← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“War in Iran hitting 145-day mark”
00:42:50
July 23, 2026; 5pm: Nicolle Wallace and guests discuss Trump’s war in Iran and how it shows no signs of slowing down. On the contrary, Axios is reporting that Trump is seriously considering major combat operations in Iran and the Wall Street Journal is reporting that there is a surge of U.S. forces in the region.
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- [00:00]
Commercial Narrator
Watch Disclosure Day at home now with exclusive bonus features. If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? Well, now the truth belongs to 7 billion people in an original event film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Koepp, starring Emily Blunt, Josh o', Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson and Colman Domingo. Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now with no subscription required. Also in theaters.
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- [01:05]
Political Commentator
This war has been an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. There's a reason why no American president, Republican or Democrat, prior to Donald Trump began a preemptive war with Iran. Because everyone with even scant knowledge of the Middle east knew that a war with Iran was not winnable, knew that it would set off a series of other conflicts in the region that would result in chaos. And that is what we have today. Chaos. Even worse, planned chaos. Foreseeable chaos.
- [01:47]
Nicole Wallace
Hi again Everybody. It's now five o'clock in the east. Planned, foreseeable chaos with seemingly no end in sight. The war Donald Trump launched with Iran now hitting its 145 day mark. As Trump tells Axios this, he's seriously considering restarting major combat operations in Iran, including strikes that would be bigger than the ones carried out during Operation Epic Fury. That is in line with reporting in the Wall Street Journal on a recent surge of forces to the region. Quote, the US Is surging forces, medics and weaponry to the Middle east to give President Trump more muscular military options as he considers expanding the conflict against Iran. That is according to people familiar with the matter. In the past week, special operations forces have deployed to the region from their U.S. bases, according to flight tracking data and U.S. officials. Squadrons of jet fighters have been staged across the Middle east and bomber aircraft at bases in the US And UK Are on high alert to ramp up operations, according to one of the officials. An escalation of US Resources there, a support for the war here at home plunges even among Trump's political base of support. A new Politico survey finds a 13 point drop in support among MAGA voters in the past two months. Now, just 37% of MAGA Trump voters say the United States should continue its involvement even as costs increase. Well, that is exactly what's happening. Two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea were hit by Iran's Houthi allies, sending oil prices skyrocketing today. Today, oil prices hit more than $100 a barrel. That is a level of price that hasn't been seen since May. According to many in Congress, the war is not just deeply unpopular, it is also illegal and unconstitutional. Today, members of the House went on the record. Four Republicans sided with all of the Democrats, rebuking the war and passing a war Powers resolution. The resolution directs Donald Trump to remove forces without first getting authorization from Congress. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who led the resolution, said this after it passed.
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Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
This war needs to end. We will keep putting forward war powers resolutions because it is important that Congress reclaim our authority. We have the sole authority to declare war. We have not done that. The Republicans, and, you know, I'm grateful to the four who stood with every single Democrat to say this war needs to end. We need more of them, and we need them to hold this president accountable for what he is doing.
- [04:22]
Nicole Wallace
A spiraling situation in the Middle east as Congress goes on the record in a bipartisan manner is where we begin the hour with some of our favorite experts in France. Staff writer at the Atlantic Video podcast host David Frum is back with us. Also joining us, senior political analyst, host of the Runaway country podcast and author of the substack how the Hell with Alex Wagner. And Alex Wagner is back. Also joining us, Margaret Donovan is here. She was Captain in the JAG Corps and is the former Assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut. She's now a visiting lecturer at Yale Law. If you could just weigh in, Margaret, on the argument that now Democrats and Republicans are making about the lack of authority to be there in the first place, to say nothing of escalating the war in Iran.
- [05:08]
Margaret Donovan
Yeah, I think it's not so much an argument as much as it is a legal truth. When the framers designed the Constitution, they knew inherently that war is a runaway train. And so to prevent that, when they wrote the Constitution, they put not one, but two safeguards in Article 1. Article 1, of course, establishes the legislator. And those Clauses in Article 1 are the power to declare war, which you just heard the congresswoman talk about, and the power to fund it. And between those two authorities, the framers thought, surely this will keep the hands decision to go to war in the hands of the people, the Congress being the closest representatives of the people. Of course, in Article 2, the President has authority. Article 2 establishes the executive branch. In Article 2, the President has the authority to be the commander in chief. And the War Powers Resolution that you just talked about is basically a reconciliation between those two authorities. It recognizes that the President in certain instances may need to respond quickly and go to war. But after a certain time, he needs to come back to Congress and get the proper authorization. And so what you've seen Congress doing here is basically flexing its muscle and trying to assert its constitutional authority. What's most surprising to me is that there are a lot of originalists on the other side of the aisle that seem to ignore that very clear intent in the Constitution. In fact, when the framers were making Article 1, that clause, the declare war clause, they considered different verbs instead of declare, and they landed on declare because they wanted to make sure that a war would not start without input from the people. Now, the last thing I'll say is the resolution passing today is a little bit of a paper tiger. It's not a joint resolution. And even if it was, it would have to go to the White House and could be vetoed without a super majority. But I do think it's a really important progress, and I think it's really crucial that lawmakers are putting their votes on the record in terms of where they stand.
- [07:06]
Nicole Wallace
Alex, let me just follow that up by showing you where they stand. These are the four House Republicans who voted with the Democrats. Warren Davidson of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Tom Barrett of Michigan and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. The senators voted 4,749 on a procedural motion for another war powers resolution, with Susan Collins joining the Democrats and John Fetterman joining the Republicans. But we are at the naming names part in the public opposition to the war. This is the polling I mentioned at the beginning. Among MAGA, self described MAGA Trump voters in May, 50% were behind the war. This month, just 37% support the war in Iran. Your thoughts on where we are right now?
- [07:57]
David Frum
Well, my thoughts are these are Republicans who vote. The ones who voted for this war are going to go on August recess and they are going to be home and hearing from their constituents who overwhelmingly do not support this war. And it is going to be on them to sell it. This is a war militarily that shows no sign of changing Trump's own defense Intelligence Analysts and CIA operatives say that the current bombing strategy he's pursuing is unlikely to change Iran's negotiating position. The diplomatic option is increasingly imperiled because Qatar, which has been hosting diplomatic talks, has now had its bases bombed by the Iranians and is increasingly uneasy about playing a central role in the diplomatic negotiations. It appears, based on the reporting that we have today, that we may be in a semi proxy war with China, sorry, with Russia, because the Russians are meaningfully helping the Iranians and their drone program get closer and become more deadly as far as US Targets and US Bases. And the theater of this war has now expanded to the Persian from it now extends from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea with the involvement of the Houthis that you explained earlier. I mean, this is a president who has entered into a catastrophic situation that is terrible for not just the global economy and the global energy supply, but is politically devastating for him. I mean, and he continues to say, much like he did at the outset of COVID it's almost over. Well, just like Covid, it is deadly and likely to go on for considerably longer. And yet, and now the representatives of his own party are tasked with supporting it and selling it to an American public that is increasingly not having any of it. The Democrats, Nicole, on an Emerson Poll released today are running 11 points ahead on a generic ballot. That's a testament to how badly this war is going for Republicans.
- [09:57]
Nicole Wallace
Well, and their refusal to do anything to change course. I mean, that's what's so stunning. David, from let me read you the reporting that Alex Wagner is talking about. Iran strikes on CIA facilities prompt questions about possible Russian role. Iranian drone attacks on CIA facilities in the Gulf have prompted US Intelligence analysts to investigate whether Russia assisted by providing targeting information or advanced drone technology. That's according to four people familiar with U.S. intelligence. They cited the strike's effectiveness and apparent precision, as well as Russia's broader technical support for Iran as possible evidence. It's the second specific piece of reporting about Russia's role in aiding Iran as Donald Trump continues to say much harsher things about traditional American allies than Russia.
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Senior Political Analyst
Americans have suffered through wars. Vietnam, Iraq, where the United States won all the battles but found itself in a deteriorating position strategically because winning the battles wasn't enough. Iran is looking like not that kind of war. It looks like the United States isn't even winning the battles. The strategic problem here is compounded by it looks like operational non success that we're just beginning to learn about. The administration doesn't tell the full story, certainly doesn't tell the full story in a timely way. It looks like the United States is not dominating this battlefield the way you would expect and the way you would imagine that Americans would have paid for and would want. One of the reasons that presidents in the past have been wise to seek congressional support and to speak to the public. When Lyndon Johnson went got a resolution before Vietnam, when George H.W. bush got congressional authorization before the Gulf War, when George W. Bush got authorizations before Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the reasons that a president does that, aside from the obvious legality that he's supposed to, is when things go wrong, and they always go wrong, and the public says, who thought this was a good idea? It's very helpful to a president to be able to say, we all did. I'm standing here with the leaders of the House and Senate. We all thought it was a good idea and they voted for it, too. And by the way, I gave you that big speech at the beginning of the war, and you gave me your public opinion. We all are in this together, and we all have to make a success of it together. Donald Trump is being undone by his own authoritarianism and arrogance that he never asked for approval from anybody in advance. He had, except for the state of Israel, no allies with him in this war. So he's alone. He bet the house, he bet everything. He bet the future of the United States, that he would win this war cheaply, easily, almost before anyone noticed it, without repercussions of the world economy. And when that bet proved wrong, what he's been doing is increasing his stake, betting more and more and more, going back to the gaming table with bigger and bigger bets and hoping that if he tells in advance, and that's the reporter you quoted, if he tells people in advance, bigger bets are coming, that the Iranians will be intimidated. But the Iranians understand American politics extremely well, and they make a practice of not only inflicting harm on the United States, but inflicting humiliation on the American president when they can. They did it to Jimmy Carter during the hostage crisis, 1979-80, and they seem bent on doing it to Donald Trump to humiliate him as well as beat
- [13:11]
Nicole Wallace
it is a grim but accurate assessment of where we find ourselves. I think the other part of congressional authorization is that it gives the military and military families this more cohesive, I think, whole of government backing of the thing that their family members, their kids, their spouses, their parents are fighting in. And as these videos, I'm going to show you one that we saw today. This is the moment of Sergeant Angel Sarah Ramsad, who was killed over the weekend. She gave her first press conference today. Let me show that to you.
- [13:50]
Mother of Fallen Soldier
My daughter was a good soldier. She fought for this country and she died for this country. And I am a mother that is highly proud of her. And I know she was really, really focused on what she was doing. She loved it.
- [14:14]
Nicole Wallace
I've read a little bit about this mother daughter relationship, Alex, and she didn't want her daughter to enlist at first. She wanted her to finish college first. So she did. And then had the dream to serve in the military and did. She's won, I think, close to a dozen medals. And as her mom said there, she fought for this country, she died for this country. And she, quote, she loved it.
- [14:41]
David Frum
Yeah, I mean, I think we talk about this war in the abstract, in part because we feel very far. Iran feels very far away, except for the rising gas prices. But at the end of the day, these are Americans. These are young men and women. On my podcast this week, we had two veterans talking about what it is like to watch this war unfold from the perspective of people who are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the country. And the President's complete bungling of it, to say nothing of the great, great distaste the public has for it, makes it very difficult, makes an already impossible job somewhat more impossible. And then to see the families that are affected by these deaths and the casual nature of the President's relationship to their sacrifice, going out there before he greets the bodies, coming back to Dover and saying they all wanted Iran not to have a nuclear weapon, to never see him at Walter Reed. I was talking to Paul Rykoff about this. You never see the President visiting the sick and injured and the maimed, the people who have given limbs and parts of their body in service of his agenda. It is so cavalier to be almost cruel. I mean, we have to remember that in the essence of all of this. The reason I think Americans have such distaste for the war is, yes, it's inconvenient in terms of pricing and affordability, but we also don't want to send our young to the slaughterhouse for a war nobody asked for. And we remember all too well the death tolls that the President is very keen on repeating these days to show that somehow what he's doing isn't so bad. One death is too many. The obfuscation, the COVID ups from the Pentagon, that is all indicative along with public sentiment. This war is a failure and a moral stain on the conscience. And we should never forget the humanity at the root of all of this.
- [16:24]
Nicole Wallace
I have some of that sound from Donald Trump. This is riddled with inaccuracies, which we'll deal with on the other side. Here's Donald Trump comparing the lives lost to Vietnam.
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Donald Trump
We're in for four months, and we. I had a very sad day yesterday, went to Dover. Four great American patriots killed. That's 18 in two wars, and one is too many, but it's 18. Whereas in Vietnam, we lost 200,000. We lost thousands and thousands. In Afghanistan, we lost thousands in every war, the Korean War, thousands. And they. These wars all lasted for years. And we want to get it over with and we want to do it right, but we have to. We have to do what we came to do. Unless we can't let these people, they're very violent people, we can't let them have what they want, which is nuclear weapons.
- [17:21]
Nicole Wallace
Margaret, the number of lives lost in the Vietnam War was 58,281, not 200,000. And he does say one is too many. But the rest of it is really a compare and contrast of numbers. And you know probably better than anyone here that one life lost has a blast radius of tragedy and trauma. There are parents, there are cousins, there are sisters, there are friends, there are roommates, there are colleagues in and out of the military. There are lives and dreams and anniversaries that will never be had, birthdays that will never take place. That's every single one. So the notion that Trump seemed to have reduced this to a ranking or a rating or the superiority of his death count is, to Alex's point, at best, cavalier, at worst, terrifying.
- [18:22]
Margaret Donovan
Yeah. You know, I couldn't agree with Alex's point more about humanity. And you have to take each life as an American life that's being lost. As you pointed out, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons. I mean, these are real Americans with real lives and ripple effects with each of these deaths. My main issue with the President's comments just there saying one is too many, is that at the outset of the war, he actually said one isn't too many. In the early days, he was making comments saying some people might die, some people might have to die. And so that reduces these deaths to something that's very transactional, which in some sense is a cold, clinical truth of every war. But it's always been the case that it's other people who are going to have to die, not whoever is speaking those words. And it's even more true in the case of President Trump. I just you know, it's really hard with his history of what he has said and how he has framed this war in terms of some people might die to not see this as just purely transactional. And of course, American lives are anything but that.
- [19:33]
Nicole Wallace
Alex Wagner, I know you leave us now. Thank you for starting us off this hour. David and Margaret, stick around. When the three of us come back, Donald Trump is on the verge of blowing up a deal he made yesterday. But he's demanding today, one day after the United States signed a rather controversial nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia. Also had this hour, how Donald Trump's oldest son is cashing in big time on his dad's presidency, the staggering amount of money Don Junior's investment firm has raked in since his dad returned to the White House, and the alarm bells, it's setting off just about everywhere. And then White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
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Mother of Fallen Soldier
Foreign.
- [20:15]
Commercial Narrator
Watch Disclosure Day at home now with exclusive bonus features. If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? Well, now the truth belongs to 7 billion people in an original event film directed by Steven Spielberg, from a screenplay by David Koepp, starring Emily Blunt, Josh o', Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson and Colman Domingo. Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now with no subscription required.
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my work and I absolutely love it.
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Carl's Jr. Advertiser
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- [21:01]
Reporter or Interviewer
Can I just quickly say hello to you?
- [21:03]
Protester or Interviewee
For me, being a part of this place has always been about the people, not about the politics. Why are you holding this sign?
- [21:09]
Reporter or Interviewer
You ever been to a protest before?
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Political Commentator
Be safe.
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Protester or Interviewee
People that we cover who allow us to enter their lives. How's everybody doing? Everybody doing okay? How long has it been in line? I love human beings. To spend time connecting with them is the biggest blessing that I could ask for.
- [21:22]
Jacob Soboroff
From the field to the studio, Jacob is finding the heart of the story. Connect with Jacob soboroff Weekends at 10:00am Eastern on Ms. Now
- [21:34]
Nicole Wallace
we're back with David Froum and Margaret Donovan. David, this is the New York Times reporting on maybe the not so artsy side of the art of the deal. Quote, a day after the United States signed a landmark nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, Trump added a new condition to the sale of nuclear reactors to the kingdom, declaring that the entire arrangement now depends on the Saudi willingness to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. The deal, quote, is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham accords. Trump said in a post on his social media site. There was no mention of any such condition in the administration's announcement that the deal had been signed on Wednesday and the text of the deal has not been released. But Trump's social media post put the agreement's immediate future in doubt. Now, whatever anyone thinks of the substance of the deal, if this was important, it seems like it should have been part of the negotiation. And I wonder if you think this is a sign, a public facing sign of Trump's sort of the weakness of governing by social media post, or if this was a retroactive condition that Trump forgot to ask for or what? I mean, how do you take this information today?
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Senior Political Analyst
The request for American approval of a Saudi civil nuclear program has been a Saudi request for about a decade. It's been their top request, their number one priority from the United States. And the United States under Trump 1, under Biden and under Trump 2, until the day before yesterday, has always said if you want your top request, which is approval of the civilian nuclear program, you have to give the United States its top request, which is normalization with Israel. That was always the deal. I think it's very possible that Trump forgot it or maybe he was swayed by, as he often does, he got caught up in the moment or he got tempted by the various lucrative offers that the Saudis have poured upon members of his family. But that was for a decade, that's been the deal. You want approval of the civilian nuclear program? Normalize Israel. Trump forgot it. Now it's back. So we're sort of back to where we were. One thing I want to say to people who are a little frightened about this and a word of I don't know if this is reassurance exactly, but Saudi Arabia is not exactly a nuclear virgin. The Saudi Arabians paid for the Pakistani nuclear program of the 1990s. And most observers, I'm not an expert on this. I don't have secret information. But most people who are better informed than I am have always said the deal was that if the Saudis paid for the Pakistani bomb, they would have access to the Pakistani bomb, if they already knew it, if they ever needed it. So in many ways, Saudi Arabia is already a nuclear weapons state. What it wants is to be an approved civilian nuclear power state. But there was always a price. Trump forgot the price or didn't ask for the price. Now the price is back on.
- [24:17]
Nicole Wallace
I mean, I guess Margaret Whatever your thoughts, and I think it is a polarizing issue, a polarizing country for all corners of the American political spectrum. There are a lot of people on the right who are deeply skeptical of Saudi Arabia. And White House's relationship with the kingdom is always polarizing. But the idea that Donald Trump, again, I can't get over the disdain with which he's treating his own supporters, that he presents himself to them as someone who is good at making deals. Now took this ask, as David points out, that has been an ask for a decade with someone who is, if not his closest ally on the world stage. One of them, and screws it up is a sign of a lack of competence and perhaps a lack of capacity mentally for what he's doing.
- [25:10]
Margaret Donovan
I think that's a completely rational conclusion as to what his supporters would want. I think it's completely valid to be skeptical of this. The Middle east is a very volatile region, and so you generally want to focus on deep proliferation. And that's not precisely what's happening here. But to your point about making deals, this is really what we have seen time and time again. If you just described Donald Trump as a person going back from people who tried to go to Trump University or his withdrawal from the JCPOA or the deals that he cut with the law firms, take, you know, his name out of it, take his personality out of it. Just describe somebody entering into deals and withdrawing from them or promising something and not delivering on it. That is absolutely not somebody you would want to strike a deal with. That is not. It's like negotiating basically with a fraudster. You can't trust them. And so what's happening here is just looks like sheer incompetence playing out, where you have a very, I think, thought out, diplomatic, deliberate deal making going on, and then in errant tweet or random thought that he might have in the middle of the night, that throws the whole thing into chaos. And so I just, you know, time and time again, for some reason, other nations or the American public just can't seem to learn that he isn't somebody that you can make a deal with. He's not really honoring his word in these deals or to your point, to his voters.
- [26:42]
Nicole Wallace
I mean, David, this is where I think we do a bad job tracking the slow boiling of the frog, right? Like if Joe Biden announced a deal with anyone about anything and the next day had forgotten to put in the central tenant of what the United States of America wanted out of the deal, whether it was pardoning a turkey or negotiating A nuclear agreement with a Middle east country, the world would be on fire. This is barely our second story of our second hour. What do you think, think that says about the numbness to Trump's incompetence?
- [27:13]
Senior Political Analyst
Well, the numbness may be acute at home, but it's not acute abroad. Many countries have gotten the idea you don't make deals with the United States because who would make a deal with a country whose word is as worthless as the United States has become? Under Donald Trump's, tariffs are imposed in violation of trade agreements. There are agreements with Mexico and Canada. Tariffs get imposed anyway. There are agreements with South Korea and with Colombia. The tariffs get imposed anyway. So why. And then Trump says, I want to renegotiate the new deal. And the counterparty says, you violated the last deal. Why would be I be in a hurry to sign another deal with you? Your word is worthless. And Trump's method is a lot of bluster. But then he often gives in, as he's repeatedly done above all with his exchanges with China. Because Donald Trump has no pain threshold. When he sees the stock market going away, he doesn't like. When the price of oil goes in a way he doesn't like, he panics and withdraws. And that's how he ended his trade wars in the first term. Backed out of them. One of the reasons that Trump bungled Covid so badly with all that flattery of the Chinese in the early part of 2020 was he was looking for exit from the trade war he'd started with China in 2018 that spooked the stock market. He wanted peace in the trade war at any price. And the price turned out to be pretending that Covid wasn't a problem in the crucial months of January and February of 2020.
- [28:31]
Nicole Wallace
Just an unbelievable state of affairs. Thank you for sorting through it with us, David. From Margaret Donovan. Thank you so much. When we come back, how Donald Trump Jr. Is profiting massively off of all of this incompetency and all of dad's presidency. Brand new reporting on the piles of money he's raking in as he cashes in on his White House access. We'll have that story next.
- [28:59]
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- [29:29]
Margaret Donovan
This is a Monday.com ad the same Monday.com designed for every team. The samemonday.com with built in AI scaling your work from day one. The samemonday.com With a new easy and intuitive setup. Go to Monday.com and try it for free.
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Reporter or Interviewer
Can I just quickly say hello to you?
- [29:46]
Protester or Interviewee
For me, being a part of this place has always been about the people, not about the politics. Why are you holding this sign?
- [29:52]
Reporter or Interviewer
You ever been to a protest before?
- [29:54]
Political Commentator
Be safe.
- [29:54]
Protester or Interviewee
People that we cover who allow us to enter their lives. How's everybody doing? Everybody doing okay? How long you guys been in line? I love human beings. To spend time connecting with them is the biggest blessing that I could ask
- [30:05]
Jacob Soboroff
for for being the field to the studio. Jacob is finding the heart of the story. Connect with Jacob soff weekends at 10am Eastern on Ms. Now
- [30:16]
Protester or Interviewee
I wish my
- [30:17]
Nicole Wallace
name was Hunter Biden. I could go abroad, make millions off
- [30:20]
Norm Eisen
of my father's presidency.
- [30:22]
Nicole Wallace
I'd be a really rich guy,
- [30:26]
Commercial Narrator
huh?
- [30:27]
Nicole Wallace
Do you think we couldn't find that? Don't sell yourself short, Don Jr. You've made billions. That was Donald Trump Jr. On with Sean Hannity yucking it up back in 2019, perhaps manifesting being able to exploit his father's name for massive profits. New reporting in the New York Times shows just how massively Donald Trump Jr. Has exploited his father's presidency for personal profit and gain. From that blockbuster New York Times report, quote, what sets apart the latest moves By Donald Trump Jr. Is how he and his business partner, through their investment firm, 1789 Capital, are cashing in on the policies of the current administration openly and without apology. Many of the companies that 1789 has invested in have large government contracts, while others, like polymarket, have benefited directly from new Trump policies or rollbacks of existing laws. The firm bought shares in some of the most coveted private companies before many went public, often by leveraging their political and business connections to secure a stake or to help boost the company's sales. New York Times also reports this, quote just two years ago, 1789 managed a few hundred million dollars. It now oversees more than $3 billion. Its main investment fund generated returns of roughly 200% as of June 30, according to a person familiar with the firm's performance. In a statement to the New York Times, Donald Trump Jr. Said that as a private citizen, he's free to invest however he wants and is doing nothing illegal. And as Donald Trump and his administration asked Congress for billions more in defense spending for his deeply unpopular war with Iran, the Washington Post reports that the Trump brothers have invested in companies that stand to profit from exactly that spending. They write this quote, Donald Trump Jr. And Eric Trump have amassed a portfolio of defense technology startups that are benefiting from new Pentagon priorities in spending funds linked to the Trump brothers have invested in more than a dozen defense tech companies and other firms seeking businesses from the Pentagon and federal agencies. A Washington Post analysis finds most of the investments have taken place since Donald Trump was elected president for a second time. The companies have collectively generated at least $3.2 billion in direct government business since the Suns invested an additional $3.1 billion in future contract options. Some have gained coveted spots on short lists of pre approved contractors that can bid exclusively on up to nearly $200 billion in future work. Company representatives who responded to the Washington Post request for comment stated that the companies had secured their business with the federal government through rigorous Pentagon contracting processes. I want to bring in Norm Eisen. He's the co founder and board member of Democracy Defenders Action and publisher of the Contrarian. Also joining us, political analysts and Bloomberg Opinion senior executive editor Tim o'. Brien. Tim, I want to start with you. Were either the Trump sons successful investors before Donald Trump was president a second time?
- [33:38]
Norm Eisen
You know, Nicole, there's this old Steve Martin joke I think from like the 70s that went, I'm going to teach you how to become a millionaire. Step one, find a million dollars. And the Trumps have updated that basically to I'm going to tell you how to become a billionaire, become president of the United States. And then your children can also share in the riches. Because the only reason that Donald Trump, his son in law, Jared Kushner and his two eldest sons are raking in the money like this is because Donald Trump sits in the Oval Office. There's absolutely no other reason for it. Donald Trump Jr. S first job when he finished college was as a bartender and then he went to work for his father. None of it involved investing or managing money at this scale with eye popping returns that most professional managers who had a lifetime of experience and expertise and insight into financial markets and on and on and on could never match. And every excuse that the Trumps put up to explain this away, that somehow in Donald Trump's first administration, because they were so interested in public service, they bypassed being able to make money. So now they decided to make money, which is Completely a bogus explanation for what they're doing or that it's not illegal. Well, it isn't illegal, but it should be banned because they're doing it at. They're doing this at the expense of the American people. They're doing it at the expense of our national security. They're doing it at the expense of our global reputation. And no one is constraining them, including and especially members of the Republican Party. So when Jim Jordan and Josh Hawley are busy chasing Jack Smith around the block with these shallow, baseless complaints that he has somehow ethically challenged, and they don't say a word about the multi billion dollar grift going on in the White House right in front of them, we're in a perilous time.
- [35:50]
Nicole Wallace
We can't be more mad, though, than Trump's own voter. And I wonder, Norm Eisen, you've been on these issues. You've sort of been a moral player in the political arena for your whole career. How do you make people understand that he's robbing them? This isn't money, that is zero sum. They're enriching themselves at the expense of the people who sent Donald Trump to Washington to make their lives better.
- [36:20]
Reporter or Interviewer
That's right, Nicole. And when you look at the sheer sums that are involved, the 1780 capital, it's like a natural experiment. When Trump came in back into office, the Don Junior's firm was at about 200 million. Now it's got assets under management of over 3 billion. Is it just a coincidence that over this past year and a half, Don Junior's business acumen has suddenly exploded? I don't think so. Tim has levied a devastating indictment of the business capacities of the Trump children. I think that the sheer scale of the numbers here are starting to break through to the American people that this is not what they put Donald Trump in office for. The President himself has made billions on crypto, while investors have lost almost twice that amount. So when you combine these scandals, and the numbers are scandalous, including Pentagon investments, direct investments in Trump family businesses by the government, when you combine them with the other corruption scandals we've covered, whether it's the Epstein files or the Trump slush fund or the Kennedy center appropriating it for himself, Trump's own voters are getting the idea, gee, maybe he's not in the Oval Office to help me. He is there to help himself and his family. And that's why you see Democrats ahead on the generic ballot. There was a poll today, 11%. Nicole, Trump's own base is contributing to that hemorrhaging.
- [38:36]
Nicole Wallace
I want to read you more of the extraordinary details in Donald Trump Jr's massive, massive, really gluttonous money grab. We have to sneak in a quick break before we do that. Don't go anywhere. Rebecca Norman. Tim. Tim. What's amazing to me is that the Trump administration, which could not launch a whole of government response to Covid, has applied a whole of government response to personal enrichment and grifting off the American taxpayer. Seriously, this is structural, this is nuanced. This is at every level. This is regulatory. Let me read from this stunning New York Times report. Donald Trump Jr. S investment firm posts staggering returns of 200%. In the case of polymarket, the government had banned it from taking monetary wagers from US Residents. But last year, a federal regulator granted it an operating license in the United States worth $300 million. When 1789 invested the platform is now valued at 15 billion. He just took the approach that we did, which is like f all you guys, Donald Trump Jr. Said of Polymarket's founder and of his own critics in an interview with the New York Times about investments he has worked on during his father's second term. Again, if these were happening in a healthy democracy, in a regulated system, they would trigger all sorts of warnings about fraud and abuse. And instead, this is how the president's kids roll.
- [40:06]
Norm Eisen
Yeah. Can you imagine if, you know, if Barack Obama found $5 on a subway platform, Republicans would have been jumping up and down. Where did he find that money? And Donald Trump Jr. Is investing in a variety of businesses that are benefiting from their proximity to the federal government. Vulcan Investments is a rare earth company. And because of Trump's befuddled approach to tariffs and China's response to limit rare earth exports to the United States, rare earth mining companies became potential hotspots for investors, especially any that might have gotten government support. And lo and behold, Donald Trump Jr. Lands on one of those companies and the United States government puts its weight behind it. We know this. It's also true of Kungsten Mining and then Poly Markets. And if you got into, if, you know, if you peeled back what Poly Markets is currently doing, which is trying to give people an opportunity to bet on almost anything under the sun, which is raising alarms among parents and among other policymakers about whether or not that's a social good. The Trump administration is giving it a parent regulatory carve outs. Why would they be doing that if they were a steward of the public good and, and, and, and training and educating people about how to spend their money wisely, apart from the fact that Donald Trump Jr. Is adjacent to this. And, and again, it, it, it would, if this was in a movie, it would be unscriptable. You would never write a script where these kinds of things were happening. And it could, you know, it could be tragic, comic, but it's not a movie and it's not a script. It's happening in front of all of us. And people should be alarmed. And I think this gets back to a bit of what you talked about in the, in the, in the previous block. Why aren't they alarmed? And I think part of this is the framing. And I think, as Norm said, I think they are getting more aware of it voters and more concerned about what it means. But I think the framing of the White House should not be simply questions of the White House about is this a conflict of interest? Because it is. There's the White House will say, no, it isn't, but it is a conflict of interest. The next level of questioning should be because you're engaging in this kind of behavior, it hurts the American public in this way and that way and this way. And does that concern you? And are you going to do something about it,
- [42:47]
Nicole Wallace
Norm, what can be done?
- [42:51]
Reporter or Interviewer
Well, Nicole, we've got to go after each of these instances of corruption in court. Now. That's why at Democracy Defenders Action and Democracy Defenders Fund, we have over 300 matters. When we challenge them, like with the slush fund, the $1.8 billion slush fund, or the Kennedy center, we win those cases in court. We have launched a series of complaints about the Trump children's business ventures. Companies that Eric Trump is associated with, like alt 5 Sigma, that raised the most or has previously been associated with that raise the most profound red flags. And Congress must investigate as well. The states, Tim noted, we don't know of criminal behavior, but certainly serious questions are raised by the patterns here and the amounts. So there needs to be additional investigation and litigation.
- [44:02]
Nicole Wallace
Norm Eisen, Tim o', Brien, we'll stay on top of this together. Thank you for joining me today. Quick break for us. We'll be right back. My guest on this week's episode of the Best People podcast is someone I turn to every day for perspective and context and calm. It's the one and only Heather Cox Richardson and her substack Letters from an American. She ties every single one of our current political moments to a moment in American history. She does it effortlessly. It's like in her mental Rolodex. It's exactly what she did for us in our conversation. Listen to what she tells me about how Democrats should be framing Trump's corruption.
- [44:45]
Heather Cox Richardson
One of the things that Democrats really have not done yet, or those of us who are articulating the problems with our country right now, is linking that corruption to the price of lettuce, because they really are the same story. And that same story is also the story of democracy. If you have a country that works for the good of an authoritarian or of an oligarchy, they're gonna concentrate wealth and power among themselves and they're gonna charge you more for the products that they produce that you need. And at the same time, you're gonna lose clean water and clean air and healthcare and the ability to make rent and educate your kids and so on. But you're also going to be watching them revel in extraordinary corruption because they have all the wealth and the power and they've gotten rid of the rule of law. And one of the things that was so genius about Abraham Lincoln was, and the people around him, not just him, but the people who were articulating a vision in the late 1850s, was they brought all these things together and said, if you want to be able to get a job or to be able to work your way up in the new state of Illinois, you need to make sure that the enslavers don't come in and buy up all the great property. And then you're just going to have to work for them and you're going to work for pennies.
- [46:06]
Nicole Wallace
The entire conversation is out right now. Just scan the QR code on your screen or listen to listen or download. The best people wherever you get your podcasts. One more break. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes tonight. We are grateful.
- [46:23]
Commercial Narrator
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