Amanda Carpenter, Sarah Longwell, & Sam Stein: Trump Gives His Family a Free Pass to Crime

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Shop now for up to 70% at From Rebel.com. Music Hello and welcome to the board podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. We have a quasi-double header for you today in segment two. It is some of the live show in San Diego last night. I was on stage with my Bollard colleague, Sam Stein and Sarah Longwell, and we talked about the latest in Iran, how we are going to do an Argo style plot to put Mahmoud Ahmadinezade in charge of the country. We also discussed how Bill Castee is starting to sound like a Bollard contributor all of a sudden. It's a good little discussion, so stick around for that in segment two. But first, formerly at the Bollard, she's now a writer and editor at ProtectDemocracy.org. They got a sub-stat called If You Can Keep It. It is all caps Amanda Carpenter. What's up, girl? Hey, doing pretty well. How about you? I'm doing good. Thank you for doing this. The people want some actual podcasting every day. They want some really deep thoughts from observers of our democratic condition, and so I appreciate that you're offering that, because it's basically just you today. I'm just going to be throwing up softballs to you. All right, let's go. Let's do it. I want to start by talking about what you are calling on social media, the Riot Reward Program. Everybody's just bouncing around different names. We're going to land on one. I was trying to call it Reparations for Whites. I do have yell at a name in this triad yesterday. Run us through the timeline of how we got here, because I do think that we've had some kind of developments over the last few days on it. Well, first, I do appreciate all the people brainstorming good names for this, because if I hear people keep calling it the Settlement or the Slush Fund, I'm going to scream. There's lots of good things you could call it. You can do Riot Rewards. I was kind of chewing around with Henchman bailout, but I have landed on Thug Fund. I think Thug Fund really gets at the idea. That's who is going to be getting these grants if they do come to fruition. Aside from the branding, which actually is important, let's please call it something that accurately describes it, because it's absolutely not a settlement. One of the ways that you have to think about how this came about, which isn't important to the discussion that we're going to have about why it's so unpopular and wrong, but the reason this came about, if you even want to call it a reason, is that Donald Trump's tax returns were leaked. That was bad. Lots of people's tax returns were leaked. There's a whole pro-publica investigation. We remember that. But the conclusion that Trump and the Department of Justice have come to is that because that bad thing happened, in which there is recourse, in which the leaker was prosecuted, is facing the consequences of that behavior, they've decided, I want two things. This isn't the thing that you get to make a deal with the DOJ over this, it's about what kind of reward that you want. We want two things. We want a free pass for all future tax-crimin, forever and ever, apparently, and the $1.7 billion thug fund to give money to all my henchmen and cronies. None of these things are related. Can we just pause on that for a second? Tax returns being leaked does not mean Donald Trump gets $1.7 billion to throw around as Trump bucks for his friends. I feel like the news cycle didn't really pause on that enough, and Todd Blanche, he was on Capitol Hill the other day, that connection, that tenuous, I'm not even a tenuous connection, was never explored. But then, if you want to rewind back just a little bit further, people are kind of surprised that this idea of J-Sex reparations came out of the blue. No one didn't. It absolutely did not. This has been a part of the whole pardon discussion they had since Donald Trump was campaigning for the 2020 election. This has always been on the table, and people who brought it up, the Republican allies that he had some places like the Hill would dismiss it just like they thought the pardons were crazy. Like, oh, that's never going to happen. Ed Martin, Eagle Ed Martin, was running around talking about reparations on podcasts with Benny Johnson. You know how the J-Sex writers deserve justice, and like, oh, that's crazy talk. Oh, well, here we are. Here we are. $1.7 billion later. And I do have optimism. I mean, this is so politically toxic that I do think it can and will be stopped. But it's kind of funny. If you look at the people on the Hill who want to stop it, even people like Representative Fritz Patrick, who came out against it very strongly, which I was delighted to see his interviews. Well, we have to kind of track down where this pool of money came from and where the appropriations are because they have no idea, no idea. And so that's just another wrinkle in this whole crazy subject. But I've talked enough. One more thing I just I thought that was important that I saw. I want to shout out Congressman Mike Levin out here in California actually who is posting about this when you think about the timeline is this like stupid frivolous lawsuit that the president was filing against his own government. For $10 billion. The IRS did actually go through the process that you would go through in this sort of case, right? Like they wrote a memo laying out the defenses about why they shouldn't have to pay out the suit. They listed that Trump filed too late. Trump's own lawyer was in court when the leaker pled guilty in October 2023, more than two years before Trump sued. You know, so like there was legal justice for this already, like before the suit even started. The Justice Department themselves never actually showed up to courts, never argued the other side. And this is kind of crazy like Focacco, right? You're talking about this. It's like there's two parts of Trump's government arguing against each other. But like that's how it would work, right? In an actual if there was Trump was suing the IRS, like the Justice Department then would give their argument on the other side. They never did that. The judge got suspicious and ordered both sides to explain like whether they were opposing each other or just colluding and asked for the brief a brief on that from both sides. And the day before it was due was when the Justice Department announced the Doug Fund, right? I think that that is also an important context of how this happened. We all know that it was WWE, K-Fabe, fake the whole time, but it's like they made it as blatant as possible that this was all fake, all pretext for getting money to hand out to the J-Sexers and maybe some others. Yeah, in any other lawsuit, you're not allowed to sue yourself. I mean, that's not a thing. Like, I am anti-carpenter. I'm going to take a anti-carpenter court for damages from a company. It's not a thing. That's essentially what Donald Trump is doing here. But another thing I want to pause on, the idea that Donald Trump was harmed. I'm not saying leaking his tax returns were great or that should have been done or I'm having any defense of what happened in that scenario. But he is arguably the single most powerful man on the earth. What harm has he suffered? Legitimately, like what business is he not doing? What money is he not making? And what in any way is there any harm that's being inflicted on him as he enjoys the greatest political position in the world? I don't understand. The thing that happened this morning, this is from Trump Punch Bowl. As you mentioned, Brian Fitzpatrick on the Hill sent a strongly worded letter to Todd Blanche. We'll see where that goes. There's been some other pushback, even from Republican senators. Bill Cassidy, we talked about this in segment B a little bit. So the White House, I guess, felt like they needed to at least offer some explanation to the Hill. They sent a one pager over there about the fund. It says that the fund will have no partisan restriction. But then my favorite part is like is a little bribed. Any Republican senators who are feeling on the fence about this? It does say that any senators whose records were secretly subpoenaed by the Biden DOJ, they're also eligible to apply. So there you go. Here's a little, it was kind of wet in the beak of Republican senators who feel like they might have been harmed. Yeah, I don't know if you remember, but during the funding fight, it wasn't last year. There was a provision to allow members whose phone records were subpoenaed in the Arctic Frost investigation to get up to, I think, $500,000 payout from the government. So this is kind of refreshing that and saying, OK, we're going to make this very cool and legal now. And now there's no cap on the amount. So why not? I think there was nine Republican senators that were possibly eligible for that. It was like Lindsey Graham, surprise. But yeah, so maybe they can just get that now. And it was so controversial. It was struck out of the bill. Yeah, right. But now, hey, all cool and legal. It was actually the House oversight. Damn, there's another shout out to Robert Garcia and Suha's super money and caught that actually. It was like really like ducked into a bill. And then that became this thing and they took it out. And now they're going back for a second fight at that apple. You mentioned also the other thing I want to focus on, because I don't think I've gotten to it on the pod, is the other element of this settlement, so-called settlement, was in addition to the Thug Fund was Trump and his family becoming immune forever from tax crimes. I don't really think that's how things work in the country where I know that's I guess how it worked for Jeffrey Epstein. And that was kind of part of the deal that he got with Alex Acosta, where he was immune for a bunch of other crimes. But generally speaking, in America, if you commit a crime, no matter whether you're the president or part of the president's family or one of the president's friends, you still can be prosecuted for that crime, just like a regular person. So if they're trying to immune themselves, the IRS is quote, forever barred and precluded from pursuing, quote, examinations of Trump or related or affiliated individuals or their trusts or their businesses. Truly insane. So if you try to follow a through line, there is no connection between the remedies that he's asking for and the original harm. So what is this really about? What I think this deal is really about is protecting his position and power, not only through the midterms and the 2028 election, whatever he decides to do, but post presidency as well. Why else would you be asking for permanent legal immunity, not only for all the crimes you committed in the White House with the Supreme Court so thoughtfully gave him, but for any kind of tax liability for all your businesses and family. To me, that's what this is really about. And it's truly crazy. You hate to do the counterfactuals, but when there was all the questions of the Clinton crime family, I had Bill Clinton in there said, you know what, what my DOJ has decided is that me and Hillary can do whatever we want and perpetuity and that the IRS could never investigate us again. I like that's what they're trying to do. It's like it's totally insane. You call it an autocratic entrepreneurship. And like that is it is important to discuss like this element of it because it's tied to like the Trump family corruption that he is trying to ensure can perpetuate forever, like no matter what happens. Like they can do it while they're in power right now. They're making a lot of money, but then in the future, it's like they can continue to do whatever kind of corrupt deals they want without any concern. Yeah, this idea of Trump as an autocratic entrepreneur and his plans post presidency, like, listen, it's a question. Will he stay or will he go? His plans for the ballroom essentially turning. It's really a bunker. Can we be real? I don't know if you've seen the videos of him lately where he's standing outside promising how great it's going to be and the gift that he's going to get future presidents and oh, by the way, we're going to have a drone empire on top of the White House. So we're not having a ballroom. We're having a drone empire that is essentially going to what turned the White House into some kind of military base where he's going to have drones flying around to protect him. I mean, maybe there's a chance he's really freaked out about the wars he's starting and retribution that might be coming for him. There have been, you know, assassination attempts on him several times, not only from domestic actors, but foreign. So who knows what's actually going through his head. But regardless of what he's thinking, what he is doing is insulating himself in so many ways inside the White House as a bunker that I again, I'm glad. I'm glad that they're Senate opposition to the ballroom and the funding for it. But how does he have the funding now? I mean, he's sitting there literally as like there's jackhammers and like stuff being thrown around like the White House is a giant construction pit. And they're like, maybe we'll stop the funding for it. Well, maybe I ought to do something now. That said, you look at the bunker, you look at the immunity that he's pursuing on all angles. You look at the things that he's setting himself up for, like the Board of Peace in which he's the forever trairman, the untold amount of corruption that we still fail to understand, explain and confront adequately. He's setting himself and his family up to be shielded for decades if we don't do something about it now to stop it while he's still in office. The other line that you had talking about all this types of corruption that I think sort of unites everything is this question of audit the White House. And I think that is pretty good because I mean, as you mentioned about the ballroom funding, like Bill Cassidy was saying, the Hill hasn't even seen, they haven't provided anything. Like what are the plans? What are the specs for this? And I think that I've had Robert Garcia and Suhaasan, like what should the Democrats do next year? And I think something that kind of unites everything is audit the White House and audit the Trump family. Yeah, audit the White House because they, I mean, we know there's untold amounts of corruption going on. And you know, audit the Fed, I think was actually a politically powerful issue for Republican primaries back in the day. Audit the White House should be that much more powerful because Donald Trump is so clearly trying to evade that accountability right now with this demand for protection for many audits in the future. I drive my bus in a busy city. That's why road safety is so important to me. I know that I must slow down and be extra careful when I make a wide turn. Buses need more room than cars. Everyone can help keep our roads safe. Next time you're driving, remember to give buses plenty of time and space to finish turning before driving ahead. Let's all plan to share the road safely. Learn how at www.sharetheroadsafely.gov. Because you bought your robot vacuum on your Barclay card, you got 0% interest for up to 24 months, which makes watching it hypnotically sweeping up your crumbs even more satisfying. Oh, Mr. Bit, what you buy is your business. Helping you pay less interest is ours. Barclay card backing your future. Subject to financial status, new customers only. Representative example, 24.9% APR representative variable, 24.9% purchase rate per annum based on 1200-pound credit limit fees and fees apply. You posted about your optimism on this, on some of the things we're seeing on the Hill, and you've alluded to it a little bit. I'm going to read your skeet. I'm not trying to blow smoke up anyone's behind. Good, because we don't do that on the podcast. But there is some decent opposition to Trump happening on the Hill, no SAVE Act, ballroom, funding plummeting, Iran war vote, not firing the parliamentarian, growing opposition to the henchmen bailout. Tom Tillis this morning called that thug font tyranny and stupid on stilts. So at some level, his revenge tour is potentially causing some limitations on his autocratic aspirations. Yeah, I have no illusions that the Republicans on their own would do anything to confront or stop Trump from pursuing these items. But if it becomes so politically toxic, and the Democrats, the media voters don't allow them to escape the issue, I actually think there's a chance. I mean, there's too much coming down upon them. Donald Trump's polling is in the basement right now. They all know this. And I do think the back to back endorsement of Ken Paxton over John Cornyn, and then the thug fund details coming out, that had a weird back to back dynamic that I do think caused more anger on the Hill than usual. I think they thought that he was going to stay out of the Texas race, but then endorsing Ken Paxton and sending a member potentially to the Senate so it was so clearly ethically flawed over someone who has been there. How long has John Cornyn been there? 18 years. I think a number of members took more personally in a way that, you know, the defeat of like a Tom Tillis or Bill Cassidy didn't have. Yeah, I think it was a mistake. Paxton was going to win. Like a poll came out yesterday or two days ago that was in the field before the Trump endorsement. And Paxton was up eight. Like Paxton was going to win. Trump did not have to do this. And he was going to get what the result he wanted anyway. This is again the megalomanian and narcissism and how that can backfire sometimes. It's like he wanted his endorsement record to continue to be 100%. I think is the reason why he did this. I think he's created potentially a wild carded Cornyn himself, adding him to Tillis and Cassidy and Merkowski and Collins and McConnell at various different times, people that could oppose him. But maybe even some others who are just pissed about the Cornyn treatment. Yeah, I think there's a potential for this group of disaffected Republican senators to actually do something on the way out. And let's put Tom Massie in that category. Right. I mean, in his concession speech, he essentially said, I have seven more months left. Now you can like Tom Massie or hate him, but he's got some fight in him. And he's the reason the Epstein files got released ultimately. But I don't know this. I think the Massie defeat is so interesting because, you know, we've gone through this where the media keeps wanting to like put this fight between Maga and the moderates or Maga and never Trump. That's like that was never quite it. And Tom Massie's law shows that because he was trying to chart out this America first course, right, where he was with Trump on everything did a lot of like kind of nasty stuff, but broke with Trump on two issues. Epstein and the Iran war, you could put MTG in that category, probably Lauren Bulbert, and they were dismissed as treasonous. Massie's race became the most expensive House primary in history because they just rain down dollars on him in support of this, you know, just Maga kind of said, I'm not going to be a candidate who says nothing, but I'm with Trump, I'm with Trump, I'm with Trump. And the idea that there's any kind of principle difference between Trump is just a farce. He doesn't want anyone except for lackeys and people like Epstein who are so ethically flawed and will do anything for him. Like that's the ideal candidate. That's always been what he wanted. I think this sort of proves that the America first tightrope that people were trying to walk is a failure. And you just have to oppose them. And that's what I'm hoping Massie will do on a couple key issues on his way out. I want to close with just to protect democracy and all of this is in the protect democracy hat, but particularly, you know, in the narrow conversation about voting. We had Justin Jones on the pot yesterday and talked a lot about the gutting of the VRA and it's really pretty bleak the state of Democratic affairs and Tennessee and other places in the deep south. And I do think that that move reopened the possibility that Republicans could take the house though. I think it's still a long shot. What is your kind of updated view on the midterms and, you know, concerns around elections. Most important thing on my mind right now is the wipeout of any remaining upstanding Republican candidates in Georgia and the implications that may have for 2028 Brad Raffensberger, which is a name that I think most listeners of this podcast would recognize. He was running for governor got defeated by an election denier named Bert Jones. Raffensberger only got 15 points in the Republican primary. It looks like there I was reading Laura Egan's wonderful reporting about the potential governor's race shaping up. It could be a case where you have Bert Jones running against Keisha Lance Bottoms. I don't know how that one's going to shake out. And if we lose Georgia to election deniers, that opens up in a huge can of worms. And if you look at the intense focus that the Trump White House, particularly with the Department of Justice has had on Fulton County, the fight over Fulton County has not ended. You know, they had the FBI raid, we got the ballot boxes, they're fighting constantly even over the whole workers when it came to Election Day today. And I think they Fulton County is a test model for what they want to do. They want to manufacture fraud allegations so that they can take over Democratic counties when it comes to Election Day. I repeat that in other states. And I think Fulton County is particularly important because if you remember, that's where Donald Trump got arrested. The mugshot that he posts everywhere now, including on the Department of Justice, came from that area of the country. And so I think we just really got to be on our toes, educating everyone about the threats that are coming, raising the standard for people like judges who may be presented with really problematic search warrants and things like that to get information that the Department of Justice shouldn't have, the continued fight that they are waging to get voter data from all 50 states so that they can handpick people to remove from the roles. Those are the things that I'm really focused on right now as well as a number of my colleagues at Protect Democracy and in the entire pro-democracy coalition. Anything else on your mind or anything people should be doing, you know, who are out there trying to wonder how to engage on this stuff? Just staying on it. I mean, honestly, it's going to be one of these races where it could come down to election boards and poll watchers and things like that. So just stay engaged. But the most important thing is to be talking about these issues so that Republicans who are in positions of influence cannot escape them, right? Because if they can make this go away, everybody's going to go away from Memorial weekend. The heat needs to stay on things like the Thug Fund and the ballroom through a weekend because they're all pretending this is going to blow over. It's going to go away. Maybe we'll just get a billion dollars and we'll get an appropriation later. It'll be fine. It cannot be fine. You got to keep the heat on them all through Memorial weekend, all through summer, all through the fall. Appreciate you as always, Amanda. Everybody go check out their work at protectdemocracy.org. I'm sure you'll be back again soon. And everyone else stick around for me, Sarah and Sam Stein, live in San Diego. Enjoy it. I'm delighted to be here with Sam and Sarah. I don't know if we've had a three way together on the podcast. I guess not. I asked Sam in the dressing room. I was like, did you think there'd be this much gay content at your new news job? It's constant. Never had to do gay content. I want to start by talking about we're kind of in a war with Iran, I guess, still. Maybe-ish a little bit. It's not done seeming to be going that well. There was a pretty shocking story from the New York Times that I want to read a little bit to you all because it's a doozy. When we went into the war, we did have a plan, actually. We had a plan, it turned out, for a Del C Rodriguez type figure to take over Iran. That's what Beebe and Trump's plan was. The person was quite surprising, though, who they had in mind, a Mahmood Akhmedinashad. So for those of you who were around before 2016, he didn't really love your people, Sam. I don't think he liked ours that much either. No, not a big fan of ours. The audacious plan, according to the New York Times, was developed by the Israelis. Mr. Akhmedinashad had been consulted about this, but it quickly went awry when he was injured on the war's first day by an Israeli strike at his home in Tehran. It feels like a little mistake to kind of bomb the house of the person that you were trying to make the new leader. He was there on house arrest. He survived the strike. He's injured, but he became disillusioned with the regime change plan. And he's not been seen publicly since then. His current whereabouts and condition are unknown. Feels like a mess, Sam. I don't know. Well, first of all, I feel like this fully dispels this notion that the Jews are orchestrating everything, because that's the worst plan I've ever heard. I mean, if you think about it, I'm embarrassed that Jews came up with this plan. I just stepped back and think about it. The idea here was we were going to bomb his complex with such precision that he would escape unscathed and be totally fine with the fact that we nearly killed him with the bomb. And then go out somewhere and get a big popular movement behind him, and then that would win the war. I mean, I wish I could be in the room where people were talking this through, and no one was asking follow-up questions like, how does this work? Like, what's step two? Are people going to follow this guy? Do we like this guy? Is this our guy? Yeah, it feels like you were missing the bigger point here. No, I think that's a point. The bigger point is Akhmedinahzad. That's who they thought was Ron Oron. That's a point. The Jews thought, I forget, what does he think about the Holocaust? Oh, that it didn't happen. I don't know why I'm yelling at you. It's not your fault. Do this. This is how anti-Semitism happens. I'm not responsible for this. That is a good point, and I think it's a very valid point, but I think even getting to that point, someone had to be in a room being like, okay, look, I've been workshopping this all weekend. I've run through all the ideas, and this is the best one we've got. We're going to bomb this complex, and he's just going to walk out, and he's going to be the new regime. Do we have an option B? Yeah, anything. Literally anything. I guess we didn't have one. Wait, hold on. I got to go back to the idea of Akhmedinahzad as the person, not just the bombing him. This is a guy, okay, so the whole theory rested on the idea that there would be a popular uprising in Iran. Do we remember what Akhmedinahzad did to people who rose up in Iran? Yeah, it wasn't great. He stoned them to death. What? Who's going to popular uprise for Akhmedinahzad? I have a thought on that, Sarah. Maybe Donald Trump and Bibi didn't actually care about the well-being of the Iranian people, and that that was... No, I think you're wrong. I can't imagine. That was maybe a front for their broader idea. Anyway, they're back to the drawing board, and here's where we're at now. Trump and Bibi had a conversation this week. Bibi's very upset, according to his stagographer at Axios. His hair was on fire over this. Trump said to Axios, if Bibi will do whatever I want him to do, and said that the call was fine, the current plan now is for a 30-day letter of intent. That's nice. The U.S. and Iran would sign it, and then we'd have a 30-day period of negotiations on issues like Iran's nuclear program in the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, which kind of sounds like where we're currently at. Yeah. So I'm not sure what the letter is going to do exactly. This is for 30 days, not two weeks. But we are in a ceasefire, right, technically? So this is just a 30-day extension. And how is this different, the letter of intent different from the memorandum of understanding? Like they're just using a thesaurus, right? That's what they're doing. They're just using different words. So the Operation Sledgehammer, we're going to delay Operation Sledgehammer. For project freedom. It's just, who's coming up with this stuff? Pete Hexeth. And it's so weird that it's not well thought out. He's like, I'm going to do a keg stand, and then we're going to bomb Amadinejad. It does feel like a fundamental problem at the beginning was making a weekend talk show co-host, the Secretary of Defense. I don't know, before that it was taking a game show host and making him the President of the United States. I remember... Do you remember where you were when you found out it was going to be Hexeth? Because I do. I remember. I was in a very dark place. We're all kind of in a dark place now, but I was in an acutely dark place. Like literally? No, well it was dark. It was nice. Like a movie theater? No, I was thinking about medication, self-medication, my life choices, self-hunt. And I was driving to go meet somebody for dinner, and I was doing what you're not supposed to do. But in New Orleans, the roads are so bad that you can't really go more than 18 miles an hour. So oftentimes I am tweeting and driving. This is probably going to come back to haunt me if I ever get into an accident, but I just said that on the podcast, but whatever. And I was scrolling Twitter while driving down Forth Street, and the text came in, and I was like, oh my god. And I went and I was about to go to dinner, and my dinner mate had not checked their phone, and I was like, I got one for you? Pete Hegseth is going to be the secretary of defense. And they're like, no! Let me see your phone. I was like, it's fucking real. I get to be the bearer of the news. And that's what we're on. And so even in that moment of levity. Wait, hold on. Were you more shocked by that? Because I remember feeling really shocked by that, but then I felt like almost paralyzed when I heard Cash Patel. I was just like, that cannot be. That cannot be. No, that can't be. The cash retelling was working for some reason. I just, I got into that place with the Hegseth thing, where I got the uncontrollable laughter. You know, it was just kind of like, what can you do in this moment except just really laugh at this as the state of affairs. And so I think it was kind of predictable that this is where we'd end up. The one other Iran news, I think it was other on Israel news, it's kind of interesting. And that's related to your people, Sam, was Trump's comments today. I don't know if you saw this. He was doing a little press conference outside the plane. And we said, I'm right now at 99% approval in Israel. I could run for prime minister. So maybe after I do this, I'll go to Israel and run for prime minister. Why wait? Why is everybody cheering? Why wait? I think they want him out of our country. We want him to go be prime minister of Israel. He's so much more popular there, right? I mean, he wouldn't have all these annoying reporters, the people of Sam Stein on morning Joe, making fun of him. You know, he would have, he'd go to a place where he's appreciated. Yeah, and he can do a lot of good there. Like it would become the Trump Western wall, you know, rebranding opportunities are abundant. There has been a lot of damage from all the war. So you're doing a lot of rebuilding. Yeah. It's a triumphant arch. How is the Gaza reconstruction project going by? He can oversee it. Not great for the, you know, people of Palestine, obviously, but they're not going that well for them anyway. I don't, not that funny. It's a little, that's a little dark. I have so many jokes about Trump running Israel, but I can't tell any of them because they're really bad. Like, was one of them related to cars for kids or no? No, not that bad. Jesus. No, I was just thinking, like, I don't know, Israel is the one making our foreign policy decisions now. So why would it be better having Trump over there? Anyway, Trump's off to Israel, hopefully. Any other Iran thoughts before I move on to something that has, that has had my dander up on the plane here? I just don't think it's going well. Me neither. Do you see a path out? What's like the best case scenario for you at this point, Sam? We've talked about this. There's really not one, right? Like, the status quo just continues. Is that like the most likely scenario? Probably. Here's the thing about a 30 day pause. There's, that is, that is kind of a worst case scenario. I understand what Trump wants to be able to say that it's over, but the problem is, is that that just like, it's another month out of uncertainty. It's because what Iran's not going to dismantle their nuclear weapons. They've been very clear on this and also they've realized now that they can run the Strait of Hormuz and we can't do anything about it. And so what does a month get us other than for the, just thinking about it in the political context of America, getting us closer to the midterms and still no resolution? Yeah. And it makes us a negotiating position weaker. And I guess it's kind of true on both sides. You know, and I think the Iranians are obviously having economic problems, but, you know, we had a vote in the Senate, you know, war powers vote that didn't go Trump's way. The House vote, Jared Golden, who was the one Democrat that voted with the Republicans on this, said that he's flipping just a couple of hours ago. So, yeah, finally. So like maybe kind of please clap for Jared Golden. No, that was not really. But so the war powers situation in Congress is, you know, isn't looking as good. And obviously every, every day this goes on the gas prices rapid isn't looking as good. And his leverage is tanking. Well, then you add on to that. So, you know, there's been reporting that Iran has been able to sort of reconstitute some of its missiles. Yeah. Obviously they've shown that they can control the straight. There's rumors that they're getting help from the Chinese and the Russians. The longer you keep this going, the more and bolder than they become. The leverage points we had were this blockade. But if that gets resolved, then what are we doing here? And I guess we've talked about this a lot, but I guess it's just sort of worth stressing, which is there's no way out for him that isn't embarrassing, right? Like the most obvious way out is he cuts a deal that is just sort of a variation of what Obama did in 2014, 2015. Yeah, probably worse. Yeah, probably worse. Yeah, that would be the best case scenario. Yeah, because in this case, you're right. I mean, the new deal would involve probably some sort of toll on the straight, which was open. And he can't, I mean, he could do it and just take his lumps, but it would be a humiliation. And so I just think we're stuck with this terrible status quo in 30 days with these gas prices rising. It's bad. I mean, it's really bad. I'm glad you mentioned the Chinese, though, because this is actually, they are helping Iran. And the Chinese desperately want us to stay in a low simmering war with Iran because it continues to elevate them as the world superpower while we are mired down in these silly wars. Like this is like whatever I say it all the time, but this is just we're committing superpower suicide in real time. Yeah. Are we happy about that or not? Yeah. And he got mugged pretty hard by the Chinese. Okay. I want to talk to you about the thing that I was very upset about on the plane. Anybody have a chance to watch Squawk Box this morning? I was stuck on an airplane, so I was watching a little bit of Squawk Box. Jeff Bezos was on. And I was so angry. You guys don't like your Amazon? I was. Yeah, you've all canceled your prime. Yeah. I do like a prime. But I was so mad about what I'm about to show you that I literally Googled fuck Jeff Bezos t-shirt. And I purchased one off of Bobble. So you might be seeing that. I purchased that somewhere over New Mexico. You did buy it off of Amazon? No. Let's watch Jeff Bezos is assessing how he thinks Trump's doing. When I last interviewed you, about two years ago, President Trump had just won. He was not the president yet. And I had asked you what you thought of him at the time. And you said that you thought that he had mellow, that he was calmer. Yeah. I'm curious now, here we are. I still think that. Two years later, we've had lots of wars and tariffs and all sorts of things that have happened since then. What do you think? I think he has, I mean, I'm comparing him to his first term. And I think he is a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term. Trump has lots of good ideas. And he's done a lot of, he's been right about a lot of things. You have to give him credit where credit is due. More mature, more disciplined. He's got a lot done a lot of good things and you got a hand up to him. I don't know. Okay. So I have two questions. What earth is Jeff Bezos on and where are the peptides that he's getting? Where is he getting the peptides from? Because he does have a new look. Sarah. Okay. So here's the thing about. When he says mature, does he mean, does he mean so old that his skin is falling off of his body and he's decomposing in front of us? What does mature mean? I would, Aaron Ross Sorkin, he's very cute, but I would love, I just want to be on the other side of that interview to be like, give me one example of his maturity. Give me, what is one thing that Donald Trump has done? He said, like, he's been, you got to admit, got a hand up to him. He's been right about a lot. Name one thing. What has he been right about? And I'm not even, I'm not even playing for claps. I'm genuinely curious. I'm trying to think, was he right about the tariffs? Which was he right about the Melania documentary? Yes. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Like, is he right about the war in Iran? Has he been right about the slush fund that he's built to be corrupt? What is the thing that he's been right about? What is going well that Jeff Bezos could point to? I guess the tax cuts for people like him, but other than that, there is nothing. Also, I love how Jeff Bezos like, what is happening with his look? He's so big. I mean, it definitely is not in nature. Like whatever happened to him did not happen in nature, right? Like, and he's a whole different person. Like usually your neck doesn't expand 3X after 50. I don't think, I don't know. Maybe some of you guys know people that has happened to. Sam, wherever you add on, you have to give him credit where credit is too. Well, I don't think you do. The thing about the... You also mentioned, I'll read you the Melania documentary. I just want to set up. He was asked about the Melania doc. Jeff Bezos said this, it appears it was a good business decision. It did very well in theaters. It's done very well on streaming. People are very curious about Melania. So even though I had nothing to do with it, it appears the Amazon team made a very wise business decision. So we had the bulwark looked into this. Will looked into the numbers. It cost $75 million to produce and market. It made $16 million, which I'm not a mathematician, but I think it's a loss. And the idea that Jeff Bezos had nothing to do with this documentary, a $75 million expenditure on his company involving obviously a very important person, the president's wife, is just, it defies logic. I think he's kind of full of shit. And in all seriousness, you know, like no one made him do this interview, right? Like he didn't have to go out there and be obsequious. But we're in a place now where these tech titans especially, but you know, leaders of industry across the board, they just feel, even at this moment where Trump said like 37% approval and everyone is just tired of the shtick, that they still have to go out there and do these interviews. And it's just flabbergasting to me. You would think at some point they would say I've had enough. You don't have to just don't say anything. Just don't go out there. Well, he almost never says anything. It was so weird. What was the point of this? Yeah, that's what I'm curious. Why did he feel the need to go out there? Big station. He wants to, he's humiliating himself because he wants rocket contracts. Well, let me just add this, because he did say this on a substantive level. He talked, I mean, he was going out for this policy provision that he's got, which is he thinks the bottom 50th percentile of earners in the country should pay zero federal income taxes. I'm not going to quibble with that, whatever. But he refused to say, he refused to say that people in his bracket should pay more. He said that's a good policy debate to have in the future. He had very firm decisions on one, but not on the other. And he refused to talk about the largesse in the contracts that Amazon gets from the government, from Donald Trump specifically. And so I think that is just, you know, it's phony shtick. And he said, if you tax me more, it's not going to help the teacher in Queens at all. And I'm like, I don't know, maybe we should try it. Here's the text I sent. Sarah's not going to like this. As I was live watching this on American Airlines today, I texted my husband the following, I'm going to have a stroke over this Jeff Bezos interview on CNBC. Five minutes later, 6.55 a.m. I am a socialist now. I'm just, I'm like, I don't, I was like sitting there boiling over. I'm thinking about like, what kind of creative punishments can we have for Jeff Bezos in 2029? Because I feel like he has to watch the Melania documentary over and over and over again. I feel like the next DOJ, I think maybe there are, maybe you do. What did he say about Trump? You have to give him credit where credit is due. He has been very good at shaking down corporate leaders for money. And so maybe we should take a page out of that book and start with Jeff Bezos next time. A $1.8 billion shake down. I will just say, I would watch a Melania documentary about why she gave that weird press conference about how Epstein definitely didn't introduce her to Donald. That's the only Melania documentary I want to see. Because that is still, we still don't know why she did that. We still don't know why she did that. That is such a good point. We just, it just happened. It's like, this is it. No, we all just moved on. Yeah. Oh, okay. Thanks for telling us, Melania. Good to know. I wish we could have prepped that clip because I could just watch it right now. I could just watch the press conference again, again. I want to talk about Bulwark Bill Cassidy really quick. It's great. Yeah, it's awesome. My senator from Louisiana, who's been awful for the last five years, all of a sudden is talking a lot. I mean, he kind of sounds like Bill Crystal. I mean, honestly, let me just give you a couple of things he's done lately. Woke Bill Crystal. Not the whole thing. Yeah. He's voting against the $1 billion ballroom project. He went on at length about how they haven't given any specs for it. They haven't, you know, gone to Congress and shown what exactly they're going to spend the money on. The problem is the specs. He's upset about the specs. He defended his vote to convict Trump in 2021. He called, he called Ken Paxton a felon after Trump endorsed him. That's just objectively true. He voted in support of the Dems War Powers Resolution on Iran. And now he sent this tweet a couple of hours ago. Very long. I'm not going to make you read the whole thing, but there's one section I do want to read if you'll, if you'll allow me. The American people do not expect perfection from their leaders, but they do expect seriousness. Leaders who are steady, not erratic, thoughtful, not impulsive. Their words should lower the temperature rather than inflame division. Their actions should place the longterm interests of the country above short term personal gain. Leadership is not using power to serve your own needs. It's using power to serve the needs of others. If someone does not understand this, they should not hold a position of leadership. Who do we think he might be talking about? Say his name, Bill Cassidy. But Sarah, you posted about this. What is it about the fact that the second these guys' political careers are over, like they start sounding totally indistinguishable from the 6pm hour on MSNOW? Thanks for the plug. It was nice that you guys were clapping for Bill Cassidy as he has suddenly found religion and said, like, oh, no, now that I don't have a job anymore, I'm going to do the right thing. But I do not feel that way. And here's my overall, the fact, first of all, it's telling about our politics that the second that you don't have to win an election, you suddenly do what you think is right. And what you think is right is obviously to stand up to Donald Trump, right? That is obviously what Bill Cassidy knows to be true. And I have this fight with friends of mine sort of in the democracy space who wanted to help Bill Cassidy and support Bill Cassidy. They're like, this guy voted for impeachment. We should support him. And that is a position that I think six or seven years ago I would have endorsed, right? Like you do have to show up for these guys. But I don't know if you saw, do you saw Bill Cassidy's ads? They're horrible. You know? It's just him talking about how, how much he loves Trump and how much Trump loves him. And so I think that the, there is basically no more pernicious being in our politics than people who know better, who know what Donald Trump is doing and don't do it when it matters. The only good thing I'll say, the only good thing I'll say about Cassidy is I do think it is interesting the way that Trump has gone on this jihad against anybody who opposed him, right? Those people have seven more months in office. And something that I think Democrats should do, I don't have to be happy about Bill Cassidy. I'm in a fuck Bill Cassidy mode. That guy voted, that guy voted. He is the reason that RFK is currently presiding over our health. Okay? He betrayed everything he knew to be true and good in order to try to get that Senate seat. And I think that if you're going to go, he should have the second that he took that vote. He had six years in office. He could have done so much over the last six years that he's not doing, but okay. He's got seven months now. They are a number of people who Trump has gone after, massy too. They should vote against Donald Trump every single time. Democrats should go grab them and say, I would like this YOLO seven months. Like let's do this. Let's do something. And I think that that is an offensive way to use somebody like Bill Cassidy who wants to make it right with him and his God, right? He needs to unburden himself. And like Tillis too. Like there's a caucus now that you can go to and say, let's defeat everything this guy does. And I think Trump is going to live to regret how hard he went at these guys. Yeah. And Cornyn. Yeah. Sam, why don't you jump in on that? Because I think this is very meaningful as far as them being able to get anything past this year. Yeah. I agree 100% with everything you just said, but whoever yelled, it's too little too late. You're right. It's too little too late. And I think there's some horrible, awful irony that this is happening with this Ebola outbreak in Africa because, yeah, it's terrible. I mean, because we are in a situation right now where our main healthcare leaders and officials are cranks and conspiracists, where we've gutted our own healthcare administration and we've retreated from the global healthcare community in very serious ways, extremely serious ways. Our colleague Jonathan Cohn had an article the other night about what the cuts to USA mean for the Ebola fight in Africa. And it is substantial. That was the front line of our resistance to Ebola in 2014. It is just not there because it was cut. Okay. Yeah. And I don't think it's unfair to say that in the effort to save his own political fortunes, Bill Cassidy's vote for Afkejunir killed people. It absolutely killed people. And so he has to live with that for the rest of his life. And whether he can go YOLO for seven months, great. Have at it. But that doesn't absolve the damage that has been done and the people whose lives have been lost because of the decisions that he made. What should my Ebola concern level be right now? New Orleans feels like probably the most likely landing spot. You don't need to be too concerned. According to Jonathan's, much more than me, but I mean, look, this is a serious outbreak. This is the third most pernicious Ebola outbreak in history. And this is only a couple of weeks in. Okay. So this is nothing to scoff at. Fortunately, the disease spreads in ways that you have to have. I don't want to get too technical. I just got to get in touch with the saliva and the blood and all that stuff. You should be worried. Yeah. Okay. Never mind. Long story short, it's a big international problem. And that will of course affect the United States. But the idea that there'll be an outbreak in the United States is pretty small. Noted. Okay. We'll look into the dental dental dams. I do think that I do think that no lesbian in the history of the universe has ever used a dental dam. I do think it's going to be really hard for them to pass a budget this year. And I think that the ballroom and the arch and all that is in real threat. Did you see the arch? Okay. You must have missed the story. It happened like two hours ago. They're citing a law passed a hundred years ago to say that Congress has authorized the construction of the arch today. A hundred years. They're just going to go and do the arch. Kind of similar to the latest Supreme Court ruling on the voting rights. Yeah, only 70 years ago. So this also just happened, but I don't know if you guys saw this. This jumps out at me because Brian Fitzpatrick is from my hometown, Pennsylvania. Trump is attacking him. And Fitzpatrick is now leading the charge in Congress to get the slush fund taken away. Which again, this is more just Trump's retribution tour. I want it to backfire on him. And I think him going after a swing vote like Fitzpatrick, who also he is now running unopposed on the Republican side. He doesn't have a primary. And so he wanted a Kamala plus three or four district. And so him taking on Trump right now is actually politically advantageous for him to hold onto his seat. But there are with him and Massey, like we are now it's fine, but we're still putting together enough numbers to potential. I'm sorry. I want the slush fund taken away. I want the slush fund taken away. I do too. I'm just saying Brian Fitzpatrick wrote a strongly worded letter and we'll see how that turns out. I know there was part of me that said, oh, a letter that'll show him. Speaking of Fitzpatrick, Sam suggested that we rank the which Republican cuck was the most pathetic in their handling of Donald Trump over the past 10 years. Do we just pick some of the worst? I'm providing I'm providing lists of nominees. We'll throw Fitzpatrick in there and we'll see if he can fight his way out. John. Linty Graham. Wait, wait, wait. Just the parameters here. These are people who I've chosen people who are either lost office or will lose office. So that doesn't include this out, right? Like these are people who their political career has ended and they left ignoble. You know, our boy Adam Kinzinger is not on there. Right. It's people who left with their tail tucked still groveling to Trump. Here we go. John Cornyn. Big bad John Cornyn. Bill Cassidy. I can't believe you put our girl MTG on here. Poor MTG. Nike Pence. That's a bad nomination. Nikki Haley. Chris Christie. And some other good ones. Bob Corker. Do you guys have somebody in mind for each of you? I have my choice. Okay, let's hear it. I think John Cornyn. Yeah, let's hear it. Because like, what was his transgression exactly? He did nothing to like fuck with Trump. I think at one point he was like, well, I would have done something differently than that. And I was like literally all it took. And then Trump endorses Ken fucking Paxton, like the most miserable human being ever to run for office, the most ethically challenged individual in politics. That's a humiliation. I don't think any one of these other people can match. Sarah. My most cocked Republican is not on this list. Oh, great. His name is John Fetterman. Well, that's a curveball. Just kidding. No, you didn't like that choice. I wouldn't tell you guys my choice beforehand. I still like John Fetterman as the choice. I'm just waiting for the rationale. Explanation. Oh, explanation. So he is, he's never, he's never going to win his seat. Like Connor Lamb's going to run against him in a Democratic primary and it's going to be over, which by the way, for everybody wearing a JVL is always right shirt. I would just like to say I was Connor Lamb from the jump, explained why Fetterman would be bad. JVL was like, no, he's going to be the president someday. And everybody was like, yeah, JVL is always right. And I would just like to know what everybody thinks now. How do you like your Fetterman now? In JVL's defense, he had a stroke, immediately lost a lot of IQ points and all of a sudden Donald Trump was making sense. He hangs out at Butterworth's in DC and all he does is blame Democrats for everything and hang out with Republicans. And so, and he loves Donald Trump and I think that he's the most cocked. I am sorry, you guys are both wrong. The most cocked Republican by far was Chris Christie and he tried to win it back by running for president again and doing some good things, which was fine. But before that, Donald Trump almost killed Chris Christie with COVID. They, Donald Trump had COVID, they prepped for the debate together. Donald Trump blew his breath into Chris Christie's fat face. Christie went to the hospital, came out of the hospital and still was like, Mr. Trump, can I get you a white castle? No, Chris Christie humiliating and all you guys are a cheap date that came back around on him. I'm never forgetting. I take your point. Final topic for the podcast. We'll move on to the next segment. I usually don't, I never actually played Donald Trump's voice on the podcast. You're welcome. Because it's a live show, we're going to make an exception because Trump, because we're here in California. I'm sorry. We're here in California. Well, the president of the United States had some pretty strong words about you guys and I just, I felt like we should watch. If we had Jesus Christ come down and count the votes, I would have won California because I do great with Hispanics, but it's a rigged vote. They said that 38 million votes. Nobody knows where they're going. Of course, the Democrats, I guess, but disproportionately Democrats get many more votes. Some get eight votes. They get eight cards and Republicans have to call in where's my card. It's a rigged system. One of the most, not the worst, I'll give you a list. Maybe I'll do my list, but it's California's one of the most dishonest states for running. One of the most dishonest states in America. Nice middle finger out there. Have any of you voted eight times? No. If Jesus Christ counted the votes, Donald Trump would have won California. Well, his hair is looking awfully flat. Didn't his hair look weird? He looks awful. He looks awful. I watched sort of his 20th. It's almost like he's 80 years old and too old to be the president. He looks awful. He was an unflattering angle on that video, I will say. Making great points. Okay. That's the podcast. Thanks everybody. Wait, wait, wait. We didn't do the fight part. We're coming. Calm down. I'm the host. Okay. I'm here in the host chair. The host of the flagship daily podcast. You've got your shows, focus group, whatever. You're in charge of that. Illegal news. Have you heard of it? Illegal news. It's doing okay in the rankings. All right. That's the podcast, everybody. We'll see you back here tomorrow for another edition with Mike Murphy. Peace. The board podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.