← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“A custody battle for the Strait of Hormuz”
00:42:35
Nicolle Wallace covers Trump’s decision to escalate tensions with Iran by threatening a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, an announcement CENTCOM quickly had to clarify, saying that U.S. forces would only block ships going to and from Iranian ports. This comes after a weekend of failed peace talks with Tehran.
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Interviewer/Host
Hey, how's it going?
- [00:22]
Nicole (Host/Anchor)
Yeah, good.
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Michael Crowley
Thanks.
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Nicole (Host/Anchor)
Taxes, tips and fe. Hi everyone. Happy Monday. It's 4 o'clock in New York. Donald Trump is finding out that it is not easy to get yourself out of a war you started with no end game in sight in the first place. In the face of failed peace talks at a fragile ceasefire in place, Donald Trump is choosing to escalate tensions and worsen the global oil crisis with a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Hours after the marathon peace talks with Tehran fell apart over the weekend, Donald Trump announced that starting this morning, the US Navy will block the entire strait. US Central Command later had to step back from Donald Trump's threat to do that, stating that US Forces would merely block ships going to and from Iranian ports. Still, by any measure, it is a dangerous escalation of the war both militarily and economically. On that, the Wall Street Journal reports this quote the move opens a volatile new phase in the six week conflict, shifting from punishing strikes on military targets to an open ended campaign to police the strait. The prospect of such a blockade could set off a high stakes battle that tests which side has the higher threshold for pain, Tehran or global markets. That economic pain is already being felt with the price of oil surging past $100 a barrel as soon as the blockade was announced. But here's how Donald Trump tried to spin it and downplay the major economic impact of his war in an interview on Fox News yesterday.
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Donald Trump
The stock market has not gone down very much at all. Gone down a little bit, much less than I thought and frankly the gas hasn't gone up as much as I thought but regardless, even if it did, we have to stop this group of people from having. And again, it was worse because Khomeini was a total, you know, radical. I'll be nice. Maniac. He was a maniac. And you can't let them have a nuclear weapon. So I just have the greatest economy ever. Everything's going along and I say, I'm sorry. I tell my economic advisors and say, I'm sorry, fellas, we were in great shape. We have to go and take a little journey down to Iran.
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Nicole (Host/Anchor)
Thirteen people have lost their lives in that little journey down to Iran. Mumbo pressed him as to whether or not he expects gas prices to come back down. Here's what Donald Trump admitted. So do you, so do you believe the price of oil and gas will be lower before the midterm elections?
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Donald Trump
I hope so. I mean, I think so. It could be, it could be or the same or maybe a little bit higher, but it should be around the same. I think this won't be that much longer. They're wiped out. They're wiped out.
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Nicole (Host/Anchor)
So according to Trump, the prices will be lower, the same or higher by the midterms. Now, beyond the blockade, Donald Trump is also considering further attacks on Iran. That's despite the fact that we're in the middle of that two week ceasefire. Wall Street Journal reports this quote, Trump and his advisors are looking at resuming limited military strikes in Iran as a way to break a stalemate in peace talks. That's according to officials and people familiar with the situation. Trump could also resume a full fledged bombing campaign, though officials said that was less likely now. None of Donald Trump's actions appear to be rooted in any strategy, least of all a strategy to bring an end to the conflict or the war. It's a war that is only growing more and more unpopular with the American public by the day. A brand new poll from CBS News shows that just 36% of the country approves of Trump's handling of the war with Iran. 64% disapprove. And only 34% of Americans think that Trump has clearly explained what his goals in Iran even are. Donald Trump struggling to find an off ramp for his increasingly unpopular war with Iran is where we start today. New York Times diplomatic correspondent Michael Crowley is here. Lieutenant General Mark Hertling is here as well. He served as a commanding general of the US army in Europe. Also joining a staff writer at the Atlantic and a contributor to the Atlantic Daily newsletter. Tom Nichols is here. He's a professor emeritus of national security affairs at the US Naval War College. Michael Crowley, let me ask you to take me through the reporting of J.D. vance's failure to make progress in those peace talks.
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Michael Crowley
Yeah, Nicole, and thanks for having me. Well, look, I think the fact of the failure itself was not a surprise. It was very clear that the US And Iran had a huge gulf between them in terms of their public positions on the key issues that were going to be on the table in Islamabad and remain on the table. And foremost among them is what to do about the Strait of Hormuz, how to reopen it and how to manage it going forward, and whether Iran will have any role in that. And then second, the key question is Iran's nuclear program. Iran's nuclear facilities have been badly damaged or destroyed, but Iran still retains close to £1,000 of highly enriched uranium. That would not take very long with some centrifuges spinning to get to a level where you can make a nuclear weapon. So Vance goes over there to try to reach some agreement with the Iranians in talks that are put together on a few days notice, basically on the fly. Vance himself has no real diplomatic experience, certainly not prior to becoming vice president. And he goes over with Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who themselves have pretty limited experience and have failed to get deals with the Iranians in two previous rounds of talks. And they spend, I think it's 21 hours in Islamabad or the whole trip, basically. And they are not able to, as everyone expected, they're not able to just get a snap agreement for something that people who have dealt with the Iranians, say would take weeks to hammer out. It sounds like what you really had was a delivering of ultimatums on both sides laying out positions, but not a lot of give and take, compromise and negotiation. So another round of talks ends in failure and leads to what looks like an escalation, which puts us in a position where it's kind of anyone's guess what happens next. I think that we have a waiting game now to see how Iran is going to respond to this blockade of its ports, number one, in terms of whether it would use any kind of force or have a confrontation. And then, number two, will we have another round of diplomatic talks? There have been some reports that maybe the Iranians were willing to make offers to the Trump administration on its nuclear program in particular, that might be a little bit more acceptable. So would they come back to the table? And will this be like an iterative process where the two sides get closer and closer? But right now, I don't see a lot of evidence of that.
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Nicole (Host/Anchor)
What's interesting to me, Michael Crowley, is that Trump's on Fox talking about this little journey he took to Iran. That's his quote, because of the nuclear program. I mean, before the war started, Kushner and Wyckoff were negotiating over the nuclear program, and the Strait of Hormuz was open. Now it's controlled by Iran. It seems like their hand is weaker to negotiate the status of their nuclear program because Iran now controls the strait. Am I missing something?
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Michael Crowley
Well, I think that's a pretty plausible argument. The counterargument would be that the war has brought Iran's economy closer to the brink of collapse, that Iran's regime is running scared. They're worried that they have been weakened to the point where they're threatened by an uprising that's, I think, more speculative, and we just don't see a lot of evidence of that. And people have been talking about the overthrow of the Iranian regime, steamed through various rounds of protests and military actions for a long time now. It doesn't seem like something that it's a good bet to be waiting on. So I think, yes, all the evidence we see right now is that Iran has an immense point of leverage that it lacked before. And so President Trump is going to have to be prepared to make more concessions than he was before, unless he wants to go even deeper militarily into this war at greater risk to American lives and the global economy.
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Nicole (Host/Anchor)
General Hertling, what does all this mean for the men and women of the military and their families?
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Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
Well, first, what I'd point out, Nicole, Michael said it very well. And the initial presidential tweet or social media posting had to do with closing the entire straits. That would have been a near impossible mission for the amount of forces that are there. The centcom, the navcent, the naval commanders in the Central Command reduced that to what I think the President meant, which was the blockading of Iranian ports, not the entire strait, which requires much less equipment, much less fewer sailors, and the kind of command and control that you need. But we've also seen that kind of tested already by the Chinese, who have made basically a demand that they be allowed to go into the Iranian ports because they have deals with Iran. So we're going to see some very interesting dynamics here in terms of this mission set, which, in and of itself, when the American public hears something like they're going to blockade the straits or blockade Iranian ports, it sounds like you're putting up a wall against incoming ships and outgoing ships. That's not the case at all. That's a very difficult mission. I spent the weekend talking to a bunch of Navy friends of mine and other than Tom Nichols, I don't have that many Navy friends. But what we determined was the amount of mission sets that this is going to requ when the Peterson, and I'm forgetting the name of the other ship, the Peterson and the Franklin, I think it's called, I'm sorry, the Murphy and the Petersen, the two destroyers went into the Straits the other day and they said they were in mine clearing missions. That wasn't the case at all. Destroyers don't do normally mine clearing. They can launch unmanned aerial drones and sea drones to look for mines, but you don't necessarily want to put a destroyer in the water to look for mines. It was a reconnaissance mission. It was a mission to begin the dynamics of making sure you have missile defense in case new missiles from Iran or new drones from Iran come in. So the complications of any kind of a blockade is just extremely dynamic and resource intensive. Luckily, it's going to be a smaller one, but, you know, it's still. You asked the question what does it mean for the men and women in this forces there. It's a tough mission and they will likely be there for a very long time if in fact they do start intercepting ships and conducting reconnaissance and trying to make sure that the strait remains open.
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Nicole (Host/Anchor)
Tom Nichols, if you listen to Donald Trump with Bartiromo, it's still not clear why he thinks we're there. Right. It seems that the announcement of the blockade has to do with the global economy's reaction to Iran controlling the strait and again, the nuclear objectives. That's never come out of Marco Rubio's mouth when sort of doing press avails about what the objectives were in Iran. He talked about taking out their navy, taking out their ballistic missile capabilities. Do you yet, I think it's day 50, have a clear understanding of what they were negotiating over and what they want?
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Interviewer/Host
Well, let's start from two realities. One is they don't know what they're doing. The military does. But the military can only undertake operations at the direction of the commander in chief. And if you give them operations to do, they will do them well, even if they're difficult. I mean, Mark's point about how complicated this is going to get is a really important point. So that's the first problem when they go to. When they go into negotiations, they don't really know why they're there because they didn't expect anything like this to happen. And that goes to the first point, which is this war, and we keep letting this point slip away. This war was a regime change war. Donald Trump launched a discretionary war of choice to dislodge the Iranian regime. And the way it was supposed to go was that the after three or four days of intense bombing and killing a bunch of Iranian leaders, the regime was supposed to fall. A bunch of people were supposed to throw flower petals in the streets, greet us as liberators, and build a statue to Donald Trump, and then we move on to liberating Cuba. That's what was supposed to happen. And when that didn't happen, Trump, Rubio, Vance, Kushner, none of these guys know what they're doing now. And what they're trying to do is constantly improvise behind things that they didn't expect to happen. Now, CENTCOM and the military, they knew that the Iranians could close the straits, that, that this has been one of the most war game scenarios that in 40 years that the American military does. But all of the people who were involved in the civilian end of the decision making were caught by surprise by all of this. So now they're just constantly improvising to try to fix problems they themselves created. And the Iranians know it, which is why this isn't going anywhere.
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Nicole (Host/Anchor)
Yeah. I want to share some reporting from NPR and ask you about this General hurling. The headline is there's growing disquiet in the military. The Iran war made it worse. Bill Galvin has spent much of the past month answering the phone. Quote, it's been very, very busy, he says. Galvin is the counseling director at the center on Conscience and War, which helps run the 24 hour GI writes hotline set up to inform service members of their options for military discharge. The uptick is part of a larger pattern of military members seeking ways to end their service. That's according to NPR interviews with several organizations. While there is no hard contemporaneous data on the number of members seeking to exit, the people NPR spoke to for this story say they have seen undeniable cracks in the military's ability to retain troops, largely due to low morale or ethical concerns. You know, when six respected former members of the military and CIA and national security capabilities issue a message telling people not to follow illegal orders. You know, we've had a lot of visibility into how that drove Donald Trump crazy and got under Pete Hegseskin, but it's been very opaque. What, if any, impact that had on the men and women of the military? This is sort of the first bit of concrete reporting. And even NPR is careful to say it's not necessarily clear what the cause is or if it's a cumulative impact. But what do you make of what NPR is able to report?
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Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
I think it's probably good reporting at the breaking edge of some of these kinds of dynamics that are occurring. Nicole? I'll tell you, I mean, in entering two different combat zones at different times in my career, there were always a few soldiers who would claim conscientious objector status. And it was because primarily they didn't want to go to war and they wanted all the benefits of being in the military, but not the service. But in this particular case, that claim probably rings true with quite a few people, especially with some of the things that are going on with the religious aspects, based on what Secretary Hegseth is saying in the Pentagon, based on what the president is doing in terms of demeaning the Muslim soldiers, and there are a percentage of Muslim soldiers in our ranks. So when he says things like praise be to Allah and those kind of things on social media posts or he says implies that this is a crusade, or the secretary of Hegses says we have to fight for Jesus, those are the kind of things that aren't part of the military culture. That's not what we do. We never run crusades or religious opportunistic offenses against other nations. There are some reporting that I've heard from both active and retired senior level soldiers that there is a I heard one individual call it a subdued approach within the Pentagon to speaking out against things that they know are wrong or trying to correct some of the civilian leaders in terms of what they're issuing, in terms of orders that could be unlawful or contrary to the way the military does business. But I'm not as well connected as a retired officer anymore, Nicole. I am hearing some of these things, but I don't know how widespread they are.
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Nicole (Host/Anchor)
Yeah. And I mean, we talk every time we have these conversations that the men and women of the military don't live in a hermetically sealed silo. They see Joe Rogan attack the war. They see Marjorie Taylor Greene say that the commander in chief is insane, a once prominent member of the MAGA cola. I mean, they're, they are exposed to everything that is being said about the commander in chief and his conduct in the war itself. I want to show you what Hillary Clinton had to say about the war, and I want to show you what constituents are saying to their representatives. We have to sneak in a break before we do that. Also ahead for us. And yet another one of Donald Trump's test to see just how stupid he thinks we all are. Donald Trump tried to tell his supporters that he didn't post an AI image of himself as a Jesus like figure when he did, but that he thought he was wearing a doctor's costume. Okay, that post and Donald Trump's simultaneous attacks on Pope Leo received widespread criticism today. The Pope today, in an incredibly public way, said he doesn't fear Donald Trump or his administration. Administration. We'll bring you inside that fierce battle later in the broadcast. The Trump administration has been working overtime to ensure that its MAGA far right movement becomes a global far right movement, as evident by the close relationship with Hungary's longtime leader Viktor Orban. But voters there have overwhelmingly said they've had enough of Orban and his autocratic rule. We'll look at how they did it and much more more when Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
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Nicole (Host/Anchor)
2538.
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Simone Sanders Townsend
Simone Sanders Townsend and I have known each other for more than a decade, tussling over politics and policy when she worked in the White House and I reported on it.
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Nicole (Host/Anchor)
And now we're friends and colleagues and on our podcast Clock it, we are positioning ourselves at the intersection of culture and politics.
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Simone Sanders Townsend
Clock it is where we talk about what we see and hear in the news so you can start to clock it, too.
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Clock it with Simone and Eugene.
- [22:03]
Nicole (Host/Anchor)
All episodes available now.
- [22:10]
Hillary Clinton
I just worry that he's going to become more reckless. And this is a call to the Congress, including the Republicans, to step up and do your constitutional duty. Rein in this president before he causes absolutely irreparable damage to our country, to our military standing, to our authority and leadership. Do not let him continue to be a rogue player in the international arena.
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Nicole (Host/Anchor)
That was Hillary Clinton this morning in an interview on Morning Joe. We're back with Michael Crowley, General Hurling and Tom Nichols. Michael Crowley, A lot of people get to what Hillary Clinton is saying and then say, well, the Congress will never impeach him. But what is so ever present in the indictment from Hillary Clinton there this morning of his conduct and his, quote, recklessness in the indictment from MAGA members Marjorie Taylor Greene and Alex Jones in the indictment from voters. I mean, I'm going to show you how some Republican constituents are reacting. They believe that Republicans are, quote, spineless. Refusing to hold Trump accountable is pressure in the system as a voting issue. Right. It's becoming a midterm electoral issue that Congress is so weak and impotent. They need different people in the Congress to hold Trump accountable. Because there is a way to deal with this. It's in the Constitution. It's our system of checks and balances. Is any of that on the radar of any of the men and women that we know from your colleagues on reporting in the Times did not support the war to begin with? That would be everybody in Trump's cabinet.
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Michael Crowley
Yes. Is it on the radar in terms of trying to rein him in? Do you mean.
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Nicole (Host/Anchor)
I mean, do they understand, like, does Rubio understand or J.D. vance understand that their 2028 presidential ambitions are going to be washed away in every call for Congress to do their job? There's political pressure building for people to elect different people in November so that they will actually do what the Constitution allows for. Be a check on Donald Trump.
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Michael Crowley
Yeah. And, you know, Nicole, particularly for J.D. vance, who, as you know, I know you've discussed here was, I mean, it's kind of amazing. He was very specifically critical and outspoken of the idea of launching a war on Iran before he became vice president. I mean, if there were sort of a handful of specific positions that you could, you know, that like a layperson who follows politics could identify Vance with it, one of them would be not getting involved in Middle Eastern wars with unclear aims and that seem to have an open end. And so, you know, look, obviously the most important thing Here is not the political fortunes of individuals, but it's not irrelevant either. You know, personality dictates policy and history. And so I think it's important to say that this is a very uncomfortable position for J.D. vance. I think. And, yes, I think the larger point here is that for years, the opposition to Donald Trump has said things similar to what Hillary Clinton said in that interview about the idea that he needs to be reined in. I think that what's different here is we haven't seen a lot of examples of where Trump has been doing something that really seems surprised and dismayed his base in the way that this war has. Now, I understand that the war remains popular with Trump supporters, so I don't want to suggest. I'm probably overstating it by saying dismayed his base, but dismayed important elements of his base. And I think the discontent and confusion is growing. The defectors, the prominent defectors and critics are growing in number, in some cases, stature. I think that's a little bit new, Nicole. And the whole dynamic is very different. If you think about the first term, President Trump was portraying himself as this sort of persecuted victim of what he called the Russia hoax and the Russia witch hunt. And Robert Mueller, I think there was a kind of a circle of the wagons effect. And what he's done in Iran is very much of his own choosing. It's being proactive. No one's forcing him into doing it. And once again, it goes very contrary to all the signals he seemed to be sending as a candidate. So I do think that this is a real risk. Last point, Nicole, and I'll stop. Look, Donald Trump, Once those midterm elections come, Donald Trump's got two years left. There's a very strong chance that he's got a Democratic Congress, which even further limits his ability to get anything through Congress. He's a lame duck. Now, this guy's a unique politician in every way. And lame duck may mean different things for Donald Trump than it has for other presidents. But the conversation is gonna move very quickly to who comes Next. Marco Rubio, J.D. vance, whoever might be out there. And that is gonna have unpredictable results. But it is gonna put a lot of pressure on certain Republicans to distance themselves from Trump on a matter like this that might be increasingly unpopular with the Republican base and the public at large.
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Nicole (Host/Anchor)
Yeah, let me play. I mean, to that point, let me play for you, Tom Nichols, what happened at Republican Congressman Mike Lawler's town hall.
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Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
The Republican Party, and you are enabling him. You're all cowards, and you're spineless.
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Donald Trump
Donald Trump won the election.
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Nicole (Host/Anchor)
So embarrassed. Republicans spent the first term telling me that they like to more forcefully object to Donald Trump's crassness, grab women, you know, where there were good people on both sides, all the gross things he did, but he was so politically powerful, they couldn't. In a second term, it is clear that both Trump the man and Trump the policies are politically toxic. Yeah.
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Interviewer/Host
And I'm going to take slight issue with something Michael said about the popularity of this among the base. It's true. And I mean, you know, this is the way cults work.
- [28:44]
Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
Right.
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Interviewer/Host
If you ask them, if you ask Trump supporters, do you support the war? They say, yes, I support the president. I support the war, because that's the answer they're always going to give. But you're seeing a different dynamic starting to take hold. And one thing that I've noticed with, and this is something that other folks I've spoken with have noticed as well, that the people we know who were once MAGA or Trump supporters, they've kind of gone silent. They don't want to talk about any of this. They've sort of just gone to ground. They don't want to watch the news, they don't want to watch tv. They don't want to hear about any of this. Now that, you know, if you ask them, do you support Donald Trump? Yes, of course I do. But what you're seeing, like in that Mike Lawler town hall, that privately they're angry, there are only two issues that Donald Trump could not betray his face on that they were going to hold him to. One was the Epstein files, and that has blown up in his face really horrifically because he's tried to stop it and he couldn't. And now we see that there was good reason for why he was trying to stop it. But the other, as we've all been saying here, is the promise not to get involved in any more wars. And, you know, Trump's not going to be on the ballot. But as is the case, when a president betrays so many of his supporters and even his base, they're going to look to take it out on somebody, and that's these other Republicans. And I think the only thing I find mystifying, I shouldn't say mystifying, the only thing I find kind of curious is how many of those Republicans still think that clinging to this kind of, you know, burning wreckage of the administration is still their only chance of political survival, when it seems like the smart move is to start going for the lifeboats.
- [30:37]
Nicole (Host/Anchor)
General Hertling, it was just a week ago that Donald Trump posted on social media for the world to see that he wasn't against or wouldn't rule out using the military to annihilate a civilization. How is that continuing to ricochet through
- [30:51]
Lieutenant General Mark Hertling
the military in a big way? And Nicole, I've heard that mentioned more than anything else when I was with a group of individuals. Well, I won't say which institution because they're concerned. They have a fear of what may draw the ire and the attention of the administration against the institution. But what I'll say is they are talking a lot about it, being asked to do those kind of things, the legal ramifications of being given unlawful orders, things that many of us thought were likely going to happen when he was elected because he has immunity and the military doesn't. So all of those things are critically important. The other thing I'd say to reinforce what Tom says is what is happening to holding not just the president, but the members of his cabinet accountable. We have seen, we all know in the military, that the organization takes on the personality of the leader. All of the members in this cabinet, many of the Republicans in Congress, have all taken on the Congress combative approach that Mr. Trump has. And therefore you can't have oversight by Congress. And I think that's why a lot of these town halls are going a little bit crazy, because they want their congressmen to take over and say, hey, we've got to hold people to account, right?
- [32:15]
Nicole (Host/Anchor)
And never mind that Jared Kushner isn't even in the government. I mean, how would you hold a hearing and interview him? Who's negotiating peace? Michael Crowley and Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. Thank you so much for starting us off. Tom sticks around a little longer after the break. Pope Leo saying he's going to continue speaking out for what he believes, even if it goes against the policies and politics of Donald Trump. We'll bring that to you next.
- [32:41]
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- [33:01]
Interviewer/Host
Hey, how's it going?
- [33:03]
Michael Crowley
Yeah, good, thanks.
- [33:04]
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- [33:12]
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- [33:58]
Pope Leo XIV
I have no fear of neither the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the gospel. And that's what I believe I am called to do, what the church is called to do. We're not politicians. We're not looking to make foreign policy as falsely with the same perspective that he might understand it. But I do believe that the message of the gospel, blessed are the peacemakers, is the best that the world needs to hear.
- [34:27]
Nicole (Host/Anchor)
Message the world needs to hear. That was Pope Leo xiv, the first American Pope this morning vowing to keep it up, to keep calling for peace, to keep speaking out against the war in Iran, not as some sort of policymaker or political rival to Donald Trump, as Trump seems to suggest in an absolutely unhinged late night screed, a complete meltdown on truth social media. But the Pope there speaking is a faith leader, leader of the world's Catholics, leader of the Catholic Church. Donald Trump seems committed to insulting and offending every chance he gets. That unhinged 300 plus word post in which Donald Trump threatens Pope Leo and says he should, quote, get his act together. Donald Trump called the Pope weak on crime, terrible for foreign policy. Trump also claimed responsibility for Pope Leo's election as Pope. Less than an hour later, Donald Trump posted this edited image depicting himself as a Jesus like figure healing the sick with heavenly bodies that look a lot more like action figures than angels floating overhead and miraculous light beams coming from his hands in a rare retreat. The post has been deleted after it prompted such brutal disgust and backlash from his coalition, including rare outrage from the religious right. When asked about it today, Donald Trump said, yes, it was me. I did it. But he said it was a picture of him as a doctor. What?
- [36:08]
Uber Announcer
Mr. President, did you post that picture
- [36:10]
Nicole (Host/Anchor)
of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ?
- [36:12]
Donald Trump (Interviewed)
Well, it wasn't depicted. It was me. I, I did post it and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross, as a Red Cross worker there, which we support. And only the fake news could come up with that one. So I, I had, I just heard about it and I said, how do they come up with that? It's supposed to be me as a doctor making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better.
- [36:40]
Nicole (Host/Anchor)
Okay. You as a doctor is just as batshit crazy. As Trump proceeds, though, to offend doctors and the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, including one fifth of the American population, their first ever American born pontiff had this to say, according to the New York Times, about Trump's social media postings. Quote, it is ironic. The name of the site itself. Say no more. The site, in case you can't remember, is called Truth Social. I want to bring in Princeton University professor and political analyst Eddie Claude. Tom is still here. I'd say round one goes to the Pope, Eddie, but let me just. Because there's this cycle of like, oh, I didn't do that. Only the fake media. I mean, posting yourself as a doctor is truly just as deranged as posting a picture of yourself as Jesus.
- [37:35]
Simone Sanders Townsend
No, absolutely. And first of all, it's great to see you, Nicole. I think what Donald Trump did, what he said is part and parcel of our kind of cloudiness, the fogginess of our moral moment in some ways.
- [37:47]
Interviewer/Host
Right.
- [37:47]
Simone Sanders Townsend
People are constantly telling us not to believe what our. Not to believe our eyes, not to believe what we see in order to kind of get us to convince ourselves not to be morally clear. And in this case, Donald Trump is responding as he always responds, to being held to account. He cannot take the sound of prophetic speech. So he goes after the leader of the Catholic Church, 20% of the US adult population, and he threatens, I believe, Nicole, again, he threatens his base, that kind of coalition between conservative Catholics and evangelical Christians.
- [38:21]
Nicole (Host/Anchor)
Let me put the picture up one more time. Can I see the picture? Control room. Okay. That is not, I mean, a doctor, you know, I have a toddler. Like the doctor's kit from Walmart comes with a stethoscope and a white jacket. And I mean, that is absolutely deranged. Tom Nichols, I'm gonna get to you on the other side of a very short break while I'll be back on the other side
- [38:49]
Pope Leo XIV
to put my message on the same plane as what the President has attempted to do here, I think, is not understanding what the message, the gospel is. And I'm Sorry to hear that. But I will continue on what I believe is the mission of the church in the one year.
- [39:13]
Nicole (Host/Anchor)
Tom Nichols, let me read to you from the Washington Post. Quote, you have to jump back to the Middle Ages when kings and emperors were shouting against the Pope in Rome and calling him false. That was Marco Pollidi, a longtime Vatican watcher and author. Quote, there is just no other recent example like this. Observers also note that Pope Leo is already enjoying more support in the US Catholic Church hierarchy than Francis did, and Trump's attacks may fortify that trend. Quote, I would say there is at this moment no risk from this for the Pope. In fact, Donald Trump's support among Catholics in America has dropped below 50%, an important marker for any politician, especially a Republican, and especially Trump, who has counted on disinformation and sort of knee jerk symbolic faith moves to keep that part of his coalition marching in lockstep.
- [40:08]
Interviewer/Host
Yeah, a couple of things. First, I should say I'm not Catholic, I'm Greek Orthodox, and my church had a schism with the Catholics a thousand years ago. And we treat the Pope with more love and respect than the President of the United States does. I mean, this is really amazing. And I think the thing that keeps going through my mind is what will it finally take for millions of people to realize that this president is not okay, that he is not mentally stable, that there is something wrong with him? I don't bring in the Cabinet into that. They know, everybody around Trump, they know this. They're all just hanging on for dear life because they're stuck on this, this roller coaster that's constantly an inch from jumping the tracks. But for millions of people, you know, what does it take, an attack on the Pope? This kind of, you know, really sacrilegious and for, I think many Christians, including me, this really almost heretical depiction of oneself as Jesus. I mean, you know, the emotional problems here just get compounded when he says, no, no, I thought it was a doctor. No, you didn't. You knew exactly what you were doing because you did it in the middle of the night. And this is something else that people need to realize about these posts. This began as Trump was coming back to Washington. He starts posting while he's on the plane. Then he gets back to the White House, he starts scrolling through right wing news sites. And he kept posting stuff until 4 o' clock in the morning.
- [41:39]
Michael Crowley
He didn't sleep.
- [41:40]
Interviewer/Host
I mean, unless he caught a catnap. If you look at the timing of his posts, he goes after the, the, the Pontiff at around 9:00'. Clock. And then he starts posting about Eric Swalwell, he's posting about Biden, he's posting about his ballroom. And he finally packs it in with one more Post at 4 o' clock in the morning. This is the own, in the middle of all those posts, by the way. He just let it out that, oh, by the way, we're going to be blockading Iranian ports tomorrow, as if, you know, just among the day's news. I ought to tell you at 2 o', clock, you know, midnight, I think it was about 12:30, that we're going to be blockading Iran in the morning. There's something deeply wrong with this man, both in his willingness to attack anyone, even the leader of 1.4 billion fellow Christians. Ostensibly, Trump is a Christian all the way to, you know, this kind of angry old man scrolling through and posting crazy stuff until 4:00 in the morning. If your dad were Trump's age and did that stuff, you would stage an intervention. But this man is leading our, is commanding our troops into, into a war zone again, and as I always want to point out, holds in his pocket the codes to 1500 strategic nuclear weapons.
- [43:01]
Nicole (Host/Anchor)
Yeah, Eddie, I mean, if it's, if it's your parent, right? That's a decision made in a family. But if it were a prominent entertainer, a prominent actor or actress, a prominent actress, athlete, the entertainment press, the sports media would have this, what Tom is articulating in a loop so that it would be undeniable, so that the fans of that artist or the fans of that athlete would hear what Tom just articulated year in and year out or day in and day out. I mean, I say year in and year out because this has been a feature, not a bug of Trump. Part of the problem is us, right? There's such a moving of the Overton window that we've seen him as crazy since he's been on the political stage.
- [43:48]
Simone Sanders Townsend
I think that's absolutely right. I mean, in any normal circumstance, there would be public censure, there would be a sense of a serious kind of panic around what does it mean that the President of the United States is behaving in this way? But this has become a feature of our politics. Donald Trump is the P.T. barnum of our politics. There's a sense of, in which craziness, a kind of lunacy becomes part and parcel of his Persona in so many ways. But I want to take issue, I don't think Donald Trump is a Christian, and I don't say that as someone who possesses Christianity. I was raised Catholic, but I don't say that as someone who possesses Christianity. What I mean by that is that Christianity for Donald Trump doesn't provide him with a moral framework. He approaches it like he approaches everything else, instrumentally, transactionally. What does it do for him? He has no moral frame. He's amoral in the way in which he moves. He doesn't have a concept of wrongdoing. Anything he does for himself is right. And so we need to understand the nature of the moral monster that is in the White House at this moment.
- [44:50]
Nicole (Host/Anchor)
Nicole, he's making it easier and easier to see what you just articulated. Eddie, glad, thank you so much for being here. Tom Nichols, thank you for spending the hour with us after the break. Huge victory for the LGBT LGBTQ community as the Trump administration quietly relents and gives in. We'll bring you that reporting next. Another political defeat for the Trump administration and a win for equality in America. The Trump administration agreed today that a pride flag could fly at the historic Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan. It had been removed back in February after Trump administration directive, but a group of nonprofits sued, arguing that the government illegally targeted LGBTQ people. The settlement states that the flag will return within a week, flying between the US Flag and the Park Service flag. The lead lawyer for the plaintiff said this after the administration settled, quote, the government has acknowledged what we argued from day one. The pride flag belongs at Stonewall. The flag will be restored. It will fly officially and permanently, and the court will stand ready to enforce that commitment. We will mark that as a win for equal rights and freedom and for love. After the break, if you want to know how to topple an autocrat, look no further than the country of Hungary. We'll show you how they did it when Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
- [46:22]
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