes up before it goes up down and it could go up dramatically. Similarly, natural gas prices, especially in Europe are up and will be up for a while, especially as they go into the winter. So that energy shock is like the initial

thing we're feeling, but it's far from the only implication because fertilizer prices are way up, right? That's going to lead to higher prices, lower yields, potentially food shortages. Countries in Asia are rationing fuel. They're shutting down factories. So like the economic impact is across the economy. I got like, work from home going in Asia. Yes. And like, like, flights are grounded. Like, people can't get jet fuel. And then, so it's like developing

countries are getting hit now. Then it hits major economies in India and Japan and South Korea. They start to slow down. You guys talked about healing, apparently, and, and Rick sincerely, I'm going to say, right? We did some whip it's here. That would be a semi-conductor manufacturing, which, you know, that happens to be propping up the entire U.S. artificial intelligence bubble, the availability of all these semiconductors. The Gulf is going to take like a multi-hundred

billion dollar hit to GDP. And all the various industries there, gigantic sovereign wealth friends

are propping up. We'll be impacted. So like, I just, there's a wave. This will ripple out in ways. We're not seeing now. It will last for a long time. None of it is good. The fact that Jamie Diamond can like be blase about this is crazy to me. Yeah. The Trump has failed to address people's concerns about prices before he started this war. And Ron, everything he's done, tariffs have made matters worse. He's rested on the resilience of the American economy to

protect him from the bad policies. He's pursuing, but gas prices will be going up as we head into the summer. Even if there are some recovery months from now, people will have experienced months and months of the economy of prices going up. By the time you get to November, that will be additive that will aggregate. And as people come to their conclusions, we head towards November.

We've just gone to window into his priorities for next year. And I don't think they're going to answer the mail. Yeah. So the budget's out. And less than anyone thought that the,

“what he said at the Easter lunch was just a gap. It was not. Again, remember, he said,”

he said, we're going to all have to start paying higher taxes via state taxes. Right. The states are going to have to raise taxes. If we want child care, many added Medicaid and Medicare, because the federal government is busy, equipped fighting wars. And what we have to take care of, one thing, one thing, military protection. So then they release the budget. The, the official budget request for 2027, they're asking for $1.5 trillion for the Department of Defense. That is an

increase of $400 billion. And that doesn't include the room or $200 billion supplemental for the war.

Trump proposes paying for all this new war spending with huge cuts to just about everything else. Health programs, medical research, education funding, one big exception, White House renovations. The budget says there were $377 million in improvements last year. And they're estimating another $174 million in spending for next year, which includes both the ballroom and other renovations.

“Apparently, they told political tech companies all paying for the ballroom. The ballroom is”

grottists. The ballroom is on tech. There was a gift from our over those. Some White House official anonymously told Politico. Like, some of the private money is included, but like, that doesn't really add up. So I don't know what the hell they're talking about there. Axiosmuse that quote, the most powerful populist of this century is at risk of becoming what he ran against. A deficit spending interventionist asking working class Americans to shoulder the cost of war.

Perhaps a sign that maybe he was never actually a populist in the first place? I don't know.

Wow. I'm just, perhaps he's a hypocrite. Yeah, I just can't think of anything. Like, just a Democratic consultant's ketamine journey. I don't think you'd come up with something better than not just a $1.5 trillion defense budget to cut health care and other social spending, but also, you know, north of 500 million on a Trump home Renault. Like, that is an extraordinary message for us. These consultants, these strategists are going to be frothing at the mouth.

A lot of friends. And then they look at the news, everything's like, a sunpiker. Look at our poll. Yeah, we've been showing this pretend this pretend message for a decade that they want to, they want to cut your health care to pay for tax cuts for the rich in his ballroom and this fucking war that no one wants. And now it's happening in real life. I want a third way summit on streamers. It is so clear that the least America first policy

platform you could design. Like, voters are not stupid. They know that Trump promised to invest at home to take care of Americans first to avoid foreign wars. And is this a thing you saw last week when he said, he bragged about telling his OMB director, we're fighting wars. We can't take care of daycare. Yes, that's the best. Yes, that's a bad quote. That's a bad quote. And Medicare and Medicaid. He throws those into the end. He didn't know that he didn't know

the cameras. He didn't know it was being live streamed. Yeah, and before, so the $1.5 trillion dollar Pentagon proposal, a budget proposal, was floated before the Iran war. And afterwards, there was a Washington Post story about how the Pentagon literally couldn't figure out how to spend all the extra money. They're like, what bullshit weapon systems do we need to acquire with? Like, they don't know who's asking for this. I don't know. Nobody was. And so now like, I guess you

could fill that need with all the interceptor missile stockpiles and ship. And it sounds like we're running low-endish, but that's not a money problem. That's a supply problem. That will take decades to fix. So it's just, all of this, again, makes me think this guy does not care about politics anymore. It doesn't give a shit. It's also great. It's, you know, all these are big defense contractors. Yes, make a lot of money. There's every every dollar in the defense budget goes to some

district. That is, this is saying, yes, to everybody. Every Republican member who he needs, every contractor, every every every executive coming through. This is money that gets to their pockets one way or another. Although I did see that some Republicans already in Congress are like, I don't know about this budget. But then, of course, they can't have like a full-throated critique of

“the budget. I think Susan Collins is, quote, was like, well, Congress does have the power of the”

purse. Oh, really, Susan Collins. Go ahead, I dare you to, I dare you to vote for this. Yeah, it's funny to think, like, when we first started having the conversation about a supplemental funding request coming down the pike to pay for the Iran war, initially the reports

were going to be like, maybe 50 billion, then it was 200 billion in it. And the framing was,

oh, no, what a tough vote for Democrats. They could be accused of being, you know, not supporting the troops. And now it's like, oh, this is the most politically devastating thing for Republicans. I could possibly draw up in my brain if I tried. Yeah, Marjorie Taylor greens out there,

Nancy makes it like, I'm a hell no one. This standing budget for stupid murder. A 40% increase in the largest Pentagon budget in history is time points out that they don't know how to spend, but that is not enough to do the kind of military conflicts he wants to do. It's a really they need 1.2 trillion this year. Go up to 1.4 trillion next year to what, in part, by the way, because Cuba's on the back burner now. Right. We've got to, yeah, we've got to, but one lesson they've

learned, right, is that if Donald Trump is going to become an interventionist regime changer, you need a bigger baseline because he can't go back to Congress to ask for more money.

“But in like a lot of it, I think is for the golden dome missile defense system, which is like,”

probably doesn't work. You know, I think it's a magic force field around America. Yeah. I mean, he thinks it's, it's, he's trying to make a play on the iron dome system, which is Israel's short-range rocket system, which works very well. But those are like, little like Kutusha rockets that are flying in from Lebanon, not intercontinental ballistic missiles,

where you're hitting a, you know, something going mocks heaven with a bullet, basically. Yeah, I don't,

yeah, I do think if we start to face missile barages from like Quebec and Toronto, I think we've gotten bigger fish to fly. That could happen. Yeah. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp, whether you are navigating anxiety, depression, relationship hurdles, or financial stress, or just needing objective professional to help manage daily stresses, BetterHelp connects you with the right support. BetterHelp therapists work according to

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[Music] Let's talk about immigration and mass deportations. So, Noom, Lewandowski, Bovino, have all been fired. Ice and CBP have drawn down for Minneapolis and other cities. And the DHS shutdown will likely end when Congress gets back without Democrats having voted for any new funding for immigration enforcement. And yet, there was a big story in the times

this weekend about how the only lessons Steven Miller has learned from all this is to pursue his purge of immigrants, including those who are here legally, more quietly. Sure enough, the times also had an absolutely heartbreaking story about Annie Ramos, a dreamer who just got married to an active duty army staff sergeant who is preparing for deployment. So, she's been in America since she was almost two years old. She's 22 now, a few months away from getting her

college degree. She teaches Sunday school at her church. And she just showed up with her new husband at his army base with her birth certificate passport, marriage license, show she could get her green card. And then when they got there, I showed up, shackled her, took her away, and now she's facing deportation. And this is all after the wife of another army reserveist was finally released from ice custody last week after four months in detention. Want to get your takeaways from both the Miller piece,

very long piece about Steven Miller, but had a lot in it about sort of the Trump administration's

Yeah, the way the administration talks about Rambo said that was revealing to because they say

basically she tried to enter a military base and she has a lawful deportation order and

it's like with her husband and that order was forms and that order was from when she was a baby. It's an order from when she was a literal 22 months old child. So that's who they're going after and everyone acknowledges. This is the like under no previous administration, under no one's understanding of how the law should be applied was a person like this ever gone after the past.

“Nope, there's just simply no justification for it whatsoever, but I think it does speak to the”

larger point about what Steven Miller's trying to do here because he is not a humble that all he has the same mission and the same goals they're trying to just do it more quietly. And the two things that jumped out about to me in the Miller piece about what they're trying to do next. One was talking about how to go after immigrants who apply for credit cards and the other was his work with local legislators in Tennessee to require state or local officials to report people who

receive services at hospitals, social services agencies and some public schools despite being in the country illegally. And so it is more of an effort to weaponize the financial system, the information we gather about people, the way people have to access services and care to try to do more with a scalpel, what drew such attention when they did it with like an axe. Yeah, those things jumped out at me too and then the only other one was they're trying to

for legal immigrants, any legal immigrant here who happens to ever get public assistance, Medicaid, anything like that. He wants that he and the new frauds are J.D.Vans and the rest of them want to go after that and try to prove that they somehow illegally obtain their benefits, not so they can just take the benefits away, but like then deport the legal immigrant. We're really spoiling the end of this book about what he learned from Catholicism.

Yeah, not not not not really internalizing what the way for supposed to represent and get through the communion, but military, I'm not one of the best people. Yeah, I was going to go Fantastic Eastern for the military. Yeah, the timepiece of the sea of Miller, it's my favorite kind of story and that evaluated my priors. He's calling the shots. Trump is outsourced immigration policy to him. He's the worst of the worst when it comes to pushing

cruel racist policy ideas, but he's better at playing politics than the other goons. The bovinoes or the Christynomes are the Lewandowski's, probably because he's closest to Trump and he can whisper to him and blame others for when he gets in trouble and like all of them step away, right, I blame all of them. The other thing that was really important about that Steven Miller story that relates to the other articles you mentioned

was it just showed that the ice in CBP abuses in Minnesota had a huge political impact. Yes, and the communities pushed back, brushed back, Trump and Steven Miller in a significant way. And I think it just shows you the power, obviously like ice murdering CBP murdering someone on

camera is like horrific in ways that I hope will never be repeated. But stories like these,

you know, the anecdotal evidence of these innocent people caught up in a cruel system, treated in a cruel bureaucratic, heartless way, and punished for something they when they did nothing wrong, I think like people react to that strongly and it shows the importance of lifting

“up these examples and like just speaking people's humanity. And I think why it's important to”

keep up that pressure and not to see the firings and draw down of ice in the cities and everything else is like, all right, we won this chapter onto the next fight, you know, because all this is like we just be seeing that with any remos and all these other stories, I just saw CBS to interviewed Liam Ramos, remember the five-year-old in Minnesota and his dad and there they're still being threatened with deportation. This is part of the story where Liam is now, you know,

it's five-year-old kid, he's now seeing a psychologist because he's like dealing with such trauma and all, you know, it's five-year-old boy and he's like, I'm more than anything, I'm just scared of ice, I'm scared of immigration, I scared of what might happen. And like, yes, that's Liam, but think of how many children out there are in the exact same spot. I think of how many children are in detention right now, right? Like if you've been in detention, if you're still there,

like the trauma that like it's just fucking up these kids' lives and Miller is the other thing from the story, Miller's focused on ramping up deportations of non-citizens to faraway countries with the hopes of encouraging immigrants still in the United States to leave voluntarily. So that is a, you know, a nice way of saying that like he wants to send them to third countries

that they've never been to like Libya or South Sudan. Yes, so to not for any other reason but to send

a message to other immigrants to leave now yourself or we are going to send you to somewhere where you're probably going to die or just be insulated. Yeah, exactly. It also does an evil person.

“It does connect, I think, too, to like what we're seeing with how they're conducting the war”

and Iran, it connects to like, you know, people try to say, oh, you know, don't, you know, Trump says crazy things online, he says terrible things about whatever, Rob Reiner, his enemies

there's no, there's no empathy. There's no, like, there's no, like, recognizing if someone's humanity

and how they're conducting these policies, it is just zero forbearance, like, all attack, do as much damage as you can, regardless of the consequences to achieve whatever ends you've set out. And so like, when they try to dismiss Trump, when he's renting and raving online, like, no, that's the person making these policies. That's the connection between the threat to bomb a power plant in Iran, and we're going to go after our military spouse in the U.S. Like,

these people that character, and we'll affect, and it will, it will be, it will be infused in everything that they do. That reminded me of just the, the one other nugget in that story is, again, we could talk about confirming your prior, something I had suspected, but I think it was,

“it was news in the story. Remember that, like, a long time ago, I think it was last September,”

there was that video of in a New York City immigration courthouse, and that ice officer tackled

that woman, who was just there, who has been, and like, shockingly got another day, ice was like, oh, that person's been fired. And I was like, wow, that's like, they finally backed off. And it says in the story that the state that ice is doing that, like, fucking made Steven Miller so angry, that he, like, got involved, reversed it, and then made them hire the guy back. Yeah. And it just goes to show, like, exactly, like, this is, it is all, like, from the top, from Steven Miller,

to try to send, like, he's using, he is using, like, torture and cruelty to send a message to immigrants. Like, that's the whole thing. He's just the quote from him. Yeah, you're unleashed. It's, it's fucking awful. All right. One last thing before we get to Levitt's conversation with Sarah McBride, Donald Trump decided to do Democrats a huge favor in the California governor's race.

Don't, don't say he's never done anything like that. Eastern miracle. Yeah, I know, resurrected

the California Democratic Party. So as we've discussed, because of the so-called jungle primary format here, we have been in danger of seeing two Republicans advance to the runoff because so many Democrats are in the race that's splitting the vote. So you have all these polls with, with Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco, the two Republicans is one and two, which means that the Democrats would be locked out of the general election. Well, on Monday morning, Trump took to

truth social to endorse Republican Steve Hilton. And I'll just quote, political here, quote, dealing a potentially fatal blow to GOP rival Chad Bianco's campaign and to Republicans,

“hopes of locking Democrats out of the runoff. It's so funny, Levitt. I think you and I talked about”

this. And I was like, how have other Democratic campaigns not elevated one of the two Republicans by now, because that's the way shift got it done. That's the way new some got it done before and like no one's done that yet. Turns out they didn't need to trumped it for them. Well, and they were planning to, and by the way, you do that is by spending like tens of millions of ads supporting Republicans. So that was the position they were about to be in. Every California like Democratic

party activist or operative, I know, are just ecstatic. And they literally can't believe it's happening to the point where they're all looking for conspiracy theories, because like he, do you think he's too stupid to know this was a political disaster for California, or like he just doesn't care. He wanted to do a favor for Steve Hilton. Steve Hilton said he didn't ask questions about the race of Trump. He didn't ask for an endorsement. Like maybe Trump is so

delusional that he believes his own bullshit about like, if not for the illegal votes, the he would of one, one other theory I heard is that Trump wants Hilton in the race, because he's actually a good spokesman. He will spend six months attacking Gavin Newsom in California and like soft and Gavin up. I like, I don't know, interesting theory, but I think Arkham's razor that he's a dumb lazy asshole. Yeah, Arkham's razor is he like saw some segment on Fox News. Exactly. Yeah.

And by the way, that word Hilton, that's a good, that's a hotel word for him. But yeah, look, Democrats have wanted to elevate or Republican, so that there would be just one Republican, so that they didn't have to face a Democrat. Right. In the current situation, Democrats need to elevate one Republican, so that it's not just two Republicans, which is like a

“different kind of a problem. I think the truth is like, it is a genuine risk that”

Democrats could be shut out of having a candidate in the general, if more people don't drop out in the thing doesn't coalesce. But even if both of the two Republicans were not, we're splitting the vote more evenly, any kind of coalescing, we'll probably result in one Democrat getting above the other. So I think like it's a little too cute by half to think that Donald Trump, that Donald Trump's action is going to result in something that is likely different than what

would have happened anyway. But you think so? Why? Because I think it is still likely, even if the two Republicans were splitting the vote, that there will be a coalescing among the Democrats in one of the rise to the top. Oh, I'm on the Democrats, you see, not in the Republicans. No, not in the Republicans. I'm saying that if the two Republicans continue to split the vote, right? What is more likely? Is it more likely that Democrats truly remain completely divided

and those two move on? Or is it that two Republicans splitting the vote might keep their numbers low enough that two Democrats could get through? I think right now, I think it would probably

about this in terms of, all right, they're going to get Democrats are going to start dropping out. You would want one Republican to rise to the top if you want a Republican to be in the general.

“I think that's another, that is I think a reasonable way to think about it.”

I think the reason that everyone so freaks out about this is whether or not the party establishment

coal finally coalless is around one Democrat. California is just a big fucking state and there's

so many voters and it's been so hard to get attention for this race because we're all talking about Trump all the time and everything's nationalized that like you could, I mean, we're getting down to it. You can see towards the end even like, you know, important political figures deciding to back one candidate or the other and then the voters are just sort of like, I don't know, just going into it and this is like of all the political figures who could make a statement in this

race like we've been thinking, well, new cement doors or Kamala or even Barack Obama or someone like that, it's like, no, actually the person that the political figure who could make the biggest difference is Donald Trump. Yeah, but by endorsing one of the Republicans. Yeah, I still think that like one of those, we've talked about this before, but like, Stire, Porter or Swallwell,

like those are probably one of those three candidates is going to end up being governor.

“Yeah, very likely. I still think, look, candidates have a week or two and then I think they need”

decide to drop out and endorse other people. If you're not at 5% in the polls by like April 15th, when ballots are getting mailed to people when this thing is really getting into the final stages. Like, you're not going to win. Yeah, early votes start to what May 4th. Yeah, right. Early vote is soon. Like, everyone needs to be big boys and big girls in realize that like, if you're still at 5% or less a month before the primary, it's not happening for you. So get out of the race

and endorse someone else, like, do something good for the party here because my God, if there were some version of this were two Republicans make it through and we are locked out of the interlection, that is a catastrophic disaster, especially now, now that we had Donald Trump helped us out here. Yes, I did see that um, you see CNN's doing it debate, I'm going to debate this, it is going to be in May May 5th, I think. Um, it is where to me that their criteria is, uh,

yet hit 3% in two polls. I would have made that a little tougher. Probably avoiding some of the political challenges in USC got that. Yeah, but the other problem here too is, yeah, some of these candidates that are polling really low, uh, they need to drop out. But if we still are getting close to, uh, like, mid May and you have three Democrats that are kind of can all claim to be something like the front runner kind of vaguely evenly splitting. Like, that is when it actually

Trump chumping in as being helpful, because then you could still end up with two Republicans, but the harder challenge, right, is what happens when we need one of those three to decide, but they look like when they're splitting all the votes and they each have a justified reason for being in the race and we're heading towards the election. And then you go to the tribal council, that's like, who's going to? Yeah, and I know a thing or two about that. I'm just resulted

to tribal council. You're like, I've been home for five weeks. Yeah. Oh, anyway, so that was you know, ending on ending on some good news. Yeah, yeah, I like that. Thank you, Donald Trump. Thanks for your help, buddy. Uh, when we come back, Sarah McBride. Pot's sake of America is brought to you by built. We can all agree that housing is expensive, rent, mortgages, it doesn't matter which one you're paying, it stings every single month,

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so they know we sent you. Congresswoman Sarah McBride, welcome back to the pod. Thanks for having me. You've been in Congress a year. What do you know now that you wish you knew a year ago? Well, I don't know that I, I don't know that I know things now that I didn't know that and I think I know them more deeply. Okay. I think one, I know that there is still a chance for us

many of my Republican colleagues, most of my Republican colleagues, almost all of my Republican

colleagues, two obviously the stakes of the administration. But you know actually one thing that is interesting, that I know we talked about last time that I have come to realize over the last year. I know we talked about the reality TV show nature of Congress and I used to think that the antics we saw from folks in Congress who were taking up a lot of oxygen was the politics of reality TV in pursuit of a rational goal. Attention for the sake of power for the sake of influence. What I have

come to realize over the last year is that for many of the folks that you see taking up oxygen on the other side of the aisle in particular, it's not in pursuit of a rational goal. It's actually

“an addiction. Interesting. And I think that's one of the things we actually don't talk a lot about.”

It's not pursuit of attention to when the competitive attention economy. One of the things you

most frequently hear about these people when they get to Congress is they were so normal when they got there and granted their people who ran for office so I doubt they were that normal but by congressional standards that they were relatively normal. And then what happens is with all of the best intentions they go viral ones and they're not doing it in pursuit of that but they just find themselves going viral for something they've done. And we know that social media is addictive. And when someone

posts a picture online and it gets a couple hundred more likes than usual, it's a dopamine hit. It's a puff of a cigarette. But when you go viral nationally, it is like the most instantly addictive drug. And I don't mean that as a a trait throwaway line. I don't mean that as a metaphor. I mean literally. It is addictive. And one of the things that we don't talk a lot about is that much of the behavior you're seeing in Congress is from people who are struggling themselves.

They find themselves going viral. And as the is the case with many addictions, they will debase themselves and inflict collateral damage on anyone else in pursuit of that next high. And it's the same strategy that I employed before, but it's a different understanding because in the context of people coming after me early on, my job was not to take the bait. It was not to give them the response that they want. And in this case, it's to be essentially a

clogged bomb like just to not give them the high that they want so that they will go and chase it elsewhere. But in so doing what I don't think I realized was just how much opportunity that would unlock for me and not taking the bait. I knew it was what I needed to do to get them off of me.

“I knew I think it's what I needed to do on behalf of my constituents. But what happened after”

those first few months when I didn't take the bait, when I wasn't that effective high,

was I had a number of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle come up to me. And not only say, welcome to Congress, not only say, I'm so sorry with what they're doing. It's not very Christian. But to have a number of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle come up to me and say, let's find opportunities to work together to show people that not everyone here is like that. Because they saw that I was willing to work across disagreement. They saw that I was willing

to be a serious substantive legislator, not someone who was simply there to chase the high of attention. And it's now resulted in me being able to introduce more bipartisan legislation than any other freshman this Congress. So you make lemonade out of lemons. On the other side of that, you know, specifically your time of Congress began with Nancy Mason Lauren Bobert, you know, chasing you around the Capitol. In case you had a bill in the chamber

as it were. And they've both, you know, Lauren Bobert has had a series of public humiliations. Nancy Mason has had that incident at the airport and is largely despised. It seems by her colleagues. And it also reportedly members of her staff. Is there something about the way those people treated you and what has happened to them, sort of publicly politically that that kind of fits in this analogy of I would say it's actually more like, you know, I don't know if it's about a

bonk thing. It feels more like a stronger drug they're hitting. But is there a connection you think

“between the ways in which they've unraveled and the ways in which they went after you?”

Yes. I mean, I think that goes directly back to what I was saying and I think it's

if you are someone with real pain or trauma, if you're someone who's not well,

“you are more likely to fall into addictive behavior and fall prey to addiction. And I think that”

that is what we saw from some of the folks who came after me. They were not doing well. And in the case of Nancy Mace, I wish her well in her campaign, all the best in her campaign for governor. I think it's time that Republican voters in South Carolina choose someone who came into Congress standing up to Donald Trump denouncing the insurrection, someone who came into Congress and proclaimed their support for not only gay rights but trans rights. I think that's the type

of person that Republican primary voters in South Carolina should choose to be their next governor. Such an important point. So, Lauren Bobert actually has come out against, in a pretty strong way,

Trump's proposed supplemental. He's out there seeking a $200 billion supplemental. A lot of

Democrats have come out against it. You're part of the congressional progressive caucus that has come out against it. At the same time, there are some Democrats in the Senate, including Delaware's criss-coons who have not been more equivocal on whether to support funding the military

“because of the Iran War than a Republican-like Lauren Bobert. Is that disappointing to you?”

Do you wish that all Democrats were more emphatic in saying that we will not vote to provide military funding to kind of in effect go back and authorize the war? Well, I think my understanding is that one comment maybe got taken out of context and he came back and I think was pretty clear and unequivocal. Clear or? Yes. Yes. And my sense is that every pretty much every Democrat in Congress understands that a supplemental to fund this war would be

both in perception, but also probably in reality, a validation retroactively of the administration's

reckless and illegal war in Iran, which is clear today than ever, but was always clear that it was

going to be a failure. And I don't anticipate any Democrat, but maybe one obvious one in the Senate. And I don't know about any in the House voting in favor of a supplemental no matter whether it's

“$50 million dollars or $200 million dollars or $200 million dollars. And I think this is a moment”

where we should be absolutely clear and unequivocal that we will not give one dime to this president's war, not just because of the process that he didn't go through, but because this war is stupid, it is dumb and it is making us less safe. We are more than a month into this war. I think the president's going through different stages of grief right now. I think the press conference we just saw from him is a mix of negotiation and denial in the process of grief,

because a month and a week in, we have a new Supreme Leader who's by all accounts more extreme and more pro nuclear than before. Everything we have destroyed can be rebuilt and can probably be rebuilt with the billions of dollars that Iran now has because of the easing of sanctions and they are closing of the Strait of Formus, which was entirely predictable and predicted, but the president thought we would have won long before they would have the chance to do it. And now our adversaries in Russia

and China, Russia is swimming in revenues that they didn't have, which will make peace and Ukraine that much harder. And China is not only accessing oil in a way that much of the rest of the world is not. They also now understand our military and operational capabilities far better today than they did two months ago, which means they would be better prepared to potentially invade Taiwan. All at the same time were further alienating our allies in Europe and costs including the cost

of gas are going up here. So I don't anticipate any Democrats saved from maybe one voting for such an ill-thought-out war by validating through the appropriations process to $200 million to continue down this path. As someone who's tried to find places to reach out to your public and I talked about this with Tim Miller from the bull work about why, in his point,

was that Trump is in terrible political territory. This war was a war of choice that we should never

have pursued gas prices through the roof. Most of the countries against this, we should be on offense, and that includes trying to talk to Republicans, whether it's on television, on Fox News, or two-year colleagues in the house to try to get as big of a coalition together that opposes the war, funding the war, supporting the war. Are you talking to is there a conversation between

because they don't have a lot of margin and a bunch of Republicans have expressed if not outright opposition skepticism? Yes, there are absolutely conversations going on. There are conversations routinely. I was on the bipartisan bicameral delegation that went to Denmark during

the height of the Greenland crisis. We came back and the first thing many of us did is we went to

“our Republican colleagues. I think in that instance, as is the case in many instances, we do find”

opposition to this president among our Republican colleagues, but either a hesitation to push back publicly for fear of the political ramifications, or a hope that the situation will resolve itself by the president's own actions. I think they will often say to us, "Hill stand down. He'll pull back. It's rhetoric. It's bluster." But when you're talking about more, when you're talking about a president as unhinged and divorced from the reality of what's going on as he is, a president who

cannot handle things going well and respond rationally, it's incredibly dangerous and irresponsible for any Republican who does oppose this war to not meet that belief with any kind of public action or rhetoric. I will say, too, to your point, this is a moment where I think we have to reinforce that if you're a Republican voter and you are watching what's going on and you don't like what you are seeing. If you're a Republican voter who voted for this president, because you thought,

well, the Democrats talked a lot about democracy and we survived this first term and prices were

lower and you feel like he's broken either one or both of those sort of promises that democracy will be fine and costs would be lower. If you feel like he's broken as promises, welcome to our coalition, welcome to our cause. You don't have to agree with us on 100% of things, but join us to stop forever wars and to bring down costs. So I wanted to talk to you about the ways in which you've been working with Republicans in the House. In December, the House passed that

Marjorie Taylor Green bill that was her swans on criminalizing certain kinds of medical treatment for transminors. The vote was along party lines, except you were part of an effort to get four Republicans to join you in voting, no, which they did. One Republican who opposed the bill, Brian Fitzpatrick said, the same theory could be used to say that if parents don't vaccinate their kids, they could be committing a crime. So the parent child relationship, doctor physician relationship,

we have to always presume that these are sacred. It feels like that is the strong, that argument

or just freedom between parents to make decisions about their families, for doctors to be able to provide what care they think is best, is our strongest argument. But at times, it also seems like on the left, let's say when the Supreme Court rules that parents have a right to be notified if their kids socially transitions. Or if a law in Colorado providing conversion therapy,

“violates potentially violates the first amendment. I think liberals, in part because they don't”

trust this court, their first reaction is to go to the outcome of that, which are policies we might not necessarily agree with. But is there value in simply saying when the court is doing these kinds of things, it's actually standing up for a principle we believe in, even if it's applied in a way, we don't like the outcome. Absolutely. I mean, I think in this moment with the stakes as high as they are, not just for trans people, but in so many instances. One, we have to recognize

the way well-intended policies are rhetoric that we have done in the past could be used against us in the future. I think the last year and a half have brought that possibility into stark relief for us and I think it's something that we have to be mindful of moving forward. But for an example of that, just what do you mean? I mean, I do think that there is something to be said for it's harder to say government shouldn't interfere with the healthcare decisions of a parent and their child

when there was a state of efforts to ban what is that abusive, quite frankly, healthcare in the form

“of conversion therapy that that's being used as a precedent here. And I think that I'm not saying”

that I don't think those bills or ideas are wrong. But I do think we have to be cognizant of how the right can co-op precedent in order to do really harmful things on a wide scale. And I think we do have to keep the main thing, the main thing in the fight for equality for LGBTQ people.

do, what more can we do, and there was a lot of basic necessities that we had not actually protected

“for portions of our community, including the trans community. And I think that we are seeing”

that sort of chasing of the next best idea on gay rights, maybe resulted in us taking our eye off the ball for trans people to some degree. But I also think that that sometimes freedom means sometimes democracy means that people make choices that we don't like. Families make choices that we don't like. And I think right now in this moment we have to be clear that the best place for decisions to be made around the healthcare of a child is between the parent, the child and their

provider. And that is not always going to result in parents making the decisions that we would make

for our own children. But it also means that government doesn't get to come into those individual decisions and stop parents from making decisions that we believe are in the best interest of their child. And so I do think that we have to be firm in that conviction, and that means taking some of the not so good with the good. Yeah, well it's, I would say that if you got some sort of

“right wing activists and like really press them, right? I think there is a sincere belief that the”

that that not even just on LGBT issues or trans issues, but across the board that what liberals

had argued for was something about freedom and access, but actually we came rules that everybody had

to live by or else. And let me just be clear. Again, I'm not saying that conversion therapy bands are bad. I just do think that we should be cognizant of precedents that are established that can be used against us when we are in power just to be clear. Right, no of course. And by the way, like, you know, conversion therapy as sort of free speech versus medical care that we are allowed to regulate. They're like technical and important distinctions to be made between sort of freedom of speech and

what medical, what a medical provider can offer like those are distinctions to be made. But just and there's a difference between using, I mean, there were some FTC ideas that people were pushing in the Biden administration, or people were thinking about in the Biden administration as it relates to conversion therapy that the right is now trying to use around gender-affirming care. So I mean, there's just, there's also the way you go about it and the way you do it. And that also makes

a difference in terms of precedent, too. Right. Well, like in the case of California, both the right-wing judges and the liberal justice judges seem to acknowledge that parents have some rights, but children should be protected from harm and from abuse. But the law in California was written as if the Supreme Court didn't really exist and certainly wasn't right-wing. And I can't tell if what we're talking about here is an effort just to save some ground because we're

“under attack from right-wing judges, or are we trying to assert a principle?”

I think it's, I think it's a principle. I mean, I think, look, there are strategies tactics policies that I might have thought were great ideas ten years ago and over time, I've since evolved on or learned. Well, it's a well-intended policy, but it could have, it could lay the precedent or the foundation for this kind of policy that I don't like. And I think that the politics of backlash that we're experiencing right now, I think, should sober all of us

to that potential, to that risk. And it doesn't mean changing your positions all the time. It does mean one being more cognizant of that. And I do think that that's a principle, right? I mean, I think there are a lot of things in a liberal democratic society that some people on our side would want to forbid, but if you forbid it in this context, it means that they can forbid it in that context. And I just think that there is a return to an understanding and appreciation of

freedom. And that means taking the good with the bad that I think all of us have learned some hard lessons on over the last couple of years. But I think was an understandable and well-intended

sense of undending cultural momentum that we didn't have to grapple with that messiness of liberal

democracy and freedom that we could across different issues sort of tamp down different approaches

“because we didn't like them. When I think that that's one, perhaps a violation of the principle”

of freedom. But two, I think just counterproductive in a modern digital society where you can't suppress differing thought and approaches as much as you may disagree with them and often seeking to suppress them only makes them more attractive. And only gives some degree of credibility among people that maybe there's a truth in them because you're trying to suppress it. And I think all of us would do well on our side to learn both of those lessons both the practical and the principal

lesson of the last couple of years. I want to ask you about the democratic party and what we are trying to do now to signal to people in the midterms and beyond that we're not just a party that opposes Trump but we have a real kind of mission around the kind of economy we want to build. Specifically there's been a series of proposals. I talked to Senator Cory Booker last week about one that he introduced, Senator Chris Van Halon, has another Katie Porter here in

California, has one that's about kind of just basically raising the standard deduction,

getting income tax off of as many people's plates as possible because the economy is so stacked against working people. And I'm wondering what your, I feel like you have thoughts about that. I have no doubt that those proposals pull well and I have no doubt that there are people who would benefit from a change to the standard deduction or a holistic change to the tax code and and I do think that we should make our tax system fair and more progressive.

“I think that as a matter of both principle and frankly practicality that we do better”

by creating solutions that actually solve the source of the problem that families are facing.

I think out of principle one we should address the problem. We should address that the housing shortage and the cost of housing that is a byproduct of that. We should make sure that people have access to child care that is cap that ten or fifteen dollars a day. We should have a higher minimum wage in this country nationwide. We should have paid family a medical leave nationwide. And I think that those are the right solutions one because I think they changed the structures

of our economy that even if we change the tax code, the pre-existing inequities in our economic structures will persist and will be so poor that they will still find ways to

“create inequities even if you change the tax code. And so I think one you need to solve the problem”

as a matter of principle. Two as a matter of principle, I do think that making sure that all of us feel a sense of buy-in, that all of us feel a sense of ownership in our society in the policies of government is a good thing. But then from a practical standpoint, even if in the short term, the tax changes that people have been proposing pull really well, I just don't think people remember that two, three, four years after. People don't remember, I'm not saying we shouldn't do

a tax cut, but people don't remember who created the standard deduction at 30,000. They do remember who created social security and Medicare and Medicaid, who created the Affordable Care Act. When there is a tangible policy, a program that people are interacting with, that's not just good politics on the front end. I think it's better politics in the long term as well because people will see our party as the party that's not just lowering costs, not just making the American

dream more affordable and accessible for them. They'll know when they access that 10 to 15 dollar child care. They'll know when they take paid family a medical leave. They'll know when they're able to buy-in to Medicare. That individual action was made possible by Democrats. On the other side of this, we have Donald Trump. He said this last week at the end of last week that seemed like quite a revelation here. United States can't take care of daycare.

50 states. We have all these other people. We're fighting wars. We can't take care of daycare.

“You got to let a state take care of daycare and they should pay for it too. They should pay.”

They have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. We could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up, but it's not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a video. We have to take care of one thing. Military protection. We have to guard the country. So, Trump just put out his 2027 budget. It has a massive boost to military spending,

10% cuts to domestic policies like public health and scientific research housing education.

He also has proposed $377 million this year for a White House renovation in 174 million for

next year. I can't think of worse politics than cutting social spending to fund the war and do a gut reno. How do Democrats make the most of this and do Republicans understand how bad the politics of this is? You'll have to ask them as to whether they understand how bad the politics are. Donald Trump, it's no wonder that the White House deleted that video. When I saw that immediately, pushed it out. That should be part of our ads and our message

in the midterms. He's just saying the quiet part out loud. Everyone knows from the policies of the last year and a half that this was the Republican agenda. The Republican agenda was a massive increase in spending forever wars and massive tax breaks for Donald Trump's wealthy donors and everyone else has to pay the price in cuts to health care or in the failure of the federal government to address the very issues you and I were just talking about like child care.

There is always money. It seems from Republicans to cut taxes for the wealthiest and to

invade other countries and yet they clutch their pearls when a Democrat proposes paid family a medical leave or universal child care paid for, mind you, not even adding to the

“deficit by making the tax system fair and increasing taxes on the wealthiest. So I think we not”

only should be elevating that message, but we also have to have a very clear agenda that runs contrary to that. It's why I think whether it's a 15 or $20 minimum wage nationwide universal child care paid family a medical leave. I think that should be at the heart of our agenda because I know how much it meets the needs of my constituents. I know how popular it was in Delaware when we passed many of those policies during my time in the state Senate and I know how necessary

it is for our nation to compete global. I mean there is a reason why every other industrialized nation has passed paid family a medical leave and provides meaningful support for families we're trying to send their kid to child care. It's because they know it's not just compassionate policy, but competitive policy. We have a 1950s care infrastructure for a 2026 workforce and if we are going to tap the potential and skills of everyone, no matter

their gender or family situation, we need to have policies that allow them to start a family to have kids to fill their obligations to their own health and to their family without having to sacrifice their job or their income. It's a good place to leave it. Congressman Mr. Eric Bride, thank you so much and you were telling me before we started that you're training in the breaststroke for the 2028 Olympics? Yes, I'm I'm I'm I'm I want to be the face of

transportation in sports because I know you'll think like a stone exactly I always say if you

want to prove trans women don't have a competitive advantage in sports throw me in, but you know what I'm really focused on. What are you focused on? I'm focused on recruiting you for traders. Oh, yes, I would look, I think if you think that I perform poorly on survivor boy, survivor with food, I could probably only do better. I think you'll be like a season four derinda, not a season three derinda. You'll make it about halfway. I hope thank you,

“but I think I told I said I tweeted at them and I said you should pick John love it for the next”

season of traders celebrity or non celebrity. They can pick. Right, yeah, no, I see why and I then I appreciate that and I appreciate that. So I'm I'm leading that effort right now. Wow and that means the world's me because you know what, you build coalitions, you can get things done, you know,

Thanks for having me. That's our show for today. Thanks to Sarah McBride for coming on.

“Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. If you want to listen to Pots Ave America,”

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