Susan Glasser: The President Is Crazy and Delusional

Hello and welcome aboard podcast, I'm your host Tim Miller. I will be stream again tonight, 8 o'clock in the east, on Substecken YouTube, come hang out, just may ranting, taking your questions, etc. I did hop on to the post speech live stream last night, because I was screaming when I TV and that felt like a waste of my breath. And so I appreciate Sam and JVL and most importantly, General Hurtling for accommodating my spring venting last night.

And we've got more of that to come today. I'd welcome back to the show, staff writer at the New Yorker and co-host of its political scene podcast for most recent book is the Divide or Co-authored with her husband, Peter Baker at Susan Glass, or thank god you're here this morning, Susan, because I don't

“know, I don't know, I don't know what's in it honestly. Tim, if you're relying on me for the”

upbeat, curious assessment of things, maybe we both need that vacation. I'm not relying on you for upbeat and cheery, but just for coherence. Maybe at least had to put your thoughts into words for your piece within the Yorker this morning, titled Trump's Case for War fails to mention how to win it. Among other things, it failed to mention what exactly it is we're doing here there with the

plans are for after. There's so many WTF moments of this second presidency. It's hard to rank them,

but this last night was towards the top for me. Yeah, for me too, exactly. I mean, there's so many almost existential questions that Trump at this point raises. For example, can everything be going according to the plan if there is no plan? Although, I will say, I will say that Donald Trump, he lied about literally almost everything in that speech, but a few hours before this speech, he did tell the truth when he said, "I'm going to give a little speech at nine o'clock tonight

and I'm basically just going to tell everybody how great I am." And really, I feel like that was the so we call it the intellectual center of gravity of the piece. You know, his case for war was as so many things are with him. All of my predecessors failed, especially Barack Hussein Obama, and therefore I am the greatest president of all time. And you know, I mean, and I'm not even

“actually being physitious because I think that, you know, if you want to sort of understand the”

Trump madlips approach to just about anything, you know, it's always going to include that

section, whether it's the economy, whether it is inflation, whether it is a global pandemic, or whether it is launching a war of choice in the Middle East. You know, the fill in the blank section is all of my predecessors did everything wrong, and I am right. Yeah, one hole in that case, I mean, there are many, but I'm the most glaring, I think, in this context, is that he is one of his own predecessors? You know, like you are hearing that speech, I was going to see that the speech

and it's like, well, you know, and he's doing the thing that the Iran War Hawks have been doing, about this war which is that they've been attacking us for 47 years. All other presidents could have dealt with this and they didn't, you know, Trump set a couple weeks ago that one such president had called him and told him he wished he had done it. And, you know, that is, I guess the case for the war, I mean, there's all this hyperbole and that how Israel and the Middle East would be off the

map if he had not gotten reelected and he had not done it. This is kind of do these delusions of grandeur, but like the problem with all that is that nothing has changed with Iran since he was already president once. If anything, the regime had been degraded more because of our attacks from last year and Israel's attacks from their proxies after October 7th. Yeah, I told him it was five years older and he's on his death throws anyway, you know, before we killed him. So it's a non-sensible argument

“no matter what I think that we had to do this now because this has been going on for 47 years.”

He've always been at war with East Asia, but it's like particularly non-sensical since he was

already president once and didn't do this. Yeah, no, that's right. I think that's a really important point. And of course, the reason he didn't do it in the first term is because he had a different set of advisors around him, a different risk framework around him and people who were still willing to say like sir, if you attack around and you don't have a plan, they're going to close the straight of harm moves and choke off 20% of the world's energy. I lead to an enormous

economic catastrophe, which is exactly what we're seeing now. But I think it also Tim, your point

there's nothing new with Donald Trump like he is who he is, but I think for Americans and for the

rest of the world seeing him operate in this kind of delusional force field in the middle of unleashing consequences that are affecting things all over the world, right? How is it that Americans have allowed one man to have such global power? They're literally closing universities in Bangladesh one day a week because Donald Trump woke up one morning in Marolago and decided to do something.

“But, you know, the delusional force field aspect of this, I think is really cast into sharply”

by a performance like last night. You know, the man just speaks in, you know, sort of empty exclamation points, slogans as if, you know, we're just a sort of stupified population that's,

you know, going to take whatever propaganda that the leader dishes out. The guy believes his own

BS, he's seriously making the claim, Tim, and he did this in writing yesterday, warning. He's seriously making the claim that there has been major regime change in Iran because they now have a new president who is much more moderate and reasonable than the old president, except that the new president and the old president are exactly the same. And he literally did this in writing, and nobody calls him on it. I mean, I mean, I haven't even seen this reflected in most of the news

stories yesterday. I'm sorry, but this is a good example of how he has stupified all of us in some way. There's so much bullshit. It's very, very hard for people to call it out. But yes, folks, the president of the United States is crazy and delusional. He put in writing that there's a great new president of Iran who he's dealing with, who's the same freaking guy. Yeah, one of the

“existential questions that is big at, but that speech is like, is, is he in touch with reality?”

Like, is the president of the United States in touch with reality? Because it's unclear if it is. I like to think about this and we all follow this very closely. If you're listening to this podcast, you follow very closely. This was a sense of prime time address. The war has been raging for a month now. American troops have died. Everybody's gas prices have increased, right? And so I'm thinking about this last night. Like, what is the person who, you know, is just tuning in for

Nashville 911 or L's Beth or whatever is on network TV nowadays, you know, on prime time on a Wednesday night? And like, they start watching the speech. Like, my gas prices have gone up. I understand there's something going on in Iran. I don't, you know, I haven't really followed closely exactly what? Like, what did was their takeaway from that speech, right? It was like Trump was like, you know, at one point he said, you know, we're here to help people with the Middle East, I guess,

and the people of Israel, um, he goes on a lengthy diet drive about how the other wars have been longer, well, they're one, well, they're two, the Korean War. You know, he mentions some objectives. Like, they can't get nuclear weapons, but doesn't like really talk about how we're going, like, how that's going to come to pass. I don't know how just a regular person could possibly have gotten anything out of that. You know, I mean, people have to be totally compute. And I think this

is reflected in his numbers on this war right now. Yeah. I mean, I assume that the reason they gave the address now as opposed to when they launched the war when a speech like this would have been more appropriate a month ago. But I assume that the reason they gave this speech now was exactly because his numbers really have been bottoming out even for Donald Trump yesterday, right before

the address CNN had its new poll, which had him at 64% disapproval, which is actually basically

the record for disapproval of a president since modern polling began, uh, even I think, you know, the only person who ever came close was George W. Bush in a second term before the surge in Iraq who hit 63% in one moment in time. But Donald Trump is bottoming out in the polls. The war is

“unpopular. People are furious in particular about his handling of the economy. And that's why I was”

really struck that in this 19 minute speech, I noted down it was more than 11 minutes. I think it was actually 13 minutes into the speech, Tim, when Donald Trump mentioned gas prices and the economy, which presumably is the thing that would speak to your casual, non-news-focused viewer on network television who might have stumbled into the speech, I find it hard to believe that they would have stuck with the speech for, you know, more than 10 minutes in order for Donald Trump. And by the way,

what did you say when he got to the gas prices section in the speech, I thought that was also

or global pandemic or an election that he doesn't like the results, he always has the same

kind of formula and the same recipe that he just fills in. When he got to the gas prices section of the speech, he basically said, don't worry, Americans, it will just naturally go back to a lower price and not to me was like, you know, March 2020 flashback, the coronavirus will just magically go away. It will just magically disappear. And you know, he is, he is the president of magical thinking basically. There has been a magical change in oil prices this morning,

but it's the other direction that he said, as we sit here right now, oil prices surge up to about 112 dollars a barrel. I poked into my Charles Schwab account this morning just to check that out. I would not recommend that for anybody. All things red, the market is crashing, except I do have one oil fund doing quite well this morning. So if you're living in, and the Permian Basin, things are okay this morning. Everybody else, I don't think I'd check your accounts. And I do,

I do have to correct the record here. I guess it's Chicago fire that is on at nine o'clock on Wednesday nights, not national 911 over on NBC Prime time is strange these days. I'm out of touch with happenings. I want to go back to like the what is exactly it is that we're doing here, part of this. There are two

“kind of things that I saw last night that I think are pretty relevant. One is the list of objectives,”

the State Department put out a list in the White House, put out the same. Here's the State Department's list. The destruction of the Air Force, objective one, objective two, destruction of Navy, objective three, diminished their missile capabilities, objective four destruction of factories. Okay, now then the White House after the speech put out a four point plan of their own, destroy their missile arsenal, so it's kind of close, destruction of Navy, that's kind of close.

But then it's destroy terrorist proxies and no nuclear weapon, which are much more ambitious plans than just like destroying shit. You know, and it seems to me that, you know, we've tried to have this bunch, so like the Israel's I think objectives are the our partner and this war, I think they're going to be different than that. So that doesn't auger for success, I don't think, when the State Department and the White House and our partner in this war, I'll have different

objectives. What's amazing, Tim, is that that's also after a month of being beaten up pretty

relentlessly every single day off of their inability to get one list that they agree upon. So what's incredible to me is that that's not a miscommunication on day one, but that is 30 days into it when they're getting beat up over exactly this thing of like you idiots can't even tell us what your objectives are and agree on the same list and then they keep doing it multiple

“times in the same day. So I think it's pretty notable about the sort of internal dysfunction and”

incompetence of the team, which by the way, I know we tend to think of that as like a sort of inside of the Beltway thing, nobody cares about that, but don't underestimate incompetence as a serious factor in the running of this war by the Trump administration. You know, basically they have dismantled a working national security process that has been developed over decades by presidents of both parties. And I can assure you a functional inner agency process. And again,

I know that's like, you know, dread like Beltway term, but a functional, whatever you want to call a group of people who actually knew their shit would have definitely explained to the president in terms that he could understand and they would have continued to explain it if he disagreed with them that no sir, I'm sorry, you're wrong. The Iranians have a very real possibility of closing

the straight of harm moves. And when they do that, you have given them incredible leverage and the

war that you started, you know, they will now be able to dictate terms on. So that's the overriding

“essential factor of the war. And this is where there are real echoes, I think of what happened”

to Vladimir Putin when he launched a war against Ukraine, an invasion that he thought was going to lead to a shock and a displacement in three days of the leadership in Kiev. He told his military, there was no need, you know, to do anything other than pack their dress uniforms for the parade in Kiev that would inevitably result soon within the week instead they were bogged down in the mud with insufficient fuel and food, even to keep going down the road to Kiev. And, you know,

there are many enormous differences, obviously. Are they lost territory since that initial shock and off? No, that's correct. That's absolutely correct, but I think it goes to this notion of the kind of incompetence that isolated authoritarian leaders who create a system around them,

campaign that I think it's really important to underscore for people. And, you know, I take your

“point, not only was there no plan, but for all the factors that you just outlined is it about”

the nuclear program? Is it about ballistic missiles? Is it about terrorist proxies? Like, Hasbala still very much entrenched in Lebanon? That seems to be one of Israel's goals in the conflict is possibly to go after Hasbala on the ground. All of that argues for conflict that may continue to go on for quite some time because Donald Trump doesn't necessarily have the ability just to walk away and say, I'm done. And, even if our engagement in the conflict doesn't go on

for quite some time, who knows what that could entail. And, last night, his message on the

straight of four moves was we're going to be here for two or three more weeks. It's a good. And then,

after that, everyone who needs oil from the straight should, what was sort of he used? He should grab it and caress it or something like that? Like, he should go into the straight. No, excuse me, grab it and cherish it. Sorry, I had access Hollywood in my head. The European country should show courage and grab and cherish the straight afterwards. Like, who knows how long that could take or what that entails or may ends up in China. And the energy that goes through

“the straight now is traded in one. I think there are just so many potential options. And there was”

no vision at all for winding it down. I mean, in the case of the straight literally, there was no vision. He said, I don't know. We might just leave. We don't need the oil. You guys could figure it out. Yeah, he was pretty clear about that. And I think the reason for all the escalating rhetoric toward NATO and toward European allies, which he didn't really amplify in this beach despite having threatened in various quicky phone interviews with European journalists before the speech. He essentially

said, I'm going to pull out of NATO in this beach. Then it's a classic Donald Trump move. Then everybody is like, oh, thank God. I'm so relieved. He didn't pull out of NATO, which, of course, he doesn't have the ability to do so. But imagine China being in control of the straight-of-war moves. And to your point about, you know, passage through the straight being now

“potentially required that you pay up in one, there are already reports that that's what's happening.”

Because actually Iran has not 100% closed the street. What it is done is it's enabled its own ships to pass through. It is enabled friendly countries who have cargos on the way, such as China to pass through. There are reports already that that's how you might be able to get your way through is to pay your way through in one. And that raises an even more ominous prospect. This is something that American strategists have been worried about a lot in recent years, which is that

the destabilizing moves of the United States as such an unreliable guarantee that the U.S.

what it's risking basically is all the built-in privileges of an international system that has been

constructed with our own benefit in mind. For example, most of the major global trading occurring in dollars. That's a huge benefit for the U.S. economy. Imagine Donald Trump accelerating the move away from the dollar as the defacto global currency. Imagine that there's a lot to imagine. Imagine a much closer partnership, both strategic and economic between our main adversaries in the world, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea. That's already been happening with

great speed. That's the reason that you have some strategists talking about, you know, if World War III has already started and, you know, we just didn't recognize it quickly enough. And, you know, of course, what side is Donald Trump on in that conflict is also not entirely clear, but that's a different conversation I get. I mean, there's a way to look at it now that we are currently in a multitheader war and the wars have been spawned by Putin, Trump,

BB and MBS. But that's not exactly like that yet, as far as access powers, but that's not a crazy way to assess the multitheaders that we are in military conflict in right now. All right, y'all. It is officially hot season down here in New Orleans. None of that scarf nonsense I was seeing at the No Kings rallies in Boston and New Jersey where all my other bullet colleagues were DC. Uh, shorts and T's now here. Or I'm into the kind of short sleeve button

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with promo code the bull work that's mackwldoin.com code the bull work. I want to come back to NATO in a second, but just a couple of things on the speech. I was so flabbergasted by it, just like the fact that he had nothing to say. I mean, it was literally a 19 minute treat social post. There was no announcement. There was no plan. There's no objective stated. It wasn't really even clear why we're doing it. Like I said, I need to give some lip

service to like being there to help, but like why now? Why we had to do it now? He didn't really explain. And so I went searching far and wide for people who liked the speech to maybe get some insight. Marco Vin thought it was perfect, but I didn't get any context on why. Marco Vin like that to speech. Rich, allow right the National Review writes this. I don't know how anyone can listen to that speech and conclude anything other than that Trump is a sincere and passionate Iran

hawk. So I don't know. You wrote a book on them. You went and interviewed with them. Maybe that's what I've been missing. Is he a sincere and passionate Iran hawk? Do you think that explains what's happening right now? Well, I mean hearing sincerity from Rich Thawri, the guy who ran an entire addition of National Review magazine about the great danger, the mortal danger that Donald Trump would pose to our democracy. Come on. No, you know what, though I will say this. I will say this.

“Donald Trump doesn't have a foreign policy ideology. I think people often miss this notion that”

there's some kind of a Trump doctrine. But he does have sort of like visceral feelings that have been with him for decades. And one of his visceral feelings in his, you know, formative, you know,

life's greatest moments stage, which are basically the early 1980s, late 1970s, all those

nights at Studio 54 or whatever. You know, this was I think when the kind of or brain of Donald Trump was was formed around the idea that, you know, Iran and this theocracy had sort of screwed the global superpower, the United States of America, and that we ought to basically get rid of it and that that presidents had been far too weak going back to Jimmy Carter in dealing with this. And so I do think if you listen him over the last month, the one thing he says with some

conviction is that, you know, for 47 years, these people basically have been screwing us, wreaking mayhem havoc. And you know, that, by the way, is the awful kind of tragedy of the moment, which is this is something that the vast majority of Americans can agree upon, that, you know, the, the I told us in Tehran have been a rogue regime, oppressing their own people attacking their neighbors, not just Israel, but their Arab neighbors as well, you know, waging wars of

terrorism, foaming civil wars and unrest throughout the world. By the way, holding hostage the world's oil supply through the straight-of-war moves, absolutely the kind of global bad actor that if we had a meaningful United Nations Security Council, the whole world should be rising up and saying, this is unacceptable. And, you know, Donald Trump takes what should be adjusted noble cause and fails to pursue it with legitimate means. And that comes back to the one thing we haven't mentioned,

was Donald Trump saying, if you do not agree to my terms around, then I will bomb you back to the

“stone ages and destroy very specifically every single one of the electric generating plants in this”

country of 93 million people. So you have the president of the United States taking a cause that many Americans might agree with and threatening war crimes. And that is what bombing Iran's electric stations would be. It would be an international war crime. You can't just do that to a country of

93 million people. Never mind if you are the elected leader of a democracy. And so, you know,

does anybody care that we have the president threatening war crimes? I don't even know anymore. Lot there, a couple thoughts on that. Number one, those are two good caveats that like Trump is kind of stuck in 70s and 80s brain and like he is a little bit like unfrozen caveman from this era where like the hostage crisis was happening and all that. And so there is that that instinct is there that is true. I guess I'll say that like to be a sincere and passionate warhawk

on Iran, you would have to like know a little bit more about about like why or with your purposes, what the goal is. Like it's hard for me to even believe Trump knows whether Iran is sheer or soony. I mean, I don't know, it's been one of the videos that he's been watching, but like

“that I think that is like the ridiculous part of the fact that there is CSM coherent like vision”

about Iran and to that point, like as you said, he's already saying that the new regime is better, but it's the same. So I told his kid and the same president as before. One of the news items when I went to mention in the spirit of talking about how awful this regime is, Nick Christoff is reporting that he just started the Iranian authorities today this morning arrested a human rights lawyer at Nazarine. So too, she's been mentioned as Canada for the Nobel Peace Prize for her

courage and leadership advocating for women at Iran. So it is horrible. What is happening? The thing is, so like we're not offering a vision for helping that human rights lawyer, right? Like this is the thing. I mean, I think that we've learned from the mistakes of the early 2000s that well-intentioned

efforts to support freedom in various countries don't always work out, but at least that is

was a coherent objective, right? The idea that there were these terrible leaders or these autocrats that are a danger to the world, they're danger to their own people, we want to give their own people an opportunity to throw off the chains and have freedom, maybe there was naive a day there, bad execution or whatever, but like that was a coherent thing. That's not what Trump is offering. There was like barely even any lip service to that. Like there's some complaints

about how they crack down on protesters and they mentioned that the number of protesters have been killed, but like that is an on the objective list, freedom for the Iranian people. Well, it was on the objective list and actually it's very interesting because that probably was ironically and sort of tragically now the original impetus for why this war now, it goes back to early January when the regime was cracking down on a really enormous set of demonstrations that

broke out at the end of the year because of the very severe and worsening economic conditions in Iran. You had thousands and thousands of Iranians, many of them young Iranians on the street to

“university students and basically a really fierce crack down into whether the number is I think”

7,000 is the number that's so far been able to be verified by human rights groups, Donald Trump used in his state of the Union of speech, one figure which was 30,000 to last night in this speech he up to to 45,000 dead, you know, whatever the true number is, a horrific massacre of Iranians by the government had occurred in early January and it led to this Donald Trump social media posting.

I believe it was on January 6, something like that in which he said basically help is on the way.

And according to what I've heard from sources in the region, the Israelis saw this and persuaded Trump from this point on, hey listen we're already planning and you know think there is a need for a follow-on military campaign to the one that we launched together the previous summer against Iran's nuclear program, you know, perhaps we should accelerate the timetable of that, Donald Trump as you know already had a huge amount of American military assets here in the

Western Hemisphere positioned around Venezuela and so it took some time he wasn't able to send military assistance immediately after making that social media posting. But, you know, he had this idea that he was just going to threaten Iran with such overwhelming force that he was unleashing along with Israel that he was going to decapatate the regime and that Iranians were going to go back into the streets so soon after this horrible massacre and somehow topple the government.

I think that he exploited this tragedy and then when the goal showed no signs of being able

“to be plausible he just he just backed away for it and so the people who suffer are the very people”

in whose name he originally claimed to be launching the campaign. I agree with that so much and this is something that is frustrated me because this is more of like a point of personal privilege I guess on all of this but because as somebody who just has been singularly obsessed with Trump for 10 years and how he is like the locus of so many of our problems I had a bunch of friends over the last month who like have friends who are part either

part of the Iranian diaspora or friends who are part of the Iranian diaspora who were talking about how happy they were about this for good reason because the Iotola has been you know just

so brutal and cracking down on the Iranian people and I sympathize with that but it was I was always

frustrated to say to them it's like you're you don't have a good partner in this project I'm sorry okay I understand that you want to be helpful and I don't want to take that away from you but like you don't have a good partner in this project and now here we are a month later and the person that was ostensibly going to be helping them find some sort of freedom or some sort of distance from the repressive Iotola regime is now saying I'm going to bond the country back to the Stone Age

right I struggle I want to shake the excited Iranian diaspora people and say say look this is what

“this is what he thinks of you this is what heaven he takes I think of the country they don't”

actually care about you like they will gladly bomb you back to the Stone Age to make themselves feel feel strong and tough and it's really tragic about the situation I don't know if you have anything on that but I have a breaking news item for you do you want to move on to that sure I want to come back to NATO because you you wrote about that for the New Yorker and I do throw some other geopolitical

elements to this but first over at the San Francisco News shall be telecutters reporting right now

that the president has informed of Panbandi that her time as A.G. is nearing an end going to multiple sources there also been a CNN report to this effect that he's looking at replacing Panbandi of Lee Zelden the complaints that the president is siding with Bandi is one misunderstanding of the absteen files and two he's fumed that she hasn't investigated enough of his political opponents so a lawless DOJ is potentially going to have a leadership change because the president

does not feel like they've been effective enough at lawlessly investigating his foes and covering up his potential associations with absteen yeah I mean that's got to send a chill through you right when you imagine what is the job interview between Donald Trump and Lee Zelden which is

basically do you promise to put in jail my enemies in a way that Panbandi has failed to do so so

if this does happen we should be under no illusions that that is a condition of employment for for any future Trump attorney general we'll see if that big brave Republican Senate has anything to say about it but you know they've confirmed Zelden for his current role as a EPA minister so it's hard to see that they won't confirm it for this as well Panbandi's name whether her tenure ends tomorrow or two years from now her name will certainly go down in history as perhaps the the

single most destructive attorney general ever in the history of the United States and I am including John Mitchell on that list who actually went to jail you know for his role in the watergate cover up because we are so understandably distracted by things like war in the Middle East and

“the immigration crackdown that has you know retavic around the United States I think we tend to”

obscure one of the the the most damaging aspects of Trump's presidency and it's exactly what Panbandi has been doing at the justice department which is eliminating the idea the very concept that there is such a thing as independent impartial justice in this country and you know I don't know it sends a chill through me the idea that she's not you know vicious and and partisan and personal enough for Donald Trump she hasn't been enough of a hack for Donald Trump and she's tried maybe

maybe his complaint is it's she's been incompetent in her efforts to go after his political foes you make a pretty important point there on the confirmation process because the political environment for Republicans is getting worse and worse every second you know every every inch that that oil price chart goes up it's it's worse for the Republicans midterm prospects

interim and we've seen all this you know and Trump has finds ways around this sort of stuff but

“even still if you want to have the vicious attack dog ahead of the justice department who's”

going to use every lover they can to go after political foes and go after people that threaten the administration this would be the time to put them in place and so I do think this confirmation process would be very important because you have a little bit of leeway here you could potentially find four people to oppose a mac gates type of pointy but if it's not at that level you know I think that this is Trump's window to get somebody in that could do is to already work at the D.O.J.

Yeah I agree with the timing on that one I absolutely do. We don't have to pour one out for a pan bond either you know head on back to Florida I guess should be on the speaking circuit at the villages I'm not sure exactly what else is in her future but uh she and Kristi know I'm going to do joint appearances that you know the the two fired ladies of the Trump cabinet I mean you know they're in the application tour I'm sorry I'm sorry I had to do it.

“Well I mean look you you should point out honestly like the caricature of femininity that has”

passed for the only acceptable women to play important roles in Trump's world aside from Susie Wiles and that's a very interesting separate conversation we can have but you know look at the physical transformation demanded of the women who are required to perform in public for Donald Trump the you know Caroline Levitt Kristi Nome Pam Bondi's of the world you know it's fascinating to me what the maga optics and you know tell you about how Donald Trump thinks about

women which is that you know you can you know basically dress them up like Barbies and you know

as long as they do whatever you tell them to do he's okay with it but I there've been some pretty incompetent men also in the cabinet I guess worth noting not like it's still there Hague says not exactly knocking it out of the park you know if you go down the list but that's the two women

“cabinet members that are out. Susie Wiles wasn't on my topic list today but you peaked my”

interest you said well what what did you have in mind about Susie Wiles what do you think is happening there when oh no more just that she as she has not been as much of a public figure she hasn't been required to undergo what appears to be so many physical transformations in order to serve at Trump's side so that was a pretty ominous stuff happening at the DJ but don't let the door hit you on the way out Pam Bondi I want to go back to just the geopolitical implications of

the war and talk both about some stories out of Europe and Asia you wrote I guess last week Donald Trump is breaking up with Europe that was as you mentioned advanced in the ensuing week or Trump was like basically threatening to leave NATO doesn't do that in the speech last night but does insult them and say basically you know if you've got to show time for you to show courage you've got to step up you've got to do the straight and then there's this line from a staffer

to political last night after the speech this is a Trump administration staffer it's like these

mother fuckers always talk about article five article five article five article five article five

okay well Iran has been blowing up our soldiers and ripping their wings off for you know half a century and we finally responded and now they're going after all our major non-NATO allies and the United States and you guys are not only saying we're not going to help but you're closing your airspace to us really former Republican Congressman Peter Meijer quoted tweeted that with this it would be who varnado allies to appreciate this sentiment is very widely shared

and cludder among us while boosters of the transatlantic relations man a lot to unpack there but um wondering what your thoughts are well I suppose it would be uh you have sort of truly truly um rules oriented of me to point out that the Trump administration if it's actually claiming that this is a defensive war under the charms of the NATO alliance which is purely a defensive alliance what they should have done is gone to the North Atlantic Council and asked

our allies uh to help the United States and to invoke the provisions in the treaty that the quote suggests that we believe that this is an American attack on Iran that is justified because we have in fact been under attack by Iran for decades and if that's the case the U.S. should

have and did not formally ask for help from the NATO allies so you know as always there's a strong

element of gaslighting here really remarkable that the guy who has spent the last decade in public life trashing both our allies and this specific alliance in very very explicit terms uh is now absolutely furious that the person he's been kicking the shit out of uh isn't rushing to uh you know

it is the bully boy mentality that I think has spilled over it's not just Donald Trump's mentality

“but it does represent you know a big part of how many Republicans now appear to view the world”

so that's one thing it's a it's a misunderstanding of the role of NATO it's it's a defensive alliance and specifically by the way that defensive alliance exists only in a defined geographic area and the reason that was put in the founding acts of NATO was at the insistence of the United States itself because it didn't want to be on the hook for going to war alongside European colonial powers outside of Europe and the North Atlantic that was literally a provision insisted upon by the United

States so that it wouldn't have to go to war for example in the Middle East and look just a few years after NATO was founded uh you know not to get to historical in our a historical world but let's talk about the 1956 Suez crisis great example of European military action in the Middle East that the United States refuse to have anything to do with for exactly this reason so you know again

“I just I think that in many ways right like the US just of course Donald Trump you know”

give him a pop quiz on the Suez crisis and I'm sure he couldn't even name the whole thing is crazy it's almost like I'm my blood pressure spike when I saw my just weeks I was like how do I even how do you even argue with us it's so crazy it's like we menest Denmark and like threaten to invade their territory a couple months ago and now you're telling me that Denmark needs to send their 20 year olds to Iran to risk their lives because Iran was behind the USS coal bombing

I 26 years ago I got this it's insane like before they're these kids are even born like it's just crazy it's great like you can't possibly imagine a counter situation where Germany decides to to capitate the I at whole and then gas prices spike and Donald Trump's like we're gonna come help you I like the whole thing is ridiculous it was a choice warped choice we didn't ask them on the front end and and we're dealing with the result the results of that here's a Donald Tusk put it

leader of our poll and the threat of NATO's breakup easing sanctions on Russia a massive energy crisis in Europe halting aid for Ukraine and blocking the loan for Kiev by Orban, Hungary's blocking it you loaned up to Ukraine it all looks like Putin's dream plan how widespread of a view

“do you do sense that is among our friends in Europe yeah I mean I think that's a consensus view”

among our friends in Europe right now especially with you know Putin's other leading apologies in Europe Victor Orban in the middle of an election campaign in which the United States is openly campaigning on his behalf you have both Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance literally going there to campaign essentially for Victor Orban you know Putin has also been the economic beneficiary of this conflict and is going to receive literally a something like a 50

plus billion dollar windfall even if the war were to end in the next few weeks because we've

temporarily lifted sanctions on some of the Russian oil in order to relieve pressure on the the energy market by the way it didn't work but the the result is that Trump's war is now funding Putin's war at the same time you know he continues to belittle Ukraine and to say very explicitly Ukraine is not our war I I noticed with alarm that although you could see that was something Trump believed he's been wary of actually explicitly seeing that until now until this conflict

with Iran and in the last week both the president and Marco Rubio have come out and said Ukraine is not our war in ways that our big shift in American foreign policy and probably an under-appreciated spillover effect from the war in Iran. Marco Rubio secretary of data is coming next week any sense for what's happening there and he's been pretty he's worked Trump maybe he'll be the way to put it he's bought it him up and he called daddy one point do you have any

thoughts on to expect yeah putting aside the cringe factor there Tim you know Rubio has been along with Alexander Stubb the president of Finland the sort of designated Trump whisperer among the Europeans you know the the good cop and Rubio I'm sure it's here to you know

gravel basically to do whatever he can to stop Trump from publicly damaging the alliance even more

I'm sure that he and others are insisting to Trump that they're working very hard to assemble

in the state of our moves although the Europeans so far have been very clear that that could

occur only after the cessation of hostilities I do think it's notable I saw a level of panic yesterday in advance of the speech that I haven't seen before from serious NATO actors even Republicans here in the U.S. who support the WarnerM but also support NATO they seem to be signaling that they were very alarmed by Trump's rhetoric before the speech threatening to pull out of NATO but a lot of Europeans understand that Trump has already sort of functionally destroyed the article five

guarantee that is at the core of NATO and by the way that's been my view that from the moment of Trump's reelection in 2024 that Vladimir Putin understood very clearly that article five was a

dead letter because it's something that's written into law in a treaty that's been passed by the

United States but in in in reality article five depends upon the psychological condition of everybody believing that you will actually go to war to defend your allies and if they don't believe that it's not a deterrent and let's be real if tomorrow Putin ordered Russian troops across the the tiny river that separates Russia from Estonia do you believe that the United States would actually go to war on Estonia's behalf or do much of anything at all before Russia swallowed

“up this tiny Baltic country I mean I think we understand the answer is no and so in many ways”

Donald Trump has already effectively pulled out of NATO just really quick and Asia as I

mentioned how bad crisis is among our Asian allies South Korean president today or citizens to

save every drop of fuel because of their coming energy crisis the Japanese ministry of finance intervening in fuel markets to offset the devaluation of the end in the in the in route be plunged 10% they have their worse and you'll decline in 14 years and there's a real global economic crisis coming and it's and it's gonna hit a lot of our friends who we're already threatening with tariffs and already hitting with tariffs and I go back to that political quote about our our

non-NATO allies that it's kind of seems to me like the allies that we're gonna have left at the end of this are Israel the UAE Saudi and El Salvador and maybe hungry we'll see how that election goes yeah friends don't let friends ruin their economy I mean you know it's it's again I think for so many people around the world the shock here is realizing that America has become so dysfunctional that you know one cranky senior citizen you know in Maralago can determine the the fate of

their economy you know thousands of miles away on the other side of the world ratified through a couple of the things domestically pretty important quote from Trump yesterday

“it's I think going to be showing up in a lot of democratic ads that's what I read to you so it's”

before the speech was trying to press conference we can't take care of daycare we're a big country we have all these other people who are fighting wars we can't take care of daycare you're going to let the states take care of daycare and they should pay for it too they should pay they have to raise their taxes but they should pay for it we can't pay for Medicare, Medicaid, daycare we have to take care of one thing military protection so I very explicitly yesterday saying

that in part because of the war and Iran and I mean ton of costs we have had very expensive planes get bombed we've you know that that's a it's a very costly war to the government in addition to the American people and because of that we can't pay for health care and daycare services I don't I don't think that's going to really go over that well politically no I don't imagine it well although I actually have a theory the case here and I recognize it's unprovable please

but if you listen to the quote and where he ends up with Medicare my theory is that he didn't mean to say daycare and that he actually confused daycare and Medicare all along through that quote because he says like the states you know we're not allowed to do it into this day it's like again it doesn't really change the political point perhaps that you're making but it's somewhat worse if the press in the United States actually looked them all together in that last quote not possible

for a sticker of daycare Medicaid Medicare we have to take care of one thing military protection I

“think I think we see in that in the swing states a lot of complaints about the democratic push”

pack on this regime and so when they do things effectively I think it's worth highlighting so this DHS shutdown we have a deal now that it's about to end Mike Johnson has folded possibly the weakest speaker in American history there's a lot of superlatives to be handed out this in this moment you know the the most corrupt attorney general the weakest speaker of the house

quote unquote for Democrats is during this shutdown period the administration has had to spend a lot

“of the money that was allocated for DHS during that during the bill last year and just for example”

here this is from political this morning if DHS continues to siphon that cash at the current rate funding could run out as soon as June this was part of the package for border support that was you know that going to christian umms planes and also the mass agents and the streets of Minnesota etc but the republic is not enough to go back to get more funding for the deportation program you know they're gonna have to go back and then jantra reconciliation bill that funds the war

the ice agents and and I don't know maybe they'll tell us how to throw in some rules about election

voting in there but man I the politics of that we're gonna be very hard two months ago

the politics of that are unimaginably hard now to think that like when people are feeling an acute crisis in their pocketbooks it's like the one thing that we're gonna try to do this year and reconciliation

“is fund the ice agents in the war absolutely correct but the only point I would make is that”

what worries me right now is that Donald Trump already historically unpopular thinking about that 64% disapproval rating in that CNN poll he seems to be increasingly detaching from any interest in the normal pressures that politics would impose upon him in the constraints that that kind of unpopularity would impose on any other kind of president so I worry that he's detaching in a way from our political system and once again if these republican elected officials don't

break with him you know what is the consequence of that unpopularity and any other moment in our lifetime any president Democrat Republican with this levels of public dissatisfaction both broadly with the country and specifically with his leadership you would see Republicans in the Senate and House just absolutely refusing to do anything that that president wanted and we haven't seen that case and frankly I just it's exhausting every time you listen I'm sure you have them on the show

where you're on MS you know with these people and they're you know their congressional reporters

God bless and they do great work but they always how many times a week do they come on and they say well

“you know I'm picking up a lot of discontent with those Republican members on the fence and I think”

you know it's not happening yet Tim but I feel like next week we really could see them start to break them on the ground and it's like come on right I mean this is we've been living this with this too long to be prepared to say that in June you know they're absolutely gonna wake up and look at this political reality and tell Donald Trump to screw off. I knew we were gonna be very duller today and negative so I have at the end of the show I have a week and do cool things

question mark section your colleague David Rupert Patrick on the show wrote a very cool feature piece about this CIA operative former CIA operative that that actually did the work at Donald Trump said that past administrations weren't doing which is stopping around from getting the bomb and it's like when it's a very cool caper story we'll link to it I recommend people read it I'm just about how you recruited a scientist in or on to disrupt the program and on the science front

on a home front art in this too up to the stars beyond the stars as Donald Trump said not quite but it is you know heading around the dark side of the moon that's pretty cool it was cool for my daughter to get to watch that yesterday so there you go do you have anything any of those items on the American American can do cool things still question mark topic absolutely I watched every minute of the launch the Artemis launch with my husband Peter Baker

who is a huge space junkie he has kind of predicted that he has read literally the memoirs of like every American astronaut who's ever gone into space and you know both of us were were really struck by you know again and again the sort of commentary was you know at a time when Americans are bruised and when there's so much that divides us does this heart get back to some kind of different moment in time you know Peter was pointing out to me you know you can go back

to you know launch in December of 1968 probably the worst you know year in in recent American history you know assassinations and you know divisions over the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon and the campaign and the like and yet that was still something that brought America together you know I don't know that this does anything at all about our political divisions but you know it's a reminder about big ambition and you know one of the things it feels so painful to me that feels like the

than anything any specific thing was what powered the US through its incredible run you know

in the post World War II era as as this country of the future as a country that not just had democratic ideals but that you know was harnessing the power of individual innovation and freedom

to do things that other countries around the world couldn't and wouldn't do and I feel like

“that's what's been lost you know ask our children you know look at these poor you know”

Gen Zers they they see a world that's been defined since they can remember with you know with with constraint with division with economic insecurity you know these are kids brilliant kids wonderful kids coming out of universities and they can't get jobs and you know that's not

the America that you know of JFK that first went to the moon so you know it's inspiring

it's a nerve-wracking by the way you just really sit there and watch the whole thing you know the

“first news event I remember was of the space program was it was the challenger when I was in in”

high school so I was a little bit anxious watching it but it's it's a great thing I'm a big accomplishment I love that melancholy tinge with the inspiration there for no that's right that is the appropriate that is bull work and Susan Glasser and Tim Miller podcast appropriate

“and so I would leave it with that she's over at the New Yorker check out her latest and we'll be”

seeing you again soon who knows what imaginable horrors will wait us the next time we're together this is you're the one who said horrors appreciate you very much we've got another negative Nancy coming tomorrow so we'll see y'all then peace the board podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper associate producer Ansley Skipper and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering

and editing by Jason Brown