217. The Secret Pentagon Leak That Terrifies Trump

12:40Anthony Scaramucci:And one of the reasons you have the head of the Pacific Command, who I have been told by somebody who has spoken to him really hates Hegseth, and the head of the Europe Command and the head of the Navy coming together and saying this is not viable anymore, is because of the munitions drawdown. And that is on Hegseth's watch as well. And it's not all munitions. America has supplies of some munitions, short-range missions. What it doesn't have is enough supplies of long-range missions. And the problem, Anthony, when you don't have long-range missions is that were there to be a conflict over Taiwan, for example, or some kind of conflict involving US soldiers in Europe, when you don't have the long-range missiles to fight that war, guess what?

13:24Anthony Scaramucci:Your troops have to get closer to the action. And that's what these generals are concerned about is that you could end up in a situation where we don't have the supplies we need. So US forces are being put in danger because they end up closer to a battlefield and closer to being shot at than they actually need to be. If this had been managed properly and thought through, and we hadn't been using all of those long range missiles to take down the Iranian drones. And that's the problem. I think we're seeing in real time, right? Just watch Ukraine. When you don't have the weapons you need to defend yourself and you don't have the long-range missiles to take out Russian launchers, you get the kinds of catastrophic attacks on civilians that we saw over the course of the weekend on Ukraine.

14:06Anthony Scaramucci:And you don't think America's adversaries are watching all of this? You don't think they're reading the Washington Post story?

14:12Katty Kay:Yeah. Of course they are. And also, remember, we've moved, we've deployed troops in different directions. We've made it more of a regional focus as opposed to the global focus that the U.S. footprint has always had. That also creates less deterrence around the world for our adversaries. So that's another big issue. There was a great article this morning in the Wall Street Journal. It was written by Bill Schneider and David, I think it's Deptua, and it's about the munitions shortfall. And they got a lot of things right in this article, and I want to just recant a little bit of it. They're just basically saying that if we don't have a strong relationship with our NATO allies, where we all work in concert with each other to build these munitions, we are going to be crushed by that.

15:01Katty Kay:We'll put this in our free newsletter, the link to it. But, but, Caddy, what they left out, and I do admire both of these guys, but they're part of that military industrial complex, that triangle between the lobbyists, the Pentagon, and the defense contractors. So they left this part out of it, but I'm going to put it in, is that there's too much cronyism going on with the military. There's crony capitalism going on. And so we have aging projects in the military that are obsolete now because of what's going on in the Ukraine war in terms of where modern warfare is, but it's in a senator's state or it's in a congressman's district.

15:39Katty Kay:And so, no, no, we want to keep funding that. Okay, but that doesn't make us any safer. Oh no, but there are jobs in my district that we have to fund. And oh, by the way, the defense contractor just gave me a check for my reelection. So make sure the Pentagon's money goes into that area. They're leaving that part of it out. But we have a systemic crisis that has been exposed by this war. It's not just the imbecility of Trump and Hegseth. There is a 60-year circuit that Eisenhower warned about called the military industrial complex that needs massive reform. And if you call it out, then they come after you and they say nasty things about you and your family and they do anything they can to demolish you because it's trillions of dollars sluishing through that mechanism.

16:29Anthony Scaramucci:And that's always been the impossibility of trying to cut the defense budget at a time when you want to reduce the deficit. That's the one thing that's untouchable because so many people have a vested interest in it. Okay, you say that Hegseth is going to go and that somebody else will be brought in. But in the end, Anthony, these are President Trump's policies. The reason that we are in this war is because Trump was persuaded or persuaded himself or was more hawkish on Iran than his advisors thought. And he thought he could do it. And he can't find a way out. I think the The SecDef, the Secretary of Defense, is the organizing factor of Trump, but he's not the strategist who is making the plans.

17:09Anthony Scaramucci:This is a super, super top-heavy administration. In the end, it is Trump's decision. So what difference would changing the SecDef make to this particular operation right now?

17:22Katty Kay:There's only one difference, and that is I ain't blaming myself, Katty Kay. Never my fault. Okay, watch me. I'm the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. I got to point a finger of blame to somebody. Epstein, we're going to give that to Pam Bondi. Failed Iran situation, we're going to give that to Pete Hexeth. And so that's Donald Trump. The day Donald Trump gets to a microphone and says, hey guys, I've made some mistakes here. I'm going to list for you the mistakes that I've made.

17:51Anthony Scaramucci:We will know that an alien has inhabited his body.

17:54Katty Kay:Yeah, there's an alternative universe that has taken place. It's like dark matter on Apple, okay? All I'm saying is - You're in an alternative universe.

18:01Anthony Scaramucci:You can change the SecDef, but it doesn't change the situation on the ground, which is that the Iranians have a lot more control over who ends this war than the Americans would like them to have, because it shouldn't have been started.

18:12Katty Kay:I have to blame somebody. I have to blame somebody. And that's what I'm going to do.

18:18Anthony Scaramucci:Okay, we're going to take a break and come back and talk about, oh, Canada.

18:22Katty Kay:Oh, my God.

18:23Anthony Scaramucci:You thought Iran was tricky. Now Canada's the tricky subject of conversation.

18:34Anthony Scaramucci:Welcome back to The Rest is Politics US. I think we're going to rename the show Anthony and call it The Rest is Politics Canada.

18:42Katty Kay:Oh, is that what we're doing now?

18:43Anthony Scaramucci:Yeah, I feel like our friends to the north deserve a little bit of love.

18:47Katty Kay:You don't want to call it The Rest is Ontario or something like that?

18:50Anthony Scaramucci:The Rest is Ontario. Can you believe this? Okay, should we quickly fill people in in case you haven't noticed? There used to be a lake, the Great Lakes. They're nice. I visited. Super pretty. It's called Lake Ontario. One of them is called Lake Ontario. As of this weekend, according to Google, which is being cowed by Donald Trump, Lake Ontario has suddenly become Lake America because Trump posted a video himself tearing down an avatar of that sign and erecting a replacement saying Lake America. The Canadians are super unhappy about this. Actually, what's been interesting for the reaction from Canada amidst all of the tension between Canada and the United States has been sort of amount of ridicule.

19:34Anthony Scaramucci:And I don't know, it's very hard to attack people when they're just laughing at you. But if you look at the reactions, it's an eye roll at President Trump. This is not the kind of fear that there is around tariffs, which is a legitimate fear because it's very hard for the Canadian economy to take this on. but the Lake Ontario stuff and the video, did you see the video, Anthony, of Trump posted a video on his true social page of a whole load of geese, Canadian geese or something, or ducks walking around Lake Ontario holding weapons.

20:04Katty Kay:I mean, they had his hairstyle, right?

20:06Anthony Scaramucci:That is orange hair. I mean, it's just, you know, I think it is worth calling some of these videos out sometimes, because this is the president of the United States posting a video of an army of ducks with what looked like AK-47s and Donald Trump's orange hairdo walking around Lake Ontario. That is where we're at, guys. But what do you think of the Canadian reaction? Because I think we spoke a lot about Mark Carney last week. This week, it is worth talking about Canada again, but I would like to drill down a little bit more on the economics of this fight and what Canada is doing to future-proof itself against the United States.

20:44Anthony Scaramucci:Because they are taking, it's very hard for them to do. It is a long-term project. But what Canada is doing is being watched by all of America's allies at the moment who are saying, we don't buy the idea that in 2028, even if we get a democratic president, America is ever going to be our friend in the way that it has been. I think there has been permanent damage. I spoke to a 28 democratic candidate, Rahm Emanuel, this morning, and I asked him that question. He said, there's no reset button. We are on a very different path.

21:12Katty Kay:Listen, systemic foundational damage will take a very long time to repair. But I think Carney has this right in so many different ways. And I just want you to think about it this way. It is a war. It's a trade war. And so when your people are at war and they have an adversary attacking them and you say, OK, we're going to take an economic hit, but I'm now going to respond and retaliate. People are willing to take the economic loss caddy. People are looking around saying, okay, we're going to lose jobs up here in Canada. It's going to cost us on a per capita household, but we're not going to lay back.

21:50Katty Kay:We don't want a reactionary leader that falls into the fold. We have a sovereign territory here and a nation that we're committed to. So to me, the Americans, I think, are going to be the ones that capitulate first because they don't like it. Roughly 70 % of the Americans do not understand why we're fighting with Canada. Okay, you have an$840 hit per household, okay, just from the tariffs alone. You've got 12 % of the exports that go from Ohio into Canada that are being tariffed, okay? You're going to crush these plants, steel, aluminum, auto parts, farm goods. It's going to impact Illinois. It's going to impact Pennsylvania.

22:32Katty Kay:It's going to impact Minnesota and Minneapolis, but that's a blue state, so maybe Trump doesn't care about that. But he's got a lot of swing states like Wisconsin, et cetera, that are in the crossfire of this war, and he doesn't have the people on his side. Carney has got the people on his side, Caddy, as you would be. When you were getting bombs dropped on you in London, it was causing economic damage and hardship, but the people were rallied behind the government. Okay, now that's more of a violent war, but this guy that's declaring the war on Canada is one of the most hated figures of the last 50 years, and he will go down as the most hated American president, in my opinion, in our history.

23:20Katty Kay:So that's where I am on all this. The naming of the lake and all that other stuff, we can talk about George Washington and the signing of those treaties that named and codified the lake. that were passed by the Senate. So this executive order probably isn't even legal pursuant to the way American law works. But this is more of an economic issue.

23:39Anthony Scaramucci:By the way, that is also very, the renaming of the lake is almost as unpopular on the American side of the lake as it is up in Canada itself. There was a poll just done over the weekend by CNY, which did a poll on the New York state side of the lake, and it ran 86 to 14 against renaming. Lake Ontario. So you've even lost the Americans on this one. They think it's absurd too. So here's my question for you. Canada is getting the message, as are European allies, that it has to future-proof itself against the United States. And it is trying to do that. Carney has made a pledge to double its amount of non-US exports over the next decade.

24:25Anthony Scaramucci:It is talking to the Germans and doing deals with the Germans about building submarines. It is doing deals with the Swedes about building fighter jets. It has joined the European Union's safe scheme. It's the first non-EU country to do so. So Carney recognizes that the long-term economic prospects of a close relationship between Canada and America are not the same as they've been. As he said, this is a different path. We can't look backwards. And I think a lot of countries after Joe Biden was elected in 2020, they took their foot off the pedal. They thought, okay, America's coming back. I spoke to Rahm Emanuel, the democratic hopeful for 2028 about this and said, you know, that ship has sailed.

25:08Anthony Scaramucci:America's not coming back in the way that we knew it for the last 70 years. But it's not easy, right? And I wanted to ask you about that. All of the things that Canada is doing, it's got to shore up its military. It has to diversify its exports away from the United States. But these are super long-term propositions. It took them 12 years to build a pipeline to service an Asian market for its oil experts. How realistic is it for the Canadians to get themselves into a position where they no longer depend on the US in the way that they have done, either for its military, which I think Donald Trump is right, that the Canadians should have done more sooner to protect themselves and defend themselves militarily and also economically?

25:53Katty Kay:Yeah, I mean, listen, that's the thing about Trump. There are elements of what he says sometimes that do make sense, you know, raising defense expenditure relative to GDP and NATO, etc. But the way he's going about this is an unmitigated disaster for the US because, you know, 38 million people are wildly turned off by the US now, completely and totally unnecessary. But I just want to explain to people, Canada is sending or was sending$450 billion a year of trade to the U.S. OK, that's about three quarters of everything that it exports. So we're fighting over this$20 billion worth of trade. But for Canada, that's a chest wound, Caddy.

26:36Katty Kay:For the Americans, it's a flesh wound. So Carney has to do what he's talking about over the next 10 years. He's got to at least double non-U.S. trade, possibly triple it. Can he do it? Do you think, Anthony? Can he do it? I think he can do it. But here's the thing that I like about Carney. He's not making speeches about it. He's hopping on the plane and he's doing it. He stopped negotiating with the Americans. He's also putting his tariffs on on September the 8th. Trump was trying to get the auto tariffs and all that stuff done after the midterms, right? Same thing he's trying to do with the big, beautiful spending bill.

27:11Katty Kay:But Carney said, no, no, I'm not having that. Yes, this is a chest wound for me. And yes, it's going to hurt my people. But we need to send the Americans a message. And this is going to have an impact on the midterm elections in those swing states. It's a very negative thing that Trump is doing. You mentioned the military. And I know this is crazy. But if you're Mark Carney, you're going to your minister of defense and you're war gaming a potential war with the United States. Yeah.

27:39Anthony Scaramucci:I mean, you and I have been told by senior Canadian officials that that is happening.

27:43Katty Kay:Right. So the bad news is that doesn't come out well for the Canadians. OK, but the good news, does that come out well for the United States? Can you imagine public opinion in the United States if Hegseth and Trump said, oh, we're going to militarily rush the Canadian border? OK. And by the way, they have the ability to do that because the Iranian thing, you know, we've won the Iranian war 17 times, Caddy, but it's not a war. Right. Because if it's a war, then the Congress would have to vote on it. So we didn't, you know, it's one of the craziest things about the U.S. Constitution. I'm an American and I love the Constitution.

28:20Katty Kay:But man, I had no idea how many holes there were in the Constitution. You know, Roy Stewart said something to me. Well, I know you like the Constitution, but aren't you worried about the Constitution? Yeah. How could you not be worried about the Constitution where you've got maniacs like this that can do this type of stuff and literally economically and psychically harm the American people and the Canadian people for absolutely no reason? Okay. And that deal, Rahm Emanuel said it to you this morning, that deal was on the two-inch line. Okay. So for some rogue maniac like Howard Ludnick to come in and bust that deal and now be in this ditch that we're in is an absurdity.

29:04Anthony Scaramucci:I'm going to play devil's advocate a bit because we're assuming they go back to the table and they do a deal. And the reason they go back to the table and do a deal is because Mark Carney is not an idiot. Yes, at the moment, he is the darling of the West, but he also can't afford to be in a position where his country takes such a severe hit, where it goes off an economic cliff, right? Where you get inflation spiking, potentially 100 ,000 people losing their jobs. that that would be at the moment he has bipartisan political support. There is no threat from the Conservative Party electorally because they are not going to stand up to him at the moment.

29:42Anthony Scaramucci:But how much longer can he sustain this if this doesn't get resolved in a deal? Because he is doing something that is very difficult. I mean, make no mistake, it is not easy to stand up to the American trading bloc, and there is potential harm to Canada in standing up to the American trading bloc. So do you think this is a stand that he can maintain for what, six months, a year, two years? Can he stand up to Donald Trump like this for the next two years?

30:13Katty Kay:Well, first of all, I think he can because of the culture in Canada. So I definitely think he can, but he's not going to have to because Trump's going to blink here. Okay, that's my prediction. I'm going to hold to it. What if he doesn't is what I'm saying. What if he doesn't blink? He has to. He was in the last mile of negotiation. He's got the Republican National Committee beating him over the head and neck. Tom Emmer up in Minnesota. He's got the Speaker beating on him. He's got Thune beating on him. He has to get this deal done.

30:45Anthony Scaramucci:People who are running for Congress are now deleting from their websites any reference or photographs of themselves with Trump. That is a situation he's got to. But he is capable of acting in a way that doesn't help Republicans. That is not always his priority.

31:00Katty Kay:I understand that. But just remember last week, he delayed the fracas for 72 hours because he thought, OK, we're right there. And these guys underestimated Carney. They thought Carney was going to cave to the nonsense that Howard Lutnick wanted him to cave to, which, of course, he couldn't cave to. that would have ruined his premiership, it would have ruined his prime minister and killed his career. Okay. So I think that this deal gets done inside of the next month. I think by the time we get to October 1st, we're going to have a deal. And I think the deal was close enough anyway.

31:33Anthony Scaramucci:So there's no downside risk to Carney in taking the stand.

31:37Katty Kay:Let me push back to you. I'm completely wrong about it. It's one year later, the Canadians have lost 90 ,000 jobs. Yeah. And that's the estimate. Right. That's the nonpartisan estimate. Where is Mark Carney's political standing? One year later, inflation is up and unemployment is up and he's in a quagmire trade war with the United States. Where's Carney's popularity, Katty?

31:59Anthony Scaramucci:I think it slightly depends on how much that would spill out into other areas. And that's why I mentioned the military. Yes, he is trying to do these deals, but these subs aren't going to be online until 2034. Canada is almost still entirely dependent on NORAD for its early warning systems, its continental early warning systems. So its security is tied into America. And just as the Europeans are finding it's very difficult for them to extricate themselves and it takes a long time. And I'm not saying this is going to happen, but it's not a conversation in Canada. Were America to pull, for example, its support to Canadians over NORAD and say to those Canadian engineers who are in the room looking at the same radar, sorry, you can't be in the room anymore, were it to take punitive actions security-wise for Canada?

32:49Anthony Scaramucci:I think there are potential risks for Carney here. I'm just not underplaying how difficult this is for him. Okay.

32:57Katty Kay:I think there's a deal there. Everybody that I've talked to in Washington said that there's - Yeah, I assume there's a deal too. There's a deal there waiting for both of those people to sign. It blew up over some very insignificant things like labeling and packaging and some other stuff.

33:12Anthony Scaramucci:Now it really has to look like a win for Carney though. He has to be able to sell it as a win.

33:17Katty Kay:It's not to me. You know, I'm upset because wreck the alliances with Europe, bust our treaties everywhere. Have a fight with our longest standing ally that has the longest non-militarized border in the world. Let's do that. I mean, you're helping your guy Vlad by doing all this. I get it. But how is that helping the people of the United States? What was the benefit to the Americans? And, you know, if you notice, consistently and conspicuously absent is a guy named Marco Rubio. Have you heard Marco Rubio once talk about the trade war with Canada, once talk about the nonsense with Europe. Have you?

33:58Katty Kay:Well, other than the speech he gave at the Munich Security Conference, where Trump said, if you do that again, I'm going to fire you. Other than that, what has Marco Rubio said, Kat?

34:05Anthony Scaramucci:Yeah, nothing. He's staying out of it because he wants to stay out of this one because it's a no winner.

34:09Katty Kay:He knows it's the stupidest of the stupidest things.

34:12Anthony Scaramucci:And by the way, it's not like there is a massive constituents in the MAGA base of people who hate Canada. I mean, I'm not hearing those voices from MAGA world saying the people we really hate in the world are the Canadians. That just doesn't happen. So I'm not sure this moves a single vote from the non-Republican column into the Republican column over the midterm elections, but I'm pretty sure it moves votes out of the Republican column and into the Democratic column. Okay, guys, we are going to leave it there. Thank you very much for joining us. And we have a treat for you this week for our members only episode.

34:51Anthony Scaramucci:We are going to have a conversation with the authors of the biography of Roy Cohn, which is going to be super interesting. Remember, we did that series for our members on becoming Trump and how essential Roy Cohn, the lawyer, was in Trump's formative years. So that's going to be a really interesting conversation.

35:09Katty Kay:And Kai Bird wrote the book about Oppenheimer. If you read this book, it's another movie. This guy was a crazy person. What an eccentric cat this guy was.

35:18Anthony Scaramucci:There's some pretty weird shit going on in Roy Cohn's life.

35:23Katty Kay:Some weird stuff, but there you go. That's Trump's mentor. Where's my Roy Cohn? So that'll be a fun, interesting listen.

35:29Anthony Scaramucci:Thanks so much for listening.

35:30Katty Kay:Thank you, guys.

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