← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“Feuding with Netflix”
00:42:43
Nicolle Wallace covers Donald Trump’s interference with one of the biggest, high-stakes business deals happening right now: the bidding war between Netflix and Paramount for Warner Brothers Discovery. Trump demanded on social media on Saturday night that Netflix should fire Susan Rice -- ambassador to the UN, national security advisor, a director of domestic policy who served in the cabinets of two presidents – and most recently, a board member of Netflix.
Loading summary
Transcript100 lines
- [00:01]
Nicole
Did you know you can save up to 70% on your favorite brands every day?
- [00:06]
Host
From rebel.com has everything for your home, family and life for way less. Every day, Revel drops thousands of new products for up to 70% off brands like Uppababy, Nespresso, Caraway, and more. But every listing is one of a kind. So if you see something you love,
- [00:22]
Nicole
you have to move fast.
- [00:23]
Host
Why pay full price when you don't have to? Rebbl helps you save big on the brands you love.
- [00:28]
Amanda Carpenter
Shop now@fromrebel.com when I need to impress someone gift, I go straight to 1-800-FLOWERS. There's a reason they've spent 50 years as the floral authority. Every stem is hand selected by a vetted florist and with same day delivery nationwide, 100% satisfaction guaranteed. That's why millions go to 1-800-flowers to
- [00:47]
Host
celebrate life's most important moments. Order now for up to 40% off.
- [00:51]
Amanda Carpenter
Don't miss out on this limited time offer.
- [00:53]
Host
Act now and save up to 40% at 1-800-flowers.com sxm. That's 1-800-flowers.
- [00:59]
Amanda Carpenter
Com sxm.
- [01:05]
Host
But you asked, why are corporations, for example, bending the knee? And again, not all of them, some of them, and I think they are intimidated. They are afraid that the crazy aunt in the attic, that Trump will do something to come after them. But here's the thing, Nicole. It's very short sighted. Yeah, it's very short sighted. They are counting on the fact that the public won't remember, that the Democratic Party won't remember, that the next president won't remember. And I think that's a grave miscalculation. Hi again, Everybody. It's now 5 o' clock in New York. Hold that thought in your mind for a moment as we evaluate one of the most egregious lies Donald Trump has ever inflicted on the American people. That he is, quote, the greatest friend that American capitalism has ever had with such a great friend as he says he is, forcibly insert himself into one of our planet's biggest business deals right now over what appears to be a very personal gripe. We'll let you decide. First, a little bit of background. You might be aware Netflix and Paramount are right now engaged in a high stakes bidding war for another media company called Warner Brothers Discovery. These are massive, massive, powerful companies who own companies that you'd know and probably use. Tens of billions of dollars are at stake. Well, Donald Trump spent his Saturday night on social media, as he often does, inserting himself into all of this. And Even more concerning, it had nothing to do with the business part of the deal, but instead with a gripe about one person in particular. That person is the person we showed you at the top of the hour, Susan Rice. She's the former ambassador to the United Nations. She's a former national security advisor, former director of domestic policy. She served in the cabinets of two presidents. More recently, she serves on the board at Netflix, Remember one of the suitors for Warner Brothers? So on Saturday night, Donald Trump reposted or promoted a social media post from a right wing personality and insisted that Netflix should fire Susan Rice from its board, quote, immediately or pay the consequences, end quote. Remember, though, this is Donald Trump who describes himself as, quote, the greatest friend that American capitalism has ever had, demanding that a business engaged in a high stakes bidding war fire someone who did nothing more than exercise her First Amendment right to criticize him and his actions. In response, the CEO of Netflix in an interview on BBC Radio 4, said this, quote, this is a business deal, not a political deal. Trump likes to do a lot of things on social media, end quote. And that's where we'll turn it back over to Susan Rice and let her finish her thought from earlier. Listen to what she said in our conversation late last month. So I hope that more companies and leaders will take a deep breath and recognize that by playing the short game
- [04:12]
Nicole
of appeasement, they're going to lose the
- [04:15]
Host
long game of public trust and support. And they need to recognize that when you blow up our alliances, when you violate international law, when you undermine the full faith and credit of the United States, when you try to assault the independence of the Federal Reserve, you are taking actions that are bad for business and bad for American companies abroad. That is where we begin the hour. NPR's media correspondent David Folkenflik is here. Also joining us, Princeton University professor political analyst Eddie Glad is back. And with me at the table in this wintry weather. Writer and editor for Protect Democracy, Amanda Carpenter is here and Puck News senior political columnist national affairs analyst John Heilman is back. I love that snow couldn't keep you away, Heilman. I want to make clear one editorial piece. The comments that Laura Limmer and Trump posted were not the ones that I played. They were from another podcast. But Susan Rice's incredibly disciplined and sort of the spirit of what she was saying was in the same vein.
- [05:18]
David Folkenflik
Yeah, I think she was on with Preet, right?
- [05:21]
Host
Yeah, yeah.
- [05:21]
Eddie Glaude
And she said basically the same things.
- [05:22]
David Folkenflik
And you know. Yeah, we were just on the show on Friday, Right. Talking about it's manifestly the case that Donald Trump is not doing things that business prior to Donald Trump would have thought were good for business. They would never have. The degree of industrial policy, the degree of intervention from the regulatory standpoint, from some of the threats that he's made, some of the lawsuits he's filed, some of the ways he's kind of tried to tell companies to do X, Y or Z in very individual, kind of granular ways are things that are so far outside both what corporate America thinks is the way that the market should operate and has always said that. And so far away from what Republicans in particular, over the course of the human history of the party has said about, about the, the try to keep the hand of the state out of, out of business. So Susan Rice is speaking the language. She's not a person from the corporate sector, but she's speaking the language of the corporate sector. She's giving voice to all of those corporate CEOs. And that's why I mentioned the thing we talked about on Friday. All of those CEOs who have decided for a variety of reasons, some short term, some long term, most of them entirely self interested, a lot of them driven by fear or about the stock price or whatever, have, have decided we will not say what we have always said before and what we believe in our hearts about this kind of national, kind of national socialism, which is what Trump has really been practicing with respect to the private sector. This is yet another example and a particularly egregious example. And the fact that Trump is going after her for saying that, it makes it all the more kind of dark and ironic.
- [06:57]
Host
Yeah. And you know, the Trump piece of this is, you know, chapter 148, the sort of, you know, man bites dog. Part of it is a company that says, I don't know, he says a lot of stuff. This is a business decision, not a political one.
- [07:14]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, I mean, it is absolutely pathetic that the leader of the free world is worrying about who is on the board of Netflix. And I had the same reaction to the Netflix CEO. He came out and said he says a lot of stuff on social media. I'm doing a business deal, not a political deal. Donald Trump doesn't think so. He thinks all of these media deals are political deals. And he has had great success in getting what he wants by making statements like these, testing people to see what he can get away with. I mean, you look at what's happened with the Washington Post, cbs, we can go through it down the line. I saw this from the beginning, when conservative outlets like the Weekly Standard were essentially murdered because they were insufficiently pro Trump. I mean, this has been happening is part and parcel of the authoritarian takeover of the media in other spaces. But the idea that the Netflix, the ABC deal, the settlements, the law firms,
- [08:04]
Host
and Trump views them as bribes, I mean, this also isn't sort of an analysis. This is how Trump sees them. I got this from ABC, then I got this from CBS.
- [08:13]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. And still these CEOs will act like, well, I'm above the fray. I can do business deals. You know, I always think back to what Charles Krauthammer said. Who, you know, he was a Harvard, highly trained. He could have had a great, brilliant career in medicine. But then people would ask him, why did you go into journalism? Why did you go into political writing? And he essentially said, politics is the essence of everything. This is how we do life. The fact that these CEOs think that they don't have to participate in this process. They are in the target zone of that process.
- [08:45]
Host
David, it may be too early to sort of project onto what Netflix is saying, what I hope that they're saying. So I'm gonna ask you to sift through that. I mean, they seem to be saying, we're sticking with Susan Rice, but it's also clear that they're trying to sort of shove this through a business civ and not a political one. Where do you see their public posturing?
- [09:09]
Nicole
I think you're seeing Ted Sarandez trying to finesse this, not to do these grand gestures at some sort of loyalty or deference. And at the same time, not. You notice he didn't attack the President. He didn't slap him down. He just said, well, the President likes to say a lot in social media, this will be a business decision. He has tried very hard over the past months to court the President a bit, to warm relations between them so the President doesn't see them as some sort of hostile enemy entity and seemed to make some progress. Trump originally suggested that he would be helping to decide this, particularly because he's interested in the fate of who owns cnn. Netflix came in, made clear they don't want to own the cable channels owned by Warner Brothers. Discovery. That's less threatening to Trump. And yet you also have in the wings this other family. Right. You've got Larry Ellison, you've got David Ellison. People who have been very clear cut about their desire to signal privately and publicly to the President and his circle, his camp and supporters that they are open for business. And Serrano seems to be taking a different approach, that he thinks that somehow certain kind of gentle private diplomacy without any great corporate gestures may nonetheless be able to get him by. And let's be clear, you know, his. What shall we say, his consolidation of entertainment and Hollywood properties are enormous and do deserve to be reviewed carefully by antitrust regulators at the Justice Department and otherwise in the federal government. In some ways, the Paramount idea, which has not found favor with the leadership of Warner Brothers or to date to the shareholders, would be more of like with like. It's more identical overlap. But we'll see how that plays out.
- [10:56]
Host
Let me show you what Donald Trump said his role would be in these negotiations. David, this is an interview on NBC Nightly News.
- [11:06]
Nicole
You are close with the Ellisons, who are trying to stop a merger between Warner Brothers Discovery and Netflix.
- [11:13]
David Folkenflik
This deal could change, change the makeup
- [11:14]
Nicole
of the media as we know it. Are you personally to get involved in that deal? I haven't been involved, I must say. I guess I'm considered to be a very strong president.
- [11:24]
Eddie Glaude
I've been called by both sides.
- [11:25]
Nicole
It's the two sides, but I've decided I shouldn't be involved. The Justice Department will handle it. Okay, in what way? Just looking at it, see if it's right. You make a decision. I mean, there's a theory that one of the companies is too big and it shouldn't be allowed to do it. And the other company is saying something else about, you know, they're not, but
- [11:42]
David Folkenflik
you're not going to interfere, even though
- [11:43]
Nicole
you're close with the hell out of each other and there'll be a winner,
- [11:50]
Host
I guess. David, what I want to ask you, what I really want to know is who does the pro democracy side want to win?
- [12:01]
Nicole
That's such an interesting case. I mean, if Netflix were to prevail, if it were to take over hbo, Max and HBO and Warner Brothers Studios, the Hollywood Studio television and film studio and DC Comics, you've got then this rump company of Discovery cable channels that include cnn. And its fate would very much still be in the balance and we wouldn't know. Paramount has made clear through a series of gestures both in making the acquisition of Paramount. These are the Ellisons, of course, the parent company of CBS and CBS News, that it wants very much the President to feel warmly toward them. David Ellison, the chair of Paramount, was able to make this acquisition backed by the hundreds of billions of his father, the co founder of Oracle, who is an advisor to the President and has been for some years. And so, you know, CBS has been taken in what its new editor in chief, Barry Weiss, would call a more centrist position. Others, even some internally to cbs, say that it is, you know, dampening down elements of stories that are critical to president holding those that are critical of the administration for greater review than it might otherwise. And in fact, inverting at times in, in a story here or there where the emphasis should lie. And these are things being hashed out. I think we've got to give it a little more time to play out. But that Barry Weiss came to that job with the idea that the rest of the media is too inherently anti Trump and Trump has embraced this change heartily. So, you know, in terms of pro democracy forces, I'm okay with there being different approaches to the news, right? Different voices, whether on cable or for that matter on broadcast television, different sensibilities, as long as it's true and fair to the facts and that people, audiences of all stripes, have the information they need to make informed choices as citizens. But right now, what we're seeing is something that strikes me as against democracy and capitalism as it's typically been practiced in the United States. You're seeing a president saying, I don't think I'm going to weigh in, but we know that that can change as quickly as the winds outside my window there during this blizzard. That we know that he can, at a whim, at a peak, from a social media post or from an executive order, decide he wants to be involved when he wants to be invol, and he wants to decide the fates of corporations that heretofore have been reviewed for certain kinds of legal questions, questions of antitrust and other matters, but otherwise are left up to the markets and the shareholders to decide. There's a kind of interventionalist capitalism and populism from the right that's occurring here that we have not seen under previous Republican administrations. And that's something that people you know on Capitol Hill take quite seriously.
- [14:48]
Host
David's too smart and thoughtful. Like from the outside, it looks like, you know, a Nepo baby took his dad's billions of dollars, put a right wing blogger news baby in charge of one of the most preeminent valued brands and let her destroy it to please the man baby that we have as president.
- [15:06]
David Folkenflik
I think that David's, David is a very smart media writer. And I don't think that what you just said is wrong. And I'll say something even broader than that, though. There is no one for Team Democracy to root for on either side here. And that is not the media Consolidation, the putting together of these giant companies that are getting bigger and bigger and bigger, that is the enemy of Team Democracy on some very fundamental level. There's not a good outcome here. You can make an argument, you know, we don't know, as David said, we don't know what happens to CNN if Netflix wins. So it does.
- [15:43]
Host
But I guess you know what happens if Ellison won, because you have the stories that the CBS journalists have been telling.
- [15:48]
David Folkenflik
I don't think it's hard for Team Democracy to be against the idea that the Ellisons will take over Warner Brothers discovery. That's an easy call. I think that it's not obvious that the Netflix outcome is a wildly better. Because we don't know what's gonna happen to cnn. And there's no one, you know, in Hollywood who thinks that the concentration of power that Netflix taking over Warner Brothers is going to be good for creators, is going to be good for filmmakers or screenwriters or people are trying to do things that are creative. It's one, it's the two of the most powerful prestigious buyers in the business getting together. It's one less person to bid for your scripted drama, for your scripted comedy. That's not good for, for, for the lowercase democracy. Maybe it doesn't touch on news, but no one can be excited about that. And that's what you hear if you talk to people in Hollywood all day long is they worry about this concentration of power and then ending up in a place where, you know, the, where the concentrate of all that much larger a company is in some way still beholden to Donald Trump. Because even if they haven't bent and scraped the way that the people at, in the Ellison world are doing, you still are going to have a sense in which Trump will feel as though he has leverage over that company if that's who he decides that he's going to favor with allowing it through the regulatory run the regulatory ziggurat, and end up being the winner in this particular reality contest.
- [17:06]
Host
Right. So, Eddie, I mean, at the center of the story, though, the reason it's our top story this hour, is a woman who criticized Donald Trump. And not just a woman, but a brilliant black woman who's incredibly accomplished, who I would imagine any company in the country or in the world would pursue her to be on their boards. And she is either the reason Trump has picked this fight or the vehicle through which he's going to exercise his power. Which do you think it is? Or I guess at some point it doesn't matter, right?
- [17:35]
Nicole
It doesn't matter to me. First of all, I hope your kids are enjoying this snow day.
- [17:39]
Host
They're the only ones in our house that are enjoying it.
- [17:46]
Nicole
I think you're right. It really doesn't matter. We know that he has an issue with powerful black women, from Letitia James to Lisa Cook, now to Susan Rice and of course, Yamiche Alcindor and black women reporters. He has a problem with women generally. So I think this is really, really kind of on script for him. But I want to say something about the lead, how you described him, his self description of himself as a kind of friend of capitalism. We need to understand Donald Trump's understanding of capitalism. He's a friend of the Epstein class. He's a friend of the billionaire class of oligarchs. This is the Gilded Age, Part 2, 2.0, 5.0. So what we're thinking about as capitalism in Trump's mind, the folks around him, the Ellisons and the like, the way in which they're thinking about capitalism is not the way in which we're talking about it. And I think it's important for us to understand that and then to understand that in relation to Donald Trump's deep disdain for women and women of color and black women in particular, to dare to stand up to him and you get this kind of response. Nicole,
- [18:52]
Host
Susan Rice's original comments, which I don't want to stray too far from. I get it. This question we ask around here all the time, who is going to start tending to the brands that may swirl around the bottom of the drain as Donald Trump is at 34% and dropping in the polls? We'll have that conversation on the other side of a break. Much more with everybody as Trump tries so far unsuccessfully to get another corporate giant to cave to capitulate to him in his autocratic ways. Also ahead, from terrorizing citizens on the streets of our cities to a global trade war that's jacking up prices, voters have turned on Trump in a very big way. Now there's the prospect of a war in the Middle East. What Joe Rogan has to say about that. As the United States military prepares for an attack on Iran, Dylan Whitehouse continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
- [19:43]
Amanda Carpenter
Shipping, billing, admin, payroll, marketing, you're managing all the things. So why waste time sending important documents
- [19:50]
Host
the old fashioned way?
- [19:52]
Amanda Carpenter
Mail and ship when you want, how you want with stamps.com, print postage on demand 24, 7 and schedule pickups from
- [19:59]
Host
your office or home.
- [20:00]
Amanda Carpenter
Save up to 90% with automated rate
- [20:02]
Host
shopping that's why over 1 million small businesses trust stamps.com. go to stamps.com and use code podcast to try stamps.com risk free for 60 days. So I'll say what I said in the break. I mean, I, Amanda, never have been mistaken for anyone who understands corporations. I remember when Mitt Romney said they're people. I was like, oh my God, I can't believe he just said that. But I don't understand why the people inside the corporations don't have a mind for protecting the democracy when this country is the reason their kids will only ever fly private and this country has given them everything. Why aren't there patriotic actors inside these big companies?
- [20:44]
Amanda Carpenter
Here is what I believe about people who are unwilling or unable to see what is happening in our country right now, especially among the elite classes, whether they be in politics or corporations or law firms like, Name it. I think they think their money and their status to a degree makes them untouchable from the bad consequences. Like, we are a decadent society. We are so blessed. Like, yay, America. Good for us. We have it so good, we cannot imagine what it feels like to lose our rights. And I say that with the full recognition that most people, you know, they suffer a lot of things like racism, sexism, et cetera. But to a large degree, we have it pretty good. This is the greatest country in the world, especially for that tippy, toppy percent. And so when they see these threats from Donald Trump on social media, they have lobbyists, they have ways we can wheel and deal, we can do back channels, we can preserve our space, therefore everything's great. But I just, I don't know how they can not see what's happening in places like Minnesota and Maine where there are masked agents in the streets. How can they be so arrogant, so naive to think that it could never happen to them? Their child could never be pulled over, they could never have a loved one stuck in custody in an airport, and agents may not let them go. It can happen here,
- [22:09]
Host
David. I mean, the other piece of it is creatives are now with sort of strength in numbers, speaking out. Bruce Springsteen, Bono, you two released an album last week. Brittany Carlisle did a concert in Minneapolis. The Olympic athletes, to a person in their press interview spoke out against what's happening, not against Americans, but against what's being done in our name as Americans by the Trump administration. The NBA has by and large come out and when asked, opposed the ice action on the streets in Minneapolis and other places, you had a handful of football players as the season came to an end speaking out using their social media platforms. I mean, are the big media companies just indifferent to the most powerful and prominent creatives and talent out there?
- [22:59]
Nicole
Well, what's interesting, of course, is that we're, we kicked off this particular conversation talking about big media companies, right? And those are companies that are going to have to be able to do business with some of these creatives. They're going to have to find ways to be able to sign the screenwriters, the big actors that can actually get people to pay money either to go to the theaters or to subscribe, to get HBO or to get Netflix or whatever a combined service might look like. Or Paramount, that for that matter. So Paramount has spent a lot of time trying to convince people in Hollywood that they're the better people to do business with because they're more conventional model, they're not simply a streamer. But the reality is they're also talking about a lot of synergies and that really stands in for a deep amount of cuts that would have to be required to justify this amount of expenditures. Similarly, Netflix has gone around trying to assure people that we believe in you. But there is this larger backdrop of the question of what passions and what belief systems people bring to bear. And the people around the White House, the MAGA world, has attempted to discredit those prominent people as well. They're just celebrities. Well, they're just sports stars. They don't know what they're talking about. They don't believe in you, the American people. They're disassociated. But they only really do that when these particular stars are saying things that are against what the President is saying at that moment.
- [24:15]
Eddie Glaude
Right.
- [24:16]
Nicole
So these are all things.
- [24:17]
Host
Yeah, I still heard from that Kid Rock workout that for some reason is all over my feet. I mean, they are obsessed with, they're so obsessed with celebrities, they took over. There was a hostile takeover at the Kennedy center until they had to shut it down because all of the creatives and artists in the country loathe them. I mean, this is the most one sided thing where Trump is obsessed with celebrity obsessed and not that into him.
- [24:43]
Nicole
Nicole. It's very much like he's feeling about the press. He trashes it. He tries to delegitimize it. He says it doesn't matter. He says it's irrelevant and he is desperate for its affirmation. And I think that's the same. He feels the same way about celebrities, about Hollywood stars. Nicki Minaj has never been so important to him as when she, you know, gave Him a warm ideological embrace. Right? So that's the dilemma for the Netflixes and the Paramounts of the world. Even as the Ellisons have identified and planted themselves, as in with the president and his camp. And you've seen changes that affect the news division as a result of that embrace. You're also seeing them trying to reassure the creative community that they are welcome there. And that's going to be a tension because so much money is bound up for them. And what people buy movies and television shows and streaming and creatives, what they believe and where they come from. And those folks are gonna have to make choices for themselves as well.
- [25:40]
Host
Eddie, these stories sometimes make my brain hurt, but it comes down to the agency that the people have being the only thing you can really count on. And Scott Galloway, I've been covering for the last few weeks, his cancellation sort of campaign to get people to unsubscribe from 10 big companies. Paramount is one of them. But the idea that corporate actors are going to act in the interests of corporations, which act in the interests of the bottom line, almost always. In fact, it's hard to think of an example where that isn't the case. But people can still make their choices about where they'll stick their money. And I wonder if you think this brings more energy or heat to that movement.
- [26:24]
Nicole
I hope so. I pray that you're right. We have to understand that, you know, we're going to be the saviors of this democracy. We're going to have to get us on the other side of this madness. It won't be corporations, it won't be politicians, it will have to be the people. But as I was listening to the conversation, Nicole, I kept thinking that we have to perhaps entertain a darker calculus, that just maybe selfishness and greed have finally grabbed the nation by the throat and that what we're seeing, right, is the fact that selfishness and greed have overrun any conception, any robust idea of the public good, any fundamental commitment to democracy itself. Now, of course, there's fear. There are all the things we've talked about, but we have to in so many ways. I think, with regards to these corporations, understand the environment that they have been operating in for the last 50 years. And this, to my mind, is a logical conclusion of how they've behaved, not only in relation to consumers, not only relation to unions, but in relation to the planet. So part of what we have to do is to kind of come to terms with, right, who we are, who corporations are. If Romney wants to call them people, right, we need to understand that they very well may be soulless. And selfishness and greed have finally grabbed us by the nape of the neck. And here we are.
- [27:51]
Host
Here we are. David, thank you for sifting through this and making sense of it for me. Eddie, thank you for centering us as you always do and starting us off today. When we come back, how Donald Trump's massive military buildup around Iran is alienating his own base of support and splitting up his coalition. We'll bring you that reporting next.
- [28:14]
David Folkenflik
A KFC tale in the pursuit of flavor.
- [28:17]
Nicole
The greatest insult the colonel ever suffered was being served a wrap that was just a snack by a friend. So he took two crispy tenders, lettuce, tomatoes and pepper mayo and wrapped them in a soft tortilla. It wasn't a snack, it was a meal. He called it a twister and never
- [28:32]
David Folkenflik
called that friend again.
- [28:34]
Nicole
The colonel lived so we could chicken the twister.
- [28:37]
Host
Now back at KFC Classic or with bacon.
- [28:39]
Nicole
Also try it spicy. It's finger licking good. Prices and participation may vary.
- [28:46]
Host
Despite claiming last summer that he, quote, obliterated Iran's nuclear program, Donald Trump is right. Now, he has told us he is right now weighing further military action against Iran in an effort to force the country's leaders to dismantle the nuclear program. Negotiators from the US And Iran are scheduled to meet in Geneva Thursday in a last ditch attempt to avoid a military conflict. The New York Times is reporting that if the Iranians refuse to give up their nuclear program, it could lead to a wider military campaign. Times adds this quote, trump has been leaning toward conducting an initial strike in the coming days intended to demonstrate to Iran's leaders that they must be willing to agree to give up the ability to make a nuclear weapon should those steps fail. To convince Tehran to meet his demands, Trump told advisers he would leave open the possibility of a military assault later this year intended to help topple the Ayatollah Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader. This coming from the man who calls himself the quote, president of Peace. If you're starting to feel exasperated or exhausted or overwhelmed by any of this, so are the people who put Trump in office. Take a listen.
- [29:59]
Nicole
It's overwhelming me. Like sometimes at night time, like I can't wind down.
- [30:03]
David Folkenflik
Yeah.
- [30:04]
Nicole
This is like there's too much news, too much madness. We're about to go to war with Iran. I know. Everyone's eating beef jerky and pizza. Like, what are these file? What is pizza? I know you know who, how far does this go how come this never got released before? Like, what is happening?
- [30:24]
Host
No comment. I want to bring in Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. He served as the commanding General of the U.S. army in Europe. Amanda and John are still here. General Hertling, we'll let Joe Rogan, wondering what's happening speak for itself. A lot of people warned that this is exactly what would ensue. But there is a danger for the American people to not have a lot of awareness or consciousness that we are on the precipice of war in Iran
- [30:55]
Eddie Glaude
and in the way it's being conducted, too, Nicole. And I got to tell you, if Joe Rogan's worried, I got to be worried. In all seriousness, when we're talking about initial strikes followed up by assaults, you know, this isn't going to be what many people worried about in Venezuela when there was the potential talk of a regime change. When you're talking about a regime change in Iran, you're talking about a much bigger effort, a bigger target, and a whole lot of casualties, in my view. You know, the president seems to be relying most recently on airstrikes and air power. When you're talking about assaults and actually putting forces on the ground and conducting an operation in a country that is almost four times as large as Iraq, which stifled us for several years, and it has about three times as many people. There's about 90 million people in very diverse cultures inside of Iran. It seems to me that there's not a whole lot of people providing great intelligence assessments on how these kind of things can be executed. The one thing is, I read in the New York Times today that General Kaine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Director Radcliffe rather of the CIA, have refused to give the president, or at least it's reported they've refused to give the president the options on what he should do. And the president and others are pressing him, the others being those who don't know much about military operations. And it's not the job of the chairman or the Director of Central Intelligence to give those kinds of options and to persuade the president to do something. Whenever those two advisors do that, it causes nothing but trouble. And it also causes the potential for people being blamed for the action when it's not well thought out.
- [32:57]
Host
Let me read some of that reporting. This is from Axios on that topic. Trump's top general warns of Iran strike risks. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Kaine has been advising Trump and top officials that a military campaign against Iran could carry significant risks, in particular, the possibility of becoming entangled in a prolonged conflict that's according to two sources with knowledge of those discussions. At the moment, several of the voices in Trump's circle are urging caution, though some sources think Trump himself is leaning toward a strike. Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have been urging the president to hold off and give diplomacy a chance. Vice President Vance has also raised concerns about entanglement during internal deliberations in recent days. If you have been a supporter of Donald Trump's since 2015, you may have thought he was funny, you may have loved the Apprentice and built your week around each episode. But if you liked him for a policy, the thing he was for even more consistently than hardline immigration policies, was anti interventionalism. Maga in the way that Trump adopted it as a politician was about focusing his energies and his political capital at home. This would be the third military intervention of his second term and the most
- [34:18]
Eddie Glaude
difficult one by far. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, this is exceedingly dangerous when you're talking about the potential repercussions from an undescribed end state. First of all, Nicole, we don't know what he wants to do. I mean, he wants to stop a program, a nuclear program that he actually threw out the window when there was a stop under the Obama administration when they threw out the jcpoa. So today we don't know what his end state is. Is it regime change? Is it just deterrence of any nuclear action at all? And Iran has a pretty good program for medical nuclear proliferation, if you want to call it that way, to take care of medical issues. But this is just, it's looney Tune town. You talk to any senior military commander and they will tell you that unless there's some type of existential threat to the United States, you do not want to go into Iran. It is a difficult country. Back when I was a major.
- [35:28]
Host
We're going to work on the general's Wi fi. We're going to bring Amanda and John Heilman into the conversation. We're going to sneak in a break before we do those two things. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
- [35:39]
Nicole
The strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. The site is obliterated.
- [35:51]
David Folkenflik
This conversion site, which is how you turn this metal into something that's useful, that's wiped out. It's completely wiped out most, if not
- [35:58]
Nicole
all of the centrifuges damaged or destroyed. Destroyed in a way that it will be almost impossible for them to resurrect that program forin My view and in many other experts, viewers who have seen the raw data, it will take a period of years.
- [36:14]
David Folkenflik
The mission was achieved and without any escalation, and the mission was achieved.
- [36:18]
Nicole
So it was never going to be a forever war. It was never going to be a war just for war's sake. It was a war to achieve an objective. He achieved his objective and that was the end of it.
- [36:31]
Host
Do they think we can't do that? Do they think we can't roll the tape on what they said about the last military intervention in Iran?
- [36:39]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, that wasn't that. It wasn't that long ago.
- [36:42]
Host
It was last summer.
- [36:42]
David Folkenflik
Yeah, eight months ago. Yeah, I just counted it on my
- [36:45]
Amanda Carpenter
fingers and this is a thing.
- [36:46]
Host
Thank you.
- [36:47]
Amanda Carpenter
Good, good. We can do math on live TV or you can count. I can't. How many months is that thing? How many?
- [36:52]
Host
Does it bring anything to the table? He counted. Yeah.
- [36:55]
David Folkenflik
This month's eight months.
- [36:56]
Amanda Carpenter
But it gets to the idea of, can we trust these people who are in our government making life or death decisions to tell the truth? And the answer is no. That is so unsettling. No wonder people feel scared. And to me, this is the biggest difference I think that maybe we didn't see coming between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0 is his aggressive military adventurism. I mean, you look at what's happened in Venezuela and Syria and now we're building up forces in Iran and you know, these are high risk, high reward ventures. And I think for now you could say it's been relatively okay. You can not agree with the tactics, but like, okay, Maduro was a good person to take out. You could say that we should do these military strikes. The action that we're taking in Mexico, the drug cartels have to go, but how long are we going to get away with this? And the thing that really worries me about Iran is that we have a huge military presence built up there. They have terrorist proxies all over the world and we have Cash Patel chugging beers with the hockey team this weekend. I mean, who is really on the job? Who can really tell the American people what we're doing and why? And are there really professionals in charge of these decisions? And I don't have any confidence in that. How can you?
- [38:12]
Host
Well, I think, I think, I mean, they're not in hiding. So the answer is no, they're not professionals in charge of these decisions. And I think this idea that their disdain for their own voters extends to the minimum of the military is actually sort of a tragedy wrapped in A political scandal.
- [38:29]
David Folkenflik
Well, look, first, General Hurtley made the point before we lost him, which is Iran is just a totally different kettle of fish than Venezuela, just in terms of the degree of difficulty of being able to and the potential risks and downsides. It's just a much, much, much more complicated thing, as everybody who is really an expert on this will tell you. I. And so it begs this question, which is the question you raised Nicole, a second ago. There were two things I would say as we headed into Trump 2.0 that I thought I knew about the MAGA base. One was that they wanted to get to the bottom of the Epstein matter and they have been largely consistent on that matter. That's why that issue has stayed in our politics. It's why it's been different. It's not just been the left, it's not been everybody. But the MAGA right has been, you know, not accepting Donald Trump's efforts to sweep that under the rug. The other thing was no more forever wars. That America first isolationism in all of its forms, whether that's on the tariff front or the immigration front or whether on the foreign adventurism front, that this was something that really mattered to the people in the MAGA base. And you could argue that Trump trifled with that, obviously with Venezuela, but that he kind of got away from it. Got away with it. Forget about the military success of it. Politically, his base did not rise up in outrage over Venezuela, but that's, I think, mostly because it was a relatively surgical thing. Is he now, is it the case that he is correctly reading the fact that it was always BS that they didn't care about that, that they just, it's a purely a personality cult. If he defines that America first in a different way, they will go along with him. And he's right that he has the, that he won't lose any support if he goes into Iran, or is he once again misreading the mood of his own voters? And what we'll find is that Venezuela was an exception and that an actual full blown military incursion into Iran is the thing where Trump has once again kind of lost his fingertip feel for what his voters want, that they care about affordability, they don't care that thing that he beat into their heads, that they do care about the Epstein files and that they don't want forever wars. And Iran, unlike Venezuela, is something that could easily turn into a forever war. That is the thing that looks like Iraq or Afghanistan, something that could go on for 20 years if we try to do regime change there. So it's a very large political gamble if Trump goes ahead with this. I don't know. He has lost his fingertip feel a lot this time, but maybe not this time.
- [41:01]
Host
General Hartling, what is the military plan? I mean, what happens next if he says we're going and we're at war with Iran? What does that even look like? And what are we trying to do?
- [41:15]
Eddie Glaude
Yeah, well, that's the question. When I cut off, I think I was talking about, what is the end state? What is the objective for this? Is it regime change? Is it just getting rid of Iran's potential to produce nuclear weapons? Which the tape you showed a little while ago with envoy Witkoff saying months ago or weeks ago, whenever it was, that they were completely obliterated. And Trump fired the Director of Defense Intelligence, the commander of the Defense Intelligence Agency, because he said, we don't know what's been obliterated and what's not. And Witkoff said yesterday that they could be up to two weeks away from producing nuclear weapons. So where is it? But back to your question, Nicole. What is the objective? I don't know. And neither does anyone else other than the people who are meeting with him in the Oval Office. And even they're confused and fighting about it with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Director of the CIA saying, hey, maybe we better cool our jets on this a little bit, because this is, as you all three just stated, is a whole lot harder than snatching the president out of Venezuela and shutting down their systems with special operators. You know, it's interesting because I'm reading all kinds of polls from his base, and it's less than, I think, 20% saying we should go into Iran. Well, you know what I tell those 20% is, hey, how about saddling up and going in there? Because this is going to be much worse than Iraq. This is going to be tough. We've conducted war games with Iran as a central part of over the last two decades, and every one of them comes out to be very difficult to do. It's going to take a long time. And here's the essence of all of this, Nicole. Young men and women who are wearing the uniform will likely die, and it will be a great number of them. So, you know, for the president to be having these kind of vanity projects of going all over the world and thinks he can threaten the use of military force to get his objective, it doesn't always work that way. Wars never end the way you want them to end.
- [43:24]
Host
Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, thank you for joining us today. Amanda and John, thank you for being at the table with me for the hour on the snowy day. Quick break for us. We'll be right back. The U.S. state Department has ordered Americans in parts of Mexico to shelter in place today after the leader of one of the country's most powerful drug cartels was killed by Mexico's army, with complementary intelligence provided by U.S. authorities. That's according to the U.S. embassy. The death of the drug lord known as El Mencho on Saturday has since sparked retaliation by cartels across Mexico, including roadblocks, attacks on airports, gas stations and vehicles set on fire. There are reports of gunmen in the streets there. The US Issued advisory includes Tijuana on the California border and the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon that borders Texas. And in Puerto Vallarta, where Reuters reports that tourists describe the popular beach resort as a, quote, war zone as plumes of dark smoke rose into the sky. We'll stay on top of that story. One more break. We'll be right back. Little programming note. Tomorrow, I'll join Rachel Maddow and the rest of our primetime friends for special coverage of Donald Trump's State of the Union address and the Democratic response that gets underway at 7pm Eastern. We want to thank you for letting us into your homes tonight. We are grateful. Stay safe out there.
- [44:44]
Eddie Glaude
You ever wonder how far an EV
- [44:46]
Nicole
can take you on one charge?
- [44:48]
David Folkenflik
Well, most people drive about 40 miles a day, which means you can do all daily stuff no problem.
- [44:54]
Nicole
Go to work, grab the kids at
- [44:55]
David Folkenflik
school, get the groceries and still have
- [44:58]
Nicole
enough charge to visit your in laws in the next county. But they don't need to know that.
- [45:03]
David Folkenflik
And the best part, you won't have
- [45:05]
Nicole
to buy gas at all. The way forward is electric. Explore EVs that fit your life@electricforall.org.