Trump's “Little Excursion" in Iran Becomes a 100-Day Disaster

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Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. Support for the show comes from Harvey AI. The future of law is a genetic. Not just tools that assist, but AI agents that navigate complex matters. That's why Harvey created agents that can do the work from end to end. They build a plan, pull from secure data sources, run subagents in parallel, and draft the work product ready for your review. So you delegate the work and own the judgment. Trusted by more than 60% of the AMLAW 100 and Leading Fortune 500 legal teams, Harvey is the AI operating system designed specifically for legal work. Harvey, AI, tailored for law. Learn more at harvey.ai. Welcome to Raging Monarchs. I'm Skye Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarlev. If you want to support the show, subscribe to our YouTube channel. It's free, it helps us grow, and it helps us reach new audiences. Okay, let's bust into it. First up, we've now passed the 100-day mark in the Iran War, with little evidence that either side is any closer to a resolution. Over the weekend, Iran launched missiles towards Israel for the first time since the April ceasefire. Israel also launched missiles, and Trump says it's only the intervene Monday morning to urge both sides to stand down. Trump also appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, where he downplayed the situation before abruptly ending the interview. Let's get a taste of that. You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they're rigged. You know that I won an election in a landslide, and I got 94% bad press. But Mr. President, you've never presented evidence. You've never presented evidence. It was rigged. Let's keep talking about it. I want to talk about Todd H loved. You have more evidence, there's more evidence than ever presented. Let's talk about it. Your elections in this country were like a third world country. Your elections are crooked, and you're crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked, and so is ABC, and CBS, and CNN. But Mr. President. You're one-sided crooked networks. Let's go all in quick, because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time. I traveled all the way to Wisconsin. I've traveled all the way to Wisconsin. I've traveled all the way to Wisconsin. I've traveled all the way to Wisconsin. On and off in the rain, and I've given you enough time. You ought to straighten out your press, because you know what? Mr. President. A country can never be great with a dishonest press. Listen, we traveled all the way to Wisconsin for the film of you. You go first. Where to begin? The level of rage, which the red was overtaking the orange, which rarely happens, right? That he actually gets a deeper color than the makeup that he's wearing, even with it sweating off, and it was climatically not perfect with the rain, and it was on and off. But I keep thinking about how everyone who loves him is like, oh my God, he's such a tough guy, and he crumbles if you ask a follow-up, right? Or if you just point out objective reality, which is that there were 63 court cases for the 2020 election, and they lost all of them. All of them. There was not one kernel of fraud that they could prove. I also just, I mean, maybe my estrogen is pretty strong this morning, but watching him talk to her like that, I guess she has to sit there and take it. She can't be the one to take off her mic and throw it down, but we didn't play this part of it where he goes, you're either crooked or you're stupid. That's something that the President of the United States of America said to one of top journalists, reporters in the country, and it's now 24 hours later, and we're talking about it because we didn't meet on Sunday, but it's going to be lost in the dustbin of history because we're moving on to a million other things, and people are just going to ignore it. Like, I can't take it the way that he speaks to people, especially to women like Caitlin Collins, Christian Welker, Liz Landers from PBS. It's just horrifying to me. Yeah, like the part that triggered me was when he called her darling. I mean... 1950s again, what he wants. But the fear I have is that it'll ticker the sensors of Fox because he does come across as legitimately enraged, like there's substance behind his rage. And the big story will be that he walked out. We know this guy does not acquit himself well, that he doesn't have the complexion or the demeanor of someone who should be in the Oval Office. We've known that for a while. The problem isn't him walking out of a Meet the Press interview. It creates good for good video. The problem is that the war is 100 days old, costs are mounting, and the answers seem shorter every week. And then the bigger overarching problem is that there is still a large percentage of the Republican Party. I think it's somewhere between a third and a half. You probably have better numbers than I do that believe the election was rigged. 60%. It's 60. Okay, so two-thirds of Republicans believe the elections have been rigged, and there was a bunch of live reporting from the ballot counting in LA County, which always takes several days. And if you go around and talk to people, half the people counting votes and overseeing this and being fiduciaries are Republicans. It's just so insane that this conspiracy theory continues to live on without a single piece of evidence that there's any concerted means of rigging elections. And this is, I mean, in some ways, if you can't support the peaceful transfer of power, you just don't have a democracy, and he continues to promote that lie. So him walking out of an interview, yeah, fine. I find the whole thing to be a bit of a distraction and just confirming what we already knew. He does not have the composure, the decorum, much less grace to be in an interview. I'm just waiting at some point for, I think these interviewers show a lot of patience at some point to go, what, you can't answer my question? I mean, these are softballs, Mr. President. At some point you should be able to answer these questions. You know, anyways, I know there's a lot else to say here. Any other thoughts? Well, there's the war aspect of it because we did have, I mean, we didn't have movement towards an actual deal or a restarting of heavy fire. But I think the last 24 hours actually have been important. I think Iran striking Israel for the first time since the ceasefire came into place in April is a big deal. So Edward Luce from the FT got Trump on the phone because you can just call him. And he told Luce, I call the shots. I call all the shots. Netanyahu doesn't call the shots. And then BB struck Iran. And I do think that, I don't want to say it's seminal in any way, but I think that the kind of fissure in that relationship and the fact that Trump is basically saying that violations of the ceasefire don't count to him at this point. And that Israel, you know, our strongest ally in the region, if they're getting pummeled, he doesn't really care because he's in such hot pursuit of this deal. It does matter. It has reframed how we're looking at it. And I don't know if you caught Susan Rice on Bill Maher on Friday night, but listening, yeah, what excellence, right? Listening to her talk about what actually, you know, went into the JCPOA, how they negotiated it, what the restrictions are, the kind of limitations on enrichment, where the inspections were happening, where they weren't happening. I was like, oh, adults are back in the room. But you get the feeling from listening to her and at least what is rumored to potentially be in the deal that might be forthcoming, that we are not even going to get the JCPOA. We're not going to even get it in terms of the restrictions, but we're also going to be giving up a hell of a lot more money than we did the 1.7 billion of unfrozen Iranian assets that were being held in a Qatari bank account. When Obama and his team, I should say John Kerry and his team negotiated that during the second Obama administration. Just the easing of sanctions on Iranian exports has probably provided, I would imagine, tens of millions of incremental revenues. You said something, I just want to double click on. So you think Netanyahu, I know what their claiming happened, but you think Netanyahu struck Iran unilaterally over Trump's objections? No, I think that Netanyahu responded to what Iran did. I think Iran was saying we're in a position now where we can create even more daylight between the U.S. and Israel and really show that they're fighting two separate wars. They knew as well that Trump was out there saying, you know, I wear the big boy pants now. Right, like I'm in charge, Bibi's not in charge. He got him to stop firing into Lebanon, remember last week it had gotten really bad. Trump had that very gruff call with Bibi where he was apparently shouting at him. And so I think Iran was like, I'm going to poke the two bears, essentially, and show that they're not a team anymore. Then Trump, it's public because it's widely reported on that Trump is saying I'm the one who's in charge. And then Netanyahu made a calculated decision to say, actually, you're in charge of your country, but I'm in charge of my country. And our goals align when I think that that's the right thing to do, like getting Trump in the initial stages to actually go into Iran in the first place. But I'm going to do what I feel like I need to do for Israel, vis-a-vis Lebanon and responding to the Iranian attacks. So it's quiet right now, allegedly. I mean, we're taping this at 11 a.m. Eastern time. It'll come out at about five o'clock. Who knows what will happen in the next few hours in terms of it being quiet. But I do think it was a big shot across Trump's bow from the Israeli side, saying like, you can tell the FT or whoever you want that you're in charge of this, but I'm the one who says go, essentially, with the Israeli infrastructure. Yeah, it just feels like the IRGC is playing this so well right now. And the Trump administration, whether it flips over the monopoly game because it doesn't like the questions being asked on Meet the Press, or trying to convince us it's like a kitchen renovation, the war in Iran, or it takes longer than you think it's going to, or a streaming service where you signed up for it, and you can't remember why, but you're still getting billed. I mean, it's almost as if he's totally disconnected from the reality of what's going on there, calling people firing caches of weapons at each other, not a breakdown on the ceasefire, claiming he's in charge. It is interesting to think the notion that Netanyahu feels like he has the political wherewithal and the strength, quite frankly, to go it alone if he, in fact, is going it alone, and just sticking up the middle finger sensing Trump's weakness domestically and deciding he's going to do what he thinks is best for Israel and for him. Any thoughts on what you think happens in the next few weeks here? I don't know. I mean, usually, Rubio is the closest thing to a real answer. I mean, Trump is still back on. It'll take us 24 to 48 hours to get this done, so I can't really trust any of that. I mean, Rubio had said, you know, it could be a few days, it could be a week. Maybe there is something, but I imagine that it amounts to basically an extension of the ceasefire with some gifts for the Iranians to keep them from going back into all out conflict. I don't know if it's like the midterm gags that have been pushing on the Trump administration, but it feels like there's basically a 0% chance that we're going back to a real conflict, like a hot conflict at this point. So I think it's just going to be punting and punting, which is exactly how the Iranians would like it to be, because as that continues, like you said, they get a little bit of sanctions relief here, a little bit of sanctions reliefs there, and they stay in business, right? They continue supporting their terror proxies. Their leadership gets stronger. You know, the new Ayatollah, we still haven't seen him, but he's allegedly recovering from the hits that he took during the initial days of the war. And, you know, we don't see many articles about how Iran is sweating this that hard anymore. Yeah, I don't see any reason why the IRGC would negotiate. It just seems plain as day to me. He has, and we asked Secretary Clinton this when she was on our live podcast or in New York. It was so good, by the way. We haven't talked about it. It was so cool that you had her. I appreciate that. And yeah, it was a nice moment for us to have Secretary Clinton on. God, can you imagine how different the world would be if she got elected in 2016? Anyways. Yeah, I can. It's like what I dream about. But who knows, right? I mean, the world is so strange. The butterfly flapping its wings in the Brazilian rainforests. But I asked her, well, in order to come to some sort of agreement, any agreement, we have to have leverage. What exactly is our leverage right now? I don't. What is it China benefits from us being in this war? Iran seems to likely to emerge from this even stronger. And the IRGC knows that the American public does not support this war. So it's like, it's as if Russia demanded that the Ukraine surrender as his troops were withdrawing. We are leaving. I mean, there's just the art. It comes down to this. What leverage do we have when it's clear we are leaving and that the president has absolutely no support for this war going into the midterms? We have alienated our strongest allies. We've made life much harder for Japan, for South Korea, for Canada. European energy costs have exploded and we have emboldened our enemies. This is a gift to China, who is now seen as the stable partner. This is a gift to Iran where their revenues have spiked because of the increase in oil prices. I mean, it would be hard to think of at this point a more elegant way, maybe tariffs to diminish our credibility around the world. And they know it. So every day that this conflict goes on, there is a leak of strength and power from traditional democracies to autocracies and the IRGC. I don't see what their incentive is other than to continue and not come to a resolution or wait until they get something vastly better than the JCPOA, you know, hundreds of billions. I mean, I'll be really curious if this goes down as the biggest geopolitical mistake because not that many American lives have been lost here. Whereas we lost thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan and also hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis were killed. But this feels like, okay, I know you're leaving. Why would I negotiate with you? Why would I give you anything? You're not, you're out. Your thoughts? I agree with you. I would add, since you brought up tariffs, that I guess he's like, oh, well, I miss those bad boys, right? This threat now that he's going to put tariff, new sets of them on like 56 countries or something like that coming soon to make up for what the Supreme Court struck down. And yes, it is in technical terms not that many service members lost. But Ashley Hinson, who will be the Republican nominee for Senate in Iowa, I see if they need to defend, was speaking in a closed door room, but the contents got leaked. And she said, this war has to end. We've buried four Iowans since December. So, you know, it has an effect. It's 13. But those are, you know, people who bravely risk their lives for us and they matter a hell of a lot to their families and also to the folks that represent them that are thinking I'm going into a midterm with gas over $4 and American lives lost seemingly for nothing. In some cases, because we wouldn't even, you know, prepare them for the drones that were coming. I mean, the original sex who died in that Kuwaiti base, we didn't give them a top to their makeshift office, essentially. And that's how we lost those lives. And so, you know, I do think that there is also a difference between lives lost for a cause that people believe in, where the families can say, we know why, you know, Jack or Jill was fighting for this, right? And we believe in it. And we believe in the mission versus, you know, why wasn't there a top to the office that you had them sitting in while there was a war going on. Yeah, I think that a decent talking point for the next batch of presidential candidates would be like fiscal responsibility and affordability comes down to responsibility such that interest rates across your mortgages, your auto payment, your credit card bills start to go down. And the only way that's going to happen is with some semblance of fiscal responsibility where we stop this madness of spending $7 trillion a year on $5 trillion in receipts. And all roads lead to entitlements. But a next road, if you will, is the fact that the president has endorsed increasing the military budget from $1 trillion to $1.4 trillion. And I think if we take anything from the war on Ukraine and Iran, it's one word asymmetry. And that is your ability to be innovative around kind of small, small weapons, drones, communication systems that cost dramatically less. And also quite frankly, if America isn't, I understand the emotional plea and I think it's a powerful one of the Iowans that have been buried. But if you don't have an army that and you don't have a public that's willing to support quite frankly more sacrifice than that, I'm not suggesting they should, but if they not, you know, Russia is losing 1000 men a day. And that's their core confidence is they're willing to do that. We lose 13 members and candidates for office are making emotional pleas about the, you know, about the loss. I get it. I understand it. I feel sorry for those families. But if we're not going to quite frankly exercise that strength, demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice, demonstrate or we seem to be demonstrating that these foreign misadventures are just on a risk-adjusted basis is generally a bad idea that these expensive platforms are not yielding the type of fruit we see that the IRGC is getting from drones, that the Ukrainian army is getting from drones. I think a decent talking point would be there is a realistic argument for maintaining our strength and our priorities across our Defense Department at 500 billion, not 1.4 trillion. I mean, I always go to the numbers and the money. I think all of this adds up to we need to have a much better fighting capability on much less money. Otherwise, what's the point of spending $1.4 trillion if we can't fight wars effectively, if we're taken down by much less expensive machinery and platforms and also quite frankly the American public doesn't seem to have the appetite for, and it might be justified for overseas misadventures, then fine. I don't think Canada is going to invade us. I don't think Mexico poses a threat to us. We have two oceans. Let's invest in much cheaper kind of simple platform AI driven weapons and let's take the military budget down $500 or $600 billion. All for it. I think if you throw in as well that, you know, we'll have President Zelensky and his team over here making the same presentation that they offered us before we got into this war, and they'll show us how you can go from getting absolutely pummeled to being able to strike so close to Putin that he has to go into hiding, that the American public could really get behind that and you're going to take that money and appropriate it for things that they care about like healthcare, better schools, better roads and bridges, you know, great jobs. I think that would be an excellent renewal platform for a candidate. Dell PCs with Intel inside are built for the moment you plan and the ones you don't. For the time you forgot your charger at the gate. Passengers, we are now on our initial ascent. Or when you're bouncing between projects like a ping pong ball. We build PCs with long lasting battery life so you're not scrambling for a charger and built in intelligence so you can stay focused on whatever you're doing. Dell Technologies, built for you. Dell.co.uk forward slash Dell PCs. There are a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce and more. And the best part? Odu replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odu for free at odu.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. Support for the show comes from CoreWeave. Everywhere you look, AI is expanding what we thought was possible and at the center of it all is CoreWeave. Medical research and diagnosis, education, complex visual effects for movies, science and technology breakthroughs. CoreWeave powers AI pioneers around the world with purpose built tech, building what's never been built before. CoreWeave is the essential cloud for AI. Ready for anything? Ready for AI. To learn more about how CoreWeave powers the world's best AI, go to coreweave.com slash ready for anything. Speaking of things that aren't going according to plan, in economic news with major political implications, the stock market took a huge dip on Friday in large part due to uncertainty in the AI and chip sector. There are fears about the AI bubble bursting and that conversation is only getting louder as companies including SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropoc move closer to IPOs. Meanwhile, Trump is expected to meet with tech leaders this week to discuss whether the government should take ownership stakes in strategically important AI firms. Jess, a lot of people have been critical about AI having free reign, but is this the answer? Well, I am. I'm sure our listeners are much more interested in what your perspective on this is, but... I don't know about that. Read the comments. Basically, the comments are more just, Scott, but thank you for that. Anyways, go ahead. Well, not from my household. But I don't know how we moved from having the government have a regulatory role to an ownership stake. Because Trump shows and has shown over and over that he is interested in owning these companies. Like, I'll take 10% of Intel that will run our kind of state capitalism version. But it seems to me like the government shouldn't be owning these companies, but they should be regulating them. And I wonder what the Sam Altman and the Modi's feel about that shift. Like, if they're actually open to it and interested in it, or if they want to work out some other kind of deal where the government certainly takes a role and probably put some cash in too. But that was what stuck out to me. Yeah, look, when you start pretending, when governments start pretending that they're smarter at business than the private sector, you end up with warehouses in Ireland full of unsold Dolorens and Air France. It just doesn't work. And that's not to say that government shouldn't occasionally provide funding for strategic sectors, whether it's the chip sector. South Korea has done a great job of funding its heavy manufacturing sector, such that it gets some running room with kind of domestic help. You know, supporting or providing tax credits for rechargeable, you know, rechargeable electric EV stations. You can see some benefit to that to inspire the EV race, which ended up quite frankly just being a subsidy for Tesla. But nonetheless, it did inspire or kind of give it jumpstarted. There's reasons for the government to get involved in funding and then in regulating those industries. But when it starts picking individual companies and it takes a golden share on US Steel or invest in Intel, you know, that's the government deciding we're favoring one company. Over another, instead of the full body contact violence that makes capitalism great, where companies fight it out and they all have to play by the same rules or they all have access to the same subsidies. But this again goes back to the toddler who's decided he understands which businesses are going to work and which aren't. And what I do think there's a larger, first it started with people hate data centers. I feel like this feels a little bit like late 99 when you get to this level, the case shiller, the price earnings index is now above 40, which it hasn't been that way since the end of 99. Now, will there be a collapse? I don't think so because these companies, while the NASDAQ has compounded up 20% here for the last 10 years, what's different this time is that earnings across the sector have compounded up 15% per year. These are much more profitable, different, much more robust companies with large balance sheets versus, you know, pets.com or even Amazon back in late 99. But you are seeing, I think, a fatigue and a much more questioning just in the last seven or 10 days around the valuations of these companies. And also things like the research coming out of MIT showing that 95% of CFOs aren't seeing an ROI on their investments in AI. I mean, these things have just gotten way out in front of their skis. As it relates to regulation, I think the government should be more involved in AI but regulating it, right? The analogy I would use is that if we're to believe the CEOs of these companies that these technologies are more powerful than nuclear weapons, then would we have let Oppenheimer start a company, raise venture capital and sell these things into, you know, into Brazil? So, absolutely more government involvement but in the form of regulation, not having a failed Nepo baby and a failed business person trying to pick which companies the government should be investing in. The way the government gets a return on investment is by taxing these companies and letting them run. And we err on the side of deregulation, which is good most of the time. It's gotten way overboard here. And then we collect tax revenue on everything from the corporate profits to payroll taxes to the sales tax to property taxes on the homes that the 11,000 new millionaires that are going to all of a sudden be made in these three IPOs. But to think that somehow we're in the business of being a hedge fund, it's just, again, it's the same arrogance of societies that believe that the smartest people are the ones, the people who aggregate power and that they should decide how, you know, they know how to play better. The business better than business and it never ends well. It never, it never works. As Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with socialism is eventually run out of other people's money. I was just going to ask you if you like Bernie Sanders' approach, he has this proposal for a one time 50% stock tax on AI firms and the proceeds would go to like a sovereign wealth fund. No, just as Trump's approach to socialism makes no sense, either does Bernie Sanders and it shows a lack of understanding of markets by Senator Sanders. In some, this would be a one time 50% stock tax on AI firms like Open AI and Anthropic, the proceeds, the proceeds of which would establish a sovereign wealth fund with the idea we'd give American citizens a direct ownership stake in these technologies. So a sovereign wealth fund is a place like PIF in the kingdom or in Norway as a sovereign wealth fund when they produce so much of a natural resource that they have a budget surplus and they typically can't even find enough projects internally so they create a sovereign wealth fund and it becomes a source of return or income for their citizens because they are producing more of an asset and they have a budget surplus. All a sovereign wealth fund would be in America is essentially layering on more debt because our government spends more money such that, again, American government can pretend it's a fucking hedge fund manager which should just show no ability to do that. So if you were going to have an additional tax, it should go towards paying down our deficit, not pretending that the government and Senator Sanders has any idea how to invest that money any better than the private sector. Two, I don't like taxation that is industry specific. They talked about this bullshit nonsense to have a super tax on oil and gas firms during the energy crisis. What is an AI firm? We're using AI like crazy here. Should we be subject to this tax? Is Microsoft subject to an AI tax? I mean, where is the line? Where is the line? What you need is a progressive tax structure to fund the government such that we don't continue to layer in massive amounts of debt that young people have to pay back for future generations. But this is just populist bullshit. You don't create different tax structures for different industries because then every industry tries to create just enough other businesses. They perform unnatural acts such that they don't qualify for this tax or people stop investing in AI because they don't will get lower returns because there's additional taxation on AI. If you want to have taxation on environmental standards or whatever it is that might have impact AI or if an AI data center, there's a state tax because of additional consumption, electricity consumption, that's their right. But taxes on specific industries don't work. It basically neuters that industry's ability to draw capital and then you end up just spending a ton of time trying to create all this bureaucratic red tape around what qualifies as an AI company and what doesn't. If Senator Sanders wants to increase tax revenues, he should figure out a way to increase the marginal tax rate on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including Eli Lilly, which just became a trillion dollar company on the back of GLP one. You know, there are a ton of companies doing really well here that aren't in AI and also what happens when AI crashes and all of a sudden the stocks are down 80% and they're stuck with this legacy tax. This again, industry specific taxation is again the same mistake is taking a golden share in Intel or US Steel and that is the government has decided who should be winners and losers because they're smarter than anybody else. I want higher taxes on corporations, but I not only want it on Thropic, I want it on Apple and I want it on the Gap. Your thoughts? I think the comments are going to speak loudly today on this topic that you did know more about what you were saying than I did. You were just being kind. No, I mean, yeah, I am inherently kind, but that was very interesting. Thank you. So Democrats are dealing with a very different kind of crisis. A New York Times investigation in a Maine Congressman, Graham Platner, detailed three previous relationships described as toxic, triggering fresh scrutiny from both Democratic lawmakers and voters. Cal, she currently has the odds of the Democratic Party taking the main Senate seat at 58%, rebounding a bit from last week, but still far below the odds of the pretexting scandal. Jess, what do you think? The question we have from our producers is, do you think Platner will stand their race? I absolutely think he's going to stand the race, but more largely, what's your commentary here? So I struggle a lot with this. I was disappointed to see how many Democrats just dismissed what is a very real allegation of abuse in the article. I assume by now that most people have read it. Can you give us the cliff notes on that? Yes. Six women, six ex-girlfriends that they spoke to, four said Graham's a great guy. Like, yeah, you know, drank a lot, but no claims of abuse. Two said that it was unsettling or toxic behavior. One of whom, this woman, Lindsay Feifeld, who has a background in Republican politics and they dated for a couple of years, but has worked at places like the Heritage Center, the Heritage Foundation, and was also the co-founder of a group called Ladies for Kavanaugh, about Brett Kavanaugh, accused Platner of pulling her arm behind her back in the midst of a fight and shoving her into a room and locking the door. And she wasn't released until the morning after. And that's abuse to me. Like, you know, if there have been, like, you know, straight up dismissals of it without even saying we should look into this further, which I think is the safest place for people to be on this, you know, without saying, like, Graham Platner categorically denied it. He went on with Chris Hayes. He did, like, about a 25-minute interview with him. Hayes pushed him on a bunch of stuff, including whether he was talking to underage girls on that app, that kick app that we talked about last week, to what actually happened with Lindsay Feifeld. Platner says it didn't happen. The New York Times did nobody any favors, frankly, I think, in going to press with the piece as it was. Because Lindsay Feifeld and conservatives are, I wouldn't just say annoyed, they're livid about what happened because they say that Feifeld had friends who were willing to corroborate on the record and that the Times didn't talk to them. And a bunch of them, like Mary-Catherine Ham, Bethany Mandel, have been posting on Twitter and other social media platforms that they knew about this, and the Times didn't talk to them. There were also, apparently, two other women who had allegations of assault by Platner, and the Times didn't include them in the piece, and Feifeld alleges that the Times used these other women to lure her into doing this, coming forward and then, essentially, like, hunger out to dry. And this obviously harms the Platner camp without the Times being able to say that they could corroborate the story. And they made that very clear. They not only wrote it in the first iteration, then they updated it and, essentially, made that part of it even stronger, saying that they couldn't get independent corroboration of the story. So it's kind of just, like, sitting out there, right, without people being able to say, like, this definitely happened or this definitely didn't happen. And then, sorry, this is, like, the longest cliff-knows you've ever read, but then the other element in this are two of them that I'd say that are really important. One is up to the voters in Maine who are not terminally online. Platner was rallying all weekend. People were interviewed and said over and over again that they weren't considering ditching him, that they didn't see this as disqualifying, whether that's because they don't believe it, or they think that the threat of having Susan Collins again is just that big, that they're like, oh, we're going to take the imperfect guy who had PTSD, who put his life on the line for the country, and has done a lot of things that I certainly, you know, would be not supportive of, you know, someone that I knew, or if I behaved that way. Like, one older lady I loved, she said, would I date him? No, but you're not asking me to date him, right? You're asking whether I want Susan Collins out of office and who's in best position. And then the other thing, Lindsay Feifield also told the Times that Platner knew what the Totencock, the tattoo, was when he got it. That actually him and his fellow service members chose it on purpose because they were quote unquote killers as well. The idea that Platner got the tattoo knowing full well that it was an SS symbol really stands out as separate from what others have said about it. And I don't know, I found it curious, I guess, that none of the other girlfriends mentioned anything about it. If he felt so affectionately about it, you know, calling it my Totencoff, and was like, I went out there and purposely chose this, would that have come up and Platner sat on Chris Hayes' show? You know, would I have taken my shirt off at my sister-in-law, at my brother and sister-in-law's wedding when she's Jewish and her extended family are all Jewish if I knew what it was? No, I personally don't think that he knew what it was when he got it. I think he found out and then he decided he should just leave it there. But that's my rundown. Yeah, I kind of laid this a little bit at the feet of the Democratic Party that should be doing the same opposition research before they get behind a candidate that the Republicans do once he becomes the candidate. I think a lot of these things are disqualifying at a point where we weren't risking a total loss of bodily autonomy for women. I mean, I'm really conflicted here because I feel as if running for Senate is you're saying I want to be in a policy position. This isn't a marriage proposal. And I read that article in The New York Times. We'll see where it goes and if other people come forward. But it felt that perhaps some people were being pushed to say things or frame them in a way that was beneficial to Republicans. And I don't mean in any way to diminish these things and I don't think we should see where this goes. But I'm sort of at a point where the story is in the scandal. I think the more interesting story is that Republicans have decided the margin for error for Republicans is much greater than Democrats. And that has not benefited Democrats. You know, Republicans survive scandals that would sink an aircraft carrier and we're like Faberge eggs falling down a flight of stairs. And not to say that these scandals aren't serious, but look at what Republicans have decided to overlook. And we'd like to think that at some point that will pay off for us. It hasn't. And so again, I'm not as excised by the tattoo of military guys. And I don't think I think it's if your tattoo is one point in a pattern, I think Hexeth is a racist and a bigot. I think when you have a tattoo that might have really uncomfortable associations and you're also refusing to give women and people of color promotions in the military and removing the name of a gay rights activist, the first openly gay person elected to office Harvey Milk from a frigate. I think that shows a pattern of bigotry. I think Graham Plattner's tattoo was a mistake, but I don't see a lot of data points that would support a pattern of bigotry. Is there a pattern of spousal abuse or domestic abuse? I would say there's some very concerning reports here. Is there a pattern yet? I don't know. I guess there'll be more reporting. And then the question becomes, even if there is a pattern, if we elect a guy who is what should be disqualifying behavior that should be disqualifying, are we more concerned about the statement or the fact that tens of thousands of teenage girls of color who don't have a lot of options are going to have to carry a baby to term? So I'd like to think that we could apply greater standards. And I think that I think it's another mark against democratic leadership that didn't think to do this type of research before. But I'm sort of at this point, I think that women's rights will be better served with this guy in the Senate than a senator Collins who continues to pretend to give a good goddamn about women's rights or immigrants rights or corruption in the White House and then vote the way Trump does. I mean, this is a tough one, but my pragmatist is like, I don't know. I think our inability, our willingness, I don't even call it our purity test, but what should be a logical disqualifying actions, which these probably amount to at this point, our standards are not paying off for us and the American public will pay a price. It's just you want to shower after saying something like that. But I think I'd still, I think the Democratic Party and the people they represent are still better off trying to do everything they can to get this guy elected. Your thoughts? I tend to come down on that side and one other element that I would add to it is that this is a Democratic Party conversation. I don't want to hear anything from the Republicans about it. And I said this on air, like, you know, the party of Trump, the party of Ken Paxton, who they're shoving down our throats in Texas, who's so bad that they all were campaigning against him. But then the people spoke and they're, you know, having to tell us that James Talerico is the bigger threat because he wore a mask for a little bit too long and you call him a soy boy. And, you know, there's this other guy, Max Miller, Republican Congressman, is accused of pouring boiling water on his wife during an argument. She's Bernie Moreno, the senator from Ohio's daughter. And like, you want us to be all exercised about grand-platiner right now? It doesn't mean we're not taking it seriously and we'll see the primary is tomorrow. And then there's still a mechanism in Maine that he could come off the ballot and could be replaced up until the middle of July. So it's going to be a very tense few weeks for the party. But I think at this point, like, one thing I know for sure is that a Republican doesn't get to have an opinion as far as I'm concerned on what we do about this. I mean, it's almost comical. They would bring this shit up. But the problem is they know it works because they know we'll push the exit button, even if it means putting a Republican back such that we hold on to these standards. And I don't think it's, again, I don't think it's paying off for us. You just said something that I did not know that I think is really interesting and that is someone else could replace Platner. Do you think that's a viable possibility? Is there a, is there, and it can't be Janet Mills. She brightens up a room by leaving it. You know, she's literally going to leave for the governor's office feet first probably soon. What about, is there a, is there a manor that the Democratic Party and manors could get behind right now and swoop in and that, and potentially be kind of a white knight here, so to speak? Well, what we really need to, if you're looking at this, just as a strategic game, right? Like putting aside the morality question, like I said, I think that accusation is very serious, even if Lindsey Feifield is a Republican operative. The guy that people wanted was Jared Golden, who's the retiring congressman who had won Maine's second district, always, you know, very good at holding a Trump district. And he came out a couple days ago and said that he would not be doing this. I don't know if that changes in a couple weeks if the party goes to him kind of hat in hand and says, these are the numbers. Right, like this is, we're going to get decimated because Susan Collins is an over performer. I mean, she was tied or even behind Sarah Gideon and won by like eight and a half points in 2020. So I don't think that we can look at, you know, the close race right now, which is like, she can't be underestimated. You know, she is weaker than she was six years ago. She's also physically weaker and we just don't talk about it when you listen to her talk. Her speech is more halting. She has a shaking thing going on. And she's older, right? Like this is part of the whole conversation we're having. Like Janet Mills obviously told you shouldn't be starting at 78. So Jared Golden would be high on the list. Someone like a Jordan would maybe you have to look also at the primary for governor and who comes out on top for that. And then maybe they could be slotted in. But I think in two weeks we'll have a more solid picture of the electoral prospects of being able to hold this because there is a path to a Senate majority for the Democratic side. If you take Maine off the board, then you need Iowa, which is feasible, but would be tougher. Like Maine is a blue state. Iowa is not a blue state. But you know, this is actually the subject of the Monday Rage, our newsletter for Raging Moderates. So everyone should check that out, you know, what the path looks like. But in two weeks we'll check in and I think we'll have a better idea. We all have to drink water and staying hydrated is one of the simplest ways to feel your best. But come on, how is your relationship with water really? Are you getting enough from it? Is it satisfying you or is drinking it becoming a chore? Here's a tip to spice things up. Hint water with delectable flavors like watermelon, Georgia peach, even lemon zest freeze. Hint is water that will make you desire water. No sugar, no sweeteners, no calories. It just goes to show. Sometimes the right hydration partner changes everything. Try Hint, available at drinkhint.com and in stores nationwide. So just as we wrap up here, a quick update on the world of California politics. This is a very important topic for our community. We're going to talk about the best way to get our water out of the water. We're going to talk about the best way to get our water out of the water. We're going to talk about the best way to get our water out of the water. So just as we wrap up here, a quick update on the world of California politics. The Los Angeles mayoral race tightened again as more votes were counted, with Spencer Pratt narrowing the gap before Nitya Raman ultimately emerged as the expected challenger to Karen Bass, or the number two. At the same time, federal prosecutors have announced multiple election fraud investigations related to California elections. Jess, what do you think the takeaways are from this race so far? It has predicted a blue town doesn't want a red mayor. And that doesn't mean that Spencer Pratt didn't tap into things that folks there are feeling about the rebuild, the homelessness problem, drug problems, misuse of funds. But like, I don't know, I had been saying this to my colleagues on the five. Like, the fact that you guys like him means that people who vote like me don't like him. And maybe if you had had a normie independent option, because he was running technically as an independent, even though he's a registered Republican, you would have been able to get somewhere like a, you know, a Mike Bloomberg-esque type person. But none of this is surprising. And what's most not surprising is that they're calling it election fraud. And, you know, Megyn Kelly is on her high horse saying, no one is going to trust this outcome of Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt are eliminated from the general election. Well, guess what? You're likely to have Steve Hilton making it to the runoff. He's ahead of Tom Steyer and not Spencer Pratt, which seems like it makes complete sense, right? Like the guy that's running statewide and is, reads as a moderate Republican to people, could get through and become the option against Becerra. And that Spencer Pratt wouldn't make it. This is dangerous. This is their excuse to, you know, send election watchers, ice, National Guard, all of it. And I go back to what I said, I guess on Thursday when we were chatting about it, in this environment with a bunch of lunatics who are in charge of our government at the top, it makes it very hard to take a risk on a Republican because he's going to let them have carte blanche to do whatever they want. And also, if we were cheating, you would have wanted Spencer Pratt on the ballot for November. It was going to be easier for Karen Bass to win against Pratt versus Raman, which I think could be quite a difficult race for Bass, frankly. Yeah, it would have been better for Bass if it had been Pratt versus... I'm really heartened by the fact that someone whose primary qualification to run for merit at their house burned down came in third. It gives me hope again. Also, I think the good editorial race is this overlining here. Steyer was about money. Hilton is about celebrity and awareness. And it looks like competence and experience is going to pull through with Becerra, at least so far. Pratt had no business running for office. I'm shocked he didn't do better. I thought he ran a credit where credit is due. He ran a great campaign. It was bold. It was on message. It was tapped into anger. It's interesting, though, it's pretty clear the Democratic machine in LA is still a machine. And more generally, I think Democrats, when they... If there is going to be a governing organization, or not even a governing organization, but an organization that tries to make the Democratic Party stronger as the DNC is supposed to do, at some point they have to address candidate quality. And if our choices are between people with PTSD that have talking cops or women coming forward with allegations, or socialists that are... Are they a socialist or are they an incompetent? The answer is yes. At some point, they have to figure out a way to start attracting better candidate, getting better candidate quality. I don't know. And having said that, I think our bench is so much deeper. But anyways, I'm... In 2028, we'll be an affirmation of what is out there. And I think that we are actually seeing that across the map in other ways, like the Sherrod Browns and the Roy Cooper's and the John Ossoffs of the world. Fair point. Yeah, I was just... Yeah. But I think that you're right about the Pratt issue. And also, it seems like a lot of people didn't know they live in LA, but they don't vote for the LA mayor because they have their own mayors. And there were a lot of disappointed folks. So, yes, you can say Pratt ran a good campaign. Those ads went absolutely viral. But maybe this is also a check on a Twitter candidacy. And if your closing message is to get on air with Kayleigh McEnany and say that you'd be open to jailing Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom, and you're trying to win over LA liberals, that is perhaps not the smartest move you could make. And you should have stuck to local TV exclusively and hitting the streets, right? And going door-to-door and say, I'm Spencer Pratt and I'm asking for your vote. Like, that is still something that matters an enormous amount in politics. And, you know, LA is a big town, but a lot of it wasn't even voting for the LA mayor. And that's where I think he really should have concentrated his time and effort, certainly with the closing message. Yeah, it appears that the line between politics and entertainment has disappeared. But the difference is Netflix occasionally cancels an underperforming show, and we don't seem to want to do that in politics. It really has become surreal. All right, let's leave it there, Jess. All right. 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