Trump Blasts "Third Rate Podcasts"

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On today's show, we'll talk about Trump trading genocidal threats for a chaotic ceasefire. It hasn't changed all that much in Iran. Vance heading to Pakistan for negotiations with an eye on his 2028 politics. The prominent Magistars calling for Trump's removal, Republican fears that they've already lost the mid-terms. DNC drama over Israel, and Melania Trump's bizarre attempt to distance herself from Jeffrey Epstein.

What a day. Then, ramen manual stems by the studio to talk with Tommy about Iran, Israel and his widely rumored presidential ambitions. Quite the show, Dan, quite the show. Quick reminder, for all of you, please consider becoming a crooked media subscriber if you haven't already done so. We don't want you to miss out on any great content. We're putting out for our friends of the pod. Subscribers get our new extra episode of Pods Av America called Pods Av America

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All right, let's get to the news. After a week where the president backed off his threat to eradicate

an entire civilization based on a last-minute ceasefire agreement with Iran, we are basically back

to where we were the last time you and I recorded a week ago. The Iranian regime is still in power, still controls the straight-of-war moves, and still has its nuclear material. War is still raging in the Middle East between Israel and Lebanon. Oil and gas prices are still high. And Trump is still declaring victory while simultaneously threatening more war. One of his latest

post, said that if Iran doesn't agree to all his demands, "then the shooting starts," for some reason, shooting starts is in quotes, bigger and better and stronger than anyone has ever seen before. And Dan, while you might be mocking Trump's decision to pull us all back from the brink of catastrophe. Like some silly resistance lib. The folks at Fox News know what's up.

Democrats are already saying that this is Taco. Trump always chickens out. Let me give you another

acronym. Not show. Never avoids confronting hard obstacles. It's a not-show, Dan. It's a not-show. Is it a taco? Or is it a not-show? No, don't answer that question. How would you assess Donald Trump's

“diplomatic prowess over the last week? I think the... Would you call it a case of Dia?”

A Chimichanga? An enchilada? Anything from the Taco Bell menu? Okay. Supreme... Supreme Gordita? That was... Yes. It's a Supreme Court. It's a Supreme Gordita of diplomatic Bell in years, so I don't know, but go ahead. Don't brag about it. Chipotle guy. Are you? That's not... Let's get into the actual questions here. It has not been a stellar 36 hours or so of diplomacy for Donald Trump, I would say.

It really hasn't been a very good month. It hasn't been a good decade, but I think the

Iran War has brought too bare for the public. Something that we always knew to be true,

and even some of the Trump supporters suspected to be true, but suppress that, which is that Donald Trump is an erratic, capricious idiot who is so... And so far over his head that he cannot

“see straight. It's just... Would you go through what is happening here? One day it is. We're winning”

the next day. We don't need the straighted formus at all. Then we're going to blow up. We're going to send it around to the Stone Age. We're going to blow up every bridge and power plant because we need the straighted formus. He agrees to a ceasefire negotiation. He has no idea what's in it. According to the reporting, he did not even know that he thought Lebanon was in it. Turns out it was... At least Israel thought it was not, or it wasn't originally, and then

BB Netanyahu got on the... The red phony has directly into the White House and had it taken out. There is huge confusion. Donald Trump probably has no idea of where Lebanon is and couldn't point it on. Yeah, he didn't know. He's fired agreement. He is no idea. He's not steeped in the details. He has no core policy it is. He doesn't understand how the global oil market works. He doesn't understand what the straighted formus is. He doesn't understand how enrich uranium matters or where it

could be or how it's used. He knows nothing, and it is... It's sort of a miracle that Donald Trump has been present at four or five years now, and for most of that time he's be able been able to dance through the rain drops of his own incompetence to avoid things like this.

Like, we always would say, strictly in Trump's first term, he's going to tweet us into a war.

Stumble ass backwards into a war. Well, he did that, and he has no way of getting out of it. Yes, we can't check. I don't know. We stumbled our way into a once-in-a-generation pandemic, mismanaged that. That's the other example. Right? The two times failed. We're in sight of a violent riot in the capital, did that check. Yeah, he didn't have... He didn't have lead us into a dumb war yet, so he's... Yeah, it's just for most of the time, pandemic, and this war aside.

For most of the time, I'm just going to Trump's first term. His incompetence didn't end up mattering that much. He got very lucky. There weren't a lot of crises. He's the ones he got into. He was able to... He stumbled into him. He was able to stumble out of him quickly. Now, he's someone who's something he cannot get out of, and he is just truly the worst person to try to lead us out of this. And also, the times had a sort of a TikTok of the 36 hours

“when the ceasefire came together, and it was interesting because, um, and I think there was”

this was reported at the time, but when Donald Trump posted his genocidal threat that a civilization will die tonight, the negotiations had apparently been going somewhat well, and then when he posted that, the Iranians became so enraged that they broke off the negotiations, and the Pakistanis and then ultimately China had to try to put it all back together last minute to get a deal, which Donald Trump wanted because Donald Trump was looking for an exit ramp, because he knew

the war was unpopular. So what he thought was going to get a deal by making a genocidal threat actually almost tanks the entire thing. I am shocked to find out that a threat of genocidal did not improve diplomatic prospects. Yeah, so in that story, it's also funny that story is 36 hours because, you know, the times most famous travel feature is 36 hours, and Paris 36 hours in New York,

But in there, it's kind of the opening anecdote is Trump is sitting at his desk,

“as the clock is ticking down to his 8 p.m. genocide deadline, and he's looking at pictures in”

video of Iranian civilians surrounding the bridges and power plants that Trump is promised to bomb, and his basic response seems to be, well, that'll be Iran's fault. Yeah, if I have to bomb them and they die. And he was like, in a bunch of meetings about other topics, just like bragging about how many bridges and power plants he was ready to bomb that night and destroy. There were, there had been some reporting too, and I couldn't tell if it was like an negotiating

tactic or not may have been, but that said that I've all his advisors Donald Trump has been the most bloodthirsty of any of them. He's been like the biggest warmonger, which is not something that's going to make me sleep well at night, Dan. So there, he also, right before we recorded, he was like, I hear that Iran might be charging exact now on the straight of hormones. They better not be, and it's like, that's been reported for days now. That was like, again, but part

of the agreement was that the IRGC was going to run the streets. So what did you think was going to happen? And then someone asked you about it yesterday, and you said, we might charge tools as well. You also talked about and opposed how it's a great day for world peace after the ceasefire agreement, and now everyone's going to make money. It's going to be the golden age in the Middle East. Like, what, he has, he has no idea what the fuck's going on. Clearly.

Wait. No, I, yes, you're a correction. He has no idea what the fuck's going on. Wait till he finds out that one of the ways in which the IRGC is accepting payment is in cryptocurrency. And one of the acceptable methods is the world liberty financial USD1 stablecoin. Wait, is that part true? The second part? I know it. That has been reported.

“That is actually being reported. I cannot verify that to be the case, but I think it has to be”

in stablecoins. And that is a stablecoin. Amazing. Amazing. So there's been a lot of stellar

reporting in the last week about what's been happening in the White House during this war, since, you know, we can't trust the public comments of anyone who works in the White House. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan had quite a detailed story about the situation where I'm deliberations that led to war, which apparently included an in-person presentation by BB Netanyahu. Uh, what did you make of that piece? Like the diplomacy piece, just a wild expose of incompetence.

It's just, it seems very clear that Trump was persuaded to go to war by BB Netanyahu. It seems that Trump gave it very little thought as to what would happen next. Uh, he took the word of BB Netanyahu according to the report and these really intelligence service, like according to the BB is in the sit room. And they've handed over the keys to the technology of the sit room to the Israelis. And so on the screen is, uh, these really military,

the massade to walk through it. And Trump apparently seemed dismissive of the concerns raised by General Dan Kain and others on our side. And took what these really had to say as, uh, more accurate or more or better, more predictive. And let us even though if he Trump had half a brain, he know that BB has been pushing for this war for decades. Right. And obviously it's not an

unbiased presenter of information here. Yeah. What I got from that was, yeah, first of all,

stunning that you had a head of state in the situation room, uh, even an ally, like pressing for making the case for war in the situation room. I don't think that that has ever happened. Um, I don't, my certainly don't remember it ever happening. Uh, that said, I also, you know, that the, the pro-Israel folks will say, well, Donald Trump has agency and he made the decision

“himself. And it wasn't necessarily just BB. And I think the piece bears that out for sure.”

Um, I think he, he, BB definitely made the case and definitely influenced him. But I think Donald Trump wanted to hear a pro-war case from BB Netanyahu. And, um, I guess there was like, you know, there was four, four potential, uh, objectives for the war. And the piece says,

like, first was decapitation killing the agatola. Second was crippling around his capacity to

project power and threatened its neighbors. Third was a popular uprising inside around and fourth was regime change with a secular leader installed to govern the country. And basically the military a cane tells Trump, uh, he, he thinks the military does have the capacity. He wasn't even to saying he was for it. But he said the military does have the capacity to do one in two, killing the agatola and crippling around his capacity to project power. Um, and then basically

everyone in the room except for what this was after BB Netanyahu left and these Israelis left. But all of his staff was like, all of the rest of the senior officials, uh, in, in the White House were basically said that three and four, um, the popular uprising and installing a secular leader

interjected, that means it's bullshit. I assume because Trump didn't know it for a single bit.

“But even, and even as General Kane said, he believes the military could achieve one in two.”

He also warned about the straight of four moves and how it would be very, very difficult to reopen or and how the Iranians could gain control of it, which has happened. Trump seemed to dismiss that because he thought, oh, the regime will have fallen by then. Um, and warned about, um, depleting munitions that we're going to like use a lot of our weapons and, and defensive weapons offensive weapons by doing this and Trump didn't seem to care about that. Um, and then there was

even an anecdote in that story, how Tucker Carlson, uh, who had been calling Trump and warning him not to do this and pleading with him not to do this, he basically said, uh, he had a call with the president right before Trump said go and, uh, Trump said to Carlson, I know you're worried about it, but it's going to be okay. And then Tucker said, well, how do you know, and Trump said,

“because it always is. I think there's, there's a very, very telling anecdote.”

Me too. Me too. Right. Trump has assumed everything's going to go great.

Yeah. It always has for him. Right. Go bankrupt. Get rich again. Right.

And I think especially since he survived the assassination attempt, he does have this. He has like a little bit of a, a little bit. Messiah complex here, where he thinks like, you know, God has sent him to be president again. And he thinks it's, I think he, he saw Venezuela go off without a hitch for him at least. Um, and he saw the, you know, in the 12 day war when they bombed around like that went off relatively easily without a hitch as

well. And so he just thought this would be the same. And he also sees it as a legacy item. He thinks, oh, well, no president's done this in 47 years. There's also a good piece in the Atlantic today. Um, Jonathan Lemire wrote about, uh, how for Trump, like, it's 1979 again. And he sort of like stuck in, in the 80s and 1979 and in 1979, you know, the popular political thing to say was like, oh, Carter was too soft on a run. And, and, you know, we would have,

if he had just bombed around then, it would have been better. And so like, and because Trump's always

frozen in time, he's still thinking that it's like the 80s and that he's going to be the guy who couldn't do what presidents could try to do for 47 years and changed a fiocian around.

“Yeah, I think, I think that's all right. Like he, it's like he has a Messiah complex. He also just,”

has been, it's good, this goes to sort of his idiocy is to not understand the difference between a handful of directed strikes at a ran as part of Midnight Hammer or sending in the Delta Force into Venezuela to abduct one person from launching a war with Iran in the Middle East with the straightaway from moves there. Like, did not understand those differences is, it's galling really. Like it's stunning to be that sort of ignorant of the whole thing. But, see, he does all these

things in the military. They do what they're supposed to do every single time without flaw without loss of life and he just thought he could get away with it. It's still, I think the 80s things are really interesting point because like it is his mentality about cities, about crime, about everything is that New York, the 1980s, the 1979, he sees how that ended Carter's presidency, the attempt to rescue the hostages, the inability to rescue the hostages in the, in the, in the

embassy. But, it still is strange that he has picked regime change, such as legacy items. I know because he also watched Iraq unfold and, you know, I mean, he claims to be opposed to that now, but what he was supposed to was when it all went south, he wanted to be on the side of saying, yeah, this is bad and what a catastrophe. And also, oh, he should have taken the oil. His lesson in Iraq is like, don't send in a whole bunch of ground troops and take the oil. Um, and so, which I

guess is why he hasn't sent in ground troops yet to Iran, but who knows? Because the war continues. It's a very fragile ceasefire that has almost fallen apart numerous times. It may yet fall apart by the time they get to Islamabad this weekend. By the time we're listening to this on Friday. Right. Right. Right. Right. Because Israel is continues to just bomb the hell out of Lebanon in Beirut, a densely populated urban area. Hundreds of civilians have died. Women, children,

medics. And I guess finally, Trump called Bibi and said, like, you've got to pursue some kind of

diplomatic negotiations with the Lebanese government, which had been trying to disarm has below before this latest war. And had been also trying to negotiate since the Israel began bombing

so many Lebanese who have nothing to do with Hezbollah are dying in this war and millions have

“been displaced. So, I guess Trump has got Bibi to agree to pursue some kind of diplomatic negotiations,”

though Netanyahu also said, there will be no ceasefire while negotiations go on. And so, and the Iranians are saying, like, absolutely not. We don't want to negotiate if this is happening, who knows if they'll stick with that or not, but that's sort of where we are right now. It just, it does show the weakness of Trump here, which is Trump wants to ceasefire. He wants this over. The thing preventing this from being over is Israel bombing Lebanon, and he is unable to

convince her force or use leverage on Netanyahu to get Israel to stop bombing Lebanon. And Israel is going to keep bombing Lebanon because they want the war with Iran to keep going. They want the United States to keep bombing Iran, so they're going to keep bombing Lebanon. And we were just in this list, it is a circular argument that Trump cannot figure out how to get out of, because he does not have the guts, the courage, the strategic sense to figure out

how to get Netanyahu to do the thing he wants, even though Netanyahu is dependent on the U.S. for so much, particularly in this moment. And, you know, he also doesn't understand, or maybe doesn't care, like what Netanyahu's thought process is on this, which is not dissimilar to his thought process in Gaza, which is, they're not just like taking out senior Hezbollah commanders. They are taking out like mid-level Hezbollah, you know, operatives who are embedding themselves

in civilian populations. There's rarely done seem to care. They're bombing the civilian populations

anyway. They are basically occupying southern Lebanon at this point, and they may not, and

it doesn't seem like they want to give it up, just like they are occupying Gaza. And basically their view is we're just going to keep pushing the boundaries outward from Israel, and we're going to keep calling them buffersones, but what they really are is just taking land and occupying more land, thinking that somehow this is going to be enough to eradicate Hezbollah or Hamas, or any of the other terrorist groups they think are threats. And it's continues to be proven wrong

over and over and over again. And I wouldn't expect Trump to understand that, but maybe someone in the government might. So in the last few days, Trump has turned his attention toward another sworn enemy of the United States, NATO. The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House is considering a plan to punish NATO for not going along with Trump and Netanyahu's war by removing U.S. troops from NATO countries. Trump has also been ranting about NATO,

posting quote, NATO wasn't there when we needed them, and they won't be there if we need them again. Remember Greenland, that big poorly run piece of ice, okay? You would think all this might have made for an awkward meeting between Trump and NATO's Secretary General Mark Ruta on Wednesday, but not so, according to Ruta. Is the world safer today than it was before the war was started? Absolutely, because and this is things to President Trump's leadership.

Do you still consider him daddy after yesterday? I was not calling him my daddy, but I was saying, but of course, daddy has also a special

“connotation, and I now have to live as this, so that's what my life is.”

Dan, do you still consider Trump daddy? I don't really know how to answer that question, Trump. It's like a trap. It's what it seems like. That guy, go ahead, you defend Mark Ruta. As you did in our morning meeting. I did. I did.

I mean, what I was shocked by was the way in which you just dismiss the importance of NATO to the

global alliances. Here's the thing. Obviously, Ruta has a strategy of a piece meant that

is incredibly embarrassing. For him, for NATO, for those of us who even have to consume him, it's embarrassing. I don't know how he sleeps tonight. The problem for Ruta is, NATO does not exist in the United States. And where they are staring down a face where we have Russian aggression headed towards the European

“continent, and if he United States pulls out of NATO, they lose the most important military”

part of NATO in the biggest threat to turn in to Russia. And so he, like, I don't applaud the way he's doing this. I'm embarrassed for him. I'm embarrassed for his family that this happens, but he is trying to keep NATO together because, like, you love this to say, "Fuck you," and walk away. But if he does that, then NATO, which is the thing he's in charge of, collapses functionally at least. Even if Trump doesn't formally pull out of NATO, which, you know, he would need to go to Congress

for any way, or who knows, maybe in a true social post, he'll do it. Maybe he doesn't do that. If you're Vladimir Putin, and you have eyes on potentially invading a NATO country,

militarily, or even otherwise, if you go ahead and invade, at this point, probably not. And that's the whole alliance right there. Yeah. That's the whole point of NATO. Now, Trump seems to think, in these post, Trump seems to think NATO is like, like, you because you're in NATO, whatever one country wants to do in NATO, and whatever wars they want to pursue, and invasions, and bombings they want to do, then everyone else has to join too.

But you look, "Come on, we're in NATO, you've got to help me." Yeah, he thinks they're all part of the same gas, and they can't go. He doesn't realize it's a defensive alliance. Once again, a basic principle learned in, you know, European history, you know, one-on-one, or whatever else they're trying to do, there's a looted Trump till his 80s. Completely embarrassing. Pots of America is brought to you by Helix. Sleep, it's so important. I'm tired right now,

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plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. So if the ceasefire doesn't completely fall apart, JD Vance is headed to Islamabad this weekend for negotiations with the Iranians. So I hope they're ready to say thank you. Got a lot of them. They got to be meeting JD Vance with a lot of thank yous or else he's going to be very angry. Vance's team has seemingly been leaking to every reporter who listen

that the vice president has been the senior Trump official most opposed to the war in Iran. This comes up quite a bit in the times piece we talked about. When the ceasefire came together this week, Vance happened to be out on the campaign trail in Hungary. That's one does. Yes, one does holding a rally for the country's pro-putin authoritarian incumbent, Victor Orban, where he just as a nice touch accused of the Ukrainians of election interference.

JD Vance accusing the Ukrainians of election interference as he, a U.S. official, was in Hungary campaigning for the authoritarian incumbent in that country. And apparently lack self-awareness. Very normal. But America's best hope for peace in the Middle East did make some time for Iran questions on the tarmac in Budapest. Here's how we handle it.

“I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn't.”

We never made that promise. We never indicated that was going to be the case.

It's first of all. He said that there are a few points of disagreement before the negotiation. Well, that must mean that there's a lot of points of agreement because there's a 15-point plan

that actually means that there's a lot of agreement. That's point number one. Point number two to respond to each of those issues. And I read it very closely. Let me just say this. I actually wonder how good he is at understanding English because there are things that he said that frankly didn't make sense in some of the context

of the negotiations that we've had. The second thing Golly Buff said, which again,

I found fascinating as he said, we refused to give up the right to enrichment. And I thought to myself, you know what? My wife has the right to skydive. But she doesn't jump out of an airplane because she and I have an agreement that she's not going to do that because I don't want my wife jumping out of an airplane. We don't really concern ourselves with what they claim they have the right to do. We concern ourselves with what they actually do.

“And I think the presence has been very clear on the enrichment question.”

Our position on that has not changed. Let's tell you, the my wife really came out of nowhere. Did not expect the him to reference his wife jumping out of a plane. But it really is interesting to see how J.D. Vance grapples with these foreign policy issues you can tell. He's really giving it thought and definitely not sort of just making it up on the fly.

He is such a pedantic, I know, obnoxious, high school debater. Yeah, actually, I think I think the misunderstanding couldn't be us. I think the misunderstanding is you not speaking English very well. Just you think their translators don't exist? What does he think this is? Actually, it really depends on what you mean by right. Like, I have an idea, I have a way to get out of this because I was really thinking about

Ushan skydiving. Do they have it? Is the agreement that she won't skydive? They have a mutual non skydiving pact.

“I was her, I'd be like, yeah, sure. I won't do it. But if you want to jump out of a plane any time.”

Yeah. I'm sure she'd probably just want to jump out of almost any moving vehicles. I will fly you myself. So, if Vance does get a primary challenge in 2028, how far do you think he'll go

and trying to communicate that he was always against this war and will it work? Because they are

out there, someone from his camp, if not Vance himself, did some real leaking to the New York times about him in that meeting. They have to political before. It's been quite a few places now that the Vance team has been out there, just making sure everyone knows how opposed to the war he is in private. If you think Joe Biden was tough on Kamala Harris for trying to find areas of disagreement, how do you think Donald Trump, the guy who threatened to hang his last

vice president is going to be in the course of this election? Yeah, I don't know. I can't tell. I mean, I think he will be a complete dick, but like, I do wonder if on some issues he'll give him a little, I'll give him a little away. I don't know. I mean, it would be funny and not funny, it's not the very word sad if he's darkly, darkly funny. Darkly funny if he's more

malleable than Joe Biden was on this crucial issue of legibility. Yeah. Here's a thing now.

Sunny Hosen, get the question ready, you know. I don't think we're going to see JD Vance on the view at any point. A couple of, a couple of things here. One, JD Vance is that going to have a lot of success running in the Republican primary away from Trump. Like the way these things typically work when a vice president is running to succeed a president, a two-term president, and we have two modern example of George H. W. Bush and Al Gore is there is a regime, there's a continuity

candidate, and there's a change candidate. And JD Vance by definition is the continuity candidate, and the continuity candidate almost always wins, like George H. W. Bush and Al Gore did because even if Trump is is unpopular fading off from the scene, he still remained very popular with Republican voters and popular enough that it would push JD Vance. So he's going to own everything Trump does, and if he's, though his worst strategy, which is the strategy I suspect he would do because

he is all short-term ambitions and not a lot of long-term strategic thinking, his worst strategy

“would be to try to disus himself from Trump because he's going to own everything Trump did, right?”

Yeah, he's going to, it's going to be interesting. It's going to be something that I enjoy watching. Yeah, it is because he's also a bad liar. Yes, he loves to lie. I'm not saying it's not as passionate, but he's not very good at it, because he's also not very charismatic. And so I don't think he can pull it off that well, and I don't think he's, he thinks he's clever enough to sort of split the baby on this, but he's not. Yeah, the gap between how clever JD Vance thinks

he is and how clever JD Vance actually is. Yeah, that's like massive, the gap in the, uh, with the negotiation stand between the U.S. and around right now. And he just is so

through this. And so he's he's going, you just, oh, just when you always see the cards up his sleeve

when he is talking. And it's going to be, if he is trying to do anything other than just like be Trump three point out or whatever it would be, it's going to be so embarrassing and so easy to

“poke fun at. I honestly will, we'll consider unretiring from politics of JD Vance is the nominee,”

because that would be the most fun campaign to work on. You could have, like, actually just, it's just, I think, I think we probably have more fun just just doing it from here, you know, we don't want something. I may have had some fucking, some fucking lame candidate being like, no, that's to me. Oh, fuck that, I'm not candidate. I am on the, the Mason of JD Vance super-pack size. Super-pack, okay. Like, I think you can do the JD Vance, whether Republicans definitely did

the gore and just make him an absolute caricature of himself. Well, let's just such a group of hack. We don't need to join one of these. That's just, that's perfect. We'll just start one here. Okay. All right. Well, we'll get on that. We launched it right here. We have a plan. So you guys

into yours. Well, I'm glad that the guy who, you can always see the cards up his sleeve. He's

our man in Islamabad. For the takeaway he's there to take the fall. You think so? I mean,

“it's unclear exactly why I think one reason why he's there is no one, the Iranians and all the other”

and the lockers do not trust with coffee and Kushner because they're complete doops. And they think all the, and then they think that people who aren't those two are like bloodthirsty warmongers, and they do, and I think, you know, with with some legitimacy, they think the JD Vance is the most opposed to this war, and probably will be easier to talk to about potential peace or some diplomatic agreement than anyone else in the administration. Yeah, I think that's probably true. You know,

I think they probably trust him a little bit more. Bear mistake. So one things for sure, Vance must clearly be aware that the outrage among Maga elites who oppose this war has now reached a fever pitch. I know we've played a lot of these clips in the last month, but they just keep getting better and better. So here you go. A whole civilization will die tonight.

Never to be brought back again. That is the definition of genocide.

How do we 20th Amendment is asked? Can he just behave like a normal human? I mean, honestly, like the president. All right, 380, yes, shut up. Fucking shut up about that shit. His negotiation tactic is to kill an entire country full of civilians, men, women, and children, an American president so that the state of Hormuz will be opened. It's just wrong. The American people have to open their eyes and deal with reality and deal with truth.

“And the truth is, like, you may have supported President Trump for 10 years like I did,”

like you have, but this is not the same man. This is not the same man that we supported. Those people who are in direct contact with the president need to say, no, I'll resign. I'll do whatever I can do legally to stop this because this is insane. And if given you what I'm not carrying it out, figure out the codes on the football yourself. Dan, um, this is breaking. We do have a response from the president to all this. And I'm just going to read this

presidential statement. And it is lengthy. So I will try to go quickly. And my emphasis will be only where there are all capital letters. So thank you. Thank you for your service. I know why Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, Candace Owens and Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years, especially by the fact that they think it is wonderful for around the number one state sponsor of terror to have a nuclear weapon because they have one thing in common, low IQs. They're stupid

people. They know it. Their families know it. And everyone else knows it too. Look at their past, look at their record. They don't have what it takes and they never did. They've all been thrown off television. Lost their shows and aren't even invited on TV because nobody cares about them. They're not jobs, trouble makers. And we'll say anything necessary for some free and cheap publicity. Now they think they get some clicks because they have third rate podcasts,

but nobody's talking about them in their views or the opposite of maga. Or I wouldn't have won the presidential election in a landslide. Maga agrees with me and just gave CNN 100% approval rating of Trump. Not hand flailing fools like Tucker Carlson, who couldn't even finish college. He was a broken man when he got fired from Fox and he's never been the same. Perhaps he could see a good psychiatrist or Megan Kelly, who nastily asked me the now

famous only Rosie O'Donnell question, or Crazy Candace Owens, who accuses the highly respected First Lady of France of being a man when she is not. And will hopefully win lots of money in the ongoing lawsuit. Actually, to me, the First Lady of France is far more beautiful than Candace. In fact, it's not even close. Or bankrupt Alex Jones, who says some of the dumbest things

Sandy Hook shooting victims, ridiculously claiming it was a hoax. These so-called pundits are losers,

and they always will be. Now fake news CNN, the flailing New York Times, and all of the other

radical left news organizations are hailing them and giving them positive press for the first time in their lives. They're not maga. They're losers. They're just trying to latch on to maga. As president, I could get them on my side anytime I want to, but when they call, I don't return their calls because I'm too busy on world and country affairs. And after a few times, they go nasty, just like Marjorie Trader Brown. But I no longer care about this stuff.

I only care about what's doing right for our country. Maga is about winning and strength in not allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Maga is about making America great again, and these people have no idea how to do that, but I do because the United States is now the hottest

country anywhere in the world, president Donald J. Trump. Okay. A few things here. First,

I want our listeners to know, there's no editing. John did that in one take flawlessly. Yeah, I did. I didn't practice it. I don't know. There was a very impressive. Also, just a couple swarves in there. The deep-on-kill, Danny Hutt. Just the, when you read it, it's all kind of begins. You had a, you had a nowhere it's going. Right. Yeah. Their losers are

“not on TV, which the Trump is the pinnacle of success is Kabel Television.”

Then we serve into a vigorous defense of Brigitte Macron, including a testament to our beauty. Yeah. So he then he is in the no penis camp. Yes. Then he debunks Sandy Hutt, conspiracy theories, which was nice. And then we're back down the rabbit hall. And also, you know what, he doesn't return their calls because he's too busy on world in country affairs. Yes, he's, which, which is, but he definitely does not care. He definitely does not care.

Now, think about that. That's just caring. He is not mad online. Everyone knows. He is not mad online. I no longer care about that stuff. He does not long. He doesn't care about it. And that's why that's why he doesn't usually talk about it. And that's why he can barely speak about it. Just fire it off a op-ed length post about this. So in addition to those people getting under his skin, there's also a great New York Times story about the most

MAGA of MAGA fans on of all places truth social, which is where that lovely speech I just read was first posted. And apparently, there's all these people on truth social, which is gotta be all the people on truth social because I don't think there's that many people on there in the first place. But they're all posting that they're ashamed to have voted for Trump,

“that he's gone off the deep end, et cetera, et cetera. I think like 50% of the replies to his”

Easter Sunday, I'm going to kill you all post, whatever the fuck it was. We're negative, only like 20% were supporters, something like that. The New York Times analyze like 40,000 truths. I'm just I'm hoping they used AI on that. What do you think about all this? Do you think you think it'll start showing up in polls of Republican voters because it hasn't already. It is showing up in polls of Republican voters, right? I mean, it is. Yeah. Like, it's happening

on the market. I mean, Trump's approval rating among Republicans, that around the same last year

was low 90s, high 80s, which is kind of where he's always been. Now that's low 80s, high 70s,

depending on what you look at it. It's in the 70s and the PRIP, RRI poll, similar in the Pew poll. What is notable is it's mostly from non-magger Republicans, right? He's providing a most significantly among them. That's very Iran war related. He's getting 80, some percent of mega Republicans and some polls is high as a hundred percent, according to his fakearian tin poll. I'm on something if I nagger Republicans, it's the Iran war is basically almost

“even and he's like plus eight with non-magger Republicans. And I think we tend to think of non-magger”

Republicans as like people just to the right of the bull work. And that's not actually the case. It could be people who are, you know, have pretty conservative views on some issues, who supported Trump this time. It didn't support him previously, who got in the process because of him, they're just not, they're just like probably less engaged Republicans, but they're pretty conservative. And you know, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, Marjorie Taylor Green

would consider herself a non-magger Republican at this point. Because maga doesn't, maga is not, we saw this before it, it's not mean you were to hear into a specific philosophy. It means you're a die-hurt supporter of Trump. And so people who are non-die-hurt supporters of Trump can span the ideological spectrum within the Republican Party. We do have another, another post from Trump. Iran is doing a very poor job dishonorable, some would say, of allowing oil to go

Okay. So we're doing, we're doing this in real-time. Things are going great. It seems like.

“We talked about the toll one and now he's just, it's like he's learning about things in real-time.”

And I guess he, I guess it probably took him a while to draft the, the post about Tucker and Megan Kelly, so maybe he hasn't been paying much attention to the news. Yeah, I mean, so this, you know this as a former speechwriter, is that you go into your office and you just start writing. You sometimes, you got to turn the Wi-Fi offer in your computer, so that you can draft, you got, you can't be checking social media. And so he finishes that,

he did say he's been very busy with world-in-country affairs. Yes, he came out of the world-in-country affairs meeting, check the internet and like holy shit. The straight is still closed. It's like a course you take in college. There is another thing about the Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, all these folks breaking a Trump is, one, it's a real problem for him politically, for a couple of reasons one. Like that has been his strength as he has had unanimous

Republican support among elected officials and mega media. And now that we have these high-profile people breaking from Trump, that's just, that is bad for him, it's like his loss to his superpower.

“And the other way to think about this is I think people tend to think that these are”

clinical mega shows and the people who watch it are mega Trump Republicans. And obviously the majority of them voted for Trump in like Trump, but they are not fully mega. This is not Fox, this is not the Fox News audience, right? The Fox News audience are hard-core Republicans' supporters of Trump mostly over the age of 70. The people who consume, Megan Kelly, Candace Owen, Tucker Carlson, tend to be younger. They tend to necessarily

engage less in politics and what, and, but it's not also just not the audience of those shows every day of people tuning into who matters. It's that these clips are going viral everywhere. And so people who do not, who may have voted for Trump, but do not engage with politics, they're seeing critique from, in part, you know, like, in group allies of Trump. And that is very, very damaging. These are people, these are trusted voices among a certain set of voters. And now they

are saying the same thing about Trump, they are here in all parts of America. And that is the worst possible place for Donald Trump to be. And Trump aside, because, you know, we'll talk about the

midterms in a second, but like, this is also going to, like, people who are cross-pressured, who

might like a lot of things that Trump has done, don't like Iran or her hearing all this criticism about him on Iran. Like, are these people going to make sure they go out in the midterms and vote for Republicans? Are these people going to, like, sign up to join JD Vances campaign when he

“announces in 2028? Like, it is doing damage far beyond Trump. What is happening right now?”

And far beyond what the poll show right now. Yes. So a common thread with the Alex Jones Tucker Carlson line of critique is some conservative, specifically calling for invoking the 25th amendment, which, if you recall, from earlier seasons of the Trump show, or the spin-off series, sleepy Joe involves the, involves the vice president and the cabinet deeming the president unfit to serve and removing him from office. A lot of Democrats have also called for invoking the 25th

amendment and/or in peaching Trump, I think, as of Wednesday, we're at around 70 dems in the house in a handful of senators. You had a whole message box about why this isn't exactly a simple process or even a feasible one. Go ahead. I love it. Organic message box plug. So thank you for that. This one got me very exercise because, like, we've all sort of come the conclusion that Trump deserves impeachment in removal, but that is not a realistic way to get rid of him. If the

Senate was not going to remove Trump after he sent a mob of supporters to murder them, it's hard to fathom the scenario in which they will. So now people have started calling for the 25th amendment because the behavior that Trump has exhibited really every day, particularly in the last few weeks here, particularly in these truths starting on Easter, is that of someone who really shouldn't is not mentally fit to be an office. And so Democrats are calling for it, members of Congress are

calling for it, it's seeing a lot of this online. And here's the problem with this. It's the 25th amendment is actually a more challenging to execute than impeachment removal by a large degree.

So first, it begins to you point out with the vice president and majority of a cabinet that

includes Pete Hankseth, RFK Jr, Trump's personal defense attorney right now, Steve Woodcoff's apparently member of the cabinet. A majority of them have to send a letter to Congress saying that Trump is unfit. If they do that, JDVance becomes the acting president. What happens then is Trump gets a chance to tell Congress he's fit, which he would obviously do. Then Congress has

to vote to keep JDVance as acting president. So it's like how is that going to happen? That is not going to happen. Let alone just getting a members of Trump's cabinet of flunkies to say he's unfit and then getting two thirds of the house and the Senate, which is a higher bar than impeachment. And here's my problem with this strategy. Is it puts the onus on the wrong people? The people who are response for Trump being able to act

this way do execute this war act without any sort of accountability are Republicans in Congress.

The cabinet is never does not have to face the voters in November. Republicans of Congress

do. And so our focus should be putting the blame for where we are on the people that we can

“vote out. Because the best way to rein Trump in is not to appeal to JDVance and their”

public and their Republican cabinet is to elect a Democratic Congress. And I think this distracts from that. And different. I couldn't agree more. I even like on impeachment, like we're going to get JDVance. First of all, the idea that Republicans come this far and now they're going to impeach Donald Trump when they took a fly around it after January 6th. Like it's just none of it's going to happen. I get that this is a stand-in for

why are Democrats doing more? More Democrats should call for impeachment or 25th amendment. We got to do something. We got to do something. It's just not how the system is set up right now. And the best way to, you know, and Trump's presidency is to elect a Democratic House in a Democratic Senate and then elect a Democratic president in 2028. That's just the way it is right now. And on issues where you might be able to get just enough Republicans to

have a working majority in Congress than maybe you can do stuff there. But even then, Donald Trump has veto power. Like Donald Trump has tremendous power as president right now. And he has that power mainly because the Republican Congress, at least enough people in their Republican Congress, most of them, 90 something percent of them, go along with literally

“anything he tells them to do. And they need to be held accountable for that. That's what the”

next election is for. Holding Republican politicians accountable for never saying no to Donald

Trump about anything. The other, my other beef with this is it's like a cheap stunt. It is, you know, you're getting all these text messages that are like sign our petition that Trump should be to call the tweet for the amendment is a way to get online engagement and raise grassroots dollars. And when we treat our vote without telling people the true context of how this works, there is a penalty for treating our voters like idiots.

It's time to time again. It is. And this is one of those examples. Pushing this, pushing Democrat. And look, I'm well for pushing Democrats to do things that they are too afraid to do. A hundred percent have we have a long record of doing that. But like pushing Democrats on this and like yelling about Democrats and like that is treating voters like it. Some of the pushback you get from people is that you want to make the case of Trump is unfit.

“If you want to make the case Trump is unfit, you do it this way. Donald Trump is unfit for office.”

I see it. You see it. And the Republican Congress see it. The thing is they are afraid to do anything about it. So if you want to rain in Donald Trump, we have to get rid of the people who allow him to act this way. Good at votes of American.com. Or even so the House some House Democrats today because they're all on recess. First of all, most Democrats, especially all the Democratic leaders said it's crazy that we're on recess still. Donald Trump is threatening

genocide. They Congress should come back into session. Republicans have refused to bring Congress back to session. Democrats have no power to do that, but they call for it. A bunch of them went to the Capitol today, Democrats. And we're like, all right, we're going to try to force another vote on the war power's resolution. Republicans, again, blocked that. That would be another thing that Congress could do is to rain him in on the war itself. And again, Republicans refuse

to do that. Again, you can't make up the numbers. We just don't have the majorities right now. If we have majorities and then we're not doing things with the majority, then you should definitely blame Democrats for sure. And the one thing we don't have the majority of for sure, Trump's cabinet. Yes. Hence the problem. Yeah, no kidding. Pots of America is brought to you by Sundays. We all love the idea of feeding our dogs real

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Use the midterms. Republicans worry Iran might have already cost them Congress. Woof! The title of which quotes a source described as "close to the White House." It's not just the polling freaking them out. Earlier this week Democrats notched another pair of huge over performances in two big elections. The Wisconsin Supreme Court will now have a five-two liberal majority after Chris Taylor crushed her conservative opponent by 20 points, which was an over 20 point swing from

Kamala Harris's 2024 performance in the state. Ten point over performance from the last time in 2025 that the liberal candidate won a Wisconsin Supreme Court election. And down in Georgia, even though the Republican candidate did win the special election to replace Marjorie Taylor Green, Democrat Sean Harris beat Kamala Harris's performance in that district by 25 points. The largest over performance in any special election by a Democrat since Doug Jones won the

“Alabama Senate seat way back a thousand years ago in 2017. What was your reaction to the elections this week?”

Great. Great. I mean, good. Great. Next. I'll good. Now these are all small sample sizes, but the margins in elections since the war on Iran started are better than the average. But Democratic are performance both in 2025 and earlier in 2016. Yeah. Now we're getting into the 20s. You and I talked about this a couple episodes ago and it was like teens, high teens to low 20s, now we're in 20s to mid 20s. It was about, I think it was 12 and a half

points through early 2026. And the last couple have been very impressive. Democrats are very good at winning Supreme Court seats in Wisconsin. We've run four in a row now, which is a credit to the Wisconsin Democratic Party in the way they've trained Democratic voters to understand the

value of these winning the Waka Shah mayor's race for a Democratic mayor 50 years incredible.

The turnout in Georgia, but we're just seeing it all over the place, which is Democrats are fired up. Republicans are unenthused and swing voters are moving to Democrats. And you're seeing in Wisconsin, in a small sample size again, and in Georgia, you're seeing huge swings among Hispanic voters and Hispanic precincts, like massive swings. That's all very positive news. I know. I'm trying not to get too high on our own supply here, but some of these results are just,

it is, it's the perfect storm of all the things that could go wrong for Republicans with voters, right, which is that they, in higher turnout elections, they are losing because voters are switching, people who voted Republican or voting Democrat, and then in other elections, the GOP turned on his collapsing, so you have Republican voters either not showing up. They're both not showing up and switching their vote. And in like deep red places, blue places, all over the place,

different, all different types of districts. The dark lining, sort of the things to watch out, or just beware of is, there are caps on how well Democrats can do because the house map is so Jerry Mandarin, we talked about this before, there are only four Republicans and districts that come with Harris won. I think there was something like 19 or 20 of them, Republicans

But this environment is actually much better for Democrats than 2018 was at this point.

“And like you can see, there's a world in which a lot of seats that would not otherwise”

be in play are in play. I mean, the cook political report moved the Iowa governor's race to a toss-up today. I know, go rub's hand. And again, and this is, this matters a lot for the house, which we were talking about, but it starts to get me thinking about the Senate even more. Yeah, this is really, the Senate is in play with a margin like this. It's a nearly, like, if it really is like 12, 13, you really have to nail it exactly because Trump won a lot of these

states that we need by 11, 12, nearly 13 points. But we're in the game right now, and that's something that seemed impossible six months ago. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but it does seem like the 20, 28 Democratic primary has already begun. A bunch of potential candidate showed up to speak at L. Sharpton's National Action Network event in New York City this week in down in

New Orleans. The DNC spring meeting kicked off on Thursday. Where one of the first headlines was about

how a non-binding resolution criticizing apex influence was voted down. While two other relevant resolutions were kicked to the something called the Middle East Working Group. DNC chair Ken Martin explained that the apex resolution was merely shelved in favor of a, quote, blanket repudiation quote condemning the corrosive influence of all dark money in Democratic primaries, which so then the idea is that that resolution included a pack among other organizations or other, you know,

dark money organizations. This is all in the heels of new pew polling this week that shows roughly six in 10 Americans now have unfavorable views of Israel, including an all-time high

of roughly eight in 10 Democrats, which is up from 69% just last year and 53% in 2022.

Interesting detail on the DNC thing in a political story before the vote. An anonymous DNC member said that they received direct calls from two quote presidential aspirants who would have to answer for the DNC's positions on Israel and apac if they run. Now, I read a couple times. I'm still curious if those presidential candidates wanted the resolution to pass or not pass. But they called about it. What's your guess and how do you think this issue of Israel plays out in the 2020

primary? I guess I maybe wanted one on another side of the issue. Oh, maybe a guess or not. But just if you were think of running for president in 2028. And in April of 2026, you were calling DNC members about a resolution, a non-binding DNC resolution, you were focused on the wrong things. Also, not for nothing, but I'd like to hear a compelling argument for why we need non-binding DNC resolutions. It seems like it's the same reason for why we need questionnaires from interest groups that presidential candidates fill out. Yeah, it just that at least,

that at least has it caused ourselves some trouble. Well, that one at least you are has a purpose from the group's perspective, which is to get the group's perspective. Yeah, so when the group's perspective, to get candidates to lay out a position on things because they're going to make endorsements.

“And so you want to, you should have to answer some questions you want to make endorsements. We can go”

long on the role of groups. I know you've left thoughts on it. We don't agree on all of them, so it would be a fun debate one day. But the, here, I don't even know, this is a sort of a purpose for anyone. The DNC or anyone else. So then we just hear of it. Look, I do think that when it comes time for the 2028 democratic party platform, we shouldn't get rid of that. I know. I know, but at least there you can say that's a different thing. Like, what is the party stance on Israel, party stance on any number of controversial issues and then everyone can

fight it out? It is like, what is the non-binding resolution of the DNC going to do right now? It's going to give you political stories. Like, that is, that's it's sole purpose is for there to be political stories about it. The other two resolutions, by the way, were recognizing a Palestinian state in the other conditioning military aid to Israel. And I think the Middle East working group is a

“place where these resolutions are supposed to go die. Yeah. I think you have, you have, you have”

heard a lot about the Middle East Middle East working group with the DNC. No, I assume that, I mean, this is, it's like, it's not an unclevered solution to the problem of just like, this is a place of sense where you're not killing them, you're not enacting them, you're sending them to some other place, right? You're referring, they're just simply being referred. The whole thing is, the whole thing is done and it's good to trust what the voters in the party. Yeah, it's, well, also, they path to establishing

a better democratic party policy on Israel is not through the DNC committee process. That is correct. It is through the candidates who may be coming up with the position as opposed to

candidates. And look, it's hard, you know, you have eight and ten democratic voters who have an

unfavorable view of Israel. You have even fewer who trust Netanyahu. It is, you have, you know, majority, huge majority who sympathies with the Palestinians as opposed over the Israelis in Gallup polling. Just, there's been a dramatic shift on this issue among Democrats since 2022, just massive. I cannot imagine the next democratic nominee winning the primary, with a position that says we should continue giving the military and other aid to Israel that we

give right now. No one would run on that. That wouldn't even be. I feel like saying, I feel like

“even conditioning aid at this point is the, like, the moderate position. That's, I think I”

imagine that most of them will get to ending aid to Israel. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, I think there's an argument to be made right, which is like, we should treat Israel from a perspective of the taxpayer funding that we are providing, the same way we treat any other ally, any other country. To me, it's a question whether it's a real alliance right now, because I think that the government there is a authoritarian government, which, yeah, we have one too. But I think that the government there is not one that I certainly want to support with my tax

dollars as they have what they did to Gaza are still doing to Gaza, or doing what they are to the West Bank, or doing what they are to Lebanon right now. And so, and it is a wealthy enough nation that they should be able to provide for their own defense. And like, I don't, I think that, to me, and look, these are treated as like fringe lefty positions for some reason still. But, you know, over 60% of Americans support getting rid of all aid to Israel. And you just saw the,

it's an 80% of Democrats at this point. You go to 18 to 49-year-old Democrats, it's even higher, 18 to 49-year-old Republicans, it's like 57-60%. I mean, I think that people who really care about Israel and her much more pro-Israel should really think long and hard about why it is that they have lost the public battle over this, the public opinion war over this so badly, and why it is

shifted so dramatically over the last couple of years. And the answer is not because of TikTok.

I was going to say yes. And, you know, it's just, it's just not. And at this point, it's insulting

“to tell people that. And I think if you really care about Israel, then you need to think long and”

hard about like why this has happened. And whether fighting so hard to continue the U.S. relationship with Israel as it is right now with the aid that we're giving it is really worth what has happened to public opinion because of it. One thing I'm confident of is that this is going to be a point of great discussion during the Democratic primary. Be a lot during the debates will be on this issue, for sure. It's going to come up in town halls and interviews. It'll come up on interviews on this podcast.

And everywhere else, so we're going to get to know how all the candidates feel about it. I imagine that APEC will through its super PACs try to influence the process in some way. I'm quite confident that their desire to do so will be counterproductive to their aims and the candidate they support. And it will backfire as it did in Illinois as we saw recently. Just one other thing that I think is just something people should flag in their head as they listen to the conversation on this is

the way in which the DNC switched from not taking APEC contributions to not taking any contributions from dark money groups is a rhetorical device. A lot of Democrats are using right now to not answer the APEC question. Well, they'll say, well, yeah, I'm not going to take it from anyone. But without forgetting to the heart of the question about APEC in the role that APEC specifically plays.

“You could ask that about other special interest groups and you should AI, right? We have these AI”

super PACs who are putting their thumb on the scale for some Democrats and primaries. You saw the crypto super PACs come in and try to influence the Illinois Senate primary. So we should talk about all of those interest groups. But people who do not want to take a specific, don't want to specifically answer the APEC question because they feel like it's fraught. We'll then turn to this while we should have any dark money in politics as opposed to dealing

with this specific question. And what I would say is don't avoid this question because it's fraught. That's good advice, generally, yes. And it's like, if you don't know enough about it,

decide what you believe about this issue, just as you should decide and have a real thoughtful

response and ideas on, you just mentioned it, artificial intelligence or any number of controversial issues that will be, or non-controversial issues that will be debated in 2020, figure out what your position is, figure out where you would go, figure out how you would answer these questions.

“That's the most important thing from like a, what do you believe moral perspective?”

But I should just say, and we went through this in 2020, there are some positions that in a primary are argued about and democratic candidates worry because they're like, oh well, I'm pushed to the left in a primary and I'm taking these lefty positions, then I got to worry about what happens in a general. And this whole issue about Israel and APAC, this is not one of those issues because this is not only like the views on Israel are very clear within the democratic

party, it is overwhelming, we're talking 80 percent, same with military aid to Israel, same with APAC,

and it's also a like 60 percent issue in the general election. So now if you genuinely care, like just a very pro-Israel, then like, you know, don't take the position just because it's, you're, you're looking at the polls, like, you know, go and fight the position and say,

“if you don't agree with me, you don't agree with me, but this is where I am, and this is what I believe.”

But like, don't pretend, no one should pretend, this is some lefty issue that people are getting pushed on in the primaries that is going to then cause them trouble in the general because that's just bullshit. All right, one last thing before we get to Tommy's conversation with Ram manual is we were getting ready for today's show. We looked up at the TV and suddenly Melania Trump was making a statement at the White House denying that she had any substantive relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Let's take a

listen. I have never had any knowledge of Epstein abuse of his victims. I was not a participant,

was never on Epstein's plane and never visited his private island. My email reply to Maxwell cannot be categorized as anything more than casual correspondence. Several individuals and companies

“have been legally obligated to publicly apologize and retract their lies about me such as daily”

beast, James Carville and Harper Collins, UK. Not Harper Collins, UK. You're really, it was magical. Everyone in the office was like, what the fuck is happening right now? Do you have any idea? No one seems to. Maybe we'll get an answer between this answer as come while we're recording this or we'll come between now and tomorrow, but none of the reporters can't have any idea why she did it, what the context was. A lot of times, you know, there will be rumors going through DC or

politics about a pending story. I've been looking everywhere for it and everyone knows it's coming. Even if it has been printed, it has it, but everyone is coming and then you will see politicians do things and they make sense if you know that story is coming. This is not one of those times, it doesn't seem like anyone knows what she is talking about or why she picked today to offer this out-of-context statement of protesting way too much about her relationship with Epstein.

Also, apparently Trump told CNN he knew that she'd be making a statement and then Jackie Almanee from MSNow called him and he told her he had no idea she'd be making the statement and that's also what Jackie Heinrich from Fox heard as well that he had no idea. So like there's conflicting reports of whether Trump did, I did notice in one of the playbooks either in the morning or PM at the bottom there was a New York post story before the announcement where an associate of Melania

Trump said she'd be making a "big announcement today" that would quote spread internationally. Well, congrats. For people who don't know the email she was referencing was in the Epstein files, it was to Glenn Maxwell. She said "Dear G, how are you? Nice story about J.E. in New York mag. You look great on the picture. You look great on the picture." That's her words. I know you were very busy flying all over the world. How was Palm Beach? I cannot wait to go down.

Give me a call when you're back in New York. Have a great time. Love Melania. That was from October of 2002. The New York magazine piece about Jeffrey Epstein, she was referencing, was the piece where her husband is quoted as saying he likes the girls really young. So that's cool.

as a White House communications director to randomly go out to the cameras on the Thursday afternoon in the middle of a war and Iran to just say, "Hey, I don't know what you're talking about.

“I don't know Jeffrey Epstein. Bye." Yes. I think that's the exact right thing to do to go out there”

and do not. No questions. I will take no questions about this. I do not know Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah. While I have your time, I just wanted to briefly deny involved in an illegality that you did not ask me about. Okay, bye. If you think that you can connect me to Jeffrey Epstein, just ask James Carvel or Harper Collins how that went for them.

Hi, Harper Collins. I will see you at the next premiere of Melania. Yes. Amazing.

She's a weird one. She is a weird one. Okay. When we come back from the break, you will hear Tommy's conversation with the former mayor ambassador and White House chief of staff, Rama manual. Puzzle America is brought to by Bombis. The springtime thought is finally here. Flowers are blooming days are longer and we're saying yes to more plans and finally getting outside. Running, walking,

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One purchase, one donated with over 150 million donations and counting. Head over to bombis.com/curricid and use code crooked. For 20% off your first purchase, that's b-o-m-b-a-s.com/curricid code crooked at checkout. My guest today is a former member of Congress, way that's Chief of Staff, Mayor Chicago, Ambassador. Sure, seems like he's running for president in

2028. Ron Mamaniel. Great to see you again. Nice to see you, Tommy. Welcome to Los Angeles.

“You have a more of a casual LA chic, I see. Yeah. Yeah, like a glow. It's the only thing clean.”

Just rip it off your brothers. Yeah. About the off the ground. Going to Iri's closet, two beddies, two big. Yeah, yeah. We all saw the shirtless photos of him in Elon Musk. He's an workout. Or the meds are working either way or both. It's a hell of a drug. All right. We're joking because we're breathing a sigh of relief this week because our president decided not to go through with his threat to destroy the entire Ronian civilization. So that's nice. That's

what counts as a win in the Trump 2.0 era. But the debate over why the war started is raging. Have you had a chance to read Maggie Haberman in Jonathan's plans long piece in New York times? Okay. So they report that on February 11th, the Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Trump in the situation room, the head of the massade zooms in. They make this package. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure you know. And they give this presentation about the case for war. It includes a bunch

of assumptions about how easy it'll be that are now catastrophically wrong. We're probably. You could tell they were at the time. But now we know they were. Can you remember a foreign

“leader meeting with the president in the sit room during your time? Is that weird?”

Yeah. I think. Well, two things I want to one thing about last week. I want to go back to

because I've always think about this more. You have the president of the United States,

the president of the United States. This is not a speech in which you do the arsenal of democracy. We're going to destroy civilization, the Persian civilization. At the same time the vice president is in Budapest saying we're going to save the Christian civilization. And then you have a secretary of defense who's calling this a Christian crusade. What could go wrong when you have those kind of brain power working else? I think I feel better. I got that off my chest. And the president

the cry of a terrorist. So we're both destroying and saving to one civilization and the other. So

nobody, I'm thinking of both my Clinton time six years. I know, bomb a time. I do not remember single, not only a single foreign leader in the situation, anybody themselves or their stabs ever even given access to that room. So or anyone of those rooms or etc. So I don't ever remember that happening. And I don't think it would ever happen. It's very weird. So again, what happens in

“that room is also weird? Not only that they're in that room, but what happens in that room?”

So obviously Trump decides to go to war. He and he alone is responsible for his decision. Yeah. But there is this debate. And a ton of reporting now about the pressure campaign by net Yahoo is lobbying Trump to go to war with Iran. What is the appropriate way to talk about that in your view? Because I'm sure you've seen the folks I've seen who argue that it can veer into a conversation that is anti-Semitic. Like, we didn't tropes about Israel control the United

States or foreign policy. Like, what's the right way to talk about it? It's going to lead into that and also given what the Secretary of State said six weeks ago, it's only going to kind of layer that I think depending on how conversations go in Islamabad, you're going to go from that conversation to I think this President may scapegoat right now. Now, you and I both worked for President Obama, but I want to say this is the Prime Minister has been shopping this

to four possibly five. I can't remember Clinton, but Bush, President Bush, rather 43, President

Obama, President Trump, you know, the first term, President Biden, everybody rejected this.

And because when you looked at it, the equity versus the liability just in pan out. Right. So I don't give the President of the United States who has agency here any pass, but this will go into a very bad place. And I think in the sense of the Prime Minister, made an argument to the President, I don't absolve the President and anybody on his team. But I also read the story of the flip side of this, Tommy, which is also nobody in the

President's administration, they're all, they don't have their hands on their blood either. They're all leaking on each other. Yeah, they opposed it. You know, this is all crap. And you know, other words that they used to describe their position. So everybody's trying to make sure that

they were not seen at the scene of the crime. And I'm sorry. So I don't absolve any of them.

The Prime Minister said what he said to the President, but this argument is going to give him the context also in America and given the context of anti-Israel or anti-Semitism, it's going to lead to a very bad, bad place. And I do think, though, and I will say this, I mean,

“President Obama was presented a similar plan. That's how the Olympic game, I think,”

that was the term that was used for the cyber attacks on Iran's capacity. Nobody took kinetic, the decision to go into the deep end on the kinetic effort. This President did, and it's on him. Yeah. No pass. It's certainly on him, but it also just seems like self-evident based on all this reporting based on what Netanyahu himself says when he's back in Israel, where he's been, there was a tape release in 2001, where he was kind of

bragging about his ability to manipulate leaders and Washington or move them, I think, was the term he used. Right? Let's just like lobby them, do politics. Well, look, I mean, let's go back. He runs for reelection with the message. Oh, I, I think I'm getting the exact word, but I'm getting the sentiment, right, which is a leader at a different class. That was the message and it had pictures of him with Putin and put his hand with Trump. So that was actually what he

campaigned on publicly. So you don't have to kind of, we don't have to be archaeologists or, you know,

“anthropologists care. That's what he campaigned on that he could play at a level that nobody else played.”

So it's in his own words. But again, you know, only the President of the United States can order American servicemen and women. Only a President of the United States can order resources that are pulled out of the Indo-Pacific, pulled out of different theaters to that theater, pulled bad weapons out of South Korea, pulled patriots that were supposed to go to Ukraine. Only the Commander-in-Chief can do that. And so, you know, the Prime Minister made his case,

doesn't mean you have to buy it. Yeah, exactly. Tucker Carlson, speaking of things, only the President can do. Tucker Carlson is very worried about Trump using a nuclear weapon in Iran. Has that fear occurred to you? And if you ask, can you talk a little bit about the process and now that actually works and how few I don't check their would be? I don't leave. Look, I mean, it's a theoretical discussion and our hypothetical rather. I don't think the

and I mean that from the cabinet to the White House, I actually think they would hit the pause button. Even they would find some nerve of character to step up and say what they didn't do here, meaning here being the lead into the Iran war, they would know that this would have to be stopped. Really? The pause button would mean convincing him, though, right? Yes, there's no like, you can't take the nuclear button and throw into the ocean, so we can't press it, right? No, technical

“way. There's no way, look, head of the joint chiefs to the rest of the military. I think there would be”

a, I'm just betting on human character. There would be a massive pushback on this. I don't know what God Tucker Carlson is not like a horse whisperer, the great whisperer to Donald Trump to say that, but this would be, well, I don't mean this cavalier, so I want to be very clear. You can definitely take the Nobel Peace Prize off the table. That's not happening. I don't mean to, I said that as you, this, I don't believe that would happen. Okay, I'm glad to hear you. I just think there's a

lot of other things that I think that are worth spending intellectual energy onto and analyze

what are the repercussions, things that they never do, even an impulsive person like this would not do that.

That's up, so. JD Vance, the vice president, is now going to Pakistan to lead these talks on Saturday. He'll be joined by Steve Wikoff and Jared Kushner. Oh, I'm so comforted. I want to jump son of law and his golf buddy. Is this just a real estate deal? Is this just real estate? Yeah, so look, I'm not a big fan of Domin Dummer, Kushner and Wikoff. I think they're just like,

“it's a very technical negotiation, right? The JCPOA negotiation took 18 months. That's how long”

it took to cut a nuclear deal, the wish list on the Iranians, either they're demanding from the U.S. is far more vast than that. It's like get all your troops out of the Middle East, other things in that nature. Disvance, getting involved, give you any more confidence or hope

that they can get some deal or maybe another ceasefire? I always, this is reading Keeley's.

Only in the sense that the Iranians think he is was negative about the war. If they believe that they may have a slightly better confidence to deal with him. Obviously, any credibility, and I believe zero for Wikoff and Kushner. The idea that you had no experts said, it's very clear from the U.K. who was in the room in Geneva. They didn't even know what they were being offered pre-the-war from the Iranians. Zero confidence. So I have some sense that maybe

vans will have a different level of respect. It gives you somebody new they can interlock. But remember, they've been burned twice. Once in June, this time, in negotiations. So they're going to come in it with appropriately heavy, heavy cynicism. Let me say one other thing which is and take this slightly different in a sense of vans. One, you can't un-ring this belt. But you

“can say, okay, how do you kind of make lemony out of this lemon that we've created?”

That's a B, as the Iranians went in, we went into this war trying to degrade Iran's nuclear capacity. They discovered they had the nuclear option. The straight armaments. The other thing C, Iran since 79, has wanted to get the United States out of the Gulf, and they become the Persian Empire again. That is their task. So how do you kind of undo this knot in some way? My one view is on the short term, on the straight of her moves, either all ships

are out or no ships are out. And you're going to cut off Iranians money and China's energy. Everybody's out or nobody's out. And it's easier to close something. That's where the Iranians

have proven than for us to try to open it. So reverse the score. Second medium term.

The Iranians want a fee. I think we go to the international maritime entity. They run it. There is a fee charge, but it goes to Iran, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, everybody who got suffered in this process, not just Iran, and that the dollars or the resources are split that way, among all the countries. And it's managed by the United Nations maritime association. Third long term, use the Abraham courts beyond what it is as a peace agreement that we're a party

to. It now finances a pipeline for Kuwait for the UAE, for Bahrain, etc. either to the Gulf of Oman or to the Red Sea, so there's alternatives to the straight of her moves. I would in addition say to anybody who's part of the Abraham courts has zero tariffs. And I would also say anybody

being a trusted ally to our Gulf partners. But that to me, short-term medium-term and long-term

“is the best way to navigate what is a big giant element. Yeah, it's a nightmare. Let me”

offer you what I think might be some pushbacks to the plan. Sure. You know, if we, I'm I'm open to anything, that's just my idea. If we join me, this is more sophisticated than the exact conversation. The first meeting between the Prime Minister and the President, much more sophisticated and thorough analysis. If we jointly close the straight of her moves with the Iranians, wouldn't that make us sort of a party to all the potential famine that could happen if no

fertilizer is going on. But here's the other thing. You're trying to, there are economy is devastated. The only lifeline they have or internationally, the IV they have, rather, is the what they're selling to China. Right. We do know now, you and I sitting here today, China was a party to pushing Iran to say yes. Right. There are elements like that, then ruled. Okay, we're going to do that for the ceasefire. So if you shut off, where China's getting their major energy, you say,

it will be, I'm not saying this is pretty. No. But we have never, ever, the United States in

250 years, gone to war and allow the other country financial security where our allies suffer. And I say enemies or opponents or whatever term you want to use, both Iran and Russia. This is insane. Yeah. And so you're literally keeping whatever prop you have to Iran and China, people that are trying to hurt you, you're actually giving them economic benefit. So to me, yes, there would be chop and there's no, there's no perfect here. Right. But we're going

to shut it. We're not going to shut it with you. We're going to shut you down. You shut everybody else down. We're shutting you down. Yeah. Well, he said, well, it's a playing field. I mean, I also work for leverage here. Right. We currently clearly, the Iranians have shown us we don't

“have much. No. I mean, I think that's why Tucker's worried that we get to a nuclear option,”

because there's no conventional military way to open the straight up removes from the air. You can't bomb it open if they're laying mines or just firing off on missile. I mean,

the other thing, going forward, when you look at like Trump's goals here, like first of all,

the highly enriched uranium is still sitting in Iran. Doesn't sound like we're going to get it back or get it out unless there's some deal cut to the big concern, right? They clearly degraded Iran's military. They bomb the shit out of a lot of stuff. The other consideration was cutting off their support for proxy groups, like Hezbollah, Hamas, et cetera. My concern is, if they're now able to charge this toll at the straight up Hormuz, that is going to be massive. I cannot be

that can not stand. That will go back to rebuilding their military funding. Hezbollah, funding all these proxy groups, right? I mean, seems like, again, this is Trump's problem he created. It just seems like there was always an implied pressure that implied that Iran could do this on the straight up, but it's never was tested. It's now been tested and they discovered, look, I got a 800 on my SATs, okay? They've never before did they, and everybody believed this.

It was always an international order. The second thing, I mean, I want to go to the class that

they are war college. Ukraine and Iran have no navy and they've controlled the waterways.

“I want to go to that class. I want to study this. I'm serious about that. I think, you know,”

you and I have sat there, but we have a doctrine to fight two wars on two front simultaneously. Capacity to do that. We're going to have to change the doctrine to be able to say we're going to fight two wars, one conventional, and one unconventional. And we're not set up that way. Either our military, our industrial base, or the capacity. Both of these theaters. I mean, what's happened in the Iran war and what's happened in Ukraine, Russia, or Russia's war on Ukraine

has taught us an exponential lesson that we are not ready for the unconventional asymmetric war. And we better. That's the second war. Now, a march of 2025 a year ago, I wrote a piece for the post, which is, don't ask for Ukraine's minerals. Ask for their drone technology. That's where they're experts at. Now, not only did we not ask for it, we rejected it when they offered a help. The president doesn't know friend from full, and we are now stuck where our golf allies are

buying weapons from Ukraine, but we stiff-tarpened them. Yeah. And they have no navy and they've destroyed the Russian navy in the Black Sea. We can claim, which appropriate, we have destroyed the navy of Iran, but they control the straight-homers. No navys, and they control waterways. Yeah. That tells you where the future is. A lot of tactical victories and strategic losses there. Somebody said the other day, I read this. I can't remember who America's won every battle

but has lost the war. Sounds bad right since World War II. Yeah, for sure.

It's still not ruling out at 2028 presidential run and more definitive answers today.

No, but I'll whisper. Exploring. No. Okay. I went there. I went three places recently, which is lacrosse Wisconsin into Franklin, New Hampshire, and then I've been in Spartanburg, the corridor of shame in Abbeyville, Piedmont area of the Black counties, and then Columbia, and then Charleston. And that was all about looking at community colleges and with both all three cities are doing, which I think incredibly innovative. Things that we also did in Chicago

between community colleges, leading into the future economy, but also linking up with high schools. Something that I think is the fundamental thing we have to flip the switch on. In the top issues, I assume our weather Democrat should talk to leftist Twitch streamers. It's kind of like up here. And it's like the economy and that education. Let me, well, I wouldn't go down there, but I would just say. That was a joke. I understand that. I'm going to just, I would say,

“I've got a town hall in lacrosse Wisconsin and a podcast there. That's how I'm going to look.”

Get it in a met with 10 teachers, educators, parents, 10 kids, up in Franklin, and I did a in Manchester to exit politics thing. I did a at Woffer College, Craig Martin interviewed me there in front of the college. We went to a community college. I did 400 people in Charleston. Nobody asked me about to sign by her. No. Nobody. Nobody has to be about how do they get ahead? Yeah. They ask me how they get an education. Now, you know, I'm at the ticket to the middle class

and getting ahead is through education. And you know, we live in a period where you earn when you learn. Nobody's asked me that question. And I've had to close to about 50 questions from people. Yeah. It's from, you know, the billionth reminder that the conversation in DC and the media, it says match what the country actually is. Sometimes. Yeah. Often. I would say close to 90 percent is not match. It's a parallel universe. Yeah. Yes. So you did a recent appearance on the

view. You said DC needs a power washing because of all the corruption. You also wrote in a Wall Street Journal column, talking about how Democrats could use a majority. You said the Democrats should steer clear of the gotcha politics and excessive focus on Trumpian slime. Is there tension between those two? No. So, I appreciate this. Maybe this is on me from not writing

“clear. I think I wrote in that piece, not I think I know. There's a difference between corruption”

and him being untruthful or a liar. I go 100 percent. I've said this,

as soon as I came back from Japan, 2024 at December, I said go after the corruption. I built, when I was chair of the GEECCY, the House of the Tom Delay Bill. The corruption, what's going on with the protection markets, what's going on with WICOF's kids, Latinx kids, them and people and the president's kids, 100 percent. When no one's done at the DHS and the contracts that they provided, 100 percent. There is a difference

between that corruption which matters to your wallet and our playing to type which is a retribution vindictive politics that then they say, eh Washington and they break the sound and they turn it on mute right when we should be turning to our agenda. There is a two-sided here. Hit them on the corruption and offer a proactive agenda. I actually think given where I've been not only the states I just talked about, but other states Washington does need a good power-washing.

Absolutely, not just trading stocks in Congress. Did you ever think you would ever see

“a investor day in the Oval Office? Or yeah, our bets on, you know, invasions of the country?”

Or did you ever think a member of the court, not just Supreme Court, be taking gifts from people who have cases in front of them or trips? Okay, so the whole place needs to be cleaned. What does that reform agenda look like? What do we, what do we, what do we, what do we give you? My thing, one, I would raise the minimum wage. So that's number one, two. Well over September 225, August, I wrote, and I believe there should be a rate payer bill of rights.

Three, I would do acts on healthcare cost control specifically around the insurance companies, gouging people, breaking them up. Four, I would do a ban on social media for kids under 16. I've called for this before first on a prediction markets, no federal employee or their family can participate. Yeah, I mean, like reforming for Washington, select something that banning calcium, banning stock trading, banning all that, but also stocks, companies that you've been in,

if you have an X of, let's say your net value is north of, just importantly, number out, million dollars,

has to go into a blind trust. That's true for all federal employees. Second, not just the Supreme corporate in court, you're not allowed to take gifts and be very specific on the ethics package

president of the United States and family members and the cabinet. Now the other thing I said for

and when you hit the H-75, get pre TSA because you're out of here. Don, finish, pasta, you're not hitting your prime at 78. I like that a lot. I'm going to try to annoy you now. So you bought this old so, if you bought in Seoul, it's a digital stocks when you're ambassador to Japan. I know the American prospect wrote a piece criticizing the timing of one of those purchases because it came before a government announcement that they said could benefit the stock. Was that a mistake? Is there a

little thing you do differently? If I did, it's definitely a mistake. I don't know what that is, but definitely, you know, I look, I did a blind trust one of Chief Staff when I was mayor, when I was congressman. Also did it there when it is ambassador. So if anybody did it, I have no

like that. No, it was blind trust. Yeah. It was nearby. Why doesn't everyone just do a blind trust?

“It seems so easy. That's what I just said. Well, I'll give you a funny story. I guess it's a trade”

on insider. I get elected Congress and I'm going to set up, I'm going to set up a blind trust, Chairman Oxley comes to see me and says, I don't want you to do this. I said, well, I'm doing it because I'm a bare knuckle politician. I have something's going to happen one day on a hearing that we're going to do in financial service. I don't know what they're going to do. So forget about it. And I did it for then. I did it. Also, normalizing and tell you did it when I was Chief

Staff. And I did it when I was mayor. A hundred percent. It seems like a no-brainer. I don't know why. It's not law. I mean, David, are you in 2007? I was a sponsor of a association that was related to exactly this, which is stocks traded in front of committees. In front of your committee, you can't have be involved or investor or trade stocks in committee. Other interests that have any company that has interest in front of the committee. It's insane. Yeah. I mean, I think this

is an issue. But it's all a Washington. That's also includes the executive branch. Oh, yeah. And I think this is an issue that drives people crazy because it's a no-brainer. Of course members of Congress or the president's family or cabinet shouldn't be buying and selling individual stocks. Everyone's up with their stuff in the blind trust. But it's in like the president United States will go before the state of the union and say that and say we're going to

pass legislation banning. But you only saw everyone's standing up. He didn't talk about the executive branch, and he didn't talk about the judiciary. Of course. I guess what I'm getting at is he says that, but then people are also well aware that, you know, Nancy Pelosi's husband has made a shitload of money trading individual stocks. And there's a lot of people that track that index and feel like, you know, the whole Washington. You can look, there's no individual or no one of the three branches

“of the government that you're going to get without a blemish. The only way to do it, everybody.”

Go on. And for that, I'm just going to ask you a couple more issues. I think progressives will push you on if you do decide to run for president 2020. So you don't give them me push it myself. I'm good. So your mayor Chicago, when a young man named McClont MacDonald was shot 16 times so I a police officer, your administration had a video of that of his killing for over a year until a court ordered it release. You had to release it until the court order. What do you say

to people who are angry, not just about, you know, the Chicago PD killing this kid, but also what they feel like was a cover up to of any kind of billet. So there's not a day or a week that goes by that I don't think about this. What I could have done different. I'm a one. A young man lost his life innocently. Third is, I thought I had, but you're earlier two years earlier, fix the system. And I acknowledge when I said it to this whole city, spoke. I thought I

“fix them and the problems were much deeper than I appreciate it. I might have wanted to think I”

thought I fixed it when the Gulf between the community and the police department and the culture in the police department, which much deeper. And I said that's on me. I have to fix this. I own that. Now you know this. Chicago is not alone. Most cities alone give them what's happened on police departments across the country. And I did go about fixing it. But as the inspector general said,

I actually the problem is I followed the rules. Because with the last thing you want is a mayor

involved in making a political decision when the FBI, the what's emperor, which is the police department's independent body. Everybody's investigating. You don't want the mayor involving themselves. Then you say you're politicizing a criminal investigation. The FBI was involved. The US attorney's was involved. The states are there are four entities investigating. So if you don't involve yourself, as you're part of covering up, if you do involve, you politicize the

investigation and danger of the prosecution. In Chicago, the police officer actually was prosecuted

the difference between a legislator and somebody who's a mayor, it's lessons learned going forward.

“And so you have to make changes. I did it. And in this process, Tally,”

his uncle, who's a pastor on the west side, LaClanz, he and I have become really good at solid feathers. It's not a week that goes by that we don't talk or communicate in one way. But did I screw up? Yeah, if you're looking for perfection, I'm not that guy. Do I? If you're looking for a person that knows how to learn from mistakes, 100%. Another sort of big fight within the party has been generational. I mean, you said a minute ago, you, I think, want to get your PSA

project because you're getting out of here at 78, right? 75. Sorry. So I love that. I think we need

a new generation. I think what I first said to you, you texted me and said, great. Yeah. Good for you.

I don't think that people in DC are internalizing your message, right? I mean, there's this fight is playing out most clearly in Maine, where Chuck Schumer is some really thumb in the scale on behalf of former Governor Janet Mills, the grassroots seem to be behind Grand Platner, God knows who will win. But, you know, this, it doesn't seem like Schumer is concerned about the whole conversation we just had about Joe Biden's age. How do we fix that? And what do you

say to like, you know, young activists who you might meet in Iowa or New Hampshire or whatever, who are like, well, look, you know, you worked in the Clinton administration. What is like,

“what does the next generation look like, right? Are we paying lip service at this or are we really?”

So the way I look at it is a couple things. One is there is a generational piece of that, but as you know, all your strengths are your weaknesses. After Donald Trump, I'm not sure who he can afford as a country on your job training. I say, jokingly, but I'm serious, you got to be good in the family room. You better be good in the classroom. You better know the board room, the break room, the situation room, and not just the bathroom, which is something we really get experts as a party.

Now, I always think also one piece of change, where the party that's known as weak,

there's nothing as you know. When it came to fighting, the insurance companies get 10 million kids health care. One person got that assignment. When it came to making sure we got health care for people with pre-existing condition, one person had to leave that effort. When it came to making sure we took out the financial industry and the making industry, they do fundamental reform. One person got that call to leave that effort and take on the gun lobby and the NRA.

Nobody's ever gotten in the ring with me. Didn't walk out without a bloody nose or broken nose. Ask the Republicans when they saw Nancy Pelosi become the first female speaker. So, I make no more, and I will say this otherwise. I don't need another title. I got 20, I saw you one for cheap. I got 20,000 kids. I got free community college because I was willing to take on a failed system. I got kids that used to have a 56% graduation rate in 84

percent of them now, graduated high school with a degree and college credit and have a mandatory letter of acceptance from either college, community college, branch of the Armed Forces or vocational school. 98% of our kids in Chicago would cheat that. I took on a bureaucracy where we

didn't have kindergarten or pre-K throughout the city. And I made a Republican finally increase the

funding to the city of Chicago, which has been every mayor's desire. Got something done that hadn't happened for. Do I take on failure? Damn right. Because I'm a lucky guy. I had to grew up in a family that an immigrant family that had loved an education. The question is, are you willing to sit there and it has been your political capital or spend it and take it on? So, nobody who's walked in the ring with me did not walk out without without

having a broken nose. More than willing to say that. And if you want just generational change, I'm not. You want somebody that knows how to take on a fight and win. That's a different bed. It's a good bitch. Last question for you. So, last, I was just getting kind of into this. You know, this is fun. Oh, 2006. Things really well for Democrats in the midterms. You noticed. You were leading that effort in the house. I was sitting on my ass in the Senate. We're gonna

rock Obama. You know, I was watching what you're doing. Um, so you were the scheduling problem. Yes. Sorry. He's got to write the book. Um, yeah. So, chapter one, Democrats keep overperforming in these special elections. The most recent one and the biggest overperformance, or biggest swing to Democrats just happened in Georgia, Georgia, 14, Marjorie Taylor Greene's

“district. I'm in the wind. I'll give you a different view. Okay. Well, that's what we took”

literally racked up Bashar al-Assad numbers in, in Madison in this most recent Supreme Court. No, I'll tell you why. No, just something different. I'll let you on a fair trick. What other question is just like, I feel better. I feel increasingly bulletin. I think the question is, how do you close the deal? Is it about Democrats getting out and making an affirmative

table until the day after the election. No, no, no, I don't neither one is right. First of all,

90% of this race is referred to by the president and the rubber stamp Republicans. That was true in 1994. It was true in 2006 about Bush. It was true in 2010 about President Obama and the Democrats had his true in 2018 about Donald Trump and the Republicans. This is a refer in the election, and I can tell you haven't gone all over this country. It's built in a head esteem. This is going

“to be level five type hurricane. Two, let's side note why I think Wisconsin, one of the last three”

Supreme Court, biggest one was just the other day. The answer. Second, second, we've now 14 for 14 is statewide elections. Have a lost one. Third, we picked up the suburban county outside of Milwaukee where the Republicans used to balance against Milwaukee. We picked up the county

except the third fourth in the third district, which is the southwest corner where LaCrosse is,

where I went in for Rebecca Cook, where the Republican member of Congress, the Supreme Court can a arcane took 57% of the vote there. Down Trump won that county over Wellington. It used to be where Rod Kine was Congress. The Wisconsin numbers in the battleground state were not just good on the Supreme Court. You go two, three layers down. They were unbelievable. And I think what I would say is keep the focus on the Republicans. Keep the focus on the fact that they've been complicit

with Donald Trump. I do have already this before. I'd present a 6 and 2026. Not because anybody

“remembers the 6 and 06 or the contract with America. You should have it. A, it helps you focus”

in 2027. What your priorities are. It creates a disciplined dialogue inside the party. What we're

going to stand for. And it will not just help in 2026. 2027 will be the seminal year that will decide for us who we are and what we're defined for in 2028. And when we ran health care, children's health care, they were a new all helped negotiate for President Clinton, led the effort in the house with Speaker Pelosi, forced Bush to veto it. 60 Republicans were with the Democrats. It sets up Obama in no way. When George Mitchell in 1990 gets Bush 41 to sign a tax increase.

It breaks up the Republican Party, Pat Buchanan challenges a sitting Republican president and it sets up Bill Clinton in 1992. So I believe do the work now, both not only for 2026, but for the discipline of 2027. One of those is going to break through and get to the president's desk. If he signs it, he wanted to be something that divides the Republicans from him. If he vetoes it, you want to make sure it also divides the Republicans from him. The goal there that says,

“who we are and who they are. Yeah. I agree. I think running against Trump is important,”

and we should continue to do it. I still think we have a massive problem as a party of people not knowing who we are or they don't know we stand for and maybe not like any of it I do. Tell me there's three or four layers here. Not knowing what we who we stand for, not knowing whether we will fight for who we think. The reason I'm going around these community colleges, 40% of the people in America go to community colleges that go to higher education.

These are the unseen, unheard, unrespected folks. I know what I did to reform the community colleges of Chicago and what we did to make sure that people that went there can walk in and say, I went to Malcolm X and get that nursing job at Rush Presbyterian Hospital. Or the guy I met in Spartanburg, who's working on mechanical skills and he has a 33 bucks a hour plus benefits job waiting at GE for him on May 11th. To me, you can't just say these things that sound great in

faculty lounges or papers. You actually have to feel the people that are under the intense pressure. Not only have an agenda for them willing to take on and break some makes to get it done, and our party hasn't. It's not just about clicks. It's about calculus. It's not just about social media posts. It's actually about social studies and we haven't prioritized the right things. We just have it and we have to be acknowledged about that. And we got ourselves caught.

I've said this before and I'll say it again in a cultural cult of sack going around in circles. We were off the American people when they're back against the wall, they expect Democrats to show up. They don't think Republicans are show up because they know they're in the boardroom cutting up the pie. They expect us to show up and we did not show up for them. We deserved to spank him. And we got one. Yeah. Ron Maniel, great to see you again. Thanks for coming. Yeah, we solved all the

world problems. There we got it. We're good. We're good. Why do I open? All right. That's our show for today. Thanks to Ron for stopping by and I'll be back in the feet on Sunday

Ron Maniel was here today. Hassan Piker will be here tomorrow and then I will be closing

“all of my apps for the weekend. Yeah. I'm going to be closely monitoring your social media usage”

starting Sunday at 6 a.m. Yep. Nope. You could complain all you want. There's I'm sure the

clips can be everywhere. Much like Melania will not be taking any questions about my relationship

“with the SunPiker. Who is this a SunPiker fellow? I've everything about him recently.”

I don't know. I think he's a... I'm about Twitch. Twitch. Twitch. Twitch. Twitch.

Anyway, have a good weekend, everyone. Bye, everyone.

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