“Search and rescue underway in Iran for U.S. Airman”

Summary

Deadline: White House Episode Summary

Episode Title: Search and rescue underway in Iran for U.S. Airman
Host: Ahmed Mohideen (in for Nicolle Wallace)
Date: April 3, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on breaking developments in the escalating US-Iran conflict after a U.S. F-15 fighter jet was shot down over Iranian territory. The fate of a second American crew member remains unknown, sparking a high-stakes search-and-rescue operation. The show features real-time analysis from national security experts, military officials, and journalists on military, political, and diplomatic dimensions—including the domestic political fallout for President Trump, the Pentagon’s leadership chaos, the status of U.S. alliances, and the legal and ethical consequences of the conduct of the war.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Breaking News: U.S. Fighter Jet Downed, Rescue Underway

• [01:05] Ahmed Mohideen updates listeners on a U.S. F-15 shot down in Iran. One crew member has been rescued; the other is missing, with the U.S. conducting urgent search and rescue to prevent Iranian capture.
  • Iranian state TV is calling on locals to apprehend the missing American.
  • The missing member is classified as "duty status whereabouts unknown"—US authorities do not believe capture has occurred yet.
• [02:38] Two helicopters engaged in the search came under Iranian fire; crew remain safe.
• [03:35] Second combat plane crashed near the Strait of Hormuz; pilot rescued by U.S. forces.
• [03:50] First loss of a U.S. jet inside Iran; significant escalation and revealing risks to U.S. personnel.

2. Military Assessment: The Perils and Politics of Search and Rescue

• [02:04] Leon Panetta (former Defense Secretary, earlier tape):
  “This is dangerous stuff. It's very risky…whatever we use to conduct the search and rescue operation is going to be targeted by the Iranians. I can assure you of one thing: everybody in the US who's there…knows that you…cannot leave our people behind.”
• [04:32] Steve Anderson (Ret. Army Brigadier General):
  • Search teams face huge challenges: long distance from U.S. bases, need for logistics and specialized aircraft, Iranian forces seeking the American for political advantage.
  • “This is just more evidence that this is the greatest geopolitical disaster I believe in the history of America. Donald Trump has stuck his hand in the middle of a hornet’s nest.” —[05:43]

3. Analysis of U.S. Military Strategy & Iranian Resilience

• [06:09] Discussion of President Trump’s statement on "complete air superiority"—contradicted by shoot-downs and persistent Iranian defenses.
• [06:49] Anderson:
  “For [Trump] to go out and say, ‘We completely decimated their capability…’ is absolutely ludicrous and we're now seeing the results of that.”
  • Iran retains thousands of mobile, concealed missile threats; challenging terrain; and undiminished capacity to mount attacks.

4. Strategic & Political Mistakes: Underestimating Iran

• [08:57] Nancy Yousef (National Security Writer, The Atlantic):
  • U.S. did not define an "end state" or post-strike plan for Iran.
  • Every option—withdrawal, negotiation, further escalation—entails deep costs and uncertain outcomes.
  • Impact of the war may extend for months or years, especially concerning munitions stockpiles and Gulf geopolitics.
  • "The options before the United States are not great and not promising of the kind of timeline that the president outlined." —[09:35]

5. International Response: U.S. Isolation and Fraying Alliances

• [10:51] Ahmed Mohideen highlights U.S. and Israeli diplomatic isolation as European and Gulf allies distance themselves or engage Iran directly.
• [11:37] Katty Kay (BBC/Contributor):
  • "The main reason that Europeans and other NATO countries have not wanted to get involved...is that there is not a viable military solution...and there was just not any political upside for European leaders to get involved in this war."
  • Gulf states don't want the U.S. to leave, fearing a wounded but still dangerous Iran.
  • Trump’s speeches reflect fragmented advice and uncertain policy direction.

6. Iranian Endurance and U.S. Intel Failures

• [14:15] Anderson: U.S. planners fundamentally misjudged Iran’s resolve, structure, and willingness to sustain losses.
  • "We do not know this enemy... They know that in the long run they will win by not losing, and the United States will lose by not winning."

7. U.S. Military Leadership Crisis

• [16:11] Nancy Yousef: U.S. Army Chief of Staff forced out over personality conflicts, increasing Pentagon instability and morale concerns just as potential ground deployments loom.
  • "These kinds of personnel changes...take the focus off of war fighting and create a climate...of uncertainty."

8. Domestic Political Fallout: Unpopular War and Trump’s Standing

• [17:53] Ahmed Mohideen:
  • Unpopularity of the war among Trump’s base, especially influential pro-Trump media figures.
• [18:22] Katty Kay:
  • Trump's inaccurate/emotional messaging, lack of “rally around the flag” public support.
  • "That's incredibly unusual in America...he didn't make a case that sounded compelling to the American public."

9. Ethics and Possible War Crimes

• [24:19] Seth Moulton (D-MA, Marine combat veteran): Concerns that U.S. targeting civilian infrastructure and presidential/Secretary of Defense rhetoric encourage disregard for international law—potentially endangering captured Americans.
  • "Active duty Marines call [SecDef Pete Hegseth’s] department the Department of War Crimes because of what he preaches every single day...One of the only promises the president has kept...is that he would actually commit a war crime..." —[25:12]

10. Executive Chaos: Cabinet Firings and DOJ Concerns

• [30:28] Ahmed Mohideen and Sarah Fitzpatrick (The Atlantic) discuss wave of Trump cabinet firings, including AG Pam Bondi, as Trump grows anxious about dwindling support.
  • Bondi's firing signals no loyalty is enough; DOJ exodus leaves department unstaffed, inexperienced, and vulnerable.
  • "There has been such a huge exodus...for the first time this department has had to recruit for attorneys on X...because these were such prized jobs...This was an inevitable conclusion." —[35:08]

11. Legal Alarm: Presidential Records and Transparency

• [39:08] Michael Feinberg (Nat. Security/FBI): DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel deems federal records preservation law unconstitutional, potentially letting Trump set his own rules for White House documents.
  • "It is incredibly rare for them [OLC] to actually place limits on the presidency...it’s not something that courts are bound by either." —[40:40]
  • Raises security, transparency, and democratic accountability risks, especially in light of Trump’s past mishandling of classified documents.

12. Moral and Religious Backlash

• [45:07] Pope Leo XIV, first American pope, directly criticizes Trump’s war, prays for peace, and lambasts the rhetoric of the U.S. administration—a rare public split between Vatican and White House.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Leon Panetta ([02:04]):
  "It's very risky…whatever we use to conduct the search and rescue operation is going to be targeted by the Iranians...you will not, cannot leave our people behind to be captured."
• Steve Anderson ([05:43]):
  "This is just more evidence that this is the greatest geopolitical disaster...in the history of America. Donald Trump has stuck his hand in the middle of a hornet’s nest..."
• Katty Kay ([11:37]):
  "There was just not any political upside for European leaders to get involved in this war...it would just have been far too politically risky for them because there’s no support for it amongst European populations."
• Seth Moulton ([22:00]):
  "Iran is gaining leverage over us as this war goes on...they’ve had a strategic win closing the Strait of Hormuz...So obviously Trump is way over his head—he has no idea what he’s doing and he’s lying to us."
• Nancy Yousef ([09:35]):
  "The options before the United States are not great and not promising of the kind of timeline that the president outlined."
• Michael Feinberg ([40:40]):
  "It is incredibly rare for them [OLC] to actually place limits on the presidency...given this president’s predilection for removing classified documents...we should be very worried if the White House acts on this advice."
• Pope Leo XIV ([45:30]):
  "Hopefully he is looking for an off ramp, hopefully he is looking for a way to decrease the amount of violence, of bombing...Jesus does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war."

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:05] — Breaking news update on U.S. jet downed over Iran.
• [02:04] — Leon Panetta on the risks of rescue mission.
• [04:32] — Steve Anderson describes search and rescue logistics and dangers.
• [06:49] — Anderson refutes Trump’s “air superiority” claims.
• [08:57] — Nancy Yousef on U.S. lacking an end state and the likely long war impact.
• [11:37] — Katty Kay on diplomatic isolation and allies’ response.
• [14:15] — Anderson on misjudgment of Iranian religious/military resolve.
• [16:11] — Yousef on forced resignation of Army Chief of Staff and Pentagon turmoil.
• [18:22] — Katty Kay on political fallout for Trump and lack of public support.
• [22:00] — Rep. Seth Moulton on Iran gaining leverage and Trump’s missteps.
• [24:19] — Moulton on war crimes rhetoric risking American lives.
• [30:28] — Discussion of Pam Bondi’s firing and DOJ’s staffing crisis (Fitzpatrick).
• [39:08] — DOJ opinion undermining federal records law (Feinberg).
• [45:07] — Pope Leo XIV’s public rebuke of Trump’s war policy.

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Summary Takeaways

• Military Crisis: The downing of U.S. aircraft marks a turning point, exposing vulnerability and upending official claims of superiority; risk to U.S. forces is significant both in the field and politically.
• Strategic Blunders: Analyses from military and national security experts highlight chronic underestimation of Iranian endurance and the complexity of the war.
• Political, Legal, and Ethical Fallout: War’s domestic unpopularity is driving cabinet purges, DOJ instability, and unprecedented legal maneuvers. The administration’s own rhetoric and tactics raise risks for U.S. personnel and create potential international law violations.
• International and Moral Isolation: U.S. stands increasingly alone globally. Allies are cautious, Europe is disengaged, and even the papacy is openly critical of American wartime conduct.
• Uncertain Endgame: Without a clear U.S. strategy or off-ramp, participants see only worsening problems—military, political, and moral.

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This episode offers a sobering real-time look at the deepening crisis in U.S. foreign policy, highlighting how battlefield events, leadership upheaval, legality, and public opinion are converging to shape a fraught moment for American democracy and global peace.

Transcript

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[Ahmed Mohideen]

hi again everyone it is five o' clock here in new york i'm ahmed mohideen in for nicole wallace we are continuing to track the breaking news out of the middle east that a us f fifteen fighter jet was shot down earlier today in iran here's what we know at this hour two us officials confirm that one of the crew members has been rescued a massive search and rescue operation remains underway for the other american who was on board that mission is in a race against the clock to try to rescue that service member before they are captured by iran iranian state tv says authorities are asking residents to find the other american the status of that service member has been labeled by the us as duty status whereabouts unknown which indicates that the us military does not have reason to believe at this time that the second us service member has been captured as for what the search and rescue mission that is currently underway might look like here is what former secretary of defense leon panetta

[Leon Panetta]

said earlier this is dangerous stuff it's very risky you're in the middle of an adversary during a time of war and so whatever we use to conduct the search and rescue operation is going to be targeted by the iranians i can assure you of one thing everybody in the us who's there in that area knows that you will not cannot leave our people behind to be captured

[Ahmed Mohideen]

by the iranians now nbc news reports that according to a us official two us military helicopters that were involved in the f fifteen search and rescue efforts were struck by iranian fire but the service members are still safe today marks the first loss of a jet inside of iran and it is a significant escalation to an already deeply unpopular war here revealing the risks that us service members continue to face that risk further underscored by a second combat plane that went down earlier today two us officials with knowledge of the matter tell ms now that the plane crashed near the strait of hormuz and that the plane's pilot was successfully rescued by by american forces now these major developments are happening against the backdrop of a war that appears to be escalating on thursday the us military carried out an attack on a highway bridge near tehran the new york times reports that the bridge was struck twice it is the first us attack on civilian infrastructure in this war and it comes after donald trump's threat to bomb iran back to the stone age and looming over all of this is the monday deadline that was set by donald trump for iran to reopen that strait the strait of moves before he says the us will begin strikes on iranian power plants and that is where we begin this hour with retired us army brigadier general steve anderson also with us bbc us special correspondent contributor katty k and staff writer for the atlanta covering national security nancy yousef is here as well general anderson i'll start with you and this search and rescue operation and what that might look like take us inside to what is happening right now with some of those forces on the ground or forces in the region as they continue to identify where this second crew member might be

[Steve Anderson]

well thank you for having me and i think the first thing to remember is that they're a long ways away from any american bases i mean so they're going to have to have extensive logistics capability to be able to essentially loiter and look for this guy i mean obviously finding where he is is the most important thing but you know we've got incredible capability regards to pavehawk helicopters and a ten aircraft that can be used to provide cover and the whole procedure would be run by an hc one hundred thirty which would also have a refueling capability so allow the helicopters to loiter a little bit longer and of course mq nine reapers surveillance drones are going to be very active the good news is that it's becoming dark and my understanding is these pilots or this this weapons systems operate officer probably has a set of night vision goggles and that would give him some advantages to staying alive in in a contested area but you know it's obviously a race against time the irgc wants to get him there would be tremendous political advantage i mean there already is with two shoot downs today but to be able to capture someone and to have a hostage would be tremendous political points for the regime and this is just more evidence that this is the greatest geopolitical disaster i believe in the history of america donald trump has stuck his hand in the middle of a hornet's nest he doesn't know how to get it out and we've got a long

[Ahmed Mohideen]

way to go you talk about this as being a blunder and i was wondering if you can help us reconcile the words that the president said not too long ago just a couple of days ago saying we had complete air superiority over iran their air defenses had been decimated basically now we're seeing the exact opposite of that and there's no doubt that iran's capabilities have been degraded with fifteen thousand us strikes on the country but first of all explain to us what could bring down an f fifteen and are you surprised that iran still had that capacity to shoot down an f fifteen despite our president going out on national television and telling the american people their air defenses are decimated and we have complete control over their

[Steve Anderson]

skies well that's why he should never have said that because he overstated it i mean it's the fact that we've already flown something like fifteen thousand sorties successfully without any kind of shoot down is a remarkable remarkable feat you know our military is the best in the world you know to go this long but it doesn't take much it takes a bad guy to jump out of a cave with a shoulder fired ground to air missile and that's all it takes to shoot down an aircraft you know and there are thousands and thousands of those i mean this is a huge country two and a half times the size of texas there's all kinds of places to hide it's a mountainous region as you know i mean essentially it's a fortress you know with mountains all the way around very very difficult place to penetrate and you know they've got lots of places to hide so for him to go out and say well we completely decimated their capability to do anything like this is absolutely ludicrous and we're now seeing the results of that that they still have capability they still have missiles they damn near hit diego garcia two thousand three hundred miles away a week ago they continue to pester us they continue on the strait of hormuz they continue to maintain the will to fight they hold a lot of cards and oh by the way we still haven't found where they put all the highly enriched uranium and the centrifuges that can bring it up to weapons grade there's a lot to be there's a lot that still has to happen here and we're a long way from being able to come back and

[Ahmed Mohideen]

claiming any sort of victory nancy general anderson listed a few of the very critical metrics of what a successful operation would look like that have still not been achieved do you think donald trump and pete hexith have underestimated iran's capabilities i mean iran was by far the most formidable opponent in the middle east that the us was going to ever face they've been preparing for this moment they came up with a defense strategy they have decentralized their capabilities in the event of a decapitation strike and you had the president of the united states say that this war was going to be over in maybe a few days or maybe a couple weeks and here we are five weeks into it with the president saying maybe two or three more weeks and american service members being shot out of the sky i think

[Nancy Yousef]

you raise a great point that there is an underestimation of what kind of foe iran would pose the assumption being that the killing of the ayatollah would lead to the fall of the regime and of course that has not happened and now you're seeing the united states adjust to it the fact that the president didn't outline what an end state would look like for iran i think speaks to the adaptation that is happening in trying to figure out some kind of off ramp in which the united states can claim some kind of victory the challenge is there are no good options if the us were to leave right now and declare victory it would keep a regime in place that's been emboldened if it were to try to negotiate it would be doing so in a position of great distrust on both sides if it continues escalating it doesn't guarantee that the war ends and it costs the us more in terms of munitions and risk to us troops and so the options before the united states are not great and not promising of the kind of timeline that the president outlined i think two or three weeks refers to the amount of time the president thinks that needs to be in place for military targets but even if the war stopped tomorrow the impact of this war goes on for months and in some cases when for example the us time to restock its munitions years so weeks refers to a very very narrow part of this campaign potentially the military strikes the economic impact the change it portends for the gulf those are much longer propositions and so i think as we're talking about the war we haven't heard the united states outline an end state and i think they haven't given the american public a clear timeline in terms of impact of this war they focus more so on a military campaign which is just one part of

[Ahmed Mohideen]

this cateche there's a monday deadline that is rapidly approaching that trump has given the iranians to open the strait of hormuz our arab allies in the region are more alienated and isolated they're feeling the brunt of this war perhaps more so than any other country with the exception of what is happening both inside of iran and lebanon our european allies are basically not wanting to partake in this they're negotiating perhaps independently with the iranians on how to reopen the strait of hormuz leaving america and israel a little bit more isolated on the world stage how are our allies viewing all of this what is the viewpoint from europe and various capitals in europe as to how this is playing out we

[Katty K]

had a french tanker go through the strait of hormuz which is the first time a nationally flagged tanker from a european country certainly has gone through just today which shows that there have been some negotiations between european capitals and the iranians to get the oil out my understanding from conversations with people in europe is that there was obviously a lot of skepticism about the end game of this war and the reasons for going into it but the main reason that europeans and other nato countries have not wanted to get involved and have not answered president trump's appeals with a yes is that they were concerned about the military aspect of this that there is not a viable military solution as far as i understand they feel for reopening the straits of hormuz and yes they were annoyed about greenland and yes they've been annoyed about president trump's treatment of his allies around things like tariffs and other things that he said in ukraine but really it was to do with the specifics of this war and there was just not any political upside for european leaders to get involved in this war in fact it would just have been far too politically risky for them because there's no support for it amongst european populations the gulf states are a slightly different issue having not wanted the president to get involved in the war they're now in a situation where they don't want any daylight between them and donald trump because they really want the white house to stay in the war paradoxically i mean what they don't want is to be left with a regime that is wounded but still has an ability to attack them so i think the reason you saw the speech the other night turn into something that really didn't deliver very much was because the president is getting so many different opinions from different people from the israelis from the uae from the finnish prime minister who had called him that day to try to reconcile to get their own voices heard at the table and you end up with the president announcing effectively nothing that evening because he's got so much incoming so many different opinions that

[Ahmed Mohideen]

he's juggling general do you think that the us underestimated iran's capabilities and not just air defense capabilities but the other day cnn was reporting that roughly half of iran's missile launchers are still intact thousands of one way drones are still in iran's arsenal despite the daily pounding the us and israel have carried out the chain of command of iran seems to be very entrenched even though the supreme leader and forty or fifty of its top generals have been wiped out in that decapitation strike on the first day are you at all surprised by how iran is able to sustain this and still fight back five weeks in

[Steve Anderson]

this war was based on a fundamental miscalculation of who the enemy is i mean when i was a cadet at west point fifty years ago one of the first things we learned was sun tzu that said know your enemy as yourself and we do not know this this enemy okay the irgc are composed of religious fanatics okay and nancy was spot on they are very very tough two hundred thousand of them and sure you know there may be some people that support democracy in iran but they don't hold the cards they don't have the weapons they don't have the money they don't have the power the irgc religious fanatics and as randy rooney famously said about thirty years ago there's no fanatic like a religious fanatic these people are fighting for their they're fighting for the it's an existential threat to them because they know that if they're overthrown they're going to die so they got to they're going to do everything they can to possibly resist and they know that in the long run they will win by not losing and the united states will lose by not winning they're just going to try to wait us out and they've got the capability and the fervor and they've shown that they have the tactics and the resources to survive the despite the withering attack from the americans and the israelis on their

[Ahmed Mohideen]

infrastructure yeah you bring up such an important point nancy and that the general brought up and it makes me wonder how the americans are conducting certainly pete hexith is conducting his part of the war you've got reporting that he is you know conducting this wartime military while at the same time shaking up the leadership within the army's top officer rank you've got the top officer who is fired discussions discussions underway of possibly ousting the army secretary paul rykoff was just on talking about divisions as well within the upper echelon of the pentagon how does all of that play out into both the morale of the rank and fire rank and file american soldiers well as the overall morale of the army

[Nancy Yousef]

it's such a great question so general randy george who is the chief of staff of the army was forced to resign by hegseth yesterday usually when generals are fired during wartime it's because of the conduct of the war that doesn't appear to be the case in this instance that there were personality conflicts that there was tension between the army and hegseth who has really tried to micromanage the promotions list the personnel issues around the army which is usually not the job of the secretary of defense the secretary of defense is supposed to think strategically and about big policy now on one hand this war has largely been fought by the air and sea however the united states right now is considering sending ground forces in and moreover the air defenses that you've spoken about on the show over the last few weeks the patriots the thaads those are army operated systems and so there is an important role for the army we were talking earlier about one of the things the united states will have to do when this conflict ends is restock its munitions including its air defenses that falls to the army chief of staff that was what general george was doing up until yesterday and so these kinds of personnel changes unless they're essential i think take the focus off of war fighting and they create a climate i think of uncertainty for those who remain because the secretary did not outline why the general had been removed and so it leaves those who remain conjecturing about what they can and cannot say or what they should or shouldn't do to stay in their own jobs because of the cloud of uncertainty around army leadership and

[Ahmed Mohideen]

all of this caddy is coming at a time when this war is deeply unpopular we were talking about how the president has lost the support of some of the podcast bros that were his biggest champions and some argue helped him win that election in last time around twenty twenty four but how does this escalation the fact that this war is going a little bit sideways having an impact on the politics of donald trump and maga in this country well at

[Katty K]

the moment it's having a huge impact on the president which i think is why you're seeing him respond sometimes a little erratically and frankly untruthfully i mean look he said several times this week we've already won the war well today of all days we clearly know that is not true he said the straits of hormu don't matter to americans but they matter to the rest of the world also not true otherwise why have we seen gas prices rise at the pump he said he doesn't need the uranium's buried so deep he doesn't care about it also not true and the lack of a clear message right from the beginning and now as america seems to be getting sucked deeper into this war not extricating itself from this war is part of the reason you're seeing the poll numbers the way they are there was no support in the beginning and polls suggest that support has declined since the operation started that's incredibly unusual in america usually you have a rally around the flag a rally around the president time at the beginning at least of military operations and president trump hasn't had that and i think it's in large part because he didn't make a case that sounded compelling to the american public and who knows whether this how this plays out in the midterms people have alarmingly short memories we all do right but if the economic i've spoken to several economists this week that the economic impacts even of what we've seen so far will be felt by americans for a while yet to come all

[Ahmed Mohideen]

right katty k general steve anderson nancy youssef thank you to the three of you for starting us off this hour greatly appreciate it when we come back the questions about the war and whether there is a plan to end it are piling up in the wake of iran shooting down a fighter jet former marine and democratic congressman seth moulton joins us live after that break and later in the program could the firing of the attorney general pam body just be the start of a purge of trump's cabinet brand new reporting suggests that other top trump officials are headed for the exits as well that line whitehouse continues after a quick break

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[Ahmed Mohideen]

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[Ahmed Mohideen]

we are continuing our coverage of the urgent search for a second american service member who was on board a us fight jet that was shot down in iran us officials say one member was rescued earlier today as the rescue operation continues i want to bring into the conversation democratic congressman seth moulton of massachusetts he served four tours in iraq with the marine corps and now is a member of the armed services committee in the house he's currently running for senate congressman it's great to have you on the show your reaction to what is happening now the first american combat aircraft downed in hostile territory during the war and president trump's reaction to it

[Seth Moulton]

i mean obviously we're focused on doing everything we can to recover the missing personnel but the reaction is that iran is gaining leverage over us as this war goes on and i've been saying for over a week that iran is winning the war we've had a bunch of tactical successes taking out various military equipment they've had a strategic win closing the strait of hormuz which the president of the united states is begging our biggest adversary in the world china to help him open up and now just a day after he told the entire world all the american people that they had successfully taken out all of iran's anti aircraft capability they've shot not just one but two aircraft out of the sky so obviously trump is way over his head he has no idea what he's doing and he's lying to us

[Ahmed Mohideen]

once again you talked about iran having this strategic win with being able to close the strait of hormuz they're also making billions of dollars by being able to sell their oil which they weren't allowed to do before the start of the war because trump has lifted some of the sanctions on it and yet about five weeks into this war they're still able to fight back hitting our enemies sorry hitting our allies across the region do you think that this admin underestimated iran's capabilities and how much they would be able to fight back absolutely

[Seth Moulton]

completely and i mean as sorry just like for a second how ridiculous is it that we're going to war against iran and we're lifting sanctions on them i mean this is absurd and the fact of the matter is the president talked about projecting power we've got to stop iran from projecting power well guess what they're projecting power much more violently and effectively ever since you started this war mister president they weren't shooting missiles and drones at all our allies in the middle east they hadn't destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars of us military equipment i mean well over a billion now when you add in that f fifteen they hadn't done that before the war this is all thanks to your war of choice which you are losing not to mention there are thirteen brave young americans dead and we're praying right now there's not a fourteenth as well

[Ahmed Mohideen]

i wanted to ask you about international law right now we were talking about this earlier in the program right because the concern is if iran and god forbid iran captures this american service member we certainly hope and pray that he's treated in accordance with international law but it doesn't help that we have a secretary of defense and the president who are basically touting war crimes and violations of international law with every social media post and every argument about bombing civilian infrastructure and power plants and no safe quarter for the enemy and and bombing universities and civilian infrastructure targets how concerned are you that the rhetoric coming out of this administration is imperiling the lives of american service members it's a great

[Seth Moulton]

question because it absolutely is it absolutely is that's why it's so important that america uphold its promises it's why so many veterans fought for years for example to get our translators out of iraq and afghanistan because we had made that promise and we knew that if we didn't uphold it we would never have a chance or troops in the future would never have a chance of convincing people to work with us well now it's really hitting home and i know active duty marines who call pete hed says so called department of war the department of war crimes just because of what he preaches every single day active duty marines who say that serving under this incredibly unserious secretary of defense and so yes and actually one of the only promises the president has kept from his speech wednesday night is that he would actually commit a war crime in going after iranian civilian infrastructure they've done that so what is iran to say are they going to commit war crimes against this downed pilot if they recover him or her that's a huge concern for the us military right now and i know that commanders there who are charged with that pilot's safety have to be very concerned about the rhetoric coming from above them that will make it easier for iran to do terrible things

[Ahmed Mohideen]

you know trump earlier gave iran this deadline till monday to open the strait of hormuz which he also alluded to right now and when he kind of gave that deadline he basically didn't outline how it was going to open itself he's basically asking china and the europeans and other countries to be involved in it at one point he said at a certain point it'll open itself that was a quote from donald trump do you think he understands what he is saying do you think this is a president who understands what is actually happening in this battlefield and in this war

[Seth Moulton]

no absolutely not i mean that should be obvious to everybody watching this all unfold he has no idea what's happening he has no idea where it's going he's clearly not listening to anybody's advice because any military leader worth half his salt could have told the president that iran would try to close the strait of hormuz i mean that's just a given we've heard numerous generals including general mattis his former secretary of defense in his first term say it's plainly obvious if you go after iran that's what they're going to try to do and yet he seemed totally unprepared for that and then when we saw him wednesday night i mean he was sleepy he was tired he looked senile and he sounded just totally detached from reality this is not someone you want to have commanding your military this is not someone that anyone whose life is at risk wants to trust as their commander in chief i mean look i fought in a war that was really unpopular that a lot of us disagreed with and yet the one thing that we wanted the one thing we wanted was to just know that our commanders were telling the truth we might not agree with the strategy we might not even agree with the tactics but we at least wanted to trust they were telling us the truth none of the troops in the middle east can trust that the commander in chief is telling the truth right now because he just lies every single day i mean do you think those pilots trusted the commander in chief when he said hey no problem flying over iran right now because we've taken out all of their anti aircraft fire how did it feel to those f fifteen pilots when they were ejecting after the president made that declaration just twenty

[Ahmed Mohideen]

four hours before yeah it's such an important point representative seth moulton thank you so much for joining us today really appreciate it good to see you after the break less than twenty four hours after pam bondi's firing and her official portrait has been found in the trash what's next for the justice department and potentially for other government departments as trump considers purging his own cabinet that's next

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[Nicole Wallace]

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[Ahmed Mohideen]

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[Ahmed Mohideen]

take a look at this the announcement of former attorney general pam bondi's departure is barely twenty four hours old and her portrait has already been found in the trash bins of the department of justice and as donald trump gets more and more anxious about his splintering base and declining poll numbers more trump cabinet officials could actually find their portraits in the trash can as well the atlantic is reporting that pam bondi's firing is unlikely to be the last in part the reporting suggests cabinet secretaries and other senior administration officials were anxiously eyeing their phones wondering whether they'd be next several people familiar with the white house's plans told us that there are active discussions about others leaving the administration including fbi director cash patel army secretary daniel driscoll and labor secretary laurie chavez durmer it is a sudden return to the chaos of his first term the atlantic adds that quote trump had been reluctant to get rid of any of his top lieutenants viewing firings as a concession to the democrats and the media even in the past few months there had been an edict that no cabinet officials would be removed prior to the midterms though a series of dismissals were planned for after election day but the president's declining support since he launched the iran war has changed the political calculus the odds of confirming replacements advisors know are only growing longer one person close to the white house told us that trump was buoyed by the reaction to his decision to remove former department of homeland security kristi noem and that it made him more likely to move ahead with bondi i want to bring into the conversation staff writer for the atlantic sarah fitzpatrick and former assistant special agent in charge at the fbi and national security intelligence analyst michael feinberg it's good to have both of you with us sarah this is an incredible piece of reporting just talk to us a little bit about trump's willingness to clean house and what's the strategy here why specific people even people like pam bondi who on the surface of it appear to be doing his bidding war she had weaponized the department of justice and gone after his political enemies the way he wanted

[Sarah Fitzpatrick]

look i think what we're seeing here is a real change in calculus we're seeing a white house finally respond in some ways to the political reality that often they're able to kind of insulate themselves from we're seeing an understanding that this may be the last chance and i'm told that there is public polling that has recently made its way into the west wing and really affirmed that the republicans may not fully be in charge of congress come this fall and so i think we're seeing a very reactionary attempt to do everything all at once and try and get all the bad news out there so that they can make new plans but this is i would say a very live ball that has changed in the last week yes there have been discussions for many months but the decision to make this change and to kind of do it all at once and we're anticipating more firings next week and in the coming weeks that is a very recent development and it's a white house that is not feeling confident right now yeah

[Ahmed Mohideen]

it's an embattled white house and even more dangerous that it's coming in the middle of a war let me drill down on this sarah you write this specifically about pam bondi's firing bondi did everything right or at least everything trump asked her to do but in the end it was not enough for trump and for his succession of attorneys general it is almost never enough in some ways bondi's official service to trump seemed preordained to end the way it did with a singular moment of crystalline humiliation after weeks of low grade indignities bundy was not former attorney general jeff sessions she would not recuse herself she would not draw lines she wouldn't do she would not do anything other than loyalty and serve and serve the president i should say loyally can anyone survive serving this president if loyalty is the ultimate test you have keshe patel out there you've got pete hexith all of these people seem to be in very difficult situations after years of being subservient and loyal to trump

[Sarah Fitzpatrick]

i think what you see is and as one person very close to the white house told me yesterday that the president has a vision that he is ultimately the head of the department of justice and that the ag is the person whose job it is to enforce his goals his asks and i think that really is a very different view than most prosecutors most civil servants have who go into government especially in the post watergate norms in which you know most people working at the department of justice view themselves as being separate from the president they view themselves as serving the public and the american people and ultimately the constitution and so i think yes there has always been even the most loyal servants ultimately are going to come up against the constitution they're going to come up against a workforce that is used to following the law following what is demanded and i think what we're seeing now in some ways is is something that was of trump's own design because the justice department i cannot emphasize this enough there are so few people left there there has been such a huge exodus that for the first time this department has had to recruit for attorneys on x on social media that has never really had to happen before because these were such prized jobs and you're seeing people making mistakes people making errors because they don't have the talent pool they don't have the expertise and they don't have the reps so i think this was an inevitable conclusion and it is a one that has put our justice system in a very very difficult place michael

[Ahmed Mohideen]

sarah reported that todd blanche is eager to make his tenure as the acting attorney general permanent let me play for you and our viewers what he said on fox just last night take a listen to this

[Todd Blanche]

now the epstein files

[Ahmed Mohideen]

you'd agree not handled well and i

[Todd Blanche]

don't first of all i have never heard president trump say that the attorney general wasthat anything that happened to her had anything to do with the epstein files and so look the epstein files has been a saga that's lasted for the entirefor the past year and so i think that to the extent that the epstein files was a part of the past year of this justice department it should not be a part of anything going forward when president trump said let's release the epstein files and the law was passed that allowed us to

[Ahmed Mohideen]

legally do it we did it okay i'm not sure you totally get what people feel about that that might be the truest thing jesse watters has ever said right because on one hand the base of maga that thought that donald trump was going to release the epstein files are angry about the epstein files is todd blanche any more likely than pam bondi to be able to balance the tension between not angering that base that demands more accountability on the epstein files or alienating donald trump on epstein

[Michael Feinberg]

there's an old winston churchill saying about dictators riding to and fro on tigers that they dare not dismount for fear of getting eaten and that's what we're seeing now with everybody who sacrificed their integrity for a senior position with the trump administration pam bondi just like the president and just like all the other supporters throughout the campaign did every single thing she could to light a fire among their supporters demanding more action on the epstein files and it eventually came back to burn her herself and there is no reason to think that todd blanche will escape that same fate and i just point out in the interview you just referred to that you just ran todd blanche is either dissembling on purpose or is not mentally competent enough and intelligent enough to serve as the attorney general of the united states nothing he said had the ring of truth to it and if anyone in the public or in congress thinks that they are going to get a better servant to the constitution and the rule of law in todd blanche than they did in pam bondi i would like to have access to whatever drugs they have

[Ahmed Mohideen]

access to it's insane yeah it'll be very important to see which democrats participate in that confirmation process if in fact todd blanche goes through it no one is going anywhere when we come back the trump justice department says it does not have to hand over any presidential records at of the day end the end of donald trump's term we're going to talk about why it matters and why that is raising lots of red flags stay with us now we are back with sarah and michael michael let me read for you some of this reporting from the washington post the justice department has concluded that federal law require a federal law requiring the preservation of presidential records is unconstitutional which could effectively permit the white house lawyers to try to set their own voluntary presidential recordkeeping policy and potentially up and decades old legal precedent established in response to richard m nixon's effort to keep control of records upon his resignation from the oval office the justice department's office of the legal counsel issued an opinion this week finding that the law exceeds congress's enumerated and implied powers and and it aggrandizes the legislative branch at the expense of the constitutional independence and autonomy of the executive this is a five alarm fire give me your thoughts on on this how we know donald trump's well documented behavior in the past with removing classified documents to mar a lago but this is a whole other level

[Michael Feinberg]

yeah the office of legal counsel very much likes to hold itself out as sort of the intellectual heavyweights of the justice department because they're the one give advisory opinions to the executive branch on what it can or cannot do but i think that the rest of the legal community including the rest of main justice views them as sort of a rubber stamp because in the modern era as the shock of what nixon did wore off and we were sort of less inoculated to abuses of executive power it is incredibly rare for them to actually place limits to on the presidency that's especially true now given that the assistant attorney general in charge of the office you know he was a legal foot soldier in the efforts to overturn the results of the twenty twenty election for which trump himself was ultimately indicted so i don't know anybody in the legal community in the investigative community who is taking this opinion with any degree of seriousness and it's not something that courts are bound by either and given this president's predilection for removing classified documents and treating secret and top secret material as information to be bartered in conversation or as cocktail party showpieces or as wallpaper for the bathroom in mar a lago we should be very worried if the white house acts on this advice i mean

[Ahmed Mohideen]

what do you think is motivating michael for trump to retain all these records

[Michael Feinberg]

so i don't think a lot of this comes from trump i don't think he's educated or intellectually savvy enough to realize the full scope of the project being done in his name but a lot of people associated with sort of the arch conservative legal movement have glommed on to his administration his movement because they know they will have a friendly audience to do what they want so long as he gets what he wants i honestly don't think trump had any input for example on project twenty twenty five or a real influence on somebody like russell vote but they flatter him they give him what he needs they deliver good talking points and so he gives them free rein to do what they want and i think that's what's happening with a lot of the less known political appointees who have begun to populate the higher ranks of government yeah

[Ahmed Mohideen]

such an important point sarah so putting the political appointees on the side is the national security community concerned given the highly classified documents trump retained last time before this legal revision

[Sarah Fitzpatrick]

absolutely this is of incredible concern for a variety of reasons one of which is that part of the reason that we in the united states have such strong laws about freedom of information disclosure of information is one because we believe that the government works for the public and therefore these are public documents they are taxpayer funds and ultimately this information being out there serves the greater good but also from a national security perspective you don't want to have a delta between what your foreign adversaries know about you and what your public knows about you that's why we put so much time and effort into making sure that people who work for the government pass security clearances that there's nothing that they is not is unknown that a foreign adversary could use as blackmail material or to influence that and so that's why we are always generally historically been on this side because we don't want to have that delta that delta is where dangerous national security crimes and events can take place and so i think yes is the ic community concerned about this absolutely and i think the american public should be concerned about this because ultimately what is the purpose of keeping this information secret who does that serve and i think on a wider scale as an investigative reporter i am constantly observing that people need to you know that incentives in government are really really important and having those checks and balances really does influence behavior

[Ahmed Mohideen]

yeah very important point sarah fitzpatrick michael feinberg thank you to the both of you for joining me today really appreciate it quick break for us we'll be right back after this on this holy week ahead of leo the fourteenth celebrating his first easter as pope the head of the catholic church the first american pope has been remarkably outspoken in his criticism of the war started by the american president pope leo who you can see here carrying the wooden cross in rome today went as far as to name trump for the very first time in public statements directly urging him to end the war saying quote hopefully he is looking for an off ramp hopefully he is looking for a way to decrease the amount of violence of bombing and on palm sunday he said quote jesus does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war the pope's comments are also a stunning contrast to defense secretary pete hexith who has asked the american people to pray every day on bended knee for victory in iran just yesterday pope leo warned that the christian faith has been quote distorted by a desire for domination entirely foreign to the way of jesus christ and this easter sunday he will deliver a message from the balcony of saint peter's it's usually a time when the pope makes an appeal for peace so we will keep an eye out on that for you another break and we'll be right back thank you for spending time with us on this good friday nicole will be back here on monday i'll see you tomorrow night on the weekend primetime starting at six pm eastern taxes was

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