← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
"Mixed messages from the Trump administration"
00:42:16
Alicia Menendez, in for Nicolle Wallace, on brand new reporting showing that the Pentagon is thinking of deploying 10,000 more troops to the region as Iran moves to strengthen it's control over the Strait of Hormuz.
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- [00:01]
A
Support is available 24. 7 with VRBoCare. We're here day or night, ready whenever you need help because a great trip starts with the right support. If you're a parent and want to help set up your child for success, then IXL is right for your family as an effective and affordable online learning program. IXL covers math, language arts, science and social studies using interactive practice problems for kids from Pre K to 12. 12th grade. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up today@ixl.com 20. Visit ixl.com 20 to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.
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B
Hi everyone, it is 4 o' clock here in New York. I'm Alicia Menendez in for Nicole Wallace. Day 2028 of the war with Iran, and here's where things stand. Brand new reporting shows that the Pentagon is thinking of deploying 10,000 more troops to the region as Iran moves to strengthen its control over the Strait of Hormuz, turning back ships that try to cross the waterway. And there is breaking news here at home as well. An Iranian hacker group claims it has hacked the emails of FBI Director Kash Patel. Pro Iran hackers published more than 300 emails and photos from years ago from what appears to be Kash Patel's personal email account. The hackers are the same ones behind a cyber attack against medical device company Stryker earlier this month. In a statement, the FBI said that no government information was leaked, reiterated their $10 million reward for any information that could lead to the identification of those hackers. News of the hack It's a reminder that the Iranian regime is waging war on many fronts. Back in the Middle east, the New York Times reports that, quote, Iran said on Friday that it had warned three ships not to pass through the Strait of Hormuz a day after Mr. Trump extended a US deadline for Tehran to reopen the waterway. And as much as Donald Trump has been talking about striking a peace deal and as reporting suggests he wants to end the war, Department of Defense officials tell the Wall Street Journal that, quote, the Pentagon is looking at sending up to 10,000 additional ground troops to the Middle east to give the president more military options. The force, which would likely include infantry and armored vehicles, would be added to the roughly 5,000 Marines and the thousands of paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division who have already been ordered to the region. It is unclear where precisely forces will go in the Middle east, but they will likely be within striking distance of Iran and Kharg Island, a crucial oil export hub off Iran's coast, mixed messages from the Trump administration as the war rages on is where we start today with New York Times diplomatic correspondent Michael CROWLEY. Also with us, U.S. former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. He is now a senior fellow at the center for American Progress, former assistant special agent in charge at the FBI, and national security and intelligence analyst Michael Feinberg is here. He is also a fellow at Lawfare. And joining me at the table, former Democratic Congressman Max Rose. He is a veteran who served in Afghanistan and is now a senior advisor for Vote Vets. Michael Feinberg, let's start with you. The FBI director's personal email account being hacked, how big of a deal is that and what does it signal to you?
- [03:30]
C
For the first time in the past year and a half, I actually feel something like sympathy towards Kash Patel in that nobody in general circumstances should ever have their entire private life put out in public. It's fundamentally not fair or decent, but it is, unfortunately, the natural consequence, an almost inexorable one, of an administration that has chosen to deprioritize traditional national security objectives against terrorist organizations and nation states in favor of reorienting the entire intelligence community and law enforcement apparatus against South American cartels and South American immigrants. We've taken our eye as a country off the ball. There are consequences for that, and we are starting to see them, whether it is the hacking of the FBI director's email, the various attacks that occurred in the United States, in Michigan, in Virginia, or the United States getting drawn into yet another Middle Eastern quagmire. If you stop doing the things your organizations are supposed to do and you remove by termination or forced retirements the people who know how to do those things, horrible events and terrible choices are going to follow.
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B
Secretary Kendall, that was one big piece of news. Let's turn to the other big piece of news. 10,000 more troops potentially being sent to the Middle East. Why would he send them if he did not plan to use them?
- [05:15]
D
Lisa, that's a more credible force for some types of operation, seizing Carg island, for example, maybe doing some raids or some smaller operations in the vicinity of the Strait itself. It's not a force that's going to invade Iran and try to overrun the country. You'd have to have a force several times, at least bigger than that to do that. So it does increase the options the administration has, but they're not very good options. Iran is fighting an asymmetric fight. The cyberattack you just talked about is a piece of that closing of those straits of Hormuz, which I don't think this force can fundamentally reverse, is another part of it. So we're in a type of conflict that, for reasons that mystify me, the administration did not anticipate, did not prepare for, and did not think through the consequences of. So that's where we are.
- [06:04]
B
Let's just be clear, though. Max Rose, boots on the ground on Carg island are boots on the ground in Iran. Based on this president's track record, if he is moving those troops, what is likely to happen next?
- [06:19]
E
The President has yet to unexpectedly deploy a military asset and not use it, which is incredibly scary in this one moment. Let's also remember that this remains a conflict and a war that Congress has refused to declare or take any part in reviewing the notion that this is a short conflict, the notion that a ceasefire is imminent, doesn't seem within the realm of possibility right now. And the President seems to be elevating the stakes with no regard for not only the cost and the potential consequences, but no regard for the fact that he ran on an affordability agenda, that he ran on an agenda to oppose all forever wars. This is why you see his base fracturing to this great degree. This is why you see them losing special elections left and right, because nobody in his party or nationwide behind this type of reckless action.
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B
Michael Crowley, I want to talk about the who behind all of this because you have new reporting today in the Times. You write this quote. It is unclear who in the Trump administration may be in charge of talking with a battered Tehran surviving leadership. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump said that Vice President J.D. vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, would join his special envoy, Steve Witkoff and his son in law, Jared Kushner, in any negotiations. Mr. Vance is a past opponent of US intervention in the Middle east generally, and Iran in particular. Mr. Rubio, by contrast, is an Iran hawk who has publicly defended Mr. Trump's decision to attack the country. That jumble of emissaries, a friend, a family member, a dove and a hawk, reflect Mr. Trump's improvisational approach to foreign dealings and his disdain for career diplomats and their often cumbersome protocols. I think improv is a kind way to put it, my friend. Michael Crowley. Talk to me about the president's approach. Approach here, how it might actually be making things more complicated.
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F
Yeah.
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G
Hi, Alicia. Thank you. So, look there, it's just so different from how any other president that I can think of would have handled something like this, where you would have very structured diplomacy, most likely led by a secretary of state who was crisscrossing the region after October 7th. Those of us who cover Secretary of State Antony Blinken were on his plane constantly doing basically shuttle diplomacy around the Middle east, going to Israel and Arab capitals. This has also happened in times of war. Colin Powell, as I wrote in that story, went to, I believe it was seven Middle Eastern countries in the two months after George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003. So start from the fact that right now, Trump's Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is also his national security advisor and actually not doing all that much foreign diplomacy. Rubio spends most of his time in Washington, doesn't travel travel very often. He's made a one day trip to Paris today to meet with G7 foreign ministers. Then he's coming right back. He's not going on any other stops. Meanwhile, you have Steve Witkoff, his longtime friend from the world of New York real estate, who had no previous foreign policy experience. His son in law, Jared Kushner, who did deal quite a lot with the Middle east in President Trump's first term. So I think you can grant him that. But otherwise no experience prior to that. And now he's throwing J.D. vance in the mix as Vice president, who's done a little bit of diplomacy. They have differing views. There's no clear hierarchy or coordination. Again, the Secretary of State, who normally would be leading these things doesn't seem to be in a clear leadership position. There have been reports that the Iranians don't want to see Witkoff and Kushner again, who were doing talks before the war. So how is this working? Who is the person who really understands the Iranian system, has been in touch with Iranian officials and has some sense of the context. This is further complicated, of course, by the fact that Iranian leaders keep getting killed. So, you know, maybe we'll grant the Trump administration that, that you don't have the continuity you would normally have. But I think the general points still stand. And finally, Lycia, maybe the most fundamental point here is, is that I think the answer to, well, how does this all add up? Who's in charge? Obviously, it's President Trump. It's always the president. But in this case, it's a president who conducts diplomacy on social media, who blurts things out to reporters, who takes phone calls while he's in meetings with generals, from reporters and says things that are contradictory, that are changing, that sometimes don't make any sense. So the upshot is he clearly seems to be looking for a diplomatic solution rather than an escalation to this war right now. But the diplomacy doesn't seem to be getting any traction. The Iranians so far are not playing ball. There's a lot of opinion that the Iranians have a growing upper hand. And to the degree that Trump wants a diplomatic out here, I don't think he's built a structure for himself to do that in a very efficient way.
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B
Secretary Kendall, I am so struck by the motley crew that Michael Crowley has just articulated for us that is somehow supposed to bring this all to a resolution. I think you can add into that analysis what it is that is motivating the president, who Michael Crowley reminded us is fundamentally the person in charge here. Our colleague Jake Traylor has some just incredible reporting on what current former Trump White House officials are saying. Trump calling the war already won is mostly hyperbole, said a senior White House official granted anonymity to speak candidly about the administration's thinking. It's part of Trump just wanting to declare victory and move on. Quote, Trump is getting a little bored with Iran, the official said. Not that he regrets it or something. He's just bored and wants to move on. Your reaction, Secretary?
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D
Well, you started this, President Trump, and you're not going to get to move on. The Straits of Movies are still closed. We're moving larger force structure into the region. We don't see a solution to this anytime soon. I think that the administration totally misjudged the fact that the Iranians can make their own judgments about when the war is over. And it's not going to be over until they say it's over. Right now, as long as they can put weapons onto the Straits of Hormuz, as long as they put weapons into the region. And while we've cut that back a lot with our operations, they can still do it. The military problem right now is much, much tougher than it was in the first few days of the war. Items have been concealed. They're being moved around, a lot of efforts being made to hide things and disperse it. I don't see why the Iranians can't keep up what they've been doing for quite some time. And shipping companies are not going to risk their vessels in the straits until they feel quite secur secure going through there. That's not going to happen. The economic impacts are significant. Iran, as we mentioned earlier, has other asymmetric approaches they can use. Kash Patel's email doesn't mean very much, but the infrastructure of America economically is very important. Attacks on our industry, attacks on our communications networks, financial networks, et cetera can have A pretty devastating effect here. So Donald Trump is not going to get to turn his back on this and pretend it doesn't exist. It will be over when they strike some kind of a deal with the Iranian regime or the very, very unlikely thing, I think at this point, that that regime is overthrown internally. That was, I think, the intent when they started this. It hasn't happened and there's no evidence it's going to happen anytime soon.
- [14:04]
B
Regime change, Max, was the original stated intent. Somewhere along the line, the President started talking about denuclearization. It seems now like we're talking about opening the Strait of Hormuz, which would not have been closed if not for the fact that the President had launched these attacks without really being clear about what his own objective was, to send 10,000 troops to ask the American people to come along for this ride and to want to wrap it up not with a vision of what that means for the freedom of the Iranian people, not what it means for safety and security here at home, but because the President has checks, notes, lost interest, doesn't seem like a great motivator.
- [14:50]
E
You know, at this point, their stated intent is to bring things back to what they were like 90 days ago. Of course, they have struggled to find a consistent reason for doing this in the first place. At one point, it was the nuclear weapon system that they claimed to have destroyed six months ago. Another point is ballistic systems. Another point, it was supporting terrorist militias and networks across the globe. At least the Bush administration had the decency to present one lie to the American people and hold on to that lie for several years. This administration has failed to even do that. But overriding all of it was this sense that prior administrations, Democrat and Republican, were just not courageous or strong enough to do what this president's doing. The truth is, is that they were not stupid enough to do what this administration is doing in the manner that they have done it. So reckless, so quick, so urgent, so unconstitutional that now they are left holding the bag and putting more service members at risk in the process.
- [15:53]
B
So Michael Crowley, when the hawk and the dove and the son in law and the failed special envoy are all heading out to talk to intermediaries and emissaries, do they know what their goal is other than finding a short term off ramp?
- [16:12]
G
Well, that's the million dollar question. You know, Trump officials insist that their goals are clear, but when they explain them, their answers often sound at odds with one another. And the goals seem to be shifting. And I think that, you know, in their own heads, they may have different goals. So, you know, does do Marco Rubio and J.D. vance want the same outcome here? You know, I think it's entirely possible based on a strong and clear record of things Vance has said in the past, that he thinks that this is not good for the country and should be wrapped up sooner than later. And based on the weight of years of things Marco Rubio said, I think there's reason that he might think we should stick, we should hang in here and try to make sure we bring down the Iranian regime. You know, there may be a master strategy that's drawn up in the White House, but the president's constantly changing remarks about how much longer he's willing to do this, whether he wants to get out of it, what he considers his red lines to be suggests that they can't have a clear plan because there's not much evidence that the president himself knows exactly what he wants to do. Now, that would be consistent with, I'm not saying we know this for sure, but that would be consistent with a president who began this conflict thinking that it would be over quickly and that the Iranian regime would capitulate quickly and he could essentially dictate his terms of surrender. And I think it's possible that when that did not happen, President Trump knew that he had to keep fighting. But he's not exactly sure when he is gonna be comfortable ending the fight and that he'll maybe kind of know it when he sees it. So that makes, if that's true, that makes diplomacy pretty tough.
- [18:12]
B
He'll know it when he sees it. Michael Crowley, Frank Kendall, thank you both so much for getting us started. Max Rose, Michael Feinberg, you're sticking with me. When we come back, Pete Haig says one speaker purge of the most trusted, the most revered members of the military continues. New details on how we personally intervene in withholding promotions from deserving service members. Plus, the most loyal foot soldiers in Trump's MAGA movement are showing their discomfort over the war. How that is playing out at their annual conservative convention going on. And later in the show, thousands of protests are planned for across the country tomorrow condemning what organizers are calling Trumps tyrannical rule. We're going to get to all those stories and more when Deadline White House continues after this.
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H
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- [19:55]
A
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- [20:26]
B
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E
I think it sends the message that the military may not be the meritocracy that it once was. Remember, these Fulberg colonels went through a very long, competitive and arduous process to make that promotion list. And that process is there to make our military the strongest military in the nation. To reject what was once a centuries old tradition that the only way an officer could get promoted was through nepotism or bribery or the old boys club. The United States military actually built a system to reject all of that, to say we only promote the best and the brightest. And senior generals made the decision to build out that promotion list. And then the secretary of defense unilaterally steps in and legally, illegally or otherwise says that only he knows best. And that was such an egregious decision that the Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, who President Trump also appointed, is an open rebellion against him. So when your own right flank in the military is opposed, it just shows how egregious this action is.
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B
Michel Norris, let's stick on Driscoll's role here. This is more from that Times reporting. The frustrations with Hegseth's approach came to a boil last summer during a heated exchange between Ricky Beria, Hegseth's chief of staff, and Driscoll about a separate promotion. Berea chastised the army secretary for selecting Major General Antoinette Ghent, a combat engineer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, to take command of the military district of Washington. That's according to three current and former defense and administration officials familiar with the exchange. Beria told Driscoll that Trump would not want to stand next to a black female officer at military events. The officials said Driscoll was shocked. We should. I'll be shocked. The president is not a racist or sexist, he told Beria, according to the officials. Your reaction to all of that?
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A
You know,
- [24:34]
I
this is sad that we're seeing this, but particularly sad because we're seeing it as we are involved in military conduct. It is not unusual for the secretary of defense to go over these lists, but technically they are supposed to go over these lists to prevent discrimination and racism. That is what produced Colin Powell, for instance, when he got his first star in Clifford Alexander at that point said bring the list back and make sure that it is more inclusive. It's usually not to try to bake in discrimination. I don't usually come on air with documents for show and tell, but this made me reach into my files to find something called the Guide to the Command of Negro Naval Personnel, which was published after World War II when the conclusion at that point was that any kind of racial theories in the military is a waste of manpower. And in this guide, which was produced for the Navy and similar guides for the army, for the Air Force, at a time when they were coming out of a period of segregation in the military and after a huge global conflict, the military, the US military, the most mighty military in the world, decided that racism and discrimination made the military forces weaker. It quotes and the quote in this guide says in modern total warfare, any avoidable waste of manpower can only be viewed as material aid to the enemy. I would suggest that Secretary Hagseth and the people who surround him go back and look at these guides and understand the message that they send about the importance of making sure that anyone who is enlisted in the armed forces is able to go as far as their talents will take them.
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B
Well, Michelle Norris, that would require reading, so I'm not sure that you're going to be able to persuade them to do it, but incredible. And thank you for bringing those documents. I don't know about both of you, but as I was reading all of this reporting replaying in my mind Secretary Hegseth's speech to the generals from last year. Because as much as this is shocking on its merits, it is not surprising based on what we have heard from him. Take a listen.
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C
If I've learned one core lesson in my eight months in this job, it's that personnel is policy. Personnel is policy. The best way to take care of troops is to give them good leaders, committed to the war fighting culture of the department. Not perfect leaders, good leaders, competent, qualified, professional, agile, aggressive, innovative, risk taking, apolitical, faithful to their oath and to the Constitution. For too long we've promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons. Based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so called firsts. We've pretended that combat arms and non combat arms are the same thing. Foolish and reckless political leaders set the wrong compass heading and we lost our way. We became the WOKE department.
- [27:36]
E
But not anymore.
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B
There is an assumption that I need not Articulate for you, Michelle Norris, which is the assumption that a person who is a woman or a person of color is not there because they are excellent, is not there because they have gone through the rigorous process that Max Rose detailed for us. They, in his eyes, could only possibly be there because they were a DEI hire. And I think a lot about the fact that not only are these folks being derailed in real time, but they will deserve a recourse on the other side of this administration.
- [28:15]
I
They deserve a recourse right now. And I hope that they think about that through legal channels. One of the reasons that people try to get rid of manifest demonstrations of excellence is because it refutes the idea that excellence should not exist in brown skin. And the fact that these people were getting a one star, the first star, is a big, big deal in the military. It is not something that happens through Hubr. And so he's trying to, it seems, get rid of people who would undermine this heinous theory that the only way people of color can thrive is to grab something that they don't deserve to be put in places that are above their merit. And it is particularly galling to hear someone like Peak Headset say this. Because he talks about DEI hires, I would posit that he might fall in the category of an LBM hire. Loyalty before merit hire or loyalty lim hire loyalty instead of merit hire. Because if you look at his own background, it is not in any way commensurate with the long line of people who have held that position. And so it's sad on several levels. The military deserves more right now. And I'm very sorry for the people who had this opportunity snatched from them.
- [29:32]
B
The choice to do this, Max Rose, while we were at war, while you have a military that's having recruitment challenges, I think about my own communities. The fact that there are Latino kids right now who are signing up for the military because they're hoping to shield and protect their undocumented parents. And then the folks at the very top are saying, there's no pathway for you here. It's anathema.
- [29:52]
E
Remember that. It's also hypocritical and contradictory. Secretary of the Defense Hecseth has constantly talked about a commitment to lethality, that all we care about is lethality. But then when his generals come to him and say, here's who our best and brightest is, he turns around and rejects it. I can't think of more of a non lethal decision to make than that. The truth of the matter is, is he's the woke one. The truth of the matter is he is the one that is committed to ideology over common sense, practical commitment to military effectiveness. He is exactly who he claims to detest and oppose and that is what is so sad about this whole situation.
- [30:37]
B
My co host Simone Sanders Townsend often says every accusation is an admission and to your point, I believe that is true here. Michelle Norris, Max Rose, thank you both so much for being with us after the break. Trump using his Department of Justice today to defend its taking of ballots for an election he has been spreading lies about for almost six years now. The very latest on that fight is next. Martha listens to her favorite band all the time in the car, gym, even sleeping. So when they finally went on tour, Martha bundled her flight and hotel on
- [31:10]
F
Expedia to see them live.
- [31:11]
B
She said so much she got her seat close enough to actually see and hear them. Sort of you were made to scream from the front row. We were made to quietly save you more Expedia made to travel savings vary and subject to availability. Flight inclusive packages are at all protected.
- [31:28]
A
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- [31:59]
H
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- [32:24]
B
Donald Trump's latest probe into his 2020 election loss is facing its first major legal test today. Lawyers for Fulton County, Georgia argued in federal court for the return of thousands of election ballots seized by the FBI earlier this year as part of the Justice Department's reinvestigation of Trump's claims of fraud in Georgia. Debunked by multiple audits, court rulings and Trump's own former attorney general, Fulton county says agents misled the court with transparent conspiracy theories about what happened in Fulton county during the 2020 election in order to obtain a warrant for that unprecedented rate, which included a baffling appearance by Trump's Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gadbard. Today's hearing and whatever the judge decides, it is a test run for Trump's doj, whose latest probe has alarmed election officials. It will set a precedent for future elections in Fulton county and other jurisdictions where Trump has yet to accept defeat. Joining me now, host of the Bulwark Podcast, political analyst Tim Miller. Michael Feinberg is back with us as well. Michael, we're talking about more than 650 boxes of election materials. How can the Justice Department possibly defend that?
- [33:34]
C
I don't think they can. And I hope that the judge overhearing the matter sees through their arguments. The fact is, the affidavit which supported the search warrant for this seizure in the first place should be viewed as fatally defective. It relies upon the affirmations of somebody in the executive branch who has been a consistently debunked election denier since the 2020 election. And that a magistrate affirmed it in the first place gives me considerably less faith than I had in that particular judicial district than before.
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B
I mean, Tim, the whole thing to me feels like a stretch stress test, of course, not just retrospectively, but prospectively.
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F
Yeah, look, I think that's right. This is. I think that it's important to kind of disentangle what is happening, you know, with MAGA with their efforts across a lot of different verticals, because there are some areas in which they're actually pretty effective and competent. And I think that we've seen that from Stephen Miller and the immigration regime, the deportation regime. Obviously, some of the ICE thugs they've hired have not been competent, but like the effort of we're going to do a mass deportation. And they followed through on that Russ vote with Project 2025. We are going to dismantle the government. They followed through on that and been successful in a lot of ways. Less successful in other places. The DOJ effort to target foes and try to create a rationale for stealing the next election. That effort so far has been a disaster. I mean, these guys are Keystone Cops. They've been rejected by judges left, and they've been unsuccessful at going after the folks on their enemies list, despite trying to. And they've been successful so far in their efforts to try to unbalance the playing table for the midterm election. I mean, they first tried to do the midterm redistricting thing. That has blown up in their face, in large part thanks to Gavin Newsom and Abigail Spanberger and others. And I think this effort is in that vein, right, where they're trying to come up with pretext and rationale to create problems in November. And so far they're coming up with bupkis.
- [36:02]
B
So just let's play that out. Michael Feinberg, what happens if the FBI can, based on this, just lie their way into seizing election ballots?
- [36:14]
C
So I'm going to confess I have a little less optimism than Tim does about how quickly this effort may fail. It's important to note the Trump administration, the MAGA movement, the Republican Party, what have you, doesn't need to steal the election. They just need to cast the results in one or two major cities in swing states into doubt and create civil unrest and mass confusion. And once that happens, they can leverage the things they're effective at, like their private mercenary force, which goes by the name of ice, to take harsher measures. We had the deputy Attorney general within the past 24 hours say that he sees nothing wrong with ICE at polling stations. There is an explicit federal law precluding that. Yet our nation's second highest law enforcement official is arguing that it's okay. We're through the looking glass at this point. I don't think we can trust anything that the executive branch avers about its intentions to not interfere in elections or to minimize what it is trying to do. I think we need to be viewing this as a five alarm fire now, because if we wait until something actually happens or a seed of doubt is planted in the citizenry's mind, we're already going to be too far down the road to fully combat it.
- [37:53]
B
Tim, you know that I generally feel that you are way less optimistic than me. So if Michael Feinberg is less optimistic than you, then we are in a pretty dark place. But I do think he's connecting dots that you too often connect. Right. Which is each piece of this is a part of the larger whole. Whether it is the president, Republicans demanding nationalized elections, whether it is redistricting, whether it is what they're trying to do with the SAVE Act. I mean, they are approaching this from every angle with the understanding that any gains they can make advantage them. And so I wonder sort of where you see us on the ladder of escalation when it comes to their efforts to mess with these midterms.
- [38:39]
F
Yeah, that's true. And they're climbing up additional rungs on the ladder to go along with your metaphor of escalation, of trying to mess with the midterms. And we've been on before with Mark Elias and others. And for Me, I think one thing that worries me in particular, and I've talked to Mark about is this post election, as Mike laid out there, you create doubts about elections happening in certain states or certain cities and then you challenge whether or not those people can be seated. I guess, though I do want to caveat this, I think it's important to be vigilant. I'm glad that there are people like Mark Elias out there that are fighting this and many others. And I do think we need to be ready for it. I just think we should also be clear eyed about the ways in which they failed and the ways in which their political project is failing right now. And it's you notice I use this example a lot. After Doug Mastriano, you probably don't even remember him. He ran against Josh Shapiro in 2022. He was an insurrectionist. He ran for governor of Pennsylvania and he was talking like Trump, like, I'm not going to accept the election. This is rigged, it's fraudulent. And Josh Shapiro beat him by 18 points. And Doug, Doug Mastriano just conceded. Nobody stormed the Capitol in Harrisburg because the election wasn't close enough to steal deal. And I think that all of that is at play here. And I think that that part of the democracy movement, making sure that the people who oppose this administration turn out in a midterm election and turn out in such numbers that these efforts, these kind of half baked efforts to try to screw up the election just don't match the scale of the opposition. And that's the trajectory I think we're headed on. I don't believe that we're that that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be vigilant, that there won't be monkey business, that they're not going to try to pull whatever levers that they can. But I just think it's important to kind of see clearly where we're at and not let people get too hopeless about the importance of actually voting in the midterms.
- [40:44]
B
I appreciate that and I appreciate that reframe. Michael Feinberg, as always, thank you so much for being with us. Tim, you are sticking with me after the break. Has Republican infighting buried any chance of an end to the DHS shutdown? The very latest from Capitol Hill. That's next. After subjecting millions of Americans to long lines at airports across the nation while thousands of TSA agents worked without pay for weeks, Donald Trump, in an attempt to clean up a mess entirely of his own making, just signed an executive order which will pay TSA workers as the Homeland Security shutdown drags on. That move would not have been necessary if House Republicans would have voted for the bill passed unanimously by the Senate to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security with the exception of ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. But House Speaker Mike Johnson instead is refusing to bring that bill to a vote, which will extend the shutdown as lawmakers leave town for a two week recess. We are back with Tim Miller. Listen, this has always been a very tricky caucus for Mike Johnson, but they own this now, right? There's no question about that.
- [41:54]
F
Yeah, I mean, this is like the least important element of it, which is who's winning the spin battle of this in Washington. But to the extent that it matters, the Democrats have officially won the spin battle. And the shutdown in Washington just Trump absolutely owned this. The Republicans and the Democrats in the Senate came back together and they said, look, look, this is getting out of hand. This is unfair to the TSA agents that they're getting paid. It's a disaster for travelers and let's just pay, you know, let's just fund the other parts of DHS besides ICE and CBP and deal with those conversations later. It's a totally reasonable thing. That's what the Democrats been proposing for a while. Republicans in the Senate agreed and now Republicans in the House are holding it up. So there's really only one group of people that can be blamed for the long lines and the lack of pay for tsa, and it's the House Republicans. And I don't even really know what they want to plan to get out of it at this point. I guess maybe they, in theory they would think that they'd have leveraged pressure the Democrats to fund ICE or cbp. But why would the Democrats do that right now when the House Republicans are the ones holding the bag?
- [43:06]
B
Right? I mean, I understand your point about this in the broader context being the least important element of this debate. And yet the reason that it feels relevant to me is we are reminded over and over again that there is a small part of the Republican caucus, the larger Republican caucus notwithstanding, that makes it very difficult for common sense, practical bipartisan measures to move. And you have made the point to me many times like this is not a Republican Congress so concerned with legislating. And perhaps given their priorities, it is best that things aren't just like speeding through there. But in addition to sort of the role that Congress should be playing in pumping the brakes on this president's worst impulses, whether that is on Iran, whether that is on tariffs and all of the power that Republicans have conceded to the executives. There's also just a reminder of the opportunity cost of their not understanding, Tim, how to get things done.
- [44:07]
F
Well, they just can't govern. This is just fundamentally it. They can't govern. And we're in a crisis. And you need to have people in Washington that can govern. And even if, you know, look, we'd been in times before where you and I had disagreed, Alicia, where people disagreed with who was in Congress. We understood that in times of crisis, in times of emergency, you needed grownups on Capitol Hill who could come together and say, hey, we need to figure out something to solve this crisis. These guys can't do that. Like, they're not capable of doing it. And so they're to blame for the continued lack of pay of the TSA agents and the continued lines that people are gonna have to suffer through this weekend. And look, I think it's an ominous sign as things start to unravel as a result of the Iran war, be that economically or militarily or both, there's nobody home on Capitol Hill to try to rein the president in.
- [45:04]
B
Nobody's home. Tim is not going anywhere. After the break, another example of Donald Trump treating the White House like his house. After completely demolishing the east wing of the White House for a ballroom vanity project covering the Oval Office in gold and paving over the Rose Garden, Donald Trump is eyeing even more renovations. The New York Times reports that Trump has, quote, discussed turning the White House Treaty Room, historically a meeting place for diplomats and statesmen, into a guest bedroom with an ensuite bath. The Times notes that it is, quote, one of the most historic rooms in the White House. Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and William McKinley used it as a Cabinet room. And it was where the Spanish American War Peace Protocol of 1898 and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 were both signed. More recently, it has also been the site for major wartime addresses by the President. You know, just some minor reservations. We're going to stay on that story. When we come back, the gradual discomfort of Trump's policies from his most loyal supporters is starting to accelerate. We got much more of that after a very short break. Why have I asked my electrician I
- [46:19]
G
found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster?
- [46:21]
B
I was so moved by how carefully
- [46:23]
G
he buried my electrical wires, I knew I could trust him to bury my
- [46:25]
B
sweet nibbles after his untimely end. This is very strange, Angie. The one you trust, define the ones you trust.
- [46:31]
F
Find pros for all your home projects@angie.com.