Managing the Chaotic Oval Office

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Looking for your next office. Discover Wiwork's new real estate platform built for a smarter way to work, with forty five million square feet of office space in one hundred twenty and cities across thirty four countries. We've got you covered. For global co working to custom office solutions, visit wheatwork dot com Welcome to Pods of America. I'm John Favre. I'm John Hobbit, Tom Tor. On today's show, we'll talk about the latest developments in the on again, off again war slash peace deal with Iran , which seems to be playing its hand better than master negotiator JD Vance , we'll also get into the reflecting pool drama, which has gone from farce to fascist as federal agents start arresting people Trump's accusing of phantom vandalis m . Plus, the president unveils his new Qatari jet, Bill Polte, officially takes over his acting DNI. It appears that the outgoing DNI might have been under the influence of a cult leader, and we'll talk about the potentially criminal lobby ing campaign behind Trump's decision to spring a convicted fraudster from jail . Then, New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan talk to Tommy about their explosive new book Regime Change, which is full of fascinating revelations about Trump's second term White House. Did you think better of Donald Trump after reading? Yeah, I think he's just misunderstood and good guy. He's just doing his best. You know, he's got a moral core. This is good. Now it's a really good book. I really like spent the day just inhaling it. And even for psychos like us that follow this stuff closely, you learn a lot about the process, the kind of narrative around how these decisions actually got made, what it's really like in the Oval Office. It's really, really good. Yeah, as someone who doesn't read books, but is also a sicko, I think I'm gonna read this one. You're going to like it. You're gonna like it, yeah. It's a pageer. All right. Let's talk about how the memo of Versailles is holding up . As of this recording, both the U. S. and Iran are now saying that the peace talks in Switzerland are going well and that they're making progress , though it certainly didn't seem like that over the weekend. The ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon briefly fell apart. Iran announced it closed the strait again. The U. S. said that wasn't true, and then Trump demanded that Iran reign in Hezbollah or the U. S. would resume bombing. For good measure, he also threatened to take over the Strait of Hormuz and seize twenty percent of the oil that passes through it , which is something that he can definitely do. JD Vance who Trump has generously made the face of America's surrender to Iran, cited three points of progress on Monday. One, he said the U. S. and Iran agreed on measures to keep the strait open . Two, they agreed on a mechanism to diffuse flare ups between Israel and Hezbollah. And three, he said that Iran has agreed to let international nuclear weapons inspectors into the country for the first time since Trump tore up Obama's Iran de al, though we haven't seen confirmation of that yet from the Iranians . In exchange, the U. S. has agreed to waive sanctions on Iranian oil for sixty days, first time we've done that in like four decades. So congrats to Iran . Trump got asked about all this at a signing event in the Oval on Monday just before we recorded where he showed off his absolute command of what's going on. If the war with Iran could cause a worldwideress deionp as you, noted, mister President, are you willing to risk economic catastrophe and strike Iran ? Well, not the way I'm doing it. It's not going to cause depression. Yes, but if they don't abide by the medical nuclear weapon supersedes depression . Depression's real bad. Nuclear weapon will cause depression. Iranians won't use profits from oil sales to rebuild their military . Well, they're not supposed to be doing that, so we' re supposed to use money to buy food for their people because right now the people are very hungry . As long as they respect us, we're going to be fine. What do you think? You think they're going to use all that money to buy food for their people? And then show us nothing but respect . For sure. There's nothing, there's nothing to stop them from using the money to buy whatever they want with it. That's not part of the deal. There's no deal. There's nothing. He went on to say that we're actually going to benefit from this because if they buy food, they're going to buy food from us. And so really the money finds its way back to us. That's actually what king of dude. It's crazy. I hope you enjoyed Dunkaroos over there . And who doesn't? He doesn't enjoy wants them now. Tommy, what do you make of the latest developments? Are we in a we in a better place wor, ase place, the same place too hard to tell? I mean, per that reporter's question about could the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hamuz lead to an economic calamity and like famine in places like Africa. I think we're in a worse place because over the last week, Iran has signaled that they're willing to happily close the Straitor Humuz again or at least announce it's closed. And I think what folks have to remember is like, this is not a valve that goes on and off. This is a bunch of economic decisions made by shipping companies who are thinking away . We have these giant tankers. I could send it to the Strait Hormuz, I could send it somewhere else. If there's a three percent chance it gets stuck in there for a couple of weeks because the Iranians fire off ballistic missiles or something worse could happen. They could shot at. You know, like that's a big capital expenditure that could go to the bottom of the ocean for them. And so I'm worried about this just kind of bumping along in an unsettled fashion for a while. I'm worried about ongoing high energy prices. I'm worried about the shortage of fertilizer shipments, which are already going to show up too late to hit a lot of crops and are going to lead to lower yields and less food for people in higher prices and more hunger. And then whatever this mechanism is to solve the, you know, flare ups between Hezbollah and Israel, I don't buy that for a second. What is it like a deconflicting cell? Yeah , it's probably like a conference call. But like , again, the Israelis, they're not pulling troops out of Lebanon. They have like they're occupying six miles of territory into Lebanon. Hezbollah is going to attack them, the IDF will respond, and then it's going to lead to these events. So I just, I don't feel great about it. Yeah, I would say we're better off in peace talks than we were when there were no peace talks. We're better off not being in war than we were when we were at war. We are worse off than we were before the war started and we are worse off than we were when there was the JCPOA in place. All these hawks who are trying to find their way to justify supporting this deal or not being as critical of this deal. I'm just waiting for something to happen in which Iran has conceded more or given more than they did under the horrible, unacceptable worst deal in history made by Obama. I'm waiting for one thing where they've given given up more. Because as of right now , how different would it look if Iran had said , we are shutting the Strait of Hormuz until you negotiate a better deal with us. Like we are going to know what I mean? Like we not have launched a war. But Iran just said, we're closing the Strait of Hormuz unless you give us a bunch until you give us a bunch of concessions . I don't know how much different it would look than this , right? I mean, I saw that Steve Rantner on Twitter said that the oil waivers could bring them ten billion dollars in sanctions relief . Not just oil sales. Right from all the yeah, right there's a sanction there's a sixty day sanctions waiver on oil sales. Those sales could be up to ten billion dollars. Well, also he noted that in the JCPOA, we didn't give any sanctions relief until they allowed the inspectors into Iran . We have, you know, Bessent sort of posted today that there was the sanctions relief has happened. Although they asked Trump about that, then he's like, I'm not sure I have to check in on that . And they haven't allowed a single weapons inspector into the country , nor have they even confirmed what JD Vance said about this that they are willing to do so. And the devil is at the details there. Remember, the JCPOA had lots of IAEA access and inspections, but the Republicans were mad that they would have to give twenty four hour notice for certain sites like snap inspections, right? Like he has to be able to go to wherever you want whenever you want it so that you can't move shit around Like yeah, I'm like Love it. I'm like glad we're in talks. I'm glad there's not an ongoing conflict . The devil is in the details here. And also we're still sending like these hapless idiots like Chady Vance and Steve Wikoff and Jared Kushner. And the Iranians are sending nuclear experts who have nothing better to do and nothing but time to grind them down. And they also know that Trump doesn't want to go back to war and has given up all his leverage, which just doesn't make me confident that we are going to get a better JCPOA. Again, I want the war over, I'm not some hawk attacking him for the right here, but just sort of like realistically looking at the setup now after the war started and ended and now we're here. Like Trump's leverage is just gone. He's given the sanctions relief, the threat of military action is gone. I just don't know how you get to a better deal. Does anyone happen to catch JD Vance's interview with Russ Doufitt pieces? Yeah, when they talked about this. And it was interesting because a lot of the things JD Van said as people who don't want the war to go on like us, I was like, oh, that's good. You know, that's a good case. But where he really stumbled or I think just lied talking about the JCPOA. Like at one point, he's like the difference, the real difference between this deal and the Obama de al is the Obama deal just let them have all this enriched uranium that now this deal we're going to get to take away. That's like opt imistic literally pot. I was gonna text you about it. I feel like I'll ask you here on the pot. Didn't they enrich all the uranium after he pulled out of the deal? No under the JCPOA, they shipped out ninety seven percent of their stockpile. They went to Russia where they disposed of it. Under this deal, they're talking about down blending it insight and keeping it in the country. It's the opposite of what he's saying. It's ridiculous. Ross did not press him on that . So we've talked a lot lately about how Republicans are coping with this . They continue to be all over the map from kissing Trump's ass to threatening new wars to open revol t. Let's take a listen. If we have inspectors going in there and if that straight is open for business oil is flowing, then I think it's very clear the United States will have won this conflict. If this deal fails, President Trump is going to take the Strait of Hormuz over by force. The United States will control the Strait of Hormuz, we'll charge a fee for all those who go through to pay for the operation. And if Iran contest control of the Strait of Hormuz by the United States, we'll obliterate them. I would not support the Republican Party. There's no chance I would support the Republican Party. How could I or any American voter support a political party y that's not loal to the United States that puts the interests of a foreign country above those of its own citizens. Like so no, I'm out. And if I'm out, then I think a lot of other people are out . Okay , so Tucker is out . Lindsey Graham's threatening to take over the Strait of Hormuz completely. And Jim Comer , the head of the Oversight Committee, he thinks that if the strait is open and we get inspectors in there, we have won the conflict . You guys think are the fractures here getting worse or getting better? Yeah, the strait is open as that's a victory even though it was not something we had to worry about until they started the war inspectors back in as you had under the old agreement that they tore up. The thing that I saw that I think is the most alarming is the cope by the Iran Hawks who are also Apparages trying to get behind what Trump is doing . And you saw Hugh Hewitt and Mark Levin doing this kind of like forty chess basically saying the political calculus is that in order to prevent Republican losses and deal with the fact that the country has not been persuaded to be in favor of this war. You have to get into negotiations and punt because then after the election, then you can get back to bombing to bombing. Well, you know, Hugh Hewick called it clarity . And then also said, I assume if Marco Rubio is seeing what's happening here that he would not go along with a deal that doesn't treat the Iranian regime like the threat that it is, and he would resign. Yeah, usually he's pretty vocal in matters of conscience like this. But I do think it points to what some of these hawks are hoping, which is that they can prevent the worst political blowback from the war, get cost downs, and then go back to being Bellicose regime changers once the midterms are behind us . Yeah, like ultimately like guys like Lindsey Graham is always going he's just going to get in line because that's what he does . And he's talked in articles before about all he cares about his relevance, and he wants to be up Trump's ass and get to play golf with them and be in the room . And he knows that Naga wants him just to be with Trump on everything. So I I think think like the the elected Republicans will get in line. I think the Hawks will get in line and kind of keep their powder dry for another day. Ironically, Iran has more of a complicated system with factions that might oppose a deal. Like IRGC, like, they're going to be out there loudly advocating against a deal. There's a bunch of nationalists sort of forever getting whipped up. I think they can rightly say like, why make a deal with the Americans? They just reneg on them, they pull out, and the next president will pull out anyway . Tucker, who knows what his incentives are these days and he's got an audience that he's building and maybe a presidential run. Could I just ask, why does Face the Nation book Lindsey Graham? He's like one of their most booked guests . He disgraced himself to the Iraq war He was catastrophically wrong about Iran . There in that clip, he's threatening to have Trump do something militarily that we all just watch Trump fail to do, which is defeat the Iranian regime militarily and then take control of the Syria Harmus. If that was on the table, we would have done that. So like why do we why do we book this man on television just to like spew this hawkish bullshit? Like at what point do you get discredited and no longer invited onto face the nation or at least be in the penalty box for maybe a couple of weeks. I imagine when they're doing their booking, they're just saying, Okay, we need we need the administration mouthpiece perspective. Because if we can't get Trump or JD or something, we need someone who's going to spout that whatever spout that line, I guess. How are the pro Trump hawks feeling? You know, go to Lindsey Graham, who's basically proposing that the US take over the Straitor for Mooz. I assume there'd be some sort of like maybe have Disney Help and do some sort of fast past situation. Got to use the Genie app to get through. Yeah, sort of begs the question, why haven't we done that already? If it was on the table, we would have done it. Yeah, you didn't. Now we're going to go back and take twenty percent of aggregate oil revenue from the story. What the fuck? We were begging Europe to help us do something we didn't need their help to do, which is retake the strait of Hermouz, which we never did. It's just like it's so fundamentally unserious and he's such a discredited individual, but it speaks to how war is covered in Washington where like the hawkish view is the serious view. These are the very serious people who talk about serious things in the Oval Office. And if you're anti war or you say like we should be pro diplomacy, you are not booked on these shows or treated seriously. And it just drives me nuts. Well, you know who's not buying all this shit? Voters. Yeah. CBS, the same CBS that Headlindsy Graymat has a new poll out on Sunday . Huge majority of people support ending the war, roughly eighty twenty, but by similar margins, they think we have not stopped Iran's nuclear program for good, created a better situation for Iran's people, or installed a regime that's friendlier to us. In other words, most voters are familiar with the reality of the situation. Just saying true things, American voters who would have guessed got it. Big picture, seventy percent of people say the war was not worth the cost, only thirty percent say it was. Only one poll, but lots of good data, good questions in there. What jumped out at you guys? One thing was just thinking about what Tucker Carlson was saying there about being out and the other kind of people that would be out. You would think that the kind of America first Maga crowd would be more skittish about continuing the conflict, but it found that among Republicans sixty forty one to end the conflic t now rather than continue until Iran gives up more. And it's a small difference, but actually fewer MAGA reps. But that yeah but you said America first, which is telling that's not America Well., Mag is Mag what whatever Trump wants, I'm good with. Well, that's what I mean, right? The people that you would think would be the America first sort of that were against these kind of interventions because they're behind Trump. It's their job to be supportive of Trump. There's no they're not broking as much dissent here. I mean, I would say even the fact that sixty percent of Republicans want to end the conflict. Now, even fifty six percent of Maga Republicans like does tell you how unpopular this is, but I think it's striking that you don't have a bigger break among people that would have considered themselves more aligned with Tucker. Yeah. What do you think? Yeah, you get seventy percent of the country saying this was not worth the cost. I mean, that is you don't get seventy for much. You don't get seventy for much. I too love it. I was kind of like struck by the splits within Maga, the fifty at six percent saying end it now, forty four percent continue to get more from Iran, keep fighting to get more from Iran. But then they did like kind of an intra Maga self identified Maga poll. And ninety percent of like the Maga people pulled to the deal was better for Iran. nineteen percent of all Republicans said the deal was better for Iran. So it just I don't know, it speaks to the way the failure here has broken through to even the kind of cult members, the magic cult members. And I think it tells you something about wars and how they end up being damaging for presidents. It's like presidents are actually often not you don't get hurt politically if you kind of bump along, but if you end a war and are perceived to have lost the war, I think voters will punish you. And it seems like we're seeing the beginnings of that for Trump. One number that stuck out at me, it could be a problem for them a problem for the administration in the coming weeks and months. There's a plural ity forty two percent think gas prices will go down in the next few weeks . And there is an expectation. You can tell in these polls that they think it is over. Now, things are going to get better financially, economically, and that's end . Maybe that happens eventually, but I think it's going to take a bit of time just because the price of oil is falling. Doesn't mean the price of gas will as well . And you know, you're seeing like I think this poll has like his appro ved rating tick up a point from last time, which is, you know, it's like margin error, meaning this, meaningless. But overall, you've seen some, you know, last week you could say maybe the generic ballot got like a point closer to Republicans too. So there might be some expectation around the war ending that relief is coming that I don't know if Trump is actually going to be able to deliver on , which is certainly something to watch for. Which is why I think he's giving like this sixty day immediate license to the Iran ians to sell oil and gas because they're just trying to flood the zone and get prices down as fast as they can. I agree it's an open question about how quickly gas prices come down and whether they come down to where they were and whether that's kind of how people are anchoring this in their mind. But yeah, but gas prices aren't just determined by the amount of oil that Iran lets through the strait. And by the way, it's not as if the strait is back up to where it was before. There's so much less traffic through there. But if you have Iran, I think immediately saying we are going to close the strait again, to sign, I think purposely right to whether whatever the inciding cause, to signal but at any moment we can shut this thing down again that that is our power and we plan to use it How, right is that? going to give anybody confidence that prices are going to be reliable, that oil will be reliable, that you can count on prices coming down? I just Trump threatening them , threatening to kill the negotiators. I mean, like we're just millennial locker room talk. Jiggy Valley called it. Yeah, yeah . Positive America is brought to you by Zip Recruiter. Whether you own your own business or in a position to hire, you want to find people who are as excited about the work you do as you are. Zip Recruiter is a new feature that quickly lets you see the most interested and qualified candidates first so you meet the right people faster . And now you can try it out for free at zipre . com slash crooked. 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That's hims. com slash cricket for your free online visit hims. com slash crooked. Prescription required C website for details and important safety information still denifil is the generic version of Viagra , Viagra is a registered trademark of Viatris specialty LLC. HIMS is not affiliated with or endorsed by Viatras . All right, we briefly discussed this on Friday's pod, but Iran isn't the only one Trump's l ost lately. He's also been defeated by the Algae in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Turns out Trump's Marlago Pal, who got the no bid contract for fourteen million dollars in counting to renovate the reflecting pool . A fellow convicted criminal by the name of John Cafaro . Have you seen this guy's picture? Incredible. Yeah, yes . recommend everyone Google right now, John Cafaro, find the photo of him in the eighties wearing the double breasted suit. Is it a combo over or a hair piece? I'm clear. I don't know. It looks like he's trying to kill the Aristicats He pleaded guilty to bribing James Traffic. Yeah, he's who it was. I saw the bribe hair on hair violence. Those guys both have amazing sets of head. Two convictions, campaign finance, bribery. Yeah, this is the guy that got the no bid contract. He didn't like look when he gets mad the his his shirt rolls up. Like what's that thing called when you have a tuxedo ? Yeah, a tuxedo front. Looks like it's a little bit rolled up. That probably happened when he found out about the algae. So John Carafro didn't do the top notch work he's known for, and now they have to drain the pool and start from scratch. The president per usual is blaming everyone else, including reporter John Carl of ABC News, quote, dirty cop James Comey , and other alleged vandals , five of whom have apparently been arrested, including a former Olympic canoeer, who says he was just reaching into the pool to feel the detached liner. Seems like he was up to the reflecting pool without a paddle, this guy Trump threatened the rest of us with a ten year prison sentence for the destruction or even the attempted destruction of such things, which he said, quote, will be fully enforced. Naturally, Trump got a lot of appropriately skeptical quest ions on this in the oval on Monday Here's what he said. Are the contractors who did the initial work for the reflecting pool, are they blame for the current condition or is it no vandalism? You know, we have a hundred we have a I think two hundred and ninety three hundred foot slit right through and probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind. The National Guard and Guise have been all over the mall. How would these vandals have gotten so close to do something like that? I mean, we didn't have we didn't have a lot of them then. Who would think that somebody would go into a pool and take a knife and start cutting it? Yeah Yeah, I have your photos . Well, let's put it this way. When you have a three hundred and fifty, I think it's three hundred and fifty, not two hundred fifty, a three hundred and fifty foot slit from one end to the other , you think that's proof? Yeah, that's true. Ports have been down there today looking for that slip that you mentioned. All you'd have to do is see the parks department. They'll show it to you. I'm curious about this situation as we stood here with you in April when you first revealed the plans. I said, What? In April , you showed us pictures of what you were going to do when you said you had a guy who was going to do it in a week for about a million dollars. Well, it's been two months. sixteen and a half million dollars. Yeah. Okay, ready. Barack Hussein Obama, have you ever heard of him? Yeah. He spent two years and over a hundred million dollars . I spent two months, maybe, less . And I have a better product. Now, I can't help but if somebody goes in with a knife and starts hacking it up . And we also have pictures of it, you know? You release the photos because we got it. That's the right time you'll see it. You'll see it in court. He's so pissed. Find the guy who did the slit. Yeah, he said with a box cutter like a reflecting pool Mohammed Ataj izing. I wonder where someone could have possibly gotten the idea to use a knife to cut the reflecting pool . Might have a clue here. Let's watch. This will last for at least fifty years. You'll never have a leak. It's very strong. You couldn't, if you had a knife, I don't want to give anybody ideas . If you had a knife, you can't even cut it. So strong, so powerful powerful rubber. Powerful rubber. Rubber. Not so powerful . So I feel like this went from mostly funny to fairly alarming now that they're trying to arrest random scapegoat s just because Trump can't admit he fucked up. What do you guys make of this whole situation? So you make a big deal about how you're going to finally fix the pool because Barack Hussein Obama and Joe Biden couldn't do it, you're the only one who has the ability to do it. You do no bid contract for a guy who is the crony picture in the crony entry of the dictionary . You declare victory, then all of a sudden the algae is coming back. And so you have your people lie about that. They post pictures saying that it's better, that this is not real. It's perfect, it's perfect, it's perfect. The lie draws more attention to the story. So reporters start covering it, okay? Because you hyped it up so much and are lying, the media's making more of an issue of it. So you start blaming sabotures, even though they don't seem to exist. That generates only more coverage. Now you're arresting random people for checking out the mess that you've made. Now you turned what was a silly and ultimately small story about a pool renovation into gross incompetence, corruption and rising fascism. So there's even more coverage. And then you then declare that the media is obsessed. Why is the media so obsessed with what's happening to the reflecting people? Well, maybe you said you went and held up a picture about who you were the one that was gonna fix it and then turned it into just an example of every aspect of the the lying , the lawlessness , the corrupt deals that you're making, the incompetence, you just turned it into a perfect metaphor for everything you've done wrong in this administration. So yeah, people are gonna cover it. I'm still in the most funny camp. I imagine Jim Comey at his house like cultivating sea monkeys in the backyard, releasing them into the reflecting pool. That's funny. Like John Cafaro having a company called Greenwater Services. That's fine. That's some funny shit. It was very funny. Obviously, it's bad that they're arresting this random Olympian man who was just biking around and accusing of sabotage. I think you watch Janine Pierre ranting away on Fox about this stuff. And we're all used to seeing her, you know, like six chardonnays deep, which is kind of like doing a prime time hit. And then you remember, oh wait this woman can issue subpenis. That's actually a little scary. It's bad. But I think all of this will probably go away because obviously this is just algae grows because it's sunny and it's hot in the pool and there's water in it. And we're talking about it. It sounds like they just they just did everything wrong. They did a bad job is the other thing and they spent a lot of money on it. Also , like none of these people are going to jail because not like all of this is going to get laughed out of court. TMZ , TMZ DC was down there all day today and they have all this footage of people being like arrested, detained. And these people are like you can see on on foot camera, they're just like look, some of them are just looking down to take pictures and like seven like there's like park police there's DC they're all it's complete madness. It is just it is a lie on the level of like now we're back to like Sean Spicer and the inaugural crowd . It's like, you know who cut the three hundred foot slit in the reflecting pool? Fucking no one because that it just the science did not happen because you look at the reflecting pool. There is no slit visible . Reporters have looked even since he just said that. So it didn't happen it's impossible to do that three hundred feet. That's the size of that's the size of a football field. Someone's going to take a box cutter and cut us the size of the football field and no one's going to pay attention to that. No one's going to see that. They're not going to be seen. Also, even if they did wouldn't cause the algae, wouldn't cause the problem. Also, you spend fourteen million dollars on a reno that can be undid with a box cutter . What kind of renovation is that? It's also not a there's chunks of it floating up all over the fucking thing. It's been growing since last week. It's what everybody said would happen. I just like, obviously, this is very silly, but now we're at the point where they got federal cops patrolling the national mall to arrest people who are going to point things out that embarrass the dear lead er. It is the ballroom and now this, these are perfect metaphors for what this administration has done. I think it's the kind of thing that will stay stick with people in part because it's also stupid that this is what's taking up the president's time . And even if no one was paying attention to it, probably still take up his time. Yeah, he's the reason we're paying attention. He's the reason we're all he cares about focused on that. He drove his ass down to the reflecting pool. He like this all started with him doing a drive by the thing. They're going to look going to build a wall around this thing too. They're going to have to cover it. They are they're going to cover it up so people can't take photos of it. The same way they built that giant wall around the renovation of the ballroom because he didn't want embarrassing photos of the ballroom. Like this is not going to go away. The reflecting pool just is there'.s It a big part of the national mall. It's eight acres big. It's massive, and it is not going to be fixed for a long time. They don't know how to fix it. And look, we know how serious this administration is about punishing people who destroy federal property. It's just something that they have cared about for a long time. Take it very seriously. Take it very, very seriously. Every single person who did that on january sixth completely free, pardoned, commuted. And now they're just arresting random people , which is which is fascinating. He's also now saying that people are dumping fertilizer in there. They're dumping vandals are dumping fertilizers. That's coming. Yeah. So they got that through the strait and now there we go. Now they got now they're dumping it in there. Yeah, Komi thing for those who didn't pay attention is someone there was some vandalism where someone on the lawn did like an eighty six forty seven unrelated to the unrelated to the reflecting point. Unrelated to the eighty six forty six forty seven on grass. So Trump truthed about it. And so Trump thinks that because Comey did that with the shells or took a picture of the shells and posted it, which he's now being prosecuted for that someone was inspired by that to box cut his reflecting pool. 've been one of the stupidest fucking thing . We've covered a lot of stupid stories. Yes, this is this is going to be a this is a chapter you're going to want to come back to Yeah when, Tr theump story is when they'll probably forget about it by the end of the Trump administration, but the reflecting pool, this is one of the dumber ones. I don't know that look, I think it's going to be in the ballroom category because this is just going to be something for months and months now. They got to drain it again. It's not like their plan worked the first time. They got a better plan this time because apparently the shit they put down on the floor of that reflection pool didn't work. It's a so I don't is it the same jag off that's going to be doing the next round is or they get a new big contract blue rubber floating in the reflecting pools. Just nuking it with chemicals. Well, it's so funny because when the whole thing started, they were like, It seems kind of strange. He's hiring just like a pool guy. And it's like, Nah, he's got it. Well, it's also funny that last time we recorded, I think the Department of Interior was just posting fake pictures of the pool as blue and saying everything's great . So they thought that was their plan for all. They were just gonna AI their way through it. And I guess now they're like, all right, the AI stuff didn't work. So now we're going to have to blame some fake vandals and now we're going to we're not that far away from like the government posting. Great news, everybody. Gas is down to eleven dollars a gallon. You're all getting more chocolate this week. Your chocolate rations are up . So one renovation that did go well for Trump this week , the brand new Qatari Force One that he'll be flying around in and ultimately taking with him when he leaves the White House as a parting gift. The government won't say how much we all paid to retrofit the new plane though the Secretary of the Air Force said in a hearing last year that it would probably be less than four hundred million dollars. Privately, the air force said it would use some of its nuclear modernization funds to pay for upgrading the plane, because why do we need those? And sure enough, a month later, there was an unexplained nine hundred million dollars transfer from a nuclear account to an unnamed classified project . They are calling the plane project classified, which is why they're not revealing any of the costs . Not that Trump wants you to think this thing was done cheaply . He's actually proud of how much money it costs. Here he is now. This plane was transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody's ever seen before , probably even almost outside of an airplane. Nobody's ever seen anything like this . Nobody's ever seen anything outside not even it's nicer than any room outside of an airplane. That's all but a very small set of roofs There's still another two Air Force ones on order. This is just what the Pentagon is calling a bridge aircraft. Yeah, he's going to steal it after that. This is the bridge one because this is when he takes the go one. You flat his exactly this dog is the one dog. This is one to take with him. How old do you think this one pulls it? I mean, I talked to Maggie and Jonathan Swann about this in their book, they report that Qatar initially wanted to be paid one hundred and fifty to two hundred million dollars for the plane. And then suddenly the plane was a gift. And they report that the idea for making a gift was, quote, generated at the potus level. So it's just part of this ongoing corruption story. I think this has really become a monument to the corruption and it really broke through in the moment . And I do think this is a big problem for him politically to the extent that he cares. I mean, it is a problem for him politically. But like one of his superpowers , as we all remember, is the years of branding on the Apprentice and with the Art of the Deal was that he was a brilliant businessman and he was rich, and he didn't need this job and he had all the money he wanted. This was really a sacrifice coming into government. And this the plane, the narrative around the corruption has really pierced that narrative . And you would think he would care, but then we watch him do like a rollout of his corrupt gift. Very proud. He does remarks in like a st aged photo op. So you think the Qataris are feeling like they got their money's worth? Yeah, this worked out great . You think they give this free airplane? And look what they got. They got Iran blowing their shit up and their economy in trouble because of the war in the Middle East, Trump caused. I don't know if they feel like they gotta sit there next to JD doing track changes to the fucking document. No, no, no, we can't do that. They're not doing that. They're not doing that . The it is like, you know, it's interesting the difference between term one and term two with Trump, right? Because term one, like he felt like he got all the kind he gets all the prestige and benefits of being present. He loves having that plane. And he would do speeches in front of the plane. He loves doing that . And it was always such a bummer to have Trump garner the prestige of the White House, right? Like he had that power behind him, which he did . And that included Air Force One, it was like, oh so sad to see a Donald Trump representing our country on that plane. And now we're going to have this new version of the plane that looks different . And it's actually his plane that he's taking with him. And so now, whenever he gets off the plane, we're going to have this little symbol of corru ption behind him in every shot and he's going to still use it like he did the old one. But there behind him is the proof that he is the most corrupt leader on Earth, maybe the most corrupt certainly the most corrupt president in American history right there on the tarmac. What do you guys think of the red white and blue? I kind of like it. Oh, I like it. Yeah, it looks pretty cool. I mean the old version , I like the old version too, like the Robins Egg Blue on the bottom. And like, you know, that was also a little piece of history. I mean, that was re designed with by JFK in nineteen sixty two . He also spent a bunch of time like personally with a designer named Raymond Lowee like redesigning the look of Air Force One and Trump just sort of trashed that as he's trashing the Kennedy center and renaming that and all these other monuments and institutions. So it's a piece of a puzzle . But yeah, I mean, aesthetically, it's like a sick plane. As far as Donald Trump being in charge of any kind of design, I feel like he didn't fuck it up too badly. It looks good. I could have not like the oval. No, I thought it could have worked. We'll see what the inside looks like, yeah. We haven't seen the inside yet. I saw a few pictures. I hadn't seen the I just saw the outside. I think it's just bigger and bigger but I will say the one thing that is incredibly ugly is they have instead of the kind of classic American flag on the back on the tail, they have a waving American flag like that cheap paint like it looks tacky and it doesn't fit with the design. It does fit with his design. Yeah, so just that makes me okay good at least there's some Trump on there. Yeah . So instead of having just sort of a classic straight American flag as you would on that's not waving because it's not a fucking flag, it's a painting of a flag. So you don't need to paint it waving. They painted the cheesy waving thing on it, which looks like ass. I'm surprised he didn't put his fucking name on it. I am too. Again, in the Maggie and Jonathan's book, they talk like there's this scene where Caroline Levitt walks into the Oval Office and Trump is personally super gluing some little gaudy gold thing onto the mantelpiece. Like my gosh he's so personally engaged and invested in this stuff cause. Be he's a bored old man. You literally just has no interest in governing. It's just like why couldn't he go into his interest in using the governing to make money for himself and his friends and to settle old scores and interior ? That's it. An interior design. That's his hobby in golf. Yeah, at least Howard Hughes had the decency to lock the door and fill the jars with piss. Like this guy's just got it's like just a different kind of of kind of old craziness of like putting your name on everything, putting gold on everything. The question of what does Qatar think they got a good deal here is an interesting one because remember in the first term, Qatar was briefly like blockade by all the other countries in the Gulf. Oh yeah and then ultimately that deal was mediated by Jared Kushner . And interestingly , that mediation happened right around the time when the Qataris, I think, finally came in and bailed Jared out for like the six hundred sixty six park gav or whatever real estate deal he had done that went terribly south because they did the biggest real estate investment in Manhattan history right before the financial crisis. So it's interesting though because Qatar is tiny and super isolated and pisses all its friend s off through Al Jazeera and its foreign policy choices. And I think they wanted to get in well with Trump. But then of course the Iran stuff kind of complicates the ledger here on whether this worked out well. And look, now they gave a plane to one president . Now the expectation is going to be that every American president gets a plane. I know Here's a plane. Could you do us a favor and stop causing foreign policy disasters that lead to our hotels exploding? That would be great. If you could just we're gave you the fucking plane, we got a we got a rosewood on fire here . We're trying to convince people that it's awesome and no big deal that we're this close to these to Iran. Aren't doing it. We need to Jesus Christ , you know , yeah, the gay people can't hold hands, but we got a fucking four seasons going. Can you help us out? Trying to build an even taller building. Potsave of America is brought to you by Helix . Sleep is, I think, maybe the most important thing in my life. When I get a good night's sleep, I feel great. I'm ready to tackle my day. I'm better at work, better at being a parent, better at working out, better at eating, everything. 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Well, surprise , this corrupt moron has now taken over for Tulsi Gabbard as the acting director of National Intelligence, a development that both Democrats and Republicans had tried to avoid, as Senator Mark Warner explained to Tommy, the original plan was to immediately confirm Trump's permanent pick for the job, federal prosecutor and former SEC chair Jay Clayton. Trump got wind of that and announced that he was pull ing back Clayton's nomination until Clayton's replacement at SDNY is approved by the Senate , all but ensuring that Pulty gets at least some time on the job . Why do you guys think that Trump didn't want his own pick , Jay Clayton confirmed as soon as possible? He did pick him . It was hard to be inside of his mind. I think there's two things going on. One is the machinations around FISA and getting the SDNY confirmed who is a former federal prosecutor, but also his personal lawyer at I think Solomon Sullivan and Cromwell, I think is where is . So he sort of wants to get one of his guys in at SDNY fine. I think also Bill Polty can do a lot of damage being DNI for a couple weeks. Get some good political prosecutions going if he wants. That's what he did when he was going through the mortgage documents and trying to find ways to go after Comey and Tish James and all the rest. So yeah, let's get get your fingers into the all the intelligence you want for a couple of weeks. That's valuable. Apparently someone , a source familiar told CNN just before we recorded that Polte is going to start carrying out firings, that the deep state firings have begun and that part of it is to I guess get him in there so he can fire a bunch of fucking deep state people. Yeah, so Mark Warner when I talked to him was so concerned about Bill Polte's access to information or being in the job even for a minute that he was basically ready to unanimously confirm just like confirm Clayton by UC just like push him forward and get it done I think that Trump's weird gambit here is like he's mad that Republicans told him no about anything. So he's going to just freak out and decide to change the kind of up the ante . I think he genuinely seems to think that he can use the bipartisan desire to pass a very important intelligence collection program as a way to shoehorn in the SAVE Act and get that done , which is their crazy bill to like tackle the made up problem of non citizen voter registration which doesn't happen. But then with perspective Polte, like, I think the question is, does he want him to root around intelligence information, find stuff about his enemies and then refer to the DOJ or do something with it. Or does Trump just want a purge of DNI employees? I don't really get why he couldn't have had Tulsa Gabbard do a purge of DNI employees. It also seems like Jay Clayton would be happy to do that too. Jay Clayton is not some like, yeah, he's better than Bill Pulte, but he's been very loyal to Trump. He's very Maga. I do think he's a serious person who's, you know, a serious prosecutor or was a, you know, was the SEC? Yeah, you know, so he's like had big jobs and hopefully like bring some relevant experience to this job, Polty's obviously a clown. Speaking of Tulsa Gabbard, did either of you guys read the insane Washington Post story about the cult she grew up in that maybe still contro ls her Wild . Wild. Real story. Yeah, it's one of those things where because it's coming out after she's gone, it's like, oh, well , she shouldn't be DNI. Well, and she's not. But man, you kind of the thing that I took away from it is one of the things about Tulsi Gabbard, I think that is she's just a puzzle. She's just kind of confusing figure. Yeah. It looks like a few more pieces went into place after that story. Yeah, but it was always like, wait,, she, you know she introduces Bernie at the convention. She used to be seen as on the left. She was anti war , had this strange refusal to criticize Assad then goes in this Trump direction. It was all just confusing . Her she was ideologically confusing . And then you dig into it and there's this collection of memos. First of all, you've never seen anything like it. Just random there's a collection of memos that seem to be from this figure, this sort of religious leader inside of her life, these kind of like sort of harsh, like insulting directives coming all the time in her direction, what she should say on television, what bill she shoulds introduce? she How should talk about certain issues? They deny that it's him. There's a lot of denials in the thing, but there's also references inside of these memos to his own life that don't refer to anybody else . And so she said there's like they matched like what she actually said on TV in the legislation she introduced and they match exactly to all these memos for this person who was telling her to do these things. Yes. And then on top of that, you have this collection of people. It's all this sort of strange bit of it's very cultish. It's also very like ham fisted and silly and amateur. They have a collection of people running dummy accounts to comment under articles on Hawaii newspapers about Tulsi and they's and like on Twitter and all the rest. It's this little kind of ramshackle small operation. And then at one point, which I thought spoke to the kind of, I don't know, what kind of like master plan they thought they were implementing that that once Trump started running , there's one of the notes says something along lines of, it's a shame you're not running because he's doing what you were going to do. And it's like, be president, or what are we talking about? Well, she ran and she thinks apparently thinks the DNI as a platform to run again and is wants to try and it's apparently a thing that she and Trump had gotten in fights about because remember when she put out that weird video after getting back to Hiroshima talk about my nuclear annihilation it was like clearly the context was in the midst of both the Putin Russia talks but also the Iran negotiations and Trump, I guess yelled at her about it. I mean, my reaction to the story was similar to yours. Love it, which is like she's such a bizarre character. And like maybe this helps us understand this fucking weirdo that she was just taking literal direction from a cult leader. I hope it will get her out of politics forever and that she will not run for president again. Apparently like I think was it Roger Stone or Steve Bannon, one of those guys thinks that she could actually run, but it's fucking it's crazy. And this person was the director of national intelligence. Like just sort of speaks to the utter failure of vetting for any of these individuals. Yeah, or the success of the vetingt because it seems like this is who he wants to sack his administration with. You got RFK Junior conspiracy theorists Kukes. I mean, John Swain who wrote the story, he said with his Washington Post colleague, Aaron Schaeffer, I compared Gabbard's remarks in thirty two TV interviews between twenty fourteen and twenty sixteen with the talking points memos intended for them. This is what the cult leader wrote, although he didn't sign his name to them, but they're all from the same person. On twenty four occasions out of the thirty two Gabbard used language in the memos almost verbatim. So this is like her entire congressional career. She's just going on TV and saying the word I mean this is, like this is, like a right wing conspiracy, but it's real. When they think of like, you know, like Democrats being controlled by global forces. But like, here's Tulsi Gabbard just going on TV introducing legislation that this random cult leader told her. What' tos do funny to is they're trying to now say they're like, oh, this is just anti Hindu bigotry. When I say there's nothing, there's nothing Hindu going on in anti Smokey most. And there's the one line that I thought was great is there was some line that was the one that said no matter how much you basically to paraphrase it, don't worry, no matter how much you fuck up tomorrow, I love you and Krishna loves you, which I did really appreciate. There was one memo that I thought was very funny 'cause it was very it was about some statement she gave I believe after the state of the Union and it was actually had some like very good advice, which was something along the lines of like, hey, you just gave a generic boring statement. You sound like a politician. If you have nothing to say, don't say anything, but you only have something to say if you're prepared. Let's get this guy in a democratic campaign. Yeah , can't do worse. A lot of the consultants we've got going. The range of the advice was funny. It was like introduced this exact policy and then some emails would be like, stop doing the weird eye thing. Yes. And then still doing it. You know what? I read that and I was like, oh, she does a weird thing. Yeah, he was on something there. It reminded me there was I remember there was somebody when I was working for Hillary at some point she went to the floor to speak on the Senate floor by some issue and one of the consultants accidentally replied all minting this to send the note to just one person . And the email just said something like, how could you let Hillary go out there looking like shit like that? She was on the republican. No, Hillary the whole staff was we all got it. I wasn't. That was early in my days. I was not on a small email chain of Hillary. No, no, no, no, no, it was included in the office. No, no, no, I don't think she was. I don't think she was. The person would have been vaporized. Yeah, just sort of just sort of sort of blifted out of existence. I mean, maybe we all need like a cult leader in our lives given unvarnished feedback, you know? That is true. That's a dance for . That's why we wouldn't message box. Wait, the memo come out. Yeah, they are. You can subscribe . Speaking of corrupt goons , we should talk about the wild and infuriating New York Times story that sheds new light on why Trump may have freed a convicted fraudster named David Gentile less than two weeks into a seven year sentence after Gentiles stole over a billion dollars from what the Times calls thousands of mostly mom and pop investors. The commutation also meant Gentile no longer had to pay as much as fifteen and a half million dollars in restitution. Well, apparently, according to Ken Vogl at the times, a couple of Trump's political appointees killed an early stage investigation by the office that prosecuted Gentile into how the clemency came about, including quote, jailhouse communications where he discussed making over two million dollars worth of payments to secure his freedom. The Times reported that one of the people who communicated with Gentile in prison and quote came under scrutiny by investigators was Reverend Frank Mann, a retired Catholic priest from Queens, who's friends with Trump and spoke at his inauguration last year . Wild . What do you think? Like is this the kind of thing Democrats should investigate if they take Congress or does this fall into the category of things we can't really do much about because the pardon power is absolute . Oh, we've got to this is some of the most brazen corruption of the administration. And by the way, like again, a lot of there's going to be a lot of people that say we shouldn't be looking backwards, but one of the reasons we're going to have to look backwards is we understand what we need to do to fix it. And I like pardon reform, some kind of constitutional amendment is going to be on the table for how to protect our democracy. So I think we absolutely should be investigating this. One other reason to do it is there is daylight here between Trump and some of the people around Trump. Like have you noticed the Caroline Levit statement in that article says something like the idea that people would be trying to profit off of clemency is like repugnant or something to that effect? At least cut Trump in. Yeah, yeah, let the man get his beak wet, all right? It's got a lot of renovation. He's got a lot of interior decorating. He's got a lot of expenses, a lot of renovation projects. But so there's also apparently in this story, according to this story , after the reports that this retired priest had taken cash, Trump called to find out if it was true because Carly Trump on his word had commuted this guy's sentence . And there's one point in the story where it seems as though this former priest accidentally butt dialed the reporter and left a message while he was talking about eating with Trump and having lunch with him. So I do think we should be investigating this. I do think there's just an incredible amount of corruption going on around Trump related to these pardons and commutations. Wouldn't you love to hear the conversation between Trump and the priest when he asked him if it was if he took any money? I mean, Trump is immune from prosecution around the pardons, but the people sell ing pardons are not. So we should absolutely investigate the hell out of it and see if we can bring some of them to justice. And also, I think stories like this where you've got this corrupt guy who what defrauded one point six billion dollars worth of money from mom and pop investors is how it's described. Like this directly connects the corruption to how it's hurting you. This is like kind of the exact sweet spot of the messaging . And again, my facts, when I read this, I my first thought was like, oh, this is going to end up in a John Australia. Absolutely. Probably was already there. Like a video, yeah. And then about this. You hear about this one? You read about this? And then, you know, again, to talk to Maggie and Jonathan about this, which all the examples of corruption. And Jonathan Swan was like, they're book, they're very serious journalists, right? Like I'm trying to fuck around and they're just being telling me just the facts of the reporting. And Swann like looks into the camera and he's like, I think we know about one percent of the corruption stories of that's actually happening here. So just right the avenues for investigative reporting, lawsuits, congressional oversight, like there's a million stories like this that we do not know that we are going to have to try to find out and that's the only way I think that the Naga cult will ever realize that this man was taking advantage of them and harming them. By the way, it doesn't take a leap of faith to believe these stories like, oh, you think that a bunch of criminals, people who were convicted of crimes, including the president and this guy that he was sentenced he committed, you don't think that he was selling he was in jail and thinking to himself, how do I get out? Well, I gotta have Donald Trump do it. Who can get to Donald Trump? Well, someone that maybe I can pay. Maybe this friend who's the Catholic priest, whatever, like and the retired Catholic priest who just happens to be Donald Trump's buddy. Like of course this happened. Like what are you talking about? By the way, like the story inside of this, like the retired priest cleaned up the gravesite of Trump's parents then sent the picture and that's what gets him invited. Right. The whole thing reeks, the whole thing just it's just like what are we talking about? It is the culture that Donald Trump created when he got to the White House and basically was like, oh, I'm going to just pardon anyone who I want to pardon. And it doesn't matter what kind of crime you committed, january sixth rioters, people who've defrauded people, whatever it be , like, if you can curry favor with me and you know me and you're connected to me, you get a pardon. So of course an entire industry is going to spring up of people who sell access to Donald Trump for pardons. You're in jail, you know you've been in jail for ten years. And then all of a sudden this glimmer of hope opens that if you get this money to some schmuck around Trump, some lobbyist or consultant around Trump that you could potentially get out, you'll walk away. Sam now being like he wants a pardon. Literally was just gonna say Sam Bangerfrie is like openly lobbying Trump for a pardon tomorrow's gonna be like, I saw the guy who used the box cutter on the hool. I will bribe you, sir. But also when the president when the president of the United States takes a plane from the Qatari government or sells half another signal crypto company and a secret deal to an Emirati backed investment firm . Everyone around him sees that and that approach to governing filters through everyone else. And they're all thinking, how do I get mine? Yeah, I also will say too, you know, there's I think there's sort of this sort of like fatigue in your view w likeow , any one of these scandals would have defined a previous administration, but like Trump, we had we sort of get glamored by the ways in which there's always a new scandal and a new controversy. But this is Republicans in Congress , because if the reason it got to this point, the reason we have this level of corruption is because there have been multiple scandals which if they had marched to the podium and say this stops today, it could have stopped and they chose not to . They are responsible for this. They are the ones that are enabling this every day. Yeah. The corrective for this in the Constitution is, of course, impeachment . And there's obviously going to be a question if Democrats take Congress back to Peach Trump because it's obviously not going to go anywhere. There's part of me that thinks like you just do it as a matter of fact, like, hey, look at all this corruption . If Republicans actually voted to convict, part of what we want to do is get some of this money back for the American people that he stole from the American treasury and from the American people. We don't expect Republicans to actually vote for this, but we want to go on record and realize that like this is the president committed a bunch of crimes, stole a bunch of money from people. Like you don't have to make a big deal of it. I don't know. I'm still thinking about it. I don't it is hard to go down that path because it takes up a lot of oxygen. But again, when someone, when a president does kind this kind of thing, when he abuses the pardon power, when he's this corrupt when he's stealing from the American people, the remedy in the Constitution is to impeach the guy. And if you don't do that, then, you know , yeah, and by the way, both impeachments were vehicles to educate the country. We learned a lot in those cases . Where did it work? Well, the hearing, you know, the and then even the january sixth hearings that came later , I think were really important . No, they did not work here we are, but I do think like at a certain point, yes, there will be a strategic argument against it I get. that , but like, man, have we done a lot of overthinking about strategy to end up in this place too? Yeah . All right, now you guys get to hear when we come back more about all of Trump's machinations in the second term when Tommy talks to Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swann right after this . 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Our team of experts are ready, building end to end solutions for businesses of all sizes, from Fortune five hundreds to entrepreneurs. Whatever you need, we've got you covered. Unlock the only real estate platform built for a smarter way to work. Wiwork. Made for work, built for your business. Looking for your next office. Discover Wiworks new real estate platform built for a smarter way to work with forty five million square feet of office space in one hundred and twenty cities across thirty four countries. We've got you covered. For global coworking to custom office solutions, visit wework. com Today I am thrilled to be joined by the authors of the new book, Regime Change Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, Maggie Hiermann, Jonathan Swann. Great to see you both. Thank you, thanks for having us. Thank you for doing this. So first of all, congrats on the book and for getting this thing into the world. I know a staggering amount of work went into this book. I think you have over a thousand interviews . That is remarkable the. And result is just this incredible page turner that provides a level of insight into how Donald Trump operates and how this administration works that I just haven't found everywhere else. And I'm a total sicko, and I follow this for a living and I follow these people for a living and I was learning a lot. And I know you both are sickos who follow every move with this president. Maggie, I know you have the good fortune of getting to know him back in New York a long time ago. So you guys know the subject as well as anyone. So my first question is just a general one, which is for both of you , what's the top line takeaway for you in terms of what you think is changed from Trump one point zero to Trump two point zero? And then after that, I was hoping you both could just sort of tell us about the experience of bringing this reporting to Donald Trump and having to interview him about it. Why don't we start with you, Maggie? Sure. So one of the things that we tried to convey in this book . And I think we did, Tommy, is that this is just a fundamentally different term than Trump won. This is a very different presidency. This is not twenty seventeen anymore. This is not people who this president had never met before serving not just throughout this administration, but in his White House. This is a group of people who are deeply aligned with him , who had spent many, many years thinking of some of them, not all of them, but thinking about how they could use the levers of power for a specific agenda. Trump himself has been thinking about various aspects of this presidency , one of which he's been very open about, which is retribution. And you are seeing a president wield power in a way that is fundamentally changing the way people look at America around the globe , the way Americans interact with their president , and certainly not in our lifetime that we've seen this. I'm not sure there has been something like this. And we tried to show additionally to his unique qualities , never admitting defeat , never having any shame, refusing to be thrown out of the arena , the various factors outside of his control that added to that. But he is coming back to came back to Washington with a very, very different climate. It was a complete ly cowed Republican Congress , cowed tech leaders , cowed donors , law firms who were facing threats of executive orders, media companies that were concerned about being targeted by the government . And he has very happily wielded that power. I agree with everything Maggie said it's really hard to emphasize sufficiently how different this is from Term one . It's almost unrecognizable in the way he's operating as president. And I'll just give you one kind of other way to think about it, which is in term one he was quite reactive to domestic politics . You know, the polls were down, he would be reactive to that stock market. You know, what's it doing today , what did he last see on TV ? And I still think that's a lens through which people are viewing him this term. I still see a lot of kind of commentary that kind of analyzes him through that term. Look, it's not binary. It's not black and white. It's not to say he doesn't care at all about those things in the midterms, but he cares far less. Donald Trump this term, we picked this up pretty early in our reporting, and it became very evident when we sat down finally across from him , he views himself and is trying to create this for himself as a Capital G reat Man of history as a sort of N apoleonic figure . And he literally handed us this two page document when we were there with him in the Oval Office , which he said was written by a historian and it compared him to what he described as the quote unquote top ten . Mao, Stalin, Hitler , Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun , William the Conqueror , the Stamilane, the Caesars, the, the Ca Cesaarsesars . So and okay, you know, I'm not sure that most American presidents would be happy about being included in that company not at all. He was relishing this comp arison, was itn't a moral comp.arison There was actually very almost no mention of morality or values in this document. It was purely comparing them on the metric of power . And the assertion that this quote unquote historian made was that Donald Trump is the most powerful man who's ever existed on the planet because he's in charge of the United States, the most powerful military that's ever existed, the most powerful technology that's ever existed, but that he's also that he's willing to use that power . And you know, as peculiar as the source of this information was, it actually turned out not to be a history. It was Gary Player, the golfers , former Caddy. Okay , but setting that aside, the thesis actually was not so dissimilar to the reporting that we had been doing , which is this is a president now who is willing to take enormous risks , enormous risks on the global stage , whether it be going in and snatching a sovereign head of state out of his bedroom in his pajamas without even talking to Congress , whether it be starting a new war in the Middle East without even talking to Congress , starting a trade war against the whole world, which he did last April . He wants to put his imprint on the world and this country and build monuments to himself. And he's far less concerned whatever the latest polls are or the midterm elections or the future of the Republican Party than he is making Donald Trump a Capital Great Man of History. Wow, Gary Players , Caddy, what a Okay . Hot start guys. That's an amazing anecdote. Okay, so there's so much I would ask you about. I personally think for me that the corruption has been the most shocking part of the second term , we could go out of the list. There's the stock trades, there's the people trading on the Maduro operation on Kelshi. There's the secret half a billion dollar sale of the crypto business to the Emirati back firm. There's the pardons, there's thear jQatet. The list literally goes on and on. But I want to focus on the jet for a minute because you report in the book that Qatar initially wanted to be paid between one hundred fifty to two hundred million dollars for the plane. But then suddenly the plane was a gift. And you said the idea for making it a gift was, quote, generated at the potus level. And I was wondering if you could unpack what that means a little bit. And then just your sense of Trump's general mindset about using his office to make money and how that mindset has sort of extended or not to his family, his staff and the people around him. Yes, so working backwards on that one, Tommy. On the Qatari Jet, and that was really the first neon sign example of what we saw with this president outside of the crypto business , which came into existence in twenty twenty four during the campaign. That alone was a norm that was completely shattered. We've not seen a president do something like that before. It speaks to a mindset that is across this government. It is certainly clear for this president, and it is clear for members of his family that they feel like they gave up a lot. I mean, they openly say this. We gave up a lot the Trump ran, we were under investigation, we lost lots of money, we lost, you know, golf tournaments at our clubs and so forth . And there's no laws prohibiting this. And there's there's nothing that stops this. And Trump openly said this to some of our colleagues earlier this year, actually . And he also said, you know, nobody cared that he was trying to adhere to some guidelines. There were people who cared. It just didn't violate laws and presidents are exempt , as most people know, from ethics laws in a different way. So this jet was initially described by we actually think we're the first people to write about the fact that they were thinking about this jet. Suddenly there was this memo, this joint memo from the DOJ and the White House counsel, and it was that there was nothing that was going to prohibit the government from accepting this jet and then it being transferred over to the Trump library. It is true there have been times in the history of this country when the Defense Department has accepted gifts, right in the forms of plane or aircraft or whatever , not usually quite like this. And yes, this was an older jet that the Qatari Royal family had used. It was not brand new . They , according to our reporting, did initially want to sell it , and then it suddenly became a gift. And generated at the potious level in our understanding was it was conversations that people close to the president were having with counterparts elsewhere as to how to acquire this. I think there is still a lot to be learned about how it happened. But remember, the president described this as a free jet. No taxpayer money would go to it. In fact, it has cost several hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer upgrades to make it safe for presidents. It's just got delivered in recent days . So that was one example that made clear that we were just in a very, very different world. It took months of reporting by the Wall Street Journal , you uncover that secret sale of a forty nine percent stake in the Trump crypto company that they have with the Whitcoff family to I think it was an Emirati royal backed company , royal family backed company. There are other deals that the Trump family is engaged in. And again, the posture has been nothing prohibits this we're allowed to . It's so blatant and on a scale we have just never seen before. There have obviously been accusations of self dealing from presidents in the past . This is unlike anything that I can recall seeing and really being written about in modern history at any rate . And I do think that the public is starting to pick up on it . That is puncturing something that he had been able to hang on to for a long time, which was the sense that he is a successful businessman. He didn't gain anything from this . There is a recurring theme, and it's hard to ignore. Yeah. And Jonathan, I mean, staying on this corruption piece. We've heard about the ballroom, we've heard about the Ar c to Trump, the PAC fundraising. You guys do a bunch of reporting on the Trump presidential library fund In fact, you report that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick personally donated twenty five million dollars to the Trump presidential library fund and that this donation came reports about Lutnik's kids maybe making money off of administration policy in a way that was deemed unsavory in the press. I'd love to hear more about that. And then also can you talk about it it sounds like Eric Trump is leading a very aggressive effort to raise money that includes individuals like Mohamed Bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia , sovereign wealth funds in the Gulf , just sort of blatant conflicts of interest. I'd love to hear more about it. People around Trump have described to us that they want to raise two billion dollars for his presidential library. And if you've seen it , it's essentially a tower that looks like the Freedom Tower that sort of towers above the Miami skylight. In no way is it a presidential library and you've seen like the montage of you go in there and this like as like a gold statue of Donald Trump restaurants. And God knows what else. So the reason we found about the Howard Lutnick example is in the Oval Office, Trump brings it up. Like there was something that Howard Lutnick said and Trump said this is in front of a group of people based something to the effect of the only reason I put up with Howard's bullshit is he gave me twenty five million dollars and you know what Trump just the way he talks and you know , and other times you say, you know, how it's so great. I just asked him for the money and he immediately gave it to me or some version of that . But what we also found is that people around Trump, Eric Trump, and others have been approaching and discussing with golf monarchies funding this library . And often the trail heads back to the Gulf. Correct. You know, this is what makes a lot of this so remarkable is you have an administration that is conducting foreign policy dealing with the Gulf. I mean selling chips highly advanced chips to the Emirates at the same time as the Emirates are putting two billion dollars into the Trump and Witcoff family crypto business . You have the Qatari Jet , the Trump family business doing all kinds of deals in the Middle East . And then the business of state, it's just one giant playground really, with no borders between put it let',s just say it's, very hard sometimes to delineate the borders between official business and private business . And so it's almost impossible to cover because I truly think we only know one percent . Maybe five percent of what's going on. And we this is a story that our colleagues have done phenomenal reporting on people like Eric Lipton, the Wall Street Journal and others, you know, we've done a , you know, our modest part of it that we've tried to contribute in this book. But my lord, like we have, I don't think we really have a concept of the breadth and depth of this yet. Yeah, I really don't. Now, and one thing Tommy that I would just add is the figure two billion dollars , it's double to a presidential library that I think you might be familiar with . And our understanding from our reporting is that that's not a coincid . President Trump has never stopped being very focused on President Obama, but he was also in our reporting found delighted that President Biden is having a very hard time fundraising . And that just made him want to do more. But to Jonathan's point , the models that they have for this library, it's a hotel, is how it's conceived. Right. And they are also still planning on taking the Qatari jet with them. I don't know what that looks like for Air Force One for another president in two and a half years, but Jonathan is right that there is a lot more to be learned here we don't pretend to think we have covered the waterfront. Yeah, I mean the crypto transactions alone are you can't possibly follow who is buying Trump coin or Melania coin on any given day. I mean, the opportunities for corruption are just staggering . Maggie, one thing that reading the book really helped me understand in a new way was just how chaotic the management of the country and then Trump's own time when he's in the Oval Office really is, you describe Trump's time in the Oval Office not really as a day that is structured with meetings, but more like kind of a rolling ball session with some advisers, whoever's in town visiting. You guys report on the scene where like there's some poor NSC goons in the corner trying to get sign off on a classified program. On the other side of the office, someone's on speaker phone from Marlago, the fucking decorator walks in with rug samples or something. That blows up the whole conversation. The pavers for the rose garden. Sorry the pavers for the rose garden. Tell us about like paint us a picture of what it's like inside the oval office and how decisions are getting made. Yeah, look, I mean, we describe, as you say, this setting. We're describing sort of an average day, right? And you could take any given moment over the course of the last seventeen months, eight, whatever seventeen and a half months, and one meeting collides into the next . And Trump often invites people in to take part in other meetings. You know, one example of that in the book is the meeting where Laura Loomer is listing people at the NSC and elsewhere in the government who she is telling the president are against him. And Scott Perry, the Congressman, comes in for a separately scheduled meeting, and then they start talking. And then so there are constant scenes like this , and it has just become very familiar to everybody in Trump's world. It's how he functioned at Marlago, it's how he functioned at Trump Tower Some of this was the case in Term one. It is much more expansive now. In terms of how the government is being managed, what was really striking to us and we do describe this in the reporting in the book is just how small the group of people running this government is. If they are there 's a hand ful of people. And at their agencies at the State Department, at the Pentagon , at the CIA , at ODNI, you can go down the list. And if they are not, people leading those agencies are not in the room with the president, if they're not in the Oval Office . They often don't know what's going on . You know, one of the things that we talk about a lot is the fact that this administration makes a show of transparency, but they actually are quite good at keeping secrets when they want to and prefer it. There is a great deal that is kept secret, so much so that in the lead up to the Iran war on february twenty eight h, the Energy Secretary and the Treasury Secretary had not been part of most of the meetings . The two people who would be impacted by a global energy crisis the most in this government were not part of it because this government is also very paranoid and worried about leaks. And that's also why you see the situation room used the way it is so often. Yeah, and it's probably not going to be helped by your book because we're all reading about the big freak out about everyone wondering about your sourcing, which I will not ask you to comment on. But Jonathan, related to the kind of management question is just the picture you paint of how Trump gets information . For example, you guys report that Trump was kind of largely oblivious about this massive fight within MAGA that has erupted over U. S. support for Israel . And that anecdote really shocked me because I mean, it seemed like everyone was talking about and reporting on it . And usually he has a pretty good sort of anten forna the base . And it made me wonder about his information diet generally, which you guys I think describe as information from Fox News and then positive news printed out by a staffer named Natalie Harp. Can you tell folks who Natalie Harp is and sort of more about this information diet and whether does any news break through to Donald Trump that is like factual but bad for him at this point? Yeah, it's quite as black and white as that, but it's not far off what you just described . Natalie Harp is a young woman who has worked for Donald Trump for a few years, used to be an anchor on OAN , which is a far right network she one story that Maggie and I broke and it's mentioned in the book she's basically the most devoted, let's say to Donald Trump, more than anyone we've ever seen. She writes him , she has written him numerous letters that she's left for him, including one that says, You are all that matters to me or some version of that raised the eyebrows of the Secret Service during the campaign. Some of these letters that were left in some of his private quarters. And she's just totally devoted to him. Ov Inal Office meetings, she sits on the chair at the side of the room with her laptop open, and Trump, they call her the human printer . So Trump basically just says, Natalie, get me this or he's, you know , Google this . We have a scene in the book where during the trade war or lead up to the Liberation Day where he declares a trade war against the whole world where he's just not believing the trade numbers def theicit numbers that Howard Ludnik is giving him and he says Natalie, google me the real numbers. So she's furiously Googling, you know, and of course the real numbers don't exist because what Secretary Lutnick had given him were actually the real numbers. But that's who she is. His information diet has constricted. There's no question. Intern one he was scrolling Twitter a lot more , which just gave him much more exposure to just random things that were coming across the Transom . He still does watch MSNBC, as you've noticed, when he rages against Joe Scarborough and Mika and you know, he'll still watch CNN and, you know, but it's really Fox all the time . And that whole world of the Manosphere podcast, he exploited that to his advantage very effectively during the campaign, but it wasn't like he was ever a consumer of it. Like Donald Trump doesn't sit there listening to like Theo Von and Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson's podcast. They might as well not exist . He'll occasionally hear, Oh yeah, Joe Rogan's been criticizing you, but he's not tuned into that . He's just watching Fox and hearing largely from people who support him . You know, the patio at Marlago is full of flatterers who come in by you, great job, you're doing an amaz ing job, Mr. President . And his staff are people who largely believe in him , like him , not people like the first term who thought that he was dangerous or somebody that needed to be reined in, that's just not the dynamic at all. So and then he's got, you know, outside people like Boris Epstein, who's his personal lawyer and enforcer who he is so positive to Trump that Trump even jokes about it. You know, he'll tell aids like, Oh, I get indicted and Boris tells me it's the best news ever. So that's, I mean, that's the environment. You know, presidents always exist in a bubble, but this is a really thick bubble. This is an almost impenetrable bubble that Donald Trump exists in. He's also much less willing to believe the bad news is the other piece, frankly. I mean, people will bring him information and say things like , you know, we've always heard him say some version of, you know , to Jonathan's point about, you know, bring me the real numbers the those poll numbers are fake, you know, the real ones are , you know, Trafalgar or whatever , something that he considers to be more in line with how he sees the world, but it is harder for people who are trying to tell him that actually there are other things happening to get through to him that way . And just one addition to Jonathan's point about how often Fox is on , Fox is far less critical just in the main of him than it was various points in Turn One, not you know, Fox was obviously not MSNBC, but he received more criticism on certain shows then he does it all now and that has an impact too. Well so that sort of brings me my next question about the lowest moment it wasn't a moment. It was the lowest several months, which was their handling of the Epstein files and mishandling of the Epstein files. I just And want to get your re ad on how and why you think they mishandled it so badly. Is this because there's no good answers? Trump was really good friends with Jeffrey Epstein. He was for decades. He was a total creep at the time. Maybe like there's not great way to spin that. Did they misread the politics and not listen to the more online people like JD Vance who were warning them? And then relatedly, I mean, you guys have these incredible scenes in the situation room where Trump's team is trying to figure out how to do damage control for him, but the story keeps getting worse. You know, we see the doodle that is in the Wall Street Journal that he put into the birthday book for Jeffrey Epstein. Did anyone you talk toed say to you like you know what? It was personally pretty upsetting and demoralizing to learn that this guy we work for was actually part of this cabal that we had promised to take down during the campaign ? Well, I think at the start of all of this, the first thing to understand is that from a staff point of view, you're limited in what you can do when the person you're working for, the president wants it all to disappear . He wanted this whole thing to disappear. I mean, he didn't want transparency. He didn't want all this stuff to come out . And he would get snappy when people brought it up in his presence. So what the staff did was they had these conversations largely away from Donald Trump . They had them in the situation room for secrecy . You know, as you know, Tommy, from your time in the this is one of the most guarded rooms in the government as a national security command center essentially, that they turned into a sort of Jeffrey Epstein crisis response center . And these are the top officials in the government sitting around the table trying to craft a PR strategy . What was evident to his stuff very early on was that A , Donald Trump's name was all over these files. I mean, the New York Times , we found more than thirty eight thousand references to Trump and his family and places like Marilago in these files. But it was also just a sense of not knowing really what was out there and not being able to have these c andid conversations with Trump . I do think one thing you said is true, which is early on , senior people on his team underest imated the political salience this issue. And remember , for a lot of them who've gone through all kinds of scandal and crisis with Donald Trump, from their point of view, this is just another one. Why would we why would this be different from, you know, access Hollywood go down the list , but it was And it was very frustrating to Trump himself because he's so used to telling his base , think this, do this, and it shall be done. And this was this issue where perhaps because some of his own people had helped whip up the hysteria and conspiracy about Epstein , the base just wasn't listening. The base just refused to kind of take direction on that and it just hung around. And one thing we obtained in our reporting for the book is private focus group research that Trump's team did this year , not last year, this year, almost a full year after they first tried to start dealing with the Epstein thing, Epstein was still cutting through in these focus groups to an alarming extent for Trump's team. So So all these meetings happened, but it was a turning point, I think we can now say with some level of confidence. Last summer is when Trump's political fortunes really started to decline. And one of Trump's advisors compared to Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan as sort of the moment in the Biden admin when you start to see, you know, it's not dissimilar with Epstein, and it's still a problem, even to this day , politically. Maggie, you know, you guys have reported on a bunch of folks reported on Trump enjoying to compare and publicly rank Rubio versus JD Vance . But you guys write that even early on, like back in twenty twenty one, I think that Trump's aides noticed he had more personal chemistry with Marko Rubio than Vance. Now Vance obviously wages a pretty effective charm campaign. He goes from calling him, you know, comparing him to Hitler to getting on the ticket. You write that Trump was impressed by Advance's intellect and good looks. I'm going to take issue with the part of that. But whatever . Is this an endlessly fun parlor game and way to torture these guys? Or is he really trying to kind of constantly focus group and figure out the future of NAGA. How do you view it? A couple of things, but one is you mentioned the JD Vance criticism of Trump and the Hitler comment, which I think was made in a text exchange with someone . It's not like Marco Rubio was exactly subtle about Donald Trump. They ran against each other. There was a whole you know , genitalia, adjacent, whatever on the primary debate stage. It wasn't very adjacent. Oh, sorry, it was just genitalia. Sorry. It was a literal dick measuring contest at around . Yeah. So I'm just gonna leave it there with you, Tommy. So I think that a couple of things . One, as you know very well, the second that somebody who is in office and is term limited, which the president is , despite all of the conversation around this , once they endorse some body , they stop being quite as relevant and their lame duck status starts to increase. Donald Trump is not exactly somebody who is going to disappear quietly into that good night, as we've been saying throughout this episode. Number one. So he's in no rush for that because he sees this as his party and his movement for a variety of reasons. I do think it is fun for him. I do think he enjoys it. As long as he has been in politics, he has done this. He did this with Mike Pence and Newt Gingrich and Chris Christie in twenty sixteen . In the immediately in the lead up to when he announced that it was Pence, he was still leaving the idea open that it might be Chris Christie still, which he'd already offered it to Pence . So yes, there is the game aspect of it. It's hard to look at the existing fundamentals of the modern Republican Party and the Maga movement and not see how JD Vance is still very much the prohibitive frontrunner . Obviously lots can change . But I also don't think that Donald Trump is going to completely defy reality if that's where it's going , but again, these predictions are not worth a whole lot. I do think we will continue to see much more of this going forward . But it's totally on an interpersonal level, it's just it's totally bizarre. I mean we have a lot of this in the book, but we have a scene in the book where Rupert Murdoch comes to the White House for dinner. We're sitting on the same table as Trump in the blue room of the White House and JD Vance and Marco Rubio are at the table . And Trump right there, with the both of them at the table asks Rupert Murdoch to assess each of them . And Murdoch gives Marco Rubio a much more hearty , you know, endorsement than Vance. I mean, this is what Trump is subjecting his vice president to . I think the only thing we can be confident of is that he's not going to make it comfortable or easy for him . He's just going to keep doing this. It's just who he is. Yeah, I think the quote you have is Murdoch says, I think JD has the potential to be great. And of Rubio, he says Meroko is brilliant. So yeah, that'd be very tough to hear So Jonathan, I've tracked the Trump foreign policy closely. I find it particularly interesting. And since the beginning, I've been trying to understand the emergence of Steve Witcoff, who for the listeners is Trump's real estate and golf buddy turned, diplomatic envoy for everything . This anecdote from the book blew my mind. So you have this scene where Witkov is, I believe, in Moscow meeting with Vladimir Putin. The anecdote goes like this. What are you drawing, sir? Wikoff asked. Putin held up a piece of paper in thick looping pen strokes. It said three plus two, which is shorthand for the territorial framework that Wikoff had discussed with him. Three oblists Russia would keep outright and two where the fighting would freeze in place . Quote, can you can you sign that for me and I can take it home? Wikoff asked. Putin signed the drawing and Wikoff brought it home where he had it framed in black with Tope Matt. So two questions for listeners. Like basically what Wikov is asking to be framed there is a piece of paper that would memorialize an agreement that would be capitulation for the Ukrainians and I think a lot of people would argue validates Putin's decision to invade Uk raine, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people . Why would Witkoff want that in your view? And then more importantly, like what do you make of Witcoff's emergence and his motivations? Because by all accountss he seem like a very nice man, one who seemingly is in over his head understandably, by the way, I think anyone would be in his position. But also it's hard not to see his son's role at World Liberty Financial, the crypto business and worry about conflicts of interest and corruption. So Steve Wikov has no before this term had no diplomatic experience full stop, no foreign policy experience full stop. There is a commonality at the most senior level s of Trump world , which is a contempt for subject matter expertise and subject matter experts . Jared Kushner would often to others speak contempt about, you know, people who've worked on Middle East deals forever. And there's a feeling from these guys . There always has been that they have fresh ideas, fresh answers, private sector thinking, you know, you've heard all of this before. Trump , again, Trump feels comfortable with Wikov, saw him as a deal maker, thought that he could bring home a quick deal with Putin. Trump thought it would be very easy to end this war. When he was saying twenty four hours, it actually in Trump's mind, I don't think was that much of a rhetorical flourish. I think he genuinely thought he could end this conflict very quickly. And has been quite frustrated that it hadn't that Witcoff hasn't been able to bring home a deal. Whitkov , from what we can gather from his colleagues , views the conflict. There's not really a sense of Putin as a villain and an aggressor and Ukraine as a victim. It's actually , you know, we have a scene in the book where Trump is with his inner circle in the Oval Office hashing out , you know, supposedly going to hash out their Russia Ukraine policy. And Keith Kellogg who, was his original envoys, jewifully giving this presentation , which he spent all his time on unbeknownst to Kellogg , Trump already had a back channel set up with Whitkoff. He hadn't told Kellogg about that. He's doing this presentation. And during the presentation, Trump is interrupting him by saying things like the only good thing about Ukraine is the women. They keep winning this universe . Zelensky's terrible. He's destroyed his country. So the animist when the animist comes out, it's almost never against Putin. It's almost always against Ukraine and Zelenskyy. And I think Witkov saw his job as bringing this conflict to an end , but really view those leaders on a flat plane without really making moral distinctions . I mean, we have another line in the book where he tells Putin that , you know, Russia's good at a lot of things, but they're really bad at PR , as if as if the Kremlin's main problem was a PR problem . So that's the mindset. And you know, he goes and meets with Putin on his own . He really doesn't use staff like someone in that role would normally use staff . And as a result , there have been times where there I think there's been miscommunication and misunderstandings . And you know, it turns out diplomacy is complicated and this conflict was not easy to resolve. And in fact, it's still raging on , many twenty four hours after the initial twenty four hours when he was going to solve it. Right. Well, I think down the road, maybe we'll learn more about this. Whether there's a corruption piece of this to the Wikov story. But listen, you guys have given me a lot of time on an unbelievably busy week. The book, again, is regime change inside the Imperial