Trump's War Problems Multiply: Gas Spike, Defense Budget, F-15 Shot Down

0:00Emily Bazelon:With Uber's new women preferences, women riders can request a woman driver whenever they want. Like Amy, who's traveling solo in a city she's never been to before. Or Danielle, who works night shifts at the hospital. Or Kelly and Jana, who were way overdue for a night out. Because sometimes comfort comes from having another woman with you. Request women drivers with women preferences on Uber. Learn more on the Uber app. Shipping, billing, admin, payroll, marketing. You're managing all the things. So why waste time sending important documents the old-fashioned way? Mail and ship when you want, how you want with Stamps.com.

0:42Emily Bazelon:Print postage on demand 24-7 and schedule pickups from your office or home. Save up to 90 % with automated rate shopping. That's why over 1 million small businesses trust Stamps.com. Go to Stamps.com and use code PODCAST to try Stamps.com risk-free for 60 days. Welcome to The Beat. I'm Ari Melber. We begin following this breaking news. Right now, U.S. force is searching for the missing second crew member of this F-15 fighter jet that was shot down over Iran. One crew member rescued and is now, we can report safely, in American custody. But the other crew member remains missing. We have these images from social media that show some of the search operations.

1:22The F-15 is the first jet shot down by Iran that we know of during the course of this war that President Trump started that has been an air war. The New York Times is reporting the second combat plane also, a second combat plane, crashed in the region that was earlier today, but that pilot was safely rescued. The A-10 Warthog attack plane went down near the Strait of Hormuz about the same time that an Air Force F-15E was shot down over Iran, the paper reports. The warthog was hit by Iran, the journal notes, according to people familiar. MSNOW has not independently confirmed this. We can tell you, though, that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as recently as three weeks ago, was asserting, as a matter of U.S.

2:02observation or intelligence, a claim that looks quite different tonight, that Iran's air forces and defenses, he said, had basically been destroyed. Iran has no air defenses. Iran has no air force. Iran has no navy. their missiles, their missile launchers and drones being destroyed or shot out of the sky. Most Americans supporting anything that keeps our troops safe would like that to be true. That sounds like a positive. But as with so many other issues with the Trump administration in general, and certainly with the propaganda around this war, the question is, is that good thing true? And if not, was Mr.

2:42Hegseth saying something he knew to be untrue, another lie in war, or was he mistaken? And now we are seeing very tragically, perhaps, what happens when those claims don't add up, when Iran might be stronger than we were told over time. The details of how the F-15 was shot down remain unclear tonight. CNN reports their U.S. intelligence assessments that indicate Iran has missile launching capacity and that it could be essentially significant. For example, they note that roughly half of Iran's missile launchers are still intact. Thousands of one-way attack drones remain in the arsenal. All this is happening days after Trump, of course, gave what was, by any historical account, the latest national address for explaining the start of a war ever.

3:23Now, it was pitched as a kind of a communications process that he wanted to reboot what has clearly been a flagging effort. Some would call it just incomplete or even lazy. We've never seen the United States start a new war and not have the president address the country before and at the day one of said war. Now, he asserted then that it would be about two to three weeks and we would be through this. Of course, saying that would seem to give a deadline to the enemy, something that the administration had previously said they didn't really want to do. And it also raises the questions about what are the terms on which the United States is willing to end a war that many Americans oppose, that they don't feel is strategically necessary.

4:03And yet, because of Trump's decision, has now changed the energy, economic, and strategic position of the United States in the region. U.S. military is building up forces to at least threaten credibly or deliver a ground assault. Iran is getting ready, the journal reports, with preparations that include drives to recruit millions of Iranians, including children, hardening defenses on Karg Island, boosting guided missile systems and laying mines along the coastline, who will be trapping facilities. All of the things that Americans, whether you are a foreign policy and news junkie or someone who just sort of keeps an eye on this every couple of years, these are all things that Americans remember from the long involved, protracted presence of American troops in our past Middle East wars.

4:49The fact that we have a mighty military that is really the envy of the world is, again, according to U.S. national security, a good thing. But whether having a mighty military guarantees you short-term victory or geostrategic and political regime change in countries where the U.S. is an occupier and people are fighting for their lives, freedom, liberty, and way of life, we have learned the occupier's lesson repeatedly. Indeed, Donald Trump broke the vows he made in the 2024 campaign to not be an occupier and start so-called forever wars. Amnesty says Iran is recruiting children as young as 12.

5:25That would be a war crime. The White House now says the cost will top one and a half trillion dollars. That's a 40 percent hike. The news tonight at this hour on the search is that they are looking for the second crew member from the F-15 shot down over Iran. NBC reports U.S. helicopters involved in that search also already came under fire. The Iranian forces, but they believe everyone on board is safe. So that is the emergency operation here with everyone in America, of course, concerned about the wherewithal and the health safety of these people fighting on our behalf under the Trump administration's orders and the larger questions about where we stand in this war for U.S.

6:04objectives. That is how we begin our Friday evening news program. And I want to bring in General McCaffrey, retired four-star Army general and MSNOW analyst and Ambassador Ross, expert in Mideast affairs. He's worked in the Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations. For both of our guests here, obviously, we are balancing the import of this emergency operation. And also, I'll start with you, General, where the United States stands on our strategic goals. Are we going in the right direction, in your view, and anything you can tell us about this kind of search and rescue? Well, you know, it's an odd situation.

6:38The U.S. and IDF Air Power has achieved a devastatingly successful air campaign. 10 ,000 or plus targets. Essentially, we've lost a couple of aircraft, enemy fire, a bunch more on the ground in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere. It's been an incredible performance. And to put in historical context, in Vietnam, we lost 3 ,700 aircraft. to enemy action. We lost 4 ,000 some odd helicopters. So I think by and large, the air campaign, air naval campaign has been successful. But again, you know, you're flying a F-15E, 1 ,500 miles an hour, enemy aircraft, any aircraft fire from the ground, just heavy machine guns, 50 caliber machine guns, big sky, little bullet can hit an aircraft and bring it down.

7:36So it's not without its perils. And the current search and air rescue attempt in Iran is extremely perilous. There's a very complex, very well-trained, expensive capability the Air Force maintains to go in and get down pilots. That's what's working now. But it involves putting AC-130s and air-to-air refueling of Black Hawk helicopters and these heroic Air Force pararescue people on the ground. So again, it's a war. These people are trying to kill our troops, and it's a lot of risk. The big risk, though, is strategic. The straits are closed. We're not going to be able to go in and get ATU fissile material out of Esfahan on the ground.

8:27That would be Khe San in Vietnam, 5 ,000, 10 ,000 troops on the ground. We're not going to be able to capture Karg Island. It's 400 miles to sail the amphibious ships up the Persian Gulf under fire. So Mr. Trump didn't think through this. Strategically, he's in a box. Ambassador? Well, I think, look, General McCaffrey put his finger on what is the most strategically important element in this war, which is who controls the Strait of Hormuz. We can weaken Iran dramatically, which we have. As General McCaffrey said, the military campaign by the U.S. and the Israelis, by any measure, is extraordinary in terms of its success.

9:15The only measure in which it's not a success is that you create a political measure for it as opposed to a military measure for it. The Klausowitz said, war is the extension of politics by other means, meaning war is an instrument, a tool, a means. It is not an end. If this war ends and Iran is in control of the Straits of Hormuz, meaning it controls 20 % of the world's oil, and it controls as much as a third of the world's fertilizer, then you have all countries in the world that are somehow dependent on that, capable or susceptible to being blackmailed. Think about just all the, looking at the map, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain.

10:05If the only way they can export is by getting the Iranians to approve it, think of how the Iranians will manipulate that control. How about the same for our allies? It's fine and good for the president to say they depend on the oil. We don't. Well, the irony is if you have one pool of oil worldwide and you reduce it by 20 percent, then everybody bids up the price. So the fact is we do depend on it. Even if you say we don't get our oil from there because it affects the world's supply of oil, it affects the price that we pay. if they're an ambassador you've you've warned that with the president now floating timelines like two to three weeks if they don't get the straight back in two to three weeks and that were real meaning if you took the president his word and we left in this condition then you warn that could be a geostrategic benefit for iran that after all this and and the great military operations that the general described they would hypothetically have a benefit explain that if they control what can go in and out of the of the goal they will then pick and choose who gets to do it they can say which ship can go they can say here's the toll we're going to charge they can on almost on a whimsy basis they can say okay you know what we're not satisfied with what you've been doing lately your politics as you approach us are not acceptable so we're going to raise the price to you.

11:29They will have everybody, in a sense, in a position where they can blackmail them. And you think our friends and allies aren't going to respond under circumstances where their economic well-being is being controlled by the Iranians? So we have a collective stake in making sure. Here, the president's right. There's a collective stake in making sure the Straits of Hormuz are open. But the fact is, it does raise a question about going into the war, where do the Straits of Hormuz figure in the planning? It is pretty remarkable that we're in the situation that we are one month into the war. I would just pose the question, it's fair and good to say that the Allies depend on this even more than we do.

12:14But given the realities, given the number of targets we had to hit, given the force limitations, as much as we built them up that we have, why didn't the administration go to the Europeans a couple months in advance, especially when the president said, we're sending this armada, and say, you know, we're trying to negotiate this. We really want a diplomatic settlement, but it may not work. And if it doesn't work, the Straits of Hormuz are a fundamental strategic interest for all of us. It's an international waterway. It has to be kept open. Why don't we work out now, what the contingency plan will be if that becomes threatened.

12:52Instead, you wait until day 12 of the war and suddenly say, gee, the Europeans depend on this more. They need to come help us. Well, it's not a surprise that basically they were hesitant at that point, even if, to be honest, they do have a stake. When the president says they depend on it, they do depend on it. But if you want them in on the landing, they got to also be in on the takeoff. General, your view of that issue, as the ambassador described it, we've heard so much about mission creep in the Middle East. We've got a lot of seasoned experts saying that the Trump problem here was a mission deficit.

13:26We didn't start with a clear mission, and now we're reaping the confusion of that. Well, first of all, I totally endorse Ambassador Ross's viewpoints. You know, we got into this thing decision by whim, policy by dictate. We didn't consult our allies. And by the way, it's not just European or India or Japan oil. It's our allies in the Gulf who have given us basing rights and been with us for, you know, 50 years. So let me make one additional caution, because I think poor Mr. Trump is actually put on the ground right now. 10 ,000-plus combat forces. I think more are headed that way. They're calling up National Guard units.

14:11I think he's putting together what he thinks is a capability to either seize three islands, fortified islands near the Straits of Hormuz entrance, or possibly go to Karg Island, or even worse, go into Natanz and Esfahan and put engineering units on the ground and dig out fissile material, it's not just 1 ,000 pounds either. It's five tons of lower-enriched uranium and other material. We'd be there for 10 days, two weeks. We'd be besieged. He actually still has the capability to put us in a tactical disaster if he doesn't think about what he's doing. So I'm alarmed when I see the chief of staff of the Army, General Randy George, with his multiple combat tours and Purple Heart and experience getting fired in the middle of a ground combat campaign.

15:07Now, most of it, I think, was Hegseth and his compadres up there are basically eradicating DEI. We've got 18 % of the armed forces are women, 31 % are minorities, and Hegseth is trying to fire the black, brown women senior officers. So we don't have very good leadership in national security. Important details that you both have lived and knowing really how this works, what the professionalism looks like and the concerns about the Trump sort of partisan meddling in what's supposed to be an objective officer corps and Pentagon, as well as, of course, the geostrategic points you made. So I think we really benefit from both of you on this tonight.

15:56The General and the Ambassador, thank you. I'm going to fit in a break, our shortest one of 90 seconds. When I come back, my breakdown of what it means that we just had Trump fire the attorney general and why the rule of law is actually holding. That's what made Trump so angry at former Attorney General Bondi when we come back.

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17:48President Trump has now fired his top officials handling immigration and the Epstein debacle. It's a clear sign that Trump sees his administration's failures in these big areas. Now, Washington is still absorbing Trump's firing of Attorney General Bondi yesterday after a brief 14 months on the job. And she was often overshadowed in terms of what her general duties required by her key failures on Epstein. As part of Trump's steady drip of frustrations with her, the journal reports, Bondi stoked expectations about releasing an Epstein, quote, client list. She raised the bar on herself and then later basically all but conceded she was lying, just as she lied to MAGA influencers by handing them binders claiming to contain Epstein files, which did not.

18:37A kind of fraud against your own base, daring them to speak out. And it didn't make a lot of strategic sense because these are influencers in the MAGA Trump punditry online. They post every day and a lot of them posted angrily about being lied to. Bondi also overseeing a DOJ that was losing in court. Now, that's often because Trump's demands are flatly illegal. Troops in the streets, global tariffs without Congress, abusing power to try to indict critics with no evidence. So Bonnie's demise is also a story about the courts working. Sometimes the way these things go down and the way the Washington elites and some of the media, quite frankly, talk about it, we can miss that.

19:20We get into the personalities or what's happening next before making sure we understand that 14 months just went by. There was a lot of failures. You see just a slight selection, handful of headlines about those failures on your screen. But this is a story as well about the courts working, albeit slowly. It's a story and a development about Trump losing, admitting it in public, having to replace his AG, and the rule of law holding. Bondi did not win a single case in Trump's vendetta to try to make the DOJ a sword against enemies. And Politico reports that was part of Trump's decision to oust her.

19:58And the good news for the rule of law tonight is that Bondi's replacement faces the exact same judges, courts, and rules of evidence that dealt her all of these losses in an almost absurdly long list of Trump enemies. We put this up before. Tonight it has a new relevance. But over the 14 months, they've opened all these cases. The green stamps show DOJ cases that already fell apart. Some others remain open as lawmakers are subpoenaed and harassed. Journalists and government vets awaiting trial. So let me be clear about what this news means. It's a sign of a legally sick DOJ that so many of these faltering and failed cases were ever opened at all.

20:47But it's also a sign of a reasonably healthy court system in America right now that we know the facts and the evidence basically kneecap these plots to Trump's great frustration. And he's now mulling ousting the other top law enforcement official, FBI Director Cash Patel, supposed to be on a 10-year term, but Trump apparently doesn't care about that rule, as well as other officials. So why would you make these big changes when you also are trying to prosecute a war, which we recorded tonight has its own set of emergencies and problems, and you have the economy to deal with and you have the midterms now barreling towards you?

21:23It would seem that Trump actually knows his administration is faltering. And therefore, he wants to do what he used to do on The Apprentice as acting, basically. But what people do all the time in different organizations, which is if things aren't working, you try to change personnel. But just think about this tonight. That would mean that Trump apparently doesn't know or doesn't care that many of these results, these failures, which he says himself are failures. I just showed you the articles reporting on them being failures. They stem from Trump's policy plans, not just the people he hired to carry them out.

21:59Washington monitoring any wider purge and there were signs Bondi was on the rocks including, as we reported on the beat that she had been publicly sidelined by her own deputy after the ongoing Epstein Files debacle and on the rollout after her failures they basically said, alright, she's still technically Attorney General but Todd Blanche was already kind of the acting Attorney General for Epstein it was him you saw at the lectern it was him signing the letter to Congress about the files. And if you remember the debates about redactions and all that, he was already running point on that. So we also have some fresh details on how this went down.

22:36Trump used the ride with Bonnie to the Supreme Court Wednesday for another case that faces long odds or experts say a likely loss to tell her, look, I think it's time. An associate apparently leaking that to the journal. And she fought for a few more months to stay in the administration. Trump refused. And that adds context to the firing announcement he posted online where he said she would be taking a private sector job. He didn't specify which one, but in his world, it just meant she ain't staying in his administration. Now, Bondi joins a long list of Trump loyalists who have shattered their credibility, their professionalism, and their relationships for him, only to be publicly fired as soon as things weren't working out, even if the things that weren't working out was them faithfully trying to carry out his plans and policies, some of which are illegal and can't be carried out, again, because we still have rule of law.

23:32Her acting replacement is another Trump aide who seems to think that somehow he'll avoid the fate of the person he's replacing, Bondi, and so many other people who have been dragged and discarded by Trump. Not to make light of this, but it's kind of close to the mafia movie pattern where something bad happens to this gangster and another gangster steps up to say, I want that job. And you're thinking, did you see what just happened? You want that guy's job? But that's Washington. That's power politics. The deputy I mentioned there is named Todd Blanche. He is now the first acting attorney general ever who previously served as a president's personal lawyer.

24:10Those are two opposite positions. It's a conflict that has long been considered disqualifying, but as of tonight, not a Trump's DOJ. And whether he will take over permanently, we don't know yet. He is atop the list to be appointed AG, according to Politico. There's talk of some other individuals, but he would be the leader. He's obviously already on the job, and that is under the rules. The deputy does become acting AG if something happens to the He recently went to the partisan CPAC conference and has been using Fox News to try to burnish his MAGA credentials. Now, for those who pay attention closely, we know that Trump has a vice president who called him, quote, America's Hitler.

24:48So you can overcome things if you are willing to do whatever Trump demands now and you don't have any iota of pride or consistency about what you said you believed in your whole life. That's not really an exaggeration. That's just my introduction to remind you that for those following, Blanche was a registered New York Democrat before. For only reasons he knows, when Trump was a defendant in New York, he left his firm, moved to Florida and went all in for then defendant Trump in that case.

25:21Emily Bazelon:The president reportedly probably obviously frustrated that the cases against Tisch and Schiff and Brennan and Comey not really going anywhere. Are you the guy that's going to be able to get that done? I appreciate the frustration because we do have to make sure that what happened for four years never happens again. And we don't talk about investigations, but I can tell you that the Department of Justice is working hard every day. He is a shrewd enough lawyer that he didn't actually commit to carrying out a legal selective prosecution. But he did a different spin. He talked about what happened for four years as if that's the bad thing.

25:59but that's not the problem right now. The problem is the last 14 months, the failed cases, losing at the Supreme Court, the tariffs, the immigration, the revenge cases that have embarrassed the DOJ, sullied its reputation, but also disappointed his boss, who he thinks is his boss still, the President of the United States. It ain't about the last four years. It's about these 14 months. And I have special guests, Emily Bazelon and Gene Robinson on this, joining us. Emily, your thoughts.

26:30Emily Bazelon:My thoughts are that Pam Bondi is unlucky to be in this situation in which she's getting run out of town. You know, you wonder if this was what she thought she signed up for. And you're right that there's a trail of people who were loyal to Trump and get discarded and they kind of keep coming. Right. Because there's a lot of power to be had in being the attorney general. But Bondi is being just sort of yanked off the stage in a way that there's no real grace in her exit. And, you know, one wonders if she has any regrets.

27:08Eugene Robinson:Gene? Yeah, well, Pam Bodney really did try hard, didn't she? I mean, she, look, the attorney general runs up against an inevitable obstacle, which is the law, right? And the law, especially in the form of federal judges who are going to follow the law. And so if you're trying to do all these things that are unprecedented and against the law, you're not going to succeed. So to kind of make up for that, I, you know, I can't help but think of her appearances before congressional committees where she was she was so combative and insulting in a way that obviously was for an audience of one. She was trying to show Donald Trump that she was more mega than thou, more Trumpy than thou, that she was really his warrior at the Justice Department.