Trump Blasts "Third Rate Podcasts"

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29:20So if the ceasefire doesn't completely fall apart, J.D. Vance is headed to Islamabad this weekend for negotiations with the Iranians. So I hope they're they're ready to say thank you. Got a lot of they got to be meeting J.D. 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.

29:54As one does. Yes, one does. Holding a rally for the country's pro-Putin authoritarian incumbent, Viktor Orban, where he, just as a nice touch, accused the Ukrainians of election interference. J.D. 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 lacks 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 he handled it. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn't.

30:34We never made that promise. We never indicated that was going to be the case. 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 floating around. There's a 10-point plan floating around. If he's frustrated about three issues 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 in the context of the negotiations that we've had the second thing golly boff said which again i found fascinating is he said we He refused to give up the right to enrichment.

31:18And 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 president's been very clear on the enrichment question. Our position on that has not changed. I'll tell you, the my wife really came out of nowhere. Did not expect him to reference his wife jumping out of a plane. But it really is interesting to see how J.D.

31:57Vance 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, obnoxious high school debater. Actually, I think the misunderstanding, it couldn't be us. I think the misunderstanding is you not speaking English very well. Does he think their translators don't exist? What does he think this is? He's like, 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 Usha and skydiving. Like, do they have it?

32:35Is the agreement that she won't skydive or do they have a mutual non-skydiving pact? If I was her, I'd be like, yeah, sure, I won't do it. But if you want to jump out of a plane, anytime. I'm sure she probably wants to jump out of almost any moving vehicle that she's in with J.D. Vance. I will fly you myself. So if Vance does get a primary challenge in 2028, how far do you think he'll go in 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.

33:14They have to Politico 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 I do wonder if on some issues he'll give him a little away. I don't know. I mean, it would be funny and not funny, sounds like my word, sad.

33:52Darkly funny. Darkly funny if he's more malleable than Joe Biden was on this crucial issue of electability. Here's the thing, though. Sonny Hosen, get the question ready, you know? I don't think we're going to see J.D. Vance on The View at any point. A couple of a couple of things here. One, J.D. Vance is not 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 examples, George H.W. Bush and Al Gore is there is a regime. There's a continuity candidate and there's a change candidate.

34:33and J.D. Vance by definition is the continuity candidate and the continuity candidate almost always wins like George W. Bush and Al Gore did because even if Trump is unpopular, fading from the scene, he still will remain very popular with Republican voters and popular enough that it would push J.D. Vance to the top. So he's gonna own everything Trump does and his worst strategy, which is the strategy I suspect he would do because he is all short-term ambitious and not a lot of long-term strategic thinking, his worst strategy would be to try to distance himself from Trump because he's going to own everything Trump did.

35:11Right. Yeah, it's going to be interesting. It's going to be something that I enjoy watching, I will tell you. Yeah, it is because... Because he's also a bad liar. Yes. He loves to lie. I'm not saying it's not his passion, 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 J.D. Vance thinks he is and how clever J.D. Vance actually is is massive. The gap where the negotiations stand between the U.S.

35:44and Iran right now. And he just is so politically maladroit. He's just like a lumbering oaf, knocking things over as he works his way through this. And so he's going, 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 3.0 or whatever it would be, it's going to be so embarrassing and so easy to poke fun at. I honestly will consider unretiring from politics if J.D. Vance is the nominee because that would be the most fun campaign to work on. You could have like actually just. I think we probably have more fun just doing it from here.

36:26You know, we don't want some fucking lame candidate being like, no, that's too mean. I'm not a candidate. I am on the make fun of J.D. Vance Super PAC side. Super PAC. Okay. Now we're talking. I think you can do to J.D. Vance what the Republicans definitely did to Gore and just make him an absolute caricature of himself in such a group. Well, let's just start a Super PAC. We don't need to join one of these. That's perfect. We'll just start one here. Okay. All right. We'll get on that. We launched it right here. We have a plan. See you guys in two years. um well i'm glad that the the guy who you can always see the cards up his sleeve uh he's our man in islamabad for the well yeah he's there to take 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 interlocutors do not trust wikhoff and kushner because they're complete dopes who and they think all the and then they think the 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 um 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 their mistake um so uh one thing's for sure vance must clearly be aware that the outrage among maga elites who opposed this war has now reached a fever pitch.

37:54I 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.

38:10Rahm Emanuel:That is the definition of genocide. How do we 25th Amendment is asked? Can he just behave like a normal human? I mean, honestly, like the president, 3D chess, 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 Strait 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, look, you may have supported President Trump for 10 years like I did and like you have, but this is not the same man.

38:51This is not the same man that we supported.

38:54Rahm Emanuel: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 the order, I'm not carrying it out. Figure out the codes on the football yourself. Dan, 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. Thank you. Thank you for your service. I know why Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years, especially by the fact that they think it is wonderful for Iran, the number one state sponsor of terror, to have a nuclear weapon.

39:43because 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 nut jobs, troublemakers, and will 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 and their views are the opposite of MAGA.

40:10or I wouldn't have won the presidential election in a landslide. MAGA agrees with me and just gave CNN a 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 Megyn 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.

40:45In fact, it's not even close. Or bankrupt Alex Jones, who says some of the dumbest things and lost his entire fortune, as he should have, for his horrendous attack on the families of the 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.

41:19And 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 at all, no.

41:55It was very impressive. Also, just a couple swerves in there. The debunking of Sandy Hook. Just a couple. Well, just the, when you read it, it's all kind of, it begins, you kind of, you kind of know where it's going, right? They're losers, they're not on TV, which to Trump is the pinnacle of success is cable television. Then we swerve into a vigorous defense of Brigitte Macron, including a testament to her beauty. Yeah, so he is in the no penis camp. Yes. then he debunks Sandy Hook conspiracy theories which was nice and then we're back down the rabbit hole then and also you know why he doesn't return their calls because he's too busy on world and country affairs yes he's which which is evident he definitely does not care he definitely does not care there's nothing about that that suggests caring he is not mad online make sure everyone knows he is not mad online.

42:59I no longer care about that stuff. He doesn't care about it. And that's why he doesn't usually talk about it. And that's why he can barely speak about it. Just fire it off an 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 has got to 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.

43:46I think like 50 % of the replies to his Easter Sunday, I'm going to kill you all post, whatever the fuck it was, were negative. Only like 20 % were supportive, something like that. The New York Times analyzed 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 margins. More so, sorry, yeah. Yeah, I mean, Trump's approval rating among Republicans, you know, about around the same last year was low 90s, high 80s, which is kind of where he's always been.

44:25Now it's low 80s, high 70s, depending on what you look at it, it's in the 70s in the PRRI poll, similar in the Pew poll. What is notable is it's mostly from non-MAGA Republicans, right? His approval rating is most significantly among them. That's very Iran-War related. He's getting 80 some percent of MAGA Republicans and some polls as high as 100%, according to his fake Harry Anton poll, among self-identified MAGA Republicans. The Iran board is basically almost even. I think it's like plus eight with non-MAGA Republicans. And I think we tend to think of non-MAGA Republicans as like people just to the right of the bulwark.

45:07And 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, but 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. Um, and I bet Marjorie Taylor Green would consider herself a non-MAGA Republican at this point. Cause MAGA doesn't, MAGA is not, we've talked about this before, it does not mean you're an adherent to a specific philosophy. It means you're a diehard supporter of Trump. And so people who are non-diehard supporters of Trump can span the ideological spectrum within the Republican party.

45:44Um, we do have a, another, Another post from Trump. Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable, some would say, of allowing oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz. That is not the agreement we have, President DJT. Okay. So we're doing this in real time. Things are going great, it seems like. We talked about the tall one, and now he just, it's like he's learning, yeah, he's just learning about things in real time. And I guess he I guess it probably took him a while to draft the post about Tucker and Megyn Kelly So maybe he hasn't been paying much attention to the news. Yeah I mean, so this is right.

46:20You know this as a former speechwriter is that you would go into your office and you just start writing You sometimes you got you got to turn the Wi-Fi offer on 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 and country affairs Yes, he came out of the World and Country Affairs meeting, checked the internet, and like, holy shit, the strait is still closed. It's like a course you take in college. Yes. There is another thing about the Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, all these folks breaking about Trump is, one, it's a real problem for him politically for a couple reasons.

46:56One, like that has been his strength is he has had unanimous Republican support among elected officials and MAGA media. And now that we have these high profile people breaking from Trump, that just that that is bad for him. It's like he's lost his superpower. And the other way to think about this is I think people tend to think that these are quote unquote MAGA shows and the people who watch it are MAGA Trump Republicans. And obviously the majority of them voted for Trump and like Trump, but they are not fully MAGA. This is not Fox. This is not the Fox News audience. Right. The Fox News audience are hardcore Republicans supporters of Trump, mostly over the age of 70.

47:34The people who consume Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson tend to be younger. They tend to necessarily engage less in politics. But it's not also just not the audience of those shows every day, people tune in that matters. It's that these clips are going viral everywhere. And so people who do not, who may have voted for Trump and do not engage in 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 that they are hearing on Pod Save America.

48:13And that is the worst possible place for Donald Trump to be. And Trump aside, because and, you know, we'll talk about the midterms in a second, but like this is also going to deprive like people who are cross pressured who might like a lot of things that Trump has done, don't like Iran or 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 J.D. Vance's campaign when he announces in 2028? Like it is doing damage far beyond Trump, what is happening right now. And far beyond what the polls show right now.

48:51Yes. So a common thread with the Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson line of critique is some conservatives specifically calling for invoking the 25th Amendment, which if you recall from earlier seasons of the Trump show or the spinoff series Sleepy Joe involves the uh involves involves the vice president and the cabinet deeming the president unfit to serve and removing him from office uh a lot of Democrats have also called for invoking the 25th amendment and or impeaching Trump I think as of Wednesday we're at around 70 Dems in the House and a handful of senators. You had a whole message box about why this isn't exactly a simple process or even a feasible one.

49:39Go ahead. I love an organic message box plug. So thank you for that. This one got me very exercised because like we've all sort of come to the conclusion that Trump deserves impeachment and 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 his 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, but 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 in office.

50:15And so Democrats are calling for it. Members of Congress are calling for it. It's seen a lot of this online. And here's the problem with this, is the 25th Amendment is actually more challenging to execute than impeachment removal by a large degree. So first, it begins, as you point out, with the vice president, a majority of a cabinet that includes Pete Hegseth, RFK Jr., Trump's personal defense attorney right now, Steve Woodcoff is apparently a member of the cabinet. A majority of them have to send a letter to Congress saying that Trump is unfit. If they do that, J.D. Vance becomes the acting president.

50:50What happens then is Trump gets a chance to tell Congress he's fit, which he would obviously do. Then Congress has 21 days to reconvene. And then you need two thirds of the House and two thirds of the Senate to vote to keep J.D. Vance's acting president. So it's like, how is that going to happen? That is not going to happen. You can't 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 responsible for Trump being able to act this way, execute this war, act without any sort of accountability, are Republicans in Congress.

51:40The cabinet 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 J.D. Vance in the Republican cabinet. It's to elect a Democratic Congress. And I think this distracts from that. End of rant. I couldn't agree more. I even like on impeachment, like we're going to get J.D. Vance. Is that what first of all, the idea that Republicans have come this far and now they're going to impeach Donald Trump when they when they took a flyer on it after January 6th.

52:15Like it's just none of it's going to happen. I get that this is a stand in for why aren't 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, end Trump's presidency is to elect a Democratic House and 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, then maybe you can do stuff there.

52:53But 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 the 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're getting all these text messages that are like, sign our petition that Trump should be to call the 25th Amendment is a way to get online engagement and raise grassroots dollars.

53:34And 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 time and 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. We have a long record of doing that. But like pushing Democrats on this and like yelling about Democrats and not like that is treating voters like idiots. Some of the pushback you get from people is that you want to make the case that Trump is unfit. If you want to make the case Trump is unfit, you do it this way.

54:06Donald Trump is unfit for office. I see it. You see it. And the Republicans in Congress see it. The thing is, they are afraid to do anything about it. So if you want to rein in Donald Trump, we have to get rid of the people who allow him to act this way. Go to votesaveamerica.com. Or even 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. Congress should come back into session. Republicans have refused to bring Congress back to session. Democrats have no power to do that, but they called for it.

54:39A bunch of them went to the Capitol today, Democrats, and were like, all right, we're going to try to force another vote on the War Powers Resolution. Republicans, again, blocked that. That would be another thing that, you know, Congress could do is to rein him in on the war itself. And again, Republicans refused to do that again. Like, you just you can't make up the numbers right now. Like we just don't have, we 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, and the one that we don't have the majority of for sure, Trump's cabinet.

55:14Hence the problem. Yeah, no kidding.

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56:35All right, here's some good news. It seems like Republicans who will be on the ballot this November are starting to become, as the White House likes to say, panicans. I guess it's their version of bedwetters. I don't know. They're both kind of stupid, but it's fine. On Wednesday, Politico published a story with the headline, We Lose the Midterms. Republicans Worry Iran Might Have Already Cost Them Congress. Woof! The title of which quotes a source described as, quote, 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.

57:10The Wisconsin Supreme Court will now have a 5-2 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, a 10-point overperformance 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 Greene, Democrat Sean Harris beat Kamala Harris's performance in that district by 25 points, the largest overperformance in any special election by a Democrat since Doug Jones won the Alabama Senate seat way back a thousand years ago in 2017.

57:57What was your reaction to the elections this week? Great. Great. I mean, good. Great. Next. All good. No, like these are all small sample sizes, but the margins in elections since the war on Iran started are better than the average Democratic performance both in 2025 and earlier in 2026. 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.

58:37I think we've run four in a row now, which is a credit to the Wisconsin Democratic Party and the way they've trained Democratic voters to understand the value of these. Winning the Waukesha mayor's race, first Democratic mayor in 15 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, small sample size again, and in Georgia, you're seeing huge swings among Hispanic voters in Hispanic precincts, like massive swings. That's all very positive news.

59:11I know. I'm trying not to get too high on our own supply here, but some of these results are just—it's the perfect storm of all the things that could go wrong for Republicans with voters, right? which is that they, in the higher turnout elections, they are losing because voters are switching. People who voted Republican are voting Democrat. And then in other elections, the GOP turnout is 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, all different types of districts.

59:46The dark linings are the things to watch out or just be aware of is there are caps on how well Democrats can do because the House map is so gerrymandered. We talked about this before. There are only four Republicans in districts that Kamala Harris won. I think there was something like 19 or 20 of them, Republicans in districts that Hillary Clinton won. And we had seven of them in California alone in 2018. So 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 or in play.

1:00:23I mean, the Cook Political Report moved the Iowa governor's race to a toss up today. I know. Go Rob'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 this is really the Senate is in play. with a margin like this. It's a, 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 2028 Democratic primary has already begun.

1:01:00A bunch of potential candidates showed up to speak at Al Sharpton's National Action Network event in New York City this week. And 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 APAC's influence was voted down, while two other relevant resolutions were kicked to something called the Middle East Working Group. DNC Chair Ken Martin explained that the APAC resolution was merely shelved in favor of a, quote, blanket repudiation, quote, condemning the corrosive influence of all dark money in Democratic primaries.

1:01:33which so then the idea is that that resolution included APAC among other organizations or other, you know, dark money organizations. This is all on 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 percent just last year and 53 percent in 2022. Interesting detail on the DNC thing. In a Politico 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 AIPAC if they run.

1:02:15now i read a couple times i'm still curious if those uh presidential candidates wanted the resolution to pass or not pass um but they called about it um what's your guess and how do you think this issue of israel plays out in the 2028 primary i i maybe one one one on the other side of the issue oh maybe it's a guess who knows but i just if you were thinking 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 are 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.

1:03:04It seems like it's the same reason for why we need questionnaires from interest groups that presidential candidates fill out. Yeah, it's just that at least that at least cause 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. Yes, from 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 endorsement. We can go long on the on the role of groups. I know you have a lot of thoughts on it.

1:03:37We don't agree on all of them. So it'll be a fun debate one day. but um the here i don't even know it doesn't serve a purpose for anyone the dnc or anyone else so maybe we should just give it look i do think that when it comes time for the 2028 democratic party platform we should also get rid of that i know i know but at least there you can say yeah that's a different 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 gonna do right now it's going to give you politico stories like that is that's its sole purpose is for there to be political story political stories about it the other two resolutions by the way were um one recognizing a palestinian state and 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 that's you yeah you have you haven't heard a lot about the middle east middle east working group at the dnc no i i assume that i mean this It's not an unclever solution to the problem of just like, this is a place to send them.

1:04:40You're not killing them. You're not enacting them. You're sending them to some other place. You're referring. They're just simply being referred. The whole thing is dumb. It builds a lot of trust with the voters in the party. Well, also, the 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 maybe should be coming up with the position as opposed to calling the DNC. Yes. It's just a bizarre use of time and energy from that candidate or those two candidates. And look, it's hard. You know, you have eight in 10 Democratic voters who have an unfavorable view of Israel.

1:05:20You have even fewer who trust Netanyahu. It is you have, you know, majority, huge majorities whose sympathies are with the Palestinians as opposed to 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 insane. I feel like even conditioning aid at this point is the moderate position. That's table stakes.

1:06:08I imagine that most of them will get to ending aid to Israel. Offensive aid or? 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 an 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 did what they did to Gaza, are still doing to Gaza, are doing what they are to the West Bank, are doing what they are to Lebanon right now.

1:06:55and 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 don't I think that to me and look it these are treated as like fringe lefty positions for some reason still but you know over 60 percent of Americans support getting rid of all aid to Israel and you just saw that eight it's 80 percent 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 are 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 has shifted so dramatically over the last couple of years.

1:07:54And the answer is not because of TikTok. I was going to say, yes. You know, 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. A lot during the debates will be on this issue for sure.

1:08:36It'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 APAC 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're listening to the conversation around this is the way in which the DNC switched from not taking APAC 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 APAC question.

1:09:23Where they'll say, well, yeah, I'm not gonna take it from anyone. But without getting to the heart of the question about APAC and the role that APAC 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 in 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 AIPAC question because they feel like it's fraught, will then turn to this, well, we shouldn't have any stark money in politics as opposed to dealing with this specific question.

1:09:59And what I would say is, don't avoid this question because it's fraught and that's that's good advice generally yes just you know and it's like if if if you don't know enough about it learn more about it and decide first you know always decide forget about the polls 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 2028. Figure out what your position is. Figure out where you would go.

1:10:33Figure 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 little lefty positions. Then I got to worry about what happens in a general. and this whole issue about Israel and AIPAC, this is not one of those issues because this is not only, the views on Israel are very clear within the Democratic Party.

1:11:09It is overwhelming. We're talking 80%. Same with military aid to Israel, same with AIPAC and it's also a 60 % issue in the general election. So now if you genuinely care, like just are very pro-Israel, then like, you know, don't take the position just because it's, 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.

1:11:48All right, one last thing before we get to Tommy's conversation with Rahm Emanuel. As 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 catered 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 HarperCollins, UK.

1:12:53Not HarperCollins, UK.

1:12:58The end was magical. What the fuck? 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, an answer has come while we're recording this or when we'll come between now and tomorrow but none of the reporters can have any idea why she did it what the context was some a lot of times you know there will be rumors going through dc or politics about a pending story that's i've been i've been looking everywhere for yes for and everyone knows it's coming even if it hasn't been printed it hasn't but everyone in politics is coming and then you will see politicians do things and they make sense if you know that story is coming.

1:13:39This 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 Alemany from MS Now called him and he told her he 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 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 quote 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.

1:14:46in new york mag you look great on the picture you look great on the picture those are 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. I don't know, man. I don't know. Is that your advice you would have given Melania Trump as a White House communications director to randomly go out to the cameras on a Thursday afternoon in the middle of a a war in Iran to just say, hey, I don't know what you're talking about.

1:15:28I don't know Jeffrey Epstein. Bye. Yes, I think that's the exact right thing to do, to go out there and deny. No questions. I will take no questions about this. I do not know Jeffrey Epstein. While I have your time, I just wanted to briefly deny involvement in any illegality that you did not ask me about. Okay, bye. And if you think that you can connect me to Jeffrey Epstein, just ask James Carville or HarperCollins, how that went for them. HarperCollins, UK. I will see you at the next premiere of Melania. Yes, just 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, Rahm Emanuel.

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1:18:17My guest today is a former member of Congress, White House Chief of Staff, Mayor of Chicago, Ambassador. Sure seems like he's running for president in 2028. Rahm Emanuel, great to see you again.

1:18:26Rahm Emanuel:Nice to see you, Tommy. Welcome to Los Angeles. You have more of a casual LA chic, I see. Yeah. You have like a glove? That's the only thing clean. Just rip it off your brothers. Going to Harry's closet. Too bad he's too big. Yeah, yeah. We all saw the shirtless photos of him and Elon Musk. He's been working out. Or the meds are working. Either way. Or both. HGH. 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 Iranian civilization. So that's nice. That's what counts as a win in the Trump 2.0 era.

1:19:02But the debate over why the war started is raging. Have you had a chance to read Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's long piece in The New York Times? Okay. So they report that on February 11th, Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Trump in the Situation Room. The head of the Mossad zooms in. They make this pitch. Barnet, yeah. Yeah. who 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?

1:19:37Rahm Emanuel: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 was thinking 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 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 brainpower working altars?

1:20:10Rahm Emanuel:Now I feel better. I got that off my chest. And the president tweeted, you know, we're saving industry. or whatever right or destroying which is everybody which is the cry of a terrorist uh so we're both destroying and saving two to one civilization and the other so nobody i'm thinking of both my clinton time six years and obama time i do not remember a single not only a single foreign leader in the situation room anybody themselves or their staffs ever even given access to that room so or any one 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 netanyahu and lobbying trump to go to war with iran um what is the appropriate way to talk about that in your view um 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 that leans into tropes about israel controlling the united states or foreign policy like what's the right way to talk about 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 there you're going to go from that conversation to i think this president may scapegoat right now now you and i both worked uh for uh 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, first term, President Biden.

1:22:11Rahm Emanuel:Everybody rejected this. And because when you looked at it, the equities versus the liabilities just didn't 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 a very uh i think in the sense of the prime minister not made an argument to the president i don't absolve the president and anybody on his team but i also read the story the flip side of this tommy which is also nobody in the uh president's administration they're all they don't have their hands on the bloody they're all leaking on each other they're saying they opposed yeah they opposed it uh you know this is all crap you know or other words that they use to describe their position.

1:22:55Rahm Emanuel: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, given the context also in America and given the context of anti-Israel or anti-Semitism, it's going to lead to a very 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 Games, 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.

1:23:33Rahm Emanuel:This president did, and it's on him. 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 in Washington or move them, I think was the term he used. But 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 think I'm getting the exact word, but I'm getting the sentiment right, which is a leader at a different class.

1:24:07Rahm Emanuel:That was the message and it had pictures of him with Putin and pictures of him 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 here. 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 the 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 THAAD weapons out of South Korea, pulled patriots that were supposed to go to Ukraine.

1:24:42Rahm Emanuel: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 yes, can you talk a little bit about the process and how that actually works and how few checks there would be? I don't leave. Look, I mean, it's a theoretical discussion or hypothetical rather. I don't think the president of the United States would do that. And while I have zero confidence in the people around him, and I mean that from the cabinet to the White House, I actually think they would hit the pause button.

1:25:29Rahm Emanuel: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 in some way. the pause button would mean convincing him though right yes there's no like you can't take the nuclear button and throw it into the ocean so we can't press it right no technical there's no way look head of the joint chiefs there's 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 got tucker carlson uh he's not like a horse whisperer the great whisperer to donald trump to say that but this would be uh 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 so i don't mean to i said that as you this i don't believe that would happen okay i'm glad to hear i'm i just think there's a lot of other things that i think uh that are worth spending intellectual uh energy on to analyze what are the repercussions things that they never do even an impulsive person like this would not do that.

1:26:35Rahm Emanuel:Let's hope so. J.D. Vance, the vice president, is now going to Pakistan to lead these talks on Saturday. He'll be joined by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Oh, I'm so comforted. I'm with Trump's son-in-law and his golf buddy. Isn't this just a real estate deal? Isn't this just real estate? Yeah. So look, I'm not a big fan of Dumb and Dumber, Kushner, and Witkoff. 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 Iranian side that they're demanding from the U.S. is far more vast than that.

1:27:07It's like, get all your troops out of the Middle East, things of that nature. Does Vance getting involved give you any more confidence or hope that they can get some deal or maybe another ceasefire?

1:27:17Rahm Emanuel:This is reading tea leaves. Only in the sense that the Iranians think he 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 Witkoff and Kushner. The idea that you had no experts, that it's very clear from the UK 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 Vance will have a different level of respect. It gives you somebody new they can interlock. But remember, they've been burnt twice.

1:27:57Rahm Emanuel: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 the sense of Vance. One, you can't unring this bell. But you can say, okay, how do you kind of make lemonade out of this lemon that we have created? That's A. B, as I, the Iranians went in, we went into this war trying to degrade Iran's nuclear capacity. They discovered they had the nuclear option, the Strait of Hormuz. 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.

1:28:45Rahm Emanuel: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 Strait of Hormuz, 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 as 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 UN's 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.

1:29:32Rahm Emanuel:And 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 Accords 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 Strait of Hormuz. I would, in addition, say to anybody who's part of the Abraham Accords has zero tariffs. and i would also say anybody the abraham accords gets uh front of the line on u.s military equipment he would double down on america 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 lemon yeah it's a it's a nightmare let me offer you what i think might be some pushback to the plan sure you know if we i'm i'm open to anything that's just my idea we're spitballing here uh if we join me this is more sophisticated than the situation the hex conversation the first meeting between the prime minister and the president much more sophisticated and thorough analysis the beer can on his head or something um if we jointly close the strait of hamouz with the iranians wouldn't that make a sort of a party to all the you know potential famine that could happen if no fertilizer there's no doubt about it but here's the other thing you're trying to they are their economy is devastated The only lifeline they have or international, the IV they have rather, is what they're selling to China.

1:31:15Rahm Emanuel:We do know now, you and I sitting here today, China was a party to pushing Iran to say yes. There are elements 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. 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 tyran and china people that are trying to hurt you you're actually giving them economic benefit so to me yes it would be chop 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 at least that levels the playing field i mean i also worry for leverage here right and we currently clearly the iranians have shown us we don't have much no i mean and i think that's why tucker's where do we get to a nuclear option because there's no a conventional military way to open the strait of hormuz from the air you can't bomb it open if they're laying mines or just firing off one 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 um the big concern right they clearly degraded iran's military they bombed the shit out of a lot of stuff um the other consideration was cutting off their support for proxy groups like hezbollah hamas etc my concern is um if they are now able to charge this toll at the strait of hormuz that is going to be a massive that cannot be that cannot stand that will go back to rebuilding their military funding hezbollah funding all these proxy groups right i mean it 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 strait but it's never was tested it's now been tested and they discovered look i got an 800 on my sats okay they've never before did they everybody believe this it was always an international order the second thing i mean i want to go to the class at the uh 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 yeah 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 fronts simultaneously, capacity to do that.

1:33:50Rahm Emanuel: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 meaning what's happened in the iran war and what's happened in uh ukraine russia war 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 their experts at yeah now not only did we not ask for it we rejected it when they offered to help the president doesn't know friend from foe and we are now stuck where our gulf allies are buying weapons from ukraine but we stiffed arm them yeah yeah and they have no navy and they've destroyed the russian navy and the black state you we can claim which appropriate we have destroyed the navy of iran but they control the strait of humus no navies 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 war every battle but has lost each war sounds about right since world war ii yeah for sure um let me shift gears so you've been crisscrossing the country uh you did a recent stop in new hampshire you're still not ruling out a 2028 presidential run any more definitive answer today no but i'll whisper exploring no okay i went there i went three places recently which is uh lacrosse wisconsin into uh franklin uh new hampshire and then i've been in spartanburg uh the corridor of shame in abbyville piedmont area uh the black uh counties and then columbia and then charleston and that was all about looking at community colleges and what uh both all three cities are doing which i think incredibly innovative things that we also did in chicago between community colleges but you know 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 and the top issues i assume are whether democrats should talk to leftist twitch streamers is kind of like up here then it's like the economy and then education let me well i I wouldn't go down there, but I would just say.

1:36:15Rahm Emanuel:That was a joke. I understand that. I'm going to just, I would say I've done a town hall in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and a podcast there. That's what I'm going to look. Did it in, met with 10 teachers, educators, parents, 10 kids up in Franklin, New Hampshire. I did a, in Manchester, the eggs and politics thing. I did a, at Wofford 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 - Hassan Becker? No, nobody. Nobody. They asked me about how do they get ahead. They asked me how they get an education.

1:36:53Rahm Emanuel:Now, the ticket to the middle class and getting ahead is through education. And we live in a period where you earn when you learn. Nobody's asked me that question. And I took close to about 50 questions from people. Yeah, it's from the billionth reminder that the conversation in D.C. and the media sometimes doesn't match what the country actually. Sometimes? Yeah, often. I would say close to 90 % does not match. It's a parallel universe. Yeah, it is. Yes. So you did a recent appearance on The View. You said D.C. needs a power washing because of all the corruption. You also wrote a Wall Street Journal column talking about how Democrats could use a majority.

1:37:28And you said the Democrats should steer clear of the gotcha politics and excessive focus on Trumpian slime. Is there a tension between those two things?

1:37:34Rahm Emanuel:So I appreciate this. Maybe this is on me for 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'd go 100%. I've said this as soon as I came back from Japan, 2024, December, I said, go after the corruption. I built, when I was chair of the DCCC, the house that Tom DeLay built. the corruption, what's going on with the protection markets, what's going on with Wyckoff's kids, Lutnik's kids, them, and people, and the president's kids, 100%. What Noam's done at the DHS and the contracts that they provided, 100%.

1:38:20There is

1:38:21Rahm Emanuel: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 to you 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 uh investor day in the oval office or yeah or bets on you know invasions of a 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 and what does that reform agenda look like what like what do we well i'll give you my thing one i would raise the minimum wage so that's number one two well over september 2025 wrote or august i wrote and i believe there should be a ratepayer bill of rights three i would do x on health care 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 uh prediction markets no federal employee or their family can participate yeah i mean like reforming for Washington.

1:39:55So like something like that, banning Calci, banning stock trading.

1:39:58Rahm Emanuel:Banning all that, but also stocks, companies that you've been in. If you have X of, let's say your net value is north of, just I'm putting the number out, a million dollars has to go into a blind trust. That's true for all federal employees. Second, not just the Supreme Court, but any court, you're not allowed to take gifts and be very specific on the ethics package that Roberts thinks he has, but doesn't enforce. Make it codify it. And that's also true for the president in the United States and family members and the cabinet. Now, the other thing I said for, and when you hit the age of 75, get pre-TSA because you're out of here.

1:40:32Rahm Emanuel:Done. Finish. Basta. 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 and sold some individual stocks when you were 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? Are there things you do differently? If I did, it's definitely a mistake. I don't know what that is, but definitely. Look, I did a blind trust when I was chief of staff, when I was mayor, when I was congressman.

1:41:05Rahm Emanuel:Also did it there as ambassador. So if anybody did it, I have no idea. Oh, it was a blind trust. It wasn't your ambassador. Why doesn't everyone just do a blind trust? It seems so easy. That's what I just said. I'll give you a funny, not a funny story. I guess to trade on inside information. I get elected to Congress. And I'm going to get on financial service. i said i'm gonna set up a blind trust chairman oxley comes to see me he says i don't want you to do this i said well i'm doing it because i'm a bare-knuckle politician 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 uh also normizing and tell you did it when i was chief of staff and i did it when i was mayor 100 it seems like a no-brainer i don't know why it's not law i mean i listen they've been arguing in 2007 i was a sponsor of a legislation as related to exactly this which is stocks traded in uh in front of committees in front of your committee uh you can't have be involved or investor or trade stocks and committees rather interests that have any 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 washington that's also includes the executive branch.

1:42:13Well, yeah. And I think this is an issue that kind of drives people crazy because like 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 should put their stuff in the blind trust. But it's in like the president of the United States will go before the state of the union and say that and say, we're going to pass legislation. But he only said about Congress.

1:42:34Rahm Emanuel: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 that's why i said the whole washington you can look there's no individual or no one of the three branches of government that you're going to get without a blemish the only way to do it everybody do them all and for that um i'm just going to ask you a couple more issues i think progressives will push you on if you do decided to run for president in 2028.

1:43:09It's no different than me pushing myself. Good. So you were mayor of Chicago when a young man named Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by a police officer. Your administration had a video of that, of his killing for over a year until a court ordered it released. You guys didn't release it until the court order. What do you say to people who are angry, not just about the Chicago PD killing this kid, but also what they feel like was a cover up

1:43:36Rahm Emanuel:to evade accountability? 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. Number one. A young man lost his life innocently.

1:43:53Rahm Emanuel:Third is I thought I had a year earlier, two years earlier, fixed the system. And I acknowledge when I said it to this whole city, spoke. I thought I'd fix something and the problems were much deeper than I appreciated. 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 was 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. No city is alone, given 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.

1:44:44Rahm Emanuel:Because the last thing you want is a mayor involved in making a political decision when the FBI, what's IPRA, 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 U.S. attorneys was involved. The states, there were four entities investigating. So if you don't involve yourself, you're part of covering up. If you do involve, you politicize an investigation in danger of the prosecution. In Chicago, the police officer actually was prosecuted and convicted.

1:45:21Rahm Emanuel:That doesn't change anything. That's on me. I own it. As you know one thing, the difference between a legislator and somebody who's a mayor, it's lessons learned going forward. and so you have to make you have to make changes i did it and in this process tally his uncle who's a pastor on the west side laquan's he and i have become really good at solid feathers there'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 it if you're looking for a person that knows how to learn from mistakes 100 percent um 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 tsa pre-check because you're getting out of here at 78 right um 75 75 sorry so i love that uh i think we need a new generation i think when i first said you you texted me and said great yeah i was like fuck yeah man good for you um i don't think that people in dc are internalizing your message right i mean there's this this fight is playing out most clearly in maine where chuck schumer is really thumb in the scale on behalf of former governor janet mills um the grassroots seem to be behind graham 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 um 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 to this or are we really so the way i look at it is a couple things uh one is there is a generational piece to 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 at uh in the family room you better be good in the classroom you better know the boardroom the break room the situation room and not just the bathroom, which is something we really get experts as a party.

1:47:30Rahm Emanuel:Now, I always think also one piece of change with a party that's known as weak, there's nothing, as you know, when it came to fighting the insurance companies to get 10 million kids healthcare, one person got that assignment. When it came to making sure we got healthcare for people with preexisting condition, one person had to lead that effort. When it came to making sure we took on the financial industry and the banking industry to do fundamental reform, one person got that call to lead 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 a 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 yeah i got i got 20 yeah i'll sell you one for cheap on ebay I got 20 ,000 kids that got free community college because I was willing to take on a failed system.

1:48:25Rahm Emanuel:I got kids that used to have a 56 % graduation rate and 84 % of them now graduate 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 achieve 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 before. Do I take on failure? Damn right, because I'm a lucky guy.

1:48:57Rahm Emanuel:I grew up in a family, an immigrant family, that had love and education. The question is, are you willing to sit there and husband your political capital or spend it and take it on? So nobody who's walked in the arena with me did not walk out 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 battle it's a good pitch uh last question for you so last i was just getting kind of into this you know this is fun oh uh 2006 things went 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 working for brock obama you know i was watching what you're doing um so you were the scheduling problem yeah i was like oh sorry he's got to write a book um yeah so chapter one democrats keep over performing in these special elections the most recent one and the biggest over performance or biggest swing to democrats just happened in georgia georgia 14 marjorie taylor green's district i would say wisconsin i'll give you a different view okay well that what we took literally racked up uh bashar al assad numbers in uh in in madison in this most recent supreme court no i'll tell you why why no just something different i'll let you you want to finish the question the question is just like i i feel better i feel increasingly bullish i think the question is how do you close the deal is it about democrats getting out and making an affirmative case and fighting or you know you see some other people that say crouch up hide under the table until the day after the election neither one is not no i don't neither one is right first of all 90 of this race is a referendum on 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.

1:50:45Rahm Emanuel:And it was true in 2018 about Donald Trump and the Republicans. This is a referendum election. And I can tell you, having gone all over this country, it's building a head of steam. This is going to be level five type hurricane.

1:50:59Rahm Emanuel:Two, side note, why I think Wisconsin. One of the last three Supreme Court biggest win was just the other day. Yeah, monster. Second, we've now 14 for 14 in statewide elections. Haven't 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 executive seat. Fourth, in the third district, which is the southwest corner where La Crosse is, where I went in for Rebecca Cook, where the Republican member of Congress is there, the Supreme Court candidate, our candidate, took 57 % of the vote there. Donald Trump won that county overwhelmingly.

1:51:37Rahm Emanuel:It used to be where Ron Kind was congressman. The Wisconsin numbers in a 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 argued this before. I would present a 6 in 2026, not because anybody remembers the 6 in 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.

1:52:14Rahm Emanuel: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, the renewal, helped negotiate it 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 08. 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.

1:53:08Rahm Emanuel:One of those is going to break through and get to the president's desk. If he signs it, you want it 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 then 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 not knowing who we stand for and maybe not liking it as they do. Tommy, there's three or four layers here. Not knowing who we stand for, not knowing whether we'll fight for who we think.

1:53:46Rahm Emanuel:The reason I'm going around in 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 stills and he has a$33 an 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.

1:54:28Rahm Emanuel:You actually have to feel the people that are under the intense pressure, not only have an agenda for them, but they're willing to take on and break some eggs to get it done. And our party hasn't. Just 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 haven't. 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 cul-de-sac going around in circles. We were off. The American people, when their back's against the wall, they expect Democrats to show up.

1:55:05Rahm Emanuel:They don't think Republicans will 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 deserve to spank it. And we got one. Rob Emanuel, great to see you again. Thanks for coming. yeah we solved all the world problems yeah we got it we're good Hormuz wide open alright

1:55:28that's our show for today thanks to Ram for stopping by and I'll be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation with none other than Hasan Piker that's right Ram Emanuel was here today Hasan 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 can complain all you want because I'm sure the clips can be everywhere. Much like Melania, I will not be taking any questions about my relationship with Hassan Piker. Who is this Hassan Piker fellow? I've never thinking about him recently.

1:56:05I don't know. I think he's a... Something about Twitch? I don't know. Twitch. Oh, Twitch, Twitch, Twitch. Anyway, have a good weekend, everyone. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review. That helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer.

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1:57:11Thank you.