Trump WH Fears Iran War is "Consuming" his Presidency

0:00Watch Disclosure Day at home now with exclusive bonus features. If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? Well, now the truth belongs to 7 billion people in an original event film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Koepp starring Emily Blunt, Josh O 'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Coleman Domingo. Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now with no subscription required. Also in theaters. Hi, I'm Daniel, founder of Pretty Litter. Cats and cat owners deserve better than any old-fashioned litter. That's why I teamed up with scientists and veterinarians to create Pretty Litter.

0:40Its innovative crystal formula has superior odor control and weighs up to 80 % less than clay litter. Just one bag lasts up to a month, meaning fewer refills and less scooping. Pretty Litter even monitors health by changing colors to help detect early signs of potential illness. It's the world's smartest kitty litter. Go to prettylitter.com and use code PANDORA for 20 % off your first order. Welcome to The Beat. I'm Melissa Murray in for Ari Melber. And we begin tonight with new reports of an unhinged Donald Trump fuming in the Oval Office about the Iran war. And the mood is ominous for D.C. Republicans who are bracing for a summer recess where, on the eve of the midterm elections, they will have to face disgruntled constituents in town halls.

1:25Today, the Wall Street Journal reports that at a recent White House meeting, Trump, quote, launched into a tirade against Iranian leaders, calling them scumbags and lunatics and unleashing a series of expletives. According to the Journal, Trump was, quote, increasingly frustrated that a conflict he once thought would be over in a matter of weeks has dragged on with no end in sight. There have now been 13 days of strikes, and as of tonight, the Strait of Hormuz remains choked. Trump is now apparently eyeing a potential, quote, massive attack, despite having already declared victory. On Fox News, an analyst compared Trump's premature claim of victory to President George W.

2:13Bush's appearance before a mission accomplished banner six weeks into the Iraq war. Take a listen. If you think about March 2026, when President Trump was in Kentucky, he said in the first hour it was over, but we won. I hate to say this, but that's like a mission accomplished moment. Right now, it doesn't feel like we have an exit strategy. Yesterday was a brutal day for America with the dignified transfers. The Wall Street Journal reports, quote, Some of Trump's advisers now worry that the war, which has resulted in higher prices, falling approval ratings and the deaths of more than a dozen U.S.

2:52service members, is consuming his presidency and damaging Republicans' already dim prospects in the coming midterm elections. And the proof is at the pump. Despite a short-lived dip, oil prices have roared back. Oil is now at above$100 a barrel. Undeterred by these flagging economic signals, Trump has renewed his global trade war. Tariffs went into effect on over 80 countries, and economists say that these tariffs will likely fuel higher prices. Today, Politico reports that congressional Republicans, who are returning to their districts for the summer recess, will now face a, quote, grueling summer.

3:35One GOP lawmaker saying, quote, we have a hell of a lot of work to do. Meanwhile, Democratic campaigns are hoping for chaotic GOP town halls events, as we have seen in the past. Take a look. Why do you continue to protect the pedophiles and Trump's DOJ as they continue to break the law? What are you going to do about the rampant corruption occurring all over the Trump administration? How much did Doge save the taxpayers? I'll fact check you. How can your morals let you fall into like with Trump?

4:23Joining me now to break it all down is David Litt, former Obama speechwriter, author of the Word Salad Substack, and a best-selling author. Also with us is Michelle Goldberg, columnist with the New York Times and an MSNOW political analyst. David, the president is reportedly fuming in the Oval Office about Iran's leaders. Is it finally dawning on him that he can't really bluff and lie his way out of this conflict? I think that is a very optimistic take in a strange way. Generous. Yes, the idea that this would finally be dawning on Donald Trump. I think we may have to wait a long time for such a revelation.

5:00But I think that what is happening is actually in a strange way, you're seeing a theory, a political theory, crash into reality. And J.D. Vance articulated it. He said, in the past, we had presidents like George W. Bush, right? They fought dumb wars because we had dumb people in charge. The idea was if you put Donald Trump in charge, everything will go great because Donald Trump is great. Now, I suspect that those of us at this table maybe were skeptics of that theory. But I think in the White House, you had proponents and now Donald Trump himself is saying, how come it's not working? I mean, you know, I hope they have a mirror in the Oval Office.

5:33I think there are probably lots of gold in the Oval Office, and they can probably see their reflections there. But Michelle, George W. Bush never really lived down that Mission Impossible moment. That stuck with him throughout two terms. Is this going to be something that the president can't live down in the waiting days of his presidency? I mean, I don't think we should ever predict about what's going to stick to Donald Trump, right? I mean, there's, you know, kind of like a whole avalanche of scandals and ignominy that should have weighed him down by now. I do think that, you know, you see in the poll numbers that even people who voted for him three times are starting to realize that he has, you know, kind of created this disastrous situation that and he's flailing to get out and cannot.

6:16And at the very moment when people had this felt like there was going to be this this respite with the memorandum of understanding and gas prices going down, you know, because it was negotiated in such a slapdash, haphazard way to kind of save face, but not actually accomplish anything. thing, it's now predictably fallen apart. And, you know, all the kind of the economic forces that finally made Donald Trump scramble to get this thing done are all still there. Right. So the economic forces are all coalescing. So we're seeing gas prices roar back. Now there are new tariffs, which will likely fuel higher prices across many different sectors.

6:57Has the president reckoned with the fact that these new economic treasures may make it harder for Republicans going into the midterms? I think it's a really interesting question. Does Donald Trump really care about Republicans in the midterms? I think he doesn't want to get impeached. I think he would like to not get investigated. But he also he has this YOLO presidency going on, right? He wants to do what he wants to do, first and foremost. And I think if you look at some of the promises that he made, he said he would bring grocery prices down on day one. He said we would have$2 a gas, sorry,$2 a gallon gas right now.

7:32And so I think you see people looking at those promises, and those are not broken promises in a big abstract sense. You walk into the grocery store, you fill up your car, you can see the broken promise, and you can see the people who have been writing this president a blank check. Speaking of the people who are writing blank checks, these Republicans have to head home to their districts for the summer recess, and they're going to face their constituents in town hall. Well, we'll see if they do face their constituents because, right, some of these Republicans have just handled this by refusing to face their constituents.

7:59Right. So some may bail out. Some may have to. Some are facing re-election and are going to have to have campaign events as they head home. Is this going to be a Bananarama cruel summer for those Republicans? God willing. I mean, I would assume. I said Bananarama because I know you would know exactly what I'm talking about. Not a Taylor Swift cruel summer. Right. No, I mean, I would assume so because, I mean, people are furious. I mean, they have been furious for a long time, but the outrage keeps on building and the mechanisms of accountability are so broken that one of the very few things that are left are when people have the opportunity to confront their representatives in person.

8:42So, David, what will that look like for those Republicans who do choose to face their constituents? They're going to get a grill. I think that's right. I mean, I think to your point, I think a lot of Republicans are going to say, hey, Donald Trump didn't do debates. Everyone said he has to do debates and he got away with it. Maybe I'll just, you know, spend a nice time on vacation this August. I also think, though, that they are going to have a tough time. Even compared to 2018, the extent to which viral clips at a town hall can travel. Yeah. Things move a lot faster. And I do think that the Democrats and the sort of left of center media is better at figuring out how to get those clips viral than it was the last time there was a midterm election when Trump was in charge.

9:23This could really have an impact. So, Michelle, speaking of things traveling faster than perhaps these representatives and senators would like, take a listen to some of these clips. These are multiple GOP congressmen who were asked if they thought Donald Trump had done anything wrong. Listen to their answers. Has the president done anything so far this term that you just definitely disagree with? No, I think he's done a great job. His policies are great. He's done right for the country. I agree with the president 99.9 % of the time. You know, I'm not running for re-election, so I'm happy to say, no, he hasn't.

9:56I'd have to sit there and think about it. And I just can't think of anything off the top of my head. I'm not running for re-election. That's a he-admitted moment. What do you make of that? Like, they refuse to see anything wrong with the way anything has been handled. are they going to catch it with their constituents? Well, I think it depends on who their constituents are, right? Because they're certainly, I mean, even though Donald Trump is very, very unpopular, he is still very popular with Donald Trump voters. Right. And so, you know, we've seen again and again that Republican primary electorates do not tolerate very much deviation from, you know, the sort of MAGA gospel, which has, you know, put Republicans in this difficult position because to break with Donald Trump alienates their base and to cling to Donald Trump alienates everybody else.

10:48All right, so David, there is one person who seems to have broken a little bit with Donald Trump. Take a listen to this interview that Elon Musk gave where he said he, quote unquote, got carried away with politics. Take a listen. You spend a lot of money on Donald Trump's reelection. After the election, you got very actively involved. Through Doge, you tried to cut a lot of spending. Do you regret getting so involved in politics? Do you think it was a good thing to do? I think I got a little too involved in politics, got carried away, frankly. Have we all gotten carried away at this point? Well, I do think we've all gotten carried away.

11:24We're living in a carried away time. But if you look at what, to me, the most remarkable thing about that answer is this is a guy who still runs a social media website, spends most of his time just trying to make racism cool again. and the rest of his time he's making anti-immigrant sentiment cool again, right? Nativism cool again. And so the idea that he's not still carried away with politics is, I mean, I think he's right. But I almost, again, we started off talking about maybe the profound implications of looking in the mirror and maybe Elon should be the one listening to that answer and thinking, I'm still a little carried away.

12:01A little bit, a little bit. All right, David Litt, Michelle Goldberg, thanks for getting us started tonight. Coming up, why Trump's DOJ now has to worry about the sheep detectives test for future attacks on the media. We're going to explain. Plus, pop superstar Olivia Rodrigo takes the stage for women's rights. Hey, I'm Olivia Rodrigo, and today I am here at the Center for Reproductive Rights, and I am going to learn from their lawyers about the fight for reproductive freedom. And late night comics are roasting Donald Trump for his Pinky Herman attack on a popular Democratic senator. He reminds me of Pinky Herman.

12:42Did you ever see Pinky Herman? Who the f*** is Pinky Herman?

12:49Is that some mobster from Queens who took you under his wing? We are back in just 90 seconds.

13:04Now to troubling new questions about whether Donald Trump's Pentagon is trying to hide and distort information about the Iran war. The New York Times points out that the number of U.S. troop deaths in the war suddenly appeared lower on the Pentagon website this week. The figure dropped from 18 listed on Wednesday to 14 listed on Thursday. Three military officials tell the Times that one reason behind the change was that the Trump administration decided to remove four service members who were killed this past weekend from the list because their deaths occurred after Trump declared the April ceasefire.

13:42Officially, the Pentagon attributes the change to, quote, temporary data disruptions. But this is not an isolated example. The Times notes that, quote, Since the ceasefire collapse, the Pentagon has provided little information about the American military strategy and has been slow to release information about troops' injuries. Several U.S. officials, who spoke to the Times on the condition of anonymity, say, quote, The Pentagon withheld information about three Iranian strikes last week in Jordan that injured dozens of U.S. service members and damaged several helicopters. The Pentagon disputes this reporting and has now acknowledged that nearly 100 troops have been injured in the last two weeks.

14:28Joining me now to discuss is Max Boot, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and columnist for The Washington Post. So, Max, what do you make of this report about the Pentagon perhaps playing a little fast and loose with these data and about the price of this war? Are we facing an agency that is refusing to be transparent with the American people about what we've gotten ourselves into? I'm kind of reminded of the Vietnam War phrase, credibility gap, except I'm not even sure that applies because I'm not sure the Hexeth Pentagon has any credibility to begin with. Remember, this is an organization that claims to be called one thing, but it's actually called something else because it's actually still the Department of Defense.

15:10But they insist on calling themselves the Department of War, which was not authorized by Congress. So their very name is a lie, and they have been anything but transparent over the course of this conflict. President Trump didn't even really explain to the American people why he was launching this war on February 28th. And then there was another dodge when he signed the ceasefire and the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran. And then he said, OK, the War Powers Act no longer applies because there's a 60-day deadline. The war is over. Now, clearly, the war has restarted, but he's pretending it's a separate war.

15:41It's like we fought one war against Iran, and then we started another war. No, it's the same war. I mean, there is no credibility, no strategy, and no exit strategy. So, Secretary Hegseth faced senators this week. Here's some statements that he made that he was asked a lot of questions about. Take a listen. On April 8th, you said, and I quote, Their missile program has functionally destroyed. Launchers, production facilities, and existing stockpiles depleted and decimated and almost completely ineffective. Mr. Secretary, Iran has been firing at U.S. military bases in the region and ships for the last week.

16:20How is it possible if their capabilities were, quote, functionally destroyed three months earlier, as she claimed, for them to be doing this now? Senator, Iran is at the weakest point militarily it has ever been in in the past decade. All right. Speaking of the credibility gap, how should he have answered that question? What would have been a better answer that would have both been something that his overseer, the president, would have found plausible, but also would have been responsive and would have been a little more transparent? You know, gosh, I can't presume to give messaging advice to Pete Hexoth.

16:57My advice would be to have been straight with the American people from the get-go, which clearly they were not because Trump and Hexoth were making these grandiose claims about how Iran has been defeated. The Strait of Formos is open. Their military has been destroyed, kind of similar to Trump last summer, saying that their nuclear program was obliterated. And then, you know, less than a year later, saying, oh, we have to bomb them to stop the nuclear program. None of it adds up. They have no credibility. So, you know, that's part of the reason why less than a third of Americans support this war, because they don't know why it's being fought.

17:28They don't trust the messaging they're getting. And they're not seeing any positive outcome from this. In fact, far from getting weaker, Iran is getting stronger because they now control the Strait of Hormuz. Their allies, the Houthis, control the Bab al-Mandab Strait. They're seeing oil prices shoot up. And by the way, Republicans' midterm prospects falling at the same time because the American people are not happy about this. The president keeps circling back, though, to Iran's potential nuclear capabilities as a justification for this war. But the New York Times reports that U.S. intelligence believes that the new Iranian leader is actually more open to pursuing a nuclear weapon than his father and predecessor.

18:06What do you make of that and how does this shape the narrative around the war if we've actually put in place a new regime that's more apt to use nuclear power? Well, it's clear that this war is a fiasco that has backfired 10 ways to Sunday. The most immediate way it's backfired is that Iran has seized control of the Strait of Hormuz, which they did not have on February 27th. But now, you know, if this New York Times reporting is accurate, what it's suggesting is that Israel and the United States killed the old Ayatollah, who was extremist but also fairly cautious. And now they've put into power a new Ayatollah who may be just as extremist but less cautious.

18:42That's not a good tradeoff. We're not achieving any positive outcome with this war. It's backfiring. It's blowing up in our face. We need to get out of it. But Trump doesn't know how to get out of it. All right. Max Boot, thanks for joining us and for those insights. Later, how the president confused Pee Wee Herman with Pinky Herman and got crushed on late night television. Also, Olivia Rodrigo goes after right-wing misinformation on abortion. I have a special guest with War on That. Plus, we will talk to an Epstein survivor who is trying to stop Attorney General Todd Blanche's confirmation. And as Trump targets press freedom, renowned journalist Barbara Starr, who has experience staring down Trump's DOJ, will join us.

19:26That's all after the break. Watch Disclosure Day at Home now with exclusive bonus features. If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? Well, now the truth belongs to 7 billion people in an original event film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Koepp starring Emily Blunt, Josh O 'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Coleman Domingo. Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now with no subscription required, also in theaters. Here's what happened when one journalist reported on DEI programs. I decided to just focus on the University of Michigan.

20:07I obtained internal documents that showed that the school had spent about a quarter of a billion dollars on DEI programs. I spent two weeks in Ann Arbor talking to everybody I could find. The unintended consequences of these programs, they had sort of left everybody dissatisfied. And this expensive machinery the school had built just imploded. If you're a journalist, you are not on anyone's team. All you're trying to do is figure out as many of the facts as you can gather. The facts are going to guide you to where the story lands. You're not taking sides. I'm Nick Confessori. I'm an investigations reporter for The New York Times.

20:46Journalists like Nick follow the facts wherever they lead. They go where news breaks, get answers firsthand, and publish what they find. That's fact-based reporting. Seek it out if you don't already. Ever since I was young, I've watched people working hard, chasing opportunity, making sacrifices, doing everything they can to build a better life. And now we're shining a light on what matters most. Our economy, our national identity, our democracy, our future. The stakes have never been higher. It's all On The Line. On The Line with Alicia Menendez. Weekdays at 12 p.m. Eastern on MSNOW.

21:35Tonight, Donald Trump will meet the press again. He is speaking at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Aides say his speech will be, quote, unifying yet vicious. Okay. The speech comes amid the president's broader attack on the media. and just one day after the administration suffered a stinging defeat in court. Yesterday, Trump's DOJ withdrew its subpoenas against New York Times journalists and one of the most humiliating and embarrassing oral arguments legal experts have ever heard. In open court, DOJ lawyers were forced to admit that they flubbed that case over and over and over again. At various times, the lawyers said, that was an error, a mistake, an oversight, not correct.

22:26The wording was imprecise. We should have been more precise. The lawyers also conceded that they had made an inadvertent error, had caused an inadvertent failure. And when asked if they regretted not following proper procedure for cases of that type, they agreed, saying, quote, in hindsight, yes, we should have done it. Absolutely brutal. The judge also referenced one of the more surreal aspects of the case, its connection to the new children's film, Sheep Detectives. At one point, the judge admonished the DOJ lawyers, noting, quote, we're not going to have situations where, for instance, someone's watching sheep detectives and FBI agents show up at their door, right?

23:13The DOJ responded sheepishly, Yes, Judge. The exchange was, of course, a reference to this clip from one of the subpoenaed Times reporters. Take a listen. My family and I had sat down to watch Sheep Detectives, a murder mystery. And right as we were about to find out from the sheep who had committed the murder, I get a call. The agents wouldn't say what the concern was. This is not something that is supposed to happen with reporters. The judge then scolded the DOJ lawyers in a tone that should be familiar to both parents and misbehaving children. The judge starts with, so, are you going to do this again?

24:05And the DOJ says, no, Your Honor, absolutely not. The judge then says, Moving forward, we're not going to have the types of issues that have plagued this case from the outset. Fair? The DOJ says, Correct, judge. Joining me now to break all of this down is Barbara Starr, CNN's longtime Pentagon correspondent and the author of the Barbara Starr reports on Substack. Barbara has written about how the first Trump DOJ tried to seize her emails and phone records, And we know how that ended with Barbara ahead of the DOJ. Barbara, I don't know if you were watching Sheep Detectives or not, but you've been through this with the Trump administration.

24:48What's your take on how this case has unfolded? And specifically, were you surprised that the subpoenas here went to the journalists rather than to the New York Times as an entity? I was. I was quite surprised. I mean, I think every American should be quite concerned that the federal government may knock on your door and hand you a grand jury subpoena simply because they don't like something you said, you wrote, you recorded, a conversation you had. This is pretty flimsy stuff, by all accounts, to do it on that basis. I mean, typically the policy at least has been if the government is pursuing a leak investigation, they go as far down the road as trying to find the leaker without trying to attack the news media.

25:39Didn't happen in my case and didn't happen in these cases. This is very, very dangerous business, very concerning in terms of preserving the First Amendment. And I guess I would say I take very small comfort in the fact that the judge has had the government withdraw these subpoenas because I think it's very clear it's going to happen again. Trump wants to attack the media. He's going to find a way to do it. I just want to sort of make this plain for our viewers. Typically, as you've described, the standard would be for the government to first pursue the leak in-house, like look in the government's own wheelhouse to find out where the leak is coming from before going to the media to force the media to reveal confidential sources.