BONUS: Ari Melber & Dylan Ratigan on Iran War, Wall Street & Molly Jong-Fast Fact-Checks Donald Trump’s Biggest Promises

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1:16Serious allergic reactions and severe eczema-like skin reactions may occur. Learn more at 1-844-COSENTICS or cosentics.com slash Cindy. Is the whole system rigged? The economic system, the way we live in the country today, and why are we at war with Iran? Is war even an acceptable way to carry out U.S. interests when we have so many options and so much power? And other big questions. That's what I want to get into right now with someone who I can call an old friend. Nice to see you, pal. Great to see you. Dylan Rattigan is a CNBC veteran. He's a financial expert. He was at Bloomberg. He's doing a lot of interesting CEO stuff.

1:56And on this B-side segment, I like to get, you know, casual. We got a little more time. You were just on the TV show, but now we're here in the studio. Let's just start with big picture. We'll get into the news. But if someone's watching this right now in 2026 or a year from now or even three years from now, big picture. Is the system, the economic system, especially for young people coming up today in America, is it rigged? Yes. Why? multiple mechanisms. I mean, the primary mechanism is the tax code. Okay. And so the tax code is controlled by the political interests that have the money to create prohibitively high taxes for people who work for money and relatively low taxes for people that own assets.

2:43And so in the United States, the primary rigging of the system is to the benefit of those who inherit or own assets at the expense of those who work to generate income. No one is punished more than somebody who works hard and has a high-paying job. Those people need to be taxed into oblivion, which is how the current American system is set. So a young person today comes into this workforce, they could be 18, could be 22 maybe coming out of community college or college, and they're being taxed like this at a point in their life when they most need to build up at least some safety nest egg and get to compounding.

3:16And you're saying the system's not letting them do that. Well, what? What happens with the rich? Well, the people that own things pay much lower taxes. And the worst thing you can do is if you're one of those 22, 24, 25, 26, 27-year-olds, and you hit the big time, and then you become a media executive or a fashion executive or a finance executive or a marketing executive, and you start making more and more and more money, that money is taxed the most aggressively of any money in the world. Rather than the... In other words, working hard and making money is something that we explicitly tax as high as possible.

3:48And inheriting money and owning things we tax as low as possible, which couldn't be more un-American. And you sound like a Wall Street critic, rightfully so. But you... I don't know if it's a Wall Street critic. I'm a government critic. The system. I mean, a lot of the Wall Street guys are... The government controls the tax code. But the Wall Street guys and the billionaires have an outsized interest on that tax code. They control the government. Right. So here's where I was going. The rigging. here's where i was going with that's how it works yet you've seen this on the inside i mean you don't have to is it pretty much pretty transparent i know but you are an insider heretic in a way i mean heretic is such a strong word bloomberg cnvc dealing with the politicians like i do in my job you've been inside it and you're over here i know but i also left the business when i know i bore witness to the to the horror does it not mean more that you can say this is bullshit not looking outside and they say, you're just mad you don't get to come in here, but actually from the inside, you were like in there talking to the CEO?

4:46I was inside and I was like, I got to get the hell out of here. Okay. Next topic. You look up and you say, okay, some terrible things are unavoidable. That's life. Some things are debatable. After 9-11, there was a range of debate about how the U.S. should respond. But a lot of people, especially in new york but really a lot of people said doing nothing was not acceptable and then you debate the options then you have things where you look up and you go united states with all the problems we have right now started a war in iran and if you're counting 20 countries have been implicated you got tankers on fire you got a hardline regime at least as of this moment in iran that replaced a hardline regime that we had someone who was 86 he wasn't gonna be around forever.

5:33What are we doing there? I know you feel strongly. I do feel strongly. So a couple of things. One, one of the great benefits of a constant barrage of aerial bombardment on Kiev over the last four years has been the optimization of the production of highly functional flying exploding drones for a very small price, which didn't exist four years ago. Yeah. And that is a substantial technological change in warfare. Okay. I would put it equivalent in terms of its application, although it's different, to nuclear weapons. The reason that I say that is once I introduce the possibility of setting up a quiver of 10 ,000 drones and teeing them off on any city in the world, Right.

6:31Where I can basically just take your iPhone and initiate a weather pattern that instead of a blizzard warning or a wind warning or a tornado warning, it's a drone warning and will probably be OK. But maybe a giant flying Volkswagen bus full of explosives will fly through the building and kill everybody like that is an unnecessary additional risk. I also think, and I mentioned this on your show, that Napoleon gets a lot of credit for at least going with his strongest men and himself to go ask to talk to the people in charge of the situation. As opposed to people that have a disagreement using remote control launching of this new technology at women and children, which is, for me, fundamentally unacceptable.

7:18And there's political science that backs that up, that the closer the cost of war is correlated with the decision makers of war, the less excessive, random, high-risk war you have, which is why the draft was a big issue in this country. And we see that elsewhere. And it is, it's a fun, we are saying something also fundamental when you think about, you know, lots changing, things are changing faster than they used to. as an accelerated change function in our tools, our technology, our media, now, of course, AI. And as that accelerates, you're talking about, and this is what's, it's hard to even get your arms around it in like most forums because then you start to sound a little.

7:57But just think about like this, where, what conflict in the world is it appropriate to resolve via indiscriminate aerial bombardment of women and children? Right, they're killing. So you can tell me, Arana, The most evil, dastardly regime in the history of the world. Okay. Accepted. Terrible, terrible, terrible. Or you can go down the list. Pick the devil. But whether you're somebody living in an apartment in Kiev, whether you're somebody living in an apartment in Tel Aviv, in Tehran, in Dubai, in Kuwait City, could easily be New York, could easily be Milan, could easily be London, could easily be San Francisco, could easily be Tokyo.

8:32My whole point is you've now introduced a new technology that allows you to rain down these drones in a way that did not exist until the last couple of years because of the war in Ukraine. You're talking about the ease of the access of... And the cost and the ease. Of technological barbarism. Yes. Did you read Lord of the Flies? I did not. I did not. Well, I have a spoiler. I mean, now anyone watching this, if you haven't read it and you're going to read it, spoiler. But you basically have the thing where these kids get shipwrecked and in a short amount of time they start fighting and eventually like killing each other.

9:03And then they're rescued and you sort of say, oh, these kids like they went, you know, crazy. Yeah, they're kids, but they went to became totally barbaric. And when they're rescued, they they take them off the island. There's this there's a whole bunch of plots to it. But and the adults at first in the book at the end are being are saying this is why they need supervision. I mean, you just can't have these kids without rules and a little bit of understanding of consequences, respect for each other, giving this little, I'm paraphrasing. And then as it widens out in the story, you see that it's the 1940s and they were rescued by a warship.

9:42And the cat's giving this kind of speech when in fact, while in organized rule of law societies, there is less violent crime as opposed to a thousand years ago. that is actually true at the global level as you just elucidated there is not less violence there's all this type of violence because at the global level we are like just kids resorting often quickly to violence and you sort of look at that and you say there's got to be a better way and also well you got a bit it's unacceptable indiscriminate aerial bombardment of cities that kills women and children cannot be considered an acceptable conflict resolution mechanism full stop all right now that you're chaser and then we're done then we're out of here dylan radigan i met this guy uh when i was practicing law and he would have me on his tv show and it was like 15 years ago remember i think it was longer okay uh and you've so i don't really remember this no i remember and you had an interesting story career this is how he really talks like this is how he talks fair i mean how do i talk you don't know how you talk i mean do i talk in a way that i talk yes i mean it's why before you had a career before you were on tv yeah but yes you speak with an intensity an acuity a precision a precision and a passion definitely a passion so what i like to do you know this is the b side this is my little extra okay how'd you see a moment when the b side becomes the a side never and we can talk about that's a different okay but before he before i let you divert me my question is for you please how'd you feel going from you were young and you're in you know the financial space then you're on a financial tv show do this thing now you got a little light perspective how'd that feel for you did you like developing your voice that way how do you feel media's changed so much but you've had this whole career and i just was how do i i think it might interest people i don't understand the question how did you feel getting your voice getting your show and how do you look at it now So I would say I was so young.

11:41How old were you? I was a host of my first television program when I was 27 at Bloomberg. Wow. That is young. Okay. And people are looking at you like you're the adult. Every morning. Yeah. For two hours. And that sort of went for 13 years, between 27 and 40. And I would say I was sort of subservient to the information, I would say, from 27 to 35, where I didn't consider myself to have a voice so much as I consider myself to be a translator or a transmission device to assimilate information and synthesize it in a way that was useful for people. I'm going to let you continue, but you're saying you, I didn't view myself as a prosecutor of a point of view.

12:23You were, you were using a skill to present listening and reading comprehension and then something, and then what happened? And then the financial crisis happened when I was 35 and I was hosting Fast Money. And at that point I'd had, you know, a 15 years experience, eight years experience as a host, but 15 years experience, including the time at Bloomberg Booking and running corporate finance and all the more sort of a job, job kind of things. Kind of like your legal career, I guess. Not that this is not a job, but it's not really a job. Come on. And so, you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying?

12:58I mean, I so disagree, but I'll let you continue. I mean, it's not a lot. Anyway. I find it harder than my law practice. Yeah, but go on. Okay. So when the financial crisis happened, it was so obvious to me that the solution was so clearly one that was a restoration of capital requirements, clawback of bonuses, penalty for the board, penalty for the CEO. Like, it's not that some of the other wrongs that were pointed out were not wrong, like people shouldn't have borrowed the money, all those things. But it's a Chris Rock thing, selective outrage, you know? And they use that selective outrage to sort of for political purposes.

13:32And then they completely protected the wealthy class. And and and it was the biggest thing. It's not like a pet issue where someone has a side thing and they've thought all about it. And you're like, I don't know. This was the biggest thing. And it it capsized the economy and it hurt so many people. And you're saying it was foundational by point of view. And it was there were available by resignation from CNBC. I mean, the reason that I left CNBC, you didn't think you could do it within the system. I knew that I couldn't. Yeah. And to Phil Griffin's credit, who was the CEO of this network at the time, he said, well, if you want to give them hell, come over here, which, you know, had its own sort of wrinkles to it ultimately.

14:12But to answer your question, I didn't come to having a sense of a point of view until I was 35, although I would say my first and still organizing principle to this day, and I think you have this as well, actually, very much. That's why I appreciate you is Mike Bloomberg very early on. I was probably 23 or 24 years old said, remember, when you work here, you don't work for me and you don't work for any of the ad sponsors. You work for the reader or the viewer. Yeah. So your job is to not make the guest feel better or your job is not to make the owner feel happy. your job is to get from the guest the most interesting information you can get whether it's in a broadcast environment like you're like you work in now or as a as a writer you work for the person watching or reading right and that was and still exists pretty much yeah that goes a lot to what is your foundation what are you trying to do like what is this all right lightning round is how we close three questions in a sentence or less the way to fix the system is

15:24rank choice voting and open primaries yeah he also ran for congress you want to talk about the whole bio I'm optimistic about the future because people are amazing and they want to live in a beautiful world. Huh. And one thing someone out there could do, if they want to get out there and do something, it could be what you did, it could be something else, but your advice, because you've done some things, your advice in a sense. Every time your mind has a reflex to criticize you, yourself internally or someone else, use that as a signal to be 1 % kinder to yourself and whoever's standing closest to you, whether you know them or not.

16:14Donald Trump's war in Iran is not going great in the third week. The tankers are on fire. Iran is holding down its plans for the long term. And he just had a top, Trump had a top official resign basically in protest saying he can't in good conscience support this war. So we get a lot going on. I'm Ari Melber, news anchor, journalist. This is the B-side. I'm on the news set, but we're going to get in a little deeper. I'm going to have Molly John Fass join us. And I just want to set up the conversation we're going to have. Molly's great, and so I think it's going to be interesting to hear her perspective.

16:44Here is the facts as we know them. Donald Trump is the least popular president in his second term that we've ever seen. Another way to say that is, if he were any less popular, he might not have gotten reelected. Usually second term is where presidents have done enough to win people over, and they're in, of course, the second round. Here, it's kind of the opposite. There was a break, there was COVID, people may have forgotten what Trump was like. And according to the public, again, if you just look at the polling, they're less happy with him than any president this early in a second term. There's also just a general rejection of the things that he claimed he'd do and he's failing to do.

17:20And so we have the economic malaise and that mood writ large, which is really different than politics. But of course, economics is always an undercurrent here. So if you look at the overall polling, you say, okay, he's very unpopular. You look specifically at bringing prices down, you see 80 % of the country, that's a lot of agreement, says affordability hasn't gotten better under Trump. And so that's one example, the forever wars, starting new interventions in wars is another example. But today I actually want to broaden out, we have a little extra time in this sort of format, and I'm going to bring in Molly, to say, well, how many of these vows did he blow through?

17:57And how much does that matter for the politics in the moment we're in? Welcome. Thank you. John Fast. How are you doing? Thank you for having me. Nice to see you. Great to have you. We're in the place we do TV. This is the B-side, so we get into it. We made a list. I like showing my work. I wanted to add to him because... It's very cool to have a list. As you know, news is about what's new. We look at the story of the day. Some of the stories today I mentioned our Iran. Right. A type of risk of a forever war that Trump absolutely campaigned against doing. But then there's more. And so I want to get your thought big picture.

18:32And then I'm going to read through some of these because anyone can start with what they like or don't like. Maybe you like this politician. Maybe you like that politician. But this level, this is like a bonkers level of broken promises. You know, George Bush, it was like no new taxes. That was like the one. And then he did a new tax and people were mad about that. There's so many. And on the one hand, it's not a shocker if you follow politics that Trump lies a lot. People who like Trump are like, oh, yeah, we're in on it. And then you have an Epstein or something and they don't feel in on it.

19:01Trump's critics and journalists and factual people know he lies a lot. But this goes beyond lying. So your thoughts, big picture on that, because Epstein, Iran, prices, a lot of what we're living through right now is not just, oh, you're you're struggling to govern. It's like, this is all the stuff you promised not to do. Yeah. I mean, it's almost as if, you know, it's funny because like politicians lie. They do on the left, on the right. They lie. But what Donald Trump always did, and it worked for him really well, was he would say stuff that he couldn't possibly do. Right. Like, I'm going to make eggs cheaper or even the bacon, the weave.

19:36I'm going to, you know, he'd do this thing about how he's going to make bacon cheap. Right. Bacon cheaper. And it was ultimately undoable, right? Inflation is very hard for presidents to reverse. But instead, what's happened is he's done the actual opposite. So, for example, bombing Iran, you knew that the Straits of Hormuth would be implicated, right? Anyone who's read a book knew that that was their ace in the hole. Right. If you were going to start bombing them, that was going to be the thing that they would clamp down on, and that would affect 20 percent of all oil and gas. Ergo, that would mean that oil and gas would get more expensive because 20 percent of it would be offline.

20:19And that's with so many of these promises you see. It's not that he didn't keep them. It's that he actually did the opposite. Yeah, doing the opposite, which is like you're making a point that failing to get the thing done is one level. Right. Going and doing the opposite proactively is worse. Yeah. And so we broke this down in two terms. I'm just going to read through some of these because it is striking that in the first term, he had some vows. Yeah. And he seemed to try to do some of them. So just, and everyone will remember these, but again, a lot's happened. There's overlapping because it's the same precedent at two different terms.

20:55But first term big ones were build the wall. No. Build the wall feels like, by the way, that feels like another century. Obamacare repeal. No. Yeah. But then tax cuts. Yeah. Travel ban. Yes. Narrowed in the courts a little conservative judges. Yeah. Big time. Right. National infrastructure. No. That's first term. And again, this is separate from whether you like or oppose those ideas. But they have to be that effort. Yeah. When you get to second term and I'll let you respond to this. But this is, again, just a list. Big picture. Deport criminals are only the bad guys. No. Try to do hardline immigration.

21:32Yes. So you can call that mixed. Drain the swamp. No. This is documented the most corruption. We've never had a president with this many side hustles. Right. Reform DEI. Yes. Tariffs. Yes. But then failed because they've been pausing the course. Then end Russia, Ukraine quickly. No. Stop forever wars. No. And he is starting new interventions. Right. So the opposite. Right. Epstein files released. No, he fought it all year. Then Congress passed it over a veto proof majority and lower prices. No. And that's just some. But when you look at the second term, you say it seems like. He's not even trying to look like he's doing any of the things he promised.

22:18Yeah. And I think when you look at the forever wars issue, this is an administration that never even tried to sell the Iran war. Right. They didn't even try. And that was sort of, I think, jarring to a lot of the MAGA base. Like there wasn't even a sort of like a little bit of a low key, like, here's why we're doing it. There was just nothing like this was our idea. We wanted to do it. And later they came out and they sort of tried to explain why you had Marco say Israel. You had reporting that said maybe Saudi Arabia wanted it. But none of this was like why it's good for America. And if you're the America first president, you should at least try to make some kind of case as to why you would do this for America.

23:01Well, it's war. It's not brunch. Right. Where like four people meet up and you're like, why are we? I thought you wanted to be. No, I don't even like this place. Why not? I thought Julie wanted. No. You realize you all ended up somewhere. Nobody picked it. This is war. And so to your point, yes, they haven't defined that. And then you look at this and you say, there are laws of gravity. Trump got fewer votes in 16. They got shellacked in the blue wave in 18. And then he lost in 20. covid biden harris you had a whole unusual period of events and he comes back and wins and i noticed if you've seen this in a lot of different places people the shockwave of 16 weirdly repeated in 24 people oh my god so he won so that must mean xyz that must mean he has this big support and had he governed differently who knows but now you're here and you say every big thing from prices which people care about to forever wars that people are learning about and they're seeing the gas spike uh to epstein files all the big things he's not doing it how much do you think that drags them down going into the midterms which is different than saying uh you're incompetent right or you didn't achieve your goals right this is sort of like i saw a tiktok where somebody was making fun of it and they showed like it had like making fun of a maga podcaster and the person was being like i don't understand like so he's never meant any of it and if you're a critic you're like duh Yeah.

24:23But actually, that's what happens in politics. Not everyone's into it. Like, do you think this matters going forward? Well, and also remember where he grew his coalition. Young people, the manosphere, the Joe Rogan people. And then the question is, is Joe Rogan doing that because he's having an awakening or is Joe Rogan doing that because he sees that his base is like what? Right. Thermometer or thermostat. Right. And I think that's really important. But also, look, I'm back to war is not brunch. That is, by the way, put that on my because it's really important. But and then you have the question of the second.

25:00And brunch is not war. That's certainly true. No, it really works both. Getting a tape. No. Anyway, I kid. But I think the question when you look at this is the second order effects, too, because you have maybe troops coming in. You have these cities around Iran where they're being bombed. You have the death of civilians, a few civilians. But still, that's death. Oh, yeah. And I think and then so you have things more expensive. You have supply chain issues besides that, like fertilizer, all sorts of other things go to the street, too. And I just think that you really chose a real lack of planning.

25:38And by the way, you have these press conferences where Donald Trump is saying, like, he's baking other countries for help. Well, that was that's really week three. Right. Because in the first two weeks, they made a big point of basically two countries taking out all this material and the intelligence and the military. We've had a lot of guests who say, hey, military is really effective because look at what they can do. And that's true. Yeah. But killing is easier than winning. Right. And so you have a Pentagon that can kill. Right. And then you say, OK, well, you got the new leader. You got the replacements.

26:09You got this country. And now you go, oh, you need help. You need allies on the on the economic front and the trade front and the shipping routes. And Trump goes, oh, we'll call him and beg him now. And it's like, but you didn't involve them three weeks ago. It's very much like Fisher Price, like my first geopolitical challenge. And you're like, yeah, this was foreseeable. And again, if people say, oh, well, that's his emotion, that's his ego. You're like, OK, but this isn't a debate like this isn't like, oh, Trump will be Trump. Those are words. No, we've got American soldiers dying and more at risk as long as we're in this.

26:42So if you could save American lives by having done a little policy planning, you should have. And and also like the other Republicans who got us into Gulf War one and Gulf War two both did that. I mean, you may not be fans of theirs, but they went to Europe and they went to, you know, Bush to had the coalition of the willing. It wasn't everybody, but they got a few people in there. And remember, this is Donald Trump, who recently was saying he was going to go into Greenland. yeah um i wanted to lighten up before we get out of here uh how have you felt being you've been embraced by the ms now audience five years ago you weren't on all the time now you're on all the time um do you have any way that that affects you while you think about this i'm going to give you a token of our appreciation oh good you've seen the white lighters on the show maybe yes We like lighters on the beat.

27:33Yes. We now have a limited edition Sippo. And Molly, while you think about it, I want you to share with people how it's been. Because I know you meet, the viewers are on the other side of this, whichever platform. YouTube, TV, social, TikTok. I'm sure people come up to you, right? Yes. So I'm curious how that's affected you, how you're feeling about that. You're out and about. I'm just curious. People sometimes are interested in that before I let you out of here. And as you see, it says the beat. So cool. And you filled it up already? Yeah. Amazing. In fact, here on the Beat team, my colleague Mariah filled it up for you.

28:09So you can thank both of us. But this is for you. Thank you. Well, an already filled lighter with a fancy lighter. That's amazing. I love my MSNBC family. I really do. And I, you know, it's some of the best people. Really smart. What's the most common thing you get if somebody comes up to you? What do you hear? They like me. And it's really great. Just something nice and they like you. That's it? Nothing else? No, well, they'll say, you know, you always say something smart and a little counterintuitive. Oh, okay. And I really, I listen. And I always listen. And get questions? Are there any questions you get?